"Supple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spirit of the flesh or the despicable taste for high society. So that the first duty of any man who is to write is intellectual. Designedly or not, he has so far set himself up for a leader of the minds of men; and he must see that his own mind is kept supple, charitable, and bright. Everything but prejudice should find a voice through him; he should see the good in all things; where he has even a fear that he does not wholly understand, there he should be wholly silent; and he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to any nayre to assume arms, or to enter into any combat, till he has been armed as a knight. When a nayre becomes seven years old, he is set to learn the use of all kinds of weapons, their masters first pulling and twisting their joints to make them supple, and then teaching them to fence and handle their arms adroitly. Their principal weapons are swords and targets; and these teachers, who are graduates in the use of the weapons, are called Panycaes, who are much esteemed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... all the fairies and nymphs, noted for the shortness of her filmy skirts, the supple beauty of her shapely limbs, her incomparable dancing, and her dark, bright beauty, flashed La ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... bewitched. They conducted themselves as those supposed to suffer under maladies created by such influence were accustomed to do. They stiffened their necks so hard at one time that the joints could not be moved; at another time their necks were so flexible and supple that it seemed the bone was dissolved. They had violent convulsions, in which their jaws snapped with the force of a spring-trap set for vermin. Their limbs were curiously contorted, and to those who had ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... sunshine in an ever-moving plain of bewildering beauty. These willows never attain to the dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks; they remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on slender stems that answer to the least pressure of the wind; supple as grasses, and so continually shifting that they somehow give the impression that the entire plain is moving and alive. For the wind sends waves rising and falling over the whole surface, waves of leaves instead of waves of water, ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... been possessed of great strength. His eyes, set in a large and ingenuous face, seemed to me very intelligent; they were of a dreamy sea-blue. Long hair, which would have been called red even in England, fell in long meshes upon his broad shoulders. The movements of this native were lithe and supple; but he made little use of his arms in speaking, like a man who knew nothing or cared nothing about the language of gestures. His whole appearance bespoke perfect calmness and self-possession, not indolence but tranquillity. It was felt at once that he would be beholden to nobody, ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... by any cheat of birth, But by his clear-grained human worth, And brave old wisdom of sincerity! They knew that outward grace is dust; 170 They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, And supple-tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. Nothing of Europe here, 175 Or, then, of Europe fronting morn-ward still, Ere any names of Serf and Peer Could Nature's equal scheme ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... drawn in favour of others. I know how it is by my own experience, and by that of several amongst you, as well as by many who are now no more, and with whom I was acquainted. Believe me, gentlemen! to pretend to the favours of fortune it is only necessary to render one's self useful, and to be supple and obsequious to those who are in possession of credit and authority; to be handsome in one's person; to adulate the powerful; to smile, while you suffer from them every kind of ridicule and contempt whenever they shall do you the honour to amuse themselves with ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... sprang up she felt a thrill of responsive excitement, and when she watched his first steps, and noted the look of youth in him, the supple southern grace that rivalled the boyish grace of Gaspare, she was filled with that warm, that almost yearning admiration which is the child of love. But another feeling followed—a feeling of melancholy. As she watched him dancing with the four boys, a gulf seemed to yawn between her and them. She ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the organs, as well as their individual functions, must go on elastically without any pressure or cramped action. Their interplay must be powerful yet supple, that the breath which produces the tone may be diffused as it flows from one to another of the manifold and complicated organs (such as the ventricles of Morgagni), supporting itself on others, being caught in still others, and finding all in such a state of readiness as is required ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... Salts disengaging from the Sulphurs, manifest themselves, the Acid appears, which is the fruitful Source of Chronick Diseases. The Ligaments, the Tendons, and the Cartilages have scarce any of the Unctuosity left, which render'd them so supple and so pliant in Youth. The Skin grows wrinkled as well within as without; in a word, all the solid Parts grow dry ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... half in fun, "it makes me dizzy." He was tempted to copy them, however, and made an effort, but the movement caught him in the ribs a little. His body, like his mind, was not as supple as theirs. An oak tree or an elm, perhaps, was more ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... seemed to scorch the poor hunchback, whose form, physically inferior, crouched before that baneful, blazing glance, while his head, mentally brave, reared itself, as if to redeem the cowardice of the frame to which it belonged. So the attitude of the serpent: the body pliant, yielding, supple; but the crest thrown aloft, erect, and threatening. As for Zonela, she was frozen in the attitude of motion;—a dancing nymph in colored marble; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... the angler must follow the fish at the top of his speed. To stand still, or to go cautiously in pursuit, is to allow the salmon to run out with an enormous length of line; the line is submerged—technically speaking, drowned—in the water, the strain of the supple rod is removed from the fish, who finds the hook loose in his mouth, and rubs it off against the bottom of the river. Thus speed of foot, in water or over rocks, is a necessary quality in the angler; at least in the northern angler. By the banks of the Usk a contemplative ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... complement of a slight well-knit figure, of which the only criticism one could make was that it looked slippery. Slipperiness was perhaps his ruling characteristic, a softness of movement suggesting a cat, and a habit of putting out and drawing back a long, supple, snake-like hand which made you think of a pickpocket. Eyes that looked at you steadily enough impressed you as untrustworthy chiefly because of a dropping of the pupil of the ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... under my body and tied a rope to the chain of the handcuffs. This done, they passed the rope through a hole in the top of a high post behind me, and by tugging at it, strained my arms upward in a way that, had I been less supple, would certainly have broken them. When all their strength combined could not stretch me another inch without tearing my body to pieces, they made the rope fast, and I remained half suspended, and feeling as if ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... suspect that we might be conversing with an angel. Bread may not always nourish us; but it always does us good, it even takes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant, when we knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man or Nature, to share any ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... rough vegetation, for there were neither delicate ferns, nor poetic ivy, but democratic grass and republican groundsel and communistic thistles and nettles. In place of the splendid Cent-Guardes stood tall, impudent weeds; in place of courtiers, the supple and bending briar; while up the steps, which the Queen and Empress and their ladies ascended that night, pert little ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... the best society in our cities is often in an advanced process of decay. The muscles may be a little more delicate but they are softer; the skin may be a little fairer, but it is not so healthy; the thought a little more supple, but less vigorous. The whole tendency of life in big cities is toward deterioration. City people rarely live really normal lives. It is not natural for human beings to live far from the soil. It is Mother Earth and country life that give vitality, stamina, courage and all the qualities which ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... caring little for the affair, and possibly hearing little of what she was saying, sat as though drinking in every word, and gazing enthralled upon the beauty of her sweet young face. He, too, was bending forward, his lithe, slender, supple frame clad in the trim undress uniform of the day, his clear-cut face, with its thin, almost hollow cheeks, tanned brown by the blazing suns of the southern desert, his hair cropped close to his shapely head, his gray-blue eyes, large, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... He was strong enough to plough ten more years without looking old, and the prejudice of age must have been very strong in a young girl's mind to prevent her remarking that Germain had a fresh complexion, a bright eye, blue as the heavens in May, ruddy lips, superb teeth, and a body as graceful and supple as that of a colt that has never left ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... why turn'd on him? If so, I have derision med'cinable To use between your strangeness and his pride, Which his own will shall have desire to drink. It may do good. Pride hath no other glass To show itself but pride; for supple knees Feed arrogance and ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... on the sofa and watching her. He loved to watch her dress, she did it so gracefully, and the motions brought out latent charms of her supple figure. "You're not so sure-fingered tonight as usual," said he. "I never saw you make so many blunders—and you've got one stocking on ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the water loves me and folds me, Plays with me, sways me, lifts me and sinks me as though it were living blood, Blood of a heaving woman who holds me, Owning my supple body a ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... devoted infinite patience to gluing the tiniest fibres of the sea plants. Some were bright pink, suggesting in formation and colour the little red fishing boats. Others were gold with their slender little flowers rising in clusters. The long supple green algaes, swelling along their stems into little round beads, like beads of jade, looked as though they wore some Chinese costume. As the album grew it gave ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... doubts how far the elder Beaufort would realise the expectations in which his nephew had been reared. Philip's younger brother had been much with the old gentleman, and appeared to be in high favour: this brother was a man in every respect the opposite to Philip—sober, supple, decorous, ambitious, with a face of smiles ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... there long after Ernest went inside to read, in the same quiet that enwrapped Roger. It was a strange quiet for Roger; a quiet of sweetness and content that he had not known since his mother's death. With that warm, supple little body pressed against him, his mind for once left his work and paused to ponder on the loneliness of the past sixteen years and on the thrilling promise of the desert star-glow. No human being can be completely sane who does ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... supple figure clambered down from the inky blackness of cliff that overhung the road, and peered over the valley of Maunahoehoe. It was Moreno, ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... young girl's brilliancy of colour and expression, though she had seen her once before. As she came in, the afternoon sun streamed upon her face and turned her auburn hair to red gold, and gleamed upon her small white teeth as her strong lips parted to speak the first words. She was tall and supple, graceful as a panther, and her voice rang and whispered and rang again in quick changes of tone, like a waterfall in the woods in summer. With much of her mother's beauty, she had inherited from her father the violent vitality of his youth. ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... Spaniards. After the collation was ended, the guests were entertained with music and dancing by a troop of young men and maidens simply attired, who exhibited in their favorite national amusement all the agility and grace which the supple limbs of the Peruvian Indians so well qualified them to display. Before his departure, Pizarro stated to his kind host the motives of his visit to the country, in the same manner as he had done on other occasions, and he ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... pianist must have great endurance. His fingers must be as strong as steel, and yet they must be as elastic and as supple as willow wands. I have always had great faith in the "Kleine Pischna" and the "Pischna Exercises" in cultivating strength. These exercises are now world famous, and it would be hard for me to imagine anything better for this particular purpose. They are somewhat voluminous, but necessarily ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... exultantly. He reached out his fingers—and then something shot from the car, something lithe and supple, something that gripped the little man by the throat and hurled him ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... it was nearly the equal of the full grown tiger. The head was large, the body thick yet supple, the limbs robust. In color it was of a rich yellow, with black rings, in which stood black dots, ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... mealtime, after seeing, as he could not fail to do, how he counted to them for absolutely nothing at all, Scott Brenton had his hours when he too doubted the fact of his own humanity. An active brain and an almost automatic body trained to supple service: these by themselves, he realized, do not go far towards making a human thing of life. Contacts are necessary for that, not total isolation; and contact was the one thing denied him. Now and then he had his hours of wishing that those other boys, boys whose talk ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... delicious words he lost all power of resistance, she saw; and her soft and supple hand stole in and closed upon his, and gently withdrew the weapon, and threw it into the water. "Good Camille! now give me ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... new invasion of the Hellenic spirit precedes, and is the handmaid of, the Hebraic. In each case the influence of Greece is to procure the open mind, that of Jerusalem, to mould the unsteady heart. The Greek works first upon the intellect to make it supple, the Hebrew comes after and gives robustness to the moral will. Such, in the main, is the distinction and the historic sequence of the two forces. We have twice passed under each, and we shall, I believe and hope, feel the strong power of each again, ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... tall and thin and supple, with a graceful, womanly figure. There was something stately and distinguished in her carriage, "queenly" her friends called her, while her critics described her ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the mysterious rite amongst the boys who were her especial friends, and it had become rather a point of honour to be "done" together. Consequently Hilaria looked very demure as she went through her steps with the mechanical ease of long practice and the supple grace that was her own and yet had the adorable awkwardness of her age in it. She was nearly sixteen, several months younger than Ishmael, who was now just over that age, and who, owing to the reputation for seriousness ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the smoking-parlour with the slow supple walk that she adopted when she wore her Teacher's Robes. Before many seconds had passed, she came back more quickly ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... was made sweet with flowers too. A basket of pink tulips set in moss occupied the central position on the supper-table, and some pots of primulas, fully in bloom, were on the window-seats; above that window upon the corner of whose seat Miss Deleah Day liked to sit, her slight and supple body curled into as small as possible a space in order not to incommode the primulas, a brass birdcage holding ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... discreet analyses of Azorin (Jose Martinez Ruiz) and Jose Ortega y Gasset, to the sober sentences of the Rector of the University of Salamanca, Miguel de Unamuno, writing with a restraint which is anything but traditionally Castilian, and to the journalistic impressionism of Ramiro de Maeztu, supple and cosmopolitan from long residence abroad. The poets now jettisoned the rotundities of the romantic and emotional schools of Zorrilla and Salvador Rueda, and substituted instead the precise, pictorial line of Ruben Dario, Juan Ramon Jimenez, and the brothers ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... it proved; I followed the directions of the groom, and the cob gave me every assistance. How easy is riding, after the first timidity is got over, to supple and youthful limbs; and there is no second fear. The creature soon found that the nerves of his rider were in proper tone. Turning his head half round, he made a kind of whining noise, flung out a little foam, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Supple, graceful and splendid it walked round in solemn majesty, its flat head kept low to the ground, its sinuous body curving and winding as it walked, like that ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... their exercises,(124) were rubbed with oils and ointments to make their bodies more supple and vigorous. At first they made use of a belt, with an apron or scarf fastened to it, for their more decent appearance in the combats; but one of the combatants happening to lose the victory by this covering's falling off, that accident was the occasion ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... a piece with her own nature—vivid, wholesome, impassioned. Her supple fingers drew the heart out of each wire. Yet she did not find it necessary to sway her body to and fro; but sat square and upright, her head a little lifted, as though evolving the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... commanding his own temper, (p. 111) proud because he is a Spaniard, but supple and cunning, accommodating the tone of his pretensions precisely to the degree of endurance of his opponent, bold and overbearing to the utmost extent to which it is tolerated, careless of what he asserts or how grossly it is proved to ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... Henry VIII., still he ever ruled by the laws. He did not abolish parliament, or retrench its privileges. The parliament authorized all his taxes, and gave sanction to all his violent measures. The parliament was his supple instrument; still, had the parliament resisted his will, doubtless he would have dissolved it, as did the Stuart princes. But it was not, in his reign, prepared for resistance, and the king had every thing ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... principally to facilitate tying. By making a half-hitch around this internode, the vine is held very firmly. If the swelling at the node of the destroyed bud is not left, many vines will be pulled out of the hitch when they become heavy with leaves and supple with the flow of ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... the eyes of faith alone The good effects of the water shone; But skins grew rosy, eyes waxed clear, Of rough vaquero and muleteer; Angular forms were rounded out, Limbs grew supple and waists grew stout; And as for the girls,—for miles about They had no equal! To this day, From Pescadero to Monterey, You'll still find eyes in which are seen The liquid graces of ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... to entertain the company with hereditary songs and catches during their repast; and the old Pyrrhic game of the sword dance, handed down since the time of the Romans, was admirably performed in the court-yard of the mansion by a band of young men, lithe and supple in their forms and graceful in their movements, who, I was told, went the rounds of the villages and country-seats during ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... luminous brown eyes set well apart in a face which won the prompt confidence of women, children and dogs. He was splendidly built for an out-door life, and moved with a long, supple stride, a gait which people mistook for lounging until they walked with him, and found that the pace was something over four miles an hour. Add to these personal traits the fact that he had dwelt in Roxton exactly two days and a half, and was already on speaking terms with ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... difference of opinion on these two points. Calvin instinctively felt that the bold and independent spirit of this young scholar, his qualities of leadership, and his literary genius marked him out as a man who could not long be an easy-minded and supple subordinate. A letter which Calvin wrote at this time to his friend Viret shows where the real tension lay. "Castellio has got it into his head," he writes, "that I want to rule!" The great Reformer may not have been conscious yet of such a purpose, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... him by the throat, long, supple, muscular fingers stopping his wind. He saw a face upraised to his—an expressionless yellow face, with glittering, slanting eyes. He drew up his club for the blow. The slender fingers were probing upward, behind his jawbone, and ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... supple, very implacable, and very agile, is at the service of evil, and excels in stabbing truth in the dark. These are blows struck by the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... required the greatest caution. Neb and Herbert took the lead, Pencroft the rear, the captain and the reporter between them. The animals which frequented these heights—and there were numerous traces of them—must necessarily belong to those races of sure foot and supple spine, chamois or goat. Several were seen, but this was not the name Pencroft gave them, for all of a sudden—"Sheep!" ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... downward. And as she wheeled about, Olof again was aware of something he had not marked before—the curve of her hips, her lithe, supple waist, and the splendid poise of her head. He was so close now that her hair touched his face—touched it, or was it only the air as it flew past his cheek? And from her eyes shot beams of light, challenging, beckoning, urging ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... sight. In a wonderfully short time he had adapted himself to the new conditions of life. He quickly learned to read Braille. So marvellous indeed was his sense of touch that he was still able to maintain his interest in botany. The mere passing of his long supple fingers over a flower was sufficient means for its identification, though occasionally he would use his lips. I have found several letters of his among my father's correspondence. In no case was there anything to ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... then it seemed her fingers were not quite as steady as they might have been. Still, in a moment they appeared to become surer in their work. She had beautiful hands, not too large, though certainly not small, and they were strong, brown, supple. He observed next, with stealthy, upward-stealing glance, that she had rolled up her sleeves, exposing fine, round arms graceful in line. Her skin was brown—no, it was more gold than brown. It had a wonderful clear ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... he is an old bachelor, and very rich; and he only spends a quarter of a comfortable income. If you are as clever as I suppose, you can go to Paris at his expense. There, run along, my little doe; go and twist him round your finger. Only, mind this: be as supple as silk; at every word take a double turn round him and make a knot. He is a man to fear scandal, and if he has given you a chance to put him in the pillory—in short, understand; threaten him with the ladies of the Maternity Hospital. Besides, he's ambitious. A man succeeds through ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... bundle, she wiggled like an eel through the willow thicket until she was completely hidden from view, and Botts followed as well as he was able, with one hand fending off the supple young shoots from whipping back upon his ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... on in front; flat to the grass his belly, and low his head. As silently as floating foam on still water he passed into the thicket of reed grass, his fierce eyes fixed on four Mallard that gabbled and dove their supple heads to the mud bottom for wild rice. Only a little farther and A'tim would be upon them. Shag was watching solicitously the ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... disease and preserved health. In cases of chronic and acute diseases, in their severest forms, we have changed the secretions, renewed structure, and restored health; have elongated shortened limbs, relaxed rigid muscles, made cicatrized joints supple; restored carious bones to healthy conditions, renewed that which is termed the lost substance of the lungs; and restored healthy organizations where disease was organic instead ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... them in an irregular kind of circle of uncertain dimensions; which having done, they bend the extremities of these branches so as to meet in a centre at top, where they bind them by a kind of woodbine called supple-jack, which they split by holding it in their teeth. This frame, or skeleton of a hut, is made tight against the weather with a covering of boughs and bark; but as the bark is not got without some trouble, they generally take ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... carried to Paris after Jena and which came back after Waterloo. The solid building was the palace of iron-grey old King William; and when the clock-work sentinels went through their salute, I got my first sight of that famous Prussian discipline, against which before the summer was through supple France was to crush its teeth all to fragments, like a viper that has incautiously ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... ordinary speech or even oral narration. What Anderson employs here is a stylized version of the American language, sometimes rising to quite formal rhetorical patterns and sometimes sinking to a self-conscious mannerism. But at its best, Anderson's prose style in Winesburg, Ohio is a supple instrument, yielding that "low fine music" which he admired so much in the stories ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... thinly from the inner tent—mark her provenance. Son kneeleth down. "Wilt thou have my son, cony?" saith father. "Yea, dear heart," saith she. "'Tis my counterpart, mark you," saith father. "Better than nothing at all," saith she. Benevolent father, supple-kneed son, convenient lady. Here is agreement. And thus it ends.' Again he laughed outright at the steel-blue face of the sky, then jumped in a flash from his seat to the throat of Bertran. Bertran tumbled backwards with a strangled cry, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... care! that form is supple, full that bosom, oh! take care! Look not where the rose and lily shifting hues alternate fling; Listen not to those loved accents, sighing like ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... in the impending misfortunes, that two men of stable temperament and lucid perception were in authority at Candahar. General Nott was a grand old Indian officer, in whom there was no guile, but a good deal of temper. He was not supple, and he had the habit of speaking his mind with great directness, a propensity which accounted, perhaps, for the repeated supersessions he had undergone. A clearheaded, shrewd man, he was disgusted with very many things which he recognised as unworthy in the ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... He was supple and swift and flushed; his eyes (which he believed to be cynical) were candidly eager. But he was not over-gentle. He waved his hand at poor dumpy Verona and drawled: "Yes, I guess we're pretty ridiculous and disgusticulus, and I rather guess our ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... natural bronze-brown color suddenly flowed over her head, down her neck and across her body into legs and tail. Against the side of the terrace, as if materializing into solidity at that moment, appeared two hundred pounds of supple, rangy, long-tailed cat ... or catlike creature. TT's actual origin had never been established. The best guesses were that what Telzey had found playing around in the woods five years ago was either a bio-structural experiment which had got away from a private laboratory on Orado, or some spaceman's ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... towards the house. Then suddenly she stopped, as though she recognized some one or something, and stood awaiting his approach, her lips parted in a smile, two small, shapely hands shading her eyes from the sun. As he came nearer, he had time to note the lithe, supple figure, just rounding into the graceful outlines of womanhood; the full, smiling lips, the flushed cheeks, and the glint of gold in her brown hair; and the light, the beauty, the fragrance surrounding her seemed an appropriate setting to the picture. She was ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... that the woman Braithwaite was of a sinister strength; but I had little dreamt how strong she really was. First it was her arms that wound themselves about my neck, long, sinuous, and supple as the tentacles of some vile monster; then, as I struggled, her thumbs were on my windpipe like pads of steel. Tighter she pressed, and tighter yet. My eyeballs started; my tongue lolled; I heard my brand drop, and through a mist I saw ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... Tall Dakoon, the children of the mist, But he was swift with lance and shield, and supple of the wrist, Yet if he rose, or if he fell, no man hath proof to show— And wide the world beyond the mists, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... very like a young man, but not the act of a wise one!" said Pearson. "You should always keep your horse's strength for an emergency on a long journey. His limbs are supple enough, I'll warrant; there was no necessity for ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... refreshed himself with his dinner and further strengthened himself by an extra libation or so, made his appearance (accompanied by his amiable partner) with a countenance of portentous import, and a fearful instrument of flagellation, strong, supple, wax-ended, and new—in short, purchased that morning expressly for ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... substitutes for almost all of worth that the whales once supplied, and the substitutes are in the main marked improvements on the original. But in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the clear whale oil for illuminating purposes, the tough and supple whalebone, the spermaceti which filled the great case in the sperm-whale's head, the precious ambergris—prized even among the early Hebrews, and chronicled in the Scriptures as a thing of great price—were prizes, in pursuit of which ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... knowledge he had taken grafts enough to serve for a forest; but the whole forest could not spare him a handy walking-stick. The great folio of the dead Machiavelli lay useless before him,—the living Machiavelli of daily life stood all puissant by his side. The Sage was as supple to the Schemer as the Clairvoyant is to the Mesmerist; and the lean slight fingers of Randal actually dictated almost the very words that Riccabocca wrote to his child and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... by man and by his attributes—his voice, his hand, his eye. The essence of education is the education of the body. Beauty and health are the chief sources of happiness. Men should live in the air; their exercises should be regular, varied, scientific. To render his body strong and supple is the first duty of man. He should develop and completely master the whole muscular system. What I admire in the order to which you belong is that they do live in the air; that they excel in athletic sports; that they can only speak one language; and that they never read. This is not ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... medium size and build and partially bald-headed; what little hair he has is very grey; he has keen eyes; his eyesight is very good; he has never had to wear glasses. He is as supple as one half his age; it is readily demonstrated as he runs, jumps and yells while attending the games of his favorite pastimes, baseball and football. Wherever the Edward Waters College football team goes, there "Parson" ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... through every trick and quip I learnt when I was with old Nat Fire-eater. And I'm stiffer in the joints and weightier in the heft than I was in those days when I slept in the fields, and fasted more than ever Holy Church meant; But, heigh ho! I ought to be supple enough after the practice of these three days. Moreover, if it could loose a fool's tongue to have a king and queen for interpreters, I had them—for there were our Harry and Moll catching at every gibe ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tolerably With dull-blade minutes flatwise slapping me. Wait, Heart! Time moves. — Thou lithe young Western Night, Just-crowned king, slow riding to thy right, Would God that I might straddle mutiny Calm as thou sitt'st yon never-managed sea, Balk'st with his balking, fliest with his flight, Giv'st supple to his rearings and his falls, Nor dropp'st one coronal star about thy brow Whilst ever dayward thou art steadfast drawn! Yea, would I rode these mad contentious brawls No damage taking from their If and How, Nor no result save galloping to ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... height, but not tall. He spoke very fair old-fashioned English, with the Yorkshire tone and turn. His walk was rather plodding, and his movements slow and stiff; but in communion with his violin they were free enough, and the more delicate for the strength that was in them; at the anvil they were as supple as powerful. On his face dwelt an expression that was not to be read by the indifferent—a waiting in the midst of work, as of a man to whom the sense of the temporary was always present, but present with the ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... head and gave a snort of alarm. But in a moment Sax had jerked the reins over its head, and in another moment was on its back. Before he was well seated, the frightened animal reared, squealing and pawing the air with its fore hoofs. But Sax was lean and very supple. He clung on, drove his feet home in the stirrups, and when the horse came down and started to buck and twist and arch and side-spring, he had a seat from which it would have taken a very good animal to shake him. It was all over in less than a minute, and then the horse saw its ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... he set himself to do. He was convinced, one could see, that after Peace had been declared and compensation assured him, he would recover the use of his hand, even if "l'empereur" remained stiff and chalky. As a matter of fact, I think he was mistaken, and will never have a supple left hand again. But his arms were so brawny, his constitution so vigorous, and his legs improved so rapidly under the necessity of taking him down into the little town for his glass, of an afternoon, that one felt he might possibly be digging again ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... over she was called up, along with some children considerably younger than herself, to read and spell. The master stood before them, armed with a long, thick strap of horse-hide, prepared by steeping in brine, black and supple with constant use, and cut into fingers at one end, which had been ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... Here are great lions from Numidia and tigers from far Arabia, wolves from the Apennines and bears from Libya, not caged and half-tamed as we see them now, but wild and fierce, loose in the arena. Now the hunters swarm in, on horse and on foot,—trained and supple Thracian gladiators, skilled Gaetulian hunters, with archers, and spearmen, and net-throwers. All around the great arena rages the cruel fight. Here, a lion stands at bay; there, a tigress crouches for the spring; a snarling wolf snaps at a keen-eyed Thracian, or a bear ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... have already seen. Let me see—where did I lay that other needle? No, you need not look for it; I must find it myself. I have to be careful where I leave my things, so that I can put my hand on them the moment I want them. Oh, here it is," picking it up with his long supple fingers, and rolling it securely ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... figure. He comfortably classed all singers—especially operatic singers—as "fat Dutchwomen" or "shifty Sadies," and Kitty would not fit into his clever generalization. She displayed, under his nose, the only kind of figure he considered worth looking at—that of a very young girl, supple and sinuous and quicksilverish; thin, eager shoulders, polished white arms that were nowhere too fat and nowhere too thin. McKann found it agreeable to look at Kitty, but when he saw that the authoritative Mrs. ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... excitedly engrossed in her story, was unconsciously acting out the thrilling scene of her dialogue with the Indian, even imitating his voice and gestures. And Kemper and I listened and watched her breathlessly, fascinated by her lithe and supple grace as well as by the astounding story she was so frankly unfolding with the consummate artlessness of a ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... not only in the activity of his highest powers that the genius surpasses ordinary people. A man who is unusually well-knit, supple and agile, will perform all his movements with exceptional ease, even with comfort, because he takes a direct pleasure in an activity for which he is particularly well-equipped, and therefore often exercises it without any object. Further, if he is an acrobat ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... and "foreign"—for even Mrs. Peniston, though she occasionally went abroad, had the family dread of foreignness—but the girl showed a pliancy, which, to a more penetrating mind than her aunt's, might have been less reassuring than the open selfishness of youth. Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... strong light pouring in through high grated windows; the pillars of many-coloured marbles, the frescoed roof; the country people massed together in the public place, with faces that were like paintings of Mantegna or Masaccio; the slender supple form of the accused drooping like a bruised lily between the upright figures of two carabineers; the judge leaning down over his high desk in black robes and black square cap, like some Venetian ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... one while in the old Convocation house, and another while in the Chapel at Westminster; when all the faith and religion that shall be there canonized is not sufficient without plain convincement, and the charity of patient instruction to supple the least bruise of conscience, to edify the meanest Christian, who desires to walk in the Spirit, and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number of voices that can be there made; no, though Harry VII himself there, with all his liege tombs about him, should ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... stunned when she heard the verdict of the surgeons. She knew little about disease and it seemed wildly impossible to her that this limb of hers which had been so strong and supple a month ago would become an agent of death if not amputated. She was in an agony of mind. Never to swim again! Never to run and jump and slide and skate and dance! Always to go about on crutches! Before the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... Caesar, "that is how it struck me too. Tall, supple, dolichocephalic... It seems to me one can try to put something ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... tenderness. Then he did not hurry himself. He measured his distance, and swung the hammer from on high with all his might and at regular intervals. He had the classic style, accurate, evenly balanced, and supple. Fifine, in his hands, did not cut capers, like at a dance-hall, but made steady, certain progress; she rose and fell in cadence, like a lady of quality solemnly ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... not made the half of the first circle thus before Dollops had leaped to the bending willows, had scrambled up the rough trunk of the nearest of them, and, pushing his weight out upon a strong and supple bough, bent it downward until the half of its strongest withes were deep in ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... added that in this picture a row of torch-bearing angels makes the result, if possible, even less Christian, for these delightful creatures, with their ambiguous smiles and supple grace, have all the dangerous attraction of wicked angels. They are Ganymedes, borrowed from mythology, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... to know all about it, after which he insisted on weighing the trout. Jack was dragged into the Lodge to join in this function, and presently found himself meeting Lady Farquhar, a pleasant plump lady who did not at all conform to the usual stage conception of her part. Her smile was warm for this supple blue-eyed engaging Westerner, but the latter did not need to be told that behind her friendliness the instinct of the chaperone was alert. The one swift glance she had thrown at Miss Dwight told ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... here subjoin the description of one of these canoes. They choose for the purpose branches of a white and supple wood, such as poplar; which are to form the ribs or curves, and are fastened on the outside with three poles, one at bottom and two on the sides, to form the keel; to these curves two other stouter poles are afterwards made fast, to form the gunnels; ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... Receive him coming to receive from us Knee-tribute yet unpaid, prostration vile! Too much to one! but double how endured, To one, and to his image now proclaimed? But what if better counsels might erect Our minds, and teach us to cast off this yoke? Will ye submit your necks, and choose to bend The supple knee? Ye will not, if I trust To know ye right, or if ye know yourselves Natives and sons of Heaven possessed before By none; and if not equal all, yet free, Equally free; for orders and degrees Jar not with liberty, but well consist. ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... with its muscles like iron sent a fiery thrill through Lida's soft, supple frame. Bashful and trembling, she drew away from him as if at the approach of some unseen ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... is slender—there is a supple grace about her even now—she has shapely feet and hands. She is a brunette of the most pronounced type, with a skin like creamy velvet, just touched on either ripe cheek with a peach-like glow, and with lips like cherries. You know without seeing her laugh, that she has very white teeth. She ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... at Rome, seize upon the fugitive, and drag him before some heartless and perfidious "Judge," for authority to send him back to Colosse? Did he hurry his victim away from the presence of the fat and supple magistrate, to be driven under chains and the lash to the field of unrequited toil, whence he had escaped? Had the apostle been like some teachers in the American churches, he might, as a professor of sacred literature in one of our seminaries, or a preacher of the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of memoirs, was a younger s. of the 1st Earl of Bristol. Entering Parliament he proved an able debater, and held various offices, including that of Lord Privy Seal. He was a favourite with Queen Caroline, and a dexterous and supple courtier. He wrote Memoirs of the Reign of George II., which gives a very unfavourable view of the manners and morals of the Court. It is written in a lively, though often spiteful style, and contains many clever and discriminating character sketches. He was satirised by Pope ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... together with an assortment of native weapons from various countries—assegais, spears, boomerangs, throwing sticks, sjamboks and South Sea Island clubs and shields. A special nail held Jim's own stockwhip, to which Norah always attended after he had gone away, lest the supple thong should become harsh through disuse. Then there were weapons of peace—hockey sticks, rackets, cricket-bats—the latter an assortment of all Jim had used, from the tiny one he had begun with at the age of eight to the full sized beauty that had split ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... he still saw the furrows free of the earthborn men. And all round his comrades heartened him with their shouts. And in the helmet he drew from the river's stream and quenched his thirst with the water. Then he bent his knees till they grew supple, and filled his mighty heart with courage, raging like a boar, when it sharpens its teeth against the hunters, while from its wrathful mouth plenteous foam drips to the ground. By now the earthborn men were springing up over ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... commercial relations with the Indians, the French voyageur on the St. Lawrence had several marked advantages over his English and Dutch neighbors. By temperament he was better adapted than they to be a pioneer of trade. No race was more supple than his own in conforming its ways to the varied demands of place and time. When he was among the Indians, the Frenchman tried to act like one of them, and he soon developed in all the arts of forest life a skill which rivaled ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... the physical causes; and now, at the end of my days, I begin to cherish, not what would lead me from these, but what would precede them, and, above all, what would somewhat surpass them." We had attained the summit of a plateau in the "pays de Caux," in Normandy, which is supple as an English park, but natural and limitless. It is one of the rare spots on the globe where nature reveals herself to us unfailingly wholesome and green. A little further to the north the country is threatened with barrenness, a little further to the south, it is fatigued and scorched ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... only a supple policy, united with a vigorous arm, could have maintained the tranquillity of the Empire, its evil genius gave it a Rodolph for Emperor. At a more peaceful period the Germanic Union would have managed its own interests, and Rodolph, like so ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... dark brown, and his hair was jet black; He was supple in body, and straight in the back, Learnt his lessons without any trouble at all; And was lively, intelligent, ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... a tall, long-limbed sapling of a girl, with a flaming crest of copper-colored hair and movements as lithe and supple as a cat's. She danced buoyantly, without losing breath, advancing and retreating with mincing steps, her face grave as though the performance had its own dignity and was not to be taken lightly. Her partner, a tanned and long-haired man, took his part in a livelier spirit, laughing ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... they make avoiding of evil to be the very essence and consummation of good, and so receive but as it were the satisfaction of slaves or of rogues newly discharged the jail, who are well enough contented if they may but wash and supple their sores and the stripes they received by whipping, but never in their lives had one taste or sight of a generous, clean, unmixed and unulcerated joy. For it follows not that, if it be vexatious to have one's body itch ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... slowly, a gradual lifting of her long, supple figure. Grant watching, wondered why he had never before realized that the sensuous charm of her beauty was irresistible. "Where were my eyes?" he asked himself. "She's beyond any of the women I've wasted ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... as they passed. There was a taint of alien age about the city which repelled Dalgard, and he was eager to get out of it into the clean countryside once more. Sssuri sped on silent feet, his shoulders hunched, his distaste for the structures to be read in every line of his supple body. ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... moist air, more condensed, and more rarely renewed, when they have to creep on the ground or glide in thickets, the tiges are long, flexible, and dragging. If they are to float in the air, sustaining themselves on more robust vegetables, they are provided with flexible, slender, and supple tiges." ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... fewest possible motions. For this reason a slightly bent arm is necessary when on guard. Of course if the arm is unduly bent the elbow will be exposed, but a little practice will soon enable any moderately supple man to so hold his arm as to be ready to cut direct from his guard and yet keep his elbow out of peril. And this brings me to a question often discussed amongst players, viz. which is the better ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... little martyr, she had been forbidden them by the doctor, because of a cough.... But she took them all the same, merely for the sake of taking them, with a graceful movement, her bare arm outstretched, her wrist making a supple curve, like a swan's neck, as she dipped her pretty hand into ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... that beautiful body so," whispered Chunda Lal, "that is straight and supple as the willow branch. O, Miska"—his voice trembled emotionally and he that had been but a moment since so fierce stood abashed before her—"for you I become as the meanest and the ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... strike Hite's attention, the mountaineer sought to nullify it by an allusion to the horse. "That feller puts down his feet like a kitten," he said admiringly. "I never seen nuthin' ez wears shoes so supple. Shows speed, ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... sair'd an ordinar man for a twalmonth. During this time, I never sterr'd a foot, but keepit keeking frae the back shop upon a' that was ganging on. I was highly delighted; and jealousing that Nosey was ower supple to be easily catched, I had nae apprehension for the event, and remained snug in my ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... for all that God and man In art and nature make or plan, And lady-loves for spidery lace And broideries and supple grace ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... Manuel with pitiable whispered words. They kissed. For an instant Manuel stood motionless. He queerly moved his mouth, as though it were stiff and he were trying to make it more supple. Thereafter Manuel, very sick and desperate looking, did what was requisite. So Niafer went away with Grandfather Death, in ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... not easily appeased. Without ceremony, and with a rough hand, he twirled the supple Gamut around on his heel, and more than once affirmed that the Hurons had done themselves great credit in the fashion of his costume. Then, seizing the hand of the other, he squeezed it with a grip that brought tears into the eyes ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... hag, in screaming wild alarms O'er a dead carcase muttering her charms, 410 (And with her frequent and tremendous yell Forcing great Hecate from out of hell) Shoots in the corpse a new fictitious soul; With instant glare the supple eyeballs roll, Again it moves and speaks, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... height, supple and slender, with the grace of all outdoors, smiling with a dignity that did not challenge and yet seemed to arm her against impertinence, not very dark, except for her long eyelashes—I have seen Italians and Greeks much darker—she somewhat resembled the American Indian, only that her ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... quiet, pliant, and to all appearances incapable of the mischiefs and cruelty it had committed. Then the beautiful growth of the hair, in short and soft curls round its roots, its whiteness, branched veins, the supple softness of the shaft, as it lay foreshortened, rolled and shrunk up into a squat thickness, languid, and borne up from between his thighs, by its globular appendage, that wondrous treasure bag of nature's sweets, which revelled round, and pursed up in the only wrinkles that are known to please, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... cry cleft the stillness of the room as the boy's eyes fell upon the terrible sight; and the knife flashed twice and thrice, and yet again, until the evil beauty of the dead man's face had been entirely obliterated, and a strong hand gripped the supple wrist. ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... it was easy to see how the superstition of the haunting came about, for as the curate watched the spray on the rock near the wreck rise up in the moonlight and fall back into the sea, he could almost make himself believe that he saw in it the supple form of a woman with uplifted hands, praying heaven ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... Milton had not written the choruses of Samson Agonistes and Shakespeare his songs, nobody would be so absurd as to suggest that they adopted this five-foot line and spent their mighty artistry in sending supple and flowing variety through its external uniformity, because they could not manage any other. They used it because they found that its rhythm perfectly expressed their poetic emotion, and because the formal relation of one line to another ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... other was still young. He was tall and sinewy, but slender, for these Venetians are rarely massive in their strength. Each limb is equally developed by the exercise of rowing upright, bending all the muscles to their stroke. Their bodies are elastically supple, with free sway from the hips and a mercurial poise upon the ankle. Stefano showed these qualities almost in exaggeration. The type in him was refined to its artistic perfection. Moreover, he was rarely ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... that he was twenty-four, he appeared to be not more than twenty. He had a superb figure, well knit and supple; a beautiful white brow, shaded by soft chestnut curly hair, soft blue eyes which beamed ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... VII. he witnessed the decapitation of a few neighbouring relatives who had often dandled him on their knees. Under Leo XII. it was still worse. Those wholesome correctives, the wooden horse and the supple-jack, were permanently established in the village square. About once a fortnight the authorities rased the house of some brigand, after sending his family to the galleys, and paying a reward to the informer who had denounced him. St. Peter's Gate, which adjoins ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... when I thought of her playful ways, her dear, young supple limbs, her thick, wavy, blonde hair, which she would push back now and then with both her hands, the tears welled up in my eyes from ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... billowed out, full of wind, pulling hard at the clew-line, which was made fast to the gunwhale beside Hrolfur. The fore-sail resembled a beautifully curved sheet of steel, stiff and unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple in movement, like the ivory sails on the model ships in Rosenborg Palace. The mast seemed to bend slightly and the stays were as taut as fiddle-strings. The boat quivered like a leaf. The waves pounded hard against the thin strakes of the boat's side. ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... who were brought up by the women, were, like the boys, taught to wrestle, run, and swim, and to take part in gymnastics of all kinds, until they too became very strong and supple, and could ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... embankment, a highway raised above the sands, cutting across them so conspicuously that even an idiot could not help seeing it, so high above the land around that the lion's spring falls far beneath it, and the supple tiger skulks baffled at its base. It is like one of those roads which the terrible energy of conquering Rome carried straight as an arrow from the milestone in the Forum over mountains, across rivers and deserts, morasses and forests, to flash along them the lightning ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive, and they shall run, Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... fence-posts, so that they stand deep and rigid, a reproach and an accusation; but it requires a particular skill to judge by the pull whether or not they will hold through the night and at the same time yield with gentle and supple swing to the least movement of the sleeper. A Carib knows, instantly, worthy and unworthy ground. I have seen an Indian sink his hamaca posts into sand with one swift, concentrated motion, mathematical in its precision and surety, so that he might ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... with such a frankness in his urgency, such amiable kindliness, that Mrs. Pasmer could not feel that it was pushing. She looked at her daughter, but she stood as passive in the transaction as the elder Mavering. She was taller than her mother, and as she waited, her supple figure described that fine lateral curve which one sees in some Louis Quinze portraits; this effect was enhanced by the fashion of her dress of pale sage green, with a wide stripe or sash of white dropping down the front, from her delicate waist. The same ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... avarice may well have heartened Demetrios when the well-armoured gaoler knelt in order to unlock the door of Perion's cell. As an asp leaps, the big and supple hands of the proconsul gripped Bracciolini's neck from behind, and ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... fingers a remarkable degree of delicacy and certainty, while my eye was at the same time acquiring a promptitude of perception that was quite marvelous. Presently I shall have to speak of the service this rendered me in my experiment of second sight. After having thus made my hands supple and docile, I went on straight to sleight-of-hand, and I more especially devoted myself to the ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... on a bronze bar of the fender as if to warm it, took off her gloves, and drew over her head the gold chain from which her bejeweled scent-bottle hung. It gave me a quite indescribable pleasure to watch the feline grace of every movement; the supple grace a cat displays as it adjusts its toilette in the sun. She looked at herself in the mirror and said aloud ill-humoredly—'I did not look well this evening, my complexion is going with alarming rapidity; perhaps I ought to keep earlier hours, and give ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... it up a lot more'n I've ever done before. You'll see some hopping to beat the band, too. I've managed to cover a good deal of territory up to now but, say, I aspire to do still better. I'm rubbing snake oil on my joints right along so as to make 'em more supple. Why, I'd bathe in it if I thought that would make me better able to do my part toward corraling that great ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... beheld the eager faces and noted the lithe, supple bodies of the boys, in whose eyes shone the light of fearlessness, ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... result, I have studied to their depths the masters of color. I have analyzed and lifted, layer by layer, the colors of Titian, king of light. Like him, great sovereign of art, I have sketched my figure in light clear tones of supple yet solid color; for shadow is but an accident,—remember that, young man. Then I worked backward, as it were; and by means of half-tints, and glazings whose transparency I kept diminishing little by ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... praise of eloquence. Successful as an orator, secure in the patronage of the royal favorite, Wedderburn sought the society of the wits and was not welcomed by them. Johnson disliked him for his defective colloquial powers and for his supple readiness to go on errands for Bute. Foote derided him as not only dull himself, but the cause of dulness in others. Boswell, who admired his successful countryman, assumed that his unfavorable appearances in the social world were due to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of the loveliest women Tintoretto ever painted. We see too plainly the planning, the device of concentrating interest on the idol by turning figures and pointing fingers, but nothing can be imagined more supple and queenly than the woman in blue, and the way the light falls on her head and perfectly foreshortened arm shows to what excellence Tintoretto had attained. The "Presentation" is a riper work. The drawing of the flight of steps and ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... startling object to contemplate on a first view of him. His shaven head, tied up in an old yellow silk handkerchief; his tawny, haggard cheeks; his bright brown eyes, preternaturally large and wild; his rough black beard; his long, supple, sinewy fingers, wasted by suffering till they looked like claws—all tended to discompose the rector at the outset of the interview. When the first feeling of surprise had worn off, the impression that followed it was not an agreeable one. Mr. Brock could not ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... and rode together before breakfast, read together after, explored every corner of the woods, and talked of many of the things under heaven. Magdalena, except for an occasional flutter of eyelid or leap of colour, confessed nothing: her pride was a supple armour that she laced tightly above her heart; but Trennahan's very self lifted the trap-door and looked to him through her eyes, and he had no misgivings. Sometimes he awakened suddenly in the night and gave a quick, short laugh: he was so new to himself. But he knew ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... it, if you know it; for they don't say it amongst your people." M. Pichard relates several unknown and hidden things which the demon revealed, and that he performed several feats which it is not possible for any person, however agile and supple he may be, to achieve by natural strength or power; such as crawling on the ground without making use of hands or feet, appearing to have the hair standing erect ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet |
