"Supple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have studied the works of the great masters of color, stripping off coat after coat of color from Titian's canvas, analyzing the pigments of the king of light. Like that sovereign painter, I began the face in a slight tone with a supple and fat paste—for shadow is but an accident; bear that in mind, youngster!—Then I began afresh, and by half-tones and thin glazes of color less and less transparent, I gradually deepened the tints to the deepest black ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... convinced of the supremacy of the Articles of War as the best disciplined private soldier who ever showed how perfect an automaton man may become by thorough discipline, his political opinions are something more than a creed: they are a watchword which be observes with a most supple obstinacy. The cabinet-minister he calls master is a corporal who has the right to think for him; and were the corporal to contradict himself ten times in the course of a single day, imperturbable little Paulin Limayrac would demonstrate to him that he was ten times in the right. But then (that ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... skin marks were situated, dispute whose complexion was the clearest, whose hair the prettiest colour, and whose figure the best. You can imagine that among these figures sanctified to God there were fine ones, stout ones, lank ones, thin ones, plump ones, supple ones, shrunken ones, and figures of all kinds. Then they would quarrel amongst themselves as to who took the least to make a girdle, and she who spanned the least was pleased without knowing why. At times they would relate their dreams ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... will do it;" and Fern leaned forward and kissed her softly. The moon was shining brightly now, and in the clear white light Fern noticed for the first time how thin and pale Crystal looked; how her cheek, and even her slight supple figure, had lost their roundness. There were deep hollows in the temples, dark lines under the dark eyes, in spite of her beauty she was fearfully wan. The grief that preyed upon her would soon ravage her good looks. For the first time Fern felt a vague fear ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... engaged him in half smiling, low-voiced conversation; and Palla looked at her golden-green eyes and warm, rich colouring, cooled by a skin of snow. Tiger-golden, the rousse ensemble; the supple movement of limb and body fascinated her; but most of all the lovely, slanting eyes with their glint ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... there. He had learned much, he had searched thus far in vain for the Holy Grail. Yet not altogether in vain, for he felt within him that he was closer to his quest with the passing of each day. The boy, now in young manhood, had indeed developed well. Broad shouldered, slim-waisted, supple limbed, he gave little indication of his strength, yet Walker riding close beside him, had watched him, had trained him and had with great pride, noted his skill with lance, sword and spear. Well he knew that this youth would soon be second to none in ability to cope with foe or ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... for when Mistress Southworth stood safely upon the strand, Bradford turned and gave his hand to her companion, a girl of some four or five and twenty years old, with one of those rounded and supple figures which combine strength and delicacy, endurance and elasticity, and are very slow in yielding to the attacks of Time. A demure hood tied under the chin framed a round face, whose firm fair skin had defied the tarnish of the sea, and only gained a somewhat warmer glow ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... costume,—a blue satin dress trimmed with lace. The flowers were still in her hair; and the blow had come with such suddenness, that, even in death, she retained the appearance of life; she was still warm, her skin transparent, and her limbs supple. Even her eyes, still wide open, retained their expression, and betrayed the last sensation that had filled her heart,—terror. It looked as if she had had at that last moment a revelation of the future which her too great cautiousness had prepared ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... Her supple waist, her arm from Venus came, Hebe her nose and lip confess, And, looking in her ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... the history of Australian journalism is written it will contain two outstanding Irish names: Daniel Henry Deniehy, who died in 1865, was called by Bulwer Lytton "the Australian Macaulay" on account of his brilliant writings as critic and reviewer in the press of Victoria. Gerald Henry Supple, another Dublin man, is also remembered for his contributions to the Age and the Argus of Melbourne. In India one of the first—if not the first—English newspapers was founded by a Limerick man, named Charles Johnstone, who had previously attained fame as the author of Chrysal, or the ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... troops who were shooting brigands in the outskirts of Sonnino. After the return of Pius 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 house of the Antonellis, ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... not mean, however, to represent him as a monster of wickedness. He was not wantonly cruel or treacherous. He was merely a supple, timid, interested courtier, in times of frequent and violent change. That which has always been represented as his distinguishing virtue, the facility with which he forgave his enemies, belongs to the character. Slaves of his class are never vindictive, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... most exquisitely the graceful bamboo and the peony, so loved by Chinese artists, and of whom it is related that 'she would watch the moving shadows of the sprays thrown by the moon on the paper windows, and transfer the fugitive outlines to paper with a few strokes of her supple brush, so that every smallest scrap of her work was mounted in albums as models for others to copy'.[25] Chao Meng-fu and the Lady Kuan had a son, Chao Yung, who is of special interest to us, for he painted a picture of a Tangut hunter, and Marco ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... his recall show a marked advance in his conceptions of life. He is no longer the abstract dogmatist, but the supple thinker who finds that there is room for the philosopher in the world, at court, even in the inner chamber of the palace. To this period are to be referred his three books De Clementia, which are addressed to Nero, and ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... sufficient number of tall strait branches, fix 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 it with them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... student and his tastes were delicate, still he did not frown upon our rude sports, provided they were not low or brutal. "They make the body erect and supple and give strength and elasticity to the muscles. The body should be cultivated as well as the mind. What we want is a sound mind in ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... the look we have mentioned, and which was perhaps not habitual, his appearance might have been called prepossessing. In his figure there was the grace, in his step the elasticity which come from just proportions and muscular strength. In his hand he carried a supple switch-stick, slight and innocuous to appearance, but weighted at the handle after the fashion of a life-preserver. The tone of his voice was not displeasing to the ear, though there might be something artificial in the swell of it,—the sort of tone men assume ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... turned off 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, ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... 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 life informs the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... good night to Jevons we found Viola sitting on the arm of his chair with the little dish in her hand, feeding him with chocolate nougat. Her posture was one of supple contrition, and ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... afterwards told that, in the spring, the farmers round about turn into these woods their young cattle, which do not come out again till fall. They are then in good condition,—not fat, like grass-fed cattle, but trim and supple, like deer. Once a month the owner hunts them up and salts them. They have their beats, and seldom wander beyond well-defined limits. It was interesting to see them feed. They browsed on the low limbs and bushes, and ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... great measure for their beautiful freedom of motion, for that wondrous grace and charm. Did you ever think what a complexity of muscles, bones, joints, tendons and other arrangements, enter into the formation of the knees, hoofs, legs of a horse; what a piece of mechanism the strong, supple ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... with the blue corn-flower, the supple textile baptised in its soft waters is transformed by the hand of man into cloudy lace, into snowy linen, into fabrics of filmy lightness for my lady's wear, La Lys, name significant and fraught with poetry for us—giving ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... up the valley together, and she remarked what wonderful effect a little variety had upon her companion's spirits—she could not say upon her health, for Corona seemed made of velvet and steel, so smooth and dark, and yet so supple and strong. Corona smiled brightly as she looked far up at the beetling crags behind which Saracinesca ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... difference was not caused by hard work or the lack of it; Rachel had worked hard all her life. It was a difference inherent in temperament. The Spencers, no matter what they did, or how hard they labored, all had plump, smooth, white hands, with firm, supple fingers; the Chiswicks, even those who toiled not, neither did they spin, had hard, knotted, twisted ones. Moreover, the contrast went deeper than externals, and twined itself with the innermost fibers of life, and thought, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... overcoming the enemy in safety; in it extreme cold and intolerable heat have to be borne, indolence and sleep are despised, the bodily powers are invigorated, the limbs of him who engages in it are made supple, and, in a word, it is a pursuit which may be followed without injury to anyone and with enjoyment to many; and the best of it is, it is not for everybody, as field-sports of other sorts are, except hawking, which also is only for kings and great lords. Reconsider your opinion therefore, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... which I submit to the consideration of the reader, that it is not impossible but that the antient Romans, who were, generally speaking, low in stature, and yet were eminently strong, owed that advantage to their cultivation of bodily exercise. This kept their limbs supple, and rendered their constitution stout and hardy. Now, very laborious exercises would rather wear out the machine than they would invigorate it, if there was not a due relaxation, which should not, however, be too abrupt a transition from the most fatiguing ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... seen lambs do, on the sandy shore. They would run here and there, back and forth, at full speed along the sands, leap high into the air, kicking up their heels, and performing all the various antics of which animals so supple and active may be supposed capable. We saw one fellow leap, with a clear bound, over two that were standing looking out over the water, and run some fifty rods up the beach, as if all the hounds in Christendom were at his tail, ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... the fighter—is there as supple and strong as a Damascus blade. One is always aware of the "something dangerous," for all his princely manners and scholarly ways. One is never left in doubt as to how this Hamlet will play the man. It is all too easy for him to draw his sword and make an end of the ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... put on a riding-habit, which revealed the lines of her supple figure, and a wide-brimmed felt hat, which encircled her lovely face and auburn hair, and sat down to her writing-desk, at which she wrote to her uncle, M. d'Aigleroche, a farewell letter to be delivered to him that evening. It was a difficult ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... cities as the centres where the best things are found, cities degrade us by magnifying trifles. The countryman finds the town a chop-house, a barber's shop. He has lost the lines of grandeur of the horizon, hills and plains, and, with them, sobriety and elevation. He has come among a supple, glib-tongued tribe, who live for show, servile to public opinion. Life is dragged down to a fracas of pitiful cares and disasters. You say the gods ought to respect a life whose objects are their own; but in cities ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... giddy as we watch it. The "Golden Calf" is a maturer production and includes some 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 of the groups upon them could not be bettered. The little ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... 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 ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... it. The fact is that the tastes are never so tolerant, so liberal, so generous, so supple as they are at that time of life when they begin, according to your notion, to stiffen, to harden, to contract. We have in this very period formed a new taste—or taken a new lease of an old one—for reading history, which had been dormant all through our first and second youth. ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... truly enough, expected to encounter her in life again—somewhere; though what he had been preparing to see, Heaven alone knew; but certainly not the supple, laughing girl he had known—that smooth, slender, dark-eyed, dainty visitor who had played at marriage with him through a troubled and unreal dream; and was gone when he awoke—so swift the brief two years had passed, as swift in sorrow as ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... to the office, where busy sitting all the morning, and I begin to find a little convenience by holding up my head to Sir W. Pen, for he is come to be more supple. At noon to dinner, and then to the office again, where mighty business, doing a great deale till midnight and then home to supper and to bed. The plague encreased this week 29 from 28, though the total fallen from 238 to 207, which do never ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... worthily of his Countrey, and his assent is not by such easie degrees as those, who hauing beene supple and courteous to the People, Bonnetted, without any further deed, to haue them at all into their estimation, and report: but hee hath so planted his Honors in their Eyes, and his actions in their Hearts, that for their Tongues to be silent, and not ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... pulled off, and, before the bear could understand it, the supple lad was perched above his reach and looking ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... the deed and the manner, but we— We set it apart from the pride that stoops to the proud, The strength that is supple to serve the strong and free, The grace of the empty hands ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... lovers, whose feet hardly felt the ground, and whose hearts bounded and thrilled, and their cheeks glowed, and their eyes shot fire; and when Grace was obliged to stop, because the others stopped, her elastic and tense frame turned supple and soft directly, and she still let her eyes linger on his, and her hand nestle in his a moment: this, and a faint sigh of pleasure and tenderness, revealed how sweet her partner was ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... subtlety of her supple mind she changed the prevailing hatred of President Wilson into a profound and pathetic confidence. She had long since made them envy and admire the women of America, and if these fortunate beings had enthusiastically reelected him and were now giving his policy as persistent and effective assistance ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... going to whoop 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 game ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... 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 in repose, but moved with a singular ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... the sleeve of, avaler les couleuvres[Fr], keep time to, fetch and carry, do the dirty work of. go with the stream, worship the rising sun, hold with the hare and run with the hounds. Adj. servile, obsequious; supple,supple as a glove; soapy, oily, pliant, cringing, abased, dough-faced, fawning, slavish, groveling, sniveling, mealy-mouthed; beggarly, sycophantic, parasitical; abject, prostrate, down on ones marrowbones; base, mean, sneaking; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... weather; how often have I not watched them writhing like madmen amid the snow dust which the north wind's broom raises and smoothes along the hillside! 'What are they doing up there, those desolate trees? I am interested in their supple backs, today still and upright against the blue of the sky, tomorrow shaken when the clouds pass overhead. I am gladdened by their calmness; I am distressed by their terrified gestures. They are my friends. I have them before ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... in the train of a Roman cardinal, he took service with Richelieu, who, remarking in him all the qualities of a supple, insinuating, artificial nature,—that is to say, the nature of a good politician,—appointed him his private secretary, and entrusted him with all his secrets, as if he had singled him out as ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... heavy back of a chair in supple hands descended out of space behind him with a thud; and a great tall fellow, staggering backward with the unexpected pain of that stroke, for the moment obstructed his comrades. For Henry had followed where he could not lead, and now ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... St. John's day since I fell in love with Claudine. She was a pretty, neat, fascinating girl, with a voice sweeter than honey. She was the most beautiful girl in our part of the country, straight as a mast, supple as a willow, graceful and strong as a racing boat. Her eyes sparkled like old cider; her hair was black, her teeth as white as pearls, and her breath was as fresh as the sea breeze. The misfortune was, that she hadn't a sou, while we were in easy circumstances. Her mother, who was the widow ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... to manage him. I felt my advantage at once. His supple nature was one which yielded to roughness far more readily than to entreaty. He flushed with shame, and his eyes filled with tears. But MacCoy saw my advantage also, and was determined that ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lies help truth to live; and he must live himself; and God may have made fools for him to live on;" and many other are the twists of his defence. The poem is as lifelike in its insight into the mind of a supple cheat as it is a brilliant bit of literature; but Browning leaves the matter unconcluded, as he would not have done, I hold, had he been writing poetry. Prince Hohenstiel's defence of expediency in politics ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... unknown to the 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 concluded by unfurling the royal banner ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... the walled garden switching a limber trout-rod when Miss Erith came upon him next morning,—a tall straight young man in his kilts, supple and elegant as the lancewood rod ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... this house on the left hand is a painted recess where the women cling on with their hands in order better to stretch and loosen their bodies and legs; there they teach them to make the whole body supple, in order to make their dancing more graceful. At the other end, on the right, in the place where the king places himself to watch them dancing, all the floors and walls where he sits are covered with gold, and in the middle of the wall is a golden image of a woman of the size of ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... coat-pockets, bent her supple body forward across the table, bringing her eager face nearer to the stranger's. "Did you see ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... Ikirangi which was left to the right, and Mount Hardy whose summit rose on the left to a height of 3,700 feet, the journey was very trying; for about ten miles the bush was a tangle of "supple-jack," a kind of flexible rope, appropriately called "stifling-creeper," that caught the feet at every step. For two days, they had to cut their way with an ax through this thousand-headed hydra. Hunting became impossible, and the sportsmen failed ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... that men may know it How many worthy men have we known to survive their reputation Humble out of pride I am very glad to find the way beaten before me by others I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead I have not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden question I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing Ill luck is good for something Imitating other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger
... uncouth, shapeless things, each hewed out of a great cypress log. In the end of each an Indian stood erect plying a long pole which sent their clumsy looking crafts forward at surprising speed. Magnificent savages they were, not one less than six feet tall, framed like athletes, and lithe and supple as panthers. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... toward the frying-pan, no one seemed really apprehensive that he would keep them waiting. The youth had an oval, almost childish face; his skin was dark, clear, and softly coloured as any girl's; his hair fell in black, loose curls over his forehead. He was tall, slender without being thin, very supple; but his languid attitudes fell short of grace, and were only tolerable because they were comic. When he reached out his hand for the handle of the frying-pan he held the attention of the whole company by virtue of his office, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... used some conventional phrases which she scarcely answered, and then nothing was heard but the sounds of the sickle and the corn. She worked steadily for some time, and he looked up at her at intervals with her round bare arms and supple waist and firm-set foot and tight red stocking. Two butterflies tumbling in the air played around her sun bonnet and a lady-clock settled ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... evidence of our senses, yet there stood the cunning scamp before us, with his long limbs and lank body, as supple as ever, and grinning with ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... and dark and handsome. His face was smooth-shaven, his figure tall, lithe, and alert. He wore a uniform of light blue and silver that clung to him and high boots of patent leather. His waist was like a girl's, and, as though to show how supple he was, he kept continually bowing and shrugging his shoulders and in elegant protest gesticulating with his gloved hands. He should have been a moving- picture actor. He reminded me of Anthony Hope's fascinating but wicked Rupert of Hentzau. He certainly was wicked, and ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... had nothing to win except thirty quid, to pay to the landlord and the tradesmen. And, as Tom King thus ruminated, there came to his stolid vision the form of Youth, glorious Youth, rising exultant and invincible, supple of muscle and silken of skin, with heart and lungs that had never been tired and torn and that laughed at limitation of effort. Yes, Youth was the Nemesis. It destroyed the old uns and recked not that, in so doing, it destroyed itself. ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... the ruins rose a slender, supple figure, topping the pyramid of elephant flesh in a graceful poise. The figure, clad in red silk tights, appeared to be that of a ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... she looked now. The nervous irritability under which she was suffering brightened her face with the animation which was wanting in it at ordinary times. Her soft brown eyes sparkled; her smooth dusky cheeks glowed with a warm red flush; her tall supple figure asserted its full dignity, robed in a superb dress of silken purple and black lace, which set off her personal attractions to the utmost advantage. She not only roused the admiration of Amelius—she unconsciously gave him back the ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... knew the youth. He was a handsome, ruddy young fellow of about six and twenty, with a little spiral moustache twisted upwards in betyar fashion, flowing curly locks gathered up into a top-knot, black flashing eyes, and a bold expressive mouth, slight of build, but muscular and supple. His dress was rustic, but simple almost to affectation; you would not have found a seal on his white bulging shirt, search as you might, and he wore his cap, with a tuft of meadow-sweet in it, as gallantly as ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... to seal his letter and she studied him with admiring eyes. He was so interesting in his boyish confusion—graceful in spite of his irrelevant movements, for he was as supple, as properly poised, and ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... only the woman. She was youthful, just between girlhood and womanhood—unconscious, strong, and active as the first; with the troubled mystery of the second. The artist had divined an exquisite moment in life, and into the immature figure, the face of perfect repose, the supple limbs, he had thrown the tender mystery that met the morning light. It was the new birth—that ancient, solemn, joyous beginning of things in woman and ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... performance would have been too divine for a mortal." Her beauty was so marked, so singular, that wherever she appeared—at the ball, the theatre—it caused a sensation; all turned to look at her and admire in subdued astonishment. Her form was said to be marvellously elegant and supple, her neck of an exquisite perfection, her mouth "deliciously small and pink, her teeth veritable pearls set in coral, her arms splendidly moulded, her eyes full of sweetness and admiration, her nose most attractive in its regularity, her physiognomy ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... looked at the supple strength of her, so subtly knit in curves of graciousness, alert and upright in the new saddle, Panama hat in one hand, the better to get the wind full in her face, her cheeks flushed with the caress of it, the thick brown braids fluffing here and there;—she was the essence of gameness. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... results in a freezing coldness of manner. In an ugly woman all this would be repulsive; but Gloria is an attractive woman. Her deep chestnut hair, olive brown skin, long eyelashes, shaded grey eyes that often flash like stars, delicately turned full lips, and compact and supple, but muscularly plump figure appeal with disdainful frankness to the senses and imagination. A very dangerous girl, one would say, if the moral passions were not also marked, and even nobly marked, in a fine brow. Her tailor-made skirt-and-jacket dress of saffron ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... receive from us Knee-tribute yet unpaid, prostration vile, Too much to one, but double how endur'd, 780 To one and to his image now proclaim'd? But what if better counsels might erect Our minds and teach us to cast off this Yoke? Will ye submit your necks, and chuse to bend The supple knee? ye will not, if I trust To know ye right, or if ye know your selves Natives and Sons of Heav'n possest before By none, and if not equal all, yet free, Equally free; for Orders and Degrees ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... capable of animation, but their prevailing expression is melancholy. Why is this? Is it because they know how secondary a place woman holds in this city of well-nourished, self-satisfied men? Is it that they know that a girl's life is so brief: one day as supple and active as they are now and the next a crone? For it is one of the tragedies that the Venetian atmosphere ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... continued, after silent thought, "that in these cases the Virgin acts upon us, it is she who moulds and places us in the hands of her Son, but her fingers are so light, so supple, so caressing, that the soul they have handled has ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... hallucinations, and with many and various phantasms. He might be compared to a salmon in a weir, or to a bird after being caught in the strait prison of a crib," &c. "When he was seized with this frantic fit, he made a supple, very light leap, and where he alighted he was on the boss of the shield of the warrior next him; and he made a second leap, and perched on the crest of the helmet of the same hero, who, nevertheless, did not feel him. Then he made a third active, very light leap, and perched on ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... very unnatural life, but I'll be shot if I'll regulate mine or my wife'& behaviour by the twaddle they talk! I'll have that dagger." Slipping it slowly into its sheath he watched it travel home, the supple female curve gliding and yielding as a woman yields to a man's caress. "Voluptuous, I call it. Under the left breast, eh?" He drew it again and held it poised and pointing at his cousin. "Come, even I could cut your heart ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... man with a hooky nose, and with bright, long-sighted brown eyes and strong, sensitive hands, wrists tempered and supple as a rapier, and a tongue ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... assemblies, and outward callings of men; planting our faith 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 lend them voices from ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... best and bravest aspect. His head sat proud and easy on his firm, white throat, bared to the air. The rising of his mighty chest, as he drew in deep draughts of the fragrant summer breeze; the play of his lithe and supple loins; the easy, elastic stride of his straight and shapely legs, presented a triumph of physical manhood in its highest type. Mrs. Glenarm's eyes devoured him in silent admiration. He looked like a young god of mythology—like a statue animated with color ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... For who hath grieved when soft arms shut him safe, And all life melted to a happy sigh, And all the world was given in one warm kiss? So sang, they with soft float of beckoning hands, Eyes lighted with love-flames, alluring smiles; In dainty dance their supple sides and limbs Revealing and concealing like burst buds Which tell their colour, but hide yet their hearts. Never so matchless grace delighted eye As troop by troop these midnight-dancers swept Nearer the Tree, each daintier than the last, Murmuring, "O great Siddartha! I am thine, ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... so, Gideon, glancing forward to the farther mouth of the gulch, saw a strange horseman approaching at a full gallop. He came like a wild gust of wind, leaning over in his seat and slinging his supple lariat above his flapping hat as he came. He wore the usual red shirt and blue scarf of the frontiersman, and he was mounted on a splendid bay horse, that was less like a prairie mustang ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... dignified, scraping out a monotonous but rhythmic minor strain to which two young negroes from the lower quarters—famous dancers—were keeping time in marvelous shuffling and pigeon-wings; twisting their supple joints into astonishing contortions and the sweat rolling from their black visages. A crowd of darkies stood at a respectful distance an appreciative and encouraging audience. And seated on the broad rail of the ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... turbulent humour of that of his birth. 'If the devil,' he said, 'had sought out an agent expressly for the purpose of embroiling this miserable country, I do not think he could find a better than such a fellow as this, whose temper seems equally active, supple, and mischievous, and who is followed, and implicitly obeyed, by a gang of such cut-throats as those whom you are pleased to ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... a dozen armed men. They wore the same beaked helmets, the supple encasing breast- and back-plates, but their leggings were gray. They, too, carried curved swords, but the weapons were still latched to their belts and they made no move to draw them in spite of the very patent hostility of ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... should retain his own manner[783]. Pliability of address I conceive to be inconsistent with that majestick power of mind which he possesses, and which produces such noble effects. A lofty oak will not bend like a supple willow. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... Dumbiedikes, 'I were as young and as supple as you, and had the gift o' the gab as weel.'"—Heart ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... the four avengers, had created a distinct place for himself in Chinatown by making a careful study of New York psychology. He was a good-looking Chink, smooth-faced, tall and supple; he knew very well how to capitalize his attractiveness. By day he attended Columbia University as a special student in applied electricity, keeping a convenient eye meanwhile on three coolies whom he employed to run The College Laundry on Morningside Heights. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... understanding: their proneness to distraction, and the itching curiosity of the mind, must be curbed, and their repugnance to attend to spiritual things corrected by habits of recollection, holy meditation, and prayer. Above all, the will must be rendered supple and pliant by frequent self-denial, which must reach and keep in subjection all its most trifling sallies and inclinations. If any of these, how insignificant soever they may seem, are not restrained and vanquished, they will ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the assistance the republic owed to indigent citizens. All these reports passed into decrees, agreeably to the wishes of the democrats. Barrere, whose habitual speeches in the convention were calculated to disguise his servitude from himself, was one of the most supple instruments of the committee; he belonged to the regime of terror, neither from cruelty nor from fanaticism. His manners were gentle, his private life blameless, and he possessed great moderation of mind. But he was timid; and after having been a constitutional ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... 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 ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... stalls at Gray Oaks stables were many good hunters, but none better than Pasha. Cream-white he was, from the tip of his splendid, yard-long tail to his pink-lipped muzzle. His coat was as silk plush, his neck as supple as a swan's, and out of his big, bright eyes there looked such intelligence that one half expected him to speak. His lines were all long, graceful curves, and when he danced daintily on his slender legs one could see the muscles flex under ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... of it mattered. 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 ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... strange face of Williams a few places down, and opposite her. His eyes were fixed on her husband's hands with a singular intensity. Her eyes followed his, and the beauty of her husband's hands came to her again with new force. They were perfectly shaped, supple, warm-colored, and strong. Their color and deftness stood out in vivid contrast to the heavy, brown, cracked, and calloused, ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... went closer to him, and said "And you will seek them in vain, my young friend; nor, if you found them, could you use them. It is easier to hit a woman, an eel, a soaring bird, than these supple, weak, unarmed, robed creatures, who have love and peace on their tongues and use their physical helplessness as a defence, aiming invisible but poisoned darts at those they hate—at you first and foremost, Son of the Mukaukas; I know it and I advise you: Be on your ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that made him the most extraordinary figure of his time. Originally a stockfarmer and skilled in all the exercises of the cowboy, he developed an unusual talent for administration. His keen intelligence, supple statecraft, inflexibility of purpose, and vigor of action, united to a shrewd understanding of human follies and passions, gave to his personality a dominance that awed and to his word of command a power that humbled. Over his fellow chieftains who held the provinces in terrorized subjection, ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... tornado of applause, but sat motionless, looking up at him. Quite unconstrained by all those people, he passed the back of his hand across his hot brow, shoving up a wave or two of that queer-coloured hair; then, with a rather disagreeable smile, he made a short supple bow or two. And she thought, "What strange eyes he has—like a great cat's!" Surely they were green; fierce, yet shy, almost furtive—mesmeric! Certainly the strangest man she had ever seen, and the most frightening. He seemed looking ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... aroused now. Every angry force within her was fully awake. Every sense of right and justice inherited and taught came flocking forward. Horror unspeakable filled her, and wrath, that such a dreadful thing should come to her. There was no time to think. She brought her two strong supple hands up and beat him in the face, mouth, cheeks, and eyes, with all her might, until he turned blinded; and then she struggled away crying, "You are a wicked man!" ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... him, 'I dinna deny but what you say is true; but I have supple heels, a ready hand, a good sword, and a stout heart, and I ken a canny byre where there are threescore o' sleak beasties, weel worth ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... forth, over the net, spun the little white ball, driven by the quick, sure strokes of the players. There was no sound save the bounding of the ball against the racquets, and the thud of rubber soles on the hard ground. Then—a sudden twirl of a supple ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... of the grand-stand seats, as he spoke, and sat down, leaning on the rail with an easy movement of his supple figure. That was the first characteristic strangers usually noted in him: an exquisite Hellenic grace of strength and faultless proportion. He was a man's beauty, as distinguished from a beauty-man; other men were given to admiring him extravagantly and unresentfully. Unresentfully, ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... of this request delivered through the medium of the ticket- seller, Amarilly promptly appeared at the studio. She was gravely and courteously received by the artist, Derry Phillips, an easy-mannered youth, slim and supple, with dark, laughing eyes. When they had transacted the business pertaining to the rental of the surplice, Amarilly arose from her chair with apparent reluctance. This was a new atmosphere, and she was fascinated by the pictures and the general air of artistic ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... that there ceased to be any contest in it. I never did get the sleeve trick; but then, I never succeeded in fooling the merest infant with any of my attempts at legerdemain. Johnny could flip that little derringer out with a twist of his supple wrist as neatly as a snake darts its forked tongue. For ten minutes at a time he practised it, over and over, as regularly as ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... what ails the censurer, that he at thee should flite? How shall I be consoled for thee, and thou a sapling slight? O thou, the splendour of whose sight has ta'en my heart by storm, Whose supple bending grace compels to passion's utmost height,[FN125] Whose eyes, with Turkish languor caught, work havoc in the breast And leave such wounds as ne'er were made by falchion in the fight! Thou layst on me a heavy load of passion and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... some out of their number are likely to blunder upon us. If it comes to a battle you will notice that I have an extra rifle and pistol for you lying in the bottom of the canoe, and that I am something more than a supple dancer ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... understood. A slender brown hand stole out from the white coverlet and touched his. Its outline, long and supple and graceful, spoke of patrician origin. It was hard for the man of wealth and pride to realize that it was the hand of the child of the common people, the people ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... notice of the German adept, who occupied the front seat of the carriage, which is usually conferred upon dependants or inferiors. The ready grin and supple inclination with which his salutation, though slight, was answered by the foreigner, increased the internal dislike which Lovel had already conceived towards him; and it was plain, from the lower of the Antiquary's shaggy eye-brow, that he too looked with ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... heady drink for one in his condition. The full-throated birds sang to him, and the booming insects hummed to him and her eyes prophesied to him of a thousand days like this which lay like roses in bud. He watched with growing awe the supple movement of her body, the tender arch of her neck, and the clear surface of her features ever alive with the quick expression of her eager thoughts. She caught his gaze once and colored prettily but without ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... saw the large business desk with prosaic standard equipment which stood on the carpet on the other side of the pool. They moved rapidly past the pool, Quillan still hauling at her arm. Trigger kept staring at the pillars they passed. Long-limbed, supple and languid, they floated in their crystal cages, in tinted, shifting lights, eyes closed, hair ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... 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 Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... the strength of her lithe and supple body. Above his cheek-bone a red streak leaped out where the sharp knuckles had crushed ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... clay, wax, butter, dough, pudding; alumina, argil; cushion, pillow, feather bed, down, padding, wadding; foam. mollification; softening &c v.. V. render soft &c adj.; soften, mollify, mellow, relax, temper; mash, knead, squash. bend, yield, relent, relax, give. plasticize'. Adj. soft, tender, supple; pliant, pliable; flexible, flexile; lithe, lithesome; lissom, limber, plastic; ductile; tractile^, tractable; malleable, extensile, sequacious^, inelastic; aluminous^; remollient^. yielding &c v.; flabby, limp, flimsy. doughy, spongy, penetrable, foamy, cushiony^. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... several of these drops in this transparent Glue whilst hot, and suffering them to hang by a string tied about the end of them till they were cold, and the skin pretty tough; then wrapping all the body of the drop (leaving out only the very tip) in fine supple Kids-leather very closely, I nipped off the small top, and found, as I expected, that notwithstanding this skin of Glue, and the close wrapping up in Leather, upon the breaking of the top, the drop gave a crack like the rest, and gave my hand a pretty brisk impulse: but ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... convolutions of her weird dance. The wide stage was a yellow flood of light, and she the very witch of motion. This was her third encore, but, as wildly grotesque as ever, her full skirts shimmering in the glare of the foot-lights, her tripping feet barely touching the sanded floor, her young, supple figure, light as a fairy, weaving in the perfect rhythm of music, the tireless child of Mexico leaped and spun, wheeled and twirled,—at times apparently floated upon the very air, her bare white arms extended, her wonderful eyes ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... New York politician, whether a Clinton or a Livingston, Burrite, Federalist, or Republican,—all equally disliked Virginia; and this innate jealousy gave to the career of Martin Van Buren for forty years a bias which perplexed his contemporaries, and stood in singular contradiction to the soft and supple nature he seemed in all else to show."—Henry Adams, History of the United States, Vol. 6, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... 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 lowest; for ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... three years younger than Richard Crashaw, and the alexandrine is to be found—to be found by searching—in Crashaw; and he took precisely the same care as Cowley that the long wand of that line should not give way in the middle—should be strong and supple and should last. Here are four of his ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... who traveled for years with a circus. He used to give lessons to the boys, but most contented themselves with a few common exercises. I suppose I should also, but there was an English boy in the school, very supple and muscular, who was proud of his strength, and ambitious to make himself a thorough gymnast. He persuaded me to take lessons in the most difficult acrobatic feats with him, as two had to ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... the young saplings as they loosened the roots, then trimming them into shape. More than once, however, she detected glances, and his thoughts were more flattering than she imagined. "What vigor she has in that supple, rounded form! Her very touch ought to put life into these trees; I know it would into me. How young she looks in that comical old dress which barely reaches her ankles! Yes, Hal Minturn; and ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... smiles transfigured the dull, blank features; her round shoulders, pendulous arms, slouching pose, melted into superb symmetry, quickening with grace and youth as she straightened up and faced him, erect, supple, laughing, adorable. ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... tone of this reply which warned Barrant that he had made a blunder in allowing his irritation to get the better of him. But his private opinion was that the letter was the outcome of some secret of the dead man's which he had imparted to his lawyer. He changed his mood with supple swiftness, in order to extract ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack—yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away—jerk!—he was as erect, and carried his head as ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... thousands and its tens of thousands, and multitudes of dram-drinkers daily shelter themselves under its delusive mask. One takes a little to raise his desponding spirits, or to drown his sorrow; another, to sharpen his appetite, or relieve his dyspepsia: one, to ease his gouty pains; another, to supple his stiffened limbs, or calm his quivering muscles. One drinks to overcome the heat; another, to ward off the cold; and all this as a medicine. Appeal, then, to the medical profession, and they will tell you—every independent, honest, sober, intelligent ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... longer in parley, I tell thee in fine that thou couldst not have discovered thy mind to any one in the world who can be more useful to thee than I, for that there is no man so high and mighty but I dare tell him what behoveth, nor any so dour or churlish but I know how to supple him aright and bring him to what I will. Wherefore do thou but show me who pleaseth thee and after leave me do; but one thing I commend to thee, daughter mine, and that is, that thou be mindful of ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and ready to submit, The supple Gaul was born a parasite: Still to his interest true where'er he goes, Wit, bravery, worth, his lavish tongue bestows; In every face a thousand graces shine, From every tongue flows harmony divine. These arts in vain our rugged natives try, Strain out, with ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... in my presence naturally, with no obtrusive kindness; she was at a necessitous task—putting a broad gray patch, the best available from the resources at home, on Jimmy Kirtland's brown jacket, doing it deftly with her supple hands. ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... the vast wilderness has given them athletic, supple bodies, which they handle to a nicety when fighting. Although the Moros build stone forts and mount them with old-fashioned cannon; although their arsenals are fairly well supplied with Remingtons and ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... the men who first expressed that silver temperance in tone, with Claude Le Jeune, with Rameau and Couperin and the other clavecinists. Undiverted by the changes of revolutionary times, they continue, in forms conditioned by the modern feeling for color, for tonal complexity, for supple and undulant rhythm, the high tradition of the ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... Man at his birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm and strong. (So it is with) all things. Trees and plants, in their early growth, are soft and brittle; at their death, dry ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... years ago, mates, when I was as young and supple as the boy Bill, there—though I was older than him by some years—I was serving my apprenticeship to the trade aboard the sloop Lively Nan. There were not such big vessels in the trade then, mates, as now; but they were tight craft, and manned ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various |
