"Conformation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... general distribution of the reef-building corals, but there are some very interesting and singular circumstances to be observed in the conformation of the reefs, when we consider them individually. The reefs, in fact, are of three different kinds; some of them stretch out from the shore, almost like a prolongation of the beach, covered only by shallow water, and in the case of an island, surrounding it like a fringe of no considerable ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... senses attain their perceptions by feeling, in the strict meaning of the word. We say things feel hard or soft, the varying density of the objects being the cause of the varying sensations they awaken. Smoothness and roughness are varying outlines of surface, existing as physical conformation; the pleasurable or disagreeable sensations awakened in us by contact being due to the greater or less irritation of the nerves of feeling that attrition with it occasions. Motion is absolutely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... distinguished as Dandie Eassil-gate, Dandie Wassilgate, Dandie Thumbie, and Dandie Dumbie. The two first had their names from living eastward and westward in the street of the village; the third from something peculiar in the conformation of his thumb; the fourth from his ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... of level between the source and mouth of the brook is about 190 feet. The sharpest descent is just above the hatchery and rearing troughs, which therefore receive well-aerated water. The conformation of the ground offers good facilities for the distribution and utilization of ...
— New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century • Various
... them. This argument, doubtless, might be pressed further, and made to prove much more. It would be eminently desirable that other things besides reading, writing, and arithmetic could be made necessary to the suffrage; that some knowledge of the conformation of the earth, its natural and political divisions, the elements of general history, and of the history and institutions of their own country, could be required from all electors. But these kinds of knowledge, however ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... fails in the administration of justice. Doctor Peets will be glad to exhibit this memento mori to all who care to call. Doctor Peets, who is eminent as a phrenologist, avers that said skull is remarkable for its thickness, and that its conformation points to the possession by Bear Creek, while he wore it, of the most powerful natural inclinations to crime. From these discoveries of Doctor Peets, the committee which suspended this felon to the windmill is to be congratulated on acting just in time. It seems ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... friends, those who believe, or fancy that they believe such things, must be able to do so only through some peculiar conformation either of brain or heart. Only want of imagination to conceive the consequences of such doctrines can enable them, if they have any love and pity for their fellow-men, to preach those doctrines without pity and horror. They know not, they know not, of what they rob a mankind already ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... happened, not one of the men from the district was among them, until one day when the company after a fierce charge found itself hugging the ground in a wide field, on the far side of which the enemy—infantry and artillery—was posted in force. Lying down they were pretty well protected by the conformation of the ground from the artillery; and lying down, the infantry generally, even with their better guns, could not hurt them to a great extent; but a line of sharp-shooters, well placed behind cover of scattered rocks on the far side of the field, could reach them with their long-range rifles, ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... not so learned as we, yet they were wiser. They did not explain the phenomena of nature, but described with a graceful and imposing imagery. The rainbow, reduced in our colleges to a mere conformation of matter, was the scarf of Iris; the light-footed hours preceded the car of night, and the rosy-fingered Aurora opened the horizon to permit the car of Jove to pass. When the thunder rolled, Jupiter ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... considers that the world teems with such beings, and that by their every movement they modify or counteract, in their own case at least, the mightiest of all nature's forces, and that no inconsiderable portion of the earth's surface owes its conformation to their action, we are astonished at finding all this characterized as the solitary instance of an efficient cause. But by a sentence at the bottom of this page we are enlightened as to the real reason for ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... "The conformation of the shores indicate that. It can generally be determined in this way: If the sides of the ground near the shore are steep, it is pretty sure to make a contracted channel, and that means depth. On the other hand, if the beach is sloping ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... the Gold Coast, owing to the conformation of the country, will be a far simpler and less expensive process than in California or Australia. In the latter water has first to be bought, and then to be brought in pipes, flumes, leats, or races from a considerable distance, sometimes extending over forty miles. It ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... of the spine with the convexity forwards, is chiefly met with in the lumbar region as an exaggeration of the natural curvature. A minor degree of lordosis sometimes occurs as a peculiarity in the conformation of the individual and may be present in several members of the same family; also in street-hawkers and others who carry weights suspended in front of them; in very obese persons; in those who suffer from large abdominal tumours, such as fibroids; and in ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... give is this, That besides the general conformation of those hard bodies, so as to be perfectly adapted to each other's shape, there is, in some places, a mutual indentation of the different pieces of gravel into each other; an indentation which resembles perfectly that junction ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... descent, the Mochuelo commanded a halt. The place where this occurred was in a narrow gorge between two lines of hills, or it should rather be said of mountains; for although their altitude was only here and there very considerable, their cragged and precipitous conformation and rocky material entitled them to the latter denomination. The passage between them continued narrow only for a few hundred yards, after which, at either of its extremities, the mountains receded, and the valley opened into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... and the enemy's advanced detachments have begun to register ranges and destroy possible observation posts across the river with such artillery as they have so far had the time to bring up. Whether the Piave line and the rest of the Italian front to the westward, which has had to be modified in conformation with the general movement of retreat, can be held indefinitely, will probably be a question of heavy guns. If the enemy can bring up his larger artillery before reinforcements of the same character arrive from France and ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... and within this inclosed sea, is a place where the water is just of the right depth, and the bottom of just the right conformation for the convenient anchoring of ships of war. This place is called Spithead, and it forms one of the most famous anchoring grounds in the world. It is here that the vast fleets of the English navy assemble, ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... That mental conformation created by the diffusion of this superstitious spirit is an obstacle, an insuperable barrier set up against the development of the moral sense. We shall sow principles of morality as the farmer who sows in the fields the seeds ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera
... qualities have been determined, it is then necessary to consider the nut itself. The nut must be of fair size, of good flavor, thin to medium thickness of shell, well filled, and of good cracking quality—that is, the conformation of the shell and kernel must be such that a large percentage of the kernels can be taken out as whole halves, and the convolutions of the kernels must be wide enough that the partitions do not adhere to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... Adrian imagined, the despicable soul that lay beneath his uncle's unangled exterior: undeviating self-indulgence; secrecy; utter selfishness—he was selfish even to the woman he was supposed to love; that is, if he was capable of loving any one but himself—a bland hypocrisy; an unthinking conformation to the dictates of an unthinking world. The list could be multiplied. But to sum it up, here was epitomized, beautifully, concretely, the main and minor vices of a generation for which Adrian found little pity in his heart; a generation brittle as ice; a ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... the boat was a favorable one for observing the conformation of the country, and Mrs. Sedley improved the opportunity to point out the various ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... three, years in Syria: his most important geographical discoveries in this country relate to the nature of the district between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Elana; the extent, conformation, and detailed topography of the Haouran; the situation of Apanea on the river Orontes, which was one of the most important cities of Syria under the Macedonian Greeks; the site of Petreea; and the general structure of the peninsula of Mount Sinai. Perhaps ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... Tartarus and Olympus, the vain doctrines concerning the gods themselves, and the extravagant expectations which the vulgar entertained of an immortality, supposed to be possessed by creatures who were in every respect mortal, both in the conformation of their bodies, and in the internal belief of their souls. Of these wrise and good men some granted the existence of the supposed deities, but denied that they cared about the actions of mankind any more ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Gothic Bricklayer of Babel, called an architect,[ob] Brought to survey these grey walls which, though so thick, Might have from Time acquired some slight defect; Who, after rummaging the Abbey through thick And thin, produced a plan whereby to erect New buildings of correctest conformation, And throw down old—which ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... their position on the ridge of the Aisne. It could not have retreated without fearful loss as that ridge was the last conformation of any military value in the practically flat country between the Aisne ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... wonderful and enchanting fact to man's highest reason? Does it contain no suggestion that man, representing the highest pinnacle of created life upon the globe, must undergo a final metamorphosis, as supremely more marvelous and more spiritual, as man is greater in physical conformation, and far removed in mental construction from the humble worm that at the call of nature straightway leaves the ground, and soars upon the gleeful air? Is the fact not a thousand-fold more convincing than the assurance ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... bear the same relation as Sicily presents to the peninsula of Italy. MALTE BRUN[2] and the geographers generally, declared the larger animals of either to be common to both. I was led to question the soundness of this dictum;—and from a closer examination of its geological conformation and of its botanical and zoological characteristics I came to the conclusion that not only is there an absence of sameness between the formations of the two localities; but that plants and animals, mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects exist in Ceylon, which are not to be found in the flora and ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... on his boots the fat man drew them back of the rungs of his chair. This attention to personal details of his conformation was embarrassing. ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... geographical, and applied from time immemorial to the persons living in those valleys of Piedmont which have ever formed part of the Italian territory, and are not to be confounded with the Swiss Canton de Vaud, bearing a name so like because of the similarity of geographical conformation. ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... the ship-building trades—in one of which the men, while in the other the women, of many families are employed—is one of the most powerful instruments of social progress. The narrow sea which separates it from Scotland and the geographical conformation of Belfast Lough have, moreover, a great bearing on its prosperity. Independence of Irish railways with their excessive freights, crippling by their incidence all export trade, in a town like Belfast, nine-tenths of the industrial output of which goes across the sea, and ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... fallen in. The houses are entirely constructed of sun-dried mud bricks, now quite soldered together by age and reduced into a compact mass. A few of the more important dwellings have two storeys, and all the buildings evidently had formerly domed roofs. In order that the conformation of each house may be better understood, a plan of one typical building is given. On a larger or smaller scale they all resembled one another very closely, and were not unlike the Persian ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the evening I had seen peering out at me an old woman's face. Conceive my astonishment at finding the spot still lighted and a face looking out, but not the same face, a countenance as old, one as intent, but of different conformation and of a much more intellectual type. I considered myself the victim of an illusion; I tried to persuade myself that it was the same woman, only in another garb and under a different state of feeling; but the features were much too dissimilar for such an hypothesis to hold. The eagerness, the ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... Calder's conformation of eye enabled him to express much surprise by facial expression, and at this moment he used his ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... overhanging conformation of the place, it was quite impossible for us to descend in front where pressure had made the snow hard as stone, we were obliged to risk a march over the looser material upon its flank. As there was ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... said that in these cases the things employed are of the same kind, it is answered that even in the case of men and women, the nature of the two persons is the same. And as the difference in their ways of working arises from the difference of their conformation only, it follows that men experience the same kind of pleasure ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... relieved from the monotony of too great uniformity by numerous mountains of fantastical shapes and appearance, entirely unconnected with each other, and all varying in the primitive matter of their conformation. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... legend to that of the barnacle tree, we may select the story of the "Lamb Tree" of Cathay, told by Sir John Mandeville, whose notes of travel regarding crocodiles' tears, and other points in the conformation of these reptiles, have already been referred to. Sir John, in that chapter of his work which treats "Of the Contries and Yles that ben bezonde the Lond of Cathay; and of the Frutes there," etc., relates ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... Mr. Claude Blakely's face merged into outlines more rugged than usual; the conformation of his jaw became perceptible, and it could be seen that he had conceived an idea which ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... well as animals. The latter, however, have no consciousness anterior to their physical births, and very little, indeed, for some time afterwards; whereas a different law prevails as respects us; our mental conformation being such as to enable us to refer our moral existence to a period that embraces the experience, reasoning and sentiments of several generations. As respects logical inductions, for instance, the linum usitatissimum draws ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... work done by the men who have laid bare so many of the secrets of the interior, and by deductions to be drawn from the physical conformation and climatic peculiarities already revealed, we may, to some extent, conjecture the possibilities of the future. With every variety of climate between temperate and tropical, with enormous mineral treasures—the extent ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... had gone into it was coming back in long, sweeping lines of fertility. The changes seemed beautiful and harmonious to me; it was like watching the growth of a great man or of a great idea. I recognized every tree and sandbank and rugged draw. I found that I remembered the conformation of the land as one remembers ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... the world where chance may offer him the sight, a being, man or woman, at whose aspect a thousand confused thoughts spring into his mind? At that sight we are suddenly interested, either by features of some fantastic conformation which reveal an agitated life, or by a singular effect of the whole person, produced by gestures, air, gait, clothes; or by some deep, intense look; or by other inexpressible signs which seize our minds suddenly and forcibly without our being able to explain even ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... fluid differ considerably from those presented by the maps of the physical portion of a more ancient geography. Importance of the eruption of quartzose, porphyry with reference to the then existing configuration of continental masses. Individual conformation in horizontal extension (relations of articulation) and in vertical elevation (hypsometrical views). Influence of the relations of the area of land and sea on the temperature, direction of the winds, abundance or scarcity of organic products, and on all meteorological processes ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... of the head, peculiar conformation of the ears, and other "stigmata," science long ago demonstrated that these are ordinarily of little ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... sufficient amount of damp and no more, it almost seems to try to resume its old condition. This will be borne out by watching the effect of much wet upon any wood that has been previously bent into shape, or upon the separated ribs of a violin. The efforts of the wood to return to its original conformation will be apparent in the instance of the ribs, perhaps provoking, as the re-bending without injuring the varnish, which may happen to be of the most lustrous and delicate description, is often a matter of great difficulty, and at times ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... one which I must not omit, but must explain by what means ships are sheltered in them from storms. If their situation has natural advantages, with projecting capes or promontories which curve or return inwards by their natural conformation, such harbours are obviously of the greatest service. Round them, of course, colonnades or shipyards must be built, or passages from the colonnades to the business quarters, and towers must be set up on both sides, from which chains can be drawn ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... giving free play to the lungs; while your chest is narrow and flat. Without any compression, the action of your lungs is not so free and healthy as hers would be, laced as tightly as you say she laces. But when to your natural conformation you add artificial pressure, the action of your lungs becomes not only enfeebled, but the unhealthy action induced tends to develop that peculiar form of disease, the predisposition to which ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... before me leaneth but little on any subtleties of speech. Let the man be placed in an attitude of ease; one in which nature may not be fettered by restraint. The conformation of the whole head is remarkably aboriginal, but the distinction of tribes is not to be sought in these general delineations. The forehead, as you see, neighbors, is retreating and narrow, the cheek-bones, as usual, high, and the olfactory member, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... a high degree of improbability in supposing a rude dialect to supplant a substantial portion of a more polished one; and, thirdly, we must not overlook the collateral evidence of the similarity of conformation pervading the entire race from Polynesia to the archipelago—distinct alike from ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... wearer's cranium, appeared an elderly profile, half-official, half-soldierly, with a comical admixture of arrogance,—altogether something like caricatures of the Constitutionnel. The sometime official finding that age, and hair-powder, and the conformation of his spine made it impossible to read a word without spectacles, sat displaying a very creditable expanse of chest with all the pride of an old man with a mistress. Like old General Montcornet, that pillar of the Vaudeville, he wore earrings. Denisart was partial ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... subside into the valley to their summit at the eastern ends. The ravines between these ridges can be readily traversed by troops and the bluffs at the eastern extremity of each, or where they "head," can be easily climbed. It is true, that the conformation of the ground presents at one side, a serious obstacle to an attacking force. The base of these ridges, which have been described, or the parent hill, of which they seem to be offshoots, is separated from the level ground ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... will find some rich mines near here soon. Stay; it can do you no harm. I will tell you something: three days ago I followed up the river, and about twenty miles above this spot I became attracted by the conformation of the country, and remarked it as being very similar to some very famous spots in South America. 'Here,' I said to myself, 'Maximilian, you have your volcanic disturbance, your granite, your clay, slate, and sandstone ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... his right leg over the lady's head. Having lived in the East, I am aware that Oriental women ride astride, but I have not seen any of them voluntarily go out of a walk. It is not difficult to trot and canter in a man's plain hunting saddle, but I think our conformation requires the assistance of knee rolls for jumping. We may see even fair horsemen thrown by a horse suddenly stopping dead at a fence, an accident that rarely occurs to a woman in a side saddle, as the grip afforded by her crutches gives ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... Austria necessarily played a conspicuous part, are dealt with elsewhere (see EUROPE, FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS, NAPOLEON, NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS). Here it will only be necessary to mention those which form permanent landmarks in the progressive conformation of the Austrian monarchy. Such was the second partition of Poland (January 23, 1793), which eliminated the "buffer state" on which Austrian statesmanship had hitherto laid such importance, and brought the Austrian and Russian frontiers ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... supposes this tribe to be peculiar to America, but in this he is certainly mistaken; and probably, as Pallas has observed in his Zoology, the Phalanger itself is a native of the East Indies, as the animal which was caught by Mr Banks resembled it in the extraordinary conformation of the feet, in which it differs from animals of every ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... admiration in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris for accuracy of proportion and delicacy of modelling, deserves to rank with the finest statues of the ancient empire. The men's heads are veritable portraits, in which such details as a peculiar conformation of the skull, prominent cheekbones, deep-set eyes, sunken cheeks, or the modelling of the chin, have all been observed and reproduced with a fidelity and keenness of observation which we fail to find in such works of the earlier artists as have come down to us. These later sculptors ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... that the boss of pirouettiveness is strangely wanting in human conformation, and that there is consequently all the excuse of ignorance for the wild enthusiasm lavished by London on the operative class. Ten guineas per night—five hundred for the season—is the price exacted for a first-rate opera-box; and as the exclusives usually arrive at the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... that his great safeguard was the affection of Russell. For Edwin's sake, and for shame at the thought of Edwin's disapproval, he abstained from many things into which he would otherwise have insensibly glided in conformation to the general looseness of the school morality. But Russell's influence worked on him powerfully, and tended to counteract a multitude ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... Islands, to which our examinations were limited, are moderately high, woody land; they slope down nearly to the water on their west sides, but on the east, and more especially the south-east, they present steep cliffs; and the same conformation seemed to prevail in the other islands. The stone of the upper parts is grit or sandstone, of a close texture; but the lower part of the cliffs is argillaceous and stratified, splitting in layers of different ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... approaching these little mountain lakes, with the extensive preparation that is made for them in the conformation of the ground. I am thinking of a depression, or natural basin, in the side of the mountain or on its top, the brink of which I shall reach after a little steep climbing; but instead of that, after I have accomplished ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... creatures and many-coloured weed, there mingling with and overwhelming a rivulet that leaps down to its embrace, until all the shore is covered with its waters. Meanwhile, he who would understand its course must know the conformation of the coast,—the windings, the crags (their composition as well as their shape), the hollows, the sands, the streams; for without these its currents and its force are alike inexplicable. The analogy must not be pressed too far; but it will help ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... them opposite the fluted columns of gray granite that once had borne aloft the suburbs of Englewood. Stern recognized the conformation of the place; but though he looked hard, could find no trace of the Interstate Park road that once had led from top to bottom of the Palisades, nor any remnant of the millionaires' palaces along the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... reverently and openly what she would have done by stealth has been entertained by psychologists, artists, and others who would like to know what were his cranial developments, and to judge from the conformation of the skull and face which of the various portraits is probably the true one. There is little doubt that but for the curse invoked upon the person who should disturb his bones, in the well-known lines on the slab which ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... this time scarcely forty, her natural ugliness, combined with hard work and a certain crabbed look (caused as much by the conformation of her features as by her cares), made her seem like a woman of fifty. At thirty-eight Jerome Rogron presented to the eyes of his customers the silliest face that ever looked over a counter. His retreating ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... general line was reformed to my right and rear, my division was at length drawn through the cedars and debouched into an open space near the Murfreesboro' pike, behind the right of Palmer's division. Two regiments of Sill's brigade, however, on account of the conformation of the ground, were obliged to fall back from the point where Woodruff's brigade of Davis's division had rallied after the disaster of the early morning. The division came out of the cedars with unbroken ranks, thinned by only its killed and wounded—but ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... pictures, where you will see many a pretty face enveloped in a fur-trimmed hood, and observe how much grace and modest dignity is given by that simple habiliment. It is something of this kind which we would recommend. For example—if a hood, so cut as not to admit of too close a conformation to the shape of the head, were attached to a tippet which might descend and protect the shoulders, or come even lower, at the fancy of the wearer, and were fastened round the neck, the hood itself might be elevated so as to cover the head, and might ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... own words, I believe I should not care ever to catch Miss Primleigh costumed as Miss Hamm was. In confidence I may confide to my diary that I do not believe the former would appear to the best advantage in such habiliments as I have briefly touched upon, she being of a somewhat angular physical conformation, although not until now do I recall having been ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... of land on which we are lies between three large rivers, and, owing to the conformation of the country and the winding of the rivers, its fourth side is a narrow neck of land not more than a mile and a half wide. Here there is a very lofty and rugged range, and it is the spot agreed on as our final rendezvous, being some fifteen ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... warning "Sh——" at the open window, where a head and a pair of shoulders appeared, followed immediately by an entire body which was suddenly projected through the opening and landed head first upon the floor. Marishka had risen, a scream on her lips, but something familiar in the conformation of the figure restrained her. The tangle of legs and arms took form, and a head appeared, wearing a monocle and a smile. It was the ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... be interesting, perhaps, to notice the particulars, as to physical conformation, in which the Indian differs ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... the interior; for there they would have found themselves in the presence of one of the greatest of Theological intellects. Black and Cavendish were born ready-made chemists, and Linnaeus and Cuvier were naturalists, in spite of themselves; and so, there is a mental conformation which almost necessitated Augustine and Athanasius, Calvin and Arminius, to be dogmatists and systematic divines. With the opposite aptitudes for large generalization and subtile distinction, as soon as some master-principle had gained possession ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... had popped out of the ground only to be struck by the box and knocked into the river—he would take oath on the fact that it was not one of the furred animals he had seen on the sea island. Surely it had been smooth-skinned, not unlike the aliens in conformation—one of their own kind they had been hunting down, a criminal or ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... a very important thing from a soldier's point of view. Pay was drawn from the Field Cashier, and distributed for the first time in France. Next came the notification that in conformation with the policy of re-forming the 33rd and the 2nd Divisions by forming brigades, each consisting of two new battalions and two regular battalions, the 99th Brigade was to lose the 17th and 24th Battalions Royal Fusiliers, receive the 1st Royal Berks and the 1st King's ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward
... current gnawed at its base. A section weighing tons let go with a roar only a few yards below, and Bat and the girl worked as neither had ever worked before to tow their burden upstream to the sloping bank. But the force of the current and the conformation of the bank, which slanted outward at an angle that diminished the force of the pull by half, ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... grey, but greenish, like those of a cat, and generally inflamed; her hair is of a sandy, or rather dusty hue; her forehead low; her nose long, sharp, and, towards the extremity, always red in cool weather; her lips skinny, her mouth extensive, her teeth straggling and loose, of various colours and conformation; and her long neck shrivelled into a thousand wrinkles — In her temper, she is proud, stiff, vain, imperious, prying, malicious, greedy, and uncharitable. In all likelihood, her natural austerity has been soured by disappointment in love; for her long celibacy ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... blocks from where we started, but they had worked their way up much nearer to us, and were in a deep swale about a block and a half from our barricades. There was a large number of them, estimated at about seventy-five to one hundred, some on ponies and some on foot. When the conformation of the ground disclosed their whereabouts, we were within one hundred feet of them. They opened a rapid fire on us, which we returned, while keeping up our rushing advance. When we were within fifty feet of them, they turned and fled down the street. We followed them for at least half a mile, firing ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... acts of some of our best dramatic writers, there wants that degree of finish and grouping equal to the rest. Shakspeare sometimes has this want in common with others; but in this play he has lost none of his force and propriety of character—here all continue to speak the language of their conformation, and lose none of their original importance. Barry was an actor that, in this particular, kept pace with the great poet he represented—he supported Othello throughout with unabating splendor—his ravings over the dead body of the innocent Desdemona, his reconciliation with Cassio, and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... of fact we cannot take such extreme and largely fanciful stock as typifying that which we may fairly call the Negro race. In the case of no other race is so narrow a definition attempted. A "white" man may be of any color, size, or facial conformation and have endless variety of cranial measurement and physical characteristics. A "yellow" man is perhaps an ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... truly said of Reynolds, as Macaulay said of Horace Walpole: "The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great; and whatever was great, seemed ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... got thoo an' he had wropped up his robes an' put 'em in his wallet, an' had told us to prepare for conformation, he pernounced a blessin' upon us ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... habitations of the stone age in Sweden, and in the kjoekkenmoedding (kitchen remains) of Denmark, of the same epoch, we find the remains of a dog, which, according to Rutymeyer, belongs to a breed which is constant up to its least details, and which is of a light and elegant conformation, of medium size, with a spacious and rounded cranium and a short, blunt muzzle, and a medium sized jaw, the teeth of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... essential differences. In all those modifications of the features which are produced by habits and sentiments, no two persons were less alike. Nature seemed to have intended them as examples of the futility of those theories which ascribe every thing to conformation and instinct and nothing to external circumstances; in what different modes the same materials may be fashioned, and to what different purposes the same materials may be applied. Perhaps the rudiments of their intellectual character, as well as of their ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... of Ville-aux-Fayes followed the conformation of the ground. Each side of the promontory was lined with wharves. The dam to stop the timber from floating further down was just below a hill covered by the forest of Soulanges. Between the dam and the town lay a suburb. ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... evident, at least to those who do not cling obstinately to old traditions, that man is evolved from the animal kingdom. The comparative anatomy, physiology, and psychology of man and other animals distinctly show their intimate connection in conformation, tissues, organs, and functions, and above all, in consciousness and intelligence. This truth, deduced from simple observation and experiment, must lead to the conviction that all issued from the same germ, and had ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... presents a beautiful sight on deck to eyes weary and sore with night, as night passes on board steamers. We pass along a coast obviously of singular conformation, and to a geologist, we suppose, full of interest. We encounter a herd of classical dolphins out a-pleasuring. We ask about a pretty little town perched just above the sea, and called Giocosa. By its side lies Tyndaris—classical enough if we spell ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... house. As one after another the objects of beauty that make grand the environs of that noble Bay, open to her astonished eyes, she contrasts them favorably or unfavorably with some familiar object in Charleston harbor. There is indeed a similarity in the conformation. And though ours, she says, may not be so extensive, nor so grand in its outlines, nor so calm and soft in its perspective, there is a more aristocratic air about it. Smaller bodies are always more select and respectable. The captain, to whom she has put an hundred and one questions which he ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... foaming rivulet, rushing madly down the steep, or leaping in fine cascades from one rocky escarpment to another. Courtenay, after an astounded glance at the magnitude and solemn grandeur of the spectacle, had eyes for naught save the conformation of the channel. The change in the wind was caused, he found, by the northerly headland thrusting its giant mass a mile, or more, westward of its twin; but he quickly discovered, from the conformation of the land, that the latter was really the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... this latter simile, if less poetic, gave a better idea of the conformation of the fortified hill, with the gum-coloured outline of all that was left of a Moorish wall skirting its side. The tooth is hollow, but the hollow is plugged with the best Woolwich stuffing, and potentially it can bite and grind and macerate, for all ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... prominency of his nose. They insisted that both were artificial, the first they said, was produced when he was an infant, by dipping him in milk, and they insisted that his nose had been pinched every day, till it had acquired its present unsightly and unnatural conformation. On his part, without disputing his own deformity, he paid them many compliments on African beauty. He praised the glossy jet of their skins, and the lovely depression of their noses; but they said, that flattery, or as they emphatically termed it, honey-mouth, was not esteemed in Bondou. The ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the ledge had seemed to be four or five feet wide; now she saw that it was nearer ten. The conformation of the rocks, beetling above it, had led her to imagine that a straight wall of cliff rose abruptly just at the back of the ledge. In reality they overhung the rudely level space like out-jutting eaves ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... the body is being exercised, care should be taken that the other parts remain quiet as far as the conformation of the body will allow. The men must learn to exercise any one part of the body independent ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... It is true the ai does not move rapidly over the ground, but the ground is not its proper place no more than it is that of the orang-otang, or other tree-monkeys. Its conformation shows that nature intended it for an inhabitant of the trees, where it can move about with sufficient ease to procure its food. On the branches it is quite at home, or, rather, I should say, under the branches, for, unlike the squirrels ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... was the wild signal for general lamentation and horror. This first sense of pain lay in a rigorous constriction of the breast and lungs, and an insufferable dryness of the skin. It could not be denied that our atmosphere was radically affected; and the conformation of this atmosphere, and the possible modifications to which it might be subjected, were now the topics of discussion. The result of investigation sent an electric thrill of the intensest terror through the universal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... remote from the beaten track of their career. In like manner the philologist, and again the dialectician, were not indulged in the review and parade of their trained bands, but, at times, brought forward to show in what manner and in what degree external habits had influenced the conformation of the internal man. It was far from unprofitable to set passing events before past actors, and to record the decisions of those whose interests and passions are ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... the ace of hearts. An apron was tied on with great care, ornamented with embroidery of the preceding century. Her complexion, was dark but clear, and her eyebrows high and well-arched. Her mouth was drawn in, raised slightly on one side,—a conformation more particularly apparent when engaged in scolding the maids, or in other similar ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... CAUSE: Faulty conformation, slipping, falling through a bridge or culvert; large loosely built draft horses are prone to this blemish. Bog Spavin is hereditary, and you should, therefore, select a good type ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... his doing more than exciting a mere temporary curiosity in New York and Philadelphia; and further south I should think he would not be listened to at all, unless he comes prepared to demonstrate phrenologically that the colored population of the Southern States is (or are), by the conformation of their skulls, the legitimate slaves of ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... the west of the double basin that the untoward effects of the territorial conformation were chiefly felt. The valley of the Euphrates is not like that of the Nile, a canal hollowed out between two clearly marked banks. From the northern boundary of the alluvial plain to the southern, the slope is very slight, while from east to west, from the plains of Mesopotamia to the ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... A glance at Jacques-Emile Blanche's portrait of the Spanish painter explains other things. There is the physique of a man who can work many hours a day before an easel; there are the penetrating eyes of an observer, spying eyes, slightly cruel; the head is an intellectual one, the general conformation of the face harmonious and handsome. The body is that of an athlete, but not of the bull-necked sort we see in Goya. The temperament suggested is impetuous, controlled by a strong will; it has been fined down by study and the enforced renunciations of poverty-haunted ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... rarely, if ever, succeed in conveying to the imagination of a reader any accurate presentation of the picture, which the writer has in his mind's eye. She was dark. Hair, brows, eyes, and complexion, were all dark; and the contour of the face was of the long or oval type of conformation—very delicate—transparently delicate—more so, the Englishman thought, not without a pull at his heart-strings, than was quite compatible with a due daily supply of nourishment. Still she did not look unhealthy. At seventeen a ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... to observe the peculiarity which the consciousness of superior knowledge impressed upon the conversation and personal appearance of this decaying race. Whatever might have been the original conformation of their physical structure, it was sure, by the force of acquired habit, to transform itself into a stiff, erect, consequential, and unbending manner, ludicrously characteristic of an inflated sense ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... their joys; let us bow before him as before one of the Elect! Let us regard him as one of those whom the belief of the people marks as "Good Genii!" The attribution of superior power to beings believed to be beneficent to man, has received a sublime conformation from a great Italian poet, who defines genius as a "stronger impress of Divinity!" Let us bow before all who are marked with this mystic seal; but let us venerate with the deepest, truest tenderness those who have only used their wondrous supremacy to give life ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... that theory has seemed to favor this view. Yet, in fact, the development theory has nothing to do with the question. If we suppose that the existing and—so far as we know—the only species of man appeared upon the earth with the physical conformation and mental capacity which he retains at this day, we make merely the same supposition with regard to him that we make with regard to every other existing species of animal. How it was that this species came to exist ...
— Hiawatha and the Iroquois Confederation • Horatio Hale
... No conformation of words will charm the ear unless they bring silent thoughts of corresponding sweetness to the mind; nor could the most sonorous, vapid verses be changed into poetry if they were set to the music of the Spheres. It is scarcely necessary to say that Petrarch has intellectual graces of ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch |
