"Elastic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to resume their natural strength and elasticity after childbirth. Then, too, the walls of the abdomen are one of the supports provided by nature to keep all the organs they contain in proper place by a constant elastic pressure. When, as in pregnancy, these walls are distended and put on the strain, suddenly to be relaxed after confinement, the organs miss their support, and are liable to take positions which interfere with the performance of their natural functions. ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... His long neck fitted into well-placed shoulders. He had great depth of girth, immense length from shoulder-points to hips, big cannon-bones, and elastic pasterns. There was neither amiability nor pride in his mien; rather a sullen sense of brute power, such as may have belonged to the knights of the Middle Ages. Now and again he curled his lips away from the bit and laid his ears back as if he intended to eat of the elegant ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... Pixie's face was still swollen and puffy, but her elastic spirits had sufficiently recovered to enable her to make repeated attempts to converse with her taciturn companions, and to run in and out of their cubicles to play lady's-maid as usual, in such useful, unostentatious ways as carrying ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a halfpenny night-light, and round it were ranged in a row a number of paper match-boxes with little coloured pictures upon them. They were French match-boxes, which opened with a spring formed of elastic, and underneath the pictures were jokes of a doubtful description. Neither Lara nor his wife knew anything of the French language; the empty paper match-boxes, with the horrible jokes upon them, were offered faithfully before Our Lady. They ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... Cherokees, as the case might be. In truth, it would probably have been difficult to get any two members of the same tribe to have pointed out with precision the tribal limits. Each tribe's country was elastic, for it included all lands from which it was deemed possible to drive out the possessors. In 1773 the various parties of Long Hunters had just the same right to the whole of the territory in question that the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Humfrey should ride off at once, and try to overtake a squire who had been at the festival, and had invited him to turn a little out of his road and spend a day or two at his house when leaving home. Humfrey had then declined, but hospitality in those days was elastic, and he had no doubt of a welcome. His father would bring Diccon and his baggage to join him there the ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it with cold water enough to form a dough. Place it on a sieve, and, while working it with one hand, pour a steady stream of water over it with another. Shortly you will find a grayish, tough, elastic lump before you, while in the pan below, when the water is carefully poured off, will be pure wheat-starch, the water itself containing all the sugar, dextrine or gum, and mineral matter. This toughness and elasticity of ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... steel needles screwed into a bone handle are best. The beauty of the crochet-work depends upon the regularity of the stitches, as is the case with every other style of needlework. The stitches must be elastic, but if too loose they look as bad as if too tight. The size of the needle and that of the cotton or wool must correspond; work only with the point of the needle, and never move the stitch up and down the needle. The cotton with which you work must be of the very ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... the sporangia are surrounded in whole or in part by a vertical, elastic ring (annulus) reminding one of a small, brown worm closely coiled (Fig. 4). As the spores mature, the ring contracts and bursts with considerable force, scattering the spores. The spores of the different genera mature at different times from May to September. A good time to collect ferns ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton
... 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 good deal of pinching may be undergone without destroying the elastic vigour of youth. ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... settlers of the Alleghanies between southwestern Georgia and the Pennsylvania line, according to Mr. J. Hampden Porter, the following custom is in vogue: "Measuring an infant, whose growth has been arrested, with an elastic cord that requires to be stretched in order to equal the child's length, will set it right again. If the spell be a wasting one, take three strings of similar or unlike colours, tie them to the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... sit more erect in his saddle, and to drink in joy with every breath of the thyme-scented breeze, from the moment his horse bounded on the hollow-sounding turf; and when he leapt to the ground, with the elastic spring of youth, he held out his hands to Sidney and to Teligny, crying 'Welcome, my friends. Here I am ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... subject, but they are of no binding authority. It resides in the learning of the judges. It is what is called court-made law—"jus dicere," not "jus dare." Our judges are still supposed to tell what the law is, and they sometimes, as the common law is a very elastic thing, have to make new law. That is, if the precise case isn't covered by any previous decision or by any statute, the judge or the court will say what the common law ought to be when applied to that state of facts. ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... acquaintances—I go into society a great deal—do not appear to have a bit of the article. They say it is unnecessary; that "society" don't demand it; and that to have it is like travelling with baggage which is mere rubbish. My elastic but excellent friend JENKINS says the only sense that can be put on society market to practical advantage is the uncommon scamp. Common sense, so-called, is a drug. Old Mr. MATTEROFACT—who heeds him or his? He's always pushed into ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... gratefully, speaking reluctant adieus. When all were gone the girl, feeling that she had reached the limit of endurance, went to her room and slept till evening. It was the sleep of exhaustion, so heavy that she came down to a late supper weak and languid. But youth is elastic, the future full of infinite possibilities. Scoville's words haunted her like sweet refrains of music. No matter how weary, perplexed and sad she was, the certainty of her place in his thoughts and heart sustained her and was like a long line of light in the west, ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... stars. This fluid might exist independently of stars. If it is self-luminous, it seems more fit to produce a star by its condensation, than to depend upon the star for its own existence. Such were a few of the theorems to which his discovery of this nebula led him. The hypothesis of an elastic shining fluid existing in space, sometimes in connection with stars, sometimes distinct from them, was adopted and never abandoned. How well the spectroscope has confirmed this idea it is not necessary to say. We know the shining fluid does exist, and in late years ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... perfectly, but astonishingly well. It also enumerated diphthongs, and numerous difficult combinations of sounds. Sixteen keys were sufficient to produce all the sounds. In enunciating the simple sounds, the movements of the mouth could be seen. The parts were made of gum elastic. The figure was made to say, with a peculiar intonation, but surprising distinctness, 'Mr. Patterson, I am glad to see you.' It sang, 'God save Victoria,' and 'Hail Columbia,'—the words and air combined. Dr. Patterson ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... separated the 'Endurance' from the water, and reluctantly I had to admit that further effort was useless. Every opening we made froze up again quickly owing to the unseasonably low temperature. The young ice was elastic and prevented the ship delivering a strong, splitting blow to the floe, while at the same time it held the older ice against any movement. The abandonment of the attack was a great disappointment ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... let us inquire what green is,—what color is. Light is now understood to be an undulation of the interstellar ether, that inconceivably rare, elastic expanse of matter which occupies all space,—an undulation communicated by the incandescent envelope of suns. It moves with such wondrous rapidity as to traverse hundreds of thousands of miles in a second. Such is the generally received explanation of the phenomenon of light; but there is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... from the temper of the mind that suffers them, than from their abstract nature. Upon a man of a hard and insensible disposition, the shafts of misfortune often fall pointless and impotent. There are persons, by no means hard and insensible, who, from an elastic and sanguine turn of mind, are continually prompted to look on the fair side of things, and, having suffered one fall, immediately rise again, to pursue their course, with the same eagerness, the same ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... but Hugh did not or would not see it. His step grew less elastic. He became more listless, more like his former self — sauntering about with his hands in his pockets. And Hugh, of course, found himself caring less about him; for the thought of him, rousing as it did the sense ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... she was on horseback near the landing, and in turning to flee was struck, probably by a piece of shell, in the side. Almost as by a miracle she escaped with only a terrible and extensive bruise, and a temporary paralysis of the lower limbs. The elastic steel wires of her crinoline, had resisted the deadly force of the blow, which otherwise would undoubtedly have killed her. A smaller missile, nearly cut away the string of her hat, which was found next day covered by the ghastly smear of human blood and flesh, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... Highness, Fuad Pasha, that I thought the blockade-running could be put a stop to without infringing any law, especially where laws were so elastic. He seemed much struck with my remark, and asked me to call on him again in a few days. Now I had merely mentioned casually what I thought. I had no idea of anything serious resulting from our interview. I was indeed surprised on my return to His Highness by his ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... work, the 'calmer' was applied. This machine consisted of a Babbitt's soap box without a cover. Upon it was mounted a broad ratchet-wheel with a crank, while into the teeth of the wheel there played a stout, elastic slab of wood. The box would be placed on the table where the snorer was sleeping and the crank turned rapidly. The racket thus produced was something terrible, and the sleeper would jump up as though a ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... that small figures can loom so large in the vapour, and even mingle with quite different figures, and have the appearance of a mob. But, above all, I have dwelt on the telescopic quality in these twilight avenues, because unless the reader realises how elastic and unlimited they are, he simply will not believe in the abominations we ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... seven years old. But now, in his delight at the alliance with Denzil Warner, he seemed to have renewed his lease of cheerfulness and bodily vigour. He rode and walked about the lanes and woods with erect head and elastic limbs. He played bowls with Denzil in the summer evenings. He went fishing with his daughter and her sweetheart. He revelled in the simple rustic life, and told them stories of his boyhood, when James was King, and many a ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... An elastic or swinging seat, couch, or bed, for preventing the uneasy motions of a ship or a carriage, has recently been invented. To effect this, the frame of the seat or couch is suspended on juribals or joints, turning at right angles to each other, and an elasticity is produced both in the seat ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... wore a suit of well-brushed, "shiny" black broadcloth, and for comfort old-fashioned soft kid "gaiters," with elastic in the sides. He was a man with whom one did not easily become acquainted, having very decided opinions on most subjects. He possessed exquisite taste, a passionate love of music, flowers and all things beautiful; ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... characteristics; namely, her sensitiveness, which might easily have been overlooked by a stranger, and her strong affection. Her joyousness and animal spirits radiated from her whole countenance, and rendered every movement elastic and full of life and vigor. It was delightful and cheerful to behold her. Her dear face now rises before me, as she used sometimes to come running down-stairs with a stolen pinch of snuff for me, her whole form radiant with the pleasure of giving pleasure. Even when playing with her cousins, when ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... slipped down neck over crop on the frozen turf and hurled me clean against the face of a stone dyke. I had been thrown from horseback more than once before, but somehow had always found the earth fairly elastic. So I had griefs before Harry died and took some rebound of hope from each: but that cast repeated in a worse degree the old shock—the springless brutal jar—of the stone dyke. With him the sun went out of ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... but who out of terror at the vague menaces of interested and Pharisaical persons do not dare to break away. One must of course weigh carefully whether one values comfort or liberty most. But what I would say is that it is of the essence of a faith to be elastic, to be capable of development, to be able to embrace the forward movement of thought. Now so far am I from wishing to suggest that we have outgrown Christianity, that I would assert that we have not yet mastered its simplest principles. I ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and as the game didn't begin until two, we had a perfectly lovely time watching the people gather. Cousin Tracy said there were about forty thousand. The cheering section was just a solid mass of college men, with a band at the bottom, and the most elastic lot of cheer leaders in white sweaters you ever saw. This is the way they ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... Proserpine was so occupied with her own sensations, that she did not immediately remark the extraordinary change that had occurred in the appearance of the country immediately on passing this magical barrier. She perceived that their course now led over the most elastic and carefully-shaven turf; groups of beautiful shrubs occasionally appeared, and she discovered with delight that their flowers constantly opened, and sent forth from their bells diminutive birds of radiant ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... don't mind telling you, however, that there are now in Dorfield certain government agents who are tracing this circular and will not be so particular as we must be to abide by established law in making arrests. Their authority is more elastic, in other words. Moreover, these circulars were mailed, and the postoffice department has special detectives to attend to those who use the ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... not used for beer or ale in those days. Barley is a good food, and was the chief food of our peasantry until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Barley contains about 7 per cent. of sugar, and its flesh-forming matter is in the form of casin the same as is found in cheese. This casin is not elastic like the gluten of wheat, so that one cannot make a light bread from barley. Here is the ...
— The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book • Thomas R. Allinson
... With the elastic buoyancy of youth Edith could easily shake off the gloom which for a few brief moments had shrouded her like a pall, but not so with Richard. "The singing-bird must not mate with the owl," rang continually in his ears. It was her real sentiment he knew, and his heart ached so hard as he thought ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... he bore a beautiful bow, so highly polished as to appear as if finely enamelled. At his shoulder hung a quiver full of arrows. With a light and elastic step and an animated and gallant air his whole appearance was that of an ambassador, worthy of the young and beautiful princess ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... sun just touching her naked feet, was a girl. A girl of fifteen or sixteen, naked, except for a kilt of gaily-striped material reaching from her waist to her knees. Her long black hair was drawn back from the forehead, and tied behind with a loop of the elastic vine. A scarlet blossom was stuck behind her right ear, after the fashion of a clerk's pen. Her face was beautiful, powdered with tiny freckles; especially under the eyes, which were of a deep, tranquil blue-grey. She half sat, half ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... something almost melancholy in such a proof of the superior vitality of the brain. If the mind had shared the weakness of the body, the insidious enemy might perhaps have been routed in time to secure the elastic rebound of both. But when the chloral was stoutly met at ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... delightful sister Thea. The schoolboy link between Lance and Roy had created a lasting friendship between their respective families; and it was General Sir Theo Desmond—now retired—who had invited Roy, in the name of his 'Twin,' to start with an unlimited visit to the Leighs; the sort of casual elastic visit that no one would dream of proposing outside India,—unless it were Ireland, of an earlier, happier day. The prospect was a secret consolation to Roy. It was also a secret jar to find he needed ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... strength and splendour of Don Juan: "Across the stanzas ... we swim forward as over the 'broad backs of the sea;' they break and glitter, hiss and laugh, murmur and move like waves that sound or that subside. There is in them a delicious resistance, an elastic motion, which salt water has and fresh water has not. There is about them a wide wholesome air, full of vivid light and constant wind, which is only felt at sea. Life undulates and Death palpitates in the splendid verse.... This gift of life and variety ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... training for the light-cavalry service; and the tendency of the race has at all times been, not to those forms of military organization which are efficient by means of solidity and strength, but to those lighter, more varied, and more elastic branches which compensate for a want of solidity by increased activity, readiness, and ease ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... preparation of which became with him, as, indeed, it remains to this day, a problem of chief importance and difficulty. Perhaps it hardly needs pointing out that the varnish of a balloon must not only be sufficiently elastic not to crack or scale off with folding or unavoidable rough usage, but it must also be of a nature to resist the common tendency of such substances to become adherent or "tacky." Wise determined on bird lime thinned with linseed oil and ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... quite true that she made a distinction, though she did so almost unconsciously. It was perfectly natural, too. She was young in heart, in spite of her thirty years and her troubles; she had an elastic temperament; to a physiognomist her face would have shown a delicate sensitiveness to impressions rather than any inborn tendency to sadness. In spite of everything she was still young, and for two years and a half ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... family, either a mild republican or a constitutional monarchist according to circumstances, a lover of peace and order, a conciliatory spirit. To him was given the directors' confidential, elaborate, and elastic plan for territorial compensations as a basis for peace, the outcome of which in any case would leave Prussia preponderant in Germany. Liberal and well disposed to the Revolution as they believed, she could then be wooed into a firm alliance. In Italy, France was to maintain ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... in glass. You must not imagine that glass is a rigid thing; it is very elastic, and the wedge-like pressure of the wheel pushes it out just as the keel of a boat pushes the water aside in ripples (Plate X., ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... down to a game of ecarte with Miss Charlotte, who as yet has not turned her thoughts upon mortality. At ten she puts them to bed. Afterwards, "the good Bunce "—who is fifty, looks like a grenadier, and wears a large mole on her chin—takes up a French novel, fastened by a piece of elastic between the covers of Baxter's "Saint's Rest," and reads for an hour before retiring. Her pay is fifty-two pounds a year, and her attachment to the Misses Lefanu a matter of inference rather ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... girls had disappeared among the tumbled rocks under the cliff, and Graeme had sought seclusion at the other end of the bay. And presently they had met again on the gleaming stretch of sand; he in orthodox tight-fitting dark-blue elastic web which set off his long limbs and broad shoulders to great advantage; Hennie Penny in pale blue, her somewhat plump figure redeemed by the merry face which recognised all its owner's deficiencies and more than made up for them all; Margaret, ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... and this makes a wall one solid mass and stronger than it could be without any cement. But mortar does more than this. It is more elastic than brick, and therefore, when a wall settles, the mortar yields a little, and this often prevents the bricks from cracking. Bricks are always thirsty, and if one is laid in mortar, it will suck the moisture out of it almost as a sponge will suck up water. ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... ones, may doubt my word. But biology and physiological chemistry teach that this is so—and prove it. If this composition were lacking in a certain quantity of organic magnesia, the bones would grow hard and brittle. It is the magnesia that turns the tissue into perfect, elastic form. ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... supreme agony touched him as no woman's grief had ever touched him yet.... The low, toneless confession with its quiet immolation of self.... He put his hand into his pocket, and, drawing out a packet of loose papers, banded together with elastic, flung them ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... his weapon into the sand and left it there. Then, without waiting to don his coat, he turned and walked away with her with his light, elastic swagger that speedily widened the distance between ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... the outward passage of fluid is the cause of the bending of the tentacles, we must suppose that the cells, before the act of inflection, are in a high state of tension, and that they are elastic to an extraordinary degree; for otherwise their contraction could not cause the tentacles often to sweep through an angle of above 180o. Prof. Cohn, in his interesting paper* on the movements of the stamens of certain Compositae, states that these organs, when dead, are as elastic as threads ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... sealing my door and turned away; started forward along the deck. I followed. My steps were soundless in my elastic-bottomed shoes. Anita swaggered with a noisy tread. Near the door of the smoking room a small incline passage led ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... for another visit, but by the time he reached the Marble Arch the idea of such a course had become incongruous to him. He passed beneath that architectural effort and walked into the Park till he got upon the spreading grass. Here he continued to walk; he took his way across the elastic turf and came out by the Serpentine. He watched with a friendly eye the diversions of the London people, he bent a glance almost encouraging on the young ladies paddling their sweethearts about the lake and the guardsmen tickling tenderly with their bearskins the artificial flowers in the Sunday ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... itself consists of a framework of cartilages joined by elastic membranes or ligaments, and joints. These cartilages move freely toward and upon each other by means of attached muscles. Also the larynx as a whole can be moved in various directions by means of extrinsic muscles joined to points above ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... myself an amphibious creature. A good half of my active existence has been passed in familiar contact with salt water, and I was aware, theoretically, that water is not an elastic body: but it was only then that I acquired the absolute conviction of the fact. I remember distinctly the thought flashing through my head: "By Jove! it isn't elastic!" Such is the illuminating force of a ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... elastic step of but a week before was gone. She stopped not now to gaze into the gay windows, or to watch the throng of promenaders; but, with an unsteady pace, wended her way slowly to her humble home in the lower part of ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... marchesa answered, wistfully regarding the two slim figures whirling down the length of the room, dancing, dancing on! as though it were the first, and not the tenth, time they had traversed the great gallery; the elastic poise of each the same, the gold-colored gauze of Nina's dress exactly matching the rippling waves of glorious hair only a shade below the sleek black head of ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... ever after invested him; not that he had at any time actually borne a share in the government of the nation, but it was understood that he might have done so, had he so chosen, or had his political principles been tough and elastic enough to endure the wear and strain of action. As it was, some of the most renowned men in the Senate were known to have been his intimates at college, and he still met and conversed with them on ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... of my childhood were great," continued George, "but still they were counterbalanced by many joys. In spite of the disadvantages under which I laboured, my gay, elastic spirit ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... employed himself in carefully removing the bark and cleansing it of nodules and other inequalities. The broad sheets were suspended by a smoke fire, so as completely to dry up the sap, and render it tough and elastic. Francois had his part to play, and that was to collect the resinous gum which was distilled in plenty from the trunks of the epinette ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the child goes shouting to complete the landscape with the lacking colour of life. You are inclined to wonder that, even undressed, he still shouts with a Cockney accent. You half expect pure vowels and elastic syllables from his restoration, his spring, his slenderness, his brightness, and his glow. Old ivory and wild rose in the deepening midsummer sun, he gives his ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... Imitation's child; Next to each thought associate sound accords, And forms the dulcet symphony of words; The tongue, the lips articulate; the throat With soft vibration modulates the note; Love, pity, war, the shout, the song, the prayer Form quick concussions of elastic ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... clear, and, in a few minutes, the long-toothed saw was singing through the tough bark of the old monarch—a darky at each end of it, the tip of his tongue in the corner of his mouth, the muscles of each powerful arm playing like cords of elastic steel under its black skin—the sawyers, each time with a mighty grunt, drew the shining, whistling blade to and fro to the handle. Presently ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... as 120 B.C., when one Hero of Alexandria employed this vapour for the purpose of driving a machine. It is a well-known fact that when water is brought up to a certain degree of heat, called the boiling-point, that it sends forth a vapour, the elastic properties of which, when in an open vessel, are not perceived—as, for instance, in a common pan—yet if the vessel is closed or shut up at the top, you will find that the vapour acquires such a degree of elastic force, ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... taciturnity annoyed and puzzled him; he knew that beneath the calm surface some strong undercurrent rolled swiftly, and he racked his brain to discover what had rendered her so reserved. Louisa's joyous, elastic spirits probably heightened the effect of her companion's gravity, and the contrast daily presented could not fail to arrest Mr. Huntingdon's attention. On arriving at Montreal the girls were left for a few ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... go so often to the "old Buttonwood"—it was all natural to hear her speak of that; and then it was so pleasant to have her come again with elastic step, and rosy cheek, to spring into his arms for her welcome kiss! Oh, yes! he was willing she should go to the "old Buttonwood;" but as her slight figure vanished in the distance, he seemed sad and uneasy, and the old expression came again, and it staid through the long day. That night as the old ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... myself, and it was the snuggest and most comfortable little place I ever enjoyed at sea. It was entered by a low sliding door of thatch on one side, and had a very small window on the other. The floor was of split bamboo, pleasantly elastic, raised six inches above the deck, so as to be quite dry. It was covered with fine cane mats, for the manufacture of which Macassar is celebrated; against the further wall were arranged my guncase, insect-boxes, clothes, and books; my mattress occupied the middle, and next the door ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... limitation by circumstances, was almost written in her movements. They had a majestic foundation, though they were far from being majestic; and they had a groundwork of assurance, but they were not assured. As her once elastic walk had become deadened by time, so had her natural pride of life been hindered in its blooming ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Brightness leaped into his look, and the greyness of his moody eye became as blue as the sea. The professional straightness of his figure relaxed into the elastic grace of an athlete. He was a pipe to be played on: an actor with the ambitious brain of a diplomatist; as weak as water, and as strong as steel; soft-hearted to foolishness or ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and transportation, and take them back to Tennessee in good order. He accomplished this, putting sick men on his own three horses, and himself marching on foot with the men, who, enthusiastic over his elastic toughness, dubbed him "Old Hickory,"—a title of affection that is familiar to this day. The government afterwards reimbursed him for his outlay in this matter, but his generosity, self-denial, energy, and masterly force added immensely to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... presently veers round to the north or the south, and attains the height of its fury when it reaches the north-east or the south-east. After the storm a calm generally reigns, succeeded by the usual wind of the prevailing monsoon. The lightly-built elastic houses of the country are capitally suited to withstand these storms; but roofs and defective houses are frequently carried away. The traffic between Manila and Legaspi is at its height between January and October; but during the autumn months all communication by water ceases. The ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... an elastic gas consisting of imponderable atoms, which, as we are told by works on molecular physics, are, in proportion to their size, as far apart as the celestial bodies are from each other in space. This distance is less than the 1/3000000 x 1/1000', or the one trillionth of a foot. The vibrations ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... elastic fluid," roars George above the tumult. "About as elastic as a head sea off ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... chess, bagatelle and the illustrated papers, or if more energetically disposed, in the airy gymnasium adjoining the reading-room, where they could indulge in friendly rivalry with boxing gloves or single-stick, or feed the appetites of their growing muscles with dumb-bells and elastic contrivances. Mr. Taynton had spent a couple of hours there, losing a game of chess to one youthful adversary, but getting back his laurels over bagatelle, and before he left, had arranged for a geological expedition to ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... the workshops attached to the palace, they found that the bow was finished. It was constructed of a very tough, but elastic, wood. Three slips of this had been placed together and bound with sinews. Bathalda ran forward when he saw Roger, and taking his hand carried it to his forehead. Roger shook the stout ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... will we arbitrate? Every case in which a favorable award is assured us. If we want Texas, we send an army after it. Every case that does not rouse our anger. Let the Maine blow up and we fight. A treaty with an elastic exception like this is a farcical sham and ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... thin and soft, that reached over the knees and shoulders, something like the one-piece pajamas some fellows wear, and a kind of half-hose, that came up to just under the knee and stayed there—had elastic tops of their own, and covered the edges ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... leafage, they laid the bundles across the stream on a little mound held down by stones, with the tops of the heath turned upwards to the current. The water rose against the mound for a foot or eighteen inches, and then murmured over and through, occasioning an expansion among the hard elastic sprays. Next a party of the islanders came down the stream, beating the banks and pools, and sending a still thickening shoal of trout before them, that, on reaching the miniature dam formed by the bundles, darted forward for shelter, as if to ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... qualities depend upon the nature of its skeleton, which is composed of more bones than later in life, when several have fused together to form one to give the mature body a more rigid frame. Furthermore, the individual bones are not so firm, consisting of an elastic material called cartilage, so that some movements which in an adult would cause such serious injuries as fractures and dislocations are perfectly harmless ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... to which we allude does not depend upon different estimates of the future, but upon different views of the most elementary and general principles of the subject. It is as if men were not agreed whether air were elastic or whether the earth turns on its axis. Why is it that while in all subjects of physical science we find a general agreement through a wide range of subjects, and doubt commences only where certainty is not attained, yet when we turn to economic ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... held back a branch, or proffered such service as he might over rough places, for Betty Dalrymple's movements were no longer those of a lithe wood-nymph; she had never felt so weary before. The first shades of twilight made it harder to distinguish their way amid intervening objects, and once an elastic bit of underbrush struck her sharply in the face. The blow smarted like the touch of a whip but she only smiled faintly. The momentary sting spurred her on faster, until her foot caught and she stumbled and would have fallen except ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... watched him out of sight without moving from his tracks. Then he withdrew both hands from under his coat-tails. In one hand was a note-book, in the other hand was a pencil. Mr. Briggs made an entry, closed the book with decision, and snapped an elastic band around the covers. Then he made off toward his home. He lived up-town in a section where there were fewer smells and better scenery. He determined that this should be his last tour of surveillance. He had found his trips into the nooks and crannies of the Eleventh Ward to be ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... the young are elastic, his loss had been so recent, and his grief so overpowering, that, in spite of all the efforts of his kind friends, he could not recover his spirits. Owen, however, had become calmer when Jane Hayes came to wish him good-bye. She had been offered another situation, ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... graceful figure coming up the street with quick, elastic steps has not the aspect of one driven forth by grave business cares, nor in the natural course of things would one expect so young a lady to know much of life's burdens and responsibilities. As she passes I ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... slowly into the room, his short-sighted eyes peering about him, a little faggot of papers girdled by an elastic band, clasped in his ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... who sit all day long in high trees, and can be heard, it is said, at a distance of three leagues; the teponaztli, that has two vibrating tongues of wood, and is beaten with sticks that are smeared with an elastic gum obtained from the milky juice of plants; the yotl-bells of the Aztecs, that are hung in clusters like grapes; and a huge cylindrical drum, covered with the skins of great serpents, like the one that Bernal Diaz saw when he went with Cortes into ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... timber is not brash like the southern pecan but is very elastic and tough. An axe-handle made from northern pecan sells for ten cents more than one made from hickory and pecan timber is much sought after by ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... then, that cheered us; and although the mountain seemed at a great distance, we pushed forward with renewed energy and hope. Our animals, too, as if they also understood the matter, neighed and brayed loudly, and stepped out with a more springy and elastic tread. ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... they could do. As the acknowledgement was made to him by the man whom, of those around him, he certainly ranked second to himself, he could not but feel that his heart's blood ran warm within him, he could not but tread with an elastic step. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... the child is laid forms a soft elastic bed which absorbs moisture very readily and affords such a protection from the cold of a rigorous winter that its place would be ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... Winkleman was entirely free from pain. As she stepped upon the carpet, and moved across the room, it was with a firm tread. Every muscle was elastic, and the blood leaped along her veins with ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... was seeking some dwelling-place, and that he would naturally turn either up the road to Turrifs or toward the hills; instead of that, he made again for the birch wood, walking fast with strong, elastic stride. Trenholme followed him, and they went ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... hot iron than cold, mobile things than immobile. This world has been made elastic, ready to take new forms. New creations are easy, for man, even—much more so for God. Of angels, ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... whom Elsie had been looking from time to time in this fixed way, was conscious meanwhile of some unusual influence. First it was a feeling of constraint,—then, as it were, a diminished power over the muscles, as if an invisible elastic cobweb were spinning round her,—then a tendency to turn away from Mr. Bernard, who was making himself very agreeable, and look straight into those eyes which would not leave her, and which seemed to be drawing her towards them, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... engendered by war, famine, plague, and personal adventures in those riotous times.[363] Cellini gladly risked his life in a quarrel for his friends; but he would not sadden the present by reflecting on inevitable accidents. This elastic temper permeates his character. His affections were strong, but transient. The one serious love-affair he describes, among a multitude of mere debaucheries, made him miserable for a few days. His mistress, Angelica, ran away, and left him "on the point of losing his senses or dying of grief." Yet, ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... a soprano-voice which is quite elastic, of great range, and strong and clear in the upper register. She has been favorably received on ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... watch-pocket, but occupying pretty nearly the same situation as a watch-pocket on each thigh, there was placed a small box, something like a watch-case, but smaller; into this box was introduced a watch- spring in a wheel, round about which wheel was wound an elastic cord, for regulating the force of which there was a separate contrivance. To the two ends of this cord were attached hooks, which hooks were carried through a small aperture in the pockets, and so passing down the inner and the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... bending to take his farewell of her, but held her face away. He was in manifest distress, hardly master of his voice, begged me to come to him soon, and bowing, with 'God bless you, madam, my friend on earth!' turned his heel, bearing his elastic frame lamentably. A sad or a culprit air did not befit him: one reckoned up his foibles and errors when seeing him under a partly beaten aspect. At least, I did; not my dear aunt, who was compassionate of him, however thoroughly she condemned his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the pupil has reached the second year he usually will settle down to steady work on the trade he selects, although here again the organization should be sufficiently elastic to allow transfers when there seems to be good reason for making them. It is to be expected, however, that nearly all the pupils will devote their time during the second year to practice and study ...
— Wage Earning and Education • R. R. Lutz
... revenue and been productive of an abounding prosperity. Under it the country has had a very large export and import trade. A constant revision of the tariff by the Congress is disturbing and harmful. The present law contains an elastic provision authorizing the President to increase or decrease present schedules not in excess of 50 per centum to meet the difference in cost of production at home and abroad. This does not, to my mind, warrant a rewriting g of the whole law, but does mean, and will be so administered, that whenever ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... large gobbet of sperm on the stool, which the old one wiped off. I washed her cunt, threw her on the bed, and looked at the little quim. It seemed impossible I could have been up it; but from that day I knew a cunt to be the most elastic article in the world, and believed the old woman's saying, that a prick can always go ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous |
