"Poise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of keeping this apex-thought in constant poise, let me reiterate one or two of the philosophical disasters which result from a cessation of its rhythmic function. When the reason, for instance, usurps the whole field and acts in isolation from the imagination and the intuition, it tends to persuade us to deny the very existence ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... or sex or race. By all the proprieties of nature, woman should have with man a voice in the enactment of laws and the administration of government. She is the complement of man, essential for the due poise, the right wisdom, and conduct in family, in neighborhood, in Church or in State. Sharing in civil government, she will be a redemptive agency for society in many ways little thought at present. And agitation ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... poise and then a flying clutch, I accomplished; and with the rest of my descent I will not weary the reader. It was interminably slow, and it was laborious; but, to speak comparatively, it was safe. My boots lasted me to within twenty ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... another equally violent rush succeeded; and in its way toward the starboard quarter threw up a rolling wave thirty feet high, crowned by a blue square mass of many tons, resembling the entire side of a house, which, after hanging for some time in doubtful poise on the ridge, at length fell with a crash into the hollow, in which, as in a cavern, the after-part of the ship seemed embedded. It was, indeed, an awful crisis, rendered more frightful from the mistiness of the night ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... closing the door behind him. He saw that they yet knew nothing—there had been no messenger, no telephone call, and the news was his to tell. He bowed to Mrs. Grayson, and then he felt a moment of embarrassment, but his long experience and natural poise came quickly to ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the shortest ejaculation, which, for a while, stills the tumult of passion. Mary's mind had been thrown off its poise; her devotion had been, perhaps, more fervent for some time past; but less regular. She forgot that happiness was not to be found on earth, and built a terrestrial paradise liable to be destroyed by the first serious thought: when, she reasoned she became inexpressibly sad, ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... peasants stand noting 70 The long line of mowers, The poise of the scythes And their sweep through the sunshine. The rhythmical ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... call them, I presume. A soldier offered to hold his horse, but he would not dismount, and sat his horse with grave dignity until Faye went out and in person invited him to come in and have a smoke. He is an Indian of striking personality—is rather tall, with square, broad shoulders, and the poise of his head tells one at once that he ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... is panegyrised by Montaigne for his rare poise and firmness of character;[63] and elsewhere in the essays we find many allusions to the ideal of the imperturbable man, which Montaigne has in the above cited passages brought into connection with his ideal of friendship. It could well be, then—though here we cannot argue the point with confidence—that ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... place, that indefinable quality of taste, which means so much in portraiture. His was an unerring instinct for poise, drapery, color, and composition. Each of his figures seems to assume naturally an attitude of perfect grace; the draperies fall of their ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... thoroughly feminine decision she tumbled off the gate, raced across the orchard and, having paused a moment to regain breath and poise, appeared casually at the office door. The office looked cool and empty; Bubble was not upon his official stool. Perhaps, after all, he had not heard the ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... when he comes by from football practice, and call him in. I just didn't happen to go to watch practice to-day, and now"—she smiled at him,—"I'm glad I didn't." There was something intensely pitiful about this lad to her mothering young heart, for all his poise ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... is Natalie de Santos. The steady self-poise of her nature prevents even a breath of scandal. Frank, daring, and open in her pleasures, she individualizes no swain, she encourages no one sighing lover. Her name needs no defence save the open record of her social life. A solid, undisturbed position grows around her. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... dancing; her hair had escaped from its usual calm. He hardly recognized her. As he looked out toward the old garden, he caught a glimpse of a flowing white gown, a lace scarf thrown over a head whose fine poise ...
— The Courting Of Lady Jane • Josephine Daskam
... a girl came along the platform through the groups of local passengers, who respectfully made way for her. She was tall, and her long outer garment failed to conceal her grace of movement and fine poise, though in the fading light her face was almost invisible beneath a large hat. The sight of her sent a thrill of satisfaction through the man; it was seldom that Millicent Gladwyne's appearance was unwelcome to her friends. She approached ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... the sea-pink shine, The pied crows poise and come; The mallow hangs, the bind-weeds twine, Where her sweet lips ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... carried his head proudly on high, determined to be dignified in spite of his misfortunes, and advanced two steps into the room without a remark, as though he were able to show that neither red plush nor black cloth could disarrange the equal poise of his ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... closing hour when I sought out Esther for the "Home, Sweet Home" waltz, finding her in company of Oxenford, chaperoned by Mrs. Martin, of which there was need. My sweetheart excused herself with a poise that made my heart leap, and as we whirled away in the mazes of the final dance, rivals and all else passed into oblivion. Before we could realize the change in the music, the orchestra had stopped, and struck into "My Country, ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... on deck, that of the man at the helm—a long, thin, weedy-looking figure, so far as I could make out in the ghostly starlight, but one who had evidently used the sea for some time, if one might judge by the easy, floating poise of his figure on the plunging deck as he stood on the weather side of the tiller, with the tiller rope lightly grasped in his right hand, swaying rhythmically to the leaps and plunges of the little hooker. As Dominguez followed me out ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... her. Blecker peered through his glass at every line and motion, as she came out from the eternal castle in the back scene. Any gnawing power or gift she had had found vent, certainly, now. Every poise and inflection said, "Here I am what I am,—fully what God made me, at last: no more, no less." God had made her an actress. Why, He knows. The Great Spirit of Love says to the toad in your gutter,—"Thou, too, art my servant, in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... which faces me, as I sit and meditate the problem of my destiny—the destiny of me, Jean Jacques Rousseau, self-conscious genius, and future regenerator of my age. I pick up a pebble, and poise it between my fingers before taking my aim. In another moment the question will be answered. If the pebble hits the tree, I, Jean Jacques, am reserved for salvation. If I miss—O awful, overwhelming possibility!—my name will ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... promise of strength, waking in those who saw her an intuitive trust in loyalty of uttermost proof. She would have flamed indignant against evil, but only evil could have moved her from that equal poise of soul which made her entrance into a room the prelude to higher thoughts and finer feelings. She was naturally kind without consciousness of a mission, neither seeking to enslave nor enfranchise, but by a silent outflowing of goodness ennobling whatever company she ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... went away along the deck with a monkey-like spring that was curiously characteristic of him. There was nothing of the sailor's steady poise ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... for a minute, studying her. She seemed, in spite of her youth and beauty, wonderfully self-reliant. Again, as in the room at the hospital, her quiet poise of manner struck him. And though she was once more dressed in the plainest and least costly of attire—as well as he could judge—he knew that he should be entirely willing to take her anywhere where he was known, with no mental apologies ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... keeping that jealous and discordant mass from tearing its component parts to pieces, and hazarding the loss of the whole, is, to put the place into the nominal government of the regent, his officers being approved by us. This, I say, is absolutely necessary for a poise amongst ourselves. Otherwise is it to be believed that the Spaniards, who hold that place with us in a sort of partnership, contrary to our mutual interest, will see us absolute masters of the Mediterranean, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... symmetrical backward slope of the whole head; the powerful level brows, and beneath these the dark, deep eyes, so fun of shadowed fire; the Arabian complexion; the sharp-cut, intense lines of the face; the light, tall, erect stature; the quick, axial poise of the movement,—all these traits reveal the fiery ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... to the sperm whale. It receives its designation (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary up-and-down poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called pitchpoling, previously described. By this motion the whale must best and most comprehensively view whatever objects may be ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... kite, no longer held in poise against the wind, commenced darting hither and thither; at each turn descending lower and lower— until by one last swoop, in which it seemed to concentrate all its failing strength, it came down towards Ossaroo like a gigantic bird of ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... of eyes stared at the speaker with a new and suddenly awakened interest, and beholding in him that lithe assurance of poise, that indefinable air that bespeaks the trained pugilist and which cannot be mistaken, elbows were nudged, ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... at times. The Honorable Betty understood, but her Highness would not be convinced. Thus she suffered this needless affront. Pardon this parenthesis, but when one talks from behind a curtain the parenthesis is the only available thing.) There was silence. I saw Steinbock poise the pen, then scribble on the parchment. It was done. I ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... his natural height diminished, as is often the case with sailors, by a slight bending of the back and stooping of the shoulders; yet he possessed a well-knit, vigorous, and not ungraceful figure, whose careless poise, and the ease with which he maintained his position, with his hands clasped behind his back, in spite of the rather heavy roll and pitch of the ship, in the very strong breeze, indicated long familiarity with ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... take the utmost advantage of this opportunity to expose the blank surface of those years to the fine etching of the present. Miriam at home, the Greys at Wychford, and in some ways most of all Richard Ford at Fairfield gave him in a few months the poise he would have received more gradually from a ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... stately and exquisite poise forsook her. Her eyes wore a hunted look for a moment. She even felt obliged to laugh ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... problematic Mr. Grandcourt least of all would Mrs. Davilow have willingly let fall a hint of the aerial castle-building which she had the good taste to be ashamed of; for such a hint was likely enough to give an adverse poise to Gwendolen's own thought, and make her detest the desirable husband beforehand. Since that scene after poor Rex's farewell visit, the mother had felt a new sense of peril in touching the mystery of her child's feeling, and in rashly determining what was her welfare: only she could think ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... to crush people down. Situations arose which demanded courage, resource, and in the cases of those who had lost friends most dear to them, enormous self-control; but very wonderfully they responded. There was the same quiet demeanour and poise, the same inborn dominion over circumstances, the same conformity to a normal standard which characterized the crowd of passengers on the deck of the Titanic—and for the ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... assembly and who had dared to challenge the authority of one who for nearly twenty years had been recognised as the autocrat of the village and of the whole countryside. But the Rector was an alert and gallant fighter. He quickly recovered his poise. ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... of a landscape by Corot or Innes without delighting more deeply in such scenes in the outdoor world; no one can live long in the atmosphere of Greek art without longing for such a body and such a poise of spirit. We are not accustomed to look at nature, or at man, with observing eyes, to see the richness of color in sun-kissed meadows or humming city streets, the infinite variations of light and shade, the depth of distance, the charm of line and composition. The picturesque is ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... perfect equation: if something is added or subtracted, something is subtracted or added, so long as there is life. Judith got her poise again in time, as strong natures do after any death; with some fibres weakened past mending, gray, but calm. If his side of her nature was stunted, she seemed to blossom all the more richly in other ways. She loved her children in proportion as she had suffered ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Jim Clanton was progressing. As he ate his plover broth he could not keep his eyes from her. She was so full of vital life. The color beat through her dark skin warm and rich. The abundant blue-black hair, the flashing eyes, the fine poise of the head, the little jaunty swagger of her, so wholly a matter of unconscious faith in her place in the sun: all of these charmed and delighted him. He had never dreamed of a girl of such ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... sure how long he clung there, but his white face and the poise of his strung-up figure impressed themselves indelibly on her memory. Strain was expressed in every line of his body and in his clutching hands. Then the strength and decision that was in her asserted itself, and she overcame the numbing horror that had held her powerless. Snatching ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... his confidence, he must have been surprised at the revulsion of manner that greeted him. Kate recovered her poise—her coldness vanished, a smile broke through her reserve and her confused regret was promptly expressed: "Did I give you coffee out of the cold tank? ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... policeman you meet. As things stand you are not suspected, and if we follow my program you are likely to walk the world in safety for the rest of your days. If I knew the circumstances I might become nervous and I must retain my poise or we perish. Your autobiography for the past week or so would make a ripping narrative, but you'd better learn to forget. Our yesterdays are as nothing; it's tomorrow we've got to think about. Those Congdons are rather a picturesque lot as I ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... the air, while he loomed tall and unreal in such an attitude, the broncho hung for a moment in mid-poise, then dropped over sheer—as if ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... he was at number one—the rattle of the iron links sounded horribly. At last number sixty! Calm from despair, Ben-Hur held his oar at poise, and gave his foot to the officer. Then the tribune ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... would not have you believe that I lost my intellectual poise and composure. Without, I may have appeared distraught; within, my brain continued its ordained functions. Indeed, my mind operated with a most unwonted celerity. Scarcely a minute passed that some new expedient did not ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... Ladies eyes, And yet with thee the serious Student Rise: The Eye at sev'rall angles darting rayes, Makes, and then sees, new Colours; so thy Playes To ev'ry understanding still appeare, As if thou only meant'st to take that Eare; The Phrase so terse and free of a just Poise, Where ev'ry word ha's weight and yet no Noise, The matter too so nobly fit, no lesse Then such as onely could deserve thy Dresse: Witnesse thy Comedies, Pieces of such worth, All Ages shall still like, but ne're bring forth. Other in season last scarce so long time, ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... influences of external nature in the two countries were still more opposed. The sense of beauty, which among the Greek peninsulas was fostered by beating of sea and rush of river, by waving of forest and passing of cloud, by undulation of hill and poise of precipice, lay dormant beneath the shadowless sky and on the objectless plain of the Egyptians; no singing winds nor shaking leaves nor gliding shadows gave life to the line of their barren mountains—no Goddess of Beauty rose from the pacing ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... trestle, and Torrance's quick turn pointed out its course. Conrad, who kept no rifle at his shack, had to be satisfied with watching, mechanically completing his toilet where he stood. Mauve suspenders jerked to his shoulders—brush slashing across his hair—one hand to test the poise of his ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... the Hielands. 'Nough said." Elizabeth had recovered her customary jolly poise. Wise enough, through long experience, to realize that when her father failed to throttle that vocal heritage from his forebears, war impended, she gathered up her knitting and fled to ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... to leave the matter of Uruguayan politics to his impartial adjustment. At both Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires a roar of laughter went up from the press at this notion of an obscure chieftain of a band of Indians in the tropical backwoods daring to poise the equilibrium of much more than half a continent on his insolent hand. But the merriment soon subsided, as Brazilians and Argentinos came to realize what their peril might be from a huge army of skilled and valiant soldiers, a veritable horde ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... Spring day. From heights, where the car seemed to poise like a bird in mid-air, one saw the tranquil blue of the sea. The woods were veiled in young green and the hedges thickly starred with blackthorn. Over the great Goonhilly Downs a silvery sheen trembled with impalpable colour and the gorse everywhere ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... clean way. The thought warmed him. Here was a girl, he reflected, with a piece of steel in her backbone; a girl that would take the world's lashings like a white elm in a storm, to spring resiliently back to stately poise after the turmoil had passed. Trouble would not break her; sorrow would only make her fineness finer. There was a girl to stand up beside ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... thee, old Arcturus! To thee, old Aldebaran! who ever poise your wine-red, fiery spheres on high. A health to thee, my regal friend, Alphacca, in the constellation of the Crown: Lo! crown to crown, I pledge thee! I drink to ye, too, Alphard! Markab! Denebola! Capella!—to ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... which his unbelief had made for him. He treated his doubt with exceeding gentleness, as a skilful physician would deal with a dangerous wound. He was in no haste. A full week passed before he did anything. During those days the sad heart had time to react, to recover something of its self-poise. Thomas still persisted in his refusal to believe, but when a week had gone he found his way with the others to their meeting. Perhaps their belief in the Lord's resurrection made such a change in them, so brightened ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... 'Arry are going out,' she said at length, with a rather timid smile and a poise of the ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... of expression, to choose only one example, reveals to us, the necessity of a right poise of the body. One of the leading teachers of science in this country, after fighting tuberculosis for three years, changing climates and using all the help that science has provided, determined at last to go back to his work and to ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... white houses. The man's eyes rested on it complacently, with the enjoyment of the painter, finding it charming: the girl's, a little absently, as one who had seen it very often before. She was pretty and very young, but her gray serious eyes, the poise of her head, with its rebellious brown hair braided plainly, gave her a little air of dignity, of reserve which sat piquantly upon her youth. In one ungloved hand, that was brown from the sun, but very beautiful, she held an old parasol, ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... other interjected. "Your own grandfather saw to that." His hand rested in the doorway, and he stopped Honduras, carrying in the guests' bags. Howat Penny's poise rapidly returned. "Go right up, Honduras," he directed; "the Windmill room, I think. I had never seen you," he said to James Polder, as if in apology. "But your father has been pointed out to me." He waved the younger man into the ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... as I live, this Gentleman among ten thousand thousand! is there no knowing him? why should he want? fellows of no merit, slight and puft souls, that walk like shadows, by leaving no print of what they are, or poise, let ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... of reaching maturity varies with climate and ancestral origin. Yet, from a theoretical standpoint, children before or during the adolescent period should be limited to the use of a rather small amount of tea and coffee as beverages, as their poise and nerve control have not reached a stage of development sufficient to warrant the stimulation incident to the consumption of an appreciable quantity ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... conspicuous as his body; and, so far from appearing a burden, seems to contribute to his lightness and buoyancy. It softens the outline of his movements, and repeats or continues to the eye the ease and poise of his carriage. But, pursued by the hound on a wet, thawy day, it often becomes so heavy and bedraggled as to prove a serious inconvenience, and compels him to take refuge in his den. He is very loath to do this; both ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... each of these lines presents is the same and the principle governing the solution of each identical; balance by equalization of forces. Given a line which coincides with but one side of the picture it becomes necessary for the poise of the quadrilateral to cross it with an opposing line. The rectangular cross, though more positive and effective, is no more potential in securing this unity than the crossing of lines at a long angle. A series of right angles will in time arrive at the same point as the ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... Upone the morne, which was Sanct Katherins day,[228] returned he to Edinburgh, and so did the Cardinall from Hadingtoun. But the one being eschamed of the other, the brute of thare communicatioun came nott to publict audience. The King maid inventorie of his poise, of all his juwellis and other substance;[229] and tharefter, as eschamed to look any man in the face, secreatlie departed to Fyfe, and cuming to the Hall-yardis,[230] was humanlie receaved of the Ladye[231] Grange, ane ancient and ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... feet before me. It crouched, sweeping the earth with its long tail, and looking fiercely at me. Our eyes met; I confess it, my heart was very small within me. I had my rifle, to be sure, but the least movement to poise it would have been the signal for a spring from the animal. At last, still crouching, it crept back, augmenting the distance to about thirty feet. Then it made a circle round me, never for a moment taking its eyes off my face, for the cub was still playing at my feet. I have no doubt that if the ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... the one who is calling becomes, no matter how profane he may be, no matter what he says, she must not answer back, and she must not slam the receiver down while he is talking. Perfect poise, an even temper, patience, and a pleasant voice under control—if she has these, and a vast number of the telephone girls have, she need not worry about the rules of courtesy. They will take ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... twist through vines, putting out a hand every now and then to feel whether the bunch of leaves at their back is in place. They were certainly no beauties, but there was a charm in their light, soft step, in the swaying of their hips, in the dainty poise of their slim ankles and feet, and the softness and harmony of all their movements. And the light playing on their dark, velvety, shining bodies increased this charm, until one almost forgot the many defects, the ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... Mrs. Gray that for the instant an almost unprecedented thing occurred: she could think of nothing to say. But endeavoring to gain her normal poise, she turned upon Rosa. ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... life whose lever she could grasp and could control, smiling proudly, almost insolently, in the consciousness of her strength, the fine steadfastness of her purpose. Then all at once the smile was struck from her lips, the stiffness of her poise suddenly relaxed. There, there it was again, the terror, the dreadful fear she dared not name, back in its place once more—at her side, at her shoulder, at her throat, ready to clutch at ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... powder-barrels on deck and then, by tackles on the foreyard, lowered them over the side; how we filled a number of bags which we found in the forecastle with powder; how we measured the cracks in the ice and sawed a couple of spare studding-sail booms into lengths to serve as beams whereby to poise the barrels and bags; would make but sailor's talk, half of which would be unintelligible ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... what passed within its narrow limits. It was here that I first observed the manner in which fishes die. As soon as the creature sickens, the head sinks lower and lower, and it stands as it were on its head; till, getting weaker, and losing all poise, the tail turns over, and at last it floats on the surface of the water with its belly uppermost. The reason why fishes, when dead, swim in that manner is very obvious; because, when the body is no longer balanced by the fins of the belly, the broad muscular back preponderates ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... Ruth determined to talk no more about her loss or her fears regarding the missing scenario. If it was gone, it was gone. That was all there was to it. She would no longer worry her friends and disturb her own mental poise by ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... restituta) and James Basnage (Hist. des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. l. xxiiii. p. 1339-1385) are cast into the Iconoclast scale. With this mutual aid, and opposite tendency, it is easy for us to poise the balance with philosophic indifference. * Note: Compare Schlosser, Geschichte der Bilder-sturmender Kaiser, Frankfurt am-Main 1812 a book ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... closed in everywhere; on, on, the wind whistling in our teeth, her hair blowing, and her gilt-laced hat flying from the silken cord that held it to her shoulder. How grandly her black mare bore her—the slight, pale-faced figure sitting the saddle with such perfect grace and poise! ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... was no longer the red-haired tatterdemalion who had romped over the rocks and quarreled with the boys of the Silent City. Her tom-boy days, amid the ceaseless struggles against the hardships of the Storm Country, gave to her slender body strength and lent to it poise and grace. Bright brown eyes lighted by loving intelligence illumined her face, tanned by sun and wind, but very sweet and winsome, especially when the curving red lips melted into a smile. A profusion of burnished red curls, falling ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... essentially weak, he thought, I need work to do, work to do. It worried him to think that he was, after all, a facile mediocrity, with neither the poise of Maury nor the enthusiasm of Dick. It seemed a tragedy to want nothing—and yet he wanted something, something. He knew in flashes what it was—some path of hope to lead him toward what he thought was an ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... House of Marriage; that all-important relation which may make or mar a life, the Balance is so easily disturbed in its equilibrium. To preserve its harmony, equality must reign, blending love and wisdom. It is the perfect poise of body, mind, and soul, achieved by loving obedience to the higher laws of our being and the true ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... keynote, was his first judgment. In not many moments he had decided that her key-note was joy. But he was dissatisfied with both conclusions, and knew he had not put his finger on her. And then it came to him—pride. That was it! It was in her eye, in the poise of her head, in the curling tendrils of her hair, in her sensitive nostrils, in the mobile lips, in the very pitch and angle of the rounded chin, in her hands, small, muscular and veined, that he knew at sight to be the hard-worked hands of one who had spent long ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... went on and on, increasing his speed now, slowing then, and getting more and more over with far less effort, and giving us no end of encouragement, as he at length reached the rocks, tumbled the load off his head—the load which had never seemed once to lose its poise—and finally we could see him seated facing us wiping his hot face with the front of ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... wear deeper and deeper paths into his nervous system as a result of their constant repetition. These minor habit-spasms of childhood are but telltales of an unstable nervous system, of a nervous heredity lacking poise and balance; and, mind you, if this nervous system is studied, treated, and properly harnessed with self-understanding and self-control, much may be accomplished; the habit may be more or less completely eradicated. If left to itself, unchecked, the habit ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... Lena, and Harriet Penny, and the officer of the Mounted. She hated Lapierre and the Indians, too. And then, realizing the folly of her blind hatred, she hated herself for hating. With an effort she regained her poise. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... look of his eyes did not alter, the poise of his big body did not shift, his hands, both at his sides again, might have ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... must be of due length and cadence; every sentence must be perfectly balanced before it left his lips. Exact precision characterized his style. He was easily the first legal orator America has produced. The rhythmical fullness and poise of ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... whose wide-browed head a no less admirable frame supported. Even the stiff evening uniform of his class could not conceal the grace of form which health and activity had moulded, working through highly favoured generations. There was latent force implied in every line of it, and, in the steady poise of look and mien, that perfect nervous balance which is the ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... neglected air, vanished when anyone came, talked very little, and was either pathetically humble or tragically cross. He wanted to do something, but nothing seemed to appear; and while he waited to get his poise after the downfall, he was so very miserable that I 'm afraid, if it had not been for one thing, my poor Tom would have got desperate, and been a failure. But when he seemed most useless, outcast, and forlorn, he discovered that one person needed him, one person ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... seemed wary, cautious, on its guard to defend itself against some probable tax upon its good nature. All this unconscious, instinctive reckoning of the other man's characteristics gave to the young fellow an effect of poise, of judicious balance and quiet confidence. It was one of Banneker's elements of strength, which subsequently won for him his unique place, that he was always too much interested in estimating the man to whom he was talking, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... alive; but anon I felt a river of fiery anger flow through me, rousing me, making me loathe the faces of them all. Yet not all, for in one pale face, with dark, brilliant eyes, I saw the looks of my flower of the world: the colour of her hair in his, the clearness of the brow, the poise of the head—how handsome he was!—the light, springing step, like a deer on the sod of June. I call to mind when I first saw him. He was sitting in a window of the Manor, just after he had come from Montreal, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the gate and watched her go down the long flight of steps. Everything about her, from the poise of her head to the swing of her body, courted conflict and prophesied disaster. I felt as if I had snatched a bag of candy from a ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... meditative indecision. From head to heels he was clothed in the most exquisite white flannel and buckskin tennis clothes, but for all their civilized worldliness he resembled nothing so much as a feeding king of the forest in the poise of his wonderful head and equally wonderful body. I glanced quickly at his face with its gentle, deep, comprehending lines, in positive fear of him, and I found reassurance in the smile that curled his strong red mouth and glinted at me from his brilliant ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... refinement which obtained in the tea-room. In all circumstances serenity of mind should be maintained, and conversation should be conducted as never to mar the harmony of the surroundings. The cut and color of the dress, the poise of the body, and the manner of walking could all be made expressions of artistic personality. These were matters not to be lightly ignored, for until one has made himself beautiful he has no right to approach ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... an over-anxious parent would have felt confident that Bet Baxter could look out for herself under any circumstances. Her straight young body had poise and assurance of power and she had a resourcefulness of mind that made her a leader among ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... evening at home Miss Lydia Vail had risen flutteringly and left them alone on the porch in the soft dusk, and at once he had plunged to his doom. There was no serene confidence about him this time, no snatching her into a short-breathed embrace; he was rather pathetically humble before her new poise ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... during the poise in the upturned right hand under the thumb and over the first and second fingers. The arm is extended in a slight curve just in front of the line of the shoulders. In making a thrust, the lance is darted parallel to the line of the shoulders and on a level with ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... pushed back her veil, her vis-a-vis received almost a shock. She was quite as good-looking as he had imagined, but she was far younger—she was indeed little more than a girl. Her eyes were of a deep shade of hazel brown, her eyebrows were delicately marked, her features and poise admirable. Yet her skin was entirely colourless. She was as pale as one whose eyes have been closed in death. Her lips, although in no way highly coloured, were like streaks of scarlet blossom upon a marble image. The contrast between her appearance and that of her companion was curiously ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... bush and hedge and tree Joy, unrestrained and free, Breaks forth in melody, Twitter and chirp and song: Alive the festal air With gauze-winged creatures fair, That flicker everywhere, Dart, poise, and ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... If Fitzgerald admired her beauty he yet more admired her perfect poise and unconcern. Many another woman would have evinced ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... stirred from the open window, whence she saw—not Parisian monuments of civic glory and martial splendour—only her own past, her haunting skull and cross-bones of the Bygone. Her violet-coloured dressing-gown was unbuttoned at the throat, exposing the graceful turn of the neck, and the proud poise of the perfectly modelled head, from which the shining hair fell like Danae's shower, framing the face and figure on a back ground as golden as that of ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... twigs and made you a picture of purity; and in the later winter when the fierce storms wrestled in vain with your sinewy limbs. While the other trees of the forest were tossing hither and thither, bent and broken by the blast, you stood in calm poise and dignity, nodding and swaying towards me as if to show me how to withstand adversity. And I have watched your pendulous blossoms daily grow more beautiful among the miracles of early May when the sunshine of the flower-spangled ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... such a chariot tends to overset. So it does. But I never have had an overset and I never expect to overset. I know how to drive and poise myself so as to keep my chariot right side up, and I never think of oversetting, I think of winning ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast... Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, That brave Frascati villa with its bath, So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Like God the Father's globe on both his hands Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: Man ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... was ushered into the room by the provost sergeant of the guard. Warren rose instantly, and escorted her to her seat, and his eyes flashed in admiration of her poise and beauty. ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the colonels, the captains, the women, the children, and the dumb brutes; took Buffalo Bill, and all his scouts; took the garrison—to the last man; and in forty-eight hours the Indian encampment was hers, illustrious old Thunder-Bird and all. Do I seem to have lost my solemnity, my gravity, my poise, my dignity? You would lose your own, in my circumstances. Mother, you never saw such a winning little devil. She is all energy, and spirit, and sunshine, and interest in everybody and everything, and pours out her prodigal love upon every creature that will take it, high ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with more or less obvious excuse, derided or abused the older Adamses for want of judgment. They abused Charles Francis for his judgment. Naturally they never attempted to assign values to either; that was the children's affair; but the traits were real. Charles Francis Adams was singular for mental poise — absence of self-assertion or self-consciousness — the faculty of standing apart without seeming aware that he was alone — a balance of mind and temper that neither challenged nor avoided notice, nor admitted question of superiority or inferiority, of jealousy, of personal motives, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... freedom, or otherwise, from weariness. Deleah, her face the colour of a wild rose, her loose dark hair curling crisply in the frosty air, shouted greetings to her mother as she flew past, a little erect, graceful figure keeping her elegant poise with the ease of the young and fearless. Now and again she was seen to be fleeing, laughing as she went, from the pursuit of a skater who wished to make a circuit of the flooded meadow holding Deleah's hand. The girl was at once a romp and shy. She laughed with dancing eyes as she flew ahead; ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... in nature, and so it is in grace; wherefore, notwithstanding what was said under the first head, it doth not follow, that if I be a child I must certainly know it, and also be able to call God, Father. Let the first, then, serve to poise and balance the confident ones, and let this be for the relief of those more feeble; for they that are children, whether they know it or no, have Jesus Christ for their Advocate, for Christ is assigned to be our Advocate by the Judge, by the King, by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a kind of befuddled astonishment. "You mean she really is a—" He stopped and brought his tenor voice to a squeaking halt, regained his professional poise, and began again. "I'd rather not discuss the patient in her presence, Mr. Malone," he said. "If you'll just come into ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... "composition." She was broad and ample, low-browed and large-eyed, dark and pale. Her thick brown hair hung low beside her cheek and ear, and seemed to drape her head with a covering as chaste and formal as the veil of a nun. The poise and carriage of her head were admirably free and noble, and they were the more effective that their freedom was at moments discreetly corrected by a little sanctimonious droop, which harmonised admirably with the level ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... obvious, whilst those qualities which had brought Harrison to the top in his youth were only a memory in the minds of the older men. All could see the three inches extra of height and two of reach which Wilson possessed, and a glance at the quick, cat-like motions of his feet, and the perfect poise of his body upon his legs, showed how swiftly he could spring either in or out from his slower adversary. But it took a subtler insight to read the grim smile which flickered over the smith's mouth, or the smouldering fire which shone in his grey eyes, ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... looked ascetic, some austere, some angelic. Mrs. Foss, not finding the right adjective for his mixture of poise and humanity, was content to call him charming. Gerald, who had known him when they were Vin and Raldi to each other and equally far from entering the Church, regarded him as simply the nicest fellow he knew. Aurora had no definition for him, but did not ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... elements of experience upon which imagination builds. For this reason it is rather remarkable that the story, which is omitted from the Montessori system of education, is perhaps the most valuable means of effecting that sense-training, freedom, self-initiated play, repose, poise, and power of reflection, which are ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... the side of the hill a youth had been riding. His mount was a sorry one, a weedy, shambling, long-haired colt, and his patched tunic of faded purple with stained leather belt presented no very smart appearance; yet in the bearing of the man, in the poise of his head, in his easy graceful carriage, and in the bold glance of his large blue eyes, there was that stamp of distinction and of breed which would have given him a place of his own in any assembly. He was of small stature, but his frame was singularly elegant and graceful. ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mental derangement which unfitted me for serious labor. After the way of men, I boldly denied his charge. He paid no attention to my protest, but expressed himself freely on the unwisdom of a man allowing himself to fall under the influence of delusions which cost him his mental poise and might disarrange his whole life. Hearing Mr. Hanks, it was difficult for me to believe that he had ever been in love himself. Watching him at his work, with his sharp, restless eyes always alert, and listening to his voice as incisive as his shears, he seemed a man whose whole mind was ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... the detail is not pursued to so remote an extremity in the Classic. The delicate poise of the analogy is what is chiefly dwelt upon, the sign for a needle harmonizing with that for official, and there being a similar balance between ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... foreign rgime. He was still in Mrida when in a proclamation he spoke of avenging the victims, and threatened with war to death. But Bolvar was not only a man of genius but one of equanimity, poise, deep thought and attention. He did not want to carry out his threats immediately, but decided to think at length over the transcendent step he was considering. The night of the 14th of June was a night of torture ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... Lately, however, many prefer to walk to the polls, and they go in pairs, trios and quartettes, voting their little sentiments and calmly returning to their cookies and crazy quilts as though politics didn't jar their mental poise a minute. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... could. But this is guesswork. Felice being a woman, and part Spanish at that, was vastly more self-conscious, more disingenuous, than the man, the Anglo-Saxon. Also she had that fearlessness that very pretty women have. In her more refined and city-bred sisters this fearlessness would be called poise, or, ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... who yet must master them all, if he were to follow his ambition. Some ate with their knives, meeting the food halfway from their plates; some acted and spoke in a manner revealing a college education and the poise that it gives. But all were as one, all talking together; the operator no more enthusiastic than the man whose sole recompense was the five dollars a day he received for drilling powder holes; all happy, all optimistic, all engrossed in the hopes and dreams ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... at a time and made him company commander, without insignia or official position. In rank, he was only a "gob" like the rest of them. In influence a captain. Moran knew how to put the weight lunge behind the bayonet. It was a matter of balance, of poise, more than ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... could see, kept her from all knowledge of or participation in his Bohemian tastes. They were the sort of people who have a box at the opera and are patrons of the best and most exclusive functions of the highest society. Mrs. Schuyler, after the first shock, recovered her poise, and though now and then a tremor shook her slight frame, she bore ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... Professor. Without any knowledge as to the source of their conviction, the two girls who watched felt that the Professor was becoming dominant. And then there came a sudden queer change. The intangible triumph of the Professor's stony poise seemed to fade away. His eyes had sought the corner of the room, his lips quivered. The horror was there again, the horror they had seen before. He crouched a little back. His hands were uplifted as though to keep off some ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Washington at the close of the war. I stood a little behind Reno and the rest, and had the pleasure of hearing their involuntary exclamations of admiration at the marching of the men. The easy swinging step, the graceful poise of the musket on the shoulder, as if it were a toy and not a burden, and the compactness of the column were all noticed and praised with a heartiness which was very grateful to my ears. I no longer felt any doubt that the division stood well in ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... fellow-countryman. The new-comer was younger than Selwyn, and though of lighter complexion and hair, was unmistakably American in appearance. Like the author, he was clean-shaven, but there was more repose in the features. His face was broad, and in the poise of his head and thick neck there was the clear impression of great physical and mental driving-power. Although still a student, the mark of the engineer was strongly stamped on him. He was of the type that spans a great river with a bridge; that glories in the overcoming ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... moment you must admire Rooney with me as he receives, seats, manipulates, and chaffs his guests. He is twenty-nine. He has Wellington's nose, Dante's chin, the cheek-bones of an Iroquois, the smile of Talleyrand, Corbett's foot work, and the poise of an eleven-year-old East Side Central Park Queen of the May. He is assisted by a lieutenant known as Frank, a pudgy, easy chap, swell-dressed, who goes among the tables seeing that dull care does not intrude. Now, what is there about Rooney's to inspire all this pother? ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... unsupported, stood in unstable equilibrium, anon stooping to his finger-tips, then straining doubtfully forward with struggling arms from a too backward poise: for not only did the trousers lie a twisted emptiness far below his feet, but the feet themselves were lost in Young's boots, so he stood like Scaramouch, a mere sack, a working of his chin wobbling down his beard, and there was a blaze in his ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... first looked on her face, Mabel Lee Had seemed to his self sated nature to be, On life's troubled ocean, a beacon of light, To guide him safe out from the rocks and the night. Her calm soothed his passion; her peace gave him poise; She seemed like a silence in life's vulgar noise. He bathed in the light which her purity cast, And felt half absolved from the sins of the past. He longed in her mantle of goodness to hide And forget the whole world. By the incoming tide He talked with his heart ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the side of the vessel, he stood holding her thus in our view for a few moments; then, deftly and deliberately as usual, he wrapped the preciously weighted linen around her, stepped easily upon the bulwark, and with that perfect and deliberate poise so peculiar to him, and with his burden clasped firmly to his breast, he flung himself far clear of the ship, into the ocean, and ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... bleeding, breathless, furious to the last, Full in the centre stands the bull at bay, Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and lances brast, And foes disabled in the brutal fray: And now the matadores around him play, Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand: Once more through all he bursts his thundering way - Vain rage! the mantle quits the conynge hand, Wraps his fierce eye—'tis past—he sinks upon ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... who dreamed of an ideal and perfect love; their one longing was for the romantic—for the enchantments and delights of life. In this stilted and amorous atmosphere, Mme. de Maintenon preserved her poise and fought vigorously against the fads of the day. The young girls under her care were taught to love just as they were taught to do other things—with reason. Also, she guarded against the weaknesses of nature and the flesh. "Than Mme. de Maintenon, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... practised in Leaplow. There, the supposition of legitimacy is as much in favor of the youngest as of the oldest born, and the practice is in conformity. As there is no hereditary chief to poise on one of the legs of the great tripod, the people at the foot of the beam choose one from among themselves, periodically, who is called the Great Sachem. The same people choose another set, few in number, who occupy a common seat, on another leg. These they term the Riddles. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper |
