"Posture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who was by nature courteous, and even inclined a little to ceremony in his manners, especially with those with whom he was not intimate, immediately rose, as he would not receive such a salutation in a reclining posture. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of cities we take, in the Royals,' growled Corporal Sam. He nodded, as well as his posture allowed, towards San Sebastian. 'And you call that ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... to charges on account of the troops for whom the King makes them responsible, and whom they are obliged to provide in the way of service. Every Saturday the dancing-girls are obliged to go to the palace to dance and posture before the King's idol, which is in the interior of his palace. The people of this country always fast on Saturdays and do not eat all day nor even at night, nor do they drink water, only they may chew a ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... faithful on pardons, as a specific against headache and earache—a singular remedy! The cathedral has a fine marble tomb of Bishop Visdelou, preacher to Queen Anne of Austria; he is represented in a half reclining posture, in his pontifical garments. In every part of the cathedral are the little boxes ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... about seventy-five centimetres high, strong and burly looking, and the posture of the young man on his back conveyed a vivid suggestion of action. They were now on their way to sell this to some Chinaman. The image was said to be worth from two to three hundred florins, and as there was ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... before he could even discover the stage. He observed that every person in the theatre carried a long black glass, which he kept perpetually fixed to his eye. To sit in a huge room hotter than a glass-house, in a posture emulating the most sanctified Faquir, with a throbbing head-ache, a breaking back, and twisted legs, with a heavy tube held over one eye, and the other covered with the unemployed hand, is in Vraibleusia called a ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... confused noise about me; but, in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky. In a little time, I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which, advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my chin; when, bending my eyes downward, as much as I could, I perceived ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... Men who are over-crammed with everything under the sun, while others, who have a stomach just as importunate as they, a hunger that recurs as regularly as theirs, have not a bite. The worst is the constrained posture to which want pins us down. The needy man does not walk like anybody else; he jumps, he crawls, he wriggles, he limps, he passes his whole life in ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... clock and people have rid themselves of their routine, which was to tumble and scurry among its cogs and levers. They are done with life, with buying and selling and with the perpetual errand. And they have become a swarm of little ornaments. Men and women denuded of the city. Their outlines posture quaintly in the mist. Their little faces say, "The clock is gone. There is nothing any more to make us alive. So we ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... into twilight, and twilight became night. Midnight had come, and Marian was still sitting, as she had done for more than an hour, holding up the faint head; for Caroline could no longer breathe in a recumbent posture, and sat partly supported on pillows, partly resting on Marian's shoulder. Her eyes were shut, and she seemed unconscious; it might be that she slept, but the features were full of suffering, and Marian could feel each of her breaths, gasping and convulsive. Her mother hung over ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of the night or day the hour that succeeds the dawn is the purest, the most joyous, and the best. At least so think we, and so think hundreds and thousands of the human family. And so thought Dick Varley, as he sprang suddenly into a sitting posture next morning, and threw his arms with an exulting feeling of delight round the neck of Crusoe, who instantly sat up ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... ceremonial from beginning to end without the least fatigue or impatience,—and though when the brethren knelt, he could not humble himself so far as to kneel also, he still made a slight concession to appearances by sitting down and keeping his head in a bent posture—"out of respect for the good intentions of these worthy men," as he told himself, to silence the inner conflict of his own opposing and contradictory sensations. The service concluded, he waited as before to see the monks pass out, and was smitten with a sudden surprise, compunction, and regret, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... and killing Hiram Smith. Joseph Smith now attempted to escape by jumping out of the second-story window; but the fall so stunned him that he was unable to rise, and being placed by the conspirators in a sitting posture, they despatched him by four ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... to the male attire after this; but being yet in the prime of my womanhood, and as fond as ever of athletic diversions, I engaged myself to a French mountebank posture-master to dance Corantoes on the Tight and Slack Rope, accompanying myself meanwhile by reveilles on the Drum, an instrument in which I had become a proficient. The Posture Master, finding out afterwards that I was agile and Valiant, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... a simple cube of masonry, some ten feet high, and hollow within. A horizontal wheel of oak was at the top, and to this the victim was bound in a kneeling posture. A very steep flight of stone ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Then he saw his Serene Highness thrown on his mother-in-law's dirty bed, booted and spurred; for his gentlemen, as they passed the inn, had thought it best to give his slumbers a more comfortable posture. Here, surrounded by valets, pages, and negroes, he had snored on all night, while the indomitable widow cooked her meals and chopped her wood in the very room as usual. And here, in a sooty public-house, with broken windows, and rafters supported by undressed ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... then returned. When he came to the first window in his return (the bottom of which was nearly breast-high), he rested his elbow on the bottom of the window, and the side of his face upon the palm of his hand, and stood in that leaning posture for some time, with his side partly towards her. She looked at him earnestly to see if she knew him, but, though from her frequent intercourse with them, she had a personal knowledge of all the present family, he appeared a stranger ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... hand, simitar in the other, and in a most cramped posture entered the passage. After him came Leclair, the woman, Bohannan, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... girl under the arms and elevated her to a standing posture. She recovered her breath and her self-possession promptly and glowed upon him with the brightest of smiles. He ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... surprise, as if a practical joke had just been played upon them. These grotesque expressions are much more frightful than could be any indicative of suffering. Those who have died slowly are usually propped up against something in a sitting posture, and their faces ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... school-gathering would alone have sufficed to make her restless all night; the effect of the terrible drama which had just been enacted before her eyes was not likely to quit her for days. It was vain even to try to retain a recumbent posture; she sat up by Shirley's side, counting the slow minutes, and watching the June sun mount ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... foremost, tying it in such a way about his neck as might prevent his head from getting into it: thus avoiding the danger of suffocation. The sack, with Mat at full length in it, was then fixed to the pin of the straddle, so that he was in an erect posture during the whole journey. A creel was then hung at the other side, in which was placed a large stone, of sufficient weight to preserve an equilibrium; and, to prevent any accident, a droll fellow sat astride behind the straddle, amusing himself and the rest by breaking ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... satisfaction, but the Rajah's gaze was rivetted on Atma, whilst his features were distorted as if by a moment's uncontrollable rage. The transport passed as quickly as it had come, and he sank back to his former negligent posture. But the Ranee had seen, and a look of startled and ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... fell in the conversation around the stove. Two or three of the men, after a civil enough greeting, hitched themselves into a more comfortable posture in their chairs, and it was singular, though Keith did not recall it until afterwards, that each of them showed by the movement a pistol ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... her wondrous dexterity and pliant strength, both exercised without apparent effort, it seemed the most natural proceeding in the world that she should do those unpardonable things. She had a way of melting from one graceful posture into another, like the dissolving figures thrown from a stereopticon. She was a lithe, radiant shape out of the Grecian mythology, now poised up there above the gaslights, and now gleaming through the air like a slender ...
— Mademoiselle Olympe Zabriski • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of the cave, high up, close to the roof. He turned, and his eyes followed Vashti, who had caught up Eli's lantern, and was picking her way across the rocky floor. Presently she bent to a kneeling posture, as the rays fell on what at first appeared to be a long bundle. He hurried after her, but stopped short ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... broken, but the force of the stroke bore away the Primate's cap and wounded him on the crown. As he felt the blood trickling down his face he joined his hands and bowed his head saying, "In the name of Christ and for the defence of his Church I am ready to die." In this posture, turned toward his murderers, without a groan and without a motion, he awaited a second stroke, which threw him on his knees; the third laid him on the floor at the foot of St. Bennet's altar. The upper part of his skull was broken in pieces, and Hugh of Horsea, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... his mouth, or flirt into his ears a passing admonition as to the impropriety of sleeping in meeting, when the good old gentleman would start, open his eyes very wide, and look about with a resolute air, as much as to say, "I wasn't asleep, I can tell you;" and then setting himself in an edifying posture of attention, you might perceive his head gradually settling back, his mouth slowly opening wider and wider, till the good man would go off again soundly asleep, as if nothing ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... case he would have beheld, with complete indifference, Mrs. Travers extended on the floor with her head resting on the edge of the camp bedstead (on which Lingard had never slept), as though she had subsided there from a kneeling posture which is the attitude of prayer, supplication, or defeat. The hours of the night had passed Mrs. Travers by. After flinging herself on her knees, she didn't know why, since she could think of nothing to pray for, had nothing to invoke, and was too far gone for ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... and in the centre of the tomb might be seen the effigies of Sir Ranulph de Rokewode, the builder of the mausoleum, and the founder of the race who slept within its walls. This statue, wrought in black marble, differed from most monumental carved-work, in that its posture was erect and lifelike. Sir Ranulph was represented as sheathed in a complete suit of mail, decorated with his emblazoned and gilded surcoat, his arm leaning upon the pommel of a weighty curtal-axe. The attitude was that of stern repose. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... his eyes, and saying faintly that he felt better, allowed himself to be raised to a sitting posture, while his coat was removed and his wound examined. It was found to be a deep flesh-wound in the shoulder, from which a fragment of ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... having any of these with me, I turned to Robinson Crusoe; and I find De Foe says, describing the savages who came on the island after Will Atkins began to change for the better and commanded under the grave Spaniard for the common defence, 'their posture was generally sitting upon the ground, with their knees up towards their mouth, and the head put between the two hands, leaning down upon the knees'—exactly the same attitude!" In his next week's letter he reported further: "I have not been ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... 1823, and time had played its part with his countenance; the smile was more languid, the eye less illumined, the person more slight than formerly, the hair of a more silvery hue, the features of his expressive face more distinctly marked; the erect posture was still maintained, but the gait had become more solemn; and when he rose from his chair, he had no longer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... and rested his head on his hand in a somewhat studied "pose." But as he wished not to be interrupted, it may not have been altogether unpardonable to pretend sleep. However, the sleeping posture had exactly the opposite effect to that which ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... the chief of the mace-bearers, and pointing to her bade him bring her before the sultan. The old woman at once followed the mace-bearer, and when she reached the sultan bowed her head down to the carpet which covered the platform of the throne, and remained in that posture until he bade her rise, which she had no sooner done, than he said to her, "Good woman, I have observed you to stand many days from the beginning to the rising of the divan; what ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... in the lower parts of the moorland where we were the best concealed. Some of these had been burned or at least scathed with fire; and there rose in our faces (which were close to the ground) a blinding, choking dust as fine as smoke. The water was long out; and this posture of running on the hands and knees brings an overmastering weakness and weariness, so that the joints ache and the wrists ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... solitude and in dignity, like the classical dramatists; he wishes to give a whole party of characters in the play of life, and according to the nature of each. He would 'hold the mirror up to nature', not to catch a monarch in a tragic posture, but a whole group of characters engaged in many actions, intent on many purposes, thinking many thoughts. There is life enough, there is action enough, in single plays of Shakespeare to set up an ancient dramatist for a long career. And Shakespeare succeeded. ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... dragon-flies, or things of that sort,—at once ugly and beautiful,—than like anything else; only that they were a thousand and a million times as big. And, with all this, there was something partly human about them, too. Luckily for Perseus, their faces were completely hidden from him by the posture in which they lay; for, had he but looked one instant at them, he would have fallen heavily out of the air, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... any dust there, when, hearing a noise, supposing that the minister had come, she turned and closed the closet door, and reseated herself, wiping her mouth with her apron as she did so. This change of posture brought her into full view of the stairs leading to the loft above, which humble place, under the roof, the clergyman used for a study when he wished to be very much retired. On the stairs, descending with solemn step and slow, was Bub, with the minister's old hat on, which he kept above ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... enough to construct canoes so well modeled and so neatly and strongly put together, should have invented nothing better in the way of a house than a hut built of flexible branches, compared with which a wigwam is an elaborate dwelling. These huts are hood-like in shape, and too low for any posture but that of squatting or lying down. In front is always a scorched spot on the ground, where their handful of fire has smouldered; and at one side, a large heap of empty shells, showing that they had occupied this place until they had exhausted ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... to keep all their days holy, as long back as I was at school at Christ's. I remember their effigies, by the same token, in the old Baskett Prayer Book. There hung Peter in his uneasy posture—holy Bartlemy in the troublesome act of flaying, after the famous Marsyas by Spagnoletti.—I honoured them all, and could almost have wept the defalcation of Iscariot—so much did we love to keep holy memories sacred:—only methought I a little grudged at the coalition of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... hill toward his patrol cabin, tossing his hat in the air and trying to catch it on his head. As luck would have it, just before he entered the little rustic home of sorrow, the hat landed plunk on his head, a little to the back and very much to the side, and he let it remain in that rakish posture when he entered. ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... lay down on one of the beds which Illumea had given up for our accommodation, as well as her keipik, or large deerskin blanket, which she rolled up for my pillow. The poor old woman herself sat up by her lamp, and in that posture seemed perfectly well satisfied to doze away the night. The singularity of my night's lodging made me awake several times, when I always found some of the Esquimaux eating, though, after we lay down, they kept quite quiet for fear ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... bewildered air at the sun, which had just risen in a flood of golden light. Presently his eyes fell on Gaff, and a dark scowl covered his face, but being, or pretending to be unable to continue long in a sitting posture, he muttered that he would lie down and rest in the bow of the boat. He got up and staggered to the spot, where he lay down and soon ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... translucent, silver mist. As one looked more closely however there was revealed the figure of a man, black clad in pilgrim guise, kneeling on the verge of a precipitous cliff which rose out of a seemingly bottomless abyss of terrific blackness. Though in posture of prayer the pilgrim's head was lifted and his face wore an expression of rapt adoration. Above a film of fog in the heavens stretched a clear space of deep blue black sky in which hung a single luminous star. From the star a line of golden light of ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... half-sitting posture, leaning her head upon her right hand, with her Bible open before her. She had evidently fallen asleep while reading. Her countenance was beautifully composed and tranquil. A few tears had rolled down her ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... beside him on the floor. He kicked out, and the next moment his ankle was gripped and held by a row of keen teeth. He yelled again, and tried to free his leg by kicking with the other. Then he realised he had the broken water-bottle at his hand, and, snatching it, he struggled into a sitting posture, and feeling in the darkness towards his foot, gripped a velvety ear, like the ear of a big cat. He had seized the water-bottle by its neck and brought it down with a shivering crash upon the head of the strange beast. He repeated the blow, and then stabbed and jobbed with the jagged ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... tap bringing no response, he lifted the latch without further ceremony and stepped into the chamber, Mr. Taggett a pace or two behind him. The figure of Father O'Meara slowly rising from a kneeling posture at the bedside was the first object that met their eyes; the second was Torrini's placid face, turned a little on the pillow; the third was Brigida sitting at the foot of the bed, motionless, with her arms wrapped in ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... glance at Chess. She saw that he had moved. He was lying with his right hand covered by his body. There seemed an alertness about him—in posture and in gleaming, half-closed eyes—that startled Ruth. What had the young fellow in his mind to do. For what ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... promised he would manage this point with discretion; that he would make an apology for him, and that there was no occasion for his personally taking leave: then, after congratulating him upon the happy posture of his affairs, he sent him away with all the expedition and secrecy imaginable; so great was his fear lest his friend should lose the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... will be sure to have its tawdry baby-house and doll idol, and it frequently has in addition a roll of paper, four feet by one, like a window curtain, with, a gay picture of Joss, in a scarlet dress, in the act of dancing, and generally in a very absurd posture for such ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... counsel. He had already volunteered to go to Flood's Creek to ascertain if water was still to be procured in it, but I had not felt justified in availing myself of his offer. My mind, however, dwelling on the critical posture of our affairs, and knowing and feeling as I did the value of time, and that the burning sun would lick up any shallow pool that might be left exposed, and that three or four days might determine our ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... you," said Stryver, coming slowly into a sitting posture. "Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible to you, because you are such ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... wonder what race claims him. He is of Mongolian blood. He stolidly passes by, looking neither to the right nor to the left. He is used to being obeyed. His rod of authority tells you that what he says is law. Indifference and arrogance are on his face. His very posture, the very way in which his robe hangs from his shoulders, the position of his nerveless fingers that hold the rod, speak of centuries of indifference to everything except ...
— Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James
... march thither, I assembled the companies at Bethlehem, the chief establishment of those people. I was surprised to find it in so good a posture of defense; the destruction of Gnadenhut had made them apprehend danger. The principal buildings were defended by a stockade; they had purchased a quantity of arms and ammunition from New York, and had even plac'd ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... move and he began, with still increasing violence of manner, a most fervent protestation that he would not be set aside, and that he devoted himself to me entirely. And, to say the simple truth, ridiculous as all this was, I really began to grow a little frightened by his vehemence and his posture - till, at last, in the midst of an almost furious vow, in which he dedicated himself to me for ever, he relieved me, by suddenly calling upon Jupiter, Juno, Mars, and Hercules, and every god, and every goddess, to witness his oath. And then, content with ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... his countenance; he appeared to listen with his soul. It was time for speech, yet the master merely pointed to one of the sleepers. The watchful negro caught the idea, and going to the man, aroused him, then resumed his place and posture by the pallet. The action revealed his proportions. He looked as if he could have lifted the gates of Gaza, and borne them easily away; and to the strength there were superadded the grace, suppleness, and softness of motion of a cat. One ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... of this statue, I have said, is wholly different from that of the Hebrew. His is one of authority and of sternness; this of gentleness and love. Christ is represented, like the Moses, in a sitting posture, with a countenance, not like his raised to Heaven, but bent with looks somewhat sad and yet full of benevolence, as if upon persons standing before him. Fraternity, I think, is the idea you associate with it most readily. I should ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... lost, If such astonishment as this can sieze Eternal spirits; or have ye chos'n this place After the toyl of Battel to repose Your wearied vertue, for the ease you find 320 To slumber here, as in the Vales of Heav'n? Or in this abject posture have ye sworn To adore the Conquerour? who now beholds Cherube and Seraph rowling in the Flood With scatter'd Arms and Ensigns, till anon His swift pursuers from Heav'n Gates discern Th' advantage, and descending tread us down Thus drooping, or with linked Thunderbolts Transfix ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... life.... She asked herself could she possibly be alive? Fantomas had threatened her with death, and yet she lived.... Where was she?... Bobinette felt so weak and giddy that she remained in a sitting posture.... What exactly had happened?... Ah!—yes!—when Fantomas had announced she was to die, she had fallen down on the road: her skirt was still wet and muddy, her testing fingers told her that! She was cold! What had happened since?... Bobinette ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... wretched reflections. He stared upon the water, but saw nothing: the tide rose and wet his feet, but he felt it not; the wind blew chill, but he was not cold. He got up at last from his seat, and was recalled to life. He felt stiff from having been in one posture so long. He took out his watch, and found it was twelve o'clock. He looked at the sun, and perceived it did not contradict the watch, and ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... founder of the temple having been Rameses II, that the sculpture refers to the circumcision of two of his children. The knife appears to be a stone implement, and the operator kneels in front of the child, who is standing, while a matron supports him in a kneeling posture, and she holds his hands from behind him.[2] In this bas-relief we can see the great difference that existed between the two forms of the operation, that of the Hebrews being performed, as a rule, on the eighth day after ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... seem the way here in the woods. And then suddenly, just in time she jerked on the brake and came to a jarring stop, for ahead of her a big car was sprawled across the road, and there, rising hurriedly from a kneeling posture before the engine, in the full blaze of her headlights, blinking and frowning with anxiety, stood ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... all very well," thought Dennis, finding himself between two fires. "I had better lie doggo for a bit while they get on with it." And, stepping inside the ruins of a small shop, he flung himself down on a heap of bricks in the posture of ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... perfect team work, come unexpectedly upon the quail scent in stubble, that one which first catches the nostril-warning becomes rigid as though a breath had petrified him—and at once his fellow drops to the stiff posture of accord. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... and in a stooping posture, often on his knees, followed the windings of a narrow canal that emptied ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... path for her through the ripe grain until we reached the rick. The rain was beginning to pelt us sharply. Furiously I went to work, tearing out straw by the handfuls, armfuls, and in a few seconds I had excavated a hole large enough for Salome to enter in a crouching posture. ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... as to the way in which it has to be carried on.—There being no special restrictive rule, the Prvapakshin holds that the Devotee may carry it on either sitting or lying down or standing or walking.—This view the Stra sets aside. Meditation is to be carried on by the Devotee in a sitting posture, since in that posture only the needful concentration of mind can be reached. Standing and walking demand effort, and lying down is conducive to sleep. The proper posture is sitting on some support, so that no effort may be required for holding the ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... at these words, and Mr. Pecksniff stepped back so hastily that he missed his footing, tumbled over a chair, and fell in a sitting posture on the ground, where he remained, perhaps ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... rhymers Ballad us out o' tune: the quick comedians Extemporally will stage us, and present Our Alexandrian revels; Antony Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness I' the posture of ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... She heard a rustle of a silken gown, and knew it ought not to have been worn in a sick-room; for her senses seemed to have passed into the keeping of the invalid, and to feel only as he felt. The noise was probably occasioned by some change of posture in the watcher inside, for it was once more dead-still. The soft wind outside sank with a low, long, distant moan among the windings of the hills, and lost itself there, and came no more again. But Ruth's heart beat loud. She rose with as little noise as if she were ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... acquired taste, I suppose for some of us. There's something else." She came slowly to a sitting posture and fixed her questioning, baffling eyes on his. "Ban, don't you want to ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... rubbed his icy hands and limbs and bathed his forehead, but the interval was long and trying before the stark figure on the floor shuddered slightly and struggled weakly to a sitting posture. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... one another in a way that impedes their proper functioning and induces passive congestion. In short, the nervous strain for both pupil and teacher, the need for vigorous stimulation of respiration and circulation, for an outlet for the repressed social and emotional nature, for the correction of posture, and for a change from abstract academic interests, are all largely indicated. Nothing can correct the posture but formal gymnastic work selected and taught for that purpose; but the other conditions may be largely and quickly relieved ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... the court—a flower-bed of roses—was, in consequence, a thorny maze for a jester to tread. From her chair at the far end of the room, the young woman looked at the new-comer for the first time since his enthronement. Her fingers yet played between the gilded bars; the posture she had assumed set forth the pliant grace of her figure. Above the others, she glanced at him, her hair very black against the golden cage; her arm, very white, half unsheathed from the great ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... head of Atua resided there. The name originated in Alei and Pata, a couple who were said to have come from the heavens and taught their children to build houses. They were very good-looking, and charged their children that when they died they were to be buried in a standing posture, with their faces uncovered, that people might still come and look at them; and from this probably originated the ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... in the hands of another Georgian, Robert Toombs. In the present posture of affairs, little could be expected from it, as until the nations of Europe should recognize the South, she could have no foreign policy. The honorable secretary himself seemed fully to realize how little onerous was his position. One of the ten thousand ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... pale glimmer of the coming dawn in the sky, when Gilbert Potter suddenly raised his head. Above the noise of the water and the whistle of the wind, he heard a familiar sound,—the shrill, sharp neigh of a horse. Lifting himself, with great exertion, to a sitting posture, he saw two men, on horseback, in the flooded meadow, a little below him. They stopped, seemed to ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... minutely as he swam with slow stroke, could not see motion anywhere. The fires burned low, and now that they were dropping down near the shore he saw the dim outlines of figures beside them. Some of the warriors slept in a sitting posture with their heads upon their knees, which were clasped in their arms, while others lay in their blankets. The canoes, in which Indians also slept, were tied ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... from her despairing posture, clasped her hands together, then lifted up her voice and wept. "He will live! he ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... posture belongs only to bodies. But something which supposes posture is said of God in the Scriptures: "I saw the Lord sitting" (Isa. 6:1), and "He standeth up to judge" (Isa. 3:13). ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... In that posture he slept after a time, watched over by Bigot with looks of rage and pity. And on the room fell a long silence. The sun had lacked three hours of setting when he fell asleep. When he re-opened his eyes, and, after lying for a few minutes between sleep and waking, became conscious ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... had a fit of coughing, Pelle raised her into a sitting posture and helped her to get rid of the phlegm. She was purple in the face with coughing, and looked at him with eyes that were almost starting out of her head with the violent exertion. Then Ellen brought her the hot milk and Ems salts, and she drank it with ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... this posture of affairs, it is my duty to declare my sentiments, and distinctly to recommend to you the early and equal abolition of the apprenticeship for all classes. I do so in confidence that the apprentices will be found worthy of freedom, and that it will operate as a double blessing, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... generally with the large leaves of the cabbage palmetto. To this secluded place the woman, with some elderly female relatives, goes at the time the child is to be born, and there, in a sitting posture, her hands grasping a strong stick driven into the ground before her, she is delivered of her babe, which is received and cared for by her companions. Rarely is the Indian mother's labor difficult or followed by a prolonged sickness. Usually ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... Keeping a sharp eye on the enemy's height, he begun making his way down the gulley into the valley—screening his movements, as best he might, where the gulley was too shallow to conceal him, by walking along in a stooping posture behind the weeds, or creeping along upon his belly through the grass; Grumbo, with great circumspection, doing likewise. In a surprisingly short time, considering this somewhat inconvenient mode of getting over ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... in the earth; they dig a four- foot, square, deep pit under the cabin, or couch which the deceased laid on in his house, lining the grave with cypress bark, when they place the corpse in a sitting posture, as if it were alive, depositing with him his gun, tomahawk, pipe, and such other matters as he had the greatest value for in his lifetime. His eldest wife, or the queen dowager, has the second choice of his possessions, and ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... raising himself up into a sitting posture by the help of his hands. "Monkeys—apes—by Jove! We've been fighting with monkeys, and it's they who have mauled us in this way. Well, Jonathan Rowley, think of your coming from old Virginny to Mexico to be whipped by a monkey. It's gone goose ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... David, she alighted from her ass, and, falling prostrate at his feet, addressed him in language well calculated to accomplish her wishes. Every thing was in perfect contrast with the behaviour of Nabal—her suppliant posture—the respectful term she chooses, calling him lord—the appropriation of her husband's fault to herself—the apology she offers for him, by representing his conduct as resulting rather from a momentary ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... him, supporting his head on his own broad breast and shoulder, and signed to Simon to hold to his lips the cup of water that stood near. Richard slightly revived, and in this posture breathed more easily. ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the ground, and set to work. After digging about two feet, we came to a mass which proved to be the body of a human being, swaddled up in bandages of cloth, and in good preservation. It was in a sitting posture, with the knees drawn up to the chin. Placing it on one side, we dug on. Clearing away another stratum of earth, we reached a collection of household utensils, which at first I thought were of copper and clay; but as Ned was examining ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... and men is that the former never walk with ease in an erect posture, but always use their arms in climbing or in walking on all-fours like most quadrupeds. The monkeys that we see in the streets dressed up and walking erect, only do so after much drilling and teaching, just as dogs may be taught to walk in the same way; and the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... return, I looked at the negro who had been first hit. He, too, was motionless. I tried to place him in a sitting posture, ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... pile, strike them smartly together a few times, until the dust, which will fly from them in a very palpable cloud, ceases to fall. Then lay them on their ends, with the tops uppermost on the table, and repeat the concussion in that posture, when you will eliminate a fresh crop of dust, though not so thick as the first. After this, let each volume of the lot be brushed over at the sides and back with a soft (never stiff) brush, or else with a piece of cotton or woolen cloth, and so restored clean to the ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... imaginable, yet Blackbeard had notice of it from the Governor of North Carolina and his Secretary: But having heard several false reports before, he gave the less credit to this, till he saw the Sloops; and then he put himself in a Posture of ...
— Pirates • Anonymous
... rise, covering great spaces of wall, decorated with skulls and skeletons, with Time carrying his scythe, with negro caryatides, and with apathetic or showy models masquerading as the cardinal virtues. The effigy itself is often perched up so high as to be invisible, or sitting in a ridiculous posture. "Princes' images on their tombs," says Bosola in Webster's play, "do not lie as they were wont, seeming to pray up to heaven; but with their hands under their cheeks, as if they had died of toothache."[112] ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... is a cramped space in the bowels of a ship, imprisoned by white steel. The lines of bunks, the uprights supporting them, cross each other like the steel framework of a cage. The ceiling crushes down upon the men's heads. They cannot stand upright. This accentuates the natural stooping posture which shovelling coal and the resultant over-development of back and shoulder muscles have given them. The men themselves should resemble those pictures in which the appearance of Neanderthal Man is guessed at. All are ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... their coffin or grave. Upon this urn he thus stood, with his eyes shut, and with so much of the sheet turned aside as might show his lean, pale, and death-like face, which was purposely turned towards the East, from whence he expected the second coming of his and our Saviour Jesus." In this posture he was drawn at his just height; and when the picture was fully finished, he caused it to be set by his bedside, where it continued, and became his hourly object till his death, and was then given to his dearest friend and executor, Dr. Henry King, then chief Residentiary ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... table, and leaning on his left arm. He held a truncheon in his right hand, and had a lamp burning before him. The man had no sooner set one foot within the vault, than the statue, erecting itself from its leaning posture, stood bolt upright; and, upon the fellow's advancing another step, lifted up the truncheon in his right hand. The man still ventured a third step; when the statue, with a furious blow, broke the lamp into a thousand pieces, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... moment Salisbury rushed into the room, and throwing himself in a sitting posture on the floor, with his back against the wall as if completely exhausted, laughed on without uttering a word, till his mirth became so infectious, that nearly ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... hampered and stunted, and has to struggle through with difficulty, if it do not wholly stop. We may grant too that, for a mediocre character, the continual training and tutoring, from language-masters, dancing-masters, posture-masters of all sorts, hired and volunteer, which a high rank in any time and country assures, there will be produced a certain superiority, or at worst, air of superiority, over the corresponding mediocre character ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... incloses what is left of them in the grave. Every day I used to see the effects on them of hunger and torment of mind. The first part visibly affected was the neck. The flesh shrinks, disappears and leaves what look like two artificial props to support the head. As time wears on the erect posture grows bent; instead of standing up straight the knees bulge outward as though unable to support the body's weight, and the man drags himself along in a kind of despondent shuffle. Another year or two and his shoulders are bent forward. He carries his arms habitually before him now, he ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... interchanging sea and land. If this shall be admitted as a just view of the system of this globe, we may next examine, how far there are to be found any marks of certain parts of our earth having more than once undergone that change of posture, or vicissitude of things, and of having had reiterated operations of the mineral kingdom changing their substance, as well as altering their positions in relation to ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... there present were greatly amazed, and they made a great outcry and great rejoicings to God for this miracle, and for the power which he had shown through the body of the Cid in this manner; for it was plain that what the Jew said was verily and indeed true, because the posture of the Cid was changed. And from that day forward Diego Gil remained in the Monastery as longed as he lived, doing service to the body ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... basked in the sun or crept among the rocks. All was as it had always been; the red men, living in the midst of nature, were a part of nature themselves; nothing was changed by their presence; they altered not the flutter of a leaf or the posture of a stone, but stole in and out noiseless and lithe, and left behind them no trace of their passage. It is not so with the white man: before him, nature flies and perishes; he clothes the earth in the thoughts ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... returned. "Within less than the time described, together with a trumpeter, returned two citizens from the town with lean, pale, sharp, and bad visages, indeed, faces so strange and unusual, and in such a garb and posture, that at once made the most severe countenances merry, and the most cheerful heart sad, for it was impossible such ambassadors could bring less than a defiance. The men, without any circumstance of duty or good manners, in a pert, shrill, undismayed accent, said that they brought ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... bending his head low, rests his hands on his knees. This is called "Giving a back." The other boy places his hands on the first boy's back and leaps over him, by straddling his legs wide apart on each side like a frog. The second boy then assumes the stooping posture, and the third boy leaps over the first and second, and the fourth over all three, one ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... from six and a half to seven heads high; but no motion of limbs happens under the draperies, and the hands and feet, like the faces, are expressed by a set of arbitrary conventions. It is not even easy to determine whether the posture of the woman on the right is intended for sitting or kneeling. She holds a tray, on which is an idol, and to provide sufficient balance for the composition the artist has placed a yellow umbrella in the idol's hand. Examine this design from end to end, and nowhere will you find ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... [FN233] A posture of peculiar submission; contrasting strongly with the attitude afterwards assumed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... MacHewlett was observing, but his thoughts died a natural death at the sight of a real lord, and he rose and bowed. Mr. Thompson remained seated and made that posture as aggressive and obvious as possible. The remainder of the company were of varied nationality and appearance, while one, a Frenchman of keen dark eyes and a trim beard—seemed by tacit understanding to be the acknowledged ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... as he lay upon his back, his stout legs crossed, and his round red face partially eclipsed by his hat. Josie got beaten this time and came back rather cross, so she woke the peaceful sleeper by tickling his nose with a straw till he sneezed himself into a sitting posture, and looked wrathfully ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... for mercy, and dreamed aloud of vengeance. At last, as always happened when the attack was drawing to a close, she fell into a strange fright, her teeth chattering, while her limbs quivered with abject terror. Finally, after raising herself into a sitting posture, she cast a haggard look of astonishment at one and another corner of the room, and then fell back upon the pillow, heaving deep sighs. She was, doubtless, a prey to some hallucination. However, she drew Silvere to her bosom, and seemed to ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... whole Glass ABCDEF into a long Board, or Frame, in such manner, that almost half the head AB may lye buried in a concave Hemisphere cut into the Board RS; then I place it so on the Board RS, as is exprest in the first figure of the first Scheme; and fix it very firm and steady in that posture, so as that the weight of the Mercury that is afterwards to be put into it, may not in the least shake or stir it; then drawing a line XY on the Frame RT, so that it may divide the ball into two equal parts, or that it may pass, as 'twere, through the center of the ball. I ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... reference to any expression of thought. I delight in telling what I think, but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see that either of these questions admits of an answer. So that in the present droll posture of my affairs, when I see myself suddenly raised into the importance of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I advert to the supposed duties of such a personage who is to make good his thesis against all comers. I certainly ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... his whole frame. There she sat upright, motionless, tearless, without any of the alleviating weaknesses of a less withering grief, her mild countenance exposed to the light of the lamp, and her eyes riveted on the face of the dead. In this posture had she remained for hours; no tender cares on the part of her daughters; no attentions from her domestics; no outbreaking of her own sorrows, producing any change. Even the clamour of the assault had passed by ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... looking chair. With a great effort he managed to rise as I approached him, notwithstanding my entreaties that he would not move. He looked much older when on his feet, for he was bent nearly double, in which posture the marvel was how he could walk at all. For he did totter a few steps to meet me, without even the aid of a stick, and, holding out a thin, shaking hand, welcomed me with an air of breeding rarely to be met with in his station in society. ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... vessel. A female form, fashioned with the carver's best skill, stood on the projection of the cut-water. The figure rested lightly on the ball of one foot, while the other was suspended in an easy attitude, resembling the airy posture of the famous Mercury of the Bolognese. The drapery was fluttering, scanty, and of a light sea-green tint, as if it had imbibed a hue from the element beneath. The face was of that dark bronzed color ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... right at all," little Em said, peeping between the stones, and finding him in a very curious posture. "What are you doing Waldo? It is not the play, you know. You should run out when we come to the white stone. Ah, ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... not very different from beauty; it consists in much the same things. Gracefulness is an idea belonging to POSTURE and MOTION. In both these, to be graceful, it is requisite that there be no appearance of difficulty; there is required a small inflection of the body; and a composure of the parts in such a manner, as not to encumber each ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... table jammed the hidden dog against his chest. When he sought relief by sitting back over the form, Clem corrected the irregular posture with a pin. At bedtime he undressed in terror lest the creature should jump out and patter on the boards as live things will. But at last the gas was turned off at the main, and he cautiously groped for his pet among his little heap ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... turned out as I requested; we sat down, and when we had drank to each other's health, Frank requested me to make known to him how I had contrived to free myself from my embarrassments in London, what I had been about since I quitted that city, and the present posture of my affairs. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... thought, and perhaps a trifle less assured; but that was to be understood. For the rest, she had the deliberate tones of the salon, the little smile of a convention that is not irksome. Her voice, her posture, had that grace one knows and defers to at sight. It was all very wonderful to come upon in that house. As she left the room, her profile shone against the wall like a cameo, so splendid in its pallor and the fineness of ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... first met, the assemblage of facts presented in the President's speech, with the multiplied accounts of spoliations by the French West-Indians, appeared, by sundry votes on the address, to incline a majority to put themselves in a posture of war. Under this influence the address was formed, and its spirit would probably have been pursued by corresponding measures, had the events of Europe been of an ordinary train. But this has been so extraordinary, that numbers have gone over to those, who, from the first, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... strength of my inclination to do this, previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various |
