"Stiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In the confessional, man and woman attain to the highest degree of popish perfection: they become as dry sticks, as dead branches, as silent corpses, in the hands of their confessors. Their spirits are destroyed, their consciences are stiff, their souls are ruined. ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... and Mam'selle Julie told the child to hold her breath to let them get her body tighter. Now for the white frock: the skirt was slipped down over her head until it stood out in light, stiff pleats; the white bodice encased her body firmly and stuck out above the shoulders, its puffed sleeves trimmed with little white-satin bows and ribbons at every seam and fold. Over it hung the veil, which shrouded her as in ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... "She followed me down the street crying," he said, "and I have often thought of it since and been tempted to run away." Also he was aware that the dog was with him always, licking the backs of his stiff hands and poking up a cold snout into ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... strange change came upon Clytie from that moment. Her brown eyes grew larger. Her golden hair stood straight out around them, and her pretty clothing changed into great heart-shaped leaves which clung to a stiff stalk. Her feet grew firmly into the ground, and the ten little toes changed into ten strong roots that went creeping everywhere ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... in the flesh of his ribs and riposted like lightning. The pirate staggered back, but pulled himself together instantly, lunged, and took his man in the flesh of his upper sword arm. Iberville was bleeding from the wound in his side and slightly stiff from the slash of the night before, but every fibre of his hurt body was on the defensive. Bucklaw knew it, and seemed to debate if the game were worth the candle. The town was afoot, and he had earned a halter for his pains. He was by no means certain that he could kill this champion and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... And to think that she was capable of nothing, when she had been taught everything, and that there was only enough stuff in her to make a salaried drudge, a semi-domestic! She suffered horribly, too, in that stiff, lonely dwelling which smelt of the tomb. She was seized once more with the vertigo of her childhood, as when she had striven to compel herself to work, in order to please her mother; her blood rebelled; she would have liked to ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... for ourselves, we have fought out many a battle for truth and freedom. That is our natural style; and it were to be wished we had in no instance departed from it. Our situation has given us a certain cast of thought and character; and our liberty has enabled us to make the most of it. We are of a stiff clay, not moulded into every fashion, with stubborn joints not easily bent. We are slow to think, and therefore impressions do not work upon us till they act in masses. We are not forward to express ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... silent. The proposal conveyed very little meaning to his mind, but, understanding that some spiritual agencies were about to concern themselves on his behalf, he thought he owed it to his dignity to show a stiff neck. He took no part in the conversation for a long while, but listened, with an air of calm enmity, while his ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... wonder what is the reason, That good men are all like Joe Price, So poky, and stiff, and conceited, And fast ones are always ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... frantic screams of the mother—come in search of her children—attracted notice. When they were discovered, only a ledge of the rock was discernible; and the little sufferers were seen imploring for help amidst the spray with which the waves, fanned by a stiff breeze from windward, covered them. Several brave fellows swam off towards the rock, but before they could reach it, a sudden rush of tide swept over, and engulfed the children amidst the fragments of wreck hurled forward in its advance. One of the sailors seized the youngest of the children ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... The geese "had him" when he first carried forth the corn, but it was a year or two afterward before a daring young gander and pair made a hasty drop. For once there was no chorus of "I-told-you-so's," from the wiser heads cocked stiff as cattails from the low growth of the surrounding fields. That was the ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... personable young Prince. He had the large regular features of his race, the warm complexion of good health, and a vigorous constitution, keen attractive eyes, and a firm, full mouth. He was tall and strongly made, and carried himself with a carriage that was dignified or stiff according to the interpretation of those who observed it. Many of the courtly ladies thought him extremely handsome, were eagerly gracious to him, did their best to thrust themselves upon his attention, and received, it would seem, very little notice in return for their pains. If George ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... like all such places, isolated and alone, at the furthest extremity of the village. It was a dreary old building enough, weather-beaten and brown, with primly laid-out grounds, and row upon row of stiff poplars waving in the wintery wind. A lonely, forlorn old place—a vivid contrast to the beauty and brightness of Kingsland Court; and from the first day of her entrance, Lady Kingsland, senior, hated her daughter-in-law with double hatred ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... with ivy. Trees have grown within the ruins themselves. Still it is one of the most beautiful spots in Bedfordshire. "In Bunyan's time," Mr. Foster writes, "we may suppose the northern slope of Houghton Park was a series of terraces rising one above another, and laid out in the stiff garden fashion of the time. A flight of steps, or maybe a steep path, would lead from one terrace to the next, and gradually the view over the plain of Bedford would reveal itself to the traveler as ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... occasioned by a struggle with the evil spirit who then enters into him. During this fit, he keeps his eye-lids lifted up, distorts his features, foams at the mouth, seems to dislocate his joints, and after many violent and unnatural motions remains stiff and motionless, like a person in a fit of epilepsy. After some time he comes to himself, as if having gained the victory over the evil spirit. He next causes a faint shrill mournful voice to be heard within his tabernacle, as of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... about her forehead is partly habitual, but the consciousness of Sunday intensifies it. She moves without a sound. Entering the breakfast-room, she finds there two children, a girl and a boy, both attired in new-seeming garments which are obviously stiff and uncomfortable. The little girl sits on an uneasy chair, her white-stockinged legs dangling, on her lap a large copy of "Pilgrim's Progress;" the boy is half reclined on a shiny sofa, his hands in his pockets, on his face an expression ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... from them all betrays the worst. It had been no phantom called into being by their overtaxed nerves. A woman lay before them, face downward on the hard floor. A woman dressed in black, with hat on head and a little satchel clutched in one stiff, outstretched hand. Miss Demarest's mother! The little old lady who had come into the place four ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... position, and where instead of a floor there would be a thin flight of stairs like a Russian bath, and the kitchen would always be under the house with a vaulted ceiling and a brick floor. The front of his houses always had a hard, stubborn expression, with stiff, French lines, low, squat roofs, and fat, pudding-like chimneys surmounted with black cowls and squeaking weathercocks. And somehow all the houses built by my father were like each other, and vaguely reminded me of a top hat, and the stiff, obstinate back of his head. ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... a great funeral of some king going to his own country, not as he had hoped to go, but stiff and colourless, spices filling up the place of ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris
... wholesome, and I know of no way in which they can be raised in more uncompromising form than by re-reading an old favorite, by bringing the alterable fabric of your living, growing and changing mind into contact with the stiff, unyielding yardstick of an unchangeable mental record—the cast of one phase of a master mind that once was ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... and stiff piece of wire as long as your desk and fasten it in the middle so that the ends will swing easily. Next tie a pencil tight to each end; then put a sheet of paper under the point of each pencil. Now, if you make a mark with the pencil nearest to you, you will ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... resentfully at each other. The doctor was seriously worried. Esther felt extremely frivolous. But if he wanted to be stiff and horrid,—let him ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... like the Dutchmen! We found nothing but five dead horses, their coats stiff with sweat, in the middle of the forest. I have kept them to find out where they came from and who owns them. The forest is surrounded; whoever is in it ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... shortening about the size of an egg, either lard or drippings. Divide the shortening into small bits and, using the tips of your fingers, rub it well into the dry flour just prepared; then gradually stir in cold water to make a soft dough, barely stiff enough to be rolled out 3/4 inch thick on bread-board, clean flat stone, or large, smooth piece of flattened bark. Whichever is used must be well floured, as must also the rolling-pin and biscuit cutter. A clean glass bottle ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... There was a feeling of homesickness with it all, and he would have given all that his scant purse contained to see Lisbeth and have her know that he had become a person of some importance. Wouldn't the squire rave if he knew the errands he had in charge. Ah, but those stiff-necked Tories would ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... on talking; twining stiff fibres of awkward speech—things young men blurted out—plaiting them round his own smooth garland, making the bright side show, the vivid greens, the sharp thorns, manliness. He loved it. Indeed to Sopwith a man could say anything, until perhaps he'd grown old, or ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... success. He knew his strong point, and staked his all on it. He preached his sermons as he told his stories—in graphic, familiar narrative. The congregation felt they were taken into his confidence; they were hypnotised. You forgot that you were sitting in stiff dignity in a church, and imagined yourself one of a group around the winter's log listening to a delightful raconteur, and you willingly surrendered to ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... already turning away their heads, for this was to be a battle, not a game; but the vast majority of New York merely watched and waited and smiled a slow, stiff-lipped smile. All the surroundings were changed, the flaring electric lights, the vast roof, the clothes of the multitude, but the throng of white faces was the same as that pale host which looked down from the sides of the Coliseum ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... and sugar together until very light; add water slowly, almost drop by drop, and beat constantly; stir in flour and baking powder which have been sifted together twice; add flavoring; fold in whites of eggs which have been beaten until stiff and dry, pour into two greased layer cake tins. Bake in moderate oven 20 to 25 minutes. Put together with fresh strawberry icing page 18 ...
— The New Dr. Price Cookbook • Anonymous
... the line rode a grizzled, stern-faced man, sitting on his pony very stiff and erect. Just behind him was a young man, slender, fair haired and smiling, despite the discomfort his red face showed him to be suffering. Still back of them rode three other young men, the last in the line being a disconsolate fat figure of a boy who slouched from side to side ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... in the late 19th century. Stiff resistance to the Red Army after World War I was eventually suppressed and a socialist republic set up in 1924. During the Soviet era, intensive production of "white gold" (cotton) and grain led to overuse of agrochemicals and the ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... all bored stiff!" drawled Everard from the sofa, flinging away the book he was reading, and stretching his arms in the luxury of a long-drawn yawn. "What should you say to a turn in the car? Wouldn't it be rather sport, ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... the imitation of all nations. The mairie in each arrondissement has become no less than a community center. The XIV arrondissement in Paris is but the pattern for many. Here the wife of the mayor, Mme. Brunot, has made the stiff old building a human place. The card catalogue carrying information about every soldier from the district, gives its overwhelming news each day gently to wife or mother, through the lips of Mme. Brunot or her women assistants. ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... time," said the old gentleman, "a rajah rode on him—a rajah no bigger than your finger. And his turban was encrusted with the most precious of jewels, and his robe was stiff with gold. The elephant wore anklets of beaten silver, and they clinked as ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... imaginary sketch adheres in every detail to the facts. The medical examiners and inspectors become exceedingly expert in detecting disease, disability, or deception. If an overcoat is carried over the shoulder, they look for a false or stiff arm. The gait and general appearance indicate health or want of it to them, and all who do not appear normal are turned aside for further examination, which is thorough. The women have a special inspection ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... spirits, while Howland poured water from a kettle over the fire into a pewter flagon, and produced a sugar bason from a chest in the corner of the room. These, with a smaller pewter cup, he placed before the seaman who eagerly mixed himself a stiff dram, drank it, and prepared another, which he sipped luxuriously, as leaning back in his chair he looked slowly around the circle of his entertainers, and finally ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... imagine, the lady's clothes were in his way, for there was a pause, his prick came quite out, her feet moved, her legs opened wider. He did not need his fingers to find his mark again, his long, stiff, red-tipped article had slidden in the direction of her bum-hole; but no sooner had they readjusted their legs, then it moved backwards, and again it was hidden from sight in her cunt. The balls wagged more vigorously than ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... had been many wild flowers,—tufts of violets and early primroses,—and even at Up-Hill the blackthorn's stiff boughs were covered with tiny white buds, and here and there an open blossom. Ducie was in the garden at work; and as Charlotte crossed the steps in its stone wall she lifted her head, and saw her. ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... disappeared, and the soil would bear the weight of the wagons after it was corduroyed with branches of trees. At one time bad roads caused a halt of two or three weeks. Fuel was not always abundant, and after a cold night it was no unusual thing to find wet garments and bedding frozen stiff in the morning. Here is an extract from Orson Pratt's diary:— "April 9. The rain poured down in torrents. With great exertion a part of the camp were enabled to get about six miles, while others ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... free-and-easy female riders went by at a time, a graceful and exciting spectacle, with a running accompaniment of vociferation and laughter. Among these we met several of the Nevada's officers, riding in the stiff, wooden style which Anglo-Saxons love, and a horde of jolly British sailors from H.M.S. Scout, rushing helter skelter, colliding with everybody, bestriding their horses as they would a topsail-yard, hanging on to manes and lassoing horns, and enjoying themselves thoroughly. In the shady tortuous ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... be a very agreeable one. Captain Wilson was not, indeed, a cheerful companion. He maintained the attitude of stiff disapproval with which he had all along regarded Salissa and everything connected with that island. He gave Gorman to understand that he meant to do his duty to his employers, to obey orders faithfully, to carry ridiculous things ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... however, have a certain amplitude; "and the character of a few accessories, for example, the crown on the Virgin's heads instead of the invariable Byzantine veil, betrays," says Kugler, "a northern and probably a Frankish influence." The attendant saints, generally St. Peter and St. Paul, stand, stiff and ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... worthy, whom the earth all fears, High God defend thee with his heavenly shield, And humble so the hearts of all thy peers, That their stiff necks to thy sweet yoke may yield: These be the sheaves that honor's harvest bears, The seed thy valiant acts, the world the field, Egypt the headland is, where heaped lies Thy ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... that the deck of his ship was like a perfect shamble. So quickly had the poor Frenchmen been struck down that the survivors had not had time to carry them below, and there they lay, some stark and stiff, others writhing in their agony. It was enough to move the compassion even of their greatest enemies. We at once set to work to do all we could to help them and to relieve the wounded from their sufferings. Every one felt also much for poor Monsieur ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... their line now running from Essarts through Achiet-le-Petit to about 1,000 yards southeast of Bapaume. The Loupart Wood occupying high ground along this line had been transformed into a strong field fortress after German methods, and here it was evident every preparation was made for a stiff defense. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... couples, to support one another and to lighten, as far as was possible, the severity of their work. On the northern coasts in particular, the intense cold of the furious winter gales rendered it no easy task to keep the assigned stations; the ropes were turned into stiff and brittle bars, the hulls were coated with ice, and many, both of men and officers, were frost-bitten and crippled. But no stress of weather could long keep the stubborn and hardy British from their posts. With ceaseless vigilance they traversed continually ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... public good, by firing their own houses. Emulating an example so noble and disinterested, other citizens followed in their wake. The soldiers, ever ready for excitement, joined in the fatal work. A stiff breeze springing up favored their designs, and soon the devoted town was ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... health, O Lord Macumazana," the pair answered as they swallowed their tots, which I had made pretty stiff, and set down their pannikins in front of them with as much reverence as though these had ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... would have taken a telegram from a stranger, telling her that Tanqueray was dead. She took it, as she would have taken the stranger's telegram, standing very stiff and very still. She faced, as it were, an invisible crowd of such strangers, ignorant of the intimacy of her loss, not recognizing her right to suffer, people whose presence constrained her to all ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... mad: how stiff is my vile sense, That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract: So should my thoughts be sever'd from my griefs, And woes by wrong imaginations lose The ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... was standing so near Hilda that she got the very dregs of the glance of consternation his little wife gave him as she replied, a trifle red and stiff, that she was sure ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... set out, as the result of experience, to build impregnable works in the days when forts had become less important and the trench had become supreme. As holding the line required little fighting, the industrious Germans under the stiff bonds of discipline had plenty of time for sinking deep dugouts and connecting galleries under their first line and for elaborating their communication trenches and second line, until what had once been peaceful farming land now consisted of irregular welts of white chalk crossing fields without ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the mound that Beowulf wished them to build. Then they gathered together at the mouth of the cave and gazed with tears upon their lifeless lord and looked with awe upon the huge dragon as it lay stiff in death beside its conqueror. Afterwards, led by Wiglaf, seven chosen earls entered the cave and brought forth all the treasure, while others busied themselves in preparing ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... comes within sight or smelling distance, these sentinels immediately give the alarm by tossing up their heads and tails and bellowing furiously. The whole herd instantly heed the warning and are soon in motion. Buffalo run with forelegs stiff, which fact, together with their ugly-looking humps and the lowness of their heads, gives a rocking swing to their gait. If a herd, when in full motion, have to cross a road on which wagons are traveling, they change their course but little; and, it sometimes happens, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... he met several of the Society of Friends, whom he had not seen for some time. Among them was an Orthodox Friend, who was rather stiff in his manners. The others shook hands with Isaac; but when he approached "the Orthodox," he merely ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... room for the second time, Janet found that the mistress of Deepley Walls had completed her toilette in the interim, and was now sitting robed in stiff rustling silk, with an Indian fan in one hand and a curiously-chased vinaigrette in the other. She motioned with her fan to Janet. "Be seated," she said, in the iciest of tones; and Janet sat down on a chair a yard or two removed from ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... was also a baronet, dealt with the National Bank, the local manager of which was an arrant snob, who loved a title, and bored everybody with his pretended intimacy with the impecunious baronet. But at last even his patience was exhausted, and he sent the squire a pretty stiff letter about the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... oppressed in his absence by the superior forces of the enemy. [Footnote 73: Nicephorus, (p. 10, 11,) is happy to observe, that of two sons, its incestuous fruit, the elder was marked by Providence with a stiff neck, the younger with ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... to suppose any figure should maintain. The patient endurance of St Sebastian, the wild ecstasy of St John in the Wilderness, the maternal love of the Virgin, are feelings naturally portrayed by a fixed posture; but the lady with the stiff back and bent neck, who looks at her flower, and is still looking from hour to hour, gives us an idea of pain without grace, and abstraction ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... then cut and fold into the mixture whites of two eggs, beaten stiff. Fry in deep fat until golden brown and ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... the ball on the King's birthday, Count Czernichew was sitting in the box of the Foreign Ministers next to Count Seilern, the Imperial Ambassador. The latter, who is as fierce as the Spread Eagle itself, and as stiff as the chin of all the Ferdinands, was, according to his custom, as near to Jupiter as was possible. Monsieur du Chatelet and the Prince de Masserano came in. Chatelet sidled up to the two former, spoke to them and passed ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... him back, cold and stiff, to the pallet in the loft, and the old nurse drew the sheet over him and left him, for there was no need to watch him now. The girl had gone to her room, and her mother followed her thither, all unnerved ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... trees, that looked so stiff and gray, With green wreaths now are hung; O mother! let me laugh and play, I cannot hold ...
— Gems of Poetry, for Girls and Boys • Unknown
... it really does not appear to make much difference what weather is around, so that the wind is not a cold or chilly one. The fish in deep water are not so easily affected as those in the shallows, and very good sport may be had even in a stiff breeze, if moderately warm and fine. In fact some wind is necessary for black bass fishing, and it is better to have too much than none at all. One reason for this is, that wind ruffles the surface of the water and renders it ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford
... whole bag o' tricks into a cocked hat! Which of ye is right? If you're right, I stays as I am all my life, a poor, miserable shellback, endin' my days by sellin' matches in the streets, when I'm too old and too stiff wi' the rheumatics to go to sea any longer. That bein' the case, I'll give Mr Wilde's plan a trial for a spell; right ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... STIFF. Stable or steady; the opposite to crank; a quality by which a ship stands up to her canvas, and carries enough sail without heeling ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain, several times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all over it, and growing down hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was so like Smith's work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of players ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... commonplace. This Mr. George Powler was a heavy thick-set man, approaching middle age, with the air of a prosperous merchant, and with a somewhat shy and awkward manner; it seemed to Ida that he looked rather bored as he sat on one of the stiff, uncomfortable chairs, with the mother and daughter "engaging him in conversation," as they would have called it. His shyness and awkwardness were intensified by the entrance of the tall, graceful girl in her black dress, and he rose ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... impetuous Jack, "if you call me Mr. Harkaway, I shall think that you are stiff-backed ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... egg whites into a bowl. Mash the berries before starting to whip. Beat the mixture with an egg whip until it is reduced to a pulpy mass and is stiff and fluffy. Pile lightly into a bowl, chill, and serve with ladyfingers ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... done. Who was this Adelle Clark? and what sort of person was this aunt who seemed willing and anxious to assume the legal and moral guardianship of the minor? An aunt by marriage only, wasn't it? Yes, by marriage he assured himself after consulting again the stiff paper form that the lawyers had properly filled out; and he gave one of those funny little quirks to his eye which he did when not wholly satisfied with a "proposition" presented to him. And here was the characteristic difference between Judge Orcutt and any other probate ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... steams on a little stove. One can just see his face, the engrossed and heedless face of the artificer of the good old days; the black plates of his ill-shaven cheeks; and, protruding from his cap, a vizor of stiff hair. He coughs, and the ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... dealer in New York. I got a new model now passin' customs that's to be a bigger hit than the sheath was. Say, when I brought over the hobble every house on the Avenue laughed in my face; and when I finally dumped a consignment on to one of them, the firm was scared stiff and wanted to countermand; but I had 'em ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... shops for the sale of real Chinese furniture. It is very handsome, but curious in form, and, unless it is specially ordered, is made only for native use. Every Chinese reception-room is furnished in precisely the same manner, with very stiff high arm-chairs, arranged in two rows. A small four-legged square table stands between every two chairs, a larger table in the centre, and at the end an enormous sofa, big enough for six or eight people to lie full length across. The sofa and all the chairs have marble seats and backs, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... the Isle of Batochina. Mr. St. John in Borneo met with a trader who had seen and felt the tails of such a race inhabiting the north-east coast of that Island. The appendage was 4 inches long and very stiff; so the people all used perforated seats. This Borneo story has lately been brought forward in Calcutta, and stoutly maintained, on native evidence, by an English merchant. The Chinese also have their tailed men in the mountains ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... disappeared. September 30, at half-past eleven in the morning, the Spray crossed the equator in longitude 29 degrees 30' W. At noon she was two miles south of the line. The southeast trade-winds, met, rather light, in about 4 degrees N., gave her sails now a stiff full sending her handsomely over the sea toward the coast of Brazil, where on October 5, just north of Olinda Point, without further incident, she made the land, casting anchor in Pernambuco harbor about noon: forty days from Gibraltar, ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... Discoveries to very distant parts." On the 21st he again wrote Stephens that the alterations were making satisfactory progress, and that a man had been in the yard who had known the ship before her purchase, and he had "with some warmth asserted that at that time she was not only a stiff ship, but had as many good qualities as any ship ever built in Whitby." In reply to a rumour that the men were afraid to sail in her, he points out that she is moored alongside a wharf, and the men could go ashore whenever they pleased, yet he had ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... 6th of December, the very day after Napoleon's departure, the sky exhibited a still more dreadful appearance. You might see icy particles floating in the air; the birds fell from it quite stiff and frozen. The atmosphere was motionless and silent; it seemed as if every thing which possessed life and movement in nature, the wind itself, had been seized, chained, and as it were frozen by an universal ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... your book and all is dry, you will have to provide it with end-papers. Any opaque white paper will do, provided it is not too stiff. That used for lining chests of drawers will answer the purpose, though a paper of slightly better quality is preferable. Measure it carefully about one-eighth of an inch less at head and foot than the height of the book. You need not trouble about the width: so long as ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... desire of bestowing his daughter on Kiriti (Arjuna), the son of Pandu. But he never spoke of it to anybody. And, O Janamejaya, the king of Panchala thinking of Arjuna caused a very stiff bow to be made that was incapable of being bent by any except Arjuna. Causing some machinery to be erected in the sky, the king set up a mark attached to that machinery. And Drupada said, 'He that will string this bow and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... from him, being seated beside the distinguished guest, while he was placed next to the young lady he had taken down—a Miss Eversleigh, the cousin of Sir William. She was tall, and Randolph's first impression of her was that she was stiff and constrained—an impression he quickly corrected at the sound of her voice, her frank ingenuousness, and her unmistakable youth. In the habit of being crushed by Miss Avondale's unrelenting superiority, he found ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... destructive fixt, The conquering youth thus speaks:—"Nonacria fair! "Receive the spoil my fortune well might claim: "Fresh glory shall I gain, with thee to share "The honors of the day."—Then gives the spoils;— The chine with horrid bristles rising stiff, And head, fierce threatening still with mighty tusks. She takes the welcome gift, for much she joys From him to take it. Envy seiz'd the rest, And sullen murmurs through the comrades ran: Above the rest, were Thestius' sons,—their arms Out-stretching, clamor'd ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... improvement. "A Melanesian clothed," the Bishop observes, "never looks well; there is almost always a stiff, shabby-genteel look. A good specimen, not disfigured by sores and ulcers, the well-shaped form, the rich warm colour of the skin, and the easy, graceful play of every limb, unhurt by shoe or tight- ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at all times, my children, that you are an obedient and a docile people, content to accept the word of God from those whom he has sent to teach it to you—that you are not a stiff-necked generation, prone to follow your own vain conceits, or foolish enough to conceive that your little earthly knowledge can be superior to the wisdom which comes from above, as others are. I have always rejoiced at this, my children, for in it I have seen hope for you, when ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... conception that one man's gains are some other man's losses, proclaim with undoubted truth on these premises 'property is robbery.' But surely this clause of our prayer teaches us a more excellent way. We are not to be like stiff-necked men who fight with one another for the drop of brackish water caught in the corner of a sail, but we are to be as children bowing down together before a great Father, all sitting at His table where nothing wants, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... state still plays a major role in basic industry, banking, transport, and communication. The largest industrial sector is textiles and clothing, which accounts for one-third of industrial employment; it faces stiff competition in international markets with the end of the global quota system. However, other sectors, notably the automotive and electronics industries, are rising in importance within Turkey's export mix. Real GNP growth has exceeded 6% in many years, but this strong expansion has been interrupted ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... jumped from the table and threatened to kill the doctor. The country physician only laughed at the wild and, to Evan, appalling curses and threats of the temporary lunatic. It mattered not to that rustic doctor whether his patient carried a stiff neck or a limber one—he would do his work just the same. He happened to be a dentist, which was fortunate, for he needed dental knowledge to extract a great tooth from the patient. The further skill of a veterinary surgeon would ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... the most Carlylean phrase of any in America is cold and stiff. That teeming brain which held a larger vocabulary than that of any man in America is only clay that might stop a hole to keep the wind away. That soul through which surged thoughts too great for speech has ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... don't you begin?" suggested Betty, and the cousin began with avidity. Dora had absolutely no literary ability; the spontaneous gaiety that bubbled up in all that she said and did was entirely lacking in the stiff, sentimental little character-sketch, but it pleased its reader, and Betty and Eleanor joined ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... of the eggs and whisk the whites to a very stiff froth with the sugar. Put the milk into a saucepan and when it boils drop in whites of eggs in small pieces shaped between two dessert spoons. Only a little should be cooked at a time in this way, and each should be allowed to poach for two minutes, and when done should be ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... of the poet and the romancer—to sponge out of existence, for a time, the stiff, refractory, and unlovely realities and give in their place a scene of ideal mobility and charm. The two women reveled in Gaspard Roussillon's revelations. They saw the brilliant companies, the luxurious surroundings, heard the rustle of brocade and the fine flutter of laces, the hum of ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... August, and the two men sitting with bowed heads grew stiff with cold and weariness, and were forced to rise now and again, and walk about to warm their stiffened limbs It didn't occur to them, probably, to contrast their coming home with their going forth, or with the coming home of the generals, colonels, or even captains-but to Private ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... civilly merry, and Mrs. Batelier a very discreet woman, but mighty fond in the stories she tells of her son Will. After dinner, Mr. Spong and I to my closet, there to try my instrument Parallelogram, which do mighty well, to my full content; but only a little stiff, as being new. Thence, taking leave of my guests, he and I and W. Hewer to White Hall, and there parting with Spong, a man that I mightily love for his plainness and ingenuity, I into the Court, and there ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the tree he scrambled, not without some difficulty, for the branches were close together and stiff, and Ned tore his coat in the effort. But he finally got a position where, to his surprise, he could look down into the very enclosure from which Tom was so ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... a stiff, uncompromising hand apprises the professor of the unwelcome fact. The "line" is signed by "Jane Majendie," therefore there can be no doubt of the genuineness of the news contained in it. Yes! that ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... high-backed chairs were ranged against the wall; there was a tall "armory," i.e. a linen-press of dark oak, guarded on each side by the twisted weapons of the sea unicorn, and in the middle of the room stood a large, solid-looking table, adorned with a brown earthenware beau-pot, containing a stiff posy of roses, southernwood, gillyflowers, pinks and pansies, of small dimensions. On hooks, against the wall, hung a pair of spurs, a shield, a breastplate, and other pieces of armour, with an open helmet bearing the dog, the well-known crest of the ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Cold, stiff, hours dead. Yet the dead body was his only shelter and stay in that most dreadful hour. His soul, stripped bare of all sceptic comfort, cowered, shivering, naked, abject; and the living clung to the dead out of piteous ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... hundredth year was full The thread was cut and finished the school. Death snapped the old worn-out tool, Snapped him short while he stood and stirred (Though stiff he stood as a stiff-necked mule) With ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... communicating with him, these fits were intermitting; so that, for instance, in the present case, upon a severe call arising for his pocketing the fee of ten guineas, he astonished his whole household by suddenly standing bolt upright as stiff as a poker; his sister remarking to the young gentleman that he (the visitor) was in luck that evening: it wasn't everybody that could get that length in dealing with Mr. X. O. However, it is distressing to ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... their decorous plastering into waving little tendril curls, and her mouth was as curled and red-lipped and dimpled as a girl's. In a twinkling of those blue eyes I fell out of the carriage into a pair of strong, soft, tender arms covered with stiff gray percale, and received two hearty kisses, one ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... was so near to it that he could not hold on any longer. On went the boat, the poor Tin-soldier keeping himself as stiff as he could: no one should say of him afterwards that he had flinched. The boat whirled three, four times round, and became filled to the brim with water: it began to sink! The Tin-soldier was standing up to his neck in water, and deeper ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... the great man rising, with a stiff affectation of kindly affability, put his arm into the uncle's, and strolled with him across the lawn towards the lovers. And such is life-love on the lawn ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... this hill we changed our course to 309 degrees to a saddle in the next range. At four miles halted at a gum creek, with plenty of green feed. Made a very short journey to-day in consequence of the horses being quite lame. In addition to their want of shoes, a stiff, tenacious brown clay adhered to the hoof, and picked up the small round stones, which pressed on the frog of the foot. These pebbles were as firmly packed as if they had been put in with cement, ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... detected nothing at all—except, with my dry ear, the heavy breathing of the Doctor as he waited, all stiff and anxious, for me to say something. At last from within the water, sounding like a child singing miles and miles away, I heard an unbelievably thin, ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... himself so closely. In the meantime, if he be a clerk, he is certainly an impostor of the most consummate art, for assuredly so gentlemanly a scoundrel I have never yet come in contact with. But, good heavens! if such a report should have gone abroad concerning that stiff-necked and obstinate girl, her reputation and prospects in life are ruined forever. What would Dunroe say if he heard it? as it is certain he will. Then, again, here is the visit from this conscientious old blockhead, Lord Cullamore, who won't allow me to manage ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... on the morning of June 2, they disembarked, stiff and tired after a journey of more than seventy-two miles, but as they formed their lines and marched onward in the direction of the line they were to hold they were determined and cheerful. That evening the first field message ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... awaken again that night, but their eyes opened when the sun shone on them, and, rather lame and stiff, they arose ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... country. She had been under the care of two maiden ladies, the Misses Graham, who had no love for children, and had merely accepted the charge on account of the liberal terms paid them by the father. They seemed displeased at the withdrawal of Rosa, and clearly signified this by their cold, stiff reception ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... the sheltering bush and moved out on to the trail. He passed one thin hand across his brow, as though to clear the thoughts behind of their last murkiness after a drunken slumber. He stretched himself wearily as though stiff from his unyielding bed of sun-baked earth. Then he moved down the trail toward the Meeting House, selecting the scorched grass at the side of it to muffle the sound of ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... bulky, angular, awkward packet of brown paper, sealed once and tied with the smallest possible quantity of string; it was addressed to Mr. James Holwell, Saddler,—Street,—The letter was to—Lester Esq., and ran thus, written in a very neat, stiff, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... old White's brother, a stone-mason. He was raised from the ranks, but his wife was a Greek peasant-and if you had seen her, when the Merrifield children called her the Queen of the White Ants! Ivinghoe is naturally as stiff and formal as his mother, I am not much afraid for him, except that no one knows what that fever will make of a young man, and I don't want him to get his father into a scrape. There, I have exhaled it to you, and there is a crowd as if the masque ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... always 'imagining' to make life more lively and exciting; but, when it comes to sitting down with a pen in my hand, my thoughts seem to take wing and fly away, and the words won't come. They are all stiff and formal, and won't express what I want. Mollie gets on better, for she writes as she talks, so it's natural at least. She wrote quite a long story once, and read it aloud to me as she went on, but it was never finished, and I don't think for a moment that any paper would have looked at it. The ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... nearly spent. The sun was low in the west, sliding down like a ball of gold toward the rim of the blue mountains. A stiff breeze had sprung up, driving the heat before it. At the lower end of the valley Rathburn found the trail he had left when he detoured to the ranch. He turned westward upon it, put spurs to his horse, ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... from that of old! Where was the long wig with its myriad curls? the coat stiff with golden lace? the diamond buttons,—"the pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war?" the glorious war Beau Fielding had carried on throughout the female world,—finding in every saloon a Blenheim, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
