"Stiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... expect he saw slight signs of a rise, saying, 'Do it quicker—quicker, boy' till I had the horn quite stiff. ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... dispersed; a rough bleak wind freezes the moisture in the atmosphere, and the moon rose in cloudless majesty in the heavens. It was a cold, clear December night, and the wet clothes of the fugitives were frozen stiff, like a harness, upon them. Trenck felt neither cold nor stiff; he carried his friend upon his shoulders, and that kept him warm; he walked so rapidly, his ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... raillery, the blunt speeches, the interchange of confidential looks, were missing in the family circle at Gladwyn. Mr. Hamilton behaved with old-fashioned courtesy to his sisters; he was watchful over their comfort, but he was certainly a little stiff and constrained in his manner to them: he seemed to unbend more freely to his cousin than to them; he had scolded her good-humouredly once or twice, after quite a brotherly fashion, and she had taken his rebukes in a way that ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... by Senators and Congressmen from political motives and for political services rendered, it is impossible to expect that while in office the appointees will not regard their tenure as more or less dependent upon continued political service for their patrons, and no regulations, however stiff or rigid, will prevent this, because such regulations, in view of the method and motive for selection, are plainly inconsistent and deemed ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... drive, and where the front doors of the houses are never open; a dead, uninteresting place, neat but not specially pretty, where you are shown into one house got up for the purpose, which looks inside like a crockery shop, and has a stiff little garden with box trained in shapes of animals and furniture. A roomy-breeched young Dutchman, whose trousers went up to his neck, and his hat to a peak, walked before us in slow and cow-like fashion, and showed us the place; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... surrender when by mutual arrangement and free consent there is a yielding of one to another for a purpose. And so what Jesus means here is simply this—surrender. Bend your head down, bend down your neck, even though it's a bit stiff going your own way, and fit it into this yoke of mine. Surrender to Me ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... a stiff one and took at least an hour. But the track was everywhere passable, or capable of easily being made passable for mules. The general, trained and hardened by years of shooting of all kinds in the jungles, arrived at the top first, followed ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... one, of priceless value in society, and not wanting a benediction upon it in our elegant literature, namely, the art of stripping his fellow-man and so posturing him as to make every movement of the comical wretch puppet-like, constrained, stiff, and foolish. He could present you heroical actions in that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... all events," replied Alexander. "I feel very sore and stiff. What a narrow escape that ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... of many things: of the different way in which the great trunks meet its shocks and answer vibrating through innermost fibres; the smooth, muscular boles of the beeches, shaking their auburn boughs; the stiff, rough hornbeams and thorns isolated among the pastures; the ashes whose leaves strew the roads with green rushes; the creaking, shivering firs and larches. The West Wind tells us of the way how the branches spring outwards, or balance themselves, or hang like garlands in the air, and carry ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... catching cold as a result of our wetting." Having paused for a moment to discuss their situation the girls began tramping once more. As the hours dragged along all became weary and drowsy. Their joints were growing stiff, too, which condition was not improved by the chill of the night air. Most active of all the party was little Tommy Thompson, who skipped along, talking incessantly. Margery was scarcely able to keep up with the party. Twice she leaned against a tree, ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... up the board-walk, her back as stiff as a ramrod. Any one with half an eye could see that she was resolved not to drop the parasol again. No savage warrior on battle bent ever gripped ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... pageantry; the anchors were no sooner down, than a barge was in readiness, with twenty rowers in the queen's colours of green and white; and Arundel, Pembroke, Shrewsbury, Derby, and other lords went off to the vessel which carried the royal standard of Castile. Philip's natural manner was cold and stiff, but he had been schooled into graciousness. Exhausted by his voyage, he accepted delightedly the instant invitation to go on shore, and he entered the barge accompanied by the Duke of Alva. A crowd of gentlemen was waiting to receive him at the landing-place. ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... may be running yet," He cried in hopeful tone, Alas, the hydrant too, was froze, As stiff as any stone. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... stirring life, and the house, whatever it guessed, had forgotten all about her. Toward three o'clock she suddenly lost her sense of vitality. She was cold, and so sleepy now that the thought of bed was an ache of longing. She got up, found herself stiff and heavy-footed, lifted the child from his cradle and went into the bedroom with him. There she put him inside the sheets, and lay down beside him on the outside of the bed. She slept at once, but almost at ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... from a quarrel he had with Fritzlar, Imperial Free-Town in those parts, perhaps a little stiff upon its privileges, and high towards a Landgraf. Conrad marches, one morning (Year 1232) upon insolent Fritzlar; burns the environs; but on looking practically at the ramparts of the place, thinks they are too high, and turns to go home again. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... the fair promise of true sport. The reporters made what they could of it, but, divested of padding, the action was sadly fugacious. The champion merely smote his victim, turned his back upon him, remarking, "I know what I done to dat stiff," and extended an arm like a ship's mast for his glove to ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... to the Russians on July 15, 1916. From then on the Russian advance continued steadily, although the Turks maintained a stiff resistance. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... up to the mountains to-morrow to fight. The men say it will be stiff work, driving an old chief from his stronghold. Some of them don't like it, but I am ready. I am a better writer now, I hope, so want to tell you what I never have yet. I do thank you with all my heart for being ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... I was always stiff and stubborn since I could recollect, And had an awful temper, and never would reflect; And always into trouble—I remember once at school The teacher tried to flog me, and I reversed ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... rescuing party were utterly exhausted, and needed rest, and what food might be forthcoming, which was neither good nor plentiful. Most of all they must have rejoiced in the possibility of changing their clothes, stiff with mud and wet, for Havelock tells us that he himself entered the city with one suit which had hardly been off ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... Sheep Camp." The speaker laboriously loosened his pack and let it fall, then with stiff, clumsy fingers he undid the top buttons of his vest and, to Pierce's amazement, produced a large- calibered revolver, which he mechanically cocked and uncocked several times, the while his eyes remained hypnotically fixed upon ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... or surrender the city, if they should be 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 ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... in a ferry that needs baling; (4) proceed seven miles to another ferry two miles in breadth; (5) hop, step, and jump three miles along a narrow and tortuous track, enough to give vertigo to a goat. Lamont is not unhappy: he keeps his mind active by solving stiff quadratic equations and fiddling with Cartesian co-ordinates. I hope he will get credit for all these studies, when the last trump sounds, for he gets little ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... full of beaming sympathy and readiness. The stiff-looking spinster woman, with the "grass in the eaves of her bonnet,"—grass grown, also, over many an old hope in her own life, may be,—was here in the midst of young joy and busy interest, making them all ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... hardy mountain plants and flowers, while near them would be lovely roses and lilies and all pleasant garden flowers. This mingling of the wild mountain with the civilized garden was very quaint, and it was impossible for any number of gardeners to make such a garden look formal and stiff. ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... and of purity of speech. They are all interesting and contain some truth; but if the "new" poetry and the "new" criticism are really balderdash, they should not require so much attention from one of the most eminent of contemporary writers. I think Mr. Watson is rather stiff-necked and obstinate, like an honest, hearty country squire, in his sturdy following of tradition. Smooth technique is a fine thing in art; but I do not care whether a poem is written in conventional metre or in free verse, so long as it is unmistakably poetry. And ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... had always liked him," Monck admitted. "But he didn't like me for a long time after. That thrashing stuck in his mind. It was a pretty stiff one certainly. He was always very polite to me, but he avoided me like the plague. I think he was ashamed. I left him alone till one day he got ill, and then I went round to see if I could do anything. He was pretty bad, and I stayed with him. We ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... Brantome has several references to abnormally long hair in ladies of the French court during the sixteenth century. In 8 cases out of 2200 Bergh found the pubic hair forming a large curly wig extending to the iliac spines. The individual hairs have occasionally been found so stiff and brush-like as to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... see the spiked wings of the Pterichthys elevated to the full, as they had been erected in the fatal moment of anger and alarm, and the bodies of the Cheirolepis and Cheiracanthus bent head to tail, in the stiff posture into which they had curled when the last pang was over. In various places in the neighborhood the ichthyolites are found in situ in their coffin-like nodules, where it is impossible to trace the relation of the beds in which they occur to the rocks above and below; ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... You get this, you "blanket-stiff", you "husky", or "wop", or whatever you are—you disinherited of the earth, you proletarians who have only your labor-power to sell, you weak and sickly ones who are condemned to elimination? There has come, let us say, a period of "overproduction"; ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... only a little too antique in fashion. To all these things, therefore, he felt no strong objection; but the two things he could not pass unnoticed were her nose, and her style of movement. She moved in a stiff and constrained manner, like a master of the ceremonies in some Court procession, spreading out his arms and looking important. This afforded him amusement, but still he felt for her. "If I say too much, pardon me," said Genji, "but you seem apparently friendless. I should advise ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... written me a very polite letter, in order that I might consent to see him; he did not present himself quite as he had written. His manner at first was so stiff, insolent, and even threatening, that I had to make him understand that I was in my own house, and that I had no need to render him an account of my life, except because of the sincere affection which I had ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... light, lest the darkness come upon you.' That is the summing up of the whole history of that stiff-necked and marvellous people. For what has all the history of Israel been since that day but groping in the wilderness without any pillar of fire? But there is more than that in it. Christ gives us this one solemn warning of what falls on ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... some thirty boats had gathered, and through the long night, in every creek and cranny of the shore, from the extreme east of Inniscaw to the extreme west of Brefar, the search went on. The wind, chopping to the north-west, rose to a stiff breeze, and not only blew bitterly cold, with squalls of rain and sleet, but raised a sea that made it dangerous to explore the rocks closely. Nevertheless, not a single boat put back, and not ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... wilderness, and snaring foxes, once caught a black fox—a rare, beautiful animal with a very valuable skin—in a trap which he had baited for weeks in a wild pasture. It was the first black fox he had ever seen, and, boylike, he took it only as a matter of mild wonder to find the beautiful creature frozen stiff, apparently, on his pile of chaff with one hind leg ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... operation of Time and changed to absurdities. For our absurdities spring, in fact, for the most part, from the good in us, from some faculty or quality abnormally developed. Pride, untempered by intercourse with the great world becomes stiff and starched by contact with petty things; in a loftier moral atmosphere it would have grown to noble magnanimity. Enthusiasm, that virtue within a virtue, forming the saint, inspiring the devotion hidden from all eyes and glowing out upon the world in verse, ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... when he needed them. As we looked shudderingly at these forlorn little creatures, and expressed our commiseration at their fate, the younger brother stepped forward, and, examining one of the cages, in which sat hunched up in one corner a stiff lump of feathers, coolly announced that "this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... the steps to gaze into the taxicab, then nodding to Shirley. The house-holder as promptly returned through his front door, while Shirley swiftly unmanacled the prisoner enough to let him walk, stiff and awkward from the long ordeal in the car. The stern grip, ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... to his genius; the sharking captains, who would not draw to save their own swords, and would cheat "their friend, or their friend's friend," while they would bully down Ben's genius; and the little sycophant histrionic, "the twopenny[390] tear-mouth, copper-laced scoundrel, stiff-toe, who used to travel with pumps full of gravel after a blind jade and a hamper, and stalk upon boards and barrel-heads to an old crackt trumpet;" and who all now made a party ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... honourable gentlemen can get no certificate—none provided for them—and without certificate there is no admittance. Soldiers stand ranked at the door; no man enters without his certificate!" The stiff republicans, and known turbalent persons, are excluded. From this Parliament Cromwell accepts again the title of Protector, and is installed with great state; things take a more legal aspect; the major-generals are suppressed; a House of Lords is instituted; and a settlement ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... came of the dress coat, and of his childish vanity in his white wristbands. It was the first occasion on which he had ceremoniously dressed for dinner; and Violet had come over; and he was as proud of his high and stiff collar, and of his white necktie, as if they had been the ribbon and star of a royal order. And then they were all going off the next morning—Miss North included—to a strange little place on the other side of the Isle of Wight; ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... more stiff and dignified than ever, was in the museum with Braddock. The two men were seated in comfortable chairs, and Cockatoo, some distance away, was polishing with a cloth the green mummy case of the fatal object which had brought about all the trouble. Lucy ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... right hand, with all its cunning, ne'er quilled so exquisitely. Those graceful, fragile Petunias (what a family of sisters!), in their delicate glaze silks (ratherish decollete!), and the Superbia, Empress 'Gladiolus,' in brocade of such daring hues, may call the Asters 'stiff and prudish' in their quilled muslins; but, what say the Asters in return? Ah! what do ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... wriggles (no more dignified word is appropriate) of the encounter ended in a stern stiff grip which locked the men one to the other, Duplay facing down the valley, Harry looking up the river. Harry could not see over the Major's shoulder, but he saw past it, and sighted a tall dog-cart driven quickly and rather rashly down the hill. It was raining hard now, and had not ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... for Buffalo, being, I imagine, a little more than half across Lake Erie. The water is rougher than on Michigan or Huron. (On St. Clair it was smooth as glass.) The day is bright and dry, with a stiff head wind. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... necessary," she said; "and, besides, I forgot; but if you wish to know the particulars," with a stiff little air of dignity, "I can give them you. Mr. Gowan was there, and found the evening stupid, as every one else did. There was no one else to talk to, so he talked to me, and when I came home he put me into the cab. And, the fact is, he is a good-natured Philistine enough. ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... termination an octagonal tower 115 ft. high, which forms the chancel. At each of the four corners is a similar tower, and in each of the two sides are three large windows separated by buttresses like square towers. Round the top of the building as well as of the towers extends a balustrade of stiff sculpture resembling acanthus leaves. The large buildings in the neighbourhood are convents. Alittle eastward is the "Observatoire Gay," from which a steep path, the Monte des Carmes Dchausses, 536 yards long, descends to the city, reaching it by the side of the station of the Chemin ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley." Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... didn't LOOK like us at all; and Mr. Edgeworth, the father of Maria Edgeworth, the 'gay gallant,' the impetuous, ingenious, energetic gentleman, sat writing with powdered hair and a queue, with tights and buckles, bolt upright in a stiff chair, while his family, also bequeued and becurled and bekerchiefed, were gathered round him in a group, composedly attentive to his explanations, as he points to the roll upon the table, or reads from his many MSS. and ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... himself. He was wary and still watchful. Although his muscles were stiff and his bones ached, he had not dared to move. When he was fairly certain that he could move, he indulged in that luxury for at least five minutes. He had no trouble in leaving the building. Once outside, he hastened to a telephone booth. He had no intention of telephoning, ...
— Ted Marsh on an Important Mission • Elmer Sherwood
... he stood with Mrs. Scott, her bright young daughter and Trudy in Mr. Conover's livery-stable, he kept a stiff upper lip and waited for what ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... term seems to have been applied to the article from the pointed or peaked edges of the lace which surrounded the stiff pleated ruffs, and may be constantly seen in portraits of the era ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... engaged that an increasing uneasiness in the motion of the ship first became apparent; and looking about us for the cause, we became aware of the fact that a cross swell had begun to gather, and was slowly creeping down to us from the north-west—the sure precursor, Forbes affirmed, of a stiff blow from that quarter. In this opinion I fully agreed; still there was at that moment nothing of a menacing character in the aspect of the sky, beyond an increasing thickness of the atmosphere; and I was therefore hopeful ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... sudden alternations of temperature. Cleanliness, gentle usage, and mild, innocuous specifics—vegetable, whenever possible—are his reliance to keep the hair in good order, and restore the proper tone when lost by negligence or disease. The harsh friction of the stiff, "penetrating hair-brush," the scraping of the fine comb, "the 'shampooing' operation of the hairdresser, with his exacerbating compound, a hundred degrees too violent, and his cataract of cold water ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Matthews could have espied Pan first, unless they were hidden somewhere. He took up a position, presently, behind one of the poker games, with his back to the wall, so that he had command of the room. A stiff game was in progress, which Pan watched casually. Blinky and Gus lounged around, with apparently no more aim than other idle ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... be alarmed. These poems are anything but heavy; anything but stiff and pedantic, except in one particular, which shall be noticed before we conclude; anything but cold and logical. They are graceful, very graceful; they are animated, touching, and impassioned. And they are so, precisely because they are philosophical; because they are not made ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the porch, and he followed me. As I turned to go down the steps—there are four steps—he struck me a powerful blow on the back of my head, and I fell from the porch to the ground. I was not entirely senseless, but I was stiff and could not move hand or foot. I lay a long time—I do not know how long—but he did not touch me. Jolly Low was at work upon the house, and he came down where I was, and Mr. Hodges told him he might lift me up if he was a mind to. He lifted me up and ...
— A Letter to Hon. Charles Sumner, with 'Statements' of Outrages upon Freedmen in Georgia • Hamilton Wilcox Pierson
... My cousin contracted his eyebrows and uttered a suppressed oath. Then with a gesture of warning to the man he crossed the room quietly to a table where a regular habitue of the restaurant was lazily finishing his breakfast. A large silver coffee-pot with a stiff wooden handle stood on the table before him. My cousin leaned over the guest familiarly and apparently made some hospitable inquiry as to his wants, with his hand resting lightly on the coffee-pot handle. Then—possibly because, my curiosity having been excited, I was watching ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... Chin to the Top of his Head, than to the sole of his Foot. One would believe, that we thought a great Man and a tall Man the same thing. This very much embarrasses the Actor, who is forced to hold his Neck extremely stiff and steady all the while he speaks; and notwithstanding any Anxieties which he pretends for his Mistress, his Country, or his Friends, one may see by his Action, that his greatest Care and Concern is to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... wings of the peregrine to the keen, cold uplands, soared awhile, then dropped to the warm and sheltered valley and so home again. We felt the radiator, Holder and I, and it was quite cool. She will never boil on a stiff hill. Mrs. Holder was glowing from her ride; for an instant she looked pink and pretty; she had ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... 'tis zaw cawld, I can't work wi' tha tacker at Acll; I've a brawk it ten times I'm shower ta dAc— da vreaze za hord. Why Hester hanged out a kittle-smock ta drowy, an in dree minits a war a vraur as stiff as a pawker; an I can't avoord ta keep a good vier—I wish I cood—I'd zoon right your shoes and withers too—I'd zoon yarn [Footnote: Earn.] zum money, I warnt ye. Can't ye vine zum work vor me, maester, ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... woman also sucked me against my will. So when Camille suggested it I refused. There was another French woman with her; they were both naked on the bed, and I had been fumbling both, and baudily amusing myself, with no cock-stiff or fucking desire about me. After a while I laid down on the bed with them, the other French woman told me, that some men never did anything else, and that she would like doing it to me. She had found out I was ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... younger; a sweet, dear little girl, of whom I was very fond. She was indeed the pet of the family. My elder brother, John, was at school in England. I remember thinking Aunt Martha, who was my mother's elder sister, very stiff and formal; and I was not at all pleased when she expressed her intention of teaching me and keeping me in order. My mother's health had been delicate, and I had been left very much to the care of old Domingos, a negro ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... when it suddenly stopped, and she heard an ejaculation from behind her. She saw Jim step down and examine something black in the snow. She gave a little cry as he caught the black object and pulled it up—it was a dead man, frozen as stiff as ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... true what Mademoiselle Idiale had told him. On one side there was distinctly a rustling as of paper. He opened the case quite flat and passed his fingers carefully over the lining. Very soon he found the opening—it was simply a matter of drawing down the stiff silk lining from underneath the overlapping edge. Thrusting in his fingers, he drew out a long foreign envelope, securely sealed. Scarcely stopping to glance at it, he rearranged the pocket-book, ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... about it a bit in general. Several I can see bring in Euclids, and other lecture books, and the service is gone through at a great pace. I couldn't think at first why some of the men seemed so uncomfortable and stiff about the legs at morning service, but I find that they are the hunting set, and come in with pea-coats over their pinks, and trousers over their leather breeches and top-boots; which accounts for ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... "Give himself simultaneously a lift." Reading {ekteinon}, or if {enteinon}, "keeping his right arm stiff." ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... turned to the slim cash-books, which he glanced at casually. The journals he set aside without opening. He handled the books with a sort of skill showing that he knew how to lift them with the least exertion, how to open them and close them and turn their stiff pages. The enormous mass of figures did not seem to appal him; the maze was straight enough beneath such skillful eyes. Finally, he turned to a small locked ledger, of which the key was attached to Roden's watch-chain, who came forward and unlocked the book. Mr. Wade ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... of the same kind. To this end special tackle and special methods have been found necessary. Not only the fly but also the line has to float on the wafer; the line is very heavy and therefore the rod (split-cane or greenheart) must be stiff and powerful; special precautions have to be taken that the fly shall float unhindered and shall not "drag"; special casts have to be made to counteract awkward winds; and, lastly, the matching of the fly with the insect on the water is a matter of much nicety, for the water-flies ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... night by periods and intervals of torment. They were then led out, in the severe depth of winter, which there at certain seasons would be severe to any, to the Indians is most severe and almost intolerable,—they were led out before break of day, and, stiff and sore as they were with the bruises and wounds of the night, were plunged into water; and whilst their jaws clung together with the cold, and their bodies were rendered infinitely more sensible, the blows ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... fairly well built, and surrounded with a living hedge of stakes. The houses inside this are four-cornered, the walls made of logs of wood stuck in edgeways, and surmounted by a roof of thatch pitched at an extremely stiff angle, and the whole is usually surrounded with a dug-out drain to carry off surface water. These houses, as usual on the West Coast, are divisible into two classes—houses of assembly, and private living houses. The first are much the larger. The latter are very low, and sometimes ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... to an off pitch, and he flung himself down on the deep-cushioned couch, his stiff expanse of dress shirt bulging and straining at the studs. A bit redder and stouter, too, he was constantly rearing his chin away from the chafing edge ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... suspicious, and allowed little scope for personal development. He obtained only occasional glimpses of nature during the monotonous daily walks across a flat, meaningless country. At very rare intervals, one of his father's colleagues would take him visiting; but these stiff and ceremonious calls only left a wearisome sensation of restraint and dull fatigue. During the long vacation he used to rejoin his father, whom he almost always found in a new residence. The poor man had alighted there for a ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... hillside, up which the half-obliterated trail zigzagged toward the crest of a flat-topped hill. Barney went ahead, taking the girl's hand in his to help her, and thus they came to the top, to stand hand in hand, breathing heavily after the stiff climb. ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the first opportunity I have had of meeting you Bank Presidents collectively, and when you are thawed out. I have met most of you, individually, when you were frozen stiff. I never supposed you could warm up, as you seem to have done, my previous impressions having been of the "How'd you like to be the iceman" order. Sometimes I have thought I'd almost rather go without the money than get ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... her sharply to see if she were "feazed." But Win had the feeling that a "stiff upper lip" was needed for the honour of England and the pluck of its womanhood. She remembered one of the stories she had loved best as a child—the story of the task Venus set for Psyche before she could be worthy of Cupid, the lover whose wings she had burned with a drop ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... and the last lamp she could see was lit; and not till then did it occur to her that there was such a place as indoors. She took her face from the window. The room was dark and cheerless, and Ellen felt stiff and chilly. However, she made her way to the fire, and having found the poker, she applied it gently to the Liverpool coal with such good effect, that a bright ruddy blaze sprang up, and lighted the whole room. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... are past, and now Come gray hairs, and yet somehow I can't think those years have fled— Still those roadways know my tread, Still I climb that old pine stair, Sit upon the stiff-backed chair, Stealing glances toward my left Till her eyes repay the theft; Death's a dream and Time's a liar— Tildy still is ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... in her stiff blue sunbonnet and green calico dress, went to Sabbath school. There was no mission class for girls, so Mr. Parker sent her among the gaily-dressed little girls in Miss Haley's class; ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... Esq., near Belfast; the soil a stiff clay; lets at old rents 10s., new one 18s., the town parks of that place 30s. to 70s., ten miles round it 10s. to 20s., average 13s. A great deal of flax sown, every countryman having a little, always on potato land, and one ploughing: they usually sow ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... the 13th of May, Father Bourdaloue in his turn died. A model of close logic and moral austerity, with a stiff and manly eloquence, so impressed with the miserable insufficiency of human efforts, that he said as he was dying, "My God, I have wasted life; it is just that Thou recall it." There remained only Fenelon in the first rank, which Massillon ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... you, he was awful stiff about it. He hardly spoke to you, if you did work for him before I ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... know," replied the other. "I guess it's because you're a white guy. O'Donnell has been trying to get something on me for the last year. He's got it in for me—I wouldn't cough every time the big stiff seen me." ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Perlmutter," she said, "I was scared stiff, and Mr. Margulies, the expressman, pretty near carried me up to the roof and we stays there till the fireman says ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... Scotch to model ourselves on your French courtiers; but for some time, thanks to your changing loves, you have kept us so often in the field, in harness, that our voices are hoarse from the cold night air, and our stiff knees can no longer bend in our armour: you must then take me just as I am, madam; since to-day, for the welfare of Scotland, you are no longer at ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... their unexpected kind reception. "And this I will say before the neighbours here, as ye would go to the wars, and make soldiers of yourselves, I am well pleased to hear ye behaved yourselves like gallant brave men should do. I'd sooner that your friends should have had to tell me that ye were both stiff and cold, than that ye should have returned yourselves with shamed faces to own that ye had disgraced the trade ye have chosen ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... very tender part, The right hand slips by instinct on the heart, His soul, of every other thought bereft, Is anxious only where to place the left; He sobs and pants to soothe his weeping spouse; To soothe his weeping mother, turns and bows: Awkward, embarrass'd, stiff, without the skill Of moving gracefully, or standing still, One leg, as if suspicious of his brother, Desirous seems to run away from t'other. 440 Some errors, handed down from age to age, Plead custom's force, and still possess the stage. That's vile: should we a parent's ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... that was not all; it appeared as if wonders would never cease, for when Smallbones came up to receive his master's provisions, after the others had been served and gone away, the corporal not only kindly received him, but actually presented him with a stiff glass of grog mixed with the corporal's own hand. When he offered it, the lad could not believe his eyes, and even when he had poured it down his throat, he would not believe his own mouth; and he ran away, leaving his provisions, chuckling along the lower deck ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... old-time power to carry off camels, but he can never do the slightest harm to even a new-born kid. The goats of the flocks dance in front of him at night, deriding him to his face, and always from that moment his right leg has been stiff and lame." ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... "Be not so stiff-necked, Esther! Besides, it stands in the letter that I am to come—they do not ask thee. Who knows that the great people will not be angry if I bring thee with me? I dare say Benjamin will soon be better. He cannot have been ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... never touched his heart; for the remedy he proposes poses for Irish sufferings is to increase them, if possible, a thousandfold; and he would have troops employed to "tread down all before them, and lay on the ground all the stiff-necked people of the land." And this he would have done in winter, with a refinement of cruelty, that the bitter air may freeze up the half-naked peasant, that he may have no shelter from the bare trees, and that he may be deprived of all sustenance by the chasing and ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... faces, in the lovers and the tyrants, the Bacchanals and the Furies, there is the same marble chillness and deadness. Most of the characters of the French stage resemble the waxen gentlemen and ladies in the window of a perfumer, rouged, curled, and bedizened, but fixed in such stiff attitudes, and staring with eyes expressive of such utter unmeaningness, that they cannot produce an illusion for a single moment. In the English plays alone is to be found the warmth, the mellowness, and the reality of painting. We know the minds of men and women, as we know ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... if he were following the windings of the crooked Phrygian river, Meander. He promenades if he walks in a public place, as for pleasure or display. He prowls if he moves about softly and stealthily, as in search of prey or booty. He hobbles if he jerks along unevenly, as from a stiff or crippled condition of body. He limps if he walks lamely. He perambulates when he walks through, perhaps for observation or inspection. (Perambulates is of course a ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... plains between the Barwan and Darling Downs—whose drooping foliage and rich yellow blossoms render it extremely elegant and ornamental. The second, the Acacia of Coxen, resembles the Myal (without its drooping character), its narrow lanceolate phyllodia rather stiff, its yellowish branches erect. The third, is the Bricklow Acacia, which seems to be identical with the Rose-wood Acacia of Moreton Bay; the latter, however, is a fine tree, 50 to 60 feet high, whereas the former is either a ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... was the third day the booth had been shut up—the snow drifted no longer, and the neighbours went to see about Anthon, who had not yet shown himself. They found him lying stiff and dead, with his old nightcap pressed between his hands. They did not put it upon him in his coffin—he had also another which was ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... stiffened wing. His teeth ground the big quills to pulp; his claws tore them into shreds; but he got no grip in the feathery mass, and he slipped, clawing and snarling, into the grass, only to spring again like a flash. Again the stiff wing blow; but this time his jump was higher; one claw gripped the shoulder, tore its way through flying feathers to the bone, while his weight dragged the big bird down. Then Quoskh shortened her neck in a great curve. Like a snake it glided over the edge ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... eyes, And views their arms and habit with surprise. A lion's yellow skin the Theban wears, Horrid his mane, and rough with curling hairs: Such once employ'd Alcides' youthful toils, Ere yet adorn'd with Nemea's dreadful spoils. 570 A boar's stiff hide, of Calydonian breed, Oenides' manly shoulders overspread; Oblique his tusks, erect his bristles stood, Alive, the pride ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... of discord: the house of an English bookseller at the foot of the Row had grown more attractive than his own to Hubert, because of a certain Mistress Margaret who lived there with her father. The bookseller was old, narrow-minded, and stiff for presbytery; he approved of no people but Englishmen, and had a special prejudice against German Lutherans. His daughter believed firmly in his wisdom, and had been from infancy the old man's darling. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... so seriously ... the greater part of the evils observed had not been the necessary and unavoidable results of canal irrigation, but were due to interference with the natural drainage of the country, to the saturation of stiff and retentive soils, and to natural disadvantages of site, enhanced by excess of moisture. As regarded the Ganges Canal, they were of opinion that, with due attention to drainage, improvement rather than injury to the general health might be expected ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the resistance of the Germans, without being tame, was not actually stiff, and the doughboys were able to sweep toward the second line of any position without difficulty. There, however, the Germans began to defend themselves sharply, which delayed, but did not stop the American advance. The attack was made in two ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... court-house. It was an old square brick-and-stucco building, sombre and stilted and very dirty. Out of it filed a stream of men—some black and shackled; some white and swaggering and liberal with tobacco-juice; some white and shaven and stiff. "Court's just out," pursued Mr. Caldwell, "and them niggers have just been sent to the gang—young ones, too; educated but good for ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... sank lower than ever within me, but summoning up what I could of my resolution to bear uncomplainingly whatever came, I got off my mule, stiff, lame, wet, and cold, and sat down in the hammock, wondering how much more I ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... stiff, you fifer feller, Let folks see how spry you be,— Guess you'll toot till you are yaller 'Fore you git ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... was rising to a good stiff breeze, the waves were beginning to show little caps of foam, and to the new-comer it seemed utter madness to be seated in such a frail cockle-shell, which kept on lying over from the pressure on the sail, and riding across the waves ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... o'clock the next morning Colonel Quinnox and a company of soldiers, riding from the city gates toward the north in response to a call for help from honest herders who reported attacks and robberies of an alarming nature, came upon the stiff, foot-sore, thorn-scratched Mr. Hobbs, not far from the walls of the town. The Colonel was not long in grasping the substance of Hobbs's revelations. He rode off at once for the Witch's hovel, sending Hobbs with a small, instructed escort ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... piazza and actually succeeded the first time trying. How many of the gentlemen, sitting in their Sunday best on the piazza, smiled, I do not know—I didn't dare to look. I know I sat up ever so stiff and tried to look just as if I had been a circuit rider ...
— The American Missionary, October, 1890, Vol. XLIV., No. 10 • Various
... back volumes of THE SUPPLEMENT can likewise be supplied. Two volumes are issued yearly. Price of each volume, $2.50 stitched in paper, or $3.50 bound in stiff covers. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... my boldness, I cast an anxious look around as I spoke. Nothing met my eyes but the familiar furniture and the dancing shadows on the wall, until their gaze fell upon the window, and rested there, whilst my heart grew suddenly stiff with terror, and my tongue ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... contrasting the general kitchen with the light or special diet prepared for the sicker men, there was all the difference between having placed before them 'the cold mutton chop with its opaque fat, the beef with its caked gravy, the arrowroot stiff and glazed, all untouched, as might be seen by the bed-sides in the afternoons, while the patients were lying back, sinking for want of support,' and seeing 'the quick and quiet nurses enter as the clock struck, with their hot water tins, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... long chain for him," said the butcher, "and take him out for a good stiff run every evening. Never let him get away from you; make him mind you, and bring him home always thoroughly exhausted. You stick to that for a month or two, regular, and you'll have him like ...
— Evergreens - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... was football tactics, with me bucking the line, Bill carrying the ball. Fortunately, the bunch was a good-natured festival gathering, or my rough work might have brought us trouble. As it was, a short, stiff struggle took us to the ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... regard to the space in which I had to work. Lengthways my little chamber was nearly six feet, but crossways little more than two; and up where the hole was—in which I intended to insert the measuring-rod—it was still less. Of course to get the stiff piece of stick into the cask was plainly impossible— without bending it, so that it must break—for the dry deal would have snapped through like the ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... here is Krovitch just across a little river from Germany and Austria. While those greedy neighbors may be held back now, you could not restrain them a moment after revolt broke out in that border province. For two centuries those Krovitzers have been a defiant and stiff-necked race in spite of every corrective measure adopted to suppress them. Unless immediate action is taken to anticipate and abort any movement of theirs, it may mean the utter destruction of your present southern frontiers. I am convinced that they will take advantage of the ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... hindrance, as the road on this side of the "divide" is in good repair. But as we go down on the other side, we are impeded by freight-wagons held fast in the mud, and unable to move down-hill—it being easier to drag a wagon up an ascent than to draw it down-hill through stiff mud. An entirely different world now presents itself. We are in a fine grain-growing country. Well-cultivated fields stretch out as far as the eye can reach, with farm-houses scattered here and there, that strikingly remind the traveler of ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... the young prince determined to find out the truth for himself. He leaped from his horse and began to force his way through the wood. To his astonishment, the stiff branches gave way, then closed again, allowing none of his ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate
... both. It makes one man careless of another, and out of contempt not to study equity and righteousness towards him, and it makes another man impatient of receiving and bearing an injury or disrespect. While every man seeks to please himself, the contention arises. Pride in both parties makes both stiff and inflexible to peace and equity, and in this there is a great deal of folly. For, by this means, both procure more real displeasure and dissatisfaction to their own spirits. "But with the well advised is wisdom." They ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... symbols, which, if you cannot read, the image is to you only an uninteresting stiff figure. But Sir Walter's Franchise, Diana Vernon, interests you at once in personal aspect and character. She is no symbol to you; but if you acquaint yourself with her perfectly, you find her utter frankness, governed by a superb self-command; her spotless truth, refined ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... not make much progress towards my house; the crowd in front of the great gymnasium stopped me. Octavianus had gone into the city, and the people, I heard, had greeted him with acclamations and flung themselves on their knees before him. Our stiff-necked Alexandrians in the dust before the victor! It enraged me, but my ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was told that the warehouse had been broken into and robbed, and the proprietor had fled for parts unknown. This robbed me of all my good clothes, and I could now go back as lightly loaded as when I came. I found I had walked sixty miles in that one day, and also found myself very stiff and sore so that I did not start back next day, and I took three days for the return trip—a very ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... I avoided instant destruction by moving out of the direct line of his headlong rush, his shoulder caught me as he passed and sent me head over heels, stiff and ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... and bold swagger are not unshunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received good turns from one of these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would fain be not ungrateful; but it is often one of the prime redeeming qualities of your man of violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm to back a poor stranger in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In sum, gentlemen, what the wildness of this canal life is, is emphatically evinced by this; that our wild whale-fishery contains so many of its most finished graduates, and that scarce ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... keenly the mixed texture of human experience, rather leads a man to disregard precautions, and risk his neck against a straw. For surely the love of living is stronger in an Alpine climber roping over a peril, or a hunter riding merrily at a stiff fence, than in a creature who lives upon a diet and walks a measured distance in ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... get ready for Julian—" she said impatiently, throwing away her book. "He sent me his article in the Market Place, but it's so stiff that I can't make head or tail of it. I like to hear him talk—but ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and spirit; as by it they give up every thing that distinguishes them from the meanest of their species, or indeed from animals the most below it. So that if ever he fell into any excesses of this kind, it was merely out of complaisance to his company, and that he might not appear stiff and singular. His frank, obliging, and generous temper procured him many friends; and these principles, which rendered him amiable to others, not being under the direction of true wisdom and piety, sometimes made him, in the ways of living he pursued, more uneasy to himself ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... rode to a farm near by. There we off-saddled, fed our horses, and began to prepare our breakfast. How stiff, cold and hungry we were! We could hardly wait until the meat was thoroughly broiled. Just as we began to satisfy the pangs of hunger the scouts came back, and once more it was "opzaal! opzaal!" (saddle! saddle!). We knew what it meant. The ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... the house at Dewsdale without difficulty. It is a stiff, square, red-brick dwelling-place, with long narrow windows, a high narrow door, and carved canopy; a house which savours of the Tatler and Spectator; a house in which the short-faced gentleman might have spent his summer holidays ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... in love," he said. "Be stiff with her, Otto, and you'll get her all right. It don't do to let a woman see that you care about her. The worse you treat the women the better they like it. When they used to tell my father about some woman being crazy over a man, he always used to say, 'What sort of ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... forgiveness." Is there any more painful, perplexing, and yet more certain fact in life than this, that man can resist God? Is there any that has bound up with it more terrible and inevitable issues? "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears," cried the martyr Stephen to his judges, "ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye." And the end for their fathers and for them we know. Wherefore the Holy Spirit saith: "To-day, ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... joints were stiff, the priest raised his arms, and allowed the golden bar in his hands to revolve in a half-circle; and then the Indian temple split right down the middle, and the two doors of the Magic Cabinet swung ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... can relate an anecdote which was repeated to me at an artistic dinner table in the French capital in 1886. It is not for me to vouch for the truth of the story, but give it as it was told to me in explanation of some amused comments which I had made on the stiff conventionality of a performance of "L'Africaine" which I had witnessed at the Grand Opra. Faure, the original of Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet, had been succeeded in the rle by Lassalle, whose fine art in newer works had met with full recognition from press and ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... as the Mombas, a native of the west coast of Africa and covered with stiff, bristling hair. Paraguay cats are only one-quarter as big as our ordinary cat, and are found along the western coast of South America, even as ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... show of respect. When Washington wrote to his mother, even after he was of age, he began his letter, "Honored Madam," and signed it, "Your dutiful son." This was a part of the manners of the time. It was like the stiff dress which men wore when they paid their respects to others; it was put on for the occasion, and one would have been thought very unmannerly who did not make a marked difference between his every-day dress and that which he wore when he went into the presence of his betters. ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... late this morning," I said. It was not, perhaps, a tactful remark, but I could think of nothing else. All the church-party were stiff with the slightly peevish righteousness of those who have fulfilled a duty ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... your carriers be ready say the word, and let us be moving, for I begin to feel terribly stiff and awkward in the sinews, and shall be right glad to find myself in a steaming bath. Don't forget,' added he to his servant, 'the gout-stool and the moxa, and all necessary for a good shampooing, and remember to have the ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas |
