"Stiffen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to the sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary quantity too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which it must be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general by no means adds to the rope's durability or strength, however much it may give it compactness and gloss. Of late years the Manilla ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... an absent, far-away look, his arms and legs seemed to stiffen, and a tremor ran through his limbs. Chris watched him with ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... in beaded rows drops deck the spray, While Phoebus grants a momentary ray, Let but a cloud's broad shadow intervene, And stiffen'd into gems the drops are seen; And down the furrow'd oak's broad southern side Streams of dissolving rime ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... boat on the lake, or, at least, faster than any with which I had had an opportunity to measure paces. But it made but little difference how fast she was, as long as there was hardly wind enough to stiffen the mainsail. Mr. Parasyte ordered the men to take their places on the thwarts, and ship their oars. I saw that a little farther out from the shore there was a ripple on the water, and putting one of my oars out at the stern, I sculled till I caught the ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... for it so long and so repeatedly, till at last the iron sinew gives way: no, but for the sake of bending the iron sinew itself, and when it is bent in one direction, I conclude He does not mean to stiffen it there, but would have it bend perhaps back to the very same position as at first it was so hard to bend it from, with this one wide difference, that in the first case it was so in its own will, but now in His will. Perhaps thou thinkest I am darkening counsel: ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... resistance began to stiffen. The first paralysis of surprise was past. The heavy guns of the enemy opened up, and from scores of machine gun nests and pill boxes came a storm of bullets. The German officers had got their troops under some semblance of control, ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... him experimentally how little pain is felt at the moment of a wound; which will explain the unconscious heroism of common soldiers in battle; very little but weakness through loss of blood is ever felt until wounds stiffen: further, a blow on the head not only dazes in the present and stupefies further on, but also completely takes away all memory of a past "bad quarter of an hour." At least I remembered nothing of how my worst misadventure happened; and only know that ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... did his misused body stiffen, that when he was called it required another ten minutes and a second glass of whisky to unbend his joints and limber up ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... from the form of the neck, many objects are indicated, and the material of which it is composed would give reason to turn all its powers of thought, to ask why it is so formed, as to twist, bend, straighten, stiffen and relax at will, to suit so many purposes? A very tough skin—a sheathe—surrounds the neck with blood vessels, nerves, muscles, bones, ligaments, fascia, glands great and small, throat and trachea. In bones we find a great canal for spinal cord. It is well and powerfully protected ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... East, was lying on his dying bed among the barbarous people whom he loved, his passing spirit was busy about his work, and, even in the article of death, while the glazing eye saw no more clearly and the ashen lips had begun to stiffen into eternal silence, visions of further conquests flashed before him, and his last word was 'Amplius'—Onward! It ought to be the motto of the missionary work of us, who boast a purer faith, to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... dead warrior were given time to stiffen, Deerfoot adjusted them as they were when he first discovered him sunk in meditation. The body was made to sit erect, the back supported by the rock behind it; the feet were extended in a natural position, and the arms folded across the massive chest. The partly-open eyes ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... few minutes, let us say ten, since that number has been used, the body has not had time to cool, nor have the blood-vessels had sufficient opportunity to stiffen so as to prevent ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... grasps a war weapon, a stone tied in a crotched stick, from the heap of wedding gifts, and smites PADAHOON to the earth, standing threateningly over him. The others stiffen into tense attitudes, drawing their blankets tighter, their eyes burning bright. PADAHOON draws the knife that hangs in ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... only wait. I had but one more shot, and wished to hold it till he should be close; but my torn hand was weak, and the bruised tendons had already begun to stiffen. Into that deep place, where bank and trees overhung, the sun did not come, and I felt the cold striking into my raw flesh. More than that, my weight upon my shoulder began to cut off the blood from my arm. I felt pricking in my ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... the streaming bullets, zoomed upward into a half loop and rolled into position to fire at the leading attacker. The German was slow and Larkin poured a stream of lead into the cockpit. He saw the pilot stiffen, as one who has received a sudden shock or surprise, and then slump down. The plane thundered on for a moment, then nosed ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... in what seemed to him an endless procession, first Mrs. Fisher, very stately in her evening lace shawl and brooch, who when she saw him at once relaxed into smiles and benignity, only to stiffen, however, when she caught sight of the stranger; then Mr. Wilkins, cleaner and neater and more carefully dressed and brushed than any man on earth; and then, tying something hurriedly as she came, Mrs. Wilkins; and ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... first to stiffen his body. With extraordinary strength, he had lifted himself above the water, holding his body in an oblique position. Rut the strain was too great. Nevertheless, he struggled, tried to reach some of the beams, felt around him for something to hold to. Then, resigning ...
— The Flood • Emile Zola
... cried. And at her own cry a terrible convulsion shook her. He could feel her whole body strain and stiffen with the effort to control it. ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... Dorgan began to stiffen a little and his fingers clutched, as one's will when one thinks of reaching for a gun. The other man had a gun, too, but he made not the slightest movement toward it, and he spoke ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... on my account certainly." She emphasized the my so distinctly that I was sure she suspected. That dreadful thought caused me to stiffen my manner, and as hers had been strangely stiff all the afternoon, we were awfully polite to each other during supper. Each of us insisted upon paying the bill and feeing the waiter. It was terrible. I couldn't afford to pay it all, and yet I was too silly to give in gracefully, especially ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... an instant taken aback by these bold words, and by the high and strenuous voice in which they were uttered. But the sterner sacrist came as ever to stiffen his will. He held up the old parchment in ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... brown sugar; one-fourth teaspoonful each of ginger and cinnamon; one heaping tablespoonful grated sweet chocolate, mixed to a paste with a little hot water. Blend the ingredients thoroughly, then stir in one teaspoonful soda in one cupful of sour milk; flour to stiffen. Bake ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... to me. I would have visions of him in relation to his wife, checking always, sometimes bullying, sometimes being ostentatiously "kind"; I would see him glance furtively at his domestic servants upon his staircase, or stiffen his upper lip against the reluctant, protesting business employee. We imaginative people are base enough, heaven knows, but it is only in rare moods of bitter penetration that we pierce down to the baser lusts, the viler shames, the everlasting lying and muddle-headed self-justification ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... pause at the brook's side to drink; In the race he will not pant, In the combat he'll not faint; On the stones he will not stumble, 560 Time nor toil shall make him humble; In the stall he will not stiffen, But be winged as a Griffin, Only flying with his feet: And will not such a voyage be sweet? Merrily! merrily! never unsound, Shall our bonny black horses skim over the ground! From the Alps to the Caucasus, ride we, or fly! For we'll leave them behind in the glance ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... we all got down to work, and presently had a regular production line under way; stapling the wood splints, then wetting them with a resin solution and shaping them over a mandrel to stiffen, cutting the plastic film around a pattern, assembling and hanging the finished kites from an overhead beam until the cement had set. Pete Cope had located a big roll of red plastic film from somewhere, and it made a wonderful-looking kite. Happily, I didn't know what the film ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee
... well on the Continent. There are, or ought to be, three aims in the process of proofing and stiffening, all the three being of equal importance. These are: first, to waterproof the hat-forms; second, to stiffen them at the same time and by the same process; and the third, the one the importance of which I think English hat manufacturers have frequently overlooked, at least in the past, is to so proof and stiffen ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith
... I would come down, in case she made a descent and you wanted some one to stand by and stiffen you." ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... day, and an automobile ran tooting and snorting, and trailing its vile smells, through Harmouth till it stopped at Professor Ponsonby's gate and a lady got out and ran up the courtyard path. Deena had been trying in vain to make quince jelly stiffen—jell was the word used in the receipt book of the late Mrs. Ponsonby—with the modicum of sugar prescribed, till in despair she had resorted to a pinch of gelatine, and felt that the shade of her mother-in-law was ticking the word incompetent from the clock in the hall—when suddenly ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... trust in others. When they become voters, if they ever do, it may be feared that the pews will lose what the ward-rooms gain. Relax a woman's hold on man, and her knee-joints will soon begin to stiffen. Self-assertion brings out many fine qualities, but it does not promote ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... she watched him, she saw his features stiffen, as though a suspicion, a foreboding ran ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wretched being! Live, the tyrant of injustice; But shall hearts be scorch'd much longer By thy flames,—consume before them? If amongst the evil spirits Thou art one,—good! I'm another. Thou a greybeard art—so I am; Land and men we make to stiffen. Thou art Mars! And I Saturnus,— Both are evil-working planets, When united, horror-fraught. Thou dost kill the soul, thou freezes E'en the atmosphere; still colder Is my breath than thine was ever. Thy wild armies vex the ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... me once again, Stiffen'd in his new buff: A few short hours compact of strain, Too hasty for love; For Love can never be confin'd, But asks eternity. To nurse the lov'd one in the mind The ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... smile stiffen as he wondered what could be going wrong. Surely, they could not doubt his loyalty! A hasty glance at Colonel Korman revealed no expression on the military facade ...
— Irresistible Weapon • Horace Brown Fyfe
... when about forty feet of rope had been very cautiously paid out, and some eight measurements taken, the peon who was superintending the operation of lowering was suddenly seen to stiffen his body, as though something out of the common had attracted his attention; he raised one hand as a sign to the other two to cease lowering, and gazed intently downward for several seconds. Then he signed for the lowering to be continued, and, to the astonishment of the others, ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... childhood. Thus, the splendid corpse of a royal tiger has been brought in in a bullock-cart, the driver claiming the reward of fifteen dollars, and its claws were given to me. It was trapped only six miles off, and its beautiful feline body had not had time to stiffen. Even when dead, with its fierce head and cruel paws hanging over the end of the cart, it was not an object to be disrespected. The same reward is offered for a rhinoceros, five dollars for a crocodile (alligator?) and five dollars for a boa-constrictor or python. Lately, at five in the morning, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... a second one. One glance at the title caused Tony to stiffen. Then he picked up the typewritten script and carried it across the big room of his laboratory, as far away from the desk as he could get. He put the girl's photograph in his pocket. Then he took heaps and armfuls of papers, books and notes and carried them from the desk to a bench in the far ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... Mrs. Julian Jones stiffen, although she kept her gaze fixed balefully upon two mud-hens that were prowling along the lagoon shallows below us. "The hussy!" she hissed, once and implacably. Jones had stopped at the ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... was an impiety. No one did think of them: he seemed to play with danger as a cat with whirling leaves. 'I have seen him,' Milo writes somewhere, 'ride into a serry of knights, singing, throwing up and catching again his great sword Gaynpayn; then, all of a sudden, stiffen as with a gush of sap in his veins, dart his head forward, gather his horse together under him, and fling into the midst of them like a tiger into a herd of bulls. One saw nothing but tossing steel; yet Richard ever emerged, red but ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... things looked vastly different after the Hun attempt to smash through the 55th division here in the following April. It was with the probability of this attack in view that the 42nd division began to stiffen the defences, and as well as holding the line we interested ourselves in digging, concreting ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... move, but he realized that the man in the panama hat had lost all his ease of a landed proprietor and had withdrawn to a distance of thirty yards, where he stood glaring with all the contraction of fear and hatred that can stiffen a cat. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... they had the utmost confidence, that but one sequence of events was permissible or even thinkable in the presence of game. The Dog at first intimation by scent must convey the fact to the Man, must proceed cautiously to locate exactly, must then stiffen to a point which he must hold staunchly, no matter how distracting events might turn out, or how long an interval might elapse. The Man must next walk up the birds; shoot at them, perhaps kill one, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... every little white and yellow bunch and up went every little new-born nose as it sniffed at the recession of the maternal fount. One little precocious even went so far as to attempt to set his wee fore paddies against Rose Mary's knee and to stiffen a tiny plume of a tail, with a plain instinct to point the direction of the shifting base of supplies. Rose Mary gave a cry of delight and hugged the whole talented family to her breast, while Stonie and Tobe yelled and danced as Uncle Tucker turned with ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... self in expectations, in tolerances, and these rather increase with the lapse of time. We should say that your theory of the stiffening tastes is applicable to the earlier rather than the later middle life. We should say that the tastes if they stiffen at the one period limber at the other; their forbidding rigidity is succeeded by an acquiescent suppleness. One is aware of an involuntary hospitality toward a good many authors whom one would once have turned destitute from the door, or with a dole of Organized Charity ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... faded out of her face, leaving her quite pale, with eyes that began to blaze. The suppleness of her seemed to stiffen. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... this is the explanation of the change that had passed over you, and had given me so much pain!—my little Alma, who loved so dearly to give, and who has lately been so hard and cold that the very idea of an appeal from a poor family seemed to close her heart and stiffen her face into determined opposition. You cannot be a princess, dear, and do some great thing. I am afraid there was more pride than holy love in your plan. You should not think of yourself when you want to do good, but of your heavenly Master and ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... are here, should mean continuous unfoldment, advancement, and this is undoubtedly the purpose of life; but age-producing forces and agencies mean deterioration, as opposed to growth and unfoldment. They ossify, weaken, stiffen, deaden, both mentally and physically. For him or her who yearns to stay young, the coming of the years does not mean or bring abandonment of hope or of happiness or of activity. It means comparative vigour combined with continually larger experience, ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... to-day, Fred," remarked Bristles Carpenter, as he dropped down beside the other, who had donned his sweater-jacket, so that he might not take cold, and thus stiffen his muscles before being called upon to toe the mark again, toward the end of the meet, ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... another in inquiring of him what he wanted. He thought it so ridiculous to make inquiries of strangers, before his own house, after his wife and children, and still more so, after himself, that he mentioned the first neighbour whose name occurred to him, Kirt Stiffen. All were silent, and looked at one another, till an old ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... exhibit its powers. It appears in the world, and men lay hold of it, and represent it to themselves, in histories, in forms of words, in sacramental symbols; and these things which in their proper nature are but illustrations, stiffen into essential fact, and become part of the reality. So arises in era after era an outward and mortal expression of the inward immortal life; and at once the old struggle begins to repeat itself between the flesh and the spirit, ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... are the most obvious indications of orgasm; thus West, describing masturbation in a child of six or nine months who practiced thigh-rubbing, states that when sitting in her high chair she would grasp the handles, stiffen herself, and stare, rubbing her thighs quickly together several times, and then come to herself with a sigh, tired, relaxed, and sweating, these seizures, which lasted one or two minutes, being mistaken by ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... he thought, his eyes fixed steadily on Antone's right hand, as he still advanced toward the angry man. For he had noticed that the Mexican wore no cartridge belt. Again he sprang to one side as he saw Antone's finger stiffen upon the trigger, and the ball rattled through the bushes behind him. "Four!" he thought, veering toward the west. The Mexican turned his horse to follow, and Mead, with eyes fixed on the trigger, and noting, too, the slant of the barrel, knew that he had ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... all the time she was speaking, and only half realised that her indignation was warmly simulated in order to produce an effect upon him and stiffen a wavering determination. For a moment Gaga did not speak. He was turning the matter over in his mind, and Sally saw the changes of opinion that passed across his face. Weakness, submission, obstinacy, bewilderment were all to be observed. Above all, weakness; but a weakness that could be ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... our noble hidalgo found the blast of war blowing, and so he at once proceeded to stiffen his sinews and summon up his blood. Taking no notice of Russell, he advanced ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... in," and she entered with the confident air of the morning. Directly she saw Viola, however, she seemed to stiffen with resentment, and stood still ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... character; all your people, as soon as they begin to stiffen a little and get wrinkles, seem to be full of character, and I enjoy it much more than beauty; but we were talking about ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... hardness of iron thy bones shall environ, To brass-links the veins of thy frame Shall stiffen, and the glow of thy manhood shall grow Like the anvil that melts not in flame! But wert thou the mould of a champion bold For God and his truth and his law? Oh, then, though the fence of each limb and each sense Is broken—each gem with a flaw— Be comforted thou! For rising in air Thy ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... promise of frost in the air to-night. Underfoot the moisture of the path was beginning, not yet to stiffen, but rather to withdraw itself; and there was a cold clearness in the air. Over the wall beside the house, beyond the leafless trees which barred it like prison-bars, burned the sunset, deepening and glowing redder every instant. Yet she felt nothing of ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... miser, "he darn't, he darn't—wouldn't God consume him if he robbed the poor—wouldn't God stiffen him, and pin him to the airth, if he attempted to run off wid the hard earnings of strugglin' honest men? Where 'ud God be, an' him to dar to do it! But it's a falsity, an' you're thryin' me to see how I'd bear it—it is, it is, an' may Heaven ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... visage pale and wan; A sketch of life, a remnant of a man! Whose livid lips, as now he moulds a grin, Like charnel doors disclose the waste within; Whose stiffen'd joints within their sockets grind, Like gibbets creaking to the passing wind; Whose shrivell'd skin with much adhesion clings His bones around in hard compacted rings, If veins there were, no blood beneath could force, Unless by miracle, its trickling course;— ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... pessimistic; others actively commit themselves to fight. Some who fight see present human growth and the growth of human demands on resources as the stark unavoidable realities they are, and seek mainly to guide them and mitigate their effects. Others stiffen their necks against development to meet those demands, staunch enemies to all reservoirs and other forms of compromise, stubborn if highminded nay-sayers against the ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... come when fate's decree And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee; Phœbus and Paris shall avenge my fate, And stretch thee here before the Scæan Gate." He ceased. The Fates suppress'd his laboring breath, And his eyes stiffen'd at the ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... broke out of his stride to circle its bottom. As he did so, of his own volition he checked himself. Dead ahead he saw horses scattered about, and beyond the horses, rising limply in the noon haze, a thin column of smoke. Also, he felt both his riders stiffen. Then on the midday hush rose the crack of firearms from the direction of ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... available in their new land produced tasty dishes that have been handed down from mother to daughter for generations. Their cooking was truly a folk art requiring much intuitive knowledge, for recipes contained measurements such as "flour to stiffen," "butter the size of a walnut," and "large as an apple." Many of the recipes have been made more exact and standardized providing us with a regional cookery ...
— Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking • Unknown
... the Susquehanna. Tired as I was I could not forbear a smile when this Mohican saluted the noble river by its Algonquin name in the presence of those haughty Iroquois who owned it. And it seemed to me as though I could hear the feathered crests stiffen on the two Oneida heads; for this was Oneida country, and they had been maliciously reminded that the Lenape had once named for them their river under circumstances in which no Iroquois took any pride. Little evidences of the subtle but ever-living ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... queen tells me except command my tones when there is an attempt to stiffen her. She is not to be ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... air-bladder, and certain parts of the entrails; these are taken out while fresh, cut open, washed, and exposed to the air a short time to stiffen; the outside skin is then taken off, and the remaining part formed into rolls, fastened together with pegs, and hung up to dry. The isinglass is then separated into threads of different sizes, or formed into flakes. Immense quantities are ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... lunge, and was out of the doorway before the old man could utter another word. Albert thrilled with pleasure as he felt the reins stiffen in his hands, and saw the traces swing ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... set down at intervals on the dusty buff plain, each with its dusty wheat or barley field adjacent, the crop, not the product of the rains of heaven, but of the muddy overflow of "Irrigating Ditch No.2." Then comes a road made up of many converging wagon tracks, which stiffen into a wide straggling street, in which glaring frame houses and a few shops stand opposite to each other. A two-storey house, one of the whitest and most glaring, and without a veranda like all the others, is the "St. Vrain Hotel," ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... the Whitewater Commercial Club, composed of the leading merchants of the town, and Mr. Noonan was the apostle of the liquor interests. Remington felt his back stiffen as he stepped ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... thinking there might be people over there you'd be glad to see," he brought out awkwardly. Hilda said nothing, and as they walked on MacConnell spoke again, apologetically: "I hope you don't mind my knowing about it, Hilda. Don't stiffen up like that. No one else knows, and I didn't try to find out anything. I felt it, even before I knew who he was. I knew there was somebody, and ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods. For your lexicographer, having written his dictionary, comes to be considered "as one having authority," whereas his function is only to make a record, not to give a law. The natural servility of the human understanding having invested ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... at being left out of the detail, when presently comes a second detail: Second Lieutenant Treadwell, Sergeant Ogle, Corporal Funk, and twenty privates, of whom you, Jenkins, are one. As you get ready, you adopt stern resolves, stiffen that upper lip, and confide a short message for some one to one of the survivors, in case, as you proudly hint, you should not return. The survivor rewards you with a pressure of the hand, and a look of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... my hair rise and stiffen. The sound echoed and reverberated through the silent night, and then died away; but before it had done so I had sprung to the great beam and closed the upper gate. As I did so I caught sight of the old man ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... this (August 22) Edwin's jaws began to stiffen. For nine or ten days there was suspense, so hard to bear. Some symptoms were not so bad, it did not assume so acute a form. I thought he ought to be carried through it. He was older, about twenty-one, six feet high, a strong handsome young man, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... most of the remainder of the flour, and work up the dough with the hand to the required consistence, which is indicated by the smoothness of the dough, and its not sticking to the hands or the sides of the pan when kneaded. The rest of the flour must then be added to stiffen the dough, which may then be placed in tins or formed by the hand into any shape that may be preferred and placed on flat tins ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... slack when I'm on the track, And the gripman's face gets blue, As he holds her back till his muscles crack, And he shouts, "Hey, hey! Say, you! Get out of the way with that dray!" "I won't!" "Get out of the way, I say!" But I stiffen my back, and I stay on the track, And I won't get out of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... recognition that it is GOD and not the Devil who rules the World; the same power of discrimination between different kinds of truth.... Had our LORD come later, He would have come to mankind already beginning to stiffen into the fixedness of maturity.... The truth of His Divine Nature would not have been recognized." (pp. 24-5.)—Is this meant for bitter satire on the age we live in; or for disparagement of the Incarnate WORD?... But in the face ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... buttoned back at the skirts; and I heard the militia at the quarters calling across the stable-yard that these grimy battalions were some of Washington's veterans, hurried north from West Point by his Excellency to stiffen the backbone of Lincoln's militia, who prowled, growling and ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Shoulders down and back. Chest out. Stomach up. Thumb along the seams of trousers. Knees straight, not stiff. Heels on line and together. Do not stiffen the fingers: The mind ought ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... female glutton who steals jam in the pantry ought not to get poisoned. She should get after a pot of warm glue, which should be made to miraculously stiffen the moment she gets it into her mouth, and have to be gouged out of her ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... long enough to lose the lovely entrance of Dublin Bay, stiffen her limbs, and confuse her brains, and she stood still as the stream of passengers began to rush trampling by her, feeling bewildered and forlorn. Her cousin's voice was welcome, though over-loud and somewhat piteous. 'Where are you, stewardess? where's the young ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... words upon Grassette was remarkable. His body appeared to stiffen, his face became rigid, he stared at the Governor blankly, appalled, the colour left his face, and his mouth opened with a curious and revolting grimace. The others drew back, startled, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was dark, and we were to follow and take up our position behind the Infantry. Good news indeed! The G.O.C. in C. had done a wise thing in bringing two Brigades of the 29th Division round from Helles to stiffen Kitchener's Army. Our Royal Fusiliers were in reserve all the time, and although they never fired a shot were in such a position that they were badly exposed to shell fire, and were within view of snipers, and lost ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... singular tenderness for the stone-incrusted institutions of the mother-country. The reason may be (though I should prefer a more generous explanation) that he recognizes the tendency of these hardened forms to stiffen her joints and fetter her ankles, in the race and rivalry of improvement. I hated to see so much as a twig of ivy wrenched away from an old wall in England. Yet change is at work, even in such a village as ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... time. But why should it fall to her?—unless indeed Sarratt were killed in action. If he survived the war he would make her the best of guides and husbands; she would have children; and her sweetness, her sensitiveness would stiffen under the impact of life to a serviceable toughness. But meanwhile what could she do—poor little Ariadne!—but 'live and be lovely'—sew and knit, and gather sphagnum moss—dreaming half her time, and no doubt crying half the night. What dark circles already round the beautiful ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... while you robbed he slept. I was as gentle as you and quieter, but in the midst of it he woke up, and I found his eyes wide open, watching me. I saw his fingers stiffen—in a moment he would have been upon me—so I struck him down. You heard him call and came back. Yet we neither of us thought him dead. I did not wish to kill him. Do you remember how we stood ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... these hapless creatures small To sweet seeds that the withered grasses hold?— The little children of men go hungry all, And stiffen ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... stand in postures that cripple them for life. One elects to stand on one foot until it becomes impossible for him ever to put the other to the ground. Another determines to raise his arms to heaven, never taking them down. In a short time, after excruciating pain, the joints stiffen so as to render any change impossible, and the arms shrivel until little but bone is left. Some let their nails grow into their flesh and through their hands. The forms of these penances are innumerable, and those who undergo them are regarded as holy men and are worshipped ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... hearing about Him first, then actually appealing to Him, accepting His word as personal to one's self, putting Him to the test in life, trusting His death to square up one's sin score, trusting His power to clean the heart and sweeten the spirit, and stiffen the will. It means holding the whole life up to His ideals. Aye, it means more yet; something on His side, an answering look from Him. There comes a consciousness within of His love and winsomeness. That answering look ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... things who would scream at the sound of a gun, Which we POINTERS consider as part of the fun. We range the wide fallows, or quarter the stubble, While the labouring sportsman, alive to each double, Hails the high stiffen'd tail, and the motionless joint, And cautiously warns the whole field of the point; As by magic transfixt, all the signal obey— With the death dealing tube, he hastes up to his prey." To the Pointer a bandy ...
— The Council of Dogs • William Roscoe
... now set in motion, even this large quantity of emulsion will stiffen in at least an hour and a half. It may be further remarked that, the outside of the kettle being black, the lid being light-tight, and all the apertures in it being firmly closed, nearly the whole process can ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... machine-gunners. The sedentary take post as cooks, or tailors, or officers' servants. The waster hews wood and draws water and empties swill-tubs. The great, mediocre, undistinguished majority merely go to stiffen the rank and file, and right nobly they do it. Each has ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... the voice was masterful, the voice of the thoroughbred, when he gets in earnest. Brenton longed to stiffen himself against the mastery, but he could not. His ineffectual effort lent an edge ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... told A tale, so fill'd with bloody circumstance, Of this damn'd deed, that stiffen'd me with horror. Vardanes seem'd to blame the hasty act, As rash, and unadvis'd, by passion urg'd, Which never yields to cool reflection's place. But, being done, resolv'd it secret, lest The multitude should take it in their wise Authority to pry into his death. Arsaces was, by assassination, ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... The other was of that mild, blue-eyed, tow-haired type from the Baltic provinces, with the thin, white skin which does not tan but burns. He was frailer than the other and he was tired! He would lag and then stiffen back his shoulders and draw in his chin and force a trifle more energy into ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the man who has iron in his blood and is determined that he will succeed. When he is confronted by barriers he leaps over them, tunnels through them, or makes a way around them. Obstacles only serve to stiffen his backbone, increase his determination, sharpen his wits and develop his innate resources. The record of human achievement is full of the truth. "There is no ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... figure seemed to stiffen, and the look on her face altered to one of cold anger. She peered farther over as if to assure herself of something, and Dick, following her eyes, saw they were fixed on a man who stood leaning against ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... the banker, and Mr. Horn, the grocer, and Mr. Acroyd, the shoemaker, would be sitting there talking to Mr. Belk, who was justice of the peace. And they would see Papa. The young men squatting on the flagstones outside the "Farmer's Arms" and the "King's Head" would see him. And Papa would stiffen and draw himself up, trying ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... as he put down one letter and opened another, the Major was seen to stiffen and the Junior Sub. to wilt. The attention of the table became as fixed and frigid as that of the midnight sentry at a loophole. The Colonel toyed happily with another letter (while the Senior Captain made a careful census ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... said Moran, with a grin. Nor did he flinch when the weapon in Wade's hand seemed actually to stiffen under the ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... me a feeling of dread far greater than I had felt when I was anticipating death by being drowned. I should have preferred drowning to a death like that; and when for a moment I dwelt upon the probability of such a fate, the blood ran coldly through my veins, and the hair seemed to stiffen upon my scalp. ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... For another thing, they've had a heavy crop in Manitoba, Dakota and Minnesota, and I suppose some folks have an idea they'll get in first before the other people swamp the Eastern markets. I think they're foolish. It's a temporary scare. Prices will stiffen ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... Ah, do not fear— I see a peril nigh and all its blitheness. Order your limbs—stretch out your length of beauty, Let down your hands and close those deepening eyes, Or you can never stiffen as you should. A murdered man should have a murdered wife When all his fate is treasured in her mouth. This wifely hairpin will be ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... see this sad procession,' said she, and mounted to a turret, whence through an open window she looked upon the funeral. Scarce had her eyes rested upon the form of Iphis stretched on the bier, when they began to stiffen, and the warm blood in her body to become cold. Endeavoring to step back, she found she could not move her feet; trying to turn away her face, she tried in vain; and by degrees all her limbs became stony like her heart. That you may ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... feels so hard that you cannot find an easy spot to lie on. You are always worse before storms. After sitting a little while you stiffen up, feeling much better after moving about. The tendons of your legs have a drawing sensation, and feel as if too short. There is more or less of numbness and paralysis, and a wooden sort of feeling of the leg when walking. You also have lightning-like shocks of pain through the limb, now and ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... not need to use determination all the time; so it will be sufficient if your muscles are taught to be quickly responsive to determination of mind on any occasion. (You know it helps you to carry out a resolution if you stiffen your body at the moment you make up your mind to do a thing, but continued stiffness of the body in determination would be a strain likely to weaken your power of action unless backed by a tremendous, stored-up reserve strength of muscles.) Begin your ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... one by one the North King's searching lance Touch'd, and they stiffen'd at their task, and died; And their stout leader glanced a farewell glance; 'God is as close by sea as land,' he cried, 'In His own light not nearer than this gloom,'— And look'd as one who o'er ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... improvements about the castle, Mr. Pless," said I with so much directness that I felt Mrs. Billy Smith's arm stiffen and suspected a general tension of nerves from head ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... "I don't; they stiffen themselves, Richard. They know they are going to have their photograph taken, and can't look natural. Who ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... cut in a strip torn from a handkerchief, got into their stockings and shoes, and went forward. Dick declared that his cut gave him little or no pain, but Chippy still looked uneasy. He knew that the time for trouble was ahead, when the cut would stiffen. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... my power, and who would know it were I to leave your corpse to stiffen on the snow? But I bear you no ill will, and have no intention to hurt you. I would not harm a hair of your head. I will not subject you even to the inconvenience of having these fetters on your wrists, though you were unfeeling enough to place them on a man, the latchet of ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... to such scenes, and to regard them lightly, threw off the sheet, and raised the corpses, one by one, that he might the better view them. One peculiarity Mr. Bloundel noticed; namely, that the limbs of these unfortunate victims of the pestilence did not stiffen, as would have been the case if they had died of any other disorder; while the blotches that appeared on the livid flesh made them objects almost too horrible to look upon. In many cases the features were frightfully distorted—the tongues of the poor wretches swollen ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... The sensitive mouth twitched as the boy listened to her oft-repeated laments. Janie had never seen those eyes grow steely and keen; she had never seen the lips draw into firm lines, or the slim form stiffen as the boy listened to the doings of the king's soldiers. When the neighbors came with thrilling tales of daring done by some loved one, Janie made some excuse for sending the boy upon an errand or to bed; the contrast ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... shuddering bosom thrill! I freeze! I freeze! just Heaven regards my fault, Numbs my cold limbs, and hardens into salt!— Not yet, not yet, your dying Love resign!— This last, last kiss receive!—no longer thine!"— 265 She said, and ceased,—her stiffen'd form He press'd, And strain'd the briny column to his breast; Printed with quivering lips the lifeless snow, And wept, and gazed the monument of woe.— So when Aeneas through the flames of Troy 270 Bore his pale fire, and led his lovely boy; With ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... habitual mood going far deeper into life than words can ever carry us. Without for a single moment falling off into the nullities of pantheism, neither did he for a single moment suffer his thought to stiffen and grow hard in the formal lines of a theological definition or a systematic credo. It remains firm enough to give the religious imagination consistency and a centre, yet luminous enough to give the spiritual faculty a vivifying consciousness ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... right, Son, and we're proud as Punch of you, that you want to be not only in America's 'First Hundred Thousand,' but in her 'First Ten Thousand.' We know it will stiffen your spine considerably to hear that your family are behind you. Well, we are—just ranks and rows of us, with our heads up and the colours waving. Even Grandfather and Grandmother are as gallant as veterans about it. So go ahead—but come home first, if you can. ...
— The Whistling Mother • Grace S. Richmond
... flung herself into a chair. Her arms lay nerveless on the table. Her face was hidden in them. But now, overhearing us, or stung by some fresh thought, she sprang to her feet in anguish. Her face twitched, her form seemed to stiffen as she drew herself up like one in physical pain. "Oh, I cannot bear it!" she cried to us in dreadful tones. "Oh, will no one do anything? I will go to him! I will tell him I will give him up! I will do whatever he wishes if he will only ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... ground, then they felt it stiffen, and were again on the alert. Venning ran his fingers lightly along the jackal's back till he reached the nose, which was pointing straight up. Without a moment's delay he raised his rifle ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... all parts of them alike, then put them in a mangler—if you have not one, iron them on the wrong side, with an iron only just hot enough to smooth them. A little isinglass or gum arabic, dissolved in the rinsing water of gauze shawls and ribbons, is good to stiffen them. The water in which pared potatoes have been boiled, is an excellent thing to wash black silks in—it stiffens, and makes them glossy and black. Beef's gall and lukewarm water is also a nice thing to restore rusty silk, and soap-suds answers very ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... eagerly. Some of the poles were split into eight feet lengths. These were wetted and hung over the fire, the process being repeated until the wood was sufficiently softened to be bent into the required shape. This was done by the chief. Two cross-pieces were added, to stiffen them and keep them in the right shape when they dried; and the wood was then trimmed up and scraped by the men. When it had dried and hardened, the work of filling up the frame with a closely-stretched network of leather ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... her mother's face. She felt her own muscles stiffen with fear. With desperate strength ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... flaps, at the hole so closed up, and so much lower down and hidden, then I thought it to be; soon at its look and feel, impatience got the better of me; hurredly I covered it with my body and shed my sperm in it. Then with what curiosity I paddled my fingers in it afterwards, again to stiffen, thrust, wriggle, and spend. All this I recollect as if it occurred but yesterday, I shall recollect it to the last day of my life, for it was a honey-moon of novelty, years afterwards I often thought of it when ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... of a husband; she's too humbly to choose. I declare, she reminds me of a Jack-o'-lantern, though if you look at the back of her, or see her in meetin' with a thick veil on, she's about the best appearin' woman in Edgewood.... I never see anybody stiffen up as Anthony has. He had me make him three white shirts and three gingham ones, with collars and cuffs on all of 'em. It seems as if six shirts at one time must mean something out o' ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... well-worn expressions of regret there shone a scarcely believable but quite obvious self-satisfaction. Every sheep of the pasture probably imagines that in an emergency it could become terrible as an army with banners—one has only to watch how they stamp their feet and stiffen their necks when a minor object of suspicion comes into view and behaves meekly. And probably the majority of human sheep see themselves in imagination taking great parts in the world's more impressive dramas, forming swift, unerring decisions in moments of crisis, cowing mutinies, allaying ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... lady began to stiffen herself out as if she were about to faint in the arms of Captain Marchand, who had suddenly seized her; but her great curiosity to hear more kept her still conscious. Mrs. Ballinger grew very ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... that a stiff jaw and tongue are the greatest hindrances to the emission of good tone. Muscles of chin and tongue must be trained to become relaxed and flexible. Do not stiffen the jaw or protrude the chin, else your appearance will be painful and your ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... eat into the very bone. At dawn the ice would begin to break up and a steady sleet begin to fall. Later the sleet would turn to rain, and so the day would pass till we were soaked through to the skin. At night the frost would come again and stiffen our clothes to our tortured bodies, next day another thaw and rain, and so to the end of our turn, or to the time when an enemy bullet would ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... understand," he added, seeming to stiffen his shoulders in resentment at the calmness with which she regarded him. "I tell you that I waive the authority of a father and appeal to your gratitude; I remind you that I saved your life—leaped into the cold water and seized you, not knowing ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... task—how to mount it. You do it in this way: you hop along behind it on your right foot, resting the other on the mounting-peg, and grasping the tiller with your hands. At the word, you rise on the peg, stiffen your left leg, hang your other one around in the air in a general in indefinite way, lean your stomach against the rear of the saddle, and then fall off, maybe on one side, maybe on the other; but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... notices a very fine skin an Indian is wearing, lifts it to show it to Smith. The Indian resents this act, and there seems to be resentment and fear among all the red men. The Englishmen stiffen to attention, but Smith, who feared neither man nor devil, goes among the Indians carrying a copper kettle and a gorgeous blanket. He held out his blanket persuasively and added several strings of beads. Then he draped the blanket on himself. The Indian at last ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand |
