"Supple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only of Rebecca, who had added sound hints to her father's and the host's experienced advice; but, do what he could, it was another's image that haunted him. It was the winning one of the aristocratic singer. Again he beheld her matchless shape, her caressing and enthralling eyes, her supple undulations in the waltz and her shimmering golden curls. And whatever the sounds in the street, where there seemed more footfalls than before that evening, all though actual, were overpowered and formed the burden to the ghostly but delightful strains from that silvery voice. He was not only ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... transparent Glue whilst hot, and suffering them to hang by a string tied about the end of them till they were cold, and the skin pretty tough; then wrapping all the body of the drop (leaving out only the very tip) in fine supple Kids-leather very closely, I nipped off the small top, and found, as I expected, that notwithstanding this skin of Glue, and the close wrapping up in Leather, upon the breaking of the top, the drop gave a crack like the rest, and gave ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... in living tombs, bodies that were dead to righteousness but alive to sin. Like a spider weaving its meshes around the unwary fly, John Anderson wove his network of sin around the young men that entered his saloon. Before they entered there, it was pleasant to see the supple vigor and radiant health that were manifested in the poise of their bodies, the lightness of their eyes, the freshness of their lips and the bloom upon their cheeks. But Oh! it was so sad to see how soon the manly gait would change to the drunkard's stagger. To see ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... bride, and all the way Advised thy servant what to do and say; These taught him at the well, and thither brought The chaste and lovely object of thy thought. But here was ne'er a compliment, not one Spruce, supple cringe, or studied look put on. All was plain, modest truth: nor did she come In rolls and curls, mincing and stately dumb; But in a virgin's native blush and fears, Fresh as those roses which the day-spring wears. O sweet, divine simplicity! O grace ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... there as supple and strong as a Damascus blade. One is always aware of the "something dangerous," for all his princely manners and scholarly ways. One is never left in doubt as to how this Hamlet will play the man. It is all too easy for him to draw his sword and make an end of the ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... coming to receive from us Knee-tribute yet unpaid, prostration vile, Too much to one, but double how endur'd, 780 To one and to his image now proclaim'd? But what if better counsels might erect Our minds and teach us to cast off this Yoke? Will ye submit your necks, and chuse to bend The supple knee? ye will not, if I trust To know ye right, or if ye know your selves Natives and Sons of Heav'n possest before By none, and if not equal all, yet free, Equally free; for Orders and Degrees Jarr not with liberty, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... suffer under maladies created by such influence were accustomed to do. They stiffened their necks so hard at one time that the joints could not be moved; at another time their necks were so flexible and supple that it seemed the bone was dissolved. They had violent convulsions, in which their jaws snapped with the force of a spring-trap set for vermin. Their limbs were curiously contorted, and to those who had a taste for the marvellous, seemed entirely dislocated and displaced. ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... waitress, excitedly engrossed in her story, was unconsciously acting out the thrilling scene of her dialogue with the Indian, even imitating his voice and gestures. And Kemper and I listened and watched her breathlessly, fascinated by her lithe and supple grace as well as by the astounding story she was so frankly unfolding with the consummate artlessness of a ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... Reviews" has answered the book: for what signify the details, if the fundamental lie has been detected, and unrelentingly exposed? The man who plants his heel on the serpent's head, and refuses to withdraw it, can afford to disregard the tortuous writhings of the long supple body.—Again. These attacks are seven. Must seven men with "concert and comparison,"—with leisure and inclination too,—be procured to demolish this flimsy compound of dogmatism and unbelief? to disperse these cloudy doubts, and to analyse and repel these many ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... shall ever speak to any of you again," she stated, and, turning her back, marched away from them with lively resentment expressed in every supple line of ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... over to one of the grand-stand seats, as he spoke, and sat down, leaning on the rail with an easy movement of his supple figure. That was the first characteristic strangers usually noted in him: an exquisite Hellenic grace of strength and faultless proportion. He was a man's beauty, as distinguished from a beauty-man; other men were given to admiring him extravagantly and unresentfully. Unresentfully, because ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... had been haunted by the memory of the sailor's hornpipe, Gethin's flashing eyes, his handsome person, his supple limbs! She tried to banish the vision and to turn her thoughts to Will, but found it impossible! and she went about her work in a dream of happiness, unwillingly recalling every word that Gethin had spoken, every ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... slight gesture of indifference and moved away slowly and listlessly, as though fatigued by the mere effort of speech. Miss Leigh noted this with some concern, watching her as she went, and admiring the supple grace of her small figure, the well-shaped little head so proudly poised on the slim throat, and the burnished sheen of ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... sweet and clear, Where bathed her lovely frame, Who seems the only lady unto me; O gentle branch and dear, (Sighing I speak thy name,) Thou column for her shapely thighs, her supple knee; O grass, O flowers, which she Swept with her gown that veiled The angelic breast unseen; O sacred air serene, Whence the divine-eyed Love my heart assailed, By all of ye be heard This my ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... stalks of the tallest sunflowers. So that settles the pole question. There is an ornamental side to the bean question. Suppose you plant these tall beans at the extreme rear end of each vegetable row. Make arches with supple tree limbs, binding them over to form the arch. Train the beans over these. When one stands facing the garden, what a beautiful terminus these ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... fully represent Bergson's resources of style. These suggest staccato effects, hard outlines, and that does not at all represent the prose of this writer. It is a fine, delicately interwoven, tissue-like fabric, pliant and supple. If one were in the secret of M. Bergson's private thoughts, it might be discovered that he does not admire his style so much as others do, for his whole manner of thought must, one suspects, have led him often to attempt to express the inexpressible. The ocean ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... he entered the well-known circle of courtiers, who, as unsuspicious as himself of what was to follow, paid their usual homage, awaiting his commands. After a short interval appeared Martinengo, accompanied by two adjutants, no longer the supple, cringing, smiling courtier, but overbearing and insolent, like a lackey suddenly raised to the rank of a gentleman. With insolence and effrontery he strutted up to the prime minister, and, confronting ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... fie," cried the supple Mr Simkins, "how can you be so hard? for my share, I must needs own I think the poor lady's to be pitied; for it must have been but a melancholy sight to her, to see her spouse cut off so in the flower of his youth, as one ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... the use of heapin' on me a pauper's shame? Am I lazy or crazy? am I blind or lame? True, I am not so supple, nor yet so awful stout; But charity ain't no favor, if one can ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... deeply interesting. One of them, Albert Moore, an unbending upholder of the sufficiency in art of whatever is nobly decorative, was a devoted student of the severer graces of Hellenic art, and married in his works spontaneous and supple gesture with forms of chaste sobriety, clothing them in delicately harmonious tones, of which the studied arrangement announced to the first glance the refined idiosyncrasy of his ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... their names and nature were unknown to the Spaniards. After the collation was ended, the guests were entertained with music and dancing by a troop of young men and maidens simply attired, who exhibited in their favorite national amusement all the agility and grace which the supple limbs of the Peruvian Indians so well qualified them to display. Before his departure, Pizarro stated to his kind host the motives of his visit to the country, in the same manner as he had done on other occasions, and he concluded ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... to hurl Frank to the floor, and he would have succeeded had he been in his normal condition, for he was a man of great natural strength; but he was exhausted by flight and hunger, and, in his weakened condition, the man found his supple antagonist too much ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... A story told by Mr Supple, the curate. The penetration of Squire Western. His great love for his daughter, and the return to it ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... sail billowed out, full of wind, pulling hard at the clew-line, which was made fast to the gunwhale beside Hrolfur. The fore-sail resembled a beautifully curved sheet of steel, stiff and unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple in movement, like the ivory sails on the model ships in Rosenborg Palace. The mast seemed to bend slightly and the stays were as taut as fiddle-strings. The boat quivered like a leaf. The waves pounded hard against the thin strakes of the boat's side. I could feel them on my ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... audiences and critics, and caused Martinenche to regard the play as an "ironique divertissement," intended to demonstrate that "Galds' art was supple and objective enough to set forth an idea apparently at variance with the general inspiration of his theater." Such an explanation would be in harmony with Galds' favorite custom of balancing one argument against another, but perhaps Brbara may ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... are many. Touch has its ecstasies. The hands of people of strong individuality and sensitiveness are wonderfully mobile. In a glance of their finger-tips they express many shades of thought. Now and again I touch a fine, graceful, supple-wristed hand which spells with the same beauty and distinction that you must see in the handwriting of some highly cultivated people. I wish you could see how prettily little children spell in my hand. They are wild ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... head. Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my joints more supple. But I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other and trample ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... camp of Godfrey at Emmaus came two ambassadors from the king of Egypt, Alethes, a supple crafty courtier of low lineage, and Argantes, a haughty and powerful warrior. But their efforts to keep Godfrey from Jerusalem, first by persuasion, and then by threats, were in vain. They were dismissed from the camp, and the army proceeded ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... Brunswick, which in their present form are merely the preparatory sketch of a large work. It is too imperfect to allow us to judge of what Gibbon even designed to make of it. But it contains some masterly pages, and the style in many places seems more nervous and supple than that of the Decline ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... understand the comic element in caricature. However regular we may imagine a face to be, however harmonious its lines and supple its movements, their adjustment is never altogether perfect: there will always be discoverable the signs of some impending bias, the vague suggestion of a possible grimace, in short some favourite distortion towards which nature ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... of this squadron was proceeding as usual. Denisov, who had been losing at cards all night, had not yet come home when Rostov rode back early in the morning from a foraging expedition. Rostov in his cadet uniform, with a jerk to his horse, rode up to the porch, swung his leg over the saddle with a supple youthful movement, stood for a moment in the stirrup as if loathe to part from his horse, and at last sprang down and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Bermondsey and Redriffe. The street was already crammed and thronged with porters, carts, and wheelbarrows; it was full of noise; there were sailors and merchants from foreign parts. Already the Levantine was here, lithe and supple, black of eye, ready of tongue, quick with his dagger; and the Italian, passionate and eager; and the Spaniard, the Fleming, the Frenchman, and the Dutchman. All nations were here, as now, but they were then kept on board ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... equal to one of our free and enlightened citizens. He's the chap that has both speed, wind and bottom; he's clear grit—ginger to the backbone, you may depend. It's generally allowed there ain't the beat of them to be found anywhere. Spry as a fox, supple as an eel, and cute as a weasel. Though I say it that shouldn't say it, they fairly take the shine off creation—they are actilly equal ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... grassy concise nothing ginger faraway kettle shadow next mercy scrub hilltop internal recite shoestring narrative thunder seldom harbor jury eagle windy occupy squirm hobby balloon multiply necktie unlikely supple westbound obey inch broken ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... same moment, the heavy back of a chair in supple hands descended out of space behind him with a thud; and a great tall fellow, staggering backward with the unexpected pain of that stroke, for the moment obstructed his comrades. For Henry had followed where he could not lead, and now ranged ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... culminating in a despotism that made him the most extraordinary figure of his time. Originally a stockfarmer and skilled in all the exercises of the cowboy, he developed an unusual talent for administration. His keen intelligence, supple statecraft, inflexibility of purpose, and vigor of action, united to a shrewd understanding of human follies and passions, gave to his personality a dominance that awed and to his word of command a power that humbled. Over his fellow chieftains who held the provinces in terrorized ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... than was polite, coming leisurely up the sidewalk, inspecting the numbers on the houses. As he came closer, Mr. Baker took in the details of the long free stride, of the broad chest, the square uplifted chin, with something akin to admiration. Vitality and power were in every motion of the supple body; health—a life free as the air and sunshine—was written in the brown of the hands, the tan of the face. Even his clothes, though not the conventional costume of city streets, seemed a part of their wearer, and had a freedom all their own. The broad-brimmed felt hat ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... gurgle and a groan from Maudita, who had risen in her own little bed at my motion. I turned to see her clutching her throat, as if her hands were the claws of a wild-cat: she was laughing and howling and crying all at once; her face was of a dark purple tint; her body—that lithe and supple waltzing body of hers—was bending itself rigidly into the shape of a bow, resting by the head and the heels on the bed—the dignified Maudita!—and the foam was standing half an inch high on her mouth. Maudita had given out too. Of course ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... Canoe was builded In the valley, by the river, In the bosom of the forest; And the forest life was in it, All its mystery and its magic, All the lightness of the birch tree, All the toughness of the cedar, All the larch's supple sinews; And it floated on the river Like a yellow leaf in autumn, Like a ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... may be won in an ill cause; but the dauntless utterances of men who would rather perish than fail to keep faith with God and with their forefathers is a victory for mankind, and is everlasting. How poor and vain in comparison with this stern and sincere eloquence seem the supple time-service and euphemism of vulgar politicians of whose cunning and fruitless spiderwebs the latter years have been so prolific. It is worth while to do right from high motives, and to care for no gain ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... misfortune. Women can hardly be said to have lost, perhaps what they have so rarely in any age generally attained, that dignity which knows how to command, united with a sweetness which seems all the while to be complying, the power, supple and strong, which rescues the character of the ideal woman from the charge of weakness, and at the same time exhibits its utmost of grace ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... gradual lifting of her long, supple figure. Grant watching, wondered why he had never before realized that the sensuous charm of her beauty was irresistible. "Where were my eyes?" he asked himself. "She's beyond any of the women I've wasted so ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... upon the ground always excites the insolent curiosity and meddling of the turkeys, I have had recourse to another device: a little platform on four posts about three feet high, perforated to admit a wash-basin to the rim. Around three sides of this table I set a dozen supple oak saplings, fastening them by iron staples to the edge of the table, and bringing them all together, wigwam style, over head about three feet above the basin. At the foot of the saplings I planted madeira-vine roots, which will produce an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... each one happier than the one before. The sun seemed to soak into his blood; the strength of the great hemlocks with their giant uplifted arms seemed to have found its way to his muscles. He grew stronger, more supple. He could follow Hank all day now, tramping the brook or scaling the sides of Bald Face, its cheeks scarred with thunderbolts. And with this joyous life there came a light into his eyes, a tone in his voice, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... reflected in the river beneath, and gentians and other blue flowers grew along the edge. Wayland gazed with wonder at all these things; then he broke off a piece of the iron, and carried it home with him. For many days after he busied himself in forging a sword that was so supple he could wind it round his body, and so sharp it could cut through a rock as if it had been a stick. In the handle and in the sheath he set some of the finest sapphires that he had brought away ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... specially attracted Raymond, by the activity of their work and the charm of their swift, supple figures, where, never still, they danced about, with a thousand, strenuous activities of hand and foot and eye. Their work dazed him and he wanted to stop here and ask Sabina many questions. She looked much more beautiful while spinning than in her black dress and white apron—so the ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... shrivelled, for she sat too straight, but as though the cotton jacket had been made for a larger woman. If she seemed tired, and if a stranger might have guessed that her head ached until the chestnut curls were too heavy for it, she was still supple. And, as she whipped the pony into an unwilling trot and old mission-named Joanna broke into a jog behind, revolt—no longer impatience, or discontent, or sorrow, but reckless rebellion—rode ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... exclaimed Jones, dragging the one he had shot into the light. It was a superb animal, thin, supple, strong, with a coat of frosty fur, very long and fine. Rea began at once to skin it, remarking that he hoped to find other pelts ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... the imagination, memory, and understanding: their proneness to distraction, and the itching curiosity of the mind, must be curbed, and their repugnance to attend to spiritual things corrected by habits of recollection, holy meditation, and prayer. Above all, the will must be rendered supple and pliant by frequent self-denial, which must reach and keep in subjection all its most trifling sallies and inclinations. If any of these, how insignificant soever they may seem, are not restrained and vanquished, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... that they had in their royal train such an Historic Sport-Manager, such a Prospero for Masques; that there was a true 'Phil-harmonus' there, with so clear an inspiration of scientific statesmanship. They did not know that they had in that servant of the crown, so supple, so 'patient—patient as the midnight sleep,' patient 'as the ostler that for the poorest piece will bear the knave by the volume'—such a born aspirant for rule; one who had always his eye on the throne, one who had always in mind their usurpation of it. They did not know that they had ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... of genius, but I have had to wait long, bitter years. 'Tis always so with genius. I have ever felt myself a chosen spirit, and I am sure I am destined to become the greatest actress that has yet charmed and captivated the world. Am I not tall, surpassingly beautiful, lithe and supple as a reed—graceful as a lily? But that is not all. In me is reincarnated the spirit of the ancient East, and it is my mission to interpret that spirit to the modern world. I will help you, dear, to realize that same spirit, and then one day, ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... mother, concerned themselves with the intellectual, artistic and physical training of this promising nephew. The youngest, Jose, a teacher, looked after the regular lessons. The giant Manuel developed the physique of the youngster, until he had a supple body of silk and steel and was no longer a sickly lad, though he did not entirely lose his somewhat delicate looks. The more scholarly Gregorio saw that the child earned his candy money—trying to instill the idea into his mind that it was not the world's way that anything worth ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... all the light gaiety of the Gaul, and, after the manner of their ancestors, were born cooks. A capital regimental band accompanied them, and whenever weather and ground permitted, even after long marches, they would waltz and polk in couples with as much zest as if their arms encircled the supple waists of the Celestines and Melazies of their native Teche. The Valley soldiers were largely of the Presbyterian faith, and of a solemn, pious demeanour, and looked askance at the caperings of my Creoles, holding them to be "devices and snares.""* (* Destruction ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... great cypress log. In the end of each an Indian stood erect plying a long pole which sent their clumsy looking crafts forward at surprising speed. Magnificent savages they were, not one less than six feet tall, framed like athletes, and lithe and supple as panthers. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... still park permeate; The los and pis their sweet perfume enhance; And supple charms the third spring flowers ornate; Softly is wafted one streak of fragrance! A light mist doth becloud the tortuous way! With moist the clothes bedews, that verdure cold! The pond who ever sinuous could hold? Dreams long and subtle, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... was a student and his tastes were delicate, still he did not frown upon our rude sports, provided they were not low or brutal. "They make the body erect and supple and give strength and elasticity to the muscles. The body should be cultivated as well as the mind. What we want is a sound mind in a ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... danced before my eyes, lithe, supple—a statue endued with the motion of a serpent. I seemed to see her sculptured white hand ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... unintentionally, he had glorified Henry IV at the expense of the Great Monarch. After his stay in England we have his Brutus (1730), an attack on kingcraft, and his Zaire (1732), a Parisian Othello, both based on Shakespeare. From this time onward he plunges into a supple and dexterous, if sometimes rather disingenuous, strife with a superior power. Throughout, the poet and man of taste struggles against the philosophic freethinker: he loves the surface impressions, perhaps the reflective illusions; "his sentiments are worth more than his ideas." The English Letters ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... heavy ash oars—one was all the girl really could manage. But she was not afraid of a little hard work, her muscles were supple, and she had rowed one season in the first eight at Briarwood Hall, and so considered herself something ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... sort of locomotiveness; they move a side at a time, and man, by his machinery, is meeting the horse and the ox half-way. Whatever part the whip has touched is thenceforth palsied. Who would ever think of a side of any of the supple cat tribe, as we speak of a ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... depths of her nature the primal tiger awoke and snarled. She was suddenly alive from hair to finger tip. Harry Cresswell paused a second and swept her full length with his eye—her profile, the long supple line of bosom and hip, the little foot. Then he closed the door softly and walked slowly toward her. She stood like stone, without a quiver; only her eye followed the crooked line of the Cresswell blue blood on his marble forehead as she looked down from her greater height; her hand closed almost ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... countries—assegais, spears, boomerangs, throwing sticks, sjamboks and South Sea Island clubs and shields. A special nail held Jim's own stockwhip, to which Norah always attended after he had gone away, lest the supple thong should become harsh through disuse. Then there were weapons of peace—hockey sticks, rackets, cricket-bats—the latter an assortment of all Jim had used, from the tiny one he had begun with at the age of eight to the full sized ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... all that God and man In art and nature make or plan, And lady-loves for spidery lace And broideries and supple grace ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... Julia marching swiftly and haughtily up and down upon the terrace of Clifford Hall, and he could not help admiring the haughty magnificence of her walk. The reason soon appeared. She was in a passion. She was always tall, but now she seemed lofty, and to combine the supple panther with the erect peacock in her ireful march. Such a fine woman as Julia really awes a man with her carriage at such a time. The poor soul thinks he sees before him the indignation of the just; when very likely it is only what in a ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... a very different fashion. She had now taken off her straw hat; the curly crop of a brown mane gave the brilliant face an added accent of vigor. The chien de race was the dominant note now in the muscular, supple body, the keen-edged nostrils, and the intent gaze of the liquid eyes. These latter were fixed with the fixity of a savage on Charm. She was giving, in a sweet sibilant murmur, the man seated next her—Monsieur d'Agreste, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the stall; Then more and more to love his master's voice Caressing, or loud hand that claps his neck. Ay, thus far let him learn to dare, when first Weaned from his mother, and his mouth at times Yield to the supple halter, even while yet Weak, tottering-limbed, and ignorant of life. But, three years ended, when the fourth arrives, Now let him tarry not to run the ring With rhythmic hoof-beat echoing, and now learn Alternately ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... His walk was rather plodding, and his movements slow and stiff; but in communion with his violin they were free enough, and the more delicate for the strength that was in them; at the anvil they were as supple as powerful. On his face dwelt an expression that was not to be read by the indifferent—a waiting in the midst of work, as of a man to whom the sense of the temporary was always present, but present with the constant reminder that, just therefore, work must be as good as work can be that ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... hand and looked at Alexander blankly. Hilda was a good story-teller. She was sitting on the edge of her chair, as if she had alighted there for a moment only. Her primrose satin gown seemed like a soft sheath for her slender, supple figure, and its delicate color suited her white Irish skin and brown hair. Whatever she wore, people felt the charm of her active, girlish body with its slender hips and quick, eager shoulders. Alexander heard little of the story, but he watched Hilda ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... a European one, then may it come, bronzed, keen, and supple from the tropic calm! The birds of the forest are on ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... and sincere. It fell on adders' ears. His scheme found favour neither with Brethren nor with Utraquists. To the Brethren Augusta was a Jesuitical juggler. To the Utraquists he was a supple athlete trying to dodge ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... play and horse-trickery, but that the glory of sitting upon her seemed to be too great for me; especially as there were rumours abroad that she was not a mare after all, but a witch. However, she looked like a filly all over, and wonderfully beautiful, with her supple stride, and soft slope of shoulder, and glossy coat beaded with water, and prominent eyes full of docile fire. Whether this came from her Eastern blood of the Arabs newly imported, and whether the cream-colour, mixed with our bay, led to that bright strawberry tint, is certainly more than ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... female. The fur on her thighs was glistening white. Many small spots like velvet formed beautiful bracelets round her paws; her sinuous tail was also white, ending in black rings. The back of her dress was yellow, like unburnished gold, very lissome, [Footnote: Lissome: supple, nimble.] and soft, and had the characteristic blotches in the shape of pretty rosettes, which distinguish the panther from every other species felis. [Footnote: Species ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... Dundee. During this time his duties had been ably performed by Colour-Sergeant C. Guilfoyle, now Sergeant-Major, 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Lieutenants Marsh and Weldon also joined here, as Lieutenant Supple had done a few days before. The two former had followed the regiment up the line to Mafeking, and thence across the Western Transvaal in a cape-cart, following very nearly in our tracks. They had an adventuresome ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... want no assistance, as you say. I am his match myself, if that were all; but it is not strength which is required. He is as lithe and supple as an eel, and as difficult to hold, that I am certain of. If we were to use our rifles there would be no difficulty; but to hold him will give some trouble to two of us, and if once he breaks loose he would be too fleet for any ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... ever-moving plain of bewildering beauty. These willows never attain to the dignity of trees; they have no rigid trunks; they remain humble bushes, with rounded tops and soft outline, swaying on slender stems that answer to the least pressure of the wind; supple as grasses, and so continually shifting that they somehow give the impression that the entire plain is moving and alive. For the wind sends waves rising and falling over the whole surface, waves of leaves instead ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... swift runner; he wished to out-distance the artist, and ran with all his might. As he turned around he saw the artist catching up with Katiousha, but with her supple limbs she gained on him and ran to the left. In front of them was a patch of lilac bushes, behind which no one ran, but Katiousha, turning toward Nekhludoff, motioned him with her head to join her there. He understood her, and ran behind the bushes. But here was a ditch overgrown ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... lamint iver him, or wake him, but his poor heartbroken mother—Och hone! och hone! that I should ever live to see this day. Get up, my fine bhoy—get up wid ye! Why do you lie there?—owlder folk nor you are abroad in the sunshine.—Get up, and show them how supple you are!" ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... sentiment in France, even while two dull Bourbon kings were stupidly trying to turn back the hands on the dial of time, and while an Orleans, with more supple neck, was posing as a popular sovereign. During all this tiresome interlude the real fact was developing. A Republican sentiment which had existed vaguely in the air was materializing, consolidating, ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... betrays her. How can a Thing who wears her supple'ment under her left arm have any notion of the fitness of things—much less their folly? If she discards The Dancing Master after having once seen him dance, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... listened gravely, as became people who were deciding in the Name of the Father. Rashid was pleading for his dead Arab with supple eloquence, wrapped in a cloud ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... those profound courtesies which were considered appropriate for the fair sex to display to those in rank and honour in the good old days when George was king. Surely a young woman still, despite the fifteen years that have passed, with a young supple figure and a pleasant unlined face. Eighteen years and fifteen only make thirty-three, and one can scarcely believe in time's inroads looking upon Sophie Pemberthy. The man cannot. He is surprised and he looks at her through tears in his ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... ashamed to lay traps for its exhibition, transparently petulant for the train between certain ordinary words and the powder-magazine of the improprieties to be fired. Contrast the wit of Congreve with Moliere's. That of the first is a Toledo blade, sharp, and wonderfully supple for steel; cast for duelling, restless in the scabbard, being so pretty when out of it. To shine, it must have an adversary. Moliere's wit is like a running brook, with innumerable fresh lights on it at every turn of the wood through which its business is to find a way. It does not run in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the cowboy, both spurring and reining his supple, cringing steed. "Eeeeeee-yip-yeeeee!" Thus vociferating, he rode straight at the footman, with apparently the deliberate wish to ride him down. He wist not that the latter had seen cavalry in his day, and was not easily to be disconcerted, and, ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... strange face of Williams a few places down, and opposite her. His eyes were fixed on her husband's hands with a singular intensity. Her eyes followed his, and the beauty of her husband's hands came to her again with new force. They were perfectly shaped, supple, warm-colored, and strong. Their color and deftness stood out in vivid contrast to the heavy, brown, cracked, and calloused, ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... and we finished our tea in silence. Suzee came back presently with cigarettes for us and sat down on the floor herself, rolling one up between supple fingers. She had an air of extraordinary unruffled placidity. The dragging about of the child had not disturbed her dress nor heated her face. In cool, tranquil, placid beauty she sat and rolled cigarettes while the child's cries dimly echoed in ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... the light, his slight and supple form was unmistakable to one who had seen it before, even though his face was disfigured by a scant black visor across his eyes and the bridge of ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... asked David, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the long, supple figure. The ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... she shines amid the starry sky, * Robing in tresses blackest ink outvie. The morning-breezes give her boughs fair drink, * And like a branch she sways with supple ply: She smiles in passing us. O thou that art * Fairest in yellow robed, or cramoisie, Thou playest with my wit in love, as though * Sparrow in hand of playful boy ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... lithe and sinewy, but without an angle or thin curve. Like Diana, she was long limbed, so that she seemed taller than she really was. The sweep of neck and shoulder was exquisite, and her simple dress was admirably adapted to display the lines of her supple form. As she walked down the studio, setting her feet firmly and carrying her head with fine poise, Grant Herman felt the ghost of an old passion ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... were cow-boys. One of these he saw was a red-headed, red-whiskered Mexican known as Antone Colorow—Red Antony—who was famous in all that region for the skill with which he could throw the lariat. His eye was accurate and his wrist was quick and supple, and it was his greatest pride in life that the rope never missed landing ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... "Supple and strong is she as the serpent, quick and graceful as the panther. Food has she for nourishment, for the warming of the blood; exercises for the body, to keep her healthful and fair. Her triumph is in the flesh,—she finds it perfect. The flesh she deems divine,—the ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... eyes were blue, as keen as her father's, and now they flashed like his. She had a hand twisted in the horse's long mane, and as, lithe and supple, she slipped a knee across his broad back she shook a little gantleted fist at Bostil's ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... spell of hypnotic suggestion, so there were many who mutely fought his power, questioning with rebellious soul his right to conquer. But conquer he did—so all the conservatory pupils said. A steady stream of victorious tone came from under his supple fingers, and his instrument of shallow thunders and tinkling wires sang as if an archangel had smote it, celestially sang. Belus was the Raphael of the piano, and master of the emotional world. His planetary music gathered about him women, the ailing, the sorrowful, ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... life in the vast wilderness has given them athletic, supple bodies, which they handle to a nicety when fighting. Although the Moros build stone forts and mount them with old-fashioned cannon; although their arsenals are fairly well supplied with Remingtons and Mausers, their ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... noon I started, in a hired chaise, by way of Dunstable. The mere mention of the name Amersham Place made every one supple and smiling. It was plainly a great house, and my uncle lived there in style. The fame of it rose as we approached, like a chain of mountains; at Bedford they touched their caps, but in Dunstable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lounging on the sofa and watching her. He loved to watch her dress, she did it so gracefully, and the motions brought out latent charms of her supple figure. "You're not so sure-fingered tonight as usual," said he. "I never saw you make so many blunders—and you've got one stocking ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... startin' for the fort. It's a long way, as you know, and my old limbs are not just so supple as yours. I thought I would travel to-night, and sleep in the woods, so as to be there in good time to-morrow. But come in, come in, and rest you. I warrant me you'll not feel inclined for ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... the angler must follow the fish at the top of his speed. To stand still, or to go cautiously in pursuit, is to allow the salmon to run out with an enormous length of line; the line is submerged—technically speaking, drowned—in the water, the strain of the supple rod is removed from the fish, who finds the hook loose in his mouth, and rubs it off against the bottom of the river. Thus speed of foot, in water or over rocks, is a necessary quality in the angler; at least in the northern angler. By the banks of the Usk a contemplative man who likes to take ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... backwards, nothing but noise and giddiness; and come to years once, there drops a son by th' sword in his Mistresses quarrel, a great joy to his parents: A Daughter ripe too, grows high and lusty in her blood, must have a heating, runs away with a supple ham'd Servingman: his twenty Nobles spent, takes to a trade, and learns to spin mens hair off; there's another, and most are of ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... chase, darting forward at each stroke so boldly they seemed flying out of the boats, and surging back as superbly, an eightfold human wave: their nostrils all open, the lips of some pale and glutinous their white teeth all clenched grimly, their young eyes all glowing, their supple bodies swelling, the muscles writhing beneath their jerseys, and the sinews starting on each bare brown arm; their little shrill coxswains shouting imperiously at the young giants, and working to and fro with them, like jockeys at a finish; nine souls and bodies flung whole into each ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... conflicting "must's" and "must not's" he left them in the gloom. The position was as uncomfortable a one as Kavanagh had ever been in. His imagination peopled the night around him with supple forms ready to leap upon him from behind every time he turned in walking his beat. I won't say that either he or Thomas Dobbs was frightened, for that would be a slur on a soldier, and one or the other might have me up for it; but they did not half like it. They had ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... added that in this picture a row of torch-bearing angels makes the result, if possible, even less Christian, for these delightful creatures, with their ambiguous smiles and supple grace, have all the dangerous attraction of wicked angels. They are Ganymedes, borrowed from mythology, not ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... and actions than whole tomes of ethical culture science. You know perhaps how the Arabs conquered the best half of the world with an epigram, a word. And Khalid loves a fine-sounding, easy-flowing word; a word of supple joints, so to speak; a word that you can twist and roll out, flexible as a bamboo switch, resilient as a fine steel rapier. But once Shakib, after reading one of Khalid's first attempts, gets up in the night when his friend is asleep, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... say if I were to marry a man that loot himsel' be thrashed by Tommy Potts, a great supple wi' a back nae stiffer than a willy brand? . . . When one comes to close quarters wi' him ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... Ruskin is disposed to lay far too heavy a stress on the mere mechanical accuracy of the draughtsman, to think too much of his hand, too little of his head. He has been surrounded by a number of supple admirers and unquestioning students, who, placing their whole time and labour at his disposal, have rather pampered, by such ultra-allegiance, his inclination to be dogmatic on these points. 'Study this for half an hour,' he says of one illustration; ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... of the visitors; but all the while, though never absent-minded or answering at random, his eyes were following, with a soothing and restful sense of enjoyment, every movement of Lilith's form—a very embodiment of grace and supple ease, he pronounced it. The movement of the game suited her as it suited but few. She never seemed to grow hot, or flurried, or dishevelled, as so many of the fair are wont to do while engaged in that ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... little timid, but soon she dared to raise her eyes and look at him in turn. Assuredly a handsome fellow; comely of body, revealing so much of supple strength; comely of face in well-cut feature and fearless eye ... To herself she said with some surprise that she had not thought him thus—more forward perhaps, talking freely and rather positively-but now he scarcely ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... collisions of interest with principle are plenty to trim, compromise, and compound as oligarchs or demagogues bid; but as the merit of some substances is the lack of ductility, so how oft we must lean on unmalleable men, whose back-bone is not supple as a universal joint, who will not "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning," and who, in a noble discontent with all yet undertaken or done, summon to worthier performance towards never-attained perfection in betterment of the common lot. Mr. Rubinstein was displeased ...
— Senatorial Character - A Sermon in West Church, Boston, Sunday, 15th of March, - After the Decease of Charles Sumner. • C. A. Bartol
... the floor; and yet the thing repelled him. Although so dingy and inconsiderable to the eye, he feared it might have more significance to the touch. He took the body by the shoulders, and turned it on its back. It was strangely light and supple, and the limbs, as if they had been broken, fell into the oddest postures. The face was robbed of all expression; but it was as pale as wax, and shockingly smeared with blood about one temple. That was, for Markheim, the one displeasing circumstance. It carried him back, upon ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... yours is hardly recognizable for the same man," said the Portuguese laughingly to the Vicomtesse, when Eugene had taken leave of them. "He will break the bank. He is as supple as an eel; he will go a long way, of that I am sure. Who else could have picked out a woman for him, as you did, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... of it mattered. He was supple and swift and flushed; his eyes (which he believed to be cynical) were candidly eager. But he was not over-gentle. He waved his hand at poor dumpy Verona and drawled: "Yes, I guess we're pretty ridiculous and disgusticulus, and I rather ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... with heavy fevered eyes, that he had spent the evening on a divan, by turns repulsed or encouraged, his feelings played upon, his nerves unstrung by the constant resistance; rolling himself at the feet of an immovable, determined woman, who with a supple opposition abandoned to his impassioned embrace only the cold little Parisian hands, so skillful in defense and evasion, while she imprinted on his lips the scorching flame of the enrapturing words:—"Oh! when you have ceased to be king, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... learnt when I was with old Nat Fire-eater. And I'm stiffer in the joints and weightier in the heft than I was in those days when I slept in the fields, and fasted more than ever Holy Church meant; But, heigh ho! I ought to be supple enough after the practice of these three days. Moreover, if it could loose a fool's tongue to have a king and queen for interpreters, I had them—for there were our Harry and Moll catching at every gibe as fast as my ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... duck should have supple feet, breast and belly hard and thick. A tame duck has dusky yellow feet. They should be picked dry, ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... of the men with whom he had to deal, and then assumed them. He practised this art mainly upon personages of exalted station, for his scheme was to govern the world by acquiring dominion over its anointed rulers. A smooth and supple slave in appearance, but, in reality, while his power lasted, the despot of his masters, he exercised boundless control by enacting their parts with such fidelity that they were themselves deceived. It is impossible ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... what else he could be. Were it not for the look we have mentioned, and which was perhaps not habitual, his appearance might have been called prepossessing. In his figure there was the grace, in his step the elasticity which come from just proportions and muscular strength. In his hand he carried a supple switch-stick, slight and innocuous to appearance, but weighted at the handle after the fashion of a life-preserver. The tone of his voice was not displeasing to the ear, though there might be something artificial in the swell of it,—the sort of tone men assume when they desire ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... himself with his dinner, and further strengthened himself by an extra libation or so, made his appearance (accompanied by his amiable partner) with a countenance of portentous import, and a fearful instrument of flagellation, strong, supple, wax-ended, and new,—in short, purchased that morning, expressly ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Fontanes was presented to Bonaparte, who, recognizing his supple nature and the unctuous flattery of his eloquence, chose him to deliver the eulogy on Washington, and perhaps something of his ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... out so many boys, not only without intellectual life, but not even capable of humble usefulness. These theorists continue to talk of classics as a splendid gymnastic, but in their hands it becomes a rack; instead of leaving the limbs supple and well knit, they are strained, disjointed, and feeble. Even the flower of our classical system are too often left without any original power of expression; critical, fastidious minds, admiring erudition, preferring the elucidation of second-rate authors to the study of the best. ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... this figure's supple swinging In rhythm of its bridal song, Of strength and life-joy daily singing With youthful yearnings deep and long. I love this foot so lightly bearing The glory of sure victory Through youth's domain of merry daring To meet first-love that ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... at the plodders beneath. Attractive at all times, she was bewitching that morning to a man who prided himself on his athletic tastes. She wore a white knitted jersey and a short skirt, a costume seemingly devised to reveal the lines of a slender waist and supple limbs. A white Tam o' Shanter was tied firmly over her glossy brown hair with a silk motor veil, and the stout boots which she had surveyed so ruefully when Bower brought them to her on the previous evening ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... the blue corn-flower, the supple textile baptised in its soft waters is transformed by the hand of man into cloudy lace, into snowy linen, into fabrics of filmy lightness for my lady's wear, La Lys, name significant and fraught with poetry for us—giving ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... neck like a fruit near to ripen, and the large arms, curving deeply, fall from the shoulder in superb indolences of movement, and the hair, varying from burnt-up black to blue, curls like a fleece adown the shoulders. She is large and strong, a fitting mother of man, supple in the joints as the young panther that has just bounded into the thickets; and her rich almond eyes, dark, and moon-like in their depth of mystery, are fixed on him. Then he awakes to the danger of the enchantment; ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... west, north, south, and finally up into the sky. Seeing nobody, the silly expression left his otherwise interesting face; a graver, gentler light grew in his eyes. And he put one arm around her supple waist. ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... swung passionately into the arena. With a bound she stood erect, one foot upon each of her supple, plunging Arabs; and at once I knew that my fate was sealed, my chapter closed, and the Bride of the Desert was the one bride for me. Black was her raiment, great silver stars shone through it, caught in the dusky twilight of her gauze; black as her own hair were the two ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... save by one little dog that had just expired at the side of her bed, for its body was warm and supple." ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Blood are dissipated by little and little, the Salts disengaging from the Sulphurs, manifest themselves, the Acid appears, which is the fruitful Source of Chronick Diseases. The Ligaments, the Tendons, and the Cartilages have scarce any of the Unctuosity left, which render'd them so supple and so pliant in Youth. The Skin grows wrinkled as well within as without; in a word, all the solid Parts grow ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... number of years, the Queen and the Duchess quarreled, and the latter was superseded by her cousin, a Mrs. Masham (1711), who soon got as complete control of Anne as the former favorite had possessed. Mrs. Masham was as sly and supple as the Duchess had been dictatorial and violent. She was cousin to Robert Harley, a prominent Tory politician (S479). Through her influence Harley now became Prime Minister in everything but name. He succeeded in putting a stop to further fighting, and Marlborough was ordered home ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... down on the steps of their house. Her head back, her supple strong throat arched with the passion of hating boredom, she devoured the starlight dim over the stale old roofs across ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... watched the performance with delight, clapping and calling bravo like boys. Presently the famous dompteuse entered,—Mademoiselle Victorine,—passing just below Gaston. He looked down, interested, at the supple, lithe creature making for the cages of lions in the amphitheatre. The figure struck him as familiar. Presently the girl turned, throwing a glance round the theatre. He caught the dash of the dark, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... there was scarcely a type that might not reproduce some strange and wonderful beauty. And the charm of manner might be secured as readily as that of face and form. The Hellenic East must often have exhibited in its women that union of wit, grace and supple tact which made even its men so irresistible to their Roman masters. The courtesans of the capital, whether of high or low estate,[182] are from the point of view which we are considering not nearly so important ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... when she heard the verdict of the surgeons. She knew little about disease and it seemed wildly impossible to her that this limb of hers which had been so strong and supple a month ago would become an agent of death if not amputated. She was in an agony of mind. Never to swim again! Never to run and jump and slide and skate and dance! Always to go about on crutches! Before the prospect of being crippled for life her active ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... not altogether in vain, for he felt within him that he was closer to his quest with the passing of each day. The boy, now in young manhood, had indeed developed well. Broad shouldered, slim-waisted, supple limbed, he gave little indication of his strength, yet Walker riding close beside him, had watched him, had trained him and had with great pride, noted his skill with lance, sword and spear. Well he knew that this youth would soon be second to none ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... was too strong for us. But, oh, the joy of recovering our son—of finding him so strong, so supple, so agile. Never yet has our line boasted an heir who can feed himself from a fork strapped on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... her head (a new fashion Roger had fallen in love with a few weeks ago), fastening it here and there with diamond pins. "Madame will be late if we are not careful," the Frenchwoman said. "Everything takes so long to-night." She laid on the floor at Beverley's feet a cloud of silver gauze, supple as chiffon. It was the new dress and Madame must step into it to avoid ruffling her hair. Beverley obeyed, and when her arms had slid into the odd little jewelled sleeves, she let Leontine draw her gently in ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... upon his richly caparisoned steed, pinching at his long, blue-shaven chin with supple fingers, his heavy brows drawn low, of a sudden his narrowed lids widened and his eyes gleamed bright and black as they beheld my Beltane standing in the shade ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... firelight and outlined against the black background of the night, she seemed some modern half-military ideal of Diana, with her two gaunt hounds beside her, the rest of the pack vaguely glimpsed at her heels outside, the perfect outline and chiselling of her features, her fine, strong, supple figure, the look of steady courage in her eyes, and the soldier's cap on her fair hair. Her face so impressed itself upon his mind that he seemed to have seen her often. It was some resemblance to a picture ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the Saskatchewan every paddle-dip, every twist and turn of the supple canoes, revealed some new caprice of the river's moods. In places the current would be shallow and the canoes would lag. Then the paddlers must catch the veer of the flow or they would presently be out waist-deep ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... voice was abundantly kept by the person. She was quite a young girl, modest and ladylike; a little pale and careworn, poor thing, as if her experience of life had its sad side already. Her face was animated by soft sensitive eyes—the figure supple and slight, the dress of the plainest material, but so neatly made and so perfectly worn that I should have doubted her being a German girl, if I had not heard the purely South-German accent in which she put her question. ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... high-bred type of face. Anne's dainty white crepe de chine frock made her look anything but a theatrical star. Grace, however, had for once departed from her favorite blue and wore a white chiffon gown whose exquisitely simple lines made the most of her slender, supple figure. The charm of early sixteen radiated from her youthful person, and she looked no older than when she had led the freshman basketball team on to victory ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... apprehensive that he would keep them waiting. The youth had an oval, almost childish face; his skin was dark, clear, and softly coloured as any girl's; his hair fell in black, loose curls over his forehead. He was tall, slender without being thin, very supple; but his languid attitudes fell short of grace, and were only tolerable because they were comic. When he reached out his hand for the handle of the frying-pan he held the attention of the whole company by virtue of his office, and his mind, to Bates's annoyance, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... to say good night to Jevons we found Viola sitting on the arm of his chair with the little dish in her hand, feeding him with chocolate nougat. Her posture was one of supple contrition, ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... advantages over them—in good and plentiful food, in good clothing, and in home comforts. He would ride, and join all the athletic sports of the time. Mere manual labour stiffens the limbs, gymnastic exercises render them supple. Thus he would obtain immense strength from simple hard work, and agility from exercise. Here, then, is a sound constitution, a powerful frame, well knit, hardened—an almost ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... very supple, very implacable, and very agile, is at the service of evil, and excels in stabbing truth in the dark. These are blows struck by the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo |
