"Rigidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your place in two. How many a small house-lot lawn we see split down the middle by a row of ornamental shrubs or fruit-trees which might as easily have been set within a few feet of the property line, whose rigidity, moreover, would have best excused the rigidity of the planted line. But such glaring instances aside, there are many subtler ones quite as unfortunate; "don't" be too sure you are not unwittingly ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... easy!" he cried importantly, and the offender dropped his rigidity, the result being that the sergeant returned to his place in the rear of the company, while Private Gedge relieved his feelings ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... from the mighty reservoir of their mountains. The consequence was that these rude children of William Tell, put up to auction by the nations, and carried away from the humble, hardy life of a mountain people into cities of wealth and pleasure, had lost, not their ancient courage, but that rigidity of principle for which they had been distinguished before their intercourse with other nations. From being models of honour and good faith they had become a kind of marketable ware, always ready for sale to the highest bidder. The French were the first to experience this venality, which ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... such blossoms are sometimes tempted forth; and affection was breathing something like a second spring on the life so long unnaturally chilled and blighted. If his shoulders were bowed, his figure had lost much of its rigidity; and though his locks were thinned and whitened, and his countenance slightly aged, yet the softened look and the more frequent smile had smoothed away the sternness, and given ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the block is rigid and stiff enough to lift and turn over; the remains of the pedestal are trimmed off and the under surface is plastered like the rest. With large blocks it is often necessary to paste into the jacket, on upper or both sides, boards, scantling or sticks of wood to secure additional rigidity. For should the block "rack," or become shattered inside, even though no fragments were lost, the specimen would be more or less ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... learned the fixedness of her ideas, the rigidity of her type of mind, the relentlessness of her will; and that independence on my part survived was due to sturdy stubbornness, to a refusal to be dominated, and an incapacity for subjection. But this, too, she failed ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... still with the abnormal rigidity of the old pillars around. He faced the south-east, and was as ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... scarcely drag herself about; her eyes kept closing as she moved. Tenney was still expectantly eager for an awakening of her leniency. At eight o'clock he brought out the Bible and stiffened himself into the rigidity that was the mail for his spiritual combats. He was always referring to himself, at these times of religious observance, as a servant of the Cross, and Tira used wearily to wonder whether he felt obliged to arrange himself for combats that, so far as she knew, never seemed ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... political principles and urbane address Brandon was supposed especially to affect as his own model. Of unblemished integrity in public life,—for, as he supported all things that exist with the most unbending rigidity, he could not be accused of inconsistency,—William Brandon was (as we have said in a former place of unhappy memory to our hero) esteemed in private life the most honourable, the most moral, even the most austere of men; and his grave and stern repute on this score, joined to the dazzle of his ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... right!" says Mr. Bagnet with the warmest enthusiasm, though without relaxing the rigidity of a single muscle. "Think as high of the old girl—as the rock of Gibraltar—and still you'll be thinking low—of such merits. But I never own to it before ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... captain, observing a diamond ring on the finger of the corpse, said to one of the sailors, "You may just as well take that off: it can be of no use to him now." The man tried to get it off, but the rigidity of the muscle after death prevented his moving it. "He won't feel your knife, poor fellow," said the captain; "and a finger more or less is no great matter to him ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... position, and instructors are cautioned to insist that the men accustom themselves to it. As a rule, it is so exaggerated that it not only becomes ridiculous, but positively harmful. The men must be taught to assume a natural and graceful position, one from which all rigidity is eliminated and from which action is possible without first relaxing muscles that have been constrained in an effort to maintain the position of attention. In other words, cooerdination rather than strength should ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... placidly in the position in which the nurse had left her; but no breath came from her lips, and a rigidity of feature was accompanied by the precise expression which had characterized her face when Pierston had her as a girl in his studio. He saw that it was death, though she appeared to have breathed her last only ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... eye, a rigidity, an intense out-thrusting and ransacking of thin-spun distance. At ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... up of two hulls, one inside the other; between them, joining them together, are iron T-bars that give this ship the utmost rigidity. In fact, thanks to this cellular arrangement, it has the resistance of a stone block, as if it were completely solid. Its plating can't give way; it's self-adhering and not dependent on the tightness of its rivets; and due to the perfect union ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... tall" is more or less helpful, but there must be some qualification. Stand tall, but not with rigidity or stiffness. The body must be elastically and sympathetically tall, and also sympathetically expanded, man must stand as if held up from above rather than from below, expanded and elevated by feeling ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... from Widow Anne, there was silence for quite one minute. The terrible contents of the packing case startled and terrified all present. Faint and white, Lucy clung to the arm of her lover to keep herself from sinking to the ground, as Mrs. Bolton had done. Archie stared at the grotesque rigidity of the body, as though he had been changed into stone, while Professor Braddock stared likewise, scarcely able to credit the evidence of his eyes. Only the Kanaka was unmoved and squatted on his hams, indifferently surveying the living ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... slavery of castes, had any very sound and enlightened philosophy to communicate: their wisdom was probably exaggerated by the lively and credulous Greeks, awed by the mysticism of the priests, the grandeur of the cities, the very rigidity, so novel to them, of imposing and antique custom. What, then, was the real benefit of the intercourse? Not so much in satisfying as in arousing and stimulating the curiosity of knowledge. Egypt, to the Greeks, was as America to Europe—the Egyptians ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... voice seemed to steady him into a sudden rigidity, but otherwise he took no notice. He seemed to listen, to expect something for a moment, then ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... one could wear a ducal coronet without having at least three centuries of nobility, made use of all the grape of their artillery to annihilate the singing woman. It was whispered, but loudly enough to be heard by half a dozen persons, that La Felina, arming herself with that rigidity she kept for the Duke of Palma alone, displaying all her charms, and envying the title and fortune of the noble Neapolitan, had refused to surrender her heart without her hand;—that the poor Duke, entwined in the nets of this modern Circe, wearied of the many love-scrapes which he had undergone, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... forward and the other cautiously holding back,"[9] and in so far as it corresponds to the two main tendencies in human thought the two-party system will doubtless survive any change in voting method. But with the spread of political intelligence it cannot possibly survive the rigidity of modern discipline—a rigidity which Burke would have been the first to repudiate—nor can it survive the modern tendency towards the formation of parties for the purpose of carrying ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... remains of the original windows. The whole of this part is worthy of careful study and should be compared with the corresponding parts of Trinity Church. Everywhere we see signs of individual thought and design mainly directed to softening the rigidity of the horizontal lines of the square-headed and transomed "Perpendicular" windows. The method of cusping the drop-arch and the varied treatment of these in nave, choir and transepts are noteworthy while the little quatrefoil at the intersection ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... walking to and fro through the rooms, came into the hall, the dog shook his head and gave two loud and insinuating taps on the floor with his tail, but alas! the whistle did not sound to release him. Kolya looked sternly at the luckless dog, who relapsed again into obedient rigidity. The one thing that troubled Kolya was "the kids." He looked, of course, with the utmost scorn on Katerina's unexpected adventure, but he was very fond of the bereaved "kiddies," and had already taken them a picture-book. Nastya, the elder, a girl of eight, could read, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... colours of the spectrum they rose and fell; blazing orange, silken, wonderful, translucent blues, and shimmering reds. Below, a broad band of paler hue, like sheet lightning fixed to rigidity, wavered and rippled. All the auroras of the northland blended in one could but have paled away before the splendour ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... said she, in a hard and dry, but not unkind voice. In fact, the rigidity of her aspect, the hardness of her voice, and the singular blackness of her costume, seemed to be too monotonously uniform and resolute not to indicate something willful or unhealthy in the woman's condition, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... continued in the same dogmatic tone. "The count apparently died from an attack of apoplexy, but certain poisons produce similar and even identical symptoms which are apt to deceive the most experienced medical men. The persistent efforts of the count's intellect, his muscular rigidity alternating with utter relaxation, the dilation of the pupils of his eyes, and more than aught else the violence of his last convulsions, have led me to ask myself if some criminal ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... is of the greatest importance as a constituent of our food. It contributes to the welfare of the body in at least three ways; (1) it gives rigidity to the bones, (2) it supplies an essential ingredient of the living substance in all the tissues, (3) it is present in the blood and in the other body fluids, where it is of service in such vital processes as the beating of the heart, the transportation ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... years its life was but that of a fashionable toy, with little or no hold over the vital literature of its day. The popularity of the pastoral eclogue or idyll was of far longer duration. Though the form was more or less definitely conditioned, it had less of the structural rigidity of the drama, it brought its subject less into contact with the hard limitations of reality, and, which may also have been important, brought it less into comparison with other subject-matter employing the same or a closely analogous form. Thus it was better ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... supported and electrical connection is made. The frame is slit at the inner horizontal edges, and then folded in such a way as to make individual clamping-jaws for each end-flange. The clamping-in is done at great pressure, and the resultant plate has great rigidity ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... consistent, caste in a mild form and to a limited extent might be tolerated, but could not be approved. They are not, however, consistent, and caste is much more regarded by them than Gautam would have sanctioned, though it has not among them the rigidity it has among the Hindus. I was told regarding one boarding institution for young men, all ate together; but on returning to their homes they performed certain ceremonies which removed the defilement they had contracted. As to the general character of the ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... behind his ears on both sides, and he had an eyeglass cocked knowingly in one eye. Altogether he looked very different from what he was when we last saw him. His characteristic sang froid, that peculiar rigidity of the lips, that faint furrow in the middle of the forehead between the eyebrows, and the gravity of the somewhat languid face, made the metamorphosis complete. A savant, a scholar of practical experience, a cosmopolitan physician stands ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... drawing lesson in his life. It was not difficult to believe her, for the specimens were so funny that the spectators could hardly keep their faces straight. Horses with about as much shape as those in a child's Noah's ark, figures resembling Dutch dolls in rigidity, flowers daubed on with the crudest colours, and the final effort, a bird's-eye view of the village, consisting chiefly of tiled roofs and chimney-pots in lurid ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... it tight. With that rigidity of grasp with which no living man, in the full strength and energy of life, can clutch a prize ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... moment. As he kicked the wreckage about the room, his glance fell upon his rifle with the fixed bayonet. And then the swine-dog ran amok. Boudru stood with his back to the door: the blood froze in his veins, and his little body stiffened into absolute rigidity. ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... sea. He had been sitting on a flat tomb, one of the few cut in stone. The yellow fog had vanished. The moors spread away vague and simple, the fine wreath-curves of the snow only interrupted here and there by the brutal rigidity of the tall stone dykes with the easterly snow-blast still clinging in the chinks ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... blow he has risen on his hind legs, with contorted spine, and beats the air with his fore paws, his head thrown back as though to free himself of the fatal shaft. Not far from him the lioness lies stretched out upon its back in the rigidity of death. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... laid on a table supported by trestles in a sort of shed. A cavalry cloak that had been thrown over it covered it from head to foot, and fell in the shroud-like folds which all draperies assume that come in contact with the rigidity of death. A group of officers and several soldiers in duck trousers were looking on at a distance, whispering as if in a church; and an assistant-surgeon was writing a report of the death on a high window-ledge. ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... through which the threads pass, rests on the ankles of the weaver. There is a heavy hook fastened in the ground or floor, and to this the threads at the far end of the web are sewed. A cord fastens the near end to the waist of the weaver, who by spinal rigidity supplies the necessary tension. As the work proceeds, she drags herself along nearer and nearer the hook. This is slow work, only about a foot being accomplished in a day; as in other countries, however, the women enjoy the neighborly chats that their work allows; ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... of the ship, where Morgana knelt down beside it. Parting the heavy masses of dark hair that enshrouded it she looked—and saw what she had expected to see—the face of Manella Soriso. But it was the death-mask of a face—strangely beautiful—but awful in its white rigidity. Morgana bent over it anxiously, but only for a moment, drawing a small phial from her bosom she forced a few drops of the liquid it contained between the set lips, and with a tiny syringe injected the ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... fate had destined me to address my fellow men, or to depict the shades, the transports, or the pains of passion, in works of imagination. Unknown to myself, I struggled desperately as Jacob wrestled with the angel, against the poorness, the rigidity, and the resistance of the language I was forced to use, as I knew not the language of the skies. The efforts that I made to conquer, bend, smooth, extend, spiritualize, color, inflame, or moderate expressions; the wish to render by words the nicest shades of feeling the most ethereal aspirations ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... this time had taken a new phasis. It had lost the marble rigidity and calm impassiveness which had characterized it during all the time of her married life hitherto; and it had not regained the careless lightness of the days before she knew Evan. It was something lovelier than either; so lovely that Basil wondered, and Mrs. Starling sometimes stared, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... Now this rigidity of the spinal column will in no way help you in the emission of tone, nor will it increase the breath control. In fact, I don't think it would even help you to stand up straight, although it would certainly give one a stiff appearance and one ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... injurious consequences; nor can anything else secure its endurance. In proposing or setting up a moral state, the moral law is relied upon as a real power, and free will is drawn into the realm of causes, where all hangs together, mutually with stringent necessity and rigidity. But we know that the condition of the human will always remains contingent, and that only in the Absolute Being physical coexists with moral necessity. Accordingly if it is wished to depend on the moral conduct of man as ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... company and always have found it silent and rigid. It seems to be a survivor of some ancient race, wholly unacquainted with its neighbors. Its broad stumpiness, of course, makes wind-waving or even shaking out of the question, but it is not this rocky rigidity that constitutes its silence. In calm, sun-days the sugar pine preaches like an enthusiastic apostle without moving a leaf. On level rocks the juniper dies standing and wastes insensibly out of existence like granite, the wind exerting about as little ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... is soft. After a while it goes into a state of rigidity known as rigor mortis. Then it begins to soften again. This third stage is really a form of decay, called ripening. It is believed that the lactic acid formed is one of the principal agents producing this softening. Some people enjoy their meats, ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... mechanical form. The trouble is not ascribable to the inability of the mechanic to describe this movement. It is an exceedingly simple one. The first difficulty is in the material that must be used. Lightness and strength for the wing itself are the first requirements. Then rigidity in the joint and in the main rib of the ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... he was, had underrated the firmness and perspicacity of Topanashka as much as he had overrated the abilities of Hoshkanyi. As soon as the latter saw the rigidity of his colleague in a matter of duty, he felt completely at sea; he lost sight of everything that Tyope had recommended, tumbled from one mistake to another, and finally exposed himself to grave suspicions. As the popular saying ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... make assurance doubly sure, natural selection here steps in to further the process. To prove this with all the rigidity of demonstration desirable is in the present state of erotics beyond our power. Until our family trees give us something more than mere skeletons of dead branches, we must perforce continue ignorant of the science of grafts. For the nonce we must be content to generalize from our ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... mean that I do not care to know," replied Isabella gently. She was sitting looking out on the moor, leaning back in her chair with her hands folded in her lap. Something in the rigidity of her attitude told Philippa ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... and this knowledge had often been called into requisition for the benefit of many of the people as well as the animals of the neighborhood. Never had his skill been needed more than now, for poor Tiepoletta had not recovered consciousness, and her rigidity and the ghastly pallor which had overspread her features seemed to indicate that she had already ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... pose, recalling the deadly seriousness with which children play the game of grown-ups. The artists of that day had to keep to their traditions; to express without over-expression, was their difficult task (as it is ours), but they had behind them the rigidity of the Byzantine and Early Christian, so that every free line, every vigorous pose or energetic action, was forging ahead into a new country, a voyage of adventure for the daring artist. Quite another affair was this from modern restraint which consists in pruning ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... body is placed within the tub or box in the usual squatting position. It is impossible to understand how a human body, many hours after death, can be pressed into the limited space afforded by even the outermost of the boxes. It has been said that the rigidity of a corpse is overcome by the use of a powder called dosia, which is sold by the priests; but this idea has been exploded, and ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... Lieutenant Lockwood each led a party, but to the last named belong the honors, for he, with Sergeant Brainard and an Esquimau, made his way northward over ice that looked like a choppy sea suddenly frozen into the rigidity of granite, until he reached latitude 83 deg. 24' north—the most northerly point then attained by any man—and still the record marking Arctic journey for ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... for the first time, and Laverick thought that he had never seen anything so wonderful as the change in her features. The strained rigidity passed away. An altogether softer light gleamed in her wonderful eyes. She was certainly by far the prettiest child he had ever seen. As yet he could not take her ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... decree, the girl steeled herself to hear. But the man paused, gazing straight out before him. She felt his hand relax in hers, and she pressed it sympathetically, encouragingly. But she felt the rigidity going out of his tensed body, and she knew that spirit and flesh were relaxing together. His resolution was ebbing. He would not speak—she knew it; and she knew, likewise, with the sureness of faith, that it was because ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... relaxed a little from his pale rigidity and sat down opposite his mother. He held out his hands to the fire and she saw that they were trembling. "Yes," he said, "I've thought of that. I've thought of that. Perhaps, when he gets to college—up at Stanford, away from Honor—I've thought of that!" He bent his head, ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... images of colour at a word, raising ideas of harmony without breaking the stillness of the air. He can lead on the dance of words till their sinuous movements call forth, as if by mesmerism, the likeness of some adamantine rigidity, time is converted into space, and music begets sculpture. To see for the sake of seeing, to hear for the sake of hearing, are subsidiary exercises of his complex metaphysical art, to be counted among its rudiments. ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... earns," said Sal, pointedly, "we'll soon get enough in a common line to take us to Ameriky, and he'll be safe enough there." On this Jan thought that he made a most desperate struggle and remonstrance. But in reality his lips never moved from their rigidity, and he only rolled his head upon his shoulder. After ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a better physiognomist than Mr. Pyecroft. His first look of astonishment gave way to an empurpled confusion, from which a single short Silenus-like chuckle escaped, but this quickly changed again into a dull coppery indignation, and, as Pyecroft's laugh continued, faded out into a sallow rigidity in which his murky eyes alone seemed to keep what was left of his previous high color. But what was more singular, in spite of his enforced calm, something of his habitual old-fashioned loftiness and oratorical exaltation appeared to be returning to him as he placed his hand on ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... stood, listening. A curious rigidity affected his nerves. Something had happened—but what? His dry lips refused to frame the question. All at once, he roused himself. With a couple of strides across his little study he threw open the door and went out into the passage. There stood Hester with her apron thrown ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... helmsman acts through the medium of mechanism, while the generals act through the medium of men? A ship is not only made of rigid metal, but all her parts are fastened together with the utmost rigidity; while the parts of an army are men, who are held together by no means whatever except that which discipline gives, and the men themselves are far from rigid. In the nature of things it is impossible that an army should be directed ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... quantity contained in the human body is mineral matter. This constituent, which is also called ash or mineral salts, forms the main part of the body's framework, or skeleton. In the building and maintaining of the body, mineral salts serve three purposes—to give rigidity and permanence to the skeleton, to form an essential element of active tissue, and to provide the required alkalinity or acidity for the digestive ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... beyond her understanding. She drank in with parted lips all that concerned the Holy Mother, of whom she was never weary of hearing. Jean had a rude drawing of the Madonna and Child, given him by Father Austin: the figures had the angularity and rigidity of Byzantine art, but the artist had represented his subject with reverence, and no lack of skill, and she loved to dwell on the pure mother's face, and on the longing look in the eyes of the Child. She accepted wholly the idea of a God who loved mankind, of infinite goodness and mercy: ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... followed by Francois Darbois, broken by sorrow. Genevieve was waiting feverishly for the return of Maurice and Esperance. She showed the Duke where to lay Esperance. He stretched the slender creature on her bed. Her eyes were open, but she recognized no one. The rigidity of her expression frightened the Duke, and he bent in terror to listen to her breathing. A faint burning breath touched ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... pride gave her features a certain rigidity which scared her admirers away. The thought of marriage had never occurred to her. The young men were not fully qualified, and those to whose social position there was no objection, were too old. If she, the daughter of a general, had married ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Schulz seemed suddenly to become loose-limbed and easy. His plethoric rigidity of manner vanished, and, though he spoke with a brisk air of authority, there was a jovial ring in his voice which instantly inspired confidence. With the change the illusion supported by his appalling clothes was broken and he looked like a man ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... convenient object that took his fancy, such as the crown of a little boy's head, or the shoulders of a by-stander who had no business there except to taste the brew; a proceeding which would have been deemed humorous but for the air of stern rigidity which that auctioneer's face preserved, tending to show that the eccentricity was a result of that absence of mind which is engendered by the press of affairs, and no ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... before our eyes fresh from His Father's presence. The mere fact of His presence, the winsomeness of His personality, the clearness of His teaching, the power of His actions, the uncompromising purity of His character amidst sin-stained crowds and sin-dirtied surroundings, the unflinching rigidity of His ideals, the persuasiveness of His very manner and tone of speech, the patience and gentleness, the rugged granite strength, the mother tenderness, above all the willingness to suffer so terribly,—all this is a plea, a tremendous overpowering ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... constitution which pledged defiance to The Roman and guaranteed protection on the gerund and gerundive was exceedingly popular. The signals were agreed upon. Absolute rigidity on Stover's part denounced the gerund, while a slight wriggling of his sensitive ears betrayed the approach ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... Aufugus; and when the abbot retired and left the two alone together, he felt no dread or shame about unburdening his whole heart to him. Long and passionately he spoke, in answer to the gentle questions of the old man, who, without the rigidity or pedantic solemnity of the monk, interrupted the youth, and let himself be interrupted in return, gracefully, genially, almost playfully. And yet there was a melancholy about his tone as he ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... true than its contrary. There were Eclectics, who picked and chose. But the majority of those who affected a positive philosophy attached themselves either to the Stoic or else to the Epicurean system, not necessarily with orthodox rigidity on every point, but as a general guide—at least in theory—to the conduct of life. Where we belong to a certain religious denomination or church, and "sit under" a certain class of preachers, they belonged to a certain school of philosophy, and attended the lectures ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... victors returned to the fort, Putnam alone among them expecting reprimand. He had never before disobeyed the orders of his superior. He well knew the rigidity of military discipline and its necessity. Possibly General Lyman might not be content with a simple reprimand, but might order a court-martial. Putnam entered the fort, not fully ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... belief of the framers of the Constitution in the Montesquieu doctrine of the division of government into three independent departments—legislative, executive and judicial; but experience has shown how difficult it is to apply this doctrine in its literal rigidity. One result of the doctrine was the mistaken attempt to keep the legislative and the executive as far apart as possible. The Cabinet system of parliamentary government was not adopted. While the President can appear before Congress and express his views, his Cabinet ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... keelson, to the beams, and to each other by iron bands. The whole of the ship's interior is thus filled with a network of braces and stays, arranged in such a way as to transfer and distribute the pressure from without, and give rigidity to the whole construction. In the engine and boiler room it was necessary to modify the arrangement of stays, so as to give room for the engines and boiler. All the iron, with the exception of the heaviest forgings, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... came—buildings set back from the road, but not so far as to give them the air of aloofness—had again that friendly, old-country expression that I have already mentioned: here it was somewhat marred, though, by an over-rigidity of the lines. It is unfortunate that our farmers, when they plant at all, will nearly always plant in straight lines. The straight line is a flaw where we try to blend the work of our hands with Nature. They also as a rule neglect shrubs ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... lied and was in reality a boy, Willie Canning, who had died and "now is here because he wants to be." More than an hour passed in this "insane talk," as her weeping parents accounted it, and then, flinging up her hands, she fell headlong in a state of cataleptic rigidity. ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... we can explain that rigidity, which Mr. Ruskin tells us, "is a special element of Gothic architecture. Greek and Egyptian buildings," he says—and I should have added, Roman building also, in proportion to their age, i.e. to the amount of the Roman elements ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... the plan hitherto resolved upon—of passing off Sidney as the legitimate orphan of a distant relation; it would be made a great handle for gossip by Miss Pryinall. Added to all these reasons, one not less strong occurred to Mr. Morton himself—the uncommon and merciless rigidity of his wife would render all the other women in the town very glad of any topic that would humble her own sense of immaculate propriety. Moreover, he saw that if Catherine did remain, it would be a perpetual source of irritation in his own ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... cuppings, mustard leaves—nothing brought even a quiver to the skin of the patient, insensible apparently to all the remedies usually employed in cases of apoplexy. The whole being seemed to be surrendering to death, to be preparing the way for the rigidity of the corpse; and this in the most sinister place in the world, this chaos, lighted by a lantern merely, amid which there lie about pell-mell in the dust all the remains of former plays—gilt furniture, curtains with gay fringes, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... neck are next attacked. The mouth is closed, the nose poked out, the head elevated. The muscles of breathing, and those of the limbs, become contracted so that the neck is hollowed, and the tail is raised, the horse stands with outstretched limbs. The animal shows great stiffness or rigidity in attempted movements. The eyes are sunken, and when startled or excited, the breathing is quickened and the flanks have a wrinkled or corrugated appearance. Death may quickly occur from continuous spasms of the muscles of the throat. Another sign is the flying ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... pompous-looking man, whose age appeared to verge close upon fifty. He was sitting bolt upright in a high-backed chair, and looked as if it would be quite impossible to deviate from his position of unbending rigidity. ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... crowning piece of craft, Sally suddenly relaxed her rigidity and inclined langorously towards Vane who had no alternative save catching her. No sooner did she feel his arms than she sank gracefully into them, ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... light of the big oil-lamp which hung suspended from the ceiling he noticed something in Whittemore's face he had not observed before, a tenseness about the muscles of his mouth, a restlessness in his eyes, rigidity of jaw, an air of suppressed emotion which puzzled him. He was keenly observant of details, and knew that these things had been missing a short time before. The pleasure of their meeting that afternoon, after a separation of nearly two years, had dispelled for a ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... hand, to make clearly distinct his mode of marking the commencement, the interior division, and the close of each bar. The bow, employed by some violinist conductors (leaders), is less suitable than the stick. It is somewhat flexible, and this want of rigidity, together with the slight resistance it offers to the air, on account of its appendage of hair, renders ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... four way cock. The spindle of the cut-off, F, is connected with the lever, I, and is moved by the rudder, as already described. By enlarging or gradually narrowing the ends of the steam ports great rigidity or elasticity may be given to the hold of this engine, according to the requirements ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... from the king, that nothing less than twelve subsidies would be accepted as a compensation for the abolition of ship money. This assertion, proceeding from the indiscretion, if we are not rather to call it the treachery of Vane, displeased the house, by showing a stiffness and rigidity in the king, which, in a claim so ill grounded, was deemed inexcusable.[*] We are informed likewise, that some men, who were thought to understand the state of the nation, affirmed in the house, that the amount of twelve subsidies was a ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... huge fist and cursed deep under his breath—the reaction of a man whose accomplices and partners and tools, whose luck, whose faith in himself had failed him. He flung himself down under a tree, and after a while, when his rigidity relaxed, he probably fell asleep. Moze and Shady kept at their game. Wilson paced to and fro, sat down, and then got up to bunch the horses again, walked around the dell and back to camp. The afternoon hours were long. And they were waiting hours. The act of waiting appeared ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... The rigidity left Ruth's body immediately. Her breath came in fast-quickening gasps, and her eyes fluttered open as Dixon knelt ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... opinion. For in matters of art, at any rate, thought is inevitably coloured by emotion, and so is fluid rather than fixed, and, recognising its dependence upon moods and upon the passion of fine moments, will not accept the rigidity of a scientific formula or a theological dogma. The critical pleasure, too, that we receive from tracing, through what may seem the intricacies of a sentence, the working of the constructive intelligence, must not be overlooked. As soon as we have realised the design, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... in fillets, window-sashes and frames of all sorts. One retained a little of it on one's hands after moving a chair or opening a window; and even the hangings, having been dipped in that Pactolus, preserved upon their stiff folds the rigidity and sheen of metal. But there was nothing individual, homelike, dainty. It was the monotonous splendor of the furnished apartment. And this impression of a flying camp, of a temporary establishment, was heightened ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the appearance of half-drowned rats. Luckily the wind began to subside, and by degrees old ocean wore a face of undisturbed serenity. Our crew was a motley one; but among them, an Abbess, with a visage of parchment-like rigidity, and with her broad streaming bands, seemed to experience particular distress. She was surrounded by some hale, hearty market women, whose robust forms, and copper-tinted countenances, formed a ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... room stood a long black cloth-covered box. Lane stepped forward. Upon the dark background, in striking contrast, lay a white, stern face, marble-like in its stone-cold rigidity. ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... observing the make of our clothes. My hands, I found, had first led her to discover that I was the lady. I had, of course, my quantum of reverences; for the politeness of the north seems to partake of the coldness of the climate and the rigidity of its iron-sinewed rocks. Amongst the peasantry there is, however, so much of the simplicity of the golden age in this land of flint—so much overflowing of heart and fellow-feeling, that only benevolence and the honest sympathy of nature diffused smiles over my ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... in the pressures and strains to which it is subjected in joining the main glacier and in the further part of its course demand for their understanding a revision of those notions as to rigidity and plasticity which we derive from our common experience with objects. It is hard to believe that ice can be moulded by pressure into any shape without fracturing, provided the motion is slowly effected, while at the same time it is as brittle as ice to a sudden blow. We see, however, ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... fraudulent shrine got back into their carriage, and drove sadly away, instructing their driver with the rigidity which their limited German favored, not to let any house with a bust in its front escape him. He promised, and took his course out through Konigstrasse, and suddenly they found themselves in a world of such eld and quaintness that they forgot Heine as completely as any of his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... rolled back his lip in an ugly snarl, his white teeth glistening, and tried to bite. But the Indian's moccasined foot shot up under the stallion's ear and pressed him back. Then the roan hugged Silvermane so close that half the time the Navajo virtually rode two horses. But for the rigidity of his arms, and the play and sudden tension of his leg-muscles, the Indian's work would have appeared commonplace, so dexterous was he, so perfectly at home in his dangerous seat. Suddenly he whooped and August Naab hauled back the gate, and the two horses, neck and ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... thought by the masses, of course, when they acquired the suffrage that they acquired the substance of political power. Their expectation, however, was but partially realized. Indirect election, official independence, and the rigidity of the constitutional system as a whole, with its lack of responsiveness to popular demands, largely counteracted the results expected from universal suffrage. But the extension of the suffrage to the masses, though having much less direct and immediate influence upon the policy of the state than ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... great shoulders, Luke's burden was a dead weight, of corpselike rigidity and stillness. Yet Luke clung to it tenaciously, disposing the drooping leaden limbs as comfortably as possible by the judicious spreading of his own ...
— Vulcan's Workshop • Harl Vincent
... took place, would not create centres of capitalist influence, and make the preservation of Communism more difficult? It had seemed to me that the more ardent Communists might well dread commercial intercourse with the outer world, as leading to an infiltration of heresy, and making the rigidity of the present system almost impossible. I wished to know whether he had such a feeling. He admitted that trade would create difficulties, but said they would be less than those of the war. He said that two years ago neither he nor his colleagues thought they could ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... kind, or any other, from one qualified to make them. If there was any gratitude or vanity in my nun's heart, I felt I could stir it up, if Sister Sarah would listen to me long enough; and if gratitude, or even vanity, could be stirred, the rigidity of my nun would be impaired, and she might find ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... you did," retorted Phemie pertly. But here a pushing of chairs and shuffling of feet in the kitchen checked her. Clementina fixed an abstracted gaze on the ceiling; Phemie regarded a leaf on the window sill with photographic rigidity as the door opened to the strangers and ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... adultery be practised with a woman who promises in exchange to point out heretics?... The Bishop of Hippo severely condemns all these devious or shameful ways, all these compromises which are contrary to the pure moral teaching of the Gospel. But he does this without affecting intolerance and rigidity, and with a reminder that the evil of sin lies altogether in the intention, and in the consent of the will. In a word, one must tolerate and put up with what ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... Swannington, and other Railways, where crossed by local coal Railways of a narrower gauge, and has never succeeded. The practical difficulties also are obvious, of securing with waggons constructed with moveable bodies, the rigidity and solidity requisite for safety, and to prevent excessive wear and tear, and damage to the articles conveyed. Even if we were to suppose, however, all mechanical difficulties overcome, the serious objection would still remain, ...
— Report of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade on the • Samuel Laing
... of coma ensues. It is an awful moment, in which nobody seems even to breathe. The two Misses Blake turn into a rigidity that might mean stone; the young man pauses irresolutely, yet with a sternness about his lips that bespeaks a settled purpose not to be laid aside for any reason, and that adds some years ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... had decreed for my labours, and I became haggard and spectre-like, through anxiety and watching. At length his eyes unclosed faintly, yet with a look of returning life; he became pale and weak; but the rigidity of his features was softened by approaching convalescence. He knew me. What a brimful cup of joyful agony it was, when his face first gleamed with the glance of recognition—when he pressed my hand, now more fevered than ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... and seldom understood the images of fancy, she was not averse to a modicum of scandal in moments of relaxation: for the faults of others were the illustrations of her prudent maxims, and the thoughtlessness of a sister was the best possible text for a moral homily. The tense rigidity of her character, too, sometimes required a little unbending, and she had, therefore, no special aversion to an occasional surreptitious novel. But this she would indulge only in private; for in her mind, the worst ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... accepted feeling-tones, or ranges of feeling-tone, for many words over and above the force of individual association, but they are exceedingly variable and elusive things at best. They rarely have the rigidity of the central, primary fact. We all grant, for instance, that storm, tempest, and hurricane, quite aside from their slight differences of actual meaning, have distinct feeling-tones, tones that are felt by all sensitive speakers and readers of English in a roughly equivalent fashion. ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... the fact the Lady Agatha had suffered for the cause of votes for women, a change took place in the expression of Miss Pringle's countenance. Cleggett thought she was about to speak. But she did not. Nevertheless, although she listened intently, some of her rigidity had gone. When Lady Agatha had ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... have buried themselves, the central aborted flowers increase considerably in length and rigidity, and become bleached. They gradually curve, one after the other, upwards or towards the peduncle, in the same manner as did the perfect flowers at first. In thus moving, the long claws on their summits carry with them some earth. Hence a flower-head ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... silence among the men as the soft white ball of smoke rose slowly and steadily, expanding the while and changing its shape till it became utterly diffused. The occupants of the schooner's deck were statuesque in their rigidity, the crew to a man gazing hard at the captain as they strained their hearing to catch his next command; the captain fixed his eyes from one side upon Uncle Paul, while Rodd stood upon the other with his lips apart, gazing questioningly in his uncle's half-closed lids, as the doctor leaned back ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... with life. Life and death are there at once. The arteries beat; the muscles are braced; the body raises itself, not by degrees, but at a single impulse, and stands erect. The eyelids unclose. The countenance is not that of a living subject, but of the dead. The paleness of the complexion, the rigidity of the lines, remain; and he looks about with an unmeaning stare, but utters no sound. He waits ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... of the ends causes local shrinkage, and were the material sufficiently plastic the ends would become bluntly tapering. The rigidity of the wood substance prevents this and the fibres are split apart. Later, as the remainder of the stick dries many of the checks will come together, though some of the largest will remain and even increase in size as the ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... disdainful, with too much character. Verlaine was sympathetic, simple, childlike, humble; when he put on an air of pride it was with a deliberate yet delightful pose, a child's pose. There is an air of almost military rigidity about the pride of this bust; I do not find ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... That time has passed. Men now school their faces to deception; it is an art which nearly all practise—I and you too often. We study to hide our real feelings; to appear, in a certain sense, what we are not. Look at some men whom we meet every day, with faces whose calmness, I should rather say rigidity, gives no evidence that a single emotion ever crosses the waveless ocean of their minds. But it is not so; the mind within is active with thought and feelings; but the instrument formed for it to play upon has lost its tune, or bears only relaxed ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... but in most plants occurs but in small quantity. The cereals and grasses form an exception to this rule, for in them it is an abundant and important element. It is not, however, uniformly distributed through them, but is accumulated to a large extent in the stem, to the strength and rigidity of which it greatly contributes. The hard shining layer which coats the exterior of straw, and which is still more remarkably seen on the surface of the bamboo, consists chiefly of silica; and in the latter plant this element is sometimes so largely ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... part of the great engine that tore along, controlled by a superior will. The command ran along the line: "Keep touch of knees! Keep touch of knees!" in order to keep the men closed up and give their ranks the resistance and rigidity of a wall of granite, and as their trot became swifter and swifter and finally broke into a mad gallop, the chasseurs d'Afrique gave their wild Arab cry that excited their wiry steeds to the verge of frenzy. ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... lying down, hoping that the wave would pass me by; but in each and every case it gave me the same stirring treatment. Once I stood erect and rigid as the wave came on, but it intensified suddenly the rigidity of every muscle to a seemingly rupturing extent, and I did not try that plan again. The effect of each wave on me seemed to be slightly weakened whenever I lay down ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... for commercial men engaged in sedentary occupations, were to be made with mental concentration in front of a mirror so as to bring into play the various families of muscles and produce successively a pleasant rigidity, a more pleasant relaxation and the most ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... with a snap, but Tredgold and Chalk made no move. Glued to their seats, they stared blankly at the door, until the rigidity of their pose and the strangeness of their gaze began to affect the slower-witted ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the beautifully designed engines by Mr. Thornycroft, in place of the massive cast-iron bedplates and columns of the ordinary engines of commerce. The same may be said of the moving parts. In fine, the hull and engines should be as much as possible one structure; rigidity in one place and elasticity in others are the cause of most of the accidents so costly to the ship-owner; under such conditions mass and solidity cease to be virtues, and the sooner their place is taken by careful design, and the use of the ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... which will presently be given, direct induction takes place under peculiar difficulties and disadvantages. As one of the most apt instances, I select his speculation (in the proceedings of the Royal Society for May 16, 1861) on the relations between muscular irritability, cadaveric rigidity, and putrefaction. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... his seat. George Anderson, who was to the right of the coroner, had sat, all through this witness's evidence, bending forward, his eyes on the ground, his hands clasped between his knees. There was something in the rigidity of his attitude, which gradually compelled the attention of the onlookers, as though the perception gained ground that here—in that stillness—those bowed shoulders—lay the real interest of this sordid outrage, which had so affronted the pride of ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... what the savage enmity of the morally diseased Burlingame might do. He had made up his mind that so intense a scrupulousness as Crozier had shown since coming to Askatoon had behind it not only character, but the rigidity of a set purpose; and that view was supported by the stern economy of Crozier's daily life, broken only by sudden bursts of generosity for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... kissed the rough hand, beautiful now with that cold beauty which the rigidity of death imparts; then she replaced it reverently, silently, and fell upon her knees in the wet mud, beside ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... their intercourse; and now he had dared to seem indifferent, though he had not forgotten to reproach! She could almost feel the healthy pallor of her face change to a sickly white; her anger chilled and then stiffened her into a rigidity of body and mind and when she dismounted she slid down heavily, like ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... substance or perhaps its name. Art can make no progress in such a situation. A man remains incorrigibly unhappy and perplexed, cowed, and helpless, because not intelligent enough to readjust his actions; his idol must be the self-same hereditary stock, or at least it must have the old sanctified rigidity and stare. Plastic impulse, as yet sporadic, is overwhelmed by a brute idolatrous awe at mere existence and actuality. What is, what has always been, what chance has associated with one person, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... the rigidity of fixed attention, broken in another moment, however, by an impulsive movement and the ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... dreaded Mr Bradshaw's displeasure; for it was an understood thing that no one was to be ill or tired in his household without leave asked, and cause given and assigned. But she never thought of that now. Her great desire was to hold quiet till she was alone. Quietness it was not—it was rigidity; but she succeeded in being rigid in look and movement, and went through her duties to Elizabeth (who preferred remaining with her upstairs) with wooden precision. But her heart felt at times like ice, at times like burning fire; always ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a powerful hand at the neck of her blouse, jerked her to her knees, and began to drag her. Joan fought his iron grasp. The twisting and tightening of her blouse choked her utterance. He did not look down upon her, but she could see him, the rigidity of his body set in violence, the awful shade upon his face, the upstanding hair on his head. He dragged her as if she had been an empty sack. Like a beast he was seeking a dark place—a hole to hide her. She was strangling; a distorted sight made objects dim; ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... guides placed on the sliders, D and D'. These guides, H and H', each consist of a cast iron box fixed by a nut to the extremity of the arms, h and h', and coupled by crosspieces, j and j', which keep them apart and give the guides the necessary rigidity. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... flushed rigidity. "Madam, I must still be apologizing. The surprise of meeting me friend went to me head, I ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... we had absolutely incompatible dispositions and habits of thought and action, and our danger and isolation only accentuated the incompatibility. At Halliford I had already come to hate the curate's trick of helpless exclamation, his stupid rigidity of mind. His endless muttering monologue vitiated every effort I made to think out a line of action, and drove me at times, thus pent up and intensified, almost to the verge of craziness. He was as lacking in restraint as a silly ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... established, and they who have shown an example of civilization too notable in one sphere to call for eulogy, are often to be seen elbowing on the ragged edge of barbarism in the other. They must therefore be reduced to accept laws not of their own making, and of an extreme rigidity. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... her face in their petals. Their perfume was the potent spell that now melted her to tears, and the tension of her overtaxed nerves gave way in a passionate burst of sobs. When she rose a few moments later, the storm had passed; the face regained its stony rigidity, and henceforth she fronted fate with ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Hardy? For a moment it seemed to him more than he could bear. He started to his feet and put his hands before his face. Then calming himself by a great effort, he sat down and his face became almost like a stone in its rigidity. When his wife finally succeeded in getting the woman into the rear room, his face relaxed and he breathed more easily; but as soon as possible he arose and went out and stood silent there until the body was brought out and placed in the ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... represents her as mounting the steps of the throne, her head slightly turned, and looking back over the left shoulder. It seems to me that Her Majesty should own this picture, for it is an exquisite specimen of Mr. Sully's peculiar coloring, and a very lovely portrait. Here is no rigidity, no constraint, no irksome state. There is a springy, exultant vitality in the bearing of the graceful figure, and the light poise of the head, while in the complexion there is a tender softness and a freshness of tints ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... never undeceived him, and he had all the extra delight of the idea. My younger and hotter passions had made me spend before he could; so after indulging me in a delicious soak after the ecstasy of the discharge, he drew my attention to the rigidity of his own member, which, he said, I must now allow him to ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... to be closed, use light wire in them. If to be spread, use strong wire to support with no wobbling. In the legs use as large wire as will go easily through the tarsus and not rip the skin open, to insure rigidity in the finished specimen. Use galvanized soft steel wires if possible. If ordinary black iron wire is used it should be waxed before placing. For the tail cut one wire of a length to go half way through the body and leave enough protruding to allow ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... marked toxic effect on the heart. The former induces emetic and cathartic phenomena, trembling and progressive weakness. The latter does not cause vomiting or diarrhoea, but ansthesia and rigidity of the limbs. Both poisons arrest the heart in systole. Injected hypodermically they are irritant, are eliminated by the liver, but are not found ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... a gentleman to insist upon his wishes, but she saw by the gloom of his eye and a certain nervous twitching of his hands that it was not from mere impassiveness that his features had acquired their rigidity. Smitten with compunction, she altered her tone into ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... him was the fact that he was clinging to a tree, and that he could not let go. His arms encircled the rough bark like bands of iron; they had divorced themselves from his will power, they held him there despite himself, not from muscular rigidity or spasm, but just because they refused to let go. They were doing the business of clinging to safety on their own account, and he had to think himself free. There was no use in ordering them to release him, he had to reason with them. Then, little by little, ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... countenance of Carlos appeared, notwithstanding all his efforts to hold his features in the same position; instead of placid composure there was now grim rigidity. ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... seated in the parlour below when Lucretia entered. Her face yet retained its almost unearthly rigidity and calm; but a sort of darkness had come over its ashen pallor,—that shade so indescribable, which is seen in the human face, after long illness, a day or two before death. Dalibard was appalled; for he had too often seen that ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... still very backward. Notably, the expenditure of coal was excessive; to produce a given result in miles travelled, or speed attained, much more had to be burned than now, a condition to which contributed also the lack of rigidity in the wooden hulls, which still held their ground. Sails were very expensive articles, as I heard said by an accomplished officer of the olden days; but they were less costly than coal. Steam therefore was accepted at the first only as an accessory, for emergencies. It was too evident for question ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... out that would function with reasonable efficiency, at least in water matters, for there is nothing primitive about today's technology. But esthetically it would leave much to be desired even by present standards, and politically, furthermore, its very wholeness and rigidity would mean that it would have to be sold as a complete package or else be doomed to fragmentation, which would lead to much the same sort of piecemeal expedient development as no plan at all. Quite ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior |
