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More "Supple" Quotes from Famous Books



... and crime. And yet such a year as this, I am almost persuaded, is worth a score of years of peace. It certainly has achieved more for truth and humanity and God than the score of years which preceded it. As a nation, we had become almost despicable. Such supple, yielding slaves of 'Democratic' demagogues; such cringing, fawning, knee-bending, hand-kissing agents of the diabolical, traitorous Slave-Power; such apologists and supporters of Wrong; such pusillanimous, weak-hearted ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... somewhat astonished at his appearance. He was solidly built, rather short and had a resolute, determined air, rather unpolished and without those distinguishing marks of intellect and social position. But his hands were delicate and supple, and beautiful shadows encircled ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... none other than Black Bruin, was holding up a section between his paws, while with his supple red tongue he licked out the contents. Although the bees were swarming about him in a black cloud and doing their best to punish the thief, he paid little attention to them but licked ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... necessarily miss the sinuous clairvoyance of a writer like Remy de Gourmont who is able to give himself up completely and with no ironic reservation to the abnormalities of the temperament he is discussing. Remy de Gourmont's own temperament has something in it more receptive, more psychological, more supple than Anatole France's. He is in himself a far less original genius and for that very reason he can slide more reservedly into the bizarre nooks ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... and convenient apparatus is a cork nipple, upon the plan of M. Darbo, of Paris, fixed in the sucking-bottle.[FN9] The cork, being of a particularly fine texture, is supple and elastic, yielding to the infant's lips while sucking, and is much more durable than ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.

... it is so soft, as it were made on purpose to take hearts, and handle them without hurting! These taper fingers too, and even joints so supple, that methinks I mould them as they pass through mine: nay, in my conscience, though it be nonsense to say it, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... in his and pressed them; big hands they were, and hardened by many a homely task, but withal tender and with the healing quality of womanliness in the touch of their warm, supple fingers. But to-night she did not seem to know that he held them, nor to be conscious of his presence. The woman in her was dead of grief. The white spirit in her place, that plotted and planned that Jim's children and Jim's wife might not from henceforth ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... the mind itself, independent of accidents of situation or circumstance; and the mind thus becoming boldly prominent, amidst the fading away of physical things, stamps its own character upon its shadowy surroundings, moulding the supple universe to the shape of its emotions ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... were clearing out fruit-tins with marvellous dexterity. One supple paw would hold the tin while the long tongue would dart again and again through the narrow opening, avoiding the sharp edges, yet cleaning out the can to the ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton

... which was left to the right, and Mount Hardy whose summit rose on the left to a height of 3,700 feet, the journey was very trying; for about ten miles the bush was a tangle of "supple-jack," a kind of flexible rope, appropriately called "stifling-creeper," that caught the feet at every step. For two days, they had to cut their way with an ax through this thousand-headed hydra. Hunting became impossible, and the sportsmen ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... gestures, pressed her hand to her heart, then pointed in the direction of the tents, and then rushed away, soon reappearing with a short thin man, inclining to middle age, but of a compact and apparently powerful frame, lithe, supple, and sinewy. His complexion was dark, but clear; his eye large, liquid, and black; but his other features small, though precisely moulded. He wore a green jacket and a pair of black velvet breeches, his legs and feet being ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... she had resorted to the wood, but soon tiring of playing the part of modest nymph with her friends, she wandered off to more solitary places. Her head, generally so erect, was bowed under the weight of depression or preoccupation; her flexible, supple figure moved from side to side like the body of a bedouin; those dark African eyes, the most precious ornament of the noble city of Lancia, were fixed upon the ground, and the very deep line on her forehead testified to the fixed, gloomy drift ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... who toss in waves. They care for mothers left to starve, alone. In pestilence, they labor long to soothe The fevered brow and ease the gnawing pain With medicine and shelter, food and clothes. In war the wound is dressed and duly nursed With gentle supple hands—with nourishment For mind and body. Cross of red, all hail! They serve for us most willingly and well. Then chide themselves when they have come too late! Like mothers when their sons have fallen short; In early dawn ...
— Clear Crystals • Clara M. Beede

... 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, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... seeing, as he could not fail to do, how he counted to them for absolutely nothing at all, Scott Brenton had his hours when he too doubted the fact of his own humanity. An active brain and an almost automatic body trained to supple service: these by themselves, he realized, do not go far towards making a human thing of life. Contacts are necessary for that, not total isolation; and contact was the one thing denied him. Now and ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... to the letters which the great Humanist of Rotterdam wrote from Cambridge and London four hundred years ago when young Henry VIII had just suddenly (in 1514) plunged into war. One reads them to-day with vivid interest, for here in the supple and sensitive brain of the old scholar we see mirrored precisely the same thoughts and the same problems which exercise the more scholarly brains of to-day. Erasmus, as his Pan-German friends liked to remind him, was a sort of German, but he was, nevertheless, what we should now call a Pacifist. ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... seemingly inexplicable on any naturalistic basis. A contemporary writer, describing events of a few months later, when several recruits had been added to their ranks, states that some "when comatose became supple like a thin piece of lead, so that their body could be bent in every direction, forward, backward, or sideways, till their head touched the ground," and that others showed no sign of pain when struck, ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce

... like Mr. Hildreth to see this paper," turning it in her still supple fingers. "What if some of your men insist upon going out after a year or two, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... man ostentatiously broke the seal from a new pack of cards, dexterously spreading them across the table. His hands, Gordon saw, were extraordinarily supple, and emanated a sickly odor of glycerine. His companion's were huge and misshapen, but they, too, ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... him as he paces the lawn, his supple back writhed just a little towards my lady deferentially, his head just a little on one side, lending her an ear. By the gait of him he is looking another way. Yes; for now my lady turns, he turns too, and they halt front to front; his pallid ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... their beautiful materials would admit. Mlle. Frahender devoted infinite patience to gluing the tiniest fibres of the sea plants. Some were bright pink, suggesting in formation and colour the little red fishing boats. Others were gold with their slender little flowers rising in clusters. The long supple green algaes, swelling along their stems into little round beads, like beads of jade, looked as though they wore some Chinese costume. As the album grew it gave ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... third from far Ceylon, Studded with precious stones. Her eyes were like The stars of orient skies. Her teeth were black, Her face like water shone. Her chiselled nose Was prominent and Mike a flower fresh culled. When she was dressed, upon a couch of pearls Her mother put her. Supple was her form, And white, as she reclined, by many maids Surrounded. In his royal garb the prince Was clad, and dazzling to the eyes of all Who saw. He wore a kingly crown which shone With diamonds bright and lucent amethysts And many stones, and all majestic seemed. Then ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... confident smiles, long limbed, with leisurely and supple movements, smart in their heavy tweeds or riding breeches that suggested habits of strenuous exertion. When they removed their hats, one saw their close-clipped heads bending forward confidentially toward the fair faces: and their eyes slowly followed the eyes of the ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... how it happened, but in her wretchedness the girl swayed toward me ever so slightly. My arms went round her protectingly. For an instant her body came to me in sweet surrender, the soft curves of her supple figure relaxed in weariness. Then she pushed me from ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... indicated. She stood where she was and watched him. For two or three minutes he looked at the picture in silence, and she thought his expression had become slightly hostile. His audacious and rather thick lips were set together firmly, almost too firmly. His splendid figure supple, athletic and harmonious, looked almost rigid. She wondered what he was feeling, whether he disliked the portrait of the judge of the Criminal Court at which he was ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... would go to Caesar, but privately sent messengers to Milo, who had murdered Clodius, and had been condemned for it; and having invited him into Italy, because he had engaged the remains of the gladiators to his interest, by making them supple presents, he joined him, and sent him to Thurinum to tamper with the shepherds. When he himself was on his road to Casilinum, at the same time that his military standards and arms were seized at Capua, his slaves seen at Naples, and the design of betraying the town discovered: ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar

... he never indulges in the luxury of unnecessary and unprofitable sins. The sharp, steadfast, unwavering consistency of Tito is even more marked than that of Romola, for twice Romola falters, and turns to flee. The supple, flexible Greek follows out the law he has laid down as the law of his life,—worships the god he has set up as the god of his worship with an inexorable constancy that never for one chance moment falters. That god is self; that law is, in one word, self-pleasing. Long before ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown

... cattle, moreover, could be driven only at a slow pace; but even twenty-odd miles a day was more than a Maine backwoodsman enjoyed as initiation in horsemanship. Dow was mounted on an excellent trained horse, and being young and supple was able to do his share in spite of his discomfort. But the mare that had been allotted to Sewall happened also to be a tenderfoot, and they did not play a conspicuous role in the ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... 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, I shall be all yours—all yours!" She ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... mild, under the lids of a young man; his mustache, fine but slightly grizzled, waved over lips of a pure and delicate model, as if they had never been curled by mortal passions; a form straight and supple; an irreproachable but thin hand—this was what remained of the illustrious gentleman whom so many illustrious mouths had praised under the name of Athos. He was engaged in correcting the pages of a manuscript book, entirely filled ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... cruel fate To court the seeming, or the real great! Much sorrow shall he feel, and suffer more Than any slave who labours at the oar! 160 By slavish methods must he learn to please, By smooth-tongued flattery, that cursed court-disease; Supple, to every wayward mood strike sail, And shift with shifting humour's peevish gale. To nature dead, he must adopt vile art, And wear a smile, with anguish in his heart. A sense of honour would destroy his schemes, And conscience ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... of him and she didn't treat him as girls did who had an idea that if they talked to him very long he might faint or even die on their hands. He noted her fine rounded arms and supple fingers that spoke for strength, reflecting that very likely she could pick him up and pitch him through the window. He had always disliked athletic girls, fancying that they nodded to him patronizingly as they passed him on country club verandas all aglow ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... Prussia, whom for five years we had been devouring, and whose alliance was hollow and compulsive? He was about, therefore, to trace the longest line of military operations ever drawn, through countries whose fear was taciturn, supple, and perfidious, and which, like the ashes of volcanoes, hid terrific flames, the eruption of which might be ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... went slowly down the avenue thinking: "Of all the women I've met, this is the most perverse, heartless, daring." He recalled his Bayreuth experiences, and analyzed Ellenora. Her supple, robust figure attracted his senses; her face was interesting; she had brains, uncommon brains. What would she become? Not a poet, not a novelist. Perhaps a literary critic, like Sainte-Beuve with shining Monday morning reviews. Perhaps—yes, ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... after 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 they crawled upon their bellies. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... youth," said the sage, as he shook his gray locks, "I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box— Allow me to sell you ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... them at a mark at sixty yards, and, although a very bad hand with a bow myself, I have invariably beaten them with their own weapons. These bows are six feet long, made of a light supple wood, and the strings are made of the fibrous bark of a tree greased and twisted. The arrows are three feet long, formed of the same wood as the bows. The blades are themselves seven inches of this length, and are flat, like the blade of a dinner-knife brought to a point. Three short feathers ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... wife to set his head to rights, and of Madame de Maintenon to give him completer lessons than she had yet been able to do. Shortly afterwards he was forbidden to send any orders without submitting them to the Marechal de Boufflers. He was supple, and sure of Madame de Maintenon, and through her of the Marechal, waited for time to release him from this state of tutelage and showed nothing of his annoyance, especially ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... short, in the deep shadow of a clump of chestnut-trees. Something moved, behind the very tree he was looking at. A figure came lightly out into the open; a woman's figure, slight and supple, clad in shadowy white. A dryad? No! the girl he had seen in the summer-house. He knew the face, as it shone upturned in the moonlight; knew the firm mouth and chin, the blue eyes, the look of careless power; seen once only, it was as if he had known the face ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards

... his deserts, for he hatched a worse wrong than ever Galors did. The child was chained by the middle, and came to me chained riding a white palfrey. In green and white she came, and round her middle was a chain, long and supple, and a monk on horse-back held the end thereof. She came to me to the hearth at the length of her chain, and held me in her dear arms, and kissed me, cheeks and forehead. Down I sat on my stool and ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... of men. Enough of the Roman stock in her line had given structural firmness and stature to a type which at her age would have developed weight and duskiness, but she was taller and more slender than the women of her race, and supple and alive and splendid. About her hips was knotted a silken scarf of red and white and green with long undulant fringes that added to the lithe grace in her movements. Under it was a glistening garment of silver tissue that reached to the small ankles laced about by ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... 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 of waves of water, ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... scented flower, The young tree's supple bough, And leave my human feelings In their own ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... A shadowy, supple figure clambered down from the inky blackness of cliff that overhung the road, and peered over the valley of Maunahoehoe. It ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke

... the pale starlight afforded him indistinct sight of the riders. But his eyes were keen and used to the dark, and by peering closely he recognized the huge bulk and black-bearded visage of Oldring and the lithe, supple form of the rustler's lieutenant, a masked rider. They passed on; the darkness swallowed them. Then, farther out on the sage, a dark, compact body of horsemen went by, almost without sound, almost like specters, and they, too, melted into ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... believe the evidence of our senses, yet there stood the cunning scamp before us, with his long limbs and lank body, as supple as ever, and grinning with delight at ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... The Antiquities of the House of 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

... majority were a mixture of the two races, and the mingling of African and American blood appeared to have had a beneficent effect upon both, the product being an individual of less bulky frame perhaps than his negro progenitor, but lithe, active, supple, and apparently of tireless endurance, superior in intelligence, courage, and good looks to ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... was opened, the colleges, military schools, and high schools of the country poured out a stream of young men whose minds had been trained in the classroom and whose bodies had been made supple and virile on the athletic field. They came with intelligence, energy, and enthusiasm and, under a course of intensive training, rapidly took on the added discipline and capacities necessary to equip them for the duties of officers. They have taken their places in the training ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... the ground. The sword was in my hand and shortened, the point was at his throat, when my arm was jerked backwards. A moment, and half a dozen hands had dragged me from the man beneath me, and a supple savage had passed a thong of deerskin around my arms and pinioned them to my sides. The game was up; there remained only to pay ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... quick wit. The Landhofmeisterin stood near to her friend. She felt strangely lonely in this disguised crowd, and Serenissimus held aloof from her. She saw him exchanging compliments with a light blue domino, from whose supple movements Wilhelmine guessed to be a young ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... Flattery's fawning face; To Grandeur with his wise grimace; To upstart Wealth's averted eye; To supple Office, low and high; To crowded halls, to court and street; To frozen hearts and hasting feet; To those who go, and those who come; Good-bye, proud world! ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... Terra's supple body wended through the tangled undergrowth of the jungle, followed by the four cubs, who growled, whimpered and gamboled about ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin

... (tome i. p. 227), "Josephine was irresistibly attractive. Her beauty was not regular, but she had 'La grace, plus belle encore que la beaute', according to the good La Fontaine. She had the soft abandonment, the supple and elegant movements, and the graceful carelessness of the creoles.—(The reader must remember that the term "Creole" does not imply any taint of black blood, but only that the person, of European family, has been born in the West Indies.)—Her temper was always the same. She was gentle ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... down a distant canyon trail. He looked like a giant in the twilight. With long swinging strides he threw himself impetuously down the mountainside. Great power was in every movement. He was magnificent! He seemed as large as a horse, and had that grand supple strength given to no other ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... answer. He went to the hedge and drew out a long supple twig of hazel, stripped it of its leaves, and once more tried, with it, to tie up his parcel. But the angle was too acute, and just as the twig tightened satisfactorily it snapped, and this time the razor slid out sideways ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... His spring was that of an animal in terror and agony. It was so tremendous that it broke Jean's hold. Greaves let out a strangled yell that cleared, swelling wildly, with a hideous mortal note. He wrestled free. The big knife came out. Supple and swift, he got to his, knees. He had his gun out when Jean reached him again. Like a bear Jean enveloped him. Greaves shot, but he could not raise the gun, nor twist it far enough. Then Jean, letting go with his right arm, swung the bowie. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... reclining a woman who seemed to me to be both young and pretty. Her loosened hair fell over her shoulders in a rain of gold. She was looking at herself in a hand mirror, patting herself, passing her arms over her lips, and twisting about her supple body with a curiously feline grace. Every movement that she made caused her long hair to ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... and the silence enhanced the furious tension of my nerves. Surprise, the joy of revenge, and, perhaps, a somewhat perverse jealousy inflamed my desires. The elastic firmness of her flesh and the supple violence of the movements wherewith she enveloped me demanded, promised, and deserved the most ardent caresses. We became aware, during that wonderful night, of voluptuousness the abyss ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... trees, they took refuge in a thicket of bushes, Jean came near being killed by a projectile, only it fortunately failed to explode. They could no longer make any progress now on account of the dense growth of the shrubbery; the supple branches caught them around the shoulders, the rank, tough grass held them by the ankles, impenetrable walls of brambles rose before them and blocked their way, while all the time the foliage was fluttering down about them, clipped by the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... was great, industrious, insinuating, and artful, and his character was so supple that he could become as many different men as he had occasion to personate. But he was shortsighted even in his grandest projects; and, unlike his predecessor, whose mind was bold but his temperature timid, Mazarin was bolder in temper than in conception. A pretended moderation veiled ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... progress, along a line which ascends through the vertebrate series up to man. It shows us in the faculty of understanding an appendage of the faculty of acting, a more and more precise, more and more complex and supple adaptation of the consciousness of living beings to the conditions of existence that are made for them. Hence should result this consequence that our intellect, in the narrow sense of the word, is intended to secure the perfect fitting of our body to its environment, ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... of shoes must be very warm and comfortable," said he; "the leather is so soft and supple." They fitted his feet as though they had been made for him. "'Tis a curious world we live in," continued he, soliloquizing. "There is the lieutenant, now, who might go quietly to bed if he chose, where no doubt he could stretch himself at his ease; but does he do it? No; he saunters ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... off the porch. As he fell a dagger glittered in the sunlight and rolled clinking over the stones. The man went down hard and did not move. With the same abrupt violence, and a manner of contempt, Stewart threw Hawe off the porch, then Don Carlos, who, being less supple, fell heavily. Then the mob backed before Stewart's rush until all ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... ca' canny. But if you talk of trade"—he tapped his snuff-box—"I will match you, Glenfernie! If there's wrong, pay it back! Hold to your principles! But do it cannily. Smile when there's smart, and get your own again by being supple. In the end you'll demand—and get—a higher interest. Prosper at your enemy's cost, and take repayment for your hurt ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... "A thin, wiry, sallow-faced man; black-haired, black-eyed, supple as an eel, cunning as a cat; a scholar and travelled gentleman, who might easily be a cut-throat; one who professes the old faith, and swears by the ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... out of the way places, and the most lovely countries, and spent months and months at sea, and plunged into every kind of dissipation and debauchery. But neither the supple backs nor the luxurious gestures of the bayaderes, nor the large, passive eyes of the Creoles, nor flirtations with English missives with hair the color of new cider, nor nights of waking dreams, when he saw new constellations in the sky, nor dangers during which a man thinks it is ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... degrade us by magnifying trifles. The countryman finds the town a chop-house, a barber's shop. He has lost the lines of grandeur of the horizon, hills and plains, and, with them, sobriety and elevation. He has come among a supple, glib-tongued tribe, who live for show, servile to public opinion. Life is dragged down to a fracas of pitiful cares and disasters. You say the gods ought to respect a life whose objects are their own; but in cities they have betrayed you to a cloud ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... Woman in her way, sir!" she whispered in her wiliest tones. "We don't believe in that fascinating beauty of hers—whatever you may do. Our lips don't burn to kiss those smooth cheeks. Our arms don't long to be round that supple waist. We see through her smiles and her graces, and her stays and her padding—she can't fascinate us! Put a woman in her way, Mr. Noel! Not a woman in my helpless situation, who is only a servant, but a woman with the authority and the jealousy of a Wife. Make it a condition, in your ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... 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

... of prolixity and of solemnity, can it be really contended that in purely poetic quality—in aerial freedom and space, in radiant purity of light or depth and variety of colour, in penetrating and subtle sweetness of music, in supple mastery of the instrument, in vivid spontaneity of imagination, in clean-cut sureness of touch—Wordsworth is not surpassed by men who were below him in weight and greatness? Even in his own field of the simple and the pastoral has he touched so sweet and spontaneous ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... sterling worth as I did. For several years after his return to liberty I was in close daily contact with this white-haired mild-looking old gentleman—still tolerably active and supple, though—who could blaze up and fight to the death over what he considered a matter of principle. The most admirable feature in his character was that, in all things you found ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... the door of the great empty room, magnificent m her tiger-skin, the Krag gripped in her supple hand, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... 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 ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... the Tory placemen. The oath of allegiance, the Whigs said, was drawn in terms far too lax. It might exclude from public employment a few honest Jacobites who were generally too dull to be mischievous; but it was altogether inefficient as a means of binding the supple and slippery consciences of cunning priests, who, while affecting to hold the Jesuits in abhorrence, were proficients in that immoral casuistry which was the worst part of Jesuitism. Some grave divines had openly said, others had even ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... known to survive their reputation Humble out of pride I am very glad to find the way beaten before me by others I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead I have not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden question I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing Ill luck is good for something Imitating other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own Immoderate either seeking or evading glory ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger

... a white rag thinly from the inner tent—mark her provenance. Son kneeleth down. "Wilt thou have my son, cony?" saith father. "Yea, dear heart," saith she. "'Tis my counterpart, mark you," saith father. "Better than nothing at all," saith she. Benevolent father, supple-kneed son, convenient lady. Here is agreement. And thus it ends.' Again he laughed outright at the steel-blue face of the sky, then jumped in a flash from his seat to the throat of Bertran. Bertran tumbled backwards with a strangled cry, and Richard pegged ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... towards the house. Then suddenly she stopped, as though she recognized some one or something, and stood awaiting his approach, her lips parted in a smile, two small, shapely hands shading her eyes from the sun. As he came nearer, he had time to note the lithe, supple figure, just rounding into the graceful outlines of womanhood; the full, smiling lips, the flushed cheeks, and the glint of gold in her brown hair; and the light, the beauty, the fragrance surrounding her seemed an appropriate setting to the picture. ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... rulership over the Argentine Confederation, 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 ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd

... the old Convocation house, and another while in the Chapel at Westminster; when all the faith and religion that shall be there canonized is not sufficient without plain convincement, and the charity of patient instruction to supple the least bruise of conscience, to edify the meanest Christian, who desires to walk in the Spirit, and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number of voices that can be there made; no, though Harry VII himself there, with all his liege tombs about him, should lend them ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton

... short enough, have little or no plot, and the characters are barely sketched. But, in these simple frames, he has confined the power of an art which is prolific, supple and profoundly living. Let us take, for example, "The Friends." Dancing Foot and The One Who Hopes are ordinary thieves, the terror of the villagers whose gardens they rob. One day, when they are especially desperate, they steal a thin horse which is browsing at the edge ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... was wearing off, and he was taking a new interest in her. He very often found himself looking at her and admiring her dark, pretty face and tall, supple form. Sometimes she would glance up quickly and catch him at it, and smile, for it pleased her. Then he would feel a bit foolish and blush through the tan on his face; for he knew that she read his thoughts. But neither he nor Manikawan ever voiced the ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... as much groaning and straining as ever, but it was not so loud or squeaky in tone; and when the ship quivered she did not jar stiffly, like a poker hit on the floor, but gave with a supple little waggle, ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... the Metropolitan Police sleeps on no bed of roses. He must be as supple as willow, as rigid as steel, must possess the tact of a diplomatist, with the impartiality of ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot

... followed the directions of the groom, and the cob gave me every assistance. How easy is riding, after the first timidity is got over, to supple and youthful limbs; and there is no second fear. The creature soon found that the nerves of his rider were in proper tone. Turning his head half round he made a kind of whining noise, flung out a little foam, and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... at all forbid them to "behave like that." Not in the least. She almost encouraged them. She laughed and arched her eyes and flirted. But her backbone became only the stronger and firmer. Soft and supple as she was, her backbone never yielded for an instant. It could not. She had to confess that she liked the young doctors. They were alert, their faces were clean and bright-looking. She liked the sort of intimacy with ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... 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, finding that he failed to create a panic, he pulled ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... of the Pine and the Palm. The tree of the Sierras, native, vigorous, gigantic, and the tree of the Desert, exotic, supple, poetic, both flourish within the nine degrees of latitude. These two, the widely separated lovers of Heine's song, symbolize the capacities of the State, and although the sugar-pine is indigenous, and the date-palm, which will never be more than an ornament in this hospitable ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner

... when full-grown, the Sugar Pine is a remarkably proper tree in youth. The old is the most original and independent in appearance of all the Sierra evergreens; the young is the most regular,—a strict follower of coniferous fashions,—slim, erect, with leafy, supple branches kept exactly in place, each tapering in outline and terminating in a spiry point. The successive transitional forms presented between the cautious neatness of youth and bold freedom of maturity offer a delightful study. At the age of fifty or sixty years, the ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... face and supple body was full of zeal to merit favor and inflict injury, and, as the circle of vagrants and outlaws of all ages reeled and swayed to and fro, Phoebus, unobserved by anybody, put his head down among the rest and searched the faces for those of ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... the strange and beautiful setting of the strangest and most beautiful thing he had ever seen. For he was looking into the eyes of the loveliest woman in the world. She was bending above him, tall and slim and supple, her perfect body clad in a deep black gown, the hem and bosom of which were embroidered with celandines, and it had a golden belt and was lined with gold, as he could see when the loose sleeves fell open on her round and slender arms; and ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... after running lightly up the stair-case, he opened the drawing-room door, and saw a tall, lovely figure in a closely-fitting dress of purple cloth, bending over Sabre, and stroking his huge, tawny head with her supple little tender ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett

... failing. Just by the chapel, a break in the railing Shows a narrow path directly across; 'Tis ever dry walking there, on the moss— Besides, you go gently all the way uphill. I stooped under and soon felt better; My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple, As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter. My mind was full of the scene I had left, That placid flock, that pastor vociferant, —How this outside was pure and different! The sermon, now—what a mingled weft Of good ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... to the sorcery of Satan," said Don Ruy soberly, yet with an eye on the padre—"and yon supple racer is of course one of his heirs. Stay you close to me, lad, and forget ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... to the ground at the same instant in such a way as to momentarily check the rush of the Greek. Lance at the call turned round, and was just in time to save himself from an ugly blow by catching Ralli's uplifted arm in his left hand. The pirate, lithe and supple as a serpent, writhed and twisted in Lance's grasp in his efforts to get free, but it was all in vain; he was helpless as a child in the iron grasp of the stalwart soldier, and he was at length compelled to fling his knife to the ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... woman, one after the other, and she leaped out of their range, swift and as supple as they. Instantly then she joined in the dance, with the snakes striking right and left at her. Left and right she swayed to avoid them, far more gracefully than a matador avoids the bull and courting a deadlier peril ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... hieroglyphic, nor historical, nor scientific; for there were representations of small scenes taken from nature, in which the stiff profile outlines, so common with Egyptian artists, were exchanged for supple and natural attitudes; groups of persons were given in perspective, and cut in deeper relief than I should have supposed anything but metal could have ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... set who knew how to walk and had the energy for it. In her movement there was the fluent, untamed grace that expressed a soul not yet stunted by the claims of convention. The golden little head was carried buoyantly. In her step was the rhythm of perfect ease. The supple resilience of her was another expression of the spiritual quality that spoke in ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... land. Generous and kind-hearted to a degree, his impatience often hurried him into actions which grieved his parents. He was generally in hot water at school. He fought, and he generally won, but his cause was not always right. He was supple, and he ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous

... not impossible but that the antient Romans, who were, generally speaking, low in stature, and yet were eminently strong, owed that advantage to their cultivation of bodily exercise. This kept their limbs supple, and rendered their constitution stout and hardy. Now, very laborious exercises would rather wear out the machine than they would invigorate it, if there was not a due relaxation, which should not, however, be too abrupt a transition from the most fatiguing exercises to a state of absolute rest. ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... women there. For certain, they were handsome; a Sevillana, for instance! Would they wear flowers in their hair—over the ear—unless they dared be looked at? Manuela was of Valencia, more than half gitana: a wonderfully supple girl. When she danced the jota it was like nothing so much as a snake in an agony. Her hair was tawny yellow, and very long. She wore no flower in it, but bound a red handkerchief in and out of the plaits. She was vain of her hair—heart of God, ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... it. "You'll like her, too, all righty," he told Bruce confidently, "whend you git broke to her." On one of youth's candid impulses to speak up for the life on the inside, the cherished desire, the gallant ideal, the buoyant fancy, he made a supple, sudden divergence in the conversation. "D'you know," he said, "they aint no place whur I'd drur be than Mizzourah ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... mentioned the absurdity of wearing jewelry," said I, "it brought to my attention the fact that you wear no shoes upon your feet, and that your toes are much longer and far more shapely and supple ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... northern forest toward St. John River. No part of his person was covered with armor. And instead of the rich and formal dress then worn by the Huguenots even in the wilderness, he wore a complete suit of hunter's buckskin which gave his supple muscles a freedom beautiful to see. His young face was freshly shaved, showing the clean fine texture of the skin. For having nearly finished his journey from the head of Fundy Bay, he had that morning prepared himself to appear what ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... never looked so charmingly as she looked now. The nervous irritability under which she was suffering brightened her face with the animation which was wanting in it at ordinary times. Her soft brown eyes sparkled; her smooth dusky cheeks glowed with a warm red flush; her tall supple figure asserted its full dignity, robed in a superb dress of silken purple and black lace, which set off her personal attractions to the utmost advantage. She not only roused the admiration of Amelius—she unconsciously gave him back the self-possession which he had, for the moment, completely ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... picture. Even from a distance he had made that out, as she stood there among the crowd, vivacious, vivid, clad all in white except for the loose coral-hued sweater which set off her warm brunette beauty and the slim but charmingly rounded curves of her supple young body. Yes, she was like Laura, like her and yet different, with a quality which he fancied belonged to ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... height, was of most perfect proportions, an athlete in bronze, lithe and supple as a panther. His oval face, set in a frame of glistening black hair, shone like a half-polished copper relief. Overlooking the nose, straight as one of his own arrows, and from which some tinkling silver coins were suspended, a pair of hawk-like eyes, hazel-black ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... Polly instantly pulled Noddy up on a mound of ground just above the reptile, and caught hold of a long supple branch of wood. In another instant she was whipping the snake until it could not tell from which direction the blows were descending—right, left, front or back! In a moment of indecision, the snake remained quiet and in that second Polly brought down her solid ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... poised head, the small, swiftly moving hands, and the tiny feet there was a birdlike alertness which was the epitome of action. The supple body, however, lacked the bird's fluttering uncertainty; rather the figure bespoke a control that had its birth in an absence of all self-consciousness and the obedience of perfectly trained ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... forbidden them by the doctor, because of a cough.... But she took them all the same, merely for the sake of taking them, with a graceful movement, her bare arm outstretched, her wrist making a supple curve, like a swan's neck, as she dipped her pretty ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... not mean, however, to represent him as a monster of wickedness. He was not wantonly cruel or treacherous. He was merely a supple, timid, interested courtier, in times of frequent and violent change. That which has always been represented as his distinguishing virtue, the facility with which he forgave his enemies, belongs to the character. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... him. For two or three minutes he looked at the picture in silence, and she thought his expression had become slightly hostile. His audacious and rather thick lips were set together firmly, almost too firmly. His splendid figure supple, athletic and harmonious, looked almost rigid. She wondered what he was feeling, whether he disliked the portrait of the judge of the Criminal Court at which he was looking. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... only the inspecting eyes of her hostess, but the amatory glances of the youthful Emile, had been fastened upon her window until the light disappeared, and even the Holy Mission Church of San Jose had assured itself of the dear child's safety with a large and supple ear at ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte

... 'Yes, sir!' 'You lie, sir!' 'Who then, sir?' 'Black cap!' If Black cap, then, doesn't say 'Is it me, sir?' before the priest has time to call him, he must put his hand on his ham, and get a pelt of the brogue. A body must be supple with the tongue ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... soil—Bongo, Mittoo, Niam-Niam, etc.—are called "women" by the Dinka, because among these tribes the men wear an apron, while the women obstinately refuse to wear any clothes whatsoever of skin or stuff, going into the woods every day, however, to get a supple bough for a girdle, with, perhaps, a bundle of fine grass. (Schweinfurth, Heart of Africa, vol. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... the scented flower, The young tree's supple bough, And leave my human feelings In their ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... dined, he soaked his hands in hot water to make them supple, and played Beethoven till far into ...
— If You Touch Them They Vanish • Gouverneur Morris

... afar,—that reveal the passions of the father in their heights and depths of power. The form is taller than either that of the elder Booth or Kean, lithe, and disposed in symmetry; with broad shoulders, slender hips, and comely tapering limbs, all supple, and knit together with harmonious grace. We have mentioned personal fitness as a chief badge of the actor's peerage, and it is of one of the born nobility that we have to speak. Amongst those who have few bodily disadvantages to overcome, and who, it would seem, should glide ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... owner of the library who can read the same through all the varieties of tongues and subjects and styles, and in whom they enter with ease, and take residence and force toward paternity and maternity, and make supple and powerful and rich and large. These American states, strong and healthy and accomplished, shall receive no pleasure from violations of natural models, and must not permit them. In paintings or mouldings or carvings in ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... 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 ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus

... had jerked the reins over its head, and in another moment was on its back. Before he was well seated, the frightened animal reared, squealing and pawing the air with its fore hoofs. But Sax was lean and very supple. He clung on, drove his feet home in the stirrups, and when the horse came down and started to buck and twist and arch and side-spring, he had a seat from which it would have taken a very good animal to shake him. It was all over in less than a minute, and then the ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman

... wonder that Andrew could not answer? He felt all at once so supple that he was hot tallow which those small fingers would mold and bend to ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... kissed her hand, which was burning hot—a thin little hand, with long, supple fingers which bent in ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... the least duty, involves the whole principle of obedience. And little duties make the will dutiful, that is, supple and prompt to obey. Little obediences lead into great. The daily round of duty is full of probation and of discipline; it trains the will, heart, and conscience. We need not to be prophets or apostles. The commonest life may be full of perfection. The duties ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... of manuscript from the envelope; the long supple fingers were busy among the leaves, and he bent his head to see the numbered pages. At last, having arranged them in order, he leaned back again in his chair, holding the papers tenderly in his hand. There was nothing of the poseur in Callender; his childlike simplicity of manner invested ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... the proposition an acceptable one. Abelard, like Arnault Daniel, was a good craftsman in his mother tongue, a facile master of versi d'amore, which he would sing with a voice wondrously sweet and supple. Now Abelard was thirty-eight years of age: Heloise seventeen. Amor al cor gentil ratto s'apprende,[65] and Minerva was not the only goddess who presided over their meetings. For a time Fulbert was blind, but scandal cleared his eyes and Abelard was ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... and Prince Richard were as supple as willows, as straight as pines, as graceful as silver birches. Their blond hair hung thick and straight against their necks and was cut square above their level brows. Their manners were so good that their father ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl

... she. "But then, having risen to go, then, like the wily and supple diplomat you are, you come to the ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... irregular, disconnected, and bold, not pedant-like, not preacher-like, not pleader-like." That fixity which Montaigne could not give to his irresolute and doubtful mind he stamped upon the tongue; it came out in his Essays supple, free, and bold; he had made the first decisive step towards the formation of the language, pending the advent of Descartes and the great ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... among themselves, "The Madam's beginning to show her age." But they could not have said in just what way she showed it. There was no diminution of her tireless energy; she rode her spirited horses with the same supple ease; no pallor showed in her warm cheeks; no lines in the broad space between her brows; no gray in the glinting chestnut of her hair, as abundant and as splendidly vital as Jacqueline's own. The change was as subtle as the change in Jacqueline; yet many people ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... the beauties of the hand 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 flowers of humanity, and their finger motions ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... with such a frankness in his urgency, such amiable kindliness, that Mrs. Pasmer could not feel that it was pushing. She looked at her daughter, but she stood as passive in the transaction as the elder Mavering. She was taller than her mother, and as she waited, her supple figure described that fine lateral curve which one sees in some Louis Quinze portraits; this effect was enhanced by the fashion of her dress of pale sage green, with a wide stripe or sash of white dropping down the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... 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 ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... litter and made my bearers trot all the way round by the big and little Coelian Hills to the Querquetulan Gate. We passed on this route many cheap shops. From one I bought a pair of horseman's high boots, soft and supple and mud-proof. All the way I enjoyed hugely my outing and the sights and sounds around me. From another shop one of my reliefs brought me an umbrella hat which fitted me and a voluminous horseman's raincloak ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... And handsome clothes with constant change of fine underclothing, not to mention meat and drink—hardly anything of what she was accustomed to call work, her hands had already become quite soft and supple. And she felt that she was beginning to be attached to the two little ones whom she tended day ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie

... a fine old man, marvelously well preserved, straight, slim, supple as a spring, spruce and shining as a new sabre. His long white moustachios hung under his chin like two marble stalactites. The rest of his face was carefully shaved, the skull bare even to the occiput, where a long tress of white hair was rolled up under his hat. The ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... imposed a task upon themselves which is not natural to them. They suffer, and when people suffer, they make others suffer too. That is not my game, nor that of my protectors either; I have to be gay, supple, amusing, comical. Virtue makes itself respected, and respect is inconvenient; virtue insists on being admired, and admiration is not amusing. I have to do with people who are bored, and I must make them laugh. Now it is absurdity and madness which ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... impressed by Remonencq's respect for this singular person; real power, moreover, even when it cannot be explained, is always felt; the portress was supple and obedient, she dropped the autocratic tone which she was wont to use in her lodge and with the tenants, accepted Magus' conditions, and agreed to admit him into Pons' museum ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... fawning face; To Grandeur with his wise grimace; To upstart Wealth's averted eye; To supple Office, low and high; To crowded halls, to court and street; To frozen hearts and hasting feet; To those who go, and those who come; Good-bye, proud world! I'm ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... founder of the Numidian kingdom; and seldom has choice or accident hit upon a man so thoroughly fitted for his post. In body sound and supple up to extreme old age; temperate and sober like an Arab; capable of enduring any fatigue, of standing on the same spot from morning to evening, and of sitting four-and-twenty hours on horseback; tried alike as a soldier and a general amidst the romantic vicissitudes of his youth as well as on the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... some knowledge of these matters. Such grants were not uncommon in the Duke of York, his Province. In that good duke's day, and later, following the pleasant fashion set by that Pope who divided his world equally between Spain and Portugal, valleys and mountains were tossed to supple courtiers by men named Charles, James, William, or George, kings by the grace of God; the goodly land, the common wealth and birth-right of the unborn, was granted in princedom parcels to king's favorites, king's minions, to favorites ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... loosely knotted bandanna, were as much a matter of course as the hard-eyed, weather-beaten look that comes of life under an untempered sun. But Brill Healy claimed a distinction above his fellows. He was a black-haired, picturesque fellow, as supple as a panther, ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... the fighter—is 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 ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... Garnache. His eyes were upon the girl. He was remarking the slender, supple figure, moderately tall and looking taller in its black gown of mourning; the oval face, a trifle pale now from the agitation that stirred her, with its fine level brows, its clear, hazel eyes, and its crown of lustrous brown hair rolled back under the daintiest ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... upper sides of the projectile, they were lined with a thick wadding of leather, put upon the best steel springs as supple as watch-springs. The escape-pipes hidden under this wadding were not ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... by no means as easy and pleasant as it seems to the first glance. It demands long experience, constant practice, slow and painful apprenticeship. It comprises in itself hundreds of supple, skilful processes that the cleverest juggler cannot compass. That I may not give you only empty words, gentlemen, I will perform a few experiments before you now. I ask you to have every confidence in the demonstrators. We are all at present in the ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... waggon-shed, performs prodigies of activity and labor. Indeed, search the three realms through and through, and you would hardly find one on its own legs doing such remarkable varieties of work. Briareus, with all his fabled faculties, never had such numerous and supple fingers as this creature of human invention. When set a-going, they are clattering and whisking and frisking everywhere, on the barn-floor, on the hay-loft, in the granary, under the eaves, down ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... no known model—they conform to patterns which intertwine and melt and are suddenly and surprisingly transformed; they are without punctuation, uncadenced, irregular, unpredictable, indescribably sensitive and supple. There is a marked indifference to the possibilities of contrapuntal effect, a dependence upon a method fundamentally homophonic rather than polyphonic—this music is a rich and shimmering texture of blended chord-groups, rather than a pattern ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman

... susceptible. Here, too, I could judge of the style of this people in subjects which had neither hieroglyphic, nor historical, nor scientific; for there were representations of small scenes taken from nature, in which the stiff profile outlines, so common with Egyptian artists, were exchanged for supple and natural attitudes; groups of persons were given in perspective, and cut in deeper relief than I should have supposed anything but metal ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... You'll see some hopping to beat the band, too. I've managed to cover a good deal of territory up to now but, say, I aspire to do still better. I'm rubbing snake oil on my joints right along so as to make 'em more supple. Why, I'd bathe in it if I thought that would make me better able to do my part toward corraling that great ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton

... saving from the ravages of an Indian climate, and the persecution of claimants to her hand. She was golden and white, like an autumnal birch-tree—yellow hair, with warm-toned streaks in it, shading a fabulously fair skin. Then, too, she was tall, of a nervous build, supple and proud in motion, a brilliant horsewoman, and a most distinguished sitter in an easy drawing-room chair, which is, let me impress upon you, no mean quality. After riding out for hours with a sweet comrade, who has thrown the mantle of dignity half-way off ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... and at least one dagger, the jewelled handle of which flashed over his glaring sash of many tints. And then the lady—Pobloff was very gallant, too gallant, his wife said. The bell would not ring! What was he to do? He soon made up his mind, supple Slav that he was. With a muttered apology he sank back and closed ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... 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, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... Perhaps you've seen her there; Her eyes delight in laughing light, Let gods describe her hair; Her figure—well, grave Juno ne'er Had half the supple grace Of Gertrude fair of Farmington— ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles

... head and looked up at him. She was leaning a little forward now, her chin resting upon her hands. Something about the lines of her long, supple body suggested to him the savage animal crouching for a spring. She was quiet, but her bosom was heaving, and he could guess at the passion within. With purpose he spoke ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... small hours to unlace her bodice or take down her hair; or imagine a valet can be devoted to a master he has to get into bed as best he can because he is too tipsy to get there unaided? Immortal "Figaro" is the type! Supple, liar, corrupt, intelligent,—he aids his master and laughs at him, feathering his own nest the while. There is a saying that "horses corrupt whoever lives with them." It would be more correct to say that domestic service demoralizes alike both ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... a girl of twenty-one, tall, strong, and supple of limb, and with a squareness of shoulder proportionate to her height. She had none of that exaggerated slope which our grandmothers esteemed, yet she lacked no grace of womanhood on that account, and in her walk she was light-footed as a deer. Her hair was dark brown, and she wore it coiled upon ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... is a fine quality when natural but not when affected. Sound bodies, with a healthy condition of blood, and strong by exercise, receive their beauty from the very things from which they receive their strength. They are fresh-colored, active, and supple, neither too much nor too little in flesh. Paint and polish them with feminine cosmetics, and admiration ceases; the very pains taken to make them appear more beautiful add to the dislike we conceive for them. Yet a magnificent, and ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser

... few facts that are allowed to remain get molded and twisted out of ugly forms into pretty shapes by those supple, ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... his shoulder-muscles rise and brace themselves at the thought, all the strength and violence of his young manhood, with its firm sinews and supple joints, told him that it was his willing and active servant and would do his pleasure. He wanted to smash the jaw bone that had formed these lies, and he wanted the world to know he had done so. Yet that was not enough, he wanted to throttle the ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson

... 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 by unfurling the royal banner of Castile, which he had brought ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... places to come out to us, and we shall be able to see them before they can strike us. I will draw my sword, you brandish your club, and Scapin must cut a pigeon wing, so as to make sure that his legs are supple and in good ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... Enough of the Roman stock in her line had given structural firmness and stature to a type which at her age would have developed weight and duskiness, but she was taller and more slender than the women of her race, and supple and alive and splendid. About her hips was knotted a silken scarf of red and white and green with long undulant fringes that added to the lithe grace in her movements. Under it was a glistening garment of silver tissue that reached to the small ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... rather unmelodious tones. When teased he could be very violent; he would throw anything he could lay his hands on at the head of the offender. He liked the company of others, especially of men. By the time he was four years old he had learned to eat without help. Paul was very supple, was fond of climbing, and had great strength in his arms and hands especially; these had actually a horny appearance, and thus reminded one of the hands of the chimpanzee. He could sit on the ground with ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... have seen the great swab, who is supple as a glove, and will do ALL, which some interpret NOTHING. However, we ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... your eye on HALDANE, Ex-Minister of War, The sleek and supple-minded And suave Lord Chancellor, Whose brain, so keen and subtle, Moves swifter than a shuttle, Obscuring, like the cuttle, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various

... decreed:) Soon as the arrow left the deadly wound, His issuing entrails smoak'd upon the ground. What woes on blooming Damasichon wait! His sighs portend his near impending fate. Just where the well-made leg begins to be, And the soft sinews form the supple knee, The youth sore wounded by the Delian god Attempts t' extract the crime-avenging rod, But, whilst he strives the will of fate t' avert, Divine Apollo sends a second dart; Swift thro' his throat the feather'd mischief ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley

... by her voice I strove desperately to secure the hold I sought, but my antagonist was supple as any eel, moreover his skin was greased after the manner of Indian warriors, but in our struggling we had come nigh to the rock where crouched my lady and, biding my time, I let go my broken sword, and seizing him by a sort of collar he wore, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... the wife was inspected by the said physicians and surgeons and by two matrons; the result of which was that they observed no visciousness of conformation in her womb: the valvula were circular and the carunclæ myrtiformes, placed in the neck of the vagina, were soft, supple, flexible, entire, and did not seem to have suffered any violence or displacing, and the cavity of the womb-pipe was free and without any obstacle. Therefore they are of opinion that she is not capable of the conjugal act, ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... of a Raffaelle showed themselves now and then in hers,—a face hitherto obscured by the malady of grief, as the canvas of the great master is encrusted by time. Her hands seemed whiter; her shoulders took on an exquisite fulness; her graceful, animated movements gave to her supple ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... the poor hunchback, whose form, physically inferior, crouched before that baneful, blazing glance, while his head, mentally brave, reared itself, as if to redeem the cowardice of the frame to which it belonged. So the attitude of the serpent: the body pliant, yielding, supple; but the crest thrown aloft, erect, and threatening. As for Zonela, she was frozen in the attitude of motion;—a dancing nymph in colored marble; agility stunned; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... the well-known volubility of his aunt was most particularly disagreeable, but who had nevertheless saluted the stalwart old lady's cheek with much affection, here bent his supple back with ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... serious 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.

... Dexie's supple fingers were dancing over the keys in a delightful prelude. Then Lancy's voice filled the room as he sang the well-known song, accompanied by the exquisite notes of the southern mocking bird, and the continuous warble that poured from ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... unhealthy, and at last produced a state of deadlock, in which two exactly equal parties were balanced, and a stable Government impossible. When that point was reached, men began to observe the strong and supple Constitution of the adjacent United States, and to recognize that a politically feeble Canada was courting an absorption from that quarter which all Canadians disliked. The Legislative Union was dissolved by the mutual consent of the Provinces with the approval of ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... his lantern. You should have seen us groping our way into House; Bobby first, with bull's-eye lantern professionally flashing to right and left, under seats, into dark corners. Made straight for my old corner-seat below Gangway; something white gleaming on front bench; with supple turn of wrist Bobby brought flambeau to bear upon it; found it was TANNER—TANNER, hatless, coatless, without even a waistcoat on! You might have knocked me down with much less than bayonet-prod. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various

... he condescended. "Measured by our standard he must needs seem puny—as, indeed, what king of them all, Christian or Pagan, would not?" His manner so far had been in agreement with his supple companion, but suddenly a change came over his temper, and he turned on Hildebrand a frown so coldly menacing that the favorite ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... said: 'Certainly; get cured of your complaint, and let me see you when you return.' In a very few days, perhaps in four or five, to my great astonishment he returned, smiling and joyous, with his limbs as pliant and supple as my own. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various

... graced with unwonted beauty. He was slight and agile of limb; his body was supple and lithe; his face was immobile, beardless, and with curving lips vividly red, a nose, small, with nostrils dilating sensitively, and eyebrows heavily lashed, it possessed something of the softness of a woman. ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... not what would lead me from these, but what would precede them, and, above all, what would somewhat surpass them." We had attained the summit of a plateau in the "pays de Caux," in Normandy, which is supple as an English park, but natural and limitless. It is one of the rare spots on the globe where nature reveals herself to us unfailingly wholesome and green. A little further to the north the country is threatened with barrenness, a little further to the ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... if to warm it, took off her gloves, and drew over her head the gold chain from which her bejeweled scent-bottle hung. It gave me a quite indescribable pleasure to watch the feline grace of every movement; the supple grace a cat displays as it adjusts its toilette in the sun. She looked at herself in the mirror and said aloud ill-humoredly—'I did not look well this evening, my complexion is going with alarming rapidity; perhaps I ought to keep earlier ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... to Plymouth, he bought an extry pair of sea-boots, Yarmouth-made, off some Stores on the Barbican, an' handed 'em over to Billy to pickle in some sort o' grease that's a secret of his own to make the leather supple an' keep it from perishin'. He've gone down to fetch 'em; an' there's no Sabbath-breakin' in a deed like that, when a ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... greedy buffoons, who lived by making bad jokes at other people's tables; Dacian gladiators, with whom fighting was a trade; philosophers, whose chief claim to reputation was the length of their beards; supple Greeklings of the Tartuffe species, ready to flatter and lie with consummate skill, and spreading their vile character like a pollution wherever they went: and among all these a number of poor but honest clients, forced quietly to put up with a thousand forms of contumely[14] and insult, ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... all that God and man In art and nature make or plan, And lady-loves for spidery lace And broideries and supple grace ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... contemporary 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 ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos

... an able statesman, indeed, but his interest was in the grand alliance; he "borrowed England on his way to Versailles," and governed it in the interest of the Dutch Coalition. Queen Anne and the first Georges reigned but did not govern; and in the early eighteenth century power fell to men of supple intelligence and complacent conviction—to Marlborough and little Sidney Godolphin, to Harley and St. John and Sunderland, and at last to Robert Walpole, the very personification of the shrewd curiosity, the easy-going morals, the ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... have given that huge girth to the thorax, or have exaggerated the mighty hand with such delight in sinewy force. These qualities, peculiar to Buonarroti's sense of form, do not detract from the languid pose and supple rhythm of the figure, which flows down, a sinuous line of beauty, through the slightly swelling flanks, along the finely moulded thighs, to loveliest feet emerging from the marble. It is impossible, while gazing on this statue, not to hear a strain of intellectual music. ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... forehead and was hidden under the black bonnet and the veil thrown back over it. She was dressed in black and the close-fitting gown showed off with unconscious vanity the lines of a perfectly moulded and perfectly supple figure. But it was especially her eyes which attracted John's sudden attention at that first glance, her violet eyes, tender, sad, almost pathetic, seeming to ask sympathy and marvellously ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... hallucinations, and with many and various phantasms. He might be compared to a salmon in a weir, or to a bird after being caught in the strait prison of a crib," &c. "When he was seized with this frantic fit, he made a supple, very light leap, and where he alighted he was on the boss of the shield of the warrior next him; and he made a second leap, and perched on the crest of the helmet of the same hero, who, nevertheless, did not feel him. Then he made a third active, very light leap, and perched ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... a single comprehensive glance that was polite without being cordial. Her neck, he noticed, was extraordinarily supple in spite of its proportions, for it turned so easily to follow him, and the head it ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... very early in the tropics, and at fourteen Rachael Fawcett was the unresponsive toast from Basseterre to Sandy Point. Her height was considerable, and she had the round supple figure of a girl who has lived the out-door life in moderation; full of strength and grace, and no exaggeration of muscle. She had a fine mane of reddish fair hair, a pair of sparkling eager gray eyes which could go black with passion or even excited interest, a long nose so ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... dances, with their ejaculatory burdens of "Aie! Aie! Voudou Magnan!" and "Aie Calinda! Dance Calinda!" The volume of sound rose and fell with the augmentation or diminution of the dancers' extravagances. Now a fresh man, young and supple, bounding into the ring, revived the flagging rattlers, drummers and trumpeters; now a wearied dancer, finding his strength going, gathered all his force at the cry of "Dance zisqu'a mort!" rallied ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... indignation, Harlan was too confused just then to grasp the fact that his tormentor was craftily handing him over to the Presson womenfolk, bound, branded, and supple—unless he proposed to merit his grandfather's ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... at his birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm and strong. (So it is with) all things. Trees and plants, in their early growth, are soft and brittle; at their ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze

... folds into many tints, delicate laces, elaborate embroideries, gleaming jewels—these are the never-failing accessories of his compositions. Yet while he loved rich draperies, he was also a careful student of the nude. Examples of his work range from the supple and youthful torso of Icarus to the huge muscular body of the beggar receiving St. Martin's cloak. The modelling of the Saviour's body in the Crucifixion and the Pieta shows both scientific knowledge and ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... listened, and gazed in silent despair and rage upon the calm lord. Neither of these men could strictly be called handsome. Of the two, Alwyn had the advantage of more youthful prime, of a taller stature, of a more powerful, though less supple and graceful, frame. In their very dress, there was little of that marked distinction between classes which then usually prevailed, for the dark cloth tunic and surcoat of Hastings made a costume even simpler than the bright-coloured garb of the trader, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... mysterious rite amongst the boys who were her especial friends, and it had become rather a point of honour to be "done" together. Consequently Hilaria looked very demure as she went through her steps with the mechanical ease of long practice and the supple grace that was her own and yet had the adorable awkwardness of her age in it. She was nearly sixteen, several months younger than Ishmael, who was now just over that age, and who, owing to the reputation ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... ploughing stubble, the very picture of self-pity. "Pretty hard on a man, John, pretty hard," he began as soon as he came within hearing distance, "to lose his only boy and have to hire help; after losin' the twins, too, the year of the frozen wheat—fine little fellows they was, too, supple as a string of suckers. And now, by golly, Bud's gone, John, with the good new eighteen-dollar suit—that's what I paid for it in cold cash in Brandon last winter—and I'll have to keep my hired man on if he don't come back, and this beggar I have, he can eat like a flock of grasshoppers—he just ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... meanwhile quietly replaced every thing in the cupboard; for she knew well enough, without being told, how such work should be done. Then she seated herself by Silvio's bedside, and made shadow pictures on the wall with her supple fingers; and Silvio laughed aloud, and called the names,—"A hare! A beast with horns! A spider with ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri

... I don't know. They're pretty rigid things, traditions. Rusty in the joints and all that sort of thing. Life isn't a process of machinery, exactly. One has to meet it with something more supple and adjustable than traditions." ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... spoke out the warning signal that he had arranged with Muro, and instantly six of the most powerful Saboros sprang upon them and bound them together face to face. John stood there with arms folded. He raised a hand, and two of the warriors raised the supple and toughened twigs, and brought them down on ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay

... distinct delight in watching the myriad charming phases of her kind manner, half-sisterly, half-motherly, toward the grave-faced young man. It was all a part of the delicious change which these past few days had wrought in her, this warm and supple softness of mien, of ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... ma'am, I dunno. Sure it's agin nathur and raison. There's meself gettin' as grey as a badger, and noways that supple as I was. But me father's a terrible cliver man. You'd niver get the better of an argufyment wid him, for he wouldn't listen to a word you'd be sayin'. So you see the way of it was, the two of us is workin' this great while ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... with which it fills the imagination, but regard it as quite unimportant. Their good nature, freed from all taint of snobbishness and from the fear of seeming too friendly, grown independent, in fact, has the ease, the grace of movement of a trained gymnast each of whose supple limbs will carry out precisely the movement that is required without any clumsy participation by the rest of his body. The simple and elementary gestures used by a man of the world when he courteously holds out his hand to the unknown youth who is being introduced to him, and when ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... very well, he went out, Egla, As luckily, as one would say, go Husband, He was call'd by providence: fling this short Paper Into Leandro's Cell, and waken him, He is monstrous vexed, and musty, at my Chess-play; But this shall supple him, when he has read it: Take your own Recreation for two hours, And ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... Now, as I crept up, I saw little that was strange—only two men walking to and fro in earnest conversation, and from where I lay—for nearer I durst not approach—I could hear nothing of their talk. They were men of light and supple build, bearded, and of dark swarthy skin, as of those who know no shelter but the decking of a ship, and their hands were seldom absent, as they paced it side by side, from the hilts of the brace of daggers swinging from their waists. I guessed that they ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar

... Martinez Ruiz) and Jose Ortega y Gasset, to the sober sentences of the Rector of the University of Salamanca, Miguel de Unamuno, writing with a restraint which is anything but traditionally Castilian, and to the journalistic impressionism of Ramiro de Maeztu, supple and cosmopolitan from long residence abroad. The poets now jettisoned the rotundities of the romantic and emotional schools of Zorrilla and Salvador Rueda, and substituted instead the precise, pictorial ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... To a humour supple to such temptation the tang of lawlessness in a project innocent enough was irresistible. Besides, what was the harm? What could be the objection, even were the escapade to be discovered ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... youth, when it had been, the instrument of uncommon strength, and wielded an authority that none could stand against. Her fancy wandered over the scenes it had known; when it had felled trees in the wild forest; and those fingers, then supple and slight, had played the fife to the struggling men of the Revolution; how its activity had outdone the activity of all other hands in clearing and cultivating those very fields where her feet loved to run; ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... "Supple as a willow twig, eh?" he laughed. "Well, I have made whistles out of willows before now, and hallo! where ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... wield, Nor seek for glory, in the tented field: To minds of ruder texture, these be given— Thy soul shall nearer soar its native heaven. Haply, in polish'd courts might be thy seat, But, that thy tongue could never forge deceit: The courtier's supple bow, and sneering smile, The flow of compliment, the slippery wile, Would make that breast, with indignation, burn, And, all the glittering snares, to tempt thee, spurn. 320 Domestic happiness will stamp ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... suggest : proponi, inspiri, pensigi. suit : konveni; tauxgi. suitable : deca, konvena, tauxga. sum : sumo. —"up", resumi. summer : somero. -"house", lauxbo. summon : kunvoki, procesi. superfluity : superfluo, tromulto. superintendent : intendanto. superior : supera. superstition : supersticxo. supple : fleksebla. support : subteni. suppose : supozi, konjekti. sure : certa surface : suprajxo. surgeon : hxirurgo. surgery : hxirurgio. surprise : mir'o, -igi, ("take by"—) surprizi. surrender : cedi, kapitulaci. survey : termezuri. susceptible : impresema. suspect ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... show nothing of his own emotion. It was his part to be merely a mirror, to reflect rather than to feel, to be an instrument infinitely supple and unfailing, never an independent intelligence. Not otherwise could he count on holding his place in ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... y-wrought a curious pin; A love-knot in the greater end there was. His head was bald, and shone as any glass, And eke his face, as it had been anoint; He was a lord full fat and in good point; His eyen steep,* and rolling in his head, *deep-set That steamed as a furnace of a lead. His bootes supple, his horse in great estate, Now certainly he was a fair prelate; He was not pale as a forpined* ghost; *wasted A fat swan lov'd he best of any roast. His palfrey was as brown as ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... their silver leaves to the sunshine in an 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 of waves of water, green swells ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood

... spectatorship. Gerald and Phebe were skipping stones, thoroughly absorbed in energetic enjoyment of the simple game; their two contrasting figures, Gerald dark and tall and slim, and Phebe so round and fair and supple, making a pretty-enough picture for any artist. Olly, little Maggie Dexter, and an assortment of sturdy urchins known throughout Joppa only as the Anthony boys, were dancing and chattering aimlessly around, ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... in screaming wild alarms O'er a dead carcase muttering her charms, 410 (And with her frequent and tremendous yell Forcing great Hecate from out of hell) Shoots in the corpse a new fictitious soul; With instant glare the supple eyeballs roll, Again it moves and speaks, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... municipal corruptions, or private intemperance, or successful fraud, or immoral politics, or unjust wars, or the cheating of Indians, or the robbery of frontier nations, or leaving your principles at home to follow on the high seas or in Europe a supple complaisance to tyrants,—it is hypocrisy, and the truth is not in you; and no love of religious music, or of dreams of Swedenborg, or praise of John Wesley, or of Jeremy Taylor, can save you from the Satan which ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... had abandoned the chase at the moment when victory was within its grasp, Dixon rose lithely to his feet. The protecting hood had brought a quick and complete recovery from the devastating effects of the green moon's rays. His muscles were again supple, and his brain once more functioned ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... anywhere, as graceful and winning a creature as the sun that day shone on,—slender limbs, not too heavy flanks, round body, and aristocratic head, with small ears, and luminous, intelligent, affectionate eyes. How alert, supple, free, she was! What untaught grace in every movement! What a charming pose when she lifted her head, and turned it to regard her child! You would have had a companion picture if you had seen, as I saw that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... found the Jew when he came to look upon him to save him—"As for thy nativity," says God, "in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person, in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... fitted her hands like a second skin. Her beautiful black hair looked as smooth as satin under her hat. Her little ears were like rosy shells—they had a pearl dangling from each of them. She came swiftly out to us, as straight as a lily on its stem, and as lithe and supple in every movement she made as a young cat. Nothing that I could discover was altered in her pretty face, but her eyes and her lips. Her eyes were brighter and fiercer than I liked to see; and her lips had so completely lost their colour and their smile that ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... moved, and walked or flew; Birds on the branches warbling; all things smiled; With fragrance and with joy my heart o'erflowed. Myself I then perused, and limb by limb Surveyed, and sometimes went, and sometimes ran With supple joints, as lively vigor led; But who I was or where, or from what cause, Knew not."—Paradise Lost, Book viii. The who, the where (in any extended sense, that is, as regarded the external relations of his own country), ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... nostrils, regular features, a clear, transparent skin, a neck like a swan, and a wealth of wavy brown hair, which was a wonder to look at and was in striking contrast to the whiteness of her complexion. A free life in the open air had made her as supple as an eel and as agile as a deer. It was said that, encumbered by her womanly raiment, she had been known to place one hand upon a six-barred fence and clear it at a single bound. And now her agility was to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... superior critical judgment that belongs to him who, in no matter what circumstance, holds back, Rodolphe saw other delights to be got out of this love. He thought all modesty in the way. He treated her quite sans facon.* He made of her something supple and corrupt. Hers was an idiotic sort of attachment, full of admiration for him, of voluptuousness for her, a beatitude that benumbed her; her soul sank into this drunkenness, shrivelled up, drowned in it, like Clarence in his ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... faintest trace of a smile touched her lips. She turned, settled the pillows to her liking, and stretched out her supple figure on the sofa with ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... in yawning from time to time with the utmost abandon. Armitage had never seen a woman quite like the mother. Somewhat above medium height, there was nothing in the least way matronly about her figure; it had still the beautiful supple lines of her youth, and her dark brown hair was untinged by the slightest suggestion of gray. It was the face that portrayed the inexorable progress of the years and the habits and all that in them had lain. Cold, calculating, unyielding, the metallic eyes dominated a gray ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... would have astonished her husband, with her new neighbors. Apparently she was not over twenty-five. Her chestnut hair was a marvel for brightness and profusion, her broad brow smooth and white, her figure, as Winston had described it to his sister, rounded, even to voluptuousness, yet supple as it had been at fifteen. In her cheeks, too, the blushes fluctuated readily and softly, and when she smiled, her teeth showed like those of a little child in size and purity. Her voice matched her beauty well, never loud, always melodious, with a peculiar, gliding, legato movement ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... knife, put it between your teeth, and, standing over him, take the caps off your gun, and lay it down by your side. Then handcuff him, in whatever way you best can. The reason of setting to work in this way is, that a quick supple savage, while you are fumbling with your strings, and bothered with a loaded gun, might easily spring round, seize hold of it, and quite turn the tables against you. But if the gun had no caps on, it would be of little use in his hands, except as a club; and also, if ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... loved to lead; One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, Not lured by any cheat of birth, 170 But by his clear-grained human worth, And brave old wisdom of sincerity! They knew that outward grace is dust; They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, 175 And supple-tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind, Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind; 180 Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, Fruitful and friendly ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... psalm, which calls upon rocks and hills to break forth into singing, and trees of the field to clap their hands, because He cometh as the King to judge the earth. His own parable tells us how we ought to regard His coming. When the fig-tree's branch begins to supple, and the little leaves to push their way through the polished stem, then we know that summer is at hand. His coming should be as the approach of that glorious, fervid time, in which the sunshine has tenfold brilliancy ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... him, and what a scene it was! She, black, brawny, of immense physical power—he, lithe, sinewy, supple as a panther. It was a spectacle! First one, then the other, seemed to have the advantage. She would catch him in her powerful grasp, and, lifting him off his feet, swing him in the air as if about to slam him to his final resting-place, when by some inexplicable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... he cast off his coat and began to roll his sleeves back, leaving bare that magnificent forearm of his, supple and dexterous. Imitating him we were both soon ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... downward. And as she wheeled about, Olof again was aware of something he had not marked before—the curve of her hips, her lithe, supple waist, and the splendid poise of her head. He was so close now that her hair touched his face—touched it, or was it only the air as it flew past his cheek? And from her eyes shot beams of light, ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski

... the neck, struggled at the end of the liana, which, supple as a cord, had formed into a slipknot, and the shakings came from the jerks into which he still agitated it in the last convulsions ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... it had become evident, both to his parents and to his friends, that young Graham was destined to become some sort of a creative genius. He was tall and supple, with a pale complexion, large nose, full lips, jet-black eyes, and jet-black hair, brushed high and usually rumpled into a curly tangle. In temperament he was a true scientific Bohemian, with the ideals of a savant and ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... mystery to the classical lines of her face. Sanin was especially struck that day by the exquisite beauty of her hands; when she smoothed and put back her dark, glossy tresses he could not take his eyes off her long supple fingers, held slightly apart from one another like ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... quick and supple intelligence, who mastered without effort, and as if by instinct, the encyclopaedic knowledge of his age, who found himself at his ease amidst the deepest abstractions, did, at the beginning, ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... the eager faces and noted the lithe, supple bodies of the boys, in whose eyes shone the light ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster

... And, waiting while he disappear'd, Exulted, trembled, hop'd, and fear'd? Then felt his heart, 'midst cheering cries, Bound with delight to see him rise? Who hath not burnt with rage, to see Falshood's vile cant, and supple knee; Then hail'd, on some courageous brow, The power that works her overthrow; That, swift as lightning, seals her doom, With, "Miscreant vanish!—truth is come?" So PEN-Y-VALE upheav'd his brow, And left the world of fog below; So SKYRID, ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield

... deep shadow of a clump of chestnut-trees. Something moved, behind the very tree he was looking at. A figure came lightly out into the open; a woman's figure, slight and supple, clad in shadowy white. A dryad? No! the girl he had seen in the summer-house. He knew the face, as it shone upturned in the moonlight; knew the firm mouth and chin, the blue eyes, the look of careless power; seen once only, it was as if he had ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards

... leave the matter with the Gods, and in the morning God shall grant the power to whom he may. But give me now the polished bow, and let me in your presence prove my skill and power and see if I have yet such vigor left as once there was within my supple limbs, or whether wanderings ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... the city, within closed doors, I saw a young slave-girl dancing. She was about fifteen years old, thin and supple; she danced like a reed in the wind; but her eyes were weary as death, and her white body was marked with bruises. She stumbled, and the men laughed at her. She fell, and her mistress beat her, crying out that she would fain be rid of such a heavy-footed slave. I ...
— The Sad Shepherd • Henry Van Dyke

... by her side—that of a girl on the threshold of young womanhood and of a beauty that dazzled the eyes of the old voluptuary. How had she come there and in such company, this ravishing girl on whom Nature had lavished the last touch of virginal loveliness, this maiden with her figure of such supple grace, the proud little oval face with its complexion of cream and roses, the dainty head from which twin plaits of golden hair fell almost to her knees, and the eyes blue as violets, now veiled demurely, ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... this line, 'Were gone to the juvenile work of neat wrestling.' It would be hard to say what 'neat' wrestling is. He seems not to have known, that the 'Palaestra' was called 'nitida,' as shining with the oil which the wrestlers used for making their limbs supple, and the more difficult for their antagonist to grasp. Juvenal gives the epithet 'ceromaticum' to the neck of the athlete, or wrestler, which word means 'rubbed ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... needs out of the confines of his home has for years been the cause of his great popularity abroad, and in his thirty-three cheerful drawings he discloses his entire home life, in all the variety of happenings which makes married existence a success. His drawing is faultless, his sense of colour supple and refreshing, and his ability to make such extensive use of the relatively narrow atmosphere of his home without exhausting it proves his caliber. Larsson has a roommate of great distinction and modesty ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... 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 ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus

... fancies. He slapped the spotted cubes on the table and as they rolled into equilibrium eager eyes counted them, and fingers eager or reluctant pinched or pushed at coins. The spell of the music was broken. The melodious Abbess, with eyes now glittering and tearless, swung her supple body from table to bench, thrust herself a place among the players, shouted to Robin Turgis to bring more wine, and spreading some silver on the dingy board surrendered to speculation. Nobody heeded the faint clink which told that ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... table was also using her eyes, but in 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 ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... fair as the faces of women, and as they lounged, half-naked, carelessly in the drift, their muscles stood out in knots, and in the dim light of the candles, as they rose to return to work, their movements were supple and elastic as those of caged lions. The one who answered to the name of Browning was shorter than the other by an inch, but deeper-chested; the candlelight showed that his eyes were blue, and his mustache ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... at the feel of the rapier in his hand. He had always loved these encounters with the sword, whether in play or earnest. He had not lacked training of a certain rude sort, and his wrist was strong and supple, his eye wary and keen; moreover, he had length of reach and strength of muscle. After the first bout Lord Claud gave him an approving nod, and, looking at the man who ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... never was there a more marked contrast of nature. The one seemed a perfect type of well-developed childish health and vigor, good solid flesh and bones, with glowing skin, brilliant eyes, shining teeth, well-knit, supple limbs,—vigorously and healthily beautiful; while the other appeared one of those aerial mixtures of cloud and fire, whose radiance seems scarcely earthly. A physiologist, looking at the child, would shake ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... hewed out of a 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

... clay from the marshy river-side at Vanua Lava. At first he made men and pigs just alike, but his brothers remonstrated with him, so he beat down the pigs to go on all fours and made men walk upright. Qat fashioned the first woman out of supple twigs, and when she smiled he knew she was a living woman. (R.H. Codrington, "The Melanesians" (Oxford, 1891), page 158.) A somewhat different version of the Melanesian story is told at Lakona, in Santa Maria. There they say that Qat and another spirit ("vui") called Marawa both made men. Qat made ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... of all that they ate preserved an activity of vital power long exceeding our span of life. The length of their year, measured by the two seasons, was the same as ours, but the women who had marked a hundred of them in their lifetime, looked younger and fresher, and were more supple of limb than myself, yet I had ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... contrary, all decent and honest ways and means of securing ourselves from harms, are not only permitted, but, moreover, commendable, and the business of constancy chiefly is, bravely to stand to, and stoutly to suffer those inconveniences which are not possibly to be avoided. So that there is no supple motion of body, nor any movement in the handling of arms, how irregular or ungraceful soever, that we need condemn, if they serve to protect us from the blow that is made ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... in her life, were almost enough to pay for all the pain she taught me. Such talks! I can close my eyes and actually smell the sea-weed and the damp sand and hear the inrush of the big combers. She used to sit in the lee of the rocks, all huddled in that heavy, supple army-blue officer's cloak of hers with its tarnished silver clasps, and talk as Miranda must have talked to Ferdinand's old bachelor friend, who probably appreciated the chance—too well, the ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... thought that appeared to dissatisfy and disquiet him, Boabdil again turned impatiently round "My soul wants the bath of music," said he; "these journeys into a pathless realm have wearied it, and the streams of sound supple and ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book I. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Etienne were walking side by side in the procession, and it was impossible to help being struck by the contrast in their appearance—the one supple and lithe in every limb, with dark, restless eyes, and quick, nervous temperament; the other, the English boy, with his brown hair, his sunburnt, yet handsome features—the fruit of country air and exercise—far stouter and sturdier than ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... your slender arms, and girdled 'round your supple waist, A robe of curious silk that graced, but ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson

... said he, 'if your supple tongue had left you power to hear mine. In this leathern purse there are twenty gowden guineas—a goodly sum; but whether goodly or no, you must be content; yea, the never a penny more you may expect, for all connection between this ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... the censurer, that he at thee should flite? How shall I be consoled for thee, and thou a sapling slight? O thou, the splendour of whose sight has ta'en my heart by storm, Whose supple bending grace compels to passion's utmost height,[FN125] Whose eyes, with Turkish languor caught, work havoc in the breast And leave such wounds as ne'er were made by falchion in the fight! Thou layst on me ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous

... errors. Ah! to attain that glorious result, I have studied to their depths the masters of color. I have analyzed and lifted, layer by layer, the colors of Titian, king of light. Like him, great sovereign of art, I have sketched my figure in light clear tones of supple yet solid color; for shadow is but an accident,—remember that, young man. Then I worked backward, as it were; and by means of half-tints, and glazings whose transparency I kept diminishing little by little, I was able to cast strong shadows deepening almost to blackness. ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac

... knob and watched the great discs begin to whir softly around under their glass dome. At the familiar sound her hunger for the coming comfort mounted fiercely, and she seized the long, supple, silk-wrapped cords and pressed the bulbs to either temple. A slight shock ran through her blood and with the realization of her folly came the knowledge that she could not take down her hands. The whirring grew, doubled, multiplied in volume; the room seemed to sway and rock; ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... cruelties. Thirty thousand of his opponents fell in this battle, and Sextus Pompey alone, of all the marked men, escaped to the mountains, and defied pursuit. On this victory he celebrated his last triumph, and the supple Senate decreed to him the title of Imperator. He was made consul for ten years, dictator for life, his person was decreed inviolable, and he was surrounded by a guard of nobles and senators. He also received ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... to see her spring up into an apple-tree and cling to a bough lightly as a bird. She snatched at the fruit, ate it, and dropped to the ground with the same supple grace that charms us in a squirrel. The elasticity of her limbs took all appearance of awkwardness or effort from her movements. She played about upon the grass, rolling in it as a young child might have done; then, on a sudden, she lay still and stretched out her feet and hands, with ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac

... then the most successful play running in New York. The house was sold out weeks ahead, and after the matinee you might observe the street in front of the stage-entrance blocked by people waiting to see the woman come out. She was lithe and supple, like a panther, and wore close-fitting gowns to reveal her form. It seemed that her play must have been built with one purpose in mind, to see how much lewdness could be put upon a stage without interference by the ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... was a marvel of supple, exaggerated grace and the quadrille looked like a free-for-all for unbroken colts. The honor of prompter was conferred upon the sheriff, and he gravely called the changes as they were usually called in that section ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... given that huge girth to the thorax, or have exaggerated the mighty hand with such delight in sinewy force. These qualities, peculiar to Buonarroti's sense of form, do not detract from the languid pose and supple rhythm of the figure, which flows down, a sinuous line of beauty, through the slightly swelling flanks, along the finely moulded thighs, to loveliest feet emerging from the marble. It is impossible, while gazing on this statue, not to hear a strain of intellectual music. Indeed, like melody, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... other side of forty, complexion a bronze paleness, hair a bronze brown, in strong ringlets cropped short behind,—handsome hair for a man; lips that, when closed, showed inflexible decision, when speaking, became supple and flexible with an easy humour and a vigilant finesse; eyes of a red hazel, quick but steady,—observing, piercing, dauntless eyes; altogether a fine countenance,—would have been a very fine countenance in a man; ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... 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

... 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 ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... the men who were securing the horses, and Alice stood watching her husband's movements. She was a beautiful woman of that strong, dark Celtic type, so common in Ireland. Her strong supple figure was displayed to perfection in a simple tweed suit with a jacket of the Norfolk pattern. She stood for some moments watching with deep contemplative eyes. Then she ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... or a well-trained falcon. Moreta presented him to her, delighted at finding such an opportunity to pay his court; but scarcely was Rizzio in her service than Mary discovered that music was the least of his gifts, that he possessed, besides that, education if not profound at least varied, a supple mind, a lively imagination, gentle ways, and at the same time much boldness and presumption. He reminded her of those Italian artists whom she had seen at the French court, and spoke to her the tongue of Marot and Ronsard, whose most beautiful poems he ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... that was to blame—for a full-length, supple-shafted, wooden driver would have been what you or I would have chosen for that stroke—or perhaps West himself was to blame. That as it may be, the fact remains that that provoking ball flew clear over the bunker as though ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... history as the heads and representatives of those supreme crises which have determined the fate of two great nations. For extent and energy of natural talents, Cromwell is perhaps the most remarkable of the three. His mind was wonderfully prompt, firm, just, supple, and inventive, and he possessed a vigor of character which no obstacle could daunt, no conflict weary; he pursued his designs with an ardor as exhaustless as his patience, whether through the slowest and most tortuous ways, or the most abrupt ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... her was fully awake. Every sense of right and justice inherited and taught came flocking forward. Horror unspeakable filled her, and wrath, that such a dreadful thing should come to her. There was no time to think. She brought her two strong supple hands up and beat him in the face, mouth, cheeks, and eyes, with all her might, until he turned blinded; and then she struggled away crying, "You are a wicked man!" and fled from ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... any wonder that Andrew could not answer? He felt all at once so supple that he was hot tallow which those small fingers would mold and ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... water till they could pull off the hair very easily; they then rubbed the wet leather with their hands till it was nearly dry, when they spread some melted reindeer fat over it, and again rubbed it well. By this process the leather became soft, pliant, and supple—proper for answering every purpose they wanted it for. Those skins which they designed for furs they only soaked one day, to prepare them for being wrought, and then proceeded in the manner before-mentioned, except only that they did not remove the hair. Thus they soon ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... fell a dagger glittered in the sunlight and rolled clinking over the stones. The man went down hard and did not move. With the same abrupt violence, and a manner of contempt, Stewart threw Hawe off the porch, then Don Carlos, who, being less supple, fell heavily. Then the mob backed before Stewart's rush until all ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... and his legs are short and bandy, as you have seen a creeper cockerel's: he has one eye black and one eye blue, and both are glazed and dull as the knobs on earthen tea-pot covers. His ears are round, and stick forward like a weasel's; his form is square and supple, and he stands more than perpendicular. Ready and sharp is he for a joke, cold and unfeeling in manner, and troublesome as the varlet blackbirds that sit on a tree and gabble and moot, while other birds give ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... and sonorous verse that rings from the lips of Coriolanus or of Timon, of Brachiano or the Duchess of Malfy; not by any servility of discipleship or reverberation of an imitative echo. It is so rich and full and supple, so happy in its freedom and so loyal in its instinct, that its veriest audacities and aberrations have an indefinable harmony of their own. Even if we admit that Tourneur is to Webster but as Webster is to Shakespeare, ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... treatment are at the end of a few weeks very apparent. The body is supple, the carriage is erect, the cutaneous, circulatory, muscular and nervous systems are in a healthy state, and the stupid, bewildered or stolid expression has given way to one of ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... he, "I am Hugh Morrison from Glenae, come of the Manly Morrisons of auld langsyne, that never took short weapon against a man in their lives. And neither needed they; they had their broadswords, and I have this bit supple (showing a formidable cudgel)—for dirking ower the board, I leave that to John Highlandman. Ye needna snort, none of you Highlanders, and you in especial, Robin. I'll keep the bit knife, if you are feared for the auld spae-wife's tale, and give it back to you ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various

... time of full moon, and on this account, though the sky was lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary objects out of doors were readily visible. The sad wan light revealed the lonely pedestrian to be a man of supple frame; his gait suggested that he had somewhat passed the period of perfect and instinctive agility, though not so far as to be otherwise than rapid of motion when occasion required. At a rough guess, he might have ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... of intense exhilaration. The movements of her supple body in her ample chair were quick and graceful and sinuous, like a slender snake's; she seemed a-thrill and glowing; it was as though for the moment life was for her as a great dynamo to which she had drawn ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... Miss Hilton? She'll have been sadly hindered with all this rain. They put off two cricket-matches this week. They're not playing football yet, or else the weather wouldn't matter so much. They say the wet weather keeps their joints supple. It's the dry weather and frost that's so hard to play in. Ted's always one for a lot of sport, specially football. Such a mess as he comes home sometimes. 'You must clean your own clothes,' I always says to him. We have a joke at ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone

... Australian journalism is written it will contain two outstanding Irish names: Daniel Henry Deniehy, who died in 1865, was called by Bulwer Lytton "the Australian Macaulay" on account of his brilliant writings as critic and reviewer in the press of Victoria. Gerald Henry Supple, another Dublin man, is also remembered for his contributions to the Age and the Argus of Melbourne. In India one of the first—if not the first—English newspapers was founded by a Limerick man, named Charles Johnstone, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... 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

... Elliston, Esq. One of Harlow's best portraits: the likeness is admirable, and the tone well accords with Elliston's unguent, supple expression. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various

... words "going to whip you" "Dodd" tried to find words to beg, but they came too slowly, and once more the old man wrapped the supple lash about the smarting understandings of ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... sunburnt face bore an expression of animation with a certain humorous anxiety natural in a man who was generally a good deal in debt and always a little in love. Further he had the advantage of a tall, strong yet supple figure, with a natural grace of movement and much personal charm. Harry knew he was good-looking and did not undervalue the fact, but regarded it solely as an asset, not as a private satisfaction. He regarded everything as an asset. He was no fop, although he wore a ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... candour and logical honesty. But if the subject of debate be something in the air, an abstraction, an excuse for talk, a logical Aunt Sally, then may the male debater instantly abandon hope; he may employ reason, adduce facts, be supple, be smiling, be angry, all shall avail him nothing; what the woman said first, that (unless she has forgotten it) she will repeat at the end. Hence, at the very junctures when a talk between men grows brighter and ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of the crowd trod nervously on the toes of those behind, edging out of reach of his restless, dancing hoofs. For it seemed impossible that the woman in the saddle should be really his master. And yet she sat upright and unconcerned. In its black, close-fitting habit, her supple body looked a living, vital part of the splendid beast. She was his brain, stronger than his savage instinct, and every threatening move of his great limbs was dictated to him without a sound, almost ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... his hands for a few minutes, reflected profoundly. In the meantime, a tall, loosely-made man entered the room; his spare, thin face, steady look, and hooked nose, as he entered Colbert's cabinet, with a modest assurance of manner, revealed a character at once supple and decided,—supple towards the master who could throw him the prey, firm towards the dogs who might possibly be disposed to dispute its possession. M. Vanel carried a voluminous bundle of papers under his arm, and placed it on the desk on which ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... considered anywhere, as graceful and winning a creature as the sun that day shone on,—slender limbs, not too heavy flanks, round body, and aristocratic head, with small ears, and luminous, intelligent, affectionate eyes. How alert, supple, free, she was! What untaught grace in every movement! What a charming pose when she lifted her head, and turned it to regard her child! You would have had a companion picture if you had seen, as I saw that morning, a baby kicking about ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... At that moment I hear a heavy footfall, as of some great beast, on the thick dry leaves. The high grass parts. First a magnificent yellow head emerges, infinitely alert; then the long, lithe body, a picture of supple grace and immense strength. A superb spectacle the creature presents, with his lovely coat gleaming in the hot sun. But the din is drawing near. Down goes the massive head; wide, cruel lips draw back, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... men, is but a 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 side ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... But alas! though supple and active, Linty was old, and the day could not be distant when they must part company: she was then nine and twenty. And now—the night before, she had been taken ill: there was a disease about amongst the horses. The men had been ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... commencement of hostilities; and the Honourable Mr. Sparkle had been carried home to his lodging, early in the fray, more overcome by hard drinking than hard fighting, and there safely put to bed by the indefatigable Mark Supple, to whose friendly zeal and more effective arm we were all much indebted. In this reflective mood, I had watched the retiring shadows of the night gradually disperse before the gray-eyed morn, and had just caught a glimpse of the golden streaks which illumine the face of day, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... steps holding herself stiffly erect, head uptilted—a striking figure, graceful, supple, almost commanding. In fact, so attractive was the picture she made as she stood a moment on the sidewalk, that a passing policeman, seized by a gallant impulse, opened the door of the waiting taxicab and held it ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... 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 ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... method was as delicate as himself—a virtuoso of the air, clever, supple and quickwitted, whose hand and eye equaled his thought in rapidity? Was it Deullin, skilled in approach, and prompt as the tempest? Or the long-enduring, robust, admirable sous-lieutenant Nungessor, or Sergeant Sauvage, ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... flame burns joyously and bright, Limbs are supple, radiant is the night; On the hearth when fire with ardour glows, Ripe the sap of plants ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... those who toss in waves. They care for mothers left to starve, alone. In pestilence, they labor long to soothe The fevered brow and ease the gnawing pain With medicine and shelter, food and clothes. In war the wound is dressed and duly nursed With gentle supple hands—with nourishment For mind and body. Cross of red, all hail! They serve for us most willingly and well. Then chide themselves when they have come too late! Like mothers when their sons have fallen short; In early dawn and through the night they toil. O God do ...
— Clear Crystals • Clara M. Beede

... approach of her distinguished visitor by an advance rendered as obvious as possible by the rustling sweep of the parted curtains and an unwonted emphasis of tread, which avoided the rugs and sought the tesselated floor for this purpose, the supple figure stood erect and in an attitude of questioning deference awaited whatever demonstration might follow this ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... fact that this impetuous young student was regarded as the finest-looking man at Bowdoin. He was not much less than six feet tall, and was strong, supple and well proportioned. His dark hair waved back from a handsomely formed face; and his deep blue eyes, under their heavy brows, impressed one with their remarkable ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... have gained me more easily, I think,' Mr. Gladstone wrote years afterwards, 'by a more open and supple method of expostulation. But he was not skilful, I think, in the management of personal or sectional dilemmas, as he showed later on with respect to two important questions, the Factory acts and the crisis on the sugar duties in 1844.' This ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... amused by his caustic dispraise Of President WILSON'S Chadbandian ways, Of the cynical TIGER, laconic and grim, And our versatile PREMIER, so supple and slim— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various

... meant to be careful whom I admitted, but I had scarcely withdrawn the latch when the door was pushed open, and a slim, thickly-cloaked figure glided past me into the room. I knew her by the supple swiftness of her movements. Ray sat still, and smoked with the face of ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... 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 ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... "Look out, Evelin!" flinging the plank to the ground at the same instant in such a way as to momentarily check the rush of the Greek. Lance at the call turned round, and was just in time to save himself from an ugly blow by catching Ralli's uplifted arm in his left hand. The pirate, lithe and supple as a serpent, writhed and twisted in Lance's grasp in his efforts to get free, but it was all in vain; he was helpless as a child in the iron grasp of the stalwart soldier, and he was at length compelled to fling his knife to the ground ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... went singing through the hall, the Colonel tried to frown over his glasses, but he was only partially successful. She was too satisfying a sight with her shining hair and eyes, and lithe, supple figure, every motion of which bespoke that quick, unconscious freedom of body peculiar to children and those favored of the gods, ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... was so salaciously enjoying. She soon found she must come to more rapid and vigorous movements, and lying down on my belly embraced and kissed me. Toying with our tongues I put an arm round her waist, and held her tight, while her glorious buttocks and most supple loins kept up the most delicious thrust and pressures on my thoroughly engulphed weapon. I again stimulated her to the highest pitch of excited desires by introducing my finger behind, and we both came to the grand crisis in ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... forest a huntsman and his wife and son. From his earliest years the boy, whose name was Fergus, used to hunt with his father in the forest, and he grew up strong and active, sure and swift-footed as a deer, and as free and fearless as the wind. He was tall and handsome; as supple as a mountain ash, his lips were as red as its berries; his eyes were as blue as the skies in spring; and his hair fell down over his shoulders like a shower of gold. His heart was as light as a bird's, ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... three minutes he looked at the picture in silence, and she thought his expression had become slightly hostile. His audacious and rather thick lips were set together firmly, almost too firmly. His splendid figure supple, athletic and harmonious, looked almost rigid. She wondered what he was feeling, whether he disliked the portrait of the judge of the Criminal Court at which he was looking. ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... and social functions to have sufficient time to devote to vocal study and all that goes with it. There are many other things to study; some piano if possible, languages of course, physical culture and acting, to make the body supple and graceful. I say some piano should be included, at least enough to play accompaniments at sight. But when she has mastered her song or role, she needs an accompanist, for she can never play the music as it should ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... full of women as men. They have to eat, drink, and be clothed, and, until other opportunities are obtained, their supplies are infinitely smaller than those offered to men. Why should women, whose supple fingers can set type—why should not they be type-setters? The printers joined together in bands and swore by all the gods they knew that women should not be printers. They joined together in a body and printed ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... behind her beautiful, tawny head, quite well aware that the attitude set off the perfect modeling of the soft, supple body. She looked up at him ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... wonder?" "My! but wasn't that a nobby traveling suit, and such a fit!" "Katherine Minturn—pretty name, isn't it?" "Does anybody know anything more about her?" were some of the comments and queries that slipped from those supple instruments with a tendency towards perpetual motion, which, sometimes, are described as organs that are hung in the middle and wag at both ends— ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... on, arguing with his companion, who was rather spare than prodigal in his person, but marvelously lithe and supple. The latter was shod with low shoes, garters united the stockings to the light-blue breeches, the waistcoat was cane-colored, his sash light green, and jaunty shoulder-knots, lappets, and rows of buttons ornamented the carmelite jacket. The open cloak, the hat drawn over his ear, his short, ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various

... possessed, the silken supple forms beneath To all the bliss the measures breathe and all the madness ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger

... being preserved—and she united with these a rare physical beauty. M. Leroy, Keeper of the Park of Versailles, thus describes her at the time of her meeting with the King: "She was taller than the average, graceful, supple, and elegant. Her features comported well with her stature, a perfect oval face, framed by beautiful hair of a light shade, large eyes marked by eyebrows of the same hue, a perfect nose, a charming mouth, ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... very food, even the meat, would have to be eaten raw, and as knives and forks would be unknown, it would have to be devoured with hands and teeth. We read that the Tartar horseman will put a beefsteak under his saddle, and supple and cook it in a ten-mile ride; but we cannot all follow his example, and many would think the game was not worth the candle. But not only should we be obliged to eat our food uncooked; we should enjoy none of the blessings and comforts bestowed upon us by science, which ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... these reports passed into decrees, agreeably to the wishes of the democrats. Barrere, whose habitual speeches in the convention were calculated to disguise his servitude from himself, was one of the most supple instruments of the committee; he belonged to the regime of terror, neither from cruelty nor from fanaticism. His manners were gentle, his private life blameless, and he possessed great moderation of mind. But ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... 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, ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie

... before. You'll see some hopping to beat the band, too. I've managed to cover a good deal of territory up to now but, say, I aspire to do still better. I'm rubbing snake oil on my joints right along so as to make 'em more supple. Why, I'd bathe in it if I thought that would make me better able to do my part toward corraling ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton

... was accepted. To-day science has discovered substitutes for almost all of worth that the whales once supplied, and the substitutes are in the main marked improvements on the original. But in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the clear whale oil for illuminating purposes, the tough and supple whalebone, the spermaceti which filled the great case in the sperm-whale's head, the precious ambergris—prized even among the early Hebrews, and chronicled in the Scriptures as a thing of great price—were prizes, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... another version of the Gita Govinda where Krishna is shown consorting with the cowgirls in blissful abandon.[119] In both these series, the inherent loveliness of Radha and the cowgirls is expressed by supple flowing line, a flair for natural posture and the inclusion of poetic images. The scarlet of a cowgirl's skirt is echoed by the redness of a gathering storm, the insertion of Krishna into the background suggesting the passionate nature of their imminent ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer

... her lithe figure curved now right, now left, to the lilting cadence. Supple as a silken tube her slender body seemed to drink up the fluid sound. No one could have sworn in that vague light that her feet even so much as touched the ground. She was a wraith! A phantasy! A fluctuant miracle of sound ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... had been chosen for the combat was suitable enough, quite apart from its solitude. The morning air was clear and even; the sun's height caused no diverting rays to disturb either adversary; the grass was smooth and supple to the feet; there was ample ground to break in ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... neighbours concluded they were bewitched. They conducted themselves as those supposed to 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, ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... been eighteen. Her long, slim figure, in its clinging riding habit, betrayed, despite roundness and supple grace, a certain immaturity. Her hands and feet were long and slender. Her sun-tanned cheek and neck were soft and rounded. Her mouth was delicately chiseled and the lips were pink as the heart of a Bridesmaid ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... sink under the load, and of course his family must suffer with him. On his exertions as a hunter their existence depends; in order to be able to follow that rough employment with success, he must keep his limbs as supple as he can, he must avoid hard labor as much as possible, that his joints may not become stiffened, and that he may preserve the necessary strength and agility of body to enable him to pursue the chase, and bear the unavoidable ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... limitations, gifted cutters could rise beyond the dead level of ordinary practice. As fine draughtsmen with a feeling for their materials they did not trace with the knife, they drew and carved with it. Their feeling for line and shape was sensitive, crisp, and supple. But although they created the masterpieces of the medium they suffered from the traditional contempt for their craft. Creative ability in a woodcutter was rarely recognized, and the art fell into gradual decline. By the time the 18th ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen

... blows. At their gathering places every man, when strife arises, seeks to possess himself of as many of these as possible, and hurls them then uncommonly far. Most of the Baiovarii carry a sort of spear, or in their language, "chaser", made of the hazel of their forests, with blunt end, supple, and very handy. In the lack of these weapons, each man assumes any that chance may offer. Indeed, for this purpose even articles of household furniture, such as tables and chairs, are robbed of their supports. In high favor are also the constituent parts of garden inclosures. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... foreigner? Perhaps that of itself proved the source of a mysterious attraction to her, and she may have found it a singular pleasure to converse with her Prime Minister in her mother tongue as a compatriot and friend. To all this must be added the mind and manners of Mazarin—supple and insinuating, always master of himself, of an unchangeable serenity amidst the gravest circumstances, full of confidence in his good star, and diffusing that confidence around him. It must also be remembered that Cardinal although he was, Mazarin was not a ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... noticed, are cautious and supple. They are some like cats; they fall on their feet. They are not rash like white men, but know better how to take care of their lives and limbs. That's why I don't think Ki Sing has tumbled down or hurt himself in ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... against the herds, over the rolling prairie. Many a buffalo fell upon the plain with Louis Riel's arrow quivering in his flank; many a feast was held around the giant pot at which no hunter received honours so marked as stolid male, and olive-skinned, bright-eyed, supple female, accorded him. Surfeited for the time of the luxury of the limitless plain, Riel took rest; and then a girl with the lustrous eyes of Normandy began to smile upon him, and to besiege his heart with all her mysterious force of coquetry. ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... middle-aged man; the other was still young. He was tall and sinewy, but slender, for these Venetians are rarely massive in their strength. Each limb is equally developed by the exercise of rowing upright, bending all the muscles to their stroke. Their bodies are elastically supple, with free sway from the hips and a mercurial poise upon the ankle. Stefano showed these qualities almost in exaggeration. The type in him was refined to its artistic perfection. Moreover, he was rarely in repose, but moved with a singular brusque grace. A black broad-brimmed ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... the quay to engage a boat. They walked shoulder to shoulder, flat-backed, with supple swinging limbs, tanned faces and clear animated eyes. Perhaps Harrigan was ten or fifteen pounds heavier, but the difference would have been noticeable ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... breast, and ebon locks, And big black eyes that dart the humid flame Which sets the heart ablaze; and red moist lips, And checks as spotless as the falling flake Ere it has touched the earth, and supple form Wherein is knit each grace of womanhood In its perfection! and with wanton looks That speak the burning language of desire, It seems to woo its loathsome follower,— Yet ever from his foul embraces flies. And on his brow his name is written, "Lust!" Dismiss the spectre, ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands

... ground, wrestling and striking according to their ability. Sholto might easily have had the best of the fray, but for the temper aroused by Laurence's recent degradation, for the elder brother was taller by an inch, and of a frame of body more lithe and supple. Moreover, the accuracy of Sholto MacKim's shape and the severe training of the smithy had not left a superfluous ounce of flesh ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... Princes, the supple courtier and the fawning favourite have greater influence than the profound statesman and subtle Minister; and the determinations of Cabinets are, therefore, frequently prepared in drawing-rooms, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... minutes flatwise slapping me. Wait, heart! Time moves. Thou lithe young Western Night, Just-crowned King, slow riding to thy right, Would God that I might straddle mutiny Calm as thou sitt'st yon never-managed sea, Balk'st with his balking, fliest with his flight, Giv'st supple to his rearings and his falls, Nor dropp'st one coronal star about thy brow, Whilst ever dayward thou art steadfast drawn Yea, would I rode these mad contentious brawls, No damage taking from their If and How, Nor no result save ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... who incessantly pepper the town with their cannon, and make the houses too hot to hold them; especially when they are hungry? Little would the gallant Arab cavalry, with their fine Libyan mares and horses, rich coats-of-mail, tough targets, well-tempered sabres, and long supple lances, avail them against the Spanish volleys. And who so proper to redress this grievance as the invincible Barbarossa, who was master of a naval force, and wanted not artillery? Had he not been twice to reinstate the unfortunate ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... now standing at a window that commanded the terrace. The evening was beautiful, and the walk crouded. There were assembled persons of all sexes and of different ranks. All appeared gaiety and splendour. The supple courtier and the haughty country gentleman seemed equally at their ease. There was thoughtless youth and narrative old age. The company passed along, and object ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin

... I let her suffer so, that I did not break down the partition with my hands and strike that supple gentleman dead at her feet in atonement for the anguish he was causing her. But I had a mind to see how far he would drive this game he was ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... scratch or fight to-day, or I wouldn't let you cover me up with this heap of gold; but I've got a rheumatic creak in my neck, which makes me physically stiff and morally supple and unprincipled, so I've put two pounds sixteen in my own "till," where it just fills up some lowering of the tide lately by German bands and the like, and I've put ten pounds aside for Sheffield Museum, now in instant mendicity, ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin

... responded master Dick, taking one of the coils from his pocket; "the best riding-switch in the world. All the whips that ever were made are nothing to it. Only see how strong it is, how light, and how supple! You may twist it a thousand ways without breaking. It won't break, do what you will. Each of these, now, is worth half-a-crown or three shillings, for they are the scarcest things possible. They grow up at a little distance from the root of an ...
— The Ground-Ash • Mary Russell Mitford

... her "for the sake of her child." But lo and behold, cure and cure was reported to her; so then her conscience began to harden. Martin Wittenhaagen had of late been a dead weight on her hands. Like most men who had endured great hardships, he had stiffened rather suddenly. But though less supple, he was as strong as ever, and at his own pace could have carried the doctor herself round Rotterdam city. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... that animation took place on the earth itself; but it became united with the body, and enabled it to grow. Of course a certain limit was set to that growth. Through the separation of the moon, the human body had for a time become supple; but the more it continued to grow on the earth, the more the solidifying forces got the upper hand. At length the share borne by the soul in the organization of the body grew less and less, and the body disintegrated when the soul ascended ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... 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 ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... The trumpet, and long roar of rumbling wheels, And clink of chiming bridles in 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 to curve each bending leg, And be like one that struggleth; ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... Complete in charms and courtesy. To her dear arms one night I came * And won meed given lawfully: I passed with her that self-same night * (Best of my nights!) in gladdest glee; And when the morning rose, she rose * And crescent like her visnomy: Then swayed her supple form as sway * The lances lopt from limber tree; And when farewelling me she cried, * 'When shall such nights return to me?' Then I replied, 'O eyen-light, * When ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... than the picture. Even from a distance he had made that out, as she stood there among the crowd, vivacious, vivid, clad all in white except for the loose coral-hued sweater which set off her warm brunette beauty and the slim but charmingly rounded curves of her supple young body. Yes, she was like Laura, like her and yet different, with a quality which he fancied belonged to herself ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... there civil war within the soul: Resolve is thrust from off the sacred throne By clamorous Needs, and Pride the grand-vizier Makes humble compact, plays the supple part Of envoy and ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... 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 ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... in the eyes of faith alone The good effects of the water shone; But skins grew rosy, eyes waxed clear, Of rough vaquero and muleteer; Angular forms were rounded out, Limbs grew supple and waists grew stout; And as for the girls,—for miles about They had no equal! To this day, From Pescadero to Monterey, You'll still find eyes in which are seen The liquid graces of ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... as they lay in their luxurious ease, Playing with grapes and rose-leaves, slim And willowy slave-girls, in the hope to please, Twisted and danced before them, to the dim Uncertain music in the shadows played; Some came with supple limb, With Mystery's aid And snake-like creep, Others with riotous leap And made festivity to Bacchus wed; Others with stiff Egyptian tread, And straight black hair hanging in glossy braid, They danced, unnoted, and exhausted fled. * * * * * Still floated ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West

... if his eyes, light-thirsty, had not learned To wake accustomed on earth's joyous day, A child, whose merriment and wonder burned In harmless flame, even his uniform Was but a lie to hide his wind-wild grace, Whose limbs were rounded youth, too supple, warm, To hold the measure of the street-made pace. Music and marching—colors in the sky— The crowded station, then the train—farewell! For all he had the glance, exultant, shy, That seemed to marvel, "More to see—to tell!" Yet with his breathing moved, hid by his ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... kavasses. The spectacle began. Two wrestlers or gladiators made their appearance, completely undressed, with the exception of trousers of strong leather. They had rubbed themselves all over with oil, so that their joints might be soft and supple, and also that their adversary should not be able to obtain a firm hold when they grappled together. They made several obeisances to the spectators, began with minor feats of wrestling, and frequently stopped for a few moments in order to husband their strength. Then the ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... the devil,' he said, 'had sought out an agent expressly for the purpose of embroiling this miserable country, I do not think he could find a better than such a fellow as this, whose temper seems equally active, supple, and mischievous, and who is followed, and implicitly obeyed, by a gang of such cut-throats as those whom you are pleased to admire ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... such amiable kindliness, that Mrs. Pasmer could not feel that it was pushing. She looked at her daughter, but she stood as passive in the transaction as the elder Mavering. She was taller than her mother, and as she waited, her supple figure described that fine lateral curve which one sees in some Louis Quinze portraits; this effect was enhanced by the fashion of her dress of pale sage green, with a wide stripe or sash of white dropping down the front, from her delicate waist. The same simple combination ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... warm and dry, and as he tested his muscles he found them supple and strong. Now he took precautions, thinking he had let the fire burn as long as was safe. He scattered the coals with a stick, and then softly crushed out each under the stout heel of his moccasin. With the minute patience ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... politician, whether a Clinton or a Livingston, Burrite, Federalist, or Republican,—all equally disliked Virginia; and this innate jealousy gave to the career of Martin Van Buren for forty years a bias which perplexed his contemporaries, and stood in singular contradiction to the soft and supple nature he seemed in all else to show."—Henry Adams, History of the United States, Vol. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... figure, the professor recommends something lithe and supple. Five foot four is a good height, but that is a point that should be discussed first with the dressmaker. For trains, five foot six is, perhaps, preferable. But for the sporting girl, who has to wear short frocks, that height would, of course, ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... cotton yarns. The knitting of socks went on incessantly. Ladies walked about in performance of household or plantation duties, sock in hand, "casting on," "heeling," "turning off." By the light of pine knots the elders still knitted far into the night, while to young eyes and more supple fingers was committed the task of finishing off comforts that had been "tacked" during the day, or completing heavy army overcoats; and painfully these ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... being born again. They must not only be born again but they must be born again each one of them of a new father and of a new mother and of a different line of ancestry for many generations before their minds could become supple enough to learn anew. The only thing to do with them was to humour them and make the best of them till they died—and be thankful ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... nimble and supple, They twist, an' they twine, an' they twirl, Such walking, an' running, an' kneeling, Does ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright

... capes and coats, the following furs and skins were formerly, or are still, exported from Canada. "Buffalo" robes—the carefully rubbed-down hides of the bison, rendered, by shaving and rubbing, so thin and supple that they could be easily folded; reindeer and musk-ox skins treated in the same way; marten or sable skins; mink (a kind of polecat); ermine (the white winter dress of the stoat); the fishing marten, or pekan; otter ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... in charms and courtesy. To her dear arms one night I came * And won meed given lawfully: I passed with her that self-same night * (Best of my nights!) in gladdest glee; And when the morning rose, she rose * And crescent like her visnomy: Then swayed her supple form as sway * The lances lopt from limber tree; And when farewelling me she cried, * 'When shall such nights return to me?' Then I replied, 'O eyen-light, * ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... youth. He was a handsome, ruddy young fellow of about six and twenty, with a little spiral moustache twisted upwards in betyar fashion, flowing curly locks gathered up into a top-knot, black flashing eyes, and a bold expressive mouth, slight of build, but muscular and supple. His dress was rustic, but simple almost to affectation; you would not have found a seal on his white bulging shirt, search as you might, and he wore his cap, with a tuft of meadow-sweet in it, as gallantly as ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... dark brown, and his hair was jet black; He was supple in body, and straight in the back, Learnt his lessons without any trouble at all; And was ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling

... arm encircled those soft yielding shoulders; the warm agitated bosom was touching mine; my hands held, and felt within it, the smooth muscles of the white arm—a vision of the whole indefinably supple form swam giddily before me in a suffocating proximity, till I pressed my hands on my eyes, and the thought came ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... 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 ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... took him by the throat, long, supple, muscular fingers stopping his wind. He saw a face upraised to his—an expressionless yellow face, with glittering, slanting eyes. He drew up his club for the blow. The slender fingers were probing upward, behind his jawbone, and ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... kana, and a third from far Ceylon, Studded with precious stones. Her eyes were like The stars of orient skies. Her teeth were black, Her face like water shone. Her chiselled nose Was prominent and Mike a flower fresh culled. When she was dressed, upon a couch of pearls Her mother put her. Supple was her form, And white, as she reclined, by many maids Surrounded. In his royal garb the prince Was clad, and dazzling to the eyes of all Who saw. He wore a kingly crown which shone With diamonds bright and lucent ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... clearly drawn eyebrows, dark in comparison with the amber hair, the turquoise blue eyes, the mouth of the pictured lady were curiously reproduced in Milly Flaxman. Possibly her figure may have been designed by nature to be as slight and supple, yet rounded, as that of the white-robed, gray-scarfed lady above there. But something or some one had intervened, and Milly looked stiff and shapeless in a green velveteen frock, scooped out vaguely around her white young throat ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... Owing to one or the other of these defects, those representations were not true to nature. Now we have, in an English poem, a number of human beings, drawn from the original, whose movements are supple, whose types are as varied as in real life, depicted exactly as they were in their sentiments and in their dress, so that it seems we see them, and when we part the connection is not broken. The acquaintances made at "the Tabard ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... now— Thanks, for the hint, my trusty brother! 'Tis truly pleasing to see how We, FUDGES, stand by one another. But never fear—I know my chap, And he knows me too—verbum sap, My Lord and I are kindred spirits, Like in our ways as two young ferrets; Both fashioned, as that supple race is, To twist into all sorts of places;— Creatures lengthy, lean and hungering, Fond of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... crouching there in front of her? No, there was nothing domestic about him though she had a feeling that he could purr when he was pleased. Yes, there was undoubtedly something feline about him, a supple grace, a noiselessness, a guile, that made her aware of the necessity for caution in her dealings with him. This was a man of many subtleties—she knew it instinctively—a man of tigerish temperament, ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... slowly (it was John who collected the beetles). Even on the second day its legs were supple. But the butterflies were dead. A whiff of rotten eggs had vanquished the pale clouded yellows which came pelting across the orchard and up Dods Hill and away on to the moor, now lost behind a furze bush, then off again helter-skelter ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... dressed and dined, he soaked his hands in hot water to make them supple, and played Beethoven till ...
— If You Touch Them They Vanish • Gouverneur Morris

... then, she makes with it various passes in the air, very supple and dexterous, and would have me fight with her ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... a grip o' the rod, my lad," said the forester; and, catching the long supple wand from the boy's hand, he stood thinking for a few moments winding in a ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn

... own. His great strength hardly matched that of Shan Rhue, who was a giant, and the most feared man in the Wichita Mountains. But Ben was more than his match in wrestling skill, and, moreover, he was younger and more supple for all his bulk, and his work on the football gridiron when in college had taught him tricks of the tackle of which the big ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor

... glossed brown; hers were deeply blue, the colour of the Adriatic when a fleeting cloud spreads a curtain of hyacinth over the sheeted turquoise bed. Beautifully hued in mingled red and white, delicately shaped, pliant, supple, and shy, such as she was (an honest, good girl, Heaven knows!) she might have lived and died in her alley—sweetheart of some half dozen decent fellows, wife of the most masterful, mother of a dozen brats, unnoticed save for her qualities of cheerful drudge and ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... His wide prominent eyes seemed to see everything, and as a matter of fact there was not much that they had not seen. Altogether, his person was a perfect model of aristocratic outline, slim and slender, supple and agreeable. He seemed as if he could be pliant or rigid at will, and twist and bend, or rear his head like ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... loveliest of smiles transfigured the dull, blank features; her round shoulders, pendulous arms, slouching pose, melted into superb symmetry, quickening with grace and youth as she straightened up and faced him, erect, supple, laughing, adorable. ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers

... green grass, and springtime perfume was a heady drink for one in his condition. The full-throated birds sang to him, and the booming insects hummed to him and her eyes prophesied to him of a thousand days like this which lay like roses in bud. He watched with growing awe the supple movement of her body, the tender arch of her neck, and the clear surface of her features ever alive with the quick expression of her eager thoughts. She caught his gaze once and colored prettily but without ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... the last crimson disappeared in the west. She sat there long after Ernest went inside to read, in the same quiet that enwrapped Roger. It was a strange quiet for Roger; a quiet of sweetness and content that he had not known since his mother's death. With that warm, supple little body pressed against him, his mind for once left his work and paused to ponder on the loneliness of the past sixteen years and on the thrilling promise of the desert star-glow. No human being can be completely sane who does ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... a marvel of supple, exaggerated grace and the quadrille looked like a free-for-all for unbroken colts. The honor of prompter was conferred upon the sheriff, and he gravely called the changes as they were usually called in that section of ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... canoes, uncouth, shapeless things, each hewed out of a 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

... and buffeted as the man had plainly been in his fight for life, the clean, supple strength and the invincible courage of him still shone in his eye and trod in his bearing. It was even now the salient thing about him, though he had but come, alive and no more, from a wrestle ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... sudden strange leap of the heart as she saw that the supple figure of the man was Richard Kendrick's own, and that the slight frame he bore was that of a crippled child. She could see now the iron braces on the legs, like pipe stems, which stuck straight out from the embrace of the strong young arm which ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... people nor city, behind it. Russia's mightiest adversary, Napoleon, knew the character of the race more intimately than its idol, Napoleon's adroit flatterer and false friend, the Czar Alexander, knew it; yet the enthusiast of Valerie, supple and calculating even in his mysticism, is still the noblest representative of the oppressive ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb

... in their movements are active and supple to an incredible degree; they climb up the highest trees like monkeys, by seizing the trunk with both hands, and using the soles of their feet. They run like a deer in the pursuit of the wild animals: ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... in his arms, but his very roughness was a proof of the intensity of his love. For an instant she lay palpitating against him, and as long as he lives he will remember the first exquisite touch of her firm but supple figure and the marvellous communion of her lips. A current from the great store that was in her, pent up and all unknown, ran through him, and then she had struggled out of his arms and fled, leaving him standing ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... by (one would think me quite uninterested), draped in my splendid coat. She's struck by its stripes. Oh, she'll come back, a little love-sick kitten, and putting aside all constraint she'll throw herself at my feet—like a supple white scarf— ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette

... you mean!" cried Miss Vane delightedly. "I believe Lemuel is a little more supple, a little less like a granite boulder in one of his meadows. But I can't say that he's glib yet. He isn't apparently going to ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... and wearisome trial, And cares oppressed the constant earl; His lifelong companions were pain and sorrow, And winter-cold weeping: his ways were oft hard, 5 After Nithhad had struck the strong man low, Cut the supple sinew-bands of the sorrowful earl. That has passed over: so ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various

... flower, The young tree's supple bough, And leave my human feelings In their own course ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... care! that form is supple, full that bosom, oh! take care! Look not where the rose and lily shifting hues alternate fling; Listen not to those loved accents, sighing ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner

... plough ten more years without looking old, and the prejudice of age must have been very strong in a young girl's mind to prevent her remarking that Germain had a fresh complexion, a bright eye, blue as the heavens in May, ruddy lips, superb teeth, and a body as graceful and supple as that of a colt that has never ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... unlace her bodice or take down her hair; or imagine a valet can be devoted to a master he has to get into bed as best he can because he is too tipsy to get there unaided? Immortal "Figaro" is the type! Supple, liar, corrupt, intelligent,—he aids his master and laughs at him, feathering his own nest the while. There is a saying that "horses corrupt whoever lives with them." It would be more correct ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... common places of political speech, are adopted and misapplied by most persons without reflection. But here is the power of Slavery. According to a curious tradition of the French language, Louis XIV., the Grand Monarch, by an accidental error of speech, among supple courtiers, changed the gender of a noun. But slavery does more. It changes word for word. It teaches men to say national instead of sectional, and sectional ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... R.W. Elliston, Esq. One of Harlow's best portraits: the likeness is admirable, and the tone well accords with Elliston's unguent, supple expression. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various

... in the softness of a supple boot Which Cinderella would have found too small, One scarcely sees your little pointed foot Flash in the flashing ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger

... necessary notice of the German adept, who occupied the front seat of the carriage, which is usually conferred upon dependants or inferiors. The ready grin and supple inclination with which his salutation, though slight, was answered by the foreigner, increased the internal dislike which Lovel had already conceived towards him; and it was plain, from the lower of the Antiquary's shaggy eye-brow, that he too looked with displeasure on this addition to ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... 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 ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... big, supple, powerful man of twenty-five or six, with the bearing and general demeanour of one many years his elder. His rich, dark auburn hair was wavy, and a curling lock of it had escaped from the band of his cap at the temple; his eyes were brown to match his hair and were the striking feature of a strong, ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... 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 to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various

... eating, and Stineli meanwhile quietly replaced every thing in the cupboard; for she knew well enough, without being told, how such work should be done. Then she seated herself by Silvio's bedside, and made shadow pictures on the wall with her supple fingers; and Silvio laughed aloud, and called the names,—"A hare! A beast with horns! A spider ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri

... 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 on ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... and her hands and feet perfection. Her complexion was extremely fair, so she was not a brunette; some remote Spanish ancestor on her mother's side was, however, occasionally mentioned as an apology for a type and a supple grace sometimes complained of by people with white eyelashes as rather un-English. So many artistic young men had told her she was like La Gioconda, that when she first saw the original in the Louvre she was so disappointed that she thought ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson

... and kind-hearted to a degree, his impatience often hurried him into actions which grieved his parents. He was generally in hot water at school. He fought, and he generally won, but his cause was not always right. He was supple, and he ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous

... the Jew when he came to look upon him to save him—"As for thy nativity," says God, "in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and saw ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... appreciated their grace and their supple nimbleness. As the sun declined in the evening-time, and the heat of the day passed, they would become active, would start chasing one another, neighing, dodging, shaking their manes, coming round in great curves, sometimes so close that the pounding of the turf sounded like hurried ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... tiger got up, and, passing over the body of the lad, stepped with its supple gait into the bows. I took my chance of shouting to William, but the lad never stirred. Again and again I yelled down at him, and I saw the splendid, horrible beast in the bows gazing at me, and still the lad remained lifeless. He was upon his face, ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... expression of careless defiance in her face, and reappeared in five minutes in the dress of a Mexican peasant girl attired for a fete. The dress suited her admirably. She was rather above the middle height, her figure lithe and supple with exceptionally graceful curves; her head was admirably poised on her neck. Her hair was very dark, and her complexion Spanish rather than French. Her father was from Marseilles ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... top of his car put up. The rain chased him for thirty miles and whelmed him in a wild swirl at the thirty-first. Driving through this with some caution, he saw ahead of him a woman's figure, as supple as a willow withe, as gallant as a ship, beating through the fury of the elements. Hal slowed down, debating whether to offer conveyance, when he caught a glint of ruddy waves beneath the drenched hat, and the next instant he was out and looking into the flushed ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... handsomer: body stood for less. It seemed to Lizzie, that, as the fabric of her lover's soul was more clearly revealed,—the veil of the temple rent wellnigh in twain,—she could read the justification of all her old worship. One of Jack's hands lay outside the sheets,—those strong, supple fingers, once so cunning in workmanship, so frank in friendship, now thinner and whiter than her own. After looking at it for some time, Lizzie gently grasped it. Jack slowly opened his eyes. Lizzie's heart began to throb; it was as if the stillness of the sanctuary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... leather sandals, bushy whiskered, his muscular neck and bronzed chest bare in the open check shirt, resembled a Mediterranean sailor just come ashore from some wine or fruit-laden felucca. At the top he paused, broad shouldered, narrow hipped and supple, looking at the large bed, like a white couch of state, with a profusion of snowy linen, amongst which the Padrona sat unpropped and bowed, her handsome, black-browed face bent over her chest. A mass of raven hair with only a few white threads in it covered her shoulders; one ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... his birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm and strong. (So it is with) all things. Trees and plants, in their early growth, are soft and brittle; at their ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze

... small change tossed out, or dropped in Anita's cup as she perched, chattering, on the sill. A stout grocer in his white apron gave her a little pink biscuit to nibble. Half-grown girls lolled on the handles of perambulators to listen, while their charges pulled faces of fear at the supple Anita. ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... she seemed to grow, straightening up, tall, broad, superb; towering into a supple shape from which the scarlet rags fell fluttering around her like ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... undeveloped. The hands and feet are generally good, particularly the hand, which is less developed and not so coarse as the lower limbs generally and the feet in particular. The fingers are usually long and quite supple, with well-proportioned nails. The thumb is, nevertheless, hardly ever in good proportion with the rest of the hand. It generally lacks length and character. The feet bear the same characteristics as the hands except, as I have said, that they are infinitely coarser. Why this should be I cannot ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... they have imposed a task upon themselves which is not natural to them. They suffer, and when people suffer, they make others suffer too. That is not my game, nor that of my protectors either; I have to be gay, supple, amusing, comical. Virtue makes itself respected, and respect is inconvenient; virtue insists on being admired, and admiration is not amusing. I have to do with people who are bored, and I must make them laugh. Now it is absurdity and madness which make people laugh, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... took towards life. And yet she had evidently nothing of the fluttered, flapping quality of a morsel of bunting in the wind; her manner expressed the repose and confidence which come from a large experience. Experience, however, had not quenched her youth; it had simply made her sympathetic and supple. She was in a word a woman of strong impulses kept in admirable order. This commended itself to ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... elections for the councils the moderate Republicans proved triumphant. With a supple dexterity, Thiers knew how to steer between the Democratic-Republican party and the Monarchists. When Gambetta endeavored to establish a "league of Republican towns," the attempt was forbidden as illegal; and when the decree ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... "I am Hugh Morrison from Glenae, come of the Manly Morrisons of auld langsyne, that never took short weapon against a man in their lives. And neither needed they; they had their broadswords, and I have this bit supple (showing a formidable cudgel)—for dirking ower the board, I leave that to John Highlandman. Ye needna snort, none of you Highlanders, and you in especial, Robin. I'll keep the bit knife, if you are feared for the auld spae-wife's tale, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various

... and consequential freedmen, impudent confidential servants, greedy buffoons, who lived by making bad jokes at other people's tables; Dacian gladiators, with whom fighting was a trade; philosophers, whose chief claim to reputation was the length of their beards; supple Greeklings of the Tartuffe species, ready to flatter and lie with consummate skill, and spreading their vile character like a pollution wherever they went: and among all these a number of poor but honest clients, forced quietly to put up with a thousand ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... Marya had engaged him in half smiling, low-voiced conversation; and Palla looked at her golden-green eyes and warm, rich colouring, cooled by a skin of snow. Tiger-golden, the rousse ensemble; the supple movement of limb and body fascinated her; but most of all the lovely, slanting eyes with their glint of beryl amid ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... roused up and with head depressed and switching tail paced back and forth within the restricted limits of the cage, while the others looked out with motionless curiosity at the tiers of people. Presently with a long supple stride the gigantic, blond Norwegian trainer came lightly across the arena—a Hercules, with broad bare chest and arms, arrayed in spangled blue satin and white tights that forbade all suspicion of protective armor. At a single bound he sprang ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... fashionable; and Esther, proud of owning them, had called them by the names of their parents, Romeo and Juliet. No need here to describe the whiteness and grace of these beasts, trained for the drawing-room, with manners suggestive of English propriety. Esther called Romeo; Romeo ran up on legs so supple and thin, so strong and sinewy, that they seemed like steel springs, and looked up at his mistress. Esther, to attract his attention, pretended to ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... undoubtedly have classed him amongst the best of the native Princes who go to England for their training, and on that very account, would have feared the more for his future. Shere Ali was now just twenty-four, he was tall, spare of body and wonderfully supple of limbs, and but for a fulness of the lower lip, which was characteristic of his family, would have been reckoned ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... immortal fire thou quenched, and on the sceptre of Zeus his eagle sleepeth, slackening his swift wings either side, the king of birds, for a dark mist thou hast distilled on his arched head, a gentle seal upon his eyes, and he in slumber heaveth his supple ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar

... 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, the man who refused to bear ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... ought not to be sentenced, because the Fugitive Slave Law, under which I am torn from my family and business by the supple tools of the Slave Power, the slave-breeder and the slave-hunter, is at variance with both the spirit and letter of the Constitution. Sir, I place myself upon the Constitution, in the presence of a nation who have the Declaration of Independence read to them every Fourth ...
— Speech of John Hossack, Convicted of a Violation of the Fugitive Slave Law • John Hossack

... pantomime is ease of movement. His frame must be at once supple and well-knit, to meet the opposite requirements of agility and firmness. That he is no stranger to the science of the boxing—and the wrestling-ring, that he has his share of the athletic accomplishments of Hermes and Pollux and Heracles, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... single-handed resistance will be of little avail unless he exceeds mere defence and adds his quota of runs to the score of his side. To excel in this requires, in addition to a scientific knowledge of the game, cool presence of mind, a quick eye, a supple wrist, a strong arm, a swift foot and a healthy pair of lungs. Thus the nobler attributes of the man, mental and physical, are brought into play. As the Master in Tom Brown's School-days remarks: "The discipline and reliance on one ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... to pass the sentinels without much difficulty, and found, as she had been told, that one of her father's horses was feeding near the willow swamp. Its two fore-legs were fastened together to prevent it straying, so that she caught it easily. Having provided herself with a strong supple twig, she cut the hobbles, vaulted lightly on the horse's back, and went off at a ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne

... the pins through her hat before the oval mirror which had been one of her acquisitions. As she drew on the gloves she turned her supple body to make sure of the satisfactory hang of her skirt. Her good spirits had returned, and she hummed softly as Phil surveyed her. She seemed less indifferent to-day to Phil's admiration. Phil's spirits rose slowly; it was difficult to mourn ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... on horseback, she has darted into the underwood, and off; not even rising erect to her feet, but on all fours, and silently as a snake. For although the hillside is so thickly overgrown with thorny scrub that a pointer would with difficulty quarter it, the supple old savage worms her way through, without making any more noise than would a badger just got out of the barrel, and away from the dogs ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... Or any amusement that's female and pokey, And flatly objects to behave as he ought! I know him of old. He is lazy and fat, Instead of this Thing, fit for punishment drastic, Give, Fortune, a son who is nimble and keen; A bright-hearted sample of human elastic, As fast as an antelope, supple and clean; Far other than he in whose dimples there lodge Significant signs ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale

... so," whispered Chunda Lal, "that is straight and supple as the willow branch. O, Miska"—his voice trembled emotionally and he that had been but a moment since so fierce stood abashed before her—"for you I become as the meanest and the lowest; for you ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer

... by the neck, struggled at the end of the liana, which, supple as a cord, had formed into a slipknot, and the shakings came from the jerks into which he still agitated it in the last convulsions ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... the bottle. Struggling to save its contents, he relaxed his hold on Carmen. Like a flash she wormed her supple body out under his arm, slid to the floor, and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... an ever-vernal home, And wiser than Athenas' wisest schools,[12] Nor led by zealots, nor scholastic rules, Gazed at the stars that stud yon tender blue, And hoped, and deemed the cheat of death untrue; Yet, supple sophist to a plastic mind,[13] Saw gods in woods, and spirits in the wind, Heard in the tones that stirred the waves within, The mingled voice of Hadna and Odin, Doomed the fleeced tenant of the wild to bleed A guileless votive ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... with the men who were securing the horses, and Alice stood watching her husband's movements. She was a beautiful woman of that strong, dark Celtic type, so common in Ireland. Her strong supple figure was displayed to perfection in a simple tweed suit with a jacket of the Norfolk pattern. She stood for some moments watching with deep contemplative eyes. Then she abruptly ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... wiles, and crafty devices for overcoming the enemy in safety; in it extreme cold and intolerable heat have to be borne, indolence and sleep are despised, the bodily powers are invigorated, the limbs of him who engages in it are made supple, and, in a word, it is a pursuit which may be followed without injury to anyone and with enjoyment to many; and the best of it is, it is not for everybody, as field-sports of other sorts are, except hawking, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... mind, Polly instantly pulled Noddy up on a mound of ground just above the reptile, and caught hold of a long supple branch of wood. In another instant she was whipping the snake until it could not tell from which direction the blows were descending—right, left, front or back! In a moment of indecision, the snake remained quiet and in that second ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... down the slope To bring relief to those who toss in waves. They care for mothers left to starve, alone. In pestilence, they labor long to soothe The fevered brow and ease the gnawing pain With medicine and shelter, food and clothes. In war the wound is dressed and duly nursed With gentle supple hands—with nourishment For mind and body. Cross of red, all hail! They serve for us most willingly and well. Then chide themselves when they have come too late! Like mothers when their sons have fallen short; In early dawn and through the night they ...
— Clear Crystals • Clara M. Beede

... reverence he did throw away on slaves; Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles, And patient under-bearing of his fortune, As 'twere to banish their affections with him. Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench; A brace of draymen bid God speed him well, And had the tribute of his supple knee, With thanks my countrymen, my loving friends; As were our England in reversion his, And he our subjects' ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... 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, takes ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... place dey roach dem niggers up good jes lak dey roach er mule, en when dey put 'em on de block fer de white mens ter bid de price on 'em den dey hab 'em ter cut de shines en de pidgeon wing fer ter show off how supple dey is, so dey bring de ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... thinking," said Paz, in a melancholy tone. "Malaga (that's her stage name) is strong, active, and supple. Why do I prefer her to all other women in the world?—well, I can't tell you. When I look at her, with her black hair tied with a blue satin ribbon, floating on her bare and olive-colored shoulders, and when she is dressed in a white tunic with a gold edge, and ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac

... knew the hoofs of the horses were muffled. Then the pale starlight afforded him indistinct sight of the riders. But his eyes were keen and used to the dark, and by peering closely he recognized the huge bulk and black-bearded visage of Oldring and the lithe, supple form of the rustler's lieutenant, a masked rider. They passed on; the darkness swallowed them. Then, farther out on the sage, a dark, compact body of horsemen went by, almost without sound, almost like specters, and they, ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... proud, vindictive, and turbulent humour of that of his birth. 'If the devil,' he said, 'had sought out an agent expressly for the purpose of embroiling this miserable country, I do not think he could find a better than such a fellow as this, whose temper seems equally active, supple, and mischievous, and who is followed, and implicitly obeyed, by a gang of such cut-throats as those whom you are pleased to ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... half of the first circle thus before Dollops had leaped to the bending willows, had scrambled up the rough trunk of the nearest of them, and, pushing his weight out upon a strong and supple bough, bent it downward until the half of its strongest withes were deep in ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... the shade of the sitting-room was looking out at him, half smiling, but with heightened color and a suppressed agitation. The girl was not more than twenty-five, graceful, supple, and strong. Her chin was dimpled; across her right temple was a slight scar. She had eyes of a wonderful deep blue; they seemed to swim with light. As Foyle gazed at her for a moment dumfounded, with a quizzical ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... Supple, graceful and splendid it walked round in solemn majesty, its flat head kept low to the ground, its sinuous body curving and winding as it walked, like that of ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... Doctor," he continued, "I hold a needle charged with a rare culture. It is the link between the bacilli and the fungi. You have seemed to display an undue interest in the peach and pearl which render my Karamaneh so delightful, In the supple grace of her movements and the sparkle of her eyes. You can never devote your whole mind to those studies which I have planned for you whilst such distractions exist. A touch of this keen point, and the laughing ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... were taken to the barracks, where they were taught not only the use of the bow, the battle-axe, the mace, the lance, and the shield, but were all instructed in such exercises as rendered the body supple, and prepared them for manoeuvring, regimental marching, running, jumping, and wrestling either with closed or open hand. They prepared themselves for battle by a regular war-dance, pirouetting, leaping, and brandishing their bows and quivers in the air. Their training being finished, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... mistaken, however, in thinking she was an ugly child. She was not in the least like Isobel Grange, who had been the beauty of the regiment, but she had an odd charm of her own. She was a slim, supple creature, rather tall for her age, and had an intense, attractive little face. Her hair was heavy and quite black and only curled at the tips; her eyes were greenish gray, it is true, but they were big, wonderful eyes with long, black lashes, and though she herself did not ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... thought of her playful ways, her dear, young supple limbs, her thick, wavy, blonde hair, which she would push back now and then with both her hands, the tears welled up in my ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... of Asia is an animal celebrated for its beauty and its agility, cunning, and prodigious strength. Its skin is a bright tawny yellow, with glossy black stripes running downward from its back. Its tail, which is long and supple, is ringed with black, and its large head is marked in a very handsome manner. It is like a great cat. Its puffy cheeks are ornamented with white whiskers, and its big paws are like those of a ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... a picturesque rascal for all he wears no satin harness, no plumed bonnet, no silken tights. His attitude is stately; he is lithe and supple; all his movements are full of grace. When his long canoe, and his fine figure, towering from its high perch on the stern, are cut against the evening sky, they make a picture that is very novel and striking to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... noiselessly, stretched himself, supple and stealthy, with curious sideways movements of his head and unexpected elongations of his thick body, glanced out of the corners of his eyes in the direction of the door, and finally leaned back against the table, folding his ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... elegant. The Grecian bodice, crossing from left to right with five folds, opened slightly, showing delicious curves; the gray merino dress with green furbelows defined the pretty waist, which had never looked so slender nor so supple. She wore earrings of gold fret-work, and her hair, gathered up a la chinoise, let the eye take in the soft freshness of a skin traced with blue veins, where the light shone chastely on the pure white tones. Cesarine was so coquettishly lovely that Madame Matifat could not help admitting it, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... despicable taste for high society. So that the first duty of any man who is to write is intellectual. Designedly or not, he has so far set himself up for a leader of the minds of men; and he must see that his own mind is kept supple, charitable, and bright. Everything but prejudice should find a voice through him; he should see the good in all things; where he has even a fear that he does not wholly understand, there he should be wholly silent; and he should recognise from the first that he has only one tool in his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "A thin, supple wire was found to run between the harmless flock of the mattress and the satin casing," wrote Sir Walter. "Experiments showed that neither the stuffing nor the outer case contained any harmful substance. But the ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... home thy 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 ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... smiles. At that moment I hear a heavy footfall, as of some great beast, on the thick dry leaves. The high grass parts. First a magnificent yellow head emerges, infinitely alert; then the long, lithe body, a picture of supple grace and immense strength. A superb spectacle the creature presents, with his lovely coat gleaming in the hot sun. But the din is drawing near. Down goes the massive head; wide, cruel lips draw back, and four long ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... and striking according to their ability. Sholto might easily have had the best of the fray, but for the temper aroused by Laurence's recent degradation, for the elder brother was taller by an inch, and of a frame of body more lithe and supple. Moreover, the accuracy of Sholto MacKim's shape and the severe training of the smithy had not left a superfluous ounce of flesh on ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... he meant, but instead made a step toward the door. White of face and dark of eye, she took hold of him to detain him. She was as strong and supple as a panther. But she need not have been either resolute or strong, for the clasp of her hand was enough to ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... These, as beautiful in their forms as they are familiar to our sight, while their interest is increased by their symbolic meaning, are of great value as material of ornament. Love of the picturesque has generally induced a choice of some supple form with scaly body and lashing tail, but the simplest fish form is largely employed in mediaeval work. We shall find the plain oval body and sharp head of the Thunny constantly at Venice; and the fish used in the expression of sea-water, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... renascence in Italy. They are real men, full of life and passion, no longer symbols of the transcendental glory of the world beyond the grave. "All rigidity had melted, everything which had been stiff and hard had become supple; the emotion of the soul flows through every curve and line; the set faces of the statues are illuminated by a smile which seems to come from within, the afterglow of inward ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... place in the city, within closed doors, I saw a young slave-girl dancing. She was about fifteen years old, thin and supple; she danced like a reed in the wind; but her eyes were weary as death, and her white body was marked with bruises. She stumbled, and the men laughed at her. She fell, and her mistress beat her, crying out that she would fain be rid of such a heavy-footed slave. I paid the price ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... the moment when 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 ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... marked and distinctive personality—both painters, both, to me, 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 ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... an harmonica, Physiology of Marriage! But, almost always he appeared at night during my dreams, gentle as some fairy guardian; he tried by words of sweetness to subdue the soul which he would appropriate to himself. While he attracted, he also scoffed at me; supple as a woman's mind, cruel as a tiger, his friendliness was more formidable than his hatred, for he never yielded a caress without also inflicting a wound. One night in particular he exhausted the resources of his sorceries, and crowned all by a last effort. He came, he sat on the edge of ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... all my thoughts, real and fanciful, moved the image of a perfect girl, clear-eyed and strong and straight and beautiful, with the carriage of a queen and the supple, undulating grace of a leopard. Though I loved my friends, their fate seemed of less importance to me than the fate of this little barbarian stranger for whom, I had convinced myself many a time, I felt no greater sentiment ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... survive to us, describe in a style that has made them immortal one of the most terrible and crucial moments of Roman history. The deadly struggle for the throne demonstrated finally the real nature of the Principate—based not on constitutional fictions but on armed force—and the supple inefficiency of the senatorial class. The revolt on the Rhine foreshadowed the debacle of the fifth century. Tacitus was peculiarly well qualified to write the history of this period. He had been the eye-witness of some of the most terrible ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... she and my father each holding one of my hands. Two other nuns accompanied us, one of whom was the Mother Prefect, a tall, cold woman with thin lips, and the other Sister Seraphine, who was as white and supple as a spray of lily of the valley. We entered the building, and came first to the large class-room in which all the pupils met on Thursdays at the lectures, which were nearly always given by Mother St. Sophie. Most of them did needlework all day long; some worked ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... ferocious, lustful in insane ways, treacherous, splendidly vile, is a glance into the Hell that was Italy. Machiavelli was in this man's train and frankly admired him and his methods. All the men of the times seemed to be wild beasts, and Borgia was as courageous, supple and sly as those with whom he dealt. Machiavelli, to do him justice, thought that Caesar Borgia and his father, the Pope, had design to pacify and to unify Italy. They worked with the material and with the tools to hand. Men did not shudder at treachery ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... of them, dear," said Lily, in her cooing voice, and she gathered up some of the parcels under her long, supple arm. ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... 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 in ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey

... 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 ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... as, on the reflex, she started, turned and fled, scudding with an unthinkable swift beating of her white feet and fraying of her white garments, towards the church. Like a hound the young man was after her, leaping the steps and swinging past her father, his supple haunches working like those of a hound that bears down on ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... proud and with which you used to play, in order to make room for the ice. The convulsions returned every ten minutes with the regularity of labor pains, and then the poor baby writhed and twisted, now white, now violet. His supple limbs clattered like wood as they struck. And this unconscious flesh was the being who smiled and prattled, and used to say Mamma! At the thought, a storm of agony swept tumultuously over my soul, like the sea tossing in a hurricane. It seemed ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... women. First and foremost they must be Greeks in their habits. For just as it is necessary immediately after birth to shapen the limbs of children, so that they may grow straight and not crooked, so from the beginning must their habits be carefully attended to. For infancy is supple and easily moulded, and what children learn sinks deeply into their souls while they are young and tender, whereas everything hard is softened only with great difficulty. For just as seals are impressed on soft wax, so instruction leaves ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... striving to recall a hymn. As Latin was the language of witchcraft, so, also, was it the antidote. Contemptuously she turned her back and walked slowly to the fire. Upon her white face and supple figure played the elfish glow, lighting the little cap and ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... Bobby and his lantern. You should have seen us groping our way into House; Bobby first, with bull's-eye lantern professionally flashing to right and left, under seats, into dark corners. Made straight for my old corner-seat below Gangway; something white gleaming on front bench; with supple turn of wrist Bobby brought flambeau to bear upon it; found it was TANNER—TANNER, hatless, coatless, without even a waistcoat on! You might have knocked me down with much less than bayonet-prod. 'Morning, Colonel,' says he. 'Been here all night?' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various

... then moved forward—the man in front bearing the light, the two bony women next, supporting between them the small and supple one. Thus they entered the house ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... but even before the words were fully spoken he realized with a sort of shock that he could not well have made a worse opening. Phil Abingdon's eyes seemed to grow alarmingly large. She stood quite still, twisting his card between her supple fingers. ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... the lady danced before my eyes, lithe, supple—a statue endued with the motion of a serpent. I seemed to see her sculptured white hand pointing to the ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... desirable. To obviate this evil he instituted the gymnastic exercises, which, by bringing all the muscles of the body into action, and by increasing the development of the frame generally, rendered the men lithe and supple, and in every way more fitted for the performance of duties in which their lives frequently depended ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... Signora's health," said he, with a courtesy that sat well on the supple shape and the dark beauty of the boy, whose homely garb, whose poverty, and whose profession seemed only the disguise of some young prince,—and sipped the wine, and broke the fine, white bread, while his cheek was scarlet with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... for a few days, for the purpose of being cured of his agonising disease. I said: 'Certainly; get cured of your complaint, and let me see you when you return.' In a very few days, perhaps in four or five, to my great astonishment he returned, smiling and joyous, with his limbs as pliant and supple as ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various

... of that hour a disk of light shone out luridly against the tapestry of memory. Within its radius appeared two hands, long, supple, strong, immaculately white, graceful and dexterous, as delicate of contour as a woman's, yet lacking nothing of masculine vigor and modeling; hands that wavered against the blackness, fumbling with the shining nickeled ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm and strong. (So it is with) all things. Trees and plants, in their early growth, are soft and brittle; at ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze

... slender—there is a supple grace about her even now—she has shapely feet and hands. She is a brunette of the most pronounced type, with a skin like creamy velvet, just touched on either ripe cheek with a peach-like glow, and with lips like cherries. You know without seeing her laugh, that she has very white teeth. She is ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... master Dick, taking one of the coils from his pocket; "the best riding-switch in the world. All the whips that ever were made are nothing to it. Only see how strong it is, how light, and how supple! You may twist it a thousand ways without breaking. It won't break, do what you will. Each of these, now, is worth half-a-crown or three shillings, for they are the scarcest things possible. They grow up at a little ...
— The Ground-Ash • Mary Russell Mitford

... large business desk with prosaic standard equipment which stood on the carpet on the other side of the pool. They moved rapidly past the pool, Quillan still hauling at her arm. Trigger kept staring at the pillars they passed. Long-limbed, supple and languid, they floated in their crystal cages, in tinted, shifting lights, eyes closed, hair ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... then that bent down the tops of the trees like a willow-gad, and the courage and the strength went from the Fianna with the dint of the bad weather, and Finn said to Caoilte: "Is there any place we can find shelter to-night?" Caoilte made himself supple then, and went over the elbow of the ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... mastered the characters 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 not to admire the facility with which this accomplished Proteus successively assumed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... see him as he paces the lawn, his supple back writhed just a little towards my lady deferentially, his head just a little on one side, lending her an ear. By the gait of him he is looking another way. Yes; for now my lady turns, he turns too, and they halt front to front; his pallid visage half averted ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... in the flicker of blinding flashes, with thunderbolts falling all round, enough to make your hair stand on end; and Jasper would remain stock still on the verandah, adoring the back view of her supple, swaying figure, the miraculous sheen of her fair head, the rapid hands on the keys, the white nape of her neck—while the brig, down at the point there, surged at her cables within a hundred yards of nasty, shiny, ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... and utterly ignorant of play. But such a sharper is most dangerous, when he hunts in couple with a female. I have known a French count and his wife, who found means to lay the most wary under contribution. He was smooth, supple, officious, and attentive: she was young, handsome, unprincipled, and artful. If the Englishman marked for prey was found upon his guard against the designs of the husband, then madam plied him on the side of gallantry. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... in tan corduroy; elation was in her face; her waist, as she stepped, showed supple as a willow; her suede-gloved little hands were compact and tempting to his grasp. His senses breathed the air of her perfect and compelling femininity. But sharper than all these impressions rang the words of the worldly-wise Higbee: "She's hunting night and day for a rich husband; she tries ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... entertain the company with hereditary songs and catches during their repast; and the old Pyrrhic game of the sword dance, handed down since the time of the Romans, was admirably performed in the court-yard of the mansion by a band of young men, lithe and supple in their forms and graceful in their movements, who, I was told, went the rounds of the villages and ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... Britain drives men to strong drink; the rosy Orient lures to the dream splendors of the lotus. The big-bodied, white-skinned northern dweller, rude and ferocious, bellows his anger uncouthly and drives a gross fist into the face of his foe. The supple south-sojourner, silken of smile and lazy of gesture, waits, and does his work from behind, when no man looketh, gracefully and without offence. Their ends are one; the difference lies in their ways, and therein the climate, and ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... name that is foremost, the next will run over, Trampling and rolling in dust his excellent friend the precursor. Peace be with all! but afar be ambition to follow the Roman, Led by the German, uncomb'd, and jigging in dactyl and spondee, Lumbering shapeless jackboots which nothing can polish or supple. Much as old metres delight me, 'tis only where first they were nurtured, In their own clime, their own speech: than pamper them here I would rather Tie up my Pegasus tight to the scanty-fed rack of ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various

... Amorously he put his arm round the girl's supple figure; drawing her to him, and burying his lips in her abundant and perfumed hair, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... screaming wild alarms O'er a dead carcase muttering her charms, 410 (And with her frequent and tremendous yell Forcing great Hecate from out of hell) Shoots in the corpse a new fictitious soul; With instant glare the supple eyeballs roll, Again it moves and speaks, and life ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... remarkably elegant. The Grecian bodice, crossing from left to right with five folds, opened slightly, showing delicious curves; the gray merino dress with green furbelows defined the pretty waist, which had never looked so slender nor so supple. She wore earrings of gold fret-work, and her hair, gathered up a la chinoise, let the eye take in the soft freshness of a skin traced with blue veins, where the light shone chastely on the pure white tones. Cesarine was so coquettishly lovely that Madame Matifat could not help admitting ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... powerlessness benumbed him. He got into the dinghy, drew in the dripping painter she cast after him, and watched her ease the sheet and set the vessel scudding for the passage. With her black hair flying in the wind, her bare arms resting lightly on the wheel, her straight, girlish, supple figure bending with the heel of the deck, she never faltered nor looked back as the water whitened and boiled in the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... a very tolerable amount of satisfaction. Love in a cottage, with a broken window to let in the rain, is not my idea of comfort; no more is Dignity, walking forth richly clad, to whom every head uncovers, every knee grows supple. Bruin in winter-time fondly sucking his own paws, loses flesh; and love, feeding upon itself, dies of inanition. Take the candle of death in your hand, and walk through the stately galleries of the world, and their splendid furniture and array are as the tinsel armour and pasteboard goblets of a ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... and the scene, that you do not have to think how to sing the words. That comes of itself" ... but they made the further progress of the composer more difficult thereby; music remained merely pretty. The successors of these supple singers even learned to sing Richard Strauss with broad cantilena effects. As for Puccini! At a performance of Madama Butterfly a Japanese once asked why the singers were producing those nice round tones in moments of ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... teaching of the hunter," said Venning, wisely. "Deep breathing gives a man deep lungs. That is his teaching. Also this, that a man should keep his skin clean and his muscles supple by hard rubbing after the bath. Therefore, I did ask the bo'sun to turn the hose on us in the morning when they clean down the decks. ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... 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 ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... youths as staff bearers led the procession, each clothed only with an apron and a flowing head-cloth of gold brocade; the mid-day sun played on their smooth, moist, red-brown skins, and their supple naked feet hardly stirred the stones on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... under the middle height, slender, supple, rosy-lipped, and coquettish to distraction. Her pretty mouth dimpled round with smiles at every word it uttered. Her very eyes laughed. Her hair, which was more adorned than concealed by a tiny muslin cap that clung by some unseen agency to the back of her head, was of a soft, warm, wavy brown, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... 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, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... influenced the history of my future life. I was somewhat above the middle stature. Without being particularly athletic in appearance, or large in my dimensions, I was uncommonly vigorous and active. My joints were supple, and I was formed to excel in youthful sports. The habits of my mind, however, were to a certain degree at war with the dictates of boyish vanity. I had considerable aversion to the boisterous gaiety of the village ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... Gilbert, a young fellow of twenty or twenty-two, with an attractive cast of features and a supple and sinewy frame; Vaucheray, older, shorter, with grizzled hair ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... nearly eighteen, was grown and powerful with the might of mature manhood. A glance at the pair at once established their relationship as father and son. The features were strikingly similar, the stature the same, though the young frame was supple ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... 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 ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... he has little soul. His understanding of love, religion, duty, patriotism, is paltry and even shocking. He lacks an ardent generosity. A central dryness, an ill-cloaked egoism show through his supple and rich talent. True, this selfishness of his at least respects everyone's liberty and applauds all originality; but it helps no one, troubles itself for no one, bears no one's burden; in a word, it lacks charity, the great Christian ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... 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 ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... head, the lion, and O'Brien behind the bar, a shaggy bear, and the deputy marshal a wolverine, fat but dangerous, and here stood a man as ugly and hardened as a desert cayuse, and there was Dan Barry, sleek and supple as a panther; but among the rest this whimsical observer must have noticed a fellow of prodigious height and negligible breadth, a structure of sinews and bones that promised to rattle in the wind, a long, narrow head, a nose like ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... III., one of those soldiers who endeavour to apply to the sanctuary the methods of the parade-ground. He issued a decree against the reverence paid to icons (religious images and pictures), and, in 729, replaced the patriarch S. Germanus by the more supple Anastasius; a docile assembly of bishops at Hieria, under Constantine V. (Copronymus), passed a decree against every image of the Lord, the Virgin, and the saints. A fierce persecution followed, which was hardly ended before the accession ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton

... turrets the officers fitted telephone receivers to their heads. The gunners, literally "stripped for action" to their waists, their glistening, supple bodies as alert as panthers, ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson

... The garish motor-coat was discarded now, and her supple figure was seen to best advantage in one of those dark silken gowns which she affected, and which had a seeming of the ultra-fashionable because they defied fashion. She held in her hand an orchid, its structure that ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... difficulty, and found, as she had been told, that one of her father's horses was feeding near the willow swamp. Its two fore-legs were fastened together to prevent it straying, so that she caught it easily. Having provided herself with a strong supple twig, she cut the hobbles, vaulted lightly on the horse's back, and went ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne

... raised her hand. Chonita stood in the door-way. She was quite beautiful enough to plant thorns where she listed. Her tall supple figure was clothed in white, and over her gold hair—lurid and brilliant, but without a tinge of red—she wore a white lace mantilla. Her straight narrow brows and heavy lashes were black; but her skin was more purely white than her gown. Her nose was finely cut, the arch almost ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... eyes. At fifteen years of age (dating from her last birthday) she possessed the development of the bosom and limbs which in England is rarely attained before twenty. Everything about the girl—except her little rosy ears—was on a grand Amazonian scale. Her shapely hand was long and large; her supple waist was the waist of a woman. The indolent grace of all her movements had its motive power in an almost masculine firmness of action and profusion of physical resource. This remarkable bodily development ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins

... him (so the fates decreed:) Soon as the arrow left the deadly wound, His issuing entrails smoak'd upon the ground. What woes on blooming Damasichon wait! His sighs portend his near impending fate. Just where the well-made leg begins to be, And the soft sinews form the supple knee, The youth sore wounded by the Delian god Attempts t' extract the crime-avenging rod, But, whilst he strives the will of fate t' avert, Divine Apollo sends a second dart; Swift thro' his throat the feather'd mischief flies, Bereft of sense, he drops his head, and ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley

... latter field still being preserved—and she united with these a rare physical beauty. M. Leroy, Keeper of the Park of Versailles, thus describes her at the time of her meeting with the King: "She was taller than the average, graceful, supple, and elegant. Her features comported well with her stature, a perfect oval face, framed by beautiful hair of a light shade, large eyes marked by eyebrows of the same hue, a perfect nose, a charming mouth, teeth of exceptional beauty displayed in a delicious smile, the rarest of complexions," ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... way to manage him. I felt my advantage at once. His supple nature was one which yielded to roughness far more readily than to entreaty. He flushed with shame, and his eyes filled with tears. But MacCoy saw my advantage also, and was determined that I ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... great Humanist of Rotterdam wrote from Cambridge and London four hundred years ago when young Henry VIII had just suddenly (in 1514) plunged into war. One reads them to-day with vivid interest, for here in the supple and sensitive brain of the old scholar we see mirrored precisely the same thoughts and the same problems which exercise the more scholarly brains of to-day. Erasmus, as his Pan-German friends liked to remind him, was a sort of German, but he was, ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... gate the little model herself was gazing at the house, as if she had been there some time. Approaching from across the road, Bianca had an admirable view of that young figure, now very trim and neat, yet with something in its lines—more supple, perhaps, but less refined—which proclaimed her not a lady; a something fundamentally undisciplined or disciplined by the material facts of life alone, rather than by a secret creed of voluntary rules. It showed here and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... table. "A thin, wiry, sallow-faced man; black-haired, black-eyed, supple as an eel, cunning as a cat; a scholar and travelled gentleman, who might easily be a cut-throat; one who professes the old faith, and swears by the ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... remember that Vivian had agreed to dine, on the day after the fete, with the Baron, in his private apartments. This was an arrangement which, in fact, the custom of the house did not permit; but the irregularities of great men who are attended by chasseurs are occasionally winked at by a supple maitre d'hotel. Vivian had reasons for not regretting his acceptance of the invitation; and he never shook hands with the Chevalier de Boeffleurs, apparently, with greater cordiality, than on the day on which he met him at dinner at the Baron von Konigstein's. Mr. ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... 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, they will prove sufficient often to disturb the quiet of the mind, and betray one ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... another famous Indian, Matonabbee, the son of a slave woman at the fort, who had grown up to become a great ambassador to the native tribes for the English traders. Measuring more than six feet, straight as a lance, supple as a wrestler, thin, wiry, alert, restless with the instinct of the wild creatures, Matonabbee was now in the prime of his manhood, chief of the Chipewyans at the fort, and master of life and death to all in his tribe. It was Matonabbee whom the English traders sent ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... her head, allowing yellow ripples of hair to wave out in jaunty glory. In the higher light it seemed to Anthony that her personality was infinitely softer—she seemed so young, scarcely eighteen; her form under the tight sheath, known then as a hobble-skirt, was amazingly supple and slender, and her hands, neither "artistic" nor stubby, were small as a child's ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... wonderful brown in the mass, but with one thin streak of gold above the forehead, and all the loose hairs glittering golden. A short clipped mustache saved him from looking too feminine, yet did not hide his expressive mouth. He had white hands, as soft and supple as a woman's, a mellow voice, and a winning tongue. This dangerous young gentleman was gazing softly on Zoe Vizard and purring in her ear; and she was conscious of his gaze without looking at him, and was sipping the honey, and showed it, by seeming more ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... and Queene: with supple Hams And an ill-boading looke I vow'd to doo't; Yet, lest some choake-peare[205] of State-policy Shoo'd stop my throat and spoyle my drinking-pipe, See (like his cloake) I hung at the Kings elbow Till I had got his hand to ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... of a boy upon which the twinkling lamp-eyes flickered—a boy who had as yet scarce passed the barrier of manhood, for the skin of the face was clean and smooth, and the limbs, seen vaguely under a rough overcoat, had the freedom and supple grace that belongs ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... Henriade (1725), perhaps almost 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, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... know him of old. He is lazy and fat, Instead of this Thing, fit for punishment drastic, Give, Fortune, a son who is nimble and keen; A bright-hearted sample of human elastic, As fast as an antelope, supple and clean; Far other than he in whose dimples there lodge Significant ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale

... enough, expected to encounter her in life again—somewhere; though what he had been preparing to see, Heaven alone knew; but certainly not the supple, laughing girl he had known—that smooth, slender, dark-eyed, dainty visitor who had played at marriage with him through a troubled and unreal dream; and was gone when he awoke—so swift the brief two years had passed, as swift in ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... walk there. It rises and falls so gently, that no one need get out of breath; indeed, it seems to go along with one all the time, in mere friendliness, whispering: "Take it easy. Take your time. Have a good rest here." And so on it goes, winding in among the tree-trunks, slender and supple ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... started. Bonita, in the arms of Tony, floated past Rutherford, a miracle of supple lightness. A flash of soft eyes darted at the heir of the A T O ranch. In them was a smile adorable ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine

... would have been so considered anywhere, as graceful and winning a creature as the sun that day shone on,—slender limbs, not too heavy flanks, round body, and aristocratic head, with small ears, and luminous, intelligent, affectionate eyes. How alert, supple, free, she was! What untaught grace in every movement! What a charming pose when she lifted her head, and turned it to regard her child! You would have had a companion picture if you had seen, as I saw that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... not bother himself with ideas; two and two might make five for all he cared; work and fatigue were enough for him. Hard work had made his body supple and filled him with a sense of sheer animal well-being. "Will my beer last out the afternoon to-day?" he would wonder; beyond that nothing mattered. The future did not exist, nor yet the painful feeling that it did not exist; there was ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... for Indian eyes to gaze upon. Tall as was the woman, comely in her maturing years, she was left dwarfed beside the youthful manhood she had watched grow from its earliest days. The young man had the erect, supple, muscular body of a trained athlete and the face of the mother who had long since been laid to rest in the woods of the Sleeper Indians. He had moreover the strength of the father's unspoiled character, and all the purposeful ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... And what a picture she made leaning caressingly against the charmed and patient Bess! She was so slight, yet round and supple—strong, too, with the strength of perfect health! The thick fluffed black hair was rolled away from her face and gathered into a low knot in the nape of her neck. Her dress cut low at the throat ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... 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 ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw

... maladministration, his folly, his dissolute manners, and his love of the lowest company, had disgusted all classes of his subjects, soldiers, traders, civil functionaries, the proud and ostentatious Mahommedans, the timid, supple, and parsimonious Hindoos. A formidable confederacy was formed against him, in which were included Roydullub, the minister of finance, Meer Jaffier, the principal commander of the troops, and Jugget Seit, the richest banker in India. The plot was confided to the English ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... been governors, he was not much wiser, being to the full as vociferous, as false, as insolent, as self-seeking, and as mischievous as in his youth. Alternately making appeals to popular passions in his capacity of high-born demagogue, or seeking crumbs of bounty as the supple slave of his sovereign, he was not more likely to acquire the confidence of the cardinal than he had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... twisted and turned up, that its roots were as clear and as black as if they had been painted on the ivory of that tempting neck. A plum-colored merino dress, with a plain back and tight sleeves, skillfully made by herself, covered a bust so dainty and supple, that the young girl never wore a corset—for economy's sake. An ease and unusual freedom in the smallest action of the shoulders and body, resembling the facile, undulating motions of a cat, evinced ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... of all her children these that cling to her the closest are uncouth in body and as leaden of gait as if their very hearts were loaded with chains. But here on this same road you might have seen amongst these heavy men a being lithe, supple, and long-limbed, straight like a pine with something striving upwards in his appearance as though the heart within him had been buoyant. Perhaps it was only the force of the contrast, but when he was passing one of these villagers here, the soles of his feet did ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad

... 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, into a more ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... and a poet at the same time, interpreting Nature, flattering her, idealizing her, and realizing her creations in their double aesthetic expression, with undulating outlines and tender tones. His drawing was modelled and supple, with a certain vigour of line and a certain solidity of relief. He had a charming imagination of conception and a voluptuous grace in its accomplishment, which are requisites in the painting of women and children. He therefore excelled in rendering bambini. ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... the work was shown by the skill with which she addressed herself to it. Nothing that a Kentucky mountaineer does has more of the aspect of a labor of love, than his caring for a find rifle, and any of them would have been put to shame by the deftness of Aunt Debby's supple hands. Removing the leathern hood which protected the lock, she carefully rubbed off the hammer and nipple with a wisp of soft fine tow, and picked out the tube with a needle. Wrapping another bit of tow around the end of a wiping-stick, she moistened it ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... 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

... and all thy family must rise up as one man to reproach it? When it lost everything, did it lose the right to pity too? Or did he who maketh poor as well as maketh rich strip it of its natural powers to mollify the heart and supple the temper of your race? Trust me you have much to answer for. It is this treatment which it has ever met with from spirits like yours which has gradually taught the world to look upon it as the greatest of evils, and shun it as the worst disgrace. And what is it, I beseech you—what ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... which is the birthright of all spectatorship. Gerald and Phebe were skipping stones, thoroughly absorbed in energetic enjoyment of the simple game; their two contrasting figures, Gerald dark and tall and slim, and Phebe so round and fair and supple, making a pretty-enough picture for any artist. Olly, little Maggie Dexter, and an assortment of sturdy urchins known throughout Joppa only as the Anthony boys, were dancing and chattering aimlessly around, and near by was drawn up a clumsy old boat where Phebe had made a ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... attributes appropriate to greatness. Quite properly also its formulas were more fixed than those of any other style. The Ionic order, the feminine of which the Doric may be considered the corresponding masculine, was employed for smaller temples; like a woman it was more supple and adaptable than the Doric, its proportions were more slender and graceful, its lines more flowing, and its ornament more delicate and profuse. A freer and more elaborate style than either of these, infinitely various, seeming to obey no law save that of ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... of the deliberate and insolent indiscretion of her reply. Every line of her supple figure accented the listless, disdainful intention. As he remained motionless she turned, bent gracefully and laid her palms flat on the surface of the water, then looked idly ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... gorgeous town she knew. It was difficult to realize she was his own daughter, this dashing stranger sitting here, playing idly with a knife and caressing him with her voice and her eyes. The blue evening gown she was wearing to-night (doubtless not yet paid for) made her figure even more supple and lithe, set off her splendid bosom, her slender neck, her creamy skin. Her hair, worn low over her temples, was brown with just a tinge of red. Her eyes were black, with gleaming lights; her lips were warm and rich, alive. He ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole

... driven by the quick, sure strokes of the players. There was no sound save the bounding of the ball against the racquets, and the thud of rubber soles on the hard ground. Then—a sudden twirl of a supple ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston

... cowboys ride by. How he came to worship them! They were on their way to the spring roundups. His father had told him all about them. Panhandle would strain his eyes to get a first glimpse of them, to count the shaggy prancing horses, the lithe supple riders with their great sombreros, their bright scarfs, guns and chaps, and boots and spurs. Their lassos! How they fascinated Panhandle! Ropes to whirl and throw at a running steer! That was a game he resolved to play when he grew up. And his ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... of full moon, and on this account, though the sky was lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary objects out of doors were readily visible. The sad wan light revealed the lonely pedestrian to be a man of supple frame; his gait suggested that he had somewhat passed the period of perfect and instinctive agility, though not so far as to be otherwise than rapid of motion when occasion required. At a rough guess, he might have been about forty years of age. He appeared tall, but a recruiting ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... Go-upper and thinks the end of the world is li'ble to come any minit. And the way I figger it, not havin' vittles reg'lar has give me dyspepsy, and dyspepsy has made me cranky, and not safe to be squdged too fur. And that's the whole trouble. I've got a hankerin' for strorb'ries. They may make me more supple. P'raps not, but ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... the founder of the Numidian kingdom; and seldom has choice or accident hit upon a man so thoroughly fitted for his post. In body sound and supple up to extreme old age; temperate and sober like an Arab; capable of enduring any fatigue, of standing on the same spot from morning to evening, and of sitting four-and-twenty hours on horseback; tried alike as a soldier and a general amidst the romantic vicissitudes ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... know it How many worthy men have we known to survive their reputation Humble out of pride I am very glad to find the way beaten before me by others I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead I have not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden question I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing Ill luck is good for something Imitating other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation Impunity ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger

... immediately took their positions. The land baron, lithe and supple, presented a picture of insolent and conscious pride, his glance lighted by disdain, but smoldering with fiercer passions as he ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... large, strong and supple as a tiger, had advanced from the opposite wood, and, unmindful of a bitch and her puppies, seated himself in the middle of the terrace. As he sat tidying his coat the puppies conceived the foolish idea of ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... dress; the holey stockings were replaced by others that had seen less service; the worn frills and laces were changed for others less threadbare. This done, Hermione, with many supple twists, wriggled dexterously into her best dress, pausing now and then to sigh mournfully and grieve over its many deficiencies and shortcomings, defects which only feminine eyes, so coldly critical, might hope ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... 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, but well consist. 790 Who can ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... which was looped around her, and then, with him pulling from above and Shefford assisting Jane as she climbed, she was finally gotten up without mishap. When Lassiter reached the level they rested a little while and then faced the great slide of jumbled rocks. Fay led the way, light, supple, tireless, and Shefford never ceased looking at her. At last they surmounted the long slope and, winding along the rim, reached the point where Fay had led out of ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... not die at all, if you will only be good and obedient, and listen to wiser heads. I have subpoenaed Caroline Ryder as your witness, and given her a hint how to escape an indictment for perjury. You will find her supple as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... years ago, mates, when I was as young and supple as the boy Bill, there—though I was older than him by some years—I was serving my apprenticeship to the trade aboard the sloop Lively Nan. There were not such big vessels in the trade then, mates, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various

... defend himself, inasmuch as little pains were taken to substantiate the accusation. The Princesse des Ursins, who had so well profited by his life in order to increase her own greatness, did not profit less by his death. She felt her deliverance from a new Don Juan of Spain who had ceased to be supple in her hands, and who might have revived, in the course of time, all the power and authority he had formerly enjoyed in France. She was not shocked them by the joy which burst out without constraint; nor by the free talk of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Parkman himself came in, he, too, in white gown, ready for the operation. He looked so strange; to her nervous vision, supernatural, a being from other worlds, holding the destiny of this one in those strong, supple, incisive fingers. "I don't suppose you'll enjoy this much," he said, "but you'd better get used to them. Karl may need you to do some of this for him, and you wouldn't like it ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... accosted by two men who wanted us to hire out to help them round up several hundred wild horses. We had never before rode on a horse ranch and we wished to be full fledged so we consented. We had a lively time. The Kid was lighter and more supple than I; and got out of it some easier than I. I had picked out a rangey lank bronco; he would quit the earth and climb the sky like a flying machine; and drop down and strike the rocks with his legs stiff as a post. He would then spin like a top several hundred ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis

... cutters could rise beyond the dead level of ordinary practice. As fine draughtsmen with a feeling for their materials they did not trace with the knife, they drew and carved with it. Their feeling for line and shape was sensitive, crisp, and supple. But although they created the masterpieces of the medium they suffered from the traditional contempt for their craft. Creative ability in a woodcutter was rarely recognized, and the art fell into gradual decline. By the time the 18th century ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen

... a thirty-second. In weight he looked to be just what I always had in mind in those prayers without words with which I mounted every pair of commissary scales I came to. The play of his form as our smooth-gaited horses sped through the flecking shades was worth watching for its stanch and supple grace. Alike below the saddle and above it he was as light as a leaf and as firm as a lance. I had long yearned to own a pair of shoulders not too square for beauty nor too sloping for strength, and lo, here they were, not mine, but his. No matter; the slender mustache he sported ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... place whar de sale gwine ter be. 'Fore dey git ter de sale place dey roach dem niggers up good jes lak dey roach er mule, en when dey put 'em on de block fer de white mens ter bid de price on 'em den dey hab 'em ter cut de shines en de pidgeon wing fer ter show off how supple dey is, so dey bring ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... bound into two upright tags that projected above her temples. Altogether, she was not unlike a gigantic black-and-tan moth, a resemblance heightened by the aforementioned antennae, albeit lessened by the baby she always carried on some portion of her wiry frame. She was the toughest, most supple, and most versatile creature I ever saw, of any color or clime. The baby was disposed decorously across her knees on this occasion, and she was one of the five auditors who had brought along their own crickets or chairs. She had confiscated ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... embroideries, gleaming jewels—these are the never-failing accessories of his compositions. Yet while he loved rich draperies, he was also a careful student of the nude. Examples of his work range from the supple and youthful torso of Icarus to the huge muscular body of the beggar receiving St. Martin's cloak. The modelling of the Saviour's body in the Crucifixion and the Pieta shows both scientific knowledge and ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... fell upon it. Her face, browned somewhat, was yet very white on the forehead, and the cheeks had the crimson flush of health. She wore a dress of homemade linsey dyed red, and its close fit suggested the curves of her supple, splendid young figure. She walked with strong elastic step toward the spring that gushed from a hillside, and which after a short course ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... where their skin marks were situated, dispute whose complexion was the clearest, whose hair the prettiest colour, and whose figure the best. You can imagine that among these figures sanctified to God there were fine ones, stout ones, lank ones, thin ones, plump ones, supple ones, shrunken ones, and figures of all kinds. Then they would quarrel amongst themselves as to who took the least to make a girdle, and she who spanned the least was pleased without knowing why. At times they would relate their dreams and what they had seen ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... the reflex, she started, turned and fled, scudding with an unthinkable swift beating of her white feet and fraying of her white garments, towards the church. Like a hound the young man was after her, leaping the steps and swinging past her father, his supple haunches working like those of a hound that bears down ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... was sitting, cross-legged, on a square carpet beneath a pine-tree, a little way from his noisy, crowded camp. Four secretaries were writing on their knees to his dictation. He was undoubtedly a man of majestic appearance. He had a fine figure—tall, supple, and marvelously preserved—and calm, noble features. The only indications of old age were his long white hair and long white moustaches. His dress was very simple—a jacket of black cloth, immense blue cotton trousers, large boots of Russian ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... even if he lied, lies help truth to live; and he must live himself; and God may have made fools for him to live on;" and many other are the twists of his defence. The poem is as lifelike in its insight into the mind of a supple cheat as it is a brilliant bit of literature; but Browning leaves the matter unconcluded, as he would not have done, I hold, had he been writing poetry. Prince Hohenstiel's defence of expediency in politics is made by Browning to seem now right, now wrong, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... of chiming bridles in 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 to curve each bending leg, And be like one that struggleth; ...
— The Georgics • Virgil









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