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More "Stiffening" Quotes from Famous Books



... walked to the office of the latter, which was on the next floor of the Century Building, the legislator stiffening his will to resist the assaults he felt would be made upon it. But as soon as the door was shut Jeff surprised him by laying a ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... well with the idea, which was so prevalent, of his services and peculiar merits. His honest, open features were burnt to a bright red, that comported well with the notion of exposure and hardships, while his sinewy hands denoted force, and a species of use removed from the stiffening and deforming effects of labor. Although no one perceived any of those gentler or more insinuating qualities which are apt to win upon a woman's affections, as he raised his rifle not a female eye was fastened on him ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... whole city knew of the tragic end of Lotys. Nothing else was thought of, nothing else talked of. Thousands gathered to look up at the house where her body lay, stiffening in the cold grasp of death, and a strong body of police were summoned to guard all the approaches to the premises, in order to prevent a threatening 'crush' and disaster among the increasing crowd, every member of ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... of instances, of the nature required by the Method of Difference, which seem at first sight to conflict with the theory. Soluble salts of silver, such for instance as the nitrate, have the same stiffening antiseptic effect on decomposing animal substances as corrosive sublimate and the most deadly metallic poisons; and when applied to the external parts of the body, the nitrate is a powerful caustic, depriving those parts of all active vitality, and causing them ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... approaching her. Everybody else now saw quite clearly what Gerald's intentions were. Althea was dazed; she did not know what the bright object that had come so overpoweringly into her life wanted of her. She had feared—sickeningly—with a stiffening of her whole nature to resistance, that he wanted to flirt with her as well as with Lady Pickering. Then she had seen that he wasn't going to flirt, that he was going to be her friend, and then—this in the two or three days that followed Gerald's talk with Helen—that ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... brae, and along the over-familiar road to the station. The old Clarence must have recognised with a sigh that its roaming days were definitely over, and that henceforth, as long as its creaking axles and stiffening springs held together, it could only look forward to an uneventful life of monotonous routine in a cold, grey Northern land; and, between ourselves, these feelings are ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... commendably firm, and if Uruguays went flat, something good ought to be made out of them. Scotch rails might shortly be quiet— I always understood they were based upon sleepers; but if South-Eastern stiffened, advantage should certainly be taken of their stiffening. He would telegraph particulars on Monday morning. And so on till my brain reeled. Oh, artistic Florence! was this the Filippo Lippi, the Michael Angelo ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... off. Her glance had travelled beyond Lawrence and her features were stiffening into a mask of fear. "Oh, the dog, the dog!" she pointed past ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... manner he lingered on two years, and died in the beginning of May, when he had been carried out upon the balcony, in the sunshine. "Glashka, Glashka! the bouillon, the bouillon, you old foo ..." lisped his stiffening tongue, and without finishing the last word, it became silent forever. Glafira Petrovna, who had just snatched the cup of bouillon from the hands of the butler, stopped short, stared her brother in the face, crossed herself slowly and broadly, and withdrew in silence; and ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... position more frequently than the others. None of them was especially comfortable, but Mormon wanted to keep as limber as possible, he was afraid of stiffening up, thinking always of his challenge to Roaring Russell. Slow to anger, Mormon, when his rage mounted was slow of statement. What he said he meant. The insult to Miranda Bailey while under his escort chafed him as a saddle chafes a galled horse. It had to be wiped ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... improvement have died by stiffening at last into some routine. Thus the Gothic gaiety of the thirteenth century stiffening into the mere Gothic ugliness of the fifteenth. Thus the mighty wave of the Renaissance, whose crest was lifted to heaven, was touched by a wintry witchery ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... tearing up the water in his mad flight, while the brave Guidala struck in vain at his huge body. Suddenly a roar of thunder sounded and the thunderbolt fell on the back of the monster, bearing him down beneath the waves and then, stiffening like a bar of iron, pinning him to the bottom far below. In vain he struggled to free himself; the bar held him fast and sure. In his struggles the shell fell from his mouth, but a little Tamban caught it and brought it ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller

... his hands a precious charge, a weighty responsibility— how could he hesitate? he was pouring out all the consolation and sympathy of his ardent soul to the man he had loved as a boy, and he never felt the chill that was stiffening all his joints, he never heeded the ceaseless patter of the dreary rain. The clock had stopped and the fire had gone out, and still he sat crouched in his chair, with the strange letter lying listlessly ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... won't be shaken off till he has worried us to death; the sword-fish stabs us with his sword; and the thrasher whips us to death with his own slender, but strong and heavy body. Then, men harpoon us, shoot or entrap us; and make us into oil and candles and seats, and stiffening for gowns and umbrellas," said the bone, in a tone ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... becomes a smooth black canal between two steep white banks; and the glassy water seems momentarily stiffening into the solider blackness of ice. Here and there thin films are already formed over it, and are being constantly broken apart by the treacherous current; a flake a foot square is jerked away and goes sliding beneath ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... surviving at the time I speak of, had ever turned a wheel. Consequently his brethren held him in the sort of awe in which illustrious survivors of a bygone age are always held by their associates. He knew how he was regarded, and perhaps this fact added some trifle of stiffening to his natural dignity, which had been sufficiently stiff in its ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... know just what took place in that darkened sitting-room, for the story as afterwards related was significantly lacking in details. The light had been extinguished and the doors silently closed by the slayer. The stiffening body of Edward Crown out in the snow was not more silent than the interior of the old farmhouse, apart from the room in which David Windom pleaded ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... she flared out at him, her trim little body stiffening perceptibly, her chin proudly lifted. "The Arriegas were pure-blooded Castilian, I'd have you understand. There's ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... death's cold, stiffening frost benumbs Her limbs, and clouds her heavy eye— And hark! her feeble moan becomes A ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... Ford as an "English Force." So foolish writers are filching our good name by ignoring the Terms of Union, and deliberately or unconsciously are working up another scrap on the banks of the Bannock—well, so be it, the times are a little dull; and we need a little national stiffening ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... Friendship—gratitude—esteem—I have; but each moment he came near me, and that I could see his eyes fastened on me, my veins ran ice. Now that he is away, I feel far more gently towards him, it is only close by that I grow rigid, stiffening with a strange mixture of apprehension and anger, which nothing softens but his retreat, and a perfect subduing of his manner. I did not want to be proud, nor intend to be proud, but I was forced to be so. Most true it is, that we are over-ruled by One ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... which alone the boy Can idly act, or gracefully enjoy, Add new reproaches to thy fallen state, And make men scorn what they would only hate. "What pains, my brother, dost thou take to prove A taste for follies which thou canst not love! Why do thy stiffening limbs the steed bestride - That lads may laugh to see thou canst not ride? And why (I feel the crimson tinge my cheek) Dost thou by night in Diamond-Alley sneak? "Farewell! the parish will thy sister keep, Where she in peace shall pray and sing and sleep, Save when for thee she mourns, thou wicked, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... he's an old buster," said Jimmy. And he straightened up, holding by the legs a fine cock partridge whose stiffening wings still beat his sides spasmodically. He had been scared-up in the neighboring woods, frightened by some hunter out of his native coverts. When he reached the unknown open places he was more frightened still and, as a ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long

... and bank issues, and the spread of internal improvements,—political events which commonly eclipse the intellectual aspects of nationality; but also in the Unitarian revolt of 1815, led by Channing, which loosed New England from the stiffening bonds of Calvinism, the Quaker schism in the Middle States, and the birth of the Campbellites in the West. The goodness of man was beginning to attract more attention than the total depravity of man. The North American Review was founded in 1815. Four years later, Irving published the Sketch-Book. ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... by and Howard did not move. At last, I ventured to try and withdraw my stiffening arm without rousing him, but at the first movement his fingers tightened and his ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... costly, fine, and beautiful, used for church vestments, veils for covering lecterns, cathedral flags, and in the 16th century for the lining of velvet gowns. The coarse, heavy, plain-woven linen or cotton material known as buckram today is used for stiffening, etc. ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... it out to the Italian. The fellow took it, surveyed it closely, felt in the pockets, and examined very critically the stiffening of the collar. Finally he put it on. He buttoned it closely around him, and passed his fingers through his matted hair. Then he felt the pockets once more. After which he yawned long and solemnly. This done, he looked earnestly at Buttons and ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille

... the horror of the scene, and the terrible aspect of the dead in the sight of the girl who had been her one darling. But Gorgo had remained by her side, and, while she did everything in her power to revive the stiffening body, the overwhelming might of Death had come home to her with appalling clearness. She felt the limbs of one she had loved growing cold and rigid under her hands, and her spirit rose in obstinate ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... or three of the rabble behind her were in the act of poising themselves with great stones in their hands, and their muscles were stiffening for a cast when, just in the nick of time, the obstinate snap yielded, and with a jerk the umbrella ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... feet and called for a hatchet for its opening. And as from their wrappings of paper and excelsior he drew two large gilt and glass bottles, one containing bay rum and the other camphor, that precious lotion for fast stiffening joints, little Miss Amanda heaved a sigh of positive rapture. Mr. Crabtree was small and wiry, with a hickory-nut countenance and a luscious peach of a heart, and, though of bachelor condition, he at all times displayed sympathetic and intuitive domestic inclinations. He kept the ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... with great difficulty that this was accomplished, for the old horse had evidently seen a vision of the happy hunting-ground, and was loath to return to the sordid earth. His limbs were already stiffening in death, and the whites of his eyes only were visible. Mrs. Wiggs noted these discouraging symptoms, and saw ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan

... this hour in any of her usual graces; unveiled and all but unashamed, they were tragic to the Princess in spite of the dissimulation that, with the return of comparative confidence, was so promptly to operate. How tragic, in essence, the very change made vivid, the instant stiffening of the spring of pride—this for possible defence if not for possible aggression. Pride indeed, the next moment, had become the mantle caught up for protection and perversity; she flung it round her as a denial of any loss of her ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... have buried in my own? 'Tis there, shrunk 'gainst two rows of dead pale pearls, and cold and colorless as lip of statue carved of marble. Was it the form whose perfect outline stamped it with divinity? It's there, but 'reft of all its winsome roundness, and stiffening in the chill of death. It makes me cold to look upon its rigidness. But just this hour the breath went out; was't that I loved? 'Twas this I clasped and kissed. What is it that we've christened love, that glamours men to madness, and stains with ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris

... years ago an article was discovered for the stiffening of corsets, which has revolutionized the corset industry of the world. This article is manufactured from the natural fibers of the Mexican Ixtle plant, and is known as Coraline. It consists of straight, stiff fibers like bristles bound together into a cord by being wound ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... Ggaran, his tentacles stiffening with shock at the memory. "You bloody-minded Earthlings must have been aware of ...
— Upstarts • L. J. Stecher

... his hissing breath, that gushed between his lips with the sound of air pumped through the fine mesh of a colander, there rose a still more ghastly croak of exultation and of triumph. Laboriously he wrote. A few words, and the pencil dropped from his stiffening fingers into the snow. Around his neck he wore a long red scarf held together by a big brass pin, and to this pin ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... was dead. Back there in the still house his limbs were stiffening upon his kitchen floor. Isom Chase was dead on the eve of the most bountiful harvest his lands had yielded him in all his toil-freighted years. Dead, with his fields around him; dead, with the maize dangling heavy ears in the white moonlight; dead, with the gold of pumpkin lurking like unminted ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... warmth and soft pressure of the Willow's hand on his head and neck filled him with a strange courage. He growled softly at the crashing thunder. He wanted to snap at the lightning flashes. Under her hand Nepeese felt the stiffening of his body, and in a moment of uncanny stillness she heard the sharp, uneasy click of his teeth. ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... typewritten pages. He noted the slow tightening of the other's fingers as he turned from the first sheet to the second; he watched Gregson's face, the slow ebbing of color, the gray white that followed it, the stiffening of his arms and shoulders as he ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood

... taking in everything; and as for Prince, his nose was as busy as his eyes, and a low growl and a stiffening of his ears soon told his little mistress that he had discovered something objectionable. When Betty crossed the room on tip-toe, she found him in front of a large mirror, and the snarl on his lips was not pleasant to see, as he faced ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre

... the brigade, Garnett riding at the head. "Good-day, Richard Cleave," he said. "We are all bound for Siberia, I think!" Company by company the regiments staggered by, in the whirling snow, the colours gripped by stiffening hands. There were blood stains on the frozen ground. Oh, the shoes, the shoes that a non-manufacturing country with closed ports had to make in haste and send its soldiers! Oh, the muskets, heavy, dull, ungleaming, weighting the fiercely aching shoulders! Oh, the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... Square Janet, attracted by the sight of banners in the distance, turned to the left along Wedgwood Street and past the front of Clayhanger's shop. Theoretically shops were closed, but one shutter of Clayhanger's was down, and in its place stood Edwin Clayhanger. Hilda felt her features stiffening into a sort of wilful and insincere hostility as she shook hands. Within the darkness of the shop she saw the figure of two dowdy women—doubtless the sisters of whom Janet had told her; they disappeared before Janet and ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... with perfect confidence, that all forms of protoplasm are liable to undergo that peculiar coagulation at a temperature of 40 deg.—50 deg. centigrade, which has been called "heat-stiffening," though Kuehne's beautiful researches have proved this occurrence to take place in so many and such diverse living beings, that it is hardly rash to expect that the law ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... to gaze at him, a frightful scream rang out above the booming of the canyon. It was a shriek such as a woman would utter in mortal fear. The girl drew back from the verge, her hair stiffening with horror. Could it be possible that Genevieve had lost her way and was wandering back ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... made much to-day, but unless you're anxious to go on that would make a good camping-place," he said deprecatingly. "Now there was a time when I wouldn't have thought of stopping yet, but I guess too much good living has taken a little of the stiffening out ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... shoulder Adelaide noted her father's expression, a stiffening of the mouth and a brightening of ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... that lie stark beneath the pitiless stars. Under a thousand roofs—cottage roofs and palace roofs—little children ask for 'father.' The pattering feet shall never run to meet, upon the threshold, his feet, who lies stiffening in the bloody ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... has been officially adopted as part of the uniform for officers, soldiers and other uniformed members of the A.E.F. For the latter two classes, the cap will be of 20 ounce olive drab cloth, or perhaps a little heavier. There will be no show of coloring on the cap, and the stiffening of the flap will be the same color as the cap itself. When the cap is issued to a man, he will be expected to turn in his service hat to ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... through her wet eyes, and though he knew of nothing for which to be forgiven, he melted utterly. His hand went out impulsively to hers, but she avoided the clasp by a sort of bodily stiffening and chill, the while the eyes smiled still ...
— The Game • Jack London

... although much of grace had already vanished there was on the whole a progress and elevation in the mind of him of whom we treat. But the culminating point is here. After this—whatever ripening process may have been at work unseen—what is chiefly visible is the slow stiffening of the imaginative power, the slow withdrawal of the insight into the soul of things, and a descent—[Greek: ablaechros mala tsios]—"soft as soft can be," to the euthanasy of a death ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... For all the many pleasing esthetic qualities you will find in it—dramatic inventiveness, humor and pathos, eloquence, elfin glamor and the like—you must bless the original author: of these things I have only the usufruct. To me the play owes nothing but the stiffening of civistic conscience that has been crammed in. Modest? Not a bit of it. It is my civistic conscience that makes a man of me and (incidentally) ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm

... expect? He was not usually bashful, he was no coward; there was nothing in her attitude to make him hesitate to give expression to what he believed was his first real passion. But he could do nothing. He even fancied that his face, turned towards hers, was stiffening into ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... her body suddenly stiffening. "Suppose you were his wife, and he locked you up in places, and made people call you Mrs. Welles, while he went swelling around everywhere, and making millions! What'd you do? And besides, it wasn't only that, ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... "No," said Kennedy stiffening suddenly in backbone, as he saw the outlet opened by Maguire, between antagonizing Peter, and retracting his consent. "I don't play ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... his handsome, weather-bronzed face bearing the impress of truth, his eyes shining with the clearest, highest honor. The child Jeanne felt the stiffening of every muscle, and it went through her with a ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... little stiffening in you, even now, Philip! No one but a weakling ever talks about fate. You'd think better of me, I suppose, if I stayed in my room and wept. Well, I could do it if I let myself, but I won't. I should lose several hours of the life that belongs to me. You think I didn't ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... driving a horse feels the lines stiffening in his hands; and the harness soon becomes so dry and brittle that it cracks and perhaps breaks ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... Hardin supporting the fainting woman. Slowly her eyes unclose. They meet Hardin's in one long, steadfast, inscrutable glance. She shudders and says, "Take me away." She covers her siren face with her jewelled hands, to avoid the sight of the waxy features and stiffening form of the thing lying there. Ten minutes ago it was the embodiment of wildest human passion and tiger-like activity. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... learning to ride is that the first day's experience is painfully stiffening. This applies to almost any unusual exercise. But to withdraw on account of that you may as well resign yourself to taking exercise no more severe than that afforded by a rocking chair. It does not pay to stop when you are stiff. Sticking to it is the only way that will train ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... and cold on his chest. He moved a little as he waked, and his movement caused the snake that was lying on him to raise its head. By the light of the camp fire the man saw his predicament. His hair stood on end, and he could feel the blood stiffening in his veins. He knew it would be some time before daylight, and felt that he would lose his mind before morning, or perhaps die of fear. He carried a knife in his belt, and decided, after careful consideration, that his best plan was ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... wouldst have helped her to escape from her prison-house, and lent her thine arm again to ascend the throne, which she had made a place of abomination?—Nay, stir not from me—my hand, though fast stiffening, has yet force enough to hold thee—What dost thou aim at?—to wed this witch of Scotland?—I warrant thee, thou mayest succeed—her heart and hand have been oft won at a cheaper rate, than thou, fool that thou art, would think thyself happy to pay. But, should a servant of thy father's house have ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... bad hour of it; but he held his own, keeping silent while they screamed, and stiffening as they began to wobble from exhaustion. Finally he took his mother apart, and tried to reason with her. His arguments were not much use, but his resolution impressed her, and he saw it. As for his father, nobody was ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... why? as we were so much needed. All these queries and doubts however were soon put an end to when it became known that the Colonel had decided to land and practice an attack. He knew that at any moment his Regiment might be thrown into action, and as the long journey was found to have a stiffening effect on one's limbs he decided on some small practice manoeuvres before the actual and real ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous

... (I shuddered, for it might be with life-blood), and he would go and cleanse them; but some bitter jest turned his purpose, and he left the room with the other two—left it by the gallery door. Left me alone in the dark with the stiffening corpse! ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... at me. I thought that he was going to speak. But his eyes became suddenly hard. Under the lustrous veil I saw his features stiffening. ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... lines in length. The nature of these stories is easy to imagine: there was the youth who wandered by night into a witches' sabbath, and was disputed for by the witches, young and old. There was the light o' love who went into the desert to tempt the holy man; but he died as he yielded, and the arms stiffening by some miracle to iron-like rigidity, she was unable to free herself, and died of starvation, as her bondage loosened in decay. And I had increased my difficulties by adopting as part of my task the introduction of all sorts of elaborate, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... contemporary Russia. "If he had received a better education," adds the Princess, "he would have been an accomplished man." The suite of the Czar were not less surprising than their master; the Muscovites danced with the court ladies, and took the stiffening of their corsets for their bones. "The bones of these Germans are devilish hard!" ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... this entrance betrayed whereto they were bound, but also Jane's manner. For the nurse was holding herself erect and proper—shoulders back, chin in, heels together. Gwendolyn had often noted that upon both Jane and Thomas her parents had a curious stiffening effect. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates

... At sight of the stiffening body of the faithful slave you may suppose my blood ran cold and hot by turns, and that his blood cried out for vengeance from the sod that soaked it up. With ten years more of youth and less of ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... with the flood tide we hove anchor and the Happy Despatch stood out to sea and, as she heeled to the freshening wind, Job's stiffening body lurched and swayed and twisted from the main yard. And thus it was I saw the ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... stiffening with grief. She had not expected to have this battle with Ellen; she had been prepared for abuse and upbraiding, but not for argument—it had not struck her that her sister would demand the ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... contempt, those congratulations contained no sign of consciousness that France was about to challenge us to conflict. We may admit that Frost and Barlow showed great tactlessness in presenting those addresses when friction between the two nations had already begun; for the incident, besides stiffening the necks of Frenchmen, gave the Reform movement an appearance of disloyalty to England which worked infinite harm. Nevertheless, on reviewing these questions, we see that Pitt treated the foolish ebullitions of youth as ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... hour and a half. It may be further remarked that, the outside of the kettle being black, the lid being light-tight, and all the apertures in it being firmly closed, nearly the whole process can be conducted by daylight, from the mixing to the stiffening, so that it is very convenient to be able to keep the emulsion in the same vessel ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various

... STIFFENING ORDER. A custom-house warrant for making a provision in the shipping of goods, before the whole inward cargo is discharged, to prevent ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... on the bed, tearing the envelope from end to end. And from end to end, and back again and over again, she read the letter—at first in expectancy, lips parted, colour brilliant, then with the smile still curving her cheeks—but less genuine now—almost mechanical—until the smile stamped on her stiffening lips faded, and the soft contours relaxed, and she lifted her eyes, staring into space with a wistful, questioning ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... with you!" he exclaimed. "Every now and then you bring one up short, one knocks one's head against a stone wall! There is an indomitable strain in you. I only hope you've transmitted it to me. I'm afraid I need stiffening.—I beg your pardon," he added quickly and courteously, "it strikes me I am becoming slightly impertinent. But that woman's voice has turned my brain and loosed the string of my tongue so that I speak words of unwisdom. You enjoyed her singing too, though, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... north side which the flames had not reached the men were dozing, or in low, awe-stricken tones, talking of the tragic events of the night. Near the east gate, reverently and decently covered with the only shroud to be had, the newest of the saddle-blankets, lay the stiffening remains of poor Donovan and his comrade. Lurking about the westward end of the enclosure, their beady eyes every now and then glittering in the fire-light, the Mexicans, men and boy, were smoking their everlasting papellitos, apparently ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... Flames and ether making a rush for my veins, Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them, My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly different from myself, On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs, Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip, Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial, Depriving me of my best as for a purpose, Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist, Deluding ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... meaningless, and his mother said nothing at the time, but a slight stiffening of her face warned him that his father's remark pointed in a direction not held desirable by her. And from that sign the boy took ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... lifting his hand adjuringly. His companion solemnly drew his finger across his throat, as if cutting it, and the oath was taken. The one who had lost the cap, hitched up his trousers and pulled himself together, his whole figure stiffening with determination; then he put his hands upon the fence, vaulted it, and walked with bent head and firm step across the yard, looking like one who had staked his all upon one card. When he had secured the cap, and turned his back upon the House, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... drunkard, who had probably stolen it last year from some old soldier. He readily sold it, and I took it back with me; and the others being gone, an old woman and I cut the patch off it and put "No. 4"'s stiffening arms into the sleeves. Word was sent to us during the day to say that the city would bury him in the poorhouse grounds. But we told them that arrangements had been made; that he would have a soldier's burial. And ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... foreigners that because they are so careless as to what becomes of their written and printed paper, the matter contained in foreign documents and books must obviously be of no great value. It is even considered criminal to use printed matter for stiffening the covers or strengthening the folded leaves of books; still more so, to employ it in the manufacture of soles for boots and shoes, though in such cases as these the weakness of human nature usually carries the day. ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... it be affirmed with perfect confidence, that all forms of protoplasm are liable to undergo that peculiar coagulation at a temperature of 40-50 degrees centigrade, which has been called "heat-stiffening," though Kuhne's [101] beautiful researches have proved this occurrence to take place in so many and such diverse living beings, that it is hardly rash to expect that the law holds good ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... moving on the deck above his head. The Nathan Ross had run into rougher weather with her change of course; the wind was stiffening, and now and then a whisk of spray came aboard. He heard Jim Finch's bellowing commands.... Heard Mark's laughter. Mark and Jim were astern, fairly over ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams

... whom he felt a sympathy that did not exist with any other person now living. So long did he sit, holding her hand, that at last he was conscious that it was growing cold within his own, and that the stiffening fingers clutched him, as if they were disposed to keep their hold, and not forego the tie that ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... use them it decreases. But more than all else, you are not the same man physically or mentally on any two days. A slight increase in weight, the wearing of an extra garment, the congestion of a muscle or the stiffening of a chord may be sufficient to throw you off your stroke and seriously impair ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams

... as she felt the feeble body stiffening against her with the approaching rigidity ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... "Kiss me, she's gone," I said. "Oh! what a boy," and she kissed me, saying, "let me go now—your mamma is coming." It came into my mind that I had had my hand up her clothes, and had felt hair between her legs. My prick stiffening in thinking of a women. I clutched her hard, put one hand on to her and did something I know not what. She said: "You are rude, Wattie." Then I pinched her and said: "Oh! what a big bosom you have." "Hish! hish!" said she. She was ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... he got up and walked stiffly and painfully up and down the deck, knowing that this was the best plan to prevent the limbs from stiffening. The corsair did not return until night set in; he was accompanied by an Arab, whose dress and appearance showed that he was a person of importance. The other slaves had all been sent below, but Gervaise still remained on deck, as the mate ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... did. Lucky for you," Roy answered, stiffening in his turn. But because of old days—because this unpromising specimen of manhood had incidentally brought him and Desmond together, he held out his hand. "'Fraid I lost my temper," he said casually, for form's sake. "But you ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... head of the bed, sat the mother—smiling. She held one of the hands (rapidly stiffening, even in her warm grasp), and gently stroked the back of it, with the endearing caress she had used to all ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... and all else that was connected with chivalry. Then came the ages which, when they have taken their due place in the depths of the past, will be, by a wise and clear-sighted futurity, perhaps well comprehended under a common name, as the ages of Starch; periods of general stiffening and bluish-whitening, with a prevailing washerwoman's taste in everything; involving a change of steel armour into cambric; of natural hair into peruke; of natural walking into that which will disarrange no wristbands; of plain ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... on that," said Tom, stiffening again. "If you had been where you could have used your ears as you did your eyes back yonder at Pine Knob, you'd know more than you seem to ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... A stiffening raced over Mrs. Kantor, so that she sat rigid on her chair-edge, lips compressed, eye darkly upon the ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... the Duchess Helen?" said Beltane with stiffening lips, "thou the Duchess and I—a smith!" and he laughed, short and fierce, and would have turned from her but she stayed ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... with all the light gone from his brave young face, stands mutely looking down, upon the stiffening frame of his father's old friend, and his, who lies shot through ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... Stiffening himself with an effort of his whole will, he made for the door of the secretary's room with little short steps, like an automaton. But he reeled on the way—and had to sit ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... is doubtless consumed in the arts—as starch for stiffening linens, &c., and for other purposes not coming under the term of food, but I have purposely left out in the calculation about 30,000 to 40,000 quarters of rice in the husk ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... the fallen, who, with helpless faces Low in the dust, in stiffening ruin lay, Felt the hoofs beat, and heard the rattling traces As o'er us drove ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... dog uttered a fierce howl of pain, leaped high into the air, and fell back among the bushes. But even as he fell Tom saw that he was stiffening into death, and he exclaimed ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... unless the physician is a person of unusual knowledge and skill, may have little more value. Unless careful thermometric observation proves that the temperature has sunk below a certain point; unless the cadaveric stiffening of the muscles has become well established; all the ordinary signs of death may be fallacious, and the intervention of C.D. may have had no more to do with A.B.'s restoration to life than any other ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... malice altered Malcourt's smile as he watched them; the stiffening grin twitched ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... in the morning when the action began. The day was an ideal October morning at sea,—cool, clear, and a breeze blowing fresh and constantly stiffening. The two vessels were running on the starboard tack, not sixty yards apart. As they ploughed through the waves, great clouds of spray dashed over the bows; and every now and then a wave would sweep over the forecastle, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... had crossed into Poland this sober, steel-gray stream had been mingling with and stiffening our lighter-hearted, more boyish, blue-gray stream of Austrians and Hungarians. Here were men who knew what they were doing, believed in it, and had the will to put it through. One thought of Emerson's "Earnest of the North Wind" ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... strikes in upon the hopeless monotony of life in remote farmhouses with one of her phenomenal moods. They come like besoms of destruction, but they scatter the web of stifling routine; they fling into the stiffening pool the stone which jars ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... soon wore brassy, and then the shoe looked old and cheap. They are now enameled, or the top of them is made of celluloid in a color to match the shoe. The tags on lacings and the hooks for holding lacings are also enameled. A "box-toe gum" is used to support the box-toe stiffening. Cement covers the stitches; and many sorts of blacking are used in finishing the work. It is by no means a simple operation to make ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... demand for cords, and the price of them, were much risen since this fashion came up." At this, all the company who were present lifted up their eyes into the vault; and I must confess, we did discover many traces of cordage, which were interwoven in the stiffening ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele

... of power flowed. I sank into cool depths, passionless and calm. Something was entering my body, my mind and soul, drowning my fears, stiffening my resolve. ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner

... start you so? Her stiffening grief, Who saw her children slaughtered all at once, Was dull to mine: Methinks, I should have made My bosom bare against the armed god, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... of the tomb. He saw Atma prostrate on the damp sepulchral mould, his face buried in his hands, and beside him lay still, and cold, and lifeless, a girl attired in bridal finery, with jewels gleaming on her dark hair and on her stiffening arms. It ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... nor see without a candle. Upon the attic floor a map was roughly drawn in chalks of different colours, with mountains, rivers, towns, bridges, and roads of two classes. Here we would play by the hour, with tingling fingers and stiffening knees, and an intentness, zest, and excitement that I shall never forget. The mimic battalions marched and counter-marched, changed by measured evolutions from column formation into line, with cavalry screens in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... look at Pelliter, but he could feel the quick, tense stiffening of the other's body. There was a moment's silence. Then Pelliter spoke in a ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood

... his coat. It was as if accidentally I had looked inside the man—upon the strength of his illusions, on his desire, on his passion. Now he will fly at me, I thought, with a tremendously convincing certitude. Now———All my muscles, stiffening, answered the appeal of ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... the women. They comb their wool up to a peak and keep it in position by stiffening it with brown-red clay—half of this tower colored, denotes engagement; the whole of it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... beautiful, used for church vestments, veils for covering lecterns, cathedral flags, and in the 16th century for the lining of velvet gowns. The coarse, heavy, plain-woven linen or cotton material known as buckram today is used for stiffening, etc. ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... Scripture, wot he done for that young man as the last breath had gone out of him, an' him lyin' stiffening fast. 'Young man, arise,' he says. 'The Lord Almighty calls. You've got a young wife an' three children to take care of. Take up your bed an' walk.' Not as he wanted him to carry his bed anywheres, but it was a manner of speaking. An' up the young man got. An' a sensible way," said ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... and stiffening her jaw rather ominously, "and it's just about time that he learned that he isn't always going to have it, too! It's very easy for him to have me do anything that is hard and stupid——Do you suppose," she ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... had travelled beyond Lawrence and her features were stiffening into a mask of fear. "Oh, the dog, the dog!" she pointed past ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... the stones, she took some in each hand, and clenched them up, as if she would have ground them. She writhed into some new posture constantly: stiffening her arms, twisting them before her face, as though to shut out from her eyes the little light there was, and drooping her head, as if it were heavy with ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... with praise the wheeling days Until the cord goes slack, Until the very heartstring frays, Until the stiffening back Can ply no more; keep then the door, And, thankful in the sun, Watch you the same unending war Ontaken by ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett

... however were soon put an end to when it became known that the Colonel had decided to land and practice an attack. He knew that at any moment his Regiment might be thrown into action, and as the long journey was found to have a stiffening effect on one's limbs he decided on some small practice manoeuvres before the actual and real ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous

... away at first, yet not as if refusing to listen: but now from a sudden stiffening of her shoulders, he saw ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Billy's back was not particularly straight this sudden question introduced a stiffening into it which made it more upright than it had ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple

... we had crossed into Poland this sober, steel-gray stream had been mingling with and stiffening our lighter-hearted, more boyish, blue-gray stream of Austrians and Hungarians. Here were men who knew what they were doing, believed in it, and had the will to put it through. One thought of Emerson's "Earnest of the North Wind" ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... poor little Olive still trembled and grieved. Not until her hope was thus crushed, did she know how near her heart it had been. She thought of Michael Vanbrugh's scornful rebuke, and bitter shame possessed her. She stood—patient model!—her fingers stiffening over the rich drapery, her eyes weariedly fixed on the one corner of the room, in the direction of which she was obliged to turn her head. The monotonous attitude contributed to plunge her mind into that ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... the hair are fixed. They vary with the ages of female children, and there is a slight difference between the coiffure of the married and unmarried. The two partings on the top of the head and the chignon never vary. The amount of stiffening used is necessary, as the head is never covered out of doors. This arrangement will last in good order for a week or more—thanks to the ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... informs her that her daughter had her wedding outfit made up by a fashionable milliner in Paris, and every dress was beautifully fitted to the form, and yet was not compressing to any part. This was done too without the use of corsets, the stiffening being delicate and ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... all; enter, M. Aurilly, enter." And he pushed him into the next room, where the astonished musician perceived D'Epernon before a mirror, occupied in stiffening his mustachios, while Maugiron, seated near the window, was cutting out engravings, by the side of which the bas-reliefs on the temple of Venus Aphrodite would ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas

... place there was the condition of the hand. When a person, at the moment of death, grasps any object firmly, there is set up a condition known as cadaveric spasm. The muscular contraction passes immediately into rigor mortis, or death-stiffening, and the object remains grasped by the dead hand until the rigidity passes off. In this case the hand was perfectly rigid, but it did not grasp the hair at all. The little tress lay in the palm quite loosely and the hand was only partially closed. ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... answered to the temporary character of the 'dispensation.' The more fixed and elaborate the externals of worship, the more danger of the spirit being stifled by them. The Old Testament worship was necessarily ceremonial, but here is a caveat against the stiffening of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... there was a significant silence. They were waiting for Ambrose to speak. Stiffening himself he told his story as manfully as he could. Conscious of its weakness he wore a hang-dog air which contrasted unfavorably with Strange's ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... said to her once, quoting some Frenchman, that she was 'good to consult about ideas.' Ah well!—at a great price had she won that praise. And with an unconscious stiffening of the frail hands lying on the arms of the chair, she thought of those bygone hours in which she had asked herself—'what remains?' Religious faith?—No!—Life was too horrible! Could such things have happened to her in a world ruled by a God?—that was her question, day and night for years. ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... come of it. "Swear? You won't try and back out of it?" he said, lifting his hand adjuringly. His companion solemnly drew his finger across his throat, as if cutting it, and the oath was taken. The one who had lost the cap, hitched up his trousers and pulled himself together, his whole figure stiffening with determination; then he put his hands upon the fence, vaulted it, and walked with bent head and firm step across the yard, looking like one who had staked his all upon one card. When he had secured the cap, and turned his back upon the House, he ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... wine-red velvet and her glowing, gipsy beauty against the sober blacks and grays and faded cheeks of the gathering, looking like a Kentucky cardinal alighted in a henyard, felt her smile stiffening. Sudden and inexplicable panic and rebellion descended upon her; it seemed certain that if she heard Mrs. Wetherby say "proud of this dear girl of ours" once again she would scream. She disengaged her arm and declined tea ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... ever in his tender recollection. After wandering for several hours in the thickest mist upon this Novembry heath, and what by moorish ground—what by the dripping atmosphere being thoroughly soaked, and stiffening with cold, the author and Mr. Vanley discovered on a declivity of the bleak Mount Patrick a solitary hovel. It stood apart from all houses or dwellings; and even the shepherd on this particular night had stolen ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... when Columbus, through the gray dawn of the 12th of October, 1492 (Copernicus, at the age of eighteen, was then a student at Cracow), beheld the shores of San Salvador; like that when the law of gravitation first revealed itself to the intellect of Newton; like that when Franklin saw by the stiffening fibers of the hempen cord of his kite, that he held the lightning in his grasp; like that when Leverrier received back from Berlin the tidings that the predicted planet ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett

... was connected with chivalry. Then came the ages which, when they have taken their due place in the depths of the past, will be, by a wise and clear-sighted futurity, perhaps well comprehended under a common name, as the ages of Starch; periods of general stiffening and bluish-whitening, with a prevailing washerwoman's taste in everything; involving a change of steel armour into cambric; of natural hair into peruke; of natural walking into that which will disarrange ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... an uptown car, counting, and truly enough, upon the chivalry of the mob toward her burden, for obtaining an immediate seat. At West Fifty-third Street she alighted into a day gone two shades darker. A stiffening breeze blew in from the river, whipping up the odor of garbage from curbs. A group of dirty children were building a bonfire of some of these slops and bits of flying paper, lending a certain vicious redness to ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... should betray her inward wrath. In this manner he lingered on two years, and died in the beginning of May, when he had been carried out upon the balcony, in the sunshine. "Glashka, Glashka! the bouillon, the bouillon, you old foo ..." lisped his stiffening tongue, and without finishing the last word, it became silent forever. Glafira Petrovna, who had just snatched the cup of bouillon from the hands of the butler, stopped short, stared her brother in the face, crossed herself slowly and broadly, and withdrew ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... adopted as part of the uniform for officers, soldiers and other uniformed members of the A.E.F. For the latter two classes, the cap will be of 20 ounce olive drab cloth, or perhaps a little heavier. There will be no show of coloring on the cap, and the stiffening of the flap will be the same color as the cap itself. When the cap is issued to a man, he will be expected to turn in his service hat ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... then seating Miss Granger on my lap again, I pulled her closely to me. "Kiss me, she's gone," I said. "Oh! what a boy," and she kissed me, saying, "let me go now—your mamma is coming." It came into my mind that I had had my hand up her clothes, and had felt hair between her legs. My prick stiffening in thinking of a women. I clutched her hard, put one hand on to her and did something I know not what. She said: "You are rude, Wattie." Then I pinched her and said: "Oh! what a big bosom you have." "Hish! ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... was delivered almost at the rifles' muzzles, and the long sword-bayonets clashed together. Without yielding ground, for a few terrible seconds they thrust and parried with the clanging steel, while on either side the dead were stiffening beneath their feet, and the wounded, with shrieks of agony, were clutching at their limbs. Harold and the young Southron met; their swords clashed together once in the smoke and dust, and but once, when each drew back and lowered his weapon, while all around were striking. ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... contrary grieved him greatly. It was laden, and then its weakness was evident, so that they had to change their tune to that very governor. It was said that it would be made all right by putting in some stiffening—namely, three planks on each side, very thick and heavy—whereby it seemed that the vessel would be strengthened. Accordingly, the people embarked, a thing that ought not to have been done. On Thursday, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... but a momentary stiffening of the whole powerful frame, an instant's flash of the ruling passion hidden within that very secretive soul. Then he once more turned towards her, the rigid lines of his face relaxed, he broke into ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... alighted lightly on her feet. Then she fell to her labor of collecting what I suppose was nesting material, and in a few minutes started up again by the roundabout road to the top. Two hours or more, with gradually stiffening neck, I spent with the wren, while she worked constantly and silently, and not once during all that ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... quietly waited awhile after their burdens were taken from their humps. Then, as if an afterthought had struck them, they slowly approached the scoop-outs and with the most indifferent air would take a mouthful of the liquid, then, stiffening their necks, they would lift their heads and calmly survey the scenery around them, till their drivers would draw their attention to the fact that there was at least another draught of water in the pool. It should be remembered that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... first lifted him above the flood. He came during a moment of national expansiveness. Patriotism and jingoism, altruism and imperialism, passion and sentimentalism shook the temper which had been slowly stiffening since the Civil War. Now, with a rush of unaccustomed emotions, the national imagination sought out its own past, luxuriating in it, not to ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... courage could not brook the idea of confessing that she was vanquished by the persecution she endured. She certainly earned her bread, she did not steal the Rebufats' hospitality; and this conviction satisfied her pride. So she remained there to continue the struggle, stiffening herself and living on with the one thought of resistance. Her plan was to do her work in silence, and revenge herself for all harsh treatment by mute contempt. She knew that her uncle derived too much advantage from her to listen ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... doom of her brother. That the boy had all he could do to maintain his composure was manifest to every one. For a time it seemed that affection would submerge all other emotions; then came a quick stiffening of his body as though he were preparing himself to resist any further appeal to his tenderness. When he spoke it was ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... raven hair. The heart of the pioneer sickened as he recognized the clustering curls of Genevra. In a moment his rifle was at his shoulder, and with a sharp "ping" Muck- a-Muck leaped into the air a corpse. To knock out the brains of the remaining savages, tear the tresses from the stiffening hand of Muck- a-Muck, and dash rapidly forward to the cottage of Judge Tompkins, was the work ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... the older men, some of whom had already begun to feel their joints stiffening with rheumatism, she said: "Fishing's a hard game, boys, for the best of us. And it doesn't get any easier as we get older. There's a lot of you who will have to go into dry-dock before long and get patched ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... him at once with all her tigerish capacity for hate. But he had given his word to his wife, and that was the end of it. He answered every letter, but his gallantry and kindness were pitch and oil, and it was with profound relief that he watched the gradual stiffening of her pride, the dull resentment, even although he knew it meant that an enemy, subtle, resourceful, and venomous, was in the process of making. In her final letter she gave him warning—and a last opportunity. But of this ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... we delay to let loose that fury, that is so terrible, when our nests are attacked? I feel my angry sting is stiffening, that sharp sting, with which we punish our enemies. Come, children, cast your cloaks to the winds, run, shout, tell Cleon what is happening, that he may march against this foe to our city, who deserves death, since he proposes to prevent the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... to be sitting here in solitude listening to the music of one of Nature's mighty harp-strings. Her grand symphonies peal forth through the endless ages of the universe, now in the tumultuous whirl of busy life, now in the stiffening coldness of death, as in Chopin's Funeral March; and we—we are the minute, invisible vibrations of the strings in this mighty music of the universe, ever changing, yet ever the same. Its notes are worlds; one vibrates for a longer, another for a shorter period, and all in ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... foundations of the earth to their centre. Mohegan raised him self, as if in obedience to a signal for his departure, and stretched his wasted arm toward the west. His dark face lighted with a look of joy; which, with all other expressions, gradually disappeared; the muscles stiffening as they retreated to a state of rest; a slight convulsion played, for a single instant, about his lips; and his arm slowly dropped by his side, leaving the frame of the dead warrior reposing against ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... bitch crawled up behind him, her belly close to the ground, and crouching for her rush. He heard Quinton Edge shout and saw him raise his hand; the dog, recognizing her master's voice, even as she leaped, was quick to obey, arching and stiffening her back in mid-air so as to break the force of her spring; he saw her fall in a heap at his feet, and lie there whimpering. Whereupon, for a brief moment, the trees seemed to bow themselves before him and the sky ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... still surviving at the time I speak of, had ever turned a wheel. Consequently his brethren held him in the sort of awe in which illustrious survivors of a bygone age are always held by their associates. He knew how he was regarded, and perhaps this fact added some trifle of stiffening to his natural dignity, which had been sufficiently stiff in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... back. Covers, consisting of two sheets of colored paper folded in front like the pages, are placed at front and back, but not covering the back edge, or there is an outer sheet of colored paper with inside lining paper and a leaf of heavy paper between for stiffening. Silk cord is sewn through the holes and neatly tied, and the book is done—light in the hand and lying open well, inexpensive and capable with proper treatment ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman

... seen rushing into it in the evenings, without even starting back on feeling pain. Contact with the hot embers rather increases the energy with which they strive to gain the hottest parts, and they never cease their struggles for the centre even when their juices are coagulating and their limbs stiffening in the roasting heat. Various insects also are thus fascinated; but the scorpions may be seen coming away from the fire in fierce disgust, and they are so irritated as to inflict at that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... too much," Lewson pointed out. "There's an American stove in the deck-house, and while we can't find anything meant to burn in it there's an ax down forward, and we could cut out cabin floorings, or a beam or two, without taking too much stiffening out ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... own with you! That's not the way we manage things here. If you don't show up with a manuscript in your hand, you'll find yourself walking down the passage with the door slammed behind you. Yes, I mean it! You're a decent enough little person, but you're apt to be slack. You must get some stiffening into you this time." ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil

... there is perhaps no other country which has more to give than Canada in the shape of discipline; of that kind of mental, moral, and physical tonic which makes for swift, sure character-development, and the stiffening and bracing of the human fibers. In English life there has been of late years a rather serious scarcity of this tonic influence. Canada is very rich in her supply of it; but the tonic is too potent ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... of the lad's belt, glanced off harmless. I saw the steel flash up again—saw the spite in the man's eyes: but this time I was a step nearer, and before the weapon fell, I passed my sword clean through the wretch's body. He went down like a log, Croisette falling with him, held fast by his stiffening fingers. ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman

... you have never called to take away the shirts you left for me to make more than two years ago? I have often thought I would take them to you; but sister Stanhope said I had better wait, as you would call when you wanted them. I starched and ironed them all up nice for you; but I am sure the stiffening is all out, and they are as yellow as ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... still dwelling in the past. "And when saying good-bye she could put in an instant an immense distance between herself and you. A slight stiffening of that perfect figure, a change of the physiognomy: it was like being dismissed by a person born in the purple. Even if she did offer you her hand—as she did to me—it was as if across a broad river. Trick of manner or a bit of truth peeping out? Perhaps she's really ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... on his face, and the sting of a deep cut somewhere upon it. He saw that Cain was straightening over a mangled form; that Kriijorl had overcome odds of two to one. The breeder at his own feet had died swiftly of a deftly broken neck, a reddened dirk still clutched in his stiffening fingers. ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden

... my dear—but you must reflect, that, etc., etc., et cetera"—each et cetera a dab of wet wool, taking out more and more stiffening and color, until the beautiful project hangs, a limp rag, on her hands, a forlorn wreck over which she could ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... Electress; and in this he represented contemporary Russia. "If he had received a better education," adds the Princess, "he would have been an accomplished man." The suite of the Czar were not less surprising than their master; the Muscovites danced with the court ladies, and took the stiffening of their corsets for their bones. "The bones of these Germans are ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... He was standing before His mirror fumbling with His moustache, which seemed unwilling any more to point upwards, but had a persistent droop. "Donner und blitzen!" He exclaimed irascibly as he added more and more stiffening paste. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various

... the duty before me, and, as I knelt down sorrowfully by the dead form and respectfully composed his stiffening limbs, I thought that it was unjust of fate to place a well-meaning man, whose nerves were not of ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... more attention than if he had not heard, but the slight stiffening of his face and raising of his eyebrows as he turned to Sir Samuel, made him look supremely proud and distinguished, incomparably more a gentleman in his dusty leather livery, than Bertie in his well-cut ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... a mask, Madame," replied the captain, kneeling. He gently loosed the sword from the stiffening fingers. The master of ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... hours, the minutes,—a turbid broil of thought in his brain, of Dode sitting alone, of George and his murderers, "stiffening his courage,"—right and wrong mixing each other inextricably together. If, now and then, a shadow crossed him of the meek Nazarene leaving this word to His followers, that, let the world do as it would, they should resist not evil, he thrust it back. It did not suit to-day. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... flow then that would not flow When our sorrow was our own, And the deadly, stiffening blow Was upon our own heart given In the moments that ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... superintendent, and the master-mechanic were getting the news the Special engine steamed slowly into sight through the whirling snow and stopped at the semaphore. So a liner shaken in the teeth of a winter storm, battered by heading seas, and swept by stiffening spray, rides at last, ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman

... core of the horn, is boiled down in water. A large quantity of fat rises to the surface; this is put aside, and sold to the makers of yellow soap. The itself is used as a kind of glue, and is purchased by the cloth-draper for stiffening. The bony substance remaining behind is then sent to the mill, and, after having been ground down, is sold ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... frequent discharges from the stomach. Then a shawl, of flannel or any other warm material, is to be provided, to throw over the shoulders if the weather be cold. Socks, and pieces of old soft linen, free from stiffening, for napkins or diapers, ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... contrary, she revealed the sprightliest interest in the coming nuptials. Percival himself had told her the news within the hour after his interview with Mrs. Spofford. In his blind happiness, he had failed to notice the momentary stiffening of her body as if resisting a shock; he did not see the hurt, baffled look that darkened her eyes for a few seconds, and the swiftly passing pallor that stole into her face and vanished almost instantly. He saw only the challenging smile that followed close upon these fleeting signs, and the mocking ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... died in a struggle, or laboring under sudden emotion, his corpse might stiffen practically instantaneously: there are dozens of cases noted, particularly in cases of injury to the skull, like this one. On the other hand, the stiffening might not have begun until eight or ten hours after death. You can't hang anybody on rigor mortis nowadays, inspector, much as you may resent the limitation. No; what we can say is this. If he had been shot after the hour at which the world begins to get up ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... "Hold up your heads, girls!" I repeat after Primrose. Why should you not? Every mother's daughter of you can be beautiful. You can envelop yourselves in an atmosphere of moral and intellectual beauty, through which your otherwise plain faces will look forth like those of angels. Beautiful to Ledyard, stiffening in the cold of a northern winter, seemed the diminutive, smokestained women of Lapland, who wrapped him in their furs and ministered to his necessities with kindness and gentle words of compassion. Lovely to ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... it aloft. He was as excited as any of the runners; there was the nervous thrill in his voice. "On your marks!" They put their hands to the ground; he ran his eyes along them to see that all were placed. "Set!" There was the instant stiffening of muscles. Then from the revolver came a click. Irving had emptied the six chambers in starting the other races, and had forgotten ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier

... Louise:—well, there had been nothing quite so definite. He had met her at the tea room—there had been one final week of closing after his arrival—and he had not quite made up his mind about her before she had left for Bloomfield, beyond a certain stiffening of fibre, an aloofness that was new, and a business-like air that seemed to say "Come across," that he did not exactly like. But then a week is not a very long time to get down to bed-rock with a ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... file, to give the least possible sign of their presence to the hostile sentinels, the French blasters advanced in a long line, at first with comparative rapidity, only stiffening into the grotesque rigidity of simulated death when the searchlights played upon them, and resuming progress when the beam shifted. Then as they approached the barrier they moved slowly and more slowly. When they arrived within forty yards the movement of the crawling ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... means of counteracting and limiting the powers of the disembodied spirits of the dead, or of any spirits?—I say I would become emphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd Girl's suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among us ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... to the captain, if he had only called up the guard of dragoons when he rallied the foot, they would have shown the inimy what the edge of a sword was; for, although there was no commissioned officer with them, yet I think I must say, the veteran continued, stiffening his cravat about his throat, and raising himself up with tile air of a drill-sergeant, they were led by a man who knowed how to bring them on. ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... Sioux and Cheyenne; away, yelling shrill warning, go warrior and chief; away, down stream, past the stiffening form of the brave fellow they killed; away past the station where the loop-holes blaze with rifle-shots and ring with exultant cheers; away across the road and down the winding valley, and so far to the north and the sheltering arms of the reservation,—and one more ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... hour's warning. What purpose or desire his last words indicated, there was nothing to show. He was dead; and yet I could hardly believe that it was so. He had been so much alive; so full of schemes and enterprises. Nothing now was left but that crushed and haggard figure, stiffening on the bed; nothing, at least, that mortal senses could take cognizance of. ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne

... of snow-drifts, or snow-chasms, towards a point of rock, which, being turned, should expose only another interminable succession of the same character—might that be endured by ebbing spirits, by stiffening limbs, by the ghastly darkness that was now beginning to gather upon the inner eye? And, if once despair became triumphant, all the little arrear of physical strength would ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... muzzle of the pistol up, his body stiffening, his eyes glittering with the malignance that had been in them when he had been looking out at Lawler through the aperture ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... Fig. 4. This will make a rigid yet flexible joint for rough waters. The flooring being placed on the under side of the crosspieces makes it possible to get the sail boom very low. The sides put on and well fastened will greatly assist in stiffening the platform and help it to stand the racking strains. These sides will also keep the water and spray out and much more so if a 12-in. dash is put on in front on top of ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... internodes were free and when they were tied up; but was perhaps most conspicuous in the latter case, or when the whole shoot happened to be much inclined. The tendril forms a very acute angle with the projecting extremity of the stem or shoot; and the stiffening always occurred as the tendril approached, and had to pass over the shoot in its circular course. If it had not possessed and exercised this curious power, it would infallibly have struck against ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin

... night, when deepest sleep Falls upon men, fear seiz'd me, all my bones Trembled, and every stiffening hair rose up. A spirit pass'd before me, but I saw No form thereof. I knew that there it stood, Even though my straining eyes discern'd it not. Then from its moveless lips a voice burst forth, "Is man more just than God? Is mortal man More pure than He who ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... a man interested in all phenomena. In other circumstances he would have observed keenly that which now occurred, when the hair of his head underwent a curious involuntary stiffening and bristling process that in popular but sufficiently accurate terms, might be described as "standing on end." But at the moment he was in ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various

... cut off from home and friends, and dying among strangers. An almost imperceptible glance indicated that he wished me to take up his Bible. The fast-stiffening lips whispered, "Read." I read to him the Fourteenth Chapter of St. John, stopping frequently to note if the faint breathing yet continued. Each time he would move the cold fingers in a way that evidently meant "go on." After I had finished the reading, he whispered, so faintly ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... evident annoyance and for an instant there was a defiant stiffening of his jaw, but when he spoke his voice held neither excitement ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... forward, he appeared blind as well as fear-stricken, and Helen, suddenly seeing a barb-wire fence ahead, felt herself go faint, for she had never taken a fence, and she knew that Pat never had. She must get control of herself again. And this she did. Stiffening in the stirrups, she gripped a single rein in both hands and pulled with all her strength. But she could not swerve the horse. On he plunged for the obstruction, evidently not seeing ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... weather. Crean, as already set down, had started with the Main Southern Party a week after Lashly and I had first set out as the pioneers with those wretched failures, the motor sledges. By this time I had made the unpleasant discovery that I was suffering from scurvy. It came on with a stiffening of the knee joints, then I could not straighten my legs, and finally they were horrible to behold, swollen, bruised, and green. As day followed day my condition became worse: my gums were ulcerated and my teeth loose. Then finally I got haemorrhage. Crean and Lashly were dreadfully ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... all gasping on the ground. So, when by hollow shores the fisher-train Sweep with their arching nets the roaring main, And scarce the meshy toils the copious draught contain, All naked of their element, and bare, The fishes pant, and gasp in thinner air; Wide o'er the sands are spread the stiffening prey, Till the warm sun exhales their ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... with the stiffening of his will to dogged opposition, which, in its own slow quiet way, would go to any length to have its way. But he answered respectfully enough, his features, by a shrewd effort, relaxing into a seeming of ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... larned him proper manners, I got up and brought it myself. Nor yet did it seem just the thing—something was wanting to complete the free-and-easy, to which end I pulled out a real Havana regalia, and puffed away so comfortably. Then I ordered the flunkey, whose hair was seen stiffening on his head with fright, to bring me a spittoon—felt sorry I neglected to import one from some of our European Legations!—or I'd hurl the liquid every which way—perhaps storm his high-colored Persian rugs! I was about to lay ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... were superfluous for one in a state of grace, but the glory of the House of Talbot-Lowry demanded a full and rustling pew of female domestics, while the coachman, and a footman or a groom, were generally to be relied on to give a masculine stiffening to the party. With Lady Isabel's regime had come a slackening of moral fibre, a culpable setting of attainments, or of convenience, above creed, in the administration of the household. Once had Lady Isabel been actually overheard ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... quite clearly what Gerald's intentions were. Althea was dazed; she did not know what the bright object that had come so overpoweringly into her life wanted of her. She had feared—sickeningly—with a stiffening of her whole nature to resistance, that he wanted to flirt with her as well as with Lady Pickering. Then she had seen that he wasn't going to flirt, that he was going to be her friend, and then—this in the ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... Eppingwell was open as the day. To Sitka Charley, who took her once past the Hills of Silence, belongs the glory of having memorialized her clear-searching eyes, her clear-ringing voice, and her utter downright frankness. Her lips had a way of stiffening to command, and she was used to coming straight to the point. Having taken Floyd Vanderlip's measurement, she did not dare this with him; but she was not afraid to go down into the town to Freda. And down she went, in the bright light ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... part of learning to ride is that the first day's experience is painfully stiffening. This applies to almost any unusual exercise. But to withdraw on account of that you may as well resign yourself to taking exercise no more severe than that afforded by a rocking chair. It does not pay to stop when you are stiff. Sticking to it is the only way that will train ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... and at the same time like a dragon. Never before had Braybrooke seen such an expression upon her face, such a stiffening of dignity to her ample figure. She sat straight up, looked him full in the ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... human and half brute; or like a leering face on an old water-spout. Mr Dombey, recovering his composure by degrees, or cooling his emotion in his sense of having taken a high position, sat gradually stiffening again, and looking at the parrot as she swung to and fro, in ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... just as the other had done, over some invisible taut-stretched wire, and skidding with its own impetus, squealing, striking out and tearing up the grass, it came right up to Berselius's feet before stiffening in death. Like the great automaton it was, it had scented the human beings just as the bull had scented them, "fussed" just as he had fussed, charged as he had charged, and died as ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... reply was a sudden stiffening of his right leg, followed a second later by a similar movement with his left. His right arm extended violently; then the ham-sized fist on the end of his left arm went through the plate glass window beside him. He leaped ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley

... next favours us with a 'call.' This gentleman traffics in starch, an article in great demand, being employed for stiffening a Cuban's white drill clothes. The vendor of starch is a Chinese by birth, and, like other Celestials residing in Cuba, answers to the nickname of Chow-chow, from a popular theory that the word (which in the Chinese language stands for 'provisions') ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... to the stiffening teacher. "Competition is the soul of trade. If I can give the poor souls an idea that other men want me—quite flaunt them, you know—they all come bounding up to want me, too. It's very cheering, don't you think, to have a faithful ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer

... answered, with stiffening lips. "But—would you like to go motoring?" He nodded delightedly, for his mouth was ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... my note?" he inquired, stiffening up, yet determined to ignore her touch of sarcasm, ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... Silently contemplating the stiffening victim of Romola Borria's triangular dagger, Peter heard the rustle of silk garments, and looked up in time to observe the slender person of Romola Borria herself, attired exactly as he had left her a few hours previous, detach itself from the corridor vestibule-way which ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... good right to change your mind, but it mustn't be just on impulse. We're going to leave you now for thirty minutes. When the time is up I'll be back and if you want to begin dressing—all right." She paused a moment and then with a defiant stiffening of her slender figure she announced crisply. "And if you don't want to, I'll go downstairs and tell them that you've decided ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... as she could now she was at her mercy, making her fairly gasp as the stinging thuds whacked on that glorious bottom, making it writhe and flinch at each blow, causing the maternal cunt to quiver and grip my stiffening member more and ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous

... up at him in a flushed, bewildered sort of way, not resisting; but his eyes were so gay and mischievous, and his quick smile so engaging that a breathless, uncertain smile began to edge her lips; and it remained stamped there, stiffening even after he had jumped into his cutter and had driven away, jingling joyously ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... of the black horse, and glancing sidelong at him, Rosalind saw his face whiten under the deep tan upon it. It carried, too, to the other side of the street, and the girl saw faces grow suddenly tense; noted the stiffening of bodies. The flat, ominous silence that followed was unreal and oppressive. Out of it came the rider's voice as he urged the black to a point within three or four paces of Corrigan and sat in the saddle, looking at him. And now for the first time ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... the slave declared, stiffening himself slowly, "and that is to be faithful to Don Esteban." He turned and departed, leaving Pancho Cueto staring ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... oust the hopes and emotions which had usurped her office. My rush for freedom had ended, as such sallies often do, in exhaustion, capture and despair; upon the thrill and thunder of the charge followed the silence of the dungeon and the anguish of stiffening wounds. The truth, so simply written that a child might have spelled it, lay clear before me: I had left reformation till too late. I was too ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... enveloping words and symbols. Without this power all civilisations tend to perish under a load of language and ritual. One instance of this we hear much in modern discussion: the separation of the form from the spirit of religion. But we hear too little of numberless other cases of the same stiffening and falsification; we are far too seldom reminded that just as church-going is not religion, so reading and writing are not knowledge, and voting is not self-government. It would be easy to find people in the big cities who can read and write quickly enough to be clerks, but ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... back and stiffening muscles, with pick and shovel gouging and mauling the soft brown earth, the man toiled up the hill. Before him was the smooth slope, spangled with flowers and made sweet with their breath. Behind him ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... "it's stiffening of the j'ints I'm getting. This liniment is fine stuff. I must be very careful of it, though; why, I'm a sight better already. Now then, first to wash my 'ands, and then to unpick the feather-stitching poor Ally did to-day. Poor darlin', she ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade

... answered. "From here we go straight out into the open." Zoraida had yielded to the pressure on her arm as though to continue in her new role of implicit obedience. But now his distrust was wide awake. There may have been a slight involuntary stiffening of her muscles, hinting at rebellion; there was something which warned him in the look she sought to veil. "What clothes Betty needs you can ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... suppose I gave up my position at school in order to live in a poky little hole at eighteen pounds a year? What do you think I can do with myself all day in Trafalgar-road? Why, nothing. There's no room even for a piano, and so my fingers are stiffening every day. It's not life at all. Naturally, it's a great privilege," she pursued, with a vicious inflection that reminded him perfectly of Susan, "for a girl like me to live with an old man like you, all alone, with one servant ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... suited for cast-iron supports to lintels or girders. In one attempt to make use of the structural features of the latter, the fronts of the girders between the piers are divided into panels, the flanges and stiffening pieces to the webs forming an effective framework for cast or applied ornament to be introduced. The iron framework thus constructed lends itself to the minor divisions of the window openings, which can be of wood. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various

... daughter's shoulder Adelaide noted her father's expression, a stiffening of the mouth and a ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... Friendship—gratitude—esteem I have, but each moment he came near me, and that I could see his eyes fastened on me, my veins ran ice. Now that he is away, I feel far more gently to him; it is only close by that I grow rigid—stiffening with a strange mixture of apprehension and anger—which nothing softens but his retreat, and a perfect subduing of his manner." And again, "my conscience, I can truly say, does not now accuse me of having treated Mr. Taylor with injustice or unkindness ... but with every disposition and ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... brought his sextant, and took the altitude of a star convenient for his purpose. He then went below to the cabin to perform his calculations. The lookout man, a ready sleeper, was in a heavy slumber, upon which the stiffening breeze made no effect. The rest of the watch had disappeared in the customary fashion. Captain Anderson was practically ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various

... eye, and a resonance in his voice that thrilled me. After all he had done, after the victories we had won under his leadership, the admiration and love I felt for him rose to the idolatry of a soldier for his general, as I saw him stiffening his limbs, knotting his muscles, and, with teeth set and nostrils dilated, rising to the load which seemed falling on ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... wandered by night into a witches' sabbath, and was disputed for by the witches, young and old. There was the light o' love who went into the desert to tempt the holy man; but he died as he yielded, and the arms stiffening by some miracle to iron-like rigidity, she was unable to free herself, and died of starvation, as her bondage loosened in decay. And I had increased my difficulties by adopting as part of my task the introduction of all sorts of elaborate, and in many cases extravagantly composed metres, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... same "hogs' bristles," "fins," "whiskers," "blinds," or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies their busks and other stiffening contrivances. But in this particular, the demand has long been on the decline. It was in Queen Anne's time that the bone was in its glory, the farthingale being then all the fashion. And as those ancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... that no Christian man is to become subject to the dominion of a brother. And it is because on the servants and on the handmaidens has been poured out, in these days, God's Spirit and they prophesy, that all domination of classes or individuals, and all stiffening of the free life of God's Church by man-made creeds, are contrary to the very basis of its existence, and an attack on the dignity of each individual member of the Church. 'Ye have an unction from ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... the breakfast-room he faced a Lucy self-possessed, with guarded eyes, and, if he could have seen it, with implied reproach stiffening every line of her. Her generosity gratified him, but should have touched him keenly. She came to him at once, and put up her face. "I'm sorry I was so cross, James." His immediate feeling, I say, was one of gratification. That was all right. She had come in. To that ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... seven years ago an article was discovered for the stiffening of corsets, which has revolutionized the corset industry of the world. This article is manufactured from the natural fibers of the Mexican Ixtle plant, and is known as Coraline. It consists of straight, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... don't. As it happens, however, a good many of us are putting a contract through, and the boys want to get that beam fixed before the fast freight comes along. If they don't, it's quite likely she'll shake it loose or pitch some of them off the bridge. It has stood a few years, and wants stiffening." ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... have been poring over their lessons, or stiffening under the eye of their preceptors, they are frequently consigned immediately to the ready footman; they cluster round him for their hats, their gloves, their little boots and whips, and all the well known signals of pleasure. The hall door bursts open, and they ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... heard the last words. She felt herself stiffening slowly, while the living room almost faded from her sight. Perhaps, in that instant, some additional new circuit had closed in her mind, or some additional new channel had opened, for TT's purpose in tricking ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz

... countenance of the princess? Was there a quick but imperceptible intaking of her breath? Was there a deepening in the expression of her matchless eyes, and an imperceptible widening of them, as they dwelt upon her companion? Was there a stiffening of her figure in its attitude of quiet repose, and did her muscles attain a sudden rigidity, induced by that startling announcement? Saberevski could not have answered any one of these questions. So perfectly were the features and the facial expression of Princess ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... to tell her much concerning mummies. From that he went on to describe the finding of the particular mummy from whose finger the scarab had been taken. Miss Cash listened, her mouth and eyes opening wider and wider. She appeared to be slowly stiffening in her chair. Galusha, growing interested in his own story, was waxing almost eloquent, when he was interrupted by a gasp from his listener. She was staring at him, her face expressing ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... children, for I was no longer in doubt but that the murderer, Pedro Ortez, was the sinning ancestor of my old-time friend. Even in his presence my thoughts flew to Agnes; had she not spoken of her grandsire as being such a man? The stiffening body at my side was speedily forgotten in ...
— 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

... his muscles. His legs trembled, as he braced himself to the effort; the veins of his neck throbbed hard; but the muscles of his arms and chest held firm as the crowbar they guided, and slowly, reluctantly, sullenly, the rock went over on its side. He dropped the crowbar from his stiffening grasp and drew himself up, flinging his shoulders back and ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller









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