"Muscular contraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unaltered, from the beginning to the end of the play, with the exception only that, as the play went on, the lips gaped and hung more and more in proportion to the gradually increasing drunkenness of the character represented. This made-up face was not produced by stage-paint, but solely by muscular contraction; and it must be so identified by Garrick with his idea of Sir John Brute as to be spontaneously assumed by him whenever he plays that part; otherwise, his retention of such a mask, without even once dropping it either from ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... subject of them, they are known only as transitory changes in the relative positions of parts of the body. Speech, gesture, and every other form of human action are, in the long run, resolvable into muscular contraction, and muscular contraction is but a transitory change in the relative positions of the parts of a muscle. But the scheme which is large enough to embrace the activities of the highest form of life, covers all those of the lower creatures. The lowest plant, or animalcule, feeds, grows, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... however, Harvey's idea that the heart was the only organ of circulation. He believed that it was assisted by the contractile power of the arteries, by the movement of the ribs and chest in respiration, by capillary attraction, muscular contraction in exercise, and several other forces; one of which, the attraction of the venous blood for the pulmonary cells, had been recently pointed out by Dr. Draper. The author did not suppose he was bringing ...
— Theory of Circulation by Respiration - Synopsis of its Principles and History • Emma Willard
... indignation, nor did the pain for long subside. The expression of his indignation was outrageous in manner, and deficient in real power. He had read a worse meaning into the unhappy words than had been intended, and the writer was dead. Browning's act was like an involuntary muscular contraction, which he could not control. The lines sprang far more from love than from hate. "I felt as if she had died yesterday," he said. We cannot regret that Browning was capable of such an offence; we can only regret that what should have controlled his cry of pain and rage ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... participating vocal organs must be able to keep up a muscular contraction, often very rigid: a thing that is to be achieved only gradually through long years of careful and regular study. Excessive practice is of no use in this—only regular and intelligent practice; and success comes ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann |
