"Corpulency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... foregoing pieces had led us to form; still it will not be thought improbable, if once we admit the probability of the first infatuation on which the whole piece is founded, namely, that he can believe himself qualified to inspire a passion. This leads him, notwithstanding his age, his corpulency, and his dislike of personal inconveniences and dangers, to venture on an enterprise which requires the boldness and activity of youth; and the situations occasioned by this infatuation are droll beyond all description. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... they can, among a powerful stock of bees, they are exposed, during their growth, to many perils, and seldom fare well enough to reach their natural size: but if they are rioting at pleasure, among the full combs of a feeble and discouraged population, they often attain a size and corpulency truly astonishing. If the bee-keeper wishes to see their innate capabilities fully developed, let him rear a lot for himself among some old combs, and if prizes were offered for fat and full grown worms, he might easily obtain one. In the course of a few weeks, the larva like that of the silk-worm, ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... fault if I fail to do it." At once I determined to consider her my wife; and, this done, all my powers of discovery were put to work in search of perfections in her which might be fairly set off against her defects. I tried to imagine her handsome, which, but for her unfortunate corpulency, was actually true. Exclusive of this no woman that I have ever seen has a finer face. I also tried to convince myself that the mind was much more to be valued than the person; and in this she was not inferior, as I could discover, to any with whom ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... tall parents will probably have children taller than either, and mental imbecility is the usual attendant of extreme size. The union of persons prone to corpulency, of dwarfs, etc., would have parallel results; and so, likewise, of weakly and attenuated couples. The tall should marry the short, the corpulent the lean, the choleric the gentle, and so on, and the tendency to extremes in the parents will ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... other words, sleep moderately, and be abstemious in diet;—excellent admonitions, more especially to these inclined to corpulency. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... New York which was to be ready for occupancy after Jerry's birthday. As Jack is to occupy a prominent place in these pages, I may as well announce at once that at this time he had reached the age of thirty-five, had kept most of his hair, was slightly inclined to corpulency, and wore gay cravats which matched his handkerchiefs, shirts and socks, the "sartorial symphony," as he described it. He still kept office hours from two to three on Thursdays and refused all efforts on the part of his father to make him take life ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... nevertheless, in pushing a narrative to its utmost, and drawing upon his stores of fancy for intensifying it; an amusement for which he possessed an understood privilege. It was painful in after life to see his good looks swallowed up in corpulency, and his once handsome mouth thrusting its under lip out, and panting with asthma. I believe he was originally so well constituted, in point of health and bodily feeling, that he fancied he could go on all his life without taking any of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... and foppish discrimination was exercised, for since dog does not in a general way eat dog, greys did not eat greys or greens greens. With unswerving decision, greys swallowed greens and greens greys, and extreme corpulency was the inevitable result. Does this not smack of the snake story? It certainly does, but it has the virtue of being unexaggerated, and why shrink from the telling ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... then ready for a successor. In this manner a relay of calves may be prepared for the markets from early spring to the end of summer, a plan more advantageous than that of overfeeding one to a useless degree of corpulency. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... infancy and childhood are of considerable interest, and we sometimes see cases that have been termed examples of "congenital corpulency." Figure 167 represents a baby of thirteen months that weighed 75 pounds. Figure 168 shows another example of infantile obesity, known as "Baby Chambers." Elliotson describes a female infant not a year old which weighed ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... John Forster's character; we have now only to introduce his person. Mr John Forster was about the middle height, rather inclined to corpulency, but with great show of muscular strength. His black nether garments and silk stockings, fitted a leg which might have been envied by a porter, and his breadth of shoulder was extreme. He had a slouch, probably contracted by long pouring over the desk; and his address was ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was short in stature and inclined to corpulency; his head was large and round, with an ample forehead; his eyes were gray and very pleasant in their expression; his mouth was voluptuous, and upon his lips there usually lurked a smile, humorous ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... so negligent in rewarding the jocose labours of my friend Mr. D'Urfey, who was so large a contributor to this Treatise, and to whose humorous productions, so many rural squires in the remotest parts of this island are obliged, for the dignity and state which corpulency gives them. It is my opinion, that the above pills would be extremely proper to be taken with Asses milk, and might contribute towards the renewing and restoring ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... knaves. Government should be the affair of the enlightened minority, placed, as far as might be, in a position of security and freedom from temptation. This government would not be perfect, for 'power has a natural tendency to corpulency,' but it would be far superior to an ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... to their places by Mr. Moyle, the first usher. Next came the marquis, leaning on lord Charles, and walking worse than usual. He too was, wonderful to tell, in full dress, and, notwithstanding his corpulency and lameness, looked every inch a marquis and the head of the house. He placed himself in the great chair, and sat upright, looking serenely around on the multitude of pale expectant faces, while lord Charles took his ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... a happier device to make a nation interested in the greatness of their sovereign? The fatter the king, the fuller his people! With this custom naturalised among us, what a blessing would have been the corpulency of GEORGE THE FOURTH! How the royal haunches, the royal abdomen, would have had the loyal aspirations of the poor and hungry! The national anthem would have had an additional verse in thanksgiving for royal flesh; and in our orisons said in churches, we should not only have prayed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... countenance, so opposite to that oppressed dejected look of the Indian women in general. I asked the Esquimaux of his country: he said it was good, though there was plenty of cold and snow; but that there was plenty of musk oxen and deer; and the corpulency of the party suggested the idea that there was seldom a want of food amongst them. I told him that mine was better, as growing what made the biscuit, of which they were very fond, and that there was much less cold, and that we saw the water ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... son, the Duke of Cumberland, a character far more pronounced and vigorous, had won the day at Culloden, and lost it at Fontenoy; but whether victor or vanquished, had shown the same vehement bull-headed courage, of late a little subdued by fast growing corpulency. The Duke of Newcastle, the head of the government, had gained power and kept it by his rank and connections, his wealth, his county influence, his control of boroughs, and the extraordinary assiduity and devotion with which he practised ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... heard a story that admirably illustrates the native humour. A Belgian official much inclined to corpulency came out to take charge of a post. After the usual fashion, he received a native name the moment he arrived. It is not surprising that he became known as Mafutta Mingi. As soon as he learned what it meant he became indignant. Like most fat men he could not persuade ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... was large, robust, I may say approaching to the gigantic, and grown unwieldy from corpulency. His countenance was naturally of the cast of an ancient statue, but somewhat disfigured by the scars of King's evil. He was now in his sixty-fourth year and was become a little dull of hearing. ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... which make a popular king, a man admired and beloved. In his latter years, indeed, he no longer possessed the graceful form that had belonged to him when he was an ardent and favored suitor of Ebba Brahe; but the slight inclination to corpulency that grew with him as he advanced toward middle age detracted probably little, if at all, from the commanding dignity of his person. His countenance to the last retained its captivating sweetness and expressive variety. It was a countenance of which the most ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... generally of a fair height and proportion. Deformities or personal defects[233] are rare among them; and they are never seen to fall into corpulency. Their features, naturally pleasing and regular, are often distorted by absurd attempts to improve their beauty, or render their appearance more terrible. They have high cheek bones, sharp and rather aquiline noses, and good teeth. Their skin is generally described as red or copper-colored, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... take warning and reform? Not he! He wings his flight still farther south, in search of other luxuries. We hear of him gorging himself in the rice swamps; filling himself with rice almost to bursting; he can hardly fly for corpulency. Last stage of his career, we hear of him spitted by dozens, and served up on the table of the gourmand, the most vaunted of southern dainties, the rice-bird of ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... all the time, one single levity or vice of youth, or loses any of that cheerfulness of mind which had enabled him to pass thro' this course with ease to himself and delight to others; and thus, at last, mixing youth and age, enterprize and corpulency, wit and folly, poverty and expence, title and buffoonery, innocence as to purpose, and wickedness as to practice; neither incurring hatred by bad principle, or contempt by cowardice, yet involved in circumstances productive ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... make use of these and various other gelatinous viands for the purpose of acquiring, as they suppose, a proper degree of corpulency[61], which is considered by them as respectable and imposing upon the multitude; of a great portion of whom it may be observed, as Falstaff said of his company, "No eye hath seen such scare-crows." It would be rare to find, among the commonalty of China, one to compare with ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... born in 1767, fourth son of George III.—a tall, stately man, of soldierly hearing, inclined to corpulency and entirely bald—married the widowed Princess of Leiningen, already the mother of a son and a daughter by her first husband. The duke was of active, busy habits; and he was patron of many charitable institutions—he ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous
... latter are well formed and expanded, but the calves of the legs are generally deficient. Some of the natives in the upper districts of the Murray, are, however, well formed in this respect. In a few instances, natives attain to a considerable corpulency. The men have fine broad and deep chests, indicating great bodily strength, and are remarkably erect and upright in their carriage, with much natural grace and dignity of demeanour. The eye is generally large, black, and expressive, with ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... in a harem, admiring herself in the mirror, arraying herself in fine clothes, in company with several other Levantines, whose greatest joy consisted in measuring with their necklaces the girth of arms and legs which rivalled one another in corpulency, bringing forth children with whom she never concerned herself, whom she never saw, who had never even caused her suffering, for she was delivered under the influence of chloroform. A "bale" of white flesh perfumed with musk. And Jansoulet ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... seamed. They must dry their underclothing with their body heat. Their outer garments, under their oilskins, are soggy. And yet, paradoxically, despite their lean, drawn faces, they have grown very stout. Their walk is a waddle, and they bulge with seaming corpulency. This is due to the amount of clothing they have on. I noticed Larry, to- day, had on two vests, two coats, and an overcoat, with his oilskin outside of that. They are elephantine in their gait for, in addition to everything else, they have wrapped ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... mending a doublet, he was alike a master, besides possessing a score of other accomplishments that do not now occur to me, which in his campaigning he had acquired. Of late the easy life in Paris had made him incline to corpulency, and his face was of a pale, ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... garments, which with their fringes, lace, embroidery, and slashes of ill-assorted hues, were strewed all over the floor. Porthos, sad and reflective as La Fontaine's hare, did not observe D'Artagnan's entrance, which was moreover screened at this moment by M. Mouston, whose personal corpulency, quite enough at any time to hide one man from another, was effectually doubled by a scarlet coat which the intendant was holding up for his master's inspection, by the sleeves, that he might the better see it all over. D'Artagnan stopped at the threshold ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... a physician and medical writer, born in Aberdeenshire, in practice in London; suffered from corpulency, being 32 stone in weight, but kept it down by vegetable and milk diet, which he recommended to others in the like case; wrote on fevers, nervous disorders, and hygiene; wrote also ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... resolute. Leading journals go incredible lengths in the way they speak of public men. One of the best New York dailies dismissed Mr. Bryan as "a wretched, rattle-pated boy." Others constantly alluded to Mr. Cleveland as "His Corpulency." For weeks the New York Sun published a portrait of President Hayes with the word ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... of travel rustic audiences listened with delight. Once upon a time—but that was later—the Religious Tract Society sent a deputation in the shape of a well-known travelling secretary, Mr. Jones. This Mr. Jones was inclined to corpulency, and I can well remember how we all laughed when, on one occasion, the daughter of a neighbouring minister, having opened the door in reply to his knock, ran delightedly into her papa's study to announce the arrival of ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... Alorie; but instead of receiving a recompense for her bravery, she had lost half her slaves in an engagement, which so disgusted her with the military profession, that she immediately abandoned it and returned home. Yet, in spite of all her losses and misfortunes, she has gained so much in corpulency, that it was with the utmost difficulty, she could squeeze herself into the doorway of our hut, although it is by no means small. The widow Zuma is a very good-looking, elderly person of matronly appearance. Her skin is of a light ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various
... the poetical appellation of Seth Stokes, was long, thin and bony, with sharp features, and legs that reminded one of a carpenter's compass; while his companion, Sam Switcher, was round-favored, short in limbs and stature, and fat almost to corpulency—thus forming a contrast to the other ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... my corpulency at Chenonceaux, that of my poor Theresa was augmented at Paris in another manner, and at my return I found the work I had put upon the frame in greater forwardness than I had expected. This, on account of my situation, would have thrown me into ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... them was a large stately looking personage, somewhat inclined to corpulence, but showing many a sign of giant strength, and vigor unimpaired by years or habit. His head was large but well shaped, with a broad and massive forehead, and an eye keen as the eagle's when soaring in his pride of place. His nose was prominent, but rather aquiline than Roman. His mouth, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... amused the Town by his performance of Falstaff. He exhibited the humours of the jovial knight with skill enough to make the audiences laugh. But he was perhaps the first actor who ever played the fat knight to the life. His remarkable corpulence qualified him to play the character without stuffing. The good-humour of his visage was fully equalled by the protuberance of his stomach; and if the "totus in se teres atque rotundus" of Horace, is the poet's definition of a good man, the actor rose to the summit of human virtue. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... sophisticated state of human nature and human society. In those juicy quarters and surloins of beef and those fat porcine carcasses the vegetable-eater, Grahamite or Brahmin, sees nothing but the cause of beastly appetites, scrofula, apoplexy, corpulence, cheeks flushed with ungovernable propensities, tendencies downward toward the plane of the lower animals, bloodshot eyes, swollen veins, impure blood, violent passions, fetid breath, stertorous respiration, sudden death,—in fact, disease and brutishness of all sorts. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... Will related the story of his interview with his professor of Greek. When Foster laughed as he told of Splinter's description of his marvelously increased corpulence, Will did not join, for the ludicrous side now was all swallowed up in his anger. And when his room-mate scowled as he heard of the professor's insinuation that the young freshman was trying to "boot-lick," Will's anger broke forth afresh. "What's the use in my trying, I'd like to ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... childhood Sylvia was so used to him that, like the others of her circle, she accepted, indeed hardly noticed, his somewhat startling eccentricities, his dirty linen, his face and hands to match, his shapeless garments hanging loosely over the flabby corpulence of his uncomely old body, his beery breath. To her, old Reinhardt was but the queer external symbol of a never-failing enchantment. Through the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of the other instruments, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... in his gig, which he drove himself. But the springs of the right side having at length given way beneath the weight of his corpulence, it happened that the carriage as it rolled along leaned over a little, and on the other cushion near him could be seen a large box covered in red sheep-leather, whose three brass ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... low. Holding these strong opinions on the subject with might and main as I do at this moment, here, nevertheless, is Count Fosco, as fat as Henry the Eighth himself, established in my favour, at one day's notice, without let or hindrance from his own odious corpulence. ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... thus endeavored to re-establish the concern, the new cremiere, was a person of about fifty years of age, whose corpulence passed all bounds, and who still retained some debris of beauty, half submerged in fat. It was said in the quarter that she had set herself up in business with the money of an old gentleman, whose servant she had been until his death, in her native province, near Langres; ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... Pompom (but nevertheless managing to overawe a goodly portion of his fellow-captives) an extraordinary human being paced the cour. On gazing for the first time directly at him I experienced a feeling of nausea. A figure inclined to corpulence, dressed with care, remarkable only above the neck—and then what a head! It was large, and had a copious mop of limp hair combed back from the high forehead—hair of a disagreeable blond tint, dutch-cut behind, falling over the pinkish soft neck almost to the shoulders. In this ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... offered themselves to the eye that looked for other betrayals. There had been opportunities—even the day nurse had gone, and Lindsay came to tea in the drawing-room—but he seemed to prefer to talk about the pattern in the carpet, or the corpulence of the khansamah, or things in the newspapers. Alicia, once, at a suggestive point, put almost a visible question into a silent glance, and Lindsay asked her for some more sugar. Surgeon-Major Livingstone, coming into his office, unexpectedly one morning, found his sister in ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... spite of his corpulence, he rushed, all breathless, to the Admiralty office, and ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... the least; but do let us get into the shade," said Uncle Frederick; for there were two things he could not endure: heat and laughter—the first on account of his corpulence, and the second on account of what he himself called ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... the confounding of poetic with pictorial subjects. In the latter, the exterior accidents are nearly everything, the unseen qualities as nothing. Othello's colour—the infirmities and corpulence of a Sir John Falstaff—do they haunt us perpetually in the reading? or are they obtruded upon our conceptions one time for ninety-nine that we are lost in admiration at the respective moral or intellectual attributes of the character? But in ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... so was led away in triumph. He had been but a month or two in this country, and so spoke our language no more correctly than Mrs. Brash, but only with more grace. There was no great harm in Mrs. Brash; like most loquacious people, she was kind-hearted, with a tendency to corpulence and good works. She was also afflicted with a high color, and a chronic eruption of diamonds. Her husband had an eye for them, having begun life as a jeweller's apprentice, and having developed sufficient sharpness of ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Othello of the choleric, Romeo of the sanguine, and Falstaff of the phlegmatic. Secondly, that in Falstaff, Shakspeare parodied—himself! Or to give his own words, "We may suppose that Shakspeare's physical constitution inclined to corpulence, and inspired in him the disposition to the life of a bon vivant. His intimacy with the Earl of Southampton may have favored this disposition, since they led for a long time a dissipated tavern-life, and were rivals in ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... coolness to the end of Gibbon's life. Thirty-five years after his first interview with his step-mother, and only a few months before his own death, when he was old and ailing, and the least exertion, by reason of his excessive corpulence, involved pain and trouble, he made a long journey to Bath for the sole purpose of paying Mrs. Gibbon a visit. He was very far from being the selfish Epicurean that has ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... told the Emperor Adrian Beautiful damsel, who certainly did not lack suitors Breath, time, and paper were profusely wasted and nothing gained Care neither for words nor menaces in any matter Distinguished for his courage, his cruelty, and his corpulence He had never enjoyed social converse, except at long intervals Human ingenuity to inflict human misery Peace was desirable, it might be more dangerous than war Proposition made by the wolves to the sheep, in the fable Rebuked the bigotry which had already grown Reformers were ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... War lay upon his back, his distinguished corpulence severely dislocating the chaste simplicity of the bed-clothing. Athwart his shelving chest, fat hands were folded in a gesture affectingly naive. His face was red, a noble high-light shone upon the promontory of his bald pate, ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... the persecutors. Galerius died soon after of a disgusting and terrible disease (morbus pedicularis), described with great minuteness by Eusebius and Lactantius. 'His body,' says Gibbon, 'swelled by an intemperate course of life to an unwieldy corpulence, was covered with ulcers and devoured by innumerable swarms of those insects which have given their name to a most loathsome disease.' Diocletian had withdrawn from the throne in 305, and in 313 put an end to his imbittered life by suicide. In his retirement he found more pleasure ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... plant. But the tricks of gardeners are capable of everything, so much so that the stalk yields to the grower's suggestions and becomes fleshy and swells into an ellipse similar to the turnip, of which it possesses all the merits of corpulence, flavour and delicacy; only the strange product serves as a base for a few sparse leaves, the last protests of a real stem that refuses to lose its attributes ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... been often said of Mr. Pickwick and his time, that age has been much "put back" since that era. Mr. Pickwick, Wardle, Tupman and Co., are all described as old gentlemen, none of the party being over fifty; but they had to dress up to the part of old gentlemen, and with the aid of corpulence, "circular spectacles," &c, conveyed the idea of seventy. Forster in the same way was then not more than forty-five, but had a full-blown official look, and with his grave, solemn utterances, you would have set him down for sixty. Now-a-days men of that age, if in sound order, ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... was Oliver Whyte, the owner of the house and garden, which he had christened, in true Australian fashion, "The Mia-Mia." He was a man of about sixty, short and thick-set in appearance with a tendency to corpulence. His character was written in his fine open face, clean-shaven save for a ring of white hair that set his honest countenance in an oval frame; was felt as one listened to the tones of his rough, good-natured voice. ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... these details to the doctor, who did not curse his corpulence the less for that. He wished to judge for himself ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... girl has no apparent correlative in the French race. A majestic plumpness flourished all around me—the plumpness of triple chins and deeply dimpled hands. I mused upon it, and I concluded that it was the result of the best breakfasts and dinners in the world. It was the corpulence of ladies who are thoroughly well fed, and who never walk a step that they can spare. The assiduity with which the women of America measure the length of our democratic pavements is doubtless a factor in their frequent absence of redundancy of outline. As a "regular boarder" at the ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... dietary for keeping down fat, recommended by a Mr. Banting, a London merchant, in a "Letter on Corpulence" in 1863; he recommended lean meat, and the avoidance of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... which were considerably the worse for wear. Such was the bureau of the Deftendar Effendi, who sat surrounded with papers, and the implements of writing. He was a man apparently of fifty-five years of age, slightly inclining to corpulence, with a very short neck, surmounted by large features, coarsely chiselled; but not devoid of a certain intelligence in his eye, and dignity in general effect. He spoke English with a correct accent, but slowly, occasionally stopping to remember a word; thus showing that his English ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... attacked by an American officer and two soldiers, against whom he defended himself for some time with his fusil, keeping them at a respectful distance. At last, however, they closed upon him, when unluckily his dirk slipped behind, and he could not, owing to his corpulence, reach it. Observing that the rebel (American) officer had a sword in his hand, he snatched it from him, and made so good use of it, that he compelled them to fly, before some men of the regiment, who had heard the noise, could come up to his assistance. He wore the sword ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... Runners—pease, strawberries, and the like, whose glory is in their speed; but a violet has no business whatever to run anywhere, being appointed to stay where it was born, in extremely contented (if not secluded) places. "Half-hidden from the eye?"—no; but desiring attention, or extension, or corpulence, or connection with ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... man who, though plainly clad in a velveteen shooting-jacket, had an air and mien greatly above those common to the pedestrian visitors of A——. He was tall, and of one of those athletic forms in which vigour in youth is too often followed by corpulence in age. At this period, however, in the full prime of manhood—the ample chest and sinewy limbs, seen to full advantage in their simple and manly dress—could not fail to excite that popular admiration which is ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... somewhat above the middle size; his form athletic, and inclined to corpulence; his limbs were too heavy for exact proportion; the traces of a severe smallpox disfigured features and a countenance which, when they were not animated by social pleasure, were rather saturnine than sprightly; a stoop in the shoulders, and the then professional appendage—a large ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... sickness. Chares informs us that he was kept in confinement for seven months, in order that he might be tried in the presence of Aristotle himself, but that during the time when Alexander was wounded in India, he died of excessive corpulence, ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... position. "If you are a great general," said Pompaedius, "come down and fight;" to which the veteran replied, "Nay, do you, if you are a great general, compel me to fight against my will." The Romans considered that Marius was over-cautious and too slow; and Plutarch says that his age and corpulence rendered him incapable of enduring the fatigue of very active service. But it is more probable that he was not very willing to destroy the Allies, who had been among his most active partisans, and to whom he still looked for support in his ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... I was deterred from closing, for fear of the dirk which he held in his left hand, and used in parrying the thrusts of my rapier. Meantime the Bailie, notwithstanding the success of his first onset, was sorely bested. The weight of his weapon, the corpulence of his person, the very effervescence of his own passions, were rapidly exhausting both his strength and his breath, and he was almost at the mercy of his antagonist, when up started the sleeping Highlander from the floor on which he reclined, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... sister-in-law alone in the cleanly kept room which she and her husband occupied. Madame Toussaint was a portly woman, whose corpulence increased in spite of everything, whether it were worry or fasting. She had a round puffy face with bright little eyes; and was a very worthy woman, whose only faults were an inclination for gossiping and a fondness for good cheer. Before Madame ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... dwelling,—a plain, substantial, commodious farm-house. On a bench at the foot of the trees, with a pipe in his mouth, and a tankard by his side, sat the worthy carpenter, looking the picture of good-heartedness and benevolence. The progress of time was marked in Mr. Wood by increased corpulence and decreased powers of vision,—by deeper wrinkles and higher shoulders, by scantier breath and a fuller habit. Still he looked hale and hearty, and the country life he led had imparted a ruddier glow to his cheek. Around him were all the evidences of plenty. A world ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and the Forum is crowded. All Pompeii is here, and his wife. Patres conscripti, inclined to corpulence, taking their constitutional, exquisites lazily sauntering up and down the pavements; decurions discussing the affairs of the nation, and the last news from Rome; city magnates fussing, merchants chaffering, clients petitioning, parasites fawning, soldiers ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... present to me, two good fat hogs, though not so fat as himself, if weight of body could give weight in rank and power, he was certainly the most eminent man in that respect we had seen; for, though not very tall, he was very unwieldy, and almost shapeless with corpulence. He seemed to be about forty years of age, had straight hair, and his features differed a good deal from those of the bulk of his people. I found him to be a sedate, sensible man. He viewed the ship, and the several new objects, with uncommon attention, and asked ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... are blessed by nature with a graceful shape and are clean-limbed, receive still greater ease and grace from it; while at the same time, it prevents the gathering of those gross and foggy humors which in time form a disagreeable and inconvenient corpulence. On the other hand, those whose make and constitution occasion a kind of heavy proportion, whose muscular texture is not distinct, whose necks are short, shoulders round, chest narrow, and who, in short are, what may be called, rather clumsy figures; these ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... occasion justified the expenditure of ten cents for a drink when a hand was placed on his shoulder, and a voice said, "Have one with me, neighbour." He found himself addressed by a man of about his own age, shorter and somewhat lighter of frame and with a growing hint of corpulence. The stranger wore a good pepper-and-salt suit, and the stone on his finger danced like ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... pretended, even by some of his warmest admirers, that at this period the genius and energy of Napoleon had declined; and they sought in his tendency to corpulence, in his attacks of languor, in his long slumbers, the explanation of his ill fortune. I believe the reproach to be unfounded, and the pretext frivolous. I can discover in the mind or actions of Napoleon during the hundred days, no symptoms of infirmity; I find, in both, his accustomed ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... corpulence usually permitted the jovial man to move, he ascended to the deck, calling: "Great, greater, the greatest of news I bring, as the heaviest but by no means the most dilatory of messengers of good fortune from the city of cities. Prick up your ears, my friend, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... actual writing, and any one of which he would have instantly missed had it been removed. There was a French bronze group representing a duel with swords, fought by a couple of very fat toads, one of them (characterised by that particular buoyancy which belongs to corpulence) in the act of making a prodigious lunge forward, which the other receives in the very middle of his digestive apparatus, and under the influence of which it seems likely that he will satisfy the wounded honour of his opponent by promptly expiring. There was another bronze ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... he resembled Ben Jonson in extreme corpulence, and proposed him for the model of dramatic writing, seems to have affected the coarse and inelegant debauchery of his prototype. He lived chiefly in taverns, was a gross sensualist in his habits, and brutal in his conversation. His ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... changed my prospects in life, and I must, therefore, say a little more about my father and mother, bringing up their history to that period. The propensity of my mother to ardent spirits had, as always is the case, greatly increased upon her, and her corpulence had increased in the same ratio. She was now a most unwieldy, bloated mountain of flesh, such a form as I have never since beheld, although, at the time, she did not appear to me to be disgusting, accustomed to witness imperceptibly her increase, and not seeing ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the great Sultan, if I remember rightly, accounted it the greatest feat of swordsmanship to cut a cushion. And so indeed it is, as all of us can attest who have been for years past trying to cut into the swollen and windy corpulence of the modern compromise, that is at once cosy and cruel. For there is really in our world to-day the colour and silence of the cushioned divan; and that sense of palace within palace and garden within garden ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton |
