"Pliant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lizzie Dangler's prosy platitudes, which some deemed wit—Horner, par exemple—sank into nothingness, and Baby Blake, one of the "gushing" order of girlhood, appeared as a stick, or, rather, a too pliant sapling—her inane "yes's" and lisping "no's" having an opportunity of being "weighed in the balance," and consequently, in my opinion, "found wanting." All were mediocre beside her. Perhaps I was prejudiced; but, now, the remarks of the other girls seemed ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... all, a readiness of ear and of imitation, which, for purposes of drill, counterbalances any defect of mental training. To learn the drill, one does not want a set of college professors; one wants a squad of eager, active, pliant school-boys; and the more childlike these pupils are the better. There is no trouble about the drill; they will surpass whites in that. As to camp-life, they have little to sacrifice; they are better fed, housed, and clothed than ever in their lives before, and they appear to have few inconvenient ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... almost hourly, spread out before us, and for a consideration, too, which in many instances is not equivalent to the cost of the material upon which it is sketched: with the lightning harmlessly conducting along the pliant wire, stretched from one end of the continent to the other, thoughts which have annihilated time: with another element, which has nearly obliterated space, they are spread over its face; and by another application of the same magic ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... "The pliant Soul of erring Youth Is, like soft Wax, or moisten'd Clay, Apt to receive all heav'nly Truth, Or yield to Tyrant Ill the Sway. Shun Evil in your early Years, And Manhood may to Virtue rise; But he who, in his Youth, appears A Fool, in ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... Phoebus leaves the wintry plain, From Lycia and the Xanthian flood, retires To native Delos, and his sacred choirs; 185 Mingled in carols loud around his shrine, Cretans and Greeks, and painted Scythians join. Graceful on high the god o'er Cynthio glides, His wanton locks with pliant gold divides, With tender foliage crowns his radiant hair; 190 Wide sounds the ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... and soon the cave was reached, though on the way there was a momentary deviation from the path, to gather up the nuts and berries the woman had found in the afternoon while the babe was lying sleeping. The fruitage was held in a great leaf, a pliant thing pulled together at the edges, tied stoutly with a strand of tough grass, and making a handy pouch containing a quart or two of the food, which was the woman's contribution to the evening meal. As for the father, he had more ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... interference of the executive with the supreme court. They asserted their conviction that the removal of Judge Montagu was occasioned by his decision on the Dog Act, and the desire to replace him by a more pliant judge. These various remonstrances had no effect on the ministers, and the entire course of the governor was approved, except the attempted coercion of the chief justice. The position of the government was one of considerable embarrassment. It was the unquestionable right ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... of the language is, however, far less than the whole set of difficulties with your own mind. Unless you can make it pliant enough to follow the African idea step by step, however much care you may take, you will not bag your game. I heard an account the other day of a representative of Her Majesty in Africa who went out for a day's antelope shooting. There were plenty ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... I guessed, and I came close upon taking a bath at unawares. Now this stream, so handy within reach, was just what I wanted, and among the bushes by the verge grew a plant—much like our English osier, but dwarfer—extremely pliant and tougher than the tendrils of the clematis; so, that, having stripped it of half a dozen twigs, I went back to work ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... root of your digestive functions? Is it not exacting a little too much of human nature to require a man to consider himself a large sponge, in order that hospitality may be poured into him by the gallon? When a person of pliant and amiable disposition visits a set of good fellows, and they take some trouble to entertain him; when they think they are delighting him internally and externally—not to say infernally—with such tea as ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... down, padding, wadding; foam. mollification; softening &c v.. V. render soft &c adj.; soften, mollify, mellow, relax, temper; mash, knead, squash. bend, yield, relent, relax, give. plasticize'. Adj. soft, tender, supple; pliant, pliable; flexible, flexile; lithe, lithesome; lissom, limber, plastic; ductile; tractile^, tractable; malleable, extensile, sequacious^, inelastic; aluminous^; remollient^. yielding &c v.; flabby, limp, flimsy. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the smallest reason, the slightest excuse, for so pliant a credulity. We look to Crete, in which, previous to Lycurgus, the Dorians had established their laws and customs, and we see at once the resemblance to the leading features of the institutions of Lycurgus; we come with Aristotle to the natural conclusion, that what was familiar to the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... change this charming, if too pliant, personality into the critical, watchful, almost—so at moments it seemed to Malling—aggressive curate who was now, always in a gentlemanly way, making things ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... oppressed by the close atmosphere! See how the drapery begins to flutter; you feel that it is lifted by the breeze! A moment ago it hung as heavily and stiffly as if it were held out by pins. Do you see how the satin sheen that I have just given to the breast rends the pliant, silken softness of a young girl's skin, and how the brown-red, blended with burnt ochre, brings warmth into the cold gray of the deep shadow where the blood lay congealed instead of coursing through ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... The judges are not chosen to represent the people in this sense. Their function is to interpret the laws. The legislators are responsible for the laws; the judges for the spirit in which they interpret and enforce the laws. We stand aloof from the reckless agitators who would make the judges mere pliant tools of popular prejudice and passion; and we stand aloof from those equally unwise partisans of reaction and privilege who deny the proposition that, inasmuch as judges are chosen to serve the interests of the whole people, they should strive to find out what those ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... snowed overnight. The fields were all sheeted up; they were tucked in among the snow, and their shape was modelled through the pliant counterpane, like children tucked in by a fond mother. The wind had made ripples and folds upon the surface, like what the sea, in quiet weather, leaves upon the sand. There was a frosty stifle in the air. ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suggested civilized and feminine supervision. The very way she wore her hair, parted and rolling back, instead of tumbling in thick, barbaric "bang" into her eyes, spoke of other than savage teaching; and the dainty make of her moccasins; the soft, pliant folds of the leggins that fell, Apache fashion, about her ankles, all told, with their beadwork and finish, that this was no unsought girl of the tribespeople. Even the sudden gesture with which, never looking back, she cautioned some follower ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... And graceful turned the head on the broad chest Encased in pliant steel, his constant vest, Whence split the sun off in a spray of fire Across the room; and, loosened of its tire Of steel, that head let breathe the comely brown Large massive locks discoloured as if a crown Encircled them, so frayed the basnet where A sharp white line divided clean the ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... very highly, that last touch of pliancy which he needed for his perfection. Count Kostia was of an age when even the strongest mind feels the necessity of occasional relaxation, and he would have been glad to have near him a pliant, agreeable companion, and enchanted could that ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... servant, preponderating in the Senate, in sole possession of all public offices and priesthoods, armed with exclusive cognizance of things human and divine and familiar with the whole routine of political procedure, influential in the public assembly through the large number of pliant adherents attached to the several families, and, lastly, entitled to examine and to reject every decree of the community,—the patricians might have long preserved their practical power, just because they had at the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... to a failing, And loses half her grossness by curtailing. Faux pas are told in such a modest way,— "The affair of Colonel B—— with Mrs. A——" You must forgive them—for what is there, say, Which such a pliant Vowel must not grant To such a very pressing Consonant? Or who poetic justice dares dispute, When, mildly melting at a lover's suit, The wife's a Liquid, her good man a Mute? Even in the homelier ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... Cocytus circle it round. Yet if thy soul is so passionate and so desirous twice to float across the Stygian lake, twice to see dark Tartarus, and thy pleasure is to plunge into the mad task, learn what must first be accomplished. Hidden in a shady tree is a bough with leafage and pliant shoot all of gold, consecrate to nether Juno, wrapped in the depth of woodland and shut in by dim dusky vales. But to him only who first hath plucked the golden-tressed fruitage from the tree is it given to enter the hidden places of the earth. This hath beautiful Proserpine ordained ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... followed the steamer, it was decided, after consultation with the captain, to turn the stove boat adrift, so that it could be towed back to the ship by the first cutters. Sanford cast off the painter, and the pliant master of the steamer was glad to get rid of this check upon the speed of his boat. The boys watched the water-logged craft till it was picked up by the first cutter, and then passing behind an island, the squadron was out ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... two hands that tightest grasp Each other—the two cords that soonest knit A fast and stubborn tie: your true love-knot Is nothing to it. Faugh! the supple touch Of pliant interest, or the dust of time, Or the pin-point of temper, loose, or not, Or snap love's silken band. Fear and old hate, They are sure weavers—they work for the storm, The whirlwind, and the rocking surge; their knot Endures ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... former position; and if we bend it very much, it will break. Now the crooker professes to accomplish the miracle of bending a stick as it might be an iron wire, so that it shall neither break nor "backen." To prevent the breaking, the wood is rendered pliant by further soaking in wet sand; and a flexible band of metal is clamped down firmly to that portion of the stick that will form the outside of the curve; the top end is then fitted into a grooved iron shoulder ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... is improper after January, the Sap then ascending into the Trunk, and expanding it self over all the Branches. See that your Stocks be Taper-grown, and your Tops of the best Ground-Hazle, that can be had, smooth, slender, and straight, of an Ell-long, pliant, and bending; and yet of a strength, that a reasonable jerk cannot break it, but it will return to its first straightness; lest otherwise you endanger your Line. Keep them two full years, before you use them; having ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... to one of these graceless drinking-shops and into the hands of a rascally "dago" known as Anatole that Mrs. Doyle commended her trio of allies, and being rid of them she turned back to her prisoner, their erstwhile companion. Absinthe wrought its work on his meek and pliant spirit, and the shaking hand was nerved to do the woman's work. At her dictation, with such corrections as his better education suggested, two letters were draughted, and with these in her hand she went aloft. In fifteen minutes she returned, placed ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... least, was the condition of Godfrey Cass in this six-and-twentieth year of his life. A movement of compunction, helped by those small indefinable influences which every personal relation exerts on a pliant nature, had urged him into a secret marriage, which was a blight on his life. It was an ugly story of low passion, delusion, and waking from delusion, which needs not to be dragged from the privacy of Godfrey's bitter memory. He had long known ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... of the mercy of God, 455 Of the Father's help; he hastens forth, Lessening the perils of this passing life, Its darksome deeds, and does God's will With bravery in his breast. His bidding he seeks In prayer, with pure heart and pliant knee 460 Bent to the earth; all evil is banished, All grim offences by his fear of God; Happy in heart he hopes full well To do good deeds: the Redeemer is his shield In his varied walks, the Wielder of victory, 465 Joy-giver to people. Those plants are the ones, The flowers of fruit, ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... the lady dismounts, but especially if she do so without assistance, she should—to prevent any unpleasant shock on reaching the ground—bend her knees, suffer her body to be perfectly pliant, and alight on her toes, or the middle of her feet. She is neither to relinquish her hold, nor is the gentleman, or groom, if she make use of his ministry, to withdraw his hand, until she is perfectly safe ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... conspirators of that day been as well prepared as those of 1861; had they been equally successful in sowing dissatisfaction and hatred in the minds of the Southern people; had they found in Gen. Jackson the weak and pliant instrument of treason which James Buchanan afterward became in the hands of Davis and his coadjutors, the present rebellion might have been anticipated, and the germ of secession wholly extirpated and destroyed, in the contest ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "innumerable" on the fingers, and "a diamond pin" on his "shirt frill," a "curb chain" with large gold seals hanging from his waistcoat—(a "curb chain" proper was then a little thin chain finely wrought, of very close links.) Then there was the "pliant ebony cane, with a heavy gold top." Ebony, however, is not pliant, but the reverse—black was the word intended. Then those "smalls" and stockings to match. Mr. Pickwick, a privileged man, appeared on this occasion, indeed always, in his favourite white breeches ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... upon his head a huge bundle of some twining plant belonging to a species which we had not observed hitherto during our wanderings in Ceylon. From its appearance we likened it to a giant convolvulus, for, while the pliant stem was as thick as a man's arm, there hung from it huge leaves and petals resembling that flower in shape. We moved cautiously into the undergrowth behind, thus getting a little farther away from the Dhahs, and, lying with our bodies stretched upon the ground at full length, we supported ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the garden growths. The sweet, the frail, the rude, Draw close, as if with one consent, And find each other good, Held by the bind-weed's pliant loops, In ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... the room were two persons—a man resting in a chair high-backed, broad-armed, and lined with pliant cushions; and at his left, leaning against the back of the chair, a girl well forward into womanhood. At sight of them Ben-Hur felt the blood redden his forehead; bowing, as much to recover himself as ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... The pliant harebell swinging in the breeze, On some grey rock: The single sheep, and the one blasted tree, And the bleak music from that old stone wall:— In the meadows and the lower ground, Was all the sweetness of a common ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... now without,) Bound midway on two serpents' backs, that curl In silent swiftness as he glides about. A shell, 'twas first in liquid amber wet, Then ere the fragrant cement hardened round, All o'er with large and precious stones 'twas set By skillful Tsavaven, or made or found. The reins seemed pliant crystal (but their strength Had matched his earthly mother's silken band) And, flecked with rubies, flowed in ample length, Like sparkles o'er Tahathyam's beauteous hand. The reptiles, in their fearful ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... this is on the way And at its limit that) continues yet To operate, that now it moves, and feels, As sea sponge clinging to the rock: and there Assumes th' organic powers its seed convey'd. 'This is the period, son! at which the virtue, That from the generating heart proceeds, Is pliant and expansive; for each limb Is in the heart by forgeful nature plann'd. How babe of animal becomes, remains For thy consid'ring. At this point, more wise, Than thou hast err'd, making the soul disjoin'd From passive intellect, because he saw No organ for the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... fortune was greatly influenced. The Countess of Bestuchef was then the most amiable and witty woman at Court. Her husband, cunning, selfish, and shallow, had the name of minister, while she, in reality, governed with a genius, at once daring and comprehensive. The too pliant Elizabeth carelessly left the most important things to the direction of others. Thus the Countess was the first person of the Empire, and on whom the attention of the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... the genus Juncus, having pliant hollow or pithy stems and small flowers with scale-like perianths (outer envelope of ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... who will reject with the supercilious ignorance of incurable stupidity, these volumes, in which the habits, the interests, the inalienable rights, the sacred duties of one half of the species, (and of that half to which, at the most pliant and critical period of life, the health, the disposition, the qualities, moral and intellectual, of the other half must of necessity be confided,) are discussed with exemplary fairness, and placed in the most luminous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... that?" asked the young girl, rising from her recumbent position, and showing something of the surprise she felt at hearing her gentle and pliant aunt speak of forming resolutions. She had cause to be ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... embryo rioters of the Valdedera. If, to your efforts it should be owing that the population remain quiet, and that this Adone Alba and others in a similar position come to me in an orderly manner and a pliant spirit, I will engage that this service to us on your part shall ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... faded from his heavy bloodshot eyes. Fascinated, his glance dwelt upon her; nothing of her fresh beauty was lost on him; the smooth curve of her soft white throat, the alluring charm of her warm sensuous lips, the tiny dimple that came and went when she smiled, the graceful pliant lines of her figure, the rare poise of her small head—his glance observed all. For better or for worse he loved her with whatever of the man there was in him; he might hate her in some sudden burst of fierce anger because of her shallowness, her greed, her utter selfishness; ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... duties to think of the fish, or to do more than cast a longing glance at the dark shadows beneath the trees. For on board the heat was terrible, the pitch was oozing out of the seams, and blistering the paint; every piece of tarry cordage was soft and pliant, and very beads stood out upon the strands; while beneath the awnings there was a stuffy suffocating heat ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... sifted, as if through stained glass. With the slender stems of the trees rising on each side in the semi-twilight, the grove was like the transept of a cathedral. It seemed a profanation to speak in such a place. Lynde could have wandered on forever in contented silence, with that tall, pliant figure in its severely cut drapery moving before him. As he watched the pure outline defining itself against the subdued light, he was reminded of a colored bas- relief he had seen on a certain Egyptian ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... under the whip of our Napoleon. For fear, however, of some more extravagant determination, Joseph Bonaparte dissuaded him from laying before his brother any objections or representations. "But what absurdities do I not sign!" exclaimed the pliant Minister. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... smother his wrath during the brief moments he was giving his orders; but no sooner had the seemingly pliant tools of his will left, than he again foamed over, and pacing back and forth, continued his cursing, as though he would spend his impotent ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... had furnished it had had original notions of the resources of modern upholstery. There was not a table in the place,—no chair or couch, nothing to sit down upon except the bed. On the floor there was a marvellous carpet which was apparently of eastern manufacture. It was so thick, and so pliant to the tread, that moving over it was like walking on thousand- year-old turf. It was woven in gorgeous colours, and ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... the occupants escape a severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism. In the morning the man again peels for work, and with a suk-koo of stone, that has a sharp edge, scrapes off every particle of the fleshy membrane until the skin becomes soft and pliant, and assumes a ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... of stubborn will, But prudent, wary, pliant still, Who, since his work was good, Would do ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... in this character I shall probably die. Could I begin to be a painter now, say you? Alas! my knowledge of the art is too great for patience with the slow hand! I could not draw a line without despair. The pliant fingers and the plastic mind must keep pace to make progress in art. My taste is fixed, and my imagination uncreative, because chained down by certainties; and the shortsighted ardor and daring experiments which are indispensable ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence; or that I could have become the pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. The proclamation of the provisional government speaks for our views; no inference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarily or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I would not have ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... and you shall be convinced," returned the pliant Christopher, "I do not wonder at your unbelief; but as a good testimony is the soul of justice, I cannot resist its influence. You know, that two vessels, corresponding in appearance to the two rebel cruisers that annoyed us so much in the Carolinas, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the kinsfolk, one of them, I have reason to know, made a strong private protest. Mr. Morley's attitude in reply could only have been that which is well expressed by a sentence of Darmesteter's about Renan: "So pliant in appearance, so courteous in manner, he became a bar of iron as soon as one sought to wrest from him an act or word contrary to the intimate sense of ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... appalling and dreadful was most easily believed. In this state superstition unavoidably grew infectious; and the more the seniors inculcated and believed, the more the imagination of the juniors became a pliant and ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... modesty perform'd her part, 250 Rose a tribunal: from no other court It borrow'd ornament, or sought support: No juries here were pack'd to kill or clear, No bribes were taken, nor oaths broken here; No gownsmen, partial to a client's cause, To their own purpose turn'd the pliant laws; Each judge was true and steady to his trust, As Mansfield wise, and as old Foster[21] just. In the first seat, in robe of various dyes, A noble wildness flashing from his eyes, 260 Sat Shakspeare: ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... peahens, her own skilled minions, none could please the King so well. As for Perpetua, the King's hot love and hot hate for the mountain maid earned only her contempt. The girl might prove enticing by-and-by, to a green palate, when she was pliant, but now ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... words the tree listened patiently, and not without tears. After a short time the blackbird was taken in a net and boughs were cut to make a cage, in which to imprison her. Branches were cut, among others from the pliant privet, to serve for the small rods of the cage; and seeing herself to be the cause of the Blackbird's loss of liberty it rejoiced and spoke as follows: "O Blackbird, I am here, and not yet burnt by fire as you said. I shall see you in prison before ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... get through; it was impossible. Other policemen came to help the first, and in a minute or two the traffic was in motion again. The crowd became pliant, dispersing—there was no figure upon the ground, and no ambulance came. But one of the policemen was detained by the clinging and beseeching of ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... guard and conceal him as long as he pleased. They determined to make a bend to the left, and enter La Mancha and the kingdom of Murcia. The youth thanked them cordially, and gave them on the spot a hundred gold crowns to divide amongst them, whereupon they became as pliant as washed leather. Preciosa, however, was not pleased with the continuance among them of Don Sancho, for that was the youth's name, but the gipsies changed it to Clement. Andrew too was rather annoyed at ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... held up before their faces. They sat back to back, and thus, in the form of a tripod, began to snooze. Joe's and Henri's seasoned frames would have remained stiff as posts till morning; but Dick's body was young and pliant, so he hadn't been asleep a few seconds when he fell forward into the mud and effectually awakened the others. Joe gave a grunt, and Henri exclaimed, "Hah!" but Dick was too sleepy and miserable to say anything. Crusoe, however, rose up to show his sympathy, and laid his wet head on his master's ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... fans. A very small sum of money is the price of one of these difficult trifles. Models of temples, pagodas, and other pieces of architecture, are beautifully worked in ivory; and from the shavings, interwoven with pieces of quills, they make neat baskets and hats, which are as light and pliant as those of straw. In short, all kinds of toys for children, and other trinkets and trifles, are executed in a neater manner and for less money in China, than in any other part of ...
— 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
... string the weapon; failing three times he would have succeeded at the next effort but for a glance from his father. Leiodes vainly tried his strength, to be rebuked by Antinous who suggested that the bow should be made more pliant by ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... country den, You should see towns, and manners know, and men; And taste the generous luxury of the court, Where all the mice of quality resort; Where thousand beauteous shes about you move, And by high fare are pliant made to love. We all ere long must render up our breath, No cave or hole can shelter us from death. Since life is so uncertain and so short, Let's spend it all in feasting and in sport. Come, worthy sir, come with me, and partake All ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... buoyant personality. He walked with his chin up and his back straight, and trod directly on and over the ends of his toes so that he seemed fairly to spring with vigour. His body was very erect and tall and pliant, bending easily to every change of balance. If I were never to have seen his face at all I should have placed him as one of the laughing spirits of the world. His head was rather small, round, well poised, with soft close-set ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... world than, alas! there is. It is not for the want of knowing, that we go wrong, as our consciences tell us; but it is for want of something that can conquer the evil tendencies within, and lift off the burden of a sinful past which weighs on us. As in the carboniferous strata what was pliant vegetation has become heavy mineral, our evil deeds lie heavy on our souls. What we need is not to be told what we ought to be, but to be enabled to be it. Electricity can light the road, and it can drive the car along it; and that is what we want, a dynamic ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... thing about Peter Puncheon's place could be airted their way, John [Gibbie] Girder wad mak it better to the Master of Ravenswood than a pair of new gloves; and that he wad be blythe to speak wi' Maister Balderstone on that head, and he wad find him as pliant as a hoop-willow in a' that ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... First doth quiet Esther see; To where Sara peacefully Dwells, Tobias leadeth He; David then, with pliant will, Fetcheth ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... may be, but I am one against many. Which of you would dare stand alone and lie to all the others? Nay, sahibs, I am a political offender, not a soldier!" They all laughed at that and seizing the moment when they were in a pliant mood the Orakzai Pathan proceeded to bring ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... that the spiced odors of Araby were going to steal over my senses now, but they did not. A copper-colored skeleton, with a rag around him, brought me a glass decanter of water, with a lighted tobacco pipe in the top of it, and a pliant stem a yard long, with a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a crowbar; I made a hole in the earth, in which one of my sons placed the bamboo props, driving them firmly down with a mallet, and we proceeded to another, while Ernest and Jack tied the trees to them with a long, tough, pliant plant, which I suspected was a species of llana. As we were working, Fritz inquired if these ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... on a mission to Genoa, about nothing; another to watch for vessels never expected, off Sardinia; two more to cruise after a French frigate which had never been built: and thus, by degrees, did the Admiral arrange, so as to obtain a set of officers sufficiently pliant to allow his nephew to creep under the gate which barred his promotion, and which he never could have vaulted over. So the signal was made—our hero went on board—his uncle had not forgotten the propriety of a little douceur on the occasion; and, as the turkeys were all gone, three ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... general law. Every government, even the most despotic, while it rules a nation with a rod of iron, depends for its life upon the people whom it oppresses. While the central head radiates its despotic will through its pliant subordinates, down through all ranks and classes of the community, it receives from them the means ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... out-thrown the long guardsman Serenus with the fifty pound stone. Now, as the sun sank towards the western ridge, and turned the Harpessus to a riband of gold, they had come to the final of the wrestling, where the pliant Greek, whose name is lost in the nickname of "Python," was tried out against the bull-necked Lictor of the military police, a hairy Hercules, whose heavy hand had in the way of duty ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... which makes him readily submit to the will of his wife. It is she who governs, and who in a dictatorial tone lays down the law whenever she has made up her mind to anything. I wish I could see in you a more pliant spirit towards her and towards my aunt. If you would but fall in with their views, you would secure their ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... a button, and the room sprang into more light, coming out pinkly and vividly—the brocaded walls pliant to touch with every so often a gilt-framed engraving; a gilt table with an onyx top cheerfully cluttered with the sauciest short-story magazines of the month; a white mantelpiece with an artificial hearth ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... the shades, I presently do see The god of love forsake his bow and sit me by; If that I think to write, his Muses pliant be; If so I plain my grief, the wanton boy will cry. If I lament his pride, he doth increase my pain If tears my cheeks attaint, his cheeks are moist with moan If I disclose the wounds the which my heart hath slain, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... go indoctrinate our agent," continued the knight. "We shall find him pliant; for, hound as he is, he knows those who feed from those who browbeat him; and he holds a late royal master of mine in deep hate for some injurious treatment and base terms which he received at his hand. I must also farther concert with thee ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the spruce roots, soft and pliant, and selecting a lot that were about an eighth of an inch in diameter, scraped off the bark and roughness, until he had a bundle of perhaps ten feet ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of this nation ponder Horace Greeley's arraignment of the reverend gentlemen who were the chief actors in this farce, and remember that in all ages of the world the priesthood have found their pliant tools and most degraded victims in the women of their respective sects. In all of these meetings there were intelligent, sincere women, so blinded by the sophistry and hypocrisy of Marsh, Chambers, Hewitt, et al., that they gave them their countenance ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... to her arms With greedy pleasure, and devour'd his charms. Unhappy Dido little thought what guest, How dire a god, she drew so near her breast; But he, not mindless of his mother's pray'r, Works in the pliant bosom of the fair, And molds her heart anew, and blots her former care. The dead is to the living love resign'd; And all Aeneas enters ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... best proof of the pleasure which he takes is, that when he is let loose with other horses, and more particularly with mares, you will see him rear his head aloft to the full height, and arch his neck with nervous vigour, (2) pawing the air with pliant legs (3) and waving his tail on high. By training him to adopt the very airs and graces which he naturally assumes when showing off to best advantage, you have got what you are aiming at—a horse that delights in being ridden, a splendid ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... imbecility of spring, and not that of autumn; the imbecility that verges towards power, and not that is already exhausted with performance. To behold heroism in its infancy, and immortality in the bud, must be a most attractive object. To mould those pliant dispositions, upon which the happiness of multitudes may one day depend, must ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... a pencil mark against it. Varvara Pavlovna gazed at him with an expression of even greater humility than before on her face. She looked very handsome at that moment. Her grey dress, made by a Parisian milliner, fitted closely to her pliant figure, which seemed almost like that of a girl of seventeen. Her soft and slender neck, circled by a white collar, her bosom's gentle movement under the influence of her steady breathing, her arms and hands, ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... between the beating hoofs. The horses plunged at the elastic edges of this excellent fortress, sometimes half lifted as a bent willow levered up against their bellies, and the forward-tilting men fended their faces from the whipping twigs. They could not wedge a man's length into that pliant labyrinth, and the General called them out. They rallied among the sage-brush above, Crook's cheeks and many others painted with purple lines of blood, hardened already and cracking like enamel. The baffled troopers ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... oil mingle with moist things? A. Because, being pliant, soft and thick in itself, it cannot be divided into parts, and so cannot be mingled; neither if it be put on the earth can ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... severity, and we cannot but hope that they were unjust. From an historical point of view, as a delineation of the manners of his age, his satires are priceless, even like the epigrams of Martial. This uncompromising poet, not pliant and easy like Horace, animadverted like an incorruptible censor on the vices which were undermining the moral health and preparing the way for violence; on the hypocrisy of philosophers and the cruelty of tyrants; on the frivolity of women and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... and large, mysterious-looking eyes, as Lois saw, when once she lifted them up, and took in, as it were, the aspect of the sea-captain and her cousin with one swift searching look. About the stiff, tall, angular mother, and the scarce less pliant figure of the daughter, a girl of twelve years old, or thereabouts, played all manner of impish antics, unheeded by them, as if it were her accustomed habit to peep about, now under their arms, now at this side, now at that, making grimaces ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Albert, I believe you a little too platonic in friendship; very sure that you are loved, you are not pliant enough to give or receive ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... almost infallible in finding out a stag, a buck, or a hare, only by the scent. There is in every animal an impetuous spring, which, on a sudden, gathers all the spirits; distends all the nerves; renders all the joints more supple and pliant; and increases in an incredible manner, upon sudden dangers, his strength, agility, speed, and cunning, in order to make him avoid the object that threatens his destruction. The question in this place is not to know whether beasts are endowed with ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... the index of such a stride toward the ultimate pacification of mankind as was never made before. But it was the work done in the years 1783-89 that created a federal nation capable of enduring the storm and stress of the years 1861-65. It was in the earlier crisis that the pliant twig was bent; and as it was bent, so has it grown; until it has become indeed a goodly ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... retain something of the form and of the solemn demeanor which characterized their ancestors, but which are too small to assail horned cattle, mark the vanishing stages of this great stock, which will soon be known only in memory. The history of this peculiar herd-dog shows us how marvellously pliant the body and mind of this species has become under the conditions of civilization. The rude process of unconscious selection, acting without steadfastness of purpose or rationally developed skill, serves to sway the qualities of the animal this way or that to meet the ever-changing ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... thoughtless and playful agility, in which I was never qualified to excel. My name, it is most true, could never be enrolled among the sprightly race, the idle progeny of Eton or Westminster, who delight to cleave the water with pliant arm, to urge the flying ball, and to chase the speed of the rolling circle. But I would ask the warmest and most active hero of the play-field whether he can seriously compare his childish with his manly enjoyments. . ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... to his astonished eyes a backbone that was evidently made of iron. She was immovable, he admitted, and because she was immovable he was conscious of a sharp unreasonable impulse to reduce her to the pliant curves of her girlhood. After eight years of an absolute supremacy, which had been far from good for him, his will had been tripped up at last by so small a thing as a mere ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... in the electorate. By using the Black Hundreds to work among the electors—bribing, cajoling, threatening, and coercing, as the occasion might require—it might be possible to bring about the election of a Duma which would be a pliant and ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... would again come to life. He then returned to his father's lodge, and partook sparingly of the meal that had been prepared for him. But he never for a moment forgot the grave of his friend. He carefully visited it throughout the spring, and weeded out the grass, and kept the ground in a soft and pliant state. Very soon he saw the tops of the green plumes coming through the ground; and the more careful he was to obey his instructions in keeping the ground in order, the faster they grew. He was, however, careful ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... noticed the trouble, and outburst of tender feeling that this name produced. He could make her weep at will, upset her with such emotion that she failed to distinguish the clear aspect of things; and he took advantage of this power to always hold her pliant and in pain in ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... the vital spirits, not being overburdened and oppressed by too great a quantity of nourishment; which necessarily discharges itself into thickness and breadth, do, by their natural lightness, rise; and the body, giving and yielding because it is pliant, grows in height. The same thing seems, also, to conduce to beauty of shape; a dry and lean habit is a better subject for nature's configuration, which the gross and over-fed are too heavy to submit ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... loins; the fleshy buttocks; the somewhat sunken flanks; (53) the hips, well rounded, plump at every part, but with a proper interval above; the long and solid thighs, on the outside tense and not too flabby on the inside; the long, stout lower legs or shanks; the fore-feet, exceedingly pliant, thin, and straight; the hind-feet firm and broad; front and hind alike totally regardless of rough ground; the hind-legs far longer than the fore, inclined outwards somewhat; the fur (54) short ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... this wild protest of the wilderness? Was it this wide-blown, scattered fire, whose sparks and ashes were sown broadcast, till but stubborn remnants clung under the sheltering back-log of the bivouac hearth? Was it this frail lodge, built upon pliant, yielding poles, covered cunningly with mats and bark, carpeted with robe of elk and buffalo? Yet why should the elements rage at a tiny fire, and why should they tear at a little house of nomad man, since these things were old upon the earth? Was ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... misleading the reader if I were to say anything of the sort. In height, he was about five feet and a quarter of an inch, in his boots, and he was rather strongly set, with a little tendency to round shoulders:—but his limbs were pliant, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... own heavy yellowish straw, and substituted the soft and pliant article indicated. It fitted him to perfection, and the ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... this screaming probably arose the common people's imaginary species of screech-owl, which they superstitiously think attends the windows of dying persons. The plumage of the remiges of the wings of every species of owl that I have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant. Perhaps it may be necessary that the wings of these birds should not make much resistance or rushing, that they may be enabled to steal through the air unheard upon ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... into the soldier's face. Wallenstein, to whom such an assault was unexpected, fell back, hurt and blinded. The vintner, active as a cat, saw Carmichael coming on a run. He darted toward him, and before Carmichael could prevent him, dragged the sword-cane away. The blade, thin and pliant, flashed. And none too soon. The colonel had ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... be supple and pliant, with a suggestion of swiftness galvanising the delicacy of the lines. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Before the hand was out, though, I understood how truly it had been said that women's wits now swayed the destinies of France. Since this day, too, our country has suffered much through women, when under the next, and more pliant Louis, they ruled with even a scantier pretense at concealment or of decency. Jerome spoke slow and guardedly, when he turned to me again. He began in a tone subdued by the intensity of his feelings—which, as I soon learned, ...
— 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
... shines through the nightly sky at eventide. Such was the son of Zeus, the bloom of the first down still on his cheeks, still with the look of gladness in his eyes. But his might and fury waxed like a wild beast's; and he poised his hands to see if they were pliant as before and were not altogether numbed by toil and rowing. But Amycus on his side made no trial; but standing apart in silence he kept his eyes upon his foe, and his spirit surged within him all eager to dash the life-blood from his breast. ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... citizens of Bruges, who, notwithstanding a great deal of outward decorum, have at no time been very strait-laced. 'Charles,' we learn from a local history, 'sut se rendre populaire en prenant part aux amusements de la population et en se pliant, sans effort comme sans affectation, aux usages du pays.' During his whole period of exile he contrived to amuse himself. Affairs of gallantry, dancing, tennis, billiards, and other frivolous pursuits, occupied as much of his attention ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... pliant and tough. Leaves from 4 to 7 cm. long, entire, stout, persistent for several years; stomata dorsal and ventral; resin-ducts external. Conelets short-pedunculate, dark purple during the second season, their scales often tapering to an acute apex. Cones from 5 to 7 ...
— The Genus Pinus • George Russell Shaw
... her pliant sinews inordinately tensed; with her deep eyes wide and terrified, yet voiceless of any outburst or exclamation, and near her, ill at ease, but seeking to treat the affair as an inescapable matter of business, and consequently a commonplace, ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... in all their idle sport, And like a monarch, ruled their little court The pliant bow he formed, the flying ball, The bat, the wicket, were his labours ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... for a trifle. It is for the construction of these baskets that the bear-grass forms an article of considerable traffic. It grows only near the snowy region of the high mountains; the blade, which is two feet long and about three-eighths of an inch wide, is smooth, strong, and pliant; the young blades particularly, from their not being exposed to the sun and air, have an appearance of great neatness, and are generally preferred. Other bags and baskets, not waterproof, are made of cedar-bark, silk-grass, rushes, flags, and common ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... Lord of the Bedchamber sat in his shirt, (And D—dy the pliant was there), And his feelings appeared to be very much hurt And his brow ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... department of industry that has not made immense advances since, none on which steam has not directly or indirectly been brought to bear with effect; so there has been no end to the ingenuity and ingenious devices by which steam has been coaxed into subjection to human use and made the pliant minister of the master, man. All these results follow as a natural consequence from the first discovery of its motive power by the Marquis of Worcester, and the subsequent invention of James Watt, by which the ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... rest your infant sleeps. Your watchful eyes unceasing vigil keeps Lest cramping bonds his pliant limbs constrain, And cause ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... quiet little digs at his own respected and dignified person. Clifford openly avowed his attachment and spent many golden hours away from work, listening to her singing. She had been taught by a good master and her voice was pure and pliant, although as yet only half developed. The little concerts they gave their friends were really charming — with Clifford's banjo, Gethryn's guitar, Thaxton's violin, Yvonne's voice and piano. Clifford made the programs. ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... instant. "Undoubtedly," said he, with a lofty air; "undoubtedly a man has a right to defend his honor." Goldsmith immediately carried the war into Boswell's own quarters, and pinned him with the question, "what he would do if affronted?" The pliant Boswell, who for the moment had the fear of the general rather than of Johnson before his eyes, replied, "he should think it necessary to fight." "Why, then, that solves the question," replied Goldsmith. "No, sir," thundered out Johnson; "it ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Claude was less pliant than he had looked to find him, shunned occasion of collision with him, or the Paduan being in better spirits was less prone to fall foul of his companions, certain it is that life for a time after ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... practised in the western counties, was, next to back-swording, the way to fame for the youth of the Vale; and all the boys knew the rules of it, and were more or less expert. But Job Rudkin and Harry Winburn were the stars—the former stiff and sturdy, with legs like small towers; the latter pliant as indiarubber and quick as lightning. Day after day they stood foot to foot, and offered first one hand and then the other, and grappled and closed, and swayed and strained, till a well-aimed crook of the heel or thrust of the loin took effect, and a fair ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... and this soothing opiate to his ambition quieted every unpleasant emotion. Conscious, in the state of political feeling, that there was little or no possible chance of maintaining even his present elevation, much less of rising higher, unless he became pliant in the hands of those who had elected him, he suffered all ideas of the general good to recede from his mind, and gave himself up wholly to furthering the schemes and interested views of his own party. By this means, he was enabled to maintain ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... the poem Worthy of its predecessors, Worthy of the sweet conception, Of the manly nervous diction, Of the phrase, concise or pliant, Of the songs that sped the pulses, Of the songs that gemm'd the eyelash, Of the other works of Henry? I should answer, I should tell you, You may wish that you may get it— Don't you wish ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... these baskets that the beargrass becomes an article of traffic among the natives this grass grows only on their high mountains near the snowey region; the blade is about 3/8 of an inch wide and 2 feet long smoth pliant and strong; the young blades which are white from not being exposed to the sun or air, are those most commonly employed, particularly in their neatest work. Their spoons are not remarkable nor abundant, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... shouted, and he unwound the great brown pliant vine from the sycamore and leaped aboard. Just then there was a mad howl behind the house and a gray streak of light flashed over the bank and Jack, with a wisp of rope around his neck, sprang through the air from a rock ten feet high and landed lightly ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... position to resist French demands; and they therefore instructed Grenville to propose to Vergennes that England should acknowledge American independence directly, and not through France. This Fox held gave him the whole conduct of the negotiations. As, however, Franklin was anxious not to lose so pliant a negotiator as Oswald, the cabinet agreed that Oswald should continue to confer with him. On June 4, Grenville complained to Fox that the separate negotiation between Oswald and Franklin rendered it impossible for him to make any progress, and further told him that ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... Cherokee Indians, advanced in all "the pomp and circumstance" of official station, and joined Waddell on the 4th of June, near Salisbury, about eight miles east of the Yadkin river. He then marched by a circuitous route to Hillsboro, where he had court held to try the Regulators, by his pliant tool, Judge Howard. On the 20th he left Hillsboro, and reached Newbern on the 24th; and on the 30th left North Carolina for the colony of New York, over which he had just been appointed Governor. Thus was our State rid of one who had acted the ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... the spectators was decidedly in favor of the accused. His youth—the noble bearing—the ease, the unobtrusive confidence—the gentle expression, pliant and, though sad, yet entirely free from anything like desponding weakness—all told in his favor. He was a fine specimen of the southern gentleman—the true nobleman of that region, whose pride of character is never ostentatiously ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... fear that he might let her fall. The arms that held her felt pliant and strong as steel, and their clasp about her filled her with a strange, new ecstasy that thrilled her from head to foot. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... the part she must play, according to events at which she guessed. She vaguely outlined this role, like one of Scribe's or of George Sand's. It should be endued with devotion, self-abnegation, greatness of soul, tenderness; and fine words. Her pliant nature almost rejoiced in this new attitude. She pondered almost till evening what she should do, wondering how she should manage to wrest the ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... Bearn; the intendant of that province, Foucault, had come to Paris to concert with the minister the management of the enterprise; Louvois could not have found a fitter instrument than this pitiless and indefatigable man, who had the soul of an inquisitor under the garb of a pliant courtier. On his return from Paris, Foucault, seconded by the Parliament of Pau and the clergy, began by the demolition, on account of "contraventions," of fifteen out of twenty Protestant churches that remained ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... quills of birds in their natural colors, large split quills or flattened smaller quills used whole. The work has an embossed effect which is very striking. A coat for an adult of Sioux workmanship, made of calfskin thicker and less pliant than the deerskin ordinarily used for garments, carries a broad band of quill embroidery, broken by whorls of the same, the center of each holding a highly decorated tassel made of narrow strips of deerskin, bound at intervals with split porcupine quills. These ornamental tassels carry ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... Cicero. It began in their boyhood, and continued without interruption till Scipio's death. Laelius served in Africa, mainly that he might not be separated from his friend. To each other's home was as his own. They were of one mind as to public men and measures, and in all probability the more pliant nature of Laelius yielded in great measure to the stern and uncompromising adherence of Scipio to the cause of the aristocracy. While they were united in grave pursuits and weighty interests, we have the most charming pictures of their rural and seaside life together, even of their gathering ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... fool, and knave, 'tis glorious to offend, And Godlike an attempt the world to mend, The world, where lucky throws to blockheads fall, Knaves know the game, and honest men pay all. How hard for real worth to gain its price! A man shall make his fortune in a trice, If blest with pliant, though but slender, sense, Feign'd modesty, and real impudence: A supple knee, smooth tongue, an easy grace. A curse within, a smile upon his face; A beauteous sister, or convenient wife, Are prizes in the lottery of life; Genius and Virtue they ...
— English Satires • Various
... Commons grillroom, and dined instead at the Sheridan Club, where he drank a great deal of champagne and absorbed with ready appreciation and amusement the philosophy of the man of pleasure. This was one of the impulses which kept his nature pliant even in the midst of these days ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... exchequer is made possible through the hindrance of the trade in spices, if they get it under their control. What should be still more thought of and defended, since it is in greater danger, is the Catholic faith, because the land is infested with heretics, and the Indians are a very pliant and changeable people. Don Pedro should be informed of what the marques has been commanded to do for his help, in order that he may understand, and arrange and provide for everything as is best, in order that the desired result ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... never played the king.—'Iam no king, but Caesar.' Even when absolute lord of Rome, he retained the deportment of the party-leader; perfectly pliant and smooth, easy and charming in conversation, complaisant towards everyone, it seemed as if he wished io be nothing but ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... little tract of swamp-land that he could stand in the middle of and "wobble" and shake the whole farm. Or, if you can't recall the many salient features of the minor disadvantages under which the old man used to labor, your pliant limbs may soon overtake him, and he will smilingly tell you of trials and privations of the early days, until your anxiety about the young man just naturally stagnates, and dries up, ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... now. She made a quick motion and passed him. But she might better have sent him on ahead, instead of giving him this study of her pliant grace. The exquisite curves of her figure in its thin, close gown, the fair neck gleaming through the soft curls, the beautiful shoulders, the slim waist with a ribbon for belt, the light, gliding step that scarcely moved her, held an enthralling charm. He had ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... like a passionate woman turns, Filled with remorseful terror to the man she scorned, and her love For myself in my own eyes' laughter burns, Runs ecstatic over the pliant folds rippling down to my belly from the ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... apparently much interested in the manoeuvring of a raft which was passing by. 'Dear Miss Power,' he resumed, 'before I go and join your uncle above, let me just ask, Do I stand any chance at all yet? Is it possible you can never be more pliant ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... preserve no records. You, I think really look upon it with alarm. It is, no doubt, very desirable to you, that the blame of losing the Indian Country, which, if not already a fact accomplished, is a fact inevitable, should be made to fall upon me. You, as the pliant and useful implement of Gen. Hindman, are the cause of this loss; and you know I can prove it. You and he have left nothing undone, that could be done, to lose it. And you may rest assured, that whether I live or die, you shall not escape ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... then it swears, and then, Like David, flings smooth pebbles 'gainst a Giant; At last it takes to weapons such as men Snatch when Despair makes human hearts less pliant. Then comes "the tug of war;"—'t will come again, I rather doubt; and I would fain say "fie on 't," If I had not perceived that Revolution Alone can save the earth ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... essential. The contours of a ship's sail bellying in the wind are not more inevitable, nor more graceful, than the curves of an adze-head or of a plough-share. Cast in iron or steel, the gracefulness of a plough-share is more indestructible than the metal, yet pliant (in the limits of its type) as a line of English blank verse. It changes for different soils: it is widened out or narrowed; it is deep-grooved or shallow; not because of caprice at the foundry or to satisfy ...
— Progress and History • Various
... central ridge of the island are very full in foliage, and, in August, showed the tender green and pliant leaf of June elsewhere. They are rich in beautiful mosses and ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... paroquet of painted shallowness? A silly thing to whistle to and fro, And peck at plums, and then be whistled off? Oh, Theseus, Theseus, thou didst never know me— In this unworthy clasp of woman's mould, This poor outside of pliant prettiness, There was a heart and in that heart a love, And in that love there was an affluence Full as the ocean, infinite as time, Deep as the spring that never knew an ebb. Too truly feeling what I left for thee, And with what joy I left ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... have roused a spirit of rebellion and mutiny very similar to that against which he had to contend in the ensanguined streets of the capital at the beginning of his reign. As it was, men expected that his successor would prove more pliant. The prevailing feeling of dissatisfaction did not, therefore, at first assume a ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... exhibit unhappiness, at a moment when there were so many grounds of excitement. The people of this race know nothing of the word, perhaps; but they delight in the thing, quite as much as if they did nothing but electioneer all their lives. Most pliant instruments would their untutored feelings make in the hands of your demagogue; and, possibly, it may have some little influence on the white American to understand, how strong is his resemblance to the "nigger," when he gives ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... understood, it is to affirm that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing man can by a light. And it is without all controversy that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, manageable, and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart, and mutinous: and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... becoming moulded like pliant wax, the boy of the greenwood was losing all his rusticity, and yet, retaining his keen love of nature, was learning to look beyond nature to nature's God. At times Martin was very weary of Kenilworth, and almost wished himself back in the greenwood again, so ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... another lake of the same name [Bonbon], not so extensive as the former, but with a great abundance of fish. The natives' method of catching them is by making corrals [94] of bejucos, which are certain slender canes or rushes, solid and very pliant and strong; these are employed for making cables for the natives' boats, as well as other kinds of ropes. They catch the fish inside these corrals, having made the enclosures fast by means of stakes. They ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... at every blow. One arm and both legs were torn off and weltered in the scattered stuffing beneath; the crop of black curls was tangled in the topmost limb of the sapling. The blue silk gown would never fit the pliant waist again. Rozillah was ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... spoke it was with the languid drawl of the Western plainsman. In humor he feigned to conceal his passion, but Joyce knew him to be alertly conscious of her every word, every turn of her pliant body. ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... crept upon the little boy, relentlessly depriving him of this or that beloved idol, yet not unkindly leaving with him the pliant vitality that could fashion others to be still more ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... could seem to see Luella Miller as she had really looked. According to this woman, Lydia Anderson by name, Luella Miller had been a beauty of a type rather unusual in New England. She had been a slight, pliant sort of creature, as ready with a strong yielding to fate and as unbreakable as a willow. She had glimmering lengths of straight, fair hair, which she wore softly looped round a long, lovely face. She had blue eyes full of soft ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... chiefest cause, And how she keeps, with a foreseeing care, The spacious world in order by her laws, And to sure knots which nothing can untie, By her strong hand all earthly motions draws— To show all this we purpose now to try Our pliant string, our musick's thrilling sound. Although the Libyan lions often lie Gentle and tame in splendid fetters bound,[121] And fearing their incensed master's wrath, With patient looks endure each blow and wound, Yet if their jaws they once ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... crushed. He was a saint, but had very little of the priest and nothing of the Sulpician about him. He did violence to the prime rule of the Company, which is to renounce anything approaching talent and originality, and to be pliant to the discipline which ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... levelling is a SERVILE PRINCIPLE. It leads to practical passive obedience far better than all the doctrines which the pliant accommodation of theology to power has ever produced. It cuts up by the roots, not only all idea of forcible resistance, but even of civil opposition. It disposes men to an abject submission, not by opinion, which may ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... them is overgrown, its playful evasiveness takes an ugly contour and shows itself as want of principle. The tendency to snatch at enjoyment hardens into a grasping sense of market values, and conscience, instead of growing inexorable, learns to be pliant to circumstances. Debts weigh lightly, and duties scarcely weigh at all. Concealment and un-truthfulness come in very easily to save the situation in a difficulty, and once the conduct of life is on the down-grade ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart |
