"Supine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him—always silent and supine, except when suspicious persons came into the yard—baying softly to himself, plainly (to her) voicing the weariness of his unhappy life. She sat up in bed and listened to him, and to his master shouting to him at intervals to "be quiet"; and ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Intimidation had been worse than hopeless; even bodily force would not avail. She cast one lurid glance at the supine figure, and gave up the quest in that direction as sheer waste of time. With new determination, she again essayed the closet, tossing shoes and rubbers behind her in an unsightly heap, quite heedless of the ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... persuaded his mind for him, unthinking one. Straightway he uncased his well-polished bow, made from [the horn of] a wild, bounding goat, which he indeed surprising once on a time in ambush, as it was coming out of a cavern, struck, aiming at it beneath the breast; but it fell supine on the rock. Its horns had grown sixteen palms from its head; and these the horn-polishing artist, having duly prepared, fitted together, and when he had well smoothed all, added a golden tip. And having bent the bow, he aptly lowered it, having inclined it against ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... work for either of them in Sandycliffe, but they carried their joint energies further afield. Pierrepoint had a large poor population, and the vicar was old and supine; he accepted gladly the volunteered services of his zealous coadjutors, and, led by his faithful Johnnie, Mr. Ferrers penetrated into the winding alleys, and carried comfort to many a sick and dying bed. And as Mr. Brabazon grew more infirm, it became a rule to Mr. Ferrers ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... with him,—never the will of Christ. But although he could dispose of the question thus satisfactorily, yet, as he lay ill, supine, without any distracting occupation, ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... Washington for assistance. Washington fully entered into his plans, and saw their importance. He would gladly have rendered him every aid. But he could do nothing, because of the impotence to which the central authority, the Continental Congress, had been reduced by the selfishness and supine indifference of the various States—Virginia among the number. He wrote Clark: "It is out of my power to send any reinforcements to the westward. If the States would fill their continental battalions we should be able to oppose a regular and permanent force to the enemy in ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... corresponding to the axis of the fissure; the foot bones were to the west, at the mouth of the cave, and the crania were in the tapered interior. The published report does not indicate whether placement was prone or supine. ...
— A Burial Cave in Baja California - The Palmer Collection, 1887 • William C. Massey
... his shoulder of Ivana's supine weight against it, and he made himself look down his rifle. He let the breath half out of his lungs, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... his voice sounding shrilly from the cabin. By his side he may have the heir-apparent, Paul, his nephew and adopted son, six years old, stark naked, and a model of young human beauty. And there will always be the favourite and perhaps two other wives awake; four more lying supine under mats and whelmed in slumber. Or perhaps we came later, fell on a more private hour, and found Tembinok' retired in the house with the favourite, an earthenware spittoon, a leaden inkpot, and a commercial ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Besides, he fails to meet those conditions upon which the vigorous development of individual life and character depends. Indolence is no friend either to physical, mental or moral development. The body becomes imbecile, the spirit supine and sentimental, the morals vitiated, and the mind sinks into complete puerility. Activity is a law of all life, and the condition of its healthy development and maturity. Without it we resort to jejune amusement, and from amusement we are hurried on to dissipation, ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... hot that Mollie could not be bothered to move. She was half-sitting, half-lying on a bed of bracken, and around her she could see the supine forms of four other children—Prudence and Grizzel, Dick and Jerry—all lying in various attitudes of exhaustion and apparently all asleep. Mollie was too lazy to turn her head, but she could see that they were in a wood. The trees were the ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... she dropped the bronze, and looked down. Victor lay at her feet, supine, grotesquely asprawl. His face was bruised and livid; the cheek laid open by the bronze was smeared with scarlet, accentuating the leaden colour of his skin. His mouth was ajar; his eyes, half closed, hideously revealed slender slits of white. More blood discoloured ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... deep sigh, which was the regular, inarticulate speech of the lonely plain beyond, and quite distinct from the evening breeze. He had heard it often, but, like so many things he had learned that day, he never seemed to have caught its meaning before. Then, perhaps, it was his supine position, perhaps some cumulative effect of the whiskey he had taken, but all this presently became confused and whirling. Out of its gyrations he tried to grasp something, to hear voices that called him to "wake," and in the midst of it he ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... her there. The day was as mild as summer, without summer's passion, and without spring's impulses of hope and action. A quiet day; the air was still; the light was mellow, not brilliant; the sky was clear, but no longer of an intense blue; the little racks of cloud were lying supine on its calm depths, apparently having nowhere to go and nothing to do. The driving, sweeping, changing forms of vapour, which in spring had come with rain and in summer had come with thunder, had all disappeared; and these little delicate lines of cloud lay purposeless and at ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... of Iffley lock, the water gushed down, eager for the sacrament of the sea. Among the supine in the field hard by, there was one whose breast bore a faint-gleaming star. And bending over him, looking down at him with much love and pity in her eyes, was the shade of Nellie O'Mora, that "fairest witch," to whose memory ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... dependent upon charity! As soon as he could get his tools in order he set to work; and we have the following testimony to his industry by a fellow-prisoner, Mr. Wilson, the Baptist minister, and of Charles Doe, who visited him in prison:—'Nor did he, while he was in prison, spend his time in a supine and careless manner, nor eat the bread of idleness; for there have I been witness that his own hands have ministered to his and his family's necessities, making many hundred gross of long tagged laces, to fill up the vacancies of his time, which he had learned to do for that purpose, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... consistency of iron to padded leather. At last the novice directed a frantic assault at the champion's nose, rising on his toes in his excitement as he did so. Skene struck up the blow with his right arm, and the impetuous youth spun and stumbled away until he fell supine in a corner, rapping his head smartly on the floor at the same time. He rose with unabated cheerfulness and offered to continue the combat; but Skene declined any further exercise just then, and, much pleased with his novice's game, promised ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... come, the lingering doubt of which power led her on, which restrained and filled her mind. A flicker of rage darted through her calm questioning; her mental processes again faded. With her right arm across the supine body and enveloping the face in her left sleeve a single twist and Nettie Vollar would choke in a cloud of thick satin made gay with unfading flowers and the embroidered symbol of long life. She felt her body grow rigid with purpose when the sound of a footfall below held her motionless in ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... morning the party would be starting for the hunt—a hunt from which, he felt sure, they would never return. Then it was certain that a treacherous attack would be made upon the ship and the island, and yet here he lay supine, knowing all this, and yet unable ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... savoury viands sustain:- But loose his neck and off he goes again: So stole our Vagrant from his warm retreat, To rove a prowler and be deemed a cheat. Hard was his fare; for him at length we saw In cart convey'd and laid supine on straw. His feeble voice now spoke a sinking heart; His groans now told the motions of the cart: And when it stopp'd, he tried in vain to stand; Closed was his eye, and clench'd his clammy hand: Life ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... this same tie, he bethought him of his negligence lying supine on the grass, while his sister Bess was meanwhile reading in the immediate vicinity. He would be grateful, ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... great part of their burdens, were able to move with celerity. As to the worthy convive of the preceding evening, he was carefully gathered up from the hunter's couch on which he lay, repentant and supine, and, being packed upon one of the horses, was hurried forward with the convoy, groaning and ejaculating at ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... nothing else; and they demand to see him, in a general way, acting up to their general conception of him. That was what Messrs. Lloyd Osbourne and Austin Strong forgot in their otherwise clever play, The Exile. It is useless to prove, historically, that at a given moment he was passive, supine, unconscious, while people around him were eagerly plotting his escape and restoration. That may have been so; but it is not what an audience wants to see. It wants to see Napoleon Napoleonizing. For anomalies ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... fighting race they proved in later ages—fighting often when submission would have been the wiser policy—it is curious that in early days these O'Neills or Hy-Nials seem to have been but a supine race. For centuries they were titular kings of Ireland, yet during all that time they seem never to have tried to transform their faint, shadowy sceptre into a real and active one. Malachy or Melachlin, the rival of Brian Boru, seems to have been ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... pomp; I hate those linden-bark devices; And as for roses, holy Moses! They can't be got at living prices! Myrtle is good enough for us,— For you, as bearer of my flagon; For me, supine beneath this vine, Doing my best ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... fearlessness. "At present," he had written, "he is influenced more by curiosity than by a care for truth, according to the character of the young. Certainly, he differs strikingly from his equals in age, by his passion for a vigorous intellectual gymnastic, such as the supine character of their minds renders distasteful to most young men, but in which he shows a fearlessness that at times makes me fancy that his ultimate destination may be the military life; for indeed the rigidly logical tendency of ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... to his brow and limbs and set him trembling like one with an ague. Not a breath disturbed the bushes, yet he felt that the man was there—there across the opening in the forest with his eyes fixed upon the supine figure near the fire. Had he not been warned by that mysterious feeling which had kept his eyes open and his nerves alert he, Enoch Harding, might now be lying unconscious with a deadly ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... other over their camp-fires upon the probable prospects of the next day. It was a question with them whether I should continue the march. Mostly all were of opinion that, since the master was sick, there would be no march. A superlative obstinacy, however, impelled me on, merely to spite their supine souls; but when I sallied out of my tent to call them to get ready, I found that at least twenty were missing; and Livingstone's letter-carrier, "Kaif-Halek"—or, How-do-ye-do?—had not arrived with Dr. ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... some acquaintance with Banks. During the Romney expedition the latter had been posted at Frederick with 16,000 men, and a more enterprising commander would at least have endeavoured to thwart the Confederate movements. Banks, supine in his camps, made neither threat nor demonstration. Throughout the winter, Ashby's troopers had ridden unmolested along the bank of the Potomac. Lander alone had worried the Confederate outposts, driven in their advanced detachments, and ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... delegations and messages and protests to the poor old wabbly Chinese Government, urging it to "act." To act; that is, to tell the French Government to hand back to China this "acquired" land. What the outcome will be, I don't know. Apparently the supine, terror-stricken Chinese Government cannot act, doesn't dare. Three days have now passed, and the French are still sitting tight, holding to their fruits of victory, facing an enraged but helpless ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... veritable history, and his own [20] spiritual discernment, this man must have risen above worldly schemes, human theorems or hypotheses, to conclusions which reason too supine or misemployed cannot fasten upon. He spake inspired; he touched a tone of Truth that will continue to reverberate and renew [25] its emphasis throughout the entire centuries, into the ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... were the hills, save where supine The dozing goatherd lay, Or, at a rude and broken shrine, The peasant knelt to pray; Or where athwart the distant blue Thin saffron clouds ascend, As Carbonari, hid from view, Their smouldering ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... burden and a curse. No more she smiles for me, no more my rays Urge on her frozen roots to coloured bloom, No clouds enrobe her nakedness—her days, Once golden in the dance, are bent on doom. A loathing throngs the vision, and the face Of Man is stone and ashen, fallen supine. How long with Light and Love I warmed his race! Now iron crowns of Ruin and Death ...
— The Masque of the Elements • Herman Scheffauer
... compared his opponents on the Treasury Bench to a line of exhausted volcanoes. They had taken office when they were full of mighty aspirations; they had poured forth measures of all sorts with prodigal vigour; and at last they were reduced to wait, supine and helpless, for the inevitable swing of the political pendulum. A similar process of exhaustion goes on among literary men; and there are certain symptoms which cause expert persons to say, "Ah, poor Blank seems to have written himself out!" I have occasionally alluded ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... fire of embers upon a midnight hearth; while along the entire east the invisible sun sent pallid intimations of his coming. The wind was light; the waves languid; the stars twinkled with a faint effulgence; all nature seemed supine with the long night watch, and half-suspended in jaded expectation of the sun. This was the critical hour to catch Rodondo in his perfect mood. The twilight was just enough to reveal every striking point, without tearing away the dim investiture ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... lady neglected to call for assistance, the wedged-in horse did so all the more loudly. Supine and unable to free himself from his uncomfortable position, he repeatedly uttered that terrified scream which one never hears from this noble and reticent beast except in dire extremity. Whoever has heard such a cry will readily admit that it is far more terrible than ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... to captives grown supine, Chained to their task in sightless mine: Above, the bland day smiles benign, Birds carol free, In thunderous throes of life divine Leaps ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... her crimes, reacting, wrought Their curse upon herself, to her, supine And helpless, the barbarian spoiler brought, With fire and sword, new life to ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... thou divine To what would one day dwindle that which made Thee more than mortal? and that so supine By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid? She who was named eternal, and arrayed Her warriors but to conquer—she who veiled Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed Until the o'er-canopied horizon failed, Her rushing wings—Oh! she who ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... earlier arrangements for defense, the new plans marked a great advance; but when judged in the light of the possible necessity of repelling American invasion, they were plainly inadequate. A burst of criticism followed from England; press and politicians joined in denouncing the blind and supine colonials. Did they not know that invasion by the United States was inevitable? "If the people of the North fail," declared a noble lord, "they will attack Canada as a compensation for their losses; if they succeed, they will attack ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... infected with the disease of neutrality. You cannot hear the voices saying: 'Where is the enemy? On, on, for God, the Kaiser, and the Fatherland!'" Even Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, who is, according to Bettina, merely a supine hero, fails to elude her electric grasp: "Come, flee with me across the Alps to the Tyrolese. There will we whet our swords and forget thy rabble of comedians; and as for all thy darling mistresses, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... was one curved shell of hollow pearl, 4630 Almost translucent with the light divine Of her within; the prow and stern did curl Horned on high, like the young moon supine, When o'er dim twilight mountains dark with pine, It floats upon the sunset's sea of beams, 4635 Whose golden waves in many a purple line Fade fast, till borne on sunlight's ebbing streams, Dilating, on earth's verge the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... "and I shall believe him, however untrue and improbable his story may be;" and if, whilst the Anti-corn-law League can display such perseverance, determination, and system, its opponents obstinately remain supine and silent, can any one wonder if such progress be not made by the League, in their demoralizing and revolutionary enterprize, that it will soon be too late to attempt even ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... to lie supine Within a hammock swinging, To watch the sunset, red as wine, To hear the crickets singing; And while the insect world around Is buzzing—by the million— No winged thing above the ground Intrudes ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... the patient is to be bound in the supine position, a wedge-shaped stone wrapped with yarn placed in the axilla, and the surgeon, pressing against the padded stone with his foot and raising the humerus with his hands, reduces the head of the bone to ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... no question of cowardice. It is a question of common sense. A few country lads cannot oppose a government. With what weapons can they do so? Courage I honour; without it all active virtues are supine; but it is not courage to attempt the impossible, to lead the ignorant to death — ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... they don't breed in harems and the male hair seal does not stay on shore. A fur seal swims with his fore flippers, a true seal with his hind flippers. A fur seal stands upright on his fore flippers, a hair seal lies supine. A fur seal has a neck, a hair seal has practically none. A fur seal naturally has fur, the hair seal has no undercoat whatever. A pup fur seal is black, a pup hair seal is white. Different? Obviously! Pity the old name 'sea bear' died out. It would have prevented confusion between fur seal ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... worship of God which it declared was so desirable; it prevented no scandal; it arrested no decay; it allayed no distemper, and it certainly did not settle the peace of the Church. Inside the Church the bishops were supine, the parochial clergy indifferent, and the worshippers, if such a name can properly be bestowed upon the congregations, were grossly irreverent. Nor was any improvement in the conduct of the Church ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... unreveng'd Ulysses bore their fate, Nor thoughtless of his own unhappy state; For, gorg'd with flesh, and drunk with human wine While fast asleep the giant lay supine, Snoring aloud, and belching from his maw His indigested foam, and morsels raw; We pray; we cast the lots, and then surround The monstrous body, stretch'd along the ground: Each, as he could approach him, lends a hand To bore his eyeball with a flaming ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... accounts should be closed some time or other,—by payment, by composition, or by oblivion. Expedit reipublicae ut sit finis litium. Constantly taking along with me, that an extreme rigor is sure to arm everything against it, and at length to relax into a supine neglect, I propose, Sir, that even the best, soundest, and the most recent dents should be put into instalments, for the mutual benefit of the accountant and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... so stupid as to neglect, than that neglecting they should be unconvinced of such an evident and momentous truth. And yet it is to be feared that too many of parts and leisure, who live in Christian countries, are, merely through a supine and dreadful negligence, sunk into Atheism. Since it is downright impossible that a soul pierced and enlightened with a thorough sense of the omnipresence, holiness, and justice of that Almighty Spirit should persist in a remorseless violation of His laws. We ought, therefore, earnestly to ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... the full. He sat and dreamed over his absinthe futile dreams of power. He was too weak to strike a blow—too weak to raise a hand. Then she took up his cause; intrigued, enlisted our interests, raised his supine and powerless ambitions to a throne. There he abandons her at the foot of the stairs by which he mounted; and refuses her his Crown. He talks now of a more Royal alliance." Jusseret spread his hands in ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... understanding very clearly what was the matter with me, though having at the same time a vague impression that all was not quite right. Gradually I collected my ideas, and at length, when Browne repeated his question the third time, I had formed a pretty correct theory as to the cause of my present supine attitude, and the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... leaf and bud, Passed on with a weary air, Till lo! he came to a pool of mud, And some hogs were rolling there. Then in he plunged with gleeful cries, And down he lay supine; For they had no mud in paradise, And they likewise had ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... patience. It never turns aside, never lays down its tools, always has a new plan when the old is crushed out—that is the real patience! You call me a despot—you are unjust! It is only that you don't understand, I do not want to rule for the sake of power, but because people are so supine they will not learn to rule without being pushed into it. I do want to learn to shape circumstances, but not to control Littleton. I do wish to teach them what self-government really means, though. And see how ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Canada, and Foster began to understand certain traits of his comrade's that had puzzled him. Lawrence, although he had keener intelligence, was not quite so fine a type as his father, and in consequence stood rough wear better. But he too, in spite of his physical courage, now and then showed a supine carelessness and tried to avoid, instead of boldly grappling with, ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... dust and heat, Rise from disaster and defeat The stronger. And conscious still of the divine Within them, lie on earth supine No longer. ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... of the external foe, whose forces were steadily augmenting: Had the provinces followed his advice, instead of quarreling among themselves, they would have had a powerful army on foot to second the efforts of Anjou, and subsequently to save Tournay. They had remained supine and stolid, even while the cannonading against these beautiful cities was in their very ears. No man seemed to think himself interested in public affair, save when his own province or village was directly attacked. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... one of those who mistook his talent after all. He used to be very much dissatisfied that I preferred his Letters to his Sermons. The last were forced and dry; the first came naturally from him. For ease, half-plays on words, and a supine, monkish, indolent pleasantry, I have ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... man fell sidewise behind the rocks and a bullet clipped the edge of his barricade. Remaining supine, he fastened his handkerchief to the end of his whip and waved it above the rampart. Having thus manifested his peaceful intent, he rose, still holding the flag of truce above his head, and remained motionless. Brick Willock stared at him for a moment in hostile indecision, ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... and glassy float, opaque and still, The loch, at furthest ebb supine in sleep, Reversing, mirrored in its luminous deep The calm grey skies; the solemn spurs of hill; Heather, and corn, and wisps of loitering haze; The wee white cots, black-hatted, plumed with smoke; The braes beyond—and when the ripple awoke, ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... over the great chessboard of current events, whose brains directed the moves. And the stakes? Not the welfare of the workingmen in that distant city, not the lifting of the grinding heel of temporal power from the supine bodies of the humble—but the peace of mind, the honorable, untarnished name, the earthly riches of the slender girl who sat in that great darkened ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... scent And gay with golden ornament. His fiery eyes in slumber closed, In glittering robes the king reposed Like Mandar's mighty hill asleep With flowery trees that clothe his steep. Near and more near the Vanar The monarch of the fiends to view, And saw the giant stretched supine Fatigued with play and drunk with wine. While, shaking all the monstrous frame, His breath like hissing serpents' came. With gold and glittering bracelets gay His mighty arms extended lay Huge as the towering shafts that bear The flag of Indra high in air. Scars ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... consonants is generally—short, we find, in some instances, a long vowel in this position. For example, it would appear that the vowel of the supine and cognate parts of the verb is long if the vowel of the present indicative, though short, is followed by a medial (b, g, d, z), as ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... on his left lay another supine figure, elbows on the ground, and hands arched above his brow to shade his eyes, gazing out to sea. He, too, was a tall and powerful man, and when he moved there was a glint of armour from the chain mail in which ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... some of the featureless houses propping each other's flanks in old Fez or old Sale, but people rich enough to rebuild have always done so, and the passion for building seems allied, in this country of inconsequences, to the supine indifference that lets existing constructions crumble back to clay. "Dust to dust" should have been the motto of ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... Lily faced her noisy group of barefooted children, she was thinking of Radbourn, of his almost fierce sympathy for these poor, supine farmers, hopeless and in some cases content in their narrow lives. The children almost worshipped the beautiful girl who came to them as a revelation of exquisite neatness and taste,—whose very ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... examined, and determinations which comprised no perplexing contrarieties of interest, or multiplicity of circumstances, they were equally liable with ourselves to be supine and negligent, to sink into security, or be surprised by haste. That the clause now before us was enacted by them, must be ascribed merely to the hurry of the session in which it was brought before them; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... great Charlemagne say, could he see us now? What would even St. Louis of blessed memory feel, could he witness the changes wrought by only a century and a half? Surely it were enough to cause them to turn in their graves! The north lying supine at the feet of the English conqueror; licking his hand, as a dog licks that of his master, lost to all sense of shame that an English infant in his cradle (so to speak) should rule through a regent the fair realm of France, whilst its own lawful King, banished from his capital and from half ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... always no fault to find. How could the colonel suppose anything was wrong? Life had become a dull, sad story to him; why should it be different to anybody else? Nay, the colonel would not have said that in words; it was rather the supine condition into which he had lapsed, than any conclusion of his intelligence; but the fact was, he had no realization of the fact that a child's life ought to be bright and gay. He accepted Esther's sedate unvarying tone and manner as quite the right thing, and found it suit him perfectly. ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... he had slept long, deeply and exhaustively. He felt now a little emaciated mentally and somewhat absent-bodied—so he put it to himself. A numb languor, not unpleasant, held him passively supine, the while he gave himself ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... way of the supine, she had put it off and put it off until her negligence had culminated in the frightful scene of this same very early morning, when Leonie, waking in the day nursery to find her kitten dead, had screamed and shrieked ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... prophet or almanac maker, for my predictions are seldom verified. I thought the present session likely to be a very supine one, but unless the evening varies extremely from the morning, it will be a tempestuous day—and yet it was a very southerly and calm wind that began the hurricane. The King's Speech was so tame, that, as George Montagu said of the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... represented as stunted trees lacerated by the beaks of foul harpies. The violent lie supine on a plain of dry and dense sand, upon which descend flakes of fire like "snow in the Alps, without a wind." Usurers—should we call them profiteers?—suffer also from a rain of fire and carry about their necks money bags stamped with armorial ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... Marshall Haney in a new light also. For the first time he seemed like an old man, sitting there, supine, garrulous, in the midst of those self-contained people. "Gosh! how he did talk! He took too much wine, I reckon, but that didn't make all the difference." In truth, his imperiousness, his contempt, had ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... temper then in earnest. All his nature was on edge in that crisis, and this supine surrender of an able-bodied man whose two hands were needed so desperately was peculiarly exasperating. He leaped out of the boat, ran into the galley, and gave the cook an invigorating beating up with the flat of his hands. The cook clutched his cat more ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... all you deserve. I'll show you whether or not you can sacrifice my career, you ——! ——! ——! you!" And with which tirade the beautiful Violet stormed up and down the veranda of Highcliff in front of the supine figure of her manager, which was clad in immaculate white flannel, suede and linen, with a blue silk scarf knotted at the base of his lean, bronze throat, which matched the blue of his keen eyes under ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... situation. The conviction was not ill founded. Their intellectual and physical resources were powerfully and constantly exerted for the preservation and security of the settlements; and frequently, with astonishing success, under the most inauspicious circumstances. Had they indeed, by nature, been supine and passive, their isolated situation, and the constantly repeated attempts of the Indians, at their extermination, would have aroused them, as it did others, to activity and energy, and brought their every [144] nerve into ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... recumbent attitude, together with the weight of bed-clothes, hampers our movements and probably makes us more cowardly. A man will meet pain or danger boldly if he be standing upright—occupying that erect position which is his as Lord of Creation; but his courage does not well so high if he be supine. We are awakened suddenly by the feel that some superhuman Presence is in the room. We are transfixed with terror, we cannot find either the bell-rope or the matches, while we dare not leap out of bed and make a rush for the door lest we should encounter ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... explaining to his captors exactly what he thought of them, of their fathers and mothers, their kith and kin, and the supermen were heeding him not the least, when a thunderbolt seemed to smite them asunder, and Joe was glancing mild-eyed from one splendid, supine form to the other. ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... that other parts of the celomic epithelium, besides that of the mesogastrium, are capable of forming splenic tissue. Jameson reports a case of double spleen and kidneys. Bainbrigge mentions a case of supernumerary spleen causing death from the patient being placed in the supine position in consequence of fracture of the thigh. Peevor mentions an instance of second spleen. Beclard and Guy-Patin have seen the spleen congenitally misplaced on the right side and the liver on the left; Borellus and Bartholinus with others ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... to the balustrade, Idly notes how the blossoms fade In the sun's caress; then crosses where The shadow shelters a carven chair. Within its curve, supine she lies, And wearily closes her tired eyes. The minstrel beseeches his silver strings, And holding the lady spellbound, sings: — Down the road to Avignon, The long, long road to Avignon, Across the bridge to Avignon, ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... hundred years ago the wealth of our Spanish fathers was a serious object to the rest of Europe—as represented by the bold buccaneers. There is a curse of futility upon our character: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, chivalry and materialism, high-sounding sentiments and a supine morality, violent efforts for an idea and a sullen acquiescence in every form of corruption. We convulsed a continent for our independence only to become the passive prey of a democratic parody, the helpless victims of scoundrels and cut-throats, our institutions a mockery, our laws ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... destined to become more conspicuous in the labours of R. Columbus, G. Fallopius and Eustachius. While Italy, however, was thus advancing the progress of science, the other nations of Europe were either in profound ignorance or in the most supine indifference to the brilliant career of their zealous neighbours. The 16th century had commenced before France began to acquire anatomical distinction in the names of Jacques Dubois, Jean Fernel and Charles ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... comes not. There is never any time like the present. All around me are thousands of men, once free and now chained into slavery—and chained, perhaps, more through their own indolence than by the power of their masters; and yet they lie supine, and call upon each other to wait! And to-morrow there will be a thousand such in the arena, and instead of rising up together in their strength, they will fight only with each other. What might not that thousand accomplish, were they to act together in brave and earnest revolt? ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to sit down and let 'em frisk you that way, are you, Dad?" cried Bud, surprised at what he thought was the supine and non-combative attitude of ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... wring my neckcloth, and rub down my hair! Now Mr. Brackett, punctual man, is ringing The curfew bell; 't is nine o'clock already. 'T is early bedtime, yet methinks 't were joy On mattress cool to stretch supine. At midnight, Were it winter, I were less fatigued, less sleepy. Sleep! I invoke thee, "comfortable bird, That broodest o'er the troubled waves of life, And hushest them to peace." All hail the man Who first invented ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... is it they don't all whistle over your head? Thus, too, though we may want the artillery of missive wit to make reprisals, we may at least in security bid them kiss the tails we have turned to them. Who knows but, by this our supine, or rather prone serenity, their disappointed valour may become their own vexation? Or let us yet, at worst, but solidly stand our ground, like so many defensive stone-posts, and we may defy the proudest Jehu of them all to drive over us. Thus, gentlemen, you ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... to be contented in almost any circumstances. It was as if the brute in him were forever seeking a lower level, wallowing itself lower and lower into the filth and into the mire, content to be foul, content to be prone, to be inert and supine. ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... to beckon a person to him he, in common with the other Malayans of the Archipelago, extends his arm toward the person with the hand held prone, not supine as is the custom in America, and closes the hand, also giving a slight inward movement of the hand at the wrist. This manner of beckoning ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... Darius lay supine before them, physically and spiritually abased, accepting, like a victim who is too weak even to be ashamed, the cooings and strokings and prayers and optimistic mendacities of Auntie Hamps, and the tearful ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... their mother's work has been a matter of course ever since they can remember. 'I did not burst on them gloriously. I am glad to say that they think I am a much better mother than I am a writer, and that the family attitude in general has been attentive but not supine. They regard it exactly as a banker's family ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... so hard for the Loyalist lawyer is the fact that our folks are all for business and look upon politics as a nuisance, while the other side make politics the principal business of their lives. They are tremendously energetic in this, but wonderfully supine in everything else. In politics they spare neither time nor money, nor (for the matter of that) swearing. The lying that goes on in the Registry Court would astonish Englishmen. The Papist party themselves admit that they are awful liars, but ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... that the majority of Tamil infinitives terminate in ka, supposed this ka to be identical in origin with k, the dative-accusative case-sign of the Hindi, and concluded that the Dravidian infinitive was the accusative of a verbal noun. It is true that the Sanskrit infinitive and Latin supine in tum is correctly regarded as an accusative, and that our English infinitive to do, is the dative of a verbal noun; it is also true that the Dravidian infinitive is a verbal noun in origin, and never altogether loses that character; nevertheless, the supposition that the final ka of ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... good deal, to be sure. The flowers lay supine, their faces beaten into the mud; the greensward was littered with fallen leaves and twigs—and even in one or two places whole branches had been broken from the trees; on the ground about each rose-bush a snow ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... piece of shell penetrated his right eyelid, a little wound so small that it was not worth a dressing. Yet that little piece of obus lodged somewhere inside his skull, above his left ear, so the radiographist says, and he's paralyzed. Paralyzed all down the other side, and one supine hand flops about, and one supine leg flops about, in jerks. One bleary eye stays open, and the other eyelid stays shut, over the other bleary eye. Meningitis has set in and it won't be long now, before we'll have another empty bed. ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... him, Ned violently pushed forward the table so as to carry the tutor over backward in his chair. His head and back struck the floor heavily, and he lay supine beneath ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... her Hungarian Majesty, and her Bartensteins and Ministries, heard enough of those Prussian rumors, interior Military activities, and enigmatic movements; but they seem strangely supine on the matter; indeed, they seem strangely supine on such matters; and lean at ease upon the Sea-Powers, upon Pragmatic Sanction and other Laws of Nature. But at length even they become painfully interested as to Friedrich's intentions; and despatch an Envoy ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... She lay supine, and straight as an arrow, on the sloping sod of this hill-top, gazing up into the blue miles of sky, and still retaining her warm hold of Jude's hand. He reclined on his ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... which he had cogitated when reclining in a state of supine repletion to aid digestion, stimulated by his appreciation of the importance of inventions now common but once revolutionary, for example, the aeronautic parachute, the reflecting telescope, the spiral corkscrew, the safety pin, the mineral water ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce |
