"Pliable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cords that spread across the face of the furniture. Simply put, they stretched elastic ropes across an empty frame, almost like a trampoline made of individual cords. This created a very comfortable springing feel, for they gave enough bounce to render the surface pliable, but not overly soft. Taking the bowie knife again, I thrust it into the couch, and cut away the cushioning to reveal the support. To my great relief, I found that it was constructed in a manner similar to the other couches that I had ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... as to the matter of the best wood. There are, roughly speaking, two headings under which we may class our types of raw material—strong and stiff wood, such as the oak and the hazel; and strong and pliable, such as the ash-plant and various kinds of canes. What one really wants to secure is a sufficient amount of stiffness and strength to enable one to make an effective hit or longe, without any chance of snapping, and a degree of pliability ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... then, again, I used planks that were absurdly thick for the shell, though, of course, I was not aware of these things at the time. The wreck, of course, provided me with all the woodwork I required. In order to make the staves pliable, I soaked them in water for a week, and then heated them over a fire, afterwards bending them to the required shape. At the end of nine months of unremitting labour, to which, latterly, considerable anxiety—glorious hopes and sickening fears—was ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... other end—then spread the body of the sentence between it out! Usually are for my purposes the bridges of the city long enough; when I but Potzl's writings study will I ride out and use the glorious endless imperial bridge. But this is a calumny; Potzl writes the prettiest German. Perhaps not so pliable as the mine, but in many details much better. Excuse you these flatteries. These ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... which intervene between the extinction of the genuine Roman Empire and the year 1300, ecclesiastical poetry took the lead in creating and popularising new established types of verse, and in rendering the spoken Latin pliable for ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... by this, to think that he was of a kind and pliable disposition; and seeing the wheels fortified, and the horses at rest, I felt more disposed to hold conversation with the man. "Who knows," I said to myself, "but that I may now make one new friend ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... his body. It soon became accustomed to the routine, then hardened. His mind was less pliable. But that, too, was undergoing a change. He found that the topics of conversation that used to interest his little crowd on the street corner in Chippewa were not of much interest, here. There were boys from every part of the great country. And they talked of the places ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... to his father. He did not know what to reply. His mind was still in the pliable state, and he found that he was being infected by his father's passion. But he had been taught at Rumpell's to believe in Invention, in Progress by the Development of Machinery, and so his mind reeled a little under this sudden onslaught ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Polysiphonia, the "siphons" of which may be regarded as one-celled branches. To the law that no subsequent transverse division takes place in segments cut off from the apical cell, there seem to be two exceptions: first, the calcareous genus Corallinia, in the pliable joints of which intercalated division occurs; and, second, the Nitophylleae, in which, moreover, median longitudinal division of axial cells is said to occur. Like the Fungi, therefore, the Red Algae consist for the most part of branched filaments, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... sheep or goat out of his skin; tie its legs and tail, where incisions had been made, to make it a waterproof bag, and then fill it with bits of this bark, chopped up and mixed with water. They then suspend it in a tree to dry, and afterwards render it soft and pliable by a severe course of manipulation. The taste of the bark is considered very wholesome, and a corrective to bad and fetid water. Besides possessing this quality, the mohur is useful as a poultice-when mashed and mixed with water; ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... innocence that attracted her? Or was she merely trying to keep up her spirits a little—trying to be younger than she was? But then one day she came up to the reservoir where Grindhusen and I were at work, and sat watching us for a while. It was easy work then for half an hour; the granite turned pliable, and yielded to our will; we built away like giants. Oh, but Fruen sat there irresponsible as ever, letting her eyes play this way and that. Why could she not rid herself of this new habit of hers? Her ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... followed the guide into another small chapel, which bore the name of Henry VII. upon the door. Surely they were great builders and great designers in those days! Had stone been as pliable as wax it could not have been twisted and curved into more exquisite spirals and curls, so light, so delicate, so beautiful, twining and turning along the walls, and drooping from the ceiling. Never did the hand of man construct anything more elaborately ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... Paris and strove hard to extend his studies as a scholar and his connections as an adventurer. He made the acquaintance of some courtiers, who felt or affected an interest in learning and in learned men. His manners were insinuating; his character was pliable. When presented at court he succeeded in gaining the esteem and confidence of Henry II., the husband of Catherine de Medicis. Francis II., the son of Henry II., and the first husband of Mary Stuart, continued ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... embraced, without scruple, the still varying religion of their sovereigns. But the French nation, where principles had so long been displayed as the badges of faction, and where each party had fortified its belief by an animosity against the other, were not found so pliable or inconstant; and Henry was at last convinced that the Catholics of his party would entirely abandon him, if he gave them not immediate satisfaction in this particular. The Hugonots also, taught by experience, clearly saw that his desertion of them was become absolutely necessary for the public ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... oldest known arrangement of a crown-wheel escapement in a clock. R is the crown wheel or balance wheel acting upon the pallets P and P', which form part of the verge V. This verge is suspended as lightly as possible upon a pliable cord C and carries at its upper end two arms, B and B, called adjusters, forming the balance. Two small weights D D, adapted to movement along the rules or adjusters serve to regulate the duration of a vibration. In Fig. 148 we have the arrangement adopted in small timepieces ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... but the man put his hands to his ears, and ran on with a cry of Life! Life! The friends of his wife, too, came out to see him run, and as he went, some were heard to mock him, some to use threats, and there were two who set off to fetch him back by force, the names of whom were Obstinate and Pliable. Now, by this time, the man had gone a good way off, but at last they came up ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... still retaining some foreign element of gait or attitude, still perhaps with some relic (such as a single eye-glass) of the officer and gentleman, they sprawl in palm-leaf verandahs and entertain an island audience with memoirs of the music-hall. And there are still others, less pliable, less capable, less fortunate, perhaps less base, who continue, even in these isles of plenty, ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... tabulo. plant : kreskajxo; planti. plash : plauxdi. plaster : plastro; (of Paris) gipso. plate : telero; (photo) klisxajxo. platform : estrado; platajxo; perono, trotuaro. play : ludi; teatrajxo. "-ful", petola. please : placxi al, kontentigi. pleasant : afabla, agrabla. pledge : garantiajxo. pliable : fleksebla. plot : konspir'i, -o; intrig'i, -o. plough : plug'i, -ilo. plum : pruno. plumber : plumbisto. plural : multenombro. plush : plusxo. pocket : posxo, enposxigi. pod : sxelo. poem : poemo. poet : poeto. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... his brother brought him; but having no small companion on whom to exercise his valor, he amused himself for a short time in hewing down imaginary foes, and then cut the reeds in slips, and plaited them to form a whip for Lightfoot. The leaves seemed so pliable and strong that I examined them to see to what further use they might be put. Their tissue was composed of long silky fibers. A sudden thought struck me—this must be New Zealand flax. [Footnote: New ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... should be of a sombre shade, so as to be as inconspicuous as possible. The use of high-top boots is to be deprecated, as they are tiresome and unwieldy. Short boots, with thick, iron-pegged soles, are generally preferred by trappers, and in order to render them soft, pliable, and waterproof they may be soaked or smeared with a hot mixture, composed of one part rosin, two parts beeswax, and three parts tallow. Simple tallow, or even the fat of the deer, is sometimes ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... nowhere." Robert Southey, whose prose style was the perfection of neatness, and who was intimate with Coleridge throughout his life, laments that it is "extraordinary that he should write in so rambling and inconclusive a manner;" his mind, which was undoubtedly very pliable and subtle, "turning and winding, till you get weary ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... To this he never could consent, being a man of sincere and enlightened piety, as well noted for his ability, courage, and conduct. On the recall of Colbert in 1674, he was minister plenipotentiary in England, and remained so for two or three years, when a more pliable tool was found in a M. Courtin. He still retained the good opinion of the French king and his advisers, for on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes he had permission to emigrate to England with his family, a permission ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... be inferred from the ducal accounts, which are eloquent with information about the creators of all this mimic pomp. About six sous a day was the wage earned by a painter, while the plumbers received eight. These latter were called upon to coax pliable lead into all sorts of shapes, often more ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... up at him and the blue eyes were dancing. Miss Alicia Adair knew no joy to compare with that of teasing, and it was not often that the fates gave her such a pliable subject. ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... had the advantage of a noble and a bold faith who lived before the coming of Christ; and who, upon obscure prophecies and mystical types, could raise a belief and expect apparent impossibilities. And since I was of understanding enough to know that we know nothing, my reason hath been more pliable to the will of faith. I am now content to understand a mystery in an easy and Platonic way, and without a demonstration and a rigid definition; and thus I teach my haggard and unreclaimed reason to stoop unto the lure ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... province but a very small share of its taxes. But, however this may be, we may take it, without straining facts, that the United States, being unable to bring Colombia to terms, evicted her in favor of a more pliable authority. This is not in accord with Christian morality. Nor are political dealings generally. And, from a practical point of view, it was preposterous that the cupidity of some Colombian politicians should stand in the way of an improvement in geography. The ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... their happiness; perhaps no person in existence has seen more of the world and life in its various phases than himself. His manners are naturally to the highest degree courtly, yet he nevertheless possesses a disposition so pliable that he finds no difficulty in accommodating himself to all kinds of company, in consequence of which he is a universal favourite. There is a mystery about him, which, wherever he goes, serves not a little to ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... not know how to smile. They look more or less benevolent, more or less pleased, more or less love-smitten; but they are not pliable or subtle enough to smile. A woman who is not sufficiently prudent to mask her features, gives away her soul in a smile. I have known women who revealed their whole ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... drooping plume upon a hearse, and the foliage is a dark green with a tinge of gray. The wood of this palm is almost black, being apparently a mass of longitudinal strips, or coarse linen of whalebone running close together from the top to the root of the tree. This is the toughest and most pliable of all the palm-woods, and is principally used by the natives in making "pingos." These are flat bows about eight feet in length, and are used by the Cingalese for carrying loads upon the shoulder. The weight is slung at either end of the pingo, and the elasticity of the wood accommodates ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Gosh," he exclaimed, as he took a dull knife and carefully removed all particles of fat or flesh which here and there adhered to the hide. After this was done to his satisfaction we both took hold and rubbed, and mauled and worked the skins with our hands until the hides were as soft and as pliable as flannel. Thus was the material for ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... troubled the enemy, who doth what he may to suppress the bruit thereof, and yet comforteth himself with the hope that between the factions and partialities nourished by his industry, and musters among the towns, especially in Holland and Zeeland (where he is persuaded to find some pliable to a reconcilement) and the disorders and misgovernment of our people, there will be yet occasion offered him to make his profit and advantage. I find that the gentleman hath here many friends indifferently persuaded of his innocency, notwithstanding the closing up of his apology doth make but ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... adorn. The original house was once the home of Warren Hastings. Four delightful years of school life followed. It was a pleasure to me to find that there was no extra charge for birches. The implement that was used to conserve discipline was not made out of the pliable birch tree, but of a very solid piece of leather with some stiffening to it—I fancy of steel—called a "ferrula." This was applied to the palm of the hand, and not to where my old friend the birch found its billet. ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... uncouthness of form it outdoes those obsolete old brutes who used to roam about the semi-aqueous world, and live a most uncomfortable life with their great hungering stomachs and huge unsatisfied maws. The elevator itself consists of a big movable trunk—movable as is that of an elephant, but not pliable, and less graceful even than an elephant's. This is attached to a huge granary or barn; but in order to give altitude within the barn for the necessary moving up and down of this trunk—seeing ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... and delight. No maiden of the city had ever charmed him more, and withal she seemed so innocent and young, so altogether pliable in his hands. His pulses beat high, his heart was inflamed, and passion came and sat ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... and blush as I did?" she said, screwing her pliable brows up to him winningly, and he bent his cheek against hers, and murmured ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... but it didn't work. He shut 'em up in the very barrack where they did their talking, and those who didn't jump out of the windows he enrolled in his suite, where they soon became mute as fish and pliable as a tobacco-pouch. This coup made him consul; and as he wasn't one to doubt the Supreme Being who had kept good faith with him, he hastened to fulfil his own promise by restoring the churches and reestablishing religion; whereupon the bells all rang out in his honor and in honor of ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... steel; the steel softened and his nerves became pliable as leather; gripping his hands he gratefully found them supple, and taking out knife and pliers he went to ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... polite and pliable all day, and his skill as a pilot won my commendation. When he expressed a desire to remain on shore, at the wharf, I did not object. As soon as the anchor was let go, all hands were piped to supper; but I was in no condition to take another meal that day, ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... more strenuous resistance than the prelate talked of as his successor. But the very reason which induced the pope to favor Trolle seemed to the king sufficient ground for supporting his opponent. It was precisely because of Johannes Magni's pliable and compromising temper that Gustavus would have rejoiced to see the mitre on his head. He was determined that Trolle, at any rate, should not wear it. So he sat down, as soon as Adrian's letter came, ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... how pliable we all are at twenty-three—how often our opinions waver and our emotions change. I was particularly mercurial in my temperament before the events I am relating hardened me. I often laid in a half-waking state almost all night, my imagination ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... is busy with mere Constitutional work: wherein, unluckily, fellow-workmen are less pliable than, with one who has completed the Science of Polity, they ought to be. Courage, Sieyes nevertheless! Some twenty months of heroic travail, of contradiction from the stupid, and the Constitution shall be built; the top-stone of it brought ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... my own way at all. I have not wanted it. Mrs Fane's character is stronger than mine. I have been content to abdicate in her favour. If you asked her opinion of me, she would probably tell you that I was too pliable—too ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... flew in all directions, clapped the still glowing piece of iron down on the broken place in the tire, hammered and welded it fast with two heavy blows, and then drove the nails into their places, which was easily done, as the iron was still soft and pliable. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... money, Miss Catherine?' I asked. 'You'll find him not so pliable as you calculate upon: and, though I'm hardly a judge, I think that's the worst motive you've given yet for being the wife ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... take an oath which set at naught the authority of the Pope: more than 50,000 priests likewise refused, and were ejected from their livings: the recusants were termed orthodox or non-juring priests, and by the law of August, 1792, they were exiled from France, while their more pliable or time-serving brethren who accepted the new decree were known as constitutionals. About 12,000 of the constitutionals married, while some of them applauded the extreme Jacobinical measures of the Terror. One ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... eyes of the whole world are upon you. It is now imperative that in the battle with our most hated foe we shall not grow numb, and that we shall at last break his arrogance. Already he is growing pliable, (muerbe.) Numerous officers and men have surrendered voluntarily, but the great decisive blow is still to be struck. Therefore you must persevere to the end. The enemy must be downed; you must not let him loose from your teeth. (Ihr musst ihn ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... grown in the preceding season, and most persons that meet with it suppose that the singular jug-handled appendage at one end of it is its tail. In reality, however, it is the tongue-case, and contains the long, pliable tongue which the future moth will employ in lapping the nectar of flowers. The moth itself (Fig. 4) was formerly confounded with the tobacco-worm moth, (Sphinx Carolina, Linnaeus,) which it very closely resembles, having the ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... manufacturers visit the airing room, and pack up the leaves in baskets and remove them to the manufacturing room. Each manufacturer takes a basketful, and commences to beat them between the palms of his hands with a lateral motion, in order to soften and make them more pliable for working, and thus prevent them, when rolled, from breaking. This beating process continues for about an hour, and it may either consist of one or two processes; the Chinese sometimes finish the beating process at once; ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... Such pliable consciences, doubtless, are very convenient in cases of emergency. But as they relax when selfish ends are to be subserved, and retain their rigidity only when judging the conduct of others, the inference is, that the persons possessing them are either hypocritical, or else, as ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... the veranda rail; the air smelled of rain. All growing things seemed to have ceased living; the air was heavy and laden with a resinous, dreamy vapour—magnetic, intoxicating. Such a night plays havoc with some women. Under these stifled conditions she is no longer normal; she becomes weak, pliable—she no longer reasons; she craves excitement, deceit, misadventure, confession—quarrels—jealousy—love—stringing their nerves to a tension and breeding a certain melancholy; it tortures by its suppression; a flash of lightning or a drenching ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... the ancient man was put in a large vat. Fluids submerged it, slowly soaking from that hardened flesh the alkali that had preserved it for so long. The fluid was changed often, until woody muscles and other tissues became pliable once more. ...
— The Eternal Wall • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... he had no fear, he had a superabundance of doubt. He had not all the pliable, receptive, imaginative nature of his friend, Lord Evelyn. He had more than the ordinary Englishman's distrust of secrecy. He was not to be won over by the visions of a St. Simon, the eloquence of a Fourier, the epigrams of a Proudhon: these were to him but intellectual playthings, ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... Thou knowest not what she was, Cornelia; for I wrote to thee about her while she seemed but human. In my hours of sadness, not only her beautiful form, but her very voice bent over me. How girlish in the gracefulness of her lofty form! how pliable in her majesty! what composure at my petulance and reproaches! what pity in her reproofs! Like the air that angels breathe in the metropolitan temple of the Christian world, her soul at every season preserved ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... method of softening sealing compound, making covers and jars limp and pliable. An open flame should never be used for this work, as the temperature of the flame is too high and there is danger of burning jars and covers and making them worthless. With steam, it is impossible to damage ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... high, the stem being from ten to fifteen inches in diameter. The lower branches bend down when the tree begins to grow old, and extend themselves into a round form somewhat like an umbrella; and the wood is so pliable that the ends of the largest branches may be bent down to within two or three feet ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... changes, it alters through forgetfulness of the earlier meanings of words, through similarities in sounds deceiving the ear, or through a confusion of the literal with the metaphorical signification of the same word. The character of languages also favors or retards such changes, pliable and easily modified ones, such as those of the American Indians, and in a less degree those of the Aryan nations, favoring a developed mythology, while rigid and monosyllabic ones, as the Chinese and Semitic types, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... barbaric vigor of the North with the delicate and infinitely pliable sensuousness of the South, the classic union of Strength and Desire, Chivalry was born. Leaping forth to light and power, a majestic creation, glittering in the knightly panoply, noble by its knightly vows, it stood resplendent against the dark background of the past ages, the inevitable and legitimate ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... question I have carefully put to myself; and upon the whole the probabilities are in favour of her accepting him in time. I flatter myself that I have some influence over her. She is pliable, and I can be strong ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... makes you feel that no one matters to her but just you yourself. And she is simple (or at least appears to be); she hasn't that Now-I-am-going-to-be-charming manner that is so difficult to bear. It is such fun talking to her, for she is very—pliable I think is the word I want. Accustomed to converse with people who constantly pull one up short with an 'Ah, now I don't agree,' or 'There, I think you are quite wrong,' it is wonderfully soothing to discuss things with someone who ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... natural—that she had half a dozen fluttered young girls on her mind, whom she was providing with programmes, seats, ices, occasional murmured remarks and general support and protection. When the concert was over she supplied them with further entertainment in the form of several young men who had pliable backs and flashing breastpins and whom she inarticulately introduced to them, which gave her still more to do, as after this serious step she had to stay and watch all parties. It was strange to Raymond to see her transformed ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... ear too pliable for any great solace from his foot, but he was not disappointed; he had expected little, and his thoughts were elsewhere. Rising, he permitted his nose to follow his troubled eyes, with the result that it touched the rim of the last wafer in Jane's ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... the broom before starting to sweep; it makes it more pliable and less hard on the carpet's pile and also ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... master well. It was by appeals to his vanity and to his love of ease that Charles could best be moved. The plain reproaches of his Minister were irksome, and in the long run became unbearable to him, but they impressed his pliable spirit. He minimized the extent of the charge given to Bristol, and then consented to his recall. He found, or fancied that he found, that the portrait of Catherine belied the unflattering accounts he had ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... his father also laid in his hands a gift. It was a soft, pliable belt, woven of the white, peeled roots of the cedar, dyed brilliantly, and ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... sensation) in certain areas of the skin and in certain of the special senses; second, Lethargy, in which consciousness seems to disappear entirely; the subject not being sensitive to any stimulations by eye, ear, skin, etc., and the body being flabby and pliable as in natural sleep; third, Somnambulism, so called from its analogies to the ordinary sleep-walking condition to which many persons are subject. This last covers the phenomena of ordinary mesmeric exhibitions at which travelling ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... lie direct to the Indian similitude affected by the two surmounting tips of eagle feathers. He was arrayed in much splendor, according to aboriginal standards; the fringed seams of his hunting shirt and leggings, fashioned of fine white dressed doeskin, as pliable as "Canton silk crape," were hung with fawns' trotters; his moccasins were white and streaked with parti-colored paint; he had a curious prickly belt of wolves' teeth, which intimated his moral courage as well as sylvan prowess, for the slaying of these beasts was esteemed ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... individuality, but it was in vain. They, too, succumbed to the inexorable law of Uniformity. That law was liberal in one respect. It did not insist that the stove-pipe form should rule inflexibly. It admitted several variations, including wide-awakes, pliable felts, and that little, squat, lackadaisical, round-crown, narrow-brimmed thing worn by the Prince of Wales in the photographs taken of him and the Princess at Sandringham. But this has come to be the rule: that hats shall no longer represent distinct ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... camp, and had caused temporary bridges to be built over all the streams on the way. Owing to the convenient bamboo, this is fairly easy of achievement, for the bamboo is at the same time tough and pliable, and bamboo bridges, in spite of their flimsy appearance, can carry great weights, and can be run up in no time, and kindly Nature furnishes in Bengal an endless supply of this ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... plenty of time for such sport now. They had learned to weave snow-shoes in Indian fashion, too, and Bolderwood taught Enoch to tan and "work" the deer hides so well that their mother was able to use the pliable leather for moccasins for the family. "Boughten" shoes they had; but they were kept for best, for the money to purchase them with came hard indeed ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... danger that when we realize this we shall do just what we did half a century ago, and what Pliable did in The Pilgrim's Progress when Christian landed him in the Slough of Despond: that is, run back in terror to our old superstitions. We jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire; and we are just as likely ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... secret predestination of God, because we are not considering what might or might not happen, but what the nature of man truly was. Adam, therefore, might have stood if he chose, since it was only by his own will that he fell; but it was because his will was pliable in either direction, and he had not received constancy to persevere, that he so easily fell. Still he had a free choice of good and evil; and not only so, but in the mind and will there was the highest rectitude, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... which hurries along even those who are sluggish or unwilling. Plato, in his Republic, gives the curious advice that, at meetings of older people wine should be distributed, in order to make them more pliable and receptive to the counsel of sages. Many would object to such a risky policy, which, moreover, can well be dispensed with, since music has quite as much power as wine to arouse a sympathetic and ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... the bazaars, making purchases of curios as presents for the folks at home and adding to their personal stock of mementos. Jim secured among other things a cane made of a rare Indian wood, which while light was exceedingly strong and so pliable that it could be bent almost ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... instant something rough and pliable struck his face with stinging force, and he felt the warm blood trickle down his cheeks. Instantly there came a second shock. The canoe was whirled forcibly from under him, and a heavy blow from some unseen ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... would carry her off—out of his ken. But if she were engaged deeply enough in the estate affairs she would surely come back. He knew her!—she hated to leave things unfinished. He was eager now to heap all kinds of responsibilities upon her. He would be meek and pliable; he would put no sort of obstacles in her way. She would have no excuse for giving him notice again. He would put up with all her silly Jingoism—if only ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... means of that opinion, being considerably encouraged towards the toil of living twenty-four hours longer by the comparative ease with which he found himself going through the usually painful process of bestirring his rusty joints (stiffened by the very rest and sleep that should have made them pliable) and putting them in a condition to bear his weight upon the floor. Nor was he absolutely disheartened by the idea of those tonsorial, ablutionary, and personally decorative labors which are apt to become so intolerably irksome ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... bushels of fruit, that tasted like our apples, but resembled a pear in shape and color, which was very hard and tough, not fit to eat then, but which, the chief said, would be good in midwinter. They had taken the precaution to gather them by his advice—he having made some large baskets of the pliable twigs of willow, in which they were conveyed from the trees to the temple, where they were deposited in the ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... sell those?" asked Bill, pointing toward the moccasins. The Indian regarded them thoughtfully, and again the toes wriggled comfortably beneath the pliable moose-skin covering. Bill ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... the harm," she wondered, "so long as it's a good one? The more one's under a good influence the better. The only thing is to see our steps as we take them—to understand them as we go. That, no doubt, I shall always do. I needn't be afraid of becoming too pliable; isn't it my fault that I'm not pliable enough?" It is said that imitation is the sincerest flattery; and if Isabel was sometimes moved to gape at her friend aspiringly and despairingly it was not so much because she desired herself to shine as because she wished to hold up the lamp for Madame ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk That yields your outline to the air's embrace, Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom: Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure To cut its one confided thought clean out Of all the world. But marble!—'neath my tools More pliable than jelly—as it were Some clear primordial creature dug from depths In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself. And whence all baser substance may be worked; Refine it off to air, you may—condense it ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... artistic taste and style and more becoming than the, tightly fitting store suits of a "Broadway dude" he had once "gazed upon." This suit that he was so proud of consisted of a hunting shirt of soft, pliable deer skin, ornamented with long fringes of buckskin dyed a bright vermillion or copperas. The trousers were made of the same material and ornamented with the same kind of fringes and porcupine quills of various colors. His cap ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... first used long, tough, fine roots he had seen when digging up the tree at the mouth of his cave. Afterwards he discovered some tall, tough reeds growing near by. He laid in a supply of these. He found that when he wanted to use them, a good soaking in water made them as pliable and tough ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... leather." This being answered, he will proceed to the qualities, and will have either from his class, or by his own help, the following answers: "It is dry, it is smooth, it is hard, it is tough, it is pliable, it is opaque," &c. He will then question them as to its uses, and will ask, "What is made from leather?" A. Boots and shoes. Q. What use is it of else? A. Books are bound with it; and so on through all its uses. He will then ask them how leather is made, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... the British court, whose duty it was to see justice done to its own subjects: he desired, however, that Pallet, who was confined in another place, might avail himself of his own disposition, which was sufficiently pliable; but when the governor desired to see his fellow-prisoner, the turnkey gave him to understand that he had received no orders relating to the lady, and therefore could not admit him into her apartment; though he was complaisant enough to tell him that she seemed very much mortified at ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... me on looking at these flowers. I would I had known you in happier days, when I should have been able to enjoy your genius and admire your art. You must be a great actor, for you have a wonderfully sonorous and pliable voice. I should like to hear you declaim, even though you should recite but ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... Scott's notebooks. The record of the Southern Journey is written in pencil in three slim MS. books, some 8 inches long by 5 wide. These little volumes are meant for artists' notebooks, and are made of tough, soft, pliable paper which takes the pencil well. The pages, 96 in number, are perforated so as to ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... and setters, we know what we may expect of a descendant of one of the Academic Races. Other things being equal, he will take more naturally, more easily, to his books. His features will be more pliable, his voice will be more flexible, his whole nature more plastic than those of the youth with less favoring antecedents. The gift of genius is never to be reckoned upon beforehand, any more than a choice new variety of pear or ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... worked long hours for years at machines. When one's body is young, it is very pliable, and hard work will mould it like putty according to the nature of the work. I can tell at a glance the trades of many workingmen I meet on the street. Look at me. Why am I rolling all about the shop? Because of the years I put in on the sea. If I'd put in the same years ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... I saw them marrying an old greasy boot to a young pliable buskin. Pantagruel was told that young buskin took old boot to have and to hold because she was of special leather, in good case, and waxed, seared, liquored, and greased to the purpose, even though it had been for the fisherman ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... old lady given the least intimation to our adventurer, of the sentiments she entertained in his behalf, his complaisance was of such a pliable texture, that he would have quitted his other pursuit, and made her the sole object of his attention. But she either depended upon the effect of his own good taste and discernment, or was too proud to disclose a passion ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... speak the opinion of everybody.' So, on that, they wanted to battle with him and kill him—click! he had 'em locked up in barracks, or flying out of windows, or drafted among his followers, where they were as mute as fishes and as pliable as a quid of tobacco. After that stroke—consul! And then, as it was not for him to doubt the Supreme Being, he fulfilled his promise to the good God, who, you see, had kept His word to him. He gave Him back His churches, and reestablished His religion; ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... for taking of great Fowl, being Rods that are long, small, strait, and pliable, the upper part apt to play to and fro; being besmeared with Bird-lime warm. Thus to be used, Observe the Haunts of the Fowl, have a Stale, (a living Fowl of the same kind you would take) and cross pricking your Rods, one into, and another against the Wind sloping, a foot distant one from ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... and the crowd, always easily guided and pliable, followed its improvised leader with loud acclamations. Only one idea, only one wish, animated all these men: they wanted peace with France, lest Bonaparte might come to Vienna and lay their beautiful capital in ashes ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... degrees, losing every womanly quality with which nature had generously endowed her. But the girl was not really bad. She was essentially nervous and craved excitement, so she had drifted into this sort of life because no counteracting influence of good had been injected into her pliable disposition. None, that is, until the friendly editor for whom she worked, anticipating her final downfall, had sought to save her by sending her to a country newspaper. He talked to the girl artist very frankly ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... the esoteric pain Squeezing her pliable vitals nourishes feud Insanely grumous, grumously insane. For lo! Past common balmly on the Bordereau, Churns she the skim o' the gutter's crust With Anti-Judaic various carmagnole, Whooped praise of ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... himself. Over his deer-skin vest he had drawn the coat of mail—that steel tissue, as pliable as cloth, as hard as diamonds; next, clothing his arms and legs in their proper armor, and his feet in iron-bound buskins, and concealing all this defensive equipment under loose trousers and an ample pelisse carefully buttoned, he took in his hand a long bar of iron, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... royal yard. Beside this difficulty, the yard over which we lay was cased with ice, the gaskets and rope of the foot and leech of the sail as stiff and hard as a piece of leather hose, and the sail itself about as pliable as though it had been made of sheets of sheathing copper. It blew a perfect hurricane, with alternate blasts of snow, hail, and rain. We had to fist the sail with bare hands. No one could trust himself to mittens, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... sense, deserved it. No fears, no doubts, no scruples shook him. Of the license which advocacy draws from sympathy with the feelings of those it represents, he made full use, with unhesitating power; for his reason, of 'large discourse,' was as pliable as the affections of the most sensitive nature. Nor was he diverted from his aim by any figure or fancy: if he neither exalted his subject by imagination, nor illustrated it by wit, nor softened its details by pathos, he never made it the subject ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... very essence of fragility, as they break from the parent tree at a touch; and yet one of the willows furnishes the tough, pliable and enduring withes from which are woven the baskets of the world. The willows, usually thin in branch, sparse of somewhat pale foliage, of so-called mournful mien, are yet bursting with vigor and life; indeed, ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... worked magic, and the queen Atta was a queen no more, but a miniature, straddle-legged aeroplane, pushed into position, and overrun by a crowd of mechanics, putting the finishing touches, tightening the wires, oiling every pliable crevice. A Medium came along, tugged at a leg and the obliging little plane lifted it for inspection. For three minutes this kept up, and then the plane became a queen and moved restlessly. Without warning, as if some irresponsible ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... may be known by its full bright eyes, pliable feet, and soft moist skin; the best is plump, fat, and nearly white, and the grain of the flesh is fine. The feet and neck of a young fowl are large in proportion to its size, and the tip of the breast-bone is soft, and easily bent between the fingers; the body of a capon is large, fat, and ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... difference in Tibetan boots is mainly in the quality or texture of the soles; for instance, the Lhassa boots have finer, softer, and more elastic soles than those made in Sigatz (usually written Shigatze), which are quite hard and stiff, and supposed to wear out much sooner than the more pliable ones of the sacred city. Then there are some with leather soles, made specially for wet or snowy regions, and these when greased over are quite waterproof. Two kinds of these are in use, one with pointed and curled toes for cutting one's way into the snow, the other of the usual shape. Men ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... flames were these, that at times glowed through him? Was it the power of the Evil One, that caused these wild thoughts to rage constantly within him? He punished his body, but without effect. What portion of his mind was that, which wound itself around him, pliable as a serpent, and which crept about his conscience under a loving cloak and consoled him! The saints pray for us, the holy Virgin prays for us, Jesus himself gave his ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... liberty churches proved more pliable than States. The authority of nearly all the leading denominations was directed against the abolitionists. The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church passed in 1836 a resolution censuring two of their members who had lectured ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... Bonaparte and Talleyrand have more than once regretted that Madame Chevalier was not ordered to enter into the conspiracy against Paul (whose inconsistency and violence they foresaw would make his reign short), that she might have influenced the conspirators to fix upon a successor more pliable and less scrupulous, and who would have suffered the Cabinet of St. Cloud to dictate to the Cabinet of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... apprehensions as to what other hunters, what other disconcerting incident, might follow; for catholic France very generally believed that the Huguenot leaders had a scheme for possessing themselves of the person of the young king, known to be mentally pliable. Meanwhile they led him to their daintiest apartment, with great silver flambeaux, that he might wash off the blood with which not his hands only were covered; for he hunted also with the eagerness of a madman—steeped in blood. He lay there for a few hours, after supping very familiarly ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... this period a knitted band with shoulder straps is the better article. All petticoats and skirts should be supported from the shoulders. Stockinet is a good material for diapers; it is soft, warm, and pliable. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... were never great, but Kitty and I thought my playing of classical pieces—my fingers are not sufficiently pliable now. And I—I forget ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... and bent in opposite directions, and from the middle there softly stepped out a full grown tiger. For a few seconds he stood perfectly still. His four, velvet paws were planted firmly on the ground; his pliable tail was waving slowly to and fro, and his bright yellow eyes glanced quickly and sharply in all directions. He was a splendid fellow and quite young. His light, tawny-yellow body was exquisitely marked ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... McGovern and Bob Stratton and Jim Gladys took charge of it. Mike and Bob were running the cant-hooks, while Jim stood on top of the great pile of logs already decked. A slender, pliable steel chain, like a gray snake, ran over the top of the pile and disappeared through a pulley to an invisible horse,—Jenny, the mate of Molly. Jim threw the end of this chain down. Bob passed it over and under the log and returned it to Jim, who reached down after ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... fine passages in Dryden's heroic plays, passages weighty in thought and nobly sonorous in language. There is one great scene (between Antony and Ventidius) in his All for Love. And one, at least, of his comedies, the Spanish Friar, is skillfully constructed. But his nature was not pliable enough for the drama, and he acknowledged that, in writing for the stage, he "forced ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... At Botany Bay, where they were best, they were just high enough for a man to sit upright in; but not large enough for him to extend himself in his whole length in any direction: They are built with pliable rods about as thick as a man's finger, in the form of an oven, by sticking the two ends into the ground, and then covering them with palm-leaves, and broad pieces of bark: The door is nothing but a large hole at ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... depends on this chink being kept open. The windpipe is composed of a series of cartilaginous or gristly rings connected together by softer tissues. These rings are not entire, but are completed behind by soft tissues including muscle. It follows that this tube is pliable and extensible—a very important provision, especially when large movements of the neck are made, during vigorous exercise, and also ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... have had the decency to take it with her, he thought. It would hang in the house like the corpse of their sick alliance. He would try to throw it away, but he would never be able to bring himself to move it. It would be like Kitty, soft and pliable, withal impervious. You couldn't move Kitty; you couldn't reach Kitty. There was nothing there to reach. He understood that perfectly—he had understood ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Protects the Body.—The skin is a natural clothing which protects us much better than any other kind of clothing could. It is so soft and pliable that it cannot hurt the most delicate part which it covers, yet it ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... the rod, and says, 'It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good' (1 Sam 3:18). He is sensible he hath sinned and gone astray like a lost sheep, and, therefore, will justify God in his severest proceedings against him. This broken heart is also a pliable and flexible heart, and prepared to receive whatsoever impressions God shall make upon it, and is ready to be moulded into any frame that shall best please the Lord. He says, with Samuel, 'Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth' (1 Sam 3:10). And with David, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... wrote the adventures of a Co-operator, he would have to tell of his meeting with Mr. Obstinate, who will not listen to him, and wants to pull him back. We all get the company of Mr. Pliable, who is persuaded without being convinced, who at the first splash into difficulty crawls out and turns back with a cowardly adroitness. We have all encountered the stupidity of Mr. Ignorance, which nothing can enlighten. We know Mr. Turnaway, who comes from the town of Apostacy, whose face we ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... and I speak the opinion of everybody.' So, on that, they wanted to battle with him and kill him—click! he had 'em locked up in barracks, or flying out of windows, or drafted among his followers, where they were as mute as fishes, and as pliable as a quid of tobacco. After that stroke—consul! And then, as it was not for him to doubt the Supreme Being, he fulfilled his promise to the good God, who, you see, had kept His word to him. He gave Him back ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... purity of a high Ideal, they present to us, even from their ruins, a wonderful and very evident Unity of expression, pervading and governing every possible mood and manner of thought. No phase of Art that ever existed gives us a line so very human and simple in itself as this Greek type, and so pliable to all the uses of monumental language. If this type were a mere mathematical type, its applicability to the expression of human emotions would be limited to a formalism absolutely fatal to the freedom of thought in Art. But because it has its birth in intense Love, in refined ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... began to dawn as Naida laughed, and produced from the pouch at the side of her gauzy dress four pliable discs of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... "Women do not entice men—though they admittedly accompany them, with an extreme absence of reluctance, in any direction. In her youth this person's feet undoubtedly bore her occasionally along a light and fantastic path, for in the nature of spring a leaf is green and pliable, and in the nature of autumn it is brown and austere, and through changeless ages thus and thus. But, as it is truly said: 'Milk by repeated agitation turns to butter,' and for many years it has been this one's ceaseless ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... every woman, in their self-training and self-culture, should study the art of giving up with a good grace. The charm of polite society is formed by that sort of freedom and facility in all the members of a circle which makes each one pliable to the influences of the others, and sympathetic to slide into the moods and tastes of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... pliable and susceptible, still unalarmed and frank. It seemed that he had lost money again—this time to Jack Ruthven; and Selwyn's teeth remained sternly interlocked as, bit by bit, the story came out. But in the telling the boy was not quite as frank as he might have been; and ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... of the firer must be comfortable. You may, at first, feel constrained or cramped in the different positions but by continued practice the muscles and joints will become so supple and pliable that you can easily assume the correct position. Each man who is trying for a high score should utilize all available time to this end. The following photographs illustrate the correct ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... evenly with flesh, the legs full and thick, the under line, or stomach line, parallel to the back line, and the neck full and short. The eye should be bright, the face short, the bones of fine texture, and the skin soft and pliable. ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... in the smoke, sharpening the heads with great care with his knife, and hardening them by exposure to strong heat, at a certain distance from the fire. The entrails of the woodchuck, stretched, and scraped, and dried, and rendered pliable by rubbing and drawing through the hands, answered for a bow-string; but afterwards, when they got the sinews and hide of the deer, they used them, properly dressed for ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill |
