"Poise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... His force, by which this work was carried through, lay in a character of penetration. His face expresses it. His very keen and ready eyes, his high lifted brow, his sharp nose, and the few active lines of his cheek and forehead, the poise of his head, the disdain of his firm mouth, all build him back alive for us. His talk, which stammered in its volubility, was incessant and varied; his temper ready; his bodily command of gesture and definition perfect in ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... behind as she glanced at the bare wooden houses cracked by frost and sun, rickety plank walks, whirling wisps of dust, and groups of men, splendid in their lean, muscular symmetry and picturesque apparel. There was a boldness in their carriage, and a grace that approached the statuesque in every poise. Still, she started when they passed one wooden building where blue-shirted figures with rifles stood motionless ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... bleeding, breathless, furious to the last, Full in the centre stands the Bull at bay, Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and lances brast,[92] And foes disabled in the brutal fray: And now the Matadores[93] around him play, Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand: Once more through all he bursts his thundering way— Vain rage! the mantle quits the conynge hand, Wraps his fierce eye—'tis past—he sinks ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... had a chance to be as other men, and he was trying so hard, and succeeding, too. It never entered her head that there could be any other reason for her being kindly disposed toward him. She was tenderly disposed toward him, but she did not know it. She had no way of knowing it. The placid poise of twenty-four years without a single love affair did not fit her with a keen perception of her own feelings, and she who had never warmed to actual love was unaware ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... addressed his men with "We must this morning either quit our pretensions to valor, or possess ourselves of this fortress; and inasmuch as it is a desperate attempt, I do not urge it, contrary to your will. You that will undertake voluntarily, poise your firelocks!" The response was unanimous. The wicket of the stronghold was found open; the sentry snapped his gun at Allen, missed him, and was overpowered with a rush, together with the other guards. On the parade within, a ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... myself there was but one other figure visible on deck, that of the man at the helm—a long, thin, weedy-looking figure, so far as I could make out in the ghostly starlight, but one who had evidently used the sea for some time, if one might judge by the easy, floating poise of his figure on the plunging deck as he stood on the weather side of the tiller, with the tiller rope lightly grasped in his right hand, swaying rhythmically to the leaps and plunges of the little hooker. As Dominguez ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... a bird takes in a summer's day flight, when it stops here for a berry, there for a grass seed, here to dip its beak into cherries, there to dart after a dragon-fly, here to shake its wings in a brook, there to poise on a lily-bell. ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... beings. Yet while we may find convenient so to formulate it, we need to remember that that is only a fashion of speech, for there are no rights in Nature. If we take a broader sweep, what we may choose to call an erotic right is simply the perfect poise of the conflicting forces of life, the rhythmic harmony in which generation is achieved with the highest degree of perfection compatible with the make of the world. It is our part to transform Nature's large conception into our own smaller organic ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... possessed the power of movement just then, she would have gotten out of the wagon and run away to the dormitory. But she was stricken motionless as well as speechless by her chum's defection, and before she could recover her poise the wagons had begun to move, rattling over the frozen road ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... made Maurice stand before her. Only she discerned, or believed she discerned, a definite physical resemblance in the boy to the dead man, a certain resemblance of outline, a likeness surely in the poise of the head upon the strong, brave-looking neck, and in a trait that suggested ardor about the full yet delicate lips. Why had she never noticed these things before? Had she been quite blind? Or was she now imaginative? Was she ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... boots and pumps, a whole row of them, all deformed. "Ugh! Poor boy! It is too bad. Why shouldn't he be like other people? This hereditary business is too awful." She shut the door with a sigh. Then she recalled the perfect form of Gerald, his athletic walk, the poise of his shoulders, his arms stretched forward to receive her. ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... them like a pain. Rrisa breathed something in which the words: "La Illaha ilia Allah" transpired in a wraith of sound. Alden nestled closer into the ferns. Bohannan could hardly hold his poise. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... there, but had been forwarded elsewhere. For weeks she was tossed about like this; then we traced her, and found her. But she was thoroughly cowed, and dared not show the least interest in us. It is often like that. Just at the point where the soul-poise is so delicate that the lightest touch affects it, something, someone, pushes it roughly, and it trembles a moment, then ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... have thought that a young girl such as Miss Bessemer is—for she's very young—would have been a little embarrassed at running up against such a spick and span lot as we were. Not a bit of it; didn't lose her poise for a moment. She bowed to my sister and to me, as though from the top of a drag, by Jove! and as though she were fresh from Redfern and Virot. You know a girl that can manage herself that way is a thoroughbred. She even remembered to cut little Johnnie ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... birds which had attracted the attention of the Catamaran's crew were seen suddenly to abandon their fixed poise in the air, and commence wheeling in circles, or rather in spiral lines that gradually descended towards the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... lithe graceful back and shoulders—for she was a rebel against the fashion of the day in dress as well as in morals, and, believing in the natural stay of the muscles, had found them responsive to her trust— the noble poise of her head, and the motions of her arms, easy yet decided, were ever present to him, though sometimes he could hardly have told whether his sight or his mind—now in the radiance of the sun, now in the shadow ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... performances of the "natural" school; and all the time it was maintained at the lofty level of classic grace. It would be impossible to overstate the excellence of all that McCullough did and said, in the forum scene—the noble severity of the poise, the grace of the outlines, the terrible intensity of the mood, the heartrending play of the emotions, the overwhelming delirium of the climax. Throughout the subsequent most difficult portraiture of shattered reason the actor never, ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... sleeping potion, although her spirit does not quail, nor her determination falter for an instant, her vivid fancy conjures up one terrible apprehension after another, till gradually, and most naturally in such a mind once thrown off its poise, the horror rises to frenzy—her imagination realizes its own hideous creations, and she ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... active brain would not rest. Again he fell into a dream. This time the picture was very real. The big balloon had been finished and launched. A thrill ran through him as he felt the monster craft poise and waver and then slowly rise above the corral. He could hear the cheers of those gathered about. But in the midst of them be heard the sudden crack of a revolver. Jack Jellup had put a bullet through the silken bulk of the ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... was blinking in a kind of befuddled astonishment. "You mean she really is a—" He stopped and brought his tenor voice to a squeaking halt, regained his professional poise, and began again. "I'd rather not discuss the patient in her presence, Mr. Malone," he said. "If you'll just come ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She is also a descendant of the Romanoffs, for one of her grandfathers was Alexander III of Russia. In her manner she is more simple and democratic than many American women that I know, her poise and simplicity being in striking contrast to the manners of two of my countrywomen who had spent the night preceding our arrival at the castle and who were manifestly much impressed by this contact with the Lord's Anointed. When luncheon ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... many prefer to walk to the polls, and they go in pairs, trios and quartettes, voting their little sentiments and calmly returning to their cookies and crazy quilts as though politics didn't jar their mental poise ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... and trail,—good comrades, but not exactly eligible for so select an affair. He was canvassing the expediency of resigning the post there and then, when a woman tripped in under the light. Freda! He could swear it by the furs, did he not know that poise of head so well. The last one to expect in all the world. He had given her better judgment than to thus venture the ignominy of refusal, or, if she passed, the scorn of women. He shook his head, without scrutiny; he knew her too well to be mistaken. But she pressed closer. She ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... lips bent like a bow, the cruel smile of the mouth, the broad forehead on which the hair grew low, the delicately arched eyebrows and the long curving lashes of the heavy lids beneath them, the rounded cheeks, smooth as a ripe fruit, the firm, shapely chin, the snake-like poise of the head, the long bending neck, and the feline smile; all of these combined made such a dream-vision as he had never seen before, and to tell the truth, notwithstanding its beauty, for that could not be doubted, ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... virtues, though he knew not To profit by them—as the miner lights Upon a vein of virgin ore, discovering That which avails him nothing: he hath found it, But 'tis not his—but some superior's, who Placed him to dig, but not divide the wealth Which sparkles at his feet; nor dare he lift Nor poise it, but must grovel on, upturning 350 ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... and sinewy, but slender, for these Venetians are rarely massive in their strength. Each limb is equally developed by the exercise of rowing upright, bending all the muscles to their stroke. Their bodies are elastically supple, with free sway from the hips and a mercurial poise upon the ankle. Stefano showed these qualities almost in exaggeration. The type in him was refined to its artistic perfection. Moreover, he was rarely in repose, but moved with a singular brusque grace. A black ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... thus, and says extremely right; Strict justice is the sovereign guide, That o'er our actions should preside; This queen of virtue is confess'd To regulate and bind the rest. Thrice happy, if you can but find Her equal balance poise your mind: All diff'rent graces soon will enter, Like lines concurrent ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... on paper, but the uninitiated can scarcely realise the fearful toil of portaging. If you are an office man, suppose you take an angular box weighing 20 or 30 pounds; if a farmer, double the weight, poise it on your shoulders or otherwise, as you please, and carry it half a mile on a level pavement in cool, bright weather, and I am mistaken if you do not find yourself suffering horribly before the end of a quarter-mile; ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... storms are nigh, Nor trust their bodies to a faithless sky, But make small journeys with a careful wing, And fly to water at a neighbouring spring; And lest their airy bodies should be cast In restless whirls, the sport of every blast, 250 They carry stones to poise them in their flight, As ballast keeps the unsteady vessel right. But, of all customs that the bees can boast, 'Tis this may challenge admiration most; That none will Hymen's softer joys approve, Nor waste ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Miss Loris's photo with the coffee, and I once more praised the elegant poise of the neck, the extremely low-coiled mass of heavy hair, and the eyes that followed one, like those in ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... charms—the brilliance of her eyes, which dazzled and thrilled all on whom they fell; the glory of her black hair, rippling in a cascade to her knees; the classic purity of her Grecian profile, the wild-rose delicacy of her complexion, the proud, dainty poise of her head, and the exquisite modelling of the figure which inspired ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... With anger vexed, forth rushes the Swimming-Crab and dashes away from the unwelcome visitor. As if he knew a bore to be the most persistent of hunters, he plies his paddles with rapid beat until far from his invaded chamber. His swimming is more like the fluttering of a butterfly than the steady poise of a fish. Pretty as is his variegated coat by day, it is far more beautiful by night; then his limbs shine with metallic lustre, and every joint seems tinged ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... bloom of her cheek on to her shoulder. The lights in it blazed. From beneath the brim of her small tight-fitting hat her great grave eyes held mine expectantly. The stars in them seemed upon the edge of dancing. Her heightened colour, the poise of her shapely head, the parted lips lent to that exquisite face the air of an elf. All the sweet grace of a child was welling out of her maidenhood. Her apple-green frock fitted the form of a shepherdess. Her pretty grey legs and tiny feet were those of a fairy. Its ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... fall in love with the picture before him, sweet as it was,—the young girl in a soft flowing white dress (she was too true an artist to have starchy outlines), the shimmering hair, the delicate wavering color, the proud poise of the head, the plump white arm and slender fingers with their pale-pink nails, and, above all, the exquisite voice that seemed so to enter into the culmination of the story, the last few sentences of ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... an unexpected quarter, was thrown still more out of mental poise. "I never said he was one," she declared, wildly. "I only just said there was a—a—I don't know what I said. Anyhow I never said it, 'twas my control talkin'. I'll leave it to 'Phelia Beebe. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that for the instant an almost unprecedented thing occurred: she could think of nothing to say. But endeavoring to gain her normal poise, she ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... and bosom-throe, Let it be measured by the wide vast air, For that is infinite, and so is woe, Since parted lovers breathe it everywhere. Look how it heaves Leander's laboring chest, Panting, at poise, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... suddenly grown shy, stood silent for a moment, for the time rather at a loss to carry on the play which had been easier in the open. I heard Jimmy draw a long breath. He was first to remove his hat. But his companion was quicker to regain his poise, although for a moment he forgot his pirate speech. "Gee!" said he. "Ain't ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... Storm, and led him around to show his action, the connoisseurs took on a critical attitude, an attitude of judgment, exhibited not less in the poise of the head and the serious face than in the holding of the cane and the planting of legs wide apart. And the attitude had a refined nonchalance which professional horsemen scarcely ever attain. Storm could not have received more critical and serious attention if he had been a cooked terrapin. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... The horses were capricious, highly polished grays, perhaps a trifle undersized, but with such an action as is not to be bought for less than twenty-five guineas a hoof; the harness was silver-mounted; the dog-cart itself a creation of beauty and nice poise; the groom a pink and priceless perfection. But the crown and summit of the work was the driver—a youngish gentleman who, from the gloss of his peculiarly shaped collar to the buttons of his diminutive boots, exuded an atmosphere of expense. His gloves, his scarf-pin, ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... all her life. The maiden's gown was soft as satin and fell about her in ample folds, while dainty lace-like traceries trimmed the bodice and sleeves. Her flesh was fine and smooth as polished ivory, and her poise expressed both ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... slither on the pole. Believing the intruder to be Kuroki he turned belligerently. And there she stood—the girl herself! The poise of her reminded him of the Winged Victory in the Louvre. Where there had been a cup of champagne in his veins circumstance now ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... he, as if a light had suddenly burst in upon him, "you've got more poise than any girl ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... walk. She had a tall, stately figure of that type immortalised by Du Maurier—indeed, she herself may be recognised in some of his famous society sketches about the year 1870. The clear, decisive features, the tender discerning expression, the poise of the head, were irresistibly attractive to all artists with a strong sense of grace—even artificial grace—as opposed to rude vigour or homeliness. She possessed naturally that almost unreal elegance which many painters—Frederick Walker, for instance—have been accused ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... advice; scarce one who did not know off-hand that there was never a seaport in Bohemia,—as if Shakspeare's world were one which Mercator could have projected; scarce one but was satisfied that his ten finger-tips were a sufficient key to those astronomic wonders of poise and counterpoise, of planetary law and cometary seeming-exception, in his metres; scarce one but thought he could gauge like an ale-firkin that intuition whose edging shallows may have been sounded, but whose abysses, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... the light of triumph, and his burned with the agonised protest of the vanquished. At such times there was somewhat of fear in the glances that followed her beauty, which almost seemed to blaze—her colour was so rich, the curve of her red mouth so imperial, the poise of her head, with its loosening coils of velvet ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... human build could outlive such assaults, when another equally violent rush succeeded; and in its way toward the starboard quarter threw up a rolling wave thirty feet high, crowned by a blue square mass of many tons, resembling the entire side of a house, which, after hanging for some time in doubtful poise on the ridge, at length fell with a crash into the hollow, in which, as in a cavern, the after-part of the ship seemed embedded. It was, indeed, an awful crisis, rendered more frightful from the mistiness of the night ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... course. Conrad, who kept no rifle at his shack, had to be satisfied with watching, mechanically completing his toilet where he stood. Mauve suspenders jerked to his shoulders—brush slashing across his hair—one hand to test the poise of his ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... now with admirable poise, in answer to her question, "I haven't visited your wonderful Golden Gate, but I hope to go there some day—with you!" he added. His words were simple; the accent alone made them sound formidable; it seemed ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... across her eyes, glittered, a golden mop in the sunlight, and even in the shade threw out an occasional gleam of gold. Anna's eyes were blue, with curled thick lashes like her mother's, but in the firm little mouth and the poise of her head, in the quick smile and quicker frown, Julia saw her father a hundred times a day. Her skin had the transparent porcelain beauty of babyhood, there was a suggestion of violet shadow about her eyes, and on her cheeks there glowed the warm ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... axe, and was coming toward them. She was a slim, bird-like creature, with a poise to her head and an up-tilt to her chin which warned that the man had not yet beaten her to the level of the woman. She was dressed in a faded calico, frayed at the bottom, and with the sleeves bobbed off just above the elbows of her slim white ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... which, day by day, wear deeper and deeper paths into his nervous system as a result of their constant repetition. These minor habit-spasms of childhood are but telltales of an unstable nervous system, of a nervous heredity lacking poise and balance; and, mind you, if this nervous system is studied, treated, and properly harnessed with self-understanding and self-control, much may be accomplished; the habit may be more or less completely eradicated. If left to itself, unchecked, the habit deepens ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... open West which, under the rigor of the game, keeps its temper and its poise, Banneker had brought the knack of setting his teeth and smiling so serenely that one never even perceived the teeth to be set behind the smile. This ability stood him in good stead now. In his time of enforced leisure he bethought himself of the sketches ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... taken aback by her cool, matter-of-fact manner. It bore no trace of insolence, yet conveyed a serene poise and grasp of the situation ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... seriously that she blushed before she could recover her poise. He saw his advantage and ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... committed any of the lesser sins. But what pleased me most in the paper lately received was to see how far the writer had outgrown the need of any encouragement of mine; that she had strengthened out of her tremulous questionings into a self-reliance and self-poise which I had hardly dared to anticipate for her. Some of my readers who are also writers have very probably had more numerous experiences of this kind than I can lay claim to; self-revelations from ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... if the most painful possibility of her life had been safely put behind her. She had been nervous and uncomfortable about this visit, and was correspondingly sensitive to the perfect manner of her hostess, and carried away with her a new problem to work upon: if John Hunter's mother, by her poise and presence, made of his home a social unit of appearance and value, John Hunter's wife must not fall below the grade of that home when she became its mistress. She pondered long upon that subtle air of good breeding which ignored real issues and smoothed ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... along the skies, Or poise upon the buoyant air; And make a peasant's soul arise A ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... announced the presiding officer of the joint assembly, surprised but courteous. Philip Danvers was not one to be ignored, no matter how inopportune the time. As he stood there for the moment silent, he conveyed the impression of perfect poise, and the honesty and sincerity of his ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... slowly. The swagger of the poise was gone; he stood upright now with a positive effort, as if the realization of his position had suddenly ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... Alicia, who had recovered her poise, and she introduced the other girls by name. "I wrote the note, because ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... further having proved vain, Lollie, far from being embarrassed, bowed low again with the poise of one who has recited brilliantly, and took his seat amid the applause. . ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... his enthusiasm. "The point carrying the detonators is loaded with lead. If properly handled, it is sure to fly with that end in front. You take it between your thumb and second finger, thus, and poise it by placing the tip of the first finger behind it, thus; but you must throw hard, and wait until the upper part of the door is smashed, and you can fling it clear, or three ounces of dynamite will explode in front of your nose, with disastrous effect. I will have a second bomb ready if the ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... to poise your body, how to breathe, how to hold your head, how to focus your mind on things of universal importance. Believe your tender, loving thoughts and wishes for good to all humanity have power to help the struggling souls of earth to rise to higher and better conditions. No ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... toes, patted it with his palms, and joint by joint, sighing luxuriously, laid him down full length along in the shadow of the wooden-pinned cart. And Mother Earth was as faithful as the Sahiba. She breathed through him to restore the poise he had lost lying so long on a cot cut off from her good currents. His head lay powerless upon her breast, and his opened hands surrendered to her strength. The many-rooted tree above him, and even the dead manhandled wood beside, knew what he sought, as he himself did not know. ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... the spear when it was brought to him as a master-workman takes a tool. He balanced it, shook it once or twice in the air, ran his eyes down it for a flaw in the wood, and then finally having made sure of its poise and weight laid it carefully in rest under his arm. Then gathering up his bridle so as to have his horse under perfect command, and covering himself with the shield, which was slung round his neck, he rode out to ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... taken up with the careless alacrity of an adventurer, who had his bread to earn. It would be thrown aside as carelessly, whenever he should choose to earn his bread by some other equally digressive means. But what was most remarkable, and, perhaps, showed a more than common poise in the young man, was the fact that, amid all these personal vicissitudes, he had never lost his identity. Homeless as he had been,—continually changing his whereabout, and, therefore, responsible neither to public opinion nor to individuals,—putting ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... her room, drew a chair to the wide west window with the far off view and sat herself down to think. Diantha's assured poise, her clear reasoning, her courage, her common sense; and something of tenderness and consecration she discerned also, had touched deep chords in this woman's nature. It was like the sound of far doors opening, windows ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... changes which had robbed it of its very name; but neither did the other horseman, well known to the people, keen and alive on his well-shaped, slate-coloured beast with a white eye, wear his heart on the sleeve of his English coat. His mind preserved its steady poise as if sheltered in the passionless stability of private and public decencies at home in Europe. He accepted with a like calm the shocking manner in which the Sulaco ladies smothered their faces with pearl powder till they looked ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... practised in Leaplow. There, the supposition of legitimacy is as much in favor of the youngest as of the oldest born, and the practice is in conformity. As there is no hereditary chief to poise on one of the legs of the great tripod, the people at the foot of the beam choose one from among themselves, periodically, who is called the Great Sachem. The same people choose another set, few in number, who occupy a common seat, on another leg. These they term the Riddles. Another set, still more ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... impiety: and, in short, every virtue from its kindred vice or weakness. I think you have sense enough to discover the line; keep it always in your eye, and learn to walk upon it; rest upon Mr. Harte, and he will poise you till you are able to go alone. By the way, there are fewer people who walk well upon that line, than upon the slack rope; and therefore a good performer shines so ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Captain Ewart said to him, after giving him his first lesson. "Your fencing has done much for you, and has given you an easy poise of body and head. Always remember that it is upon balancing the body that you should depend for your seat; although, of course, the grip of the knees does a good deal. Also remember, always, to keep your feet ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... join their fortunes together; how he held the assassin in such dread and aversion that he had fled from him at daylight, and how he had ever since been haunted by the fear of seeing the assassin again and being claimed by him as an acquaintance. When he had related this, with an emphasis and poise on the word, 'assassin,' peculiarly belonging to his own language, and which did not serve to render it less terrible to Clennam, he suddenly sprang to his feet, pounced upon the bill again, and with a vehemence that would have been absolute madness in any man of Northern ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... and thus neglect crucially important actions in the period just ahead. The other would be to underestimate our strength. Thereby we might be tempted to become irresolute in our foreign relations, to dishearten our friends, and to lose our national poise and perspective in approaching the complex ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... at her face as he hurried upon the house on his way to the main halyards. Her face was pale, but there was the firm spirit of her Yankee ancestry of the sea in her poise and in her very silence in that crisis. She obeyed without complaint or question and the cabin was dark; even the glimmer of the light had held something of cheer. Now the gloom ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... she stumbled over a hummock, recovered her poise without comment, and slipped her hand into ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... sailing aloft looked down on the Humboldt Sink as we would look upon a relief map. Near the centre of the map a tiny cloud of white dust crawled slowly forward. The buzzards stooped to poise above it. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... soon gave ourselves up to the gratification of our enviable position; and enviable indeed it was. For who has not envied the eagle his power to skim the tree-tops, to hover above Niagara, to circle mountain peaks, to poise himself aloft and survey creation, or to mount into the zenith and gaze at ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... on Bannister, opening up a bewildering attack of criss-crosses, line plunges, cross-bucks, and tandems, from all of which the forward pass frequently developed; they literally overwhelmed a supposedly unbeatable team. And once they got the edge, it was hard for Bannister to regain poise and to smother the fast plays that swept through or around the ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... smile of professional cheerfulness. She had a tired, worn face, and faded blue eyes, which looked as if they had seen too much of human suffering. But an indomitable spirit gazed out of them, and spoke, too, in her alert step and in the fine poise of her head ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... of some sacred memory satisfy her soul. And in those few minutes of reverie, Ruth Bayard revealed the keynote of her being. Wanderings from it, caused by the exigencies and duties of life, frequently occurred; but she quickly returned to its central and controlling harmony; and her serenity and poise were therefore as natural as was her niece's joyousness and hope. Nor was her religious character the result of temperament, or of a secluded life. Ruth Bayard was a woman of thought and culture, and wise in the ways of the world, but not worldly. Her personality was very attractive, she had ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... convalescence. Then, much sooner than the surgeons thought wise, although his wound had healed with remarkable speed, he returned to Oyster Bay, and on October 30th he closed his campaign by addressing sixteen thousand persons in the Madison Square Garden. He spoke with unwonted calm and judicial poise; and so earnestly that the conviction which he felt carried conviction to many who heard him. "I am glad beyond measure," he said, "that I am one of the many who in this fight have stood ready to spend and be spent, pledged to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... little city. Kate pulled her pony to a walk and glanced across at him. He had taken off his hat to catch the breeze, and the sun was picking out the golden lights in his curly brown hair. She found herself admiring the sure poise of the head, the flat straight back, ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... the group stood a lieutenant in the blue of a regular and with the crossed sabres of the cavalryman on his neck-band and the number of his regiment. The girl was talking to the gallant old Colonel with her back to Crittenden, but he would have known her had he seen but an arm, a shoulder, the poise of her head, a single gesture—although he had not seen her for years. The figure was the same—a little fuller, perhaps, but graceful, round, and slender, as was the throat. The hair was a trifle darker, he thought, but brown still, and as rich with gold as autumn sunlight. ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... to its previous state. Thus the electrical manifestation of the excitatory state is one whose duration depends upon the time during which the external agent is able to upset and retain in a new poise the living equilibrium, and if this is extremely brief, then the recoil of the tissue causes such manifestation to be itself of very short duration.'—Text-book of Physiology, ed. by ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose
... couple swung along, holding their heads up, turning towards each other, to exchange words or smiles. Even at that distance they could be seen to be of high fashion; in their gait was the almost insolent poise of those who are above doubts and cares, certain of the world and of themselves. The girl's dress was tawny brown, her hair and hat too of the same hue, and the pursuing sunlight endowed her with a hazy splendour. Then, Courtier ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... on to the parapet of the verandah. Then, with one hand held behind him to poise himself, palm open backward, he leapt with a bound to the road, ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... the dress-coat sleeve. Many a time she had wondered how so perfect an animal as he had ever climbed to such an elevation of work; and then had wondered again whether any but such an animal ever in life does so climb—shouldering along with him the poise and breadth of health and causing the hot sun of the valley to ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... The clearness and poise ef Rashi's intellect-qualities which he possessed in common with other French rabbis, though in a higher degree-stand in favorable contrast with the sickly symbolism, the unwholesome search for ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... nineteenth year he was six feet in height, and measured thirty-nine inches round the chest. He had exceptionally broad shoulders. Not an ounce of superfluous flesh weighed on the sinewy, supple frame. There was about him the fragrance, radiant vitality and ease of poise that are characteristic of the athlete in the ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... Cuthbert. The purser was a pink-cheeked, clear-eyed young man, who spoke the many languages of the coast glibly, and his own in the soft, detached voice of a well-bred Englishman. He was in training to enter the consular service. Something in his poise, in the assured manner in which he handled his white stewards and the black Kroo boys, seemed to Everett a constant reproach, and he ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... at camp, and who still held that office. It was Florence that introduced herself to Marjorie. Neither bold nor shy, with a little more than the ordinary amount of good looks, she seemed unconsciously to possess the poise of ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... and admire these monuments the more when we realize that they are not the work of master sculptors but of ordinary paid craftsmen. We turn away praising the city that could produce such noble sculpture and call it mere handicraft, and praising also the calm poise of soul, uncomforted by revealed religion, which could make these monuments common expressions of the bitterest, deepest, most vital emotions which can ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... table had been watching her with an amused admiration. Her child-like absorption, the way every emotion from perplexity to satisfaction expressed itself in the poise of her head and the pucker of her face, took him back over years emotionally barren to the time when he too had those easily stirred enthusiasms of youth. For the man at the next table was far from young now. His mouth had never quite parted with boyishness, but there was more white ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... came the right arm; they saw the claw-hand with a spear, poise itself a moment. From the open mouth burst with astounding force and suddenness a snarling yowl, inarticulate, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... The slender, graceful spars Poise aloft in the air, And at the mast-head, White, blue, and red, A flag unrolls the stripes and stars. Ah! when the wanderer, lonely, friendless, In foreign harbors shall behold That flag unrolled, 'T will be as a friendly hand Stretched out from his ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... one may know a brother. There was in her manner some subtle understanding of his mood. Her master saw it in the poise of her head, in the shift of her ears, and in her tender way of feeling for his hand. She, too, was looking right and left in the fields. There were the scenes of a boyhood, newly but forever gone. "That's where you overtook me on the way to school," ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... the field, gallant Spartan band, Worthy sons, like your sires, of our warlike land! Let each arm be prepared for its part in the fight, Fix the shield on the left, poise the spear with the right; Let no care for your lives in your bosoms find place, No such care knew the heroes of old Spartan race. [Footnote: Mure's "History of Greek Literature," vol. ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... epithet should be applied to Mrs. Staggchase's inner consciousness. She was so sufficient unto herself, she so absolutely scored success or failure simply as a matter of her own sensations that her self-poise was perfect. She had even the quality, rare in a woman, of being almost indifferent whether others shared her opinions or not. She was content with the knowledge that she had succeeded in doing what she wished, while often the results ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... too sophisticated for all that simplicity," declared Opal, "I suppose it's college that has given you so much poise. But why aren't you impressed with Laurie? Simply everybody is impressed with Laurie! I don't believe you even ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... never having heard, in her simple and healthful life, of anybody's needing what is called a "change of scene." Dr. Eben smiled again, and, as he smiled, he noted with an involuntary professional delight the clear, fine skin, the firm flesh, the lustrous eye, the steady poise of every muscle in this woman, who was catechising him, with so evident a doubt as ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... all women, watched with natural interest the sway and poise of the girlish figure. He heard the click and rattle of the chain as she deftly disengaged her gripper-iron at the farther end, and, turning, walked the deck's length ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... ages to come nature will find a way to tickle our sense of humor when we are angry, discouraged, or otherwise mentally discomfitted and will thus help us thru laughter to throw off the soul chill and to regain spiritual poise. ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... ache of the treatment, as she had borne up under worse things, and contrived as soon as possible to get out of the inharmonious room without being missed. The Scotchman seemed hardly the same Farfrae who had danced with her and walked with her in a delicate poise between love and friendship—that period in the history of a love when alone it can be said to ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... snow, at a distance, his tail is quite as conspicuous as his body; and, so far from appearing a burden, seems to contribute to his lightness and buoyancy. It softens the outline of his movements, and repeats or continues to the eye the ease and poise of his carriage. But, pursued by the hound on a wet, thawy day, it often becomes so heavy and bedraggled as to prove a serious inconvenience, and compels him to take refuge in his den. He is very loath to do this; both his pride and the traditions of his race stimulate him to run it out, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... left America more beloved than ever by all the peoples of Europe. Palmerston was self-possessed and adroit in reconciling the conflicting factions of the aristocracy; LINCOLN, frank and ingenuous, knew how to poise himself on the ever-moving opinions of the masses. Palmerston was capable of insolence towards the weak, quick to the sense of honor, not heedful ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... and control the proud; Make the sad miser his best gains forego, The solemn statesman sigh to be a beau, 120 The bold coquette with fondest passion burn, The Bacchanalian o'er his bottle mourn; And that chief glory of thy power maintain, 'To poise ambition in a female brain.' Be these thy triumphs; but no more presume That my rebellious heart will yield thee room: I know thy puny force, thy simple wiles; I break triumphant through thy flimsy toils; ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... hostility, Dorothy beneath a natural sweetness of disposition, and Helen with the savoir faire of social experience. Each felt and was stung by a realization of the other's points of advantage. Dorothy saw a perfection of well-groomed poise, such as she could hardly hope to attain, and Helen was impressed with her rival's grace and ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... saw perched on a twig, pluming its feathers. At first he was doubtful whether so small an object could be a bird. It was standing over a pool of water. "At first the little creature would poise itself about three feet or so above the water, and then, as quick as thought, dive downwards, so as to dip its miniature head in the placid pool. Then up again it would fly to its original position, as quickly as it had ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... quietly down the long hall, in an attempt not to awaken the household, he came suddenly upon Mademoiselle Ivanovitch seated in a chair drawn into a windowed recess. She started as he came upon her, but instantly recovered her calm poise of ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... heroic by nature, and quickly recovered her poise. When she arrived at home she sent the nurse to Charles Town on an errand, then went directly to her bedroom, which was disconnected from the other rooms, and called her three devoted maids, Rebecca, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... real thing. No mere debate, but a fight. There was battle in the air, now blue with smoke and rank with the reek of tobacco. There was fight in the poise of the grizzled heads and rusty, yellow shoulders of the farmers who had now fallen into perfect silence. In looking over them one might have been reminded of a field ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... better days coming, but, self-distrust was, after her affections, her strongest point, and there is small hint of inward poise or calmness till years had passed, though she faced each change with the quiet dauntlessness that was part of her birthright. But the tragedy of their early days in the colony still shadowed her. Evidently no natural voice was allowed to speak ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... immediately, whether they sympathized with and were ready to help the cause of liberty, or favored a foreign regime. He was still in Merida when in a proclamation he spoke of avenging the victims, and threatened with war to death. But Bolivar was not only a man of genius but one of equanimity, poise, deep thought and attention. He did not want to carry out his threats immediately, but decided to think at length over the transcendent step he was considering. The night of the 14th of June was a night of torture for the Liberator. On the morning of the 15th he himself wrote the decree ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... sure John would get out of it with his usual immovable poise that her own remarks hadn't occurred to her in the light of provocation. But Dr. Hewitt evidently looked at it that way, because what he said was ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... competition like baseball, football, basketball and boxing, give nerve, self-confidence and poise. Through them the hand learns instinctively, and without a moment's hesitation, to do the thing the brain tells it ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... it would, under ordinary circumstances, be honored, provided it was meritorious; and if the commission was compelled to enforce a demand through the courts, it would have the support of the State to poise the wealth ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... composite curves of the mathematician, lie the germs of all these symbolic expressions. But the artist, whose lines of Beauty vary continually with the emotions which produce them, who feels in his own human heart the irresistible impulse which gives an exquisite balance and poise to those lines, cannot allow that the spirit of his compositions is governed by the exact and rigid formula; of the philosopher to any greater extent or in any other manner than as the numbers of the poet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... not, but they never fired that volley. Our muskets seemed to poise and discharge themselves of their own volition, and a score of the villains, white and red, tumbled before us. Gardenier's men had recovered their senses as well, and, pouring in a deadly fusillade, dashed furiously forward with clubbed muskets upon the unmasked ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... at the full round neck; the kerchief that had fallen from her sunny, tangled hair was of simple lawn, spotless and fresh; among her fowls she stood, a country lass in habit and occupation, but in face and form, in look and poise, a lady every inch of her. Dainty and daunty, sweet and strong, she stood, "the bonny like o' her bonny mither," as said the South Country nurse, Nannie, who had always lived at the Glen Cuagh House from the time that that mother was a baby; "but no' sae fine like," the nurse would add with a sigh. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... in the middle of this plain, whose walls shone with such brilliancy that mortal eyes could hardly bear the sight. Astolpho guided the winged horse towards this edifice, and made him poise himself in the air while he took a leisurely survey of this favored spot and its environs. It seemed as if nature and art had striven with one another to see which could do the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... her brother's gloom and despair, the new conditions of the rough country—even the irony of a fate that had set her at hard, uncongenial toil in the very place where she had sought culture. But she succeeded, and had not only held her own poise in the struggle, but had managed to permeate the family life with something of her ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... with a mouse! She had left the room, only to return and confront him when he was unmanned. Something of cornered desperation came into his eyes, but with a final instinct of precaution he managed to assume a remnant of poise. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... grass or the oaken bench. The old poets were there in rich binding, all the classics, and the choicest specimens of modern literature. There were light, airy, movable steps, so as to reach to the topmost shelves, and there I loved to poise myself, like a bird on the spray, peeping into this book and that, gathering here and there a golden grain or sweet scented flower for the garner of thought, or the bower ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... youth, with a face the colour of the soil. JINKS—An old soldier, red, lean, wrinkled, with very blue eyes. His face is rough-hewn, almost grotesque like a gargoyle. In his eyes there is a perpetual glint of humour, and in the poise of his head a certain ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... it is well that we should learn them afresh. And it is well, too, that we should not resist the rhythmic reaction bearing us now somewhat to the side of the Latin. Such a reaction is in some sort an ethical need for our day. We want to quell the exaggerated decision of monosyllables. We want the poise and the pause that imply vitality at times better than headstrong movement expresses it. And not the phrase only but the form of verse might render us timely service. The controlling couplet might stay ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... with undisguised curiosity. Naturally enough she had met more men than she could even remember, but never one anything like this particular specimen. To add to her quickened interest, he was not only positively good-looking, but every line of his face, the poise of his well-proportioned, upstanding figure, the tilt of his head and the squareness of his chin, all spoke of strength; of elemental strength, and of a purposeful, resolute character. And, too, she told herself that he had nice eyes. The nice eyes never wavered in their ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... that, given a real chance, he might have been a better judge than the man who sends him to gaol. The Tory's job is to restore the balance of things. It isn't only to maintain the level, but to raise it and to keep on raising it.... I believe in the State of Poise, of equitable adjustment, in which every man will be able to move easily to his proper place.... There are so many obstacles now in the way of man finding his place that, even if he has the strength to get over them, he ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... so, for if the spring is rough in New England, and there is no denying it, there do nevertheless come days of bewitching, entrancing, delicious beauty, in the midst of the rest. Days when the air and sky and sunlight are in a kind of poise of delight, and earth beneath them, is, as it were, still with pleasure. I suppose the spring may be more glorious in other lands,—more positively glorious; whether relatively, I do not know. With such contrasts before and behind them,—contrasts of raw, chill air, and rough, cutting winds, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner |
