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Attitude   Listen
noun
Attitude  n.  
1.
(Paint. & Sculp.) The posture, action, or disposition of a figure or a statue.
2.
The posture or position of a person or an animal, or the manner in which the parts of his body are disposed; position assumed or studied to serve a purpose; as, a threatening attitude; an attitude of entreaty.
3.
Fig.: Position as indicating action, feeling, or mood; as, in times of trouble let a nation preserve a firm attitude; one's mental attitude in respect to religion. "The attitude of the country was rapidly changing."
To strike an attitude, to take an attitude for mere effect.
Synonyms: Attitude, Posture. Both of these words describe the visible disposition of the limbs. Posture relates to their position merely; attitude refers to their fitness for some specific object. The object of an attitude is to set forth exhibit some internal feeling; as, attitude of wonder, of admiration, of grief, etc. It is, therefore, essentially and designedly expressive. Its object is the same with that of gesture; viz., to hold forth and represent. Posture has no such design. If we speak of posture in prayer, or the posture of devotion, it is only the natural disposition of the limbs, without any intention to show forth or exhibit. "'T is business of a painter in his choice of attitudes (positurae) to foresee the effect and harmony of the lights and shadows." "Never to keep the body in the same posture half an hour at a time."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Attitude" Quotes from Famous Books



... at once, and with frowning brow regained her coolness, standing upright upon one foot, like Cupid in the painting by Gerard; like him, also, she seemed about to fly away, there was so much airy lightness in her improvised attitude. ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... that she needed all the light that her vision of love and duty could shed upon her pathway; for the ensuing days proved dark ones. The possibilities of coming disaster hung over her head, and her aunt's attitude of aggrieved reproachfulness was torture to the girl's loving heart. To add to her suffering, Miss Gordon insisted, martyr-like, in taking charge of Eppie. Elizabeth strove to assist, but she was always doing things ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... the pianist's drooping head to the face of the protegee, and the contrast between what was expressed by this young person's gaze and attitude and what he was himself feeling again drew his attention to her. No grovelling and no soaring was here, but an elation almost stern, a brooding concentration almost maternal, a dedicated power. Madame Okraska, he reflected, must be an extraordinary person if she really deserved ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... usually stood in a more imposing attitude and spoke in a more commanding tone than are indicated in the foregoing sentences. The prevailing stand point from which he spoke was that of an oracle giving responses from the inner shrine of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... string of promises, a sort of Newcastle programme, then I can well imagine any wise statesmen, especially if they happened to be in Opposition, thinking twice before they committed themselves to it. But if by a constructive policy is meant a definite set of principles, a clear attitude to the questions which most agitate the public mind, a sympathetic grasp of popular needs, and a readiness to indicate the extent to which, and the lines on which, you think it possible and desirable to satisfy them—then I agree that the Unionist party ought to ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner

... saw her sitting alone on a balk of timber by the sea. Her hands lay loose in her lap; her neck was bent; her whole attitude indicated dejection, loneliness, sadness. She was thinking about him. She was thinking, "How cruel of him not to answer my sad little letter. He can't be so busy but what he could have found time to send me a few lines with his own hand. Just half a sheet of paper would have ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... idea of marriage roams continually in houses with grown-up girls, and takes every shape and disguise, and employs every subterfuge. A dread of compromising myself took hold of me as well as an extreme timidity before the obstinately correct and reserved attitude of the Misses Louise and Pauline. To choose one of them in preference to the other seemed to me as difficult as choosing between two drops of water; and then the fear of launching myself into an affair which might, in spite of me, lead me gently into matrimonial ties, by means as ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... orator, and represents him as standing there in the attitude of deep thought, dressed with much care in complete Indian costume, a very interesting memorial, presenting evident marks of being ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... for the attitude of both ministers and people toward the church has been the emphasis placed upon individual regeneration as the sole and all-important method of advancing the Kingdom. The "conversion" of the individual would lead him into right conduct. When all individuals ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt

... editor of the Outlook, and although his first instinct, when the Germans ravished Belgium, was to protest and then, if necessary, to follow up our protest by a show of force, he wrote in the Outlook an approval of our taking immediately a neutral attitude. Still, he did not let this preclude stern action later. " Neutrality," he said, "may be of prime necessity to maintain peace . . . but we pay the penalty of this action on behalf of peace for ourselves, and possibly for others in the future, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... the Rand. Australians were under no illusions as to the idyllic character of the peasant-owners of the Transvaal. As soon as the crisis became acute, public meetings were held all over the Australian colonies to express sympathy with the Uitlanders and to support the attitude of the Imperial Government. The question of sending Australian contingents to join the Imperial forces in the event of a war was discussed at an early stage. The idea of active participation in the wars of the Empire was not altogether a new one. As far back as 1867 Tasmania ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... rid of them from ourselves. Christ's thought was to change the evil mind, whatever physical consequences action, directed to this end, might involve.... This is the essence of "turning the other cheek," it is the attitude most likely to convert the sinner who injures us, whether it actually does so or not,—we cannot force him to be converted.' ... 'Those who try this method of love for the sake of the evildoer must be prepared to go down, if necessary, as the front ranks storming a strong ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... at the door were pushed aside, and a lad about a year older than Gervaise appeared, and, bowing deeply to the knight, stood in a respectful attitude, awaiting his orders. ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... the ordinary machinery of nature's laws. Modern thought is pervaded with the conception of nature's rigour. I have seen good Catholics shrug their shoulders at the wonders narrated by Marie Catherine de Saint Augustin. But others, and these not only the ignorant, think that this attitude shows the lack of a deeper faith. Must God and his saints, they ask, be confined within the narrow framework of nature's laws? Cannot ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... picture has much in common with the Perugia altar-piece, both in warmth of colour, simplicity of composition and splendid breadth of execution. The painting of this "Circumcision" is bold and resolute, the draperies sweep in broad folds round the figures. The attitude of the standing woman to the right is grand, and the earnest concentration of the faces on the ceremony, and the absence of any connecting link between them and us, give dramatic reality to the scene. Vasari writes of it: "At Volterra he painted in fresco"—(a mistake—it ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell

... persons, father and child. If, as family gossip disapprovingly hinted, the affection given appeared to trench on exaggeration, the affection returned was of kindred quality, fervid, self-realized, absorbing, and absorbed. Comparing it with his own humorously tolerant filial attitude, Tom felt at once contrite and injured. The contrast was glaring. But then, as he hastened to add—though whether in extenuation of his own, or of his father's, shortcomings remained open to question—wasn't the contrast ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... of peculiar submission; contrasting strongly with the attitude afterwards assumed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... once, while the mood is on me. Miss Rothesay, you will lead the way; you are not unacquainted with the arcana of my studio." As, indeed, she was not, having before stood some three hours in the painful attitude of a "Cassandra raving," while he painted from her outstretched ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... knowledge that seems almost fabulous, schooled himself in systematic thought, and (being well off) collected a library, perhaps the first considerable private library in the world. Having toward the end felt obliged to assume an independent attitude in thought, he was not at the death of Plato (347) appointed his successor in the Academy, as might have been expected. Not wishing at that time to set up a rival school, he retired to the court of a former fellow-pupil, Hermias, then king of Assos and Atarneus, whom he greatly respected, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... consequence. A like note is also struck in Physics and Politics (1869), which is a description of the evolution of communities of men. The materials here are derived mainly from books, the surface to be observed being so extensive, but the attitude is precisely the same, that of a scientific observer. To a certain extent the Physics and Politics had even a more remarkable influence on opinion, at least on foreign opinion, than The English Constitution or Lombard Street. It "caught on" as a development of the theory of evolution ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... fond of a good yarn as they are of tobacco; and I heard afterwards that they had voted parson's yarn a good one. Now, however, I saw one of them, probably more ignorant than the others, cast a questioning glance at his neighbour. It was not returned, and he fell again into a listening attitude. He had no idea of what was coming. He probably thought parson had forgotten to say how Jesus ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... bonds which hitherto had joined people in a single integrity. The mob, in which slaves were more numerous, cared nothing for the lordship of Rome. Destruction of the city could only free them; hence here and there they assumed a threatening attitude. Violence and robbery were extending. It seemed that only the spectacle of the perishing city arrested attention, and restrained for the moment an outburst of slaughter, which would begin as soon as the city was turned into ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... Lome, the Spanish Minister at Washington, to his friend Senor Canalejas, who was then in Cuba on a visit. In this letter Senor Dupuy de Lome was imprudent enough to express, in very emphatic language, his doubts as to the good faith of the United States in the attitude which it had taken up on the Cuban question; and, not satisfied with this signal act of imprudence, the writer must needs indulge in certain very insulting remarks respecting President McKinley. This letter was ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... like Count Goblet d'Alviella, or M. Gustave Abel, the editor of La Flandre Liberale, or with Socialists like M. Anseele, revealed the fact that there is no party in Belgium which desires to return to the former electoral system. The Liberals and Socialists are hostile to plural voting, but their attitude to proportional representation may be summed up in the desire to make the system more perfect.[4] Constituencies returning three or four members are not sufficiently large to do complete justice to a system of ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... those metaphors which require little or no mental exertion should be used in very emotional passages, or the emotional effect will be much weakened: a far-fetched, abstruse metaphor or simile implies that the writer is at leisure from his emotion, and suggests this attitude ...
— Tract XI: Three Articles on Metaphor • Society for Pure English

... room, sitting by the window and trying to read. He looked pale and worried, for it had been impossible for him to blind himself to the attitude of the family towards him during the past three days. Hope and Hubert were scrupulously polite, with a frigid, remote courtesy which was worse than open hostility; Phebe avoided him as if he had the plague; and Allyn showed a marked inclination ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray

... to have taken me in one of those disengaged moments, if I may so term them, when the native character is so much more honestly displayed than can be possible in the restraints of an enforced sitting attitude. Perhaps it rather describes me as a thinking man than a man in the act of thought. Whatever its pretensions, I know it will be dear to you, towards whom I should wish my thoughts to flow in a sort of an undress rather than in the more ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... Hawkesley and his hard work in the various shops of the Durend concern had given him a muscular development that most of the real workmen might have envied. His responsibilities as stroke at college, and, later, as the future head of the firm, had given him a self-reliant attitude of mind that was reflected in his bearing, and enabled him to maintain with unconscious ease his sudden increase in years over his more ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill

... angels in Cimabue's famous "Virgin and Child enthroned" are grand creatures, rather stern, but this arose, I think, from his inability to express beauty. The colossal angels at Assisi, solemn sceptred kingly forms, all alike in action and attitude, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... perhaps afflicted with blindness. No doubt such a prince would tempt the attack of a powerful neighbor; and, so for, probability might seem to be in favor of the Manethonian dates. But, on the other hand, it must be remembered that Egypt had lately taken an aggressive attitude, incompatible with a time of weakness: she had intermeddled between the Assyrian crown and its vassals, by entering into a league with Hoshea: and she had extended her dominion over a portion of Philistia, thereby provoking a collision with ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... observed by a group about them, and, in spite of the fact that they were foreigners, many a kindly glance told of the attitude of the men ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson

... lest my own presence should be betrayed. She was there, a creeping, baleful figure, blotting the moonshine with her tall shadow, as she passed, panther-like, to and fro before that closed door, or crouched against the wall in the same attitude of listening which I myself assumed. Or so I pictured her as I clung to the balustrade above, asking myself how I could cross that strip of moonlight separating me from that vantage-point I longed to gain. For that I knew her to be there was not ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green

... the attitude of the clergy towards the practice of heathen medical magic in Britain during the seventh century, we quote the words of an eminent French writer, St. Eligius, Bishop of Noyon (588-659), as recorded ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... poison his mind, he thought, because it had seemed to him also, in his last conversation with Magnolia, that he had discerned more than ordinary warmth in her attitude toward him ... and perhaps a trace of ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith

... poplars; and at the end of it was a statue of the Blessed Virgin; with the head and the hands shot off. But the hands had been lifted; and it is a strange thing that the very mutilation seemed to give more meaning to the attitude of intercession; asking mercy for the merciless ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... policies of President SANCHEZ DE LOZADA led to his resignation and the cancellation of plans to export Bolivia's newly discovered natural gas reserves to large northern hemisphere markets. Foreign investment dried up as companies adopted a wait-and-see attitude regarding new President Carlos MESA's willingness to protect investor rights in the face of increased demands by radical groups that the government expropriate foreign-owned assets. Real GDP growth in 2003 and 2004 - helped by increased demand for natural ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... distracted by palace intrigues and political faction, with the flower of her troops in a distant comer of Europe, and several of her most important fortresses in the hands of her assailant, seemed destined to fall an easy and a speedy prey to the foremost military power in the world. The attitude of the invaders made it evident that they believed themselves to be marching to certain victory. Even the British soldiers—of whom there were never many more than 50,000 in the Peninsula, and for some years not half that number—were ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... follows. The upper part of the school composed declamations, which, after a revisal by the tutors, were submitted to the master: to him the authors repeated them, that they might be improved in manner and action, before their public delivery. I certainly was much pleased with Lord Byron's attitude, gesture, and delivery, as well as with his composition. All who spoke on that day adhered, as usual, to the letter of their composition, as, in the earlier part of his delivery, did Lord Byron. But to my surprise he suddenly diverged from the written ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... not prepared for the spectacle which thus met her gaze, this woman with clenched hands and distorted face, and attitude which spoke only of antagonism and threat. There came a swift catch at her heart, for this was the woman to whom of natural right she should now have fled in search of consolation. It seemed to her now as though all her world had known a sudden ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... painful contrast is presented by the doomed horse unwillingly carrying a lion whose dreadful grip his frantic rearing cannot loosen. In addition there are many studies of horses, various in breed and attitude, and the small wax model of a young man mastering a horse which though but a rough "first sketch" has all the "go and fire" possible. It would have been of interest if some illustration of Barye's equestrian monument of Napoleon at Ajaccio could have been shown, and this reminds ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various

... the writer in this attitude, in Alpine costume, hat and alpenstock in hand, and with the sweat of his brow still glistening from a mountain climb, has been exhibited at more ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... the value of any movement, whether social, economic, ethical or esthetic, it must be studied in its relation and attitude to general progress. Its effectiveness should be judged by what it contributes to the growth of the universal conscience. That "no man liveth unto himself alone" is never so true as now, because now it is more generally realized. Therefore, any expression which concerns itself solely with its own ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... arms of his confessor and his doctor, who each hold one of his dying hands, feeling his pulse anxiously and exchanging looks of intelligence. At the foot of the bed stands a woman about fifty years of age, her hands clasped, her eyes raised to heaven, in an attitude of resigned grief: this woman is the queen, No tears dim her eyes: her sunken cheek has that waxen yellow tinge that one sees on the bodies of saints preserved by miracle. In her look is that mingling of calm and suffering that points ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... muscles in a thousand battles on a thousand hostile worlds. And ultimately it evolved into the only form of central authority that men would accept. Yet basically it was not a government. It was an attitude of mind. Men accepted its decisions as they would accept the rulings of a family council, and for the ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... interest lies in his own sphere: and that a student, or at least the only student with whom the university cares to reckon seriously, is a young man who desires to know. This is an ancient mediaeval attitude long since buried in more up-to-date places under successive strata of compulsory education, state teaching, the democratisation of knowledge and the substitution of the shadow for the substance, and the casket ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... considerably to the southward of east, and spreading out his fingers, suddenly dropped his hand, as if he desired us to understand that it commenced, as he shewed, by numerous little channels uniting into one not very far off. On asking if the natives used canoes, he threw himself into the attitude of a native propelling one, which is a peculiar stoop, in which he must have been practised. After going through the motions, he pointed due north, and turning the palm of his hand forward, made it sweep ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... health was drunk with all sorts of good wishes; and such splendid prophecies were made, that he would have far surpassed Michael Angelo, if they could have come true. Grif gave him an order on the spot for a full-length statue of himself, and stood up to show the imposing attitude in which he wished to be taken, but unfortunately slipped and fell forward with one hand in the custard pie, the other clutching wildly at the coffee-pot, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... combinations have to give. They mean arbitration rather than strikes, and the compelling of ignorant and unjust employers to consider the situation from other points of view than their own. They compel also the same attitude from men in the same trades, who often are as strong opponents of a better chance for their associates among women workers in the same branches, ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell

... courtiers, all obsequiously vying in praise of his glory and virtue, and contemptuous denunciations of his daring accuser. Rodrigo stood alone and gazed on the king sternly. Some of the nobles endeavored to dissuade him from holding this attitude of opposition, and to induce him to forego the demand which he had made; but he put them aside and repeated his challenge. Alfonso dared not refuse to accept, and accordingly recited aloud the form of oath prescribed on such occasions, affirming, in ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... lay on the sofa in his favorite attitude, reading "Pendennis" for the fourth time, and smoking like a chimney as he did so. Maud stood at the window watching the falling flakes with an anxious countenance, and presently a ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... brooch of Dolores. And Tomlin, for all his expressed scorn, was tingling with ardent desire for such piquant beauty and vivacity as Pascherette's. If such a creature were the slave, then what could the mistress be? He assumed a more complaisant attitude, and added his vote: "A good way of passing away this odious calm spell, Venner. ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... glance seemed to take in everything. She knew just the attitude that each girl was taking. Some were against Kit, and others were willing to give her the benefit ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm

... constraint of his attitude perhaps made him feel melancholy. He ventured to cast one glance at his fishing-rod, and at the garden, then looking straight at his great-grandmother, he began in a sweet and serious tone of voice to repeat his lesson from the twenty-seventh chapter of St. ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... that fireplace for ten minutes with your shoulders thrown back as if you were going to make a speech. It is not a nice attitude for a girl at all, and I wish you would sit down. I hope you don't think that because Sally Carter crosses her knees and cultivates a brutal frankness of expression you must do the same now that you have dropped all your friends of your own age and become ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... which, it was understood, would leave Mexico in November, now past, the second in March next, and the third and last in November, 1867. Immediately upon the completion of the evacuation the French Government was to assume the same attitude of nonintervention in regard to Mexico as is held by the Government of the United States. Repeated assurances have been given by the Emperor since that agreement that he would complete the promised evacuation within the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson

... evening a tall Indian came slowly and solemnly to the station. His face had a troubled look, and there was an air of mystery about his gait and attitude. He stopped before one of the assistant missionaries, drew together ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth

... almost "out of key" with the attitude of to-day. For although fancy-dress and elaborate parties are occasionally given, they are not usually given for debutantes, nor on the ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... which the hair lay smooth and glossy. Her age was somewhere between thirty and thirty-five years. A stranger would have been first of all impressed by the imperious carriage of her head and shoulders, the repose of her attitude. Become a friend or a longer acquaintance, he would have noticed more particularly her wide low brow, her steady gray eyes and her grave but humorous lips. But inevitably he would have gone back at last to her more general impression. Ben Sansome, the only man in town who did nothing, made society ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... on them, they were still standing side by side, but apart, contemplating the great crimson amaryllis blossom. Their attitude and their silence were, however, ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... profited by my efforts and you're not willing to let on. Do you think that is a friendly attitude to take toward an agent who has increased the range of your ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... Polymnia, who, according to Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, is commonly represented in a pensive attitude) has no attribute ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... satisfying the expectations of the nation, it degenerated into a political tool, which princes manipulated, which they made subservient to their inherent conservatism, and with which they oppressed their subjects. The French revolution of 1830 influenced to a certain extent their attitude, and a few of them were induced to accord constitutions to their people, but the effect was transient. Reforms which had been stipulated they managed to ignore. It took the insurrectionary movements of 1848 to shake them on their thrones. Forced then to ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... now seen the man who was the leader of victorious armies, the conqueror of a mighty kingdom, and the admiration of the world, in the delightful attitude of an obedient and affectionate son. She, whom he honored with such filial reverence, said that "he had learned to command others ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools

... breast. A small ray of light that fell upon his face exhibited a meditative brow, and features expressing both firmness and determination. He had said that the captive should be regained, and his followers ever and anon regarded his thoughtful attitude with the confidence that his decision would hasten the accomplishment of their desires. Long he remained thus, motionless and dignified, and no ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... Moussorgsky, Debussy has remarked that he reminded him of a curious savage who at every step traced by his emotions discovers music. And Boris Godounow is virgin soil. That is why I have called its creator a Primitive. He has achieved the naive attitude toward music which in the plastic arts is the very essence of the Flemish Primitives. Nature made him deaf to other men's music. In his savage craving for absolute originality—the most impossible of all "absolutes"—he sought to abstract from the art its chief components. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... writing about the rich, I should be inclined to divide them, according to their attitude toward life, into workers and parasites. The motto of the worker is, "I owe the world a life," and the motto of the.................. is, ...
— Stanford Achievement Test, Ed. 1922 - Advanced Examination, Form A, for Grades 4-8 • Truman L. Kelley

... 1860, the regiment tendered their services to the State authorities in case of difficulty, as the rebels in West Virginia were assuming a threatening attitude. This offer was accepted, but the opinion expressed in the acceptance, that the proffered services would probably not be needed. Five days after the fall of Fort Sumter the order came for the regiment to report with its six guns to Columbus. On the second ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... small, even to admit a shelter for a Lilliputian, and is evidently an artificial trifle, designed for a monument. It might hold, for its ancient furniture, a turret, termed a castle—perhaps it held nothing in Dugdale's time: the modern is a gladiator, in the attitude of fighting, supported by a ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... through the drawing-room, the steward by way of maintaining order moved a bell from one table to another; he stealthily blew his duck-like nose in the hall, and went into the outer-hall. In the outer-hall, on a locker was Stepan asleep in the attitude of a slain warrior in a battalion picture, his bare legs thrust out below the coat which served him for a blanket. The steward gave him a shove, and whispered some instructions to him, to which Stepan responded with something between a yawn and a laugh. The steward went away, and Stepan got ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... must be other technical material in addition to scales, but the highest technic, broadly speaking, may be traced back to scales and arpeggios. The practice of scales and arpeggios need never be mechanical or uninteresting. This depends upon the attitude of mind in which the teacher places the pupil. In fact, the teacher is largely responsible if the pupil finds scale practice dry or tiresome. It is because the pupil has not been given enough to think about in scale playing, not enough to look out for ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke

... responsible for all the construction on Roald. The young cadet welcomed the chance to observe the man in action, and time after time he found contradictions in the character of the lieutenant governor. Vidac's attitude and behavior in his drive to build the colony were completely different from his actions on the long space flight. He was a man of firmness and immediate decision. Shooting from one project to another in a jet boat, he would ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell

... up early (I speak for others, as I passed my night in the attitude of a suspension bridge between two folding chairs); but in camp where sleep is concerned, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... Langley, throwing himself into a theatrical attitude. "Look here, Frank, this is the way I'll run that bloody Alvarez ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... All drew a freer breath, As men are wont to do when mournful death Is covered from their sight. The Showman stood With drooping brow in sorrow's attitude One moment, then with sudden gesture shook His loose hair back, and with the air and look Of one who felt, beyond the narrow stage And listening group, the presence of the age, And heard the footsteps of the things to be, Poured out his ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... in a gentle, deprecatory fashion and smiled his melancholy smile. His gesture and his attitude suggested that it was not in the best of taste to raise so unpleasant a question. But he did not reply ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... in point of fact happened was not, as Iglesias felt, without a pretty sharp edge of irony. For to-day, London, so long his task-mistress and gaoler, had assumed a new attitude towards him. Suddenly, unexpectedly, she had cast him off, given him his freedom. It was amazing, a thing to take your breath away for the moment. And agitated and hurt—for his pride unquestionably had suffered in the process—Iglesias ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... misfortunes had not been lacking while the fate of British India still hung in the balance. The attitude of some European Powers, whom the breaking forth of the Mutiny had encouraged in the idea that England's power was waning, was full of menace, especially in view of what the Prince Consort justly called "our pitiable ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... Her attitude, however, betrayed no hint of hesitation. Rather, the fixity of her gaze and the intensity of her mental concentration threw into high relief the hardness of her personality. She was singularly devoid of that quality which is generally ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... the problems Washington had to meet was the warlike attitude of the Indians, with whom there was some border fighting. He always treated them fairly and often entertained them. When they came, he impressed them by a great show of elegance and style. Once a great chief and twenty-eight warriors from Alabama came to ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay

... left hand, may reach the dirk to the condemned man, who leans forward to take it. Which is the best of all these ways is uncertain. The object to aim at is, that the condemned man should lean forward to receive the blow. Whether the assistant second retires, or not, must depend upon the attitude assumed by the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... that said this had a power similar to that of the magic words of Oriental tales which held the life of an entire city in suspense, leaving persons and objects immovable in the very attitude in which the ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... "Babylonian and Ninevitish" bulk, it is full of the Latin calm, the Latin repose, the Latin resignation. The simple tone, quiet for all its energy, the golden sweetness of the "Sanctus," the naked acceptance of all the facts of death, are the language of one who had within him an attitude at once primitive and grand, an attitude that we have almost come to ignore. Listening to the Mass, we find ourselves feeling as though some vates of a Mediterranean folk were come in rapt and lofty mood to offer sacrifice, to pacify the living, to celebrate with fitting ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... and the ridicule of the professors too bitter. "Whistler's like a wasp," he cried, "and carries about with him a poisoned sting." Oscar's kindly sweet nature revolted against the disdainful aggressiveness of Whistler's attitude. Besides, in essence, Whistler's lecture was an attack on the academic theory taught in the universities, and defended naturally by a young scholar like Oscar Wilde. Whistler's view that the artist was sporadic, a happy chance, a "sport," in fact, was a new view, and ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... He met my gaze directly without flinching; nor was there anything insolent in his tone or attitude. He continued: ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... interests of England and her schemes for world empire, we must reckon at least with the possibility of an English attack. We must make it clear to ourselves that we are not able to postpone this attack as we wish. It has been already mentioned that the recent attitude of Italy may precipitate a European crisis; we must make up our minds, then, that England will attack us on some pretext or other soon, before the existing balance of power, which is very favourable ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... the very beginning of the inquiry was how to define the notion of atheism. Nowadays the term is taken to designate the attitude which denies every idea of God. Even antiquity sometimes referred to atheism in this sense; but an inquiry dealing with the history of religion could not start from a definition of that kind. It would have to keep in view, not the philosophical notion of God, but the conceptions ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann

... attitude of hypocrites to their neighbors. Also, how we are to view the efforts of the pope and bishops in behalf of peace and ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... big call, but if our women will look after our business for us, we are quite content to smoke our pipes in peace and look on—and, of course, the one who makes the wheels go round is the one who really drives the coach. Believe me, there is more of expediency than nobility in the attitude of our men towards our women, and more of laziness than either, perhaps! But Fielding Hall would call ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... will be found through the whole of Browning's life and critical attitude. He adored Shelley, and also Carlyle who sneered at him. He delighted in Mill, and also in Ruskin who rebelled against Mill. He excused Napoleon III. and Landor who hurled interminable curses against Napoleon. ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... at this point that something about Lal's eyes and attitude gave me the idea he was going to shut up for good, so to speak, and my feelings so overcame me, that without thinking I flung my arms round Lal's neck, that is to say, as far as they would ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... he was talking thus to himself with deep resentment, his countenance expressed nothing but devotion and anxiety; in humble, soldierly attitude he stood in the door. The Elector had his eyes fixed upon some papers lying on the table before him, and seemed absorbed in their perusal. Leuchtmar at ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... uncompromising attitude on her part toward the friends of Georges, and a rumour which reached the ears of one of them that she intended as soon as possible to take her patient away to Italy, that sounded the first note of danger ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... Jaqueline, I spent with my aunt; and whether seeing her embroider, or hearing her sing, whether sitting or standing by her side, I was ever happy. Her tenderness and unaffected gayety, the charms of her figure and countenance have left such indelible impressions on my mind, that her manner, look, and attitude are still before my eyes; I recollect a thousand little caressing questions; could describe her clothes, her head-dress, nor have the two curls of fine black hair which hung on her temples, according to the mode of that time, escaped ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... The attitude which Zola took in reference to the wretched Dreyfus scandal will add greatly to his fame as a man of courage and a lover of truth. From this filthy mess of perjury and forgery Zola's intrepidity and devotion to justice arise clear and white as a ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... gave them in abundance, not in response to their captious demand, but doubtless, as always, in response to pressing human needs. The result was that many persons accepted Him, but the nation in its rulers, maintained their attitude of angered, contemptuous silence. But underneath that surface the pot is beginning ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon

... moment with a message which could be delayed no longer. The doctor put his head out to receive the call, and looked in again perplexed and uncertain. Nettie had quite established herself in the easy-chair. She sat there looking with her bright eyes into the vacant air before her, in a pretty attitude of determination and readiness, beating her little foot on the carpet. Something whimsical, odd, and embarrassing about her position made it all the more piquant to the troubled eyes which, in spite of all their worldly wisdom, ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... deliberate. He evidently always thought before he spoke, and then spoke what he thought, and nothing more. Taking the seat offered him by Sir Thomas, but declining any refreshment, he put himself in the attitude of listening, as one accustomed to weigh evidence, and to put every fact and conjecture into its ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... advanced, we did not perceive the artificial light, which was so managed as to stream in fluctuating rays, from intervening silvery clouds, and shed a radiance over the lovely babe and bending mother, who, in the most graceful attitude, lightly holds up the drapery which half conceals her sleeping infant from the bystanders. He lies in richly embroidered swaddling clothes, and his person, as well as that of his virgin mother, is ornamented with diamonds and other precious stones; for which purpose, we ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... author in an attitude of appeal, more or less open and direct, for the love or favor of his friend. No fervor of compliment or protestation of affection allows him to forget or conceal this purpose. When, as is indicated ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson

... their persecutors, the treatment they experienced from two princes so generally abhorred for cruelty elicited a measure of public sympathy. [288:1] At length, however, the Roman government, even when administered by sovereigns noted for their political virtues, began to assume an attitude of decided opposition; and, for many generations, the disciples were constantly exposed to the hostility ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... at George, the irrepressible, in this new attitude. He, as the hardened traveller, had had little more than a decent pang of home-sickness. His regret was far deeper and more real than the sentimental article of commerce, and he could afford to be almost gay while ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... answered Gus Plum, after a moment of thought. He struck an attitude. "My subject is a most profound one, first broached by Cicero to Henry Clay, during the first trip of the beloved pair to ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer

... takes the liberty of informing you that the German troops that occupy the forts on the north and east of Paris, as well as the neighbourhood of the right bank of the Seine, have received orders to maintain a pacific and friendly attitude, so long as the events of which the interior of Paris is the theatre, do not assume towards the German forces a hostile character, or such as to endanger them, but keep within the terms settled ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... groups remained about a hundred yards apart, the gazelles motionless. The lioness also was motionless, lying stretched at full length upon the ground with her head resting upon her outstretched fore paws, while her lord, some four or five yards nearer the gazelles, had assumed a half-crouching attitude, very similar to that of a barking dog, and was still emitting deep-throated ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... maniera di Giotto. 'Instead of the harsh outline,' says Vasari, 'circumscribing the whole figure, the glaring eyes, the pointed hands and feet, and all the defects arising from a total want of shadow, the figures of Giotto exhibit a better attitude; the heads have an air of life and freedom, the drapery is more natural, and there are even some attempts at fore-shortening the limbs.' All this, however, although a decided improvement on mediaeval ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various

... hat in hand, took up his position in front of the cheerless, freshly varnished hearth to await that young lady's coming. What he would say or how he would approach the subject nearest to his heart would depend on her mental attitude. That she loved Phil as dearly as he loved her there was no question. That she had begun to suffer for loss of him was equally sure. A leaf from his own ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith

... The attitude of King James had a most important bearing on another angle of the problem. Under its charter, the company had been allowed a seven year exemption from import duties on cargoes brought from Virginia. When this exemption expired in 1619, the government ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven

... whistling cheerfully. He puts such vital questions as, how far up is your bedroom window at night, and do you ever have a sense of eye-strain after reading too long, and when you reply, he pays no attention. His entire attitude expresses the conviction that either you are not ill at all, or that if you are, you are not in a position to give an intelligent account of yourself. That is not the case with the other physician. He asks precise questions and insists on detailed replies. Nothing escapes him. While you are describing ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... particular, and did it as if he were used to it. The schoolmistress sat with her skirts tucked round her ankles, the heels of her stout little boots driven well into the dry, gritty soil. There was in her attitude the tension of some slight habitual strain—perhaps of endurance—as she leaned forward, her arms stretched straight before her, with her delicate fingers interlocked. Whatever may be the type of Californian young womanhood, it was not her type; you felt, looking at her cool, ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... but of which the meridian splendour has now softened into the more tolerable radiance of declining day. The light is nearly alike, but the heat is considerably less. We still, perhaps, see in the Fogie the same imposing features of the face, the same dignity of gesture and attitude, and even a larger disc of body than before. The very voice often is much what it was, and the manner is almost unchanged. But when we carefully attend to the matter of what is said, we begin to perceive ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... for a month. He had seen his uncle present himself to the Cardinal at Cawood Castle. It had been a touching meeting. Hal could hardly restrain his tears when he saw how Wolsey's sturdy form had wasted, and his round ruddy cheeks had fallen away, while the attitude in which he sat in his chair was listless and weary, though he fitfully exerted himself ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Mary Carmichael, looking brown and happy. From the attitude of the group around Judith and Peter Mary divined what had happened, and came to add her congratulations. Even Mrs. Yellett forgot to choose an axiom as her medium of expression, and kissed Judith publicly, with affectionate ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... But we know now how mistaken they were. Keats, in a normal state of mind and body, was never unduly depressed by harsh or unfair criticism. 'Praise or blame,' he wrote, 'has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works,' and this attitude he consistently maintained throughout his poetic career. No doubt the sense that his genius was unappreciated added something to the torment of mind which he suffered in Rome, and on his death-bed he asked that on his tombstone should be inscribed ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... you would rid me of a few of these book-madmen. For, look yonder, what a commanding attitude ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... arrangements, the absence of all power of substitution, the fact that the processes of the law were worked out publicly, all cooperated to surround the draft with assurances of fairness and equality, so that throughout the whole country the attitude of the people toward the law was one of approval and confidence, and I feel very sure that those who at the beginning had any doubts would now with one accord agree that the selective service act provides not only a necessary mode of selecting the great armies needed ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... was first worked out in painting the nude. When he abandoned such subjects for the homelier themes of labor, he gave no less attention to the study of form and attitude. The simple clothing of the peasant is cut so loosely as to give entire freedom of motion to the body, and it is worn so long that it shapes itself perfectly to the figure. The body thus clad is scarcely inferior to the nude in assuming ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll

... look that only the masterpieces of art could otherwise call up, and she would sigh and murmur "Dear Georgie"! and change the subject, with the tact that characterized her. In fact their mutual relations were among the most Beautiful Things of Riseholme, and hardly less beautiful was Peppino's attitude towards it all. That large hearted man trusted them both, and his trust was perfectly justified. Georgie was in and out of the house all day, chiefly in; and not only did scandal never rear its hissing head, but it positively had not a head to hiss with, or a foot to stand ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... being serious, "perhaps he may turn out a poet yet. You never can tell where the lightning is going to strike. He has some idea of rhyme, and some perception of reason, and—yes, some of the lines were musical. His general attitude reminded me of Piers Plowman. Didn't he recall ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... Americans you met in China very much? It is with great reluctance—believing Great Britons to be the salt of the earth!!—but a lot of evidence of sorts is gradually drawing me towards a notion that the best type of American Gentleman is something like a generation ahead of our gentlemen in his attitude towards women and all that concerns them. There are certain points of view commonly taken up by Englishmen, even superior ones, which always exasperate women, and which seem equally incomprehensible by American men. You will guess the sort of things I mean. I do not know whether it is more really ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... the death of another of the old Cambridge friends, James Spedding, the biographer of Bacon; and Carlyle also died, a true friend, if rather intermittent in his appreciation of poetry. The real Carlyle did appreciate it, but the Carlyle of attitude was too much of the iron Covenanter to express what he felt. The poem Despair irritated the earnest and serious readers of "know- nothing books." The poem expressed, dramatically, a mood like another, a human mood ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang

... danced a little man, wigless, in an orange-coloured dressing-gown and a fury of choler. At the head of the green slope immediately under the balustrade Major Hymen, surrounded by a moderately sober staff, faced the storm in an attitude ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... old fellow firmly by his feet and legs, as he lay over the stern of the boat, head down, examining the condition of the rudder-head. The report was not favorable. I renewed the investigation myself in the same uncomfortable attitude. The phosphorescence of the sea was but an unsteady light, but light enough there was to reveal what daylight made hardly more certain,—that the wrench which had been given to the rotten old fixtures, shaky enough at best, had split the head of the rudder, so that the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... purely temporary attitude, by the table in the window. Against the window-pane she could see his side face drawn in a brilliant, furred line of light. His moustache twitched under the shadow of his nose. He was smiling to himself as he ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... Kobbe tried to flay out those locks to their former attitude with the hotel brush and comb, which the runner ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... carefully upon the table. Then he adjusted his spectacles to be sure that he might see it, and walked far back on the platform and then stepped forward like this. He must have studied the subject much, for he assumed an elocutionary attitude; he rested heavily upon his left heel, slightly advanced the right foot, threw back his shoulders, opened the organs of speech, and advanced his right hand at an angle of forty-five. As he stood in that elocutionary attitude this is just the way that speech went, this is it precisely. Some ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... profound sleep of utter exhaustion. The attitude of his limbs and the order of his dress—of which only his collar and cravat had been loosened—showed that sleep must have overtaken him almost instantly. In fact, the bed was scarcely disturbed beyond the actual impress of his figure. He seemed to be a handsome, ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... an attitude Young Islay found him on the Saturday after the episode on the Ramparts. Gilian was in the midst of the same book, trying hard to fill up the gaps that his sacrifice of leaves had brought into the narrative, and Young Islay going a-fishing in the moor-lochs, a keen ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro



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