Tall

“ A very good way to stand tall and sit tall is to imagine a string tied to your scalp lock, drawing you up to the ceiling or the sky, and all the rest of you, both inside and out, will fall into good position. ”

“ And how well azure eyes, very large and slumbrous, and loose tresses, waving and dark, become a tall woman—for—she is tall, tall and slender, like those angels above the portals of our basilicas, angels whose oval faces the shadows of their granite canopies veil in mystic twilight. ”

“ I am glad for him, blind as he is!—all the while
If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile.
That tall Man, a Giant in bulk and in height,
Not an inch of his body is free from delight ”

“ Almost everything seemed to be horizontal, but such things as stood perpendicular in this flat world gained a gigantic height. The two human beings looked at each other in amazement that such a tall man and woman existed. ”

“ Into this room, all through the afternoon, streamed a curious medley of people. Tall men, small men, rough men, dapper men, and loudly dressed women, who for the most part seemed inclined to corpulence. ”

“ That is tall whose height is greatly in excess of its breadth or diameter, and whose actual height is great for an object of its kind; as, a tall tree; a tall man; tall grass. That is lofty which is imposing or majestic in height; we term a spire tall with reference to its altitude, or lofty with reference to its majestic appearance. That is elevated which is raised somewhat above its surroundings; that is eminent which is far above them ”

“ I felt a shock of surprise on seeing a person so little corresponding to the one I had at first half-consciously prefigured. Figure to yourself a tall man about six feet high, within half an inch or so, built with tolerable appearance of strength ”

“ I descended from a very large, tall and stout race of beings, much larger than the generality of people in other parts of the globe, being commonly considerably above six feet in height, and in every way well proportioned. ”

“ You see, we are not very large, either in our bodies or in our thoughts, and we try to make ourselves several feet taller, tall enough to put our heads on a level with the trees, tall enough to imagine that the wind respects us. ”

“ Why, there is one who has reached the top; he is not to be compared with a fly so much as a midge—who would have thought it? We are close under now and I find that the block by which I am standing is the height of my shoulder, and I am fairly tall. ”

“ You feel as tall as the Singer Building to-day, but you'll shrink before long. You'll shrink until, after a long, hard day, with about nine turndowns in it, you'll have to climb up on top of the dresser to look at yourself in the glass. ”

“ In the days of his early manhood he spent much time in devising ways to deceive people into thinking him taller. He surrounded himself with big things, had a big bed made, wore high-heeled boots, and the crown of his hat was so tall that he was almost overbalanced. ”

“ It is so tall that, though it kneels down to take us up, we have, at the peril of our lives, to mount a ladder of eight steps to get on its back; and when it gets up, first on its fore feet, we are tilted back in an alarming manner. ”

“ I always like to look as tall as possible. Five feet four is not a very great height; so, to give the appearance of another inch I have my skirts made as long as possible; that is to say, they just don't sweep the pavement, and that is all. ”

“ It is not money, it is not even brains—though no doubt yours are excellent. It is not your six feet of height, though I should have rather liked to be a couple of inches taller. It’s a sort of air you have of being thoroughly at home in the world. ”

“ Considerably taller than the ordinary height of women, her figure, although very delicate and slender, with feet and ankles of the smallest and most fairy model, was yet so exquisitely rounded, so perfect in the rise and fall of every graceful and voluptuous outline, that it was not until you stood beside her, and compared her stature with your own, that you perceived how far she overtopped her fellow fair ones in height as in beauty. ”

“ Ask a person to mark upon the wall of a room the height above the floor which he thinks will correspond to that of a gentleman’s tall hat. Unless he has been beguiled on a former occasion, he will certainly place the mark several inches too high. ”

“ Or if it be only meant that we think of a particular height, which must be a precise, positive, determinate idea, even this supposition may in the same way be shewn to be exceedingly fallacious, and an inversion of the natural order of our ideas. For take any given height of a man, whether tall, short, or middle-sized, and let that height be as visible as you please, yet the actual height to which it amounts must be made up of the length of the different parts, the head, the face, the neck, the body, limbs, &c. ”

“ We've always thought progress meant bigness. The ideal man was six feet tall and all that. But it's bunk. Even when our standard of living was at record high, that ideal was still the exception. And since our time of trouble began, the average height has actually decreased by three inches. ”

“ He had business with those two, and he stood above them from the six feet threedom o' his height till they went to drink. In the course o' conversation he said, as tall men will, things about his height, and the trouble of it to him. ”

“ Why do women wear the present fascinating gowns, in which the lithe figure is suggested in all its womanly dignity? In order that they may appear to be tall. That is to say, because it is the fashion to be tall; women born in the mode are tall, and those caught in a hereditary shortness endeavor to conform to the stature of the come and coming woman. ”

“ So accustomed is the eye to vertical lines in tree trunks, tall buildings, and thousands of other examples that the upward eye movement in viewing an object, having a predominance of vertical elements, seemingly adds to its height. ”

“ I'd never been a tall guy, and the girls I'd dated had all been my height -- teenaged girls grow faster than guys, which is a cruel trick of nature. ”

“ However, when a man is built as I am, it is worth three inches of height. I certainly wouldn’t change figures with that tall, lanky man in front of us. Those tall fellows are always awkward. Have you seen Madame de Beausire? ”

“ The natural height of mankind seems to be about five feet, and the deviations from that standard scarcely exceed a foot, so that a man of six feet is considered as very tall, and a man of four as very short. ”

“ How the tall temples, as to meet their gods,
Ascend the skies! ”

“ Even tall and well-shaped men of the soundest constitution could not pass the preliminary examination unless they were able to jump their own height vertically, and thrice their own length horizontally, and two-thirds of those distances in full armor ”

“ Here it is seen that the mean man is a little under 5 ft. 8 in. in height, the numbers of men shorter and taller diminishing with evident regularity, down to the few representatives of the very short men of 5 ft. and under, and the very tall men of 6 ft. 4 in. and over. The law of relation of height to numerical strength is shown graphically by the binomial curve figured above, where the abscissæ (measured from an origin on the left) represent the heights of the men, and the ordinates the relative numbers of men corresponding to each height. ”

“ Taller than most women, as I knew by comparison, for I am an inch above the American "six-foot," and her eyes were but little below the level of mine. A man who is above normal height never fails to note, with a little of surprise, when he meets eyes so nearly level with his own. ”

“ Men and women appear as tall as the houses in which they live, and which look mere dolls'-houses. We have spoken of the lack of proportion marking the paintings in the early Buddhistic temples in an earlier chapter, but this is naturally common in all countries during the early stages of development of art. ”

“ But the women, who are but little punctured, youths and young children, who are not at all, are as fair as some Europeans. The men are in general tall, that is, about five feet ten inches, or six feet ”

“ Remember that our own tallest and noblest trees in England do not attain more than 100 feet or so in height; then try to imagine those having four times that height and stems or trunks proportionately huge. It is like comparing our five-storey buildings with the forty-storey buildings of New York, eight times their altitude. ”

“ The height of the stature is taken without the shoes, and it is necessary to state at what hour of the day the measurement is made, because in the morning we are taller (though by only a few millimetres) than we are in the evening. ”

“ The world of birds and insects got lively, the blue and the yellow and the gold of Loveday’s uniform again became distinct; the sun bored its way upward, the fields, the trees, and the distant landscape kindled to flame, and the trumpet-major, backed by a lilac shadow as tall as a steeple, blazed in the rays like a very god of war. ”

“ Where London's column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies; ”

“ Here, in a total of near 2,600 men, there are 160 of five feet eight inches, but only about 150 of five feet seven inches or five feet nine inches, and so on, till not even ten men are found so short as five feet or so tall as six feet four inches. ”

“ He had possessed the arrogance of a tall member of a short race, with no obligation save to be tall. ”

“ One—the taller—was a thin, angular man with unnaturally long arms, a peculiar swaying habit of body, an elongated visage, terminating in a short, stubby growth of whiskers, and a sharp, crackling kind of voice, with unmistakable nasal faults. ”

“ But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I'll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And—sure enough!—I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I 'most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky. ”

“ We know that splendid flowers are more commonly selected for housing, and that Life Guardsmen are chosen for their tallness, so that we are prevented from falling into the mistake of ascribing splendour of colour in the one instance, or tallness in the other, to the influence of causes which have nothing whatever to do with those attributes;242 nor is anyone likely to ascribe the longevity of our nobility to the possession of a title. ”

“ and will give him seven feet of English ground, or as much more as he may be taller than other men." ”

“ Modern travelers find, on measuring them, that they really often reach six feet four inches, their mean height being about five feet eleven inches—three or four inches taller than average Englishmen. The shortest of mankind are the Bushmen and related tribes in South Africa, with an average height not far exceeding four feet six inches. A fair contrast between the tallest and shortest races of mankind may be seen in Fig. ”

“ I will come back to you, I swear I will;
And you will know me still.
I shall be only a little taller
Than when I went. ”

“ They were, I doubt not, happy enough in their dark stalls, because they were horses, and had plenty to eat; and I was at times quite happy enough in the dark loft above, because I was a man, and could think and imagine. ”

“ He is taller, by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders. ”

“ They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather. ”