"Agile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good steed the spur she leaped clear of the encircling mob. A bludgeon came whizzing after her just above her head, and the belated sweeping strokes of a couple of scythes just missed her. One or two agile young ruffians even set off after her, and as two large waggons lay right across her path a little further on, they made sure of overtaking her there. But the lady, with a single bound, leaped over the obstacle, whereupon her pursuers remained behind, but as she ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... with some difficulty over the steep step of the track, his tail rattling down behind him like a length of thick cable. Once on the ground he became quite agile, moving with a sort of oddly graceful prance on his powerful legs. He approached, his attention centered on Kieran. But he observed the amenities, placing one delicate hand on his breast and making a ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... accustomed eye the moonlight might enable it to be distinguished at a glance what it was, while to one wholly unaccustomed to it, the hollow would often look like a hillock by such a light. This Varney would clear at a bound, which a less agile and heavier person would step into, lifting up his leg to meet an impediment, when he would find it come down suddenly some six or eight inches lower than he anticipated, almost dislocating his leg and neck, and producing a corresponding ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... in all exercises than any man in Norway whose memory is preserved to us in sagas; and he was stronger and more agile than most men, and many stories are written down about it. One is that he ascended the Smalsarhorn, and fixed his shield upon the very peak. Another is, that one of his followers had climbed up the peak after him, until he ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... comprehensible in man. To the don, indeed, the absence of the past is one of the factors in his fascinating, esoteric game: were some astounding document to appear that should make the origin and constitution of the mediaeval manor as clear as daylight, the problem would lose its interest, the agile don would find it too easy for him. The equipment of the ideal historian consists of the attributes of practical and poetic man, the desire to gain some present benefit, to learn some urgent lesson, and the desire to perfect the spirit by contemplation ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... tears during good Pepe's speech, and he was trying to comfort her when George suddenly sat up, rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands, stretched himself, and then, agile as a brook trout, sprang out ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I, Pet," he cried, delighted to find that he was apparently as agile as the parson. No one could hope to equal little Dr. Fisher, who was here, there, and everywhere, skipping about among the rocks like a boy let loose ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... than a Parisian in fact, a Parisianized provincial inoculated with Parisine, just as certain sick persons are with morphine, judging men by their wit, actions by their results, women by the size of their gloves; as sceptical as the devil, wicked in speech and considerate in thought, still agile at forty, claiming even that this is man's best time—the period of fortune and gallantry—sliding along in life and taking things as he found them, wisely considering that a day's snow or rain lasts no longer than a day's sunshine, and that, after all, a wretched ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... and vaulted the horse. Winona seemed to herself as easy and agile as she had ever been. She had a possible chance of winning, and her heart exulted. Then came the ladders. Up and up she went, holding herself now by her hands and now by her feet swinging for her hold. She had thought she was light, but now she suddenly realized how ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... Count said, "Papa would be really unhappy if you went away." "That's real nice of him; you bet I'll stay, then." On the day itself he was all- pervading. It was he who hung the heavy garlands and wreaths on the highest poles, agile as a cat, and draped the flags about the escutcheons placed everywhere. He helped the ladies arrange the flowers in the innumerable vases in the salons. He it was who led the applause when the deputation of young people from the village ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... progress of the game, she was taken prisoner, he was nervously anxious until she was rescued. Napoleon, who had almost lived upon horseback, was a poor runner, and would often, in his eagerness, fall, rolling head-long over the grass, raising shouts of laughter. Josephine and Hortense were as agile as ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... me. Since I entered into this northern land, in which men say that sorceries do abound, I, who am held in awe and regard even by the prime gallants in the court of Feliciana, have been here bearded and taunted by a clod-treading clown. I, whom Vincentio Saviola termed his nimblest and most agile disciple, was, to speak briefly, foiled by a cow-boy, who knew no more of fence than is used at every country wake. I am run, as it seemed to me, through the body, with a very sufficient stoccata, and faint on the spot; and yet, when I recover, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... loved him, for this harsh legislator totally ignored all friendship, but, not fearing him in the light of a successor, he liked to play with Theodore as Richelieu played with his cat; he found him supple and agile. Seeing how admirably de Beze succeeded in all his missions, he took a fancy to the polished instrument of which he knew himself the mainspring and the manipulator; so true is it that the sternest of men ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... case, next day, Helena is in her brother's rooms, and, by aid of a Mr. Tartar's rooms, she and Rosa can meet privately. There is a good deal of conspiring to watch Jasper when he watches Neville, and in this new friend, Mr. Tartar, a lover is provided for Rosa. Tartar is a miraculously agile climber over roofs and up walls, a retired Lieutenant of the navy, and a handy man, being such a climber, to chase Jasper about the roof of the Cathedral, when Jasper's day ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... had come down the back street and had established themselves opposite the narrow entrance between two sheds through which three only could walk abreast from our playground to the street. They had also sent a daring body of their lighter and more agile lads to the top of the sheds which separated our playground from the street, and they had conveyed down an enormous store of ammunition, so that the courtyard was absolutely at their mercy, and anyone emerging from the corridor was received with ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... spill most of it on the way to his chosen station. And as one of the rules insisted that each cup should be at least three-quarters full of water, Bumpus gave up the game in abject despair, contenting himself with watching his more agile companions, ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... still another conundrum for the bird student: Why do the four-toed woodpeckers have two hind digits, despite the fact that they always clamber upward when they take their promenades on the boles and branches of the trees, whereas the agile little nuthatch, which glides upward or downward, as the impulse moves him, has only one rear toe and three in front, like the true perchers? Nor is it less puzzling that the cuckoos, which are perching birds, ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... had returned his own pistol to his pocket. So I showed him the muzzle of mine, and he divined without a sermon on the subject that it would go off and shoot accurately unless he showed discretion. He didn't offer to move when Jeremy's agile fingers found his pocket and flicked out the mother-of- pearl-handled, rim-fire thing with which he had ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... meters, we walked amid a swarm of small fish from every species, more numerous than birds in the air, more agile too; but no aquatic game worthy of a gunshot had yet been offered ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... stationed at the half-way ground, while the fast runners were assigned to the back. It was an impressive spectacle a fine collection of agile forms, almost stripped of garments and painted in wild imitation of the rainbow and sunset sky on human canvas. Some had undertaken to depict the Milky Way across their tawny bodies, and one or two made a bold attempt to reproduce ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... with his two unoccupied hands, dropped the remains down the hole thus exposed, and let the cover slam back into place. He then squatted down, licked himself meticulously clean with a long, black, extremely agile tongue, and went on about his enigmatic business quite as though ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... Audrey of the woods, a creature lithe and agile and strong of wrist as of will, had thrown herself upon him, clutching the hand that held the knife. He strove to dash her from him, but in vain; the house was in an uproar; and now Haward's hands were at his throat, Haward's ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... he drew nearer to the place where the flashboard was down and the water poured into the rocky river bed. There were stepping stones here, so it was easy for an agile person ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... well again, Nika. After thou hast rested, come with me, and see the sports. There will be rare tactics with the retiarii armed with nets. One of the swiftest, most agile, will to-day compete with a burly warrior. Beside, there will be a fight with beasts—a lion will be loosed on a Christian. Come with me into the chariot. Let ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... and fell flat, with magnificent artifice, and at once fresh emotions began to stir. Love had endured its little hour, and stern ambition now asserted itself. Oh, to be a splendid fellow like this, self-contained, ready of speech, agile beyond conception, braving the forces of society, his hand against everyone, yet always getting the best of it! What freshness of humour, what courtesy to dames, what triumphant ability to discomfit rivals, frock-coated ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... might have been added, again with Mr. Lower's assistance, a few words on the difficulties that confronted the London revenue officers in the Sussex humour. To be confounded by too swift a horse or too agile a "runner" was all in the night's work; but to be hoodwinked and bamboozled by the deliberate stealthy southern fun must have been eternally galling. The Sussex joker grinds slowly and exceeding small; but the flour is his. "There was Nick ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... being done by machinery, that of weeding and harvesting chiefly by the carvee. The ambau climb the trees and pick the fruit from the ends of the branches, which they are also taught to pinch in, so that none grow so long as to break with the weight of these creatures, as clever and agile as the smaller monkeys, but almost as large as an ordinary baboon. It must always be remembered that, size for size, and caeteris paribus, all bodies, animate and inanimate, on Mars weigh less than half as much as they would on Earth. Eunane's blunder about the carcara was not explained ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... through the shop; and while staring at the sheets of paper strung in groves across the ceiling, ran against the rows of cases, or knocked his hat against the tie-bars that secured the presses in position. Or the customer's eyes would follow the agile movements of a compositor, picking out type from the hundred and fifty-two compartments of his case, reading his copy, verifying the words in the composing-stick, and leading the lines, till a ream of damp paper weighted with heavy slabs, and set down ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... thou go before me." So she went on and I followed her a little way, till she came to the gate of a large handsome house, whose door was plated with copper. I stood without the door, whilst the old woman cried out in Persian, and before I could think, a damsel ran up, with a nimble and agile step. She had tucked up her trousers to her knees, so that I saw a pair of legs that confounded mind and eye, for they were like columns of alabaster, adorned with anklets of gold, set with jewels. As says ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... to get out the right word, if (for instance) suddenly asked 'to what station I am going,' is enough to make me seem insane or half asleep.... I am increasingly aware that my brain is my weakest part.... On the whole I am healthy, and agile in all movement as are few men of my age (two doctors fancy that all men of eighty-five have ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... incredible. I have had horses bolt with me and have seen horses bolt with others many times; and every person who has seen such a thing and who knows a horse—its power and the blind mad terror it is seized with on occasions—will agree with me that it is only at the risk of his life that even a strong and agile man can attempt to stop a bolting horse. We all said that she had saved her sister's life and were lost in admiration of her deed, but presently it seemed that she would pay for it with her own life. She recovered from the faint, but from that day began a decline, ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... agile evolutionist may try to escape the death sentence of mathematics and the condemnation of reason, by saying that the brain developed more rapidly than the rest of the body. But he is estopped from that claim, by the statement of this same ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... and then set off on adventurous journeys into distant rooms. The restoration of an emigrant to his lawful home was celebrated by a feast in which, by a confusion of circumstances, the book played the part of the fatted calf, being read afresh from beginning to end. During his earlier and more agile years the Rabbi used to reach the higher levels of his study by wonderful gymnastic feats, but after two falls—one with three Ante-Nicene fathers in close pursuit—he determined to call in assistance. This he did after an impressive fashion. When he attended the roup at Pitfoodles—a day of historical ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... his mighty mane and terrible roar. The mongrel dog gave faint yelps and howls of anguish whenever he was approached by the lion or the kitchen cat. The lion made a valiant attempt, growling savagely as he did so, to demolish the cat; but the agile cat leaped on his back, stuck her claws, which were really crooked pins, into his hide, and sent the king of beasts howling to a distant part of the stage. She then proceeded to torment the mongrel dog, and to draw out, as she well knew how, ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... into a transport of fury, in which he seized the girl and hurled her violently through the open window. Fortunately they were on the ground floor, so the fall was not great, and she was, besides, light in form and agile as a cat. She fell on her hands and feet upon a thick carpet of the dead ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... played many agile tricks before them; and then a company of mummers, with the heads of birds and beasts, danced and sported. But the Lady Beckwith said, "Sir Paul, I will tell you a tale. A bird of the forest alighted at our window-sill some days ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... leading by the bridle a horse—and, oh, my friends, you have never known the perfection to which a horse can attain until you have seen a first-class English hunter. He was superb: tall, broad, strong, and yet as graceful and agile as a deer. Coal black he was in colour, and his neck, and his shoulder, and his quarters, and his fetlocks—how can I describe him all to you? The sun shone upon him as on polished ebony, and he raised his hoofs in a little, playful dance so lightly ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... bull clutched madly for support as he toppled sidewise, and then with an agile movement succeeded in projecting himself toward another limb a few feet below. Here he found a hand-hold, quickly righted himself, and as quickly clambered upward to be revenged upon Tarzan, but the ape-man was ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in superior size was equalized by the superior "game" of the gentleman-boy, to whom the indomitable courage of a high-blooded race had descended, and who would sooner have died than yield. Besides, Ratty was not deficient in the use of his "bunch of fives," hit hard for his size, and was very agile: the sweep sometimes made a rush, grappled, and got a fall; but he never went in without getting something from Ratty to "remember him," and was not always uppermost. At last, both were so far punished, and ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... weight of his equipment, the Assyrian foot-soldier was as agile as the Egyptian, but he had to fight usually in a much more difficult region than that in which the Pharaoh's troops were ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... not clumsy, very agile if anything; I learnt to be a good high jumper, to climb and run well, was no contemptible wrestler, and by degrees became an expert fighter. But I was not muscularly strong, and never could be compared with ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... formidable as the Merrimac. The steamers of war which she was to meet were more formidable than the Congress and the Cumberland. She first encountered the Sassacus, a vessel of powerful armament. More agile than the iron-clad, the Sassacus played round her, exchanging shots, and seeking a vulnerable point. At length, under a full head of steam, she dashed on the monster, striking a blow which drove it bodily ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Balmoral, declared that she expected that he would enlighten the world, for she had often seen him with those who could instruct him and tell him of past and future events. One of those persons, she said, was a little maid dressed in green, whose beautiful face, flowing hair, and agile figure were faultless. Frequently was she seen climbing steep precipices on which human foot was never known to rest, and bring him flowers, and even the eagles' nests were not beyond her reach. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... words the brisk and agile-minded Miss Kelly expressed the surprise and the awed conviction of ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... ablest, 49-u. Napoleons follow period of convulsion, 30-l. Napoleon's influence on the destinies of France, 313-m. Napoleon's injustice exiled him to a rock, a warning to bid men be just, 835-m. Napthali, the eloquent and agile, has for device Virgo in the domicile of Mercury, 462-u. National Gods' history describes the Sun's career through the seasons, 591-m. Nationalizing of creeds and peoples a tendency of Masonry, 625-l. Nations, commercialism and territorial aggrandizement of, 69. Nations, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... of defence, he seemed, to such of his spectators as had sufficiently recovered their senses to look at him coolly, rather to resemble one that had come in on the heels of a tuss and was watching its result with unconcerned eyes than one that with no more assistance than his own agile limbs had been the cause of humiliation to so many powerful adversaries. Staupitz, blinking fiercely as he rubbed his aching head, which had rattled sharply against the table that arrested his flight across the ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... crumbling walls of the romantic ruins of Caernarvon Castle, some years ago, two agile goats were seen,—now leaping over a rugged gap, now climbing some lofty pinnacle, now browsing on the herbage overhanging the perilous paths. Presently they approached each other from opposite ends of one of the narrow intersecting ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... warmth. Broad wings of gold-margined, brown Vanessa antiopa soared serenely along under overarching white oaks. "Little Miss Lavender" folded her gray-blue wings in demure beauty on the gray cladium-mossed stumps by the roadside, and dusky-winged species of the skipper brood were agile with new-born life, yet glad to fold wings and sleep in the sun on the road. These were sprites of the deep forest. None were visible in the town margin, though perhaps it was the sweep of the north wind that ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... horror during its earlier stages; grim, steadfast and sombre in the clays of Verdun; wildly, madly exultant when wreathed and decorated with victory. There were so many things to talk about for two people of agile brains come together late in life. They had moved into the study and Lady Jane was sealed in his favourite easy-chair, sipping her coffee and some wonderful green chartreuse, before a single personal note had crept into the flow of ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... story alertness of mind was depicted on the face of every listener. Joe Moon's tongue, as agile as a lizard's, had up to now been revolving like a windmill round the lower half of his face, questing after treacly crumbs which had adhered to his cheeks; but at the mention of the girl by the waterfall it ceased from its labours, and the tightly closed mouth and straining ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... difficult to give a detailed psychological proof from these constant outbursts of anxious self-assertion, that Jonson was not a genius, a creative power. Subtract that one thing, and you may safely accumulate on his name all other excellences of a capacious, vigorous, agile, and richly-stored intellect. ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... had been tortured by the thought that she had married Colonel Yagitch from worldly motives and, as it is said, par depit; but that evening, at the restaurant, she had suddenly become convinced that she loved him passionately. In spite of his fifty-four years, he was so slim, agile, supple, he made puns and hummed to the gipsies' tunes so charmingly. Really, the older men were nowadays a thousand times more interesting than the young. It seemed as though age and youth had changed parts. The Colonel was two years older than her father, but could there be any importance ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... agile mind had already traveled on. This K. she had never known, who had lived in a wonderful house, and all the rest of it—he must have known numbers of lovely women, his own sort of women, who had traveled and knew all kinds ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... he was not averse to fun, and had been a little touched by Cap's superciliousness; but Mabel's fair face, light, agile form, and winning smiles, stood like a shield between her uncle and the ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... deal of the girl, but somehow he saw her even oftener than he had anticipated. During the time he spent in the house, chance seemed to throw her continually in his path or under his eye. From his window he saw her carrying water from the spring, driving the small agile cow to and from the mountain pasturage, or idling in the shade. Upon the whole it was oftener this last than any other occupation. With her neglected knitting in her hands she would sit for hours under a certain low-spreading cedar not far from ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... still. She understood in that moment what was coming to her and to Joy. Yes, to her as well as to Joy; for she would not leave Joy to die alone. It would be an easy thing for her to climb the cliffs; she was agile, fearless, as used to the mountains as a young chamois, and the ascent, as I said, though steep, was not high. Once out of that gully where death was certain, she would have at least a chance of life. The fire if not checked would spread rapidly, would chase her ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... find partial shelter from bullets from the ravine, whence he evidently looked for them, and out from behind the knoll, bridles held high, "quirts" lashing at their ponies' flanks, darted half a dozen painted savages, tearing down upon the spot at the top speed of their agile mounts. Only two men remained on watch at the moment, Dean and one trooper. Most of the others, already in saddle, were filing away up the game trail that threaded the windings of the ravine, the two lead horses with them, while a few yards behind the young officer and his comrade, halfway ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... returned, bringing with him the student. He was a fine figure of a man, tall, lithe, and agile, with a springy step and a pleasant, open face. His troubled blue eyes glanced at each of us, and finally rested with an expression of blank dismay upon ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... anyone else would have been fired for. Her wide mouth was capable of glorious insolences. Whenever you heard shrieks of laughter from the girls' washroom at noon you knew that Tessie was holding forth to an admiring group. She was a born mimic; audacious, agile, and with the gift of burlesque. The autumn that Angie Hatton came home from Europe wearing the first tight skirt that Chippewa had ever seen, Tessie gave an imitation of that advanced young woman's progress down Grand Avenue in this restricting ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... down the corridor, up a long ramp, a turn, along two other corridors, up another ramp. The tour ended before a wide metal door, the guards spaced themselves at each side, the door was opened by the agile, hopping Jivro. I went ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... on a Western prairie he would have felt it proper to address him with a "How-d'ye-do, Mosseer?" But there was something in his physiognomy which seemed to cast a sort of aerial bridge over the impassable gulf produced by difference of race. He was below the middle height, and robust and agile in figure. Valentin de Bellegarde, Newman afterwards learned, had a mortal dread of the robustness overtaking the agility; he was afraid of growing stout; he was too short, as he said, to afford a belly. He rode and fenced and practiced ...
— The American • Henry James
... dozen of them, and they seemed to be engaged in a frolic. This ape has been described in a former volume, for it is abundant in Sumatra. Louis wished to observe the movements of the animal, which has very long arms, is wonderfully agile, and a gymnast of the first order. It could travel all over Borneo where forests exist without touching the ground, passing from tree to tree in long leaps. The boat was stopped in the river, in order to permit the party to witness the exhibition which was in process, without ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... quick enough. The girl, though not nearly as active under the increased pull of gravity as a person of Earth might be, was yet more agile than the Rogans. And she was the faster mover in this tortuous, snail-like race. While the Rogan leader was still several feet away, she retrieved ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... utter defiance of the young girls. A cry was raised instantly, and all the children left their sports to pursue the boy, who had thus boldly defied their power; and lucky was it for him that he was agile and could twist and turn in his course as rapidly as a hare. But when there is at least twelve to one and a clear space, the raced has little chance, and thus it came about that the boy in self defence was forced to fly towards ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... uncovered. But by one gift, that of reason and painstaking and forethought, nature compensates for all these deficiencies. "Small indeed is the strength of man, but by the versatility of his intellect he can tame the inhabitants of the sea, earth, and air."[951] Nothing is more agile and swift than horses, yet they run for man; the dog is a courageous and high-spirited creature, yet it guards man; fish is most pleasant to the taste, the pig the fattest of all animals, yet both are food and delicacies for man. What is huger or more formidable ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Rudy will become an agile chamois hunter in a few years? He has every disposition for it!" said his uncle, and instructed him how to hold a rifle, how to aim and to fire. In the hunting season, he took him with him in the mountains and made him drink the warm chamois blood, which prevents the hunter from becoming ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... in imitation of her. Yorke did not seem to mind, but with the gayest good humor called out the figures as he played. Suddenly, as he wound up the last figure with a grand flourish, he beckoned to a little Canadian who had been specially agile in the dance, and they held a whispered consultation. Then Yorke resigned his banjo to him, and, leaping down into the middle of the floor, seized Clotilde about the waist without so much as saying "By your leave," ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... the drum of the rusty winch rattled and banged on worn bearings to a tune of escaping steam, laboriously warping the smelly hull alongside the dock. Terry watched the sturdy little Moros spring into agile life as the vessel slowly neared the pier, then he turned to look over the town which was built flush with the edge of the narrow beach, extending each way from the shore end of the pier. The galvanized-iron roofs of the ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... victory when the navvy bought a copy. By degrees she became braver, and would even go into the saloons to sell the periodicals. Then, noticing how the newsboys boarded buses with their papers, she thought that in the Lord's service she should be as eager and enterprising as they, and she became quite agile, running up and down the iron steps as she joined the buses and offered her papers for ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... was busy; her counter was covered with magnificent silks, ribbons, velvets and laces, which she was unrolling, folding up, drawing out, and chattering about, as fast as her small hands and agile tongue would permit. Before her stood a lady, who, accompanied by her cavalier, was engaged in the momentous task of making up her mind what colors of velvet and satin ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... agile, energetic, officious, sprightly, alert, expeditious, prompt, spry, brisk, industrious, quick, supple, bustling, lively, ready, vigorous, busy, mobile, restless, wide ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... the right, slanting upward—away to the left, still slanting upward—and stood at last, a black peg on the summit, and waved his pigmy scarf! Then he crept downward to the raw steps again, then picked up his agile heels and flew. We lost him presently. But presently again we saw him under us, mounting with undiminished energy. Shortly he bounded into our midst with a gallant war-whoop. Time, eight minutes, forty-one seconds. He had won. His bones were intact. It was a failure. I reflected. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... eyeing him with those bad eyes; of too much girth, you might have said, to be nimble, yet somehow suggesting to the swift intuition of youth, as Rodriguez looked at him standing upon his door-step, the spirit and shape of a spider, who despite her ungainly build is agile enough in ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... wonderful animal pictures—hunting scenes, the excitement of which even to-day makes the cheek glow. There were historical scenes mingled with allegory. There were most beautiful children whose fat and agile bodies and whose laughing faces make us want to hug them. There were enchanting angels, and there were huge fauns and satyrs. There were placid landscapes where, it may be, the artist's soul, teeming with the life of all time, took its rest and recreation sporting with the nymphs of the woodland ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... undignified haste, for the vicar was remarkably agile, Sheila managed to unlock the bedroom door without apparently his perceiving it, and with a warning finger she preceded him into the great bedroom. 'Oh, yes, yes,' he was whispering to himself; 'alone—well, well!' He hung his hat on his umbrella and ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... bumped into it bow on, and sculled the stern around. The cripple, hideously agile, scrambled out and held the boat; Simpson gathered up ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... Province—that the guests wished to take exercise, now that the cool of the evening was come. His Excellency was a gentleman of portly proportions, who, at some other period, may have walked. Despite his dimensions, he was agile and graceful in his sweeping salaams; when he spoke he emphasized every word with an appropriate sweep of the arm, and his eyebrows arched and his eyes bulged in superlative, ecstatic moments. The tassel of his tarboosh, a little red inverted flowerpot ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... special orders; for he drove down the avenue as fast as the horse could go, and the animal was a famous trotter, carefully chosen by Sir Thorn, who understood horse-flesh better than any one else in Paris. But Daniel was agile; and the hope of being able to avenge himself at once ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... was the sole feminine element in Felicia's childhood. Frivolous, shallow, having all her life kept her mind enveloped in pink swaddling-clothes, she had at all events a dainty knack at housekeeping, and agile fingers clever at sewing, embroidering, arranging furniture, and leaving the trace of their deft, painstaking touch in every corner of a room. She alone undertook to train that wild young plant, and to awaken with care the womanly instincts in that strange creature, on whose figure ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... invariably the aggressor. This is how they fight, or rather engage in a vulgar brawl which has in it a smack of tragedy. The osprey, with steady beat of outstretched wing, flies "squaking" from its agile enemy, who endeavours to alight on the osprey's back. Just as white-belly stretches its talons for a grip among the osprey's feathers, the osprey turns—and turns without a tremor in its long, sweeping wings—to shake hands with ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... them sweet—tiens—one of the branches had fallen—she had full time to re-adjust the loosened support. And "Marianne, give these ladies their hot water, and see to their bags—" even this order was given with courtesy. It was only when the supple, agile figure had left us to fly down the steep rock-cut steps; when it shot over the top of the gateway and slid with the grace of a lizard into the street far below us, that we were made sensible of there having been any especial need of ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... celebrated one which tested the prowess of "le bonhomme Briggs." There are rough stepping-stones at some of the crossings, and the passage of these, after nightfall, resembles greatly that of a "shaking" bog, where the traveler has to leap from tussock to moss-hag with agile audacity; the consequences of a false step being, in both cases, about the same. I began to think, regretfully of certain rugged continental paves execrated in days gone by; they, at least, had a firm bottom, more or ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... from death is a thing that brings a strong motive to exertion, but there are other things sometimes which may give an equal impulse. Gualtier was lithe, sinewy, and agile, nimble of foot too, and inspired by the consciousness of danger; but the man who pursued him was one whose mighty thews and sinews had been formed under the shadows of the Alleghanies, and trained by years of early experience ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... our youth the right to romp and play. God meant it, or he would not have surcharged our natures with such exuberance. If a mother join hands with her children, and while the eldest strikes the keys, fill all the house with the sound of agile feet, I see no harm. If a few friends, gathered in happy circle, conclude to cross and recross the room to the sound of the piano well played, I see no harm. I for a long while tried to see in it a harm, but I never could, and I probably never will. I would to God men kept young for a greater length ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... them, to be curious about them and—quite mildly-experimental with them." He seemed to be elaborating ideas as he talked. They watched the chimpanzees in the new apes' house, and admired the gentle humanity of their eyes—"so much more human than human beings"—and they watched the Agile Gibbon in the next apartment doing ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... throng of "artistes" on that far-off March day there came a bright little fellow of ten or eleven years, a rope-dancer and a favorite with the crowd. Light and agile, he trips along the slender rope that stretches high above the arena. Right before the magistrate's box the boy poises in mid air, and even the thoughtful young director of the games looks up at the graceful motions of the boy. Hark! a warning shout goes up; now, another; the poor little rope-dancer, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... black, very agile spiders, which are found about our rooms, and also out-of-doors, are evidently hunters; people call them money-spiders, for it is supposed to be lucky should one of them crawl over you, or come towards ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... much engrossed in politics to pay the unremitting attention to the law which that jealous mistress requires. He had been a candidate for Congress the year before, and had been defeated by W. L. May. He was a candidate again in 1838, and was elected over so agile an adversary as Stephen Arnold Douglas. His paramount interest in these canvasses necessarily prevented him from setting to his junior partner the example which Lincoln so greatly needed, of close and steady devotion to their profession. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... registrar Seurrot, his legs encased in blue linen spatterdashes, his back bent, his hands crossed comfortably over his "corporation," sat roasting himself at the flame, while grumbling when the wind blew the smoke in his eyes. Arbillot, the notary, as agile and restless as a lizard, kept going from one to the other with an air of mysterious importance. He came up to Claudet, drew him aside, and showed him a little figure ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... slipping every moment, by reason, it seemed to me, of the entire nakedness of my assailant, bitten with sharp teeth in the shoulder, neck, and chest, having every moment to protect my throat against a pair of sinewy, agile hands, which my utmost efforts could not confine—these were a combination of circumstances to combat which required all the strength, skill, and ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... proving myself the master. Especially was this seen when we used to wrestle on the soft, spongy grass that grows on the headland. I could lift him from the ground and throw him over my head, such was my advantage in weight and strength. Yet so cunning was he, and so agile, that he would cling around me, and twine his limbs around mine, so that I had to be very careful or I should have been disgraced ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... rather less than medium height, thin and agile. In all his actions he showed quickness and alertness. He had large, black, piercing eyes, his eyebrows were curved and thick; his nose straight and long; his cheeks somewhat sunken; his mouth, not particularly well formed ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... denunciatory. He denounced the Government of the day, tight skirts, Christian Science, scorching on scooters, the foreign policy of Patagonia and many other things. John, on the other hand, had not an agile brain. He worked on a farm in some incredibly primitive capacity, and the only thing that he denounced was the quality of the beer at the "Waggon and Horses." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... of Quincy's dexterity to avoid the wild rushes and savage thrusts made by Wood. But Quincy understood every one of the boxer's secrets and was as light and agile on his feet as a cat. It was three minutes at least before Quincy got the desired opening, and then he landed a blow on Wood's nose that sent him ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... appetite flattered and tempted by a dinner of rare simplicity and perfect cooking, Jasmine was radiant, amusing, and stimulating in her old way. She had never seemed to him so much a mistress of delicate satire and allusiveness. He rose to the combat with an alacrity made more agile by considerable abstinence, for clever women were few, and real talk was the rarest occurrence in his life, save with men in his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... instant while this agile individual transferred himself from the roof of the cab to the interior did the caressing muzzle of the pistol waver from ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... Amos, being heavy and past the agile time of life, leaped upon, instead of over, ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... wink and comprehensive smile the pair leisurely sauntered off the wharf; and when the canal-boat slowed in passing the next toll, with an agile spring the red-haired man leaped from the path to the deck, then helped his missis, as he called the bold-eyed, black-browed woman, in ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... Mohawks were seen to do the bidding of a tall and agile chieftain. Though Little Turtle was the nominal leader, it is conceded that the main antagonist whom St Clair had pitted against him in this engagement was Joseph Brant. Having sent his militiamen on in advance, the American general had bivouacked with the regulars by the ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... years of fighting had he faced such an agile and dexterous enemy, and as they backed this way and that about the room, great beads of sweat stood upon the brow of Paul of Merely, for he realized that he was fighting for his life against a ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he found a boy standing there and looking at him with soft brown eyes that were both beautiful and intelligent. Uncle John was as short as he was stout, but the boy scarcely reached to his shoulder. He was slender and agile, and clothed in a grey corduroy suit that was better in texture than the American had seen other Sicilian youths wear. As a rule the apparel of the children in this country seemed ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... dash for him, but the stranger was agile and alert, and ran swiftly away and out of the ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... You saw the camera's inadequate representation of the graceful, strong kick, with which she, at this exciting moment, sent flying, high and far, the yellow silk garter that each evening spun from her agile limb and descended ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... he had been in the act of letting himself down to the floor, by slipping under the window-sash, raised just high enough for him to squeeze through. He had half turned on the wide ledge, so as to get his legs through first and land on his knees; therefore, he was seized at a disadvantage. The most agile gymnast could not have pulled himself back from under the window-frame, balanced his body steadily again on the stone ledge outside, and have begun to crawl away toward safety, all in those few seconds before the cry and its ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... "sunshine of the poor" was happy: life was sweet to her. To know whether this is so, it is useless to inquire of the backbone or the limbs: look at the face! She lay at her window in the kindred sunshine, and in a world of sturdy, able, agile cursers, grumblers, and yawners, her face, pale its ashes, wore the eternal sunshine ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... man had tracked her, step by step, from her home. The hope of escaping such a spy lent strength to her feeble limbs. Incapable of reasoning, she quickened her steps to a run, as if it were possible to escape a man necessarily more agile than she. After running for a few minutes, she reached the shop of a pastry-cook, entered it, and fell, rather than sat, down on a chair ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... wilder regions have always been in the habit of following the black bear with horse and hound, many of them keeping regular packs of bear hounds. Such a pack includes not only pure-bred hounds, but also cross-bred animals, and some sharp, agile, hard-biting fierce dogs and terriers. They follow the bear and bring him to bay but do not try to kill him, although there are dogs of the big fighting breeds which can readily master a black bear if loosed at him three or four at a time; but the dogs of these southern bear-hound packs ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... and slim, with a springing step and a very graceful bow; his sleek hair was brushed across a rather bald head, and he had a long reddish nose. He carried a small fiddle, on which he was able to play while he was executing the most agile and difficult steps for the benefit of his pupils. On that day, and always, it was marvellous to Pennie to see how he could go sliding and capering about the room, never making one false note, nor losing his balance, and generally talking and explaining as he went. He spoke ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton |
