"Airiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lost part of their value, as their occasions, being less remembered, raised less emotion, Some of them, however, are preserved by their inherent excellence. The burlesque of Boileau's ode on Namur has in some parts such airiness and levity as will always procure it readers, even among those who cannot compare it with the original. The epistle to Boileau is not so happy. The "Poems to the King," are now perused only by young students, who read merely that ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... the place of years, and I will be as plain with you as if I were a Lady Abbess. No. The suggestion is not appropriate to our Dora. Our dearest Dora is a favourite child of nature. She is a thing of light, and airiness, and joy. I am free to confess that if it could be done, it might be well, but—' And Miss Mills ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... decidedly omnivorous. Their appetite is immense; quantity and (for most of them come from France), not quality, is what they chiefly desire. When not dining at their own expense, they eat all they can, and pocket the rest. Indeed, a celebrated sylphide—unsurpassed for the graceful airiness of her evolutions—has been known to make the sunflower in the last scene bend with the additional weight of a roast pig, an apple pie, and sixteen omelettes soufflees—drink, including porter, in proportion. Various philosophers have endeavoured to account for this extraordinary digestive capacity; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... dragon-coil of centuries, will keep men away from these true apples of the Hesperides if once they have caught sight or scent of them. If poems die, it is because there was never true life in them, that is, that true poetic vitality which no depth of thought, no airiness of fancy, no sincerity of feeling, can singly communicate, but which leaps throbbing at touch of that shaping faculty the imagination. Take Aristotle's ethics, the scholastic philosophy, the theology of ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... Agar overdid things. The airiness of her indifference might have deceived a child of eight, provided that its intellect ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... and grace as here. The rocks are of that sort called Primitive by the mineralogists, which always arrange themselves in masses of a rugged, gigantic character; which ruggedness, however, is here tempered by a singular airiness of form, and softness of environment: in a climate favourable to vegetation, the gray cliff, itself covered with lichens, shoots-up through a garment of foliage or verdure; and white, bright cottages, tree-shaded, cluster round the everlasting granite. In fine vicissitude, Beauty alternates ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... concern to make the natives pious, a design in which they all confess defeat, is, I suppose, the explanation of their miserable system. But they might see in the girls' school at Tai-o-hae, under the brisk, housewifely sisters, a different picture of efficiency, and a scene of neatness, airiness, and spirited and mirthful occupation that should shame them into cheerier methods. The sisters themselves lament their failure. They complain the annual holiday undoes the whole year's work; they complain particularly of the heartless indifference of the girls. Out of so many pretty and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with an assumption of nonchalant airiness and candid promptness. "She 'better bettered' his expectations—she surpassed his fondest. She was a thousand times more delightful than he had dreamed—though, as you know, he had dreamed a good deal. Pauline de Fleuvieres ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... the sustainment of its weight, so all readers would be more or less oppressed and worried by this presentation of everything in one smart point of view, when they know it must have other, and weightier, and more solid properties. Airiness and good spirits are always delightful, and are inseparable from notes of a cheerful trip; but they should sympathize with many things as well as see them in a lively way. It is but a word or a touch that expresses this humanity, but without that ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... when not even this accommodation, poor as it was, could be enjoyed with any degree of comfort. When the summer heat set in in earnest, the huts became uninhabitable from their closeness and the vermin with which they swarmed, while a canvas tent, though far preferable in the way of airiness and cleanliness, did ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... and, dismissing the subject with airiness somewhat exaggerated, drew out his huge gilt snuffbox. The snow was now falling more thickly, drawing a white and fleecy veil between the two upon the road and the story-teller and his audience beneath the distant elm. "Are you for Williamsburgh?" demanded the Highlander, when ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Pecksniff, backing from the steps, with his head on one side and his eyes half-shut that he might the better take in the proportions of the exterior: 'If you look, my dears, at the cornice which supports the roof, and observe the airiness of its construction, especially where it sweeps the southern angle of the building, you will feel with me—How do you do, sir? ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... him one day on a visit to the Benares college, a handsome building in process of erection by the Indian Government. The Gothic and Oriental styles of architecture are most happily combined, and there is an airiness about the building; but this did not in any way detract from its solidity. The cost of the college and professor's house is not to exceed 13,000 pounds; the length of the large school-room is 260 feet, ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... be the care of learning, when she quits her exaltation, to descend with dignity. Nothing is more despicable than the airiness and jocularity of a man bred to severe science, and solitary meditation. To trifle agreeably is a secret which schools cannot impart; that gay negligence and vivacious levity, which charm down resistance wherever they appear, are never ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Any common butcher's boy would be better put up. A little box of a bedroom like this, with no better testimonial to its cleanliness and airiness than could be derived from the fact that the dirty little watch-dog downstairs had occupied it! And in place of a parlour that bare gaunt room below in which to sit of an evening and take his meals and enjoy himself. Why ever had the Corporation not had the ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Stout? [He takes up the crackers—with transparent airiness.] The Holyroods had some trouble with their ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... forward this analysis of his brother's state of mind with a gravity which was in complete contrast with the light airiness of his tea-table gossip, and Barrant felt that he was speaking ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... adopt any disinfectants; indeed, they don't appear to know their use. The patients all lie with their backs to the light, and there is a space five feet wide between the beds and the windows. All the windows were open both at the top and bottom, so as to create a complete current of air, and the airiness and freedom from smells and closeness were quite remarkable, considering the state in which the wounds are, which is worse than I dare attempt to describe. The hospital is conducted on strictly "temperance principles," i.e., ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... built almost a mansion for his bride, and in the latter years Alaire had remodeled and changed it to suit her own ideas. The verandas were wide, the rooms large and cool and open; polished floors, brilliant grass mats, and easy wicker furniture gave it a further airiness. The place was comfortable, luxurious; yet it was a home ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach |
