"Frail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... posies! You that scorn the May, Won't you greet a friend from home Half the world away? Green against the draggled drift, Faint and frail and first — Buy my Northern blood-root And I'll know where you were nursed: Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me!" Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free; All the winds of Canada call the ploughing-rain. Take the flower ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... not learned to put out his left hand—he only made a sharp nod, as James, with tender and humble respect, approached, feeling that, how his grandmother was gone, this frail old man, his father's brother, was the last who claimed by right his filial love and gratitude. How different from the rancour and animosity with which he had ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... within and the laughing crowds had dispersed, Bob's mother came to Jeremy, put her hands on his shoulders and looked long into his face. She was a frail slip of a woman, dark like her son, with a sensitive mouth and big, black eyes full of courage. Jeremy flushed a slow scarlet under her gaze, but his eyes never flinched as ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... that is to say, by destroying the plant reproduce the heat and light which fostered it. The energy which can be set free by this process cannot be greater than that derived originally from the sun, and which, acting through the frail mechanism of green leaves, tore asunder the strong bonds of chemical affinity wherein the carbon and oxygen were hound, converting the former into the ligneous portions of the plants and setting the latter free for other uses. The power thus silently exerted is enormous; for every ton of carbon separated ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... earnestly watching for the coming of the uncle, feeling quite uncertain whether to expect a frail old broken man, or to find themselves absolutely deluded, and made ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... looked at the frail skiff, the turbulent river, and the great woods beyond, already growing mysterious beneath ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... figures that sprawled over the huge cabinet must have delighted certain modern artists, whose rickety fingers can only portray in line a fanciful corruption totally devoid of relation to humanity, but such frail spectres would have shrunk with horror from certain robust works of art, over which the most healthy of the beefy brigade might have smacked large lips for hours. The room was in fact one quarrel between the ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... know the heartache with which it is seen that the mind of a loved one is wandering from us? And yet she was puzzled. She dreaded one of those scenes in which her young strength was barely sufficient to control and soothe the frail form before her. But they did not begin as a rule in this fashion; here, though the mind wandered, was an absence of the wildness to which she had become inured. Here—and yet as she listened, as she looked, now at her ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... angel flown away just like a dove, By the royal infant, that frail and tender reed, Pardon yet once more! Pardon in the name of the tomb! Pardon in ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... only Samson and Peter the Great, but Gibbs the Pirate, Black Hawk, and Joe Manton, who had died the previous year in a fit of delirium-tremens, prophesied, strode, swore, and smashed things in turn, by means of her frail little body. As Cribb, a noted pugilist of the last century, she floored an incautious spectator, giving him a black eye which he wore for a fortnight afterwards. Singularly enough, my visitors were of the opposite cast. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... first," she returned, with a smile. "You'll find me better company than that crowd upstairs. Tell me about yourself.... Oh, I know soldiers hate to talk about themselves and the war. Never mind the war. Are you well? Did you get hurt? You look so—so frail, Daren." ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... capitalism makes unfair divisions of the profits of industry, giving the workers a share that keeps them in a man-rotting environment, and we're going to break up the system—the whole infernal profit system—the blight of capitalism upon the world." Grant brought down his hand on Morty's frail shoulder in a kind of frenzy. "Oh, it's coming—the Democracy of Labor is coming in the earth, bringing peace and hope—hope that is the 'last gift of the gods to men'—Oh, it's coming! it's coming." His eyes were blazing and his voice high pitched. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... grace witnessed, but in offences? There were no divinity but by reason of compassion; for revenges are brutish and mortal. All those times past—the loves, the sighs, the sorrows, the desires—can they not weigh down one frail misfortune? Cannot one drop of gall be hidden in so great heaps of sweetness? I may then conclude, Spes et fortuna, valete. She is gone in whom I trusted, and of me hath not one thought of mercy, nor any respect of that that was. Do with me now, therefore, what you ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... as it were "Brother Doubtful," one who hesitates between false religion and pagan religion, Duessa and Fraelissa (Morley). Fraelissa is fair but frail, and will not do ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... was standing in the half-open door. The dormer window of the garret, through which the light fell, was precisely opposite the door, and illuminated the figure with a wan light. She was a frail, emaciated, slender creature; there was nothing but a chemise and a petticoat upon that chilled and shivering nakedness. Her girdle was a string, her head ribbon a string, her pointed shoulders emerged from her chemise, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... but children of the same parents are often strangely unlike, physically and mentally. One is radiantly beautiful, and another has no charm in appearance or in manners. One is physically vigorous, and another is frail as a hothouse flower. One is so quick that lessons are no trouble at all, and another wearily plods over them till ready to give up in despair. Evidences of this unevenness of distribution meet us everywhere. One man will make a fortune where another ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... dollars, he said, 'I need not dream of paying it. I never could manage it.' But he stuck to it. He was at my house a good deal at first. We gave him a room there and he came and went as he chose. The worry told upon him. He became frail during those weeks, almost ethereal, yet it was strange how brilliant he was, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a tiny pink rose, no larger than the nail of my little finger. Stalk and leaves were there, and golden pollen lay in its delicate heart. Each fairy-petal blushed with June fire; the frail leaves were exquisitely green. Withal it was as hard and unbendable ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... care not, to be built into a wall by workmen who lived and died a century before I was even thought of, I realize the childishness of the illusion, which I indulge in spite of myself, that it can extend any sort of spiritual protection to me; I comprehend only too well what a frail and unstable base has that that symbolizes for me the ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... twisted branches, roofs torn off, destroyed RANCHOS, planks of sheds stolen by the deluge from ESTANCIAS, carcasses of drowned animals, blood-stained skins, and on a shaky tree a complete family of jaguars, howling and clutching hold of their frail raft. Still farther away, a black spot almost invisible, already caught Wilson's eye. It was Thalcave ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... mountains, amid snow-clad steeps and rock-bound fastnesses, one finds, perchance, a shell. It is so small a thing that it can be held in the hollow of the hand; so frail that a slight pressure of the finger will crush it to atoms, yet, held to the ear, it brings the surge and sweep of that vast, primeval ocean which, in the inconceivably remote past, covered the peak. And so, to the eye of the mind, the small brown book, with its hundred printed pages, brings ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... English woman, A. Mary F. Robinson. Attracted by her lovely verse, the intellectual companionship ripened into love, and for his half-dozen final years he enjoyed her wifely aid and sympathy in what seems to have been an ideal union. The end, when it came, was quick and painless. Always of a frail constitution, stunted in body from childhood, he died in harness, October 19th, 1894, his head falling forward on his desk as he wrote. The tributes that followed make plain the enthusiastic admiration James Darmesteter awakened in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... But now I know my unassisted wit Is all too weak to make me soar so high; For pardon, lady, for this fault I cry, And wiser still I grow remembering it. Yea, well I see what folly 'twere to think That largess dropped from thee like dews from heaven Could e'er be paid by work so frail as mine! To nothingness my art and talent sink; He fails who from his mortal stores hath given A thousandfold to ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... and in her exhausted state of wavering consciousness, alive only through her fond affections; gleams of perception, and momentary flashes of life, called forth only by her husband, or by the moanings of the little frail babe, which seemed to have as feeble and precarious a hold of life as herself. The doctors told John that they were haunted through the day by the remembrance of her face, so sweet, even in insensibility, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dangers dire, Since Colin is gone? Who'll fearlessly brave the maniac wave, Thoughtless of self, human life to save, Unmoved by the storm-fiend's ire? Who, Shadrach-like, will walk through fire, Since Colin is gone? Or hang his life on so frail a breath That there's but a step 'twixt life and death? For Courage is not the heritage Of the nobly born; and many a sage Has climbed to the temple of fame, And written his deathless name In letters of golden flame, Who, on ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... false. All's false. You have conspired. I am disgraced. But you will learn you have judged erroneously. I am not the frail creature you conceive. Between your vision of life's aim, and theirs Who presently will question me, I cling To theirs as light: and yours I deem a den Where ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... If his body was frail his spirit was strong and his power of imagination so great that he cheered himself through many a weary day by playing he was "captain of a tidy little ship," a soldier, a fierce pirate, an Indian chief, or an explorer in foreign lands. Miles he ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... bump hurt him, for he cheerfully shouted "Down go my horses!" We gagged him after that and got him safely in, but the poor fellow only lived a couple of days, for blood-poisoning had got too strong a hold of his frail body for medical skill to avail. His name I have forgotten, and the hospital records would only state: "Private So-and-so received [a certain date]; died [such a date]. ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... the frail cab, and the latter vehicle was crushed as though made of paper. The driver went out on his head. Screams of fear issued from the interior of the cab as it went over in a heap of wreckage ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... Dear, tho Flesh and Blood be frail, yet the dear Hopes of thee has made me hold out with a Herculean Courage— Stay, where shall I carry her? not to my own Apartment; Ariadne may surprize me: I'll to the Mountebank here i'th' Piazza, he has a Cure for all things, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... progress in romantic feeling and power of expression as we pass from Thomson to his disciple, the frail lyric poet, William Collins. Collins, born at Chichester, was an undergraduate at Oxford when he published 'Persian Eclogues' in rimed couplets to which the warm feeling and free metrical treatment give much ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... year ago, The chill weight of the winter snow For months upon her grave has lain; And now, when summer south winds blow And brier and harebell bloom again, I tread the pleasant paths we trod, I see the violet-sprinkled sod Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak The hillside flowers she loved to seek, Yet following me where'er she went With dark eyes full of love's content. The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills The air with sweetness; all the ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... charm in stalking game in this manner, although I was, in a sense, but a passenger in my natives' hands. But it was fascinating to watch their keenness and skill as they guided the frail craft round the sharp turns, the noiseless use of the paddles, the light in their eye as they constantly stood up in the canoe to keep a hidden gaze upon the game ahead, watching its every movement as well as the local eddies and currents in ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... glad of it. The extraordinary, almost unnatural, tension of the nerves which upheld Hippolyte up to this point, had now arrived at this final stage. This poor feeble boy of eighteen—exhausted by disease—looked for all the world as weak and frail as a leaflet torn from its parent tree and trembling in the breeze; but no sooner had his eye swept over his audience, for the first time during the whole of the last hour, than the most contemptuous, the most haughty expression ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... fingers curling about his big thumb like those of a child. "Poor li'l bird!" The woodsman's brow puckered, a moisture gathered in his eyes. "Dis is hell, for sure. Come, den, ma petite, I fin' a nes' for you." He raised her to her feet; then, removing his heavy woolen coat, he placed it about her frail shoulders. When she was snugly buttoned inside of it he led her out into the dim gray dawn; ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... something fit for her place. Queen Charlotte was a violent partisan of Hastings, had received presents from him, and had so far departed from the severity of her virtue as to lend her countenance to his wife, whose conduct had certainly been as reprehensible as that of any of the frail beauties who were then rigidly excluded from the English Court. The king, it was well known, took the same side. To the king and queen, all the members of the household looked submissively for guidance. The ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... rejoicings at Tara, on a day which happened to fall on the eve of Easter, he resolved to proceed to Tara on that occasion, and to confront the Druids in the midst of all the princes and magnates of the Island. With this view he returned on his former course, and landed from his frail barque at the mouth of the Boyne. Taking leave of the boatmen, he desired them to wait for him a certain number of days, when, if they did not hear from him, they might conclude him dead, and provide ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... formed like the crater at the upper end of Bear River valley. So long as we could touch the bottom with our paddles, we were very gay; but gradually, as the water deepened, we became more still in our frail batteau of gum cloth distended with air, and with pasted seams. Although the day was very calm, there was a considerable swell on the lake; and there were white patches of foam on the surface, which were slowly moving to the southward, indicating the set of a current in that direction, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... beliefs must be expelled to make room for 346:30 spiritual understanding. We cannot serve both God and mammon at the same time; but is not this what frail mortals are trying to do? Paul says: 347:1 "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." Who ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... not in judgment, Lord!" The pious mother prays; Impute not guilt to thy frail child! She knows not what ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... only book which God has ever sent, and the only one he ever will send into the world. All other books are frail and transient as time, since they are only the registers of time; but the Bible is as durable as eternity, for its pages contain the records of eternity. All other books are weak and imperfect, like their author, man; but the Bible ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... increase of desperate measures on the part of the Court. Went in the morning to Gibson's; in the evening to the Orti Sallustiani, one of the many objects here not worth seeing, though they show two great holes in a wall, which they call the Campo Scelerato, and they say it is the place where the frail vestals were buried. Coming back we met the Pope taking a drive—two coaches-and-four, with guards and outriders. We got out of the carriage and took off our hats, and our laquais de place dropped on his knees. The Pope ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... acquaintance. They found him a charming little fellow, full of quaint fancies and a delicate humour. His chatter amused them immensely, yet there was an element of pathos through it all; he looked so frail and delicate, like a fairy changeling, or some being of another world. They wondered if he would ever be able to run about ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... it is to be poor. She was dependent, frail, sensitive, conscientious. She was in the power of a hard, grasping, thin-blooded, tough-fibred, trading educator, who neither knew nor cared for a tender woman's sensibilities, but who paid her and meant to have ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... mentioned preliminarily to the knowledge of Brahman for the mere purpose of glorifying the latter; as appears from the passages in which it (the lower knowledge) is spoken of slightingly, such as (I, 2, 7), 'But frail indeed are those boats, the sacrifices, the eighteen in which this lower ceremonial has been told. Fools who praise this as the highest good are subject again and again to old age and death.' After these slighting remarks the text ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... all these little, kinky hairs, Which, though so frail, can prove such snares, And furnish some one a chance to say: 'Your comb and brush ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... behind his desk, examining another little crystal vase somewhat like the one he had shown Ralph a few weeks earlier. As his visitor entered, he held it up against the light, revealing on its dewy sides an incised design as frail as the shadow of ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... his heart stand still, for discovery now would mean the utter ruin of his project, to say nothing of the death of all of them; for a shot from one of those enormous 20-inch guns would send the frail Janequeo to the bottom like a stone, if it chanced to hit her. And evidently the Peruvians in that particular battery had taken alarm at something; for a tiny point of light appeared on the ramparts, and ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... does not disdain the sympathy and kindness of the loving, and the expressions of hopefulness that come from the good and pure. True, you may say that the learned professions are for the man who is about to die but frail supports on which to lean. The wise man as well as the ignorant man, when he fears that death is near, reaches out for help or at least some knowledge of his future. He sends for his physician, who cannot promise him anything—cannot number the days or hours of his remaining ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... proved no slight task. He was burly and heavy, while the bundles were frail and loosely stacked and failed to yield to his feet that amount of support which, of all men, the stouter ones are supposed most to require. This being so, it was not surprising to find that ere he reached it he stumbled and fell several times, until ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... book from. Five compeers in flank Stood left and right of it as tempting more— A dog's-eared Spicilegium, the fond tale O' the frail one of the Flower, by young Dumas, Vulgarised Horace for the use of schools, The Life, Death, Miracles of Saint Somebody, Saint Somebody Else, ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... she said, addressing me, "is an old frail man, little used to the company of strangers; but in former days he has had kindness from members of your house, and it would be a satisfaction to him, I think, to have the privilege ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... trip either way without as many as could be accommodated, and many ladies among them. My observation of the conduct of the fair sex, under trying and novel circumstances, has convinced me that they face inevitable dangers more bravely and with more composure than men. I have frequently seen a frail, delicate woman standing erect and unflinching upon the deck, as the shells were whistling and bursting over us, while her lawful protector would be cowering "under the lee" of a cotton bale. I pay this humble tribute of admiration to the sex, but a cynical old bachelor, to whom ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... these uncoffined bodies of the brave, and hurried them under the burning sun to the trenches outside the city. They piled them in long heaps to await the slow work of the tired grave-diggers. The frail board coffins in which they were placed at last would often burst from the swelling corpse. The air was filled with ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... as James on a time had been wont to take him; a son of his own begetting, who could understand him because he was the same flesh and blood—understand, and comfort him, and become more rich and cultured than himself because he would start even better off. To get old—like that thin, grey wiry-frail figure sitting there—and be quite alone with possessions heaping up around him; to take no interest in anything because it had no future and must pass away from him to hands and mouths and eyes for whom he cared no ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... most powerful manifestations one observes the frailest and most delicate types of creation. Here along the beach were shells, exquisitely tinted like a sunset sky, cast on shore by the cruel waves. Tender mosses and fragile sea-weed lay upon the sand revealing the infinite tenderness of these frail children of the boundless deep. Looking upon the seething, surging mass of water that rolled on the troubled sea only last night, who would have thought it the home of such delicate beauty? "Truly," we said, as we gazed in admiration and wonder at the fair scene before ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... great numbers of negroes on the road, loaded with every kind of commodity for the town market. The head is the beast of burthen among the negroes throughout the West Indies. Whatever the load, whether it be trifling or valuable, strong or frail, it is consigned to the head, both for safe keeping and for transportation. While the head is thus taxed, the hands hang useless by the side, or are busied in gesticulating, as the people chat together along the way. The negroes we passed were all decently clad. They uniformly stopped as ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... nominated among the Jaroslavl delegates to All-Russian Conference which was in preparation. Larin, whose work keeps him continually traveling, has his own car, specially arranged so that his uninterrupted labor shall have as little effect as possible on his dangerously frail body. Radek and I traveled in one of the special cars of the Central Executive Committee, of ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... blew thy welcome; cold on thee Looked the cold earth, my snowdrop frail and fair. Again that day; but wintry though it be, Come to thy Mother's heart: no frost is there. What sparkles in thy dark and guileless eye? Life's joyous dawn alone undimmed by care! Thou gift of God, canst thou then wholly die? Oh no, a soul immortal flashes ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... watchers rather than to the passing soul itself that the wonder seems to draw most close. To stand before the veil, to know that very soon it must be lifted for the loved one to pass beyond, to wait for the glimpse of that spirit-world from which only the frail wall of mortality divides even the least spiritual, to watch as it were for the Gate of Death to open and the great Revelation to flash for one blinding moment upon the dazzled eyes that may not grasp the ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... had borne The trackless trade winds. Tui Tua Kau, "King of the Reefs," had ventured over far From Tonga's shore. Caught by a wanton gale, His idle racing, lengthened in a whim To cheat his laughing mates, grew a wild flight. The frail canoe seemed, on the angry sea, A sweet rose petal blown across the night. Yet wisely now the winds had mind to crown Their joyous undertaking, and upon The shores of Fiji's isles they drew their prize. The maidens on the shore had seen afar The stranger's ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... apostasy shook down the frail edifice of the Protestant constitution, to be raised again in suffering, as the first foundations of it had been laid, by purer hands and nobler spirits.[98] In his better years Northumberland had been a faithful subject and ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... life. He had come, then—the Reverend Lewis Penzance—a poor and unhealthy scholar, to be vicar of the parish of Dunstan. Only a poor and book-absorbed man would have accepted the position. What this man wanted was no more than quiet, pure country air to fill frail lungs, a roof over his head, and a place to pore over books and manuscripts. He was a born monk and celibate—in by-gone centuries he would have lived peacefully in some monastery, spending his years in the reading and writing ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and of secondary importance. In no case can people receive from his mind more than a reflection, and then only when he joins with them in the attempt to get his thought into their heads; where, however, it is never anything but an exotic plant, stunted and frail. ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... they have no flour, and the populace who murmur when they have no bread, besides the merchants and shopkeepers who prefer coin to assignats, are notoriously pensioned by him: and even a part of the Representatives, and all the frail beauties, are said to be enlisted in his service.—These multifarious charges will be found on the journals of the Assembly, and we must of course infer, that Mr. Pitt is the ablest statesman, or the French the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... force the blade through the work. The blade is a frail instrument, and when too great a pressure is exerted it bends, and as a result a breakage follows. To enable it to do the work properly, it must be made of the hardest steel. It is, ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... lady be not mistress of her seat, and be unable to maintain a proper position of her limbs and body, so soon as her horse starts into a trot, she runs the risk of being tossed about on the saddle, like the Halcyon of the poets in her frail nest,— ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... potent in one man against another, this nervous and fluid force, eminently mobile and transmittable, is itself subject to the changing condition of our organization, and there are many circumstances which make this frail organism of ours to vary. At this point, our metaphysical observation shall stop and we will enter into an analysis of the circumstances which develop the will of man and impart to it a grater degree ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... is often as great. At some houses, everything is of good quality, well cooked, and in consequence, of easy digestion; while at others, sour or heavy bread, greasy cooking, and like kitchen abominations, if I must so call them, disorder instead of giving sustenance to a frail body like mine. The seamstress who should attempt a change of these things for her own special benefit, would soon find herself in hot water. Think a moment. Suppose, in going into a family for one or two days, or a week, I should begin by a request to have my meals ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... examination of the latter revealed no mortal injuries and after a brief rest he asserted that he felt fit to attempt the return voyage. He would have to pilot his own craft, however, as these frail vessels are not intended to ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... saw a very frail old minister who shook as he walked, as if his feet were striking against stones. He was to depart on the morrow to the place of his birth, but he came to the manse to wish his successor God-speed. Strangers were so formidable to Margaret that ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... copies of the frail little vessels in which Columbus braved the unknown horrors of the Sea of Darkness, as well as models of the ocean going leviathans ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... was uninhabited. As we were nearing it, however, a number of natives came off in large canoes loaded with cocoanuts and fruits, so that they or their fathers must have made a long voyage to reach it in their frail-looking vessels. ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... we know the cursed waste Of life in the beneficence divine Of starlight and of sunlight and soul-shine That we have squandered in sin's frail distress, Till we have drunk, and trembled at the taste, The mead ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... song surpassing thine, Richer, more sweet, more poignant. And the poet Who felt this burning beauty, and whose heart Was full of loveliest things, sang all he knew A little while, and then he died; too frail To bear this untamed, ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... (in anticipation of Beaumarchais) "as it was d—mned at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane;" and a few detached scenes in which, under the title of Eurydice Hiss'd; or, a Word to the Wise, its untoward fate was attributed to the "frail Promise of uncertain Friends." But even in these careless and half-considered productions there are happy strokes; and one scarcely looks to find such nervous and sensible lines in a mere a propos as these from ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... against churchmen high in authority, and without doubt the charges were often true, because a robe and a rope girdle, or the reversal of haberdashery, do not change the nature of a man. Down under the robe, you'll sometimes find a man frail of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... a stormy night. The rain cascaded upon the canvas in torrents, with the dull, drum-like sound familiar to dwellers in tents. As the whooping blasts charged upon it the frail structure shook and swayed and strained at its confining ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... about his thin mouth, "This camp mattress, Doctor," he slowly replied, "I find a little thin. The slats beneath chafe my poor bones. I've a frail body—though in my youth and young manhood, while soldiering in the West, I have done some rough camping and campaigning. There was flesh then to cover my nerves ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... muffled. The stream was with them. It was a swift and silent progress. For all his knowledge and experience Kars had difficulty in recognizing their course. Then there were possible submerged boulders and other "snags" and their danger to the frail craft. But these things were quite undisturbing to the scout. His sight seemed to possess something of feline powers. His sense of locality, and of danger, were something almost uncanny on the water. He had made their present journey once before, and his sureness ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... the gas mask! That frail piece of rubber alone stood between us and death. The slightest rent or leakage would be fatal, as injury to the suit of the deep sea diver. These masks had been issued in sizes 3, 4 and 5. Some fitted better than others; others ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... with the faint star in the Gap quite gone now, and all around us the hissing waste of waters upon which our frail shell of a boat was tossed! It was so black now that we could hardly see each other's faces, and in a doleful silence we toiled on till all at once there was a sobbing cry from Bob Chowne, who fell forward over his oar. Then ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... body was taken up, and placed in a chest, near her first husband's tomb. "There," says Dart, "it hath ever since continued to be seen, the bones being firmly united, and thinly clothed with flesh, like scrapings of tanned leather." This awful spectacle of frail mortality was at length removed from the public gaze into St. Nicholas's Chapel, and finally deposited under the monument of Sir George Villiers, when the vault was made for the remains of Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... she could disturb the sleep of the just, and especially that of a prophet so important as Samuel; and are we to suppose that he, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord was wont to descend, even while he was clothed with frail mortality, should be subject to be disquieted in his grave at the voice of a vile witch, and the command of an apostate prince? Did the true Deity refuse Saul the response of his prophets, and could a witch compel the actual spirit of ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... eagerness with which they pushed forward to record their votes of condemnation; and when a mob of hired ruffians, who thronged the hall, were cheering every vote for death, and holding daggers to the throat of every one from whom they apprehended a contrary judgment; one noble of frail body, but of a spirit worthy of his birth and rank, the Marquis de Villette, laughed in the faces of his threateners, looked the assassins in the face, and told them that he would not obey their orders, and that they ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... going abroad, in that coach, which had made Dulcie Locke look longingly after it, and ponder what it would be for one of her frail children to have "a ride" on the box as far as Kensington. They were bound for the house of one of the lordly patrons of arts and letters. They were bound for my Lord Burlington's, or the Earl of Mulgrave's, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... their volumes of water. The principal arm of the river is divided at the point of decline into two equal falls by a little island of rock. A long narrow suspension-bridge leads to this island, and hangs over the fall; but it is such a weak, frail construction, that one person only can cross it at a time. The owner of this dangerous path keeps it private, and imposes a toll of ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... might be lifted easily with one hand, and when at length we launched her she bounded upon the water like an india-rubber ball. Fritz was unanimously voted her rightful owner, but before his mother would hear of his entering the frail-looking skiff she declared she must contrive a swimming dress, that "should his boat receive a puncture from a sharp rock or the dorsal fin of a fish and collapse, he might yet have a chance ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... loved one better than the other it was perhaps his father, because of the pitiful weakness, because of the fragility which seemed to call for a protective gentleness. The old man had altered little in the five years. James could not remember him other than thin and bent and frail, with long wisps of silvery hair brushed over the crown to conceal his baldness, with the cheeks hollow and wrinkled, and a white moustache ineffectually concealing the weak, good-natured mouth. Ever since ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... goin' on t' Falmouth, I reckon—stan' by t' put a line in my boat!" A dinghy put off from the cutter; a frail cockle-shell, lurching and diving in the short Channel sea, and soon our pilot was astride the rail, greeting us, as one ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... Life's foam-fretted feet between; Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell Is now a shaken shadow intolerable, Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... Holly," she called, "the support of the moving stone hath lessened somewhat, so that I am not certain if it will bear our weight or no. Therefore will I cross the first, because no harm will come unto me," and, without further ado, she trod lightly but firmly across the frail bridge, and in another second was standing safe upon ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... out laughing. The whole thing, although hideous and startling, was rendered ludicrous by the accelerated movements of Alec when the grinning jaws snapped right in his face. To save himself from falling into the hole beneath, he clutched the frail form round the body, causing its rags and bones to fall in tatters and pieces on to something below, which gave ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... jasper walls of heaven shut it out from harm forever, like coral reefs encircling a lagoon in the Pacific seas. Only by remembering the years that had been before, and the years that should follow after, could the reluctant mind convince itself that this seeming eternity was frail; that whoso lingered too long among the splendors of September would be surely overtaken by treacherous frost, and biting winter winds; that there was but one way to escape the revolting decline from this pinnacle of life—to die. That ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... reduce in strength, reduce the strength of; mettre de l'eau dans son vin [Fr.]. Adj. weak, feeble, debile^; impotent &c 158; relaxed, unnerved, &c v.; sapless, strengthless^, powerless; weakly, unstrung, flaccid, adynamic^, asthenic^; nervous. soft, effeminate, feminate^, womanly. frail, fragile, shattery^; flimsy, unsubstantial, insubstantial, gimcrack, gingerbread; rickety, creaky, creaking, cranky; craichy^; drooping, tottering &c v.. broken, lame, withered, shattered, shaken, crazy, shaky; palsied &c 158; decrepit. languid, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the channel is called between Herm and Jethou, the tide at times runs with great speed, and meeting with the resistance of the Ferriers and other huge rocks, whirls, and turns, and foams in all directions, so that a frail craft like a canoe would be a death-trap to anyone foolhardy enough to venture out in it. That being the case, I could only follow my canoeing hobby when the sea was calm, but even then did ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... is a valuable work of reference. Mr. Locker, for it is by this name, and as the author of 'London Lyrics,' that he will be best remembered, devoted his attention almost exclusively to English literature, although of late years he had devoted as much attention as his frail health would allow to the formation of a section of rare books in French literature. It would be impossible to describe in this place all the many book rarities at Rowfant; we must be content, therefore, with indicating a ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... And a real sound smothered the phantom. Johnson the purser was sitting here alone in the dimness. He was smoking. I noticed that his cigar held a long frail ash. It could not have been him I was chasing. He was sitting there quite calmly. A thick-necked, heavy fellow, easily out of breath. But he was ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... cry the girl caught the frail little lady in her arms as the letter slipped unheeded from her lap to the floor. Mrs. Sherwood's eyes were closed. She ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... and paled afterwards, but he went along with his father silently; and his heart beat as he came and stood before the litter whereas the Bride lay, clad all in white and propped up on fair cushions of red silk. She was frail to look on, and worn and pale yet; but he deemed ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... stood fixed or permanent, and which swept the finest and most beautiful things away the soonest. The garland that blooms at night withers by morning; and the strength of man and the beauty of women are no longer-lived than the frail anemone, the lily and violet that flower and fall.[2] Sweetness is changed to bitterness; where the rose has spread her cup, one goes by and the brief beauty passes; returning, the seeker finds no rose, but a thorn. Swifter ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... both hands of the Indian, without the throw-stick, exceeds that of the Eskimo and Aleut darts and harpoons, with the additional velocity imparted by the throwing-stick. It must not be forgotten, also, that the kyak is a very frail, unsteady thing, and therefore not much of the momentum of the body can be utilized, as it is by the Northwest Indians in making a lunge with a heavy shaft. The throwing-stick is also said by some ...
— Throwing-sticks in the National Museum • Otis T. Mason
... Gaul—the most cruel, the most debauched of men!" exclaimed Meroe. "You do not know that this frail bark, which at this moment you are following in the distance with your eyes, bears two of your most desperate enemies. You do not know that they have beforehand given over their lives to Hesus in the hope of making to Teutates, god of journeys by land and by sea, ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... no window through which they could get Miller out, and there was no knowing how long the frail hut could resist the weight ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... letters are very tender and beautiful. One to Louisa at the age of eleven, enclosed a picture of a frail mother cared for by a faithful daughter, and says, "I have always liked it very much, for I imagined that you might be just such an industrious daughter and I such a feeble and loving mother, looking to your labor for my daily bread." There was prophecy in this ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... dust, and feeble as frail, In thee do we trust, nor find thee to fail; Thy mercies, how tender! how firm to the end, Our Maker, ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... news whenever (as she said) I "had behaved myself." At last she treated me to what she called an indulgence, and I thought rather more of a banter. She was certainly a strong, almost a violent, friend to all she liked, chief among whom was a certain frail old gentlewoman, very blind and very witty, who dwelt in the top of a tall land on a strait close, with a nest of linnets in a cage, and thronged all day with visitors. Miss Grant was very fond to carry me there and put me to entertain her friend with the narrative of my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and cognac and cigarettes, surrounded by his tasteful belongings, shut in by the heavy damask hangings, under the graceful wreaths of smoke, they formed a very pretty picture. He, robust, dark, manly; she, frail, delicate, blonde, and ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... empty, Mrs. Vaughn took her knitting to the fire, and before she began to ply the needles, looked thoughtfully at her hands. They had been soft and shapely before the days of toil. A frail but comely woman she was, with pale face, and dark eyes, ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... When Andy and his followers had removed this cover, to substitute the frail one of slender sticks, quilted with dead leaves and a scattering of soil to deceive the eye, they could not have taken ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... inside them, one after the other, but finds each and all unoccupied—neither man, woman, nor child within; nor without, either in the alleys between, or on the large open space around which the frail tenements are set, that has served as a loitering-place for the older members of the tribe, and a play-ground for ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... make rapid progress, and before midnight the Milky Way is behind them and out of sight. But, though they breathe more freely, they are by no means out of danger—alone in a frail skiff on the still turbulent ocean, and groping in thick darkness, with neither moon nor star to guide them. They have no compass, that having been forgotten in their scramble out of the sinking ship. But even if they had one it would be of little assistance to them at present, as, for ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... wonderful things, but still they can not live salvation, or, at least, they do not. There is no power so great in this world as the simple power of a holy, quiet life. The sister mentioned can never hope to do great things as other people might count them. She is in frail health; she is isolated from other saints and can not attend meetings as can many others; she has not the ability to preach or to do anything very great, as greatness is usually reckoned; but she has learned the great fact that she is not shut ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... charms, He wanted beauty trembling with alarms: His was no more a youthful dream of joy, The wretch desired to ruin and destroy; He bought indulgence with a boundless price, Most pleased when decency bow'd down to vice, When a fair dame her husband's honour sold, And a frail countess play'd for Blaney's gold. "But did not conscience in her anger rise?" Yes! and he learn'd her terrors to despise; When stung by thought, to soothing books he fled, And grew composed and harden'd as he read; Tales of Voltaire, and ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... feel that we are going on—passing from the things which surround us—advancing into the undefined future, into the unknown land. And I think that sometimes we all have vivid flashes of such a conviction. I dare say, my friend, you have seen an old man, frail, soured, and shabby, and you have thought, with a start, Perhaps there ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... Sam Meecham you'd never have dreamed he was a man of decision and potential explorer of the unknown. In fact, there were times when Sam wouldn't either. He was a pink, frail-looking person with a weak chin and shoulders used to stooping, and stereotyped thinking immediately relegated him to the ranks of the meek and mannerly. These, oddly enough, happened to be his characteristics—but that was ...
— The Odyssey of Sam Meecham • Charles E. Fritch
... at the rich folds of her black silk gown made heavy with crape, and at the frail gossamer she carried on her head, and which, as she came on, let its long appendages float out like pennons in her wake. Emily had such a high, almost fantastic notion of feminine dignity (fantastic because it left too much out of view that woman also is a human creature), that till this ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... grandeur and security: an event which naturally attends the policy of amassing treasures. By means of this money, the usurper ensured the compliance, though not the attachment, of the principal clergy and nobility; but not trusting to this frail security, he invited over from the continent, particularly from Britany and Flanders, great numbers of these bravoes or disorderly soldiers, with whom every country in Europe, by reason of the general ill police and ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... seeming it give delight and sweetness, is well thrust from us. At the very moment of its being it ceaseth to be, and for our joy repayeth us with sorrow sevenfold. Its happiness and its sorrow are more frail than a shadow, and, like the traces of a ship passing over the sea, or of a bird flying through the air, quickly disappear. But the hope of the life to come which the Christians preach is certain, and ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... the Flesh Market, the public mart, to which the frail sisterhood came in droves to sell their beauty. The sirens of Manhattan, lineal descendants of the legendary sisters who, with their songs, lured the ancient mariners to their doom, were there by the hundred, decked out in all the expensive finery that individual taste could suggest and their ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... there is a further lesson beyond this. It is one which God takes great pains to teach us, and which we, alas! are very slow to learn. "Tarry thou the Lord's leisure." In the dim eyes of frail children of earth, God's steps are often very slow. We are too apt to forget that they are very sure. But He will not be hurried: He has eternity to work in, "If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us." How many of us, who fancied their prayers unheard because ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... maturity, and age Scarce fill the circle of one summer day, Shall the poor gnat, with discontent and rage, Exclaim that Nature hastens to decay, If but a cloud obstruct the solar ray, If but a momentary shower descend? Or shall frail man Heaven's dread decree gainsay, Which bade the series of events extend Wide through unnumber'd worlds, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... all about his swagger mess-kit and the "style" of his regiment, and shows himself as the good fellow he is; even the Brigadier forgets the scarlet on his khaki collar, and remembers that he too is a frail mortal. And always, when other interest failed, one could fall back on that of one's own sometimes troublesome affairs. On the afternoon of the Dreifontein march our advance cart with the luncheon had not outspanned ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... important canal, which led in a northerly direction. Innumerable movable bridges, traversing the lesser waterways which flowed into the big canal, had to be crossed. This procedure was more alarming than one might suppose, as the frail bridges shook at the slightest touch, and also advertised my crossing to the inmates of the usual adjoining lodge by magnifying every little sound. Most of the way, moored at the water's edge, were ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... the soldiers exhausted itself, the violence of the tempest increased. The floods of rain and the blasts of the hurricane at last terminated the affray. The Spaniards, fairly conquered, were compelled to a retreat, lest the rapidly rising river should sweep away the frail and trembling bridge, over which they had passed to their unsuccessful assault. The English and Netherlanders remained masters of the field. The rising flood, too, which was fast converting the meadows ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the Inquisition, and not allowed either to set foot outside his own door, or to receive visits from non-Catholics. In the spring of 1639, however, he was allowed to go back to his villa at Gioiello, near Arcetri, and Milton obtained admission to him, old, frail, and blind, but in full possession of his mental faculty. There is observable in Milton, as Mr. Masson suggests, a prophetic fascination of the fancy on the subject of blindness. And the deep impression left by this sight of "the Tuscan artist" is evidenced by the feeling with which ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... thus kindly treated by the family with whom nominally a governess, I was on the terms of a friend with Signor Ludovico Cicogna, an Italian of noble birth. He was the only man I ever cared for. I loved him with frail human passion. I could not tell him, my true history. I could not tell him that I had a child; such intelligence would have made him renounce me at once. He had a daughter, still but an infant, by a former marriage, then brought up in France. He wished ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... alas! they took no heed How frail she was, my little one, But brought her here with cruel speed ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... father was still Duc d'Orleans, before he became King of France as "Louis Philippe." Apparently the son continued "Chartres" to his intimate friends.] and deservedly, for he was so noble and good. All our anxiety now is to hear how poor dear frail Helene (the Duchesse d'Orleans) has borne this too dreadful loss. She loved him so, and he ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... them very comfortable—especially the king, who was much embarrassed the day after his arrival at Bayonne, when, having been invited to dine with the Emperor, it was necessary to enter a modern carriage with two steps. He did not dare to put his foot on the frail things, which he feared would break under his weight; and the oscillating movement of the body of the carriage made him terribly afraid ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... appeared in Rose's place to assist her to dress, why her companion and friend was debarred attendance. The nun observed on that score an obstinate silence, but threw out many hints on the importance attached to the vain ornaments of a frail child of clay, and on the hardship that even a spouse of Heaven was compelled to divert her thoughts from her higher duties, and condescend to fasten clasps ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... vessels-of-war. The tremendous recoil of a rifled cannon fired from one of those airy decks, meant to stand no ruder shock than the vibration caused by dancing pleasure-parties, would shake the whole frail structure to pieces. Yet the ingenuity born of necessity, and the energy awakened by the immediate prospect of war, led the Confederate engineers to convert some of these pleasure-palaces into the most terrible engines ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... to the love-master's wife. She screamed with fright as he seized her dress in his teeth and dragged on it till the frail fabric tore away. By this time he had become the centre ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... that man doth cherish so, Is wondrous frail and quick to go, Nor will it stay. Yet where's the man that will not give All that he hath so ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... few are these laws and so simple that they could not be plainer were they emblazoned upon the sky as an ever-present scroll. There is the law of reverence. Conscious of vastness and sublimity, in the presence of mountains, man, frail, ignorant, passing swiftly to his grave, is asked to bow his head in the presence ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... neighborly kindness, seemed now to be indelibly impressed on every memory, and we felt that a mutual regard and friendship had bound us closer to each other, in the endearing bonds of Christian brotherhood— bonds not to be broken by the adverse scenes incident to frail ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... suggested by the reflection that an all-powerful God will not leave unpunished the transgressors of his commands; or the same word might signify the sense of reverence and unbounded veneration, with which the frail creature must feel almost overwhelmed when thinking of its exalted Creator, who knows all, sees all, and governs all. The former originates in the intellect, the latter in the heart. It is obvious that ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... assistance of two men who were struggling in the water. A hippopotamus had wantonly charged the canoe, and seizing it in his mouth, together with the poor old blind sheik who could not avoid the danger, crunched the frail boat to pieces, and so crushed and lacerated the old man that, although he was rescued by his comrades, he died during ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... small fingers trembling as they held the cards; he saw the delicate little shoulders and the poor frail neck and chest bedizened with tawdry mock jewelry and spangles; he saw the innocent young face, whose pure beauty no soil of stage paint could disfigure, with the smile still on the parted lips, but with a patient forlornness in the sad blue eyes, as if the seeing-sense ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... word like a man, she and Ursula entered the frail craft, and pushed gently off. The two men stood watching them. Gudrun was paddling. She knew the men were watching her, and it made her slow and rather clumsy. The colour flew in ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... leaning on his hand. A deadly cold perspiration trickled down his brow. His heart swelled and beat as if it would burst. What should he do? His whole prospects were in an instant blighted. "Oh God! do not desert a frail and unhappy being: give me strength to face this new and terrible misfortune," was a prayer he internally uttered. A little revived, he started to his feet, and addressing himself to the landlord, he said, "Take me to a magistrate instantly, and let us have this diabolical plot unraveled. ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... occasioned by various hindrances, I sit down to answer your inestimable favour by the late dear Mr. White, who I hope is rejoicing, far above the troubles and trials of this frail sinful state. All the books mentioned in your truly condescending and affectionate letter, came safe, and were distributed according to your humane directions. You can scarcely conceive, much less than I describe, the gratitude excited by so seasonably and precious a supply of the means ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... it any better than the real thing—a story recorded by James Madison from the final moments of the Constitutional Convention, September 17th, 1787. As the last few members signed the document, Benjamin Franklin—the oldest delegate at 81 years and in frail health—looked over toward the chair where George Washington daily presided. At the back of the chair was painted the picture of a Sun on the horizon. And turning to those sitting next to him, Franklin observed that artists found it difficult ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... delightful, and the birds chirped and twittered so merrily in the bare branches, and, more wonderful than all, the great field was brown no longer, but was covered with millions of little, fresh green blades, which trembled and bent their frail bodies before the ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dim Atlantic line, The only hostile smoke Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine, From some frail, floating oak. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... replied the laird; 'my wife, to be sure, is a frail woman, but she's no the gear ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... yet they talk of frail femininity. Ah, Eileen! as difficult to understand as, as ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... of success, Phoebe proceeded to initiate me into the first process of my job, which consisted in pasting slippery, sticky strips of muslin over the corners of the rough brown boxes that were piled high about us in frail, tottering towers reaching to the ceiling, which was trellised over with a network of electric wires and steam-pipes. Two hundred and fifty of these boxes remained to be finished on the particular order upon which Phoebe was working. Each must be given eight ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... timber, and the bloated carcasses of cattle choked the stream. All the ruin worked by the flood seemed to be compressed in this disastrous current. Once or twice he narrowly escaped collision with a heavy beam or the bed of some farmer's wagon. Once he was swamped by a tree, and righted his frail boat while ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... door was set into the rock portal, and not a wisp of light came through the brush that, covered the crevice. Pauline, after a brief hopeless test of her frail strength against the weight of the granite mass, moved slowly along the wall to the ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... spoke, Pauline, despite her surprise, could scarcely refrain from laughter, for Otto's words were fulfilled almost to the letter. Amid a strife of elements that caused their frail erections to tremble, the little door burst open, and Dominick, stooping low to save his head, entered. He was followed by the gaunt, dark form of Malines, who, in rough garments and long fishermen's boots, with pistols in belt, and cutlass by his side, was a particularly good ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... in haste to celebrate a victory, Porthos," interposed D'Artagnan; "never have we incurred a greater danger than we are now encountering. Men may subdue men—they cannot overcome the elements. We are now on the sea, at night, without any pilot, in a frail bark; should a blast of wind upset the ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not any weed That blooms its little life in forest shade, And dies when it hath cast its ripened seed, Forget the human creatures He has made, Frail as they are, and full ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... the star-shaped bloodroot, with its ten or a dozen petals of waxen white set with jewel-like precision about a centre of dead gold. There was the less formal phlox of a pinkish purple; deer's-tongue, white and yellow; frail anemones, both pink and white; small but stately violets, and the wake-robin with its wine-red centre among long green leaves. There was a dogwood in the act of unfolding its little green tents that would presently be snow-white, and a plum tree ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... out such horrors of the fight as none but Spanish women born and bred dare trust themselves to see. My place was distant and far below; yet my eyes were keen, and it seemed to me that she looked thin and frail, though very beautiful. If for an instant, since Dick broke the news to me, I had doubted the loyalty of her heart, the sight of her sad young face would have driven doubt away. I was more than ever certain that in promising to marry Carmona ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... notions which would reverse all our best experience, and persuade us to discontinue a useful institution from the influence of vague and unfounded declamation against its danger to the public liberties. Our liberties, indeed, must stand upon very frail foundations, if the government cannot, without endangering them, avail itself of those common facilities, in the collection of its revenues and the management of its finances, which all other governments, in commercial countries, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... "Pshaw!" said Cary; "too frail for use! I'm off to bed, Fair. That bill comes up to-morrow, and it means a bitter fight. Good-night,—and I say, Fair, hold your tongue about ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... The frail craft rocked terribly and once or twice she shipped some water that Lathrop instantly bailed out with a shallow ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... picture of Mr. Bateson—in the attitude of Juliet and the attire of a local preacher—leaning over a balcony, which was overgrown with a semi-tropical luxuriance of artificial ivy, and which was obviously too frail to support him. But the masterpiece in Mrs. Bateson's art-gallery was a soul-stirring illustration of the death of the revered John Wesley. This picture was divided into two compartments: the first represented the room at Wesley's house in City Road, with the assembled survivors of ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler |
