"Gay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of gay Elysian scenes, Of balmy zephyrs, and of flow'ry plains, My song more happy speaks a greater name, Feels higher motives and a nobler flame. For thee, O R——-, the muse attunes her strings, And mounts sublime above inferior things. I sing not now of green embow'ring woods, I sing not now the ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley
... Swiss bakery. You choose it yourself at the counter, which begins to be crowded by half past seven, and when you have collected the prescribed loaves into the basket of metallic filigree given you by one of the baker's maids, she puts it into a tissue-paper bag of a gay red color, and you join the other invalids streaming away from the bakery, their paper bags making a festive rustling ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the gallery this strange pair would move together, and as she went she gazed frequently over the gay wilderness below, and if she sat long in one of the alcoves, she would peer out at its little window always on the same scene; a scene in the winter of hopeless neglect and desolation. Dead leaves, dead dry stalks of foxgloves and mullens. broken branches, and an ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... of very varied degrees of excellence. Amongst the pianists is Miss Teresa Malderton, who nearly fell a prey to that gay deceiver Mr. Horatio Sparkins (S.B.T. 5). Her contribution to a musical evening was 'The Fall of Paris,' played, as Mr. Sparkins declared, in a ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... chance that took the Easy Chair, the other evening, to the opera in the midst of a terrible war. But there was the scene, exactly as it used to be. There were the bright rows of pretty women and smiling men; the white and fanciful opera-cloaks; the gay rich dresses; the floating ribbons; the marvellous chevelures; the pearl-gray, the dove, and "tan" gloves, holding the jewelled fans and the beautiful bouquets—the smile, the sparkle, the grace, the superb and irresistible dandyism that we all know so well in the days of golden youth—they ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... did you mix yourself up in my affairs at all?' he went on. Again she made no reply, but the question set her thinking: why had she mixed herself up in this mysterious business? It was quite at variance with the usual methods of her gay and butterfly existence to meddle at all with serious things. Had she acted merely from a desire to see justice done and wickedness punished? Or was it the desire of adventure? Or was it, perhaps, the desire ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... gay plumage flying among the trees, but he had no means of getting them. He thought that he might possibly knock some of them down. For this purpose he returned to the beach to pick up some pebbles. ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... the great time for excursions all over the island, and the boys would often be out the whole day long among the hills, or about the coast. Eric enjoyed the time particularly, and was in great request among all the boys. He was now more gay and popular than ever, and felt as if nothing were wanting to his happiness. But this brilliant prosperity was not good for him, and he felt continually that he cared far less for the reproaches of conscience than he had done in the hours of his trial; sought far less for help from God than ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... gay; not without brilliancy, and even fire. We looked-out on Life, with its strange scaffolding, where all at once harlequins dance, and men are beheaded and quartered: motley, not unterrific was the aspect; but we looked on it like brave youths. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... Golden Rule: "The Protestants are outdoing the Popes in splendid, extravagant folly in church building. Thousands on thousands are expended in gay and costly ornaments to gratify pride and a wicked ambition, that might and should go to redeem the perishing millions! Does the evil, the folly, and the madness of these proud, formal, fashionable worshiper, ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... then goes on to insist on the intellectual embellishments of the Roman dinner; their variety, their grace, their adaptation to a festive purpose. The truth is, our English imagination, more profound than the Roman, is also more gloomy, less gay, less riante. That accounts for our want of the gorgeous trictinium, with its scarlet draperies, and for many other differences both to the eye and to the understanding. But both we and the Romans ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... and, finding nothing there but disappointment, allowed himself to run lazily after a white butterfly, which led him down to the front of the pavilion, over the parterres of budding tulips and across to an east border gay with heart's-ease, bachelor's buttons, forget-me-nots and purple honesty. The scent of budding yews met him here, blown softly across from Captain Runacles' garden. The white butterfly balanced himself on this odorous breeze, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and at the same time more reluctant to move on, he began to despair of meeting Alix Crown. He could see her over near the door conversing with Alaska Spigg and Charlie Webster. Then he saw her wave her hand in farewell to some one across the room and bow to Charlie. There was a bright, gay smile on her lips as she said something to Charlie which caused that gentleman to laugh prodigiously. All hope seemed lost as she and little old Alaska turned ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... my mentioning it," Dr. Ashton said at length, "you are about as cheerful company as a death's head. You are so melancholy that I am tempted to fling in your face one of my old epigrams; that love is a gay young bachelor who can never be persuaded to marry and ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... fell into a deep sleep, and my dream was continued. The curtains again parted, and I beheld Clarimonde, not as on the former occasion, pale in her pale winding-sheet, with the violets of death upon her cheeks, but gay, sprightly, jaunty, in a superb travelling-dress of green velvet, trimmed with gold lace, and looped up on either side to allow a glimpse of satin petticoat. Her blond hair escaped in thick ringlets from beneath a broad black felt hat, decorated with white feathers whimsically twisted into various ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... occasionally reason to be sorrowful, in consequence of the temptations to which he was exposed, or from the fear of the pains of hell, arising from the remembrance of his sins, yet he was ever gay. He was one day asked the reason of this, and he gave this answer: "My sins sometimes, indeed, make me very sorrowful, and Satan would wish to imprint this sadness on me, in order to make me fall into slothfulness and weariness; but when that occurs, I look on my companion: ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... "Ain't it gay, though? Oh, no, I reckon not! Cushions, and windows, and pictures, till you can't rest. What would the boys say if they could see us cutting a swell like this in New York? By George, I wish they could ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... upon my sight; A lovely Apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; A dancing Shape, and Image gay, To haunt, to startle, ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... Jagged and needlelike splinters at the same moment scraped and pierced and gouged at the shepherd's shins, and tore his nether garments, and made him dance with pain and rage. If anything could have added more agony to the next few minutes it was the sight of Tricky. That ever gay animal was careering down the hill straight towards the feeding sheep. The pump-handle was still tied to its neck, and it clattered over the stones with a noise weird enough to drive the whole flock into the sea. The shepherd knew there must be ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... fact. Doubtless you have imagined, that according to the usual method, I had begun at the beginning, and would have finished at the end. Had I done so, this work would not have been so near to a close as, thank Heaven, it is at present. At times I have been gay, at others, sad; and I am obliged to write according to my humour, which, as variable as the wind, seldom continues in one direction. I have proceeded with this book as I should do if I had had to build a ship. The dimensions of every separate piece of timber I knew by the sheer-draught ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... exclaimed old Fabrizio da Lodi, in a voice charged with relief, whilst a younger man of good shape and gay garments strode to the door in obedience to Fabrizio's glance, ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... superior personal elegance, particularly in his bust. The style and character of his head were universally admired; but perhaps the beauty of his physiognomy has been more highly spoken of than it really merited. Its chief grace consisted, when he was in a gay humour, of a liveliness which gave a joyous meaning to every articulation of the muscles and features: when he was less agreeably disposed, the expression was morose to a very repulsive degree. It is, however, unnecessary to describe his personal character here. I have already said enough incidentally, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... of the woods at the other end of the street, her turban gleaming red. She moved in a cautious silence past the meeting-house, but when she came opposite the minister's house, thinking herself alone, she burst into a gay, rapid song, the words of which she so mutilated in her barbarous accent that only a final "Oh, Molly-oh!" could be distinguished. She carried an herb-basket on her arm now, into which, from time to time, she looked ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... heavy iron gates with a clang, she pressed her nose between the bars and looked wistfully along the straight road, carried on its high causeway above the fens, down which the gay riders were ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... crockery. Overhead were dark, heavy rafters, relieved by the gleam of yellow "crook-neck" squashes, bunches of golden corn, and long festoons of dried apples. In one window stood the good dame's rocking-chair, with its gay patchwork cushion; and her Bible, spectacles, and work-basket lay on the window-seat beside it. In another was a huge leather arm-chair, which Hilda rightly supposed to be the farmer's, and a wonderful ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... his little friend, rushed upstairs to fetch his velvet cap and his little overcoat. But he forgot, and so did Connie, all about the thin house-shoes he was wearing. Soon he had slipped into the coat, and cramming the cap on his head and looking up at Connie with a gay laugh, said: ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... you, bonnie bride, on this glad wedding day, In the midst of the curious crowd, Do you fancy that life will be always so gay? Can you work, can you wait, do you know how to pray, Can you ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... purpose that the plants form honey in different parts of the flower. This food they prepare for the insects, and then they have all sorts of contrivances to entice the little creatures to come and get it. The plants hang out gay-colored signs, as much ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... wing, but many, and those of the most beautiful, are small. Some have wings the most dainty lavender, and bodies of black; others are fawn and rose colour, and others are orange and bright blue: but pretty as they are, it is their numbers more than their beauty; and their gay, and noiseless movement through the air, crossing each other in chequered maze, that so delights ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... his chant, quite simply put up a gauntleted hand and wiped the moisture away. "Gay!" he repeated. "I'm not gay. What gave you such an idea? I tell you that though I've never been in a war, I know ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... arrival, Napoleon had a long conversation with the Duke of Otranto, and the other dignitaries of the state, on the situation of France. They all appeared intoxicated with happiness and hope. The Emperor himself could not disguise his rapture: never did I see him so madly gay, or so prodigal of boxes on the ear.[70] His conversation savoured of the agitation of his heart: the same words incessantly recurred to his tongue; and, it must be confessed, they were not very flattering to the crowd of courtiers and great personages, who already besieged ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... I call you that because the word home has for me, this hot afternoon in London, about the sweetest sound word ever had. I can see, when I close my eyes, Broadway at midday; Fifth Avenue, gay and colorful, even with all the best people away; Washington Square, cool under the trees, lovely and desirable despite the presence everywhere of alien neighbors from the district to the South. I long for home with an ardent longing; never was London so cruel, so hopeless, ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... was Nauendorff; but as he only spoke German the curiosity of the guardian of the place was not further satisfied. In a short time the same individual met a gentleman who could speak German, who took pity upon his apparent weakness and ignorance of the gay capital, and who, when he heard that he had arrived on foot the night before, and was utterly destitute, advised him to apply to the old Countess de Richemont, as one who was proverbially kind to foreigners, and had formerly been one of the attendants on the dauphin who died in ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... the trees with sweet sap in, Prepare you a good stock of wood; Be watchful in boiling, run no risk of spoiling By carelessness, prospects so good! O, as I tap, out flows the sap In a small crystal stream! I feel as gay, on this fine day, As I have in ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... when Mr. Lee seemed to find his life especially comfortable and pleasant, his hitherto blooming daughter gradually began to droop; her spirits, formerly so even, were now constantly fluctuating: at times she would sit pale and distraite among a gay and laughing circle of her young associates, while at others, a ring at the bell, a step in the hall, would suffice to call the color to her cheek and kindle animation in her eye. It was this variation perhaps, together with ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... gay party at the breakfast, and I could not remove my fascinated eyes from the radiant face of my husband, who had never seemed half so princely as now, when he was wholly my own. Once he bent his handsome head to mine, and whispered, 'La Peregrina,' the pet name he had given ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the same regulations while we were on campaigns. During the second campaign of Vienna, I recollect that the house deputy of Soupe Pierrugues was M. Eugene Pierrugues, frank, gay, witty, and much beloved by us all. An imprudence cost him dear, for in consequence of a heedlessness natural at his age he had his arm broken. We were then at Schoenbrunn. Those who have seen this imperial residence know that splendid avenues extend ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... was punished enough for both the characters she assumed," Verrian said, with a smile that was not gay. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that he imagined himself to be a useful and genuinely kingly personage. No man, except, perhaps, Philippe Egalite, was ever so contemned and hated; and until his death he imagined himself to be a good man. In all that wild set who disgraced England and disgraced human nature in those gay days of Byron's youth, I can discover only one thoroughly manly and estimable individual, and that was Gentleman Jackson, the boxer; yet, with such a marvellously wide range of villainy to study, Byron never seems to have observed one ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... to the moors, and when you are once on the moors you can walk about on the level all day long, if you are so disposed, and the air goes to the head of even a lazy old fellow like myself, and makes me quite gay and frisky. You two youngsters can go on ahead and engage in light conversation, while I puff along in the rear. At my age and bulk even the most witty conversation palls when climbing a hillside. When you get to the ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best: They would have thought who heard the strain They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids Amidst the festal-sounding shades To some unwearied minstrel dancing; While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the stings, Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round: Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound; And he, amidst his frolic play, As if he would the charming air repay, Shook thousand odours from ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... beautifullest lady you ever saw, dressed right gay and ga'. The young master—he never took ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... given her every chance to become acquainted not only with the school, but with the social life at Eton. But her interest in the gay world, as there represented, was lukewarm. Its shallowness provoked her. She, looking upon life as real and earnest, and not as a mere playground, could not sympathize with women who gave themselves up to dress, nor with men who expended ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... shadow of a man upon the wall close to her. She started up, looked round, and with a piercing cry, saw Walter Gay behind her! ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... and most perfect magician. Now do not be vexed with me if my grateful appreciation of your skill should prove somewhat covetous, and I again ask you to do me a favor. A little French poem of 48 short lines, "Sainte Cecile, Legende," by Madame Emile Girardin (Delphine Gay) is awaiting your poetic courtesy. Allow me to send you my finished composition of this Cacilia, the musical foundation of which is furnished by the Gregorian antiphone: "Cantantibus organis, Caecilia Domino decantabat." It is to be hoped that I have not spoilt ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... force when they are solemnly recognised by all:—For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it." How dry, barren, and obscure is the source from which Mr. Burke labors! and how ineffectual, though gay with flowers, are all his declamation and his arguments compared with these clear, concise, and soul-animating sentiments! Few and short as they are, they lead on to a vast field of generous and manly thinking, and do not finish, like ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... thousand Beauties of Genius and Character, like so many gaudy Apartments pouring at once upon the Eye, diffuse and throw themselves out to the Mind. The Prospect is too wide to come within the Compass of a single View: 'tis a gay Confusion of pleasing Objects, too various to be enjoyed but in a general Admiration; and they must be separated, and ey'd distinctly, in order ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... a light brown to be more correct," said Murray, as he looked at a boat some fifty yards ahead of them, where it had just shot round a bend of the smooth stream, with a Malay boy paddling; while another in bright sarong and gay-looking baju or jacket, and a natty little military-looking cap on one side of his head, leaned back trailing a line for some kind ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... Scott, Alexandre Dumas diverted them after the fashion of a magic-lantern. His personages, active as apes, strong as bulls, gay as chaffinches, enter on the scene and talk abruptly, jump off roofs to the pavement, receive frightful wounds from which they recover, are believed to be dead, and yet reappear. There are trap-doors under the boards, antidotes, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... moment—her face was sweet and gay. "Do YOU burn without reading too?"—in answer to which I assured her that if she'd trust me with her repository I'd see that Mr. Paraday should write his ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... with the air of one who expects the worst, and then some gay young spirits among the Boers came up and made things pleasant by an exhibition of their polished wit, which they chiefly exercised at the expense of poor Jess, whose appearance, as may well be imagined, was exceedingly ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... health-boat came off, but as no one was sick on board, the people in her did not trouble us much. When she went away, we were surrounded with other boats pulled by swarthy, muscular, little men with gay caps and sashes, and white shirt sleeves, who bawled, and hallooed, and jabbered, in the vain hope of making us comprehend what they said. We shouted and hallooed in return, as if each party were deaf; and it was not till after a considerable ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... "fight like tigers. Jealousy is a frequent occasion. If a squaw suspects her liege lord of undue familiarity with a rival, she darts upon the fair enchantress with the fury of a wild beast; then ensues such a pounding, scratching, hair-pulling, as beggars description." Meanwhile the gay deceiver stands at a safe distance, chuckling at the fun. The licentiousness of these Indians, he says, is equal to their cruelty. Powers (238) gives this graphic picture of a domestic scene common among ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... with showers, Is now array'd in green, Her bosom springs with flowers, The air dissolves her teen; The woods are deck'd with leaves, And trees are clothed gay, And Flora, crown'd with sheaves, With oaken boughs doth play; The birds upon the trees Do sing with pleasant voices, And chant, in their degrees, Their loves ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... trying to be better. The amount of spiritual longing in the world—in the hearts of unnumbered thousands of men and women in whom we should never suspect it; among the wise and thoughtful, among the young and gay, who seldom assuage and never betray their thirst—this is one of the most wonderful and touching facts of life. It is not more heart that is needed, but more light; not more force, but a wiser direction to be given to very ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... young now, but you can't be young always; youth and beauty and loveliness all are yours, but they can't last; and now is the time for you to make your choice—now in life's gay morn. It ain't easy when you get old. Remember that, my dear. Make your ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... devout assembly separated, which was by courtesy an hour earlier than usual, I expected every moment to hear a chorus of horse-laughs, because I clearly perceived that all of them were tired of their assumed parts, and, with me, inclined to be gay at the expense of their neighbours. But they all remembered also that they were watched by spies, and that an imprudent look or an indiscreet word, gaiety instead of gravity, noise when silence was commanded, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... really began to make something like a reputation, and to walk abroad habitually with a bank-note comfortably lodged among the other papers in his pocketbook. For a year I lived a gay and glorious life in some of the freest society in London; at the end of that time, my tradesmen, without any provocation on my part, sent in their bills. I found myself in the very absurd position of having no money ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... gay from the very beginning, even before the first glass of champagne. It began with an optimistic view of the war, then, dropping the grave subject, they talked of people, theatres, books, and general gossip. In all these things Madame ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... to find that the fog was lifting and spring was in the air. Since my dinner the previous night I had felt an odd exhilaration, a pleasure quickened by the staccato sparkle of the French tongue against my ears, the pale-blue uniforms, and gay French faces glimpsed as the train had stopped at various lighted stations. Saluting Napoleon's statue, I strolled up the rue de la Paix, took a table on a cafe pavement, and, ordering a glass of something ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... him with impotent fury. Since the union had come into play he did not have to work so many hours in the shop, and he got the same pay, but he worked as hard, because he himself cultivated his bit of land. He raised vegetables for the table. He also made the place gay with flowers to please Sylvia and himself. He had a stunted thirst ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... wife joined us at that moment. The lady had her husband's embroidered tobacco-pouch, and her store of paper in her hand, for the manufacture of the eternal cigarettes. The gentleman, dressed, as usual, in his blouse and straw hat, carried the gay little pagoda-cage, with his darling white mice in it, and smiled on them, and on us, with a bland amiability which it was ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... fattest turkey, bake all the pies you can, And, if she isn't married, invite in Mary Ann! Hang flags from every window! we'll all be glad and gay, For Peace will light the country ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... his heart, inevitably took to writing {22} poetry. But though he had the poet's heart, he had not the concentration of the great poet. All through his life he loved to string together verses, grave and gay. Some of his pasquinades are very clever; some of his serious verse is mellifluous enough; but as a poet he is not even a minor bard. Yet one of his early effusions, named Melville Island, written when ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... answered a gay voice, "And I come but to warn you not to venture on deck to-morrow till justice hath been ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... high up in an immense house tenanted by many painters—some of them English and some American. He never forgot the delight with which he awoke next morning and opened his window and saw the silver Rhine among the trees, and the fir-clad hills of Grafenberg, and heard the gay painter fellows singing as they dressed; and he called out to the good-humored slavy in ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... It was a delightful day, and the streets outside and around the areas of fire were animated and even gay. In the streets of Dublin there were no morose faces to be seen. Almost everyone was smiling and attentive, and a democratic feeling was abroad, to which our City is very much a stranger; for while in private we are a sociable and talkative people we have no street manners or ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... itself. Of means he had little, but she, confiding in his honor, consented that the estate left to her by her father should be sold, to furnish him with the necessary funds for his maintenance in Paris. In that gay capital—whilst taking advantage of libraries, and sitting at the feet of the Gamaliels of the French Bar,—he associated with gamesters and courtezans, and was at length left with resources barely sufficient to enable him to return ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... I was extremely struck with the beauty of the building, which greatly surpassed whatever I could have expected or imagined. Yet it has more the appearance of a chapel than of a place of diversion; and, though I was quite charmed with the magnificence of the room, I felt that I could not be as gay and thoughtless there as at Ranelagh; for there is something in it which rather inspires awe and solemnity, than mirth and pleasure. However, perhaps it may only have this effect upon such a novice ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... the air, was already in the Boulevard, making for Opera and the Rue Royale. It was not yet seven, the Salon would be still open. The distances seemed to him interminable—the length of the Rue Royale, the expanse of the Place de la Concorde, the gay and crowded ways of the Champs-Elysee. But at last he was mounting the stairs and battling through the rooms at the top. He looked first at the larger picture which had gained her mention honorable. It was a study ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... own physician, the doctor Mermann. Thanks to his care, the health of Orland improved, but his reason did not return. From that moment he became sad, dreamy, absorbed in melancholy. 'He is no longer,' said Regina, 'what he was before, gay and content; but is become sombre, and ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... a sort of livery, which is quite gay in its appearance, being trimmed with red. The collars and the lapels of their jackets, too, are ornamented here and there with figures of stage horns and other emblems of their profession. They also wear ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott
... the universe alone. It is too big a bauble for me.—Revenons.—At the start of me there is me. There is a mysterious little entity which is my individual self, the god who builds the machine and then makes his gay excursion of seventy years within it. Now we are talking at the moment about the machine. For the moment we are the bicycle, and not the feather-brained cyclist. So that all we can do is to define the cyclist in terms of ourself. A bicycle could say: Here, upon ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... launching the little Olive Branch. Formerly one, or perhaps several, human victims would have been offered up to their idols by the then benighted inhabitants. The vessel herself was decked with flags and garlands, and surrounded by high poles, from which gay-coloured ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... he dressed me up in a suit of his old clothes, so as to make me look respectable, and I was so much better dressed than usual that I felt quite gay. He would not allow my wife to go out with me however, for fear we might get away. I was out every day for several weeks, three or four hours in each day, trying to find a new ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... 1915. Work. At 11 a.m. tore myself away from my papers to play principal part in a gay little ceremony. Outside my office a guard of honour of Surrey Yeomanry, Naval Division and Australians formed three sides of a square. Bertier, de la Borde and Pelliot were led in smiling like brides going up to the altar, and, after ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... "Mr. Gay," said Nellie, introducing the name with some timidity, "you know who I mean?—the poet—once said to me that man was essentially imperfect until ...
— Dolly Dialogues • Anthony Hope
... Brussels, prodigious large looking glasses in silver frames, fine japan tables, beds, chairs, canopies, and window curtains of the richest Genoa damask or velvet, almost covered with gold lace or embroidery. All this is made gay by pictures, and vast jars of japan china, and large lustres of rock crystal. I have already had the honour of being invited to dinner by several of the first people of quality; and I must do them the justice to say, the good taste and magnificence ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... evening in the middle of November. The light, which had been scanty enough all day, had vanished in a thin penetrating fog. Round every lamp in the street was a colored halo; the gay shops gleamed like jewel-caverns of Aladdin hollowed out of the darkness; and the people that hurried or sauntered along looked inscrutable. Where could they live? Had they anybody to love them? Were their hearts quiet under their dingy cloaks and ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... now past forty, Custodian, and not one penny the worse that I can see; as amusable as ever; to be on board ship is reward enough for me; give me the wages of going on—in a schooner! Only, if ever I were gay, which I misremember, I am gay no more. And here is poor Henry passing his evenings on my intellectual husks, which the professors masticated; keeping the accounts of the estate—all wrong I have no doubt—I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of (a) the difference between the written manner of Gluck, in a passage from his "Alceste"—and the actually correct way of interpreting and playing it; (b) a passage from the scherzo of Mendelssohn's string quartet,—to show how a gay subject can be treated in the minor mood—and M. Saint-Saens adds: "Mendelssohn's scherzo of his 'Midsummer Night's Dream' is in sol minor but it evokes no idea of sadness, although oftentimes those who play it, deceived by its minor ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens
... in a thousand, dear Miss Della; and such feelings are right, and good, and noble. But if you ever wish to be truly a mother to your children, don't marry a fashionable man, whose pride will be to show you off all the time in gay company, and who will be always fretting to keep your beauty good. It is such husbands that make bad mothers. A woman can't be a votary of ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... nevertheless, they all exclaimed, "Oh! how beautiful!" and advised his Majesty to have some new clothes made from this splendid material for the approaching procession. "Magnificent! charming! excellent!" resounded on all sides; and every one was uncommonly gay. The Emperor shared in the general satisfaction, and presented the impostors with the ribbon of an order of knighthood to be worn in their buttonholes, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... great goodwill, and, as Mabel remarked, "all Nature looked smiling and gay." There were a few bunches of flowers among the vegetables, and the children ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... gateway of hell, and fallen hissing into the sea. No tree or bush relieves the dreariness of the landscape, and the mountains are too distant to serve as a background to the buildings; but before the door of each merchant's house facing the sea, there flies a gay little pennon; and as you walk along the silent streets, whose dust no carriage-wheel has ever desecrated, the rows of flower-pots that peep out of the windows, between curtains of white muslin, at once convince you that notwithstanding their unpretending appearance, within each ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... had a very grand party at Carlton House on Thursday last, and a gay ball for the children last Tuesday; so I suppose we are either in favour, or, which is more likely, that the people in attendance have found out the blunders and omissions which they made last year. I hear the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... not I pray! O flowers, spread with beauty my way! My harp is broken, but no sigh Spring's spirits gay shall cause to fly. And I am still so blest; In my ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... apartment and locked herself in. Having done so, she lighted every candle and lamp—flooding the place with a garish mockery of brightness. She sang as she did it—a gay, shrill air from some opera bouffe. She tore off her dark veil and wrappings. Her eyes and cheeks flamed as if touched by some unholy fire. She moved with feverish rapidity here and there—dragging a rich dress from a trunk, and jewels and laces from their places of safe keeping, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... up toward the Park. All day he had been trying to find Phrony, and laying plans for her relief when she should be found. The avenue was thronged with gay equipages and richly dressed women, yet among all his friends in New York there was but one woman to whom he could apply in such a case—Alice Lancaster. Old Mrs. Wentworth would have been another, but he could not go to her ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... strange costume of the Army in Madras, Ceylon, China. A little wooden table stood against the wall holding an album, a Bible and hymn-books, a work-basket and an irrelevant Japanese doll which seemed to stretch its absurd arms straight out in a gay little ineffectual heathen protest. There was another more embarrassing table: it had a coarse cloth; and was garnished with a loaf and butter-dish, a plate of plantains and a tin of marmalade, knives and teacups for a meal evidently impending. It was atrociously, ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... would be for the eyes of a man! Every street is swarming with thousands and thousands of bewitching shapes. These women, released from their prisons, are like so many gay and thoughtless children. Group after group, singing to the notes of the cithern, saunter along the public ways, decked out in gorgeous butterfly apparel, which flutter around their limbs like gaily coloured wings. The suns and stars ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... spirit which animated successively the bosoms of so many knights of the road; with him died away that passionate love of enterprise, that high spirit of devotion to the fair sex, which was first breathed upon the highway by the gay, gallant Claude Du-Val, the Bayard of the road—Le filou sans peur et sans reproche—but which was extinguished at last by the cord that tied the heroic Turpin to the remorseless tree. It were a subject well worthy of inquiry, to trace this decline and fall of the empire of the tobymen ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the Almond blossoms, And see the white snow melting on the hills Till Khorassan is gay with water-courses, Glad with the tinkling sound of ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... enduring change in Windom. He became a silent, brooding man who rarely smiled and whose heart lay up in the little graveyard on the ridge. The gay, larksome light fled from his eyes, his face grew stern and sometimes forbidding. She had taken with her the one great thing she had brought into his life: ineffable buoyancy. He no longer played, for there was no one with whom he would play; he no longer sang, for the music ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... they passed the toll-house, he left her and ran up the path to tap on the window; when Mrs. Todd beamed at him through the geraniums, "I've got her!" he cried. And the gay old voice called ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... converse with serious subjects, or necessarily include reference to Deity; why do we find no trace of this among the Jews? We may remember, that all festivals, in very ancient time, of every description, the grave and the gay, the penitential and the jubilant, had a religious design, and were suggested by a religious feeling. We think the peculiar cast of the Judaic faith would hardly embody itself in such a mode of expression. Moreover, tragedy was the parent of comedy,—and since the Jews had not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... "Ey, lass, there's gay carryin's-on. They're chirming and chirping like as many sparrows." The old man twisted about. "I should have thowt as thou'd have been in the thick of the thrang thysel', Mercy, carryin' on ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... be admitted, was not as gay as usual that day, with its 'deluged park' and 'unsummer'd sky,' its waterproofed toilettes and massed umbrellas, whose sides gleamed livid as they caught the light—but there was a general determination to ignore the ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... you're doing your husband a wrong. Your husband loves you, and he's a good man—I've had some talks with him, and I know he's not got nearly so much on his conscience as the average husband. I'm a Southern man, and I know these gay young bloods you've danced and flirted with all your young life. Do you think if you went probing into their secret affairs, you'd have had much pleasure in their company afterwards? I tell you again, you're doing your husband a wrong! ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... Indian summer mist; and non-existent except to people who feel rather than reason. Sybil had none of it. The imagination gave up all attempts to soar where she came. A more straightforward, downright, gay, sympathetic, shallow, warm-hearted, sternly practical young woman has rarely touched this planet. Her mind had room for neither grave-stones nor guide-books; she could not have lived in the past or the future if she ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... this poet of the gay, frivolous, exquisite ladies whom they wished to send into exile? He was the author of that graceful, erotic poetry who, through the themes which he chose for his elegant verses, had encouraged the tendencies toward luxury, diversion, and the pleasures which had transformed ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... is no night in June and we danced on the lawn in the bright twilight until late. Mrs. Blaine, Miss Dodge, Mr. Blaine, and other guests were trying to do the Scotch reel, and "whooping" like Highlanders. We were gay revelers during those two weeks. One night afterwards, at a dinner in our home in New York, chiefly made up of our Cluny visitors, Mr. Blaine told the company that he had discovered at Cluny what a real holiday was. "It is when the merest trifles become ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... with solemn meaning and mysterious Chim'd the deep-sounding bell, and prayer was bliss; A yearning impulse, undefin'd yet dear, Drove me to wander on through wood and field; With heaving breast and many a burning tear, I felt with holy joy a world reveal'd. Gay sports and festive hours proclaim'd with joyous pealing, This Easter hymn in days of old; And fond remembrance now doth me, with childlike feeling, Back from the last, the solemn step, withhold. O still sound on, ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... pleasure, happens accidentally to interfere. In good company, the pleasures of the table are always carried to a certain point of delicacy and gratification, but never to excess and riot. Plays, operas, balls, suppers, gay conversations in polite and cheerful companies, properly conclude the evenings; not to mention the tender looks that you may direct and the sighs that you may offer, upon these several occasions, to some propitious or unpropitious female deity, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... George!" exclaimed Captain Morton; then answered the Doctor's gay, inquiring stare: "Henry bet George a box of Perfectos Tom wouldn't be a year from his wedding asking 'what's her name' when the boys were discussing some girl or other, and they've laid for Tom ever since and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... unsuitable habitations of ostlers and horses, and proceeded through several narrow streets, lined with lofty houses, the shops of which were all open, and the shopkeepers, chiefly women, looked respectable and sprightly, with gay bouquets in their bosoms, to the Hotel de l'Europe; it is a fine inn, to which we had been recommended at Havre, kept by Madame F——, who, with much politeness, and many captivating movements, dressed ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... With thy golden apples gay, Which from lands so far away We have brought for ours to see! Fullest fruitage ever bearing, May ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... career enables us to select without difficulty that one of his labors which is most deserving of applause. Not his "Gondibert," notwithstanding it abounds in fine passages,—notwithstanding Gay thought it worth continuation and completion, and added several cantos,—notwithstanding Lamb eulogized it with enthusiasm, Southey warmly praised, and Campbell and Hazlitt coolly commended it. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... gay and bantering. She stopped untying parcels long enough to kiss her mother, who was laboriously picking the knots ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... delight was walking about with Elizabeth, for he now knew every place so well that he could dispense with the attendance of his servant. In these rambles he was always gay and lively, but his companion was frequently sad and melancholy, thinking on the land above, where men live, and where the sun, moon, and stars shine. Now it happened in one of their walks, as they talked of their love, and it was after midnight, they passed under the place ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... my friend Agnes Mason one morning, the servant told me his mistress would be pleased to see me in her dressing-room. Thither I repaired, and found her, to my surprise, surrounded by all sorts of gay, costly articles, appertaining to the costume of a woman of the world. To my surprise, I say, for Agnes has always been one of the greatest home-bodies in the whole circle of my acquaintances. A party, or a ball she has scarcely visited since the first years of her marriage, although possessing ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... club-house and the wind-break of trees. The polo grounds were off to the left, in a little hollow beside a copse of oak. There were not many trees over the sixty or more acres, and the roads on either side of the club grounds were marked by dense clouds of dust. Yet it was gay—open to the June heavens, with a sense of limitless breathing space. And it was also very ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moonlight. For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild but to flout the ruins gray: When the broken arches are black in night, And each shafted oriel glimmers white; When the cold light's uncertain shower Streams on the ruin'd central ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... that was ever fair and never proud; Had tongue at will and yet was never loud; Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay; Fled from her wish, and yet said, "Now I may"; She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh, Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly; She that in wisdom never was so frail To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail; She ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... horse, very possibly the loss would be urged as a good ground for an extra premium upon the torso. Besides, it is hard to see how any proper end could be devised for a paper of this nature, reciting a few incidents, sad and gay, from the records of a half-forgotten childhood, unless by putting the child to death; for which denouement, unhappily, there was no ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... gay babble of voices and amid cries and interruptions, Wayne managed to comprehend the story. He tried to speak, but everybody except the poet laughed and chatted, and the poet, suffused now with a sort of sad sweetness, ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... SWEET-PEA AND THE HEATH OR WOOD-PEA.—The well-known sweet-pea forms a fine covering to a trellis, or lattice-work in a flower-garden. Its gay and fragrant flowers, with its rambling habit, render it peculiarly adapted for such a purpose. The wood-pea, or heath-pea, is found in the heaths of Scotland, and the Highlanders of that country are extremely partial to them, and dry and chew them to give a greater relish to their ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... so difficult to decide on suitable names for all of them, that until she could settle the matter she chose a special colour for everyone, by which it was known, so that when they were all together they looked like nothing so much as a nosegay of gay flowers. As they grew older it became evident that though they were all remarkably intelligent, and profited equally by the education they received, yet they differed one from another in disposition, so much so that they gradually ceased to be known as 'Pearl,' or 'Primrose,' or whatever ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... especial benefit liqueurs had been invented, recovered a gleam of his youthful energy as he sipped the creamy foaming vintage that enlivened his dreary ttes—ttes with the widow of Scarron. It found its chief patrons however, amongst the bands of gay young roysterers, the future roues of the Regency, whom the Duc d'Orlans and the Duc de Vendme had gathered round them, at the Palais Royal and at Anet. It was at one of the famous soupers d'Anet that ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... answer, to be reminded that suffering is in its nature transitory—that it is against the first and final will of God—that it is a means only, not an end? Is it nothing to be told that it will pass away? Is not that what you would? God made man for lordly skies, great sunshine, gay colours, free winds, and delicate odours; and however the fogs may be needful for the soul, right gladly does he send them away, and cause the dayspring from on high to revisit his children. While they suffer he is brooding over them an eternal day, suffering with them but rejoicing in their future. ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... his sight. Not only were two lamps lit on the small bridge, one at each end in the ornate iron scroll work, which Quintin Matsys would not have disavowed, but, overhead, the sky was reddened by the reflection of the thousands of gas jets in the north and west; the gay and spendthrift city was awakening to life and mirth while the working town was going to bed. This glimmer gave a fresh attraction to the architectural features, and still longer ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... afternoon service in a more reckless mood than ever; and that day at dinner, and during all the evening, was more feverishly gay, more wildly excited than usual; and Henry Lovell, who seemed struck with the strangeness of my manner, for the first time made love to me without reserve. The language of passion was new to my ears; his words made my heart throb and my cheeks bum; but even while ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... herself—she being rigged up in the same white duds she'd wore when Hart's aunt come to town, and looking so real cute and pretty in 'em, and acting demure to suit, nobody'd ever a-sized her for the gay old licketty-split ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... with stories of her Boston trip; the dinner for the Lambs; the gay theatre party; but all she got for her effort was a mere occasional, "You don't say," or "That ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... knew George I. could help loving him—he possessed that peculiar charm of manner which had the effect of subjugating all who came near him into immediate slavery. Madcap Moll—his true love, his one love (England still resounds with her gay laugh)—adored him with such devotion as falls to the lot of few men, be they ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... gay flag in the distance. But let a man be near enough to get the light upon the other side and see through you; and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... all, Mrs Snow was calmly and silently pursuing the object of her visit to Canada. Through the pleasant hours of work and leisure, in all their talk of old times, and of the present time, in all moods, grave and gay, she had but one thought, one desire, to assure herself by some unfailing token that her bairns were as good and happy as ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... particularly attractive. Certainly they are without the added charm of a green drapery—creeper or ivy rose, clematis, and honeysuckle; and they are also mostly without the cottage-garden flowers, unprofitably gay like the blossoming furze, but dear to the soul: the flowers we find in so many of the villages along the rivers, especially in those of the Wylye valley to be described in a ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... later the three members of the firm went over to Cork, and there a gay wedding was celebrated; and when, at the termination of the honeymoon, Bob returned to Chislehurst, he found Captain O'Halloran and Carrie established there on a month's leave and, a day or two later, the party was increased by the arrival of ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... if it were a duel between him and you to the death—his aim to injure me, and yours to defend us. And now it has ended. Maria will breathe more freely when she hears the news, for, gay and light hearted as she is, the dread of that man has ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... her,—something that has been quivering on his lips and throbbing at his heart for many a long day. She is a queenly woman,—this dark-eyed, stately army girl. It is only two years since, her school-days finished, she has returned to her father's roof on the far frontier and resumed the gay garrison life that so charmed her when a child. Then a loving mother had been her guide, but during her long sojourn at school the blow had fallen that so wrenched her father's heart and left her motherless. Since her graduation she alone has been the joy ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... my mother's side When some dear friend became a bride! To shine beyond the rest I was In gay embroidery drest. Vain of my drapery's rich brocade, I held my flowing locks to braid." ANSTICE (from ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... chief place, and each and every individual a flashing prism of gaudy silks and velvets—well, I never saw anything to begin with it but a fight between an Upper Mississippi sunset and the aurora borealis. The huge camp of beflagged and gay-colored tents at one end of the lists, with a stiff-standing sentinel at every door and a shining shield hanging by him for challenge, was another fine sight. You see, every knight was there who had any ambition or any caste ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... father, I'm not going to have a word said against Miss Sarah. She's not gay like Miss Cunningham, 'tis true; but she's as grieved ['grieved' means 'vexed' in Yorkshire] about the way her father carries on as can be, only she's too much of a lady to go putting herself in a man's place,' said Naomi, ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... ground with the speed of lightning and smooth harmony of music. The road over which we rolled was white and lustrous as parian marble, and adorned on either side with most rare and beautiful forms of foliage; ever and anon we passed gay cavalcades and bands of spirits, who were evidently, from their festal garments, and the bright emanations which they diffused through the air, bound for some harmonial gathering on one of the numerous islands which dot the sparkling river Washingtonia, ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... gay pride of blooming May, The Lily fair and blushing Rose, To thee their early honours pay, And all their heav'nly sweets disclose. The feather'd Choir on ev'ry tree To hail thy glorious dawn repair, While the sweet sons of harmony With ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... lust, And with pale thrift destroy the red of love, The curse of Pan has sworn your destiny. Unloving, unbeloved, you go your way Toiling forever, and unwittingly You bear love's precious burden every day From flower to flower (for your blasphemy), Poor eunuch, making flower lovers gay." ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... excitement Flame Nourice telephoned the news from the village post-office. From a pedestal of boxes fairly bulging with red-wheeled go-carts, one keen young elbow rammed for balance into a gay glassy shelf of stick-candy, green tissue garlands tickling across her cheek, she sped ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... later than she had intended when she actually got away, the baby crowing joyously on her arm, and the children calling gay good-byes to her from the open door. Jake, the big brown retriever, tried to follow her; and when she ordered him back to stay with the children, he obeyed with a whimpering reluctance that came near rebellion. As she descended the valley, her feet sinking in the snow of the thawing trail, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... a highwayman in Captain Macheath's gang. Peachum says, "He is a promising, sturdy fellow, and diligent in his way. Somewhat too bold and hasty; one that may raise good contributions on the public if he does not cut himself short by murder."—Gay, The Beggar's Opera, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... and his weekly outlay; and I was really afraid that he did not allow himself sufficient food. Yet he knew that there was a little money in my hands, when he wanted it. His letters became now very gay in spirits. He keenly relished the society into which he was invited; and, on the other hand, everybody liked him. It was amusing to me, in my sick room, three hundred miles off, to hear of the impression he made, with his innocence, his fresh delight in his new life, his candor, his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various |
