"Graceful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saddest in the sad history of the Revolution. The sufferers were so innocent, so brave, so eloquent, so accomplished, so young. Some of them were graceful and handsome youths of six or seven and twenty. Vergniaud and Gensonne were little more than thirty. They had been only a few months engaged in public affairs. In a few months the fame of their genius had filled Europe; and they were to die for no crime but this, that they had wished to combine ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the touch of the soft hand, in the room that was by no means unfamiliar, though she had never slept in the house before. It was growing dark, and the little fire lighted it up in a friendly manner. Wherever Aunt Jane was, everything was neat; wherever Aunt Adeline was, everything was graceful. Gillian was old enough to like the general prettiness; but it somewhat awed Val and Fergus, who stood straight and shy till they were taken upstairs. The two girls had a very pretty room and dressing-room—-the guest chamber, in fact; and Fergus was not far off, in a small ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by fastening in your mind Carlyle's general symbol of the best attainments of northern religious sculpture,—"three whalecubs combined by boiling," and reflecting that the mental history of all northern European art is the modification of that graceful type, under the orders of the ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... into Hugh's life. He had always been observant, in his quiet way, of other boys, and at last, as his nature developed, he began to idealise them in a romantic way. The first object of his admiration was a boy much older than himself, an independent, graceful creature, who had a strong taste for beautiful things, and adorned his room with china and pictures; he was moreover a contributor of verses to the school magazine, which seemed to Hugh models of elegance and grace. But he was far too shy to think of attracting ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Chinese Sung master Ririomin, which have been for six hundred years or more the treasures of Japan. They were mounted upon Japanese brocade of blue and dull gold, framed in keyaki wood, and out of their brown, time-stained shadows the great Rakan scowled or grinned or placidly gazed, grotesquely graceful ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... worthy of the charge. She began to love the little, helpless creature, who looked to her now for every good. She took pleasure in combing the soft, brown hair, that had, hitherto, been twisted into an awkward knot, into pretty, graceful curls, and it would be hard to believe that the little, slender, sable-clad child, with the serious, brown eyes, that always followed Clemence with looks of love in their yearning, amber depths, could possibly be the same wild, sly, little Ruth ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... Catholic worship, erected at Pointe a Puizeau about 1854, is very picturesquely located; its stained glass windows, its graceful new spire, frescoed ceilings, add much to its beauty. The Rev'd Messire George Drolet has succeeded to the Rev. Father Harkin, who had been in charge ever since the late Abbe Ferland was appointed secretary to the Archbishop of Quebec and Military Chaplain to the Forces. For ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... Orsa had been dead since 1549.[47] It may be convenient to treat here of the various portraits and more or less idealised portrait-pieces in which Titian has immortalised the thoroughly Venetian beauty of his daughter. First we have in the great Ecce Homo of Vienna the graceful white-robed figure of a young girl of some fourteen years, placed, with the boy whom she guards, on the steps of Pilate's palace. Then there is the famous piece Lavinia with a Dish of Fruit, dating according to ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... even more interested in this than she had been in the making of her travelling-suit, and she was never tired of watching the woman's skilful fingers as she fashioned the warp and woof upon the frames until the perfect webs were completed. What strong snow-shoes they were, and how graceful! Jean was anxious to try them, and longed for the ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... very speedily. She tells me the ladies are to go into a new fashion shortly, and that is, to wear short coats, above their ancles; which she and I do not like, but conclude this long trayne to be mighty graceful. But she cries out of the vices of the Court, and how they are going to set up plays already; and how, the next day after the late great fast, the Duchesse of York did give the King and Queene a play. Nay, she told me that they have heretofore ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... position of a volume that I must emphasise what has already been said about actual personal convenience being first studied, and the library as arranged on the shelves should be the result of personal convenience and graceful effect. This is more particularly necessary when a library is in course of expansion. The subjects which will expand quickest, and the space they will require, can never be accurately gauged, and frequent ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... sticks in my hand, which he said represented sugar, another signified tobacco, and the other four, pork, flour, whisky, and blankets, all of which he assured me his people were in great need of, and must have. His talk was then concluded, and he sat down, apparently much gratified with the graceful and impressive manner with which he had executed his part ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... a handsome young breed of Ambrose's own age. Ambrose surveyed his broad shoulders, his thin, graceful waist and thighs approvingly. He rejoiced in an animal built for speed and endurance. Moreover, the young man's glance was direct and calm. This was ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... his rap on the foolish imitation Warwick knocker. Kate flung wide the door. He stood in the dim light of the hall, hesitating, it would seem, to enter upon the evening's drama. Tall, graceful as always, with a magnetic force behind his languor, he impressed Kate as a man whom few women would be able to resist; whom, indeed, it was a sort of folly, perhaps even an impiety, to cast out ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... stared; she had a stocking pulled over her hand and was pricking at it with a needle which she poised in the act. Her task was homely, but her movement, like all her movements, graceful. ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... the Spider contracts her abdomen slightly and touches the insect for a moment with the end of her spinnerets; then, with her front tarsi, she sets her victim spinning. The Squirrel, in the moving cylinder of his cage, does not display a more graceful or nimbler dexterity. A cross-bar of the sticky spiral serves as an axis for the tiny machine, which turns, turns swiftly, like a spit. It is a treat to the eyes to see ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... Fear naught, for thou art safe from hurt, and leave this hebetude for 'tis a bad habit." And he went on to discover to him his hidden beauties, striving to turn the reins of his reason with his bendings in graceful guise, whilst the Dervish turned away his face and said, "I seek refuge with Allah! Have some shame, O my son![FN391] This is a forbidden thing I deem and I will not do it, no, not even in dream." The boy pressed upon him, but the Dervish got free from him and turning towards Meccah ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... they did, until it was decided that they had none, but would dry up like so much bright vapour at the last day. It was more in sadness than in anger that the priests announced this fiat; for Irish sprites and goblins do gay, graceful, and humorous things, for the most part, tricksy sins, not deserving annihilation, whereas Scottish fays are sometimes malevolent,—or ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... declare his sentiments to the President. A beautiful work of wood carving was shown on an easel, which had a frame of hard wood, the whole, easel and frame, with elaborately wrought ornamentation, cut out of one tree. It was at once strong and graceful, simple and decorative. The picture was a gold medallion, raised on a plate of silver, an excellent likeness of his grace. It was evident that the refinements of art were known to "these barbarians of the Philippines," ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... being the handsomest people in the world; the men being tall, sinewy and extraordinarily agile, while the women are slender and graceful, with perfectly modeled figures. The Nair girl is carefully chaperoned until she arrives at a marriageable age, say, fourteen or fifteen years, at which time some complaisant individual is selected, who goes through the marriage ceremony with her. As soon as the groom ties ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... expressions," we are told, "diffused universal enchantment, and combined with the graceful condescension and dignified affability of manner, which the Sovereign knew so well to exhibit when inclined to do so, roused the loyalty of the people to a perfect enthusiasm. For the week that he remained there, his life was a ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Dirce flows Do white-arm'd maidens chaunt my lay, Flapping the while with laurel-rose The honey-gathering tribes away; And sweetly, sweetly Attic tongues Lisp your Corinna's early songs; To her with feet more graceful come The verses that have dwelt in kindred ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... eyes are just opening to beauty, and whose imagination is ready to be kindled by a spark from any torch, we can think of few more delightful or enduring gifts than this book, with its immortal themes and its graceful interpretation in our time and tongue. The illustrations by Mr. F. C. ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... and graceful skater. She skated with Neale O'Neil (who at once proved himself as good as any boy on the ice) and that offended Trix, for she had wished to ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... Necklaces of beads and animals' teeth hung in many strands upon the breast of his deerskin shirt. Leggings and moccasins were a mass of beads, feathers, and porcupines' quills woven in intricately fantastic designs. And, over all, there hung in graceful folds an ermine robe ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... turned down to admit the weary form. The whitest, most beautifully fluted curtains were hung before the windows, whose panes glistened like diamonds from hot soap-suds and crisp rubbings. All the pretty knick-knacks were brought in and put upon the walls with an eye to Ernestine's graceful little fancy likings. The easiest chairs, and prettiest rugs—in short, when finished, it was a little bower, and Kittie put the finishing touches in the way of flowers and vines, that, together, with the sunshine, ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... With a graceful bow, he said, as if to assure himself of a welcome, "Madam, I should not have ventured in your presence if I had not been informed by my friends at the Home, upon whom I have called, that you would be glad to see me; for I felt that ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... generally white, though a black swan has been discovered in Australia. It is not very often seen in this country. It was brought from Asia and Eastern Europe into England—from whence, most probably, a few specimens have been introduced into this country. The Swan is very graceful in the water, but on land ...
— Child's Book of Water Birds • Anonymous
... gracious Ukko, that hath given me a daughter. Praise Ukko, my son, that thou hast won this lovely maiden, the pride of the Northland, who is purer than the snow, more graceful than the swan, and more beautiful than the stars. Let us make our dwelling larger, and decorate the walls most beautifully in honour of thy lovely bride, the ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... he saw was a girl well grown and of incomparable softness. She could not have been much more than twenty, but her body was already rounded to the full flower of its youth. This body was neither tall nor slender nor particularly graceful. Yet it carried itself with an effect of tallness and ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... was arranged that Bab and Mollie should go with Ruth to Washington. Bab had grown taller and more slender in the past few months. Her brown braids are now always coiled about her graceful head. Her hair was parted in the middle, although a few little curls still escaped in the old, ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... did not speak or dance, or even assume "artistic positions"; what she did was far more striking and wonderful. She merely sat or stood or reclined in many ways, every one of which seemed to be perfectly natural or habitual, and all of which were incredibly graceful. I have forgotten how such women were called in Italy. I am sure that this one had never been trained to it, for the absolute ease and naturalness with which she sat or stood could never have been taught. If it could, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... him, throwing a dull glare into Lanyard's eyes. His man sat in a pose of earnest attention, bending forward a trifle to follow the exposition of Mr. Blensop, who stood beneath a portrait on the wall between the chimney-piece and the windows, his attitude incurably graceful, a hand on the switch controlling the picture-light. Apparently he had just finished speaking, for he paused, looking toward his guest with a quiet and intimate smile as he turned off ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... is one of the finest of Keats's shorter poems. Leigh Hunt describes it as "the most complete specimen of his genius; exquisitely loving; young, but full-grown poetry of the rarest description; graceful as the beardless Apollo; glowing and gorgeous with the colors of romance." The stanzas here quoted, while comprising the main portion of the story, are not quite half ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... reappear—he probably had a headache which kept him indoors. I had given the girl a shirt when she first came to the camp, and Peter Nicholls had given her protector an old coat, which was rather an elongated affair; on their arrival this morning, these graceful garments had been exchanged, and the girl appeared in the coat, trailing two feet on the ground, and the man wore the shirt, which scarcely adorned him enough. I gave them some breakfast and they went away, but returned very punctually to dinner. Then I determined not ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... ambitious in more lofty lays, And teach the nation their new monarch's praise, 40 Describe his awful look and godlike mind, And Caesar's power with Cato's virtue joined. Meanwhile, bright Princess, who, with graceful ease And native majesty, are formed to please, Behold those arts with a propitious eye, That suppliant to their great protectress fly! Then shall they triumph, and the British stage Improve her manners and refine her rage, More noble characters expose ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... an Eastern man," said Jeff, "who knew how to drink from a jug with one hand. It's as easy as lying. So." He grasped the handle with the right hand, threw the jug back upon his arm, and applied his lips to the nozzle. It was an act as graceful as it was simple. "Besides," said Mr. Thompson, setting it down, "it puts every man on his honor as ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... than of his dreamy eyes, the scornful sweetness of his mouth, the purity of his forehead, his sensitive nostrils, his pretty, ineffective little chin. She had studied her own looks with reference to his, and was glad to own them in no wise comparable, though she knew she was more graceful, and she could not help seeing that she was a little taller; she kept this fact from herself as much as possible. Her features were not regular, like his, but she could perceive that they had charm in their irregularity; ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... guess that's about all. Van Senior took it enough sight more graceful than you'd expect, under the circumstances. He went straight up to his room and never showed up till suppertime. Then he marches to where Mabel and his son was, on the porch, and ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... turned a man steadfastly away that he might be with her forever beyond the parched forest of death. Now such emotion is held strictly to the gains, the accountability, of life's immediate span; women have left their cloudy magnificence for a footing on earth; but—at least in warm graceful youth—their dreams are still of a Perion de la Foret. These, clear-eyed, they disavow; yet their secret desire, the most Elysian of all hopes, to burn at once with the body and the soul, ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... that, such being his origin, we are at liberty to suppose for him whatever long cultivation and gentility we may think necessary, in his parentage of either side,—such as was indicated also by his graceful and refined beauty of person. He showed, indeed, even before he began to read at all, an instinctive attraction towards books, and a love for and interest in even the material form of knowledge,—the plates, the print, the binding ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... while that in the other was clear and yellow as a topaz. Only two places had been laid on this festive board, and opposite Zerbine sat the Marquis de Bruyeres, of whom de Sigognac was in search. The soubrette welcomed him warmly, with a graceful mingling of the actress's familiarity with her comrade with her ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... final civilisation, Lemuel began to feel an ambition to move more lightly and quickly than he had yet known how to do, to speak promptly, and to appear well. Our schooling does not train us to graceful or even correct speech; even our colleges often leave that uncouth. Many of Mrs. Harmon's boarders spoke bad grammar through their noses; but the ladies dressed stylishly, and the men were good arithmeticians. Lemuel obeyed a native impulse rather than a good example in cultivating a better ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... gradually expands, a mouth appears in the centre, and from it unfold a multitude of petals of a variety of colors—pale scarlet, blood-red, orange, and white—which wave gently back and forth like a graceful nodding flower. Now drop a small earth-worm or tiny fish in the water. The instant it touches the least of these petal-like tentacles the whole flower is in commotion, all the arms reaching toward the struggling victim, and ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... It was graceful and generous for the wife thus to guard, as far as in her lay, her husband's time and thoughts from interruption. For, in addition to his pastoral labors, in which he never spared himself, were his missionary toils among the heathen. His poor Indian people regarded him as ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... fifteenth summer,—a tall, graceful girl, with a sweet, delicate face. She was still pale and slender, for she had not quite outgrown the effects of the old sorrow, starvation, and exposure. Her face often wore an expression of pensive sadness, unsuited to her years,—a faint shadow of her ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... her eyes played the part of heir-apparent—assisted, with some bitter thoughts, at the toilet. Maternal forethought lowered the modest gauzy neckerchief to show a little of Cesarine's shoulders and the spring of her graceful throat, which was remarkably elegant. The Grecian bodice, crossing from left to right with five folds, opened slightly, showing delicious curves; the gray merino dress with green furbelows defined the pretty waist, which had never looked so slender ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... girls, by name Esther Ryland, was noticed by many who frequented M——'s store on account of her unusually attractive person and elegance of manners; she was a little above the average height, yet graceful and well-formed, with remarkably handsome features, and eyes that sparkled like a pair of diamonds. Esther had not been long in Messrs. M——'s service, yet she had become so popular as a saleswoman that crowds frequented the particular counter at which she assisted, ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... retaining no badge of his country's costume but the little Glengary cap with its chieftain's token of an eagle's feather. His manners were not rude and haughty, as James had decided they would be; they were singularly frank and pleasant. Gracious and graceful, exceedingly handsome and light-hearted, he was likely to prove a far more dangerous rival than even James' jealous heart ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... night in a Paris street with somebody who crossed swords with him, and disarmed his antagonist. He had a right, according to the rules, to kill him, but he declined to do so. When he came home, he pleased his father much by his graceful behavior and elegant attire. "This day," says Mr. Pepys in his diary for August 26, 1664, "my wife tells me that Mr. Pen, Sir William's son, is come back from France, and came to visit her. A most modish person grown, she says, a fine gentleman." Pepys thinks that he is even ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... and many a non-dancing mother to encourage her child to learn to dance, because she wanted her to become graceful, and in many a case that daughter has lost grace, health, virtue and all that a woman holds dear. If you have a choice of a saloon for your son, and a so-called select dancing school for your daughter, I beseech you, in the name ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... Even so graceful and able a writer as Longfellow illustrates fully the truth of these suggestions. Mr. Charles F. Johnson, in a well-written essay on ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... Parliament. The majestic hall, which still calls forth the admiration of all travellers at Poitiers, is little changed in its appearance since the time of that memorable event. It is one of the noblest specimens of domestic architecture in France: its graceful pillars and arched roof, and immense fireplace, remain as they were in the early days of ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... charmed with the village, and with the many kindly greetings she received from the peasant folk. All seemed glad to see her, the market-women even pressing an apple or a few plums on her. They, on their side, were delighted with her graceful manner and her excellent French. They seemed to know ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... affections; but he exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish, his deportment easy, erect, and noble; the best horseman of his age, and the most, graceful figure that could be seen on horseback. Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... could have been greater. On both banks of the river lay an open lawn-like space, grass covered and planted, for the gentleness and order of the place suggested human care, with graceful trees on the top of little mounds. As far as they could gaze, this lawn rose and sank with the undulating motion of an old English park. The change of scene naturally suggested a change of position, grateful to most of them. They rose ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... historical scene, a picture of which hung in the old hall at Kirklands, of a mixed group of Cavaliers and Puritans. This preacher seemed in his appearance curiously to combine the varied characteristics of both the types of men in these portraits. That graceful flexibility of tone and movement, the high forehead and waving locks, surely belong to the gallant old Cavalier, but there is something of the stern Puritan too. The resoluteness of the firm though mobile mouth betokens a strength of moral purpose, which ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... eyes, triangular in shape like those of the red phoenix, two eyebrows, curved upwards at each temple, like willow leaves. Her stature was elegant; her figure graceful; her powdered face like dawning spring, majestic, yet not haughty. Her carnation lips, long before they parted, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... very graceful, of various heights and forms, from eight to fifteen feet high, their tall leaves waving over in the most ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... and with the graceful wreath Or of Parnassus or the Paphian isle Shall bind my brows—but I ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... the trees of the park were visible. The rest of the house was still in its robust beauty. One end abutted on the round tower, the other on the small traceried chapel, and in an angle of the building stood a graceful well-head crowned with mossy urns. A few roses grew against the walls, and on an upper window-sill I remember noticing a ...
— Kerfol - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... contrast marked to the eye by the italic words "them" and "you." The next two sentences are quite short, and variety is given by the simple transposition in "and very good farmers they were." This is no more than a graceful little twirl to relieve any possible monotony. The fourth sentence in the paragraph is also very short, purposely made so for emphasis. It gives in a word what the following long sentence presents in detail. And observe the constant variation in the form ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... don't;" and Lil bounced out of the hammock, and into the house, where in the cool darkness of a shaded parlor sat a slender lady, with a pile of flosses in her lap, and a graceful basket in her hands, which she was ornamenting. "Aunt Kit, I have come to ask a favor. We are just bored to ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... she sings," Laverick remarked. "She has none of the vivacity of the Frenchwomen. Yet there was never anything so graceful in the world as the way she ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I myself love all these things, yet so as with a difference:— for example, some animals better than others, some men rather than other men; the nightingale before the cuckoo, the swift and graceful palfrey before the slow and asinine mule. Your humour goes to confound all qualities. What sports do you use in ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... well in hand!" But for a peculiar flashing of the eyes, and sternness in the features, of the men, we should have fancied them in the Home Park at Windsor, encircled, not by ferocious Sikhs in the horrid harness of war, but by the graceful array of gentler—though, in sooth, more irresistible—foes. Sir Harry Smith has disappeared—very likely hidden himself behind a baggage waggon or a huge drum. Sapient speculator! behold him yonder on the house-top, darting his eagle vision down into the centre ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... the bat met the ball squarely and sent it over center field in a graceful ascending curve that bid fair to carry ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... the sun for a few minutes, leaning on the arm of the youth. Nothing could exceed in beauty the contrast between these two excellent creatures. One was old, with silver hairs and a countenance beaming with benevolence and love; the younger was slight and graceful in his figure, and his features were moulded with the finest symmetry, yet his eyes and attitude expressed the utmost sadness and despondency. The old man returned to the cottage, and the youth, with tools different from those he ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... to his mother (August 11, 1809), Byron compares "the Spanish style" of beauty to the disadvantage of the English: "Long black hair, dark languishing eyes, clear olive complexions, and forms more graceful in motion than can be conceived by an Englishman ... render a Spanish beauty irresistible" (Letters, 1898, i. 239). Compare, too, the opening lines of The Girl of Cadiz, which gave place to the stanzas To Inez, at the close ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... have watched that young man killing flies by the hour, while he meditated on the atrocities he was to commit—atrocities so numberless and needless that in the red halls of the Caesars he has left a portrait which is unique. Slender, graceful, handsome, as were all the young emperors of old Rome, his blue, troubled eyes took pleasure, if at all, only in the ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... Lina's little hand fluttered like a bird over the strings of her guitar; then it made a graceful dash, and her ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... said the captain. "Here be certain persons of high rank, nay, some that have been born in the purple itself, that will, Hereward, (alas, for thee!) prepare to sound with the line of their courtly understanding the depths of thy barbarous and shallow conceit. Do not, therefore, then, join their graceful smiles with thy inhuman bursts of cachinnation, with which thou art wont to thunder forth when opening in chorus with ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... had no library, which accounted for his originality. He was a vestryman in the Episcopal Church; and to see his tall and graceful form as he moved about from pew to pew collecting pence for Home Missions, was a ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... which full lips will often convey. Her teeth were without flaw or blemish, even, small, white, and delicate; but perhaps they were shown too often. Her nose was small, but struck many as the prettiest feature of her face, so exquisite was the moulding of it, and so eloquent and so graceful the slight inflations of the transparent nostrils. Her eyes, in which she herself thought that the lustre of her beauty lay, were blue and clear, bright as cerulean waters. They were long large eyes,—but very dangerous. To those who knew how to read a face, there was danger ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... have stooped to landscape painting, since no imaginary landscape can surpass what everybody has seen in nature. You cannot improve on the colors of the rainbow, or the gilded clouds of sunset, or the shadows of the mountain, or the graceful form of trees, or the varied tints of leaves and flowers; but you can represent the figure of a man or woman more beautiful than any one man or woman that has ever appeared. What mortal woman ever expressed the ethereal beauty depicted in a Madonna of Raphael or Murillo? And what man ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... substratum of the population was Asiatic, but the progress and enterprise of the city belonged to the Greeks. There, as in the Florence of the Medici, we find commercial astuteness joined with intense delight in graceful culture. Some of the best work of the greatest Greek sculptors and painters was treasured at Ephesus. A splendid but sensuous worship centred round the gross figure of the goddess Artemis, whose temple was one of the greatest triumphs of ancient ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... wrote, "described an easy and graceful semicircle, while the opposite side was perfectly square, and in the centre glistened a mantelpiece of white marble and gold. The entrance was through a side door, hidden by a rich portiere of tapestry, and facing a window. Within the horseshoe curve was a genuine Turkish divan, that is to ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... some faint, far-off conception of him, first look at the best bust or picture of Everett you can find. Imagine the figure with its every movement gentle and graceful. The head and face are suggestive of Greek sculpture. This person sits on the platform with every expression discharged from the face, looking like a plaster image when the artist has just begun his model, before any character or intelligence has been ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... loved, his cure must needs be complete. Yet now, face to face with the well-remembered landscape, looking down upon that dull grey lake which he had seen smiling in the sunshine, he began to doubt the completeness of his cure. He recalled the lovely face, the graceful form, the sweet, low voice—the perfection of gracious womanhood, manner, dress, movements, tones, smiles, all faultless; and in the absence of that one figure, it seemed to him as if he had come back to a tenantless, dismantled house, where there ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... are certainly the first opera dancer. How well you can stretch your legs out! It is the most graceful performance I have ever seen. No ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... I see Her merit. Needs it now be shown, Alas! to me? How often, to myself unknown, The graceful, gentle, virtuous maid Have I admired! How often said— What joy to call a ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... of the group stood Sergius Vanno, recognizable at once by his athletic and graceful figure, reflective face, commanding eye, bright with intelligence, and his agreeable, refined, and attractive presence, as the leading spirit of the group. At his side leaned the poet Emilius, whose weak and slender figure and mild, girlish expression would hardly appear to sustain ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... fast! How old they make us feel! Who would have supposed the most unpromising of little buds would have transformed itself so soon into what he gazed upon? Marien, as an artist, had great pleasure in studying the delicate outline of that graceful head surmounted by thick tresses, with rebellious ringlets rippling over the brow before they were gathered into the thick braid that hung behind; and Jacqueline, although she appeared to be wholly occupied with her guests, felt the gaze that was fixed upon her, and was conscious ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... Goorl could no longer boast the beauty which was hers when first we met her, but she was still a sweet and graceful woman, her figure remaining almost as slim as it had been in girlhood. The grey eyes also retained their depth and fire, only the face was worn, though more by care and the burden of memories than with years. The lot of the loving wife and mother was hard ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... even the utterances of wild beasts and cattle. For he was not only well versed in all the affairs of men, but he could interpret the particular feelings which brutes experienced from the sounds which expressed them. He was also gifted with an eloquence so courteous and graceful, that he adorned whatsoever he desired to expound with a flow of witty adages. But when Kraka came up, and found that the dish had been turned round, and that Erik had eaten the stronger share of the meal, she lamented that the good luck she had bred for her son should have passed to her ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... a graceful bow, "is called Liola, daughter of Goliba, councillor of the great Naya. My father sendeth thee greeting ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... to break. In front, at your feet, is the city, broken up into the most picturesque masses by the irregularity of the ground; here and there a brighter light glistening on some stately campanile or cupola, and flashing back from the graceful columns of Trajan and Antonine. The Tiber flows between you and that wilderness of reddish-brown roofs cleaving the city in twain. For a brief space you see it on both sides of the Bridge of Hadrian, overlooked by the gloomy mass of the ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... entered the Cathedral before the anthem was over; but Marian felt that it was not fitting to loiter about the nave while worship was going on within the choir; and the uncomfortable feeling occupied her so much, that she could hardly look at the fair clustered columns and graceful arches, and seemed scarcely to know or care for the gallant William Longsword, when led to the side of his mail-clad, cross-legged effigy. The deep notes of the organ, which delighted Caroline, gave her a sense of shame; and even when the service ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... graceful fair girl, with a rather large nose. She was the Mary to Emmie's Martha: that is, Matilda loved painting and music, and read a good many novels, whilst Emmie looked after the house-keeping. Emmie was shorter, plumper than her sister, and she had no accomplishments. She looked up ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... abide with you, Senor,' said he, with a most graceful bow. 'As for your friend's secret, do not be uneasy about it; I am not going to meet Pedro to-night. I shall take advantage of his absence to make a call on my lady-love. Pedro is a good fellow, but shockingly self-conceited; he fancies himself far smarter than I—perhaps ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... tighten the wires of the lender, by weaving in other wires so as to secure the little prisoner this time; and when he was fairly in his temporary cage, the boys were so pleased with his graceful form and beautiful colors, especially the elegant stripes on his back, that they begged hard to keep him; and they made many earnest promises never to forget to feed him. Jonas ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... the furniture, the first thought should be given to its true worth. Chairs and couches should be chosen for comfort rather than for style. They should be of solid make, easy, graceful, and of good, serviceable colors and materials. The most serviceable woods to select in frames are ebony, oak, walnut, cherry, and mahogany. These frames are finished in different styles—plain, carved, inlaid, and gilt—and ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... interview with my father, which passed off not amiss; paid over my share of the expense to the two little, active brothers, who rubbed their hands as much, but methought skipped rather less than formerly, having perhaps, these two also, embarked upon the enterprise with some graceful illusions; and then, reviewing the whole episode, I told myself that the time was not yet ripe, nor the man ready; and to work I went again with my penny version- books, having fallen back in one day from the printed author to ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his knife and watched the sand filter through the bottom of the basket and trail along in a graceful stream behind the balloon. The great flabby bag overhead steadied itself, rose slightly and drifted on toward the dark spot on the vast expanse of sunlit water. They could now clearly see that it was a small island, not more ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... popular member of the State and a man of high character. His works, to judge by the specimens left, hardly attained the dignity of art, though in the banner of "Justice," in the Academy, the space is filled in a monumental fashion and the figure of St. Gabriel with the lily has something grand and graceful. We trace the same treatment of flying banners and draperies and rippling hair in the fantastic but picturesque S. Grisogono in the left transept of San Trovaso. Jacobello's will, executed in 1439 ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... along, paid her cousin one long covetous tribute. The difficulty that she always had in putting on her own clothes, and softening her own physical points, made her the more conscious of Laura's delicate ease, of all the yielding and graceful lines into which the little black and white muslin frock fell so readily, of all that natural kinship between Laura and her hats, Laura and her gloves, which poor Polly fully perceived, knowing well and sadly that she herself could ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was discoursing, Denis had crossed over to the farther side of the little square chamber, where Anne was sitting, still in her graceful, lazy ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... charge. Pictures,—he is a travelled man, has seen and judged the best galleries of Europe, and can speak of them as a common person cannot. For, mark you, you must have the confidence of your society, you must be able to be familiar with them, to plant a happy mot in a graceful manner, to appeal to my lord or the duchess in such a modest, easy, pleasant way as that her grace should not be hurt by your allusion to her—nay, amused (like the rest of the company) by the manner in ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have done more in setting right the character of Ireland and her people, whilst exhibiting at the same time the manifestations of high genius, than Miss Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, and Mrs. Hall. About the female creations ol the last-named lady, especially, there is a touching charm, blending the graceful and the pensive, which reminds us of a very general but peculiar style of Irish beauty, where the lineaments of the face combine at once both the melancholy and the mirthful in such a manner, that their harmony constitutes ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... crowding inside the white ribs of some skeleton monster. Such pretty women and children were in the carts, too; the women like beautiful, dark madonnas with their soft eyes looking out from under graceful head-draperies of black cashmere, or blue or yellow silk, glorious in colour ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hands and parted, Bosio turning eastward in the direction of his home. The priest absently tried to insert the key in the lock of the door, while his eyes followed his friend to the corner of the street. Then, as Bosio's still graceful figure disappeared, he turned from the keyhole with a sigh, and ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... description of her face. If our foggy Northern idioms had the warm liberty, the burning enthusiasm of the Sir Hasirim, we might, perhaps, by comparisons—awakening in the mind of the reader memories of flowers and perfumes, of music and sunlight, evoking, by the magic of words, all the graceful and charming images that the universe can contain—have been able to give some idea of Nyssia's features; but it is permitted to Solomon alone to compare the nose of a beautiful woman to the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... French prestige sank. And the object which France elected to seek, and sought in vain, by {233} means of violence and terror, England attained by a conduct which, if not more lawful, was much more graceful. ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... are usually symmetrical and graceful to the eye, as well as fast. This fact was apparent to Mildred, accustomed as she was to the sight of ships and she ventured to express as much, after she and her companion had stood quite a minute on the cliff, gazing at the grand spectacle ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... as the principal actor was concerned, traversed all the stages between bliss and rapture on the one side, and fear and remorse on the other—between garlands of roses and the iron link, forging a clanking manacle of the past. A man of singularly graceful presence and attractive mien; a leading member of the bar, whose Corinthian taste and princely hospitality nominated him as a fitting host of the Queen of England's eldest son, when he visited this city; a prominent figure in the returning board that conferred the ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... 1870. The truth is, Congress should have provided by law for three lieutenant-generals for these three pre-eminent soldiers, and should have dated their commissions with "Gettysburg," "Winchester," and "Nashville." It would have been a graceful act, and might have prolonged the lives of two most popular officers, who died soon after, feeling that they had experienced ingratitude ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... true, for all the deeper, stronger love of Madam Conway's nature had gone forth to the merry, gleeful girl whose graceful, independent bearing she had so often likened to herself and the haughty race with which she claimed relationship. How was this illusion dispelled! Margaret was not a Conway, nor yet a Davenport. A servant-girl had been her mother, and of her father there ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... and happy, sir, in having had the privilege of rendering Miss Merlin any service, at whatever cost to myself," replied Ishmael, with graceful courtesy. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Borgia, was externally a very good specimen of Renascence architecture of the period when the florid, 'barocco' style had not yet got the upper hand in Rome. The great arched entrance for carriages was well proportioned, the stone carvings were severe rather than graceful, the cornices had great nobility both of proportion and design. The lower story was built of rough-faced blocks of travertine stone, above which the masonry was smooth. The whole palace was of that warm, time-toned colour, which travertine takes with age, and which is, therefore, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... game I was playing, and I foresaw that the pleasure of supporting such a thing would greatly enhance the delight aunt would naturally take in being fucked by my really monstrous cock. I was soon down to breakfast, and was most warmly embraced by my gloriously beautiful aunt, who, in a graceful dishabille, looked more charming than ever. She hugged me for more than a minute in her arms, and devoured me with kisses. I have no doubt the doctor had recounted our interview, and by the sparkle of her eye, and the flush on ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... five o'clock. We were all very fond of Jessie, and who could help it? She was tall (considerably above the average height), slender, straight as an arrow, graceful in repose and in motion. She carried herself like a queen, with a proud kind of shyness that became her well. Her head was small and well set on a slender neck, her hair dark, luxurious, wavy, and growing low over a broad forehead, ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... all term about our friends in Lloydsboro Valley, and naturally we want everybody to put their best foot foremost and show off their prettiest. Malcolm and Keith will leave a charming impression of themselves, because they will make her feel in such an easy graceful way that she has made that sawt of an impression on them. If she wears an especially pretty dress, or says an especially bright thing, or plays unusually well, they will notice it in some way so that she will know that they noticed it, and that they were pleased. Naturally ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... plaids veil and display their charms, The love-sick youth thus bright Humea warms, And with her graceful mien her ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... imitate the Greek was somewhat modified by Roman national pride. We catch sight of this spirit in Virgil and Horace, in Cicero and Caesar. The graceful softening of language and art among the imaginative Greeks, becomes in the Romans austere power and majesty, with a tendency to express greatness by size. These early indications of race characteristics never died out, as we may ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... reason. For though there are numerous exceptions, rich people are, as I said, commonly altogether the most agreeable companions. The influence of a fine house, graceful furniture, good libraries, well-ordered tables, trim servants, and, above all, a position so secure that one becomes unconscious of it, gives a harmony and refinement to the character and manners which we feel, if we cannot explain their charm. Yet ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... the body was perfectly balanced. The arms were powerful, but with fine, well-formed wrists—exquisitely chiselled, as were all the attachments of their limbs. They had quite graceful hands, long-fingered—in more ways than one—and wonderfully well-shaped, elongated, convex-faced nails, which would arouse the envy of many a lady of Western countries. The webbing between the fingers was infinitesimal, ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... circumstances suited to her purpose, desired to be made acquainted with the man, on whom she already began to ground her hopes of success. She found him to exceed her most sanguine expectations; so comely did he appear in his person, so graceful in his air, so courtly in his address, so full of docility and good sense in his behavior and conversation. The lessons necessary to be taught him, in order to his personating the duke of York, were soon learned by a youth of such quick apprehension; but as the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... grace, and tireless strength, if ever thou didst gallop before, do thy best to-day! Spurn, spurn the dust 'neath thy fleet hoofs, stretch thy graceful Arab neck, bear me gallantly to-day, O Wings, for never shalt thou and I ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... taking their leave: what little objects they were, opposite the two graceful ladies, who also stood beside each other, pleasant to look upon. Sorrow and suffering, lack and weakness, though plain to see upon them both, had not yet greatly dimmed their beauty. The faces of the dwarfs, on the other hand, were marked ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... searchingly for a brief instant: then with a peculiarly winning smile and a graceful inclination of her head she thanked him and ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... part of the year following, 1754-55, Wolfe was at Exeter, where the entertainments seem to have been more to his taste than those at Glasgow. A lady who knew him well at this time wrote: 'He was generally ambitious to gain a tall, graceful woman to be his partner, as well as a good dancer. He seemed emulous to display every kind of virtue and gallantry that would ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... neighbourhood, and settled for some weeks on the borders of the Lake Keswick. There, one evening, a letter, re-directed to me from London, reached me. The hand-writing was that of Lucy; but the trembling and slurred characters, so different from that graceful ease which was wont to characterize all she did, filled me, even at the first glance, with alarm. This is the letter—read it—you will know, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... and a second afterwards, a graceful female form was seated before the mirror, with its back ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... advantageous to purchase metal implements, of copper in the early ages, afterwards of bronze, and lastly of iron. Among the metal-founders and smiths all kinds of examples of these were to be found—axes of an elegant and graceful design, hammers and knives, as well as culinary and domestic utensils, cups, cauldrons, dishes, mountings of doors and coffers, statuettes of men, bulls, monsters, and gods—which could be turned to weapons of all ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... accepted by Kasyapa as sacrificial present made unto him by Rama, the son of Jamadagni. And Rama also gave him many thousand prodigious elephants, all adorned with gold. Indeed, freeing the earth from all robbers, and making her teem with honest and graceful inhabitants, Rama gave her away to Kasyapa at his great Horse-sacrifice. Having divested the earth of Kshatriyas for one and twenty times, and having performed hundreds of sacrifices, the puissant hero gave away the earth to the Brahmanas. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... is the play of the banderilleros, the flag-men. They are beautifully dressed and superbly built fellows, principally from Andalusia, got up precisely like Figaro in the opera. Theirs is the most delicate and graceful operation of the bull-fight. They take a pair of barbed darts, with little banners fluttering at their ends, and provoke the bull to rush at them. At the instant he reaches them, when it seems nothing can save them, they step aside and plant the banderillas in the neck ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... floor, however, she forgot her superior mood and enjoyed herself inordinately until supper-time. Just as she and Pink were starting for the refreshment room, she caught sight of a familiar graceful figure, standing apart from the crowd, watching ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... Francesco Carrara, last Lord of Padua, is buried in this church; but Venetians are chiefly interested there now by the homilies of those fervent preacher-monks, who deliver powerful sermons during Lent. The monks are gifted men, with a most earnest and graceful eloquence, and they attract immense audiences, like popular and eccentric ministers among ourselves. It is a fashion to hear them, and although the atmosphere of the churches in the season of Lent is raw, damp, and most uncomfortable, the Venetians then throng the churches ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... agitated by any degree of pain or pleasure, never fails to discover itself in the eyes, now sparkled in those of Louisa with an uncommon lustre, nor had less influence over all her air:—her motions always perfectly easy, gentle and graceful, especially in dancing, were now more spirituous, more alert than usual; and she so much excelled herself, that several, who had before praised her skill in this exercise, seemed ravished, as if they had seen something new and unexpected:—her partner was lavish in the ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... handles. The kaneon was also used at offerings, where it is filled with pomegranates, holly boughs and ribbons. At the Panathenaia noble Athenian maidens carried such baskets, filled with holy cakes, incense, and knives on their heads. These graceful figures were a favorite subject of antique sculpture. Both Polyklete and Skopas had done a celebrated kanephore—the former in bronze, the latter in marble. There was also a flat basket, chiefly used for carrying fish, similar to that used at the present day by fishermen ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... service, sare," the Maitre d'Armes replied—but not with much heartiness. The two advanced each a foot, they touched swords, then saluted with that graceful and courteous engagement which to an ignorant observer is one of the charms of the foil. As they did so, and steel grated on steel, the eavesdroppers in the inner room ventured softly from ambush—like rats issuing forth; soon they were all standing behind ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... and had a good name in the neighborhood—still Signe Dahl did not care for him, and was uneasy in his company. She would rather sail with some of the fisher boys on the lake than be the object of envy by her companions. But Signe's slim, graceful form, large blue eyes, clear, dimpled face, light silken hair, combined with a native grace and beauty, attracted not only the fisher boys but the "fine" Hr. Bogstad also. She was now spending a few days with her cousin Hansine in the mountains. Her limited knowledge ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... ever, Nor in Viro could they fashion 290 Such a girl of perfect beauty, Such a duck without an equal, With a countenance so lovely, And so noble in her stature, And with arms of such a whiteness, And with slender neck so graceful. ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... Americans were craning their necks at the windows. High in the air, the French aircraft in flight looked as graceful as swallows ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... Fool, not to have let her go away from him in silence, in calm! He looked down at that crumpled figure, at the mass of tawny hair, with the red-gold lights in it, the enticing soft whiteness of her neck where the hair curved cleanly upward, the graceful slope of the shoulders that now shook with sobs. And something stirred in him, something deep, too deep to be reached and overpowered. It grew until it sang through all his being, a feeling such as he had never ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... dangerous luxury to the simple order of its daily fare. Thus, in the foregrounds of his most severe drawings, we not unfrequently find him indulging in the luxury of a peacock; and it is impossible to express the joyfulness with which he seems to design its graceful form, and deepen with soft pencilling the bloom of its blue, after he has worked through the stern detail of his almost colorless drawing. A rainbow is another of his most frequently permitted indulgences; and we find him very early allowing the edges of his evening clouds to be touched with ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... tastefully arranged in the Parisian fashion: the art of the toilet appears indeed to be the only one they study, as their education does not always proceed so far as reading and writing, although they are not deficient in natural capabilities; their conversation is often as graceful and piquant as that of European ladies. Nor is general information much more extended among the gentlemen, as the following anecdote will testify. When, in 1817, the Russian frigate Kamschatka anchored in the Port of Rio ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... you would have never supposed they were connections, that one could and ought to influence and direct the career of the other. You would have said the host certainly liked the guest, as any man would like a promising, warm-hearted, high-spirited, graceful boy, under his own roof for a short time, but who felt that that boy was nothing to him; would soon pass from his eye; form friends, pursuits, aims, with which he could be in no way commingled, for ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out-of-the-way angles and around corners, to prevent draughts. The humid climate of England renders the veranda objectionable, and the windows, rarely fitted for blinds, are grouped together and divided by light and graceful mullions,—a relic ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... cause to abate her exultation, for when the music struck up, and the dancers commenced their intricate movements, she found that her husband blundered so as to throw all into confusion. The reason of this instantly flashed upon her mind, for she knew him to be a correct and graceful dancer. He was too much intoxicated to dance! Her woman's pride caused her to make the effort to guide him through the figures. But it was of no use. The second attempt failed signally by his breaking the figures, and reeling with a loud, drunken laugh, through and through, ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... a grateful shade. It is at this point the artist comes to interpret the poet's dream. Amid the varied and luxurious foliage of Eden, in the vague light of the early dawn, Eve is presented, coy and graceful, gazing on her sleeping Lord, while in the background is faintly outlined the mystic form of Him in whose ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... decks. You perceive that she is a handsome craft of some six or seven hundred tons burthen, standing high out of water, in ballast trim, with a black hull, bright waist, and wales painted white. Her bows flare very much, and are sharp and symmetrical; the cut-water stretches, with a graceful curve, far out beyond them toward the long sweeping martingal, and is surmounted by a gilt scroll, or, as the sailors call it, a fiddle-head. The black stern is ornamented by a group of white figures in bas relief, which give ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... inheritor of two such good old theatrical names, much is expected. And then there is the Mark Antony of Mr. CHARLES COGHLAN, a rantin', roarin' boy, this Antony, whom no one, I believe, could ever have made really effective; and finally. Her Graceful Majesty, Mrs. LANGTRY, Queen of Egyptian Witchery. Now honestly I do not consider Cleopatra a good part, nor is the play a good play for the matter of that. I believe it never has been a success, but if, apart from ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... hand, and make possible the specialized movement of the two parts upon each other. The hand is the terminal segment of the wing, composed of the metacarpal bones and the digits or fingers. Of the last-named organs there are ordinarily three, forming a graceful tapering point to the wing, and giving to it the symmetry and proportion that are required for effective use. When the wing is folded, the hand extends obliquely downward ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... by the hand and they moved toward the door. Polly turned just as they were passing through the door and made her quaint and graceful curtsy, saying, "I am glad I came, and I guess we ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... she had regained the tarvia road and walked a little way the shadow suddenly passed, and she stood surprised. The sight of a long common with its ancient trees in the fullness of glory, dense maples, sturdy oaks, strong, graceful elms that cast flickering, lacy shadows across the road filled her with satisfaction, with a sense of peace deepened by the awareness, in the background, ranged along the common on either side, of stately, dignified buildings, each in an appropriate ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... alarming," Grandma says, "but boys were charming" (Girls and boys she means of course) "long ago." Brave but modest, grandly shy; She would like to have us try Just to feel like those who met In the graceful ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... possession of what he has found to belong to him, and to distinguish him, is one of the securities against injustice and despotism implanted in our nature. It operates as an instinct to secure property, and to preserve communities in a settled state. What is there to shock in this? Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society. "Omnes boni nobilitati semper favemus," was the saying of a wise and good man. It is, indeed, one sign of a liberal and benevolent mind to incline to it with some sort of partial propensity. He ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... fame at a prodigious rate. Dr. Campbell turned from the pounding lady to observe his own daughter Flora, and a smile of delight came over his countenance: for "parents are apt to be partial"—especially those who have such daughters as Flora. Her light figure and graceful agility attracted the attention even of many impartial spectators; but she was not intent upon admiration: she seemed to be dancing in the gaiety of her heart; and that was a species of gaiety in which every one sympathized, because it was natural, and of which every one approved, because ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... began to strike with the strokes of a mallet, and then they went into the cool, dark houses and slept as children sleep. And then came blue twilight, and lamps were lit in the green spaces, and into the odorous night would come the golden rounded women with smiles like honey, and the graceful feline men.... A woman's laughter, a man's song.... And the moon rising on tropic seas, while a guitar hummed with a deep vibrant note.... And the ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... accommodation ladder; but those that had occupants were obediently thrust wide to make way, and easily as in a barge of state Mrs Bosenna was brought alongside. A dozen hands checked the way of the boat, now abruptly. Other hands were stretched to help her up the ladder, which she ascended with smiling and graceful agility. On the deck, at the head of it, stood the Hon. Secretary, with the silver cup ready, nursed in the crook of his arm. It was a handsome cup, and it flashed in the sunlight. The Hon. Secretary doffed ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... bored-looking people around, doing right. An absolutely substantial and perfect love is transfigured selfishness. It is no mere playing with words to say this, nor is it substituting a comfortable and pleasant doctrine for a strenuous altruism. If it were as light and graceful an undertaking to have enough selfishness to go around, to live in the whole of a universe like this, as it is to slip out of even living in one's self in it, like a mere shadow or altruist, egoism were superficial enough. As it is, egoism being terribly or beautifully ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... and depressed him. With all his powers of graphic expression, he could seldom write of it without exaggeration. It was the fascination of the grotesque rather than the picturesque that he felt. Kingsley, though scarcely so graceful and vivid a describer, had a keener and more constant sense of natural beauty. His vision was unclouded by the peculiar susceptibility of temperament which narrowed the view of his brilliant contemporary. He could not have indulged in rhetorical flourishes at the expense ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... correspondence than his no country can probably boast of; and it is thought the more necessary to note this fact, because sometimes an opinion prevails that graver pursuits must necessarily exclude attention to what used to be called the "humanities" of education—those ornamental and graceful acquirements, which, as Mr. Adams well proved, not only are not inconsistent with, but greatly adorn, the weightier matters of the law and of diplomacy. I could dwell with much satisfaction upon the memory and ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... at us, as we stood by the box- door, which was not yet opened, with a slight, graceful superciliousness, quite warranted by the circumstances. Still I felt pleasurably excited in spite of headache, sickness, and conscious clownishness; and I saw Anne was calm and gentle, which she always is. The performance ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... "If ever household affections and loves are graceful things, they are graceful in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and proud to Home may be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man to his humble hearth are of the true metal, and bear ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... It is all the rage, just as Mother says, and it is certainly graceful. I rather think I should like to learn it myself. I understand ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to the Academy, bolted straight for the sculpture-room, and stood for a quarter of an hour gazing intently at the graceful figure of Peter playing his pipe. Then he walked out again, without stopping to look at any of the lovely things about him. It was characteristic of Frohman to do just the thing he had in mind ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Graceful, charming, and extraordinarily attractive, but with no thought beyond the pleasures of the moment, Mrs. Harford fluttered through life ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... with her eye the graceful form of Winnie, as she threaded her way through the dance, occasionally interchanging a witty remark with her handsome partner, and as he lead her to a seat, Natalie observed to Mrs. Santon, "how beautiful dear Winnie is to-night! I do not know who can help loving her!" So enthusiastic ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... my thword. I made it.... Have a jolly fight"—and the boy struck an extraordinarily correct fencing attitude—left hand raised in balance, sword poised, legs and feet well placed, the whole pose easy, natural, graceful. ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... fashion of the Canebiere, signifies fine weather, heat, and midday. The three others, less timid, as we have already said, wore low-necked dresses without disguise, which in summer, beneath flower-adorned hats, are very graceful and enticing; but by the side of these audacious outfits, blond Fantine's canezou, with its transparencies, its indiscretion, and its reticence, concealing and displaying at one and the same time, seemed an alluring godsend of decency, and the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... (Fr. 64). Of the five books of lyrical pieces by Anacreon which Suidas and Athenaeus mention as extant in their time, we have now but the merest fragments, collected from the citations of later writers. Those graceful little poems (most of them first printed from the MSS. by Henry Stephens in 1554), which long passed among the learned for the songs of Anacreon, and which are well-known to many English readers in the translations of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... There are two inconvenient things in this world, a conscience and a tender heart, and Charley Vanderhuyn was plagued with both. While going through with the toasts, his mind was busy with poor Henry Vail suffering in a smallpox hospital. In his graceful response to the sentiment, "The President of the Hasheesh Club," he alluded to the retiring president, and made some witty remark—I forget what—about his being a denizen of Lexington Avenue; but in saying ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... had been allowed to develop themselves; Mrs. Brownlow having been always housekeeper, she had been fain to go on with the studies that even her preparation for governess-ship had not rendered wearisome, and thus had become a very graceful modeller in clay-her favourite pursuit-when her children's lessons and other occupations left her free to indulge in it. The history of the travels, and the account of the discovery, were given and heard ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... taking whole seconds, was a sneering Arizona, waiting till the last second. When he moved, however, it was with an almost leisurely flip of the wrist. The heavy Colt was conjured into his hand. With graceful ease the big weapon slipped out and exploded before Sandersen's forefinger had curled around ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... for farmwives, theater, lecture room, free community ballroom, farm-bureau, gymnasium. Forming about it and influenced by it, as mediaeval villages gathered about the castle, she saw a new Georgian town as graceful and beloved as Annapolis or that bowery Alexandria ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis |
