"Light-hearted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he threw off his pack to rest and stood erect, a sturdy man of sixty, with short bristling hair framing a kindly resolute face. He was very light-hearted. He shook hands with me, saying, "Kla-how-ya," in answer to my, "Kla-how-ya six," which is to say, "How are you, friend?" He smiled, pointed to his pack, and said, "Hy-u skin." His season had been successful and he ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... working of the Sunday schools, he galloped off to the town again, and from there to Nikolskoe. Urging the driver on without intermission, he flew along, like a young officer riding to battle; and he felt both frightened and light-hearted, and was breathless with impatience. 'The great thing is—one mustn't think,' he kept repeating to himself. His driver happened to be a lad of spirit; he halted before every public house, saying, 'A drink or not a ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... but when she persisted, and I questioned her, and found the horror true, I was like a man turned instantly into stone, save for one intolerable throb within. I am still so; everything passes by me like a dream. She was so young, seemingly so innocent and light-hearted. I loved her! Gentlemen, you have thought me guilty of my wife's death,—this young fairy-like creature to whom I ascribed all the virtues! and I was willing, willing that you should think so, willing even to face the distrust and opprobrium of the whole world,—and so was her sister, the noble ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... their own home-made clothing. The grave and serious demeanour of these people is as different from the savage scowl of the discontented peasant, murmuring beneath the burthen of taxation and ill-remunerated toil, as from the free, light-hearted, and careless laughter, both of which characterise the rural groups in the fertile fields of England. New Brunswick is the land of strangers; even the first settlers, the "sons of the soil," as they claim to be, ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... failure, consoled themselves by the demonstration they had made, of the possibility of a great fleet passing to and fro, in British waters, for nearly a month, without encountering a single British vessel of war. Not so the Irish negotiator; on him, light-hearted and daring as he was, the disappointment fell with crushing weight; but he magnanimously carried Grouchy's report to Paris, and did his utmost to defend the unlucky general from a cabal which ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... he began to question me concerning Venice, and after this wise we conversed some space of time. At last he bade me apply myself to business, and complete his Perseus. So I returned home glad and light-hearted, and comforted my family, that is to say, my sister and her six daughters. Then I resumed my work, and pushed it forward ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... wise as nature, like the wind Melancholy or light-hearted without reason, And like the waxing or the waning moon Ever pale and lovely: you are like these Because you are free and live by your own law; While I, desiring life and half alive, Dream, hope, regret and fear and blunder on. Your beauty is your life and my content, And I will liken you to ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... thing he would think of doing. Never did I see the virtue of resignation in higher perfection than in the laughing, light-hearted Almeida. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Jasper, with a laugh; feeling surprisingly light-hearted, it was so beautiful to be talking it all over with Polly, "but the trouble is, Mason don't. Well, and then came that dreadful misunderstanding about Mr. Marlowe; that hurt me worse than all. O, Polly! if you only knew the man," and Jasper ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... which served to block our friendship from becoming anything of value to each other. Naturally I have seen that you are not happy, though there have been moments when you were the very personification of light-hearted ness, and I have known for a long time that the motif of your whole nature is resentment. Believe me, Miss Durwent, if I could be a friend—and I mean that to the last ditch—I should be deeply grateful ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... home. The steel corps of the army of Germany had met near Contalmaison the light-hearted boys I had seen drilling in Hyde Park last year, and in a furious counter-attack, in which they had attempted to regain the village, ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... down upon him in a mountain pass; a heavy stone coping fell from a roof at his feet in a narrow city alley. Altogether, Nur Mahomed began to think that, somewhere or other, he had made an enemy; but he was light-hearted, and the thought did not much trouble him. He escaped somehow every time, and felt amused rather than anxious about the ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... principles, and that the earlier these are learnt, the smaller is the burden of regret one heaps together to oppress the future, and the sooner one finds that peace of mind which is not common even amongst the young, and should-be light-hearted.' ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... as noted for his good qualities as for his weaknesses. He will never drive you away, for you are the mother of his beloved children, and he has loved you himself tenderly. However, his coldness is going to increase. Will you be sufficiently light-hearted, or sufficiently imprudent, to await on a counterscarp the rigours of December ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... hells! I went along the "sunken road" all the way to Contalmaison. Talk about sacred ground! The new troops coming up now go barging across in the most light-hearted way. It means no more to them than the roads behind used to mean to us. But when I think how we watered every yard of it with blood and sweat! Children might play there now, if it didn't look so like the aftermath of an earthquake. I have a sort of feeling it ought to be marked off somehow, ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it sounds like a welcome now. Anyway, mother, whatever happens you must not worry. Everything is all right when you get right up to it—even death. I just wish I could see you, and make you understand how light-hearted I feel. I never felt better; my only trouble is that you will be worried about me, but just remember that everything is fine, and that ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... among whom were a number of young men and women, were, however, apparently light-hearted, and had whiled away an hour or two with song and badinage. A little removed from them, in a corner with the great dusty curtain of a window behind her, sat Hetty Torrance with Allonby's nephew and daughter. Miss Allonby was pale and slight and silent; but her cousin united the ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... was not, for it failed to interest her. She sat nonchalantly turning over the leaves; but mentally she was busy turning over other leaves, which had by far most of her attention. The pages that memory read the record of the old times passed in that very room, and the old childish light-hearted feelings that were, she thought, as much beyond recall. Those pleasant times, when the world was all bright and friends all fair, and the light heart had never been borne down by the pressure of care, nor sobered by disappointment, nor chilled by experience. The spirit ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... fire and stood with his back to it, smiling almost happily. All evidence of remorse had disappeared. He seemed momentarily almost light-hearted, certainly in better spirits than he had been at any time that night. "Free!" he cried softly. "And by the simplest of solutions. Strange that I should never have thought before to-night of—" He glanced carelessly toward the window; and it was ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... dreary walls of that poor hovel echoed to the happy voice of a light-hearted child? But there was another echo to the voice, and from walls as long a stranger to such sounds as these—the walls in the chambers of that poor man's memory. A wellnigh lost and ruined soul was listening ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... wanting, which she could not define. She had watched that beloved face all the morning. She had hoped to see the tender eyes fixed upon her, and hear the meek voice exclaim, "I cannot part with my child!" All the gay pictures which the light-hearted Caroline drew of the scenes she was to enter had vanished away—now that the hour approached when her mother was to be left alone. Why was she to go? It seemed ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... where the flats are very extensive, and are intersected by numerous creeks and lagoons. There, consequently, the population has always been greater than elsewhere on the Murray, and the scenes of violence more frequent. Camboli was active, light-hearted, and confiding, and even for the short time he remained with us gained the hearts of ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... love by beings so different in character! The gay, free spirit of my comrade seemed to have met a responsive echo. He and his brilliant partner laughed, chatted, and sang in turns. In the incidents of the moment this light-hearted creature had forgotten her brother, yet the next moment she would weep for him. A tender heart—a heart of joys and sorrows—of ever-changing emotions, coming and passing like shadows thrown by straggling ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... the sad one I had so recently looked upon. And, coming to observe particulars, I suddenly noticed that the cause of all this laughter, himself smiling in appreciation of his own story as he told it, his face the picture of well-bred light-hearted mirth, was Captain Falconer. And he was the cause of the other scene, the sorrow that abode in the house I loved! The thought turned me to fire. I uttered a curse, and strode into the tavern; rudely flung open the parlour door, ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... beginning," said the Vicar, fixing his eyes on one spot on the carpet, "there was a time when I was young—perhaps you can hardly realise that," he said suddenly, looking up; "but strange as it may seem to you, it is a fact. I once was young, and though never so gay and light-hearted as you still I was happy in my own way, and fool enough to expect that life had for me a store of joys and pleasures, just as you do now. I was doomed, of course, to bitter disappointment, just as you ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... that many of us habitually recognise it as a Christian duty to be joyful. We think that it is a matter of temperament and partly a matter of circumstance. We are glad when things go well with us. If we have a sunny disposition, and are naturally light-hearted, all the better; if we have a melancholy or morose one, all the worse. But do we recognise this, that a Christian who is not joyful is not living up to his duty; and that there is no excuse, either in temperament or in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... that, eh? But it is like this, ma'amselle; when I bring to life, when I usher into this world, I see the solemnity and the importance of life in front of me and I am sad; it makes me afraid. When I assist at the grave I am calm and happy, light-hearted even, because there our responsibility for one another ceases, so long as we ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... of eloquent style and novel invention imitating Enzina's eclogues with great skill and wit[93], and that the mordant comic poet Gil Vicente, who hid a serious aim beneath his gaiety and was skilled in veiling his satire in light-hearted jests, might have excelled Menander, Plautus and Terence if he had written in Latin instead of in the vulgar tongue[94]. That is, we should have known nothing that we could not learn from his plays and it is to his plays ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... it is not a friend that I am seeking, not one of those uncertain, light-hearted, capricious relations which encumber life without adding to it. I am dreaming like a child, of a woman who should realise the greatest possible amount of beauty in her mind and person and who should add her strength to mine in the service ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... lattice opened and two faces looked out. In fact two girls leaned out. Their type was manifest: well-housed, well clad, well fed, luxurious, loose-living, light-hearted minxes. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... would not willingly shorten her girlhood, but, alas! had he not already done so? To feel that another heart leant on her own, another life depended on her for happiness—was this not a reflection to sober the most careless and most light-hearted of natures? Nan knew full well that this short interview was as a milestone in her life, and that at one step she had left behind the ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the visitor satirically; "that suits you—except it should be 'occidentis partibus:' our Sir Asinus comes from the west. And by my faith, I think I will in future dub you Sir Asinus, in revenge for calling me—me, the most cheerful of light-hearted mortals—the 'melancholy Jacques.'" ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... man below must be playing Blindman's Buff by himself to-night! They listened, and they heard sounds of some one falling about and stumbling against furniture, and they all laughed at the conceit, and went on with their play, more light-hearted and merry than ever. Thus, those two so different games of life and death were played out together, blindfolded, in the two sets ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... light-hearted rider the pony carried as he galloped back along the narrow paths, with the good news for the villagers. The word went round as soon as he arrived. Kai Bok-su wanted to know how many were for the true God. All who would worship him were at once to ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... be heard a few yards away. He called to me: "Did you ever do the Blondin act before, because we are walking a razor-edge right now. We're between the devil and the 'deep sea,' anyway, and I think myself the 'deep sea' will get us." As I looked at him something happened, and I felt light-hearted as though miles from danger—all fear of death was taken away. What did it matter if we were killed?—it was a strange sense of security in a rather ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... Uncle Mathew's address and pay him a surprise visit ... She laughed in the cab and felt gay and light-hearted until she remembered the cause of her visit. Poor, poor Aunt Anne! Oh, she did hope that she would be well enough to recognise her and to show pleasure at seeing her. The cab had stopped in the well-remembered street before the same old secret-looking house. Nothing seemed to have ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... Henceforth I am ready to bear my griefs. I am ready for the sacrifice. I can not see her yet, but when I reach England I must see you somehow. If you can not meet me, you must manage to send her off to Pomeroy, so that I may see you in peace. With you I will forget my sorrows, and will be again a light-hearted boy. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Pity hopeless hung her head, 40 While 'mid the pelting of that merciless storm,' Sunk to the cold earth Otway's famish'd form! Sublime of thought, and confident of fame, From vales where Avon[127:1] winds the Minstrel came. Light-hearted youth! aye, as he hastes along, 45 He meditates the future song, How dauntless lla fray'd the Dacyan foe; And while the numbers flowing strong In eddies whirl, in surges throng, Exulting in the spirits' genial throe 50 In tides ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... made in the early morning, the great mountains and the waters beneath it bathed in wondrous tints such as one finds nowhere outside of these far northern regions. The boys were light-hearted, happy, and were looking forward eagerly to experiences in the wilds of Alaska that should wholly satisfy their ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... rich, cheery, light-hearted, agreeable; all that my own was not as I answered "Nothing!" for this was not the first time my next-door neighbor had tried ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... or Mr. Martin, that Rogers the poet, at eighty-three or four years of age, bore the bank robbery[119] with the light-hearted bearing of a man 'young and bold,' went out to dinner two or three times the same week, and said witty things on his own griefs. One of the other partners went to bed instead, and was not likely, I heard, to 'get over it.' I felt quite glad and proud for Rogers. He was in Germany ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... of sanguine ore That gleamed on Sita's brow before, Shone by that close embrace impressed Upon the hero's ample chest. Then Sita, when the beast who led The monkey troop, afar had fled, Laughed loudly in light-hearted glee That mark on Rama's chest to see. A clump of bright Asokas fired The forest in their bloom attired: The restless blossoms as they gleamed A host of threatening monkeys seemed. Then Sita thus ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... inside and out, with as merry and light-hearted a crowd of boys as could be found anywhere; and why should they not be merry and light-hearted, seeing as they had just won a great football match by a score of 16 to 8? Tom Rover, who was on the top of the stage, actually danced ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... more lucid, more light-hearted, and more sane? And if Charlotte is suspicious of the dangers of her own temperament, that only proves her lucidity ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... the groom from the neighboring livery-stable with the horses. Taking an affectionate leave of his wife, and promising to come into Montreal to dinner on the following Sunday, O'Grady mounted the box, followed by the light-hearted Churchill, and cracking his whip was soon speeding rapidly along into the howling storm. Churchill lit another cigar, and shut his eyes to avoid the blinding snowdrifts, while the driver was with difficulty enabled to see his way. Arrived at the suburb ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... music. She wanted, she said, to give us a specimen of her new accomplishment; for since she had been in London, she had applied herself to music, and sang, without much power, but with a great deal of sweetness. We were not permitted by her to select any but light-hearted melodies; and all the Operas of Mozart were called into service, that we might choose the most exhilarating of his airs. Among the other transcendant attributes of Mozart's music, it possesses more than any other that of appearing to come from the heart; you enter into the passions ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... bridegroom-to-be sailed from Calcutta light-hearted, while Harry Hardwicke counted each day's reckoning as bringing him, by leaps and bounds, nearer to the dark-eyed girl now left alone in the world. "There shall nothing come between us now, my darling one!" was the young Major's ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... library of some lord. "He has a very good library," I once heard some one say to a noble earl, whose own library was famous. "And what can a fellow do with a very good library?" answered the descendant of the Crusaders, who probably (being a youth light-hearted and content) was ignorant of his own great possessions. An expensive copy of 'L'Illustre Theatre,' bound by Trautz-Bauzonnet, was ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... met all difficulties lightly, and generally conquered them in the end. But Reg's trouble was too serious to be smiled at, the sight of the pale, drawn face of the friend who had always been so gay and light-hearted was a shock to him, and when Reg had told his pitiful story, he found it difficult to restrain his tears. He was fairly intimate with Reg and Amy Johnson, and looked upon ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... cordiality and friendliness, she had regarded him as a boy. Indeed she had treated and considered him as being very much younger than Ernest, and in some respects she had been justified in doing so, for in his light-hearted fun, his love of active exercise, and his entire absence of any assumption of age, he was far more boyish than Ernest. But although her thoughts were too busy now to permit her to analyse her feelings, she knew that she had been mistaken, and felt a strange confidence ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... "Light-hearted devil, isn't he?" the Colonel commented approvingly. "And his voice isn't half bad. Just singing to ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... heavy percentage of this valuable quality is fatal to the sprightly grace of literature. "In our times," said an old Scotchwoman, "there's fully mony modern principles," and the first of these seems to be the substitution of a serious and critical discernment for the light-hearted sympathy of former days. Our grandfathers cried a little and laughed a good deal over their books, without the smallest sense of anxiety or responsibility in the matter; but we are called on repeatedly to face problems which we would rather let alone, to dive dismally ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... and half curiously, as if she belonged to some strange and hitherto unknown type, and her vivacious egotism began to fail her. She was much relieved therefore when Mildred excused herself and went to her room, for careless, light-hearted, and somewhat giddy Belle imposed no restraint. Roger, however, did not recover himself, for he saw that he had made a false step in his effort to win recognition from Mildred, and he waited impatiently until his companion should suggest returning. This she soon did, and they rode toward her home ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... Selingman was on the pavement outside the theatre, surrounded by a little group of light-hearted girls and a ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for that matter. It was a rather odd specimen of love-making; for he was constantly trying to subdue his features to a gravity which they were not used to, and she was as constantly endeavoring to be as lively as possible, with the innocent desire of pleasing her light-hearted suitor. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... before—I knew—I loved him. And now, you cannot wonder that I want him to live. My life shall be devoted to taking care of him. Oh, how I wish you could see him, Isabella! You would see that what I say is true. He is so happy, so light-hearted. I think he must be just what he used to be when he ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... I have ever known, Ah, only love I shall ever know, The careless hours of youth have flown And the light-hearted past to the winds is thrown, And faster and faster the ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... on a long journey through the Middle West. He took but one book in his bag. It was by Whitman (the poet of cities, mark). And he determined to read it every evening in his bedroom after the toils of the day. The first part of the trip ran in the country. "Afoot and light-hearted" he took to the open road every morning, and reveled every evening in such things as "Manahatta," "The Song of Joys," and "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Then he carried his poet of cities to a city. But the two would have nothing to do with one another. ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... the other's willing hand, and the two indulged in a mutual squeezing affair, in which the honors were about even. Big Bob certainly looked happier than Jack could ever remember seeing him before. Well, he had good reason for feeling light-hearted, since in a flash he had been enabled to throw overboard the terrible weight that had for days and weeks been lying upon his soul, and making life unhappy for the ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... his simple and instructive instance: a boy goes out into a wood and meets a wolf, he is frightened, he comes back and tells the other villagers what he felt, how he went to the wood feeling happy and light-hearted and the wolf came, and what the wolf looked like, and how he began to be frightened. This is, according to Tolstoy, art. Even if the boy never saw a wolf at all, if he had really at another time been frightened, and if he was ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... though she did not mean to; she was so light-hearted, and it was very funny to see how quickly he softened ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... Light-hearted, little-forecasting, brave, merry boys! God accept you, our offering of first fruits! See that mother—that wife—take them away; it is too much. Comfort them, father, brother; tell them their ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... in such numbers that the main building, together with the wings, barely sufficed to hold the crowd of guests. Well-served fires roared in all the stoves and fireplaces, while the spits were creaking from early dawn until late at night, and hundreds of light-hearted people, masters and servants, were running up and down stairs; here was heard the jingling and rattling of drinking glasses and jovial hunting choruses, there the footsteps of those dancing to the sound of the shrill music,—everywhere loud mirth and jollity; so that ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... and its possible result interfered neither with the digestion nor the sleep of the light-hearted Harry. That night he went to bed and slept the sleep of the just. He had the bed and the room now all to himself, and would have slept till morning had he not been roused by a very ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... to live with an eye to the customs of society; even Winnie had found some attractions in their little western home. The neighbors comprising those who lived for twenty miles around, the nearest being a mile distant, were pleasant, light-hearted people, and the civilities which were shown to the ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... scene, we go back into a summer long ago, but fair, and just like this. Jane McCrea is no longer a myth, but a young girl, blooming and beautiful with the roses of her seventeen years. Farther back still, we see an old man's darling, little Jenny of the Manse, a light-hearted child, with sturdy Scotch blood leaping in her young veins,—then a tender orphan, sheltered by a brother's care,—then a gentle maiden, light-hearted no longer, heavy-freighted, rather, but with ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... past midnight when, after a light-hearted farewell, he walked alone across the wide, empty square. The heavens were veiled in luminous mist. He moved with the confident step of a sleep-walker. Without being really conscious that he was on a path which he had not traversed for five-and-twenty years, he found ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... it; he was almost indifferent to the question of whom he had chosen. Certainly, at first, the choice of Blanche Evers seemed highly incongruous; it was difficult to imagine a young woman less shaped to minister to Gordon's strenuous needs than the light-hearted and empty-headed little flirt whose inconsequent prattle had remained for Bernard one of the least importunate memories of a charming time. Blanche Evers was a pretty little goose—the prettiest of little geese, perhaps, and doubtless the most amiable; but she was not a companion ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... alone with the reactionary old couple when presently Mrs. Wayne, very well pleased with her evening, took her departure. He assisted her into her taxi, and as he came upstairs with a buoyant step, he wished it were not ridiculous at his age to feel so light-hearted. ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... perplexed her more than it need, even if it had not been mere phantasm. It made her suspicious of Mr. Arbuton's behavior towards her, and observant of little things that might very well have otherwise escaped her. The bantering humor, the light-hearted trust and self-reliance with which she had once met him deserted her, and only returned fitfully when some accident called her out of herself, and made her forget the differences that she now too plainly saw in their ways of thinking ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... been already violated, and he determined to spare no pains to conciliate the estates, in order that they might be content with a new violation, should the contingency occur. Philip's oaths were therefore without reserve, and the light-hearted Flemings, Brabantines, and Walloons received him with open arms. In Valenciennes the festivities which attended his entrance were on a most gorgeous scale, but the "joyous entrance" arranged for him ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... one really is from material things, how little they really affect us, then the change is almost grateful. It is the spirit of the game, the activity, the energy, that delights us, not the particular toy. And so the looking back on life ought never to be a mournful thing; it ought to be light-hearted, high-spirited, amusing. The spirit survives, and there is yet much experience ahead of us. We waste our sense of pathos very strangely over inanimate things. We get to feel about the things that surround us, our houses, our very chairs and tables, as if they were somehow things that were actually ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was the happiest and most respectable period of his life, and no doubt he never was more light-hearted than when he delivered over to William the mortgage of his dukedom, with all its load of care, and received in return the sum of money squeezed by his brother from all the unfortunate convents in England, but which Robert used to equip his brave knights and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... I assured myself that I was witnessing one of the horrors of Molokai, and that it was shameful for me, under such circumstances, to be so light-hearted and light-headed. But it was no use. The next event was a donkey-race, and it was just starting; so was the fun. The last donkey in was to win the race, and what complicated the affair was that no rider rode his own donkey. They rode one another's donkeys, the result of which was that each man ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... Cameron found the buried treasure he was a changed man. He who was once so genial and light-hearted was now moody and sullen. Once home had been to him the pleasantest spot in all the world; but burdened with a consciousness of guilt, he could not bear to look in the faces of his unsuspecting family, and ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... has no positive conviction such as is voiced in "The Everlasting Yea." He is beset by doubts which he never settles, and his poems generally express sorrow or regret or resignation. In his prose he shows the cavalier spirit,—aggressive, light-hearted, self-confident. Like Carlyle, he dislikes shams, and protests against what he calls the barbarisms of society; but he writes with a light touch, using satire and banter as the better part of his argument. Carlyle denounces with the zeal of a Hebrew prophet, and lets you know ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... a light-hearted loon, If you listen to popular rumour; From morning to night he's so joyous and bright, And he bubbles with wit and good humour! He's so quaint and so terse, both in prose and in verse; Yet though people forgive his transgression, There are ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... was light-hearted and easy. He had come to cheer up his chum, but found there was ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... short, the lad was too clever. It came out, after, that he'd took to bettin' his employers' money agen the rich men up at the Royal Exchange. An' the upshot was that one evenin', while he was drinkin' tea with his mother in his lovin' light-hearted way, in walks a brace o' constables, an' says, 'William Pinsent, young chap, I arrest thee upon a charge o' counterfeitin' old Gregory's handwritin', ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to hear that," exclaimed Courtney, real concern in his voice. "She was such a lively, light-hearted girl when I was over there. I can't imagine her moping. I hope Amos Vick isn't too close-fisted to consult a doctor. He's ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... manufacture such things for himself. Now when Sam was twenty-three the falling-out had become chronic. No doubt it was in the blood, as Dr. Lavendar said. Some thirty years before, Sam senior, then a slim and dreamy youth, light-hearted and given to writing verses, had fallen out with his father, old Benjamin Wright; fallen out so finally that in all these years since, the two men, father and son, had not spoken one word to each other. If anybody might have been supposed ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... Jimmie would turn to glance around him, even while he was building the fire ashore and cooking the supper over it for a change. He could not get the warning of his boatmate out of his head, and Jack noticed that for a wonder the usually merry and light-hearted Irish lad made no attempt to carol any of his favorite school songs ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... he went to bed early and slept better than he had slept for weeks. The next day he almost enjoyed, and when evening came, felt desultory, even light-hearted. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... amid a world of light-hearted couples,—was aware that beneath his surface indifference there lurked a certain shamefaced envy of these bewildering mortals who could shuffle off the years, and revert, unabashed, to the entrancing follies of childhood; ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... and, lacking the spur of necessity, or of disquieting ambition, he remained little more than a clever amateur. Once in a while he painted a picture which showed what he could do; but for the rest, he was satisfied to wander over the world, light-hearted and content. We knew that the Story Girl was thought to resemble him strongly in appearance and temperament, but she had far more fire and intensity and strength of will—her inheritance from King and Ward. She would never be satisfied as ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... residence, and river, and lake, and meadow, was familiar to him, and he felt such an individual love and affection for them, as if they had been capable of welcoming and feeling the presence of the light-hearted boy, whom they had so often ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... one of those light-hearted, womanly creatures who seem born to make home a paradise. She had a sweet temper; a laugh which was like music; a manner ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... other names till you come to the Maid of Lorn, is a rough, gnarled, incomparable little bit of a terrier, three parts Dandie-Dinmont, and one part—chiefly in tail and hair—cocker: her father being Lord Rutherfurd's famous "Dandie," and her mother the daughter of a Skye, and a light-hearted Cocker. The Duchess is about the size and weight of a rabbit; but has a soul as big, as fierce, and as faithful as had Meg Merrilies, with a nose as black as Topsy's; and is herself every bit as game and queer as that delicious imp ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... joyous company which fared along the road, some riding, some on foot, travelling together for safety, all bound to the same shrine where they would hear the masses and make their vows and so return, light-hearted: it was, in fact, the mediaeval way of taking a holiday. Sometimes it was to Canterbury, where was the shrine of Thomas Becket, that the pilgrims were bound: sometimes to Walsingham, where was the miraculous image ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... whether the masques and revels held here in honor of the Scotch Queen were able to dispel sad thoughts of that day at Amboise, of whose miseries we heard so much yesterday. Mary Stuart, more than half French, was gay, light-hearted and perhaps in those early days with a short memory for the sorrows of life; but it seems as if the recollection of that day of slaughter and misery could never have been quite effaced from her mind. To Catherine, who revelled in blood and murder, ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... all the life out of one. I have heard of some of our Hungarian lads out in America who get so ill with homesickness that they either die or become vicious. But then," he added, with a quick, characteristic return to his habitual light-hearted gaiety, "it isn't everyone who is far from home who has such a bright star as I had to gaze at in my mind . . . when it came night time and the lights were put ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... They were light-hearted and free from care, though abandoning all of home they had ever known, and going whither, for home and protection, they knew not,—all was compensated for with them, if only they were forever free. The prompt emancipation ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... when things went wrong he retained his bonhomie. Taking too little thought for the morrow, he liked, as Charlevoix remarks, 'to get the fun out of his money, and scarcely anybody amused himself by hoarding it.' He was light-hearted even to frivolousness, and this gave the austere Church fathers many serious misgivings. He was courteous always, but boastful, and regarded his race as the salt of the earth. A Norman in every bone of his body, he used, as his descendants ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... cheery farewell, and the pawnbroker, watching him from the door, scowled angrily as he saw his light-hearted friend hail an omnibus at the corner and board it. Then he went back to the shop, and his everyday business of making advances on flat-irons and other realizable assets ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... gloomy entrance, and looked upon the luxuriant plain, the glittering capital shining in its midst, whose gaudy pagodas, hung round with bells and adorned with flags, were very different from those just visited; the industrious population were going light-hearted to their work as we rode through smiling fields, and we ceased to wonder at Patn looking deserted, for it was evident that all the cheerfully disposed inhabitants had flitted away, unable to bear its depressing influence, and leaving behind them only the crabbed old people at the corners of the ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... it had been Honor's dream to cross the Indus and join her favourite brother, the second-in-command of a Punjab cavalry regiment; to come into touch with an India other than the light-hearted India of luxury and smooth sailing, which she had enjoyed as only daughter of General Sir John Meredith, K.C.B., and now, with the completion of her father's term of service, her dream had become an ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... said I, "it's easy for you to be light-hearted in the matter. You may readily build your bachelor's house at Barbreck, and I may set up again the barn at Elrigmore; but where husband or son is gone it's a different story. For love is a passion stronger than hate. Are you not wondering that those good folk on ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... "Right-o!" replied that light-hearted damsel. "Just one warning—don't be scared at anything that happens; it's all in fun! Don't say I told you, though. No, I can't explain. I'm not ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... melody of her wonderful voice falls upon his ear, Arthur St. Claire bows his head upon his hands and weeps, for the music carries him back to the long ago when he had no terrible secret haunting every hour, but was as light-hearted as the maiden whom, as she gallops away on her swift-footed Arabian, he looks after, with wistful eyes, watching her until the sweep of her long riding-skirt and the waving of her graceful plumes disappear beneath the shadow of the dim woods, where night is beginning to fall. ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... night to ask me about living here. 'What he was once to me,' she said, 'is buried in a grave, side by side with what I was to him. But I have thought of this; and I will make the trial. In the hope of saving him; for the love of the light-hearted girl (you remember her) who was to have been married on a New Year's Day; and for the love of her Richard.' And he said he had come to her from Lilian, and Lilian had trusted to him, and she never could forget that. So they ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... this light-hearted lady till the family was assembled to breakfast; and then Cecilia, softened towards Delvile by newly-excited admiration, as well as by the absence which would separate them the following day, intended, by every little courteous office in her power, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Lord Barminster had done little to keep the flame of loyalty alight in the hearts of his tenants. He was an old man, nearing seventy, tall, white-headed and haughty—every feature clear-cut, as if carved from marble. Few people had ever seen the stern lines of that face relax in light-hearted laughter since the death of his young wife, which had occurred a few years after the birth of Adrien. None, outside his immediate family circle, had ever known the curtness of his speech to be softened unless ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... the place, the absence of restraint, the easy life, and, above all, the freshness of returning health, rendered his spirits exceedingly high, and he had never been more light-hearted and full of mirth. James, elated at his rapid improvement, was scarcely less full of liveliness and frolic, enjoying to the utmost the holiday, which perhaps both secretly felt might be the farewell to the perfect carelessness of boyish relaxation. Bathing, boating, fishing, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... being a silent, sullen race, seldom speaking, and never laughing nor joking. However true this may be in regard to some tribes, it certainly was not the case with most of those who lived upon the great Plains. These people were generally talkative, merry, and light-hearted; they delighted in fun, and were a race of jokers. It is true that, in the presence of strangers, they were grave, silent, and reserved, but this is nothing more than the shyness and embarrassment felt by a child in the presence of strangers. As the Indian becomes acquainted, this reserve ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... early hour an air of excitement pervaded the station. Many men were idling about the passenger platform, and here and there little groups could be seen in muttered conversation. There was no laughter, no light-hearted chaff. It was noted by both men in the cab, before Geordie rejoined them, that as the injured man was borne on his stretcher across the yard into the passenger station, these groups seemed rather to edge away instead of crowding about in ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... although it always makes me melancholy— indeed, all music affects me the same way, in spite of my not being by any means what you would call a sad person. On the contrary, I am supposed to be one of the most light-hearted fellows imaginable, and, certainly, laugh more than I ever cry. However, mirth and sadness are closer allies than people generally suspect. All emotion proceeds, more or less, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... at last found reason to grumble at his silence. She had chattered away the whole time in her light-hearted, inconsequent fashion, and at last asked him a question to which she required more than a nod of the head in reply. And she had to ask it three times, a ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... into the wagon without assistance. "I don't believe there is any need of Dr. Killmany, after all!" And the neighbors, as one after another they leaned over the sideboard of the wagon, and shook hands with Mr. Walker, made some cheerful and light-hearted remark, calculated to convey the impression that the leave-taking was a mere matter of form, and only for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... that they are as keen in trade as the Portuguese. The lower classes are as indolent and sensual here as in other parts of the province, a moral condition not to be wondered at in a country where perpetual summer reigns, and where the necessities of life are so easily obtained. But they are light-hearted, quick-witted, communicative, and hospitable. I found here a native poet, who had written some pretty verses, showing an appreciation of the natural beauties of the country, and was told that the Archbishop of Bahia, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... These disagreements between light-hearted and bibulous persons who haunt the courts week after week have nothing especially pathetic about them, but there are many that make one's heart ache; many that seem absolutely beyond any solution, and ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that I like it," she replied. "I have pace here, and the noise of the wicked world seldom reaches me in it. My only friend and companion here is the Almighty—praise and glory be to his name!"—and here she devoutly crossed herself—"bar-rin', indeed, when the light-hearted girshas (young girls) comes a kailyee* wid their wheels, to keep the poor ould woman company, and rise her ould heart by their light ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton |
