"Lightness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... entrance to the place where the frigate lay, was only three miles, yet, in consequence of the lightness of the wind, they did not get within hail of her until eleven o'clock. When they had approached within two hundred yards, they were hailed and ordered to anchor, or they would be fired into. Lieutenant Decatur ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... his face to hers and received the kiss. "You're a nice little girl," he said, and there was an odd note of feeling in the words for all their lightness that made Jeanie aware that in some ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... not answer. She looked charming with her great boa tied about her throat, and sprang into the dog-cart all lightness and joy. ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... said of him; if he were inclined to drink he was not a drunkard; if he stirred up strife in himself he was not quarrelsome. He over-reached in a bargain, but never did anything actually dishonest. He was not credited with any lightness in his moral conduct towards any village maid. That he was frugal, keen witted, was about all the good that was said, and that could be said of him. If he had won no one's love hitherto, was it likely that there was anything lovable in him? Would he secure ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... seen coming down with the boats in tow, hardly stemming the flood, from the lightness of the breeze, when Nancy Corbett requested to speak with Sir Robert Barclay. She stated to him what she had done, and the dissatisfaction among the troops and seamen in consequence, and submitted to him the propriety ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... felt an unselfish joy, a greater lightness of heart. Surely the spring would bring back some of her lost happiness to France. There would be another great drive, another tragic contest of strength, but the British and French ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... settled the account with Marengo. But the former were now close by, and the wolves, seeing them, ran off; but, to the consternation of the boys, each of them carried off a bag of the pemmican in his mouth with as much lightness and speed as ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... accompanied by the same monotonous singing, began again. Kuzma Vassilyevitch sat meanwhile very quietly on the sofa and went on looking at Colibri; he felt something strange and unusual in himself: he was conscious of great lightness and freedom, too great lightness, in fact; he seemed, as it were, unconscious of his body, as though he were floating and at the same time shudders ran down him, a sort of agreeable weakness crept over his legs, and his lips and eyelids tingled with drowsiness. He had no desire now, no thought ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... of Lady Agatha Slade than of any one else that evening. She was placed next to him at dinner, and she really was radiant to look upon in palest green chiffon. She had an exquisite little head, with soft hair piled with wondrous lightness upon it, and her long little neck swayed like the stem of a flower. She was lovely enough to arouse in the beholder's mind the anticipation of her being silly, but she was not ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... publications of the kind proposed, with matter adapted to their circumstances, to their capacities, and their various turns of fancy; matter accessible to them by its conciseness and perspicuity, attractive by its variety and lightness, and useful by its easy adaptation to the familiar intercourse of life, and its fitness to enter into the conversation of rational society. Men whose time and labour are chiefly engrossed by the common occupations of life, have little ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... much of her life had been passed in wild forest rambles. She looked frail as the rays of moonbeam which slid down the old white-bearded hemlocks, but her limbs were agile and supple as steel; and while the party went crashing on before, she followed with such lightness that the slight sound of her movements was entirely lost in the heavy crackling plunges of the party. Her little heart was beating fast and hard; but could any one have seen her face, as it now and then came into a spot of ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... grandpapa, and men sitting with Winchesters in my mind's eye? No; war is a huge ENTRAINEMENT; there is no other temptation to be compared to it, not one. We were all wet, we had been about five hours in the saddle, mostly riding hard; and we came home like schoolboys, with such a lightness of spirits, and I am sure such a brightness of eye, as you could have ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... away too long, I am getting spoiled," he replied, with an attempt at lightness. He forced his eyes to meet hers, and she read ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sweeten it; grate in Haifa nutmeg, and add a pound of well-washed currants, beat up four eggs separately, and then mix them up with the rest, adding, if desired, a few strips of candied orange peel. All the ingredients must be beaten up together for about half an hour, as the lightness of the pudding depends upon that. Tie it up in a cloth, and boil for an hour. When it is dished, pour a little white wine sauce ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... rifle over his shoulders, and John had secured an automatic. All the soldiers were well armed. John felt a singular lightness of heart, and, despite the forbidding glare of Suzanne, who was in the last cart, ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... excited by sudden sallies and unexpected exclamations, than by the more artful and placid beauties of methodical deduction, they loosed their genius to its own course, passed from one sentiment to another without expressing the intermediate ideas, and roved at large over the ideal world with such lightness and agility, that their footsteps ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... and to make harmless fun, and to sentimentalize in a half-earnest way; she liked to be with Mr. Arbuton, but now she did not see how she could take her natural tone with him. She wondered at her daring lightness at the breakfast-table; she waited for him to say something, and he said, with a glance at the gray heaven that always overhangs the Saguenay, that it was beginning to rain, and unfurled the slender silk umbrella which harmonized so perfectly ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... be. And, therefore, I at least do not regret that its very form, outside, should want those heaven-pointing spires, that delicate lightness, that airy joyousness, of many a foreign cathedral—even of our own Salisbury and Lichfield. You will see in its outer shape little, if any, of that type of architecture which was, as I believe, copied from scenery with which ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... leaving Horsehead Crossing we had the advantage of the dark of the moon, as it was a well-known fact that the Comanches usually choose moonlight nights for their marauding expeditions. Another thing in our favor, both going and returning, was the lightness of travel westward, it having almost ceased during the civil war, though in '66 it showed a slight prospect of resumption. Small bands of Indians were still abroad on horse-stealing forays, but the rich prizes of ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... exchanged her expression of scorn (of resentment at her veracity's being impugned) for a look of gentle amusement; she smiled patiently, as if she remembered that of course Laura couldn't understand of what an impertinence she had been guilty. There was a quickness of perception and lightness of hand which, to her sense, her American sister had never acquired: the girl's earnest, almost barbarous probity blinded her to the importance of certain pleasant little forms. 'My poor child, the things ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... aliment he can digest. It is sufficient with some men that their sensoria be delighted with pleasurable and animated grouping, colour, light, and shade: this feeling or desire of their's is, in itself, thoroughly innocent: it is true, it is not a great burden for them to carry; no, but it is the lightness of the burden that is the merit; for thereby, their step is quickened and not clogged, their intellect is exhilarated and not oppressed. Thus, then, a purpose is secured, from a picture or poem or statue, which may not have in it the smallest particle of what Christian and ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... of de Langeais' lightness, which in your stern code you would call levity, and yet you envy him possession of it. You don't think it's right to be joyous, without a care, and yet you know it would be mighty pleasant. You criticize de Langeais a little, but ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and grey. He felt bad. His first act, unconscious and automatic, was to feel for his sack. Its lightness startled him. Then, slowly, memories of the night thronged into his brain. Rough voices disturbed him. He opened his eyes and peered out from under the table. A couple of early risers, or, rather, men who had been out on trail all night, were ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... it with the new archbishop who had been sent over to enlighten the Irish nation? In July 1537 Henry felt it necessary to reprove his spiritual representative for his lightness of behaviour, his vain-glory, and his remissness in preaching the pure word of God, and to warn him that if he did not show himself more active both in religious matters and in advancing the king's cause he should be obliged to put a man of more honesty in his place.[8] The archbishop issued ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... of the welfare of the world, too full of brute force not to grab vigorously at his own gain. Such dwarfs are quite common in London. He comes now with a fruitful impulse in him, in search of what he lacks in himself, beauty, lightness of heart, imagination, music. The Rhine maidens, representing all these to him, fill him with hope and longing; and he never considers that he has nothing to offer that they could possibly desire, being by natural limitation incapable ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... within the memory of Doctor Hale,—with the passage on this latest floating palace of the ocean, the Kaiser Wilhelm II.,—and he realizes how far science has penetrated into the more subtle forces, where lightness and speed take the place of clumsy device and slow motion. To go up to the hurricane deck of the wonderful Kaiser Wilhelm and look down through the openings on the six mighty engines, with their intense throb of vibration day and night, ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... obeyed in silence—wonderfully warm despite the lightness of his attire. His comfort would have been complete had that junior only been there to help him. The Fifth-form boy insisted on the bed being made from the very beginning—including the turning of the mattress and the shaking of each several sheet and blanket—so that the process ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... The pleasure of their meeting that afternoon, after a separation of nearly two years, had dispelled for a time the trouble which he now saw revealing itself in his companion's face and attitude, and the lightness of Whittemore's manner in beginning his explanation for inducing him to come into the north had helped to complete the mask. There occurred to him, for an instant, a picture which he had once drawn ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... to the effect that a slender player should use a light club and one of powerful build a heavy one; indeed, one constantly finds the slim men employing the most ponderous drivers, as if, as it were, to make up for their own lightness, while heavy men will often prefer clubs that are like pen-holders to them. Once more I suggest the adoption of the medium as being generally the most satisfactory. I have a strong dislike to drivers that are unusually light, and I do not think that anyone can consistently ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... of it exceeding smooth, then examining it very diligently with a Microscope, me thought I could perceive it to appear a little porous; but I could not so plainly distinguish them, as to be sure that they were pores, much less what Figure they were of: But judging from the lightness and yielding quality of the Cork, that certainly the texture could not be so curious, but that possibly, if I could use some further diligence, I might find it to be discernable with a Microscope, I with the same sharp Penknife, cut off from the former smooth surface an exceeding thin piece ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... had my life been so enjoyable to me as it was now. I was conscious of a delicious lightness of heart. The simplest things pleased me; I was ready to be kind to everybody, and to admire everything. Even the familiar scenery of my rides in the park developed beauties which I had never noticed before. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... dazed and blind, yet with a kind of lightness too as he came out of the gaol-gate into that packed mass of faces, held back by guards from the open space where the horse and the hurdle waited. A dozen persons or so were within the guards; he knew several of them by sight; ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... here and there in the woods a maple waved a gay crimson banner, or a branch of birch showed pale golden against the dark, unchanging spruces. The air was very pure and exhilarating. Sylvia walked with a joyous lightness of step and uplift ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... being thus dispersed among the Malay Islands. In 1621 Hernando de los Rios Coronel stated that ten thousand Christians were held captive in Mindanao (Vol. XIX, p. 264). At times the Spaniards sent armed fleets in pursuit of these pirates, but the latter would escape, on account of the superior lightness and swiftness of their vessels. Punitive expeditions were sent to their villages, some of which were futile, but others inflicted on them severe punishment—Jolo: 1602 (Vol. XV, pp. 240-243, 264, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... our beds on the roof of the boat and went to sleep under the stars. We left the boat shortly after daylight at Daing-nei for the six-mile walk to Lung-tao. To my great surprise the coolies were considerably distressed at the lightness of our loads. In this region they are paid by weight and some of the bearers carry almost incredible burdens. As an example, one of our men came into camp swinging a 125-pound trunk on each end of his pole, laughing and chatting as ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... embalming, centuries pass away, and the body of the Saint remains untouched by decay, bearing the impress of life in death, and not crumbling to dust, as in cases of natural preservation, when exposed to the action of the atmosphere. Add to these, the supernatural flexibility and lightness with which at times the living body is endowed by Divine power; the physical accompaniment of ecstasy; the elevation of the entire body from the ground, and its suspension in the air for a considerable space of time; and we ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... lumbering traffic that passed heavily down St. James's Street. He rose stiffly from his chair, vexed with himself for having dozed. It was more than a doze, though; he had slept some thirty minutes by his watch. No memory of any dreams was in him— nothing but a feeling of great refreshing lightness and peace.... ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... things in the room had more of his attention and observation, especially the young lady who sat at the head of the table; a girl about his own age; she was on a very small scale, and seemed to him like a fairy, in the airy lightness and grace of her movements, and the blithe gladsomeness of her gestures and countenance. Form and features, though perfectly healthful and brisk, had the peculiar finish and delicacy of a miniature painting, and were enhanced by the sunny glance of her ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... last, when coyly led forward, with his head all on one side and a beaming smile on his honest countenance, he found that his big paws, stretched out, made a first-rate cradle; though, not being aware of the excessive lightness of the little creature, he very nearly chucked it over his shoulders. Betty and Nancy, after arranging the child's clothes, bestowing sundry kisses, and giving several important cautions, let the party of honest Jacks proceed on ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... I have heard that a swordsman opposed to the powers of evil regains his vigour on finding himself engaged with a mortal foe. Though I knew that the hours of grace were fast running to a close, and that on the morrow the priest would call for an answer, I experienced that evening an unreasonable lightness and cheerfulness. I retired to rest with confidence, and slept is comfort, supported in part, perhaps, by the assurance that in that room where my mother died her persecutor could have ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... palaces that seemed to me most deserving of admiration were the Farnese and the Cancellaria, the former Michael Angelo's, the latter Bramante's work, the first a perpetuation in stone of beauty and power, the second, of grace and lightness. I felt that if one were to take a person with no idea of architecture and set him in front of these buildings, there would fall like scales from his eyes, and he would say: "Now I know ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... the clearing house and open sesame of the vast trade of the Orient which is just coming into being; the foundation for the bridge of gold which shall reach across the seas; a fit monument to posterity which shall be erected with all the lightness and grace and stability of the present cultured generations, born with their feet in the flowers grown from the mother-gold of decent manhood and glorious womanhood—the precious metals of ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... of money is as the elixir of life. Justin, holding on by the skin of his teeth for ten thousand dollars, and needing imperatively at least as much more, felt that with this paltry sixty dollars it was suddenly possible to draw a free breath, felt a sheer lightness of spirit that showed how terrible was the persistent weight under which he was living. The very feeling of those separate bills in his pocket ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... the leaf of pencilled paper on the table. The next minute his rapid footsteps crunched on the gravel path. Even after he was gone and she was left quite alone in her old condition, the dead, nerveless sense of despair did not return. An unreasonable lightness of spirit buoyed her—a feeling that after a desolate winter a new season was coming, that her little world was growing larger, lighting indefinably ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... heavy baggage of a Cavalry Division is two and a half or five kilometres in length it is tolerably immaterial, but it is imperative, as we have seen, that they should be able to move and get out of the way. Hence, it is not the number of waggons which concerns us, but their individual lightness and mobility, so that on all roads they can follow their units at a trot, and only in the case of Divisional Cavalry can the other point ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... wits, "I assassinate such a thing!"—"I think you dare not," answered the lady; "I believe my conduct may defy malice itself to assert so cursed a slander. If I had ever discovered any wantonness, any lightness in my behaviour; if I had followed the example of some whom thou hast, I believe, seen, in allowing myself indecent liberties, even with a husband; but the dear man who is gone" (here she began to sob), "was he alive again" (then she produced tears), "could not upbraid me with ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... heard him laugh with such lightness, with such a note of soul-gladness, before. "Hope.... I shall eat and drink hope—until you—come to me. For you will come to me. I know it.... It couldn't be any other way." He laughed again, gayly. And then from out the blackness ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... sun, could have told that Pop Potter awkwardly kissed Mom Potter good-night, something he had not done for years. And in the darkness Mom Potter was far too happy to sleep, and in the fullness of her joy lay there inventing cakes of such size and creaminess and lightness that ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... darling! You make me blush!" She drew her sari across her face, hiding, under a veil of lightness, her joy ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... occurred, I believe, more than once. There had been at first a white marble basin, but it did not give satisfaction, because, being in several pieces, it leaked, whereas the black one is all cut out of one block, at great expense, of course. But the white had the advantage of lightness where light is none too plentiful. In our winter, when days are dark and cold, black pools, with marble columns and floors, tiled walls, and dim domes about them do not fall in with English notions of cosy woollen comfort. The season to do justice to this hall is when summer comes round. When ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... hand-made shoe in preserving the natural action and growth of the foot, thereby retaining the powers of the animal in full vigor, it would still be cheaper than the common shoe. It is sold slightly higher than the clumsy pieces of bent iron called horse-shoes by mere courtesy, and its lightness gives one-third more shoes to the keg, while there is no expense of calking, which, in labor and material, is equal to three cents per pound. Upon the point of durability, it is well settled that the heavy ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell
... speaking, by lack of it. But in spite of his long life of dissipation and adventure (he had campaigned with the Swiss Guards at thirteen, and, though he was much past forty, looked like a man of scarce thirty), there was still such an unrivalled grace in all he said and did, such an heroic lightness and gallantry in all he dared—and he dared everything—that he seemed to be eternally young and incomparably charming. It was with a new-born and deep disgust that Calvert noted the attentions of this man, whose life he disdained to ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... other countries," he answered, with a lightness he did not feel. "Who knows perhaps the English or the Prussians might be amenable to a change of government. I shall seek to induce one or the other of them to became a republic, and then I shall become ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... doctrine or fact of Christianity is concerned, are not to be taken as revelations of the Spirit. We know, for example, from Paul's own words, that he changed his declared purpose respecting a visit to Corinth, for which his enemies accused him of using lightness. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... freebooters found themselves tossed about by the impetuous current, and speedily covered with spray. The lightness of their floating baskets kept them from sinking, but the energetic efforts they were obliged to make to keep from being thrown out or dashed on the rocks soon exhausted them. A short experience taught them the necessity of fastening themselves in the piperies, so that their hands might be ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... colors swarmed, As rosy-flickering stains, Or lambent green, or gold, or crimson, warmed The pulsing crystal of the spirit's veins With ever-changing brightness. And through the Arctic night there went a voice, As if the ancient Earth cried out, "Rejoice! My heart is full of lightness!" ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... eyes, the simple arrangement of her coal-black hair—which instead of being confined by comb or fillet, was twisted round a thorn cut from the nearest locust-tree—and by the smallness of her stature, though the lightness and European tinge of her complexion must ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... I think he is mistaken, because the agony is all gone, and except for this odd sinking now and then, I don't feel so much amiss," he answered feebly but with something of the old lightness in his voice. ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... Layson with an awkward lightness. "Barbara told me what passed between you two young folks afore you come up to the mountings," he explained. And then, with further elephantine airyness: "I say, jest excuse me—reckon I'm in the way." He made a move as ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... itself unpremeditated. It must not by its lofty tone elevate the characters as in Tragedy, where, along with the unusual sublimity of the language, it becomes as it were a mental Cothurnus. In Comedy the verse must serve merely to give greater lightness, spirit, and elegance to the dialogue. Whether, therefore, a particular comedy ought to be versified or not, must depend on the consideration whether it would be more suitable to the subject in hand to give to the dialogue this perfection of form, or to adopt into the comic imitation all rhetorical ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the tree (Cedrela toona—Roxb.) called calanta in Tagal, and lanipga in Visayan. The tree is fragrant and has wood of a reddish color. It was used for making the hulls of vessels, because of its strength and lightness. The same author describes also the asana (Pterocarpus indicus—Willd.) or as it is called in the Visayas, naga or narra—as an aromatic tree, of which there are two varieties, male and female. The wood of the male tree is pinkish, while ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... short sleeves; but horrified at so much bareness, she covered her fine arms with clear gauze sleeves and hid her shoulders under an embroidered cape. Her curls, a l'Anglaise, struck her as too fly-away; she subdued their airy lightness by putting on a very pretty cap; but, with or without the cap, would she have known how to twist the golden ringlets so as to show off ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... of life and glee. Decline, slow but sure, it seemed even to Percy's inexperienced eye, was marked on her pale features; and at those times when bodily suffering was greatest, her spirit would resume a portion of its former lightness, as if it rejoiced in the anticipated release. There was a deep thrilling melody in her voice, whether in speaking or, when strength allowed, in warbling forth the pathetic airs of her native land; for Agnes Amesfort was a child of Erin, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... 330,000 times as great as that of the earth. The solar material itself is, however, relatively light, so that the sun is four times as big as it would have to be if, while its weight remained the same, its density equalled that of the earth. Bearing in mind this lightness of the sun, and also the exceedingly high temperature which we know to prevail there, no other conclusion seems possible than that the body of the sun must be in a gaseous state. The conditions under which such gases exist in the sun are, ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... it—her long confession, from the earliest days. He winced often—she never wavered. She carried through the sharpest analysis of her whole mind with regard to him; of her relations to him and Wharton in the old days; of the disloyalty and lightness with which she had treated the bond, that yet she had never, till quite the end, thought seriously of breaking; of her selfish indifference to, even contempt for, his life, his interests, his ideals; of her calm forecasts of a married state in which she was ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... answered in the general's own words: "Bad parts, worn out parts, unworthy a man of sense, even if they were not so of a good man. It would be sacrilege to attack representative government in this age of intelligence and freedom. He would be but a fool who, with lightness of heart, could wish to cause the loss of the stakes of the republic against royalty after having supported them with some glory and peril." Yet the importance he gave himself in his proclamations was ominous. He reproached the directory ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... human thought. The mere grip of his memory was not simply extraordinary, it had in it a token, a hint, of the strange, the pythic—nay, the sibylline. And as his reflecting intellect, moreover, had all the lightness of foot of a chamois kid, unless you could contrive to follow each dazzlingly swift successive step, by the sum of which he attained his Alp-heights, he inevitably left on you the astounding, the confounding impression ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... new sense, and felt that the light brought with it a genial warmth; odours like those of the most balmy flowers appeared to fill the air, and the sweetest sounds of music absorbed my sense of hearing; my limbs had a new lightness given to them, so that I seemed to rise from the earth, and gradually mounted into the bright luminous air, leaving behind me the dark and cold cavern, and the ruins with which it was strewed. Language is inadequate ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... not prepared to deny, and the end of it was that Mr. Robson baptised the girl, taking Miranda for godmother. Mabilla they called her by her sponsor's desire, "Mabilla By-the-Wood," and as such she was published and married. You may be disposed to blame him for lightness of conscience, but I take leave to tell you that he had had the cure of souls in Dryhope for five-and-thirty years. He claimed on that score to know his people. The more he knew of them, the less he was able to question the lore ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... Its white arm raised a lamp—yet gently hid, Lest the ray flash abruptly on the lid Of that closed eye, which opens but to pain, And once unclosed—but once may close again. That form, with eye so dark, and cheek so fair, And auburn waves of gemmed and braided hair; With shape of fairy lightness—naked foot, 1010 That shines like snow, and falls on earth as mute— Through guards and dunnest night how came it there? Ah! rather ask what will not Woman dare? Whom Youth and Pity lead like thee, Gulnare! She ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... grey dress, pale as the wet sky, fell from her waist outward in the manner of a child's frock, and there was a lightness, there was brightness in the clear eyes. The intense youth of her heart was evanescent; it seemed constantly rising upwards like the breath of a spring morning—a morning when the birds are trilling. ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... the custodian of his own hidden treasure who at this moment broke in upon his musings. Mrs. Mornway, fresh from her afternoon walk, entered the room with that air of ease and lightness which seemed to diffuse a social warmth about her; fine, slender, pliant, so polished and modeled by an intelligent experience of life that youth seemed clumsy in her presence. She looked down at her ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... happened on the third day, and the same man came to meet Etain, she said to him: "It is not you at all I come to meet here, and why is it that you come to meet me? And as to him I came to meet," she said, "indeed it is not for gain or through lightness I bade him come to me, but to heal him of the sickness he is lying under for my sake." Then the man said: "It would be more fitting for you to come to meet me than any other one. For in the time long ago," he said, "I was your first husband, ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... the pistol lay clenched against his breast. Even then, too hard-run to speak, she smiled at him, and Alan caught her up in his arms and darted into the narrow path which he knew their pursuers would not immediately find if they could bet beyond their vision. He was joyously amazed at her lightness. She was like a child in his arms, a glorious little goddess hidden and smothered in her long hair, and he held her closer as he hurried toward the cabins, conscious of the soft tightening of her arms about his neck, feeling the sweet caress of her panting breath, strengthened ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... flying as though borne on the wings of some great white bird, all along the wild and picturesque coast of Skye towards Loch Bracadale. One of the most remarkable features about the yacht was the extraordinary lightness with which she skimmed the waves—she seemed to ride on their surface rather than part them with her keel. Everything on board expressed the finest taste as well as the most perfect convenience, and I saw Mr. Plarland gazing about him in utter amazement at the ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... policy have been quietly settled by mutual forbearance, and agriculture, commerce, and manufactures minister to each other. Taxation and public debt, the burdens which bear so heavily upon all other countries, have pressed with comparative lightness upon us. Without one entangling alliance, our friendship is prized by every nation, and the rights of our citizens are everywhere respected, because they are known to be guarded by a united, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... square, determined, lightly freckled face. She was short and her figure not particularly graceful in repose. Watching her dancing one thought of neither of these things. The square head with the light fringe of curling hair was perfectly poised, the body showed strength and lightness. ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... any straggler passed that way. The two then drew out a bark canoe, containing its seats, paddles, and other appliances, even to fishing-lines and rods. This vessel was by no means small; but such was its comparative lightness, and so gigantic was the strength of Hurry, that the latter shouldered it with seeming ease, declining all assistance, even in the act of raising it to the awkward position in which he was ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... looked wistful for its own element. Why not marry shallop to stream? Why not yield to the enticement of this current, fleet and clear, and gain a few beautiful miles before nightfall? All the world was before us where to choose our bivouac. We dismounted our birch from the truck, and laid its lightness upon the stream. Then we became stevedores, stowing cargo. Sheets of birch-bark served for dunnage. Cancut, in flamboyant shirt, ballasted the after-part of the craft. For the present, I, in flamboyant shirt, paddled in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... the whip in such a manner that the poor child is twisting his legs with pain and appears to be crying out and trying to bite the ear of the boy who is holding him. The whole is executed with much grace and lightness, and Gherardo appears to have delighted in these touches of nature. In like manner, when St Jerome, being at the point of death, is making his will, he has hit off some friars in a delightful and realistic manner, for some are writing, others listening attentively ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... hands," said Rosmore. "Truly, Sir John has made a mistake, his desire perhaps marring his judgment; but, as truly, I am your humble worshipper. No! please hear me out. In London I did not thrust myself upon you because I had wit enough to understand that professions with even a suspicion of lightness in them were distasteful to you; now, after what has occurred, I am at a disadvantage, and I have no intention of putting my happiness to the test at such an inopportune time. For the present look upon me as a friend who hopes presently to win a greater regard, and ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... bound to yield to the individual note of Louis Mullgardt's Court of Abundance, on the east of the Court of the Universe. Of all the courts it has, without a doubt, the strongest individual note. It seems on first acquaintance to be reminiscent of the Gothic, of which it has, no doubt, the quality of lightness, the laciness, and the play of many fine apertures and openings. It has, however, neither the Gothic arch nor the buttresses of that period, and so far as its ground plan goes, it is thoroughly original. It looks as if carved out of ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... conscientious in a fifth. Beyond this, the critics ceased to be so much of one mind. They were, by a casting vote, adverse to the leading lady, whom the majority decided an inadequate Salome, without those great qualities which the author had evidently meant to redeem a certain coquettish lightness in her; the minority held that she had grasped the role with intelligence, and expressed with artistic force a very refined intention in it. The minority hinted that Salome was really the great part in the piece, and that in her womanly endeavor to win back the lover whom she had not ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... legs show a curve, also, but no longer the stoggy, squat cabriole of the over-fed gallant. Instead we are entranced by an ethereal grace and lightness of movement in every line and decoration. Here cabriole means but a courtly knee swiftly bending to salute some beauty's hand. So subtly waving is the curving outline of this furniture that one scarcely knows where it begins or ends, and it ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... of appreciating devotion in others, which becomes devotion in himself. With all the much-cherished elegance and worldly glitter of his personality, he is capable of apprehending, of understanding and being touched by the presence of great matters. In spite of that happy lightness of heart, so jealously fenced about, he is to be wholly caught at last, as he is worthy to be, by the serious, the generous influence of things. In proportion to his immense worldly strength is his capacity for the immense pity which ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... not smile at the feeble petulance of the half-distracted woman. Indeed it was no time for smiles of any sort. The peril around and about was a thing too real and too fearful in its character to admit of any lightness of speech; and the girl did not even twit her mother with the many sovereign remedies purchased as antidotes against infection, though her own disbelief in these had brought down many laments from Lady Vavasour but a few ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... have a tussle for the trees!" said John to himself, as after his cold tubbing he swung his dumb-bells to and fro with the athletic lightness and grace of long practice; "If the villagers are prepared to contest Leach's right to destroy the Five Sisters, I'll back them up in it! I will! And I'll speak my mind to Miss Vancourt too! She is no doubt as apathetic and indifferent to sentiment as all her 'set,' ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... the way—are made use of for the purpose of insinuating or enforcing some useful truth. Point and epigram are the last things thought of; and therefore it is that Pope's translations, admirable as in themselves they are, fail to give an idea of the lightness of touch, the shifting lights and shades, the carelessness alternating with force, the artless natural manner, which distinguish these charming essays. "The terseness of Horace's language in his Satires," it has been well said, "is that of a proverb, neat because homely; ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... was offended by the offer, Philip was much more offended by the refusal. "As you like; I hate pride," said he; and he gave the gun to the groom as he vaulted into his saddle with the lightness of a young ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... more human than ordinary. Nor with "Menagiana," or other 'ana's—as vain and artificial as they are often foul; nor with novels and poems, long since deservedly forgotten. On the first perusal of this lighter literature, you will be charmed with the ease, grace, lightness with which everything is said. On the second, you will be somewhat cured of your admiration, as you perceive how little there is to say. The head proves to be nothing but a cunning mask, with no brains inside. Especially is this true of ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... of field-pieces. It is also possible the wrought iron may be forged in masses large enough, and the cost be so reduced as to bring it into use for field-pieces. It is here important to combine strength with lightness, and additional expense may very properly be incurred to ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... myself," said the Chevalier with assumed lightness. "I am neither young nor old. I stand on the threshold. I can not say that I have suffered since I have known only physical discomforts. But to call me 'son' ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the lights of laughter lying soberly subdued in his eyes, she also discerned something more, that affected her oddly. Despite the horseman's treatment of her escort—a treatment she confessed he had partially deserved—and despite the lightness of his speeches, she felt certain of the depth of his nature, convinced of the genuine earnestness of his purposes—the honesty and worth of ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... his canoe he wrought them, Round its waist a shining girdle. Round its bows a gleaming necklace, On its breast two stars resplendent. Thus the Birch Canoe was builded In the valley, by the river, In the bosom of the forest; And the forest's life was in it, All its mystery and its magic, All the lightness of the birch tree, All the toughness of the cedar, All the larch's supple sinews; And it floated on the river, Like a yellow leaf in autumn, Like a ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... very kind, and wished me to take time, but I have written and made it final.... I should be glad if we might keep together; and whatever must be done, do it with a calm and deliberateness which shall give testimony that it is not done in lightness. ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... Express. "One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been written."—N. Y. Press. "To any woman who has enjoyed the pleasures of a college life this book cannot fail to bring back many sweet recollections; and to those who have not been to college the wit, lightness, and charm of Patty are sure to ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... them the appearance of two youthful but somewhat over-dressed and over-conscious shepherds. There was an interval of slight awkwardness, which Susy endeavored to displace. "There has been," she remarked, with easy conversational lightness, "quite an excitement about our French teacher being changed. The girls in our class think ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... this point that Kennedy had reason to congratulate himself on donning gymnasium shoes. They gave him that extra touch of lightness which enabled him to dodge blows which he was too weak to parry. Everything was vague and unreal to him. He seemed to be looking on at a fight between Walton ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... can not be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you" (Titus 2:8). Our speech in the pulpit should be of such a nature that it will appeal to the hearers. Foolishness, lightness, jesting, indulged in by the minister while preaching the everlasting gospel, is entirely out of place. Nor does this admonition apply entirely to the pulpit, but at all times, under all circumstances, a minister should be an example to the flock. ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole |
