"Lithe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the skirts of which grew single trees of great beauty. White oaks that had seen hundreds of years, yet stood in as fresh and hale green youth as the upstart of twenty; sometimes a hemlock or a white pine stretching its lithe branches far and wide and generously allowed to do so in despite of pasture and crops. Then came broken ground, and beyond this a strip of fallow at the further border of which stood a continuous wall of woodland, being in ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... he was caught first by the bright hair. It was a dark red, and where the light struck it strongly there were places like fire. Down from this hair the light slipped like running water over a lithe body, slender at the hips, strong-chested, round and smooth of limb, with long muscles everywhere leaping and trembling at ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... and vivacity, the young wife went on from one point to another, higher and higher; her lithe figure brought out against the sky, as occasionally she plunged her iron-pointed staff deep into the snow, and turned to admire the vast panorama at her feet. Her husband was making the ascent at a slower pace, looking up to admire the boldness of the little woman, and ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... we saw two natives standing at the edge of the wood quietly watching us. One of them I at once recognised as the lithe and active leader, whom I had seen upon the shore in swift ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... tree almost directly over the beaver, I saw a lithe serpentine thing twitching as if a snake was trying to curl up. But I knew it wasn't a snake. It must be the long tail of a panther who was crouching for a leap, but I could not distinguish a body back of the foliage of ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... out his arms to draw her lithe body close up to his. But as her gloved hand struck him across the face she had sprung back, twisting a little, avoiding him, putting a quick two yards between them. He felt, rather than saw, that her pistol, levelled across the short space separating ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... her face, the perpetual sadness that was visible there when she was not momentarily interested or amused. Had he suspected her paleness and air of secret suffering to be the result of any physical infirmity, she would not have interested him so much. But Mrs. Goddard's lithe figure and easy grace of activity belied all idea of weakness. It was undoubtedly some hidden suffering of mind which lent that sadness to her voice and features, and which so deeply roused the sympathies of the squire. ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... aboriginal forests of the main. But no longer snuffing in the trail of the wild beasts of the woodland, Tashtego now hunted in the wake of the great whales of the sea; the unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing the infallible arrow of the sires. To look at the tawny brawn of his lithe snaky limbs, you would almost have credited the superstitions of some of the earlier Puritans, and half believed this wild Indian to be a son of the Prince of the Powers of the Air. Tashtego was Stubb the second mate's squire. Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... post did not tend to raise his spirits. Angelica came down to dinner dressed in pale green, with something yellow on her head. Mr. Kilroy admired her immensely; she was the only subject upon which he ever became poetical, and somehow the combination of colours she wore on this occasion, with her lithe young figure and milk-white skin, made him think of an arum lily, and he told her so, and was very pleased with the pretty compliment when he had paid it, and with the dinner, and everything. The fatal age was forgotten, and he allowed himself to be cheered ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... "Squirrel—squirrel lithe and wee! Thy fur's as soft as down can be, Thy teeth as ivory are white, Yet hard enough through ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... gate the carriage which was to take us to the station. Now came the moment when I was tried by the crucible and found to be dross. I committed the most foolish blunder of my life. My love suddenly overleapt its bounds. In a moment my arms were around her lithe body; my lips met hers squarely. After it was done she stood very still, as if incapable of understanding my offence. But I understood. I was overwhelmed with remorse, love, and regret. I had made ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... endeavoured to quiet Dick's ringing voice as a girlish, lithe figure appeared between the curtains which divided the stairs from the hall, a figure clad in soft rosy silk with a little lacy tea-jacket over it, and with golden-brown hair waving naturally about a broad, white forehead, with starry brown eyes full of welcome. Taking my hand in hers quietly ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... their commander. He was at once put in charge of a company, and began his duties. When, two days later, they marched up the country, he felt well pleased with his command; for the men were for the most part lithe, active fellows; very obedient to orders and ready for any work, and evidently very proud of their position as British soldiers. They had for the most part had very little practice in shooting; but this was of comparatively ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... returned equipped for her call, and Phillip Stanley's glance rested appreciatively on the lithe, graceful figure in its dainty robe of pale yellow chambrey, with its soft garnishings of lace and black velvet. The nut-brown head was crowned with a pretty shade hat of yellow straw, also trimmed with black velvet ribbon, and ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... said Will eagerly; and Mr Temple watched him closely as they stood once more out in the bright sunshine, and, lithe and strong, he began to climb up the rocks, Dick following him almost as quickly, but without his cleverness in making his way from block ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... reflected her erect and graceful figure, unspoiled by corset or by long, wearisome hours of confinement at the school-bench; it was lithe and well-proportioned as one of Diana's nymphs; but instead, she arranged her golden tresses, and decked her head with a wreath of wild-flowers, bending over a small mountain lake, which she had ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... lithe step she continued ascending the stairs. She had remained essentially a foreigner, a Frenchwoman, too different from those among whom she lived to be influenced by her environment. On reaching the second floor she resumed: "There, on the left, are Donna Serafina's ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... could get off more book-stuff in five minutes 'an mine ever heerd on." His eyes followed the boy as he went out to stand by Jack's elbow and ply this slow-witted gentleman with quick, eager questions. He was slender and rather tall for one of his age, but lithe and agile, as the skipper noted. "One o' mine could jes' trip him with a turn o' his hand," thought he; yet he regarded the lad with a mixture of kindness and respect, after all. There were other things in the world ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... two summers before that this beautiful thing had come into Cummins' life, and into the life of the post. Cummins, red-headed, lithe as a cat, big-souled as the eternal mountain of the Crees, and the best of the company's hunters, had brought Melisse thither as his bride. Seventeen rough hearts had welcomed her. They had assembled about that little cabin ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... with a smile at Nora and a little nod to Crawshay. He passed through the door and disappeared, erect, lithe and graceful. Nora looked after him, and her eyes were filled ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... laugh at him, even though her thoughts were full of him. But when he was there, life to her was more radiant, more full, more glowing with colour and fragrance. The books he touched, the chair he had at breakfast, his young, lithe body in its golfing knickerbockers, or his sleek black head above the dull black of evening wear, haunted her oddly. He troubled her, but she had neither quite the power nor quite the desire ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... storeman's rejoinder, and to make good his word, proceeds to pull off blouse and helmet. By careful inquiry in the outer Hut he finds an ice-axe, crowbar and hurricane lantern. The next move is to the outer veranda, where a few loose boards are soon removed, and the storeman, with a lithe twist, is ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... drew near unwelcomed—a lithe, alert figure in European attire, bare-headed, eager-faced. He was smiling to himself as he came, but when he reached her the smile ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... Lady Theresa Lyle stood by a statue that glittered in the sun, surrounded by a group of cavaliers; among them Lord Beaumanoir, Lord Mil-ford, Lord Eugene de Vere. Her figure was not less lithe and graceful since her marriage, a little more voluptuous; her rich complexion, her radiant and abounding hair, and her long grey eye, now melting with pathos, and now twinkling with mockery, presented one of those faces of ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... recent college graduates, perhaps even of some one of the forestry schools. In this he was correct. The rest were professional out-of-door men. Bob recognized two of his own woods-crew—good men they were, too. He nodded to them. A half-dozen lithe, slender youths, handsome and browned, drew apart by themselves. He remembered having noticed one of them as a particularly daring rider after Pollock's cattle the fall before; and guessed his companions to be of the same breed. Among the remainder, two picturesque, lean, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... was meant, without doubt, to be a varnished edition of "plain," perhaps even "ugly," though Lois Caruthers deserved neither insinuation. Possibly too small in build, she was yet graceful, and there was a lithe, elastic energy in her movements which drew attention to her even among more imposing figures. Possibly, also, she was too dark for the English ideal. Her black hair and large brown eyes, together with the unrelieved pallor of her complexion, gave her appearance something ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... that had tanned the complexion of his compeers, for Brent Kayle had little affinity for labor of any sort. He danced with a light firm step, every muscle supplely responsive to the strongly marked pulse of the music, and he had a lithe, erect carriage which imparted a certain picturesque effect to his presence, despite his much creased boots, drawn over his trousers to the knee, and his big black hat which he wore on the back of his head. The face of his partner had a more subtle appeal, and so light and willowy ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... did not rise to hand it to him, so he was obliged to get up and take it from where she sat. She perceived then that though extremely thin he was lithe and well-shaped. And in spite of her unconquered prejudice, she was obliged to own she liked his steely gray hawk-like eyes and his fine, rather ascetic, clean-shaven face. He did not look at her specially. He may have taken in a small, pale visage and masses of mouse-colored hair and slender ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... a rich merchant of Lyons, who had offered the sub-officer charged with his deportation sixty thousand francs to permit his escape. He was at once the Achilles and the Paris of the band. He was of medium height but well formed, lithe, and of graceful and pleasing address. His eyes were never without animation nor his lips without a smile. His was one of those countenances which are never forgotten, and which present an inexpressible ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... officer at the front, a prostitute of the Berlin sidewalks, who enrolled for hospital work when her lover went to the front. She Was a tall, dark, handsome girl, who looked to be more Spaniard than German, and she was graceful and lithe even in the exceedingly shapeless costume of blue print that she wore. She was less deft than either of her associates but very willing and eager. As between the three—the noblewoman, the working woman and the ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... visit. She introduced him at once to her affianced husband, a handsome young doctor of the town, a man of sterling ability and sound common sense, who very soon made Caper at home, insisted on his dancing the Tarantella and Saltarella Napolitana with a lively, lithe young lady, who cut our artist's heart to fiddlestrings before they had danced five minutes together a polka—for let the truth be told, Caper never ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... eye. Instant agony is the result. Tears stream from the offended pupil; the other eye joins in the general tribulation; and Molly, standing in the centre of the grass-plot, with her handkerchief pressed frantically to her face, and her lithe body swaying slightly to and fro through force of pain, looks the very ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... the lithe, familiar form, Amid the surging smoke, with deaf'ning cheer; No more shall soar above the iron storm, Thy ringing voice ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... or turn. He switched on the flashlight beneath his gun barrel and leaped out of the Tube himself. The light swept about. Evelyn's lithe figure kept moving away from him. Then his heart stood still. There were eyes beyond her in the darkness, huge, monstrous, steady eyes, half a yard apart in a head like something out of hell. And he could not fire because Evelyn was between the Thing and ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... chunky appearance which Barber's old clothes gave him, and which was so misleading. On the other hand, his thin arms and pipelike legs were concealed, respectively, by becoming cloth and canvas. As for his body, it was slender, and lithe. And how straight he stood! And how smart was his appearance! ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... dressers, and two sturdy varlets, carrying the pedlar's heavy pack between them. The pedlar himself followed in the rear. He was a very respectable-looking old man, with strongly-marked aquiline features and long white beard; and he brought with him a lithe, olive-complexioned youth of about ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... sleeves. One with a white towel on her head and hanging loosely about her shoulders looked startlingly like an Egyptian female figure that had stepped forth from the monuments of the Nile. Their brown skins were lustrous as silk, every line of their lithe bodies of a Venus-like development and they stood erect as palm-trees, or slipped by in the sand-paved night under their four-gallon' American oilcans of water with a silent, ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... meet over her nose rise in a flattened "A" towards the fervid black gleam of her hair; her lips are pursed in a half-smile as if she were stifling a secret. She walks round the stage slowly, one hand at her waist, the shawl tight over her elbow, her thighs lithe and restless, a panther in a cage. At the back of the stage she turns suddenly, advances; the snapping of her fingers gets loud, insistent; a thrill whirrs through the guitar like a covey of partridges scared in a field. ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... feminine nature and sought to waste no thought upon them. It was a shock to come, suddenly, in my own breakfast room, face to face with a type of man I had never before met. The enemy was astonishingly large and lithe and distinctly resembled one of the big gold-colored lions that live in the wilds of the Harpeth Mountains out beyond Paradise Ridge. His head, with its tawny thatch that ought to have waved majestically but which was sleek and decorous to ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... forgot to light, he evaded the tentative chatter of old Wrinkle and sought a rustic seat under a tree in the yard. Over the meadow, and piercing the shadows which enveloped him, shone a light from Dixie Hart's kitchen. He fancied that he saw her at work, her strong, lithe form and glorious face emitting cheer, courage, and hope to her helpless charges. He wondered if she was recalling, as he would to the day of his death, the heavenly words she had spoken at parting. The ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... made thereat the sun, this isle, Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. 45 Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam, That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue 50 That pricks deep ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... Six tall hunters, lithe and limber, Bore him home on poles and branches, Bore the body of the beaver; But the ghost, the Jeebi in him, Thought and felt as Pau-Puk-Keewis, Still lived ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... stood by the wall. I heard the desk opened with an impatient clash and then closed with an angry bang. I was as sure as if I had had eyes in the back of my head, that the schoolmistress was holding the cane in both hands and bending it to see if it was lithe and limber. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... hear the panting of the girl, her sobbing breath very near him, and life and strength leaped back into his body. The man who had choked him was advancing again, on hands and knees. In a flash Alan was up and on him like a lithe cat. His fist beat into a bearded face; he called out to Mary as he struck, and through his blows saw her where she had fallen to her knees, with a second hulk bending over her, almost in the water of the little spring from which she had ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... caught the Queen In a rapturous caress, While his lithe form towered in lordly mien, As he said in a brief address:— "My fair bride's mother is this; and, lo, As you stare in your royal awe, By this pure kiss do I proudly show A LOVE ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... feel faint; the little serpent appeared enormous, and its eyes dazzling, while the cold touch of its scaly body against his bare hand was of some great weight, and when it rapidly compressed his fingers with its folds, to give itself power to strike, and struck twice, the concussion of the lithe neck and jaws felt like two tremendous blows which paralysed him, so that he stood there as if turned to stone, with his arm outstretched staring down at the—as it seemed to him—gigantic head, which glided about over his enormously swollen arm, the sparkling ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... roomy, clean kitchen of the deacon's house might be seen the lithe, comely form of Diana Pitkin presiding over the roaring great oven which was to engulf the armies of pies and cakes which were in due course of preparation ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... then that he saw his captain for the first time. The day before, in the shipping office, what with the bad light and his excitement at this berth obtained as if by a brusque and unscrupulous miracle, did not count. He had then seemed to him much older and heavier. He was surprised at the lithe figure, broad of shoulder, narrow at the hips, the fire of the deep-set eyes, the springiness of the walk. The captain gave him a steady stare, nodded slightly, and went on pacing the poop with an air of not being aware of what was going ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... the Cuban, his lithe body was quivering in an ecstasy of the muscles. His face radiant with a savage joy, he fastened his glance upon Patsy, his eyes gleaming with a gloating, murderous light. A most unspeakable, animal-like rage was ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... let all the lesser game pass by uncaught; his soul soared higher than even Uncle John, who looked on exceedingly amused at the small man's stratagem, and at the long dodging that took place between him and his father, the quick lithe Captain skipping hither and thither, and trying to pop in one side while his enemy was on the other; and the square, determined, little, puffing, panting boy, guarding his door, hands on knees, ever ready for a dart wherever the attempt ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rifle to the ground, and was attacking a latticed window with an old bayonet he had been carrying in his hand. With half a dozen furious blows he sent the woodwork into splinters, and, springing up with a lithe, tiger-like jump, he clambered through the gap, big man as he was, with surprising agility. Then there was a dead silence for a few seconds and we waited in suspense. But presently oaths and protests ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... brand of "hooch" to which he most inclined. They knew him far; his igloos are on Kittiegazuit strand. They knew him well, the tribes who dwell within the Barren Land. From Koyokuk to Kuskoquim his fame was everywhere; And he did love, all life above, that little Julie Claire, The lithe, white slave-girl he had bought for seven hundred skins, And taken to his wickiup to make ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... the uttermost ocean go heaving by; and the long lithe brutes that are toothed to their tails: and below, where gloom dipped down on gloom, vast, livid tangles that coiled and uncoiled, and lapsed down steeps and hells of the sea where even the salmon could ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... a man can be that she was his own daughter, he often wondered whence she got herself—her red-gold hair, now greyed into a special colour; her direct, spirited face, so different from his own rather folded and subtilised countenance, her little lithe figure, when he and most of the Forsytes were tall. And he would dwell on the origin of species, and debate whether she might be Danish or Celtic. Celtic, he thought, from her pugnacity, and her taste in fillets and djibbahs. It was not ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... it rushes into vision—man, beast, bird, reptile, fly, sky, ocean, mountains, plain, rock, pebble. The warmth of life, the reality of creation is over all—the throb of human hands, glossiness of fur, lithe windings of long bodies, poignant buzzing of insects, the ruggedness of the steeps as I climb them, the liquid mobility and boom of waves upon the rocks. Strange to say, try as I may, I cannot force ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... kindled with anything but love or womanly aspiration; that that soft, lazy, caressing voice had never been lifted beyond the fireside or domestic circle; that the sunny, tendriled hair and pink ears had never inclined to anything but whispered admiration; and that the graceful, lithe, erect figure, so independent and self-contained, had been satisfied to lean only upon his arm for support. He was conscious that this had been in his mind when he first saw her; he was equally conscious that she was more bewilderingly ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... fierce beast of prey that roams the low hills surrounding the dead seas of ancient Mars. It is almost hairless, having only a great, bristly mane about its thick neck. Its long, lithe body is supported by ten powerful legs, its enormous jaws are equipped with several rows of long needle-like fangs, and its mouth reaches to a point far back of its tiny ears. It has enormous protruding eyes of green. ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... thinking it the weakest part; and after the two shots about a dozen Maoris dashed at the little window, and tried to get in, forcing their spears through to keep the defenders at a distance; and had not Ngati's spear played its part, darting swiftly about like the sting of some monster, the lithe, active fellows would, soon have forced ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... What that I mette ere I abraid,* *awoke Of December the tenthe day; When it was night to sleep I lay, Right as I was wont for to do'n, And fell asleepe wonder soon, As he that *weary was for go* *was weary from going* On pilgrimage miles two To the corsaint* Leonard, *relics of To make lithe that erst was hard. But, as I slept, me mette I was Within a temple made of glass; In which there were more images Of gold, standing in sundry stages, And more riche tabernacles, And with pierrie* more pinnacles, *gems And more curious portraitures, And *quainte manner* of figures *strange kinds* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... at my feet the cry arose and was drowned in Chinese chattering. But guided by it I now managed to make out that the struggle in progress waged between a burly English sailorman and two lithe Chinese. The yellow men seemed to have gained the advantage and ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... Harold, who had ceased to gambol, but who had gained in stature, majesty and weight what he had lost of lithe and frolick grace, was by her side. He no longer danced before his mistress, coursed away and then returned, or vented his exuberant life in a thousand feats of playful vigour; but sedate and observant, he was ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Standing beside the Elgin marbles in the British Museum, the sculptor must bathe and soak himself in the Greek ideal and spirit, until the Greek thought throbs in his brain, and he feels the Greek enthusiasm for strength in round, lithe arms, and limbs made ready for ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... with the red L on their black sweaters were apart, tossing the ball back and forth and taking playful tackles at one another. Stover, hiding himself modestly in the common herd, watched with entranced eyes the lithe, sinuous forms of Flash Condit and Charlie DeSoto—greater to him than the faint heroes of mythology—as they tumbled the Waladoo Bird gleefully on the ground. There was Butcher Stevens of the grim eye and the laconic word, ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... him. An eager flush lit his still boyish face—Guy was twenty-eight—and his blue eyes were very bright. His lithe, muscular figure bent toward her pleadingly; all his arguments were aimed at her. Oliver sat back in his impassive way and watched them both. It could not be denied that it was Marian's decisions which usually ruled in ...
— On Christmas Day in the Morning • Grace S. Richmond
... up, turned and twisted his lithe body into such a grotesque distortion that he was quite awful to look upon, and left no doubt in the girl's mind as to whom he referred. He brought the Far Hill people into focus, sharply ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... strong and lithe as wildcats, those Syrians, and fully awake to the advantage that the narrow door gave them. One man struggled with Narayan Singh and kept him busy with his bulk so wedged across the opening that Grim and Hadad were as good as demobilized out in the ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... girl, something more than even pretty. The lithe gracefulness of her figure spoke of familiarity with both tennis and tango, and her face with its well-chiselled profile denoted intellectuality from which no touch of really feminine charm had been ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... as they plunged into the alder-clump, brushing the lithe, swinging branches aside. In a few moments they emerged, dragging a body after them into the sunlight. He turned away in horror. It seemed to him that misfortune followed wherever he went. He heard Sir Geoffrey ask if the man was really dead, and the ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... with the lithe, delicate grace of a cat. The monotony of sleep and labor was ended. Something had broken. Life was ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... that Kenneth found himself at four o'clock the next day. His trunk had arrived and he had dug out his old basket-ball costume, a red sleeveless shirt, white knee pants, and canvas shoes. He wore them now as he sat, a lithe, graceful figure, on the edge of the stage. There were nearly thirty other fellows on the floor amusing themselves in various ways while they waited for the captain to arrive. Several of them Kenneth already knew well ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... one occasionally sees the long lithe sea leopard, formidably armed with ferocious teeth and doubtless containing a penguin or two and perhaps a young crab-eating seal. The killer whale (Orca gladiator), unappeasably voracious, devouring or attempting to devour every ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Twain, elegy and argument thrust themselves into the chronicle of Mitch and Skeet, with an occasional tincture of a fierce hatred felt toward the politics and theology of Spoon River. A story of boyhood, that lithe, muscular age, cannot carry such a burden of doctrine. The narrative is tangled in a snarl of moods. Its movement is often thick, its wings ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... gaslight throws a sicklier glare over the narrow, unpaved streets. The city is on a frolic, a thing not uncommon with it. Lithe and portly-figured men, bearing dominos in their hands, saunter along the sidewalk, now dangling ponderous watch-chains, then flaunting highly-perfumed cambrics—all puffing the fumes of choice cigars. If accosted ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... lithe movement, wholly graceful, he slipped the ruecksack from his shoulders, let it fall among the alpenrosen beside ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... are, lithe of limb and broad of chest. Each brings a tangle of pots and kettles, bags and bales, but wears nothing throughout the fishery save a loin-cloth and now and then a turban denoting nationality or caste. There were forty-five hundred ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... thinking of him. She had gone, with her quick, lithe step, to the window where the vine was tapping, and thrown ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... silence seemed cheerful there in the flecked sunlight. The spotted wood-gnats gyrated merrily, chased by dragon-flies; the shy wood-birds hopped from branch to twig, peering at us in friendly inquiry; a lithe, gray squirrel, plumy tail undulating, rambled serenely around the cage, sniffing at ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... upon thyme and tansy think, On fields of sainfoin, ruddy pink, On dells deep down and rocks upreared, On lad's-love and on old-man's-beard, On spearmint and on silver sages, On colewort and on saxifrages! Then think on pools in dimmest haunts, Unwhipped of any wind that rages, Where the lithe flag her purple flaunts, Where frogs go plopping round the edge And gnats are humming through the sedge, And on the leaf of each wide lily The scaly newts do lay their eggs And the small people dip ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... extraordinary and undreamed-of shapes and the most gorgeous colours; of birds, insects, ay, and even fish, that flashed and glittered with all the hues of the rainbow; of monkeys who followed their course up the river in troops of a hundred or more; of the lithe and graceful jaguar lying stretched upon some trunk or branch that closely overhung the water, watching with ready paw to seize any unwary fish that might chance to swim past within reach; of alligators that basked log-like on the mud banks—all these things were to Chichester at first ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... lithe and lean as that of a leopard, is covered with a reticulated marking. His upturned tail nearly touches his loins, while another detail of his person exactly reproduces the contours of a snake.[440] The hind feet are ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... shock passed through him, and all his veins tingled as if thrilled by new life. Opening his eyes in wonder, he saw verily bending over him the charming being of whom he had dreamed, and he knew that her lithe hand really caressed his throbbing forehead. But the flame of the fever was gone, a delicious coolness now penetrated every fibre of his body, and the thrill of which he had dreamed still tingled in his blood like a great joy. Even at ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... rattling mills. 'Ye foundries, ye shall cast my church a bell,' Loud cried the Future from the farthest hills: 'Ye groaning forces, crack me every shell Of customs, old constraints, and narrow ills; Thou, lithe Invention, wake and pry and guess, Till thy ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... dodging through currant and gooseberry bushes, hiding in the lilacs, swaying for an instant on swinging sprays of grape vines, and then flashing out across the garden beds like yellow sunbeams. They were lithe, slender, dainty little creatures, and were so quick in their movements that I could not recognize them at first, but when one of them hopped down before me, lifted a fallen leaf and dragged a cutworm from beneath ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... pleasure in the work itself: how strange that hope must seem to some of my readers—to most of them! Yet I think that to all living things there is a pleasure in the exercise of their energies, and that even beasts rejoice in being lithe and swift and strong. But a man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works. Not only his ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... her. But she thought of no such thing, and certainly not of any risk there might be for her cousin. If she had thought of him, it would have struck her as a droll picture that he should be gradually falling behind, and looking round in search of gates: a fine lithe youth, whose heart must be panting with all the spirit of a beagle, stuck as if under a wizard's spell on a stiff clerical hackney, would have made her laugh with a sense of fun much too strong for her to reflect on his mortification. But Gwendolen was apt to ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... yet might serve me very well, I turned with intent to step the mast. And now I saw the sail was ill-stowed, the canvas lying all abroad and as I rose I beheld this canvas stirred as by a greater wind; then as I stared me this, it lifted, and from beneath it crept a shape that rose up very lithe and graceful and stood with hands reached out towards me, and then as I ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... a tramp through the park in the dusk of a perfect autumn afternoon, and went to a musical show with him in the evening. She might have been, as far as he could see, the Rose of a year ago. She had the same lithe boyish swing. She even wore, though he didn't know it, the same skirt for their walk in the park that she had worn on some of their tramps before they were married. And when they had had their evening at the theater, and a bite of ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Lithe as a panther, Frank sprang to his feet, leaped over the hedge and landed heavily on the stooping form, knocking the breath out of the ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... did not instantly reply. He was a man of medium height, dark and lithe and amazingly strong. It was not his habit to speak much, but what little he said was usually very much to the point. It was his custom to mask his feelings so completely that very few had the smallest inkling as ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... shorter and much handsomer than her brother. Sweetness combined with supple strength gave to her whole personality charm and distinction. There was a haughty look in her dark eyes, and her voice, of which she was proud, sounded rich and musical. She walked slowly down the steps, moving with the lithe grace of a thoroughbred, while adroitly holding up her long grey dress. Behind her, clinking their spurs, came two good-looking young officers in tightly-fitting riding- breeches and ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... they were at the door, tumbling out into the darkness, pouring up the passage in hot pursuit. And it was at that moment the balance changed again. Those who were in the front rank of the pursuers were in time to see a lithe, thin figure—dressed as one of their own kind—spring up in the path of that other figure, jump on it, grip it, clap a huge square of sticky brown paper over the howling mouth of it, and bear it, struggling ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... in these streets, though these people are abroad much at night. All you see are stars overhead and the glowing eyes of cat ladies, of lithe silken ladies who pass you, or of stiff-whiskered men. Beware of those men and the gleam of the split-pupiled stare. They are haughty, punctilious, inflammable: self-absorbed too, however. They will probably not even notice you; but if they do, you ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... one of them gave a sharp, comprehensive snort. Instantly the man's large brown eyes lit, and a pleasant expectancy shone in their depths. He was on his feet in an instant, and his tall figure became alert and vibrant with the lithe activity which was so wonderfully displayed in his whole poise. He, too, had become aware of a disturbing element in the silent ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... did not look in the least like the ordinary run of Lindsay people. The boy, in particular, had a distinctly foreign appearance, in spite of the gingham shirt and homespun trousers, which seemed to be the regulation, work-a-day outfit for the Lindsay farmer lads. He had a lithe, supple body, with sloping shoulders, and a lean, satiny brown throat above his open shirt collar. His head was covered with thick, silky, black curls, and the hand that hung down by the side of the wagon was unusually long and ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... rapidly, lithe, bold and young, still a child, likely to play on his road as little mountaineers play, with a rock, a reed, or a twig that one whittles while walking. The air was growing sharper, the environment harsher, and already he ceased to hear the cries of the curlews, ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... that, he gloried in the look of them, in the trained, springy strides, in the lithe, erect forms, in the assurance in every move. Every detail of that practice photographed itself upon Ken Ward's memory, and he knew ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... society. The birds of California, it is said, were mostly silent till after its settlement, and I doubt if the Indians heard the wood thrush as we hear him. Where did the bobolink disport himself before there were meadows in the North and rice fields in the South? Was he the same lithe, merry-hearted beau then as now? And the sparrow, the lark, and the goldfinch, birds that seem so indigenous to the open fields and so adverse to the woods,—we cannot conceive of their existence in a ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... emotion inspired by the music and the dance, were a revelation of beauty. She became the living expression of rhythm and grace as she paused for an instant before them, scintillating and quivering like an aspen leaf, or glided and whirled wraith-like, fragile and delicate and ethereal, wondrously lithe and airy like films of gossamer or foam tossed up by the sea. The dance itself seemed to fade into the background as their attention became riveted upon her, and visions and vistas of life rose before the ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... like the red cornucopias of the trumpet-flower, and her eyes were blue like little scraps of sky. Her heavy, brown-red hair fell down over her shoulders in loose profusion. The coarse dress was freshly briar-torn, and in many places patched; and it hung to the lithe curves of her body in a fashion which told that she wore little else. She had no hat, but the same spirit of childlike whimsey that caused her eyes to dance as she answered the partridge's call had led her to fashion for her own crowning a headgear of laurel ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... sprinkle the ground with it; and in an instant she was the centre of a cloud of birds. Peter was at liberty to watch her, to admire the swift grace of her motions, their suggestion of delicate strength, of joy in things physical, and the lithe elasticity of her figure, against the background of satiny lawn, and the further vistas of lofty sunlit trees. She was dressed in white, as always—a frock of I know not what supple fabric, that looked as if you might have passed it through your ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... line level with the back, slightly curved towards the end, but should not curl over the back. COAT—The hair is short and dense, and sleek-looking, and in no case should it incline to coarseness. GAIT OR ACTION—The gait should be lithe, springy, and free, the action high. The hocks should move very freely, and the head should be held well up. COLOUR—The colours are brindle, fawn, blue, black, and harlequin. The harlequin should have jet black patches ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... denies; And his mother sternly cries: "Out on thee! what wilt thou, loon? Nicolette is blithe and boon? Castaway from Carthage she! Bought of Paynim compayne! If with woman thou wilt mate, Take thee wife of high estate!" "Mother, I can else do ne'er! Nicolette is debonair; Her lithe form, her face, her bloom, Do the heart of me illume. Fairly mine her love may be So sweet ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... the town. She actually spent an hour longer at her toilette, and made her appearance with her hair uncommonly frizzed and powdered, and an additional quantity of rouge. She was evidently a little surprised and shocked, therefore, at finding the lithe, dashing ensign transformed into a corpulent old general, with a double chin; though it was a perfect picture to witness their salutations; the graciousness of her profound curtsy, and the air of the old school with which the general took off his hat, swayed ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... put back his head to listen. Felice had as good a voice as so pretty a young woman should have had. She was twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, and was incontestably the beauty of the camp. She was Mexican-Spanish, tall and very slender, black-haired, as lithe as a cat, with a cat's green eyes and with all of a ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... logic that ends in paradox, the play of human interest in a topic to which all living interest seems alien. There is scarcely a page in all De Quincey's writings that taken by itself is actually dull. In each, one receives a vivid impression of the same lithe and active mind, examining with lively curiosity even a recondite subject: cracking a joke here and dropping a tear there, and never intermitting the smooth flow of acute but often irrelevant observation. The generation that habitually neglects De Quincey ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... this day, that radiant panorama, that wilderness of rich color, that incomparable dissolving-view of harmonious tints, and lithe half-covered forms, and beautiful brown faces, and gracious and graceful gestures and attitudes and movements, free, unstudied, barren of stiffness ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... oblivious to the rest, was Percival DeLong, a tall, lithe, handsome young man, whose boyish face ill comported with the marks of dissipation clearly outlined on it. Such a boy, it flashed across my mind, ought to be studying the possible plays of football of an evening ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... perfectly sure of himself. No emergency could arise where he would be found wanting in the man's part. The man in him she admired,—it was what first had attracted her,—was proud of it, just as he was proud of her lithe figure, her beauty, her gayety, and her little air of worldliness. She began to assume that this was all of marriage, at least the essential part of it, and that the other, the passionate desire, was something desired by the man and to be ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... whistle the well-known air Partant pour la Syrie, which recalled old memories of their love, and Stephanie would run towards him lightly as a fawn. She saw the colonel so often that she was no longer afraid of him; before very long she would sit on his knee with her thin, lithe arms about him. And while thus they sat as lovers love to do, Philip doled out sweetmeats one by one to the eager Countess. When they were all finished, the fancy often took Stephanie to search ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... rub a little earth over their shoulders and arms, so that their adversary may have a fair grip, then step by step slowly and gradually they near each other. A few quick passages are now interchanged; the lithe supple fingers twist and intertwine, grips are formed on arm and neck. The postures change each moment, and are a study for an anatomist or sculptor. As they warm to their work they get more reckless; they ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... secrets of an important household are often bandied about when the black coffee is being served. The marriageable young men of Morovenia had learned of the calamity in Count Malagaski's family. They knew that Kalora weighed less than one hundred and twenty pounds. She was tall, lithe, slender, sinuous, willowy, hideous. The fact that poor old Count Malagaski had made many unsuccessful attempts to fatten her was a stock subject for jokes of an unrefined and ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... mighty halo, as on clouds of flame, a girl was dancing. She was black, and lithe, and tall, and willowy. Her garments twined and flew around the delicate moulding of her dark, young, half-naked limbs. A heavy mass of hair clung motionless to her wide forehead. Her arms twirled and flickered, and body and ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... water into the trenches. Most of it was pumped out, but it would sink back into the ground and return. John again gave thanks for the splendid pair of high boots that he wore, and also he often searched the air for Lannes. But he saw no sign of the lithe and swift Arrow and his anxiety for Julie increased steadily. She must now be at Chastel, but he had not yet found any excuse that would release him from the trenches ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... living! Come with me, Now that, through vanishing veil, Shimmers the dew on lawn and lea, And milk foams in the pail; Now that June's sweltering sunlight bathes With sweat the striplings lithe, As fall the long straight scented swathes Over the crescent scythe; Now that the throstle never stops His self-sufficing strain, And woodbine-trails festoon the copse, And eglantine the lane; Now rustic labour seems as sweet As leisure, and blithe ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... constant pressure of a crushing grief had drawn sorrowful lines in a countenance that a little animation would have rendered charming. All the elasticity and hopefulness natural to his age seemed to have been lost in his useless struggles against an unhappy fate. Though his frame was lithe, vigorous, and admirably proportioned, all his movements were slow and apathetic, like those of an old man. His gestures were entirely devoid of animation, his whole expression inert, and it was evidently a matter of perfect indifference to him where he might chance to find himself ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... banks of flowers,—waters so sweet that who drank would drink again, and with every draught would throw off years and pain until at last he was a youth once more,—a youth with hot blood, sparkling eyes, lithe muscles; a youth who saw the world full of beauty and adventure. Ah, to be once more as he was when the princess beamed on him; to throw away his cares, his ails, his conscience, his regrets; to sing and dance, to ruffle it with other cavaliers, to dice, ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... gavelkind, but as having a special claim by inheritance to a love and understanding of Dante. She writes English with a purity that has in it something of feminine softness with no lack of vigor or precision. Her lithe mind winds itself with surprising grace through the metaphysical and other intricacies of her subject. She brings to her work the refined enthusiasm of a cultivated woman and the penetration of sympathy. She has chosen the better way (in which Germany ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... locket. The face within it was dark, like a boy's, with careless hair brushed from the temples, and strong lines. The artist knew the lines by heart, and the soft collar and loose-flowing tie and careless dress. He had been leaning back with closed eyes, watching the lithe figure, tall and spare, with the rude grace of the Steppes, the freshness of the wind. . . . How she would enjoy it—this very night—the red room perched ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... river to Canada as quickly as possible. He had been a mason but understood gardening and attending to horses and had other accomplishments. He was engaged and proved a satisfactory servant "respectful, cleanly, capable, lithe and active as a panther." His former master came from Kentucky and reclaimed him after the lapse of six months. The recognition was mutual and immediate. The Kentuckian, offered $2000 to Baby for the return of Andrew his former slave, but the offer was indignantly refused. It turned out that Andrew ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... A tall, lithe, well-built young man, who had a few moments before entered the cottage, walked into the garden from the back door. His eye was one that the casual observer would describe as 'full of mischief;' but behind the sunny brightness was a pensive cast. He walked softly towards the arbour, ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... like a great cat to intercept me. He came by a series of leaps and bounds and at an astonishing pace, and the way he moved somehow inspired me with a fresh horror, for it did not seem the natural movement of a human being at all, but more, as I have said, like that of some lithe wild animal. ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the one side age indicated by a spare body, thin skinny arms, features furrowed with wrinkles, of most repulsive aspect, and eyes sparkling with a sinister light; on the other, youth, with all its witching charms, a figure lithe and graceful as any palm growing on the plain below, features of classic type, and a face exquisitely beautiful, despite its tint of bronze, the eyes bright with the glow of a burning passion. For it is this last that has brought the ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... began to dance "La Gitana" to her playing. The spirit and feeling, the coquettish grace and seductive charm, which the dancer put into the movements of her lithe form, challenge description. If only a man could have seen her then! From sheer amazement Blanka found herself unable to control her fingers, which struck ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... forward like a crouching tiger. He had caught sight of the lithe form in the faint glow of the firelight, and he assailed it with all the vicious vigor of his nature. The lightning-like blow of his knife made a hissing sound as it cut the air and buried its point in the blanket which Deerfoot thrust forward to receive it. Then the Shawanoe ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... you to them and speak among them thus: "There were no greater grief than to recall, Down in the rotting grave where the lithe worms crawl, Green fields above that smiled so ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... Wo Wo to the sons of the far-off land, Weak in heart and pale in face, Deer in battle, moose in a race, Panthers wanting claw and tooth Wo to the red man, strong of hand, Steady of purpose, lithe of limb, Calm in the toils of the foe, Knowing nor tears nor ruth Wo to them and him, If, cast by hard fate at the midnight damp, Or an hour of storm in the dismal swamp, That skirts the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... the west which still arches over the broken sky-line, roof and turret and bell-tower and chimneys of strange fashion with quaint conical tops. The canal lies dusk in the eventide, but the dark surface throws into relief a crowd of gondolas, and the lithe, glowing figures of their gondoliers. The boats themselves are long and narrow as now, but without the indented prora which has become universal; the sumptuary law of the Republic has not yet robbed them of colour, and instead of the present "coffin" we see canopies ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... vitality of the man seemed to live in every line of his lithe body as he looked in, but it subsided again as he entered, and he stared vacantly ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... Sunday practice game down in the ballgrounds. Amedee, the newly married, Emil's best friend, was their pitcher, renowned among the country towns for his dash and skill. Amedee was a little fellow, a year younger than Emil and much more boyish in appearance; very lithe and active and neatly made, with a clear brown and white skin, and flashing white teeth. The Sainte-Agnes boys were to play the Hastings nine in a fortnight, and Amedee's lightning balls were the hope of his team. The little Frenchman seemed to get every ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... hath hymned The writhing maid, lithe-limbed, Quivering on amaranthine asphodel, How can he paint her woes, Knowing, as well he knows, That all can be set ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... children of the people, positively disporting themselves, with childish glee, in painting plates and vases. You will see them, not slavishly copying a given design of the master's, but letting their fancy run riot in lithe curves and lines, in griffons and dragons and floral twists-and-twirls of playful extravagance. They revel in ornament. Now, it is out of the loins of people like these that great artists spring ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... overflowing his breast;—we can even see the fingers, transparent, singularly flexible in operation, turning leaves, running down pages and smoothing them out, and placing this roll or that book as convenience required, all so lithe, swift, certain, they in a manner exposed the mind which controlled them. At length, the preliminaries finished, the Prince raised his eyes, and turned them slowly about—those large, deep, searching eyes—wells from which, without ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... well-trodden streets, between, then a fringe of grass around all, and beyond that rose the palisade of stout stakes, driven deep into the ground, and against each other. All was of the West and so was Lucy, a tall, lithe young girl, her face tanned a healthy and becoming brown by the sun, her clothing of home-woven red cloth, adorned at the wrists and around the bottom of the skirt with many tiny beads of red and yellow and blue ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... little feminine souls that Mrs. Allen's fears of an explosion of some kind were scarcely groundless. They dragged their stately sister Laura, now unwontedly bland and affable, to the piano, and called for the quickest and most brilliant of waltzes, and a moment later their lithe figures flowed away in a rhythm of motion, that from their exuberance of feeling, was as fantastic ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... her breath she fought like a mad cat, with every lithe muscle of her body and with teeth and claws too. She was strong; strong and quick as a steel spring. More than once she escaped him. Once she got half-way up the bank; but here he bore her down on her face ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... hedgerow to pick a long, lithe, blossoming spray of black byrony—here it is, with its graceful climbing stem, its glossy, heart-shaped leaves and its pretty greenish lily flowers—I have stung myself rather badly against the nettles ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... was never old-Patrick. He came to us thirty-six years ago. He was our coachman from the day that I drove my young bride to our new home. He was a young Irishman, slender, tall, lithe, honest, truthful, and he never changed in all his life. He really was with us but twenty-five years, for he did not go with us to Europe; but he never regarded that a separation. As the children grew up he was their guide. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the nerves through emotion. Her eyes were always bright and clear; her skin dazzling in its whiteness, save where the equably flowing blood flushed it with tenderest rose,—her figure remained svelte, lithe and graceful in all its outlines. Finely strung, yet strong as steel in her temperament, all thoughts, feelings and events seemed to sweep over her without affecting or disturbing her mind's calm equipoise. She lived her life with extreme simplicity, regularity, and directness, thus driving ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... there was a groping passion for whatever was beautiful and pure, that his soul sickened with disgust at her deformity, even when his words were kindest. Through this dull consciousness, which never left her, came, like a sting, the recollection of the dark blue eyes and lithe figure of the little Irish girl she had left in the cellar. The recollection struck through even her stupid intellect with a vivid glow of beauty and of grace. Little Janey, timid, helpless, clinging to Hugh ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... old bamboo wood-cutter. He was very poor and sad also, for no child had Heaven sent to cheer his old age, and in his heart there was no hope of rest from work till he died and was laid in the quiet grave. Every morning he went forth into the woods and hills wherever the bamboo reared its lithe green plumes against the sky. When he had made his choice, he would cut down these feathers of the forest, and splitting them lengthwise, or cutting them into joints, would carry the bamboo wood home and make it into various articles for the household, ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... other for a moment in silence. Mrs. Vansittart's lips were drawn back, showing her even, white teeth. Von Holzen's quiet eyes were wide open, so that the white showed all around the dark pupil. Then he sprang at her without a word. She was a lithe, strong woman, taller than he, or else she would have fallen. Instead, she stood her ground, and he, failing to get a grasp at her wrist, stumbled sideways against the table. In a moment she had run round it, and again they stared at each other, ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... eyes, Long since took leave of life and light, And those lithe limbs I used to prize Feasted the jackal ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... the warm milk-and-water, and wet up the whole of the flour at once after a little salt has been stirred in, proceeding exactly, in every other respect, as in the directions just given. As the dough will soften in the rising, it should be made quite firm at first, or it will be too lithe by the time it is ready ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton |
