"Nimbleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the difference created by the water's powerful density—despite my heavy clothing, copper headpiece, and metal soles, I climbed the most impossibly steep gradients with all the nimbleness, I swear it, of a chamois or a ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... considered a religious training to be superfluous—his pupils learnt these things on their mothers' knees. Giustino soon acquired the jargon; he passed his examination in fifteen articles, in secrecy, swiftness of foot and nimbleness of hand. The latter was taught on a clothed wooden figure out of whose pockets the students were obliged to extract handkerchiefs, gold watches and jewelry with such dexterity that not one of the little bells, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Miss Betty," said Hannibal as before, and he returned to his consideration of the judge. He sensed something of that intellectual nimbleness which his patron's physical make-up in nowise suggested, since his face was a mask that usually left one in doubt as to just how much of what he heard succeeded in making its impression on him; but the boy knew that Slocum Price's blind ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... this bird took it into his head to fly away with the most indispensable portion of my apparel. Postponing, therefore, for the present, my suicidal design, I just slipped my nether extremities into the sleeves of my coat, and betook myself to a pursuit of the felon with all the nimbleness which the case required and its circumstances would admit. But my evil destiny attended me still. As I ran at full speed, with my nose up in the atmosphere, and intent only upon the purloiner of my property, I suddenly perceived that my feet ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... striding along with his short legs and heavy boots, jumping ditches and banks with a nimbleness of which I declare I should not have thought him capable. It is curious to note the agility the report of a rifle volley lends to the legs of a dismounted trooper. Lemaitre came in to the shelter in the valley as soon as I did; and almost at the same time Finet, the sapper, brought in his old ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... the sea in their brogues, after they had taken off their slippery shoes, so that they could run over the level ice more steadily. The Blacmen supposed that they were taking to flight with all the nimbleness of their heels, and began to fight them, but their steps tottered exceedingly and they gave back, the slippery surface under their soles making their footing uncertain. But the Danes crossed the frozen sea with safer steps, and foiled the feeble advance of the enemy, whom they conquered, and ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Look at old Soot-and-Cinders gittin' hisself ready for glory!" He approached the negro and aimed at him a kick which Cookie, arising with unexpected nimbleness, contrived to dodge. "Looky here, darky, git busy dishin' up the grub, will you? I could stand one good feed after the forecastle slops we been ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... my uncle as Teddy directly I saw him; there was something in his personal appearance that in the light of that memory phrased itself at once as Teddiness—a certain Teddidity. To describe it in and other terms is more difficult. It is nimbleness without grace, and alertness without intelligence. He whisked out of his shop upon the pavement, a short figure in grey and wearing grey carpet slippers; one had a sense of a young fattish face behind gilt glasses, wiry ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... forced herself by an almost superhuman effort to remain where she was. Motionless, with straining eyes, she watched while he slowly edged himself up. That his foothold was precarious was evident from the careful precision of his movements, so unlike Tony's usual nimbleness. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... him heartily; not at first, perhaps, because he is so shy, but as soon as you begin to know him. I mean to ask him to come down as soon as he can get a holiday. His captain told me, when he served in the Diomede, that there was not a man in the ship to come near him for nimbleness and quiet fearlessness." ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... ship so doth a galley fight, When the still winds stir not the unstable main; Where this in nimbleness as that in might Excels; that stands, this goes and comes again, And shifts from prow to poop with turnings light; Meanwhile the other doth unmoved remain, And on her nimble foe approaching nigh, Her weighty engines tumbleth ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... the coveted prize. But the mother, holding the little one tight under her flipper, wheeled again in time to intercept the attack, and again received the dreadful thrust in her own flank. So swift was the swordfish (he was a kind of giant mackerel, with all the mackerel's grace and fire and nimbleness) that he seemed to be everywhere at once. The whale was kept spinning around in a dizzy circle of foam, like a whirlpool, with the bewildered calf on the inside. The mighty twisting thrusts of her tail, with its flukes twenty feet wide, set the whole ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Africa, where his favorite food, the mimosa, grows upon the plain, but in Ceylon it is directly the contrary. In this country the elephant delights in the most rugged localities; he rambles about rocky hills and mountains with a nimbleness that no one can understand without personal experience. So partial are elephants to rocky and uneven ground that should the ruins of a mountain exist in rugged fragments along a plain of low, thorny jungle, five chances to one would be in favor of tracking the ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... It was thin, eager, bright, and sunny, yet with an indescribable wistfulness in the sparkling eyes, and something worn in the expression, and, as usual, she moved with a quiet nimbleness peculiar to herself. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... myrmidons to stand back, while he alone advanced towards the young man. A turn in his strong wrist would, he imagined, suffice to accomplish his purpose. But he found out his error the moment he engaged with his opponent. In dexterity and force the latter was fully his match, while in nimbleness of body Jocelyn surpassed him. The deadly glances thrown at him by the young man showed that the animosity of the latter would only be satisfied with blood. Changing his purpose, therefore, Sir Giles, in place of attempting ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... which dread expresses itself in frenzied efforts to get out of the way when suddenly molested. For the most part it lives in a neat hole, oubliette-shaped, and in its eagerness to locate and reach its retreat it darts about with a nimbleness which almost eludes perception. These frantic quarterings, I believe, led to the opinion that the snake is specially savage, whereas it is merely exceptionally nervous and eager for the security of its home. Twice recently when I have startled one in an enclosed pool ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... them to greater fury, and to stimulate them to redoubled effort. The truly amazing activity displayed by these ponderous and unwieldy creatures was perhaps the most remarkable feature of the whole affair. They wheeled and doubled about each other with the nimbleness of fighting dogs, the rhinoceros leaping in to deliver his stroke, and then springing aside to avoid the thrust of the elephant's tusks with a rapidity that rendered it difficult to follow his movements, while the elephant countered with a quick alertness that was evidently very disconcerting ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... which hath been related to have stranded upon New-England, it is not very improbable, but, (that Fish having also more than one Enemy, whereof a small Fish called the Thresher is one, who, by Mr. Terry's Relation in his East-Indian Voyage, with his nimbleness vexes him as much, as a Bee does a great Beast on the land; and a certain horny Fish another, who runs its horn into the Whal's belly) it may have been kill'd by the latter of these two; which kind ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... fired, as the nimbleness with which the brutes moved about rendered it difficult to take aim at any one of them; and all knew that powder and lead were too precious to be wasted on ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... way to get in. But he no sooner came to the back-yard wall, which was none of the highest, when he was an eyewitness of the scurvy trick that was put upon his squire. There he saw him ascend and descend, and frolic and caper in the air with so much nimbleness and agility, that it is thought the knight himself could not have forborne laughing, had he been anything less angry. He did his best to get over the wall, but alas, he was so bruised, that he could not so much as alight from his horse. This made him fume and ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... background of her home and associates, she seemed to him unchanged. Yet when he reflected, he was not so sure of this. Sophie was gracious, friendly, frankly interested when he talked of himself. When their talk ran upon impersonal things the old nimbleness of mind functioned. But under these superficialities he could only guess, after all, what the essential woman of her was now. He could not say if she were still the queer, self-disciplined mixture of cold logic and primitive ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... shall have become complete. Give me, O Fire, Ahura Mazda's son! a speedy glory, speedy nourishment, and speedy booty, and abundant glory, abundant nourishment, abundant booty, an expanded mind, and nimbleness of tongue for soul and understanding, even an understanding continually growing in its largeness, and that never wanders, and long enduring virile power, an offspring sure of foot, that never sleeps on watch, and that rises quick from bed, and likewise a wakeful offspring, helpful to ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... he sits quietly in the stern holding the tiller. He does not do what young men do; nevertheless he does what is much more important and better. The great affairs of life are not performed by physical strength, or activity, or nimbleness of body, but by deliberation, character, expression of opinion. Of these old age is not only not deprived, but, as a rule, has them in a greater degree. Unless by any chance I, who as a soldier in the ranks, as military tribune, as ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... stunned by the blow as to allow him to pick it up. If you wish the birds to breed and thrive in your orchard and groves, kill every red squirrel that infests the place; kill every weasel also. The weasel is a subtle and arch enemy of the birds. It climbs trees and explores them with great ease and nimbleness. I have seen it do so on several occasions. One day my attention was arrested by the angry notes of a pair of brown-thrashers that were flitting from bush to bush along an old stone row in a remote field. Presently I saw what it was that excited them—three large ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... were fairly good. To her it seemed as though this spirit of strife so electrically pervading the Votaress might yet be tranquilized through a war of wits exclusively and she was using her own with the tactical nimbleness of the feminine mind. She knew the twins were down on the boiler deck again, one faint, yet both pursuing, egged on by him of the stallion's eye and him of the eagle's, and all the more socially and dangerously active because, by ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... by a rope to its fore-feet, to the which was attached a billet of wood, called technically "a clog," so that it had no fair chance of escape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had justly provoked. But the ass turning round with unusual nimbleness at the first stroke of the cane, the squire caught his foot in the rope, and went head over heels among the thistles. The donkey gravely bent down, and thrice smelt or sniffed its prostrate foe; then, having convinced itself that it had nothing further to apprehend for ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... during the morning. The Professor's accident robbed him of a lot of the nimbleness which had been noticeable during the two preceding days, and the other members of the expedition had to move at a pace that would ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... methodical in his teaching; not leading them rather in a circle than forward. He minces his precepts for children to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that his scholars ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... that was going on down upon the strand. Every inch of it covered with all manner of fish jumping and plunging about to the music, and every moment more and more would tumble in out of the water, charmed by the wonderful tune. Crabs of monstrous size spun round and round on one claw with the nimbleness of a dancing master, and twirled and tossed their other claws about like limbs that did not belong to them. It was a sight surprising to behold. But perhaps you may have heard of Father Florence Conry, as pleasant ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... will not await the proof for which he has asked. He is convinced upon suspicion, as Othello was, and the very nimbleness of his Hamlet-intellect, seeing that probabilities are against him, entangles him in the snare. Even his servant Pisanio will not believe in Imogen's guilt though his master assures him of it. Shakespeare does not notice this peculiar imprudent ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... receptacles and cellules of common sense—of the imagination apprehension, and fancy—of the ratiocination, arguing, and resolution—as likewise, of the memory, recordation, and remembrance; and with great alacrity, nimbleness, and agility, to run, pass and course from one to the other, through those pipes, windings, and conduits, which to skilful anatomists are perceivable at the end of the wonderful net, where all the arteries close in a terminating point; which arteries taking their ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... alighted on his box, or driving a Robin from a cherry-tree that stands near his habitation. The next instant we observe him running along on a stone wall, and diving down and in and out, from one side to the other, through the openings between the stories, with all the nimbleness of a squirrel. He is on the ridge of the barn-roof, he is peeping into the dove-cote, he is in the garden under the currant-bushes, or chasing a spider or a moth under a cabbage-leaf; again he is on the roof of the shed, warbling vociferously; and all these manoeuvres and peregrinations have occupied ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... its carriage, so nimble and daring in its movements, excites feelings of admiration akin to those awakened by the birds and the fairer forms of nature. His passage through the trees is almost a flight. Indeed, the flying squirrel has little or no advantage over him, and in speed and nimbleness cannot compare with him at all. If he miss his footing and fall, he is sure to catch on the next branch; if the connection be broken, he leaps recklessly for the nearest spray or limb, and secures his hold, even if it be by the ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... opened, and we stopped between two magnificent flights of steps, leading on each side to the cloisters. Several young monks, excited by the noise of the carriage, came trooping towards the top of the stairs, looking down upon us, and retreating, with the nimbleness and apparent timidity of deer. Their white streamers, or long lappets, suspended from the back of the black gown, (the designation of the Augustine order) had ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... voice!" he exclaimed. With the nimbleness of youth he put back the two letters, rapidly drew from his pocket a bundle of letters; with marvellous ability forced open a table drawer, and mixed them with others ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... stroke on the side of my neck sent me across his body. He bit viciously. In pain and desperation I flew at another of the tawny devils. They multiplied. I took to my heels; but this was the vainest of stratagems, they beat me in nimbleness. Four of them were round me when I wheeled breathless to take my chance at fighting the odds. Fiery men have not much notion of chivalry: gipsies the least of all. They yelled disdain of my summons to them to come on one by one: 'Now they had caught me, now they would ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the steeply shelving beach, where the water takes the tint of the chrysolite and creatures of fairy lightness come into view. Often on still days small sea-spiders sport under the lea of the boat, each of the eight legs supported by a bubble. With astonishing nimbleness, the spider slips and glides over the surface as a man in laborious snow-shoes over the snow. Having basked in the sun and frolicked with its kind, the spider abandons its pads, takes to its hairy bosom a bubble ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... levelled his musket, and passed his bullet through the skull of one of his pursuers, whose heavy fall on the deck shook the schooner fore and aft: and then, aware that nothing more could be done, pitched his musket overboard, that they might not gain possession of it, and climbing, with a nimbleness suited to the occasion, up to the masthead, descended by the top-gallant stay, to the fore-topmast cross-trees, and joined Seymour, in the presence of the exasperated Frenchmen, who now, unable to reach either of them, were at a ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... good listener. He loved to catch a theory of life, hold it in his hand like a struggling bird while he discoursed about it, and let it go free into the sunshine again. Sypher admired his nimbleness ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... certain manifestations appeared which gave rise to grave apprehensions on the part of the parents. It was observed that the elder of the little boys no longer played about with that nimbleness which he had formerly shown, but seemed slow and stiff in his movements. Sometimes, indeed, he would stagger a little when he walked. Soon, also, his speech became affected in some degree; he mumbled his words and could not speak ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... not remember what Marius had said to her on the subject of this absence which was to last only one day, and what explanation of it he had given her. Every one has noticed with what nimbleness a coin which one has dropped on the ground rolls away and hides, and with what art it renders itself undiscoverable. There are thoughts which play us the same trick; they nestle away in a corner of our brain; that is the end of them; ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... bravery or adroitness. He would rush in with uplifted whip until the breath of the infuriated beast was hot upon his cheek, let his angry lash curl for an instant across the bear's flank, and then, for all his halting foot, leap back into safety with a smiling pride in his own nimbleness. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... birds at last before they had quite taken all, for the torn arms still hung in the iron fetters; an old man, blind of one eye, the black patch torn off the hideous hole that had replaced the socket. He capered with the nimbleness of youth before the ghastly remains of humanity still fastened to that rock. He shouted and screamed, and laughed and sang. The sight had been too horrible even for him. He was mad, crazy; his mind was gone. He had his revenge, and ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... below and the hunters turned out for what promised sport. Mugridge seemed to be in rabid fear of the water, and he exhibited a nimbleness and speed we did not dream he possessed. Cornered in the right-angle of the poop and galley, he sprang like a cat to the top of the cabin and ran aft. But his pursuers forestalling him, he doubled back ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... I made my fellow-soldiers admire the beauty of my back, and wonder at the nimbleness of my heels, yet now will I, at safety at home, tell in what dangers they are in abroad. I'll speak nothing but guns and glaves,[203] and staves and phalanges,[204] and squadrons and barricadoes, ambuscadoes, palmedoes, blank-point, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... first chapter of The House of the Seven Gables.] about perished dames and grandees made to sweep in procession through "the inner world" of a glass. Such small matters as these engage the fancy, and lead it back through a systematic review of local history with unlooked-for nimbleness. Gradually the mind gets to roving among scenes imaged as if by memory, and bearing some strangely intimate relation to the actual scenes before one. The drift of clouds, the sifting of sudden light from the sky, acquire the import of historic changes of adversity ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... men came slily up to him, and thought by their nimbleness to get back the cap, but he held his prize fast, and they saw clearly that nothing was to be done in this way with him, for in size and strength John was a giant in comparison of these little fellows, who hardly reached his knee. The owner of the cap now ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... endowed with wonderful agility, as may be seen when they clamber up certain clefts that we should judge impossible of ascent and also when they spring from one part to another with a nimbleness that might excite the ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... palaeontologist and the chiffonnier, but placed where it is the soil has not yet been much disturbed. I went in search of it up a very steep, stony hill, and there had the good fortune to meet an old woman who was coming down over the rocks with surprising nimbleness. She knew at once what I wanted. Although she spoke French with great difficulty, three words out of every five being patois, she made me understand that her house was just in front of the cave, and that it was ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... With the nimbleness of a couple of cats, Willem and Arend sprang on to it, and, setting themselves astride, were hauled to the bank, where both were at ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... delicate innuendoes and allusions of implied experience or culture—all the give-and-take of happily contending minds—all, indeed, that makes true conversation—is a science utterly unknown to him. A certain superficial nimbleness of mind he does sometimes possess, but for all that he is a dull creature, made dull by ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... injudicious words, many minor weaknesses of conduct, are forgotten. Faults of manner, deficiencies of tact, awkwardnesses of appearance, which tell so largely upon the judgments of contemporaries, are no longer seen. The conversational nimbleness and versatility of intellect, the charm or assurance or magnetism of manner, the weight of social position, all of which tend to secure to an inferior man a pre-eminence in the circle in which he moves, are equally evanescent, and the shy, rugged, and tactless ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... saved the whole world from perdition. But a brook o'er the plain was pursuing its course, That swelled by the mountain stream's headlong force, Barred the wanderer's steps with its current; So the priest on one side the blest sacrament put, And his sandal with nimbleness drew from his foot, That he safely ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... placed it least in size of the order of birds, maxime miranda in minimis. Her masterpiece is the little humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touches the turf an ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... hand, or nimbleness of foot, all these wonders can be performed, he that shall neglect to attain the free use of his limbs may be justly censured as criminally lazy. But I am afraid that no specimen of such effects will easily be shown. If ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... place, and divers times since, I have observed with my Microscope, another little Insect, which, though I have not annexed the picture of, may be worth noting, for its exceeding nimbleness as well as smalness; it was as small as a Mite, with a body deep and ridged, almost like a Flea; it had eight blood-red legs, not very long, but slender; and two horns or feelers before. Its motion was so exceeding ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... qualities of the very greatest military value were appearing in Mr. Polly even as he ran; if Uncle Jim had strength and brute courage and the rich toughening experience a Reformatory Home affords, Mr. Polly was nevertheless sober, more mobile and with a mind now stimulated to an almost incredible nimbleness. So that he not only gained on Uncle Jim, but thought what use he might make of this advantage. The word "strategious" flamed red across the tumult of his mind. As he came round the house for the third time, he darted suddenly into the yard, swung the door to behind ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... amount of climbing up iron ladders can be achieved by an active man in a ship's engine-room, but I remember moments when even to my supple limbs and pride of nimbleness the sailing- ship's machinery seemed to reach up to ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... said the blind man; and at the words he suddenly left hold of me, and, with incredible accuracy and nimbleness, skipped out of the parlour and into the road, where, as I still stood motionless, I could hear his stick go ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... house, licks the lips of the sick man and eats the food which has been prepared for him. The sick man soon gets worse and dies. They say it is very difficult to catch the cat, as it has all the nimbleness of its nature and the cleverness of a bhut. However, they sometimes succeed, and then something wonderful happens. The woman out of whom the cat has come remains insensible, as it were in a state of temporary death, until the cat re-enters her body. Any wound inflicted on ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Bebe he has written saucy variations on a theme which Rabelais, Boccaccio, George Moore, and Moliere in collaboration would have found difficult to handle. It is as successful an experiment in bravado and bravura as Mr. Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw." And he has accomplished this feat with nimbleness, variety, authority, even (granting the subject) delicacy. Seeing it for the first time you will be so submerged in gales of uncontrollable laughter that you will perhaps not recognize at once how every line reveals character, how every situation springs from ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... man was known to them as a gladiator victorious in the games. Gathering up his strength, the knave came on with an oath, and, whirling his heavy staff on high, struck me in such a fashion that, had I not avoided the blow by nimbleness, I had surely been slain. But, as it chanced, the staff hit upon the ground, and so heavily that it flew in fragments. Thereon the multitude shouted again, and the great man, blind with fury, rushed at me to smite me down. But with a cry I sprang straight at his throat—for he was so heavy a man ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... painting to some severity of law—a fame which he was the first to merit, by digging up broken and scattered statues, and setting them up as examples of art. It is true all his work is hard and stiff, inasmuch as his hand was not trained to follow the perception and nimbleness of his mind; still it is held that there is nothing better or more perfect in art. While Andrea was lying ill at Mantua he heard that Albrecht was in Italy, and had him summoned to his side at once, in order that ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... kept busy and we are nimble,—what becomes of Ferdinand's left flank, with a gap of three miles between Wangenheim and him, and 10,000 chosen horse to take advantage of it! Had the French been of Prussian dexterity and nimbleness in marching, it is very possible something might have come of this latter circumstance: but Ferdinand knows they are not; and intends to take good ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... great white thing, afar off in the interior of the island; so I came down from the tree and made for that which I had seen; and behold, it was a huge white dome rising high in air and of vast compass. I walked all around it, but found no door thereto, nor could I muster strength or nimbleness by reason of its exceeding smoothness and slipperiness. So I marked the spot where I stood and went round about the dome to measure its circumference which I found fifty good paces. And as I stood, casting about how to gain an entrance ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... are a people that live near Poland. This name was given them for their extraordinary nimbleness; for cosa, or kosa, in the Polish tongue, signifies a goat. He that would know more of them, may ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... back to back, Turn to your place again; Never let lightness nor nimbleness lack, Either in maidens or men. Time hasteth ever, beware of its flight, Oh, what a ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... and little bones closely knit, that this part may, at once, be either more supple or more firm, according to various occasions. Even the toes, with their articles and nails, serve to feel the ground a man walks on, to lean and stand with more dexterity and nimbleness, the better to preserve the equilibrium of the body, to rise, or to stoop. The two feet stretch forward, to keep the body from falling that way, when it stoops or bends. The two pillars are jointed together at the top, to bear ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... other, and all the art of love. I have often envied him. The Head-Waiter's life is a "happy one." He is ubiquitous; Egypt, The Riviera, Switzerland, and Italy, see him by turns; in each he has a white waistcoat, of which Mr. CHAMBERLAIN might be proud, infinite occupation, and infinite diversion; his nimbleness, his light-heartedness, his languages, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... Riaran, the Precinct of Seville, the Little Market of Segovia, the Olivera of Valencia, the Rondilla of Granada, the Strand of San Lucar, the Colt of Cordova, the Taverns of Toledo, and divers other quarters, where he had proved the nimbleness of his feet and the lightness of his fingers, doing many wrongs, cheating many widows, ruining maids and swindling minors, and, in short, bringing himself under the notice of almost every tribunal and court of justice in Spain; until at last he had retired to this castle of his, where ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... he hurls himself on the object which nature has destined for him; but be not jealous of him, and think of the advantages of the human species; in love they compensate for all those that nature has given to the animals—strength, beauty, nimbleness, speed. ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... had completed these, the outward ceremonies of his joy, he again commanded that his captains and soldiers should show unto Mansoul some feats of war. So they presently addressed themselves to this work. But oh, with what agility, nimbleness, dexterity, and bravery did these military men discover their skill in feats of war to the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... done, O Merziyeh I Indeed, thou confoundest the wits with the goodliness of thy verses and the elegance of thy speech." All this while Shefikeh abode gazing upon her, and when she beheld El Abbas his slave-girls and considered the goodliness of their apparel and the nimbleness of their wits and the elegance of their speech, her reason was confounded. Then she sought leave of El Abbas and returning to her mistress Mariyeh, without letter or answer, acquainted her with his case and that wherein he was of puissance and delight and majesty and venerance ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... doctor, to undertake the part of the ambassador; so that the gentleman sent immediate orders to have the throne erected, which was performed before they had drank two bottles; and, perhaps, the reader will hereafter have no great reason to admire the nimbleness of the servants. Indeed, to confess the truth, the throne was no more than this: there was a great tub of water provided, on each side of which were placed two stools raised higher than the surface of the tub, and over the whole was laid a blanket; ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... put his best foot forward, and then sometimes suffer the ignominy of being run over by his pursuer, who, however, is quite unable to pick him up, owing to the speed. But when they mount the hill, or enter the woods, the superior nimbleness and agility of the fox tell at once, and he easily leaves the dog far in his rear. For a cur less than his own size he manifests little fear, especially if the two meet alone, remote from the house. In such cases, I have seen first one turn ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... a bright idea," remarked Buck, with exasperating slowness; "they always said you had a brain in your head, Fenton. It's a good, strong vine too, and even a sharp knife hacks into it pretty hard. Oh! no doubt about it holding a fellow of your nimbleness, when you manage to get a ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... struck it so sharp a cuff that it toppled over sideways from the horse upon the trail, down which it went clawing and chattering its anger; but, though, it dropped from sight, it must be believed it suffered no harm, because of its own nimbleness. ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... their heads to look, and one soft-stepping old hound got up with the nimbleness of expectation, and, with a prescient gratitude astir in his tail, went and sniffed at it. His aspect drooped suddenly, and he looked around in reproach at Stephen Quimbey, as if suspecting a practical joke. But there was no merriment in the young mountaineer's face. He threw himself ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... nimbleness of mind to take the chance word or the accidental subject and play upon it, and make it pass from guest to guest at dinner or in the drawing-room. It is the discussion of any topic whatever, from religion to the fashions, ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... they knew nothing of baseball, boxing, tennis, golf or the usual sports so popular with young men in England, France and America. Aside from fencing, they had not a sport calculated to produce agility or nimbleness of ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... done so, she takes a little advantage of them, and sets a running before them through the gallery, and from chamber to chamber, till they catch her. This is one more of her humours: what advantage soever she takes of you, considering your nimbleness, and inclination to the work, you will soon overtake her; strip yourself, then, to the shirt, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... sound didn't seem like the others we've been hearing; d'ye think it means anything has happened?" Bob called, as he started to clamber up the rough face of the wall, taking advantage of every jutting rock, and showing a nimbleness a mountain goat might ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... to the door; an omnibus was at the moment passing the corner of the lane, which Mr. Pickwick hailed and ran after with extraordinary nimbleness. When he had got about half-way, he turned his head, and seeing that I was still looking after him and that I waved my hand, stopped, evidently irresolute whether to come back and shake hands again, or to go on. The man behind ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... wonderfully-painted window shivered to atoms, every ancient monument shattered, every sculptured decoration, however inaccessible in appearance, hurled to the ground. Indefatigably, audaciously,—endowed, as it seemed, with preternatural strength and nimbleness, these furious iconoclasts clambered up the dizzy heights, shrieking and chattering like malignant apes, as they tore off in triumph the slowly-matured fruit of centuries. In a space of time wonderfully brief, they had accomplished ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... held behind the back at all times during the dance, and when Sicto, exasperated at the girl's nimbleness, attempted to grab her, Piang protested loudly. A surly growl was Sicto's response, and during the hot dispute that followed, as the dancers swayed and dodged, Papita caught Sicto off his guard, and to his mortification he found himself contemplating the ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... and thus, by slow degrees, have degenerated into the less powerful, but more beautiful and symmetrical proportions that we now see. This change, however, has better adapted him for speed, and the coursing of such quadrupeds as depend upon nimbleness and activity of motion, to secure ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... better that the enemy seek us;: So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers, Doing himself offense; whilst we, lying still, Are full of rest, defense, and nimbleness. ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... With the nimbleness of terror I dropped to the deck and passed like a shadow to the hatch, unnoticed by the beast. In a moment I closed the companion doors, then entering Bunk's cabin found the gun and ammunition. I loaded the piece, ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... before them was smooth and grassy, flowing before them far, a gentle slope that was soon to lend speed to Rodriguez' feet, adding nimbleness even to youth. Soon, too, it was to lift onward the dull weight of Morano as he followed his master towards unknown wars, youth going before him like a spirit and the good slope helping behind. But before they ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... the subject inspired. The ever gay and lively Boz, always in spirits, called up many a happy scene, and gave the pen a certain airiness and nimbleness. There is little that is official or magisterial about the volumes. Everything is pleasant and interesting, put together—though there is a crowd of details—with extraordinary art and finish. It furnishes a most ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... numbered, would seem to correspond to the Maya verbs, MAN, to buy, to purchase, hence to number, things being sold by the quantity—or MANEL, to pass, to exceed. Tekel, weighed, would correspond to TEC, light. To-day it is used in the sense of lightness in motion, brevity, nimbleness: and Upharsin, dividing, seem allied to the words PPA, to divide two things united; or uppah, to break, making a sharp sound; or paah, to break edifices; or, again, PAALTAL, to break, to scatter the ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... followed her about for a while, deserted her for pressing affairs of his own out-of-doors. Elliott pinched the pods as scientifically as she knew how and wondered whether, if she should shell peas all her life, her slender fingers would ever acquire the lightning nimbleness of the Gordons' fat ones. How long Harriet ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... he exclaimed, "Ah! you vagabond!" and springing with the nimbleness of a cat, struck the Dutchman a blow that sent him measuring his length, into a corner among a lot of empty boxes; then seizing Dunn by the collar, he shook him like a puppy, and brought him a slap with his ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... pirates had fled and were seen no more; but their abrupt retreat, as described by Chonita, continued to be an exciting topic of discussion. There were few of us who did not openly or secretly approve of Estenega's Jesuitism and admire the nimbleness of his mind. The clergy ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... attention to the physical in a person, when it is the moral (i. e. mental) that is concerned." Again, he compares a comical person to "a person embarrassed by his body." His automatism is essentially a lack of mental nimbleness, a formal lack of mental elasticity, a defective capacity for rapid adjustment, in short, a mental laziness. And especially is this defect one of consciousness. The failure is on the part of the higher mental activities, which should ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... muslin, poplin and paper; clouds of lining-muslin, snakes of piping; skeins, shreds; and the floor literally sown with pins, escaped from the fingers of the fair, those taper fingers so typical of the minds of their owners: or they have softness, suppleness, nimbleness, adroitness, and ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... given on the quarto version of The Merry Wives, that reasoning would commend itself as at least plausible; but it is foolish as applied to the version in the folio, where the piece is found to be remarkable for nimbleness of invention, strength and variety of natural character, affluent prodigality of animal spirits, delicious quaintness, exhilarating merriment, a lovely pastoral tone, and many touches of the transcendent poetry of Shakespeare. Dennis ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... had hurt one of his knees, in going down, just enough to interfere with his nimbleness of pursuit during the rest of the round. Time-keep ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... hockey with an extraordinary zest and nimbleness. Always he played in the tail coat, and the knitted muffler was never relinquished; he treated the game entirely as an occasion for quick tricks and personal agility; he bounded about the field like a kitten, he pirouetted ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Church. I, with several others of the Inhabitants, follow'd her out, and saw her hold up her Fan to an Hackney-Coach at a Distance, who immediately came up to her, and she whipp'd into it with great Nimbleness, pull'd the Door with a bowing Mein, as if she had been used to a better Glass. She said aloud, You know where to go, and drove off. By this time the best of the Congregation was at the Church-Door, and I could hear some say, A very fine Lady; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... name was Nicholas but his familiars called him Nickie the Kid. The title did not imply that Nicholas possessed the artless gaiety, the nimbleness, or any of the simple virtues of the young of the common goat. Kid was short for "kidder," a term that as gone out recently in favour of "smoodger," and which implies a quality of suave and ingratiating ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... strayed from the fort he was sure to return wounded if he returned at all; and in this sort of warfare the stolid English were no match for the wily Indians. "Our men," says Smith, "by their disorderly straggling were often hurt when the savages by the nimbleness ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... trades would be blowing strong and brisk from the ocean, driving steadily through the Golden Gate, filling the city with a taint of salt; but at present the air was calm, touched with a certain nimbleness, a sparkling effervescence, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... entire experience had, yet was there some proof thereof given in the battel of Ravenna, when the Spanish Foot affronted the Dutch battalions, which keep the same rank the Swisses do, where the Spaniards with their nimbleness of body, and the help of their targets entred in under their Pikes, and there stood safe to offend them, the Dutch men having no remedy: and had it not been for the Cavalery that rusht in upon them, they had quite defeated them. There may then ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... brawled and blasphemed with the worst of them in his day. He hath given blow for blow, and I trow the other man's cheek smarted sorer than old Giles's. Now he be a man of the covenant, but he be still stiff with his old ways, and hath no nimbleness to shunt a blow. Old Giles Corey hath no fine wisdom to save his life, and no grace of tongue, but he hath power to die as he will, and no man ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and lasses leaped through and through, as on the wings of zephyrs; a hundred couples bounding at once on the green sward; the old folks chiming in the chorus of universal laughter, and snapping their fingers to the dances in which they had no longer the strength and nimbleness to join; the youngsters getting up mimic reels in sly corners; and the music seeming to stir into delight the branches of the great elms which festooned this ball-room of nature. But was there not something ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... upwards by the simple nobility of his character, by the stainless purity of his actions, and the splendid motive of all his endeavours. His speeches and writings derive their power and distinction from no tricks of oratory, felicity of diction, or nimbleness of mind. They are the vocal results of the beatings of ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... this point no one had taken a very prominent part in the attack upon the inn if attack it could be called; but now the man whom chance, or his own nimbleness, made the first of the throng, assumed to himself a sort of control over his companions and, turning ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... simply a structure of the finest and roundest (and therefore most nimble) atoms, with which he compared the extremely attenuated dust particles visible in their never-ending {79} dance in a beam of light passed into a darkened room. This structure of exceeding tenuity and nimbleness was the source of the motion characteristic of living creatures, and provided that elastic counteracting force to the inward-pressing nimble air, whereby were produced the phenomena of respiration. Every object, in fact, whether ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... attitude of mind, because for centuries they have been valued for their sympathy and appreciation rather than for their judgment, that they are so perilously prone to enthusiasm. It has come to all of us of late to hear much feminine eloquence, and to marvel at the nimbleness of woman's wit, at the speed with which she thinks, and the facility with which she expresses her thoughts. A woman who, until five years ago, never addressed a larger audience than that afforded by a reading-club or a dinner-party, will now thrust and parry on a platform, ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier |
