"Blithe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his elevation to the Papal dignity; he can find better work to do now; he's the man for us; let us choose him Doge to stem this current of adversity. You will urge by way of objection that he is now almost eighty years old, that his hair and beard are white as silver, that his blithe appearance, fiery eye, and the deep red of his nose and cheeks are to be ascribed, as his traducers maintain, to good Cyprus wine rather than to energy of character; but heed not that. Remember what conspicuous ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... truth to the king, but he could not bear to be parted from that slender-handed, gold-haired, thin-lipped, blithe enchantress, and he required them to discover some means whereby he might retain his wife and his crown. There was a way and the magicians told ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... attire (albeit rich enough beneath the marks of travel), sun-burned visages and stolid manner in marked contrast with the bearing and aspect of the king's gay following. One of the alien troop pulled a red mustachio fiercely and eyed a blithe popinjay of the court with quizzical superiority; the ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... blithe, courageous young midshipman, was gayly chattering with his protectress. There he was laughing at her good-naturedly as she trembled for his sake, and chattering broken German as best he could. Wealth is a good thing, and health a better; but surely high spirited ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... I saw no reason why his genial temper and buoyant heart should not remain with him to the end of his life. Yet within six months the man changed completely. He grew suddenly old and shrunken; the great blithe laugh that pealed through the house was silenced, the look of suave contentment with himself and with the world about him vanished from his face, and in its place I saw a nervous, troubled glance as of one who suspects a lurking foe ready to spring at his throat. The change which came over Job ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... little dog down to the gate, happily. They were sobered, however, when Mr. Traill appeared, looking very grand in his Sabbath clothes. He inspected Bobby all over with anxious scrutiny, and gave each of the bairns a threepenny-bit, but he had no blithe greeting for them. Much preoccupied, he went off at once, with the animated little muff of a dog at his heels. In truth, Mr. Traill was thinking about how he might best plead Bobby's cause with the Lord Provost. The note that was handed him, on leaving the Burgh court ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... you to let him give them you, if you were of his acquaintance. On a Sunday he would appear coming out of the post-office usually at the hour when all cultivated Cambridge was coming for its letters, and wave a glad hand in air, and shout a blithe salutation to the friend he had marked for his companion in a morning stroll. The stroll was commonly over the flats towards Brighton (I do not know why, except perhaps that it was out of the beat of the better element) and the talk was mainly of literature, in which he was doing less ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... heard her sparkling story. You consider yourself happy because you are sitting by her and helping her to a lady-finger, or a macaroon, for which she smiles. But I was her theme for ten mortal minutes. She was my bard, my blithe historian. She was the Homer of my luckless Trojan fall. She set my mishap to music, in telling it. Think what it is to have inspired Urania; to have called a brighter beam into the eyes of Miranda, and do not think so much of passing Aurelia the ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... modest confidence, and great and evident self-gratulation, "we have been thought so particular in making cheese, that some folk think it as gude as the real Dunlop; and if your honour's Grace wad but accept a stane or twa, blithe, and fain, and proud it wad make us? But maybe ye may like the ewe-milk, that is, the Buckholmside* cheese better; or maybe the gait-milk, as ye come frae the Highlands—and I canna pretend just to the same skeel o' them; but my cousin ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... no more, ladies, sigh no more; Men were deceivers ever; One foot in sea, and one on shore; To one thing constant never: Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny; Converting all your sounds of woe Into, Hey ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... go you must, Flowerless and chill the winter draweth nigh; Closed are the blithe and fragrant lips which made All summer long perpetual melody. Cheerless we take our way, but not afraid: Will there not be more roses—by ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... the continent has already become—a bankrupt slaughter-house inhabited by unmated women. We have talked of "problems" in our day. We never had a problem; for the worst task we ever saw was a mere blithe pastime compared with what these women and the few men that will remain here must face. The hills about Verdun are not blown to pieces worse than the whole social structure and intellectual and spiritual life of Europe. I wonder ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... mother's; and throughout his life he showed the qualities of both strains. He was left the youngest of four children to the care of his widowed mother, soon after his birth, and at the very beginning his blithe and dauntless spirit felt the stress of want. But he began to help himself and school himself, as the children of the poor must and do, and he early showed a passion for literature and adventure; he wanted to read; he wanted to go to sea; he actually tried ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... arouse the imagination of the student first of all. We speak of the character of the piece, and try to arrive at some idea of its meaning. Is it largo—then it is serious and soulful; is it scherzo—then it should be blithe and gay. We cannot depend on metronome tempi, for they are not reliable. Those given in Schumann are generally all wrong. We try to feel the rhythm of the music, the swing of it, the spirit of it. In giving out the opening theme or subject, I feel it ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... little like undertakers, in the Commons, as regarded Probate transactions; generally making it a rule to look more or less cut up, when we had to deal with clients in mourning. In a similar feeling of delicacy, we were always blithe and light-hearted with the licence clients. Therefore I hinted to Peggotty that she would find Mr. Spenlow much recovered from the shock of Mr. Barkis's decease; and indeed he came ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... through the rich pea vines or scratching in sassafras or sumach thickets for insects, growing fat and growing lazy all the time. The gourmand of the autumn was in manner quite a contrast to the Bob Whites of the days of young wheat and wild roses. No blithe, good music now issued from that throat so intent upon good cheer. True, some unpleasant rumors are afloat. The Mate Hares, scudding frantically away, reported an advance of men, with guns and dogs; but the Mate Hares were always silly and unreliable. So our Bob Whites ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... imagination, he saw her large, mischievous, dark eyes snap, and heard the merry peals of her laughter as she flitted about the garden in former years. Surely it was better thus—that she should remain blithe and happy like the birds, as ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... open window she had one more glimpse of him, as he stood there lifting his hat. Farther back, at the station gate Joyce waited with her arm linked in Henrietta's, for the moment when Mary's last glance should be turned to seek her. She met it with a blithe wave of her handkerchief, and Mary waved vigorously in response. It was a long time before she turned away from the window. When she did she had nearly recovered her self-control, and grateful for ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... round! How the earth trembled! Was the glare of the sun too fierce that morning, or had his eyes grown dim? Going blind? Well, even so, he would not repine, for Naomi could see now. She would see for him also. How sweet to see through Naomi's eyes! Naomi was young and joyous, and bright and blithe. All the world was new to her, and strange and beautiful. It would be a second and far ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... I hear a murmur on the meads,— Where as of old my children seek my face,— The low of kine, the peaceful tramp of steeds, Blithe shouts of men in many a pastoral place, The noise of tilth through all my goodliest land; And happy laughter of a dusky race Whose brethren lift them from their ancient toil, Saying: 'The year of jubilee has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... at any rate, to say of sea-life: a man is pre-eminently conscious of a Soul. I feel, remembering the blithe positivism of my early note, that I am here scarcely consistent. As I stood by the rail this morning at four o'clock—the icy fingers of the wind ruffled my hair so that the roots tingled deliciously, and a low, ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... young to make the anxious lines upon her forehead seem at home there, too patient to be burdened with the labor others should have shared, too light of heart to be pent up when earth and sky were keeping a blithe holiday. But she was one of that meek sisterhood who, thinking humbly of themselves, believe they are honored by being spent in the service of less conscientious souls, whose careless thanks ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... clustered roses. The windows were all thrown wide open to the perfumed summer air, and the warm light poured in through the gaps in the tree-tops, and above the summits of the then carefully trimmed hedgerows, blithe and golden. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... to the relatives whom he had thus taught to have such exclusive dependence on him. Among the consolations addressed to those mourners came words from one whom in life he had most honoured, and who also found it difficult to connect him with death, or to think that he should never see that blithe face anymore. "It is almost thirty years," Mr. Carlyle wrote, "since my acquaintance with him began; and on my side, I may say, every new meeting ripened it into more and more clear discernment of his rare and great worth as a brother man: a most cordial, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... frequent intervals: signals of harbourage for the parched wayfarer. Within, you behold a picturesque confusion of rude chairs set among barrels and vats full of dark red wine where, amid Rembrandtesque surroundings, you can get as drunk as a lord for sixpence. Blithe oases! It must be delightful, in summer, to while away the sultry hours in their hospitable twilight; even at this season they seem to be extremely popular resorts, throwing a new light on those allusions by classical authors to ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... Plinth, blithe, sphere, shriek, quote, whether, tipt, depth, robed, hoofed, calved, width, hundredth, exhaust, whizzed, hushed, ached, wagged, etched, pledged, asked, dreamt, alms, adapts, depths, lefts, heav'ns, meddl'd, beasts, wasps, hosts, exhausts, gasped, desks, selects, facts, hints, healths, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... troubles pass Like little ripples down a sunny river; Your pleasures spring like daisies in the grass, Cut down, and up again as blithe ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... the hare-eyed figure in the dock, he had his worst moment yet. Why should this poor wretch suffer so—for no fault, no fault; while he, and these others, and that snapping counsel, and the Caesar-like judge up there, went off to their women and their homes, blithe as bees, and probably never thought of him again? And suddenly he was conscious of the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fell: (who knows not Circe, 50 The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup Whoever tasted lost his upright shape, And downward fell into a grovelling swine?) This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks, With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth, Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son Much like his father, but his mother more, Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named: Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age, Roving the Celtic ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... was regained. Dick vaulted into the saddle (he seldom used the stirrup), and away they went again, blithe as ever. Then a long strip of tangled forest appeared. Dick diverged here. It was easier to skirt it than to crash through it. Presently a broad deep river came in view. There was no looking for a ford, no checking the pace. In they went with sounding ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... grew blithe and merry. Thrice they crossed themselves, then out they flew—and straight into the ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... the nets, some gathering the balls together and trying them ere the other players should arrive. It was a pleasant scene. Birds twittered out and in the ivy and rose covered walls of the old English manor-house, and the blithe laughter of the young people blended with the melodious singing ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... valleys beneath them, child as she surely was always, playing in some celestial garden space in her mind, where every species of tether was unendurable, where freedom for this childish sport was the one thing necessary to her ever young and incessantly capering mind—"hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... rainbow-shimmer of joy, or a sudden lightning-flare of passion, this exquisite mystery we call Amor, comes, to some rapt visionaries at least, not with a song upon the lips that all may hear, or with blithe viol of public music, but as one wrought by ecstasy, dumbly ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... it? Why is it? Like a snow-flurry, With swish of wings, And a swoop and a scurry, Comes a whole flock of them Now in a hurry! Busy and merry The little things, very; Watch them, and see How blithe they can be With their "Chick-a-dee-dee, Chick-a-dee-dee!" Each one such a bit ...
— The Nursery, March 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... East, but the lieutenant-colonel was commanding, and the junior major was there. Drills were incessant, but scouts were few, and after the years of "go-as-you-please" work in Arizona the —th was getting rapidly back into soldierly shape. The little frontier fort was blithe and gay with its merry populace. All the officers' families had joined; several young ladies were spending the spring in garrison and taking their first taste of military life; hops and dances came off almost ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... on voyages. The other ship came to Ramfirth to Board-Eyr; they were both laden with timber. When Snorri heard of the coming of Thorkell he rode at once to where the ship was. Thorkell gave him a most blithe welcome; he had a great deal of drink with him in his ship, and right unstintedly it was served, and many things they found to talk about. Snorri asked tidings of Norway, and Thorkell told him everything well and truthfully. Snorri told in return ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... blithe cuckoo and daisy mild, The daffodils, like elfin fays, The mystery of sunset haze O'er barren moors, his pen ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... casting branches into this brush fire, and although suffering so much, their sufferings will never never end, because neither the fire nor the sinners can die." But those terrible fire lessons quickly faded away in the blithe wilderness air; for no fire can be hotter than the heavenly fire of faith and hope that burns in every ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... Fledgeby sped on his errand of mercy through the streets, at so brisk a rate that his feet might have been winged by all the good spirits that wait on Generosity. They might have taken up their station in his breast, too, for he was blithe and merry. There was quite a fresh trill in his voice, when, arriving at the counting-house in St Mary Axe, and finding it for the moment empty, he trolled forth at the foot of the staircase: 'Now, Judah, what are ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... is couched in my breast, Making a Phoenix of my faintful heart: And though his fury do enforce my smart, Ay blithe am I to ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... with the inevitable demand. He was a cheerful fellow in his sorry business, blithe as an old stager of an undertaker at a first-class funeral. He chatted about the crisis, and, as a matter of course, brought all the latest news from State Street. Monroe listened to one piece of news, but had ears for no more. "Sandford and Fayerweather had failed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... lang dike that gaes down the loaning, and twa or three herds maybe, just set to wark, and built this bit thing here that ye ca' thethePraetorian, and a' just for a bield at auld Aiken Drum's bridal, and a bit blithe gae-down wi' had in't, some sair rainy weather. Mair by token, Monkbarns, if ye howk up the bourock, as ye seem to have began, yell find, if ye hae not fund it already, a stane that ane o' the mason-callants cut a ladle on to have a bourd at ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... whatever place we stopped, we saw only the "men-folks;" the family, often half-breed, being huddled away in the rear. Here, in the room in which the guests were received, lay the smiling baby in its old-fashioned cradle. Two blithe little girls danced in and out, and the old grandfather sat holding a white-haired boy. When dinner was over, the great business of drying the clothes was resumed by the travellers and the family; and we held our wrappings by the fire, and turned them about, until we became so drowsy ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... I was riding away to battle, riding right joyously over the chestnut ridges and through the thick laurel, through stretches of pawpaw, beech and flowering poplar, with the pea-vine and buffalo grass soft underfoot. And my heart was as blithe as the mocking-bird's and there was no shadow of tomahawk or scalping-knife across ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... be kept as it is, even as it is now; that Philae could be preserved even as it is now! The spoilers are there, those blithe modern spirits, so frightfully clever and capable, so industrious, so determined, so unsparing of themselves and—of others! Already they are at work "benefiting Egypt." Tall chimneys begin to vomit smoke along the Nile. A damnable tram-line for little trolleys leads one toward ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... be sure of that, mother, seeing that we had promised," said Dick, the blithe and hearty man-of-war's man, as he printed a kiss on his mother's cheek that might have been heard, as he truly said, "from the main truck to the keelson." At the same time bushy-browed Harry, with the blue coat and brass epaulettes of the fire-brigade, ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... 'In the blithe days of honey-moon, With Kate's allurements smitten, I lov'd her late, I lov'd her soon, And call'd her dearest kitten. But now my kitten's grown a cat, And cross like other wives, O! by my soul, my honest Mat, I fear ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... an infinite homage toward the Almighty; for, as Emerson says: "In the woods we return to reason and faith. Then I feel that nothing can befall me in life—no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes)—which Nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground—my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space—all mean egoism vanishes. . . . I am the lover ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... silver. And then King Mark sent unto Sir Marhaus, and did him to wit that a better born man than he was himself should fight with him, and his name is Sir Tristram de Liones, gotten of King Meliodas, and born of King Mark's sister. Then was Sir Marhaus glad and blithe that he should fight with such a gentleman. And so by the assent of King Mark and of Sir Marhaus they let ordain that they should fight within an island nigh Sir Marhaus' ships; and so was Sir Tristram ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... freezing wind, And snap the harp-strings, one by one; It was a maiden blithe and kind: They felt her touch; their task ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... can Before you up the mountain go, Up to the dreary mountain-top, I'll tell you all I know. 'Tis now some two-and-twenty years Since she (her name is Martha Ray) Gave, with a maiden's true good will, Her company to Stephen Hill; And she was blithe and gay, And she was happy, happy still Whene'er she thought of ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... LOTTIE, sigh no more, Those gowns have gone for ever; You've cut some capers on that shore That you expected never; Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe To Tarara—boom—de nonny. Sing that vile ditty yet once more, And win almighty dollars From Yankees who have spoilt your store Of frocks, frills, cuffs and collars; The air will run in their heads like one O'clock, till ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various
... strong spring round him grew Stronger, and all blithe winds that blew Blither, and flowers that flowered anew More glad of sun and air and dew, The shadow lightened on his soul And brightened into death and died Like winter, as the bloom waxed wide From woodside on to riverside And southward ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... 'Be blithe as lambs in April are, As flies when fruits are red; 185 May God forbid that thought of me Should ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... for his own. The night is starry and cold, my friend, And the New Year blithe and bold, my friend Comes up ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... dancing in large bands and accompanying the figure of the dance with song. "If the people," says M. Pitre, "find out who is the composer of a canzone, they will not sing it." Now in those lands where a blithe peasant life still exists with its dances, like the kolos of Russia, we find ballads identical in many respects with those which have died out of oral tradition in these islands. It is natural to conclude that originally some of the British ballads ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... was winter now, and months must elapse before we are hurled from our security. We became ephemera, to whom the interval between the rising and setting sun was as a long drawn year of common time. We should never see our children ripen into maturity, nor behold their downy cheeks roughen, their blithe hearts subdued by passion or care; but we had them now—they lived, and we lived—what more could we desire? With such schooling did my poor Idris try to hush thronging fears, and in some measure succeeded. It was not as in summer-time, when each hour might bring the dreaded fate—until ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... lay the land of old, Where men dwelt blithe and blameless, clothed and fed With joy's bright raiment, and with love's sweet bread,— The whitest flock of earth's maternal fold, None there might wear about his brows enrolled A light of lovelier fame than rings your head, Whose lovesome love of ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... me, I hid my rage at the legal mandate which here compelled us to "go no faster than a man can walk." Under an air of blithe insouciance I disguised my fears, never starting perceptibly at "any toot" behind us which might mean Sir Alec on our track, and appearing to enjoy with the free spirit of a boy, the one great amusement ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... despair of making him perceive why poetry refuses just now even more obstinately than trade (if that be possible) to 'follow the flag.' It will not follow, because you are waving the flag over self-deception. You may be as blithe as Plato in casting out the poets from your commonwealth—though for other reasons than his. You may be as blithe as Dogberry in determining, of reading and writing, that they may appear when there is no need of such vanity. But you are certainly driving them forth ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rings freshly and musically in our remembrance. And the recollection of it is doubtless all the more vivid because of the mirthful retrospect having relation to one of the most recent of Dickens's blithe home dinners in his last town residence immediately before his hurried return to Gad's Hill in the summer of 1870. Although we were happily with him afterwards, immediately before the time came when we could commune with him no more, the occasion referred to ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... old, old man, but the tone in which he gave us "Good day" was blithe and good to hear, while he looked as fit ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... a blithe young officer who insisted on wheeling out of the line and halting us, and passing the time of day with us. I imagine he wanted to exercise his small stock of English words. Well, it needed the exercise. The skull-and-bones poison label on his cap made a wondrous contrast with the smiling eyes and ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... babbling, many-tongued throng. Yonder, further away, the mountains tower up in an amphitheatre, ever bluer and mistier; and, at the edge of the horizon, stretches the silver chain of snow-clad summits, beginning with Kazbek and ending with two-peaked Elbruz... Blithe is life in such a land! A feeling akin to rapture is diffused through all my veins. The air is pure and fresh, like the kiss of a child; the sun is bright, the sky is blue—what more could one possibly wish for? What need, in such a place as this, ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... herbs or flowers in their hands might well have said:—"Either shall death not vanquish these, or they will meet it with a light heart." So, slowly wended they their way, now singing, now bandying quips and merry jests, to the palace, where they found all things in order meet, and their servants in blithe and merry cheer. A while they rested, nor went they to table until six ditties, each gayer than that which went before, had been sung by the young men and the ladies; which done, they washed their hands, and all by the queen's command were ranged by the seneschal at the table; and, the ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Into the blithe and breathing air, Into the solemn wood, Solemn and silent everywhere Nature with folded hands seemed there Kneeling at her evening prayer! Like ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... as good as the people who own these houses." She said it gravely, as if it were a declaration of principles, and at the same moment her gaze was caught and disturbed by a pair of blithe, fashionably dressed young women gliding by her with the quiet, unconscious grace of good-breeding. She was inwardly aware, though she would never acknowledge it by word or sign, that such people troubled her. More even than Mrs. Taylor ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... bells in the church-tower were ringing—not the monotonous ding-dong with which French people generally have had to content themselves since the Revolutionists turned the old bell-metal into sous, but a blithe and joyous peal of high silvery tones that seemed to belong to the blue air, and to be the voices of the little spirits that flutter about the morning's rosy veil. My design was to reach the abbey of Conques ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... ended in dancing, so far well, for a sound sleep would have brought a blithe wakening, and all be tight and right again; but, alas and alackaday! the violent heat and fume of foment they were all thrown into, caused the emptying of so many ale-tankers, and the swallowing of so muckle toddy, by way of cooling and refreshing the company, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... Billy, blithe as a lark, rode gaily back along the trail to camp. He looked forward with unmixed delight to his coming interview with Pesita, and to the wild, half-savage life which association with the bandit ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the galopade, strange agreeable tramp, Made of a scrape, a hobble, and stamp; And the high-stepping minuet, face to face, Mutual worship of conscious grace; And all the shapes in which beauty goes Weaving motion with blithe repose. ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... it was simply outrageous—outrageous, and if Aunt Lawrence dared to let him suppose it was his duty to propose to her now she'd never forgive her,—never. And so Aunt Lawrence discovered that her blithe, merry, joyous niece of the years gone by had developed a fine temper of her own and a capacity for independent thought and action that was ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... for a true-hearted maiden!" cried Culverhouse, with a lover's easily-stirred enthusiasm. "Cuthbert, since thou knowest so much, thou shalt know more. I have made shift to write to Kate about this purpose of mine to visit the forest glades on blithe May Day; and she has sent me a little missive, fresh and sweet and dainty like herself, to tell me that she will ride forth herself into the forest that day, and giving the slip to her sisters or servants, or any who may accompany ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... hard to find a merrier crowd than that which sped over the smooth yellow road on this perfect summer day, and many a bird, balancing himself on a blossoming twig, ceased his ecstatic outpouring of melody to listen to the blithe chorus of these earth birds, as they sang, "Hey Ho for Merry June," and "Let the Hills and Dales Resound," each machineful trying its best ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... next instant we both were laughing there, she still in tears, I with blithe heart to see her now surrender at discretion, with her grey eyes smiling at me through a starry mist of tears, and the sweet mouth tremulous ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... earth, and they overwhelm the senses, so that a man's blood must keep pace with their beat. They can suit every part, jangling in wild joy, or copying the slow pace of sorrow, or pealing in ordered rhythm, blithe but with a warning of mortality in their cadence. But this bell played dance music. It summoned to an infernal jig. Blood and fever were in its broken fall, hate and ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... silence that ensued the blithe jingling of bells was heard, accompanied by the merry sound of tabor ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of vernal breeze, And beckoning bough of budding trees, Hast left thy sullen fire; And stretched thee in some mossy dell, And heard the browsing wether's bell, Blithe echoes rousing from their cell ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... evenin' creep O'er the day's fair, gladsome e'e Sound and safely may he sleep, Sweetly blithe his waukenin' be. He will think on her he loves, Fondly he'll repeat her name, For, where'er he distant roves, Jockey's ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... seeks the sky, And warbles, dimly seen; And summer views, wi' sunny joy, Her gowany robe o' green. But ah! the summer's blithe return, In flowery pride array'd, Nae mair can cheer this heart forlorn, Or charm the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... heartily, as she now did, the sound of it was worth going miles to hear. There are all shades of temperament and character in laughter, which is the one thing of which we are least self-conscious; hers revealed not only a sense of humor, rare in her sex, but a blithe, happy nature, which made allies at once of those upon whose ears her merriment fell. Trowbridge's eyes sparkled with ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... and stays which stood for rigidity, were fluent. It was not made to model or measurement, but developed under the maker's hard hands and tough fingers—a tribute to his artistry and skill. On the water it was as blithe as ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... whispered from her nest: 'White Adonis, bright Adonis! Love is better than the best, Heaven is hidden in my breast, Take delight and leave the rest, Blithe Adonis, ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... driver remained on the box. The guide, evidently there by appointment and sharply on time, leaped to the sidewalk, glanced at his watch, snapped the case shut with a satisfied nod, and stood with his eyes on the hotel entrance. One tiny black figure came forth, greeted him with a blithe "Bongjure," and intrepidly began the perilous ascent of the ladder he hastened to place against the side of the coach for her convenience. It was Aunt Nancy, dressed as she had been the night before, but immaculately neat, and reflecting in her face the brightness of the morning. I greeted ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... the highest hills, And down in the vales looked he; And sprang up blithe all things of life, And put forth their energy; The flowers creeped out their tender cups, And offered their dewy fee; And rivers and rills they shimmered along Their winding ways to the sea; And the little birds their morning song Trilled forth from every tree, On a Whit-sunday morn in the ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... the Geatish men in the banquet-hall on bench assigned, sturdy-spirited, sat them down, hardy-hearted. A henchman attended, carried the carven cup in hand, served the clear mead. Oft minstrels sang blithe in Heorot. Heroes revelled, no dearth of warriors, ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... mist o'er the meadow was creeping, Bright on the dewy buds glistened the sun, When from his couch, while his children were sleeping, Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun. Waving her golden veil Over the silent dale, Blithe looked the morning on cottage and spire; Hushed was his parting sigh, While from his noble eye Flashed the last ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... blithe, What is the word methinks you know, Endless over-word that the Scythe Sings to the blades of the grass below? Scythes that swing in the glass and clover, Something, still, they say as they pass; What is the word that, ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... at full speed after Mrs Merryboy, senior, who had an inveterate tendency, when attempting to reach Mrs Frog's bower, to take a wrong turn, and pursue a path which led from the garden to a pretty extensive piece of forest-land behind. The blithe old lady was posting along this track in a tremulo-tottering way when captured by Bob. At the same moment the breakfast-bell rang; Mr Merryboy's stentorian voice was immediately heard in concert; silvery shouts from the forest-land alluded to told where Hetty and Matty had been wandering, and ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... girl here, and I'm sure you would like her; she is so slender, so blithe and winsome, and so wayward. She has been sent abroad for her health, and is forbidden to go out after sunset, but will not obey. I am afraid she is dying of consumption.... She has taken a great fancy to me. There is no one in our hotel but a few old maids, ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... Chloris, Astrophil, Or any of the threadbare names inspir'd Poor rhyming lovers with a mistress fir'd. Come then! and while the slow icicle hangs At the stiff thatch, and Winter's frosty pangs Benumb the year, blithe—as of old—let us 'Midst noise and war of peace and mirth discuss. This portion thou wert born for: why should we Vex at the time's ridiculous misery? An age that thus hath fool'd itself, and will —Spite of thy ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... that was the blithe and savory odor that assailed our nostrils a short time ago," said Frank. "But my hopes never soared to ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... these, however, did not occupy their minds for long. Just as Tom had declared, they were out for fun, and the fun could be found almost anywhere by these blithe young folk. ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... village schoolmaster was he, With hair of glittering gray; As blithe a man as you could ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... gentleman. I'll school you, bully; fou or fasting, I'll school you. What, you'll not lug out, like a bonny lad should? I jaloused it. I'm thinking you would take a beating like a lamb, laddie. Well a well. I'll be blithe to rub you down with an oaken towel. Here, Patrick, ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... his word departed, His virtues were so rare, His friends were many and true-hearted, His Poll was kind and fair; And then he'd sing so blithe and jolly, Ah, many's the time and oft! But mirth is turned to melancholy, For Tom is ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... of life is hissing up a hundred gullets. Baseball has now a fierceness it lacks at the end of day. There is wild demand that "Shorty, soak 'er home!" "Butter-fingers!" is a harder insult. And meanwhile a pop-corn wagon will be whistling a blithe if monotonous tune in trial if there be pennies in the crowd. Or a waffle may be purchased if you be a Croesus, ladled exclusively for you and dropped on the gridiron with a splutter. It is a sweet reward ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... if the poor dear boy was satisfied with the life he had chosen, and getting tenderly pitiful over the losses he might learn to regret when it was too late. His dreams seemed to be pleasant ones, however; for once he laughed a blithe, boyish laugh, good to hear; and when he woke, he rubbed his blue eyes and stared about, smiling like a newly ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... to do the work," said Glencoe bitterly, "and then blithe they'll be to hansel the profits. We can gang back to Scotland as quick as we like when we've ance ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... grass we stepped into it, And God He knoweth how blithe we were! Never a voice to bid us eschew it; Hey the green ribbon ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... president of the class, walked Antoinette Holiday, a little lady of quality, as none who saw her could have helped recognizing. Her uncle, watching the procession from the steps of a campus house, smiled and sighed as he beheld her. She was so young, so blithe-hearted, so untouched by the sad and sordid things of life. If only he could keep her so for a little, preserve the shining splendor of her shield of innocent young joy. But, even as he thought, he knew the folly of his wish. Tony would be the last to desire to have life tempered or ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... stubbled corn The blithe quail pipes at morn, The merry partridge drums in hidden places, And glittering insects gleam Above the reedy stream, Where busy spiders ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... for thirty per cent, profit. Come back, Thompson!" Steve was making for the door, with apologies. "You're not in the way a bit. Sit down, man! Your six thousand won't be a starter, Joe. I've got some four thousand myself, in red, red gold. All I have in the world—wish it was more." His blithe insouciance was ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... now for jest and smiling, Both old and young beguiling, Let us laugh and play, so blithe and gay, Till we ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... distress. Horse litters were soon ready for the exhausted but heroic women who had been kept alive by the devotion of the noble British seamen in accordance with the traditions of the merchant service. Those unable to walk farther were placed in carts. Clothed and fed, the sailors were in blithe spirits and talked of going to sea again as soon as they ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... twice. She is a charming creature, but her blithe spirit is almost broken, and her sweet temper almost spoiled, by the still unremitting persecutions of her mother in behalf of her rejected suitor—not violent, but wearisome and unremitting like a continual dropping. ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... must represent. Julio's fate, however, gave him no uneasiness, for his son was not in that part of the front. But yesterday he had received a letter from him, dated the week before; they all took about that length of time to reach him. Sub-lieutenant Desnoyers was as blithe and reckless as ever. They were going to promote him again—he was among those proposed for the Legion d'Honneur. These facts intensified Don Marcelo's vision of himself as the father of a general as young as those of the revolution; and as he contemplated the daubs and sketches ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... all this blithe whistling stopped together. Evening poems by Dyer, Warton, and Collins had tended to be "pretty," but here again Gray resisted temptation and regretfully omitted a stanza designed to ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... save others. In which case all her New England ancestry took flight and she would lie as magnificently as her father before her. And he had the same charm of manner, the same daring, the same ready laughter, the same vivacity. But what is lightsome and blithe in her, was debonaire in him. He won men's hearts always, or, failing that, their bitterest enmity. No one was left cold by him in passing. Contact with him quickened them to love or hate. Therein Paula differs, being a woman, I suppose, and not enjoying man's prerogative of tilting ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... I should think not. I should like nothing better. It did one good to be in contact with this youthful optimist and listen to his blithe and pleasing prattle; he was so hopeful, so philosophic, so cheery; his whole nature seemed to exhale the golden words: "Never say die." And no wonder. He ought to have been at the front, but some guardian angel in the haute finance had dumped him into this soft ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... Sweet to the blithe bucolic Who knows nor cribs nor crams, Who sees the frisky frolic Of lanky little lambs; But sour beyond expression To one in deep depression Who sees the closing ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... the veery had flown with his heart-break to some distant copse, two song-sparrows came to persuade us with their blithe melody that life was worth living, after all; and cheerful little domestic birds, like the jenny-wren and the chipping-sparrow, pecked about and put in between whiles their little chit-chat across the boughs, while the bobolink called ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne |
