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Buoyancy   /bˈɔɪənsi/   Listen
Buoyancy

noun
(pl. buoyancies)
1.
Cheerfulness that bubbles to the surface.  Synonym: perkiness.
2.
The property of something weightless and insubstantial.  Synonym: airiness.
3.
The tendency to float in water or other liquid.
4.
Irrepressible liveliness and good spirit.  Synonym: irrepressibility.



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"Buoyancy" Quotes from Famous Books



... orders and the liquid iron fell in streams from wide-open ports, forming a vast, red pool in the bottom of the dock. In a short time the great vessel was in equilibrium with the water she displaced, and as soon as she had attained a slight buoyancy the ports snapped shut and ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... sorrowful days of womanhood when I was learning how to live, through the years of heartache and heart-break,—and through it all, though I actually suffer, there, is such an unspeakable lightness and buoyancy, such a lifting up, that even pain is a pleasure. I can't explain it all, unless it is the influence of this mysterious country, lulling and soothing, but powerful ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... Youth possesses a certain buoyancy and exhilaration which passes for happiness, until the real disposition of the individual asserts itself with the ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... attachment. This was, moreover, heightened by the boding aspect of the heavens and the dread repose of the evening, so unlike anything she had ever witnessed before. Notwithstanding all this, she was sustained by the eager and impatient buoyancy of first affection; which, when imagination pictured the handsome form of her young and manly lover, predominated for the time over every reflection and feeling that was opposed to itself. Her mind, indeed, ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... promise with a munificence outrunning the letter of their professions, particularly with regard to the quality of marble used in facing or "veneering" the front elevation. Now, these sententious and rather witty expressions gave wings and buoyancy to the public suspicions, so as to make them fly from one end of Greece to the other; and they continued in lively remembrance for centuries. Our answer we reserve until we have illustrated ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... Hence we find gradations of beauty from the apparent impenetrableness of hide and slow motion of the elephant and rhinoceros, from the foul occupation of the vulture, from the earthy struggling of the worm, to the brilliancy of the butterfly, the buoyancy of the lark, the swiftness of the fawn and the horse, the fair ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... colour into her cheeks. As is often the case with girls whose figure is just beginning to show itself, her dress seemed somewhat shortened in front—lifted up from her ankles, which gave the effect of buoyancy to her form, she seemed about to walk though standing still. There was a defiant light in her deep brown eyes, that sort of "I don't care" disposition which our grandmothers used to say would take us to the gallows. Defiance, wilfulness, rebellion, was ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... whether he is aware of the actual contributions to literature—how large they were—which Coleridge made in spite of opium. All who were intimate with Coleridge must remember the fits of genial animation which were created continually in his manner and in his buoyancy of thought by a recent or by an extra dose of the omnipotent drug. A lady, who knew nothing experimentally of opium, once told us, that she "could tell when Mr Coleridge had taken too much opium by his shining countenance." She was right; we know that mark of opium excesses ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... up by its buoyancy," he said. "We may find it looser as we get down. In the meantime, suction's no use; we have got to break it out by hand. Start your winch and we'll ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss

... in him! His country called, and he rose up a patriot. The fatigue of marches, the hardships of camp and bivouac, the hard fare, the injustice that must be submitted to, all the terrible trials of the body's strength and the soul's patient endurance,—these he bore with the superb buoyancy of spirit which denotes the hero. Who was it that caught up the colors, and rushed forward with them into the thick of the battle, after the fifth man who attempted it had been shot down? Not that village loafer, who used ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... second pair of small wheels running on the under-side, and the strain on these wheels shows the strength of the giant wings; for Sir Hiram Maxim's only object is to prove that aerial ships built in such a way would have great buoyancy. A number of them, in a modified form, have been fitted to a 'giant longstride,' and many of the London boys and girls who have been to the Exhibitions (at Earl's Court and elsewhere), where the longstride stands, know something of the principle ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... (fig. 6) for battleships are built of steel in four watertight compartments, and have sufficient buoyancy to keep afloat should a compartment be pierced; they are 13 ft. long with a diameter of 61/2 ft. The mooring cable (bridle) passes through a watertight 16-in. trunk pipe, built vertically in the centre of the buoy, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... troubles come, long drawn out and wearying, like the monotonous dripping of water with which old torturers used to drive their victims mad. Still sins bring shame to the conscience and tragic consequence to the life, and tiresome work, losing the buoyancy of its first inspiration, drags itself out into purposeless effort and bores us with its futility. Folk now, as much as ever in all history, need to have their souls restored. The scientific control of life, however, is not adequate for that. Electricity and subways and motor cars ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... the water, any more than she could feel the insertion of a needle. The vulgar belief is, that the suspected witch was cast into a pond, where, if she floated, she was burned, and if she sank she was drowned. The latter alternative was not so; if she betrayed no preternatural buoyancy, the trial was so far in her favor, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... lower left-hand corner we may barely make out the portion of an anchor. The meaning of the old symbol is that hope keeps the soul firm, as an anchor holds the ship. The face of which we have a glimpse is girlish and innocent; the figure is full of buoyancy. The left arm and the uplifted hands are ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... danger.' He was an odd man to have inherited Hampden's motto; still, in fact, there was a great trace in him of mediocria firma—as much, probably, as there could be in anyone of such great vivacity and buoyancy. ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot

... varying the position of weights of known magnitude, or by the stability indicator itself. Suppose, now, the vessel to be listed over to various angles of heel—say 20 deg., 40 deg., 60 deg., and 80 deg.—the water lines will then be A C, D E, F K, and H J respectively, and the centers of buoyancy, which must be found by calculation, will be B1, B2, B3, and B4. If lines are drawn from these points at right angles to the water levels at the respective heels, the righting power of the vessel in each position ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various

... pale from recent illness and confinement and lack of the old open air life,—never had he looked so full of hope and buoyancy and life as, after one thrilling little squeeze of her hand, he swung into saddle, doffed his broad-brimmed hat to all, and went bounding away to take his place in front of the long mounted line that awaited his coming. ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... brought unexpectedly in view of his long-hunted quarry, feels his lost buoyancy and energy return, so now Mansana felt suddenly within him an uncontrollable strength, an indomitable purpose, and, before he really knew what he was doing, he had reached the iron gate within the railing and, without stopping to ring and ask admission, had ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... savage, was more susceptible than another to these strange refinements; and he had to exert all his strength to refrain from inaugurating with a joyful hurrah an unseasonable out-pouring of words and gestures, from giving way to the impulse of physical buoyancy which stirred his whole being; like the great mountain dogs which are thrown into convulsions of epileptic frenzy by inhaling a single drop ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... there were several cows and horses, sleek and fat, feeding under a shed; brood sows, with numerous progenies; and fowls actually swarming around. The morning was beautiful; the air, filled with a thousand grateful odours from the fields, imparting to our young minds a buoyancy we had been strangers to since we had left our own native shores. Our hasty survey was made in a few minutes, while we stood waiting further orders. Our master, who had entered another part of the building, returned, accompanied by two of the most ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... the sixteenth century, the Spanish people, who up to that time had been second to none in love of liberty and many-sided energy, had been changed into sombre fanatics, sunk in ignorance and superstition, and retaining hardly a trace of their former buoyancy and healthy independence.[286] The first Index Expurgatorius was published in 1546; the burning of Protestants began in 1559. Till then, Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, and Ruysbroek had circulated freely in Spain. But the Inquisition condemned them all, except Ruysbroek. The same ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... right arm over it and holding on while the two Maine boys pushed and towed it. Finally, when young Butts had broken away to swim, Joe closed in, holding to the log for a while. At last it came even doughty Tom Halstead's turn to seek this aid to buoyancy. ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock

... vivacity, he is ever welcome. For his wife he has smiles and jocose speeches; for his children stories of fun and play; for his friends pleasant talk interspersed with the sallies of wit that come from buoyancy." ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... two longitudinal bulkheads at considerable distances from the sides of the ship, subdivided as completely as possible, both under and above water, so that, even supposing they got water into the space between one bulkhead and the side of the ship, they would have sufficient buoyancy in the other parts of the ship to keep her afloat. Broad ships must necessarily mean deep ships, in order to have comfort at sea. They were limited in length, and first came the question how many passengers they wanted to carry. The experience of a ship like the America—which was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various

... exception. His skin was almost fair, his features almost Caucasian in their regularity; his dark eye lighted up with a peculiar brightness, and there was a remarkable buoyancy and glow about him every way. He was about twenty years old. How long he had been in California I know not. When he came into my office to see me the first time, he rushed forward and impulsively grasped ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... still engaged in nursing the wounded, and only came occasionally, regretting often that it was not in his power to see them more frequently. A change had come over him of late; the buoyancy of his spirits seemed broken, and his gay tone of raillery was hushed; the bright, happy look of former days was gone, and a tinge of sadness was sometimes perceptible on his handsome face. Mrs. Carlton had spoken on her last visit of Frank's ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... at him closely. The buoyancy of his morning mood was gone, and it was hard for him to endure her searching look. It came over him that he was an apostate; one who had abandoned all that he had vowed to uphold; his vanity smarted at the thought that she must think him weak and ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... ride in 'Geoffrey Hamlyn,' where the fate of the heroine, threatened with worse than death from the bush-rangers, hangs upon the horse's speed, seems to us, as we lie abed, one of the finest episodes in fiction. 'Tom Cringle's Log,' too, becomes a great favourite, not more from its buoyancy and freshness than from the melodramatic scenes ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... heavily. Much of the buoyancy of her earlier dance was gone out of her. Nevertheless, I could not persuade myself that this sluggishness was altogether due to the water she had taken in. It was wonderful, however, that she should still be afloat. No man could have heard the rending and grating of her side against the ice without ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... dizzy; Motion gives him buoyancy and power. All who have known him own that he is busy, Doing much in half ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould

... of the depth-bombs had hurled her to the bottom, where she retained sufficient buoyancy to catapult to the surface. As the conning-tower came into sight the Nicholson fired three shots from her stern gun. The U-boat then seemed to right herself, making fair speed ahead. The Fanning headed in toward her, firing from the ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... Martians use for this purpose. The body of the one-man air craft is about sixteen feet long, two feet wide and three inches thick, tapering to a point at each end. The driver sits on top of this plane upon a seat constructed over the small, noiseless radium engine which propels it. The medium of buoyancy is contained within the thin metal walls of the body and consists of the eighth Barsoomian ray, or ray of propulsion, as it may be termed in view of ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... room, reminding me, by the lightness and buoyancy of their movements, of a flock of white plumy birds. Some of them threw themselves in half-reclining positions on the sofas and ottomans: some bent over the tables and examined the flowers and books: the ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... it must be premised that Mr. Spencer abhorred exaggeration and inexact talk, and would ruthlessly prick the airy bubbles which endued the conversation of the daughters of the house with more buoyancy than strict logic, a gift which, he averred, was denied ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... He by degrees attached himself to his new master, the Marquis of Worcester, but not with the natural ardour of a poodle. He was attentive to every command, and could perform many little domestic offices. Sometimes he would exhibit considerable buoyancy of spirit; but there oftener seemed to be about him the recollection of older ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... set back from the street, Catherine's buoyancy suffered a collapse. She had been inside that house, calling, with her mother, but to go there—or anywhere—on a begging errand! Here Algernon's long familiarity with ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... not actuated by the contemptible motive Aunt Constance had ascribed to him. Moreover, the straw Mr. Pellew caught at was an actual straw, though it may have had no buoyancy to save a swimmer. It must have had some though, or Sir Coupland would never have thrown it to Gwen, struggling against despair about her lover's eyesight. Of course he did not profess to do so of set purpose; that would have pledged him to an expression ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... under a crest, and we came through quarter-full of water. I bailed like a madman. The liability of shipping another such sea was enormously increased by the water that weighed the boat down and robbed it of its buoyancy. And another such sea meant the end. When I had the boat empty again I was forced to take away the tarpaulin which covered Maud, in order that I might lash it down across the bow. It was well I did, for it covered the boat fully ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... Christendom after that of France, and perhaps absolutely the most ignorant. Is it in human nature, we demand, that hereafter the same enthusiasm should continue available for Mr O'Connell's service, after the transient reaction of spitefulness to the Government shall have subsided, which gave buoyancy to his ancient treason? The chair of a proconsul, the saddle of a pasha—these are golden baits; yet these are below the throne and diadem of a sovereign prince. But from these to have descended into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... all this, her grief was intense, for she loved her father with a strength of love few children give their parents. In time, however, her grief grew less insistent and she began to gain something of her old buoyancy. ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... if they had been varnished. In every spot, indeed, where her pure arterial blood, full of animation and heat, could make its way to the skin and shine through the surface, it proclaimed her high health and the vivid life and joyous buoyancy of her glorious youth. Her eyes were very large, and of a velvet softness. Now they glanced, sparkling and shining with comic humor or intelligence and wit; and now they widened and extended themselves, languishing ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... though it manages to bring in as large a revenue as the Victorian Protectionist one, limits considerably the number of articles taxed. This was the first strike-out in the direction of Free Trade. The subsequent buoyancy of the circumstances of the colony, and the applause with which nearly the whole Australian press greeted the plunge, have confirmed the policy, and made it a safe political watchword. But a great deal remains to be done before New South Wales adopts Free Trade ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... poise of her head. She wore some kind of early nineteenth-century dress, sweeping low from the waist with a tenderness of fold that affected one with delicate pathos, that had a virgin quality of almost poignant intensity. And beneath it she stepped with the buoyancy—the long ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... is given (Fig. 163) of divers working below water with pneumatic tools, fed from above with high-pressure air. Owing to his buoyancy a diver has little depressing or pushing power, and he cannot bore a hole in a post with an auger unless he is able to rest his back against some firm object, or is roped to the post. Pneumatic chipping tools merely require holding to their work, ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... last night, Roger—and the first thing she did was to ask about you, whom she believed I hated!" Again he laughed, with a buoyancy that had not been in his voice ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... which I found frankly and consistently intolerable, I find myself looking on at the cheerful scene with an amusement in which mingles a shadow of pain, because I feel that I have parted with something, a certain buoyancy and elasticity of body, and perhaps spirit, of which I was not conscious at the time, but which I now realize that I must have possessed. It is with an admiration mingled with envy that I see these youthful, shapely figures, bare-necked ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... companion for her, for his buoyancy turned the whole thing into fun. She could not take it too seriously in his company. They called at the Hotspur office and asked to see Mr. Wingfield. He was engaged, but Mr. Waters, the secretary, a very fat, pompous man, ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle

... Moslem Granada once more glittered about the Court of Lions! Who can do justice to a moonlight night in such a climate and such a place? The temperature of a summer midnight in Andalusia is perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into a purer atmosphere; we feel a serenity of soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of frame, which render mere existence happiness. But when moonlight is added to all this, the effect is like enchantment. Under its plastic sway the Alhambra seems to regain its ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... stern. To shoot hippopotami properly, one must have time to wait for the receding of the tide, when, if killed, their bodies would be left exposed on the sandy bottom; or, if in deep water, to wait until, being filled with gases, they would float by the buoyancy ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... exclaiming: "I will drown rather than be taken alive." He was pursued and fired upon several times, the last ball taking effect in his head, his face being instantly covered with blood. He sprang up and shrieked in great agony, and no doubt would have sunk at once, but for the buoyancy of the water. Seeing his condition, the slave-catchers retreated, coolly remarking that "dead niggers were ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... lengthened to four weeks, five weeks, six. She had the satisfaction of seeing the roses blooming in Grace's cheeks as well as in her hats. She learned to efface her own personality that others might shine who had a better right. And she lost some of her own bright color, a measure of her own buoyancy. In the sixth week she saw, in her mirror, something that caused her to lean forward, to stare for one intent moment, then to shrink back, wide-eyed. A little sunburst, hair-fine but undeniable, was etched delicately about the corners of her eyes. Fifteen minutes ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... of destiny—he felt that he was getting out of life all that was his due. His remarks might be sharp and his words sarcastic, but in them there was no bitterness. He made life for none more difficult—he added to no one's burdens. Sympathy with Nature, pride, buoyancy, self-sufficiency, were his prevailing traits. The habit of his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... contemplating in her random talk; it may have been an uneasiness of some youthful imprudence in pressing the subject upon a man of his superiority, and that his abrupt climax was a rebuke. But it was only for a moment; her youthful buoyancy, and, above all, a certain common sense that was not incompatible to her high nature, came to her rescue. "But that," she said with quick mischievousness, "would be a SACRIFICE taken in the interest of these people, don't you see; and being a sacrifice, ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... pushing a small nail through a piece of cork. It should be made so that it will rise slowly when placed under water. Some filing may be necessary to get the weight just right, but it should be remembered that the buoyancy of the core can be adjusted after the parts are assembled, by pressing the cork in the bottom of the test tube. This causes compression in the water so that some is forced into the upper cork, reducing its displacement and causing it to sink. The lower cork is then ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... disappointment was no whit keener than that of his fellows, nor his sufferings any more poignant; yet with the buoyancy of inexperienced youth, hope was not entirely crushed in the heart of any one of the young scouts. So absolute was their faith in their leader, so astonishing had been the good fortune that so far had attended their efforts, that each felt ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... sort of restraint. Whether school discipline may have any thing to do with the difference so remarkable between the animal spirits of children of civilised parents and those of savages, I shall make no remark; but that the buoyancy of spirit and cheerfulness of the youth amongst the savages of Australia, seem to render them agreeable companions to the men on their hunting excursions, almost as soon as they can run about. If the naturalist looks a savage in the mouth, he finds ivory teeth, ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... rule stronger, more vivid, more widely differentiated than those of women. In the odour of young men there is something elemental, as of fire, storm, and salt sea. It pulsates with buoyancy and desire. It suggests all things strong and beautiful and joyous, and gives me a sense of physical happiness. I wonder if others observe that all infants have the same scent—pure, simple, undecipherable as their dormant personality. It is not until the age ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... found that it not only sustained my weight, but that the elasticity of the stem enabled me to rock it from side to side. Pieces torn from the edges of this table sank readily, showing that it had been raised by pressure, and not by its buoyancy.' ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... phrases, and maxims, and proverbs will come gurgling forth, without reference to the subject or to the occasion, to what has gone before or to what will come after. Perhaps it was with reference to this independence, buoyancy, and gaiety of language that Lord Lytton declared the Bengali to be "the ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... will to live persisted amazingly. Had Lanyard wished it he could not have ceased to swim, at least to keep afloat. Vaguely he wondered how people ever managed to commit suicide by drowning; it seemed to pass human power to resist that buoyancy which sustained one, to let go, let one's self go down. Impossible to conceive ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... on Land. Lightness of skeleton is a walking or running or flying adaptation, and not at all a swimming one; a swimming animal needs gravity in its skeleton, because sufficient buoyancy in the water is always afforded by the lungs and soft tissues of the body. The extraordinary lightness of these dinosaur vertebrae may therefore be put forward as proof of supreme fitness for the propulsion of an enormous frame during occasional incursions ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew

... and, to crown all, several carronade guns were unshipped from their carriages, and swung in their breechings from the beams of the main-deck, so as to impart a sort of vibratory briskness and oscillating buoyancy to the frigate. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... conscience freed from its burden of remorse, with the knowledge, so sweet to every woman, that she might accept this happiness if she would, in spite of her airs of martyrdom, the world had changed greatly for the better, and with the natural buoyancy of youth she reacted into quite a cheerful and ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... be so. Long suffering has robbed me of the buoyancy of hope. I think I have not enjoyed myself more at any time during my illness, than while we were at Heidelberg, among ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... the happy days for the young people of the river towns had come. The ponds and creeks were forgotten in the great event of skating on the river, and for miles the smooth surface was a speedway over which the skaters made merry excursions. In front of Skarrow the ice was firm, and with that buoyancy so dear to the lovers of this sport. In the afternoons the young people from the town of Skarrow and Vincent on the opposite side, all met on the river. All classes were there—the darkey with his ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis

... waning, and a slight chill began to creep into the air. A little breeze, too, sighed over the sea, ruffling its surface, died away, then softly came again. As he moved into the darkness Maurice was conscious that the buoyancy of his spirits received a slight check. The night seemed suddenly to have changed, to have become more mysterious. He began to feel its mystery now, to be aware of the strangeness of being out in the sea alone at such an hour. Upon the shore ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... that he had once absolutely abandoned. From that instant all his plans changed. In this, he simply obeyed a law of nature; for while we have wished to represent our hero as being resigned to his fate, it has been far from our intention to represent him as anxious to die. From the instant that his buoyancy of feeling revived, his thoughts were keenly bent on the various projects that presented themselves as modes of evading the designs of his enemies, and he again became the quick witted, ingenious and determined woodsman, alive to all his own powers and resources. The change ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... was fonder of puns than became so great a man. His barbarisms were those of his age. His genius was his own. He had no objection to float down with the stream of common taste and opinion: he rose above it by his own buoyancy, and an impulse which he could not keep under, in spite of himself or others, and "his delights ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... of all rigs; she has a bounding buoyancy denied to the square-rigged craft, to which she stands in the same relationship as a young girl to a dowager; and the Raratonga was not only a schooner, but the queen, acknowledged of all the schooners in ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... ground for slavers and a dangerous place for cruizers to attempt. As the sea-breeze came up strong, the swell would have swamped a European boat; but our conveyance, shaped like a ship's gig, but Dalmatian or Dutchman-like in the bows, topped the waves with the buoyancy of a cork, and answered her helm as the Arab obeys the bit. To compact grain she added small specific gravity, and, though stout and thick, she advanced at a speed of which I ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... of the subscription came to nothing, and the projected survey never was executed. The head might yet devise, but the heart was failing him; his talent at hoping, which gave him buoyancy to carry out his enterprises, was ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... did, but few would have thought it safe or scientific. Of course, there are still many cases where the patient or the patient's friends must be humored by administering medicine or alleged medicine where it is not really needed, and indeed often where the buoyancy of mind which is the real curative agent, can only be created by making him wait hopefully for the expected action of medicine; and some physicians still cannot unlearn their old training. But the change is great. The modern treatment of disease relies very greatly on the old so-called ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... turned towards the door, and Anstice noted with a pang at his heart that she was certainly thinner and moved with less buoyancy than of old. "You—you won't be too severe with her, Dr. Anstice? After all, she is only a young girl, and she has gone through quite a ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... out "Q" and "P," leaving "W" full, and adjusted our trim to give her only three tons negative buoyancy, just enough to keep us on the bottom if she came out ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon

... had adopted the literate man's notion of what is humorous, and Tump's mishap was slap-stick to him. Nevertheless, he did smile. The incident filled him with extraordinary relief and buoyancy. At the next corner he made some excuse to Jim Pink, and ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... that awful water-way, with more than the swiftness of an arrow, shot the boat, or skiff, right into the jaws of the pool. A monstrous breaker curls over the prow—there is no hope; the boat is swamped, and all drowned in that strangling vortex. No! the boat, which appeared to have the buoyancy of a feather, skipped over the threatening horror, and the next moment was out of danger, the boatman—a true boatman of Cockaigne, that—elevating one of his skulls in sign of triumph, the man hallooing, and the woman, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... and another of his men. Like most of the other canoes, their craft soon became waterlogged, for the rapid and angry current of the river, broken and agitated by so large a number of boats, splashed over the sides of the clumsy canoes, which were but a few inches above the water. The buoyancy of the wood was sufficient to float them even when full, but they ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... disturbing element in our little circle. I go further than that. If I may permit myself to indulge in language verging almost upon the indelicate, when employed with reference to the other or gentler sex, she has about her a certain air of hoydenish and robustious buoyancy which, I fear me, will but ill conform to the traditions of dear Fernbridge and the soothed and refining spirit ever maintained by the instructor ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... pretentious works which have succeeded it. Sir George Macfarren (1813-1887) was a prolific writer for the stage, but of all his works 'Robin Hood' is the only one which is still occasionally performed. It has little of the buoyancy which the theme demands, but there is a great deal of sound writing in the concerted music, and some of the ballads are tuneful enough in a rather commonplace way. Edward James Loder (1813-1865) was a good musician, and under more favourable conditions might have produced work of permanent interest. ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... intense interest in Eastern Virginia. Of Mr. Tazewell's speech on the trial Mr. Wirt always spoke in terms of enthusiastic admiration, which was not the less glowing as until that time he had looked upon Mr. Tazewell only as a severe logician, and incapable of the loftier flights of eloquence. The buoyancy of Wirt's spirits is exhibited in his admirable letters published in the memoir of Mr. Kennedy; and his gentle courtesy and generous nature are yet freshly remembered in our city. As a proof of his playfulness, I have heard Mrs. Tazewell say that ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... discredit—where the successful man was the man who dared to throw discretion to the winds and take the chance. And because money, not earned in the country, was pouring in from outside, and by its own buoyancy raising the price of land and labour, the chance, even the foolish chance, was likely to turn out to advantage and justify the daring of the speculator rather than the discretion of the careful buyer. Harris had, all his life, lived in an atmosphere of conservatism, where saving a penny was greater ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... immense, shapeless mass of debris on which they were traveling might be replaced by something light and manageable which he would make by lashing some trimmed trunks together with lengths of bamboo to give additional buoyancy. As he brooded this in silence, with that deep, inward look in his eyes which always kept A-ya from breaking in upon his vision, he came to the idea of a formal raft, and a formal paddle. And to this he added, with a full sense of its value, A-ya's suggestion that ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... after the men, there was every reason to hope that a year or two would render her less volatile, and add to those sterling good qualities which she really possessed. In heart and feeling she was a modest girl, although the buoyancy of her spirits often carried her beyond the bounds prescribed by decorum, and often called forth a blush upon her own animated countenance, when her good sense, or the remarks of others, reminded her of her having ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... world went on just the same. Death makes a vacancy, but the Great Accountant easily fills it; and the summing up of balances goes on. Let us thank God for the buoyancy of the human spirit, which, however sorely tried, presently rises and assumes its ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... and nearly cast overboard, but he caught the backstay as our yet unconquered boat rose from the blow like some brave but wounded animal. The water was several inches deep about our feet, and the good Youth had lost half its buoyancy. ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... moments had passed, but that was time enough for any man to come to the surface if his buoyancy remained. ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... considering the violence with which the gale was still blowing; but our first luff was seaman enough to accomplish it without mishap. No sooner was it off the ship than she once more resumed her former buoyancy of motion, lifting easily over the seas, with only an occasional sprinkling of spray upon the forecastle, instead of ploughing furiously through them and drowning the whole of the fore-deck, as she had been doing during her endeavour to work ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... attitude at a bombardment was that of a child seeing a hailstorm—open-eyed wonder. She was the purest exhibit of careless fearlessness, carrying a buoyancy in danger. Generations of riding to hounds and of big game shooting had educated fear out of her stock. Her ancestors had always faced uncertainty as one of the ingredients of life: they accepted danger in accepting life. The savage accepted fear because he had to. With ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason

... tugging, friction, unequal division. The changes wrought in nature by sin call for greater effort with less return. Toil becomes slavish and grinding. Then poverty adds its tug. And sorrow comes to sap the strength and take away the buoyancy. And then man's inhumanity to his brothers and sisters. These are some of the limitations added by sin ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon

... inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf

... not herself have explained the sense of buoyancy which seemed to lift and swing her above the sun-suffused world at her feet. Was it love, she wondered, or a mere fortuitous combination of happy thoughts and sensations? How much of it was owing to the spell of the perfect afternoon, the scent of the fading woods, the thought of the dulness she ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... car's pace considerably. There was no use hurrying to the ranch with such a charming companion aboard. The fresh June breeze had loosened a strand or two of her brown hair. The bright, strong sunshine merely emphasized the youthful perfection of her complexion. She had walked with a certain buoyancy of carriage which Lowell ascribed to athletics. Her eyes were brown, and rather serious of expression, but her smile was quick and natural—the sort of a smile that brings one in return, so Lowell concluded in his fragmentary ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... the apple blossoms over the wofully interlined manuscript of my new article on Egypt. There was in her very attitude a hint of unsuspected buoyancy and strength; there was in her eyes a light which I have never seen under our uncertain skies. The breath of the apple blossoms filled the room, and a bobolink, poised on a branch outside the window, suddenly poured a rapturous song into the ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... experienced; he perceived that the water was horribly salt, and that which had got into his mouth almost choked him. He was, however, unaware that saltness adds to the weight of water, and so to the buoyancy of objects cast into it. The saltness of the fluid he was moreover painfully conscious of by the smarting of the places on his wrists and ankles where the cords had been bound that fastened him to the camel. Goaded, however, by the laughter ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... influence felt in France in the great struggle that was there going on between the hierarchical party, with the Guises at its head, and the Protestants, led by Conde and Coligny. In 1561 his energies began to fail. He had been long suffering from bad health, though his strength of will and buoyancy of intellect sustained him; but his health grew very much worse, and although he survived for more than two years, he never regained any vigor. He ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... Potts, enchanted with the success of the experiment; "leave her where she is, that her buoyancy may be fully attested. You know, masters," he cried, with a loud voice, "the meaning of this water ordeal. Our sovereign lord and master the king, in his wisdom, hath graciously vouchsafed to explain the matter thus: 'Water,' he saith, 'shall refuse to ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... youngest and least experienced of the set, and who alone had no personal grudges against any of Blackwood's victims, remained under such an accumulation of wrath and contumely as would have crushed me utterly, unless for the buoyancy of extreme youth. I now think with deep sadness of the pain my jokes and jibes inflicted on better men than myself, and I can say that I have omitted in my mature years no opportunity of trying to make reparation where I ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... morning the natural buoyancy of youth asserted itself; she reasoned that a long hard apprenticeship had been the lot of many authors, and determined that she would write a page a day for years, if need be, until her tardy faculty had been coaxed from its hard soil ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... again, when she too had been young, and beloved, and happy. There are some lives which, in their even tenour of mild happiness, seem to glide smoothly from one scattered sorrow to another, so that to the very end some of the hopefulness and buoyancy of youth are retained; but there are others in which are concentrated in one brief space those keen joys and keener sorrows that no one quite survives, which, in passing over us take from us our strongest vitality, our ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... unimproved, and aimless; she knew that her years, instead of being fragrant with the mellow fruitage of good deeds, were tedious and joyless, and that the gaunt, numbing hand of ennui was closing upon her. The elasticity of spirits, the buoyancy of youth had given place to a species of stoical mute apathy; a mental and moral paralysis was ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... the bottom. They were lifted by the explosion, which at the same time killed the whale; but the impetus of the vast form slided it to under the lifted keels, where it came to a stand. A dead whale floats, as we know. This whale being dead was bound to rise, and the buoyancy of the immense mass brought the two craft up with it, and there they were, poised by the gleaming surface of the whale, which was depressed by their weight, so that no portion of the head, ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... my mouth; and when I had tasted the wine, the type of the blood of that Saviour, whose wounds I had so often opened afresh in my guilty career, and yet upon the merits of which I now relied for pardon, I felt a combined sensation of love, gratitude and joy—a lightness and buoyancy of spirits, as if I could have left the earth below me, disburthened of a weight that had, till then, crushed me to the ground. I felt that I had faith—that I was a new man—and that my sins were forgiven; and, dropping my head on the side of ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... returned with the raft, and attached to it the rest of my baggage. I took my seat upon the top of the cargo, and the raft thus laden passed the river in the same way, and with the same struggle as before. The skins, however, not being perfectly air-tight, had lost a great part of their buoyancy, so that I, as well as the luggage that passed on this last voyage, got wet in the waters of Jordan. The raft could not be trusted for another trip, and the rest of my party passed the river in a different and (for them) much safer way. Inflated skins were fastened to their loins, and thus supported, ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... Helgi, with a sudden return to his usual buoyancy, "now that I have my old Estein back with me, I will not turn him again into a reader of dreams and omens. I am rejoiced to see you in so bright a humour. ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston

... lived close enough to the source of history to know what PROPAGANDA is.... Still, I like her uncomplaining buoyancy of spirits in the trial we are going through.... We are headed SOUTH toward Kuria and Khotan, where arrangements have been made to receive us by some people who know our secret and will respect the rights of ASYLUM in a land where oblivion ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... with misshapen form, yet he was very quick and active upon his feet, and bounded along over the rocks, and across the chasms like a deer, with such a buoyancy of spirits that he ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... pretty sight was good to see for innocence and largeness. So the buoyancy of nature springs anew in those who have been weary, when they see her brisk power inspiring the young, who never stand still to think of her, but are up and away with her, where she will, at the breath ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... do not make for length of days. Miss Siddal seemed to fall into a decline, her spirits lost their buoyancy, she grew nervous when required to pose for several hours at a time. Rossetti scraped together all his funds and sent her on a trip alone through France. She fell sick there, and we hear of Rossetti working like mad on a canvas, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... ten years older, often saw the last 'monk' working in the mine. He was called so because he wore a long robe like a monk. His proper name was the 'fireman.' At that time there was no other means of destroying the bad gas but by dispersing it in little explosions, before its buoyancy had collected it in too great quantities in the heights of the galleries. The monk, as we called him, with his face masked, his head muffled up, all his body tightly wrapped in a thick felt cloak, crawled along the ground. ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... age. He was a born mathematician and engineer, and, like many another before him, the dream of his life had been the conquest of the air by means of vessels which flew as a bird flew, that is to say by their own inherent strength, and without the aid of gas-bags or buoyancy chambers, which he, like all the disciples of Nadar, Jules Verne, Maxim and Langley, had looked upon as mere devices of quackery, or at the best, playthings of rich people, who usually paid for ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... re had taken when we came from the coast. This was he approach of almost all the armies which have poured their fury on the devoted city. We went single file, as one has to go in Palestine; and I liked it. There was too much to think of to make one want to talk. And the buoyancy of the air seemed to feed mind as well as body, and give all the stimulus needed. Mr. Dinwiddie sometimes called out to me to point my attention to something; and the rest of the time I kept company with the past and my ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... to Tissandier. (La Navigation Aerienne.) His flying machine was to contain, among other devices, bellows to produce artificial wind when the real article failed, and also magnets in globes to draw the vessel in an upward direction and maintain its buoyancy. Some draughtsman, apparently gifted with as vivid imagination as Guzman himself, has given to the world an illustration of the hypothetical vessel; it bears some resemblance to Lana's aerial ship, from which fact one ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... contemplative nation. This characteristic disposition, and the physical activity necessarily connected with it, have been by some ascribed to the influence of our climate, to our moist and heavy atmosphere, and clouded skies, to counteract the influence of which, and to preserve a counterbalancing buoyancy of mind and body, an active habit of life is requisite. But this hypothesis is untenable; for Flanders, with a similar climate, and flourishing likewise by means of its native industry, affords sufficient proof how little these circumstances are prejudicial ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... autumn advanced, and the rooks followed the ploughman. Dolly gradually recovered something of her physical buoyancy; her former light-heartedness never returned. Sometimes an incident would cause a flash of the old gaiety, only for her to sink back into subdued quietness. The change was most noticeable in her eyes; soft and tender still, brown and velvety, there ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... launched the sea-cap had to be closed, the water blown from the tube, the inner cap opened and a second mine placed ready in the chamber. This, however, did not end the difficulty of laying mines from submarines. The increase in the buoyancy of the boat, due to the loss of weight as each mine was discharged into the sea, had to be instantly and automatically compensated by the admission of quantities of sea-water of equal weight into special tanks, hitherto empty, situated below the mine-tubes. If this had been neglected ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife

... Homer—Hermes or Thetis—launched out from Olympus' top into the sea—"[Greek: ex aitheros empese ponto]," and words fail me to describe the perfection of her being, a radiant simulacrum of our own, the inconscient self-sufficiency, the buoyancy and freedom which she showed me. You may sometimes see boys at their maddest tip of expectation stand waiting as she now stood, quivering on the extreme edge of adventure; yet even in their case there is a consciousness of well being, a kind of rolling of anticipation upon the palate, a getting ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... showing them the new step. We know it is Miss Phoebe because some of her pretty airs and graces still cling to her in a forlorn way, but she is much changed. Her curls are out of sight under a cap, her manner is prim, the light has gone from her eyes and buoyancy from her figure; she looks not ten years older but twenty, and not an easy twenty. When the children are not looking at her we know that ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie

... through groves of yellow birch and scarlet mountain ash, and as the sun gradually dried our water-soaked clothes, and brought a pleasant glow of returning circulation to our chilled limbs, we forgot the rain and dreary desolation of the mountain-top and recovered our usual buoyancy of spirit. ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... rhythm, Prior ease, Praed buoyancy and banter; What modern bard would learn from these? ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... struggling traders. The thousands were broken into hundreds of groups, and men were noisily buying and selling, or discussing the chances of the market when the "big Board" should open once more. But there was an air of confidence, almost of buoyancy, in place of the gloom and terror that had lowered over the street at noon. Plainly the panic was over, and men were inspirited by a belief that ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... arrival was occupied in making arrangements for his boat. He put into this matter the same painstaking buoyancy that he had put into a dull business for twelve years. He changed his plans half a dozen times, and exceeded them wholly in the size and equipment of the little vessel, and in the consequent expense; but ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... strenuously as to keep her brain in a state of combustion, were now correspondingly below their normal fullness and rapidity, and the exhausted nerves demanded repose. It was at such times as these that Mrs. Frankland's constitutional buoyancy of spirit sank down on an ebb tide; it was at such times that her usually sunny temper chafed under the irritations of domestic affairs. On this evening, when the period of depression set in, Mrs. Frankland's view of Phillida's case suffered a change. She no longer ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... some moments he stood, clinging upon the poop, awaiting the end. But the end came slowly. The Solon was a stoutly timbered ship. Much of her lading had been cast overboard, but more remained and gave buoyancy to the wreckage. And as the Athenian awaited, almost impatiently, the final disaster, something called his eye away from the heaving sky-line. Human life was still about him. Wedged in a refuge, betwixt two capstans, the Orientals were sitting, awaiting ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... sometimes comforted and sometimes perplexed him, and often he was made suddenly aware of a strange and exhilarating impression of returning youthfulness—a buoyancy of feeling and a delightful ease, such as a man in full vigour experiences when, after ascending some glorious mountain summit, he sees the panorama of a world below him. His brain was very clear and active—and whenever he chose to talk, there were plenty of his humble friends ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... peculiarly piquant in the way in which Annie brought and poured out the tea she had made, and which, with the exception of the old lady's remarks, was the only warm part of the repast; and there was an element of buoyancy in the manner of Mr Croft, as he took his cup to drink the tea. Although he said little at this meal, he thought a great deal, listening not at all to Mrs Keswick's tirades. "What a charmingly inconsiderate affair this has been!" he said ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... generations and in psychology books,—everywhere but at the boy's face, in his mouth, and in his nose. After the operation, which took less than two minutes, the appetite was ravenous, the eyes cleared, and the spirit rebounded to its old buoyancy that craved ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... this has been a pretty expensive outing for Fred," replied Jack, whose buoyancy of spirits ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... time I was almost without hope, but we persevered against every discouragement, with complete final success. I am a good deal more afraid now of the effect of the shock on Mrs. Fenwick and her husband than for anything that may happen to Miss N., whose buoyancy of constitution is most remarkable. You will guess that I had rather a rough time (the news came rather suddenly to me), and all the more (but I know you will be glad to hear this) that Miss N. and your humble servant had only just ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... very silly about it. I know I'm getting to be, for in all my life I've never wanted to cry so many times as this summer. Maybe it's nerves. But sometimes we do feel so helpless that just the sheer weight of sorrow, or the buoyancy of happiness, will sort of press tears from our ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... pleasing contrast his bronzed yet clear complexion, his bright eye, and genial smile. He is somewhat over the medium stature, possessed of a compact and well-knit frame, carries his head erect, and moves about with a buoyancy and animation perfectly marvelous in one of his years and experience. His address is that of the well-bred, well-educated French gentleman that he is. His manner is winning, his voice clear and under most excellent control, as all those who have listened to his admirable lectures on the ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... be our present financial condition, we may yet indulge in bright hopes for the future. No other nation has ever existed which could have endured such violent expansions and contractions of paper credits without lasting injury; yet the buoyancy of youth, the energies of our population, and the spirit which never quails before difficulties will enable us soon to recover from our present financial embarrassments, and may even occasion us speedily to forget the lesson which they have taught. In the meantime it is the duty ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... window at the trees just shimmering into green and the skyey intervals over them. This was the pictured landscape she had worked on, framed by these wide, low windows, for all the years she had lived here, doing her wifely duties soberly, and her motherly ones with a hidden and ecstatic buoyancy. ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... shore, and then only had I a chance to scrutinise their material. I patted that one we were upon inside and out. I noted with a seaman's admiration its lightness, elasticity, and supreme sleekness, its marvellous buoyancy and fairy-like "lines," and after some minutes' consideration it suddenly flashed across me that it was all of gourd rind. And as if to supply confirmation, the flat land we were approaching on the opposite side of the bay was covered by the characteristic ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... given to camp on the island for the night. On the morrow they departed for the main land. When they had accomplished about one league, being one-third of the distance, the clouds suddenly gathered and threatened a storm. Just as this danger impended, the air which acted in giving buoyancy to the boat, by some accident, began to escape. A man was immediately stationed at the bellows and it required his constant aid to supply the portion which steadily escaped. Colonel Fremont then ordered the men to pull for their lives and try thus to escape the danger of the impending storm. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... still more closely to the stricken man. He longed to bring back to that sad face the smile that he remembered on the Far West, when Latimer's buoyancy had been like wine to his lonely heart. He felt confident that the friendship of one man for another could reach the heart of his friend, now closing against all ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... and characteristically Latin buoyancy of the French nation, which they have inherited from the days of that fifth-century Gaulish bishop (Salvianus) who said that the Roman world was laughing when it died ("moritur et ridet"), and which has stood them in good stead in many an arduous trial, is also fully represented in their national ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... appointed (a sad but honoured lot) to be the companion of his later days, over which it has pleased God to cast the "shadow before" of that "night in which no man can work." But twelve short months ago he was cheerfully anticipating (in the bright buoyancy of his happy nature) a far other companionship for the short remainder of our earthly sojourn; never forgetting, however, that ours must be short at the longest, and that "in the midst of life we are in death." He desires me to thank you for your kind expressions ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... although in her forty-fifth year, had lost no charm save that of youth, which had been replaced by a stately grace, and a dignified self-possession that rendered it almost impossible to regret the lighter and less finished attractions of buoyancy and display. Her hands and arms were singularly beautiful; her eyes had lost nothing of their fire; her voice was harmoniously modulated, and there was in the whole of her demeanor unstudied ease, which was as far removed from ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... raised off the rocks by the water rising and compressing the air in the two foremost holds, assisted by the buoyancy of the engine room and No. 3 compartments. At high water the bow was afloat, but she was aground by the stern. When, however, she was taken in tow by three tugs, she slowly slid down the reef and floated into deep water. One ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various

... was too good to be thrown away, and Haydn proceeded to execute the commission with alacrity, not a little stimulated, doubtless, by the promise of 24 ducats for the work. There is a playfulness and buoyancy about much of Haydn's music which seems to suggest that he might have succeeded admirably in comic opera, and it is really to be regretted that while the words of "Der Neue Krumme Teufel" have been preserved, the music has been lost. It would have been interesting to see what ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... half the sex, it was impossible to meet with. But she was to blame for it too, in another way; for to know her, and not love her, would have been a reproach to any man. Lively and good-humoured, with an unaffected buoyancy of spirits, interesting herself in all that passed around her, and unconscious of the interest she herself excited, no wonder that she seemed to us like an angel sent to cheer us in our house of bondage. Of her own family she was deservedly the darling; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... first and foremost and exclusively, the humorist—with his shrieking Philistinism, his dominant sense for the colossally incongruous, his spontaneous faculty for staggering, ludicrous contrast. To the reflective, Mark Twain subsumed within himself a "certain surcharge and overplus of power, a buoyancy, and a sense of conquest" which typified the youth of America. It is memorable that he breathed in his youth the bracing air of the prairie, shared the collective ardour of the Argonauts, felt the rising thrill of Western ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... women, crimped into artificial patterns, with selfish speculation in their eyes, with sadness and weariness and trouble about many things carving the wrinkles and stealing away the bloom; but pours in upon us a fresh stream of being that overflows our rigid conventionalisms with the buoyancy of nature, plays into this dusty and angular life like the jets of a fountain, like floods of sunshine, upsets our miserable dignity, meets us with a love that contains no deceit, a frankness that rebukes our quibbling compliments, nourishes the poetry of the soul, and, perpetually descending ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... blindly, laid hold of clothing, a limp body. He struggled back, up, gained the deck, dragging Steve after him. The Blackbird was deep by the holed stern now, awash to her after fish hatch. She rose slowly, like a log, on each swell. Only the buoyancy of her tanks and timbers kept her from the last plunge. There was a light skiff bottom up across her hatches by the steering wheel. MacRae moved warily toward that, holding to the bulwark with one hand, dragging Steve with the other lest a sea sweep ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... shaft, and wheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in the heart of these perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle, and you are pitched one way and the other, without the slightest warning; and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and simultaneousness of volition and action, can you escape being made a Mazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun himself could never pierce you out. Again: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes .. and prophesies of the storm, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... their meadows, leaving a track of trampled grass behind his feet, and presently sat down by the side of one of their ways. He felt something of the buoyancy that comes to all men in the beginning of a fight, but more perplexity. He began to realise that you cannot even fight happily with creatures who stand upon a different mental basis to yourself. Far away he saw a number of men carrying spades and ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... constancy of their faith' unto the death, the fate of these two youths, coming at the close of a year of unusual trial, which, as he had already said, had diminished his elasticity, had a lasting effect. It seemed to take away his youthful buoyancy, and marked lines of care on his face that never were effaced. The first letter after his return begins by showing how full his heart was ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the general discomfort and pettiness are at their maximum. It is misleading and not in strict accord with known realities, to paint the portrait of a Saint in rose color and sunlight, diffusing an iridescent atmosphere of cheerful gayety and buoyancy. ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.

... deficient in elegance and refinement. The actress who, we think, comes nearest to her in genteel comedy, is Mrs Henry Siddons, in her beautiful representation of such parts as Beatrice or Viola; but she has not the same appearance of natural light-hearted buoyancy and playfulness of disposition; you see occasional transient indications of a serious thoughtful turn of mind, which assumes gaiety and cheerfulness, rather than passes naturally into it; which you admire, because it places the actress in a more amiable light, but ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... buoyancy of liquids and of air; simple tests to demonstrate that air fills space and exerts pressure; the application of air pressure in the barometer, the common pump, the bicycle tire, etc. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... reached the Chancery this morning, they were in my room, with all the morning papers marked, on the table, eagerly discussing what we ought to do about this publication of my dispatch. The enthusiasm and buoyancy were all gone out of them. By their looks they said, "Oh! what's the use of our bestirring ourselves to send news to Washington when they use it to embarrass us?"—While we are thus at work, the only two communications from the Department to-day are two letters from two ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... and he accordingly devoted all his energies towards effecting the alterations necessary for that purpose. The first step was to disencumber her decks of the long range of upper cabins, thus materially increasing her buoyancy as a sea-boat, and diminishing the area exposed to the enemy's shot and shell. Then a berth-deck was laid for the accommodation of officers and crew, and the main deck renewed and strengthened to carry the heavy 8-inch shell-gun, mounted on a pivot between the fore and mainmasts, and the ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... time since I left England, began to feel the advantages of birth. In London every man is so submerged in the multitude, that he who can hold his head high enough out of the living surge to be known, must have something of remarkable buoyancy, or peculiar villany, about him. Even Parliament, except to a few of the leaders, is no distinction. The member for the shire is clipped of all his plumage at the moment of his entering that colossal poultry-yard, and must take his obscure pickings with other unnoticeable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... I learnt that my son's influence was specially marked in his last two years at the College. It was an influence that was always thrown on the side of what was lovely, pure and of good report. Frank, free-spirited, open-hearted, his buoyancy and his rich capacity for laughter diffused an atmosphere of cheerfulness; his unflagging enthusiasm stimulated interest in athletics; his love of learning and passion for work were contagious; his high ideals of conduct ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... physically stimulated by hot and cold water, and relief at being left alone, was beginning to recover his natural buoyancy. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... thread of comfort—we have to. That's why we wear bright-colored clothes: there is a buoyancy, an assurance about them, that we sorely need! We try to economize on our emotions, too, never shedding a useless or idle tear! In the days of peace we could afford to go to see "East Lynne," "Madame X," or "Romeo and Juliet," and ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

... knowledge, all capacity For sovereign thought, all intellectual joy, Blow on me, like fluttering and like dancing winds. We are fallen, fallen!... And yet a nameless mirth, flooding my veins, And yet a sense of limpid happiness And buoyancy and anxious fond desire Quicken my being. It is much to see The perfected geography of thought Spread out before the gorged intelligence, A map from further detail long absolved. But ah! when we have tasted the delight Of toilsome apprehension, how return To that satiety of mental ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse

... his thoughts, observations, and imaginations; "John Brent" shows us the inbred poetry and romance of the man in the grander form of action. The scene is placed in the wild Western plains of America, among men entirely free from the restraints of conventional life; and the book has a buoyancy and brisk vitality, a dashing, daring, and jubilant vigor, such as we are not accustomed to in ordinary romances of American life. Sir Philip Sidney is the type of the Anglo-Saxon hero; but we think that Winthrop was fully his match in delicacy and intrepidity, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... graceful lines, and of light material, they possess the buoyancy of a duck, rarely shipping water even in the heaviest sea, while with two masts carrying well-shaped sails of matting, immense perforated, balanced rudders, and being of light draught, they handle so well that they can turn ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... help wondering whether the rest of the prophecy would be fulfilled, and he became moody. He was joyful when he gained a victory, but there came also disasters, and he was plunged into despondency. The reverses affected the buoyancy of his troops, disease decimated their ranks, and desertions further depleted their numbers. Slowly but surely his mighty army dwindled away to a mere handful of dissatisfied men and ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa

... returned to Ireland to survive but a few weeks the disastrous day of Aughrim, it is impossible from the Irish point of view, not to recall with admiration, mixed indeed with alloy, but still with largely prevailing admiration, the extraordinary energy, buoyancy and talents ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... approved of. In such reflections, however, she never indulged long, ere a sense of the singular destiny which had hitherto attended her, led her back into the more melancholy contemplations from which the buoyancy of her youthful fancy had for ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... girl was never the same in appearance after she left her Virginia home. A deep pall seemed to have been thrown over her spirit, and her hopes and happiness lay buried beneath it. Her disposition had lost its buoyancy, and her face wore a sad, pensive look. She tried to do her duty here as before, and her skill and neatness made her a favorite. But there was no one here to care for her and love her as Mammy Grace had done; and she missed the ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society



Words linked to "Buoyancy" :   blitheness, lightness, life, spirit, airiness, sprightliness, buoyant, inclination, cheerfulness, irrepressibility, liveliness, weightlessness, tendency



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