"Castle in the air" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were to tell you how this word "home" had taken possession of him,—how he had planned out work through the long night: success to come, but with his wife nearest his heart, and the homely farm-house and the old schoolmaster in the centre of the picture. Such an humble castle in the air! Christmas morning was surely something to him. Yet, as the night passed, he went back to the years that had been wasted, with an unavailing bitterness. He would not turn from the truth, that, with his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... would but ill-treat her,—ill-treat her with some antenuptial barbarity,—and if only he could be called in to avenge her wrongs! And as he made his way back along the road towards Guestwick, he built up within his own bosom a castle in the air, for her part in which Lily Dale would by ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... North German States, and made overtures to the two most important States, Saxony and Hesse-Cassel. During a few halcyon days the King even proposed to assume the title Emperor of Prussia, from which, however, the Elector of Saxony ironically dissuaded him. This castle in the air faded away when news reached Berlin at the beginning of August that Napoleon was seeking to bring the Elector of Hesse-Cassel into the Rhenish Confederation, and was offering as a bait the domains of some Imperial Knights and the principality of Fulda, now held by the Prince of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... hard at him). Can't I help you? I helped RAGNAR BROVIK. Didn't you know I stayed with him and poor little KAIA—after that accident to my Master Builder? I did. I made RAGNAR build me the loveliest castle in the air—lovelier, even, than poor Mr. SOLNESS'S would have been—and we stood together on the very top. The steps were rather too much for KAIA. Besides, there was no room for her on top. And he put towering spires on all his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 18, 1893 • Various
... Ah! never lay thy head to rest! That head so well with wisdom fraught, That writes without the toil of thought! While others rack their busy brains, You are not in the least at pains. Down to your dean'ry now repair, And build a castle in the air. I'm sure a man of your fine sense Can do it with a small expense. There your dear spouse and you together May breathe your bellies full of ether, When Lady Luna[1] is your neighbour, She'll help your wife when she's in labour, Well skill'd in midwife artifices, For she herself ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... guests whose names I do not at the moment recall. But I should invite, first of all, Miles Coverdale, who knows every thing about these places and this society, for he was at Blithedale, and he has described "a select party" which he attended at a castle in the air. ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... castle in the air, but a realized day-dream. Irving was there, as genial, humorous and imaginative as if he had never wandered from the primal haunts of ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... perplex him in the dark? He was sure he had never meant it. What must be the agony of those who do mean, of those who do execute, if such punishment as this were awarded to one who had done no more than build a horrid castle in the air? Did she sleep;—he wondered,—she who had certainly done more than build a castle in the air; she who had wished and longed, and had a reason for her ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... to listen while I tell you that once in a little black-timbered cottage, at the skirts of a wood, a young woman sat before the fire rocking her baby, and, as she did so, building a castle in the air: "What a good thing it would be," she thought to ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... certainly they had no hand in,—a sin which, if it comes upon them at all, certainly is without any fault or blame on their parts, for they had no hand in receiving it!" That Adam is our federal head, and that we sinned because he sinned, he calls "a mere castle in the air." "Sin and guilt are personal things as much as knowledge. I can as easily conceive of one man's knowledge being imputed to another as of his sins being so. No imputation in either case can make ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... knew she would never go annoyin' her poor ould grandfather, but they'd say no more about it, for a bit anyhow. He withdrew, leaving Roseen still sobbing amid the fragments of a broken milk-pan, and perhaps the ruins of a castle in the air. ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... austerity. Neither did Percival feel any greater desire for a career of any kind than he had felt a year earlier when he talked over his future life with Godfrey Hammond. If he were asked what was his day-dream, his castle in the air, the utmost limit of his earthly wishes, he would answer now as he would have answered then, "Brackenhill," dismissing the impossible idea with a smile even as he uttered it. Asked what would content him—since we can hardly hope to draw the highest prize in our life's lottery—he would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... perhaps, I walked thoughtfully, and I do not believe I once thought of the bear shambling silently behind me. I had been dreaming a day-dream—not building a castle in the air, for I had seen before me a castle already built. I had simply been dreaming myself into it, into its life, into its possessions, into the possession of everything ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... camp—once there I would trust to something turning up. But this failed also, and one cold evening I stood in the twilight, which was fast deepening into wintry night, and looked back upon the ruins of my last castle in the air. The disappointment seemed a cruel one. I was so conscious of the unselfishness of the motives which induced me to leave England—so certain of the service I could render among the sick soldiery, and yet I found it so difficult to convince others of these facts. ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... feel as though our Richmond dreams had come true,' she wrote once—'as though our favourite castle in the air were built. "Not really, mother? you don't think this beautiful house and garden belong to us really?" asks Mollie, in her stupid way. You know what a literal little soul she is. "Oh, go away, Mollie!" I exclaim quite crossly. "How can I help it if you have no ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... His hand squeezed hers in instant response. "All right. We won't. And look here,—if you want me to tell my grandfather that he has been building his castle in the air,—it'll mean a row of course, ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell |
