"Frail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little travelling cobbler did not know what to do for them: Lasse was so dejected and so aimless. He could not rest; he did not recover; from time to time he broke out into lamentation. He had grown very frail, and could no longer lift his spoon to his mouth without spilling the contents. If they tried to distract ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... seemed that it impressed the boat's crew with a sense of dread that they could not master. It was a condensation of dread and despair, that knowledge of being alone in a frail craft at the mercy of the sea, without water or supplies of any kind, and off a coast which the currents might never let them reach, while at any hour a tempestuous wind might spring up and lash the sea into waves, in which it would be impossible ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... Mankind, frail parasite of doubt, seeks ever for a sign, conceives no certainty but the enormous certitude of uncertainty. A sign! In death: "Take down, then; but leave me this—and this—for memory. Perhaps—who knows?—it may be true.... But leave me this for memory." In promise: ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... on the stairs, and an old man, tall and frail, odorous of pipe smoke, with shaggy, unkept grey hair and a dingy beard, tobacco stained about the mouth, entered uncertainly. He went slowly up to the coffin and stood rolling a blue cotton handkerchief between his hands, seeming so pained and embarrassed ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... a thousand forms, for had I conceived that my endearments had been lavished on Madam de Warrens, they would not have been less tender, though infinitely more tranquil. But is it possible for man to taste, in their utmost extent, the delights of love? I cannot tell, but I am persuaded my frail existence would have sunk under the ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... an' sit fair in the middle of the shkiff," said Mr. McGrath as I got into his frail craft at five o'clock in the morning on the bank of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal near Point of Rocks. "It's onconvanient to be outside of the boat whin we're going through them locks. There were a gintleman done that last year, an' ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... it, darkness having fallen. Then she opened the door, and saw, in the gloom, a short, thin woman standing on the step, a woman of advanced middle-age, dressed with a kind of shabby neatness. It seemed impossible that so frail and unimportant a creature could have made such ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... long in certainty as to his abode at Clifton: alas, where could he long be so? Hardly six months were gone when his old enemy again overtook him; again admonished him how frail his hopes of permanency were. Each winter, it turned out, he had to fly; and after the second of these, he quitted the place altogether. Here, meanwhile, in a Letter to myself, and in Excerpts from others, are some glimpses of his advent ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... away in the old rocking-chair in a corner, safely out of the way of the line of march of her wild brothers. She was a frail, small mortal, with long, smooth, yellow hair and anxious blue eyes, just the apple of everybody's eye ...
— A Big Temptation • L. T. Meade
... know just what Pa could do if he were home, he seems so frail, But every time the skies grow black I notice Ma gets rather pale. An' when she's called us children in, an' locked the windows an' the doors, She jumps at every lightnin' flash an' trembles when the thunder roars. An' when the baby starts to ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... in supreme despair. Confession was on her lips a dozen times, but courage failed her. When she heard his footsteps in the hallway she was ready to cry out the truth to him and end the suspense. As he opened the door to enter, the spirit of fairness turned frail and fled before the appeal of procrastination. Wait! Wait! Wait! cried the powerful weakness in her heart, and it conquered. She could not tell him then. To-morrow—the next day, yes, but not then. It was too much to ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... that or not was not evident, but they certainly came within a few inches of smashing the frail canoe. Only John's skill prevented it. As the rowboat swept past one of the oars fairly snatched the paddle from ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... turn to the Devon of to-day, realizing with thankfulness that the traditions of Drake and Frobisher, of Grenville and Hawkins, still hold; that the heirs of the men who put out in their frail ships for the New World, now buffet round our wild coasts in minesweeper or trawler, destroyer or old cargo tubs, on a far more grim adventure. Without the hope of gain, without the spur of glory, from every port and harbour, from every creek and bay and inlet of our coasts comes ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... attempt, although the sun had already set. In about two hours they were so near the shore that they could see the lights distinctly, and they could not have been more than a mile from the mouth of the port. All were extremely happy, expecting to anchor within an hour. "How frail are human joys," exclaims Mr Montefiore; "most suddenly the wind had changed again to the west, and commenced blowing in a terrific manner. Thus, in an instant, were our hopes gone, and we were blown off the land, a tremendous sea obliging us to take to our ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... seems impossible to admit, as has been suggested, that these frail objects should have been saved from the plunder and burning of the villas and preserved by the Anglo-Saxons as curiosities. Glasses with knobs, "a larmes," abound in the Anglo-Saxon tombs, and similar ones have been found in the Roman tombs of an earlier epoch, notably at Lepine, in the department ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... as the author of 'London Lyrics,' that he will be best remembered, devoted his attention almost exclusively to English literature, although of late years he had devoted as much attention as his frail health would allow to the formation of a section of rare books in French literature. It would be impossible to describe in this place all the many book rarities at Rowfant; we must be content, therefore, with indicating a few of ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... seat, and fastening the boat to a large stone, the guide, followed by the brothers, shouted to the inmates of the cottage, and violently kicked at its frail door. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... And thus reveal'd—"Hear, prince! and understand Thou ow'st thy guidance to no mortal hand: Hermes I am, descended from above, The king of arts, the messenger of Jove, Farewell: to shun Achilles' sight I fly; Uncommon are such favours of the sky, Nor stand confess'd to frail mortality. Now fearless enter, and prefer thy prayers; Adjure him by his father's silver hairs, His son, his mother! urge him to bestow Whatever pity that stern heart ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... The secret was out. That was the explanation of this fantastic journey. George Fox, after gathering a 'great people' up in the North, was now himself kept a close prisoner in Carlisle Gaol: yet he was the magnet attracting this lad, frail of body but determined of will, to travel right across England for the hope of speaking with him in his ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... single paddle, the frail boat sped onward with great celerity, and its prow, in a few moments, grated lightly against the shingle at the feet of the hunters, and ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... Shelley was incapable of learning, that love can never permanently be a fountain. A living poet, in an article {6} which you almost fear to breathe upon lest you should flutter some of the frail pastel-like bloom, has said the thing: "Love itself has tidal moments, lapses and flows due to the metrical rule of the interior heart." Elementary reason should proclaim this true. Love is an affection, its display ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... to appeal to the law of environment for a man, it does not do very much. The very trees and stones do better for him, and the little birds in their nests. No possible amount of environment crowded on their frail souls would ever make it possible for most men to catch up—to overtake enough truth before they die to make their seventy years worth while. The majority of men (one hardly dares to deny) can be seen, sooner or later, drifting down to death either bitterly or indifferently. The shadows ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... years, thy babes Should o'er this frail memorial bend, (For first affection rarely fades!) And boast that I ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... heart too! from his lips Have dashed joy's last poor lingering drop, and shown him, His only prop was frail as all the former! Could I but think he felt like common parents, That when he found my fault, affection died, Then I were blest! then I alone should suffer, And when his hatred broke my heart, could seek Some lone sad place, and lay me down and die! Alas! alas! I know I was his darling! ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... (and, in fact, we ought to read, and must read) 'out of,' or 'without' my flesh. It is but to write out the verses, omitting the conjectural additions, and making that one small but vital correction, to see how frail a support is there for so large a conclusion: 'I know that my Redeemer liveth, and shall stand at the latter upon the earth; and after my skin destroy this ; yet without my flesh I shall see God.' If there is any doctrine of a resurrection here, it is a ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... Dionysius, if distracting fears Alarm this throbbing bosom, you will pardon A frail and tender sex. Should ruthless war Roam through our streets, and riot here in blood, Where shall the lost Euphrasia find a shelter? In vain she'll kneel, and clasp the sacred altar. O let me then, in mercy let me seek The gloomy mansion, where my father dwells; ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... a summons to supper, for the ladies, to show their power, had by this time brought us tamely to go to bed with our bellies full, tho we both at first declared positively against it. So very pliable a thing is frail man, when women have the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... its summit. Before the thought of this Sovereign Being, by whose Will are all things, and who is without cause and without beginning, our soul is overwhelmed. We are so feeble! the thought of absolute power crushes us. Creatures of a day, how should we understand the Eternal? Frail as we are, and evil, we tremble at the idea of holiness. But milder accents, as you know, have been heard upon the earth: This Sovereign God—He loves us. In proportion as this idea gains possession of our understanding, in the ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... there was hardly a personality of mark or position that hasn't been talked about in the Pavilion before me. Of him I had only heard that he was a very austere and pious person, always at Mass, and that sort of thing. I saw a frail little man with a long, yellow face and sunken fanatical eyes, an Inquisitor, an unfrocked monk. One missed a rosary from his thin fingers. He gazed at me terribly and I couldn't imagine what he might want. I waited for him to pull out ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... soft young fellow with a literary turn, or a genius for playing the flute, according to the laws of contrast and nature provided in those cases; and who has not heard how great, strong men have an affinity for frail, tender little women; how tender little women are attracted by great, honest, strong men; and how your burly heroes and champions of war are constantly henpecked? If Mr. Harry Warrington falls in love with a woman who is like Miss Lambert ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mountains of surf dash on the rocky coast, seeking to tear the frail craft to pieces. In the perspective behold the sea of many years, studded with the crafts of those friends of my former good ship Prosperity. How many I see that owe to me, some only a pennant, many a sail or two, and others the stanch ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... the face,—these things were of a perfection quite evident to the critical sense of Edward Manisty. It was the perfection that was characteristic. So too was the faded fairness of hair and skin, the frail distinguished look. So, above all, was the contrast between the minute care for personal adornment implied in the finish of the dress, and the melancholy shrinking of ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... damp scow, where he had been lying, and listened with all his senses wide open, and once again the cry was wafted upon the river zephyrs, and before it died away the sailor's paddle was in the water, and his frail, awkward vessel was darting across ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... May it please God that our hopes may not also have expired with him who was but a few short hours ago the glory and the greatness of his kingdom! The sturdy tree has fallen, and the saplings are still weak and frail. The mission of the great Henry is accomplished, and the weight of sovereignty is transferred to your own brow. And you also, my beloved ones," she continued, glancing towards her younger sons, "come nearer to me, and let us kneel together beside the body ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... an earth floor, with a layer of reeds and grass thrown down on one side. It was frail, and hinted at changing times and poverty, for the original skin cover had been patched and eked out with the products of civilization in the shape of cotton flour-bags and old sacking. In the later repairs sewing twine had been used instead of sinews. A wooden case ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... of a spirit of contradiction, but out of a desire to learn, Christ is so far from thrusting him away, that he rather condescendeth the more, out of love and tenderness, to instruct him better, and clear the way more fully. And that, because, 1. He knoweth our mould and fashion, how feckless and frail we are, and that if he should deal with us according to our folly, we should quickly be destroyed. 2. He is not as a man, hasty, rash, proud; but gentle, loving, tender, and full of compassion. 3. It is his office and proper work to be an instructor to the ignorant, and ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... than we do. They understand each other, and they seem to have a practical way of accepting human nature as it is which we never learn to apply to our fellowmen. They never bluster as we do, nor expect impossibilities from the frail. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... trying to save you!" he repeated, his temper breaking its frail leash. "Your ideas are ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... an old cloak of the hermit, and, disguised as a beggar, gained admittance to the gate of the Women's Palace, where were gathered together on their knees many others, poor, frail, infirm. ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... triumph of absolute monarchy through the personal movement of Charlemagne, or at the speedy fall of the fabric on the disappearance of the moving spirit, understands neither what can be done by a great man, when, without him, society sees itself given over to deadly peril, nor how unsubstantial and frail is absolute power when the great man is no longer by, or when society has no longer need ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... interesting countenance, were all dripping wet; the cold had given a livid appearance to her thin, white hands; it was only in the fire of her blue eyes, generally so soft and timid, that one perceived the extraordinary energy which this frail and fearful creature had gathered from the emergency of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... him, and had uttered a curse on him. The spot where the three had met was in a lonely pass. At the utterance of the curse he had cut the poor old hag down, with one fierce slash of his heavy riding whip. She had howled for mercy, and for reply he flogged the poor frail old prostrate form until life had fled, then, with a lifting spurn of his foot, he had hurled the body over the edge of that mountain pass, into the unknown depths of the ravine beyond. And all the time his eyes had smiled, as they smiled now—and Judith shuddered, for the smile was ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... deem the land crying loud to him— Frail though and spent, and an hungered for restfulness Once more responds he, dead fervours to energize Aims to concentre, slack efforts to bind. THOMAS HARDY, The Dynasts, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... a true portraiture of Knox in the days of his vigour; if we are to speak of vigour in the case of a man with a small and frail body (one of his early biographers speaks of him as a mere corpuscle), and a man throughout his whole public life struggling with disease. In the last year of his prematurely 'decrepit age,' we have another description of him; and this time it is taken in St Andrews. Edinburgh and Leith ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... A singing stream in a silent vale, A fairy prince in a prosy tale, Ah! there's nothing in life so finely frail As rose-white youth." ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... denizens of this Sea Cliff are only half as earnest in their souls' salvation as they are in replenishing poor, frail human nature, there will be a glorious harvest of regeneration this holy season. The way they poured out of the tents, the houses, the long stoops, and through the bushes was fluttering and noisy as the flight of ten thousand ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... of a grave-digger, whence the nick-name. Born in 1807. Frail, nervous, independent, retiring at first, she tried hiring out, but then fell into vagrant habits. Reared in a village on the outskirts of Grenoble, where Dr. Benassis came to live during the Restoration, she became an object of special attention on the part of the ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... 'He that seeketh shall find it.' The enjoyment of the present life, though in seeming it give delight and sweetness, is well thrust from us. At the very moment of its being it ceaseth to be, and for our joy repayeth us with sorrow sevenfold. Its happiness and its sorrow are more frail than a shadow, and, like the traces of a ship passing over the sea, or of a bird flying through the air, quickly disappear. But the hope of the life to come which the Christians preach is certain, and as surety sure; howbeit in this world it ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... in a moment Dr. Franchi, small and frail and charming, came forward with a sweet smile and hand outstretched, through a throng of ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... the first. Their losses had been heavy, but they had taught their adversaries that they were no longer the unmanageable levies of Bull Run, scattered by the first touch of disaster to the four winds. It was no frail barrier which stood now between the South and her independence, but a great army of trained soldiers, seasoned by experience, bound together by discipline, and capable of withstanding a long series of reverses. And when it became clear that McClellan, backed by the fleet, had no intention ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... dismay were painted on the faces of all. The ship might be insecure, but to launch out upon the great ocean in a frail boat seemed to ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... prisoner had undergone a woful change during his confinement. Had his own wife seen him at that moment it is doubtful whether she would have recognized her lord. Could it be possible that that frail, tottering, wasted form, and that blanched, sunken-eyed, imbecile-looking countenance were all that were left of the once formidable Robert Gourlay? The sight was one which might have moved his bitterest enemy ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... anecdote of Fleeman, Jamie, the Laird of Udny's fool, life of, published 'Floorish o' the surface,' to describe a preacher Forbes, Mrs., of Medwyn, fond of tea Forbes's banking-house, anecdotes of 'Formerly robbers, now thieves' Frail, curious use of word Fraser, Jamie, address to minister in kirk Fraser, Jamie, idiot of Lunan Free Church, road of, 'tolls unco high' 'Freet's dear! sin' I sauld freet in streets o' Aberdeen' French people, a clause in their ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... and with a backhander I sent Don Marcasse, who was endeavouring the play the cure's part of peacemaker, head over heels into the middle of the ashes. I did not mean him any harm, but my movements were somewhat rough, and the poor man was so frail that to my hand he was but as a weasel would have been to his own. Patience was standing before me with his arms crossed, in the attitude of a stoic philosopher, but the fire was flashing in his eyes. Conscious of his position as my host, he was ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... The frail supports of the bridge, brittle with age and weather, already straining hard against the furious water, needed only the battering of the first heavy logs from the ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... So termed from the risk in such frail craft. They were very long, very narrow, and as thin as the skiffs of our rivers. During the war of 1800-14 they carried gold between Dover and Calais, and defied ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Frail man—his days are as grass; As a flower of the field he flourishes, For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, And its place ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... Leon's case. Seven members at least were present: Francisco de Menchaca, Andres de Alava, Luis Tello Maldonado, and Francisco de Albornoz voted that Luis de Leon should be put to the torture—a moderate amount of torture in view of his frail health—and, when this was done, the court should sit again and determine accordingly. Dr. Guijano de Mercado and Dr. Frechilla took a more lenient view, recommending that, in consideration of the more exculpatory reports recently given by ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... said, the dolorous Jack Tar Turns to view the watery Vast, When he mourns his frail charac-tar, ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... round in his chair at Kate's bland voice. He probably imagined he was in his revolving-chair at home, but he was not, and the frail article beneath him, unused to gyration upon one leg, gave way instantly and all but precipitated him at ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... seams in the old boat's walls, they would snuggle close together under the same coverlet. Some nights they would be wakened by the uproar from the drunken sailors in the tavern, and hear the angry words of their mother, or the slaps she would rain on impudent cheeks. More than once the frail partition of their bedroom had threatened to give way as some staggering body fell against it. But then they would go to sleep again, with the carefree innocence of children, with no ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... that a 'Mokihi' is constructed of Koradies, Anglice, the flowering stalks of the flax,—three faggots of which lashed firmly in a point at the small ends, and expanded by a piece of wood at the stern, constitute the sides and bottom of the frail craft, which, propelled by a paddle, furnishes sufficient means of transport for ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... nor took her flight— Beneath the vessel's verge concealed from light; Issued the rest, in quick dispersion buried, And woes innumerous roamed the breathing world: With ills the land is full, with ills the sea; Diseases haunt our frail humanity; Self-wandering through the noon, at night they glide Voiceless—a voice the power all-wise denied: Know, then, this awful truth: it is not given To elude the wisdom of omniscient Heaven. —Trans. ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... preachers and the poor. Yet still, ye humbler friends, enjoy your hour, This is your portion, yet unclaim'd of power; This is Heaven's gift to weary men oppress'd, And seems the type of their expected rest: But yours, alas! are joys that soon decay; Frail joys, begun and ended with the day; Or yet, while day permits those joys to reign, The village vices drive them from the plain. See the stout churl, in drunken fury great, Strike the bare bosom of his teeming mate! His naked vices, ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... to be met with—have one mental picture, and one only, of the flight of an aeroplane. They imagine a man in the air—and this mere idea of altitude makes them shudder; and they picture this man in a frail apparatus of wood and wire, capable of breaking to pieces at any moment; or even if it does not break, needing an incessant movement of levers to maintain it in a safe equilibrium; while they reckon also that, should the engine of the machine suffer any breakdown, the ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... anxiously whether he would find Mrs. Dangerfield on the bank of the stream that evening watching her children fish. His night's rest had trebled his interest in her and his desire to see more, a great deal more, of her. The appeal to him of her frail and delicate ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... which grows on a particular shrub. There are vast numbers of these barks all through the archipelago, which they manage very dexterously both with sails and oars, and the natives often venture as far as Conception in these frail vessels. They are much addicted to fishing, and procure vast quantities and many kinds of excellent fish on the sea around their shores. Of these they dry large quantities, which they export to Chili and Peru, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... men are seldom more serious than they have to be. But they all were helplessly, hopelessly caught in the magic, gossamer web of Athalie's beauty and personal charm; and some merely kicked and buzzed and some tried to rend the frail rainbow fabric, and some struggled silently against they knew not what—themselves probably. And some, like Dane, hung motionless, enmeshed, knowing that to struggle was futile. And some, like Clive, were still lying under ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... deepest slumber, Evil thoughts may come in dreams; And the senses list the murmur, Though the frail form sleeping seems. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... to the difficulties of the Church in an ancient city. We seem to see the men and women who composed it—their eagerness for religious novelties, their debased surroundings, their anarchic divisions, their frail sense of moral responsibility. And a modern reader will probably lay the letter down with a conviction that our great modern cities have much to learn from the words written by St. Paul to Corinth, ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... past, Christ has come; one in the future, Christ will come. For memory, the coming by the cradle and the Cross; for hope, the coming on His throne in glory; and between these two moments, like the solid piers of a suspension bridge, the frail structure of the Present hangs swinging. In this day men have lost their expectation of the one, and to a large extent their faith in the other. But we shall not understand Scripture unless we seek to make as prominent in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... bird sang for the joy of spring, so piercing sweet and frail; And blinding bright the land was dight in gay and glittering mail; And with a wondrous black fox skin a ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... art thou from the grave Only by a plank most frail; Tossed upon the restless wave, Sport of ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... French. The ambassador was to make no formal demand, but was to ask for some expression of general intentions and feelings. Alexander was in the provinces, and did not return until the middle of December. Meantime Caulaincourt, after careful inquiry, had learned that the young princess was frail in health and not yet of marriageable age. The letter to his master conveying this information was crossed by one of Napoleon's making a formal demand. The difference in confessional adherence was of no account, he said, and an immediate answer was desired. "Take as your standpoint that ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... thither, casting to him kind glances and smiles, while her admirers were fawning upon her, and they all, like serpents, were cleverly gliding by the various little tables, chairs, screens, flower-stands—a storehouse full of beautiful and frail things, scattered about the room with a carelessness equally dangerous to them and to Foma. But when he walked there, the rugs did not drown his footsteps, and all these things caught at his coat, trembled and fell. Beside the ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... in, topped and brailed up out of the way, with great facility. The system was tried at Portsmouth last year with considerable success upon the Dido, but as it was thought that some of the fittings were somewhat frail and might collapse beneath the shock of a live torpedo, it was resolved to submit them to a practical test under service conditions upon the Resistance. The ship was consequently fitted with three of the steel booms on the port side. They were 32 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... them; though you admitted—I'll give you credit for that—you did admit that she was a beautiful, good little thing, and worthy to belong to the best in the land. And when I said that Providence never would have sent such a frail being as that into the world as a beggar's brat, you told me, on the contrary, that HE might have cast the lot of that child, frail, feeble, sickly as she was, amid the very outcasts of the earth for wise purposes, which we never could fathom; and that I had no right ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... refinements of drawing gave peculiar character to all his work. Attention has frequently been called to the beauty of his roses.[186] Every curl in their frail petals is rendered with as much care as though they were the hands or feet of Graces. Nor is it, perhaps, a mere fancy to imagine that the corolla of an open rose suggested to Botticelli's mind the composition of his best-known ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... Assembly of Professors September 10, 1822. This volume was dictated to and written out by one of his daughters, Mlle. Cornelie De Lamarck. On her the aged savant leaned during the last ten years of his life—those years of failing strength and of blindness finally becoming total. The frail woman accompanied him in his hours of exercise, and when he was confined to his house she never left him. It is stated by Cuvier, in his eulogy, that at her first walk out of doors after the end came she was nearly overcome by the fresh air, to which she had become so unaccustomed. She, ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... did think you half-mad—a poor, ill-used creature, a visionary, a moral woman living immorally; yet, in spite of all, a woman to be loved and pitied. But now I'm beginning to think you're only frail—wanton. Oh, you're not so mad as not to know you're wicked! [Tapping the book forcibly.] And so ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... birds, frail insects, perceive the subtle influence of the season, and shall not coarse-fibred man rejoice, though there be little or nothing to which he may point as special evidence of inspiration? He may feel the indefinable ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... frightened him. He had no alpenstock, nothing. But having come safely to rest, he began to walk on, in the illuminated darkness. It was as cold as sleep. He was between two ridges, in a hollow. So he swerved. Should he climb the other ridge, or wander along the hollow? How frail the thread of his being was stretched! He would perhaps climb the ridge. The snow was firm and simple. He went along. There was something standing out of the snow. He approached, with ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... "uniques:" a female-impersonator, a green-eyed boy who wagged his hips like the very devil and took off the girls; Poland, a Warsaw Jewess, a redheaded, overscented beauty, who did the "Parisienne," and ever and ever so many others. And Lily, so slender and frail, was the pet of them all. They called her their pretty baby, their petit cheri, and, with their painted mugs, kissed ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... moment to share the fate which had already overtaken so many of their companions in misery, the poop was discovered to give way; another wave rolled on with impetuous fury, and the hinder part of the luckless vessel, with all who sought safety in its frail support, was burst away from its shattered counterpart, and about forty wretched beings hurried through the foaming ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... the family; indeed, the results of Bohemia's excellent cuisine are much in evidence. It must be admitted that the same cuisine tends to develop a certain redundancy among those no longer in their first youth. Perhaps the sight of exuberant ladies, scantily clad and bulging over the gunwale of a frail craft, provoked the English Princess to a shocked utterance, the account of which, purposely garbled by the Jesuits, spread abroad like wildfire, and caused much unfavourable comment. The lady herself was subject to remark by the Pragers on account ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... sand, Each shell a little perfect thing, So frail, yet potent to withstand The mountain-waves' wild buffeting. Through storms no ship could dare to brave The little shells float lightly, save All that they might have lost of fine Shape and soft ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... most appealing dignity. "How can you talk so horribly?" The horrible talk, however, evidently possessed a potent magic for my friend; and his imagination, checked a while by the influence of his kinsman, began again to lead him a dance. From this moment he ceased to steer his frail bark, to care what he said or how he said it, so long as he expressed his passionate appreciation of the scene around him. As he kept up this strain I ceased even secretly to wish he wouldn't. I have wondered since that I shouldn't have been annoyed by the way he reverted constantly to himself. ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... some of its arguments; and for the lamentable circumstance that it exhibited a far greater debt in mental culture to Mr. John Stuart Mill than to the whole range of Christian divines. In a sentence, Ward 'had launched on the great deep of human controversy as frail a bark as ever carried sail,' and his reviewer undoubtedly let loose upon it as shrewd a blast as ever blew from the AEolian wallet. The article was meant for the Quarterly Review, and it is easy to imagine the dire perplexities of Lockhart's editorial mind in times so fervid and ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... sweet service and the sermon was on hidden sins. Lilian wondered if hers was undue pride, the desire to rise above her station? She glanced at her mother. The tears were coursing silently down her sunken cheeks. Was she missing the love a daughter ought to give? She looked so frail and delicate that the girl's heart went out to her ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Space Viking simply didn't make sense. He then screened the Royal Palace at Malverton, on the planet; first he was icily polite to somebody several echelons below him in the peerage, and then respectfully polite to somebody he addressed as Prince Vandarvant. Finally, after some minutes' wait, a frail, white-haired man in a little black cap-of-maintenance appeared in the screen. Prince Bentrik instantly sprang to his feet. So did all the other Mardukans ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... compact, we embarked to change our situation, having consumed all the fuel within our reach. The wind came off the land just as the canoes had started, and we determined on attempting to force a passage along the shore; in which we happily succeeded, after seven hours' labour and much hazard to our frail vessels. The ice lay so close that the crews disembarked on it, and effected a passage by bearing against the pieces with their poles; but in conducting the canoes through the narrow channels thus formed, the greatest care was ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... are doomed men and must surely die, though we know not by whose hand we perish. Now, therefore, I beseech you to think not of this death which we must suffer in our mortal bodies, but to open your eyes to the things which are not mortal and which perish not eternally. For man is but a frail and changing creature as regards his mortality, seeing that his life is not longer than the lives of other created things, and he is delicate and sickly and exposed to manifold dangers from his birth. But ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... many of which have handles cut in the wood at the ends, by the help of which they could easily be dragged along overland. Sir W. Wilde adds that the Irish also used CURRAGHS, or CORACLES, which were mere wicker frames covered with the skins of oxen. These frail barks introduce us to a new mode of navigation; they are met with not only in tire different countries of Europe, but also in America, and were in use there in pre-Columbian times. Even more interesting examples have ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... aid, he pushed out into the pond, making for the islet in the centre by means of a long pole which he had thinned off from a piece of fencing, sticking it into the mud at the bottom and pushing against it with all his might. Meanwhile, the frail structure on which he sat trembled and wobbled about in the most unseaworthy fashion, causing him almost to repent of his undertaking almost as soon as he had started, although he had the incense ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... that frail and faded woman threw into the one word fairly startled Gwendoline. She opened her eyes and stared aghast at her mother. And well she might, for the effect was electrical. Mrs. Gildersleeve was sitting ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... finished and launched; and, trusting their lives on board these frail vessels, they descended the Mississippi, running the gantlet between hostile tribes, who fiercely attacked them. Reaching the Gulf, though not without the loss of eleven of their number, they made sail for the Spanish settlement on the river Panuco, where they arrived safely, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... passing away and the inevitable reaction was setting in. Oh, if he were only a year older so that he could have communicated to us by speech his feelings and his wants! His little body, which stood the long sickness with such fortitude, got frail. His bright eyes, high forehead and round cheeks remained, however, to defy the waste of the disease. The parson came and uttered words of encouragement. "Symptoms of death," he said, pointing to ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... malice are self-deceivers, and pretend to discover what no one else can perceive. On this frail foundation the King raised an altar of hatred, on which he swore never to cease till he had accomplished my brother's ruin and mine. He had never forgiven me for the attachment I had discovered for my brother's interest during the time he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Charles Parkhill looked the part to which, from his birth, he had been assigned by his over-cultured parents. His slender body, with its narrow shoulders and sunken chest, frail as it was, seemed almost too heavy for his feeble legs. His thin face, bloodless and sallow, with a sparse, daintily trimmed beard and weak watery eyes, was characterized by a solemn and portentous gravity, as though, realizing fully the profound importance of his mission in life, ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... say, that frail, delicate man began to recover his strength, work came back to his shop, and everything grew brighter around him. And, as an additional reward from Heaven, he was animated by a new zeal for the Holy Souls, for he not only paid his own little contribution regularly, ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... vicious and criminal, do they gain their end, and is that end as salutary as they would wish? We dare not pronounce judgment. They may answer that they terrify the unjust rich man by pointing out to him the yawning pit that lies beneath the frail covering of wealth; just as in the time of the Dance of Death, they showed him his gaping grave, and Death standing ready to fold him in an impure embrace. Now, they show him the thief breaking open his ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... Catherine, in an open coffin, who is said to have been a very beautiful Princess; but whose shrivelled skin, much resembling discoloured parchment, may now serve as a powerful antidote to that vanity with which frail beauty is apt to ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... things for which all mills must be prepared—the wear and tear of Time on the machinery—the wear and tear of Death on the frail things who yearly work ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... Among the older hands who have begun work early there is not a straight pair of shoulders. Much of the bottle washing and filling is done by children from twelve to fourteen years of age. On their slight, frail bodies toil weighs heavily; the delicate child form gives way to the iron hand of labour pressed too soon upon it. Backs bend earthward, chests recede, never ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... stews quickly become the main article of diet. Each succeeding year the little mothers have grown paler, and more frail. The children have lost their fat, rosy cheeks. But let even a local success crown our arms, let the communique bring a little bit of real news, tell of fresh laurels won, let even the faintest ray of hope for the great final triumph pierce this veil of anxiety—and every heart beat quickens, ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... we have been sufficiently enterprising to obtain, and are strong or clever enough to keep—a constant competition, a daily steeplechase, favorable to daring spirits and personal initiative but with the defect of keeping frail humanity ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... she drew near of Lady Geraldine's postponed wedding. It would have been better that the marriage should have taken place; better that the story should have ended to-day and that the frail link between herself and George Fairfax should have been broken. That accident of Lord Calderwood's death had made everything more or less uncertain. Would the marriage ever take place? Would George Fairfax, with ample leisure for deliberation, hold himself bound ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... publisher. The book sold, sold every copy of the small first edition, and in due time the publisher's statement came. I did not think my half of the profits was very great, but it seemed a fair division after every imaginable cost had been charged up against my poor book, and that frail venture had been made to pay the expenses of composition, corrections, paper, printing, binding, advertising, and editorial copies. The wonder ought to have been that there was anything at all coming ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... this, around those jutting rocks shot a small out-rigger canoe, frail and hardly large enough to hold the body of a slender Marquesan boy who paddled it. About his middle he wore a red and yellow pareu, and his naked body was like a small and perfect statue as he handled his tiny craft. When he ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... the sport of every movement of the horse? If the lady be not mistress of her seat, and be unable to maintain a proper position of her limbs and body, so soon as her horse starts into a trot, she runs the risk of being tossed about on the saddle, like the Halcyon of the poets in her frail nest,— ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... sympathize with you in this disappointment. I hope the consolations of religion will now be yours. Your notes, the lock of your hair, etc., I return with this now. I will not reproach you for the pain you have cost me; I know it is not your fault that your health has become so frail. I ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... arrival of the major had at first interested him, but, seeing that he remained unnoticed, he had been unable to struggle against his sleepiness. His grandmother turned toward the table to slap his frail little hands, whitening in the lamplight, when ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... their nests to the stones of the nave; they are never disturbed. When it rains, they all gather in the church, but as soon as the sun pierces the clouds and the rain-spouts dry up, they repair to the trees again. So that during the storm two frail creatures often enter the blessed house of God together; man to pray and allay his fears, and the bird to wait until the rain stops and to warm the naked bodies ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... rope, small and frail as it seemed, might be of use, flashed on the brain of the girl; and in a moment she was at the staff. Time and again, when liquor incapacitated her father to perform his duty, had Mildred bent-on, and hoisted the signals for him; and thus, happily, she was expert in the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... grounds are surrounded by a frail board fence, and are strictly guarded by Confederate soldiers, and no prisoner except the paroled attendants is allowed to leave the grounds except by a special permit from the Commandant of the Interior ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... is eternally happy cannot be burdened with any labor itself, nor can it impose any labor on another; nor can it be influenced by resentment or favor: because things which are liable to such feelings must be weak and frail." We have said enough to prove that we should worship the Gods with piety, and without superstition, if ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... so modest, at once arrested Thackeray's attention, and he forbore to place him in his extemporaneous catalogue. I remember a pallid, sharp-faced girl fluttering past, and how Thackeray exulted in the history of this "frail little bit of porcelain," as he called her. There was something in her manner that made him hate her, and he insisted she had murdered somebody on her way to the hall. Altogether this marvellous prelude to the concert made a deep impression on Thackeray's one listener, into whose ear he whispered ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... which happened to fall on the eve of Easter, he resolved to proceed to Tara on that occasion, and to confront the Druids in the midst of all the princes and magnates of the Island. With this view he returned on his former course, and landed from his frail barque at the mouth of the Boyne. Taking leave of the boatmen, he desired them to wait for him a certain number of days, when, if they did not hear from him, they might conclude him dead, and provide for their own safety. So saying he set out, accompanied by the few disciples he had made, or ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... beginning he launched out into well balanced, well phrased excuses, of admirable logic, by means of which he proved the imperative necessity of finding other anchorage for this stray and apparently very frail bark. Of necessity these letters were vague, since he did not know what particular form of frailty he had to contend with. Of one thing, however, he was sure—the Colony offered opportunities for the indulgence of every form known to man, ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... sense, my dear sir," rejoined Campana; "but we are all frail, erring creatures, and he was hardly dealt by. He is now gone to his heavy, heavy account, and I may as well tell you the poor boy's sad story at once. Had you but seen him in his prattling infancy, in ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... it were "Brother Doubtful," one who hesitates between false religion and pagan religion, Duessa and Fraelissa (Morley). Fraelissa is fair but frail, and will not ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... glibness of his oratory, and the popularity of his topics, gain him ample credence for all the excellent qualities to which he lays claim. 'Tis true, when he has gained the ascendancy he aims at, his behaviour generally shews him to be not only frail and faulty, but a worse knave than any he has exposed; but before he thus discovers himself, he has gained a hold either of the affections or the fears of the multitude, which, added to their reluctance ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... pain in Anne's voice. Who does not know the heartache with which it is seen that the mind of a loved one is wandering from us? And yet she was puzzled. She dreaded one of those scenes in which her young strength was barely sufficient to control and soothe the frail form before her. But they did not begin as a rule in this fashion; here, though the mind wandered, was an absence of the wildness to which she had become inured. Here—and yet as she listened, as she looked, now at her mother, now into the dimly lighted ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... worked this change? Where is the forest-covered country and its savage race, its skin-clad warriors and their frail coracles? ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... insight as she had perceived Robert Browning's poetic greatness, Elizabeth Barrett discerned his personal worth. He was essentially manly in all respects: so manly, that many frail souls of either sex philandered about his over-robustness. From the twilight gloom of an aeesthetic clique came a small voice belittling the great man as "quite too 'loud,' painfully excessive." Browning was manly enough to laugh at all ghoulish cries of any kind whatsoever. ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... on the little island around me still no evidence of man. But men were here. The American Indian, still bearing evidence of the Mongols, plied these waters in his frail canoes. His wigwams of skins, the smoke of his signal fires—these were not enduring enough for ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... this? Or of your own, what guilt has drawn it on you? You find me kind, and think me kind to all; The weak, ungen'rous error of your sex. What could inspire the thought? We oft'nest judge From our own hearts; and is yours then so frail, It prompts you to conceive thus ill of me? He that can stoop to harbour such a thought, Deserves to find ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young
... think; its vital energies are extinct, and all the powers of life have ceased their operations; and such, my brethren, is the state to which we are all hastening; let us, therefore, gratefully improve the remaining space of life, that when our weak and frail bodies, like this memento, shall become cold and inanimate and mouldering in sepulchral dust and ruins, our disembodied spirits may soar aloft to the blessed regions, where dwell light and ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... royal place, A gentle lady, and the hand That sways the sceptre of this land, How frail and weak Soft is the voice and fair the face; She breathes amen to prayer and hymn No wonder that her eyes are dim, And ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... knew from him what had happened, and Rua Manu, with his big eyes filled with a wondering pity as he looked at the frail body and white face of Doris lying on the skylight, wore the schooner's head round to the south-west at a ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... heart of the mountains; but all these are works done obviously in defiance of Nature, and if Europe relapsed into a state of barbarism, the eternal snow and the eternal silence would soon reassert their supremacy over the frail handiwork of man. Quite different from this is the aspect of the mountains on the north-eastern border of Italy. The countries which we now call Venetia and Istria are parted from their northern neighbours by ranges (chiefly that known as the Julian Alps) ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... The day had not yet broke, but I could see that we were on the brink of a deep and broad river, which we were preparing to cross, but how, I could not discover, for I could see no bridge, but only something like a raft moored by the margin of the stream. On this frail craft we embarked, horses, diligence, passengers, and all; and, launching out upon the impetuous current, we reached, after a short navigation, the opposite shore. The river we had crossed was the Po, and the craft which had carried ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... frail, in that they are products of the human mind, in which everything is essentially reactive, spontaneous, and volatile: but as in passion and in language, so in philosophy, there are certain comparatively steady and hereditary principles, forming a sort of orthodox reason, which is or which ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... advancing up the road, carrying a half-filled pail of milk. He was a child of perhaps ten years, exceedingly frail and thin, with a drawn, waxen face, and sick, colorless lips and ears. On his head he wore a thick plush cap, and coarse, heavy shoes upon his feet. A faded coat, too long in the arms, drooped from his shoulders, and long, loose overalls of gray jeans broke and wrinkled ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... Chinagos the virtues and excellences of French law. There was nothing like setting an example once in a while; and, besides, of what use was New Caledonia except to send men to live out their days in misery and pain in payment of the penalty for being frail and human? ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... and many things On trust; feeling our landscapes satisfied Her love for scenes. When from a visit she Returned, no lovelier picture ever blessed My sight than when she swam into his arms, And stood in beauty, frail, against his strength Supporting her, and kissed his lips and cheeks And brow. He then, as if his daughter yet Were but a child, would press the upturned head Between his hands, where peered the innocent face Rosy with smile and blush, like a sweet flower Bursting its tawny sheath: whereon ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... but they have hidden passages and winding galleries under the snow, which undoubtedly are their main avenues of communication. Here and there these passages rise so near the surface as to be covered by only a frail arch of snow, and a slight ridge betrays their course to the eye. I know him well. He is known to the farmer as the deer-mouse, to the naturalist as the Hesperomys leucopus,—a very beautiful creature, nocturnal in his habits, with large ears, and large, fine eyes, full of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... what they'd think," she returned feverishly, her frail fingers plucking nervously at the arms of her chair. "I must go—I ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... the ground and rolled down the hill dead, having succumbed to a blow that a woodchuck or a coon would hardly have regarded at all. Thus does the easy, passive mode of defense of the porcupine not only dull his wits, but it makes frail and brittle the thread of his life. He has had no struggles or battles ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... bleak and icy regions of Siberia. These manners are admirably adapted to diffuse, among the wandering tribes, the spirit of emigration and conquest. The connection between the people and their territory is of so frail a texture, that it may be broken by the slightest accident. The camp, and not the soil, is the native country of the genuine Tartar. Within the precincts of that camp, his family, his companions, his property, are always included; and, in the most ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... had that within him to which a preacher might appeal. Thus they became Dogmatists; that is, men who assert a truth so fiercely, as to forget that a truth is meant to be used, and not merely asserted—if, indeed, the fierce assertion of a truth in frail man is not generally a sign of some secret doubt of it, and in inverse proportion to his practical living faith in it: just as he who is always telling you that he is a man, is not the most likely to behave like a man. And why did this befall ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... called out of the room. It was the servant from Devonshire-terrace to tell me his child Dora was suddenly dead. She had not been strong from her birth; but there was just at this time no cause for special fear, when unexpected convulsions came, and the frail little life passed away. My decision had to be formed at once; and I satisfied myself that it would be best to permit his part of the proceedings to close before the truth was told to him. But as he went on, after the sentences I have quoted, to speak of actors having to come from ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... 3 So frail is the youth and the beauty of men, Though they bloom and look gay like the rose: But all our fond care to preserve them is vain; Time kills them as ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... reached the lands of those kings who were still hostile, they went on invincibly through the midst of their rebellious country, laying waste with fire and sword, and plundering everything. And after their frail houses were destroyed by fire, and a vast number of men had been slain, and the army, having nothing to face but corpses and suppliants, had arrived in the region called Capellatum, or Palas, where there are boundary stones ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... dangerous state, wandering, delirious, comatose. Yet the mortality has been small. Only seven have died; some few are still very ill, yet the character of the fever is less severe now. We had some sharp hospital work for a few days and nights, all the accompaniments of the decay of our frail bodies. Now we have a respite. Codrington, Palmer, and I take the nursing; better that the younger ones, always more liable to take fever, should be kept out of contagion; to no one but I have gone among the sick in town, or to town at all. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a frail, insignificant looking creature, not at all the sort of person one would associate with threats of the kind that Ruth Morton had been receiving. She appeared to be greatly ashamed of her sudden collapse, and kept insisting, in spite of her evident weakness, that she was quite all right again, ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... eternal sorrow. His best lyrics use words that fall into their places with the "dying fall" of an actual fit of sobbing. And they are so naturally chosen, his images and metaphors! Even when they seem most remote, they are such as frail young hearts cannot help happening upon, as they soothe their ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... having known The faces of each other for as long As they had listened there to an old song, Sung thinly in a wastrel monotone By some unhappy night-bird, who had flown Too many times and with a wing too strong To save himself, and so done heavy wrong To more frail elements than his alone. ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... everything in the world seemed to hang on the frail thread of those two words. And what ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... ladies can take a very effective hand, and numbers have done so; for there is no doubt that a woman's taste and lightness of touch enables her in some branches of taxidermy to far exceed the average man. Especially in the manipulation of frail skins and delicate feathers, in bird taxidermy, is ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... vision of humanity, also in harmony with the purpose of the poem. It takes the form of some frail and suffering woman, and is addressed by the author with a tenderness in which we recognize one of his constant ideals of love: the impulse not to worship or to enjoy, but to comfort and to protect. He next considers the problem of human sorrow ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... declare in many places—'And as here the world acquired by work perishes, so there the world acquired by merit perishes' (Ch. Up. VIII, 1,6); 'That work of his has an end' (Bri. Up. III, 8, 10); 'By non-permanent works the Permanent is not obtained' (Ka. Up. I, 2, 10); 'Frail indeed are those boats, the sacrifices' (Mu. Up. I, 2, 7); 'Let a Brhmana, after he has examined all these worlds that are gained by works, acquire freedom from all desires. What is not made cannot be gained by what is made. To understand this, let the pupil, with fuel in his hand, go to ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... housekeeper would have furnished, if she had dared; but the Judge looked sternly at her, and unwilling to incur his resentment, yet unable to contain her anger, she threw herself out of the room with a toss of the body that nearly separated her frail ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... immediately beached the frail bark, and as they did so the water all ran away. "What an extraordinary thing," we thought, and when they pulled her right on to shore we saw the last ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... naked and slightly-armed people. The accounts of this transaction have something in them bordering on the ludicrous, and give it the air of absurd rhodomontade. Bobadilla assailed the portal with great impetuosity, the frail bolts and locks of which gave way at the first shock, and allowed him easy admission. In the meantime, however, his zealous myrmidons applied ladders to the walls, as if about to carry the place by assault, ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... to see by what they could be caused; but when he found that they were occasioned only by the rise or fall of a house of cards which she was building, he internally said, "Pshaw!" and afterwards kept his eyes fixed upon his book. Sir James continued to serve the fair architect with the frail materials for her building—her Folly, as she called it—and for his services he received much encouragement of smiles, and many marked commendations. Mrs. Hungerford called upon Mr. Barclay to read ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... seas comes back! I had not expected mine, and was surprised one morning, when eastward-bound in the Mediterranean, to see a pallid mass of rock two miles to port, when I had imagined I knew the charts of that sea well enough. It was a frail ghost of land on that hard blue plain, and had a light of its own; but it looked arid and forbidding, a place of seamen's bones. Turning quickly to the mate I asked for its name. "Alboran," he said, very quietly, without looking at ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson |
