"Airily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... airily. "You know perfectly well you do make a fetish of the Language Question; and that your back-veldt followers believe the Bible was written in Dutch for the Dutch race alone; and that you start having coffee at daybreak, with relays up to breakfast-time. ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... I can explain the riddle for you," he said airily. "I lost my way the other evening coming home late. You see there had been some mistake and my car didn't come to the club for me. I started on foot, leaving word for it to overtake me—" He lied as he went along. He had had a short lifetime of practice and did it quite naturally and easily, ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... Gladys explained airily, though her heart was beating uncomfortably. "Jimmy and Christine; they've gone off on a second ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... enough, "I am in no mood for your pleasantries. If therefore you have aught else to say of me, pray remove out o' my hearing." This protest Sir Rupert fanned airily aside with ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... huge feet,—indeed, Carlotty "toed in," for that matter; but her face shone with delight; her eyes glistened, and so did her teeth; and when she waved her ebony hands and flitted among the children, she did it as airily as any real butterfly that ever danced over a field of ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... of rhetoric looked an uneasy fear that he was being ridiculed. "I only repeated the village notion of him," he said airily. "He may have been anything. All I know is that he was as secretive as a clam, and about ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... she always sang, I had never heard her sing so sweetly before. It seemed indeed "Joy's ecstatic trial," so airily her fingers sparkled over the chords, so clearly and cheerily she warbled each ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... near an hour," replied Albert airily. "Saw that you were having a fine sleep, so I thought ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... while he walked forward with a very grand manner. He went straight to the gayest and largest group he could see. It was a group of gentlemen fairies, who were crowding around a lily of the valley, on the bent stem of which a tiny lady fairy was sitting, airily swaying herself to and fro, and laughing and chatting with all her ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Saltash airily. "But I doubt if I live to a rakish old age. I'm a man that likes taking chances, and those who dice with the high gods are bound to throw a blank some day." For a moment the mockery died down in his ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... bright as their feathers, and cling to the swaying slender stems that furnish an abundant harvest, daintily. lunching upon the fluffy seeds of thistle blossoms, pecking at the mullein-stalks, and swinging airily among the asters and Michaelmas daisies; or, when snow covers the same field with a glistening crust, above which the brown stalks offer only a meagre dinner, the same birds, now sombrely clad in winter feathers, cling to the swaying stems ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... content to watch the wild bees flitting to and fro, or to lie absorbent of the ardours of the sun, or, like the night-flowering columbine, to trail up the tree-trunk and through its rustling foliage "look for the dim stars;" or, again, can live the life of the bird, "leaping airily his pyramid of leaves and twisted boughs of some tall mountain-tree;" or be a fish, breathing the morning air in the misty sun-warm water. Close following this is another memorable passage, that beginning "Night, and one single ridge of narrow path;" which has a particular interest ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... she answered airily, "and somehow it gets on daddy's nerves. You see, it has a funny sort of window which goes all round the top of the hut. This is evidently divided into several small windows, because they swing about in the wind, and when the sun shines on them they catch the eye even ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... concerned. It was not like Helen to inflict the wrong kind on her; but it had all been Mrs Bradley's doing. She had been tactlessly insistent in her demand to see the beautiful old garden and the famous artist-Baronet, who had so boldly flouted tradition. Helen's lame excuses had been airily dismissed, and the discourtesy of a point-blank ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... airily, "you have the remedy in your own hands, you know. You can easily bring me to book. And now that this interesting conversation is ended, perhaps you will kindly allow me to go home? The night is fine, but I am a ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the secret principle of his method?—if one can call that a "method" which is, in effect, nothing if not airily unmethodical, and that principle "secret" which is neither recondite nor perplexing. It is simply that Debussy, instead of depending upon the strictly limited major and minor modes of the modern scale system, employs almost continuously, as the structural basis of his music, the mediaeval ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... two. "Do you remember, Vesty," he said airily, drawing nearer, "this?—and this? You have such a beautiful little boy, Vesty! I am so glad!—so glad! And this?—do you remember?" He played as though he could play away the pallor from that tender face upon the pillows; the pitiful, fine ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... True, it was only a woman lying there. But her silence and her stillness were eloquent of tragedy even to his monkey-intelligence. From a safe height he sat and reviled her till he was tired for having spoilt his sport. Finally, as she made no movement, he forgot his grievance, and tripped airily away in ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... at home any time," Lena Barton declared airily. "I'd rather walk down the avenue on Sunday than ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... as they don't put in an appearance before we get dry, I'm sure I don't care," said Jimsy airily. "What a delightful old kitchen. It might have come out ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... old fellows will let me off—the very moment, dear!" cried the model husband, waving his hand airily toward the bed, and taking up both hat and cane; "so try ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... Chalmers' opinion of Providence was much modified when he discovered what Providence was doing for Butts. Clem took to the Church when he started for himself. It would have been madness in him to remain a Dissenter. But in private, if it suited his purpose, he could always be airily sceptical, and he had a superficial acquaintance, second-hand, with a multitude of books, many of them of an infidel turn. I once rebuked him for his hypocrisy, and his defence was that religious ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... the vicomte airily. He was, with all his lawlessness, a gallant man. "Did I not prophesy that some day we should be at each ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... her bridle hand. Old Doyen, the sculptor, was the first to approach them. At that age a man may venture on anything. He rides a strange animal like a circus horse. Rita had spotted him out of the corner of her eye as he passed them, putting up his enormous paw in a still more enormous glove, airily, you know, like this" (Blunt waved his hand above his head), "to Allegre. He passes on. All at once he wheels his fantastic animal round and comes trotting after them. With the merest casual 'Bonjour, Allegre' he ranges close to her on the other side and addresses her, ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... airily-defiant Ingred who strolled into the cloak-room and put on her hat. Francie Hall, trying to thread her boot with a lace that had lost its tag, looked up, smiled, and made room for her ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... it crossed a noisy mountain torrent and crept up the hillside until the vegetation became low and stunted, and the rocky peaks of the Pyrenees seemed but an arm's length away. Then slowly down over a trestle of airily poised bridge-work it descended to the valley again. Was ever a journey such a marvel? To the French boy who had seen little of the outside world it was an Arabian ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... Larry the Bat airily. "I thought mabbe youse might figure dere was some of dem bonds ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the upper regions and he called down airily: "Doors open, ladies. World renowned aggregation of feminine wearing apparel, including one pair of the very latest hoops and the youngest thing in bustles, now ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... for all straight-going people, ma chere tante" cried Pembroke; "little Phemy was no contemptible assailant either way. Besides," added he, turning airily to his own gentle bride, "you, my young lady, may congratulate yourself on the same good hope. I hear that an old turf-comrade of mine is going to take her loving sister off my hands. Come, Lord Berrington, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... be no trouble," asserted the Senator, airily. "Coming in fresh from the outside—from a wider horizon—I can estimate the situation with a better sense of proportion than you can, North, if you'll allow me to say so. We can always depend on the sane reliability ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... ennoblement of character and deepening of insight brought about by suffering are permanent—in fact, that it requires the postulates of the existence of God and the reality of everlasting life. Mr. Russell, I imagine, would regard this as a confession that I am sunk in what he airily dismisses as 'theological superstitions'. I should reply that the 'superstition' is on his side; to dismiss God and the eternal soul, without serious inquiry, as 'superstitions' is just the most superficial of ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... bid, mechanically—that is, I slipped on my knickerbockers and slippers—and found myself in a couple of minutes, thus airily attired, following Miss Henniker, like a ghost, down the long passage. She led the way, not, as I expected, to the parlour, or to Mr Ladislaw's room, but conducted me upstairs and ushered me into a small and ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... were too perfect. She had really enjoyed his talk when they had met here and there abroad; but she was in no mood for him now; and she wondered what he had lost by the transfer to America. He ran on airily in French, speaking of the rush of great and small social affairs that marked the end of ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... unseen spinning-wheel. No matter the fame or grace of the rider. All in vain, my lad: pirouette as you will; sit your gallantest; let your hat blow off, and turn back, and at full speed lean down from the saddle, and snatch it airily from the ground, and turn again and gallop away; all is in vain. For by her estimate either you are living in fear of the conscript officer; or, if you are in the service, and here only transiently on leave of absence, your stay seems long, and it is rumored your leave ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... unnecessary force. It was an old, sweet, seasoned briar-root, glossy and dark with long employment, and justly dear to his fancy. What, then, was his chagrin, when the head snapped from the stem, leaped airily in space, and fell and disappeared among the lilacs of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said airily. "Well, I don't even think she's pretty; do you, Fan?—with all that light hair, drawn back plain from her forehead, and those big, solemn eyes. But I guess she thinks ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... High Street of Hampstead he bought a costly bouquet of white flowers, and walked airily to the house and rang the bell jubilantly. He could scarcely believe his ears when the maid told him her mistress was not at home. How dared the girl stare at him so impassively? Did she not know by what appointment—on what errand—he had come? Had he not written to her mistress a week ago ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... nature of an Englishman! Poor old Sanderson, who had come to me with a proposal to break the law of America, seemed horror-stricken when I airily suggested the immuring of a man in a dungeon here in England. He gazed at me in amazement, then cast his eyes furtively about him, as if afraid a trap door would drop beneath him, and land ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... shrieks and yells cleared a way for the cavalcade. The police guards popped out of their stations to salute him—I can tell you that hour's journey across the city was something in the nature of a triumphal progress, what with traffic airily waved aside and sentries and soldier-police presenting arms! At the Palace gates he alighted, and was met by other officials, bigger and grander, and conducted to the Hall of Audience. A considerable distance still remained to be covered; ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... chambers gave up their fair tenants one after another: each came out gaily and airily, with dress that gleamed lustrous through the dusk. For a moment they stood grouped together at the other extremity of the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet subdued vivacity: they then descended ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... thing nor the other. It ought to be settled. Not,' he said, 'that I want to marry again!' I said, 'Jim, you couldn't marry again, don't talk that way!' He said something about my clinging to old ideas, and I said, 'Jim, don't tell me you have given up your faith?' He said, very airily, 'I'm not telling you anything, my dear girl, but if the law will set me free, perhaps that's the best way of silencing Francis's ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... and up sprang a tiny figure, all crimson and gold, with shining wings, and a garland on its dainty head. Softly played the hidden music, and airily danced the little sylph till the silvery chime died away; then, folding her delicate arms, she sank from sight, leaving ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... she could not bear the light. So she seated herself near him, and Paul touched his lute, and sang songs, five or six, gentle songs of happy untroubled things, like the voices of streams that murmur to themselves when the woods are all asleep; and between the songs he spoke not, but played airily and wistfully upon his lute; and for all that it seemed so simple, he had never put more art into what he played and sang. And at last he made the music die away to a very soft close, like an evening wind that rustles away across a woodland, ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... "You'll be common," said the nurse severely, and then and there, because snatched bread-and-butter was sweet and gloves chewed in secret pleasant, I registered a vow that common I would be. A dear little lady I met the other day, talking about her sister Mem-sahibs, said airily, "Of course we very soon lose complexions, manners, and morals." She could afford to say so, it being so obviously untrue in her case. I think it is just this, that the women who are pure gold grow more charming, but the pinch-beck wears ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... the girls struck fantastic poses, Debby perching herself airily on the end gate of ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... will be all right," said De Haan airily. "We will leave out one and people will think it is unimportant. We are bringing out a paper for our own ends, not to ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... at all," said Braddock airily, "only I thought—that is, but never mind, never mind. Cockatoo, come down with me. Good night! Good ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... M. Vandeloup, airily; 'I am going to the Wattle Tree Hotel to see my friend Pierre ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... and drew upon it an original pen-and-ink design after her own heart. A dudish cat—Miss Allen was fond of the No. 16 cat if she could be said to be fond of anything—was portrayed seated on a rocker arrayed in smoking jacket and cap with a cigar waved airily aloft in one paw while the other held out a placard bearing the legend "Merry Christmas." A second cat in full street costume bowed politely, hat in paw, and waved a banner inscribed with "Happy New Year," while faintly suggested ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... shall get it easily enough," replied the corsair airily. "You've only to put your signature to ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... can tell the right one," Mrs. Savine answered airily, and presently halted before a row of resplendently-gilded books adorning one portion of the vestibule. She thereupon explained for the benefit of all listeners that it was hard to see the necessity for so many ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... carefully spread upon it. Then came the crockery. Who can ever forget the blue-edged plates, cups and saucers, and other dishes whereon indigo storks and mandarins, or something approaching a representation of them, glided airily over sky- blue hills in their pious way from one indigo pagoda to another. These things I have no doubt, would be rare prizes to Ceramic lovers of the present day. The cutlery and silver consisted mostly of bone-handled knives and iron forks, and iron and pewter spoons. ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... diverted by a small group of tiny girls dancing on the sidewalk to the husky strains of an old hurdy-gurdy. He joined the circle of amused spectators, to watch those pink-ribboned bits of femininity swaying airily to and fro in unison with the tune. One especially attracted his notice—a slim olive-coloured girl from a land where it is always spring. Her whole being translated into music, with hair dishevelled and feet hardly touching the ground, the ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... span in his best checked suit, his hat tilted airily over one ear, he stepped briskly down the street. You wouldn't have known him, I am sure, with his walking-stick in one hand, his light spring overcoat over the other arm. A freshly cleaned pair of grey gloves, smelling of gasoline, ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... Robin airily. "Simple deduction, Dank. Don't bother your head about her any longer. What we know isn't going to hurt us, and what ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... same question of you, my friend," he retorted airily, speaking in the muffled voice and with the markedly foreign accent which he had assumed for the role of the Prince, "might I inquire what you are ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... when they came back from their walk, Lisle asked his companion to lend him a couple of sovereigns. "You shall have them back to-morrow," he said airily. Percival assented as a matter of course. He hardly thought about it at all, and if he had he would have supposed that there was something to be paid in Miss Lisle's absence. He had still something left of the small fortune with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... that time," airily replied the father; "she will be married to some good honest fellow, like the parson, who seems to be fond of her, as I know she is of him, but I will not allow her to think of marriage for a long while to ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... he fell into the fatal embrace in which Dempsey punished him busily, with those straight body strokes that slid in methodically, like pistons. Georges seemed to have no defence that could slacken those blows. After every clinch his strength plainly ebbed and withered. Away, he dodged nimbly, airily, easily more dramatic in arts of manoeuvre. But Dempsey, tall, sullen, composed, followed him steadily. He seemed slow beside that flying white figure, but that wheeling amble was deadly sure. He was always on the ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... dinners. I have seen gray squirrels dragging ears of corn about as heavy as themselves out of our field through loose snow and up a tree, balancing them on limbs and eating in comfort with their dry, electric tails spread airily over their backs. Once I saw a fine hardy fellow go into a knot-hole. Thrusting in my hand I caught him and pulled him out. As soon as he guessed what I was up to, he took the end of my thumb in his mouth and sunk ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... ice-lands, he returns to civilization with a new concept of the value of dress. At last he can stand still without being reminded that his feet are chilly; he experiences the peculiar sensation of walking about in an airily light suit, in glove-tight boots, without helmet or mitts. It gives him such a delicious feeling of freedom that his energy is unbounded and life is a very pleasant and easy thing. Then it is that he can turn in retrospect to the time ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... I'm going to do. My concerns are my own," returned Netta airily. "I'm an unlucky person, and I'm sure to get the worst piece if there ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... flat little questions. Sometimes Winn thought he was going to be angry with him, but he never was. There was a blithe impersonal touch in Dr. Gurnet, a smiling willingness to look on private histories as of less importance than last year's newspapers. It was as if he airily explained to his patients that really they had better put any facts there were on the files, and let the housemaid use the rest for the kitchen fire; and he required very little on Winn's part. From a series of reluctant monosyllables he built ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... yesterday afternoon to shoot a buck," said Fred, airily; "for the main thing for us to do in this part of the world is to look out that we ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... answered airily. "I should see to that; and, besides, we should first travel, say ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... relieved I am," exclaimed Yetive rapturously? and Beverly was in high dudgeon because of the implied reflection, "I believe you are in a tiff with Baldos," went on Yetive airily. ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the kind, we think," answered the Emu airily, "for some of us have had most unpleasant symptoms after picking up morsels at camping grounds. Several have died. We were quite surprised, for hitherto there has been no better cure for Emu indigestion than wire ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... his eyes on one huge bud. He saw it swell, burst, spread out its passionate purple velvet, lift the broad flower face to the light for a joyous minute. A few seconds later a butterfly lighted airily to sample its nectar and to brush the pollen from its yellow dusted wings. Scarcely had the winged visitor flown away than the purple petals began to wither and fall away, leaving the seed pod on the stem. The visible change went on in this ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... I mentioned that I thought it was extremely pretty, and that I was sorry you weren't keeping it," I replied airily. "But why?" For my wife's face had suddenly assumed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... parsons and the priests," said Larry, airily. "Oh you wait, Christian! You don't know! You've been stuck down here in a hole. If you ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... "Nothing," replied the other airily. He shrugged his shoulders and went on more gently: "Memphis has greater need of you than of the patrician hussy." Then he shook himself as if he were cold, struck his breast and added: "All is turmoil here within; I can neither help nor advise ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ladies have ever seen. Every night, at the same hour, does Miss Twinkleton resume the topics of the previous night, comprehending the tenderer scandal of Cloisterham, of which she has no knowledge whatever by day, and references to a certain season at Tunbridge Wells (airily called by Miss Twinkleton in this state of her existence 'The Wells'), notably the season wherein a certain finished gentleman (compassionately called by Miss Twinkleton, in this stage of her existence, 'Foolish Mr. Porters') ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... neighborhood of the public square. Dick Cronk's hands were in his trouser pockets; his shoulders were thrown back, his chin elevated, his long legs stepping out freely, confidently. His stiff black hat was cocked airily over his right ear. He was rather flashily dressed, but he had the ease of manner that enabled him to carry his clothed with peculiar unobtrusiveness. They were threadbare and untidy, if you took the pains to look closely; ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... How deliciously do the crystal waters of the Wye and the Dove rush along such valleys, or dales, as they there are called. With what a wild variety do the gray rocks soar up amid their woods and copses. How airily stand in the clear heavens the lofty limestone precipices, and the gray edges of rock gleam cut from the bare green downs—there never called downs. What a genuine Saxon air is there cast over the population—what a Saxon bluntness salutes ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... darkies never tired of twisting pieces of bale-wire into an imitation of lorgnettes and airily strutting in her wake when she visited the garden—-being careful to keep their carousal well away from the danger zone. At the same time, all who had been allowed peeps into her gentler side were gripped with ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... DUCHESS walks over to the window and throws it wide open. Moonlight falls strongly in the garden just outside and water splashes noisily from the plump hands of a dancing Cupid, poised airily upon a minute Doric column. The DUCHESS turns, frowning impatiently as she watches the maid's motions about ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... experience," said Mr. Brunger airily. Addressing Mr. Marrapit, "We must put both methods to work," he continued. "I shall now go to town, look up the chief breeders and set members of my trained staff to track them. Also I must advertise this reward. With a cat of such value we cannot use half measures. ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... trifle!" replied Russ, airily. "Get together there, and I'll snap you," he invited. "If you think that's old we'll go to the Fountain of Youth a little ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... was called, he rose airily. He not only wished to hide his hand, but to get even with Danvers for many an upright act unconsciously done while they two were troopers together at ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... Lombard edifices, none is more beautiful than the Cathedral of Crema, with its delicately finished campanile, built of choicely tinted yellow bricks, and ending in a lantern of the gracefullest, most airily capricious fancy. This bell-tower does not display the gigantic force of Cremona's famous torrazzo, shooting 396 feet into blue ether from the city square; nor can it rival the octagon of S. Gottardo for warmth of hue. Yet it has a character of elegance, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... busy," replied Julia airily. Then, with a forced vivacity: "Though it's nothing to Auto Show Week last year. I remember that week I hooked up until my fingers were stiff. You know the way the dresses fastened last winter. Some of 'em ought to ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... I'll be there before you are," said the colonel airily, and stopped to replace the wild hyacinth in his coat by a prim little pink and white daisy. Then he lighted a fresh cigar and started on, but their voices were already growing faint in the distance. Observing this, he stopped and looked up and down the ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... right," Flaxberg retorted airily. "No one asks you you should pay for it. Come and have a decent ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... when they carry out the shields in the month of March, dressed in scarlet tunics, girt with brazen girdles, with brazen helmets on their heads and little daggers with which they strike the shields. The rest of their dance is done with their feet; they move gracefully, whirling round, swiftly and airily counter-changing their positions with light and vigorous motions according to rhythm and measure. The shields are called ancilia, because of their shape; for they are not round, nor with a perfect ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... Your Majesty," said Mr. Punch, as he stepped airily forward and selected the king's best driver from the heap of clubs carried by the chief caddie, "I think I know how this ought to be done," and without a moment's hesitation he delivered his stroke. The ball flew true and far until ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... we have the courage of our barbarism, and do without knives and forks as well?" Quita had suggested airily, at the outset; and a faint look of horror ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... lovely Lady Nicotine!" Airily Boreland waved a hand through the smoke. "I bid thee farewell without fear and without regret! . . . As a matter of fact, Bill, I've intended to quit right along, and this makes it easy. Filthy habit, anyway, and I don't want to set a ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... Egmont again is a romantic and historical drama, the style of which steers a middle course between his first manner in Gtz, and the form of Shakspeare. Erwin und Elmire and Claudine von Villabella, if I may say so, are ideal operettes, which breathe so lightly and airily that, with the accompaniments of music and acting, they would be in danger of becoming heavy and prosaic; in these pieces the noble and sustained style of the dialogue in Tasso is diversified with the most tender songs. Jery und Btely ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... the runners on the levee, and before the other two lads could collect their thoughts, the energetic Sandy had drawn them into the omnibus, and they were on their way to an uptown hotel. When the driver had asked where their baggage was, Sandy, who was ready to take command of things, had airily answered that they would have it sent up from the steamer. There were other passengers in the 'bus, and Charlie, anxious and distressed, had no chance to remonstrate; they were soon rattling and grinding over the pavements of St. Louis. The novelty ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... sensible one that exists, and the only one which can have a really sedative effect upon your excitement. Of course, if you have any especial object in believing in ghosts—if it affords you any great and lasting pleasure to associate, in imagination, with spectres, wraiths, and airily-malicious shadows, I will not cross your fancy. To a person of solid nerves a banshee may be an entertaining companion, and an apparition in a well-worn winding-sheet may be a pretty toy. For all I know, it may be a delight to you to find your hair standing on end at the unexpected appearance ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... half-waking, and not only of Olivia Chichele, naive and frank in divers rural circumstances, but rather of Olivia, Lady Drogheda, that perfect piece of artifice; of how exquisite she was! how swift and volatile in every movement! how airily indomitable, and how mendacious to the tips of her polished finger-nails! and how she always seemed to flit about this world as joyously, alertly, and as colorfully as some ornate and ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... Madame airily denied any knowledge of it. She had only arrived in Paris with her husband from Rome a few days before, she declared. And surely enough the visas upon their passports showed that was so, even though I had seen her ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... the walls Of the Titanic city: brazen gates, Towers, temples, palaces enormous piled; Imperial NINEVEH, the earthly queen! In all her golden pomp I see her now; Her swarming streets; her splendid festivals; Her sprightly damsels to the timbrel's sound Airily bounding, and their anklets' chime; Her lusty sons, like summer morning gay; Her warriors stern; her rich-robed rulers grave: I see her halls sunbright at midnight shine; I hear the music of her banquetings; I hear the laugh, the whisper, and the sigh. A sound ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... you mean," he exclaimed airily, correcting her. "Well, to me it matters not a single jot. The world is always ill-disposed and ill-natured. A woman can surely have a male friend without being subject ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... tormentor retorted airily. "You don't know. I don't know myself," he added, with a light laugh. "And, personally, I don't see how either of us can possibly ascertain. In the meanwhile, I must bid you au revoir, my dear M. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... took." After the artist had succeeded in getting his subject in as stiff and uncomfortable position as possible, after cautioning him not to move, he disappeared into his ill-smelling cabinet to prepare the plate. When this was ready he stepped airily out to the camera and bade his victim "look pleasant." Failing to get the impossible response the artist bade his sitter to smile. Then the old farmer with a wrathful and torture-riven contortion of his mouth ejaculated, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... in surging waves through the congregation, until a dozen men and women arose, staggering like drunkards blindly, or led or dragged forward by sobbing sympathizers towards the mourners' bench. And prominent among them, but stepping jauntily and airily forward, was the redoubtable ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... put it on a purely business footing," he returned airily. "Don't you worry yourself. He isn't the sort of chap to take it to heart. You know that as well as I do. Perhaps it might be as well to wait till the end of the week and make sure of things, though, before ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... with his back against one of the pillars, in such a position that he might, without turning his head, look through the open doorway into the room. where Miss Bartlett was busily but silently clearing away the tea things. The young man caught fleeting glimpses of her as she moved airily about her work. He drew a cigar from his case, cut off the end with his knife, and lit a match on the sole of his boot, doing this with an easy automatic familiarity that required no attention on his part; all of which ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... first hear what Sylvia has to say," he said; then he added airily, "I suppose you would make over the greater part of your estate to her, in case of your death? And there are life assurances, of course? One never knows what may happen, you know. Pardon me for speaking thus frankly. As a father, however, it is ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... without a "this remains between us two"—that he as yet lacks much to deserve the title of Kammer-Virtuos. Chopin thought more highly of Mdlle. de Belleville, who, he says, "plays the piano beautifully; very airily, very elegantly, and ten times better than Worlitzer." What, we may be sure, in no wise diminished his good opinion of the lady was that she had performed his Variations in Vienna, and could play one of them by heart. To picture the object of Chopin's ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... and face were smutted with the grime from the peak, but his air was debonair. He answered Captain Swope airily. "Why—I come just now from your forepeak—a most unpleasant, filthy hole, Angus! And less recently, I come from my grave, from that shameful grave of stripes and bars to which your lying words sent me, Angus! I've come to pay you a visit, to sail with you. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... old Hollander might have had at his fishing, with nets themselves woven of seaweed, waiting carefully for his drink on the heavy rains, and taking refuge, as the flood rose, on the sand-hills, in a little hut constructed but airily on tall stakes, conformable to the elevation of the highest tides, like a navigator, thought the learned writer, when the sea was risen, like a ship-wrecked mariner when it was retired. For the fancy of Sebastian he lived with great breadths of ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... attention her moods may estimate how truthful and how sober she really is. She is honest in all her purposes, and though changeful and gay in apparel never cheap nor meretricious. A slim-shafted palm shooting through the leafy mantle, and swaying airily a profuse mass of fiery red seeds, distinctive in shape, may be the prototype of a flirt, but the flirtation which arrests attention and bewitches the beholder is also innoxious. There is nothing of the artificial about the display. The colours flaunted are true, perfect and pure, however cunningly, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... uncompanioned, and stand at last on the breathless and awful peak, which lifts itself and you into a voiceless solitude remote from man and yet no nearer to God; but if you journey with guides and jolly fellowship to some Mountain House, never so airily perched, you would as well visit a panorama. To comprehend the ocean, you must meet it in its own inviolable domain, where it tosses heavenward its careless nakedness, and laughs with death; from ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... cavorting, away Roy tore in the lead, Robin Adair hot-foot upon him, Jean Paul striving manfully to keep his pitching seat, which he felt to out-pitch any deck ever designed by man. In about two minutes the pair were a hundred yards in the lead, Jean's cap had sailed airily from his head, and after flaunting into Silver Star's face, had roosted upon a near-by shrub. Jean himself promptly decided that reins were a delusion and a snare (Robin's mouth was hard) and ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Truesdale airily waved the remaining coin from the plate to the waiter's pocket and rose to go. He never omitted the giving of a pour-boire; "it helps so much to increase the illusion," he said. The waiters, accordingly, bestowed an exaggerated attention upon his hat and coat, and had developed an almost clinging ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... callous indifference with which illness, misfortune, and death are regarded by the dainty classes, I can scarcely wonder when irate philosophers denounce polite society as a pestilent and demoralizing nuisance. Among the people airily and impudently called "the lower orders" noble friendships are by no means uncommon. "I can't bear that look on your face, Bill. I'm coming to save you or go with you!" said a rough sailor as he sprang into a raging ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... morrice-dancers, green men and glee-maidens, bears and wolves and horned gentlemen! Come! a chorus now rich with the old mirth of Merry England and the wilder glee of this fresh forest, and then a dance, to show the youthful pair what life is made of and how airily they should go through it!—All ye that love the Maypole, lend your voices to the nuptial song of the Lord and Lady ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Bill, and he was replying to some argument of the Unionists opposite. Sir William Harcourt has an excellent method of dealing with futile and dishonest amendments. He declines to argue them in detail. With that rich humour of which the public know less than his friends and intimates, Sir William airily dismisses the whole business, and with a laugh brings down shivering to the ground a whole fabric of laboriously constructed nonsense. Well, Sir William was in the middle of a sentence in which he was speaking of the absurd suspicion of the Irish people ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... Davlin laughed, airily. "Even so. I hope the fact that this lady is my sister will explain some things to you more satisfactorily than they have hitherto been explained. And if so, we ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... message to you fellows, and I've delivered it," cut in Fred airily, as he started to skate away. "That's all I've got to do in the matter. I don't care to stand here all day. Somebody that knew me might come along and catch me talking ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... with a carnation in the lapel, the precise crease of his trousers, the spickness of his patent-leathers and his graceful confidence of manner, proclaimed his mind to be free from all but the pleasant things of life. He greeted Uncle Peter airily. ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... if I DID take all your notions seriously, it would be pretty discouraging. Imagine how a person would feel, after working hard for years and helping to build up a nice town, to have you airily flit in and simply say 'Rotten!' Think ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... while Mr. Meekin was digesting his lunch, and chatting airily with Sylvia, Rufus Dawes began to brood over a desperate scheme. The intelligence that the investigation he had hoped for was not to be granted to him had rendered doubly bitter those galling fetters of self restraint which he had laid upon himself. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... week for Paul and Bob, and the two chums had been working every one of the last three days helping John and Tom put the finishing touches on the big new airplane. And now this Friday morning it rested gracefully upon its own rubber-tired wheels, its great stretch of wings spread out as airily as those of a monster bird, its huge two-bladed propeller glistening like burnished silver, and its body running backward in a splendid symmetrical taper, to end at the well-proportioned tail. Sky-Bird II ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... thereabouts, that is to say he had seen him once or twice—in the distance. But it would never do to admit as much to her, who now looked up at him with eyes of witchery as she waited for him to speak. Therefore Barnabas shook his head, and answered airily enough: ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... right," said Professor Scotch, airily. "You have escaped the worst thumping you ever received in all your life, and you ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... you in," he apologized airily. "Not that it would do you any good to escape. We'd have you again inside of twenty-four hours. This bit of the hills takes a heap of knowing. But we don't want you running away. You're too tired. So I lock the door and lie down on the porch ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... was always an early riser, was up betimes in the morning; and on Colonel Glover representing to him his sorrow for the mean manner in which he had of necessity been lodged, answered airily that he was better off there than in the Oak, or in Holland, without a styver in his pocket; "Although, oddsfish!" quoth his Majesty, "this Castle of mine seems fitter to harbour wild-ducks than Christians." And then nothing would suit his Majesty but to be introduced to Mrs. Greenville, with whom ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... the boy assured him airily. "I wouldn't put it beyond the power of that length of Damascus steel to make wells bubble. Oil-wells bubbling," Val continued from the point where the lawyer had interrupted him, "Rupert turning out ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... them with the profound reflection that it was good for the vegetable creation. "Yes, sir," Johnson rejoined, "it is good for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those animals." Then there was that other occasion when the note-taker talked airily about his interview with Rousseau, and asked Johnson whether he thought him a bad man, only to be crushed with Johnson's, "Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... matter of plane," he said airily. "Viewed from my standpoint, they are sordid criminals—the sort of person that T. X. meets, I presume, in the course of his daily work. T. X.," he went on somewhat oracularly, "is a man for whom ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... the rocky mountain-sides. Before them, the path, stony, steep, and winding, was rising upward and still upward, and no shelter for the night appeared, except in a distant mountaintown, which, perched airily as an eagle's nest on its hazy height, reflected from the dome of its church and its half-ruined old feudal tower, the golden light of sunset. A drowsy-toned bell was ringing out the Ave Maria over the wide purple ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... another idea," continued Tutt airily, "and that is that crime is a good thing. Not because it means progress or any bunk like that, but because unless you had a certain amount of crime, and also criminal lawyers to attack the law, the state would never find out the weaknesses in its statutes. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... something else." He spoke airily, but the shadow which crossed his handsome face added plainly as words, "If I ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... physicians—the elm-trees in the hospital yard remind him of the woods at Delafield; and here comes Abel Newt, laughing, chatting, smoking, with an arm in the arms of two other young men, who are also smoking. As Gabriel passes Abel their eyes meet. Abel nods airily, and Gabriel quietly; the next moment they are back to back again—one is going ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... said Michael, airily. "It is a parable. It is a parable of you and all your rationalists. You begin by breaking up the Cross; but you end by breaking up the habitable world. We leave you saying that nobody ought to join the Church against his will. When we meet you again you are saying that no one has ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... rolled down the cheeks of the little children hanging around him. Car'line pretended to be engrossed with the rippling of the stream under the arches, but in reality she was listening, as he knew. Presently the aching of the heart seized her simultaneously with a wild desire to glide airily in the mazes of an infinite dance. To shake off the fascination she resolved to go on, although it would be necessary to pass him as he played. On stealthily glancing ahead at the performer, she found to her relief that his eyes ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... of this stick, and, in spite of his denial, I shall have little difficulty in proving to the satisfaction of the Court that the notches were placed there by his own hand, and that each notch represented was airily described as a broken heart. When I mention to your worship that the notches are fifty in number it will give some indication ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... me, you mean," he laughed, "It was 'bread on the waters' with a vengeance, Miss Lorne. I should have lost my life last night but for that boy."—And told her briefly and airily how the ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... had completed their third and final trip and returned from the kitchen, smacking their lips and wiping their mouths with the backs of their hands. I was gazing airily into the muddy sky, when a roar ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowed fruit, Guard it well, guard it warily, Singing airily, Standing about the charmed root. Round about all is mute, As the snowfield on the mountain-peaks, As the sandfield at the mountain-foot. Crocodiles in briny creeks Sleep and stir not: all is mute. If ye sing not, if ye make false measure, We shall lose eternal pleasure, ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Mason answered airily. "I'm going to like you; I knew I should somehow when I first heard your name. I believe in that sort of thing—I don't know if you do, but as soon as Lydia told me who it was that had taken this room I knew I should like ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres |
