"Flit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there was neither grass nor any green thing, save here and there a copse of sage-brush or scrub-oak, that served but to make its desolation still more desolate. It is said that the phantoms of the murdered emigrants still flit around the cairn that marks their grave, and nightly re-enact in ghastly pantomime the scene of this ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... me of the happy hours Enjoyed by thee in fair Italia's bowers, Where, lingering yet, the ghost of ancient wit Midst modern monks profanely dares to flit. And pagan spirits, by the Pope unlaid, Haunt every stream and sing through every shade. There still the bard who (if his numbers be His tongue's light echo) must have talked like thee,— The courtly bard, from whom thy mind has caught Those playful, sunshine holidays of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... would go into ecstasies over the splendid varieties that flutter and flit in the air, and the countless multitude of different insects would be well worth special study; amongst the latter are verified the most curious mimetic facts that ever the unprejudiced mind of a ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... our friends Unfamiliar traits she lends— Quaint, white witch, who looketh down With a glamour all her own. Hushed are laughter, jest, and speech, Mute and heedless each of each, In the glory wan we sit, Visions vague before us flit; Side by side, yet worlds apart, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... equivalent to complete annihilation, is yet identical with that of "an hidden untimely birth." Translated into the language of philosophy this somewhat vague notion might be expressed as follows: All things, past, present and to come, which flit as unreal shadows on the wall of time and space, are manifestations of the one sole force which is everlasting and omnipresent. They are not parts of a whole which is one and divisible: all that we see and know of ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... death, in the charnels of time, Where flit the dark spectres of passion and crime, There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, There are heroes yet silent ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... their own eternity. Our simple life wants little, and true taste Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste The scene it would adorn; and therefore still Nature with all her children haunts the hill. The ringdove in the embowering ivy yet Keeps up her love-lament; and the owls flit Round the evening tower; and the young stars glance Between the quick bats in their twilight dance; The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight Before our gate; and the slow silent night Is measured by the pants ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... of birds, the gulls and rooks and little brown wavering things which flit out and along the edge of the chalk-pits, is once more refreshment to me, utterly untempered. A merle is singing in a bramble thicket; the dew has not yet dried off the bramble leaves. A feather of a moon floats across the sky; the distance sends forth homely murmurs; the sun warms my cheeks. ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... he drank it. At the moment when he felt the moisture on his lips it seemed to him that his breast and stomach were aflame and that if he did not quench that flame he would drop dead. Before his eyes red spots began to flit, and in his jaws he felt a terrible pain, as if some one stuck a thousand pins in them. His hands shook so that he almost spilt these last drops. Nevertheless, he caught only two or three in his mouth with his tongue; the rest he saved ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the most tiresome things, they are so monotonous. Women crowd in the salons, shake hands, leave a pile of cards on the tray in the hall, and flit to ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... argument ready, and etiquette was waived. "Time!" she repeated, and then the two battering-rams, revolving their fists country-fashion, engaged. Half-forgotten Homeric phrases began to flit from a faraway schoolroom back into the little teacher's mind and she began to be consoled for the absence of gloves—those tough old ancients had used gauges of iron and steel. The two boys were evenly matched. ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... responsible, in part at least, for the existence of modern coyness. Other factors, however, aided its growth, among them man's fickleness. If a girl did not say nay (when she would rather say yes), and hold back, hesitate, and delay, the suitor would in many cases suck the honey from her lips and flit away to another flower. Cumulative experience of man's sensual selfishness has taught her to be slow in yielding to his advances. Experience has also taught women that men are apt to value favors in proportion to the difficulty of winning them, and the wisest of them ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... spoke he saw a strange expression flit across her face. The next instant she rose and going across to her husband's chair stood looking down upon him with unfathomable ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... well-known species, fleet and venturesome, to whom two miles and a half of "salt, estranging sea" cannot be any check, certainly do not use the island for nesting as birds of "innocent and quiet minds" might. Gauze-winged butterflies flit across the channel, occasionally in great numbers. What law restrains virile ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... wreaths uplifted until they reach the stage, where sit the guests of honor. There they bow low, then lay the garlands at their feet, and retire, forming ingeniously pretty groups and figures, while bees and butterflies flit in and out. See the bees pursuing the little pink rosebuds until at last they join hands and dance gaily away, only to ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... boyhood of all more thoughtful natures has passed in its bright yet murky storm of the cloud and the lightning-flash, though but few boys pause to record the crisis from which slowly emerges Man. And these first desultory grapplings with the fugitive airy images that flit through the dim chambers of the brain had become with each effort more sustained and vigorous, till the phantoms were spelled, the flying ones arrested, the Immaterial seized, and clothed with Form. Gazing on his last effort, Leonard felt that there at length ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill; Hangs within the gloom its weary head the shining daffodil. In the valley underneath us through the fragrance flit along Over fields and over hedgerows little quivering drops of song. All adown the pale blue mantle of the mountains far away Stream the tresses of the twilight flying in the wake of day. Night comes; ...
— By Still Waters - Lyrical Poems Old and New • George William Russell
... continued to flit in and out of the room, bringing the various articles of the service, until, on one of her temporary absences, Craven ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... few feet, then his mouth flew open, but no sound came out. Had he seen a white streak flit across the snow? He had. There was another ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... and the ice rings to half a mile away, with the flying steel. As night draws on, the single figures melt into the dusk, until only an obscure stir and coming and going of black clusters is visible upon the loch. A little longer, and the first torch is kindled and begins to flit rapidly across the ice in a ring of yellow reflection, and this is followed by another and another, until the whole field is full ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flower the wild bee roams, Then buried within the cowslip's cup, He murmurs his low and music tones, Till she folds the wanton intruder up; The spring bird, wakening, soars on high, Gushing aloft its melting lay; Whilst painted clouds flit o'er the sky, All ushering in the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... when one they love returns to them after an absence of some little time. Their eyes sparkle and grow bright, while very evident and easily recognized smiles flit ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... from a room at the end of the hall. The porter tried to explain everything; failed; broke off to question O'Reilly; O'Reilly answered; Beverley exclaimed; and among them, all was confusion. Clo, looking through half-shut eyes over her bearer's shoulder, saw a shadow flit between the portieres. Had some one come in? If so, who could it be? Or was it only the shadow of a blowing curtain she had seen? The question did not strike her as important just then, for if any one had passed it was doubtless a servant or, at worst, Sister ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... darling of the entire community. In the long summer afternoons when the nuns carried their sewing out to the orchard behind the house, or to the pine grove on the hill, where one could obtain such a lovely view of the river, Nita would flit about amongst them like a veritable woodland fairy. Her snatches of song and merry laughter made sylvan echoes ring and brought smiles to the faces of the simple women who watched her ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... the fire the lovers sit, On rosy wings the moments flit; One little word confirms their bliss, And seals ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... playhouse serves A giant Lyre, ornately gilded, On whose convenient coignes and curves The pert brown sparrows late have builded. They flit, and flirt, and prune their wings, Not awed at all by golden glitter, And make among the silent ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... hope you will be able to," replied Jacob Farnum, cordially. This builder, a young man in his thirties, allowed a shade of uneasiness to flit ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... Ruth—held Eva's hand as before. Those little clasped hands gave each other courage, for Ruth needed it as much as Eva, and her heartbeats could almost be heard in the silence. What a study her sweet little face was, as the emotions of love, pity, fear, and hope, crossed it, as shadowy clouds flit across the sky! ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... books. Now and then a dignitary in gaiters would pass him, "Portly capon," or a drift of white-robed choir boys cross a distant arcade and vanish in a doorway, or the pink and cream of some girlish dress flit like a butterfly across the cool still spaces of the place. Particularly he responded to the ruined arches of the Benedictine's Infirmary and the view of Bell Harry tower from the school buildings. He was stirred to read the Canterbury Tales, but he could not get on with Chaucer's old-fashioned ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... that have been lying for ten years on their shelves; the inns and restaurants keep open all night; the Military Commandant, his secretary, and the local garrison put on their best uniforms; the police flit to and fro like mad, while the effect on the ladies ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... that flit my memory o'er, Deck'd in the smiles which then ye wore, In the same gay and varied dress, I cannot but admire and bless! What though some anxious throbs would beat, Some fears within my breast retreat, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... style makes him the English compeer of Gabriele d'Annunzio. The warm lush fragrance of many European countrysides pervades these stories and a certain poignant sensual disillusionment is insistently stressed by the characters who flit through the shadowy foreground. It is the definitely realized and concrete sense of landscape that Mr. Lawrence has achieved which is his finest artistic attribute, and the sensitive response to light which is so characteristic an element in his vision bathes all the pictures he ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the camp the lights glimmer in the tents, and as I sit at my desk in the open doorway, there come mingled sounds of stir and glee. Boys laugh and shout,—a feeble flute stirs somewhere in some tent, not an officer's,—a drum throbs far away in another,—wild kildeer-plover flit and wail above us, like the haunting souls of dead slave-masters,—and from a neighboring cook-fire comes the monotonous sound of that strange festival, half pow-wow, half prayer-meeting, which they know only as a "shout." These fires are usually enclosed ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... exciting moment it carried me back to the old "Admiral Benbow" in a second, and I seemed to hear the voice of the captain piping in the chorus. But soon the anchor was short up; soon it was hanging dripping at the bows; soon the sails began to draw, and the land and shipping to flit by on either side, and before I could lie down to snatch an hour of slumber the Hispaniola had begun her voyage ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who—however honourably—do but cater for its practice. For the rest, I am sure that Mr. Brummell was no lackey, as they have suggested. He wished merely to be seen by those who were best qualified to appreciate the splendour of his achievements. Shall not the painter show his work in galleries, the poet flit down Paternoster Row? Of rank, for its own sake, Mr. Brummell had no love. He patronised all his patrons. Even to the Regent his attitude was always that of a master in an art to one who is sincerely willing and anxious to learn ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... be glad to help the cause, even so little as that," she answered. Pepperell thanked her for her words, and ignored the look of disappointment that he had seen flit across her ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... Italy only at this season of the year. Continuing our walk, we pass under the rose-crowned aqueduct, and strike into the green avenue that darkens beyond; listening to the distant water bubbling up from the deepest recesses, and to the fitful whistle of blackbird and thrush, as they flit athwart the moss-grown gravel, and perch momentarily on the heads of mutilated termini and statues; whilst the clipt trees vibrate under the wings of others extricating themselves on a piratical cruise against a whole flotilla of butterflies, which is rising and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... the sad and sodden street, To and fro, Flit the fever-stricken feet Of the freshers as they meet, Come and go, Ever buying, buying, buying Where the shopmen stand supplying, Vying, vying All they know, While the Autumn lies a-dying Sad and ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... them come and feed, And sing and flit about; Yet not where we have dropped the seed, To find and pick ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... concentrated attention that it seemed to me an extraordinary manifestation; up to this time none of the children had ever shown such fixity of interest in an object; and my belief in the characteristic instability of attention in young children, who flit incessantly from one thing to another, made me peculiarly ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... shadow in the street! Well I know it, as is meet! Did he not, before her face, Seek to brand me with disgrace? From the chiselled lips of wit Let the fire-flakes lightly flit, Scorching as the snow that fell On the damned in Dante's hell? With keen-worded opposition, playful, merciless precision, Mocking the romance of Youth, Standing on the sphere of Truth, He on worldly wisdom's plane Rolled it to and fro amain.— Doubtless ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... men, and with the thoughts of men, 60 I held but slight communion; but instead, My joy was in the wilderness,—to breathe The difficult air of the iced mountain's top,[131] Where the birds dare not build—nor insect's wing Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge Into the torrent, and to roll along On the swift whirl of the new-breaking wave Of river-stream, or Ocean, in their flow.[132] In these my early strength exulted; or To follow through the night the moving moon,[133] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... remain and dine off a leg of mutton. As the two visitors declined, Balzac said: "Ah! you think, perhaps, I am an ordinary host who invites his guests gratis. On the contrary, I intend to make you pay for your meal. Aha! You shall aid me afterwards to flit. To-morrow, the bailiffs are coming to seize my furniture; and I don't mean them to find anything to carry away. So, to-night, I am going to put everything in my gardener's cottage. The gardener will transport all ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... the numerous birds that flit through the trees as visitors, or else stay with us and nest in secluded places, how comparatively few do we really depend upon for the aerial colour and the song that opens a glimpse of Eden to our eager eyes and ears each year, ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... selfishness of human nature, you will recognize your own future habitation; perhaps your eye will mark the identical spot where the body you love must lie through all seasons and weathers, through the slow centuries that will flit so fast for you, till the crash of doom. It is good that you should think of that, although it makes you shudder. The English churchyard takes the place of the Egyptian mummy at the feast, or the slave in the Roman conqueror's car—it mocks your ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... beautiful!" cried Patty, jumping up and dancing about the room; "but I must flit, girls,—I have an engagement at five. Wait, what about motors? I'm sure we can ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... motionless the whole day through; Stars rise for them, and moons grow large And lessen in such tranquil wise As joys and sorrows do that rise Within their nature's sheltered marge; Their hours into each other flit, Like the leaf-shadows of the vine And fig-tree under which they sit; And their still lives to heaven incline With an unconscious habitude, Unhistoried as smokes that rise From happy hearths and sight elude In kindred blue ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Church parade. In the afternoon she will go to Tattersall's to inspect horses. Ascot could not continue without her, and Goodwood would crumble into ruins if she were absent. This at least is her opinion, and thus the months flit by and leave her just as wise as they found her. For she never reads a book, and illustrates by constant practice her belief that the fashionable intelligence of the Morning Post is a sufficient mental pabulum for a ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... flame, Gorgons and Harpies, and the body of the triform shade. Here Aeneas snatches at his sword in a sudden flutter of terror, and turns the naked edge on them as they come; and did not his wise fellow-passenger remind him that these lives flit thin and unessential in the hollow mask of body, he would rush on and vainly lash through phantoms with ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... coming! But some will see By the old fireside a vacant place; And a vision will flit through the festive glee Of an absent—a never-returning face; And a voice that was music itself last year Will be mournfully missed in the even-song; And children will speak, with a gathering tear, Of the virtues which now to ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... parquet reflected it; it struck rich gleams from the fragments of a mirror, ran up the walls, playing on the gilt of picture frames. She moved forward, trying to think they might be there, that someone might flit ghost-like toward her through that eerie barring of shadow and ruddy light. But the place was a dry, dead shell; no pulse of life seemed ever to have beaten within those ravaged walls. She summoned her energies to ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... the front of the cabinet. These lights will consist of small globules or balls of phosphorescent light that will dance about, like the familiar will-o'-the-wisp seen over swamps and in damp, woody places. These lights will flit here and there, will alternately appear and disappear. Sometimes they will appear as if a multitude of fire-flies were clustered in front of the curtain. When these fire balls appear the circle may know that it is well on the ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... the residence of Grant, Huddington, the house of Robert Winter, and Shrewsbury, to Holt, in Flintshire. In some uneasy nightmare during that pilgrimage, did a faint prescience of that which was to come ever flit before the eyes of Ambrose Rookwood, as to the circumstances wherein he should journey that road again? From Holt the ladies walked barefoot to the "holy well," which, according to tradition, had sprung up on ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... our days on earth shall be, Fast the moments flit; First-class robbers such as we Do not care ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... Is wand'ring up the path to where unseen I lie; She comes with some light spoil from off the shore beladen. And softly singing of the sea goes slowly by. And slowly rise great sun-tipped white cloud masses, Sublimely still their shadows flit and flee: How silently the work of nature passes— The roll of worlds, the growth of flower and tree! Angels of God in heaven! give him to ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... Ned," Jack declared. "Whatever would vessels of any kind want up in Hudson Bay, if not to fish, or hunt whales, or seals, or walrus? And why should they flit around like ghosts, as he said? Chances are the old chap was using up his surplus stock of strong drink, and saw things ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... trees, stretching itself over the grass in shapes that seemed to spell unearthly things. And there were mystical lights on the water down there, flitting about with the movement of the stream as ghosts might flit. Because it looked so other-world-like she wondered if it knew what it had just missed. She had never thought anything about water save as something to look beautiful and have a good time on. It seemed now that perhaps it knew a great deal ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... continuing dance is joined a strange companion,—the heroic melody in its earlier majestic pace. Is it the poet in serious meditation at the feast apart from the joyous abandon, or do we see him laurel-crowned, a centre of the festival, while the gay dancers flit about him in homage? ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... the initiative to make his way down the long aisle and find a table for himself, he might have stood there indefinitely, but for the restless activity of Adams, the head steward. It was Adams' mission in life to flit to and fro, hauling would-be lunchers to their destinations, as a St. Bernard dog hauls travelers out of Alpine snowdrifts. He sighted Lord Emsworth and secured him ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... of the Lord.' He knew what he was saying when he preferred his humble office to all honours among the godless. He was shut out by some unknown circumstances from external participation in the Temple rites, and longs to be even as one of the swallows or sparrows that twitter and flit round the sacred courts. No doubt to him faith was much more inseparably attached to form than it should be for us. No doubt place and ritual were more to him than they can permissibly be to those who have heard and understood the great charter of spiritual worship spoken first to an outcast ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... and was lighting it when he heard a swift, stealthy step close behind him. He dropped the match as he swung round, pushing back his canvas chair, and found his eyes dazzled by the sudden darkness. Still he thought he saw a shadow flit across the veranda and vanish into the mist. Next moment there were heavier footsteps, and a crash as a man fell over the projecting legs of the chair. The fellow rolled down the shallow stairs, dropping a pistol ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... arms about each other, and were so full of their own feelings that they never saw Uncle Fact's tall shadow flit across them, as he stole away over the soft sand. Poor old gentleman! he was in a sad state of mind, and didn't know what to do; for in all his long life he had never been ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... ornaments and lines of windows and balconies seemed lost; they stood out more clearly in the buildings that were wrapped in a light veil of unbroken shadow. The gondolas, with their little red lamps, seemed to flit past more noiselessly and swiftly than ever; their steel beaks flashed mysteriously, mysteriously their oars rose and fell over the ripples stirred by little silvery fish; here and there was heard ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... no signs of the enemy and the camp-fire of the Pony Rider Boys glowed dimly down below. Tad, peering off into the gloom, for the moon had not yet risen, thought he saw a figure flit by the fire. He could not be sure, however. He wished he might tell the guide of his fancied discovery; but, remembering the injunction for absolute ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... would go away. He never would stay and be a witness to such sacrilege. "That OLD man!" he raved. And when I said I was not a young girl myself he got all the madder. Well, I allowed him to think I was going to marry Dr. Denbigh (I wonder what the doctor would say), and as a consequence Harry will flit to-morrow, and he is with poor little Peggy out in the grape-arbor, and she is crying her eyes out. If he dares tell her what a fool he is I could kill him. I am horribly afraid that he will let it out, for I never saw such ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... said, 'What was it went flying just over my head? 'Twas caught in the sunbeam that pierces the yew; Its colours were crimson, black, orange and blue. It looked like a flag that the fairies might fly If leading an army from here to the sky. And out of the shadow it came from the lane To flit through the light into shadow again. O brother! dear brother! what could it have been? Such colours, such beauty, I seldom have seen. Look! there in the distance it flutters once more, Now right and now left by the summer-house ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... compared with the immediate presence of this object below him. Could it be one of the Apaches? Could it be the sentinel from the other side? Its stealthy movements and the noiseless way in which it seemed to flit from rock to rock gave color to his supposition, and yet it appeared unnatural to Pike that any one of the Indians should separate himself from his comrades and go on a still hunt in the dead of the night for traces ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... thy existence then too fanciful For our life's common light, who are so dull? Did thy bright gleam mysterious converse hold With our congenial souls? secrets too bold? Well, we are safe and strong, for now we sit Beside a hearth where no dim shadows flit, Where nothing cheers nor saddens, but a fire Warms feet and hands—nor does to more aspire; By whose compact utilitarian heap The present may sit down and go to sleep, Nor fear the ghosts who from the dim past walked, And with us by the ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... conscientious recognition of the duty of having ordered opinions, and of responsibility for these opinions being both as true and as consistent with one another as taking pains with his mind could make them, distinguished Mr. Mill from the men who flit aimlessly from doctrine to doctrine, as the flies of a summer day dart from point to point in the vacuous air. It distinguished him also from those sensitive spirits who fling themselves down from the heights of rationalism suddenly ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... made a gloomy, solitary progress through the prison for the last time. "How clean and beautiful it all is; it wasn't like that when I came to it, and it never will again." Some gleams of remorse began to flit about that thick skull and self-deceiving heart, for punishment suggests remorse to sordid natures. But his strong and abiding feeling was a sincere and profound sense of ill usage—long service—couldn't overlook a single error—ungrateful government, etc. "Prison go to the devil now—and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... shaded with high trees and lit softly with orange glowlights; while down the centre the tramway of the road will go, with sometimes a nocturnal tram-car gliding, lit and gay but almost noiselessly, past. Lantern-lit cyclists will flit along the track like fireflies, and ever and again some humming motor-car will hurry by, to or from the Rhoneland or the Rhineland or Switzerland or Italy. Away on either side the lights of the little country homes up ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... this fellow," said the youth. "He's just about ready to flit. He's bought lots of stuff to-day, ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... this unnatural sanity of intellect: it is like the calm in the whirlwind's centre, where the waves run higher though the air is deadly still, and the surly mariner wishes the mad wind back again.—To and fro you flit, goaded on and strengthened by untiring anguish. You are but the body of a man; your thought and emotion are abroad, haunting ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... all the lights are lit, And softly veiled in rose to please your eyes, Between the pillars flying foxes flit, Their wings ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... that the difference between clever and ordinary men is often mainly {58} a difference in the power of directing and controlling the mind through the attention. Some minds go wool gathering or day dreaming, and flit from one thing to another in a desultory manner. Others go straight toward the object ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... in that house of misery A lady with a lamp I see Pass through the glimmering gloom And flit from room to room. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... up in few short words, the place is only fit For those who were sent out here, for from this they cannot flit. But any other men who come a living here to try, Will vegetate a little while and then lie down ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... of barracks there is sudden and simultaneous "dousing of the glim" and a rush of the cadets to their narrow nests. There is a minute of banging doors and hurrying footsteps, and gruff queries of "All in?" as the cadet officers flit from room to room in each division to see that lights are out and every man in bed. Then forth they come from every hall-way; tripping lightly down the stone steps and converging on the guard-house, where stand at the door-way the dark forms of the officer in charge and the cadet officer of the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... especially on knowledge, and could convict him most triumphantly of a barbarian ignorance. Up and down they wandered, and she gave him eyes, whether for Artemis, or Aphrodite, or Apollo, or still more for the significant and troubling art of the Renaissance, French and Italian. She would flit before him, perching here and there like a bird, and quivering through and through with a ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... notable how commonly the poets, creating for themselves an ideal of motion, fasten upon the charm of a boat. They do not usually express any desire for wings, or, if they do, it is only in some vague and half-unintended phrase, such as "flit or soar," involving wingedness. Seriously, they are evidently content to let the wings belong to Horse, or Muse, or Angel, rather than to themselves; but they all, somehow or other, express an honest wish for a Spiritual Boat. I will not dwell ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... let you know now why I can't be known in this," Thomas Smith said smoothly, even if the same gray hue did flit like a shadow a second time across his countenance—a thing that did not escape the shrewd eye of ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... and said: "Nay, nay, let me grow a few days older yet. Nevertheless there is this new thing, that this morning I have brought thee a gift which I deem I may to flit to thee, and I shall give it to thee with a good will if thou wilt promise that thou wilt not part ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... outcome of his investigations of the moat-house murder, that the stages of his promotion through the grades of detective, sub-superintendent, and superintendent, flashed through his mind as rapidly as telegraph poles flit past a traveller in a railway carriage. The crime which had struck down one human being in the dawn of youth and beauty, turned another into a murderer, and plunged an old English family into horror and misery, afforded Detective Caldew's optimistic temperament such extreme gratification that he ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... of all its traits and habits. September—the morrow of August and eve of October, most affecting of months—is already sprinkling the fine days with subtle warnings. Already one knows the meaning of the dead leaves that flit about the flat stones like a ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... starvation, is full of strange phantasies. Visions of plenty, of comfort, of elegance, flit ever before the fast-dimming eyes. The final twilight of death is a brief semi-consciousness in which the dying one frequently repeats his weird dreams. Half rising from his snowy couch, pointing upward, ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... as birds, with pinions clipped, that in unfathomable and endless woods, but flit from twig to ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... of intense joy burst forth from his eyes. "I am free!" he exclaimed, loudly and in a tone of exultation. "Yes, I am free! My life and the world belong to me again. All women are mine again, Cupid and all the gods of love will boldly flit toward me, for they need not conceal themselves any longer from the face of a husband strolling on forbidden grounds, nor from the spying eyes of a jealous wife. Life is mine again, and I will enjoy it; yes I enjoy it. I will enjoy it like fragrant ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... was hiding in the cover, and then for one wolf to drive it, slowly or swiftly as the case might require, while the other hid beside the most likely path of escape. A family of grouse must be coaxed along and never see what is driving them, else they will flit into a tree and be lost; while a cat must be startled out of her wits by a swift rush, and sent flying away before she can make up her stupid mind what the row is all about. A fox, almost as cunning as Wayeeses himself, must be made to think that some dog enemy is slowly ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... steps away, with flowers blooming and rich mosses growing all around. They constantly longed to be free, if only for a few moments, to wander at will and make playhouses in the dusky shade, 20 to climb upon the great logs and watch the gay-winged birds flit about in the ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... bats but yet much is to be discovered concerning them. Very little is known of the habits of these small nocturnal animals, only a few of the most familiar large ones are such as one can discourse upon in a popular way; the lives and habits of the rest are a blank to us. We see them flit about rapidly in the dusky evening, and capture one here and there, but, after a bare description, in most cases very uninteresting to all save those who are "bat fanciers," what can be said about them? ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... sublimity around; a river runs through, and bright flowers grow to the waters' edge. There is a thick, warm mist that the sun seeks vainly to pierce; trees, lofty and beautiful, wave to the airy motion of the birds; but there, a group of Indians gather; they flit to and fro with something like sorrow upon their dark brow; and in their midst lies a manly form, but his cheek, how deathly; his eye wild with the fitful fire of fever. One friend stands beside him, nay, I should say kneels, for he is pillowing that ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... terror and confusion whispers the night, While blue and green flames flit over the deep; But calm reigns again with the morning's light, And soon the bold fisherman comes into sight, As his bark rushes on and the waves ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... end to the struggle. A sputter of rifles would break out now and then, followed perhaps by a spiritless hurrah. Occasionally a shell from a far-away battery would come pitching down somewhere near, with a whir crescendo, or flit above our heads with a whisper like that made by the wings of a night bird, to smother itself in the river. But there was no more fighting. The gunboats, however, blazed away at set intervals all ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... passing pleasantly away, when a letter was brought in for Lily. It was from her father, and the young lady retired to peruse it. The eye of Rowland followed her as she passed out of the room, and I observed a shadow flit across his brow. I afterwards learned that at the moment a thought was passing through his mind similar to that which had so terrified me an hour before. Our visiters remarked it, too, but little suspected its cause; and Mary's eye ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... poet at his will Lets the great world flit from him, seeing all, Higher thro' secret splendours mounting still, Self-poised, nor ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... him, but no Chippewa of pure blood and name looked habitually as he did into those whirlpools called the chutes, where the slip of a paddle meant death. Yet nobody feared the rapids. It was common for boys and girls to flit around near shore in birch canoes, balancing themselves and expertly ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... to ride through the air on broomsticks or other equally convenient vehicles; and if they do so, how can you get at them so effectually as by hurling lighted missiles, whether discs, torches, or besoms, after them as they flit past overhead in the gloom? The South Slavonian peasant believes that witches ride in the dark hail-clouds; so he shoots at the clouds to bring down the hags, while he curses them, saying, "Curse, curse Herodias, thy mother is a heathen, damned of God and fettered through the Redeemer's blood." ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... perspective of rare palaces where beings of a loftier nature glide. The incense of all prosperities sends up its smoke, the altar of all joy flames, the perfumed air circulates! Beings with divine smiles, robed in white tunics bordered with blue, flit lightly before the eyes and show us visions of supernatural beauty, shapes of an incomparable delicacy. The Loves hover in the air and waft the flames of their torches! We feel ourselves beloved; we are happy as we breathe a joy we understand ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... warm day in June. Out of the town the air is soft and pure. Bird and bee flit from tree to tree, from blue-bell to rose, till at sun-set they hie away to nest ...
— The First Little Pet Book with Ten Short Stories in Words of Three and Four Letters • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... disport with a light-bosomed song, And the joy-laden songsters flit over the lea— Yet the hours of the spring as they hurry along Bring nothing but sadness and ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... to gaze upon and to return to; one of those visages which, after having once beheld, haunt us at all hours and flit across our mind's eye unexpected and unbidden. So great was the effect that it produced upon the present visitors to the gallery, that they stood before it for some minutes in silence; the scrutinising glance of the gentleman was more than once diverted from the portrait to the countenance ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli |
