"Quaint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to be happy also, and if attention could make her so, she had it, for kind and courteous as Dr. Spencer was to all, she seemed to have a double charm for him. It was as if he found united in her the quaint brusquerie, that he had loved in her father, with somewhat of her mother; for though Ethel had less personal resemblance to Mrs. May than any other of the family, Dr. Spencer transferred to her much of ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... his ease, but he liked being among people, and he made the greater satisfaction overcome the lesser reluctance. He was particularly fond of cats, and I remember one evening, when I had been dining with him in London, the quaint, solemn, and perfectly natural way in which he took up the great black Persian, kissed it, and set it down carefully again on his way upstairs. Once at Oxford he told me that M. Bourget had sent him the first volume of his Essais de Psychologie Contemporaine, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... splendid affair. A whole back garden, had been transformed into a vast pavilion, containing an Armida's garden, whose masses of ferns and piles of gorgeous flowers made delightful nooks for strangers who left the glare of the dancing-room, and the quaint dresses harmonised with the magic of the gaslight and the strange ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but I thought I saw in her face that she understood my mysticism. We had been walking very slowly, had passed through the quaint lych-gate, and now the old woman had got the key in the lock of the door, whose archway was figured and fashioned as I have described above, with a dozen mouldings or more, most of them ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... you wicked bird!" said Winsome, when the master singer in speckled grey came to this part of his song. So saying, she threw, with such exact aim that it went in an entirely opposite direction, a quaint, pink seashell at the bird, a shell which had been given her by a lad who was going away again to sea three years ago. She was glad now, when she thought of it, that she had kissed him because he had no mother, for he ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... province that produced the first juvenile book. The second topic has to do with the literature thought suitable for children in those early Puritan days. These two subjects are closely related, the second being dependent upon the first. Both are necessary to the history of these quaint toy volumes, whose stories lack much meaning unless the conditions of life and ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... you had lain awake all night trying to say something that would particularly please me, you couldn't have done better. That was a quaint little phrase and a true little phrase, and I know a little spot that it will fit exactly. What am I doing today? Well, several things, Katy. First, anything you need about the house. Next, I am going to empty the billiard room and sell some of the excess furniture of the library, ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... they reached the castle. Lydia lingered for a moment on the terrace. The Gothic chimneys of the Warren Lodge stood up against the long, crimson cloud into which the sun was sinking. She smiled as if some quaint idea had occurred to her; raised her eyes for a moment to the black-marble Egyptian gazing with unwavering eyes into the sky; and followed ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... little too late; Madame grew unwontedly fatigued and sat down to rest on a stile before we had got half-way; and there she intoned, with a dismal nasal cadence, a quaint old Bretagne ballad, about a ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Systems. Discipline from the standpoint of Law without Love. Its Fruits. A Quaint Anecdote. The Europeans. The Arabs. Discipline from the standpoint of Love without Law. Examples. Eli. David. Its Fruits. True Christian Discipline. Chastisement. A Model System. Abraham. His Children. When Discipline should be Introduced. When it should be Administered. Importance of Parental ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... these quaint and serious musings when he came into a street of more mingled ingredients than was common in the quarter. Here, on the one hand, framed in walls and the green tops of trees, were several of those discreet, bijou residences on which propriety is apt to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Vin (short for Dolorez Vincez) appeared at the quaint square paned door. She was gowned in a very close fitting and striking black satin "clinger" gown. Her hair was done in the most modern of styles, like a window show for her hair dressing parlor, and her foreign face, with its natural olive tones, was very much fixed up with many touches of ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... and few tourists, and in such places the people still live much as they did a hundred years ago, even the men wearing clothes similar to those worn by their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and some of these are quaint ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... are quite sure you know what he is going to say, and yet he never says it, giving his remark a verbal twist which calls up some absurdly impossible picture, and evokes, not a laugh, but a deep, satisfying smile. There is something quaint and refreshing about such a mind as David's. It does not so much restore one's animal spirits, or one's good nature, as it rejuvenates the springs of fancy, brings back the whimsical imagination of childhood. David will people ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... be taken off and leave the old church, as it was meant to be, pretty and unique. When from the inside she saw the peculiar ceiling, she thought more than ever that it ought to be and could be done. While she was thus speculating, the boys were observing the quaint old brass chandelier, with its candles, a gift from England, also the pillars of the church, stained to imitate marble. Then they all examined the Decalogue over the altar, written in the ancient letters, and done in England in 1714. Mrs. Tracy wished that the old high pulpit and sounding-board ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... the kitling's eyne; Corrupted wood; serve here for shine. No glaring light of bold-fac'd day, Or other over-radiant ray, Ransacks this room; but what weak beams Can make reflected from these gems And multiply; such is the light, But ever doubtful day or night. By this quaint taper light he winds His errors up; and now he finds His moon-tann'd Mab, as somewhat sick, And (love knows) tender as a chick. Upon six plump dandillions, high- Rear'd, lies her elvish majesty: Whose woolly ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... of all this is, that except now and then by chance, the form of a complete leaf is never seen; but a marvellous and quaint confusion, very definite, indeed, in its evidence of direction of growth, and unity of action, but wholly indefinable and inextricable, part by part, by any amount of patience. You cannot possibly ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... hope had sustained her in those terrible hours, when the shrieks of the mangled and the cries of the dying had pierced her heart, and when torture and death stared her full in the face. Ethan, in his own quaint terms, had confessed that her prayers and her unwavering trust in God had awed him and solemnized his mind, thus raising him to a level with the momentous issues he was to meet. She felt that her prayers for herself and the brave prairie boy had been answered, not only in their effect ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... bright fountains of childish, quaint thoughts and speeches. I found a ready sale for this kind of humor, and was furnishing a regular department in a magazine with "Funny Fancies of Childhood." I began to stalk them as an Indian stalks the antelope. I would hide behind sofas and doors, or crawl on my hands and knees among ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... of Ceylon used to show themselves to their subjects at their ancient capital of Kandy. Smaller octagons rose from the four corners. The ornamentation was characteristically Cingalese. Broad friezes painted by native artists represented the various birth stories of the Buddha. The door panels and quaint capitals were such as may be seen at many a temple in Ceylon and formed an appropriate setting for the impassive images of the Buddha. The building was constructed by Messrs. Broderick & Wind, contractors of New York, ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... of their origin, games are especially fascinating. They take one back to the atmosphere that pervades romance: to quaint chronicles of kings and courtiers setting forth in brilliant train for some game that is the heritage of the child of to-day; to ladies-in-waiting on the Queen playing Babylon; to shepherds congregating on the moors, or early village communities dividing, over some forerunner ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... now—what a mingled weft Of good and ill! Were either less, Its fellow had colored the whole distinctly; But alas for the excellent earnestness, And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly, But as surely false, in their quaint presentment, However to pastor and flock's contentment! Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes, With his provings and parallels twisted and twined, Till how could you know them, grown double their size In the natural fog of the good man's mind, Like yonder ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... to see, however familiar to all of us such things may be—the pale, worn old woman, in her quaint, old-fashioned country dress, holding the little infant on her knees, looking at its open, unspeculative eyes, and talking the little language to it as though it could understand; the father on his knees, kept prisoner by a small, small finger curled round his strong and sinewy one, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that quaint, childish song of the people, that has a world of sweetness, and sad, vague yearning when sung over and over dreamily by a woman's voice as she sits alone at ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... out, in Pocket form, Prince Dorus, by CHARLES LAMB, with nine coloured illustrations, following the original Edition of 1811. The lines are not very Lamb-like, but the illustrations are very quaint, and the Pocket Volume ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... removed many features of our parish churches; the devastating plough has well-nigh levelled many an ancient barrow; railroads have changed the character of rustic life and killed many an old custom and rural festival. Old legends and quaint stories of the countryside have given place to talks about politics and newspaper gossip. But still much remains if we learn to examine things for ourselves, and endeavour to gather up the relics of the past and save them from ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... "'Nor quaint devices of the shawl, Far less the drooping lashes meek; The gracious figure, lithe and tall, The ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... in the blear eyes of the Spitalfields weaver, or the hungering faces of the group of labourers clustered from morning till night round the gates of the docks and watching for the wind that brings the ships up the river: poetry in its past, in strange old-fashioned squares, in quaint gabled houses, in grey village churches, that have been caught and overlapped and lost, as it were, in the great human advance that has carried London forward from Whitechapel, its limit in the age of the Georges, to Stratford, its bound in ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... whole Club was singing some quaint Revolutionary songs and winding up with "Yankee Doodle" that Dr. Watkins made his appeal ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... the breech-mechanism, and started off after the metal monster. He walked in the eight-foot track of one of its treads. As he went, he continued the cleaning of sand from the rifle in his hands. The rifle was useless against such a monster, of course, but it is quaint to reflect that in that automatic rifle, firing hexynitrate bullets, each equivalent to a six-pounder T.N.T. shell in destructiveness, Sergeant Walpole carried greater "fire-power" than Napoleon ever disposed ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster
... sight alone, smiled always, meeting him, and thought, "What an odd man he is!" Not that there was anything extremely or ridiculously obtrusive in Mr. Clark's peculiarities either of feature, dress, or deportment, by which a graded estimate of his really quaint character might aptly be given; but rather, perhaps, it was the curious combination of all these things that had gained for Mr. Clark the transient celebrity of being a ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... Captain Hagberd himself, if not forgotten, had come to be disregarded—the penalty of dailiness—as the sun itself is disregarded unless it makes its power felt heavily. Captain Hagberd's movements showed no infirmity: he walked stiffly in his suit of canvas, a quaint and remarkable figure; only his eyes wandered more furtively perhaps than of yore. His manner abroad had lost its excitable watchfulness; it had become puzzled and diffident, as though he had suspected that there was somewhere about him something slightly compromising, some embarrassing ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... servant Samuel: who after he had wheeled his mistress to church in her Bath-chair, carried the prayer-books up the aisle, and opened and shut the pew.' State and dignity still remained to the widow; and there, up in the organ loft, was the quaint group of choristers Hogarth had so admirably sketched, headed by the Sexton Mortefee, grimacing dreadfully as he leads on his terrible band to discord. A square, ugly church enough, with the great ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... little towns of Northern France is very difficult to imprison on paper. It is not exactly that they are old, although there is scarcely one which has not a church or a chateau or a quaint medieval street worth coming far to see; nor that they are particularly picturesque, for the ground is fairly flat, and they are all but always set among the fields, since it is by agriculture far more than by manufacture that they live. ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... eyes took in, not only Apsley, but his life and the true gulf that lay between them. As she saw it from there, she recognized it as a place which, passing, even in those better days when her father had lived in the quaint little rectory at Cailsham, she might have exclaimed—"Oh, what a lovely place that is! I wonder who lives there?" And it had belonged to him—this man who had taken her life out of its dreary groove and placed it in a pleasure-garden of plenty; but the ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... Christianity undoubtedly did great good. Its teachings, though applied by often fallible instruments and in blundering ways, yet never completely lost sight of their own higher meanings of mercy and peace. From the Abbey of Cluny originated that quaint mediaeval idea of the "truce of God," by which nobles were very widely persuaded to restrict their private wars to the middle of the week, and reserve at least Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as days of brotherly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... of laughter in her voice made him look up to her face. The rose deepened in her cheeks, and the laughter rippled out. 'You are quaint,' she said. 'I will forget—well—what you said, until you are ready. Till then it's to be just as it was before—only not less. You are not to stay away'; and without waiting for an answer she lifted the trap, gave the cabman his order, and drove off. Drake watched the hansom ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... lips began to curl upward at the corners in a quaint smile. Hardyman's last imbecile question had opened her eyes to the true state of the case. Still, Tommie's future was in this strange gentleman's hands; she felt bound to consider that. And, moreover, it was no everyday event, in ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... art. All artists carry them; and the poorer the artist the more attached is he to his cane. Canes are indispensable to the simple vanity of the Bohemian. One of the most memorable drawings of Steinlen depicts the quaint soul of a child of the Latin Quarter: an elderly Bohemian, very much frayed, advances wreathed in the sunshine of his boutonniere and cane. Canes are invariably an accompaniment of learning. Sylvester Bonnard would of course not be without his cane; nor would any other true book-worm, ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... heathen rites advanced chanting a sort of litany. Both litany and dance were gradually taken up by tens, by hundreds, and finally by all the thousands of the devotees, who addressed Drake with shouts of Hyoh! and invested him with a headdress of rare plumage and a necklace of quaint beads. It was, in fact, a native coronation without a soul to doubt the divine right of their new king. Drake's Protestant scruples were quieted by thinking 'to what good end God had brought this to pass, and what honour and profit it might bring to our country in time to come. So, in the name ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... and her lips were crimson, and her hair was loose and tumbled. She held a ball in her hands, and stood in the doorway, hesitating, like a child who does not know whether or not it will be welcomed, and yet would like to enter and find out what was going on. In her pose there was a quaint and tender dignity, in odd contrast with her rumpled hair and the childish plaything in her hands. Eudemius looked at her; and for a single instant the veil of prejudice was lifted from his eyes, and he saw that, in spite of all, this ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... was only the winter counterpart of the Midsummer bonfire, kindled within doors instead of in the open air on account of the cold and inclement weather of the season, was pointed out long ago by our English antiquary John Brand;[633] and the view is supported by the many quaint superstitions attaching to the Yule log, superstitions which have no apparent connexion with Christianity but carry their heathen origin plainly stamped upon them. But while the two solstitial celebrations ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... I spent on the outskirts of Monte Carlo, dropping into many a quaint little wine cellar. At dusk I entered the Salle des Estrangers of the Casino and settling myself comfortably in the appointed corner, awaited developments. It was a trying wait. I sat there from seven to ten-thirty, smoking incessantly. I was just finishing ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... chimneys with pent-house canopies of stone, where the cauldrons hung above logs of chestnut; rude low tables spread with coarse linen embroidered at the edges, and laden with plates of fishes, fruit, quaint glass, big-bellied jugs of earthenware, and flasks of yellow wine. The people of the place were lounging round in lazy attitudes. There were odd nooks and corners everywhere; unexpected staircases with windows slanting through the thickness of the town-wall; ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... calculated that the treasure was worth more than Bahama Bill had said. Roughly estimated it would foot up to over a hundred thousand dollars, and this figure did not take in some jewelry of quaint design with precious stones which were new ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... upon his bronzed brow, and his keen eye scanning the crowd as if he knew their every thought. His frock hung loosely, exposing his round throat, mossy chest, and short and nervous arm embossed with pugilistic bruises, and quaint with many a ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... and less addicted to garrulity than the French. They lead simple, laborious lives, digging away at their canals every morning, and filling them up every night, for reasons best known to themselves and certain professors at Harvard. I am attracted by their quaint appearance. Mr. H. G. Wells, for instance, has depicted them with cylindrical bodies of sheet iron, long legs like a tripod, heads like an enormous diver's helmet, and arms like the tentacles of an octopus—as odd a sight in their way as the latest woman's fashions from Paris. Others have ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... church-yard with its sighing trees, Where sometimes through the din a twilight breeze Makes one forget the busy streets of toil; But they have little thought of worldly spoil Or the great gain of mortal victories, Their hopes, their dreams, are cold and dead as these Quaint, time-worn gravestones crumbling on ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... massive stone edifice, built in an antique style, and black with age, with a broad esplanade between it and the river, on which, mixed with a few people from the fair, I observed moving about a great many individuals in quaint dresses of blue, with strange three-cornered hats on their heads; most of them were mutilated; this had a wooden leg—this wanted an arm; some had but one eye; and as I gazed upon the edifice, and the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... far, but I had been completely wrong in my idea of the distance from Doolana to the 'Park.' We now heard of three days' journey to Oomanoo, which was certainly some where in the very centre of the Veddah country; and our quaint little guide had never even heard of the Batticaloa road. There was no doubt, therefore, that it was a long way from Oomanoo, which village might be any distance from us, as a Veddah's description of a day's journey might vary from ten to ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... descriptions of Irish life and customs, as for similar descriptions of the ways of other strange peoples, there is always a market. Miss Clarence determined to exploit it. She planned to visit five or six of the larger islands off the Irish coast. There, if anywhere, quaint customs, picturesque superstitions and primitive ways of living ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... years ago, beganne to gather an head, as the first heere, about the southerne parts. And this as I am informed, and can gather, was their beginning: Certain Egyptians banished their country, (belike not for their good conditions,) arrived heere in England, who for quaint tricks and devices, not known heere, at that time, among us, were esteemed, and had in great admiration; insomuch, that many of our English Loyterers joined with them, and in time ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... is restful," Penelope said,—"your servants with their quaint dresses and slippered feet, your thick carpets, the smell of those strange burning leaves, and, forgive me if I say so, your closed windows. I suppose in time I should have a headache. For a little while ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of sight between wooded banks and under bridges where quaint villages of old romance piled their red and coloured pointed roofs beside the water, very still, remote, lost in the vagueness of the past. It could not be that they were real. Even when the boat put in to shore, and the customs officials came ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... executed by the little couple was very pretty, for the childish faces were so earnest, the costumes so gay, and the steps so peculiar, that they looked like the dainty quaint figures painted on a Watteau fan. The Princess's train was very much in her way, and the sword of Prince Rob nearly tripped him up several times. But they overcame these obstacles remarkably well, and finished the dance with much grace and spirit, considering ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... the stairs, radiant in a gown of fluffy yellow stuff, with girdle of old topaz and a fillet of the same in quaint dull settings. The storm had grown terrific—the heavy clouds trailing to the earth and the lightning flashes lit up dusky corners. Evilena had proposed darkening the windows entirely, lighting the lamps to dispel the gloom, and dressing in their ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... for a hundred years had been called "the new hall," was a seemly Georgian residence, warm in colour, with some quaint woodwork; and like most such buildings in Essex, it made a very happy marriage with the landscape. Its dormers and fine chimneys glowed amid the dark bare trees, and they alone would have captivated ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... the morning of her sailing came, so full of sadness for me. Why not confess, after nigh threescore years, that break of day found me pacing the deserted dock. At my back, across the open space, was the irregular line of quaint, top-heavy shops since passed away, their sightless windows barred by solid shutters of oak. The good ship Annapolis, which was to carry my playmate to broader scenes, lay among the shipping, in the gray roads just quickening with returning ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... time he has of it up there in the golden Italian air, in petrified act of blessing, while orange lichens and green mosses from year to year embroider quaint patterns on the seams of his sacerdotal vestments, and small tassels of grass volunteer to ornament the folds of his priestly drapery, and golden showers of blossoms from some more hardy plant fall from his ample sleeve-cuffs. Little birds perch and chitter and wipe their beaks ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... story of this love, of its beginning, its irregular course, its hopes and doubts, its exaltations and despairs, its sudden interruption and transformation by death, is the story which the "Vita Nuova" tells. The narrative is quaint, embroidered with conceits, deficient in artistic completeness, but it has the naivete and simplicity of youth, the charm of sincerity, the freedom of personal confidence; and so long as there are lovers in the world, so long as lovers are poets, so long will this first ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... nothing but some beautiful verses to his wife, dissuading her from accompanying him on his travels abroad, and some quaint riddles in verse, which ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... perfection of his work hinders the reader from perceiving at once how good of its kind it is. * * With the added charm of a most delicate humor—a real humor, mellow, tender, and informed by a singularly quaint and racy fancy—his stories become ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... vii., p. 571.).—Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, has other-some, some other, "a quaint but pretty phrase of frequent occurrence." He gives two instances of its use. He has also ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... magnificent in attire; and staring at him, the company did not observe the burden he brought in, and laid on the table. He retired immediately; then they looked, and saw a heap of books and MSS. in rolls left behind him—quaint, curious volumes, so to speak, yellow with age and exposure, and suggestive of strange countries, and a wisdom new, if not of more than golden worth. And they continued to gaze and wonder at them, giving warrant to the intelligent forethought of the Prince of India which sent Nilo ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... swelled the seaman's broad chest during that walk, and numerous, as well as wild and quaint, were the plans of escape which he conceived and ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... everything by turns, and nothing long. Now, a lean faced lad, "a mere anatomy, a mountebank, a thread bare juggler, a needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp looking wretch;" now acting the pert, bragging youth, telling quaint stories, and up to a thousand raw tricks; now tumbling and adventuring into manhood with yet the oil and fire and force of youth too strong for reason's sober guidance; and now—well and now—finding the checks of time have ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... was a tolerable actor in private theatricals, and was particularly successful in the part of Lothario. A handsome leg, to which both painters and satirists took care to give prominence, was among his chief qualifications for the stage. He devised quaint dresses for masquerades. He dabbled in geometry, mechanics, and botany. He paid some attention to antiquities and works of art, and was considered in his own circle as a judge of painting, architecture, and poetry. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Later still, in the Eocene days, though the plants of Greenland had grown slightly more temperate in type, we still find among the fossils, not only oaks, planes, vines, and walnuts, but also wellingtonias like the big trees of California, Spanish chestnuts, quaint southern salisburias, broad-leaved liquidambars, and American sassafras. Nay, even in glacier-clad Spitzbergen itself, where the character of the flora already begins to show signs of incipient chilling, we nevertheless see among the Eocene types such plants as the swamp-cyprus ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... alone looked sober. The quaint and honest fellow had taken a great liking to his guests, and looked forward to their speedy departure with ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... "Alice through the Looking-glass," which pleased him greatly; he was never tired of quoting from it and using some of Lewis Carroll's quaint words till it became one of ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... quaint corner of New England where bygone romance finds a modern parallel. The story centers round the coming of love to the young people on the staff of a newspaper—and it is one of the prettiest, sweetest and quaintest of old fashioned love stories, ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... villages surround Rangoon, where, half buried in the trees and creepers which envelop them, the quaint dwellings lie more or less secluded from the road. All are built of timber or bamboo, and have nothing in their design to make them noticeable. Among them, however, are occasional "kyoungs," or Buddhist monasteries, which are much more ornamental and striking. Like ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... 1st, if it is cold, that it is a "naughty date." If you are asked for a reason for this assertion, apologise and explain that you meant a "Connaughty date, for it is Prince ARTHUR's Birthday." The claims of loyalty should secure for this quaint conceit a right hearty welcome. In 1812, on the 22nd, GRISI the celebrated songstress was born. At a distance of four hundred miles from London, in extremely unsophisticated society, you may perhaps venture something about the notes ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... agreed the colonel, smiling. The boy sped away over the fields. The detective followed more slowly until he reached the collection of houses, and there he strolled along, inspecting the different dwellings as though attracted by the quaint old village street. ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... love. The lady of his mystic passion dies early. He dreams of her still, not as a wonder of earth, but as a saint in paradise, and relieves his heart in an autobiography, a strange and perplexing work of fiction—quaint and subtle enough for a metaphysical conceit; but, on the other hand, with far too much of genuine and deep feeling. It is a first essay; he closes it abruptly as if dissatisfied with his work, but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... from the first shock caused by the alarm; and when he was feeling himself the tall scout could nearly always think of something quaint to say. ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... the principal families. It was not published until 1845, but is well worthy of being preserved, not only for its antiquarian interest, as being the earliest account of Devonshire, its agriculture and its industries, but also for the pleasure of its quaint turns of phrase, the ponderous classic authorities which he marshals to support a simple fact—and there are indeed some strange wild-fowl among his authorities—and above all for a gentle and unobtrusive humour which seasons all the narrative. ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... rush away with outstretched necks, and wings at their widest, and a great uproar of gabble. Two school-girls—home for the nooning—are idling over a gateway, half swinging, half musing, gazing intently. There is a gambrel-roofed mansion, with a balustrade along its upper pitch, and quaint ogees of ancient joinery over the hall-door; and through the cleanly scrubbed parlor-windows is to be seen a prim dame, who turns one spectacled glance upon the passing coach, and then resumes her sewing. There are red houses, with their corners and barge-boards dressed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Mary was eight years old, a quaint visitor came to Stanford Rectory. This was a distant relative who had married a Frenchman and lived at Paris through the gay and wicked period which ushered in the French Revolution. Mary's description of this lady and her coming to the rectory is very amusing: "Never shall I forget the arrival ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... the Three Sealers in his sleep, and most of The Lady of the Lake. He used to lie and sing at the top of his voice, sometimes: The Chisholm Trail—unexpurgated—and Sam Bass and that doleful ditty about the Lone Prairie, and quaint old Scottish songs he had heard his mother sing, long and long ago. His leg would heal of itself if he let it alone long enough, he reminded himself often. His mind he must watch carefully, if he would keep it healthy. He knew that, and each day ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... great Spaniard and said no more, pocketing the spoons with no little exultation, because, having always been a lover of the quaint and beautiful, I was glad to possess such treasures, though I must confess to some misgivings as to the possibility of their being unreal. Shortly after this episode I looked at my watch and discovered that it was getting well on towards eleven o'clock, and I sought out ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... Walt's quaint speech elicits a general laugh, but suppressed. The scene is too solemn for an ebullition of boisterous ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... planted by the old Marquis, now looking with their smooth grey boles, and overhanging branches, like the cloisters of an abbey the vale of Esechasan, to which, on the evening before his execution, the Earl wrote such touching verses; the quaint old kitchen-garden; the ruins of the ancient Castle, where worthy Major Dalgetty is said to have passed such uncom- fortable moments;—the Celtic cross from lone Iona:—all and everything I showed off with as much pride and pleasure, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... boats swept up the great waterway, and the blaze of colour made the boy hold his breath in sheer delight. The painted galleys, the rowers in their quaint dresses-half one colour and half another—with jaunty feathered caps upon their floating curls, the nobles and rulers in their crimson robes, the silken curtains of every hue trailing their golden fringes in the cool green water, as the boats glided ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... took off his hat to her and bade her good-day; he remarked that he was going to row across the pond, and begged that she would do him the honor to accompany him. She looked at him a moment; then, without saying anything, she turned away. But she soon reappeared below in one of those quaint and charming Leghorn hats, tied with white satin bows, that were worn at that period; she also carried a green parasol. She went with him to the edge of the lake, where a couple of boats were always ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... propositions to urge, for they gained self-confidence from drill and guard-duty, and were growing impatient of inaction. "Ought to go to work, Sa,—don't believe in we lyin' in camp, eatin' up the perwisions." Such were the quaint complaints, which I heard with joy. Looking over my note-books of that period, I find them filled with topographical memoranda, jotted down by a nickering candle, from the evening talk of the men,—notes of vulnerable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... attracting and befooling a customer. So it has become a saying, if you look sceptical about what you are told, the "story-teller" will say, "Ask Amager mother!" which means, "Believe as much as you like." These women still wear their quaint costume: bulky petticoats, clean checked apron, shoulder-shawl, and poke-bonnets with white kerchief over them; and the merry twinkle of satisfaction in the old face when a good bargain has been completed against ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... evenings, lantern in hand, they sallied forth on their journey, and in this way a rich deposit of traditions and superstitions was struck and rescued from oblivion. Not a few of the clergy were themselves in full possession of all the quaint sayings and Folk-lore of their parishes, and they were not loath to transfer them to the writer's keeping. In the course of this work, the writer gives the names of the many aged friends who supplied ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... this—nervously anxious—that his wife forgot every thing in helping him to put a cheerful face on every thing. And when she watched him, finding a pleasant word for every one, and patient even with Miss Gascoigne, who today seemed in her sharpest mood, gray-haired, quaint, and bookish-looking as he was, it appeared to Christian that not a young man living could bear a moment's comparison with ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... plane. He speaks of "thoughts stitched to the starres," of "time that treadeth all things down but truth," of the "ivy which, though it climb up by the elme, can never get hold of the beames of the sunne," and the play is full of many other quaint poetical conceits. ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... becomes obsolete. Their versification, which, having received its laws only from the ear, abounds in irregularities, seems licentious and uncouth. Their simplicity appears beggarly when compared with the quaint forms and gaudy coloring of such artists as Cowley and Gongora. The ancient lays, unjustly despised by the learned and polite, linger for a time in the memory of the vulgar, and are at length too often irretrievably ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... curious contrast to the satin knee-breeches, silken hose, and diamond shoe-buckles he remembered in his vision; yet his manner of holding the 'cello, assumed without conscious thought, and the positions of his knees and feet, were so precisely those of that quaint old-time figure, that Ronnie never doubted that when he raised the bow and his fingers bit into the strings, the flood of ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... faithful servant to his master, was always longing to enjoy his free liberty, to wander uncontrolled in the air, like a wild bird, under green trees, among pleasant fruits and sweet-smelling flowers. "My quaint Ariel," said Prospero to the little sprite when he made him free, "I shall miss you; yet you shall have your freedom." "Thank you, my dear master," said Ariel; "but give me leave to attend your ship home with prosperous gales, before you bid farewell ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... designed to play a political part. He retained the favour of James by the king's hope of withdrawing the doctor from the opposition party, and commanded the favour of Buckingham by the fears of that minister; when, to employ the quaint style of Hacket, the duke foresaw that "he might come to be tried in the furnace of the next sessions of parliament, and he had need to make the refiners his friends:" most of these "refiners" were the puritanic or opposition party. Appointed one of the chaplains of Prince Charles, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... just gone five when Narkom walked into the little bar parlour and found him standing there, looking out on the quaint, old-fashioned bowling green that lay all steeped in sunshine and zoned with the froth of pear and apple blossoms thick piled above the time-stained ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... sturdy oak-trees by the road-side, a sound was in my ears as of a Siren's song; I was stunned, startled with it, as from deep sleep; but I had no notion then that I should ever be able to express my admiration to others in motley imagery or quaint allusion, till the light of his genius shone into my soul, like the sun's rays glittering in the puddles of the road. I was at that time dumb, inarticulate, helpless, like a worm by the way-side, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... his bow across his violin the company fell away from the centre of the room, leaving a clear space. Stepping forward he leaned over his beloved Amati and played the opening bars of Dr. Arne's famous ballad, with its liquid phrases and quaint intervals of melody. At the first notes of the air Calvert stood beside him and lifted up his fresh young voice of thrilling sweetness. It was one of those naturally beautiful voices, which at this time and for many years longer had a charm that ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... by their thriving and healthful looks, the care bestowed upon them. The main boasts of the garden were, on one side, a huge horse-chesnut tree—the largest in the village; and on the other, an arbour covered without with honeysuckles, and tapestried within by moss. The house, a grey and quaint building of the time of James I. with stone copings and gable roof, could scarcely in these days have been deemed a fitting residence for the lord of the manor. Nearly the whole of the centre was occupied by the hall, in which the meals ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Bruges, In the quaint old Flemish city, As the evening shades descended, Low and loud and sweetly blended, Low at times and loud at times, And changing like a poet's rhymes, Rang the beautiful wild chimes From the Belfry in the market Of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... thirty pages, and may be read whilst smoking a cigar. It is all quaint fun, whim, humour, and frolic, and one of those merry morsels which amuse us more than the whole leaven of utilitarianism; and if to laugh and learn be your maxim, why read the "Epping Hunt." After this, hold your sides, and look at the cuts, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... eminently that quality of literature which may be called recreation. It may be that he is not extraordinarily instructive, though there is a good deal of quaint and not despicable erudition wrapped up in his apparently careless pages. It may be that he does not prove much; that he has, in fact, very little concern to prove anything. But in one of the only two modes of refreshment and distraction possible in literature, he is a very great ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... preach. The crowd was great, and he had to stand, while for an hour and a half or so the great man poured out a learned disquisition against the Jews! Here too, about the same time, the youthful members of the University flocked to hear Burgon's evening sermons—quaint and original as the man himself—in one of which, after describing the episode of Balaam and the ass, he threw up his hands and cried, "To think that that type of brutality should speak with the voice of a ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... dusk came on and the firelight brightened in the gathering gloom, he would take up his guitar, and to the accompaniment of a few slight chords sing me a quaint old French chanson of the feudal times; or an Arab chant picked up in the tent or the Nile boat; or a Spanish ballad, half love-song, half litany, learned from the lips of a ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... the crochet capital of the period. The two or three arches of these vaults that were still in position were utilized by the adjoining farmer as shelter for his calves, the floor being spread with straw, amid which the young creatures rustled, cooling their thirsty tongues by licking the quaint Norman carving, which glistened with the moisture. It was a degradation of even such a rude form of art as this to be treatad so grossly, she thought, and for the first time the family of Fitzpiers assumed in her imagination the hues of ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... have selected one song, (p. 94), only one,—warm and tender and delicious. Some pleasant verses have been drawn from the rare song-books of William Corkine; and Thomas Vautor's "Songs of Divers Airs and Natures," 1619, have supplied some quaint snatches, notably the address to the owl, (p. 116) "Sweet Suffolk owl, so trimly dight." I have purposely refrained from giving many humorous ditties. Had I been otherwise minded there was plenty of material ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... crown, one of the three kings of Cologne, is supposed to represent Duke Philip himself. It is, impossible by any description to do justice to this wonderful picture, as remarkable for its elaborate workmanship, the mysticism of the conception, the quaint elegance of the details, and portrait-like reality of the faces, as that of Angelico for ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... mothers love, Listened to daily by angels above; The dear, quaint old song which will ever seem best To sing to our babies and ...
— Grandma's Memories • Mary D. Brine
... Swithin both hastened up to help the sufferer, who was a lovely little fellow with flaxen hair, which spread out in a frill of curls from beneath a quaint, close-fitting velvet cap that he wore. Swithin picked him up, while Mr. Torkingham wiped the sand from his lips and nose, and administered a few words of consolation, together with a few sweet-meats, which, somewhat to Swithin's surprise, ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... our boat to the crew, as they strained at the oars,—two pulling and an extra one facing them and pushing to try to keep pace with the other boats,—"A new moon! Turn your money over, boys! That is, if you have any!" We laughed at him for the quaint superstition at such a time, and it was good to laugh again, but he showed his disbelief in another superstition when he added, "Well, I shall never say again that 13 is an unlucky number. Boat 13 is the best ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... a burgess of the gardens (which have a vocabulary of their own), the faces of these quaint mothers are a clock to you, in which you may read the ages of their young. When he is three they are said to wear the knickerbocker face, and you may take it from me that Mary assumed that face with a sigh; fain would she have kept her boy a baby longer, but ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... rich coy mistress: the expressions were proper to the occasion, and in some degree characteristic. It passed with several, but an old lady who was a more discerning critic than the others remarked that it was "katta katta saja"—mere conversation; meaning that it was destitute of the quaint and figurative expressions which adorn their own poetry. Their language in common speaking is proverbial and sententious. If a young woman prove with child before marriage they observe it is daulu buah, kadian bunga—the fruit before the flower. Hearing of a person's death they say, nen ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... fresh and delightful addition to those quaint and laughable tales which have made the author of 'Uncle Remus' loved and fancied wherever the English tongue ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... place to walk about in. Birds singing all around, and rabbits darting about the tangled undergrowth. Long paths had been cut through the wood leading to the various parts of the trenches in front. A very quaint place, take it all in all, and one which has left a curious and not unpleasing impression ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... pictures on the walls here, for the universe seems unrolled at one's very feet. As I look out of my window the last thing before I go to sleep, I see the lights of Great Belvern, the dim shadows of the distant cathedral towers, the quaint priory seven centuries old, and just the outline of Holly Bush Hill, a sacred seat of magic science when the Druids investigated the secrets of the stars, and sought, by auspices and sacrifices, to forecast the future and to penetrate the designs ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... palaces adorned with a profusion of large waving banners and gay pennons. Every window was crowded with rank and beauty, witnessing the gambols of the merry children or the boisterous recreations of the populace. The streets themselves afforded a quaint and curious spectacle, for in promiscuous and gay confusion were seen the splendid apparel of the noble, and the modest garb of the peasant; the shining armour and waving plumes of the Christian warrior, and the gaudy fantastic habiliments of the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... my father was seated on the box and we ladies inside, receiving the good wishes of Klaus, of the landlord, the men and the maids, now all smiles and curtsies, and with the postilion blowing triumphantly his horn we dashed out of the quaint, dreamy little ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... HENRY)—Slovenly Peter. Original Edition. This celebrated work has amused children probably more than any other juvenile book. It contains the quaint hand colored pictures, and is printed on extra quality of paper and durably bound. ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... writer on English literature remarks: "In one sense, the reign of James is the most religious part of our history; for religion was then fashionable. The forms of state, the king's speeches, the debates in parliament and the current literature, were filled with quotations from Scripture and quaint allusions to sacred things." ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... makes a delightful springlike motif for decoration. For the breakfast have round tables or one long table with twig baskets of pussywillows tied with bows of soft grasses, raffia dyed a silvery grey. The table is set with the old-fashioned willow pattern china, quaint Sheffield silver and is unmarked by any of the small dishes of sweets that fill breakfast tables. The name cards are decorated with sprays of pussywillows in the upper left corner and miniatures of famous women writers ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... at daybreak, by discharges from an old-fashioned field piece which Bridoon (with the permission of his old commander) had mounted on a wooden carriage to commemorate his Peninsular victories, while the Bell Ringers rang out a merry peal from the belfry of the quaint old church in the little village hard by. Then came troops of merry, laughing children, singing and chanting old Christmas Carols, and were rewarded by the old housekeeper with a piping hot breakfast of mince pies, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... looking; well-favored, well-made, well-formed, well-proportioned; proper, shapely; symmetrical &c. (regular) 242; harmonious &c. (color) 428; sightly. fit to be seen, passable, not amiss. goodly, dapper, tight, jimp[obs3]; gimp; janty[obs3], jaunty; trig, natty, quaint, trim, tidy,neat, spruce, smart, tricksy[obs3]. bright, bright eyed; rosy cheeked, cherry cheeked; rosy, ruddy; blooming, in full bloom. brilliant, shining; beamy[obs3], beaming; sparkling, splendid, resplendent, dazzling, glowing; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... you look older than you are.... How funny! And why that old-fashioned dress?... That quaint way of doing your hair.... It's you ... and yet it's not you.... Who ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... is a quaint little beast to look at, but the finest animal living for his work, and very remarkable for his wonderful powers of endurance. The Cossack and his mount have been likened to a clever nurse and a spoilt child—each understands and loves the other, but neither is completely under control. ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... character. The next verse, "Lord, for Anguish hear us moaning," for quartet and chorus, is very effective and elaborate in its construction, particularly as compared with that immediately following ("With the Faithful deign to place us"), a tenor solo of a quaint and pastoral character. The next number for chorus ("While the wicked are confounded") affords still another striking contrast, being in the grandiose style and very dramatic, closing with phrases for the solo voices expressive of submission and contrition. Up to this point ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... on the intelligence surmises were short and quaint. "Quite so. But I am not here to sweep up De Wet's red-herrings. The old man will probably strike half-a-dozen of Brand's or Vermaas's men when he reaches Strydenburg, if my cyclists haven't turned ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... Guisarde countess, the tame and dainty phrase appropriate enough in that of an equerry, or lady of the bed-chamber at the court of the Citizen King. Eschewing conventionality, and following his own judgment, and the guidance of the old chroniclers, in whose quaint records he delights, he has written one of the best existing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various |
