"Faint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opening his mouth to say "More!" But he never said it. The big turnip struck him right on his fat stomach and knocked his breath out. He gave a faint groan and toppled over on the ground. And he was so fat that he ...
— The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit - Sleepy-TimeTales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... together forming irregular grayish plaques. A large percentage of the cases never go further than this because the proper care and attention is given them. It is possible, however, for any case to progress further and become ulcerative. This will be observed first as a faint yellow line at the margin of the teeth and gum. Ulceration never takes place unless the child has teeth. The quantity of saliva is very greatly increased, so much so that it flows out of the mouth soiling the clothes. The saliva is intensely ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... and looked down with a faint expression of interest in his otherwise empty eyes. ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... hard tasks, and dat gibs you 'nuff to eat, and time to rest and to sing and to play! A massa dat doan't keep no Yankee oberseer to foller you 'bout wid de big free-lashed whip; but dat leads you hisseff to de green pastures and de still waters; and w'en you'm a-faint and a-tired, and can't go no furder, dat takes you up in his arms, and carries you in his bosom! What pore darky am dar dat wudn't hab sich a massa? What one ob us, eben ef he had to work jess so hard as we works now, wudn't ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... he said in a faint voice to that ghost of himself standing opposite in the darkening shadows. "There's something as allus holds us-all from getting away. It began back there in grandfather's day—it's settled on us-all ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... echoed through the somber night, giving courage to the faint of heart and keeping the searching party's spirits up. Stealthily the charm boy crept around the edge of the clearing, examining every possible opening; cautiously he peered into nooks ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... longer the stupid dock-party platitude it had been. It was bidding "good-by" with faint hope of "au revoir." Ladies going abroad, even brides, thought little of their deck costumes so long as they ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... the distance there came a faint sound, the opening of a door; and a breath of night-air, pure and cold, blew in across the stillness. In a moment there followed a light, elastic step, and Piers came into view at the other end of the hall. He moved swiftly as though he trod air. His head was thrown ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... startled by our silence, and a faint flush ran up beneath the thin white hairs that fell upon his cheek. As I looked round, I was reminded of a show I once saw at the Museum,—the Sleeping Beauty, I think they called it. The old man's sudden breaking ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... a trained one—is likely to faint while posing, particularly if the room be close. Look out for this; watch your sitter, and see that she is not looking tired. The minute that you see the least sign of fatigue, if she shows pallor—rest. Do not get so absorbed in your canvas that you do not notice your model's ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... beneath the windows of dark-eyed senoritas; and had stood close enough to the wearers of embroidered and lace-bedecked small clothes, to count the scallops which closed the seams of their outer garments, and to hear the faint tinkle of the tiny silver bells which dangled from them. We had feasted our eyes on magnificently robed senoras and senoritas; caught the scent of the roses twined in their hair, and the flash of ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... that side of my box where the staples were fixed, and soon after I began to fancy that the box was pulled or towed along in the sea, for I now and then felt a sort of tugging which made the waves rise near the tops of my windows, leaving me almost in the dark. This gave me some faint hopes of relief, although I was not able to imagine how it could be brought about. I ventured to unscrew one of my chairs, which were always fastened to the floor, and having made a hard shift to screw it down again directly under the slipping board that I had ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... repute (Addison), that had Bunyan lived in the times of the Christian fathers, he would have been as great a father as the best of them. He stands unrivalled for most extraordinary mental powers for allegory and for spiritualizing, but to compare him with the best of the fathers is faint praise indeed. He was as much their superior, as the blaze of the noon-day sun excels the glimmer ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... I was lying in my own berth aboard the ship. I felt weak, faint, and dizzy, and strove in vain to collect my thoughts sufficiently to remember what had happened. My state-room door was open, and I perceived that the sun's rays were shining brightly through the sky-light upon the cabin-table, at which sat Capt. Hopkins, overhauling ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... silence, as it startles from its resting-place the slumbering owl—for who would dwell in abodes so marked for destruction? Stray there! think of the gentle contadina diffusing happiness around her! then think of her as she supports the youth she loves—as she clasps his faint form—and drinks in a poisonous contagion from his ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... time should elapse before I reapproached Mr. Moore. I therefore kept my word to him and satisfied my own curiosity by taking a fresh tour through the house. Naturally, in doing this, I visited the library. Here all was dark. The faint twilight still illuminating the streets failed to penetrate here. I was obliged to light ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... I'd die. I thought I'd scream. I thought I'd run. I thought I'd faint. But I didn't—for there, asleep on a rug that some one had forgotten to take in, was the house cat. I gave her a quick slap, and she flew out and across the ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... a sheet, and almost too faint to walk, went back to her chamber and returned, saying she could not find ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... "You must cap it—so!" A faint smile showed again on her lips as she dropped a metal covering over the shining sphere. They stood tense in the darkness; Dan sensed her nearness achingly, and then the light was on once more. She moved toward the door, and there ...
— Pygmalion's Spectacles • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... The last faint echoes rang along the plains, Died, and were gone. The genie spoke: "Thy song Serves well enough — but yet thy task remains; Many and rending pains Shall torture him who dares ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... Thomasson cried peremptorily, and waving his lanthorn again, startled the horses; which plunged away wildly, the man tugging vainly at the reins. The tutor fancied that, as it started, he caught a faint scream from the inside of the chaise, but he set it down to fright caused by the sudden jerk; and, after he had stood long enough to assure himself that the carriage was keeping the road, he turned to retrace his steps to ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... me go." Her petaled lips parted in a faint smile. "I escaped. Unani Assu tied me to a tree by the igarape. Because he doesn't ... hate me, he could not bear to tie me ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... linked and related, and the soul having heretofore known all, nothing hinders but that any man who has recalled to mind, or, according to the common phrase, has learned one thing only, should of himself recover all his ancient knowledge, and find out again all the rest, if he have but courage, and faint not in the midst of his researches. For inquiry and learning is reminiscence all." How much more, if he that inquires be a holy and godlike soul! For, by being assimilated to the original soul, by whom, and after whom, all things subsist, the soul ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... mustered sufficient strength to clutch the bottle, and even to crawl over to his friend's side. Hugh saw him coming and shut his teeth. Arthur was too feeble to prize them open with his hands, but he had no difficulty in knocking out a couple with the butt end of the bottle, and with a faint groan of triumph he succeeded in pouring the contents down the cavity just before ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... faint sound came from the room overhead. My father opened his eyes and listened. Father Dan held his breath. The sound was repeated, but louder, clearer, shriller than before. There could be no mistaking it now. It was Nature's ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... persons named were toasted, generally, with allusions and jokes about the fitness of the union. And, worst of all, there were 'Sentiments.' These were short epigrammatic sentences, expressive of moral feelings and virtues, and were thought refined and elegant productions. A faint conception of their nauseousness may be formed from the following examples, every one of which I have heard given a thousand times, and which indeed I only recollect from their being favourites. The glasses being filled, a person was asked for his or for her sentiment, when this, or something ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... furnish me with Sighs, and feigned Tears, That may express a Grief for this Discovery.— My Son, be like thy Mother, hot and bold; And like the noble Ravisher of Rome, Court her with Daggers, when thy Tongue grows faint, Till thou hast made a Conquest o'er her Virtue. Enter Alonzo, Elvira. —Oh, Alonzo, I have strange News to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... pushed in the door because he had a right to. He thirsted for approbation, for distinction, for notoriety. His sensitive soul hung upon newspaper clippings with feverish expectations; and about all the attention he received was in the line of being damned by faint praise, or smothered with silence. Patriotism, as far as England was concerned, was not a part of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... of a half-veiled paradise and a sweet breath from its flowers; I saw the hazy stretches of its landscapes, beautiful and gorgeous as Mahomet's vision of heaven; I heard the faint swells of its distant music and saw the flash of white wings that never weary, wafting to the bosom of God an infant spirit; a string snapped; the ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... buys in the market isn't clean;" Pao-y remarked smilingly. "Its colour is faint as well. But this is cosmetic of superior quality. The juice was squeezed out, strained clear, mixed with perfume of flowers and decocted. All you need do is to take some with that hair-pin and rub it on your lips, that will be enough; and if you ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... a sound in answer, and he tapped again and again more loudly. Then, with a rising sensation of anger that a man could sleep calmly in the midst of such peril, he was about to tap again when he was conscious of a faint sound within, and directly after a voice ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... two who had not reached sixty-five. These were the men who, when the armies of Prussia were beaten in the field, surrendered its fortresses with as little concern as if they had been receiving the French on a visit of ceremony. Their vanity was as lamentable as their faint-heartedness. "The army of his Majesty," said General Ruechel on parade, "possesses several generals equal to Bonaparte." Faults of another character belonged to the generation which had grown up since Frederick. The arrogance and licentiousness of the younger officers ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... the words, faint and far, as from a remote distance. Then what was the matter? Nothing remained but the other and empty car, which he could not see, but which he knew to be there, somewhere in that terrible gulf two hundred feet ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... prevail against the invaders, they made themselves invisible, and they have dwelt ever since in the Fairy Mounds and raths of Ireland, where their shining palaces are hidden from mortal eyes. They are now called the Shee, or Fairy Folk of Erinn, and the faint strains of unearthly music that may be heard at times by those who wander at night near to their haunts come from the harpers and pipers who play for the People of Dana at their revels ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... and if you think to rule here, I will take a course to see you forthcoming; {23} I will have here but one MISTRESS, and no MASTER; and look that no ill happen to him, lest it be severely required at your hands:" which so quailed my Lord of Leicester, that his faint humility was, long after, ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... Kaiser was the best dog that ever lived. When I looked out of the window, what with seeing the men and with the pain which shot through my leg from my ankle, I sank down on the floor in a kind of faint. How long I lay there I know not, but when I came to Kaiser was standing over me licking my face. When he saw me open my eyes and move he uttered a sort of a whine, half like a cry and half like a little laugh, and began wagging his tail. I put my arms around his neck and drew myself ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... away his life, which he pleased. When Herod heard this, he was some-what better, out of the pleasure he had from the contents of the letters, and was elevated at the death of Acme, and at the power that was given him over his son; but as his pains were become very great, he was now ready to faint for want of somewhat to eat; so he called for an apple and a knife; for it was his custom formerly to pare the apple himself, and soon afterwards to cut it, and eat it. When he had got the knife, he looked about, and had a mind to stab himself with it; and he had done it, had not his ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... faint echoes and queer hootings off in the distance. "We'll play it's Indians, and we're hiding from them," said Kitty, never dreaming that all the men in the neighborhood of her home were hunting and hallooing through the forest for two very lost children. Once, when the shouts ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... enlightened by a divine inspiration, instantly detected the fraud; and raising herself in her bed, with a voice, the strength of which astonished the bystanders, exclaimed, "Begone, thou servant of Satan, nor ever venture to enter these walls again!" Exhausted by the effort, she fell back faint and colourless; and for a moment they feared that her spirit had passed away. But that very day God was preparing a miracle in her behalf; and as she had refused to hold any communication with the Evil One, He was about to send His young servant a heavenly messenger, with health and healing on ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... that moment, I felt a faint jolt, and Mr. Lake said that we were on the bottom of ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... as my nose, and I felt sure that it was only done to prevent the Dutchmen on the boat seeing that I was bound and gagged; this time they pulled it right over my face. When they took it off again I could see it was nearly morning, for there was a faint light in the sky. They were moving about on the deck, and presently I saw one of the sailors get into the boat and pull it along, hand over hand, by the rail, until he was close to me. Then four Lascar sort of chaps—I could scarcely make out their features—lifted me and lowered me into ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... wild Florida forest, and all was still save for the hooting of a distant owl and the occasional plaintive call of a whip-poor-will. In a little clearing by the side of a faint bridle-path a huge fire of fat pine knots roared and crackled, lighting up the small cleared space and throwing its flickering rays in amongst ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... little public-house fires its gun, and hoists its flag; and the men who win the heat, come in, amidst a splashing and shouting, and banging and confusion, which no one can imagine who has not witnessed it, and of which any description would convey a very faint idea. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... sugar-loaf hills; and the mountain-sides across the gulf glowed with the richest purple. Then came gradual changes of colour, softer and deeper hues, till, at last, a steamy veil of mist from seaward stole over the gulf. A faint glimmer from the lighthouse at the entrance of the harbour was scarcely visible in the blaze left behind by ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... as did happen in there! Oh, poor me! I feel faint. Oh, for some water! I'm a wreck, I'm all done up. My head's splitting, and I can't hear or see right, either. There isn't a wretcheder woman on earth, or one that ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... bring out these very faint finger-prints on the bottles," remarked Craig, proceeding with his examination in the better light of our room. "Here is some powder known to chemists as 'grey powder'—mercury and chalk. I sprinkle it over the faint markings, ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... forward a short distance," said Gerrard, and they went out into the gloom, the tumult of the Habshiabadis' charge on the left growing faint in their ears. They could hear nothing of the advance Rukn-ud-din thought he had detected, and Gerrard, concluding that the man's ears had deceived him, was about to suggest returning to the camp, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... do you see the Marble Guest, or some invisible familiar, peeping over that fat gentleman's shoulder? What do you see? You look as though you were going to faint." ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... with a faint smile; "I can understand that the idea of my being your mother-in-law may seem strange to you; but in some years, even in a very few years' time, I shall be an old woman, and then it will ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... which pretends to be a translation from the Greek, Le Temple de Gnide (1725). Its feeling for antiquity is overlaid by the artificialities, long since faded, of his own day—"naught remains," writes M. Sorel, "but the faint and subtle perfume of a sachet long hidden in a rococo cabinet." Although his publications were anonymous, Montesquieu was elected a member of the Academy in 1728, and almost immediately after this he quitted France for a long course ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... soon after that, and she looked out again, just as the first drops of rain were falling; the thunder was rolling louder, bringing to Helen a faint echo of her morning music. She went in and sat down at the piano, her fingers roaming over the keys hesitatingly. "I wish I could get it again," she mused. "It seems like a dream when I think ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... studded with myriads of new stars, the noons whose heats or rains were all warm scents of flowers and fragrant mists, wrought themselves into a chain of earthly beauty. The hour in which the links must break and the chain end was always a faint spectre veiled by kindly mists which seemed to rise hour by hour to ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... certain mood and doubt that. Billy Louise began to wish she had not come. She began to feel quite certain that Ward would be surprised and disgusted when he found her there, and would look at her with that faint curl of the lip and that fainter lift of the nostril above it, which made her go hot all over with the scorn in them. She had seen him look that way once or twice, and in spite of herself she began to picture his face ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... perceptions, or under symbols borrowed from the material world. These transfers must be understood, these symbols explained, before the real meaning of a myth can be reached. He who fails to guess the riddle of the sphynx, need not hope to gain admittance to the shrine. With delicate ear the faint whispers of thought must be apprehended which prompt the intellect when it names the immaterial from the material; when it chooses from the infinity of visible forms those ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... out at no small rate. She wouldn't, she declared, allow any man to come into the cabin to hoist her up again. So indecent, so indelicate, so shocking,—she was ashamed of Sir Hercules,—to send for the men; if they didn't leave the cabin immediately, she'd scream and she'd faint—that she would—there was no saying what she wouldn't do! Well, there we waited just outside until at last Sir Hercules and my lady came to a parley. She was too sick to get out of bed, and he was not able to hoist her up without assistance; so being, as I suppose, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... presented herself before me, and said, Sir, I come to beg your majesty not to be surprised to see me in this condition; three afflicting pieces of news that I have just now received all at once are the cause of my heavy grief, of which the tokens you see are but very faint resemblances. Alas! what is that news, madam, said I? The death of the queen, my dear mother, said she; that of the king my father killed in battle; and that of one of my brothers, who is ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... was still dark and the wind, though terrifying, was intermittent in its attack. The timbers of the house creaked as the blast lay hard upon it, and now and again the faint fine crystals came sifting down upon my face,—driven beneath the shingles by the tempest. At last I lit my oil lamp and shivered in my robe till dawn. I felt none of the exultation of a "king in fairyland" nor that of a "lord of ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... out-tire and knock up every one else, as he went from work to work. He rose before dawn and often times did not break his fast till after midday. In hot summer weather, he would oblige his ministers (deacon, sub-deacon, acolytes, &c.) to take a little bread and wine lest they should faint at the solemn Mass. When they hesitated, he upbraided them with want of faith and of sense, because they could not obey orders or see the force of them. When he journeyed and crowds came to be confirmed themselves or to present their little ones, he would get off his horse at a suitable ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... of the fact that aerial craft cannot communicate over long distances. For instance, A sends his airmen aloft and conversation begins between the clouds and the ground. Presently the receivers of B begin to record faint signals. They fluctuate in intensity, but within a few seconds B gathers that an aeroplane is aloft and communicating with its base. By the aid of the field telephone B gets into touch with his whole string of wireless ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... have sworn we were dashing through, the water at the rate of twenty knots an hour. (Prue has a great, but a little ignorant, admiration of my technical knowledge of nautical affairs and phrases.) I looked aloft and saw the sails taut with a stiff breeze, and. I heard a faint whistling of the wind in the rigging, but very faint, and rather, it seemed to me, as if it came from the creak of cordage in the ships of Crusaders; or of quaint old craft upon the Spanish main, echoing through remote years—so ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... escaped to Breslan; the rest were killed or taken: but the loss of the victors is said to have exceeded that of the vanquished. In July, general Laudohn undertook the siege of Glatz, which was taken after a very faint resistance; for, on the very day the batteries were opened against the place, the garrison abandoned part of the fortifications, which the besiegers immediately occupied. The Prussians made repeated efforts to regain the ground ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... said than done, though! A quick throw across the end of the line, a wild scramble and jumble of arms, a faint "Down!" and, at the right end of the Brimfield line, a mound of bodies with the ball somewhere down beneath and to all appearances across the goal line! Anxious moments then! One by one the fallen warriors were pulled to ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... from the control of the blind forces of an inexorable environment, it is about to take its destiny into its own control and actually shape its future. From now on, evolution is to be a psychical rather than a physical process. The world is on the threshold of a new era. We see the first faint dawn of universal peace and of the brotherhood ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... I scrambled to my naked feet and went first to the taffrail, then along the port side of the deck forward, returning aft along the starboard side of the deck, listening intently, and I certainly fancied that once or twice I detected a faint sound like that of a paddle stroke, but I could not be certain; and as to seeing anything, that was utterly out of ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... faint-hearted doubtings tease him; Death comes, wi' fearless eye he sees him; Wi' bluidy han' a welcome gies him; An' when he fa's, His latest draught o' breathin' lea'es him ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... said Tom. And a faint, contemplative grin showed itself on his countenance. He was thinking, as he often did, of the afternoon when he returned from Blair's Hollow and opened the door of the room behind the store to find the wooden cradle stranded like a small ark in ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the village to post a very important letter—so important that her hand stayed hesitant over the slit in the box for a moment or two while she made up her mind all over again. Then, with a gasp, she pushed the letter through and heard it fall with a faint thud to the bottom of the box. The last chance was still not gone, for the friendly old postmaster would have given it back to her if she had asked for it, but the mere noise it made in falling—one of the most distinctive and irrevocable sounding in the world—caused her ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... and crossed toward the telephone. But scarcely had he taken three steps when he paused suddenly and stood rigid and motionless, his staring gaze fixed upon the nearest window; for from the shadowy world beyond came a sound, faint as yet and far away, but a sound there was no mistaking—the dismal tooting of an ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... upbraiding, no snubbing, no curtain lectures; all was affectionate, amiable mildness. At first, he became occasionally alarmed for his soul's salvation; then with the thought of having sinned away the day of grace, he plunged again into sin with greediness; anon a faint hope of mercy would fill him with fear and trembling. But this leads us to the wondrous ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and allowed him to gather her in his arms. Then for the first time she felt his strength as her body leaned to his. Slowly he picked his way ashore while she reclined in his embrace, her arms about his neck, her smooth cheek brushing his. A faint, intoxicating perfume she used affected him strangely, increasing the poignant sense of her nearness; a lock of her hair caressed him. When he deposited her gently upon her feet he saw her face had gone white and ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... occasion of his outcry, and why he shook in that manner? He answered, 'That he had seen a frightful apparition, such a one as painters use to draw for the picture of the devil.' As this servant was not thought either faint-hearted, or a liar, the Portuguese no longer doubted, what was the meaning of all that rattling and clutter, which they heard every night; to put an end to it, they set crosses in all the rooms, after which they heard ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... Miss Lind bowed. Marmaduke shook hands good-naturedly, and retired somewhat abashed, thrumming his banjo. Just then a faint sound of clapping was followed by the return of the quartet party, upon which Miss Lind rose and moved hesitatingly toward the platform. The tall man offered ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... local usurping oppressor, for independence. Fidelity to our principles and institutions demands that we PREVENT such interference by solemnly proclaiming that the laws of nations and humanity SHALL BE PRESERVED inviolate and sacred. In the performance of this duty the faint-hearted may falter; the domestic despot and cold diplomatist may linger behind; the man of world-extended and fearful traffic may hesitate; but the warm and great heart of the American masses will feel no moment of hesitation and doubt in defence of truth. The great Author of nations ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... fire under Nero in 64 A.D. removed nearly all traces of the regal and republican city. Many buildings erected in the imperial age have also disappeared, because in medieval and modern times the inhabitants of Rome used the ancient edifices as quarries. The existing monuments give only a faint idea of the former magnificence of ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... hours she awoke, it was night. A faint light trembled in one of the globes of the gas chandelier, and a blanket had been laid over her. Starting up she saw a figure sitting at the window, apparently watching what passed in the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... instruments without any earthly help. Indeed, Isaiah had already told his master, some days before the allied kings appeared, while the latter was busy superintending the works intended to supply Jerusalem with water, to "Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither let thy heart be faint, because of these two tails of smoking firebrands.... Because Syria hath counselled evil against thee, Ephraim also, and the son of Bemaliah, saying, Let us go up against Judah, hem it in, carry it by storm, and set up the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Marsden whom Romarin had come to meet—Marsden, of whom he had thought with such odd persistency lately. Marsden was the only man in the world between whom and himself lay as much as the shadow of an enmity; and even that faint shadow was now passing. One does not guard, for forty years, animosities that take their rise in quick outbreaks of the young blood; and, now that Romarin came to think of it, he hadn't really hated ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... reeled under the sudden pressure, but the heavy gyroscopic stabilizers caught it, held it, and the ship remained on an even keel. Then suddenly there came to the ears of the men a long drawn whine, faint—almost inaudible—and the ship began slowing down. The Solarite had entered the atmosphere of Venus—the first man-made machine to thus penetrate ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... were talking the last faint breeze had fallen swiftly, and, by the time it was definitely decided, the White Wings lay becalmed, rolling helplessly on the swells that came in from ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... there in the moonlight, his arms around me, my hand clasped in his. Poor hand! even by that faint radiance how dark and thin it looked beside his, so white and rounded! How gloriously beautiful was he! what a poor, pale shadow I! And yet he loved me! He did not talk much of it; he spoke more of the future,—our future. It all lay before him, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... A man must needs take little fruit of scripture, if he either believe not that it be the word of God, or else think that, though it were, it might yet for all that be untrue! As this faith is more strong or more faint, so shall the comforting words of holy scripture stand the man in more ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... individual, the presumption in every Englishman's mind is that the government is in the wrong. And when the resident English bring the batteries of English political action to bear upon any of the bulwarks erected to protect the natives against their encroachments, the executive, with their real but faint velleities of something better, generally find it safer to their Parliamentary interest, and, at any rate, less troublesome, to give up the disputed ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... after the first greetings of good company, "a knight adventuring in this forest cannot see very far before his face, and may make error worse by what he does to solve error. If by mischance such a thing should befall him, he must not faint, but persist until he has loosed not only the knot he has tied himself, but that as well which he ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... several adults to-day,' he assured her with a faint flush; but when she tossed her head he had not a word of reproof for her. Social success had not spoilt him; it had made him sweeter. For some time he sat half out of the kennel, talking with Mrs. Darling of this success, and pressing ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... from my fertile bounds. Winter, imprison him in thy dark cell, Or with the winds in bellowing caves of brass Let stern Hippotades[137] lock him up safe, Ne'er to peep forth, but when thou, faint and weak, Want'st him to aid thee ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... unintentionally forgetting, in his boorish incivility, to unlock the cell door, so that he had to open it in Aileen's presence. The long corridor, with its thick doors, mathematically spaced gratings and gray-stone pavement, caused Aileen to feel faint at heart. A prison, iron cells! And he was in one of them. It chilled her usually courageous spirit. What a terrible place for her Frank to be! What a horrible thing to have put him here! Judges, juries, courts, laws, jails seemed like so many foaming ogres ranged about the world, glaring down ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... in the year one thousand and sixty- six, the Normans and the English came front to front. All night the armies lay encamped before each other, in a part of the country then called Senlac, now called (in remembrance of them) Battle. With the first dawn of day, they arose. There, in the faint light, were the English on a hill; a wood behind them; in their midst, the Royal banner, representing a fighting warrior, woven in gold thread, adorned with precious stones; beneath the banner, as it rustled in the wind, stood King Harold on ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... as the assailants had been slain, the ax came back into Ranier's hand, and Ranier went to the knight, who was faint with his wounds, and offered to lead him to his house. And when he examined him fully, he bent on his knee, for he discovered that it was the king, Dagobert, whom he had seen once before when the latter was hunting ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... and incapable of being struck with any weapon in battle, endued with great strength, neighing cheerfully, well-trained and of the Sindhu breed, yoked unto his car and drawing the vehicle excellently, always preserving in the midst of battle, did they become weak and faint? Coolly bearing in battle the roar of elephants, while those huge creatures trumpeted at the blare of conchs and the beat of drums, unmoved by the twang of bows and showers of arrows and other weapons, foreboding the defeat of foes ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... contact, at least avoid wounding these by dwelling upon their infirmities. Even should you see your friends in the last stages of a long illness; though their cheeks are terrifying in their hollowness, and their eyes resemble dark caverns with faint lights at the far ends, and all their other features prove them soon to be embraced by the king of terrors, not only in sweet mercy's name do not speak of it, but, unless compelled to do so, except by your softened tones, make no sign that you notice ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... had the same white faces with heavy blue jaws and eyebrows that met above the nose. They were reading things out of papers aloud, but, although he strained his ears, he couldn't make out what they were saying. All he could hear was a faint moaning. Something had a curious un- familiar smell that troubled him. He could not stand still at attention, although the angry eyes of officers stared at him from all round. "Anderson, Sergeant Anderson, what's that smell?" he kept asking in a small whining voice. "Please tell ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... and had for my sister-in-law a genuine compassion, as well as an early regard; and yet I had no love to give her; and, in reply to Hal's passionate outbreaks in praise of her beauty and worth, and eager queries to me whether I did not think her a perfect paragon? I could only answer with faint compliments or vague approval, feeling all the while that I was disappointing my poor ardent fellow, and cursing inwardly that revolt against flattery and falsehood into which I sometimes frantically rush. Why should I not say, "Yes dear Hal, thy ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at once the faint hope which Mrs. Kennedy had secretly entertained, of eventually having Janet to supply the place of Hannah, who was notoriously lazy, and never under any circumstances did anything she possibly could avoid. Dr. Kennedy did not tell his wife that he expected her to ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... of the harbour, windows blazed as if cottage after cottage held the core of a furnace intense and steady. The green hillside above them lay bathed in this aureate flush, which permeated too the whole of the southern sky, up to its faint blue zenith. ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... to being made out a Christian against his will. He defended himself ardently and simply, as though it mattered in the least whether one label more than another was plastered on to his ideas. The Abbe Corneille would listen with a faint ecclesiastical irony, that was hardly perceptible, while it was altogether kindly. He had an inexhaustible fund of patience, based on his habit of faith. It had been tempered by the trials to which the existing Church had exposed him: while it had made him profoundly melancholy, and had even dragged ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... religious revolution had been effected. The Mass, Transubstantiation, the Real Presence and Roman supremacy, all of which had been accepted without contradiction from the days of St. Augustine till the reign of Henry VIII., were abolished and a new church established that bore but a faint resemblance to the old. And what was more extraordinary still, all this was done solely by an assembly of laymen, against the wishes and appeals of the united episcopate and against the practically unanimous judgment of Convocation. ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... pictures, with gigantic rays of silver and a huge heart of gold. Toward the middle of this prairie stood up a mountain of such romantic and impossible shape, yet of such stony height and dominance, that it looked like some incident of the end of the world. And far away on the faint horizon he could see the line of another forest, taller and yet more mystical, of a terrible crimson colour, like a forest on fire for ever. He set out on his adventures across that coloured plain; and he has not come to the ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... books makes but a faint impression upon the mind, in comparison with that which we are taught by our own experience; and we sometimes feel surprised to find that what we have been taught as maxims of morality prove true in real life. After having had, for many years, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... across the slanting shaft, And, kitchenward, the rattling bucket plumps Souse down the well, where quivering ducks quack loud, And Susan Cook is singing. Up the sky The hesitating moon slow trembles on, Faint as a new-washed soul but lately up From out a buried body. Far about, A hundred slopes in hundred fantasies Most ravishingly run, so smooth of curve That I but seem to see the fluent plain Rise toward a rain of ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... comes a new chorusing paean on the theme of Allegretto, led by stentorian basses, together with an enchanting after-strain, which we might have remarked before. And still another quarter, long hushed, is heard anew, as a voice sounds a faint reminder of the hymn of the first Allegro. Indeed, the combining strains before the close seem sprung all of one parental idea. The motto of the beginning sings in fittest answer to the latest phrases. ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... eating the flesh of hares, because they think it would make them faint-hearted as a hare. But they eat the flesh of the lion, or drink the blood of the leopard or lion, to get the courage and strength of these beasts. The Bushmen will not give their children a jackal's heart to eat, lest it should make them timid like the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... that part of India disappears,—and the rest of the journey is performed through a country perfectly flat, and apparently barren; for notwithstanding occasional groups of trees, and good crops here and there, the wide-spreading dusty plains give but faint indications of the fertility which cultivation and irrigation can no doubt evolve from them. Even when the mountains are approached, and the ascent commences, the same character of barrenness attaches to the scene, for their sides are almost bare ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... protection, and with all her high spirit, she was terrified lest insult or remark should be occasioned. Her signs of remonstrance were only received with a derisive outburst, as Rashe climbed down into the midst of the bed of the stream. 'Come, Cilla, or I shall indite a page in the diary, headed Faint heart—Ah!' as her foot slipped on the stones, and she fell backwards, but with instant efforts at rising, such as assured her cousin that no harm was done, 'Nay, Nonsensical clambering will be the word,' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... into the playground, wondering, wretched, and yet smitten through with faint delicious thrillings of a new-found happiness such as I had often dreamed of, but had scarcely dared hope ever to realise. I, Janet Hope, going home! It was almost too incredible for belief. I wandered about like one mazed—like one who, stepping suddenly ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... fire; then you take possession; then the trees and rocks seem to look upon you more kindly, and you look more kindly upon them. As one opens his budget, so he opens his heart by a fire. Already something has gone out from you, and comes back as a faint reminiscence and home feeling in the air and place. One looks out upon the crow or the buzzard that sails by as from his own fireside. It is not I that am a wanderer and a stranger now; it is the crow and ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... a sunrise had been dawning on Anne's face. First the look of despair faded out; then came a faint flush of hope; here eyes grew deep and bright as morning stars. The child was quite transfigured; and, a moment later, when Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Blewett went out in quest of a recipe the latter had come to borrow she sprang up and flew across ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... peaked roofs of which were covered with red earthen tiles. It led us to a Roman arch, which was once the gateway of a fortification, and has been striding across the English street ever since the latter was a faint village-path, and for centuries before. The arch is about four hundred yards from the Cathedral; and it is to be noticed that there are Roman remains in all this neighborhood, some above ground, and doubtless innumerable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... The faint crackle of the radio grew more distant. He slumped forward in the bucket seat, his head striking the controls in front of him—and, for him, the sounds of the muted radio ...
— Rescue Squad • Thomas J. O'Hara
... her hand to pat into place an escaping tendril of hair. The hand remained lifted. The dark eyes froze with horror. They stared at him, as though held by some dreadful fascination. From her cheeks the color ebbed. Kirby thought she was going to faint. ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... Marya Dmitrievna with a faint smile held out her plump hand to him with the little finger held apart from the rest. He pressed his lips to it, and she drew her chair nearer to him, and bending a little towards ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... a sound of footsteps, measured, heavy, and numerous, became distinctly audible in the direction of Saint-Leu. This sound, faint at first, then precise, then heavy and sonorous, approached slowly, without halt, without intermission, with a tranquil and terrible continuity. Nothing was to be heard but this. It was that combined silence and sound, of the statue of the commander, but this stony step had something ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... water. The native inhabiting a scrubby and an arid district has, from his knowledge of the country and from a long residence and practical experience in the desert, many resources at command to supply his wants, where the white man would faint ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... hero's spirits, the conductor made an excuse for dropping behind, while our traveller jogged on in expectation of being joined again by him in a few minutes. He was, however, disappointed in that hope; the sound of the other horse's feet by degrees grew more and more faint, and at last altogether died away. Alarmed at this circumstance, Fathom halted in the middle of the road, and listened with the most fearful attention; but his sense of hearing was saluted with nought but the dismal sighings of the trees, that ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... with its dark olive skin and just a faint trace of colour on either cheek, her snappy hazel eyes whose fire was heightened by the penciling of the eyebrows, all were a marvel of the dexterity of her artificial beautifier. And yet in spite of all there was an air of unextinguishable ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... forest far one hears A passing sound of distant bells; Nor legends old, nor human wit, Can tell us whence the music swells. From the Lost Church 'tis thought that soft Faint ringing cometh on the wind: Once many pilgrims trod the path, But no one now the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... showed herself the step-mother, not the natural parent of her people, and would seem desirous that England should no longer subsist than she should enjoy the glory and satisfaction of governing it; that none but timorous princes, or tyrants, or faint-hearted women, ever stood in fear of their successors; and that the affections of the people were a firm and impregnable rampart to every sovereign, who, laying aside all artifice or by-ends, had courage and magnanimity to put his sole trust in that honorable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... by tradition and published records, that from the earliest times the faint grey and light spots which diversify the face of our satellite excited the wonder and stimulated the curiosity of mankind, giving rise to suppositions more or less crude and erroneous as to their actual nature and significance. ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... deal, he went on bravely until he came to the place where the stairs took a sudden sharp turn; but here he saw something which brought him to a standstill again, for underneath the garret door at the top there was a faint gleam of light. "That's the glowworms," thought Ambrose, "and she's ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... Such mischance might well quicken one's curiosity to know what Oversight there is of us, and I greet you well upon your faith and the resolution issuing out of it. You have certainly found a right manly consolation, and can afford to faint and rest a month or two on the laurels of such endeavor. I trust ere this you have re-collected the entire creation out of the secret cells where, under the smiles of every Muse, it first took life. Believe, when ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... tell him a secret or two—one of the secrets of form, one of the sacrificial mysteries—though no doubt its career had been literary only in the sense of its helping some old lady to write invitations to dull dinners. There was a strange, faint odour in the receptacle, as if fragrant, hallowed things had once been put away there. When he took his head out of it he said to the shopman: "I don't mind meeting you halfway." He had been told by knowing people that that was the right thing. He felt rather vulgar, but the davenport arrived ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... instructing them to cherish their present constitution, from a comparison or contrast with the condition of those distant times. And it is also curious, by showing them the remote, and commonly faint and disfigured originals of the most finished and most noble institutions, and by instructing them in the great mixture of accident, which commonly concurs with a small ingredient of wisdom and foresight, in erecting the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... disagree with you," the Bishop interposed, his pale, ascetic face betraying by a faint glow the intensity of his feelings. "Your premise is wrong. There is no such thing as a conflict of interest between labor and capital—or, rather, there ought ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London |
