"Fleetness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more, perhaps, for fleetness than strength; and his litheness and agility will come in, at another place, for their due illustration, when treating of certain ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... joined blindly in defence of their prison-house. Among these was Orlando, at sight of whom Astolpho, with all his confidence not daring to encounter him, turned and fled, owing his escape to the strength and fleetness of Bayard. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... despatched, therefore, a second time, with further propositions. They approached Malaga in the night, but found the guards doubled, patrols abroad, and the whole place on the alert. They were discovered, pursued, and only saved themselves by the fleetness of their steeds and their knowledge of ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... from Cow Flat were composed of women and boys, and an undisciplined and rash pursuit of goats followed each visit. The nannies and billies, under stress of the new excitement, ran suddenly wild and developed a fleetness of foot, an expertness in climbing, and powers of endurance hitherto all unsuspected by their owners; so very few animals were recovered by ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... and shining like spun glass—hair that looked as if no comb or brush could ever tame its beautiful wildness. And in spirit they were what they seemed: such a wild, joyous, frolicsome spirit, with such grace and fleetness, one does not look for in human beings, but only in birds or in some small bird-like volatile mammal—a squirrel or a spider-monkey of the tropical forest, or the chinchilla of the desolate mountain slopes; the swiftest, wildest, loveliest, most airy, and most vocal of small beauties." ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... toyed with and disarranged her hair. In revenge, she snatched from his pocket his little black memorandum-book and some letters and read, or pretended to read them, and seizing her opportunity she broke from him and ran with the utmost fleetness up ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... the way of the horses, it is hardly wonderful if one should disappear now and then. Nor is he like the Running Jack that used to accompany the more famous packs of fox-hounds, opening gates, holding horses, and a hundred other little services, and who kept up with the hunt by sheer fleetness of foot. ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... to the door, and with one furious blow felled the solitary sentinel to the earth, and then stretched swiftly away in flight. But numbers of warriors, aroused by the sound of the blow, were instantly after him in hot pursuit. The flying Wauchee was most remarkable for his fleetness of foot, and could easily have distanced his pursuers, but for his wounded ankle, which greatly impeded his motions; and in a short time, after a desperate struggle, he was overpowered, and roughly dragged back to the place ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the fleetness of the wind, and my soul groaned in its wolfish prison, and the winds and the waters and the trees bade me, 'Go, search and kill, thou accursed brute; go, ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... environment in the ages past changed the foot of the evolving horse from a flat, "cushiony" foot with many toes (much needed in the soft bog of his earlier existence) into the "hoof foot" of later days, when harder soil and necessity for greater fleetness, assisted by some sort of "selection" and "survival," conspired to give us the foot of our modern horse, and this story is all plainly and serially told in the fossil and other remains found in our own hemisphere. It would appear that many, many generations of education and environment are ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... were quartered here in 1814-5, the officers were in the frequent habit of racing with each other. These races were gaily attended by the inhabitants; and I heard, from more than one mouth, the warmest commendations bestowed upon the fleetness of the coursers and the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... credited to Claverhouse, and no act so wicked that it was not believed of him. During the hours of day he ranged the country, a monster thirsting for the blood of innocent men, and the hours of the evening he spent with his associates in orgies worthy of hell. His horse, famous for its fleetness and beauty, was supposed to be an evil spirit, and as for himself, everyone knew that Claverhouse could not be shot except by a silver bullet, because he was under the protection of the devil. Perhaps it is not too much to say that during those ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... 2200 soldiers; and, in addition to the military navy, always represented by some vessel at anchor, a marine service had been organized for the exclusive use of the colony, to which the name of "sutil" had been given, either on account of the small size, or the fleetness of the vessels employed. This service, all appointments in which are in the gift of the governor-general, is composed of schooners and gun-sloops, intended to protect the coasts and the trading-vessels against the pirates ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... nearing the edge of the wood. Two bounds carried him clear, and then, with the utmost speed of which he was capable, he ran along the margin to a slight turn in the conformation of the grove, when he leaped out into the open air and was off with as great fleetness as he displayed on the home-stretch in his race with Ralph Genther, after ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... cavalry, who had pressed their secret and nocturnal march: the tremendous sound of the chagan's whip gave the signal of the assault, and Heraclius, wrapping his diadem round his arm, was saved with extreme hazard, by the fleetness of his horse. So rapid was the pursuit, that the Avars almost entered the golden gate of Constantinople with the flying crowds: [71] but the plunder of the suburbs rewarded their treason, and they transported ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... guerdon of their toil, With the cast mantle she hath left behind her. Many in sad faith sought for her, Many with crossed hands sighed for her; But these, our brothers, fought for her, At life's dear peril wrought for her, So loved her that they died for her, 50 Tasting the raptured fleetness Of her divine completeness: Their higher instinct knew Those love her best who to themselves are true, And what they dare to dream of, dare to do; They followed her and found her Where all may hope to find, Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, But beautiful, with danger's sweetness ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... kisses, the little murmurs, mad with pain for their phantom fleetness, Mad with pain for the passing of love that lives, they dreamed—as we dream—for an hour! Ah, the sudden tempest of passion, mad with pain, for its over-sweetness, As petal by petal and pang by pang their love broke out into ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... does succeed in lassoing a first-rate horse he keeps it for his own use. Thus, those who have not visited the far-off prairies and seen the mustang in all the glory of untrammelled freedom, can form no adequate idea of its beauty, fleetness, ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Fouquet had buried himself in some subterranean road, or that he had changed the white horse for one of those famous black ones, as swift as the wind, which D'Artagnan, at Saint-Mande, had so frequently admired and envied for their vigor and their fleetness. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... slackened, has enabled me to gain upon her considerably; and when I again catch sight of her she is not more than fifty yards ahead. Forward! good horse—forward! Life or death hangs upon thy 338 fleetness. Vain hope! another turn brings us in sight of the brook, swollen by the breaking up of the frost into a dark, turbulent stream. Fanny perceives it too, and utters a cry of terror, which rings like a death-knell on my ear. There seems no possibility of escape for her; on the left hand an impenetrable ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... sometimes, escape. For the excuse of the fish it must be acknowledged that very few members of the tribe are fitted with eyes for star-gazing. The eagle captures a dinner, not by the exercise of any very remarkable fleetness or adaptiveness or passion for fishing, but because of certain physical limitations on ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... of fading strength Indemnifying fleetness; And those of youth, a seeming length, Proportion'd to ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... warriors to secure to himself the living body of Major M'Culloch. When, therefore, the man whom they had long marked out as the first object of their vengeance, appeared in their midst, they made almost superhuman efforts to acquire possession of his person. The fleetness of M'Culloch's well-trained steed was scarcely greater than that of his enemies, who, with flying strides, moved on in pursuit. At length the hunter reached the top of the hill, and, turning to the left, darted ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... Comes o'er me, and it may be I entwine The indecision of my present mind With its past clearness, yet it seems to me As even then the torrent of quick thought Absorbed me from the nature of itself With its own fleetness. Where is he that, borne Adown the sloping of an arrowy stream, Could link his shallop to the fleeting edge, And muse midway with philosophic calm Upon the wondrous laws which regulate The fierceness of the bounding element? ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... breathless affair, demanding all they possessed of bodily fleetness and suppleness, of cool, yet reckless, courage. And it had been crowned with success; the good news wired home to mothers who waited and prayed. But Roy's nerves had suffered more severely than Desmond's. A sharp attack of fever had completed his prostration. And it was then, in the ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... incomparable Boots. Uthlakanyana is as precocious as Herakles or Hermes. He speaks before he is born, and no sooner has he entered the world than he begins to outwit other people and get possession of their property. He works bitter ruin for the cannibals, who, with all their strength and fleetness, are no better endowed with quick wit than the Trolls, whom Boots invariably victimizes. On one of his journeys, Uthlakanyana fell in with a cannibal. Their greetings were cordial enough, and they ate a bit of leopard together, and began to build ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... dwelling or in the burrow.—All these methods of hunting or of fishing by surprise are for the most part practised by the less agile species which cannot obtain their prey by superior fleetness. Midway between these two methods may be placed that which consists in surprising game when some circumstance has rendered it motionless. Sometimes it is sleep which places it at the mercy of the hunter, whose art in this case ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... more natural than that their burdens should be equalized. But if your object were to send an important and critical piece of intelligence, could you without incongruity place obstacles to the speed of that one whose fleetness would secure the best means of attaining your end? And yet this is your course in relation to industry. You forget the end aimed at, which is ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... ridiculous instance of their heroism. Ancient fortifications. Quieurre river described. Vast herds of Buffaloe. Account of the Petit Chien or Little Dog. Narrow escape of George Shannon. Description of White river. Surprising fleetness of the antelope. Pass the river of the Sioux. Description of the Grand Le Tour, or Great Bend. Encamp on the ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... Ryls added: "For my part I will allow to every deer that assists Claus the privilege of eating my casa plants, which give strength, and my grawle plants, which give fleetness of foot, and my marbon plants, which give ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... fall, the country is so soft and sandy, that they are seldom hurt. The king always rode upon a milk-white horse, with its tail dyed red. He never walked, but to prayers, and two or three horses were always kept ready saddled near his tent. The Moors set a high value upon their horses, as their fleetness enables them ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... self-evident truth that every living being possesses the characteristic in question, and that the origin of that characteristic must be sought somewhere in the struggle for existence. In order to be convinced that the stag has acquired his fleetness, the lion his strength, the fox his cunning, in the struggle for existence, it is not necessary for us to know exactly how this has come about; yet it is well to hear the opinions as to such subjects of men who have evidently thought much about them. Therefore we ask for your ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... in the retreat which he had anticipated, and for which he had so carefully prepared. He arrived in Dublin in the evening, and insulted Lady Tyrconnel by a rude remark about the fleetness of her husband's countrymen in running away from the battle; to which she retorted, with equal wit and truth, that his Majesty had set them the example. He left Dublin the next morning, having first ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... through the sombre forest brought him to the road once more, fully a mile below his pursuers. He forgot his hunger and his fatigue. For miles he ran with the fleetness of a scared thing, guided by the crude sign-boards which pointed the way and told the distance to S——. Night fell, but he ran on, stumbling and faint with dread, tears rolling down his thin cheeks, sobs in his throat. Darkness hid the sign-boards from view; he reeled ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... fleetness and the odds they had at the start, the guide and Neal kept far ahead of their comrades. The noise which Bruin made as he lumbered over the pygmy growth, and the charred, rotting timber that littered the ground beneath it, were quiet enough to ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... all together both young men and old. And fleet-footed Iris stood hard by and spake to them; and she made her voice like to the voice of Polites son of Priam, who was the sentinel of the Trojans and was wont to sit trusting in his fleetness upon the barrow of Aisyetes of old, and on the top thereof wait the sallying of the Achaians forth from their ships. Even in his likeness did fleet-footed Iris speak to Priam: "Old man, words beyond number are still pleasant to thee as erst in the days of peace; but war without ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... before sunrise. Though apparently a mere test of athletic ability, it is in reality a religious ceremonial. For centuries, the Hopi lived surrounded by warlike people who preyed upon them. Being few in number, living in a desert land, and beset by murderous marauders, fleetness of foot and great "staying" powers while running over the long trails of the sandy deserts became an essential condition of national preservation. Hence the priests made the cultivation of the bodily powers a matter of religion. Every ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... possess any physical accomplishment in which I have confidence it is my fleetness of foot. At that time an Indian runner could not have escaped me, much less a clumsy, long-heeled negro. I knew that if I could once more got my eyes upon the black, I would soon overhaul him; but therein ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... was reached in the afternoon of the second day. There were found, just six men and two women, the fleetness of whose steeds had enabled them to win in the race for life. All the others had fallen, among them Caleb Barnwell, the leader of the Quixotic scheme, and the founder of the town which died with him. The valley of the Rio Pecos was not prepared for any settlement unless one organized ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... this lasted long, and faster and faster must she follow lest it vanish, and she gathered her skirts into her girdle, and fell to running fleet-foot after the fleeing shadow, which she loved dearly even amidst the jaws of death; and all her fleetness of foot had Birdalone to put forth in following up the chase; but even to die in the pain would she not miss that ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... in each study the place for which they are fitted. A proficient in Plato may be a tyro in Euclid. Moreover, I would make attainments rather than time the condition of promotion; and I would encourage every scholar to go forward rapidly or go forward slowly, according to the fleetness of his foot and his freedom from impediment. In other words, I would have our University seek the good of individuals rather ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... well named for his fleetness; but he was mounted superbly, and I suspect the whole thing was ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... pursued them along the ridge of the hill, cutting down all they overtook; but the larger number saved themselves by the fleetness of their feet. A party of them kept together, however, and made their way towards the group of slaves, in the hope, as it seemed, of carrying them off. The seamen were, however, at their heels before they could accomplish their object; and they were glad to make their escape into the desert, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... fellow he was too, and most nobly mounted. Macdonald made a dash at him, in full confidence of getting a gallant charger. But the good book tells us, that "the race is not always to the swift;" and owing partly to the fleetness of his horse, and partly to a most extraordinary sort of accident, colonel Gainey made his escape from our Scotsman. The chase was towards Georgetown, distant little more than two miles. Never on earth ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... throws a double somerset backwards over Asia Minor—flip-flaps in Greece—wings Turkey—and skeets over Iceland; here he slips up with a flower garden—a torrent of gilt-edged metaphors, that would last a country parson's moderate demand a long lifetime, are whirled with the fury and fleetness of Jove's thunderbolts. After exhausting his sweet-scented receiver of this floral elocution, he pauses four seconds; pointing to vacuum, over the heads of his audience, he asks, in an anxious tone, "Do you see that?" Of course the audience are not expected to be so unmannerly as to ask ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... and their sense of smelling very accute it is almost impossible to approach them within gunshot; in short they will frequently discover and flee from you at the distance of three miles. I had this day an opportunity of witnessing the agility and superior fleetness of this anamal which was to me really astonishing. I had pursued and twice surprised a small herd of seven, in the first instance they did not discover me distinctly and therefore did not run at full speed, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... will I tinge my tale: trial is the test of men; this it was that delivered the son of Klymenos from the Lemnian women's slight. He, when he had won the foot-race in bronze armour[1], spake thus to Hypsipyle as he went to receive his crown: 'For fleetness such am I: hands have I and a heart to match. So also on young men grow oftentimes grey hairs even before the natural season ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... me, my friend; Time's short, art long; methinks 'twere fit That you to friendly counsel should attend. A poet choose as your ally! Let him thought's wide dominion sweep, Each good and noble quality, Upon your honoured brow to heap; The lion's magnanimity, The fleetness of the hind, The fiery blood of Italy, The Northern's stedfast mind. Let him to you the mystery show To blend high aims and cunning low; And while youth's passions are aflame To fall in love by rule and plan! I fain would meet with such a man; ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Antar must tend the herds. Zoheir summoned the chieftains and Antar and when he was brought before him he marveled and threw him a piece of meat. But a dog that chanced to be in the tent was quicker than he and seized it and ran off. Rage gave Antar the fleetness of the wind. With mighty leaps he bounded after the dog. Swifter darted no eagle upon its prey than Antar pursued the rogue. With a mighty spring he caught it and seizing its jaws tore them asunder down to the beast's shoulders, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... unfastened the chain from the pole, and holding the end in his hand went round with Hector to the front of the pavilion. He was resolved that if under the dog's guidance the party came close up with Bruce, he would kill the dog and then try to escape by fleetness of foot, though of this, as there were so many mounted men in the party, he had but slight hope. Led by the peasant they proceeded to the hut, which was five miles away in the hills. On reaching it Hector at once became greatly excited. He sniffed here and there, eagerly hunted ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... speedy pace, He sought his coursers of the Thracian race. At his approach they toss their heads on high, And, proudly neighing, promise victory. The sires of these Orythia sent from far, To grace Pilumnus, when he went to war. The drifts of Thracian snows were scarce so white, Nor northern winds in fleetness match'd their flight. Officious grooms stand ready by his side; And some with combs their flowing manes divide, And others stroke their chests ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... answer to give thyself airs. Abstain from all consequential allusions to the other world, and the genteel deities among whom thou hast circled. Sport not too jauntily thy raiment, because it is novel in Mardi; nor boast of the fleetness of thy Chamois, because it is unlike a canoe. Vaunt not of thy pedigree, Taji; for Media himself will measure it with thee there by the furlong. Be not ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the surintendant's cortege had set off by Aramis' directions, conveying them both toward Fontainebleau with the fleetness of the clouds, which the last breath of the tempest was hurrying across the face of the heavens, La Valliere was closeted in her own apartment, with a simple muslin wrapper round her, having just finished a slight repast, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... pertinacious claimant who asserted title to a negro found within his lines, and had brought a policeman along with him to aid in enforcing it. The shrewd colonel, (a Democrat he is,) retaining the policeman, put both the claimant and claimed outside of the lines together to try their fleetness. The negro proved to be the better gymnast and was heard of no more. This capricious treatment of the subject was fraught with serious difficulties as well as personal injuries, and it needed to be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... girl fleetness as she ran beside him in the night, and he marvelled at her.—No pueblo girl could have kept that pace. It was plain that she had lived with the rovers of the desert. All the long hours had she been without ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... he after her, as well as he could, which was not with his usual fleetness by any means. When Annie had rounded a corner, not in the master's way home, she stopped, and looked back for Alec. He was a good many paces behind her; and then first she discovered the condition of her champion. For now that the excitement was over, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... that place of shelter. He then broke into the fort itself, where there were only a few men, and he almost succeeded in capturing Suleiman, who fled through one gate as Gessi entered by another. Thanks to the fleetness of his horse, Suleiman succeeded in making good his escape. Before his hurried flight Suleiman murdered four prisoners sooner than allow of their recapture, and throughout the long pursuit that now began all slaves or black troops ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... signal for the fight; He rides the horse he captured from Grossaille, A King he slew among the Danes: a horse Of wondrous fleetness, light-hoofed, slender-limbed; Thigh short; with broad and mighty haunch; the flanks Are long, and very high his spine; pure white His tail, and yellow is his mane—his ears Are small—light brown his head. This ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... door open in the side of the barrow, he looked in, and beheld a great banquet. One of the attendants offered him a cup, which he took, but would not drink. Instead of doing so, he poured out the contents, and kept the vessel. The fleetness of his beast enabled him to distance all pursuit, and he escaped. We are told that the cup, described as of unknown material, of unusual colour and of extraordinary form, was presented to Henry I., who gave it to his brother-in-law, David, King of the Scots. After having been kept for several ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... went as if shot from the throat of a columbiad, with a procession of sinewy-limbed warriors at his heels. All ran as fast as they could, though none were his equal in fleetness. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... sight of those beautiful eyes. Instantly its limbs began to tremble. It seemed to have no power to fly, but stood looking with mute wonder at the object which fascinated it. The monster uncoiled itself, and glided from the tree. Still the stag did not attempt to fly, yet in fleetness it could have outstripped the wind. There it stood, a willing victim. In another moment the serpent had sprung upon it, and encircled it in its monstrous folds. As we could not rescue the stag, and had no wish to interfere with the serpent, we hurried from ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the ninth, Blake, the first man up, lined low toward right center. The hit was safe and looked good for three bases. No one looking, however, had calculated on Reddie's Ray's fleetness. He covered ground and dove for the bounding ball and knocked it down. Blake did not get beyond first base. The crowd cheered the play equally with the prospect of a run. Dorr bunted and beat the throw. White hit one of the high fast balls Scott was serving and sent ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... hurried. Down among the ferns to the right came a man, heading them off from the wood. Ugh-lomi left her arm, and the two began running side by side, leaping the bracken and stepping clear and wide. Eudena, knowing her fleetness and the fleetness of Ugh-lomi, laughed aloud at the unequal chase. They were an exceptionally ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... bit of it! He tilted full at the man with his walking stick, and before he could escape had beaten a regular roll of kettledrums on his hide. Then the Boxer, after a short struggle, abandoned his knife, and ran with some fleetness of foot into a neighbouring lane. The gallant German Minister raised the hue and cry, and then discovered yet another Boxer inside the cart, whom he duly secured by falling on top of him; and this last one was handed over to his own ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... Rivington. "I have a lively memory of the fleetness of your retreat and the violence of your embrace when ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... The winged fleetness Of immortal feet is gone; And your scents have shed their sweetness, And your flowers are overblown. And your jewell'd gauds surrender Half their glories to the day; Freely did they flash their splendour, Freely gave ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... four were steering courses which would give them every prospect of cutting us off. We were all armed, but it would have been madness to attempt to beat off so overwhelming a force. We had to trust alone to the fleetness of our heels. We might have a prospect of distancing the two boats which had gone up the bay, and which were on our larboard-hand, but we must inevitably run the gauntlet between the other two. The question was, whether we could pass through them before they closed in on us. We made the ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... said, he hesitated to go to Ios, and remained in the region where he was. Now about the same time Ganyctor was celebrating the funeral rites of his father Amphidamas, king of Euboea, and invited to the gathering not only all those who were famous for bodily strength and fleetness of foot, but also those who excelled in wit, promising them great rewards. And so, as the story goes, the two went to Chalcis and met by chance. The leading Chalcidians were judges together with Paneides, the brother of the dead king; and it is said that ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... thither through the forest he sped with all his fleetness of foot and quickness of spirit; and when at last he found that no voice would answer him, he burst into tears, and ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... "forgive me the fright I gave you, but I knew of old your fleetness of foot, and if the forest once encircled you, how was ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the gorges Whence the sudden warm winds blow, Shaking all the pine's huge branches, Melting all the fallen snow, Dwelt the Sksika, the Blackfeet; They whose ancestor, endued, With the dark salve's magic fleetness, First on foot the deer pursued. Gallantly the Braves bore torture While their Sun-dance fasts were held, While the drums beat, and the virgins Saw the pains by manhood quelled. As each writhing form triumphant Called on the Great Spirit's ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... thy dwelling-place? Echo of sweetness, Seraph of tenderness, where is thy home? Angel of happiness, herald of fleetness, Thou hast the key of the star-blazon'd dome. Where lays that never end Up to God's throne ascend, And our fond heart-wishes lovingly throng, Soaring with thee above, Bearer of truth and love, Teacher of heaven's ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... inhabiting the desert surpasses the road-runner, sometimes called the ground-cuckoo or snake-killer. Though omnivorous, this bird lives chiefly on reptiles and mollusks. It is decked in a gay plumage of coppery green, with streaks of white on the sides and a topknot of deep blue. In fleetness of foot it is said to equal the horse. Many stories are told of its surrounding a coiled sleeping rattlesnake with strips of cactus and then tantalizing its victim until, baffled in every attempt to get away, the snake finally inflicts a deadly bite on itself. Then the road-runner leisurely proceeds ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... must happen, admitting the Stadium was to be run round twelve times, gave such a superiority to the first, as seemed to assure him infallibly of the victory against all his competitors. To me it seems, that the fleetness of the horses, joined with the address of the driver, might countervail this odds; either by getting before the first, or by taking his place; if not in the first, at least in some of the subsequent rounds; ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... great deal. Furthermore, they were close to the prairie, reaching which, they had all the opportunity they could desire to leave their enemies behind. In a fair trial of speed, neither of the hunters had any misgivings as to the fleetness of their animals, even if it should become necessary to place the additional weight of the lad upon one. Still, the route was difficult, and in many places it seemed almost impossible to make their way along, the ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... with their petrol shortages and restricted travel, it seemed more than ordinarily magic. It made emphatic as nothing else could have done, the freedom and serenity which peace had restored. The very fleetness of its obedience prompted her to urge Tabs to take her farther and ever farther afield. There were evenings when they dined within sight of the sea beneath the red roofs of Rye and started back for London across the Sussex downs, driving ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... however, altogether travelled on foot; horses being now quite plentiful. They were introduced from Chili; and possessing all the gaiety, fleetness, and docility of the Spanish breed, are admirably adapted to the tastes of the higher classes, who as equestrians have become very expert. The missionaries and chiefs never think of journeying except in the saddle; and at all hours of the day you see the latter galloping along ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... day or two of this drivel he produced a brief lyric with a certain fleetness of movement; it had small freight to carry. He took it to a number of editors he knew, and one of them accepted it as ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... woo the bride well; for there are heretics who lay claim to her good will. I met a rover of strange rig and miraculous fleetness, in rounding the headlands of Otranto, who seemed to have half a mind to follow the felucca in her ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... so called because they attract sparrows (asafir) a bird very fond of the ripe oily fruit. In the Romance of "Antar" Asafir camels are beasts that fly like birds in fleetness. The reader must not confound the olives of the text with the hard unripe berries ("little plums pickled in stale") which appear at English tables, nor wonder that bread and olives are the beef-steak and potatoes of many ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... bright windy phase of the night's existence, for one; and for another, the look of the dead man with his bald head and garland of red curls. Both struck cold upon his heart, and he kept quickening his pace as if he could escape from unpleasant thoughts by mere fleetness of foot. Sometimes he looked back over his shoulder with a sudden nervous jerk; but he was the only moving thing in the white streets, except when the wind swooped round a corner and threw up the snow, which was beginning to freeze, in spouts ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... mysteries, at Beaugency. Some little fleecy clouds had veiled the sun since morning, and the landscapes, very sweet and somewhat sad, flew by with a continuous fan-like motion. The trees and houses on either side of the line disappeared in the grey light with the fleetness of vague visions, whilst the distant hills, enveloped in mist, vanished more slowly, with the gentle rise and fall of a swelling sea. Between Beaugency and Les Aubrais the train seemed to slacken speed, though it still kept up its rhythmical, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... I know not, I never bowled so well before or since in my life. Really, between us two, and the efficient assistance of our fieldsmen, who seemed also spurred up to extra exertions, even Charley Bates and Tom Atkins distinguishing themselves for their quickness of eye and fleetness of foot, the Piccadilly Inimitables got all put out long before time was called, for the inglorious total of our ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... occupied an eight-room-and-two-baths apartment near by. Sara, with much of the fleetness gone from her face and a smile tempered by a look of unshed tears, marketing now by white-enameled desk telephone or, on days when the limp from an old burn down her thigh was not too troublesome, walked up to a plate-glass butcher shop on 125th Street, where there was not so ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... however, will probably supersede equestrian performances on the turf. The horse will no longer be tortured for the amusement of man; but fellow bipeds, equipped in querpo, will start for the prize, and, with the fleetness of a North-American Indian, bound along the lists, amid the acclamations and cheers of admiring multitudes. The competition between man and man in the modern foot-race is certainly fair; but, for the better regulation of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... sleep, and he may get into danger or find death itself," thought Christina, and her fear gave strength and fleetness to her footsteps as she quickly followed her brother. He made no noise of any kind; he did not even disturb a pebble in his path; but went forward, with a motion light and rapid, and the very reverse of the slow, heavy-footed gait of a fisherman. But she ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... and mouth of huge proportions, with long, pointed teeth, white and sharp. For weeks, this gorgon of my imagination constituted the theme of neighborhood gossip. Several negroes had seen it, and fled its fierce pursuit, barely escaping its voracious mouth and attenuated claws, through the fleetness of fear. The old hardshell Baptist preacher, of the vicinage, had proclaimed him from the pulpit as Satan unchained, and commencing his thousand years of wandering up and ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... never been my particular athletic forte, and now when my very life depended upon fleetness of foot I cannot say that I ran any better than on the occasions when my pitiful base running had called down upon my head the rooter's raucous and reproachful cries of "Ice Wagon," and "Call ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... express such a fact, and say that wolves were the best adapted to the given surroundings. If all these animals continued to live side by side in the given environment, they could be compared only as to specific details—size, strength, cunning, fleetness in running, swimming or flying, concealment from enemies, etc. Then the biologist would probably make his meaning perfectly clear by stating that one is specialized ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... not remarkable for his fleetness, but how he will hang!—often running late into the night and sometimes till morning, from ridge to ridge, from peak to peak; now on the mountain, now crossing the valley, now playing about a large slope ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... the hound much depend on the nature of the country. The smaller harrier will best suit a deeply enclosed country; but where there is little cover, and less doubling greater size and fleetness are requisite. The harrier, nevertheless, let him be as tall and as speedy as he may, should never he used for the fox; but every dog should be strictly confined to ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... may be viewed in two ways: the one according to its end, and then he is great and incomparable; the other according to the multitude, just as we judge of the nature of the horse and the dog, popularly, by seeing its fleetness, et animum arcendi; and then man is abject and vile. These are the two ways which make us judge of him differently, and which occasion such ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... Alpheus, and spreading them out to whiten in the sun. Fertility rewarded the labours of the husbandmen, and the smiling fields yielded pasturage to numerous horses, which Phoebus himself might have prized for strength, fleetness, ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... Stubbs would have taken to his heels again. "We can't run clear through the German camp like this, you know. We're bound to be caught if we try it. It must be strategy rather than fleetness of foot if we hope to get out of this ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... wrath, Lone Bear regained something of his self-command, and called to mind the stories he had heard of the fleetness of the young Shawanoe. That, with the fact that there was no longer the least halt in his gait, told the disadvantage in which the pursuer ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... branches of precious gems. And they were washed with the water of the sea. And there was a large banian among them, which had grown into gigantic proportions, that spoke unto that lord of bird coursing towards it with the fleetness of the mind, 'Sit thou on this large branch of mine extending a hundred yojanas and eat the elephant and the tortoise.' When that best of birds, of great swiftness and of body resembling a mountain, quickly alighted upon a bough of that banian ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... Hiawatha, Skilled in all the craft of hunters, Learned in all the lore of old men, In all youthful sports and pastimes, 5 In all manly arts and labors. Swift of foot was Hiawatha; He could shoot an arrow from him, And run forward with such fleetness, That the arrow fell behind him! 10 Strong of arm was Hiawatha; He could shoot ten arrows upward, Shoot them with such strength and swiftness, That the tenth had left the bow-string Ere the first to earth had fallen! 15 He had mittens, Minjekahwun, Magic ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the hares they could catch; the slowest of the hares would be first killed, and the swifter preserved. Then the slowest-running dogs would suffer, and having less food than the fleeter ones, would have least chance of living, and the swiftest dogs would be preserved; thus the fleetness of both dogs and hares would be gradually but surely perfected by natural selection, until the greatest speed was reached that it was possible for them to attain. I have in this supposed example confined myself to the question of speed ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... these bizarre forms and this carnival of lust and power, the manward impulse was nourished and forwarded. In Eocene times nearly half the mammals lived on other animals; it must have been an age of great slaughter. It favored the development of fleetness and cunning, in which we too have an interest. Our rude progenitor was surely there in some form, and escaped the slaughter. Then or later it is thought he took to the trees to escape his enemies, as the rats in Jamaica have taken ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... camp. Aided by a prospector named Nick Porter, Frank and his chums visited Happenchance and there found the professor. They had adventures in helping the professor get his location notice on file, and only Merry's fleetness of foot and good judgment saved a prospective bonanza mine ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... sooner were the banished Moors fairly settled in their new seats than they did what anybody in their place would have done: they carried the war into their oppressors' country. To meet the Spaniards in the open field was impossible in their reduced numbers, but at sea their fleetness and knowledge of the coasts gave them the opportunity of reprisal for ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... heard nothing. She was running with every nerve at full stretch, her whole soul in her feet. But she had lost her old fleetness, for Reddin's child had even now robbed her of some of her vitality. Foxy, in gathering panic, struggled and impeded her. She was only half-way to the quarry, and the ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... been agreed upon with equal appropriateness, and, in fact, a number have been so selected by several individuals and tribes, each one, therefore, being a synonym of the other. Another example of this is in the signs for deer, designated by various modes of expressing fleetness, by his gait when not in rapid motion, by the shape of his horns, by the color of his tail, and sometimes by combinations of several of those characteristics. Each of these signs may be indefinitely abbreviated, and therefore create indefinite ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... decreed among the giants that she should be the Princess of all the Springs and should rule over all the rivers and lakes. The light of her eyes was like the moonbeams, and her smile was like moonlight on still waters. Her strength was as the strength of the Great River, and the fleetness of her foot was as the swiftness of the ...
— Tales of Giants from Brazil • Elsie Spicer Eells
... flight, as of Cleopatra's barges from Actium. Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb's was foremost. By great exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron; but the stricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal flight, with added fleetness. Such unintermitted strainings upon the planted iron must sooner or later inevitably extract it. It became imperative to lance the flying whale, or be content to lose him. But to haul the boat up to his flank ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... in a peaceful age, wherein it falls to the lot of few men to owe their survival to their fleetness of foot. At Smith's words I realized in a flash that such was to ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... them surpassed him in bodily strength, fleetness and agility, many attracted his attention by the beauty of their form, by their wonderful instinct and industry. And God, through His unbounded goodness, had planted in their very nature a desire or want of attachment, an instinctive gratitude and fidelity, such, that ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... the difficulties they have to encounter, their skill in avoiding the holes and stones, and in making their footing sure over the round and slippery timbers of the log-bridges, renders them very valuable. If they want the spirit and fleetness of some of our high-bred blood-horses, they make up in gentleness, strength, and patience. This renders them most truly valuable, as they will travel in such places that no British horse would, with equal safety to their drivers. Nor are the Canadian horses, when well fed and ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... enabled to overtake and capture them. They were taken back to the camp and examined separately. For as they were armed, the Spaniards apprehended some treachery; but it appeared that their sudden flight was only by way of exploit, to show their address and fleetness."[D] ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... waiting when the flown Dream leaves my heart insentient as the clod; And when the grief-retracing ways I trod Become a shining path to thee alone, My weary feet, that seemed to drag as stone, Shall once again, with wings of fleetness shod, Fare on, beloved, to find you! Just beyond The seraph throng await me, standing near The gentler angels, eager and apart; Be there, near God's own fairest, with the fond Sweet smile that was your own, and let me hear Your voice again and clasp ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... quickly after, those who had engaged with Eumenes near the land did the same. The Romans and Eumenes pursued with much perseverance, as long as the rowers were able to hold out, and they had any prospect of annoying the rear of the enemy; but finding that the latter, by reason of the lightness and fleetness of their ships, baffled every effort that could be made by theirs, loaded as they were with provisions, they at length desisted, having taken thirteen ships together with the soldiers and rowers, and sunk ten. Of the Roman fleet, ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... shy and capricious; they keep on the open plains, are quick to take the alarm, and bound away with a fleetness that defies pursuit. When thus skimming across a prairie in the autumn, their light gray or dun color blends with the hue of the withered herbage, the swiftness of their motion baffles the eye, and they almost seem unsubstantial forms, driven like ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... death was fast yielding to amazement at Baldy's unsuspected fleetness. Trustworthy he had always been, and obedient and faithful—but his pace now was a revelation. There ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... everybody's mouth; but in few people's practice. Every fool, who slatterns away his whole time in nothings, utters, however, some trite commonplace sentence, of which there are millions, to prove, at once, the value and the fleetness of time. The sun-dials, likewise all over Europe, have some ingenious inscription to that effect; so that nobody squanders away their time, without hearing and seeing, daily, how necessary it is ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... again "Rorie!" My voice died in the silence, but there came no answer back. If there were indeed an enterprise afoot to catch my uncle, it was plainly not in fleetness of foot, but in dexterity of stalking, that the hunters placed their trust. I ran on farther, keeping the higher spurs, and looking right and left, nor did I pause again till I was on the mount above Sandag. I could see the wreck, the uncovered belt of sand, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as I was, with the fleetness of a greyhound, I started into the village and gave the alarm, and immediately that I saw the people running to the lake, I was there before them, and again diving. Mrs —-, the lady of the M.P. whom I have before mentioned, who was always the foremost in every work of humanity, was soon ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... With the fleetness of thought now commenced a race which had ostensibly for its object the recovery of the lost ball, and in which he who had driven it with resistless force outstripped them all. Their course lay between the two lines of squaws; and scarcely had the head of the bounding ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... the Dawn Withdrew the gleaming curtains of the night, We watched the whirling systems, until each Could recognize their own peculiar star; When, with the swift celerity Of Fancy-footed Thought, The light-caparisoned, aerial steeds, Shod with rare fleetness, Revisited the farthest of the spheres Ere the earth's sun had kissed the mountain tops, Or shook the sea-pearls from his ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... was the Yale ends showed their fleetness and they nailed the Harvard man before he had gained much. An exchange of punts followed, both teams having good ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... of his cavalry, a defeat would have been a rout; his infantry would have been cut to pieces, and his cavalry subsequently exposed to similar disaster. Had the latter been present, the safety of the British must have depended solely on the fleetness of their steeds. With this affair ended the actual conflicts of our partisan. His men were not yet disbanded. He himself did not yet retire from the field which he had so often traversed in triumph. But the occasion for bloodshed was over. The great ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... tack, hoping to run into Mount's Bay or Falmouth harbour. We soon had proof that those on board the frigate had their eyes on us. The smoke of a gun was seen to issue from one of her bow ports, as a sign for us to heave-to, but the captain thought he should first like to try the fleetness of his heels before he gave in. So we continued our course to the northward. The frigate on this braced her yards sharp up, and showed that she was not going to allow us to escape her, and, by the way she walked along, we soon saw that we should without ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... the beginning of a fresh life for John Broom. With many other idle or homeless boys he now haunted the barracks, and ran errands for the soldiers. His fleetness of foot and ready wit made him the favourite. Perhaps, too, his youth and his bright face and eyes pleaded for him, for British soldiers are a ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... that this man might be close at hand watching to take advantage of any moment of unwariness. He had been known in broad daylight, to dash right into federal camps, where he was outnumbered a hundred to one, and then make his escape through the fleetness of his horses and his knowledge of the by-roads. On more than one occasion, he had charged through a union column, disappearing on one flank as quickly as he had appeared on the other. His men, in union garb, were often in our camps mingling unsuspected with our men or riding by ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... virgin queen of the Volsci. She aided Turnus against neas, and was famed for her fleetness ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... Cretan guard, nor did I move with Pegasean wing, nor were I Ladas, or Persius with the flying foot, or Rhesus with swift and snowy team: to these add thou the feathery-footed and winged ones, ask likewise fleetness of the winds: which all united, O Camerius, couldst thou me grant, yet exhausted in mine every marrow and with many a faintness consumed should I be in my quest for thee, O friend. Why withdraw thyself in so much pride, O friend? ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... that moment of joy, while bounding over the threshold with the fleetness of a fawn, the dreaded form of Clinton rose before the eye of her imagination, and arrested for a moment her flying steps. Again she heard the voice of ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... prize, and whither we shall go?" Of the fleet-footed hare the tortoise asked. To whom he answered, "Reynard shall be tasked With this; that subtle fox, whom thou dost see." The tortoise then (no hesitater she!) Kept jogging on, but earliest reached the post; The hare, relying on his fleetness, lost Space, during sleep, he thought he could recover When he awoke. But then the race was over; The tortoise gained her aim, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... forward and bowing low, "I offer my heart and my fortune, and the strength of my arms and the fleetness of my feet and the ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... stand, or lie, or walk, or sit, while away from his home, unless absolutely compelled. Both horse and rider seemed as though they could not exist while separated, and yet Silvertail (thus was the stallion named) was not more remarkable in sleekness of coat, soundness of carcase, and fleetness of pace, than his rider was in the characteristics of ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... his politeness should receive such an ungracious return, the man pursued, which but confirming Israel in his suspicions he ran all the faster, and thanks to his fleetness, soon succeeded ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... made an exciting dash upon a band of guerillas, who were watching for us, expecting to make some captures. But they were disappointed, for we were not only prepared to resist them, but would have captured them but for the superior fleetness of their horses. After accomplishing the work we were sent out to do, and resting one night, we returned ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... natural than that their burdens should be equalized. But if your object were to send an important and critical piece of intelligence, could you without incongruity place obstacles to the speed of that one whose fleetness would secure you the best means of attaining your end? And yet this is your course in relation to industry. You forget the end aimed at, which is the well-being of the community; you set it aside; more, you sacrifice it by ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... playmate is stretching beside, As loath to be vanquished in love or in pride, While upward he glances his eyeball of jet, Half dreading thy fleetness may distance him yet. Ah, Marco, poor Marco—our pastime to-day Were reft of one pleasure if ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... was necessary to run the gantlet of the enemy, for every opening from the Plaza was completely exposed to their fire. But trusting in the fleetness of his horse, the young lieutenant leaped into the saddle and, swinging himself down, Indian fashion, on one side of his steed so as to shield himself behind its body, he dashed away on his perilous mission. A roar of muskets greeted him at every corner, but he flashed ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... fear gripped Garth's heart, instantly obliterating all thought of Mabyn. He dashed after Rina, nerved to a desperate fleetness. She knew the ground better than he; and hampered, moreover, by the weight of his gun, he despaired of overtaking the moccasined savage. But at the watercourse the strange creature stopped dead; and waited for ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... was, finding his club a more comfortable place than his home, in those days of his wife's disillusionment and hesitation about the future. Many weak creatures are curiously armed for the unequal conflict of existence—some with fleetness of foot, some with a pole-cat weapon of malignance, some with porcupine quills, some with a 'possumlike instinct for "playing dead." Of these last was Fitzhugh. He knew when to be silent, when to keep out of the ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... tumult of a crowd's excitement, raised it knows not why or wherefore, was on his steps, joined with the steadier and keener pursuit of men organized for the hunter's work, and trained to follow the faintest track, the slightest clew. The moon was out, and they saw him clearly, though the marvelous fleetness of his stride had borne him far ahead in the few moments' start he had gained. He heard the beat of their many feet on the stones, the dull thud of their running, the loud clamor of the mob, the shrill cries of the Hebrew offering gold with frantic lavishness to whoever should stop ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... time since leaving home the three did their best. Separated from each other by just enough space to give play to the limbs, they sped down the icy river with the fleetness of the hurricane, their movements almost the perfect ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... but what did that avail if she did not love him in return. He held to the opinion that such attractions should be mutual. He could see no sense in the old-time custom of the knight winning his lady love by force of arms or by the fleetness of horse's legs. ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... sped onwards with the fleetness and agility of a born mountaineer. The hound bounded at his side; and before either had traversed the path far, voices ahead of them became distinctly audible, and a little group might be seen approaching, laden with the spoils of ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the superintendent's carriage had set off by Aramis's directions, conveying them both towards Fontainebleau with the fleetness of the clouds the last breath of the tempest was hurrying across the face of heaven, La Valliere was closeted in her own apartment, with a simple muslin wrapper round her, having just finished a slight repast, which was placed upon a marble ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... this land of the Tauri, where barbarian Thoas rules[8] the land, o'er barbarians, [Thoas,] who guiding his foot swift as the pinion, has arrived at this epithet [of Thoas, i.e. the swift] on account of his fleetness of foot. And she places me in this house as priestess, since which time the Goddess Diana is wont to be pleased with such rites as these,[9] the name of which alone is fair. But, for the rest, I am silent, fearing the Goddess. For I sacrifice ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... disarmed, and made prisoners. Their feelings may be readily imagined. They were in the hands of an enemy who knew no alternative between adoption and torture; and the numbers and fleetness of their captors, rendered escape by open means impossible, while their jealous vigilance seemed equally fatal to ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... carried away by enthusiasm, and spoke louder than was consistent with Moravian decorum, or suitable to the place where she was. Her eyes sparkled, and the dainty little foot which peeped forth from under her dress seemed altogether suited to trip with fairy fleetness through the merry mazes ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... the foot of the Toomies Mountains, famous in pre-historic myths, to visit the O'Sullivan Cascade. The legend, which is too often wasted on sceptical ears, tells that O'Sullivan, a captain of his people, renowned amongst them for fleetness of foot and prowess as a hunter, on one occasion went to hunt the red deer. The faint yellow rays of morning were lighting up the eastern sky as he went forth. Gaily the deep-mouthed dogs obeyed, sniffing the fresh ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... the south ran The Oskaloosa Kid with all the fleetness of youth spurred on by terror. In five minutes he had so far outdistanced his pursuers that The Sky Pilot leaped to the conclusion that the quarry had left the road to hide in an adjoining field. The resultant halt and search upon either side of the road ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... bludgeoning, outraging, or shooting from behind a wall. When they do not shoot they come on in herds, like wild buffaloes, to trample on and mutilate their victim. From the strong or armed they run like hares. Their fleetness of foot is astonishing. The Tuam News, owned and edited by the brother of a priest, exhibits the intellectual status of the Tuam people. Let ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... allowed the ant and the bee to retain superiority over man in the organisation of their communities and social arrangements, the bird in traversing the air, the fish in swimming, the horse in strength and fleetness, and the ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... him, the loose stones rattled and scattered under his flying feet, and the men were after him. For a time he managed to keep well ahead, though he could feel he was not increasing the distance between himself and his pursuers. He had excellent training, a natural fleetness of foot, and a light wiry build in his favour; but the enemy had longer legs, and a perfect acquaintance with the cave and steps. It was too dark for recognition, and neither of the men was likely to be very scrupulous should they succeed in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... bring his boasted horses, Prancing with their diamond-studded reins; They, my darling, shall not match thy fleetness When they course with thee the ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... cried Sneak, pointing up the river. The scene was a remarkable one. They beheld a very small deer (the lightness of which enabled it to run on the snow that covered the ice with great fleetness, without breaking through the crust,) chased about on the river by a pack of wolves! These hungry animals had evidently been racing after it a great length of time, from the distressed appearance of the poor victim, ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... (William Penn preferred this place as a starting point, rather than before his own office door). It being understood that "Joe" was to act as coachman in passing out of Washington, at this moment he was called for, and in the most polite and natural manner, with the fleetness of a young deer, he jumped into the carriage, took the reins and whip, whilst the doctor and William Penn were cordially shaking hands and bidding adieu. This done, the order was given to Joe, "drive on." Joe bravely obeyed. The faithful horse trotted off willingly, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... horror did not dismay her in the least. Her face was grave and her eyes looked seriously at him. Her fingers touched the hair of his temple, ran in a light caress down his cheek, twisted gently the end of his long moustache: and while he sat in the tremor of that contact she ran off with startling fleetness and disappeared in a peal of clear laughter, in the stir of grass, in the nod of young twigs growing over the path; leaving behind only a vanishing trail of ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad |
