"Elvish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... many things in his time, to judge from his conversation, from partridges to elephants, but his slangier acquaintances were of opinion that "the moon" had been not unfrequently amid the victims of his victorious rifle. The phrase is a fine one, and suggests a mystic, elvish, nocturnal hunting. ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... 'chapelet', 'carol', 'deluge', 'franchise', 'illusion', 'problem', 'recreant', 'sphere', 'tissue', 'transcend', with very many easier than these. In Skinner's Etymologicon (1671), there is another list of obsolete, words{86}, and among these he includes 'to dovetail', 'to interlace', 'elvish', 'encombred', 'masquerade' (mascarade), 'oriental', 'plumage', 'pummel' (pomell), and 'stew', that is, for fish. Who will say of the verb 'to hallow' that it is now even obsolescent? and yet Wallis two hundred years ago observed—"It has almost gone out of use" (fer. ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... the strong, inhuman cry. Fred Brangwen's blood froze, his heart was very angry. He gripped his veins in a frenzy. Why was she yelling like this? He could not bear the sight of her, perched on a chair in her white nightdress in the doorway, elvish and horrible. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... fool even Death, can he not?" The laugh was light and mocking, a tinkling, elvish sound which the Highlander frowned to hear. A book, worn and dog-eared, lay near her on the grass. He took it up and turned the leaves; then put it by, and glanced uneasily at the slender, brown-clad form seated upon the ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... of Athelney along a low long road like an interminable white string stretched across the flats, and lined with those dwarfish trees that are elvish in their very dullness. At one point of the journey (I cannot conceive why) one is arrested by a toll gate at which one has to pay threepence. Perhaps it is a distorted tradition of those dark ages. ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... Jock Binning, crutched and with an elfish face and figure and voice, had pulled down upon himself the office of revelator. The group swayed a little from him and he was left facing White Farm and the laird of Glenfernie. He had a wailing, chanting, elvish manner of speech. Out streamed ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... the street the Kensingtonians, in their picturesque blue smocks, saluted him as a King, and then looked after him as a curiosity. It seemed odd to them that men had once worn so elvish an attire. ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... on the water; she would not return till very late. Angelina would be alone, accessible. It was her duty to guard the house in the absence of its mistress. He might have gone there on some pretext and talked awhile, and looked into her elvish eyes and listened to that Southern voice, rich and clear as a bell. Almost he yielded. He thought of the ineptitude of the whole undertaking and, in particular, of those slippery stairs; one might break one's neck there ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas |
