"Faint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... herself to seem unembarrassed. "You will leave us the eighth commandment," she said, with a faint smile. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... would be glad to have their baby to themselves for the first meeting; but when she woke up refreshed and vigorous the following morning, she was full of eagerness to get downstairs, and make the acquaintance of the O'Shaughnessys in their own home. The night before she had been so faint and dazed that she had gone automatically through the various introductions, and as the lights inside the rooms were by no means as bright as those at the windows, even the very faces seemed seen through a mist. But Bridget had mentioned eight o'clock as the breakfast-hour, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Gatschet, and indicate that some five hundred or possibly one thousand years ago the tribesmen pushed over the Appalachians to the Ohio and followed that stream and its tributaries to the Mississippi (though there are faint indications that some of the early emigrants ascended the northern tributaries to the region of the Great Lakes); and that the human flood gained volume as it advanced and expanded to cover the entire region of the plains. The records concerning the movement ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... strongly, had now died away, and the placid waters of the harbour shimmered under the starlight of an almost cloudless sky. As the old mate tramped to and fro on the deserted poop, his keen seaman's eye caught sight of some faint grey clouds rising low down in the westward—signs of a south-easterly coming ...
— Foster's Letter Of Marque - A Tale Of Old Sydney - 1901 • Louis Becke
... down quickly, and the stars shed a faint light over the tall, leafless branches. Yesterday the first snow storm of the season had come, and everything as far as eye could reach was enveloped in an icy mantle. The great level park before the castle was knee deep with snow, and ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... a picture in it, a little faint, but he could make it out a horse and a bright red cart and on the seat a ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... waving hair like spun black glass, circled with faint tracery of stars. A black glass belt bound her narrow waist like clasped hands, and her robe, stark white, bore an ugly embroidery across the breasts, the flat sprawl of a conventionalized Toad God, Nebran. Her ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... cry of agony from Widow Anne, there was silence for quite one minute. The terrible contents of the packing case startled and terrified all present. Faint and white, Lucy clung to the arm of her lover to keep herself from sinking to the ground, as Mrs. Bolton had done. Archie stared at the grotesque rigidity of the body, as though he had been changed into stone, while Professor Braddock stared ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... gave a sigh like a faint moan. But Max was silent. He could spare her nothing. She must go on to the end—if the end were death. For there was somebody else, somewhere, who had to be put in his place—the place ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... few words in common, so that I could not rely on my interpretation of what they said. They were all of them circumcised, and all but one wanted the right front tooth of the upper jaw. When we left these people I gave them a note for Mr. Poole, in the faint hope that they would deliver it, and I explained to them that he would give them a tomahawk and blankets, but, as I afterwards learnt, they never went ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... faint, and hungry; Before you now is spread A rich supply for all your needs; Receive ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... four o'clock in the morning. The widowed Queen of France stands calm and resigned in her cell, listening with a melancholy smile to the tumult of the mob outside. A faint illumination announces the approach of day; it is the last she has to live! Seating herself at a table she writes, with hurried hand, a last letter of ardent tenderness to the sister of her husband, the pious Madame Elizabeth, and to her children; and now ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... The latter did not faint or indulge in any hysterical outbreaks as is fashionable on such occasions but quietly read the lines and with calm composure stood for a moment as if waiting for some one ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... not in vain. There was a stir in the boat. The red cloak was seen to wave aloft, and a faint cry ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... you know, to call a fellow "Tommy" who knew everybody and went everywhere. Sometimes she shrieked his name the length of the deck. On reaching London it was either the Carlton or the Ritz for Lambert. Tommy, however, made a faint demur. "Oh, hang the expense, Tommy, you are my guest for the summer," broke out Lambert. What a prime minister you would have made, Tommy, in some ...
— A Gentleman's Gentleman - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the baskets of blue flowers; and pale young women in lingerie blouses before the bowls of roses. She could see them,—those big-eyed girls with delicate blue veins accentuating the pallor of their white faces—sinking gratefully into the wicker seats and benches, and sniffing rapturously at the faint far-away fragrance ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... rambler roses, primula, sweet williams, Shasta daisies, and scarlet poppies. All the windows were open, and there was nothing damp or musty in the smell of the room. On the contrary, the companionable aroma of tobacco smoke hung in the air mixed with the sweet faint scent of flowers. The place seemed "lived-in"—as well it might. The two Japs had played gentlemen there for some weeks. The table was laid for two, and appetizing dishes of cold food, salad and fruit were spread ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... unfortunately, has come down to us only in a fragmentary and very incomplete form. According to this account, Idun was once sitting upon the branches of the sacred ash Yggdrasil when, growing suddenly faint, she loosed her hold and dropped to the ground beneath, and down to the lowest depths of Nifl-heim. There she lay, pale and motionless, gazing with fixed and horror-struck eyes upon the gruesome sights ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... he staggered to a rock and sat on it, his head in his hands, shivers running over him. For a time Catherson paid no attention to him, busying himself with his pony, jaded from the night's work. But after half an hour, just as the first faint shafts of dawn began to steal up over the horizon, Catherson walked close, and stood looking down at ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... husband, as all communication had been intercepted by the British cruisers. She knew that her enemies would be busy in poisoning the mind of her husband against her. She had traversed the weary leagues of her journey without a moment's intermission, and now, faint, exhausted, and despairing, she was to retrace her steps, to reach Paris only many hours after Napoleon would have arrived there. Probably in all France there was not then a ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Hal sent the airship lower and lower. Soon, a faint gray speck below became visible, assuming larger and larger proportions, until all aboard made out ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... was but a child, she had scarcely counted out sixteen years. This strange man, with his keen dark eyes gleaming under the black cap and looking as if they read her very soul, seemed to get her into his power. She was faint with terror, and looked round in vain for help, for some one to come who would deliver her from ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... I ran from the abysmal silence of that place, and in Palace Street near made one of those sudden immoderate rackets that seemed to outrage the universe, and left me so woefully faint, decrepit, and gasping for life (the noise of the train was different, for there I was flying, but here a captive, and which way I ran was capture). Passing in Palace Street, I saw a little lampshop, and wanting a lantern, tried to get in, but the door was locked; so, after going a ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... she resented anything. Besides, if what Grace thought about them was so, they would want a chance to inquire about the young men more closely, perhaps, than the young men themselves would care to be looked after. For Betty recalled what Grace had said— that her father had a faint idea that perhaps the motorists might have acted as they did purposely, to get possession of ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... in his anger, With his fist, the heart of Nahma, Felt the mighty King of Fishes Shudder through each nerve and fibre, Heard the water gurgle round him As he leaped and staggered through it, Sick at heart, and faint and weary. ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... "Inside!" he yelled, then was through, the negro right behind. Carse's eyes swept the laboratory. It was a place of shadows, the sole light being a faint gleam from a tiny bulb-tipped surgical tool which glimmered weirdly from the bank of instruments waiting by the operating ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... blows, after the Turkish manner, and then asked Neangir to state his complaint. After hearing the young man's story, which seemed to him most extraordinary, he turned to question the Jewish merchant, who instead of answering raised his eyes to heaven and fell down in a dead faint. ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... haunted restaurants and hotels, in the vague hope that chance might some day yield him a glimpse of her, as a gambler clings to a faint prospect of redeeming his fortunes through some wonderful and unexpected revulsion of luck. But the days passed without the slightest encouragement, and his ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... grey song-sparrows full of spring have sung Their clear thin silvery tunes in leafless trees; The robin hops, and whistles, and among The silver-tasseled poplars the brown bees Murmur faint dreams of summer harvestries; The creamy sun at even scatters down A gold-green mist ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... transparent olive, like depths of sea-water, and here and there a floating sea-weed, or a form of sea-life faintly outlined within the colour. In this room, which seemed wide open to the sea and air, even when the windows were closed, the walls were of a faint greenish blue, like what is called dead turquoise, and the relation between floor and walls was so perfect that it remained with me to this day as a crowning instance of ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... of his lingering here so long revealed itself when the faint creaking of the joints of a vehicle became audible, and one of the men said, "Here's he." Turning their heads they saw Melbury's gig approaching, the wheels ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... battle-cry rang like music in the King's ears as he galloped down the lines. He was fair to look upon in the faint early sunlight, bronzed and manly, a born soldier with a dash of the enthusiast. The men, fresh from reading his proclamation, welcomed him with thunderous cheers. Their shouts rose to the skies, and Ughtred breathed more freely. For these were Reist's ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... being covered with Polygonum junceum, I was content with intersecting the point where that line joined the Murrumbidgee, chiefly out of consideration for the men who were with me. It was well that I then determined to return, for one man became so faint, when within a few miles of the camp, that the two others had to remain with him until I rode forward to it and sent back the doctor with something for them ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... At length, however, he was struck in the thigh with a ponderous stone which one of the Greek warriors hurled at him,—a stone so heavy that two men of ordinary strength would have been required to lift it. AEneas was felled to the ground by the blow. He sank down, resting upon his arm, faint and dizzy, and being thus made helpless would have immediately been overpowered and killed by his assailants had not his mother interposed. She came immediately to rescue him. She spread her vail over him, which had the magic power of rendering harmless ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... when the foe came on, how ye set your teeth to die as his shells and round-shot fell steadily; and with how firm a cheer ye dashed at him, if he gave you any chance at all of a grapple! From the wild burst with which ye triumphed at Oulart Hill, down to the faint gasp wherewith the last of your last column died in the corn-fields of Meath, there is nothing to shame your valour, your faith, or your patriotism. You wanted arms, and you wanted leaders. Had you had them, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... daughter had been to the decayed old orchard many times before. At the foot of the hill on which it stood the streets of the town began, and as she sat on the rock she could hear faint shouts and cries coming out of Wilmott Street. A hedge separated the orchard from the fields on the hillside. Mary intended to sit by the tree until darkness came creeping over the land and to ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... I wake he tells me how Time is passing. While I sleep he is still marking his steps, so that sometimes I have a feeling of awe, as if my mysterious friend were counting my own life away. Then again I am sure that in the faint, persistent monotone of his voice I hear the singing of the old mower's inevitable scythe. The Imagination contemplates this friend of mine with wonder. But Science sees him holding the hand of a captain in his ship at sea, or of a conductor in a train ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... your letter?" she asked. He thought he heard faint amusement in her tone, but not a trace ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... of the ceiling, and the stained-glass windows, tell of the desire of later centuries to soften the original sternness of the room. It is here that one must wait quietly as dusk begins to fall, if one would see faint forms of those of whom Merton boasts as her noblest sons. To all of them is this old room familiar, and to none more so than to Henry Savile, lover of books and warden of the College just three hundred years ago. He it was who induced Merton to give prompt and generous aid to that other ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... one regretful glance at that fascinating scalloped shell; and they stroll on in placid contentment. From this part of the coast they get a wide ocean outlook, and can gaze far away to the faint sea-line dissolving into ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... your room, Stowell!" exclaimed the captain, leaping to his feet. "Surely you must be mistaken. You don't mean quite that many," and a faint ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... bolometer-strip), forming the agents of investigation, has been separately allowed for. My study of lamp-black absorption, I should add in qualification, is not quite complete. I have found it quite transparent to certain infra-red rays, and it is very possible that there may be some faint radiations yet to be discovered even below those ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... but feel that the men of Northumbria and of Mercia had chosen well. The discourse, however, was naturally brief, since thus made general; the visit soon ceased, and the brothers attended Harold to the door with the courtesy of the times. Then Haco said, with that faint movement of the lips which was his only approach to ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... afar a few gleams of morning red. It is not the full light nor the great poetry which reforms and awakes nations, but it is the forerunner in many things of such, and will be read with great pleasure by those who long for some faint realization of the great Nature-Art of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... haughty Thanes of Ross Were wont, with clans and ready vassals thronged, To wake the bounding stag, or guilty wolf; There oft is heard at midnight or at noon, Beginning faint, but rising still more loud, And louder, voice of hunters, and of hounds, And horns hoarse-winded, blowing far and keen. Forthwith the hubbub multiplies, the air Labours with louder shouts and rifer din Of close pursuit, the broken cry of deer Mangled by throttling ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... the King's garden, the Desert. How grand the idea excited by the remains of such a column. The spiral staircase, too, was beautiful. Every moment was filled with something agreeable. The wheels of time moved on with a rapidity, of which those of our carriage gave but a faint idea. And yet, in the evening, when one took a retrospect of the day, what a mass of happiness had we travelled over! Retrace all those scenes to me, my good companion, and I will forgive the unkindness with which you were chiding me. The ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Brothers on the Mount; and being a mighty shepherd of souls as well as a most skilful physician, he alighted from his carriage and fed souls that were in want thereof with the fodder of the Holy Word, and likewise cheered the faint of heart by giving them the food they lacked. He had brought with him fine meal, and flesh, and he gave the same to the Brothers for their common use; and they receiving the gifts he offered were all comforted by their better ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... colours—such as she had always loved, and which suited well her delicate, fragile beauty. Closely tied over her silvery hair—the only sign of age—was a little cap, whose soft pink gauze lay against her cheek—that cheek which even now was all unwrinkled, and tinted with a lovely faint rose colour, like a young girl's. Her eyes were cast down; she had a habit of doing this lest others might see there the painful expression of blindness; but her mouth smiled a serene, cheerful, holy smile, ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... east, towards where the faint streaks of returning day appeared in the sky, the sea tumbled and tossed as wildly as before, but where the masts of the brig rose above the surface the water was comparatively calm. The vessel had indeed driven ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... caught traces of bright markings on the Uranian disc, doubtfully suggesting a rotation in about twelve hours in a plane not coincident with that in which his satellites circulate.[1126] Dusky bands resembling those of Jupiter, but very faint, were barely perceptible to Professor Young at Princeton in 1883. Yet, though almost necessarily inferred to be equatorial, they made a considerable angle with the trend of the satellites' orbits.[1127] More distinctly by the brothers Henry, with the aid ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... impression upon the relentless pursuer of a poor creature so daring as to walk alone at night through the silent streets. He stood in thought, and seemed by his attitude to hesitate. She could see him dimly now, under the street lamp that sent a faint, flickering light through the fog. Fear gave her eyes. She saw, or thought she saw, something sinister about the stranger's features. Her old terrors awoke; she took advantage of a kind of hesitation on his part, ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac
... to any other emotions than those of unwillingness and discomfort. Some were yet chewing the cud of unfinished breakfasts, the crumbs of which still clung to their garments; others had the blue, ghostly look of unwonted early risers, shivering with the chill morning air and the faint heart which a fasting stomach entails; some, the latest comers of all, were quite breathless, and were nervously holding on to the gloves, veils, shawls, or over-shoes caught up at the last moment and only half ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... sleep, ye gentle flowers, ah, why, When tender eve is falling, And starlight drinks the happy sigh Of winds to fairies calling? Calling with low and plaining note, Most like a ringdove chiding, Or flute faint-heard from distant boat O'er smoothest waters gliding. Lo, round you steals the wooing breeze; Lo, on you falls the dew! O sweets, awake, for scarcely these Can charm while wanting you! Wake ye not yet, while fast below The ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Northland But the gold Moon is not shining, Neither gleams the silver sunlight In the chambers of Wainola, On the plains of Kalevala. On the crops the white-frost settled, And the cattle died of hunger, Even birds grew sick and perished. Men and maidens, faint and famished, Perished in the cold and darkness, From the absence of the sunshine, From the absence of the moonlight. Knew the pike his holes and hollows, And the eagle knew his highway, Knew the winds the times for sailing; ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... under the butt of it, and landed on the skids, which were laid like railway sleepers down the slope of a steep declivity. The snow was ground down and rammed back about the skids, and the worn-out hollow gleamed a faint blue-grey in the shadow of the firs. The men made another strenuous effort as the log started, but in another moment it rushed away, and, like a toboggan, sped downwards through the forest to the river-ice below. The ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... size and brilliancy, and that the difference in apparent brightness was the result, and therefore a measure of their distances, he proceeded to apply the same process to the star clusters, which, even in a fair telescope, present only the appearance of faint nebulous spots of light, but are resolved into clusters of stars by more powerful instruments. In many cases, he found that a certain proportion existed between the telescopic power by which a cluster was first rendered visible, and that required for its resolution, and by ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... A faint "ting-ting" resounded from under Coggan's waistcoat. It was Coggan's watch striking the hour ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... interior name—there were purple stars, and blue stars, and orange-colored stars; some resembled monstrous amethysts, some emeralds fierily green, some rubies spitting sparks vindictively red; others globular sheeny pearls, creamy of lustre but shot with faint gleams of rose; and fugitively sprinkling the firmament here and there were orbs that glistened like diamonds, wonderfully and purely white. Saturn, distinct among all the heavenly bodies, throbbed with a van-colored changing ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... up, Aggie," Mrs. Walsham said. "You are faint and shaken with all this excitement. Your grandpapa and I were two very foolish people, to let ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... of Christ's flock scattered abroad in the waste world! He came to gather them together in one; but they wander again and faint by the way, as having lost their Shepherd. What religious opinion can be named which some men or other have not at some time held? All are equally confident in the truth of their own doctrines, though the many must be mistaken. In this ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... trembling for fear. They asked him the 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 ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... 1455-1607 the enclosures in twenty-four counties are said to have amounted to some 500,000 acres, or 2.76 of their total area,[277] but the evidence for this is by no means conclusive. However, there seems no reason to doubt that the enclosure of this period was but a faint beginning of that great outburst of it that marked the agrarian revolution of the middle of the eighteenth century, and that it was mainly confined to the Midland counties, Mr. Johnson, in his recent Ford Lectures, has stated that the enclosure ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... house, Ann sat down silently before the expiring fire. She was tired, her bones ached, and she was faint ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... was brought out, faint, pale, ready to die at every step, but with that same immovable something shining in his eyes, and his lips still set in the old way that ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... or grief on my account: were I to be beaten down by the world and its inheritors, I should have succumbed to many things, years ago. You must not mistake my not bullying for dejection; nor imagine that because I feel, I am to faint:—but ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... All the sweet, faint tokens of Spring cheered her eyes and calmed the unrest of her heart, as she rode. Among the dead leaves of the woods, the snowy blossoms of the blood-root had already burst forth in starry clusters; ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... way slowly toward the dock and was resting against one of the piles when he heard a faint cry. He strained his ears to locate the direction whence it came. Once again that feeble call floated across the water, and in it there ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... attention before he turned and the expression on his great face woke more—woke curiosity, interest, envy. He wore this very look of certainty that knows, yet with a tinge of mild surprise as though he had only recently known. It was less than perplexity. A faint astonishment as of a happy child—almost of an animal—shone ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... May 23 the prisoners had been permitted to breathe fresh air in a narrow paved courtyard; but the archbishop was too weak and ill for exercise; he lay half fainting on his bed. In addition to his other sufferings he was faint from hunger, for the advance of the Versailles troops had cut off the Commune's supplies, and the hostages were of course the last persons they wished to care for. Pere Olivariet (shot three days later in the same party as Paul ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... no stir; it was as if the world was dead. The impressiveness of this silence and solemnity was deepened by a leaden twilight, for the sky was hidden by a pall of low-hanging storm-clouds; and above the remote horizon faint winkings of heat-lightning played, and now and then one caught the dull mutterings and complainings of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... themselves of the general's permission. Four of these belonged to the infantry, and five to the horse. The rest loudly declared their resolve to go forward with their brave leader; and, if there were some whose voices were faint amidst the general acclamation, they, at least, relinquished the right of complaining hereafter, since they had voluntarily rejected the permission to return.11 This stroke of policy in their sagacious captain was attended with the best effects. He had winnowed out the few grains ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... you must not offer or make suggestion of your dainties to jaded appetites until satiety has ceased and starvation cries for alms. Even then shall you make but a faint suggestion to their want, with modest converse—like one who would fain bestow a kindness... and lo! the vision fades and she is gone—until the very pinch of hunger; for the same gifts have then a value unknown before the ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... bears. He enters midst deep silence and takes his seat upon the pictured animal. The play of his imagination has barely begun when a man, painted and garbed as a bear, rushes in, uttering hideous snarls and growls, in which all assembled join. Women patients seldom fail to faint. ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... a mother, was fanned into a flame, a veritable pain to her heart. Then the motherly affection hindered the growth of the broader human feeling, burned it; and in place of a great sentiment a small, dismal thought beat faint-heartedly in the gray ashes of alarm: "He will perish; he ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... requests made to the author for manuscript copies, was still farther revised by him; in fact, he printed it in Richmond, just before his death, with the poetic substitution of "seraphim whose foot-falls" for "angels whose faint foot-falls," in the fourteenth stanza. Our present text, therefore, while substantially that of 1845, is somewhat modified by the poet's later reading, and is, I think, the most correct and effective version of this single poem. The most radical change ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... perhaps very likely, still the grand result will amply recompense us, and you, for all our toils. We are sure to take the fortress, if we can but persuade ourselves to sit down long enough before it. 'We shall reap if we faint not.' ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... had made for Patty was simply straight, flowing breadths of the white illusion, which fell straight from her shoulders, her pink gown beneath giving it a faint rosy tinge. From her head the illusion rippled in a long veil, floating down behind, and there were long angel sleeves of the ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... at a plausible explanation. He leaned back in the cab and closed his eyes. Really, there were times in life when it would be a relief to faint! ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... will take worlds of time; it will take a multitude striving; it will take unnumbered forces—education, health-work, eugenics, town-planning, the rise of women, philanthropy, law—a thousand thousand dawning powers. Oh, we are only at the faint ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... speaking he seemed, I thought, to have some faint idea that his talk was incoherent. Directly he had said these words, he lay down again; gave a kind of a groan; and covered his hot ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... part he did not like this at all. Then Camilla slowly approached wearing a brilliant glaring blue shawl. Her arms were entirely wrapped up in the shawl, and she greeted him with a slight inclination of the head and a faint welcome. The councilor left with his flower-pots, Camilla stood looking over her shoulders towards the balcony; Mogens looked at her. How had he been since the other day? Thank you, nothing especial had been the matter ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... this person, "that Mr. Vogel will not allow his cow-boys at the Malheur Agency to have any whiskey brought there. Personally, I feel gratified." And Mr. Bolles, the new school-master, gave his faint smile. ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... leaned forward and her own light breath came a shade more quickly, and the faint colour on her cheek flickered into a ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... disappearing dollar, the Wildcat mentally showered the absent Honey Tone with epithets picked up during overstressed moments of an active life. Then to the Temp'rary Soopreem Leader's mind there came a faint resolve to try the ultimate arrow of his pack in an effort to reclaim ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... help it. I never saw anyone faint, and I don't choose to make myself all black and blue, tumbling flat as you do. If I can go down easily, I'll drop. If I can't, I shall fall into a chair and be graceful. I don't care if Hugo does come at me with a pistol," ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... without any adventure save one or two queries, which the talisman of his passport sufficiently answered, reached the borders of Scotland. Here he heard the tidings of the decisive battle of Culloden. It was no more than he had long expected, though the success at Falkirk had thrown a faint and setting gleam over the arms of the Chevalier. Yet it came upon him like a shock, by which he was for a time altogether unmanned. The generous, the courteous, the noble-minded Adventurer, was then a fugitive, with a price upon his head; his adherents, so brave, so enthusiastic, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... shown; while the large tree in the centre, though very dark, as being very near, compared with all the distance, is much diminished in intensity of shade from this nearest group of leaves, and is faint compared with all the foreground. It is true that this tree has not, in consequence, the actual pitch of shade against the sky which it would have in nature; but it has precisely as much as it possibly can have, to leave it the same proportionate relation to the objects near at hand. ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... desperation died out of her face; she fell to her knees, and a prayer for help rose to her lips; low and faint, but ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... David, were sons of the same father; and the name she bore, the home in which she was living, the estates the title carried, were not her husband's, but another's—David's. She fell back in her chair, white and faint, but, with a great effort, she conquered the swimming weakness which blinded her. Sons of the same father! The past flashed before her, the strange likeness she had observed, the trick of the head, the laugh, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... followed her husband into his office, as that special room was called. The windows had not been opened—they were French windows and they served as a door out on to the gravel sweep which ran around the house—and she thought she detected a faint disagreeable smell, as of drugs. She unbolted a window and flung it wide and the warm June air came flowing in, banishing the unpleasant ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... Jimmie rattled on in a whirlwind of conversation to keep the attention of the soldiers in their own direction. So absorbed were Otto and Fritz in listening to the chatter that they failed to hear the faint whistle of a rope through the air, and it was not until the noose of Dave's lasso settled about their shoulders and they were jerked incontinently backward that ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... I didn't exactly faint there, but things got all mixed fur me, and when they was straightened out agin I was in a hospital. It seems I had been considerable stepped on in that fight, and three ribs was broke. I knowed I was hurting, but I was so interested in what was happening to the doctor ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... intoxication of color, make you drowsy, and you lean back among the green things, close your eyes, and then begin listening to the wonderful music of the rushes. A million million reeds stirred by the breeze bend to and fro, making a faint silken sound like that of a summer wave lapping the shore, but ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... dropped off. He had been asleep some time when he was aroused by hearing Raff growl and bark. He started up and looked about him, but could see nothing. Indeed, the fire had burned so low, that its embers cast but a faint light to a short distance. Fortunately, he had reserved some sticks, which he immediately threw on the fire. As they burned up, he took another look round, when he saw the dim outline of some animal passing by. Whether a lion, leopard, or hyena, he could not make out. Percy ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... low, creatures of the smooth green roller. He heard the water-song of her swimming. She, though breathing equably at the nostrils, lay deep. The water shocked at her chin, and curled round the under lip. He had a faint anxiety; and, not so sensible of a weight in the sight of land as she was, he chattered, by snatches, rallied her, encouraged her to continue sportive for this once, letting her feel it was but a once and had its respected limit with him. So it was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... A very faint and scattering shout of applause, in two or three places, mingled with hisses and murmurs in others, was the only response with which this address was received. But even with this equivocal testimony of public feeling towards him, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... imploring mercy, as if she had still been in the hands of those who knew not the name; and anon, a low hysterical laugh made our very blood freeze in our bosoms, which soon ended in a long dismal yell, as she rolled off the couch upon the hard deck, and lay in a dead faint. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... the poor child has fainted, and can't hear us. It's enough to make any one faint. But I'm sure this is the room," and she indicated the one she had pointed out. "We must break down ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... of Charles V upon the dress of the culprit, a faint look of surprise swept Francis' face. Did it recall that fatal day, when on the field of battle, a rival banner had waved ever illusively; ever beyond his reach? Now it shone before him as though mocking his friendship ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... like a millstone about my neck. If I had paid it, I would never borrow again from mortal man. But do not mistake me, mother; I am not one of those men who faint and falter in the great battle of life. God has given me too strong a heart for that. I look upon earth as a place where every man is set to struggle and to work, that he may be made humble and pure-hearted, and fit for that better land for which earth ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... a few hours. In health it is bad enough, but in sickness it must be horrible beyond all parallel. Imagine a mother with a dying child in such a place; or a wife bending over the pillow of her husband to catch the last faint whisper of farewell, as a train of five or six cars goes roaring by the open window! ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... short-lived, but ephemeral Franco-Canadian Transport Company. A death leaves something behind, but there was never anything tangible left from the F. C. T. C. It flourished no longer than roses live, and unlike the roses it blossomed in the dead of winter, emitted a sort of faint perfume of adventure, and died before spring set in. But indubitably it was a company, it had even a house-flag, all white with the letters F. C. T. C. artfully tangled up in a complicated monogram. We flew it at our ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... such brutal emanations as these, which readily diffuse themselves through space; it is inodorous, at least to our senses. The insect which seeks it does not come from a distance; it inhabits the places wherein the cryptogam is found. Faint as are the effluvia of this subterranean fungus, the prospecting epicure, being specially equipped, perceives them with the greatest ease; but then he operates at close range, from the surface of the soil. The truffle-dog is in the same case; he ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... something wet being pressed against my face, and by two warm arms which were cast round me. My mother's cheek was against my own, and I could hear the click of her sobs, and feel her quiver and shake in the darkness. A faint light stole through the latticed window, and I could dimly see that she was in white, with her black hair loose upon ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... clink of glasses and the resounding toast may still be heard in the deserted banquet-hall; at night a ghostly light illumines the vacant ballroom, and the rustle of silks and satins, the sound of merry laughter, and the faint far-off strains of music fall upon ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... Black Mountain country; and we were fearfully pleased with ourselves. I remember that excitement lasted well up to Port Said. As far as the Canal, Cecily was only one of the pleasures and interests we were going home to: John's majority was the thing that really gave savour to life. But the first faint line of Europe brought my child to my horizon; and all the rest of the way she kept her place, holding out her little arms to me, beckoning me on. Her four motherless years brought compunction to my heart and tears to my eyes; she should ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... mazes bound Of vernal sorcery, I heard a dainty dubious sound, As of goodly melody; Which first was faint as if in swound, Then burst so suddenly In warring concord all around, That, whence this thing might be, To see The very marrow longed in me! It seemed of air, it seemed of ground, And never any witchery Drawn from pipe, ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... 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 and sure defence.[***] The queen, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... whip up a faint flicker of hope at thought of Smithy. Smithy had seen him go, had seen the red mole-men, of course. And he had got away—he must have got away! ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... fatigued, irresolute, weak, exhausted, feeble, languid, wearied, faded, half-hearted, listless, worn, faint-hearted, ill-defined, purposeless, worn down, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... a faint sense of justice.] I am bound to say she has behaved discreetly ever since she arrived ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... fine flushes of departing day; O'er the wide water's deep serene she hung, And her broad lights on every mountain flung; When lo! a sudden blast the vessel blew, [f] And to the surge consign'd the little crew. All, all escap'd—but ere the lover bore His faint and faded JULIA, to the shore, Her sense had fled!—Exhausted by the storm, A fatal trance hang o'er her pallid form; Her closing eye a trembling lustre fir'd; 'Twas life's last spark—it flutter'd and expir'd! The father strew'd his white hairs in the wind, ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... he spoke, the little one stretched out its tiny arms toward the poor old black man and gave a faint moan. Captain Grosvenor, who had now come up with the negro, was no less surprised than had been old Vingo, at discovering, among the fresh, bright sea-weed, an infant some eight months old. The babe was carefully lashed into a large wooden trough or bowl, and a canvas firmly stretched over ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... other part of the tents; nor is this to be wondered at. Nothing can be more singular in appearance or gorgeous in colouring. Their fragrance, too, is so delightful. Description can convey but a faint idea of their great beauty and diversity of character. They seem to mimic the insect world in the shapes of their blossoms; nor are the resemblances distant. Every one has heard of the butterfly-plant: there is one on the stage now before us, and as ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... laid his hand upon his friend's arm, and nodded kindly to him. "My dear Mueller," he said, with a faint smile, "nothing more has happened than that the Electoral Prince has just dismissed me in anger, and ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... sun, and inhale the fragrance of the shrubs and flowers, offered up in grateful incense to their Creator, and I should stretch myself under the branches of the forest tree, as evening closed, and enjoy the faint perfume with which they wooed the descending moisture after exhaustion from the solar heat. But in civilised society, where men and things are packed too closely together, the case is widely different: for one pleasant, you encounter twenty offensive smells; and of all ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... run. A mistake, that, when one is following a mountain trail, at best an elusive thing. In five minutes she had lost the trail. She stopped, and scolded herself sternly, and looked about her. She saw the faint trail line again, or thought she saw it, and made toward it, and found it to be no trail at all. She knew that she must be not more than an hour's walk from Timberline Cabin, and Albert Edward, and his biscuits and ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... southern sky for several hours. At seven on the following morning it became more brilliant and stationary, describing a well-defined arch, extending from the E.S.E. horizon to that at W.N.W., and passing through the zenith. A very faint arch was also visible on each side of this, appearing to diverge from the same points in the horizon, and separating to twenty degrees distance in the zenith. It remained thus for twenty minutes, when the coruscations from ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... the other would go a little too near the forbidden point, and then there was a moment's silence, and the least touch of embarrassment; and once Margaret laughed a queer little laugh at one of these stumbles, and once Claudius sighed. But they were very happy, and the faint colour that was natural to the Doctor's clear white skin came back as his heart was eased of its burden, and Margaret's dark cheek grew darker with the sun and the wind that she took no pains to keep from ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... use, not only for depicting the sun and moon, comets and nebulae, but also to obtain accurate relative positions of neighbouring stars; to pick up objects that are invisible in any telescope; and, most of all perhaps, in fixing the positions of faint satellites. Thus Saturn's distant satellite, Phoebe, and the sixth and seventh satellites of Jupiter, have been followed regularly in their courses at Greenwich ever since their discovery with the thirty-inch reflector (erected in 1897); and while ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... the faint phosphorescent radiance of the foaming waves, the darkness was intense, and Burgess for some minutes pulled almost at random in pursuit. The same tremendous flash of lightning which had saved the life of McNab, by causing Rex to miss his aim, showed to the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... minutes, which seemed endless to her, unable to speak or move, gasping for breath. When at last he descended the three steps and fell backward in the large chair which Dorothea had drawn close to the foot of the ladder, he no longer gasped but seemed helpless and about to faint. Dorothea rang the bell violently, and presently Mr. Casaubon was helped to the couch: he did not faint, and was gradually reviving, when Sir James Chettam came in, having been met in the hall with the news that Mr. Casaubon had "had ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... and a man climbed over the rail. In the faint light Griffiths found an automatic Colt's thrust into his face, and, looking up, ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... it, and after a lot of patient skirmishing he began to see faint signs of hope. He held in, however, so powerful as his nature would let him until the signs heartened the man for a dash at last, and 'twas by Hound's Pool on a May day with the bluebells beside the water, and the cherry ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... to an abrupt standstill. Had he heard a faint sound off there in the path? With a sudden spring, he dismounted. Over near the fence, he thought he had seen through the streak of light a human hand move upward and then sink into the snow. He paused a moment and shuddered. Had he lost his senses through ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... gentlemen wear, no man alive could have mistaken him for a gentleman. No man, conversant with the species to which he belonged, could have taken him for anything but what he was. As he entered the room, a faint, sickly, second-hand smell ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... parents were all invited to a feast, and as they walked along the path, they could not help pitying their young and handsome sister, who had such an unsuitable mate. Osseo often stopped and gazed upwards, but they could perceive nothing in the direction he looked, unless it was the faint glimmering of the evening star. They heard him muttering to himself as they went along, and one of the elder sisters caught the words, "Sho-wain-ne-me-shin nosa."[37] "Poor old man," said she, "he is talking to his father, what a pity it is, that he would not fall and break his neck, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... sounding faint and far off, because his head was under the covers. "Daddy, is—is ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope
... Mr Ellanor's man, was sore wounded in eight or ten places, and had certainly been killed, but that a musket or two were fired from the boat, by which it would seem that some of them were hurt, as they retired crying out. Bucker, though weak and faint, made a shift to get to the boat, and two or three other men, who were at the watering-place, got ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... had no such effect. And at two o'clock Mrs. Gaylor said that she feared she must not venture out, after all, in the hot sun. If she tried she might faint, and that would be silly. "I'm so sorry, but you'll have to go alone," she finished, "and when I've had a little rest, I'll come after you in a carriage, in time to bring you home. That will save Nick motoring here and back, and give him a chance to keep his engagement at six, with ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... gun, I see, Perhaps you'll point it soon at me, And when I am shot, alack! Pop me in your little sack. When upon my fate I think I grow faint, my spirits sink." ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... beautiful, and the rest of the night is hidden. It has created the fairies, whom the sunlight kills, and fairyland rises again in our hearts at the sight of it, the voices of the filmy route, and their faint, soul-piercing melodies. By the moonlight every man, dull clod though he be by day, tastes something of Endymion, takes something of the youth and strength of Enidymion, and sees the dear white goddess shining at him from his Lady's eyes. The firm substantial daylight things become ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... instinct now of the girl who struggled with her emotions, who sought a way out that would accomplish that end very much desired by her as well as Jean. There was at the same time a faint idea that her own material happiness ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... a faint light on the surface of the water; they could dimly see the stakes in the river, and could hear the beat of the oars in the other boat. It was a race for the Italian settlement, where they would be safe, and where the pursuing ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... more denial, then a silence—or what seemed a silence—a few hoarse whispers and a cry or two of pain. Yes, the end had come. In the corner stood the Dauphin and, half in front, Ursula de Vesc, her arm stretched out across his breast in the old attitude of protection. Marcel lay beside them in a faint. ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... scissors, wash it in a drop of water and place it on the object slide. The mouth now stands revealed as a round spot which, for hue and for the smallness of its size, may be compared with the front stigmata. It is a small conical crater, with sides of a pale yellowish-red and with faint, more or less concentric lines. At the bottom of this funnel is the opening of the gullet, itself tinted red in front and promptly spreading into a cone at the back. There is not the slightest trace of mandibular fangs, of jaws, ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... boatful of pensive hearts are singing. So calm is the evening that the cadences come distinctly to us, and almost the words can be plainly caught. In a lull of their song, faint sounds of another arrive from far away. Rising and falling, now heard and now not, plaintive and recurring, it is like ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... in the other day, before we had left town, and looked round at the appointments of the room in their summer shrouds, and said, with a faint sigh, "I see you have had the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Daughters fire brands Lying so neere me, to torment my soule? Extremitie of all extremities: Take pitty on the wandering sense of mine Or it will breake the prison of my soule And like to wild fire fly about the world, Till they have no abiding in the world. I faint, I dye, my sorrowes are so great, Oh mortalitie, renounce thy seate. ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... seeing that though a long-lived one, she was still a woman, whereon her face assumed a calm but terrifying smile, and she answered—"Art so sure, my Holly? Tell me, do your women wear such jewels as that set upon my brow?" and she pointed to the faint but lambent light which glowed about ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... gold—which only a legend of late and wretched invention represents the hero Camillus as having recovered for Rome—and when the fugitives had again made their way home, the foolish idea suggested by some faint-hearted prudential politicians, that the citizens should migrate to Veii, was set aside by a spirited speech of Camillus; houses arose out of the ruins hastily and irregularly—the narrow and crooked streets of Rome owed their origin to this epoch; and Rome again stood in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... time in twenty years, the gauges were examined. Barrow and McCarthy crawled through the dust-coated passage beneath the floor of the machinery hold. They found a light switch, but the bulbs were so dust-coated that only a faint glow shed on the surrounding metal. They sneezed and coughed, as the dust-laden air filled ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... and shut himself in with a feeling of relief. It was several days before he could school himself to talk and act like an ordinary human being. His health was shattered, though he was naturally a strong and hearty man; eating made him sick, though he was faint for lack of ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne |
