"Flighty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... come to an age when nobody can say she's flighty, I sh'd hope," continued Miss Peckham. "She's settled. And she's ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... it. Moreover, he keenly regretted on her account his own physical condition. Since rising from his bed of fever he had carefully avoided all fatigue, according to his doctor's injunction. But now, after this morning's efforts, his legs were weak and his head was flighty. Things showed a tendency to dance before his eyes in a way that he had not experienced heretofore. When he lay upon the ground an hour ago he did it, among other reasons, to avoid ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... wonder you are surprised—or at your mistake. The fact is, the circumstances are peculiar. It's my sister's fault, really; she's such a flighty little thing—unpardonably careless. I must have warned her a hundred times, if once, never to leave valuables in that silly old tin safe. But she won't listen to reason—never would. And it's her house—her safe. I've got no right to install ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... wants to have this world populated with men and women. Whether Caine meant John Storm for an ideal Christian we can not say. There is strength here, as in all he has written; but Storm's lacks are many and great. He is enthusiast, but flighty. He means well, but is spasmodic in its display. Storm might have grown into a hero had he lived longer, and, as a flame, leaped high at some point in his career. Both as man and Christian, he disappoints ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... his old friend Seward, Mr. Lincoln's Secretary of State, and felt able to give us a forecast of the future. This uncle of mine was a thoughtful man of affairs; successful in business, excellent in judgment, not at all prone to sanguine or flighty views, and on our asking him how matters looked in Washington he said, "Depend upon it, it is all right: Seward says that they have decided to end the trouble at once, even if it is necessary to raise ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... full justice, from not understanding many of its best points. She liked Mr. Phillips much better, who was graver. Her Scotch phlegmatic temperament could not appreciate the fine spirit and unvarying good humour of Brandon, and his random way of talking she thought flighty and frivolous. But yet she could, and did, praise him for his kindness of heart and his want of selfishness, which he had shown on many occasions, great and small, at Barragong. These panegyrics were bestowed ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... was taken sick. He had begun boarding at the hotel, and that night did not come to supper. I went over to his rooms to see what the trouble was. I found him on the bed in a high fever. His talk was rambling and flighty. It was a good deal about his daughter Florence, whom he had told me of before. Then he wandered ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... hand, was fussy and flighty; always planned to get through two days' work in one, and often got only the least important things done. He liked to keep the place up, but he never got round to doing odd jobs until he had to neglect more pressing ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... accomplished; but they have been retained. Austria has been for the same time nearly mistress of Italy, and though the French arms have partially shaken her authority, it was never shaken by popular revolt. And why is all this contradistinction to the flighty conquest and ephemeral possession of France? The obvious reason is, that however the governments might be disliked, neither the Austrian soldier, nor the Prussian, nor even the Russian, made himself ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... incense, the dizzy wheel, the shreds of stuff cut secretly from his sleeve, the sweetened cup he drank at her offer, unavailingly; [181] and yes! his own features surely, in pallid wax. With a gasp of flighty laughter she ventures to point the thing out to him, full as he is at last of visible, irrepressible dislike. Ah! it was that very reluctance that chiefly stirred her. Healthily white and red, he had a marvellous air of discretion about him, as of one never to be caught unaware, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... ones. After they had been married for eight years, Rosina met this Spaniard. He must have amounted to something. She wasn't a flighty woman. She came home and told Dudley how matters stood. He persuaded her to stay at home for six months and try to pull up. They were both fair-minded people, and I'm as sure as if I were the Almighty, that ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... in tones that seemed to sing; gunsmiths and saddle-makers sat idle at their doors, greeting every one that passed; solemn Talebs stood in knots, with faces that shone under the closed hoods of their dark jellabs; and the bareheaded Berbers encamped in the market-square capered about like flighty children, grinned like apes, fired their long guns into the air for love of hearing the powder speak, often wept, and sometimes embraced each other, thinking of their homes that were ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... pride (and nothing can be greater), yet she holds out on the strength of her original pretensions for a long time, and plays the upstart with decency and imposing consistency. Indeed, her infatuation and caprices are akin to the flighty perversity of a disordered imagination; and another turn of the wheel of good or evil fortune would have sent her to keep company with Hogarth's Merveilleuses in Bedlam, or with Decker's group of coquettes ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... are inevitable. What is true to-day may not be true to-morrow. All our opinions should be marked, "Subject to change without notice." We cannot all indulge ourselves in the complacency of the maiden lady who gave her age year after year as twenty-seven, because she said she was not one of these flighty things who say "one thing to-day and something ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... man was a flighty youth who had fired on the French Premier and wounded him. He, however, had not long to wait for his trial. He was taken before the tribunal within three weeks of his arrest and was promptly condemned to die.[38] Thus the assassin was justified by ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... out in the most airy, graceful, delicately-wise kind of way, so as to keep himself out of the common controversies of the street and of the forum, yet to indicate what was the result of things he had been long meditating upon. Among others, he introduces, in an aerial, flighty kind of way, here and there a touch which grows into a beautiful picture—a scheme of entirely mute education, at least with no more speech than is absolutely necessary for ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... is," he said, "as I am na mich o' a lass's mon mysen, and I wunnot say as I ha' mich opinion o' woman foak i' general—they're flighty yo' see—they're flighty; but I mun say as I wur tuk by that little wench o' th' ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... are at once received in an inner hall,—the first four remaining on the stage. All is so far clear. He has also, by the dialogue of the Painter and Poet, made in itself taking to the attention through the picture and the flighty recitation, suggested and interested us incidentally in the character of Timon, and conveyed a vague misgiving of misfortune to come to him. And there is withal a swelling pomp, three parts rhetorical and one part genuinely poetical, in the Poet's style, which gives ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... than their master, and being brought up as she was among them, their young mistress became strangely familiar with many sights and sounds it is not the fortune of most young misses of breeding to see and hear. The cooks and kitchen-wenches were flighty with the grooms and men-servants, and little Mistress Clorinda, having a passion for horses and dogs, spent many an hour in the stables with the women who, for reasons of their own, were pleased enough to take her there as ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... flighty by nature, though that, of course, is not sufficient to explain how he came to forge his sister's name on a draft ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... uster putter around considerable. But they say his widow isn't doing much to keep it up. Tumble flighty woman, so they say. Young, you know, just about young enough to be the ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... I dont know if I shall like it the bow of the ribbon is too flighty for my age. Then he sat down and eat the egg which Ethel had so kindly laid for him. After he had finished his meal he got down and began to write to Bernard Clark he ran up stairs on his fat legs and took out his blotter with a loud sniff and this ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford
... times to ponder over these matters: and for this, I say that to be a lofty and noble nation, we must all borrow the rational observance of the Sabbath, not as a day merely of rest and still less of flighty recreation, but a necessary period devoted to man's thought ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... quiet conviction which gave solid weight to his words, owing to its contrast with the flighty enthusiasm which was the usual characteristic of ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... possible that proud old man has really fallen seriously in love with that yellow-haired, flighty child?" asked Mrs. Carl Walraven in angry surprise. "He was attentive at Washington, certainly; but I fancied his absurd old eyes were only caught for the moment. If it should prove serious, what a thing it will be for her! and these antediluvians, in their dotage, will do ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... Graham the flighty, Whom the Duke high and mighty Resign'd to take care of his own lignum-vitae; 'Twas Hampton, whose whim Was in Cloudland to swim, Till e'en Little Hampton looked little ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... away leafless, treeless, without bud or flower, herd or herdsman, church or cottage, to the shadowed horizon, looming dark as the twilight deepened, was in sympathy with the gloom which had come upon me as Martin Hall ceased to speak. I had thought the man a fool and witless, flighty in purpose and shallow in thought, and yet he seemed to speak of great mysteries—and of death. In one moment the jester's cloak fell from him, and I saw the mail beneath. He had made a great impression upon me, but I concealed it from him, and replied jauntily ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... apocalyptic than anything else of the kind accessible to me. Its writer was Maria Allen, daughter of Dr. Burney's second wife, therefore half-sister to the charming Burney girls. She was a young lady who could let herself go, in act as well as on paper, and withal, as Fanny judged her, "flighty, ridiculous, uncommon, lively, comical, entertaining, frank, and undisguised"—or because of it—she did contrive to unfold her panting and abounding young self more thoroughly than the many times more expert. You have her here in the pangs of a love-affair, of how long standing I don't ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... took great delight in exercising Tommy and Patty (who were big enough to be trusted) in flighty and would often skim round the whole island with them before I could walk half through the wood. And she would teach them also to swim or sail, I know not which to call it, for sometimes you should see them dart out of the air as if they would fall on ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... some eggs out 'n the nestes, but it'd look sort o' flighty to go egg-huntin' here at midnight—an' he not two ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... used to be, but then ag'in she ain't so fur gone as some, and she's got money,—but if he wants to talk religion with me, he may come and welcome. But as for Myrtle Hazard, she's been sick, and it's left her a little flighty by what they say, and to have a minister round her all the time ravin' about the next world as if he had a latch-key to the front door of it, is no way to make her come to herself again. I 've seen ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... writing, I more unwillingly undertake beaten arguments, lest I should handle them at another's expense. Every subject is equally fertile to me: a fly will serve the purpose, and 'tis well if this I have in hand has not been undertaken at the recommendation of as flighty a will. I may begin, with that which pleases me best, for the subjects are all linked ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... in the hall, told her that his patient was feverish and a "little flighty" at times, but that he had expected this, adding: "The comfort of his room and good food will bring him around in time. He will owe his life chiefly to your hospitality, Miss Barkdale, for a little thing would have ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... daily a wider knowledge of the Christ-principle, and its application to the needs and problems of her fellow-men. Her business was the reflection of her Father's business. Other ambition she had none. The weak, transient, flighty, so-called intellectual life which she saw about her sent no call across the calm currents of her thought. Her education was religious in the strictest, deepest sense, for she ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... flees, however, when the ego is rampant, and to-day, as upon others too recent, Orth's soul was as restless as his feet. He had walked for two hours when he entered the wood of his neighbor's estate, a domain seldom honored by him, as it, too, had been bought by an American—a flighty hunting widow, who displeased the fastidious taste of the author. He heard children's voices, and turned with the quick prompting ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... the insolence, of the Junker officer, his aristocratic pretension, his bearish manners, have made him a byword, not only in his own country but all over Europe; and his belief in sheer militarism and Jingo imperialism has made him a menace. The Kaiser has only made things worse. Vain and flighty to a degree, and, like most vain people, rather shallow, Wilhelm II has supposed himself to be a second and greater Bismarck, destined by Providence to create the said Teutonic world-empire. It is simply to fight these powers of ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... much. Perhaps nobody will ask me, anyway; of course I can expect nothing from Theodore Brower, who couldn't waltz any more than he could fly. No; I'll just sit in the box, and then nobody can say that I am giddy, or flighty, or trying to be ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... was absolutely absurd. Zoeth, and Shadrach, too, had talked with Mary of Crawford's people in the West, but merely casually, as of complete strangers, which, of course, they were. It was all strange, but explainable if one considered that Mr. Smith was weak and ill and, perhaps, flighty. She must not think any more about it now—that is, she must try not to think. She must not give way, and above all she must not permit her uncles to suspect that she was troubled. She must try hard to put it from her mind until Crawford's next ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Nobody about here can recognize him from my descriptions. He walked toward the old mill down the Newark road, and the next time I looked up he was gone. The people in the house there think I am flighty in my mind for insisting upon his ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... by habit, or whether it be habit and education only which give the natives of the south of France so much apparently constitutional ardour; but such the fact appears to be. This count is one of the most extravagant of all the hot-brained race I have mentioned. He indulges and feeds his flighty fancy by reading books of chivalry, and admiring the most romantic of the ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... then. Couldn't Mr. Gallilee put up a swing? And a 'flying circle' in the middle? You see they can't go out on the roofs; so they must have something else that will seem kind of flighty. And I'll tell you how they'll learn their letters. Sulie and I will paint 'em; great big ones, all colors; and hang 'em up with ribbons, and every child that learns one, so as to know it everywhere, shall take it down and carry ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... images for which the careful reader lies in wait: the mutiny of the sailors in the ship—ship of the state, or of one's own soul: the echoes and beams and shadows of that half-illuminated cavern, the human mind: the caged birds in the Theatetus, which are like the flighty, half-contained notions of an imperfectly educated understanding. Real notions are to be ingrained by persistent thoroughness of the "dialectic" method, as if by conscientious dyers. He makes us stay to watch such dyers busy with their purple stuff, as he had done; adding as it were ethic colour ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... almost of continuing the practice before the old lady's face. Lady Milborough, who was the most affectionate old soul alive, and good-tempered with her friends to a fault, had never resented this, but had come to fear that Mrs. Trevelyan was perhaps a little flighty. She had never as yet allowed herself to say anything worse of her young friend's wife than that. And she would always add that that kind of thing would cure itself as the nursery became full. It must be understood therefore that Mrs. Trevelyan was not anticipating much pleasure ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... "Don't get flighty, Patricia," admonished Beth. "This is a serious matter, and Louise is in earnest. If we're going to help her we mustn't talk rubbish. Now, it isn't a bad suggestion that we ought to look nearer home for the key to this mystery. There's ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... you by the hand, Honeyman. Clive and I should have beat up your quarters to-day, but we were busy until dinnertime. You put me in mind of poor Emma, Charles," he added, sadly. Emma had not been a good wife to him; a flighty silly little woman, who had caused him when alive many a night of pain ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... very fond of her father, but it was a fondness which considered his love of speech-making and his flighty enthusiasms with smiling tolerance. Her cooler and more critical way of looking at things had caused her, young as she was, to distrust his judgment in practical affairs, and about most matters she had long since ceased asking ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... a Transit Circle similar to that at Greenwich.—I had much correspondence about sending Pierce Morton (formerly a pupil of mine at Cambridge, a clever gentlemanly man, and a high wrangler, but somewhat flighty) as Magnetic Assistant to the Cape Observatory: he was with me from May to October, and arrived at the Cape on Nov. 27th.—I was much engaged with the clock with conical motion of pendulum, for uniform movement of the Chronographic Barrel.—Regarding galvanic communications: On Sept. 19th ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... strengthened his mind rather than weakened it. He is not so flighty or talkative. He is offering his home for sale, and has ordered it to be closed at once. He says he is going to live with his nieces in Virginia, who will now, I presume, inherit all his property. He is not likely to leave a penny to Mostyn, who, to ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... in what fits of flighty resolution, in what collapses of despair, Gideon consumed the night, it would be ungenerous ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... of our English Newman Street apostles, and of M. de la M—, the mad priest, and his congregation of mad converts, should be a warning to such of us as are inclined to dabble in religious speculations; for, in them, as in all others, our flighty brains soon lose themselves, and we find our reason speedily lying prostrated at the mercy of our passions; and I think that Madame Sand's novel of Spiridion may do a vast deal of good, and bears a good moral with it; though not such an one, perhaps, as our fair philosopher intended. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... long since came to the conclusion that in money matters we are the most flighty and unbusinesslike people in the world. I, who like to go to the root of matters, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... daughter was the subject of constant discord, requiring the frequent intervention of the old king until he lost his reason. After she went abroad in 1814, she travelled widely, but her English attendants soon retired from her service, and she incurred fresh suspicion by her flighty and undignified conduct. She had no part in the rejoicing for the marriage, or in the mourning for the death, of the Princess Charlotte; and in 1818 a secret commission, afterwards known as the Milan commission, was sent out by the prince regent to collect evidence for a divorce ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... the moon," went on the Itinerant Tinker after a while, "I tried once to make her stand up—after she had set, you know. It proved a thankless task. She treated me very rudely, indeed. By the by, have you seen the Flighty-wight?" ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... the why and wherefore, Love can level ranks, and therefore, Though his lordship's station's mighty, Though stupendous be his brain, Though your tastes are mean and flighty And your fortune poor and plain, CAPT. and Ring the merry bells on board-ship, SIR JOSEPH. Rend the air with warbling wild, For the union of { his } lordship my With a humble captain's child! CAPT. For a humble ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... present, in this town, on the argument before the supreme court respecting Writs of Assistance, and heard the celebrated and patriotic speech of James Otis. Unquestionably, that was a masterly performance. No flighty declamation about liberty, no superficial discussion of popular topics, it was a learned, penetrating, convincing, constitutional argument, expressed in a strain of high and resolute patriotism. He grasped the question then pending ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... "Everybody is not so flighty as you are, my dear. Some people do sometimes think of serious things. And the Institute is not called ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... of a successful ruler of men and the solid qualities of a statesman. It was my fortune, from time to time, to hear him discuss at some length current political questions; and his views were presented with knowledge, clearness, and force. There was nothing at all flighty in any of his statements or arguments. There is evidently in him a large fund of that Hohenzollern common sense which has so often happily modified German, and even European, politics. He recognizes, of course, as his ancestors generally have done, that his is a military ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... "A somewhat flighty young monkey, though," pursued Brett pensively. "It's that touch of red in her hair that does it, ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... grew strong and active, capable of covering ten miles of rough hill country in a single night, and the family would soon have left the den but that Shady indulged in one of her flighty streaks,—a streak prompted by the dog strain in her rising temporarily ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... arrangement with the Parliament. This time it was again confiscated, and he narrowly escaped death by flight to the Continent. He was a prominent member of the exiled Court; but his open irreligion, his flighty character, and his continual plotting as an adherent of Prince Rupert, alienated him from the party of Hyde. His wit and personal charms won for him many friends, but his life was one perpetual succession of reckless schemes and bitter quarrels, in which his Royal master was ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... you my promise, and I am obliged to you," said Helene, moved by these tokens of affection from a woman whom she had imagined rather flighty. They clasped hands, and each looked into the other's face with a happy smile. Juliette's avowal of her sudden friendship was given with a caressing air. "You are too lovely not to be loved!" ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... their own paths, and Sarah Walker become the second Mrs. Hazlitt. Some months had to be spent by Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt in Edinburgh, with a view to this arrangement. The lady's journal records her impressions; which, it would seem, strongly resembled those of a tradesman getting rid of a rather flighty and imprudent partner in business. She is extremely precise as to all pecuniary and legal details; she calls upon her husband now and then, takes tea with him, makes an off-hand remark or two about some picture-gallery which he had ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... Materialist, and Kopy-Keck was a Spiritualist. The former was slow and sententious; the latter was quick and flighty; the latter had generally the first word; the ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... Dr. Eaton. Father doesn't allow it, and— and Dr. Eaton thinks I'm only a flighty little girl, who is never serious, if he ever thinks of me at all—which I am afraid is not often—" She was quiet a moment, her hand resting against the soft white hair. "But—well, good night. I'll let you know when ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... was flighty but full of elusive charm. You deprecated his lack of serious purpose in life, disapproved heartily of his irresponsibility, but you fell to his engaging qualities. He was a typical example of the lovable ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... complicated case, but I think he's coming on all right," the doctor assured the alarmed old man outside the door. "He may be a little flighty now and then, but don't pay any attention to him; just soothe him over. He's getting back to himself—stronger every hour. We often have ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... are terribly flighty. [Presses the money into her hand.] Here, take it; and do not be too long. ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... all the ladies in the county, who do not as you do. This is known to be your scheme! and the poor without-doors, and Lovelace within, with one hand building up a name, pulling it down with the other!—O what a charming scheme is this!—But let me tell you, my pretty little flighty one, that your father's living will shall controul your grandfather's dead one; and that estate will be disposed of as your fond grandfather would have disposed of it, had he lived to see such a change in his favourite. In a word, Miss, it will be kept out of your hands, till my ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... and we may be sure, in spite of his reticence, that his own case was present at the time to his mind. His distressed father enlisted the interest of Lord Hailes, who requested Dr Jortin, Prebendary of St Paul's, to take in hand the flighty youth, and to persuade him to renounce the errors of the Church of Rome for those of the Church of England, for it was plain that Boswell had broken loose from his old moorings, and some middle course might, it was hoped, prove to be possible. 'Your young gentleman,' writes Jortin ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... himself. "Fred Thurman's been dragged to death by that damned flighty horse of his," he said. "I found him in the brush this side of Granite Creek. Had his foot caught in the stirrup. I thought I'd best leave him there till ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... superfluous message to his general infirmity of character, smiled indulgently, and dismissed the matter from her mind. Mrs. Oldrieve had nothing to dismiss, as she had been led to believe that Emmy had gone up to London by the morning train. She only bewailed the flighty inconsequence of modern young women, until she reflected that Emmy's father had gone and come with disconcerting unexpectedness from the day of their wedding to that of his death on the horns of a buffalo; whereupon ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... hated women who flung texts or proverbs at you; and yet he did not hate her. She had a girl's flighty notions, born of crude contact with inferior ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... youngest of all the sons' wives, as her husband was the latest born. She was quite a girl to some of them. Grandma had never more than half approved of her. Dorcas was high-strung and flighty, she said. She had her doubts about living happily with her. But Atherton was anxious for this division of the property, and he was her youngest darling, so she gave in. She felt lonely, and out of her element, when everything was arranged, she established in the ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... whole population, was, in his view, a commonplace and ordinary proceeding; and, in the present instance, the only course consistent with prudence and common sense. Those who maintained the contrary were either flighty enthusiasts, whose opinion was not worth considering, or venal orators, who had sold their country for a bribe. "Will you suffer yourselves," asked the indignant moralist, "to be blinded by these ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... superlatively becoming hat, smiling gaily, just stepping out of a magnificent white motor car, resting her hand familiarly on that of the most successful young financier in Paris, whose conquests among women of the world were a byword, and chaperoned by a flighty little Neapolitan teacher of singing. Truly, if some one had deliberately rubbed the back of his neck with a large lump of ice on that warm spring day, the chill could not have been more effectual. Morally speaking, Lushington caught a bad cold, which 'struck in,' ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... went on as it began that day. Not once a day, and sometimes not once in twenty days, did any human being speak to him. The village baker would not sell him bread; his groceries he had to buy from the neighbouring parishes, for the grocer's flighty wife called for the constable when he entered the bake-shop of Pontiac. He had to bake his own bread, and do his own cooking, washing, cleaning, and gardening. His hair grew long and his clothes became shabbier. At last, when he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... under her father's nose, and the particular proboscis he had selected was that of his employer's friend, Senator Roberts. The senator and Miss Roberts were frequently at the Ryder House and in course of time the aristocratic secretary and the daughter had become quite intimate. A flighty girl, with no other purpose in life beyond dress and amusement and having what she termed "a good time," Kate thought it excellent pastime to flirt with Mr. Bagley, and when she discovered that he was serious in his attentions she felt flattered rather ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... maniacal; delirious, lightheaded, incoherent, rambling, doting, wandering; frantic, raving, stark staring mad, stark raving mad, wild-eyed, berserk; delusional, hallucinatory. [behavior somewhat resembling insanity] corybantic^, dithyrambic; rabid, giddy, vertiginous, wild; haggard, mazed; flighty; distracted, distraught; depressed; agitated, hyped up; bewildered &c (uncertain) 475. mad as a March hare, mad as a hatter; of unsound mind &c n.; touched in one's head, wrong in one's head, not right in one's head, not in one's right mind, not right in one's wits, upper story; out ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... maid goes the others want to, and it has been a difficult matter to keep them all contented and busy. Gabrielle was a good nurse, but a bit flighty and quite excitable." ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... soary (and flighty) as a rocket to-day, with the unutterable joy of getting that Old Man of the Sea off my back, where he has been roosting more than a year ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... scandalized.] — Let you not be minding if it's flat or rounded she is; for she's a flighty, foolish woman, you'll hear when you're off a long way, and she making a great noise and laughing at ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... arrested at the loosing of the first hook or button. Virtue will always be plainly triumphant and vice as plainly vanquished. Even the minor imperfections of character will be suitably punished. When on the screen we see Daisy, the flighty college girl, borrowing without permission her friend's hat, gown, shoes, necklace and curls in order to make a fascinating display before her young college man, it is certain that she will be publicly shamed by her friends and discredited ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... the KAISER, Self-anointed Lord of Earth, Left that furious monarch wiser Re our troops' intrinsic worth, Frankly, I had thought you flighty, Callous to the very core; Lovely?—yes, like Aphrodite; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... with a lean, commanding finger: "You take that sail off the launch! It's quiet enough now, but it ain't going to last forever, and I couldn't rest with three flighty lads in a boat with a sail ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... be over. Only a few hours at most. I have met with an accident, my boy. I was riding from Truro, and got near home, when three men, who had been drinking hard at the tavern near by, came out from the hedgeside and frightened Bess; she is a very flighty mare, you know. She gave a side leap and threw me. My foot caught in the stirrup, and I was dragged along the road until I fancy ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... alive and had proved herself not the least jolly and agreeable of the many quaint characters who inhabit the astonishing Fairyland of Oz. Indeed, Scraps was a general favorite, although she was rather flighty and erratic and did and said many things that surprised her friends. She was seldom still, but loved to dance, to turn handsprings and somersaults, to climb trees and to indulge in many ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... different a cast, and knowing how often the wisest of men must do what any fool can do, was bitterly vexed at the flighty ways of Willie, and could do no more than hope, with a general contempt, that when the boy grew older he might be a wiser fool. But Willie's dear mother maintained, with great consistency, that such a ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... a big lad, Madame, and a great help to his father. Children are a pleasure and comfort in one's old age if they do well. And thine are being well brought up. Marie is so good and steady. It is not wisdom for a man like me to choose a flighty girl." ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... all day, breeze like blast from furnace. Burros refuse to leave flat. Bees better, as can't fly well in this wind. Bud worse. High fever & very restless & flighty. Imagines much trouble with automobile, talk very technical & can't make head or tail of it. Monte & Pete did not come in, left soon as turned loose. No feed for them here & figured Bud too sick to travel or stay alone so horses useless at present. Sponged frequently with coolest water can get, seems ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... hardly out of the driver's mouth when Sydney was through the door and flying up the staircase. I followed rather more soberly,—his methods were a little too flighty for me. When I reached the landing, dashing out of the front room he rushed into the one at the back,—then through a door at the ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... white as the sheets she was carrying." As close as he could remember, he said, this was about ten minutes before the professors made their first sighting. He stopped at this point to tell me about his wife, she wasn't prone to be "flighty" and she "never made up tales." This character qualification was also standard for UFO storytellers. The reason his wife was so upset was that she had seen a large object glide swiftly and silently over the house. She said it looked ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... on his arm. In the enchantment of her realized dream, she pressed close to him, always anxious, feeling that he was as flighty as a wild sea-bird. To-morrow he would take his soaring on the open sea. And it was too late now, she could ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... flighty," he growled. "You knew I'd come, didn't you? Why'd you leave your door unlocked if ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... you,' he said, when he had jabbed a bunch of copy paper into my hand and given me a pencil from his vest pocket, 'mind you, I won't stand for the high and flighty philosophical, and I perceive you have a tendency that way. Throw in the local color, wads of it, and a bit of sentiment perhaps, but no slumgullion about political economy nor social strata or such stuff. Make it concrete, to the point, with snap and go and life, crisp and ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... have him, with the noblest of his virtues; not when he speaks of the unknown, in whose hands his destiny so largely rests, slightingly, as of a woman whom he has seduced because he despised her—calling her capricious because she answered to his caprice, whimsical, because she was as flighty as his error. It is not art's function to reward virtue. But, caprices and whimseys being ascribed to a goddess, it will be natural to expect them in her worshipper; and Mr. Whistler revealed the limitations of his genius by whimseys and caprice. Though it was in their relations to the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... birthday," said Obed. "I was engaged ten years ago, but the girl didn't know her own mind, and she ran off with a man that came along with a photograph saloon. I guess it's just as well, for she was always rather flighty." ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... morning, he was feeling almost flighty. He buzzed and flitted around his apartment as though he'd hit a high point on a manic cycle, happily burbling utter nonsense in the form of a perfectly ridiculous ...
— Dead Giveaway • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Poole, in excessive anxiety I believe it might originate. I have a blister under my right ear, and I take 25 drops of laudanum every five hours, the ease and spirits gained by which have enabled me to write to you this flighty, but not exaggerating, account. With a gloomy wantonness of imagination I had been coquetting with the hideous possibles of disappointment. I drank fears like wormwood—yea—made myself drunken with bitterness; for my ever-shaping and distrustful mind still mingled gall-drops, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... appreciate a good husband." This last he said sternly, with more than a hint of his past matrimonial misfortunes in his frown and in his voice. "The trouble with a great many women is that they're fools—flighty, ungrateful fools. If I married a woman like that, I'd make short work ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... mistresses)!" sobbed his Majesty passionately. "Ah, mon Dieu, cela n'empeche pas" (that does not an experience of the case). There is something stoically tragic in the history of Caroline with her flighty vaporing little King: seldom had foolish husband so wise a wife. "Dead!" thought Friedrich Wilhelm, looking back through the whirlwinds of life, into sunny young scenes far enough away: "Dead!"—Walpole ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... in the chief actor have, as well as those of the feelings, a high importance. From an imaginative, flighty, inexperienced head, and from a calm, sagacious understanding, different things are to ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... "Cocaine makes me flighty and nervous, but these pebbles sort of ballast me and hold me down. How on earth do you know that that bubble comes from the wake of ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... by any of the young Roman nobles, from Valdarno down. But she had only a small dowry, and she was said to be extravagant—two objections then not so easily overcome as now. Moreover, she was considered to be somewhat flighty; and the social jury decided that when she was married, she would be excellent company, but would make a very poor wife. Almost before they had finished discussing her, however, she had found a husband, in the shape of the wealthy ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... he'd been worried to death over Bertram for weeks past, he's been so moody, so irritable, so fretted over his work, so unlike himself. And his picture has failed dismally. Of course William doesn't understand; but I do. I know you've probably quarrelled, or something. You know how flighty and unreliable you can be sometimes, Billy, and I don't say that to mean anything against you, either—that's your way. You're just as temperamental in your art, music, as Bertram is in his. You're utterly unsuited to him. If Bertram is to marry anybody, it ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... friend of Mr. Robert's who'd heard of Hallam and had the address. You remember hearin' about the Countess, maybe? She was Miss Mae Collins, of Kansas City, originally, and Zecchi was either the second or third of her hubbies, or hobbies, whichever you'd care to call 'em. A lively, flighty female, Countess Zecchi, who lives in a specially decorated suite at the Plutoria, sports a tiger cub as a pet, and indulges in other whims that get her more ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... regard to the American guest. Bates, the butler, was elderly, and severely Church of England; his knowledge of widows was confined to the type ably represented by his mistress and he regarded young Mrs. Loring as inclined to be "flighty." The footman, who was entirely under the butler's thumb in mundane matters, had fallen into the habit of sharing his opinions, and while agreeing in the general feeling of flightiness, declared boldly that the lady in ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... You're just the man to say,' I won't!' Because in them you either don't Believe, or else the courage lack, The truth through thick and thin to back, And, rather than its heights aspire, Will go on sticking in the mire. At Rome you for the country sigh; When in the country to the sky You, flighty as the thistle's down, Are always crying up the town. If no one asks you out to dine, Oh, then the pot-au-feu's divine! 'You go out on compulsion only— 'Tis so delightful to be lonely; And drinking bumpers is a bore You shrink from daily more and more.' But only ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... lost; nor had greater results been brought about in Italy or on the Rhine. The spirits of the allies were only sustained by the romantic exploits of Lord Peterborough in Spain. Profligate, unprincipled, flighty as he was, Peterborough had a genius for war, and his seizure of Barcelona with a handful of men, a step followed by his recognition of the old liberties of Aragon, roused that province to support the cause of the second son of the Emperor, who had been acknowledged ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... see, protecting a young girl agin herself is one thing. He might feel different if a married woman wanted to turn fool. Now, Joyce, I ain't ever going to say anything more about this, 'less it's necessary. I know you're pretty and maybe a bit more flighty along of that, but being married and having your own work, may tone you down. If you'll stick by me, I'll stick by you; and in time Mr. Gaston can be a friend to both of us and no harm done. You understand, don't you? I ain't hard, I'm only letting light ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... her guests in personal experiences. Her ladyship was concerned with a good old-fashioned ghost. We say 'old-fashioned' of set purpose, because while modern tales of 'levitation' and flighty furniture, of flying stones, of rappings, of spectral hands, of cold psychical winds, are exactly like the tales of old, a change, an observed change, has come over the ghost of the nineteenth century. Readers of the Proceedings of the Psychical Society will see that the modern ghost is a purposeless ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... being scored by his father for his flighty notions, his habit of shirking and general unreliability. "Hard work never killed ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... had grave domestic troubles, divorced his wife, in fact, and it was as a relief from that, I think, that he took up politics of the rabid sort. He was a fanatical Radical—a Socialist—or typical Liberal, as they used to call themselves, of the advanced school. Energetic—flighty—undisciplined. Overwork upon a controversy did this for him. I remember the pamphlet he wrote—a curious production. Wild, whirling stuff. There were one or two prophecies. Some of them are already exploded, some of them are established facts. But for the most part to read such ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... if you are quiet and kind, and not flighty, he will forget all that, and be glad to let you be ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... knew enough to be convinced that she had the merit of a saint, and the purity of an angel: and was proceeding, when she said, No flighty compliments! no ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... think he was very much troubled about it. I only thought he was flighty from want of sleep. At your age you don't mind the ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... cannot express to you the anxiety I have that you will not think me flighty nor inconsiderate in this business. Believe me, that experience, in one instance—you cannot fail to know to what I allude—is too recent to permit my being so hasty in my conclusions as the warmth of my temper might have otherwise ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... was playing and the crowd was at its thickest and brightest. The little tables were surrounded by travelers of all nations, some in tourist tweeds and hats with the inevitable green veils; others, those of more leisurely sojourns, in white serges and diaphanous frocks and flighty hats fresh from ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... continued in a state of distracted and flighty tribulation, not knowing what to make of it, nor, indeed, knowing the worst; for the neighbours did not tell her half they might, nor drop a hint of the dreadful suspicion that ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... good and well-behaved, and affectionate, I myself liked him very much. I was in the habit of coming in afternoons and sitting by him, and he liked to have me - liked to put out his arm and lay his hand on my knee - would keep it so a long while. Toward the last he was more restless and flighty at night - often fancied himself with his regiment - by his talk sometimes seem'd as if his feelings were hurt by being blamed by his officers for something he was entirely innocent of - said 'I never in my life was thought capable of ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and more childish and more flighty in her thoughts as her time of trial drew near, and she became more subject to her jailer. She grew morbidly silent, and her large eyes were restless and full ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... diminutive stature and delicate proportions. His face was handsome, but womanish. His movements were rapid and restless, and there was that appearance in his eye which would have warranted the supposition that he was a little flighty, even if his conduct had not fully proved ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat |
