"Frail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... frail little woman, a member of the Mennonite Church. She wore the plain garb adopted by the women of that sect—the tight-fitting waist covered by a pointed shoulder cape, the full skirt and the white cap upon smoothly combed, parted ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... have no relation to the closing of the door, only to the opening of it. To close the door involves an after-thought that an animal is not capable of. A horse will hesitate to go upon thin ice or upon a frail bridge, even though it has never had any experience with thin ice or frail bridges. This, no doubt, is an inherited instinct, which has arisen in its ancestors from their fund of general experience with the world. How much with them has ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... form; Ere he who built it wish'd for the great storm That shiver'd it to nothing; once again Behold outgleaming on the angry main! Within it are three men; to these repair In our frail bark of ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... in Mary's society and happy in the steady improvement of the business, but the girl and Captain Shadrach were a little worried concerning his general health. For years he had not been a very strong or active man, but now he looked paler and more frail than ever. He walked to and from the store and house several times a day, but he retired almost as soon as he entered the house at night and his appetite was ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... is known of the childhood of the two brothers. Both of them seem to have been of rather frail constitutions, and the precarious state of their health is said to have caused their parents much anxiety. As they grew up to youth they appear to have become somewhat more healthful, though still far from robust. Their earliest scholastic attainments were ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... scarcely heeded it, so intent was she upon knowing something more of the mysterious Rose. "She is beautiful, you say. Will you tell me how she looks?" she continued; and Henry Warner answered, "She is a frail, delicate little creature, almost dwarfish in size, but ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... brother, usually beginning, "I regret exceedingly," from which beginning he launched out into well balanced, well phrased excuses, of admirable logic, by means of which he proved the imperative necessity of finding other anchorage for this stray and apparently very frail bark. Of necessity these letters were vague, since he did not know what particular form of frailty he had to contend with. Of one thing, however, he was sure—the Colony offered opportunities for ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... caught the frail little lady in her arms as the letter slipped unheeded from her lap to the floor. Mrs. Sherwood's eyes were closed. She ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... the earth, To be apportioned to the elements! I marvel, baby, whether it were ill That He who planted thee should pluck thee now, And save thee from the blight that comes on all. I marvel whether it would not be well That the frail bud should burst in Paradise, On the full throbbing of ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... which put Larry in great peril all in an instant. In trying to make the turn, the boy got hold of a slender tree by which to support himself. Leroy and Boxer had grasped the same tree, and their swinging around had loosened its frail hold on the rocks, and as Larry grasped it, down went the sapling over the edge of the cliff, carrying the youth ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... disbelief in the presence of salmon in that river, a big fish leaped clear of the water and tore away with Pud's line. In a moment, Pud was busy. He got so excited when he saw the wonderful fish make another flying leap that he forgot that he was on a frail canoe and over he went. Bob hurried to his rescue and Pud was soon in his boat again. Pud had held on to the rod and when he got in the boat, he started to reel in but he was due for a rude awakening, ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... kindly treated by the family with whom nominally a governess, I was on the terms of a friend with Signor Ludovico Cicogna, an Italian of noble birth. He was the only man I ever cared for. I loved him with frail human passion. I could not tell him, my true history. I could not tell him that I had a child; such intelligence would have made him renounce me at once. He had a daughter, still but an infant, by a former ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was swept off into the sea by the furious waves. The life-saving crew was soon gathered. 'Man the life-boat!' cried the man. "Where is Hardy?" But the foreman of the crew was not there, and the danger was imminent. Aid must be immediate, or all would be lost. The next in command sprang into the frail boat, followed by the rest, all taking their lives in their hands in the hope of saving others. O, how those on the shore watched their brave loved ones as they dashed on, now over, now almost under the waves! They reached the wreck. Like angels of deliverance they filled their craft with almost ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... only had our Halbrane! But our sole possession was a frail craft barely capable of containing a dozen men, and we ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... ago, when at H——, a friend of the author engraved on a particular spot the names of both, with a few additional words as a memorial. Afterwards, on receiving some real or imagined injury, the author destroyed the frail record before he left H——. On revisiting the place in 1807, he wrote under it ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... self-reproach, was as feeble as any new-born thing. When it stirred, and uttered little elemental sounds—"my fault, my fault"—she forgot the wrong he had done her, in seeing the wrong he had done himself.... "Oh, my Maurice—my Maurice!" But most of the time she did not hear this frail cry of the sense of sin! She thought entirely and angrily of herself; she said, over and over, that she was going to leave him. She was absorbed in hideous and poignant imaginings, based on that organic curiosity which is experienced only by the woman who meditates upon "the other woman." ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... too high, too difficult, for the human mind to grasp," exclaimed Abishai, pressing his brow. "The frail vessel must burst that has such hot molten gold poured within it. All that I can answer to what you have said is this. I believe not—and never will believe—that when Messiah, the Hope of Israel, shall come, He will be rejected by our nation. Were it so, such a fearful ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... to Minerva; into which when the royal person to be initiated has passed, he must strip himself of his own robe, and put on that which Cyrus the first wore before he was king; then, having devoured a frail of figs, he must eat turpentine, and drink a cup of sour milk. To which if they superadd any other rites, it is unknown to any but those that are present at them. Now Artaxerxes being about to address himself to this solemnity, Tisaphernes came to him, bringing a certain priest, who, having trained ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... have nothing to do, though the writer and the reader, no doubt, love to rub elbows with such lofty persons, if it be only in a public room. Many of them, be it noted, were not nearly so important as they considered themselves, and the greatness of some was built upon a base too frail to withstand the storm and ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... moment she's hid from our vision, As darkness, and thick gloom enshroud her frail form; A flash! and we see that the life-saving mission, Still skims o'er the waves like a Bird of ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... claims had gone to Cariboo owning nothing but the clothes on their backs. A season's adventure in a no-man's-land of bear and deer, above cloud-line and amid wild mountain torrents, had sent them out to the world laden with wealth. Some ran the wild canyons of the Fraser in frail canoes and crazy rafts with their gold strapped to their backs or packed in buckskin sacks and carpet-bags. And some who had won fortune and were bringing it home went to their ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... into the logs, served as a ladder, on which one could climb to the low loft overhead. Two windows, each of twelve small panes of glass, let in the light, one from the end of the cabin, and one from the back opposite the door, which was in the middle of the front. Outside, a frail shanty of shakes leaned against the cabin, affording a sort of outdoor kitchen for ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... had an earth floor with a layer of reeds and grass thrown down on one side. It was frail and hinted at changing times and poverty, for the original skin cover had been patched and eked out with the products of civilization in the shape of cotton flour bags and old sacking. In the later repairs sewing twine had been used instead of sinews. A wooden case stood open near the ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... to the bedside, and was instantly recognized. O, what a change—Miss Aldclyffe dependent upon pillows! And yet not a forbidding change. With weakness had come softness of aspect: the haughtiness was extracted from the frail thin countenance, and a sweeter mild placidity had ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... tiny pink rose, no larger than the nail of my little finger. Stalk and leaves were there, and golden pollen lay in its delicate heart. Each fairy-petal blushed with June fire; the frail leaves were exquisitely green. Withal it was as hard and unbendable as ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... in the East excluded from the pleasures of love and the hope of posterity." This device of representing Potiphar as being what Byron styles "a neutral personage" was, of course, adopted by Muslim traditionists and poets in order to "white-wash" the frail Zulaykha.—There are extant many Persian and Turkish poems on the "loves" of Yusuf wa Zulaykha, most of them having a mystical signification, and that by the celebrated Persian poet Jami is universally considered ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... treated by her husband! With what considerate tenderness he regarded her! But, alas! he saw his error too late! The gentle, loving creature, who had come to his side ten years before, was not much longer to remain with him. A few brief summers came and went, and then her frail body was laid amid the clods ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... grief was something alarming, from its quietness and concealment. She waited till she was left—as she thought—alone at nights, and then sobbed and cried her passionate cry for "Baby, baby, come back to me—come back;" till every one feared for the health of the frail little girl whose childish affections had had to stand two such shocks. Her father put aside all business, all pleasure of every kind, to win his darling from her grief. No mother could have done more, ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... in one man against another, this nervous and fluid force, eminently mobile and transmittable, is itself subject to the changing condition of our organization, and there are many circumstances which make this frail organism of ours to vary. At this point, our metaphysical observation shall stop and we will enter into an analysis of the circumstances which develop the will of man and impart to it a grater degree of strength ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... which they had returned from Seal Bay was changed. The dogs were fresh, and the long sled was laden with a canoe that was securely lashed to it. The blankets and stores were loaded in the frail body ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... near-by shop doorway, but in a sadly jostled state as to one's nerves and much disordered as to one's wardrobe. Hearing my voice uplifted in entreaty as I was carried by them, they had nobly responded; and, because of the impulse of the throng, which accorded to frail maidenhood what was denied to stalwart masculinity, they had ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... vitality, a power of unconscious living, well-strung nerves, a quickly-working brain. I know the wonders which an eager will and a keen conscience can work, with no better instrument than a frail body, always full of languors, always accessible to pain; and I bow before them in glad reverence, as tokens of the spirit's victory over the flesh. But this, though undoubtedly from a moral point of view not inferior, is not the same thing as the easy swing of ...
— Strong Souls - A Sermon • Charles Beard
... lanes on misery's verge, Find out their dark dens, and list to their dirge; Where want and famine, and by ourselves made, Forgive our frail follies, and come to ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... looking for dead sons! God help them! I have met them often since; but the figure of that pale, frail creature flitting about the open deck,—alone, hungry, very poor,—troubles me still, as I write. I found, afterward, that she had denied herself a state-room, and intended to sleep in a saloon chair. I persuaded her to ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... the regiment, when the news was received that they were to go with the expedition against Quebec. They had formed part of Wolf''s division at Louisbourg, and, like all who had served with him, regarded with enthusiasm and confidence the leader whose frail body seemed wholly incapable of sustaining fatigue or hardship, but whose indomitable spirit and courage placed him ever in the front, and set an example which the bravest of his ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... and the moral law? Shame to me that I could have paused to ask such questions! yet any claim but one tittle less urgent I should have bantered aside. I seemed to realize the torture described in the dream of Dante,—two souls struggling together in one frail body. I had been applauding good and condemning evil when it cost me nothing but the sentiment; but when the fiery test came, my purpose cracked and shrivelled before it. Yes, I conquered; but the scars that purchased the victory have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... getting on dad's nerves," thought Tom, as he took a seat. The elder Mr. Swift had been quite ill, and it was thought for a time that he would have to give up helping Tom. But there had been a turn for the better, and the aged inventor had again taken his place in the laboratory, though he was frail. ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... exactly how they work, and the considerable sum of intelligence and initiative which they reveal in the accomplishment of their task. At the foot of hedges, on the outskirts of woods, they raise their frail monuments. The species are not equally skilful, and such differences as we have found in other industries may also be found here. In a general manner it was soon found that Ants do not, like Bees, obey a rigid instinct which ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... hands but her own,—conscious incapacity to be what all the women about her were, stirring, active, hardy housekeepers,—a vague sense of shame, and a great dread of the future,—her comfortless and motherless condition,—slowly, but surely, like frost, and wind, and rain, and snow, beat on this frail blossom, and it went with the rest. June roses were laid against her dark hair and in her fair hands, when she was carried to the lonely graveyard of Greenfield, where mulleins and asters, golden-rod, blackberry-vines, and stunted yellow-pines adorned the last sleep of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... and I am not ashamed to confess that the sensation it produced in me was, for a short time, something very nearly akin to terror, so dreadful a portent did it seem to be, and so profoundly impressed was I with our utter helplessness away out there in mid-ocean, in that small, frail boat, with no friendly shelter at hand, and nothing to protect us from the gathering fury of the elements—nothing, that is to say, but the hand of God; and—I say it with shame—I thought far too little of ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... loads and making a detour through the woods, or of "shooting the rapids." Naturally we chose the more dangerous course. Shooting the rapids has often been described, and I will not repeat the description here. It is needless to say that I drove my frail bark through the boiling rapids, over the successive waterfalls, amid rocks and vicious eddies, and landed, half a mile below with whitened hair and a boat half full of water; and that the guide was upset, and boat, contents, and man were strewn ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and gold in flower, so autumn took nothing away. Surely there were ghosts in the shadowed avenues, flitting in and out among the trees, joining hands to dance "la ronde" about the pool of Neptune. Gay abbes, cavaliers, beautiful ladies of the late Renaissance, red-heeled, painted, powdered; frail, degenerate children of the hard-headed old Florentine citizens pictured in the frescoes of Giotto and Masaccio. No greater shades ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... was at a loss to account for the "tempest that had come on him;" he could not understand what he had done to offend the country or Parliament; he had never "taken rewards to pervert justice, however he might be frail, and partake of the abuse ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... composure, beneath which she divined a suffering so intense that her own frail barriers of self-restraint were well-nigh broken down by ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... your angel flown away just like a dove, By the royal infant, that frail and tender reed, Pardon yet once more! Pardon in the name of the tomb! Pardon in the name ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the men.[168] In New Caledonia "girls work in the plantations, boys learn to fight."[169] In Africa the case is similar. Among the Bushmen (to take only one example from this continent) the woman "weaves the frail mats and rushes under which her family finds a little shelter from the wind and from the heat of the sun," constructs a fireplace of three round stones, fashions and bakes a few earthenware pots. When her household labors are done, she gathers roots, locusts, ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... that the adventurous Phenicians, who are known to have been in Iberia as early as 1300 B.C., cut a canal through the narrow strip of land, and then built a bridge across the canal. But a bridge was a frail link by which to hold the mighty continents together. The Atlantic, glad of such an entrance to the great gulf beyond, must have rushed impetuously through, gradually widening the opening, and (may have) thus permanently severed Europe and Africa; drained the Sahara dry; transformed ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... approvingly, as he watches the evolutions of the Nautch girls, and his partiality for it has already enriched the Anglo-Bengalee vocabulary and London slang with the word "simkin." It is transported on camel-backs across the deserts of Central Asia, and in frail canoes up the mighty Amazon. The two-sworded Daimio calls for it in the tea-gardens of Yokohama, and the New Yorker, when not rinsing his stomach by libations of iced-water, imbibes it freely at Delmonico's. Wherever civilised man has set his foot—at the base of the ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... trees; Nature had not yet resigned herself to death and sleep. Here and there an oak stood, fully green, among the tawny reds and golds of a flaming woodland. The gorse was yellow on the commons; and in the damp woody ways through which Chloe passed, a few primroses—frail, unseasonable blooms—pushed their pale heads through the moss. The scent of the beech-leaves under foot; the buffeting of a westerly wind; the pleasant yielding of her light frame to the movement of the horse; ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tendency, which has always confounded astute persons who have been interested only in particulars. It is a movement like that of the Mississippi at flood-time. The great river flows within its banks as long as it can. But the time comes when the barriers are too frail to hold back the mighty waters. Then the river makes, very quickly, a channel for itself. You cannot understand what has happened till you take into account the magnitude ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... the newspapers announced one morning that the famous Fanny Clairet, the celebrated horizontal, whose caprices had caused a revolution in high life, that queen of frail beauties for whom three men had committed suicide, and so many others had ruined themselves, that incomparable living statue, who had attracted all Paris to the theater where she impersonated Venus in her transparent skin tights, made of woven air and knitted nothing had been shut up in a lunatic ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... gave the world to man's first age, So from your bounty, we receive this stage; The freedom man was born to, you've restored, And to our world such plenty you afford, It seems like Eden, fruitful of its own accord. But since in Paradise frail flesh gave way, And when but two were made, both went astray; Forbear your wonder, and the fault forgive, If in our larger family we grieve One falling Adam and one tempted Eve. We who remain would gratefully repay What our endeavours can, and bring this day ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... with pale face full of the fascination of burning eagerness. This girl's eyes were a clear blue, her lips set tight, and her light-brown hair blew beautifully about her cheeks. She was, however, but thinly clothed, and her frail little coat ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... his arms, and strode out of the hall and down to the shore, where he deposited his precious burden in a skiff which an old one-eyed boatman brought at his call. He would fain have stepped aboard also, but ere he could do so the boatman pushed off and the frail craft was soon lost to sight. The bereaved father then slowly wended his way home, taking comfort from the thought that Odin himself had come to claim the young hero and had rowed away with him "out ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... long and gloomy aisles. The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine boughs, was set apart for the ladies. As the lovers parted, they unaffectedly exchanged a kiss, so honest and sincere that it might have been heard above the swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the malevolent Mother Shipton were probably too stunned to remark upon this last evidence of simplicity, and so turned without a word to the hut. The fire was replenished, the men lay down before the door, and in a few ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... as to enable him to detect a flaw in her reasoning. It was but a little rift, yet the sharp edge of doubt slipped in. Alas! from that hour he ceased to drift with the current of popular theological belief; his frail bark turned, and launched out upon the storm-tossed sea, where only the outstretched hand of the Master, treading the heaving billows through the thick gloom, saved it ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... ye good fer evil Much ez we frail mortals can, But I won't go help the Devil Makin' man the cus o' man; Call me coward, call me traitor, Jest ez suits your mean idees, Here I stand a tyrant-hater, An' the friend ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... captain said that he had touched there years before, but that it was uninhabited. As we were nearing it, however, a number of natives came off in large canoes loaded with cocoanuts and fruits, so that they or their fathers must have made a long voyage to reach it in their frail-looking vessels. ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... old man, slowly, and with some difficulty, "I am about to leave this world. My soul will take flight from this frail body when the sun has sunk behind the horizon. I have lived long and have amassed great wealth which will soon be thine. Use it well, as I have taught thee, for thou, my son, art a man of learning, as befits our noble Jewish faith. One thing I must ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... found. We approached the range just before sunset, much tired, with two Wonga-Wongas and three iguanas at our saddles. I had just informed my Blackfellow, that I wished to encamp, even without water, when some old broken sheets of bark, remains of the frail habitations of the natives, caught my eye; a dry water-hole, though surrounded with green grass and sedges, showed that they had formerly encamped there, with water. This water-hole was found to be one of a chain of ponds extending along the edge of the scrub ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... shoulder with a broad ouche or brooch; white the woollen leggings fitted to somewhat emaciated limbs; and white the mantle, though broidered with a broad hem of gold and purple. The fashion of his dress was that which well became a noble person, but it suited ill the somewhat frail and graceless figure of the rider. Nevertheless, as Edith saw him, she rose, with an expression of deep reverence on her countenance, and saying, "it is our lord the King," advanced some steps down the hillock, and there stood, her arms folded on her breast, and quite forgetful, in her innocence ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... same race as the forefathers of the French, streamed southward from the valley of the Po. The Romans were alarmed by such tall men, with fierce eyes, and fair, flowing hair, whose swords crashed through the frail Roman helmets. They sent a large army to stop the invaders, but in the battle, which was fought only twelve miles from ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... earth was thrown out with a rapidity that seemed almost the quick result of the working of some machine; and those closest to the grave's brink crouched down, and, intent as they were upon the progress of events, heeded not the damp earth that fell upon them, nor the frail brittle and humid remains of humanity that occasionally ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Or, when Earth's Frail lie bleeding of her Strong, If some Recorder, as in Writ, Near to the weary scene should flit And drop one plume as pledge that ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... Marie Arouet, known to us as Voltaire (which name he adopted in his twenty-first year), was born in Paris in Sixteen Hundred Ninety-four. He was the second son in a family of three children. During his babyhood he was very frail; in childhood sickly and weak; and throughout his whole life he suffered ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... was not satisfied that this was the sole cause of her unhappiness; and the pang of separation, too, came like a barbed arrow into her soul. She felt alarmed, amazed at the sudden change. She feared that her weak and wandering heart was going back to the world, and resting for support on its frail and perishing interests. Tossed and buffeted with temptation, she still passed on; when, turning the angle of the grey tower, she emerged again into the clear, unbroken moonlight—the little hillocks and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... stream to make their way, To pot of brass says pot of clay: "Since brass is stout and clay is frail, Pray let us at a distance sail. Not your intention that I fear Sir Brass," adds humble Earthenware, "While the winds leave you to yourself; But woe betide my ribs of delf, If it should dash our sides together; For mine would be the damage, whether Their force should you or I impel; ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... frail body and very little physical endurance. In spite of this physical handicap he was very vivacious and gay. He was a genial and companionable man, loved by all who knew him. He was very modest, even to the point of shyness, exceptionally sincere, and quaintly humorous. He established homes ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... of the pitiful weakness, because of the fragility which seemed to call for a protective gentleness. The old man had altered little in the five years. James could not remember him other than thin and bent and frail, with long wisps of silvery hair brushed over the crown to conceal his baldness, with the cheeks hollow and wrinkled, and a white moustache ineffectually concealing the weak, good-natured mouth. Ever since James could recollect ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... have a double tendency: it will open their young and susceptible hearts to gratitude and love to their divine Creator for having raised up (as the humble instrument of his bounty to them) a poor, frail worm of earth like me, and teach them at the same time, what they are, whither they came, and whence they ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... changes the Government evidently think they can scramble on, and on the whole it is probable that they may, though never did a Government hold office by so frail and uncertain a tenure, and upon such strange terms. A pretty correct analysis of the House of Commons presents the following result: 267 Government people, including the Irish tail; 66 Radicals, 5 doubtful, and 315 Conservatives; 4 vacant seats, and the Speaker. If, therefore, at any ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... man. He had told her that he valued life but little, that at best no great length of days awaited him; and now she thought that wandering about the cliffs by night he might have met the death he did not fear. Then she remembered he was but a sick man always, with frail breathing parts; and her thoughts turned to the shed, and she pictured him lying ill there, unable to communicate with friends, perhaps waiting and praying long hours for her footfall as she had been waiting and praying for his. Upon this most plausible possibility striking Joan, ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... her body was taken up, and placed in a chest, near her first husband's tomb. "There," says Dart, "it hath ever since continued to be seen, the bones being firmly united, and thinly clothed with flesh, like scrapings of tanned leather." This awful spectacle of frail mortality was at length removed from the public gaze into St. Nicholas's Chapel, and finally deposited under the monument of Sir George Villiers, when the vault was made for the remains of Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... choosing the green water, which was so opaque as to prevent the whale from seeing them. It is always exciting to watch a frail boat attacking one of these monsters; this one was about one hundred and thirty feet long, and often between latitude 72 degrees and 80 degrees whales are found more than one hundred and twenty-four feet long; ancient writers have often spoken of some longer ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... is in alternate fragments of verse and prose, and relates how the Count of Valence made desperate war against the Count of Biaucaire, a very old and frail man, who saw that his castle was in imminent danger of being taken and sacked. In his distress, this old lord besought his son Aucassin, who so far had taken no interest in the war, to go forth and fight. The youth, however, refused to do so, saying his heart ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... the nave; they are never disturbed. When it rains, they all gather in the church, but as soon as the sun pierces the clouds and the rain-spouts dry up, they repair to the trees again. So that during the storm two frail creatures often enter the blessed house of God together; man to pray and allay his fears, and the bird to wait until the rain stops and to warm the naked ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... the weak, surly and frail as sinners? And every one when he advises others to describe only the strong, healthy, ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... of rough boards, was filled with the best dressed citizens of the county: while far down the track, and separated from it by a frail line of fence, stood a great company of tall Kentucky pioneers with their wives and children. Many negroes were also in the crowd, interested spectators, and the small boy was ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... "What you tell me of acting by instinct greatly interests me as a student of character. In this little volume here I—allow me." She emphasised with a quill-pen. "I. Instinct. Instinct is the Almighty's rudder with which He steers our frail barques upon the tempestuous sea of life at moments when otherwise we should be quite at a loss. Some of us answer quickly to this mysterious helm and for example something seems to tell them in the middle of the night that the house is on fire, ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... blended. In the midst of one of these revolting paroxysms, Spike breathed his last. A few hours later, his body was interred in the sands of the shore. It may be well to say in this place, that the hurricane of 1846, which is known to have occurred only a few months later, swept off the frail covering, and that the body was washed away to leave its bones among the wrecks and relics of the ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... epitomized by the riveting-machine, the sweat-shop, and the slum. There we discover that this poet's vision has pierced straight through the city's veneer of ugly commonplace to the beauty shimmering beneath. In his eyes the sinewy, heroic forms of the builders, clinging high on their frail scaffoldings and nonchalantly hurling red-hot rivets through space, are so many young gods at play with elemental forces. The sweat-shop is transmuted into as grim and glorious a battlefield as any Tours or Gettysburg of them ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... and frail, Susceptible to nervous shock; While the True Church can never fail For it ...
— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot
... such thing tied on before it; and as it is folly to neglect the fashion, be certain that I read some eight or nine thousand of them to be sure of how they were written and to be safe from generalizing on too frail ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... sir," she said, addressing me, "is an old frail man, little used to the company of strangers; but in former days he has had kindness from members of your house, and it would be a satisfaction to him, I think, to have ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... soon miscarried; and the Duke and Duchess may not live to have the consolation of seeing an heir—for we must hope and make visions to the last! I am asking for samples of Ginori's porcelain at sixty-eight! Well! are not heirs to great names and families as frail foundations of happiness? and what signifies what baubles we pursue? Philosophers make systems, and we simpletons collections: and we are as wise as they—wiser perhaps, for we know that in a few years our rarities will be dispersed at an auction; and they flatter themselves ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... no visible sign of inward vanquishment he at least was feeling its effect. For years his writings had made him the target for a world of women, and many men. The men he had regarded with indifferent toleration. The women were his life—the "frail and ineffective creatures" who gave spice to his great adventure, and made his days anything but monotonous. He was not unchivalrous. Deep down in his heart—and this was his own secret—he did not even despise women. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... uncertain is my experiment. Will it be possible to efface the evil impress left on that mind and body? How much of her early grace, her early vigour shall we find? What will have become of all the forces that, at seventeen, should still be frail as promises, tender as the little green ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... The pent-up sorrow, the great burden of love and tenderness, the unspoken gratitude, the unspeakable longing of heart, all came in those tears and sobs that shook her as if she had forgotten on what a frail support she was half resting. Nay, nature must speak this one time; she had taken the matter into her own hands, and she was not to be struggled with, for a while. Nettie bore it—how did she bear it? With a little trembling of lip at first; then that ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner
... toward him, the anger ebbed as swiftly as it had come. She looked so slight and frail and girlish, and he observed that her lips were pressed almost as tightly together as the fingers of those small, brown hands hanging straight at her sides. At the edge of the porch she paused and looked up at him, and though the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... expresses himself at the close of his admired biography of Agricola: "I do not mean to censure the custom of preserving in brass or marble the shape and stature of eminent men; but busts and statues, like their originals, are frail and perishable. The soul is formed of finer elements, its inward form is not to be expressed by the hand of an artist with unconscious matter; our manners and our morals may in some degree trace the resemblance. All of Agricola that gained our love and raised our admiration ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... take freedoms with you; but perhaps the concomitant gentleman, your friend here, would be pleased to take my stool. Indeed, I always use a chair, but the back of it, if I may, be permitted the use of a small portion of jocularity, was as frail as the fair sect: it went home yisterday to be mended. Do, sir, condescind to be sated. Upon my reputation, Squire, I'm sorry that I have not accommodation for you, too, sir; except one of these hassocks, which, in joint considheration with the length of your honor's legs, would be, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... conventional Christianity of the time. It was through this dehumanising of Jesus in Christian thought and experience that Mariolatry arose in the Roman church. Could anything be more grotesque than the suggestion that the mother of Jesus should need to plead with her son to be merciful with frail humanity? And yet this is what it came to; the figure of Mary was introduced in order to preserve a real humanity in our relations with the Godhead. All honour to those who have called us back to the real Jesus, the Jesus of Galilee and Jerusalem, the Jesus with the prophet's fire, the Jesus ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... besides, the frequent satisfaction of seeing knaves, with all their pretended cunning and abilities, betrayed by their own maxims; and while they purpose to cheat with moderation and secrecy, a tempting incident occurs, nature is frail, and they give into the snare; whence they can never extricate themselves, without a total loss of reputation, and the forfeiture of all future trust ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... against all movements of pity, and refused his pardon. The conclusion of Cromwell's letter ran in these words: "I, a most woful prisoner, am ready to submit to death when it shall please God and your majesty; and yet the frail flesh incites me to call to your grace for mercy and pardon of mine offences. Written at the Tower, with the heavy heart and trembling hand of your highness's most miserable prisoner and poor slave, Thomas Cromwell." And a little below, "Most gracious ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... wish to see Betty again. She was angry with him, and, though he never for an instant distrusted his power to dissipate the cloud, he felt that the lifting of it would leave him and her in that strong light wherein the frail flower of sentiment must wither and perish. Explications were fatal to the delicate mystery, the ethereal half-lights, that Vernon loved. Above all things he ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... never forget the night that Randolph and I were ordered to the front. Mademoiselle had come in with her hands full of violets. Randolph, meeting her for the first time after a busy day, took her hands and the frail blossoms in his eager clasp. He was an almost perfect lover—Aucassin if you will—Abelard ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... were occasioned only by the rise or fall of a house of cards which she was building, he internally said, "Pshaw!" and afterwards kept his eyes fixed upon his book. Sir James continued to serve the fair architect with the frail materials for her building—her Folly, as she called it—and for his services he received much encouragement of smiles, and many marked commendations. Mrs. Hungerford called upon Mr. Barclay ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... which I am now speaking, all England had been startled by the discovery of a terrible crime, perpetrated under circumstances of extreme provocation. I chose this crime as the main subject of my sermon. Admitting that the best among us were frail mortal creatures, subject to evil promptings and provocations like the worst among us, my object was to show how a Christian man may find his certain refuge from temptation in the safeguards of his religion. I dwelt minutely on the hardship of the Christian's ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... that, try as she might, she could not make Switzerland a success. When she went down to the table d'hote, people saw that instead of growing stronger she was growing more frail, and the exertion of coming down the long flight of stairs tried her more than it had seemed to do that first day. Sometimes she had a soft, lovely, dangerous color on her cheeks, and her eyes looked almost translucent; and then again the color was gone, her skin was white and transparent, ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... which all mills must be prepared—the wear and tear of Time on the machinery—the wear and tear of Death on the frail things who yearly work out ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... to stay in bed, where alone they found an effectual shelter from the wind and spray which searched every cranny in their walls. More than once the fearfulness of the storm drove the more timid from their frail abode, which the sea threatened to overwhelm, out on the bare rock where the roofless wall of the Light-house offered a safer defence against the perils of ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... went down Jean set his sail, meaning to make a rapid dash across the bay, and seeing no cause for concealing his movements. There was more swell than he liked for so frail a craft, but wind and tide were favourable to the enterprise, and the night was exceptionally bright, the moon being full; this brightness would have been fatal had the inhabitants been on the alert, but ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... and another little house was taken for the month. How Ponnamal kept all four houses going in an orderly fashion, how she kept her nurses together through that time of almost panic, and how she herself, frail and delicate as she is, kept up till all was over, we cannot understand from any point of view but the Divine. She only broke down once. It was when her dearest child, our merry, beautiful little Heart's ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... his dramatic entertainment censored by a frail, prim little thing like Miss Beach tickled his burly sense of humor. "It would be a horrible thing if I should go to see anything vulgar, wouldn't it?" he observed. "But I think I'll take a chance. You go ahead ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... instruments, By which a hand invisible was rearing A new creation in the secret deep. .....I saw the living pile ascend, The mausoleum of its architects, Still dying upwards as their labors closed; Slime the material, but the slime was turned To adamant by their petrific touch: Frail were their frames, ephemeral their lives, Their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... the result of a chill contracted during a hunting excursion, meant no more to me than a week of rooms gloomy and games forbidden; the decease of King Augustin, my uncle, appeared at the first instant of even less importance. I recollect the news coming. The King, having been always in frail health, had never married; seeing clearly but not far, he was a sad man: the fate that struck down his brother increased his natural melancholy; he became almost a recluse, withdrew himself from the capital to a retired residence, and henceforward ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... her iron with a visible effort, and dabbed futilely at the frail, frilled garment on ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... style of the man, so magnificent and yet so modest, at once arrested Thackeray's attention, and he forbore to place him in his extemporaneous catalogue. I remember a pallid, sharp-faced girl fluttering past, and how Thackeray exulted in the history of this "frail little bit of porcelain," as he called her. There was something in her manner that made him hate her, and he insisted she had murdered somebody on her way to the hall. Altogether this marvellous prelude to the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... as she had perceived Robert Browning's poetic greatness, Elizabeth Barrett discerned his personal worth. He was essentially manly in all respects: so manly, that many frail souls of either sex philandered about his over-robustness. From the twilight gloom of an aeesthetic clique came a small voice belittling the great man as "quite too 'loud,' painfully excessive." Browning was manly enough to laugh at all ghoulish cries of any ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... said, yielding to a father's tenderness: "what will become of this frail plant, if exposed to a tempest in ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... the necessity of lightness, the weight of the various elements had to be kept at a minimum, and the factor of safety in construction was therefore exceedingly small, so that the machine as a whole was delicate and frail and incapable of sustaining any unusual strain. This defect was to be corrected in later models by utilising data gathered in future experiments ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... thin ice bridge, which I suddenly perceived in front of me, leading over the gulf that separated us. I felt her warm, violet breath on my cheek. I was just planting my feet on the further side of the glacier, and going to clasp her in my arms, when—the frail platform on which I was crossing gave way:—I fell downward through the chasm with a shriek of terror ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... next morning join in the younger brothers' regular walk around the garden, joking and laughing as I had never seen before. On his right was thin, sickly Victor, rest his soul! and on the other pursy, thick-necked John, as merry a soul as Cork ever turned out. And how they laughed, even the frail consumptive! It was a pleasure to see his blue eyes brighten with enjoyment and his warm cheeks blush. Above John's queer, Irish chuckle, I heard Edouard's voice, with its dainty Parisian accent, retailing jokes and leading in the laughter. The tramp was ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... died my trembling word; The faint and frail Cathedral chimes Spake time in music, and we heard The chafers rustling in the limes. Her dress, that touch'd me where I stood, The warmth of her confided arm, Her bosom's gentle neighbourhood, Her pleasure ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... ha! so frail is the tenure by which these women's favourites commonly hold their envied pre-eminence. Well, I must go find him out and comfort him. I suppose, I shall find him ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... henceforth, at Versailles that the destinies of Europe were discussed and decided. The dismissal of the Infanta had struck a deadly blow at the frail edifice of the quadruple alliance, fruit of the intrigues and diplomatic ability of Cardinal Dubois. Philip V. and Elizabeth Farnese, deeply wounded by the affront put upon them, had hasted to give the Infanta to the Prince of Brazil, heir to the throne of Portugal, at the same time that ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... this rank upon whom passion exercises its tyranny, and hurries them far beyond the bounds which decorum prescribes; of these the ladies are as much distinguished by their noble intrepidity, and a certain superior contempt of reputation, from the frail ones of meaner degree, as a virtuous woman of quality is by the elegance and delicacy of her sentiments from the honest wife of a yeoman and shopkeeper. Lady Bellaston was of this intrepid character; but let not my country readers conclude from her, that this ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... within a fortnight of his arrival, was overtaken by a gale in a canoe which two men could lift, and in which ten were huddled together, and "as nearly lost as a saved man could be." "How I longed for my steamer!" he wrote; "unless I get one, a new Bishop will soon be wanted, for the risk in these frail crafts is tremendous, and a short ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... hardly a caricature. It was almost historic verity. While Napoleon was struggling against adverse storms off the coast of Africa, Lord Nelson, adorned with the laurels of his magnificent victory, in fond dalliance with his frail Delilah, was basking in the courts of voluptuous and profligate kings. "No one," said Napoleon, "can surrender himself to the dominion of love, without the forfeiture of some palms ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... spirit to so humble a level. And though, I hope, all would have been, even in this worst case, ineffectual, through Divine Grace, yet how do I know what lurking vileness might have appeared by degrees in this frail heart, to encourage his designs, and to augment my trials and my dangers? And perhaps downright violence might have been used, if he could not, on one hand, have subdued his passions, nor, on the other, have overcome his pride—a pride, that every one, reflecting upon the disparity ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... change there was. At the prie-Dieu, kneeling in a rapture before the Virgin Mother, was a solemn, black-robed priest. A narrow white bed was in the room. Two large candles burned steadily at its head, two at the foot; and on the bed, the linen turned down to reveal the thin, frail hands crossed below the Prince's brooch, lay the still, white form of our lady of the square. God had taken her to Himself. Death had caught her with a welcoming smile on her face, and, in pity and ruth, had left ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... very threshold of the church. By strong alliances they kept at bay their feudal lords, and fettered the ecclesiastical power with the yoke of a justice, meagre, indeed, and sadly unfruitful, but still ominous of a better day. Within the alabaster vase of despotism, frail, yet old as ambition, the lamp of freedom had long burned dimly: now its flames were licking, with serpent-like tongues, the enclosure so long deemed sacred, and threatened, as they dyed the air with their amber flood of light, to shiver ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... him to which a preacher might appeal. Thus they became Dogmatists; that is, men who assert a truth so fiercely, as to forget that a truth is meant to be used, and not merely asserted—if, indeed, the fierce assertion of a truth in frail man is not generally a sign of some secret doubt of it, and in inverse proportion to his practical living faith in it: just as he who is always telling you that he is a man, is not the most likely to behave like a man. And why did this ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... gusts that beat upon her. In this position she rose and fell on the great billows, and shipped very little water. The steamer had started her wheels again; but while she did not venture very near the boat, she lay by to render assistance if the latter were swamped. The lady, finding that the frail craft, under her present management, behaved very well, sorely as she was tried ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... the headland, my astonishment was extreme on finding my little bark in the midst of a shoal of enormous sharks. If I came in contact with one of them I was lost, for the frail boat would certainly be upset and as Jackson had assured me, if ever I allowed these monsters to come near enough, one snap of their jaws, and there would be an end of the Little Savage. I thought of the warning of Mrs Reichardt, and was inclined ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... had a ghost-story in the family. You seldom read the biographies of writers or artists without finding references, however remote, to at least one person of some distinction or substance. To have had even a curate for an ancestor, or a connection, would have been something, some frail link with gentility. ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... housekeeper, of whose deafness they were all aware, Sir Henry raised his voice to demand admittance, but in vain. Irritated at this delay, he pressed the door at once with foot and hand, in a way which the frail barrier was unable to resist; it gave way accordingly, and the knight thus forcibly entered the kitchen, or outward apartment, of his servant. In the midst of the floor, and with a posture which indicated embarrassment, stood a youthful ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... sir, but it would be hard to find the men who would venture off in such a sea as that; but if, as I believe, the wind is falling, there is yet some hope; if it goes down as rapidly as it sometimes does in summer, frail as are our boats, we may be ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... new thing under the sun, not even that yearned-for bauble of feeble souls—immortality. But he knows, HE knows, standing upright on his two legs unswaying. He is compounded of meat and wine and sparkle, of sun-mote and world-dust, a frail mechanism made to run for a span, to be tinkered at by doctors of divinity and doctors of physic, and to be flung into the scrap-heap ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... purpose this? Could grief So change her? Is it not some fine device For my sake schemed? Or doth my Princess seek, All holy as she was, this guilty joy, Being so wronged of me, her rash weak lord? Frail is a woman's heart, and my fault great! Thus might she do it, being far from home, Bereft of friends, desolate with long woes Of love for me—my slender-waisted one! Yet no, no, no! she would not—she that is My children's ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... while, "This seems to be one of the charities that no one wants to undertake, yet I can't help feeling that my promise to the mother binds me to something more than merely handing baby over to some busy matron or careless nurse in any of our overcrowded institutions. She is such a frail creature she won't trouble anyone long, perhaps, and I should like to give her just a taste of comfort, if not love, before ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... necessary to secure her exemption from the condition of maternity. It seems to us, that it is a great wickedness, unpardonable even, to be so reckless of consequences, and so devoid of all feeling, as to expose a frail, feeble, affectionate woman to those perils which almost insure her death. To enforce pregnancy under such circumstances is a crime. Every true man, therefore, should rather practice self-control and forbearance, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... began early in his career. He failed in business, his health broke down, and through life thereafter he suffered from almost continual attacks of dyspepsia. He was, moreover, a small, frail man, with a weak constitution. He was imprisoned for debt after his failure; nor was this the only time that he found himself within the walls of a jail. That was almost a frequent experience with ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... expelled along with other waste matter, leaving behind them no traces of irritation. This cannot be said of mercurials, or of other harsh, mineral alteratives. These Pellets may be safely employed when the system is feeble, frail, and delicate, by giving them in less quantities. Dose—As an alterative, only one or two ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... whereby the protection can be run out and in, topped and brailed up out of the way, with great facility. The system was tried at Portsmouth last year with considerable success upon the Dido, but as it was thought that some of the fittings were somewhat frail and might collapse beneath the shock of a live torpedo, it was resolved to submit them to a practical test under service conditions upon the Resistance. The ship was consequently fitted with three of the steel booms ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... by, and one of the best I am acquainted with. Here I soon fell asleep in defiance of sunshine. 'Tis true my slumbers were not a little agitated. St. Anthony had been deaf to my prayer, and I still found myself a frail, infatuated mortal. ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... preferences and dislikes. These minute indications as to just what elements of spirit and mind have entered into the nature of the child, are the little delicate fibres that show the texture of the human soul with which we have to deal. The child learns too soon to draw in and hide the frail, sensitive tendrils that indicate that the life of the soul-plant is feeling its way toward the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... rage, to rebellion, to black despair. Then Catherine went to him; her own words tell the rest. As one reads of the wonderful effect of her soothing presence, as one sees the terrified youth becoming quiet and subdued, clinging wistfully to the spiritual strength of this frail woman, and catching at the end not only her spirit of calm submission, but even something of her exaltation, one is irresistibly reminded of another scene—George Eliot's marvellous description in "Adam ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... the encouragements of the Bible, were the voice of God speaking to him personally—the very words came as living words from the lips of God, "as a man speaketh to his friend." This was the secret of his courage, whether it was in some crisis of conflict or controversy, or in his little frail craft when crossing the lake, or exposed to ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... that with this piece be may win back all his money. So it was with me; for I hoped that this paper might have written on it directions for the finding of the jewel, and that I might yet rise from the table a winner. It was but a frail hope, and quickly dashed; for when I had smoothed the creases and spread out the piece of paper in the candle-light, there was nothing to be seen except a few verses from the Psalms of David. The paper was yellow, and showed a lattice of folds where ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... he cheerfully shouted "Down go my horses!" We gagged him after that and got him safely in, but the poor fellow only lived a couple of days, for blood-poisoning had got too strong a hold of his frail body for medical skill to avail. His name I have forgotten, and the hospital records would only state: "Private So-and-so received [a certain date]; died [such a date]. Cause ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... tortures, all of which he bore with the utmost fortitude and serenity of spirit. "The longer I live, the longer I desire to live," he wrote Samuel J. May, "and the more I see the desirableness of living; yet certainly not in this frail body, but just as it shall please the dear Father of us all." One by one he saw the little band of which he was leader dwindle as now one and now another dropped by the way. And it was he or Mr. Phillips, or both, who ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... faced their coming, not a trace of fear Or tremor in his bearing, slight and frail In his white doublet, holding in his hand The wayside lilies he forgot to drop, Which to the Lady Agathar shall come, Alas! without his greeting or ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask
... frail and how fleeting, The bloom of a fine summer's day! While worth in the mind o' my Phillis Will flourish without a decay. Awa wi' your belles and your beauties, They never wi' her can compare: Whaever has met wi' my Phillis Has met wi' the queen ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... has known In kind accomplishment;—but O! how bright The rays, that gilded them with varied light Alternate! oft swift flashing on the boon That might at FAME's immortal shrine be won; Then shining soft on tender LOVE's delight.— Now, with stern hand, FATE draws the sable veil O'er the frail glass!—HOPE, as she turns away, The darken'd crystal drops.——Heavy and pale, Rain-pouring clouds quench all the darts of day; Low mourns the wind along the gloomy dale, And tolls the ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... what you say, Tho' it may be delusion, dear Ismene! Did it seem possible to you, who know me, That I, sad sport of a relentless Fate, Fed upon bitter tears by night and day, Could ever taste the maddening draught of love? The last frail offspring of a royal race, Children of Earth, I only have survived War's fury. Cut off in the flow'r of youth, Mown by the sword, six brothers have I lost, The hope of an illustrious house, whose blood Earth drank with sorrow, near akin to his Whom ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... to tell Mary Alice something of the stars as the sailors' friends; and she had one of the most memorable evenings of her life when he explained to her something of the science of navigation and made her see how their great greyhound of the ocean, just like the first frail barks of the Tyrians, picked its way across trackless wastes of sea by the infallible guidance of "the friendly stars." All this particularly interested Mary Alice because of Some One who lived much in the open and spent many and many a night on the broad deserts, ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... the lake, doing lumber-jobs, and not disdaining the traveller's dollars. Upon this, one August morning, we embarked ourselves and our frail birch, for our voyage to the upper end of Moosehead. Iglesias, in a red shirt, became a bit of color in the scene. I, in a red shirt, repeated the flame. Cancut, outweighing us both together, in a broader red shirt, outglared us both. When ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... chocolate, ma," said Sally. Mrs. Minto was sitting beside the empty grate reading, with the aid of a magnifying glass, a piece of newspaper which had been wrapped around Sally's mended shoes. She looked very frail and meagre, but she was very much better than she had been, and but for the ugliness of the room and the drabness of her clothes she would not have appeared miserable. She was, in fact, a pathetic figure; but thanks to Sally ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... noted the purity of her face, the beautiful pose of her body, stretched in the deck-chair, her fine white hands and arms that hung there, slender, inert and frail. He admired these things so much that he failed to see that they expressed not only beauty but a certain delicacy of physique, and that her languor which appealed to him was the ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... of her lovers to those of the beasts that crawl on their bellies. Sometimes the tempter is of the other sex. Thus The Demon Lover is a tale known in several versions in Scotland, and lately brought under notice by Mr. Hall Caine in its Manx form. The frail lady is enticed from her home, and induced to put foot on board the mysterious ship by an appeal, a pathetic echo of which has lingered on in later poetry, and has been quoted as the very dirge ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... bacterium trying to bore into flesh as hard as concrete. Mekstrom Flesh tends to be acid-resistant as well as tough physically. It is not beyond the imagination to believe that your Mekstrom Superman might live three times our frail four-score and ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... by those who are in quest of money, notoriety, or sensation at any price. Such people—still to be met with—have one mental picture, and one only, of the flight of an aeroplane. They imagine a man in the air—and this mere idea of altitude makes them shudder; and they picture this man in a frail apparatus of wood and wire, capable of breaking to pieces at any moment; or even if it does not break, needing an incessant movement of levers to maintain it in a safe equilibrium; while they reckon also that, should the engine of the machine suffer any breakdown, the craft will ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... will hardly be denied that even in this frail and corrupted world, we sometimes meet persons who, in their very mien and aspect, as well as in the whole habit of life, manifest such a signature and stamp of virtue, as to make our judgment of them a matter of intuition rather than the result of continued examination."—ALEXANDER ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... easily picture to one's self these two women, both of whom were over sixty years of age. Madame Magloire small, plump, vivacious; Mademoiselle Baptistine gentle, slender, frail, somewhat taller than her brother, dressed in a gown of puce-colored silk, of the fashion of 1806, which she had purchased at that date in Paris, and which had lasted ever since. To borrow vulgar phrases, which possess the merit of giving utterance in a single word to an idea which a whole page ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... nine sharp the next morning. We expected a large attendance, and were not disappointed. Some of the boys grinned broadly when Alethea-Belle appeared carrying books and maps. She looked absurdly small, very nervous, and painfully frail. The fathers present exchanged significant glances; the mothers sniffed. Alethea- Belle entered the names of her scholars in a neat ledger, and shook hands with each. Then she ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... she had seen him. Every look, every word, every act of his returned to her now in the light of the truth. Love at first sight! He had sworn it, bitterly, eloquently, scornful of her doubts. And now a blind, sweet, shuddering ecstasy swayed her. How weak and frail seemed her body—too small, too slight for this monstrous and terrible engine of fire and lightning and fury and glory—her heart! It must burst or break. Relentlessly memory pursued Ellen, and her thoughts whirled and emotion conquered her. At last she quivered ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... Dr. Grey, I neither endeavor nor desire to forget the sorrows that first taught me the emptiness of earthly things, the futility of human schemes,—that snapped the frail reed of flesh to which I clung, and gave me, instead, the blessed support, the immovable arm of an everlasting God. Ah! that woman was deeply versed in the heart-lore of ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... Sue's mind, alert and vigorous as the mind of a woman of half her years, caught at the thought of her old friend and pupil. She leaned forward in her chair over the girl who sat on the floor at her feet, and her voice was strong and clear with the strength of the spirit which dominated her frail body. ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... That is when they travel openly; but they have hidden passages and winding galleries under the snow, which undoubtedly are their main avenues of communication. Here and there these passages rise so near the surface as to be covered by only a frail arch of snow, and a slight ridge betrays their course to the eye. I know him well. He is known to the farmer as the "deer mouse," to the naturalist as the white-footed mouse,—a very beautiful creature, nocturnal in his habits, with ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... unadorn'd and plain, Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, Slights every borrow'd charm that dress supplies, Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes: 290 But when those charms are pass'd, for charms are frail, When time advances, and when lovers fail, She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, In all the glaring impotence of dress. Thus fares the land, by luxury betray'd, 295 In nature's simplest charms at first array'd; But verging to decline, its splendours rise, Its vistas ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... word for it that she was chaste. She prattled, sitting by the fireside, of famous painters. The tomb of her father was mentioned. Wild and frail and beautiful she looked, and thus the women of the Greeks were, Jacob thought; and this was life; and himself a man ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... success, Phoebe proceeded to initiate me into the first process of my job, which consisted in pasting slippery, sticky strips of muslin over the corners of the rough brown boxes that were piled high about us in frail, tottering towers reaching to the ceiling, which was trellised over with a network of electric wires and steam-pipes. Two hundred and fifty of these boxes remained to be finished on the particular order upon which Phoebe was working. Each must be given eight muslin ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... conscience, in taste and imagination, and in moral energy. But the original point of variance is physical. Some have a small body and a powerful mind, like a Corliss engine in a tiny boat, whose frail structure will soon be racked to pieces. Others are born with large bodies and very little mind, as if a toy engine were set to run a mudscow. This means that the poor engineer must pole up stream all his life. Others, by ignorance of parent, or accident through ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl! And every clambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed,— Its irised ceiling ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... father was an intense, high-strung business man, an importer, who spent much time in Europe where he died of an American-contracted typhoid-fever, when Ethel was ten. Her mother was one of a large well-known Maryland family, fair, brown-eyed too, and frail; also, by all the rights of inheritance, training and development, sensitive and nervous. In her family the precedents of blue blood were religiously maintained with so much emphasis on the "blue" that no beginning was ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll |
