"Levity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so long on miraculous food that he rolled pleasantly down like a ball, with no other injury than a few scratches; or he had become so very, very thin with living simply on expectations, in default of more substantial fare, that he gently floated down by virtue of levity, like ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... not disposed to treat the philosophy of the "absolute" either with levity or with scorn. We feel that it brings us into contact with some of the most profound and most deeply mysterious problems of human thought. Finite as we are, we are so constituted that we cannot avoid framing the idea, ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... now reached the church, and as Mary adhered to her resolution of attending divine worship, Lady Emily declared her intention of accompanying her, that she might come in for her share of Lady Juliana's displeasure; but in spite of her levity, the reverend aspect, and meek, yet fervent piety of Dr. Barlow, impressed her with better feelings; and she joined in the service with outward decorum if not with inward devotion. The music consisted of an organ, simply but well ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... question is, whether his type is still conceivable, whether it has been handed down to us.—All the attempts that I know of to read the history of a "soul" in the Gospels seem to me to reveal only a lamentable psychological levity. M. Renan, that mountebank in psychologicus, has contributed the two most unseemly notions to this business of explaining the type of Jesus: the notion of the genius and that of the hero ("heros"). But if there is anything essentially unevangelical, it is surely ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... others. Literature was a polished mirror in which the gay world saw its own grinning face. It threw back a most brilliant picture of the surface of society, showed manners but not the elementary passions of human nature. As a whole, it leaves an impression of hardness, shallowness, and levity. The polite cynicism of Congreve, the ferocious cynicism of Swift, the malice of Pope, the pleasantry of Addison, the early worldliness of Prior and Gay are seldom relieved by any touch of the ideal. The prose of the time was excellent, but the poetry was merely rhymed prose. The recent ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... help us, I suppose? Balloon is a whole-hearted fellow. I can't help loving that man, for all his drollery and waggishness. He puts on an air of levity sometimes, but there aint a man in the senate knows the scriptures as he does. He ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... its way: and, amidst so many impediments to its progress, so much difficulty in procuring audience and attention, its actual success is more to be wondered at, than that it should not have universally conquered scorn and indifference, fixed the levity of a voluptuous age, or, through a cloud of adverse prejudications, opened for itself a passage to the hearts and understandings of the scholars of ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... sour morose temper, and hated nothing more than the symptoms of happiness appearing in any countenance, I represented all kind of diversion and amusement as the most horrid sins. I inveighed against cheerfulness as levity, and encouraged nothing but gravity, or, to confess the truth to you, hypocrisy. The unhappy emperor followed my advice, and incensed the people by such repeated barbarities, that he was at last ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... Heliographic communication had been opened with the relieving army, and it is on record that the first message flashed through from the south was a question about the number of a horse. With inconceivable stupidity this has been cited as an example of military levity and incapacity. Of course the object of the question was a test as to whether they were really in communication with the garrison. It must be confessed that the town seems to have contained some ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... melancholy mingled in her smile. It was not the thoughtless levity of a girl—it was not the restrained simper of premature womanhood—it was something which the poet Young might have remembered, when he ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... austerity of his early portrait. Rossetti was not in a distinct sense a humourist, but there came to him at intervals, in earlier manhood, those outbursts of volatility, which, to serious natures, act as safety-valves after prolonged tension of all the powers of the mind. At such moments of levity he is described as almost boyish in recklessness, plunging into any madcap escapade that might be afoot with heedlessness of all consequences. Stories of misadventures, quips and quiddities of every kind, were then his delight, and ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... pity! It were better for him - how does the Bible say? - that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the depth of the sea. Let us take a drink," he concluded suddenly, but without any levity of tone. ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I erred through levity and want of thought! How many resolutions have I taken at random! how many judgments have I pronounced for the sake of a witticism! how many mischiefs have I not done without any sense of my responsibility! The greater part of men harm one another for the sake of doing ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... there be those in this country who think that American democracy means public levity and intemperance, or a lack of skill and sagacity in politics, or the absence of self-command and self-denial, let them bear in mind a few of the most salient and recent facts of history which may profitably be recommended to their reflections. We emancipated a million of negroes by ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... first or last to the paper. This proposition was instantly assented to; and Dr. Barnard, Dean of Derry, now Bishop of Killaloe[244], drew up an address to Dr. Johnson on the occasion, replete with wit and humour, but which it was feared the Doctor might think treated the subject with too much levity. Mr. Burke then proposed the address as it stands in the paper in writing, to which I had the honour to ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... Juniper, Succour Justicia, Perfection Kennedia, Mental Beauty Kingcups, Desire of Riches Laburnum, Pensive Beauty Lady's Slipper, Win Me Lagerstroemia, Eloquence Lantana, Rigour Larch, Audacity Larkspur, Lightness, Levity Larkspur, Double, Happiness Larkspur, Pink, Fickleness Larkspur, Purple, Haughtiness Laurel, Glory Laurel, Common, Perfidy Laurel, Ground, Perseverance Laurel, Mountain, Ambition Lavender, Distrust Leaves, Dead, Sadness Lemon, Zest Lemon ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... were owing mainly to his levity. If he passed briskly from one camp to the other, an impartial [v.04 p.0668] observer might usually detect some personal motive at the bottom. But it is hardly probable that he was himself conscious of anything of the sort. When he was in reality acting under ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... levity. "You'll laugh out the other side your mouth if Lucretia puts up a race in the Derby like she did ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... "It is this levity," continued he, addressing a group of butterflies who had gradually assembled in the air, attracted by the conversation, "it is this fatal levity that constrains me to despair wholly of the future of you insects. That you ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... of losing the Lady Margaret, or the hope of gaining her. The missionary had refrained from questioning the young knight, nor did Gilbert reveal any secret to his venerable friend. Whether he might have recovered his former levity can scarcely be answered, but the death of Rodolph seemed to have extinguished it forever. So great a change had this last incident wrought in him, that it was not only evident to Father Omehr and Sir Albert, but all who knew him were struck with his altered ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... difference with their preference for the open prairie country in contrast to the endless and sombre forests where were the homes of the Iroquois. Their history abounds in great men, whose ambitious plans were foiled by the levity of their allies and their want of persistence. They it was who under King Philip fought the Puritan fathers; who at the instigation of Pontiac doomed to death every white trespasser on their soil; who led by ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... God—that it consisted simply of a chronic case of the snuffles. Jones has simply gone to the opposite extreme and transformed the Temple of the Deity into a variety dive. Nero fiddled while Rome burned; but Jones indulges in the levity of the buffoon while consigning millions of human beings to Hell. Alas, that so few preachers understand the pity which ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... entitled me to a heavier article. I must have seen that lady at least four times in the twenty years following. She never alluded to my salvation in any way. People occasionally ask me to act as godfather to their children with a levity which convinces me that they have not the faintest notion that it involves anything more than calling the helpless child George Bernard without regard to the possibility that it may grow up in the liveliest ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... interesting, those with whom he came in contact were content to waive for a while the graver question of his sufficiency. It is said that at this time of his life his eyes were affectionate, though without a ray of levity; that his hair was curly, and his figure tall; that he was, in short, a very lovable youth, who won upon his female hearers as soon as they saw and heard him, and caused them to say, 'Why didn't we know of ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... were a half-dozen or more choice spirits—George Augustus Sala, Henry Sampson, Tom Hood the younger, Captain Mayne Reid, and others less known to fame. I am sorry to say my somber news affected these sinners in a way that was shocking. Their levity was a thing to shudder at. As Sir Boyle Roche might have said, it grated harshly upon an ear that had a dubious check in its pocket. Having uttered their hilarious minds by word of mouth all they knew how, these hardy and impenitent offenders set about writing "appropriate ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... spot where the curtains had fallen together behind the departing figure of Stephen Langdon; then he turned his eyes toward Beatrice, to discover that she was convulsed with laughter. But whether her demeanor and her quick surrender to expressions of levity had been excited by the departure of the banker, or by Duncan's attitude of dismay, the young man could not have told. He laughed with her, for there was a distinctly ludicrous side to the situation, following, ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... with a threat of punishment, conveyed by pinching his own ear, slapping his own face, kicking out his foot, and similar indications of chastisement, with a knowing nod at the offender. But if he saw an approach to levity over the word of God, his manner wholly changed. Tears filled his eyes, he looked all grief and entreaty, and the words, "God see," were earnestly spelled on his uplifted hands. No one could stand the appeal; and very rarely had he occasion ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... at the early age of thirty-three. Though having the most beautiful wife in England, his affections wandered, and tales are told of his attachment to that siren singer, Mrs. Billington. The Duchess's manner had somewhat of levity and much coquetry in it, though she could not be classed with that company who have not time to be virtuous. At the time of her lord's death, she was living with her mother, the Dowager Duchess of Beaufort, in Berkeley Square, London, having been partially estranged from her husband. ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... there is nothing in my past life for which I have cause to blush." He looked fixedly at Mademoiselle Marguerite, as if he were striving to read her inmost soul; and in a solemn tone, that contrasted strangely with his usual levity of manner, he added: "If the name I bear should ever be compromised, my prospects would be blighted forever! The only course left for me would be to tender my resignation. I will leave nothing undone ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... never heard—and he became very doleful. This meant no good he was sure. There was something in it which looked like a warning. But when I remarked that surely another figure of a woman could be procured I found myself being soundly rated for my levity. The old boy flushed pink under his clear tan as if I had proposed something improper. One could replace masts, I was told, or a lost rudder—any working part of a ship; but where was the use of sticking up a new figurehead? What satisfaction? How could one care for it? It was easy to ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... cannot excuse," said Mrs. Bartley Simson, "is the tone of levity in which she answered Mr. MacTavish when he met her on the way from the station. It is possible that she had some good reason for coming on that particular train. I am not one of those who hold that ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... steps, gave a suppressed chuckle, which I think no one heard but myself. I was vexed with his levity, but, nevertheless, gave him a warning nudge with my toe, in payment for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... with a grave and weighty slowness upon him, contrasting strongly with his daughter's levity: 'I beg the favour of your explaining—ha—what it is you mean.' 'I mean, papa,' said Fanny, 'that if Mrs General should happen to have any matrimonial projects of her own, I dare say they are quite enough to occupy her spare time. And that if she has not, so much ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... St. Croix's story loses in my telling. The simple expressions, the grace of the narrative, were its charm: and these, alas! I can neither translate nor imitate, no more than I can convey the strange mixture of deep feeling and levity, shrewdness and simplicity, that constituted the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... its genuine value, therefore, an abstract conception may be divided into three classes—physical, moral, and intellectual. Whiteness and colours in general, levity and weight, hardness, sound, and the like qualities, are all abstract types which belong to the physical class. Goodness, virtue, love, hatred, and anger must be assigned to the moral class; and equality, identity, number, and quantity, etc., ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... loss to interpret this singular levity. He had never truly believed that reading of Nancy's character by means of which he tried to persuade himself that his marriage was an unmitigated calamity, and a final parting between them the best thing that could happen. His memories of her, and the letters she had written ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... more ambition than comported with her mental calibre or her force of character; she had taken it into her head to govern, by turns promoting and overthrowing the ministers, herself proffering advice to the king, sometimes to good purpose, but still more often with a levity as fatal as ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... fancies to the full. It is, however, more probable that the Cardinal Montalto treated her follies with a grudging parsimony; for we soon find the Peretti household hopelessly involved in debt. Discord, too, arose between Vittoria and her husband on the score of a certain levity in her behaviour; and it was rumoured that even during the brief space of their union she had proved a faithless wife. Yet she contrived to keep Francesco's confidence, and it is certain that her family profited by their connection with the Peretti. Of her six brothers, Mario, the eldest, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... just so. Count Rumford hence infers that no alteration of temperature can take place in a fluid, without an internal motion of its particles, and as this motion is produced only by the comparative levity of the heated particles, heat cannot be ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... and kingdom, and a fourth with thanksgiving,—neither part of the quartette being for an instant confused with the other. Then he may preach his hour, and, turning his hour-glass, may say,—but that he will not anticipate the levity to be born in a later century with Mather Byles,—"Now, my hearers, we will take ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... matters, a tone of levity at any time seems to infect these pages, I cry ye mercy; for nothing was further from my intention; yet, though acknowledging this, I maintain that it is a vain thing to look on religion as on a winter night, full of terror, and darkness, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... ardor was considerably damped by this event, and when next it revived our choice could not be accused of levity. Our aim was infinitely more ambitious, and our task more arduous. Racine's "Andromaque" was selected for our next essay in acting, and was, I suppose, pronounced unobjectionable by the higher authorities. Here, however, our mainstay and support, Mademoiselle Descuilles, interposed a very ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... molasses candy has been here, but when she leaves she does not carry the confusion with her which she causes.... Deborah requested eight of us larger girls to remain last evening, for the purpose of reproving us. The cause was the levity and mirthfulness which were displayed on Third day of the week previous. She compared us to Judas Iscariot, who betrayed his master with a kiss. She said there were those amongst us who would surely have to suffer deep affliction for not attending to ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... very seriously," thought Mr. Cruger. Mrs. Cruger glanced at her husband and noticed a rather injured expression appear upon his face. Evidently he was not highly pleased at Helene's levity. ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... scraps of rhetorical logic were but as straws in the storm of anti-warlike passion that was then raging. Nor did Defoe succeed in turning the elections by addressing "to the good people of England" his Six Distinguishing Characters of a Parliament Man, or by protesting as a freeholder against the levity of making the strife between the new and the old East India Companies a testing question, when the very existence of the kingdom was at stake. His pamphlets were widely distributed, but he might as soon ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... the little creatures the seeds of all those virtues and qualities which they will one day find so indispensable; when I behold in the obstinate all the future firmness and constancy of a noble character; in the capricious, that levity and gaiety of temper which will carry them lightly over the dangers and troubles of life, their whole nature simple and unpolluted,—then I call to mind the golden words of the Great Teacher of mankind, "Unless ye become like one of these!" And now, my friend, these children, who are our ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... remarks, while evidently spoken in a spirit of levity, aroused strenuous opposition above. There was an immediate movement of the object straddling the limb. Then two arms waved vigorously, and ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... be a place eminently adapted to study and education, being situated in a populous, yet a cheap country, and exposing the minds and manners of young men neither to the levity and dissoluteness of a capital city, nor to the gross luxury of a town of commerce, places naturally unpropitious to learning; in one the desire of knowledge easily gives way to the love of pleasure, and in the other, is in danger of yielding to the ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... there; nor was her anxiety to make both ends meet by any means equal to her sister's in keeping up appearances, and avoiding detrimentals. The two sisters met occasionally, but Lady Delmar was so compassionate and patronising that Annaple's spirit recoiled in off-hand levity and rattle, and neither regretted the occupation that prevented them from ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tendency to levity, which she knew to be unbefitting the occasion, and likely to defeat its significance. She said: "I am sure, Mrs. Chump, we are very much attached to you as Mrs. Chump; but after a certain period of life, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... equally zealous in using the most persuasive arguments with the chiefs to take care of our garden, and rear and propagate the plants when we were gone; to all which they lent a deaf ear, and treated the subject with much levity, saying, they might be very good to us, but that they were already plentifully supplied with every thing they wished or wanted, and had not occasion for more. But on the Lieutenant's representing, that if, on our return, they ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... hopping-sallows open, and yield their palms before other sallows, and when they are blown (which is about the exit of May, or sometimes June) the palms (or olesikarpoi frugiperdae, as Homer terms them for their extream levity) are four inches long, and full of a fine lanuginous cotton. Of this sort, there is a salix near Dorking in Surrey, in which the julus bears a thick cottonous substance. A poor body might in an hour's space, gather a pound ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... sounded his strongest bass. "Pardon me. I cannot accept such a view, sir. There is a levity abroad in our land which I must deplore. No matter how leniently you may try to put it, in the end we have the spectacle of a struggle between men where lying decides the survival of the fittest. Better, far better, if it ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... of great abilities, with a strong desire for power under the guise of levity and good-nature. He was far-reaching, bold, and of concentrated energy; but his real character was not fully comprehended until the Crimean war, although he was conspicuous in politics for forty years. His frank utterances, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... sufficiently to begin melting ice at a depth of 3 inches in less than about two hours. As, therefore, the heated water cannot impart its heat to its neighboring particles, it remains expanded and rises by its levity, while colder portions come to be heated in turn, thus setting up currents ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... for six months shared with Winny Dymond a room off Wandsworth High Street, so that, as he put it, he might feel that she was near him; with the desolating result that they weren't by any means, no, not by a long chalk, so near. For Maudie, out of levity or sheer exuberant kindness of the heart, had persuaded Winny Dymond to join the Polytechnic. In her proud beauty and in her affianced state she could afford to be exuberantly kind. And Booty in his ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... regretfully forced into materialism by some mental confusion or obscurity, but he revels in it, and invites all to taste and see how gracious a philosophy it is. There is an ill-concealed levity and coarseness in his handling ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... Skelton, for want of something better to say, and with a callous sort of levity; "perhaps you hold the idea—some people do—that murdered men can't rest in their graves until their murderers have expiated ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... tendency to social exhilaration, which prevail, will incline to such a fault in many cases. An English reserve inclines to moroseness, and Scotch perseverance to obstinacy; so this aerial French nature may become levity and insincerity; but then it is neither the sullen Englishman, the dogged Scotchman, nor the shallow Frenchman that we are to take as the national ideal. In each country we are to take the very best as ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... graves of those we have known? And whom can we call up, of our early companions, who has not left us to regret his loss? This, indeed, may be one of the salutary effects of grief; inasmuch as it prepares us to loose ourselves also without repugnance. Doctor Freeman's instances of female levity cured by grief, are certainly to the point, and constitute an item of credit in the account we examine. I was much mortified by the loss of the Doctor's visit, by my absence from home. To have shown how much I feel ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... and art of flying as his privilege and his peculiarly enviable happiness; such a person, who believes that on the slightest impulse, he can actualize all sorts of curves and angles, who knows the sensation of a certain divine levity, an "upwards" without effort or constraint, a "downwards" without descending or lowering—without TROUBLE!—how could the man with such dream-experiences and dream-habits fail to find "happiness" differently coloured and defined, even in his waking hours! How could ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... conic sections next), so Mrs. St John Deloraine persevered in crediting all she met with a passion for virtue. Their speech might bewray them as worldlings of the world, but she insisted on interpreting their talk as a kind of harmless levity, as a mere cynical mask assumed by a tender and pious nature. Thus, no one ever combined a delight in good works with a taste for good things so successfully as Mrs. ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... with the charm of fine manners, and under his easy nonchalance there lurked more earnest and patriotic conviction than he ever cared to admit. 'I am sorry to hurt any man's feelings,' said Sydney Smith, 'and to brush aside the magnificent fabric of levity and gaiety he has reared; but I accuse our Minister of honesty and diligence.' Ridiculous rumours filled the air during the earliest years of her Majesty's reign concerning the supposed undue influence which Lord Melbourne exerted at Court. The more advanced ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... differences no less pronounced. No adjective has been more frequently applied to the Anglo-Saxon than the word "dull." The American mind has been accused of ignorance, superficiality, levity, commonplaceness, and dozens of other defects, but "dulness" is not one of them. "Smartness," rather, is the preferred epithet of derogation; or, to rise a little in the scale of valuation, it is the word "cleverness," ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... discovery of conspiracies it is impossible so to guard as that either through treachery, want of caution, or levity, the secret shall not be found out, whenever more than three or four persons are privy to it. And whenever more than one conspirator is arrested, the plot is certain to be detected, because no two ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... whether he had to stand on his head to put things right somewhat. We suggested he had used his bread-board for a raft, and from there comfortably had stoked his grate; and we did our best to conceal our admiration under the wit of fine irony. He affirmed not to know anything about it, rebuked our levity, declared himself, with solemn animation, to have been the object of a special mercy for the saving of our unholy lives. Fundamentally he was right, no doubt; but he need not have been so offensively positive about ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... of adapting words to these airs, is by no means easy. The poet who would follow the various sentiments which they express, must feel and understand that rapid fluctuation of spirits, that unaccountable mixture of gloom and levity which composes the character of my countrymen, and has deeply tinged their music. Even in their liveliest strains we find some melancholy note inhere, some minor third or flat seventh which throws its shade as it ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... We are never so apt to lose our sense of proportion as when we consider those beloved writers whom we hold to be humourists because they have made us laugh. It may be conceded that, as a people, we have an abiding and somewhat disquieting sense of fun. We are nimble of speech, we are more prone to levity than to seriousness, we are able to recognize a vital truth when it is presented to us under the familiar aspect of a jest, and we habitually allow ourselves certain forms of exaggeration, accepting, perhaps unconsciously, Hazlitt's verdict: "Lying is a species of wit, and shows spirit and invention." ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... two reverend friends of mine—able, eminent, and renowned professors of biology, bibliology, ethnology, and sockdology—who at once pronounced it ancient Cush and proceeded to translate it; one remarking with a levity which but indifferently became his calling, as I thought, that the exceeding toughness of the yarn no doubt accounted for the difficulty of sawing into it—in which view his collaborator, to my ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... their natural growth or furthering the reader's knowledge of them, Rosa passes through the swift transformations which a "Hey, presto!" is quite sufficient to announce. In the early part of the book she is an embodiment of silliness, levity and selfishness—in the latter part she is reason, self-devotion and passionate love personified. As for Dr. Staines, there is no need of any apotheosis in his case: as the hero of the book he must perforce be that renowned prestidigitateur whom Mr. Reade long since presented ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... is doubtless very unjust to the clergy to suppose that they turn the barrel of sermons to save themselves the trouble of writing new ones. Nothing but the levity of the pews could be guilty of such a suspicion. The preacher knows that one squeezing does not take all the juice out of an orange; and how much jucier a fruit is a good sermon! Moreover, the pews are so pachydermatous, so rhinoceros-skinned, that nothing ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... it; and the more so, because there are other analogies in favour of so long a duration of the prophetic office, which was sometimes entered upon even in early youth. The inscription has the same authority in its favour as every other part of the book; and it is hardly possible to understand the levity with which it has, in recent times, been pretty generally designated as spurious, or, at least, suspicious. [Pg 173] It is altogether impossible to sever it from the other parts of the book. There must certainly ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... be said in extenuation of our nymph-like damsel's apparent subjection to levity—a declension which, in the sequel and in certain quarters, went neither unnoticed nor undeplored. But to labour this point is to forestall history. Immediately her change of attitude announced its existence innocently enough. For the sacramental meal once consumed, and courteous parting ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... of what is undeniably true in this book; there is also, I venture to think, a good deal that is undeniably untrue. I do not think it is unfair to say that in some respects Chesterton allows his cleverness to lead him to certain errors of judgment, and a certain levity in dealing with matters that are to a number of people so sacred that to reinterpret them is almost ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... friends, might I not, after the declarations I have made (and Heaven knows that they were made in the sincerity of my heart), in the judgment of the impartial world and of posterity, be chargeable with levity and inconsistency, if not with rashness and ambition? Nay, farther, would there not be some apparent foundation for the two former charges? Now, justice to myself and tranquillity of conscience require that I should act a part, if not above imputation, at least capable of vindication. ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... sapling well fed from the old tree. Taller than his father by many inches, broader, heavier, and larger in all ways, with the slow eyes of a seal and something of a seal's face as well. But with his father's sprawling legs and his father's levity and irony of manner and of voice—a Manxman disguised out of all recognition of race, and apeing the fashionable follies of the ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... an article in the Quarterly Review, very explosive in its rhetoric, much like that which he had devoted in the same periodical to Darwin. The bishop declared that the work tended "toward infidelity, if not to atheism"; that the writers had been "guilty of criminal levity"; that, with the exception of the essay by Dr. Temple, their writings were "full of sophistries and scepticisms." He was especially bitter against Prof. Jowett's dictum, "Interpret the Scripture like any other book"; he ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... witty, and sometimes rather free, and I felt somewhat disturbed at the idea of entering a house so serious as yours—a house peopled by dignified lawyers and young ladies. But I was so fond of your brother, I found him so full of novelty, so gay, so wittily sarcastic and discerning, under his assumed levity, that not only did I go everywhere with him, but I followed him to the extent of meeting you. And I never cease to thank him for it. Do you remember when I entered the drawing-room where you and your family were sitting, ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... story; where she hath ever since led a disconsolate life, and deserves, perhaps, pity for her misfortunes, more than our censure for a behaviour to which the artifices of her aunt very probably contributed, and to which very young women are often rendered too liable by that blameable levity in the ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... half-savage nature acknowledged—to creep into his soul, to master it; but he felt no hope, cherished no scheme while the young lord lived. With the death of her betrothed, Fanny was free; then he began to hope,—not yet to scheme. Accidentally he encountered Peacock. Partly from the levity that accompanied a false good-nature that was constitutional with him, partly from a vague idea that the man might be useful, Vivian established his quondam associate in the service of Trevanion. Peacock soon gained the secret of Vivian's love for Fanny, and dazzled by the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... must appear such as he would persuade others to be, and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life. I believe it might be of great service to let our public orators know, that an unnatural gravity, or an unbecoming levity in their behaviour out of the pulpit, will take very much from the force of their eloquence in it. Excuse another scrap of Latin; it is from one of the Fathers: I think it will appear a just observation to all, as it may have authority with some; Qui autem docent tantum, nec faciunt, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... amongst the female servants. Here, however, I believe that my mother was mistaken. Women of humble station, less than any other class, have any tendency to sympathize with boldness that manifests itself in throwing off the yoke of religion. Perhaps a natural instinct tells them that levity of that nature will pretty surely extend itself contagiously to other modes of conscientious obligation; at any rate, my own experience would warrant me in doubting whether any instance were ever known of a woman, in the rank of servant, regarding infidelity or irreligion as something brilliant, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... touching melody, the overflowings of a light and innocent heart. And scarcely less melodious was the joyous and gleeful laugh, in which she ever and anon gave way to the promptings of a lively and playful imagination. Let it not, however, be thought that all this apparent levity of manner was the result of an unthinking or uncalculating mind, or that it was in her case, as it frequently is in others, associated with qualities which exclude the finer and better feelings of female nature. It was ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... had stepped within the great, silent, shadow-filled cathedral. The lights and sunshine of the out-of-doors made the contrast more impressive and in the wonder of the moment the girls drew closer together. Gone was all their levity now, buried deep beneath an overwhelming reverence for this great architectural masterpiece—exalted resting place of ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... been imputed to the emperor Nero. The spirit of Madame de Pompadour's saying breathes the same selfish levity; and it amounts to the same thing. But it merits remark that the words of Metternich were of an entirely distinct signification. They did not imply that he cared only for himself and the affairs of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... the race-balls in my company, whenever the coast was clear of the rascally bailiffs who beset me. This gave the lie to any of those maligners who said I wished to make a prisoner of my wife. The fact is, that, knowing her levity, and seeing the insane dislike to me and mine which had now begun to supersede what, perhaps, had been an equally insane fondness for me, I was bound to be on my guard that she should not give me the slip. Had she left me, I ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with an honest frankness which the novelty of her situation excused she confirmed the truth of what he had before heard, and, addressing him by the name of FAIR MONTAGUE (love can sweeten a sour name), she begged him not to impute her easy yielding to levity or an unworthy mind, but that he must lay the fault of it (if it were a fault) upon the accident of the night which had so strangely discovered her thoughts. And she added, that though her behavior ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... gives a map of the Bakhatla country with its rivers and mountains, and is quite at home in the geographical details, crowning his description with some sentimental and half-ludicrous lines of poetry. No reasonable man will fancy that in the wailings of his heart there was any levity or want of sincerity. What we are about to copy merits careful consideration: first, as evincing the depth and tenderness of his love for these black savages; next, as showing that it was pre-eminently Christian love, intensified by his vivid view of the eternal world, and belief ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... was no use his having entered the diplomatic career if he weren't able to bear himself as if this interesting generalisation had no particular message for him. He did Mrs. Bonnycastle moreover the justice to believe that she wouldn't have approached the question with such levity if she had supposed she should make him wince. The whole thing was, like everything else, but for her to laugh at, and the betrayal moreover of a good intention. "I see, I see—the self-made girl has of course always had a past. Yes, and the young man in the store—from ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... all levity depart from his face, giving way to a look of sternness and command. Although he was engaged in a joke, the subordinate must see no sign of fooling in his countenance. He said a sharp word to a blue-jacket, who nimbly sprang to ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... Tradition be true of that Extravagance which forc'd him both to quit his Country and Way of Living; to wit, his being engag'd, with a Knot of young Deer-stealers, to rob the Park of Sir Thomas Lucy of Cherlecot near Stratford: the Enterprize favours so much of Youth and Levity, we may reasonably suppose it was before he could write full Man. Besides, considering he has left us six and thirty Plays, at least, avow'd to be genuine; and considering too, that he had retir'd ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Sprague reproves mildly; "how can you? I don't like to hear my son talk like that even in jest. Don't get the idea that it is soldierly to treat sacred things with levity. Love is a very sacred thing; it ought to be part of a man's religion; it was ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... be forgiven for this, perhaps misplaced, levity, we proceed to Act III., in which we find that, fortune having shuffled the cards, and the judge and jury cut them, Mr. Titmouse turns up possessor of Yatton and ten thousand a-year; while Aubrey, quite at the bottom of the pack, is in a state of destitution. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... future course. The recent wreck had dismayed even the voyageurs, and the fate of their popular comrade, Clappine, one of the most adroit and experienced of their fraternity, had struck sorrow to their hearts, for with all their levity, these thoughtless beings have great ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... down and watch," said his sister, in a tone intended to quell any undue levity on her ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... Buddy. She allows she don't have enough to keep her doin' in the new—" Caleb pulled himself up abruptly and changed the subject with a ponderous attempt at levity. "What-all have you done with your trunk check, son? Now I'll bet a hen worth fifty dollars ye've gone ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... the World. Assure Mrs Checkley of our kind Regards for her. I hope she will enjoy a better State of Health than she has had in time past. You have now devolvd upon you the weighty Cares of a Parent; you will perhaps find it difficult "to train up the Child in the way it should go" in an Age of Levity Folly and Vice. Doubtless you will consider your self more interrested than ever in the Struggles of your Country for Liberty, as you hope your Infant will outlive you, and share in the Event. Your native Town which I am perswaded is dear ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... self, indeed. That delicate-minded, intellectual old maid, Miss Thornton, used to remark with silent horror on what she called Mary's levity of behaviour with men, but more especially with honest Tom Troubridge. Many a time, when the old lady was sitting darning (she was always darning; she used to begin darning the things before they were a week out of the draper's shop), would ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... demanded Sylvia, with a frown. She was feeling tremendously grown-up in these days, and did not permit overmuch levity on the part of ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... to feminine diffidence. She treated the opportunity with the seriousness expected, for though the Institute was not proof against light and diverting contributions, as the whistling performance indicated, levity of spirit would have been ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... that better class residential quarter, where the houses, four in number, of Mrs. John Day, of Billy Unguin, of Allan Dy, and the local blacksmith were located, an extremely decorous cortege emerged. Here there was neither bustle nor levity. These were the chief folk of Rocky Springs, and their position, as examples to their brethren of lesser degree, weighed heavily ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... plays were indeed "plays for Puritans." All his criticisms quiver with a refined and almost tortured contempt for the indulgencies of ballet and burlesque, for the tights and the double entente. He can endure lawlessness but not levity. He is not repelled by the divorces and the adulteries as he is by the "splits." And he has always been foremost among the fierce modern critics who ask indignantly, "Why do you object to a thing full of sincere ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... when Polycarp died, it was at its height. Everywhere was it supported by the reigning emperors. 'The political and truly Roman instincts of Trajan were not more friendly to it than the archaeological tastes, the cosmopolitan interests, and the theological levity of Hadrian. From their immediate successors, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, it received even more solid and ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... what they saw them do without the devil taking any notice of them or talking to them. Others, who lay but small stress on all that, do what they heard said was the custom in the days of their antiquity, let happen what would. But they do it with so little earnestness that it appears to be levity rather than religion. With the same fervor they follow any other rule, so that they always remain without any law, unless it be where the energy and incessant constancy of the missionaries has made them forget their ancient ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... who admired him for what he thought his independence and magnanimity. "He was," says Burns, "the only man I ever knew who was a greater fool than myself, where woman was the presiding star; but he spoke of lawless love with levity, which hitherto I had regarded with horror. Here his friendship did me ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... together, the French Revolution is the most astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world. Everything seems out of nature in this chaos of levity and ferocity, and of all sorts of crimes jumbled together with all sorts of follies. In viewing this monstrous tragi-comic scene, the most opposite passions succeed, and sometimes mix with each other ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... [Footnote: The heavy taxes laid to meet the expenses of the wars created great discontent, which during the struggle with Spain led to a series of conspiracies or revolts against the government, known as the Wars of the Fronde (1648-1652). "Notwithstanding its peculiar character of levity and burlesque, the Fronde must be regarded as a memorable struggle of the aristocracy, supported by the judicial and municipal bodies, to control the despotism of the crown.... It failed;... nor was any farther effort made to resuscitate the dormant liberties ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... springs from levity or weakness of mind, and makes us accept everyone's opinion, and another more excusable comes ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... any considerable amount. My inquiries have been unremitted in this particular. Were, however, a landing of the enemy to take place, I cannot say what might happen to a people dissatisfied with their situation and naturally of great levity; the new doctrines would give activity. We are preparing for whatever may happen and no labour or exertion ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... doorway as if contemplating an armed invasion, thought better of it, and took his uniform away into the sunlight of the open square, where it was joined by other uniforms, and became by contrast a miracle of unbraced levity. Paul stood the Polar silence for a few moments, until one of the readers arose and, taking his book—a Murray—in his hand, walked slowly across the room to a companion, mutely pointed to a passage in the book, remained silent until the other had dumbly perused it, and then walked back again ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... possible, still more beneficially by protecting virtue, discountenancing vice, and purifying a court whose shameless profligacy had for many generations been the scandal of Christendom. It is probable, indeed, that much of her early levity was prompted by a desire to drive from her mind disappointments and mortifications of which few suspected the existence, but which were only the more keenly felt because she was compelled to keep them to herself; but it is certain that during the ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... because he suspected a certain levity and thinness in his genius that Campion was so contemptuous of his English verse. His songs he dismissed as "superfluous blossoms of his deeper studies." It is as though he thought, like Bacon, that anything written for immortality should ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... To tax one with levity. Tener a menos hablar a uno: Not to deign to speak to one. Tenerse de pie: To stand on foot. Tenir de (en) negro: To dye black. Tomar a pecho: To take to heart. Tomar hacia la derecha: To turn to the right. Trabajar a destajo: To do work by the job. Trabarse de palabras: To quarrel. ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... to walk up and down as he went on with a marked access of warmth. "But even the understanding we arrived at," he pursued, "I regret to say that my wife did n't see fit to adhere to in good faith. She treated it with what I must call levity." He faced round on his guest suddenly. "I mentioned a cat to you," ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... three big children; but such was the buoyancy of her Irish nature and the irrepressible cheeriness of her heart, that she was in good truth the youngest person in the house, so that her own daughters were sometimes quite shocked at her levity of behaviour, and treated her with gentle, motherly restraint. She was tall and thin, like her husband, and he, at least, considered her every whit as beautiful as she had been a score of years before. Her hair was dark and curly; she had deep-set grey eyes, and a pretty ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... philandering with an Indian "grass widow" was, in any case, an extremely unlovely passage in Sterne's life. On the best and most charitable view of it, the flirtation, pursued in the way it was, and to the lengths to which it was carried, must be held to convict the elderly lover of the most deplorable levity, vanity, indiscretion, and sickly sentimentalism. It was, to say the least of it, most unbecoming in a man of Sterne's age and profession; and when it is added that Yorick's attentions to Eliza were paid in so open a fashion as to be brought by gossip to the ears of his neglected wife, then living ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... sympathy was very obstinate, but justice set the responsibility down to her account, not to his; analysing her temperament, without excusing it, she found a spirit of adventure and experiment—or should she say of restlessness and levity?—which Marchmont did not minister to nor yet assuage. The only pleasure that lay in this discovery came from the fact that it was so opposed to the general idea about her. For it was her lot to be exalted into a type of the splendid calm patrician maiden. In that sort of vein her friends ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... "He might ride the saddle of mutton!" she said, with a levity that, under the circumstances, did her credit. "You'd better take the harness off, and you'll have to get her to Recess ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... have any conscientious scruples on Fanny's account; she had driven him to Elise with her frivolity, her eternal smiling. Of course he knew that she cared for him, that he had power over her, that there had never been and never would be any other man for Fanny; but he couldn't go on with Fanny's levity for ever. He wanted something more; something sound and solid; something that Elise gave him and no other woman. Any man would ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... in an historical and geographical account by a native prince, as an extensive country, containing woods and rivers, and fields fit for cultivation; but now desolated, as the inhabitants say, by the "misconduct of the king, who, having increased in levity and licentiousness to such a frightful degree, as even to marry his own daughter, God Almighty caused Saboon, the prince of Wa-da-i, to march against him, and destroy him, laying waste, at the same time, all his country, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... began again, and the spirits knocked at the letter 'O.' I was puzzled, but waited for the end. The next letter knocked down was 'E.' I laughed, and remarked that the spirits were going to make a poet of me. Admonished for my levity, I was informed that the frame of mind proper for the occasion ought to have been superinduced by a perusal of the Bible immediately before the seance. The spelling, however, went on, and sure enough I came out a poet. But matters ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the spurious kinds arising from anger, or ignorance of the peril, or levity, or a reckless confidence. These are all very easy. His distinction was that he knew all the danger to himself, was anxious to save pain to others, was buoyed up by no rash hope that the world was to be permanently bettered ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... intellect. It is to minds of this stamp—so truly the antipodes of all that is youthful, spontaneous, and child-like, (in a word: frivolous,) that we must look for those solid works which, in the Millennium that is coming, will perfectly supplant what may be termed, without levity, the "Cock and Bull" system of juvenile entertainment. Worldly people may consider this stuff graceful and touching, sweet and loveable; but it is nevertheless clearly mischievous, else pious and proper persons wouldn't have said so, ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... generally appreciated up to his deserts. His figure, to begin with, was almost ludicrously small. Then, in his anxiety to get rid of the Scottish accent, he had contracted an elocution intended to be English, but which struck every one as most affected and offensive. His manners were marked by levity, and his conversation to many seemed flippant. His literary musings also acted unfavourably on the solicitors, the leading patrons of young counsellors. Reduced by dearth of business almost to despair, he had at one time serious thoughts of flinging ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... once banished the glum looks which Grosvenor's ill- timed levity of demeanour had called up, and restored matters to the favourable condition that had been momentarily endangered. A brief consultation was held, and at its conclusion Malachi, the chief Elder, hurried away to seek an audience of the Queen with the object of endeavouring to secure her consent to ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... inquired where she went or what she did, but late or early always received her with the same quiet welcome, the same sly, good-humoured smile. I firmly believe that with all her levity, whatever scandal might say, she was a good wife to him. He trusted her implicitly; and I think she felt his confidence deserved to be respected. Such was not the opinion of the world, I am well aware; but we all know the charitable construction it is so eager to put on a fair face with a loud ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... Life of the Chinese," ii. p. 203) asserts that "there are most indubitable reasons for believing that infanticide is tolerated by the Government, and that the subject is treated with indifference and with shocking levity by the mass." ... But Bishop Moule "has good reason to conclude that the prevalence of the crime has been largely exaggerated." (Journal, ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... was not a mere bias, but a constant, unflagging sentiment, an everyday manifestation. She was as warm in the cause of religion on one day as upon another, in small things as in great—as zealous in the repression of all unbecoming and ungodly levity, as in the eradication of positive vice. Life was too solemn a thing with her to admit of thoughtless amusements—it was entirely a state of probation, not to be enjoyed in itself, or for itself, but purgatorial, remedial, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel |
