"Lightness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are not tempted by the frivolities of a fashionable social life that lives by its vanity, its excitement, its rivalry and flirtation. Not that all fashionable society is open to such reproach, but its tendency is to lightness and emptiness; and we rarely find really valuable men who seek it. Therefore a lady who would make her house attractive to the best society must offer it something higher than that to which we may give the generic title fashion. Dress, music, dancing, supper, are delightful accessories-they ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... time before we spread our beds on the roof of the boat and went to sleep under the stars. We left the boat shortly after daylight at Daing-nei for the six-mile walk to Lung-tao. To my great surprise the coolies were considerably distressed at the lightness of our loads. In this region they are paid by weight and some of the bearers carry almost incredible burdens. As an example, one of our men came into camp swinging a 125-pound trunk on each end of his pole, laughing and chatting as gayly as though ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... possessed by the girl, it roused in him a hunger to draw from the well of her perfect health, from the unused vigor of her being, something for himself. The touch of her hands warmed him. In the fulness of her life, in the strong eloquence of face and form, he forgot she was not beautiful. The lightness passed from his words, and ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... whisky was more grateful to the captain's palate, or the company assembled in her snug parlour lightsomer, or at least less dour, than was to be found at the rival inn, where the landlord was an elder of the kirk and most stern opponent of all lightness and frivolity. Whatever the cause, however, it is certain that the captain did acquire the habit of dropping in very frequently at the widow's, where he was always a welcome guest. And it was from a merry evening there that, with a "tumbler" or two inside ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... Pont l'Abbe has only one aisle. There is a fine rose window over the west entrance, of great lightness and richness, with a smaller one at the left; at the east end is another rose window of larger dimensions, the mullions forming geometric patterns, but differing in design from the other. The French architects always ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... numbered, would seem to correspond to the Maya verbs, MAN, to buy, to purchase, hence to number, things being sold by the quantity—or MANEL, to pass, to exceed. Tekel, weighed, would correspond to TEC, light. To-day it is used in the sense of lightness in motion, brevity, nimbleness: and Upharsin, dividing, seem allied to the words PPA, to divide two things united; or uppah, to break, making a sharp sound; or paah, to break edifices; or, again, PAALTAL, to break, to scatter the inhabitants ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... I had taken made me realize that I had to be careful, for I was indeed endowed with a terrific strength—an extraordinary strength and lightness. One of these three new people was obviously dead, for his neck was broken. The other two still breathed. The first of the two was a short man, a Japanese by the look of him. His arm was broken. The other person was, to my surprise, a woman. She, like ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... at the picture in a puzzled way as if to make sure that the thing he felt—and the thing he didn't feel—were indubitably real, and then he rose with a curious sense of lightness and yet sobriety, and, straightening his shoulders as if a burden had fallen from them, he retraced ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... said the Chevalier with assumed lightness. "I am neither young nor old. I stand on the threshold. I can not say that I have suffered since I have known only physical discomforts. But to call ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... view of silencing and to prevent friction when travelling round curves—not at all a bad idea either. Wheels in those days were constructed entirely of iron with straight axles and spokes, not wooden blocked as at present to deaden noise. Owing to the lightness of the stock, when travelling at a fair rate of speed, oscillation occurred and passengers had to sit firm and fast, which everyone in ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... are referred to as "blacks," or "black-fellows," but they are not really black, their hue being rather a brown, ranging from a very dark brown, indeed, to almost the lightness of a Malay. I found the coast tribes lightest in hue, while the inland natives were very much darker. Here I may mention that after having been on my way south for some months, I began to notice a total difference between the natives I met and my own people in the Cambridge ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... then," said Mrs. Munger, with the utmost lightness and indifference, "we'll drop the idea of the invited ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... familiar fame, Sold to the mockery of relentless foes, And doom'd to exhaust the dregs of life in shame, To act with burning brow and throbbing heart A poor deserter's dull exploded part, To slight the favour thou canst hope no more, Renounce the giddy crowd, the vulgar wind, Charge thy own lightness on thy country's mind, And from her voice appeal to ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... less productive, is supposed to yield sugar of a better quality. The cool months from May to September are the properest for boiling sugar. After October, the canes yield less juice by one-eighth, sometimes by one-fourth, and nearly as much more is lost in claying by the lightness of the sugar, the pots of three arobas not returning after the operation more than two and a half at most. The clay used in refining the sugar is dug close to the mill; it feels soft and fat in the fingers. It is placed in a wooden trough, with a quantity of lie made by steeping the ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... region must never face the Sacrament; this would be turning one's back, as it were, upon the Deity. The elbow may not rest upon the cushion. The head, held erect, but not haughtily, should move upon the atlas gently and suavely, avoiding 'lightness' and undue vivacity. The lips must not smile; but, when occasion calls for it, they may display a saintly joy. The eyebrows must not be raised too high towards the hair-roots; nor should one be elevated while the other is depressed. The voice ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... to have spoken truly, and the consul presently learned that he had indeed been transferred, through some high official manipulation, to the personal service of the governor of Rheinfestung. There was weeping among the Dienstmadchen of Schlachtstadt, and a distinct loss of originality and lightness in the gatherings of the gentler Hausfrauen. His memory still survived in the barracks through the later editions of his former delightful stupidities,—many of them, it is to be feared, were inventions,—and stories ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... swallow such an affront? Was it possible not to? And she had brought it upon herself. There was comfort and a certain restoration of dignity in this thought. Miss Scrotton, struggling inwardly, feigned lightness. "So few of us are worthy of your pearls, dear. Unworthiness doesn't, I hope, consign us to the porcine category. Perhaps it is that being, like him, a little person, I'm able to see Mr. Drew's merits and demerits more impartially than you do. That is all. I really ought to know a good deal about ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... especially the ladies. There was one little, weazen, dried-apple old woman among them, who took occasion to doubt the constancy of husbands under such circumstances of bereavement; and there was another lady (with a lap-dog), old enough to moralize on the lightness of human affections, and yet not so old that she could help nursing the baby now and then, or laughing with the rest when the little woman called it by its father's name, and asked it all manner of fantastic questions concerning him, in the joy ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... miles,—across to Tillington,—for our transportation? We'll say he will. I have no question it is Dakie Thayne, or somebody, who is waiting, and that the right people are all linked together, ready to draw each other in," said Mr. Kirkbright, giving rein to the very lightness of gladness in the joy of the thought he was pursuing. "We don't know how we stand leashed and looped, all over the world, until the Lord begins to take us in hand, and bring us together toward his grand intents. We shall want another Hilary Vireo to preach ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... That'll be—fine," replied Jean, and as he spoke he experienced a buoyant thrill, a pleasant lightness of enthusiasm, such as always stirred boyishly in him at a prospect of adventure. Before it passed he wondered at it and felt unsure of himself. He needed ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... by Lida Larrimore proves to be even more popular than the last. Her books satisfy that tender mood that wants lightness and youth and beauty; that wants to be stirred by the heartaches of ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... miles wore on. Sally was still running like a swallow for lightness, but Andrew knew by her breathing that she was giving vital strength to the effort. He talked to her constantly. He told her how Gray Peter ran behind them. He encouraged her with pet words. And Sally seemed to ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... to cover some patty pans while I covered others, cautioning her as to the way she must cover them; yet, when those covered by her came out of the oven they had not risen at all, they were like rich short paste; while my own, made from the same paste, were toppling over with lightness. I had, without saying anything, pressed my thumb slightly on one spot of one of mine; in that spot the paste had not risen at all, and I think this practical demonstration of what I had tried to explain was more useful than an hour's talk would ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... bad tidings. The Indians on the Cheyenne River Reservation were out, and working in concert with the others. It is a bad business when Indian tribes band together against a common foe. There was consternation among the women when they heard the news. The men smiled grimly, but there was no lightness in their hearts. ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... gives the impression of lightness, as well as strength, as though every yard of concrete was doing its special share of the work without overstraining, which is, of course, the characteristic of ...
— The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans • Thomas Ewing Dabney
... the armor the visitors felt much more at ease. The slightly reduced gravitation gave them a sense of lightness and freedom which more than balanced the junglelike oppressiveness of the air. They found themselves guarding against a certain exuberance; perhaps it was the extra ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... Despite their lightness, there was a certain gravity among the four, and as the night became more threatening they felt a growing suspense. The men's restlessness communicated itself to the girls, who found themselves listening with almost painful intentness to the ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... the subject of their remarks. The girl sat in the front of the box, slim and elegant, her hands clasped loosely in her lap. She was watching the brilliant scene with a certain air of detachment, as if thinking of other things. Her usual lightness and gay banter seemed for the moment to have deserted her, leaving a soft brooding wistfulness ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... must have been always desirable at Venice to build as lightly as possible, in consequence of the comparative insecurity of the foundations. The early palaces were, as we have seen, perfect models of grace and lightness, and the Gothic, which followed, though much more massive in the style of its details, never admitted more weight into its structure than was absolutely necessary for its strength, Hence, every Gothic palace has the appearance of enclosing as many rooms, and attaining ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... I seemed possessed at this moment of a new sense, and felt that the light brought with it a genial warmth; odours like those of the most balmy flowers appeared to fill the air, and the sweetest sounds of music absorbed my sense of hearing; my limbs had a new lightness given to them, so that I seemed to rise from the earth, and gradually mounted into the bright luminous air, leaving behind me the dark and cold cavern, and the ruins with which it was strewed. Language is inadequate to describe what I felt in rising continually upwards ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... eyes from Leemah's grave to see what effect the tale had made on the old lady, but she was so engaged in contemplating the golden curls of her doughnuts, and feathery lightness of her pound cake, she had heard it not; and even if she had, it had all happened such a long time ago, that her impressions respecting it must all have worn out by now. After having partaken of the luxurious feast she set before us, and hearing some more of the old ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... I was cruelly thoughtless," I said, in a voice that trembled slightly. Then, catching up the paper, I continued, with attempted lightness, "We have found this journal, that we mutually read, a fruitful theme. What do you think of its ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... and bind men for ever. Strength was there without masterfulness; sweetness that would never cloy; a dreamy elusiveness that meant a closed book it would be a joy to study chapter by chapter; and some of the chapters would surprise with their lightness and mirth, while others would surprise with their depth of sympathetic understanding, and yet others would bewilder alluringly with their whimsical, irresistible uncertainty. She knew that society papers sometimes spoke of ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... willing to receive her other relations. They had been separated, she observed, too long. It was enough to call down a judgment upon the family. She believed the death of Jonas WAS a judgment on them for their internal dissensions. And Miss Pecksniff was confirmed in this belief, by the lightness with which the visitation had fallen ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... enriched with excellent marquetry of woods. Mahogany was the dominating timber in English furniture from the accession of George II. almost to the time of the Napoleonic wars; but many cabinets were made in lacquer or in the bright-hued foreign woods which did so much to give lightness and grace to the British style. The glass-fronted cabinet for China or glass was in high favour in the Georgian period, and for pieces of that type, for which massiveness would have been inappropriate, satin and tulip woods, and other timbers with a handsome ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Mullgardt's Court of Abundance, on the east of the Court of the Universe. Of all the courts it has, without a doubt, the strongest individual note. It seems on first acquaintance to be reminiscent of the Gothic, of which it has, no doubt, the quality of lightness, the laciness, and the play of many fine apertures and openings. It has, however, neither the Gothic arch nor the buttresses of that period, and so far as its ground plan goes, it is thoroughly original. It looks as if carved out of a solid block of stone. This monolithic ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... busy plucking the feathers off a bird and dropping them on a sheet placed for that purpose on the floor. She is trilling to herself in the lightness of her heart. We may remember that Tweeny, alone among the women, had dressed wisely for an island when they fled the yacht, and her going-away gown still adheres to her, though in fragments. A score of pieces have been added here and there as necessity compelled, ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... polypus or chameleon; and thereunto bestow most cost upon our arses, and much more than upon all the rest of our bodies, as women do likewise upon their heads and shoulders. In women also, it is most to be lamented, that they do now far exceed the lightness of our men (who nevertheless are transformed from the cap even to the very shoe), and such staring attire as in time past was supposed meet for none but light housewives only is now become a habit for chaste and sober matrons. What should I say ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... could as if walk on the wind with lightness. Something that is rising in my veins the same as froth would ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... puppyish. I like to think that there is, somewhere in this universe, an inscrutable Being of infinite wisdom, harmony, and charity, by Whom all my desires and needs would be understood; in association with Whom I would find peace, satisfaction, a lightness of heart that exceed my present understanding. Such a Being is to me quite inconceivable; yet I feel that if I met Him, I would instantly understand. I do not mean that I would understand Him: but I would understand ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... first time she had seen the lightness leave his eyes. "No. No. I am your moth—I am her husband. There is no step there." He got up and walked over to where his wife was sitting and towered over her. He was a tall man and he looked especially tall at that moment. "Her plain—husband. Extremely plain, as it happens"—he ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... she should be composite built; that is, that for the sake of lightness and strength combined, her frame should be of steel, with an inner skin of thin steel plate, and an outer planking of two thicknesses of mahogany. The ribs were to be arranged diagonally crossing the keel at an angle of forty-five degrees, and intersecting each ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... his vats had stood laden with rich indigo, the engulphing sand now reflected the rays of the torrid sun from its burning whiteness. She shewed me a picture of the town as it appeared to her when she had been brought there many a long and weary year ago, ere yet her step had lost its lightness, and when she was in the bloom of her bridal life. There was a fine broad boulevard, shadowed by splendid trees, on which she and her husband had driven in their carriage of an evening, through crowds of prosperous and contented traders and cultivators. The hungry river had ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... not smile at the feeble petulance of the half-distracted woman. Indeed it was no time for smiles of any sort. The peril around and about was a thing too real and too fearful in its character to admit of any lightness of speech; and the girl did not even twit her mother with the many sovereign remedies purchased as antidotes against infection, though her own disbelief in these had brought down many laments from Lady Vavasour but ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Rose had brought him was delicious: hot biscuits of feathery lightness, three wide slices of ham, a bowl of scrambled eggs, a pot of coffee, some preserved raspberries, and a tiny ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... sing like the birds, from "lightness of heart, and very joy of living." After a few moments' silence, a bird-song was whistled by the "mates in the tree," eliciting strong words of praise, as well as surprise, from the ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... Sometimes they think of the ashes and cinders and wonder whether the pleasure will last. Then the lightness goes out of their feet and the smiles from their rosy lips. The thing is to enjoy it while you are here. You are a very delightful Cinderella; I must ask godmother to keep a watch over you. I hope to meet ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... the best rope jumper in the village, I hear; and levity, or lightness of carriage, is the great requisite for skill in the art. Then there are 'vain repetitions' in doing the same thing over and over so often, and 'vain repetitions' are forbidden even in our prayers. I can call both father and mother to ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... against the fence and smoked, each contemplating carefully the end of his pipe. I knew better than to say anything. The Trader was looking me over, making up his mind about me. Speech on my part would argue lightness of disposition, for it would seem to indicate that I was not also making up my ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... that has ever been written."—N. Y. Press. "To any woman who has enjoyed the pleasures of a college life this book cannot fail to bring back many sweet recollections; and to those who have not been to college the wit, lightness, and charm of Patty are sure to be ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... days began to shorten, Hulda's cheeks lost their bright color, and her steps their merry lightness; she became pale and wan. Her parents were grieved to see her change so fast, but they hoped, as the weary winter came on, that the cheerful fire and gay company would revive her; but she grew worse and worse, till she could scarcely walk alone through the rooms where ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... fallen turret, over the wreckage of the littered deck. It was not difficult, a lightness was upon us. The Planetara's gravity-magnetizers were dead: this was only ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... is blue, the fields are green, the houses all white, and our enchanted eyes drink in those bright colors which bring delight to our souls. And then there springs up in our hearts a desire to dance, to run, to sing, a happy lightness of thought, a sort of enlarged tenderness; we feel a longing to embrace ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... immovable fate, bearing down with the weight of his presence all aspiration, all budding delights of children and young persons: all must crouch before him, and uphold his glory with the sacrificial death of every impulse, every admiration, every lightness of heart, every bubble of laughter. Or—which to a mind like Robert's was as bad—if he did not punish for these things, it was because they came not within the sphere of his condescension, were not worth his notice: of sympathy ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... was therefore necessary that a delay should be interposed before it would be possible for him to come. He begged Richardot to persuade Alexander, that he was not trifling with him. "It is not," said he, "from lightness, or any other passion, that I am retarding this affair. I will do all in my power to obtain leave to make a journey to the camp of his Highness, at whatever price it may cost and I hope before long to arrive ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... I am. Did you think for a moment I'd let you take that ride alone?" She smiled faintly with a brave attempt at lightness. "You'd be falling off and breaking another rib. Please don't make difficulties. I'm going with you, and that's ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... here. St. Louis now bids fair to rival ere long the "Queen of the West;" Mr. Irving describes her as a small trading place, where trappers, half-breeds, gay, frivolous Canadian boatmen, &c., &c., congregated and revelled, with that lightness and buoyancy of spirit inherited from their French forefathers; the indolent Creole of St. Louis caring for little more than the enjoyment of the present hour; a motley population, half-civilized, half-barbarous, thrown, ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... extraordinarily pretty, all exempt from traceable likeness to her sister; and there was a brightness in her—a still and scattered radiance—which was quite distinct from what is called animation. Rather tall than short, fine slender erect, with an airy lightness of hand and foot, she yet gave no impression of quick movement, of abundant chatter, of excitable nerves and irrepressible life—no hint of arriving at her typical American grace in the most usual way. She was pretty without emphasis and as might almost have been said without point, ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... Mr. Linden, "the word for a butterfly and the word for the soul were the same,—they thought the first was a good emblem of the lightness and airiness of the last. So they held, that when a man died a butterfly might be seen flitting above his head. I was thinking how well this one little thing shews the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... also the visual forms of appearance (sa@msthana) of long, short, round, square, high, low, straight, and crooked. The sense of touch (kayendriya) has for its object the four elements and the qualities of smoothness, roughness, lightness, heaviness, cold, hunger and thirst. These qualities represent the feelings generated in sentient beings by the objects of touch, hunger, thirst, etc., and are also counted under it, as they are the organic effects produced by a touch which excites the ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... through the plane-tree branches. Every now and then he drew a long breath of the warm, unstirring air, and smiled, without knowing that he smiled. And he thought of little, of nothing; but a sweetish sensation beset his heart, a kind of quivering lightness his limbs. He sat down on a bench and shut his eyes. He saw a face—only a face. The lights went out one by one in the houses opposite; no cabs passed now, and scarce a passenger was afoot, but Summerhay ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... it afterward in preference to any other. Until then she had never fancied it, for when Bonaparte sent it to her from Egypt, she wrote to him: "I have received the shawl. It may be very beautiful and very costly, but I find it unsightly. Its great advantage consists in its lightness. I doubt, however, if this new fashion will meet with approbation. Notwithstanding, I am pleased with it, for it is rare and warm." [Footnote: "Memoires sur l'Imperatrice," par Mademoiselle Ducrest, vol. ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... a curious thing that we do not succeed in fresco. The grace is gone out of it; modern painters have not the lightness of touch necessary; they are used to masses of colour, and they use the palette knife as a mason the trowel. The art, too, like the literature of our time, is all detail; the grand suggestive vagueness ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... artillery." The same writer says that, later in the day, "the violence of the wind, and the swelling of the sea, would deprive us of our galleys." We thus see at once that these galleys, though from their lightness easily manoeuvred in smooth water, were unfit to buffet with the winds and waves. They were probably similar to the galleys I have before described, and which for centuries were ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... regularity of the teeth of the laughing, loud-talking country-women and servant-girls, who with their clean white stockings and with slippers without heel quarters, tripped along the dirty streets, as if they were secured by a charm from the dirt: with a lightness too, which surprised me, who had always considered it as one of the annoyances of sleeping in an Inn, that I had to clatter up stairs in a pair of them. The streets narrow; to my English nose sufficiently offensive, and ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of the bags, and that he should then proceed to weigh the other bags against that which had been counted. While all were watching him as he poured out and counted the money with much noise and many loud exclamations from both merchants as to the lightness of some of the coins, neither the Caliph, Giafer, Mesrur, nor either of the slaves, perceived that behind them, barefoot and noiseless as camels, a number of huge and powerful black slaves had entered ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... see," and he laughs with an unusual lightness. Somehow he feels happy this morning, as if it was to be a fortunate day. "You have been so kind to Laura, that if we could ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... see myself leaping at him like a wild animal; I feel the tightening of the big neck muscles as my fingers closed on his throat; I feel a soft breath of night air as we neared the open window; then in my hands a sudden lightness, and in my ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... It requires less effort in handling; the trimming of the sail-planes to the wind can be done with speed and accuracy; the unbroken spread of the sail-area is of infinite advantage; and the greatest possible amount of canvas can be displayed upon the least possible quantity of spars. Lightness and concentrated power are the great qualities ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... 'By George! What a wavering, quavering, thread paper of a fellow! What misery life must be to a chap like that! He walks in fear—he wallows in it. Poor devil!' And a curious feeling swelled his heart, of elation, of lightness such as he had not known for years. Those two young things were safe now from penury-safe! After dealing with those infernal creditors of his he would go round and have a look at the children. With ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... despatching the letter, Miles went out with a feeling of lightness about his heart that he had not felt since that wretched day when he forsook ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... discussed all things in heaven or earth with a baffling lightness, turned philosophy into a witty jest and made a sort of slang of classical terminology. Amongst a clever set in London she reigned supreme when she chose; but a false note or a pose offended her immediately, and the poseur or the insincere person would generally receive ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... thou movest Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, And the souls of whom thou lovest Walk upon the winds with lightness Till they fail, as I am failing, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... Bonaparte, with affectionate raillery, "fear not that any one will accuse thee of lightness. Thou art more ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... that surround the central part of the church, the double range of columns supporting the vaulted ceiling, and the arched windows, all combine to form one beautiful whole. What most pleased me was the extreme lightness of the architecture though I thought the imitation of marble, with which the pillars were painted, coarse and glaring. We missed the time- hallowing mellowness that age has bestowed on our ancient churches and cathedrals. The grim corbels and winged angels that are carved on the grey ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... very pleasant to me to have your approbation of the sonnets on George Sand, on the points of feeling and lightness, on which all my readers have not absolved me equally, I have reason to know. I am more a latitudinarian in literature than it is generally thought expedient for women to be; and I have that admiration for genius, which dear Mr. Kenyon calls my 'immoral ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... was sorry because Aunt Anne was dead, and he was more and more conscious of the unbecoming lightness and freedom where he found himself at the death of Aunt Anne. He had not dared acknowledge it to himself. He couldn't, for shame. But whereas, in the past years, when he ventured to formulate his own life a little and see what it had done ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... The groups seem to be entirely independent of each other. The extraordinary merit of this piece, I imagine, consists not only in the expression of divinity on the face of Christ, but also in the surprising lightness of the figure that hovers like a beautiful exhalation ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... perfectly cylindrical. These carices come from the foot of the mountains of Yumariquin and Guanaja. They are much sought after, even beyond the Orinoco, by the name of reeds of Esmeralda. A hunter preserves the same blow-tube during his whole life, and boasts of its lightness and precision, as we boast of the same qualities in our fire-arms. What is the monocotyledonous plant* that furnishes these admirable reeds? (* The smooth surface of these tubes sufficiently proves that they are not furnished by a plant of the family of umbelliferae.) ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... degree of latitude than any other tree. Its bark was especially useful, being useful for cordage, and matting, and roofing, while the tree itself formed the early British canoes, as it still forms the canoes of the North American Indians, for which it is well suited, from its lightness and ease in working. ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... real economy of means to make it permanent. A compromise must be found in which the wholesome cooking of food and the shelter in a rainstorm, without which no dispatches can be written or records kept, may be made to consist with the lightness of transportation which active campaigning requires. The simple, closely packed kitchen kit of a Rob-Roy canoe voyager was more or less completely anticipated by the devices and inventions born of necessity ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... to feel fatigue, and talk about it as well; and then the proposal was made, that the maherry—who stepped over the unsure surface with as much apparent lightness as a cat would have done—should be made to carry at least one of the party. They could ride in turns, which would give each of them an ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... fared it with the new archbishop who had been sent over to enlighten the Irish nation? In July 1537 Henry felt it necessary to reprove his spiritual representative for his lightness of behaviour, his vain-glory, and his remissness in preaching the pure word of God, and to warn him that if he did not show himself more active both in religious matters and in advancing the king's cause he should be obliged to put a man of more honesty in his ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... ripple on the lake. "The liveliness of this description of the battle is due to the greater variety of the metre, which resembles that of Marmion. The three-accent lines introduced at intervals give it lightness, and the repetition of the same rhyme enables the poet to throw together without break all that forms part ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Collegian, a college magazine. Two years later, in 1831, appeared the New England Magazine, in which the young writer, as he might himself say, took the road with his double team of verse and prose, holding the ribbons with unsurpassed lightness and grace and skill, now for two generations guiding those fleet and well-groomed coursers, which still show their heels to panting rivals, the prancing team behind which we have all driven and are still driving with constant and ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... invention. The alternation of white marble surfaces and mouldings with pietra serena pilasters, cornices, and arches, defines the structural design, and gives a grave but agreeable sense of variety. Finally, the recess behind the altar adds lightness and space to what would otherwise have been a box. What I have already observed when speaking of the vestibule to the library must be repeated here: the whole scheme is that of an exterior turned outside in, and its justification lies in the fact that it demanded statuary and colour ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... continue to write. I have resolved to start at my Saint- Antoine tomorrow or the day after. But to begin a protracted effort I need a certain lightness which I lack just now. I hope, however, that this extravagant work is going to get hold of me. Oh! how I would like not to think any more of my poor Moi, of my miserable carcass! It is getting on very well, my ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... held up her riding skirt and then jumped into the saddle with the lightness of a bird, while her husband, after bowing awkwardly, mounted his big Norman steed. As they disappeared outside the gate, Julien, who seemed charmed, exclaimed: "What delightful people! those are friends who ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the difficulties to be overcome are the combining of strength with lightness in the machine sufficient to allow of the exercise of a force without the machine from a source of power within. A difficulty will occur in the right adaptation of propellers, and, should this difficulty be overcome, the risks of derangement of the machinery from the necessary lightness of ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... camels and three horses our caravan was brought up to strength. In the matter of provisioning, equipment, and way of travelling, I made some alteration. Everything was considered with a view to lightness, therefore only absolute necessaries were carried. All tools, except those used in "soak-sucking," and so forth, were discarded; the provisions consisted of salt beef (tinned meat being unprocurable), flour, tea, sugar, and a few tins of condensed milk (damaged and unfit ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... generally to the Candlemaker Row; but he was sombre and mild; declined doing battle, though some fit cases offered, and indeed submitted to sundry indignities; and was always very ready to turn, and came faster back, and trotted up the stair with much lightness, and ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... The remarkable lightness and compactness of the new boiler invented by Ericsson led to the employment of steam in many instances in which it had been previously inapplicable. Among these may be mentioned the steam fire-engine constructed by him in conjunction with Mr. Braithwaite, about the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... not all dark. Undine's moods still infected him, and when she was happy he felt an answering lightness. Even when her amusements were too primitive to be shared he could enjoy their reflection in her face. Only, as he looked back, he was struck by the evanescence, the lack of substance, in their moments of sympathy, and by the permanent ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... very great. It is only within a certain range of vibration frequency that sunlight affects the retina. Slower rates of vibration than that producing red do not affect the eye, and faster than that producing violet do not affect the eye. The lightness and darkness of a color are dependent upon the intensity of the vibration. Red, for example, is produced by a certain vibration frequency. The more intense the vibration, the brighter the red; the less intense, the ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... Lowder. Few young men have been so much reformed. He had a bright wit and genial manners, but moral endowments had been accidentally omitted in his makeup. Nothing that was pleasant could seem wrong to him. He was a magnificent sinner, with an artistic lightness of touch in wrongdoing, and he took his evil courses with such unfailing good nature that ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... its lightness. It was not a foot of metal, but in sooth a foot of flesh, an embalmed foot, a mummy's foot. On examining it still more closely the very grain of the skin, and the almost imperceptible lines impressed upon it by the texture of the bandages, became ...
— The Mummy's Foot • Theophile Gautier
... observe vigor, lightness, agility, brilliant springs, with a steadiness and command of the body. It is the best kind of dancing for expressing the more general theatrical subjects. It also pleases ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... On its breast two stars resplendent. Thus the Birch Canoe was builded In the valley, by the river, In the bosom of the forest; And the forest's life was in it, All its mystery and its magic, All the lightness of the birch tree, All the toughness of the cedar, All the larch's supple sinews; And it floated on the river, Like a yellow leaf in autumn, Like ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... seemed to pass over me, and now I could nowhere see anything. I had passed beyond the fixed stars and plunged into the huge blackness that waits beyond. All this time I had experienced little, save a sense of lightness and cold discomfort. Now however the atrocious darkness seemed to creep into my soul, and I became filled with fear and despair. What was going to become of me? Where was I going? Even as the thoughts were formed, there grew ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... exchanged among those of the visitors who heard the colloquy, but Louis was comforted by an approving smile from his parents, and from the sweet consciousness of having done what was right. The service was very sweet to him, and the lightness of his heart made even the inferior singing very pleasant, and he gained something from "tedious Mr. Burton's" sermon; so much depends on the frame of mind. Our Saviour has enjoined us to take heed how ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... the wood for Violin-making, either by baking it or by the application of acids, may be traced, in the first instance, to a desire to obtain artificially those results which are brought about by the hand of time. In obtaining lightness and dryness in new wood, it was imagined that the object in view would be reached without the aid of Dame Nature. Experience, however, has shown that Fiddles, like all things intended to pass into green old age, mature gradually, and are not to be benefited by any kind of forcing process. ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... Grisell, I was about to lay my very heart at your feet when the Duke's trumpet called me away, ere I guessed, fool that I was, that mine was the hand that left the scar that now I love, but which once I treated with a brute's or a boy's lightness. Oh! pardon me! Still less did I know that it was my own forsaken wife who saved my life, who tended my sickness, nay, as I verily believed, toiled for me and my bread through these long seven years, all in secret. Yea, ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pounds, which would be protected by canvas covers. They were especially adapted to the condition of the country, which was largely interspersed with swamps and sloughs, which were impassable for any other character of vehicle. Their lightness, the width of the surface presented by the tread of the wheel and the careful steps of the educated animal which drew them, enabled them to go where anything else would flounder. The trail which they left upon the prairie was deeply cut, and remained ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... man before the great sin which brought a trouble and a sorrow into his life that he was never again able wholly to surmount. And it may have been the sight of his own lost gaiety and lightness of spirit in the aged Gileadite that first drew out ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... indiscriminately called, cared little about her reputation touching these important functions. She could sing most of the wild legendary ballads of the time; her rich full voice had in it a sadness ravishingly tender and expressive, more akin to woe, and the deep untold agony of the spirit, than to lightness and mirth, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Bookstores offer "best sellers," "the latest fiction," and "books worth reading" on the same counter; and the magazines become even less consequential. Art in all its manifestations matches our garments for thinness and lightness. ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... plant the oak embrace? The oak, for courtship most of all unfit, And rough as are the winds that fight with it. How does the absent pole the needle move? How does his cold and ice beget hot love? Which are the wings of lightness to ascend? Or why does weight to the centre downwards bend? Thus creatures void of life obey thy laws, And seldom we, they never, know the cause. In thy large state, life gives the next degree, Where sense and good apparent places thee; But thy chief palace is man's heart alone; Here are ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... very strong, he wakened to a certain lightness of spirit. The morning sun had always called him to a new day, and the sun was shining. But he grew depressed as he prepared for the office. He told himself savagely, as he put on his shabby clothing, that, having sought for peace and now found ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... money is as the elixir of life. Justin, holding on by the skin of his teeth for ten thousand dollars, and needing imperatively at least as much more, felt that with this paltry sixty dollars it was suddenly possible to draw a free breath, felt a sheer lightness of spirit that showed how terrible was the persistent weight under which he was living. The very feeling of those separate bills in his ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... This annexe is generally considered the house of the elder son, but it is more usually built and used for the accommodation of guests; an excellent arrangement in a country where both entertainers and entertained wish occasionally to repose in attire, whose lightness is best suited to the climate. A rustic bridge connected the two buildings, and just above it was the bath room, into which a portion of the stream had been diverted, so as to form a natural shower bath. The stream and bridge and cottage, with their back-ground of hills and fore-ground ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... end I took lessons at a theatre in the art of "making (paper) faces," with the result that I now employ paper whenever practicable, and find it answer, from a 2 lb. perch to a 2 cwt. skate. Two or three most valuable results accrue from the substitution of paper for plaster. First, extreme lightness combined with strength; and secondly, of course, excellence of detail and facility of colouring in either water or oil. For remarks upon the artistic mounting of fishes, see ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... cast upon the water, rendered it difficult to find the vessel, anchored, as it had been, as close to the shore as a regard to safety rendered prudent. Judith was expert in the management of a bark canoe, the lightness of which demanded skill rather than strength; and she forced her own little vessel swiftly over the water, the moment she had ended her conference with Hetty, and had come to the determination to return. Still no ark was seen. Several times ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper |
