"Nimbleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... abundance. Her oneness was a magnet for his gregariousness and concentrated it upon herself. That positive quality in him overwhelmed and intoxicated her; and in intellect he was far more brilliant and far less profound than herself. His wit and mental nimbleness stung and pricked the serene layers which she had carefully superimposed in her own mind to such activities as mingled playfully with his lighter moods or stimulated him in more intellectual hours. While the future was yet unbroken and imagination remodelled ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... in with uplifted whip until the breath of the infuriated beast was hot upon his cheek, let his angry lash curl for an instant across the bear's flank, and then, for all his halting foot, leap back into safety with a smiling pride in his own nimbleness. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... uncertain, shaken, the occupant of the lemon-tinted limousine came swiftly to her. He was a great hulk of a man, yet light on his feet with that nimbleness which seems ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... worst of them in his day. He hath given blow for blow, and I trow the other man's cheek smarted sorer than old Giles's. Now he be a man of the covenant, but he be still stiff with his old ways, and hath no nimbleness to shunt a blow. Old Giles Corey hath no fine wisdom to save his life, and no grace of tongue, but he hath power to die as he will, and no ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... methodical in his teaching; not leading them rather in a circle than forward. He minces his precepts for children to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that his scholars may ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... to follow, and Russell obeyed. He was not at all disinclined to move in this direction, since it led him to the friendly protection of the castle. It was with uncommon vigor and nimbleness that he followed his tormentor down the steep side, and across the brook at the bottom, and up the other side. Rita noticed this, and ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... length made it cease. The use had returned to my limbs; my muscles were quivering, and before it could stop me I had fled! The wildest of chases then ensued. I ran with a speed that would have shamed a record-beater on earth. With extraordinary nimbleness I vaulted over titanic boulders of rocks; jumped across dykes of infinite depth, scurried like lightning over tracts of rough, lacerating ground, and never for one instant felt ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... solemn, stern-eyed purity of a Sir Galahad (though he be the king of men) to the quick-witted gayety of a debonair Lothario (though he be but the shadow of a man)? Out upon thee, pale-faced student! Thy tongue hath not the trick, nor thy mind the nimbleness for the winning of a fair and lovely lady. Thou'rt well enough in want of a better, but, when Lothario comes, must she not run to meet him ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... a type-writing machine at work before, and admired the nimbleness with which his fingers struck the letters, and the dexterity with which he passed fresh sheets of paper under the roller. When he had finished and was gathering ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... little one tight under her flipper, wheeled again in time to intercept the attack, and again received the dreadful thrust in her own flank. So swift was the swordfish (he was a kind of giant mackerel, with all the mackerel's grace and fire and nimbleness) that he seemed to be everywhere at once. The whale was kept spinning around in a dizzy circle of foam, like a whirlpool, with the bewildered calf on the inside. The mighty twisting thrusts of her tail, with its flukes twenty feet wide, set the whole surface boiling for hundreds ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... went down to the door with much nimbleness, considering his age, prudently opened a small wicket, and saw three workmen, in the garb of masons, accompanied by a young man dressed ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... dive for their luckless companion, but he was up and off before they could reach him, with a nimbleness that would not have ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... 'Tis better that the enemy seek us;: So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers, Doing himself offense; whilst we, lying still, Are full of rest, defense, and nimbleness. ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... perhaps, because he is so shy, but as soon as you begin to know him. I mean to ask him to come down as soon as he can get a holiday. His captain told me, when he served in the Diomede, that there was not a man in the ship to come near him for nimbleness and quiet fearlessness." ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... but be amused by Mrs. Potts's pertinacity, for, not yet relinquishing her purpose, she continued, in silence now, her lips compressed, her forehead beaded with moisture, to scale the difficult way, showing a resolute nimbleness amazing in one so ill-formed for feats of agility. Sir Basil gave her a succoring hand while Imogen soared ahead, confident of the moment when Mrs. Potts, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... George Moore, and Moliere in collaboration would have found difficult to handle. It is as successful an experiment in bravado and bravura as Mr. Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw." And he has accomplished this feat with nimbleness, variety, authority, even (granting the subject) delicacy. Seeing it for the first time you will be so submerged in gales of uncontrollable laughter that you will perhaps not recognize at once how ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... immigration of "the oppressed of all nations" that has made this country one of the worst on the face of the earth. The change from good to bad took place within a generation—so quickly that few of us have had the nimbleness of apprehension to "get it through our heads." We go on screaming our eagle in the self-same note of triumph that we were taught at our fathers' knees before the eagle became a buzzard. America is still "an asylum ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... had a second to think, and he retaliated by a blow which nearly lifted poor Tom off his feet. But before he could strike out a second time, Sam, with the nimbleness of a monkey, darted in and caught him by one leg. Dick saw the movement, gave the sailor a shove, and the tar pitched headlong ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... rule, in the case of these gentlemen, all reason and feeling are generally lost in the nimbleness of their fingers." ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... Herr Schimmelpodt, hot, perspiring and gasping, who now raced upon the platform. For one of his weight, combined with his lack of nimbleness, it was hazardous to attempt to ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... Soot-and-Cinders gittin' hisself ready for glory!" He approached the negro and aimed at him a kick which Cookie, arising with unexpected nimbleness, contrived to dodge. "Looky here, darky, git busy dishin' up the grub, will you? I could stand one good feed after the forecastle slops we ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... comparable to this jewel of Nature. She has placed it least in size of the order of birds, maxime miranda in minimis. Her masterpiece is the little humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touches the turf an instant. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... they might not, have heard. It runs: "Why is Charing Cross? Because the Strand runs into it." I mean to say, this is comic providing one enters wholly into the spirit of it, as there is required a certain nimbleness of mind to get the point, as one might say. In the present instance some needed element was lacking, for they actually drew aloof from me and conversed in low tones among themselves, pointedly ignoring me. I repeated the thing to make sure they should see it, whereat ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... that is a bright idea," remarked Buck, with exasperating slowness; "they always said you had a brain in your head, Fenton. It's a good, strong vine too, and even a sharp knife hacks into it pretty hard. Oh! no doubt about it holding a fellow of your nimbleness, when you manage to get ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... valuable arts in that country. He might have been a first-rate watchmaker or jeweller, have known Hebrew or Greek, or been a good draughtsman, or kept accounts in excellent style, or dressed to perfection, and been able to leap with the most perfect grace and nimbleness over counters, and yet have starved. Rough backwoodsmen, blacksmiths, carpenters, and ploughmen have from the first been able to secure good wages in Australia. Other men have succeeded by turning their hands to do whatever might offer; but for such men as I have mentioned, the demand ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... imprudent fellow, unwilling to sacrifice it, had waited till we were some paces distant, and then pulling it to him most forcibly, while all the while he took good care to keep quickly moving away, when thanks to Providence, or to his own nimbleness, he was not crushed to atoms by the fragment of the rock, which, being no longer buttressed up by the column that had been shaken, had fallen to the ground, completely stopping up the issue through which we had passed one after the other: ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... chiffonnier, but placed where it is the soil has not yet been much disturbed. I went in search of it up a very steep, stony hill, and there had the good fortune to meet an old woman who was coming down over the rocks with surprising nimbleness. She knew at once what I wanted. Although she spoke French with great difficulty, three words out of every five being patois, she made me understand that her house was just in front of the cave, and that it was not to be visited without her consent and guidance. She therefore began to reascend ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... was the wind that Hillyard could hear the kick of its screw, like the beating of some gigantic clock. He took his hat from his head and threw wide open his thin coat. After the heavy days of anxiety he felt a nimbleness of heart and spirit which set him in tune with the glory of that night. Suspicions, vague and elusive, had for so long clustered about Jose Medina, and then had come the two categorical statements, dates and hours, chapter and verse! He was still not ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... assured that in addition to the development of physique, moral and the spirit of association, there was to be seen, under the influence of the Y.M.A., a development of good manners and mental nimbleness. A special result of early rising and discipline in one area had been that "the habit of spending evening hours idly has died away, immorality has diminished, singing loudly and foolishly and boasting oneself have disappeared, while punctuality ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... of a lane a tall young man of pale complexion, with his black hair flowing over his shoulders, and with a sort of pea-coloured swaddling-cloth thrown round him. In his hand he held a long military musket, and he dashed along on the tips of his slippers with the air of a somnambulist and with the nimbleness of a tiger. At intervals a ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... and Portuguese caravels of the fifteenth century were less swift and manageable craft than the Norwegian "dragons" of the tenth. Mere yachts in size we should call them, but far from yachtlike in shape or nimbleness. With their length seldom more than thrice their width of beam, with narrow tower-like poops, with broad-shouldered bows and bowsprit weighed down with spritsail yards, and with no canvas higher than a topsail, these clumsy caravels could make but little progress against head-winds, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... nimbleness and Toby's muscle they obtained seats upon the top of the bus, and, seated together, resumed their conversation in low, grumbling tones. She first repeated her question with new aggressiveness, not at all deterred from the possibility of a row by her delight ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... Head up and down as she swam along the Body of the Church. I, with several others of the Inhabitants, follow'd her out, and saw her hold up her Fan to an Hackney-Coach at a Distance, who immediately came up to her, and she whipp'd into it with great Nimbleness, pull'd the Door with a bowing Mein, as if she had been used to a better Glass. She said aloud, You know where to go, and drove off. By this time the best of the Congregation was at the Church-Door, and I ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... expresses itself in frenzied efforts to get out of the way when suddenly molested. For the most part it lives in a neat hole, oubliette-shaped, and in its eagerness to locate and reach its retreat it darts about with a nimbleness which almost eludes perception. These frantic quarterings, I believe, led to the opinion that the snake is specially savage, whereas it is merely exceptionally nervous and eager for the security of its home. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... no older. It was thin, eager, bright, and sunny, yet with an indescribable wistfulness in the sparkling eyes, and something worn in the expression, and, as usual, she moved with a quiet nimbleness ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... since The soul is close conjoined with the mind. Next, soul in turn strikes body, and by degrees Thus the whole mass is pushed along and moved. Then too the body rarefies, and air, Forsooth as ever of such nimbleness, Comes on and penetrates aboundingly Through opened pores, and thus is sprinkled round Unto all smallest places in our frame. Thus then by these twain factors, severally, Body is borne like ship with oars and wind. Nor yet in ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... leave the pruning to Sir Wemyss. So he took the saw and went valiantly to work, but it was tiresome, so he leaned his weight against the limb and industriously sawed his prop off, which sent him flying almost into Lady Mary's lap. He saved himself by his nimbleness, but this time Jimmie was ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... appearing in Mr. Polly even as he ran; if Uncle Jim had strength and brute courage and the rich toughening experience a Reformatory Home affords, Mr. Polly was nevertheless sober, more mobile and with a mind now stimulated to an almost incredible nimbleness. So that he not only gained on Uncle Jim, but thought what use he might make of this advantage. The word "strategious" flamed red across the tumult of his mind. As he came round the house for the third time, he darted suddenly into the yard, swung the door ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... birds to breed and thrive in your orchard and groves, kill every red squirrel that infests the place; kill every weasel also. The weasel is a subtle and arch enemy of the birds. It climbs trees and explores them with great ease and nimbleness. I have seen it do so on several occasions. One day my attention was arrested by the angry notes of a pair of brown-thrashers that were flitting from bush to bush along an old stone row in a remote field. Presently I saw what it was that excited them—three ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... not from its having wings like a bird, but from its being furnished with a fine loose skin between its fore and hind legs, which it contracts or expands at pleasure, and which buoys it up, and enables it to spring from branch to branch at considerable distances, with amazing nimbleness. ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... shrewd glance at the drawn face, and trotted with a woman's nimbleness to the door. Here he paused, executed a stiff bow; then wheeled and departed. The door closed noiselessly behind him, and again ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... Empress herself reconnoitered the place, using due caution and quickness, and so got for herself a full plan of its requirements without being obliged to trust the measuring of another eye. With extraordinary nimbleness she must have planned an engine such as was necessary to suit her purposes, and given orders for its making; for even with the vast force and resources at her disposal, the speed with which ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... sledge-dogs—for the latter knew that they were in as much danger as their masters; and needed neither the exclamation Ah! nor the oschtol to urge them forward. On swept they over the frozen crust, as fast as they could go—handling their limbs and claws with the nimbleness peculiar to ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... from an Avernus behind; while the prompt 'v'la!' of teetotums in mob caps, spinning down the staircase in answer to the periodic clang of bells, filled her with wonder, and pricked her conscience with thoughts of how seldom such transcendent nimbleness was attempted by herself in a part so ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... it from his clothes and his hair and his brown academic beard, a dazed and pitiable-looking object, he came up the ladder not without nimbleness, and stepped through the gangway ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... water would allow them; and then, after looking outward, as if they intended to leap into the lake, they would suddenly turn back again, and gallop up into the high branches. There were in all about a dozen of them; but the nimbleness with which they passed from place to place, would have led one to believe that there were ten times that number; and the twigs and leaves were constantly kept in motion, as though a large flock of birds were ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... wonderful agility, as may be seen when they clamber up certain clefts that we should judge impossible of ascent and also when they spring from one part to another with a nimbleness that might excite the envy ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... have accommodated a chest of drawers, and carrying a window with it. Mrs. Nixey, the children, and the women of the staff inhabit a bombproof in the back-yard. The waiters have developed a grasshopper-like nimbleness, otherwise things go on ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the case in Africa, where his favorite food, the mimosa, grows upon the plain, but in Ceylon it is directly the contrary. In this country the elephant delights in the most rugged localities; he rambles about rocky hills and mountains with a nimbleness that no one can understand without personal experience. So partial are elephants to rocky and uneven ground that should the ruins of a mountain exist in rugged fragments along a plain of low, thorny jungle, five chances to one would be in favor of tracking the herd to this very spot, ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... nimbleness in nature, you women have, to be first inconstant; but if you had not made the more haste, the wind was veering too upon my weathercock: The best on't is, Florimel ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... good. To her it seemed as though this spirit of strife so electrically pervading the Votaress might yet be tranquilized through a war of wits exclusively and she was using her own with the tactical nimbleness of the feminine mind. She knew the twins were down on the boiler deck again, one faint, yet both pursuing, egged on by him of the stallion's eye and him of the eagle's, and all the more socially and dangerously active because, by strict orders to every one, cut off from the ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... and voiced his belief loudly and aggressively, that Will Whittaker had been slain and that swift punishment should be visited upon his murderer. The Gascogne nimbleness of tongue which enabled him to express his conviction with volubility made him, all through that excited day, the constant center of an assenting crowd. As night came on, the groups of men all gathered about his store. By that time every one among them was convinced that Emerson Mead had killed ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... pig-tail would begin to twitch, and he would mutter: 'Jim, tell those people they must be still.' Again a minute of quiet, and once more the jabbering and shouting. Now with a leap he would clutch his long walking-stick and charge the crowd in the quarter, laying about him with amazing nimbleness, until all the offenders were run to their holes. Back he would come from his excursion and settle himself to sleep. I could see that his rage was merely on the surface and that he had used it for a corrective, for he evidently took care ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... no time to look on that or anything else but the amazing nimbleness of the guns. At the shell—even before it—they flew apart like ants from a watering-can. From, crawling reptiles they leaped into scurrying insects—the legs of the eight horses pattering as if they belonged all to one creature, the deadly sting in the tail leaping and twitching with ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... the finest and roundest (and therefore most nimble) atoms, with which he compared the extremely attenuated dust particles visible in their never-ending {79} dance in a beam of light passed into a darkened room. This structure of exceeding tenuity and nimbleness was the source of the motion characteristic of living creatures, and provided that elastic counteracting force to the inward-pressing nimble air, whereby were produced the phenomena of respiration. Every object, in fact, whether living ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... admiration akin to those awakened by the birds and the fairer forms of nature. His passage through the trees is almost a flight. Indeed, the flying squirrel has little or no advantage over him, and in speed and nimbleness cannot compare with him at all. If he miss his footing and fall, he is sure to catch on the next branch; if the connection be broken, he leaps recklessly for the nearest spray or limb, and secures his hold, even if it be by the aid of ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... a rope to its fore-feet, to the which was attached a billet of wood, called technically "a clog," so that it had no fair chance of escape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had justly provoked. But the ass turning round with unusual nimbleness at the first stroke of the cane, the squire caught his foot in the rope, and went head over heels among the thistles. The donkey gravely bent down, and thrice smelt or sniffed its prostrate foe; then, having convinced itself that ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... realizing the situation, put out a dexterous foot, and the horse-thief fell full length upon the floor, his pistol discharging as he went down. In the clamor of the echoes, and the smoke and the flare, Persimmon Sneed disappeared, hearing as he went a wild protest, and a nimbleness of argument second hardly to his own, as Nick Peters cried out that he was robbed, his hard earnings were wrested from him, the money was his, paid him as a price, and Con Hite had let Mr. Persimmon Sneed run off with it, allowing him nothing for ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... ecstacy; lads and lasses leaped through and through, as on the wings of zephyrs; a hundred couples bounding at once on the green sward; the old folks chiming in the chorus of universal laughter, and snapping their fingers to the dances in which they had no longer the strength and nimbleness to join; the youngsters getting up mimic reels in sly corners; and the music seeming to stir into delight the branches of the great elms which festooned this ball-room of nature. But was there not something awanting to complete the unity of the scene? Where ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... enter meant to step back into the life which she hated. There had been a time when she had almost loved the life to which John Mark introduced her; there had been a time when she had rejoiced in the nimbleness of her fingers which had enabled her to become an adept as a thief. And, by so doing, she had kept the life of her brother from danger, she verily believed. She was still saving him, and, so long as she worked for John Mark, she knew that her brother was safe, ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... meanwhile, wallowing with astonishing nimbleness on three legs, had charged roaring into the group of old men. In a twinkling he had three or four spears sticking into him; but the arms that hurled the spears were weak, and the monster ramped on unheeding. Several fire-brands fell upon him, scorching his long, red fur, but he ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... millennial time when that renovation shall have become complete. Give me, O Fire, Ahura Mazda's son! a speedy glory, speedy nourishment, and speedy booty, and abundant glory, abundant nourishment, abundant booty, an expanded mind, and nimbleness of tongue for soul and understanding, even an understanding continually growing in its largeness, and that never wanders, and long enduring virile power, an offspring sure of foot, that never sleeps on watch, and that rises quick from bed, and likewise a wakeful offspring, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... woman and child, was in commotion, forming lines from the houses to the water-side, like lines of ants from an ant-hill; everybody laden with some article of household furniture, while busy housewives plied backward and forward along the lines, helping everything forward by the nimbleness of their tongues. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the hunters had fired, as the nimbleness with which the brutes moved about rendered it difficult to take aim at any one of them; and all knew that powder and lead were too precious to be ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... forward, and then sometimes suffer the ignominy of being run over by his pursuer, who, however, is quite unable to pick him up, owing to the speed. But when they mount the hill, or enter the woods, the superior nimbleness and agility of the fox tell at once, and he easily leaves the dog far in his rear. For a cur less than his own size he manifests little fear, especially if the two meet alone, remote from the house. In such cases, I have seen first one turn ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... called the doctor, to undertake the part of the ambassador; so that the gentleman sent immediate orders to have the throne erected, which was performed before they had drank two bottles; and, perhaps, the reader will hereafter have no great reason to admire the nimbleness of the servants. Indeed, to confess the truth, the throne was no more than this: there was a great tub of water provided, on each side of which were placed two stools raised higher than the surface of the tub, and over the whole was laid a blanket; on ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... nimbleness of mind to take the chance word or the accidental subject and play upon it, and make it pass from guest to guest at dinner or in the drawing-room. It is the discussion of any topic whatever, from religion to the fashions, and the avoidance of any phase of any ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... and meagre for want of air, and light, and movement; undeveloped, untrained bodies, warped by constant work at the loom or at the desk, at best with the lumpish freedom of the soldier and the vulgar nimbleness of the 'prentice. And these men and women dressed in the dress of the Middle Ages, gorgeous perhaps in colour, but heavy, miserable, grotesque, nay, sometimes ludicrous in form; citizens in lumpish robes and long-tailed caps; ladies in stiff and foldless brocade ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... before them was smooth and grassy, flowing before them far, a gentle slope that was soon to lend speed to Rodriguez' feet, adding nimbleness even to youth. Soon, too, it was to lift onward the dull weight of Morano as he followed his master towards unknown wars, youth going before him like a spirit and the good slope helping behind. But before they gave themselves to that waiting journey they stood a moment and looked at the ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... intervals as the face of a card is exposed, making a point for or against him in the game. Calling this out in calm voice and long-drawn monotone, he waits for the croupier to square accounts; which the latter does by drawing in, or pushing out, the coins and cheques, with the nimbleness of a presti-digitateur. Old bets are rearranged, new ones made, and ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... not thrown into competition with other boys. He was the skip, the drudge, the carrier and fetcher, the cleaner and polisher for a work-bench of men devoid of sentiment and blind to his princely qualities. He tried, indeed, by nimbleness of hand and intelligence, to impress them with his superiority to his predecessors, but they were not impressed. At the most he escaped curses. His mind began to work in the logic of the real. Entrance into his kingdom implied as a primary condition release from the factory. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... and place, and divers times since, I have observed with my Microscope, another little Insect, which, though I have not annexed the picture of, may be worth noting, for its exceeding nimbleness as well as smalness; it was as small as a Mite, with a body deep and ridged, almost like a Flea; it had eight blood-red legs, not very long, but slender; and two horns or feelers before. Its motion was so exceeding quick, that I have often lost sight of one I have observed with my naked eye; ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... the Whale, which hath been related to have stranded upon New-England, it is not very improbable, but, (that Fish having also more than one Enemy, whereof a small Fish called the Thresher is one, who, by Mr. Terry's Relation in his East-Indian Voyage, with his nimbleness vexes him as much, as a Bee does a great Beast on the land; and a certain horny Fish another, who runs its horn into the Whal's belly) it may have been kill'd by the latter of these two; which kind of Fish is known, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... heyday of its vogue—its assigned power was on some occasions actually realised, as in the burning of Lord Sandwich's flagship at the battle of Solebay, and the destruction of the Spanish-Dutch fleet at Palermo by Duquesne. But as the "nimbleness" of great-ships increased with the ripening of seamanship and naval architecture, the fireship as a battle weapon became almost negligible, while a fleet at anchor was found to be thoroughly defensible by its own picket-boats. Towards the middle of the eighteenth ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... could not know all I knew; guessing only at heavy carousals, cards, song, and raillery, with far-off hints of feet lighter than fit in cavalry boots dancing among the glasses on the table. I was never before so charmed with her swift intelligence, for I never had great nimbleness of thought, nor power to make ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... women pale and meagre for want of air, and light, and movement; undeveloped, untrained bodies, warped by constant work at the loom or at the desk, at best with the lumpish freedom of the soldier and the vulgar nimbleness of the prentice. And these men and women dressed in the dress of the Middle Ages, gorgeous perhaps in colour, but heavy, miserable, grotesque, nay, sometimes ludicrous in form; citizens in lumpish robes and long-tailed ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... "Talk o' nimbleness, look at Mrs. Osgood," said Ben Winthrop, who was holding his son Aaron between his knees. "She trips along with her little steps, so as nobody can see how she goes—it's like as if she had little wheels to her feet. She doesn't look a day older nor last year: she's the finest-made ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... 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 ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... With the nimbleness of terror I dropped to the deck and passed like a shadow to the hatch, unnoticed by the beast. In a moment I closed the companion doors, then entering Bunk's cabin found the gun and ammunition. I loaded the piece, and, getting on to the ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... scholar's raillery of that early blue-stocking Mrs Bennet; while his dignity never shows to greater advantage than when he throws himself bodily on the villain Murphy, achieving the arrest of that felon by the strength of his own arm, and the nimbleness of his own legs. And to this good Doctor is given a saying eminently characteristic of Justice Fielding himself. We are told that "it was a maxim of his that no man could descend below himself in doing any act which may contribute ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... to burst with fury. At last he broke into a fit of shrill laughter, the first sound he had uttered, made a macaronic gesture, and capered off with the airiest gambols and antics, like a very devil's kid. A street-urchin teasing an old woman is no new sight, but the nimbleness, spirit, grace and gentleness of this young Pickle, the impossibility of guessing what he would do or where he would be next, and the fine dramatic rage of the beldame, who looked like one of Michael Angelo's Fates, kept us standing and staring ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... extraordinary zest and nimbleness. Always he played in the tail coat, and the knitted muffler was never relinquished; he treated the game entirely as an occasion for quick tricks and personal agility; he bounded about the field like a kitten, he pirouetted suddenly, he leapt into the air and ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... may perhaps be that these characters are all later creations than Hamlet, and that Shakespeare's own fondness for this kind of play, like the fondness of the theatrical audience for it, diminished with time. But the main reason is surely that this tendency, as we see it in Hamlet, betokens a nimbleness and flexibility of mind which is characteristic of him and not of the later less many-sided heroes. Macbeth, for instance, has an imagination quite as sensitive as Hamlet's to certain impressions, but he has none of Hamlet's delight in freaks ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... high- flown discourse on the superlative characteristics of the State he represented, wound up all by saying, "All that Texas needs to make it a paradise is water and good society,'' to which Wade instantly replied, "That 's all they need in hell.'' The nimbleness and shrewdness of some public men he failed to appreciate. On his saying something to me rather unfavorable to a noted statesman of New England, I answered him, "But, senator, he made an admirable Speaker of the House of Representatives.'' To which he ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... preserved their liberty, the delicacy of their taste, and the cultivated agility of their limbs, all qualified them for making an agreeable figure in this kind of entertainment. Nothing could be more graceful than the motion of their arms. They did not so much regard the nimbleness and capering with the legs and feet, on which we lay so great a stress. Attitude, grace, expression, were their principal object. They executed scarce any thing in dancing, without special regard to that expression which may be termed the life and ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... sped on, the gigantic Ramiro blundering after me, panting and blaspheming, for although powerful, his bulk and the wine he had taken left him no nimbleness. The distance between us widened, and if only Mariani would have the presence of mind to wait for me at the mouth of the passage, all would be as I could wish it before his ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... first set upon the admirall's, as he thought, of the Spaniards (but it was Alfonso de Leon's ship). Soon after, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher played stoutly with their ordnance on the hindmost squadron, which was commanded by Recalde." The Spaniards soon discover the superior "nimbleness of the English ships;" and Recalde's squadron, finding that they are getting more than they give, in spite of his endeavors, hurry forward to join the rest of the fleet. Medina the Admiral, finding his ships scattering fast, gathers them into a half-moon; ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... ground, the man begins to sway his body violently till the tender and supple palm is swinging like a pendulum and almost striking the trees on either side. Watching his opportunity, the man grasps one of these and transfers himself to it with the nimbleness of a monkey. In this way he makes an aerial journey round the garden and avoids the fatigue of climbing up and ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... Spanish ship, the latter seemed to alter her course and come blundering headlong at them, when, if a collision had chanced to have occurred, the English ship must of necessity have been the greatest sufferer, because of her inferior size. But here again the nimbleness of the Nonsuch and the activity of her crew sufficed to avert disaster, and ship after ship was overtaken and passed in deadly, ominous silence, for it was George's intention to make no demonstration until he had overtaken and weathered ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... of coolness and upbraiding. Sir Anthony's presence prevented my proposed expostulations: yet I must be satisfied that she has not been so very happy in my absence. She is coming! Yes!—I know the nimbleness of her tread, when she thinks her impatient Faulkland counts the moments of ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... would rather read Homer afterwards than remember yourself. One song of Burns's is of more worth to you than all I could think for a whole year in his native country. His misery is a dead weight upon the nimbleness of one's quill; I tried to forget it—to drink toddy without any care—to write a merry sonnet—it won't do—he talked, he drank with blackguards; he was miserable. We can see horribly clear, in the works of such a man, his whole life, as if we ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... of the highest shelf, greatly at his ease and in nowise to be disturbed, slept Wotan, the huge grey house-cat, dreaming doubtless of certain nimble and audacious mice down in the cellar three floors below, whose nimbleness and audacity were as precious to him as the forwardness of the birds is to a skilled gun on a grouse moor. Once every day Wotan came marching in stately fashion across the polished floor, halted mid- way to resume ...
— When William Came • Saki
... the young man. A turn in his strong wrist would, he imagined, suffice to accomplish his purpose. But he found out his error the moment he engaged with his opponent. In dexterity and force the latter was fully his match, while in nimbleness of body Jocelyn surpassed him. The deadly glances thrown at him by the young man showed that the animosity of the latter would only be satisfied with blood. Changing his purpose, therefore, Sir Giles, in place of attempting to cross his antagonist's sword, rapidly disengaged ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... she forthwith pricked me into the arm, whereon I caught up a sizable timber to my defence but found it avail me no whit against her skill and nimbleness, for thrice her blade leapt and thrice I flinched to the sharp bite of her steel, until, goaded thus and what with her devilish mockery and my own helplessness, I fell to raging anger and hauled my timber full at her, the which, chancing ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... in Mexico City" and the "remaining task" refer, of course, to Sir Lionel Carden. "As I make Carden out," he wrote about this time, "he's a slow-minded, unimaginative, commercial Briton, with as much nimbleness as an elephant. British commerce is his deity, British advantage his duty and mission; and he goes about his work with blunt dullness and ineptitude. That's his mental calibre as I ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... police, splendid fellows who chew gum and do their duty with an astonishing certainty and nimbleness, the Prince came to the City Hall Square, where the modern Brontosaurs of commerce lift mightily above the low and graceful City Hall, which has the look of a petite mother perpetually astonished at the size of the ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... first I was minded to lie down and die; but it seemed to come amiss to me. God has His time for all of us; but He seems to advertise us when He does not mean to do it. Moreover, I saw a movement of lights at the head of the valley, as if lanthorns were coming after me, and the nimbleness given thereon to my heels was ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... He won't even let me try. Look!" The child climbed over the fence and made a quick grab at the animal, which gave an alarmed, startled grunt, wheeled with astonishing nimbleness, and darted away ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... tint of the chrysolite and creatures of fairy lightness come into view. Often on still days small sea-spiders sport under the lea of the boat, each of the eight legs supported by a bubble. With astonishing nimbleness, the spider slips and glides over the surface as a man in laborious snow-shoes over the snow. Having basked in the sun and frolicked with its kind, the spider abandons its pads, takes to its hairy bosom a bubble of air, and dives below. The shadows, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... now told a string of those funny anecdotes which Americans love to swap. She sang divers songs, pitched among her big, velvety chest tones: "Children, Keep in de Middle ob de Road," "Fluey, Fluey," "Come, Ride dat Golden Mule." With the clumsy nimbleness and innocent love of play of a Newfoundland pup, she flung out her enormous ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... up her skirts, she tightly grasped the tree and pulled herself up the trunk with a single effort of her strong wrists. And afterwards she stepped lightly along the branches, scarcely using her hands to steady herself. She had all the agile nimbleness of a squirrel, and made her way onward, maintaining her equilibrium only by the swaying poise of her body. When she was quite aloft at the end of a frail branch, which shook dangerously beneath her weight, she cried; 'Now you see ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... With a tall ship so doth a galley fight, When the still winds stir not the unstable main; Where this in nimbleness as that in might Excels; that stands, this goes and comes again, And shifts from prow to poop with turnings light; Meanwhile the other doth unmoved remain, And on her nimble foe approaching nigh, Her weighty engines tumbleth down ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... lies in the harmless natural simplicity of a primeval people. We see described the delight which the rude child of nature takes in all animals,—in their slim forms, their gleaming eyes, their fierceness, their nimbleness and cunning. Such sagas would naturally have their origin in an age when the ideas of shepherd and hunter occupied a great portion of the intellectual horizon of the people; when the herdman saw in the ravenous bear one who was his equal, ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... The Maid of the Schloss, her brows drawn down in anger, stood with sword ready to strike, but whether it was the unwieldiness of the clumsy weapon, or whether it was the great celerity with which the young man put his nimbleness to the test, or whether it was that she recognised him as perhaps her one friend on earth, who can tell; be that as it may, she did not strike in time, and a moment, later the Count dropped on one knee and before she knew it raised one of her ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... was not unlike a man who had had a little too much champagne. He startled them with the nimbleness of his wit, the light play of his fancy. It was as though he had a new vocabulary, a lighter one than was commonly his. There was a sort of ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... the godlike son Of Priam, Polydorus, he advanced. Not yet his father had to him indulged 500 A warrior's place, for that of all his sons He was the youngest-born, his hoary sire's Chief darling, and in speed surpass'd them all. Then also, in the vanity of youth, For show of nimbleness, he started oft 505 Into the vanward, till at last he fell. Him gliding swiftly by, swifter than he Achilles with a javelin reach'd; he struck His belt behind him, where the golden clasps Met, and the double hauberk interposed. ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... With the nimbleness of a lad Blucher mounted his horse, and, no longer restraining his impatience, he galloped off. Gneisenau rode by his side, and at some distance behind him trotted the pipe- master, with the iron box on the pommel of ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... winter. The wet season began in the last days of September and continued all through October, November, and December. At long intervals would come a week of perfect days, the sky without a cloud, the air motionless, but touched with a certain nimbleness, a faint effervescence that was exhilarating. Then, without warning, during a night when a south wind blew, a gray scroll of cloud would unroll and hang high over the city, and the rain would come ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... the difference created by the water's powerful density—despite my heavy clothing, copper headpiece, and metal soles, I climbed the most impossibly steep gradients with all the nimbleness, I swear it, of a chamois ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... a good deal of attention, too, upon her piano. The knack of a girlish nimbleness of touch had returned to her after a few weeks, and she made music which Theron supposed was very good—for her. It pleased him, at all events, when he sat and listened to it; but he had a far greater pleasure, as he listened, in dwelling upon the memories of the yellow and ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... came in. A man drove away the birds at last before they had quite taken all, for the torn arms still hung in the iron fetters; an old man, blind of one eye, the black patch torn off the hideous hole that had replaced the socket. He capered with the nimbleness of youth before the ghastly remains of humanity still fastened to that rock. He shouted and screamed, and laughed and sang. The sight had been too horrible even for him. He was mad, crazy; his mind was gone. He had his revenge, and it ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the three to climb a tree, so two stood on the ground while Deerfoot made his way among the limbs with the nimbleness of a monkey. ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... he let go two terrific swings, first with his left and then with his right hand, but his smaller opponent side-stepped with the nimbleness of a cat, and Pelle rushed by two or three steps before he ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... falling up against the wall, and scrambling into corners, and going through all the mysteries of blind-man's buff, with the utmost relish of the game, until at last he caught one of the poor relations; and then had to evade the blind-man himself, which he did with a nimbleness and agility that elicited the admiration and applause of all beholders. The poor relations caught just the people whom they thought would like it; and when the game flagged, got caught themselves. When they were all tired of ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... delicate innuendoes and allusions of implied experience or culture—all the give-and-take of happily contending minds—all, indeed, that makes true conversation—is a science utterly unknown to him. A certain superficial nimbleness of mind he does sometimes possess, but for all that he is a dull creature, made dull by the ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... tackles, such confusion of ships' devices as would be enough for the building of a sea tale. It may be fancied that here is Treasure Island itself, shuffled and laid apart in bits like a puzzle-picture. (For genius, maybe, is but a nimbleness of collocation of such hitherto unconsidered trifles.) Then you will go aloft where sails are made, with sailormen squatting about, bronzed fellows, rheumatic, all with pipes. And through all this shop is the ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... activity; briskness, liveliness &c adj.; animation, life, vivacity, spirit, dash, energy; snap, vim. nimbleness, agility; smartness, quickness &c adj.; velocity, &c 274; alacrity, promptitude; despatch, dispatch; expedition; haste &c 684; punctuality &c (early) 132. eagerness, zeal, ardor, perfervidum aingenium [Lat.], empressement [Fr.], earnestness, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... particularly, conversation is something which not even the French, who approach it most nearly, can thoroughly understand, for with all its blinding nimbleness and kaleidoscopic changes there is a substratum of Puritan morality which holds some things sacred—too sacred even to argue in public—and one who transgresses turns off the colored lights, and lo! your conversation is all in ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... had ever seen—the cute little ways that endear children to those who love them. At the time, this fact did not add to my happiness, for, what with her womanliness and her childishness, she presented a problem that puzzled and dazzled me, for my mind was wofully lacking in the nimbleness necessary to follow the ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... to look, and one soft-stepping old hound got up with the nimbleness of expectation, and, with a prescient gratitude astir in his tail, went and sniffed at it. His aspect drooped suddenly, and he looked around in reproach at Stephen Quimbey, as if suspecting a practical joke. But there was no merriment in the young mountaineer's face. He threw himself into ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... effort. The truly amazing activity displayed by these ponderous and unwieldy creatures was perhaps the most remarkable feature of the whole affair. They wheeled and doubled about each other with the nimbleness of fighting dogs, the rhinoceros leaping in to deliver his stroke, and then springing aside to avoid the thrust of the elephant's tusks with a rapidity that rendered it difficult to follow his movements, while the elephant countered with a quick alertness that was evidently ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... nimbleness which bespoke him no novice at trying pockets, he soon touched the bottom of all those on the body, to ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... fatal feminine appendage, your tongue. I have remarked that he watches us. But a short time since I saw him eagerly conversing with your Grand Ducal Highness's maid. For me he has already laid several traps that I have only just escaped falling into by an extraordinary presence of mind and a nimbleness in dialectic almost worthy ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... seemed on the point of climbing upon her head when she struck it so sharp a cuff that it toppled over sideways from the horse upon the trail, down which it went clawing and chattering its anger; but, though, it dropped from sight, it must be believed it suffered no harm, because of its own nimbleness. ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... Swallow that has alighted on his box, or driving a Robin from a cherry-tree that stands near his habitation. The next instant we observe him running along on a stone wall, and diving down and in and out, from one side to the other, through the openings between the stories, with all the nimbleness of a squirrel. He is on the ridge of the barn-roof, he is peeping into the dove-cote, he is in the garden under the currant-bushes, or chasing a spider or a moth under a cabbage-leaf; again he is on the roof of the shed, warbling vociferously; and all these manoeuvres and peregrinations have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... one of those who constantly drifted in and out of that exciting nowhere into which they so lightly disappeared by whim; a gaunt, silent man, almost wholly deaf, who stood in Dave Cowan's place and set type with machine-like accuracy or distributed it with loose-fingered nimbleness, seizing many types at a time and scattering them to their boxes with the apparent abandon of a sower strewing seed. He, too, was but a transient, wherever he might be found, but he had no talk of the outland where gypsies were, and to Wilbur he proved to be of no human interest, so that the boy ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... Dunn, he exclaimed, "Ah! you vagabond!" and springing with the nimbleness of a cat, struck the Dutchman a blow that sent him measuring his length, into a corner among a lot of empty boxes; then seizing Dunn by the collar, he shook him like a puppy, and brought him a slap with his ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... civilization, these hardy dogs were less wanted; and thus, by slow degrees, have degenerated into the less powerful, but more beautiful and symmetrical proportions that we now see. This change, however, has better adapted him for speed, and the coursing of such quadrupeds as depend upon nimbleness and activity of motion, to ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... keenness and clearness. Then—last of all—the record of Franklin's life,—of the steady rise of the ill-treated printer's devil to knowledge and power—filled him with an urging and concentrating ambition, and set his thoughts, endowed with a new heat and nimbleness, to the practical unravelling of a ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... already dark when I started, on the evening appointed, for the house indicated by Mlle. d'Arency. I went without attendance, as was my custom, relying on my sword, my alertness of eye, and my nimbleness of foot. I had engaged a lackey, for whose honesty De Rilly had vouched, but he was now absent on a journey to La Tournoire, whither I had sent him with a message to my old steward. I have often ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the general background of her home and associates, she seemed to him unchanged. Yet when he reflected, he was not so sure of this. Sophie was gracious, friendly, frankly interested when he talked of himself. When their talk ran upon impersonal things the old nimbleness of mind functioned. But under these superficialities he could only guess, after all, what the essential woman of her was now. He could not say if she were still the queer, self-disciplined mixture of ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... as he was, had a better view, and unless he had seen with his own eyes, he could not have believed that two animals so heavy and unwieldy could display such nimbleness ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... heat did not delay the workers. They flew at their task with fingers that seemed to have somehow borrowed an extra nimbleness. All day long they worked, and the pies were marshalled out of the oven by nines, flaky and fragrant and baked just right. The rack grew fuller and fuller, and the soldiers watched with eager eyes and watering mouths. ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... attitude of mind, because for centuries they have been valued for their sympathy and appreciation rather than for their judgment, that they are so perilously prone to enthusiasm. It has come to all of us of late to hear much feminine eloquence, and to marvel at the nimbleness of woman's wit, at the speed with which she thinks, and the facility with which she expresses her thoughts. A woman who, until five years ago, never addressed a larger audience than that afforded by a reading-club or a dinner-party, will now thrust and parry on a platform, wholly unembarrassed by ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... religious training to be superfluous—his pupils learnt these things on their mothers' knees. Giustino soon acquired the jargon; he passed his examination in fifteen articles, in secrecy, swiftness of foot and nimbleness of hand. The latter was taught on a clothed wooden figure out of whose pockets the students were obliged to extract handkerchiefs, gold watches and jewelry with such dexterity that not one of the little bells, which dangled from its hat, gave forth the slightest sound; that stage passed, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... ideas of state-craft than the simpler plan of Sir Henry Nevill, that the King should throw himself frankly on the loyalty and good-will of Parliament. And thus he came to be on easy terms with James, who was quite capable of understanding Bacon's resource and nimbleness of wit. In the autumn of 1613 the Chief-Justiceship of the King's Bench became vacant. Bacon at once gave the King reasons for sending Coke from the Common Pleas—where he was a check on the prerogative—to ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... another foot. That indeed has given it somewhat of the run and measure of a trimetre, but it runs with more activity than strength. Their language is not strong with sinews, like our English; it has the nimbleness of a greyhound, but not the bulk and body of a mastiff. Our men and our verses overbear them by their weight; and pondere, non numero is the British motto. The French have set up purity for the standard of their language; and a masculine vigour is that of ours. ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... to fly away with the most indispensable portion of my apparel. Postponing, therefore, for the present, my suicidal design, I just slipped my nether extremities into the sleeves of my coat, and betook myself to a pursuit of the felon with all the nimbleness which the case required and its circumstances would admit. But my evil destiny attended me still. As I ran at full speed, with my nose up in the atmosphere, and intent only upon the purloiner of my property, I suddenly perceived ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Seven Gables.] about perished dames and grandees made to sweep in procession through "the inner world" of a glass. Such small matters as these engage the fancy, and lead it back through a systematic review of local history with unlooked-for nimbleness. Gradually the mind gets to roving among scenes imaged as if by memory, and bearing some strangely intimate relation to the actual scenes before one. The drift of clouds, the sifting of sudden light from the sky, acquire the import of historic changes of adversity and prosperity. ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... the Prince had completed these, the outward ceremonies of his joy, he again commanded that his captains and soldiers should show unto Mansoul some feats of war. So they presently addressed themselves to this work. But oh, with what agility, nimbleness, dexterity, and bravery did these military men discover their skill in feats of war to the now ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... answer, the gates were opened, and we stopped between two magnificent flights of steps, leading on each side to the cloisters. Several young monks, excited by the noise of the carriage, came trooping towards the top of the stairs, looking down upon us, and retreating, with the nimbleness and apparent timidity of deer. Their white streamers, or long lappets, suspended from the back of the black gown, (the designation of the Augustine order) had a very ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... simple nobility of his character, by the stainless purity of his actions, and the splendid motive of all his endeavours. His speeches and writings derive their power and distinction from no tricks of oratory, felicity of diction, or nimbleness of mind. They are the vocal results of the beatings of ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... in the stern holding the tiller. He does not do what young men do; nevertheless he does what is much more important and better. The great affairs of life are not performed by physical strength, or activity, or nimbleness of body, but by deliberation, character, expression of opinion. Of these old age is not only not deprived, but, as a rule, has them in a greater degree. Unless by any chance I, who as a soldier in the ranks, as military tribune, as legate, and ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... throughout the entire day. It was out of the question to keep them off the schooner, and Wilbur and Moran were too wise to try. They swarmed the forward deck and rigging like a plague of unclean monkeys, climbing with an agility and nimbleness that made Wilbur sick to his stomach. They were unlike any Chinamen he had ever seen—hideous to a degree that he had imagined impossible in a human being. On two occasions a fight developed, and in an instant the little hatchets were ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... the fore-paws. The hind legs then stretch straight out behind and are used, with the heavy tail, for a great rudder. By this means he turns and doubles like a flash, following surely the swift dartings of frightened trout, and beating them by sheer speed and nimbleness. ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... The ever gay and lively Boz, always in spirits, called up many a happy scene, and gave the pen a certain airiness and nimbleness. There is little that is official or magisterial about the volumes. Everything is pleasant and interesting, put together—though there is a crowd of details—with extraordinary art and finish. It furnishes a most truthful and accurate picture of the "inimitable," ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... A turn o'th' Toe, with a lofty trick or two, To argue nimbleness, and a strong back, Will go far with a Madam: 'tis most true, That he's an excellent Scholar, and he knows it; An exact Courtier, and he knows that too; He has fought thrice, and come off still with honour, ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... that's done," said the blind man; and at the words he suddenly left hold of me, and, with incredible accuracy and nimbleness, skipped out of the parlour and into the road, where, as I still stood motionless, I could hear his stick go tap-tap-tapping into ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hen-houses to devour the eggs and new-hatched chickens. Others are green, about two feet long, and not thicker than a goose-quill; they frequent the meadows, and may be seen running over the spires of grass, such is their lightness and nimbleness. ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... a good listener. He loved to catch a theory of life, hold it in his hand like a struggling bird while he discoursed about it, and let it go free into the sunshine again. Sypher admired his nimbleness of mind. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... her stick and, opening the door, astonished Martha by her nimbleness. At the gate she looked right and left, and for the first time in her life felt that there were too many churches in Salthaven. For several reasons, the chief being that Cecilia's father lay in the churchyard, she decided to try St. Peter's first, and, having procured ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... searched his pockets with the nimbleness of London thieves, and deprived him of money, watch, and all his possessions, proceeded to handle him very roughly. He had fought and struggled desperately, but was easily overpowered. They were twenty to one, and their wild ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... Precinct of Seville, the Little Market of Segovia, the Olivera of Valencia, the Rondilla of Granada, the Strand of San Lucar, the Colt of Cordova, the Taverns of Toledo, and divers other quarters, where he had proved the nimbleness of his feet and the lightness of his fingers, doing many wrongs, cheating many widows, ruining maids and swindling minors, and, in short, bringing himself under the notice of almost every tribunal and court of justice in Spain; until at last he had retired to ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... ubiquitous; Egypt, The Riviera, Switzerland, and Italy, see him by turns; in each he has a white waistcoat, of which Mr. CHAMBERLAIN might be proud, infinite occupation, and infinite diversion; his nimbleness, his light-heartedness, his languages, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... nerve, the temperament, nor the mental habits that make a successful aviator. This idea was first put into my head by considering the way in which Germans walk and carry themselves, and by nothing the difference in nimbleness between the cyclists in the streets of German and French towns. It was confirmed by a conversation I had with a German aviator who was also a dramatist, and who came to see me upon some copyright matter in 1912. He broached the view that aviation would ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... moss on the north side, and has long been given over to decay on all sides. The cat-squirrels that occasionally scamper across the crumbling shingles have as much as they can do, with all their nimbleness, to find a secure foot-hold. The huge wooden columns that support the double veranda display jagged edges at top and bottom, and no longer make even a pretence of hiding their grim hollowness. The well, hospitably placed within arm's reach of the highway, for the benefit of the dead and buried congregation ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... visual memory, sharpness and accuracy of eye, presence of mind, dexterity of hand, and above all a subtle sense of touch, who are as it were born into God's world for the sole and special purpose of becoming distinguished card-sharpers. The pickpockets' profession demands extraordinary nimbleness and agility, a terrific certainty of movement, not to mention a ready wit, a talent for observation and strained attention. Some have a positive vocation for breaking open safes: from their tenderest childhood they are attracted by the mysteries of every kind of complicated mechanism—bicycles, ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various |
