"Agile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have to direct the reader's attention. He was distinguished from his comrades on the stand in several ways. Though master of a Staten Island boat that would carry twenty passengers, he was but sixteen years of age, and he was one of the handsomest, the most agile and athletic, young fellows that either Island could show. Young as he was, there was that in his face and bearing which gave assurance that he was abundantly competent to his work. He was always at his post betimes, and on the alert for a job. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... may seem to you but a short spell, but if you had a swarm of agile sharp-sighted savages prowling about you all the time, and knew that your own life and those of others who depended on you would be sacrificed if your vigilance flagged, perhaps you would find it ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... of the firmament. Thus attacked, the mighty Gandharvas then encountered the sons of Pandu with a shower of arrows equally thick, and the Pandavas also replied by attacking those dwellers of heaven. And the battle then, O Bharata, that ranged between the active and agile Gandharvas and the impetuous son of Pandu was fierce in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... night. The custodians know me and let me moon about in the dark. When all that is ignoble and mean has faded away with the daylight, it seems to me the ghosts of the old time come back upon the sands. I can fancy the patter of light hoofs, the glancing of spectral horns. I can imagine the agile tread of Romero, the deadly thrust of Montes, the whisper of long-vanished applause, and the clapping of ghostly hands. I am growing too old for such skylarking, and I sometimes come away with a cold in my head. But you will never see ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... the matter rested till to-day, when the final blow fell from the War Office. Herbert and I are to proceed to France together next Monday. On that day, if I am ingenious and agile enough not to meet him before, we ought to be about all square; after that, as far as I can see, there will be an inevitable moment when Herbert will turn to me with, "I say, old fellow, you can't let me have that ten bob you ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... declined to come out again: and the quadruped on which Miss Tuggs was mounted, expressed his delight at this humorous proceeding by firmly planting his fore-feet against the ground, and kicking up his hind-legs in a very agile, but ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Broad of mind, as well as broad of shoulder he was. Forty years of age now, his hair, by the habit of thought, was tinged with gray at the temples; yet skin and complexion were as those of a boy. Quick in movement, agile, alert, thrilling with vitality and virility, his pleasures were, as they had always been, the pleasures of the great out-of-doors. A yachtsman, his big yawl, the "Manana," was known in every club port from Gravesend to Bar Harbor. He motored. He rode. He played ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... The agile, broad-chested lieutenant, without a change of expression in his smooth, yellow-brown, melancholy face, shot the belt strap through the guard of the buckle, hefted his sixes in their holsters as a belle gives the finishing touches to her toilette, caught up his Winchester, and dived for the door. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... valued recognition, and liked the flattery of the fashionable fair when it came in his way. He would not go out of his way for it, but like most able and brilliant men he loved the minds of women, their wit, their agile cleverness, their sensitive perception, their humorous appreciation, the saucy things they would say, and their pretty, temerarious defiances. He had, of course, the keenest sense of what was truly ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that is just what it was, the next part came on, a simulation of fighting: and, as everything before was as stiff, strained, and rigid as it was possible to be, so now everything was light, graceful, agile, and quick; leaps forward and back, leaps sideways, the two combatants maneuvering, as it were, one around the other, for position. It was hard to realize that human motions could be so graceful, light and easy. Then head-knives ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... Phoenicians, who sold her upon the slave market of Tyre. In fact she was a high-bred Arab without any admixture of negro blood, as was shown by her copper-coloured skin, prominent cheek bones, her straight, black, abundant hair, and untamed, flashing eyes. In frame she was tall and spare, very agile, and full of grace in every movement. Her face was fierce and hard; even in her present dreadful plight she showed no fear, only when she looked at the lady by her side it grew anxious and tender. She was called Nehushta, a name which Benoni had given her when many years ago he bought her upon ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... the rest of the distance he judged he could very well manage to walk, albeit slowly. A fluttering sense of happiness, like the scarcely suppressed excitement of a boy going home from school for the holidays, made him feel almost agile on his feet,—if he had only had a trifle more strength he thought he could have run the length of every mile stretching between him and the dear cottage in the coombe, which had now become the central interest of his life. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... she had completed her observations, whereon with a quick and agile movement the girl rose, sank again on her knees beside her, took the hand that hung from the bed between her own, and pressed it to her lips, saying in the soft ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... mischievous, the terror of the whole neighborhood, and the perpetual fever of his mother." He soon gained the nickname buscarruidos, and attracted the notice of police and night watchmen. "In person he was agreeable, likable, agile, of clear understanding, sanguine temperament inclined to violence; of a petulant, merry disposition, of courage rash even bordering upon temerity, and more inclined to bodily exercise than to sedentary study." The two friends were much influenced by Caldern at this time. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... and was busy rectifying it. The dinosaurs—all the giant reptiles—were now sorely pressed. Brute strength, giant size and tiny brain could not win this struggle. The huge unwieldy things were being beaten. The smaller animals, birds and reptiles were more agile, more resourceful, and began to dominate. Against the giants, and against all hostility of environment, they survived. And the giants went down to defeat. Gradually, over thousands of centuries, they died out and ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... sore, but able to ride, and R.C. and I went off into the woods in search of any kind of adventure. This day was cloudy and threatening, with spells of sunshine. We saw two bull elk, a cow and a calf. The bulls appeared remarkably agile for so heavy an animal. Neither of these, however, were of such magnificent proportions as the one R.C. and I had stalked the first day out. A few minutes later we scared out three more cows and three yearlings. I dismounted just ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... into it bow on, and sculled the stern around. The cripple, hideously agile, scrambled out and held the boat; Simpson gathered ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... Agile as he, she swung herself up somehow and clutched at him with both hands. The half-dead bough, resenting these gymnastics, cracked ominously. There was a gasp, a scuffle. Roy hung on valiantly, dragging her nearer for ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... other hand from under the rope, he fought them back as a hurt grizzly does the wolf pack gathered for the kill. None but a very powerful man could ever have reached his feet. None less agile and sinewy than a panther could have beaten them back as at first he did. They fought in grim silence, yet the grove was full of the sounds of battle. The heavy breathing, the beat of shifting feet, the soft impact of flesh striking flesh, the thud of ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... of them, and were ready either to lark with him or work with him. He noticed, too, that the ranger did his share of work without a whimper, apparently enjoying the long, hard hours in the saddle. The hill riding was of the roughest, and the cattle were wild as deers and as agile. But there was no break-neck incline too steep for Steve ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... such crowds around the basin that Pierre's tale seemed amply corroborated. Pressing in at the outer edge of the circle, she exclaimed, looking to right and left, "Where is the child? Where is Mere Michaud?" Every one looked bewildered; no one answered. Pierre, with an upward fling of his agile legs, disappeared to seek his carnation; and Hetty found herself, in an instant more, surrounded by a crowd of children, each in its finest clothes, and each bearing a small pot with a flowering-plant ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... and sleep my fill without nightmare! The spy must be sharp who recognizes me. My beard, which I shaved off down there, has grown out thick and strong. One can burrow somewhere in the great ant-hill, and work can be found. Whoever is not worked to death in the hell of the galleys comes out agile and robust, and I learned there to climb ropes with loads upon my back. Building is going on everywhere here, and the masons need helpers. Three francs a day! I never earned so much. Let me be forgotten, and that is all ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... actually exists; whereas it is given to it as to poetry "to make," to create—all that is required is a certain connexion with the real, sometimes exceedingly slight, which shall be sufficiently delusive for present purpose. The agile mind can pass over a deep and formidable chasm upon a slender thread; and when over, is too much occupied in the new region to turn back and measure the means of passage. We suspect our author's view of nature ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... in to try to find a man I wanted to see. He was one of those able seamen who, in a watch, are a perfect blessing to a young officer. I could perhaps remember here and there among the shadows of my sea-life a more daring man, or a more agile man, or a man more expert in some special branch of his calling—such as wire splicing, for instance; but for all-round competence, he was unequalled. As character he was sterling stuff. His name was Anderson. He had a fine, quiet ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... DESBOROUGH'S vivacious attack upon the Cippenham Motor Depot, it is doubtful whether anyone could have enabled the Government to wriggle out of the demand for an independent inquiry. At any rate Lord INVERFORTH was insufficiently agile. The innumerable type-written sheets which he read out laboriously may have contained a complete reply to Lord DESBOROUGH'S main allegations, even if they included no refutation of the stones of the bricks imported by the hundred thousand into a district containing some of the best brick-earth ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... was a change. Malta had seen the second dog, and she knew she must get rid of the mastiff. With an agile bound she sprang on his back, dug her sharp claws in, till he put his tail between his legs and ran up the street, howling with pain. She rode a little way, then sprang off and ran up the ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... all ablaze. The whole world was there. Under a balcony stood a party of peasants. Of this group, two were somewhat aside. One of these was tall, dark, a fair type of Southern Italian; the other small, agile and graceful, dressed in a fresh contadina costume, with her brown hair braided down her shoulders. She seemed excited, and as the crowd pressed nearer she would draw back half-fearfully. "Lisetta," she whispered, ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... advertising card of a boarding-house and offered to take them there. They quite innocently accepted his invitation, but an hour later, finding themselves in a locked room, they became frightened and realized they had been duped. Fortunately the two agile country girls had no difficulty in jumping from a second-story window, but upon the street they were of course much too frightened to speak to anyone again and wandered about for hours. The house from which they had escaped bore the sign "rooms to rent," and they therefore carefully ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... the box-seat of the victoria, his rough-caste crumpled countenance sun-baked to the solid ruddy brown of the soil of his own vineyard, followed her movements with approving glances.—For she was fresh as an opening rose the young English Mees, and though most elegant, how agile, how evidently strong! ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... emerged, climbing with some difficulty over the steep step of the track, his tail rattling down behind him like a length of thick cable. Once on the ground he became quite agile, moving with a sort of oddly graceful prance on his powerful legs. He approached, his attention centered on Kieran. But he observed the amenities, placing one delicate hand on his breast and making ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... the king; and all his comrades together with him. The queen, as I think, had come to sit in the tent because she wished to see the new knights arrive. Well might one esteem them fair; but fairest of all was Alexander with the agile body. They are now knights; for the present I say no more about them. Henceforth shall I speak of the king and of the host which came to London. The greater part of the folk held to his side; but there is a great multitude of them against him. Count Engres musters his troops, ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... no sensible parent would ever have bought those ears," whispered Mrs. Pendleton to Mrs. Belding. "They must have been a gift," for those organs on the agile Grace ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... City, chaste MINERVA's pride, There are, whose endless numbers have pourtray'd; They, to each tree that spreads its branches wide, Prefer the [4]tawny Olive's scanty shade. Many, in JUNO's honor, sing thy meads, Green ARGOS, glorying in thy agile steeds; Or opulent MYCENE, whose proud fanes The blood of murder'd ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... large, heavy man, he danced as lightly as any ballerina; and he and Tessa Barclay did a Paraguayan dance together, with a leisurely and agile perfection of execution that elicited uproarious demonstrations from ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... was interesting. The secutor, of course, could have disposed of his antagonist in a trice, if he had only been able to reach him. But a clumsy, heavy secutor never could reach a nimble, agile retiarius. The one Brinnaria was watching was more than usually light- footed and skipped about his adversary in a taunting, teasing way. Again and again he cast his net intentionally too short, merely to show how ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... him on the floor when I heard the slow stride of the officer of the beat. He had turned into the paved alley-way, and was advancing with measured, ponderous steps. Fortunately I am an agile man, and thus I was able to get to the outer door, reverse the key and turn it from the inside, before I heard him ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... The agile little ex-jockey kept running in front of him, hitting him on the nose and nimbly escaping—in spite of his wing-like, wasted arm, quicker than his pursuer ... that smashed through, while ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... seeking their hue, they held the observer's gaze in mocking languor, and cheated the inquisitive coxcomb of his quest, the while the disdainful lips curved laughingly and so bewildered him, he forgot the customary phrases and stood staring like a nonny. Her footstep fell so light, she was so agile and quick, the superstitious dwarf swore she was but a creature of the night and held surreptitious meetings with all the familiar spirits of demonology. As she never denied the uncanny imputation, but only displayed her small white teeth ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... almost guiltily, and there indeed he was. He had been in the cathedral with two French officers, and in another instant the trio would have turned a corner. Our look and the priest's gesture told the bishop that we were speaking of him. He paused, and Mr. Beckett jumped out of the stopped car, agile as a boy in ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... ancient navies was to bring the prow of the vessel, which was fortified by long projecting beaks of brass, to bear upon the sides of its antagonist, and this, the swell of the sea causing the Persian galleys to veer about unwieldily, the agile ships of the Greeks were ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... any basis of fact. It is fond of small birds and field mice and is what may be called a meadow snake. When frightened it speeds away at an incredible rate. The Coachwhip Snake, found in the southeast, is even more agile than the Black Snake, and like that serpent, will eat smaller snakes. It gets its name from its slender structure and similarity of the appearance of its scale distribution to a plaited whip. The Striped Racer of the southwestern states is ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... His agile eye presently fastened itself upon me, as a stranger. He came nearer and nearer to me, as he paced rapidly to and fro, and was evidently several times on the point of addressing me, but, looking over his ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... hope remained—that the agile and daring Neale, with his eye of a mountaineer and his genius for estimating distance and grade, might run a line ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... ayash tyucotz. The association whose name has been selected as the title of our story is now before us fully represented, arrayed in its appropriate dress and engaged in the discharge of some of its official duties. The clowns, too, the most agile and sprightly, in a word the most amusing of the company, are only an exaggeration of the rest, whose joint task it is to diffuse mirth, joy, buoyancy, delight, throughout the whole tribe. The jesters are also ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... its spoil and captives, proceeded to make its way back slowly and painfully to the Euphrates, Odenathus, who had collected a large force—in part from the Syrian villages, in part from the wild tribes of Arabia—made his appearance in the field. His light and agile horsemen hovered about the Persian host, cut off their stragglers, made prize of much of their spoil, and even captured a portion of the seraglio ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... made no answer; but a slight, agile man with sly eyes looked up from a nearby table, "What ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... mirror in Marcy's room performing his toilet. The door, which was behind and a little to one side of him, was open, and the lower end of the long hall was plainly reflected upon the polished surface of the looking-glass. So was the slim, agile figure of the small darkey who slipped out of one of the rooms, ran along the hall with the speed of the wind, and disappeared down the ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... in fact, a Parisianized provincial inoculated with Parisine, just as certain sick persons are with morphine, judging men by their wit, actions by their results, women by the size of their gloves; as sceptical as the devil, wicked in speech and considerate in thought, still agile at forty, claiming even that this is man's best time—the period of fortune and gallantry—sliding along in life and taking things as he found them, wisely considering that a day's snow or rain lasts no longer than a ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Junior came honestly by his passion for hunting. In a moment he was floundering through the bushes with his son and Merton. In such pursuit of game my boy had the advantage, for he was as agile as a cat. But a moment or two elapsed before he caught up with the rabbit, and threw himself upon it, then rose, white as a snow-man, shouting triumphantly and holding the little ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... been passed without brothers or sisters, there had been given her, according to the well-known custom of plantation life, a little quadroon slave-maid as her constant and only playmate. This maid began early to show herself in many ways remarkable. While yet a child she grew tall, lithe, agile; her eyes were large and black, and rolled and sparkled if she but turned to answer to her name. Her pale yellow forehead, low and shapely, with the jet hair above it, the heavily pencilled eyebrows and long lashes below, the faint red tinge that blushed with ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... unpractised eye, particularly at that season when deer are 'in the red.' Indeed the vicuna is more deer-like than any other animal except the antelope—much more so than its congeners the llama, alpaca, or guanaco. Its form is slender, and its gait light and agile, while the long tapering neck and head add to the resemblance. The colour, however, is peculiarly its own, and any one accustomed to seeing the vicuna can distinguish the orange-red of its silky coat at a glance, and at a great distance. So peculiar is it, that in Peru the 'Colour de vicuna' ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... closed when the triongulins grouped round the egg engage in the inevitable and salutary combat of natural selection. The stronger, more agile, will seize its adversary beneath the cuirass, and, raising it aloft, will maintain it for hours in its mandibles until the victim expire. But, while this fight is in progress, another of the triongulins, that had either no rival to meet, or already has conquered, takes possession of ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... so far as I can remember. We were going at the pace which I have just told, and my outriders, who rode in advance, were clearing the way, as is customary. A vine-grower, laden with sticks, chose this moment to cross the road, thinking himself, no doubt, agile enough to escape my six horses. The cries of my people were useless. The imprudent fellow took his own course, and my postilions, in spite of their efforts with the reins, could not prevent themselves from passing over his body; the wheels followed ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... They were on the open moors now, following a path, little more than a sheep track, that led under the crag of Glyder Garmon. Except for an occasional tiny whitewashed farm they were far from human habitations, and the only signs of life were the small agile Welsh sheep, the half-wild ponies that grazed on these uplands during the summer months, and a pair of carrion crows that wheeled away, croaking hoarsely at the sight of intruders. On and on over what seemed an interminable reach of coarse ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... the floor, by slipping under the window-sash, raised just high enough for him to squeeze through. He had half turned on the wide ledge, so as to get his legs through first and land on his knees; therefore, he was seized at a disadvantage. The most agile gymnast could not have pulled himself back from under the window-frame, balanced his body steadily again on the stone ledge outside, and have begun to crawl away toward safety, all in those few seconds before the cry and its answer. ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... it, Miguel, the quadroon proprietor, threw himself upon him and tried to pitch him into the street. But Sach, although a small man, was both agile and ferocious. He twisted out of the grasp of the huge quadroon and turned, raising the knife. As he did so, the Algerian deftly kicked it from his grasp and left Sach to face Miguel unarmed. Screaming with rage, he sprang ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... forget my injuries, and rode on with the little troop, watching the agile way in which Joeboy made his way forward, well in advance and ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... of footsteps, too, was equally distinct. Two persons were moving about the room, passing and repassing the door, one of them a light, agile person, and the other ponderous and somewhat awkward. Smith's voice went on incessantly with its odd, monotonous droning, now loud, now soft, as he crossed and re-crossed the floor. The other person ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... will become an agile chamois hunter in a few years? He has every disposition for it!" said his uncle, and instructed him how to hold a rifle, how to aim and to fire. In the hunting season, he took him with him in the mountains and made him drink the warm chamois blood, which prevents the hunter from becoming dizzy. ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... What's thine errand now? What awful pleasure do thine eyes bespeak, What shame is in thy childish cheek, What terror on thy brow? Is this my Psyche, once so pale and meek? Thy body's sudden beauty my sight old Stings, like an agile bead of boiling gold, And all thy life looks troubled like a tree's Whose boughs wave many ways in one great breeze.' 'O Pythoness, to strangest story hark: A dreadful God was with me in the dark—' 'How many a Maid— Has never told me that! And thou'rt afraid—' 'He'll come no more, Or come but ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... sur les planches, se brisa, et le contrecoup fut si violent, que le fusil chappa des mains de Tamango. Il tait sans dfense, et Ledoux, avec un sourire de joie diabolique, levait le bras et allait le percer; mais Tamango tait aussi agile que les panthres de son pays. Il s'lana dans les bras de son adversaire, et lui saisit la main dont il tenait son sabre. L'un s'efforce de retenir son arme, l'autre de l'arracher. Dans cette lutte furieuse, ils tombent tous les deux; mais l'Africain avait ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... who now had the cabin door wide open. Away went girl and woman up the low stairs. But Dora was the more agile of the two, and terror lent ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... the bull clutched madly for support as he toppled sidewise, and then with an agile movement succeeded in projecting himself toward another limb a few feet below. Here he found a hand-hold, quickly righted himself, and as quickly clambered upward to be revenged upon Tarzan, but the ape-man was otherwise engaged and did not wish to be interrupted. He was explaining again ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a proposition." In current slang almost anything is a proposition. A difficult enterprise is "a tough proposition," an agile wrestler, "a slippery ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... proportion by which he transcends other writers as to extent and as to subtility of thinking, but also as to elevation and sublimity. Milton was not an extensive or discursive thinker, as Shakspeare was; for the motions of his mind were slow, solemn, sequacious, like those of the planets; not agile and assimilative; not attracting all things within its own sphere; not multiform: repulsion was the law of his intellect—he moved in solitary grandeur. Yet, merely from this quality of grandeur, unapproachable grandeur, his intellect demanded a larger infusion ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... an article like that.' Had you been as hard upon me as you were amiable, I try to tell myself I should have been no blinder to the merits of your notice. For I saw there, to admire and to be very grateful for, a most sober, agile pen; an enviable touch; the marks of a reader, such as one imagines for one's self in dreams, thoughtful, critical, and kind; and to put the top on this memorial column, a greater readiness to describe the author criticised than ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... possibilities. On the best supposition the ship had gone inshore too far north or south, and now lay somewhere out at sea hooting and heaving the lead, without daring to move. One could imagine the captain storming and the sailors hurrying here and there, lithe and agile as cats. Stop!—Half-speed ahead! Stop!—Half-speed astern! The first engineer would be at the engine himself, gray with nervous excitement. Down in the engine-room, where they knew nothing at all, they ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... superabundant. There various species of birds flew and fluttered by the thousands, deafening us with their calls. Crowding the rocks, other fowl watched without fear as we passed and pressed familiarly against our feet. These were auks, as agile and supple in water, where they are sometimes mistaken for fast bonito, as they are clumsy and heavy on land. They uttered outlandish calls and participated in numerous public assemblies that featured much ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... terrible suspicion shot through the agile and imaginative O'Leary brain. In common with several million of his countrymen, he always voiced the first thought that popped into his head; so he lowered that member, likewise his voice, peered cunningly into Andrew Daney's ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... manager, who, of course, bought all the tickets for the company. You needn't even bother to know where you were going, except out of idle curiosity. The train came along and you got a seat by yourself on the shady side, if you could; though the men being more agile, generally got there first. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... stood on the first of the stone steps, her agile gracefulness lending itself to the ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... sheets of paper strung in groves across the ceiling, ran against the rows of cases, or knocked his hat against the tie-bars that secured the presses in position. Or the customer's eyes would follow the agile movements of a compositor, picking out type from the hundred and fifty-two compartments of his case, reading his copy, verifying the words in the composing-stick, and leading the lines, till a ream of damp paper weighted with heavy slabs, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... the idol as well as the wonder of his contemporaries; his accomplishments must have dazzled them into admiration, for he possessed all the attributes of a Crichton. Beautiful in aspect, symmetrical in proportions, graceful in carriage, capacious in intellect, erudite as a Benedictine, agile as an Acrobat, daring as Scaevola, persuasive as Alcibiades, skilled in all manly pastimes, familiar with the philosophies of the scholar and the worldling, an orator, a musician, a courtier, a linguist,—such was the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... prisoners. With one blow of his staff Jack felled the man with the club; then, turning round with a look of fury, he rushed upon the big chief with the yellow hair. Had the blow which Jack aimed at his head taken effect, the huge savage would have needed no second stroke; but he was agile as a cat, and avoided it by springing to one side, while at the same time he swung his ponderous club at the head of his foe. It was now Jack's turn to leap aside, and well was it for him that the first outburst of his blind ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... cut-outs issued nowadays, which may be bought for a small sum at any toy shop. Perhaps the best among these are "The Mirthful Menagerie," "The Agile Acrobats" and "The Magic Changelings." "The Mirthful Menagerie" when properly cut out and pasted together, make a lot of animals that have thickness as well as length and height; "The Agile Acrobats" can be made to ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... was an agile lad, and a very fair climber, for the task which he had set himself was no ordinary one. But, by wriggling more or less, Bob managed to finally get a grip on the cedar. After that it was easy work; and having succeeded ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... less than medium height, thin and agile. In all his actions he showed quickness and alertness. He had large, black, piercing eyes, his eyebrows were curved and thick; his nose straight and long; his cheeks somewhat sunken; his mouth, not particularly well formed but expressive and graceful. From early ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... Luiz swore mournfully in Spanish. Redell nodded and retired to his own office, where for an hour he sat with his head in his hands, searching his agile brain for a bright idea that would lead him out of his dilemma. Suddenly he leaped to his feet, tossed his hat to the ceiling and caught it again as ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... ity.—What is the distinction between "active" and "agile"? Ans. "Active" implies readiness to act in general; "agile" denotes a readiness to move the limbs.—Give two synonyms of "agile." Ans. Brisk, nimble.—Give the opposite ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... High School and would deliver the valedictory address at commencement. When Mary and Amos learned that news, they had indeed found the hero for their book. After that, even his cousin, Morty Sands, home from college for a time, little, wiry, agile, and with a face half ferret and half angel, even Morty, who had an indefinite attachment for glowing exuberant Laura Nesbit, felt that so long as Grant held her attention—great, hulking, noisy, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... no sense of style; her aunts were agreed on this. Her hair-ribbons rarely matched her stockings; and the stockings on agile legs like Phil's, that were constantly dancing in the eyes of all Montgomery, should, by all the canons of order and decency, present holeless surfaces to captious critics. That they frequently did not was a shame, a reproach, a disgrace, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... treatment is indicated in this kind of septic synovitis as is employed in all cases of infective synovitis and septic infection in open joints. There is to be considered, however, the fact that the young animal is more agile, a better self-nurse, and in a general way more apt to recover than is the ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... Giant, as agile as a greyhound, vanished around the curve, and Will instinctively crowded himself closely and more closely against the stone wall while the dangerous bombardment went on. The animals, their instinct still guiding them, were doing the same, and ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... care of a housewife. The mountain sheep and goats, and even huge black and cinnamon bears, fell before his unerring arrows; the fleet-footed deer never returned to their haunts from their evening drinking at the edge of the stream—their wild hearts, their agile bodies were stilled when he took aim. Smoked hams and saddles hung in rows from the cross poles of his bark lodge, and the magnificent pelts of animals carpeted his floors, padded his couch and clothed his body. He tanned the ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... the despised man-thing. Such meat was only for the old, the toothless, and the decrepit who no longer could make their kills among the fleet-footed grass-eaters. Bara, the deer, Horta, the boar, and, best and wariest, Pacco, the zebra, were for the young, the strong, and the agile, but Numa was hungry-hungrier than he ever had been in the five short years of ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... and vaulted the horse. Winona seemed to herself as easy and agile as she had ever been. She had a possible chance of winning, and her heart exulted. Then came the ladders. Up and up she went, holding herself now by her hands and now by her feet swinging for her hold. She had thought ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... affection and judgment, sulkiness and great stubbornness under training of any kind were its qualities. This was due chiefly, I think, to its inferior intelligence when compared with thoroughbred horses of other nations. The Goyaz horse was small, fairly agile, and when well cared for had a handsome shiny coat with luxuriant mane and tail. It was capable of short, noteworthy efforts, but ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... said, and she heard the irony of his voice. "I have an agile brain, my child. I can generally jump ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... ten meters, we walked amid a swarm of small fish from every species, more numerous than birds in the air, more agile too; but no aquatic game worthy of a gunshot had yet ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... she did not lose her presence of mind, and her next glance showed her that the apparition was not alarming, and was nearly as much amazed as herself. It was a tall slight young man, in a suit of shepherd's plaid, with a fair face and graceful agile form, recalling the word debonnaire as she had yesterday heard it applied. In instant conviction that this was the truant, she put out her hand by the same impulse that lighted his features with a smile of welcome, and the years of separation seemed annihilated as he exclaimed, 'My ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Alice on that particular night might be awake. She reached the foot of the window in perfect safety, saw that the ivy looked precisely as it had looked when she climbed down it, and began her upward ascent. This was decidedly more difficult than her downward one; but she was light of foot and agile. Had she not climbed dangerous crags after young eaglets at home? By-and-by she reached the window-sill. How nice! the window was partly open. She pushed it wider and got in. The room was in darkness. So much the better. She stepped softly, reached ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... called because of his curly yellow hair, his pink and white complexion, his guileless blue eyes, his slight form of rather less than medium height. But never did outward attributes more belie the inner man! The yellow curls covered a brain agile, keen, and hard; the girlish complexion neither paled nor reddened under stress; the wide blue eyes had glanced along the barrels of so many lethal weapons, that in various localities the noose yawned for him; the slender body ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... as they swiftly drove nearer Henry saw water both to right and left, and he knew that it was a little island. If they kept a straight course they would strike upon it, but with such violence that shipwreck was inevitable. Strong and agile as they were they might possibly ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... attacked, finding my grasp slipping every moment, by reason, it seemed to me, of the entire nakedness of my assailant, bitten with sharp teeth in the shoulder, neck, and chest, having every moment to protect my throat against a pair of sinewy, agile hands, which my utmost efforts could not confine—these were a combination of circumstances to combat which required all the strength, skill, ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... of the same type as the English boys that she had always seen. She thought he would be large of his age, with a fresh rosy complexion, bright eyes, an open countenance, crowned with masses of rich, curling locks. Strong and healthy, overflowing with buoyant spirits, agile and ready for active service either of work or play. Instead of which there stood before her one of small stature and thin, diminutive figure, with a pale, weary-looking face and tired eyes, which apparently did not ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... forest and across the deep waters of the bayou. The something that had stirred resolved itself into the shadowy figure of a man who came out of the heart of the forest toward its edge. He walked with a singularly agile step. His moccasined feet made no noise when they touched the ground and the bushes seemed to part for ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the nurse halted and looked up, expressing herself definitely upon the manners and customs of the twins; the boy, who appeared to be amazingly agile, seized a swinging wistaria vine, clambered up the wall, and, clinging to the outside of the iron railing, informed Scott that he would punch his head when ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... tongue. She was of diminutive size, so small that Dick Lomas, by no means a tall man, felt quite large by the side of her. Her figure was exquisite, and she had the smallest hands in the world. Her features were so good, regular and well-formed, her complexion so perfect, her agile grace so enchanting, that she did not seem a real person at all. She was too delicate for the hurly-burly of life, and it seemed improbable that she could be made of the ordinary clay from which human beings are manufactured. She had the artificial grace of those dainty, exquisite ladies ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... substantial sticks. The delight of those days is fresh in my memory. Up and on our horses at dawn, we would wander over this open country, intersected with tracks of forest. The great charm was the uncertainty of the species of game we might discover. It might be a huge eland, or an agile pig, or a herd of beautiful zebra. Now and then a certain amount of stalking was required, and on one occasion a long ride round brought us to the edge of a wood, from whence we viewed at twenty yards a procession of wildebeeste—those animals of almost mythical ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... who had now dropped his rug, was as agile and nimble as a beast of prey, and exerted all his skill and strength to free his hand. But the white man felt that to loose his hold would be to lose his life, and he held on to his grip of the blackfellow's wrist with desperate resolution. The tomahawk ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... predatory excursion through the inn had not entered into Archie's speculations as to his friend's absence. There was no mistaking the figure that had moved swiftly down the ladder. The Governor for a man of his compact build was amazingly agile and quick of foot and hand. He was now creeping along the little balcony at the third floor. He paused a moment and then vanished into an open window. The Governor had said that the Seebrook party had rooms just ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... first spring, the bear rushed furiously upon his intended victim, but the cow, for all her apparent awkwardness, was as agile as a deer. Barely eluding his rush, she went shambling up the shore at a terrific pace, plunged into the woods, and vanished. The bear checked himself at the water's edge, and turned, holding his nose high ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... all the rose and gold and white, the ocean-liner, a glittering immensity of helpless strength, was being hauled and butted into her dock, like some harpooned sea-monster, by a swarm of blunt-nosed, agile ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... of Quincy's dexterity to avoid the wild rushes and savage thrusts made by Wood. But Quincy understood every one of the boxer's secrets and was as light and agile on his feet as a cat. It was three minutes at least before Quincy got the desired opening, and then he landed a blow on Wood's nose that sent ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... the ground with long, agile jumps. For about two miles she held it to its rapid pace, and then, looking backward for the first time she saw the plateau, vast, dark and vacant, behind her, and she drew the pony down, for she had come to the stretch of broken country and realized ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the space was more open than they had anticipated: but the ground soon grew uneven, rugged, and almost precipitous, and the soil, and the interlaced trees, alike forbade any rapid motion to the horse. Don Alonzo de Pacheco, mounted on a charger whose agile and docile limbs had been tutored to every description of warfare, and himself of light weight and incomparable horsemanship—dashed on before the rest. The trees hid him for a moment; when suddenly, a wild yell was ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... replied, but as he spoke his grey eyes looked wistful. He turned for an instant and glanced at her. He noted the sunny, lovely hair, the agile, youthful, rounded figure. Once ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... vous entrez, qui le saint Evangile En sens agile annoncez, quoy qu'on gronde, Ceans aurez une refuge et bastile, Contre l'hostile erreur qui tant postille Par son faux ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... affections; that when, as time rolled on and the cares of life had erased some of the bright lines from her face, and given unwieldiness to her form, you would have the reserved right to pay obeisance to cheeks more rubicund, and figure lither and more agile, and as you demanded the last pound of patience and endurance on her part you could, with the emphasis of an Edwin Forrest or a Macready, have tapped the eccentric marriage document and have said: "It's in ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... were the signal for a fresh scream and flutter: the third young person had escaped, and was flying down the path. This called for chase and capture. She was not very agile but she knew the ground, which, outside the garden, was rocky and uneven. For a time, she had Mahony at vantage; his heart was not in the game: in cutting undignified capers among the gooseberry-bushes he felt as foolish as a performing dog. Then, however, she caught her toe in her dress and ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... be prepared for future operations. Afghanistan proved that expensive precision weapons defeat the enemy and spare innocent lives, and we need more of them. We need to replace aging aircraft and make our military more agile, to put our troops anywhere in the world quickly and safely. Our men and women in uniform deserve the best weapons, the best equipment, the best training—and they also deserve ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George W. Bush • George W. Bush
... sufficiently agile to leap from the automobile when it was still making good speed. He did not want Mr. Damon to approach too close to the burning car, for there might be an explosion. At the same time, he rather discounted ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... continued their game. It seemed to be a sort of "follow my leader," for one big strong fellow led off with a bound from one branch to another which evidently tried the nerves of his more timid and less agile companions. They all succeeded, however, from the largest even to the smallest—which last was a very tiny creature with a pink face, a sad ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... angrily pursued Schurka, Waska managed to drag the rolls out of sight behind a bush. And when a moment later Schurka joined her, they set off at full tilt to the stone tower where Martin was a prisoner, taking the rolls with them. Waska, being very agile, climbed up by the outside to the grated window, and called in ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... more to pistols, again brought their mother's heart to her mouth, and became generally ungovernable. A visit to a house of poor reputation having been discovered, their father and Mr. Du Pre set upon them with horsewhips, whereupon the graceless but agile youths ran to a neighbouring house and swarmed to the top of a stack of chimneys, whence partly by word and partly by gesticulation ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright |
