"Frail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the stucco and paint is falling or peeling everywhere; there are fissures in the walls, crumbling faades, tumbling roofs. The first stories, built with solidity worthy of an earthquake region, seem extravagantly heavy by contrast with the frail wooden superstructures. One reason may be that the city was burned and sacked during a negro revolt in 1878;—the Spanish basements resisted the fire well, and it was found necessary to rebuild only the second stories of the buildings; but the work was done cheaply and flimsily, ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... and do a number of things that were done in life, without the body. Nor can he be said to believe in the immortality of the soul. That term describes a free and unfettered existence after death, but to the savage the spirit after death has but a troubled and frail existence; it is tethered to certain spots on the earth, known to it formerly; it cannot do much, it lives under many limitations and constraints. Nor, again, can it be said that retribution after death is a true designation of ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... with his hands behind him and an atmosphere of mystery that enshrouded him like a cloak. Jimmy, having had a good night and having taken the morning's medicine without argument, had been allowed up in a roller chair. It struck Peter with a pang that the boy looked more frail day by day, ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the roads was such, and the bridge at Brown's so frail, that it was not until the 23d that we got three of my divisions behind the hills near the point indicated above Chattanooga for crossing the river. It was determined to begin the battle with these three divisions, aided by a division of Thomas's army, commanded ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... clapped their hands, and she escorted them up to the Baby Walk and back again, one at a time, putting an arm or a finger round the very frail, setting their leg right when it got too ridiculous, and treating the foreign ones quite as courteously as the English, though she could not understand ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... her eyes flashed angrily. "Do you mean to intimate that my strength and power are broken, and that I can never recover my realm? Do you mean that the Barbarina, whom the king so shamefully deserted, so cruelly humiliated, is a frail butterfly? That the purple hue of beauty has been brushed from my wings? that I can no longer charm and ravish the beholder because a rough hand has ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... ray in Miro's hands, he sprang to her rescue. The next instant he was in the grip of a similar hand, a frail, dead-white naked arm, yet endowed with the strength of steel. Struggle as he might, dash his fist as hard as he could against the unresisting blank face, he could not loose that grip. Miro watched ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... raft. The mangled carcass plunged into the water, dislodged by their efforts. But before the wolverines could follow it, the mooring vine snapped, and the river current took them. Feeling the raft sway and begin to spin, the wolverines whined, crouched in the middle of what now seemed a very frail craft. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... leaned a drill bit deeper and deeper into the steel wall of the pipe. Soon it broke through, and the slight rush of air was stopped by the insertion of a tightly fitting rubber tube. The tube terminated in a heavy rubber balloon, which surrounded a frail glass bulb. The man stood tense, one hand holding before his silica-and-steel helmeted head a large pocket chronometer, the other lightly grasping the balloon. A sneering grin was upon his face as he awaited the exact second of action—the carefully ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... be fair, and yet not fond, Or that their love were firm, not fickle still, I would not marvel that they make men bond By service long to purchase their good will; But when I see how frail those creatures are, I muse that ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... was reduced to about 14,000 men. And not all these reached France. The Russians under Wittgenstein now appeared in his rear, and one of his divisions was either destroyed or captured. Napoleon had passed over the Beresina with a part of his army by means of two frail bridges, leaving the defence of the retreat to Victor. A scene ensued which defies description. The retreating French tumbled each other into the stream, or voluntarily rushed in to escape the fire of the Russians; and in the midst of their terror one of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... desolation; the great trees, that had put on their robes of green at Balder's command, sighed as the wind wailed through them; and the sweet flowers, that waited for Balder's footstep and sprang up in all the fields to greet him, hung their frail blossoms and wept bitterly for the love and the warmth and the light that had gone out. Throughout the whole earth there was nothing but weeping, and the sound of it was like the wailing of those storms in autumn that ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... ideal of moral excellence, a standard sufficiently exalted: this was the Stoic philosophy; and thus far its pretensions were unexceptionable and perfect. But unfortunately, whilst contemplating this pure ideal of man as he ought to be, the Stoic totally forgot the frail nature of man as he is; and by refusing all compromises and all condescensions to human infirmity, this philosophy of the Porch presented to us a brilliant prize and object for our efforts, but ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... younger brother in the art of war and in hunting, and how to endure fatigue and to perform feats of agility and daring. He gave him lessons in woodcraft and forest lore, showing him how to snare the fish, to stalk the wary deer, to guide the frail canoe through treacherous rapids, and, with tightly fastened snow-shoe, to traverse the wintry waste. Tecumseh, of course, had learned to swim almost as soon as he could walk; in running it is said that he could easily out-distance his companions; while his skill with the bow excited their ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... almost the quick result of the working of some machine; and those closest to the grave's brink crouched down, and, intent as they were upon the progress of events, heeded not the damp earth that fell upon them, nor the frail brittle and humid remains of humanity that occasionally ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... at long intervals, selected by God to be the leaders of multitudes, to be performers of miracles, achieving what is impossible for the common man. They live a life of constant inspiration, as if they were not guided by their own frail judgment, but, like Moses, by the smoke and the flame of God through a desert, through suffering and success, through happiness and misfortune, until they might see before them the Promised Land of Victory, some destined to enjoy the full possession of it, and others to die with no other happiness ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... for himself, but for his wife, who was very frail and delicate in health, and ill fitted to ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... in these later days has even bored its tunnels for miles through the heart of the mountains; but all these are works done obviously in defiance of Nature, and if Europe relapsed into a state of barbarism, the eternal snow and the eternal silence would soon reassert their supremacy over the frail handiwork of man. Quite different from this is the aspect of the mountains on the north-eastern border of Italy. The countries which we now call Venetia and Istria are parted from their northern neighbours by ranges (chiefly that known as the Julian Alps) which are indeed ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... of a certain young woman caused him to fall in love. He says the love was mutual and after a courtship of three weeks they were married. The girl's mother told Charles that she had always been very frail, but he did not know that she had consumption. Within three days after they were married she died and her death caused much ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Tuscan. Just enough so that she could re-create her world from her blessed memories, without any sharp corrective senses to interfere. That, I am sure, was what she fixed her mind upon through the prolonged autumn; bending all her frail strength to turn her brain ever so little from its rigid attitude to fact. "Pretending" was no good: it maddened. If her mind would only pretend without her help! That would be heaven, until heaven really came.... You can't sympathize with her, probably, you people who have been bred up on every ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... soon gathered. 'Man the life-boat!' cried the man. "Where is Hardy?" But the foreman of the crew was not there, and the danger was imminent. Aid must be immediate, or all would be lost. The next in command sprang into the frail boat, followed by the rest, all taking their lives in their hands in the hope of saving others. O, how those on the shore watched their brave loved ones as they dashed on, now over, now almost under the waves! They reached the wreck. Like angels of deliverance they ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... Besides, they have been condemned to be destroyers for so long that perhaps they feel a secret pleasure in creating, and seeing life spring up again: the beauty of weakness has a grace and an attraction the more for those who have been the agents of unbending force; and the watching over the frail germs of life has all the charms of novelty for these old workmen ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... away a corpse, and that they will scarcely care to present to Ithobal. See, I have hidden poison in my breast, and here at my girdle hangs a dagger; are not the two of them enough to make an end of one frail life? Should they dare to touch me, I shall tell them through the bars that most certainly I shall drink the bane, or use the knife; and when they know it, they will leave me unharmed, hoping to starve me out, or trusting to chance to ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... comprehended what I had said. Her lips trembled and she attempted to say something to me, but the words stuck in her throat. Then, dropping her head on the piano, she began to weep with great sobs that shook her frail body. I tried to console her, and blurted out incoherent words of love, but this seemed only to increase her distress, and when I left her, ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... distinctly see the country beyond, and it seemed to be just the country he desired, more wooded and inviting than what he had traversed. Confidently he pushed upon the woven obstacle; but to his amazement it did not give way before him. He eyed it resentfully. How absurd that so frail a thing should venture to forbid him passage! He thrust upon it again, more brusquely, to be just as brusquely denied. The hot blood blazed to his head, and he dashed himself upon it with all his strength. The impenetrable but elastic netting yielded for ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... me. Accordingly I went with him to call upon her, and found her in the family of two aged Friends, surrounded by a circle of the same denomination. She is a woman of great delicacy of appearance, betokening very frail health. I am told that she is most of her time in a state of extreme suffering from neuralgic complaints. There was a mingled expression of enthusiasm and tenderness in her face which was very interesting. She had had, according to the language of her sect, a concern ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... youth, Pas-sionate, pale, A singing stream in a silent vale, A fairy prince in a prosy tale, Ah! there's nothing in life so finely frail ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... by a sad prerogative, as more miserable than what is most miserable in all, that capital weakness of man which regards the tenure of his enjoyments and his power to protect, even for a moment, the crown of flowers—flowers, at the best, how frail and few! —which sometimes settles upon his haughty brow. There is no end, there never will be an end, of the lamentations which ascend from earth and the rebellious heart of her children, upon this huge opprobrium of human pride—the everlasting mutabilities ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... little travelling cobbler did not know what to do for them: Lasse was so dejected and so aimless. He could not rest; he did not recover; from time to time he broke out into lamentation. He had grown very frail, and could no longer lift his spoon to his mouth without spilling the contents. If they tried to distract him, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... charged with an exploring expedition to the Polar regions. He afterwards followed him to St. Petersburg, and there, after some vicissitudes of fortune, Morok became one of the imperial couriers—these iron automata, that the least caprice of the despot hurls in a frail sledge through the immensity of the empire, from Persia to the Frozen Sea. For these men, who travel night and day, with the rapidity of lightning there are neither seasons nor obstacles, fatigues nor danger; living projectiles, they must either be broken to pieces, or reach the intended ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... my dear Bonstetten, to what a tedious length the few short moments of our life may be extended by impatience and expectation, till you had left me; nor ever knew before with so strong a conviction how much this frail body sympathizes with the inquietude of the mind. I am grown old in the compass of less than three weeks, like the Sultan in the Turkish tales, that did but plunge his head into a vessel of water and take it out again, as the standers by affirmed, at the command of a Dervish, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... eye is upon him. He penciled his path Whose omniscient notice the frail fledgling hath. Though lightnings be lurid and earthquakes may shock, He rides on the whirlwind or ...
— Poems • Mary Baker Eddy
... midst of slave institutions, who should show forth in their culture and capabilities, to the country and to mankind, that the race was fit for something higher than the degradation which rested upon them. The amazing energy with which this frail woman prosecuted her work is well known to those who took knowledge of her career. She visited the Colored people of her district from house to house, and breathed a new life into them pertaining to the education of their daughters. Her correspondence with ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... shower of rain, accompanied by a slight flurry of wind, set him to trembling, as he remembered the fury of the squalls in those latitudes. He felt that his frail shallop would ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... from Mount Misery (as they named the inhospitable promontory where they landed) to civilisation on the island of Chiloe? With my maps I can follow their every footstep, with my chart I may visit each inlet that their frail canoe entered. Nor need I refer to these aids whenever I may turn to the volume again, for here (he unfolded a beautifully drawn map bound at the end of the volume) I have copied a chart which shows with a red line ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... she had one of the most memorable evenings of her life when he explained to her something of the science of navigation and made her see how their great greyhound of the ocean, just like the first frail barks of the Tyrians, picked its way across trackless wastes of sea by the infallible guidance of "the friendly stars." All this particularly interested Mary Alice because of Some One who lived much in the open and spent many and many a night on the ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... in the things of this life," said the divine, speaking in a hollow, sepulchral voice. "Thrice have I this day held forth in my Master's service, and fainted not; still it is prudent to help this frail tenement of clay, for, surely, 'the laborer ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... his experience. The wonders of this morning's wind and sun and clouds were expressed in a flow of words so right and sentences so perfectly balanced that they would have seemed pedantic had they not been clearly as spontaneous as the wordless notes of a bird in song. The frail, sweet voice rose and fell, lingered, quickened, in all manner of trills and roulades. That he himself could not hear it, seemed to me the greatest loss his deafness inflicted on him. One would have ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... prophesied favorably for the new-comer, who was small and feeble, and not over-welcome in that crowded household. They named him Samuel, after his paternal grandfather, and added Langhorne for an old friend—a goodly burden for so frail a wayfarer. But more appropriately they called him "Little Sam," or "Sammy," which clung to him through the ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of service is open to all, nay, we stumble on to the path daily without knowing it. Ivan Tourguenieff, in one of his beautiful poems in prose, says, 'I was walking in the street; a beggar stopped me—a frail old man. His inflamed, tearful eyes, blue lips, rough rags, disgusting sores—oh, how horribly poverty had disfigured the unhappy creature! He stretched out to me his red, swollen, filthy hands; he groaned and whimpered for alms. I felt ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... frail craft in which to undertake such a journey as ours, being only some two feet six inches beam, by about sixteen inches deep, and twenty feet long; hollowed out of a single log. She had no thwarts, and the paddlers ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... its course. She is also a child of the air, and with the swiftness of the chamois she can reach the snow-covered mountain tops, where the boldest mountaineer has to cut footsteps in the ice to ascend. She will sail on a frail pine-twig over the raging torrents beneath, and spring lightly from one iceberg to another, with her long, snow-white hair flowing around her, and her dark-green robe glittering like the waters of the deep Swiss lakes. "Mine is the power to seize and crush," she cried. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... "See here, in these several writings one and the same Holy Spirit, now sanctifying a chosen vessel, and fitting it for the reception of heavenly truths proceeding immediately from the mouth of God, and elsewhere working in frail and fallible men like ourselves, and like ourselves instructed by God's word and laws?" The first Christian martyr had the form and features of an ordinary man, nor are we taught to believe that these features were miraculously transfigured into superhuman symmetry; ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... As, for example, 'fragile' and 'frail,' 'intension' and 'intention,' 'providential' and 'prudential,' and many ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... English flowers. Margaret and he stooped lovingly over them, and it was wonderful to see how Peter's face softened, and how gently the great rough hands, that had been all day handling smoked geese and fish, touched these frail, trembling blossoms. ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... golden light and laughing faces fair and faint as the people of a rosy dream. Or where the floating mass so imperfectly obstructs the color of the firmament a slender foot and fairy limb resting too heavily upon the frail support may be thrust through and suddenly withdrawn, while longing fancy follows them in vain. Yonder, again, is an airy archipelago where the sunbeams love to linger in their journeyings through ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... off into the sea and drowned. They floated round me, but I moved about in the ship until the bottom and the sides had broken away from each other and the mast had snapped off at its base. I took the mast, which had a thong of bull's-hide round it, and tied it to the keel. I took my seat upon this frail craft, and the ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... 'fancy'; 'triumph' and 'trump' (the winning card{105}); 'happily' and 'haply'; 'waggon' and 'wain'; 'ordinance' and 'ordnance'; 'shallop' and 'sloop'; 'brabble' and 'brawl'{106}; 'syrup' and 'shrub'; 'balsam' and 'balm'; 'eremite' and 'hermit'; 'nighest' and 'next'; 'poesy' and 'posy'; 'fragile' and 'frail'; 'achievement' and 'hatchment'; 'manoeuvre' and 'manure';—or with the dropping of the first syllable: 'history' and 'story'; 'etiquette' and 'ticket'; 'escheat' and 'cheat'; 'estate' and 'state'; and, ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... think. It is not his chief duty, nor his only duty, nor his duty all the time. But the normal man is not intended to go through this world without learning what happiness means. If he does so he misses something that he needs to complete his nature and perfect his experience. 'Tis a poor, frail plant that can not endure the wind and the rain and the winter's cold. But is it a good plant that will not respond to the quickening touch of spring and send out its sweet odours in the embracing warmth of the summer night? Suppose that you had made a house ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... must be stepping itself still. Isn't there any heaven where old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves? Isn't there any Nirvana pervaded by the faint thrilling of instruments that have fallen into the dust of wormwood but that yet had frail, tremulous, ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... not Hoodwinked with rustic marvels, I do think There are more things in the grove, the air, the flood, Yea, and the charnelled earth, than what wise man, Who walks so proud as if his form alone Filled the wide temple of the universe, Will let a frail mind say. I'd write i' the creed O' the sagest head alive, that fearful forms, Holy or reprobate, do page men's heels; That shapes, too horrid for our gaze, stand o'er The murderer's dust, and for revenge glare up, Even till the stars weep ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... always been a frail, delicate boy. As he was riding one evening, a strange, wild-looking being sprang out of the darkness and seized the bridle of his horse, crying, "Fly, fly! you are betrayed." The astonished youth after the shock, became melancholy; then was suddenly seized with a fit of frenzy, in which ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... "Characters of Men." In 1734 followed the Fourth Epistle of the "Essay on Man;" and in 1735 the "Characters of Women," addressed to Martha Blount, the woman whom Pope loved, though he was withheld by a frail body from marriage. Thus the two works were, in fact, produced together, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... word or action. The sky was bright with stars; the land lay low and dark against the horizon; the sea whispered round the ship and sparkled with golden phosphorescence. Over our heads the masts towered to slender black shafts, which at that lofty height seemed far too frail to support the great network of rigging and spars and close-furled canvas. Dwarfed by the tall masts, by the distances of the sea, and by the vastness of the heavens, the small black figures stood silent on the quarter-deck. ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... or deform'd; Thus her report can never there be true Where Fancy cheats the intellectual eye With glaring colours and distorted lines. Is there a man to whom the name of death Brings terror's ghastly pageants conjured up Before him, death-bed groans, and dismal vows, And the frail soul plunged headlong from the brink Of life and daylight down the gloomy air, 430 An unknown depth, to gulfs of torturing fire Unvisited by mercy? Then what hand Can snatch this dreamer from the fatal toils Which Fancy ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... One day Hortense and Adele were ascending a mountain, whose summit commanded a very magnificent view. Their path led over a deep, dark, craggy ravine, which was swept by a mountain torrent, foaming and roaring over the rocks. Alpine firs, casting a gloomy shade, clung to its sides. A frail rustic bridge crossed the chasm. Hortense with light step passed over in safety. Madame Broc followed. A piercing shriek was heard, followed by a crash. As Hortense turned round she saw that the bridge had ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... vanquishment he at least was feeling its effect. For years his writings had made him the target for a world of women, and many men. The men he had regarded with indifferent toleration. The women were his life—the "frail and ineffective creatures" who gave spice to his great adventure, and made his days anything but monotonous. He was not unchivalrous. Deep down in his heart—and this was his own secret—he did not even despise women. But he had seen their weaknesses ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... I that did it, but indeed it was so poor and frail a note, compared with such as I am wont to furnish, yt in sooth I was ashamed to call the weakling mine in so august a presence. It was nothing—less than nothing, madam—I did it but to clear my nether throat; but had I come prepared, then had I delivered something worthy. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... end? Well, I can't tell it any better than the real thing—a story recorded by James Madison from the final moments of the Constitutional Convention, September 17th, 1787. As the last few members signed the document, Benjamin Franklin—the oldest delegate at 81 years and in frail health—looked over toward the chair where George Washington daily presided. At the back of the chair was painted the picture of a Sun on the horizon. And turning to those sitting next to him, Franklin observed that artists found it difficult in their painting ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... But no, I am not of good faith with myself: the prince royal's position dazzled me. Ah! how merciful is heaven to cover our innermost thoughts with an impenetrable veil! Alas! God pardons the defects in our frail humanity sooner than we ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... however, is one of the human passions which closely approximates to the dignity of an irresistible force. It drives the frail flesh of weak women to deeds of heroic measure. Momaya was neither frail nor weak, physically, but she was a woman, an ignorant, superstitious, African savage. She believed in devils, in black magic, and in witchcraft. To Momaya, the jungle was inhabited by far more terrifying things than lions ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a sweet-faced, frail little woman, a member of the Mennonite Church. She wore the plain garb adopted by the women of that sect—the tight-fitting waist covered by a pointed shoulder cape, the full skirt and the white cap upon smoothly combed, parted hair. Her red-haired children were ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... even fine linen or cotton, and, afterwards, wound with thicker linen or several turns of thread, so as to hinder the points or spines from falling. The madrepores of a certain volume should be fixed by wire to the bottom of the box in which they are placed, but these frail substances would arrive in better order, if each specimen was placed ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... remained within, nor took her flight— Beneath the vessel's verge concealed from light; Issued the rest, in quick dispersion buried, And woes innumerous roamed the breathing world: With ills the land is full, with ills the sea; Diseases haunt our frail humanity; Self-wandering through the noon, at night they glide Voiceless—a voice the power all-wise denied: Know, then, this awful truth: it is not given To elude the wisdom of ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... the just determination of the supreme Being, but a precaution against future offenses of the same kind." The exercise of retributive justice belongs exclusively to the infallible Ruler of the world, and not to frail, erring man, who himself so greatly stands in need of mercy. Hence, the right to punish a transgressor on the ground that such punishment is deserved, has not been transferred from the individual to civil society: first, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... that embroidered books are extremely delicate, but this is not so; they will stand far more wear than would be imagined from their frail appearance. The embroidered work actually protects the satin, and such signs of wear as are visible are often found rather in the satin itself, where unprotected, than in the work upon it. In many cases a peculiar appearance, which is often mistaken for wear, is seen ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... night in December, and the green logs as they blazed and crackled on the Cotter's hearth, were rendered more delightful, more truly comfortable, by the contrast with the icy showers of snow and sleet which swept against the frail casement, making ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... Massachusetts. These are idle speculations, and yet, when we reflect that Oliver Cromwell was on the point of embarking for America when he was prevented by the king's officers, we may, for the nonce, "let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise," and fancy by how narrow a chance Paradise Lost missed being written in Boston. But, as a rule, the members of the literary guild are not quick to emigrate. They like the feeling of an old and rich civilization about them, a state of society which America ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... a simplicity, so that the greetings were as commonplace as if occurring in a crowded street. Thirty years had passed since the explorer had dedicated himself to the task of making the world know Africa, and he was an old man, worn-out, bent, frail, and sorrow-stricken. But courage was unfaltering, faith undimmed, power unabated. Had Stanley been a few months later, much of his work would have been lost, and his death even more pitiful than it was—yet he could smile ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... exposure, and fatigue did their worst for her weak body. Religious enthusiast, exalted and impressionable, a natural mystic, she had probably always been, far more so in temperament, indeed, than her husband; but although she left home on that journey a frail and heartsick woman, she returned a different creature altogether, blurred and confused in mind, with ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... few moments, the boy came upon a canoe, which he shoved into the water, and, springing into it, took his seat in front. Oonomoo was scarce a second behind him. The son pointed down-stream, and, dipping deep the paddle, the Huron sent the frail vessel forward at a velocity that was truly wonderful. A half-mile at this rate, and a tributary of the creek—a brook, merely—was reached, up which the canoe shot with such speed, that a few minutes later it ran almost its entire ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... sky was strangely illuminated. But the Crusaders were undaunted by the storm. They even deemed it an omen of success when a fiery comet flamed across the heavens. Silently, stealthily, the appointed soldiers crept up close to the wall; but when they found the frail rope-ladder, let down by Phirous, dangling against the wall, a strange fright seized upon them. Not one made a move toward it; all hesitated to dare the ascent. But Bohemond, as daring as he was crafty and ambitious, soon shamed his men ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... the figure over which I was bending, and looked first at the still tumultuous sea, and then at the gigantic frame of the minister. When we had made that frail raft no swimmer could have lived in that shock of waves; now there was a chance for all, and for the minister, with his great strength, the greatest I have ever seen in any man, a double chance. I took her from ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... getting on dad's nerves," thought Tom, as he took a seat. The elder Mr. Swift had been quite ill, and it was thought for a time that he would have to give up helping Tom. But there had been a turn for the better, and the aged inventor had again taken his place in the laboratory, though he was frail. ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... foregoes his box at Turnham Green, To pick up health and shells with Amphitrite, Pleasure's frail daughters trip along the Steyne, Led by the dame the Greeks ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... housie, too, in ruin! Its silly wa's the win's are strewin'! [frail] An' naething, now, to big a new ane, O' foggage green! An' bleak December's winds ensuin', Baith snell ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... call these scenes by whatever name it will; we have no desire to change the appropriateness, nor to lessen the moral tenor of southern society. It nurtures a frail democracy, and from its bastard offspring we have a tyrant dying by the hand of a tyrant, and the spoils of tyranny serving the good growth of the Christian church. Money constructs opinions, pious as well as political, and even changes the feelings of good men, who ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... supper, let the pan fall from her hand. For the moment Kirstie thought she would swoon. But helping her to a seat in the armchair, the brave lass bade her be comforted—it could be naught but some roystering drunkard—and herself went downstairs and unbarred the door. At the sight of her—so frail a girl—quietly confronting them with a demand to know their business, the crowd fell back a step or two, and in that space of time by God's providence arrived Peter Lawler, the constable, a very religious man, who gave the ringleaders some advice and warning they were ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... together, and caulked with a species of moss which grows on a particular shrub. There are vast numbers of these barks all through the archipelago, which they manage very dexterously both with sails and oars, and the natives often venture as far as Conception in these frail vessels. They are much addicted to fishing, and procure vast quantities and many kinds of excellent fish on the sea around their shores. Of these they dry large quantities, which they export to Chili and Peru, and the other countries ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... exerted by one frail woman, a woman not of noble birth, with only beauty, sweetness of disposition, amiability, goodness, and brilliant accomplishments as her weapons! It was not a case of the moth and the flame, but the operation ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... The frail Mrs. Hallowell opened a school for girls in the front room over the schoolroom, and Hallowell lectured to her scholars. Money being very scarce with them at this time, they could not afford two stoves, so ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... insidious feeling which binds woman so strongly to man, by feeling additional security in finding herself under his care; and, for the first time since leaving Fort Stanwix, she was entirely at her ease in the frail bark in which she travelled. As the other canoe kept quite near her own, however, and the Pathfinder, by floating at her side, was most in view, the conversation was principally maintained with that person; Jasper seldom speaking unless addressed, and constantly exhibiting ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... creation. So far from supposing man to be even approximately coeval with it, the emphatic reproof of human presumption is couched in the remarkable words, "Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth?" In majestic contrast with the frail human race, Moses glances at the primeval monuments of God's antiquity, as though by them he could form some faint conceptions even of eternity, and sings, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... the purpose of removing, by its own strong scent, the bad smell of the spot where the bodies were burnt, and also of the bodies themselves. It was also said to be so used, because, when once its bark is cut, it withers, and is consequently emblematical of the frail ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Naomi, daily handling sick little Three Legs, might have caught the malady that first darkened the vision of the poor little animal, and then caused the frail life to flicker ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... one of Robert Browning's prominent characteristics. Elizabeth Browning's mind was as much occupied with spiritism as when Hawthorne met her two years previously at Monckton Milnes's breakfast; an unfortunate proclivity for a person of frail physique and delicate nerves. Neither did she live very long after this. Her husband and Hawthorne both cordially disapproved of these mesmeric practices; but Mrs. Browning could not be prevented from talking on the subject, and ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... where the lady Edith hid her woe, and there he showed her that God was love, hard though it was sometimes for the frail flesh to see it; and he bade her look to the Divine Sufferer of Whom it is said, "In all their afflictions He was afflicted;" and so by his gentle ministrations he brought calm to the troubled breast, and it seemed as if one had said to the waves ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... Davy, it ain't so. I've seed hundreds die—yes, hundreds—strong men, babes—women and little tots, strong ones, and weak and frail ones, given to tears, but I've never seed one die yet sheddin' a single tear, let alone blubberin' like a calf. It's agin nature. Davy, dyin' men don't weep. It's always all right with 'em. It's the one moment of all their lives, often, that everything is all right, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... seaman, from a distant course, Filled full of far-fetched wares his frail ship's hold: At home, the strong bull stood unyoked; the horse Endured no bridle in the age ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... to grant. At the present writing crowns in the Orient are not fashionable. As I look out of my window, the salmon-pink walls of the Forbidden City rise in the dusty distance. Under the flaming yellow roof of the Palace is a frail and frightened little six-year-old boy—the ruler of millions—who, if he knew and could, would gladly exchange his priceless crown for freedom and a ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... is slow to get him up again. Babies are such frail little things; a breath can send them up or down. Of ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... and waited till I had given it my reverential kiss, and then he called aloud, and another old man came out of the opening which is in the top of the Ark, and climbed painfully down by the battens which are fixed on its sides. He was a man I had never seen before, hoary, frail, and emaciated, and he and Zaemon were then the only two remaining Priests who had been raised to the highest degree known to our Clan, and who alone had knowledge of the highest secrets and powers ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... climbed into that frail shell, our chosen cab, and I opened the Dutch phrase-book which I bought in London. I wanted to find out what hotel was nearest to the lair of our boat, but in that wild moment I could discover nothing more ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... then the hope I shall forget At length, my lord, Pieria?—put away For your so passing sake, this mouth of clay These mortal bones against my body set, For all the puny fever and frail sweat Of human love,—renounce for these, I say, The Singing Mountain's memory, and betray The silent lyre that hangs upon me yet? Ah, but indeed, some day shall you awake, Rather, from dreams of ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... see by what they could be caused; but when he found that they were occasioned only by the rise or fall of a house of cards which she was building, he internally said, "Pshaw!" and afterwards kept his eyes fixed upon his book. Sir James continued to serve the fair architect with the frail materials for her building—her Folly, as she called it—and for his services he received much encouragement of smiles, and many marked commendations. Mrs. Hungerford called upon Mr. Barclay to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... willing—nay, anxious—to do so, but just at the point of accomplishment their little failings of blindness and perversity come in. They are determined to retain their husbands' complete allegiance, but their devices and contrivances are mostly dull blunders. Considering what a frail tie, based on illusion, binds the sexes, my wonder as a bachelor is that men are, as a rule, as faithful to their wives as they seem ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... tint, tawny hair, and bluish eyes, whilst Irene's was a warm complexion, her hair of dark-brown, and her eyes of hazel. As efficient human beings, there could be no comparison between them; Olga looked frail, despondent, inclined to sullenness, whilst Irene impressed one as in perfect health, abounding in gay vitality, infinite in helpful resource. Straight as an arrow, her shoulders the perfect curve, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... churches; many live there and fasten their nests to the stones of the nave; they are never disturbed. When it rains, they all gather in the church, but as soon as the sun pierces the clouds and the rain-spouts dry up, they repair to the trees again. So that during the storm two frail creatures often enter the blessed house of God together; man to pray and allay his fears, and the bird to wait until the rain stops and to warm the naked bodies ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... tired, with two Wonga-Wongas and three iguanas at our saddles. I had just informed my Blackfellow, that I wished to encamp, even without water, when some old broken sheets of bark, remains of the frail habitations of the natives, caught my eye; a dry water-hole, though surrounded with green grass and sedges, showed that they had formerly encamped there, with water. This water-hole was found to be one of a chain of ponds extending along the ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... of Heaven shines brightly o'er The wave cerulean and the yellow shore; As, o'er those waves, a boat like light'ning flies, Slender, and frail in form, and small in size. —Frail though it be, 'tis manned by hearts as brave As e'er have tracked the pathless ocean's wave,— High o'er their heads celestial diamonds grace The jewelled robe of night, and Luna's face Divinely fair! O goddess ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... service and the sermon was on hidden sins. Lilian wondered if hers was undue pride, the desire to rise above her station? She glanced at her mother. The tears were coursing silently down her sunken cheeks. Was she missing the love a daughter ought to give? She looked so frail and delicate that the girl's heart went out to her as it never ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... stone still rose sheer from the depths of the whirling pool, and the blasting had obliterated every trace of their previous operations. They were compelled to make new approaches, and they toiled, drenched with the icy spray, on frail, slung stages, cutting sockets for the logs to hold a heavier platform for the little boring-machine Nasmyth had purchased in Victoria. When the platform was built, the working face was narrow, and the rock of a kind that yielded very slowly to the cutting-tool. They had ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... so much surprised at her grandfather's doting fondness—a fondness entirely reciprocated, it seemed, by the little girl. It struck me, albeit, that it was a perilous thing for a man of Dutton's vehement, fiery nature to stake again, as he evidently had done, his all of life and happiness upon one frail existence. An illustration of my thought or fear occurred just after we had finished tea. A knock was heard at the outer-door, and presently a man's voice, in quarrelling, drunken remonstrance with ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... fire-places of colonial times many a wife presented herself as a burnt offering to her lord and master, the goodman of the house. The pots and kettles that ornamented the kitchen walls were implements for pre-historic giants rather than for frail women. The brass or copper kettles often holding fifteen gallons, and the huge iron pots weighing forty pounds, were lugged hither and thither by women whose every ounce of strength was needed for the too frequent pangs of child-birth. The colonists boasted of the number of generations a kettle ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... lamp gleams dull and pale,— The maidens twain are weak and frail,— But Love doth aid his votaries true, While they the massive bolts undo,— And a moment hath flown, and the warrior knight Embraceth his love ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... her, and never were ministerings more cordially bestowed, or more gratefully received and richly repaid. To visit her had always been a privilege, but the privilege was doubly precious during her last illness. To see how a frail woman, with an exquisitely nervous temperament, could deliberately and calmly bid farewell to family, pupils, and friends, and yield herself into her Father's hands, to pass through the ordeal of sickness and death, was ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... President of the United States, was born in New York City. As a boy he was frail of body, but overcame this handicap by regular exercise and outdoor life. He was always interested in animals and birds and particularly in hunting game in the western plains and mountains. In 1884 Roosevelt bought two ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... Through me the dumb shall speak; Till the deaf world's ear be made to hear The cry of the wordless weak. From street, from cage, and from kennel, From jungle and stall, the wail Of my tortured kin proclaims the sin Of the mighty against the frail. ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Elizabeth's whole time was spent in waiting upon Miss Leaf, who had seemed to grow suddenly frail and old. It might be that living without her child six days out of the seven was a greater trial than had at first appeared to the elder sister, who until now had never parted with her since she was born; or ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... the enthusiasm which greeted the arrival and departure of the 'Sunbeam' at every port, the hurry and confusion of constant travelling, and, saddest of all, the evidences of daily increasing weakness. Great also has been my admiration for the indomitable spirit which lifted the frail body above and beyond all considerations of self. I need not here call attention to Lady Brassey's devotion to the cause of suffering shown in her unceasing efforts to establish branches of the St. John ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey |
