"Lightness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of good-fellowship and admiration, if the woman was pretty; good cooking and a desire to please among the commoner ones. At four and twenty he had not given the matter much consideration. Madame Giffard was full thirty, but she looked like a girl in her lightness and grace. And he owed the memory of M. Giffard something. This step would make amends and allay a troublesome sort of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... horse the bridle, and the animal slowly and steadily commenced the descent, fixing his fore legs upon the steps, and drawing his hinder limbs carefully after him. Here it was that the lightness and steadiness of Turpin's mare was completely shown. No Alpine mule could have borne its rider with more apparent ease and safety. Turpin encouraged her by hand and word; but she needed it not. The sexton saw them, and, tracking ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sensation. This sounded reasonable, so we placed them on the ground. There they sat in a circle looking up at our performances, a solemn and mild interest expressing itself in their lugubrious countenances. A dachshund has absolutely no sense of humour or lightness of ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... lightly on my bridle hand for an instant; then he ducked sideways swiftly into the wilderness of ferny gorse at the side of the road, where I could not hope to follow him, even if the mist had not hidden him. Something in the voice, something in the lightness of the touch startled me into the knowledge. As he ducked, it came over me that this old man was Aurelia disguised, come to spy upon us, but bent, also, on giving me a warning, some little kind word of advice, at the beginning of my lord's ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... moved upon this earth a shape of brightness, A power, that from its objects scarcely drew One impulse of her being—in her lightness Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew, Which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue, To nourish some far desert: she did seem Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew, Like the bright shade of some immortal dream Which walks, when ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Andrew know he would die, but he felt that he was dying and was already half dead. He was conscious of an aloofness from everything earthly and a strange and joyous lightness of existence. Without haste or agitation he awaited what was coming. That inexorable, eternal, distant, and unknown the presence of which he had felt continually all his life—was now near to him and, by the strange lightness he ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... her to some country where Scotland Yard detectives did not flourish, and where extradition laws were of no account. Therefore she must return light, or, he suspected, empty, as there would be no time to unload. Moreover, a reason for this "lightness" must be given him, lest he should notice the ship sitting high out of the water, and suspect. And he now knew that it was really Benson that he had seen returning to Ferriby via Goole, and that Archer was ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... to a troubled sigh; Hilda put wings to her feet, and with the lightness and grace of a bird sped toward ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... consequently, what is read passes away, and takes no root in the mind. This same character shows itself in matters of conduct; it will adopt, without scruple, the most foolish, commonplace notions of boys, about what is right and wrong; it will not, and cannot, from the lightness of its mind, concern itself seriously about what is evil in the conduct of others, because it takes no regular care of its own, with reference to pleasing God; it will not do anything low or wicked, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... than pastry flour and is used for bread on that account. Pastry flour having less gluten and slightly more starch is more suitable for pastry and cake mixtures and is used wherever softness and lightness are desired. ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... it be said of a solid globe. If it were made of hollow wood, it would warp and split at the junction of its parts. A globe is made of paper and plaster. It is a beautiful combination of solidity and lightness. It is perfectly balanced upon its axis. It retains its form under every variety of temperature. Time affects it less than most other works of art. It is as durable as a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... been questioned, was referring to the conduct of the sister who had disgraced her family in outrageous and sinful terms. The Prince of Darkness and the fervid pavements of his kingdom were not to be brought into conversation with any such lightness, as though the going to the Devil were not, after all, so horrible—not something to be whispered with terror in the dark confessional of their souls. One might have imagined that Lois's very sins had endeared her to this phlegmatic older ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... better and more human than ordinary. Nor with "Menagiana," or other 'ana's—as vain and artificial as they are often foul; nor with novels and poems, long since deservedly forgotten. On the first perusal of this lighter literature, you will be charmed with the ease, grace, lightness with which everything is said. On the second, you will be somewhat cured of your admiration, as you perceive how little there is to say. The head proves to be nothing but a cunning mask, with no brains inside. Especially is this true of a book, ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... which they floated seemed like a groundwork of polished steel, in which the sun shone with dazzling brilliancy. The tops of the icy islets were pure white, and the sides of the higher ones of a delicate blue colour, which gave to the scene a transparent lightness that rendered it ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... to play in all her motions; the airy lightness with which she floated along—as buoyant as thistle-down—drew forth a general murmur of admiration. The hall rang with the loudest acclamations of applause, and the company, all in one voice, pronounced her the most elegant creature that had ever been ...
— Cinderella • Henry W. Hewet
... have never seen mentioned by naturalists. It is equivalent to the arrangement which distinguishes the foot of the reindeer from that of the stag and the antelope. In the latter, the hoofs, being constructed for lightness and flight, are compact and vertical; but, in the reindeer, the joints of the tarsal bones admit of lateral expansion, and the front hoofs curve upwards, while the two secondary ones behind (which are but slightly developed in the fallow deer and others of the same family) ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... in his life feared any living thing. But now there was a certain hollowness in the region of his stomach, and his heart fluttered like a bird in the air, with appalling lightness. And he wished to be ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... know not what you swear. Look, as I blow this feather from my face, And as the air blows it to me again, Obeying with my wind when I do blow, And yielding to another when it blows, Commanded always by the greater gust, Such is the lightness of you common men. But do not break your oaths; for of that sin My mild entreaty shall not make you guilty. Go where you will, the king shall be commanded; And be you kings, ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... remaining rooms were finished, according to their several purposes. Cleanliness and order prevailed throughout. Above all, the large panes of plate-glass contributed towards a perfect lightness, which had been wanting in the old house for many causes, but chiefly on account of the panes, which were for the most part round. My father was cheerful on account of the success of his undertaking; and if his good humor had not been often ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Homer's Iliad, XV, verse 137.] and that he simply mutilated Rome, by rendering it bereft of excellent men. [Antoninus was allied to three races. And he possessed not a single one of their good points, but included in himself all their vices. The lightness, the cowardice, and recklessness of Gaul were his, the roughness and cruelty of Africa, the abominations of Syria (whence he was on his mother's side).] Veering from slaughter to sports, he pursued his murderous course no less in the latter. Of course one would pay no attention to an elephant, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... Her lightness gets her to swim at top of the table, where her wry little finger bewrays carving; her neighbours at the latter end know they are welcome, and for that purpose she quencheth her thirst. She travels to and among, and so becomes a woman of good entertainment, for all the folly in the country comes ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... forest rambles. She looked frail as the rays of moonbeam which slid down the old white-bearded hemlocks, but her limbs were agile and supple as steel; and while the party went crashing on before, she followed with such lightness that the slight sound of her movements was entirely lost in the heavy crackling plunges of the party. Her little heart was beating fast and hard; but could any one have seen her face, as it now and ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... others clumsily tried to keep from her. Though apparently asleep, she knew the instant that Shane crept from his bed in the very early mornings before the sun had dried the dew on the tundra. She could hear him tip-toe into Lollie's bunk and with forced lightness call softly: ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... is made of oak or mahogany, for strength and durability; but, for the sake of lightness, the upper work and side-boxes are made of Baltic fir, strength in them being ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... gave great cause of Suspition, for as soon as they had Landed they offerd any Rates for Horses—Ten pounds for a Garran[9] not worth Forty shillings and Thirty shillings in Silver for a Guinea for lightness of carriage;[10] That on these consideracions he seizd the Sloop untill Bond was given according to Law; That she is sold to two Merchants of Gallway and designd to be fraighted ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... fact slip along at a very satisfactory pace in spite of the lightness of the wind. It was just half past eight when they reached the mouth of the bay in which they had lunched the day ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... of sentiment in Orinda, the sensitive and absorbing demands of her affection, and, perhaps, some lightness, or even falsity, on the part of Rosania, led to a rupture. The indignant and unhappy Orinda expressed her sorrows in several heartfelt poems, one of which bears the superscription, "To the Queen of ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... butterfly nature within her is given wing, inward and outward restraints drop from her almost as inevitably as her cold weather clothing, and she lets herself dance along on the soft breeze of sentiment with the lightness and freedom ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... miles went easily. We had both hawks and hounds with us, for there was game in plenty, and the king said that with the ending of the war, and the beginning of new hopes for his fleet, he would cast care aside for a little. So he was joyous and free in speech, and at times he would sing in lightness of heart, and would bid Harek sing also, so that it was pleasant to hear them. Ever does Harek say that no man sings better than Alfred ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... There took place a fight in which the Franks were killed to a man. The Basques, after having plundered the baggage-train, profited by the night which had come on to disperse rapidly. They owed all their success in this engagement to the lightness of their equipment and to the nature of the spot where the action took place; the Franks, on the contrary, being heavily armed and in an unfavorable position, struggled against too many disadvantages. Eginhard, master of the household of the King; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... afternoon with the drier in the kiln, seated close to a great heap of hops and inhaling the odour, I was in a condition of agreeable excitement all the evening. My mind was full of fancy, imagination, flowing with ideas; a sense of lightness and joyousness lifted me up. I wanted music, and felt full of laughter. Like the half-fabled haschish, the golden bloom of the hops had entered the nervous system; intoxication without wine, without injurious after-effect, dream intoxication; they were wine for the nerves. If hops ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... bought a paper. As soon as I glanced at it I saw that I was in for a wigging. The political editor, having referred to my Chief as an individual of ill omen, spoke of me too, on the first page, as a sinister creature. But, after Marguerite's kisses, I could not believe it. I felt at once a lightness and a sort of emptiness at heart; ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... unpremeditated. It must not by its lofty tone elevate the characters as in Tragedy, where, along with the unusual sublimity of the language, it becomes as it were a mental Cothurnus. In Comedy the verse must serve merely to give greater lightness, spirit, and elegance to the dialogue. Whether, therefore, a particular comedy ought to be versified or not, must depend on the consideration whether it would be more suitable to the subject in hand to give to ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... always, in every head, a sort of time-table of existence prepared at least one week in advance. But in Gerald's world nothing was prearranged. Elaborate affairs were decided in a moment and undertaken with extraordinary lightness. Thus the excursion to Auxerre! During lunch scarcely a word was said as to it; the conversation, in English for Sophia's advantage, turning, as usual under such circumstances, upon the difficulty of languages and the differences between countries. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... passion is more important and fervent than that of which we write? The fathers in medicine, and their modern followers, agree in ascribing to the pleasures of love, indulged in with moderation, activity and lightness of the body, vigor ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... coolest man on the ship, never losing either presence of mind or a certain lightness of spirits, totally unlike the apparently ungovernable fury that possessed him when crossed by any one under his authority. His slight figure and gloved white hands seemed endowed with muscles of steel; he was, to all appearance, impervious ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... which the stage itself demanded." He had found it, we are given to understand, in part through the study of the French dramatists of his own day of whom Scribe was one just then in vogue. From them, says a critic, he learned "lightness of touch, brevity, conciseness, directness, the use of little traits as a means of giving insight into character, different ways of keeping the interest at the proper point of tension, and a thousand little devices for clearing the stage of superfluous figures or ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... immense, and oh, what joy it was to soar aloft on buoyant pinion high up in the blue sky, over housetops and tops of trees, skimming along above rushing waters or tranquil streams in quiet meadows. Mere existence was a keen delight. The sense of freedom, of lightness, of airiness, was gloriously exhilarating, a delicious sensation known only to the feathered tribes of all ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... her,—there was something within that held him silent, staring at the waters of the river, now sparkling like a stream of diamonds in the risen sun, the lightness gone from him and a ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... honourable and lumbering survival stood pertly an Empire treadle-machine for printing envelopes and similar trifles. It was new, and full of natty little devices. It worked with the lightness of something unsubstantial. A child could actuate it, and it would print delicately a thousand envelopes an hour. This machine, with the latest purchase, which was away at the other end of the room near the large double-pointed case-rack, completed the tale of ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... life of Mr. W. W. Smith, the President of the Brome County Alliance. A leading citizen of the district proposes a public demonstration to denounce the jury and judge for this failure. As for the judge, as we said at the time, we cannot see that he can be blamed much for the lightness of the sentence upon a verdict for only common assault. So far as can be gathered from the conduct of their representatives on the jury the people of the district have concluded to live in a condition of timid subjection to a band of assassins ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... which chiefly wrote Thomas Becket's life—whose names are Herbert Boseham, John Salisbury, William of Canterbury, Alen of Tewkesbury, Benet of Peterborough, Stephen Langton, and Richard Croyland—he bestoyed his youth in all kinds of lascivious lightness, and lecherous wantonness. After certain robberies, rapes, and murders, committed in the king's wars at the siege of Toulouse in Languedoc, and in other places else, as he was come home again into England, he gave himself to great study, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... between God and man, As God's ambassador, the grand concerns Of judgment and of mercy, should beware Of lightness in his speech. 'Tis pitiful To court a grin, when you should woo a soul; To break a jest, when pity would inspire Pathetic exhortation; and to address The skittish fancy with facetious tales, When sent with God's commission to the heart. So did not Paul. Direct me to a quip Or merry turn in all ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... Belloc said, "has ennobled man, but not made him happier. The Christian is not so happy as the old Greek. The old Greek mythology is full of images of joy, of lightness, and vivacity; nymphs and fauns, dryads and hamadryads, and all sportive creations. The arts that grow up out of Christianity are ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Yorkshire village inn. The actual measurements are given in order that these proportions may be followed. It is a well-known fact, that chairs, or seats of any kind, can not be successfully designed on paper with any hope of meeting the essential requirements of comfort, lightness, and stability. Making seats is a practical art, and the development of the design is a matter of many years of successive improvements. A good model should therefore be selected and copied, with such slight changes as are necessary where carving is to be introduced. The main lines ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... had turned the dialogue on to this little well-preserved secret of his sister's with sufficient outward lightness; but it had been done in instinctive concealment of the disquieting start with which he had recognized that Somerset, Dare's enemy, whom he had intercepted in placing Dare's portrait into the hands of the chief constable, was a man beloved ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... The lightness and grace with which Mysie covered the little round table with a snow-white cloth, and arranged upon it the hastily-roasted capon, with its accompanying stoup of Bourdeaux, were but plebeian graces in themselves; but yet there were very flattering ideas ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... were not all dark. Undine's moods still infected him, and when she was happy he felt an answering lightness. Even when her amusements were too primitive to be shared he could enjoy their reflection in her face. Only, as he looked back, he was struck by the evanescence, the lack of substance, in their moments of sympathy, and by ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... 'tis best To keep thy tongue in silence, for 'tis this Which shames a man; as lightness does attest The nut is ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... He had felt that he would find her glowing as she had been on that first night when he had followed his father through the rain—his dream had been of crinkled copper hair, of silver and rose, of youth and laughter and lightness—. ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... punishment for crime in "olden times" was more severe than at the present time. Many people think it was, and justly so, and argue that crime has consequently greatly increased of late years, on account of the lightness of modern sentences or the uncertainty about punishment. This may be true. Crime is said to increase with population always. According to Mr. Buckle, it can be calculated with a considerable degree of accuracy. We can estimate, for instance, the probable number of murders which will take ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... This course is keeping youth away from all church communions; away from Christ. Few pastors have not received this answer, when urging young persons to come to the Savior. "If I become a Christian, I must be very solemn. I must repress my lightness of heart. I must relinquish all my cherished enjoyments." Admit that these views are greatly exaggerated, as doubtless they are, the question forces itself upon us, why do we meet such views so often? ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they had heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay. The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see to it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and as in the feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of the voyage, all hands were impatient of any toil but what was directly connected with its final end, whatever that might prove to be; therefore, they ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... from the foot of the mountains of Yumariquin and Guanaja. They are much sought after, even beyond the Orinoco, by the name of reeds of Esmeralda. A hunter preserves the same blow-tube during his whole life, and boasts of its lightness and precision, as we boast of the same qualities in our fire-arms. What is the monocotyledonous plant* that furnishes these admirable reeds? (* The smooth surface of these tubes sufficiently proves that they are not furnished ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... As the present type to him of womankind, he assails her with such charges of lightness as are commonly brought against women. He does not go farther: she is not his mother, and he hopes she is innocent. But he cannot make ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... eager and attractive young girl relating the feelings of her heart in the tenderest and prettiest style as far removed from preciosity as it is from a silly simplicity. All the stories have the essential merits of brightness and lightness, and most of them have that peculiar kind of ingenuity which is one of Mr. PAIN's strong points. Suddenly they land you at a point which is nowhere near to that to which you thought you were travelling. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... ultimately wearied out the recipient of them is evident from the remonstrances he drew upon himself. Eve blamed his lightness of character, the facility with which he let himself be tempted, his tendency to waste in travelling the funds he would have done more wisely to employ in reducing his obligations or avoiding them. At such moments he defended himself sharply, his tone savouring less of the boudoir than the ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... flutings." He then suggests certain improvements in the design, which would have made the bridge "unexceptionably the most novel and the most tasteful in the metropolis. Even as it is, it is scarcely surpassed for lightness, elegance, and originality by any in Europe. It is of the same family with the beautiful little bridge in Hyde Park, between the new entrance ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... re-entering the Castle, was with its young Lord, who received him with his usual kindness and lightness of humour. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... restrained by the mere necessity of bringing a novel somewhere to an end. And then, too, this mighty command of spaces and masses is only half his power. He spreads further than any one else, but he also touches the detail of the scene, the single episode, the fine shade of character, with exquisite lightness and precision. Nobody surpasses, in some ways nobody approaches, the easy authority with which he handles the matter immediately before him at the moment, a roomful of people, the brilliance of youth, spring sunshine in a forest, a boy on a horse; whatever his shifting panorama brings ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... song, and light, and flowers! Gust on gust, the harsh winds blow— Come, bind up those ringlet showers! Roses for that dreaming brow! Come, once more that ancient lightness, Glancing feet, and eager eyes! Let your broad lamps flash the brightness Which the sorrow-stricken ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... his vats had stood laden with rich indigo, the engulphing sand now reflected the rays of the torrid sun from its burning whiteness. She shewed me a picture of the town as it appeared to her when she had been brought there many a long and weary year ago, ere yet her step had lost its lightness, and when she was in the bloom of her bridal life. There was a fine broad boulevard, shadowed by splendid trees, on which she and her husband had driven in their carriage of an evening, through crowds of prosperous and contented ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... was all he could do to crawl across the room and throw himself on to the bed. But no sooner was he stretched out on the mattress than the feelings passed entirely, and left behind them an intoxicating sense of strength and lightness. His muscles became like steel springs; his bones were strong as iron and light as cork; a wonderful vigour had suddenly come into him, and he felt as if he had just stepped from a dungeon into fresh air. He was ready to face anything in ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... of himself as one, but he deserved the name as little as his own Canalis or his own Rubempre. He was neither a poet nor a moralist, though the latter title in France is often bestowed upon him—a fact which strikingly helps to illustrate the Gallic lightness of soil in the moral region. Balzac was the hardest and deepest of prosateurs; the earth-scented facts of life, which the poet puts under his feet, he had put above his head. Obviously there went on within him a ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... was builded In the valley, by the river, In the bosom of the forest; And the forest life was in it, All its mystery and its magic, All the lightness of the birch tree, All the toughness of the cedar, All the larch's supple sinews; And it floated on the river Like a yellow leaf in autumn, Like ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... Humming, in the lightness of her heart, a little tune, Alice crossed to the apartment of their neighbor, not pausing after her first knock at the rear ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... felt that the light brought with it a genial warmth; odours like those of the most balmy flowers appeared to fill the air, and the sweetest sounds of music absorbed my sense of hearing; my limbs had a new lightness given to them, so that I seemed to rise from the earth, and gradually mounted into the bright luminous air, leaving behind me the dark and cold cavern, and the ruins with which it was strewed. Language is inadequate to describe what I felt in rising continually upwards through this bright ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... the wall she went out, and, sheltered by the ridge of rocks behind which the cottage stood, made her way to the spring which dripped from a crack in the cliffs. While she waited for the pitcher to fill, she sang, in sheer lightness of heart, the old ballad which not only floated on the air of Abersethin and its neighbourhood, but which she had heard her mother sing in the ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... looked up at the stars through the plane-tree branches. Every now and then he drew a long breath of the warm, unstirring air, and smiled, without knowing that he smiled. And he thought of little, of nothing; but a sweetish sensation beset his heart, a kind of quivering lightness his limbs. He sat down on a bench and shut his eyes. He saw a face—only a face. The lights went out one by one in the houses opposite; no cabs passed now, and scarce a passenger was afoot, but Summerhay sat like a man in a trance, the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Spirit has descended. In these respects we are honoured and privileged, oh how far above all ages before He came! Yet our honours are our shame, when we contrast the glory given us with our love of the world, our fear of men, our lightness of mind, our sensuality, our gloomy tempers. What need have we to look with wonder and reverence at those saints of the Old Covenant, who with less advantages yet so far surpassed us; and still more ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... the full luxury of rapid motion without bodily exertion, till they have sat behind a pair of first-class American trotters. The "wagon," to begin with, is a mechanical triumph. It is wonderful to see such lightness combined with such strength and stability. I have seen one, after five years' constant usage over fearfully bad roads. It was owned by a man noted for reckless pace, where many Jehus drove furiously; not a bolt or joint ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Mrs. Munger, with the utmost lightness and indifference, "we'll drop the idea of the ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... between themselves, differ most remarkably from that of the Heptameron. The two former are decidedly open to the charges of pedantry, artificiality, heaviness. There is a great surplusage of words and a seeming inability to get to the point. The Heptameron if not equal in narrative vigour and lightness to Boccaccio before and La Fontaine afterwards, is not in the least exposed to the charge of clumsiness of any kind, employs a simple, natural, and sufficiently picturesque vocabulary, avoids all verbiage and roundabout writing, and both in the narratives and in the connecting ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... naturally into his place as the lieutenant seemed now to wake up to his work, and glanced at the sails, which were all set, and giving his orders sharply and well, a pull was taken at a sheet here and a pull there, the helm altered, and in spite of the lightness of the breeze the Kestrel began to work along with an increase of speed of quite two knots ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... to underground conditions. b. Lightness. c. Simplicity of construction. d. Strength. e. Rapidity and strength of blow. f. Ease of erection. g. Reliability. h. Mechanical ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... made them keep one on each side of him, going at a less speed than before. It was nervous work, though, for the cracking noise increased in loudness till it rivalled that of thunder—seeming to pass under their very feet. Speed and lightness of tread was everything. For himself Philip had no fear. He dreaded only lest Charley should again fall, and so did his best to keep up his spirits, and to banish the nervousness from which he saw that he was suffering. As they neared ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... "Black Key" etude, so called because all the notes of the right hand are on black keys. This is a brilliant study with a very charming ending. Opus 25, No. 9, is the so called "Butterfly Wings" etude, a designation which expresses its general characteristic of lightness and grace, but fails to make allowance for the accent of passion in the rising and descending passage that occurs about the middle and which should be brought out when it is correctly interpreted—which usually it is ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... that moment that Warden came quietly up the passage from the billiard-room, moving with the lightness of well-knit muscles, and checked ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... united efforts we enlarged the hole that Willie and the dog had made, digging with the harpoon and removing with our hands the loosened stones. We found a quantity of antique coins of various sizes, which, by reason of their lightness, I suppose, were much scattered about. Then deeper down below these we came upon a number of large rings, or bracelets, in the form of horseshoes, and several ingots of silver, similar to the one Hercus ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... greater breadth, and then growing deeply interested in his work, he sat down without ceremony on the mossy bank, took a piece of india-rubber, and erasing here, adding lines there, sometimes laying in a shadow, giving strength to the foreground and lightness to the background, he ended by making a really pretty ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... and far stronger than Coniston. But I found him crafty, and where I was awkward in handling my lightness, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... "No," she said stoutly. "Though, of course," she added with an attempt at lightness, "I'd prefer ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... remembered, that the molasses used as an ingredient in these Indian puddings, does not serve merely to give taste to them;—it acts a still more important part;—it gives what, in the language of the kitchen, is called lightness.—It is a substitute for eggs, and nothing but eggs can serve as a substitute for it, except it be treacle; which, in fact, is a kind of molasses; or perhaps coarse brown sugar, which has nearly the same properties.— It prevents the pudding from being heavy, and clammy; and ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... 2: We say that a body can be handled not only because of its resistance, but also on account of its density. But from rarity and density follow weight and lightness, heat and cold, and similar contraries, which are the principles of corruption in elementary bodies. Consequently, a body that can be handled by human touch is naturally corruptible. But if there be a body that resists touch, and yet is not disposed according to the qualities mentioned, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... exists, and power also, of sufficient lightness and strength to admit of a machine construction capable of a limited successful flight in any ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... Yahya; at his death, Ibn 'Ubeid al-Buchtari (865) left one hundred complete suits of dress, two hundred shirts, and five hundred turbans—all of which had been given him for his poems. The freshness of olden times was fading little by little; the earnestness of the Bedouin poet was making way for a lightness of heart. In this intermediate period, few were born so happily, and yet so imbued with the new spirit, as was 'Umar ibn 'Rabi'a (644), "the man of pleasure as well as the man of literature." Of rich parentage, gifted with a love of song which ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... tried of using these canoes in the dangerous rivers of the Indian country they are not found to be at all equal to those manufactured by the natives. In the manufacture of their paddles, and in the spring and lightness of their oars, they have never been surpassed; and, while often imitated, many a skillful white artisan has had to admit that after all his efforts there was a something of completeness and exact fitness for the work required about the Indians' ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... holding on by the skin of his teeth for ten thousand dollars, and needing imperatively at least as much more, felt that with this paltry sixty dollars it was suddenly possible to draw a free breath, felt a sheer lightness of spirit that showed how terrible was the persistent weight under which he was living. The very feeling of those separate bills in his pocket made ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... State, complained of such a Giddiness, and Lightness of the Head, that they could neither walk nor stand; others, of a Dimness of the Eyes. These Symptoms, for the most part, went off as the Patients gathered Strength: The Use of the Bark, with now and then a Glass of Wine, hastened the Cure; and in two or three Cases we were obliged ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... Mrs. Cafferty came into the room. She was, as every woman is in the morning, primed with conversation about husbands, for in the morning husbands are unwieldy, morose creatures without joy, without lightness, lacking even the common, elemental interest in their own children, and capable of detestably misinterpreting the conversation of their wives. It is only by mixing amongst other men that this malignant humor may be dispelled. To them the company ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... For all the lightness of his speech and the careless ease with which he took unnecessary and avoidable risks I had a feeling that there was deep design under everything he did. Though I couldn't have proved it if I'd been asked, I felt sure that he was trying ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... The fragments excited at most a slight and doubtful increase of the secretion; and in two other trials, no increase could be perceived. Bits of coal-cinders, placed on a leaf, produced no effect, either owing to their lightness or ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... what you may be to conductors, you'll always be baby to daddy, you little darling," he said, brightly. Then, turning to Blake, with lightness born ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... them. My men frequently surrounded herds of buffaloes and killed numbers of the calves. I, too, exerted myself greatly; but, as I am now obliged to shoot with the left arm, I am a bad shot, and this, with the lightness of the bullets, made me very unsuccessful. The more the hunger, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... On reckoning up, it appeared that he had charged too little for the orangeade, and taken two kreutzers too much for the sweets. Gemma did not cease laughing softly, and Sanin too was aware of an extraordinary lightness of heart, a peculiarly happy state of mind. He felt as if he had for ever been standing behind the counter and dealing in orangeade and sweetmeats, with that exquisite creature looking at him through the doorway with affectionately ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... week," says the professor, troubled in somewise by the meaning in her eyes. What is it? Simple loneliness, or misery downright? How young she looks—what a child! That tragic air does not belong to her of right. She should be all laughter, and lightness, and mirth—— ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... his head and tail, and gave out such proofs of the youth that yet remained in his bones, that it was with difficulty his rider could manage him. The general, meanwhile, coursed up Broadway with the lightness of a well mounted dragoon, turning in his saddle now and then to ascertain what had become of the major, who, by dint of hard labor, had got old Battle into a three-jog trot, and his head in the right direction. The mischievous urchins, however, continued to harass his rear, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... of summoning a physician, to ascertain the nature of her symptoms, he called a negro and his cart from Bush Hill. In vain the neighbours interceded for this unhappy victim. In vain she implored his clemency, and asserted the lightness of her indisposition. She besought him to allow her to send to her mother, who resided a few miles in the country, who would hasten to her succour, and relieve him and his family from the danger and trouble of ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... tell you, Mr. Brinkworth, that nothing is impossible where women are concerned." She dropped her momentary lightness of tone, and went on as earnestly as ever. "You can't put yourself in Blanche's place—I can. Once more, I beg you to go. I don't like your coming here, in this way! I ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... told, a trifling incident that fell in my observation, depict him in his two capacities. A chief in Little Makin asked, in an hour of lightness, "Who is Kaeia?" A bird carried the saying; and Nakaeia placed the matter in the hands of a committee of three. Mr. Corpse was chairman; the second commissioner died before my arrival; the third was yet alive and green, and presented so venerable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... led him on one moment, and withered him with her satire the next. It was obvious the man very soon left off treating her with any careless levity; if he did he was outwitted in no time; torn to shreds, and cast to the four winds on merry logic that had ever the sting of satire behind its laughing lightness. Very quickly he was on his guard, with thrust and parry; keen, watchful, alert—the politician to whom South Africa listened. And finally there came a day when, after unfolding a plan to Meryl, he added, "That is my idea, but I thought I would consult your cousin first." It seemed to strike ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... higher degree of latitude than any other tree. Its bark was especially useful, being useful for cordage, and matting, and roofing, while the tree itself formed the early British canoes, as it still forms the canoes of the North American Indians, for which it is well suited, from its lightness and ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... for Wingo of the Cree tribe, a waif among the Athabascas, whose father had been slain as they travelled, by a wandering tribe of Blackfeet. Never was there a braver rivalry, although the odds were with the Indian-in lightness, in brutal strength. With the mikonaree, however, were skill, and that sort of strength which the world calls "moral," the strength of a good and desperate purpose. Oshondonto knew that on the issue of this shameless ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... still shrouded in pitch darkness. But he could breathe without difficulty and he sprang to his feet with a peculiar feeling of lightness as he ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... lightest; and, if we could depend upon its being unadulterated, would, from its lightness, be the most wholesome; but as we cannot always depend upon bakers' bread, home-made bread, as a rule should be preferred. If it be at all heavy, a child must not be allowed to partake of it; a baker's loaf ought then to be sent for, and continued ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... sprang forth in Armenia, as if just issuing from one common source. So also those who placed the terrestrial paradise in islands, supposed that the rivers which issued from it, and formed those heretofore named, either traversed the surface of the sea, as fresh water, by its greater lightness, may float above the salt; or that they flowed through deep veins and channels of the earth, as the fountain of Arethusa was said to sink into the ground in Greece, and rise in the island of Sicily, while the river Alpheus pursuing it, but with ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... talk with great spirits and continue to chafe about little things. The boys' shoes and Mama Lalotte's lightness were the same as forgotten. Jenieve entered her house with dew in her hair, and an unterrified freshness of body for whatever might happen. She was certain she had seen Pontiac, but she would never tell anybody to have it laughed at. There was no candle burning, and the fire had ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... in the troubled eye of the lawyer and that of the still more profoundly affected Ransom. Only Hazen gazed unmoved. Perhaps because the spot was no new one to him, perhaps because an unsympathetic sky, a stretch of rock, the swirl of churning waters without any of the lightness and color which glancing sunlight gives, meant for him but one thing—the thing upon which he had fixed his mind, ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... Some pleasant news I may anticipate, since she has been the bearer of them?" It was not any lightness of heart that caused me to give an ironical form to the interrogative. Far ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... in drawing it to itself, it does three things in the patient. Because, in the first place, it gives the patient an inclination or aptitude to tend to the mover: thus a light body, which is above, bestows lightness on the body generated, so that it has an inclination or aptitude to be above. Secondly, if the generated body be outside its proper place, the mover gives it movement towards that place. Thirdly, it makes it to rest, when it shall have come to its proper place: since ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... Roll'd back the waves from off the land, and fixt Where pure ethereal joins with foggy air. Defin'd each element, and from the mass Chaoetic, rang'd select, in concord firm He bound, and all agreed. On high upsprung The fiery ether to the utmost heaven: The atmospheric air, in lightness next, Upfloated:—dense the solid earth dragg'd down The heavier mass; and girt on every side By waves circumfluent, seiz'd her ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... should be composite built; that is, that for the sake of lightness and strength combined, her frame should be of steel, with an inner skin of thin steel plate, and an outer planking of two thicknesses of mahogany. The ribs were to be arranged diagonally crossing the keel at an angle of forty-five degrees, and intersecting each other at right angles, thus ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... aborigines are the birch-builders. They detect by the river-side the tree barked with material for canoes. They strip it, and fashion an artistic vessel, which civilization cannot better. Launched in the fairy lightness of this, and speeding over foamy waters between forest-solitudes, one discovers, as if he were the first to know it, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... too. Miriam, who adores dancing, is flirting openly with this divinity of the "Deux Temps" and polka, and skims around with his arm about her (position sanctified by the lively air Lydia is dashing off on the piano) with a grace and lightness only equaled by his own. And Lieutenant Duggan, with his good, honest, clever face which so unmistakably proclaims him "Tom," we know already, so no further description is needed. Captain Fenner, too, is well known, with his short, though graceful figure, his good-humored, intelligent ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... the epigrams of comedy reach their high-water mark; in contrast to them is another class in which the lightness is a little forced and the humour touches cynicism. In these the natural brutality of the Roman mind makes the Latin epigram heavier and keener-pointed; the greater number indeed of the Greek epigrams ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... time with but trifling variations, each time to thunders of applause, with an art so free of effort that it was above all art. But what had now, for the first time, come to La Belle Louise? Did her bosom labor in the physical exertion of these measured steps? Was the quality of lightness and freedom lacking? Was the self-absorption, the abandonment, the impersonal, bird-like quality less to-night than before? And was the subtile, cruelly just sense of the public right in its hesitation, in its half-applause? ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... the armor the visitors felt much more at ease. The slightly reduced gravitation gave them a sense of lightness and freedom which more than balanced the junglelike oppressiveness of the air. They found themselves guarding against a certain exuberance; perhaps it was the ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... take the bridle; and behind him skipped a wiry shaven person, whose sleek crown was partly covered by a Madras handkerchief, the common headgear of humble Kaskaskians. His feet clogged their lightness with a pair of the wooden shoes manufactured for slaves. A sleeved blanket, made with a hood which lay back on his shoulders, almost covered him, and was girdled at the waist by ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Tatiana Markovna and she were inseparable sisters, and she even began involuntarily to address her as "thou," as she had done Raisky when her heart responded to his kindness. As these thoughts whirled in her head, she had a sensation of lightness and freedom, like a prisoner whose ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... natty little hats and feathers, with the jebus, or leathern pouch, hanging by their side. These men always appeared to Captain Clapperton to be the best troops in this country and that of Soudan, on account of their lightness and activity. The horsemen, however, are but ill mounted, the animals are small and badly dressed; their saddles so ill secured, and the rider sits so clumsily in his seat, that any Englishman who ever rode a horse with an English saddle, would upset one of them the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... testify that when casting objects in the round, or any object for that matter, where there was considerable internal bulk or projections, a core of sand was used as a base and the wax and clay respectively placed over this. This method, aside from insuring lightness, also saved considerable metal. Ling Roth, in this connection, points out that "the ancient Etruscans and Greeks made their castings solid without any sand core, while the Beni were evidently adept in the superior method practiced by the ancient Egyptians."[51] Read and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... I found a lady travelling—from Sasellano, I understood; and I had the privilege of aiding her to cross the ford." Dieppe spoke with a calculated lightness. ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... eighteenth-century picture. It reminded you not of Watteau, whose landscapes are so idyllic that they recall only the woodland glens seen in dreams, but of the more prosaic Jean-Baptiste Pater. Philip's heart was filled with lightness. He realised, what he had only read before, that art (for there was art in the manner in which he looked upon nature) might liberate the ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... with fifty-two divisions and these are mostly mental or at least subjective states. The list opens with contact (phasso) and then follow sensation, perception, thought, reflection, memory and a series of dispositions or states such as attention, effort, joy, torpor, stupidity, fear, doubt, lightness of body or mind, pity, envy, worry, pride. As European thought does not class all these items under one heading or, in other words, has no idea equivalent to Sankhara, it is not surprising that no adequate rendering has been found, especially as Buddhism ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... sleepiness," Charley said with assumed lightness. "I feel all done up to-night. Guess I'll ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Boyce. "A woman with sixteen pounds can stew beef as well as a woman with sixty," said he; "she only wants looking after." The earl himself was possessed of a sort of gaiety. There was about him a lightness of spirit which often made him an agreeable companion to one single person. John Eames conceived him to be the most sprightly old man of his day,—an old man with the fun and frolic almost of a boy. But this spirit, though it would show itself before John Eames, was not up ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... himself that nobody could now tell he was a wild man from the hills who had never been curried. He might have spared himself the illusion. Everybody he met knew that this clean-cut young athlete, with the heavy coat of tan on his good-looking face, was a product of the open range. The lightness of his stride, the breadth of the well-packed shoulders, the frankness of the steady eyes, all advertised him ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... lie. But all day long he felt the loss of it heavy on his heart, and no reconciling lightness ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... impressed by my son's work and the beauty that he brought on to the stage of the Imperial, wrote to me that the symbolism of the first act according to Ibsen should be Dawn, youth rising with the morning sun, reconciliation, rich gifts, brightness, lightness, pleasant feelings, peace. On to this sunlit scene stalks Hiordis, a figure of gloom, revenge, of feud eternal, of relentless hatred and uncompromising unforgetfulness of wrong. At the Imperial, said Mr. Shaw, the curtain rose on profound ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... the Jack Spratts" is du Maurier's first attempt at a work of fiction. It is significant that in style it has the lightness of touch that would be expected from the disciple of Thackeray, and that afterwards won by its "taking" character the hearts of the readers of Trilby. It is the story of a painter, his wife and their twin children. It opens with a picture of them at home, Jack Spratt ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... H. writes: In a recent discussion on hot air and steam portable engines it was decided to ask your opinion, which should be final. Water is scarce, though enough to use steam is easily procured. The country is hilly, so that lightness is desirable. The power wanted is 6 horse, and movable, that is, on wheels. Which will be best, hot air engine or steam engine? Which consumes most coal for a given power? Which will be cheapest in above case? A. For small ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... and the gear is packed in the carburizing material. Bohnite, a commercial carburizing compound is used exclusively at this plant. This does excellent work and is economical. Broadly speaking, the economy of a carburizing compound depends on its lightness. The space not occupied by work must be filled with compound; therefore) other things being equal, a compound weighing 25 lb. would be worth more than twice as much as one weighing 60 lb. per cubic foot. It has been claimed that certain compounds can be used over ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... He plods if he walks slowly and heavily, and perhaps monotonously or spiritlessly as well. He trudges if he walks toilsomely and wearily, as though his feet were heavy. He treads if his walk is suggestive of a certain lightness and caution—if, for instance, he seems half-uncertain whether to proceed and sets one foot down carefully before the other. He strides if he takes long steps, especially in a firm, pompous, or lofty manner. He stalks if there is a certain stiffness ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... easily to speech with the Prince and his secretary, my Lord Middleton. And I will ever maintain that His Royal Highness is altogether such as a prince should be. Being of a dark complexion and a melancholy dignity, there is in him no lightness of thought or word. To me he was, I profess, very flattering, showing me courtesies beyond my rights or expectations. He received me, in a word, most favourably, and being influenced, as I regret I cannot doubt, by my person and address, was easily ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... docks of London has always suggested to my mind the image of a flock of swans kept in the flooded backyard of grim tenement houses. The flatness of the walls surrounding the dark pool on which they float brings out wonderfully the flowing grace of the lines on which a ship's hull is built. The lightness of these forms, devised to meet the winds and the seas, makes, by contrast with the great piles of bricks, the chains and cables of their moorings appear very necessary, as if nothing less could prevent them from soaring upwards and over the roofs. The least puff of wind stealing round the corners ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... fewer than 1,200. Only in the year 1812 was the first seen on these western waters! The view of a long range of these splendid vessels lying against the landing-place is magnificent. Though not very substantial, they are extremely showy. Lightness of construction and elegance of accommodation are chiefly studied. The "Anglo-Saxon" is not by any means one of the largest class. These vessels are doubtless well adapted for their purpose as river boats; ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... to find his air of reserve and displeasure met with such inconsequent lightness. She never seemed to recognize the subtle changes of temperature expressed in his manner. Only his sense of what was due to himself prevented his being very chilly indeed; but as she went on with her gay chat, in utter ignorance ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... icy limbs of Icarus as with the caressing touch of gentle, life-giving hands. Not long before, his flight had lagged a little, but now it seemed as if new life was his. Like a bird that wheels and soars and dives as if for lightness of heart, so did Icarus, until each feather of his plumage had a sheen of silver and of gold. Down, down, he darted, so near the water that almost the white-tipped waves caught at his wings as he skimmed over them. Then up, up, up he soared, ever higher, higher still, and when he saw ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... busied ourselves with gathering up our baskets and fastening the anchor—I remember, I say, what a figure she made. There is a certain purity in this Cragthorpe air which I have never seen approached,—a lightness, a brilliancy, a crudity, which allows perfect liberty of self-assertion to each individual object in the landscape. The prospect is ever more or less like a picture which lacks its final process, its reduction to unity. Miss Blunt's figure, as she stood ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Professor was lecturing on Hydrogen Gas, and had made arrangements for showing its lightness, what our preceptor, Dr. Charles Hope, called, in his lofty way, its "principle of absolute levity." He was greatly excited, the good old man of genius. James was standing behind his chair, ready and sulky. His master told his young friends that the bladder he had filled with ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... as in life generally," observed Panshin, holding his head to right and to left, "lightness and boldness—are ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... white hand a wreath of yew she bore; And, breaking th' icy wreath sweet Hero wore, She forc'd about her brows her wreath of yew, And said, "Now, minion, to thy fate be true, Though not to me; endure what this portends: Begin where lightness will, in shame it ends. Love makes thee cunning; thou art current now, By being counterfeit: thy broken vow Deceit with her pied garters must rejoin, And with her stamp thou countenances must coin; Coyness, and pure deceits, for purities, And still a maid ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... here. Observation of this sequence with the bodily eyes alone will show nothing but a reduction of the specific gravity of the material concerned. He who is at pains to observe also with the eye of the spirit, however, is aware of a positive increase of lightness going hand in hand with a decrease of heaviness. Regarded thus, the three ponderable conditions form what Goethe would have called a 'spiritual ladder'. As 'rungs' of such a ladder they clearly point to a fourth rung - that is, a fourth state in which levity so far prevails over gravity that ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... at him with tight lips. "I know," she said. "I know. I have him by heart." She rose from her seat and stood thinking. Suddenly she laughed, and strode to the middle of the room. Her gait had the impatience and lightness of a dancer's. Quickly she wheeled and faced O'Neill, ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... of the anatomical study of the human form. ARCHITECTURE has bequeathed to us, in the Pelasgic and Cyclopean remains, sufficient to indicate the massive strength it early acquired in parts of Greece. In the Homeric times, the intercourse with Asia had already given something of lightness to the elder forms. Columns are constantly introduced into the palaces of the chiefs, profuse metallic ornaments decorate the walls; and the Homeric palaces, with their cornices gayly inwrought with blue—their pillars of silver ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a fairly effective study for speed and lightness of touch. It is not very difficult to play, having convenient ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... the ecclesiastical ministers. The memory of past calamities inspired Justinian with a wise resolution, that no wood, except for the doors, should be admitted into the new edifice; and the choice of the materials was applied to the strength, the lightness, or the splendor of the respective parts. The solid piles which contained the cupola were composed of huge blocks of freestone, hewn into squares and triangles, fortified by circles of iron, and firmly cemented by the infusion of lead and quicklime: but the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... forced lightness, beneath which, however, the young girl could readily detect the vein of anxiety and regret, she was regarding him with the clear eyes of affection. His face, seamed with many lines and bearing the deeply engraved handwriting of time, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham |
