"Nimble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nimble little figure flew past him. It was Frank, his running powers put to some practical use at last. The station-master followed as quickly as he could. But when at last he came up breathless, he found that Frank had already done his work, and the signal ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... above the task and wrought with nimble fingers the while he talked. It was difficult, this talk of his, scattered, fragmentary; and his mind would go from it, his voice expire untimely. He must be prompted, recalled, questioned. His hands worked with a very certain skill, but in his narrative ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... griddle cakes I 've a nimble wrist And I tosses 'em 'igh on a spoon. And the Duke and Patch yer can hardly match Fer their breakfast they stretch till noon. And I heaps the fire and I greases the iron, And the Duke, he kisses me thumb. Me Darlin', me dear, it 's perfectly clear I 've lovin' yer better ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... "So nimble Mercury was free. When the child was a few months older, Apollo chose him for his messenger. He gave him a cap with wings at either side, and winged sandals. In his hands he always carried a winged wand with two serpents crossed and recrossed ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... He became the Great Restrainer. Never was influence of lip and brain over muscle and temper better demonstrated. The wild men of the wharves—the roughest crowd in all labour—were under his spell. This nimble-footed shopkeeper flouted them with his wit: ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... honourable Princesse. And was some blemish to the Emperor Ferdinando, a most noble minded man, yet so carelesse and forgetfull of himselfe in that behalfe, as I haue seene him runne vp a paire of staires so swift and nimble a pace as almost had not become a very meane man, who had not ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... at Honolulu were distributed among the boats, two to each, being already trained whalemen, and a fine lot of fellows they were. My two—Samuela and Polly—were not very big men, but sturdy, nimble as cats, as much at home in the water as on deck, and simply bubbling over with fun and good-humour. From my earliest sea-going, I have always had a strong liking for natives of tropical countries, finding them affectionate and amenable to kindness. Why, I think, white men ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... the horse would have knocked the Welsh girl over," he said presently. "She was pretty nimble, however. That churl must have kicked your horse sharply to make him plunge as ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... whether; by. Girdle, plate of metal for firing cakes, bannocks. Girn, to grin, to twist the face (but from pain or rage, not joy); gapes; snarls. Gizz, wig. Glaikit, foolish, thoughtless, giddy. Glaizie, glossy, shiny. Glaum'd, grasped. Gled, a hawk, a kite. Gleede, a glowing coal. Gleg, nimble, sharp, keen-witted. Gleg, smartly. Glieb, a portion of land. Glib-gabbet, smooth-tongued. Glint, sparkle. Gloamin, twilight; gloamin-shot, sunset. Glow'r, stare. Glunch, frown, growl. Goavin, looking dazedlyl; mooning. Gotten, got. Gowan, the wild, or mountain, daisy. Gowany, covered with wild ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... momentary mortification in the imaginative Euphemia; but her busy mind was nimble in its erection of airy castles, and she rallied in a moment with the idea that "he might be more than a lord." At any rate, let him be what he may, he charmed her; and he had much ado to parry the increasing boldness of her speeches, without ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... could quiet down and keep still a couple minutes at a time, it would be a reposeful spectacle. In that case I think I could enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could, for I am coming to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely creature—lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and once when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder, with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes, watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... many a fierce duel with her. I was considered a strong boy, but she was quick and nimble as a cat, and I usually got the worst of the bargain, often being left badly scratched and bleeding. At which point the combat would be taken up ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... indeed," I replied, "it would take twenty hours out of the twenty-four, and seven days out of every week to meet all these demands, at least for a valetudinarian ('Oh! Oh!' from the table). But your Lordship, with your usual consideration, has taken into account the nimble intellects of these clever young men, and exempted the slow-moving, incomprehensive minds of poor old parish priests like myself." ("No! No!! No!!!" ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... desire, longing, anxiety, effort, toil, difficulty, bustle. afanar distress; —se desire eagerly, struggle for. afeminado, -a effeminate. afilado, -a sharp, slender, thin, tapering. afligido, -a troubled, distressed. afligir pain, grieve. afrenta f. insult, affront. gil adj. nimble, light. agilidad f. quickness, nimbleness, activity. agitar agitate, move, stir, stir up, sway, shake, disturb. agolpado, -a curdled. agolpar rush, gather. agona f. agony, death struggle, pangs of death. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... of the Bourbon retorts died away than the outbreak of war between England and France raised the hopes of the French royalist exiles in London; and their nimble fancy pictured the French army and nation as ready to fling themselves at the feet of Louis XVIII. The future monarch did not share these illusions. In the chilly solitudes of Warsaw he discerned matters in their true light, and prepared to wait until the vaulting ambition ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... without saying that, to become a successful nature student, one must have good eyes, strong limbs, nimble feet, and, above all, an alert mind. People who lack these qualities, especially the last, will not be likely to pursue the noble science of ornithology. The stupid sort will prefer to drowse in the shade, and the light-minded will care only ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... small and spry, and his wits were as nimble as his feet. He saw all that was going on about him, and he was wise enough to keep his tongue still, so that it never got him into trouble as gossipy tongues do ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... young days, when the ancient stone-built passages and halls, that have seen so many generations pass through them and disappear, rang with perpetual youthful laughter, or echoed beautifully finished part-singing; when nimble young feet twinkled, and kilts whirled to the skirl of the pipes under the vaulted roof of the nine-hundred-year-old crypt; when the whole place was vibrant with joyous young life, and the stately, grey-bearded owner of the historic castle, and of many broad acres in Strathmore besides, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... different type. Big, husky, happy-go-lucky—a poor student but a right jolly companion; a fellow who could pitch into any kind of sport and play an uncommonly good game at almost anything. More than that, he could rattle off ragtime untiringly and his nimble fingers could catch up on the piano any tune he heard whistled. What wonder he speedily became the idol of Colversham? He was a born leader, tactfully marshaling at will the boys who were his own age, and good-naturedly bullying those who ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... surplus energy; and as political opposition is sure to prove futile, there is nothing left to do but to talk—not only politics, but art, poetry, religion, in fact, everything under the sun. At the time, however, when Albrecht, the hero of "Without a Centre," plied his nimble tongue, the country had a more liberal Government, and criticism of the Ministry was not yet high treason. But centuries of repression and the practical exclusion of the bourgeoisie from public life were undoubtedly the fundamental causes of this abnormal conversational activity. There ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... will be sae kind As favour my return once more, For to enjoy the peace of mind In those retreats I had before: Now, farewell, Banff! the nimble steeds Do bear me hence—I must away; Yet time, perhaps, may bring me back, To part nae mair ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Delos once, and Maia's nimble-witted son, Contended eagerly by whom the prize of glory should be won; Hermes long'd to grasp the lyre,—the lyre Apollo hoped to gain, And both their hearts were full of hope, and yet the hopes of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... without, in one way or another, growing, and ask: What do we want? To continue to exist. How exist? We want to get Slesvig back again, for as it is we are not existing; we are sickening, or else we are living like those lower animals who even when they are cut in pieces, are quite nimble; but it is a miserable life. We are in a false position with regard to Germany. The centripetal force that draws the individual members of one nationality together, and which we in Denmark call Danishness, that which, further, draws nationalities of the same family together, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... than to cog a die or to shuffle a pack of cards? Is not as much art, as many excellent qualities, required to make a pimping porter at a common bawdy-house as would enable a man to prostitute his own or his friend's wife or child? Doth it not ask as good a memory, as nimble an invention, as steady a countenance, to forswear yourself in Westminster-hall as would furnish out a complete tool of state, or perhaps a statesman himself? It is needless to particularize every instance; in all we shall find that there is a nearer connexion between high and low life than ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... for I was active and nimble, and (which was more to the point) well made. It was the shambling, ill-proportioned lads who suffered most. The biggest boy in school rode me, as a rule, but he was not at all a bad bully, so I was lucky. He never spurred me, and he boasted of my willingness and good paces. ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... desirable, he set out with ninety men on the adventure. His troop arrived at Harsh very early in the morning, but not so early but that the townspeople, to the number of five hundred, had collected to oppose his little force. He soon put them to flight, and then, by a nimble trick, contrived to enter the castle itself, to seize Lord and Lady Roche at their breakfast-table, to slip out with them and through the town unmolested, and to regain Cork next day with the loss of only a single man. The whole affair was a piece of ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... teacheth, and proveth Things by) which by a pretty, surprizing Uncouthness in Conceit or Expression, doth affect and amuse the Fancy, stirring in it some Wonder, and breeding some Delight thereto. It raiseth Admiration, as signifying a nimble Sagacity of Apprehension, a special Felicity of Invention, a Vivacity of Spirit, and Reach of Wit, more than vulgar; it seeming to argue a rare Quickness of Parts, that one can fetch in remote Conceits applicable; a notable Skill ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... spoken, than, nimble as a deer, the nymph had sprung up the rocks, and darted between the palm-stems to her canoe. Suddenly she caught sight of the English boat, and stopped with a cry ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... end, and he stared with open mouth and eyes at the nimble way Nancy was climbing up an old beech-tree. He gave a shrill whistle, which made the little girl look round. Not a bit disconcerted ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... them, and yet be most miserable. Is there any doubt but that a man who enjoys the best health, and who has strength and beauty, and his senses flourishing in their utmost quickness and perfection—suppose him likewise, if you please, nimble and active, nay, give him riches, honors, authority, power, glory—now, I say, should this person, who is in possession of all these, be unjust, intemperate, timid, stupid, or an idiot—could you hesitate to call such a one miserable? What, then, are ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... as she said: the Wizard, in the Cave Hall, was grey with rage. Never before had he called to his servants without their scurrying on nimble feet to learn his desires, but this time he had struck repeatedly upon the arm of his chair, and had lifted his voice louder and louder, yet neither the Chief Imp nor any other came. He knew where and how they should be employed at this time, and if they were doing ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... Can any biography shed light on the localities into which the Midsummer Night's Dream[626] admits me? Did Shakspeare confide to any notary or parish recorder, sacristan, or surrogate, in Stratford, the genesis of that delicate creation? The forest of Arden,[627] the nimble air of Scone Castle,[628] the moonlight of Portia's villa,[629] "the antres vast[630] and desarts idle," of Othello's captivity,—where is the third cousin, or grand-nephew, the chancellor's file of accounts, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... run a race with you! I am not a swift runner, and you are nimble as a deer. We shall not run any race together," answered the ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... Buzzard, sailing high in the blue, blue sky, looked down on a funny sight. Yes, Sir, it certainly was a funny sight. It was a little procession of five of his friends of the Smiling Pool. First was Billy Mink, who, because he is slim and nimble, moves so quickly it sometimes is hard to follow him. Behind him was Little Joe Otter, whose legs are so short that he almost looks as if he hadn't any. Behind Little Joe was Jerry Muskrat, who is a better traveler in the water than on ...
— The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat • Thornton W. Burgess
... cultivated hate of the war phase, reinforced by the fresh hate born of confusion and misery, will swing loose, as it were, seeking dispersedly for objects. The petty, incessant irritations of proximity will count for more; the national idea for less. The Hohenzollerns and the Junkers will have to be very nimble indeed if the German accomplishment of hate does not swing round ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... anchor, and, heavily laden and moving slowly, makes the tour of the little creek. The quays are black with crowds of people waving their hats and handkerchiefs. But silently and quietly the Fram heads towards the fjord, steers slowly past Bygdoe and Dyna out on her unknown path, while little nimble craft, steamers, and pleasure-boats swarm around her. Peaceful and snug lay the villas along the shore behind their veils of foliage, just as they ever seemed of old. Ah, "fair is the woodland slope, and never did ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... with nimble fingers o'er the sounding harp-strings swept; Now the strain in laughter rippled, now with hidden woe it wept, For they sang of Time's beginning, ere the sun the day brought forth— Sang as sing the ocean breezes through the pine-woods ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... Bagarag they arose quickly and clapped their hands, and danced with the nimble step of gladness, exclaiming, 'O our King! pleasant will be the time with him!' And one smoothed his head and poured oil upon it; one brought him garments of gold and silk inwoven; one fetched him slippers like the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... seen Done at the Mermaid? heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one from whom they came, Had meant to put his whole wit ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... been improperly so called by the first French settlers in Louisiana; for it has nothing of the cat but its nimble activity, and rather resembles a monkey. It is not above eight or ten inches high, and about fifteen long. Its head is like that of a fox; it has long toes, but very short claws, not made for seizing game; accordingly it lives upon fruit, bread, and other such things. This animal ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... mistake not, would effectually restore the decay'd Art of Needle-work, and make the Virgins of Great Britain exceedingly Nimble-finger'd in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... were about the king of Samandal were immediately going to obey his orders, when King Saleh, who was in the flower of his age, nimble and vigorous, got from them, before they could draw their sabres; and having reached the palace-gate, found there a thousand men of his relations and friends, well armed and equipped, who were just arrived. The queen his mother having considered the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... (Haltica cucumeris, Harris.) This nimble minute beetle (Fig. 13) belongs to the flea-beetles, (Haltica family,) the same sub-group of the leaf-beetles (Phytophaga) to which also appertains the notorious steel-blue flea-beetle (Haltica chalybea, Illiger) that is ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... a military people—strong, nimble, and hardy, fond of adventure, irascible, brotherly, and generous—they have all the qualities that tempt men to war and make them good soldiers. Dazzled by their great fame on the Continent, and hearing of their insular wars chiefly through the interested lies of England, Voltaire expressed his ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... for under a certain group of trees. While doing so, a sudden surprise shower of seeming cherry blossoms covered them with pink and white petals. These were really confetti petals obligingly scattered by the nimble little waitresses perched ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... covered his knees. William leant against a third tree consuming a little heap of scraps collected from the larder, while on his knees also reposed what was apparently a red handkerchief. Jumble sat in the middle catching with nimble, snapping jaws dainties flung to him from time to time by ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... stopped at sight of his lugubrious face, relented, and laughed. "Never mind! Don't take it to heart, and—are those violets for me? You are a dear, after all! I love them." She took them from his outstretched hand and buried her face in them, whilst he, usually so nimble of tongue and ready of word, was striving to overcome this alarming confusion and embarrassment that rendered him about as quick of wit as a soft-shelled clam. In fact, he felt like a jelly fish save that he was ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... were as firm and strong almost as the cables that swing out with the buoys. The wonderful fresh air that these men lived in, night and day, had brightened their eyes too, so that even the plainest face, and the most awkward man among them, was as nimble as an athlete, from his ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... the march of inventions, leaving the last stage of the industry, viz., the wool-sorter's occupation, which continued some time longer. This process of sorting was one which required an experienced eye to detect the different qualities of fibre, and nimble fingers to separate them. A fleece of wool was thrown open on a bench and an expert would, with surprising speed and dexterity, separate the fibre into about four different qualities and throw them into as many baskets ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... shade, Lost in delightful talk, We rested from our walk. Beyond the shadow, large and staid, Cows chewed with drowsy eye Their cud complacently: Elegant deer walked o'er the glade, Or stood with wide bright eyes Gazing a short surprise; And up the fern slope nimble conies played. ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... to stop this nimble tongue by an epigram, "in Perfidious Albion, as the Constitutionnel has it, you may happen to meet a charming woman in any part ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Lancashire, breed the slow-Hound; a large great Dog, tall and heavy. Worcestershire, Bedfordshire, and many other well mixt Soyls, where the Champaign and Covert are equally large, produce the Middle sized Dog, of a more nimble Composure than the fore-mentioned, and fitter for Chase. Yorkshire, Cumberland, Northumberland, and the North parts, breed the Light, Nimble, swift slender Dog. And our open Champaigns train up excellent Grey-Hounds, hugely admired for his Swiftness, Strength, and Sagacity. ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... sword and shield resounding rang, While that old warrior stooped and sprang Sideways, and swerved, or backward leapt, As swiftly as the bronze blade swept Above him and around ... He swayed, Stumbling, but rose ... But, though his blade Was ever nimble to defend, The Fians feared the fight would end In ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... David prays: "Lord, lead me in Thy path, and let me not walk in my own ways," and many like prayers, which are all summed up in the prayer, "Thy kingdom come." For the desires are so many, so various, and besides at times so nimble, so subtile and specious, through the suggestions of the evil one, that it is not possible for a man to control himself in his own ways. He must let hands and feet go, commend himself to God's governance, and entrust nothing to his reason, as Jeremiah ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... what you would call a true woman. If she objects to this renunciation and attempts to make an independent career suited to her talents, then she is strong- minded and is trying to unsex herself. With the world full of work waiting for her nimble fingers and loving heart, she is compelled to suppress all secret hope of doing something to impress her own character on that world, because her only duty is in the home. A man is also called upon to be a good husband and father, ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... talked so sweetly there was, Karen felt it now, a perfunctoriness in Tante's remarks. She was, for all the play of her nimble fancy, preoccupied, and the sound of the motor-horn below seemed a signal for release. "Tallie is, mon Dieu," she computed, rising—"she was twenty-three when I was born—and I am nearly fifty"—Madame von Marwitz was as far above cowardly reticences about her age as a timeless goddess—"Tallie ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Its skin is like the deer's, but in gait and general appearance, it partakes more of the goat. It has two large twisted horns, sometimes weighing, when at full growth, from twenty-five to thirty pounds, which in, running it rests upon its back. These creatures are exceedingly, nimble and swift, haunt only the most craggy and mountainous parts, and make their way among the steepest rocks with an agility that is astonishing. The natives work their horns into spoons, and small cups and platters; and have frequently one of a smaller size hanging to a belt, which serves them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... which eve and morn Played measures brave and nimble, Had just struck up with flute and horn ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... the Linden Strasse yesterday, I encountered a mob; and, being curious in Potzdorff's interest, penetrated to the kernel of it. There I found two men of my old regiment—Kurz and another—at words with a small, dark, nimble fellow, who carried bright and dancing eyes in a pock-marked face. He had his iron drawn, a heavy box-handled cut-and-thrust blade, and seemed ready to fall at once on the pair that had been jeering ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... one thermometer. They were placed in a well-protected corner, farthest from the stove. We had no house as yet for our outside instruments, but the sub-director went to work to prepare one as quickly as possible, and so nimble were his hands that when the depot party returned there was the finest instrument-screen standing ready on the hill, painted white so that it shone a long way off: The wind-vane was a work of art, constructed by our able engineer, Sundbeck. No factory could ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... everybody else and was more locomotive than anybody. The work of packing and making ready went briskly on, and by daybreak every preparation for the journey was completed. Then Kit began to wish they had not been quite so nimble; for the travelling-carriage which had been hired for the occasion was not to arrive until nine o'clock, and there was nothing but breakfast to fill up the intervening blank of one hour and a half. Yes there was, though. There was Barbara. Barbara was busy, to be sure, but so much the better—Kit ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... beat of hoofs ahead and the sharp neighing of horses made the ponies start and Eric rose in his stirrups. Then down the gulch in front of them and over the steep clay banks thundered a herd of wild ponies, nimble as monkeys and wild as rabbits, such as horse-traders drive east from the plains of Montana to sell in the farming country. Margaret's pony made a shrill sound, a neigh that was almost a scream, and started up the clay bank to meet them, ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... word I do, and on the remnant of mine honour! Thou hast taken a player's part like a man, and thou art a good fellow, Nicholas Attwood, and I love thee. So thou art going to Coventry to see the players act? Surely thine is a nimble wit to follow fancy nineteen miles. Come; I am going to Coventry to join my fellows. Wilt thou go with me, Nick, and dine with us this night at the best inn in all Coventry—the Blue Boar? Thou hast quite plucked up my downcast heart for me, lad, indeed thou hast; for I was sore of Stratford ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... Hunter. Even so This way the Chamois leapt: her nimble feet Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce Repay my break-neck travail.—What is here? Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reached 60 A height which none even of our mountaineers, Save our best hunters, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... firmer. Scarce the ascent Began, when, lo! a panther, nimble, light, And cover'd with a speckled skin, appear'd, Nor, when it saw me, vanish'd, rather strove To check my onward going; that ofttimes With purpose to retrace ...
— The Vision of Hell, Part 1, Illustrated by Gustave Dore - The Inferno • Dante Alighieri, Translated By The Rev. H. F. Cary
... the Iroquois. The one are about as invisible as the other. Our people on the Richelieu and at Montreal are kept in a closer confinement than ever were monks or nuns in our smallest convents in France."] saving that he had nimble limbs to escape their fury; being departed, all three well armed, and unanimiously rather die then abandon one another, notwithstanding these resolutions weare but young mens deboasting; being then in a very litle ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... Cannot live together: Youth is full of pleasance, Age is full of care; Youth like summer morn, Age like winter weather; Youth like summer brave, Age like winter bare: Youth is full of sport, Age's breath is short, Youth is nimble, Age is lame: Youth is hot and bold, Age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, and Age is tame:— Age, I do abhor thee, Youth, I do adore thee; O! my Love, my Love is young! Age, I do defy thee— O, sweet shepherd, hie thee, For methinks ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... customers since morning, and something had she heard besides admiration of her wares and exclamation at her prices. Now, as she sat with some gay sewing beneath her nimble fingers, she glanced once and again at the shadowed face opposite her. If the look was not one of curiosity alone, but had in it an admixture of new-found respect; if to Mistress Stagg the Audrey of yesterday, unnoted, unwhispered of, was a being somewhat lowlier than the Audrey of ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... The nimble hours danced on, as they had a trick of doing in Madame Le Fort's salon. "I am afraid you forget ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... old man. He smoked a short pipe which was partially hidden in a tangle of beard that had once been yellowish red but was now streaked with dirty white; he fished earnestly without apparent result, and from time to time he spat into the water. Cleggett's nimble fancy at once put rings into his ears and dowered ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... did not fire on him, but, not to give an alarm, tried to capture or kill him without noise. Several of them suddenly showed themselves, on which he threw down his gun in pretended submission. One of them came up to him with hatchet raised; but the nimble and sturdy borderer suddenly struck him with his fist a blow in the head that knocked him flat, then snatched up his own gun, and, as some say, the blanket of the half-stunned savage also, sprang off, reached the fort unhurt, and gave the alarm. Some of the families of the place ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... a nimble wit; I thinke 'twas made of Attalanta's heeles. Will you sitte downe with me, and wee two, will raile against our Mistris the world, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... be heard the sounds of vigorous fighting; and often, in some wonderful way, Claude Duval or the noted Dick would fight his way out, whistle to his steed, jump into the saddle, and ride away before his less nimble pursuers had recovered from their astonishment. Very many exciting scenes have taken place in our old inns, but in these days railways have changed all things; and in many streets where the coaches used to rattle along, and the place was alive with merry sounds, the moss now grows, ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... agricultural subjects. The bailiff gave satisfactory answers, but spoke with a sort of heavy awkwardness, as though he were buttoning up his coat with benumbed fingers. He stood at the door and kept looking round on the watch to make way for the nimble footman. Behind his powerful shoulders I managed to get a glimpse of the agent's wife in the outer room surreptitiously belabouring some other peasant woman. Suddenly a cart rumbled up and stopped at the steps; ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... things provoked some remarks from the young gentlemen in the department, and gave rise to predictions that he would soon supplant us all in the affections of the Secretary. And he is nimble of foot too, and enters the Secretary's room twice to Col. B.'s or Major T.'s once. I go not thither unless sent for; for in a cause like this, personal advancement, when it involves catering to the caprices of ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... himself to his heels for safety; which his companion seeing, fled also. I followed the former as fast as I could, but timor addidit alas (fear gave him wings), and made him swiftly fly; so that, although I was accounted very nimble, yet the farther we ran the more ground he gained on me; so that I could not overtake him, which made me think he took shelter under some bush, which he knew where to find, though I did not. Meanwhile, the coachman, who had sufficiently the outside of a man, excused himself from intermeddling ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... among French hopes, is not that of old M. de Maurepas one of the best-grounded; who hopes that he, by dexterity, shall contrive to continue Minister? Nimble old man, who for all emergencies has his light jest; and ever in the worst confusion will emerge, cork-like, unsunk! Small care to him is Perfectibility, Progress of the Species, and Astraea Redux: good only, that ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... me, very, very close to me, the three women follow the movements of my pencil with astonished attention. Japanese art being entirely conventional, they have never before seen any one draw from nature, and my style delights them. I may not perhaps possess the steady and nimble touch of M. Sucre, as he groups his charming storks, but I am master of a few notions of perspective which are wanting in him; and I have been taught to draw things as I see them, without giving them an ingeniously distorted and grimacing attitudes; and the three Japanese are amazed at the air of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... reel followed, danced with old-time verve, some of the more accomplished dancers bounding over the floor in pigeon-wings, such as were cut by the nimble a hundred years ago, when Richmond danced in honor of Washington and Lafayette. There was no end of drinking among the men, and as soon as the dancing seemed at its height the matrons began to gather into groups and send out signals to the younger ladies. The ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... tongue untaught to glose: Yet proud she was (for lofty Pride that dwells In towered courts, is oft in shepherds' cells), And too-too well the fair vermilion knew And silver tincture of her cheeks, that drew The love of every swain. On her this god Enamour'd was, and with his snaky rod Did charm her nimble feet, and made her stay, The while upon a hillock down he lay, And sweetly on his pipe began to play, And with smooth speech her fancy to assay, Till in his twining arms her lock'd her fast, And then he woo'd with kisses; and at last, As shepherds do, ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... have devised a sentimental reason for his decease. In Budgell's Bee we read that "Mr. Addison was so fond of this character that a little before he laid down the Spectator (foreseeing that some nimble gentleman would catch up his pen the moment he quitted it) he said to our intimate friend with a certain warmth in his expression, which he was not often guilty of, 'I'll kill Sir Roger that nobody else may murder him'" Dr. Johnson follows Budgell, and assigns to Addison Cervantes' reason, ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... line pressed itself against the low walls. Augustine, a blond- haired, neatly-garmented shape, sped down the rickety stairs with the step of youth and a dancer; for only the nimble ankles of one accomplished in waltzing could have tripped as ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... satisfying only half of himself. The other half he had tried to quiet with man-made things, with the artificial products of civilization. He had thought to allay that deep, undefined hunger in him with travel and sports and the attentions of hirelings. It had been easy at first; but, keen as nimble wits had been to keep pace with his desires with an ever-increasing variety of luxuries, he had exhausted them all within a decade and been ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... soldiers, was the first that I have ever observed found the advantage of mixing small bodies of musketeers among his horse; and, had he had such nimble strong fellows as these, he would have prized them above all the rest of his men. These were those they call Highlanders. They would run on foot with their arms and all their accoutrements, and keep very good order too, and yet keep pace with the horse, let them go at what rate they ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... of Dates as to the precise meaning of the omen.' At this moment my noble-minded master is engaged in conversation with all the most honourable and refined persons in Canton, while singers and dancers of a very expert and nimble order have been sent for. The entertainment will undoubtedly last far into the night, and to present myself even with the excuse of your graceful and delicate inquiry would certainly result in very objectionable consequences to ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... nimble, as you see," answered the traveler. "So, if you call me Quicksilver, the name will fit ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... and rode gaily. For the most part the trail lay in a straight and lofty nave of aspen trees, rearing their slender, snowy pillars sixty, eighty—even a hundred feet aloft; and mingling their clusters of nimble, chattering leaves high overhead in the sun. There was nothing gloomy about this cathedral; the sun found a thousand apertures through which to launch his rays against the white pillars; while the green and mutable roof was bathed in almost intolerable ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... Nokomis: "Bring not here an idle maiden, Bring not here a useless woman, Hands unskilful, feet unwilling; Bring a wife with nimble fingers, Heart and hand that move together, Feet that ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... swiftly through the woods The nimble deer to take, That with their cries the hills and dales An ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... scholar in the sense of having acquired any mastery of or familiarity with the great Latin or Greek writers. Language, all languages, was a study that was easy to him, and he acquired facility in translating any foreign tongue, living or dead, with remarkable readiness by the aid of a dictionary and a nimble wit. Student in St. Louis, Kansas City, or Denver he was not, any more than at Williams, Galesburg, or Columbia. But I have no doubt that when Eugene Field left Denver he had a fixed intention, as suggested in the words of Mr. Stone, by study and endeavor to take high rank in the literary ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Quickly her nimble feet carried her, and in a few minutes she was scrutinizing the faces of her fellow-passengers. Sitting across the aisle from her was a young lady, who to Rosa seemed the embodiment of beauty and elegance. ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... flea their goats, and to cure the flesh, which they look upon as a vile employment, and therefore condemn their Christian prisoners to that labour in contempt. The native Canarians are very active and nimble, and are exceedingly agile in running and leaping, being accustomed to traverse the cliffs of their rugged mountains. They skip barefooted from rock to rock like goats, and sometimes take leaps of most surprising extent ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... old as London's history, and from the days of Chaucer the countryman's fear of London's vastness and the cheats practised by her nimble-witted rogues have passed into literature. In the year 1450 John Lydgate sang the sorrows of a simple Kentish wight, who found that, go where he would in London, he could ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... was his housekeeper now, although she was only seven years old. She and her father lived in a room back of the shop, and Uncle Tim did the cooking, while Kitty washed the dishes, made the bed, and tidied up the small room with her own nimble little fingers. When she had quite done, she would run into the shop, steal behind her father, throw her chubby brown arms about his neck, and give him a kiss that would make him sing like a lark ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... some Amazonian Dames Contrive whereby to glorify their names. A ruff for Boston Neck of mud and turfe, Reaching from side to side, from surf to surf, Their nimble hands spin up like Christmas pyes, Their pastry by degrees on high doth rise ... The wheel at home counts in an holiday, Since while the mistress worketh it may play. A tribe of female hands, but manly hearts, Forsake at home their ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... to kill them. A young woman, whom I remembered as one of two who had danced for the kinematograph, had considerable charm of manner and personal attraction; it was a trifle disconcerting to find my belle a little later hunting the fauna of her lover's head. Her nimble fingers were deftly expert in the work and her beloved was visibly elated over ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... now between fifty and sixty years of age, was no longer the nimble rider, but somewhat heavy and clumsy; she preferred the carriage seat to the saddle, but still in her numerous visits to the sick and such as she could bless by religious calls she continued her old method, as being more independent. Many wondered at the ease and ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... and honorable princess. And was some blemish to the emperor Ferdinando, a most noble-minded man, yet so careless and forgetful of himself in that behalf, as I have seen him run up a pair of stairs so swift and nimble a pace, as almost had not become a very mean man, who had not gone ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... and able man of business. "He is a man," says the puzzled Pepys, three years after the Restoration, "of great business and yet of pleasure and dissipation too." His rivals were as envious of the ease and mastery with which he dealt with questions of finance as of the "nimble wit" which won the favour of the king. Even in later years his industry earned the grudging praise of his enemies. Dryden owned that as Chancellor he was "swift to despatch and easy of access," and wondered at the fevered activity which "refused his age the needful ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... Hermod, his special attendant, a bright and beautiful young god, who was gifted with great rapidity of motion and was therefore designated as the swift or nimble god. ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... a gallant house Are matted with the roots of grass; The glow-worm and the nimble mouse Among ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... and danced waltz after waltz with Prussian and Neapolitan secretaries, with princes' officers of ordonnance,—with personages even more lofty very likely,—for the court of the Citizen King was then in its splendour; and there must surely have been a number of nimble young royal highnesses who would like to dance with such a beauty as Miss Newcome. The Marquis of Farintosh had a share in these polite amusements. His English conversation was not brilliant as yet, although his ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... soon discovered the thing, for we saw four of them presently after coming along with a great load of meat upon their backs. The case was, that the two who went out with their bows and arrows, meeting with a great herd of deer in the plain, had been so nimble as to shoot three of them, and then one of them came running to us for help to fetch them away. This was the first venison we had met with in all our march, and we feasted upon it very plentifully; and this ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... hunters tried their strength and skill with the Indian lads, but, although they were stronger and more nimble than most boys of their age, they found that they were no match ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... ponies which are very quick and nimble. Each player carries a mallet with a very long handle. With this mallet he strikes a wooden ball and tries to drive ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous
... Tuvvy's movements were nimble and neat, for he was a clever workman, and knew what he was about: now and then he would cast a swift glance round at Dennis out of his bright black eyes, but he never paused in his work to talk, and there was seldom any sound in ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... furious aspect and prodigious stature, making strange noises, rather resembling the bellowing of bulls than the voices of human beings, came down to the beach. Notwithstanding their enormous size, these people when they ran were so nimble, that none of the Spaniards ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... creature, so cleanly in its habits, so graceful in its carriage, so nimble and daring in its movements, excites feelings of admiration akin to those awakened by the birds and the fairer forms of nature. His passage through the trees is almost a flight. Indeed, the flying squirrel has little ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... or sigh— Never so poor that I could not buy A sweet, sweet kiss from my little Grisette. If I could nothing gain or get, By hook, or crook, or song, or story, Along the starving road to glory, I marvelled how your nimble thimble, As to a tune, danced fast and fleeting, And stopped my pen to catch the music, But only heard my heart a-beating; The quaint old roofs and gables airy Flung down the light for you to wear it, And made my love a queen in faery, ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... one, and one only, which a person with no taste for music and some taste for literature can hear frequently with pleasure, and that song of course is Father O'Flynn. To recall the delightful ingenuity and the nimble wit shown by another Irishman of the same family in the Hawarden Horace, and in a lesser degree by Mr. Godley in his Musa Frivola, leads naturally to the inquiry why humour from Aristophanes to Carlyle has always preferred the side of reaction—a question that would need an essay, or ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... counter-rat hath a tail as long as his fellows, but his teeth are more sharp and he more hungry, because he does but snap, and hath not his full half-share of the booty. The eye of this wolf is as quick in his head as a cutpurse's in a throng, and as nimble is he at his business as an hangman at an execution. His office is as the dogs do worry the sheep first, or drive him to the shambles; the butcher that cuts his throat steps out afterwards, and that's his sergeant. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... grasped the plan of attack, the heavy-butted ladder came to an upright position directly under the main doorway of the cliff house. On the instant a pair of nimble Apaches scrambled to the top, dragging with them a shorter ladder. They hoisted it above them and spliced its foot to the head of ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... course of a whirlwind or close to its track, and every now and then gusts came first larboard then starboard, and again bows on and stern on, with a force that snapped the rigging like pipe stems, and tore the canvass from the bolt ropes, notwithstanding the prompt orders and nimble efforts of the seamen, before it could be secured. Half an hour of this strange weather nearly stripped the ship of her standing rigging, leaving her comparatively a helpless wreck upon the waters, a mere log at the mercy ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... entreat thy son. And he, most righteously, Nor did her will, nor, when thy railing scorn Beat on him, broke the oath that he had sworn, For God's sake. And thy Phaedra, panic-eyed, Wrote a false writ, and slew thy son, and died, Lying; but thou wast nimble to believe! [THESEUS, at first bewildered, then dumfounded, now utters a deep groan.] It stings thee, Theseus?—Nay, hear on and grieve Yet sorer. Wottest thou three prayers were thine Of sure fulfilment, from thy Sire divine? Hast thou no foes about thee, then, that one— ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... portrait of unrivalled humour and accuracy of a people who, though now in their decadence, have played an immense and still play a not wholly insignificant part in the complex drama of Asiatic politics. It is the picture of a people, light-hearted, nimble-witted, and volatile, but subtle, hypocritical, and insincere; metaphysicians and casuists, courtiers and rogues, gentlemen and liars, hommes d'esprit and yet incurable cowards. To explain the history and to elucidate ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... longer necessary to pursue wild beasts for food, since fighting is reduced to a science, taught in three months, and seldom needed for a long time, and since work has become so largely the monopoly of the nimble typewriter. Women ask themselves and others, with at least a show of justice, since man's occupation is to sit still and think, whether they might not, with a little practice, sit quite as still as he and think ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... senses, And rend our body as they enter in. In short all good to sense, all bad to touch, Being up-built of figures so unlike, Are mutually at strife—lest thou suppose That the shrill rasping of a squeaking saw Consists of elements as smooth as song Which, waked by nimble fingers, on the strings The sweet musicians fashion; or suppose That same-shaped atoms through men's nostrils pierce When foul cadavers burn, as when the stage Is with Cilician saffron sprinkled fresh, And the altar near exhales Panchaean scent; Or hold as of like seed the ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... first light dawned on the earth and the birds, awoke, and the brave river was heard rippling confidently seaward, and the nimble early rising wind rustled the oak leaves about our tent, all men having reinforced their bodies and their souls with sleep, and cast aside doubt and fear, were ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... vital spirits. This we see in the sea; it is in a serene calm when nothing disturbs it, but is in motion when a violent preternatural wind blows upon it, and then it rageth and is circled with waves. After this manner it is in the body of man; when the blood is in a nimble agitation, then it falls upon those vessels in which the spirits are, and there being in an extraordinary heat, it fires the whole body. The opinion that a fever is an appendix to a preceding affection ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... not become excited. Harry, you are the most nimble; run to Observation Hill: here take the large sheet in the wagon; wave it there, and keep up the signaling; ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... man Grangousier, who was then merrily drinking with his guests, heard his son roar out for drink, he said to him in French, "Que Grand Tu As et souple le gousier!" That is to say, "How great and nimble a throat thou hast." Hearing this, the company said that the child verily ought to be called Gargantua, because it was the first word uttered by his father at his birth. Which the father graciously permitted, and to calm the child they gave ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... wisdom, void of right, Who shall nerve heroic boys To hazard all in Freedom's fight,— Break sharply off their jolly games, Forsake; their comrades gay, And quit proud homes and youthful dames, For famine, toil, and fray? Yet on the nimble air benign Speed nimbler messages, That waft the breath of grace divine To hearts in sloth and ease. So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... One, give me nimble hoofs, Thou! Give me furry fingers and a secret furry tail! Pleasant are thy smooth horns: if their like were on my brow Might I not abide here, ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... exercise of a freedom they have never known—the freedom to say what rises to the lips. They experience the unknown joy of play of mind. According to their observation the tongue and mind are used only when needed for serious service: to keep them active, to allow them to perform whatever nimble feats their owners fancy—this is ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... colt was suddenly inducted into the scene of action. Then there began a frisky game of maneuvers. The little, would-be rider proved as wary and nimble as the colt on which she finally succeeded in shooting a bridle. Another round of come and go, and one leg went over the slender neck, and then down the glossy back slid the lithe figure. With a wondering, protesting neigh, the colt tried all the tactics known to his species, ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... shadowless light. You knelt together on the palm-branches of heaven, waiting for the gates of Paradise to be opened; but they turned heavily on their hinges, and in your impatience you struck at them, but could not reach them. Your hand touched nothing but clouds more nimble than your desires. Your radiant companion, crowned with white roses like a bride of Heaven, wept at your anguish. Perhaps she was murmuring melodious litanies to the Virgin, while the demoniacal cravings of ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... snow-break before the open sheds which housed the sleds and canoes. Oolak was at the quarters of the train dogs at the back of the store. These were his charge. He drove them, he fed them, and cared for them. And his art lay in his nimble manipulation of the club, at once the key to discipline, and his only means of opening up a way to their savage intelligence. Steve shared in every labour and none knew better than he the value of work and discipline ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... vanished before we touched the ground. But, the word was already passing from hut to hut to turn out quietly, and we knew that the nimble barbarian had got hold of the truth, or something ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... is, so are the inhabitants, dull, heavy, witty, subtle, neat, cleanly, clownish, sick, and sound. In [3148]Perigord in France the air is subtle, healthful, seldom any plague or contagious disease, but hilly and barren: the men sound, nimble, and lusty; but in some parts of Guienne, full of moors and marshes, the people dull, heavy, and subject to many infirmities. Who sees not a great difference between Surrey, Sussex, and Romney Marsh, the wolds in Lincolnshire and the fens. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... hull of the Merrimac bore down on the Monitor now to ram and sink her at a blow. The nimble craft side stepped the avalanche of iron, turned quickly and attempted to jamb her nose into the steering gear of the ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... the best. They're giving 5 At yonder table ducal crowns in shares; There's Sternberg's lands and chattels are put up, With Egenberg's, Stawata's, Lichtenstein's, And all the great Bohemian feodalities. Be nimble, lad! and something may turn up 10 For thee—who knows? off—to thy place! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... theory as to the means by which life, motion, and knowledge were shown in the body. Every reader of Shakespeare or Chaucer becomes familiar with the vital, animal, and natural spirits. They were supposed to communicate with all parts of the body by means of the arteries or wosen, "the nimble spirits in their arteries," and the sinews or nerves. The word sinew, by the way, is exactly equal to our word nerve, and ayenward, as our author would say. Hamlet, when he bursts from his friends, explains ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... point. The easy and glib way in which some have sought to get around difficulties, by talking in large terms about the progressiveness of the revelation, as though the progress were from error to truth, instead of from half light to full light, is another illustration. The nimble way in which we have turned what is given as history into fiction, and allowed imagination to roam through the Bible, is another illustration. One of our later writers tells the story of Jonah, and says it sounds like fiction; ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... hither, perhaps, by a Spanish Army of occupation. Also it has a tea-room which is the trysting-place of all the officers in billets, and the chatelaine of which answers your lame and halting French in nimble English. On the road to Locre it has those Baths and Wash-houses which have become so justly famous, and whence hosts of British soldiers come forth like Naaman white as snow, but infinitely more companionable. Almost any day you ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... fully realized their inferiority, notwithstanding the lessons Drake, Hawkins, Cavendish, and others had already taught them. But here were the English firing four shots to their one, while their ships were so nimble that, with a fresh breeze, even the swiftest of the Spanish ships could not touch there. Such splendid gunners and skillful seamen the Spaniards had never seen before, and were hardly able ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... to tell her mistress that her dear husband had come home. Her aged knees became young again and her feet were nimble for joy as she went up to her mistress and bent over her head to speak to her. "Wake up Penelope, my dear child," she exclaimed, "and see with your own eyes something that you have been wanting this long time past. Ulysses has at last indeed come home again, and has killed ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... they have made something very special of it. Thanks to them the trenches become a very delightful spot populated by a squadron of nimble footed misses, who, booted, spurred, helmet-crowned and costumed in horizon blue, sing of the heroism and the splendid good humour of the poilu while keeping time ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... ingenious plans for improvement. Most of his numerous writings are projets—schemes of reform in government, economics, finance, education, all worked out in detail, and all aiming at the increase of pleasure and the diminution of pain. The Abbe's nimble intelligence had a weak side, which must have somewhat compromised his influence. He was so confident in the reasonableness of his projects that he always believed that if they were fairly considered the ruling powers could not fail to adopt them in their own interests. It is ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... back-parlour someone from outside gave me occasional lessons of a desultory character. The breakfast-room was often haunted by visitors, unknown to me by face or name,— ladies, who used to pity me and even to pet me, until I became nimble in escaping from their caresses. Everything seemed to be unfixed, uncertain; it was like being on the platform of a railway-station waiting for a train. In all this time, the agitated, nervous presence of my Father, whose pale face was permanently drawn with anxiety, added to ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... previously prepared for braiding, while the old fireplace, heaped with blazing logs of hickory, oak, and fragrant birch, made the room warm and cheerful. Here, with their books before them and fastened open to the next day's lessons, the children with nimble fingers plaited the straw and studied at the same time. For children taught to be industrious, usually carry into the schoolroom the principles thus developed, and are ambitious to keep as near the head of ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... while mending the linen with her long crooked nimble fingers; her eyes behind her magnifying spectacles, for age had impaired her sight, appeared enormous to me, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Gray, who was nimble in spite of her years, through a broken gap in the wall of the Omnibus House. The old ruin was more picturesque than, ever in its cloak of five-leafed ivy which the autumn had touched with red and gold. A lean-to had been built against the back wall of the building, fitted with a stout door ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... of service. On the other hand even before the time of Marius, especially in the cavalry and the light infantry, extra-Italian subjects—the heavy mounted troopers of Thrace, the light African cavalry, the excellent light infantry of the nimble Ligurians, the slingers from the Baleares—were employed in ever-increasing numbers even beyond their own provinces for the Roman armies; and at the same time, while there was a want of qualified burgess-recruits, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... intention. He wrenched a quarter-staff from one of the fellows, struck down the Captain, who was altogether unaware of his purpose, and had well-nigh repossessed himself of the pouch and treasure. The thieves, however, were too nimble for him, and again secured both the bag ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Fat, and not by any means nimble, he came to a pause about twenty feet from the entrance, and, making a sudden turn, darted out. The Doctor was tall and unaccustomed to bend his perpendicular form. Half choked and panting heavily he too gave up, and turning about rushed out ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... and drove clean in to the joint, so that the leg gave way and the gigantic brute almost fell upon its side. With a roar, it bit off the protruding half of the tough hickory, and then came on again, on three legs. From A-ya's nimble bow it got another arrow, which went half-way through its neck; but to this deadly wound, which sent the blood gushing from its mouth, it seemed to pay no heed whatever. A-ya's next shot missed; and then, screaming for the old men to come into the fray, ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... With nimble legs, and swiftly beating hearts, we scampered over the smooth turf, and I threw a triumphant look over my shoulder at him, as I hurled myself upon the mossy bole of the old tree. Then I saw that Angel had stopped stock still and was staring open-mouthed ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... wrestling nimble, and in running swift, In shooting steady, and in swimming strong, Well made to strike, to leap, to throw, to lift, And all the ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... voices of men, scarcely audible in it, were weak and ludicrous. And the men, too, themselves, the first source of all that uproar, were ludicrous and pitiable: their little figures, dusty, tattered, nimble, bent under the weight of goods that lay on their backs, under the weight of cares that drove them hither and thither, in the clouds of dust, in the sea of sweltering heat and din, were so trivial and small in comparison with the colossal iron monsters, the mountains of bales, the ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... a great impulse to the construction of roads for military as well as civil purposes. The nimble Highlanders, without baggage or waggons, had been able to cross the border and penetrate almost to the centre of England before any definite knowledge of their proceedings had reached the rest of the kingdom. In the metropolis itself little information could be obtained of the movements ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... life for the first twelve months. Outside of it the gossips fairly raged and warred with their nimble tongues. Salvatore Urso's experiment with his little girl was much talked about. Some could not say too hard things of him. Felix Simon was blamed, her mother was blamed. It was all wrong. It was wicked to teach the child to play. Others said no, let her try, if she ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... and round, like an expressive pegtop highly varnished; and breathless Mr. Craggs began to doubt already, whether country dancing had been made 'too easy,' like the rest of life; and Mr. Snitchey, with his nimble cuts and capers, footed it for Self and Craggs, and ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... which only served to enrage him so that the next moment the infuriated animal was pursuing Kit, who, fortunately not much hurt, was able to run toward the river. It was a race for life now, Carson using his nimble legs to the utmost of their capacity, accelerated very much by the thundering, bellowing bull bringing up the rear. For several minutes it was nip and tuck which should reach the stream first, but Kit got there by a scratch a little ahead. It was a big bend ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... Vealer was quartered in double-quick time, and the first fitful rays of sunlight found their way to the Creek crossing to light up an advancing forest of boughs and mistletoe clumps that moved forward on nimble black legs. ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... to his feet, furious but half-daunted with amazement, the ram danced backward a pace or two on his nimble feet, as if showing off, and then delivered his second charge. The bewildered bear was again caught unready, irresolute as to whether he should fight or flee; and again he was knocked headlong, a yard or two further down the slope. His was not the dauntless spirit that ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... ma'am; you are very kind," replied Katy; and her nimble fingers had soon made a nice little parcel for the lady, ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... wood and lie adown in the flecked shadow and rest him wholly, as if there were nought for him to do but to take in rest all that was done for his service, both by the earth and by the hands and nimble feet of Birdalone. And as she was wilful in other ways of her cherishing, so also in this, that for nought in that daylight would she go anywise disarrayed, nay not so much as to go barefoot, though he prayed ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... lighter color at the ends; the corselet is smaller, rounder, and more brilliant than that of the flies; and the belly is covered with black scales. But these little beasts trot away, scamper away so fast with their nimble legs, that one cannot see them. What delicate forms they have! they must have worn corsets when they were young. Ah! there is a sort of knot in this thread which fastens the corselet to the belly. Wait, little fellow, wait while I look at you a little nearer!" The small, thin finger ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen
... if I am at all to trust my own annals, I was delightedly conscious. Day after day, in the sun-gilded cabin, the whiskey-dealer's thermometer stood at 84. Day after day, the air had the same indescribable liveliness and sweetness, soft and nimble, and cool as the cheek of health. Day after day the sun flamed; night after night the moon beaconed, or the stars paraded their lustrous regiment. I was aware of a spiritual change, or, perhaps, rather a molecular reconstitution. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne |
