"Blithe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... There was a blithe young officer who insisted on wheeling out of the line and halting us, and passing the time of day with us. I imagine he wanted to exercise his small stock of English words. Well, it needed the exercise. The skull-and-bones poison label on his cap made a wondrous contrast with the ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... rose. So, from the hills above on the other side, Through the wide lawns they gan to take their course. The harts likewise, in troops taking their flight, Raising the dust, the mountain-fast forsake. The child Iulus, blithe of his swift steed Amids the plain, now pricks by them, by these; And to the encounter wisheth oft, in mind, The foaming boar instead of fearful beasts, Or lion brown, ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... couriers paused and looked At the scamp so blithe and gay; And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend! You seem ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... pleasant. Tom's pulse beat high, and a glad light was in his eye. He bore himself right gracefully, and all the more so because he was not thinking of how he was doing it, his mind being charmed and occupied with the blithe sights and sounds about him—and besides, nobody can be very ungraceful in nicely-fitting beautiful clothes after he has grown a little used to them—especially if he is for the moment unconscious of them. Tom remembered his instructions, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... September, 1876. Officers and men were ragged, haggard, half starved, worn down to mere skin and bone; and the horses—ah, well, only half of them were left: hundreds had dropped starved and exhausted on the line of march, and dozens had been killed and eaten. We had set out blithe and merry, riding jauntily down the wild valley of the Tongue. We straggled in toward the Hills, towing our tottering horses behind us: they had long since grown too ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... enthusiastic praise, But B is infinitely better, And there are gems in ev'ry letter. The only fault I have with Barnack Is that it rhymes with Dr. HARNACK; Barbon, Beluncle Halt, Bodorgan Resound like chords upon the organ, And there's a spirit blithe and merry In Evercreech and Egloskerry. Park Drain and Counter Drain, I'm sure, Are hygienically pure, But when aesthetically viewed They seem to me a little crude. I often long to visit Frant, Hose, Little Kimble and Lelant; And, if I had sufficient dollars, Sibley's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... went from bad to worse, but he had carefully kept all this from his adopted daughter, in the preparatory school in the Middle West. Consequently the blithe and lovable Jerkline Jo knew nothing of the state of affairs when the telegram announcing her father's death ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... greeting or a good-humoured jest; the hardy Cumbrians grinned as they passed, and said, "that's a kind heart, God bless un!" and the market-girl looked more than once over her shoulder at the athletic form, which corresponded so well with the frank and blithe address of the stranger. A rough terrier dog, his constant companion, who rivalled his master in glee, scampered at large in a thousand wheels round the heath, and came back to jump up on him, and ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... sped—I left each well-loved scene In Northern wilds to roam, And there, 'mid tossing pine-trees green, I made myself a home. We numbered three And blithe were we, At adverse fortune mocking, And Christmas-tide By our fireside Found hung the ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... should not see Much harm in the religions and old saws (Tho' I may never own such leaden laws) Which break a teachless nature to the yoke: Mine is another faith.'—thus much I spoke 165 And noting he replied not, added: 'See This lovely child, blithe, innocent and free; She spends a happy time with little care, While we to such sick thoughts subjected are As came on you last night. It is our will 170 That thus enchains us to permitted ill— We might be otherwise—we ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... saw I ladies all a-row Before their Queen in seemly show. No more I'll sing Buxoma brown, Like goldfinch in her Sunday gown; Nor Clumsilis, nor Marian bright, Nor damsel that Hobnelia hight. But Lansdown fresh as flowers of May, And Berkely lady blithe and gay, And Anglesea, whose speech exceeds The voice of pipe or oaten reeds; And blooming Hyde, with eyes so rare, And Montague beyond compare. Such ladies fair wou'd I depaint In roundelay ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... they do not care that the fields and woods should be full, not only of health and all that goes with it, including success, but also of the best of friends who all have their good points worthy of notice and imitation, in quick leap, cheerful voice and blithe song. What are sixty minutes in this great outdoor runway? Not a tithe of the twenty-four hours and at best only half of what the minimum should be. Exercise should be taken even if nothing else in the school life is. ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... flowers, with curtains on either side of snowy whiteness and elaborate workmanship? Very likely the passer-by has asked himself, Why is this house not as neglected, tattered, and dirty as its wretched neighbors? The answer is simple; there dwells in this house a young girl, blithe, frolicsome, and joyous, singing with the lark, and, like a butterfly, floating from her book to her work-box—from her mother's cheek to her father's, leaving an impress of her youthfulness and purity on whatever ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... by an Italian showman with a troop of marionettes, they made puppets and composed comedies for them; and when one day the uncle read aloud an elegant sermon, they abandoned their comedies, and turned with blithe energy to exhortation. They had glimpses of the rougher side of life in the biting mockeries of some schoolboys of the neighbourhood. These ended in appeal to the god of youthful war, who pronounced so plainly ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... later, Henry Schulte, who had been delayed beyond his wont in the village, came walking briskly along the road that led to the abode of Emerence. His heart was gay, and a blithe, merry song rose to his lips as he journeyed along. All unconscious of the dark deed that had been committed, he stood upon the rustic bridge, where he had expected to meet his betrothed, and gazed at the beauty of the landscape that was spread before him. No sound came from that gurgling ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... even for a sociable bird. The sound which it seems to produce more often than any other is very like the harsh anger-cry of the common myna. Many Himalayan birds have rather discordant notes, and in this respect these mountains do not compare favourably with the Nilgiris, where the blithe notes of the bulbuls are very pleasing to ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... its attendant miseries. No ragged, dirty, squalid children, dabbling in mud or dust; but many a tidy, smart-looking lass was spinning at the cottage-doors, with bright eyes and braided locks, while the younger girls were seated on the green turf or on the threshold, knitting and singing as blithe as birds. ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... it would need a heart of flint To watch the blithe lambs caper o'er the lea, And, watching them, refrain from thoughts of mint, Of new potatoes, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... raised a chill no later than yesterday,—the chill of the unknown. They had not attended the lectures on the "Greek bucks." Indeed, profiting by their privilege of voluntary recitations, they had dropped in but seldom on Philosophy 4. These blithe grasshoppers had danced and sung away the precious storing season, and now that the bleak hour of examinations was upon them, their waked-up hearts had felt aghast at the sudden vision of their ignorance. ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister
... the mightiest gods, and best beloved, Towards our town are winging! For lo! Demeter and Demetrius This glad day is bringing! She to perform her Daughter's solemn rites; Mystic pomps attend her; He joyous as a god should be, and blithe, Comes with laughing splendor. Show forth your triumph! Friends all, troop around, Let him shine above you! Be you the stars to circle him with love; He's the sun to love you. Hail, offspring of Poseidon, powerful god, Child of Aphrodite! The ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... "How blithe soe'er his manner, / how fair soe'er is he, Well could he cause of sorrow / to stately woman be, If he gan show his anger. / In him may well be seen He is in knightly virtues / a thane of valor bold ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... so shy Peep out to see her pass; As lightly she loosens her showery locks And flutters her rainy wings; Laughingly stoops To the glass of the stream, And loosens and loops Her hair by the gleam, While all the young villagers blithe as the flocks Go frolicking round in rings; - Then Winter, he who tamed the fly, Turns on his back and prepares to die, For he cannot ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the blithe song of the voyageurs homeward returning, And thus, as they glided along, sang the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... at six precisely, in order, if possible, to shame the household and fill it with remorse and unpleasantness. Yet ordinarily he was not a very prompt man, nor did he delight in giving pain. On the contrary, he was apt to be casual, blithe and agreeable. ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... I reached up to see him going down the road to the railway station. His old father was walking proudly by his side, bare-headed as usual and still as blithe as a boy. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... sleep 'mong them that sleep alway; And the blithe little lad began anew to sing... Sorrow is like a fruit: God doth not therewith weigh Earthward the branch strong yet ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... Victor Hugo and Mr Gladstone, take refuge in humanitarianism. Humanitarianism is a pigsty, where liars, hypocrites, and the obscene in spirit congregate; it has been so since the great Jew conceived it, and it will be so till the end. Far better the blithe modern pagan in his white tie and evening clothes, and his facile philosophy. He says, "I don't care how the poor live; my only regret is that they live at all;" and he ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... careless and wild, as disorderly and as full of good-heartedness. Even my story, sad as it was, failed to trouble her long, and as was her fashion, she set about comforting me, upon her usual principle that, whatever threatened, it were best be blithe to-day. ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... you up the mountain go, Up to the dreary mountain-top, I'll tell you all I know. 'Tis now some two-and-twenty years Since she (her name is Martha Ray) Gave, with a maiden's true good will, Her company to Stephen Hill; And she was blithe and gay, And she was happy, happy still Whene'er ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... Why, with a trip and a courtesy, As if to say,—"Good day, good day," Out steps a tiny bird! And though no soul were near to hear He'd pipe that same blithe word. ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... them down, the garbage of the pit, Whose names, half entered in the book of Life, Were God's desire at noon. And as their hair And eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit To gaze, but, yearning, waits his worthier wife, The Sin still blithe on earth ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... old Earl and the young bridegroom, and many and many more of them, with gaping wounds and deathly faces—all but the young King of the Isle of Wight and his shroud, his shroud, Cousin Lily, it was up to his breast; and the ladies' faces that were so blithe, they were all weeping, ghastly, and writhen; and they were whirling round a great sea of blood right in the middle of the hall, and I could—I could ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "A blithe spirit," said Psmith. "Not garrulous, perhaps, but what of that? I am a man of few words myself. Comrade Jarvis's massive silences appeal to me. He seems to have taken a fancy to you, ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... and all the way Uncle Alec's hat was more off his head than on, for everyone they met smiled and bowed, and gave him as blithe a greeting as ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... mostly vocal, for school and church use, though some are of a gay and playful nature. The best remembered of his secular and sacred styles are his blithe aria to the song of Moore, "Life let us cherish, while yet the taper glows" and the sweet choral that ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... And nobler than the branches of a pine Aslant upon a precipice's edge Are the strained spars of some great battle-ship Plowing across the sunset. No bird's lilt So takes me as the whistling of the gale Among the shrouds. My cradle-song was this, Strange inarticulate sorrows of the sea, Blithe rhythms upgathered from the Sirens' caves. Perchance of earthly voices the last voice That shall an instant my freed spirit stay On this world's verge, will be some message blown Over the dim salt lands that fringe the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to twinkle from their windows. At a certain station, I am reminded by my careful mentor, the craggy mountain-tops were softened by the sunset pink, and that then the warm afternoon air began to grow cooler, and the dying day to empurple the uplands everywhere, without abating the charm of the blithe cottages. It seems to have been mostly a very homelike scene, and where there was a certain stretch of woodland its loneliness was relieved by the antic feat of a goat lifting itself on its hind legs to browse the olive leaves on their ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... child. It is quiet, happy noon; the sunlight, broken by the tall roofs in the narrow street, comes yet through the open casement, the impartial playfellow of the air, gleesome alike in temple and prison, hall and hovel; as golden and as blithe, whether it laugh over the first hour of life, or quiver in its gay delight on the terror and agony of the last! The child, where it lay at the feet of Viola, stretched out its dimpled hands as if to clasp the dancing ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... three months' imprisonment in the second division was not responsible. The smash was before that. Probably it came with the realization that he stood beneath the shadow of the Criminal Law. Be that as it may, the ex-financier emerged from prison a broken man. But for the interest of Mr. Blithe, the senior partner of Bulrush & Co., who had had him met at the gates and straightway sent him for a month to the seaside, poor Mr. Slumper must have sunk like a stone. When he was fit to follow an occupation, he was encouraged to accept a living wage, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... a lodge for fasting, Built a wigwam in the forest, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, In the blithe and pleasant Spring-time, In the Moon of Leaves he built it, And, with dreams and visions many, Seven whole days and ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... C[oe]lia, Chloris, Astrophil, Or any of the threadbare names inspir'd Poor rhyming lovers with a mistress fir'd. Come then! and while the slow icicle hangs At the stiff thatch, and Winter's frosty pangs Benumb the year, blithe—as of old—let us 'Midst noise and war of peace and mirth discuss. This portion thou wert born for: why should we Vex at the time's ridiculous misery? An age that thus hath fool'd itself, and will —Spite of thy teeth and mine—persist so still. Let's sit then at this ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... sweeter[43] swan than ever sung in Po, A shriller nightingale than ever bless'd The prouder groves of self-admiring Rome. Blithe was each valley, and each shepherd proud, While he did chant his rural minstrelsy: Attentive was full many a dainty ear, Nay, hearers hung upon his melting tongue, While sweetly of his Fairy Queen he sung; While to the waters' fall he tun'd ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... there; they were all flown far away. It was dark in the wood, dark and full of sound and of moving bodies charged with danger. The whirlwind swept it, the treetops snapped off. "Attention!" The grey soldiers were glad to hear the word. "Forward! March!" They were blithe to hear the order and to leave ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... light-hearted and merriest of beings. He was more full of glee and high spirits than she had ever seen him; he seemed to fill the whole house with mirth, and keep every one alive by his fun and frolic, as blithe and untiring as Maurice de Courcy himself, though not ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... some two weeks, when Octave proposed in the afternoon that they should go for a walk, she agreed. Her preparations were soon completed, and they started off, blithe and lively as children on a holiday ramble. As they loitered in a wooded path, they heard a dog barking in the cover. It was Bruno, who rushed out, and, standing on his hind legs, endeavored to lick ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... sweet mistress. May the blithe spirit of this auspicious morn Become the genius of thy days to come, Whereof be none less beautiful than this. Why art thou silent? Does not love inspire Joyous expression, be it but a sigh, A song, a smile, a broken word, a cry? ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... him. He broke his poor wife's heart, and never believed it till she lay dead, and then he was sorry, and tried to make some amends. He was a bit touched when he saw his motherless bairns, and did a kind deed when he sent them to me; but he soon grew blithe and gay again, and troubled his head no more. I've never heard from him from that day to this, except that he sends me payment for the babies still. He doesn't even know that the little one died, for he has never written; and I don't know where he is; but any day ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... soon; the horse in gait and temper turned out perfection—all spring and spirit, elastic in his motion, walking fast and easily, and cantering with a light, graceful swing as soon as one pressed the reins on his neck, a blithe, joyous animal, to whom a day among the mountains seemed a pleasant frolic. So gentle he was, that when I got off and walked he followed me without being led, and without needing any one to hold him he allowed me to mount on either side. In addition to the charm of his movements he has ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... cent, profit. Come back, Thompson!" Steve was making for the door, with apologies. "You're not in the way a bit. Sit down, man! Your six thousand won't be a starter, Joe. I've got some four thousand myself, in red, red gold. All I have in the world—wish it was more." His blithe insouciance ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... taen the grue, An' winnae blithely hirsle through, Ye've fund the very thing to do - That's to drink speerit; An' shune we'll hear the last o' you - An' blithe to ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... came. He filled Use with slaughter, and Lewes he gave to flame. He smote while they sat in the Witan—sudden he smote and sore, That his fleet was gathered at Selsea ere they mustered at Cymen's Ore. Blithe went the Saxons to battle, by down and wood and mere, But thrice the acorns ripened ere the western mark was clear. Thrice was the beechmast gathered, and the Beltane fires burned Thrice, and the beeves were salted thrice ere the host returned. ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... in his favor. How brightly the sunshine flooded the room! What a glorious world it was, after all! Through the open window poured the rich, full-throated song of a meadow lark, and the burden of its blithe song was, "How good is this ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... at him, remembered a little curiously, the whispered reason for his long absence. There was always a woman in the wind when it blew rumours of Kemper, though he was generally considered to regard the sex with the blithe indifference of a man to whom feminine favour has come easily. How easily Gerty had sometimes wondered, though she had hardly ventured so much as a dim surmise. Ten years, she would have said, was a considerable period from which to date a passion, and she remembered ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... ony, and blithe as she 's bonny; For guileless simplicity marks her its ain; And far be the villain, divested of feeling, Wha 'd blight, in its bloom, the sweet flower o' Dumblane. Sing on, thou sweet mavis, thy hymn to the e'ening, Thou 'rt ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... yet with something blithe and unperturbed in his bearing that, as she stood waiting for what he might say to her, seemed the very nimbus of chivalry. He was splendid to look at, too, tall and strong with clear kind ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... when he heard Alric's blithe voice in the cavern, but he caught him up in his arms, and gave him a hug that almost made ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... the lively Irishman. He jumped to the conclusion that O'Dowd, while aligned with the others in the flesh, was not with them in spirit. His blithe heart was a gallant one as well. The lovely prisoner at Green Fancy had a chivalrous defender among the conspirators, and that fact, suddenly revealed to the harassed Barnes, sent a thrill of exultation ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... the stubbled corn The blithe quail pipes at morn, The merry partridge drums in hidden places, And glittering insects gleam Above the reedy stream, Where busy spiders spin their ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... honoure; And ever ylike fair and fresh of hue, And ever I love it, and ever ylike new, And ever shall, till that mine heart die, All swear I not, of this I will not lye. There loved no wight hotter in his life, And when that it is eve, I run blithe, As soon as ever the sun gaineth west, To see this floure, how it will go to rest. For fear of night, so hateth she darkness, Her cheer is plainly spread in the brightness Of the sunne, for there it will unclose; Alas, that I ne had English ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... that the centre of things lay to the east, so he struck out along Madison, trying not to show the terror with which the grim, roaring, clamorous city filled him. He jingled the small coins in his pocket and strode along, on the surface a blithe and carefree jackie on shore leave; a forlorn and lonely Texas ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... town. And there were chosen, and given a week to go and come, Juan Lepe, Luis Torres and a seaman Roderigo Jerez, with Diego Colon, the Fernandina youth. Likewise there would go two Indians of this village, blithe enough to show their country to the gods and ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... the dominie would come in of a Sunday or a Friday evening, leaving for an hour or two the books he was so fond of that he must have a little one in his pocket to feel the touch of when he could not be studying the pages. Seated in the Cornal's chair, he had a welcome almost blithe. For he was a man of great urbanity, sobered by thought upon the complexities of life, but yet with ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... rise. Blithe are they for that the king has thus courteously kept them. Alexander is welcome; for there is no lack of aught that he wishes nor is there any baron in the Court so high that he does not speak him fair and welcome him. For ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... is the word—so here goes! I am determined to be blithe and keep the salt of humor sprinkled thick across the butter-crock of concession. Dinky-Dunk watches me with a guarded and wary eye and Pauline Augusta does not always approve of me. Yesterday, when I got ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... an undertone to RANNVEIG, looking out meanwhile to the left) Mother, come here— Come here and hearken. Is there not a foot, A stealthy step, a fumbling on the latch Of the great door? They come, they come, old mother: Are you not blithe and thirsty, knowing they come And cannot be held back? Watch and be secret, To feel things pass that cannot ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... round! How the earth trembled! Was the glare of the sun too fierce that morning, or had his eyes grown dim? Going blind? Well, even so, he would not repine, for Naomi could see now. She would see for him also. How sweet to see through Naomi's eyes! Naomi was young and joyous, and bright and blithe. All the world was new to her, and strange and beautiful. It would be a second and ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... written on the flyleaf of each of them. He really rather adored Louise than loved her, and he builded well, for his adoration (unintimate as adoration must ever be until perchance it touches earth and is translated into love) was of that blithe and inspiriting quality that lifts a man above his natural self and shapes the lips to song and the heart to unselfish service. He knew himself to be good-looking and not altogether a barbarian. No morbid hopelessness clouded his broad horizon. He knew himself ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... born on fair Sunday Is bonny and loving, and blithe and gay. Monday's bairn is fair in the face, Tuesday's bairn is full of grace, Wednesday's bairn is loving and giving, Thursday's bairn works hard for a living, Friday's bairn is a child of woe, Saturday's bairn has far ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... from table to hearth, bustled buxom Mrs. Bassett, flushed and floury, but busy and blithe as the queen bee of this ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... has not seen its horror pass; His heart is blithe; the village hears His distant laughter; he careers In festive waltz athwart ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... the church bells never having rung out so blithe a peal before. And we must consider Webster's feelings. After all, he ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... become unreal and unsubstantial; though not rarely, in some glimpse of retrospect, the pilgrim turns, ascends a hillock by the road, and sees the far-off lines, the quiet folds, of the blue heights from which he descended in the blithe air of the morning, and knows that they were desirable. Perhaps the happiest of all are those who, as the weary day advances, can catch a sight of some no less beautiful hills ahead of him, their hollows full of misty ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... be more refreshing than a sight of somebody's home? Generally, at whatever place we stopped, we saw only the "men-folks;" the family, often half-breed, being huddled away in the rear. Here, in the room in which the guests were received, lay the smiling baby in its old-fashioned cradle. Two blithe little girls danced in and out, and the old grandfather sat holding a white-haired boy. When dinner was over, the great business of drying the clothes was resumed by the travellers and the family; and we held our wrappings by the fire, and turned them about, until we became so ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... Sholto," cried Ninian, exceedingly relieved, "blithe am I to see you, lad. You will tell us the truth of this ill news that has upturned the auld province. By your gloomy face I see that the major part is overtrue. The Earl is dead, and he awes me for twenty-four peck of wheaten ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... in the nightmare's grip, Fears he has let Time's scanty forelock slip, And lost a great occasion Of self-advancement. How that mouth's a-writhe With hate, on platforms oft so blandly blithe In golden-tongued persuasion! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... tell ye, Ratton, blithe will Nicol Muschat be to see ye, for he says he kens weel there isna sic a villain out o' hell as ye are, and he wad be ravished to hae a crack wi' ye—like to like, ye ken—it's a proverb never fails; and ye are baith a pair o' the deevil's peats, I trow—hard to ken whilk deserves the hettest ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... nodded her thanks, with a blithe word of parting,—so completely can her sex disguise their feelings. She was conscious at the moment, without in the least being able to guess at the cause of the friction between the two men, of an intense antipathy to Dr. James Van Horn. And at the same moment she longed to be able to make ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... have heard, O auspicious King, that Hasan al- Habbal (the Rope-maker) continued his story, saying.—Thereupon Sa'di asked me, "How farest thou by this industry? Me thinks thou art blithe and quite content therewith. Thou hast worked long and well and doubtless thou hast laid by large store of hemp and other stock. Thy forbears carried on this craft for many years and must have left thee much of capital ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... to the $4,500 income from a certain trust fund. His plan also incorporated the hope to save every penny of that income for the possible "rainy day." He was now thirty; in each of several New York banks he had something like $4,000 drawing three per cent. interest while he picked his blithe way through the world on $2,500 a year, more ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... blithe breeze, and O great seas, Though ne'er that earliest parting past, On your wide plain they join again; Together lead them home ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... now are gane, a' who ventured to save, The new grass is springing on the tap o' their grave; But the sun through the mirk blinks blithe in my e'e: "I 'll shine on ye yet in your ain countrie." It 's hame, an' it 's hame, hame fain wad I be, An' it 's hame, hame, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... on the other hand, seems to be a joyous, vivacious bird. Wordsworth applies to it the adjective "blithe," ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... very deed, and made much of him, and fawned on him, and laid her hand on his breast, and he was soft and blithe with her, but at last he ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... quitted his chamber, discern'd Matilda ride by, with her cheek beaming bright In what Virgil has call'd, "Youth's purpureal light" (I like the expression, and can't find a better). He sigh'd as he look'd at her. Did he regret her? In her habit and hat, with her glad golden hair, As airy and blithe as a blithe bird in air, And her arch rosy lips, and her eager blue eyes, With her little impertinent look of surprise, And her round youthful figure, and fair neck, below The dark drooping feather, as radiant as snow,— I can only declare, that if I had the chance Of passing three days in ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... the dome, where smoke, with curling play, Announc'd the dinner to the regions round, Summon'd the singer blithe, and harper gay, And aided wine ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... were executing a blithe staccato movement in the yard below, and making the sparks dance. No one walking among the diligent gangs, and observing the placid faces of the men as they bent over their tasks, would have suspected that they were awaiting the word that ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... marriage vows were said the year had not given to the smiling earth. Clear and softly blue as the eye of childhood bent the summer sky above them. There was not a cloud in all the tranquil heavens to give suggestion of dreary days to come or to wave a sign of warning. The blithe birds sung their matins amid the branches that hung their leafy drapery around and above Irene's windows, in seeming echoes to the songs love was singing in her heart. Nature put on the loveliest attire in all her ample wardrobe, ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... world to-day in all the body's pride. That's why I'm here—a stable-boy to camels— For in the circus-ring there's more delight Of seemly bodies, goodly in sheer health, Bodies trained and tuned to the perfect pitch, Eager, blithe, debonair, from head to heel Aglow and alive in every pulse, than elsewhere In this machine-ridden land of grimy, glum Round-shouldered, coughing mechanics. Once I lived In London, in a slum called Paradise, Sickened to see the greasy pavements crawling With puny flabby babies, thick ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... see, my Mary, All up on the Caldon-Low?" "I saw the blithe sunshine come down, And I saw the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of a new kind; so novel indeed in its effect, as to bring suddenly to the recollection of Marius, Flavian's early essays towards a new world of poetic sound. It was the expression not altogether of mirth, yet of some wonderful sort of happiness—the blithe self-expansion of a joyful soul in people upon whom some all-subduing experience had wrought heroically, and who still remembered, on this bland afternoon, the hour of ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... The trumpets flourished brave, The cannon from the ramparts glanced, And thundering welcome gave. A blithe salute, in martial sort, The minstrels well might sound, For, as Lord Marmion crossed the court, He scattered angels round. "Welcome to Norham, Marmion! Stout heart, and open hand! Well dost thou brook thy gallant roan, Thou flower of ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... going to teach children we must teach them first to move. And not by rule or mental dictation. Horror! But by playing and teasing and anger, and amusement. A child must learn to move blithe and free and proud. It must learn the fullness of spontaneous motion. And this it can only learn by continuous reaction from all the centers, through all the emotions. A child must learn to contain ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... that breathes the spring, Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-maying, There, on beds of violets blue, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Filled her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods and Becks, and wreathed Smiles— Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... little man is merry and wise, Gay as a cricket and blithe as a bird; Often he laughs and seldom he cries, Chatters and coos at my lightest word: Peeping and creeping and opening the door, Clattering, pattering over the floor, In and out, round about, fast as he can,— So goes the daytime ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never: Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... lights Of Artemis, wherewith the huntress sweeps Across the Lycian steeps. Thee too I call with golden-snooded hair, Whose name our land doth bear, Bacchus to whom thy Maenads Evoe shout; Come with thy bright torch, rout, Blithe god whom we adore, The god whom ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... Dickson," said Mrs. Morran. "He's gaun to stretch his legs ayont the burn, and come back by the Ayr road. But I'll be blithe to tak' my tea wi' ye, Elspeth.... Now, Dickson, I'll expect ye hame on ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... as the most refined Gentleman; the Servants were then running here and there, with merry Hearts and jolly Countenances; every one was busy welcoming of Guests, and look'd as smug as new-lick'd Puppies; the Lasses as blithe and buxom as the maids in good Queen Bess's Days, when they eat Sir-Loins of Roast Beef for Breakfast; Peg would scuttle about to make a Toast for John, while Tom run harum scarum to draw a Jug of Ale for Margery: Gaffer Spriggins was bid thrice welcome ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... depressed and martyred when obliged to go to the courts of Albany and leave his family behind him. He had lost interest in his body; his spirit, ever, by far, the strongest and the dominant part of him, seemed already struggling for its freedom, arrogant and blithe as it approached its final triumph. There is nothing in all life so selfish as death; and the colossal ego which genius breeds or is bred out of, isolated Hamilton even more completely than imminent death isolates most men. The while he ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... he fell at his feet and did obeisance, he and all his men. "Dear lord," he said, "I know you to be Birkabeyn's son. You shall be King of Denmark; right soon shall every lord and baron come and do you homage." Then was Havelok glad and blithe, and gave thanks ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... with you to the end of the world, all the more as you are now sick and sad, and when I saw you first you were blithe and well. If I must leave you, I hope at least to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... still further; but their danger was now so apparent they could not shut their eyes on it; therefore, both parties, as if actuated by the same spirit, made a desperate effort to join, and the greater part effected it; but some were knocked down, and others were separated from their friends, and blithe to become ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... my gell,' said her mother. 'For me. And it's outside my thinkin' why a maid shouldn't tek a fancy to him. A lad as is stiddy an' handsome, and as blithe as sunshine! He's as fond as a calf ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... difference from mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over brackish depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace. You know that the bosom can ache beneath diamond brooches, and how many blithe hearts dance under coarse wool. But I do not allude merely to these accidental contrasts. I mean that about equal measures of trial, equal measures of what men call good and evil, are allotted to all; enough, at least, to prove the identity of our humanity, and ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... coarse human mould are ever indulged, are but poor in comparison with the rich abundance of the same in which some more delicately-constituted organisms habitually revel. If we would understand of what development emotional delight is capable, we should watch the skylark. As that 'blithe spirit' now at heaven's gate 'poureth its ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... not see these things, or saw them only dimly at a distance: they were perfectly happy in each other, and almost invariably together both in and out of doors. The Eyethorne woods still attracted them almost daily; for although the trees were barren of leaves and desolate, the robin still made blithe music there, and the wren and thrush were sometimes heard, and even the mournful cawing of the rooks, and the weird melodies of the wind in the naked trees inspired their hearts with a mysterious gladness. And on days when the sun shone—the February ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... it be defined? I try to arouse the imagination of the student first of all. We speak of the character of the piece, and try to arrive at some idea of its meaning. Is it largo—then it is serious and soulful; is it scherzo—then it should be blithe and gay. We cannot depend on metronome tempi, for they are not reliable. Those given in Schumann are generally all wrong. We try to feel the rhythm of the music, the swing of it, the spirit of it. In giving out the opening theme or subject, I feel it should be made prominent, to arrest ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... withdrew his optics from the imperious dame, and took an instantaneous brain-picture of her companion, a light-footed, quick-glancing girl about eighteen years of age, whose arrival put little Harman into an ecstasy, and gave manifest delight to the servants. Her blithe manner and cheerful voice won Byle's complete approbation, and led him to describe her as one who "'peared not to know there was a valley of the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... glad spirits, tall and straight, who 'spite of time and all its care, Have kept the power to laugh and sing and in youth's fellowship to share. They that can walk with boys and be a boy among them, blithe and gay, Defy the withering blasts of Age because they have the ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... Ferdiad were not joyful, blithe, cheerful or merry that night,[6] [LL.fo.82b.] but they were sad, sorrowful and downcast, for they knew that where the two champions and the two bulwarks in a gap for a hundred, [7]the two pillars of battle and strife of the men of Erin[7] [8]of that time[8] met in ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... ever-blessed flowers! 'Mid which my queen her gracious footstep sets; O plain, that keep'st her words for amulets And hold'st her memory in thy leafy bowers! O trees, with earliest green of spring-time hours, And spring-time's pale and tender violets! O grove, so dark the proud sun only lets His blithe rays gild the outskirts of your towers! O pleasant country-side! O purest stream, That mirrorest her sweet face, her eyes so clear, And of their living light can catch the beam! I envy you her haunts so close and dear. There is no rock ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... These blithe Satyrs, wanton-eyed, Of the Nymphs are paramours: Through the caves and forests wide They have snared them mid the flowers; Warmed with Bacchus, in his bowers, Now they dance and leap alway.— Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... robins, lusty as of old, Hunt the waste grass for forage, or prolong From every quarter of these fields the bold, Blithe phrases of their never-finished song. The white-throat's distant descant with slow stress Note after note upon the noonday falls, Filling the leisured air at intervals With his own mood of ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman |
