"Infantine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in years, and yet more infantine In figure, she had something of sublime In eyes, which sadly shone, as seraphs' shine: All youth—but with an aspect beyond time; Radiant and grave—us pitying man's decline; Mournful—but mournful of another's crime, She look'd as if she ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... lived happily with his youthful esposa; all the happier that in due time a son and daughter—the former resembling himself, the latter a very image of her mother—enlivened their home with sweet infantine prattle. And as the years rolled by, a third youngster came to form part of the family circle—this neither son nor daughter, but an orphan child of the Senora's sister deceased. A boy he ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... words our babe, with its diminutive baby, seems not akin. Skeat, rejecting the theory that it is a reduplicative child-word, like papa, sees in it merely a modification (infantine, perhaps) of the Celtic maban, diminutive of mab, "son," and hence related to maid, the particular etymology of which ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... of a certain apish drollery and humour which exhibited itself in the lad, and a liking for some of the old man's pursuits, the first of the twins was the grandfather's favourite and companion, and would laugh and talk out all his infantine heart to the old gentleman, to whom the younger had seldom a word to say. George was a demure studious boy, and his senses seemed to brighten up in the library, where his brother was so gloomy. He knew the books before he could well-nigh carry them, and read in them long before he could understand ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to relate more of my infantine adventures, it will be necessary to introduce a kinsman of mine to the reader's acquaintance; of whom, though the alliance were now of some standing, he has yet ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... 23 June, the first portion of the "Napoleon Museum," collected by Mrs. Sainsbury, and which had long been on exhibition. The prices fetched were ridiculously low, as the following examples will show. Among the bronzes, an infantine bust of the King of Rome, formerly in the possession of Josephine, at Malmaison, cost 20 guineas, sold for 1 pound 10s. A drawing in sepia, by Debret, of Napoleon visiting the wounded on the field, ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... is en affaire regime with the young Lady Essex. At a supper there a few nights ago of two-and-twenty people, they were talking of his going to Cashiobury to direct some alterations: Mrs. Nugent in the softest infantine voice called out, "My Lady Essex, don't let him do any thing out of doors; but you will ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... landscape and the softness of the Italian climate seem naturally fitted to dispose the poetic soul to the dreams of rural life, and the language seems, by its graceful simplicity, peculiarly adapted to express the feelings of a class of people whom we picture to ourselves as ingenuous and infantine in their natures. The manners of the Italian peasantry are more truly pastoral than those of any other people, and a bucolic poet in that fair region need not wander to Arcadia. But Sannazzaro, like all the early pastoral poets of Italy, proposed to himself, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... playthings. Sometimes it is a parrot from the East, sometimes a partridge (the partridge is frequent in the Venetian pictures): sometimes a goldfinch, as in Raphael's Madonna del Cardellino. In a Madonna by Guercino, the Mother holds a bird perched on her hand, and the Child, with a most naive infantine expression, shrinks back from it.[1] In a picture by Baroccio, he holds it up before a cat (Nat. Gal. 29), so completely were the original symbolism and all the religious proprieties of art ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... many houses in the town; and the rising of the waters filled the mansion wherein Patrick abided, and overturned all the household stuff, and caused all the vessels to swim. And the little boy, being an hungered, asked in his infantine manner for bread; yet found he not any who would break bread for him, but jeeringly was he answered that he was nearer to being drowned than fed. When the boy dipped three of his fingers into the swelling water, ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... their secrets through the confessional, and amuse them with no end of feast-days, and gewgaws, and puerile ceremonies. The natives seem to have a great deal of our dear old French Canadian habitans about them, only in a more sublime stage of infantine simplicity. ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... carefully enclosed between two layers of cotton-wool, on removing which there appeared a little baby's hand most delicately represented in the whitest marble; all the dimples where the knuckles were to be, all the creases in the plump flesh, every infantine wrinkle of the soft skin being lovingly recorded. "The critics condemn minute representation," said Powers; "but you may look at this through a microscope and see if it injures the general effect." Nature herself never ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the same expression, half keen, half dreamy, as in Geraldine, his junior by one year; while the grace of all the attitudes of his slender lissome figure showed to advantage beside Felix's more sturdy form, and deliberate or downright movements; while Clement was paler, slighter, and with rather infantine features, and shining wavy brown hair, that nothing ever seemed to ruffle, looked so much as if he ought to have been a girl, that Tina, short for Clementina, was his school name. Fulbert, stout, square, fat-cheeked, and permanently rough ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... civilized nations of Europe. In fact, every man in the early period of his life constructs a heaven for himself, as those who study the ways of children are aware, and this has given rise to a new science of infantine psychology, set forth in the writings of ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... to instinct, and not as human creatures, guided by reason. To those who had the direction of my earliest years I leave the task of relating the transactions of my infancy, if they find them as worthy of being recorded as the infantine exploits of Themistocles and Alexander,—the one exposing himself to be trampled on by the horses of a charioteer, who would not stop them when requested to do so, and the other refusing to run a race unless ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... significant will these general truths appear, when we remember that they hold throughout adult life as well as throughout infantine life. It is by an experimentally-gained knowledge of the natural consequences, that men and women are checked when they go wrong. After home-education has ceased, and when there are no longer parents and teachers to forbid this or that kind of conduct, there comes into play a discipline ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... imperceptibly. Her eyes, so wonderfully blue in the daylight, seemed dark and soft as velvet, and the colour on her neck deepened and whitened with every breath. She seemed smaller and more slender than when he had seen her in the street, and there was now something in the curve of her cheek almost infantine. When at last he turned and caught his own reflection in the mirror behind him, a shock passed through him as though he had seen a shameful thing, and his clouded mind and his clouded thoughts grew clearer. For a moment their eyes met then his sought the floor, his lips tightened, and ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... and forward night and morning with her little burden in her arms. The child was a frail, tiny creature, never strong, and often suffering, and its very frailty drew Joan nearer to it. It was sadly like Liz, pretty and infantine. Many a rough but experienced mother, seeing it, prophesied that its battle with life would be brief. With the pretty face, it had inherited also the helpless, irresolute, appealing look. Joan saw this in the baby's ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... her pure existence, was called the "Holy Child!" The taint of sin—inherited from those who disobeyed in Paradise—seemed from her fair clay to have been washed out at the baptismal font, and by her first infantine tears. So pious people almost believed, looking on her so unlike all other children, in the serenity of that habitual smile that clothed the creature's countenance with a wondrous beauty, at an age when on other infants is but faintly seen the dawn of reason, and their eyes look happy, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... is confined to her room by a sore throat; but I have seen half a dozen of her companions. I mean not her children, but her dogs. To see a woman without any softness in her manners caressing animals, and using infantine expressions, is, you may conceive, very absurd and ludicrous, but a fine lady is a new species to me of animal. I am, however, treated like a gentlewoman by every part of the family, but the forms and parade of high ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... and sunny hours of childhood.[A] As to innocence, the remark of a certain ancient and reverend man, though sour, was critically accurate,—that "it is the weakness of infants' limbs, and not their minds, which are innocent." It is most true. Many an impotent infantine screech or slap or scratch embodies an abandonment and ecstasy of utter uncontrolled fury scarcely expressible by the grown-up man, though he should work the bloodiest murder to express it. And what adult manifestation, except in the violent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... the girl very different from that reverential love which he had bestowed upon her when she was still pure. He remembered the poorness of her raiment, the meekness of her language, the small range of her ideas. The sweet soft coaxing loving smile, which had once been so dear to him, was infantine and ignoble. She was a plaything for an idle hour, not a woman to be taken out into the world with the high name of Countess ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... who sat next to her was the youngest of her two daughters, and might be about thirteen years of age. Her name was Matilda, but infantine circumstances had invested her with the nickname of Mimmy, by which her mother always called her. A nice, pretty, playful little girl was Mimmy Thompson, wearing two long tails of plaited hair hanging, ...
— The Chateau of Prince Polignac • Anthony Trollope
... will receive not only enough, but a great deal too much; and an indulgence to every inattention, awkward habit, and expression, which may lead you to imagine them to be so many ornaments: as to your language, I shall expect to find it perfectly infantine. As to studies or lessons, I do not know which of them you allude to, as you do not say what books you have taken up. If Mr. Leshlie is your only master, as I suppose, your lesson must be larger than ever heretofore. Your translation of the ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... children did not want society. To small infantine gayeties they were unaccustomed. They were all in all to each other. I do not suppose that there ever was a family more tenderly bound to each other. Maria read the newspapers, and reported intelligence ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... vices were the disgrace, of three nations. Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland, was there, no longer young, but still retaining some traces of that superb and voluptuous loveliness which twenty years before overcame the hearts of all men. There too was the Duchess of Portsmouth, whose soft and infantine features were lighted up with the vivacity of France. Hortensia Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin, and niece of the great Cardinal, completed the group. She had been early removed from her native Italy to the court where her uncle was supreme. His power and her own attractions had drawn a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Goal of Infantine Hope, Unknown, mystic Felicity Sangrael of childish quest much sought, aethereal "Real Tea" Thy faintest tint of yellow on the milk and water pale Like Midas' stain on Pactolus, gives ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... mouth curved and quivered as for some denied caress, And the fair young brow was knitted in an infantine distress. ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... different from his sisters. For Annet and Linnet merely looked puzzled; to them the book was a book, just as the hill upon which they sat was a hill, and they had never troubled their heads about such a thing as an author. But Matthew Henry opened his infantine ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... to Lord George at the moment that his wife had certainly more than an infantine will of her own. "You ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... a holy precocity of all pitiful and compassionate feelings, blended into a mysterious piety that has made them sing happy hymns on the brink of death and the grave. Such affecting instances of almost infantine unfolding of the spirit beneath spiritual influences should not be rare—nor are they rare—in truly Christian households. Almost as soon as the heart is moved by filial affection, that affection ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... up. For the moment she was puzzled. To her, Hugo's speech sounded insincere. But the glance of the eye that she encountered was so caressing, the curves of his mouth were so sweetly infantine, that she accused herself of harsh judgment, and remembered Hugo's foreign blood and Continental training, which had given him the habit, she supposed, of saying "pretty things." She could not doubt his ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... each tiny silent wavelet as it moved up toward the shore and lost itself at last in its own effort, stretched itself the whole length of the strand. Such brightness on the seashore she had never seen before, nor had she ever listened as now she listened to that infantine babble of the baby waves, She sat there close upon the margin, on a seat of chalk which the winds had made, looking, listening, and forgetting for a while that she was Lady Ongar whom people did not ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... Plantagenet, the Fair Maid of Kent—but worn and faded with anxiety. She watched her princely Lord with an eye full of care, and could scarcely spare attention for the lovely child who clung to her side, and whose brilliantly fair complexion, wavy flaxen hair, high brow, and perfectly formed though infantine features, already promised that remarkable beauty which distinguished the countenance of Richard II. On the other side of the Prince sat his sister-in-law, the Countess of Cambridge, a Spanish Infanta; and her husband, Edmund, afterwards Duke of York, was beside the Princess of Wales. But more wonderful ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... antidotal, got its name from scrofa, "a burrowing pig," signifying the radical destruction of important glands in the body by this undermining constitutional disease. Possibly the quaint lines which nurses have long been given to repeat for the amusement of babies while fondling their infantine fingers bear a hidden meaning which pointedly imports the scrofulous taint. This nursery distich, as we remember, personates the fingers one by one as five little fabulous pigs:—the first small piggy doesn't feel ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... small finger of the child, this radiance grew so powerful that it positively threw the little fellow's shadow back against the wall. He, meanwhile, extended his plump hand as he had seen his father and mother do, and watched the waving of the insect's wings with infantine delight. Nevertheless, there was a certain odd expression of sagacity that made Owen Warland feel as if here were old Pete Hovenden, partially, and but partially, redeemed from his ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... it is considered how severely he had been agitated by apprehensions for his child's safety and health, too well justified by the fate of those who had preceded her, it will not be thought surprising that the infantine screams of Alice induced him to break through the barriers of form, and intrude farther into the interior of the house than a sense of strict ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... verse, The peril of our labors to rehearse? Oft has your kind, your generous applause, E're now, convinc'd us, you approve our cause: Conscious it will again our task attend, The Critic stern, we ask not to commend, Who like inclement Winter's hostile frown Would beat th'infantine shrubs of ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... derision The Lady Anna,—when Lady Anna had been more poorly clad and blessed with less of the comforts of home than any of them. Years would roll by, and they should live to know that the Lady Anna,—the sport of their infantine cruelty,—was Lady Anna indeed. And as the girl became a woman the dream was becoming a reality. The rank, the title, the general acknowledgment and the wealth would all be there. Then came the first great decisive triumph. Overtures of love and friendship were made from the other side. ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... of fourteen or fifteen, reasons which might disincline her youthful companion towards the monastic vows. I have said, that she also was a promising pupil of the good father, upon whom her innocent and infantine beauty had an effect of which he was himself, perhaps, unconscious. Her rank and expectations entitled her to be taught the arts of reading and writing;—and each lesson which the monk assigned her was conned over in company with Edward, and by him explained and re-explained, and again illustrated, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... sea-coast to meet her son, and he saw at the same moment the pale and aged face which had visited him at Tonquin in his dreams, and a fair face that he had never before thought so beautiful, more oval than he remembered it, with blue eyes soft and tender, and a mouth with a sweet infantine expression of sincerity and goodness. His mother stretched out her trembling arms, gave a great ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... father called to his side his old, rugged-looking esquire Cuthbert Ridley, and began discussing with him what Lord Warwick had said, both wholly absorbed in the subject, and paying no attention to the girl who rode by the Baron's side, so that it was well that her old infantine training in horsemanship had ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... strange indeed that an invitation to Court should have caused a fluttering in the bosom of an inexperienced woman. But it was the duty of the parent to watch over the child, and to show her, that on one side were only infantine vanities and chimerical hopes, on the other, liberty, peace of mind, affluence, social enjoyments, honourable distinctions. Strange to say, the only hesitation was on the part of Frances. Dr. Burney was transported ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... the school of Dame Prentiss, best remembered by infantine loves, those pretty preludes of more serious passions; by the great forfeit-basket, filled with its miscellaneous waifs and deodauds, and by the long willow stick by the aid of which the good old body, now stricken in years and unwieldy in person could ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... office! I am but little wiser than the booby brother! Whereas Solomon himself, and the seven sages to boot, are but so many men of Gotham, when he is present. The quintessence of all the knowledge, wit, wisdom, and genius that ever saw the sun, from the infantine days of A B C and king Cadmus, to these miraculous times of intuition and metaphysical legerdemain, is bottled up in, his brain; from which it foams and whizzes in our ears, every time discretion can be induced to draw the cork of ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... tenderness of whose Lessons and Hymns we have never forgotten even amidst all the cares and crosses of after life. How often and how fondly too have we lingered over their delightful pages; and it may be questioned whether any works ever produced a better or more lasting impression on the infantine mind—than these unassuming little volumes. Mrs. Barbauld's present article is entitled "the Misses, addressed to a careless girl"—as the Misses Chief, Management, Lay, Place, Understanding, Representation, Trust, Rule, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... child sheds its first hair, like its first teeth? I've never given much thought to infantine phenomena of any kind; still, I'm inclined to believe now that there must be such cases. Of course, we know a type of blond, nee brunette; for instance, Mrs. Senter, young Burden's fascinating aunt, whom ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Robarts, and Mary replied, "Oh, no, of course not, ma'am." In these days Mrs. Robarts was ordinarily very busy, seeing that there were six children in the house, four of whom had come to her but ill supplied with infantine belongings; and now, as usual, she went about her work immediately after breakfast. But she moved about the house very slowly, and was almost unable to give her orders to the servants, and spoke ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... him His early acquaintance with the Sacred Writings Instances of his quickness and energy Death of his father 1792—1795; Sent to a day-school at Aberdeen His own account of the progress of his infantine studies His sports and exercises 1796—1797. Removed into the Highlands His visits to Lachin-y-gair First awakening of his poetic talent His early love of mountain scenery Attachment for Mary Duff 1798. Succeeds to the title Made a ward of Chancery, under ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... had often peeped at the town-clock through my little telescope. There was the nursery chamber, and no wonder that it was regarded with feelings of the deepest interest. Here the first dawnings of reason broke in upon my soul; the first faint gleams of intelligence awakened me from a state of infantine unconsciousness. It was here that I first drank eagerly of the fresh rills of knowledge; here my imagination, ardent and unrepressed, first plumed its wings for flight, and I stepped forth over its threshold into a world long since tried, and found as unsatisfying and unreal ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... shore, with the abandon of a little child. Mary could not but wonder whether this indeed were she whose strong words had pierced and wrung her sympathies the other night, and whether a deep life-wound could lie bleeding under those brilliant eyes and that infantine exuberance of gayety; yet, surely, all that which seemed so strong, so true, so real could not be gone so soon,—and it could not be so soon consoled. Mary wondered at her, as the Anglo-Saxon constitution, with its strong, firm intensity, its singleness of nature, wonders ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... girl as usual repairing to the spot, and making a noise something similar to the chirping of a bird, a snake appeared out of a hole in the wall, and fearlessly partook of the repast provided for it by its infantine attendant. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... manner,—to judge well or ill. They point out to him various objects, which they accustom him either to love or to hate, to desire or to avoid, to esteem or to despise. It is thus opinions are transmitted from fathers, mothers, nurses, and masters, to man in his infantine state. It is thus, that his mind by degrees saturates itself with truth, or fills itself with error; after which he regulates his conduct, which renders him either happy or miserable, virtuous or vicious, estimable or hateful. It is thus he becomes either contented or discontented with his ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... held forty years ago, and turning perpetually upon the deeper questions of metaphysics and religion; we will even indulge ourselves with a short extract from one of the "Conversations with Children," reported verbatim by an apparently concealed auditress, and eliciting many a cunning bit of infantine wisdom, besides the following finer rhapsody, which Mr. Alcott succeeded in charming out of the lips of a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... ancient connection with the wilderness, with the Orient, with Jerusalem, should have been honored amongst all animals, by the visible impression upon its back of Christian symbols —seems reasonable even to the infantine understanding when made acquainted with its meekness, its patience, its suffering life, and its association with the founder of Christianity in one great triumphal solemnity. The very man who brutally abuses it, and feels a hardhearted contempt for its ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... two attics, the empty house, uninhabited, was surrendered to the sportive mischief of the idle urchins, who prowled about the silent chambers in fear of the silence, and in ecstasy at the space. The bedroom in which Caleb had died was, indeed, long held sacred by infantine superstition. But one day the eldest boy having ventured across the threshold, two cupboards, the doors standing ajar, attracted the child's curiosity. He opened one, and his exclamation soon brought the rest of the children ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... who displayed unexampled energy throughout the whole of this war, was about five feet three inches in height, and was distinguished by an almost infantine character of face, and a voice low and soft as the tones of a flute. It was thought that she habituated herself to that style of speaking to conceal her really masculine nature, and to interest her audience. Her voice, notwithstanding its sweet inflections, ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... unexpectedly and found a baby in my bed, when the door opened suddenly, and a very pretty girl with dark eyes came and took the baby away with an apology. I immediately said to myself: "My cousin has been privately married, that pair of dark eyes has cost him his liberty, and that child is an infantine relation of mine!" This discovery remained a long time a secret in my own breast, and I affected a complete absence of suspicion during the rest of my stay at Greenock, but it was afterwards fully confirmed. My cousin had, in fact, married at the early age of nineteen, when ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... grew up she became used to the duties imposed upon her. Associating constantly with the servants, they considered her their equal, and taunted her when, relying on her infantine recollections, she laid claim to noble descent, by calling her in derision "Mademoiselle French General." She knew full well that she was entitled to better treatment, and that, in the absence of paternal authority, she had the right of disposing of herself according to her own will. A strong ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... penury, from the desire to prevent one from bringing shame on the parent! So that, contrary to every principle of justice, the bad is rewarded for the badness; and the good punished for the goodness. Natural affection, remembrance of infantine endearments, reluctance to abandon long-cherished hopes, compassion for the sufferings of your own flesh and blood, the dread of fatal consequences from your adhering to justice; all these beat at your heart, and call on you to give way: but, you must ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... was depicted in your tear-bathed faces. The long blonde hair of my little girl fell upon her shoulders. She dared not raise her eyes, neither did you; you held each other by the hand, closely clasped. Despite the terror that disfigured her face, I beheld my daughter in her singular and infantine beauty—accursed beauty! At sight of her Trymalcion's dead eyes lighted up and glistened like glowing coals in the middle of his wrinkled, paint-covered visage. He stood up, stretched out his emaciated arms ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... be known "] then a child of about four months old. She had the appearance of listening to him. His motions seemed to her to be intended for her amusement; and when he stopped, she fluttered, and made a little infantine noise, and a kind of signal for him to begin again. She would be held close to him; which was a proof, from simple nature, that his figure was not horrid. Her fondness for him endeared her still more to me, and I declared she should have five hundred ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... sunset—although the moon shines bright to others, to me it is total darkness—and nearly blind during the day; my limbs so weak and painful that I am obliged to be carried about; my body reduced to that of a living skeleton, and my strength that of infantine weakness —a sad, sad wreck of ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... court, I know not; but it is certain that the very next morning a bruit went from thence all over the town, and (as factious reports used to run) in a very short time, viz., that his lordship rode upon the rhinoceros, than which a more infantine exploit could not have been fastened upon him. And most people were struck with amazement at it, and divers ran here and there to find out whether it was true or no. And soon after dinner some lords and others came ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... to babes and children earned for him the sobriquet of 'Namby Pamby,' 'a term which has been incorporated into the English language to designate mawkish sentiment. Namby was the infantine pronunciation of Ambrose, and Pamby was formed by the first letter of Philips's surname and that reduplication of sound which is natural to ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... breathes of healthy open air, of life upon the road, of casual joys and wayside pleasure, snatched with careless heart by men whose tastes are natural. There is very little of the alcove or the closet in this verse; and the touch upon the world is so infantine, so tender, that we are indulgent to the generalities ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... savage tribes that to us, trained through long centuries of progressive knowledge, seems in the highest degree absurd and even incomprehensible. As a matter of every-day practice we cannot, if we would, go back to that infantine state of mind which regards not only our fellow men and women, but all objects animate and inanimate around us, as instinct with a consciousness, a personality akin to our own. This, however, is the savage philosophy ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... is now avowed that, while the robust district of Maine is to be seated by the side of her truly respectable parent, co-ordinate in authority and honor, and is to be dandled into that power and dignity of which she does not stand in need, but which undoubtedly she deserves, the more infantine and feeble Missouri is to be repelled with harshness, and forbidden to come at all, unless with the iron collar of servitude about her neck, instead of the civic crown of republican freedom upon her brows, and is to be doomed ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... gratifying occupation it is to an affectionate mind, even in a way of nature, to walk through the fields, and lead a little child by the hand, enjoying its infantine prattle, and striving to improve the time by some kind word of instruction! I wish that every Christian pilgrim in the way of grace, as he walks through the Lord's pastures, would try to lead at least one little child by the hand; and perhaps, whilst he is endeavouring to ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... daughters who were left to her; her husband's tears fell on her brow, but she did not look up at him; her thoughts were with her dead child; her whole heart and soul were wrapped up in recalling every reminiscence of the lost one—every syllable of his infantine prattle. ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... and Chopin plays the piano so entrancingly for his auditor that the episode of a bed-room on fire passes by unnoticed. Of Maurice Sand, gifted son of an inspired mother, there is an exquisite chapter of literary criticism tempered with maternity. Other papers treat of infantine instruction as practiced by the writer herself, and readers are conscious of a thrill of envy at the thought of that little circle of Dudevantine grandchildren learning the elements of spelling and grammar from such a mistress ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... the character of her whole countenance was changed: its infantine mirthfulness was gone; a grave, thoughtful, even a sad expression settled on the tender eyes and ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... after noon Autumn's evening meets me soon, Leading the infantine moon And that one star, which to her Almost seems to minister Half the crimson light she brings From the sunset's radiant springs: And the soft dreams of the morn (Which like winged winds had borne To that silent isle, which lies 'Mid remember'd agonies, The frail bark of ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... encouraging and heightening our old decaying Manufactures, and the setting up new ones should have been the great Care of my Life, and the extending the Force and Use of the Society, when thus advanced to its Manhood, beyond what the Weakness and Inexperience of its infantine State could perform. I would have nursed up Crowds of Orphan Arts, and as they grew up, and could shift for themselves, I would have wean'd them, and brought a new Succession of others in their Place, as far ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... law to obey him, thinking his future life too short for expiation. There was another object, for which he also thought life too short, and that was to secure the happiness of Alice—whom he loved with a purity and intensity that was deepened by her helplessness and almost infantine artlessness. He knew that her blindness was hopeless, but it seemed to him that he loved her the more for her blindness, her entire dependence on his care. It would be such a holy task to protect and cherish her, and to throw around her darkened life ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... that the infantine disease excited by milk of a deleterious, or simply impoverished quality, "grows by what it feeds on;" and we shall witness the internal debility and the infantine disorder running their course together. Tabes is the natural ...
— Remarks on the Subject of Lactation • Edward Morton
... Joy has not found her yet, nor ever will— Is it this thought which, makes her mien so still, Her features so fatigued, her eyes, though sweet, 70 So sunk, so rarely lifted save to meet Her children's? She moves slow; her voice alone Hath yet an infantine and silver tone, But even that comes languidly; in truth, She seems one dying in a mask of youth. 75 And now she will go home, and softly lay Her laughing children in their beds, and play Awhile with them before they sleep; and then She'll ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... long past, is all fairyland. Where our little feet were bruised we now see only springing flowers; where childish lips drank from some Marab verdure and garlands woo us back. Over the rustling leaves a tiny form glided to Beulah's side; a pure infantine face with golden curls looked up at her, and a lisping voice of unearthly sweetness whispered in the autumn air. Here she had often brought Lilly and filled her baby fingers with asters and goldenrod; and gathered bright scarlet leaves to please her childish fancy. Bitter waves ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... which, poor prisoned bird, she was moulting away,—Dorothea of Don Quixote was washing her eternal feet:—in fine, it was such an elegant gallery as became a gallant lover of the sex. And in Sibwright's sitting-room, while there was quite an infantine law library clad in skins of fresh new-born calf, there was a tolerably large collection of classical books which he could not read, and of English and French works of poetry and fiction which he read a great deal too much. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... second he pondered it; then asked with an accent that pierced her because it was so infantine, so shamelessly mendicant of comfort: "She really was all ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... then? A child most infantine, Yet wandering far beyond that innocent age In all but its sweet looks and mien divine; Even then, methought, with the world's tyrant rage A patient warfare thy young heart did wage, 860 When those soft eyes of scarcely conscious thought ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... adequate to taking a heavy weight. But we defy you really to conform to your conditions with any but a light one. Make the thing you have to convey, make the picture you have to paint, at all rich and complex, and you cease to be clear. Remain clear—and with the clearness required by the infantine intelligence of any public consenting to see a play—and what becomes of the 'importance' of your subject? If it's important by any other critical measure than the little foot-rule the 'produced' piece has to conform to, it is predestined to be a muddle. When it has escaped being a muddle ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... As to her infantine bones, they were such as needed not to fail of straightness in the limbs, compactness in the body, smallness in hands and feet, and exceeding symmetry and comeliness throughout. Possibly between the two sides of the occipital profile there may have been an ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... which is prepared to look forward also, and especially with relation to what we know and can predict regarding the sun, these past six million years may reasonably be held to comprise only the infantine period of man's life. ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... thenceforth cleaves, more tenaciously (for there are Names that have lasted nigh thirty centuries) than the very skin. And now from without, what mystic influences does it not send inwards, even to the centre; especially in those plastic first-times, when the whole soul is yet infantine, soft, and the invisible seedgrain will grow to be an all overshadowing tree! Names? Could I unfold the influence of Names, which are the most important of all Clothings, I were a second greater Trismegistus. Not only all common ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... ironic comment rather saturates these units of narrative than surrounds or interjoins them, and this is the case with what follows. The infantine peculiarities of Gargantua; his dress and the mystery of its blue and white colours (the blue of heaven and the white of the joy of earth); how his governesses and he played together; what smart answers he made; how he became early both a poet and an experimental philosopher—all ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... faithful, tho' stricken in years: The vesper bell tolling, the loud thunder rolling, The bees that humm'd round the tall vine-mantled tree: The smooth water's margin whereon we were strolling When evening painted its mirror for me? And shall I return to this scenery never? These objects of infantine glory and love,— O tell me, my dear Guardian Angel, that ever Floats nigh me,—safe guide ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... humanity is sometimes strangely led up to its task in life. Almost from infancy the sickly boy had to don the soldier's uniform. All joyous sprightliness was crushed out of the infantine heir of a barbarous Imperialism. His education by the crowned corporal who happened to be his parent, appeared to aim mainly at making him physically and in character as rigid as a ramrod. By nature of a sensuous bent, he had to undergo all the ordeals of barrack-room practices, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... father!" was all that I could utter. His apprehension seemed slowly to return to him. He gazed at me for some moments with a vague, inquiring look; a convulsive tremor quivered about his lips; he feebly extended a shaking hand, laid it upon my head, and burst into an infantine flow of tears. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... eyes are pale blue, and not of much promise for spiritual gifts. Mouth small; features generally small,—dainty (MIGNONS) rather than beautiful:—and the countenance altogether is so innocent and infantine, you would think this head belonged to a child of twelve. Her hair is blond, plentiful, curling in natural locks. Teeth are unhappily very bad, black and ill set; which are a disfigurement in this fine face. She has no manners, nor the least vestige of tact; has much difficulty in speaking ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... he ever resolved to give up its use. He knew he must die if he kept on, he thought he should die if he gave it up, but he determined to make the effort. His studies had long been abandoned; he could not even read. For two years he had read but one book; he shrank from study with a sense of infantine powerlessness that gave him great anguish when he remembered what his mind had formerly been. From misery and suffering, he might almost be described as being in a dormant state. His wife managed all the affairs of the household, and attended to necessary business. ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... demi-monde, that exaggerated elegance of a fashion plate which only the most exquisite of women could redeem from vulgarity. Plush, brocade, peacock's feathers, golden bangles, mousquetaire gloves, a bonnet of purple plumage set off by ornaments of filagree gold, an infantine little muff of lace and wild flowers, buttercups and daisies; and hair, eyebrows and complexion as artificial as ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... were coming forward very well. Nothing could have been better than his manners—quiet, manly, civil, without the rather aggravating slyness of the ordinary French peasant, and with absolutely nothing of the infantine swagger of the small French bourgeois. These miners here wear a picturesque and practical costume, something between the garb of a sailor and the garb of a fireman, and as their life—like the life of a fireman or a sailor—is lived a good deal ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Are still too infantine to take to heart A loving father's absence, when I come To ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... generally brighter—they shelter a more liquid light than the blue or grey. Southern eyes have generally most beautiful whites. And as to the charm of the childish figure, there is usually an infantine slenderness in the little Southener that is at least as young and sweet as the round form of the blond child. And yet the painters of Italy would have none of it. They rejected the dusky brilliant pale little Italians all about them; they would have none but flaxen-haired ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... o'clock. I don't think I have ever been so much overcome or distressed by anything, almost, as by the death of this my earliest friend; it is the first link that has been broken of my first and infantine affections. I always loved Louie, and shall cherish her memory as that of the purest and best of mortals as long as I live! I took leave of her before I left London on Wednesday, and never, never shall I forget the blessing she gave me, and the grasp she gave my hand! I was quite upset ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... the bright day is declining, The crystal expanse of the bay, Like a shield of pure metal, lies shining 'Twixt headlands of purple and grey, While the little waves leap in the sunset, And strike with a miniature shock, In sportive and infantine onset, The base of the ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... settled, Miss Delburg got out of the chair and stood up in a dignified way; her soft cheeks were the color of a glowing pink rose, and her violet eyes shone with fun and excitement, her little, irregular features and perfect teeth seemed to add to the infantine aspect of the picture she made in her unfashionable pink cotton frock. Dress had been strongly discouraged at the Convent, and was looked upon by Aunt Jemima, a strict New Englander, as a snare of the devil, but even the garment, in the selecting ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... London, Vaughan found his secretary with the usual heaps of letters. One envelope, addressed in a large and rather infantine hand, was put aside for him. The ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... the savage, like the child, can be governed only by force, is merely to establish false analogies. The Indians of the Orinoco have something infantine in the expression of their joy, and the quick succession of their emotions, but they are not great children; they are as little so as the poor labourers in the east of Europe, whom the barbarism of our feudal institutions ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... believe me, and I am speaking the exact truth, for I vow I will possess myself of this infantine Hebe as surely as I hope to win my brother's throne; but when I plant a tree, it is not merely to ornament my garden but to get some use of it. You will see how I will win over both the prettiest of little lady-loves and the high-priest ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... seemed to appropriate him in feminine fashion, as a chosen idol and graven image. She gave him at once all her slender stock of infantine treasures, and seemed to watch with an ecstatic devotion his every movement,—often repeating, as she looked delightedly around, "Pitty ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... degree at Cosmo's having had the epithet "Grand" added by the Pope to his ducal title; and the reader may imagine the little allowance that would be made by a haughty and angry prince for the rebellious courtesy thus shewn to a detested rival. Tasso, furthermore, who had not only an infantine hatred of bitter "physic," but reasonably thought the fashion of the age for giving it a ridiculous one, begged hard, in a manner which it is humiliating to witness, that he might not be drenched with medicine. The duke at length forbade his writing to him any more; and Tasso, whose ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... saddle before him, gallop her round the house once or twice, and then give her back to her nurse's arms again. She was perfectly fearless, and such boisterous attentions never frightened her, nor did they ever interfere with her sweet, infantine self-possession. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... about the room, assumed infantine airs, played with Euphemia's lap-dag, fondled it, seated herself on the floor and swept the carpet with her fine flaxen tresses; but she performed the routine of captivation in vain. Thaddeus recollected having seen this pretty full-grown baby, in her peculiar character of ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... wrought within me had rendered me callous to any future impression. I saw the lovely and I did not love, I imagined therefore that all warmth was extinguished in my heart except that which led me ever to dwell on your then infantine image. ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... understood that I am perfectly willing to undertake the expedition, nay, to extend it into Spain, to visit the town and country, to discourse with the people, especially those connected with institutions for infantine education, and to learn what ways and opportunities present themselves for conveying the Gospel into those benighted countries. I will moreover undertake, with the blessing of God, to draw up a small volume of what I shall have seen ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... grew hotter. Lodge and Julian Horne went off for a swim in the cool end of the lake. Peter still slept, looking so innocent and infantine in his sleep that no one had the heart to wake him. French and Helena were left together, and were soon driven by the advancing sun to the deep shade of a lime-avenue, which, starting from the back of the house, ran for half ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
