"Faint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... work and bethink him, and rejoice in the deeds of his hand, Nor yet come home in the even, too faint and weary to stand. Men in that time a-coming shall work and have no fear For to-morrow's lack of earning and the hunger-wolf a-near. Oh, strange, new wonderful justice! But for whom shall we gather the gain? For ourselves ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... long and wrathful were the complaints over Shinburne's treachery. Whatever he did to others, all felt that his dealings with them ought to have been "on the square," but there was no help for it. He had disappeared, and faint, indeed, was the chance that they would ever see him again. The success of the crime, so far as they were concerned, had, after all, been a failure. Vanished hopes and cheated visions were their share, instead ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... circle beside the road, engaged in the national pastime of cock-fighting. Now we began to encounter the women whose beauty is famous throughout Malaysia: glorious, up-standing creatures with great masses of blue-black hair, a faint couleur de rose diffusing itself through their skins of brown satin. They were taller than any other women I saw in Malaysia, lithe and supple as Ruth St. Denis, and bearing themselves with a quiet dignity and lissome ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... she in common with the great oak in the shadow of which we are losing sight of her?—She lived and grew like that,—this was all. The blue milk ran into her veins and filled them with thin, pure blood. Her skin was fair, with a faint tinge, such as the white rosebud shows before it opens. The doctor who had attended her father was afraid her aunt would hardly be able to "raise" her,—"delicate child,"—hoped she was not consumptive,—thought there was a fair chance she would ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... with fewer laurels than it was accustomed. For heretofore poets have in England also flourished; and, which is to be noted, even in those times when the trumpet of Mars did sound loudest. And now that an over-faint quietness should seem to strew the house for poets, they are almost in as good reputation as the mountebanks at Venice. Truly, even that, as of the one side it giveth great praise to poesy, which, like Venus (but to better purpose), had rather be troubled in the net with Mars, than enjoy the homely ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... Helen, as a faint gleam of reviving hope shot up from below her horizon. George took the whole thing for a sick fancy, and who was likely to know better than he—a lawyer, and skilled in evidence? Not a word would she say to ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... He sat smoking until his pipe went out. Then for a while he sat with the empty pipe in his mouth, sucking at it as if it were still alight. He was thinking deeply. The evening darkened slowly, and a faint breeze stole in from ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... he saw the runaway horse, whirling across the pavement, upset the carriage with a crash of breaking glass. Nicholas had no doubt that the man it held had been frightfully hurt if not killed. He felt faint from his own fall, and it was with difficulty that he reached Noggs's garret, whither, before the adventure in the coffee-room, he had sent Smike to announce ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... had faded, and the Mountain appeared only as an uncertain bulk shadowed upon the night, then came the miracle. Gradually, the east, beyond the great hills, showed a faint silver glow. Silhouetted against this dim background, the profile of the peak grew definite. With no other warning, suddenly from its summit the full moon shot forth, huge, majestic and gracious, flooding the lower world with brightness. Clouds ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... dust of yours, Mr. Kirby?" He inquired with no more than usual solicitude, but there was a faint trace of ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... vexatious speculations as to what had delayed him: I stayed here, drinking and drinking, until about ten a.m., when I crawled away over the stones down from the water. I was very footsore, and could only go at a snail's pace. Just as I got clear of the bank of the creek, I heard a faint squeak, and looking about I saw, and immediately caught, a small dying wallaby, whose marsupial mother had evidently thrown it from her pouch. It only weighed about two ounces, and was scarcely furnished yet with ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... grew faint with fear. Eurymachos cried out to them: "Ye Ithacans, this man will stand there at the door and shoot us all down one by one. Out with your swords! Hold up the tables for shields, and rush upon him, all of you, at once. Drive him out of the gates, and then hurry ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... "Cotch him! Massa Tom's hurt!" and only just in time did Mr. Peterson clutch the young inventor in his arms. For Tom, white of face, had fallen back in a dead faint. ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... and saw the sun rise over the bay," said Dear Jones, "with the electric lights of the city twinkling in the distance, and the first faint flush of the dawn in the east just over Fort Lafayette, and the rosy tinge which spread ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... up the challenge. She was looking, he thought, unusually excited. There was faint color on her cheek. Her hands, generally so quiet, clasped and unclasped her handbag with an irritating click. Being a wise man, Rogers waited until the clicking had subsided. Then, "What's the matter?" he ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... spent and faint with my hurts, I clung the more tenaciously, my face buried in his foul-smelling jacket, but at last he wrenched one arm from my desperate embrace; there was a sudden blinding shock that hurled me backward into the road: lying thus ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the room were low, and the stage, which was a small grove of evergreen trees, was dark. Then, through the trees, appeared slowly a faint, pink light, as of breaking dawn. Some unseen violins breathed almost inaudible ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... and already beginning to acquire that influence over her mind which was soon to become so predominant, was no friend of the Cardinal. It was not probable that he would diminish the effect of that vague censure mingled with faint commendation, which characterized Margaret's instructions by any laudatory suggestions of his own. He was directed to speak in general terms of the advance of heresy, and the increasing penury of the exchequer. He was to request two hundred thousand crowns toward the lottery, which the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... cars are gone by and all the restless world with them, and the fishes in the pond no longer feel their rumbling, I am more alone than ever. For the rest of the long afternoon, perhaps, my meditations are interrupted only by the faint rattle of a carriage or team along ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... Abd-el-Kader was now faint and weak from loss of blood. I attended to his wound, which was an ugly gash, and gave him a good dose of brandy, and advised him ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... for several miles, the banks here and there fringed with wood and stunted undergrowth. His attitude was such that he could see over the tops of the trees in his rear, and observe his friends busily at work as so many beavers, while off on the left, stretched on the prairies, with the faint bluish outlines of mountains in the distance. All at once the eye of the boy was arrested by the figure of a horseman in the west. He was coming with the speed of a whirlwind, and heading ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... given by the Apostle, when he says, in Hebrews xii: "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, demise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him; for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... husband, I should have said," said Mrs. Lawrence, a faint color coming into her face, "But my resolution is made. What you said about helping the boy only fixes it firmer, because it did seem as if his only ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... as fast as I could," said the other. His voice was strange, thin and dreamy, matching his filmy eyes and his eternal, very faint smile. "Your poor physician congratulates your lordship upon the success that still attends you. Yours is a ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... send Saul against the Amalekites. What Amalek did to us when we came out of Egypt had been written down, and the direction concerning him. He met us by the way, and smote the hindmost of us, even all that were feeble, when we were faint and weary; and it had been said to our fathers that when we had rest from our enemies round about us, we were to blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven—"Thou shalt not forget it" was the word delivered to us. I had the record of the battle in Rephidim when Joshua discomfited Amalek, ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... the distressed shout again smote her ears, and this time she heard the words, "Help me!" She ran down stairs to the housekeeper, who opened the outside door and listened. Charlie's voice was weak and faint now, and the fear came to the lady that he had fallen into the barn cellar. She ran quickly to the great door of the barn. "Where are you, Charlie?" "Come to the stable door," answered back a faint, trembling voice. She quickly ran through the barn ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... hands had turned in for the night she heard a faint murmur of voices and looked from her teepee. The brilliant moonlight showed Harris and the sheriff sitting off by themselves. For no apparent reason she thought of Carlos Deane and, point by point, she contrasted him with the man who sat talking ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... history began. Tea was served in a specially decorated marquee on the platform and all the men were given presents of one sort or another, and the town gave itself over to tumultuous enjoyment, happy in the thought that at last one of the Allies had appeared on the scene, a faint indication that a desperate effort was about to be made by the oldest and most trusted nation in Europe to conjure order out of chaos. The officers were entertained by the British Consul, and preparations were made for a ceremonial march through the town next day. This turned out a great success ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... been, perhaps, intended for an adieu. Immediately after this, Lizzie came in, moving slowly, but without a sound, like a ghost, with pale cheeks and dishevelled hair, and that weary, worn look of illness which was become customary with her. She greeted Lord George with a faint attempt at a smile, and seated herself in a corner of a sofa. She asked whether he had been told the story of the proposed search, and then bade her friend Mrs. Carbuncle describe ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... wheat. At Moux, one of the police officers read out a number of proclamations, sent by the prefect of the department, exciting the people to exertions in repelling the usurper. The cries of "Vive le Roi" were so faint, that the officer harangued the multitude on their want of proper feeling. He did not, however, gain any thing. One of the mob cried out, that they were not to be forced to cry out "Vive le Roi." Wherever we have gone, I have heard ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... careful nursewife. "Let me look but for a moment— Gaze but for one little moment!" 'Twas the voice of Charles that pleaded: Softly, then, he drew the curtain, Gently, fearful, drew the curtain— "Charles!—dear Charles!" a faint voice murmured, In a tone so weak and lowly, Sweetly weak and soul-subduing. "Blanche!—my sweet one!" gasp'd the husband, "Dost thou know me?—God, I thank thee!" Then he threw his arms around her, And, amidst a shower ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... Cove tell queer yarns of the things he has done," Frank continued, with a faint smile; "and to own up to the truth, I'm rather hoping we run across old Aaron. He must be quite a character from all we've heard, and somehow I've grown ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... quick, and the perspiration bedewed my forehead, when I heard this intelligence. At last, my emotion was so great, that I felt faint. "You are ill, sir," said one of the gentlemen; "quick—a glass ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... from the negative cliche with those of the photometer, and mark the negative with the number of that of the photometer to which it corresponds, stating the shade of the proof next to it; for example: No. 2; No. 3 faint, or commences to appear, etc. This No. 2 and the observation will indicate the intensity of the negative and serve as a guide for printing on the tissue, since, as before explained, the silver paper is practically of the same ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois
... which the rain could not penetrate Warruk was truly grateful for the warmth and shelter and promptly fell asleep. Once during the hours of darkness he awoke with a start; from below had come the sound of a familiar voice, faint but unmistakable. Myla too had been awakened and stirred uneasily. But as the sound was not repeated the monkey again slept while the cub felt a first, faint ray of hope and happiness, for he knew that his mother had not deserted him; in fact, was ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... of the geese are largely chance, too. Several times, through the open window by my table, I have heard the faint, far-off honking, and have hurried to the roof in time to watch the travelers disappear. One spring day I was upon the roof when a large belated flock came over, headed north. It was the 20th of April, and the morning had broken very ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... part of the slope; and at the base, in the middle of the narrow valley, at a point which the furrow if continued would have struck, it amounted to 7 inches. On the opposite side of the valley, there were very faint, almost obliterated, traces of furrows. Another analogous but not so decided a case was observed at a few miles' distance from Stonehenge. On the whole it appears that the crowns and furrows on land formerly ploughed, but now covered with grass, tend slowly ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin
... the Aztec fell among his friends, while his antagonist was borne away in triumph to the sacrifice. The struggle was long and deadly. The Mexicans were recognized by their white cotton tunics, which showed faint through the darkness. Above the combatants rose a wild and discordant clamor, in which horrid shouts of vengeance were mingled with groans of agony, with invocations of the saints and the Blessed Virgin, and with the screams of women; for there were several women, both natives ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... are real blue peaks!" cried Leslie joyously, pointing away to the north and east where the outlines lay faint and lovely ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... sought Latin land and Troy new-born again? Ah, better had it been for them by Troy's cold ash to stay, To dwell on earth where Troy hath been. Father, give back, I pray, 60 Their Xanthus and their Simois unto that wretched folk, And let them toil and faint once more ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... began to hear shots. The sounds were very faint, but followed each other in quick succession. I laughed, and thought I knew what was happening where they came from. The shots seemed to come from the ridge I was on; but for some time I could not ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... Chicksands! And she remembered that a faint idea of it had once crossed her mind, only to ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for Patty was simply straight, flowing breadths of the white illusion, which fell straight from her shoulders, her pink gown beneath giving it a faint rosy tinge. From her head the illusion rippled in a long veil, floating down behind, and there were long angel sleeves of ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... fallen upon a wild Florida forest, and all was still save for the hooting of a distant owl and the occasional plaintive call of a whip-poor-will. In a little clearing by the side of a faint bridle-path a huge fire of fat pine knots roared and crackled, lighting up the small cleared space and throwing its flickering rays in amongst ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... gave Uncle Abe rather a delicate task in his reply, because, slight as the matter seemed, it apparently called for some declaration, or intimation, or faint foreshadowing of policy in reference to the conduct of the war, and the final treatment of the Rebels. But the President's Yankee aptness and not-to-be-caughtness stood him in good stead, and he jerked or wiggled himself out of the dilemma with an uncouth dexterity that was entirely in ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... came to myself, I was lying in my own berth aboard the ship. I felt weak, faint, and dizzy, and strove in vain to collect my thoughts sufficiently to remember what had happened. My state-room door was open, and I perceived that the sun's rays were shining brightly through the sky-light upon the cabin-table, at which sat Capt. Hopkins, overhauling the medicine-chest, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... to see how the pitiless mob Run round him and mimic his mournful complaint, And try to provoke him, and call him old Bob, And hunt him about till he's ready to faint. ...
— Phebe, the Blackberry Girl - Uncle Thomas's Stories for Good Children • Anonymous
... like her person, had a curious throbbing cadence, as if she were reading the words of a melody, and restraining herself with difficulty from singing it; and as she read, her long slender throat throbbed slightly, and a faint redness came into her thin face. She evidently knew the verses by heart, and her eyes were mostly fixed with that distant smile in them, with which harmonised a constant tremulous little smile in ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... not only his father that had died, but with him the last strong link was broken, and the past life, the days of his boyhood, grew faint as a dream. With his father his mother died again, and the long years died, the time of his innocence, the memory of affection. He was sorry that his letters had gone home so rarely; it hurt him to imagine his father looking out when the post came in the morning, and forced to be sad because there ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... quality we call joy and has never known comfort. He makes fifty cents a day; he has no education, no way of getting an education; he is almost a man, crippled and condemned. At my exclamation when he tells me the sum of his wages he looks up at me; a faint likeness to a smile comes about his thin lips: "It keeps me in existence!" he says in a slow drawl. He used ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... A faint smile quivered on the thin lips of Mayence at his colleagues' ill-disguised fear at leaving him the man in possession so far as Frankfort was concerned. The naive proposal which angered his two brethren merely amused Mayence. This young man's absurdity ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... are oft so borne down with discouragement, because of the strength of opposition which they meet with on all hands; and because of the manifold disappointments which they meet with, that they have neither heart nor hand; and they faint and set up in the ways of the Lord; and cannot go through difficulties, but oftentimes ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... fire! Watch till the last faint spark expire; Then strew its ashes on the wind, Nor ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... often seems devoid of metrical regularity. The reason for this is that in long poems much greater freedom is possible because the ear and the attention, accustomed for longer periods to the formal pattern, hold it more easily where it becomes faint. Examples of this approximation to prose have been given above, pages 43, 44. The famous first lines of Paradise Lost, if printed after the contemporary fashion of free-verse, would by very few be recognized as blank verse; and the same is true of many passages throughout ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... Richard grew faint and cold as death, feeling one moment an impulse to knock young Clifford down, and the next a burning desire to hear the worst, if, indeed, he had not already heard it. He would not question Harry; but he would listen to ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... quench Her smoky torch, and leave a sickening stench; And thro' the soul's chill gloom, fierce conscience pours His fiery arrows in resistless showers. But, as accumulated guilt oppress'd With stronger obstacles his hardening breast, Faint and more faint the dread awakenings grew, And their subsiding terrors soon withdrew. Like traces on the mountain's giant form Imprinted by the finger of the storm, They vanish'd; fierce atrocity return'd Triumphant, ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... who have misunderstood me," she replied, smiling brightly now, but with just a faint, pitiful touch of regret, or self-blame lingering in her voice. "Father Beret said you would. I did ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... stood, quickly staunched the wound; but his aid came too late. Macgregor, or rather Obadiah Marston, opened his eyes but once after that, and seemed as if he wished to speak. March bent down quickly and put his ear close to his mouth; there was a faint whisper, "God bless you, March, my son," and then all ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... catholic in my tastes. I suppose all our friends would faint at the idea of there being a 'singer' in the family. Now, I should rather like you to be a singer—only be a great one—not a little twopenny-halfpenny person who has ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... just the heat in here." Dan really felt a little sick and faint with it, but he was not sorry to seem affected by the day's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was almost impossible to believe it that of a living woman, and its grace of outline and pose was so perfect that Stephen, in his love of beauty, dreaded the first movement which must change, if not break, the tableau. He said to himself that there was some faint resemblance between this chiselled loveliness and the vivid charm of the pretty child he had met on the boat. He could imagine that a statue for which she had stood as model might look like this, though the features seemed to his eye more regular than ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... faint hope that if she heard or guessed Lizzy's story, Clementina might yet find some way of bringing her influence to bear on his sister even at the last hour of her chance; from which, for her sake, he shrunk the more the nearer it drew. Clementina held out her hand ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... going to faint bodily. It seemed to her rather that the immaterial bonds, the unseen, subtle, intimate connections were letting go their hold. Her soul was the heart of the danger. It was there that the travelling powers of dissolution, accelerated, ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... glory of May sunlight in the streets outside, and she seemed to bring some of it in with her, as well as the actual perfume of the bunch of violets which she wore in her belt. Her eyes, under the queerest of hats, were bright and soft, there was a faint color in her cheeks. Her shapely hands were in gray gloves with long gauntlets, and in one of them she carried a business-like ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... silence in the water; then all at once, at a moment when it thought its mother was looking the other way, the little fish made a dart forward and tried to swallow the bait. The next moment it was wriggling about in a most pitiable manner and giving faint little cries for help. Its mother swam towards it in ...
— Laugh and Play - A Collection of Original stories • Various
... on deck, but make sure they can't move hands or feet," Anne heard a rough voice command, and there was the sound of scuffling feet, and gradually the noise ceased; and all that Anne could hear was a faint murmur of voices, and the ripple of the water against the side of the boat. These sounds gradually ceased, and the frightened child realized that the wind had died away, and that the boats were becalmed. She peered out of the little cabin window and saw ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... portraits did not disturb the bold cricket of the window-sill. He chirped proudly, pausing now and then to catch the breathing of the sleepers, and to interpret their unconscious movings. The trained and spiritual ear might have caught the faint sighs and velvet footsteps of long-departed souls, or interpreted them out of the sighing and whispering of the leaves outside the window, and the tread of nervous mice in the fireplace. The dawn came and lighted up the faces of the men, faces rising out of the heavy dark like a revelation ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... Whether rangers or British soldiers, it is certain that watchmen were on the alert during the night between the eighteenth and nineteenth, and that towards one in the morning they heard a sound of axes far down the lake, followed by the faint glow of a distant fire. The inference was plain, that an enemy was there, and that the necessity of warming himself had overcome his caution. Then all was still for some two hours, when, listening in the pitchy darkness, the watchers heard the footsteps of a great body of men approaching on ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... season at which these fire-festivals have been mostly generally held all over Europe is the summer solstice, that is Midsummer Eve (the twenty-third of June) or Midsummer Day (the twenty-fourth of June). A faint tinge of Christianity has been given to them by naming Midsummer Day after St. John the Baptist, but we cannot doubt that the celebration dates from a time long before the beginning of our era. The summer solstice, or Midsummer Day, is the great turning-point in the sun's ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... this fury leading to? What does this heroism aspire to? This force of will, bitter and strained, grows faint when it has reached its goal, or even before that. It does not know what to do with its victory. It disdains it, does not believe in it, ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... He was faint and hungry, and the idea was strong in his mind that the man would steal down upon them when he was not expected. This thought completely drove away all drowsiness, though it did not affect his companion ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... need, Teall," teased Dave Darrin, "is some nerve tonic. You ought not to let yourself get into such bad shape that you almost faint when ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... alloy of apprehension in the metal of their happiness, and the strain of an engagement sometimes brings with it even a faint shadow of regret. "She makes me buy things," one swain, in the third quarter of his engagement, was overheard to moan to a friend. "Two new ties only yesterday." He seemed to be debating with himself whether human nature could stand ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... busy times. Halloa! what's this? Dutch Flat. Shades of Bret Harte, true child of genius, what a pity you ever forsook these scenes to dwindle in the foreign air of the Atlantic coast! A whispering pine of the Sierras transplanted to Fifth Avenue! How could it grow? Although it shows some faint signs of life, how sickly are the leaves! As for fruit, there is none. America had in Bret Harte its most distinctively national poet. His reputation in Europe proved his originality. The fact is, American poets have been only English "with a difference." ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... is the place where we naturally look in an emergency—the spot to which the victim of an accident is carried directly—the one where the lady bends her steps when she feels that she is going to faint. In hundreds of cases the drug store is our only standby, and it should be the druggist's business to see that it never fails us. There are pharmacies where a telephone message brings an unfailing response; there are others to which one would as soon think of sending ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... which we are not encouraged to do in puris naturalibus. Then, of course, I saw what our Gunnery Jack 'ad been after with his subcutaneous details in the magazines all the mornin' watch. He had redooced the charges to a minimum, as you might say. But it made me feel a trifle faint an' sickish notwithstanding this spit-in-the-eye business. Every time such transpired, our Gunnery Lootenant would say somethin' sarcastic about Government stores, an' the old man fair howled. 'Op was on the bridge with ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... will be wretched; you will faint by the way; but you must rouse your great strength and struggle on, bearing patiently your cross on the way to your crown! God bless you and prosper your undertakings. I know the country theatres well enough to know how ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... us down those curious volcanic balze, where the soil is soft as marl, with tints splashed on it of pale green and rose and orange, and a faint scent in it of sulphur. They break away into wild chasms, where rivulets begin; and here the narrow watercourses made for us plain going. The turf beneath our feet was starred with cyclamens and wavering anemones. At last we reached ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... with many wives—whom the father can secure[266]—but the daughter-in-law becomes "a drudge and slave in her husband's home." One of her tasks is to grind wheat between two great stones. "This is very arduous labor, and the slight little women sometimes faint away while engaged in the task", yet by a satanic refinement of cruelty they are compelled to sing a grinding song while the work lasts and never stop, on penalty of being beaten. And though they prepare all the food for the family ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... crimson handkerchief knotted loosely at his throat; the thud of his pony's feet mingling with the jingle of his spurs is borne back; and as the careless, gracious, lovable figure disappears over the divide, the breeze brings to the ears, faint and far yet cheery still, the refrain of a ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... these words with a faint scream; for slowly, and with a feeble hand, the curtains of the bed opposite to the side at which Cargill sat, were opened, and the figure of Clara Mowbray, her clothes and long hair drenched and dripping with rain, stood in the opening by the bedside. The dying woman sat upright, her eyes starting ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... I was faint and sick and dizzy, From my shattered, bleeding hand, And it seemed as if the jolting Gave me more than I could stand. Once I reeled, and would have fallen, If you hadn't held me there; Put your dear ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... outhouse out of sight from the windows. There was no sound, and no light appeared. Just above the ground about a foot of window was visible, with a grating over it, apparently lighting a basement. Suddenly Hewitt touched his companion's arm and pointed toward the window. A faint rustling sound was perceptible, and, as nearly as could be discerned in the darkness, some white blind or covering was placed over the glass from the inside. Then came the sound of a striking match, and at the side edge of the window there was ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... illustrate the principle I am enforcing. He is treating of the dethronement of kings. "As it was not made for common abuses, so it is not to be agitated by common minds. The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It is not a single act or a single event which determines it. Governments must be abused and deranged, indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past. When things are in that lamentable ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... the world, at present, any forest which bears more than a rough analogy with a coal-forest. The types may remain, but the details of their form, their relative proportions, their associates, are all altered. And the tree-fern forest of Tasmania, or New Zealand, gives one only a faint and remote image of the vegetation of the ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... was obliged to take frequent rests. Whenever he came to a stream he would halt and thrusting his feet into the cooling water, keep them there for some time. This helped him considerably, for his feet were swollen and feverish. The sun beating down on his head made him dizzy and faint, which was made the more disturbing ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... Elephant Hawk-moth. The caterpillars (Fig. 3), as represented in most entomological works, are of two varieties, most of them brown, but some green. Both have a white line on the three first segments; two remarkable eye-like spots on the fourth and fifth, and a very faint median line; and are rather more than four inches long. I will direct your attention specially, for the moment, to three points:—What do the eye-spots and the faint lateral line mean? and why are some ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... too fond of presiding over a circle of humble friends. Of the other imputations which these famous lines are intended to convey, scarcely one has ever been proved to be just, and some are certainly false. That Addison was not in the habit of "damning with faint praise" appears from innumerable passages in his writings, and from none more than from those in which he mentions Pope, And it is not merely unjust, but ridiculous, to describe a man who made the fortune of almost every one of his intimate ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to Princhester Lady Ella had changed very markedly. She seemed to her husband to have gained in dignity; she was stiller and more restrained; a certain faint arrogance, a touch of the "ruling class" manner had dwindled almost to the vanishing point. There had been a time when she had inclined to an authoritative hauteur, when she had seemed likely to develop into ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... Something in his eyes brought a faint flush to her cheek. For a second or two she met his gaze steadily and then her eyes fell, but not before he had caught the shy, wondering expression that suddenly filled them. He experienced an ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... fleets before her eyes the happy past; She turns from it with petulant disdain, And tries to read the future,—but in vain. Blank are its pages from the first to last. She hears faint music, smiles, and leaves the room Just as one ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... lunged forward, but she fell crumpling on the floor. "It's this hellish heat," he asserted, lifting her to the bed. Her lips were open and dry, and her eyes, without vision, stared at the ceiling. Lee wet a handkerchief, dabbling it over her face; he had never before, he realized, seen a woman faint. It was terrifying but not grave; they did it, he had heard, very often. No wonder, after such a night. She had been gone over a minute now; there must be someone in the place who would know what to do. He put off moving, however, both because of his reluctance ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... A faint light was stealing over the sky when the chief halted his horse and sat listening. No sound, however, broke the stillness ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... mandate, instantly sent it to Ximenes. The spirit of the latter, however, rose in proportion to the obstacles it had to encounter. He sought only to rally the queen's courage, beseeching her not to faint in the good work, now that it was so far advanced, and assuring her that it was already attended with such beneficent fruits, as could not fail to secure the protection of Heaven. Isabella, every act of whose ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... to levy rates would be abortive, and drive the people to desperation. The honourable and venerable member depicted the condition of the people with truthful eloquence, and he was no less correct in showing the shortcomings of the government schemes of relief. His speech was delivered in a faint voice, and with every symptom of physical exhaustion. He was heard with the most profound attention and respect. His predictions, unfortunately, came to pass. His dissolution was hastened by his inability to procure an assent to his views in the house, and by the consequences which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... continuously carried forward in accordance with some well-conceived plan. The main streams should be improved to the highest point of efficiency before the improvement of the branches is attempted; and the work should be kept free from every faint of recklessness or jobbery. The inland waterways which lie just back of the whole eastern and southern coasts should likewise be developed. Moreover, the development of our waterways involves many other important water ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... wholly able to follow the broad snowshoe track the half-mile farther into town. The footsteps of the men had grown faint and died away,—and Virginia and he were ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... some boatful of pensive hearts are singing. So calm is the evening that the cadences come distinctly to us, and almost the words can be plainly caught. In a lull of their song, faint sounds of another arrive from far away. Rising and falling, now heard and now not, plaintive and recurring, it is like the ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... gasping cry and heavy fall. Marian had fainted, and Helen was just raising her head from the floor to her lap when Morris appeared, relieving her of her burden, of whom he took charge until she showed signs of life. In her alarm Helen forgot entirely what they were talking about when the faint came on, and her first question put to Marian was: "Were you taken suddenly ill? Why ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... unholy many—sickened, alas! by the imperfections even of the holiest few? And have you never cried in your hearts with longing, almost with impatience, Surely, surely, there is an ideal Holy One somewhere, or else how could have arisen in my mind the conception, however faint, of an ideal holiness? But where, oh where? Not in the world around, strewed with unholiness. Not in myself—unholy too, without and within—seeming to myself sometimes the very worst company of all the bad company I meet, because it is the only bad company from which ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... eyes, imagining that he could still hear in the silence, the faint but commanding voice of the Master. Oh, where was he now? On some star, doubtless, eagerly following the infinite song of the spheres, a divine music that only his ears had been attuned to hear! And to choke his emotion, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... M'riar,' the old man said, with a faint show of spirit. 'Things might 'a' been worst. I didn't aim ter squander a hundred dollars to one lick, but I've got'n nuff left yit ter see the Fair an' git home on, so I guess we may as well be a-seein' it; a body hes to live, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch |
