"Flighty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... aid of your practical advice, if I have your approval, the people will be at first rather afraid of me. They will privately suspect I am mad. It will, also, not seem at all unlikely that an American should be of unreasoningly extravagant and flighty mind. Stornham, having long slumbered in remote peace through lack of railroad convenience, still regards America as almost of the character of wild rumour. Rosy was their one American, and she disappeared from their view so soon that ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... population, was, in his view, a commonplace and ordinary proceeding; and, in the present instance, the only course consistent with prudence and common sense. Those who maintained the contrary were either flighty enthusiasts, whose opinion was not worth considering, or venal orators, who had sold their country for a bribe. "Will you suffer yourselves," asked the indignant moralist, "to be blinded by these corrupt advocates, who amuse you with their eloquence, and then pocket the price? ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... flighty but full of elusive charm. You deprecated his lack of serious purpose in life, disapproved heartily of his irresponsibility, but you fell to his engaging qualities. He was a typical example of the lovable good-for-naught. Nothing ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... kind of flighty like, and whispered, 'Good-bye, dear house!' and then ran out to the wagon. I expect she meant that for you and your grandmother, as much as for me, so I'm particular to tell you. This house had always ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... and bellicose, Peacemaker and foeman; Czech and Hun, and mixed with those German, Slav, and Roman; Men of middling size and weight, Dwarfs and giants mighty; Men of modest heart and state, Vain men, proud and flighty. ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... grave domestic troubles, divorced his wife, in fact, and it was as a relief from that, I think, that he took up politics of the rabid sort. He was a fanatical Radical—a Socialist—or typical Liberal, as they used to call themselves, of the advanced school. Energetic—flighty—undisciplined. Overwork upon a controversy did this for him. I remember the pamphlet he wrote—a curious production. Wild, whirling stuff. There were one or two prophecies. Some of them are already exploded, some of them are established facts. But for the most part to read such a thesis is to realise ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... in his broken way, replied that then he (the herb-doctor) was the person he sought—the person spoken of by the other person as yet unknown. He then, with flighty eagerness, wanted to know who this last person was, and where he was, and whether he could be trusted with money to ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... a very refined, rather exclusive and domestic lady, devoted to her little girl, and extremely kind to the poor. Indeed, so is Miss Morton, but she prefers the London poor, and is altogether rather flighty, and what Hailes calls an unconventional young lady. There was a very nice lady with her, Mrs. Bury, the daughter of a brother of the late Lord, a widow, and very kind and friendly. Both were very good-natured, Miss Morton always acted ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wife would be. And I like to have her near us, for she understands my sighs And I see my brave boy smiling when I look into her eyes." Now the presence of his sweetheart seems to fill our home with joy. She's no longer young and flighty—she's the ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... Kopy-Keck was a spiritualist. The former was slow and sententious; the latter was quick and flighty: the latter had generally the first word; the ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... think that I am a flighty, romantic person," he resumed, "and I don't blame you. But if I could explain, it has been a very real experience to me. It was your nature that I cared for in your voice. I can't tell you just how it was; it seemed to me that unless I could hear it again, and ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... glad of it," concluded the bishop. "Because that maid, when I saw her, struck me as rather a flighty young person—the sort of girl who would take advantage of her mistress's absence to have a little flirtation with a policeman round the corner. I am glad the aunt could explain things so satisfactorily. I was wrong ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... moment he saw Joe scramble up on one of the boulders, fling off his remaining clothes, and dive into the water in pursuit of the flighty craft. Reaching it, the Indian did not climb aboard, but swam back to shore, pushing it in front of him. Then Rawson stepped down from his rock and slipped along the bank until he emerged from the undergrowth just where Joe ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... lengthened it seemed to Betsy Butterfly that the Skipper grew more flighty than ever. Once she had been able to say a few words to him before he went swooping off. But now—now she could not even tell him that it was a nice day without following her cousin at least half an hour in ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... agony, in what fits of flighty resolution, in what collapses of despair, Gideon consumed the night, it would be ungenerous to ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... maniacal; delirious, lightheaded, incoherent, rambling, doting, wandering; frantic, raving, stark staring mad, stark raving mad, wild-eyed, berserk; delusional, hallucinatory. [behavior somewhat resembling insanity] corybantic^, dithyrambic; rabid, giddy, vertiginous, wild; haggard, mazed; flighty; distracted, distraught; depressed; agitated, hyped up; bewildered &c (uncertain) 475. mad as a March hare, mad as a hatter; of unsound mind &c n.; touched in one's head, wrong in one's head, not right ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dissipation, worn out with the flighty adoration of Lady Caroline Lamb, and urged by his friends to marry and settle down, Byron married (January 2d, 1815) Anne Isabella, daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke. He liked but did not love her; and she was no doubt fascinated by the reputation of the most famous man in Europe, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... sorry," she said, with the simple humility of a little child. "Please forgive me, Sir Everard. I know it was horrid of me to laugh; but you don't really care for me, you know. You only think you do; and I—oh! I'm only a flighty little girl of seventeen, and I don't love anybody in the world but papa, and I never mean to be married—at least, not for ages to come. ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... powerful, the most dazzling, the most daring, that which went the nearest to the verge of poetry, and yet never fell over, was Burke's. It has the solidity, and sparkling effect of the diamond; all other fine writing is like French paste or Bristol-stones in the comparison. Burke's style is airy, flighty, adventurous, but it never loses sight of the subject; nay, is always in contact with, and derives its increased or varying impulse from it. It may be said to pass yawning gulfs 'on the unsteadfast footing of a spear:' still it has an actual resting-place and tangible ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... a great deal, and wished Emlyn would go instead, but Mrs. Elmwood would not have hired that flighty damsel on any account, and Emlyn was sure it would be but mopish work to live under a starched old Puritan. Mrs. Lightfoot was therefore applied to, to find a service for Emlyn Gaythorn, and she presently discovered one Mistress Sloggett, a haberdasher's wife of wealth and ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... She shook all over, unable to restrain herself. 'What would Uncle Ben think of me?' she said to herself in despair. For Uncle Ben loved calm and self-control in women, and had often praised her for not being flighty and foolish, as he in his bachelor solitude conceived most ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... justice, from not understanding many of its best points. She liked Mr. Phillips much better, who was graver. Her Scotch phlegmatic temperament could not appreciate the fine spirit and unvarying good humour of Brandon, and his random way of talking she thought flighty and frivolous. But yet she could, and did, praise him for his kindness of heart and his want of selfishness, which he had shown on many occasions, great and small, at Barragong. These panegyrics were bestowed with discretion, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... jolly well likely not to have returned at all if he'd had those flighty notions while operating ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... and at the age of twenty-four, Mr. Adams was present, in this town, at the argument before the Supreme Court respecting Writs of Assistance, and heard the celebrated and patriotic speech of JAMES OTIS. Unquestionably, that was a masterly performance. No flighty declamation about liberty, no superficial discussion of popular topics, it was a learned, penetrating, convincing, constitutional argument, expressed in a strain of high and resolute patriotism. He grasped the question then pending between England ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... left him. As for marrying Mildred he didn't know what to think. She was a pretty woman, and for him something of the old charm still lingered. But his practical mind saw the danger of taking so flighty a minded person into the respectability of a British home. He had loved her, he still liked her, he didn't mind admitting that, but he was no longer a fool about her. She had spent her money, nearly all of it, and he couldn't afford to marry ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... then the place in public estimation which it now does. Theatrical people were little known and even less understood. Even the people who did not think all actors drunkards and all actresses immoral, did think they were a lot of flighty, silly buffoons, not to be taken seriously for a moment. The profession, by reason of this feeling, was rather a close corporation. The recruits were generally young relatives of the older actors. There was plenty of room, and people ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... count upon this man as a positive lover, but he is an admirer. They have a disagreeable habit of going so far and then taking wing. Marriage seems an event rather difficult of accomplishment, for with all Marcia's flighty romance she shrinks from encountering actual poverty, but it might be this man's admiration is sufficiently strong to lead him beyond the debatable land. She hesitates just a little, then ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... is no longer young, and lately she began to be obsessed with home-sickness; but she never would admit it. (Smiles.) How could she venture to risk leaving such a flighty fellow as me alone, who before I was nineteen had been ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... girls—you're very young, and flighty in your mind; Old heads upon young shoulders we must not expect to find: We mustn't be too hard upon these little girlish tricks - Let's ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... when he had jabbed a bunch of copy paper into my hand and given me a pencil from his vest pocket, 'mind you, I won't stand for the high and flighty philosophical, and I perceive you have a tendency that way. Throw in the local color, wads of it, and a bit of sentiment perhaps, but no slumgullion about political economy nor social strata or such stuff. Make it concrete, to ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... man was a flighty youth who had fired on the French Premier and wounded him. He, however, had not long to wait for his trial. He was taken before the tribunal within three weeks of his arrest and was promptly condemned to die.[38] Thus the assassin ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... like her, you can't help. She hasn't such looks as you have, you know, but we've always thought her very fair-looking. What do you think we often call her? The Princess! That's part because of her name, Alice Maud, and part from a sort of way she's always had. Not a flighty way, but a sort of—well, I can't describe it. I do hope you'll ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... Julie had no idea when she wrote that these symptoms were in reality the subtle beginnings of a breakdown, which ended fatally, and no one lamented the issue more truly than she; but she could not resist catching folly as it flew, and many of the flighty axioms ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... and not unfrequent quarrels, these men continued to be comrades through the better part of their joint lives. Baccio was gentle, timid, yielding, and industrious. Mariotto was wilful, obstinate, inconsequent, and flighty, Baccio fell under the influence of Savonarola, professed himself a piagnone, and took the cowl of the Dominicans[228]. Mariotto was a partisan of the Medici, an uproarious pallesco, and a loose liver, who eventually deserted the art of painting ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... very fond of her father, but it was a fondness which considered his love of speech-making and his flighty enthusiasms with smiling tolerance. Her cooler and more critical way of looking at things had caused her, young as she was, to distrust his judgment in practical affairs, and about most matters she had long since ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... seen deeply into the world has doubtless divined what wisdom there is in the fact that men are superficial. It is their preservative instinct which teaches them to be flighty, lightsome, and false. Here and there one finds a passionate and exaggerated adoration of "pure forms" in philosophers as well as in artists: it is not to be doubted that whoever has NEED of the cult ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... you are my age you will not hint at such a thing. Now, everything goes wonderfully well; you never listen to my advice—you go out in the wind and rain with that flighty Aline and your husband, who has no more sense than his sister; you will pay for it later. Open the curtains, I pray; the storm is over, and I wish to ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... qualified by nature to perform the task which Babar had been obliged to neglect. His character, flighty and unstable, and his abilities, wanting in the constructive faculty, alike unfitted him for the duty. He ruled eight years in India without contributing a single stone to the foundation of an empire ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... "Don't get flighty, Patricia," admonished Beth. "This is a serious matter, and Louise is in earnest. If we're going to help her we mustn't talk rubbish. Now, it isn't a bad suggestion that we ought to look nearer home for the key to this mystery. There's ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... centre either of power or action or intellect about which they may group themselves, and I think that Pearse became the leader because his temperament was more profoundly emotional than any of the others. He was emotional not in a flighty, but in a serious way, and one felt more that he suffered than that ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... in his good-natured, rolling tones; "since the days of the great Jonathan, our New-England metaphysicians have generally been broken-down poets, and should be treated with the greatest tenderness. Some flighty minds will prefer dangerous trips to dream-land to the rigid demonstrations of figures; but the mass of our graduates accept the teaching of their Alma Mater, that only the mathematician has the right to investigate, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... liberty with her, every one very clearly recognised the simple candour with which she responded to my kindly and solicitous attentions. They could not fail to see that the link existing between us was not to be compared to any ordinary liaison, and we had the satisfaction of seeing the flighty young lady who had so openly angled for me fall into ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... pretender to a Master in Science as this remarkable production, in which one of the most exact of observers, most cautious of reasoners, and most candid of expositors, of this or any other age, is held up to scorn as a "flighty" person, who endeavours "to prop up his utterly rotten fabric of guess and speculation," and whose "mode of dealing with nature" is reprobated as "utterly dishonourable to Natural Science." And all this high and mighty talk, which would have been indecent in ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley
... book on the natural origin of animal organism, of which the fair countess spoke enthusiastically. The painter observed this change in her tastes with surprise and envy. No more music, nor verses, nor plastic arts which had formerly occupied her flighty attention, that was attracted by everything that shines or makes a noise. Now she looked on the arts as pretty, insignificant toys that were fit to amuse only the childhood of the human race. Times were changing, people must be serious. Science, nothing but science; she was the protectress, the ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Hugh Humphries," said Mrs. Hoel, turning to the postilion, who drove Angelina from Newport, "pray, now, does not this seem strange, that such a young lady as this should be travelling about in such wonderful haste? I believe, by her flighty airs, she is upon no good errand—and I would have her to know, at any rate, that she might have done better than to sneer, in that way, at Mrs. Hoel of Cardiffe, and her Tenby oysters, and her Welsh rabbit. Oh, I'll make her repent her pehaviour ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... exactly like asking, Would you let them talk with people on Sunday? Now people are different; it depends, therefore, on who they are. Some are trifling and flighty, some are positively bad-principled, some are altogether good in their influence. So of the class of books called novels. Some are merely frivolous, some are absolutely noxious and dangerous, others again are written with a strong moral and religious purpose, and, being ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hand; but at the telephone she hesitated. Calling him up at such an hour of the morning demanding his attendance on such a fanciful errand—wouldn't he think it odd? No, he would think it the most natural thing in the world for her to be so flighty. Reassured, she gave the club number and stood waiting, listening to the half-syllables of switched-off voices and the crossing click, click, that was bringing her fate nearer to her. She heard some one coming up the stairs and down the hall toward ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... — [sharply again, scandalized.] — Let you not be minding if it's flat or rounded she is; for she's a flighty, foolish woman, you'll hear when you're off a long way, and she making a great noise and ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... young girl agin herself is one thing. He might feel different if a married woman wanted to turn fool. Now, Joyce, I ain't ever going to say anything more about this, 'less it's necessary. I know you're pretty and maybe a bit more flighty along of that, but being married and having your own work, may tone you down. If you'll stick by me, I'll stick by you; and in time Mr. Gaston can be a friend to both of us and no harm done. You understand, don't you? I ain't hard, I'm only letting light ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... effect. Not a few of Dr. Mountchance's lady customers preferred money to trinkets and he did a profitable trade in buying these presents at his own price. Some of these flighty damsels were haughty and patronising and others were familiar and impudent. The old man disliked both varieties. Lavinia belonged to neither the first nor the second. She was thoroughly natural and the humour lurking in her sparkling eyes was ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... appreciable moment she didn't withdraw. The latter were brilliant and expressive, and surmounted a delicate aquiline nose, which, though pretty, was perhaps just a trifle too hawk-like. It was the oddest coincidence in the world; the story Vogelstein had taken up treated of a flighty forward little American girl who plants herself in front of a young man in the garden of an hotel. Wasn't the conduct of this young lady a testimony to the truthfulness of the tale, and wasn't Vogelstein himself in the position of the young man ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... great delight in exercising Tommy and Patty (who were big enough to be trusted) in flighty and would often skim round the whole island with them before I could walk half through the wood. And she would teach them also to swim or sail, I know not which to call it, for sometimes you should see them dart out of the air as if they would fall on their faces into the lake, when coming near ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... baby out in the morning. She got so low spirited that it was almost a relief when she went, but of course I feel her loss dreadfully. I haven't let the baby out of my sight because I wouldn't trust Daisy with her for anything in the world. She is so terribly flighty. I have the crib brought into my room (though Oliver hates it) and I take entire charge of her night and day. I should love to do it if only Oliver didn't mind it so much. He says I think more of the baby now than I do of him. Isn't that absurd? ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... have ceased to take such microscopic views of each other since the railway came within ten miles of us, and are now able to converse on much more general topics than formerly. Not that there isn't still opportunity to lament over the flighty nature of kitchen incumbents, and to look after the domestic interests of all Barton; but I think going to Boston several times a year tends to enlarge the mind, and gives us more subjects of conversation. We are quite up in the sculpture at Mount Auburn, and have our preferences for Bierstadt ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... gone,—dropped irrevocably by her own hand into the pillar letter-box which stood at the corner opposite to the public-house,—she told her father what she had done. "And why?" he said crossly. "I do not understand thee. Thou art flighty and fickle, and ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... the Cortes de Jupiter, Vicente wrote the Farsa de Ines Pereira, in which there is more action and development of character than in his preceding, or indeed his subsequent, plays. He represents the aspirations and repentance of Ines, the 'very flighty daughter of a woman of low estate.' Despite the warnings of her sensible mother she rejects the suit of simple and uncouth Pero Marques for that of a gentleman (escudeiro) whose pretensions are far greater than his possessions. The mother gives them a house ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... may be the more agreeably surprised. I will say more; they are not false in their protestations, being naturally zealous to oblige, humane, benevolent, and even (whatever may be said to the contrary) more sincere than any other nation; but they are too flighty: in effect they feel the sentiments they profess for you, but that sentiment flies off as instantaneously as it was formed. In speaking to you, their whole attention is employed on you alone, when absent you are forgotten. Nothing is permanent in their hearts, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... be very nice," continued Dora, "to have you to help me to keep my flighty progenitors in order. ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendour and joy'—we know from the correspondence between Maria Theresa and her minister at Versailles, that what Burke really saw was no divinity, but a flighty and troublesome schoolgirl, an accomplice in all the ignoble intrigues, and a sharer of all the small busy passions, that convulse the insects of a court. The levity that came with her Lorraine blood, broke out in incredible dissipations; in indiscreet visits to the masked balls at the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... Kopy-Keck was a Spiritualist. The former was slow and sententious; the latter was quick and flighty; the latter had generally the first word; the former ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... that they all dubbed him with the name of To Hun Ch'ung, the stupid worm To. As the wife given to him in marriage by his father and mother was this year just twenty, and possessed further several traits of beauty, and was also naturally of a flighty and frivolous disposition, she had an extreme penchant for violent flirtations. But To Hun-ch'ung, on the other hand, did not concern himself (with her deportment), and as long as he had wine, meat and money he paid no heed whatever to anything. And for this reason it was that all ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... answered. "They got off early to-day, and I took them and Sister and the Anderson youngsters out for a run. Did 'em all good. I'm coming home to-night, and they don't want me to-morrow, because they're going to afternoon tea with some one or other. Flighty young things, those cooks! So I can help you carpenters ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... different. Van Zandt was older, but he was not so very old, not more than sixty, and old age in itself is not sufficient to make a man surly and to sour his temper. That the Major had had trouble in his family was well known. His wife had been flighty and foolish, and it was believed that she had run away from him; and his only son was a wild lad, who had been employed by Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co., out of regard for the father, and who had disgraced himself beyond forgiveness. Paul recalled vaguely that ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... Annette, too, had been in favour of it—Annette, from behind the veil of his refusal to know what she was about, if she was about anything. Annette had said: "Let her marry this young man. He is a nice boy—not so highty-flighty as he seems." Where she got her expressions, he didn't know—but her opinion soothed his doubts. His wife, whatever her conduct, had clear eyes and an almost depressing amount of common sense. He had settled fifty thousand on Fleur, taking care that there was no ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... our English Newman Street apostles, and of M. de la M—, the mad priest, and his congregation of mad converts, should be a warning to such of us as are inclined to dabble in religious speculations; for, in them, as in all others, our flighty brains soon lose themselves, and we find our reason speedily lying prostrated at the mercy of our passions; and I think that Madame Sand's novel of Spiridion may do a vast deal of good, and bears a good moral with it; though not such an one, perhaps, as our fair philosopher intended. ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... twins so funny that Alfaretta, who always was kind of flighty, made a little noise with her soft palate and tried to pass it off for a cough. Luanna May poked her in the ribs with her elbow, and Mrs. Rowan spoke up quite loud: "Why, Pa, how you go on! I wasn't but a minute, an' you hardly ever come before halfpast. And furthermore, mister, I want to know ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... notions o' their position. The mother was dead, and the three girls managed the home. Florence was the youngest, and the other two were older than her by ten years or more. Consequently, they thought her a bit flighty, an' needin' o' some restriction. They did not let her associate with any o' the neighbors, an' a great fuss they raised when she made friends with me while her horse took a drink at the trough when she was passing. I pitied the child, fer she had a pretty face, an' big, sad eyes that ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... should handle them at another's expense. Every subject is equally fertile to me: a fly will serve the purpose, and 'tis well if this I have in hand has not been undertaken at the recommendation of as flighty a will. I may begin, with that which pleases me best, for the subjects are all linked ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... whether he won her down by faithfulness and devotion nobody knows. Nobody quite knows how or why she changed toward him. I don't believe she does. He was just about the last man anybody thought she'd marry. But anyway her young and flighty affections got round to him at last, and fastened to him. They fastened to him like leeches. No man was ever loved as hard as she loved him when she got round to it. She made up for all the sorry dances she'd led him. ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... what flighty girls are. He's probably a swank-pot. A steward, or something of that sort. I expect he has what's left over, and talks big about it. But she's got ideas like that in her head, and she thinks she's too ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... hastened to the dressing-room. Clare Peters, a somewhat spoiled, flighty girl, accustomed to having her way in most things, stood ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... I burst forth, "there can't be any reasonable doubt. Leavitt's mind may be a little flighty—he may have embroidered his story with a few gratuitous details; but Farquharson's books and things—the material evidence of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... September 1429; the weather had fallen sharp; a flighty piping wind, laden with showers, beat about the township; and the dead leaves ran riot along the streets. Here and there a window was already lighted up; and the noise of men-at-arms making merry over supper ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... handled with delicacy and discretion," began Kenny with bitter fluency. "I'm an unsuccessful parent with an over-supply of hair and teeth, afflicted with hairbrained, unquenchable youth. I'd be a perennial in the Land of the Young and could hobnob indefinitely with his Flighty Highness, the King of Youth. I'm forty-four years young and highly temperamentalized. I've made a mess of parenting Brian and ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... Science as this remarkable production, in which one of the most exact of observers, most cautious of reasoners, and most candid of expositors, of this or any other age, is held up to scorn as a 'flighty' person who endeavours to 'prop up his utterly rotten fabric of guess and speculation,' and whose 'mode of dealing with nature' is reprobated as 'utterly dishonourable to natural science.' And all this high and mighty talk, which would have ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... very much troubled about it. I only thought he was flighty from want of sleep. At your age you don't mind the loss of ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... was made, and the Duke of Newcastle, a flighty, trivial and faithless creature, gave place to the strict, honest, and narrow Duke of Bedford as Secretary of the Colonies. The colonies had been under the charge of the Board of Commissioners, who could ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... a few seconds he sank down again and grew flighty of speech. One of our people was at last penetrated with something vaguely akin to compassion, may be, for he looked out through the gratings at the guardian officer, pacing to and fro, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... little missed as possible. From 1651 there was a notable change in her behaviour. She cast away every regard for the feelings and prejudices of her people. She ostentatiously exhibited her contempt for the Protestant religion. Her foreign policy was flighty to the verge of foolishness. She contemplated an alliance with Spain, a state quite outside the orbit of Sweden's influence, the firstfruits of which were to have been an invasion of Portugal. She utterly neglected affairs in order to plunge into ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... the truth, his conduct, when he first mentioned our engagement to my uncle, had been (so far as appearances went) a little flighty and strange. The vicar had naturally questioned him about his family. He had answered that his father was dead; and he had consented, though not very readily, to announce his contemplated marriage to his mother. Informing us that she too lived in the country, he had gone ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... is true to-day may not be true to-morrow. All our opinions should be marked, "Subject to change without notice." We cannot all indulge ourselves in the complacency of the maiden lady who gave her age year after year as twenty-seven, because she said she was not one of these flighty things who say "one thing to-day ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... cried Geraldine gayly, "We shall drink a votre succes dans la guerre," and the flighty girl raised a glass of wine on high. Several of the guests crowded around and all were about to drink ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... own. Sir Jeoffry's servants were no more moral than their master, and being brought up as she was among them, their young mistress became strangely familiar with many sights and sounds it is not the fortune of most young misses of breeding to see and hear. The cooks and kitchen-wenches were flighty with the grooms and men-servants, and little Mistress Clorinda, having a passion for horses and dogs, spent many an hour in the stables with the women who, for reasons of their own, were pleased enough to take her there as an excuse for seeking amusement for themselves. She played ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... alike for arms and for factions, full of expedients, wonderfully ready, and, in difficult positions, versed in the art of stooping to conquer. It is true that his great qualities were weakened by defects; he was rash, flighty, full of inconsistency of thought and action, owing to his continual thirst for movement and machination. But his great defect was the total absence of a political conviction. In times of revolution, nothing can be done for liberty or power by him who is not decidedly of one party or another, ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... collected might, With one wide stroke had wing'd the savage flighty But their bright Godhead, in his midday race, With glooms unusual veil'd his radiant face, Quench'd all his beams, tho cloudless, in affright, As loth to view from heaven the finish'd fight. A trembling twilight ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... flower blooms out so young Wid a look in its face like a sassy tongue, Den it grows light-headed wid self-conceit Wid a flighty ol' age, for full defeat. An' it ain't by itself, pert chillen, in dat— No, it ain't by itself ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... Shropshire giantess,* as that she should be a paragon in any other character, before we began to love her. Esmond's mistress had a thousand faults beside her charms; he knew both perfectly well! She was imperious, she was light-minded, she was flighty, she was false, she had no reverence in her character; she was in everything, even in beauty, the contrast of her mother, who was the most devoted and the least selfish of women. Well, from the very first moment he saw her on the stairs at Walcote, Esmond knew he loved Beatrix. ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... who are coming out of church, an affected, flighty Frenchwoman, with her fluttering fop of a husband, and a boy, habited a-la-mode de Paris, claim our first attention. In dress, air, and manner, they have a national character. The whole congregation, whether male or female, old or young, carry the air of ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... Barentz. He was a young man, apparently not thirty years of age, of diminutive stature and delicate proportions. His face was handsome, but womanish. His movements were rapid and restless, and there was that appearance in his eye which would have warranted the supposition that he was a little flighty, even if his conduct had not fully proved ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... psychic conditions of others, both those in earth life and those on the spirit plane of existence, without realizing the nature of the influence operating on them. Such persons are frequently more or less erratic, and are considered as "flighty" by their friends. They need instruction on the subject of psychic laws and self-control, so that they may intelligently guard themselves against undesirable influences, and at the same time cultivate the power of mediumship of the ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... told him of my cursed fortune, and in that moment I saw that he thought me a fool and an idiot. He went away, and I saw him no more. Yet I still hoped. I dreamed of their joy at finding me, and the reward that my wealth would give them. Perhaps I was a little weak still, perhaps a little flighty, too, at times; but I was quite happy that year, even in my disappointment, for I ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... and a half above this sublunary earth. I should like to have an account of his sensations, but his letters said nothing serious about them. Honest George, I certainly did not suspect him of being so flighty! I visited the new plantations on the river-side with Mrs. Scott; I wish her lord and master had some of her taste for planting. When I came home I walked through the Rhymer's Glen, and I thought how the little fall would look if ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... bugbear of the timid shows itself even beneath their work of cynicism, and the very effort accuses them, no less than their flighty and unreasoning conversation and their gestures, now exaggerated and now represt, all of which make up a whole that entirely fails to give an impression ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... set, prepared you for the revelation of them. Nancy understood that they were Collier Pratt's eyes, and that they would open presently, and look wonderingly up at her. She recognized the presence of Dr. Sunderland, of Michael and several of the waitresses, and a flighty woman in blue taffeta—an ubiquitous patron,—but she made her way past them at once, and sank on her ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... the tea-things just then created a little confusion, which aided Miss Pratt to repress her resentment at Rebecca's presumption in correcting her—a person like Rebecca Linnet! who six months ago was as flighty and vain a woman as Miss Pratt had ever known —so very unconscious of her ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Bernhardt's La Jeune Fille et la Mort—a veiled skeleton coming up behind a young girl and touching her on the shoulder—it would attract little attention if it had not been signed by the flighty (and lately fleeing) actress. The verses underneath the picture are the best ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... the drawing-room, with their arms round each other's waists, and sitting there together hand in hand. Cynthia's whole manner was more quiet than it had been, when the weight of her unpleasant secret rested on her mind, and made her alternately despondent or flighty. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... large family of interesting girls—after that, Miss Tessa Remington will be glad to marry Mr. Samuel Chard, inasmuch as when she awakes it will be under the same improper conditions as those of the dissolute Tim Donnelly and the flighty Miss Maoni; for the beauteous Tessa will be fortuitously discovered by Captain Louis Hendry and several other persons on board, in such circumstances that an immediate marriage of the indiscreet lovers by one of the American missionaries at Ponape will present the only solution of what would ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... rushed into the house, as he told the story, "as white as the sheets she was carrying." As close as he could remember, he said, this was about ten minutes before the professors made their first sighting. He stopped at this point to tell me about his wife, she wasn't prone to be "flighty" and she "never made up tales." This character qualification was also standard for UFO storytellers. The reason his wife was so upset was that she had seen a large object glide swiftly and silently over the ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... escapade was a tragedy at every hearth-side. It was immeasurably shocking that a young woman married to a reputable man, and with a child still toddling after her, should have done this grievous thing. To say that she had always been flighty, and that it was what might have been expected of a woman as headstrong as she had been as a girl, was no mollification of the blow to the local conscience, acutely sensitive in all that pertained to the honor and sanctity of the marriage tie. And Jack ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Jim," said the sick man, and dozed off into a troubled sleep. The surgeon had been giving the patient some powerful medicine, and told Sedgwick it might make him flighty, but not to permit that to alarm him; that he thought he could promise to hold the life in his friend ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... one maid goes the others want to, and it has been a difficult matter to keep them all contented and busy. Gabrielle was a good nurse, but a bit flighty and ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... beseeching eyes, "what wid the men all rarin' about the bit of garden, calling, 'Molly, isn't she coming down?' and the girls, calling down the kitchen tube, 'Molly aren't they through talking?' I'm fair getting nervous myself—we feel like witches we're that flighty—" ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... independence and imprudent philanthropy was not easy to any one who did not understand her character, and though Lady Rotherwood said nothing more in the form of censure, it was evident that she was unconvinced that Gillian was not a fast and flighty girl, and that she did not desire more ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... terribly flighty. [Presses the money into her hand.] Here, take it; and do not be too long. [Smoothes ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... a whole tableful of men of esprit.— "Yes," you say, "but who wants to hear fanciful people's nonsense? Put the facts to it, and then see where it is!"—Certainly, if a man is too fond of paradox,—if he is flighty and empty,—if, instead of striking those fifths and sevenths, those harmonious discords, often so much better than the twinned octaves, in the music of thought,—if, instead of striking these, he jangles the chords, stick a fact ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... flighty young monkey, though," pursued Brett pensively. "It's that touch of red in her hair that does it, I suppose." He ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... lived about in garrison towns and elsewhere with my father, till I was quite flighty and unsettled. He was an officer in the army. I should not have mentioned this had I not thought it best ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... fancy, it won't hurt, and in the future I'll—Oh! what a lot I shall have to learn; and how delightfully exciting it all is! Mary, don't stare at me like that. It's impertinent. I know you don't mean it so, and you think I'm a little flighty. Well, I am. Very flighty, indeed! But—fancy old Madame ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... up some eggs out 'n the nestes, but it'd look sort o' flighty to go egg-huntin' here at midnight—an' ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... review himself in his journal, 'a very pretty allusion,' and we may be sure, in spite of his reticence, that his own case was present at the time to his mind. His distressed father enlisted the interest of Lord Hailes, who requested Dr Jortin, Prebendary of St Paul's, to take in hand the flighty youth, and to persuade him to renounce the errors of the Church of Rome for those of the Church of England, for it was plain that Boswell had broken loose from his old moorings, and some middle course might, it was hoped, prove to be possible. 'Your young gentleman,' writes Jortin to Hailes, ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... to interfere with any of your arrangements," whispered the Rector, "but I think perhaps I ought to tell you that Mrs. Ramsay is no great housewife. She is a queer little flighty thing. She spends her time in trying to write plays and bothering managers. There's no harm in her, and he's very fond of her. But it is an untidy, dirty little house! And nothing ever happens at the right time. ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was magically alive and had proved herself not the least jolly and agreeable of the many quaint characters who inhabit the astonishing Fairyland of Oz. Indeed, Scraps was a general favorite, although she was rather flighty and erratic and did and said many things that surprised her friends. She was seldom still, but loved to dance, to turn handsprings and somersaults, to climb trees and to indulge ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... that flighty man has not been telling Lord Orville he only assisted me! however, he did not pursue the subject: but said, "This accident though extremely unfortunate, will not, I hope, be the means of frightening you from gracing Ranelagh with your presence ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... becoming hat, smiling gaily, just stepping out of a magnificent white motor car, resting her hand familiarly on that of the most successful young financier in Paris, whose conquests among women of the world were a byword, and chaperoned by a flighty little Neapolitan teacher of singing. Truly, if some one had deliberately rubbed the back of his neck with a large lump of ice on that warm spring day, the chill could not have been more effectual. Morally ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... coining thousands daily, and was as shrewd as he was successful, according to the verdict of those whose sayings I overheard. He was not very often in our office, and I was glad to see that no intimacy existed between him and Mr. Prime. Hints dropped in my presence by some of our less flighty looking customers revealed to me the fact that there were those who predicted for him a fall as rapid as had been his rise. But I could not help feeling a little of my former jealousy return, as I noted how slack and unprofitable ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... doubts of the "steadiness" of that sex? Again, among Quaker women, I have asked the opinion of prominent Friends, as of John G. Whittier, whether it has been the experience of that body that women were more flighty and unsteady than men in their official action; and have been uniformly answered in the negative. And finally, as to benevolent organizations, a good test is given in the fact,—first pointed out, I believe, by that eminently practical philanthropist, ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... heart, no indeedy!" replied Miss Jinny emphatically. "I'd rather keep them a week than to have you slight Elinor. We'll have time to take the edge off our tongues, anyhow, before she gets here, and get more settled down, I hope. I haven't felt so flighty in a blue moon, and it's all your fault, Patricia Louise Kendall, with your tales about theaters and parties and the like! We'll have to put a muzzle on her, won't we, Judith?—like poor old Nero after he nipped Georgie Smith ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... lesson to the KAISER, Self-anointed Lord of Earth, Left that furious monarch wiser Re our troops' intrinsic worth, Frankly, I had thought you flighty, Callous to the very core; Lovely?—yes, like ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... flighty by nature, though that, of course, is not sufficient to explain how he came to forge his sister's name on a draft ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... country's goin' to hell, certain!" declared Weaver, after an hour of silence. "She's gettin' too eastern an' flighty. Railroads an' dams an' hotels with bath tubs for every six or seven rooms, an' resterawnts with filleedegree palms an' leather chairs an' slick eats is eatin' the gizzard outen her. Railroads is all right in their place—which is where folks ain't got no cayuses to ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... remark of his, as a specimen of the ignorance in which Americans usually remain during their flighty visits to these scenes, where they associate only with one another. And I do it the rather as this seemed a really thoughtful, intelligent man; no vain, vulgar trifler. He said, "The people seem only to be looking on; they ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Thebans seemed desperate, as no one offered to help them; but Pelopidas, who with Gorgidas was Boeotarch, contrived to alienate the Athenians from Sparta by the following plot. Sphodrias, a Spartan, of great renown in the wars, but somewhat flighty and prone to wild enterprises and reckless ambition, had been left near Thespiae with an army, to receive and assist those Thebans[9] who were now sent into exile because they favoured the Lacedaemonians. Pelopidas sent secretly to this man ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... Nina cried. 'Because, first, I don't approve of matrimony as an institution. And then—as you say—Lord help my husband. I should be such an uncomfortable wife. So capricious, and flighty, and tantalising, and unsettling, and disobedient, and exacting, and everything. Oh, but a horrid wife! No, I shall never marry. Marriage is quite too out-of-date. I shan't marry; but, if I ever meet a man and love him—ah!' She placed two fingers upon her lips, and kissed ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... daughter of the Marquis de Casteran; born Beatrix-Maximilienne-Rose de Casteran, about 1808, in the Casteran Castle, department of Orne. After being reared there she became the wife of the Marquis of Rochefide in 1828. She was fair of skin, but a flighty vain coquette, without heart or brains—a second Madame d'Espard, except for her lack of intelligence. About 1832 she left her husband to flee into Italy with the musician, Gennaro Conti, whom she took from her friend, Mademoiselle des Touches. Finally she allowed Calyste du Guenic to pay her court. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... flighty and the lads are quate, and the hoose will no' be itsel' till ye will be moving about again, an' Miss Janet's lad ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... the fox stopped short again in mid career, and crouched down; but Matyi did not leap over him as the flighty Armida had done, but, as the fox turned towards him with gnashing teeth, he snapped suddenly at him from the opposite side like lightning, and in that instant all that one could see was the fox turning a somersault in the air. Matyi, seizing him by the neck had, in fact, tossed him up, and scarcely ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... attend to those who served them. The mind of Sarah had ceased to wander so wildly as at first; but at every advance that she made towards reason, she seemed to retire a step from animation; from being excited and flighty, she was gradually becoming moody and melancholy. There were moments, indeed, when her anxious companions thought that they could discern marks of recollection; but the expression of exquisite woe that accompanied these transient gleams of reason, forced them to the dreadful alternative ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... so!" Cephas responded gloomily. "It's nip an' tuck 'tween him an' Mark Wilson. That girl draws 'em as molasses does flies! She does it 'thout liftin' a finger, too, no more 'n the molasses does. She just sets still an' IS! An' all the time she's nothin' but a flighty little red-headed spitfire that don't know a good husband when she sees one. The feller that gits her will live to regret it, that's my opinion!" And Cephas thought to himself: "Good Lord, don't I wish I was ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... more till dinner, when he was silent, and she talkative and flighty, so that Violet suspected there had ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Member for Finsbury, examined—Had known the deceased for some years. Had the highest notion of the robustness of his constitution. Would have taken any odds upon it. Deceased, however, within these last three or four weeks had flighty intervals. Talked very much about the fine phrenological development of Sir Robert Peel's skull. Had suspicions of the deceased from that moment. Deceased had been carefully watched, but to no avail. Deceased inflicted a mortal wound upon himself on the first night of Sir Robert's premiership; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various
... tastes, aggressive toward her companions. Dorothea may have a balanced thyroid and pituitary and so lead the class as good-looking, studious, bright, serene and mature. Florence, who has rather more thyroid than her pituitary can balance, will be bright but flighty, gay but moody, energetic, but not as persevering. And so on ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... he gulped, shaking himself. "I'm as flighty as a gal. What th'—" He looked back. Queenie was nuzzling his arm questioningly. Her ears were cocked forward; her surprised face was almost ridiculously human in ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... "as I am na mich o' a lass's mon mysen, and I wunnot say as I ha' mich opinion o' woman foak i' general—they're flighty yo' see—they're flighty; but I mun say as I wur tuk by that little wench o' th' Parson's—I ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to eat them," replied the fool. "And I have often marvelled wherefor the flighty butterfly wears such gay and painted wings, while every creature that creeps and grubs is grey or brown and foul ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Mr. Frank (who had already seen the first book or two in manuscript, and extolled it above all books past, present, or to come) would have surely brought a copy down for Rose, and thereby have turned her poor little flighty brains upside down forever. And with her head full of these, it was no wonder if she had likened herself of late more than once to some of those peerless princesses of old, for whose fair hand paladins and kaisers thundered against each other in tilted field; and perhaps she would ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley |
