"Frail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her loneliness and sorrow. With failing strength and heightening resolution, there had sprung up a purified and altered mind; there had grown in her bosom blessed thoughts and hopes, which are the portion of few but the weak and drooping. There were none to see the frail, perishable figure, as it glided from the fire and leaned pensively at the open casement; none but the stars, to look into the upturned face and read its history. The old church bell rang out the hour with a mournful ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the necessity of lightness, the weight of the various elements had to be kept at a minimum, and the factor of safety in construction was therefore exceedingly small, so that the machine as a whole was delicate and frail and incapable of sustaining any unusual strain. This defect was to be corrected in later models by utilising data gathered in ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... for herself, when suddenly she had been made to feel that there was somebody beside her in the bitter water. A most considerable moral event for her; whether she was aware of it or not. They met again at the one o'clock dinner. I am inclined to think that, being a healthy girl under her frail appearance, and fast walking and what I may call relief-crying (there are many kinds of crying) making one hungry, she made a good meal. It was Captain Anthony who had no appetite. His sister commented on it in a curt, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... others, his run of follies; but he had soon got disgusted with what it is the fashion to call pleasure. The noble profession of bon vivant appeared to him very tame and tiresome. He did not enjoy passing his nights at cards; nor did he appreciate the society of those frail sisters, who in Paris give notoriety to their lovers. He affirmed that a gentleman was not necessarily an object of ridicule because he would not expose himself in the theatre with these women. Finally, none of his friends could ever ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... seems to destroy a woman's finer intuitions. If you feel that you must marry again, go slowly, and wait until the bruised tendrils of your heart have healed and are rooted in healthy soil. Do not let them twine about any sort of a dead tree or frail reed. Run no chance of ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... pressure of their arms suggested that each believed it would never rise for them—or, rising, would look upon a sea of floating dead. Jeb had not noticed the sun. His face was lowered close to the planking of their frail refuge. The ocean had again become a thing of peace and beauty—and silence. Those who were on upturned boats had realized the impotency of screaming, and merely clung with dogged tenacity; those who had been too much lacerated to reach ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... be seen that the story is going to be quite simple, in fact too frail to stand alone. So here and there I am going to plait something in with the thread of the narrative, just as the Chinaman does with his pigtail when it is too thin. He has no Eau de Lob or oil from Macassar—but I admit that I have never found at Macassar ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... voice, and she was intelligent. She was recovering, as the expression goes, from pleurisy. Moreover, she had the air of being as frail morally ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... man sometimes is more shrewd Than a stupendous multitude, To after-times I shall rehearse In my concise familiar verse. A certain man on his decease, Left his three girls so much a-piece: The first was beautiful and frail, With eyes still hunting for the male; The second giv'n to spin and card, A country housewife working hard; The third but very ill to pass, A homely slut, that loved her glass. The dying man had left his wife Executrix, and for her life Sole tenant, if she should fulfil These strange provisos ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... "Because I am a frail and erring man, Delphine, and like to get my case. If my client is guilty,—as we will suppose, for the sake of argument, he is,—he will not be likely to stop his evil career merely because he has got off now, and will be caught and hanged next time, possibly. If ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... Hessian bathing places must be stepping itself still. Isn't there any heaven where old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves? Isn't there any Nirvana pervaded by the faint thrilling of instruments that have fallen into the dust of wormwood but that yet had frail, tremulous, and ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... arrived at a finality anywhere, save perhaps in their mode of government. They could erect enormous time-defying buildings, but they knew of no way to roof them except by thatching them. Their roads were marvels of engineering construction, but they could not build bridges except frail ones made out of osier cables. No wheels ran along the smooth, well-paved, magnificent highways. They could refine gold and silver and make weapons of tempered copper, but they were entirely ignorant of the use of iron. The greatest human development has depended upon that last ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... strikingly, and that—on the few occasions I have seen him—chilled me. It is wrong, I know; and no doubt with more opportunity I should have grown very fond of him. Sometimes I tax myself, Harry, with being frail in my affections: they require renewing with a sight of—of their object. That is why we are keeping ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to rouse herself a little now and then, she lay for the greater part of the day in a dreamy state, often dropping asleep, and having to be coaxed to take the necessary nourishment. Very white and frail she looked, as if it would not take much of a puff to blow her away. Nevertheless, each day brought an increase of appetite and strength, and each day she grew fonder of her careful, tender nurse, as well as of Mrs. Wright's giant son. As ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... about what was more interesting to her than anything else in the world, Liz followed Gladys into the kitchen, where the old man sat, as usual, in his arm-chair by the fireside, looking very old and wizened and frail in the flickering glow of fire and ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... in the picture: "Mother is splendidly handsome, and I daresay I owe her a good deal; but thank God you were there with your fine old name and family to give me the things that matter most. It sometimes seems as if we had got each other still, dad, and, for the rest, some are frail in one way and some another, and fretting doesn't help any one." The fine eyes had grown more whimsically wistful looking into the face of the huntsman as she finished: "Anyhow, the last favourite is second cousin to a duke, and she ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... dust, and feeble as frail, In thee do we trust, nor find thee to fail; Thy mercies, how tender! how firm to the end, Our ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... ask him: he will have his own way. There is no putting him out of his bias. He is a regular piece of clock-work, they will joke, and all that: And why, my dear, should we not be so? For man is as frail a piece of machinery as any clock-work whatever; and, by irregularity, is as subject to ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... under the erroneous impression that sea-sickness was bred of fear and terror, and would attack only women (of both sexes) and children of tender minds and frail constitutions. But, when the waves commenced to roll higher, and the ship began a ceaseless rocking, which was in direct opposition to the wants and comfort of my system, as all manner of swinging ever was, I began to have fears that it was not fright, but swinging, ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... suspicion never cleared, an ill-natured story ... all these have destroyed that child of Heaven. I knew it was tender, and I cherished it, but I could not believe it to be so frail. ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... as the letter was, I seemed to feel behind it some stress of feeling, an excitement perhaps, totally out of proportion to its contents. Years before I had met Miss Emily, even then a frail little old lady, her small figure stiffly erect, her eyes cold, her whole bearing one of reserve. The Bentons, for all their open doors, were known in that part of the country as "proud." I can remember, too, how when I was a young girl my mother had regarded the rare invitations ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... he heard that voice, forced and ringing feebly, but with a penetrating effect of quietness in the enormous discord of noises, as if sent out from some remote spot of peace beyond the black wastes of the gale; again he heard a man's voice—the frail and indomitable sound that can be made to carry an infinity of thought, resolution, and purpose, that shall be pronouncing confident words on the last day, when heavens fall and justice is done—again he heard it, and it was crying to him, ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... reached France. The Russians under Wittgenstein now appeared in his rear, and one of his divisions was either destroyed or captured. Napoleon had passed over the Beresina with a part of his army by means of two frail bridges, leaving the defence of the retreat to Victor. A scene ensued which defies description. The retreating French tumbled each other into the stream, or voluntarily rushed in to escape the fire of the Russians; and in the midst of their terror one of the bridges gave way, and the crowd passing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Susan." The little woman returned to her task meekly. Her small, slim hands and her frail body did not look at all suited to heavy toil, yet no one in the village worked harder than the little lilac lady. For when her own house was set in order, and brushed and swept and scrubbed, exactly as Susan demanded, Miss Arabella crossed the orchard and washed and baked, ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... no other air than that of the theater. An occasional fireman passed, watching over their melancholy idyll from afar. And she would drag him up above the clouds, in the magnificent disorder of the grid, where she loved to make him giddy by running in front of him along the frail bridges, among the thousands of ropes fastened to the pulleys, the windlasses, the rollers, in the midst of a regular forest of yards and masts. If he hesitated, she said, with an adorable ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... this world confined A spirit whose strong flight, for heaven designed, No mean example might one man bestow. Thou, who didst view my wonderings and my woe, Great King of heaven! unseen, immortal mind! Succor this weary being, frail and blind; And may thy grace o'er all my failings flow! Then, though my life through warring tempests passed; My death may tranquilly and slowly come; And my calm soul may flee in peace at last: While o'er that space which shuts me from the tomb, And on ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... born—born where most men die: in obscurity. He was so weak and frail that none but the mother believed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... battle won, himself wounded, exhausted through months of intense nervous strain, his frail body maimed and covered with scars, again sailed into ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... not any weed That blooms its little life in forest shade, And dies when it hath cast its ripened seed, Forget the human creatures He has made, Frail as they are, and ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... fear of Wilfer's violence and her sense of injury at his denial of her presence to Leroy, Jessica ran, as fast as her frail body would permit her, through the intricate smaller streets and passages which abound in the Soho district. Having gone far enough, in her opinion, to be fairly safe from any danger of Wilfer's pursuit, she stopped to consider whether she should endeavour ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... privations and suffering, and encountering the extreme dangers to which their frail barks were necessarily exposed from the surges which roll in perpetually from the broad Atlantic Ocean upon the coast of Spain and into the Bay of Biscay, they arrived safely on the shores of Britain. They landed and explored the interior. They found the island robed in the richest ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and Miss Fenton, who were sitting together expatiating on the duplicity of their own sex in the instance just before them, had, notwithstanding the interest of the discourse, a longing desire to break it off; for they were impatient to see this poor frail being whom they were loading with their censure. They longed to see if she would have the confidence to look them in the face: them, to whom she had so often protested, that she had not the smallest attachment to Lord Frederick, but from ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... do it," he declared, speaking hurriedly, as if he held words but frail vehicles in a world where deeds counted with so much greater weight, "but I've been easy on you, ma'am; no man can say that I ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye find... Ah God, I know not, I!... Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, 40 And corded up in a tight olive-frail, deg. deg.41 Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, deg. deg.42 Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast... Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, That brave Frascati deg. ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... disbelief in the presence of salmon in that river, a big fish leaped clear of the water and tore away with Pud's line. In a moment, Pud was busy. He got so excited when he saw the wonderful fish make another flying leap that he forgot that he was on a frail canoe and over he went. Bob hurried to his rescue and Pud was soon in his boat again. Pud had held on to the rod and when he got in the boat, he started to reel in but he was due for a rude awakening, as he was nearly yanked out of the canoe by a ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... Kuszleika, who played the violin. Everybody laughed at them, for Tamoszius was petite and frail, and Marija could have picked him up and carried him off under one arm. But perhaps that was why she fascinated him; the sheer volume of Marija's energy was overwhelming. That first night at the wedding Tamoszius had hardly taken his eyes off her; and later on, when he came to find that she had ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Christian temple pointed to a yet fairer world, invisible to mortal eye, and suggested even to the least thoughtful, that glorious as is this lower earth, framed by Heaven's beneficence for man's enjoyment, still it is not that home to which the hand of revelation directs the aspirations of our frail humanity. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... to hurt Claire, as he must have done in tearing himself loose from her. He stood a moment in tragic helplessness, grinding his teeth, and hurling muttered imprecations out into the night that covered Philip Haig. Then he looked down at the golden head pressed against his breast, and felt the frail body quivering; and some sense of what he was doing, or was about to do, reached his brain through the fumes of rage. There was yet a long struggle; for he was too ponderous for quick decisions, and at the same time too outright for ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... handmaid even to ambition, and would carry him further, in the end, than the temporizing, wavering policy he pursues. His judgment is not of the first order, scarcely even of the second; his resolution frail; and upon the whole, it is rare to meet an instance of a person so much below the reputation he has obtained. As this character, by the post and times in which Providence has placed it, is important to be known, I send it ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the name of William the Silent have been given. He had no confidants, except Waldeck and William Bentinck; and few could even guess at the hidden workings of that scheming mind or at the burning fires of energy and will-power beneath the proud and frigid reserve of a man so frail in body and always ailing. Very rarely could a born leader of men have been more unamiable or less anxious to win popular applause, but his whole demeanour inspired confidence and, ignoring the many difficulties ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... cai'tiff ci'pher ca'lyx fail'ure fra'cas high'land cha'os faith'ful gate'-way mo'hair dai'ly frail'ty name'sake oak'um dai'sy game'ster stra'tum poul'tice bea'dle neat'ly mea'sles trea'cle bea'ver clear'ance peo'ple trea'tise drear'y cre'dence le'gion treat'ment ea'ger flee'cy re'gion twee'zers mean'ness greed'y ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... into life, Through scenes of sorrow, care and strife; This poor, frail, intellectual flower Was reared ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... kedge-anchor and warp; but it was too late to kedge the sloop off, for the tide was falling and she had already sewed a foot. Then I went about "laying out" the larger anchor, which was no easy matter, for my only life-boat, the frail dory, when the anchor and cable were in it, was swamped at once in the surf, the load being too great for her. Then I cut the cable and made two loads of it instead of one. The anchor, with forty fathoms bent and already buoyed, I now took and succeeded in getting through the surf; but my ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... this remarkable building, first a pagan temple and then a Christian church—worship so different in name and yet so like in reality; for the divine honours paid to a mortal emperor and his wife were transferred in after ages to frail mortals such as Saint Laurence and the Virgin Mary. We are reminded by the inscription above the portico of the temple, "Divo Antonino et Divae Faustina," that the government of the Caesars had become an earthly omnipotence in the estimation of the Romans and the subject nations. ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... enjoyment of this he was original. Posh asserts that he has seen his "guv'nor" lying in the lee scuppers while the Scandal was heeling over in a stiff breeze, and permitting the wash of the sea to run over him till he was drenched to the skin. Indeed, although his long lean body looked frail, he was reckless in the way in which he treated it. Posh tells one story which I give in his words. He vouches for its truth, and I give it on his authority and not as vouching for its accuracy myself. ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... the solemnity of the scene, I could not refrain from wishing that here, at least, Nature might be permitted to reign unmolested, but the solitary watch-fires of the recent settlers gave proof that though his tenure was yet but frail, man! rapacious and indefatigable man! was fast establishing usurpation." This was written many years ago. What would be the astonishment of the writer, if he could revisit the scene. Would he think it improvement or desecration? On the islands cottages are ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... flight of her dream. The frail wings of her imagination could sustain her no longer, and too weary to care for or even to think of anything, she went upstairs, to find Mrs. Ede painting her son's chest and back with iodine. He had a bad attack, which was ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... depths. And then, in mid-afternoon, a sudden disastrous change; a quick gale from the north, with a wide whipping-up of white caps; and the morrow's newspapers told of bathers drowned in the undertow, of frail canoes dashed to pieces against piers and breakwaters, and of gay, beflagged steam-launches swamped by the newly-risen sea miles from shore: the toll of fickle, superheated August. But in the late autumn the immense, savage creature was more frankly itself: rude, blustery, tyrannical,—no ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... of Shooting Rapids. As always, Russell led the way in his boat, swinging it into the boiling current stern first—his own method of taking each cataract making the frail craft respond to his will, when possible, by a forward pull on one or the other of his oars. For half an hour the men were hurled down the seemingly neverending length of tossing waters. After the first minute, the cockpit ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... Whately and Aun' Jinkey nursed Miss Lou into a slow, languid convalescence, till at last she was able to sit in an easy-chair on the piazza. This she would do by the hour, with a sad, apathetic look on her thin face. She was greatly changed, her old rounded outlines had shrunken and she looked frail enough for the winds to blow away. The old, fearless, spirited look in her blue eyes had departed utterly, leaving only an expression of settled sadness, varied by an anxious, expectant gaze, suggesting a lingering hope that some one might come or something happen to break the ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... self-conceit and allowed practical influence to that respect, he can never be satisfied with contemplating the majesty of this law, and the soul believes itself elevated in proportion as it sees the holy law elevated above it and its frail nature. No doubt great talents and activity proportioned to them may also occasion respect or an analogous feeling. It is very proper to yield it to them, and then it appears as if this sentiment were the same thing as admiration. But if we look closer we shall observe that it is always ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... are these laws and so simple that they could not be plainer were they emblazoned upon the sky as an ever-present scroll. There is the law of reverence. Conscious of vastness and sublimity, in the presence of mountains, man, frail, ignorant, passing swiftly to his grave, is asked to bow his head in the presence of ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... reside in Rome. In the house of this bachelor uncle the poor little orphan pined away. Fever succeeded fever, until his guardian felt that companionship with boys in play and study was the only chance of saving so frail a life as Gabriello's. Accordingly he placed the invalid under the care of the Jesuits in their Collegio Romano. Here the child's health revived, and his education till the age of twenty throve apace. The Jesuits seem to have been liberal in their course of training; for young Chiabrera benefited ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... slim, slight, thin, spare, lank, spindling; delicate, feeble, fragile, frail, tenuous; trivial, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... draws an impassable line of demarcation between the costume of the virtuous woman in every rank and that of her frail sister. The humiliating truth that many of our female fashions are originated by those whose position we the most regret, and are then carefully copied by all classes of women in our country, does not obtain credence among Japanese women, to whom even the slightest approximation ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... enjoy it. That night all slept badly and had some headache. A high wind swept around the mountain and threatened to carry away both of our tents. As we lay awake, wondering at what moment we should find ourselves deserted by the frail canvas shelters, we could not help thinking that Coropuna was giving us a fair warning of what might ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... and the doctor recovered themselves long before I did, and I found myself helping them clumsily and unintelligently to raise the frail body of the old lady, while John Silence carefully replaced the covering over the grave and scraped back the sand with his foot, while ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... though a frail-looking little white-haired lady, had, it seemed, a wonderful tenacity ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... "Oh, frail woman! No steps can be recalled. It is all in the future to make amends for the past. After all the good counsel some receive, they return to habits of vice. They repent when it is too late. How true it is that virtue has its reward, and vice its punishment. ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... a meager education at the district school. He has said that it was the rude and imperfect mills of his father that first turned his attention to machinery. He was not fitted for hard work, however, as he was frail in constitution and incapable of bearing much fatigue. Moreover, he inherited a species of lameness which proved a great obstacle to any undertaking on his part, and gave him no little trouble all through ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... walked slowly and with pain, and stopped often as she leaned on her companion. I lingered behind, in order not to pass them abruptly; presently, they turned away towards the house, and I saw them no more. Yet that frail and bending form, as I too soon afterwards learned—that form, which I did not recognise—which, by a sort of fatality, I saw only in a glimpse, and yet for the last time on earth,—that form—was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... uncertain is my experiment. Will it be possible to efface the evil impress left on that mind and body? How much of her early grace, her early vigour shall we find? What will have become of all the forces that, at seventeen, should still be frail as promises, tender as the little green shoots of ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... deserve A higher place ... Than frail Booetes, who was placed above Only because the gods did else foresee He should the murderer of his ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... frail—which was in her case peculiarly unfortunate, for my father was the most jealous of men. He had reason to suppose that a handsome young Count was too intimate with her; keeping his suspicions profoundly secret, he made preparations for a long journey, ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... west moved south again under a new commander, Rashid Pasha of Yannina, and laid final siege on April 27 to Mesolonghi, just a year after Byron had died of fever within its walls. The Greeks were magnificent in their defence of these frail mud-bastions, and they more than held their own in the amphibious warfare of the lagoons. The struggle was chequered by the continual coming and going of the Greek and Ottoman fleets. They were indeed the decisive factor; for without the supporting squadron Rashid would ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... glittering neck; Thus humoring her fancy in the play Till half the morning hours had slipped and gone. Then, startled by the voice she loved so well, She left the sport, the creatures, and the flowers, And hastened back with Adam to the trees Where God was walking in the solemn shade. O mother frail, thou hast not known a tear! Thy spirit, clothed in simple innocence, Wears the true garb of bliss. Not yet thy hour Of sorrow and departure; nor the pangs And mystery of motherhood are thine! And yet, weak one! some ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... possessed of all that vigour and agility which so adventurous a business requires. Indeed if you attentively consider the immense disproportion between the object assailed and the assailants; if you think on the diminutive size, and weakness of their frail vehicle; if you recollect the treachery of the element on which this scene is transacted; the sudden and unforeseen accidents of winds, etc., you will readily acknowledge that it must require the most consummate exertion of all the strength, agility, and judgment, of ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... in heroic opposition to the Conqueror of Christendom. Frail, old, and deserted even by those upon whose support he had relied, the Pope, Pius VII., had courage to oppose the Conqueror of the world. While John Stanhope was in Paris the celebrated interview took place between the aged Pontiff and the autocrat to whom the Vicar ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... he called back a moment later, jerking his horses to a standstill and jumping down into the road. "Goin' east or goin' west?" he asked as he took another glance at her frail and poorly protected figure. ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... not," answered Richie; "mickle better not. We are a' frail creatures, and can judge better for ilk ither than in our own cases. And for me—even myself—I have always observed myself to be much more prudential in what I have done in your lordship's behalf, than even in what I have been able to transact for my own interest—whilk ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... rapidity—I saw nothing but a dark rock, which seemed for a second to be weighing on my chest. Then on a sudden I found myself in a grotto so marvellous that I uttered a cry of astonishment, and started up in my admiration with a bound which endangered the frail ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... not!" 'Bias assured her with a chuckle. "But he's pretty frail in the body. At his time o' life and with his infirmity a ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... of general intentions and feelings. Alexander was in the provinces, and did not return until the middle of December. Meantime Caulaincourt, after careful inquiry, had learned that the young princess was frail in health and not yet of marriageable age. The letter to his master conveying this information was crossed by one of Napoleon's making a formal demand. The difference in confessional adherence ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... crowded with people of all ages and conditions. The courtyards and quays were thronged. In the garden, along the terrace, in front of the palace, a rope was stretched from the grating by the Pont Royal to the Pavilion de l'Horloge. The crowd was so fearful of disturbing the Empress that this frail barrier, this simple rope, was more respected than would have been a lofty wall. The assemblage, which had been growing ever since six o'clock, remained at some distance from the rope, and only spoke in a low voice. They waited in extreme impatience, yet in perfect quiet, for the sound ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... reaction had come over the proud and sensitive mind of the Greek girl. "So after all, priest," she said, "you are but a man like others; a frail, guilty person like myself. I can find plenty of persons who do as I do; I want some one who does not; I want some one to worship. I thought there was something in you special and extraordinary. There was a gentleness and tenderness mingled with your strength which was new to me. I ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... him, at midnight and in midwinter, thrown from a frail raft into the deep and angry waters of a wide and rushing Western river, thus separated from his only companion through the wilderness with no aid for miles and leagues about him, buffeting the rapid current and struggling through driving cakes of ice; when we behold the stealthy ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... over the hut. The thunder rolled fearfully along the valley, and reverberated from the rocks; the lightnings gave to the thick darkness a momentary illumination equal to the brightness of mid-day, and the rain pouring down in torrents, suddenly swelled the rivulet, near which the frail dwelling was erected, far above its natural channel. Whoever has witnessed a violent storm in the high mountains of a tropical country, will never lose ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... and, afterwards, wound with thicker linen or several turns of thread, so as to hinder the points or spines from falling. The madrepores of a certain volume should be fixed by wire to the bottom of the box in which they are placed, but these frail substances would arrive in better order, if each specimen was placed ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... Water. No practical business man would erect a turbine or paddle wheel without calculating in advance the value of his water power. The paddle wheel might be so heavy that the stream could not turn it, or so frail in comparison with the water force that the stream would destroy it. In just as careful a manner, the size and the strength of municipal reservoirs and pumps must be calculated. The greater the quantity of water to be held in the reservoir, the heavier are the walls required; the greater the elevation ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... trend of public opinion was setting in most strongly against them. It must not be forgotten that Hamilton, whose name Justice Holmes invokes in his somewhat too grudging encomium of Marshall, had pronounced the Constitution "a frail and ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... boy, and such was her one comfort. Her mirror showed an epicene denizen of romance,—Rosalind or Bellario, a frail and lovely travesty of boyhood; but it is likely that the girl's heart showed stark terror. Here was imminent no jaunt into Arden, but into the gross jaws of even bodily destruction. Here was probable dishonor, a guaranteeable death. She could fence well enough, thanks to ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... McCombs in the book he left for publication after his death, wherein he would make it appear that Governor Wilson had got in a panic and tried to withdraw from the race; whereas the panic was all in the troubled breast of Mr. McCombs, a physically frail, morally timid person, constitutionally unfit for the task of conducting such a fight as was being waged in Baltimore. More sturdy friends of Governor Wilson at the Convention were busy trying to brace up the ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... money necessary for their beloved preacher to take repose and relaxation in any part of the world he chose. This year, however, they had not been asked to furnish the usual funds for travelling expenses, for the resident minister of Bosekop, a frail, gentle old man, had been seriously prostrated during the past winter with an affection of the lungs, which necessitated his going to a different climate for change and rest. Knowing Dyceworthy as a zealous member of the Lutheran persuasion, and, moreover, as one ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... that Heaven was punishing her for her error in yielding to the entreaties of the commander. One would have sworn she was sincere and that the words came from her heart. If Maitre Quennebert had not witnessed the scene with Jeannin, if he had not known how frail was the virtue of the weeping damsel, he might have been affected by her touching plaint. The chevalier appeared to be deeply moved by Angelique's grief, and while his, uncle was striding up and down the room and swearing like a trooper, he gradually approached her and expressed by ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... remain, and where they enjoy the fruit of their good and evil deeds! Do thou listen to the regulations on this subject! Man with his subtle original body created by God lays up a great store of virtue and vice. After death he quits his frail (outer) body and is immediately born again in another order of beings. He never remains non-existent for a single moment. In his new life his actions follow him invariably as shadow and, fructifying, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... spread out in ceaseless rotation, forming floating, fiery rings. His wrath had set his nerves on edge; the final thrust made sleep impossible. He felt restless, wide-awake after this cruel shock to his pride. He thought that in his bed, close to him, he had his worst enemy. He hated that frail form that he could touch with the slightest movement, as if it contained the rancor of all the adversaries ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... employment, till female trades and callings are all overstocked. We are continually harrowed with tales of the sufferings of distressed needle-women, of the exactions and extortions practised on the frail sex in the many branches of labor and trade at which they try their hands; and yet women will encounter all these chances of ruin and starvation rather than make up their minds to permanent domestic service. Now what is the matter with domestic service? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... curiosity, that would not let gentlemen be private in their own inn. Apparently mine host considered his own presence as no intrusion, for he crowded up to the table on which I had laid down the leaden box. It was frail and wasted, as might be guessed, from having lain so many years in the ground. On opening it, we found deposited within, a case made of porphyry, as the stranger had announced ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... were quick to see and interpret Charley's action, and their guns were quickly turned upon his frail craft. As he drew nearer the drifting dugout and came within range, a perfect hail of bullets splashed the water into foam around him. He did not falter or hesitate, but with long clean strokes of the paddle, sent his light little craft flying towards his goal. Perhaps ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... place of water, and falling in a glistening spray. In summer cool air was drawn into the apartments through ventilating towers; in winter warm and perfumed air was discharged through hidden passages. From the ceilings, corniced with fretted gold, great chandeliers hung. Here were clusters of frail marble columns, which, in the boudoirs of the sultanas, gave way to verd-antique incrusted with lapis lazuli. The furniture was of sandal- or citron-wood, richly inlaid with gold, silver, or precious minerals. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... and thin and unbearably frail under the scanty folds of her fur robe, a Dry-town woman's robe. Her wrists were manacled, the jeweled tight bracelets fastened together by the links of a long fine chain of silvered gilt that clashed a little, thinly, as her hands fell to ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... thou wilt, sweetheart," replied the dame laying her frail hand upon the girl's abundant hair. "But I fear me our men cannot dine to-day on the ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... hairs, like grass among stalks of corn, every individual fiber being protected about as specially and effectively as if inclosed in a separate husk. Wild wool is too fine to stand by itself, the fibers being about as frail and invisible as the floating threads of spiders, while the hairs against which they lean stand erect like hazel wands; but, notwithstanding their great dissimilarity in size and appearance, the wool and hair are forms of the same thing, modified in just that ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... individual—who shared with them their frail embarkation—differed from all three in almost every respect, but more especially in years. The ages of all three united would not have numbered his: and their wrinkles, if collected together, would scarce have made so many as could have been counted in the crowsfeet indelibly ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... the death of her lover?" pintin' to the frail, droopin' figger. "Who is accountable for the death of my husband? Who is accountable for the death and everlastin' ruin of my son, my husband, my father and my lover? sez the millions of weepin' wimmen in America that the Canteen ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... after they had all confessed and received the sacrament, they set sail from the Bar of Saltes, making for the Canary Islands. One can fancy how the men and the women of Palos watched the specks of white sails vanishing in the west, and how, as each frail bark in turn disappeared in the great ocean, mothers and sisters turned weepingly away as if from a last farewell at the grave of their ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... of friendship. Every evening, therefore, when he met him behind scenes he would shower friendly slaps on his back and shoulders, as though fairly carried away by an outburst of tenderness, and Fauchery, who was a frail, small man in comparison with such a giant, was fain to take the raps with a strained smile in order not to quarrel ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... she gloried in her sons; while John, walking slowly, and assuring Mrs. Tod over and over again that we should all come back next summer, went down the steep hill, carrying, hidden under many wraps and nestled close to his warm shoulder, his little frail ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... and meets just there, as in Rousseau, the delicacies of the earthly love. Here, under this strange complex of conditions, as in some medicated air, exotic flowers of sentiment expand, among people of a remote and unaccustomed beauty, somnambulistic, frail, androgynous, the light almost shining through them. Surely, such loves were too fragile and adventurous to last more than for ...
— Aesthetic Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... art one of those Ideas eternal, which the Eternal Mind Refused in earthly form to clothe, Nor would subject unto the pain and strife Of this, our frail and dreary life; Or if thou hast a mansion fair, Amid the boundless realms of space, That lighted is by a more genial sun, And breathest there a more benignant air; From here, where brief and wretched are our days, Receive thy humble lover's hymn ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... it down in packs, keen eyes, sharp ears, acute perceptions, will be far less important than endurance in running. The deer, under the new conditions, will need coarser and more powerful limbs, and a larger chest; it will be an advantage to be rough and big, instead, of frail and inconspicuous, and the ears and eyes need not be so large. The old refinements will mean weakness and death; any variation along the line of size and coarseness will be advantageous. Slight and delicate deer will be continually being killed, rougher ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... sultry sky had begun: the men's lips were black and swollen, their bloodshot eyes searched the horizon in anguished, fruitless yearning. There was no cloud in all the great expanse of blue: there was nothing to be seen between sea and sky but this one frail boat with its three occupants. Another and a larger boat had set out with them, but they had lost sight of it in the night. There had been five men in this little cockle-shell when they left the ship; but one of them had lost his senses and jumped over-board, drowning before their ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... which can only be explained on the ground of Italy's feeling that she could not hope for security at home, or for colonial expansion in the Mediterranean, so long as she remained in isolation. The Triple Alliance so constituted had a frail appearance, and it was hardly to be expected that Italy would receive strong support from partners in comparison with whose resources her own were insignificant. But the Triple Alliance has endured to the present day, the most permanent feature of the diplomatic system of the last thirty-two ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... very well; they expressed the full outburst of the French Sturm und Drang movement; there was nothing like them either in French or in any other literature, though Bulwer was beginning similar things with us. Essentially, and when taken sub specie aeternitatis, they are very nearly rubbish. The frail (extremely frail) and gentle Indiana, with her terrible husband, whose crimes against her and nature even reach the abominable pitch of declaring himself ready to shoot expected poachers and possible burglars; her creole maid ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... discharge of his public duties, while managing also to devote a large part of his time to charitable and religious offices. He was abstemious to a fault; and, overwork of mind and body telling at last on a frail constitution, he died after a short illness on the 19th of March 1876. He had become lieutenant-colonel in 1873, and at the time of his death he was commanding Royal Engineer of the London district. He was ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... not at all probable when it is considered the prejudice my brother's affairs in Flanders sustained by the war. But envy and malice are self-deceivers, and pretend to discover what no one else can perceive. On this frail foundation the King raised an altar of hatred, on which he swore never to cease till he had accomplished my brother's ruin and mine. He had never forgiven me for the attachment I had discovered for my brother's interest during the time he was ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... analogies. The isle was like the rim of a great vessel sunken in the waters; it was like the embankment of an annular railway grown upon with wood: so slender it seemed amidst the outrageous breakers, so frail and pretty, he would scarce have wondered to see it sink and disappear without a sound, and the waves ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... appeared at rare intervals between the clouds. Some long lines of vapor on the hori- zon were tinged with a rosy glare that foreboded a strong breeze for the morrow, and all felt anxious to know from which quarter the breeze would come, for any but a north- easter would bear the frail raft on which we were to embark far away ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... would be free of all minor pains and ills. Imagine a normal bacterium trying to bore into flesh as hard as concrete. Mekstrom Flesh tends to be acid-resistant as well as tough physically. It is not beyond the imagination to believe that your Mekstrom Superman might live three times our frail ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... the ships may go About men's business to and fro. But I, the egg-shell pinnace, sleep On crystal waters ankle-deep: I, whose diminutive design, Of sweeter cedar, pithier pine, Is fashioned on so frail a mould, A hand may launch, a hand withhold: I, rather, with the leaping trout Wind, among lilies, in and out; I, the unnamed, inviolate. Green, rustic rivers navigate. The Canoe ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... among fresh earthy Sweet flowers breaking overhead, Sore needed rest for our frail girth, For our ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... their illicit trade. Society also ventures to capitalize a virtuous girl at much less than one who has yielded to temptation, and it may well hold itself responsible for the precarious position into which, year after year, a multitude of frail ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... possessed a frail body and very little physical endurance. In spite of this physical handicap he was very vivacious and gay. He was a genial and companionable man, loved by all who knew him. He was very modest, even to the point of shyness, exceptionally sincere, and quaintly humorous. He established ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... which Sherringham, again taking her hand, raised it to his lips with a tenderness which her whole appearance seemed to bespeak for her, a sort of practical consideration and carefulness of touch, as if she were an object precious and frail, an instrument for producing rare sounds, to be handled, like a legendary violin, with a recognition ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... lives of Abelard and Heloise after this heart-rendering scene. Abelard passed through many years of strife and disappointment, and even of humiliation; for on one occasion, just as he had silenced Guillaume de Champeaux, so he himself was silenced and put to rout by Bernard of Clairvaux—"a frail, tense, absorbed, dominant little man, whose face was white and worn with suffering," but in whose eyes there was a light of supreme strength. Bernard represented pure faith, as Abelard represented ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... wind, which was certainly blowing the ice to the northward in the Kara Sea. Sverdrup was now positive that we should be able to sail in open water all the way to the New Siberian Islands, so it was his opinion that there was no hurry for the present. But hope is a frail reed to lean on, and my expectations were not quite so bright; so I hurried things on, to get ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... had that within him to which a preacher might appeal. Thus they became Dogmatists; that is, men who assert a truth so fiercely, as to forget that a truth is meant to be used, and not merely asserted—if, indeed, the fierce assertion of a truth in frail man is not generally a sign of some secret doubt of it, and in inverse proportion to his practical living faith in it: just as he who is always telling you that he is a man, is not the most likely ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... number seven, the little brown mare, looked beside the strong-muscled giants, bright bay, golden chestnut, and raven-wing black, that overshadowed her in the procession that caught the forty thousand pairs of eyes. Something of this thought came to Allis, sitting in the stand. What a frail little pair they were, both of them, and to be there battling for this rich prize that was so hardly fought for, by strong men athirst for gold, and great ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... Your malady has been quite serious. Your body is frail yet; who can say how it will ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... ejected with contumely. Before my hasty exit, however, I had the satisfaction of noticing that the building was filled with patients. Languid ladies were seated in wicker chairs upon the piazzas, and frail anemic girls filled the corridors. It was a hospital of nervous wrecks whom the slightest disturbance would throw into a panic. I suppressed all my finer feelings of mercy and kindness and smiled grimly as I walked back ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... who stopped and claimed acquaintance with her on the streets; she received many gifts, flowers, fruit, jewelry, and all the other tempting sweet nothings which it is thought bewitch the heart of frail woman. But they had no effect upon her. Only goodness seemed to cling to her, and evil fell far off from her. You may set two plants side by side in the same soil—one will draw only bitterness and poison from the earth; while the other will gather, from the same nurture, ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... of—doctrinal points, rendered me little hurt by arguments against opinions which I embraced indeed, but with a lukewarm and imperfect affection. But it was far otherwise upon abstract points of reasoning, far otherwise, when the hope of surviving this frail and most unhallowed being was to be destroyed: I might have been indifferent to cavil upon what was the word of God, but never to question of the justice of God Himself. In the whole world there was not a more ardent believer in our imperishable nature, nor one ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Yet, notwithstanding the lack of robustness and all it entails, Chopin might have been moderately happy, perhaps even have continued to enjoy moderately good health, if body and soul had been well matched. This, however, was not the case. His thoughts were too big, his passions too violent, for the frail frame that held them; and the former grew bigger and more violent as the latter grew frailer and frailer. He could not realise his aspirations, could not compass his desires, in short, could not fully assert himself. Here, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... they emptied, and fastening one of them to that which they had left full, and then each taking hold of one of the slings which were fastened to the kegs for convenience of carriage, they waited quietly. In less than ten minutes from the time when they first gained their frail refuge, a great wave broke just upon them, and completely smashed up the remains of the boat. They had cut off some rope from the mast, which they found with its sail furled ready for use in the boat, and now ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... was reached at last, across a frail and uncertain wooden bridge shaded by large weeping willows, I found it the most creditable thing I had yet seen. It is admirably laid out, the natural undulations of the ground being made the most of, and exceedingly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... rage, and vowing all sorts of vengeance upon the frail woman, the baffled husband once more sought our store and implored our aid. He even offered a considerable sum of money if we would unite with him and make search for her; but we refused his money, and declined for a ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... himself of his overalls—his single divergence from the routine of his fellow-workmen—and after that he used soap and water copiously. This was his transformation scene: he passed into the office a rather frail young working-man noticeably begrimed, and passed out of it to the pavement a cheerfully pre-occupied sample of gentry, fastidious to the ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... could never more be friends; and yet he found himself in a manner compelled to perform the offices of friendship. Nor was it easy to preserve anything like the neutral standing which he had designed for himself. The life of this sometime friend of his hung by so frail a link, he had such utter need of kindness; so what could Gilbert do but console him for the loss of his wife, and endeavour to inspire him with a hopeful spirit about her? What could he do less than friendship would have done, although his affection for this old friend ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... their heads up one by one, he kissed them o'er and o'er; And aye ye saw the tears run down, I wot that grief was sore. He closed the lids on their dead eyes, all with his fingers frail, And handled all their bloody curls, and kissed their lips ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... one stride forward and catching the frail wrist in a vice-like grasp which almost extorted a cry of pain—"so, my daughter, thou hast come in from this midnight tryst with thy lover! And what dost thou think is the reward a father bestows upon a daughter who leaves his house at this ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... frail, blighted Mrs. Dusautoy! Winifred could not help wondering if the contrast pained her, when in all the glory of her motherly thankfulness, Albinia carried her beautiful newly-christened Maurice Ferrars Kendal to the vicarage to show him off, lying so open-chested and dignified, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Henny Turner was stretched out full length on the floor in front of the window, while 'Lias sat with his back against the wall with the puppy in his arms. The pale face of the sweet invalid was lit by a gentle smile, and she held one of the sleeping child's warm little hands in her frail, knotted, old fingers. Unnoticed, Miss Wingate and Martin Luther paused a moment at ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... chart-house and, exploding, swept the frail structure overboard in a thousand fragments. The old skipper, hit by a splinter of wood, fell inertly upon the bridge; but the next instant he staggered to his feet, bawling to the crew to get the hand-steering ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... the beauties and interesting objects of Rome. He wanted to get me home, he said, to have me all to himself, and to see me safely installed as the mistress of Grassdale Manor, just as single-minded, as naive, and piquante as I was; and as if I had been some frail butterfly, he expressed himself fearful of rubbing the silver off my wings by bringing me into contact with society, especially that of Paris and Rome; and, more-over, he did not scruple to tell me that there were ladies in both places that would tear his eyes out if they happened ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... calmly enough and steadily, but his brain refused at first to accept the full meaning of her words. It seemed to him that a sort of mist had risen up between them. Everything was blurred. Only her face was clear, frail and delicate, almost flower-like, with the sad haunting eyes ever watching his. Annabel a murderess! ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a vision of the little, frail, white-haired woman who lay in his house helpless and blind. Never before had he referred to her, but they knew his devotion. He lifted himself in their regard by this one sentence. There are moments when even the demagogue ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... recorded by James Madison from the final moments of the Constitutional Convention, September 17th, 1787. As the last few members signed the document, Benjamin Franklin—the oldest delegate at 81 years and in frail health—looked over toward the chair where George Washington daily presided. At the back of the chair was painted the picture of a Sun on the horizon. And turning to those sitting next to him, Franklin observed that artists found it difficult in their painting to distinguish ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... accomplishment their little failings of blindness and perversity come in. They are determined to retain their husbands' complete allegiance, but their devices and contrivances are mostly dull blunders. Considering what a frail tie, based on illusion, binds the sexes, my wonder as a bachelor is that men are, as a rule, as faithful to their wives as they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... stunned her. She pushed the canoe into the stream, slid into the frail bark, and started off, just as the stablemen came back over the grounds ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... day with a book, which she smilingly laid down as her husband joined her. Eben took up the small volume of Browning's verse and idly turned its pages, his eyes falling almost immediately on the old inscription, "Stuart to Conscience." His unfixed jealousy seized upon a frail mooring but he stifled the scowl that instinct prompted and turned the pages to the point where a narrow ribbon marked "The Statue and ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... pleasant-looking person with a pale face and dark eyes, who had been a servant at Archdeacon Heathcote's, and had since had great troubles. She did teach the Catechism, reading, and work when the children were tolerably good and obeyed her, but boys were a great deal too much for her, and she had frail health, and such a bad leg that she never could walk down the lane to the old Church. So, after Sunday School, the children used to straggle down to Church without anyone to look after them, and sit on the benches in the aisle ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and delicate. From below, too, there seemed to spread upwards a general sense of bustle and disquiet. Doors banged, knives and plates rattled perpetually, the great swing-door into the street was for ever opening and shutting, each time shaking the old, frail house with its roughly built additions through and through, and there was a distant skurry of voices that never paused. The restaurant indeed was in full work, and Daddy's voice could be heard at intervals, shouting and chattering. Dora had been at work ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Bert at Maplebank, especially after the surprising revelation of the love and tenderness that underlay his grandfather's stern exterior. No one did more for his comfort or happiness than his grandmother, and he loved her accordingly with the whole strength of his young heart. She was so slight and frail, and walked with such slow, gentle steps, that the thought of being her protector and helper often came into his mind and caused him to put on a more erect, important bearing as he walked beside her in the garden, or through the orchard where the apples were ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... She was, indeed, a frail craft in which to undertake such a journey as ours, being only some two feet six inches beam, by about sixteen inches deep, and twenty feet long; hollowed out of a single log. She had no thwarts, and the paddlers were therefore compelled to squat tailor- fashion in the bottom of her, looking ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... no less by friendship or apathy, by doubt, hesitation, indifference, inaction. For that only which in itself is fragile can be rent in the heart by love; and where all is broken that the heart contains, then must all have been far too frail. There exists not a creature but must more than once have believed that his life was crushed; but they whose life has indeed been shattered, and has fallen to ruin, owe their misfortune often to some strange vanity of the very ruin. Fortunate ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Horace Carey, not with a frail invalid. I've tried all day to talk to you about my neighbors and you turn the subject away as if it was of no consequence, and now, tonight, you settle down and say, 'Tell me about the Aydelots.' Why do you want to hear in ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter |
