"Gay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the history of the dinner, is received this morning. Truly, I think that Mr. and Mrs. Moore and Clem might, with any tolerable aid, have made the dinner gay. Mr. and Mrs. Moore have both a great deal of wit, and are both well bred. Clem is by no means deficient. It must, therefore, have been the fault of yourself and husband. If the harp is not essentially injured, I would not purchase a new ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... water that fell in a cascade and formed a lake beneath the castle walls. On the surface of the lake were little boats, painted and gilt, so pretty and dainty that the princess challenged the ambassadors to a voyage. None hesitated to do so, for they thought it was all a gay pastime, and a merry prelude to the marriage festivities. But no sooner had they embarked than boats, fountains, and lake vanished, and the ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... essentially a man of moods, like many great men, and not necessarily feminine in this respect, cannot always be pinned down to any particular period. Several of the Preludes are very morbid—I purposely use this word—as is some of his early music, while he seems quite gay ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... in the big bone-yard and fertilizing factory out on the railroad track; and as for the levee, with its ships and schooners and sailors—Oh, how he could revel among them! The wondrous ships, the pretty little schooners, where the foreign-looking sailors lay on long moon-lit nights, singing gay bar carols to the tinkle of a guitar and mandolin. All these things, and more, could Titee tell of. He had been down to the Gulf, and out on its treacherous waters through Eads Jetties on a fishing smack, with some jolly, brown ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... dances and in festive joys Held revelry. Some on the smooth-wheeled car A virgin bride conducted; then burst forth Aloud the marriage song; and far and wide Long splendors flash'd from many a quivering torch Borne in the hands of slaves. Gay blooming girls Preceded, and the dancers followed blithe: These, with shrill pipe indenting the soft lip, Breath'd melody, while broken echoes thrill'd Around them; to the lyre with flying touch Those led the love-enkindled dance. ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... as the noblest; suppose he had admired your beauty, and had offered to take you home to his mother as the wife of his bosom, how would you then have answered him? What would you then have thought of the postillion? Would he then have been the equal of gay young counts, and ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... the company in his lively gay way, and made every body laugh at one of his stories. It was before this creature was thought of for you. Solmes laughed too. It was, however, his laugh: for his first three years, at least, I imagine, must have been one ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... O'Neil said, "that we Irishmen drink from any particular love of liquor, but from good fellowship and joviality. One can hardly imagine a party of French nobles inflaming themselves with wine, and singing, as our fellows do. Frenchmen are gay in what I may call a feeble way—there is no go in it. There is no spirit in their songs, there is no real heartiness in their joviality, and the idea of one man playing a practical joke upon another, the latter ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... had taken with her sister and brother-in-law before her marriage. She says: "It was like a dream to come back again. It was all there as I left it, even to the artificial flowers at the table d'hote: it was just the same, only less gay and brilliant. It had lost the Austrians and Henry V. Court. I was older, and all the friends I knew were dispersed." Her first act was to send a telegram to Trieste announcing her arrival, and the next to gondola all over Venice. Towards evening ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... halyards still in hand, hoists away, the sheet is hauled taut aft, the sail instantly fills, and off goes the boat, like an impatient steed under loosened rein and deep-driven spurs—off and away, in gay careering dance over the water, quickly leaving the foiled, furious ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... the other hand, and between them they placed her in an arm-chair, whose shining fresh white ground and gay rose-pattern contrasted with her heated, rumpled, over-watched appearance, as she sank her head on her hand, not noticing either Mary's presence or the Doctor's departure. Mary stood doubtful for a few seconds, full of pity and embarrassment, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and harmless play, Like kissing in the ring, When lads and lasses of spirits gay Dance like young lambs in Spring. That Spring will wane too fast, alas! But while it yet is here, Let youth enjoy, or girl or boy, The dance to youth so dear. Then pithy JAYNE, my plucky JAYNE, Don't heed the bigot's cry, But meet them, meet them down ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... pomp as any guest at seven-and-a-half per could expect her to go. As a rule, the severity of his surroundings afflicted Ginger with a touch of gloom when he went to bed; but to-night—such is the magic of a letter from the right person—he was uplifted and almost gay. There are moments when even illuminated texts over the wash-stand cannot wholly ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... vocal composition in three or more parts, being usually more simple in style than the madrigal, and sometimes having more than one movement. The glee may be either gay or sad in mood, and seems to be a composition ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... friend of gay spirits, and he ever lived a joyous life. He taught the art of painting to Fra Diamante, who executed many pictures in the Carmine at Prato; and he did himself great credit by the close imitation of his master's manner, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... representative of God's workings in the past, and of his eternally predetermined scheme for the future. "Is it not certain," Socrates is represented as inquiring, in "the first Alcibiades," of his gay and confident pupil, "that you know nothing but what has been told you by others, or what you have found out for yourself?" There is at once exquisite simplicity and great terseness in this natural division of the only modes in which men can acquire knowledge; and we find ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... slaves. It was common for them to say: "Oh! don't mind that darkey, he belongs to po'r white trash." So, as I said, our slaves rejoiced in master's good luck. Each of the women servants wore a new, gay colored turban, which was tied differently from that of the ordinary servant, in some fancy knot. Their frocks and aprons were new, and really the servants themselves looked new. My outfit was a new cloth suit, and my aprons for ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... know it is best," said Mrs. Conway, "and I know Aunt Elizabeth means to be as kind as possible." Here a wistful look came into the mother's eyes, but Edna only saw visions of gay shops, while she pictured romps with her ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... where the many bazaars displayed wonderful merchandise from many cities and many lands, was an especially lively place. It was gay with life and color. Gilded chariots and ivory-bedecked litters passed to and fro. Heralds announced particularly important personages and escorts and cleared a way for them with whip or spear. Military men and merchant princes, with many followers, often scattered the smaller merchants ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... proper for our dwelling, and so went to housekeeping; we had not been long together but I found that gay temper of my wife returned, and she threw off the mask of her gravity and good conduct that I had so long fancied was her mere natural disposition, and now, having no more occasion for disguises, she resolved to seem nothing but what ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... girl for an instant. He understood too well the source of such gay social banter. He knew it covered a hurt. He said to her: "Is this Ruth Devlin ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and women on bicycles were pushing their machines up the steep ascent which formed the one street of Feldwick village. It was a Sunday morning, and the place was curiously empty. Their little scraps of gay conversation and laughter—they were men and women of the smart world—seemed to strike almost a pagan note in a deep Sabbatical stillness. They passed the wide open doors of a red brick chapel, and several of the worshippers within ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... with admiring candor at the man before her, and the man, laughing good-naturedly, seated himself on the railing of the little porch and threw his hat on a chair at its far end. "If I've changed it's more than you have. Just as young and gay as ever," he said, nodding toward her, "and still a woman of sense and discrimination. Nobody but ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... seemed to have come over me. I was no longer gloomy and despairing, but gay and happy. My slumbers were light and easy; not disturbed, as before, by frightful dreams. I arose with the lark, and like him uttered a cheerful song of praise to God, frequently and earnestly, and was particularly cautious not to do anything which ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... slip fast or slow, And are ye sad or gay? And is your heart with your liege lord, lady, Or is it ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... an anti-climax, however, when the gay young officers came back, before a week was over, crestfallen, the detaching of the Ninth Corps having suspended operations in Kentucky. They were a little quizzed about their very brief campaign, but so good-humoredly that they bore it pretty well, and were able to seem amused ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... in a word, to the workings of the great fur trading companies. Theirs were the trappers and runners, the Coureurs des Bois and Bois-Brules, who traversed the immense solitudes of the pathless west; theirs, the brigades of gay voyageurs chanting hilarious refrains in unison with the rhythmic sweep of paddle blades and following unknown streams until they had explored from St. Lawrence to MacKenzie River; and theirs, the merry lads of the north, blazing a track through ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... beneath him to count among his personal friends the poet Callimachus, who had written a treatise on birds, and honourably maintained himself by keeping a school in Alexandria. The court of that sovereign was, moreover, adorned by a constellation of seven poets, to which the gay Alexandrians gave the nickname of the Pleiades. They are said to have been Lycophron, Theocritus, Callimachus, Aratus, Apollonius Rhodius, Nicander, and Homer the son of Macro. Among them may be distinguished Lycophron, whose work, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... are numerous, and of very varied degrees of excellence. Amongst the pianists is Miss Teresa Malderton, who nearly fell a prey to that gay deceiver Mr. Horatio Sparkins (S.B.T. 5). Her contribution to a musical evening was 'The Fall of Paris,' played, as Mr. Sparkins declared, in ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... said the older woman, finding comfort in wrapping her in her own serape. It was a gay thing, striped in red and white and green, the Mexican colors; it looked as if it had been made ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... insects or the trees (except the words which the water kept saying) so long as I was in the flat part of the wood. But soon I came to a steepish bank—the land began to slope up suddenly and the rapids and waterfalls of the brook were very gay and interesting. Then, besides Track-up, which was now its word always instead of Trickle, I heard every now and then All right, which was encouraging and exciting. Still, there was nothing out of the way to be ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living. Were we so framed that it were possible by perpetual supplies of wine to keep ourselves for ever gay and happy, there could be no doubt that drinking would be the summum bonum, the chief good, to find out which philosophers have been so variously busied. But we know from humiliating experience that men cannot be kept long in a state of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... send us riches, we will imploye them to provid more men, ships, munition, &c. You may see it amongst the best pollitiks, that a comonwele is readier to ebe then to flow, when once fine houses and gay cloaths ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... were threatening enough, yet they did not affect me so much as the easy, gay manner of the Texan. Little cold quivers ran over me, and my knees knocked together. For the moment my animosity toward the Mexican vanished, and with it the old hunger to be in the thick of Wild Western life. I was afraid that I was going to see a man killed without being able to lift a hand ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... all times gentle and kind. Eric's constant attentions she received with an almost humble gratitude, and Reinhard thought at whiles that the gay, cheerful child of bygone days had given promise of a ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... mastering all the difficult arts of his profession, and only gained confidence and serenity when he had reached the highest possible skill in every branch of his "work." From that moment he took a new lease of life; he grew younger, he became gay and self-confident, his health even visibly improved, and he assumed the air and manner ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... party, as well as by his cousin the Prince of Conde, and the admiral, made his solemn entry into the city, which so few of his adherents were to leave alive. Although still clad in mourning for the loss of the heroic Queen of Navarre, they bore no unfavorable comparison with the gay courtiers, who, with Anjou and Alencon at their head, came out to escort them into Paris with every mark ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... was not as gay nor as unconventional as others that had preceded it. The Countess vainly tried to make it as sprightly as its predecessors, but gave over in despair in the face of my taciturnity. Her spirits drooped. She became strangely uneasy and, ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... his bed was evidently made on the shop counter. During supper on the second day Montefiore succeeded, by cursing Napoleon, in smoothing the anxious forehead of the merchant, a grave, black-visaged Spaniard, much like the faces formerly carved on the handles of Moorish lutes; even the wife let a gay smile of hatred appear in the folds of her elderly face. The lamp and the reflections of the brazier illumined fantastically the shadows of the noble room. The mistress of the house offered a "cigarrito" to their semi-compatriot. At this moment ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... closing their petals fair, Closing them up till the dawn of day, Then in their beauty, Doing their duty, All will uncurtain their colours gay! ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... late had fled. All save Winona, in whose face and mien, Unto the careless eye, no change was seen; But one that noted might sometimes espy A furtive fear that shot across her eye, As in a forest, 'thwart some bit of blue, Darts a rare bird that shuns the hunter's view. Her laugh, though gay, a subtle change confessed, And in her attitude a vague unrest Betrayed a world of feelings unexprest. A shade less light her footsteps in the dance, And sometimes now the Raven's curious glance Her soul with terrors new ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... its women for uniform and simple styles of color, and for purity and chastity of lines. The most perfect toilets that have ever been achieved in America have probably been those of the class familiarly called the gay Quakers,—children of Quaker families, who, while abandoning the strict rules of the sect, yet retain their modest and severe reticence, relying on richness of material, and soft, harmonious coloring, rather than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... Britains none is more lovely than Cannes. The place is a pure creation of the health-seekers whose gay villas are thrown fancifully about among its sombre fir-woods, though the "Old Town," as it is called nowadays, remains clinging to its original height, street above street leading up to a big bare church of the Renascence period, to fragments of mediaeval walls ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... She covered Romeo's cage with a curious arrangement like an altar-cloth on which gay embroidered parrakeets of all colors were supposed to give Romeo, when lonely, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of the Harvard Divinity School. The blank pantheism which he then enunciated called forth from Professor Henry Ware, Jr., a sermon in the college chapel on the personality of God, which he sent with a friendly note to Mr. Emerson. The gay and Skimpolesque reply of the sage is an illustration of that flippancy with which he chose to toy in a literary way with momentous questions, and which was so exasperating to the earnest men of positive religious convictions with whom he had been associated ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... All the fairies were dancing the new dance that is called, "Remember the Robins and Roses To-day and Think of the Lilies and Larks." Now when they saw Gillibloom standing there among them, balancing on one foot and trying to look very bold and gay, they stopped dancing and half turned away, and looked at him over their shoulders. If Gillibloom was going to teach, they didn't propose to stay more than a second and a half in ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... together to the kirk, And all together pray, While each to his great Father bends, Old men, and babes, and loving friends, And youths and maidens gay! ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... robes. I am inclined to think them, in many cases, faithful likenesses; and it brings them nearer to the mind, to see these original sculptures,—you see the man at but one remove, as if you caught his image in a looking-glass. The bust of Gay seemed to me very good,—a thoughtful and humorous sweetness in the face. Goldsmith has as good a position as any poet in the Abbey, his bust and tablet filling the pointed arch over a door that seems to ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the shape of a dog cariole. There is sometimes an ornamental curve in front. It is made of two thin hardwood planks curled up in front, with a light frame-work of wood, covered over with deer or buffalo skin, and painted in a very gay manner. Four dogs are usually harnessed to it, and these are quite sufficient to drag a man on a journey of many days, over every sort of country, where there is no road whatever. Dogs are much used for hauling little sledges in that country in winter. The traveller ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... of those officious friends and relations, who, as Phrosine says, would marry the republic of Venice to the Grand Turk, had taken much pains to arrange it: on the other, Chaverny was of good family; before his marriage he was not too fat; he was gay and cheerful, and what is called a good fellow. Julie was glad to see him at her mother's house, because he made her laugh with anecdotes of his regiment, droll enough, if not always in the best taste. She found him amiable, because he danced with her at every ball, and was always ready with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... decorated in green and white. The bright lights, the gay figures stirring beneath, and the shining faces, half of which were strange to Bernice, formed a pretty picture, and the girl moved here and there in the constantly shifting kaleidoscope with a freedom and happiness she had not known since ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... then anxious to vindicate Dryden's writings, to mediate for him with those who distributed the royal favour, and was thus careful, not only of his reputation, but his fortune. In short, the first author of what was then held the first style of poetry, was sought for by all among the great and gay who wished to maintain some character for literary taste; a description which included all of the court of Charles whom nature had not positively incapacitated from such pretension. It was then Dryden enjoyed those genial nights described in the dedication of the "Assignation," ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... slight aberration of his; he knew better all the time. It was your white cloak and my idiotic behavior the night we went to the opera that put the idea into his head," said Polly, feeling as if the events of that evening had happened some twenty years ago, when she was a giddy young thing, fond of gay bonnets and girlish pranks. ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... what that meant; it was only that he might be flattered by the Bishop and all the ladies, and made a greater fool of than ever. No, no, he must be out again by May, and he should just have time to take Fernan to one of the gay boarding- houses at Saratoga, and leave him there ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... trust to your vain vellum, which is almost sure to sell 'em, even DAVY JONES can tell 'em, they may sink or strike. Hooray, King Death, hooray! Who says we've had our day! Pass the rum and let's be gay. Not that "dead man's chest," ROBERT LOUIS grimly sings, like my "Locker Chorus" rings—mingling weirdly wedded things—grisly doom ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... the plain. 10 At morn she came those willing flocks to lead, Where lilies rear them in the watery mead; From early dawn the livelong hours she told, Till late at silent eve she penn'd the fold. Deep in the grove, beneath the secret shade, 15 A various wreath of odorous flowers she made: Gay-motley'd[12] pinks and sweet jonquils she chose, The violet blue that on the moss-bank grows; All sweet to sense, the flaunting rose was there; The finish'd chaplet well adorn'd ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... "Whose humour, as gay as the fire-fly's light, Play'd round every subject, and shone as it play'd; Whose wit, in the combat as gentle as bright, Ne'er carried a heart-stain ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 12, No. 349, Supplement to Volume 12. • Various
... Amasis was born of humble parentage in the village of Siuph, not far from Sais; he was fond, it was narrated, of wine, the pleasures of the table, and women, and replenished his empty purse by stealing what he could lay his hands on from his neighbours or comrades—a gay boon-companion all the while, with an easy disposition and sarcastic tongue. According to some accounts, he conciliated the favour of Apries by his invariable affability and good humour; according to others, he won the king's confidence ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and show it was a purple mixed with green.—'Well, well!' replied he, changing his voice; 'you little creatures should never wear those sort of clothes, however; they are unsuitable in every way. What! have not all insects gay colours?'" ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... honest English word) some maundering form of religion, which, to judge from their own conduct, they usually only half believe; those who seem, on six days of the week, as fond of finery and frivolity as any other gay worldlings, and on the seventh join eagerly in hymns in which (in one case at least) they inform the Almighty God of truth, who will not be mocked, that they lie awake at night, weeping because they cannot die and see "Jerusalem the golden," and so forth. Or those, again, who for six days in ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... hour at most, My spurs are growing stiff with frost When in comes Lisa, hums some snatches, And rakes the fire until it catches. Then from below, quite savory too, I scent the steam of onion stew. At length my master enters gay, Fresh for the business of the day. On Saturday a worthy priest Should keep his room, his house at least; Not visit or distract his brain, Turning his thoughts to things profane. My master was not tempted so, But once—don't let it out, you know— He ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Always brightness and fun and laughter, for Aunt Rutha's hospitable house was a favourite resort with many of the Harvard students, and it was the glorious summer time, when all the world—their little world—was free to be gay. She, Pauline Harding, was ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... is happy, the Squirrel is gay," Little Mary once said to her brother; "He has nothing to do, or think of but play, And to jump from ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... girl that's gay and happy where so ear i chanct to be and there's sumthing i will tell you if you will ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... and brave. It pushes its head up through the snow, which is no whiter than its own petals. And here I have a bunch of crocuses, blue, yellow, white, and of many colors. Aren't they pretty amid the grass? Then the gorgeous tulips, holding their heads so high, making the earth brilliant with their gay, bright colors. I think the golden daffodils and sweet narcissus are my favorite flowers, though I am very fond of what the children call ...
— Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades • Florence Holbrook
... a week in town before Morrison telephoned her and added his welcome. Despite the gay gladness of his voice, it irritated her. Really, she scarcely wanted to see him. But a meeting was inevitable, and besides, going out with him was in accordance with the plan she had adopted. So she made an engagement ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... little while, but had already begun to be forgotten, and in a private room up two pair of stairs, the three companions made a very elegant supper, and drank three or four bottles of champagne, talking the while upon indifferent subjects. The young man was fluent and gay, but he laughed louder than was natural in a person of polite breeding; his hands trembled violently, and his voice took sudden and surprising inflections, which seemed to be independent of his will. The ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flamboyant types and snubbed the gay and gildy brand; Instead she loved a decadent whose pagan name was Hildebrand, Until that sad occasion when she met him coming back o' night, His system loaded up with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... him a most excellent appetite. Moreover, he had by this time recovered the equilibrium which had been so seriously disturbed by his first sight of Senorita Isolda, and had again found the use of his tongue; it was therefore a very gay and happy quintette that arranged itself around the well-furnished table. Jack was of course by this time on almost as intimate terms with Don Hermoso as he was with Carlos, and he presently discovered that the ladies were disposed to ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... neat abode had just been letting a boat through the lock, and stood leaning lazily against the woodwork, tasting the morning air. She was a comfortable, well-to-do person, who rented a paddock or two by the towing-path, and owned cows. Her little garden was gay with late ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... own fashion, indeed; but it always seemed to me busy about nothing. The children I saw too did not attract me; and I fear I did not attract them. I was sober-hearted and low-toned in spirit and strength; while they were as gay as their elders. And I was dressed according to my mother's fancy, in childlike style, without hoops, and with my hair cropped short all over my head. They were stately with crinoline, and rich with embroidery, stiff with fine dresses and ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Vittoria Corombona.—This White Devil of Italy sets off a bad cause so speciously, and pleads with such an innocence-resembling boldness, that we seem to see that matchless beauty of her face which inspires such gay confidence into her, and are ready to expect, when she has done her pleadings, that her very judges, her accusers, the grave ambassadors who sit as spectators, and all the court, will rise and make proffer ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... along in this absorbed way, a friend of ours, Grace Carter, a girl of the light, subtly graceful English type and a gay confidence of leadership, ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... "Do you mean to say, Anderson Crow, that you never suspected what's got into all these gay Lotharios?" ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... behold his tablets. Oh! he was to the work of writing down all I say. Indeed I was angry. But soon I discover he was no impostor and no espy; and I only find I was myself the monster he had come to discern. Oh! he is a very good man; I love him indeed; so cheerful, so gay, so pleasant! but at the first, oh! I was indeed angry.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 155. Boswell not only recorded the conversations, he often stimulated them. On one occasion 'he assumed,' he said, 'an air of ignorance to incite ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... dozen men started for the lower town. But his mind was not on his duty. He was thinking of Diane, her gay laughter, her rollicking songs, the ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... dole shouldst pity and allay? Ill hast thou wrought to those I love and made my foes exult With all that thou hast wreaked on me of ruin and dismay. Yea, for the pains he sees me brook of exile and desire And loneliness, my foeman's heart is solaceful and gay. Thou'rt not content with what is fallen on me of bitter dole, Of loss of friends and swollen eyes, affliction and affray. But I must lie and rot, to boot, in prison strait and dour, Where nought but gnawing of my hands I have for help and stay, And tears that ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... Ralph Ritson on the road to ruin. But he did not lead him long. The stronger nature soon re-asserted itself; seized the reins; led the yielding Leather to the cities of the far west; from gambling took to robbing, till at last the gay and handsome Ritson became transformed into the notorious Buck Tom, and left his weaker ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... and wonderful pageantry gorgeous in array; decorously ambling cardinals and abbots with their trains of servitors; hawking parties with hawks and attendants; soldiers after Sedgemoor in pursuit of Monmouth's ill-fated followers; George IV. and his gay courtiers on the Brighton road; beaux and beauties in their well-appointed carriages bound for Tunbridge Wells, Cheltenham, or Bath; splendid teams with crowded coaches, and great covered waggons laden with merchandise; ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... Triumphatus," a most instructive and entertaining contribution to the literature of witchcraft. Contemporary opinion of Glanvill is well expressed in Anthony a Wood's statement that "he was a person of more than ordinary parts, of a quick, warm, spruce, and gay fancy, and was more lucky, at least in his own judgment, in his first hints and thoughts of things, than in his after notions, examined and digested by longer and more mature deliberation. He had a very ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... said that fine feathers don't make fine birds. And she knew at last what that meant. It meant that gay clothes and lofty ways and boastful talk were of no account ...
— The Tale of Henrietta Hen • Arthur Scott Bailey
... eyes as stars of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; A dancing Shape, an Image gay, To ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Andy might be upon grave business. Reverently she drew back, and replaced the disorder she had caused among the parted leaves. Suddenly a step startled her. She turned sharply. Up the path came a British soldier, whistling a gay tune and ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... much afflicted at seeing her ill, and I often exclaimed: "Life is so dreary!" "Life is not dreary"—she would immediately say; "on the contrary, it is most gay. Now if you said: 'Exile is dreary,' I could understand. It is a mistake to call 'life' that which must have an end. Such a word should be only used of the joys of Heaven—joys that are unfading—and in this true meaning life ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... "I have my consolations. Surroundins like these here air a consolation. I like your young faces, an gay an airy ways, boys. I like to see you enjoy life. So, go in. Pitch in. Go ahead. Sing. Shout. Go on like mad. Carry on like all possessed, an you'll find the aged Corbet smilin amid the din, an a flutterin of his venerable locks triumphant amid ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... ashamed when he thought of his friends in their gay colors, or in armor, with plumes and swords. Those kings and knights and pages—they had been courageous, otherwise they never would have received such high orders and distinctions. Unless there were some change, he felt that he would never ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... a dinner dance at the country club, and Blount, who was a week-end guest of the Beverleys, was ill-natured enough to be resentful. What right had a gay and frivolous world to come and thrust its light-hearted happiness upon him when Patricia had said "No"? It was like bullying a cripple, he told himself morosely, and when he had read the single telegram which had come while he was at dinner he begged Mrs. Beverley's indulgence and went out to find ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... can be married!" answered the pedler, boldly, indifferent to Jack's gay laugh. "Madame Weber is a good woman, and you will see her soon. We are not rich enough to start alone in housekeeping, but if we could find some one to share the expenses, we would lodge and feed him, do his washing and all, and it would not be a bad thing ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... Gay Young Joker, A George Francis the Ubiquitous Glimpses of Fortune Gossip in a School-house Good for Something Better Gravestones For Sale Grant's Blackbird pie Greeley's Aid to Literary Effort Greeley on Bailey Great Canal Enterprise, The Great ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... brow into a loose coil behind, is enriched here and there with little sunny tresses, while across her forehead a few wavy locks—veritable love-locks, in Molly's case—wander idly, not as of a set purpose, but rather as though they have there drifted of their own gay will. ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... likely to take a livelier turn. Even the whistling sleet appeared to become less fierce and terrible. True, the stalwart dalesman on the door bench yawned and slept as before; but even Ralph's firm lower lip began to relax, and he was never a gay and sportive elf. The rest of the company charged their pipes afresh and called on the hostess for more ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... regions of the atmosphere. With the view of ascertaining the force of magnetic attraction, and of examining the electrical properties and constitution of the atmosphere at great elevations, two young, enthusiastic French philosophers, MM. Biot and Gay Lussac, proposed to make an ascent. These gentlemen, who had studied together at the Polytechnic School of Paris, and the latter of whom had especially devoted himself to the study of chemistry, and its application to the arts, while both were deeply versed in mathematical science, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... that time you will eye Your Emperor the foremost in the shock, Taking his risk with every ranksman here. For victory, men, must be no thing surmised, As that which may or may not beam on us, Like noontide sunshine on a dubious morn; It must be sure!—The honour and the fame Of France's gay and gallant infantry— So dear, so cherished all the Empire through— Binds us to compass it! Maintain the ranks; Let none be thinned by impulse or excuse Of bearing back the wounded: and, in fine, Be every ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... which Susy mentions led a gay and careless life, and had no principles. It was generally out of order at one point or another; and there was plenty of opportunity, because all the windows and doors in the house, from the cellar up to the top floor, were connected with it. However, in its seasons of being out ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... lumbered ahead, and we followed it casually. Around the corner it turned. We turned also. My heart was going like a sledgehammer as the critical moment approached. My head was in a whirl. What would that gay throng back of those darkened windows down the street think if they knew what was ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... should come out precisely what she was, as the event proved). Of course Harry paid over the eight thousand pounds. Huggo took, "to start with," as he said, a tiny furnished flat in Bayswater. Rosalie installed him and his bride therein and left him, on their first night there, ever so gay, so confident, so happy. ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... his right arm he held a large doll. The white tiles of the stove were adorned with pictured scenes from the Nibelungen legend; table and chairs were littered with music scores; the windows had leaded panes; in one corner there was a mass of artfully grouped objects—peacocks' feathers, gay-coloured silks, Chinese fans. This combination was known as a Makart bouquet, and represented the ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... had lately pledged His daughter to this brave, and now the village Made preparations for the marriage. There By the warm sea the maidens paid their court To Taka, who so soon would leave their gay Indifferent frolic lives to wed the grave Stern chief. She did not falter at the choice. Love which the maidens sang was but a word; She wished no better fate than to be mated To a strong warrior whom her heart held dear As friend to kind Akau. So she waited. In her slim ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... and sent the ghosts fleeing before their light laughter. The young women fingered the old harpsichords, and incontinently thrummed upon them; and one cried, "Play a waltz!" She was a pretty creature; and, as her gay tone mingled with the rattle of protesting strings in the worn-out instrument, one might easily have divined how dire a fate would have been hers, in the days when men not only believed in bewitchment, but made it punishable. Then a young man who had clung for guidance amid her ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... at the race-course was a gay one. The color was chiefly contributed by the Jewesses who wore their hooded silk cloaks of lively hue—green or pink or yellow. The only crowd that I saw to vie with it was one which watched the prisoners taken at Ramadie march through the town. ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... adorn society. They made tapestries and embroideries, and rode horseback, and danced well, and were virtuous; but were primitive, uneducated, and supercilious. Their beauty was of the ruddy sort, —physical, but genial. They were very fond of ornaments and gay dresses; and so were their lords on festive occasions, for semi-barbarism delights in what is showy and glittering,—purple, and feathers, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... brag of a rudimentary and long since dishonoured finesse? But the mere fact that M. Witte could make such a speech on American soil is a clear proof that the New World is not the proper field of diplomacy. The congresses of old were gay and secret. "Le congres," said the Prince de Ligne at Vienna, "ne marche pas; il danse." It danced, and it kept inviolate the obligation of silence. The Congress at Portsmouth did not talk—it chattered; and it was an open injustice to the unbroken history of New England ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... returned two days before our departure, and we had a gay time, between entertainments for the cricketers and festivities given by the 7th Hussars. Feeling in Durban, with regard to the Raiders, was then running high, and for hours did a vast crowd wait at the station merely in order to give the troopers of the Chartered ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... responsibility for the crime committed in Dark Hollow? Yes; she could not help it. Denial from a monster like this—a man who with such memories and such spoil, could return home to wife and child, with some gay and confused story of a great stroke in speculation which had brought him in the price of the tavern it had long been his ambition to own—what was denial from such lips worth, though emphasised by the most sacred of oaths, and uttered under the shadow of death. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... instant they passed before my eyes, those "dear departed." Big, tall William, so gay and so childish, he who used to play the ogre or the horse, or anything one wished: a person so absolutely indispensable to their games that all the little folk used to gather beneath his window early in the morning, crying in chorus: "Uncle William! Uncle William! do wake ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... and they came to the second summer. Miss Gertrude Lawrence was a belle now, and the great house was constantly filled with guests. The Lawrence equipages were seen in every direction. Mrs. Minor was up frequently, in grand state. The lawn was gay with croquet-parties, the evenings were brilliant with lights and music: they had two elegant garden-parties, when the grounds were illuminated with colored lanterns, and the teas were festivals in themselves. Fred had brought home two college chums, and for the first fortnight ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... sorrows, he would still make his appeal, one might suppose, to gallants and their mistresses, to sporting men and women of fashion, just as, in the mournful song of Rosabelle, Sir Walter Scott is able to address himself to the "ladies gay," or Coleridge in his sad "Ballad of the Dark ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... turned to retrace their steps. 'Here the citizens give themselves up to pleasure and politics, while the Lower Town is the business place. The money is made there which is spent here; and when our itinerating Legislature comes round, Quebec is very gay, and considerably excited.' ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... close, darkening lanes they sang their way To the siding-shed, And lined the train with faces grimly gay. ...
— Poems • Wilfred Owen
... Roncador Reef, we had no data for conjecturing where we were, except that we remembered passing the island of Jamaica at twilight on the evening preceding the wreck. We were afterwards informed that the vessel was seized by a strong current, and borne far away from her proper course. How gay we were that night, with our music and dancing, exhilarated all the more by the swiftness of the white, rushing water that drove ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... fifty years old, neither fat nor lean, neither short nor tall, neither rubicund nor pale, neither gay nor sad, neither contented nor discontented, neither energetic nor dull, neither proud nor humble, neither good nor bad, neither generous nor miserly, neither courageous nor cowardly, neither too much nor too little of anything—a man notably ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... this theme, and Mr. Harthouse was soon idly gay on indifferent subjects. But from this day, the Sparsit action upon Mr. Bounderby threw Louisa and James Harthouse more together, and strengthened the dangerous alienation from her husband and confidence against him with another, into which she had fallen by degrees so fine ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... tradesman, to whom I am directing this discourse, and to whom I am desirous to give solid and useful hints for his instruction, I would recommend it to him to avoid all such needless expenses, and rather endeavour to furnish his shop with goods, than to paint and gild it over, to make it fine and gay; let it invite customers rather by the well-filled presses and shelves, and the great choice of rich and fashionable goods, that one customer being well-served may bring another; and let him study to bring his shop into reputation for ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... work was done they trooped out noisily into the moonlight, bright like day only with a beauty that was almost unearthly in its radiance. The others went on down the street calling gay words back and forth, but Mark and Marilyn lingered, bearing a wreath of laurel, and stepping deep into the whiteness went over to the white piled mound where they had laid Mrs. Carter's body to rest and ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... waveless bay Shone like a mirror to the sun; 'Mid greenwood shades and meadows gay, The matin birds their lays begun: While swelling o'er the gloomy wood Was heard the faintly-echoed roar,— The dashing of the foaming flood, That beat on Erie's ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... these tete-a-tetes with Dixon were always held in the flower- garden, or bit of forest ground surrounding it. Miss Monro sat and basked in the sun, close to the dial, which made the centre of the gay flower-beds, upon which the ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel; and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool; are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?" If ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... golden light of the setting sun, he was presently disturbed by the approach of light footsteps. It was an unusually gay voice that greeted him when he looked up, and eyes that were brighter, and more deeply ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... for a car. An open car, of the kind in common use during the pleasant season, drew near, and they secured seats in it. After leaving Dover Street, Washington Street, still then narrow, broadens into a wide avenue, and is called the Neck. It was gay with vehicles of all sorts, and Herbert found much to ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... bright, There's few than I should know her better; Full many a gay and gallant knight She holds in love's ...
— Axel Thordson and Fair Valborg - a ballad • Thomas J. Wise
... "This is a gay figure, Pip," said she, making her crutch stick play round me, as if she, the fairy godmother who had changed me, were bestowing the ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... gay life, she follows him to Land of Free. Finds him about to marry his sweetheart of childhood, a New York society girl worth uncounted millions but just middling looking. Prompt bust-up of childhood sweetheart's romance. Abandonment of social position, wealth, ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... experiment, as soon as I reached home, I summoned my confidential servant,—a young man of gay spirits, fearless temper, and as free from superstitious prejudice as anyone ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... great part of the same to a company of Virginians, with the right to settle it and fortify it The Virginia Company sent its agents to visit the Miamis at Pickawillany a year later, and bound them to the English by gifts of brandy, tobacco, beads, gay ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... get away, therefore, the young people journeyed to Lisbon, a place conspicuous, even in that day of moral laxity, for its tolerance of the alliance libre. Henry Fielding (who died in the town) has photographically described for all times its gay, sensuous life. Into this unwholesome atmosphere, quite new to her, though she was neither maid nor wife, it was that the sweet Agnes was thrust by Frankland. Very soon he was to perceive the mistake of this, as well as of several other phases ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... the luggage that I did not notice their departure. The real truth had not yet dawned upon me. The trunks were hoisted off the car to the ground, and the gay decoration of the hotel labels attracted considerable attention. People thronged round, and deciphered the various names. I have never seen such curiosity. Finally the last suitcase was carried in. The landlord ...
— An Account of Our Arresting Experiences • Conway Evans
... in the large old-fashioned reception-room while his name was taken up. Then the maid reappeared and led him to Nora's private sitting-room. Here he found her in a robe of silk and lace reclining upon a sofa, propped up with gay pillows, a book beside her. She held out one hand to him; the loose sleeve fell back, showing a beautiful arm, white and firm, ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... of the family," while Captain Angus was away, Mrs. Rothesay sometimes frowned, but more often put the matter off with a merry jest. Meanwhile she consoled herself by going as much into society as the limited circle of Dr. and Mrs. Johnson allowed; and therein, as usual, the lovely, gay, winning young creature was spoiled to her ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... stick; his curly pate A bran-new hat uplifted bore; And Abner, as he leapt the gate, Had never look'd so gay before. ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... impatiently to and fro the small apartment when Mr. Price entered; and then, turning to the clergyman a countenance handsome and striking, but yet more prepossessing from its expression of frankness than from the regularity of its features,—he stopped short, held out his hand, and said, with a gay laugh, as he glanced over the parson's threadbare and slovenly costume, "My poor Caleb!—what a metamorphosis!—I should not ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... have. And these are all. Opulent History yields from a ton of broken nails these two brass farthings, and shuts her pocket on us again. A Crown-Prince given to frolic, among other things; though aware that gravity would beseem him better. Much gay bantering humor in him, cracklings, radiations,—which he is bound to keep well ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... hour comes when the brain, under a sudden stroke, ceases to direct the machine; in vain does it command, for it is no longer obeyed; each limb, each joint, each muscle, acting separately and for itself starts convulsively through discordant impulses. Meanwhile the man is gay; he thinks himself a millionaire, a king, loved and admired by everybody; he is not aware of the mischief he is doing to himself he does not comprehend the advice given him, he refuses the remedies offered to him, he sings and shouts for entire days, and, above all, drinks ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... thought. "In fact, I'm quite stylish. I'm almost as gay as some of the clowns." And his head bobbed slowly up and down, for it was fastened so that the least jar ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope
... His characters are drawn from the bacchanalian class described in Bellman's lyrics, but they are not sufficiently varied in their scope and sphere to create an actual Swedish drama. Kexel, the friend of the two last named, lived a gay and vagabond life, and is celebrated for his comedies. Wallenberg was a clergyman, full of the enjoyment of life, and disposed to see the most amusing side of everything. Lidner and Thorild, unlike the writers just named, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... us, as we rode along. Indeed, I thought myself very happy that day: first, that it pleased God to make way for my going; and then, that I should have the honour to ride behind Mr. Bunyan, who would sometimes be speaking to me about the things of God. My pride soon had a fall; for, in entering Gam'gay, we were met by one Mr. Lane, a clergyman who lived at Bedford, and knew us both, and spoke to us, but looked very hard at us as we rode along; and soon after raised a vile scandal upon us, though, blessed ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the sands, already alive with gay children who were building houses or running gaily about, and with happy shrieks wading into the water, the Procter children stood awed, unable to speak, so many emotions ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half asleep Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop As they crop— Was the site once of a city great and gay ..." ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... which was, to ridicule the ridiculous of our established doctrine. I have elsewhere celebrated the contrivance of this excellent drama; but was not, till I read the dedication, wholly let into the religious design of it. I am afraid it has suffered discontinuance at this gay end of the town, for no other reason but the piety of the purpose. There is however in this epistle the true life of panegyrical performance; and I do not doubt but, if the patron would part with it, I can ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... "There is a young ingenious Quaker in this town, who writes verses to his mistress, not very correct, but in a strain purely what a poetical Quaker should do, commending her look and habit, &c. It gave me a hint, that a set of Quaker pastorals might succeed, if our friend Gay would fancy it; and I think it a fruitful subject: pray hear what he says."—Accordingly Gay wrote "The Espousal, a sober Eclogue, between two of the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... beneath them, one of the sailors holding on by a boat-hook, while the other three smart-looking fellows sat quietly waiting on the thwarts. The gig was in the trimmest of conditions, and looked perfectly new, while it was set off by a gay scarlet cushion in the stern sheets, contrasting well with the brown varnished grating ready ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... with his cousin Lucy and Urquhart in the White City. Peter and Lucy were very fond of the White City. Peter's cousin Lucy was something like a small, gay spring flower, with wide, solemn grey eyes that brimmed with sudden laughters, and a funny, infectious gurgle of a laugh. She was a year younger than Peter, and they had all their lives gone shares in their possessions, from guinea-pigs to ideas. They admired the same china and the same people, ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... worldly ones are cavaliers now—for a cavalier is King—e'en though the sword once followed Cromwell and the gay cloak and the big flying plume do not quite hide the ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... stores, with the gay-coloured blankets and other goods which were dear to the Indian and his squaw, and for which a portion of a tribe came from time to time to barter the skins they had collected ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... studies and retard his progress in learning. Contrary to the counsel of his father and other friends, he published, in 1788, while only in his nineteenth year, a thin octavo volume of poems; and afterwards gave to the gay intercourse of lovers of the muse, many precious hours which ought to have been applied to mental improvement. Early in 1791 he became teacher of a school at Falkirk; and on the 14th of April of the same year appeared at the Pantheon, Edinburgh, where ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... was a grove of cypress-trees in which birds of gay colors were sporting and springs of pure water bubbling, and the fragrance of strange flowers filled the air. When Hermes had gazed upon these wonders he entered the grotto. It was bright with a blazing ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... 'closet' and 'cabinet,' where the 'simples' of the Shake-spear philosophy are all locked and labelled, was built. For these that secret 'cabinet of the Muses,' where the Delphic motto is cut anew, throws out its secret lures,—its gay, many-coloured, deceiving lures,—its secret labyrinthine clues,—for all lines in this building meet in that centre. All clues here unwind to that. For these—for the minds on whom the continuation of this enterprise was by ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... I was in the hands of Tasso the carpenter, a great friend of mine, who had received my instructions for making a wooden framework to set up the Perseus. This Tasso was a most excellent craftsman, the best, I believe, who ever lived in his own branch of art. [5] Personally, he was gay and merry be temperament; and whenever I went to see him, he met me laughing, with some little song in falsetto on his lips. Half in despair as I then was, news coming that my affairs in France were going ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... til the 14 of April French accompte: some 20 dayes before that I was beginning to make many acquantances at Poictiers, to go in and drink wt them, as wt De Gruche, Ingrande La Figonne, both Advocats sones, and of the Religion, Mr. de Gay, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... young man referred to was a good sample of the youth of his tribe, we shall describe him. Though not tall, he was well and strongly proportioned, and his skin was of a reddish-brown colour. Like all his comrades, he wore little clothing. A gay handkerchief with a gold lace border encircled his head, from beneath which flowed a heavy mass of straight, jet-black hair. Large crescent-shaped ornaments hung from his ears. His face was handsome and the expression pleasing, though ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... allowed impatience to show upon his usually serene countenance: evidently he was unused to waiting in such a place, and I wondered why he did not make free of the greenroom instead of doing so. But he composed himself to patience as with a long breath, and fell to humming softly a gay French air the while he stood leaning motionlessly, in an odd but graceful attitude, upon his slender cane. Sometimes he glanced back toward the waiting coach, and then, without change of position as to his body, returned ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... her seated on a bench, with a book in her lap, some novel or other. She took his arm in a familiar and friendly way, with a frank and gay manner, as if nothing had happened the night before, and drew him toward ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... elate and gay, Steps into life and follows, unrestrained, Where passion leads, or ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... Nymph, put on fresh finery, and be seen, To come forth like the Spring-time, fresh and green! And gay as Flora. Art is there, With flowing hyacinthine hair. Fear not, the throng will strew Largess abundant upon you, When Burlington's great Opening Day is kept. Gone is thy Grosvenor rival, not unwept; But a New Nymph, with footing light, Trips it beside thee, nor ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... in the gorgeous death of day We had slipped from our emerald creek, And our Cloud i' the Sun was careening away With the old gay flag at the peak, When, suddenly, out of the purple wood, Breast-high thro' the lilies there danced A tall lean figure, black as a nigger, That shouted and ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... her bended knees before the throne of God; the wayward disciple came, with tears and penitence, and besought forgiveness of God and the Church. The old man, with his white locks and streaming eyes, asked, "What shall I do to be saved?" The, young and gay were turned from sin and vanity and led to seek an interest in the world's only Savior. The whole city felt the influence of the work of grace; and the sceptic, in amazement, asked, "What do these ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... say there's a jolly brunt betwixt my Lord Rich and his Lady—she that was my Lady Penelope Devereux, you know. My Lord he is a great Puritan, and a favourer of that way; and my Lady, she likes a pretty gown and a gay dance as well as e'er a one; so the wars have fallen out ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... are eminent for making a fine outside, when perhaps within they want necessaries; and, indeed, a gay shop and a mean stock is something like the Frenchman with his laced ruffles, without a shirt. I cannot but think a well-furnished shop with a moderate outside is much better to a tradesman, than a fine shop and few goods; I am sure it will be much more to his satisfaction, when he casts ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... the trumpets, and drowned the groans of those who fell, and lay rolling defenceless beneath the feet of the horses. The splendid armour of the combatants was now defaced with dust and blood, and gave way at every stroke of the sword and battle-axe. The gay plumage, shorn from the crests, drifted upon the breeze like snow-flakes. All that was beautiful and graceful in the martial array had disappeared, and what was now visible was only calculated to awake ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... watch the gay gulls as they flutter Like snowflakes and fall down the sky, To swoop in the deeps of the hollows, Where the crow's-foot tosses awry; And gnats in the lee of the thickets Are swirling like waltzers in glee To the harsh, shrill creak of the crickets And ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... What roaring cheer Was spread at Paddy's wedding O, And how so gay They spent the day, From the churching to the bedding O. First book in hand came Father Quipes, With the Bride's dadda, the Bailey O, While all the way to church the pipes Struck up ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... I liked. He was not a warrior, or I should have hated him, but he was brought up with me in my father's house, and was a near relative. I was grave and full of pride, he was gay and fond of music; and although there was no music to me equal to the tom-tom, yet I did not always wish for excitement. I often was melancholy, and then I liked to lay my head in the lap of one of my wives, under the shady forest behind my house, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... and fields, full of promises of flowers and songs, but in conflict with their project, which was to inquire out their way from the maidens at the fountain, who would be sure to know it, and in its shade to read the story of David and Goliath first and other stories afterwards. But the gay morning drew their thoughts away from texts, and without being aware of their apostasy they had already begun to indulge in hopes that the maidens would be late at the fountain and leave them some time to loiter by the old aqueduct that brought the water in a tiny stream ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... Valley of the Many-Colored Grass was reconstructed in even more than its old beauty. The flowers of love and contentment and innocent pleasure that besprinkled its green carpet had never been so many or so gay, the dream-mountains that shut it in from the rest of the world were as fair as sunset clouds, and the peace that flowed through it as a river broke into singing as ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... she had now attained her full height, her figure had filled out, and she stood on the threshold of womanhood and bid fair to attain a high degree of beauty of the type characteristic of her nationality. Her hair was dark, her eyes gray, her expression changing rapidly from grave to gay, ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... visit to this country was a letter which he took from a collection of papers and handed me to read one day when I was visiting him. The letter was written in a very lively and exceedingly familiar vein. It implied such intimacy, and called up in such a lively way the gay times Motley and himself had had together in their youthful days, that I was puzzled to guess who could have addressed him from Germany in that easy and off-hand fashion. I knew most of his old friends who would be likely to call him by his baptismal name in its most colloquial form, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... gave a sign, and Pickett, gallant and gay, rode off "into the jaws of death." Erect and smiling, his cap set rakishly over one ear, his brown-gold hair shining in the sun, he seemed, said Longstreet long after, more like a "holiday soldier" than a general about to lead a desperate and ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... Poole was heard returning; behind her came a heavier foot. Ackroyd certainly looked far from well, but had assumed a gay ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... the speeding craft had disappeared. There was the Drayton—Lieutenant Bagley, who later was to know the venom of the German submarine—the Ericson, Lieutenant-Commander W. S. Miller; the O'Brien, Lieutenant-Commander C. E. Courtney; the Benham, Lieutenant-Commander J. B. Gay; the Cassin, Lieutenant-Commander Vernon; the McCall, Lieutenant Stewart; the Porter, Lieutenant-Commander W. K. Wortman; the Fanning, Lieutenant Austin; the Paulding, Lieutenant Douglas Howard; the Winslow, Lieutenant-Commander Nichols; ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... his country there flourished Sly Thieves and Gay Wantons and Bold Robbers; also Poisoners and Parasites and Impostors of ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman |
