"Graceful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the christening, the consecration of the boy and girl to the state. Show us the political processions and election riots. Show us the people with their graceful games, their religious pantomimes. Show us impartially the memorial scenes to celebrate the great men and women, and the funerals of the poor. And then moving on toward the millennium itself, show America after her victories have been won, and she has grown old, as old ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... although he borrowed his models from the pseudo-classical productions then in vogue in foreign countries. A few of his versified efforts which have come down to us deserve the name of poetry, by virtue of their lofty thoughts and strong, sincere feeling, expressed in graceful, melodious style. Among the best of these are: "A Letter Concerning the Utility of Glass," "Meditations Concerning the Grandeur of God," and his triumphal ode, "On the Day of the Accession to the Throne of the Empress Elizaveta Petrovna"—this last being the expression ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... which was a passion for the stage, which caused her quiet mother and sister much anxiety as well as amusement. Bess had grown into a tall, beautiful girl looking several years older than she was, with the same graceful ways and dainty tastes which the little Princess had, and a rich inheritance of both the father's and mother's gifts, fostered by every aid love and money could give. But the pride of the community was naughty Nan; for, ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Rhyme, clapping their hands together, and patting their feet in rhythmic time with the words of the Rhyme being repeated. It was the task of the dancers in the middle of the circle to execute some graceful dance in such a manner that their feet would beat a tattoo upon the ground answering to every word, and sometimes to every syllable of the Rhyme being repeated by those in the circle. There were many such Rhymes. "'Possum Up the Gum ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... entered she said: "We will let Dr. Morrell decide. I've been asking Miss Kilburn to go with me to Mrs. Putney's. I think it would be a graceful and proper thing for me to do, to express my sympathy and interest, and to hear what Mrs. Putney really has to say. Don't you think I ought to ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... make a distinction between beauty and grace, and have made them as it were rivals for the possession of the human heart; but grace may be defined beauty in action; for a sleeping beauty cannot be called graceful in whatever attitude she may recline; the muscles must be in action to produce a graceful attitude, and the limbs to produce a graceful motion. But though the object of love is beauty, yet the idea is nevertheless ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... of the soul's light, that she seemed to them beautiful. Her congratulations were offered in speechless emotion. The brotherly kiss which Ernest pressed upon her cheek called up no color there, nor disturbed the graceful stillness of her manner; and when Sophie, who had really become sincerely attached to her, threw herself into her arms, she returned her embrace with tenderness, whispering as she did so, "Make Ernest happy, Sophie, and I will love ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... from which hung graceful pendants of lace and ribbons, but the sleepy child clung to her ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... corresponding spire to the north. The triangular section of the pinnacles at the base of the spire, the crockets with which they are enriched, and the open canopies around, combine to produce a most graceful feature. To the latter years of this century may be assigned the central porch, with room above, inserted between the two middle piers of the west front. Some regard this as a blemish; others as a distinct improvement. One party maintains[13] that it is "an unsightly encumbrance, in its ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... to this prattle. His eyes were on the pigeons cleaving the air with short, graceful flights. Presently he felt the soft touch of baby curls against his hand, and little Bug had fallen asleep with his ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... easily along the ground, for the bicycle wheels were always kept in first class condition; and as the speed kept on increasing Frank soon uptilted the plane, and like a great bird rising from the ground, with a graceful sweep the flying ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... was the most polished and graceful orator our country ever produced. He spoke as quietly as if he were talking in his own parlor and almost entirely without gestures, yet he had as great a power over all kinds of audiences as any American of whom we have any record. Often called before howling mobs, who had come to the lecture- room ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... fronds of purple and green Laver rise from its limpid depths. Amphipods of varied hue emerge from the clustering weeds, cleave the clear water with easy swiftness, and hide beneath the opposite bank. Here a graceful Annelid describes Hogarth's line of beauty upon the sandy bottom. There another glides over the surface with sinuous course, rowed by more oars than a Venetian galley, more brilliant in its iridescence than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... fresh bloom of early youth; for at her best she looked thirty years of age. But her beauty was of that brilliant order which does not need the charm of girlhood. She was a woman—a grand, queen-like creature. Those who admired her most compared her to a tall white lily, alike stately and graceful. ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the building; a most gorgeous sight; vast; graceful; beyond the dreams of the Arabian romances. I cannot think that the Caesars ever exhibited a more splendid spectacle. I was quite dazzled, and I felt as I did on entering St Peter's. I wandered about, and elbowed my ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... waist, somewhat in the fashion of a woman's corset; the rest of his vestments were in black velvet, embroidered with silver palms. Gray boots with red heels, to which were attached golden spurs; a scarlet cloak with gold buttons—all set off to advantage his elegant and graceful figure. He bowed right and left ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the retentive tablet of Memory. On the east end was another small enclosure where we used to spend our leisure hours in the cultivation of flowers and medicinal plants. Here the tall lilac waved its graceful head beneath our bed-room window, and the morning sun, as he parted the rosy curtains of the eastern sky and came forth rejoicing to run his glad race, and pour a flood of golden light upon the earth, shot his first crimson rays upon the thick curtains of morning glories that hung ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... region between the tropics, produces an incredible profusion of climbing plants, of which the flora of the Antilles alone presents us with forty different species. Among the most graceful of these shrubs is the passion-flower, which, according to Descourtiz, grows with such luxuriance in the Antilles, as to climb trees by means of the tendrils with which it is provided, and form moving bowers of rich and elegant festoons, decorated with blue and purple flowers, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... friend? Dick was almost afraid to look up at Mercedes. Still he forced himself to do so, and as it chanced Mercedes was looking down at him. Somehow the light was better, and he clearly saw her white face, her black and starry eyes, her perfect mouth. With a quick, graceful impulsiveness she put her hand upon his shoulder. Like her appearance, the action was new, strange, striking to Gale; but it brought home suddenly to him the nature of gratitude and affection in a girl of her blood. It was sweet and ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... something new. The nightingales sang, the thrushes flew out before them, the wild duck and moorhen glanced on the pools. Here and there they came on the furrows left by the snout of the wild swine, and in the open tracts rose the graceful heads of the deer, but of inhabitants or travellers they scarce saw any, save when they halted at the little hamlet of Minestead, where a small alehouse was kept by one Will Purkiss, who claimed descent from the charcoal- burner who had carried William Rufus's corpse to burial ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... had hardly gripped it when a figure sprang out from an opened door. A figure in cool gray that took warmth and color from the ship behind—a figure of a girl, tall and slender and graceful as ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... true, being a series of stools and a table, set upon rushen matting of Indian make; the beams overhead were unceiled, and the hearth necessarily devoid of a grate. But the chimney space—huge in proportion to the room—was filled with fragrant and graceful forest boughs; and through the open casement window (Arthur had fitted the single sash on hinges, doorwise) looked in stray sprays of roses, breathing perfume. Mrs. Wynn was well satisfied with her exile at that moment, when she saw ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... presenting a spare young man of good figure, whose face seemed formed on the finest model of antiquity, and whose large eye, of a soft deep blue, habitually expanded, as if looking upon a wide and boundless surface, might well be called an eye of ocean. He advanced with mild and graceful composure, and saluted me with an unassuming modesty and politeness, blended at the same time with a manly firmness, simplicity, and dignity, which gave me the presentiment that he ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... into a lottery where there are twenty blanks to one prize. In the severe tug of life you want more than glitter and splash. Life is not a ball-room where the music decides the step, and bow and prance and graceful swing of long trail can make up for strong common sense. You might as well go among the gayly painted yachts of a summer regatta to find war vessels as to go among the light spray of the summer watering-place ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... rich strum of harp and strings, with its note of sensuous melancholy. Other, more external signs there are of Eastern melody, as in the graceful curl of quicker notes. Intermediate strains between the verses seem gently to rouse the slumbering feeling,—still more when they play between the lines of the song. The passion that is lulled in the languor of main melody, is somehow uttered in the later episode,—still ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... first. At last came an unmarried lady (we were told she was a countess), and along with her a married one, bearing a tasting-knife; the former was dressed in white silk, who, when she had prostrated herself three times in the most graceful manner, approached the table and rubbed the plates with bread and salt with as much awe as if the Queen had been present. When they had waited there a little while, the yeomen of the guards entered, bareheaded, clothed in scarlet, with a golden rose ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... was welcome, particularly as affording me a graceful retreat from the neighbourhood of the Carthew Chillinghams; and, giving up our projected circuit, we took a short cut through the shrubbery and across the bowling-green to the back quarters ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do not know whether I have ever heard your opinion of a poet, very dear to me, the now out of fashion Cowley—favor me with your judgment of him, and tell me if his prose essays, in particular, as well as no inconsiderable part of his verse, be not delicious. I prefer the graceful rambling of his essays, even to the courtly elegance and ease of Addison—abstracting from this the latter's exquisite humour. Why is not your poem on Burns in the Monthly Magazine? I was much disappointed. I have a pleasurable ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... become bloom, though not rosy, rather an ineffable clear white like a lily. Her eyes, at once shy and antagonistic, had become as steady as stars in their estimation of self and others, and all her slender height was as well in her power of graceful guidance as the height of a young oak tree. Catherine, in those days, paid very little heed to me, for her one year of superior age seemed then threefold to both of us, except as she was jealously watchful that I win not too much of the love of her little sister. I have ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... perceived that the lady was both young and pretty; she was wrapped in a large shawl, so that the outlines of her form were not plainly visible, yet it was easy to be seen that she was of good figure and graceful carriage. ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... much chance with that young lady," Hunterleys assured him, "as with that very graceful statue in the ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the shining Zodiac have no existence to us apart from the graceful and unwearying motion of our Mother Earth. She alone makes our seasons, years and destiny; and she alone, by her motion about the Sun, determines the thrones and mansions of the ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... place, the Emperor is an impressive man physically. He is not a giant in stature, but a man of medium size, great strength and endurance, and of agile and graceful movement. He looks every inch a leader of men. His fine gray-blue eyes are peculiarly fascinating. I saw him once seated beside his uncle, King Edward VII., and the contrast was very striking, and ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... At sight of graceful neck, who speaks of "musculus sterno-cleido-mastoideus"; at touch of moist red lips, who thinks upon ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... and flashing sun form the ambient of a perpetual summer-land. We traverse the sandy Tertiary deserts of the coast, and thence enter among groves of profuse natural vegetation, interspersed with cultivated plantations. In these the gleam of yellow oranges comes from among the foliage, and the graceful leaves of the platanos and rubber-trees fan their protecting shade over young coffee-trees. But away from the haunts of man along the littoral is a region of startling beauty—of rivers and lagoons and hills, their shores and slopes garmented with perennial ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... crimson, which looked very nice. Most of the pews below, and some above, were lined with the same material. A splendid chandelier, having many circles of glass brilliants, was suspended from the ceiling. Altogether, the "church" was a very neat and graceful structure,—capable, as I learned, of accommodating about 1,500 people. But the floor—the floor! What a drawback! It was stained all over with tobacco juice! Faugh! Those Southern men are the most filthy people in that respect I ever met with. They are a ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... not be left without healthful entertainment and kindly instruction so long as Sophie May (Miss Rebecca S. Clarke) lives and wields her graceful pen in their behalf, Miss Clarke has made a close and loving study of childhood, and she is almost idolized by the crowd of 'nephews and nieces' who claim her as aunt. Nothing to us can ever be quite so delightfully charming as were the 'Dotty Dimple' and the 'Little Prudy' books to our youthful ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... improved that cold winter morning when, just as we were sitting down to breakfast about sunrise, a red fox loped along in front of the window, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and disappeared amid the currant-bushes. What of the wild and the cunning did he not bring! His graceful form and motion were in my mind's eye all day. When you have seen a fox loping along in that way, you have seen the poetry there is in the canine tribe. It is to the eye what a flowing measure is to the mind, so easy, so buoyant; the furry creature drifting along like a large red thistledown, ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... advantage of the town bridge for crossing a large river that obstructed them. It was about midnight when they went along the deserted streets, lighted fitfully by the few lamps, keeping off the pavement that it might not echo their footsteps. The graceful pile of cathedral architecture rose dimly on their left hand, but it was lost upon them now. Once out of the town they followed the turnpike-road, which after a few miles plunged across ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... Madame, it completes my victory," replied the Frenchman with a graceful gesture. "Voyez, M'sieu'," he added, turning to me, "you 'ave just said zat your friend is laid up, when the unfortunate truth is zat he is laid down, and because of zat you will encircle, surround, make ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... first night that she must have been treated badly by people to have distrust come so readily to her. He noticed, also, that any honest show of kindness soon won her over; and that to Lyster, with his graceful little attentions and his amused interest, she turned from the first hour of their acquaintance as to some chum who was in the very inner circle of those to whom her favor was extended. Overton, hearing their ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the birds display themselves before me with the vanity of barbarians, performing in strange evolutions as long as I am in sight, and returning to their ledge of rock when I am gone. Some are wonderfully expert, and cut graceful figures for an inconceivable time without a flap of their wings, growing so absorbed in their own dexterity that they often collide with one another in their flight, an incident always followed by a wild outburst of abuse. Their language is easier than Gaelic, ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... extravagantly gay and danced a thousand unheard-of dances. These capers, prohibited elsewhere, rendered the Queen thoughtful. "Wherever did he learn all this?" she asked, and added: "What naughty dances! Fie!" Then she murmured: "How graceful he is!" ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... your best that this our guest may be mirthful and merry." Quoth Khwajah Hasan, "O my lord, thou dost indeed provide much pleasant entertainment." Then the slave-boy Abdullah standing by began to strike the tambourine whilst Morgiana rose up and showed her perfect art and pleased them vastly with graceful steps and sportive motion; and suddenly drawing the poniard from her belt she brandished it and paced from side to side, a spectacle which pleased them most of all. At times also she stood before them, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... instance of an animal domesticated, as we know by the Old Testament, from an ancient period, which has varied only in a very slight degree. But this is by no means strictly true; for in Syria alone there are four breeds (2/44. W.C. Martin 'History of the Horse' 1845 page 207.); first, a light and graceful animal, with an agreeable gait, used by ladies; secondly, an Arab breed reserved exclusively for the saddle; thirdly, a stouter animal used for ploughing and various purposes; and lastly, the large Damascus breed, with a peculiarly long body and ears. In the South of France also there are ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... three times on the floor, after the custom of the country, and, taking off his hat, knelt to be blessed by the little monarch.' He had the simple and unaffected manners of a well-educated princely child. His face was affectingly beautiful—his beautiful mouth was perpetually unbending into a graceful smile, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... hat toward the Grdznth. "Spike cracked it," he said. "Spike is a sort of Grdznth genius." He tossed the coffee cup over his shoulder and it ricochetted in graceful slow motion against the far wall. "Now why don't ...
— PRoblem • Alan Edward Nourse
... accepted by Congress, and appropriations were made for the finest military post in the country. It was appropriately named Fort Sheridan, not only in recognition of the great services the general had rendered to the country, but as a special and graceful recognition of the services he had rendered Chicago in the time of ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... same. I was somewhat ashamed to learn afterward that I had, on this occasion, been in very low society, and that the melancholy assemblage which I then conjured up was composed entirely of honest rogues, who might indeed have given as graceful and ingenious excuses for being in misfortune as the galley-slaves rescued by Don Quixote,—who might even have been very picturesque,—but who were not at all the material with which a well- regulated imagination would deal. The Bridge of Sighs ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... good sister! How kind you were, and how beautiful you looked, too, when you came to sprinkle us with holy water. We could see you approaching, walking slowly along the gloomy aisles, draped in your white veil, which fell in such graceful folds, and which our friend Jacques admired so much. Ah kind sister! You were the Beatrice of that Inferno. So sweet were your consolations that we were always complaining in order to be consoled by you. If my friend Jacques had not died ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... Court of Myrtles, some of the party examined the light, graceful arches and the stucco tapestry interwoven with flowers and leaves that adorn the galleries; others were more interested in the gold fish swimming in the transparent water of the long sunken tank in the center of the tiled court. In the richly ornamented Hall of the ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... wave with wings of pride, When pass the steps of stranger man Along the banks that bound her tide; 510 Thus rose fair Leila's whiter neck:— Thus armed with beauty would she check Intrusion's glance, till Folly's gaze Shrunk from the charms it meant to praise. Thus high and graceful was her gait; Her heart as tender to her mate; Her mate—stern Hassan, who was he? Alas! that name was ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... he was himself, without effort, and with a fun that never failed! He was a born buffoon of the graceful kind—more whelp or kitten than monkey—ever playing the fool, in and out of season, but somehow always a propos; and French boys love a boy for that more than anything else; ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... doubt about it that the set in which Miss Ann and Judith was dancing was the popular one. The spectators moved to that end of the hall and when the dancers indulged in any particularly graceful steps they were applauded. Old Billy crept from the balcony and hid himself behind a palm, where he could look out on his beloved mistress and declare to himself over and over, "She am the pick er ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... in the school that a first-class girl took a third into such close companionship, and Hester's little head had been slightly turned by the fact. Her better judgment and her better nature had been rather blinded by the fascinations of this tall, graceful, satirical Dora. She had been weak enough to agree with Dora with her lips when in her heart of hearts she knew she was all wrong. By nature Hester was an honorable girl, with many fine traits in her character—by nature Dora was small and mean and ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... Anything becomes foul when commended by the multitude Appetite runs after that it has not Armed parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, robbery Authority to be dissected by the vain fancies of men Authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien beget Be on which side you will, you have as fair a game to play Beauty of stature is the only beauty of men Believing Heaven concerned at our ordinary actions Better at speaking than ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger
... permitted to adjudge the manner and style of the Indian's oratory, whether they be easy or strained; graceful or stiff; natural or affected; and we may, likewise, discover, if his speech be flowing or hesitating; but it is denied to us, of course, to appreciate in any degree, or to appraise his utterances. I should say the Indian fulfils the largest expectations of the ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... abundant hair— I doat on flowing tresses. Her skin must be clear, soft and white Her cheeks with health's tints glowing, Her eyes beam with a liquid light,— Red lips her white teeth showing. She must be graceful as a fawn, With bosom gently swelling, Her presence fresh as early dawn,— A heart for love to dwell in. She must be trusting, yet aware That flatterer's honey'd phrases Are often but a wily snare, To catch her in love's mazes. Accomplishments ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... female; her judgment had been early cultivated, and her good sense employed in the regulation of her conduct; she had been habituated to that restraint, which, as a woman, she was to expect in life, and early accustomed to yield; compliance in her seemed natural and graceful. ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth
... with half-closed eyes, her clear-cut features in silhouette against the glow of the fire, her soft gray curls nestling in the filmy lace that fell about her temples, she expressed, in every line of her face and figure, that air of graceful repose which only comes to those highly favored women who have all their lives been nurtured in a home of loving hands, tender voices, and noiseless servants—lives of never-ending ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... them at all was curious to see what would come of a friendship between two persons so opposite in tastes, habitudes and appearance as John Silverthorn and Bill Vibbard. John was a hard reader, and Bill a lazy one. John was thin and graceful, with something pensive yet free and vivid in his nature; Bill was robust, prosaic and conventional. There was an air of neglect and a prospective sense of worldly failure about Silverthorn, but you would at once ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... through the half-open door to behold a sight which made her shake with suppressed laughter. Steve, with a red tablecloth tied around his waist, languished upon Mac's shoulder, dancing in perfect time to the air he whistled, for Dandy was proficient in the graceful art and plumed himself upon his skill. Mac, with a flushed face and dizzy eye, clutched his brother by the small of his back, vainly endeavoring to steer him down the long room without entangling his own legs in ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... vales and mountains rung, Voices that hail' Creation's primal morn, And to the shepherds sung a Saviour born. Slowly to land the sacred cross we bore, [k] And, kneeling, kiss'd with pious lips the shore. But how the scene pour tray? [l] Nymphs of romance, [m] Youths graceful as the Faun, [n] with rapturous glance, Spring from the glades, and down the green steeps run, To greet their mighty guests, "The children of the Sun!" Features so fair, in garments richly wrought, From citadels, with Heav'n's own thunder ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... dash by in chariots! who will care For steeds or footmen now? ye cannot show Fair face, and dazzling dress, and graceful air, And last edition of the shape! Ah no, These sights are for the earth and open sky, And your loud ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... bit, however, the cocoanut palms, silhouetted with their graceful waving arms for a few brief minutes in black against the glowing background, merged slowly into the sky or sank below the horizon. All grew dark. One by one, as the trees disappeared, the passengers dropped off for whist in the saloon, or retired to the uneasy solitude of their own ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... and you see a new forest stretching out beneath the other, opening its long avenues pierced by a mysterious green light and lined by slender or tufted shrubs ending in round tops of exotic or wild aspect, stalks of sugar-cane, the graceful rigidity of palms, slender cups holding a drop of water, girandoles bearing little yellow lights which flicker in the passing breeze. And the miraculous feature of it all is that beneath those slender stalks live miniature plants and myriads of insects whose existence, seen at such close ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... all of the olden time; down in a deep dell, sheltered by uplands north, east, and west; looking south down the valley to the Sussex downs, which were seen in the hazy distance uplifting their graceful outlines to the blue sky, across a vast canopy of treetops; beneath whose shade the wolf and the wildcat, the badger and the fox, yet roamed at large, and preyed upon the wild deer and the lesser game. It bore the name of Walderne, which signifies a sylvan spot frequented by ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... This curate of mine is becoming quite humorous, and picking up all our Celtic ways. I don't at all like it, because I would much rather he would keep up all his graceful dignity. But there again—the eternal environments. How far ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... riding on shadowy steeds like those vague figures which seem to thread their way through some panel of Gothic tapestry. There is an element of stiacciato in the Entombment, giving it the air of a mystery rather than of an historical fact. The draperies are thin and graceful, suited to the softer modelling of the limbs: some of the faces are almost dainty. Passing to the northern pulpit, we come to three scenes divided by heavy buttresses, but unified by figures leaning ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... others, visited the drill-ground almost daily, and when she saw the tall and graceful form of Mr. Beaumont issuing from the colonel's tent, when she saw him mount his superb white horse, which he managed with perfect skill, when she saw the sun glinting on his elegant sword and gold epaulets, and heard his sonorous orders to the men, she almost felt that all Hillaton ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... glorified beings endowed with every charm of physique and of spirit. Such find an irresistible fascination in allowing their fancy to run wild riot and poetic revel in contemplation of a wonderful male creature, so graceful, so beautiful, so strong, so brave, so masterly, so bad or so good as the case may be—a spirit of chivalry incarnate in the perfection of the flesh. They cannot build a shrine too lofty, nor burn too generous store of incense before this exalted one. The man, as he reads, smiles. Such a brother ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... powers or comprehension. She studies her author attentively, conceives justly, and describes with a firm consciousness of propriety. She is sparing in her action, because English nature does not act much; but it is always proper, picturesque, graceful, and dignified: it arises immediately from the sentiments and feeling, and is not seen to prepare itself before it begins. No studied trick or start can be predicted;—no forced tremulation of the figure, where the vacancy of the eye declares the absence of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... arrived at the first stop, and I was just about to ask the guard who flashed his lantern into the compartment why there was no No. 1, when she entered. In the yellow rays I thought it was a vision: a pale, graceful, beautiful woman, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... spirit in the girl, and had she come to earth without her background of orthodox traditions, she might have easily found her own deities in nature. The peace of the snow enveloped her soul as well as the earth, and she became a beneficiary of the white storm; the graceful droop of the pine boughs extended to her thoughts, and the clamor of the birds aroused in her a winged freedom, so that she felt at once peace and a sort of ecstasy. She walked in the track of a stolidly plodding man before her, as different a person as ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... can never penetrate into the perplexing labyrinth of court intrigue, and it will always have difficulty in detecting the turpitude which lurks under elegant manners, refined tastes, and graceful language. But to pillage the public purse, and to vend the favors of the State, are arts which the meanest villain may comprehend, and hope ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... more elaborately graceful. Bobby Ogden hugged his knees beneath the table, for he knew from the very suavity of that reply all that was brewing. Hogarty's silken ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... left of that kind of beauty. She had kept her figure, it is true—a graceful, easy moving figure, with the waist of a girl; well-proportioned arms and small, dainty hands. She had kept, too, her charm of manner and keen sense of humor—she wouldn't have been Peter's sister otherwise—as well as her interest ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... gained some slight footing, which he was certainly not the man to relinquish. He had gained ground with Lady Throckmorton too, and in Denis Oglethorpe's absence, had begun almost to fill his place. He was graceful, faithful in her ladyship's service; he talked politics with her when she was gravely inclined, and told her the news when she was in a good humor; he was indefatigable and dignified at once, which is a rare combination; and he ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... settled upon one after the other, and credited the lieutenant with excellent taste; then believed he must be wrong, for, after dancing with his fourth partner—a tall, sweet-faced, graceful girl—he saw him lead her up to a thin, washed-out lady, of—well, middle age; and the next moment ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... he says: "I went with prejudice, and a critical spirit, incident to those who fancy they know anything in art. I acknowledge to your Lordship that I have never seen a nobler pile.... It is, without hyperbolies, the best contrived, the most useful, graceful, and magnificent house in England." He enters into the details of the building, and concludes thus: "May that great and illustrious person, whose large and ample heart has honoured his country with so glorious a structure, and ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... elephants to travel over. Cutting one's way day after day through these dense, gloomy forests, through which hardly a ray of light penetrates, was most stifling and depressing. One could hardly breathe, and was quite unable to enjoy the beauty of the magnificent trees, the graceful bamboos and canes, and the wonderful creepers, which abounded, and under other circumstances would have been a source of pleasure; the difficulties we encountered, and the consequent delay in our progress, quite prevented me from being in ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... worked through the middle of the fifteenth century, is chiefly known by his large and graceful compositions in the Pisan Campo Santo. These masterpieces are fast crumbling into mildewed rubbish. He had as much vigor and audacity as Ghirlandaio, with more grace and freshness of invention. He has, however, nothing of his dramatic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... Olympus—triple distilled through tubes of sunlight and perfumed with sweet airs and the smiles of voluptuous houris! Ah, Lord above, you are good to your little Diego! Another sip, my lovely Ana—and bring me the cigarettes. And come, fat lass, do you sit beside me and twine your graceful arms about my neck, while your soft breath kisses my old cheek! Ah, Dios, who would not be human! Caramba! the good God may keep His heaven, if He will but ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... in form. Such a spirit indeed was his as in a finer type had already expressed itself in Caen in the two noble abbeys, under whose shadow he passed the greater part of his life, the dignified and sternly simple Abbaye-aux-Hommes of William the Conqueror and the graceful, richly ornamented Abbaye-aux-Dames of Queen Matilda. Sincerity and truth Wace ever aims at, but he embellishes his narrative with countless imaginative details. As a narrator he has the tendency to garrulity, which few mediaeval ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... whilst he was at his orisons; but his young blood and the fresh morning air both invited him to a scamper. His staff in one hand and his scrip in the other, with springy step and floating locks, he raced along the forest path, as active and as graceful as a young deer. He had not far to go, however; for, on turning a corner, he came on a roadside cottage with a wooden fence-work around it, where stood big John and Aylward the bowman, staring at something within. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "Sh!—" and gazed aside with wide and lustrous eyes, head a little on one side, a hand and forefinger slightly raised, as if to enforce silence, and her graceful figure bent forward—a petrifaction of ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... strongly marked with Indian characteristics, particularly with those of the Comanche type, and as the wild Indian blood predominated, few of the physical traits of the Spaniard remained among them, and outlawry was common. The Spanish conquerors had left on the northern border only their graceful manners and their humility before the cross. The sign of Christianity was prominently placed at all important points on roads or trails, and especially where any one had been killed; and as the Comanche Indians, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... see two Bills. I see only one. Bill was never two-faced in his life. Bill, old man, when I look at you there in the married harness, I'm sorry—" He ceased abruptly and turned on Mary. "Now don't go up in the air, old girl. I'm onto my job. My grandfather was a state senator, and he could spiel graceful an' pleasin' till the cows come home. So can I.—Bill, when I look at you, I'm sorry. I repeat, I'm sorry." He glared challengingly at Mary. "For myself when I look at you an' know all the happiness you got a hammerlock ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... forty churches. Each one has at least five, and several even sixteen, cupolas that are brilliantly painted, and covered with colored glazed bricks, or richly silvered and gilded, glittering in the blue atmosphere like the sun when it is half above the horizon. Even the graceful towers, rising sometimes to considerable heights from the immense mass of houses and gardens, are similarly ornamented, and neither do the larger ones among the palaces lack the addition ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... things in the piece, but from the inheritor of two such good old theatrical names, much is expected. And then there is the Mark Antony of Mr. CHARLES COGHLAN, a rantin', roarin' boy, this Antony, whom no one, I believe, could ever have made really effective; and finally. Her Graceful Majesty, Mrs. LANGTRY, Queen of Egyptian Witchery. Now honestly I do not consider Cleopatra a good part, nor is the play a good play for the matter of that. I believe it never has been a success, but if, apart from the really great attraction ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... one of the most delightful instances of Bach's orchestration, a pastoral symphony, with which the Thomas orchestra have made audiences familiar in this country. Like the symphony of the same style in Handel's "Messiah," it is simple, graceful, and idyllic in character, and pictures the shepherds watching their flocks by night on the plains of Bethlehem. At its conclusion the evangelist resumes his narrative, followed by the chorale: "Break forth, O beauteous, heavenly Light," preluding the announcement of the angel, ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... I could not fail to observe how graceful her port was, and how different from that of the other girls with whom her ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... Miss Gorham, these endless aisles of arches which form part of three miles of stables built by Mulai Ismail, the tyrant sultan. He was a superb horseman. It is said that he was able in one graceful movement to mount his steed, draw his sword, and neatly decapitate the slave who held ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... more of them, and beyond them another herd of some sixty or seventy much larger and wilder-looking animals with white tails, which John at once recognised as vilderbeeste. Nearer to them again, dotted about here and there on the plain, were a couple of dozen or so of graceful yellow springbuck. ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... inscriptions, where the streets fork and women come to fill their water-jars—a dreamy, smelly, sun-drenched little town, drowsing on as it has drowsed for hundreds of years. Nothing ever happens in Gallipoli—I speak as if the war hadn't happened! The graceful Greek sloops, with their bellying sails and turned-up stems and sterns, come sailing in much as they must have come when the Persians, instead of the English and the French, were battering away at the Hellespont. The grave, long-nosed ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... receiving her accustomed homage, and had ready all her sweetest smiles, and most engaging complaisance, as she saw Lionel approach the spot where she was seated. She found, however, that she might as well have reserved them for a fitter occasion, for he passed her without notice, and with a graceful bow, and look that bespoke respect and esteem, laid his trophy at the feet of Ethelinde. Amaranthe had no strength of mind to command herself on such a trial, nor could she conceal the disappointment and vexation it cost her, and was still more insupportably irritated ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... lived in the pleasant town of Henley-upon-Thames, in Oxfordshire, one Francis Blandy, gentleman, attorney-at-law. His wife, nee Mary Stevens, sister to Mr. Serjeant Stevens of Culham Court, Henley, and of Doctors' Commons, a lady described as "an emblem of chastity and virtue; graceful in person, in mind elevated," had, it was thought, transmitted these amiable qualities to the only child of the marriage, a daughter Mary, baptised in the parish church of Henley on 15th July, 1720. Mr. Blandy, as a man of old family and a busy and prosperous practitioner, had become a person ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... very humble servant, sir," says he, bringin' his yellow Panama lid off with a full arm sweep, and throwin' one leg graceful over ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... their organization or lowered in their zoological position, but it is doubtful if we should then class them so high as we now do. We might then dwell more on their resemblances to lower types—to rodents, to insectivora, and to marsupials, and should hardly rank the hideous baboon above the graceful leopard or stately stag. The true conclusion appears to be, that the combination of external characters and internal structure which exists in the monkeys, is that which, when greatly improved, refined, and beautified, was best calculated to become the perfect ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... project was always incalculable, but if her present denied her past and declined responsibility for her future it made a good thing of the hour and kept the actual peculiarly fresh. This time the actual was a bright, gentle, graceful, smiling, young woman in a new dress, eager to go out, drawing on fresh gloves, who looked as if she were about to step into a carriage and—it was Gabriel Nash who thus formulated her physiognomy—do ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... quoth Nimeh, "I will take her to wife." Then he went to his mother and told her of this, and she said to him, "O my son, she is thy handmaid." So he went in to Num and loved her and two years passed over them, whilst Num grew up, nor was there in all Cufa a fairer or sweeter or more graceful girl than she. She learnt the Koran and all manner of knowledge and excelled in music and singing and playing upon all kinds of instruments, so that she surpassed all the folk of her time. One day, as she sat with her husband in the wine-chamber, she took the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... bewitching period, and amongst which one loves to lose oneself, and drink oblivion of an era so very unlike; for the awkward bigots to despotism of our time have not Madame de S'evign'e's address, nor can paint an Indian idol with an hundred hands as graceful as the Apollo of the Belvidere. When will you come and accept my thanks? will Wednesday next suit you? But do you know that I must ask you not to leave your gown behind You, which indeed I never knew you put on Willingly, but ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... son, a regular shop-drudge," he raged inwardly, watching the youth of the Faubourg Saint-Germain pass under his eyes; graceful, spruce, fashionably dressed, with a certain uniformity of air, a sameness due to a fineness of contour, and a certain dignity of carriage and expression; though, at the same time, each one differed from the rest in the setting by which he had chosen to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... character. The queen was really very pretty; she had only one blemish, she always wore a large scarf, in order, it was said, to conceal an ulcerated swelling on her neck. For the rest, she was graceful and her expression, calm and spiritual, was evidence of a ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... perhaps thirty-nine, with bronzed features, clear, brown eyes, and a protruding jaw covered with a stubble of reddish-brown beard, was nevertheless wary of his prisoner. He had not yet obtained Rathburn's gun, and he recognized the unmistakable signs of a seasoned gunman in the lounging but graceful postures of his prisoner, in the way he moved his right hand, in the alertness of his eye. He frowned, for Rathburn was smiling. There was a quality to that smile which was not lost upon the ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... became a little more sane, and a waltz, or something like it, was got up. It was quite pretty, and some of the movements graceful; but the wild spirit of the glens seemed to re-enter them again rather suddenly. The females were expelled from the ring altogether, and the young men braced themselves for a little really heavy work; they dashed, flung, and hurled themselves about like maniacs, stood on their heads and walked on ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the rippling darkness of the streams; the lilies recalled the faintly tinted paleness of her cheeks; the silene roses, scattered throughout the hedges, called forth the remembrance of the young maiden's rosy lips, and the vernal odor of the leaves appeared to him like an emanation of her graceful and ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... certainly much nicer to play with, in the ante-mortem state. But this is a digression. Returning, therefore, not to the mutton, but to the pork, consider the distinctive habits of both pig and Boy at meal-time, and see how nearly identical they are. Watch the innocent in bristles as he places his graceful right paw upon the ear of corn, while he shells and masticates. Turn to the innocent in broadcloth, and notice how he clutches the succulent turkey-leg, and how rapidly he polishes the femoral bone. Throw a second ear of the cereal in the trough, ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... heads began to re-appear above the surface, the vessels were simultaneously inclined so that the water might pour out gradually, and in such measure that by the time the bathers again stood erect, the inverted jars might be quite empty. Nothing could be more graceful than the whole proceedings; and we sat in the shade of the pagoda looking at these water-nymphs for half-an-hour in ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... me with graceful and courteous words, and called me her knight; but in my state of enchantment I could not utter a syllable, and she must have almost thought me dumb. At length my speech returned, and the prayer at once was breathed forth from my heart, that the sweet lady would often again allow ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... and climb more steps to a second gate with similar gargoyles and swarming of dragons, and enter a court where graceful votive lanterns of stone stand like monuments. On my right and left two great grotesque stone lions are sitting—the lions of Buddha, male and female. Beyond is a long low light building, with curved and gabled roof of blue tiles, and three ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... while round the teeth and the lips a number of lovely dimples make their appearance, and her whole countenance assumes a look of perfect health and happiness. See her companion in shot silk and a dove-colored parasol; in what a graceful Watteau-like attitude she reclines. The tall courier who has been bouncing about the deck in attendance upon these ladies (it is his first day of service, and he is eager to make a favorable impression on them and the lady's-maids too) has just brought them from ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... It is well for you. Adhere to that preference—never swerve thence. The other, my dear, if he had been living now, would probably have furnished little support to his daughter. It is, however, a graceful head—taken in youth, I should think. My dear" (turning abruptly), "you acknowledge an inestimable ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... attained the twentieth year of his age. She easily excited the curiosity of her brother, by an interesting picture of the charms of Athenais; large eyes, a well-proportioned nose, a fair complexion, golden locks, a slender person, a graceful demeanor, an understanding improved by study, and a virtue tried by distress. Theodosius, concealed behind a curtain in the apartment of his sister, was permitted to behold the Athenian virgin: the modest youth immediately declared his pure and honorable love; and the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... the language of gentlemen; and their answer or their address is returned in the same style. They stand not aloof with the gaping vacuity of vulgar ignorance, nor bend with the cringe of sycophantic insignificance. The graceful pride of truth knows no extremes, and preserves, in every latitude of life, the right-angled character ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... a crimson velvet fauteuil rose a lovely woman, who advanced to meet me with outstretched hands. Her mourning dress fell in graceful folds around her tall, queenly figure, and from the same dark dress her fair face and golden head shone out bright and luminous as a jewel ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... around whose history romance has woven so many a tale; and it was with a start of peculiar surprises and a thrill of emotion he could not have analyzed, that the boy beheld the little prince of his dreams. For in those beautiful princely features, in the alert graceful figure and the floating curls of gold, Paul seemed to see his own lineaments reproduced, and gave one bewildered glance toward his mother to see if perchance the same ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... apart; she wore a dark green close-fitting cloth dress; on her graceful golden head was a small green velvet cap. She was picking a late rose to pieces, and waiting for the others with a look of languid indifference on her face. Now she roused herself, and asked ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... lightning. Stanton approached, and heard the voices of the bearers repeating, "There is none who will mourn for her!" "There is none who will mourn for her!" said other voices, as two more bore in their arms the blasted and blackened figure of what had once been a man, comely and graceful;—"there is not ONE to mourn for her now!" They were lovers, and he had been consumed by the flash that had destroyed her, while in the act of endeavoring to defend her. As they were about to remove the bodies, a person approached with a calmness ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... at her with appreciation. She wore a thin, black dress made after the latest London mode, which showed to advantage the graceful lines of her tall figure; the Jernynghams, who seldom departed from an established custom, changed their attire every evening. Gertrude had on no hat, and the fading light shone into her face. It was finely cut but cold, the features unusually good. She ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss |
