"Levity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the office be overcome by a deference for the reasons and opinions of my friends, might I not, after the declarations I have made (and Heaven knows that they were made in the sincerity of my heart), in the judgment of the impartial world and of posterity, be chargeable with levity and inconsistency, if not with rashness and ambition? Nay, farther, would there not be some apparent foundation for the two former charges? Now, justice to myself and tranquillity of conscience require that I should act a part, if not above imputation, at least capable of vindication. Nor will ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... up the ground, that though the saints were not omnipresent, yet God, who was so, imparted to them the prayers offered up, and then they used their interference with Him to grant them. 'That is, father, (said C. in reply)—excuse my seeming levity, for I mean no impiety—that is; I have a deaf and dumb wife, who yet understands me, and I her, by signs. You have a favour to ask of me, and want my wife's interference; so you communicate your request ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... possessed of the confidence of the Cabinet. All this will appear to furnish inadequate grounds for recalling Colborne, who has acted with sense and vigour, albeit not pretending to be a statesman or a legislator. A story is told, which shows the levity of the Government people, and how they make game of what might be thought matter of anything but pleasantry to them. At the end of the season there is always a fish dinner at Greenwich, the whipper-in (Secretary of Treasury), Ben Stanley, in the chair; and this is on the ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... to please you no longer. You can be pleased with nothing when you are not pleased with your wife. One of the "Spectators" is very just that says, "A man ought always to be upon his guard against spleen and a too severe philosophy; a woman, against levity and coquetry." If we go to Naples, I will make no acquaintance there of any kind, and you will be in a place where a variety of agreeable objects will dispose you to be ever pleased. If such a thing is possible, this will secure our everlasting happiness; and I am ready to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... young man pursued in a spirit that was but half levity, "though I yield often to temptation, at times I have resisted it, and here I should miss the very chance to resist. Your garden could never be Eden for me, because temptation ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister
... Blanchard's maid and Miss Blanchard's maid go abroad with their mistresses. The third exceptional case is the case of the upper housemaid; and here there is a little hitch. In plain words, the housemaid has been sent away at a moment's notice, for what Mrs. Blanchard rather mysteriously describes as 'levity of conduct with ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... had power been more centralized, and never in France had the reins been held by persons so pitiful, impelled by motives so contemptible. The levity, vanity, and spite of a concubine became a mighty engine to influence the destinies of nations. Louis XV., enervated by pleasures and devoured by ennui, still had his emotions; he shared Pompadour's detestation of Frederic, and he was tormented at times by a lively fear of damnation. ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... knight of La Mancha in character, it would have been safe for nobody to laugh at James Lampton, or by the slightest intimation, look or gesture to treat him with inconsideration, or any proposal of his, however preposterous, with levity. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... ought, sincere, it would have taught thee Far other reasonings, brought forth other deeds. I before all the daughters of my Tribe And of my Nation chose thee from among My enemies, lov'd thee, as too well thou knew'st, Too well, unbosom'd all my secrets to thee, Not out of levity, but over-powr'd 880 By thy request, who could deny thee nothing; Yet now am judg'd an enemy. Why then Didst thou at first receive me for thy husband? Then, as since then, thy countries foe profest: Being once a wife, for me ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... and the most daring intrepidity in maintaining it. Religious controversy sharpens the understanding by the subtlety and remoteness of the topics it discusses, and braces the will by their infinite importance. We perceive in the history of this period a nervous masculine intellect. No levity, no feebleness, no indifference; or if there were, it is a relaxation from the intense activity which gives a tone to its general character. But there is a gravity approaching to piety; a seriousness of impression, a conscientious severity of argument, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... he, with seriousness and levity, 'I've been a manager of one thing and another for over twenty years. That's what I was cut out for—to have somebody else to put up the money and look after the repairs and the police and taxes while I run the business. I never had a dollar ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... word of two or three syllables in the close. It is, indeed, below so great a master to make use of such a little instrument. But his good sense is perpetually shining through all he writes; it affords us not the time of finding faults: we pass through the levity of his rhyme, and are immediately carried into some admirable useful thought. After all, he has chosen this kind of verse, and has written the best in it, and had he taken another he would always have excelled; ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... assumes in Catholic countries, is a point which I cannot presume to determine. It is true, that it may frequently occasion such ridiculous scenes as those which I have mentioned; and our habits of mind, as Protestants, may lead us to conceive that such familiarity may tend to generate levity and indifference. On the other hand, however, amidst all the mummery which may mix itself up with the occasional ceremonies of the Catholic service, there is much worthy of commendation in the more common ordinances, to which alone a sensible Catholic must look ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... fathom the moral attitude of these people. He was still suspicious of them, notwithstanding a growing tendency to like every one of their pleasant, really agreeable faces. There was neither solemnity, sourness, nor bitterness to be seen anywhere; at the same time, there was no sign of levity. In every countenance was the same inexplicable mixture of wisdom and benevolence that distinguished Estra. Nowhere was there hostility, and nowhere was there crudity. Somehow, the big geologist would have felt more at home had he seen something ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... we had only a gleam of moonshine," said Lucy with a sigh. Moonshine! How often had George in the course of his life talked with levity, almost amounting to contempt, of things being "all a matter of moonshine!" What would he not have given to have had only a tithe of the things which surrounded him at that time converted ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... century there shines a certain quickness and sensibility; he even condescends to be lively after a stately fashion, and to indulge in a little 'raillying,' only guarding himself rather too carefully against unbecoming levity. Indeed, though a man of the world at the present day would be as much astonished at his elaborate manners as at his laced coat and sword, he would admit that Sir Charles was by no means wanting in tact; his talk is weighted with more elaborate ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... a light and innocent heart. And scarcely less melodious was the joyous and gleeful laugh, in which she ever and anon gave way to the promptings of a lively and playful imagination. Let it not, however, be thought that all this apparent levity of manner was the result of an unthinking or uncalculating mind, or that it was in her case, as it frequently is in others, associated with qualities which exclude the finer and better feelings of female nature. It was by no means so. With all her gaiety and sportiveness, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... That the survivor of us endeavour, after the death of either of us, to maintain the reputation and dignity of the deceased, by avoiding levity of behaviour, dissoluteness of life and disgraceful marriage; not only so, but that such survivor persevere in good offices to the children of the deceased, as a discreet, faithful, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... inspiration and its comparative finish, like tapioca imitating pearls. Either view—possibly both—may be right. I will only say that with an occasional exception for some piece of rebelliousness or even levity which may have taken my fancy, I have tried to choose no verse but ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... it to my own, you mean. Thank you, Mr. Lind. The public is more accustomed to associate conjugal levity with the name of Lind than ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... became stern, and dropping the tone of levity which he had employed, he opened the letter Sam had forged, and suddenly handing it to ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... you to guard against these inequalities in your character. To-day I could even accuse you of levity. Dearest Sara, Marshire is hardly the man to be kept waiting ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... laugh at or admire, put them on or off like a masquerade-dress, make much or little of them, indulge them for a longer or a shorter time, as he pleased; and because while they amused his fancy and exercised his ingenuity, they never once disturbed his vanity, his levity, or indifference. His mind was the antithesis of strength and grandeur; its power was the power of indifference. He had none of the enthusiasm of poetry; he was in poetry what the sceptic is ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... apogee, and was on the wane. The Puritan had stretched his austereness to the point of levity; the Dutchman had comfortably sweated his obedience and content; the Cavalier had paced it with a pretty air of patronage and an eye for matron and maid; the Indian, come from his far hunting-grounds, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... at full length on the turf behind the Lodge, literally biting the earth in spasms of joy. Stalky kicked him upright. There was nothing of levity about Stalky or McTurk save a stray ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... Puddleham may preach to his heart's content,—as he will, no doubt, to his hearers' welfare, and will not annoy me in the least." On hearing this, Mr. Puddleham pushed his hat off his forehead and looked up and frowned, as though the levity of expression in which his rival indulged, was altogether unbecoming the solemnity of ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... reply to this levity was a look of superior resignation as she crossed the hall and ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... and the idol of her heart, had already been the idol of the nation before he had completed his youth. She had also another blessing not always commanded by the most devoted love; many sons there are who think it essential to manliness that they should treat their mother's doating anxiety with levity, or even ridicule. But Pope, who was the model of a good son, never swerved in words, manners, or conduct, from the most respectful tenderness, or intermitted the piety of his attentions. And so far did he carry this regard for his mother's comfort, that, well knowing how she lived upon ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... measuredly, lifted and let fall throughout the length of all the curious performance. The voice was not unmusical, nor was the quaint old ballad-air adopted by the singer unlovely in the least; simply a monotony was evident that accorded with the levity and chance-finish of the improvisation—and that the song was improvised on the instant I am certain—though in nowise remarkable, for other reasons, in rhythmic worth or finish. And while his smiling auditors all drew nearer, and ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... struck Eyer for his grinning levity; but at that moment a door opened in the side of the large building and a man in ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... the matter was that the difficulty in question had arisen not from any tendency in the lady to behave in the Lombard capital with more reprehensible levity than, it must unfortunately be admitted, she had been very well known to have behaved in other places and on other occasions; but from a change in her manners in a diametrically opposite direction. It was a change of tactics, which the strictest moralist must ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... which the eye would most naturally have been riveted, so as to have seen little else, and to have been quite out of a condition to arithmetise the pettinesses of things. Such treatment would better suit the levity of the author of the "Pucelle" than the grave historian or the still more serious and impressive historical painter. It is very important that Mr Etty, if he is likely to be again selected to pronounce judgment upon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... was finally opened and one by one the dull yellow bars were piled on the scales, there was too much tenseness to allow of even a show of levity. Zephyr had no doubts. No one could have got at the safe while in the river; he could swear to that. From its delivery to the driver by Firmstone there had been no time nor opportunity to tamper with its contents. As for Firmstone, he had too much at stake to be entirely free from anxiety, though ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... should not hesitate to sacrifice others when they offended. With all his severity he took good care to let transgressors know what they had to expect, and he felt the less compunction, therefore, in inflicting penalties deliberately incurred. Life for the Puritan was a very serious affair, and levity a crime only milder than non-orthodoxy. Gaming even for amusement was rigidly prohibited. It was a criminal act to kiss a woman in the street, even in the way of chaste and honest salute. The heads of households were called to account if the daughters neglected ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... estimation. A purer, sweeter, truer-hearted girl than Blanche I had never seen. There was an artlessness and innocence about her but rarely met with in young ladies of her age. Especially was she free from that worldliness and levity which so often mars young maidenhood. Her mind was well stored and cultivated, and she was beginning to use her mental treasures in a way that interested you, and made you listen with pleased attention when she spoke on even common-place subjects. Her manners had in them a grace and dignity ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... the strange way in which her mind seemed to vibrate from the deepest earnest to mere levity. "What ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... make it a success. Zachariah and Caillaud were not of much use in organisation, and the whole burden fell upon the Major. Externally gay, and to most persons justifying the charge of frivolity, he was really nothing of the kind when he had once settled down to the work he was born to do. His levity was the mere idle sport of a mind unattached and seeking its own proper object. He was like a cat, which will play with a ball or its own tail in the sunshine, but if a mouse or a bird crosses its path will fasten on it with sudden ferocity. He wrought like a slave ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... October, the decisive crisis came. The new Secretary of State had been long sick of the perfidy and levity of the First Lord of the Treasury, and began to fear that he might be made a scapegoat to save the old intriguer who, imbecile as he seemed never wanted dexterity where danger was to be avoided. Fox threw up his office, Newcastle had recourse to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that is the sharpest thing about me. You may think I can have no sense of my condition, that while I am thus wretched, I should offer at ridicule: but, Sir, people constituted like me, with a disproportioned levity of spirits, are always most merry when they are most miserable; and quicken like the eyes of the consumptive, which are always brightest the nearer the patient approaches his dissolution. However, Sir, to show you I am not lost to all reflection, I think myself poor enough to ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... State! You have made yourself liable to be brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... relating her dream. He was by nature inclined to be reserved, but yet possessed a fund of quiet humor, and he delighted to quiz Aunt Debie and her Quaker friends in respect to their superstitious fancies. But Aunt Debie could not look upon this levity with any degree of allowance, in fact, she viewed it as little else than profanity. "Did thee eat mince pie, dough nuts, or plum cake? If thee did, thee must be more careful in thy diet, or thee may dream something even ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... don't approve the cynical levity of such remarks. Of course we must all be anxious to see, in the earliest stage of being, the future representative of our name and race. Who would not wish to contemplate the source, however small, of the Tigris or ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the sake of trade; but when the brethren advised them to make the salvation of their soul their chief concern, they all began to offer excuses, yet on being spoken to about the consequences of death, they did not, as formerly, treat it with levity; some even appeared thoughtful after such conversations, and five persons removed from the heathen to the settlement. Of those who had resided with them for some time, they had the pleasure, on Easter Sunday, ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... the rich vein of humor which runs through George Eliot's works there was comparatively little trace in her conversation, which seldom descended from the grave to the gay. But although she rarely indulged in conversational levity herself, she was most tolerant of it, and even encouraged its ebullition, in others, joining heartily in any mirth which might be ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... go, and his face looked grey and small. Something in him had mutinied at the levity, the quick change of her mood. He could only draw into his shell; doubtless he thought that a legitimate ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... this, perhaps misplaced, levity, we proceed to Act III., in which we find that, fortune having shuffled the cards, and the judge and jury cut them, Mr. Titmouse turns up possessor of Yatton and ten thousand a-year; while Aubrey, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... The hopping-sallows open, and yield their palms before other sallows, and when they are blown (which is about the exit of May, or sometimes June) the palms (or olesikarpoi frugiperdae, as Homer terms them for their extream levity) are four inches long, and full of a fine lanuginous cotton. Of this sort, there is a salix near Dorking in Surrey, in which the julus bears a thick cottonous substance. A poor body might in an hour's space, gather a pound or two of ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... season of time, so dangerous for the moral purity of the young man, his Mother again was his good Genius; a warning and request, in her soft tone of love sufficed to recall youthful levity within the barriers again, and restore the balance. She anxiously contrived, too, that the Son, often and willingly, visited his Father's house. Whenever Schiller had decided to give himself a good day, he wandered out with some friend as far as Solituede.' ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... literature was classed among the Studia Arabum"[FN126] Nor is the shady side of the picture less notable. Our Arab at his worst is a mere barbarian who has not forgotten the savage. He is a model mixture of childishness and astuteness, of simplicity and cunning, concealing levity of mind under solemnity of aspect. His stolid instinctive conservatism grovels before the tyrant rule of routine, despite that turbulent and licentious independence which ever suggests revolt against the ruler: his ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... boots. When one of the surgeons begged for the body of a deserter to dissect, 'Well,' said the wretch, 'but you must let me have the skeleton to hang up in the guard-room,' Such was the temper of the times; vice, childishness, levity at court, brutality in the camp, were the order of the day. Horace, even Horace, worldly in all, indifferent as to good and bad, seems to have been heart sick. His brother's matrimonial infidelity vexed him also sorely. Lady Orford, 'tired,' as he expresses it, of 'sublunary affairs,' ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... not merely uninformed of, but in general, perfectly indifferent to political matters. This ignorance may in a great measure result from the unthinking and pleasure-seeking character of the Viennese public—which levity is encouraged by the Government, as taverns and concert rooms are open long after private houses are closed—but is also to be traced to the uneasy position which the citizens hold with respect to the police. It is not alone that the restrictions ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... our welcome or obstinate in our refusal. We shall be bored but concessive. I confess that there are some things in the prospect of this imitation which haunt me like a nightmare. The British soldier, whom the German knows to be second to none, is distinguished for the levity and jocularity of his bearing in the face of danger. What will happen when the German soldier attempts to imitate that? We shall be delivered from the German peril as when Israel came out of Egypt, and the mountains ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... characterize the curious combination of levity and seriousness that runs through this tale. There is no illusion of reality anywhere; there is no agony of soul in Baron Pon's confession; Nerto's terror when she learns that she is the property of the Devil is far from impressive, because she says too much, ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... is always a levity in Antonio's manner of replying to me on this subject that is very alarming.—'Sdeath, if Clara should ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... suppose? Balloon is a whole-hearted fellow. I can't help loving that man, for all his drollery and waggishness. He puts on an air of levity sometimes, but there aint a man in the senate knows the scriptures as he does. He did ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... thus always anticipate in her own mind the needs of the daughter, and prepare her for the changes in her physical condition which will come with maturity, in the simplest, the tenderest, and the most reverent manner. Everything approaching to levity or coarseness of speech should be utterly avoided, so that, while the young girl will speak frankly and without shame to her mother or her physician, she will shun light speaking to chance companions as she would blasphemy.[29] And here the great lesson of a high standard of health should be ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... Briarmains; evinced it to-day by the grand condescension of a personal visit. Her reasons for the preference, as assigned by herself, were that Miss Moore was a woman of steady deportment, without the least levity of conversation or carriage; also that, being a foreigner, she must feel the want of a friend to countenance her. She might have added that her plain aspect, homely, precise dress, and phlegmatic, unattractive manner were to her so many additional recommendations. It is certain, at least, that ladies ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... to him any one temperament. He was neither sanguine, like Peter, nor choleric, like Paul, nor melancholy, like John, nor phlegmatic, as James is sometimes, though incorrectly, represented to have been; but he combined the vivacity without the levity of the sanguine, the vigor without the violence of the choleric, the seriousness without the austerity of the melancholic, the calmness without the apathy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Knight, Death, and the Devil,' or Orcagna's 'Triumph of Death.' In Holbein's designs there is no noble consoling faith; there is but a fierce defiance and wild mockery of inevitable fate, such as goes beyond the levity with which the Venetians in the time of the plague retired to their country-houses and danced, sung, and told tales, till the pestilence was upon them. It has a closer resemblance to the piteous madness with which the condemned prisoners during the French ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... railroads and canals, nor of interstate relations, reconstructions, amnesty; not even of the omnivorous question, The War, do I propose to treat under the head of 'Our Domestic Affairs;' but of a subject which, though scarcely ever discussed except flippantly, and with unworthy levity, in that broad arena of public journalism in which almost every other conceivable topic is discussed, is yet second to none, if not absolutely first of all in its bearings upon our domestic happiness. I refer to the question of domestic service ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... per cent. of the lady's fortune, if she would find me a mark with unsettled money. Though she laughed it off, she was not a little scandalized by my levity. The Tough Old Stick has not outlived her memory of romance. Indeed, I think she holds to it all the tighter for her ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... reader's knowledge of them, Rosa passes through the swift transformations which a "Hey, presto!" is quite sufficient to announce. In the early part of the book she is an embodiment of silliness, levity and selfishness—in the latter part she is reason, self-devotion and passionate love personified. As for Dr. Staines, there is no need of any apotheosis in his case: as the hero of the book he must perforce be that renowned prestidigitateur whom Mr. Reade long since presented to an admiring ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... to-day worth, or its duties or its cares?" All deep minds have thought that. The thought of Time is solemn and awful to all minds in proportion to their depth—and in proportion as the mind is superficial, the thought has appeared little, and has been treated with levity. Brethren, let but a man possess himself of that thought—the deep thought of the brevity of time; this thought—that time is short, and that eternity is long—and he has learned the first great secret ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... frescoed curtain, but deceive no one who cares to consider how impossible it would be for them to perform this service, and caper so ignobly as they do at the same time. In fact this tomb of Ariosto shocks with its hideousness and levity. It stood formerly in the Church of San Benedetto, where it was erected shortly after the poet's death, and it was brought to the Library by the French, when they turned the church into a barracks for their troops. The poet's dust, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... a tone of deep and serious feeling, altogether different from the usual levity of Catherine's manner, and plainly showed, that beneath the giddiness of extreme youth and total inexperience, there lurked in her bosom a deeper power of sense and feeling, than ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... an honest frankness, which the novelty of her situation excused, she confirmed the truth of what he had before heard, and addressing him by the name of fair Mountague (love can sweeten a sour name), she begged him not to impute her easy yielding to levity or an unworthy mind, but that he must lay the fault of it (if it were a fault) upon the accident of the night which had so strangely discovered her thoughts. And she added, that though her behaviour to him might not be sufficiently prudent, measured by the custom of her sex, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Observation, namely, That Persons of facetious Talents and agreeable Humour, in whose Temperament, Judgment, and Discretion, as before observ'd, are usually found in a disproportionate Measure, are more inclin'd than others to Levity and dissolute Manners: The same swiftness of Thought and sprightliness of Imagination, that qualifies them for ingenious Conversation, Sports of Fancy and Comick Writing, do likewise give them an exquisite Taste of sensual Pleasures, and expose them to the prevailing Power of Tempting, tho ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... We must settle on something in short order. I spoke in the most matter-of-fact tones that I could summon, not, heaven knows, out of a feeling of levity concerning what had happened, but to try to lighten the grim business a degree or so ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... so glum, Dr. Christobal?" she demanded. "Has the captain's quip given you a shock, or is it that you are surprised at my levity?" ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... inquiry, but levity was not our note, and, at any rate, before the gray dawn admonished us to separate I had got my answer. What my friend had had in mind proved to be immensely to the purpose. It was neither more nor less than the circumstance ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... troublesome than what are called laughing people. A professed laugher is as contemptible and tiresome a character as a professed wit: the one is always contriving something to laugh at, the other is always laughing at nothing. An excess of levity is as impertinent as an excess of gravity. A character of this sort is well personified by Spenser, in the "Damsel of the ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... undertaken in all levity. And with his chief's complete departure a change came into the mien of Mr. Adolph Meyers. He told the stenographer in the outer office to engage two girls to copy a play that afternoon and evening, to keep him from being interrupted ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... downstairs Paul was lying back in an armchair, holding forth with much vehemence to Agatha, who was scorning a little painting he had brought to show her. Miriam glanced at the two, and avoided their levity. She went into the parlour to ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... rather wantonly accuses Deianira of "levity"—all her motives, on the contrary, are pure and high, though tender ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... so far as to enjoin mortification of the flesh. And even in those modern denominations which have been organized under the latest formulations of the creed, in a modern industrial community, it is felt that all levity and avowed zest in the enjoyment of the good things of this world is alien to the true clerical decorum. Whatever suggests that these servants of an invisible master are living a life, not of devotion to their master's good fame, ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... grandmama, Sally," observed Miss Mitty, and I could see that the levity of the girl had ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... when you mitigate my Guilt, and miscall it a Credulity; 'twas a passionate, and most unjustifiable Levity, and must still have remain'd unpardonable, whatever Truth might have been found in its ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... manhood, equality before the law, freedom, peace on earth, and good-will to men,—the United States, heretofore and seen in a large way, has, among nations, assumed a peculiar, and, from the moral point of view, unquestionably a lofty attitude. Speaking historically it might, and with no charge of levity, be compared with a similar moral attitude assumed among men eighteen centuries before by the Saviour. It discountenanced armaments and warfare; it advocated arbitrations, and bowed to their awards; spreading its arms and protection ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... loss to interpret this singular levity. He had never truly believed that reading of Nancy's character by means of which he tried to persuade himself that his marriage was an unmitigated calamity, and a final parting between them the best thing ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... only happy by mirth and wantonness, by laughter and jesting, the companion of levity, but ofttimes the serious sort reap felicity from their firmness and constancy." —Cicero, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... respects the siege of 1649 foreshadowed that of 1870. There were the same levity and anarchy, the same endurance and courage. Conde and Moltke both experienced similar difficulties in their attempts to subdue the French capital. Through the influence of De Retz negotiations were entered into with Spain, and a Spanish envoy arrived in Paris. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... our forte lies in both—in the two united, or alternating with each other. "But is it not quite shocking," exclaims some scribbler who has been knouted in Ebony, "to hear so very serious an affair as the death of a Quaker in the snow among mountains, treated with such heartless levity? The man who wrote that description, sir, of the Ordinary of the Red Tarn Club, would not scruple to commit murder!" Why, if killing a scribbler be murder, the writer of that—this—article confesses that ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... That, for some cause wholly hidden from me, the mysterious utterance had shaken his nature to its deepest foundations, was made plainer by his endeavour to treat the whole business with a sort of cynical levity. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... story from his mind. Having begun a friendship for Mary he put the man in the barber shop into a class with Windy McPherson and thought of him as a pretender and liar who talked for the sake of talk. He remembered with a shock the crude levity with which the loafers in the shop had greeted the repetition of the tale. Their comments had come back to his mind as he walked through the streets with his newspapers and had given him a kind of jolt. ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... manner had changed; his levity had suddenly given place to a gravity most unusual to him, and instead of his wonted jollity his face wore an expression of the greatest seriousness. He, after a casual glance at Lawrence, suddenly insisted that it was necessary to exchange a cartel, ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... remains of what was once Government House. The President, after having organised a band of pic-pockettini (desperadoes taken from the gaols), has gone into the provinces, declaring that he has a toothache. By some, this declaration is deemed a subterfuge, by others, a statement savouring of levity. The artillery are now reducing the entire town to atoms, under the personal supervision of the Minister of Finance, who deprecates waste in ammunition, and declares that he is bound to the President by the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... other in a new position. However feebly she may have tried to flee, she had nevertheless made the attempt. It was on account of my prayers that she remained; there was an obligation implied. I was under oath not to grieve her either by my jealousy or my levity; every thoughtless or mocking word that escaped me was a sin, every sorrowful glance from her was a reproach acknowledged ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... in spite of the humor of the situation and the levity of the ladies, there was a characteristic national practicalness about them, and the consul, with a sigh, at last gave the address of one or two responsible experts in genealogical inquiry, as he had often done before. He felt it was impossible to offer any advice to ladies as thoroughly capable ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... England only an effervescence from the cloaca maxima of the putrid instincts which fasten themselves on national sin, and are in the midst of the luxury of European capitals, what Dante meant when he wrote "quel mi sveglio col puzzo," of the body of the Wealth-Siren; the mocking levity and mocking gloom being equally signs of the death of the soul; just as, contrariwise, a passionate seriousness and passionate joyfulness are signs of its full life in works such as those of Angelico, Luini, Ghiberti, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... intellect. It is to minds of this stamp—so truly the antipodes of all that is youthful, spontaneous, and child-like, (in a word: frivolous,) that we must look for those solid works which, in the Millennium that is coming, will perfectly supplant what may be termed, without levity, the "Cock and Bull" system of juvenile entertainment. Worldly people may consider this stuff graceful and touching, sweet and loveable; but it is nevertheless clearly mischievous, else pious and proper persons wouldn't have said so, ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... been my guide and counsellor on every former occasion, I will subdue the dejection which would otherwise overwhelm me. Therefore, as, Heaven knows, I have time enough to write, I will endeavour to pour my thoughts out, as fully and freely as of old, though probably without the same gay and happy levity. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... the one who loses this throw, be it you or me, he has my pity! It were better for him—how does the Bible say?—that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the depth of the sea. Let us take a drink," he concluded suddenly, but without any levity of tone. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... come to that at last. Well, I am right glad of it. But, my dear Ronayne," taking and cordially pressing his hand, "forgive my levity. I only sought to divert you from your purpose. What I can do for you, I will do; but tell me ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... any Choctaw or Sioux Indian. Of course, not all the Irish, even of the wretchedly poor, are thus unskilled and helpless, but a deplorably large class is; and it is this class whose awkwardness and utter ignorance are too often made the theme of unthinking levity and ridicule when the poor exile from home and kindled lands in New York and undertakes housework or anything else for a living. The "awkwardness," which means only inability to do what one has never even seen done, is not confined to any class or ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... were made to flow. They began with thanking God with having given them life, and providing them necessary food; and then praised him for the good examples they had been favoured with. From these melancholy rites were banished all licentiousness and levity, and while other customs changed, these continued the same. They roasted the flesh of the victim they had offered, and eat it in common, discoursing on the virtues of him they ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... and preached with great zeal and unction, often to very large audiences, and sometimes with such unsparing denunciation of common sins as to awaken opposition. He considered it his duty to rebuke iniquity, and on one occasion severely reproved a student for shocking levity,—reading a play with some young ladies while their father lay dying. He feared the result of this might be estrangement from his friend, but prayed earnestly that it might lead to his awakening. This prayer was answered, and afterwards this very friend became his beloved ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... seldom. Only customers of the highest importance might speak with her. She was a power felt rather than seen. Employes who knocked at her door always did so with a certain awe of what awaited them on the other side, and a consciousness that the moment was unsuitable for levity. 'If you please, Miss Eva——'. Here she gave audience to the 'buyers' and window-dressers, listened to complaints and excuses, and occasionally had a secret orgy of afternoon tea with one or two of her friends. None but these few girls—mostly younger than herself, ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Leighton, flushing at her levity before the very portals of the church. "She's all right. I looked back, and saw ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... pursue the subject: we have said enough to disclose the utter levity of those who should have realized from the first that the New China is a matter of life and death to the people, and that the first business of the foreigner is to uphold the new beliefs. The Goodnow Memorandum, immediately ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... But her levity in such a crisis only excited her lover the more. "Everybody at the station was laughing at you. To-night when you traipsed down the stairs, looking so pretty in your new dress, you had to spoil everything ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... to earth and find his apostolic successors living in such a grand house as the Vatican. Ah, they are jolly fishermen!—Landor, Landor! how can you be so wicked?" he said, checking himself with mock seriousness; "Giallo does not approve of such levity. He tells me he is a good Catholic, for he always refuses meat on Friday, even when I offer him a tempting bit. He is a pious dog, and will intercede for his naughty old Padrone ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... came to the Albany in sober frame, for all our recent levity, thinking at least no evil for once in our lawless lives. And there was our good friend Barraclough, the porter, to salute and welcome us ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... surface the heat would not penetrate sufficiently to begin melting ice at a depth of 3 inches in less than about two hours. As, therefore, the heated water cannot impart its heat to its neighboring particles, it remains expanded and rises by its levity, while colder portions come to be heated in turn, thus setting up currents ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... a truck with one hand." Which statement of the case, combined with the cripple's optimism, made us laugh—all except the one-eyed girl, espying whom, the maimed girl suddenly changed the tone of levity with which she treated her own misfortune, and asked in a lowered voice: "What's the matter with yer eye?" And the hospital ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... having secured the treaty with Sirajuddaula he resolved to turn his arms against the French. They were suspected of helping the Nawab in his expedition against Calcutta: it was known that the Nawab, treating his engagements with reckless levity and faithlessness, was trying to persuade Bussy, the French commander in the Dekkan, to help him to expel the British from Bengal. There was excuse enough for an attack ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... these pictures of women, which, however the common tone of society, by the grossness and levity of the remarks bandied from tongue to tongue, would seem to say to the contrary, declare there is still in the breasts of men a capacity for pure and ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... showing himself the man of feeling and honour, was finely marked of yore by old Tom King.[483] I remember particularly the high strain of grave moral feeling which he threw upon the words—"in a false quarrel there is no true valour"—which, spoken as he did, checked the very brutal levity of the Prince and Claudio. There were two farces; one I wished to see, and that being the last, was obliged to tarry for it. Perhaps the headache I contracted made me a severe critic on Cramond Brig,[484] a little piece ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... when crown'd, no king. Those grand and general powers, which Heaven design'd, An instance of his mercy to mankind, Were lost, in storms of dissipation hurl'd, Nor would he give one hour to bless a world; Lighter than levity which strides the blast, And, of the present fond, forgets the past, He changed and changed, but, every hope to curse, Changed only from one folly to a worse: 590 State he resign'd to those whom state could please; Careless of majesty, his ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... understand by flirtation is not encouraged, unless it is almost sure to lead to marriage; and what the Germans understand by flirtation is justly considered scandalous and reprehensible. For the Germans have taken the word into use, but taken away the levity and innocence of its meaning. They make it a term of serious reproach, and those who dislike us condemn the shocking prevalence of Flirt (they make a noun of the verb) in ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... literary life, with which I have no reason to think the writer just mentioned was acquainted. Now and then I can trace in the turn of a phrase, in the twinkle of an epithet, a faint reminiscence of a certain satirical levity, airiness, jauntiness, if I may hint such a word, which is just enough to remind me of those perilous shallows of his early time through which his richly freighted argosy had passed with such wonderful escape from their dangers and such very slight ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley |
