"Lightness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... glad to see Pearl, and her lightness of heart came back to her, when a group of them gathered around her to receive her admiration and praise for their beautifully curled hair, good clothes and hair ribbons. Bits of family history were freely given to her too, such as Betty ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... whimsical and fantastic humour, which made him do funny little undignified things, like a child. But every single dictum of Melbourne's has got something original and graceful about it—always full of good sense, never pompous, always with a delicious lightness of touch. The only person who took the trouble to put down Melbourne's sayings, just as they came out, was Queen Victoria—but then she was in love with him without knowing it: and in the end he got stuck ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to the subject of their remarks. The girl sat in the front of the box, slim and elegant, her hands clasped loosely in her lap. She was watching the brilliant scene with a certain air of detachment, as if thinking of other things. Her usual lightness and gay banter seemed for the moment to have deserted her, leaving a soft brooding wistfulness ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... accompaniments. The eastern window of the church remained entire, with all its ornaments and tracery work; and the sides, upheld by flying buttresses whose airy support, detached from the wall against which they were placed, and ornamented with pinnacles and carved work, gave a variety and lightness to the building. The roof and western end of the church were completely ruinous; but the latter appeared to have made one side of a square, of which the ruins of the conventual buildings formed other two, and the gardens a fourth. The side ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... them in an overwhelming wave. Some broken remnants, in their terror and confusion, fled from their own countrymen and sought refuge among their enemies, not knowing friend from foe in the obscurity of the groves. The Moors were more adroit in these wild skirmishings from their flexibility, lightness, and agility, and the rapidity with which they would disperse, rally, and return again to ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... then attracted by the extreme fineness and lightness of the texture of his wrapper and hat, which were unlike those sold in the market places. "With what grass are they plaited?" she consequently asked. "It would be strange if you didn't, with this sort of things on, look ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... sufficiently gracious, or a beauty brought into yet clearer relief for the luring and undoing of the unsuspecting male, and so could not have told whether Ursula de Vesc was clad in sober grey or sunny lightness. She was Ursula de Vesc, and that was enough, Ursula de Vesc, the woman of a single hour of life, and yet the one sweet woman ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... maids of the Lowlands Vaunt their silks and their Hollands, In the garb of the Highlands Oh give me my dear! Such a figure for grace! For the Loves such a face! And for lightness the pace That the grass shall not stir. * ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the armor the visitors felt much more at ease. The slightly reduced gravitation gave them a sense of lightness and freedom which more than balanced the junglelike oppressiveness of the air. They found themselves guarding against a certain exuberance; perhaps it was the ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... Fermentative agents Yeast Homemade yeasts How to keep yeast Bitter yeast Tests for yeast Starting the bread Proportion of materials needed Utensils When to set the sponge Temperature for bread-making How to set the sponge Lightness of the bread Kneading the dough How to manipulate the dough in kneading How many times shall bread be kneaded Dryness of the surface Size of loaves Proper temperature of the oven How to test the heat of an oven Care of ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... cried Sneak, pointing up the river. The scene was a remarkable one. They beheld a very small deer (the lightness of which enabled it to run on the snow that covered the ice with great fleetness, without breaking through the crust,) chased about on the river by a pack of wolves! These hungry animals had evidently been racing after it a great length of time, from the distressed appearance of the poor victim, ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... She looked charming with her great boa tied about her throat, and sprang into the dog-cart all lightness and joy. ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... The lightness and grace with which Mysie covered the little round table with a snow-white cloth, and arranged upon it the hastily-roasted capon, with its accompanying stoup of Bourdeaux, were but plebeian graces in themselves; but yet there were very flattering ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... back to the night in Barbizon when Carthew told his story, and asked him what was done about Bellairs. It seemed he had put the matter to his friend at once, and that Carthew took it with an inimitable lightness. "He's poor, and I'm rich," he had said. "I can afford to smile at him. I go somewhere else, that's all—somewhere that's far away and dear to get to. Persia would be found to answer, I fancy. No end of a place, Persia. Why not come with me?" And they had left ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... shadows in a picture. The groups seem to be entirely independent of each other. The extraordinary merit of this piece, I imagine, consists not only in the expression of divinity on the face of Christ, but also in the surprising lightness of the figure that hovers like a beautiful exhalation in ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... constructed a summer house upon the roof, knowing that when the weather permitted his master would pass the nights there in preference to the chambers below. This structure looked not unlike a modern belfry, except that the pillars and shallow dome of the top were of Moorish lightness. Thence, to a familiar, the heavens in the absence of the sun would ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... on the sea. Tio Ventolera took him to the Vedra, praising the lightness and other merits of his boat. He repaired it year after year, not a splinter of its original construction being left in it. They fished in the shelter of the rocks until mid-afternoon. On their way back ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a-top, Hogarth said: "I'll get up first", and, forcing the small end of the truncheon into the space at the hinges, he got foot-hold from which he caught the top hinge and scaled, a feat of which he considered Harris incapable; and, instead of helping him up, leapt down with a new feeling of lightness, hearing from the ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... already know how to construct wings or aeroplanes which, when driven through air at sufficient speed, will not only sustain the weight of the wings themselves, but also that of the engine, and of the engineer as well. Men also know how to build engines and screws of sufficient lightness and power to drive these planes at sustaining speed. As long ago as 1893 a machine weighing 8,000 lbs. demonstrated its power both to lift itself from the ground and to maintain a speed of from 30 to 40 miles per hour; ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... become her so well. Not pretty! He was in no mood to dissect the pale irregular face with its subtleties of line and expression; but, as she sat there smoking and chatting, she was to him the realisation—the climax of his dream of Paris. All the lightness and grace of that dream, the strangeness, the thrill of it seemed to have passed ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... gallant frigate, like a youthful and a regal giant, more majestic from the lightness of her dress, walked in conscious superiority in the midst of all. She had, as I before mentioned, just set her top-gallant sails, in order to take her proud station in the van. We now passed vessel ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the simplest and best method of making ice-cream, yet the way most in use is to add custard; and French cooks always use "meringue paste," claiming that it insures a smoothness and lightness nothing ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... little feet that were as slender and nervous as a deer's. Beneath her plumpness could be seen the exquisite delicacy of such women, which comes from the vigor of their nervous systems controlling and vitalizing the development of flesh. There is no other way to explain the lightness of her step, and the incomparable nobility of her bearing. None but the women whose quarterings begin with Noah know, as Eleonore did, how to be majestic in spite of a buxom tendency. A philosopher might have pitied Philoxene, while admiring the graceful lines of the bust and ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... the soil into three classes and call these sand, clay, and humus. The ideal soil has all three of these elements in it. Sandy soil is made up, as the name itself really tells, of broken up rock masses. One can tell this sort of soil by its lightness and the ease with which a mass of it drops apart. By the word lightness one does not mean colour or weight, but looseness. A clay soil may be told by its stickiness; its power to form lumps or masses; its tendency ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... encumbering and untimely weight. In self-depreciating contrast he recalled a certain young lady's airy, winning way—airy way of winning—and coveted it for himself here and now: a wrestler's nimble art of overcoming weight by lightness; of lifting a heavy antagonist off his feet into thin air where his heaviness would be against him. His small, trim grandfather had it, in good degree; was using it now. Would it were his own in this issue, where the senator held in his hand the folded petition, having already vainly ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... of his encounter with Drew. But fearing to raise her hopes unduly on so slender a basis he refrained, and stayed with her till the time was approaching for his visit to the house across the Park. Then he left her wondering at the feeling of lightness that came over him, and not attributing it to the fact that he had something to do—something which called his faculties into action to scheme and contrive the meeting without being baffled by those who dogged the steps of every one ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... no measuring device for joy, and no foot-rule one can lay on emotion, but it is questionable if to the heart of any man comes greater lightness than to that of the one who by stress and endurance in the wilderness, upturns the treasure he has so arduously sought. These moments are few and rapt and precious, and they glowed in the slow brain of the half-breed Fisette as nothing else had ever glowed. It was true that he stood ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... lightness &c adj.; imponderability, buoyancy, volatility. feather, dust, mote, down, thistle, down, flue, cobweb, gossamer, straw, cork, bubble, balloon; float, buoy; ether, air. leaven, ferment, barm^, yeast. lighter-than-air balloon, helium balloon, hydrogen balloon, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... terror. Instead of summoning a physician, to ascertain the nature of her symptoms, he called a negro and his cart from Bush Hill. In vain the neighbours interceded for this unhappy victim. In vain she implored his clemency, and asserted the lightness of her indisposition. She besought him to allow her to send to her mother, who resided a few miles in the country, who would hasten to her succour, and relieve him and his family from the danger and trouble ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... dispute what will be done and what ought to be done. All people express themselves tired of the subject, yet none talk or think of any other. It is a great evil when a single subject of interest takes possession of society; conversation, loses all its lightness and variety, and every drawing-room is converted into an arena of political disputation. People even go to talk about it from habit long after the interest it ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... shown to be the highest temperature at Trooditissa, but although the maximum of 84 and the mean at 3 P.M. of 78 degrees may appear high at the elevation of 4340 feet above the sea level, the extreme lightness and purity of the air so far modified the heat that it was never oppressive. The thermometer was suspended five feet from the ground against the trunk of the shady walnut-tree four feet from the tent wall, into which spot ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... and dry, pretending she hadn't hurt him. He would always take hurts like that, with that deadly, steely lightness. By its deadliness, its steeliness, she knew that it was all true (and much more besides) that she had heard about Rosalind and ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... as bright a day on the morrow, and still she knew that lightness of heart, that freedom of the breath which is physical happiness. Had she by the mere act of redeeming her faith to Gilbert brought upon herself this reward? It was so strangely easy to keep dark thoughts at a ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... precision but of repetition: inventions that rendered them too absolute masters of the situation. A single-barrel will soon make a sportsman the keenest of shots. The gun itself can be built to an exquisite perfection—lightness, handiness, workmanship, and performance of the very best. It is said that you can change from a single-barrel shot-gun to a sporting rifle and shoot with the rifle almost at once; while many who have been used to the slap-dash double cannot do anything for some time with ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... the Hudson's Bay Trade, relating to the Comers of Bever skins, and the just cause of dissattisfaction which both of us had, to make us retire into France. I have no cause to believe that I in the least deserve to bee taxed with lightness or inconstancy for the Imployments wherein I since ingaged, although they were against the Interests of the said Company, for it is suffitiently known that my Brother nor myself omitted nothing that lay in our power, having both of us severall times adventur'd ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... off a glass of brandy, which had been waiting his pleasure on the table. The potion was not insignificant in quantity or strength, and the wry face he made did not add to the amiability of his expression. As the dose permeated his brain, and produced that agreeable lightness which is the first phase of intoxication, he rubbed his hands with childish delight, and half muttered an ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... she had brought, examining the handwriting, studying the letters, and practicing every stroke with the utmost care, copying and repeating it a hundred times, until at last he had reached the required clearness. At last he mastered the writing. It only remained to give it the needed lightness and naturalness. His head rang from the concentration of blood in his temples, but he still ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... Beason said he had no doubt that when one came to know Miss McCormick, he would see, in spite of her lightness of manner, that ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... making the bird light. More than that, many of the bones, though strong, have thin walls and are hollow, the cavities being connected with the lungs and air sacs, from which they are also filled with air, contributing another element of lightness to the aerial navigator. That the bird's bones are capable of being permeated with air can be demonstrated by actual experiment, and is, therefore, a scientifically established fact. It is easy enough to prove it in this way: Take a dead bird that has been beheaded, pass a syringe into its ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... Audrey shook her head. "That may not be," she said simply. "I must go away that we may not both be unhappy." She lifted her face to the cloud in the south, "I almost died last night. When you drown, there is at first fear and struggling, but at last it is like dreaming, and there is a lightness.... When that came I thought, 'It is the air of the mountains,—I am drawing near them.' ... Will you let me go now? I will slip from the house through the fields into the ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Bennet came back to Arethusa herself quite often to ask for dances—a truly flattering number of times—for it was a kindly fate that had given her that lightness of foot and her undeniable grace. Then too, Mr. Bennet, like Mr. Watts, knew Ross rather well, and he wanted to be nice to Ross's daughter for various reasons. And last, but not least, her ingenuous admiration of his own attractive ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... been accustomed to pay attention to things so inobtrusive, will excuse me if I point out the proportion between the span and elevation of the arch, the lightness of the parapet, and the graceful manner in which its curve follows faithfully that of ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... where her children were born. An ordinary letter was enough to annul a marriage. So it was that, particularly in the age of Caesar when politics were much perturbed and shifting, there were not a few women of the aristocracy who had changed husbands three or four times, and that not for lightness or caprice or inconstancy of tastes, but because their fathers, their brothers, sometimes their sons, had at a certain moment besought or constrained them to contract some particular marriage that should serve their ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... circumstances and incidents were wanting to make me a perfect sage. And here I must note a circumstance which my readers may scarcely believe, but which, for all that, is quite true-namely, that I have always preferred virtue to vice, and that when I sinned I did so out of mere lightness of heart, for which, no doubt, I shall be blamed by many persons. But, no matter—a man has only to give an account of his actions to two beings, to himself here and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... asked her husband. She was still leaning back on his shoulder, with her hand clasping his. Accompanying her consciousness of escape came a new lightness of spirit. There seemed to come over her, too, a new sense of gratitude for the nearness of this sentient and mysterious life, of this living and breathing man, that could both command and satisfy some even more mysterious emotional hunger ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... cheerful alacrity by the woman he loved was not the experience he would have chosen. He could not help feeling that his hopes were disposed of, and he watched her with a painful sinking of the heart, which did not lead to lightness of conversation. Madeleine herself felt that her expressions needed to be qualified, and she tried to correct her mistake. What should she do without a tutor? she said. He must let her have a list of books to read while he was away: they were themselves going north in the middle ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... and Italian opera, he shows how Wagner re-fashioned opera on new and nobler lines. Replying to those who say "You must have lightness ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... walked, laughing merrily for very lightness of heart, till they were close beside the poor widow's low cottage window. Suddenly Nelly stopped, and the laugh was hushed upon her bright lips. "Did you hear it, Phil?" she said softly. "Hear what, ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... a home of prayer. She felt that Tatiana Markovna and she were inseparable sisters, and she even began involuntarily to address her as "thou," as she had done Raisky when her heart responded to his kindness. As these thoughts whirled in her head, she had a sensation of lightness and freedom, like a prisoner whose fetters ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... through the rain very thoughtfully: but not sadly; for though it was still pelting in the uncompromising lake fashion, she was half conscious of a strange lightness of the heart, a strange brightness in herself, and even in the rain-swept view, which vaguely surprised and puzzled her. The feeling was not vivid enough to be happiness, but it was the ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... with fifty-two divisions and these are mostly mental or at least subjective states. The list opens with contact (phasso) and then follow sensation, perception, thought, reflection, memory and a series of dispositions or states such as attention, effort, joy, torpor, stupidity, fear, doubt, lightness of body or mind, pity, envy, worry, pride. As European thought does not class all these items under one heading or, in other words, has no idea equivalent to Sankhara, it is not surprising that no adequate rendering has been found, especially as Buddhism regards everything ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... said the Countess; "if you must make this journey in our behalf,—and, alas! I have not generosity enough to refuse your noble proffer,—you must go alone, and without communication with Derby. I know him well; his lightness of mind is free from selfish baseness; and for the world, would he not suffer you to leave Man without his company. And if he went with you, your noble and disinterested kindness would be of no avail—you would but share his ruin, as the swimmer who attempts ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... his capricious companion, whose hunger had so fortunately been satisfied the day before, he got up to go out of the cave; the panther let him go out, but when he had reached the summit of the hill she sprang with the lightness of a sparrow hopping from twig to twig, and rubbed herself against his legs, putting up her back after the manner of all the race of cats. Then regarding her guest with eyes whose glare had softened a little, she gave vent to that wild cry which naturalists compare ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... the persecutions which Madame de Saint-Dizier had suffered for the Good Cause were entered to her credit, and she acquired even then very considerable influence, in spite of the lightness of her behavior. The Marquis d'Aigrigny, having entered the military service of France, remained there. He was handsome, and of fashionable manners and address. He had corresponded and conspired with the princess, without knowing her; and these circumstances ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... looked around him appraisingly. The two were dining at one of the newest and most fashionable restaurants in Berlin. The room itself, although a little sombre by reason of its oak panelling, was relieved from absolute gloom by the lightness and elegance of its furniture and appointments, the profusion of flowers, and the soft grey carpet, so thickly piled that every sound was deadened. The delicate strains of music came from an invisible orchestra concealed ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... handsome, and lacked nothing to recommend it to me but the want of mirth and pleasant discourse, which we could neither have with them, nor, by reason of them, with one another; the weightiness which was upon their spirits and countenances keeping down the lightness that would have been up ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Elssler amongst the matter-of-fact Yankees. During her last engagement at the French opera her salary was eighty thousand francs a-year. Taglioni and Elssler personify the two styles into which the present school of dancing is divided, the ballonne and the tacquete. The former is lightness combined with grace, when the dancer seems to float upon air. The tacquete is vivacity and rapidity; little quick steps on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... 1 cupful of milk. So important is this proportion that it should be memorized. Before the eggs are added to the milk, they are, of course, beaten, but their beating is a matter of little consequence, for they are used merely to supply thickening and give richness and not to produce lightness. Therefore, they need only be mixed well and beaten slightly, as any increase in the amount of the ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... down when the latter rode away. There was very little of the prairie broncho in the big horse beneath him, whose sire had brought the best blood that could be imported into that country, and he had examined every buckle of girth and headstall as he fastened them. He also rode, for lightness, in a thin deerskin jacket which fitted him closely, with a rifle across his saddle, gazing with keen eyes across the shadowy waste when now and then a half-moon came out. Once he also drew bridle and sat still a minute listening, ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... the description and standard which have been adopted by the Great Dane Clubs, a few remarks on some of the leading points will be useful. The general characteristic of the Great Dane is a combination of grace and power, and therefore the lightness of the Greyhound, as well as the heaviness of the ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... colors. The stones and metals polished by our arts are not comparable to this jewel of Nature. She has placed it least in size of the order of birds, maxime miranda in minimis. Her masterpiece is the little humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touches the turf an instant. Always in the air, flying ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... weeks had transformed the famishing herd of a month before, and they were received without a question. Rounding in our remuda for fresh mounts before starting to town, the vaqueros and I did some fancy roping in catching out the horses, partially from sheer lightness of heart because we were at our journey's end, and partially to show this north Texas outfit that we were like the proverbial singed cat—better than we looked. Two of Turtle's men rode into town with us that evening to lead back our mounts, the outfit having come in purposely to receive ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... the carburizing material. Bohnite, a commercial carburizing compound is used exclusively at this plant. This does excellent work and is economical. Broadly speaking, the economy of a carburizing compound depends on its lightness. The space not occupied by work must be filled with compound; therefore) other things being equal, a compound weighing 25 lb. would be worth more than twice as much as one weighing 60 lb. per cubic foot. It has been claimed that certain compounds can be used over ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... plane-tree branches. Every now and then he drew a long breath of the warm, unstirring air, and smiled, without knowing that he smiled. And he thought of little, of nothing; but a sweetish sensation beset his heart, a kind of quivering lightness his limbs. He sat down on a bench and shut his eyes. He saw a face—only a face. The lights went out one by one in the houses opposite; no cabs passed now, and scarce a passenger was afoot, but Summerhay sat like a man ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... plays of Scribe, with whom he was associated all his life. To read a comedy by Scribe is to imagine Auber's music to it. No one has excelled Auber in the expression of all the finesse of wit and lightness of touch. What the union between the two men was may be inferred from the fact that Scribe wrote many of his librettos to Auber's music, the latter being written first, Scribe then adding the words. His principal works are "Masaniello" or ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... yellowish-white of the walls; on one side a martyrdom of St. Catharine, on the other a Crucifixion. Their pale blues and lilacs, their sharp pure greens and thin crimsons, made subtle harmony with the general lightness and cleanness of the abandoned chapel. A poor little altar with a few tawdry furnishings at the further end, a confessional box falling to pieces with age, and a few chairs—these were ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had come into existence, not stately and classic as in the age preceding, but instinct with a new sort of life. The profoundest themes which can occupy the mind of man were handled with marvellous lightness of touch and clothed with prismatic brilliancy of speech; but all was negation. None tried to build; all to demolish. The black-winged angel of Destruction was ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... operator's transmitter and receiver, since as transmitters and receivers they are practically the same as those in ordinary use for other purposes. The watch-case receiver is nearly always employed for operators' purposes on account of its lightness and compactness. It is used in connection with a head band so as to be held continually at the operator's ear, allowing both of ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... which every one will agree in conceding to Stevenson is lightness of touch. This quality is a result of his extreme lucidity, not only of thought, but of intention. We know what he means, and we are sure that we grasp his whole meaning at the first reading. Whether ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... merely for a gambler's money, and yet to plunge her mother and herself back into poverty would seem to others the act of one insane. As she pondered the problem of her life she lost all of her girlish lightness of heart and lay in her luxurious bed ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... hurrying to the help of their princess, who really was in some danger, for the wind was rising to the force of a gale. The king looked on for a little, and then returned with his attendants to the palace, reflecting all the while on the extreme lightness of his proposed bride and the absurdity of having a wife that rose in the air better than any kite. He thought on the whole that it would be wiser not to wait longer, but to depart at once, and he started on horseback at the very moment when the princess had ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... his wonted graceful lightness of manner he walked on with her, leaving the other two ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... at Gunson as if he thought him mad. "Leave fo' Indian man come find? No. Quong set him." And going quickly and delicately over the stones with a step that was almost cat-like in its lightness, he had reached my bundle almost before Gunson could protest. Swinging it up on his head as he turned, he began to come back as quickly as he went, but now he began to get ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... curtailment of woman's sphere of activity. Further, in all employments where physical strength is an important factor, the net productivity of woman's labour tends to fall below man's, although in some cases superior deftness or lightness of hand related to physical fragility may compensate. Even in modern textile factories the superior force of man's muscles often gives him a great advantage. In fustian and velvet cutting, where the same piece-wages are paid to men and women, ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... a warning to the unknown woman, who turned suddenly, throwing back her hair from either side of her face. At this instant the colonel and Monsieur d'Albon could distinctly see her features; she, herself, perceiving the two friends, sprang to the iron railing with the lightness ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... titles of minor works, which Aulus Gellius has preserved, the lightness and beauty of such compositions are charmingly expressed. Among these we find—a Basket of Flowers; an Embroidered ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... looking forward to your convalescence as to a holiday. One day I heard her whispering behind the door with my doctor, and then she came in to me with tear-stained eyes. It was a bad sign, but I was touched, and there was a wonderful lightness ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... weightier defect is the want of ease and lightness in the general composition of the piece; a defect which, all its other excellencies will not prevent us from observing. There is action enough in the plot, energy enough in the dialogue, and abundance of individual beauties in both; but there is throughout a certain air of stiffness and effort, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... though less productive, is supposed to yield sugar of a better quality. The cool months from May to September are the properest for boiling sugar. After October, the canes yield less juice by one-eighth, sometimes by one-fourth, and nearly as much more is lost in claying by the lightness of the sugar, the pots of three arobas not returning after the operation more than two and a half at most. The clay used in refining the sugar is dug close to the mill; it feels soft and fat in the fingers. It is placed in a wooden ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... taller, heavier and far stronger than Coniston. But I found him crafty, and where I was awkward in handling my lightness, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... lightness of temperament to abandon an idea as readily as he formed one, and his late suspicion was already driven to the four winds. He only hoped he had not shown what was in his mind at the club. Langholm was a just man, and he honestly regretted the injustice that he had done, even ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... it with the new archbishop who had been sent over to enlighten the Irish nation? In July 1537 Henry felt it necessary to reprove his spiritual representative for his lightness of behaviour, his vain-glory, and his remissness in preaching the pure word of God, and to warn him that if he did not show himself more active both in religious matters and in advancing the king's cause he should be obliged to put a man of more honesty in his place.[8] The archbishop ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... attention,—the waving branches speak to you,—the hazel thicket, bending to the weight of some advancing animal, puts you on your guard; the heart beats, not for the rustling of a silk gown, nor for the hurried footfall of woman treading with fairy lightness on the fallen leaves. The syren voice is not about to whisper softly in your ear, "Are you there, violet of my heart!" nor are you about to reply, "Angelic being, moss-rose of my soul, let me press your sweet lips?" What you are waiting for are ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... and inclinations.]—(1.) They feel unbelief, fear, mistrust, doubting, despondings, murmurings, blasphemies, pride, lightness, foolishness, avarice, fleshly lusts, heartlessness to good, wicked desires, low thoughts of Christ, too good thoughts of sin, and, at times, too great an itching after the worst ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... work; he was going to work immediately. But as time passed, he felt an increasing laziness, which incapacitated him for work, a numbness in his hands, which he concealed even from his most intimate friends, ashamed when he recalled his lightness of touch ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... head, a sort of time-table of existence prepared at least one week in advance. But in Gerald's world nothing was prearranged. Elaborate affairs were decided in a moment and undertaken with extraordinary lightness. Thus the excursion to Auxerre! During lunch scarcely a word was said as to it; the conversation, in English for Sophia's advantage, turning, as usual under such circumstances, upon the difficulty of languages and the differences between countries. Nobody would have guessed ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... volatile spirits winged their way down into those dark and intuitive depths of her mind she had never found time to plumb. She knew that the hour of dawn was always still, but she had never imagined a stillness so complete, so final as this. Nor was there any fresh lightness in the morning air. It seemed to press downward like an enormous invisible bat; or like the shade of buried cities, vain outcroppings of a vanished civilization, brooding menacingly over this recent flimsy accomplishment of man that Nature ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... find something of the same kind, as, for example, the descriptions of the famous Medicean tournament by Politian and Luca Pulci. The true epic poets, Luigi Pulci, Boiardo, and Ariosto, are carried on more rapidly by the stream of their narrative; yet in all of them we must recognize the lightness and precision of their descriptive touch as one of the chief elements of their greatness. Franco Sacchetti amuses himself with repeating the short speeches of a troop of pretty women caught in the woods by ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... not tempted by the frivolities of a fashionable social life that lives by its vanity, its excitement, its rivalry and flirtation. Not that all fashionable society is open to such reproach, but its tendency is to lightness and emptiness; and we rarely find really valuable men who seek it. Therefore a lady who would make her house attractive to the best society must offer it something higher than that to which we may give the generic title fashion. Dress, music, dancing, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... make allowance for the lightness of youth. She barely realized what she did. But she loves him now, and suffers bitterly. She should be ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... And as he stood, the flute in his hands, his thoughts took flight to his Uncle Benn, whose kindly, shrewd face and sharp brown eyes were as present to him, and more real, than those of Luke Claridge, whom he saw every day. Of late when he had thought of his uncle, however, alternate depression and lightness of spirit had possessed him. Night after night he had troubled sleep, and he had dreamed again and again that his uncle knocked at his door, or came and stood beside his bed and spoke to him. He had wakened suddenly and said "Yes" to a voice which seemed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the "Institution des Diaconesses de l'Eglise Evangelique de France." The situation is delightful. Several addresses and statements of affairs. Employed the evening in religious study. Witnessed much lightness among certain ministers of the Protestant Reformed Church. The prevalent views here respecting the sanctity of the Sabbath are very different from those which prevail either in ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... strength of a giant. He hurled aside those who sought to detain him, and leaped through the crowd and away. The next instant the Kansan dropped out of the tree, swinging for a moment by one of the drooping branches, to break the force of the fall, and alighting on the ground with ease and lightness. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... Jotham-first-fable, the bramble and vine, Piles up to a climax the praise of good wine; For in Judges we read—look it up, as you can— 'It cheereth the heart, both of God and of man;' And everywhere lightness, and brightness, and health, Gild the true temperance texts with their wealth, Giving strong drink to the ready to perish, And heavy-heartedness ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... nothing but watched him intently. Bertrand spoke with a rapid lightness and grace and an abundance of gesture, to which he was not used in Kentucky. He ate plentifully, and, although his manners were delicate, Harry felt to an increasing degree his foreign aspect and spirit. He did not wonder at it when ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the blueness and the lightness and the coloured look of everything and the very sentry-boxes striped and the shining rattling drums and the little soldiers with their waists and tidy gaiters, when we got across to the Continent—it made me feel as if I don't ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy • Charles Dickens
... taken a dozen steps when I was overtaken by Sophia Ivanovna, who, though fat and short of breath, trod with surprising lightness and agility. ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... of the valley. There took place a fight in which the Franks were killed to a man. The Basques, after having plundered the baggage-train, profited by the night which had come on to disperse rapidly. They owed all their success in this engagement to the lightness of their equipment and to the nature of the spot where the action took place; the Franks, on the contrary, being heavily armed and in an unfavorable position, struggled against too many disadvantages. Eginhard, master of the household of the King; Anselm, count ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... Gothic style developed and the builders grew all the time more skillful and daring, the churches became marvels of lightness and delicacy of detail and finish, while still retaining their dignity and beauty of proportion. Sculptors enriched them with the most beautiful creations of their art. Moldings and capitals, pulpits, altars, and choir screens, the wooden seats for ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... thoroughly convinced that peace ought to be made. Remorse for this is said to have haunted him to the end of his life. When in his old age he became blind, he bore this misfortune with his customary lightness of heart; and one day, meeting the veteran Barre, who had also lost his eyesight, he exclaimed, with his unfailing wit, "Well, colonel, in spite of all our differences, I suppose there are no two men ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... ones, which are filleted. The base moulding is very deep and hollow. These piers support the Early English arches, with dog-tooth ornament large in the interior, small in the exterior. Altogether, these fine arches give a very pleasing impression of lightness and grace, and make us feel "the fascination ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... dead belonged to Osiris and were brought before him for judgment. The protest of being innocent of the forty-two sins was made, and then the heart was weighed against truth, symbolised by the ostrich feather, the emblem of the goddess of truth. From this feather, the emblem of lightness, being placed against the heart in weighing, it seems that sins were considered to weigh down the heart, and its lightness required to be proved. Th[o]th, the god who recorded the weighing, then stated that the soul ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... intellectual creature could not without absurdity acquire the ponderous movements and weight of manner of smaller wits and duller brains. In the girl, quiescence was the natural outcome of womanly reserve; in the Boy, it would have been mere affectation. His lightness and brightness were his great charm at present, a charm, however, which was much enhanced by moments of thoughtfulness, which gave glimpses of another nature beneath, with more substantial qualities. The Tenor had soon perceived that he was not all mischief, romp, and ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... is the only Gothic building of note in Paris, and it is by no means equal to the expectations we had been led to form of it. The style of its architecture is not that of the finest Gothic; it has neither the exquisite lightness of ornament which distinguishes the summit of Gloucester Cathedral, nor the fine lancet windows which give so unrivalled a beauty to the interior of Beauvais, nor the richness of roof which covers the tombs of Westminster Abbey. ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... Into his canoe he wrought them, Round its waist a shining girdle. Round its bows a gleaming necklace, On its breast two stars resplendent. Thus the Birch Canoe was builded In the valley, by the river, In the bosom of the forest; And the forest's life was in it, All its mystery and its magic, All the lightness of the birch tree, All the toughness of the cedar, All the larch's supple sinews; And it floated on the river, Like a yellow leaf in autumn, Like ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... supra) describes the tree (Cedrela toona—Roxb.) called calanta in Tagal, and lanipga in Visayan. The tree is fragrant and has wood of a reddish color. It was used for making the hulls of vessels, because of its strength and lightness. The same author describes also the asana (Pterocarpus indicus—Willd.) or as it is called in the Visayas, naga or narra—as an aromatic tree, of which there are two varieties, male and female. The wood of the male tree is pinkish, while that of the female tree is inclined to white. They ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... pounds, which would be protected by canvas covers. They were especially adapted to the condition of the country, which was largely interspersed with swamps and sloughs, which were impassable for any other character of vehicle. Their lightness, the width of the surface presented by the tread of the wheel and the careful steps of the educated animal which drew them, enabled them to go where anything else would flounder. The trail which they left upon the prairie was deeply cut, and remained ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... Pepita this seemed strange as anything else—a perfect mystery. Merry after parting with all those pretty things; costly, too—worth hundreds of doblones! Withal, they were so; their lightness of heart due to the knowledge thus gained, that their own lovers were still living and safe; and something of merriment, added by that odd encounter with the enano, of which they were ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... that they were roofless, just as if they had been occupied but yesterday, although near eighteen centuries have passed away since the awful calamity which sealed the fate of their inhabitants. The facilities for excavation being great, both on account of the lightness of the material and the little depth of the mass, much of the city has been exposed to view. Street succeeds street in various directions, and porticos, theatres, temples, magazines, shops, and private mansions, all remain to attest ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... garlands grace, Why does that twining plant the oak embrace? The oak, for courtship most of all unfit, And rough as are the winds that fight with it. How does the absent pole the needle move? How does his cold and ice beget hot love? Which are the wings of lightness to ascend? Or why does weight to the centre downwards bend? Thus creatures void of life obey thy laws, And seldom we, they never, know the cause. In thy large state, life gives the next degree, Where sense and good apparent places thee; But ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... is,'" he quoted lightly. But beneath the lightness she divined a pain that she could not wholly fathom. Quite aware of her power, Miss Polly Brewster was now, for one of the few times in her life, stricken with contrition for ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... nervousness, was at her ease the moment she faced him alone in that inner office. He had extraordinary personal charm—more than Ransdell, though Ransdell had the charm invariably found in a handsome human being with the many-sided intellect that gives lightness of mind. Crossley was not intellectual, not in the least. One had only to glance at him to see that he was one of those men who reserve all their intelligence for the practical sides of the practical thing that forms the basis of their material career. He knew something of many things, ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... Jacob's ladder; but the spell was at once broken, and I was about to rise and go away, when the singular motions of the person who had disturbed me drew my attention. It was evidently a girl with naked feet, but neat garments; her head was laden with flowers; and she skipped down with all the lightness of the gazelle for some space; then came to a halt, possibly on seeing a stranger; then continued her progress—now showing brightly in the sun, now dimly in the shade, until she came, and, after a sidelong glance at me, sat down on the opposite end of the same ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... well?" she asked, with a careful lightness, a careful carelessness which she hoped was deceiving. "Were you able to put my husband in the way of seeing and hearing everything that could help him with ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... full of antitheses and epigrammatic diction. There is an airy lightness in his letters and poems, but he scarcely ever actually reaches humour. The following poem, an epistle to Sir Edmund Herbert at Juliers, will give an idea of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Titian and other old masters. Statues by Canova, Thorwaldsen, Chantrey and R.J. Wyatt are included among the sculptures. In the state apartments the walls and window-panes are in some cases inlaid with marble or porphyry; the woodcarving, marvellous for its intricacy, grace and lightness of effect, is largely the work of Samuel Watson of Heanor (d. 1715). Chatsworth Park is upwards of 11 m. in circuit, and contains many noble forest-trees, the whole being watered by the Derwent, and surrounded by high moors and uplands. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... lightness of heart had been a great help to them all, and like sunshine in the school. Of course, it had led me into scrapes at times, but they had been innocent and kindly, and so she had not been hard upon me. But now I was grown up and going out ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... as he rode steadily across the alkali and sage, the lightness of heart that had long been unfamiliar, came back to him. He found himself looking back at his vague sentiment for the little girl of the years gone by and the strange notion that he must come back to her as he had so lightly promised. He had had that notion in the full belief that she must ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... except that again and again a curious feeling that sometimes I was not alone was present in my mind. In a way I got used to it, because after being in the trenches and looking in the face of death as a kind of hobby the feeling of release and lightness that comes over one drives all other troubles clean away. But after a while this feeling seemed to be growing in poignancy. In fact at the end of the first fortnight I mentioned it ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... advantage. He lived and died amongst his equals. This was what enabled him to exercise his natural strength, as neither a parasite nor a patron can. It is marvellous how freedom of thought operates; what strength it gives to the system; with what lightness and freshness it endues the spirit. Then, he was made stronger by trouble; ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... in from the sea, making the shivering San Franciscan forget that not ten miles away the sun was as prodigal as youth. For a few weeks San Francisco had her springtime, when the days were warm and the air of a wonderful lightness and brightness, the atmosphere so clear that the flowers might be seen on the islands, when man walked with wings on his feet and a song in his heart; when the past was done with, the future mattered not, the present ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... have the wagon to-night, and we will sleep underneath. I should love it!" cried Sylvia, clapping her hands and whirling round on the tips of her toes, bowing to an imaginary audience, then giving a sideway skip to show the lightness ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... we observe vigor, lightness, agility, brilliant springs, with a steadiness and command of the body. It is the best kind of dancing for expressing the more general theatrical subjects. It ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... he would say to her, but at this his disgust got the better of him. "Lucy," said he—and his voice had changed from lightness to gravity—"don't you mind a bit saying what ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... result of the anatomical study of the human form. ARCHITECTURE has bequeathed to us, in the Pelasgic and Cyclopean remains, sufficient to indicate the massive strength it early acquired in parts of Greece. In the Homeric times, the intercourse with Asia had already given something of lightness to the elder forms. Columns are constantly introduced into the palaces of the chiefs, profuse metallic ornaments decorate the walls; and the Homeric palaces, with their cornices gayly inwrought with blue—their pillars of silver on bases of brass, rising ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out the two Falcons ashen-grey and who were the comrades thou leftest in the gardens?" Quoth the Birdie in reply, "slack and alas! never saw I thy like for an ass nor aught than thyself meaner of capacity nor mightier of imbecility; for indeed thou carries" in thy head lightness and in thy wits slackness. O Scant of Sense, when sawest thou ever a sparrow company with a Falcon, much less with two Falcons? So short is thine understanding that I have escaped thy hand by devising the simplest device which my nous and knowledge ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... writes: In a recent discussion on hot air and steam portable engines it was decided to ask your opinion, which should be final. Water is scarce, though enough to use steam is easily procured. The country is hilly, so that lightness is desirable. The power wanted is 6 horse, and movable, that is, on wheels. Which will be best, hot air engine or steam engine? Which consumes most coal for a given power? Which will be cheapest in above case? A. For small powers the hot air engine is most economical, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... from athletics, and the roundnesses which denote that superb animal, the well-developed woman. But it was only as he stood by the side of the carriage that he saw and felt the mingled dignity and frankness, the sureness and lightness of touch, with which she acted or refrained from acting; the lack of haste, the temperateness of gesture and intonation, which bespoke in a moment that type of woman which ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... way the remaining rooms were finished, according to their several purposes. Cleanliness and order prevailed throughout. Above all, the large panes of plate-glass contributed towards a perfect lightness, which had been wanting in the old house for many causes, but chiefly on account of the panes, which were for the most part round. My father was cheerful on account of the success of his undertaking; and if his good humor had not been ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... in my mental skies mars or stops my work. I write with my body quite as much as with my mind. How persons whose bread of life is heavy, so to speak,—no lightness or buoyancy or airiness at all,—can make good literature is a mystery to me; or those who stimulate themselves with drugs or alcohol or coffee. I would live so that I could get tipsy on a glass of water, or find a spur in a whiff of ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... professional work made itself felt in an extreme zest and lightness of spirit. It was a very happy and delightful time. I was living among friends who were all very hard at work, and the very contrast of my freedom with their servitude was enlivening. I was able, too, to think over my schoolmastering experience; and the result was The Upton Letters, an inconsequent ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... aerial machine-guns were quickly recognised. The R.F.C. adopted the Lewis, which from the points of view of lightness and handiness was well suited for aircraft, and the German airmen countered with a modified Hotchkiss and ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... Cathedral of Amiens received the same punishment, because of the lightness of its construction the vaults would undoubtedly have given way, the flying buttresses would have crushed in the walls and nothing would have remained but a mass of crumbled stone, with the exception of perhaps the ruins of the towers. If anything therefore remains of Rheims ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... assisted by Mr. Collins. I had not now a relation in the world, upon whose kindness and interposition I had any direct claim. But, far from regarding this deserted situation with terror, I formed golden visions of the station I was about to occupy. I little suspected that the gaiety and lightness of heart I had hitherto enjoyed were upon the point of leaving me for ever, and that the rest of my days were devoted to misery ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... gleaming necklace, On its breast two stars resplendent. Thus the Birch Canoe was builded In the valley, by the river, In the bosom of the forest; And the forest's life was in it, All its mystery and its magic, All the lightness of the birch-tree, All the toughness of the cedar, All the larch's supple sinews; And it floated on the river Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, Like a yellow water-lily. Paddles none had Hiawatha, Paddles none he had or needed, For his thoughts as paddles served him, And his wishes ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... dramas—Geerard van Velzen, Warenar and Baeto—caught the popular taste and were frequently acted, but are not of high merit. His songs and sonnets are distinguished for their musical rhythm and airy lightness of touch, but they were mostly penned, as he himself tells us, for his own pleasure and that of his friends, not for general publication. There are, nevertheless, charming pieces in the collected ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... soul shone out. For that brief space of time transcendent youth and loveliness was theirs. About them, as about the sun now sinking behind the low hills, there breathed a glory, a dying splendor as bright as it was fleeting. They felt, too, a lightness and gaiety of spirit—they had drunk of the nectar of the gods, and no leaden weight of care, no heavy sorrow, could ever touch them, ever drag them down again to the ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... that you'll be able to be just as proud about as if I had lived to fulfil all your other dear hopes for me. I don't suppose I shall talk of this again. But I wanted you to know that underneath all the lightness and ambition there's something that I learnt years ago in Highbury[1]. I've become a little child again in God's hands, with full confidence in His love and wisdom, and a growing trust that whatever He decides for me will ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... always something bracing and sustaining about it; and the days in which Hugh learnt the truth about himself had nothing of gloom or sadness about them. The discovery indeed surprised him with a certain lightness and freshness of spirit. He smiled to think that he had entered the vale of humiliation, and had found it full of greenness and musical with fountains. A great flood of peace flowed in upon him; ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Earth! Where'er thou movest Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, And the souls of whom thou lovest Walk upon the winds with lightness Till they fail, as I am ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... man would, no doubt, have turned it all to account, but I could not. All I could do was to carry it off as coolly as possible to save Carette annoyance, and to affect a lightness and joviality which were ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... please?" the young man with the Adam's apple asked, stepping with extreme lightness and grace across ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... the hall again, and found him easily enough, for all men were looking at him. He was in the midst of the hall, juggling in marvellous wise with a heavy woodman's axe, which he played with as if it were a straw for lightness. Even as I entered from the door on the high place he was whirling it for a mighty stroke which seemed meant to cleave a horn cup which he had set on a stool before him, and I wondered. But he stayed ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... The remarkable lightness and compactness of the new boiler invented by Ericsson led to the employment of steam in many instances in which it had been previously inapplicable. Among these may be mentioned the steam fire-engine constructed by him in conjunction with Mr. Braithwaite, about the same time with the Novelty, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of this tree, the service rendered it by forest fires, the lightness of the seeds and the readiness with which they germinate on dry or burned-over areas, its ability to grow in a variety of soils and climates, together with its capacity to thrive in the full glare of the sun,—all these are factors ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... polypus or chameleon; and thereunto bestow most cost upon our arses, and much more than upon all the rest of our bodies, as women do likewise upon their heads and shoulders. In women also, it is most to be lamented, that they do now far exceed the lightness of our men (who nevertheless are transformed from the cap even to the very shoe), and such staring attire as in time past was supposed meet for none but light housewives only is now become a habit for chaste and sober matrons. ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... sketch of one of these bridges will be found in Vol. ii.] about eighty yards long, ever rocking over the torrent (forty feet below). The lightness and extreme simplicity of its structure were very remarkable. Two parallel canes, on the same horizontal plane, were stretched across the stream; from them others hung in loops, and along the loops were laid one or two bamboo stems for flooring; ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... characteristics of the North Devon breed are such as qualify them for every hardship. They are cast in a peculiar mold, with a degree of elegance in their movement which is not to be excelled. Their hardihood, resulting from compactness of frame and lightness of offal, enables them (when wanted) to perform the operations of the farm with a lively step and great endurance. For the production of animal food they are not to be surpassed, and in conjunction with the Highland Scot of similar pretension, they are ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... had gone, Deck advanced toward the trees mentioned, rapidly but cautiously, for he had no desire to be picked off by some concealed Confederate marksman. His course lay over a series of rough rocks, but Ceph sprang from one to another with the lightness of a mountain goat. Soon the shelter of the first row of trees ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... directed their distinct talents to his one great purpose. From the literary Agostino he obtained the philosophy of critical lectures and scientific principles; invention and designing solely occupied Annibale; while the softness of contours, lightness and grace, were his own acquisition. But though Annibale presumptuously contemned the rare and elevated talents of Agostino, and scarcely submitted to copy the works of Lodovico, whom he preferred to rival, yet, according ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... just. Although her husband had many qualifications for writing prose fiction—insight into and appreciation of character, combined with much tragic force and a real gift for description—there is reason to think that he would have been stilted and artificial in dialogue, and altogether wanting in lightness of hand. Crabbe acquiesced in his wife's decision, and the novels were cremated without a murmur. A somewhat similar fate attended a set of Tales in Verse which, in the year 1799, Crabbe was about to offer to Mr. Hatchard, ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... spin the yarn from the wool of their own sheep, and it is then woven by a weaver in Kilronan for fourpence a yard—the men seem to wear an indefinite number of waistcoats and woollen drawers one over the other. They are usually surprised at the lightness of my own dress, and one old man I spoke to for a minute on the pier, when I came ashore, asked me if I was not ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... preparing the wood for Violin-making, either by baking it or by the application of acids, may be traced, in the first instance, to a desire to obtain artificially those results which are brought about by the hand of time. In obtaining lightness and dryness in new wood, it was imagined that the object in view would be reached without the aid of Dame Nature. Experience, however, has shown that Fiddles, like all things intended to pass into green old age, mature gradually, and are not to be benefited by any ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... Rome. The two palaces that seemed to me most deserving of admiration were the Farnese and the Cancellaria, the former Michael Angelo's, the latter Bramante's work, the first a perpetuation in stone of beauty and power, the second, of grace and lightness. I felt that if one were to take a person with no idea of architecture and set him in front of these buildings, there would fall like scales from his eyes, and he would say: "Now I know ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... counterpart of the work of the Essayists. If we miss in it the personal and intimate charm of Addison, or the freshness and pathos of Steele, it passes far beyond the work of both in the brilliancy of its wit, in the lightness and buoyancy of its tone, in its atmosphere of fancy, its glancing colour, its exquisite verse, its irresistible gaiety. The poem remains Pope's masterpiece; it is impossible to read it without feeling that his mastery lay in social and fanciful verse, ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... that. Her three marriages, all taking place so close together gave her a reputation—— You're a man of the world; you'll understand that I'm not trying to say anything derogatory. But three matrimonial adventures in such rapid succession gave her a reputation for lightness. She was young and pretty. She longed to live life. You can't blame her. For a woman life isn't a very full affair without a man. And yet there aren't many men who would be willing to choose a wife with three previous husbands to her credit. ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... With the lightness of a panther the Jam-wagon sprang into the centre of the ring. More than halfway he met Locasto, and now his intention seemed to be to draw his man on rather than to avoid him. I watched his every ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... On walls C and D the very important canvases are those by Inness and Wyant, men who were deeply influenced by the French Barbizon School, but whose individual achievement marked the first great stride toward the bigness, freedom and lightness ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... back of it. There are times when the touch of money is as the elixir of life. Justin, holding on by the skin of his teeth for ten thousand dollars, and needing imperatively at least as much more, felt that with this paltry sixty dollars it was suddenly possible to draw a free breath, felt a sheer lightness of spirit that showed how terrible was the persistent weight under which he was living. The very feeling of those separate bills in his pocket made him ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Islands, the natives construct their huts from pandan wood. Generally, it is used only for rough, temporary work. In some localities the soft interior part is removed to make water pipes. Again, because of its lightness, the wood is used by the people on the many islands of the Pacific to ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller
... knowledge of what will be their destiny. It was well-conceived by a loving father that it was for our interest to be kept in ignorance of what was in store, for we, his creatures. And thus it was that I entered upon the duties of the household, with a lightness of heart equal to that of any matron. In the humble home (I commence from there) in that beautiful north-west land of quietness and peace, there was not a ruffle heard, or a rumor sounded, of what was in store for that industrious ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney |
