"Lissome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he thought regretfully, few duels to look forward to, and he had even fewer to look back on. And, as a maid is won by face, figure and daring, and a wife by riches, position or prospects, there was a notable paucity of lissome ...
— Wizard • Laurence Mark Janifer (AKA Larry M. Harris)
... quarrel?" she asked, gently. "There are things in life more sweet." She went to him, leaning toward him, beautiful arms extended, lissome body bent. ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... good man gave me a lift for a matter o' eight miles or more. But, dear me! I mind the time I could ha' run nigh on a mile in five minutes, and ha' trudged my forty mile a day, nor scarce felt it. I reckon, Tom, lad, thou'rt not so lissome as I was at thy years. Well, to be sure! 'Tis all right; I'm only ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... female. The fur on her belly and flanks was glistening white; many small marks like velvet formed beautiful bracelets round her feet; her sinuous tail was also white, ending with black rings; the overpart of her dress, yellow like burnished gold, very lissome and soft, had the characteristic blotches in the form of rosettes, which distinguish the panther from ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... for me to go, except on my knees before him. I took his hands, and made them lissome with a soft, light rubbing. I whispered into his ear my name, that he might speak once more to me; and when he could not speak, I tried to say what ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... "There is something familiar, somehow, about you, and yet——" He scrutinized appreciatively the loveliness of the girl with her classically beautiful face, that was still individual in its charm, the slim graces of the tall, lissome form. "I should have remembered you. I ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... on the broad step beneath the portico and on the pavement beyond; the door of the car opened too, and a girl stepped out, and for a second or two stood in the full glare of the lamps. She was a slender, lissome young creature, gowned in white, and muffled to the throat in an opera cloak out of which a fresh, girlish face, bright in colour, sparkling of eye, crowned by a mass of hair of the tint of dead gold, showed clearly ere she rapidly ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... come back. Day after day, in fair weather or foul, big Malcolm was to be seen stepping with his free Highland step—Malcolm was a lissome, handsome young fellow—across the Manse garden, carrying that small frail burden, which all the inhabitants of the clachan had ceased to stare at, and to which they all raised their bonnets or touched their shaggy forelocks. "It's the wee earl, ye ken," and one and all ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... slim and somewhat tall for her age, and looking pale and delicate from the life of confinement and anxiety they had led at Brussels, and their still greater anxiety at Maastricht. She was now budding into womanhood. Her figure was lissome and graceful, her face was thoughtful and intelligent, and gave promise of rare beauty in another year or two. He learned that they had remained for a time in the village to which they had first gone, ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... it was in her nature to love any one. To all appearance, however, it mattered very little who, or how Flower loved. On all hands, every one fell in love with her. Even Polly resigned her favorite seat for her, even Helen looked without pain at mother's beloved chair when Flower's lissome figure filled it. The younger children were forever offering flowers and fruit at her shrine. Nurse declared her a bonny, winsome thing, and greatest honor of all, allowed her to play with little Pearl, the baby, for a few minutes, when the inclination seized her. ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... praised Bridport wakening under its leafy woods, marked the herons on the river mud in the valley and the sparrow-hawk poised aloft above the downs. She took his arm up the hill and, like birds themselves, they went lightly together, strong, lissome, radiant in health and youth and the joy of a shared worship that made all ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... sincere nature, her habits of ready obedience. All the virtues peculiar to the sect to which she belonged shone in her, but she seemed to be unconscious of her merit. There was a grace, which no austerity could diminish, about every movement of her lissome, slender form; her quiet brow, the delicate grave outlines of her face, and her clearly cut features indicated noble birth; her expression was gentle and proud; her thick hair had been simply braided, the coronet of plaits about her head served, all unknown to her, as an adornment. ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... men stepped around the corner of the house a girl came down the steps of the porch. She was dressed in summer white, but she herself was spring. Slim and lissome, the dew of childhood was still on her lips, and the mist of it in her eyes. But when she slanted her long lashes toward Arthur Ridley, it was not the child that peeped shyly and eagerly out from beneath them. Her heart was ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... a log bridge spanned a brook; and then came the glory of a sunlit beechwood where the air was like transparent golden wine, and the leaves fresh and green, and the wood floor a mosaic of tremulous sunshine. Then more wild cherries, and a little valley of lissome firs, and then a hill so steep that the girls lost their breath climbing it; but when they reached the top and came out into the open the prettiest surprise of ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the doctor, and the former sat with his elbows on the table holding the snakeskin belt with his hands near the ends, so that they hung down over the fingers, softly lissome, while the horny ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... unwittingly passed the confines of his own garden, through a gap in the Mission orchard, a lissome, black-coated shadow slipped past him with an obeisance so profound and gentle that he was startled at first into an awkward imitation of it himself, and then into an angry self-examination. He knew that he loathed that long-skirted, womanlike garment, that dangling, ostentatious symbol, that ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... gave him to the Preraphaelites, who fell down and worshiped him. Whether we would have had Burne-Jones without Botticelli is a grave question, and anyway it would have been another Burne-Jones. There would have been no processions of tall, lissome, melancholy beauties wending their way to nowhere, were it not for the "Spring." Ruskin held up the picture, and the Preraphaelites got them to their easels. At once all original "Botticellis" were gotten out, "restored" and reframed. The prices doubled, trebled, quadrupled, as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... them—a boy and girl—gained the trader's gate ahead of their excited companions, and, leaning their backs against the white palings, mocked the rest for their tardiness in the race. With one arm around the girl's lissom waist, the boy, Maturei, short, thickset, muscular, and the bully of the village, beat off with his left hand those who sought to displace them from the gate; and the girl, thin, creole-faced, with soft, red-lipped mouth, laughed softly at their vexation. Her gaily-coloured grass waist ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... not pale and flush as did May's cheeks in quick response to her emotions. Waves of maize- coloured hair with a sheen of its own went with the fairness of the skin, and the pretty features were redeemed from a suspicion of insipidity by large violet eyes. She was of good height and lissom, with small feet and hands, but the outlines of her figure were Southern in grace ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... below him, yet far as she could ever be, swept across Richard's mind like a roaring wind, and ridded the room for wilder guests. In came stalking Might-have-been and No-more, holding each by a shrinking shoulder the delicate maid of his first delight, Jehane, lissom in a thin gown; Jehane like a bud, with her long hair alight. Her hair was loose, her face aflame; she was very young, very much to be kissed, fresh and tall—Oh, God, the mere loveliness of her! In came the scent of wet stubbles, the fresh salt ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... mollification; softening &c.v. V. render -soft &c. adj.; soften, mollify, mellow, relax, temper; mash, knead, squash. bend, yield, relent, relax, give. plasticize'. Adj. soft, tender, supple; pliant, pliable; flexible, flexile; lithe, lithesome; lissom, limber, plastic; ductile; tractile[obs3], tractable; malleable, extensile, sequacious[obs3], inelastic; aluminous[obs3]; remollient[obs3]. yielding &c. v.; flabby, limp, flimsy. doughy, spongy, penetrable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... abased, too? Roy would not let himself believe it. The way of youth is to deny the truth of all signposts which point to the futility of beauty and strength. It would be a kind of apostasy to admit that her sweet, lissom grace might be ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... a fine lissom lad, And my slip's nigh forgot, and my days are not sad; My own dearest joy is he, comrade, and friend, He it is who safe-guards me, on him I depend; No sorrow brings he, And thankful I be That his daddy once tied up my ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... A lissom, wiry, splendid English aristocrat, in perfect condition and health, was Tristram Guiscard, twenty-fourth Baron Tancred, as he lounged in his chair before the fire and dreamed of his lady ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... idea who was meant by 'her,' and it is certain that had there been any other means of exit than the door in the building, she would have taken herself off there and then. What was her astonishment to behold presently a lissom, graceful figure and a sweet face, which seemed familiar, though she could not for the moment believe that they really pertained to Gladys Graham. And the face wore such a lovely look of gladness and wonder and sorrow all mingled, that Liz was ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... her art, and even in the confusion of the dress rehearsal was the most delicate Ariel, so lithe, so lissom, that it seemed she must vanish into the air like the floating feathered seeds of full summer.... Abandoned to the sweet sea-breezes of the play she felt that the hard crust upon the world must surely break to let this spilling beauty pour into ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... in darkness, but the light of a candle came from the inner room, and the next moment the door opened wide and a woman stood there, a beautiful woman, dark in hair and eyes, with figure as lissom as a young animal, poised just now half expectantly, ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... betes noirs were this very Wynd and his inseparable companion, Naylor, who happened to be not only the best men of the set, but Mellot's especial friends. Both were Rugby men, now reading for their degree. Wynd was a Shropshire squire's son, a lissom fair-haired man, the handiest of boxers, rowers, riders, shots, fishermen, with a noisy superabundance of animal spirits, which maddened Elsley. Yet Wynd had sentiment in his way, though he took good care never to show it Elsley; could repeat Tennyson from end to end; ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... D'Angeli, waiting to receive Gherardi. She had taken more than the usual pains with her toilette this afternoon, and had chosen to wear a "creation" of wonderful old lace, with knots of primrose and violet velvet caught here and there among its folds. It suited her small lissom figure to perfection, and her only ornaments were a cluster of fresh violets, and one ring sparkling on her left hand,— a star of rose brilliants and rubies, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... had better buy a little bottle of oil-gold and paint your picture-frame with it. See our article, "Lissom Hands and Pretty Feet." ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... so limber, lissom, lithe of sway, * Brunettes tall, slender straight like Samhar's nut-brown lance;[FN380] Languid of eyelids and with silky down on either cheek, * Who fixed in lover's heart work ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... little worlds, distinct and separate—placing a stage set with red trees, American oaks, like an experimental forest in Virginia, next to a fir-wood by the edge of the lake, or to a forest grove from which would suddenly emerge, in her lissom covering of furs, with the large, appealing eyes of a dumb animal, a hastening walker—was the Garden of Woman; and like the myrtle-alley in the Aeneid, planted for their delight with trees of one kind only, the Allee des Acacias was thronged ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the three lassoes. Kitty slowly gathered her lissom body in a ball and lay panting, with the same brave wildfire in her eyes. Jones stroked her black-tipped ears and ran his hand down her glossy fur. All the time he had kept up a low monotone, talking to her in the strange language he used ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... that his captive's eye met his steadily, with the defiant fierceness of some hunted wild thing. Here was a woman worth taming, even though she was still a girl in years. His exultant eye, returning from the last glimpse of the lissom figure as it disappeared, met the gaze of Keller. That young man was watching him with an odd look of challenge on his usually ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... Jane was simply too lovely for words, as, with the sweet simplicity of an ingenue, en combinaison with the craft of a Machiavella (I beg to point out that I know my Italian genders), she draped her lissom form in the clinging folds of an enormous habit de peau de brebis—portions of ear and the tip of her nose tilted over the edge of the deep turned-up collar, which, on one side, supported the coquettish droop of the hairy "Tammy" that, dexterously pinned to the spikes of a diamond fender, ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... tossed her tresses back, pinned them up (both hands at the business); and then, with square shoulders and elbows stiff as rods, set to working the dirt out of Don Urbano's surplice. Baldassare brooded, chewing straws. What a clear colour that girl had, to be sure! What a lissom rascal it was! A fine long girl like that should be married; by all accounts she would make a man a good wife. If he were a dozen years the better of four and fifty he might—Then came a shrug, and a "Ma!" to conclude in true Veronese Baldassare's ruminations. Shrug and ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... lifted her hands and swayed them about above her head gracefully. She was posturing she knew, but why she had no idea. It all came upon her as suddenly and as uncontrollably as a blush. She was whirling around the room, now slow, now fast, but always with her arms held out lissom, like a dancing-girl's. Sometimes her body bent this way, and sometimes that, her hands keeping time to her movements meanwhile in long graceful curves, but all as if compelled ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... about her brows. And quaintly crossed Her hands upon her breast. Less red the dart That deepest cleaves the folded rose's heart, Than her round cheeks. Not hers the regal air Of Lilith lost, the white arms, lissom, bare, The slender throat; the elbows dimpled deep, whereto Might scarcely reach Eve's head. "Yet soft, as through Some pleasant dream, the summer's spicy air Stirs odorous 'mong seaward gardens fair, In southland hid; so, gently, Eve straightway To Adam's ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... immortalized—to be living, for example, in the "golden prime of good Haroun Al-Raschid"—as she saw before her the motley procession of veiled women, Persians with their pointed bonnets, Hindu jugglers with lithe lissom figures, negro slaves, grey-bearded beggars looking like princes in disguise, and Armenians wrapped in their long furred cloaks. She delighted, accompanied by her husband, to explore the silent recesses of the hilly and almost solitary streets in the less frequented quarters of ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... her mother being tall; but her figure was charming in its graceful suppleness, and in the serpentine curves laboriously sought by painters and sculptors,—curves which Nature herself draws so delicately with her lissom outlines, revealed to the eye of artists in spite of swathing linen and thick clothes, which mould themselves, inevitably, upon the nude. Sincere, simple, and natural, Veronique set these beauties of her form into relief by movements ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... arrested his attention at that moment, and, before he could avoid the unexpected attack, a dark lissom body shot through the air, to alight squarely upon his pony, that, with a snort of terror, ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... beeches in their early green were alive with song, there came a rattle of tiny bits of spar against Mark Eden's casement window, and he sprang out of bed to throw it open and look down upon Ralph Darley, armed with lissom rod over his shoulder ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... wall until her lover had disappeared. Then she turned, a mere lissom shadow in that uncertain light, and glided under the eaves of the shed, and thence from tree to tree of the orchard, lingering a moment under each as a trout lingers in the shadow of the bank in passing a shallow, and so reached the farmhouse and the kitchen door, where she entered. Thence by ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... though once as he looked across at her he caught his underlip suddenly betwixt his teeth. She was so utterly desirable—the curve of her cheek, the grace of her lissom body, the faint blue veins that showed beneath the warm, ivory skin. And she was ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... the door her resilient step. Once, when he was a boy, he had seen Ada Rehan play in "As You Like It." Her acting had entranced him. This girl carried him back to that hour. She was boyish as Rosalind, woman in every motion of her slim and lissom body. ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... with much interest. He was only twenty-two years old; tall and handsome, with a lissom figure and an air of easy grace that became him well. His eyes were keen and bright; he wore a light beard, and a profusion of curly hair. Altogether, he looked a very ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... moment. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and rank with spirituous odours. Sprawled figures were everywhere, and on a sort of couch against the opposite wall, a cigarette between her fingers, a glass of absinthe at her elbow, her laughter and badinage ringing out as loudly as any, lay the lissom figure of Margot! ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew |
