"Agile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Arabs who have intermarried with negroes. They are a savage, treacherous race, noted for their cheating and lying propensities; in figure tall, slender, light, and agile, scarcely darker than Arabs, with thin lips and noses, but woolly heads like negroes. Their ancestors, having taken possession of the country, drove out its former Christian inhabitants, who ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... glacier must do its work in a different way from the agile river. The mountain stream is swift and small, and its channel occupies but a small portion of the valley. The glacier is slow and big; its rate of motion may be less than a millionth of that of running water over the same declivity, and its bulk is proportionately ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... was slender and agile, with frank, honest eyes and a friendly smile that was almost constantly in evidence. His hair was brown and wavy and his complexion naturally fair, though it was at the moment tanned by the sun ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... I must do my adversary the justice to say that he was a skilful master of fence, agile as a French dancer, and withal well-breathed and persevering. Twice, nay, thrice, before I found my advantage he had pricked me lightly with that extra inch of slender point. But when I had fairly felt his wrist ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... hand over hand. Vivia Varnham gave a glance of disdain when she saw who her rival was. She was light and agile, and did not for an instant think that this heavy, clumsy creature could make any headway against her. She went up lightly and easily, but somehow the heavy, clumsy creature managed to keep abreast of her; was even gaining upon her, drawing up, up, ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... day—and we must be prepared for future operations. Afghanistan proved that expensive precision weapons defeat the enemy and spare innocent lives, and we need more of them. We need to replace aging aircraft and make our military more agile, to put our troops anywhere in the world quickly and safely. Our men and women in uniform deserve the best weapons, the best equipment, the best training—and they also deserve another ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... third night, and a third day came. With each hour grew his anxiety for Jean's return. At times he was almost feverish to have the affair over with. He was confident of the outcome, and yet he did not fail to take the Frenchman's true measurement. He knew that Jean was like live wire and steel, as agile as a cat, more than a match with himself in open fight despite his own superior weight and size. He devised a dozen schemes for Jean's undoing. One was to leap on him while he was eating; another to spring on him and choke him into partial insensibility as he ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... he began to perceive that the lady was too much for him. He was already melting away with his exertions, while his partner was as cool as a cucumber. She, with her active young legs, her lightly filled veins, and small agile frame, could have gone on almost for ever; but M. de l'Empereur was more encumbered. Gallantry was at last beat by nature, his overtasked muscles would do no more for him, and he was fain to stop, dropping his partner into a chair, and throwing himself in a ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... if he could influence the other to do something. If he could control another's mind—even just a little—it would really help in his work. So he now tried every method his agile mind could imagine, to make the fellow pick up the book that lay beside his chair. He concentrated on it, he insisted, he willed it. But in vain—he ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... or two, and sprang out with all his force. He was a practised and agile jumper, and, to their great relief, he alighted near the water's edge, on the other side, where, after slipping once or twice on the wet and seaweed-covered rocks, he effected a safe landing, with no worse harm than a wetting up to ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... that, just as when he was a youngster, Bob could not rid his mind of the notion that it was possessed of volition, that it led a mysterious life of its own down there in the shadows, that it was in the nature of an intelligent and agile beast trained to apply its ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... together in public life, Douglas as a Democrat, Lincoln as a Whig. They had met first in Vandalia, in 1834, when Lincoln was in the Legislature and Douglas in the lobby; and again in 1836, both as members of the Legislature. Douglas, a very able politician, of the agile, combative, audacious, "pushing" sort, rose in political distinction with remarkable rapidity. In quick succession he became a member of the Legislature, a State's attorney, secretary of state, a judge on the supreme bench of Illinois, three times a Representative ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... breaks off unexpectedly and falls from a considerable distance with such force that it can kill a person or even a horse. At present, however, the fruit was in bud, and in the distance before the sun set there could be seen, under the crowns, agile little monkeys, which, leaping gaily, ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and the tourney went forward. Rider after rider, with varying skill, essayed his fortune with lance and sword. Some took a liberal proportion of the rings; others merely knocked them over the boundaries, where they were collected by agile little negro boys and handed back to the attendants. A balking horse caused the spectators much amusement and ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... can manage to get up a little higher it would be safer all around," Max told them, though he tried his best not to alarm the girls by intimating that the lower limb of the tree might still be within jumping distance of an agile hound. ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... with mingled interest and trepidation the gradual ascent of her lover, as, like another Romeo, he ascended the natural ladder formed by the thick rope- like twisted stems of the ancient creeper, grown sturdy with years and capable of bearing a much greater weight than that of the light and agile young man, who, with a smile of amused triumph, at last brought himself on a level with the window-sill and seated ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... he had measured his length on the stubble. He sprang to his feet in a fury, threw off the coat which he had just put on, and darted at Hugh, who had by this time recovered his coolness, and was besides, notwithstanding his unusual exertions, the more agile of the two. The other was heavier and more powerful. Hugh sprang aside, as he would have done from the rush of a bull, and again with a quick blow felled his antagonist. Beginning rather to enjoy punishing him, he now went in for it; and, before the other would yield, he had rendered his next ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... I refer to what Atticus has said about sheep, with this difference: that while you select a breed of sheep which are slow of foot, because they are of quieter disposition, all goats are as excitable as they are agile. Of, this last characteristic Cato records in his book Origines: 'In the mountains of Socrate and Fiscellus there are wild goats which leap from rock to rock a distance of more than sixty feet.' For as the sheep which we feed are sprung from wild ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... from death is a thing that brings a strong motive to exertion, but there are other things sometimes which may give an equal impulse. Gualtier was lithe, sinewy, and agile, nimble of foot too, and inspired by the consciousness of danger; but the man who pursued him was one whose mighty thews and sinews had been formed under the shadows of the Alleghanies, and trained by years ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... have two strings to your bow. Dancing, you see, is all very well, provided you are not too ambitious of appearing on first nights, but, unhappily, that was the case with me. I was as slender as a thread when I was twenty, and very agile, but I grew fat and scant of breath, and became rather heavy in my steps; so when my mother died, as I had my diploma as a midwife, I took her apartment and her business, and I added the title of "Midwife ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... glad of the respite. He retired beyond the foul lines and watched. There was no doubt but that Tim knew his job. Short and stocky and agile, he seemed made in a catcher's mold. He could reach second base with a forearm throw while squatting on his heels, and a snap of the wrist was enough to send the ball to ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... came around the fallen ledges and debauched into the grassy sunshiny space before the cavern. Only a tiny, tumbled-up, joyous child, with no power in his pudgy little arm; and Victor Burleigh, tall, muscular and agile. Against this man of tremendous strength the caveman's club was lifted. But with the sound of the child's voice and the sight of the innocent face the club fell harmless. A look of fright, deepening to a maniac's terror, seized the creature, and noiselessly and swiftly as a serpent ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... The whole world was there. Under a balcony stood a party of peasants. Of this group, two were somewhat aside. One of these was tall, dark, a fair type of Southern Italian; the other small, agile and graceful, dressed in a fresh contadina costume, with her brown hair braided down her shoulders. She seemed excited, and as the crowd pressed nearer she would draw back half-fearfully. "Lisetta," she whispered, "I am spoiling your good time. Talk to your friends; never ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... were so dark and long. Ram Dass told me of this child's miseries, and together we invented a romantic plan to help her. I suppose it was a childish thing to do; but it gave me something to plan and think of. Without the help of an agile, soft-footed Oriental like Ram Dass, however, it could not ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... style; her aunts were agreed on this. Her hair-ribbons rarely matched her stockings; and the stockings on agile legs like Phil's, that were constantly dancing in the eyes of all Montgomery, should, by all the canons of order and decency, present holeless surfaces to captious critics. That they frequently did not was a shame, a reproach, a ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... in the world is of their digestion. Time goes so fast I always fancy that I arrived only the evening before." Sometimes they get up a little race and the ladies are disposed to take part in it, "for they are all very agile and able to run around the drawing room five or six times every day." But they prefer indoors to the open air; in these days true sunshine consists of candle-light and the finest sky is a painted ceiling; is there any other less subject to inclemencies or better adapted ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... athletic arm and agile tongue had half disposed him to linger in the mountains how happened it that she was not awaiting him at the gate? But gate there was none in the familiar place: an unfenced yard of weeds and ruined foundation wall were ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... warm as this languid, creamy beach, the day I clambered, none too agile, over the thwarts of Caliban's boat and made my way up the sandy ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... little changed, save that he looked a good bit dirtier and wilder than of old. His hair was longer than ever and his eyes shone so black as sloes; and to Jenny's mind there was a touch of stark madness in 'em without doubt. He was strong and agile seemingly, and he began to gibber and cuss and chatter like an ape the moment he catched sight of her. He dropped the barrow and stared, and his jaw dropped and then closed up again. He drew up to his ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... at the heavy head that sought a haven on his shoulder. Corrigan had been stunned and wanted no more long range work. He tried to lock his big arms around the other's waist in an attempt to wrestle, realizing that in that sort of a contest lay his only hope of victory, but Trevison, agile, alert to his danger, slipped elusively from the grasping hands and thudded uppercuts to the other's mouth and jaws that landed with sickening force. But none of the blows landed on a vital spot, and Corrigan ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... was afraid, but because it seemed that she much disliked meeting people. Only the presence of the she-goat did not cause her disgust; on the contrary, she looked after the animal attentively, and when the agile creature went too far, she called her with sharp, muffled exclamations. Reciprocally, it seemed that the goat understood her very well, and, obedient to her call, she returned to the girl with a questioning baa! At the end of the poor, narrow street, there appeared a small green meadow, ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... opened by a couple of agile young men dashing madly into the middle of the floor to execute a clattering step dance opposite each other, and under cover of this sortie the whole army would ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... that the clouds seem to whisper as they crowd through the narrow places up among the peaks, and there was no other sound while these two men crept round each other among the rocks, like two cats upon a roof. De Vasselot was quicker and smaller, and as agile as a goat, and Andrei Perucca lost him altogether. He was a fool. He went to look for him. As if any one in his senses would go to look for a Corsican in the rocks! That is how the gendarmes get killed. ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... unimportant," he said, "you are a beautiful woman and to many men you would be most desirable. To me, you are just a woman, an ordinary fellow-creature, amusing, beautiful, possessed of an agile mind, though somewhat frivolous by our standards. Many of my fellow-countrymen who do not think like I do would take you. It is my intention to leave you just as soon as it is safe to do so unless——" A thought struck him, ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... it is mat-plaiting; and the agile little fingers are diligently weaving pieces of blue and yellow material, bits over from their elder sisters' garments, beautifully unconscious that they are supposed to be working the colours alternately. Sometimes in the gayest way they ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... loom described at the village of Bambis in Chapter XXXVI. The material used for the best quality is the selected fine wool, growing next to the skin of goats. These dyed threads are cut into short lengths and woven into the fabric by the supple and agile fingers of the children working, packed tight together, at the looms. Some of the best cloths, not more than ten feet in length, take as long as a month per foot in their manufacture, and they realise very high prices, even as much ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... mournfully in Spanish. Redell nodded and retired to his own office, where for an hour he sat with his head in his hands, searching his agile brain for a bright idea that would lead him out of his dilemma. Suddenly he leaped to his feet, tossed his hat to the ceiling and caught it again as it ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... to her mouth, and became generally ungovernable. A visit to a house of poor reputation having been discovered, their father and Mr. Du Pre set upon them with horsewhips, whereupon the graceless but agile youths ran to a neighbouring house and swarmed to the top of a stack of chimneys, whence partly by word and partly by gesticulation ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... still one more golden half-hour before they need return to school. Aunt Ellinor proposed tennis, and suggested that her nephew should play his sisters while she sat and acted umpire. The game went fairly evenly, for Leonard was agile and equal to holding his own, though it was one against two. They were at "forty all" when Dona made a rather brilliant stroke. Leonard sprang across the court in a frantic effort to get the ball, missed it, slipped on the grass, and fell. The ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... "Pray show me, man, the robber's place, And I'll have justice in the case." "'Tis on this mountain side," The shepherd man replied. "The tribute of a sheep I pay, Each month, and where I please I stray." Out leap'd the lion as he spake, And came that way with agile feet. The braggart, prompt his flight to take, Cried, "Jove, O grant a ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... man—the wisest and best of men—who was saying it of her. "There is everything, everything in her," continued this man. "She is unusually intelligent, charming... and then she is pretty, uncommonly pretty, and agile—she swims and rides splendidly... and her voice! One can really say ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Rudy will become an agile chamois hunter in a few years? He has every disposition for it!" said his uncle, and instructed him how to hold a rifle, how to aim and to fire. In the hunting season, he took him with him in the mountains and made him drink ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... give here a glimpse of him in Washington on a Navy Yard horse-car, toward the close of the war, one summer day at sundown. The car is crowded and suffocatingly hot, with many passengers on the rear platform, and among them a bearded, florid-faced man, elderly but agile, resting against the dash, by the side of the young conductor, and evidently his intimate friend. The man wears a broad-brim white hat. Among the jam inside, near the door, a young Englishwoman, of the working class, with two children, has had trouble all the way with the youngest, a strong, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... Waska managed to drag the rolls out of sight behind a bush. And when a moment later Schurka joined her, they set off at full tilt to the stone tower where Martin was a prisoner, taking the rolls with them. Waska, being very agile, climbed up by the outside to the grated window, and ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... carried—whilst the other lays hand to his riata. It might be supposed that the man with the revolver would triumph, but woebetide him if he fails to bring down his enemy—both are darting about on their agile horses—before the chambers are exhausted, for the other, whirling the rope aloft, lassoes him, and putting spurs to his own beast, drags the unfortunate man from his horse and gallops away across the plain, dragging him mercilessly to death among the rocks and thorns. For the Mexican ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... end and aiming a lance at one of the holes. The rider had to duck his head at the same instant, in order to save himself from the billet which swung round immediately the lance-point caught the opposite end. Only those who were very agile saved themselves from a nasty blow. Instead of a billet, a bag containing sand or mould would sometimes be suspended on the cross-bar. This would swing round with sufficient ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... Meryon. His dark tweed suit and fur waistcoat disclosed a figure once singularly agile and slender, on which self-indulgence was now beginning to tell. Nevertheless, as the bonne passed him she duly noted and admired his pictorial good looks, opining at the same time that he was not French. Why was he there? She decided in her own mind that he was there for an assignation, by ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... gaze upon a child; A young bud bursting into blossom; Artless, as Eve yet unbeguiled, And agile as a young opossum: ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... to a certain degree without ever suspecting how important a factor the manipulation of the bow will be in his further progress. He thinks that if the fingers of his left hand are agile he has gained the main end in view. But then he comes to a stop—his left hand can no longer aid him, and he finds that if he wants to play with real beauty of expression the bow supplies the only true key. Out of a hundred who reach this stage," Mr. Kneisel went on, rather sadly, "only ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... literature. These are not, or are but rarely, fitted to bear the burden of high emotion; but their precision, and the deftness which their use demands fit them exceedingly well for the more distinguished kind of persiflage. No one has kept these delicate butterflies in flight with the agile movement of his fan so admirably as Mr. Austin Dobson, ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... change. Malta had seen the second dog, and she knew she must get rid of the mastiff. With an agile bound she sprang on his back, dug her sharp claws in, till he put his tail between his legs and ran up the street, howling with palm She rode a little way, then sprang off, and ran up ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... been tortured by the thought that she had married Colonel Yagitch from worldly motives and, as it is said, par depit; but that evening, at the restaurant, she had suddenly become convinced that she loved him passionately. In spite of his fifty-four years, he was so slim, agile, supple, he made puns and hummed to the gipsies' tunes so charmingly. Really, the older men were nowadays a thousand times more interesting than the young. It seemed as though age and youth had changed parts. The Colonel was two years older than her father, but could there ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... water, and at once plunged into it, holding on by one hand, while I immersed the other and seized the dear letter, which, alas! came in two in my grasp. I concealed the two fragments in my body-coat, and helping myself with my feet against the side of the pit, and clinging on with my hands, agile and vigorous as I was, and, above all, pressed for time, I regained the brink, drenching it as I touched it with the water that streamed off me. I was no sooner out of the well with my prize, than I rushed into ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... some twist of thought, considered his personal appearance. We are all prone to put the best face possible upon such a matter, but Brendon lived too much with hard facts to hoodwink himself on that or any other subject. He was a well-modelled man of great physical strength, and still agile and lithe for his age; but his hair was an ugly straw colour and his clean-shorn, pale face lacked any sort of distinction save an indication of moral purpose, character, and pugnacity. It was a face well suited to his own requirements, for he could disguise it easily; but it ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... joy made me agile: I sprang up before him. A hearty kissing I got for a welcome, and some boastful triumph, which I swallowed as well as I could. He checked himself in his exultation to demand, "But is there anything the matter, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... recovered their senses to look at him coolly, rather to resemble one that had come in on the heels of a tuss and was watching its result with unconcerned eyes than one that with no more assistance than his own agile limbs had been the cause of humiliation to so many powerful adversaries. Staupitz, blinking fiercely as he rubbed his aching head, which had rattled sharply against the table that arrested his flight across the room, was too ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... City, chaste MINERVA's pride, There are, whose endless numbers have pourtray'd; They, to each tree that spreads its branches wide, Prefer the [4]tawny Olive's scanty shade. Many, in JUNO's honor, sing thy meads, Green ARGOS, glorying in thy agile steeds; Or opulent MYCENE, whose proud fanes The blood of ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... or footpath along which they ran was so narrow as to compel them to advance in single file. He who led was a tall agile youth of nineteen or thereabouts, in knickerbocker shooting-garb, with short curly black hair, pleasantly expressive features, and sinewy frame. The second was obviously a true-blue tar—a regular sea-dog—about ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... articles, mostly denunciatory. He denounced the Government of the day, tight skirts, Christian Science, scorching on scooters, the foreign policy of Patagonia and many other things. John, on the other hand, had not an agile brain. He worked on a farm in some incredibly primitive capacity, and the only thing that he denounced was the quality of the beer at the "Waggon and Horses." It certainly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... of his voice speak to him." Then, changing his language, he continued, adhering to the imperfect nomenclature of his provincial instructors. "The deer is swift, but weak; the elk is swift, but strong; and the son of 'Le Serpent' is 'Le Cerf Agile.' Has he leaped the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... was becoming greatly fatigued, though he strove to hide it, and both were filled with genuine uneasiness at the prospect before them. To make matters seemingly desperate, as they were descending a little hill a fore-wheel caught between two stones and was wrenched sharply off. Quick, agile Annie sprang as she felt the wagon giving, but Walter was thrown out among the brushwood by the roadside. Though scratched and bruised, he was not seriously hurt, and as quickly as possible came to ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... more expert in all exercises than any man in Norway whose memory is preserved to us in sagas; and he was stronger and more agile than most men, and many stories are written down about it. One is that he ascended the Smalsarhorn, and fixed his shield upon the very peak. Another is, that one of his followers had climbed up the ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... speed of the swiftest aerostat, and yet to return to the bombardment of the city was to leave them free to commit what havoc they pleased upon the encampments of the armies of the League. So they were drawn farther and farther away from the beleaguered city, while their agile enemies, still keeping within their six-mile range, evaded their shells, and yet kept up a constant discharge of their own projectiles upon the salient points of the attack ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... one to talk to, besides two old women, she consented to allow the friendship to continue, provided Jeannette were present at every interview. This was easily promised, but the nurse's stiff limbs were no match for the agile supple ones of her young charges. Day by day she loitered behind, while Pauline and Angela, with their arms entwined, continued in eager and undisturbed enjoyment of one another's society. Jeannette remarked a glow upon her young lady's cheek, and a light in her eye—new charms ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... Ways," they cried. Agile figures ran up from the centre to the swift road nearest to him, were borne rapidly past him, shouting strange, unintelligible things, and ran back obliquely to the central way. One thing he distinguished: "It is indeed the Sleeper. It is indeed ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... the team strung all along between my camp an' Tramperos. Peter, the little lead mule, bein' plumb agile an' a sharp on hobbles, gets cl'ar thar; an' I finds him devourin' the goddess gray mare with heart an' soul an' eyes, an' singin' to himse'f the ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... I shall be much obliged to you, Mr Forbes. I am not quite so agile as I was at your age, though my ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... saw Rudolf, he let go of Babette's arm and tried to seize the young man. Rudolf was fully prepared and threw him off with all his force. A wrestling match began, and it might have ended badly for Rudolf; for his adversary was tremendously strong and agile, but that he had unexpected assistance. The ravens flew in at the window, and beat themselves against Rudolf's opponent, nearly blinding him. The cats stood on the cupboard, with their backs up and hair bristling ready to spring if necessary. The cocks ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... us see how this miracle is accomplished. Do you mark yonder couple who seem to excel the rest in grace and ardor. Let us take this couple for a sample. He is stalwart, agile, mighty; she is tall, supple, lithe, and how beautiful in form and feature! Her head rests upon his shoulder, her face is upturned to his; her naked arm is almost around his neck; her swelling breast heaves tumultuously against his; face to face they whirl, his limbs ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... was baffled rage. He knew the scientific points of boxing, and he applied them. His eye was quick and sure. His reach was whole inches longer than his opponent's. His strength was that of two ordinary men. What did it avail him? He was like an agile athlete in the circus playing tag with a black panther. He was like a child striking futilely at a wavering butterfly. Sometimes this white-faced, laughing devil ducked under his arms. Sometimes a sidestep made his blows miss by the slightest fraction ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... the elephant is taught to perform the most agile and difficult feats, forms a remarkable contrast to its huge unwieldiness of size. Aristotle tells us that in ancient times elephants were taught by their keepers to throw stones at a mark, to cast up arms in the air, and catch them again on their fall; and to dance ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... this water-shrew at Darjeeling in the Little Rungeet river; it is said to live on small fish, tadpoles, water insects, &c. The movements of the English water-shrew, when swimming, are very agile. It propels itself by alternate strokes of its hind feet, but with an undulating motion, its sides being in a manner extended, and body flattened, showing a narrow white border on each side; then the fur collects a mass of tiny air bubbles which make the submerged portion glow like silver. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... carried, minerals, rare things, that a magic touch seemed to have created out of the rude and common things that others find in a homely and ordinary region. The boy was growing tall, and had got out of the merely infantile age; agile he was, bright, but still with a remarkable thoughtfulness, or gravity, or I know not what to call it; but it was a shadow, no doubt, falling upon him from something sombre in his warp of life, which the impressibility of his age and nature so far acknowledged as to be ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in review all around and about the relations between them, her mind had remained cumbrously at the thought of her last words. There, he told himself, was the whole difference between them. He was intellectually infinitely more agile (he did not put it higher than that) than she. She could not get away from things as he could. They remained in her mind and rankled there. To get impatient with her, to proceed from impatience to loss of temper, was flatly as cruel as to permit impatience and anger with ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... taxi at the door of the bank with an agile step, and went straight to the manager's office. Without any ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... The agile, broad-chested lieutenant, without a change of expression in his smooth, yellow-brown, melancholy face, shot the belt strap through the guard of the buckle, hefted his sixes in their holsters as a belle gives the finishing ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... had time to move, Vronsky stepped with an agile, vigorous movement into the steel-toothed stirrup, and lightly and firmly seated himself on the creaking leather of the saddle. Getting his right foot in the stirrup, he smoothed the double reins, as he always did, between his fingers, and ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... into the cork tree he of the Mirrors took as much ground as he considered requisite, and, supposing Don Quixote to have done the same, without waiting for any sound of trumpet or other signal to direct them, he wheeled his horse, which was not more agile or better-looking than Rocinante, and at his top speed, which was an easy trot, he proceeded to charge his enemy; seeing him, however, engaged in putting Sancho up, he drew rein, and halted in mid career, for which his horse was very grateful, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the President while he was talking, in my imagination I made a comparison between the man, Woodrow Wilson, who now stood before me and the man I had met many years before in New Jersey. In those days he was a vigorous, agile, slender man, active and alert, his hair but slightly streaked with gray. Now, as he stood before me discussing the necessity for the Western trip, he was an old man, grown grayer and grayer, but grimmer ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... puff my cigarette, Straight I see a Spanish girl,— Mantilla, fan, coquettish curl, Languid airs and dimpled face, Calculating, fatal grace; Hear a twittering serenade Under lofty balcony played; Queen at bull-fight, naught she cares What her agile lover dares; She can love ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... shoulders over his brothers, whom I never learned to tell apart. The fourth man, a redhead, was dressed rather better than the others and introduced as Lerrys Ridenow—the double name indicating high Darkovan aristocracy. He looked muscular and agile enough, but his hands were suspiciously well-kept for a mountain man, and I wondered how ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... she danced a fluttering, fantastic dance, so agile and light and mazy in her steps that the other three members of the Carroll Comedy Company broke into applause at the ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... in the Harvey High School and would deliver the valedictory address at commencement. When Mary and Amos learned that news, they had indeed found the hero for their book. After that, even his cousin, Morty Sands, home from college for a time, little, wiry, agile, and with a face half ferret and half angel, even Morty, who had an indefinite attachment for glowing exuberant Laura Nesbit, felt that so long as Grant held her attention—great, hulking, noisy, dominant Grant—even Morty arrayed in his college clothes, like Solomon, would ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... seemed to know all about saddlery and went into raptures over a pigskin creation; but with a sigh, remarked that she didn't feel able to afford it, and they explored farther. She kept Jimmy too busy mentally to permit even his agile mind to indulge in continued speculations as to her identity. He knew that his first duty was to prove entertaining, and in some distress as to what might be the best tack, suddenly took advantage of a sandwich man's conspicuous overcoat that read, "The Marvelous ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... ourselves comfortably on the vessel which belongs to the famous monastery. Though we had been in many ships, manned by many types of sailors, from the swarthy Moor to the short sturdy Icelander, the agile Italian to the fearless Norseman, we here encountered a class of sailor we ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... many cut-outs issued nowadays, which may be bought for a small sum at any toy shop. Perhaps the best among these are "The Mirthful Menagerie," "The Agile Acrobats" and "The Magic Changelings." "The Mirthful Menagerie" when properly cut out and pasted together, make a lot of animals that have thickness as well as length and height; "The Agile Acrobats" can be made to assume ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... a long line—perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four yards—but thrown most admirably, the fly lighting on the surface like a snowflake. Moreover, he was now a little bit behind her, so that he could with impunity regard the appearance of this newly-found companion—her lithe and agile form, the proud set of her neck and head, the beautiful close masses of her curly, golden-brown hair, and the fine contour of her sun-tanned cheek. Then the vigorous exercise in which she was engaged revealed all the suppleness and harmonious proportions of her figure; ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... immediately stopped, and carefully eyed the hermit, the character of which I could not at first make out on account of the distance it was from us. Quambo would probably have known, but he and Mike were some way behind us. Of the marten I had no doubt; I recognised it by its agile and graceful movements, by its length, which was about a foot and a half, with a bushy tail somewhat under a foot long, and by its dark tawny coat and white throat, its pointed muzzle, and bright and lively eyes. We stopped to watch what would take place, keeping back the dogs, which ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... in my notes for this month." He had abandoned attendance at Communion, but, according to Judge Steavenson, did not go further in opinions or in talk than a vague agnosticism—which was also the attitude of another subtle and agile intelligence in that circle. ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... was certainly picturesque, and entirely characteristic. In one respect the Boy's art was perfect: although he was quite conscious of his good looks, he never had the air of being so; every movement was natural and spontaneous, like the movements of a wild creature, and as agile. He seemed to rejoice in his own strength, to delight in his own suppleness; and he walked on now with healthy elastic step, his violin held to his shoulder, his clear cut cheek leant down to it lovingly; his luxuriant ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... nor as strong as the senor; he would scarcely come up to Don Jaime's ear, but he was agile, and nobody surpassed him in the dance: he could dance whole hours until he tired out every girl in the parish. From his long season at the prison he had returned with a pale and waxy complexion, the complexion of ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... this stooping, slow-paced, shabbily dressed form is changed into an erect, agile, dapper, dudish-looking specimen, barring the coal-black beard and heavy moustache. Though this transformation takes place in full view of the juvenile picket, the boy cannot explain any of the details, but is sure of the miracle. A small package ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... girl, who was clothed in the red she always wore, tall, dark, well shaped, with large black eyes and a determined face, one who would make a very stately woman; the man broad shouldered, with grey eyes that were quick and almost fierce, long limbed, hard, agile, and healthy, one who had never known sickness, who looked as though the world were his own to master. He was young, but three-and-twenty that day, and his simple dress, a tunic of thick wool fastened round him with a ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... on Susquesus, as soon as the Indians were mentioned. There he stood, straight as the trunk of a pine, light and agile in person, with nothing but his breech-cloth, moccasins, and a blue calico shirt belted to his loins with a scarlet band, through which was thrust the handle of his tomahawk, and to which were attached his shot-pouch and horn, while his ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... Curly seemed to bring the Mexican to his feet at once. The Indian lost the half moment which was his own. Again the two engaged, White Calf now seeking to disconcert the Mexican, whom he discovered to be less agile than himself. Darting in and out, jumping rapidly from side to side, and uttering the while the sharp staccato of his war call, he passed about the Mexican, half circling and returning, his eye fixed straight ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... numerous visitors every day; beautiful young women of Papeete spent the warm tropical days here, chatting, singing and sleeping, or even diving and swimming like agile gold fish. They went here clad in their muslin tunics, and wore them moist upon their bodies while they slept, looking like the naiads of ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... malicious ingenuity of Rops never failed him. He produced for years numerous anecdotes in black and white. The elasticity of his line, its variety and richness, the harmonies, elliptical and condensed, of his designs; the agile, fiery movement, his handling of his velvety blacks, his tonal gradations, his caressing touch by which the metal reproduced muscular crispations of his dry-point and the fat silhouettes of beautiful human forms, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... always was, unerringly. Consorting with all the Charleys, and the Bohms, and the Cohns, and the Kitties hadn't taken the fine edge from Beverly's good inheritance and good bringing up; his instinct had survived his scruples, making of him an agile and charming cynic, whom you could trust to see the right thing always, and never do it unless it was absolutely necessary; he would marry any amount of Kitties for their money, and always know that beside his mother and sisters they ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... will not be diminished when I add that, notwithstanding the great increase in man's years, all his faculties are preserved in a state scarcely less perfect than that of pristine manhood. The eye is not dimmed, there is no deafness, the limbs are strong and agile, the teeth remain free from decay, pleasing to the sight, and valuable for the chief purposes for which they were given. In a word, whatever can contribute to beauty and health in man and woman remains all but intact to the last. Decadence in any particular, if so it may be called, is scarcely ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... Kalmuck headquarters before Koulagina; and therefore, without the most furious haste on the part of the Kalmucks, there was not a chance for them, burdened and "trashed"[6] as 10 they were, to anticipate so agile a light cavalry as the Cossacks ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... to loosen. afortunado fortunate. afrancesado Frenchified Spaniard, Francomaniac, French sympathizer. afueras f. pl. environs. agachar vr. to stoop, squat. agazapar vr. to hide. agil agile. agilidad f. agility. agitar to agitate. agonia death, death agony. agonizante dying. agonizar to be dying. Agosto August. agraciado graceful. agradar to gratify. agravar to aggravate. agravio offense, injury. agrupar ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... bridegroom starts forward and endeavors to stay the old man. The old man pushes him off, they wrestle in their bewilderment, and struggle like wild beasts. Despair nerves the aged arms with iron strength. Young and agile as he is, the bridegroom feels the hands of his adversary pressing heavily upon his shoulders, he bends under the weight, the old man hurls him to the ground, and, no longer requiring aid from others, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... made a long circuit about it, finding nobody near. John, full of zeal and enthusiasm, volunteered to climb the tree and fasten the flag to its topmost stem, and Weber, after some claims on his own behalf, agreed. John was a good climber, alert, agile and full of strength, and he went up the trunk like an expert. It was an uncommonly tall tree for France, much more than a sapling, and when he reached the last bough that would support him he found that he could ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... being the handsomest people in the world; the men being tall, sinewy and extraordinarily agile, while the women are slender and graceful, with perfectly modeled figures. The Nair girl is carefully chaperoned until she arrives at a marriageable age, say, fourteen or fifteen years, at which time some complaisant individual is selected, ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... seemed imbued with the spirit of a hundred devils, and sprang at his opponent's throat with the silent breathless ferocity of a tiger. At first Heliobas appeared to be simply on the defensive, and his agile, skilful movements were all used to parry and ward off the other's grappling eagerness. But as I watched the struggle, myself speechless and powerless, I saw his face change. Instead of its calm and almost ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... his apish demeanour nor the deafening noises that responded to every movement of his agile body detracted attention from the figure of Reginald Clarke and the young man at his side as they smilingly wound their way ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... of the dancer's accompaniment concluded with a blare of noisy triumph, the mad enthusiasts out in front wildly shouting her name above the frantic din of applause, while, flushed and panting, the agile Mexican dancer swept into the darkened wings like ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... which spread rapidly through the crowd, the strong men elbowed their way toward the front ranks; the agile boys, embracing the shafts of the columns, sought to climb up to the capitals and there seat themselves; others, not without having skinned their knees against the bark, succeeded in perching themselves comfortably enough in the ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... the following summer you should select some one who is well grown and who has not been brought up in doublets, and so may not be of stiff carriage, and make him go through a number of agile and graceful actions; and if his muscles do not show plainly within the outlines of his limbs that does not matter at all. It is enough that you can see good attitudes and you can correct [the drawing of] the limbs by those you ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... President's next diplomatic stroke was unmarred by censure of any kind. In the winter of 1904 there broke out between Japan and Russia a terrible conflict over the division of spoils in Manchuria. The fortunes of war were with the agile forces of Nippon. In this struggle, it seems, President Roosevelt's sympathies were mainly with the Japanese, although he observed the proprieties of neutrality. At all events, Secretary Hay wrote in his diary on New Year's Day, 1905, that the President was "quite firm in ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... well after a swim is surely very pretty. But Jane's hair loved the water, and a flash of sunshine after it just whipped the little ringlets into flossy tangles. Then her eyes always danced from excitement, and her agile form just vibrated energy. Don't blame Jane for this description—it is given through Judy's eyes, whose hair went stringy, whose eyes went blinky, and who actually turned "goose flesh" from ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... all of Quincy's dexterity to avoid the wild rushes and savage thrusts made by Wood. But Quincy understood every one of the boxer's secrets and was as light and agile on his feet as a cat. It was three minutes at least before Quincy got the desired opening, and then he landed a blow on Wood's nose that sent him flat ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... myself the master. Especially was this seen when we used to wrestle on the soft, spongy grass that grows on the headland. I could lift him from the ground and throw him over my head, such was my advantage in weight and strength. Yet so cunning was he, and so agile, that he would cling around me, and twine his limbs around mine, so that I had to be very careful or I should have been disgraced by ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... moved like a Fish, chiefly by the flapping of the tail, aided by the fins, while in the Plesiosaurus the tail must have been much less efficient as a locomotive organ, and the long, snake-like, flexible neck no doubt rendered the whole body more agile and rapid in its movements. In comparing the two, it may be said, that, as a whole, the Ichthyosaurus, though belonging by its structure to the class of Reptiles, has a closer external resemblance to the Fishes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... thing, Light-going fairy thing, Not the grand lyre-bird Rivals thee, splendid one!— Fairy-attended one, Green-coated fire-bird! Shiniest fragile one, Tiniest agile one, Falcon and eagle tremble before thee! Dim is the regal peacock and lory, And the pheasant, iridescent, Pales before the gleam and glory Of the jewel-change incessant, When the sun is streaming ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... But agile Isabel, ever ready to follow a sister's lead, had already left Bridget's side and swung herself up, past Sarah, on to a ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... than medium height, thin and agile. In all his actions he showed quickness and alertness. He had large, black, piercing eyes, his eyebrows were curved and thick; his nose straight and long; his cheeks somewhat sunken; his mouth, not particularly well formed but expressive and graceful. From early ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... of the cleverest officers in the Indian police; he was a few years over thirty, a dark-complexioned man of medium height, very agile and powerful, and was known to the Salt Range natives as Koj (tracker) Burton Sahib, owing to his smartness in following up the ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... restraint of shoes and stockings. He read in the Old Testament that when Moses came to holy ground, he put off his shoes; but the boy was obliged to put his on, upon the holy day, not only to go to meeting, but while he sat at home. Only the emancipated country-boy, who is as agile on his bare feet as a young kid, and rejoices in the pressure of the warm soft earth, knows what a hardship it is to tie on stiff shoes. The monks who put peas in their shoes as a penance do not suffer more than the country-boy in his penitential Sunday shoes. I recall the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... pretty, gazelle-like creature, fleet and agile in springing up and running. Having passed over the Union Pacific Railroad many times, it has been my pleasure to see them running away from the train in droves of a dozen or more, in file one after the other, till out of sight, far away over the bluffs. By-and-by they will disappear as the buffalo ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... and define agile ity.—What is the distinction between "active" and "agile"? Ans. "Active" implies readiness to act in general; "agile" denotes a readiness to move the limbs.—Give two synonyms of "agile." Ans. Brisk, nimble.—Give the opposite of "agile." ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... he found that he was pitted against a creature as agile and as quick as himself. When his mighty frame struck the spot where the man had been he ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... lightly. She gave a wrench of frenzy; the antique fabric refused the strain; parted at the shoulder seam so thoroughly that the whole sleeve came away—but not to its owner's release, for she had been brought round by the jerk, so that, agile as she had shown herself, the pursuer threw an arm about her neck, before she could twist ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... there had been given her, according to the well-known custom of plantation life, a little quadroon slave-maid as her constant and only playmate. This maid began early to show herself in many ways remarkable. While yet a child she grew tall, lithe, agile; her eyes were large and black, and rolled and sparkled if she but turned to answer to her name. Her pale yellow forehead, low and shapely, with the jet hair above it, the heavily pencilled eyebrows and long lashes below, the faint red tinge that blushed with a kind of cold passion through ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... the only predacious member of the seal family, has an elongated agile body and a large head with massive jaws. In general it has a mottled skin, darker towards the back. It lives on fish, penguins and seals. Early in April, Hurley and McLean were the first to obtain proof that the sea-leopard preyed on other ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... years old he was fully as strong as the average man of thirty, and far more agile than the most practiced athlete ever becomes. And day by day his strength ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... she always gets the better of him; hitting him so swiftly, and in so many spots, as to bewilder his aim. But he makes ample amends when out of her presence, trundling off jests in whole paragraphs. In short, if his wit be slower, it is also stronger than hers: not so agile of movement, more weighty in matter, it shines less, but burns more; and as it springs much less out of the occasion, so it bears repeating much better. The effect of the serious events in bringing these persons to an ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... he accepted the challenge and repeated the doggerel as he planted his bare feet in the water. She splashed him and he retaliated, but the boy, though smaller, was agile, and in an unguarded moment he caught the girl by the wrists and pushed her so she sat squarely in the shallow waters of ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... the slightest fear, attacked them. The natives wounded four with poisoned arrows and killed some others, after which, their quivers being exhausted, they fled with the rapidity of the wind, for they are extremely agile. In their flight they hurled insults at the Spaniards, and they never shot an arrow that failed to hit its mark. Much depressed and inclined to abandon the country, the Spaniards returned to their point of departure, where they ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... back to their rock of observation, Polly said, "Beavers are slow and awkward on land so that the agile panther, the alert wildcat, or wolves and bears, form a constant menace to them. Because of their unwieldy and short legs, they cannot escape quickly, but in water they are wonderful swimmers, so, water being necessary to their safety, they build their huts on the ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... by: a man with a middle-aged, sallow face, long features, heavy eyelids, a soldierly grey moustache. His body encased in a short black jacket with narrow sleeves, his long legs in very tight trousers, made up an agile, youthful, slender figure. He moved forward suddenly, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... officers, and in another instant the trio would have turned a corner. Our look and the priest's gesture told the bishop that we were speaking of him. He paused, and Mr. Beckett jumped out of the stopped car, agile as a boy in ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... all dressed most fantastically, and the child running in advance, an agile and bedrabbled looking little creature, was more in masquerade than the others. She wore an old poke bonnet and carried a crooked stick, and there seemed to be ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... covered with a person. A green girl often looks into a book. And someone else finds a handkerchief. And the boots are disgustingly encrusted. A sound comes from an old man's open mouth. A young boy looks at a young girl. A boy plays with the button on his trousers. On a podium an agile body rocks To the rhythm of its serious instrument. On a collar lies a shiny head. Screeches. ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... Bluebottle, who is not much inclined to lay her eggs at a distance from the meat; but there is still the Flesh-fly, who is more venturesome and goes more briskly to work and who will slip the grubs through a hole in the meshes and drop them inside the safe. Agile as they are and well able to crawl, the worms will easily reach anything on the floor; the only things secure from their attacks will be the pieces hanging from the ceiling. It is not in the nature of maggots to explore ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... Lyric Muse, Mr. Leslie Pinckney Hill, schoolmaster of Cheney, Pennsylvania, and authentic singer, is the newest arrival on the slopes of Parnassus. A first glance tells that he is an agile climber, sinewy, easy of movement, light of step, with both grace and strength. Every indication in form and motion is for some point far up toward the summit. Youthful is he, ambitious plainly, and, in spite of a burden, buoyant. "Climber," I said. I will drop the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... says this is the best way," said the American. "Mine says straight up is the best," said the German. "But mine is a later edition," said the American. "That is not it," explained the German. "It is that we Germans are so much more clever and agile, that to us is recommended the more dangerous way while Americans ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... thine errand now? What awful pleasure do thine eyes bespeak, What shame is in thy childish cheek, What terror on thy brow? Is this my Psyche, once so pale and meek? Thy body's sudden beauty my sight old Stings, like an agile bead of boiling gold, And all thy life looks troubled like a tree's Whose boughs wave many ways in one great breeze.' 'O Pythoness, to strangest story hark: A dreadful God was with me in the dark—' 'How many a Maid— Has never told me that! And thou'rt afraid—' 'He'll come ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... Orme discovered a trunk much larger than its neighbors. It ran up smoothly about eight feet to the first limb. An agile man could easily get up to this limb and pull himself into the branches. A cavity such as are so common in oaks, would furnish a good place ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... swore blasphemously and swung out of his saddle to scramble up the slide. Great as was his strength, it was offset by the fact that his weight tended to bring the loose stones sliding down at every step. Lennon was not only lighter and more agile but had the advantage of ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... the wanton faun And agile as the Hooluck gibbon, The children "walked" thee on the lawn, Tied with a bow of orange ribbon; And aye as irksomer grew the task Of fending off the Hun garotters In our mind's eye—if you must ask— We ate thee ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... world than to the top of Shooter's Hill; and when they arrived at the foot of this grand upheaving of nature, she began to think the task more formidable than she had imagined at a distance. Her young conductor, agile as a kid, bounded up the steep acclivity with as much ease as if he was running over ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... inches taller than his companion, and though his figure was somewhat above medium height, he was so well proportioned, so admirably free in his movements, that he was evidently if not extraordinarily strong, at least uncommonly agile and dexterous. Although attired in the same manner and apparently on a footing of equality, be evinced remarkable deference to the dark young man, which, as it could not result from age, was doubtless caused ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... up correctly, Joel saw. There was excellent cover running around to the patch of trees among which the object of their solicitude was placed. It would be an easy matter for two such agile lads to bend over and cover that short distance, all the while keeping themselves hidden from the eyes of the party perched amidst the dead leaves ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... made very little alteration here, excepting in the case of Jacquelina, who had grown up to be the most enchanting sprite that ever bewitched the hearts, or turned the heads of men. She was petite, slight, agile, graceful; clustering curls of shining gold encircled a round, white forehead, laughing in light; springs under springs of fun and frolic sparkled up from the bright, blue eyes, whose flashing light ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... my device, and satisfied that the danger was over for that day (it being well on to twelve o'clock), I said a few words more to the doctor, who had followed me into the room, and then prepared to take my departure. But the young lady was more agile than I. Saying something about a very pressing engagement which would not allow her to consult the doctor that day, she hurried ahead of me and ran quickly down the long hall. The doctor looked astonished, but dismissed the matter with a shrug; while, with the ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs) |
