"Elfish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as she came within— Hark, hark! A spirit was it, and asleep? A spirit doth not breathe like clay. There hung A cresset from the roof, and thence appeared A flickering speck of light, and disappeared; Then dropped along the floor its elfish flakes, That fell on some one resting, in the gloom,— Somewhat, a spectral shadow, then a shape That loomed. It was a heifer, ay, and white, Breathing and ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... nearing fifty; but her slim little wiry body and her elfish, wrinkled face, never still, but ever alive with the same vivacity that years ago had attracted William Allsopp, made her seem younger than her years; and her husband treated her as though she were still a ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... so much wonder at it myself sometimes when I saw Kitty's pale cheeks flush with that delicious pink, her wide hazel eyes deepen and glow, her little face light up with elfish mirth, and her round, childish figure poise itself in some coquettish attitude. Then she had such absurd little hands, with short fingers and babyish dimples, such tiny feet, and such a wealth of crinkled dark-brown hair—such ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... perfect tempest of rage whenever Madge approached her or tried to talk to her. The monkey even deserted her master to perch in Tania's arms. The animal put its little, scrawny arms about the queer child's neck, and there was almost the same elfish, wistful look in both pairs ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... wicked girl Yarakna—she's been hiding from me all the day. I must punish her, too!" and before Van Hielen could speak the indignant parent waddled off—with surprising swiftness for one of her vast proportions—and reappeared dragging by the wrist an elfish-looking girl of about ten. She gave the urchin one blow, and was about to give her another, when Van Hielen, whose heart was particularly tender where children were concerned, interfered, and by dint of bribery persuaded her to desist. She retired indoors, ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... ideal at seventeen Must be a sprite— A dainty, fairy, elfish queen Of pure delight; But later on he sort of feels He'd like a ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... her. At times, returning to where he had left her hidden, he would pause, wondering to whom she was talking, and then as he drew nearer would hear the stealing away of little feet, the startled flutter of wings. She had elfish ways, of which it seemed impossible to cure her. Often the good man, returning from some late visit of mercy with his lantern and his stout oak cudgel, would pause and listen to a wandering voice. It was never near ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... this elfish concert, it seemed, was the birth of a fairy child, at which the fairies, with the exception of two or three who were discomposed at having nothing to cover the little innocent with, were enjoying themselves with that joviality usually ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... upon a capital expedient for escaping castigation (which is never very severe). "I found this cane myself. It was lying on the ground in the compound, and I am going to take it to the teacher." Chorus of "Why?" "Because," and the Elf looked elfish, "if I give it to him with my own hands, how will he cane my hands with it? His heart will not be hard enough to cane me with the cane I gave him!" and the little scamp looks round for applause. Chorus ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... "Ha!" made him look up. Soft Shoes had already raised the trap and was looking down into the room, his rather elfish face squeezed into a grimace, half of distaste, ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... an elfish maiden child; She is not two years old; Through windy locks her eyes gleam wild, With ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... the noise and laughter a small figure stirred in the shadowy chimney-corner, the figure of a little, bent, old man, with a queer, elfish, hairy visage. He sat up and his small, red eyes blinked wonderingly. "Hech, hech, and it will be the cold night, Malcolm!" he ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... considerable generalizing power and learned to take pleasure in synthetic formulas. The thought of very primitive men has hardly any tincture of philosophy. Nature can have little unity for savages. It is a Walpurgis-nacht procession, a checkered play of light and shadow, a medley of impish and elfish friendly and inimical powers. 'Close to nature' though they live, they are anything but Wordsworthians. If a bit of cosmic emotion ever thrills them, it is likely to be at midnight, when the camp ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... mother and son worked on. The hole grew larger and deeper. Clouds began to gather in the sky, throwing elfish shadows as they passed. Not until moon and stars faded away and streaks of daylight began to appear did Meitje Brinker and Hans look ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... some admirable bits of the work of Richard Doyle, among other things a weird and grotesque, but charming cartoon of an elfish procession passing through a quaint and picturesque mediaeval city. It is a conte fantastique in colour—a marvel of ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... made a merry sound as of shepherds piping on oaten straws in new grass where there are daisies; and there was a little elfish laughter of clarionets, and a fluttering among the cool flutes like spring wind blowing through crisp young leaves in April. The harps began to pulse and throb with a soft cadence like raindrops falling into a clear pool where brown leaves lie upon the bottom and bubbles float above ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... never soft or tearful. Her manner grew more and more moody and constrained, till even her matter-of-fact uncle and aunt, good easy souls, and her absorbed cousin, became curious and anxious. The little elfish black pony was in more frequent request than ever; for his mistress now went out at any hour that suited her whim, in any weather, chose the loneliest by-ways, and rode furiously. Often, at evening, she ascended a dark gorge of the western hills and plunged down on the other side, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... the downy cheek Of the peach, and smoothed it sleek, And flushed it into splendor; And, with many an elfish freak, Gave the russet's rust a wipe— Prankt the rambo with a stripe, And the winesap blushed its reddest As they spanked the ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... countless sparks is a tiny animal, as perfect in its substance and as well adapted to its cycle of life as the highest created being. The wonderful way in which this phosphorescence permeates everything—the jelly-fish seeming elfish fireworks as they throb through the water with rhythmic beats—the fish brilliantly lighted up and plainly visible as they dart about far beneath the surface—makes such a night on the Bay of Fundy an experience ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... wailed pitifully and almost constantly; while pressed against the warm, loving heart he sank into comfort and peace. When he was awake his elfish eyes were fixed in solemn stare upon the mother-face. Not knowingly nor indifferently, but intently, as if from the depths of past experience he was wondering ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... print, which had been once of an exceedingly boisterous pattern, but was now a mere suggestion of former splendor; while round her head was twisted, in fantastic fashion, a silk handkerchief of green ground spotted with bright crimson. This strange headdress gave her an elfish appearance. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... her face for a moment, as she flashed her beautiful wide eyes upon him. She seemed a part of that beauteous night, elfish and delicate as a moonbeam or a flower, fragile as the song of a bird. He could not speak, but stood drinking her in with his eyes and soul, his face wearing a mixed expression of rapture and pain. She knew what he felt, and like him, ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... little girl of ten or twelve years of age opened the door. The child's big black eyes, and long snaky locks falling about a pale face, gave her an elfish look quite in keeping with the character of the house. She at once ushered the callers into the front parlour, where a lady and gentleman were sitting, who proved to be Mrs. Legrand and her manager and man ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... dreams of them that women cease to dwell in the abstract and become issues, to be met with more or less trepidation. Back among some of his idle dreams there had been a Kitty, blue-eyed, black-haired, slender and elfish. ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... a moment on the threshold to say, in a tone of intense self- satisfaction, "He be off. Abel! Janny's off!" and forthwith toddle out as hard as he could go. As he grew older, he dropped this form; but the elfish habit of appearing and disappearing at his own ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... suspiciously, malignantly even, never with the frank look of childhood. As the long afternoon goes by in its hours of leisure for us fatigue settles like a blight over their features, their expressions darken to elfish strangeness, whilst sullen lines, never to be eradicated, mark the distinctive visages of these children ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... nameless little circumstances, that gave him a strong feeling of want of sincerity in his stepmother. Mrs. Owen brought with her into the family her little child by her first husband, a boy nearly three years old. He was one of those elfish, observant, mocking children, over whose feelings you seem to have no control: agile and mischievous, his little practical jokes, at first performed in ignorance of the pain he gave, but afterward proceeding ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Grace; "I like not this lonely spot. There was always a fear and a mystery about it. The tale of the invisible sylphid and Eleanor Byron's elfish lover haunts me whenever I pass by, and I feel as though something was near, observing and influencing ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... days came and went; the riotous bees Tore the warm grapes in many a dusty-vine, And men grew faint and thin with too much ease, And Winter gave no sign: But all the while beyond the northmost woods He sat and smiled and watched his spirits play In elfish dance and eery roundelay, Tripping in many moods With snowy curve and fairy ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... was," continued Bobby, with an elfish grin, "Old Dimple grabbed them up and said right out loud: 'Oh, here they are, Ellie!' The boys just hooted, and poor Old Dimp was as mad as ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... the rich purple of twilight. Bella said she was lazy, and urged industry and the need of speed in the preparation of the new wardrobe. She laughed indolently and said, time enough later on. She had grown indifferent about her looks—her hair hanging elfish round her ears, her blouse unfastened at the throat, the new boots Low had brought her from Sacramento unworn in the cabin corner, her feet clothed in the ragged moccasins he had taught ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... the baby!" I thought, looking down into her proud face. I cannot describe how very odd and elfish it did seem to have those sonorous words rolling out of the smiling mouth. The band striking up put an end to the quotation and to the confidences. As the exercises progressed and approached nearer and nearer the effort on which all her interest was ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... of elfish laughter greeted this speech and looking up the Scarecrow found the trees full of black crows, who seemed much amused by the straw man's one-eyed countenance. He knew the crows well, however, and they had usually been friendly to him because he had ...
— Little Wizard Stories of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... is where the Kid sits when she is a bad girl and runs away." She peeped up in his face almost slyly. "Then they call her: 'You Kid, come here! Dirty little slut, take the broom and sweep out the bar! Idle little devil, fetch water for the kitchen!'" Her smile was peaked and elfish. She laid a cunning finger beside her pursed-up lips. "But though they scold and call bad names, they never come and fetch her down off the Little Kopje. Beat her when she comes in, and serve her ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... his seat and studied her from beneath his overhanging eyebrows as intently, as alertly, as silently as he was wont to do when watching the faces of his opponents in a game of high hazard. There was something uncanny, almost elfish, in the woman's voice and eyes, and yet even before her words were fully uttered the truth stood revealed to him. His eyes lost their stern glare, his hands, which had clutched the arms of his chair, relaxed. "Are you sure?" he asked again, but more gently. "You've got ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... enemy withstood, And stay'd their lives, fast ebbing with the sand. Long while this strife engaged the pretty band; But now bold Chanticleer, from farm to farm, Challenged the dawn creeping o'er eastern land, And well the fairies knew that shrill alarm, Which sounds the knell of every elfish charm. ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... The passages offered will give the unfamiliar reader a taste of the sparkle of this poet's hurrying fancy and set her before the willing mind entrancingly, it seems to me. She will always delight those who find it in their way to love her elfish, evasive genius, and those who care for the vivid and living element in words will find her, to say the least, among the masters in her feeling for their strange shapes and the fresh significance contained in them. A born thinker of poetry, and in a great measure ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... looked straight ahead of her at a man and a young woman crossing the street some little distance from us. Then she looked up at me. The man was Selwyn. The girl with him was the odd and elfish little creature who had been hurt in Scarborough Square and whom he had helped bring in to ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... said the boy, with his elfish little countenance lighting up. He was very slight and small for his age, a little shadow darting across the sunshine. The half of the terrace lay in a blaze of light, but all was cool and fresh in the corner where Lady Markland's light ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... into his face, undaunted. She was a small elfish creature with a thin face, on the slenderest of necks. But in her queer little countenance a pair of laughing eyes, out of all proportion to the rest of her for loveliness and effect, gave her and kept her the attention of the world. They lent distinction—fascination even—to ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... money to pay wages, thro' which, there was doo to him the sum of one pound seven and sixpence halfpenny, which I, bein' 'is widder, ought to 'ave, not that I expects to see it on this side of the grave—oh, dear, no!" and she gave a shrill, elfish laugh. ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... branches. The summer sun scorches the face of Yeddo, and summer rain comes down in wide bands of light. With evening the mist creeps up, thrown over it like a covering, casting a spell of silence through which the yellow lanterns of the hurrying jinrikishas dance an elfish dance, and the voices of the singing-girls pierce like fine blades ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... secured the shadow of your thought; but no more, probably. You had not enough of the artist's skill and science to give it full being: yet the drawings are, for a school-girl, peculiar. As to the thoughts, they are elfish. These eyes in the Evening Star you must have seen in a dream. How could you make them look so clear, and yet not at all brilliant? for the planet above quells their rays. And what meaning is that ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... instance, a war broke out in Fairyland because the King of the Fairies, whose name is Oberon, and the Queen of the Fairies, whose name is Titania, had asked the Trolls to dinner. The Gnomes were very much annoyed at this, and the Elves still more so, for the chief glory of the Elves was that being elfish got you to know people; and it was universally admitted that the Trolls ought never to be asked out, because they were trollish. King Oberon said that all that was a wicked prejudice, and that the Trolls ought ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... elephantinely elfish in M. Hanaud's demeanour, which left Mr. Ricardo at a loss. But he had come to notice that these undignified manifestations usually took place when Hanaud had reached a definite opinion upon some point ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... by the side of her giant escort seemed like a slender ray of light, a radiant, elfish form, transparent, intangible, gliding softly along with a huge, black shadow. She was simply clad, all in white. About her neck hung a string of pearls, and at her waist she wore the rare orchids which Ames had sent her that ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... of her comprehension, however, she warmed toward him. It was so good to see him lounging on the sofa again, his green-gold eyes bright, his brown face with its elfish smile radiant now that his point was won. She knew he had been unkind to her both in word and act, but it was impossible not to forgive him, now that she enjoyed again the comfort ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... Moon looked on and laughed With a shrill and sneering jibe; Her soul grew fat to see them chaffed, This mad and elfish tribe. The big black caldron boiled so high With food for these queer mites, That it lit the world throughout the sky, And down came all ...
— The Goblins' Christmas • Elizabeth Anderson
... thing? and then is my eye opened to the eternal picture which nature paints in the street, with moving men and children, beggars and fine ladies, draped in red and green and blue and gray; long-haired, grizzled, white-faced, black-faced, wrinkled, giant, dwarf, expanded, elfish,—capped and based by heaven, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... him rather defiantly—seated on a low stool, her elfish chin in her elfish hand, her pretty little rose-bloom face peeping brightly out from the ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... amazing when contrasted with what had been previously. Wearied of the excessive eulogy bestowed upon Cruikshank's illustrations to Dickens, and unable to accept the artist as an illustrator of real characters in fiction, when he studies his elfish and other-worldly personages, the most grudging critic must needs yield a full tribute of praise. The volumes (published by Charles Tilt, of 82 Fleet Street) are extremely rare; for many years past the ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... and elfish, with a wealth of yellow tresses falling down her back. She was tender and gay, too, and Keith liked to hear her laugh. When they played, she was always ready to fall in with any ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... boats and gave it to one of the women captives to bring to me—a poor little, skinny thing, with long yellow hair, like a fairy changeling. I got a wet nurse for her and fed her with baby food, but she got thinner and more elfish-looking. One day her nurse was standing by while the other children were eating their dinner, and Polly stretched out her arms to the rice and salt fish, and began to cry. "Oh," said I, "perhaps she can eat;" and from that day the little one ate her rice and discarded the nurse, growing ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... further developments was out of the question. He did, however, force himself to act as sanely as possible. He felt confident that Nella-Rose, safely hidden and probably enjoying it in her own elfish way, would communicate with him in a few days at the latest, now that things had, according to White, somewhat settled into shape after the outlaw Lawson had taken ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... haste. Allowing her to keep between himself and the cavern's wall, even intrusting to her care the curious staff that now persisted in dancing along the cavern's floor in an elfish way which amazed the girl, he made a circuit of the place. At one spot he paused, and a single grunt of satisfaction escaped him. Then he seized a loaf of bread from a shelf-like niche and began to eat it eagerly. He even pointed ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... Jacques, when I came to his father's house, was a rampant, noisy, cunning child, with the vivacity of French and American blood mingling in his veins, and filling him with strongest tendencies to mischief, and prompting elfish feats of activity. He was not by any means a fascinating child,—in fact, no children ever fascinated me,—but this little fellow was rather disagreeable, a wonder to his father, a horror to his mother, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... flesh and blood,—was dim, elfish, wan, with large, mild eyes, as blue and misty as the nebulae that Herschel found in Southern skies,—eyes that looked at nothing, but seemed to penetrate the universe and shed soft solemn light over all things. Back from the broad, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... for volunteers to show us to the great-grandfather. Our elfish little girls at once offered, and went dancing off down the trail like autumn leaves in a wind. Whether it was the Indian in them, or the effects of environment, or merely our own imaginations, we both had the same ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... had an arm round her; they propelled her towards the house. They were lithe, supple creatures of twenty and twenty-one. Between them walked Neville, with her small, pointed, elfish face, that was sensitive to every breath of thought and emotion like smooth water wind-stirred. With her great violet eyes brooding in it under thin black brows, and her wet hair hanging in loose strands, she looked like an ageless wood-dryad between two slim young saplings. Kay was a little ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... proteges was Serafino, the famous improvisatore of Aquila in the Abruzzi, a short and ugly little man, whom Cardinal Bibbiena once laughingly compared to a carpet-bag (valigia)! But in spite of his dwarfed stature and elfish appearance, Serafino sang his own strambotti and eclogues so well, and had so fascinating a way of accompanying himself on the lute, that the Este and Gonzaga ladies all entreated him for new verses, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... mine," said she, turning in elfish mood to brush her lips across the frustrated fingers. "Art is long, if time is fleeting," she sang to the measure of her Non piu mesta, beginning again to shower its diamonds about till all the air seemed bright with her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in answer to this mental question a peal of elfish laughter greeted his ear,—a mirthless, falsetto cackle, like that of a parrot, and half hidden behind one of the great marble lions in the shade of the loggia he discerned a grotesque little creature, with the figure of a child and a woman's face, old in its ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... so many riddles. For one, her presence in the Danish camp,—for surely, as a chieftain's daughter, she would have been sent on to the care of the Lady of Northampton! Was it not thoroughly in accordance with her elfish wildness to have chosen man's attire and the roughness of camp-life in order to remain near her lover? Her lover! The young noble's lips curled as he glanced at the warrior beside him, at the coarse face under the unkempt locks, at the huge body in its trap-pings ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... from between us, and was no longer the object nearest to me. The girl whose light fingers grasped me, whose elfish charming face looked into mine—who, I thought, was betraying an interest in my feelings that she would not have directly avowed,—this warm breathing presence again possessed my senses and imagination like a returning siren melody which had been overpowered for an instant by the roar of threatening ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... been five years before, with Sarah and Mary beside her—they had married during the war, but nothing had prevented them from coming back to make Billabong ready. Near them the storekeeper, Jack Archdale, and his pretty wife, with their elfish small daughter; and Mick Shanahan and Dave Boone, with the Scotch gardener, Hogg, and his Chinese colleague—and sworn enemy—Lee Wing. They were all there, a little welcoming group—but Norah could see them only through a mist ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... painted like a picture in the air, I saw the elfish figure, of a man with frosty hair— A quaint old man that chuckled with a laugh as he appeared, And with ruddy cheeks like embers in the ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... Maxwell's demon. [person possessed by a demon] demoniac. Adj. demonic, demonical, impish, demoniacal; fiendish, fiend-like; supernatural, weird, uncanny, unearthly, spectral; ghostly, ghost-like; elfin, elvin[obs3], elfish, elflike[obs3]; haunted; pokerish [obs3][U.S.]. possessed, possessed by a devil, possessed by a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to the shadow, to the cold and to the damp of the city, whereas I was fresh from the sunlight of the plain, and as I watched them peering out from behind my wash-basin, they appeared to marvel at me and to confer on my case with almost elfish intelligence. ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the wall," she broke out, "at a five-o'clock tea; I know, 'cause I've peeked in the windows up on the avenoo, an' I've seen your folks, too." She nodded over at Phronsie. "I know what I'll do." She tossed her head with its black, elfish locks, and darted off in triumph, dragging up from another corner a big box, first unceremoniously dumping out the various articles, such as dirty clothes, a tin pan or two, a skillet, an empty bottle—last of all, a nightcap, which she held aloft. "Gran's," she shouted; "it's ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... in one of her elfish moods, the languid grace of her sleepy-eyed moments forgotten. With a little cry of rapture she ran to the piano, and dashed into a gay, tinkling air with brilliancy and abandon. Her head, surmounted by a perky, high-peaked, narrow-brimmed hat, with a flaming red bird ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... do this, I wondered. Perhaps to pretend to powers which she did not possess, perhaps out of sheer elfish mischief, or perhaps, as she asserted, just to teach us a lesson and to humble us in our own sight. Well, if so she had succeeded, for never did I feel so crushed and ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... an elfish laugh; "I believe, if the truth were really known, we ought to be making our own beds and ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... its light fell upon the white, elfish face of Benita, whose long dark hair streamed about her; it shone in her great eyes. Still she could see nothing, ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... Elfish everything seems; for everything as well as everybody is small, and queer, and mysterious: the little houses under their blue roofs, the little shop-fronts hung with blue, and the smiling little people in their blue costumes. The illusion is only broken ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... last vain pilgrimage to the Church of the Sacred Heart and stood before the glass, removing a thick black veil from the pale despair of her face, she was suddenly aware of a strange, unfamiliar smile lifting the drooped lines of her lips—an elfish smile which transformed her face to something different from her own. And immediately those smiling lips uttered words that fell as unexpectedly on her ears as though they had proceeded from the ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. A piquant, tricksy sprite, as naughty as she is bewitching—a creature of fire and air, more elfish than human, at once her mother's torment and her treasure.—Nathaniel Hawthorne, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... several volumes of lyrical verse. Some of it possesses the lightness of these elfish tales. The Barrel Organ, The Song of Re-Birth, and Forty Singing Seamen are among his finest lyrics. They display much rhythmic beauty and variety. He strikes a deeply sorrowful and passionate note in The Haunted Palace and De Profundis. A line like ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... Veronica was an elfish creature, nine years old, diminutive and pale. Her long, silky brown hair, which was as straight as an Indian's, like mother's, and which she tore out when angry, usually covered her face, and her wild eyes looked wilder still peeping through it. She was too strange-looking for ordinary people ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard |
