"Faint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... our own to develop into a natural protection. We hang about us bits of stone and metal, but underneath it all we are little two-legged animals, struggling with the rest to live and breed. Beneath each hedgerow in the springtime we can read our own romances in the making—the first faint stirring of the blood, the roving eye, the sudden marvellous discovery of the indispensable She, the wooing, the denial, hope, coquetry, despair, contention, rivalry, hate, jealousy, love, bitterness, victory, and death. Our comedies, our tragedies, ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... not surprising that the period of the Revolution should develop a literature peculiarly political. There were, no doubt, already poetasters, novelists, and essayists; but even their names are strange to us of this age. Where are they and their works? What faint traces are still left of them show us that they were mostly mere imitators, and not brilliant ones, of the English authors ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... are all o'erthrown, And what strength I have's mine own, Which is most faint: now, 'tis true, I must be here confined by you, Or sent to Naples. Let me not, 5 Since I have my dukedom got, And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell In this bare island by your spell; But release me from my bands With the help of your good hands: 10 Gentle breath ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... expected. Before 1.30 A.M. all things were as ready as care could make them, and not too soon. The moon was sinking, or had sunk; the sky darkened steadily, though not beyond that natural to a starless night. In the southwest faint glimmerings of lightning gave warning of what might be looked for; but we had used light well while we had it, and could now bear what was to come. At 2 P.M. it came with a roar and a rush, "butt-end foremost," as the saying is, preceded by ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... Master Lowestoffe was interrupted, was that of a distant horn, winded loud and keenly, and followed by a faint and remote huzza. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... with some well-conceived plan. The main streams should be improved to the highest point of efficiency before the improvement of the branches is attempted; and the work should be kept free from every faint of recklessness or jobbery. The inland waterways which lie just back of the whole eastern and southern coasts should likewise be developed. Moreover, the development of our waterways involves many other important water ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... age of seven had he been able to look on feminine beauty without a sense of warmth and faint excitement; and seeing now perhaps the most beautiful girl he had ever beheld, he desired to be with her wherever she might be going. There was too something very fascinating in the way she smiled, as if she had a little seen ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... looking dreadfully white, and unable to stand, sunk into her chair, and Elinor, expecting every moment to see her faint, tried to screen her from the observation of others, while ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... time she would not leave. Every argument we could use was of no avail, and we were desperate as to what course to pursue, when the shelling recommenced in a few minutes. Then mother recommenced her screaming and was ready to fly anywhere; and holding her box of papers, with a faint idea of saving something, she picked up two dirty underskirts and ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... of the campanili had dimmed to a faint cadence, like some unuttered rhythm of thought, as the distance grew between the outsailing fleet and all that pageantry of Venice, two faces stood forth like visions from the bewildering pictures of the morning and dwelt with ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... A faint gleam twinkled up in Muller's eyes, and he did not look at his chief. Doctor von Riedau's own face glowed in a slowly mounting flush, and his eyes drooped in a moment of conscious embarrassment at some recollection, the sting of which was evidently made worse by Muller's presence. ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... and though at first pretending to act as the subjects of the fictitious sovereign of the Mosquito Indians, they subsequently repudiated the control of any power whatever, assumed to adopt a distinct political organization, and declared themselves an independent sovereign state. If at some time a faint hope was entertained that they might become a stable and respectable community, that hope soon vanished. They proceeded to assert unfounded claims to civil jurisdiction over Punta Arenas, a position on the opposite side of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... clarinet-player who had been seen at Venice and Trieste, and went by the name of Voltojo. This might have been a name adopted by Bernard, as being nearly the Italian equivalent of Geyer, or hawk, the name of his native town; and Solling was not without a faint hope, that in the course of his journey to Rome he might obtain some tidings of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... rare species, only known from the original collection by Leprieur, French Guiana. Our photograph is from the type. In the original drawing there is a circle of little acute protuberances shown near the apex of the plant. We can see but faint indication of them ...
— Synopsis of Some Genera of the Large Pyrenomycetes - Camilla, Thamnomyces, Engleromyces • C. G. Lloyd
... doctor watched her narrowly. The Countess crossed the room, faint and dizzy, and rested her head ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... stretched away for many miles in every direction. "The Smoky God," in its clear white light, looked calmly down. There was an intoxication in the electrically surcharged air that fanned the cheek as softly as a vanishing whisper. Nature chanted a lullaby in the faint murmur of winds whose breath was sweet with the fragrance ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... her thoughts returned she stood alone in the room. The clatter of Morgan's galloping horse died swiftly away down the road. She turned to Dan. Black Bart was crouched at watch beside him. She kneeled again—lowered her head—heard the faint but steady breathing. He seemed infinitely young—infinitely weak and helpless. The whiteness of the bandage stared up at her like an eye through the deepening gloom. All the mother in her nature came to her eyes ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... may have changed," she remarked, when Amzi came back and put her into the dingy carriage, "but the hacks haven't. I recall the faint bouquet of old times. That must be the court-house clock," she continued, peeping from the window. "They were building the new courthouse about the time I left. I miss something; it must be the old familiar jiggle of the streets. Asphalt? ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... yellow fog diluted with a faint twilight, in the Brown Borough. The air was vague, making it not so much an impossibility to decipher the features of people approaching as a surprise to find it possible. A few rather premature bar row-flares adapted Scripture to modern conditions by ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... God, and of the soldiers who executed their overlord, and of Judas who betrayed his friend, in all these there was surely a certain uneasiness—such an uneasiness is actually recorded of the first and the last of the list—a certain faint shadow of perception and knowledge of what it was that they had done and were doing. And, for the natural man, it would have been comparatively easy to forgive such injuries on that account. "I forgive them," such a man might have said ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... Mrs. Bundercombe, for some reason or other, only entered a faint protest against our departure. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon and the streets were crowded with every description of vehicle. The sun was still warm; there was a faint pink light in the sky— a perfume of lilac in the air from the window-boxes and flower-barrows. ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that it was not absurd; she knew herself worthy of love's belated condescension—not Raoul's; for the moment she scarcely thought of Raoul; for the moment Raoul's image grew faint and indefinite in the glory of being loved. Instinct, too, thrust it into the background; for as Raoul grew definite so must his youth, his circumstances, the world's laughter, the barriers never to be overcome. But merely to be loved, and to rest in that knowledge awhile—here were no barriers. ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... chance attentive and duly prepared, can manage to read, recovering for a moment the image of an extinct life. Symbols, illegible to reason, can thus sometimes read themselves out in trance and madness. Faint vestiges may be found in matter of forms which it once wore, or which, like a perfume, impregnated and got lodgment within it. Slight echoes may suddenly reconstitute themselves in the mind's silence; and a half-stunned consciousness may catch brief glimpses of long-lost and irrelevant ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... biggest girl Elliott had ever seen, tall and fat and shapeless and very plain. She was all in white, which made her look bigger, and her skirt was at least three years old. There was a faint trickle of brown spots down the front of it, too, of which the girl seemed ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... III, like that of Nicholas I, was devoid of even that faint glamor of liberalism which, in the days of Alexander I and Alexander II, had aroused deceptive hopes of better times. During the thirteen years of Alexander III's autocracy (1881-1894) not a ray of light was permitted to penetrate into Holy Russia. On May 14, 1881, the manifesto prohibiting ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... snapped from his chair at her words, leaped forward to catch her as she collapsed in a faint. ...
— A Filbert Is a Nut • Rick Raphael
... yon fellow's mind," I said to my comrade, as we stepped out through the snow and into the wooded brae-side, keeping a wary eye about for spies of the enemy, whose footprints we came on here and there, but so faint in the fresh snowfall that it was certain they were now ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... whole army. Not a tent nor a single person was to be seen. Those canvas houses, which had concealed the growth of the traverse from the view of the enemy, were now protected and hid in their turn. The prospect of smoking us out, was now at best but very faint. But as neither general Proctor nor his officers were yet convinced of the folly and futility of their laborious preparations, their batteries were opened, and five days were spent in arduous cannonading and bombarding, to bring them ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... woods where night overtook him, and at the first faint light of day was making a frugal breakfast of the bread and cheese sent ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... God for help to fight against your sinful nature," replied her mother in moved tones. "He says 'In me is thine help'; 'He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.' 'They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.' 'Fear thou not; for I am ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... who is interested in our topics. Each orders beer or some other kind of drink, in payment for the room. Most of them smoke. I have gone when I could, for there are other men of my race who come, and sometimes I have broken silence. I have pleased myself with a faint likeness between these poor philosophers and the Masters who handed down the thought of our race—the great Transmitters, who labored with their hands for scant bread, but preserved and enlarged for us the heritage of memory, and saved the soul of Israel ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... fallen upon a wild Florida forest, and all was still save for the hooting of a distant owl and the occasional plaintive call of a whip-poor-will. In a little clearing by the side of a faint bridle-path a huge fire of fat pine knots roared and crackled, lighting up the small cleared space and throwing its flickering rays in amongst ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... she began to recover herself; but she felt too faint and ill to get up and commence a retreat towards Redman's Farm. Besides, she was sure he would return—she could not tell how soon—and although the clump of alders hid her from view, she could not tell but that the next moment ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?' and immediately goes on to say, 'They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.' So it is from God, the unfainting and the unwearied, that the strength comes which makes our steps buoyant with energy amidst the commonplace, and steadfast and established at the crises of our lives. But before these two great promises is put another one: 'They ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... long and severe winter had fairly set in, her stock of fuel would be exhausted; and at the prices which she was receiving for her work, she felt that it would be impossible to buy more. After making the fire, she took her work, and drew near the window, through which the cold faint rays of the morning were stealing. By holding the work close to the light, she could see to set her needle, and in this way she commenced her daily toil. An hour was spent in sewing, when Emma aroused up, and she had to lay by her ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... Harpalus!" Phyllis waved her hand through the half-open doorway. "Faint heart never ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... under the forefinger, on the left hand of your honorable spouse," proceeded the Doctor, "is deep and agitated; the left hand pulse, under the second finger, is deep and faint. The pulse, under the forefinger, of the right hand, is gentle and lacks vitality. The right hand pulse, under my second finger, is superficial, and has lost all energy. The deep and agitated beating of the forepulse of the left hand ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... chemical element, passed through a spectroscope, forms a bright-line spectrum; that is, one consisting entirely of isolated bright lines, distributed differently throughout the spectrum for the different elements, or of bright lines superimposed upon a relatively faint continuous spectrum. ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... her whim to carry out the little affectation in her soaps and toilet waters; he could not pick up her handkerchief or hold her wrap for her without freeing the delicate faint odor of her favorite flower. When they met downtown for dinner there was always the little ceremony of finding the florist, and all the operas this winter were mingled for Rachael with the most exquisite ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... beneath, the river itself lay like a sheet of metal, glittering here and there with the yellow lights of ships. Blackwell's Island slipped under them, an inky bottomless pit of despair, out of which points of fire gleamed upward—like faint, steady-burning sparks of hope in the hearts of miserable men. The breath of the overheated city changed as by magic, and the thin-faced sufferer at Lorelei's side drank it in eagerly. Even in the dim flash of the passing ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... take Flurry out, and ran down to the beach alone. I had to plant my feet firmly in the shingles, for I could hardly stand against the wind. What a wild, magnificent scene it was, a study in browns and grays, a strange colorless blending of faint tints and ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... flutteringly sure that she expected to see him there. But all his plan of proffering assistance vanished as he saw her impatient eyes and her splendors of dress—another tight-fitting gown, of smoky gray, with faint silvery ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... been that she grew very sleepy—probably the heat weighed her eyelids down—certainly she found it impossible to keep her eyes open, and Maurice apparently thought that she felt faint. Always in the same vague way she heard him making suggestions for her comfort: "Could he get her some wine?" or "Should he try and find Madame ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... Zealand, a Scotchman, commenced business with the following characteristic entry on the first page of his ledger:—'Commenced business this day—with no money—little credit—and L.70 in debt. Faint heart never won fair lady. Set a stout heart to a stay (steep) brae. God save ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... said she, with a mock coldness that was a faint echo of his own recent manner, "you overstate the case. That which I did I must have done, no matter whom it was a question of saving. I was but an instrument in this ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... and the unconscious patient had been taken down to her ward, Pop still kept his place beside her. With his hand on her pulse he watched her breathing, watched the first faint quivering of her lids, the restlessness that grew into pain and later into agony. Hour after hour he sat there and passed with her through that crucifixion that follows some ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... intently gazing and listening for either sight or sound. It was recollection of that last, trustful look within the dark eyes of Eloise which finally aroused me to action. Muttering an imprecation upon my faint-heartedness, I instantly swung off on to the dangling rope, slipping silently downward through the shadows to meet whatsoever fate ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... creature so daring as to walk alone at night through the silent streets. He stood in thought, and seemed by his attitude to hesitate. She could see him dimly now, under the street lamp that sent a faint, flickering light through the fog. Fear gave her eyes. She saw, or thought she saw, something sinister about the stranger's features. Her old terrors awoke; she took advantage of a kind of hesitation on his part, slipped through the shadows to the door of the solitary house, ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac
... each of ours he managed somehow or other to get two. Their names I do not remember, but I know I never had better sport in my life. Gradually the rocks above our heads grew higher and higher in the gloom of approaching night, which seemed to soften the faint outlines of the landscape, and to increase the size of the objects round us. A little way from us was an opening in the cliffs, beyond which we could see the dark forest. From it there issued various sounds, which seemed to echo backwards ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... sinner must not be given too much. Luther tells Melanchthon: If you are afraid to draw every stop in the organ when you play the tune of Love Divine, All Love Excelling, you had better quit the organ. There are some sinners in this world that will not understand your faint evangelical whispers; they need to have the truth that Christ forgives their sins, all their sins,—their worst sins, blown into them with all the trumpets that made the walls of Jericho fall. If Melanchthon ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... they consisted of long ladders placed on two wheels and forming barrows at their rear extremities. Each dray, or rather let us say, each ladder, was attached to four horses harnessed tandem. On these ladders strange clusters of men were being drawn. In the faint light, these men were to be divined rather than seen. Twenty-four on each vehicle, twelve on a side, back to back, facing the passers-by, their legs dangling in the air,—this was the manner in which ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... them. It made them terribly anxious, the idea of anything stealing in on them that way, by the back door. For a long time they lay there motionless, their wide eyes staring into the dark, their ears straining to every faint, mysterious sound, their sensitive noses questioning every scent that came breathing in to them from the still night forest. At last they heard a stealthy footfall outside the back door. It was as light—oh, lighter than a falling leaf. But ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... a dead faint, her dark red hair hanging like a rope across de Vasselot's arm. She was, fortunately, not a big woman; for it was no easy position to find one's self in, on the top, thus, of a large horse with a senseless burden and no help in sight. He managed, however, to dismount, and rather ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... contour we have already noticed; in Mandell-Essington, EX Bunker, was to be seen even less evidence of the march of time. But years, like wheels upon a road, can hardly pass without leaving in their wake some faint impress, however fair the weather, and perhaps his hair lay a fraction of an inch higher up the temple, and in the corners of his eyes a hint might even be discerned of those little wrinkles that register the smiles and ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... some seventy-five miles below the town of Kadiak, was the most likely place to find bear, and so we now headed our boat in that direction. It was a most beautiful day for a start, with the first faint traces of spring in the air. As we skirted the shore that afternoon I sighted, through the glasses, on some low hills in the distance, bear tracks in the snow. My Aleuts seemed to think that the bears were probably near, having come down to the shore in search of kelp. ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... her seat upon a low chair by the old man's side, and put herself within the reach of his hand, she looked up once at Tom. It was a sad look that she cast upon him, though there was a faint smile trembling on her face. It was a speaking look, and Tom knew what it said. 'You see how misery has changed me. I can feel for a dependant NOW, and set ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... is covered with lava and has a most dreary appearance. As we had not been fortunate in our discoveries, and saw nothing to alleviate our distresses except the plantains and water above-mentioned, we returned to the boat exceedingly fatigued and faint. When I came to the precipice whence we were to descend into the cove I was seized with such a dizziness in my head that I thought it scarce possible to effect it: however by the assistance of Nelson and others they at last got me down, in a weak condition. Every person being ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... heart. She sat unmoved. When at last, from sheer weariness, the brush dropped from his hand, she stepped from the model-stand, and stood at his side. She looked at the canvas attentively. The inscrutable look of the painted face seemed but a faint ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... yawn a quarter of an hour after, with a nap in concert, because they have no more to say. Enthusiasm becomes an obligation. On the revival of "Le pere de famille" there are as many handkerchiefs counted as spectators, and ladies faint away. "It is customary, especially for young women, to be excited, to turn pale, to melt into tears and, generally, to be seriously affected on encountering M. de Voltaire; they rush into his arms, stammer and weep, their agitation resembling that of the most ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a sign. 'Forgive me,' he said. 'I will leave you to close the window. I feel faint and giddy—I had better go out.' He put his handkerchief over his nose and mouth, and crossed the ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... Whitey could not see, and he could hear nothing above the uproar of the storm, and the clamor of the stampede, except the faint cracking of the guns of Tom and Buck. As Whitey held the almost fear-maddened Monty in check, the wild-eyed steers, with lowered heads and panting sides, sped by. At their head Whitey saw Tom swing nearer toward the ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... the towers That fence the city still are faint and far; But where we stand is surely holy ground; A wilderness of laurel, olive, vine; Within a choir or songster nightingales Are warbling. On this native seat of rock Rest; for an old man thou ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... hungry and tired," said Juanita in rather a faint voice, "but I am glad I came. I could not stay in Torre Garda another hour. Marcos married me for my money. The money was wanted for political purposes. They could not get it without me—so I was ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... that same "excellent Passivity," as it has all along done, is here again vigorously flourishing; in which circumstance may we not trace the beginnings of much that now characterizes our Professor and perhaps, in faint rudiments, the origin of the Clothes-Philosophy itself? Already the attitude he has assumed towards the World is too defensive; not, as would have been desirable, a bold attitude of attack. "So far hitherto," ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... into the dark garden like a man in a dream, with a horrible vision of Archimage and the false Una somehow stealing upon his mind, he could not tell how. It was quite dark inside, for the moon was late of rising that night, and the faint stars threw no effectual lustre down upon the trees. He had to grope before him to know where he was going, asking in a troubled voice, "Who is there? What is the matter?" and falling into more and more profound ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... his wife, who knew the game, agreed. Mrs. Herbert seemed resigned to the worst, but Herbert, though faint, was still pursuing. ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... the forest there came faintly, very sweetly the sound of church-bells ringing—a peal of bells ringing at midnight in the heart of West Africa. Walker was startled. The sound seemed fairy work, so faint, so sweet was it. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... landscape for her. She peered into the still waters of the canal and saw the stars reflected there, and cocked her ear to listen when sleepy birds stirred above and chirped in their dreams. And then she fell asleep again and he tucked her within his coat to keep from her the dampness of the faint mist ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... one. She with shabby dress and shoes as big as a gouty man's. You should have seen her shake the prim-looking girl, as if she had been a plum tree. 'You little fool!' said she, 'do you want to ruin us? You will have time to faint when we get home; now come along. And then she began to sob: 'Indeed, madame, indeed I can't!' she said, and really she seemed quite unable to move: in fact, she appeared to be so ill that I said to myself: 'Here is a young woman who has drunk more ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... profound darkness,—that inky blackness of the sky which is the immediate forerunner of daylight,—the dawn could not be far off. How well I remember the whole scene! F—— tied his white handkerchief on his arm, that Helen and I might have a faint speck of light by which to guide ourselves. Pepper rode close to me, pouring into my ears dismal predictions of Fenwick's end; whilst I, amid all my anxiety, could only think of the dangers of the track, and whether, in the pitchy darkness, we should ever get to the ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... said the Shade, in a voice so faint the words seemed to escape his lips like a sigh ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... she came near I thought I heard Other small steps beating upon the floor, And a faint music blowing in the wind— Invisible pipes giving her feet ...
— The Land Of Heart's Desire (Little Blue Book#335) • W.B. Yeats
... "Of deadly hue we both of us remain; We both stand silent; both with downcast eye. So feeble is my tongue, that I with pain, So faint my voice, that I with pain can cry; 'Thou wouldst betray me then, O wife, for gain, If there was one that would my honour buy!' She nought replies; nor save by tears she speaks, Which furrow, as they ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Place he came upon a group of people standing around something that lay on the pavement. It was an old woman, a tattered, bedraggled creature with a pinched and pallid face. "Is it an accident?" a gentleman was saying, and somebody answered, "No, sir, she's gorn off in a faint." "Why doesn't some one take her to the hospital?" said the gentleman, and then, like the Levite, he passed by on the other side. The butcher's cart drew up at the curb, and the butcher jumped down, saying, "There never is no p'lice about ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Bell in the house, at that time, besides Mary Erskine and the baby. Bella had gone to Mrs. Bell's house, and Mary Bell was taking care of her. Albert beckoned his wife to come to him, and said to her, in a faint and feeble voice, that he wished Mrs. Bell to write something for him. Mary Erskine immediately brought her work-table up to the bedside, opened the drawer, took out one of the sheets of paper and a pen, opened the inkstand, and thus ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... credibility. Let me give one instance to illustrate the character of this man's mind. Hahnemann asserts, in a note annexed to the 110th paragraph of the "Organon," that the smell of the rose will cause certain persons to faint. And he says in the text that substances which produce peculiar effects of this nature on particular constitutions cure the same symptoms in people in general. Then in another note to the same paragraph he quotes the following fact from one of the last sources one ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... charm, inveterate, as I believed, shone out as through vaguely-apprehended storm-clouds. Their charm was in various marks of which I shall have more to say—for as I breathe all this hushed air again even the more broken things give out touching human values and faint sweet scents of character, flushes of old beauty ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... getting dark now—the sudden steel-gray that envelops the plains early on a winter night and closes in around the white stretches, holding them in a vise. The only sign of life in the whole blanketed world was the faint glimmer of light in Margaret's window. We knew now how the light in the print shop must have looked many a night to strangers lost on the prairie ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... steps are stayed by the darkness of the night and of the forest. Would that the moon and stars would pierce the clouds! If only we could see some faint glimmer of a candle in some lowly hut that would guide us ...
— Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades • Florence Holbrook
... last I am almost home. Eleven miles walk from the sweat shop here, and that's some hoofing it, believe me. (Sways.) Oh, I am faint (Looks over shoulder at beer case.), faint for the want of my Coca-Cola. (Enter ALGERNON R. I—wears slouch hat, heavy moustache, red shirt and high boots. She is facing L.) Oh, I have a hunch I'm being shadowed—flagged ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... bullied. But I simply effaced myself as far as possible, and lived in dread of disaster. The thought even now of certain high blank walls with lofty barred windows, the remembered smells of certain passages and corners, the tall form and flashing eye of our headmaster and the faint fragrance of Havana cigars which hung about him, the bare corridors with their dark cupboards, the stone stairs and iron railings—all this gives me a far-off sense of dread. I can give no reason for my unhappiness there; but I can recollect waking in the early summer mornings, ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... A faint gleam of light from the setting sun, away on our port bow, shone through a mist of cloud that obscured the horizon to windward; and, as this disappeared, the skipper came to the end of the viaticum, when, at a signal from the boatswain, the plank was tipped and poor Jackson's body was committed ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... in Boston, took with him the proposed motto and the measure of the space to be occupied by it, but unfortunately lost the memorandum. He therefore sent this telegram to his wife in Vermont. "Send motto and space." She promptly complied, but the Boston telegraph girl fell off her chair in a faint when she read off the message, "Unto us a child is born four feet wide and eight feet long." The deacon, however, thought it ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... perhaps, or some faint aftermath of sentimentality born of Sonia's emotion—tempted him during those few moments to relax. He threw aside his mask and breathed the freer for it. Once more he was a human being, treading the streets of a real city, his feet very much upon the earth, his heart ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... work enough, but it was not that to which Ray aspired. He must be one of those cherubim who on God's bidding speed; he could not serve with those who only stand and wait. His hot soul grew parched and faint with longing, and all the instincts of his battling blood began to war among themselves. At length one night there was hammering and clinking at the red field-fires, and by daybreak they were off for a mad gallop ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... and we have no guarantee that this insignificant number is a fair average sample. So again, unless there are true universal propositions which are not 'short-hand' for any plurality of observed facts whatever, we cannot with any confidence, however faint, infer that a 'regular sequence' or 'routine' which has been observed from the dawn of recorded time up to, say, midnight, August 4, 1919, will continue to be observed on August 5, 1919. How, except by relying on the ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... Rose" charmed Chaucer,—it may well charm you. The charm may not be that of Mont-Saint-Michel or of Roland; it has not the grand manner of the eleventh century, or the jewelled brilliancy of the Chartres lancets, or the splendid self- assertion of the roses: but even to this day it gives out a faint odour of Champagne and Touraine, of Provence and Cyprus. One hears Thibaut ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... picture of the one who leads His flock, who carries the lambs in His arms, appeals to all; yet who has not some time, perhaps often, questioned: After all, is there any one who cares; is there any eye to see or heart to heed if I—or, indeed, all men—should faint or fall by ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... and here again, Ere I can tell thee what thou should'st do there. O constancy! be strong upon my side: Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue! I have a man's mind, but a woman's might. ... Ah me! how weak a thing The heart of woman is! O I grow faint, &c. ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... gaze continued to rest upon me, but a shadow like a faint anxiety darkened the Homeric brow, and an odd notion entered my mind (without any good reason) that Professor Keredec was wondering what I thought of the name. I uttered some commonplace syllable of no ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... was something wrong with the travellers, and turning about, he held a whispered consultation with his wife. She was heard to say in a faint whisper: "It is the same, a man with a child." Then the smith turned on the stranger, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... Citie were remaining but fiue hundreth Italian Souldiers, who were not hurt, yet very faint and weary by their long watching and paines in fighting in those feruent and burning heates, which are in those parts. [Footnote: In Iuly the heat is so extreme in this Iland, that the inhabitants ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... on with it, and begged Maritornes to fetch him some wine, which she did with right good will, and paid for it with her own money; for indeed they say of her that, though she was in that line of life, there was some faint and distant resemblance to a Christian about her. When Sancho had done drinking he dug his heels into his ass, and the gate of the inn being thrown open he passed out very well pleased at having paid nothing and carried his point, though it had been at the expense of his usual sureties, his ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a rare stroke of luck on the voyage across the North Sea this time. Our packet was plodding peacefully along on a hazy, grey forenoon, about half-way to the Tyne, when the faint silhouettes of a brace of destroyers were descried racing athwart our course a good many miles ahead. We were watching them disappear far away on the starboard bow, when others suddenly hove in sight looming up through the mist, all of them going like mad in the same direction, and then ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... got on board the Victory; but, fortunately, neither ship suffered any material damage. Having traversed the Bay of Biscay, without discovering any thing of the enemy, his lordship, on the 28th, at day-light, came abreast of Cape St. Vincent; from whence, with faint hopes of finding them, he pursued his northerly course toward the north-west of Ireland, By foul winds, and very unfavourable weather, this proved a most tediously vexatious voyage. Unable, after all, to fetch Ireland, on account ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... glass at one draught, and a faint color returned to his ashy cheeks. He arose, and snatching up his hat, ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... activities rich with promise of material and ennobling fame. From this point of view history records the Jew as a shining example. The Negro, constitutionally buoyant, should be energetic and hopeful, for "there is a destiny that shapes our ends," blunt them however much by "damning with faint praise" or apology for oppression from whilom friends. In the darkest hour of slavery and ignorance came freedom and education. When lynchings became prevalent, lynching of whites made it unpopular; when disfranchisement came, debasing him in localities ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... touched by Havelok's piteous speech, and felt some faint compassion, so that he could not slay the lad himself; yet he knew that his only ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... ascended the stairs. A miserable suppliant, he stood before the stranger's door, knocked, and entered. In the far corner of the dimly-lighted room, sat a man of some fifty years, his arms folded, and his head bowed on his breast. From a window directly opposite, a faint light ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... said, that his excellency, who had the sole disposal of the emperor's revenue, might easily provide against that evil, by gradually lessening your establishment; by which, for want of sufficient for you would grow weak and faint, and lose your appetite, and consequently, decay, and consume in a few months; neither would the stench of your carcass be then so dangerous, when it should become more than half diminished; and immediately upon your death five or six thousand of his majesty's ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... were, thick with the memories of my sea-life. But what were to me now the futilities of an individual past? As our ship's head swung into the estuary of the Thames, a deep, yet faint, concussion passed through the air, a shock rather than a sound, which missing my ear found its way straight into my heart. Turning instinctively to look at my boys, I happened to meet my wife's eyes. She also had felt profoundly, coming from far away across ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... as big as it should have been to satisfy him. When he awoke in the morning, he had already a good appetite, and ever since, all the long day through, from hour to hour, his hunger had been growing keener, until now it made him almost sick and faint to stand and stare at the good things displayed in such abundance inside ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... the gray walls of the English Embassy stood out sharply defined against the gold-wrought sky. The windows were thrown wide to invite the faint, capricious breeze which wandered through the hot city; but the silken curtains were drawn in one of the smaller reception-rooms. The room itself was a soft blaze of wax candles against the dull richness of crimson and gold. Men ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Mr. Wilde expressed himself as feeling somewhat faint; and with a half apologetic smile ordered another portion of Ham ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... foreign nation, the President being the organ of our nation with other nations, the House would satisfy their duty, if, instead of a direct communication, they should pass their sentiments through the President: that if expressing a sentiment were really an invasion of the executive power, it was so faint a one, that it would be difficult to demonstrate it to the public, and to a public partial to the French revolution, and not disposed to considered the approbation of it from any quarter is improper. That the Senate, indeed, had given many indications of their wish ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... slay fray nail bait frail vain mail gray clay paid dray bray main wail pray raise saint stray snail faint staid away paint faith train gayly spray chain plain maid stain strain waist braid drain grain praise strait twain claim sway ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... The deep attachment that beamed in her saint-like eyes, would of itself have repaid me for fifty such gifts. At the moment, I was almost on the point of throwing her the necklace in the bargain; but some faint fancies about Mrs. Miles Wallingford prevented me from so doing. As for Lucy, not a little to my surprise, she received the pearls, muttered a few unintelligible words, but did not even rise from her chair. Emily seemed to tire ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... a short interval of silence, when Charlie ground his teeth hard together, to keep back any sound, and Allie sturdily held her place at the back of his chair, though she felt faint and sick at the sight before her, as those horrible little steel points moved up and down across her cousin's eye. Then the doctor spoke again, in his cheery, pleasant way, while he adjusted the necessary bandages; but to Allie ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... There is much more land, and no such enormous solid cap of ice. Spitzbergen, the land of "pointed mountains," is said to be very beautiful. Lord Dufferin describes his first view of it as "a forest of thin lilac peaks, so faint, so pale, that had it not been for the gem-like distinctness of their outline one could have deemed them as unsubstantial as the spires ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... silent. Stephen stood among them, afraid to speak, listening. A faint sickness of awe made him feel weak. How could they have done that? He thought of the dark silent sacristy. There were dark wooden presses there where the crimped surplices lay quietly folded. It was not the chapel ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... gained the entrance to our cave without mishap. I looked back. Here and there irregularly gleamed and spluttered my companions' torches. Across each slanted the rain. All else was of inky blackness except where, between them and me, a faint red reflection shone on the wet ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... Salisbury outlined against a storm-swept sky, with a lovely rainbow arched beyond it. So stands the Church athwart the landscape of our lives. In each community the church is like a living thing! How every stone grows significant and dear! How the lights and shadows of its arches, the dim, faint-tinted windows, the carvings and tracings, the atmosphere and coloring, all sink into the heart, and make a background for memories that never pass away! Who ever forgets the tones of the old organ, the voice of the choir, ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... think I'll bother him," said Clayton, turning away with a laugh. "Good-night t" With a little cackle of incredulity, the old man closed the door. The camp had sunk now to perfect quiet; but for the faint notes of a banjo far up the glen, not a sound ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... therefore, is no help. Nevertheless, it seems to me, otherwise there is. Varnhagen may be printed I think without offence, since there is need of it: if that will make up your fourth volume to a due size, why not? It is the last faint murmur one gives in Periodical Literature, and may indicate the approach of silence and slumber. I know no errors of the Press in Varnhagen: there is one thing about Jean Paul F. Richter's want of humor in his speech, which somehow I could like ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... preserve, but some true opinion or just motive or high or honest sentiment, which exists and thrives and operates in spite of the error and in face of it, springing from man's spontaneous and unformulated recognition of the real relations of things. This recognition is very faint in the beginnings of society. It grows clearer and firmer with each step forward. And in a tolerably civilised age it has become a force on which you can fairly lean with a considerable ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... she, almost aghast with astonishment, "that is curous! But um fear'd you're faint, though you won't tell me so. Here," handing to me a large basket, well stored, I perceived, with provender, "take a happle, or a bun, or a sandwage, or a bit o' gingerbread—and a fine thing too it is for the stomach—or a pear, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... Faint, giddy, and blind, I just recollect leaning against the wall of the staircase. He came hastily out, and started as he saw me. ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... must be drawn exactly to the Life, great Care must be taken, that the Strokes be not too faint, nor yet too strong: For Characteristic-Justice is to be observ'd as strictly by the Writers of this Kind, as Poetic-Justice is to be by Poets. That Medium must be copied, which Nature it self has mark'd out; whatever falls short of it is ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... perception of persons and events, but, in part, also to a never-failing regard for the dictates of the Five General Principles, and a discriminating subservience to the inspired wisdom of the venerable Poo-chow, as conveyed to him in the story of the faint-hearted youth and the three tigers. This story Sen furthermore caused to be inscribed in letters of gold, and displayed in a prominent position in his native village, where it has since doubtless been the means of instructing and advancing countless observant ones who have not been too ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... this time in another direction. It had been on the bow; now it was on the quarter. Again it sounded, and again. Now it had moved to the other bow; now back to the quarter again; now it was near; and now so far that it was but a faint tinkle on the ear. By this time every man on board, seamen, archers and men-at-arms, were crowding the sides of the vessel. All round them there were noises in the darkness, and yet the wall of fog lay wet against their very faces. ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that while I had any sight left, as soon as I lay down on my bed and turned on either side, a flood of light used to gush from my closed eyelids. Then, as my sight became daily more impaired, the colours became more faint and were emitted with a certain inward crackling sound; but at present, every species of illumination being, as it were, extinguished, there is diffused around me nothing but darkness, or darkness mingled and streaked with an ashy brown. Yet the darkness in which I am perpetually ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Frenchman's surrender, and when he and his comrades were once more free to breathe a draught of living air, after the deathly atmosphere under hatches, Adrian learned that the victor was not a man-of-war, but a free-lance, and conceived again a faint hope that deliverance might be ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the Shape which they give them for their own use or that just discribed, on these hats they work various figures of different colours, but most commonly only black and white are employed. these figures are faint representations of the whales, the Canoes, and the harpooners Strikeing them. Sometimes Square dimonds triangle &c. The form of a knife which Seems to be prefured by those people is a double Edged and double pointed ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... a distance of many miles, and, on the way home through the frosty and snowy night, the family-coach had suddenly stopped: there was a crowd of dark figures in the way...at which point Swinburne stopped too, before saying, with an ineffable smile and in a voice faint with appreciation, 'They were burying a suicide at ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... is a great bold promontory looking towards the Welsh coast, which hangs on the horizon like a low silver cloud above the faint haze of the summer sea. Below lie Sillery Sands, and the caves of the beach; beyond, the opening heights of Exmoor, in long flat curves, featureless, spacious, and beautiful, purple and sombre under the wrack of rain-clouds, ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... faint with fatigue and want of sleep, forgot all their hardships at the approach of an enemy; and, as a shout was sent up from the Duke of Cumberland's army, they returned it with the spirit of a valiant ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... climate. Everyday added to the list of the sick or dead, or of those who declared themselves unable to proceed. Near Bangassi, four men lay down at once. It was even with difficulty that Mr. Park dragged forward his brother-in-law, Mr. Anderson, while he himself felt very sick and faint. His spirits were about to sink entirely, when, coming to an eminence, he obtained a distant view of the mountains, the southern base of which he knew to be watered by the Niger. Then indeed he forgot his fever, and thought only of climbing the blue hills, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... a faint slatting of canvas aloft. I sped for the wheel, and when, an instant later, the tradesman, Morton, poked his head above the level of the poop, and looked aft, I had the ship steady again. Morton's head disappeared, and after ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... couch, and when I got there I could not speak—not a syllable, but she, with most perfect composure, more than composure, cheerfulness of tone, went on speaking; as she spoke, all the Kitty Pakenham expression appeared in that little shrunk face, and the very faint colour rose, and the smile of former times. She raised herself more and more, and spoke with more and more animation in charming language and with all her peculiar grace and elegance of kindness recollected so much of past times and of my father particularly, whose affection she convinced ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... could have potted half of the invaders from the heights—he turned his herd up a side canyon to the west and hastily pitched his camp on a ridge. As the heat of the day came on, the other bands up the canyon stopped also, and when the faint smoke showed Hardy that the camp rustlers were cooking dinner, he turned and ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... in the sunlight, and every little puff of the fitful breeze brought to me the smell of wild grapes, from vines which hung from the trees so low that they almost touched the water. It was very still in these woods. I heard nothing but the gently rustling leaves, the faint buzzing in the air, and an occasional tiny splash made by some small fish skimming near the surface of the stream. When I sat down on the root of the tree, I intended to think, reflect, make plans, determine what I should do next; but I did nothing of the sort. I simply sat and drank ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... this new comer? He had held much commune with himself on the subject that morning; had called himself to task for his own pusillanimity, and had then fortified his courage with the old reflection about fair ladies and faint hearts—and also with a glass of brandy. He was therefore disposed to make himself very unpleasant to poor George if occasion ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... [ANTISTROPHE 2.] To rise upon wings and hold Straight on up the steeps of gold Where the joyous Sun in fire doth run, Till the wings should faint and fold O'er the house that ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... spoke, a faint cry was heard coming from the wreck, and it was seen that one of the masts had gone by the board, carrying, it was feared, several poor fellows along with it. Instantly there was a rush to the lifeboat! All thought of personal danger appeared to ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... those who laugh most caustically over the Hopwood estate usually find it convenient to ignore the fact that the greatest single contribution to it has been made by "The Bat," at which Dr. Straton might conceivably faint from excitement but at which he would have to work pretty ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... unfortunately, has come down to us only in a fragmentary and very incomplete form. According to this account, Idun was once sitting upon the branches of the sacred ash Yggdrasil when, growing suddenly faint, she loosed her hold and dropped to the ground beneath, and down to the lowest depths of Nifl-heim. There she lay, pale and motionless, gazing with fixed and horror-struck eyes upon the gruesome sights of Hel's realm, trembling violently the ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... had failed to do, Snyman could hardly be expected to accomplish with a considerably reduced force, and the attack became more faint-hearted. He carried out the Cronje policy of comfortable, lethargic squatting, doubting not that the place must fall into his hands sooner or later. Friends and relations tripped over from Johannesburg ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... Unmuffle ye faint stars, and thou fair Moon That wontst to love the travailers benizon, Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud, And disinherit Chaos, that raigns here In double night of darknes, and of shades; Or ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Biryuk. Meantime the sky had grown clearer and clearer; there was a faint light in the forest. We clambered at last ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... was not often travelled, and it was dim and hard to follow, a faint horse track showing here and there, so I lost it several times but quickly picked it up again, and finally came out of the forest where I could see all the now familiar country to the west and north. About two o'clock I arrived at Kanab and rode to Jacob's house where Sister Louisa told me that ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... tenacious of the charmed treasure, and resisted his utmost efforts. He thought a savage, a malicious grin crept upon his features. A smile more than usually hideous mocked him. From those hollow sockets too, or his imagination played strange antics, a faint glare shot forth. A dizzy terror crept over him. His brain reeled. His energies were becoming prostrate; and unless one desperate attempt could be made, all hopes of rescue were past. He sought the ebony wand, but forgetful or incautious, laid hold of the chain which encircled the skeleton's ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... to kill an enemy in war—an enemy who has surprised a secret vital to the safety of one's self and comrades—an enemy more formidable for his knowledge than all his army for its numbers? Carter Druse grew pale; he shook in every limb, turned faint, and saw the statuesque group before him as black figures, rising, falling, moving unsteadily in arcs of circles in a fiery sky. His hand fell away from his weapon, his head slowly dropped until his face rested on the leaves in which he lay. This courageous gentleman and hardy ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... concerned it's all a mystery and a weariness. You are near—you are merciful and kind. This is all the heaven I expect. It is far more than I deserve. Let me rest, Mildred. It will be but for a few more days. Then when you close my eyes, may I sleep forever," and he leaned back faint and exhausted. He would not let her interrupt him, for he seemed bent on settling the question as far as he was ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... silent brotherhoods moved through streets where there was no other sound than the rustling of their feet, the tap of their leaders' silver batons. So faint was the dawn-dusk, that they were droves of shadows on their way back into night, their candle-lights lost stars. Now and then the clink of a baton brought to some half-shuttered window a face, to be presently joined by other faces, peering down at the dark processions of men and ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... work on the case," said Mr. Sumner. "He is disguised now, as you can see," he added, with a faint smile, which ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... was breathing on her face, and woke up with a start and listened. Jeannie's bed was on the other side of the room, and she could generally hear her movements plainly enough, for the sick child was a restless sleeper. But now she could hear nothing, not even the faint vibration of her sister's breath. The silence was absolute and appalling; it struck tangibly upon her sense, as the darkness struck upon her eye-balls and filled her with a numb, unreasoning terror. She slipped out of bed ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... young moon is beside her. To east and south the snowy ranges burn with yellow fire, deepening to orange and crimson hues, which die away and leave a greenish pallor. At last, the higher snows alone are livid with a last faint tinge of light, and all beneath is quite white. But the tide of glory turns. While the west grows momently more pale, the eastern heavens flush with afterglow, suffuse their spaces with pink and violet. Daffodil and tenderest emerald intermingle; and these colours ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... of Lake Romano was still some little distance off, and, as the wind was blowing toward it, only a faint roar of the falling water came to the ears of the Bobbsey twins, and ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... if I were Crow-trodden, Fye, how my hams shrink under me! O me, I am broken-winded too; is this a life? Is this the recreation I have aim'd at? I had a body once, a handsome body, And wholesome too. Now I appear like a rascal, That had been hung a year or two in Gibbets. Fye how I faint! women? keep me from women; Place me before a Cannon, 'tis a pleasure; Stretch me upon a Rack, a recreation; But women? women? O the Devil! women? Curtius Gulf was never half so dangerous. Is there no way to find the Trap-door again, And fall into the Cellar, and be taken? No lucky fortune to direct ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Hoang Ho and you enter the loess country, dear to the tiller of the soil, but the bane of the traveller, for the dust is often intolerable. But there was little change in scenery until toward noon of the following day, when the faint, broken outlines of hills appeared on the northern horizon. As we were delayed by a little accident it was getting dark when we rumbled along below the great wall of Peking into the noisy station alive with the clamour of rickshaw boys ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... when the village roofs began to show like a faint gray line on the horizon, we met a fisherman, a poor man returning to Croisic. His feet were bare; his linen trousers ragged round the bottom; his shirt of common sailcloth, and his jacket tatters. This ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... little old lady said, smiling up at her. "I'm just so very happy. I am about to get my reward, my well-deserved reward at last, from all of my loyal subjects. You'll see." She paused and Malone felt a faint stirring of stark, ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... labourer making for him with shouts. But under the shelter of the cart-shed, he had first succeeded in tying his handkerchief so tightly round his wrist, with his teeth and one hand, as to check the bleeding, which was beginning to make him feel faint. Then, creeping round the back of the farm, he saw that the upper half of the stable door was open, and leaping over it, he had hidden among the horses, just as Halsey came past in pursuit. The old man—confound him!—had made ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the result. He was becoming faint with fatigue as well as hunger. When would he be relieved? When would the fierce brute feel inclined to leave him? These were questions which the hunter put to himself repeatedly, without being able to divine an answer. He had heard of hunters being killed by ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... my grandson and his friend," said the old lady, never taking her eyes from the man's face. "What's the matter? feel faint, hey?" ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... remained three months at Hamburgh; when he quitted it he changed his name, my aunt could never discover that which he adopted and only by faint hints, could conjecture that he had taken the road of ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... obtained of the High Bridge, the Heights of Westchester county, and the Palisades, on the New Jersey shore of the Hudson, while Washington Heights rise boldly to the northward. To the eastward one may see the white sails of the vessels in Long Island Sound, and get a faint glimpse of the town of Flushing, on Long Island, and New Rochelle, on the mainland, while nearer are Hell Gate, the picturesque East and Harlem rivers, with their islands and public buildings, and the lovely little village ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... sent a trembling glow through the room of a hut on a Voshti hill, and the smell of burning fir and camphire wood filtered through the air with a sleepy sweetness. So delicate and faint between the quilts lay the young mother, the little Fanchon, a shining wonder still in her face, and the exquisite touch of birth on her—for when a child is born the mother also is born again. So still she lay until one who gave her into the world stooped, and drawing open the linen at her breast, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... cat strays into the room, she will have convulsions; if a knife is put across a fork, she will not sit down to table; if there are roses outside in the garden, she will perceive the smell through double window-panes, and faint, so that no flowers can be kept in the room where she may happen to be. You must not let anybody in a blue dress sit down at the same table as herself, for that colour is horrible to her, and she has convulsions the moment she sees it. Finally, you will do well to talk ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... return to his work immediately, but throwing himself in an armchair he cast a melancholy glance around his office and through the open door into the parlor. In the faint light of the candle he saw the large armchairs methodically placed each side of the chimney, the curtains at the windows lost in shadow, and all the furniture which for four years had cost him so many efforts. He had long been the prisoner of this Louis XIV camlet, and he was now going to be executed. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the world of common sense. Its concreteness is ignorance. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by common sense. Its work-a-day world is not even a faint reflex of the vast and complex universe. It sees but the immediate, the obvious, the superficial. So instead of being concrete, it is, in truth, the very opposite. Nor is empirical science with its predilection for "facts" better off. Every science able to cope with a mere fragmentary aspect ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... letters still came; shorter, sadder, more strong, Writ now but in one hand:—"I was not to faint,— One loved me for two; would be with me ere long: And Viva l'Italia he died for, our saint, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... was untenanted. Evidently its coolness and dryness made it untenable for most of Inra's humidity and heat loving life. Yet the floor was so smooth that it must have been artificially leveled. Faint illumination was provided by the rocks themselves. They appeared to be covered by ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... large, and well suited to public speaking. When I entered the room, there were vigorous cheers from the coloured portion of the audience, and faint cheers from some of the white people. I had been told, while I had been in Atlanta, that while many white people were going to be present to hear me speak, simply out of curiosity, and that others who would be present would be in full sympathy with me, there was a still larger ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... visit, as the Colonel was coming down-stairs he heard the faint vibration of a harp-string. It was the first time Lloyd had ever ventured to touch one. He paused on the steps opposite ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... "The weak and faint-hearted Irene submitted to pay you tribute. She ought to have made you pay tribute to her. Return to me all that she paid you; else the matter must be settled by ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... distance by its brilliancy. This is not the case, however. Some of the more brilliant stars are far more distant than some of the fainter ones. There are stars near and remote and an apparently faint star may in reality be larger and more brilliant than a star of the first magnitude. Vega, for instance, is infinitely farther away from us than the sun, yet its brightness is more than 50 times that of the sun. Polaris, still farther away, has 100 times the ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... Weymouth. Though its surroundings are pretty, the town itself is an ill-arranged collection of steep and narrow streets, one of which—Cheap Street—deserves notice for its quaintness. The spaciousness of the market-place redeems the narrowness of the streets. With the exception of a little faint-hearted sympathy shown to Monmouth, Frome has never helped to make history. Nowadays it does a brisk trade in woollen cloth, and possesses some large printing-works, breweries, and art-metal works. The visitor would do well to ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade |
