"Fragile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fragile now and weak, Was late the seat of vital power, But now, alas! he cannot speak, He's ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... were standing on the shore beside a birch-bark canoe, so fragile and unstable that the slightest imprudence on the part of its occupants ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... nearer to it now and could more clearly distinguish the features. They reminded her somewhat of herself. There were the same round cheeks, the same small childishness of lips and nose and chin, the same pale complexion tinged with fragile pink, the same big, blue eyes. Had he taken an interest in her because she was like this girl, this girl whose miniature he had allowed to be the only breaking note in the whole symphony of his scheme of decoration? They were like each other, ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... on with redoubled energy till an event occurred, unimportant in itself, but which caused him some uneasiness, and reminded him of the need of caution. The rock in places was fragile and split up by the weather, and with a slight touch of his foot he loosened an immense fragment of stone, which went rolling down the side of the mountain till it reached a projecting ledge hundreds of feet below. ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... seventeen," says Mrs. Shelley, "fragile in health and frame, of the purest habits in morals, full of devoted generosity and universal kindness, glowing with ardor to attain wisdom, resolved at every personal sacrifice to do right, burning with a desire for affection and sympathy, ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... faces of that packed mass of humanity lighted up with interest, and with what intensity all eyes gazed upon this fragile girl! And how natural it was; for these people realized that at last they were looking upon that person whom they had so long hungered to see; a person whose name and fame filled all Europe, and made all other names and all other renowns insignificant ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in the light, four-wheeled vehicle, and found it difficult to keep it, for the trail was villainous, and Stirling drove rapidly. Their way led between shadowy colonnades of towering firs, and the fragile, two-seated frame bounced and lurched into and out of deep ruts, and over the split trees that had been laid flat-side downward in the quaggy places—like a field gun going into action was the best comparison Weston could think of. The horses, however, kept their feet, and the ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... he watched, and in the course of that time saw the process of filling the small boxes which formed his barrier and hiding-place with the sealed tubes. He observed the care with which the fragile tubes were placed in their beds of cotton wool, and had a glimpse of the lined interior of one of the boxes. He was on the point of lifting down a box to make a more thorough examination when he heard ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... There were some that resembled gigantic snail shells, and others shaped like the cornucopias, used to hold sugar-plums for children. One species, the most remarkable of all, was composed of a substance, resembling mother-of-pearl, exquisitely beautiful, but very fragile, breaking easily, if you but set foot on one of them: they were changeable in colour, being of a dazzling white, a pearly blue, or a delicate pale green, as viewed in different lights. Scattered here and there, among these deserted tenements of various ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... was a cold, keen night; the full moon rode high in a starless sky, and there must have been ten or twelve degrees of frost. We had left far behind us the diaphanous veils of mist hovering above river banks, out of which the poplars stood argent and fragile, as though the landscape were a Japanese print. Through the open door of the horse-box I saw a soldier stretched upon his straw, with a red gaping wound in his half-naked body. Over him stooped a nurse, improvising with delicate ministries a hasty dressing. In the next carriage the black face of ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... been saved by feminine tact. There was the cabinet-member's wife who drank out of her finger-bowl because her guest, a senator, had done so. And the general's wife who, when a clumsy tea drinker smashed a priceless cup, picked up another of the fragile affairs and crushed it between her fingers with a "They do break easily, don't they?" And the woman who, when M. Blanc was mistaken at an English garden party for a page, replied, "Well, M. ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... wave of protest swept over him, of tender protectiveness. He had to fight down an impulse to catch her close, to cry out that thenceforth he would assume her burden. He rejoiced intensely that he had found so rare a spirit, fragile yet brave and equal to all the hard emergencies ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... navaja in his hand. Suddenly with a quick jerking movement he sent it flying through the air, and it struck into the wooden door, just over Chiquita's head. As it darted by, like a flash of lightning, the spectators had involuntarily closed their eyes for a second, but the fragile child's long dark eyelashes did not even quiver. The brigand's wonderful skill elicited a loud burst of admiration and applause from an audience not easily surprised or pleased, in which even the man ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Occasionally it became a trifle rough or rude; but you always knew where you had him. With special ardor he saluted Frau Kahle, and it looked almost droll to watch the contrast between him, a burly, corpulent fellow, and this tiny, fragile figure that resembled ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... to be easily forgotten, and yet eyes, hair, expression, combined to remind him of some one whom he had seen but could not bring definitely to mind. There were no names on the locket, no marks of identification of any kind, yet realizing the sacredness of it, Keith slipped the fragile gold chain about his neck, and securely hid the ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... "Bug-eyed Monsters" coming to Earth, that the idea of beings from other worlds looking and acting human seems fantastic. It should not. There is good sound scientific reason to believe that there is little chance of it being any other way. Life is a delicate and fragile thing when compared to cosmic extremes of temperature and environment in our universe. If life formed on earth as science now believes that it did, we must have had just the right size planet at just the right ...
— The Four-Faced Visitors of Ezekiel • Arthur W. Orton
... a wonderful day," said Archie. "I think I will remember it years and years until I come to die. On days like this - I do not know if you feel as I do - but everything appears so brief, and fragile, and exquisite, that I am afraid to touch life. We are here for so short a time; and all the old people before us - Rutherfords of Hermiston, Elliotts of the Cauldstaneslap - that were here but a while since riding about and keeping up a great noise ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... me to them, And tell them that, to ease them of their griefs, Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses, Their pangs of love, with other incident throes That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them: I'll teach them to prevent wild ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... kindness. But these fluctuations shook to its depths the soul of the sensitive youth; he no longer deemed the world subject to him, because he possessed Evadne's love; he felt in every nerve that the dire storms of the mental universe were about to attack his fragile being, which quivered at ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... fingers; he looked very much aware of them. "Let me carry at least one," she begged. "I can perfectly with my parasol hand;" but he refused her even one. "If I may be permitted to take the responsibility," he said, happily, and she rejoined, "Oh, I would trust you with things more fragile." At which, such is the discipline of these orders, he looked steadily in front of him and seemed ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... happy; she was inspired by an unreasoning joy. She was happy because she was so young and fragile and inexperienced, and he so much older, and more powerful and more capable. She was happy because she was a mere girl and he a mature and important male. She thought their relation in that moment exquisitely beautiful. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... blackened rafters; he looked out at either door and frowned perplexed, first at the hills, then at the valley. He raised his head and dropped it suddenly with great amazement and much weariness. Finally he ventured to lift a wilted and fragile hand and looked at it. It was not white; but it was unsteady as a laurel leaf beside a waterfall. After a moment's rest from the exertion he parted his lips to speak, but a whisper faint as the sound of the air in the shrubs issued from them. He listened but there was no answer. There was ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... at the sight of metre or at the sound of rhyme whenever I am at the priory or Sir Philip at Fieldhead. Harmony, indeed! When did I whip up syllabub sonnets or string stanzas fragile as fragments of glass? and when did I betray a belief that ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... felt about ye, and all my dreams which have often strangely deformed thee, will die with me. You will exist to reflect other images in other minds, and ever will remain the same, although your reflected semblance vary in a thousand ways, changeable as the hearts of those who view thee. One of these fragile mirrors, that ever doted on thine image, is about to be broken, crumbled to dust. But everteeming Nature will create another and another, and thou wilt ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... encircled the small cottage-bonnet, and a long white veil half concealed in its ample folds the fragile form, which, if it had lost the roundness of early youth, still retained the most delicate symmetry of outline; upon her breast lay, half hidden, a withered rose, fit emblem, methought, for her who wore it. Oft-times her pale thin hands were clasped, and once, when our ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... attended to her usual task with the papers of the day's lessons and the marking of the morrow's work before she glanced up at the five girls she had detained. They sat in widely separated sections of the room. Rose Clymer, pretty, fragile, curly-haired, occupied the front seat of the end row. Her face had no color and her small mouth was set in painful lines. Four seats across from her Bessy Bell leaned on her desk, with defiant calmness, and traces of scorn still in her expressive ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... women." Why does the husband, thus neglected, get out of going to the occasional party whenever he can, and when he does allow himself to be dragged thither, why does he sulk, leaning against a chilly mantel-piece, eying his fragile coffee cup with disdain, and enacting the role of martyr generally, until he can persuade his wife to go home again? Why, indeed; but because he feels out of place. His rare and incidental appearance is ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... at once, he hastily summoned Kesiah from the storeroom, and between them, with several solicitous maids in attendance, they carried the fragile little lady up to her chamber, where a fire of resinous pine was burning ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... going up a huge staircase, of which the lower steps still remained, as did the balustrade, rusty, split, and in places twisted. Then suddenly they turned off by a fragile wooden bridge, resting on the supports of the staircase, between high walls on which were dimly visible the remains of huge frescoes, cracked, decayed, and blackened with soot, the hind legs of a horse, a woman's torso undraped, with inscriptions almost illegible ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... Governor's morning stroll to the post-office. How much more magnificent, impressive, and spectacular, then, was the scene at public functions when the General would lead forth the silver-haired relic of former greatness, like some rare and fragile waxwork figure, and trumpet his pristine eminence to his ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Limestone and sandstone compose the secondary formations of a large portion of Canada, and of nearly all that vast extent of country in the United States drained by the Mississippi. At Niagara the interposing structure of slate is nearly forty feet thick, and fragile, like shale crumbling away from under the limestone, thus strengthening the opinion that there has been for many ages a continual retrocession of the Great Falls. Around Lake St. Clair, masses of granite, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... to Our Lady of the Trenches, was blessed by the chaplain of the French regiment. The 9th Squadron of the 6th Company recommends its care and preservation to their successors. Please do not touch the fragile statue ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... softly on the lips. She opened her eyes and smiled at me without speaking. I felt an almost uncontrollable desire to take her in my arms, and clasp her to my heart; but, latterly, I had hardly dared press her hand, she seemed so fragile ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... up through deep, powdery snow that was unmarred by sled-track or moccasin impression. Smoke, in the lead, pressed the fragile crystals down under his fat, short snow-shoes. The task required lungs and muscle, and he flung himself into it with all his strength. Behind, on the surface he packed, strained the string of six dogs, the steam-jets of their breathing attesting ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... higher in the cathedral, without pausing to note a thousand barbarous acts of every kind, what has become of that delightful little steeple which rested upon the point of intersection of the transept, and which, no less fragile and no less daring than its neighbor, the spire of the Sainte-Chapelle, (also destroyed), rose yet nearer heaven than the towers, slender, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... Odjard and Lieut. Mead with two platoons arrived opposite a village named Gorka when suddenly without any warning the enemy, concealed in the woods on both sides of the river, opened up a heavy machine gun and rifle fire. Our fragile boat was no protection from this fire. To attempt to run around and withdraw in the shallow stream was next to impossible, so after a hasty consultation the commander grasped the horns of the dilemma by running the boat as close to the shore as possible, ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... the quality of nails leads to the conclusion that there is a thorough disturbance of the process of nutrition. If they are fragile and brittle, there is no question but that there is lack of certain nutritive salts in the blood. Swollen and deformed nails indicate special disturbances in circulation, ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... good, with a goodness which, though limited, is pure and perfect in nature. Nay, we may even admit that such lives are frequently the most complete and beautiful, just as the fairest flowers grow, not on the tallest trees, but on the fragile plants at their foot. Nevertheless, even in the case of those persons who have never broken from the traditional faith of the past, or felt it to be inadequate, that faith has been silently reconstructed in a new synthesis of knowledge. Spiritual life cannot come by ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... The unique cultures, fragile economies, and locations of our Caribbean and Pacific Islands are distinct assets to the United States which require the sensitive application of policy. The United States Government should pursue initiatives begun by my Administration and the Congress to stimulate ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... longest roots, for we found masses of dapicho two feet in diameter and four inches thick, eight feet distant from the trunks. Sometimes the Indians dig in vain at the foot of dead trees; at other times the dapicho is found beneath the hevea or jacio still green. The substance is white, corky, fragile, and resembles by its laminated structure and undulating edge, the Boletus ignarius. The dapicho perhaps takes a long time to form; it is probably a juice thickened by a particular disposition of the vegetable organs, diffused and coagulated in a humid soil secluded from the contact ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... is the Brat at last! Owing, I suppose, to the slenderness and fragile tenuity of his own charms, the Brat is a great admirer of fine women, the bigger the better; quantity, not quality; and, true to his colors, he now arrives with a neighboring cook, a lady of sixteen stone, on ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... there was a specimen, with the scuta, broad, smooth, thin, and fragile, without any ridge running from the umbo to the apex, and with the occludent margin reflexed. This seemed caused by the shell having been attacked by some boring animal, and from having supported Balani. In the same specimen the first cirrus ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... any leaves. Another was a yellow flower, with four petals, a pale miniature California poppy. Still another was a purple-red flower, almost as large as a buttercup, with dark green leaves. Last and tiniest of all were infinitely fragile pink and white blossoms, on very flat plants, smiling wanly up from ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... things, For our adoring hearts had turned within from all their wanderings: For beauty called to beauty and there thronged at the enchanter's will The vanished hours of love that burn within the Ever-living still. And sweet eternal faces put the shadows of the earth to rout, And faint and fragile as a moth your white hand fluttered and went out. Oh, who am I who tower beside this goddess of the twilight air? The burning doves fly from my heart and melt within her bosom there. I know the sacrifice of old they offered to the mighty queen, And this adoring love has brought us back the ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... thy rest. Thy flesh shall rest in hope, till that great day When He who once endured far greater woes Than mortal man can know; who when on earth Received such little children in his arms, Graciously blessing them, shall come again; Then like the glorious body of thy Lord Who wakes thy dust, this fragile frame shall be. Then shalt thou mount with him on angels' wings Be freed from sorrow, sickness, sin and death. And in ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... it come to pass that solitude itself becometh fragile and breaketh open, like a grave that breaketh open and can no longer hold its dead. Everywhere ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... So fragile a membrane scarcely possesses the reliability which should be possessed by a structure whose presence or absence has often meant so much. Its absence by no means necessarily signifies that a woman has had intercourse with a man. Its presence by no means signifies ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... fragile little body, long past her best, with the crow's feet deeply indented about her eyes, which had the timid look of those of a rabbit, and were peculiarly appropriate to a good old creature who seemed to be constantly laboring ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... the glory of the first aerial navigators? Immense courage was necessary to ascend by means of those fragile envelopes which contained only warm air. Besides, has not aerostatic science made great progress since the ascensions ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... secret suffocated him. He was in one of those crises in which a man, however strong he may be, totters and seeks some support, however fragile. ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... down and the leg gradually revealed. And the sight of the little soft leg, so fragile and defenceless, really did touch Edward Henry. It made him feel more like an authentic father than he had felt for a long time. And the sight of the red wound hurt him. Still, it was a beautifully clean wound, and it was ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... overflowing horn of plenty, blooming Futurity; show him in your mirror the joys of Paradise, while with fleeting foot you elude his eager grasp. Thus will I work my battery of death, stroke after stroke, upon his fragile body, until the troop of furies close upon him with Despair! Triumph! triumph!—the plan is complete—difficult and masterly beyond compare—sure—safe; for then (with a sneer) the dissecting knife can find no trace of wound or of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... girl shook her head, smiling. She looked less tired now. She was pretty and fragile, with fair hair and blue eyes. She was very pale and was rather shabbily and ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... workers sought more diverting labor; at any rate the futile chopping was abandoned. Instead, several long ladders were hooked together and the synthesis lowered from the curb to the edge of Dinkman's roof. It seemed remarkably fragile, but it reached and ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... me?" Margaret said. In spite of her anger, the humility of the fragile figure brought a suggestion of pity into her voice. The radiant beauty whom she had steeled her nerves to meet had given place to this meek, formless penitent. "Please put up your veil—I can't see you." She knew that she could not trust the woman's words; she wished ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... to a vital point, which Europeans have seemed determined not to comprehend—that of the extremely artificial and fragile character of the political structure which our architects of national ruin are laboring to construct. Mr. Chancellor Gladstone is pleased to favor us with his opinion that Slavery cannot long survive the recognition and perfect establishment of the Southern Confederacy. I beg leave to assure ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... explanation, other than Aunt Victoria's gracious nod of dismissal, they moved on to the enchanted cave where, under the stare of innumerable electric lights, evening wraps were exhibited. The young woman who served them held the expensive, fragile chiffon of the garments up in front of her black uniform, her eyes wistful and unsatisfied. Her instant of glory was over when Aunt Victoria bought one of these, exclaiming humorously about the quaintness of going from Paris to Chicago to shop. It was of silver tissue ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... sky as black as pitch, the ocean a mass of foam, and with the wind howling and whistling as if eager to carry the masts out of her, I was born. My poor mother had a heavy time of it, and it was a mercy she did not die. But oftentimes delicate, fragile-looking women go through far more than apparently strong and robust persons. She had a fine spirit and patient temper, and what is more, she put a firm trust in One who is all-powerful to save those who have faith in him, both for this life ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... little stone out of the mountain would roll down on the feet of clay and break them, and then the great image, golden head, and silver breast, and brazen body, and iron legs, would all go to pieces—they rested on an infirm footing, fragile clay. ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... mother, and daughter,—standing side by side and dressed each like each as nearly as was fitting, had awaited their guests. Three high-born fragile natures, solitary each on the stem of its generation; not made for blasts and rudeness. They had received their guests with the graciousness of sincere souls and not without antique distinction; for in their veins flowed blood which ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... the flavour of its juices. Every angle of the rail fences became a parterre with golden-rod, cat-brier, and the red-and-yellow pied leaves of blackberries, while a fringe of purple and white asters thrust fragile fingers through the rails below, or the stout iron-weed pushed its purple-red blooms into view at the ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... but curling tight in rings wherever it had the chance. Her eyes were black and her cheeks and lips a deep permanent red. She looked the picture of health and strength, and Marjorie felt like a toy beside her—fragile to the breaking-point. She seemed much better educated than her mother, and evidently on a footing of perfect equality ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... about 90% of the population engaged in (mainly subsistence) agriculture. It is the most densely populated country in Africa; is landlocked, and has few natural resources and minimal industry. Primary exports are coffee and tea. The 1994 genocide decimated Rwanda's fragile economic base, severely impoverished the population, particularly women, and eroded the country's ability to attract private and external investment. However, Rwanda has made significant progress ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... perhaps, be permitted to suggest the following leading principles; but we do so with diffidence. Rich colours harmonize with rich brunette complexions and dark hair. Delicate colours are the most suitable for delicate and fragile styles of beauty. Very young ladies are never so suitably attired as in white. Ladies who dance should wear dresses of light and diaphanous materials, such as tulle, gauze, crape, net, &c., over coloured silk slips. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... of its own making, and swallowed it with them hastily while the dogs were uncoupling for the hunt, it was received as a grace of Heaven. (Campan, i. 11-36.) Poor withered ancient women! in the wild tossings that yet await your fragile existence, before it be crushed and broken; as ye fly through hostile countries, over tempestuous seas, are almost taken by the Turks; and wholly, in the Sansculottic Earthquake, know not your right hand from your left, be this always an assured place in your ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... on her way, down the forest road. She was very old and exceeding fragile, but she was one of those who hold themselves erect and firm, however much old age may try to bend them. She had a sweet face and soft white hair. She looked so mild and gentle that it was surprising to hear her speak with a voice that was as ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... as sleighs breaking through, on our New York lakes and rivers, happened almost every winter, and horses were often drowned; though it was seldom the consequences proved so serious to their owners. I recalled to mind the fragile nature of ice, the necessary effects of the great thaw and the heavy rains, remembering that frozen water might still retain most of its apparent thickness, after its consistency was greatly impaired. ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... "I am your husband. I protect, surround, defend, cherish you, and house you, you poor fragile Dust. You are my wife. You fill all the vacant space of my heart. I adore you. I ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... not wish our readers to infer from this that a humming-bird might be captured or kept alive, for of all birds, they are the most fragile and delicate, and would die of fright, if from nothing else. They are chiefly used for ornamental purposes, and may be caught in a variety of ways. A few silk nooses hung about the flowers where ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... wrapped in her first tender gladness over her new treasure, God called her to come away to Him. So she left the little children who would never call her "mother," left the husband who was all the world to her; and—fragile White Rose as she was—Anne Mortimer "perished with the flowers." She died "with all the sunshine on her," aged only twenty-one years. Perhaps those who stood round her coffin thought it a very sad and strange dispensation ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... hold on the more tightly to things that are slipping away from us in a vain effort to keep them, so to save ourselves from utter sorrow, we build up in the imagination a fair image of what we have lost, free of the dust of the world. This makes the peculiar charm of the delicate and fragile, of weak things and little things, of the transient and perishable; they awaken in us the tender, protective impulse while they last, and when they are gone they suffer at our hands an idealization which the strong and enduring can never receive. Our pity for them mediates ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... The fragile article fell into sticks beneath her, and Lin leaped to her assistance. He placed her upon a firmer foundation. Mrs. Taylor brought a basin and towel to bathe the dust from her face, Mr. Taylor produced ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... Inhabitant was at once settled when I looked at them. For upwards of twenty years before this epoch, the independent position of the Collector had kept the Salem Custom-House out of the whirlpool of political vicissitude, which makes the tenure of office generally so fragile. A soldier—New England's most distinguished soldier—he stood firmly on the pedestal of his gallant services; and, himself secure in the wise liberality of the successive administrations through which he had held office, he had been the safety of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... if she had not been sustained by the power of love, and a hopeful looking forward to other scenes, she must have herself gone crazy during that and the other evil days that were upon them. To some of the prisoners, the most fragile and sensitive ones, even the hour of their execution seemed to come as a relief. Anything, to get outside of those close dark cells—and to make ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... Field-Marshal of the Prussian Armies, the foremost man in war-matters with this new King; and well worthy to be so. He is inventing, or brooding in the way to invent, a variety of things,—"iron ramrods," for one; a very great improvement on the fragile ineffective wooden implement, say all the Books, but give no date to it; that is the first thing; and there will be others, likewise undated, but posterior, requiring mention by and by. Inventing many things;—and always well ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... exclaimed cheerfully, "my reputation still continues. Wonderful, is it not, how durable a bad reputation is, and how fragile a good one. One bounds back like a rubber ball. The other shatters like a lustre punch bowl. And did the same young man—I presume he was young—enlighten you about this, the most ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... conversion challenge of all. Thus, the genesis of the Workshop, which reflects the problems faced by AM. These problems include physical problems. For example, those in the library and archive business deal with collections made up of fragile and rare manuscript items, bound materials, especially the notoriously brittle bound materials of the late nineteenth century. These are precious cultural artifacts, however, as well as interesting sources of information, and LC desires to ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly
... epicea wood, and those of Arizona utilize for the same purpose the long spikes of the cactus. It is very probable that European as well as American races knew how to use wood in the same manner. During the lapse of centuries, however, these fragile objects have been reduced to dust, and we are unable to make any further ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... her in an age. She was down among us in the autumn, but left town for the holidays, for them she insisted on keeping at Clawbonny, where she said the family had always kept them, and away she went. Since then, she has not returned, but I fear she is far from well. You know what a fragile creature Grace ever has been—so American!—Ah! Wallingford! our females have no constitutions—charming as angels, delicate as fairies, and all that; but not to be compared to ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... mistaken. Nothing rattled; there was not a sound; the box was as empty as before. I gave a smart tap with the hammer, as Pugh had done. Then there certainly was a curious sound. To my ear, it sounded like the smashing of glass. "I wonder if there is anything fragile inside your precious puzzle, Pugh, and, if so, if we ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... their ambling horse-cars, and their hideous slums, seemed appropriate settings for the unformed social life and the rough-and-ready political methods of American democracy. The railroads, with their fragile iron rails, their little wheezy locomotives, their wooden bridges, their unheated coaches, and their kerosene lamps, fairly typified the prevailing frontier business and economic organization. But only ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... up and looked around him on the pitiable ruins of the camp on which a tornado could not have wrought more destruction. Something lay glittering in the moonlight close to him. He picked it up. It was his shaving-glass, the most fragile thing in all their belongings, yet unbroken. Tent-poles had been smashed to matchwood, cooking utensils trodden flat, guns broken to pieces; yet this thing, useless and fragile, had been carefully preserved, watched over by some god of ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... now on, to make up for all you've gone through. I'm going to be awfully good to you, Eve. You sha'n't ever have any more worries, poor old thing." He looked at her affectionately. "I wonder why it is that large men always fall in love with little women. There are you, a fragile, fairy-like, ethereal wisp of a little creature; and ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... rear of a line of scrapping, frantic mail orderlies, each one trying to corner all the packages marked "Tobacco" and "Chocolate" for his particular outfit, the reporter, by standing on a box marked "Fragile—This Side Up," was able to see the scene depicted above, and to hear, above the din, the Postal Clerk's ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... stature and very thin. Not even the nurse's flowing garb could conceal the angularity of her figure. One wondered how so fragile a frame could have survived the crashings and shakings of war. What secret of yielding and resisting was hers? The tension, nevertheless, had left its mark upon her young face; had drawn the skin over the aquiline profile, ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... to another—as performed by a child who was being educated for the profession. Although so young she knew accurately upwards of sixty dances, and the pick of these she executed for a few spectators, in a little fragile paper-walled house outside Yokohama, while her adoring aunt played ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... difficult one. When they are born they possess nothing but potentialities; they have to do everything in a world which, as even adults admit, is full of difficulties. What is done to help these frail pilgrims in an unknown world? They are born more fragile and helpless than an animal, and in a few years they have to become men, to be units in a highly complicated organized society, built up by the secular effort of innumerable generations. At a period ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... foliage; by mountains, cedar-tipped and mossy-green; by rolling meadows, where the velvet softness of the blue-grass enriches this idyllic picture—this stream that is famed in song and story, a perfect Switzerland of enrapturing and delicious beauty. Here a thundering waterfall and fragile foliage bending over the foam. Here cool and shady ravines leading up to tranquil Edens, the voluptuous bends through an enchantment of bloom and wildwood, losing themselves among the rock-ribbed hills. ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... neutral or alkaline conditions (see acid rain). acid rain - characterized as containing harmful levels of sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxide; acid rain is damaging and potentially deadly to the earth's fragile ecosystems; acidity is measured using the pH scale where 7 is neutral, values greater than 7 are considered alkaline, and values below 5.6 are considered acid precipitation; note - a pH of 2.4 (the acidity of vinegar) has been measured in rainfall in New England. aerosol - a collection ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... control In their shut breasts their petty misery. What are our woes and sufferings? Come and see The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, ye! Whose agonies are evils of a day— A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... delicate and slight when compared with the gigantic inclines below, seemed like the little vertical flame of a taper set in the midst of the vast landscape, those endless waves of valleys and mountains. By the side, too, of the dense greenery of the Calvary hill, it looked fragile and candid, like childish faith; and at sight of it you instinctively thought of the little white arm, the little thin hand of the puny girl, who had here pointed to Heaven in the crisis of her human sufferings. You could not see the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... greatly changed in his bearing toward his daughter, the which, indeed, he had already told me, and that he seemed to understand, as it were, for the first time, how precious a life hers was, and how lovely and how fragile. Severo believed that Messer Folco would now be willing, if only he could liberate his child from the weight of the Bardi name, to leave her all liberty of choice as to the man she would wed, even if that man had neither wealth nor fame to ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Recamier and M. de Latouche. A letter written by her to Antoine de Latour (October 15, 1836) gives a general idea of her life: "I do not know how I have slipped through so many shocks,—and yet I live. My fragile existence slipped sorrowfully into this world amid the pealing bells of a revolution, into whose whirlpool I was soon to be involved. I was born at the churchyard gate, in the shadow of a church whose saints ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... meadows, nor blue-bells lifting their baby-blue eyes out of the grain. All the land was green. Fields, meadows, forests, plains—all were green, green, green. The features of the landscape had changed with this change in coloring. The slim, fragile grace of slim trees and fragile cliffs had been replaced by trees of heroic proportions, and by outlines nobly rounded and full—like the breasts of a mother. The whole country had an astonishing look of vigor—of the vigor which comes with rude strength; and it had that charm ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... came here some time ago. She was very pale and fragile when she came. She was in sore distress, too. But she received the consolation of the Church, ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... potent possibility. He did not know it then, but now he knew that on the occasion of his smashing a magnificent porcelain vase the forgiving kiss that Mrs. Tresslyn bestowed upon his flaming cheek was not due to pity but to farsightedness. Somehow he now felt that he could smash every fragile and inanimate thing in sight, and still escape ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... dream arose—a dream of you ... I frighten you, child?" His tone was contrite. "I do not mean to do that. I am too hasty. Queer, isn't it, that I can make men, nations, worlds, obey me—but I have to bide my time with a fragile ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... away!" said Stenio. "Look at the sun, and the earth, and the beautiful sky, and these green hills; and even that ice, winter's fragile edifice, which has withstood the rays of summer for centuries. Even so man's frail power will prevail! What matters the fall of a few generations? Do you weep for so slight a thing, Lelia? Do you deem it possible a single ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... the grace of life. The husband is not to dwell on this, that the wife is weak and fragile, but on this, that she also is baptized, and has the same that he has,—all blessings in Christ. For inwardly we are all alike, and there is no difference between man and woman, but as to the outward condition, it is God's pleasure that the husband rule, and ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... Lena's attractions, none was more marked than her smile. It was frequent and unaffected, almost maternal in its good nature and indulgence, and disclosed two rows of little teeth, pure and fragile in appearance as porcelain. Yet this smile, so inviting to those who wished to be invited, was disillusioning to cooler and more discriminating observers, for in it her ordinary quality was disclosed, her redundancy of sweetness, her lack of that intellect which enables a woman to triumph ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... certain sort fragile is written all over our colony; as far as the visible body of it is concerned it is inexpressibly perishable; a fire and a high wind could sweep it all away; and one of the most American of all American things is the least fitted among them to survive from the present to the future, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... with his low chuckle, and Nelly came up, and sitting down by me, put her hand on mine caressingly. 'You look as white and fragile as a piece of china, Hilda. I am so glad you are better. You don't know how we have missed you, and when I thought we were going to lose you altogether I was miserable. I thought over all the nasty things we had said to you, and how you had borne it like ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... indeed, with the sleazy, clinging, white draperies wound around her slender form, then the wings of golden maline pinioned on either softly rounded shoulder. Sally was a perfect little beauty, and also possessed that whimsical manner so attractive in this delicate, fragile type. ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... its nature, writhing in the conqueror's cold embrace—rigid, creaking, ready to snap in twain rather than bend, as the red oak or sugar maple, or else meekly, submissively curving to the earth its tapering, frosted limbs, like the silver birch— elegant, though fragile, ornament of the Canadian park, or else, rearing amid air a graceful net-work—waving, transparent sapphire-tinted arabesques, stretched on amber pillars; witness the Golden Willow. Each gleam of sunshine investing this gorgeous tapestry with all the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... meridian—or you can stroll in the moonlight on the long white beaches with lithe brown beauties who wear passion-flowers in their raven hair. Or, should you weary of so dolce far niente an existence, you can sail across to Java with the opium-runners in their fragile prahaus, or climb a two-mile-high volcano, or in the jungles at the western extremity of the island stalk the clouded tiger. And you can wear pajamas all day long without apologizing. Everything considered, Bali offers more inducements than any place I know to the tired business man ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... as he entered a room, small, and with all the contents faded and worn, but with an air of having been once tasteful, and still made the best of. Contents we say advisedly, meaning not merely the furniture but the inmates, namely, the pale wan fragile mother, working, but with the baby on her knee, and looking as if care and toil had brought her to skin and bone, though still with sweet eyes and a lovely smile; the father, tall and picturesque, with straight handsome features, but with a hectic colour, wasted cheek, and lustrous ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... yielded up old cotton cards, and horns that had been used to call the slaves. Finally the "robe-tail muslin" came to light. The soft material, so fragile with age that a touch sufficed to reduce it still further to rags, was made with a full skirt and plain waist, and still showed traces of a yellow ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... friend," observed the School-master, "is as fragile as this cup"—tapping his coffee-cup. "The countryman of whom you speak is up and doing long before you or I or your successful merchant, who has waxed great on noise as you put it, is awake. If the early bird catches the worm, what becomes ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs
... oft 'tis said in Lapland's chill domain, Where dreary winter holds a lengthen'd reign, What time the Runic drum and magic spell Evoke the rapt soul from its fragile cell, Attendant spirits, won by charms and prayer, In gliding motion float upon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various
... son vin[Fr]. Adj. weak, feeble, debile|; impotent &c. 158; relaxed, unnerved, &c. v.; sapless, strengthless[obs3], powerless; weakly, unstrung, flaccid, adynamic[obs3], asthenic[obs3]; nervous. soft, effeminate, feminate[obs3], womanly. frail, fragile, shattery[obs3]; flimsy, unsubstantial, insubstantial, gimcrack, gingerbread; rickety, creaky, creaking, cranky; craichy[obs3]; drooping, tottering &c. v.. broken, lame, withered, shattered, shaken, crazy, shaky; palsied &c. 158; decrepit. languid, poor, infirm; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... "Je t'aime"—which means, "I love you so!" Her hair—her hands—her lips, Red as a sunset cloud when daytime slips Into the night. No, redder! Like a flower That blooms upon the earth for just an hour; A poppy flower, fragile, soft.... HER LIPS Red as the heart-blood of a man, that drips Into eternity.... Jean ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... is it decreed to attain the neighborhood of the three-score and ten years—the span of life. I am to speak of one who died young. Very awkward was his childhood—but most fragile and sensitive! So delicate a nature may exist in a rough, unnoticed plant! Let the boy rest;—he was not beautiful, and dropp'd away betimes. But for the cause—it is a singular story, to which let crusted worldlings ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... dark hair which harmonized with the brown eyes and the general gaiety of her expression. A certain daintiness of feature was misleading as to her true character and her almost virile decision. She had small hands and small feet; in fact, there was something fragile about her whole person which excluded the idea of vigor and determination. Having always lived beside her mother, she had a most perfect innocence of thought and behavior and a really remarkable piety. This young girl, like her mother, was fanatically attached to the Bourbons; ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... to grow up in country places, and made the bright, neat New England kitchens of olden times;" and adds, "This race of women, pride of olden time, is daily lessening; and in their stead come the fragile, easily fatigued, languid girls of a modern age, drilled in book-learning, ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... demanded Scott, ramming down the moist earth around a fragile rootlet from which trailed a ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... to four times the diaphragm, will be only 4 centimeters, while the corresponding aperture behind the lens must be 16. The dimensions of the first will be practical, and those of the second will give too cumbersome and too fragile an apparatus. But why must the aperture be larger than the diaphragm employed? This is what we are going to demonstrate. Let us make the aperture equal to the diameter of the objective, and see what occurs at the different periods ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... hotel" called up the idea of two separate systems of life. Acquaintances showed signs of developing into friends, for that one tie to Mrs. Parry's drawing-room had inevitably split into many other ties attached to different parts of England, and sometimes these alliances seemed cynically fragile, and sometimes painfully acute, lacking as they did the supporting background of organised English life. One night when the moon was round between the trees, Evelyn M. told Helen the story of her life, and claimed her everlasting friendship; or another occasion, merely because of a sigh, or a ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... scent, And rosemary, dear ornament, Sword-lilies proud, unfurled, And basil, quaintly curled, And fragile violet blue— He soon will seize you ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... for that to which it was the necessary preliminary and introduction, the bestowment on humanity of the gift of the Divine Spirit. The old Greek legend of the Titan that stole fire from heaven tells us that he brought it to earth in a reed. Our Christ brings the heavenly fire in the fragile, hollow reed of His humanity, and the reed has to be broken in order that the fire may blaze out. 'How I wish that it were kindled! but I have a baptism to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... blossoms upon the pear trees, called out the sour Puritan courage of the currant-bushes, taught a reckless native grapevine to wander and wanton over the southern side of the fence, and decked the banks with violets as fearless and as fragile as New England girls, so that about the end of June, when the heavens relented and the sun blazed out at last, there was little for him to do but to redden and darken the daring fruits that had attained almost their full growth ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... caught Gilbart's eye, and somehow it seemed to lift and remove her and the house she was entering—the lit windows, the guests, the Admiral himself—into another world. If it were real, then (like enough) this fragile thing, this Dresden goddess, owned a brother, perhaps a lover, on board the Berenice. If so, here was another world waiting to be shattered—a world of silks and toys and pretty uniforms and tiny bric-a-brac—a sort of doll's house inhabited ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... trouble and dismay, In the stern agony of civil war, When she, a woman, helpless and hemmed in By a rude crowd of rebel vassals, sought Protection in a powerful chieftain's arms. God knows what arts were used to overcome her! For woman is a weak and fragile thing. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... two people; two small strips of bark, five or six inches square, serves the double purpose of paddling and for baling the water out, which they are constantly obliged to do to prevent their canoe from sinking; in shoal water the paddles are superseded by a pole, by which this fragile bark is propelled. We endeavoured to persuade them to bring off some spears to barter, for they had no weapon of any description with them, but they evidently would not understand our meaning. In the evening our gentlemen proceeded to return these visits, at the spot which was pointed out by ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... a distinct pattern of pipe; those of the Bari have wide trumpet-shaped mouths; the Latooka are long and narrow; and the Obbo smaller and the neatest. All their pottery is badly burned, and excessively fragile if wet. The water jars are well formed, although the potter's wheel is quite unknown, and the circular form is obtained entirely by the hand. Throughout the tribes of the White Nile, the articles of pottery are limited to the tobacco-pipe and the water-jar: all ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker |
