"Frail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rubber boots, and sou'wester, was dry, all but her face and hands and a stray wisp of hair. She relieved me at the bailing-hole from time to time, and bravely she threw out the water and faced the storm. All things are relative. It was no more than a stiff blow, but to us, fighting for life in our frail craft, it was ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... up the road, carrying a half-filled pail of milk. He was a child of perhaps ten years, exceedingly frail and thin, with a drawn, waxen face, and sick, colorless lips and ears. On his head he wore a thick plush cap, and coarse, heavy shoes upon his feet. A faded coat, too long in the arms, drooped from his shoulders, and long, loose overalls ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... strange to civilized ears, accustomed only to the routine of daily life and not inured to danger and wild surroundings. But the soldier who has snatched a hasty doze in the trenches, the sailor who has heard a fierce gale buffeting the walls of his frail ark, can appreciate the reason why Iris, weary and surfeited with excitement, would have slept were she certain that the next sunrise would mark her last ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... self-sacrificing action, or blossomed forth in this or that nobility of character. Mildred was destined now to suffer one of these savage blows of disillusionment about self that thrust us down from the exalted moral heights where we have been preening into humble kinship with the weak and frail human race. She saw why she had refused Stanley, why she had stopped "borrowing," why she had put off going to the theatrical managers, why she had delayed moving into quarters within her diminished and rapidly diminishing means. She had been counting ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... we touched, and kissed, And frowned upon; These that were frail, yet died because the good ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... the Women themselves. For, although they can inflict instantaneous death by a retrograde movement, yet unless they can at once disengage their stinging extremity from the struggling body of their victim, their own frail bodies are ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... George gave with his pole, and then found he no longer could touch bottom. He was at the mercy of the swift current. Down into the little lake he was swept, and thence through the strait right out into Grand Lake. A high sea was running, and the frail raft promptly began to fall to pieces. "Have I escaped starvin' only to drown?" thought George. It certainly looked like it. "But," said he to himself, "if I drown them fellus up there will be up against it for sure." So he determined not to drown. He got down on his hands ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... few situations of greater difficulty and delicacy than that of the Governor of a British colony which possesses representative institutions. A constitutional sovereign, but with frail and temporary tenure, he is expected not to reign only but to govern; and to govern under the orders of a distant minister, who, if he has one eye on the colony, must keep the other on home politics. ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... proceeded with his work. The second post was sawed through; the building trembled. His heart beat so violently when he began on the third, that he had to stop several times. The post was more than half sawed through when the frail building quivered violently. ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... involved than the mere question of going north or south. He had come to the parting of the ways. His whole life hung in the balance. Floating in that frail skiff on the uneasy swell, he realized that everything depended on the direction in which he swung the prow. His ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... change the old dream for new treasure? Make not youth's sourest grapes the best wine of our life? Need he reckon his date by the Almanac's measure Who is twenty life-long in the eyes of his wife? Ah, Fate, should I live to be nonagenarian, Let me still take Hope's frail I.O.U.s upon trust, Still talk of a trip to the Islands Macarian, And still climb the dream-tree ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... means and without protection, persons "worn out with the agitation of the world," those who are too feeble to support the battle of life, those who withdraw from it wounded or invalid, and "the rules of the order, not very strict, are not beyond the health or strength of the most frail and delicate." Some ingenious device of charity thus applies to each moral or social sore, with skill and care, the proper and proportionate dressing. And finally, far from falling off, nearly all these communities are in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Bursley, a vessel of 417 tons. In looking back on these times, and knowing what dreadful storms our huge steamers encounter between Europe and America, we cannot but admire the courage which must have inspired men and women to embark for distant ports in crafts so frail.[4] It is well also to note that the transit from New York occupied the period from the 1st to the 26th August, the better ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... and her frail looking mother rushed to Tiara to thank her. While they were doing this the deputy sheriff ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... by placing a close fence about a field. One or two small entrances are left open and inside of these, deep pits are dug, and are covered with brush. As the animal pushes in, it steps on the frail covering, and is hurled to the bottom of the pit, where it is ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... Macorquodale [whom my husband often had in the boat with him]; he was much pleased to hear that you had been inquiring about him. He is now getting frail, and not very able to work. He requested me to say that he was very glad to hear of you, and would be delighted to see you at Loch Awe. He sold the boats you were so kind as to give him, but he only received a small sum for them, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... was none of the alarm that had come into his. Her father, too, was getting over his fright. For this helpless old man and fair, frail child, whose wit and courage were equal to situations of which she had the right of childhood to be ignorant, the scene just witnessed had the familiarity of frequent repetition, but for him it was horribly new, and if the Damanarkist of whom Carmencita ...
— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher
... beneath this lofty shade I danced awhile, frail plaything of the seas; Unfit to brave the ampler main with these; Yet, by the instinct which their souls obeyed, Less steadfast, o'er the trackless wave I strayed, And follow still their ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... and falcon, the merlin, the bald-headed vulture, the kestrel, the golden sparrow-hawk, find inaccessible retreats, whence they descend upon the plains like so many pillaging and well-armed barons. A thousand little chattering birds come at eventide to perch in flocks upon the frail boughs of tamarisk ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... insulting to the majesty and beneficence of the Creator, was shared by the most pious ministers of religion. Those who in their morning and evening prayers acknowledged the one true God, and praised him for the blessings of the seed-time and the harvest, were convinced that frail humanity could enter into a compact with the spirits of hell to subvert his laws and thwart all his merciful intentions. Successive popes, from Innocent VIII. downwards, promulgated this degrading doctrine, which spread so rapidly, that society seemed to be divided into two great factions, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... strong alliances they kept at bay their feudal lords, and fettered the ecclesiastical power with the yoke of a justice, meagre, indeed, and sadly unfruitful, but still ominous of a better day. Within the alabaster vase of despotism, frail, yet old as ambition, the lamp of freedom had long burned dimly: now its flames were licking, with serpent-like tongues, the enclosure so long deemed sacred, and threatened, as they dyed the air with their amber ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... [should] never be deceived in you—and in that case it becomes you to be frail in compliment ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... rose from her seat in blank astonishment. She was a frail little woman with pale-blue eyes and a figure like a curl ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the bounds of my duty, and told him the whole truth. The poor, weak, wavering, childish creature flushed up red in the face, then turned as pale as ashes, and dropped into one of the hall chairs crying—literally crying fit to break his heart. "Oh, William," says he, wringing his little frail, trembling white hands as helpless as a baby, "oh, William, what am ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... convinced that nothing in the world could prevent her from going to her cure. However, when Pierre had found an aperture, and begun to work his way through the moving mass, the situation became more serious. From all parts the swelling human waves beat against the frail chariot, and at times threatened to submerge it. At each step it became necessary to stop, wait, and again entreat the people. Pierre had never before felt such an anxious sensation in a crowd. True, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... encourages almost all travellers: but the imagination does not allow itself to be chained by this kind of consolation, and that abyss, from which so slight an obstacle separates you, is always tormenting to the mind. Mr. Schlegel saw the terror I felt about the frail vessel which was to carry us to Stockholm. He showed me, near Abo, the prison in which one of the most unfortunate kings of Sweden, Eric XIV. had been confined some time before he died in another prison near ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... a century lies in the span of memory of "Aunt Ferebe" Rogers. The interviewers found her huddled by the fireside, all alone while her grandaughter worked on a WPA Project to make the living for them both. In spite of her years and her frail physique, her memory was usually clear, only occasionally becoming too misty for scenes to stand out plainly. Her face lighted with a reminiscent smile when she was asked to "tell ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... part of the trail leading out from Golden Crossing was not especially bad, and Jack ambled along it slowly enough. About two miles out from the settlement he had to cross, on a rather frail wooden ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... stream, Border'd, each bank, with pines; the morning sun, On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops, On the red pinings of their forest-floor, 5 Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines The mountain-skirts, with all their sylvan change Of bright-leaf'd chestnuts and moss'd walnut-trees And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began. Swiss chalets glitter'd on the dewy slopes, 10 And from some swarded shelf, high up, there came Notes of wild pastoral music—over all Ranged, diamond-bright, the eternal wall of snow. Upon the mossy rocks at the stream's edge, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... my soul with a moral force I cannot resist, and would not if I could, that the vineyard still wants labourers, that 'the kingdoms of this world are not yet become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ,' and that till they are become such, till the frail race of Adam is restored to the knowledge and the likeness of his Maker, till universally and throughout the wide world the will of God is become our delight, and its accomplishment our first and last desire, there can be no claim so solemn and imperative as ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... the fuel within our reach. The wind came off the land just as the canoes had started, and we determined on attempting to force a passage along the shore; in which we happily succeeded, after seven hours' labour and much hazard to our frail vessels. The ice lay so close that the crews disembarked on it, and effected a passage by bearing against the pieces with their poles; but in conducting the canoes through the narrow channels thus formed, the greatest care was requisite, to prevent the sharp projecting points from breaking ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... dressed in business-like grey tweeds, with a soft grey felt hat slouched over her head. She looked very pale, very frail, intensely, vibratingly alive. This extraordinary contradiction between body and mind made a charm and mystery which it is difficult to express in words. One longed to protect and shield her, to tuck her up on a sofa, ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... The unexpected and melancholy event which deprived the bar of one of its most promising ornaments, and cast a shade over the gay and talented circle in which he moved, must be fresh within the memory of our readers. As yet no memoir, no frail tribute to stamp even a fleeting remembrance of his learning, professional fame, or liberal principles has appeared, and while worthless rank and heartlessness have been perpetuated by marble and the prostituted energies of literature, genius, talent, and honor, have ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... man," according to Mr. Spencer, "the need for explanations about surrounding appearances does not occur to him". We have disclaimed all knowledge about "primitive man," but it is easy to show that Mr. Spencer grounds his belief in the lack of speculation among savages on a frail foundation of evidence. ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... their boat and pulled with great strokes toward the sinking canoe and its lone occupant. They were alongside in a few minutes and Henry threw a rope to the man, who caught it with a skillful hand, and tied his frail craft stoutly to the side of the strong "Galleon." Then, as Paul reached a friendly hand down to him he sprang on board, exclaiming at the same time in a deep voice: "May the blessing of Heaven rest upon ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... among the Jaroslavl delegates to All-Russian Conference which was in preparation. Larin, whose work keeps him continually traveling, has his own car, specially arranged so that his uninterrupted labor shall have as little effect as possible on his dangerously frail body. Radek and I traveled in one of the special cars of the Central Executive Committee, of which ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... his services to him he obtained the chancellorship of the kingdom, and at his suit that he obtained the cardinal's hat and other favours from the Pope; this, though not the height of his ambition, was the limit of it, for he soon learned how frail a reed is a prince's favour; he refused to sanction his master's marriage with Anne Boleyn, and was driven from power and bereft of all his possessions; finally, though restored to the see of York, he was arrested on a charge of treason, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... child, thou lovest me, Take these flowerets, fair and frail, And my soul shall waft to thee Love songs ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... prevailed there both for and against Napoleon, but without the name of the Bourbons ever being pronounced. They were almost unknown to the new generation, forgotten by many of the old, and feared by the conventionalists; at that time they possessed only the frail support of the coteries of the Faubourg St. Germain, and some remains of the emigration. But as it is certain that the emigrants could offer only vain demonstrations and wishes in support of the old family of our Kings, they did little to assist the restoration of the Bourbons. Another thing ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... where his education would be properly begun. Accordingly, Paul began his studies in that hot-bed of learning, where the dreamy, delicate child with his quaint ways soon became a favorite with teachers and pupils. The process of being educated was difficult for one so young and frail, and he might have sunk beneath the burden of his tasks but for looking forward to the weekly visit to ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... no friendship so noble, but it is the product of the time; and a world of little finical observances, and little frail proprieties and fashions of the hour, go to make or to mar, to stint or to perfect, the union of spirits the most loving and the most intolerant of such interference. The trick of the country and the age steps ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little island around me still no evidence of man. But men were here. The American Indian, still bearing evidence of the Mongols, plied these waters in his frail canoes. His wigwams of skins, the smoke of his signal fires—these were not enduring enough for me ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... hiked. But to "hike" along a deep-rutted, pebbly lane in frail, silver-hued slippers with high French heels, is not an exhilarating performance. Rilla managed to limp and totter along until they reached the harbour road; but she could go no farther in those detestable slippers. She took them and her dear silk stockings off and started barefoot. ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... movement of abhorrence from me, as her insipid confidante turned away, attested the triumph of the poet-actress. Had not all been over in a moment, I believe I could not have refrained from rushing forward to raise the fair frail being, who seemed so prematurely humbled in her parent dust. I burst into tears; and, with the stifled, hopeless feeling of a real sorrow, continued to weep till the very end; nor could I recover till I left ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... rapid walking brought him to the river. Here he plunged into a thicket of willows, and emerged on a sandy strip of shore. He carefully surveyed the river bank, and then pulled a small birch-bark canoe from among the foliage. He launched the frail craft, paddled across the river and beached it ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... a good look at Mr. Randolph to-day. He is thin, frail. His face is pale, and will soon be a mass of wrinkles, although he is not over forty. His eyes are extremely small, blue, and ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... apparently, did not wish for an ally of so acrimonious and turbulent a spirit. He found himself still excluded from the House of Commons. He led, during a few months, a miserable life, sometimes trying to forget his cares among the wellbred gamblers and frail beauties who filled the drawingroom of the Duchess of Mazarine, and sometimes sunk in religious melancholy. The thought of suicide often rose in his mind. Soon there was a vacancy in the representation of Buckinghamshire, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... lusty, roaring fashion, as a healthy beefy boy hates a sick cat and torments it to madness. When she displeased him, he beat her, and knocked her frail form on the floor. The children could tell when this had happened. Her eyes would be red, and there would be blue marks on her face and neck. "Poor Mrs. Tony," they would say, and nestle close to her. ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... frail as a shadow; It passed like a vapor away— As the mist which hangs over the meadow Dissolves in the sun's ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... was a great success, for she could keep order, and that quality, where small boys are concerned, is much more valuable than learning. She stayed there for some years, and then her frail little ill-nourished body gave out, and she was ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... liberality from Fortune. We had done our best to insure success and could go forward in some confidence. A delay was caused by the non-arrival of some extra heavy oars ordered from Chicago, but at length they came, and it was well we waited, for the lighter ones were quickly found to be too frail. Our preparations had taken three weeks. Considering that we were obliged to provide against every contingency that might occur in descending this torrent so completely locked in from assistance and supplies, the time was not too long. Below Green ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... myself with the consciousness of my uprightness in the past and my moderation in the present, and apply that simile of Accius's not to jealousy, but to fortune, which I hold—as being inconstant and frail—ought to be beaten back by a strong and manly soul, as a wave is by a rock. For, considering that Greek history is full of examples of how the wisest men endured tyrannies either at Athens or Syracuse, ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... temptation, when exposed to the influence of seducing companions. Mittie's jealous and unyielding temper would embitter the peace of the household; while Helen's morbid sensibility, like a keen-edged sword in a thin, frail scabbard, threatened to wear away her young life. What firmness—yea, what gentleness—yea, what wisdom, what holy Christian principles were requisite for the responsibilities ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... him in regard to Madou's journey: the weather, that had been so fine the day of his departure, had suddenly changed; and now the rain fell in torrents,—hail too, and even snow; and the wind blew around their frail dwelling, causing the poor little children of the sun to shiver in their sleep, and dream of a rocking ship and a heavy sea. Curled up under his blankets one night, listening to the howling of the fierce wind, Jack thought of his friend, imagined him half frozen lying ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... among strangers, never knowing family ties with their own, was like a monster to him. What he had fought so hard to hold from his own, now was being poured out upon his helpless little cousins. A thought of help and succor came again and again to his mind, but he remembered how frail Nell was for any added burden. Her sharp eyes saw the struggle and doubt in his mind, and ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... then—so young? She is beautiful, graceful, well educated, the daughter of wealthy parents, no doubt, but frail, frail, senor; and some day, not a very distant day—but why should I predict sorrow to a gay heart? Only her face, senor, is strange to me; it does not recall the features of ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... Lawrence Washington died of the disease which he had long struggled against. He left his fortune and his property, including Mount Vernon, to his daughter, Sarah, and he appointed his brother, George, her guardian. She was a sweet-natured girl, but very frail, who died before long, probably of the same disease which had carried her father off, and, until its infectious nature was understood, used to decimate ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... himself to find analogies. The isle was like the rim of a great vessel sunken in the waters; it was like the embankment of an annular railway grown upon with wood: so slender it seemed amidst the outrageous breakers, so frail and pretty, he would scarce have wondered to see it sink and disappear without a sound, and the waves close smoothly over ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he began, "I yielded just now to thy generous proposal; but I think it will not do. For myself I can be rash, but not for thee. Thou art too frail and lovely, my little one, to get mixed up with the grim realities of such a life ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... tales she told me, spun of fancies luminous and frail as threads of glass. She could not speak without betraying her deep learning in sciences rejected and forgotten by the modern world. Alchemy, astrology, geomancy furnished her speech with allusions blank to my ignorance; which she most ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... royal place, A gentle lady, and the hand That sways the sceptre of this land, How frail and weak Soft is the voice and fair the face; She breathes amen to prayer and hymn No wonder that her eyes are ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... ambiguity Rickman leapt, with a grin of diabolical delight. He may have had some dim idea that it would be his shelter in the day of rebuke; but all he could clearly think of as he held the boy's frail palpitating volume in his hand, was that he had but that moment in which to praise him. This was his unique and perfect opportunity, the only sort of opportunity that he was not likely to ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... God made His pretty world He had certain things exceeding sharp and sweet to say to us, which it is His will only to whisper to us through human reeds: the frail human reeds on which we sometimes deafly lean until they break and ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... leaning on his hand. A deadly cold perspiration trickled down his brow. His heart swelled and beat as if it would burst. What should he do? His whole prospects were in an instant blighted. "Oh God! do not desert a frail and unhappy being: give me strength to face this new and terrible misfortune," was a prayer he internally uttered. A little revived, he started to his feet, and addressing himself to the landlord, he said, "Take me to a magistrate instantly, and let us have this diabolical plot unraveled. I court ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... see and interpret Charley's action, and their guns were quickly turned upon his frail craft. As he drew nearer the drifting dugout and came within range, a perfect hail of bullets splashed the water into foam around him. He did not falter or hesitate, but with long clean strokes of the paddle, sent his light little ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Gaston could not despise the young fellow. There was courage of purpose and conviction that ennobled his frail body. It was no easy thing, Gaston felt sure, for him to place himself and his youth in this attitude toward a man older than he. It was undeniable Drew lost sight of himself every time he accepted the demands of his profession,—and ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... of these. Solitary, flying from society, he avoideth the maiden, he avoideth joy; plunging into the loneliness of his soul, he there, with indescribable mourning, with tears of inspiration, on his knees before his Ideal, imploreth her to come down upon earth to his frail dwelling. Days and nights he waiteth, and pineth after unearthly beauty. Woe to him if she doth not visit him, and yet greater woe to him if she doth! The tender frame of youth cannot bear her bridal kiss; union with the gods is fatal to man; and the mortal is annihilated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... the works of bad men, a taint, stain, and jarring discord, blacker and louder exactly in proportion to their moral deficiency. At best it is no part of our duty to examine into and pronounce upon the frail characters of men, but rather to hold fast to that which we can prove good, and feel to be ordained ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the news to his wife she moved slowly to a window and stood there staring down into the glittering chasm of Fifth Avenue. Bob's mother was a frail, erect, impassive woman, wearied and saddened with the weight of her husband's millions. There had been a time when society knew her, but of late years she saw few people, and her name was seldom mentioned except in connection with her benefactions. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... in, (e.g. based upon). forcer, to force, compel. former, to form, make, contrive, train. fort, m., fort, fortress. fou, folle, mad, senseless. foudre, f., thunder (bolt). foudroyer, to strike down (as by a thunderbolt). foule, f., crowd. fouler, to trample. fragile, frail; roseau —, broken reed. frapper, to strike. fraude, f., deception. frayeur, f., fear. frmir, to shudder, tremble. frmissement, m., thrill, shudder. frre, m., brother, dear friend. frissonner, to shudder. frivole, frivolous. ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... changing form, frail vesture of decay, The soul unclad forgets it once hath worn, Stained with the travel of the weary day, And shamed with ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... glory of the eternal city; and such is the luminous correspondence of Language, that by transfusion into our vernacular idiom, we may receive a satisfactory measure of the original inspiration. Let it be kept in view, that Ideas, the frail associates of a perception, possess no permanence, are incapable of being transferred, and must fade away when our existence terminates. It is the word that forms the nucleus, and contains the intellectual deposit, that may become the inheritance of ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... whom I have intrusted this great responsibility of framing laws for the regulation of their conduct in their connection with the institution, and by which any of the members may lose its privileges, to remember how frail we are, and how liable to err when we come to sit in judgment on the faults of others, and how much the circumstances of our birth, our education, and the society and country where we have been born and brought up, have had to do in forming us ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... though every sentence, by the interest it displayed in its object, seemed to establish the truth of a suspicion which she at first only uttered from the vague workings of her revenge. Triumphing in the belief that he bad found another as frail as herself, and yet maddened that another should have been preferred before her, her jealous pride blazed ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... great numbers of men, women and children of all faiths came to pay a final tribute. The burial service was the same as he himself had always used, only read now by his successor, and the Bishop of the Diocese. To his friends and beloved people it all seemed passing strange if not unreal. Frail beings that we are, we had never sensed more than a vague possibility that his ministry would one day terminate. It was not past human knowing, of course, but it was beyond the grasp of human imagining that the day would come when Frank Nelson would no longer walk the city's streets, ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... not Hoodwinked with rustic marvels, I do think There are more things in the grove, the air, the flood, Yea, and the charnelled earth, than what wise man, Who walks so proud as if his form alone Filled the wide temple of the universe, Will let a frail mind say. I'd write i' the creed O' the sagest head alive, that fearful forms, Holy or reprobate, do page men's heels; That shapes, too horrid for our gaze, stand o'er The murderer's dust, and for revenge glare up, Even till the stars weep ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... hands under the sleeping child and delivered the little frail-fleshed, heavily ironed body into ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... exultant cry. At his feet was a canoe. It was wet, as though just drawn out of the water, and a freshly used paddle was lying across the bow. Pausing but to take a quick and cautious glance about him he shoved the frail craft into the lake and with a few quiet strokes buried himself in the rice grass. When he emerged from it he was half ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... him an Emperor's crown to wear when he plays king, is not difficult to grant. At the present writing crowns in the Orient are not fashionable. As I look out of my window, the salmon-pink walls of the Forbidden City rise in the dusty distance. Under the flaming yellow roof of the Palace is a frail and frightened little six-year-old boy—the ruler of millions—who, if he knew and could, would gladly exchange his priceless crown for freedom and a ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... head to a pulp—but Nanette was between it and the dog like a flash, and the blow went wild. It was with his fist that Le Beau struck out now, and the blow caught Nanette on the shoulder and sent her frail body down with a crash. The Brute sprang upon her. His fingers gripped in her ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... no visible sign of inward vanquishment he at least was feeling its effect. For years his writings had made him the target for a world of women, and many men. The men he had regarded with indifferent toleration. The women were his life—the "frail and ineffective creatures" who gave spice to his great adventure, and made his days anything but monotonous. He was not unchivalrous. Deep down in his heart—and this was his own secret—he did not even despise women. But he had seen their weaknesses and their frailties as perhaps no other ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... before I considered myself first-class; and though I'm at it now thirteen, I don't consider I know it all yet." She worked rapidly, flecking the delicate salmon-colored petals with her glue-finger, and pasting them daintily around the fast-growing rose. I watched her pinch and press and crease each frail petal with her hot iron instruments, and when she had put on a thick rubber stem and hung the finished flower on the line ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... nature, he only unfits himself by seeking gain. In the same way, to a lesser degree, the law and the ministry should not be gainful professions. When the question of personal gain and advancement comes in, the frail human being succumbs to selfishness, and then to error. Like the artist, the doctor, the lawyer, the clergyman, the teacher should be content to minister to human needs. The professions should be great monastic orders, reserved for those ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... asked the captain, letting down the chest he carried with a shock that caused the frail tenement to quiver ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... frequently noted that children who were disobedient to their parents, and left them stubbornly and against their will, here found masters from whom they received their reward. Old and married people, widows and the frail, nobody wants to buy, because there is here already an abundance of poor and useless people who become a burden to the state. But if they have healthy children, then the freight of the old people is added to that of the children, ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... adversary he had to contend with. By a reaction, very easy to be understood, it was now D'Harmental who was calm, and Roquefinette who was excited. Every instant he menaced D'Harmental with his long sword, but the frail rapier followed it as iron follows the loadstone, twisting and spinning round it like a viper. At the end of about five minutes the chevalier had not made a single lunge, but he had parried all those of his adversary. At last, on a more rapid thrust than the others, he came too late to the parry, ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... lamp gleams dull and pale,— The maidens twain are weak and frail,— But Love doth aid his votaries true, While they the massive bolts undo,— And a moment hath flown, and the warrior knight Embraceth his ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... gathered. 'Man the life-boat!' cried the man. "Where is Hardy?" But the foreman of the crew was not there, and the danger was imminent. Aid must be immediate, or all would be lost. The next in command sprang into the frail boat, followed by the rest, all taking their lives in their hands in the hope of saving others. O, how those on the shore watched their brave loved ones as they dashed on, now over, now almost under the waves! They reached the wreck. Like angels of deliverance they filled their ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... very fitfully, as if the old clerk's weary soul had been making feeble struggles to be released from its frail tabernacle of clay. ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... to prosper; he rose to be cashier in the bank, and he won a calm but certain place in Christine's regard. She had never quite recovered the shock of her long illness; she was still very frail, and easily exhausted by the least fatigue or excitement. But in James' eyes she was perfect; he was always at his best in her presence, and he was a very proud and happy man when, after eight years' patient waiting and wooing, he won from her the promise to be his wife; for he knew that ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... lengthened but strengthened. There are many instances of frail, feeble children who have developed into exceptionally strong men and women. One of the most noted is Von Humboldt, the great scientist, who as a child was very weak physically, and, he himself says, was mentally ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... determined me, if feasible, to regain the favor of Elvira, and have the ceremony performed as soon as possible. This, Ella, I know you think, and I am ready to admit it, was wrong—very wrong; but I make no pretensions to be other than a frail mortal, liable to all the errors appertaining thereto; and were this is the only sin to be laid to my charge, my conscience were far ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... their beings into one. Sacred bond of God's own forming, which thus offers the support of a spiritual and indissoluble union amidst the separations and changes of this ever-varying life! No such strength and peace are to be found in the frail and casual ties for which man in his folly would exchange ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... for the alarming fact, quite apart from that intolerable thought. Some accident had happened. Hetty had, by some strange chance, got into a wrong vehicle from Oakbourne: she had been taken ill, and did not want to frighten them by letting them know. But this frail fence of vague improbabilities was soon hurled down by a rush of distinct agonizing fears. Hetty had been deceiving herself in thinking that she could love and marry him: she had been loving Arthur ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... aboard had perished. I remembered having read, among other memorabilia of the hurricane, without greatly thinking of the matter, that "a large sloop had foundered off the Red Head,—name unknown." But the minute portion of the wreck which I saw rising over the surface, to certify, like some frail memorial in a churchyard, that the dead lay beneath, had an eloquence in it which the words wanted, and at once sent the imagination back to deal with the stern realities of the disaster, and the feelings abroad to expatiate over saddened ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... arm and walked off with him along the platform. Rachel O'Mahony had not been badly described when her father said of her that she looked as though she might be blown away. She was very fair, and small and frail to look at. Her father had also said of her that her health was remarkably good,—"the best confirmed that he had ever known in his life." But though this too, was true, she hardly looked it. No one could have pointed out any sign of malady about her; only one would ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... chase or a secret attack on a Christian boat by savage Mussulmen, and so bitter was the endless war of the two religions that in such cases the victors rarely spared the lives of the vanquished, or, if they did, sold them in port as slaves. Moreover the ships were frail, and the Mediterranean storms severe, and many barks that contrived to escape the pirates fell victims to the fury of head winds. The life of a Genoese sailor was about as dangerous a life ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... Look down and see those shapeless forms, Which ever keep their dreamless sleep Far down within the gloomy deep, And only stir themselves in storms, Rising like islands from beneath, And snorting through the angry spray, 70 As the frail vessel perisheth In the whirls of their unwieldy play; Look down! Look down! Upon the seaweed, slimy and dark, That waves its arms so lank and brown, Beckoning for thee! Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark Into the cold depth of the sea! Look down! Look down! Thus, on Life's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... remained within, nor took her flight— Beneath the vessel's verge concealed from light; Issued the rest, in quick dispersion buried, And woes innumerous roamed the breathing world: With ills the land is full, with ills the sea; Diseases haunt our frail humanity; Self-wandering through the noon, at night they glide Voiceless—a voice the power all-wise denied: Know, then, this awful truth: it is not given To elude the wisdom of omniscient Heaven. —Trans. ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... there perhaps five minutes, at least until the blockade-runners, none of them showing a light of any description, could get under way in obedience to a lantern signal from the general and noiselessly slip down the bay in the wake of the frail little craft which it was hoped would be able to clear the ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... kitten was snuggled up as close to her brute protector as the slats would allow; she would put her tongue through and lick his paws, which process seemed to give him the liveliest satisfaction. Edwin whistled to him to come home with him, but he only wagged his bushy tail and looked at his frail charge as much as to say, "I can't go just now." Just think of the idea of protection entering the head of a dog! but it did. Some animals seem almost to reason. We all know a perfect horror of water all cats have, they will not go into water voluntarily. This poor little thing, ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... of the frail little man picked him up and carried him into the room and pulled off his elastic congress gaiters, and his coat and vest, and his detached cuffs, and his permanently tied tie, and his ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... Catherine, in an open coffin, who is said to have been a very beautiful Princess; but whose shrivelled skin, much resembling discoloured parchment, may now serve as a powerful antidote to that vanity with which frail beauty is apt to inspire ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... was dancing indolently to the kiss of flutes. A handful of Caracalla's soldiers passed that way, and thought him Bacchus. In his face was the enigmatic beauty of gods and girls—the charm of the dissolute and the wayward heightened by the divine. On his head was a diadem; his frail tunic was of purple and gold, but the sleeves, after the Phoenician fashion, were wide, and he was shod with a thin white leather that reached to the thighs. He was fourteen, and priest of the Sun. The chapel was roomy and rich. There was no statue—a black phallus merely, which had fallen ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... that we must doff this garb Of frail mortality, thenceforth to live Immortally above, he hath not seen The sweet refreshing, of ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... reached either from Tadousac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, one of the earliest mission stations in Canada, or from Baie St. Paul in the other direction. The St. Lawrence was oftentimes a perilous route. Its waves rise at times huge as those of Ocean itself; a frail canoe could only hug the shore and at times would be storm bound for days. The missionary travelled usually with an attendant. They carried a portable chapel with the vessels necessary for the celebration of the mass. We ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... maisty, 'twas I that did it, but indeed it was so poor and frail a note, compared with such as I am wont to furnish, yt in sooth I was ashamed to call the weakling mine in so august a presence. It was nothing—less than nothing, madam—I did it but to clear my nether throat; but had I come prepared, then had I delivered something ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his physical incapacity. His mother had brought him up to look on himself as a singularly frail creature, and the idea was as real to him as the war. He went about pitying himself and ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... O'Brien, at any rate. And the daughter, too—a young girl—she would be in the hands of O'Brien, too. If I could expect to live, it might be different. That is the greatest distress of all." He swallowed painfully, and put his frail hand on to the white ruffle at his neck. "I was in great trouble to find how to thwart this O'Brien. My uncle went to Kingston because he was persuaded it was his place to see that the execution of those unhappy men was ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... looking down from his altitude upon the slight frail figure at his side. "Is he not a ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... very frail old minister who shook as he walked, as if his feet were striking against stones. He was to depart on the morrow to the place of his birth, but he came to the manse to wish his successor God-speed. Strangers were so formidable ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... do us a great deal of honour,' he rejoined. He then referred to a memorandum. 'With respect to the pecuniary assistance enabling us to launch our frail canoe on the ocean of enterprise, I have reconsidered that important business-point; and would beg to propose my notes of hand—drawn, it is needless to stipulate, on stamps of the amounts respectively required by the various Acts of Parliament applying to such securities—at ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... there seemed to spread upwards a general sense of bustle and disquiet. Doors banged, knives and plates rattled perpetually, the great swing-door into the street was for ever opening and shutting, each time shaking the old, frail house with its roughly built additions through and through, and there was a distant skurry of voices that never paused. The restaurant indeed was in full work, and Daddy's voice could be heard at intervals, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Ariosto, put the Mantua Knight's cup of trial from him, which was to be the proof of his wife's chastity*—This was his argument for forbearing the experiment: 'Why should I seek a think I should be loth to find? My wife is a woman. The sex is frail. I cannot believe better of her than I do. It will be to my own loss, if I find reason to think worse.' But Rinaldo would not have refused the trial of the lady, before she became his wife, and when he might have found his account ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... who have homes on Central Park West, to the frail winged moths who flutter up and down Broadway, this section does not exist. Its poor are not the picturesque poor of the city's Latin quarter, its criminals seldom win to the notoriety of a front page and ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... Ernestus now prepares to burst your yoke, And win his freedom by some glorious stroke. I know him well; his ever-varying soul Now searches earth, now looks beyond the pole; Successive schemes usurp his changeful breast, That seeks for toil, and languishes in rest: Like a frail bark, the sport of every breeze, That floats unguided on the boundless seas. E'en now I mark'd him—struggling passions play'd On his pale forehead, and alternate sway'd. Of this no more.—Our friends, dread ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... is said to be derived from "tatters" and to denote the frail disconnected character of the fabric. By the Italians it was formerly called "occhi", whilst in the East it still bears the name of "makouk", from the shuttle ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... estimate placed by the Solomon Islanders on great stones of aragonite, obtained in the southern Palau islands, is such that they incur great risks in going to get them in their frail boats.[326] The pieces have the appearance of our own grindstones. They are set in rows by the men's clubhouses, and are in care of the chiefs. Christian mentions two of the Big Houses on Yap with stone money piled against the foundations. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... speeches had become the order of the day. As for the old mother, she sat about the kitchen or the garden all day, murmuring threats and spells against Martha Pillamon. There was something alike terrifying and piteous in the spectacle of these frail old morsels of humanity consecrating their last flickering energies to the task of making each other wretched. Hatred seemed to be the one faculty which had survived in undiminished vigour and intensity where all else was dropping ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... or two motionless; then, with exceeding care and tenderness, she began to unfold her thin, torn shawl by gentle degrees, looking down with anxious solicitude at the object concealed within. Only a baby—and withal a baby so tiny and white and frail that it seemed as though it must melt like a snowflake beneath the lightest touch. As its wrappings were loosened it opened a pair of large, solemn blue eyes, and gazed at the woman's face with a strange, ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... and Lossie and I sat in the car waiting for my laddie to appear. He wiggled one hand, and smiled sheepishly, as he caught sight of us. But he kept "eyes front" and refused to give any further sign as he marched bravely on behind that brave music. He is learning the law of the pack. For some first frail ideas of service are beginning to incubate in that egoistic little bean of his. And he's suffering, I suppose, the old contest between the ancestral lust to kill and the new-born inclination to succor and preserve. That means he may some day be "a gentleman." And I've a weakness for that old Newman ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... explained the matter. She begged him to do as he thought best, for she was so happy that she did not care if she should never see Andrew in this world: it was enough to die in the hope of meeting him in the other. But she had no reason to fear that death was at hand; for, although much more frail, she felt as ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... the women who are obtaining much larger returns from their illicit trade. Society also ventures to capitalize a virtuous girl at much less than one who has yielded to temptation, and it may well hold itself responsible for the precarious position into which, year after year, a multitude of frail ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... in the middle of the room, when she was shown in by the landlady. He too was moved outside himself. She saw him agitated and shaken, a frail, unsubstantial body silent like the node of some violent force, that came out from him and shook her almost ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... laughter as we looked back upon them, for any anxiety to rest upon our interests. The mail was not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke, that could betray me who trusted to its protection. But any carriage that we could meet would be frail and light in comparison of ourselves. And I remarked this ominous accident of our situation. We were on the wrong side of the road. But then the other party, if other there was, might also be on the ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... a stream to make their way, To pot of brass says pot of clay: "Since brass is stout and clay is frail, Pray let us at a distance sail. Not your intention that I fear Sir Brass," adds humble Earthenware, "While the winds leave you to yourself; But woe betide my ribs of delf, If it should dash our sides together; For mine would be the damage, whether ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... perhaps they feel a secret pleasure in creating, and seeing life spring up again: the beauty of weakness has a grace and an attraction the more for those who have been the agents of unbending force; and the watching over the frail germs of life has all the charms of novelty for ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... finish what I have begun And shirt you now invulnerable in the mail Of iron kisses, kisses linked like steel. Put greaves upon your thighs and knees, and frail Webbing of steel on your feet. So you shall feel Ensheathed invulnerable with me, with seven Great seals upon your outgoings, and woven Chain of my mystic will wrapped perfectly Upon you, ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... kept back the knowledge that she composed, dreading his ruthlessness when anything grated on his nerves, and knowing that a breath of mockery would wither her belief in herself, frail enough plant already. The only person, besides her master, to whom she confided her efforts was—strangely enough—Rosek. But he had surprised her one day copying out some music, and said at once: "I knew. I was certain ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... happiness. This sort of happiness, perhaps, has never been very agreeable to her and moreover it is always with her. She knows it well, she has analyzed it; and what slight but terrible evidence comes from these circumstances to prove to an intelligent husband that this frail creature argues and reasons, instead of being carried away on ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... heard cries of agony, shouts, curses, but there was no pause. I could mark their faces now, cruel, angry, revengeful; the hands that grasped the veranda railings; the leaping bodies; the rifle-butts uplifted to batter down our frail defences. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... there lay shells like rosy foam Borne from the caverns of the deep, Frail playthings drifted from the home Of timeless, ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... living a life independent of the physical body—and if such be the case, why should they afterward be required to take on their worn-out physical bodies which they have managed so well without during their disembodied life? What becomes of those who had diseased, deformed or frail bodies during their mortal life—will they be compelled to inhabit these bodies through all eternity? Will the owners of aged, worn out bodies be compelled to re-assume them at the Last Day? If not, why the ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... he called back a moment later, jerking his horses to a standstill and jumping down into the road. "Goin' east or goin' west?" he asked as he took another glance at her frail and poorly ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Thee, and fondly ascribe to Thee the power of giving them some pleasure, although in reality pleasure cannot proceed from inanimate beings, which are themselves void and incapable of it, but from Thee alone, the true spring of all joy. If, therefore, Thou wert but a lumpish, frail, and inanimate being, a mass without any virtue or power, a shadow of a being, Thy vain fantastic nature would busy their vanity, and be a proper object to entertain their mean and brutish thoughts. But because Thou art too intimately within them, and they never at ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... is a wise undertaking. Syrus, the philosopher, has told us that Fortune is like glass, when she shines too much she is broken. Let our friend take the tide at the flood and not complain afterwards that his ship was too frail. The Panorama has achieved reputation, and who is of the world does not know the pecuniary worth of that? Consider my own case and bear with me. I have the misfortune to prick myself with a needle and to suffer ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... and paled afterwards, but he went along with his father silently; and his heart beat as he came and stood before the litter whereas the Bride lay, clad all in white and propped up on fair cushions of red silk. She was frail to look on, and worn and pale yet; but he deemed that ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... but he no longer heard me. To save myself from a violent collision with his tail planes I was compelled to cling desperately to the frail wood and wire girder of the fuselage, and it was in this position that I was carried the length of the flying ground. The gale tore at my hair and distended my cheeks, the turf slipped away beneath me as smooth as green water in the speed of his mad attempt to force ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... own,—conscious incapacity to be what all the women about her were, stirring, active, hardy housekeepers,—a vague sense of shame, and a great dread of the future,—her comfortless and motherless condition,—slowly, but surely, like frost, and wind, and rain, and snow, beat on this frail blossom, and it went with the rest. June roses were laid against her dark hair and in her fair hands, when she was carried to the lonely graveyard of Greenfield, where mulleins and asters, golden-rod, blackberry-vines, and stunted yellow-pines adorned the last sleep of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... on misery's verge, Find out their dark dens, and list to their dirge; Where want and famine, and by ourselves made, Forgive our frail follies, and ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... edge of a dark and sultry world. His appointed task was not yet done and he returned to the study, a long, low, dark-panelled room, looking on the garden. The windows were wide open on the hushed, warm, almost sulphurous darkness, from which frail white-winged moths came floating in towards the shaded lamp on his writing-table. He sat down to his papers and by an effort of will concentrated his mind upon them. Habit had made such concentration easy to him as a rule, but to-night, after half an hour of steady work, he was mastered by ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... myself." At last she treated me to what she called an indulgence, and I thought rather more of a banter. She was certainly a strong, almost a violent, friend to all she liked, chief among whom was a certain frail old gentlewoman, very blind and very witty, who dwelt in the top of a tall land on a strait close, with a nest of linnets in a cage, and thronged all day with visitors. Miss Grant was very fond to carry ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on frail platforms that rise above the sugar-cane, indigo, or cotton crops, shout and wield slings with dexterous aim and vigor, to keep away vagrant crows, parrots, and wild pigs, all along the line of my next day's ride to Mainpuri. In many fields these young slingers and their ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... kept a close prisoner by the Inquisition, and not allowed either to set foot outside his own door, or to receive visits from non-Catholics. In the spring of 1639, however, he was allowed to go back to his villa at Gioiello, near Arcetri, and Milton obtained admission to him, old, frail, and blind, but in full possession of his mental faculty. There is observable in Milton, as Mr. Masson suggests, a prophetic fascination of the fancy on the subject of blindness. And the deep impression left by this sight of "the Tuscan artist" is evidenced by the feeling with which ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... the ladder and entrusted herself to Gerhardt's escort, was very young-looking for an anchorhold: slim, fair, and frail in appearance, with some timidity of manner. They set ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... gentle boy, that from the shore didst loose The baby bark, and to the slender oar Didst set thy unskilled hand; lured by the sea! Late hast thou seen the evil of thy plight. See there the traitor rolls his fatal waves, The prow of thy frail bark, now sinks, now mounts. The soul borne down with anxious cares Prevaileth not against the swollen floods. Thy oars thou yieldst to thy fierce enemy, Waiting for death with calm collected thought, With eyelids closed, lest thou shouldst see him come. ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... make the return journey by river. Patient little Miss Gilman was the least querulous of sufferers, but she was always very ill on a railway train. Hence Charlotte, who was at once physician, nurse, mentor, and dutiful kinswoman to the frail little lady who looked old enough to be her grandmother, had chosen the longer, but less trying, route to the ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... human speech, before you arraign the usage of us dramatic geniuses. Imagination is a good blood mare, and goes well; but the misfortune is, she has too many paths before her. 'Tis true I might have imaged to myself, that you had trundled your frail carcass to Norfolk. I might also, and did imagine, that you had not, but that you were lazy, or inventing new properties in a triangle, and for that purpose moulding and squeezing Landlord Crisp's three-cornered beaver into fantastic experimental ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... dwell the few who never knew The pangs of heavenly hunger As fresh and fair and fond and frail As when the world ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... permission, mother," answered the Princess, "I would rather say he was hasty in giving belief to it. Methinks the evidence of a Varangian, granting him to be ever so stout a man-at-arms, is but a frail guarantee against the honour of your son-in-law—the approved bravery and fidelity of the captain of your guards—the deep sense, virtue, and profound wisdom, of the greatest of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... frail sin, O poor harvest gathered in! Thou shalt visit him again To watch his heart grow cold; To know the gnawing pain I knew of old; To see one much more fair Fill up the vacant chair, Fill his heart, his children bear:— While thou and I together 60 In ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... figures are written, may distinguish their value under various different denominations, as gallons, furlongs, shillings, &c. We should not tease children with long sums in avoirdupois weight, or load their frail memories with tables of long-measure, and dry-measure, and ale-measure in the country, and ale-measure in London; only let them cast up a few sums in different denominations, with the tables before them, and let the practice of addition be preserved in their minds ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... from the rasp of the craft's bottom as he swung with the weary blade. Hour by hour the rain beat on them, and the pines that crawled out of it went very slowly by, while it was almost a relief to stand upright now and then, and with strenuous effort drive the frail shell up against the swirl of the slower rapids with long fir poles. At times they were swept down sideways before the poles could find hold again, and fought, gasping and panting, for minutes to regain what they had lost ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... none; Nor know I you by voice or any feature. I hate ingratitude more in a man Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption Inhabits our frail blood. ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... flank to the slow eyes of his shipmates. His body had still a boyish delicacy and slenderness; the labor of his trade had not yet built it and thickened it to a full masculinity of proportion. Measured by any of the other men in the watch, it was frail, immature, and tender. The moving sunlight that flowed around the door touched the fair skin and showed the great, puffed bruises that stood on it, swollen and horrid, like some vampire fungus growing ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... landward can possibly approach them: in the rudest tempest the ground remains firm, and you feel that you are a spectator; but at sea you are a part of the storm. The plank whereon you stand refuses to support you, ever shifting its inclination; while the whole of your frail tenement is now borne aloft, now dashed into the liquid furrow beneath, now struck back by a head-sea with a shock that makes every timber quiver, now flung on one side as if about to reverse itself in the bosom of the deep. No doubt the ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... rose, a lily and a pale hyacinth. The mother herself was a gorgeous tulip; she took no notice whatever of the crowd, who all stopped in their game to drop their curtsies and make their bows; one might have thought that, like a tulip, she was rather frail in the stalk and feared to bend her back. The rose, the lily, and the pale hyacinth—yes, I saw them all three. Whose May-lambs were they one day to become, thought I; their mates would ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... but he had been guilty, in the judgment of his own parents, of one of those errors which are worse. A hundred times the possible advantages of marrying a Miss Barrett could never have balanced for them the risks and dangers he had incurred in wresting to himself the guardianship of that frail life which might perish in his hands, leaving him to be accused of having destroyed it; and they must have awaited the event with feelings never ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... minister, for the son of Marie de Medicis was a monarch only in name), may be traced the undercurrent of popular indignation and discontent, which, gradually swelling and rising during the two succeeding reigns, finally overthrew with its giant waves the last frail barrier which still upreared itself before ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... proved warranted as they closed with it, for it presented an almost unbroken wall against the face of which the sea spouted and fell in frothy wisps. There was no doubt as to what would happen if the frail craft was hurled upon that frozen mass, and Wyllard, who was sculling, fancied that before she could even reach it there was a probability of her being swamped in the upheaval where the backwash met the oncoming sea. Charly looked at ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... deem the land crying loud to him— Frail though and spent, and an hungered for restfulness Once more responds he, dead fervours to energize Aims to concentre, slack efforts to bind. THOMAS HARDY, The Dynasts, Act i, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... thirty-seventh parallel and then headed straight toward Spain. On the 12th of February a storm was brewing, and during the next four days it raged with such terrific violence that it is a wonder how those two frail caravels ever came out of it. They were separated this time not to meet again upon the sea. Expecting in all likelihood to be engulfed in the waves with his tiny craft, Columbus sealed and directed ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... earth floor with a layer of reeds and grass thrown down on one side. It was frail and hinted at changing times and poverty, for the original skin cover had been patched and eked out with the products of civilization in the shape of cotton flour bags and old sacking. In the later ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... of their curly locks of golden light and laughing faces fair and faint as the people of a rosy dream. Or where the floating mass so imperfectly obstructs the color of the firmament a slender foot and fairy limb resting too heavily upon the frail support may be thrust through and suddenly withdrawn, while longing fancy follows them in vain. Yonder, again, is an airy archipelago where the sunbeams love to linger in their journeyings through space. Every one of those little clouds has been dipped and steeped ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... black sorrow that fell upon him when informed of his illegitimate birth. "I was mad from the time I was told of my birth," he wrote, and until madness supervened he suffered from a "wounded imagination." He was morbid, shy, and irritable, and his energy—the explosive energy of this frail youth was amazing; because he had been refused the use of a ship boat he wasted three months digging out a canoe from a log of wood. Like Paul Gauguin, he saw many countries, and his eyes were trained to form, though not colour—he suffered from Daltonism—for when he began ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... been other than he was, the girl's purity, candor, and self-reliance would have conquered him, and when she withdrew to the little tent and let fall the frail barrier between them, she was as safe from intrusion as if she had taken refuge behind gates of triple brass. Nothing in all his life had moved him so deeply as her solicitude, her sweet trust in his honor, and he sat long in profound meditation. Any man would ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland |
