"Gentle wind" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Autumn leaves, with russet hue, Scarce quivered in the gentle wind, and when the dew Lay sparkling on the grass, beneath the argent moon, A tragedy took place—of ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... to be alive, to breathe such air, and behold such a glory of sea and sky! Look around us, Martin, and give thanks!" And truly the sea was smooth enough save for a long, rolling swell out of the East, and with a soft and gentle wind to abate the sun's generous heat. "Are you not glad to ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... a monster," said the doctor, adding, after a pause, "Here it comes." He continued, "Several winds are getting up together—a strong wind from the west, and a gentle wind from the east." ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... question of analysis. So I went to the river and sat down in the grass. A gentle wind was stirring the leaves, and the sunbeams, filtering through the boughs, fell upon the ground in golden snowflakes. What was Gretchen to me that I should grow jealous of her smiles? The night before I could ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... She describes with appalling vividness the experiences of the night: the moonlit forest—the snow-covered ground—the wolves approaching with a whispering tread, which seems at first but the soughing of a gentle wind—the wedge-like, ever-widening mass, which emerges from the trees; then the flight, and the pursuit: the latter arrested for one moment by the sacrifice of each victim; to be renewed the next, till none is left to sacrifice: one child dragged from the mother's arms; ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... met was in the breaker. There was no fire in the great heater, and the tables and chairs were black with dust. A single electric light shone down from the ceiling, creating long, ghostlike shadows as it swayed about in a gentle wind blowing through a ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... over-head, he began to whistle for very joy of it, until, remembering the Haunting Shadow of the Might Have Been, he checked himself, and sighed instead. Presently, turning from the road, he climbed a stile, and followed a narrow path that led away across the meadows, and, as he went, there met him a gentle wind laden with the sweet, warm scent of ripening hops, ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... the play changes from day to day. However autocratic the producer, however obstinate the dramatist, the play will vary at each rehearsal like a large cloud in a gentle wind. It is never the same play for two days together. Nor is this surprising, seeing that every day and night a dozen, or it may be two dozen, human beings endowed with the creative gift are creatively working on it. Every dramatist who is candid with himself—I do ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... the four miles to Marteel, that the breath of the sea might bring colour to her cheeks, which had been whitened by the heat and fumes of the town. The day was soft and beautiful, the water was quiet, and only a gentle wind came creeping over it. But Naomi listened to every sound with eager intentness—the light plash of the blue wavelets that washed to her feet, the ripple of their crests when the Levanter chased them and caught them, the dip of the oars of the boatman, the rattle of the anchor-chains ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... they went, the darkness illuminated only by the torches they carried. But they noticed that the air was still fresh, and that a gentle wind blew toward them. The passage was undoubtedly artificial, a tunnel made by the hands of men now long crumbled into dust. It had a slightly upward slope, and this, Professor Bumper said, indicated that it was bored upward and ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... I started, and drove out to sea before a gentle wind from the southwest, slowly, steadily; and the island grew smaller and smaller, and the lank spire of smoke dwindled to a finer and finer line against the hot sunset. The ocean rose up around me, hiding that low, dark patch from my eyes. The daylight, the trailing glory of the sun, ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... speculation had risen around their conversation. She turned her face away, and looked over that part of the inheritable world which met her gaze. From her feet perfect lawns sloped down to a gracious waterway, which shuddered occasionally in a gentle wind; on every side pleasing trees were massed into shady and grateful woods; overhead the noonday sun lit up a deep-blue sky. Perhaps the sublimity of the scene played upon her softer emotions. Perhaps all intense beauty is pathetic, and makes one think of poor illusions and unavailing dreams. Lady ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... went out on deck. The cabin was stifling, and he felt that he would smother if he stayed there any longer. He sauntered up forward, and looked out over the water. It was a beautiful night, with a gentle wind drifting in from the west. The accustomed sounds of darkness fell upon his ears, but he paid no attention to them now. His mind was not in tune with nature's sweet harmonies, so she brought no restful peace to his tumultuous brain. He longed to know what was taking place in the little shack in the ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... prison all alone. While she was yet nigher at hand, that I might hear of her once in two or three days, my sorrows were the less; but even now my heart is cast into the depth of all misery. I that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks, like a nymph; sometimes sitting in the shade like a Goddess; sometimes singing like an angel; sometimes playing like Orpheus. Behold the sorrow of this world! Once amiss, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... of the wax-flower springing from their red stem, veined and threaded with creamy white, stiff and quaint in form and growth,—the bending sprays of goldenrod that bowed their light and brittle stems over me, swaying gently to and fro in the gentle wind,—the tiny scarlet cups of moss that held a little drop of dew brimming over their rims of fire, a spark in the ashy gray moss-beds where they stood,—the shrinking and wan wood-asters, branched out widely, but set with meagre bloom,—every half-tint of the lichens, that scantily fed ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... together. They must inevitably have lost their lives, had it fallen upon them. We praised God for their preservation during the whole voyage. By the above-mentioned disaster, we were obliged to run into a small cove, where we repaired the mast with all speed, and proceeded with a gentle wind towards Nachvak. A calm ensued, and as there is no anchorage between Nullatartok and Nachvak, we rowed all night, and felt the advantage of the great length of days, at this season ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... so soon Depart the hues that make thy forests glad, Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon, And ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... 1. Breathe low, thou gentle wind, (pl) Breathe soft and low; The beautiful lies dead! The joy of life is fled! And my lone heart is wed Henceforth ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... a soft and gentle wind! I heard a fair one cry; But give to me the snoring breeze And white waves heaving high; And white waves heaving high, my boys, The good ship tight and free— The world of waters is our home, And ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... The moon was high in a sky which was perceptibly blue. In the west was still a faint glow, which was like a memory of a cowslip sunset. The street and the white house-front were plumy with soft tree shadows wavering in a gentle wind. Annie was glad when she was alone in the night. She needed a moment for solitariness and readjustment since one of the strongest readjustments on earth faced her—the realisation that what she had loved ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of Olives was quiet and restful after the excitement of the day. The gentle wind in the olive trees, which grew thickly in the Garden of Gethsemane, was so different from the noise and smell ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... strengthened by notions drawn from the Old Testament. The prophetic spirit is represented in the Hebrew books as a breathing which penetrates man and inspires him. In the beautiful vision of Elijah, God passes by in the form of a gentle wind, which produces ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... abandoned, and she was lonely. She looked through the window and saw nothing that lived among the bushes and the scrub oaks only the scant grass and the new spring foliage waving in the gentle wind. Here smouldered the remains of a fire and there another, and yonder was where the tent of the Commander had stood; but it was gone now, and not a sound came to her ears save those of the forest. She was oppressed by the silence and ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... trunk, that his lost youth had returned. He was just a boy again, fishing and with no care save to raise something on his hook. The wood, although small, was dense, and it shut out all view of the army. Nor did any martial sounds come to them. The rustle of the leaves under the gentle wind was soothing. He was back at Pendleton. Harry Kenton was fishing farther up the stream, and so were other boys, his old ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and stretches of golden sand and little, lapping waves. On one side you could see rocky points running down into the greeny-blue sea, with trees growing right down to the shore. An old, brown-sailed coal barge moved slowly past on the gentle wind, the many browns of its patched sails forming a rich splash of colour in the evening sun. The Cubs soon turned into "water babies." Boots and stockings had been left behind at the Stable, and now they got rid of clothes as well. How cool ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... as a soap bubble sinks in the still air, till he touched the water. At length his head lay back between his wings, and silently he lay there, like a white lotus flower upon the quiet lake. And a gentle wind arose, and crisped the quiet surface, which gleamed like the clouds that poured along in great broad waves; and the swan raised his head, and the glowing water splashed like blue fire over his breast and back. The morning dawn illuminated the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... cliff in their rear, but the others lay close behind the wall of salt and brushwood. The sun swung up toward the zenith and shone down upon a beautiful world. All the wilderness was touched with the tender young green of spring and nothing stirred but the gentle wind. The silky blue sky smiled over a scene so often enacted in early Kentucky, that great border battle ground of the white man and the red, the one driven by the desire for new and fertile acres that he might plow and call his own, the other by an equally fierce ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in it, with the help of Kari pushed the balsa, which I noted with joy was large and well made, down into the sea. Then one by one they climbed in, Quilla taking the steering-oar, while Kari and the two maidens hoisted the little sail and paddled till we were clear of the island, where the gentle wind caught the balsa. Then they shipped the paddles, and although full laden, we ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... crow, and the tiny trickling noise that only the keenest ear could have heard was made by a brook a yard wide taking a terrific plunge over a precipice six inches high. The rustling, one great blended note, universal but soft, was that of the leaves moving in harmony before the gentle wind. ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the playful bright look, the tragedy and the passion which had flown out from her old self like the flame that flares out of an opened furnace-door, sank back again, the door closed, and all her senses were cooled as by a gentle wind. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the round, full column of her throat as she stood thus, her long, night-black hair a troubled torrent stirring in the gentle wind. Then she swung about to face me, one hand upon her quick-moving bosom, the other grasping ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... One gentle wind Blew on my mouth, And I said, "It will quiver by. What little wind now can it be?" And I lay still Where ...
— Under the Tree • Elizabeth Madox Roberts
... had almost gone down. The floating anchor was hauled up and unlashed, the masts were stepped, the large sail hoisted, and, free from the dead weight that had hitherto checked her speed, the little craft sped along gaily before the gentle wind, Godfrey keeping her as near as possible dead before it, on the chance that they might catch sight ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... hue was born already in the eastern skies, and all the stars had vanished except the sweet regent of the heaven of Venus, who holds the borderlands of day and night; and from her sphere it seemed as though a gentle wind were breathing, filling the air with eager freshness, and waking among the numerous woods upon the neighbouring hills the sweet-toned ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... as unlike its predecessor as black is like white. During the night the smooth grey pond had been transformed into a turbulent, storm-threshed ocean; the once gentle wind was now a howling gale that swept the decks with a merciless lash in its grip and whipped into submission all who vaingloriously sought to defy its chill dominion. Not rain, but spray from huge, swashing billows, clouded the decks, biting and ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Toward the summits of the precipices, that in some places rise to a majestic elevation (the two sides here and there nearly meeting in an arch), hang light woods of glossy green, which, being agitated by a gentle wind, cast a moving shadow over the cleft beneath, and, at a little distance, gave our road the appearance ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... There was a fine gentle wind, and Mr. Pickwick's hat rolled sportively before it. The wind puffed, and Mr. Pickwick puffed, and the hat rolled over and over as merrily as a lively porpoise in a strong tide: and on it might have rolled, far beyond Mr. Pickwick's reach, had not its course been ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... along it a little way. Vague impressions suggested that he should know the spot, and yet he could not identify it. Listen! There was a sound of water. There was a sighing of the wind in trees; a very low sighing, rather a whispering, of a gentle wind in trees. The place seemed alive with spirits; spirits tapping on the door of some long sealed chamber of ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... with interest. He was trying to read some significance for him into this river and its passengers. But if the text was there it was unintelligible. He saw only the great shining current, breaking now and then into crumbling little waves under the gentle wind, and the Indian canoes, with their silent occupants reflected vividly upon its surface, like pictures in a burnished mirror. Again he strained with eye and mind. He examined every canoe. He forced his brain to construct ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... behaviour on the former occasion; that, in fact, it must have been his approaching illness that caused it. I could not insist, and we set out. The footpath led us through fields of corn, with a bright sun overhead, and a sweet wind blowing. It was a glorious day of golden corn, gentle wind, and blue sky—with great masses of white snow, whiter than any cloud, held ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... a sound, 610 Haply, like dolphin tumults, when sweet shells Welcome the float of Thetis. Long he dwells On this delight; for, every minute's space, The streams with changed magic interlace: Sometimes like delicatest lattices, Cover'd with crystal vines; then weeping trees, Moving about as in a gentle wind, Which, in a wink, to watery gauze refin'd, Pour'd into shapes of curtain'd canopies, Spangled, and rich with liquid broideries 620 Of flowers, peacocks, swans, and naiads fair. Swifter than lightning went these wonders rare; ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... size of the garden did not adapt it for exercise, but the various and fragrant plants with which it was filled gave a luxury to that indolence so dear to the dwellers in a sunny clime. And now the odorous, fanned by a gentle wind creeping from the adjacent sea, scattered themselves over that chamber, whose walls vied with the richest colors of the most glowing flowers. Besides the gem of the room—the painting of Leda and Tyndarus—in the centre of each compartment ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... was broken now and then by the plaintive song of a nightingale. The Duchess and her two children seated themselves upon the trunk of a fallen tree and listened to the music till it ceased. A gentle wind sighed softly through the leaves of the trees, and merrily flowed the near-by brook. As the nightingale repeated its song, they ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... A gentle wind stirred the old gnarled trees on the southern ramparts, a wind that sounded like the sigh of swiftly ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... warm day, all the evening scents were abroad, carried by a gentle wind. Sir Arthur drank them in, with the sensuous pleasure which had been one of his gifts in life. The honey smell of the heather, the woody smell of the bracken, the faint fragrance of wood-smoke wafted from a bonfire in the valley below—they all carried with them an inexpressible magic for the ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... horse, which some one had brought from the mountain boreen, to a Spaniard, who sold it to a farmer from the mountains, and then his long cloak and his spurs and his boots of soft leather. At last a gentle wind blew towards Spain, and the crew rowed out to their schooner, singing Gaelic and Spanish songs, and lifted the anchor, and in a little while the white sails had dropped under the horizon. Then Costello turned homeward, his life gaping before him, and walked all day, coming in the early ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats
... emperours court, who leauing the prouinces in most triumphant state, was highlie renowmed for his often and most profitable victories, as if he had beene an other Camillus or Cursor Papirius, and with the fauor and loue of all men was conueied vnto the sea side; and passing ouer with a gentle wind, came to the court, where he was receiued with great gladnesse and commendation, being immediatlie appointed to succeed in the roome of Valence Iouinus that was maister of the horsses. Finallie, he was called by the emperour Gratianus, to be associated ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... with doubting; take her to thy breast, Thrice happy Prince!" And while God Vayu spake, Look! there showered flowers down out of the sky[28] Upon them; and the drums of heaven beat Beautiful music, and a gentle wind, Fragrant, propitious, floated, kissing them. But Nala, when he saw these things befall— Wonderful, gracious—when he heard that voice Called the great snake to memory:—whereupon His proper self returned. Bhima's fair child Divinely sounding (Lord ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... circumstances Charley would have been supremely happy. The sun came up bright and clear. No veil of mist floated before the face of the sky. But woolly, white cloud banks sailed lazily aloft, intensifying by contrast the blue of the sky. A gentle wind blew fitfully. The earth steamed fragrantly, sending up an odor joyful to the nostrils. And the little brooks babbled wildly in their joy at ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... borne upon the gentle wind came a fragrance strange and unexpected, a savour delectable of cooking meat that made him know himself a man vastly hungry despite his grievous woe. But, lying within the black gulf of bitterness, he stirred not until, of a sudden, he heard a voice, rich and full and very sweet, upraised ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... during winter consisted more generally of small simple snow-crystals or ice-needles, than of the beautiful snow-flakes whose grand kaleidoscopic forms the inhabitants of the north so often have an opportunity of admiring. Already with a gentle wind and with a pretty clear atmosphere the lower strata of the atmosphere were full of these regular ice-needles, which refracted the rays of the sun, so as to produce parhelia and halos. Unfortunately however these were never so completely ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... summits of snow. Into this "pool"—this pocket in the mountains—the sun descended in a wonderful flood. It stirred her blood like a tonic. She breathed more quickly; a soft glow coloured her cheeks; her eyes grew more deeply violet as they caught the reflection of the blue sky. A gentle wind fretted the loose tendrils of brown hair about her face. And the bearded man, staring through the car window, saw her thus, and for an hour after that the hollow-cheeked girl wondered at the ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... trees, And, from a beaker full of richest dyes, Pouring new glory on the autumn woods, And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds. Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird, Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crimsoned, And silver beech, and maple yellow-leaved, Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down By the wayside a-weary. Through the trees ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the building that Dr. Balsam had put up for his sanatorium on the site of Gates's hotel. The moon was slowly sinking toward the western mountain-tops, flooding with soft light the valley below, and touching to silver the fleecy clouds that, shepherded by the gentle wind, wreathed the highest peaks beyond. How well Keith remembered it all: the old house with its long verandah; the moonlight flooding it; the white figure reclining there; and the boy that talked of his ideal of loveliness and ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... a time a little leaf was heard to sigh and cry, as leaves often do when a gentle wind is about. And the twig said: "What is the matter, little leaf?" And the leaf said: "The wind just told me that one day it would pull me off and throw me down to ...
— A Child's Story Garden • Compiled by Elizabeth Heber
... valleys, the river winding into different branches, plains without bush or stubble, all fair green grass, deer crossing our path, the birds towards evening singing on every tree with a thousand several tunes, herons of white, crimson, and carnation perching on the riverside, the air fresh with a gentle wind, and every stone we stooped to pick up promised either gold or silver." His account of the great cataract at the junction of the tributary Caroni is very graphic. They had already heard the roar, so they ran ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... dome of the Invalides faded away, similar to a moon setting in a rising sea of clouds. The night was like the ocean, its extent seemingly increased by the gloom, a dark abyss wherein you divined that a world lay hid. From the unseen city blew a mighty yet gentle wind. There was still a hum; sounds ascended faint yet clear to Helene's ears—the sharp rattle of an omnibus rolling along the quay, the whistle of a train crossing the bridge of the Point-du-Jour; and the Seine, swollen by the recent storms, and pulsing with ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... on the hill reported a line of sails on the western horizon. Two wings were at first visible, which were gradually united as the topsails of those in the centre rose above the line of sea. As they arose it could be seen that the great fleet was sailing, in the form of a huge crescent, before a gentle wind. A hundred and fifty ships, large and small, were counted, as a few store ships bound for Flanders had joined the ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... to each touch of hand upon steering-gear, the aeromotor swung smoothly around, sailing on even keel right into the teeth of the gentle wind, by this time near enough to that body of water for the air-voyagers to scan its surface: a considerable expanse, all told, yet by no means of such magnitude as Professor ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... observed in a sad condition, their mantillas nearly torn off and the palm-branches sweeping across their eyes. In a short time, the whole cathedral presented the appearance of a forest of palm-trees, ( la Birnam wood) moved by a gentle wind; and under each tree a half-naked Indian, his rags clinging together with wonderful pertinacity; long, matted, dirty black hair both in men and women, bronze faces with mild unspeaking eyes, or all with one expression of eagerness to see the approach of the priests. Many ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... cantering quickly over the paddocks; the going was too good, Norah said, to waste on walking; and it was a delight to feel the long, even stride under one, and the gentle wind blowing upon one's cheeks. As he rode, Mr. Linton watched the eager, vivid little face, alight with the joy of motion. If Bobs were keen, there was no doubt that his ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... laughed, "and so they are till you can master them—then they're kind, only one that's really always safe and kind is the Wind of the South. It's a sweet, gentle wind, beloved of all that flies, and you can't possibly mistake it. You can tell it at once by the murmuring way it stirs the grasses and the tops of the trees. Its taste is soft and sweet in the mouth like wine, and there's always a faint perfume about ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... beautiful that they dazzled her eyes; and the Prince was there kissing her, and in a minute they were married, and went floating off in a dance, which was so swift it did not feel so much like dancing as it did like being carried through the air by a gentle wind. ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... heedlessly, mechanically, toward the city. Frequently he stumbled and with difficulty saved himself from falling over the dislocated planks of the wooden walk. The June night was brilliant above with countless points of light. A gentle wind drew in shore from the lake, stirring the tall rushes in the adjacent swamps. Occasionally a bicyclist sped by, the light from his lantern wagging like a crazy firefly. The night was strangely still; the clamorous railroads were ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick |
