"Graceful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of eyes, triangular in shape like those of the red phoenix, two eyebrows, curved upwards at each temple, like willow leaves. Her stature was elegant; her figure graceful; her powdered face like dawning spring, majestic, yet not haughty. Her carnation lips, long before they parted, betrayed ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... years before: the same moon shone through the window; and the same autumn landscape lay outside. We had not yet lighted a candle, but all the apartment was visible, even to the portraits on the wall: the splendid head of Mrs. Linton, and the graceful one of her husband. Heathcliff advanced to the hearth. Time had little altered his person either. There was the same man: his dark face rather sallower and more composed, his frame a stone or two heavier, perhaps, and no other difference. Catherine had risen with an impulse to ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... visited Versailles without discovering that the hameau still existed; so to chance upon it in the sunset glow of that winter evening seemed to carry us back to the time when the storm-cloud of the Revolution was yet no larger than a man's hand; to the day when Louis XVI., making for once a graceful speech, presented the site to his wife, saying: "You love flowers. Ah! well, I have a bouquet for you—the Petit Trianon." And his Queen, weary of the restrictions of Court ceremony—though it must be admitted that the willful ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... perhaps we owned each other. He was an English robin and he was a PERSON—not a mere bird. An English robin differs greatly from the American one. He is much smaller and quite differently shaped. His body is daintily round and plump, his legs are delicately slender. He is a graceful little patrician with an astonishing allurement of bearing. His eye is large and dark and dewy; he wears a tight little red satin waistcoat on his full round breast and every tilt of his head, every flirt of ...
— My Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... my hat and she passed out of the gardens, graceful and strong, after a slight movement of the head to me, her hands in the muff, crumpling ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... towards them, and in the tenderness of the Christmas-tide, I could not help doing the same by all the others who were present. And I remember now the dignity of mien in some, the frank ease in others, both graceful and gracious, with which my civility was met. If a few were a little shy, the rest more than made it up by their welcome of me, and a sort of politeness which had almost something courtly in it. Darry and Maria together gave me a seat, in the very centre and glow of the kitchen light and ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... enjoyed much of the domestic society of the President's house. His gentle and graceful wife had been regarded with maternal tenderness by Mrs. Washington and was the friend and correspondent of her eldest daughter. His child had been used to climb, confident of welcome, the knees of the chief, and though so many years his junior, while Wolcott's character and judgment had been ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... little French heel. As it landed the young man was six feet away, having retired with the graceful agility of ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the first. At last came an unmarried lady (we were told she was a countess), and along with her a married one, bearing a tasting-knife; the former was dressed in white silk, who, when she had prostrated herself three times in the most graceful manner, approached the table and rubbed the plates with bread and salt with as much awe as if the Queen had been present. When they had waited there a little while, the yeomen of the guards entered, bareheaded, clothed in scarlet, with a golden rose upon their backs, bringing in at each turn a course ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... of Saari, Saari's maiden, Saari's flower, In a noble house was nurtured. And her stature grew most graceful, Sitting in her father's dwelling, Resting there ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... The Greeks had the same idea when they decorated the pediments of their temples with bas-reliefs of nude figures. Applying this principle of sculpture to his painting, Michelangelo arranged these boys so that their slender limbs intertwine in graceful patterns, making a decorative background to fill in the picture. The lightness and delicacy of the design heighten the effect of solidity in the figures of the foreground, giving them the prominence of ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... operation was with comb, scissors, and brush; going round and round, smoothing a curl here, clipping an unruly whisker-hair there, giving a graceful sweep to the temple-lock, with other impromptu touches evincing the hand of a master; while, like any resigned gentleman in barber's hands, Don Benito bore all, much less uneasily, at least than he had done the razoring; indeed, he sat so pale and rigid now, that the ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... hers, fascinated. Slowly, with a graceful movement, she drew the gleaming thought-sensitive stone from her clothing. It glowed in the room with a pearly luminescence, and she saw the man's eyes turning to it, drawn as if by magic. Then he looked away, and a cruel smile curled his ...
— The Link • Alan Edward Nourse
... in Central Asia, these Tartars are excellent horsemen, and show themselves literally at home in the saddle. Dismounted, they step clumsily, and are unable to walk any distance of importance. On horseback they have an easy and graceful carriage, and are capable of great endurance. They show intense love for their horses, caressing them constantly and treating their favorite riding animals as household pets. In all their songs and traditions the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... graceful folds; A soldier, by that martial tread: "Advance three paces. Halt! until Thy name ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... two men there was absolute accord on one point. Either would have said that Elizabeth Herbert's beauty was a supreme endowment, and more nearly perfect than the beauty of any other woman. She was slender, not tall, but poised and graceful with a distinction of bearing that added to her inches. Her hair was burnished copper and her coloring the tint of warm ivory with the sunlight showing through. North gazed at her as though he would store in his memory the vision ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... trap at the "Colley Dog," and ascended the mountain. There were no serious difficulties on this side; but still there were little occasional asperities, that gave the lover an opportunity to offer his arm; and Mr. Coventry threw a graceful devotion even into this slight act of homage. He wooed her with perfect moderation at first; it was not his business to alarm her at starting; he proceeded gradually; and, by the time they had reached the summit, he had felt ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Italians use at the present day, a material composed of cement in which are embedded fragments of stone or brick, the whole being rubbed down to a smooth surface, or paved with mosaic composed of tesserae. In whatever land the Roman dwelt, there he made his beautiful tesselated pavement, rich with graceful designs and ever-enduring colours, representing the stories of the gods, the poetry of nature, and the legends of the heroes of his beloved native land. Here we see Perseus freeing Andromeda, Medusa's locks, Bacchus and his band of revellers, ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... was beautiful, very beautiful, a Lorelei: slender, of lofty bearing, enchantingly graceful and yet dignified in her movements, her head proudly raised, with an abundance of fair tresses, which waved over her shoulders like molten gold, a regular, classic profile, which stood in strange and interesting contrast with the modern breath of dreaminess and ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... Holborn, and with a sigh of relief they drove westward to a shop in Regent Street to order a supply of the newest procurable mode of signifying grief on paper and envelopes. Arthur Agar was an expert in such matters, and indeed both mother and son were more at home in the graceful pastime of spending money than in the technicalities of making or ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... heard that Greta was downstairs, he brightened perceptibly. "She is a dear creature," he said; "except in looks she has not changed a bit. She used to be rather a pretty girl,—interesting-looking, that was the word for Greta; but she is very graceful still. Will you give my love to her, Mrs. Luttrell? I shall hope to see her to-morrow or the next day," and then he turned wearily on his pillow, as though talking were too great ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... he raised himself from the task he had been bending over, and stood moodily watching the slim, graceful figure, about which hung such clouds of doubt and dread, and she, turning around suddenly, as if she actually felt the impact of his gaze, saw him, and saw the ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... a delightful—tragedy if she turned out to be the Count's wife! In this luxurious mood I was accosted by a tall and very elegantly made gentleman, who appeared to be about fifty. His air was courtly and graceful, and there was in his whole manner and appearance something so distinguished that it was impossible not to suspect him of ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... information of the old man's illness, he had come upon a visit of condolence and inquiry to Nell, prepared with the first instalment of that long train of fascinations which was to fire her heart at last. And here, when he had been thinking of all kinds of graceful and insinuating approaches, and meditating on the fearful retaliation which was slowly working against Sophy Wackles—here were Nell, the old man, and all the money gone, melted away, decamped he knew not whither, as ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the gardens in front of Bedford House, which are now Bloomsbury Square. For my part I preferred this latter mansion to the French creation by its side, and admired its long and graceful lines. Its windows commanded a sweep from Holborn on the south to Highgate on the north. To the east of it, along Southampton Row, a few great houses had gone up or were building; and at the far end of that was Baltimore house, overlooking ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... size and years are doubled Since first I saw thee at sixteen, The brightest virgin on the green; So little is thy form declined; Made up so largely in thy mind. O, would it please the gods to split Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit! No age could furnish out a pair Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair; With half the lustre of your eyes, With half your wit, your years, and size. And then, before it grew too late, How should I beg of gentle fate, (That either nymph might have her swain,) To split my worship ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... to accept from her husband, as her due and without surprise or awkwardness, the little attentions which she expects and receives in society. A man, also, should expect, and not be disappointed in receiving, the graceful little appreciations and courtesies which the woman of charm extends to the man of achievement in her social circle. The difference between the appreciations of society and those of the family is mainly that, in society, ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... words, but he spoke very clearly and to the point, though he was the younger man of the two; Ulysses, on the other hand, when he rose to speak, was at first silent and kept his eyes fixed upon the ground. There was no play nor graceful movement of his sceptre; he kept it straight and stiff like a man unpractised in oratory—one might have taken him for a mere churl or simpleton; but when he raised his voice, and the words came driving from his ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... graceful slope roamed immense herds of buffalo, bands of elk, thousands of antelope, herds of black-and white-tail deer and the large gray wolf. Coyotes about the size of a shepherd dog would assemble on the high bluffs or invade the camp and make night hideous by their continuous and almost perfect ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... than the others, though uniformly of red brick picked out with buff. Shallow arches supported the concrete roof, and the verandah in front was gay with ornamental pot-plants and palms of luxuriant growth. Many doors opened upon it, and through them could be seen a lamplit and graceful interior, veiled by misty lace curtains. The verandah itself was left for the moon ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... them a small glade—oval in shape. Tall firs edged this open space as evenly as graceful columns in a magnificent salle. The blue of the sky above it seemed especially bright, pure and dominant. The glade was full of children of various ages. They were sitting and reclining all around in ones, twos, and threes. In the middle some thirty boys and girls were singing ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... came a-runnin'. The little nosy guy with the hair chartered a hack, he was in such a hurry. An' when they arrive, there sits Bull McGinty, smilin' an' affable, an' he spills his yarn as easy an' graceful an' slick as a mess o' eels. There's a island in the Society group, says Bull, which he discovers on his last trip, an' which ain't in none o' the British Admiralty notes. It's a regular island, with palms an' breadfruit an' tamarinds an' mangoes an' such, fine an' ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... comfortably awaiting the tailor, while the eye travels through far countries, glimpsing now and then a graceful figure that somehow reminds one of a darker complexioned September Morn, and helps perhaps to explain the wide-spread popularity of a magazine whose title seems at first thought to limit it ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... a vigorous and graceful skater. She skated with Neale O'Neil (who at once proved himself as good as any boy on the ice) and that offended Trix, for she had wished to skate ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... settled for some weeks on the borders of the Lake Keswick. There, one evening, a letter, re-directed to me from London, reached me. The hand-writing was that of Lucy; but the trembling and slurred characters, so different from that graceful ease which was wont to characterize all she did, filled me, even at the first glance, with alarm. This is the letter—read it—you will know, then, what ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... in. It has been hard on pyjamas, bed springs, and the temper of the Lady with the Piano who resides in the apartments immediately beneath; so, at the wise suggestion of our friends in the windows"—he waved a graceful hand toward them, and they gravely bowed acknowledgment—"we are now engaged in deciding the matter Graeco-Roman. The winner 'tucks.' ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... pearly teeth to display themselves, and glance brightly in the sun; while round the teeth and the lips a number of lovely dimples make their appearance, and her whole countenance assumes a look of perfect health and happiness. See her companion in shot silk and a dove-colored parasol; in what a graceful Watteau-like attitude she reclines. The tall courier who has been bouncing about the deck in attendance upon these ladies (it is his first day of service, and he is eager to make a favorable impression on them and the lady's-maids too) has just brought them from the carriage a small ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... knew him—knew, and yet could hardly believe her eyes, her ears, her instincts—could not realize that in this rough, disordered, unkempt figure, with the torn clothes and the dark stains on his ragged sleeve, she saw the handsome, graceful, debonair lover of her girlhood, the recreant bridegroom who had left her on the very threshold of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... not alone; there was a tall smiling soldier just behind him, and near the gate a graceful figure on horseback ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... I was not mistaken, if I could judge by the responses made at the close of each sentence, as it was interpreted. The whole address was evidently well received, and responded to in a friendly manner, by the ruling chief, a tall, majestic, and graceful person named Shingabawossin, or the Image Stone, and by all who spoke except the Count. He made use of some intemperate, or ill-timed expressions, which were not interpreted, but which brought out a strong rebuke ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... them believe it never was there. That is thy power,—but not over me. I know thee." We were standing apart, and I had dropped my voice. "But come and talk to me awhile. I cannot stand those babies," and I indicated with a sweep of my fan the graceful, richly-dressed caballeros whose soft drooping eyes and sensuous mouths were more promising of compliments than conversation. "Neither Alvarado nor Castro is here. Thou too wouldst have gone in a moment ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... that whenever any Gentlemen are particularly pleased with a Song, at their crying out Encore or Altro Volto, the Performer is so obliging as to sing it over again. I was at the Opera the last time Hydaspes was performed. At that Part of it where the Heroe engages with the Lion, the graceful Manner with which he put that terrible Monster to Death gave me so great a Pleasure, and at the same time so just a Sense of that Gentleman's Intrepidity and Conduct, that I could not forbear desiring a Repetition of it, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Venice, every morning as I went out of my house, I saw at her door, raised by three steps above the canal, a charming girl, with small head, neck round and strong, and graceful hips. She was there, in the sun and surrounded by vermin, as pure as an amphora, fragrant as a flower. She smiled. What a mouth! The richest jewel in the most beautiful light. I realized in time that this smile was addressed to a butcher standing behind ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... manner that the old bluff soldier would have been highly perplexed and disgusted, could he have listened to the praises of his admirers. Well might M. Paulin Paris say, "I shall not stop to praise what everybody has praised before me; to recall the graceful naivete of the good Senechal, would it not be, as the English poet said, 'to gild the gold and paint ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... type of perfection, whether of dress or of person, was absolutely unknown, thought she beheld in her cousin a being descended from seraphic spheres. She inhaled with delight the fragrance wafted from the graceful curls of that brilliant head. She would have liked to touch the soft kid of the delicate gloves. She envied Charles his small hands, his complexion, the freshness and refinement of his features. In short,—if it is possible to sum up the effect this elegant ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... her shoulder, "if you want to live up to your name you'll discard your coat of mail. Your namesake would have scorned its limitations, and your young figure will be far lovelier and more graceful, to say nothing of the benefit to yourself and future generations, if you heave your ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... a dark-blue velvet hanging, stamped with silver fleur-de-lys. There were tapestries on the floor, between which gleamed the polished oak boards, perfectly kept, by the labours (no doubt) of her Grace's two women (since such things would be mere "fiddle-faddle" to the honest soldier); a graceful French table ran down the centre of the room, very delicately carved, and beneath it two baskets from which looked out the indignant heads of a couple of little spaniels; upon it, at the nearer end, were three or four cages of turtle-doves, melancholy-looking ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... stood beside a fir copse, from which in the summer morning there floated an exquisite fragrance of pine. If all the angles of the architects could have been put together, nothing could have been designed more utterly opposite to the graceful curve of the fir tree than this red-bricked crass building. Bethel Chapel combined everything that could be imagined contrary to the spirit of nature, which undulates. The largest erection of the kind, it was evidently meant ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... fire, the tall Bamboo and Cocoanut trees loomed like graceful Javanese women in the midst of far-reaching, green, rice paddies; while two rivers that met below us, wound under that light like two silver threads ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... him. Trowbridge was only a score or so of miles from Bath, and there were many noblemen's and gentlemen's seats in the country round. In this same county of Wilts, and not very far away, at his vicarage of Bremhill, was William Lisle Bowles, the graceful poet whose sonnets five-and-twenty years before had first roused to poetic utterance the young Coleridge and Charles Lamb when at Christ's Hospital. Through Bowles, Crabbe was introduced to the noble family at Bowood, where the third Marquis of Lansdowne ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... interested in the thrilling experience of another woman. Her name was Kate Sherrill. She was tall and beautiful, graceful and gentle in manner, and, as we shall see, ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... of striking appearance. Slender in youth, a graceful dancer, in middle life he had the wide shoulders and bull neck of an athlete. He was the terror of Madrilenan husbands. His voice had seductive charm. He could twang the guitar and fence like ten ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... forty times forty churches. Each one has at least five, and several even sixteen, cupolas that are brilliantly painted, and covered with colored glazed bricks, or richly silvered and gilded, glittering in the blue atmosphere like the sun when it is half above the horizon. Even the graceful towers, rising sometimes to considerable heights from the immense mass of houses and gardens, are similarly ornamented, and neither do the larger ones among the palaces lack the addition of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... enormous saloon, hung with damask, and decorated with the ponderous enrichments and furniture of the time of Louis XIV. (that most showy and barbarous of all tastes, which has nothing in it of the graceful, nothing of the picturesque, and which, nowadays, people who should know better imitate with a ludicrous servility), he found sixteen persons assembled. His host stepped up from a circle which surrounded him, and formally presented his new visitor ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to Barold's satisfaction to find her as cheerful and ready to be amused by a mild little curate, who blushed and stammered, and was neither brilliant, graceful, nor distinguished. Could not Octavia see the wide difference between the two? Regarding the matter in this light, and watching Octavia as she encouraged her visitor, and laughed at his jokes, and never once tripped him up by asking him a startling question, did not, as already has been ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... is just on the edge of the desert. All traces of the morning storm are vanished. Out on the tops of the houses all about the open plaza, groups of men and women begin to appear, the unmarried girls distinguished from the married by the graceful whorls of black hair standing out in marked contrast with the two rolls that hang down past the ears of the matrons. Cowboys, Navajo horsemen, traders, all the non-acting part of Oraibi's population, tourists, photographers, visitors, crowd up in a rainbow coloured fringe about the sandy ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... tunics, with brilliant cotton sashes—habiliments which possessed a singular power of relieving these sun-browned sons of the lagoon of every vestige of their native grace. On such days of Church festival—and these alone—they might have been mistaken for peasants of some prosaic land, instead of the graceful, free-born Venetians that they were, as, with no hint of their natural rhythm of motion, they filed in cramped and orderly procession through the avenue that opened to them in the crowd to the door of the church, where they disappeared behind the ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... side of the tree stood a graceful figure clad in a white robe that glittered and sparkled as though covered with diamonds. She wore a gilt crown on her head and carried a scepter, while over her shoulder trailed a long garland of holly fastened with scarlet ribbons. It was Grace Harlowe in ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... course, chiefly played in Canada, but there is a Lacrosse League in the Atlantic cities of the United States. The visitor to Canada should certainly make a point of seeing a good exposition of this most agile and graceful game, which is seen at its best in Montreal, Toronto, or Ottawa. Unfortunately it seems to be most trying to the temper, and I have more than once seen players in representative matches neglect the game to indulge in a bout of angry ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... watching their lips and eyes intently, and still holding out the slate, with her innocent gesture of invitation and gentle look of apology, for the eldest girl to write on. The varying expressions of the three; the difference in their positions, the charming contrast between their light, graceful figures and the bulky strength and grand solidity of form in the noble Newfoundland dog who stood among them; the lustrous background of lawn and flowers and trees, seen through the open window; the sparkling purity of the sunshine which ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... illustrious or comely husbands and wives, his forebears, whose portraits hung on the walls of his neglected house. For the first time it thrilled him to imagine a new mistress of the house—young, graceful, noble—moving about below them. And even—for the first time—there gleamed from out the future the dim features of a son, and he did not recoil. He caressed the whole dream with a new and strange complacency. What if after all the beaten roads ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... massive cathedral and church of Notre Dame, than St. Jean even, is the exquisite church of Notre Dame de l'Epine, situated in a poor hamlet a few miles beyond the octroi gates. We have here, indeed, a veritable cathedral in a wilderness, nothing to be imagined more graceful than the airy open colonnades of its two spires, light as a handful of wheat ears loosely bound together. The colour of the grey stone gives solemnity to the rest of the exterior, which is massive and astonishingly rich in the grotesque element. We carefully studied ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... should be short and strong, very broad at the shoulder and comparatively narrow at the loins. The back should rise behind the shoulders in a graceful curve to the loins, the top of which should be higher than the top of the shoulders, thence curving again more suddenly to the tail, forming an arch known as the "roach" back, which is essentially a characteristic of the breed, though, unfortunately, many leading prize-winners of the present day ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... satin skirts in their most graceful folds, put one little foot on a Louis Quinze footstool which seemed to invite it, and then began to inform herself about the ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... when on the wing. The colour ranges through various shades from almost pure white to a dark greyish-brown; some even appearing almost black. Very large and ungainly when on the ground, they become most graceful when in the air, and soar about without the slightest effort even on the stormiest days. I have seen them flying into a forty-mile wind with absolute ease, never moving a wing, but occasionally adjusting their balance. They are gross scavengers, and eat apparently ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... side of the brook; and from behind the clump of willows which drooped their long branches in the stream, Nelly saw two beautiful maidens come forth. They were like, and yet unlike, each other. Both were very fair to look on, both of noble height and graceful mien; but the one had an air of more stately dignity, such as might beseem a queen; and her large dark eyes looked graver and more thoughtful than those of her sister. The other had smiling soft blue eyes, beaming with tender ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... About this time he wrote to Liszt regarding L'Enfance du Christ: "I think I have hit upon something good in Herod's scena and air with the soothsayers; it is full of character, and will, I hope, please you. There are, perhaps, more graceful and pleasing things, but with the exception of the Bethlehem duet, I do not think they have the same quality ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... from the circular room, a vague sense of gravity returned. At the end of the corridor she was able to stand on her feet again, although she still had to walk very carefully. Any sudden movement sent her soaring in a graceful leap that banged her head against ...
— The Guardians • Irving Cox
... away the cigar that he had finished, and reached for another. This he carefully cut at the end, lighting it with graceful, elegant deliberation. The Mexican was a distinguished-looking man above medium height. A little past forty years of age, he possessed all the agility of a boy of twenty. Frequently his sudden, agile movements indicated the possession of unusual ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... though without a touch of severity; her hands, with their very long and slender fingers, conveyed the same impression. Her dress, though dainty, was simple and inconspicuous, and her movements, light, graceful, self-controlled, seemed to show a person of equable temperament, without any strong emotions. In her light cheerfulness, her perpetual interest in the things about her, she might have reminded a spectator ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Beg came into the hall to greet her guest. She was a slender, elegant, middle-aged woman, in graceful black draperies, with hair prematurely grey, and a face that had always been interesting, but never handsome—a refined, intellectual, but not strong face; the face of a patient, self-contained, long-enduring person, of settled purpose, slowly arrived at, and then ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... the blue sky, and other birds of the gayest plumage flitted here and there. There were several plants of the cacti species on the borders of the stream, on the shores of which were seen the bamboo-dwellings of the inhabitants, with palms and other graceful trees rising above them; while long-tailed monkeys swung to and fro on the creepers, which seemed arranged specially for ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... done by Sherry E. Fry, carries out the same idea. The graceful figures poised on the corner domes are Torch Bearers. On the pylons at either end of the semicircular arcade of the main entrance are two reclining figures. On the right is Bacchus, with his grapes and wineskin,—a magnificently "pickled" Bacchus! ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... Neither was there, to many, a bit of picturesque beauty in the flat surroundings; and yet this very flatness did lend a charm peculiar to itself. My eyes ever found a delight in its purple distances and in the great, broad-armed trees marking the graceful curves of the river. The approach from the public road, which followed the bank of the river, was through the "willow lane," between deep-cut ditches, which kept the roadway well drained unless the river overspread its banks, when the lane was often impassable for days. In the springtime, ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... the little handle has been warmed almost to the softening point. It is now quickly pushed into place (c, Fig. 15), taking care that its axis is parallel to the hole in the plug, and then drawn away from the plug just enough to make a graceful neck instead of the bulging one indicated by the arrow in the figure. With a fine pointed flame the little tail is now drawn off at the point indicated by the dotted line (c, Fig. 15) and the whole carefully ...
— Laboratory Manual of Glass-Blowing • Francis C. Frary
... says Clement again, "should not seek to be graceful by avoiding broad drinking vessels that oblige them to stretch their mouths, in order to drink from narrow alabastra that cause them indecently to throw back the head, revealing to men their necks and breasts. The mere thought of what she is ought to inspire a woman with modesty.... ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... suspected, and finds the greatest beauty even in the commonest things. The eye of an Agassiz could see worlds which the uneducated eye never dreamed of. The cultured hand can do a thousand things the uneducated hand cannot do. It becomes graceful, steady of nerve, strong, skillful, indeed it almost seems to think, so animated is it with intelligence. The cultured will can seize, grasp, and hold the possessor, with irresistible power and nerve, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... "the real truth is, that I felt far worse outside my head than inside. I will even confess, that when I put my hat upon my head, clapping it on my head with that graceful energy which we gentlemen of the sword possess, if my fist was not very gently applied, I experienced ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he no longer called it play, but plans. Already, he was looking forward to the hour when, in creaking Sunday shoes and shiny Sunday broadcloth, he should mount the stairs of the old-fashioned pulpit in the village church, gather the hearts of the waiting congregation within the welcoming and graceful gesture which would prelude his opening prayer, and then scourge those same hearts with the lashing truths which lead unto regeneration. He saw himself distinctly in this role, more distinctly, even, than in the blurry mirror before which he performed ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... should have provided by law for three lieutenant-generals for these three pre-eminent soldiers, and should have dated their commissions with "Gettysburg," "Winchester," and "Nashville." It would have been a graceful act, and might have prolonged the lives of two most popular officers, who died soon after, feeling that they had experienced ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... but a tiny hamlet—a few houses clustered here, and a few more clustered there. London, then a graceful city set upon a hill, could be seen on a clear day from the northernmost point of Esher. On anything but a clear day it was, of course, impossible to see it at all. Esher is now, and always has been, remarkable for its foliage. In those days, when the spring touched the earth with ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... charming, exquisite, handsome, beauteous, comely, fair, lovely, bewitching, delightful, fine, picturesque, bonny, elegant, graceful, pretty. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... The graceful brown-eyed boy who showed us the house seemed also to belong to one of Titian's pictures. As we were going away, the Deacon, for lack of copper, rewarded him with a little silver piece, a half-lira, in value about ten cents. ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... buggy? Dat sholy is a fine Christmas gif'—it sho' is. An' sence you fin' yo'se'f possessed of a buggy, I trust you will allow me de pleasure of presentin' you wid a horse to drive in de buggy." He made a graceful bow as he spoke, a bow that would have done credit to the man from New Orleans. It was so well done, indeed, that Lily unconsciously bowed in return, as she said, with a look that savored a little of roguishness: "Oh, hursh, Mr. Peters! You des a-guyin' me—dat what ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... fox squirrel, whose delight is mischief. By the way, we have at home two tame robins that before they could fly were tumbled out of their nest by one of these ruthless practical jokers. The birds come in and out of the house like members of the family. The graceful gray squirrel is scarcely less familiar than the red one. He makes a lively pet, and we have all seen him turning the wheel attached to his cage. The curious little flying-squirrel, however, is a stranger even to those to whom ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... ready-made or can be re-made. You are, so to say, living in the home of poetry and being waited upon by the gods. During these last days I have again been looking into Homer, and there have read of the visit of Thetis to Vulcan with immense pleasure. There is, in the graceful description of a domestic visit such as we might receive any day, and in an account of any kind of handicraft, an infinity of material and form, and the Naive shows the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... proud head. The long basque of her school dress was made after the newest pattern and had smoke-pearl buttons, in overlapping groups of three, set on each side of its vest front. The skirt of this wonderful dress was "shirred" and hung in graceful festoons between the rows of gatherings, and was of an entirely new style. Last, but not least, the teacher's feet were shod in "side laces," the first pair of a new kind of shoes, destined to become popular, which ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... Jefferson and Marshall, but also, in appreciative recognition of their services to the cause of South American independence, the names of James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Richard Rush. We take especial pleasure in the graceful courtesy of the Government of Brazil, which has given to the beautiful and stately building first used for the meeting of the conference the name of "Palacio Monroe." Our grateful acknowledgments are due to the Governments ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... host went on, "that I've ever been an enthusiast for political women, but there's no doubt that in approaching the mass of electors a graceful, affable manner, the manner of the real English lady, is a force ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... raised her face And kissed away her tears. She softly said: 'Paul, there is something I must say to you— Something I have no time to tell you now; But we must meet again before you go— Under the pines where we so oft have met. Be this the sign,'—She waved her graceful hand, 'Come when the shadows gather on the pines, And silent stars stand sentinel in heaven; Now Paul, forgive ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... was drawing near to its brilliant climax. Through the blue waters of the Solent a swarm of palatial steam yachts, saucy outriggers, graceful cutters and wasp-like motor boats jostled one another in their efforts to gain safe anchorage after the strenuous excitement of the day's racing. Everywhere could be heard the clank of mooring chains, mingled with the full-flavoured oaths of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... association of these masters with each other and with men intelligent of their merits, is mutually agreeable and stimulating. The good forms, the happiest expressions of each, are repeated and adopted. By swift consent everything superfluous is dropped, everything graceful is renewed. Fine manners show themselves formidable to the uncultivated man. They are a subtler science of defence to parry and intimidate; but once matched by the skill of the other party, they drop the point of the sword,—points and fences disappear, and the youth finds himself ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the way in which harp-playing sets off a graceful figure; spinning is almost as becoming an employment. A woman stands at the great wool-wheel, one arm extended, the other holding the thread, her head thrown back to take in all the scope of her occupation; or if it is the lesser ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... burthen, standing high out of water, in ballast trim, with a black hull, bright waist, and wales painted white. Her bows flare very much, and are sharp and symmetrical; the cut-water stretches, with a graceful curve, far out beyond them toward the long sweeping martingal, and is surmounted by a gilt scroll, or, as the sailors call it, a fiddle-head. The black stern is ornamented by a group of white figures in bas relief, which give a lively air to the otherwise ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... towards civilisation. His intersexual code had advanced to the 'patriarchal stage': he was a skilful and diligent husbandman, who carried out extensive and laborious agricultural operations: he built good houses, whose interior he ornamented with no little taste, carved his weapons in graceful and intricate forms, manufactured excellent pottery, beat out from the inner bark of a tree a serviceable papyrus-cloth, upon which he printed, from blocks either carved or ingeniously pieced together, elegant and elaborate patterns ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... 6089.—Stems long, graceful, branching freely, round and twig-like, or with broad wings, as in Phyllocactus. Winged or flattened portions notched, and bearing a flower in each notch. Flowers stalkless, with pointed, straw-coloured petals, forming a shallow ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... fine, exceedingly delicate crest-line would spring up from the high point of some buried obstacle and sweep along in the most graceful curve as far as the eye would carry I particularly remember one of them, and I could discover no earthly reason for ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... effect. The fluid is projected to a height of some thirty feet, falling thence into a succession of regularly enlarging glass basins, and finally reaching in streams and spray the reservoir below. A hundred feet or more on either side stand two stately, graceful trees, entirely included in the building, whose roof of glass rises clear above them, seeming a nearer sky. These trees (elms, I believe) are fuller and fresher in leaf than those outside, having ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... fit the words to some air imaginary or otherwise which runs in the head. The song may be long or short, tell little or a great deal. In practice, as a rule, it is less than twenty-four lines in length and expresses a single thought or emotion. Its only two essentials are that it be graceful ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... character. Poor Mrs. Young! she died last year in Philadelphia. When she first arrived in New-York, from London, it was difficult to conceive a more perfect beauty; her complexion was of dazzling whiteness, her golden hair and ruddy complexion, figure somewhat embonpoint, and graceful carriage, made her a great favourite. I soon produced the little piece, which was called "Paul and Alexis; or, the Orphans of the Rhine." I was, at that period, a very active politician, and my political opponents did me the honour to go to the theatre the night it was performed, for the purpose ...
— She Would Be a Soldier - The Plains of Chippewa • Mordecai Manuel Noah
... winds through yonder glade, Apt emblem of a virtuous maid!— Silent and chaste she steals along, Far from the world's gay busy throng: With gentle yet prevailing force, Intent upon her destined course; Graceful and useful all she does, Blessing and blest where'er she goes; Pure-bosomed as that watery glass, And Heaven ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... them write them out in their own hand on the pages of the record-book, with their signatures. It is a luxury, in looking over the old volume, to come upon the receipts of Deodat Lawson, in his plain, round hand. A specimen is given among the autographs. His chirography is easy, free, graceful, clear, and clean. It unites with wonderful taste the highest degrees of simplicity and ornament. Each style is used, and both are blended, as occasion required. During his ministry, the trouble about the old record-book ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... were cousins, and we grew up together in my paternal halls. Yet differently we grew—I, ill of health, and buried in gloom—she, agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy; hers, the ramble on the hill-side—mine the studies of the cloister; I, living within my own heart, and addicted, body and soul, to the most intense and painful meditation—she, roaming carelessly through life, with no thought ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... in another department of literature—in journalism. For many years he wrote a non-political leading article each week for the Leeds Mercury. His wide culture, his quiet humour, and light, graceful touch, were qualities that gave to his journalistic work far more than an ephemeral value. In politics Reed was a life-long Liberal; he utterly disapproved, however, of Mr Gladstone's latter-day policy in Ireland. Reed was a member of the Reform ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... Wild and visionary as they were, they were not without their uses; if it were only for having purged the superstitions of Europe of the dark and disgusting forms with which the monks had peopled it, and substituted, in their stead, a race of mild, graceful, and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... after the other, and credited the lieutenant with excellent taste; then believed he must be wrong, for, after dancing with his fourth partner—a tall, sweet-faced, graceful girl—he saw him lead her up to a thin, washed-out lady, of—well, middle age; and the next moment a sweet, silvery ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... knowledge of the subject under discussion. Certainly the "Lessons on Elementary Physiology" which appeared at the end of 1866 were the outcome of such knowledge, and met with a wonderful and lasting success as a text-book. A graceful compliment was passed upon it by Sir William Lawrence, when, in thanking the author for the gift of the book, he wrote (January 24, 1867), "in your modest book 'indocti discant, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... sir, I envy you your easy, kindly vision. Indeed, all these do persist in a dim groping way, empty echoes of great words that have been, bare shadows without substance. What made them something more than graceful acts of materialism was that each and all ended not in themselves or in worldly accommodation, but in some purpose outside of human nature as our humanitarians comprehend that nature. Renunciation was practised, not that my neighbour might have a morsel more of bread, but that one hungry ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... about six-and-twenty, I should imagine, the youngest of the family, with a sallow, rather sickly complexion, somewhat sorrowful eyes, a smile rare and sweet, a fine figure, tall and slender, and a graceful gait. I now saw, I thought, a good hair's-breadth further into the smith's affairs. Beyond the hair's-breadth, however, all was dark. But I saw likewise that the well of truth, whence I might draw the whole business, ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... momentary. By the time he reached the cab door, flung it open, and held out his hand, she had drawn herself up, and it was a calm, dignified, graceful woman of the world who gave the trembling man her hand to help her ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... which was all in readiness, though the event was not looked for for more than half a year. She was in the gayest spirits, and sang and danced. While she was lounging on her cushions, I thought her the handsomest and most graceful, as well as the happiest, of the party; but when she rose to dance, the charm was destroyed for ever. The dancing is utterly disgusting. A pretty Jewess of twelve years old danced, much in the same way; but with downcast eyes and an air of modesty. While ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... ocean wave," was not sea-sick; for, although the vessel heeled well over to the wind on the starboard tack she did not roll, but ploughed through the little wavelets as calmly as if on a mill-pond, only rising now and again to make a graceful courtesy to some cross current that brought a swell over from the opposite shore of France, for after passing Beachy Head she kept well off the ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... named this particular gun "Intombi", which means a young girl, because it was so much slimmer and more graceful ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... new and powerful ally in the hearts of the people by his marriage with Maria Louisa, daughter of the Duke of Savoy—a beautiful girl of fourteen years old, who rapidly developed into a graceful and gifted woman, and became the darling of the Spanish people, and whose intellect, firmness, and courage guided and strengthened her weak but amiable husband. For a time the power of Spain and France united overshadowed Europe, the trading interests ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty |
