"Light-headed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had not produced the effect which it appeared to have done; instead of healthful sleep, it had brought on a kind of light-headed somnolence, in which the mind, preternaturally restless, wandered about its accustomed haunts, waking up its old familiar instincts and inclinations. It was not sleep,—it was not delirium; it was the dream-wakefulness which opium sometimes ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... was as much as could be made good the next day, and this though the ground was comparatively smooth. Ferriss was continually falling. Dennison and Metz were a little light-headed, and Bennett at one time wondered if Ferriss himself had absolute control of his wits. Since morning the wind had been blowing strongly in their faces. By noon it had increased. At four o'clock a violent gale was howling over ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... "the poor lady is sickening for a fever; let her alone: how can a woman light-headed answer questions upon doctrine ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... horse's neck and said very softly, "She is his wife." I had to wait long for him to say more, but at length, with the same measured mildness, he spoke on. This amazing Charlotte, bereft of father, brother and mother, ward of a light-headed married sister, and in these distracted times lacking any friend with the courage, wisdom and kind activity to probe the pretensions of her suitor, had been literally snared into marriage by this human spider, this Oliver, a man of just the measure to simulate with cunning and patient labor the ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... some said it was a fever. At last she was roused out o't, but naebody ever saw her laugh after; and frae ane that was as cantie as a lintie, she became as douce as a Quaker, though she aye gaed cannily about her wark, as if amaist naething had happened. If she was ony way light-headed before, to be sure she wasna that noo; but just what a decent quean should be, sitting for hours by the kitchen fire her lane, reading the Bible, and thinking, wha kens, of what wad become o' the wicked after they ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... dazed for a time that he but dimly realized what was happening to him. Half stunned, he was carried, along with Dave Robbins, out of the arroyo. He was light-headed from the blows ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... had replied promptly to Washington's remark that the time had come to take definite action with regard to the light-headed Frenchman, who continued to fit out and despatch privateers, and was convulsing ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... went so dizzy that I had to plump back into my berth again. As the night went on, and I lay there thinking how deliciously the water would taste going cool and sweet down my throat, I got quite crazy with longing for it; and, in a way, really crazy—for through most of the night I was light-headed and saw visions that sometimes comforted me and sometimes made me afraid. The comforting ones were of fresh green meadows with streams running through them, and of shady glens in the woods where springs welled up into little basins surrounded by ferns—just ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... I must have been a little light-headed some part of that night. My poor Nora, I am certain, never slept, but I can only hope her imagination was less wildly at work than mine. From time to time I spoke to her, and every time she was awake, for she always ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... bright and vivid with jostling life; the music of a stringed orchestra somewhere back of him was calling well-dressed men and women in to dinner. All of them seemed happy, hopeful, purposeful. He noted, furthermore, that three days without food makes a man cold, even in a warm place, and light-headed, too. The north wind had bitten him cruelly as he crossed the street, and now as he peered out of the plate-glass windows the night seemed to hold other lurking horrors besides. His want was like a burden, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... stretched himself stiffly. The chill of the long night had set him shivering. His bones ached from the pressure of his body upon the rock where he had slept and waked and dozed again with troubled dreams. The sharpness of his hunger made him light-headed. Thirst tortured him. His throat was a lime-kiln, his tongue swollen till it ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... them all," replied Ken. "That's Gallagher on the end of the bench; Burr is third from him; Stern's fussing over the bats, and there's Hill, the light-headed ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... later, feeling somewhat light-headed but otherwise in perfectly magnificent fettle, Forrester found himself on the downtown subway. He'd showered and changed and he was whistling a gay little tune as he ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... not very well know how to introduce our friend Mr. Ellison, "The Bornnatural," who addresses his "Madmoments to the Light-headed of Society at large." We feel as a father, a mother, or other near of kin would at introducing an ungainly gifted and much loved son or kinsman, who had the knack of putting his worst foot foremost, and ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... the guns. The fact was that I was suffering from the reaction that was inevitable after so fierce and protracted a fight—the battle having lasted for over an hour—and I felt that I must bestir myself or I should become light-headed, or hysterical, or something equally foolish. I, therefore, rose to my feet, called to the steward to bring me a glass of water—the water-cask which usually stood on deck having been smashed to staves ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... knew what had happened, and had heard that Jones was in a very dangerous condition, immediately concluded, from such a message, at such a time of night, and from a man in such a situation, that he was light-headed. Now as he had his wit (to use that word in its common signification) always ready, he bethought himself of making his advantage of this humour in the sick man. "Sir," says he, "I believe I can fit you. I have a most excellent piece of stuff by me. It is not ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... bad night, and could not sleep. He grew light-headed and talked incoherently; still the fever had abated in its violence. Towards morning the hiccough began to torment him, the fever increased, and he became quite delirious. He spoke of his complaint, and called upon Baxter (the Governor's physician) ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... probably amuse him more when he differs than when he agrees with them; at least they will do no harm, for nobody will follow my advice. But the last word is of more concern. Marriage is a step so grave and decisive that it attracts light-headed, variable men by its very awfulness. They have been so tried among the inconstant squalls and currents, so often sailed for islands in the air or lain becalmed with burning heart, that they will risk all for solid ground below their feet. Desperate pilots, they run their sea-sick, ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in his wound was making him light-headed. At intervals he imagined that it was Ailsa seated behind him, her arms around his waist, her breath cool and fragrant on his neck; and still he knew she was a phantom born of fever, and dared not speak—became sly, pretending he did not know her lest the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... do little for her—only now and then give her to drink, or raise her a little. And she could not speak much. A few words occasionally appeared to be all she had strength for. Towards morning I thought she seemed to wander and grow light-headed. She called once "Isabel!" and once "Aveline!" We have at present no Sister in the house named Aveline, and when I asked if I should seek permission to call Sister Isabel if she wished for her, she said, "No: she will be gone to Marlborough," and ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... is true peace which needs but a touch to melt away; whether you are wise with all this combustible material deep down in your conscience, in paying no regard to it but living and frolicking, and feasting and trafficking, and lusting and sinning on the surface, like those light-hearted, light-headed fools that build their houses on the slopes of volcanoes when the lava rush ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... in all likelihood, you are afraid that they will not leave you a cabbage to cut down with the same miraculous machine."—"Sir," answered the mechanic, with great bitterness of voice and aspect, "if the cabbage be as light-headed as some muck-worm philosophers, it will not be worth cutting down."—"I never dispute upon cabbage with the son of a cucumber," said the fly-breeder, alluding to the pedigree of his antagonist; who, impatient of the affront, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... whom the bloody trade makes gabbling fools, light-headed, wild-eyed wasters of words, full of the importance of their mind-wrecking deeds. Like the savage whose reputation mounts with each wet scalp, each fresh head, these kill out of depravity, glorying in the growing score. To this class Mark ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... on their way home over the New Bridge, treading heavily, and yet light-headed, for they had the Paymaster's dram at the "lifting" at Ladyfield in them, and the Paymaster himself was narrating to old Rixa, the Sheriff, and Donacha Breck his story, told a hundred times before, of Long Dan MacIntyre, who never came up past the New Bridge, except at the tail of a funeral, ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... of the scene, all of which are successively baffled and disconcerted by the bustling interference of the lover himself. The French original has infinitely the superiority; the character of the luckless lover is drawn with an exquisitely finer pencil. Lelie is an inconsequential, light-headed, gentleman-like coxcomb, but Sir Martin Marplot is a fool. In the English drama, the author seems to have considered his hero as so thoroughly stupid, that he rewards the address of the intriguing domestic with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... man can always dismiss a girl who dresses foolishly or carelessly, but this is sneaking away from a problem instead of facing it. High-class offices have comparatively little trouble this way. In the first place, they do not attract the frivolous, light-headed, or "tough" girls; in the second place, if such girls come, the atmosphere in which they work either makes them conform to the standards of the office or leave and go somewhere else. If a girl in his office dresses in a way that he considers inappropriate, a man may tactfully ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... he exclaimed. "Shad must ha' been gettin' light-headed t' do that. Well, he's welcome t' 'bide 'long with Injuns if he wants to, but I'm thinkin' by about now he's wishin' he was where he ain't. An' by t'morrer he'll have boiled goose an' fried pa'tridges on his mind, an' wishin' harder 'n ever he were back ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... of Hysteria had certainly not deserted her! In all the full effervescent reaction of her brain-storm,—fairly bubbling with dimples, fairly foaming with curls,—light-footed, light-hearted, most ecstatically light-headed, she tripped down into the sunshine as though the great, harsh, granite steps that marked her descent were nothing more nor less than a gigantic, old, horny-fingered hand passing her blithely out to ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Irish literature, on the origin of language, on the evidences for Christianity, and on all other sorts of unrelated topics. Hazlitt thought that the soul of Rabelais had passed into Amory, while a more recent critic can see in his long-winded discussions naught but the "light-headed ramblings of delirium." If we try to read John Buncle consecutively, the result is boredom; but if we open the book at random, we are pretty sure to be interested and even sometimes ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... chapel, with all the vessels and other preparations for the holy sacrament. A hymn is actually sung on the stage by the chorister boys! For the rest, Imogine, who now and then talks deliriously, but who is always light-headed as far as her gown and hair can make her so, wanders about in dark woods with cavern-rocks and precipices in the back-scene; and a number of mute dramatis personae move in and out continually, for whose presence, there is always at least ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... me..." he thought. His legs shook. "From fear," he muttered. His head swam and ached with fever. "It's a trick! They want to decoy me there and confound me over everything," he mused, as he went out on to the stairs—"the worst of it is I'm almost light-headed... I ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... tropic trees; The storm-wind wove, the torrent span, Where they were bid, the rivers ran; New slaves fulfilled the poet's dream, Galvanic wire, strong-shouldered steam. Then docks were built, and crops were stored, And ingots added to the hoard. But though light-headed man forget, Remembering Matter pays her debt: Still, through her motes and masses, draw Electric thrills and ties of law, Which bind the strengths of Nature wild To the conscience ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Heaven are on my side, Shalah. Take my pistols and Ringan's sword. I am going into this business with no human weapons." And as they set me on an Indian horse and the whole tribe turned their eyes to the higher glens, I actually rejoiced. Light-hearted or light-headed, I know not which I was, but I know that ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... that desolate hut, groaning and suffering, and no one knew how ill she was but the little children. They would sit and cry by her miserable bed all day, for they were very hungry and very sad. When she had lain in this state for more than a week, she grew light-headed, and after a while died. The youngest child thought she was asleep, and that he could not waken her; but the elder boy rushed weeping out of the house, knowing that she was really dead, and that they were left alone ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... back to the parade trying to reason my next step out, and muttering to myself, because there was something in that luminous wonderfulness that touched one's brain, and made one feel a little light-headed. ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... said, springing out of bed with a haste that made me light-headed for a moment, "help me into my clothes, and be quick about it; I think I hear sounds below that ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... is always at its height on the outbound trail, for then everybody knows that success, and even safety, depends on his swift thinking; on the way home afterward reaction sets in sometimes, because Arabs are made light-headed by success, and it isn't a simple matter to discipline free men when you have no obvious ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... they were on their way. Gloria caught her own horse, coiled the rope, and mounted. As King rode across the meadow and to the wooded slope beyond she followed. It seemed to her that this was all a dream; she was almost light-headed; the sternest of realities began to seem impalpable and distant and of scant moment. She knew that she was going forward because she must; that otherwise she would lie here in the lonely wilderness and die. In her exhaustion she noted, as one does note his own soul-play when overwrought, ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... regarded as among the most active of the friends of man; a title which only one or two among them occasionally forfeit by their aggressions on the defenceless poultry." Roger or Dolly beholds him in the act of murdering a duckling, and, like other light-headed, giddy, unthinking creatures, they forget all the service he has done the farm, the parish, and the state; he is shot in the act, and nailed, wide-extended in cruel spread-eagle, on the barn-door. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... remark for the rest of the way home. He came to the conclusion that the events of the evening had made Mr. Chalk a little light-headed. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... entirely too adorable," I reasoned with myself, some three-quarters of an hour later. "In fact, I regard it as positively inconsiderate in any impecunious young person to venture to upset me in the way she has done. Why, my heart is pounding away inside me like a trip-hammer, and I am absolutely light-headed with good-will and charity and benevolent intentions toward the entire universe! Oh, Avis, Avis, you know you hadn't any right to put me in ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... he remained the least cautious and the most lucky of young nobles. He had been tied with so short a rope in his youth that he had now a mortal grudge against family discipline. He had been known to say, within the limits of the family, that, light-headed as he was, the honor of the name was safer in his hands than in those of some of it's other members, and that if a day ever came to try it, they should see. His talk was an odd mixture of almost boyish garrulity and of the reserve ...
— The American • Henry James
... things matter. What would he think of her coming down to him—as he would naturally suppose. And even that didn't matter. He could not despise her more than she despised herself. She must have been light-headed because the thought came into her mind that should he get into ungovernable fury from disappointment, and perchance strangle her, it would be as good a way to be done with ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... least, of fresh readers,—we in England—who know him best by his worst book, the book against Priests, &c., which has been most circulated—know him disadvantageously. That book is a rhapsody of incoherence. M. Michelet was light-headed, I believe, when he wrote it: and it is well that his keepers overtook him in time to intercept a second part. But his History of France is quite another thing. A man, in whatsoever craft he sails, cannot stretch away out of sight when he is linked to the windings of the shore ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... for your invitations. Nothing could give us more pleasure than to come; but (were there no other reasons) while my brother's leg is so bad, it is out of the question. Poor fellow! he is very feverish and light-headed; but Cruikshanks has pronounced the symptoms favourable, and gives us every hope that there will be no need of amputation. God send not! We are necessarily confined with him all the afternoon and evening till very late, so that I am stealing a few ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... Hannibal's head, en dese yer pepper feet is Hannibal's feet. You take dis en hide it unner de house, on de sill unner de do', whar Hannibal'll hafter walk ober it ev'y day. En ez long ez Hannibal comes anywhar nigh dis baby-doll, he'll be des lak it is—light-headed en hot-footed; en ef dem two things doan git 'im inter trouble mighty soon, den I'm no cunjuh-'oman. But w'en you git Hannibal out'n de house, en git all thoo wid dis baby-doll, you mus' fetch it back ter me, fer it's monst'us powerful goopher, en is liable ter ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... sailor's way, but I was homesick, achingly homesick, and his jokes only made me more wretched than I was. At last he told me to turn in again and get some sleep, and, after I had tucked myself up, the men were quieter. I slept in a dazed, light-headed fashion (as I had slept in the afternoon) till some time early in the morning (at about one o'clock), when a hand shook my hammock, and Marah's voice bade ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... his figure and his grand air, which in any other company would have marked him for master; and forgetting the impatience which a moment before had consumed me—doubtless I was still light-headed—I answered him. 'Yet I had once the promise of your lordship's ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... 25th May, 1791.—"I have been now laughing and crying by turns, for two days, over Boswell's book. That poor man should have a Bon Bouillon and be put to bed ... he is quite light-headed, yet madmen, drunkards, and fools tell truth, they say ... and if Johnson was to me the back friend he has represented ... let it cure me of ever making friendship ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... [On December 27, 1809, a few days after Dr. Adam's death, Scott writes to Mrs. Thomas Scott: "Poor old Dr. Adam died last week after a very short illness, which first affected him in school. He was light-headed, and continued to speak as in the class until the very last, when, having been silent for many hours, he said, 'That Horace was very well said; you did not do it so well;' then added faintly, 'But it grows dark, very dark, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... light-headed: a Booby who had fine legs. How these first courted, billed, and cooed, according to nature; then pouted, fretted, grew utterly enraged and blew one ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... The Earth man laughed uproariously. The din was making him light-headed. It was so funny! Just in time he had caught that cunning expression and prepared for the outlashing of feet designed to plunge him into the red cavern below and to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... from a dream. "Where?" he cried; and then, seeing it before his eyes, "Can this be possible?" he added. "I must be light-headed. Girl," he cried suddenly, with the same screaming tone of voice that I had once before observed, "what is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of sunshine and smiles. But ladies are capricious: the countess suddenly discovered that I was heavy. Now, if she wished me to be light-headed, why did she order a landaulet? She declared, too, that I was unfit for town service; gave new orders to Houlditch; took possession of a chariot fashioned eight months later than myself; sent me to Long Acre to be disposed of, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... the dimplin' channel git kinder restive and try to run off by itself, and flow round and act? Or did the big leap down Niagara skair it so that it run away and never stopped runnin' until it got all confused and light-headed among these countless islands, and wandered away and got lost and by the ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... Paris, a stampede occurred, in which hundreds of lives were lost. The Austrian princess, l'Autrichienne, as she was called from the first, did not mend matters by her conduct. Until misfortune sobered her and brought out her stronger and better side, she was incurably light-headed and frivolous. She was always on the very edge of a faux pas, and her enemies did not fail to accuse her of frequent slips beyond the edge. The titled riffraff that had adorned the Louis XV-du Barry court was swept out on the accession of the young ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... have found, is a true lover of music, and has a right to claim a real knowledge of its higher and deeper mysteries. But she accepted very cordially what our light-headed companion said about the songs he used to ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... it best not to report, seeing that the old hypocrite, getting next door to light-headed at the golden prospect before her, took such liberties with unearthly names and persons which ought never to have approached her lips, and rained down such an awful shower of blessings on Trottle's head, that his hair almost stood on end to hear her. He went on down-stairs as fast as his ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... bad thing to be light-headed," answered the queen, looking with prophetic soul far ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... burned, in fighting the cold of the past night, all that would burn, except the chair on which he sat; and with the dawn the last spark of his fire had died out. Notwithstanding those fits of rage he was not light-headed. He could command his faculties at will, he could still reflect and plan, marshal the arguments and perfect the reasons that must convince his foes, that, if they inflicted a lingering death on him, they did but work their own undoing. But at times he found himself confounding ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... distinctly remembered eight bells being struck while Coke was telling him from the bridge to give the anchor thirty-five fathoms of cable. Was it possible that they had gone through so much during those few minutes? If he were really light-headed, then sun and clouds and watch were ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... ten years, and recalled the two girls together—Violet and Margaret. Both were light-headed and vain; so far as their relations with Van Dorn were concerned, one was as blamable as the other. Yet one had prospered and the other had not—and the one who had apparently suffered most had upon the whole lived the cleaner, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... was by now almost light-headed from hunger and excitement. At the slightest pressure she would have told her story to the first interested stranger, and thus ended her adventure, most surely. But Fate led her to the door of one too full of trouble to ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... Ashtonbury Clifford, the light-headed windmill, seems to have got the best of all this. I have observed that the light-headed commonly get the best of everything in this world; which the wooden-headed and the beef-headed regard as an outrage. I am not prepared to say if it is or ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... mysteries I should see. These, no doubt, were singular fancies to occupy a man's mind in such extremity—and I have often thought since, that the revolutions of the boat around the pool might have rendered me a little light-headed. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... reduced very low indeed, and was often delirious and light-headed; but nothing lay so near me as the fear that, when I was light-headed, I should say something or other to his prejudice. I was distressed in my mind also to see him, and so he was to see me, for he really loved me most passionately; but it could not be; there was not the least room to desire ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... The boy had been light-headed in the night, but his brain was clear enough now. He recognised his father, and smiled—a little wan smile, that went to the strong ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... very ill, Richard," she said, as the young man attended her, "feverish, and almost light-headed. Adam Whitworth has told you, I know, that she was imprudent enough, in company with Alizon, to visit the ruins of the conventual church late last night, and she there sustained some fright, which has produced ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... cream, and rose-colored. They cut a hole in the skull, and dip it out; and sometimes get sixteen or twenty barrels. This is made into what you call spermaceti candles. We don't have any such nonsense about us; but the Sperms always were a light-headed set." ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Captain Hogg, we'll trouble you for a second"—after which they troubled him for a third—begged for a fourth—must drink his health in a fifth, and finally, pointed out the propriety of making up the half-dozen. By this time they found themselves rather light-headed, so, desiring Captain Hogg to keep a sharp lookout, and not to call them on any account whatever, they retired ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... her tower To Venus' temple, where unhappily, As after chanc'd, they did each other spy. So fair a church as this had Venus none: The walls were of discolour'd[9] jasper-stone, Wherein was Proteus carved; and over-head A lively vine of green sea-agate spread, Where by one hand light-headed Bacchus hung, And with the other wine from grapes out-wrung. 140 Of crystal shining fair the pavement was; The town of Sestos call'd it Venus' glass: There might you see the gods, in sundry shapes, Committing heady riots, incests, rapes; For know, that underneath ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... knitting his brows at me, and supposed it was in anger; and that gave me a pang of light-headed fear, like what a child may have. I remember, too, that I was smiling, and could not stop smiling, hard as I tried; for I thought it was out of place at such a time. But my good companion had nothing in his mind but kindness; and the next moment, two of the gillies had me by the arms, ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to him to say nothing, and then laid my fingers again on the man's wrist. No. In spite of the extraordinary speech that he had just made, he was not, as I had been disposed to suspect, beginning to get light-headed. His pulse, by this time, had fallen back to a quiet, slow beat, and his skin was moist and cool. Not a symptom of fever or ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... as I have certainly discovered, with more of hope than is usually mingled with the other elements composing the temperament of humanity, I did not suffer quite so much as some would have suffered during such an illness. But I have reason to fear that when I was light-headed from fever, which was a not uncommon occurrence, especially in the early mornings during the worst of my illness—when Mrs Pearson had to sit up with me, and sometimes an old woman of the village who was generally ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... relaxed. The pain in his arm was less now, and he knew the cold was setting in. He was getting light-headed, and most of all he wanted to sleep. Well, why not? He slumped a little ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... returned with a mere rag. We thought this might cure him, but nothing could do that. We could redeem William, but he could not redeem himself. These occasional lapses were the only drawback of that faithful, industrious soul, and we let them go. We had been unable to forgive them in the light-headed, literary Gibbs. ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... parliament itself; and he became a colonel of the frontier militia. He tilled the land, and he chopped the trees himself; he helped to build the cabins and stockades with his own hands, wielding the longhandled, light-headed frontier ax as skilfully as other frontiersmen. His main business was that of surveyor, for his knowledge of the country, and his ability to travel through it, in spite of the danger from Indians, ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... men near to hear him, they replied only with unassuming grunts. He sat up once for a change of position and moved away a little from the dead Turk, but the flying bullets sent him back. He may have been light-headed once or twice, but this he himself could not tell. Queerly enough, he troubled not at all about the form his wound had taken. Though he knew with absolute certainty that he would never see again, he was not worried by the horrors of a future world of darkness; ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... these veils were, they were not moisture. The air we breathed was dry, electric. I was sensible of a decided stimulation, a pleasant tingling along every nerve, a gaiety almost light-headed. We could see each other quite plainly, the rocky floor on which we trod as well. Within this vapor of light there was no ghost of sound; it was utterly empty of it. I saw Drake turn to me, his mouth open in a laugh, his lips move in speech—and although ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... her eyes in turning up reverentially toward Maggie, but she was able now to smile and curtsey, and say, "I'd looked forrard like aenything to seein' you, Miss, for my husband's tongue's been runnin' on you, like as if he was light-headed, iver since first ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... get such a beautiful shine on them," I heard poor Higgs muttering in my ear again and again, for he was growing light-headed; "no wonder, no wonder! My shin-bones will be very useful to polish Quick's tall riding-boots. Oh! curse the lions. Why did you help me to salt, you old ass; why did you help me to salt? ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... hadn't," mourned his wife; "he's as good-meaning a man as there is in town, even if he is a little light-headed. He's always given me good trades, and his ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... hopeful; some are merry and some are grim, but arithmetical calculation of some sort, whether glorious or uneasy, is busy in their eyes as they pin and pat before their mirrors. To behold romance gone light-headed, turn to the humbler sort of man-creature under twenty-three. Alone in his room, he may enact for you scenes of flowery grace and most capricious gallantry, rehearsals as unconscious as the curtsies of field daisies in a breeze. He has ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... 'there is the treasure.' He seemed to waken from a dream. 'Where?' he cried; and then, seeing it before his eyes, 'Can this be possible?' he added. 'I must be light-headed. Girl,' he cried suddenly, with the same screaming tone of voice that I had once before observed, 'what is wrong? is this ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... said she; 'that is well. I have good news for thee;' at which I began to fear she was light-headed, for how should she have news that I knew not? But presently she went on, with many pauses because ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... in for half an hour and see what was going on. Being a Mac, he was, of course, theological, scientific, and argumentative. He saw some things which woke him up, challenged the performer to hypnotize him, was "operated" on or "fooled with" a bit, had a "numb sorter light-headed feelin'," and was told by a voice from the back of the hall that his "leg was being pulled, Mac," and by another buzzin' far-away kind of "ventrillick" voice that he would make a good subject, and that, if he only had the will power and knew how (which he would learn from ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... Charley helped slightly. Now the stuff went tingling through nostrils, lungs and on to his veins. It swept upward to his brain and blood piled up there, feeling as if full of bursting tiny bubbles like champagne. He felt gay and feckless, light-headed and big-headed. Ego expanded, and he imagined himself a man of destiny at the turning point ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... that? Do you know that he can teach? No wonder he prefers to teach in English! I had a conversation with him the other day; I want no more; he preferred to talk to me in English. That is the good manners he is teaching; light-headed, hero-worshipping, free-thinker that ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... imps that control us wretched humans," he answered. "For Heaven's sake! my dear woman, do what I say. I'm not light-headed, believe me." ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... would not give me the receipt (which Mr. Henry had told me to demand, for he was very methodical) until she had sent out for spirits, and I had pledged her in a glass; and all the time she carried on in a light-headed, reckless way—now aping the manners of a lady, now breaking into unseemly mirth, now making coquettish advances that oppressed me to the ground. Of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... boy, "how straight these stems hold up their heads! They must be the best ones. These that hang their heads down cannot be good for much." The farmer plucked a stalk of each kind, and said, "See here, foolish child! This stalk that stood so straight is light-headed, and almost good for nothing; while this that hung its head so modestly is full of the ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... usual garrulity of the soldiers was checked by the recollection of their dead comrades, so recently laid to rest in soldiers' graves. All, too, remembered the danger through which they had passed, and many were moody and silent. At length a bright-faced, light-headed young recruit spoke out, seeing the silence and sadness around the camp-fire. "I say, captain, that was a wretched red-skin of a chief that you hauled in yesterday. He looked more like the Prince of Darkness than the chief of a tribe. I thought once, cap'n, he ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... night before court met when I found out what he meant. I went to bed that night with that same old, light-headed, nervous feeling come back upon me. I dropped off to sleep about midnight. When I awoke I was standing half dressed in one of the court-house corridors. Bob was holding one of my arms, our family doctor the other, and Alice was shaking me and half crying. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... must needs set to work upon him. It was all no good. I might as well have tried to carry him as to groom him, and I represented my case to a non-commissioned officer, who straightway ran me in. I passed the night in the guardroom, chilled and wet, and now and then light-headed. Had I been at head-quarters the colonel would undoubtedly have sent me to the infirmary, which was the proper place for me. The lisping captain sent ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... after her, and came running out of the room dreadfully frightened. I met the servant on the stairs, and went at once to Miss Halcombe to see what was the matter. The poor lady was incapable of telling me. She was walking about her room with a pen in her hand, quite light-headed, in ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins |
