"Sprites" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... round, and fled amain With hurry and dash to the beach again; He twisted over from side to side, And laid his cheek to the cleaving tide; The strokes of his plunging arms are fleet, And with all his might he flings his feet, But the water-sprites are round him still, To cross his path and work ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... country of fairies, water sprites, sylphs, and consequently phantoms ('for whoso does the greater see, can see the less'), and all that on account of the fog. But where the devil can the ghosts hide in Italy and Spain? Not the least bit of mist. And, therefore, were I in Spain or Italy I should never attempt ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... yellow sands, And then take hands; Curtsied when you have, and kiss'd The wild waves whist, Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... It was perhaps their first exodus from the nest, for as yet they were without the slightest sense of fear. They allowed the girls to catch them, fondle them, and stroke their lovely plumage; they would fly delicately away, twittering with pleasure, then flit back to the caressing hands like sprites at play. Anything more innocent and beautiful it would have been impossible to conceive; it was like a glimpse into Paradise before the fear and dread of man had passed over God's lesser creatures. ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... And trust thine elfin foe to see, In guise of thy worst enemy: Couch then thy lance, and spur thy steed - Upon him! and Saint George to speed! If he go down, thou soon shalt know Whate'er these airy sprites can show; If thy heart fail thee in the strife, I am no warrant for ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... into song. Samples of the Iscam and the Canynge muse diversify the collection. The great Bristol merchant was a mediaeval Maecenas, and at his house, "nempned the Red Lodge," were played interludes—"Aella," "Goddwyn," and "The Parliament of Sprites"—composed by Rowley, or by Rowley and Iscam collaborating. Canynge sometimes wrote the prologues; and Rowley fed his patron with soft dedication and complimentary verses: "On Our Lady's Church," "Letter to the dygne Master Canynge," "The Account of W. Canynges Feast," etc. The well-known fifteenth-century ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... started up the road wondering lazily if she had found the nest, and, to tell the truth, not caring much whether she had or not. For, to tell the whole truth, I had long ago steeled my heart against the fascinations of those bewitching little sprites who never stay two seconds in one spot, and sternly resolved never, never to get interested in ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... Boar's Hill, I'll fill my lungs with heaven's own air And pay the cabman twice his fare, Then, looking far and looking nigh, Bare-headed and with hand on high, "Hear ye," I'll cry, "the vow I make, Familiar sprites of byre and brake, J'y suis, j'y reste. Let Bolshevicks Sweep from the Volga to the Styx; Let internecine carnage vex The gathering hosts of Poles and Czechs, And Jugo-Slavs and Tyrolese Impair the swart Italian's ease— Me for Boar's Hill! These war-worn ears Are deaf to cries ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... your lordship in?—My dear Erasmus— I'll hear you, Master Morris, presently.— My lord, I make you master of my house: We'll banquet here with fresh and staid delights, The Muses music here shall cheer our sprites; The cates must be but mean where scholars sit, For they're made all with ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... "From surest castle of my secret cell I come, partaker of your good and ill, What counsel sage, or magic's sacred spell May profit us, all that perform I will: The sprites impure from bliss that whilom fell Shall to your service bow, constrained by skill; But how we must begin this enterprise, I will your ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... death of the Lancastrian knight, Charles Baldwin; "Aella," a "Tragycal Enterlude," as Chatterton styles it, but in reality a dramatic poem of sustained power and curious originality of structure; "Goddwyn," a dramatic fragment; "Tournament," "Battle of Hastings," "The Parliament of Sprites," "Balade of Charitie," with numerous shorter pieces, forming altogether a volume of poetry, the rare merit of which is indisputable, wholly apart from the fact that it was the production of a mere boy. Unfortunately ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... said Miranda; "only I am not used to living with sprites and with sheep that talk, and everything here frightens me. It was very kind of you to bring me to this place, but I shall be even more grateful to you if you will take me up into ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... succeeded the light wind which had before rippled the distant waves, and we watched the boat, lying as if asleep and floating lazily on the red water against the blazing sky,—or rather, itself like a cradle, so pavilioned was it with gorgeous cloud-curtains, and fit home for the two water-sprites lying in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... wife,[45] Which is, not only in this life to love, But after death her fancy not remove." Meanwhile accept of these our daily rites, Which with my maidens I shall do to thee, Which is in songs to cheer our dying sprites With hymns of praises ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... in the doorway of a neighboring house, with a group of wide-eyed youngsters about her, relating again the wonder-tales which she had gathered from him. Marvelous tales they were, too, of knight and hidalgo, of court and camp, of fairies, pyxies, gnomes and sprites, of mossy legend and historic fact, bubbling from the girl's childish lips with an engaging naivete of interpretation that held the man enchanted. Even the schoolmaster, who had besought ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... experience as hostess at her father's dinner-table—since, in this connexion, Billabong did not seem to count. No one could ever have been nervous at Billabong. Besides, there was no butler there: here, Allenby, gravely irreproachable, with Sarah and Bride as attendant sprites, seemed to intensify the solemnity of everything. However, no one seemed to notice anything unusual, and conversation flowed apace. Colonel West did not want to talk: such cooking as Miss de Lisle's appeared to him to deserve the compliment of silence, and he ate in ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... That thus ye rest, in sweet wood-hardiness, Ready to learn of all and utter naught? What breath may move ye, or what breeze invite To odorous hot lendings of the heart? What wind-but all the winds are yet afar, And e'en the little tricksy zephyr sprites, That fleet before them, like their elfin locks, Have lagged in sleep, nor stir nor waken yet To pluck the robe of ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... within sight of Homburg. Twenty more minutes of this turning of wheels and we should enter the station. But just as though all the sprites and devils from the infernal regions had concerted to torture my patience, we stopped short. All heads were out of the windows. "What is it?" "What's the matter?" "Why are we not going on?" There was a train in front of us at a ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... infinitude of space and the insignificance of our own selves? Do waterfalls "haunt us like a passion" any the less because the water is chemically known as H2O and because we believe no longer in nymphs and water-sprites? On the contrary, if there is one fact in the history of literature more certain than another, it is the fact that the passion for natural beauty and the emotions it evokes are things of very modern date. In France Rousseau, in England Wordsworth, are practically the first to give to them that ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... as elusive for the enchanted mind to hold are these pranks and brilliant parade of tonal sprites. It stands one of the masterpieces of program-music, in equal balance of pure beauty with the ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... our drink when our cups overbrim with wine: And sing in her presence, for Envy hath fled * And flies jealous spite and all joys combine. Oh the charms of wine which enthral the mind, * Clear and clearing sprites by its sprite refined!" ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... landscape in Midsummer for the games of the river-sprites, and the dancers of the elves and fairies! Here, in the lustre of the full moon, the dryads can tell their tales, the water-sprite seize the golden harp, and believe that one can be blessed, at least for one single ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... of the critics. An improbable personage, an improbable ending to a comedy, are really badly-drawn personages, badly-arranged endings, happenings without artistic motive. It has been said with reason that even fairies and sprites must have verisimilitude, that is to say, be really sprites and fairies, coherent artistic intuitions. Sometimes the word "possible" has been used instead of "verisimilar." As we have already remarked in passing, this word possible ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... not go," the seamen said, "To yonder fatal ground, Where savage Jutts, {f:5} and wicked elves, And demon sprites, abound." ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... of little Tom Riley, who was 'mos twelve,' but who had a heart big enough for a man, and so skilfully is it told that a child may read and miss much of the sadness of it. In and out and everywhere play the sunbeams, as merry, mischievous and kindly a set of sprites as any in the realms of fairyland."—The Sun, ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... through the water; and then it made her think of something sad—she didn't know what; perhaps it was of the babes in the wood and the robins covering them up with leaves—and then again, in a moment, it sounded as if all the merry elves and sprites that ever were heard of had escaped from fairyland, and were rolling over and over with peals of rollicking laughter. And at last, all of a sudden, the song came to ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... unquestioned advantage of having seen only some sixteen or seventeen summers apiece. Miss C. has been 'out' some time; her familiar being 'Katie King;' while Miss S. has made her debut more recently, having for her attendant sprites one 'Florence Maple,' a young lady spirit who has given a wrong terrestrial address in Aberdeen, and Peter, a defunct market gardener, who sings through the young lady's organism in a clear baritone voice. It was to me personally ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... robe and sleep Heard not the storm-sprites wail and weep, As they rode on the winds in the frosty air; But she heard the voice of her hunter fair; For a shadowy spirit with fairy fingers The curtains drew from the land of dreams; And lo in her teepee her lover lingers; The light of love in his dark eye beams, ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... donne in all the written copyes whiche I haue yet seene,) his meaninge ys not that the intellecte was wholye goonne, as yt wolde bee yf yo{u} sholde reade, "and also the intellecte" for "save only the intellecte." for Chaucers meanynge ys, that all his streng[t]he and vitall Sprites aboute his outewarde partes were gonne, save onlye the intellecte or vnderstandinge, w{hi}che remayned sounde and good, as apperethe after by the followinge woordes, for when deathe approched, and that all outwarde senses fayled, he (Arcite) yet cast eye ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... much resemblance in their natures and habits to those sprites which Heywood, in his Heirarchie, calls pugs ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving |
