"Faint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... throwing overboard of Adam so suddenly and without any recently discovered evidence upon his personality or lack of it, comes in the nature of a shock. The act has been perpetrated after the fashion of Captain Kidd in his worst days. It shows a complete lack of even a faint acquaintance with the small amenities that help to smooth the ruts in social intercourse to not only order a personage of Adam's standing and reputation to "walk the plank," but to push him off. Besides, it shows an utter disregard for the feelings ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... rustle. The darkness and the sense of moving water continued to fascinate her, and she slightly shuddered, not at a thought, but at the sensation of the moment. At last she closed her eyes, still, however, to see mirrored as in some visual memory the picture she was trying to ignore. In a faint panic, hardly conscious to her fear, she stared at her neighbour's newspaper, spelling out the headings to some of the paragraphs, until the need of ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... noise of the torrent, and when, after many days in such a wood, I pick my way back by marks I know to a ford, and thence to an old shelter long abandoned, and thence to the faint beginnings of a path, and thence to the high road and so to men; when I come down into the plains I shall miss the torrent and feel ill at ease, hardly knowing what I miss, and I shall recall Los Altos, the high places, and remember nothing but ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... obliged to surrender themselves miserable captives to barbarous savages, who immediately after tomahawked one man and two women, and loaded all the others with heavy baggage, forcing them along toward their towns, able or unable to march. Such as were weak and faint by the way, they tomahawked. The tender women and helpless children fell victims to their cruelty. This, and the savage treatment they received afterward, is shocking to humanity, ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... all wear spectacles. The children employed at spooling and hemming usually suffer grave injuries to the health and constitution. They work from the sixth, seventh, or eighth year ten to twelve hours daily in small, close rooms. It is not uncommon for them to faint at their work, to become too feeble for the most ordinary household occupation, and so near-sighted as to be obliged to wear glasses during childhood. Many were found by the commissioners to exhibit all the symptoms of a scrofulous ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... of writing in "Hand and Soul" is of a very exceptional kind. My brother had at that time a great affection for "Stories after Nature," written by Charles Wells (author of "Joseph and his Brethren"), and these he kept in view to some extent as a model, though the direct resemblance is faint indeed. In the conversation of foreign art-students, forming the epilogue, he may have been not wholly oblivious of the scene in Browning's "Pippa Passes" (a prime favourite of his), where some "foreign students of painting and sculpture" are preparing a disagreeable surprise for the ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... dislocate your bones like any osteopath. He would burn you with red-hot coals to stop your bleeding, and thrust wires into you to assist your circulation. He would diet you with salt, vinegar, alum, and sometimes, vitriol. Boiling water would be poured on your feet when you seemed ready to faint. It would be his boast that he could keep life within you for two or more weeks longer than would have been possible without his treatment. Would you not have preferred to have been killed at once ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... however, had I mounted the hencoop, which floated nearly a foot above the surface, even with my weight on it—for it was a big piece of woodwork, with plenty of timber in it, and as light as a cork— than I felt a faint current of air blowing in my face from a direction quite opposite to that of the drift of the waves, the tops of which now began to ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... these long-neglected shores. For we must rid ourselves of that incubus of "immutable race characters": think only of our Anglo-Saxon race! What has the Englishman of to-day in common with that rather lovable fop, drunkard and bully who would faint with ecstasy over Byron's Parisina after pistolling his best friend in a duel about a wench or a lap-dog? Such differences as exist between races of men, exist only at a ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... reverence for the strength ordained out of the lips of infant Art—accepting on its own terms its simplest teaching, sympathizing with all kindness in its unreasoning faith; the writer evidently looking back with most joy and thankfulness to hours passed in gazing upon the faded and faint touches of feeble hands, and listening through the stillness of uninvaded cloisters for fall of voices now almost spent; yet he is never contracted into the bigot, nor inflamed into the enthusiast; he never loses ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... question. Dried blood rubs off a faint buff color." He picked up the sheet of paper from his desk. A deep brownish streak showed where he had applied the moistened cloth. "It's the rawest kind of a blind. Why, the idiot who sent the shirt didn't even have the sense to ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... with an appearance of faint surprise; "what a bore you must find the examination of ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... A faint smile of recognition came upon her lips, and she raised one hand to her son, and laid it upon his head as he sank upon his knees ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... I am about to become the enraptured bride of my adored Giglio!" continues Gruffanuff. "Lend me a smelling-bottle, somebody. I certainly shall faint with joy." ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... us as we struggled through the heavy peat-hags; we lost our bearings and determined to make for any light that we might descry in lonely farm or shepherd's sheil on this forsaken waste. We had almost given up hope when we saw a faint glimmer through the increasing gloom three-quarters of a mile away, perhaps, on our ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... A faint smile flitted over Carraway's face. "Well, it might have been worse," he said. "She can use it for curling-paper." He paused a moment. Then he said: "I want to say to you, my dear, that—ah—I want Christmas celebrated ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... expression of wild distraction as he began to climb those gleaming stairs. Strangely lustrous in the weird light, was that worn stairway of gold—gold, the ancient metal of the Sun. With the slowness of one about to faint he dragged himself up, while his breath seemed to be torn from his throat in agonizing gasps. Behind him, the glowing liquid splashed against the steps and the yellow metal of the Sun began to drip into ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... life from the sinking cabin. There you re-entered, and remained until submerged, engaged in the desperate and heroic efforts to save the others, escaping yourself finally only by swimming upward through the broken sky-light, guided by the faint light shed from the above through the water. In sending you this medal, the highest recognition of your conduct which the Government can give, it is felt that no words can add distinction to the splendid gallantry which the token ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... giving his little boys comic names; later to appear in his stories. Thus, one known as 'Plorn,' which later appeared as 'Plornish.' This is a pleasant picture of the great writer's domestic life, and it gives also a faint 'adumbration' of what is now forgotten: the intense curiosity and eager anticipation that was abroad as to what he was doing or preparing. Hints of his characters got known; their movements and developments were discussed, and the incidents of his story were like public events. ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... until the ankles, knees, hips, elbows, shoulders and wrists were all dislocated and the victim was red with the sweat of agony, and they had standing by a physician to feel the pulse, so that the last faint flutter of life would not leave his veins. Did they wish to save his life? Yes. In mercy? No! Simply that they might have the pleasure of racking him once again. That is the spirit, and it is a spirit born of the doctrine that there is upon the throne of the universe ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... finish the sentence, for at that moment there was a faint far-off bang, and they sensed rather than felt a faint quiver in the solid earth beneath their feet. The cashier held up one hand and stood with head turned sideways in ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... to reanimate the spirits of Hope, and though shortly after he lay down with the other men in the bottom of the boat, it was not without misgivings as to the events which lay before him in the darkness. One man only remained up to steer, for it was my intention to run as long as the breeze, faint though it was, lasted. I had been asleep about half an hour when I felt my arm quickly pulled, and, looking up, beheld Samuel bending over me, while with one hand he steered the boat. "Here they are," he whispered, "here they are." I looked over the ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... deck in the cold air, he saw through the faint light a row of houses beyond the low wharf buildings, grey mellow houses of four storeys with tiled roofs and intricate ironwork balconies, with balconies in which the ironwork had been carefully twisted by artisans long ago dead into ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... now on the heath from which Ryton took its name. The ground fell steeply to the west, showing glimpses of a great river in the valley below, where the still-leafless woods had burst here and there into faint tokens of spring. Beyond the river rose the characteristic grey hills of the neighborhood, with their stone walls and sheepfolds and stretches of moorland, looking a little hazy in the afternoon light, but with patches of yellow gorse catching the ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... founded on the principle that each member should print a volume, to be distributed among his colleagues, an example was thus set to men of easy fortune and scholarly tastes, which has been followed with a large liberality, of which the public have probably but a faint idea. Not only in those clubs founded on the reciprocity system of each member distributing and receiving, but in those to be presently noticed, where the ordinary members pay an annual sum, to be ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... Stay me with flagons, comfort me with champagne, for my heart is faint with love!"—only Solomon didn't sing it quite like that, the fickle old dog, nor did my waiter understand me, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... lazily, as petals from an over-blown rose, while I write, the welcome rain is falling. The sky is neutral tinted, save in the east, where a faint blush lingers. All along the country roadways a thousand fainting clovers uplift their purple crests, and in the dusky spaces of the dense June woods a host of grateful leaves wait and beckon. A voice comes from the garden bed; it is the complaint of the pansy. "Here I lie," ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... caleche. It had been ransacked by a regiment that had preceded them. The driver and a woman lay dead beside it, and they would have passed on without paying any attention to it, had it not been for a faint cry that met the ears of Julian, as his company passed close by it. He dropped back a few paces to an officer, and asked leave to fall out for a minute. Going to the carriage he found lying there among the cushions a little girl some five or six years ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... which may be found in a paper contributed by the present writer to the Transactions of the Philological Society in 1876, and a few years later Dr. Jago received some of the same tradition. Thus it may be said that so long as any of these three are alive, a faint flicker of living Cornish remains, even if there is no verity in the weird legends of the survival of more as an esoteric language among the peasantry and the mining and fishing folk of the West. But even if the spoken Cornish ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
... about us bits of stone and metal, but underneath it all we are little two-legged animals, struggling with the rest to live and breed. Beneath each hedgerow in the springtime we can read our own romances in the making—the first faint stirring of the blood, the roving eye, the sudden marvellous discovery of the indispensable She, the wooing, the denial, hope, coquetry, despair, contention, rivalry, hate, jealousy, love, bitterness, victory, and death. Our comedies, our tragedies, are being played ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... his mind. Amid confusion and tumult libertines take advantage of the fright and the weakness of woman. All flee to save themselves; nobody thinks of anyone else; the women faint and their cries are not heard; they fall; are trampled over; fear and fright overcome modesty, and under cover of darkness.... He fancied he could see Ibarra carrying Maria Clara fainting in his arms, and then disappearing ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... by one the distant fires faded, and as some of us still sat there silently, far, far away in the grey east there was a faint flush of carmine where the new dawn was kindling in secret. Underneath that violet bank of cloud the sun was forging his beams of light. The pole-star paled. The breath of the new morrow stole up out of the rosy grey. The wings of the morning stirred and ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... thought she was going to faint. 'Why, whatever do you mean,' she stammered, 'I've nothing that ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... the river sings, When gently it flows between soft banks of flowers, And the bee murmurs, and the cuckoo brings His faint May music, 'tween ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... penciled map was so worn and faint that Charley and his father, and his mother, too, puzzled over it almost in vain. Starting from the joining of two rivers, it appeared to represent an exploring trip up along one of the rivers, and through the country, with crosses scattered like ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... ago, in the chance-medley of second-hand—third-hand—furniture his father's insolvency or his own consigned it to? Would she know the old square piano again now, with all its resonances dead—a poor, faint jargon only in some few scattered wires, far apart? Yes—she would know it among a hundred, by the inlaid bay-leaves on the lid that you could lift up to look inside. But that was accounted lawless, and forbidden ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... could neither come out nor escape. But should they, on account of any hope of breaking this mandate, escape, I would thereupon be justly subjected to heavy punishment. I was not pleased by the thing, my fear and solicitude made me faint hearted, for I communed with myself that it was no small thing that had befallen me, as I knew also that the college of wisdom was accustomed not to lie but to put into action what it said. Yet because I could not change it, beside which this locked ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... being over, I again turned my attention to the eagles, whom I found in a fair way of recovery, and suspecting that they were faint for want of victuals, I took one of the beef fruit, cut it into small slices, and presented them with it, which ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... poor old woman for sale, upwards of fourscore years of age. The slave-merchants offered her for four thousand wadas, about eight shillings. People purchase these poor old creatures that they may fetch wood and water, even until their strength fails them and they faint by the way. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... classification of Saxo's stories akin to that of the Irish poets, Battles, Sieges, Voyages, Rapes, Cattle Forays, etc.; and quite apart from the historic element, however faint and legendary, there are a set of stories ascribed by him, or rather his authorities, to definite persons, which had, even in his day, probably long been the property of Tis, their original owners not being known owing to lapse of time and ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... strength was giving way before the tumult of her passion, and the silence that had come suddenly into the room was more terrible than her violent words. William stood quaking, horrified, wishing the earth would swallow him; Mrs. Lewis watched Esther's pale face, fearing that she would faint; Jackie, his grey eyes open round, held his broken boat still in his hand. The sense of the scene had hardly caught on his childish brain; he was very frightened; his tears and sobs were a welcome intervention. Mrs. Lewis took him in her arms and tried ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... between them, succeeded in turning her out of hand. And her face, also, was beautiful, with a certain cold, inexpressive beauty. She walked up the room very slowly, smiling here and smiling there; but still with very faint smiles, and took the place which her hostess indicated to her. One word she said to the countess and two to the earl. Beyond that she did not open her lips. All the homage paid to her she received as though it were clearly her due. She ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... person should be laid flat on the floor or on a couch, and all doors and windows opened wide. Loosen all tight clothing and apply to the forehead a cloth wet with cold water. A faint usually ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... land hove in sight, faint at first, but gradually the rocky coast of Spain, north of Cape Trafalgar, became distinct, then this cape itself came out of the mist as white as snow—so white that the purser said he believed it actually was snow. Then higher hills ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... of the jungle's depths, we heard a faint measured chanting as of many people coming nearer. From another direction this was repeated. The two processions approached each other; their paths converged; the double chanting became a chorus that grew moment by moment. We heard beneath the wild weird ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... not remarked Evelyn's dress very particularly, and Owen was angry with him for only being able to tell him that she wore a pale silk of a faint greenish colour. ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... veil somewhat further, and clearing my understanding in some other things which I had not seen before. For the Lord was pleased to make His discoveries to me by degrees, that the sight of too great a work, and too many enemies to encounter with at once, might not discourage me and make me faint. ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... long before daylight, every child upon the place, both black and white, was up ready to "march in Christmas." There had been mysterious preparations the night before, such as the hiding of tin pans and glass bottles under the bed, and the faint tooting of an old horn, heard down at the quarters, as though some one was rehearsing a part. Fanny was also astonished by an application from little "darky Tom" for permission to use her school-bell, the said cow-tinkler not being remarkable for ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... to gratify a young ambition, I introduced the poet to Mr. Gladstone, and that great man, who never damned with faint praise, pronounced that this was the finest thing written about London since Wordsworth's Sonnet "Composed upon ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... a capital sin is one to which daughters are assigned. Now Gregory (Moral. xxxi, 45) assigns six daughters to sloth, viz. "malice, spite, faint-heartedness, despair, sluggishness in regard to the commandments, wandering of the mind after unlawful things." Now these do not seem in reality to arise from sloth. For "spite" is, seemingly the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... together, and some one of the party stirred the fire till it sent up a tall flame, widening the black circle shutting us in on all sides. Again rose the faint far cry, and was answered by one fainter and more far in the opposite quarter. Then another, and yet another, struck in—a dozen, a hundred all at once; and in three minutes the whole invisible outer world seemed to consist mainly of wolves, ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... present moment and the memorials of the precarious past. There is ever something transitory and fretful in the impression of a high wind under a cloudless sky; it seems to have no root in the constitution of things; it must speedily begin to faint and wither away like a cut flower. And on those days the thought of the wind and the thought of human life came very near together in my mind. Our noisy years did indeed seem moments in the being of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... silence, and was obeyed so far as voice went, but long-drawn sighs and shakes of the head continued to impress on her the aunt's hopelessness, throughout the endeavours to change the position, the moistening of the lips, the attempts at relief in answer to the choked effort to cough, the weary, faint moan, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Physical Surface of the Taffity, they were in part hid by the more Protuberant Thrids of the other Colour; and for the same cause, the Reflection from as much of the Green as was discover'd, was comparatively but Dim and Faint. And if, on the contrary, I look'd through the Microscope upon any part that appear'd Green, I could plainly see that the Red thrids were less fully expos'd to the Eye, and obscur'd by the Green ones, which therefore made up the Predominant ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... up. Here and there, close against the faint water, and at the far end of the lake, where the water lay milky in the last whiteness of the sky, and there was no shadow, solitary, frail flames of lanterns floated from the unseen boats. There was a sound of oars, and a boat passed from the pallor ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... bottom in about sixty fathoms water. The 29th was thick weather, with a very light, but a fair wind; we were now quite sensibly within the influence of the tides. Towards evening the horizon brightened a little, and we made the Bill of Portland, resembling a faint bluish cloud. It was soon obscured, and most of the landsmen were incredulous about its having been seen at all. In the course of the night, however, we got a good view ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... was touched by this appeal, and he maintained a gloomy silence. He had cherished some faint hope of relief from the Sultan of Egypt or the Barbary powers, but it was now at an end; even if such assistance were to be sent, he had no longer a seaport where it might debark. The counsellors saw that the resolution of the King was shaken, and they ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... profoundly stirred by a faint gleam of the dawn of liberty, and shaken by a suppressed agitation. The Bourbons again reigned in France, and the Greeks built a thousand hopes on an event which changed the basis of the whole European policy. Above all, they reckoned on powerful assistance from Russia. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... monk replied. "When I was last in your father's house in Seville, your mother sent for me to her room, and under her window was a stone balcony full of growing musk, which so filled the room with its odor that I was like to faint. But she said it cured her of diseases, and without it she fell ill. You were a ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... book of Mr. Max Beerbohm's caricatures, one of which depicts the unfortunate poet in question. To say it represents an utterly incredible hobgoblin is to express in faint and inadequate language the license of its sprawling lines. The authorities thought it strictly safe and scientific to circulate the poet's photograph. They would have clapped me in an asylum if I had asked them to circulate Max's caricature. ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... plaques. A large percentage of the cases never go further than this because the proper care and attention is given them. It is possible, however, for any case to progress further and become ulcerative. This will be observed first as a faint yellow line at the margin of the teeth and gum. Ulceration never takes place unless the child has teeth. The quantity of saliva is very greatly increased, so much so that it flows out of the mouth soiling the clothes. The ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... of the power of articulation, and for a moment I thought that he would faint, but he didn't. He was too eager to see her, and welcome her to her ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... first; it picked up faint radiation leakage from inactive power units of overhead lights, and nothing else. The tunnel stretched ahead of it, empty, and dark beyond its infrared vision. After it had gone a mile without triggering anything, the jeep followed ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... times, and sometimes more than a million of times. Even under such intense magnifications, it can be seen only with great difficulty, since it is colorless in life, and it is hard to color or stain it with dyes. Its spiral form and faint staining have led to its being called the Spirochaeta pallida.[4] It is best seen by the use of a special device, called a dark-field illuminator, which shows the germ, like a floating particle in a sunbeam, ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... however, seemed to be telling them that they were cowards, and at last the whole party whirling round their spears more fiercely than before, rushed towards the hut. Rudge's finger was on the trigger, and so was Tom's, when a faint shout was heard in the distance, like an echo of theirs. It was repeated, and another was heard as if from a ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... would not. They would go supperless to bed first. But Camilla, poor child, was going out. Perhaps she would have a supper at the friend's house where she was to play. And perhaps not. Besides, she had eaten nothing since morning. She might faint before the supper hour came. She could not give it up and go to bed as her brothers had done. In their perplexity and trouble Aunt Caroline came with the joyful news that she had found a sou in an old coat pocket. Only a sou—a ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... longer to have any eyes or soul but for her. At supper, and during the rest of the night, she occupied the whole attention of every body present. Can you conceive any thing so provoking? But L—— must be an absolute fool!—Did he never see a woman faint before?—He cannot pretend to be in love with his wife—I do not understand it.—But this I know, that he has been totally different in his manner towards me ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... something definite. I have promised to call at Scotland Yard at eleven o'clock, and the only scraps of intelligence I have gathered are those in the papers. I would have come to London last night, but was afraid to travel, lest I should faint in the train. Moreover, some one in London promised to send a detective to see me. He came, but could give no information. Indeed, he wanted to learn certain things from me. So, after a weary night, I caught the first train, and it occurred ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... the gap between yon grey crag and the thorn-tree, paces the doe, halting to drink just where the faint star of eve shoots its gleam along the wave. The musician forgets the swans and quickens his pace, expecting to meet the doe's wonted companion. He is not disappointed. He comes on Guy Darrell where the twilight shadow falls darkest between the grey ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rising. Then it changed to the lilt of "Colin's Cattle," which is an air that the fairies made, and sung in the ear of a shepherd who fell asleep in one of their holy places. And then it lost all mortal form, and became a thing as faint as the wind in the tree-tops or the humming of bees in clover. My weary legs stepped out to this wizard music, and the spell of it lulled my fevered thoughts into the dull ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... fled to her with the cry that her husband was come, and she dared not meet him as she was, she had seen in an instant that she must prevent it by some means or other. The hope that Mr. Chantrey's return would bring about a reformation in his wife had grown faint in her heart, for during the last few months the sin had taken deeper and deeper root; and now, the day only before she expected him, she had not had strength to resist the temptation to it. Sophy had been crying hysterically, and trembling at the thought of meeting him as ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... fell, and twice, and yet again. And as it stopped the night was filled with the dull faint throbbing ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... had sufficiently enjoyed the surprise of his guest, he called his attention to Miss Bertram's affairs. "I was in hopes," he said, "though but faint, to have discovered some means of ascertaining her indefeasible right to this property of Singleside; but my researches have been in vain. The old lady was certainly absolute fiar, and might dispose of it in full right of property. ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... spines being gone, Not royal in their smells alone, But in their hue; Maiden-pinks, of odor faint, Daisies smell-less yet most quaint, And sweet ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... had been fastened to the end of an oar and set up in the boat, and by its faint light I could see that the men looked very grave. Tom Lokins was steering, and I sat near him, pulling ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... light, which its own intrinsic merit might not have saved. I know nothing more of Houghton. I should certainly be glad to have the priced catalogue; and if you will lend me yours, my printer shall transcribe it-but I am in no hurry. I Conceive faint hopes, as the sale is not concluded: however, I take ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... though they were and had many times sharply ordered other people not to crowd. They could see at a glance that Burns was very faint, that his right arm hung helpless at his side, that his forehead wore a blackening bruise, and that his clothes were torn and covered with dirt. For the rest they had ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... bear it. At his first words I should fall in a faint; and how could I resist him then? No; let me fly; let me hide myself; and when he comes in, swear that you are here alone; that you brought no bride; that she left you at the altar—anything to baffle his rage and give us time.' ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... recovered of the wounds they had suffered in the wars about Sicily, Sardinia, and with their own rebels. If the high courage of Hannibal had not driven the commonwealth into a new war while it was yet faint and weak, and if they had been suffered to pursue their victories in Spain, and to get firm footing in that rich, warlike, and then populous country, very probably in a few years they might have been ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty
... occasions the blood to congeal, upon Philip touching it, the blood darted and sprang out, to the great astonishment of the chirurgeons themselves, who were desired to watch this event; whereupon Philip, astonished more than they, threw down the body, and became so faint that they were forced to give him ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... lines of billowy curves in the far distance grow vaster, till we come in sight of what seems indeed a colossal city towering westward over the horizon; a city well built, girt round with battlements, bristling with watch-towers, outlined in gold and amethyst upon a faint azure sky. ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... faint, but by turning the letter about in the light, Mrs. Morton at last managed to make them out. What they were, how they had been placed there Duvall could not say. Yet their presence indicated something of value, ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... cocoon all winter in a cold, dry place; but when warm spring weather came it lay in state on my work-table, in a box lined with cotton, where I could watch it all day long. Nothing happened till one bright day in June I heard a faint scratching inside the brown case. It grew louder and louder every moment. Evidently my tenant was bestirring himself and, with intervals of rest, was scraping and tearing away his silken wrappings. ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... the night, a sullen horde, spattered with slime, faint with hunger and exhaustion. There was little disorder at first, and the throng at the gates parted silently as the troops tramped along the freezing streets. Confusion came as the hours passed. Swiftly and more swiftly, crowding squadron after squadron and battery on battery, horses plunging ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... mind; but Caspar did not come. She began to feel miserable. The furnace fire sank, and the rush of the water grew slower and slower, and ceased. Caspar did not come. The fire sank lower and lower, its red eye dimmed, darkened, went out. Still Caspar did not come. Faint fears began to gather about poor Dorothy's heart. It was clear at last that there she must be all the night long, and who could tell how far into the morning? It was good the night was warm, but it would be very dreary. And then to be fixed in one position for so long! ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... creature distraught. There is blood on her right hand; she sees it, and with a gasping cry at the grisly sight, and before they know what she is about, she falls down in a faint in their midst. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Baroness this note, and say that her master had gone out. Adeline flew back into her room, trembling more violently than ever; her children followed on hearing her give a piercing cry. They found her in a dead faint; and they put her to bed, for she was seized by a nervous fever which held her for a month between life ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... all the prayers his mother had taught him and then, with a flash of memory, finished with "Oh, God, please!" just as mother had done long ago on the dry drive. After that he meditated uncomfortably for a few minutes and added in a faint whisper, "Oh, shucks! You don't want to pay any attention to a fellow cussing a little when he's mad. I could easy make that up if you helped me ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... didn't want to admit that possibility. I decline to admit it now." The chin of Charlie Fox squared perceptibly, so that Billie Louise caught a faint resemblance to Marthy in his face. "I saw a man accused of a theft once," he said. "The evidence was—or seemed—absolutely unassailable. And afterward he was exonerated completely; it was just a horrible mistake. But he left school under a cloud. His life ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... There was a faint creaking of the car again, and soon the doctor said, "Pull away!" I threw all my force into the effort and gave a tremendous heave, and tumbled over backwards. Had I not done so, the projectile must have hit me as it glided ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... sustain its midday traffic at midnight—the Mansion House crossing entirely unilluminated, paved with twelve inches of liquid mud, intersected by narrow strips of pave, and liberally pitted with "crump-holes"—you may derive some faint idea of the state of things at a busy ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... breathed his last. The echoing sound of the rifle shot had hardly died away, to which the true hunter ever listens with unfeigned pleasure as the sweetest of music on his ear, whenever he has seen that his game is surely within his grasp, the last faint melody was broken in upon and completely lost in a terrific roar from the woods directly behind him. Instantly turning his head to note the source of this sound, the meaning and cause of which he well ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... "History of Agincourt," the translator of the Chaplain's Memoir (Sloane 1776) has given a far more faint representation than the original will warrant of the sufferings to which the English troops were exposed through this night of present fatigue and discomfort, and of anxious preparation for so tremendous a struggle as awaited them on the ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... comforting person, Keyork," said Unorna, with a faint smile. "I only wish I could ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... woods and open glades. Agaricus nebularis, Batsch, is a much larger species, found in woods, often in large gregarious patches amongst dead leaves, with a smoky mouse-coloured pileus, and profuse white spores. It is sometimes as much as five or six inches in diameter, with rather a faint odour and mild taste. On the continent, as well as in Britain, this is included amongst edible fungi. Still larger and more imposing is the magnificent white species, Agaricus maximus, Fr.,[F] which is figured by Sowerby,[G] under the name of Agaricus giganteus. It will attain a diameter ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... work was over, and it was late in the evening, when she sat down, tired and faint, with a great bundle of girls' themes or compositions to read over before she could rest her weary head on the pillow of her narrow trundle-bed, and forget for a while the treadmill stair of labor she ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... discourage; browbeat, bully; threaten &c 909. Adj. fearing &c v.; frightened &c v.; in fear, in a fright &c n.; haunted with the fear of &c n.; afeard^. afraid, fearful; timid, timorous; nervous, diffident, coy, faint- hearted, tremulous, shaky, afraid of one's shadow, apprehensive, restless, fidgety; more frightened than hurt. aghast; awe-stricken, horror-stricken, terror-stricken, panic- stricken, awestruck, awe-stricken, horror-struck; frightened to death, white as a sheet; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... phenomena, and is very familiar with the aspect of these fields in the nighttime. He has never been able to see any sign of the Jack-o'-lantern light. Looking fixedly into any darkness, such as is afforded by the depths of a wood, the eye is apt to imagine the appearance of faint lights. Those who have had to do with outpost duty in an army know how the anxious sentry, particularly if he is new to the soldier's trade, will often imagine that he sees lights before him. Sometimes the pickets will be so convinced of the fact that they see lights that they will fire ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... In the faint light of early morning a trumpeter saw them racing down the slope toward the fort and blew the alarm. "Santiago! Santiago!" sounded in the ears of the half-awakened French as the Spaniards came through the gaps in the defenses and over the ramparts. Fierce faces and stabbing pikes were everywhere. ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... the very sight of Karna. Karna also, O king, in that battle slew the Pandava army with his cloth-yard shafts bright as the rays of the Sun and polished by the hands of the smith. There, O Bharata, the elephants, struck by Karna with his shafts, uttered loud cries, lost strength, became faint, and wandered on all sides. While the army was being thus destroyed by the Suta's son, Nakula rushed with speed against that mighty car-warrior. And Bhimasena rushed against Drona's son who was engaged in the accomplishment of the most difficult ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... as he rose, the handkerchief slipped off, a gush of blood came with it, and he was so faint that he ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... much by day to engage the attention of the observatory; the sun, his apparent motions, his dimensions, the spots on his disk (to us the faint indications of movements of unimagined grandeur in his luminous atmosphere), a solar eclipse, a transit of the interior planets, the mysteries of the spectrum—all phenomena of vast importance and interest. But night is the astronomer's accepted ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... head a toss. "Sick! No, there wa'n't a thing the matter with her, except she ate some sassage-meat, an' had a little faint turn. Lizz was scart to death, the way she always is. She didn't act as if she knew whether her head was on, all the time we were there. She didn't act as if she knew 'twas Thanksgivin' Day; an' she didn't have no turkey that I could see. Aunt Betsey bein' took sick seemed to ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... in a long chair and told about the pain in his shoulder, and opened his shirt to show the wound. Anna leaned against the door-post and heard him. Outside his brown pony was rattling the rings of the bit and switching at flies, and she perceived the faint smell of the sweat- stained saddlery and the horse-odour she knew so well. Before her, the tall grimy man, with bandages looped about him, his pleasant face a little yellow from the loss of blood, babbled boastfully. It was a scene she was familiar with, for of old on the ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... divided into two unequal compartments, the smaller of which contained a few casks of wine, a few bales of cloth of different kinds, and a miscellaneous assortment of goods, evidently intended for the use of the settlers. Then, passing from this into the larger compartment, he at once became aware of a faint suggestion of the same peculiar and offensive odour that had assailed his nostrils while walking up from the beach, and, looking more closely, he found that it proceeded from an enormous heap of something piled high against ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... her as a mere welter of confused forces. If goodness, or aspiration, or any godlike thing arose, for a moment—like some shipwrecked soul with hands out-stretched above the waves—swiftly it sank again submerged, leaving only a faint ripple on the surface, soon ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... young—before they'd learnt to speak (For SARAH was but six days old, and PETER was a week); Though little more than babies at those early ages, yet They bashfully would faint when they ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... speech palliating its sententious absurdity, made Cecilia give up her faint attempt to soften him; and her chair being ready, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... have been lost, while others have stood forth in greater relief. The strongest feature in the character of the European-American is the greed for gold; this often becomes a passion, and transforms the most faint-hearted white into a hero, for it certainly requires the courage of one to live alone, as planter, on a plantation with perhaps some hundred slaves, far removed from all assistance, and with the prospect of being irrevocably lost in ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... fingers of two hands — in unary. The 2.x versions are said to have improved somewhat, and informed hackers now rate them superior to Microsoft Windows (an endorsement which, however, could easily be construed as damning with faint praise). ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... constituted Schmucke his universal legatee. This accomplished, he thanked Schwab and Brunner, and earnestly begged M. Leopold Hannequin to protect Schmucke's interests. The demands made upon him by last night's scene with La Cibot, and this final settlement of his worldly affairs, left him so faint and exhausted that Schmucke begged Schwab to go for the Abbe Duplanty; it was Pons' great desire to take the Sacrament, and Schmucke could not bring himself ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... levy rates would be abortive, and drive the people to desperation. The honourable and venerable member depicted the condition of the people with truthful eloquence, and he was no less correct in showing the shortcomings of the government schemes of relief. His speech was delivered in a faint voice, and with every symptom of physical exhaustion. He was heard with the most profound attention and respect. His predictions, unfortunately, came to pass. His dissolution was hastened by his inability to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... in the outer kitchen, and something that looked almost human, wrapped in a ragged bedquilt, was lying much too near it for safety. A friendly gust of wind came down the chimney, bringing back the smoke, and drawing a faint cough from the bundle. Another gust and another cough, and then a sneeze which burst open the quilt, to disclose an ill-clad little girl, six ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... They had had nothing to eat or drink since the previous evening. They all felt faint ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... written of the pastures of Lesbos. Indeed, were we here concerned in assigning to its historical source each particular trait in individual works, rather than in tracing the general development of an idea, it would be casier to distinguish a faint and slightly cynical reminiscence of Daphnis and Chloe in the Aminta and Pastor fido than in the Ameto ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... moments before he spoke again, and she then made a faint attempt to escape from him. But before she succeeded he had asked her a question which arrested her. "I wonder whether you would listen to me if I were to tell you a history?" Of course she listened, and the history he told her was the tale of ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... easel stood a portrait. Bessie looked at it, and thought it must be a likeness of her friend Col. Fraser. "But," said she, "the mustache is too faint: it wants paint." ...
— The Nursery, February 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... it seemed quite dark, but a faint light streamed in from above; we made our way up the stairs, and found that the light came through a number of small holes pierced in the upper part of the head, and through still smaller holes lower ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... trees in the sun-laved seas, And the flash of peaking oars Grew faint and dim on the sheeny rim Of the harbor-dented shores. And far Faroe in the light lay low, Where rode like a dauntless host The white-plumed waves o'er the green sea graves Of the rock-imperilled coast. And I thought of the drifting dunes In the nights of the watery moons, And ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... the way through a little orchard accordingly, where the birds, which had been sheltered and fed during the winter by the good natured artisan, early in the season as it was, were saluting the precarious smiles of a February sun with a few faint and ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Faint rays or brushes of light sometimes seem to spring from the diminishing crescent of the Sun. These rays generally are very transient and not very conspicuous, and perhaps must be distinguished as regards both their ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... a wild Florida forest, and all was still save for the hooting of a distant owl and the occasional plaintive call of a whip-poor-will. In a little clearing by the side of a faint bridle-path a huge fire of fat pine knots roared and crackled, lighting up the small cleared space and throwing its flickering rays in amongst the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... with these faint cries before Bumper began to realize just what he was up against. He had run into a big bunch of bats sleeping in the abandoned sewer, and his nibbling at them had alarmed and angered them. It was apparent from their ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... most important centuries of Art are not to be studied here. Of the six pictures, for instance, that profess to be by Giotto, the great head and master of Italian Art, there are but two from which even a faint impression of his style can be gained. There is nothing here which would enable one who had not seen his works in Italy to conceive a true idea of their character and merits. Giotto stands at the threshold of the fourteenth century, breaking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... by a night came which he thought suitable. A few stars were out, but they gave only a faint glimmer of light, not more ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... there floated to him the faint, insistent bawl of thirsty cattle. The car leaped forward again, climbed the hill, and closed in upon a remuda of horses ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... caught a fowl and carried it to roost? You take it under the wings, and the feel of it sets one's teeth on edge. It is a grisly experience. All the time you are carrying it, it makes faint protesting noises ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... A faint, faint haze dulled the palms away on the other side; from the wharf, where ships were loading up with rubber, ivory, palm-oil, and bales of gum copal, the roar and rattle of steam-winches went across the water, far away ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... pirates." As for the person who is recording his incompetence, the room and all those about began to engulf him in an ever-increasing circular motion, his knees vibrated together with unrestrained pliancy, and concentrating his voice to indicate by the allegory some faint measure of his emotion, he replied passionately, "Let the amusement referred to take the form of sitting in a boiling cauldron exposed to the derision of all beholders, this one will now enter ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... delicately lipped and beautifully sensitive; that her soft skin, although just then touched with excitement, was a pale faded velvet, and seemed to be worn with ennui rather than experience; that her eyes were hidden behind a strip of gray veil whence only a faint glow was discernible. To this must still be added a poetic fancy all his own that, as she sat there, with the skirt of her gray habit falling from her long bodiced waist over the mustang's fawn-colored flanks, and with her slim gauntleted ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... to the beach had been resumed, and the hills never had seemed to Susan as beautiful as they did this year, when the first spring sweetness began to pierce the air, and the breeze brought faint odors of grass, and good wet earth, and violets. Spring this year meant to the girl's glowing and ardent nature what it meant to the birds, with apple-blossoms and mustard- tops, lilacs and blue skies, would come the mating ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris |
