"Lightness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... youth, still unmarried after four enterprising years, was surprised into looking with very real interest at the girl who had been until that moment merely a hostess. Her extreme finish, her unself-conscious confidence and intrepidity, her unassumed lightness of temper were not often found in one so young and apparently virginal. She dismissed as unbelievable the story that this girl had been brought up in the country in an atmosphere of early Victorianism. She had obviously ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... our tarantas, made, for the sake of lightness, of woven elm withes, and varnished dark brown, was shaped not unlike a baby carriage. Such a wagon body costs about eight dollars in Kazan, where great numbers of them are made. It was set upon stout, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... still came that light footstep, and his deep-seated fears would not let him perceive that it was not the step of caution or of treachery, but owed its lightness to the natural grace and freedom of movement of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... and suddenly the lightness died away altogether from her voice. "But how is one not to get blunted? And even long ago I always hated pretence. Women are generally pretending. And they are wise. I have never been wise. If I were wise, I should not let you see my lonely, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... you. Day must soon be dawning in the east; we will try to sleep. A knot can often be untied by daylight which by lamplight seems inextricable, and perhaps on my sleepless couch the goddess may reveal to me the way I have promised to show you. A little more lightness of heart would do neither of us any harm.—Try to forget your own griefs in those of others; you see enough of them every day. To wish you a good night would probably be waste of words, but I may wish you a soothing one, You may ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... have liked to reclaim himself by a show of lightness. He was leaning on the rail looking at the sea. The scene ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... won't. I think it's time, after living with him for three weeks, that I began to look after my reputation, don't you?" said Aurora, with a forced lightness ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... gasped a little as they looked into the interior of the white globe. It was of unusual extent, Jeter estimated, a complete globe; but this one was bisected by a floor at its center, of some substance that might, for its apparent lightness, have been aluminum. Plainly it was the dwelling place of these strange conquerors of the stratosphere. It might have been a vast room designed as the dwelling place of people accustomed to all sorts ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... attack of sleepiness," Charley said with assumed lightness. "I feel all done up to-night. Guess ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... whose brightness New life around me shed; Farewell, false heart, whose lightness Now leaves me death instead. Go, now, those charms surrender To some new lover's sigh— One who, tho' far less tender, May ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... hours of darkness passed away. The canoe, from the lightness of her construction, rode easily over the seas, driving, as she now was, directly before the gale, and we were not pitched and tumbled about as we had been when the wind was on her side, and we were attempting to steer for the island. When morning dawned ...
— Mary Liddiard - The Missionary's Daughter • W.H.G. Kingston
... muslin. Although one of the thinnest and gauziest of modern silk fabrics, it is relatively strong considering its lightness. To convey an idea of the fineness of the thread used in its manufacture, it is stated that one pound of it will extend a distance of eight miles. In the process of finishing the fabric receives a dressing of pure "size." There are ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... of the Jack Spratts" is du Maurier's first attempt at a work of fiction. It is significant that in style it has the lightness of touch that would be expected from the disciple of Thackeray, and that afterwards won by its "taking" character the hearts of the readers of Trilby. It is the story of a painter, his wife and their twin children. It opens with a picture of them at home, Jack Spratt dreaming, even in ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... of—things as new and startling as the dawn of day must have appeared to the opening eyes of the first man. And all this had come to him. All these years he had groped in darkness, seeking and never finding till the dreams of youth were dead. But now all was lightness, full comprehension, and joy—joy which all but stifled in its ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... the ponderous movements and weight of manner of smaller wits and duller brains. In the girl, quiescence was the natural outcome of womanly reserve; in the Boy, it would have been mere affectation. His lightness and brightness were his great charm at present, a charm, however, which was much enhanced by moments of thoughtfulness, which gave glimpses of another nature beneath, with more substantial qualities. The Tenor had soon perceived that he was not ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... blue; in some places beautifully streaked, and varied with a silvery hue or pale straw colour, but not a cloud dimming its lustre. Severe as was the cold, as we were in constant exercise we scarcely felt it; while the rarity of the air imparted wonderful lightness and elasticity to our frames, so that sometimes I could scarcely help leaping and bounding forward. At night we generally found shelter in a cave or under an overhanging rock—always keeping up a blazing fire, to scare wild beasts, as well ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... then attracted by the extreme fineness and lightness of the texture of his wrapper and hat, which were unlike those sold in the market places. "With what grass are they plaited?" she consequently asked. "It would be strange if you didn't, with this sort of things on, look like ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... her new friend had managed to talk a good deal already. Madame Bonanni slipped between the easels and pedestals with surprising ease and lightness, and made for the divan. Margaret now saw that a stool was half concealed by a fallen pillow, so that the singer used it in order to climb up. In a moment she had settled herself comfortably, supported on all sides ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... already been heard at Pleyel's rooms, and had there obtained a brilliant success. On this occasion it was not so well received, a fact which, no doubt, must be attributed to the instrumentation, which is lacking in lightness, and to the small volume of tone which M. Chopin draws from the piano. However, it appears to us that the music of this artist will gain in the public opinion when it becomes better known. [FOOTNOTE: From the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... was perhaps a little glad to get away from it, as she was not sure of the blue dress and the small hat with its sea-gull's feather being precisely the costume she ought to wear. When she got into the Uxbridge road she breathed more freely, and in the lightness of her heart she continued her conversation with Bras, giving that attentive animal a vast amount of information, partly in English, partly in Gaelic, which he answered only by a low whine or a shake ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... "Truly, Sir John has made a mistake, his desire perhaps marring his judgment; but, as truly, I am your humble worshipper. No! please hear me out. In London I did not thrust myself upon you because I had wit enough to understand that professions with even a suspicion of lightness in them were distasteful to you; now, after what has occurred, I am at a disadvantage, and I have no intention of putting my happiness to the test at such an inopportune time. For the present look upon me as a friend who hopes presently to win a greater ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... of climate upon health and longevity, Dr. Remondino quotes old Hufeland that "uniformity in the state of the atmosphere, particularly in regard to heat, cold, gravity, and lightness, contributes in a very considerable degree to the duration of life. Countries, therefore, where great and sudden varieties in the barometer and the thermometer are usual cannot be favorable to longevity. Such countries ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... tell it again. And with Cicero we are charmed by the modernness, by the tone of to-day, which his language takes. The rapid way in which he runs from scorn to pity, from pity to anger, from anger to public zeal, and then instantly to irony and ridicule, implies a lightness of touch which, not unreasonably, surprises us as having endured for so many hundred years. That poetry should remain to us, even lines so vapid as some of those in which Ovid sung of love, seems to be more natural, because verses, though they be light, must have been labored. But these ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... traveling for an itinerant peddler, whom he expected to join later in the settlement; that he had his own methods of disposing of his wares, and (darkly) that his proprietor and the world generally had better not interfere with him; that (with a return to more confidential lightness) he had already "worked the Wild West Injin" business so successfully as to dispose of his wares, particularly in yonder house, and might do even more if not prematurely and wantonly "blown upon," "gone back on," or ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... whenever she could stagger under them. Indeed, the captain had shown, from the moment we got to sea, that he was to have no boy's play, but that the ship had got to carry all she could, and that he was going to make up, by "cracking on" to her, what she wanted in lightness. In this way, we frequently made three degrees of latitude, besides something in longitude, in the course of twenty-four hours.—Our days were spent in the usual ship's work. The rigging which had become slack from being long in port was to be set up; breast backstays got up; studding-sail ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... readily be understood, that vessels of this class, in which strength was subordinated to lightness, and economy to gingerbread decoration, seemed to be but poor materials for vessels-of-war. The tremendous recoil of a rifled cannon fired from one of those airy decks, meant to stand no ruder ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... indeed. She had been exceedingly sorrowful for a long time, and it is contrary to nature that the young should cling to sorrow, however true and constant they may be. Her love was a part of her happy girlhood, and now it seemed to have the power to bring back some of her former girlish lightness of heart. The prospects offered by Arnold certainly had little to do with the returning tide of gladness which seemed bearing her from the dark, rugged shores on which she had been nearly wrecked. It was a buoyancy ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... itch to hear. "Sire," replied Merlin, "this I may not do. I dare not open my lips to speak of such awful matters, which are too high for me, save only when needs speak I must. Should my tongue be unloosed by greed or lightness, should I be puffed up by vanity, then my familiar spirit—that being by whom I know that which I know—would withdraw his inspiration from my breath. My knowledge would depart from me, and the words I speak would be ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... very strong, he wakened to a certain lightness of spirit. The morning sun had always called him to a new day, and the sun was shining. But he grew depressed as he prepared for the office. He told himself savagely, as he put on his shabby clothing, that, having sought for peace and now found it, he was an ass for resenting it. The ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... characterises his genius, directed their distinct talents to his one great purpose. From the literary Agostino he obtained the philosophy of critical lectures and scientific principles; invention and designing solely occupied Annibale; while the softness of contours, lightness and grace, were his own acquisition. But though Annibale presumptuously contemned the rare and elevated talents of Agostino, and scarcely submitted to copy the works of Lodovico, whom he preferred to rival, yet, according ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... sandy soil, with a twofold object. I thought I might find the remains of poor Julick—in this I was unsuccessful; but I wished further to test our new crampons, and with these I am immensely pleased—they possess every virtue in a footwear designed for marching over smooth ice—lightness, warmth, comfort, and ease in ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... society. And we may believe that the five austere and lonely years at Tynemouth, with their evening outlook over the busy waters of the harbour-bar into the stern far-off sea, may have slowly bred in her an unwillingness to plunge again into the bustling triviality, the gossip, the distracting lightness of the world of splendid fireflies. To have discerned the Pale Horse so near and for so long a space awakens new moods, and strangely alters the old perspectives of our life. Yet it would imply a misunderstanding of Harriet Martineau's character to suppose that ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... sketch of one of these bridges will be found in Vol. ii.] about eighty yards long, ever rocking over the torrent (forty feet below). The lightness and extreme simplicity of its structure were very remarkable. Two parallel canes, on the same horizontal plane, were stretched across the stream; from them others hung in loops, and along the loops were laid one or two bamboo stems ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... effort taxed her severely. At the end of it, she leaned back and closed her eyes, only to open them with a start of fright at the resultant dizziness. The sensation of bodily lightness had left her. Her limbs felt sheathed in metal. An acute, throbbing pain racked her head. She was too weary to combat the depression which was like a cold, freezing ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... fill some such bubbles with hydrogen gas, instead of atmospheric air, and you will see with what ease and rapidity they will ascend, without the assistance of blowing, from the lightness of the gas. —Will you mix some soap and water whilst I fill this bladder with the gas contained in the receiver which stands on the shelf ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... potatoes over her shoulder and went down the path, leaning forward a little. The road followed the windings of the draw; when she came to the first bend, she waved at me and disappeared. I was left alone with this new feeling of lightness ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... kiln, seated close to a great heap of hops and inhaling the odour, I was in a condition of agreeable excitement all the evening. My mind was full of fancy, imagination, flowing with ideas; a sense of lightness and joyousness lifted me up. I wanted music, and felt full of laughter. Like the half-fabled haschish, the golden bloom of the hops had entered the nervous system; intoxication without wine, without injurious after-effect, dream intoxication; they were wine for the nerves. If hops ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... room seemed whirling, but in a moment that passed. I felt a sudden, growing sense of lightness. A humming was within me—a soundless tingle. To every tiny microscopic cell in my body the drug had gone. The myriad pores of my skin seemed thrilling with activity. I know now it was the exuding volatile ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... the marks of recent tillage. The whole of the plain, which ascended gently from the rivulet towards the forest, was subdivided in inclosures, by numberless fences, constructed in the rude but substantial manner of the country. Rails, in which lightness and economy of wood had been but little consulted, lying in zigzag lines, like the approaches which the besieger makes in his cautious advance to the hostile fortress, were piled on each other, until barriers seven or eight feet in height, were interposed ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... he said, with an attempt at lightness. "He won't listen to reason—nor to bribery and corruption—" this last was said openly and with a smile that robbed the idea ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... which, as he says, "may serve instead of preface and introduction," is really both, for the narrative really begins only in the second chapter. "Every nation, every age," he says, "has its own doll as a plaything for its children, and sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit) is ours." Then with lightness and grace, coupled with unquestionable critical acumen, he traces briefly the growth of "Empfindsamkeit" in Germany. "Kaum war der liebenswrdige Sterne auf sein Steckenpferd gestiegen, und hatte es uns vorgeritten; so versammelten ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... when she saw them, "what on airth have you been a-buyin' that child—jumpin'-jacks an' sich things? They ain't a bit o' good, 'ceptin' to litter up a house an' put lightness in childern's minds. Freddie, what 's that on yore apron? Goodness me! an' look at them hands—candy! 'Liphalet Hodges, I did give you credit fur better jedgment than this. Candy is the cause o' more aches an' pains than poison; an' some of it 's reelly coloured with ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Hy Brinin, king whose hosts Number my warriors fourfold. Three long years Beyond those purple mountains in the west Hostage he lies." Lightly Eochaid spake, And turned: but shaken chin betrayed that grief Which lived beneath his lightness. ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... was compelled to melt away at this moment—and then they blushed at the words that were said about them. Their stature and strength attracted the attention of everybody. The borderers could not fail to note the ease and grace of their movements, the lightness with which they walked, and the dexterity with which they pulled the big boat upon the bank. It was evident that these two youths were far above the average of their kind, that naturally of a high quality they had been trained in a school that brought ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... do they not bring to your eyes a sense of repose and unity? Look at the embroideries on the dresses, are they not delicate? do not the star-flowers come in the right place? is not the yellow in harmony with the grey and the green? And the blossoms on the trees, are they not touched in with the lightness of hand and delicacy of tone that you desire? Step back and see if the spots of colour and the effects of line become confused, or if they still hold their places from a ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... began, afflicted with a sort of lightness of head. I wanted to take out Uncle Benny's pocket-mirror that I carried with me now. Was I beautiful, and tall, and ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... contains more gluten than pastry flour and is used for bread on that account. Pastry flour having less gluten and slightly more starch is more suitable for pastry and cake mixtures and is used wherever softness and lightness are desired. ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... for the change we have made in the course is taking us away from the true direction and gives the advantage to them, as they are closer in than we. We have lost some good ground from the lightness of the wind, and we shall be fortunate if we catch sight of the ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... eloped. Launt was a good fellow, and we had a happy honeymoon, but he lost his health and came out here and invested in a mine. That brought me. I was always lucky, and we struck it—but the poor fellow didn't live long enough to enjoy it. You know all," she ended with a curious forced lightness of utterance. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... clothed in armor, the left bore a clypeus, or large round shield; a sandal tied with narrow bands forms the covering for their feet. They wear no body armor, no covering but a cloth round the waist, for by their lightness and activity alone could they hope to avoid death and gain the victory. The retiarii have the head bare, except a fillet bound round the hair; they have no shield, but the left side is covered with a demi-cuiarass, and the left arm protected ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... aprons of fig-leaves, stitched hardly so-so, to the last patent sewing-machine, he has made commendable progress. Without borrowing anything from other animals, he can now, if he chooses, rival in texture, tint, gloss, lightness, and expansiveness, the plumage of peacocks and birds-of-paradise; and it only remains that what can be done shall be done more extensively,—we do not mean for the individual, but for the masses. Man has created not only tools, but servants,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the lights and shadows in a picture. The groups seem to be entirely independent of each other. The extraordinary merit of this piece, I imagine, consists not only in the expression of divinity on the face of Christ, but also in the surprising lightness of the figure that hovers like a ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... pony to a gait which set him reaching at his bit. She sat her saddle in a fashion which belonged solely to the prairie. The long stirrups and straight limb. The lightness, and that indescribable something which suggests the single personality of ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... morning on the sea. Tio Ventolera took him to the Vedra, praising the lightness and other merits of his boat. He repaired it year after year, not a splinter of its original construction being left in it. They fished in the shelter of the rocks until mid-afternoon. On their way back Febrer saw the Little Chaplain running along ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a sympathy that did not attempt to express itself in words. On such a short acquaintance she had not learnt to expect a certain lightness of conversational touch which he always assumed when speaking of himself, as if his own thoughts and ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... was chill and grey. He felt bad. His first act, unconscious and automatic, was to feel for his sack. Its lightness startled him. Then, slowly, memories of the night thronged into his brain. Rough voices disturbed him. He opened his eyes and peered out from under the table. A couple of early risers, or, rather, men ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... mannerisms. No English writer—indeed one may say no writer at all—has ever tempered such a blend of quiet contempt with perfect good-humour and perfect good-breeding. Dryden would have written with an equally fatal serenity, but not so lightly; Voltaire with as much lightness, but not nearly so much like a gentleman—which may also be said Of Courier. Thackeray could not have helped a blaze of indignation—honest and healthy, but possibly just plusquam-artistic—at the unspeakable persons who think that by blackening the unhappy Harriet ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... your highness," he murmured, with a sudden lightness of speech and manner. "Henceforth I shall be a most ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... ascending of these Vapours into the Air, depends upon many things, and therefore as different as its Causes; for instance, their ascent depends in the first place on the degree of Heat with which they are drawn up or forced out; next upon the Lightness of the Vapours themselves; thirdly, on the Density or Rarity of the Air through which they pass; and lastly, on the Force and Direction of the Winds, which ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge
... Bridgeport, or to pass around by Decatur and abandon altogether his attempt to make us let go our hold of Atlanta by attacking our communications. It was clear to me that he had no intention to meet us in open battle, and the lightness and celerity of his army convinced me that I could not possibly catch him on a stern-chase. We therefore quietly followed him down the Chattooga Valley to the neighborhood of Gadsden, but halted the main armies near the Coosa River, at the mouth ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... The alternation of white marble surfaces and mouldings with pietra serena pilasters, cornices, and arches, defines the structural design, and gives a grave but agreeable sense of variety. Finally, the recess behind the altar adds lightness and space to what would otherwise have been a box. What I have already observed when speaking of the vestibule to the library must be repeated here: the whole scheme is that of an exterior turned outside in, and its justification lies in the fact that it demanded ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... to the place where the frigate lay, was only three miles, yet, in consequence of the lightness of the wind, they did not get within hail of her until eleven o'clock. When they had approached within two hundred yards, they were hailed and ordered to anchor, or they would be fired into. Lieutenant Decatur ordered a Maltese pilot, who was ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... entertaining."—Buffalo Express. "One of the best stories of life in a girl's college that has ever been written." —N. Y. Press. "To any woman who has enjoyed the pleasures of a college life this book cannot fail to bring back many sweet recollections; and to those who have not been to college the wit, lightness, and charm of Patty are sure to be no less ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... to lightness, freedom, and quickness of motion within a somewhat narrow range, with readiness to turn suddenly to any point; swift applies commonly to more sustained motion over greater distances; a pickpocket is nimble-fingered, a ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... He then suggests certain improvements in the design, which would have made the bridge "unexceptionably the most novel and the most tasteful in the metropolis. Even as it is, it is scarcely surpassed for lightness, elegance, and originality by any in Europe. It is of the same family with the beautiful little bridge in Hyde Park, between the new ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... to construct wings or aeroplanes which, when driven through air at sufficient speed, will not only sustain the weight of the wings themselves, but also that of the engine, and of the engineer as well. Men also know how to build engines and screws of sufficient lightness and power to drive these planes at sustaining speed. As long ago as 1893 a machine weighing 8,000 lbs. demonstrated its power both to lift itself from the ground and to maintain a speed of from 30 to 40 miles per hour; but it came to grief in an accidental free flight, owing ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... the joy that arose in my mind when I looked around and concluded that I was out of danger. I felt like one recovered from sickness; I breathed freer; I found unusual lightness in my limbs; even the desert looked pleasant; and I dreaded nothing so much as falling in with some wandering parties of Moors, who might convey me back to the land of thieves and murderers from which I ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... smooth, unwrinkled forehead,—like some Paladin of the rhyme of poet or romancer; and, perhaps, not only in this masculine advantage, but in the rare and harmonious combination of colossal strength with graceful lightness, a more splendid union of all the outward qualities we are inclined to give to the heroes of old never dazzled the eye or impressed the fancy. But even this effect of mere person was subordinate to that ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... old emblems of the power of Venice, and overlooking the Adriatic, once the empire of the republic. The architecture of Venice has to my eyes, something watery and oceanic in its aspect. Under the hands of Palladio, the Grecian orders seemed to borrow the lightness and airiness of the Gothic. As you look at the numerous windows and the multitude of columns which give a striated appearance to the fronts of the palaces, you think of stalactites and icicles, such as you might imagine to ornament the abodes of the water-gods ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... appears, was absolutely fearless in the presence of danger, and faced an angry boar or wounded stag with the same lightness of heart. The greater the risks she ran, the higher her spirits rose. This feature of his young wife's character aroused the Moro's highest admiration. In a letter of the 8th of July, after recounting the various incidents of a long day's hunting, he tells the Marchesa what a narrow escape ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... an assumption of lightness, "Aunt Emma told me, of course. How in the world could you suppose that I, in my busy life, could possibly remember a little thing like ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... solution to the puzzle if it were to explode while I stood there, in my nightshirt, looking on. It is true that the box weighed very little. Probably, as I have said, the whole affair would not have turned the scale at a couple of ounces. But then its very lightness might have been part of the ingenious inventor's little game. There are explosives with which one can work a very satisfactory amount of damage with considerably less than a ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... yellow, red, white, and their combinations, as also the visual forms of appearance (sa@msthana) of long, short, round, square, high, low, straight, and crooked. The sense of touch (kayendriya) has for its object the four elements and the qualities of smoothness, roughness, lightness, heaviness, cold, hunger and thirst. These qualities represent the feelings generated in sentient beings by the objects of touch, hunger, thirst, etc., and are also counted under it, as they are the organic effects produced by a touch which excites the physical frame at a time ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... busied ourselves with gathering up our baskets and fastening the anchor—I remember, I say, what a figure she made. There is a certain purity in this Cragthorpe air which I have never seen approached,—a lightness, a brilliancy, a crudity, which allows perfect liberty of self-assertion to each individual object in the landscape. The prospect is ever more or less like a picture which lacks its final process, its reduction to unity. Miss Blunt's figure, as she stood there on the beach, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... him, but he wouldn't listen to her. He only kissed her, and with a lightness he did not feel tried to convince her that everything would be all right. In their hearts they both knew it wouldn't be but they left it that way because it was ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... by the river-wall and looked up at the stars through the plane-tree branches. Every now and then he drew a long breath of the warm, unstirring air, and smiled, without knowing that he smiled. And he thought of little, of nothing; but a sweetish sensation beset his heart, a kind of quivering lightness his limbs. He sat down on a bench and shut his eyes. He saw a face—only a face. The lights went out one by one in the houses opposite; no cabs passed now, and scarce a passenger was afoot, but Summerhay sat like a man in a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and the last aperture was shut up by a small conical piece. The whole was built from within and each slab was cut so that it retained its position without requiring support until another was placed beside it, the lightness of the slabs greatly facilitating the operation. When the building was covered in a little loose snow was thrown over it to close up every chink and a low door was cut through the walls with a knife. A bed-place was next formed and neatly faced up with slabs of snow, which was then ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... heroism decided the victory. The Swiss rushed into the gap made by Winkelried, and, having now come to close quarters with their enemies, their bodily strength and the lightness of their equipment gave them a great advantage over the heavily armed Austrians, who were already fainting under the heat of a July sun. The very closeness of the array of the Austrian men-at-arms rendered them incapable either of advancing or falling back, and, the grooms who held their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the river, for she lay opposite our room; we immediately hurried ourselves. It was very uncivil in the mate, for the captain was still in the city, and would go to Gravesend. We took a wherry and went after her, as she had not gone far in consequence of the mist and lightness of the wind. We drifted to-day scarcely outside ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... material. Bohnite, a commercial carburizing compound is used exclusively at this plant. This does excellent work and is economical. Broadly speaking, the economy of a carburizing compound depends on its lightness. The space not occupied by work must be filled with compound; therefore) other things being equal, a compound weighing 25 lb. would be worth more than twice as much as one weighing 60 lb. per cubic foot. It has been claimed that certain compounds can be used over and over again, but this is ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... place between them, and in which each party counteracted the feats of the other, resembled the encounter between Sakra and the Danavas in the great battle fought of yore between the gods and the Asuras. The lightness of arm that we then beheld of the Suta's son was wonderful in the extreme, inasmuch as, all his foes, fighting resolutely, could not strike him in that battle. Checking the clouds of arrows shot by the (hostile) king, that mighty car-warrior, viz., Radha's ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... tint, his relief and breadth. Zanetti enumerates a surprising number of Francesco's works, seven of them being painted for the Ducal Palace. Leandro followed more particularly his father's first manner, was a good portrait-painter, and possessed lightness and fancy. Girolamo copied and recopied the old Bassano till he even deceived connoisseurs, "how much more," says Zanetti, writing in 1771, "those of the present day, who behold them harmonised and accredited by time." ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... into a canter, and with the swifter movement Domini felt more calm. There was an odd lightness in her brain, as if her thoughts were being shaken out of it like feathers out of a bag. The power of concentration was leaving her, and a sensation of carelessness—surely gipsy-like—came over her. Her body, dipped in the dry and thin air as in a clear, cool bath, did not suffer from ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... that as she thanked him and passed on she smiled, and that she did so from lightness of heart. Certainly her heart was less heavy. It was less heavy because of his kindness, because of this indication that some one cared what became of her. She felt so forsaken that almost anybody's kindness would have had the ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... was about to lay my very heart at your feet when the Duke's trumpet called me away, ere I guessed, fool that I was, that mine was the hand that left the scar that now I love, but which once I treated with a brute's or a boy's lightness. Oh! pardon me! Still less did I know that it was my own forsaken wife who saved my life, who tended my sickness, nay, as I verily believed, toiled for me and my bread through these long seven years, all in secret. Yea, and won my entire soul and deep devotion ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Jotham-first-fable, the bramble and vine, Piles up to a climax the praise of good wine; For in Judges we read—look it up, as you can— 'It cheereth the heart, both of God and of man;' And everywhere lightness, and brightness, and health, Gild the true temperance texts with their wealth, Giving strong drink to the ready to perish, And heavy-heartedness ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Robertson lie down upon his bed, I took a good look at the slain Amahagger. They were magnificent men, all of them; tall, spare and shapely with very clear-cut features and rather frizzled hair. From these characteristics, as well as the lightness of their colour, I concluded that they were of a Semitic or Arab type, and that the admixture of their blood with that of the Bantus was but slight, if indeed there were any at all. Their spears, of which one had been cut through by a blow of ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... body incapable of deriving nourishment from such an untimely aliment. But if what is taken is light, pure, and apt for producing chyle, the stomach being capable of digesting it, must turn it to the most wholesome nutrition. To attain this end, foreign teas, from their lightness, have been universally adopted; but, as we have found, from their nature, how ill adapted they are to be given when the nerves are already too weak to bear their violent astringency, such should be used as are possessed of the ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... is called the best rope jumper in the village, I hear; and levity, or lightness of carriage, is the great requisite for skill in the art. Then there are 'vain repetitions' in doing the same thing over and over so often, and 'vain repetitions' are forbidden even in our prayers. I can call both father and mother ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... his motor's last toilet, had just set it in motion. It was a prodigy of lightness and strength, of no weight whatever in comparison with the power it displayed. And it worked with perfect smoothness, without noise or smell. The whole family was gathered round it in delight, when there came a timely visit, one from ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... in an overwhelming wave. Some broken remnants, in their terror and confusion, fled from their own countrymen and sought refuge among their enemies, not knowing friend from foe in the obscurity of the groves. The Moors were more adroit in these wild skirmishings from their flexibility, lightness, and agility, and the rapidity with which they would disperse, rally, and ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... little of the prairie broncho in the big horse beneath him, whose sire had brought the best blood that could be imported into that country, and he had examined every buckle of girth and headstall as he fastened them. He also rode, for lightness, in a thin deerskin jacket which fitted him closely, with a rifle across his saddle, gazing with keen eyes across the shadowy waste when now and then a half-moon came out. Once he also drew bridle and sat still a minute listening, ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... in the year 1812 was the first seen on these western waters! The view of a long range of these splendid vessels lying against the landing-place is magnificent. Though not very substantial, they are extremely showy. Lightness of construction and elegance of accommodation are chiefly studied. The "Anglo-Saxon" is not by any means one of the largest class. These vessels are doubtless well adapted for their purpose as river boats; in the sea, they could do nothing ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... shadow. For us Christ has died, on us the Spirit has descended. In these respects we are honoured and privileged, oh how far above all ages before He came! Yet our honours are our shame, when we contrast the glory given us with our love of the world, our fear of men, our lightness of mind, our sensuality, our gloomy tempers. What need have we to look with wonder and reverence at those saints of the Old Covenant, who with less advantages yet so far surpassed us; and still more at those of the Christian Church, who both had higher ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... Did you think for a moment I'd let you take that ride alone?" She smiled faintly with a brave attempt at lightness. "You'd be falling off and breaking another rib. Please don't make difficulties. I'm going with you, and that's an end ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... and dry, pretending she hadn't hurt him. He would always take hurts like that, with that deadly, steely lightness. By its deadliness, its steeliness, she knew that it was all true (and much more besides) that she had heard ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... square section compared with the round section of the quill, the flat barbs, their short, hooked barbules which, in the flight-feathers, hook into one another with just sufficient firmness to resist the pressure of the air at each wing-beat, the lightness and firmness of the whole apparatus, the elasticity of the vane, and so on. And yet all this belongs to an organ which is only passively functional, and therefore can have nothing to do with the LAMARCKIAN PRINCIPLE. ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... letter, Miles went out with a feeling of lightness about his heart that he had not felt since that wretched day when he forsook his ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... describes the tree (Cedrela toona—Roxb.) called calanta in Tagal, and lanipga in Visayan. The tree is fragrant and has wood of a reddish color. It was used for making the hulls of vessels, because of its strength and lightness. The same author describes also the asana (Pterocarpus indicus—Willd.) or as it is called in the Visayas, naga or narra—as an aromatic tree, of which there are two varieties, male and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... was that her little scheme of alienation had failed. Major King, she told herself, had not returned the glove to Frances. For all his lightness in the matter, perhaps he cared deeply for Frances, and would be more difficult to wean than she had thought. It would have to be begun anew. That Frances was ignorant of her treachery, as she now fully believed, made it easier. So the little lady told herself, ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... the wind was light, the weather pleasant, and the sea smooth, Decatur determined to attack that night. By arrangement the Siren kept almost out of sight during the day, and her appearance was so changed as to lull all suspicion of her true character. The lightness of the wind allowed the ketch to maintain the appearance of an anxious desire to reach the harbour before night, without bringing her too near to require any other change than the use of drags (in this case buckets towed astern) which could not be seen from ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... up at him as he stood there, so tall and straight and altogether good to look at, and the glow of love and pride in her eyes belied the lightness of her words. ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... Gale could distance Yaqui going downhill; on the climb, however, he was hard put to it to keep the Indian in sight. It was not a question of strength or lightness of foot. These Gale had beyond the share of most men. It was a matter of lung power, and the Yaqui's life had been spent scaling the desert heights. Moreover, the climbing was infinitely slow, tedious, dangerous. On the way up several times Gale imagined he heard a dull roar of falling ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... always, however,—so I suspect,—some preliminary warning, some audible crack or visible vibration. I had kept in mind the possibility of such changes, and at the slightest intimation should have darted away,—a movement favored by the lightness of the skiff, and the extreme ease with which, under the advantage of a beautiful model, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... nothing to fall back upon, nothing to remember but time mis-spent, and energies misdirected, they turn their eyes and not their thoughts to Heaven, and delude themselves into the impious belief, that in denouncing the lightness of heart of which they cannot partake, and the rational pleasures from which they never derived enjoyment, they are more than remedying the sins of their old career, and—like the founders of monasteries and builders of churches, in ruder days— ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... counterpart of the one in which Contarini had drunk her health at midnight. Her father had given it to her as it came from the annealing oven, still warm after long hours of cooling with many others like it. She loved it for its grace and lightness, and as for the rose, it was the one she had made Zorzi give back to her yesterday. She meant to keep it in water till it faded, and then she would press it between the first page and the binding ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... his latest manner, called the vaporoso, or vapory, which was first used in some of his pictures executed for the Church of Sta. Maria la Blanca. In this manner the rigid outlines of his first style is gone; there is a feathery lightness of touch as if the brush had swept the canvas smoothly and with unbroken evenness: this softness is enhanced by frequent contrasts with harder and heavier groups in ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... engulphing sand now reflected the rays of the torrid sun from its burning whiteness. She shewed me a picture of the town as it appeared to her when she had been brought there many a long and weary year ago, ere yet her step had lost its lightness, and when she was in the bloom of her bridal life. There was a fine broad boulevard, shadowed by splendid trees, on which she and her husband had driven in their carriage of an evening, through crowds of prosperous and contented traders ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis |
