"Quaint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fields of childhood, and leads another little boy to that non-locatable land called "Brer Rabbit's Laughing Place," and again the quaint animals spring into active life and play their parts, for the edification of a small ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... of distant countries From North to South that range, Of strange fantastic nations, And their customs quaint and strange. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... box-respirators in the alert position. To avoid the passage of a column of ammunition waggons crunching along one of the narrow streets we stepped inside a crumbling house. No sign of furniture, no stove, but in one corner—quaint relic of less eventful days—a sewing-machine, ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... been widely diffused on Asiatic and European soil, and shortly after the colonization of America it appeared in our colonies. Many are the quaint records of its visitations, not the least interesting of which is a letter which appeared in the Boston Evening Post, November 12, 1739, entitled "A letter about good management under the distemper of measles at this time spreading in the country, here published for the benefit of the poor and ...
— Measles • W. C. Rucker
... everything genuine. Such as I am, I am genuine myself. Hah! A gentleman's watch with two cases in the old fashion. May I remove it from the outer case? Thank you. Aye? An old silk watch-lining, worked with beads! I have often seen these among old Dutch people and Belgians. Quaint things!' ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... a stated address either in opening or closing, but throughout the entire convention kept up a running fire of quaint, piquant, original and characteristic observations which delighted the audience and gave a distinctive attraction to the meetings. It was impossible to keep a record of these and they would lose their zest and appropriateness if separated from the circumstances which called them forth. They can ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... have been well known to Kuhnau. Apart from the character of the music, the title of the work, Musikalische Fruelings Fruechte, and the religious style of the preface, remind one of Kuhnau's "Frische Fruechte," also of his preface to the "Bible" Sonatas. It is curious to find the quaint expression "unintelligent birds" used first by Becker, ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... again at the quaint adroitness of his speech. But her lips were curiously unsteady, and she found the darkness very comforting. There was no moon, and the sky was veiled. She suffered the strong clasp of his fingers about her own without protest. What did it ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... of talent and beauty. The figures that used to be seen on Wallack's stage, at the house he established upon the wreck of John Brougham's Lyceum, often rise in memory, crowned with a peculiar light. Lester Wallack, in his peerless elegance; Laura Keene, in her spiritual beauty; the quaint, eccentric Walcot; the richly humorous Blake, so noble in his dignity, so firm and fine and easy in his method, so copious in his natural humour; Mary Gannon, sweet, playful, bewitching, irresistible; Mrs. Vernon, as full of character as the tulip is of colour or the hyacinth ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Quaint old Thomas Fuller gives a pretty simile when he says that "Poetry is music in words, and music is poetry in sound"; and, in so far as melodious form and harmonious thought express and arouse emotion, he gives ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... brimmed hat trimmed with roses and fluttering ribbons. High-heeled slippers with bright buckles and a crook tied with blue ribbons added to the quaint effect, and the whole costume was very becoming to ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... district, between the celebrated towns of Hastings and Brighton, may be found the quaint old structure known as Bereford Castle. From the style of architecture it may be dated to the time of Edward the Third, bearing a striking resemblance to the castle re-erected in that monarch's reign by the Earl of Warwick. The castle of this period ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... 'traditions' were remarkable for their absence; but I fancy that the spirits of Siddons and Kemble, Macready and Garrick, looked down with kind approval upon these earnest young actors as they recited the matchless old words, moving to and fro in the quaint setting of trees and moonlight, with an orchestra of ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... spines being gone, Not royal in their smells alone, But in their hue; Maiden pinks, of odour faint, Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... which, in common with most British people, I am bitterly opposed. Walsh's "World Rebuilt" is a good exhortation, and Mugge's "Parliament of Man" is fresh and sane and able. The omnivorous reader will find good sense and quaint English in Judge Mejdell's "Jus Gentium," published in English by Olsen's of Christiania. There is an active League of Nations Society in Dublin, as well as the London and Washington ones, publishing pamphlets and conducting propaganda. ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... an old man; indeed, in years he was in the prime of life. Yet by his looks he might almost have been double his age, the more so in contrast with Minna Pitts, his young and very pretty wife, who stood near him in the quaint breakfast-room and solicitously moved a pillow back ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... that he had allowed no time for preliminary threats and profanity, rather baffled these hoodlums. He had a quaint way of cutting out all the customary boasts and menaces preceding an encounter, and going straight to ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... provisioned ourselves was adorned with the legend, Vreugde bij Vrede, "Joy with Peace," and it bore every mark of the busy retirement of a comfort-loving proprietor. I went along his garden, which was gay and delightful with big bushes of rose and sweet brier, to a quaint little summer-house, and there I sat and watched the men in groups cooking and squatting along the bank. The sun was setting in a nearly ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... to examine these quaint tributes, Miss Keene had thrown herself, with an impulsive, girlish abandonment, on the mound by the cross, and Hurlstone sat down beside her. Their eyes met in an innocent pleasure of each other's company. ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... chamber in an ancient house. Curious and quaint carvings adorn the walls, and the large chimney-piece is a curiosity of itself. The ceiling is low, and a large bay window, from roof to floor, looks to the west. The window is latticed, and filled with curiously painted glass and rich stained pieces, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... book will interest lovers of animals, and the quaint style in which M. Gautier tells of the wisdom of his household pets will please every one. The translator, too, is happy in her work, for she has succeeded in rendering the text into English without loss of the French tone, which makes it fascinating. These household pets ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... looked lovely in a perfectly simple white satin dinner frock, her only jewellery being a thin gold necklet, from which was suspended a very fine opal in a quaint and curious gold setting. She acknowledged my introduction to her with the slightest possible inclination of her head, and thereafter ignored my existence for the rest of the evening. And her brother's greeting of me ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... hall Stephen's door stood always open, and Courtland, walking that way one day, found fresh flowers upon his desk and wreathed around his mother's picture. A quaint little photograph of Stephen taken several years back hung on one wall. It had been sent at the class's request by Stephen's mother to honor her son's ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Never moping, never dull, For her mind is amply stored With an overflowing hoard Of the tales of fairy times, And of quaint old nursery rhymes, So that she can always find Good companions when inclined! This is Fairy Fanciful, IN ...
— Fairy's Album - With Rhymes of Fairyland • Anonymous
... Cyprian, in his quaint, eastern accent. It was the strange guest in the tavern by Corinth. The Prince—prince surely, whatever his other title—was in the same rich dress as at the Isthmus, only his flowing beard had been dyed raven black. Yet Democrates's eyes were diverted instantly to the peculiarly handsome ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... on his temples. Gamut stood at his side, his meek head bared to the rays of the sun, while his eyes, wandering and concerned, seemed to be equally divided between that little volume, which contained so many quaint but holy maxims, and the being in whose behalf his soul yearned to administer consolation. Heyward was also nigh, supporting himself against a tree, and endeavoring to keep down those sudden risings of sorrow that it required ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... thoughts that swelled the seaman's broad chest during that walk, and numerous, as well as wild and quaint, were the plans of escape which he conceived and found it ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... though he had been a faithful servant to his master, was always longing to enjoy his free liberty, to wander uncontrolled in the air, like a wild bird, under green trees, among pleasant fruits, and sweet-smelling flowers. 'My quaint Ariel,' said Prospero to the little sprite when he made him free, 'I shall miss you; yet you shall have your freedom.' 'Thank you, my dear master,' said Ariel; 'but give me leave to attend your ship home with ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... great care, as any other part of the contents. There are probably very few among American magazine readers who do not habitually look through the advertising pages, with the certainty that they will be entertained by the beauty of the advertiser's illustrations and the quaint curtness of his phrases. Another reason is that the American monthly magazine goes to all parts of the United States, while, owing to the time required for long journeys on even the swiftest trains, no American daily paper can have so general a circulation as The Times in the United ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... always kept a shrew ash at hand which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew ash was made thus: into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged in, no doubt with several quaint incantations long since forgotten." It is marvellous how people could ever have believed such stuff; but equal absurdities are still accepted by many people to this very day; so strong a hold on men's minds have the kindred vices ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... released, and turned by those streams of water into streams of wealth—fleecy cotton, luscious fruit and melons, food and clothes. And what nice people lived out here. The Chinamen who worked in the field, quaint and friendly and faithful. Even the Mexicans with their less industrious and more tricky habits were warm hearted and courteous. That serenading Madrigal was very interesting—and handsome. He had fire in him; perhaps dangerous ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... indulged himself in going about under that broiling sun of July, peddling starch, was very probably an impostor. He computed a good day's profits of seventy-five cents, and when asked if that was not very little for the support of a sick wife and three children, he answered with a quaint effort at impressiveness, and with a trick, as I imagined, from the manner of the regimental chaplain, "You've done your duty, my friend, and more'n your duty. If every one did their duty like that, we should get along." So he took leave, and shambled out into the furnace- heat, the ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... revealed a ladder, leading to a hiding-place between the floor of the nursery and the ceiling of the room below—a hiding-place so small that he who had hid there must have crouched on his hands and knees or lain at full length, and yet large enough to contain a quaint old carved oak chest, half filled with priests' vestments, which had been hidden away, no doubt, in those cruel days when the life of a man was in danger if he was discovered to have harbored a Roman Catholic priest, or to have ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... Grant, and Sorrel, found themselves in the quaint old city of Bergen their first thought was ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... A quaint old house of colonial date and style, set in the midst of extensive grounds and shaded by graceful old trees,—this is "Quillcote,"—the summer home of Mrs. Wiggin. Quillcote is typical of many old New England homesteads; ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... recording. More facts than we have space to reproduce, testify to the heroism, religious zeal, and literary industry of the women who helped to build up the early civilization of New England. Their writings, for some presumed on authorship, are quaint and cumbrous; but in those days, when few men published books, it required marked courage for women to appear in print at all. They imitated the style popular among men, and received much attention for their literary ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... service. At first with some aid from an interpreter, afterwards mostly by signs and broken fragments of language, I got to be able to converse with this Turk. (In the Balkans the various shreds of races have quaint crazy-quilt patchworks of conversational language. Somehow or other even a British citizen with more than the usual stupidity of our race as to foreign languages can make himself understood in the Balkan Peninsula, which is so polyglottic that its inhabitants ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... which we have any record, took place two years after the signing. General Howe had left the city shortly before, and every one was feeling bright and happy. In the diary of one of the old patriots who took part in this unique celebration, appears the following quaint, and even picturesque, description of the events ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... upshot of the matter was that he went to the girl and told her—all these ideas of his; quit, came West; left the road open to the other man. Oh, yes, there was another man, of course; one thoroughly approved of by the family. Quaint, wasn't it? Perhaps a little overly judicial. But then that was his way. Slow-moving and sure. He saw the girl at dusk in the garden of her family's country place; near a sun-dial, or some other appropriately romantic spot. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... cheerful and practical presence, the faint odour of lavender still clung to the air, and the silence was unbroken except for a faint stirring of the window curtains now and then to the breeze from outside. Everything was, indeed, just as it had been left, the toilet tidies and all the quaint contraptions of the '50's and '60's in their places. On the wall opposite the bed hung several water colours evidently the work of that immature artist Mary Mascarene, a watch pocket hung above the bed, a thing embroidered with blue roses, enough to disturb the sleep of any aesthete, yet beautiful ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... Alexander Spotswood, Governor of the Colony of Virginia, and a gallant soldier who had served under Marlborough in the English wars, rode, at the head of a dauntless band of cavaliers, down the quiet street of quaint old Williamsburg. ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... coevals, whom at last Time Is taking by the locks at forty-nine, Searching (a quaint but inexpensive pastime) For balder heads ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... "he ought to know better," or "he shouldn't write such things"—in other words, he is guilty of the shocking crime of letting the cat out of the bag. He discards the Creation Story, just like Professor Bruce, who calls the fall of Adam a "quaint" embodiment of the theological conception of sin. He dismisses all the patriarchs before Abraham as "mythical." He admits the late origin of the Pentateuch, and only claims for Moses the probable authorship of the Decalogue. He says the Song of Solomon is "of the nature of a drama." ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... suggestion made to me indirectly through a friend by Mr. Andrew Lang. They have been translated from the modern version written by Sadanami Sanjin. These stories are not literal translations, and though the Japanese story and all quaint Japanese expressions have been faithfully preserved, they have been told more with the view to interest young readers of the West than ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... by Martin's side and stroked his fair curls, as he sought in his own quaint fashion to console him. But in vain. Martin grew quite desperate as he thought of the misery into which poor Aunt Dorothy Grumbit would be plunged, on learning that he had been swept out to sea in a little boat, and drowned, as she would naturally ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... resumed Fu-Manchu, "we call this quaint fancy the Six Gates of joyful Wisdom. The first gate, by which the rats are admitted, is called the Gate of joyous Hope; the second, the Gate of Mirthful Doubt. The third gate is poetically named, the Gate of True Rapture, and the fourth, the Gate of Gentle Sorrow. I once was honored in ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... indeed but little to amuse the traveller in Langres, after the cathedral, beyond the quaint streets and the beautiful old timber-framed houses. Doubtless Monsieur Verdayne—he did not know Paul's title—would wish to see the cathedral that very afternoon; it would be pleasant to go to vespers. A little later for himself, he would recommend another walk to the ramparts ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... rather provoking," Morriston said, as they waited. "I particularly wanted to show you the view, which should be lovely on a clear day like this. If we have to wait much longer the light will be going. Besides, it is quite a quaint old room with a curious recess formed by the bartizan you ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... through the earnest hands that have labored for its welfare and left imperishable monuments. To the legacies of remembrances you have had handed down to you, I add this little story of a long ago time, a posy culled from quaint gardens. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... wharf, and along a quaint and crooked street. The sidewalk was so narrow that we had to walk in single file, and the curb-stone, as Mr. Daddles put it, was made of wood. There were a few shops, but as most of them sold ships' supplies, we did not go in any of them. A pleasant smell of tar ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... curious kind, and entitled, 'The Canister of the Blue Devils, by Democritus, junior.' Dr. Bell possessed a very large library, and spent a good part of his time in extracting, both from his books and the newspapers and periodicals of the day, all available paragraphs containing quaint sayings and doings, which he stuck upon large pieces of pasteboard, for the inspection of his friends, and subsequent publication in some 'canister' shape. John Clare met Peter Pindar's friend at the ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... in the slush and sleet at the gate of the graveyard, it was welcomed by a strange pair, Franz Harruschka, the assistant grave-digger, and his mother Katharina, known as 'Frau Katha,' who filled the quaint office of ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... first part—a Cookery Book, with a few dry sprigs of rosemary and lavender stuck here and there between the leaves, (I suppose to point to some of the old lady's most favorite receipts,) and there was "Wither's Emblems," an old book, and quaint. The old-fashioned pictures in this last book were among the first exciters of the infant Rosamund's curiosity. Her contemplation had fed upon ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... side of the square, and half-hidden in ivy, was a Noah's Ark church, topped by a quaint belfry holding a bell that had not rung for years, and faced by a clock-dial all weather-stains and cracks, around which travelled a single rusty hand. In its shadow to the right lay the home of the Archdeacon, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... one of the most popular orators of his day. He had a deep, sonorous, flexible voice, which he used to great advantage. He had a wonderful gift of touching the human heart, now melting his hearers by his pathos, then convulsing them with his quaint humor. He was attractive in manner, generous in feeling, spontaneous in expression, and free from ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... be worth while to go once. The first time I went I thought it was like a quaint, melancholy dream. Such a dim, hollow, dusty old building, and little cherubs with grimy little marble faces looking down from the walls. When the congregation began to shuffle in each new-comer was more decrepit and withered than the last, till I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... original appearance in 1810. Mr. Codman in his most valuable book on the Expedition, justly says of these and similar journals: "They constitute an invariably interesting body of historical material, which preserves unimpaired the quaint individuality of their widely-diverse authors, and the unmistakable color and atmosphere of a period which must always be of particular importance to the students ...
— An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut • Abner Stocking
... villas. The charm of it all is incomparable. To the northwest stretches the limpid horizon of the Bay of Biscay, and to the south the snowy summits of the Pyrenees, and the adorable bays of Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Fontarabie, while behind, and to the eastward, lies the quaint country of the Basques, and the mountain trails into Spain in ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... cloister wall: The deadliest sin her mind could reach Was of monastic rule the breach; And her ambition's highest aim To emulate Saint Hilda's fame. For this she gave her ample dower, To raise the convent's eastern tower; For this, with carving rare and quaint, She decked the chapel of the saint, And gave the relic-shrine of cost, With ivory and gems embossed. The poor her convent's bounty blest, The pilgrim in its halls ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... knew also, but not intimately. Young Plunkett, as he was always called, would never strike one as a militant person. He, like Pearse and MacDonagh, wrote verse, and it was no better nor worse than their's were. He had an appetite for quaint and difficult knowledge. He studied Egyptian and Sanscrit, and distant curious matter of that sort, and was interested in inventions and the theatre. He was ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... began and told her, omitting nothing, while she listened eagerly to every word, hardly interrupting him at all. As he finished his tale they reached the door of the quaint old village church just as the clock ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... background. Between them from the first of those days in London was a consciousness of being man and woman there had not been for her at Cloom, though he now told her she had always disturbed him, that there was for him a something profoundly troubling in her slim sexless body, her burning mind, her quaint little sureness of poise which never let her lose her sense of proportion. That had so appealed to him ... never from her had he heard the talk of women, that love was the greatest thing in the world, or that any one person could matter more than all the many other things ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... blithe and jolly peal Makes the Franciscan steeple reel? And see! upon the crowded street, In motley groups what masquers meet! Banner and pageant, pipe and drum, And merry morrice-dancers come. I guess, by all this quaint array, The burghers hold their sports to-day. James will be there; he loves such show, Where the good yeoman bends his bow, And the tough wrestler foils his foe, As well as where, in proud career, The high-born filter shivers spear. I'll follow to the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... streets and quaint old houses of the little town of Coucy-le-Chateau are huddled around the outworks of the colossal castle, almost as closely as are the climbing streets and the terraced houses of St.-Michel around ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... quadrangular pile, deep-set in rich woody country, and twinkling with triple rows of quaint windows, every one of which seemed alight as we drove up just in time to dress for dinner. The carriage had whirled us under I know not how many triumphal arches in process of construction, and past the tents and flag-poles of a juicy-looking cricket-field, on which Raffles undertook to bowl ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... unprotected leg, just above the knee, and shattered the bone. He endeavored to remain on the field, but his horse became unmanageable, and in agonies of pain and thirst he rode back to the English quarters, a mile and a half distant. An incident of that ride, as told in the quaint language of Lord Brooke, retains the immortal charm of pathos which commands our ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... no more difficult thing to do well than to model the figure while still preserving the decorative outline. Several examples of the skilful accomplishment of this problem are illustrated here. Observe, for instance, how in the quaint Duerer-like design by Mr. Howard Pyle, Fig. 66, the edges of the drapery-folds are emphasized in the shadow by keeping them white, and see how wonderfully effective the result is. The same device is also to be noticed in the book-plate design by Mr. A. G. Jones, Fig. 62, as well as in the ...
— Pen Drawing - An Illustrated Treatise • Charles Maginnis
... mediaeval impressions have been unearthed in strange localities, in the bed of the Seine, as far away as Paris. Rude and archaic are many of these early essays in the sculptor's art. But they preserve for us, in quaint intensity, the fervor of adoration which possessed that earlier, more devout time and period. On the mind of this nineteenth century pilgrim, the same lovely old forms of belief and superstition were imprinted as are still to be ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... together through gardens of amaranth and asphodel towards the Grecian portico of heaven; and all these fortunate personages, whether monarchs, priests, fine ladies, or beggars, are depicted with perfectly infantine faces. To do this well lay exactly in the quaint, delicate nature of the angelic Frater; and this portion of the picture is most exquisitely handled. The other moiety, where devils with rabbits' ears, tiger faces, and monkeys' tails, are forking over the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Plouharnel, Concarneau, Concurrus, Locmariaquer, Kermario, Kerlescant, Erdeven, and Sainte-Barbe. All these places are situated within a few miles of one another, and a good centre from which excursions can be made to each is the little town of Auray, with its quaint medieval market-house and shrine of St Roch. Archaeologists, both Breton and foreign, appear to be agreed that the groups of stones at Meneac, Kermario, and Kerlescant are portions of one original and continuous series ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... forgotten, had come to be disregarded—the penalty of dailiness—as the sun itself is disregarded unless it makes its power felt heavily. Captain Hagberd's movements showed no infirmity: he walked stiffly in his suit of canvas, a quaint and remarkable figure; only his eyes wandered more furtively perhaps than of yore. His manner abroad had lost its excitable watchfulness; it had become puzzled and diffident, as though he had suspected that there was somewhere about him something slightly compromising, some embarrassing oddity; ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... rise and fall, seasons had come and gone, generations had reposed beneath its branches, and now they were reposing under the shadow of the old church, the clock of which had just struck the hour of six. On examining the tree closely, we were astonished to find carved in immense letters, and in quaint language, the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... on the road to Huan-chiang, I lost myself—that is, I lost my men, and did not know the road. I got away into some quaint, secluded garden and sat down, tired and hot, under a tree in the shade, where a faint wind swung the heavy foliage with a solemn sound, and the subdued and soothing music of a brook running between ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door— Only ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... at Canterbury the cathedral; Black Edward's helm, and Becket's bloody stone, Were pointed out as usual by the bedral, In the same quaint, uninterested tone:— There 's glory again for you, gentle reader! All Ends in a rusty casque and dubious bone, Half-solved into these sodas or magnesias; Which form that ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... Dora. Breakfast was a hurried affair, while both she and Susie were absent from the midday dinner. The shy, fluttering glances which he occasionally surprised from her, the look of mutual appreciation which sometimes passed between them at a quaint bit of philosophy or naive remark, started his pulses dancing and set the whole world singing a ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... government displeasure or political trouble; and he imagined that such might be the history of the occupants of the dwelling before him. Passing the gate, which his young guide opened for him, he found himself in a large quaint garden. A miniature landscape, traversed by a winding stream, was faintly distinguishable. "Deign for one little moment to wait," the child said; "I go to announce the honorable coming;" and hurried toward the house. It was a spacious house, but seemed very old, and built in the fashion of another ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... how fair they shew, The Quarto quaint, the Aldine tall, Print, autograph, portfolio! Back from the outer air they call The athletes from the Tennis ball, This Rhymer from his rod and hooks, Would I could sing them, one and all, The ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... Let all my thoughts be plain, honest, pious, simple, prudent, and charitable, till Thou art pleased to draw the curtain and let me see Thyself, O Eternal Jesu!' If I had time I could tell you more about Think-well's quaint old father. But the above may be better than nothing about ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... hope all of us have a realizing sense that we are permitted to be good and loyal friends; but we will kindly leave Mickey to make his own arrangements, and work out his own salvation, and that of his child. And Leslie, I didn't hear you offering to buy any of the quaint dishes and old furniture you hoped you might ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... anticipate, because the mention of Edenburn earlier in this chapter suggests a quaint individual about whom a few observations may ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... for a moment, staring straight in front of her at the blue smoke that circled up from the quaint chimney stacks of the town beneath the ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... and Thor stood safely among the ruins, dressed in their tattered maiden robes, a quaint and curious sight; and Loki, full of mischief now as ever, burst ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... President, the people seeming impressed with the wisdom of his quaint phrase that "it was best not to swap horses while crossing a stream." Through all the vicissitudes of his first term he justified the unbounded confidence of the nation, supporting with no laggard hand, cheering and inspiring the citizen soldier with noble example and kindly ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... long back and rubbing herself against the hem of Zulma's cloak. Blanche gave her visitor a seat, helped her to take off her furs, and soon the two were engaged in earnest discourse. Zulma looked around the room and moved about to examine the many articles of its quaint furniture. This afforded her the opportunity of asking many questions, to all of which Blanche returned the most intelligent answers. Indeed, the child gave proofs of very remarkable intelligence. There was patent ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... they discipline themselves so as, in their own feelings, to put high above all the approbation or censure of their fellows the approbation or censure of Jesus Christ. That will take some cultivation. It is a great deal easier to shape our courses so as to get one another's praise. I remember a quaint saying in a German book. 'An old schoolmaster tried to please this one and that one, and it failed. "Well, then," said he, "I will try to please Christ." ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... Walter Scott knew it well, it being quite near to Ashiestiel, where he wrote "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," and "The Lady of the Lake." It was one of the prototypes of "Tully Veolan" in his Waverley. There was no abode in Scotland more quaint and curious than Traquair House, for it was turreted, walled, buttressed, windowed, and loopholed, all as in the days of old. Within were preserved many relics of the storied past and also of royalty. Here was the bed on which Queen Mary slept in 1566; here ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... whole being richly ornamented with pinnacles, buttresses, crocketted spires and elaborate tracery. Statues of saints, kings, queens and bishops are placed in niches along the northern and southern fronts, and the western front itself is sculptured with scenes from Holy Scripture in the quaint grotesque style of mediaeval art. No ivy is permitted to conceal the beauties of the building; and elevated in the clear air, far above the smoke of the town, it looks as fresh and white and clean cut as though it had been erected only ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... "Quaint superscription," he managed to observe. "How did you come by it?" and then wished he had not spoken.... Who but the recipient could be interested in its method of delivery? If anyone suspected him of ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... mayn't agree With FECHNER'S pedant formulae, I don't complain of such disparity; Too flawless that perfection shows; For me a larger comfort flows From human failings (take your nose— I like its quaint irregularity). ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... Ufton Court both from its secluded situation and quaint internal construction, appears to have been peculiarly suitable for the secretion of persecuted priests. Here are ample means for concealment and escape into the surrounding woods; and so carefully have the ingenious ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... hand—a reduced likeness of his friend Captain Hunnewell, holding a telescope and quadrant—may be seen to this day, at the corner of Broad and State streets, serving in the useful capacity of sign to the shop of a nautical instrument maker. We know not how to account for the inferiority of this quaint old figure, as compared with the recorded excellence of the Oaken Lady, unless on the supposition that in every human spirit there is imagination, sensibility, creative power, genius, which, according to circumstances, may either ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Rena is recovering from her illness, and Tryon from his love, and while Fate is shuffling the cards for another deal, a few words may be said about the past life of the people who lived in the rear of the flower garden, in the quaint old house beyond the cedars, and how their lives were mingled with those of the men and women around them and others that were gone. For connected with our kind we must be; if not by our virtues, then by our vices,—if not by our services, at least ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... His genius flashes upon us like a certain flamboyant style of poetic architecture—the flowing, flame-like curves of his humor blending happily with the Gothic cusps of veneration for the old, with quaint ivy-leaves, green and still rustling under the wind and rain, springing easily out of its severer lines. What resistless magic is there in the fingers whose touch upon the same rich banks of keys, summons solemn, vibrant ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the station lies through a pair of finely designed wrought-iron gates to the north frontage of the palace, erected by Wolsey himself. This front is all in the fine red-brick architecture of the period, with quaint gables, small mullioned windows, and a collection of moulded and twisted red-brick chimneys of wonderfully varied designs. The entrance through the gatehouse, flanked by two towers, is under a massive Tudor gateway, and leads into an inner quadrangle and thence into a second court, ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... decidedly more worn and mended; and Miss Winifred Farebrother, the Vicar's elder sister, well-looking like himself, but nipped and subdued as single women are apt to be who spend their lives in uninterrupted subjection to their elders. Lydgate had not expected to see so quaint a group: knowing simply that Mr. Farebrother was a bachelor, he had thought of being ushered into a snuggery where the chief furniture would probably be books and collections of natural objects. The Vicar himself seemed to wear rather a changed aspect, as most men do when acquaintances made elsewhere ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... unreliable, and the instruments of navigation almost as crude as in the days of Columbus. Even the savage Indian, not content with lurking in ambush, went afloat to wreak mischief, and the records of the First Church of Salem contain this quaint entry under date of July 25, 1677: "The Lord having given a Commission to the Indians to take no less than 13 of the Fishing Ketches of Salem and Captivate the men... it struck a great consternation ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... a start, and stared at the little quaint figure standing before him. Lucina wore a short blue woollen gown; below it her starched white pantalets hung to the tops of her morocco shoes. She wore also a white tier, and over that a little coat, and over that a little green cashmere shawl sprinkled with palm leaves, which her mother ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Whaler" is abridged from a quaint account written by the Mate and published in an old volume which is long since out of print and very scarce. The papers on the Tonquin, John Paul Jones, and "The Great American Duellists" speak for themselves. The account of the battle ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... such a godfather. He was so full of genius and devotion to letters that a special impetus ought thereby to have been given to the cultivation of a similar spirit among those who were to inhabit the land of his love. But, though Hariot, Lawson, and quaint Dr. Brickell were moved by such a spirit, the muses have not made the Old North State very remarkable in ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... of Mr. Nelson, he had decided to read "Elizabeth"; and Louise, as she stood at the side of the stage, listening to the quaint old tale of the Quaker wooing, found herself forgetting all her surroundings in the interest of the familiar story. Dr. Brownlee had turned a little to one side, in order to conceal his discolored temple from the audience, and this brought him into a position ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... the archaic spelling Salvage (Lat. silvaticus). Curtis is Norman Fr. curteis (courtois). The adjective garish, now only poetical, but once commonly applied to gaudiness in dress, has given Gerrish. Quaint, which has so many meanings intermediate between its etymological sense of known or familiar (Lat. cognitus) and its present sense of unusual or unfamiliar, survives as Quint. But Coy is ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... lectured to you long ago about Greek and English poems on insects, I told you that nearly all the English poems on the subject were quite modern. I still believe that I was right in this statement, as a general assertion; but I have found one quaint poem about a grasshopper, which must have been written about the middle of the seventeenth century or, perhaps, a little earlier. The date of the author's birth and death are respectively 1618 and 1658. ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... almost everywhere. David Balfour could never have writ some speeches attributed to him—they are just R. L. Stevenson with a very superficial difference that, when once detected, renders them curious and quaint and ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... unquestionably, English domestic architecture has lost its most impressive features, in the course of the last century. In this respect, there are finer old towns than Lincoln: Chester, for instance, and Shrewsbury,—which last is unusually rich in those quaint and stately edifices where the gentry of the shire used to make their winter-abodes, in a provincial metropolis. Almost everywhere, nowadays, there is a monotony of modern brick or stuccoed fronts, hiding houses that are older than ever, but obliterating ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... It has been an old-fashioned house, Judith, but somebody who didn't know how has altered it and spoiled it. People are always doing that. There must have been a fanlight over this door. You could restore it. And do you see that quaint round window in the gable? Probably they looked at that and longed to do away with it, but happily for you didn't ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... of my abundance to these old friends, but their pride stood in the way and the attempt failed. Worse than that. As if to show that benefits should proceed from them to me rather than from me to them, James bestowed on me a gift. It is a strange one,—nothing more nor less than a quaint Florentine dagger which I had often admired for its exquisite workmanship. Was it the last treasure he possessed? I am almost afraid so. At all events it shall lie here in my table- drawer where I alone can see it. Such sights are not good ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... they reached the castle. Lydia lingered for a moment on the terrace. The Gothic chimneys of the Warren Lodge stood up against the long, crimson cloud into which the sun was sinking. She smiled as if some quaint idea had occurred to her; raised her eyes for a moment to the black-marble Egyptian gazing with unwavering eyes into the ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... yellow-faced, quaint little fellow coming out of the darkness into the light to bend down and carefully lay some fresh wood upon the fire, after which he slowly began to ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... solitude, rejoicing to be free from souls so quarrelsome and contentious. Again these tracts give a picture of how they should live that are truly Buddha's disciples. Buddha finds three disciples living in perfect harmony, and asks them how they live together so peaceably and lovingly. In quaint and yet dignified language they reply, and tell him that they serve each other. He that rises first prepares the meal, he that returns last at night puts the room in order, etc. (ib. 4). Occasionally in the account of unruly brothers it is evident that tradition ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... the Clockmaker exists no longer, except perhaps in some lonely corner; every one laughs at his humorous descriptions of the slow old times, and confesses, that if things were as Sam has portrayed them in his quaint way, he only acted the part of a true moralist in laying them bare to the world, and aiming at them the pointed shafts of his ready satire. The work is likely to have a more enduring reputation than the mere mechanical humour of the productions of 'Mark Twain.' ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a feeling—tender or not, according to the age of the animal from which it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a caviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram; the marvelous functional methods of converting a hard-boiled egg into religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility—these things have been patiently ascertained by M. Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity. ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... my aunt's quaint style of dress contrasted somewhat strongly with many of the fashionably attired lady passengers in the same car. I presume this gave her little uneasiness, for she cared little for the opinion of others in matters pertaining to dress; and she regarded ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... little prince in his black velvet suit, with Flossie's red sash tied from shoulder to waist, in gay court fashion. Flossie wore the pink slip that belonged under her lace dress, and on her head was a silk handkerchief pinned up at the ends, in that square quaint fashion of little ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... the west of London—a room full of pictures and bric-a-brac, of quaint and luxurious furniture, with volumes abundant, with a piano in a shadowed corner, a violin and a mandoline laid carelessly aside—two men sat facing each other, their looks expressive of anything but mutual confidence. The one (he wore an overcoat, and had muddy ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... Chartres, or Rouen have ten, fifteen, or twenty medallions in each, and each medallion contains two figures at least, often six or seven, representing every event of interest in the history of the saint whose life is in question. Nay, but, you say those figures are rude and quaint, and ought not to be imitated. Why, so is the leafage rude and quaint, yet you imitate that. The coloured border pattern of geranium or ivy leaf is not one whit better drawn, or more like geraniums and ivy, than the figures are like figures; but you call the geranium leaf idealized—why don't you ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... imperfect translation of Father Vincent de Paul's quaint narrative, is published at the request of the leading clergy of Antigonish County, that section of Eastern Nova Scotia in which the holy Trappist so long ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... extremities in a pair of shoes about large enough to make two leather cradles; on his head a hat that scorned to shine, and in his hand he carried an oaken staff; his small grey eyes glistened with a spark of latent wit, whilst on his face was stamped in unequivocal characters some quaint originality. ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... a deep bank clothed with timber, which led the eye down by slow descents into the beautiful valley of the Ell. Here the silver river wound its gentle way through lush and poplar-bordered marshes, where the cattle stand knee-deep in flowers; past quaint wooden mill-houses, through Boisingham Old Common, windy looking even now, and brightened here and there with a dash of golden gorse, till it was lost beneath the picturesque cluster of red-tiled roofs that marked the ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... rapidity which seemed to hush the tumult of its swift current far underneath the rippling surface. The old stone light-house—the town's traditionary godfather—stood sturdily for its rights out in mid-stream, and helped support the quaint zigzag of that most charming relic of the past, the longest wooden foot-bridge of Lucerne. A never-ending crowd of all ages and sexes and conditions of natives and strangers were mounting and descending its steps, ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... were not troubled with a superfluity of servants, were glad to welcome one to their household who had such a wondrous talent for amusing them, and keeping them still. In spite of all her oddities, she was respected for her industry and simplicity, and a certain quaint, old-fashioned, superstitious piety, that made a streak of light through ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the church, and their crocketed pinnacles shot up almost to the ceiling. But it was well they had not shared the destruction in which almost all the other ornaments of the magnificent fane they once decorated were involved. Carefully preserved, the black varnished oak well displayed the quaint and grotesque designs with which many of them—the Prior's stall in especial—were embellished. Chief among them was the abbot's stall, festooned with sculptured vine wreaths and clustering grapes, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... at Gibraltar on Sunday, March 11th, and in our walk from the shore to the quaint old tavern known as the King's Arms,—combining much comfort with its dinginess,—we found the day was but partially observed as one of rest. The stores were mostly open, and the numerous bar-rooms noticeably so, after the usual style in Roman Catholic countries. The first impression ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... nature made rivals, and time made friends or enemies, as it happened. A curious observer, in looking over a collection of the Cambridge poems, which were formerly composed by its students, has remarked that "Cowley from the first was quaint, Milton sublime, and Barrow copious." If then the characteristic disposition may reveal itself thus early, it affords a principle which ought not to be neglected at ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... lingering touch which had something of hesitation in it, and which reduced all music to a succession of soft chords, The Maid of Dundee and Annie Laurie, The Banks of Banna and The Last Rose of Summer, then one of the simpler nocturnes of Chopin, and, following these, a quaint, slow melody which was like all of the others ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... deceased. Partially separated from the rest of the house, it communicated by a winding staircase with a chamber above, to which Philip had been wont to betake himself whenever he returned late, and over- exhilarated, from some rural feast crowning a hard day's hunt. Above a quaint, old-fashioned bureau of Dutch workmanship (which Philip had picked up at a sale in the earlier years of his marriage) was a portrait of Catherine taken in the bloom of her youth. On a peg on the door that led to the staircase, still hung his rough driving ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... disturbances. Surely I did not approve of their leaving their homes for such purposes as that! As tactfully as I could, I suggested that conditions in England were peculiar. There was, for example, the quaint old law which permitted a husband to beat his wife subject to certain restrictions. Would an American woman submit to such a law? There was the law which made it impossible for a woman to divorce her husband for infidelity, unless accompanied by desertion or ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... boys would throw stones at him.' He, however, did not alter my opinion of a favourite authour, to whom I was first directed by his being quoted in The Spectator[566], and in whom I have found much shrewd and lively sense, expressed indeed in a style somewhat quaint, which, however, I do not dislike. His book has an air of originality. We figure to ourselves an ancient ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... scene presented by the grotto itself, the farm-buildings on the face of the cliff, the huge table-rock and flagstaff, the many quaint blocks, pillars and wild escarpments, and the numerous domestic animals, such as mastiffs, pigs, ravens, and goats, all congregated together in a small bay, and literally separated from the world by the barren waste land above, and the huge cliffs ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... next day ever passed she never knew, for before her eyes wherever she looked danced that lovely, quaint old gown of shimmering silk, and she could think of nothing else. It hid the map of Europe when she opened her geography, it played leap-frog among common fractions when she tried to do her sums, it waved at the head of the Continental Army while ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... I occupied at L—— was a quaint, old-fashioned building, a corner-house. One side, in which was the front entrance, looked upon a street which, as there were no shops in it, and it was no direct thoroughfare to the busy centres ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I. e. less diluted than usual. On this quaint picture of ancient manners, compared with the customs of the Hebrew fathers, compare Coleridge, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... probably prompt Mr. Flower to the indulgence of a form of matrimonial banter which was not unlike the endearments he bestowed upon his horses, and which, when you knew that he loved the little quaint woman with all his heart, you were able to translate into more customary modes ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... quaint conceit of him, that Mars and Mercury fell at variance whose servant he should be; and there is an epigrammatist that saith that Art and Nature had spent their excellences in his fashioning, and, fearing they could not end what they had begun, they bestowed him up for time, and Nature ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... less equal in the translation, as well as less interesting in itself. What is stupidly said of Shakspeare, is really true and appropriate of Chapman; mighty faults counterpoised by mighty beauties. Excepting his quaint epithets which he affects to render literally from the Greek, a language above all others blest in the happy marriage of sweet words, and which in our language are mere printer's compound epithets—such as quaffed divine 'joy-in-the-heart-of-man-infusing' wine, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... that on the occasion of his first visit we children regarded him with mingled awe and curiosity. His quaint appearance and his formal, deliberate manner of speech made him seem to us like a being from another world. We were at once fascinated and repelled, and I think he became at first the object of our constant, though furtive, ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... six weeks of the Easter vacation, she had revelled so in his three queer little letters, half-shy, half-confidential; kissed them, and worn them in her dress! And in return had written him long, perfectly correct epistles in her still rather quaint English. She had never let him guess her feelings; the idea that he might shocked her inexpressibly. When the summer term began, life seemed to be all made up of thoughts of him. If, ten years ago, her baby had lived, if its cruel death—after her agony—had not killed for good ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... different. It was simple almost to the point of plainness. Its charm lay in its glimmering glistening sheen, like the inside of a shell. Its draperies were caught up to show slender feet in low-heeled slippers. A quaint cap of silver tissue held closely the waves of thick fair hair. Her eyes were like the sea in a storm—deep gray ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... safe from it, no Prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence can not bring it about, and puny efforts to make it universal end in quaint comedy, and coarse farce. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... I." Her expression suddenly was absent, with a quaint, slight smile hovering about her lips. She looked at him merrily. "You see, it's got to ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... an old Tudor mansion. My father was very particular in keeping the smallest peculiarities of his home unaltered. Thus the many peaks and gables, the numerous turrets, and the mullioned windows with their quaint lozenge panes set in lead, remained very nearly as they had been three centuries back. Over and above the quaint melancholy of our dwelling, with the deep woods of its park and the sullen waters of the mere, our neighborhood was thinly peopled and primitive, and ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... corner of the domains of Kaiser Bill, in a fair district to which he has no more right than a highwayman has to his victim's wallet, there is a quaint old house built of gray stone and covered ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... possibly be synthesised by one mind regarding the locality we were passing through. He suggested that we try our fortune in the little town where the car first meets the Lake. This we did and looked up and down that Main Street. It was quiet and quaint, but something pressed home to us that was not all joy—the tightness of old scar-tissue in the chest.... The countryman came running to us from the still standing car, though this was not his destination, and pointing to a little grey man ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... lines Sprays and leaves and quaint designs; Setting round thy border scrolled Buds of ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... and prayers gain the hardest hearts, Tears, vows and prayers have I spent in vain; Tears cannot soften flint nor vows convert; Prayers prevail not with a quaint disdain. I lose my tears where I have lost my love, I vow my faith where faith is not regarded, I pray in vain a merciless to move; So rare a faith ought better be rewarded. Yet though I cannot win her will with tears, Though my soul's ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... trumpery books;" the last being those which served her to conduct the business of the house. There were many elderly gentlemen in the author's younger days, who still held it part of the amusement of a journey "to parley with mine host," who often resembled, in his quaint humour, mine Host of the Garter, in the Merry Wives of Windsor; or Blague of the George, in the Merry Devil of Edmonton. Sometimes the landlady took her share of entertaining the company. In either case, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various
... The quaint old Fuller sums up in a few words the character of the true gentleman and man of action in describing that of the great admiral, Sir Francis Drake: "Chaste in his life, just in his dealings, true of his word; ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... lounging upon the dock, while before them lay the Santa Maria ready for her midnight sailing. Behind slept Unalaska, quaint, antique, and Russian, rusting amid the fogs of Bering Sea. Where, a week before, mild-eyed natives had dried their cod among the old bronze cannon, now a frenzied horde of gold-seekers paused in their rush to the new El Dorado. They had come like a locust ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... to divert his thoughts from his crime, and at the same time tried to reap its reward by studying the stolen recipe; but his attempt was not successful. The cramped letters, brown with age, on the brown parchment, danced before his eyes; and the quaint, intricate High German phraseology became more and more involved. He could make nothing of it at all. And the thought occurred to him that perhaps he never would be able to make anything of it—that, without losing any part of the penalty justly attendant ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... the tall spires of Beaminster Cathedral came into sight, and a few minutes brought the carriage across the grey stone bridge and down the principal street of the quaint old place which called itself a city, but was really neither more nor less than a quiet country town. Here Lady Caroline turned to her young guest with a question—"You live in Gwynne Street, I believe, ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... It is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold 'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... with brevity, yet curiosity was all awake and all abroad; for the procession lasted some hours. Not a door but was open; not a threshold but was crowded, and not a window of the many-windowed gothic modern, frightful, handsome, quaint, disfigured, fantastic, or lofty mansions that diversify the large' market-place of Brussels, but was occupied by lookers on. Placidly, indeed, they saw the warriors pass : no kind greeting welcomed their arrival; no warm wishes followed them to combat. Neither, on the other hand, was there the ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... we know each other!" she resumed. "You could help me so much if you would! Next time you come, you must tell me something about those old French rhymes that have come into fashion of late! They say a pretty thing so much more prettily for their quaint, antique, courtly liberty! The triolet now—how deliriously impertinent it is! Is ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... ex-Queen, 'I shall send you the medal and diploma of my Academy as a slight acknowledgment of the pleasure I have had this afternoon. At present Don Alberto is going to introduce me to the quaint Roman custom of eating snails in the open air. Will you join us, Maestro? But I see that you are still in your robes, and I have no doubt you look forward to a more substantial supper than a dish of molluscs fried in oil! Good-night, my dear Maestro. Vale, as those delightful ancients ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... one or other of these directions, is polytheism culminating in the rule of one supreme divinity. High above the doctrine of souls, of divine Manes, of local nature gods, of the great gods of class and element, there are to be discerned in barbaric theology, shadowings, quaint or majestic, of the conception of a Supreme Deity, henceforth to be traced onward in expanding power and brightening glory along the history of Religion. It is no unimportant task, partial as it is, to select and group the typical data which show the nature and position of the ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... all fun with my boy, however; he had his troubles, and in spite of his cheerfulness he knew what heartache was. Walking in the quaint garden of the Luxembourg one day, he confided to me the little romance of his life. A very touching little romance as he told it, with eloquent eyes and voice and frequent pauses for breath. I cannot give his words, but the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... the ditty of "Wapping Old Stairs" (a ballad so sweet and touching that surely any English poet might be proud to be the father of it), and he sang this quaint and charming old song in an exceedingly pleasant voice, with flourishes and roulades in the old Incledon manner, which has pretty nearly passed away. The singer gave his heart and soul to the simple ballad, and delivered Molly's ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray |
