"Agility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... way they can to satisfy your needs. Do you wish to hunt? A native is ever ready to show you the marsh where ducks most abound. Are you hungry or thirsty? They fly to the cocoanut plantation with the agility of monkeys. If a swamp or a brook stops your course, the shoulders of the first comer are ever ready to carry you across. If it rains, they run to bring banana-leaves or make you a shelter of bark. When night comes they light your way with resinous torches, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... and was attacking a latticed window with an old bayonet he had been carrying in his hand. With half a dozen furious blows he sent the woodwork into splinters, and, springing up with a lithe, tiger-like jump, he clambered through the gap, big man as he was, with surprising agility. Then there was a dead silence for a few seconds and we waited in suspense. But presently oaths and protests came from far back and drew nearer and nearer, until I knew that the some one who had refused to answer had been duly secured. The gates themselves were finally ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... enemy, and then rose up to discharge their own in turn; which the Romans having received according to their custom in close array, with their shields firmly united, they then engaged foot to foot, and began to fight with their swords. But the ruggedness of the ground, while it rendered ineffectual the agility of the Celtiberians who were accustomed to a skirmishing kind of battle, was at the same time not unfavourable to the Romans, who were accustomed to a steady kind of fight, except that the narrow passes and the bushes, which grew here and there, broke their ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... same time with the presence of mind necessary for fighting the quarrel out to the best advantage. Resolved not again to expose himself to such dreadful blows as he had just obtained, he employed the advantage of superior agility, increased by the comparative lightness of his armour, to harass his antagonist by traversing on all sides, with a suddenness of motion and rapidity of attack against which the knight—in his heavy panoply—found it difficult to defend ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... hands gently, leaped upon the slanting tree-trunk, and running half-way up its incline with the agility of a squirrel, stretched himself at full length upon ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... bushes into the road, followed by a couple of dogs. The stranger was in a hunter's dress. His gun was slung across his shoulders, the hunter's horn hung from his belt, and in his hand was a small pike, which, as he held it, added to the manly grace of his figure, and assisted the agility of his steps. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... said Melchior quietly; and thrusting the hammer handle and the chisel through his belt, he went up and along the ledge with wonderful agility, sprang across on to the projecting block, and then Saxe watched him eagerly as he saw him drive in the point of the geological hammer as high up as he could reach, and use it to hold by while he climbed higher and got his feet on the lower edge of the opening, where he stood with ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... blowsy thing," Mme. Cibot might have sat as a model to Rubens. Those flesh tints reminded you of the appetizing sheen on a pat of Isigny butter; but plump as she was, no woman went about her work with more agility. Mme. Cibot had attained the time of life when women of her stamp are obliged to shave—which is as much as to say that she had reached the age of forty-eight. A porter's wife with a moustache is one of the best possible guarantees of respectability and security that a landlord can have. If Delacroix ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... walking lame with a stick. Bathurst was about to turn and tell the others to come out, when he saw the man stop suddenly, turn round to look back along the road, stand with his head bent as if listening, then run across the road with much more agility than he had before seemed to possess, and plunge in among ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... nipped the wrist of Stoliker, who, with an oath and a cry of pain, instinctively grasped the links between with his right hand, to save his wrist. Like a cat, Yates was upon him, showing marvelous agility for a man who had just tumbled in a heap. The next instant he held aloft the ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... animal—say the mechanical imitation of a tiger or a gazelle with the living original; the first a wonderfully moving piece of machinery, illustrating the limit of human constructive power; perfectly under control, the movements smooth, unvarying, rhythmical, charming, excelling in agility and power its living prototype—but still, scientific—to the discerning eye, artful. The other, something more than rhythmical, more than smooth, beyond the control of human agency, beyond the power of man to analyze as to synthetize—more than science can explain, more than even ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... earlier days.' He was then in his fortieth year, and probably in the full meridian of his physical powers; but those powers became rather mellowed than decayed by time, for 'his age was like a lusty winter, frosty yet kindly;' and, up to his sixty-eighth year, he mounted a horse with surprising agility, and rode with the ease and gracefulness of his better days. His personal prowess, that elicited the admiration of a people who have nearly all passed from the stage of life, still serves as a model for the ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... Irishman, who has been vastly more lucky, dancing a jig, with a footless stocking near him, tied at each end, packed as full as it can hold of 'the fine stuff,' as he calls it, while with wonderful agility he flourishes a heavy pickaxe and spade over his head, and screams at the highest pitch of his voice: 'Sure, now, and isn't my fortune made!' By and by, getting at once hoarse and tired, he desists from his exertions, and entreats a boy near him ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... I don't say that their eyes aren't bigger than ours, their eyelashes longer, their faces more pink and plump—and they can skip about with an agility of limb which we cannot equal. But all the same a great deal too much is made of these ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... where Ayrault's had stopped. Before the colossus could turn, each had caused several explosions in close proximity to the first. The creature was of course terribly wounded, and several ribs were cracked, but no ball had gone through. With a roar it made straight for the woods, and with surprising agility, running fully as fast as an elephant. Bearwarden and Ayrault kept up a rapid fire at the left hind leg, and soon completely disabled it. The dinosaur, however, supported itself with its huge tail, and continued to make good time. ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... The angry waters were hissing, and embracing, and swirling back, and trying to leap the cliffs, and feeling with all their awful strength and agility for some channel through which they might reach and ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... terrible! Was ever poor Gentleman so scared out of his seven Senses? A Bear? nay, sure it cannot be a Bear, but some Devil in a Bear's Doublet: for a Bear could never have had that agility to have frighted em. Well, I'll see my Father hanged, before I'll serve his Horse any more: Well, I'll carry home my Bottle of Hay, and for once make my Father's Horse turn puritan and observe Fasting days, for he gets not a bit. But soft! this way she followed me, therefore ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... in rapid succession, and he won his meed of applause and fame, as well as his share of execration and derision, in his own lifetime. Quick to discern the popular taste of the hour, and eager to gratify it, Lytton, with the resourceful agility of a lightning impersonator, turns in his novels from Wertherism to dandyism, from criminal psychology to fairy folk-lore, from historical romance to domestic romance, from pseudo-philosophic occultism to pseudo-scientific fantasy. He ranges at will in ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... were coming on deck, Bentley leaped into the mizzen rigging and ran up the shrouds with an agility surprising in one of his gigantic figure and advanced age. After a rapid survey he came down swiftly. "It's an English frigate, and not a doubt of it, sir, and rising ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... industry which in this section of the state has assumed large proportions. The ravenous mills, the capacious yards, and the huge vessels loading for foreign ports are common sights within the cities. Farther away in the logging camps the agility of the lumberjack is exhibited as he lays low the giants of the forest and trims the logs ready for ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... one prevalent misconception I must say a word of warning. Hamlet's intellectual power is not a specific gift, like a genius for music or mathematics or philosophy. It shows itself, fitfully, in the affairs of life as unusual quickness of perception, great agility in shifting the mental attitude, a striking rapidity and fertility in resource; so that, when his natural belief in others does not make him unwary, Hamlet easily sees through them and masters them, and no one can be much less like the typical ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... ground. Every true sportsman, however, will leave these quite young creatures to roam freely. (27) "They are for the goddess." Full-grown yearlings will run their first chase very swiftly, (28) but they cannot keep up the pace; in spite of agility ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... portion of the structure set aside for his individual use, he hurried, with expectant, lithe agility, through an opening in the wall concealed hitherto by silken hangings, and entered upon a narrow passageway, which terminated in another undulating ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... all day. Hiawatha's arrows had no effect, for his antagonist was clothed with pure wampum. He was now reduced to three arrows, and it was only by extraordinary agility that he could escape the blows which the Manito kept making at him. At that moment a large woodpecker (the ma-ma) flew past, and lit on a tree. "Hiawatha" he cried, "your adversary has a vulnerable point; shoot at the lock of hair on the crown of his head." He shot his first ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... and a very red face, slapped his hand on the bar and vaulted over it with more agility than his plumpness warranted. He shouldered his way hurriedly through the crowd to the rapidly widening circle around the two disputants. They stood with their right hands resting with rigid fingers low down on their hips, and their eyes, fixed on each other, forgot the rest of the world. ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... shouted the sexton, climbing out of his grave with surprising agility. He fixed his eyes on the cavalier, as though it were the aspect of recognition. He then hummed the following distich, a favourite troll amongst the republican party at ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... serving, and the first two games fell to him and his partner owing to a certain wildness in the returns of Princess Pongo, a Nigerian lady of remarkable agility who has only been playing tennis for the last three months, as, owing to the laws of the Hausa tribe, mixed tennis is strictly forbidden in Nigeria. The Princess was, however, well backed up by her partner, the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... say: "See, see, the dear things—their quarrel's blissfully over!" "Our quarrel? What quarrel?" the dear things themselves would necessarily, in that case, have demanded; and the wits of the others would thus have been called upon for some agility of exercise. No one had been equal to the flight of producing, off-hand, a fictive reason for any estrangement—to take, that is, the place of the true, which had so long, for the finer sensibility, pervaded the air; and ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... fine, performer; he lacked the bird-like richness; he could scarce have extracted all the honey out of 'Cherry Ripe'; he did not fear—he even ostentatiously displayed and seemed to revel in he shrillness of the instrument; but in fire, speed, precision, evenness, and fluency; in linked agility of jimmy—a technical expression, by your leave, answering to warblers on the bagpipe; and perhaps, above all, in that inspiring side-glance of the eye, with which he followed the effect and (as by a human appeal) eked out the insufficiency ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... considerably worsted, and might, perhaps, have been killed, had we not come to his assistance. We had, however, one dog which gave them a good deal of trouble and many hard runs. He was a fine, tall fellow, and united strength and agility better than any dog that I have ever seen. He was born at the Islands, his father being an English mastiff and his mother a greyhound. He had the high head, long legs, narrow body, and springing gait of the latter, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... astonishment, the bagpipes were introduced; and after a coronach or so—just to quiet the spirit of their departed host—up started a couple of dancers, and began jigging it over the floor with all the grace and agility peculiar to my Hebridean friends. This movement was infectious: another and another couple started up—reel followed upon reel, until the only parties who had resisted the infection," continued the poet, "were the widow and myself, she, oppressed with her own ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... sharp broiling rocks. We could not possibly stand on them with our shoes on. We ran along for all we were worth, in order to prevent the canoe escaping. We climbed up and down great cuts from 10 to 30 ft. high in the rock, never letting go the ropes. Our agility that day was remarkable. Even poor Alcides, whose foot I had wrapped up with a piece of my shirt, was coming along pluckily, regardless of the pain which he certainly suffered. Once or twice, when we remained slightly behind in that awful race, the canoe nearly ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... peak, which he doubtless meant to be his observatory. It was a painful ascent over the sharp lava and the pumice-stones, in an atmosphere often impregnated with a sulphurous smell from the smoking cracks. For a man unaccustomed to walk on land, the Captain climbed the steep slopes with an agility I never saw equalled and which a hunter would have envied. We were two hours getting to the summit of this peak, which was half porphyry and half basalt. From thence we looked upon a vast sea which, towards the north, distinctly ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... the evening—they could trace the deepening violence of his fantastic career. For the last hour, at least from before one, that is, until a quarter to two, he had run amuck through London, eluding with amazing agility every effort to stop ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... took the tambourine, and, shaking its little bells appealingly, went about among the people. They had already begun to scatter, with the wonderful agility of a crowd which has not paid. Some, however, still lingered from curiosity and with the hope of a second performance. A number of small copper coins Jingled into Gigi's tambourine. He approached the good woman who had shown an interest in him. She stooped down and thrust ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... there, much to the harassment of the Pole, who repeatedly wiped his forehead, and observed that it was warm work, and put him in mind of the last sad battle for La Pologne. Monsieur Goupille, who had lately taken lessons in dancing, and was vain of his agility—mounted the chairs and tables, as Rosalie approached—with great grace and gravity. It so happened that, in these saltations, he ascended a stool near the curtain behind which Monsieur and Madame Giraud were ensconced. Somewhat agitated by a slight flutter behind the folds, which ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... next morning I awoke, feeling stiffer than ever before, the slightest contraction of a muscle resembling the jerking of a rusty wire. However, when a soldier, seeing that I was awake, brought my breakfast, I sat up with remarkable agility and devoured every crumb. Never have I enjoyed a meal more. Every additional mouthful of the deliciously fresh Dutch cheese and new bread seemed to receive a still more exquisite taste when I thought of the Irish stew I had missed when standing behind ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... that the noise could only have been made by some lost dog or straying goat. She stepped quickly to the edge, and, as she looked over, she was amazed to see amidst the brambles a girl who was climbing up the rocks with extraordinary agility. ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... life, and in spite of the limpid springs in his eyes, Henri had a lion's courage, a monkey's agility. He could cut a ball in half at ten paces on the blade of a knife; he rode his horse in a way that made you realize the fable of the Centaur; drove a four-in-hand with grace; was as light as a cherub ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... bellowed. The storm was growing furious. "Yet I have had a marvelous dream. Now I awaken. I must go on in the old round. As long as my wits preserve their agility I must be able to amuse, to flatter and, at need, to intimidate the patrons of that ape in the mirror, so that they will not dare refuse me the market-value of my antics. And Sarah Drew has declined an alliance such ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... dead, the old wolf now slunk off on three legs into the swamp, holding his maimed and bleeding limb as high as he could. Then the man stepped out from his hiding-place and came forward. The wolf who had been first bitten got up and limped away with surprising agility; but the one in whose throat the old carcajou had fixed her teeth lay motionless where he had fallen, a couple of paces from his dead slayer. Wolf-pelts were no good at this season, so the man thrust the body carelessly aside with his foot. But he stood for a minute or two looking down with ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... on from the distant hills. In the top of this tree, an eagle had built her nest, and it had long been a secret ambition of the boy to capture it, the more resolved upon because it seemed impossible. One day in October he left his sheep, ran to the foot of the hill, and with the sure-footed agility of a mountain boy climbed the rocks and began the ascent of the tree. From the top of a high ledge nearby two men hid and watched him. A fall meant death, and many a time their hearts stood still, as the intrepid lad placed his foot on a dead branch only to have it break under ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... a rustic merry-making in a farm-house about Christmas, common in some parts of Yorkshire. There is abundance of homely fare, tea, cakes, fruit, and ale; various feats of agility, amusing games, romping, dancing, and kissing withal. They commonly break ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... maidens of the whole district had assembled to vindicate his cause. His personal appearance at this early period is thus described by Mr William Laidlaw:—"About nineteen years of age, Hogg was rather above the middle height, of faultless symmetry of form; he was of almost unequalled agility and swiftness. His face was then round and full, and of a ruddy complexion, with bright blue eyes that beamed with gaiety, glee, and good-humour, the effect of the most exuberant animal spirits. His head was covered ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... away the cattle before his face, and laugh at him. Our man crying out loud of this violence, and calling to some of us who were not far off, the negro he was dealing with threw a lance at him, which came so true, that, if he had not with great agility jumped aside, and held up his hand also to turn the lance as it came, it had struck through his body; and, as it was, it wounded him in the arm; at which the man, enraged, took up his fuzee, and shot ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... prod in the side. The bronco kicked out. Then Dave gave a harder prod. This the pony would not stand, and up he came with surprising agility. He tried to bolt, but Dave caught the saddle and clung there. They headed again eastward, away from ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... impression on their wives. They ran hundred-yard sprints on the cinder path and executed clumsy feats on the rings and on the parallel bars. They even found a huge round stone on the beach and "put the shot" for a while. As long as it was a question of agility, Marcus was easily the best of the four; but the dentist's enormous strength, his crude, untutored brute force, was a matter of wonder for the entire party. McTeague cracked English walnuts—taken from the lunch baskets—in the hollow of his arm, and tossed the round stone ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... was staying on the river, there were two rude boys, the miller's sons, who were always throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course; we swallows fly far too well for that, and besides, I come of a family famous for its agility; but still, it ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... a back somersault upon a high wire. I have never heard of it before. There may be whole generations of artists gifted in this particular stunt. You have here, nevertheless, a moment of very great beauty in the cleanness of this man's surprising agility and sureness. The monkey costume hinders the beauty of the thing. It should be done with pale blue silk tights against a cherry velvet drop, or else in deep ultramarine on an ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... shoulder, to drag him off to his fate. But a sense of injustice, joined to strength and passion, are all but irresistible when their opponents are but half in earnest; and violently exerting his formidable muscles, the man shook himself free with a determination, agility, and pluck which, by a visible logic, showed the men how cruel and cowardly it was to punish him before they knew anything of the rights of the case. Lillyston's voice, too, began to be loudly heard, and several dons among the crowd exerted ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... chapter recorded his unlucky tumble into a fountain at Versailles, when attempting a feat of agility in presence of the fair Hornecks. Water was destined to be equally baneful to him on the present occasion. "Some difference of opinion," says the fair narrator, "having arisen with Lord Harrington respecting the depth of a pond, the poet remarked that ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... With the agility of a youth, Uncle Beamish threw the robe from him and sprang out into the deep snow. Then, turning toward us, he took ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... will not seem strange, if we consider, first, how little body there is in one of these creatures compar'd to their superficies, or outside, their thickness, perhaps, oftentimes, not amounting to the hundredth part of an Inch: Next, the strength and agility of these creatures compar'd to their bulk, being, proportionable to their bulk, perhaps, an hundred times stronger then an Horse or Man. And thirdly, if we consider that Nature does always appropriate the instruments, so as they are the most fit and convenient to perform ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... the field of operatic composition when it was hampered with a great variety of dry forms, and utterly without soul and poetic spirit. The object of composers seemed to be to show mere contrapuntal learning, or to furnish singers opportunity to display vocal agility. The opera, as a large and symmetrical expression of human emotions, suggested in the collisions of a dramatic story, was utterly an unknown quantity in art. Gluck's attention was early called to this radical inconsistency; and, though he did not learn ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... were seen were of the common kind, none of the minor description apparently inhabiting the interior, if I except some Rock Wallabi, noticed on the Barrier Range. The last beautiful little animal always escaped us in consequence of its extreme agility and watchfulness. ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... few seconds, she suddenly laid back her ears, and, showing the whites of her eyes, ran at Wilford with her mouth wide open, and as soon as she got within distance made a ferocious bite at him. By springing on one side with great agility he just contrived to avoid it; then, dropping the bridle, he threw himself into a sparring attitude (you know he's a capital boxer), and, as the mare again ran at him, hit out, and, striking her just on a particular spot by the ear, brought her down like a bullock. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... innocently settled on her sofa with a book when the maid returned. She was a well-bred servant, and silently placed the kettle and glass and left the room noiselessly. Morella sprang to her feet with unusual agility. Her heavy form was slow of movement ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... they have an extraordinary love, and in which they skip and play, amusing themselves like a band of scholars in play hours. They tease one another, butt with their horns in fun, run off, return, pretend new attacks and new flights with charming agility and frolicsomeness. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... his chivalry, and strove to meet this appalling woman with strength against strength; but in Dolores he met a thing of wire and whipcord where moments before had been a creature of warm softnesses; a being of feline agility, and devilish skill that reflected the devilish skill of her teacher, Milo. The chain-links tinkled and clashed against their swaying bodies, but she never let them fall; they hung from her girdle; her hands were free; ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... were supplied with tents; and then a hasty meal was snatched before the sun was fairly above the horizon, and the day's work commenced. The endurance exhibited by the rebels, their personal strength, swiftness and agility; their tenacity of life, and the ease with which their worst wounds were healed, excited the astonishment of the surgeons and officers of the regular army. The truth is, that the virtuous lives led by that peaceful peasantry before the outbreak, enabled them to withstand privations and ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... with the agility of a cat, struck straight out from the shoulder, and, with a twist of his fingers in the tramp's neck-cloth, slammed him flat against the wall, where he crouched, gasping for breath. "Oh, that's it, is it?" he ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... his fortieth year, and probably in the fullness of his physical powers. Those powers became rather mellowed than decayed by time, for "his age was like lusty winter, frosty yet kindly," and up to his sixty-eighth year he mounted a horse with surprising agility, and rode with ease and grace. Rickets, the celebrated equestrian, used to say, "I delight to see the General ride, and make it a point to fall in with him when I hear he is out on horseback—his seat is so firm, his management ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... bone Bwana Nyele's eyes lit up, he uttered an astonishing bellow of delight, and sprang forward with such agility for so large a man that he almost succeeded in snatching the talisman from Simba's hands. Acting precisely on his instructions the latter backed away, pointing ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... patter came the large drops in my face; thicker and faster they fell, until it seemed like a perfect deluge; and through the almost blinding sheet of rain I descried Nellie coming toward me at a furious rate. With the agility of a fawn she bounded over the gate, and with the exclamation of, "Ain't I wetter than a drownded rat?" ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... persons shouted "Enough!" and Gudel appeared, not as Gudel, be it understood, but as Iron Jaws, the athlete. His enormous shoulders, his bull neck, contrasted with Fanfar's delicate form. Gudel tossed heavy weights and bent iron bars, and did all sorts of wonderful things. No one noticed the agility with which Fanfar, in his subordinate role, passed these weights to his employer. And now, the principal feat was to be performed. Fanfar rolled a barrel upon the stage, on which already stood a curious apparatus of bars and chains. Over this was a ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... hesitate. Then forward he leaped like a greyhound. Forgotten was the rushing torrent, and his own danger. He thought only of that frantically clinging man. He reached the edge of the stream, leaped upon the nearest logs, and, with the agility of a wildcat, threaded his way through that terrible labyrinth of ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... scattering all around them a scum of freebooters. General Carrel's brigade, separated from its division, retreated continually, fighting each day, but remaining almost intact, thanks to the vigilance and agility of Lieutenant Lare, who seemed to be everywhere at the same moment, baffling all the enemy's cunning, frustrating their plans, misleading their Uhlans and ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... captured. The man riding on the bull's back clings as long as he can, in spite of the plunging and other frantic efforts of the animal to unseat him; comparatively few stay long in their uncomfortable position, and when they are thrown, much agility is required to escape from the ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... bound to the head of my astonished baby, and having gained my shoulder, leaped again into the water, and made direct for the shore, never having deviated a single point from the line he was swimming in when he first came in sight of our canoe. I was surprised and amused by the agility and courage displayed by this innocent creature; I could hardly have given credence to the circumstance, had I not been an eye-witness of its conduct, and moreover been wetted plentifully on my shoulder by the sprinkling ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... measure of wheaten or maize flour, a vessel of water, and a few vegetables dug from the field were daily converted into the three meals on which young and old alike thrived, the men showing a muscular development and endurance and an agility unequalled by anything I had met in other countries. I learned to recognise their simple, unexpressed joys, and to realise the deep tragedies which lay beneath the surface of their ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... shutters. That had been before Ruyler's day, but he knew the history of the neighborhood, and this man's interest in it. He was not surprised to hear Bisbee laugh aloud as Madame Delano, who stepped off the car with astonishing agility, waddled down the now respectable street. But she held her head majestically and did not ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... had entered, Planchet fastened the door behind them. In the meantime, D'Artagnan, who had dismounted with his usual agility, inhaled the fresh perfumed air with the delight a Parisian feels at the sight of green fields and fresh foliage, plucked a piece of honeysuckle with one hand, and of sweet-briar with the other. Porthos clawed ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is fairly on. Then, dog days having arrived, you will get a chance to catch nothing else, so long as one of them remains in the pool you choose. They are great angle-worm chasers and will get across a pool and grab a bait before any other denizen of the place can possibly get to it. Their agility is the more surprising when one remembers that the grown hornpout is but a sluggish chap and that they are not built on lines that presage swiftness. You may catch the big horn pouts at any season, but these little chaps are peculiar ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... interested in this part, and well they might be; for strength and agility are manly attributes which lads appreciate, and these lively fellows flew about like India rubber balls, each trying to outdo the other, till the leader of the acrobats capped the climax by turning a double somersault over five elephants ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... whose all is at stake should be other than exceedingly courageous. And it behoves us to despise the equipment of arms which the enemy have. For if they come on foot against us, they will not be able to move rapidly, but will be worsted by the agility of the Moors, and their cavalry will be terrified both by the sight of the camels, and by the noise they make, which, rising above the general tumult of battle, will, in all likelihood, throw them into ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... these strangers were after our treasure, we had agreed to make straight for the clump of trees described on the back of the chart and examine whether the ground thereabouts had been visited lately or disturbed; and, further, because our search might require more strength and agility than I alone, with my lame leg, could command. I felt pretty easy about the schooner. She can only be attacked by boat, and I searched the coast pretty narrowly on our way down without sighting one. If these men possess a boat, she probably lies somewhere on the eastern side, not ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... in reply, but kept circling lightly on his toes waiting his chance to spring. As the two men stood facing each other there was little to choose between them in physical strength and agility as well as in intelligent fighting qualities. There was this difference, however, that the Indian's fighting had ever been to kill, the white man's simply to win. But this difference to-day had ceased to exist. There was in Cameron's mind the determination to kill ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... which, in the massive rock on either side, have been almost entirely obliterated. The strata are inclined at an angle and the edges project from a few inches to about a foot, forming a series of little benches tilted up at an angle of about 45 degrees. By the exercise of some agility, one can ascend along these benches. About halfway between the site of the ruin and the stream bed there is a narrow horizontal bench, and again halfway between this bench and the ruin there is another, about 55 feet above the stream. Access to the ruins ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... year and for the marriage of Charles and Mary. To please the Lady Margaret and to exhibit his skill Henry played the gitteron, the lute and the cornet, and danced and jousted before her.[135] He "excelled every one as much in agility in breaking spears as in nobleness of stature". Within a week Tournay fell; on 13th October Henry commenced his return, and on the 21st ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... be one of muscle against muscle; and to unusual strength Clif added a surprising agility that came in good stead ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... further, for just then Dave leaped to his feet with an agility that surprised even himself. Stiff though he was, he ran at Merwell, hurling him flat. Then he bumped into Jasniff, who made a weak attempt to stop him. The two swung around, and Jasniff was sent crashing into the table, knocking over the lantern. ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... about, only crowds of the khakied of all ranks and sorts. After this little bit of history-making I hurried back to the commonplace task of clipping my mare's heels, an operation requiring great agility on ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... a burst of laughter from three of my room-mates, as Miss St. Clair danced out from the closet with the cap on her own brows; and then with a caper of agility, taking it off, flung it up to the chandelier, where it hung on one of ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... leaving his father and sister, who felt very reluctant, indeed, to part with him, Master Bert took his place in the cab and drove up to the railway station. Hardly had he entered it than he made a dash for the train, climbed up on the rear platform with the agility of a monkey, much to the amusement of the conductor, whose proffer of assistance he entirely ignored; and when Mr. Lloyd entered the train a minute later, he found his enterprising son seated comfortably ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... travelling Astley's theatre, which belongs to a company in New York. This show visits all the large towns, once during the summer season. The performances consists of feats of horsemanship, gymnastics, dancing on the tight and slack rope, and wonderful feats of agility and strength; and to those who have taste and nerve enough to admire such sights, it possesses great attractions. The company is a large one, often exceeding forty persons; it is provided with good performers, and an excellent brass band. The arrival of the circus ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... together—but of all the host of heaven, of our blessed Lord himself—nay, of his and our Almighty Father:—to find your frail flesh changed in a moment into a glorious celestial body, endowed with perfect beauty, health, and agility;—to find your soul cleansed from all its faults and infirmities; exalted to the purest and noblest affections; overflowing with divine love and rapturous gratitude!—to have your understanding enlightened and refined; ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... poor child's natural agility served her in such good stead as now. A heavy oblong table stood in the middle of the room. Round this table she flew, keeping it between herself and Manston, her large eyes wide open with terror, their dilated ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... and then resumed the pursuit; but his brief hesitation had been my salvation, and I had reached the tree which I had selected before he could overtake me. My climbing experience gained during my expeditions with Wakometkla, now stood me in good stead, and I "shinned" up the tree with the agility of a monkey. I had no time to spare, however, for my ursine friend reached the base of the tree before I had ascended far enough to be entirely out of reach, and rearing up, succeeded in getting a slight hold ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... course; but two hours afterwards, an attempt to make the Makna shore, placing her broadside on to the wind, created much confusion in the crockery and commotion among the men. Always a lively craft, she now showed a Vokes-like agility; for, as is ever the case, she had no ballast, and who would take the trouble to ship a few tons of sand? At such moments the engine was our sole stand-by: had it played one of its usual tricks, the Mukhbir, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... a snap and my last vestige of protection came fluttering to the roof. For one tense moment I stood gazing into the dilated eyes of those before me. Then with surprising presence of mind, I sprang to a ladder that led to the water tank, swarmed up it with the agility of a cat and lowered myself with a gasp of despair into the cold, cold water of the tank. From this place of security I gazed down on the man who had been responsible for my unfortunate plight. I felt myself sinned against, and the longer ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... be overlooked; this remarkable camel, which is like the greyhound amongst dogs for swiftness and agility, and even shape, they train for war and riding like the horse. They do not rear the ordinary variety of camel found in North Africa and on the Coast. مَه٘رِي or مَه٘رِ, are the two manners in which I have seen the Moorish talebs write this word in Arabic. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... circumstance, but, since I am reminded of it, I will not deny. The thing seems much worse in the telling than it was in the happening. The young man had shown great skill with the sword—he had disarmed me in a little encounter; I admit that, too—and we wished to test his agility and courage against a master, who was instructed not to hurt him ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... scrambled in with unusual agility for him, and again they were off, the gray taking them along with leaps and bounds, but the road was smooth, and the dust laid by frequent showers was like velvet under the horse's feet. Stiles drew himself up, clinging to the side of the ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... broad principle that God has spoken, not in order to make acute theologians, or to provide materials for controversy, but in order to help us to love. The whole of these latest letters of the Apostle breathe the mellow wisdom of old age, which has learned to rate brilliant intellectualism, agility, incontroversial fence and the like, far lower than homely goodness. And so, says Paul, 'the end of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... but it proved to be a bien-te-vi king-bird. Curved-bill wood-hewers, birds the size and somewhat the coloration of veeries, but with long, slender sickle-bills, were common in the little garden back of the house; their habits were those of creepers, and they scrambled with agility up, along, and under the trunks and branches, and along the posts and rails of the fence, thrusting the bill into crevices for insects. The oven-birds, which had the carriage and somewhat the look of wood-thrushes, ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... hearts that emerged from its hospitable door next morning. The owners thereof were Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller, the former of whom was speedily deposited inside a comfortable post-coach, with a little dickey behind, in which the latter mounted with great agility. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... skipping down from the high desk with wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... was pursuing eluded our pursuit with marvelous agility and cunning, but one by one we captured them, and punished them summarily. At last we surrounded a band of Thugs, and to our amazement found among them a European and a small boy. At our attack the Hindus made a desperate resistance, and ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... left. Apparently, at the termination of a stanza, they would stoop suddenly forward and slap the hands upon each thigh, uttering at the same moment a shrill cry, when the dancers would leap with astonishing agility high in the air and, alighting, stand perfectly still. This exhibition called the French from their repose, who seemed delighted, and very soon joined in the dance; mirth excited mirth, and in a little while the village was in a complete uproar. The young warriors, however, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... lively steeple-chase was going on. The riding was extremely pretty, as French military riding always is. Few of the mounts were thoroughbreds—the greater number, in fact, being local cart-horses barely broken to the saddle—but their agility and dash did the greater credit to their riders. The lancers, in particular, executed an effective "musical ride" about a central pennon, to the immense satisfaction of the fashionable public in the foreground and of ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... they meant was intended for the Mayor: and the Mayor, for a short-sighted man, detected this very promptly. Also he showed surprising agility in tumbling out of his saddle; which he had scarcely done before the crupper resounded with a whack, of which one of the borough maces bears an eloquent dent ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... preceding exertions of the day. The masterly horsemanship of the Disinherited Knight, and the activity of the noble animal which he mounted, enabled him for a few minutes to keep at sword's point his three antagonists, turning and wheeling with the agility of a hawk upon the wing, keeping his enemies as far separate as he could, and rushing now against the one, now against the other, dealing sweeping blows with his sword, without waiting to receive those which were aimed at him ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... moved backwards, keeping his face turned towards the money-lender. At this moment Lablache was at his best. His was a dominating personality. There was no cowardice in his nature—at least no physical cowardice. Doubtless, had it come to a struggle where agility was required, he would have fallen an easy prey to his lithe companion; but with him, somehow, it never did come to a struggle. He had a way with him that chilled any such thought that a would-be assailant might have. Will and unflinching courage are splendid assets. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... woods. The houses are dazzling white, and like the Rhine villages look well from a distance. Beware the interiors, or at least look before you leap. Then you will probably leap like the stricken hart, and in the opposite direction. You will be surprised at your own agility. Flee from the "Lodgings and Entertainment" announced in the windows. Your "Entertainment" is likely to be livelier than you expected, and you will wish that your Lodgings were on the cold, cold ground. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... till our present enlightened and glorious day of progress; he is a new-grafted type of nomad, like and yet unlike a man. The Darwin theory asserts itself proudly and prominently in bristles of truth all over him—in his restlessness, his ape-like agility and curiosity, his shameless inquisitiveness, his careful cleansing of himself from foreign fleas, his general attention to minutiae, and his always voracious appetite; and where the ape ends and the man begins is ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... sphere—the hearth-rug—and meets some feline friend to whom she extends a claw, playful or otherwise; or possibly meets some merry puppy which induces her to move rapidly up the nearest tree with an agility which you never would believe the mother of a family could boast if you had not been an eye-witness to the interesting scene. Such an encounter will not induce her to want to stay up a tree. It only makes the safety of the hearth-rug more inviting. Now, if she always remained ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... humanitarian. She might have been another Elizabeth Fry, another Florence Nightingale. But she had no impulse whatever towards active benevolence, nor any interest in masses of men and women. And, above all, she was not an actor, but a spectator in life, and she evaded, often with droll agility, all the efforts which people made to drag her into propagandas of various kinds. She listened to what they had to say, and she begged for the particulars of specially awful examples of the abuses they set out to remedy. She was all sympathy and interest, and the propagandist started with this ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... be made up to so much as yell, he had fitted the shield to his arm, snatched up the sword, and run to the point of danger. There, with quick understanding of the negro's strategy, he took place behind him, but in front of the Princess and the monk. His agility, cumbered though he was, his amazing spirit, together with the thought that the fair woman had yet another champion over whom the lion must go ere reaching her, wrought the whole multitude into ecstasy. They sprang upon the benches, and their shouting was impossible of interpretation ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... some heavy body did there and then jump upon our bed, and off again at my wife's interjection, with extreme agility. I thought Mrs. B. would have had a fit, but she didn't. She told me, dear soul, upon no account to venture into the cold with my bad throat. She would turn out the beast herself, single-handed. We arranged that she was to ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... resemblance to that of the ape. They are also ape-like in their incessant play of countenance, twitching of eyebrows, rapid gestures of hands and feet, nodding and wagging of the head, and remarkable agility. Their skin is of a dull brown color, "like partly roasted coffee," and destitute of the covering of hair seen by Du Chaillu on the Obongos. The hair of the head and the beard is ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... be stopped, he was down on all-fours running, with wonderful agility, in and out among the chairs, ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... now he was matched to fight with a heavy-weight, and every pound he had sweat off would have been an advantage to him! Yet, at any rate, it was not a fight to a finish, but only for points, and he counted upon his agility to save him from the rushes and the major ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... this as I walked by the side of the water. The sun was shining brightly on the river and made earth delightful, while it filled my looks with love for life, for the swallows, whose agility is always delightful in my eyes, for the plants by the riverside, whose rustling is a pleasure ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... downcast eyes. She knew more about the red-gray rock and its scribblings than she cared to tell before the big brothers, for she had spent one whole happy afternoon in the canyon with the colonel's son, watching him as he scrambled up the south bank, with the agility and sure-footedness of a goat, and hung for an hour in mid-air by one hand. So, while she ate her bread and smear-case, she made up her mind to follow the professor after the meal was over ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... time to digest this announcement a youthful imp descended from above with agility, and, making a profound reverence, presented himself before ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... all this as I walked by the side of the water. The sun was shining brightly on the river and made earth delightful, while it filled me with love for life, for the swallows, whose swift agility is always delightful in my eyes, for the plants by the riverside, whose rustling is a ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... with orange-tawny, those ostrich plumes, blue, red, and yellow, those party-colored hose and pink shoon, became the noble baron wondrous well," Fatima acknowledged. "It must be confessed that, though middle-aged, he hath all the agility of youth. But alas, madam! The noble baron hath ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in doubt. One of these was that, with all the expert mechanism that science and invention had supplied, the personal equation of the man could not be eliminated. Aviation increased the human element in warfare. To shoot straight requires calm nerves, but to fly straight requires also agility and endurance. ...
— In the Clutch of the War-God • Milo Hastings
... with the agility of a wild cat upon an old chest that stood in the corner of the hut. By stretching herself up to her full length, she succeeded in pulling down several old cobwebs that had been undisturbed for years, and while doing so, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... over this when we break our fast," he cried. "Come, Ercole!" And without waiting for more, he leapt down the steps with an agility surprising in one ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... at all need to pull her as in a moment she climbed the rope with skill and agility as if she were the full sister of a chimpanzee. For Stas it was considerably more difficult, but he was too well-trained an athlete not to overcome the weight of his own body together with the rifle and a score of cartridges with which he filled ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... that hill with ease, because they had these two men to lead them up by the arms; also, they had left their mortal garments behind them in the river, for though they went in with them, they came out without them. They, therefore, went up here with much agility and speed, though the foundation upon which the City was framed was higher than the clouds. They therefore went up through the regions of the air, sweetly talking as they went, being comforted, because they safely got over the river, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... reins of the big horse and mounted him with the agility of a cowboy. For a moment Rocket stood motionless. Then, whether because of Blake's weight or the fact that he was a stranger, all the beast's newly acquired docility vanished. He began to plunge and buck even more violently than when first ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... waxed. This process left it in a very glassy and orthodox condition, as the cook discovered when, on bustling in, the back of her cranium came in violent contact with the boards, while her body described a half-circle with a velocity which completely eclipsed any subsequent feats of agility shown by the dancers in the evening. The saloon had been very tastefully laid out as a supper-room, and numerous other little chambers were thrown open and brightened up to serve as lounging places for those who were fatigued. In the parlour there were two card-tables, ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... tartan plaid, it being conceived to be closely associated with a rebellious disposition. After thirty-six years the statute was repealed. While the act was in force it was evaded by people carrying their clothes in a bag over their shoulders. The prohibition was hateful to all, as impeding their agility in scaling the craggy steeps of their native fastnesses. In 1748 the punishment assigned by the act of 1746 was changed into compulsory ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... have the same employments as men, they must have the same education—they must be taught music and gymnastics, and the art of war. I know that a great joke will be made of their riding on horseback and carrying weapons; the sight of the naked old wrinkled women showing their agility in the palaestra will certainly not be a vision of beauty, and may be expected to become a famous jest. But we must not mind the wits; there was a time when they might have laughed at our present gymnastics. All is habit: people have at last found out that the exposure is better than the concealment ...
— The Republic • Plato
... Pere Marquette cleared his voice, scrambled with rare agility upon one of his own counters ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... round quickly, and took up a position in the prow, where I leant with careless grace upon the hitcher, in an attitude suggestive of agility and strength. I arranged my hair with a curl over the forehead, and threw an air of tender wistfulness into my expression, mingled with a touch of cynicism, which I am told ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... would have admitted, one little weak spot. He never was at the office till rather late in the morning. True, when he came, he soon made up for lost time, for he was possessed, as we have seen, of a notable quickness and agility of mind, but sometimes Taynton found that he was himself forced to be idle till Mills turned up, if his signature or what not was required for papers before work could be further proceeded with. This, ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... black-muzzled spaniel, who fastened his teeth in my pantaloons, and received a polite kick in consequence, which sent him howling to the other end of the room, and the animal was just in the act of performing that feat of agility, when the door opened and madame made her appearance. Frank came behind her, peering over her shoulder ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... opportunity to kill him; but before he had got quite out of sight, a lion of prodigious size, coming out of his den, leaped upon Furibon; all his followers fled, and only Leander remained; who, attacking the animal sword in hand, by his valor and agility saved the life of his most cruel enemy, who had fallen in a swoon from fear. When he recovered, Leander presented him his horse to remount. Now, any other than such a wretch would have been grateful, but Furibon did not even look upon him; nay, mounting the horse, ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... the most stony and mountainous parts of the "barren ground", but are seldom found at any great distance from the woods. Though they are a beast of great magnitude, and apparently of a very unwieldy inactive structure, yet they climb the rocks with ease and agility, and are nearly as surefooted as a goat. Like it, too, they will feed on anything; and though they seem fondest of grass, yet in winter, when grass cannot be had in sufficient quantity, they will eat moss or any other herbage ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... attacked the two bears at once, single-handed, crying, "Come on," in a voice of thunder. And it was a satisfactory thing to behold the way in which he cut and slashed at their heads (the heads having been previously prepared for such treatment), and the agility he displayed in leaping over their backs and under their legs, and holding on by their tails, while they vainly endeavoured to catch him. The applause was frequent and prolonged, and the two Esquimau ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... scene at most of its exciting events. Where Fate refused to take him, he asserted his strong hand and took Fate, until that weary lady was forced to go hopping about the map of South Africa with the agility of a sand flea. ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... Jones felt that the task imposed upon him would be almost impossible. He was heavy at heart, and unable to recall to himself his old spirits. He had been thoroughly ashamed of his son, and was not possessed of that agility of heart which is able to leap into good-humour at once. Florian had been restored to his old manner of life; sitting at table with his father and occasionally spoken to by him. He had been so far forgiven; but the father was still aware that there was still a dismal ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... at first refused to be disturbed, but when the servant at last made it plain that it was Hannibal C. Wharton, not his son Robert, calling, she leaped from her bed with the agility of an acrobat. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... the reins go loose, and instantly the little horse went slowly, as if all his spirit and agility had suddenly been withdrawn ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... expression, let me hasten to add, is merely figurative. The exasperating fact was, that all roads did not lead to Jerusalem; most of them led nowhere except over a precipice; and they were but glorified goat-tracks at best. You needed the agility of a monkey, the leaping powers of a "big-horn" and the lungs of a Marathon runner successfully to negotiate them. Moreover, by some oversight, the authorities had neglected to provide the troops with alpenstocks. Without these adventitious aids ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... was considerably taller than Frank, straight as an Indian, though rather inclined to be slender; but with a suppleness that indicated such strength and agility ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... hand with a sudden jerk, and the two who were watching Finn's eyes saw that in them which they had never seen in Kathleen's, nor yet even in Tara's eyes; for neither Tara nor her daughter had ever pitted their agility against man's brutality. They had never been clubbed or kicked; they had never seen as far into the ugly places of human nature as Finn; and you might brandish your arms in any way you chose before old Tara or Kathleen, and, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... which at times would suddenly rise three feet in a single night, and whose strong current played such giant pranks as turning over a wreck in the chains that were raising it, there was need of eternal vigilance and agility. However, Eads was more on his own ground on the river than on the shore, and his business so increased that he was soon running four diving-bell boats. In 1849 twenty-nine boats were burned at the levee in Saint Louis in ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... public roads in going to Valpinson. But troubled, as I was, by vague suspicions, I thought only of concealing myself and cut across the marshes. They were partly overflowed; but I counted upon my intimate familiarity with the ground, and my agility. I thought, moreover, that here I should certainly not be seen, and should meet no one. In this I was mistaken. When I reached the Seille Canal, and was just about to cross it, I found myself face to face with young Ribot, the son of a farmer at Brechy. ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... day she could bestow a good round sum on her master and mistress. On the appointed Sundays when they received their guests, she was, despite her years, active in the kitchen to superintend the dishes, which she served at the table with an agility that (to use a favorite expression of the worthy Ragon) might have given points to Mademoiselle Contat when she played Susanne in the ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... could not, all in a minute, take in what the rest were saying, size up the situation with a glance, frame a reply, and meet the case by a slight change of ground; and he was liable, therefore, to defeat by the mere swiftness, apprehension, and agility of a Lloyd George. There can seldom have been a statesman of the first rank more incompetent than the President in the agilities of the council chamber. A moment often arrives when substantial victory is yours if by some slight appearance of a concession you can save the face of the opposition ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... windows of the back room on the second storey; and out of these came floating still the song, the laughter, and the jabbered French he had heard in the house next door. It did not take him long to make up his mind. Gripping the swaying supports of the sagging shed, he went up it with the agility of a monkey, crawled to the nearer of the two windows, and, cautiously raising himself, peeped in. What he saw made him suck in his breath sharply and sent his ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... rooted to the spot. At that instant, and almost simultaneously with her arrival and that of the candle, there was heard a loud and furious knocking at the street-door, which caused Newman Noggs to jump up, with great agility, from a beer-barrel on which he had been seated astride, and to exclaim abruptly, and with a face of ashy paleness, 'Bobster, by ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... learns good morals and good manners. He finds out that there are better ways of expressing his ideas than in the slang of the alley, and in time he gains an understanding of a social leadership that depends on mental and moral superiority instead of physical strength or agility. As he grows older he becomes acquainted with the worth of established institutions, and his hand is no longer against every man and every man's hand against him. He likes to share in the social activities that occur as by-products of the school—the musical ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... everyone to go out with him, as he always does at that hour; and when he had succeeded in getting us all out was in a moment at the top of a high tree, leaping from branch to branch, throwing himself on coffee shrubs below, swinging himself up again in a flash, leaping, bounding! a picture of agility, strength, and happiness. The usual morning gathering of Rajahs and their followers, with Klings and Sikhs, was there, and I suspect that they thought adult Europeans very foolish for being amused ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... enemy's and lost their own, but this remarkable manoeuvre is repeated more than twenty times without advantage on either side—or without apparently any sensible losses on either side. From which it would appear that both contented themselves with displays of agility in climbing from vessel to vessel, and did nothing so impolite as to use their "javelins, arrows, and cutlasses" (of which, nevertheless, we hear) against the persons of their competitors in such agility on the other side. It did come to an end somehow after some time; but ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... inured, from their very infancy, to the weight of mail were these redoubted champions, that the very wrestlers on the village green, nay, the naked gladiators of old, might have envied their lithe agility and supple quickness. ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and Pritchard, and Mrs. Darley, were in their glory; lounged frequent hours in the museums; and was the first to run after every new attraction placarded at the corners. He was greatly taken with the agility of an Armenian girl, upon the wire and slack-rope, who was in truth a second Fenella in the sprightliness of her nimble exhibitions. Day Francis, the conjuror, was his admiration. He was delighted with Rannie, the old ventriloquist, and the first in America; ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... without losing sight of the other player's face. I was especially interested in watching Quastana. The photograph was a very good one, but it could not reproduce the sunburnt face, the vivacity and agility of movement, surprising in a man of his age, and the hoarse, hollow voice peculiar to those who spend most of their time ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... in the wildest terror and in helpless agony, while Philibert rushed without hesitation into the water, swam out to the spot, and dived with the agility of a beaver. He presently reappeared, bearing the inanimate body of her brother to the shore. Help was soon obtained, and, after long efforts to restore Le Gardeur to consciousness,—efforts which seemed to last ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... performances, and assigning to each his antagonist, the young men throw themselves with shouts and laughter into the ring, and go through all the evolutions and postures of the training ground. They bound about, try all sorts of antics and contortions, display wonderful agility and activity; it is a pretty sight to see, and one can't help admiring their vigorous frames, and graceful proportions. They are handsome, well made, supple, wiry fellows, although they be NIGGERS, and Hodge and Giles ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... something in his physiognomy which seemed to cast a sort of aerial bridge over the impassable gulf produced by difference of race. He was below the middle height, and robust and agile in figure. Valentin de Bellegarde, Newman afterwards learned, had a mortal dread of the robustness overtaking the agility; he was afraid of growing stout; he was too short, as he said, to afford a belly. He rode and fenced and practiced gymnastics with unremitting zeal, and if you greeted him with a "How well you are ...
— The American • Henry James
... the London gates; through the town; out at the gate that leads to Common, where there was a waggon in the road, which is so very narrow that a horse could barely pass. To save my legs, and perhaps my life, I was obliged to throw myself from the horse; which I did, with great agility: but, unluckily, upon hard stones; which has hurt my back, and my legs, but done no other mischief. It was a thousand to one, that I had not been killed. To crown all, a young girl was with me: her horse ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... With unwonted agility, Mr. Hadley came between her and the door. "You are not fair to us, Alison," he said. "Prithee, be fair to yourself." She passed him without a word. Mr. Hadley turned and showed Sir John a rueful face. "We have made a bad business ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... cries, and cords to which little baskets were fastened were lowered down to them from balconies. The bargaining and purchases reached from the depth of the street gutters to the top of the seventh floor, but the flocks of goats climbed the winding steps with their customary agility in order to be milked at the various ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... kind of mantle which they wore and sprang upon them, while other Indians, ambushed near by, leaped up and joined in the attack. The two old men were killed at once; but March, who was noted for strength and agility, wrenched a hatchet from one of his assailants, and kept them all at bay till Sergeant Hook came to his aid with a file of men ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... beating upon tin, a terrific racket that assails the abject skies. No one of us seemed to question this row as a certain consequence of three or four million people living together and scuffling for coin, with more agility, perhaps, but otherwise in the usual way. However, after this easy silence of London, which in numbers is a mightier city, I began to feel that there was a seduction in this idea of necessity. Our noise in New York was not a consequence of our rapidity ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... time for commands. The Quabos in front, supplied with slack in their hoses by those behind, leaped at us with incredible agility. We fell back a step so that none should ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... in Rossini's Il Barbiere has long been a favourite peg with prime donne on which to hang interpolated ornaments for the display of their vocal agility. Some of these are not always in good taste, being trivial or banal in character, thus concealing the natural charm of the original melody under a species of Henri Herz variations. Others, however, such as those used by the Patti and the Sembrich, for instance, ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... screamed, dropped our parasols, and ran instinctively to the only refuge that was in sight—a ladder leaning against the old Appleby house. I am forty-five and something more than plump, so that climbing ladders is not my favorite form of exercise. But I went up that one with the agility and grace of sixteen. Melissa followed me, and we found ourselves on the roof—fortunately it was a flat one—panting and gasping, but safe, unless that diabolical ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery |
