"Faint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... myself, I was lying in my own berth aboard the ship. I felt weak, faint, and dizzy, and strove in vain to collect my thoughts sufficiently to remember what had happened. My state-room door was open, and I perceived that the sun's rays were shining brightly through the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... all this happy crowd? Only her hero, in his own form again, and, if her heart was wounded and sad before, it dies within her now, when she sees him leading the princess out to meet them and knows that he thinks no longer of her. She turns pale and faint at first and then angry and fierce. She cries out that this man was her lover, that he has betrayed her for the princess and that he has betrayed ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... both artists had become so engrossed in their occupation that they ceased to converse, and for a considerable time profound silence reigned—at least on their part, though not as regarded others, for every now and then the faint sound of laughter came floating over the tranquil lagoon from that part of the coral strand where Captain Roy was still tickling the fancies and expanding the imaginations and harrowing or soothing the feelings of the ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Merry snow-flakes! How they fall from yonder sky, Coming lightly, coming sprightly, Dancing downwards, from on high. Faint or tire, will they never, Wheeling round and round forever. Surely nothing do I know, Half so merry as the snow; Half so merry, merry, merry, As the ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... autumnal landscape, while yet too brilliant to seem the presage of decay. The river flowed on its still smooth course, receiving on its waves the reflection of nature, in her quiet but ever glorious array, and mingling its faint murmurs with the busy sounds which breathed from those countless living things, that sported their brief existence on ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... rabbit hutch. At every instant now the crowd increased; there were but few seats that were not taken. The waiters hurried up and down the aisles, their trays laden with beer glasses. A smell of cigar-smoke filled the air, and soon a faint blue haze rose from all corners of ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... elude our vigilance; but it wouldn't do. She often wondered how we found out that that she was there, but we seldom missed an opportunity. Now and then a dear little pitcher, or a vase of cream-colored ground with a wreath of faint pink roses traced around it, or a cluster of bright-colored flowers in the centre, arrested our attention, and called forth rhapsodies of admiration. I supposed that everybody had just such a room; and it was very probable, I thought, that Mrs. ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... upon a wild Florida forest, and all was still save for the hooting of a distant owl and the occasional plaintive call of a whip-poor-will. In a little clearing by the side of a faint bridle-path a huge fire of fat pine knots roared and crackled, lighting up the small cleared space and throwing its flickering rays in ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... of Columbia answered in a very faint tone of voice, and Miss Anthony remarked that "this was through mortification because even the men there had no more rights than women." When another delegate could not be heard she said: "Women have always ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... for utterance in the Swede's throat; then faint and distant, in a thin whisper from the very bottom of his frozen soul, ...
— The Road • Jack London
... twenty-four fathoms at the distance of four miles from Walden Island, I was preparing two boats, with the intention of going to sound about its northern point, which was the most clear of ice, and not without a faint hope of finding something like shelter there; but I was prevented by a thick fog coming on. Continuing, therefore, to beat to the northward, we passed occasionally a good deal of drift ice, but with every appearance of much clear water in that direction; and ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... I mean." She looked up now in faint surprise. "Don't you remember? There was a letter—a second letter to be opened in two years' time. They said that that was to dispose of the remainder of the ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... sometimes happens to us when we are confronted by the certainty of great happiness, she was possessed by a gloomy sadness that came of dark forebodings in her mind. The very greatness and sureness of this happiness awed her into doubt. She knew that to take her good fortune in this faint-hearted way was not wise in itself, and was not what Pepe would approve; and that she might please Pepe she berated herself roundly and tried to laugh away her fears—though they scarcely amounted to fears, being but shadowy doubts and unshaped thoughts in which always was a tinge of nameless dread. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... hate giving things at second-hand. Yet there my connection with Kathleen Somers ceased, and her tragedy deepened before other witnesses. She stayed on in her hills; too proud to visit her friends, too sane to spend her money on a flying trip to town, too bruised and faint to fight her fate. The only thing she tried for was apathy. I think she hoped—when she hoped anything—that her mind would go, a little: not so much that she would have to be "put away"; but just enough so that she could see things in a mist—so that the hated hills might, for all she knew, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... entertained some little hopes of a place amongst his legatees, grounded upon an assurance which he had made, 'that upon his oath he would not fail to remember them in his will.' These hopes, however, were but faint and weakly; for they could not repose any extraordinary confidence in his good faith—not only because in all cases he conducted his affairs in a disinterested spirit, and with a perverse obstinacy of moral principle, whereas his seven relatives were mere ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... threshold for a moment, and looked into the room. It was lighted—except for the feeble ray from the lamp—only by the faint moonlight which found its way in through the hall and narrow windows, ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... awoke from his stupor he found himself in an old barn, lying on a pile of straw. He was weak and faint, and suffered excruciating pain. The Rebel soldier had stolen his coat, and he had no blanket to protect him from the cold night-winds. He was helpless. His flesh was hot, his lips were parched. A fever set in, his flesh ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... now going to bring out these very faint finger-prints on the bottles," remarked Craig, proceeding with his examination in the better light of our room. "Here is some powder known to chemists as 'grey powder'—mercury and chalk. I sprinkle it over the faint markings, so, and then I brush ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... arrangements are completed, what is seen is simply this, that if an analyzer is arranged to stop the light and make the field quite dark before the magnet is excited, then directly the battery is connected and the magnet called into action, a faint and barely perceptible brightening of the field occurs, which will disappear if the analyzer be slightly rotated. [The experiment was then shown.] Now, no wonder that no one understood this result. Faraday himself did not understand ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... surprise Versailles, inadequately defended, and seize, if it were possible, on the Assembly and the Government. Your sudden revolution wanted to be followed up by a brusque attack, there would then have been some hope—a faint one, I confess, but still a hope, and this plan of Bergeret, by the very reason of its audacity, should not have been condemned by you, who have only succeeded through violence and audacity, and can only go on prospering by the same means. Now what do ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... the woodcutter for the purpose of identifying his children. Pale, and trembling like criminals, the old couple followed the guards. Mother Thomas was ready to faint, and doubly grieved for leaving poor Rose all alone, especially as this was her day for being white and beautiful. She begged her not to leave the house, but to live on the milk of her sheep, and to bake cakes of some meal which was in the bin. Their adieus were heart-rending; ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... them for some moments. And in that silence a faint and distant sound came to them. It was like the sound of droning machinery, only ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... The air was thick with dust, straws, twigs, and foliage torn away, and the gust passed over the house with a howl of fury scarcely less appalling than the thunder-peal had been. Trembling, and almost faint with fear, sho strained her eyes toward the point where she had last seen Webb loading the hay-rack. The murky obscurity lightened up a little, and in a moment or two she saw him whipping the horses into a gallop. The doors of the barn stood open, and the rest of the workers ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... the sluggish manner of speech, Selwyn could detect a faint intonation which bespoke a man of breeding. He tried to discern the features, but they were completely hidden beneath ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... in nobody so much as in the bishop of Plock, and that he wished to receive the sacrament from him alone and leave his testament with him. We opposed his journey as much as we could, for he was very faint, and we feared that he would not survive even one mile's journey. But to oppose him was not an easy task. So the attendants prepared a wagon and carried him away. May God direct it to ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... gentleman, his Papistries, and pretended claims and self, clear out of it?" This was Friedrich Wilhelm's thought, and he suddenly marched troops into the Territory with that view. But Europe was in alarm; the Dutch grew faint. Friedrich Wilhelm saw it would not do. He had a conference with old Pfalz-Neuburg: "Young gentleman, we remember how your Grandfather made free with us and our august countenance! Nevertheless, we—" In fine, the "statistics ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... employed in examining the bodies of the killed and wounded. I was numbered among the former, and stretched out between the guns by the side of the first lieutenant and the other dead bodies. A fresh breeze blowing through the ports revived me a little, but, faint and sick, I had neither the power nor inclination to move; my brain was confused; I had no recollection of what had happened, and continued to lie in a sort of stupor, until the prize came alongside of the frigate, and I was roused by the cheers of congratulation and victory from those ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... vomited forth flame and smoke, and at every explosion a dreadful sound was heard like that of thunder. The intervals between these explosions were about half a minute. Some were faint in comparison to others, yet even the weakest vented a good deal of fire, and the largest made a roaring noise, and sent up a large flame thirty yards high, at the same time a stream of fire was seen running ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... ill. For their jests, and their sentences (which they only and ambitiously seek for) stick out, and are more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about them; as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness than a faint shadow. Now, because they speak all they can (however unfitly), they are thought to have the greater copy; where the learned use ever election and a mean, they look back to what they intended at first, and make all an even and proportioned body. The true artificer will ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... book. The editor has his swing in the introduction and appendix, and the notes; perhaps also in the title and index, if he can make anything of them. But it is a principle of honour throughout the clubs that the purity of the text shall not be tampered with; and so, whether dark or light, faint or strong, it is a true impression of the times, as the reader will perhaps find in the few specimens I propose to show him. As touching the literary value of what is thus restored, there are some who ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... into play, for ahead of them the darkness was threaded with a faint ray of light that rose above the trench, and while it did little more than make darkness visible, it was still sufficient to form a background against which they could have detected the figure ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... doing his family the only service that has been done for them there since their accession. He daily picks Up notable prisoners, and has lately taken Lord Lovat, and Murray the secretary. There are flying reports of the Boy being killed, but I think not certain enough for the father(1232) to faint away again-I blame myself for speaking lightly of the old man's distress; but a swoon is so natural to his character, that one smiles at it at first, without considering when it proceeds from cowardice, and when from misery. I heard yesterday ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... his whistling, and bent his ear forward as though to listen. A faint, muffled, strangled cry seemed to be borne to his ears. Under his bronze his face suddenly grew white. He flung the heavy bag from off his back, and grasping his gun more firmly in his hands, he rushed through the narrow ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... A faint chill ran up Fred Trent's back. He couldn't explain it. But it was there. An ominous note ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... and groom were in agony. The bride, with downcast eyes, stood speechless. At length the priest slowly closed his book and said, "The ceremony is at an end." One imploring word from the groom, and a faint "obey" was heard in the solemn stillness. The priest unclasped his book and the knot was tied. The congratulations, feast, and all, went on as though there had been no break in the proceedings, but the lesson was remembered, and many a rebel made by ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... with some faint light of comprehension through her wild impetus of resistance. "I'd ruther it would stay the way it was before," said she. "My husband gave you the mortgage. He thought you were trustworthy. I'd jest as soon pay you interest money ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... recovered from a long fainting fit. They have taken the crimping-pins out of my hair and deluged it with crystal water. I am lying on my couch faint and exhausted. Oh, my sisters, the paths of royalty are beautiful, but full of thorns. That bill has been enough to destroy all my pleasure in the visit ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... merry-go-round was but a series of faint specks down the dusty road. It was taking a route that would not take it across ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope
... dark cloud for a season doth hover, O'er pleasures and prospects so humble as thine; The joy of the past taken from thee for ever— And thy faint heart tempted by grief to repine: Thy Loved and thy Lost shall on earth no more greet thee, Farewell hath thine eyes with its weeping made dim; But think, though Creation henceforth may seem empty, Thou canst not be severed a ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris
... in the morning, as that would probably be the last chance to reach Chicago for some days. She did not urge him to stay, and expressed her regret at his departure in conventional phrases. They were standing by the edge of the terrace, which ran along the bluff above the lake. A faint murmur of little waves rose to ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... this forlorn old creature might catch a glimpse within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi- conscious of an intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of an old man's slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint thrilling of the heart-strings, as if there had been music ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... had the true sailor's sanguine heart, And saw the future with a boy's brave thought, No doubts, nor faint misgivings had a part In his bright visions—ay, before he caught His fish, he sold them in the scaly mart, And summ'd the net proceeds. This should have brought Despair upon him when his hopes were foil'd, But though one crop ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... stringed instruments in adjacent apartments, tuned to the same pitch, a note sounded on one of them will be feebly vibrated upon the other as soon as the waves of sound have reached the sensitive string. In like manner a man's heart gives off a faint, but musical, little tinkle of answering love to God when the deep note of God's love to him, struck on the chords of heaven up yonder, reaches ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... with a sharp, angry voice, "I am not going to die yet, nor faint either; but it is all your fault. If you will have those odious, vulgar people here for your own pleasure, at least suffer ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a very dark shade, is regarded to be a blemish of the most serious kind when observed on the pelt of a Shorthorn. The Herefords are partly white, partly red; the Devon possesses in general a deep red hue; the Suffolks are usually of a dun or faint reddish tint; the Ayrshires are commonly spotted white and red; and the Kerrys are seen in every shade between a jet black and a deep red. Uniformity in color would be most desirable in the case of each variety, and this object could ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... sunset, that the first intimation of animal existence in this seeming solitude is given, by the appearance of mermaids; who, floating on the rosy sea, congregate about these rocks. They sound a loud but melodious chorus from their sea-shells, and a faint and distant chorus soon answers from the island. The mermaidens immediately repeat their salutations, and are greeted with a nearer and a louder answer. As the red and rayless sun drops into the glowing waters, the ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... look upward would have been enough. The top of the cone rose for upward of a hundred feet above them, its soil composed of lava blocks and ashes intermingled with sulphur. In this soil there were a million cracks and crevices, from which sulphurous smoke was issuing; and the smoke, which was but faint and thin near where they stood, grew denser farther up, till it intermingled with the larger volumes that rolled up from ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... confusing my dates," said the old gentleman, with a faint blush. "You say I am mixing up the transactions of my time on earth with the story of my successors? It may be so. We take no count of a few centuries more or less in our dwelling by the darkling Stygian ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... perfect type Of southern loveliness, in whose warm veins The blood of good, ancestral stock runs pure, Maintained through centuries of Spanish suns." The old man fondly took her hands in his, And, bending forward, kissed her broad, fair brow; Then in a faint and ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... day of judgment (or some stage of being which that expression may serve to symbolize) is reached. But the faithful fighters of this hour, or the beings that then and there will represent them, may then turn to the faint-hearted, who here decline to go on, with words like those with which Henry IV. greeted the tardy Crillon after a great victory had been gained: "Hang yourself, brave Crillon! we fought at Arques, and ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... over the repulse of the Christian forces from Tripoli, did not on that account allow his pursuit of the infidel to grow faint; the galleys of "the Religion" were always at sea, and both the corsairs and the Ottoman Turks were perpetually losing valuable ships and costly merchandise. Under the General of the Galleys, the Commandeur Gozon de Melac, and that celebrated chevalier, the Commandeur ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... jocund to his call, The brimming brook invites a leap, He dives the hollow, climbs the steep. The youth sees omens where he goes, And speaks all languages the rose, The wood-fly mocks with tiny voice The far halloo of human voice; The perfumed berry on the spray Smacks of faint memories far away. A subtle chain of countless rings The next into the farthest brings, And, striving to be man, the worm Mounts through ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... silence and darkness had accompanied a Sierran stage-coach towards the summit. The huge, dim bulk of the vehicle, swaying noiselessly on its straps, glided onward and upward as if obeying some mysterious impulse from behind, so faint and indefinite appeared its relation to the viewless and silent horses ahead. The shadowy trunks of tall trees that seemed to approach the coach windows, look in, and then move hurriedly away, were the only distinguishable ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... upon the door above, at first quiet and persuasive, and then increasing in intensity. There came a faint sound of protesting inquiry, and ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... life bore but a faint resemblance to their former outdoor summer encampments in various picturesque places in the United States. Nevertheless the Camp Fire girls always had considered that they were doing useful work merely by following ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... picture actors: they are almost as far beyond her. And then to the man of God, the junior partner, the department manager, the clerk; one and all they are carried off by girls of greater attractions and greater skill—girls who can cast gaudier flies. In the end, suddenly terrorized by the first faint shadows of spinsterhood, she turns to the ultimate numskull—and marries him ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... wonder by what arts life can be made supportable through a winter in the country, and to tell how often, amidst the ecstasies of an opera, she shall pity those friends whom she has left behind. Her hope of giving pain is seldom disappointed; the affected indifference of one, the faint congratulations of another, the wishes of some openly confessed, and the silent dejection of the rest, all exalt her opinion of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... to the beach, the two boys were still with me, and I took their hands and walked on amidst the crowd. I did not imagine that they would come away with me, and yet a faint hope of their doing so sprang up in my mind, as I still found them holding my hands, and even when I began to wade towards the boat still close by my side in the water. All this took place in the presence of several hundred natives, who allowed ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her; and her feathers on the top of her hat were broke going in at the low back door and she pulled out her little bottle out of her pocket to smell when she found herself in the kitchen, and said, 'I shall faint with the heat ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... several days from this same depression of spirits," he answered, with a faint attempt to smile. "Perhaps some wise sightseer might declare it a presentiment of coming evil, but it is no doubt the mere effect of a slight indisposition, occasioned by the extreme ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... stampede them. We perceive the importance of preventing this. If we can but keep our animals out of the hands of the savages until darkness come down, then may there be some prospect of our escaping by flight. True, it is only a faint hope. There are many contingencies by which the design may be defeated, but there are also circumstances to favour it; and to yield without a struggle, would only be to deliver ourselves into the hands of an unpitying foe. The last words uttered by the Arapaho ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... could use was of no avail, and we were desperate as to what course to pursue, when the shelling recommenced in a few minutes. Then mother recommenced her screaming and was ready to fly anywhere; and holding her box of papers, with a faint idea of saving something, she picked up two dirty underskirts and ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... the animated face as she gave her account of how the school took a vote in the garden and were all Democrats. The Squire a little puzzled by his wife's evident disinclination to interfere with the dinner-table politics got a faint suspicion that here had come into Grey Pine a new and positive influence. He was more surprised that Mrs. Ann asked, "What did ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... loose-rolled waistband a piece of wood. Bones took it in his hand. It was the size of a corn cob, and had been newly cut, so that the wood was moist with sap. Bones smelt it. There was a faint odour of resin and camphor. Patricia Hamilton smiled. It was so like Bones to be led astray ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... labourer came out, who looked at them with speculative curiosity as they passed by. They were soon through the village and along the road that led in the direction of the Manor. On either side lay pastures with clumps of yellow cowslips, the faint fragrance of which was wafted on the pleasant air. Diana could not resist scaling a fence and going to gather some, though she got her shoes soaked with the morning dew. Down a hill, along the river side, and up through a long avenue of elms ran the ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... for the twinkle of gas, the shop was in darkness. It had the empty appearance which a well-managed confectioner's and baker's always has at night. The large brass scales near the flour-bins glinted; and the glass cake-stands, with scarce a tart among them, also caught the faint flare of ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... and Bob, in the rear seat, already were on their feet. Jack stood beside Frank, peering into the shadows behind. The moon was in its first quarter, low down and shed only a faint radiance. But even by the wan light, it could be seen that something dire had happened to the car of the bandits. It stood sideways across the road, leaning drunkenly to one side. And to the ears of the boys came groans from a number of ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... was silent. Shackwell, from a distant seat, uttered a faint protesting sound, but no one heeded him. The Governor stood squarely before Fleetwood, his hands in his pockets. "It is true, then?" ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... settled down, until they appeared to rest upon our mastheads, compressing, as it were, the hot steamy air upon us until it became too dense for breathing. In the early part of the night it had rained in heavy showers now and then, and there were one or two faint flashes of lightning, and some heavy peals of thunder, which rolled amongst the distant hills in loud shaking reverberations, which gradually became fainter and fainter, until they grumbled away in the distance ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... into lands that grew ever pleasanter with advancing spring, the old "permanent ambition" of boyhood stirred again, and the call of the far-away Amazon, with its coca and its variegated zoology, grew faint. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... my hands gave me aid, and my keen sword. Rarely a man is bold, when of mature age, if in childhood he was faint-hearted. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... to her husband quite quietly, so calmly that he did not notice anything. But when she took the road to the Laemkes next day, her heart trembled and beat as spasmodically as it had done before. She had fought against her fear and faint-heartedness the whole morning; now it was almost noon on that account, Paul had told her at breakfast that Wolfgang had not been to the office the day before and only for quite a short time the preceding day. "I don't know what's the matter with the boy," he had said. "I'm really too angry with ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... seemed as if it had lasted a long time, when I saw Ellen sitting, looking all the fuller of life and pleasure and desire from the contrast with the grey faded tapestry with its futile design, which was now only bearable because it had grown so faint and feeble. ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... words the martial fire of the father blazed out in the son, so that his men wondered more than ever how they could have suspected him of faint-heartedness. ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... he did not speak a word, was written, plain as in a book, on the face of Christian's husband, as he watched her, still silently, for another mile, till the early winter sun-set, bursting through the leaden-colored, snowy sky, threw a faint light in at the ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... he instantly saw that Emily was overcome by the heat. Her lips were white, and her eyes were closing. "Let me take you out," he said, "or you will faint." ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... walls and back plaster could be in that furnace; but my own small room, on the sunny side of the house, was heated seven times hotter than endurance. Sometimes I got over an open register in a lower room, and wrote in the faint puffs of damp air that played with my misery. Sometimes I sat in the cellar itself; but it was rather dark, and one cherished a consciousness of mice. In the orchard, or the grove, one's brains fricasseed quickly; in fact, all out-of-doors was a scene of bottomless torment worthy of a theology ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... despair; and chilly as the grave. We felt its undulating blast arise, Midst whisper'd sorrows and ten thousand sighs. Expiring embers warn'd us each to sleep, By turns to watch alone, by turns to weep, By turns to hear, and keep from starting wild, The sad, faint wailings of a dying child. But Death, obedient to Heav'n's high command, Withdrew his jav'lin, and unclench'd his hand; The little sufferers triumph'd over pain, Their mother smil'd, and bade me hope again. Yet Care ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... of hallowed communion that the future held, while in her invalid condition he assumed the care and guardianship of his beloved; and, turning into the lawn, he eagerly searched the winding walks for some trace of her, some flutter of her garments, some faint, subtle odor of orange-flowers ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... great river, and so to reduce them by famine. The scheme was a masterly one, but even the consummate ability of Farnese would have proved inadequate to the undertaking, had not the preliminary assassination of Orange made the task comparatively easy. Treason, faint-heartedness, jealousy, were the fatal allies that the Governor-General had reckoned upon, and with reason, in the council-rooms of these cities. The terms he offered were liberal. Pardon, permission for soldiers to retreat with technical honour, liberty to choose between apostacy ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... suggestion, however faint, in her words, of condescension for her lodger's bad taste, and a desire to enlighten his ignorance which nettled Westray; and he contrived in his turn to throw a tone ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... principal."—Wayland's Moral Science, 1st Ed., p. 377. "The essentials of speech were anciently supposed to be sufficiently designated by the Noun and the Verb, to which was subsequently added, the Conjunction"—Bullions, E. Gram., p. 191. "The first faint gleamings of thought in its mind are but the reflections from the parents' own intellect,—the first manifestations of temperament are from the contagious parental fountain,—the first aspirations of soul are but the warmings and promptings ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Meate: I suppe vpon my selfe, And so shall sterue with Feeding: come, let's go, Leaue this faint-puling, and lament as I do, In ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... wait main paint daily nail brain faint plainly pail drain snail waist pain claim frail complain pain train praise sailor aim plain quail raise ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... hasty fingers, Sohrab loos'd His belt, and near the shoulder bar'd his arm, And shew'd a sign in faint vermilion points Prick'd: as a cunning workman, in Pekin, Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase, 670 An emperor's gift—at early morn he paints, And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands:— So delicately prick'd ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... pray, then she stopped. "It is no good praying," she reflected, "God did not stop mother's pain. It was only stopped by that stuff I smelled out in the entry." She could not reason back of that; her terror and misery brought her up against a dead wall. It seemed to her presently that she heard a faint cry from her mother's room, then she was quite sure that she smelled that strange, sweet smell even through her closed door. Then her father opened her door abruptly, and a great whiff of it entered with him, like some ghost of pain ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and a faint color tinged his pale cheeks. This was Isabella's favorite air; and once more the vision started up before him, once more he saw the tears, he kissed them, and looked into the depths of those ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... soon hoisted out and started off on their job. They all seemed to get away without the slightest hitch, and it was a fine sight watching them taxi-ing along the calm water to get up speed, and then rising in the air one by one to disappear in the faint haze towards the horizon. What they were to do, exactly, I cannot say, but within ten minutes they had all disappeared and the squadron steamed to and fro waiting for their return. They were expected back in about ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... contrary, the breeze freshened. The sailors unfurled the sails, the oars were taken in, and the great crew of oarsmen rested from their toil. The ships began to make their way rapidly through the rippling water. The land soon became a faint, low cloud in the horizon, and in an hour all traces ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... created these things, for that He is strong in might, not one faileth.' That is wonderful, but here is a far nobler operation of the divine power. It is great to 'preserve the ancient heavens' fresh and strong by His might, but it is greater to come down to my weakness, to 'give power to the faint,' and 'increase strength to them that have no might.' And that is what He ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... A faint gleam of light in the east gave sign of the approach of day, as the Leader stepped cautiously toward the group of trees, followed by the young warrior, whose heart beat high with hope that the time had at last come for him to show his ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... ever received any education. Her mind, so far as a perception of the outside world and its history went, was some way behind that of a Hottentot or a South Sea Islander. She had, from the day of her birth, been told by every one around her that she was stupid, and, after a faint struggle, she had acquiesced in that judgment. She knew that her younger sister, afterwards Mrs. Morris, was pretty and accomplished, and that she would never be either of those things. She was not angry nor jealous at this. The note of her character was acquiescence, ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... vessels which are not large enough to require the treatment recommended for large arteries or veins. It is rarely dangerous, and usually stops spontaneously. When the loss of blood has been considerable, so that the patient is pale, faint, and generally relaxed, with cold skin, and perhaps nausea and vomiting, he should be stripped of all clothing and immediately wrapped in a blanket wrung out of hot water, and then covered with dry blankets. Heat should also be applied to the feet by means of ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... was somewhat elevated, but not sufficiently so to enable one to see far in front. The vedette on either flank was invisible. Night was falling. A few faint stars began to shine. A thousand insects were cheeping; a thousand frogs in disjointed concert welcomed the twilight. A gentle breeze swayed the branches of the tree above me. Far away—to right or left, I know not—a cow-bell ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... down to the carriages, I thought that she was going to faint; but it appeared, on second thoughts, that she wished first to see the girls depart in their gay equipages; she therefore tottered to the window, saw them get in, looked at Newman's greys and gay postillions—at the white and silver favours—the dandy ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... narrow and deep canyon marking the east side of the hill. This cluster is shown on the ground plan, plate XVII, though not in its proper position. Northeast of this cluster and perhaps 200 yards distant there are traces of other rooms, but they are so faint that no plan can be made out. As shown on the sketch map, figure 284, the hill is a long narrow one, and its western side falls rapidly to a large triangular area of flat bottom land lying between it and Beaver creek, which it overlooks, as ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... afterwards that he was awake again, staring into the dim-lit dug-out with every sense alert. He was conscious first of a faint elusive scent—a scent which was new to him. His mind wandered to the scents he knew—Chaminade, Mysterieuse, Trefle Incarnat—but this was different. Delicate, sensuous, with the slightest suggestion of jasmine about it, it seemed to permeate every part of him. Vaguely ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... up my mind to ring, but no one opened the door. I then thought that some prowlers had amused themselves by making a shindy, and I was about to continue to the train when I thought I heard faint cries coming from the inside of the house. Then, fearing there was a mishap or a crime, I ran to the police station and made the above statement ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... just motive or high or honest sentiment, which exists and thrives and operates in spite of the error and in face of it, springing from man's spontaneous and unformulated recognition of the real relations of things. This recognition is very faint in the beginnings of society. It grows clearer and firmer with each step forward. And in a tolerably civilised age it has become a force on which you can fairly lean with a considerable ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... of her speech her voice was as faint and thin as a sick child's, but she steadily repressed all emotion, for no well-bred Japanese lady ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... and the perspiration bedewed my forehead, when I heard this intelligence. At last, my emotion was so great, that I felt faint. "You are ill, sir," said one of the gentlemen; "quick—a glass ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... a story which is hardly sufficient to account for Bukka's faint-heartedness. He says that Mujahid went one day while on the march after a man-eating tiger of great ferocity, and shot it with a single arrow through the heart. "The idolaters, upon hearing of this exploit, were struck with dread." At the present ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... upon their nerves. Her aunt on one side of her, and Mr. Stephens on the other, did all they could to soothe her, and at last the weary, overstrung girl relapsed into something between a sleep and a faint, hanging limp over her pommel, and only kept from falling by the friends who clustered round her. The baggage-camels were as weary as their riders, and again and again they had to jerk at their nose-ropes to prevent them from lying down. From horizon to ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the blue weather—the only audible sound except, now and then, a movement and flutter from the bird perched in the branches of the artu. All at once another sound mixed itself with the voice of the surf—a faint, throbbing sound, like the beating of ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... Commons was made up for the most part of young men, of men, that is, who had but a faint memory of the Stuart tyranny under which their childhood had been spent, but who had a keen memory of living from manhood beneath the tyranny of the Commonwealth. They had seen their fathers driven from the justice-bench, driven from the polling-booth, half-beggared ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... in the dike! The stoutest heart Grows faint that cry to hear. And the bravest man in all the land Turns white with mortal fear, For he knows the smallest leak may grow To a flood in a single night; And he knows the strength of the cruel sea When ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... obeyed in fumbling haste, and while that operation went on, he succeeded in jumping out of his own rags and still kept the two fairly steadily under the nose of his gun. He tossed this bundle to Godwin, who accepted it with a faint oath; and Donnegan stepped calmly and swiftly into the clothes ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... he loves, From those fair charms that bind him; He turns his eye where'er he roves, To her he's left behind him. When, round the bowl, of other dears He talks, with joyous seeming, His smiles resemble vapourish tears, So faint, so sad their beaming; While memory brings him back again, Each early tie that twin'd him, How sweet's the cup that circles then, To her he's left ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the village of Franklin was as silent as the grave. Beyond the last houses, toward New Iberia, a faint light from some camp fires could be seen. Were the Federals in possession of the road? Approaching the fires cautiously, I saw a sentinel walking his post, and, as he passed between me and the light, marked his ragged Confederate garb. Major Clack had reached this point after dark, and ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... with the delicate dim flakes of gathering vapor, which are the intermediate link between the central region and that of the rain-cloud, and which assemble and grow out of the air; shutting up the heaven with a gray interwoven veil, before the approach of storm, faint, but universal, letting the light of the upper sky pass pallidly through their body, but never rending a passage for the ray. We have the first approach and gathering of this kind of sky most gloriously given in the vignette at page 115 of Rogers's Italy, which is one of the most perfect pieces of ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... and a ragged shepherd, driving a meagre straggling flock, whom we stopped to ask our way of, was a perfect type of pastoral, weather-beaten misery. He was precisely the shepherd for the foreground of a scratchy etching. There were faint odours of spring in the air, and the grass here and there was streaked with great patches of daisies; but it was spring with a foreknowledge of autumn, a day to be enjoyed with a substrain of sadness, the foreboding of regret, a day somehow to make one feel as if one had seen and felt a great deal—quite, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... the faint air had become a complete calm; so that whether or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope of escaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin, Stubb now called his boat's crew, and pulled off for the stranger. Drawing across her bow, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... pair were gone; their steps grew faint in the corridor; when we could no longer hear them, Rattray closed the door and quietly locked it. Then he turned to me, stern enough, and pointed to the door ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... attractions just as puzzling to him. He had vague memories of people with whom he felt no affinity except as vaguely nostalgic memories—Sam Baker's mother, his father, the blurred faces of friends he had known. And, at times, there were faint tinges of the terror Sam had known that night when a quick light flashed down from nowhere and he was abducted into a world too strange and terrible to be real. ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... particularly sultry June night, and dinner was about to be served at the Grand Babylon. Men of all sizes, ages, and nationalities, but every one alike arrayed in faultless evening dress, were dotted about the large, dim apartment. A faint odour of flowers came from the conservatory, and the tinkle of a fountain. The waiters, commanded by Jules, moved softly across the thick Oriental rugs, balancing their trays with the dexterity of jugglers, and receiving and executing orders with that air of profound importance ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... time (as his Lordship can inform you) to tender by him such a testimony of our Brotherly & intimate affections, as may in some measure suite with your manifold and most affectionate expressions toward us, when our sighings were many, and our hearts faint: For such hath been your love, that no waters can quench it, and such the undertakings of the whole Kingdome of Scotland through your furtherance, that we already begin to reap the fruits of all that Piety, Prudence, and Valour, which at this ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... wandering curiosity, are not at all aware of the repugnance generally entertained toward persons of color in the United States: it appeared to amount to an absolute monomania. As for an alliance with one of the race, no matter how faint the shade of color, it would inevitably lead to a loss of caste, as fatal to social position and family ties as any that occurs in the Brahminical system. . . . . . . . . . . . . ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... came on, as its habits are in the tropics, like a lamp blown out. I could see the stars through the square seaward window of the tower, and heard the keeper go softly up the stairs, and I went to sleep, very weak and faint. ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... and have brought a three-octave one along." That set me going. "So you spend your vacation with the dumb, expecting to learn to speak, and yet you mock me because I play Dussek! Let me inform you, my young sirs, that this quaint, old-fashioned music, with its faint odor of the rococo, is of more satisfying musical value than all your modern gymnasiums. Of what use, pray, is your superabundant technics if you can't make music? Training your muscles and memorizing, you say? Fiddlesticks! ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... from behind him, and there was a faint, exquisite odour as from distant apple blossoms as she kissed his cheek. "Dear, I waited lunch almost an hour for you, but you didn't come! ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... younger sister, Emily, who, when I had left the house, was trembling on the balance,—who had been pronounced to be delicate, but with that false-tongued hope which knows the truth, but will lie lest the heart should faint, had been called delicate, but only delicate,—was now ill. Of course she was doomed. I knew it of both of them, though I had never heard the word spoken, or had spoken it to any one. And my father was very ill,—ill to dying, though I did not know it. And my mother had decreed to send ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... some bright morning about Easter Day, proclaiming her arrival, with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the bluebird, or the faint trill of the song sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle or an ellipse in the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, I suspect, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... fitness of the union. And, worst of all, there were 'Sentiments.' These were short epigrammatic sentences, expressive of moral feelings and virtues, and were thought refined and elegant productions. A faint conception of their nauseousness may be formed from the following examples, every one of which I have heard given a thousand times, and which indeed I only recollect from their being favourites. The glasses being filled, a person ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... around. It was very dark. A short distance to the north they could see the broad expanse of the North Sea, stretching away in the night. The dark waves lapped the shore gently with a faint thrashing sound. The water was ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... different," he remarked to himself; "if I had been in a position to offer her decent conditions, I would have followed up the lead. And I would have won." He turned the incident on the river bank over in his mind, and a faint smile played along his lips. "I would have won. But I couldn't bring her here.... It's the first time I ever felt that money could really contribute to happiness. Well—I was happy before I met her; I can be ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead |
