"Flighty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could see him! Yes, that would be the best way of all; it couldn't help succeeding. He imagines you as a flighty Parisienne; he is afraid of you; he is more angry with me for loving you than for refusing to carry on his practice. If he could only see you, he ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... he sees that money piled up in the bank vaults. We all do. And we want to get at it. Say, great thing to be working for a bank, eh? No flighty, shilly-shallying, notional women, but a lot of steady, sober business-men who'll make a good straight contract and keep it. No saying, 'Well, my daughter doesn't altogether fancy this,' or, 'I will take your sketches home to my husband ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... Lottie was experimenting on the machine with a bit of muslin, and Elsie sat near by with her father's letter in her hand, her soft dark eyes now glancing over it for perhaps the twentieth time, now at the face of one or the other of her companions, as Lottie rattled on in her usual gay, flighty style, and Aunt Wealthy answered her sometimes with a straightforward sentence, and again with one so topsy-turvy that her listeners could not ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... precentor to read out the psalm a line at a time. Having then sung that line he read out the next one, led the singing of it, and so worked his way on to line three. Where run line holds, however, the psalm is read out first, and forthwith sung. This is not only a flighty way of doing things, which may lead to greater scandals, but has its practical disadvantages, for the precentor always starts singing in advance of the congregation (Auld Lichts never being able ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... the pack animal by a surcingle. The Indians who came with the burro train were pleasant-faced, sturdy fellows, dressed in "store clothes" and straw hats. Their burros were as cantankerous as donkeys can be, never fractious or flighty, but stubbornly resisting, step by step, every effort to haul ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... to the velvet rose, Off and away he goes, Far from all other blooms Roving so free; Flighty, and light of heart, Having of care no part, Gay ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... lightheaded, incoherent, rambling, doting, wandering; frantic, raving, stark staring mad, stark raving mad, wild-eyed, berserk; delusional, hallucinatory. [behavior somewhat resembling insanity] corybantic[obs3], dithyrambic; rabid, giddy, vertiginous, wild; haggard, mazed; flighty; distracted, distraught; depressed; agitated, hyped up; bewildered &c. (uncertain) 475. mad as a March hare, mad as a hatter; of unsound mind &c. n.; touched in one's head, wrong in one's head, not right in one's head, not in one's right mind, not right in one's wits, upper story; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... by Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt in Edinburgh, with a view to this arrangement. The lady's journal records her impressions; which, it would seem, strongly resembled those of a tradesman getting rid of a rather flighty and imprudent partner in business. She is extremely precise as to all pecuniary and legal details; she calls upon her husband now and then, takes tea with him, makes an off-hand remark or two about some picture-gallery which he had ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... character I had heard of Madam Schuyler, I was a good deal surprised to find that Guert was somewhat of a favourite. But even the most intellectual and refined women, I have since had occasion to learn, feel a disposition to judge handsome, manly, frank, flighty fellows like my new acquaintance, somewhat leniently. With all his levity, and his disposition to run into the excesses of animal spirits, there was that about Guert which rendered it difficult to despise him. The courage of a lion was in his eye, and his front and bearing were precisely ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... Those with good bank accounts and a disinclination to take any bodily or gastronomic risks, the young idler who stands on the street corner ogling girls and the girls who are always in the street to be ogled, the flighty-minded, the irresponsible, the tramp, the selfish, and the cowardly, are bound to be in the van of flight from any sudden disaster and to make the most of the generous sympathy of ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the lapwing," they whispered to one another. "He's a flighty customer and not to be trusted. He always comes too early and starts calling at once. No, we will wait quietly till the starling and the swallow come. They are sensible, sober people, who are not to be taken in and who ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... be over. Only a few hours at most. I have met with an accident, my boy. I was riding from Truro, and got near home, when three men, who had been drinking hard at the tavern near by, came out from the hedgeside and frightened Bess; she is a very flighty mare, you know. She gave a side leap and threw me. My foot caught in the stirrup, and I was dragged along the road until I fancy the mare ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... He was so good and well-behaved, and affectionate, I myself liked him very much. I was in the habit of coming in afternoons and sitting by him, and he liked to have me - liked to put out his arm and lay his hand on my knee - would keep it so a long while. Toward the last he was more restless and flighty at night - often fancied himself with his regiment - by his talk sometimes seem'd as if his feelings were hurt by being blamed by his officers for something he was entirely innocent of - said 'I never in my life was thought capable of such a thing, and never was.' At other times ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with reproach upon him. Then turning to the ladies: "That shows how he misunderstands me. Just because I had a witty mother,—just because I 'm not a stolid, phlegmatic ox of a John Bull,—just because I 'm sensitive and impressionable,—he calls me flighty. But you know better, don't you? You, with all your fine feminine instincts and perceptions, you know that I 'm really as steady and as serious as the pyramids of Egypt. Even my very jokes have a moral purpose—and what I teach in them, I learned in sorrow. Flighty!" He shot another black ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... the most fearfully unkind thing I ever had said to me! Why, I would rather be accused of I don't know WHAT than an artistic temperament! How COULD you say it? Why, I'm as practical and common sensible and straightforward as I can be. People who have artistic temperaments are flighty and weak-minded and not at ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... "But do you suppose our friend the Flighty Hun won't have a peep at us to-morrow morning to see where those shells landed? If he does, or if he takes a photograph, those holes will show up like a chalk-mark on a blackboard; then he has only to tell his gun to step this way a couple of hundred yards and ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... followed," continued the envoy, "his Majesty has determined to send Councillor Hopper, keeper of the privy seal, and myself, hitherwards, to execute the resolutions of his Majesty." Two such personages as poor, plodding, confused; time-serving Hopper, and flighty, talkative Havre, whom even Requesens despised, and whom Don John, while shortly afterwards recommending him for a state councillor, characterized, to Philip as "a very great scoundrel;" would hardly be able, even if royally empowered, to undo the work of two preceding administrations. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... members of the aristocracy, and the houses which she visited did not appal her by their splendour. Many objections were made to her. A character from an aunt was objectionable. Her ringlets were objectionable. She was a deal too flighty-looking. She spoke up much too free. At last one happy mother of five children offered to take her on approval for a month, at L12 a year, Ruby to find her own tea and wash for herself. This was slavery;—abject slavery. And she too, who had been the beloved ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... strengthened by habit, or whether it be habit and education only which give the natives of the south of France so much apparently constitutional ardour; but such the fact appears to be. This count is one of the most extravagant of all the hot-brained race I have mentioned. He indulges and feeds his flighty fancy by reading books of chivalry, and admiring the most romantic of the imaginary ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... leaves here a number of sick—Lieutenant Gray, charged with using threatening and insubordinate language to his commanding officer, among them; and Gray is down with brain fever. The doctors say he is too ill to be disturbed, and his side of the story is hard to get at, as the boy is too flighty to talk sense. From Canker's own admission I learned that he accused Gray of having knowledge of the whereabouts of that packet of letters stolen from General Drayton's tent, and the youngster's reply was furious. Canker had to place him in arrest and prefer charges. When ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... how can you for a moment suppose I should have any serious thoughts of that trifling, gay, flighty ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... into his room; and when he came down, after an interval, it was to check Blanche, who would have gone up to interrupt her with queries about the perpetual blue merino. He sat down with Blanche on the staircase window-seat, and did not let her go till he had gently talked her out of flighty spirits into the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... curls, and ruffles pertaining to the toilette-wisdom of the day, as well as into the still more mysterious art of always borrowing and never paying. But the flexible steel of that nature was proof against even these dissipated and flighty courses; Caesar retained both his bodily vigour and his elasticity of mind and of heart unimpaired. In fencing and in riding he was a match for any of his soldiers, and his swimming saved his life at Alexandria; the incredible rapidity ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Ruth turned upon his brother was very distinct in its expression at that moment, and quite belied the popular theory that the twins could not be told apart. "Thet gal," continued Rand, without looking up, "is either flighty, or—or suthin'," he added in vague disgust, pushing the table from him as if it were the lady in question. ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... account of a Chichester calamity:—"Jno. Page, Esq., native of this city, coming from London to Stand Candidate Here, a great number of voters went on Horseback to meet him. Among the rest Mr. Joshua Lover, a noted School Master, a sober man in the general but of flighty Passions. As he was setting out, one of his Scollers, Patty Smith (afterwards my Spouse) asked him for a Coppy, and in haste he wrote ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... either of power or action or intellect about which they may group themselves, and I think that Pearse became the leader because his temperament was more profoundly emotional than any of the others. He was emotional not in a flighty, but in a serious way, and one felt more that he suffered than ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... so fashionable now-a-days To give one's dwelling some fantastic name To recommend it to the stranger's gaze, Or afford it an imaginary claim To more gentility than others; 'tis the same In the metropolis, for folks arrange (Flighty mammas, perhaps, are more to blame) To call their homes "The Beeches" or "The Grange," For probably they think 'twill be a ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... friends much longer was becoming a dark and ugly question. A year or two before, Boulnois had married a beautiful and not unsuccessful actress, to whom he was devoted in his own shy and ponderous style; and the proximity of the household to Champion's had given that flighty celebrity opportunities for behaving in a way that could not but cause painful and rather base excitement. Sir Claude had carried the arts of publicity to perfection; and he seemed to take a crazy pleasure in being equally ostentatious in an intrigue ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... had its effect. Not a few of Dr. Mountchance's lady customers preferred money to trinkets and he did a profitable trade in buying these presents at his own price. Some of these flighty damsels were haughty and patronising and others were familiar and impudent. The old man disliked both varieties. Lavinia belonged to neither the first nor the second. She was thoroughly natural and the humour lurking in her sparkling ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... and Flighty Majesty," remarked the Captain respectfully, "it occurs to me that the weapons of the Pinkies are superior to our own. What we need in order to oppose them successfully is a number of sharp sticks which are ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... she responded to my kindly and solicitous attentions. They could not fail to see that the link existing between us was not to be compared to any ordinary liaison, and we had the satisfaction of seeing the flighty young lady who had so openly angled for me fall into a fit ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the important part, played by conservatism, the conservatism that holds on to what has been gained if it is good, that insists on discipline and heed to the plain teaching of experience, that refuses to go into hysterics of enthusiasm over every flighty suggestion, or to follow every leader simply because he proposes something new and strange—I do not mean the conservatism that refuses to try anything simply because it is new, and prefers to energetic life the stagnation that inevitably leads to decay. Isolation ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... a fast-growing, hard-working youth of eighteen, who go every morning, four miles by street-car, to my office, and the same back at night, often so weary and faint as to be hardly able to sit, not to say stand, be obliged to give up my seat to any flighty, flashy girl who has come down-town to shop, or frolic, or do nothing? Isn't she as able to "swing corners" holding on to a strap as I? and to hold her own perpendicular ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... flighty young dame, with a new notion for every minute," he told himself. "You can see that plain enough. It's probably all jolly on her part. However, in these days, if a fellow keeps his head steady and his feet busy, there's no telling ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... of religion," he said, after returning to the family, "is not only delicate, but deep; her piety is fervent and profound. I do not therefore despair but religion will carry her through whatever disappointment Charles's flighty enthusiasm may ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... without a smile these doubts of the "steadiness" of that sex? Again, among Quaker women, I have asked the opinion of prominent Friends, as of John G. Whittier, whether it has been the experience of that body that women were more flighty and unsteady than men in their official action; and have been uniformly answered in the negative. And finally, as to benevolent organizations, a good test is given in the fact,—first pointed out, I believe, by that ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... seen the last of her friend. Poor Annabel died in two days, and afterward Maggie took the fever. Yes, she has been quite changed since then. She always had moods, as she called them, but not like now. Sometimes I think she is almost flighty." ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... flash in the girl's eyes brought him to an uncomfortable pause. He felt that she measured him, challenged him. For the first time his honourable career of building a county commonwealth had been questioned—and by a chit of a girl, the daughter of a wastrel, herself but a flighty, fly-away, foreign creature. ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... a contract made in London by your uncle, a director of this company, to be engaged on arrival as clerk at L10 a week. You, Mr. Boozer, are to be engaged at L6 a week as book-keeper; and you, Mr. Flighty, at L5 a week as an assistant engineer, and so on. Now, gentlemen, in my position as manager here I may tell you plainly that your relatives and friends—the directors in London—are not conversant with the business here in detail. Were they, I am certain, gentlemen, you ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... statues. One man who is a little too literal can spoil the talk of a whole tableful of men of esprit.— "Yes," you say, "but who wants to hear fanciful people's nonsense? Put the facts to it, and then see where it is!"—Certainly, if a man is too fond of paradox,—if he is flighty and empty,—if, instead of striking those fifths and sevenths, those harmonious discords, often so much better than the twinned octaves, in the music of thought,—if, instead of striking these, he jangles the chords, stick a fact into him like a stiletto. But remember that talking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... it seemed to Betsy Butterfly that the Skipper grew more flighty than ever. Once she had been able to say a few words to him before he went swooping off. But now—now she could not even tell him that it was a nice day without following her cousin at least half an hour in ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... down the trunk of the tree, as if the fencing party were kangaroos and Dave was trying to get a shot at them. The inspector, by-the-bye, had a habit of glancing now and then in the direction of his horse, as though under the impression that it was flighty and restless and inclined to bolt on opportunity. It was an anxious moment for all parties concerned—except the inspector. They didn't want HIM to be perturbed. And, just as Dave reached the foot of the tree, the inspector finished ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... I burst forth, "there can't be any reasonable doubt. Leavitt's mind may be a little flighty—he may have embroidered his story with a few gratuitous details; but Farquharson's books and things—the material evidence of his ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... but at the telephone she hesitated. Calling him up at such an hour of the morning demanding his attendance on such a fanciful errand—wouldn't he think it odd? No, he would think it the most natural thing in the world for her to be so flighty. Reassured, she gave the club number and stood waiting, listening to the half-syllables of switched-off voices and the crossing click, click, that was bringing her fate nearer to her. She heard some one coming up the stairs and down the hall toward her. Marrika stood ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... that new world which they treasured as the fairest flower of their crown. A blockade of Cadiz or a capture of Hispaniola would have produced more effect at the Spanish council-board than a dozen English victories on the Rhine. But such a policy had little attraction for Buckingham. His flighty temper exulted in being the arbiter of Europe, in weaving fanciful alliances, in marshalling imaginary armies. A treaty was concluded with Holland, and negotiations set on foot with the Lutheran princes of North Germany, who had looked coolly ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... she would stop below at Mrs. Hoffstott's door to beg, almost with tears, that she would look after things a little, and not let flighty Molly neglect the child; which the good woman was always ready to do. Those were anxious days, which even the madame's and Mrs. Macon's kindness ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... kind of watchman, in the very midst of the Coryston estates, at his mother's very gates, might not after all turn out so well as the democrats of the neighborhood had anticipated. The man was too queer—too flighty. ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was present, in this town, at the argument before the Supreme Court respecting Writs of Assistance, and heard the celebrated and patriotic speech of JAMES OTIS. Unquestionably, that was a masterly performance. No flighty declamation about liberty, no superficial discussion of popular topics, it was a learned, penetrating, convincing, constitutional argument, expressed in a strain of high and resolute patriotism. He grasped the question then pending between England and her Colonies with the strength ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... conditions then were different. The stage did not hold then the place in public estimation which it now does. Theatrical people were little known and even less understood. Even the people who did not think all actors drunkards and all actresses immoral, did think they were a lot of flighty, silly buffoons, not to be taken seriously for a moment. The profession, by reason of this feeling, was rather a close corporation. The recruits were generally young relatives of the older actors. There ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... "If the public's so flighty, why does it take so much stock in what these wolves ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... "That you shall, you flighty harum-scarum. And to think o' the likes o' you dictating to me about nostrums and physickings," replied the farm-wife, with a comfortable laugh. "I'll soon be having Mary teaching me to toss a buckwheat 'slap-jack.' Now see ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... detected the underlying thought—still more discreditable to Daisy Medland. The injustice angered her: it would have angered her at any time; but her anger was forced to lie deeply hidden and secret, and the suppression made it more intense. Dick's flighty fancy caricatured the feeling with which she was struggling: the family attitude towards it faintly foreshadowed the consternation that the lightest hint of her unbanishable dream would raise. And, worst ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... thing undreamed. He was phlegmatic, stolid to such a degree that one could not but wonder how the Revolution had any meaning to him at all. And yet love of freedom glowed sombrely and steadily in his dim soul. In ways it was indeed good that he was not flighty and imaginative. He never lost his head. He could obey orders, and he was neither curious nor garrulous. Once I asked how it was that ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... ceased to take such microscopic views of each other since the railway came within ten miles of us, and are now able to converse on much more general topics than formerly. Not that there isn't still opportunity to lament over the flighty nature of kitchen incumbents, and to look after the domestic interests of all Barton; but I think going to Boston several times a year tends to enlarge the mind, and gives us more subjects of conversation. We are quite up in the sculpture at Mount Auburn, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... Mr. Towle finds that, if Henry was a rake in youth and a bigot in manhood, he was certainly a very amiable rake and a very earnest bigot. "There can be no doubt," says our historian, in his convincing way, "that he often paused in his reckless career, filled with remorse, wrestling with his flighty spirit, to overcome his unseemly sports"; and as to the sincerity of his fanaticism, "to suppose otherwise is to charge a mere youth with a hypocritical cunning worthy of the Borgias in their zenith." Masterly strokes like these are, of course, intended to console the reader for a want of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... undertake beaten arguments, lest I should handle them at another's expense. Every subject is equally fertile to me: a fly will serve the purpose, and 'tis well if this I have in hand has not been undertaken at the recommendation of as flighty a will. I may begin, with that which pleases me best, for the subjects are ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... trying to think things out—"To say I would forgive it is to admit that it's wrong, but ah! the boy-officer's been so grand, and so boyishly unconscious of his grandeur all the time. I remember one flighty youth, who sat down on the firing-step the night before he had to go over the top, and wrote a simple letter to everybody he'd cared for. He wrote to his father, saying: 'If there's anything in my bank, I'd like my brother to have it. But, if there's a deficit, I'm beastly sorry.' Think of ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... I am going to do, with the aid of your practical advice, if I have your approval, the people will be at first rather afraid of me. They will privately suspect I am mad. It will, also, not seem at all unlikely that an American should be of unreasoningly extravagant and flighty mind. Stornham, having long slumbered in remote peace through lack of railroad convenience, still regards America as almost of the character of wild rumour. Rosy was their one American, and she disappeared ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... many, who, like Loo Barebone, reflected that there were other worlds open to Miriam Liston. At first she went into those other worlds, under the flighty wing of her mother, and looked about her there. Captain and Mrs. Duncan belonged to the Anglo-French society, which had sprung into existence since the downfall of Napoleon I, and was in some degree the outcome of the part played by Great Britain in the comedy of the ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... sure, Reilly," says Miss Priscilla, slowly, "that you are not aware of the position your arms have taken. It is most unbecoming." Mrs. Reilly's arms dropped to her sides. "And as for this girl you speak of, I hear she is, as I say, very flighty." ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... said to the girls, "it 'mind me ob de time w'en my Pechunia was a young, flighty gal. Dese young t'ings, dey ain't nebber satisfied wid de way de good Lawd ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... come to an age when nobody can say she's flighty, I sh'd hope," continued Miss Peckham. "She's settled. And she's got ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... call. He had just returned from Washington, where he had seen his old friend Seward, Mr. Lincoln's Secretary of State, and felt able to give us a forecast of the future. This uncle of mine was a thoughtful man of affairs; successful in business, excellent in judgment, not at all prone to sanguine or flighty views, and on our asking him how matters looked in Washington he said, "Depend upon it, it is all right: Seward says that they have decided to end the trouble at once, even if it is necessary to raise an army of fifty thousand men;—that they will send troops immediately to Richmond and ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... think he was very much troubled about it. I only thought he was flighty from want of sleep. At your age you don't mind the loss ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... of men of genius unhappy in their wives is very large. The following are notorious examples:—Socrat[^e]s and Xantipp[^e]; Saadi, the Persian poet; Dant[^e] and Gemma Donati; Milton, with Mary Powell; Marlborough and Sarah Jennings; Gustavus Adolphus and his flighty queen; Byron and Miss Milbanke; Dickens and Miss Hogarth; etc. Every reader will be able to add to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Gay. "He was a real benevolent-looking old fellow, the kind that understands young people, and he'd know that it was just that Christmas has gone to our heads, and made us a little flighty. I'm sure that his name is James, and that he has six old maid daughters. He lives out West, and he's taking home a trunk ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... difficulties, the inmates of the carriage were too much engrossed with their own cares to attend to those who served them. The mind of Sarah had ceased to wander so wildly as at first; but at every advance that she made towards reason, she seemed to retire a step from animation; from being excited and flighty, she was gradually becoming moody and melancholy. There were moments, indeed, when her anxious companions thought that they could discern marks of recollection; but the expression of exquisite woe that accompanied these transient gleams of reason, forced them to the dreadful alternative ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... "nothing flighty in his manner with me, and nothing which showed any desire to laugh ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... have often wondered who she was? and how Shafto—who looked like a duke—came to marry her," said Miss Tebbs; "such an odd, flighty, uncertain sort of creature, always for strangers, instead of her home. That poor boy never saw much of his mother; I believe he was hustled off to a preparatory school when he was about seven, and when he happened to be here for his holidays it ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... bitterly hated, she should have been regarded as marriageable by any of the young Roman nobles, from Valdarno down. But she had only a small dowry, and she was said to be extravagant—two objections then not so easily overcome as now. Moreover, she was considered to be somewhat flighty; and the social jury decided that when she was married, she would be excellent company, but would make a very poor wife. Almost before they had finished discussing her, however, she had found a husband, in the shape of the wealthy foreign contractor, ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... are needless. That film will be arrested at the loosing of the first hook or button. Virtue will always be plainly triumphant and vice as plainly vanquished. Even the minor imperfections of character will be suitably punished. When on the screen we see Daisy, the flighty college girl, borrowing without permission her friend's hat, gown, shoes, necklace and curls in order to make a fascinating display before her young college man, it is certain that she will be publicly shamed by her friends and discredited in the eyes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... as to keep himself out of the common controversies of the street and of the forum, yet to indicate what was the result of things he had been long meditating upon. Among others, he introduces, in an aerial, flighty kind of way, here and there a touch which grows into a beautiful picture—a scheme of entirely mute education, at least with no more speech than is absolutely necessary for what they ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... thou anticipat'st my dread exploits: The flighty purpose never is o'ertook Unless the deed go with it: from this moment The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. And even now, To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done: The castle of Macduff I will surprise; ...
— Macbeth • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Salteena peevishly I dont know if I shall like it the bow of the ribbon is too flighty for my age. Then he sat down and eat the egg which Ethel had so kindly laid for him. After he had finished his meal he got down and began to write to Bernard Clark he ran up stairs on his fat legs and took out his blotter with a loud ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford
... it comes to harbouring geniuses in one's own house, it is quite beyond all reason. I sympathise so much with poor Mrs. Fred! If Maryllia would only marry Lord Roxmouth, all these flighty and fantastic notions of hers about music and faithful friends and honour and principle would disappear. I am sure they would!—and she would calm down and be just like one ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... independent of the body or any other refuge. I have spoken of the path of meditation as the first, since the yogin has first to crush his senses and the mind (and direct them to that path). The mind, which constitutes the sixth, when thus restrained, seeks to flash out like the capricious and flighty lightning moving in frolic among the clouds. As a drop of water on a (lotus) leaf is unstable and moves about in all directions, even so becomes the yogin's mind when first fixed on the path of meditation. When fixed, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Cortes de Jupiter, Vicente wrote the Farsa de Ines Pereira, in which there is more action and development of character than in his preceding, or indeed his subsequent, plays. He represents the aspirations and repentance of Ines, the 'very flighty daughter of a woman of low estate.' Despite the warnings of her sensible mother she rejects the suit of simple and uncouth Pero Marques for that of a gentleman (escudeiro) whose pretensions are far greater ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... two children, beautiful ones. After they had been married for eight years, Rosina met this Spaniard. He must have amounted to something. She wasn't a flighty woman. She came home and told Dudley how matters stood. He persuaded her to stay at home for six months and try to pull up. They were both fair-minded people, and I'm as sure as if I were the Almighty, that she did try. But at the end of the time, Rosina went quietly off to Spain, ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... year older than Sanchia, had married a Captain Sinclair, who was stationed at Aldershot. She had been the romp of former days and, when the storm had burst, hotly on the culprit's side. But Vicky had been flighty, and marriage changes one. Sanchia's eyes grew wistful as she sat, her letters on the wing, and ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... well knew—must print his name several thousand times a year. And yet, as a man of culture and of principle, how he despised that kind of fame, and theoretically believed that a man's real distinction lay in his oblivion of the world's opinion, particularly as expressed by that flighty creature, the Fourth Estate. But here again, as in the matter of the gray top hat, he had instinctively compromised, taking in press cuttings which described himself and his works, while he never failed to describe those descriptions—good, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... changed for the better. She was perceptibly freshened and renewed. She attacked her work at once with more vigour and more ease; did not drive herself so relentlessly. A little carelessness became her wonderfully. Bouchalka was less gaunt, and much less flighty and perverse. His frank pleasure in the comfort and order of his wife's establishment was ingratiating, even if it was a little amusing. Cressida had the sewing-room at the top of the house made over into a study for him. When I went up there to see him, I usually found him ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... justice, from not understanding many of its best points. She liked Mr. Phillips much better, who was graver. Her Scotch phlegmatic temperament could not appreciate the fine spirit and unvarying good humour of Brandon, and his random way of talking she thought flighty and frivolous. But yet she could, and did, praise him for his kindness of heart and his want of selfishness, which he had shown on many occasions, great and small, at Barragong. These panegyrics were bestowed with discretion, not ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... said, "as I am na mich o' a lass's mon mysen, and I wunnot say as I ha' mich opinion o' woman foak i' general—they're flighty yo' see—they're flighty; but I mun say as I wur tuk by that little wench o' th' Parson's—I wur ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... late — he ordered two soldiers to catch and stake me. I begged by all the saints in heaven he would let me off; but it would not do, — when the general laughs he spares neither mad man nor sound." The poor flighty gentleman looked quite dolorous, at the very recollection of the staking. This is a very severe punishment; four posts are driven into the ground, and the man is extended by his arms and legs horizontally, and there left to stretch for several hours. The idea is evidently taken from the usual ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... in our village there lived a shoemaker and his wife, who had one daughter, Susan Flood. She was a flighty, excited young creature, and lately, during the passage of some itinerary revivalists, she had been 'converted' in the noisiest way, with sobs, gasps and gurglings. When this crisis passed, she came with her parents to our meetings, and was received quietly enough to the breaking of ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... be true to-morrow. All our opinions should be marked, "Subject to change without notice." We cannot all indulge ourselves in the complacency of the maiden lady who gave her age year after year as twenty-seven, because she said she was not one of these flighty things who say "one thing to-day and something ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... Roche. He's the best man we've got for some of the hardest work, but you're too flighty with your temper, Larry, and you know it. We respect you just as much, but not to plan things for the rest of us. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... cheap, sell dear." On this theme Klesmer's eloquence, gesticulatory and other, went on for a little while like stray fireworks accidentally ignited, and then sank into immovable silence. Mr. Bult was not surprised that Klesmer's opinions should be flighty, but was astonished at his command of English idiom and his ability to put a point in a way that would have told at a constituents' dinner—to be accounted for probably by his being a Pole, or a Czech, or something of that fermenting sort, in a state of political refugeeism ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... figures who are coming out of church, an affected, flighty Frenchwoman, with her fluttering fop of a husband, and a boy, habited a-la-mode de Paris, claim our first attention. In dress, air, and manner, they have a national character. The whole congregation, whether male or female, old or young, carry the air of their country ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... seen deeply into the world has doubtless divined what wisdom there is in the fact that men are superficial. It is their preservative instinct which teaches them to be flighty, lightsome, and false. Here and there one finds a passionate and exaggerated adoration of "pure forms" in philosophers as well as in artists: it is not to be doubted that whoever has NEED of the cult of the superficial ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... His disposition was flighty but full of elusive charm. You deprecated his lack of serious purpose in life, disapproved heartily of his irresponsibility, but you fell to his engaging qualities. He was a typical example of the lovable good-for-naught. ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... responded gloomily. "It's nip an' tuck 'tween him an' Mark Wilson. That girl draws 'em as molasses does flies! She does it 'thout liftin' a finger, too, no more 'n the molasses does. She just sets still an' IS! An' all the time she's nothin' but a flighty little red-headed spitfire that don't know a good husband when she sees one. The feller that gits her will live to regret it, that's my opinion!" And Cephas thought to himself: "Good Lord, don't I wish I was ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... diminutive stature and delicate proportions. His face was handsome, but womanish. His movements were rapid and restless, and there was that appearance in his eye which would have warranted the supposition that he was a little flighty, even if his conduct had ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... till dinner, when he was silent, and she talkative and flighty, so that Violet suspected there had ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... enough to be convinced that she had the merit of a saint, and the purity of an angel: and was proceeding, when she said, No flighty compliments! no ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... the Queen of Hearts was a stout, dowdy old lady, with no traces of beauty, and himself a flighty, amiable old gossip of seventy, Karl Victor von Bonstetten wrote to the Countess of Albany from Rome: "I never pass through the Apostles' square without looking up at that balcony, at that house where I saw you ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... what it's for, then. Couldn't Mr. Gallilee put up a swing? And a 'flying circle' in the middle? You see they can't go out on the roofs; so they must have something else that will seem kind of flighty. And I'll tell you how they'll learn their letters. Sulie and I will paint 'em; great big ones, all colors; and hang 'em up with ribbons, and every child that learns one, so as to know it everywhere, shall take it down and carry it home. Then we will have marbles for ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... up Cilley, "so as I was saying, Mistress Boozer bein' young and flighty in them days, and rightful proud of the bonnet she had took so long to earn, wore it to the spectacle, together with her ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... I long since came to the conclusion that in money matters we are the most flighty and unbusinesslike people in the world. I, who like to go to the root of matters, often ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... accused man was a flighty youth who had fired on the French Premier and wounded him. He, however, had not long to wait for his trial. He was taken before the tribunal within three weeks of his arrest and was promptly condemned to die.[38] Thus the assassin was justified by the jury and the would-be ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... collier, who remembered George Stephenson's father, thus described him:—"Geordie's fayther war like a peer o' deals nailed thegither, an' a bit o' flesh i' th' inside; he war as queer as Dick's hatband—went thrice aboot, an' wudn't tie. His wife Mabel war a delicat' boddie, an' varry flighty. Thay war an honest family, but sair hadden doon i' th' world." Indeed, the earnings of old Robert did not amount to more than twelve shillings a week; and, as there were six children to maintain, the family, during their stay at Wylam, were necessarily in very straitened circumstances. ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... Tuesdays and Fridays, and how she sought a quiet place at once in order to read and dream over her letters. She was restless a day or two before a certain letter came, with an eager, excited, expectant air. Then, after reading it, she was absent-minded, flighty in conversation, and at last listlessly uneasy, moving slowly about from one thing to another, in a kind of restless inability to take continued ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... are surprised—or at your mistake. The fact is, the circumstances are peculiar. It's my sister's fault, really; she's such a flighty little thing—unpardonably careless. I must have warned her a hundred times, if once, never to leave valuables in that silly old tin safe. But she won't listen to reason—never would. And it's her house—her safe. I've got no right to install a better one. And that ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... more and more childish and more flighty in her thoughts as her time of trial drew near, and she became more subject to her jailer. She grew morbidly silent, and her large eyes were restless ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... moment I saw that he thought me a fool and an idiot. He went away, and I saw him no more. Yet I still hoped. I dreamed of their joy at finding me, and the reward that my wealth would give them. Perhaps I was a little weak still, perhaps a little flighty, too, at times; but I was quite happy that year, even in my disappointment, ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... a vain, flighty woman," Marlow said, in reply to his wife's remark. "She likes to have young men like Jimmy trailing after her; and Grimmer only laughs. I suppose it's what they call being 'smart.' Pity he doesn't put a little more smartness into his business affairs." He chuckled ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... wrong me. Eliza Parsons was no spy of mine. I was merely trying to encourage her to a higher spiritual life. She is rather flighty and irresponsible, sir, and I was sorry for the poor girl. That is all. If she has been telling tales, they are untrue. I have found her, I regret to say, inclined at times ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... special study with a view to a Cambridge University sermon. It would be terrible if Daisy were ever to take to imitating Miss Farrell. He was a little disturbed about Daisy lately. She had been so absent-minded, and sometimes—even—a little flighty. She had forgotten the day before, to look out some passages for him; and there was a rent in his old overcoat she had not mended. He was disagreeably conscious of it. And what could she have to say to Captain ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
