"Frail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mothers, others of children, neighbors and friends; frantic efforts were made to rescue the victims of the flood, render aid to those who were struggling against death, and mitigate the terrors of the horrible disaster. There were noble acts of heroism, strong men and frail women and children putting their own lives in peril to save those of their ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Christ, our deepest slumber, Evil thoughts may come in dreams; And the senses list the murmur, Though the frail form ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... feeble as any new-born thing. When it stirred, and uttered little elemental sounds—"my fault, my fault"—she forgot the wrong he had done her, in seeing the wrong he had done himself.... "Oh, my Maurice—my Maurice!" But most of the time she did not hear this frail cry of the sense of sin! She thought entirely and angrily of herself; she said, over and over, that she was going to leave him. She was absorbed in hideous and poignant imaginings, based on that organic curiosity which is experienced only by the woman who ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... together! In the next place, supposing that we have found the preponderating utility of our aspheterising in Wales, let us by our speedy and united inquiries discover the sum of money necessary. Whether such a farm with so very large a house is to be procured without launching our frail and unpiloted bark on a rough sea of anxieties? How much money will be necessary for "furnishing" so large a house? How much necessary for the maintenance of so large a family—eighteen people—for a ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... I walked down to the bridge leading to Goat Island, and when I stood upon this frail support, and saw a quarter of a mile of tumbling, rushing rapids, and heard their everlasting roar, my emotions overpowered me, a choaking sensation rose to my throat, a thrill rushed through my veins, "my blood ran rippling to my finger's ends." This was the climax ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... think that a robust organization is any warrant of long life, nor that a frail and slight bodily constitution necessarily means scanty length of days. Many a strong-limbed young man and many a blooming young woman have I seen failing and dropping away in or before middle life, and many a delicate and slightly constituted person outliving the athletes and the beauties ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of the enthusiasm, what use in imposing on the whole body a task which the vast majority are not qualified to perform? Would it not be well to recognise the fact which we cannot alter, and to abstain from demanding from frail human nature what human nature cannot render? Would it not be well for the Church to impose upon its ordinary members only ordinary duties? When the Bernard or the Whitefield appears let her by all means ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... The two frail wrists were released with unparalleled ease; the sergeant's powerful hands were caught and rendered useless; and Don ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... the success of Du Maurier's book only on the hypothesis that "like takes to like"—that the world is full of frail Trilbys and half-baked duffers like Little Billee, who, Narcissuslike, worship their own image. They don't mind the contradictions and absurdities with which the book abounds; in fact, those who read up-to-date French novels are seldom gifted with ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... nature hold their reign O'er man throughout her whole domain. The monarch of long regal line Possesses dust as frail as mine: Nor can he any more than I Fever or restless pains defy. Nor can he, more than I, delay The ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... order from The Genesis to The Revelation. Sometimes, when she found herself face to face of a night with a purely genealogical chapter, Phyllis of Philistia had difficulty in crushing down her unworthy desire to turn to some chapter that seemed to her frail judgment to contain words of wider comfort to the children of men than a genealogical tree of the Children of Israel; but she had never yielded to so unworthy an impulse. Who was she that she should suggest that one part of the Sacred Book was calculated to be more profitable than another? ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... raspings of the choir, a bass with a cold, and two boys who snivelled began their liturgical chants: "Inviolata," that languishing and plaintive Sequence, with its clear and drawling tune so weak, so frail, that it would seem as if it should only be sung by voices in a hospital; then the "Parce Domine," that antiphon so suppliant and so sad; lastly, that scrap, detached from the "Panga Lingua," the "Tantum ergo," humble ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... said the princess; "it is very unfortunate for him; it would really be a good deed to free him from his frail existence; and, indeed, when I think how often people take the part of the lower class against the higher, in these days, it would be policy to put him out ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... fatal mistake in saying to her sister, "He will never come again," and so depriving her of the last frail plank of hope, and letting her sink in the waves of despair. Perhaps, after all, suspense is not the worst of all things to bear; for in suspense there is hope, and in hope, life! Certain it is that a prop seemed withdrawn from Nora, and from this day she rapidly sunk. She would not take to her ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... lengthened but strengthened. There are many instances of frail, feeble children who have developed into exceptionally strong men and women. One of the most noted is Von Humboldt, the great scientist, who as a child was very weak physically, and, he himself says, was mentally below ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... frail vesture of decay, The soul unclad forgets it once hath worn, Stained with the travel of the weary day, And shamed with rents from every ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... whispered somethin' in my ear which was a dead secret. Even Father didn't know it yet, she said. Of course I was as pleased as she was, almost—and a little frightened too, although I didn't say so to her. She was always a frail little thing, delicate as she was pretty; not a strapping, rugged, homely body like me. We ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Assured that the frail wooden fortress is provided with water, wood and food, he gives himself up to the indolences of winter quarters, smoking pipes innumerable while the women-folk are busy with the evening meal. The cold snaps the nails in the plank walls with reports like pistol-shots; ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... handed it to Piet, with instructions that he should fill it and his own at the brook, and return to me with all speed; and while he was gone I pulled off my jacket and wrapped the frail, senseless form in it. For I saw at once that this creature had not been accustomed, like the native women with whom I had thus far come in contact, to go about in such a state; the rags which still clung to her attenuated form ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... sovereignty, the beautiful boy seemed to possess the supreme command; and as the sentiment of loyalty is always the strongest when the object which calls for the exercise of it is most helpless or frail, Alan found his power very much increased when he had this beautiful boy to exhibit as the true and rightful heir, in whose name and for whose benefit all his ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of an uncle, with whom at the age of nine he went to reside in Rome. In the house of this bachelor uncle the poor little orphan pined away. Fever succeeded fever, until his guardian felt that companionship with boys in play and study was the only chance of saving so frail a life as Gabriello's. Accordingly he placed the invalid under the care of the Jesuits in their Collegio Romano. Here the child's health revived, and his education till the age of twenty throve apace. The Jesuits ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... stopped in a large jewelry store where Norah had left her watch to be repaired, and while she waited she saw Wayland Leigh bending in an absorbed manner over a collection of fans,—delicate mother-of-pearl and lace trifles, as frail as they were pretty. What business had he with such expensive things? she wondered. It was quickly forgotten, however, in the difficulties involved in making headway past the show windows, James Mandeville wishing to exhaust the beauties of each ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... river in its course. She is also a child of the air, and with the swiftness of the chamois she can reach the snow-covered mountain tops, where the boldest mountaineer has to cut footsteps in the ice to ascend. She will sail on a frail pine-twig over the raging torrents beneath, and spring lightly from one iceberg to another, with her long, snow-white hair flowing around her, and her dark-green robe glittering like the waters of the deep Swiss lakes. "Mine is the power to seize ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... but once more recoil ineffectual? The King's Treasury is running towards the lees; and Paris 'eddies with a flood of pamphlets.' At all rates, let the latter subside a little! D'Orleans gets back to Raincy, which is nearer Paris and the fair frail Buffon; finally to Paris itself: neither are Freteau and Sabatier banished forever. The Protestant Edict is registered; to the joy of Boissy d'Anglas and good Malesherbes: Successive Loan, all protests ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... "Hippodrome" at the corner of Cranbourn Street and Charing Cross Road. Let us inspect their vaudeville offerings. Let us snoop into their wares. At these theatres, equipped with numerous and eminently available cafes, women, frail and fair, sit and walk about on the promenades and generously waive introductions when the young gentlemen evince a desire to speak to them. But there is no romance here. These promenades are even without illusion. Here, among the theatres, is where London tries to be Paris. Just ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... be fair, and yet not fond, Or that their love were firm, not fickle still, I would not marvel that they make men bond By service long to purchase their good will; But when I see how frail those creatures are, I muse that men forget ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... like the still small angelic voice. Davos pondered these problems, pondered Chopin's celestial touch and the weaving magic of his many-hued poems; Chopin—Keats, Shelley, and Heine battling within the walls of a frail tender soul. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... instinctively turned for counsel. A child in the material things of this world, he was a giant in spiritual development—broad-minded and tolerant, his religion spiced with a sense of humour and deepened by a sympathetic understanding of frail human nature. And it was to him that Ralph Quentin, when on his death-bed, had confided the care of his motherless little daughter, Diana, appointing him her sole guardian ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... and restless. Somehow or other, Margrave got into my head, mixed up in some strange way with Sir Philip Derval. I heard the dogs howl, and at the same time, or rather a few minutes later, I felt the whole house tremble, as a frail corner-house in London seems to tremble at night when a carriage is driven past it. The howling had then ceased, and ceased as suddenly as it had begun. I felt a vague, superstitious alarm; I got up, and went to my window, which was unclosed (it is ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I can take freedoms with you; but perhaps the concomitant gentleman, your friend here, would be pleased to take my stool. Indeed, I always use a chair, but the back of it, if I may, be permitted the use of a small portion of jocularity, was as frail as the fair sect: it went home yisterday to be mended. Do, sir, condescind to be sated. Upon my reputation, Squire, I'm sorry that I have not accommodation for you, too, sir; except one of these hassocks, which, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... for the sailors would not believe him. Here, reader, I beg you will pause and reflect that you must die; and may your departure be like that of our worthy captain of marines, who died as he lived, in charity with all his frail fellow men. His loss was much regretted by nearly all on board. His messmates declared they could have spared another man, looking hard at the purser whilst they uttered it; but "Nip-cheese" would not take the hint, and lived to return to England, where he took unto himself a better ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... a search immediately. When Andy and his followers had removed this cover, to substitute the frail one of slender sticks, quilted with dead leaves and a scattering of soil to deceive the eye, they could not have taken the ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... Madam de Warrens, they would not have been less tender, though infinitely more tranquil. But is it possible for man to taste, in their utmost extent, the delights of love? I cannot tell, but I am persuaded my frail existence would have sunk under the ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... could. The youths used to murmur: "Oh! It's no use you meeting him." They were afraid he was not spectacular enough. Or they desired to keep him to themselves, like a precious pearl. I pictured him as very frail, and very positive in a quiet way. He was only about thirty when he ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... might see the youth prevail, (In vain are eloquence and wit,) The boy persists, Apollo's frail; Wisdom to nature ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... still endure! Alas! the sermon of the rose we will Not wisely ponder; nor the sobs of grief Lulled into sighs of rapture; nor the cry Of fierce defiance that again is still. Be patient—patient with our frail belief, And stay it yet a ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... contracted and loosened larva skin. We once experimented on a larva which had just completed its cocoon, to learn how much silk it could produce. On removing its cocoon it made another of the same thickness; but on destroying this second one it spun a third but frail web, scarcely concealing its form. A minute Ichneumon parasite, allied to Platygaster, lays its eggs within those of this moth, as we once detected one under a bunch of eggs, and afterwards reared a few from the same lot of eggs. ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... types of creation. Here along the beach were shells, exquisitely tinted like a sunset sky, cast on shore by the cruel waves. Tender mosses and fragile sea-weed lay upon the sand revealing the infinite tenderness of these frail children of the boundless deep. Looking upon the seething, surging mass of water that rolled on the troubled sea only last night, who would have thought it the home of such delicate beauty? "Truly," we said, as we gazed in admiration and wonder at the fair scene before ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... ter stay home en do de wuk I put 'im at, en he all de time runnin' off here ter git somfin' ter eat. I gwine frail de life outen 'im, ef he ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... slim naked girl dip into the marble tank the round bubble of clear glass, and the long fingers of the lute-player rest idly upon the chords. It is twilight always for the dancing nymphs whom Corot set free among the silver poplars of France. In eternal twilight they move, those frail diaphanous figures, whose tremulous white feet seem not to touch the dew-drenched grass they tread on. But those who walk in epos, drama, or romance, see through the labouring months the young moons wax and wane, and watch the night from evening unto morning star, and from sunrise unto sunsetting ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... was awaiting her. Bessie had a thirst for knowledge. She was doing well in school and wanted to do better. Instead of taking exercise during the daily intermissions, she often spent them in hard study. Her system, naturally frail, could not stand the strain. She contracted a fever and for three months despaired of life. In the third month dropsy of the chest set in; and, on account of smothering spells, she had to be bolstered ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... love Who art a light to guide, a rod To check the erring, and reprove; Thou who art victory and law When empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations dost set free, And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity! ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... cathedral nave of lofty trees. At least eight feet in height, its stem rose straight and slender, green and bare for two-thirds its length, and then burst into a shower of snow-white waxen bells. There were hundreds of these blossoms, all from the one stem, delicately poised and ethereally frail. Daylight had never seen anything like it. Slowly his gaze wandered from it to all that was about him. He took off his hat, with almost a vague religious feeling. This was different. No room for contempt and evil here. This was clean and fresh and beautiful-something ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Can praise be simply said of such as he! Needs must the soul unlock All gates of eloquence to sing of these. Such periods, Such epic melodies, As holds the utterance of the earlier gods, The lords of song, one needs To sing the praise of these! No feeble music, tinklings frail of glass; No penny trumpetings; twitterings of brass, The moment's effort, shak'n from pigmy bells, Ephemeral drops from small Pierian wells, With which the Age relieves a barren hour. But such large ...
— An Ode • Madison J. Cawein
... apposite, and the history of mankind renders the application familiar. But it must be obvious, that the case of nations, and that of individuals, are very different. The human frame has a general course: it has in every individual a frail contexture and limited duration; it is worn by exercise, and exhausted by a repetition of its functions: but in a society, whose constituent members are renewed in every generation, where the race seems to enjoy perpetual youth, and accumulating advantages, we cannot, by any parity of reason, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... I'm sorry. But it can't be helped now, can it? And I'll forget it if you will." He looked at the worn, frail form, and knew that Comstock was right and that little Jimmie Clayton was lying in the valley of the shadow of death. So he added, his voice very low and very gentle, "I'll even shake ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... intended for the refined and delicate Josephine? Occasionally, however, James Gillray descended to a lower depth, as in his Ci Devant Occupations (of 20th February, 1805), in which we see this delicate woman, with the frail but lovely Spaniard, Theresa de Cabarrus (Madame Tallien), figuring in a manner to which the most infamous women of Drury Lane would have hesitated to descend. Josephine de la Pagerie, as we all know, was anything but blameless; ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... frail little woman with dark hair, a broad low forehead, and patient mouth. She was dressed in a well-worn black silk, and looked so tired that Rebecca's heart ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... her two dimpled cheeks. She was beautiful, but her whole frame was the prey of a hereditary disease. The tears in her eyes glistened like small specks. Her balmy breath was so gentle. She was as demure as a lovely flower reflected in the water. Her gait resembled a frail willow, agitated by the wind. Her heart, compared with that of Pi Kan, had one more aperture of intelligence; while her ailment exceeded (in intensity) by three degrees the ailment ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... back exhausted, and at that moment a gust of wind, fiercer than any which had gone before, leapt down the mountain gorges, howling with all the voices of the storm. It caught the frail hut and shook it. A cobra hidden in the thick thatch awoke from its lethargy and fell with a soft thud to the floor not a foot from the face of the dying man—then erected itself and hissed aloud with flickering ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... for the coming of the uncle, feeling quite uncertain whether to expect a frail old broken man, or to find themselves absolutely deluded, and made ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... thought of his harshness, and Arthur's words, "make not her coming alone harder by one word or look," his grief became so violent and excessive that Charles was quite nonplussed, and went to consult Ada as to what should be done. In accordance with their plan, Ada took the frail little piece of humanity, and, approaching Lord Barrington, as he bent in sorrow over the corpse, said softly, "You have lost Arthur, and Arthur's wife, but you still have Arthur's child," and she laid the babe in ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... greatest imaginative restorer of the past, the greatest historical interpreter of the soul of ancient France, was born in 1798 in Paris, an infant seemingly too frail and nervous to remain alive. His early years gave him experience, brave and pathetic, of the hardships of the poor. His father, an unsuccessful printer, often found it difficult to procure bread or fire for his ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... all ready for some occupant, for whom it seemed to be waiting. Quaint old four-poster bedsteads stood in three rooms—dimity curtains and spotless linen—old oak chests and mahogany presses; and, opening drawers in Chippendale sideboards, I came upon beautiful frail old silver and exquisite china that set me thinking of a beautiful grandmother of mine, made out of old lace and laughing wrinkles and ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... Marville, speaking of the Count, whom no one imagined would survive to middle age, says: "Nature, which gave him so delicate a body in such perfect form, also gave him a delicate and perfect intelligence." This frail and delicate invalid, lived, however, until the age of eighty years, and was always grateful to Ninon for her tenderness. He never missed a reception and sang her praises on every occasion. Writing to Saint-Evremond to announce his death, Ninon, herself very aged, says: "His mind had retained ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... was indeed better; but for the next three nights she suffered from severe attacks of the croup. Her sisters had not known how they loved her till she showed her frail side, and they saw how slender was the thread which bound her to earth. When she was strong, and roguish, and wilful, they forgot that she was only a tender flower after all, and might be nipped from ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... Cibber says that though he spent some time at the Temple, "he so little followed the Law there that his neglect of it made the Law (like some of his fair and frail admirers) very often follow him." As he had an uncommon share of social wit and a handsome person, with a sanguine bloom in his complexion, no wonder they persuaded him that he might have a better chance of fortune by throwing such accomplishments ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... finish; her tears choked her. Oh, God! I saw her there on her knees, her hands clasped on the rock; she swayed in the breeze as did the bushes about us. Frail and sublime creature! she prayed for her love. I raised her ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... heretic as one who had that within him to which a preacher might appeal. Thus they became Dogmatists; that is, men who assert a truth so fiercely, as to forget that a truth is meant to be used, and not merely asserted—if, indeed, the fierce assertion of a truth in frail man is not generally a sign of some secret doubt of it, and in inverse proportion to his practical living faith in it: just as he who is always telling you that he is a man, is not the most likely to behave like a man. And why did this befall them? Because they forgot ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... winged creatures birds, bees, butterflies—give glad animation and help to make all the air into music. Down through the middle of the Valley flows the crystal Merced, River of Mercy, peacefully quiet, reflecting lilies and trees and the onlooking rocks; things frail and fleeting and types of endurance meeting here and blending in countless forms, as if into this one mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures, to draw her lovers into close ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... light and beauty round me, and remain Dead to its power, while on the lighted plain The humblest weed looked up in love, and spread Its leaves before it! The vast sea doth wed The simple brook; the bold lark soars on high, Bounds from its humble nest and woos the sky; Yea, the frail ivy seeks and loves to cling Round the proud branches of the forest's king: Then blame me not;—thou wilt not, canst not blame; Our sorrows, hopes, and joys have been the same— Been one from childhood; but the dream is ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... have something within that 'passeth show.' It is for him who made it to prolong that spark of celestial fire which illuminates yet burns this frail tenement.... In the mean time I am grateful for some good, and tolerably patient under certain evils, grace a Dieu et a ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... white house, which, as is the case with most continental houses, looked to an English eye frail, ramshackle, and absurdly frivolous, more like a pagoda in a tea-garden than a place where one slept. The garden called urgently for the services of gardener. Bushes waved their branches across the paths, and the blades of grass, with spaces of earth between them, could ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and brakes That humor interposed too often makes;{7} All this still legible in memory's page, And still to be so to my latest age, Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay Such honors to thee as my numbers may; Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours, When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers, The violet, the pink, and jessamine, I pricked them into paper with a pin (And thou wast happier than myself ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... twenty-eight hundred yards along a narrow way rough with rocks and now slippery with rain. One of the canoes was lost here by being driven out into the strong current, where the force of the water was so great that it could not be held by the men; the frail skiff drifted down the rapids and disappeared. They now had two canoes and two periogues left, and the loads were divided among these craft. This increased the difficulties of navigation, and Captain Lewis crossed over to the south side of the river in search ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... a bubble, and the life of Man Less than a span: In his conception wretched,—from the womb, So to the tomb; Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years With cares and fears. Who then to frail mortality shall trust, But limns on water, or but ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... could charge to be partial for republics, avows that despotism is incompatible with the Christian religion, because the Christian religion commands meekness, and despotism claims arbitrary power to the whims and passions of a frail mortal; and still it is more than 1,500 years since the Christian religion became dominant, and through that long period despotism has been pre-eminently dominant; you can scarcely show one single truly democratic republic of any power which had ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... Life's foam-fretted feet between; Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell Is now a shaken shadow intolerable, Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen. ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... she were already dead. Martin removed the covering, and one glance at that gentle, careworn countenance sufficed to convince him that his old aunt lay before him! His first impulse was to seize her in his strong arms, but another look at the frail and attenuated form caused him to ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... an exhausted and dying society is given us in the person of the precocious but decrepit child, the sole fruit of a sad marriage. Destined from its birth, to an early grave, its excitable imagination soon consumes its frail body. Nothing could be more exquisitely tender, more true to nature, than the portraiture of this unfortunate ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... cell. The obstacle to be pierced is the natural diaphragm, a yielding partition two or three millimetres[6] thick. Some free themselves; others cannot. The less valiant ones succumb, stopped by the frail barrier. What would it be if they had to pass through a ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... superior. A hot-headed young Lord of the Admiralty resigned his office in a huff, and was not without difficulty persuaded to return to office as Commissioner of the Treasury. The breach between Fox and North was bridged over, but the bridge was frail. The two men eyed each other with disfavor. Fox asserted his independence by occasionally voting against the minister, by consorting with Burke. After the death of Lord Holland, North revenged himself by dismissing Fox from office in a letter famous for its insolent brevity. For a time Fox still ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... eyes, who had been a servant at Archdeacon Heathcote's, and had since had great troubles. She did teach the Catechism, reading, and work when the children were tolerably good and obeyed her, but boys were a great deal too much for her, and she had frail health, and such a bad leg that she never could walk down the lane to the old Church. So, after Sunday School, the children used to straggle down to Church without anyone to look after them, and sit on the benches in the ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... what must she be, in that linen habit? And she's so little and frail—" He pulled himself together. "I must stop worrying like this—of course, I'll find her,—alive and unharmed. Some things are too dreadful—they just can't happen. I've got to have a chance to beg her forgiveness for all I've ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... is to destroy all sense of high moral and religious responsibility. It reduces man to a mere machine. It cuts him off from his Maker, it hides from him the laws of God, and leaves him to grope his way from time to eternity in the dark, under the arbitrary and despotic control of a frail, depraved, and sinful fellow-man. As the serpent-charmer of India is compelled to extract the deadly teeth of his venomous prey before he is able to handle him with impunity, so the slaveholder must strike down the conscience of the slave before ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... life is like the autumn leaf Which trembles in the moon's pale ray, Its hold is frail, its date is brief, Restless, and soon to pass away; Yet when that leaf shall fall and fade, The parent tree will mourn its shade, The wind bewail the leafless tree; But none shall breathe a sigh ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... an affirmative reply, he ordered a number of women to come. Then pointing to a spot of ground he said to the women, "There you must build a house for the missionary." In half an hour the structure was completed, in appearance something like a bee-hive. In this frail house, of sticks and native mats, Moffat lived for nearly six months, being scorched by the sun, drenched by the rain, exposed to the wind, and obliged often to decamp through the clouds of dust; in addition to which, any dog wishing for a night's lodging could force its way through ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... frail, one portion of it often adhering to the cap and another portion forming a ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... in the interests of the Women themselves. For, although they can inflict instantaneous death by a retrograde movement, yet unless they can at once disengage their stinging extremity from the struggling body of their victim, their own frail bodies are liable ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... her has a mother of little girls! And there is no escape, not even in common sense. A woman considered sensible in the very highest degree will dress her little girl like other little girls, or perish in the attempt. How many do thus perish, or are helped to perish, we shall never know. A frail, delicate woman said to me one day, "Oh, I do hope the fashions will change before Sissy grows up, for I don't see how it will be possible for me to make her clothes." You observe her submissive, law-abiding spirit. The possibility of evading the law never even suggests itself. There is ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... McDonnells' hut in which we had sheltered and went down to the little harbour in the bay. The long Atlantic waves thundered in from the west as if they would bar our passage, and I wondered much at the peril of crossing that angry channel in so frail a craft. ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... of perfect speculation, To imp the wings of thy high-flying mind, Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation, From this dark world, whose damps the soul do blind, On that bright Sun of glory fix thine eyes, Cleared from gross mists of frail infirmities." ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... long a Minister of August the Strong, but quarrelled with August, owing to some frail female it is said, and had withdrawn to Berlin a few years ago. He shines there among the fashionable philosophical classes; underhand, perhaps does a little in the volunteer political line withal; being a very busy pushing gentleman. Tall of stature, 'perfectly handsome ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... I saw a pale hand feebly grasping the rim of the magical caldron, which lay, hurled down from its tripod by the rush of the beasts, yards away from the dim, fading embers of the scattered wood pyre. I saw the faint writhings of a frail, wasted frame, over which the Veiled Woman was bending. I saw, as I moved with bruised limbs to the place, close by the lips of the dying magician, the flash of the rubylike essence spilled on the sward, and, meteor-like, sparkling up from ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Ontario the fleet of frail barks boldly ventured, crossed it safely, and landed on the shore of what is now New York State. Here the Indians hid their canoes. Now they were on the enemy's soil and must move cautiously. For {136} four days they filed silently through the woods, crossing the outlet ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... world, through the lusts of the flesh or the wiles of Satan, being purged and done away, it may be presented pure and without spot before thee. And teach us who survive, in this and other like daily spectacles of mortality, to see how frail and uncertain our own condition is; and so to number our days, that we may seriously apply our hearts to that holy and heavenly wisdom, whilst we live here, which may in the end bring us to life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, thine ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... lunch with me with pleasure, he said, and at one next day arrived in my sitting-room. He looked just as he used to do at first, but soon I noticed his gayety was gone. He seemed frail and older. He had deeply grieved ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... unsteady world, and the ingratitude of man. I thought it would be easier going to the Promised Land if Jordan did not roll between. Rolling had long ceased to be a pleasant figure of speech with me. How frail are all things here below, how false, and yet how fair! My mind is naturally picturesque. In the midst of my sadness the force of nature compelled me to grope after an illustration. I could only think that my own foothold was frail, that the Jane Moseley ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... and is that end as salutary as they would wish? We dare not pronounce judgment. They may answer that they terrify the unjust rich man by pointing out to him the yawning pit that lies beneath the frail covering of wealth; just as in the time of the Dance of Death, they showed him his gaping grave, and Death standing ready to fold him in an impure embrace. Now, they show him the thief breaking open his doors, and the murderer stealthily watching his sleep. We confess we cannot understand how ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... perhaps, no more than justice, for the cook was paid well; but there was one man in the assembly to whom this did not altogether appeal. The victim was frail and helpless, a watery-eyed, limp bundle of nerves, with, nevertheless, a pitiful suggestion of outward dignity still clinging to him, though his persecutors would have described him aptly as a whisky tank. The former fact ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... between the two, on which was erected a house for the stowage of provisions; above this rose a platform surrounded by a railing, forming the deck of the vessel. It had been built by Tongans in the Fijis, where suitable timber could alone be procured. These vessels, frail and unwieldy as they appear, are navigated in the face of the trade wind between two and three hundred miles, the Tongans making voyages to Fiji and also to Samoa. We were told that six years are required to build one. The sail, formed of matting, is triangular, spread on a long yard. The ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... perhaps too capital a part amongst the devotees, I hastened to the inn, luckily hard by, and one of the best I am acquainted with. Here I soon fell asleep in defiance of sunshine. 'Tis true my slumbers were not a little agitated. St. Anthony had been deaf to my prayer, and I still found myself a frail, infatuated mortal. ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... hold on the bully now, and was gradually forcing him backward toward the frail railing that inclosed ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... sole inhabitant of one rather bare office in the Cardigan Block. Buck had fully resolved to give him a retainer of a thousand dollars, or even more, if he asked for it, but after one look at Henry he cut the appropriation to two hundred and fifty dollars. Young Mr. Poundstone was blonde and frail, with large round spectacles, rabbit teeth, and the swiftly receding chin of the terrapin. Moreover, he was in such a flutter of anticipation over the arrival of his client that Buck deduced two things—to ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... suggested by the reflection that an all-powerful God will not leave unpunished the transgressors of his commands; or the same word might signify the sense of reverence and unbounded veneration, with which the frail creature must feel almost overwhelmed when thinking of its exalted Creator, who knows all, sees all, and governs all. The former originates in the intellect, the latter in the heart. It is obvious that the fear of punishment ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... through the world spread far and wide. Upon them all is seen his name, And ev'ry one admits his claim; Even the image of the Lord Is not with greater zeal ador'd. Strange fancy of the human race! Half sinner frail, half child of grace We see HERR WERTHER of the story In all the pomp of woodcut glory. His worth is first made duly known, By having his sad features shown At ev'ry fair the country round; In ev'ry alehouse too they're found. His stick is pointed by each dunce "The ball would ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... punishments to which the convulsionists submitted, as if by inspiration, so that no one might doubt, as Montgeron has it, that it was easy for the Almighty to render invulnerable and insensible bodies the most frail and delicate, would induce us to believe, if the contrary were not so conclusively established, that a rage for homicide and suicide had taken possession of the greater part of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... seen her sitting there! And now he would not see her any more. And only three days ago she had been sitting in the basket chair. How well he remembered her words, her laughter, and now ... now; was it possible he never would hear her laugh again? How frail a thing is human life, how shadow-like; one moment it is here, the next it is gone. Here is her work-basket; and here the very ball of wool which he had held for her to wind; and here is a novel which she had lent to him, and which ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... place in the seat usually occupied by Andy. His face was grave, for he knew what risks they were running. But surely the lad who had piloted the frail craft through so many perils ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... have sprung up from a long slumber, and to be looking with wide happy eyes upon the fresh marvels Nature is preparing for it. Rather naked she stands as yet, rubbing her sleepy lids, having just cast from her her coat of snow, and feeling somewhat bare in the frail garment of bursting leaves and timid grass growths, that as yet is all she can find wherein to hide her charms; but half clothed as she is, she ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... not so great, so wise, so strong, as some are prone to suppose: and when, cut off from Christ and His people, from the Bible and prayer, he trusts in his own resources, he is poor, and weak, and frail in the extreme. There are no errors, no extravagances, no depths of degradation, into which the lawless self-reliant man may not fall. When I had lost my faith in Christ, and had freed myself from all restraints of Bible authority ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... the headland, my astonishment was extreme on finding my little bark in the midst of a shoal of enormous sharks. If I came in contact with one of them I was lost, for the frail boat would certainly be upset and as Jackson had assured me, if ever I allowed these monsters to come near enough, one snap of their jaws, and there would be an end of the Little Savage. I thought of the warning of Mrs Reichardt, and was inclined to think I had better have taken ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... Ney's last desperate charge with the formidable battalions of the Old Guard, he saw the advance of the Prussians closing in on the French right, he galloped to the sea-shore, and, crossing the Channel in a frail boat, reached London twenty-four hours in advance of the news of the battle,[65] but long enough for him to clear several millions from off the panicky state of the money market. Marshal Massena, one of Napoleon's bravest generals, the defender of Genoa and ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... things have gone especially well with me for many years, indeed, much more so perhaps than I really deserve. Though this world often requires much care and toil from us frail mortals, it also yields many blessings for ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... have too much respect for the world's opinion,—let us wait with patience,—time may rectify that impetuosity of character, which is now, I own, my dread; think of it, Charles, and beware; for affection is a frail flower, reared by the hand of gentleness, and perishes as surely by the shocks of violence as by the more ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... Dr. Kenear had been summoned from New Orleans showed as plainly as the message itself that his mother's condition was more serious than he had supposed. She was alone with many responsibilities upon her frail shoulders, and she was calling for her son. There was but one thing ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... want him to go down with me: but he thinks it would be too expensive. So I have engaged to collect what matter I can for him on the spot. At the beginning of October I expect to be back in East Anglia for the winter. Frail is human virtue. I thought I had quite got over picture dealing, when lo! walking in Holborn this day I looked into a shop just to shew the strength of my virtue, and fell. That accursed Battle Piece—I have bought it—and another picture of dead chaffinches, which ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... school went on with regularity and success. There was, however, an occasional interruption. Once a furious squall came over the lake, and shook the frail building so much that Philip threw open the door and sent out all the children, the little ones and girls first, and then the boys, remaining himself to the last like the captain of a sinking ship; but he was not so much of a fool to stay ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... frail hand from his sleeve but he spoke the word she longed to hear, though the shadow on his face seemed rather to deepen than to lighten and astute Betty Calvert was non-plussed. She had so fully counted upon the fact that it ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... pushed the tiller across and the Dragon swept straight down upon her. A shout of dismay rose from the Danes, a hasty volley of arrows and darts was hurled at the Dragon, and the helmsman strove to avoid the collision, but in vain. The Dragon struck her on the beam, the frail craft broke up like an egg-shell under the blow, and sank almost instantly under the ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... followed by two dark, handsome little boys. The girl, who was very tiny, blonde like her mother, and exceedingly frail, he carried in his arms. The boys came up and said good morning with an ease and cheerfulness uncommon, even in well-bred children, but the little girl hid her face on ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... and became at once conscious of an extraordinary throbbing and commotion which was going on inside. The walls of his chest seemed to thrill and quiver as a frail building would do inside when some powerful engine was at work. In the silence of the room I could hear a dull humming and buzzing noise which proceeded from the ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this divine discontent that has made man what he is to- day, let us glorify and envy it, pitying the while the frail mortal vessels it consumes with its flame. No adulation can turn such natures from their goal, and in the hour of triumph the slave is always at their side to whisper the word of warning. This discontent is the leaven that has raised ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... to know What words of love were impotent to show. Time made my heart, aforetime, meekly bow Unto the mastery of love; but now Time hath, at last, revealed love to be Far other than it once appeared to me; And Time the frail foundation hath made clear Whereon I purposed, once, my love to rear— To wit, your beauty, which but served as sheath To hide the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... four-oared boat, despite the dismal prognostications of our worthy host. A pleasant row that was, at one moment covered over with salt-water—the next riding on the top of a wave, ten times the size of our frail conveyance—then came a sudden concussion—in veering our rudder smashed into a smaller boat, which immediately filled and sank, and our rowers disheartened at this mishap would go no farther. The return was still rougher—my face smarted dreadfully from the cutting splashes of the salt-water; ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... perhaps. Long ago we were no less than now. When we reached a hand in the darkness and grasped that of our fellow, the love and the strongly frail human abandon were no less. We have not grown in heart's munificence, perhaps. It is one of the illusions only. But the hope is ours. For ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... paddle and his knees raw from the rasp of the craft's bottom as he swung with the weary blade. Hour by hour the rain beat on them, and the pines that crawled out of it went very slowly by, while it was almost a relief to stand upright now and then, and with strenuous effort drive the frail shell up against the swirl of the slower rapids with long fir poles. At times they were swept down sideways before the poles could find hold again, and fought, gasping and panting, for minutes to regain what they had lost ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... if there was any to be found. We approached the range just before sunset, much tired, with two Wonga-Wongas and three iguanas at our saddles. I had just informed my Blackfellow, that I wished to encamp, even without water, when some old broken sheets of bark, remains of the frail habitations of the natives, caught my eye; a dry water-hole, though surrounded with green grass and sedges, showed that they had formerly encamped there, with water. This water-hole was found to be one of a chain of ponds extending along the edge of the scrub which covered ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... the magic of Alcina's spell) She every ancient passion dispossessed; And in his bosom, there alone to dwell, The image of her love, and self impressed. So witched, Rogero sure some grace deserves, If from his faith his frail affection swerves. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... distinguished for their height than for their diversity and their volumes of water. The principal arm of the river is divided at the point of decline into two equal falls by a little island of rock. A long narrow suspension-bridge leads to this island, and hangs over the fall; but it is such a weak, frail construction, that one person only can cross it at a time. The owner of this dangerous path keeps it private, and imposes a toll of about ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... a little girl eleven years old scream in terror and drop her pail of slops, spilling most of it on her feet; and seize it in a clutch of frail child's fingers, and stagger, sobbing and shaking, past the Fiend—one hand held over her contorted face to shield her from the Awful Thing of Things—to the head of the stairs, where she collapsed, and was half-carried, half-dragged by one of the older ones to the ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... about surrounding appearances does not occur to him". We have disclaimed all knowledge about "primitive man," but it is easy to show that Mr. Spencer grounds his belief in the lack of speculation among savages on a frail foundation ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang |
