"Levity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... affliction, he excites feelings of discontent, distrust, and repining. If we are of a melancholy temperament, he seeks to sour our tempers, and promote habitual sullenness and despondency. If naturally cheerful, he prompts to the indulgence of levity. In private devotion, he stands between us and God, prevents us from realizing his presence, and seeks to distract our minds, and drive us from the throne of grace. In public worship, he disturbs our minds by wandering thoughts and foolish imaginations. ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... by a special messenger: for I am impatient to hear how it goes with thee.—If I have received thy last letter, what melancholy reflections will that last, so full of shocking levity, give to ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... would not burden your memory to such an extent, but he still remembers you. In some conversation with him yesterday he did me the honour to say that I brought you back to his recollection by what he was pleased to call the mingled levity and obstinacy of my character. The levity seems to have already impressed you. I am now reduced to showing you the obstinacy." He sat down in a chair near the door and folded his arms, still ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... He disliked this levity on the sacred subject of office work. He considered that Jimmy was not approaching his new life in the proper spirit. Many young men had discussed with him in that room the subject of working in his employment, but none in ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... knows nothing of earthquakes but by description, waits with impatience to feel the movement of the earth, and longs to hear with his own ear the subterranean sounds which he has hitherto considered fabulous. With levity he treats the apprehension of a coming convulsion, and laughs at the fears of the natives: but, as soon as his wish is gratified, he is terror-stricken, and is involuntarily prompted to seek safety in flight."] ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... much St. Croix's story loses in my telling. The simple expressions, the grace of the narrative, were its charm: and these, alas! I can neither translate nor imitate, no more than I can convey the strange mixture of deep feeling and levity, shrewdness and simplicity, that constituted the manner of ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the latest generations! May the day of that generous conflict be stamped in characters never to be cancelled or worn out from the records of time! Let no man hear of us, who shall not hear, that, in a struggle against the intrigues of courts and the perfidious levity of the multitude, we fell in the cause of honor, in the cause of our country, in the cause of human nature itself! But if fortune should be as powerful over fame as she has been prevalent over virtue, at least our conscience is beyond her jurisdiction. My ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... pretended, Bin, as it ought, sincere, it would have taught thee Far other reasonings, brought forth other deeds. I before all the daughters of my Tribe And of my Nation chose thee from among My enemies, lov'd thee, as too well thou knew'st, Too well, unbosom'd all my secrets to thee, Not out of levity, but over-powr'd 880 By thy request, who could deny thee nothing; Yet now am judg'd an enemy. Why then Didst thou at first receive me for thy husband? Then, as since then, thy countries foe profest: Being once a wife, for me thou wast ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Magdalen," pleaded Mrs. Vanstone, addressing her husband when her daughter had left the room. "Those habits of mimicry are growing on her; and she speaks to you with a levity which it is positively shocking ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... that they were assembled to express their deep sympathy with the fate of three men whom they believed had been condemned and had suffered death unjustly. Even amongst the young there was not to be recognised the slightest approach to levity, and the old characteristics of a great Irish gathering were not to be perceived anywhere. The wrong, whether real or imaginary, done to Allen, O'Brien, and Larkin, made their memory sacred with the thousands that stood for hours in the December wet and cold of yesterday, to testify ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... case, an extremely unlovely passage in Sterne's life. On the best and most charitable view of it, the flirtation, pursued in the way it was, and to the lengths to which it was carried, must be held to convict the elderly lover of the most deplorable levity, vanity, indiscretion, and sickly sentimentalism. It was, to say the least of it, most unbecoming in a man of Sterne's age and profession; and when it is added that Yorick's attentions to Eliza were paid in ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... losing the Lady Margaret, or the hope of gaining her. The missionary had refrained from questioning the young knight, nor did Gilbert reveal any secret to his venerable friend. Whether he might have recovered his former levity can scarcely be answered, but the death of Rodolph seemed to have extinguished it forever. So great a change had this last incident wrought in him, that it was not only evident to Father Omehr and ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... within, and could also catch a peep through the open porch of the sunlit country outside. Charlie's father was in his place when we got in; his threadbare coat was covered by the white linen of his office, and I do not think it would have been possible even to my levity to have felt anything but a respectful awe ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... kindred blood like water, they exult and triumph as if they themselves had performed some notable exploit. I am really ashamed of the fashionable language which has been held for some time past, which, to say the best of it, is full of levity. You know that I allude to the general cry against the cowardice of the Americans, as if we despised them for not making the king's soldiery purchase the advantage they have obtained at a dearer rate. It is not, Gentlemen, it ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the same business of Agapita, who seems to have been a woman of feeble intellect as well as an unfaithful wife.] The petition of her husband Basilius (vir Spectabilis) sets forth that, influenced by seducers, and from the levity so natural to woman, she for no good reason quitted her own home. Her own petition confirms this; and she states that, while taking refuge within the precincts of the Church, she by deed of gift bestowed ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... incognito bestowed, and with it all the reckless play of raillery which gave vivacity to his original acting. He cursed his advisers, and resumed his grotesque vizard, but, it is said, without ever being able to regain the careless and successful levity which the consciousness of ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... chaplains with the police—a Methodist minister, a Catholic priest, and a Jewish rabbi. Also, we have on board two full-fledged I-P captains, either of whom is authorized to tie matrimonial knots. The means are not lacking—if you're both sure of yourselves?" and all levity disappeared as he studied ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... Scotland she was hated because of her religion by the Protestant lords. Her every action was set forth in the worst possible light. The most sinister meaning was given to everything she said or did. In truth, we must reject almost all the stories which accuse her of anything more than a certain levity of conduct. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... pine boughs added sociability to the gathering. By degrees the natural levity of Roaring Camp returned. Bets were freely offered and taken regarding the result. Three to five that "Sal would get through with it;" even that the child would survive; side bets as to the sex and complexion ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... He is intimate not only with their poetry and politics, but with their frivolity and their slang; he knows not only Athenian wisdom, but Athenian folly; not only the beauty of Greece, but even its vulgarity. In fact, a page of Aristophanes' Apology is like a page of Aristophanes, dark with levity and as obscure as a schoolman's treatise, with ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... wealth, was privileged to have what are called "humours," and certainly he sometimes had them. It was necessary—or so Mrs. Sorrel thought—to deal with him delicately and cautiously—neither with too much levity, nor with an overweighted seriousness. One's plan of conduct with a multi-millionaire required to be thought out with sedulous care, and entered upon with circumspection. And Mrs Sorrel did not attempt even as much as a youthful ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... speaking against yourself?" cried Mrs. Millar, bristling up in her daughter's defence, the assailant being that daughter. "You unkind or unfeeling when there was any call for kindness—whoever heard of such a thing? I should as soon suspect Dora of harshness or levity in the same circumstances. Don't you remember my bad eyes last winter, when I had to get that tincture dropped into them so often that your father could not always be at home to do it? You dropped the tincture as well as your father could, and though I know I must have made faces ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... distemper for a disease of the universe. With all the mishaps to which our life is subject, a glance over a wide range of human experience proves that God helps those who help themselves, and whatever be the tenor of our fortune, levity is more seemly than moodiness, and under any circumstances there is more virtue in being a clown than a cynic. But in adversity, a subdued cheerfulness and quiet humor are, next to Christian fortitude, the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... daughter, don't let a spirit of levity creep into thy speech. Thy father has striven and wrestled with his urgings. I've seen it working on him all winter. He feels, now, ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... only, but of king Pyrrhus, his maternal grandfather, he sent another embassy, in which he expressed his opinion that equity required that the whole of Sicily should be conceded to him, and that the dominion of Italy should be acquired as the peculiar possession of the Carthaginians. This levity and inconstancy of purpose in a hot-headed youth, did not excite their surprise, nor did they reprove it, anxious only to detach ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... after, the marriage was celebrated, to the entire satisfaction of all parties. The Baron ordered the doors to be thrown open, and the house free for all comers; with every other token of joy and festivity. Edmund appeared full of joy without levity, of mirth without extravagance; he received the congratulations of his friends, with ease, freedom, and vivacity. He sent for his foster father and mother, who began to think themselves neglected, ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... chapel at first; but I have got quit of all that feeling, and Mr. Puddleham may preach to his heart's content,—as he will, no doubt, to his hearers' welfare, and will not annoy me in the least." On hearing this, Mr. Puddleham pushed his hat off his forehead and looked up and frowned, as though the levity of expression in which his rival indulged, was altogether unbecoming the ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... you frightful images of guilt, and the anguish of innocent love betrayed. Yet I who draw down all this misery upon you; I who cast you forth and remorselessly have set the seal of distrust and agony on the heart and brow of my own child, who with devilish levity have endeavoured to steal away her loveliness to place in its stead the foul deformity of sin; I, in the overflowing anguish of my heart, supplicate you ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... embraced among their lay brethren nearly all the population of Italy, and to die in the habit of the order was thought the safest way of cheating the devil of his due. Corruption had gone so far and deep that it was universally recognized and treated with the sarcasm of levity. It roused no sincere reaction, and stimulated no persistent indignation. Every one acknowledged it; yet every one continued to live indolently according to the fashion of his forefathers, acting up to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... M. Gillenormand, his consideration was of absolutely first-rate quality. He had, in spite of his levity, and without its interfering in any way with his dignity, a certain manner about him which was imposing, dignified, honest, and lofty, in a bourgeois fashion; and his great age added to it. One is not a century ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... appealing to human nature high and low on its romantic side, and at the end of a victorious conspiracy unfurling in France the ancient standard of the monarchy, was too dazzling not to attract a young, high-spirited woman, bold through her very ignorance, heroic through mere levity, able to endure anything but depression and ennui, and prepared to overbear all opposition with plausible platitudes about ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... alone, she moved from it for the first time that evening, and came opposite to her. The yawning, shaking, peevish figure of the mother, with her eyes raised to confront the proud erect form of the daughter, whose glance of fire was bent downward upon her, had a conscious air upon it, that no levity or temper could conceal. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... not help, however, repeatedly observing, through the mingled tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly descanted upon matters of little importance, a certain air of trepidation—a degree of nervous unction in action and in speech—an unquiet excitability of manner which appeared to me at all ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... ring of sincerity in the woman's voice that for the instant I forgot all about her levity and was moved ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the moral attitude of these people. He was still suspicious of them, notwithstanding a growing tendency to like every one of their pleasant, really agreeable faces. There was neither solemnity, sourness, nor bitterness to be seen anywhere; at the same time, there was no sign of levity. In every countenance was the same inexplicable mixture of wisdom and benevolence that distinguished Estra. Nowhere was there hostility, and nowhere was there crudity. Somehow, the big geologist would have felt more at home ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... accusing look on the Spectre's face. I don't know what put it into my head, and I had no sooner said it than I was sorry for my levity, but the figure with the sad garments there in the matchless and triumphant spring day affected me with a curious, sharp impatience. Had any one the right to look out so dolefully upon such a day and such a scene of simple happiness as this? So I took my whistle ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... inspiration "from God, who is our home." To quarrel, then, with the class of minds that instinctively attack abuses, is not only profitless but senseless; to sneer at the sentiments which are the springs of all just and virtuous actions, is merely a display of unthinking levity, or of want ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... (it was urged by its favourers and defenders at the time, and may still be so, without either profaneness or levity) is a metaphysical and logical commentary on some of the most beautiful and striking texts of Scripture. Mr. Godwin is a mixture of the Stoic and of the Christian philosopher. To break the force of the vulgar objections and outcry that have been raised against the Modern ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... I see the subject is too sacred to be jested with—pardon my levity! I assure you, my good Ferrari, I will watch over the lady with the jealous scrutiny of a BROTHER—an elderly brother too, and therefore one more likely to be a model of propriety. Though I frankly admit it is a task I am not specially fitted for, and one that is rather ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... and the levity of the Frenchman, are as evident in all their productions as in their persons themselves; and the style of my countrymen is as naturally strong and nervous, as that of an Arabian or Persian is ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... III., about 1200, suppressed the safeguards theretofore required in any prosecution, especially the risk incurred by prosecutors of being punished for slander. Instead of these were established the dismal processes of Denunciation and Inquisition. The frightful levity of these latter methods is shown by Soldan. Blood was ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... nor yet that tongue." The woman shivered. "Even as the Eye seeth, my lord, so doth the Ear hear. Is it meet and wise to speak with levity of that in whose power thou shalt ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... power been more centralized, and never in France had the reins been held by persons so pitiful, impelled by motives so contemptible. The levity, vanity, and spite of a concubine became a mighty engine to influence the destinies of nations. Louis XV., enervated by pleasures and devoured by ennui, still had his emotions; he shared Pompadour's ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... dreadful July night, by the unwearying assiduity of his kinswoman, Miss Willoughby. On his recovery, the bride (for the Earl won her heart and hand) who stood by him at the altar looked fainter and more ghostly than the bridegroom. But her dark hour of levity was passed and over. There is no more affectionate pair than the Earl and Countess of Embleton. Lady Mary, who lives with them, is once more an aunt, and spoils, it is to be feared, the young Viscount Scremerston, ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... it contains puts me out of humor with you. I recognize the fact that truth is a contagious disease. Judge how much of it goes into love, since you bestow it even upon those who aim to undeceive you. It is quite strange, that in order to prove that love should be treated with levity, it was necessary to assume ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... quaint stories. Thus, by blending together the doctrines of the Shinto, Buddhist, and other schools, we shall arrive at something near the true principle of things. Now, positively, you must not laugh if I introduce a light story now and then. Levity is not my object: I only want to put things in ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... and diversions there are no longer any profound sentiments; we have nothing but an epidermic exterior; love itself is reduced to "the exchange of two fantasies."—And, as one always falls on the side to which one inclines, levity becomes deliberate and a matter of elegance.[2305] Indifference of the heart is in fashion; one would be ashamed to show any genuine emotion. One takes pride in playing with love, in treating woman as a mechanical puppet, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Mrs. Leighton, flushing at her levity before the very portals of the church. "She's all right. I looked back, and saw ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... Levity, mirth and joy were condemned by the Puritans, and nearly all amusements were discarded. The merry whistle of the lad was ungodly in their eyes, and Charles Stevens had come in for his share of the reproof because God had given him a light heart. Life to them was sombre, ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... out of the window, his eye fixed out across the roofs of London. There had now fallen from his face all trace of levity, and into his eye and mouth there came reflex of the decision of his speech. Will stirred in his chair, and at length the ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... Dolgorukov, getting up hurriedly and pressing the hands of Prince Andrew and Boris. "You know I should be very glad to do all in my power both for you and for this dear young man." Again he pressed the hand of the latter with an expression of good-natured, sincere, and animated levity. "But you ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... liver and lungs too close to the diaphragm, because that damnable invention of Sir Isaac Newton's slumbers not nor sleeps, and all the vital organs droop and drop when we neglect deep breathing. Inertia is a vice. The gods cultivate levitation, which is a different thing from levity, meaning skyey gravitation, uplift, aspiration expressed in bodily attitude. When levitation lets ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... mother; I was modest, respectful, and shewed a deep interest in everything I saw. The good advocate arrived, and was surprised at the change in my appearance. He launched out in his usual jokes, and I followed him on that ground, yet I was careful not to give to my conversation the tone of levity which used to cause so much mirth in our travelling coach; so that, to, pay me a compliment, he told nee that, if I had had the sign of manhood shaved from my face, I had certainly transferred it to my mind. Donna Lucrezia ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... conscientious in all the steps of his own blameless course, he looked for the same precision and an even greater gravity in the bearing of his deity, my father. It was no sinecure to be Coolin's idol: he was exacting like a rigid parent; and at every sign of levity in the man whom he respected, he announced loudly the death of virtue and the proximate fall of the pillars of ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... us separated by almost as great a distance as is possible on the surface of our globe! and that I should be anchored, as I now am, within two miles of a great city, doomed, I fear, to destruction, from the folly of its own rulers and the vanity and levity of ours. We have moved a little farther up the river this morning, and as we are, like St. Paul, dropping an anchor from the stern, I have had over my head for several hours the incessant dancing about and clanking of a ponderous chain-cable, till my brains are ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... contemporary of the old age of Dante, flourished during the best years of his life at the Court of Philippe le Bel. The Roman de la Rose is the Epic of old France. It is a profound book, under the form of levity, a revelation as learned as that of Apuleius, of the Mysteries of Occultism. The Rose of Flamel, that of Jean de Meung, and that of Dante, grew on ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... adventure, and enjoyed the dilemma of the bear in his winter quarters; but Catharine was somewhat shocked at the levity displayed by her cousin and brother when recounting the terror of old Jacob and the sufferings of the ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... Izard, being informed of the arrangement, took Arthur Lee's original view and protested against it. Lee reports that this interference put Franklin "much out of humor," and that he said it would "appear an act of levity to renew the discussion of a thing we had agreed to." None the less, Lee now resumed his first position so firmly that Franklin and Deane in their turn agreed to omit both articles. But they stipulated that Lee should arrange the matter with Gerard, since, as they had just ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... a firm Tory, though without rancor. He was very High Church, but had no sympathy with the Oxford movement or Catholicism. He preached careful and sober sermons, without oratorical display and with rigid avoidance of levity. He would not make the church a field either for fireworks or jokes, or even for displays of scholarship or intellectual gymnastics. In his opinion, religious establishments were kept up to advance religion and morals. And both he and his wife wrought zealously in the humble ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... man now, and should be permitted to travel in foreign countries for a time. Then the gossip will cease, when they see that you are unselfish. And when you are gone, the king will bear his own burdens. And thus his levity will gradually disappear. And when you come back, you can assume your office ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... invigorate the intellect; and it was now rapidly losing its hold on the consciences of the multitude. The high places of idolatrous worship often exercised a most demoralising influence, as their rites were not unfrequently a wretched mixture of brutality, levity, imposture, and prostitution. Philosophy had completely failed to ameliorate the condition of man. The vices of some of its most distinguished professors were notorious; its votaries were pretty generally regarded as a class of scheming speculators; and they enjoyed neither the confidence ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... his senseless, pointless funny stories, is beyond me. Bunt is almost as bad. They understand the fix we are in, I know, but how they can take it so easily is the staggering surprise. I feel that I am as courageous as either of them, but levity seems horribly inappropriate. I could kill ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... more particularly on the women, as that system of closely tabooed marriage, founded upon a broad basis of prostitution and infanticide, which has reached its most appalling height of development in hypocritical and puritan England. The ghastly levity with which all Englishmen treated this most serious subject, and the fatal readiness with which even Frida herself seemed to acquiesce in the most inhuman slavery ever devised for women on the face of this earth, shocked and saddened Bertram's profoundly moral and sympathetic nature. ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... of turning out to the advantage of his education. Ferdinand was entered in the same academy; and the two lads proceeded equally in the paths of erudition; a mutual friendship and intimacy soon ensued, and, notwithstanding the levity and caprice commonly discernible in the behaviour of such boys, very few or rather no quarrels happened in the course of their communication. Yet their dispositions were altogether different, and their talents unlike. Nay, this dissimilarity was the very bond of their union; because it ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... the condition of man's head-bound consciousness. The locus from which modern man watches the world is a point within the field of this consciousness, and the intensity with which the world acts on it diminishes with increasing spatial distance from this point. This is the reason why levity was banished from scientific inquiry, and why, when the field-concept was created by the genius of Faraday, it did not occur to anyone that with it the way was opened to comprehend field-types other than the centric one characteristic ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... be nameless, will ever forget the gravity with which he assured them that they were "the best-dressed class that had passed through college during his administration"? How sincerely kind he was, how considerate of youthful levity, will always be gratefully remembered by whoever had occasion to experience it. A visitor not long before his death found him burning some memoranda of college peccadilloes, lest they should ever rise up in judgment against the men eminent in Church and State who had been guilty of them. One ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... measure of fidelity, and his energy and experience were guarantees of his competence, though, as a younger member of the great house of Thouars, he belonged by birth to the inner circle of the Poitevin nobility, whose treachery, levity, and self-seeking were proverbial. The powerful Viscounts of Thouars were constantly kept in check by their traditional enemies the Counts of La Marche, whose representative, Hugh of Lusignan, was by ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... and sceptre were committed to the safe keeping of each in turn. Above all, how would this royal girl, on whose conduct so much depended, demean herself on this crucial occasion? Surely if she were overcome by timidity and apprehension, if she were goaded into some foolish demonstration of pride or levity, allowance must be made, and a good deal forgiven, because of the cruel strain to ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... the little German crank, who strolled from one to the other with a smile on his lips and mischief in his eyes. More than once he even went so far as to burst into a shout of laughter, until the chaplain sternly rebuked him for his ill-timed levity. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... manner had changed; his levity had suddenly given place to a gravity most unusual to him, and instead of his wonted jollity his face wore an expression of the greatest seriousness. He, after a casual glance at Lawrence, suddenly insisted that it was necessary to exchange a cartel, ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... shade from his lamp, and, without attempting to conceal his astonishment, exclaimed: "M'sieur Fortunat!—at this hour! Where's the fire?" Then, in a grave manner that contrasted strangely with his accustomed levity: "Mother," said he, "this is one of my patrons, M'sieur Fortunat—you know—the gentleman whom ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... forming him for those distinguished parts he was destined to perform, first taught him the duties of OBEDIENCE, the better to prepare him for those of command. In the well-ordered domicile where his early years were passed, the levity and indulgence common to youth was tempered by a deference and well-regulated restraint which, while it curtailed or suppressed no rational enjoyment usual in the spring-time of life, prescribed those enjoyments within the bounds of ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... levity grated on me. I peered eagerly towards the gates, striving to make out the figure ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... all the little trying and provoking things of life are met. You may preach or write ever so forcibly and eloquently, and bring out the sublime truths of the Bible in great beauty; but if in the privacy of your own home there are little frettings, a little peevishness, a little crossness, a little levity, a little selfishness, a little distrust, your life is not as truly holy as ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... of the shady court into the public square. Here we found a number of aged men seated on unpleasantly smooth and cold polished stones in a curious circle of masonry. They were surrounded by a crowd of younger men, shouting, laughing, and behaving with all the thoughtless levity and merriment of a Polynesian mob. They became silent as the chief approached, and the old men rose from their places till he had taken a kind of rude throne in ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... could not revenge himself any other way; and as I was sure a man would be hanged that did such a thing, I could not see for what purpose they preached such sermons. This was not one of those kind of thoughts that had any thing in it of childish levity; it was to me a serious reflection, arising from the idea I had that God was too good to do such an action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it. I believe in the same manner ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... its legal penalty. Promissory oaths are of equally little worth. There is not a public functionary from the President of the United States to the village constable, who does not take what is meant to be a solemn oath (though often administered with indecent levity) to be loyal to the constitution of the country or state, and faithful in the discharge of his official duties. Yet what effect has this vast amount of swearing, if it be not to make perjury so familiar an offence as to be ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... to express to you my most sincere condolence upon the death of your worthy father. I know too well the temper of my Rinaldo to imagine, that his accession to a splendid fortune and a venerable title can fill his heart with levity, or make him forget the obligations he owed to so generous and indulgent a parent. It is not the form of sorrow that clouds his countenance. I see the honest tear of unaffected grief starting from his eye. It is not the voice of flattery, that can render him callous ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... miseries of ambition and vanity How sad these old memorics are in the autumn Never travel when the heart is troubled! Not more honest than necessary Poor France of Jeanne d'Arc and of Napoleon Redouble their boasting after each defeat Take their levity for heroism The leaves fall! the leaves fall! Universal suffrage, with its accustomed intelligence Were ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... at fault, or that merit—that is to say, our own conspicuous quality—is liable to be out-stripped in this world by imposture. It is consoling if we can wrap ourselves in the belief that good work can be extracted from bad brains, and that shallowness, affectation, and levity can, by some strange chemistry, be transmuted into a substitute for genius. Do we not all, if we have reached middle age, remember some idiot (of course he was an idiot!) at school or college who has somehow managed to slip past ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... meet about on neutral ground, and are the best friends in the world. He knows I'm a lost sheep—a gone 'coon, as the Americans say—so he pokes his fun at me, and we're as jolly as sandboys. But St Stumfolda is made of sterner metal, and will not put up with any such female levity. If she pokes her fun at any sinners, it is at gentlemen sinners; and grim work it must be for them, I should think. Poor Mary Baker! the best creature in the world. I'm afraid she has a bad time of it. But then, you know, perhaps that is the ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... conducting thither one of the many beauties of that island (for it abounds with handsome women) dressed in all the bewitching attire of the most charming simplicity: like the rest of the company, she was cheerful without loud laughs, and smiling without affectation. They all appeared gay without levity. I had never before in my life seen so much unaffected mirth, mixed with so much modesty. The pleasures of the day were enjoyed with the greatest liveliness and the most innocent freedom; no disgusting pruderies, no coquettish airs tarnished this enlivening ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... levity of expression vanished from Horace's face. The family question was far too serious a question to be lightly treated A becoming shadow of solemnity stole over his manner. He looked as if it was Sunday, and he was ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... at a shop I am quite unfit for social intercourse. I have to go home and fume. There was a time when Euphemia would come and discuss my purchase with a certain levity, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... conducted: Now all are sallying forth to gaze on the need of these exiles, Nor is there one who considers that he, by a similar fortune, May, in the future, if not indeed next, be likewise o'ertaken. Levity not to be pardoned, I deem; yet it lies in ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... nothing at all, or that the reason of its occurrence could be indefinitely postponed. She was impatient of that, as often as he urged the possibility, and she wished him to use a seriousness of mind in speaking of his apparition which should form some sort of atonement to it for his past levity, though since she had taken his apparition into her keeping he had scarcely hazarded any suggestion concerning it; in fact it had become so much her apparition that he had a fantastic ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... not even deny, that the French are by no means deficient in natural capacity; but they are at the same time remarkable for a natural levity, which hinders their youth from cultivating that capacity. This is reinforced by the most preposterous education, and the example of a giddy people, engaged in the most frivolous pursuits. A Frenchman is by some Jesuit, or other monk, taught to read his mother tongue, and to say his prayers in a ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... nothing! What is to-day worth, or its duties or its cares?" All deep minds have thought that. The thought of Time is solemn and awful to all minds in proportion to their depth—and in proportion as the mind is superficial, the thought has appeared little, and has been treated with levity. Brethren, let but a man possess himself of that thought—the deep thought of the brevity of time; this thought—that time is short, and that eternity is long—and he has learned the ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... get into it. As he put one foot through the upheld opening, he caught sight of Cousin Charley's face and his attempted concealment of laughter. This so exasperated Alfred that he did not notice the garment he was being encased in. He upbraided Cousin Charley for his unseemly levity: ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... in spite of the humor of the situation and the levity of the ladies, there was a characteristic national practicalness about them, and the consul, with a sigh, at last gave the address of one or two responsible experts in genealogical inquiry, as he had often done before. He felt it was impossible to ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... no one knows how protective the black dress is to a woman, better than I do! There are few who would venture to treat with levity or disrespect a quiet woman in a black dress. And so I, who have no father, brother, or husband to protect me, take a shelter under a black alpaca. It repels dirt, too, as well as disrespect. It is clean as well as safe, and that is a great desideratum to a poor ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... had any fear, it was not the time to show it. He heard all around him speak of fighting as if it were fun, and of death with seeming levity. It is the way of the young and the thoughtless. Old sailors and old soldiers seldom talk thus, and think more of duty than of glory. For young or for old the loss of life is not a matter for light talk, as if death were only the end of it. ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... deference for the reasons and opinions of my friends; might I not, after the declarations I have made, (and heaven knows they were made in the sincerity of my heart,) in the judgment of the impartial world, and of posterity, be chargeable with levity and inconsistency, if not with rashness and ambition? Nay, farther, would there not even be some apparent foundation for the two former charges? Now, justice to myself, and tranquillity of conscience require that I should act a part, if not ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... much oftener have I erred through levity and want of thought! How many resolutions have I taken at random! how many judgments have I pronounced for the sake of a witticism! how many mischiefs have I not done without any sense of my responsibility! The greater part of men harm one another for the sake of doing something. We laugh at the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... in short, a solid body, of an extreme levity, and endowed with a most delicate organization. It is not a miasm, in the common signification of the term; it does not carry with it any poison; it is not vegetable matter in decomposition, but it flourishes ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... scene, from gaiety and splendour to absolute solitude and comparative poverty; and the ideas and wishes which she chiefly fostered, respected great national events, and changes not to be brought round without both hazard and bloodshed, and therefore not to be thought of with levity. Her manner, consequently, was grave, though she readily contributed her talents to the amusement of society, and stood very high in the opinion of the old Baron, who used to sing along with her such French duets of Lindor ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... alter the scandal," said the doctor; "now let me tell you, good sir, I would rather play at fifty games of whist than make one such speech, unless indeed it interfered with my duties; now, sir, with your leave I'll explain myself as to my son. There is an artificial levity about dancing that adds to the dignity of no man: from some it may detract: a clergyman for instance is supposed to have other things to do, and it might hurt him in the opinions of those with whom his influence is necessary, ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... in a temper to brook this levity, and hastened to relieve the joint occupants of the chair from the ridicule of their situation. "Enough!" he exclaimed, "enough! All my friends are requested to resume the situation most agreeable to them; my purpose is answered." The prince was himself standing with all his household, and, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... course, all the caprices of the heart, and all the giddy ebullitions of gratified vanity, manifest themselves so strangely, that it is extremely difficult to understand them, or know their wishes. Under such circumstances, my lord, they will, in the very levity of delight, frequently say 'no,' when they mean 'yes,' ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... are intirely, ye ould omadhawn!" said Judy, whose notions of propriety were somewhat shocked with the undignified levity of her partner; "the likes of you I never seed; ye are too foolidge intirely. Have done now wid your diviltries, and set the stools for the gintlemens, while I ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie |
