"Light-hearted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now, and their going was something of a triumphal procession. At every turn some one joined them,—young or old, and from every side greetings were called after them, until the bewildered stranger felt as if she had become part of a circus parade. She was feeling almost light-hearted as the gay throng moved forward, when they passed their escort's office, and in the doorway stood the young Mr. McRae who reminded her ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... passed on. Yes, he had done the square thing; he knew it perfectly well. Nor did he regret his action. On the contrary he was more light-hearted than he had been for a long time. Nevertheless he did not exactly fancy the ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... intelligence; but there are thousands of people who take an honest pleasure in it. And who, after seeing my old friend J.L. Toole in some of his famous parts, and having laughed till their sides ached, have not left the theatre more buoyant and light-hearted than they came? Well, if the stage has been thus useful and successful all these centuries, and still is productive; if the noble fascination of the theatre draws to it, as we know that it does, an immortal ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... for weeks. Nearly eighty years had passed over him, yet he would lie in wait near the salt-licks, and bring down his buffalo or his deer, and as bravely and cheerily as in his younger days, would he cut down bee-trees. As the light-hearted Frenchmen swept up the river in their fleets of periogues on their hunting excursions, Boone would cheer them as they passed, and sigh for his younger days that he might join their parties. He was a complete Nimrod, now ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... good bit of a new experience for him to carry a parcel through the streets of London, and book it himself, but in his present costume he did not mind doing it one bit. Indeed, he felt quite light-hearted; knowing the worst was much better than the anxiety of the past few weeks. And then there was another matter. Having been used to a good allowance, and possessing naturally somewhat fastidious tastes, he had not been very economical, though, as he hated the idea of debt, and would rather ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... was made clear to her that she had never been, and never would be, in such humour; that in just this circumstance resided all her insuperable dissociation from these people of light-hearted lives; that this was why she was and forever must remain, however long and intimate her life among them, an outsider; because what she needed and demanded, the blind and inarticulate impulse which had made her aspire to their society, was not the need ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... the same sub-editors; the same composers of head-lines. If we think of Americans as too capable of cynical levity it is largely because of these head-lines, which are always as epigrammatic as possible, always light-hearted, often facetious, and often cruel. An unfortunate woman's failure at suicide after killing her husband was thus touched off in one of the journals while I ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... number of officers and courtiers crowded the cabinet; the queen-mother had arrived that evening, escorted by her maids of honor, and these light-hearted girls were, like suns, always ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... trouble came, his voluntary abandonment of the profits due to him must go to his credit. He had plunged into the icy waters of renunciation and come up clean if naked. Never since he was a boy could Alan remember feeling so utterly light-hearted and free from anxiety. Not for a million pounds would he have returned to gather gold in that mausoleum of reputations. As for the future, he did not in the least care what happened. There was no one dependent on him, ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... remembrance of the days of her youth came back to her mind, while the events of yesterday were dim and forgotten. She dreamt of her girlhood and youth. In sleep she was once more the beautiful Nest Gwynn, the admired of all beholders, the light-hearted girl, beloved by her mother. Little circumstances connected with those early days, forgotten since the very time when they occurred, came back to her mind in her waking hours. She had a sear on the palm of her left hand, occasioned by ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... of it, after his day's journey was over, his parcels all delivered, and his horses "suppered" for the night. Generally his bright-looking wife was hovering near the door, waiting his coming with a little group round her as merry as the one that was now making the woods of Kirklands ring with their light-hearted laughter. ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... young man who had so curiously mistaken her for another. Beth took occasion to watch her movements, so far as she could, and came to the conclusion that the girl was not acting a part. She laughed naturally and was too light-hearted and gay to harbor a care of any sort in ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... to London to seek their fortune, and—that was the last I ever saw of them, nearly the last I heard. I had two letters from Pair, written within a month of their hegira—gossipy, light-hearted letters, describing the people they were meeting, reporting Godelinette's quaint observations upon England and English things, explaining his hopes, his intentions, all very confidently—and then I had no more. I wrote again, and still again, till, getting no answer, of course I ceased to write. ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... Richelieu, high spirits and frolic carried rather too far; perhaps we may see in it the outrances of another age, the Eighteenth Century pushed to extremes; it harks back to the Musketeers; it is an exploit stolen from Champcenetz; nay, such light-hearted inconstancy takes us back to the festooned and ornate period of the old court of the Valois. In an age as moral as the present, we are bound to regard audacity of this kind sternly; still, at the same time that 'cornet of sugar-plums' may serve to warn ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... as nature, like the wind Melancholy or light-hearted without reason, And like the waxing or the waning moon Ever pale and lovely: you are like these Because you are free and live by your own law; While I, desiring life and half alive, Dream, hope, regret and fear and blunder ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... nothing since but eat the hotel oats and wish to be out of a close stable and back in their own free paddocks. They took the hills at a swift, effortless trot, and on the down slopes broke into a hand-gallop; light-hearted, but conscious all the time of the hand on the reins, that was as steel, yet light as a feather upon a tender mouth. They danced merrily to one side when they met a motor or a hawker's van with flapping cover; when the buggy rattled over a bridge they plainly regarded the drumming ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Ruth to sing an old French-Canadian song which she had once before sung to us. Many a time the woods of the West had resounded to the notes of 'En Roulant ma Boule', as the 'voyageurs' traversed the long paths of the Ottawa, St. Lawrence, and Mississippi; brave light-hearted fellows, whose ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... high. Some of them had friends and relatives among the victims. Yet this man in hiding had tossed me his name to play with, not even asking for my silence, though it was the price of his life, and all in a light-hearted contempt for the curious ways of the 'tony set,' as ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... said the Philosopher. He hurled himself, feet first, at the ceiling, knocked his head against the floor, and called down the tube. "J'y suis!" came the answer, and the typical, light-hearted Frenchman, M. le Docteur REVERSI, with his thousand thunders, and his blue lower chest, tripped jauntily up to the other three. "And now," remarked the Philosopher, "we have got the lot complete. The story can start. Hurry up! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various
... her, as well as all the precious collection of magic instruments and elixirs and chemicals that had been stolen from her castle. Cap'n Bill and the Wizard at once hung the Magic Picture upon the wall of Ozma's boudoir and the Wizard was so light-hearted that he did several tricks with the tools in his black bag to amuse his companions and prove that once again he was a ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... who are not disciples of Wagner find it necessary to undergo a process of education ere they acquire an unaffected taste for the composer's masterpieces. Possibly those who have not listened, wet season after wet season, to the light-hearted chant, may be inclined to suggest that there can be no such thing as music in the panting bellows of a North Queensland frog. But music "is of a relative nature, and what is harmony to one ear may be dissonance ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... sixty-five days shower shot and shell upon Quebec, and the South shore for a hundred miles together be blazing with the fires of devastation. Such things were mercifully withheld from their foresight, and the light-hearted girls went the round of the works as gaily as they would ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... bewilderment and trouble; but that was before—I knew—I loved him. And now, you cannot wonder that I want him to live. My life shall be devoted to taking care of him. Oh, how I wish you could see him, Isabella! You would see that what I say is true. He is so happy, so light-hearted. I think he must be just what he used to be ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... of the past must have been in the air that afternoon, or perhaps, the spirit of the coming changes; for this picnic—though by no means lacking in charm—was not as gay and filled with light-hearted chaff as usual. There was more talking in quiet groups, or really serious searching for some trace of those long-ago days of storm ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... extract shows with what light-hearted frivolity he could approach this tremendous subject ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... bottom, we made an excursion thither on the 8th July. Our friends at the encampment were immediately ready to help us, especially the women, Artanga, and the twelve-year-old, somewhat spoiled Vega-favourite Reitinacka. They ran hither and thither like light-hearted and playful children, to put the net in order and procure all that was needed for the fishing. We had carried with us from the vessel a net nine metres long and one deep. Along its upper border floats were fixed, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... unsuspiciously applied to the removal of abuses in the ecclesiastical administration and in the life of the clergy. What aid could be derived by those who really hungered for spiritual food, or what strength could accrue to the thoughtless faith of the light-hearted majority, from many of the most common varieties of the English ecclesiastic of the later Middle Ages? Apart from the Italian and other foreign holders of English benefices, who left their flocks to be tended by deputy, ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... Lasette, "I believe that we are capable of being more than light-hearted children of the tropics and I want our young people to gain more persistence in their characters, perseverance in their efforts and that esprit de corps, which shall animate us with higher, nobler and holier purpose in the future than we have ever known in the past; and while I ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... desinteressement, unselfish devotion. This speech is a good example of what the French call blague,—a sort of light-hearted mockery of moral ideals. See my note to "Le Gendre de monsieur Poirier," p. ...
— Bataille De Dames • Eugene Scribe and Ernest Legouve
... keep a perturbed and restless Major from the line waiting while he finishes his light-hearted badinage with a subordinate. It is altogether magnificent in its sheer sangfroid. Why is it that such a one is labelled merely A.M.L.O., when he should obviously be the M.L.O.? He has his subordinate, happily insignificant and obsequiously proud to serve. Let the subordinate be the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... find some hidden reproach in every word, and would feel her position more and more unendurable day by day. Such a creature, too, would droop her head in shame—so that every morning her pillow would be bedewed with tears. For she need not reckon on pity! Or perhaps she would be just the opposite: a light-hearted, gay, sprightly bird, who would find herself at home in every position. If only to-day were cheerful, she would not weep for yesterday, or be anxious for the morrow. Care would be taken to clip the wings of her good humor: a far greater triumph would it be to make a weeping ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... which we find paralleled in every form of communal amusement, sport, and entertainment in ancient Hawaii, sheds a strong light on the genius of the Hawaiian. We are wont to think of the old-time Hawaiians as light-hearted children of nature, given to spontaneous outbursts of song and dance as the mood seized them; quite as the rustics of "merrie England" joined hands and tripped "the light fantastic toe" in the joyous month of May or shouted the harvest home at a later season. The genius of ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... little distance, but away I went, happy in her service, swinging the heavy bucket and humming to myself, as care-free and light-hearted as any youth in Christendom, and presently reached the pool. I was stooping, in the act of filling the bucket, when I paused, arrested by a sudden, vague indefinable sound that puzzled me to account for and set me idly ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... shaded us from the sun. But we had scarce reached the place ere the sound of steps made us turn, and there was Mademoiselle Antoinette herself facing us. I went forward a few steps, hesitated, and bowed. She courtesied, my name faltering on her lips. Yes, it was Antoinette, not the light-hearted girl whom we had heard singing "Ma luron" in the garden, but a woman now with a strange beauty that astonished me. Hers was the dignity that comes from unselfish service, the calm that is far from resignation, though the black veil caught ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... wonder," she thought. "Bella is so light-hearted and so merry, and so pretty and sweet, too, that she could charm away anybody's dumps. I wish I had some of her gift that ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... I must wander alone, No light-hearted Mary to sing as I go, Nor loiter to gather bright flowers newly blown, She delighted, sweet maid, ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... hearken, sad-hearted, My sweet singing voices Shall teach you by day; And in the night's darkness The stars gently mirrored, All borne on my current, Shall mark you the way. Dark mountains may tower, Dark valleys may lower, But follow, sad-hearted, Come smiling, light-hearted, Come fare to the river; His Hand in the forest Has ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... over, for it was September now, but the gay little watering-place seemed crowded still, and in our knickerbockers, with our pack-mule and donkeys, and their attendants, we must have added a fantastic note to the dance-music which the very breezes play among tree-branches at light-hearted Aix. ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... had taken up aviation as a lark. She was a typical specimen of an American girl. Light-hearted, wholesome and devoted to all sorts of sports, tennis, swimming, golf, motoring and finally aviation had, ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... women are industrious and clever at business, most of which is conducted by them, while the men are more fond of sport of all kinds than employment. All, however, are gentle in character, light-hearted, and merry, and like to repeat in their clothing the beautiful tints of their forest flowers and ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... borne by any other family—and remained there for two hundred years, going to England only when, Venice falling into decay, it was necessary to go where they could live in safety. He wrote the account of his travels to his sister in a series of affectionate and light-hearted letters, which charmingly betray his own personality, and which are full of the most vivid pictures of Malta, Corfu, Albania, the Plains of Troy, Turkey—which was kind to his race when a cruel and unreasoning world showed it only malignant hate, and which he regarded with the gratitude ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... this theory, that of a stormy day, when the face of the ocean was black, and overcast, that some of them would grow moody, and chose to sit apart. On the contrary, it only proves the thing which I maintain. For even on shore, there are many people naturally gay and light-hearted, who, whenever the autumnal wind begins to bluster round the corners, and roar along the chimney-stacks, straight becomes cross, petulant, and irritable. What is more mellow than fine old ale? Yet thunder will sour ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... idea was suggested to her, Juliette was exultant. Her entire nature, which in itself was wholesome, light-hearted, the very reverse of morbid, rebelled against this unnatural task placed upon her young shoulders. It was only religion—the strange, warped religion of that extraordinary age—which kept her to it, which forbade her breaking ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... from the window; but he had quaffed so deeply of the morning glory, that the sinister frescos no longer depressed him. They were ridiculously unimportant,—nothing more than stains on the wall, in fact. Balder could not tell why he felt light-hearted. It was solemn light-heartedness,—not the gayety of sensuous spirits, such as he had experienced heretofore. It had little to do with physical well-being, for the young man was still faint and dizzy, and weak from hunger. Behold, then, at the foot of the bed, a carved ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... value love, based upon my powers of pleasing, instead of the intrinsic worth of my character, I could not gain it, Ann. I came home, after my long absence, as merry and light-hearted, as full of hope, of love towards you all, as ever a happy schoolgirl did. Then I was seventeen; it seems as if long years had elapsed since the day I sprang into your arms so joyfully—since father and mother kissed me. Home, sweet home, how musical ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... from her hand, showed his watch as she protested, and fled for his coat. Once at the corner, he stopped running and smiled. The escape had been fairly easy and with a minimum of fuss, and he was immeasurably light-hearted, now that the report card ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... herself in watching how Jean of the Lazy A came and went and lived her life bravely in the midst of so much that was hard. Jean in the loge remembered how Burns had yelled, "Smile when you come up; look light-hearted! And then let your face change gradually, while you listen to your mother crying in there. There'll be a cut-back to show her down on her knees crying before Bob's chair. Let that tired, worried look come into ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... himself as he went along. It was long since he had been to a theatre, and just now he 'vas so hopelessly poor that he could really afford a little extravagance. So he was soon sitting before the well-known drop of a favourite play-house, as full of light-hearted expectancy as a boy who is enjoying a holiday. The evening was delightful, and passed ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... Catch up!" is now sounded from the captain's camp and echoed from every division and scattered group along the valley. The woods and dales resound with the gleeful yells of the light-hearted wagoners who, weary of inaction and filled with joy at the prospect of getting under way, become clamorous in the extreme. Each teamster vies with his fellow who shall be soonest ready; and it is a matter of boastful pride to be the first to cry ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... along the hall. The door in the rear is pushed open, and Nora and Tom rush in breathlessly. Nora is a bright, vivacious, red-haired girl of eleven—pretty after an elfish, mischievous fashion—light-hearted and robust.) ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... When the broom is in flame there seems to be no colour but yellow; but when the wild roses come we remember that the broom was flaunting. It was not quite a lady, for it insisted on being looked at; while these light-hearted things are too innocent to know that there is anyone to look. Grizel was sitting by the side of the stream, adorning her hat fantastically with roses red and white and some that were neither. They were those that cannot decide whether they look best ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... Happy and light-hearted, We three the time will while. And, when sometimes a season parted, Still think of us, and smile. But come to us in gloomy weather; We'll weep, when we must ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... If all this be a truthful picture, and really we see no reason for doubt, it does but add another to the many proofs of the springing elasticity of that element of light-hearted short-sightedness which is so proverbially characteristic of the French. But we will say no more, for our paper has already exceeded the limits we had assigned to it; and the things that are must ever prevail in our pages over ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... and awe which yet more alarmed the others. "Heavy must be the burden of a soul," added she, as no one answered her—"heavy indeed! for the mere approach of mine over-shadows me with anxious melancholy. And ah! how light-hearted, how joyous I used to be!" A fresh burst of weeping overcame her, and she covered her face with ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... look in Pippo's face before. He bent his head over the table as if he were intent upon the food which choked him when he tried to eat, and which he loathed the very sight of—and did not say a word. They had certainly not been very light-hearted before, but the sight of the boy thus obscured and changed made all the misery more evident. There was always a possibility of over-riding the storm so long as all was well with Pippo: but his changed countenance veiled the very sun ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... stream, wandering and twisting along, and its rural bridge. Here we turn again, past that other white farmhouse, half hidden by the magnificent elms which stand before it. Ah! riches dwell not there, but there is found the next best thing—an industrious and light-hearted poverty. Twenty years ago Rachel Hilton was the prettiest and merriest lass in the country. Her father, an old gamekeeper, had retired to a village alehouse, where his good beer, his social humour, and his black-eyed daughter, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... "I should not dare to meet Mr. Nappie in the field." So he remained at the castle and took a walk with Mr. Emilius. Mr. Emilius asked a good many questions about Portray, and exhibited the warmest sympathy with Lizzie's widowed condition. He called her a "sweet, gay, unsophisticated, light-hearted young thing." "She is very young," replied her cousin. "Yes," he continued, in answer to further questions; "Portray is certainly very nice. I don't know what the income is. Well; yes. I should think it is over a thousand. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the "country gentleman," was hardly able to live so extravagant a life, and accordingly remained at home, sometimes making friends of the villagers, standing god-father to peasant-children, or inviting heavy-booted but light-hearted plowmen to dance in the castle courtyard. But often his life was dull enough, with rents hard to collect, and only hunting, drinking, and gossip to ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... occasionally swelled the concert; though the monotonous strains of the latter instrument, by which a few sturdy Scots performed their national dance, were not always in perfect unison with the gay strains of the light-hearted Frenchmen. Here and there, a gloomy Presbyterian, or stern Hugonot, was observed, stealing along at a cautious distance from these cheerful groups, on which he cast an eye of aversion and distrust, apparently afraid to venture within the circle of ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... but he thought, and his thoughts were something to this effect: "Who'd ever have thought it of this light-hearted, chaffing, joking fellow? Why, if they had been brothers he couldn't have taken it more to heart. Ha! I never liked the poor lad, and I don't think he liked me. There were times when I believe I hated him for—for—for—Well, why did I dislike him? Because other ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... about Richard's mother before, never even thought whether he had had one or not, in my supreme and light-hearted selfishness. But the mind, at such a point as I was then, makes strange plunges out of ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... "Midsummer Night's Dream" music, it is so much in the same character. Nothing could be more crisp and dainty. It seems to depict elves romping through the forest by moonlight. Nor is it without romantic moods, as if love-making were going on even among these light-footed, light-hearted revelers. But when this is said, it still is all touch and go; a breath, a sigh, the iridescence of the moonglade on a woodland lake—then ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... seven—how much my poor father was amused when I told him this horse was "a double thoroughbred"—"Don Quixote," with Dore's illustrations, this very year; in fact some new gift constantly, and yet I was never easy and light-hearted in his presence as I had formerly been. When had this restraint begun? I could not have told that, but I thought he came too often between my mother and me. I was jealous of him, I may as well confess it, with that ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... pleasure, or to breathe one glimmer of blackness on your atmosphere. You are meant to be glad, but it is gladness in a far higher sense that I want to secure for you, or rather to make you secure for yourselves. God delights in the prosperity and light-hearted buoyancy of His children, especially of His young children. Ah! but I know there are young lives over which poverty or ill-health or sorrows of one kind or another have cast a gloom as incongruous to your time of life as ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... masterpiece; as was Emerson when he wrote to Walt Whitman. What the mid-century critics of the United States, what Sainte-Beuve, master critic of France, did not see, Balzac and Emerson saw and, better still, spoke out. In his light-hearted fashion Oscar Wilde asserted that the critic was also a creator—apart from his literary worth—and we confess that we know of cases where the critic has created the artist. But that a serious doubt can be entertained as to the relative ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... unlike the conventional lover, but like a healthy, light-hearted fellow, fell asleep without a sigh, listening to the waves as they broke regularly on the stone embankment before his window. In the room below, Dom Pedro walked until the early morning, no beating of waves could lull him to sleep, for his head ached and his eyes burned in the fever ...
— In Macao • Charles A. Gunnison
... the purpose of stealing and reducing my people to slavery." I loathed them as the meanest and the most wicked of men. As I read, behold! the very discontent so graphically pre{125} dicted by Master Hugh, had already come upon me. I was no longer the light-hearted, gleesome boy, full of mirth and play, as when I landed first at Baltimore. Knowledge had come; light had penetrated the moral dungeon where I dwelt; and, behold! there lay the bloody whip, for my back, and here was the iron chain; and my good, kind master, he ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... some fearful nightmare; but when she persisted, and I questioned her, and found the horror true, I was like a man turned instantly into stone, save for one intolerable throb within. I am still so; everything passes by me like a dream. She was so young, seemingly so innocent and light-hearted. I loved her! Gentlemen, you have thought me guilty of my wife's death,—this young fairy-like creature to whom I ascribed all the virtues! and I was willing, willing that you should think so, willing even to face the distrust and opprobrium of the whole world,—and so was her sister, the ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... man of the people; Lord and Lady Shervinton, elderly connections of the nondescript variety; Mr. Hannaway Wells, reserved yet, urbane, a wonderful type of the supreme success of mediocrity; a couple of young soldiers, light-hearted and out for a good time, of whom Julian took charge; an Oxford don, who had once been Lord Maltenby's tutor; and last of all the homely, very pleasant-looking, middle-aged lady, Princess Torski, followed by her niece. There were a few ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were saying, many of us: "We have done enough for the poor, whom we have with us always." But not always do we have with us a land famous for its fecundity that is now at grips with famine; a land that once was light-hearted, but where now you never hear anyone laugh aloud; a land that is half a waste and half a captive province; a land that cannot find bread to feed its hungry mouths, yet is called on to pay a tribute heavy enough to bankrupt it even in normal times; a land whose best manhood ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... a different bird since the PHEASANT-HEN'S exit, light-hearted, boyishly cheerful.] No, but the blue morning-glory opening in his cage amid the wistaria, communicates by subterranean filaments with this white convolvulus trembling above the pool. [Going to the convolvulus.] So that by talking into its chalice—[He plunges his bill into one of the ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... enumerating them, however baldly, one scarcely knows where to begin. The lawyer group—clerks and all—is excellent. Dickens' early experiences stood him in good stead here. Excellent too are those studies in the ways of impecuniosity and practical shiftlessness, Harold Skimpole, the airy, irresponsible, light-hearted epicurean, with his pretty tastes and dilettante accomplishments, and Mrs. Jellyby, the philanthropist, whose eyes "see nothing nearer" than Borrioboola-Gha, on the banks of the far Niger, and never dwell to ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... unbecoming in a man; puerile in modern use is distinctly contemptuous. Juvenile and youthful are commonly used in a favorable and kindly sense in their application to those still young; youthful in the sense of having the characteristics of youth, hence fresh, vigorous, light-hearted, buoyant, may have a favorable import as applied to any age, as when we say the old man still retains his youthful ardor, vigor, or hopefulness; juvenile in such use would belittle the statement. Young is distinctively applied to those in the early stage of life or not arrived at maturity. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... mature religious convictions by its assaults on orthodoxy. Their disappointment when two stout tomes, dealing historically with the status and duties of Deans, were delivered to them, was the theme of cheerful comment amongst the light-hearted members of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various
... o'er her darling dead Pity hopeless hung her head, 40 While 'mid the pelting of that merciless storm,' Sunk to the cold earth Otway's famish'd form! Sublime of thought, and confident of fame, From vales where Avon[127:1] winds the Minstrel came. Light-hearted youth! aye, as he hastes along, 45 He meditates the future song, How dauntless lla fray'd the Dacyan foe; And while the numbers flowing strong In eddies whirl, in surges throng, Exulting in the spirits' genial throe 50 In tides of power ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... rash, lad; these fellows are not to be trifled with." That, indeed, was the general opinion in camp. The men were ready and eager for another fight with the enemy, but there was little of the light-hearted gaiety with which the contest had been anticipated before they had met the Arabs at El-Teb. The idea that savages, however brave, could cope with British troops with breech-loaders had then seemed absurd; ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... the danger which had threatened the fleet, was told to the returned fisherman in breathless, awe-struck accents. He listened, full of wonder, and as he saw her safely tucked into her box-bed in the doctor's kitchen, said in his light-hearted Celtic way, that it was not for nothing she had got her voice back, and no fear but she would soon be well, and would speak to him ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... April brevity of his uncle's mating impulse, he had mentally embroidered the bare instinct with some of the idealism in which his own emotion was clothed. His imagination pictured Cyrus and Belinda starting as light-hearted adventurers to sail the chartless seas of romance. What remained of their gallant ship to-day except a stark and battered hulk wrecked on the pitiless rocks of the actuality? A month ago that marriage had seemed merely ridiculous to him. Standing now beside the little ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... spring day when all the buds look like feathers and the sun has been bathing in milk. I was walking down the Champs Elysees, sniffing secret violets in the air and feeling as joyous as if the world were entirely full of primroses and larks and light-hearted passers-by whom I would never see again. In the distance a barrel organ became more and more distinct and as I drew nearer and the noise grew louder, I wanted to dance and sing. It was in tune with my mood. A symbol ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... to Fandor that probably there had never been such a light-hearted occupant of this cell ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... too readily. Perhaps we are sometimes amused when we ought to be angry. Perhaps we jest when it is our plain duty to reform. Here lies the danger of our national light-mindedness,—for it is seldom light-heartedness; we are no whit more light-hearted than our neighbours. A carping English critic has declared that American humour consists in speaking of hideous things with levity; and while so harsh a charge is necessarily unjust, it makes clear one abiding difference between the nations. An Englishman ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... radical ignorance of its principles, and that the earlier these are learnt, the smaller is the burden of regret one heaps together to oppress the future, and the sooner one finds that peace of mind which is not common even amongst the young, and should-be light-hearted.' ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... proprietors, or perform the work of carriers, whether in the country or in the city. Outside the city they may be seen carrying huge loads on their heads, as happy as possible, not because they are kindly treated or that their work is light, but because it is their nature to be gay and light-hearted, because they, have conceived neither joys nor hopes which may not be gratified at will, nor cherished any ambition beyond their reach, and therefore have not been baffled in their ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... her imagination carried her no further. Had she not four daughters, hitherto without husbands, and also, alas! without portions? Was it not enough for her to sympathize with them? As for his sisters—his sisters were well enough—excellent girls; but they were so gay, so light-hearted, so full of fun and laughter, that he could not talk to them of his sorrows. They were never pensive, nor given to that sober sadness which is prone to sympathy. If, indeed, Adela Gauntlet had been his sister—! And so he walked along the river to ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... he spin," yet Solomon, in all his glory was not more popular with the ladies. He is as light-hearted as "Mary's little lamb." He is acquainted with every hog path in the matrimonial paradise and knows all the nearest cuts to the "sanctum sanctorum" of woman's heart. But his jealousy is as cruel as the grave. Woe unto the bachelor who dares ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... behind it; then with his hands grasping the back of it, he bowed to Lady Chaloner without speaking, turned and went away by the little opening in the wood from which he and Wentworth had come. Wentworth, ready and light-hearted as he generally was, was for one moment also absolutely paralysed with amazement and concern, then saying hurriedly, "Forgive me, Lady Chaloner, I must go and see what has happened," he quickly followed. Lord Stamfordham drew up his chair to the table and sat down. ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... henceforth on a dignified, even an austere basis. But here she was, chaffing the colonel and chattering childish jargon to Anne. Jeffrey looked at her, first with a tolerant surprise. Then he smiled. Seeing her so light-hearted he was pleased. This was a Lydia he approved of. He need neither run clear of her poetic emotions nor curse himself for calling on them. He went out to his hoeing with an unformulated idea that the tension of social life ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... playful retort as a mere light-hearted quibble. It annoyed her, a young person of much consequence, to have her kindly ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... light-hearted. I was thinking of rides over the sandy roads at the close of the long, bright days; of excursions on the bay; of ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... seemed bounding with delight, as he witnessed the busy scene that met his wondering eyes. An aged woman stood near him, whose blanched and withered cheek but ill accorded with the cheerful look of her light-hearted thoughtless son. She took his hand, and sobbed out, "Oh, George, my poor boy, little thought I to see the day when I should be thus forsaken; I did hope you would now have staid with me, and been a comfort ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... its meaning with and frequently without the context. "But I'm huffled," says the Baron, "if I understand it here." Still "huffled" is a good-substitute for strong language, when you're ruffled. Don't let the light-hearted reader be deterred by the slow pace of Volume One; but stick to it, and avoid skipping. A selfish mean cuss is the "hero," so to style him; and personally, the Baron would consider him in Society as a first-class artistic bore. The character is drawn with great skill, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... with its first experiences of real suffering all nature is full of cruelty, and the young and light-hearted are a large ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... you know how," was the light-hearted rejoinder. "As I wired you, there was something of a scramble on the floor of the Exchange last week when we were fighting to find out whether we should control our own majority or let the Transcontinental ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... sage said, who was to be beheaded if he could not in a year teach the king's ass to speak—what might not happen in a year; the king might die, the ass might die, or he might die—any way there was so much gained: and Averil, for the time, felt as light-hearted as if Mrs. Pugh had vanished into empty air. To be sure, her own life had, of late, been far from happy; but this extension of it was bailed with suppressed ecstasy—almost as an answer to her prayers. Ah, Ave, little did you know what you wished in ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... first weeks of her engagement she was, as she had been at her first arrival amongst us, as happy and light-hearted as a child. She knew that we disapproved of her treatment of Trenchard, but she thought that we must see, as she did, that "she had behaved in the only possible way." Once again she was straight and honest to the world—and ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... the people who can all catch a verbal allusion or suggestion as Anglo-Saxons might a plump, square hit. Sometimes a little unconscious pathos mingles with the mocking vein, for courage is moving when it is light-hearted. When a Frenchman tells you he has eaten nothing for two days, he adds, "Ca, ce n'est pas drole" ("Now, that's no joke"). "Coeur d'artichaut" (a heart like an artichoke) is a felicitous expression for a person who has a succession ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... born horsewoman, did the driving herself, thus relieving them of the impediment to real companionship which a hired driver would have been. In an inconsecutive, light-hearted way difficult to report intelligibly, they managed to tell each other a lot. She let him see, with none of the rhetorical solemnities which a direct statement would have involved, her new awareness of his professional eminence. A dozen innuendoes, as light as dandelion feathers, conveyed it to ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... packed, inside and out, with as merry and light-hearted a crowd of boys as could be found anywhere; and why should they not be merry and light-hearted, seeing as they had just won a great football match by a score of 16 to 8? Tom Rover, who was on the top of the stage, actually ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... sapping its heroism in picnics at the Canal or in grotesque amusements. The lash of invasion aroused them from their century-long infancy. The same great artist that for many years had portrayed the simple thoughtlessness of this gay people, showy and light-hearted as a comic-opera chorus, afterwards painted them, knife in hand, attacking the Mamelukes with the agility of monkeys, felling those Egyptian centaurs under their slashes, blackened with the smoke of a hundred battles, or dying with theatrical pride by the light of a lantern in the gloomy ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... shining with Sabbath cleanness, came straggling toward the church, silently and soberly, without the usual light-hearted laughter, for the trouble at the "great house" was felt by all the little band. Yet their feelings were not without a mixture of pleasurable excitement, for all were anticipating with gloomy satisfaction the lengthy prayers, the groanings, and the head-shakings ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... Artillery, which sailed so long ago from the Mersey in the notorious transports 'Zibengla' and 'Zayathla.' The gunners were hurrying to the front in three long trains, each taking half a battery complete with guns, horses, and men. All were light-hearted and confident, as soldiers going off to the wars always are, and in this case their, satisfaction at being on land after five weeks of uncomfortable voyage in antiquated ships was easily to be understood. But this is no time ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... cleaves to the roof of his mouth, but Perpetua's tongue remains normal. She jumps up, and runs to Mrs. Mulcahy with a beaming face. She has had something to eat, and is once again her own buoyant, wayward, light-hearted little self. ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... an extremely light-hearted and courteous host, but he frowned suspiciously when he asked if I knew a correspondent named Senator Albert Beveridge. I hastily repudiated Beveridge. I knew him not, I said, as a correspondent, but as a politician who possibly had high hopes of the German vote. "He dined ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... the other's willing hand, and the two indulged in a mutual squeezing affair, in which the honors were about even. Big Bob certainly looked happier than Jack could ever remember seeing him before. Well, he had good reason for feeling light-hearted, since in a flash he had been enabled to throw overboard the terrible weight that had for days and weeks been lying upon his soul, and making life unhappy ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... almost haggard, and it was a fresh, light-hearted girl with whom he had fallen in love in England. The mark of the last two years of struggle was plain on her. He tried to realize what he had looked for when he had asked her to marry him, and could not get a clear conception of his vision. In the ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... chi l'onore is a grand air, but Robert je t'aime is equally grand in intention, at least. Der Tod und das Madchen is sad; so is Les Larmes in Werther.... But a very great deal of supermusic is neither grand nor sad. Haydn's symphonies are usually as light-hearted and as light-waisted as possible. Mozart's Figaro scarcely seems to have a care. Listen to Beethoven's Fourth and Eighth Symphonies, Il Barbiere again, Die Meistersinger.... But do not be misled: Massenet's ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... greatest blots on his moral 'scutcheon. Augustus William Schlegel, that foreigner who studied the literature of the English stage as few Britons have ever done, well pointed out that while the Puritans had brought Republican principles and religious zeal into public odium, this light-hearted monarch seemed expressly born to dispel all respect for the kingly dignity. "England was inundated with the foreign follies and vices in his train. The Court set the fashion of the most undisguised immorality, and this example was the more extensively ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... glad you are pleased!" said Marcus; and away he ran to school, feeling more light-hearted than he had done for many days. Mrs. Lee said she would take care of the children in the nursery, as Jane must be busy, and leave Hatty with Aunt Barbara. Hatty was glad to be trusted, and she brought her sewing, and took a low seat ...
— Hatty and Marcus - or, First Steps in the Better Path • Aunt Friendly
... for a moment on his way to and from Winchester, to bid the inmates good morning; and these hours had come to be the bright sunny spots in days otherwise full of no little languor. For when was Daymon merry and light-hearted, separated from his love? It is still the bright moment of meeting which swallows up all other thoughts—around which the musing heart clusters all its joy and hope—which is looked forward to and dreamed over, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... Rush was rather pleased than otherwise that a young clergyman should be so taken up with his work as to forget his interests. But Reed was most anxious that this evening's appointment should go off successfully, while Rex was as light-hearted as a bird. Any one would have thought it was Reed's own future he was laboring over instead of that of the youngster who had a gift of making men care for him and work for him without effort ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... two hours, until the bag of stones was well down the saurian's throat. Then he set out for The Pass. He was painfully hungry now, but he was light-hearted. Never again would he have to risk the death that infested the Great Sea-Swamp. Within thirty days he would be home—home on Earth. He and Beth would get a little house out in the country and have a little garden, and he could relax and watch his daughter grow up. She was only seven ...
— The Wealth of Echindul • Noel Miller Loomis
... completely overrun by the Turks, as other Balkan states were, and as a consequence they still retain, like the Greeks, a native aristocracy of culture. Physically, they are fairer than most of the Balkan Slavs and more refined in appearance. By temperament they are light-hearted, joyous, frivolous, and charming ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... to-night, light-hearted. The windows of the laboratory were open to the soft air of that glorious day of early spring, and his spirit was open too, open to the soul of the world, taking unto itself the sweet and simple spirit of the men who have ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... a very light-hearted rider the pony carried as he galloped back along the narrow paths, with the good news for the villagers. The word went round as soon as he arrived. Kai Bok-su wanted to know how many were for the true God. All who would worship him were ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... locks, News from all nations lumbering at his back. True to his charge the close-packed load behind, Yet careless what he brings, his one concern Is to conduct it to the destined inn, And, having dropped the expected bag—pass on. He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some; To him indifferent whether grief or joy. Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks, Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks, Fast as the periods from his ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... have no right to love him; honor and honesty are in the way, friendship not considered at all. You'll spring up in the sun again after a little while, like fresh grass that's trodden on, just as happy and light-hearted as before. Let me have this one without any more interference—there are plenty in the world that you would stand heart-high to with your bright little head, just as well ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... a handsome, light-hearted, good-natured young fellow, who takes life gaily, and is evidently very attractive and popular. Othello, who calls him by his Christian name, is fond of him; Desdemona likes him much; Emilia at once interests herself ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... weeks there was nobody in the wide world so happy and light-hearted as the bride. The king spent many hours a day with her, and was never tired of listening to all she had to tell him about her life in the forest with her father. Every day he gave her some fresh proof of his love, and ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... no matter for idle betting,' said I shortly, for his light-hearted chatter annoyed me ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Bohemianism. But the present will never wear the same air of fantasy as the past. It is the same with all things. Every circumstance take its colour from the immediate surroundings, and you cannot expect to get the same light-hearted Bohemianism in the midst of an orderly, church-going, police-conducted district. What hope is there for a troubadour nowadays with the latest regulations upon street noises? We must dispense with troubadours and get our Romance elsewhere. So ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... of happiness behind the present clouds that the boy had never seemed to his mother more light-hearted. She listened to his talk with his father, the smiling dispute as to what age of the moon was the most lucky for beginning the vintage. Monsieur de Serres, with a kindly word of indulgence for those who thought much of the moon, contented himself with ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... Master?" said Bucklaw, his face resuming at once its natural expression of light-hearted carelessness and audacity; "that is more than I expected of you; for, Master, men say you are not ready to retract your opinion ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... emotions experienced and outwardly manifested by others. Almost everyone has had his mood heightened to at least kindly joy by the presence in a crowded street car of a young child whose inquiring prattle and light-hearted laughter were subdued by the gray restraints and responsibilities of maturity. One melancholy face can crush the joy of a boisterous and cheerful party;[3] the eagerness and enthusiasm of an orator can, irrespective of the merits of ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... to deliver up Astyanax to death, if Andromache should not listen to him, with his gallant protestations, resembles the arts of an executioner, who applies the torture to his victim with the most courtly phrases. It is difficult to think of Orestes, after his horrible deed, as a light-hearted and patient lover. Not the least mention is made of the murder of his mother; he seems to have completely forgotten it the whole piece through; whence, then, do the Furies come all at once at the end? This is a singular contradiction. In short, the way in which ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... over again the bygone days, laughing over ancient jokes, resuscitating past scrapes, tracing the lot of old companions, or telling mischievous anecdotes of each other, for the very purpose of being contradicted. They were much too light-hearted to note the lapse of time, till Maurice came to take his wife home, thinking she had had fatigue enough. Mrs. Annesley went with her, and Albinia, on looking for her husband, was told that he had ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her, shining and smiling, I thought that I perceived Mrs. Faith, once more. My boy threw kisses to her and laughed merrily; he was electric with the universal joy; he seemed to dance upon the air like a tuft of thistledown; to be "light-hearted" was to be light-bodied; the little fellow's frame seemed to exist only as the expression of his soul. ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Aspasia, who, upon the promotion of the former, had been selected by Captain M—- previous to his quitting the ship, was an excellent officer and a pleasant, light-hearted messmate, very superior in talent and ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in condition," growled "Tom," getting up with a great shake as the clock clanged the strokes of five; they had only returned from a ball three miles off, when Cecil had paid his visit to the loose box. Bertie laughed; his laugh was like himself—rather languid, but very light-hearted, very silvery, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... day, she almost thought that he was carrying his forbearance too far. Still she could not but like Pastor Martens, who had now lived with her for two years without a single ill word having passed between them. Madame Rasmussen was a young widow, plump, good-looking, and light-hearted. She had no children, and it was quite a pleasure to her to manage for the chaplain—to prepare his little dishes, and to keep his things in order. She was the only person in the whole town who really knew that Martens wore a wig. This ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... that his thoughts were a dark, minor chord in the general light-hearted chatter, for he cordially hated the whole blooming business of automobiles, golf, and bridge. He was the raven at the feast. Everybody seemed to be talking to somebody else. Only he was alone. He wondered why ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... the popular name for him does not sufficiently distinguish him, since the sperm whale also has a hump though a smaller one. His oil is not very valuable. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome and light-hearted of all the whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... pleasure of a great relief. She had always scorned the idea that her lover had even made a shot at Carroway, often though the brave lieutenant had done the like to him; and now she felt sure that he could clear himself; or how could he be so light-hearted? "You see that I am scarcely fit to lead off a country-dance with you," said Robin, still holding both her hands, and watching the beauty of her clear bright eyes, which might gather big tears at any moment, as the deep blue sky is a sign of sudden rain; "and it ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Boy appeared more light-hearted than usual that evening, as he chatted and joked with his friends among the performers. He did not wish the man or men whom he had overheard off on the lot to know that he was the eavesdropper. He felt that he could make better progress ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... little circles he was truly himself, quite different to what he appeared in salons. Then only could he be really known. His wit, gayety, and simplicity were unveiled solely for friends and intimates. He, so light-hearted, became serious amid the forced laughter of drawing-rooms; he, so witty, waxed silent and gloomy amid unmeaning conventional talkativeness. Those who only saw him in salons, or on fashionable staircases, during the four years he passed in England, did not really know him; ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... our talk, as if we were speaking at each other, which served to block our friendship from becoming anything of value to each other. Naturally I have seen that you are not happy, though there have been moments when you were the very personification of light-hearted ness, and I have known for a long time that the motif of your whole nature is resentment. Believe me, Miss Durwent, if I could be a friend—and I mean that to the last ditch—I should be deeply grateful for ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... the goods and chattels" of old England. There are at Elie House two most ferocious-looking Ogresses of this cast. There are noble trees about the house. Balcaskie put me in mind of poor Philip Anstruther, dead and gone many a long year since. He was a fine, gallant, light-hearted young sailor. I remember the story of his drawing on his father for some cash, which produced an angry letter from old Sir Robert, to which Philip replied, that if he did not know how to write like a gentleman, he did not desire any more of his correspondence. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... So happy and so light-hearted were these two lovers that it was not until they found themselves in Warwick Street once more that they came down from the clouds, and realized that there were some commonplace details which must be dealt with in one ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fact, a young man of an old family; but he had been unsuccessful in his studies, and had lost his father and mother. He was naturally light-hearted and magnanimous; not particular in minor matters; immoderately fond of spear-exercise and fencing, of gambling and boozing; even going to such excesses as spending his nights in houses of easy virtue; playing ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the story How in his fir-wood hall, Sat Angantyr, the hoary, And drank with champions all. He, joyous and light-hearted, Looked out to where the sun Behind the waves departed, ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... this survey gave him pause and pointed to mysteries as yet unguessed. For was it possible that this tender-natured woman, who had mourned her husband so bitterly but nine months before, could now enter with such light-hearted joy into union with another man? Was it reasonable to see Jenny Pendean, as he remembered her in the agony of her bereavement, already the happy and contented bride of one a stranger ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... thee than I can tell, dear Mary; but still I find that to busy one's self in many ways, and to put on as light-hearted a look as one can muster, is a help to grief. See now poor Elizabeth Tilley. She hath cried herself ill, and must tarry in bed where is naught to divert her grief. Is it not better to keep afoot and be of use to others, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... could not possibly have said a thing which could have given me more pleasure than that. It is splendid! It justifies me in aspiring to you. It satisfies my conscience over everything which I have done. It must be right if that is the effect. I have felt so happy and light-hearted ever since you said it. It is rather absurd to think that I should improve you, but if you in your sweet frankness say that it is so, why, I can ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... had reached ere long That festal mount. Thousands with bannered line Scaled it light-hearted. Never favourite lamb In ribands decked shone brighter than that hour The fair flank of Knock Cae. Heath-scented airs Lightened the clambering toil. At times the Saint Stayed on their course the crowds, and towards the Truth Drew them by parable, or record old, Oftener by question sage. ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... future the woof of another's fate shall cross thy own. But trouble not thyself because of that which shall be. While yet the sun shines for thee, and the birds sing, and the flowers shed their sweet perfume, it is for thee to rejoice and be light-hearted. What the Norns have woven is woven, and ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... to hear that," exclaimed Courtney, real concern in his voice. "She was such a lively, light-hearted girl when I was over there. I can't imagine her moping. I hope Amos Vick isn't too close-fisted to consult a doctor. He's an ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... passed, and still more quickly the bright glad summer, and now another winter was drawing to its close. Heidi was still as light-hearted and happy as the birds, and looked forward with more delight each day to the coming spring, when the warm south wind would roar through the fir trees and blow away the snow, and the warm sun would entice the blue and yellow ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... were greeted with laughter and song as she drew near the house on her return, and she could not understand how they could be so light-hearted and merry on such a momentous occasion. She came hastily through the garden, and into the room, and sank upon the nearest seat; for the shock and the joy, and the anticipation of what was to follow, had overpowered her, and she needed to recover herself a little. ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... Mazerod broke off into a happy laugh. Hers was not the bitterness of plainness or insignificance, but something infinitely more suggestive. It was, indeed, not bitterness at all, but light-hearted contempt, which is, perhaps, ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... Their light-hearted drollery sometimes found vent in caricature. The grand sculptures wherewith a king strove to perpetuate the memory of his warlike exploits were travestied by satirists, who reproduced the scenes upon papyrus as combats between cats and rats. The amorous follies ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... its normal position again, though he felt that this seeming ignorance of his identity might be a mere veneer, a wile of guile, as the bard puts it. He remembered, with a pang, a story in some magazine where a prisoner was subjected to what the light-hearted inquisitors called the torture of hope. He was allowed to escape from prison, and pass guards and sentries apparently without their noticing him. Then, just as he stepped into the open air, the chief inquisitor tapped him gently ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... sleeping sickness. And so the native, used as he is to heavy head-loads, naturally adopted this as his first method of transport, and hundreds of the less affluent natives arrive at the collecting centres with great weights of cacao on their heads. "Women and children, light-hearted, chattering and cheerful, bear their 60 lbs. head-loads with infinite patience. Heavier loads, approaching sometimes two hundredweight, are borne by grave, silent Hausa-men, often a distance of thirty ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... becoming better friends every day, and as they walk about the new buildings to see how they are getting on, their thoughts continually turn to Heidi, for the chief pleasure to each in connection with the house is that they will have the light-hearted ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri |
