"Graceful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Varuna the fancy of the poet exhausts itself in lofty imagery, and reaches the topmost height of Vedic religious lyric. In the praise of Dawn it descends not lower than to interweave beauty with dignity of utterance. Nothing in religious poetry more graceful or delicate than the Vedic Dawn-hymns has ever been written. In the daily vision of Dawn following her sister Night the poet sees his fairest goddess, and in his worship of her there is love and admiration, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... there had lingered in her heart any fear lest her brother's happiness was not secure in Fanny's keeping, or that his love for her would not stand the wear and tear of common life, when the first charms of her youth and beauty, and her graceful, winning ways were gone, that fear did not outlast this time. Through the weariness and fretfulness of the first months of her illness, he tended her, and hung about her, and listened to her complaints with a patience that never tired; and when her fretful time was over, and the days ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... Then was made known to the British public for the first time who the woman that had gone to the aid of the sick and wounded really was; then it was shown that she was no hospital matron, but a young and singularly graceful and accomplished gentlewoman of wealth and position, who had, not in a moment of national enthusiasm, but as the set purpose of her life from girlhood up, devoted herself to the studying of God's great ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... merry within him at the sight of all this freshness, the splendour of the morning. He was disposed to be well contented with everything, even with Isoult, upon whom he looked down once or twice, to see her pacing gently beside him, a guarded and graceful possession. "Well, friend," he said to himself, "you have a proper-seeming wife, it appears, of whom it would ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... entering the latter, until they had removed all the stores from the ship. They then came out of the vessel with various clothes of the most beautiful description, and in the midst of them was an old sheikh, enfeebled and wasted by extreme age, leading by the hand a young man cast in the mould of graceful symmetry, and invested with such perfect beauty as deserved to be a subject for proverbs. He was like a fresh and slender twig, enchanting and captivating every heart by his elegant form. The party proceeded ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... Kaiser and Bismarck, Herr Harden and the Koelnische Volkszeitung, the Catholics and the Jews, the industrials and the agrarians. When the hour of disfavour came, Bismarck retired with his mastiffs among the pine-woods of Lauenburg, nursing his rancour and revenge. Buelow retired with quiet and graceful dignity among the statues and the ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... on tiptoe under an old tree, with her back toward Rafael, was looking for a particularly choice orange among the dense branches. As she swayed this way and that, the proud, graceful curves of her vigorous slenderness became ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Clarke, despite the fact that he wore the regulation hunting garb, indicated a young man to whom the hard work and privation of the settler were unaccustomed things. So thought the pioneers who noticed his graceful walk, his fair skin and smooth hands. Yet those who carefully studied his clearcut features were favorably impressed; the women, by the direct, honest gaze of his blue eyes and the absence of ungentle lines in his face; the ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... on the ball. He had the heels of any boy on the opposite side. Down the field he sped, faster and faster, amid the roars of the School, roars which came to his ears like the deep booming of breakers upon a lee shore. To many of those watching him, the sight of that graceful figure, that shining, ardent face, revealing the promise which youth and beauty always offer to a delighted world, became an ineffaceable memory. Damer turned to the Head of ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... time the boat had run her bows up on to the white, sandy beach, and the straw-hatted, tweed-suited gentleman jumped lightly out Taking off his hat with a graceful, circular sweep, which included every one on the beach, white and native, he said with ...
— The Tapu Of Banderah - 1901 • Louis Becke
... France could not give help. By promising the traders, who were now partners in his monopoly, profits of one hundred per cent on their outlay, La Verendrye at last secured what he needed. His canoes were laden with goods, and soon brawny arms were driving once again the graceful craft westward. He had offered a new hostage to fortune by arranging that his fourth son, a lad of eighteen, should follow him in ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... her mother, who did not even appear to be sensible of her presence; for, with a graceful bend of her head to the company in general, she approached Adelaide, and putting her lips to her forehead, "How do you do, love? I'm afraid you are very angry with me about that teazing La—-I can't conceive where ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... apartment of splendid appearance, and with a very large and simple white archway facing him. Close to the walls of the cage were articles of furniture, a table covered with a silvery cloth, silvery like the side of a fish, a couple of graceful chairs, and on the table a number of dishes with substances piled on them, a bottle and two glasses. He realised that ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... good-nature, almost a heart-broken sort—he had the general air of being some sort of failure in life. As for Armstrong's daughter, it was almost incredible that she was his daughter; she was so pallid in colour and sensitive in outline. She was graceful, but there was a quiver in the very shape of her that was like the lines of an aspen. Merton had sometimes wondered if she had learnt to quail at the crash of the ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... the colonnade pillars are of singular beauty. Bell-shaped, and ornamented with a double or triple row of pendent lotus-leaves, some rounded, some narrowed to a point; they are as graceful as they are rare in their forms, and attract the admiration of all beholders. Above them rise the columns, tapering gently as they ascend, but without any swell or entasis. They consist of several masses of stone, carefully ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... confined to a single sentence. Finally, in the very year of his accession, he had been represented as a second Alexander in the Cortes de Jupiter, and the Comedia de Rubena had been acted especially for him[60]. But King Jo[a]o III had not the careless temperament or graceful magnificence of his father, and while he evidently trusted Vicente and showed him constant goodwill—we have the proof in the pensions received by Vicente during this reign—the favourite of one king rarely finds the same atmosphere in the entourage of his successor, however ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... for all the world like a graceful bird!" exclaimed Ralph. "I've never been so close to an aeroplane before, and I tell you, Hugh, I can mighty easily see how it makes a fellow wild to embark ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... of ours—graceful, yet strong in line, floating easily, well up in the water, in spite of their five hundred pounds' weight. They were flat-bottomed, with a ten-inch rake or raise at either end; built of white cedar, with unusually high sides; with arched decks in bow and stern, for the safe storing of supplies. ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... She had taken off her hat and gloves and smoothed the hair that lay on her neck in a heavy plait. At the collar of the plain black dress that fell to her feet over the curving lines of her supple figure she had placed a red rose, half blown. She was tall and straight and graceful, more than beautiful in her strong fresh womanhood, as much at home in such a house as this as in the wretched room where he had watched her sewing slop-clothes that morning. His aching heart went out towards her in a burst of unspoken ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... rain. You must be frozen. Get in to the fire, child, as fast as you can. Get in to the fire, get in to the fire. I hope you forgive me for not going to meet you." And there was my mother's only sister, my tall graceful aunt, standing beside her, giving me a kiss and cordial hand-clasp, and saying, "Welcome, Sybylla. We will be glad to have a young person to brighten up the old home once more. I am sorry I was too unwell to meet you. You must be frozen; ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... vases covered with painted flowers, sat the beauteous Pu, of the little roguish eyes, of the full lips, and of the tiny feet. The tight shoe pained her, but her heart pained her still more. She lifted her graceful round arm, and her satin dress rustled. Before her stood a glass bowl containing four gold-fish. She stirred the bowl carefully with a slender lacquered stick, very slowly, for she, too, was lost in thought. Was she thinking, perchance, how ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... a strange feeling when he observes the Christian bearing of the Roman Catholics toward the colored people in the South, and the unchristian bearing of many Protestant denominations toward them. Dropping into the Cathedral at St. Augustine, I saw graceful white ladies kneeling side by side with black women, and worshiping together. At Pensacola I went into a Catholic church, and there in a crowded audience were colored and white people sitting in adjoining pews with perfect freedom. ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 44, No. 5, May 1890 • Various
... The Wady this morning. After so much Desert, was delighted to ecstasy with the refreshing sight of the distant forests of palms, crowd upon crowd in deepening foliage, their graceful heads covering the face of the pale red horizon, as with hanging raven locks of some beautiful woman. Saw a few huts of date branches, some wells, and here and there a villager. The huts were so blended with the date-palms, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... told they are hazelnut bushes. One would not pick out bushes like these to plant in his front yard, and yet, when given a chance, there is scarcely a more attractive shrub than the hazel. It is one of the first shrubs to blossom, the staminate flowers hanging in slender, graceful yellowish-brown catkins, while the pistillate flowers are little points of purplish-red protruding from the buds. These blossoms appear long before the leaves. The latter, when fully developed, are beautiful in outline and soft in texture and they have a rich ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... spy some of the graceful white blossoms under some concealing green leaves, but a moment later Dolly found some too. With their trowels they carefully dug up the plants and put them in their baskets to ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... wearily watched it through his night glasses; Malcourt, slim and graceful, sat on the rail and looked out into the Southern dusk, an unlighted cigarette between ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Ruth seemed to be thinking deeply. At a distance that he tried to keep respectful, Randerson watched her, with worshipful admiration, noting the graceful disorder of her hair, the wisps at the nape of her neck. The delicate charm of her made him thrill with the instinct of protection. So strong was this feeling that when he thought of her pony, back at the timber, ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... graceful, though not very tall. She wore a lavender gown that showed a good deal of trim back as she turned to walk toward the musicians, and what the gown overlooked the walk demonstrated. The man was fat ...
— Fee of the Frontier • Horace Brown Fyfe
... fingers through it, to bury one's face in it? Ah! and then there were her tender eyes, dewy and shadowed with dark lashes, and so intensely blue. His glance wandered farther afield. Such a figure! slender and graceful and fine. There was something almost childish about it all; the innocent look of a very young girl, with the polish of the woman, garbed by an artist. It seemed the great pearls in her ears were not more milkily white than her throat, and he was sure were also her little ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... column to column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice. But the imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the vast proportions of the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of proportion, or graceful embellishments. It was designed to awe the people, and kindle sentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this end was contemplated, it was nobly reached. Even to this day the traveller stands in admiring amazement ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... New-York, for instance, the infringement on civil or domestic liberty is become notorious, notwithstanding the political controversies of the inhabitants in praise of liberty; but no panegyric on this subject (howsoever elegant in itself) can be graceful or edifying from the mouth or pen of one of those provincials, because men who do not scruple to detain others in slavery, have but a very partial and unjust claim to the protection of the laws of ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet
... symmetrically developed Character. They are like the three legs of a tripod; and if either is longer or shorter than the others, or worse still, if no two are alike in length, the tripod must be an awkward and useless piece of lumber, instead of the graceful and useful article for which ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... cane-bottomed chair, her arm rounded itself over the back of the seat, her hand seemed as if it ought to have a sceptre put into it, the folds of her dress fell naturally round her in order, like ladies of honour round a throne, and she looked like an empress. All her movements were graceful and imperial. In the morning you could see her hair was blue-black, her complexion of dazzling fairness, with the faintest possible blush flickering, as it were, in her cheek. Her eyes were grey, with prodigious long lashes; ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her with appreciation. She wore a thin, black dress made after the latest London mode, which showed to advantage the graceful lines of her tall figure; the Jernynghams, who seldom departed from an established custom, changed their attire every evening. Gertrude had on no hat, and the fading light shone into her face. It was finely cut but cold, the features unusually good. She was ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... which they had in common, and for that reason they were devoted friends. Madeleine was thirty, Sybil twenty-four. Madeleine was indescribable; Sybil was transparent. Madeleine was of medium height with a graceful figure, a well-set head, and enough golden-brown hair to frame a face full of varying expression. Her eyes were never for two consecutive hours of the same shade, but were more often blue than grey. People who envied her smile said that ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... program, quadrilles should always find a place, since many can walk through its measures that will not undertake the more active dances. It also gives opportunity for the graceful curtsy which no lady should fail to learn, and can be enlivened ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... omit to say that, besides temples of this typical rectangular form, there were others of a round shape, encircled by columns, like that graceful structure at Tivoli commonly, though mistakenly, known as the temple of the Sibyl, and that small building which still exists in an impoverished condition near the Tiber, and which used to bear the erroneous title of the temple ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... young Lorenzo Loredan, the lover whom I had superseded. My heart was heavy for him at the time, but after all it is every man for himself in love, and if one fails in the game it is some consolation to lose to one who can be a graceful ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with the habitations of a peaceful people, then presented the wild and rugged beauty of pristine days; its terraces, stretching back to the prairies of the north and west, were crowned with forests primaeval; while naked Miamis, Weas and Potawatomi in canoes of bark, rounded its graceful courses to the waters of ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... tiny arrow traveled towards them in a graceful parabola. This one fell short. Missing the tarpaulin, it almost dropped on the girl's outstretched hand. She picked it up. The fish-bone point had snapped by contact with the floor of ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... Ladies, had been represented by the bard of Avon—needless were it to mention the immortal SHAKESPEARE, also called the Swan of his native river, not improbably with some reference to the ancient superstition that that bird of graceful plumage (Miss Jennings will please stand upright) sang sweetly on the approach of death, for which we have no ornithological authority,—Rumour, Ladies, had been represented ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... her delightedly. How graceful, fair, and easy she was! What a beautiful dress she wore—perfectly simple, yet with an air of taste and style even her unaccustomed eyes could note. How delicate her features, how refined her voice, and with what a small white hand she managed ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... Tournay rose, glass in hand, and with the graceful affection peculiar to the times, he raised it aloft, and ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... an hour, desperately, by sheer force of will keeping a man too stunned at first to resist, to break free. (Then at last he broke free of that room and that woman, and went!) For years he had pictured her sitting still as no other woman sat still, tranquil and graceful, her hair going a little grey above her clear, pale skin, her eyes of a dream-ridden saint. And now he must picture her forced into life, vivaciously, restlessly eager; full of plans, (futile plans, how he knew those plans!) ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... off the inherited impression that the fairies are only what Shakespeare shows them to be. He did not, of course, invent them; he had doubtless both read of them and heard tales of them; but he invested them with a delicate and graceful fancy that has held the popular imagination ever since. Thanks to him, the modern English conception of the fairies is different from the conceptions prevalent in other countries, and infinitely more picturesque ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... given, and his fondness for Ellen too great, for him not to be delightedly interested in what was said of her. And however strong might have been his desire to dismiss his guest in a very summary manner, or to treat him with haughty reserve, the graceful dignity of Mr. Humphreys' manners made either expedient impossible. Mr. Lindsay felt constrained to meet him on his own ground—the ground of high-bred frankness, and grew secretly still more afraid that his real ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... alarmed the Queen of Navarre for the safety of her only son, should he be called to sojourn there. The lady Margaret, she wrote—and her words deserve the more notice on account of the infamy into which the life as yet apparently so guileless was to lead—"is handsome, modest, and graceful; but nurtured in the most wicked and corrupt society that ever was. I have not seen a person who does not show the effects of it. Your cousin, the marquise, is so changed in consequence of it, that ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... the principal avenues of the gardens. In the distance there opened a vista through which was revealed the fair outline of Florence, with its encircling hills, and its glorious Val d'Arno. There arose the stupendous outline of Il Duomo, the stately form of the Baptistery, the graceful shaft of the Campanile, the medieval grandeur of the Palazzo Vecchio; and the severe Etruscan massiveness of the Pitti Palace was just below. Far away the Arno wound on, through the verdurous plain, while on either side the hills arose ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... with Pre-Raphaelitism, has its origin in the same resolute clinging to truth as the artist comprehends it, and uncompromising determination to express it as perfectly as he has the power,—a feeling which never permits him to think whether his work be graceful, but whether it be just; so that his tremulous and almost fearful conscientiousness—tremulous with desire to see all, and fearful lest some line should wander by a hair's breadth from its fullest expressiveness—makes him lose sight entirely of grace and repose. No form ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... were minor inconveniences attached to his new position as landlord. There were recompenses. At work in his shop he could see through the window the white-clad, graceful figure of Mrs. Armstrong moving about the yard, sitting with Barbara on the bench by the edge of the bluff, or writing a letter at a table she had taken out under the shadow of the silver-leaf tree. Gradually Jed came to enjoy seeing her there, to see the windows of the old ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Rosedale affair," and as Mrs. Davis said this she looked keenly at the young man. She was, he owned, an extremely graceful woman, of a mature beauty, admirable manner, and, as she talked, he remarked keen intelligence, with an occasional evidence of reading, if not high education. She was dressed in simpler taste than her "court," as it was ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... athletes, and in a similar manner gladiators, act cautiously, neither avoiding nor aiming at anything with too much vehemence, (for over-vehement motions can have no rule;) so that whatever they do in a manner advantageous for their contest, may also have a graceful and pleasing appearance; in like manner oratory does not strike a heavy blow, unless the aim was a well-directed one; nor does it avoid the attack of the adversary successfully, unless even when turning ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... graceful hand Breathes music forth at her command; But still her tongue Far richer music calls to birth Than all the minstrel power on earth Can give ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... relief from anxiety, rather than as a source of real enjoyment. A visible dissatisfaction, constraint, and unsubdued aversion to the present, arising from regret at the past, sometimes interrupted his graceful courtesy, and oftener made him indifferent to the passing scene, or unconscious of it. This humour increased whenever he received a dispatch from London, and at one time the mortification which his letters excited, threw him ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... adjudge the manner and style of the Indian's oratory, whether they be easy or strained; graceful or stiff; natural or affected; and we may, likewise, discover, if his speech be flowing or hesitating; but it is denied to us, of course, to appreciate in any degree, or to appraise his utterances. I should say the Indian fulfils the largest expectations of the most exacting critic, and ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... old Mr. Penrose's face was so fiendish as Mrs. C. D. Budlong toppled backward and stood on his bunion that Wallie forgot the graceful speech of welcome he had framed. Mr. Penrose had travelled all the way in one felt slipper and now, as the lady inadvertently ground her heel into the tender spot, Mr. Penrose looked as ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... that he is also studying German and French. A teacher of German goes to his house at six o'clock each morning and for two hours drills him in the language. Then, in the evening, after a long day spent at business, a French teacher instructs him in the graceful language of France. And this merchant is but a type of thousands of Japanese who are daily ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... commonplace phrase, but it well expresses what I wish to say and I use it. Then an hour's practice on the piano. Then to the Promenade. Mademoiselle de G—— wore a broad-brimmed grey felt hat, turned up at one side. O, how I would like a hat like that! It is so graceful. I would like a hat like that, and the same style of gown. It brings back the young ladies of former days, tall, well-formed, slender, beautiful. One would say that I am raving over a gown as I do ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff
... rate until he had put it beyond question that she had no underthought—to break off and leave her after placing himself in a situation so humiliating, was too much for the pride of a Macaroni. The lines of her head and figure too, half guessed and half revealed, and wholly light and graceful, had caught his fancy and created a desire to subjugate her. Reluctantly, therefore, he continued to walk beside her, over Magdalen Bridge, and thence by a path which, skirting the city, ran across the low wooded meadows at ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... blaze up the scene becomes most beautiful. The low black looking piece of bark floats noiselessly down the middle of the stream, or stealthily glides under the frowning cliffs, now lit up by a brilliant light. In the bow is seen the dark, naked, but graceful form of the savage, standing firm and erect, and scarcely seeming to move, as with the slightest motion of his arms he guides the frail canoe. His spear is grasped in his hand, whilst his whole attitude and appearance denote the most intense vigilance ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... was on the point of fainting away; and heaving a deep sigh, he said, "O Heavens! why have not my mother and father a share in this happiness? They would be out of their wits with joy were they to see such graceful and handsome sons-in-law ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... woman, who unites refinement to intelligence, and adds to them the polish of the court without its corruption, would be as powerful as it would be salutary, and when to the higher qualities, mental and moral, the polished refinement and graceful attention to all the proprieties of life are imparted, a high finish is given to the character. Nor was that acquired grace and courtly manner a thing of frivolous import. It exerted an important influence ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... turn in a contracted circle. But the dames and demoiselles who put their trust in these rapid chariots, make a mock at such small difficulties. You are shamed into activity after once seeing your fair charge spring to her place, with graceful confidence, never soiling the skirt ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... reading a book full of pure and beautiful thoughts, called "Vernon Grove," and the other evening I became acquainted with the authoress. She is a most lovely lady, dignified and graceful; and I had a very delightful conversation with ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... before his departure from England. The few years that had elapsed since their last meeting had made a considerable change in the appearance and manners of the young poet. The fat, unformed schoolboy was now a slender and graceful young man. Those emotions and passions which at first heighten, and then destroy, beauty, had as yet produced only their favourable effects on his features; and, though with but little aid from the example of refined society, his manners ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... me, Adela!" said Miss Van Tuyn, coming in with her usual graceful self-possession and looking, Lady Sellingworth thought in that first moment, quite untroubled. "This is a most unorthodox hour. But I knew you were often alone in the evening, and I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind seeing me for a ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... dilapidated, uncouth, and ruined clothes that he wore contrasted strangely with the graceful elegance of the woman who was sadly admiring him. Deformed persons who have intellect, or nobility of soul, show an exquisite taste in their apparel. Either they dress simply, convinced that their charm ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... Christian Indian woman of the Dakotas, next addressed the meeting in her native language, Rev. Mr. Riggs acting as her interpreter. Elizabeth's manner is very calm and dignified, and her gestures are graceful and forcible. Her language is eloquent even though trammeled by the necessity of having an interpreter. When she "shakes hands with us in her heart," we know she means it, and when she has "said enough," we know she ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 1, January, 1890 • Various
... Her dress must be as rich and elegant, in proportion, as the Queen's, and her hair, motions, and curtsies must have as much dignity and grace as those of the knights. It was a curious entertainment to observe the easy air, the graceful bow, and the conscious dignity of the knight, in presenting his contribution; and the corresponding ease, grace, and dignity of the lady, in receiving it, were not less charming. Every muscle, nerve, and fibre of both seemed perfectly disciplined to perform ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of silence. This Conchita's sweetheart endeavours to fill up with a series of gestures that might appear uncouth but for the solemnity of the occasion. So considered, they may be deemed graceful, even dignified. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... thousand unheard-of dances. These capers, prohibited elsewhere, rendered the Queen thoughtful. "Wherever did he learn all this?" she asked, and added: "What naughty dances! Fie!" Then she murmured: "How graceful he is!" ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... place. When the bell rang, her mother called out a tranquil request to her to go and open the door, and so it was Sylvia herself who confronted the unexpected visitor,—Sylvia a little flurried and breathless, but ushering the guest into the house with her usual graceful ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... reflexions—some of them perhaps rather morbid—in which I indulged on the subject of this young lady and her mother, I may as well complete the record and let him know that I now wondered whether Linda—candid and accomplished maiden—entertained the graceful thought of strengthening her hold of Archie by attempting to prove he had "compromised" her. "Ah no doubt that was the reason he had a bad conscience last evening!" I made answer. "When he came back to Stresa he sneaked off ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James
... of medium height, slender and graceful as a lily, and looked about three-and-twenty. She was a study in brown. On her head was a brown tam, a rich, warm brown, like the brown of autumn bracken on the moor. She wore a brown jumper, brown skirt, brown stockings and little brown brogued shoes. As she came closer, ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... 1/2 to 2 feet; third week of June; flowers, pendulous and bright scarlet. One of the most graceful ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... human eye can behold. I uttered an involuntary cry when the magnificent panorama opened upon my sight; I forgot for ever the bay of Naples and all its enchantments; to compare any thing to that marvellous and graceful combination would be an injury to the fairest work ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... accept from her husband, as her due and without surprise or awkwardness, the little attentions which she expects and receives in society. A man, also, should expect, and not be disappointed in receiving, the graceful little appreciations and courtesies which the woman of charm extends to the man of achievement in her social circle. The difference between the appreciations of society and those of the family is mainly that, in society, only the men of mark receive them, while, in the home, ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... the most successful of his works, attracted instant attention on its appearance, as a novelty of rich Indian local color. In substance it is a graceful and dramatic paraphrase of the mass of more or less legendary tales of the life and spiritual career of the Buddha, Prince Gautama, and a summary of the principles of the great religious system originating with him. It is lavishly ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... A skilful, graceful, and reverent effort to assist parents in what has been a delicate and difficult task. The author deserves the praise that belongs to ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... we had an ever-varying view of the city of Rio and its magnificent bay. And then the banks of this tropical high-road! From out a mass of rich verdure grew lovely scarlet begonias, and spotted caladiums, shaded by graceful tree-ferns and overhung by trees full of exquisite parasites and orchids. Among these, the most conspicuous, after the palms, are the tall thin-stemmed sloth-trees, so called from their being a favourite resort of the sloth, who with great difficulty crawls up ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... chamberlain to Eliduc saying that she wished to hear the story of his deeds, and he, quite as anxious to see the imprisoned Princess of whom he had heard so much, set out at once. On beholding each other they experienced deep agitation. Eliduc thought that never had he seen so beautiful and graceful a maiden, and Guillardun that this was the most handsome and comely knight ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... thing about her was fine and refined; her hand in his looked like a rose lying among carrots, and when he kissed it he looked as a cow might do on finding such a flower among her food. She was graceful as a couchant goddess, and, moreover, as self-possessed as Venus must have ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of diplomatic service half a dozen notes commanding me to get up at dawn and ride around the lake, something like sixteen miles. She was almost as reckless a rider as myself. She was truly a famous rider, and a woman who sits well on a horse can never be aught but graceful. She was, in fact, youthful and charming, with the most magnificent black eyes I ever beheld in a Teutonic head; witty, besides, and a songstress of no ordinary talent. If I had been in love with her—which I solemnly vow ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... ushered into a really beautiful salon, she rose from a little bureau—a tall, graceful figure, with masses of pretty grey hair and ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... at a map of the Nile system, he cannot fail to be struck by its resemblance to a palm-tree. At the top the green and fertile area of the Delta spreads like the graceful leaves and foliage. The stem is perhaps a little twisted, for the Nile makes a vast bend in flowing through the desert. South of Khartoum the likeness is again perfect, and the roots of the tree begin to stretch deeply into the Soudan. I can imagine no better illustration of the intimate ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... specialties of the old kind, but in a higher degree. So they named this one Eutamias, which means "good" or "extra good" Chipmunk. And extra good this exquisite little creature surely is in all that goes to make a charming, graceful, birdy, pert and vivacious four-foot. In everything but colours it is Eutamias or Tamias of a more intensified type. Its tail is long in proportion and carried differently, being commonly held straight up, so that the general ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sir; but she is described as a girl of about twenty, pure blonde, very pretty, slight and graceful in figure, wearing a dark-brown dress and jacket and a brown hat with black feathers. She will be alone and has no baggage," said the policeman, reading from the telegram which he had received ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... became fashionable and figured in the pages of Punch; it was no distraction caught up for a week or a month, but a labour of fifty years! We have an account of him as he appeared at this period of his life: 'above the medium height, about 5 feet 6 inches, with a slender and extremely graceful figure... curling dark hair in thick masses, fine brow, features delicately cut, the nose perhaps a trifle too prominent,... light blue eyes deeply set with projecting eyelids, his mouth small and compressed.' His whole face and appearance seems to ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... came enchantingly from a hidden orchestra, ladies beautifully gowned and bejeweled stood about in graceful postures. Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett attired in a flame-colored velvet gown with a wonderful satin-lined train hanging straight from her shoulders, stood near a table at which two very pretty girls were serving little cups of tea ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... one or two branches of what looked like myrtle stuck into pieces of bamboo which serve for flower-pots. These monuments, crowded together around the temples and overshadowed by the lofty trees, had a very graceful effect. ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... appeared; not interfering with nature, but adding to her. The road came upon a belt of the shrubbery where the old tenants of the soil were mingled with lighter and gayer companionship, and in some instances gave it place, though in general the mingling was very graceful. There was never any crowding of effects; it seemed all nature still, only as if several climes had joined together to grace one. Then that was past; and over smooth undulating ground, bearing a lighter growth of foreign ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... poet of the sixteenth century, was a graceful writer and very skilled in the Latin, Greek, and Etruscan languages, but incurred a grievous fate on account of his severe satire on Pope Pius IV. The stern persecutor of Carranza, the powerful Archbishop of Toledo, was not a person to be attacked with impunity. The cause of ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... ice, and in the distance figures were wheeling about upon skates. In the immediate foreground were two persons. One was a lovely young girl, dressed in black velvet trimmed with ermine. The basque fitted closely to her person, revealing its graceful outlines, and was evidently adapted to the active sport in which she was engaged. While the rich warm blood mantled her cheeks, the snow was not whiter than her temples and brow. Down her shoulders flowed a profusion of wavy hair, scattered threads ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... Katy's. Do you know Katy?" and his black eyes fastened upon Marian, who, with the strange power she possessed over her patients, soothed him into quiet, while she told him she knew Katy, and talked to him of her, telling of her graceful beauty, her loving heart, and the sorrow she would feel when she ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... been expected. He was peering at her from under the heavy brows very intently, but she was outlined against the flood of light from the window, and it blurred his vision, leaving distinct only the graceful, erect form in its dark riding habit. "Had you entered the gates my niece would have been delighted to ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... He was slight, graceful, quick on his feet and generally alert; took little steps that were almost hopping, and when he was in a hurry gave him the appearance of "spinning" down the pavement or up the stairs; always wore clothes of some fluffy material, with a low ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... against the sky. The beauty of the group lies in its simple unity:—a broad lawn of green rising from the red street and mingled roses and peaches; north and south, two plain and stately halls; and in the midst, half hidden in ivy, a larger building, boldly graceful, sparingly decorated, and with one low spire. It is a restful group, —one never looks for more; it is all here, all intelligible. There I live, and there I hear from day to day the low hum of restful life. ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... gracious Ukko, that hath given me a daughter. Praise Ukko, my son, that thou hast won this lovely maiden, the pride of the Northland, who is purer than the snow, more graceful than the swan, and more beautiful than the stars. Let us make our dwelling larger, and decorate the walls most beautifully in honour of thy lovely bride, the fairest maid ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... way—tall, lithe, graceful—attired in her uniform dress of neat black stuff, with plain linen collar and cuffs, and with the scarlet cross of the Geneva Convention embroidered on her left shoulder. Pale and sad, her expression and ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... to recognize, among others, sketches of daisies, cowslips, buttercups, wood-anemones, wild hyacinths, forget-me-nots, eyebright, red and white clover, and many kinds of flowering grasses and graceful fern leaves. ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... was a mask in a Grecian habit, whose appearance was so striking, that it was impossible for him to remain confounded with the crowd. The least attentive eye must have singled him out from among a thousand. It was a tall light figure, so graceful in every movement; then his dancing ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... be so high as the Architrave by a 4th. part, unless something be carved there, for then that the Carving may be more graceful, the Frise ought to be bigger than the Architrave ...
— An Abridgment of the Architecture of Vitruvius - Containing a System of the Whole Works of that Author • Vitruvius
... hereafter, a conspicuous place in the narrative.] crested with trees that overhung the rippling current; while before them spread the valley of the Illinois, in broad low meadows, bordered on the right by the graceful hills at whose foot now lies the village of Utica. A population far more numerous then tenanted the valley. Along the right bank of the river were clustered the lodges of a great Indian town. Hennepin ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... to whatever materials they drew from foreign sources. The ideas of the Egyptians and Orientals, which they adopted into their mythology, they cast in new moulds, and reproduced in more beautiful forms. The monstrous they subdued into the vast, the grotesque they softened into the graceful, and they diffused a fine spirit of humanity over the rude proportions of the primeval figures. So with the dogmas of their philosophy, borrowed from the same sources; all that could beautify the meagre, harmonize the incongruous, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... was not new to Rosalind, for Mrs. Whittredge on her daily drive usually stopped there, and its winding paths and green slopes, its drooping willows and graceful oaks, and the flowers that bloomed everywhere, around the stately shafts of marble and the low headstones, seemed to her very pleasant. Here, however, her grandmother's sadness took on a deeper tinge as she moved among the mounds that lay in the shadow of the massive granite monument with ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... free-will: duty implies constraint. Virtue acts from the impulse of the moment, and never tires or is tired; duty drudges on in consequence of reflection, and, weary herself, wearies all beholders. Duty, always laborious, never can be graceful; and what is not graceful in woman cannot be amiable—can it, my amiable Gabrielle? But I reproach myself for all I have written. Leonora is my friend—besides, I am really obliged to her, and for the universe would I not hint a thought to her disadvantage. Indeed ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... a-quiver with uncontrollable emotion, fixed his glowing eyes on the door when the servant returned with Mrs. Haxton. She entered, with the graceful ease of one accustomed to meet greater dignitaries than the head of a small Italian colony. Signor Marchetti advanced a few paces. Where a lady was concerned he could be courteous enough, his abruptness being a specially cultivated mannerism ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... two heavy plates of glass, and is kept in the Troop's armory, in a fireproof safe made expressly for that purpose. The banner is only forty inches long, but its richness makes up for its lack of size. It is of yellow silk with heavy silver fringe. Around the flag is a graceful running vine. The crest is a horse's head. In the center are figures representing Fame and Liberty. Under them is the motto, "For these we strive." Some verses written many years ago say of ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... hostile Laconians shouted with pleasure at sight of his beautiful body poised, then flung out upon the sands far beyond the Thasian. He rose, shook off the dust, and returned to the mound, with a graceful gesture to the cheer that greeted him; but wise heads knew the contest was ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... instant of hesitation he met the clear look of a pair of brown eyes, and he felt that he must say something. He fancied his slight pause had made him appear a trifle clumsy, and he sought to effect a graceful parting. But, alas! for the grace of solitary young men! The one right phrase, the one right gesture would not come, and so, although his manner was sufficiently easy at ordinary times, he could only say, "I'm very glad ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... circumstances of his fate, adds, "that he was one of the wisest and most valorous knights the best speaker, the most expert statesman, the most renowned and enterprising, man of his age in Italy, a comely knight and of graceful carriage, but very worldly, and in his time had formed many conspiracies in Florence and entered into many scandalous practices, for the sake of attaining state and lordship." G. Villani, 1. viii. c. 96. The character of Corso ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... proportionate to the cost of their maintenance. Most of the seigniors and ladies of the Court, the worldly bishops, abbes, and parliamentarians of the drawing-room, knew but little more than how to solicit with address, make a graceful parade of themselves and spend lavishly. An ill-understood system of culture had diverted them from their natural avocations, and converted them into showy and agreeable specimens of vegetation, often ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a graceful and cunning psychologist of sensual passion. His great work—all that we have from him except some lyric poems—is the love-intoxicated romance of Tristan and Isold, which he began early in the 13th century and ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... you that Kate made breakfast for Bonaparte one morning at my house: a breakfast a la Francois, at twelve o'clock. Of four ladies, she was the only one who spoke French, and she really seemed inspired. No Parisian could have been more fluent, graceful, or sprightly. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis |
