"Sprite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... With a sister's instinct Hazel never stumbled, but seemed to get over every obstacle like some wood sprite ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... the firmament; His breath the rush of the breeze. Earth's loveliest sprite, the frost queen at night, Lures him ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... words are general names for any kind of spirit, and correspond to the 'pouk' of Piers Ploughman. In Danish 'spog' means a joke, trick, or prank, and hence the character of Robin Goodfellow. In Iceland Puki is regarded as an evil sprite; and in the language of that country, 'at pukra' means both to make a murmuring noise and to steal clandestinely. The names of these spirits seem to have originated in their boisterous temper—'spuken,' Germ. to make ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... shall take its speechless flight; That sometime these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night; That warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow; That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below; It is not death to know this,—but to know That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go So duly and so oft,—and when grass waves Over the past-away, there may be then No resurrection ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... we are? The sprite of a star, I lure thee above where the destinies bar My plumes their full play Till a ruddier ray Than my pale one announce there is withering away Some... Scatter the vision forever! And now, As of old, I am ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... But this thought-created sprite was there before the message flashed. With his sack wide open, he stood by Monkey, full of importance. A moment he examined her. Then, his long black fingers darting like a shuttle, he discovered ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... towards himself. As the vaporous shape floated nearer, it also grew larger, so that, although Fred could not have said certainly that the size was human, it relieved him from the impression of any fairy or elf or sprite. No, it was nothing of that sort. It was just the gentlest, calmest, serenest face and form in the world,—with the same look of pure sweetness he had noticed on her first entrance,—with a peculiar surprised look in her wide-open eyes, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... flows on long in easy gayety and drollery; where it is not swelled by the tide of poetic feeling, it is continually dashing down the precipice of a witticism. It is not broad and unctuous; it is aerial and sprite-like, a momentary resting-place between his poetry and his wit. In the "Reisebilder" he runs through the whole gamut of his powers, and gives us every hue of thought, from the wildly droll and fantastic to the sombre and the ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... Dunbar is Manager Morgan's ex-sweetheart; Mrs. Dovie Davis is married; that gay, jolly girl is Daisy Lee, the soubrette of the company; she'd cut out any one of us if she could; but she's so merry a sprite we don't mind her, especially as none of the fellows take ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Called GRANDOLPH GOODFELLOW. Are you not he That did your best to spill Lord S-L-SB-RY? Gave the Old Tory party quite a turn, And office with snug perquisites did spurn? And now you'd make Strong ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... reach home. She accidentally spoke; and immediately the son dropped a tear, and forced himself out of his father's arms, piteously exclaiming: 'Father, father, my mother spoke! You cannot keep me. I must go.' He disappeared, and, reaching home, the father found the sprite again on the hearth." The ghostly father's services were called into requisition a second time; and better luck awaited an effort under his direction after the performance of a second miracle like the first. For this time the mother succeeded in holding her ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... with this litle queane, that hath at me such spite, Saue you from hir maister, it is a very sprite. ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall
... to be scrupulous about details. I am not the Grand Bashaw; and when I pronounced them fit for his harem, I merely meant a compliment to their superlative beauty. That Floracita is a mischievous little sprite. Did you ever see anything more roguish than her expression while she was singing 'Petit ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... me lighter: for the dwarf sprang from my shoulder, the prying sprite! And it squatted on a stone in front of me. There was however a gateway just where ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... these am I, who thy protection claim, A watchful sprite, and Ariel is my name. Late, as I ranged the crystal wilds of air, In the clear mirror of thy ruling star I saw, alas! some dread event impend, Ere to the main this morning sun descend, But heaven ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... a beautiful brown sprite of the rustling pine wood about her, a great flood of color crept suddenly from the brown full throat to the line of her hair, and the scarlet that lingered in her cheeks was wilder than ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... been?" she cried. "You vanished from my side like a sprite. I have been searching ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... are four of the horses that jump," said Mr. Bartholomew. They like this least of any of their feats, and those who can do it best are most timid. At first one horse is jumped over, then two, three, are packed closely together, and little Sprite clears them all at one flying leap, broad-backed and much taller than herself though they are. Those who do not want to try it beg off by a pretty pantomime, and Sprite is encouraged by her master, who pats her first and ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... my thumb and sat there silent and without moving for a long time. I was stunned by the clearness of vision the verse had imparted to me. It was illumination. It was like a bolt of God's lightning in the Pit. They would keep Love, the fickle sprite, the forerunner of young life—young life that ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... distraction had melted away. Not even at the height of his success had he felt so confident, so entirely superior to the rest of mankind as both to command and to deserve their homage. In no play had he ever devised a more romantic finale than this in which he carried his conquered sprite—for so he thought her—back to earth. As he put her down, he threw out his chest and turned to the stars as it was his habit to turn to his audiences, and bowed thrice, to the right, to the left, to the centre, with his hand ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... my cares will be that you do not act upon it too fiercely," said he smiling. "The power being limited so is the duty. But you shall have power enough, Elfie, and work enough. I have precisely what I have needed—my good sprite back again." ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... The king was so much perplexed that he threatened the princess's playfellows with all sorts of punishments if they would not confess something about her disappearance; but as they only repeated the same story he presently put down the whole affair to the work of some sprite or goblin, and tried to console himself for his loss by ordering a grand hunt; for kings cannot bear to be troubled about ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... Minot has got to come down to the lot of common mortals and take in a chum!" cried a merry sprite, with a saucy chuckle. "Oh, how you have spread yourself and luxuriated in your solitary magnificence, and how every mother's daughter of us has envied you your spacious quarters! Well, you know what old Sol. said about 'pride' and a 'haughty spirit,' ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... the circle, very properly constructed in the Rotunda. They overpowered us—we dared not stay to see the fireworks, 'in the midst of which Signora Rossini was to make her terrific ascent and descent on a rope three hundred feet high.' She might have been the sprite of Madame Saqui; {171} in fact, the 'Vauxhall Papers,' published in the gardens, put forth a legend which favours such a dreadful supposition. We refer our readers to them—they are ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... Sprite, the Elks voted the name Fly and the Silver Foxes voted the name Weetonka, on account of me. Then we wrote all these letters down and mixed them all up and arranged them every which way, till we got ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... it is the time of night, That the graves, all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide. Midsummer Night's Dream, ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... around them the while and regarding the trees which bore for burthen ambergris and lign-aloes, sandal, cloves, and gelsamine,[FN35] all with flowers and fruits bedrest whose odours broadened the breast and excited the sprite. There also the birds warbled, with various voices, notes ravishing and rapturing the heart by the melodies of their musick. So Mubarak turned to the Prince and asked him saying, "How seest thou this place, O my lord?" and the other ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... up the hill, Captain," interposed Peter Browne hastily, and as he carefully aided the Widow Ford to climb the steep ascent some sprite might have whispered in his ear that this was his own future wife. That night was born Martha Ford, who should from similarity of history have married Peregrine White, but who instead wedded ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... the water sprite who gave its name to the Elbe River in Germany, the Neck, from whom the Neckar derives its name, and old Father Rhine, with his numerous daughters (tributary streams), the most famous of all the lesser water divinities is the Lorelei, the siren maiden who sits upon the Lorelei ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... since T was a baby? Wouldn't any girl give her eyes to be queen?" She seemed upon the verge of kissing him, perhaps upon the nose, but changed her mind and went dancing around his chair like some moon-mad sprite. He seized her, barely in time to prevent her from crying the news aloud to Bernie, explaining hastily that she must breathe no word to any one for the time being and must first win her brother's consent. It was very difficult to impress her with the ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... that they spent that day—in leisure approach—the patient Croesus, with his burden, always in the lead, and Czar, like a merry sprite, playing here and there. Several times they stopped to rest beside the road, while provident Croesus gathered a few mouthfuls of grass or weeds. Many times they halted to enjoy the scene that ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... and lovely sprite, Since first from out an ancient lay I saw gleam forth thy fitful light, How hast ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... in fennel stalks Through windy ways is borne and densest night, Till where the outpost shivering sentry walks Beating the minutes into hours, the light Touches the guarded pile and, flaring, balks Beasts padding near and each unvisioned sprite By old dread apprehended; and new gladness Shakes in the ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... used in its radical sense shrew-ed, malicious, like a shrew. Comp. M. N. D. ii. 1, "That shrewd and knavish sprite called Robin Goodfellow." Chaucer has the verb shrew to curse; the ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... another's stead, And act the Saint's and Devil's part With undistinguishable art, They might have done so now, perhaps, And put on one another's shapes 100 And therefore, to resolve the doubt, He star'd upon him, and cry'd out, What art? My 'Squire, or that bold Sprite That took his place and shape to-night? Some busy indepenent pug, 105 Retainer to his Synagogue? Alas! quoth he, I'm none of those, Your bosom friends, as you suppose; But RALPH himself, your trusty 'Squire, Wh' has dragg'd your Dunship out o' th' mire, 110 And from th' ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... be a scene to-night at the castle," said the male to the female sprite, as he tickled her nose ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... allowed so far to indulge the imagination, as to suppose a being entirely confined to the nether world—some 'dusky melancholy sprite,' like Umbriel, who could 'flit on sooty pinions to the central earth,' but who was never permitted to 'sully the fair face of light,' and emerge into the regions of water and of air; and if this being should busy himself in investigating the structure ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... Oberon to this little sprite, "fetch me the flower called Love-in-idleness. The juice of that little purple flower laid on the eyes of those who sleep will make them, when they wake, to love the first thing they see. I will put some of the juice of that flower on my Titania's ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... flesh-and-blood woman instead of an eccentric sprite," he remarked, "I suppose you'd want me to make a clean breast of the whole affair, but I can't because, to tell the truth, I've ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... guns approached the scene of carnage, accompanied by the inmates of his dwelling, with rueful countenances, illumined by tapers, when the cause of their disquietude was soon discovered. No apparition or sprite forsooth, but a full grown donkey of the Andalusian breed, lay weltering in gore, yet warm with partial life! By timely liberality the valorous Alonzo escaped detection, though the heroic deed is still remembered in merry Valencia, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... rabbit. After that it came to be a common thing for the dog to trot off by himself in the morning; and the man fell more and more in the way of letting him go alone, as it left his own time the more free for the pursuit of that golden sprite who was ever promising ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... and warlocks," I solemnly intoned, "fra' wurricoos and evil speerits, and fra' a' ferly things that wheep and gang bump in the nicht, Guid Lord deliver us!" And that incantation, I feel sure, cleared the air for both my own sprite-threatened offspring and for the simple-minded Olie himself, although Dinky-Dunk explained that my Scotch was rather ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... mist, a shape, I wist! And still it neared and neared: As if it dodged a water-sprite, It plunged, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... whom God gave the sprite To know and utter princes' acts to come, Like to the Jewish prophets did recite In shade of beasts their doings all and some; Expressing plain by manners of the doom That kings and lords such properties should have As have the beasts whose name ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... deities], Odin; Mumbo Jumbo; good genius, tutelary genius; demiurge, familiar; sibyl; fairy, fay; sylph, sylphid; Ariel^, peri, nymph, nereid, dryad, seamaid, banshee, benshie^, Ormuzd; Oberon, Mab, hamadryad^, naiad, mermaid, kelpie^, Ondine, nixie, sprite; denizens of the air; pixy &c (bad spirit) 980. mythology; heathen-mythology, fairy-mythology; Lempriere, folklore. Adj. god-like, fairy-like; sylph-like; sylphic^. Phr. you moonshine revelers and shades of night ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... comforting Phraerion, on he went, And a high, craggy arch they reach at dawn of day, Upon the upper world; and forced them through That arch, the thick, cold floods, with such a roar, That the bold sprite receded, and would view The cave before he ventured to explore. Then, fearful lest his frighted guide might part And not be missed amid such strife and din, He strained him closer to his burning heart, And, trusting to his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... to beware of letting you see the monster, or our joyous muse Balbilla might easily become the sinister Hecate. But the malicious sprite is close at hand, for he is hidden in this ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... For saucy sprite, and noble dame, And many a dainty maid of them Will greet me in your mirror frame, And share your kisses ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... thy Idoll made: In summe giuen vp to Cleopatras eies. Thou breakest at length from thence, as one encharm'd Breakes from th'enchaunter that him strongly helde. For thy first reason (spoyling of their force the poisned cuppes of thy faire Sorceres) Recur'd thy sprite: and then on euery side Thou mad'st againe the earth with Souldiours swarme. All Asia hidde: Euphrates bankes do tremble To see at once so many Romanes there Breath horror, rage, and with a threatning eye In mighty squadrons crosse ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... we not sprite shaped into a body, into an Appearance; and that fade away again into air and Invisibility? This is no metaphor, it is a simple scientific fact: we start out of Nothingness, take figure, and are Apparitions; round us as round the veriest spectre is Eternity, ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... Sprite deliberately pits himself against author, proof reader, and all their allies. The books printed by Aldus are famous for their correctness, yet a few errors crept into them, so much to the disgust of the great printer ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... a time there was a wicked sprite, indeed he was the most mischievous of all sprites. One day he was in a very good humor, for he had made a mirror with the power of causing all that was good and beautiful when it was reflected therein, to look poor and mean; but that which was good-for-nothing ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Sense! Seen seldom by us mortals dense, Come, sprite, inform, inhabit me And teach me art ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... clasped and sensitive leaf of which a fairy is said to dwell, I fancied she was their queen, and must have dropped from one of the leaves, to gambol and wanton among the flowers below. Running to her, I caught her in my arms, and said, 'I watched your fall, and have you now, dear sprite, and will keep you here!'—pressing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... But I cannot forget him, The fearful Geography Sprite. He has my first thought in the morning, He has my ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... reconciliation, too, with the latter was by no means either sincere or durable,—the renewal of friendship between politicians, on such occasions, being generally like that which the Diable Boiteux describes, as having taken place between himself and a brother sprite,—"We were reconciled, embraced, and have hated ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... my mother's fault if she is,' said Arthur. 'I was determined yesterday to see what she would succeed in making her do, and I declare the sprite drove her about like a slave—"Grandmamma, fetch me this," "grandmamma, you must do that," till at last she brought my poor mother down on her knees, stooping under the table to personate an old cow ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Fool, pray with all thy might, Here's goblin foul or woodland sprite Come for to steal our souls away, So on thy ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... Rarely did the arch sprite Adventure need to beckon twice to Rudolf Steiner, his true follower. But twice it had been done, and the quest ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... innings; not only was she prettily dressed, presenting the most joyous of pictures, as with golden curls flying about her shoulders she flitted in and out of the rooms like a sprite, but she was withal so polite in her greetings, dropping to everyone a little French courtesy when she spoke, and all in her quaint, broken dialect, that everybody fell in love with her at sight. None of the other mothers had such a child, ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... some paltry, blackguard sprite, Condemn'd to drudgery in the night; Thou hast no work to do in the house, Nor ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... door is open, and there is no one to be seen. He keeps on and on until he catches a flutter of a white dress. Cecil is running around the observatory, and his heart beats as he glances at the dazzling little sprite, with her sparkling eyes and her hair a golden mist about her face. He could watch forever, but it ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... object at the Rink was a tall young man, in all the agonies of a debut on skates, and a bewitching little attendant sprite shooting before and around him, occasionally righting him with a fairy touch when he evinced too wild a desire to dash ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... beleue not euery sprit / but proue the sprites / whether they are of Godd or not. For many false prophetes are gone out into the worlde. Hereby shall ye know the spirite of Godd: Euery sprite that confessith that Iesu Christe is comme in the flesh / is of Godd. And euery sprite which confessith not that Iesu Christe is come in the fleshe is not of Godd. And this is that spirite of Antichriste ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... that Old Mat and his head-lad had parted after more years of association than many cared to recall. And it was clear that the little man felt the rupture. He wandered morosely through the crowd in the train of his fat familiar like a lost soul outside the gates of Paradise. Usually a merry sprite, the life and soul of every group he joined, he was under the weather, as the saying went, and what was still more remarkable he ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... her happy. By the sacrifice of his own inclinations he had achieved this disastrous result. If he had tried to do evil instead of good, he could hardly have wrought more irreparable mischief—and with the thought, pity, which had led him astray, winged off, like an ironic sprite, and left his heart ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... on this airy sprite, the beholder feels an exhilarating influence steal over him, and involuntarily there goes up from his heart, like incense, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... wayward sprite, So young, so tender, and so fair, I dare not trust thee from my sight, Nor let thee breathe the common air! Home to my heart, then, quickly flee, It is the only ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... They climbed trees to peep into squirrel-holes and birds'-nests; they chased bees and butterflies to ask for news of the elves; they waded in the brook, hoping to catch a water-sprite; they ran after thistle-down, fancying a fairy might be astride; they searched the flowers and ferns, questioned sun and wind, listened to robin and thrush; but no one could tell them any thing of the little people, though all had gay and charming bits of news about ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... hone! widow machree, But you're keeping some poor fellow out in the cowld, Och hone! widow machree. With such sins on your head, Sure your peace would be fled, Could you sleep in your bed, Without thinking to see Some ghost or some sprite, That would wake you each night, Crying, 'Och ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... hoary With lone cries that wander Now hither, now yonder, Like souls doomed of old 60 To a mild purgatory; But through noonlight and moonlight The little fount tinkles Its silver saints'-bells, That no sprite ill-boding May make his abode ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... fired up, as there ran to her brain some little sprite out of the House of Memory and told her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... eight dollars, and how, in short, the mound itself had suddenly disappeared. He declared that he knew not in the least how to recover his loss and bring the business to a good ending. The compassionate mountain sprite comforted him, told him who he was, and that he himself had played him the trick, and at the same time bade him be of good cheer, for his losses should be ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... light-gathering he discerns things for which the light falling on his pupil one-fifth of an inch in diameter would not be sufficient. We never have seen any sun or stars; we have only seen the light that left them fifty minutes or years ago, more or less. Light is the aerial sprite that carries our measuring-rods across the infinite [Page 22] spaces; light spreads out the history of that far-off beginning; brings us the measure of stars a thousand times brighter than our sun; takes up into itself evidences of the very constitutional elements ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... reflections while viewing the scenes in the circle, very properly constructed in the Rotunda. They overpowered us—we dared not stay to see the fireworks, "in the midst of which Signora Rossini was to make her terrific ascent and descent on a rope three hundred feet high." She might have been the sprite of Madame Saqui; in fact, the "Vauxhall Papers" published in the gardens, put forth a legend, which favours such a dreadful supposition! We refer our readers to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... choice, by right, In filling up a vacancy; Then Phantom, Goblin, Elf, and Sprite - If all these fail them, they invite The nicest Ghoul ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... always brightened when I came, light feet that flew to welcome me, and hands that loved to minister to every want of mine. Even when I sat engrossed among my books, there was a pleasant consciousness that I was the possessor of a household sprite whom a look could summon and a gesture banish. I loved her as I loved a picture or a flower,—a little better than my horse and hound,—but far less than I loved my most ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... inexplicable, so perverse, sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits, that Hester could not help questioning, at such moments, whether Pearl were a human child. She seemed rather an airy sprite, which, after playing its fantastic sports for a little while upon the cottage floor, would flit away with a mocking smile. Whenever that look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply black eyes, it invested her with a strange remoteness ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... doubted and resisted; though she tempted me, making real the dreams of my shy, worshipful childhood, teaching me the meanings of treasured stories which I had listened to from flower-sprite and river-god, leading and wooing me with lovelier lures than even Nature's; for tropical bird-song and falling water was harsh to her voice, and dew-dripped lilies dim to her brow. But I shut my dazzled eyes at first from these, and strove to see only the face whereon, with tender ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... and Meta was skipping about like a sprite finding a basket for the flowers—she had another shake of the hand, another grateful smile, and "thank you," from the doctor; and then, as the carriage disappeared, Mrs. Larpent exclaimed, "What a very nice intelligent boy ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... confidante, as they escorted Miss Mildred back to beautiful Rosebank. The "lass o' Richmond Hill" was no fairer than the happy woman who had seen Major Hardwicke depart for a long conference with that all powerful sprite of the magic pen, Frank Halton, who was now busied in launching his creation, Prince Djiddin. "A single word at the 'F. O.' will legalize our useful myth, 'Prince Djiddin,' and I hope that Hardwicke and Murray will succeed. They can surely lose nothing by the attempt. I am known to be ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... guiltless to the fire, Her veil and mantle plucked they off by force, And bound her tender arms in twisted wire: Dumb was the silver dove, while from her corse These hungry kites plucked off her rich attire, And for some deal perplexed was her sprite, Her damask late, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... strife, some senior foe, To swell by his defeat the name of Toe!" He spoke—the powers of mischief heard his cries, And steep'd in sullen sleep his rheumy eyes. He slept—but rested not, his guardian sprite Rose to his view in visions of the night, And thus, with many a tear and many a sigh, He heard, or seem'd to hear, the mimic demon cry:—[25] "Is this a time for distant strife to pray, When all my power is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... pure truth finds rest. No sacrifice shall he repent of ever! But from a formal, written, sealed attest, As from a spectre, all men shrink forever. The word and spirit die together, Killed by the sight of wax and leather. What wilt thou, evil sprite, from me? Brass, marble, parchment, paper, shall it be? Shall I subscribe with pencil, pen or graver? Among them all ...
— Faust • Goethe
... would now appear sufficiently contracted. But as my little conductress, with her hair of gold and her frock of blue, danced before me round corners and pattered down passages, I had the view of a castle of romance inhabited by a rosy sprite, such a place as would somehow, for diversion of the young idea, take all color out of storybooks and fairytales. Wasn't it just a storybook over which I had fallen adoze and adream? No; it was a big, ugly, antique, but ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... here? Come, my dearest, my beauty, be sensible! The blood of a Nixey runs in your veins. Oh, won't you let yourself be one? Give your nature the reins for once in your life; fall head over ears in love with some other water sprite and plunge down head first into a deep pool, so that the Herr Professor and all of us may have our hands ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... with a vigor that made it rock quite unromantically; for she is not frail, she is not a butterfly, as you perceived. I recognized her from a description I had received from my cousin the bride. She was accompanied by that meagre, smart little sprite of a French girl, whom Madam always takes with her,—to talk French with, and to be waited upon by her, she says; but rather, I believe, by way of a contrast to set off her own brilliant complexion and imperial proportions. It is Juno and Arachne. The divine orbs of the goddess turned haughtily ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... of, who was thrown at all with her little ladyship. But there was ne'er so beautiful a maiden born in all the broad land of England; nor will be again—not though London Tower be standing when the last trump sounds. Meseemed she was an elf-sprite, so tiny was she; and her face like a fair flower, so fresh and pure. Her hair was shed about her face like sunlight on thistle-down, and her eyes made a shining behind it, like the big blue gems in her mother's jewel-box. When she laughed, it was as water falling into water from a short height, ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... had he looked upon her face—the face of a withered sprite, subdued by time. The hurt of that look was still fresh in him, making his mind turn heavily, perhaps a little remorsefully, to the two little boys asleep in the west bedroom. Had the seed of revolt been in her, from his own revolt against his father? Would it presently bear ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... a boy, not six years old, A sprite of birth and lineage high: His birth I did myself behold, His caste is in ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... dead men. "Now give me my spear," said Arthur unto Sir Lucan; "for yonder I espy the traitor that hast wrought all this woe." "Sir, let him be," said Sir Lucan; "for if ye pass this unhappy day, ye shall be right well revenged upon him. Remember what the sprite of Sir Gawain told you, and leave off now, for ye have won the field; and if ye leave off now this evil day of destiny is past." "Betide me life, betide me death," said King Arthur, "he shall not now escape my hands." Then the king took his spear ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... is concerned, he cannot defend his taste: he can scarcely account for it. "Beautiful she is, in her feminine grace and strength, set forth by her boyish dress; but with probably no more feeling than a sprite, and no more conscience than a flower. It is likely enough that her antecedents have been execrable, and that her life is in harmony with them." Still, he does not wish it supposed that he admires a body without a soul: and he tries to convince himself that Fifine, after all, is not ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... The lively little sprite Ariel had nothing mischievous in his nature, except that he took rather too much pleasure in tormenting an ugly monster called Caliban, for be owed him a grudge because he was the son of his old enemy Sycorax. This Caliban, Prospero found in the woods, a ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... nearer he saw it was a flock of pigeons. She had been feeding them berries and grains of rye. They arched their glossy necks and cooed in answer. He watched in amaze, drawing nearer. What sprite of ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... in the forest the other day when I was-shouting "Ho! Ho!" "Ah," said he, "you forest sprite with goat's feet!" To-morrow after dinner, all right? (Walks away, sedately at first, but then with ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... spirit riding on the blast. In some parts of Austria a heavy gale is propitiated by the act and speech of a peasant who, as the demon wings his flight in the raging storm, opens the window and casts a handful of meal or chaff to the enraged sprite as a peace offering, ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... iron feet, Hemmed in by a passing cart, Stood the baby boy—the pride and joy Of the man who had broken her heart. Past swooning women and shouting men She fled like a flash of light; With her slender arm she gathered from harm The form of the laughing sprite. ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... or some mischievous sprite, I know not," growled the Hebrew, "but there is no need for more ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... thing which is not true, and do the thing which is not honest; but among the other races of beings who inhabit this world the penalty of mocking and imitating the vices of you, the superior race, is, that if ever one of us can be convicted of it, that one, be it gnome, sprite, or fairy, is never permitted to appear in the likeness of humanity again, nor to walk about on the face of the land which is your inheritance. Now the gnomes hate one another, and if it should be discovered by the brethren of this my enemy ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... clap his hot hands, and cry, "More, father, more." Will and Dulcie looked gladly into each other's eyes at his animation, and boasted what a stamping, thundering man he would yet live to be—that midge, that sprite, with Dulcie's small skeleton bones, and Will's ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... heard what had chanced. It seemed that the wraith, or emanation, or the sprite, good or evil, or whatever it may have been, which called itself Eleanor, materialized in a very ugly temper. It complained that it had not been allowed to appear upon the previous Sunday and had been kept away from its brother, i.e. Godfrey. Then it proceeded to threaten all the ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... whom Clara last remembered with her baby in her lap, beautiful and almost as inanimate as a statue? There was scarcely more change from the long-frocked infant to the bustling important sprite, than from that fair piece of still life to the active house-mother. Unruffled grace was innate; every movement had a lofty, placid deliberation and simplicity, that made her like a disguised princess; and though her beauty was a little worn, what it had ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge |
