"Lightness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... down below who sit in the choir and sing and what you earn, who lend to worship all the strength of your arms. You will not die of fatigue, it is true; many a workman in the towns would laugh at the lightness of your duties; but you languish from poverty. I see in this cloister the same anaemic children that I saw in workmen's slums, I see what you eat and what you are paid. The Church pays its servants as in the days of faith; she believes that we still live in the times when whole ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... serious," said the young orator, with an attempt at lightness; "I have been preparing my oration against the contractor I've indicted for embezzling the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... and magnificence. They entered into architecture with the enthusiasm of their teachers, but, in their passion for novelty, lost sight of the simplicity which is the great fascination of a Doric Temple. "And they deemed that lightness and grace were to be attained not so much by proportion between the vertical and the horizontal, as by the comparative slenderness of the former. Hence we see a poverty in Roman architecture in the midst of profuse ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... Lord Clare naturally recalls the Haunch of Venison. Goldsmith was particularly happy in writing bright and airy verses; the grace and lightness of his touch has rarely been approached. It must be confessed, however, that in this direction he was somewhat of an Autolycus; unconsidered trifles he freely appropriated; but he committed these thefts with scarcely any concealment, and with the most charming air in the ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... heaven; they talk of the Almighty in a free and easy manner, and of Jesus Christ as tho He were not the Judge at all. When they pray, it is with a familiarity bordering on irreverence, and when they deal with sacred themes it is with a lightness that breeds contempt. When they recount the marvels which they have wrought in the name of Christ, it is hardly-possible for them to hide their self-complacency; for, while they profess to give Him the glory, the manner of their speech shows that they are taking it to themselves. They are like the ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... some who make a profession of their philosophy—pass unfair censures upon the gifts of heaven. They complain because we do not equal elephants in bulk of body, harts in swiftness, birds in lightness, bulls in vigour. But what has been denied to mankind could not have been given. Wherefore, whosoever thou art that undervaluest human fortune, bethink thee what blessings our Father has bestowed upon ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... the bridle, and the animal slowly and steadily commenced the descent, fixing his fore legs upon the steps, and drawing his hinder limbs carefully after him. Here it was that the lightness and steadiness of Turpin's mare was completely shown. No Alpine mule could have borne its rider with more apparent ease and safety. Turpin encouraged her by hand and word; but she needed it not. The sexton ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... did," laughed Billy, with the lightness of a long-lost child who has found a friend. "Why, I ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... peevish. I looked at him with wonder. He leaped past me, with a forced agility, and sprang on upward. I followed with lightness born of thought, with which the true ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... his disclaimer, and yet under her momentary lightness he still perceived something of the strong current of bitter sadness which had so profoundly moved him at the inquest and which still remained unexplained; therefore he hesitated about referring ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... the same merry lightness with which it was received by the others; but after the train had pulled out and she was on her way home she remembered Helen's words and looks with something almost amounting to a shock. Any mention of Stewart, any ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... unappreciated. This practice first gave to the metal gold an arbitrary value which it did not possess before. For the peculiar life-giving attributes of the shells modelled in the yellow metal came to be transferred to the gold itself. No doubt the lightness and especially the beauty of such gold models appealed to the early Egyptians, and were in large measure responsible for the hold gold acquired over mankind. But this was an outcome of the empirical knowledge gained ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... had been old friends meeting after a separation. "You wait upon me yourself?" he asked. "I am served like the gods!" She had waited upon a great many people, but none of them had ever told her that. The observation added a certain lightness to the step with which she went to a little table where there were some curious red glasses—glasses covered with little gold sprigs, which Charlotte used to dust every morning with her own hands. Gertrude thought the glasses very handsome, and it was a pleasure to her to know that ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... explode while I stood there, in my nightshirt, looking on. It is true that the box weighed very little. Probably, as I have said, the whole affair would not have turned the scale at a couple of ounces. But then its very lightness might have been part of the ingenious inventor's little game. There are explosives with which one can work a very satisfactory amount of damage with considerably less ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... into plow metal made an appeal to him. Being a metal-worker and knowing much of the history of the metals, he knew of the "Toledo blade"—that secret and marvelous invention with its tremendous strength, keen cutting edge and lightness. To make a moldboard as finely tempered in its way as a "Toledo blade" was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... head, almost invariably fastened with clusters of natural roses; some of these mantillas were marvels of costly work, and fell shadow-like over those soft summer dresses, giving them a graceful and cloud-like lightness. All Seville was on foot, no carriages are permitted in the street during the holy week. Poor and rich were, for the time, on a perfect level, and each came forth well dressed and radiant, to honor the most interesting spectacle known ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... Spanish, Sensuality Jasmine, Yellow, Grace Judas Tree, Betrayal Juniper, Succour Justicia, Perfection Kennedia, Mental Beauty Kingcups, Desire of Riches Laburnum, Pensive Beauty Lady's Slipper, Win Me Lagerstroemia, Eloquence Lantana, Rigour Larch, Audacity Larkspur, Lightness, Levity Larkspur, Double, Happiness Larkspur, Pink, Fickleness Larkspur, Purple, Haughtiness Laurel, Glory Laurel, Common, Perfidy Laurel, Ground, Perseverance Laurel, Mountain, Ambition Lavender, Distrust Leaves, Dead, Sadness Lemon, Zest Lemon Blossom, Fidelity ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... the epigrams of comedy reach their high-water mark; in contrast to them is another class in which the lightness is a little forced and the humour touches cynicism. In these the natural brutality of the Roman mind makes the Latin epigram heavier and keener-pointed; the greater number indeed of the Greek epigrams of this complexion are of the Roman period; ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... mine? The tempter or the tempted, who sins most? Ha! Not she; nor doth she tempt: but it is I 165 That, lying by the violet in the sun, Do as the carrion does, not as the flower, Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be That modesty may more betray our sense Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough, 170 Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary, And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie! What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo? Dost thou desire her foully for those things That make her good? O, let her brother live: 175 Thieves ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... re-entering the Castle, was with its young Lord, who received him with his usual kindness and lightness of humour. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... nor any of the Surrenden circle made presence of gladness at the new dignity for, with all his gaiety of manner and lightness of wit, he took dark views of himself, none the lighter for their humor, and his obedience to the President's order was the gloomiest acquiescence he had ever smiled. Adams took dark views, too, not so much on Hay's account as on his own, for, while Hay had at least the honors of office, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... thy servant is,'" he quoted lightly. But beneath the lightness she divined a pain that she could not wholly fathom. Quite aware of her power, Miss Polly Brewster was now, for one of the few times in her life, stricken with contrition for her use ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... ideas of married life were a sort of good-fellowship and admiration, if the woman was pretty; good cooking and a desire to please among the commoner ones. At four and twenty he had not given the matter much consideration. Madame Giffard was full thirty, but she looked like a girl in her lightness and grace. And he owed the memory of M. Giffard something. This step would make amends and allay a troublesome sort of conscience ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... 2. Through lightness of heart and neglect of our shortcomings we feel not the sorrows of our soul, but often vainly laugh when we have good cause to weep. There is no true liberty nor real joy, save in the fear of God with a good conscience. Happy is he who can cast away every cause of distraction ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... Elkusch, five miles. We suffered much this day because of the snow, and that the lightness of our dress was ill suited to such severe weather. Schell, negligently, lost our purse, in which were nine florins. I had still, however, nineteen grosch in my ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... hand with his wonted graceful lightness of manner, he walked on with her, leaving the other two to ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... attack of sleepiness," Charley said with assumed lightness. "I feel all done up to-night. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... She looked charming with her great boa tied about her throat, and sprang into the dog-cart all lightness and joy. ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... her. The places where she came upon Aunt Hester were strange and lovely places where the air one breathed smelled like flowers and everything was lovely in a new way, and when one moved one felt so light that movement was delightful, and when one wakened one had not quite got over the lightness and for a few moments felt as if one would ...
— In the Closed Room • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... which is known as a steam horse in a watch case. Gradually the results of the pile of which Captains Krebs and Renard had kept the secret had been surpassed, and aeronauts had become able to avail themselves of motors whose lightness increased at the same time as ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... cracking jokes, he was exercising himself, or his countrymen, or at farthest his successors, in the use of the vernacular tongues with the same lightness and brightness. When he ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... a moderate oven from 15 to 20 minutes. Pin a white napkin round the tin, strew sifted sugar over the top of the souffle, and send it immediately to table. The proper appearance of this dish depends entirely on the expedition with which it is served, and some cooks, to preserve its lightness, hold a salamander over the souffle until it is placed on the table. If allowed to stand after it comes from the oven, it will be entirely spoiled, as it ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... with a peculiar richness in its platted coils, an unconsciously faultless poise of head, and, equally unconscious, a dreamy softness of sweeping lashes. As she laughed with the General her student noted further what seemed to him a rare silkiness in the tresses, a vapory lightness in the short strands that played over the outlines of temple and forehead, and the unstudied daintiness with which they gathered into the merest mist of a short curl ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... laws of gravitation. Elusive fascinations of thought were liberated with the shining crystalline aerial pulsation; some mysterious attraction dwelt down long vistas amongst the bare trees; their fine fibrous grace of branch and twig was accented by the snow, which lay upon them with exquisite lightness, despite the aggregated bulk, not the densely packed effect which the boughs would show to-morrow. The crags were crowned; their grim faces looked frowningly out like a warrior's from beneath a wreath. Nowhere could the brown ground be seen; already the pine boughs bent, the needles ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the authors. Zozaya, Morote and Dicenta have passed for many years now as terrible men, both destructive and great innovators. But how ridiculous! Zozaya, like Dicenta, has never done anything but manipulate the commonplace, failing to impart either lightness or novelty to it, as have Valera and Anatole France, succeeding only on the other hand in making it ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... moved upon this earth a shape of brightness, A power, that from its objects scarcely drew One impulse of her being—in her lightness Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew, Which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue, To nourish some far desert: she did seem Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew, Like the bright shade of some immortal ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... was chill and grey. He felt bad. His first act, unconscious and automatic, was to feel for his sack. Its lightness startled him. Then, slowly, memories of the night thronged into his brain. Rough voices disturbed him. He opened his eyes and peered out from under the table. A couple of early risers, or, rather, men who had been out on trail ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... to be reflected in them in his brightness, and they went, hand in hand, along the bank, looking at the shoals of little fish swimming near the bank, and they went on brimming over with happiness, as if they were raised from the earth in their lightness of heart. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... refinement, the subtlest and best, showed in all her ways. He studied her, as he would have studied a strange, showy and originally fragrant flower, or a bird of oddly attractive plumage. While she said little to him or to anyone else in his presence, he became aware of the willfulness and joyous lightness which played on her nature's changeable surface. He wondered at her influence over Father Beret, whom she controlled apparently without effort. But in due time he began to feel a deeper character, a broader intelligence, behind her ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... to the place where the frigate lay, was only three miles, yet, in consequence of the lightness of the wind, they did not get within hail of her until eleven o'clock. When they had approached within two hundred yards, they were hailed and ordered to anchor, or they would be fired into. Lieutenant Decatur ordered a Maltese pilot, who was on board the ketch, to answer that they ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... tribunes in a beautiful taste: but of all delight, is what they call the abbot's cloister. It is the very thing that you would build, when you had extracted all the quintessence of trefoils, arches, and lightness. In the church is a star-window of eight points, that is ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... to the mantel-piece dominated by Cytherea. Here, he addressed himself silently to the doll, you're responsible for this. Get me out of it. I'll put it all in your hands, that hand you have raised and hold half open and empty. But his, he added, in an embittered lightness, was an affair of matrimony; it was a moral knot; and it had nothing to do with Cytherea, with the shape, the sea, the island, of ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... any of the mistrusting," said Bartley, with humorous lightness. "But isn't sacred rather a strong word to use in regard ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... blue, yellow, red, white, and their combinations, as also the visual forms of appearance (sa@msthana) of long, short, round, square, high, low, straight, and crooked. The sense of touch (kayendriya) has for its object the four elements and the qualities of smoothness, roughness, lightness, heaviness, cold, hunger and thirst. These qualities represent the feelings generated in sentient beings by the objects of touch, hunger, thirst, etc., and are also counted under it, as they are the organic effects produced by a touch which excites the physical frame at a time when the ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... though the people applauded and encored her"—there was a gleam of disdain in the golden eyes—"but she was very pretty ... she danced with wonderful grace and lightness ... it was like a swallow dipping and darting over the shallows of the river-shore—like a branch of red pomegranate-blossoms swayed and swung by a spring breeze.... I admired her, and yet I was sorry for her.... To have to pose and bound and whirl before all ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... was sorry because Aunt Anne was dead, and he was more and more conscious of the unbecoming lightness and freedom where he found himself at the death of Aunt Anne. He had not dared acknowledge it to himself. He couldn't, for shame. But whereas, in the past years, when he ventured to formulate his own life a little and see what it had done ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... much upon her, spite of the lightness of the breeze (a circumstance in our favor: the chase being a ship, and we but a boat), at my comrade's instigation, we added oars to sails, readily guiding our way by the former, though the ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... for dishes, cups, trays, trenchers, &c. as the joyner for tables, inlayings, and for the delicateness of the grain, when the knurs and nodosities are rarely diapred, which does much advance its price: Our turners will work it so thin, that it is almost transparent: Also for the lightness (under the name Aier) imploy'd often by those who make musical instruments: Also that especially, which grows in Friuli, Carniola, and Saltzburglandt: There is a larger sort, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... either by the sons of Bassano or by others. Bassano's style varied considerably during his lifetime. He naturally was at first a copier of his father, but his productions in this style are not of great value. He was then strongly attracted by the lightness and beautiful colouring of Titian, and finally adopted the style which is recognized as his own. Although he painted few great pictures, and preferred humble subjects, yet his altar-piece of the Nativity at Bassano is estimated highly by the best judges, and in Lanzi's opinion is the finest work ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... toil has, however, its peculiar temptations. When overwrought, and in my depressed moods, I learned to regard the ardent spirits of the dram-shop as high luxuries: they gave lightness and energy to both body and mind, and substituted for a state of dulness and gloom, one of exhilaration and enjoyment. Usquebaugh was simply happiness doled out by the glass, and sold by the gill. The drinking usages of the profession in which I laboured were at this time many: when ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... (1787) we find an advertisement put out by Thomas Folgham, of Cheapside, stating that he has "a great assortment of his much-approved pocket and portable umbrellas, which for lightness, elegance, and strength, far exceed anything of the kind ever imported or manufactured in this kingdom. All kinds of common umbrellas prepared in a particular way, ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... advanced; and of course the enemy's ships came up with the wind, forming a bow and quarter line. The ships were therefore obliged to edge away, to keep in the wake of their leaders; and this manoeuvre, from the lightness of the wind, the unmanageable state of the ships in a heavy swell, and, we may add, the inexperience of the enemy, not being performed with facility and celerity, undesignedly threw the combined fleets ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... distance is reached. Such progressive vibrations are known as waves, and, since they act as stimuli to the organs of hearing, they are called sound waves. Sound waves always originate in vibrating bodies.(116) They are transmitted chiefly by the air, which, because of its lightness, elasticity, and abundance, readily takes up the vibrations and spreads them in ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... drier in the kiln, seated close to a great heap of hops and inhaling the odour, I was in a condition of agreeable excitement all the evening. My mind was full of fancy, imagination, flowing with ideas; a sense of lightness and joyousness lifted me up. I wanted music, and felt full of laughter. Like the half-fabled haschish, the golden bloom of the hops had entered the nervous system; intoxication without wine, without injurious after-effect, dream intoxication; they were wine for ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... true one. But, because it is fit you should have Reasons, in Support of a Judgment that can neither deserve nor expect an implicit Reception, I will run over the Anonymous Letter I herewith return you; and note with what Lightness even Men of good-natur'd Intention fall into Mistakes, by Neglect in too hasty Perusals, which their Benevolence wou'd take Pleasure in blushing at, when they discover their Weakness, in ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... startled to find how invariably the scales tipped; how lightly an historical Mont, born of a miracle, crowned by the noblest buildings, a pious Mecca for saints and kings innumerable, shot up like feathers in lightness when overweighted by the modern realities of a perfectly appointed inn, the cooking and eating of an omelet of omelets, and the all-conquering ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... 45 deg. is indeed what we should have expected a priori since we found that objective heaviness is balanced by a movement out from the center on the mechanical principle. If movement out and objective heaviness are in general alike in effect, then movement in and objective lightness should be alike in effect, as we have found to be the case from the preceding experiments. The inward-pointed line does not actually move in, it is true, but it strongly suggests the completion of the movement. It enters into the 'mechanical' equation—it appears ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... mind, and for a considerable period his productions showed evident traces of that painter's influence. Some of his latest pieces approach rather to the manner of his great contemporary Guido, and are painted with more lightness and clearness. Guercino was esteemed very highly in his lifetime, not only by the nobles and princes of Italy, but by his brother artists, who placed him in the first rank of painters. He was remarkable for the extreme rapidity of his execution; he completed no ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... smile as she gave Stillman a nod of recognition. "Fancy any girl forgetting so much gorgeousness!" she exclaimed with an attempt at lightness, but Claire caught the covert rancor in her voice, and as her aunt made a movement of escape she put out a ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... professional work made itself felt in an extreme zest and lightness of spirit. It was a very happy and delightful time. I was living among friends who were all very hard at work, and the very contrast of my freedom with their servitude was enlivening. I was able, too, to think over ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... you good-natured dears," she said with an attempt at lightness. Then, hearing the thin rustle of a dress, she turned sharply and cast an unfriendly glance at a mild young woman with a very pointed nose, on which a pair of eyeglasses sat astride, who came meekly forward, looking self-conscious, and smiling with one side of her mouth. The man with the ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... the memory of Doctor Hale,—with the passage on this latest floating palace of the ocean, the Kaiser Wilhelm II.,—and he realizes how far science has penetrated into the more subtle forces, where lightness and speed take the place of clumsy device and slow motion. To go up to the hurricane deck of the wonderful Kaiser Wilhelm and look down through the openings on the six mighty engines, with their intense throb of vibration ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... with terror. Instead of summoning a physician, to ascertain the nature of her symptoms, he called a negro and his cart from Bush Hill. In vain the neighbours interceded for this unhappy victim. In vain she implored his clemency, and asserted the lightness of her indisposition. She besought him to allow her to send to her mother, who resided a few miles in the country, who would hasten to her succour, and relieve him and his family from the danger and trouble ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... took their leave. Only the friends of Gonzague remained in the room, and they stood apart, eying their master dubiously, uncertain whether he would wish them to go or to stay. Chavernay took it upon himself, with his usual lightness of heart, to play their spokesman. He advanced ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... discovered that it was actually a new formation of fresh-water ice on the lower side of the old ice, due to the layer of fresh water of about 9 feet 9 inches (3 metres) in depth, formed by the melting of the snow on the ice. Owing to its lightness this warm fresh water floated on the salt sea-water, which was at a temperature of about -1.5 deg. C. on its surface. Thus by contact with the colder sea-water the fresh water became cooler, and so a thick crust of ice was formed on the fresh water, where it came in contact with the salt water lying ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... forthwith. He was a bland, round little man, rather too fat for one's conceptions of what a policeman ought to be, yet with that lightness of foot that so many stout ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... reinforcements. They crossed the harbour, paused for a while beside the Adler—it is supposed for ammunition—and drew near the Matautu shore. The Mataafa men lay close among the shore-side bushes, expecting their arrival; when a silly lad, in mere lightness of heart, fired a shot in the air. My native friend, Mrs. Mary Hamilton, ran out of her house and gave the culprit a good shaking: an episode in the midst of battle as incongruous as the grazing cow. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... well, then," said Mrs. Munger, with the utmost lightness and indifference, "we'll drop the idea of the invited supper ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... Unfortunately the relative weight of the two lots of seeds was ascertained in only a few instances in which their germination was observed; but with Ipomoea and I believe with some of the other species, the relative lightness of the self-fertilised seeds apparently determined their early germination, probably owing to the smaller mass being favourable to the more rapid completion of the chemical and morphological changes necessary for germination. On the other hand, Mr. Galton gave me ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... to be a mountain," said he, with ponderous lightness, "and have angels in blue climb up you instead ...
— Options • O. Henry
... lightness of the offence divested the commencement of the trial of much of that importance and apparent dignity which attach themselves to most celebrated criminal cases. The prisoner was not bidden to look upon the juror, nor the juror to look upon the ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... her answer: "No," she said stoutly. "Though, of course," she added with an attempt at lightness, "I'd prefer to cross on ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... chances were against him, even with his disguise, but he was bound to enter the Indian camp, and he was prepared to incur all risks and to endure all penalties. He even felt a certain lightness of heart as he hurried on his way, and at length saw through the forest the flare of light from ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Suma seemed to flow over the ground, looking neither to right nor left, the massive paws falling with the lightness of leaves dropping from the trees. A frightened agouti scampered across her path and stopped, frozen with fear, and a green ribbon-like snake drooping in festoons from a low-growing branch hastily drew up its coils as the big ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... have done so, even if he had wanted to?)—he persisted in the futile and unequal fight with his publisher, provoked by his own vanity. He wasted his time, his strength, his money, and his only weapons, since in the lightness of his heart he was rash enough to deprive himself of the publicity which his music ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... himself, but the eyes of an expert would have discovered the secret of her speed at once. You had but to look for a moment at the rake of her stern, her long, narrow keel, her tall masts, to see the cut of her sails, the wonderful lightness of her rigging, and the ease and perfect seamanship with which her crew trimmed her sails to the wind. Everything about her gave the impression of the security of power in this delicately curved inanimate creature, swift and intelligent as a greyhound or some bird of prey. ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... the girl, it roused in him a hunger to draw from the well of her perfect health, from the unused vigor of her being, something for himself. The touch of her hands warmed him. In the fulness of her life, in the strong eloquence of face and form, he forgot she was not beautiful. The lightness passed from his words, and his ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... serviceable, but not to be compared with the Indian canoes, which were made of the bark of trees, wrought with great skill into a beautiful shape. The birch canoe was an admirable structure, combining elements and principles which modern naval architecture may well study to imitate. In lightness, rapidity, freedom and ease of motion, it has not been, and cannot be, surpassed. Its draft, even when bearing a considerable burden, was so slight, that it would glide over the shallowest bars. It was strong, durable, and easily kept in repair. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... song, and light, and flowers! Gust on gust, the harsh winds blow— Come, bind up those ringlet showers! Roses for that dreaming brow! Come, once more that ancient lightness, Glancing feet, and eager eyes! Let your broad lamps flash the brightness ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... breathless and there was a forced lightness in her tone which did not escape him. He bent a ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... of bows. In war two were used—the cross-bow and the long-bow. The cross-bow was meant at first for the defence of towns, like Genoa or the towns of Castile. So strength was more important than lightness, and the archer had time to take aim. It was a bow on a cross piece of wood, along which the string was drawn back peg after peg by mechanism. The bow was then held to the breast, and the arrow let off. It was clumsy, heavy, ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... acquire the ponderous movements and weight of manner of smaller wits and duller brains. In the girl, quiescence was the natural outcome of womanly reserve; in the Boy, it would have been mere affectation. His lightness and brightness were his great charm at present, a charm, however, which was much enhanced by moments of thoughtfulness, which gave glimpses of another nature beneath, with more substantial qualities. The Tenor had soon perceived that he was not all ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... in frosty weather) made them look forward with pleasant anticipation to the comforts which awaited them at their hospitable entertainer's. It was the sort of afternoon that might induce a couple of elderly gentlemen, in a lonely field, to take off their greatcoats and play at leap-frog in pure lightness of heart and gaiety; and we firmly believe that had Mr. Tupman at that moment proffered 'a back,' Mr. Pickwick would have accepted his offer with the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... pitcher from the bench by the wall she went out, and, sheltered by the ridge of rocks behind which the cottage stood, made her way to the spring which dripped from a crack in the cliffs. While she waited for the pitcher to fill, she sang, in sheer lightness of heart, the old ballad which not only floated on the air of Abersethin and its neighbourhood, but which she had heard her mother sing in the ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... mallets, and rubbed together into fibers. After this being dried in the sun, you may spin it, just like hemp, or any similar substance. The fiber thus produced makes very strong and durable ropes, extremely well adapted, from their lightness and durability, for the running rigging of a ship; while the same causes, united with its great strength and buoyancy, render it very suitable for large cables ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... nart, to which they are harnessed is about ten feet in length and two in width, made of seasoned birch timber, and combines to a surprising degree the two most desirable qualities of strength and lightness. It is simply a skeleton framework, fastened together with lashings of dried sealskin, and mounted on broad, curved runners. No iron whatever is used in its construction, and it does not weigh more than twenty pounds; yet it will sustain a load of four or five ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... among the stately trunks of the solemn pines, made his way to the river. On its bank were drawn up many canoes, over which Chitta glanced hastily, but with a practised eye. In a moment he selected one that promised to combine lightness with speed, noiselessly launched it, and stepped into it. Grasping a paddle, he headed the stolen craft down the river, and was quickly buried in the mist that rose ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... was still attractive to him. He wondered why she had no shades of feeling to correspond to her natural grace and lightness of movement, to the gentle, almost wistful attitudes of body in which he sometimes surprised her. When he came in from work and found her sitting on the porch, leaning against a pillar, her hands clasped about her knees, her head drooping a little, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... mistaken. Almost immediately, however, there came from the direction of the hall a dull chunky sound as though something soft had been kicked, followed by a low gurgle and the noise of staggering feet. Unless he was dancing a pas seul out of sheer lightness of heart, the nocturnal visitor ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... his glass; and they all laughed at her subsequent gasping. Jasper Penny was astoundingly happy; his being radiated a warmth and contentment more potent than that of the St. Croix rum. It was accompanied by an extraordinary lightness of spirit, a feeling of the desirability of life. The memory of his greying hair had left him; not, it was true, to be replaced by the surging emotions of youth, but by a ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... most buoyant creature that runs. His soft wrapping of fur conceals the muscular play and effort that is so obvious in the hound that pursues him, and he comes bounding along precisely as if blown by a gentle wind. His massive tail is carried as if it floated upon the air by its own lightness. ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... you think for a moment I'd let you take that ride alone?" She smiled faintly with a brave attempt at lightness. "You'd be falling off and breaking another rib. Please don't make difficulties. I'm going with you, and that's an end ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... with an attempt at lightness. "He won't listen to reason—nor to bribery and corruption—" this last was said openly and with a smile that robbed the ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... leaping at him like a wild animal; I feel the tightening of the big neck muscles as my fingers closed on his throat; I feel a soft breath of night air as we neared the open window; then in my hands a sudden lightness, and in my ears a ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... at this juncture that the young woman was not particularly distressed. Instead, her rather pretty face was full of eagerness and there was a certain lightness in her manner that puzzled him for the moment. Her companion was the older of the two and quite as prepossessing. Both were neatly dressed and both looked as though they were or had been bread-winners. If they had a secret, it was now quite evident to this shrewd, ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... the garden and he was glad enough to escape so, a little shaken, but without a scratch. The group composed of Feodor and his friends were strangely protected by the lightness of the datcha's construction. The iron staircase, which, so to speak, almost hung to the two floors, being barely attached at top and bottom, raised under them and then threw them off as it broke into a thousand pieces, but ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... live in herds, five, ten, and sometimes twenty together. They are merry, wise creatures, graceful and agile in their movements, and spring from cliff to cliff and across chasms with extraordinary lightness and sureness of foot. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... rooms were finished, according to their several purposes. Cleanliness and order prevailed throughout. Above all, the large panes of plate-glass contributed towards a perfect lightness, which had been wanting in the old house for many causes, but chiefly on account of the panes, which were for the most part round. My father was cheerful on account of the success of his undertaking; and if his good humor had not been often interrupted because the diligence and exactness ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... device used to insure the girl's continued agility and lightness of foot. As long as the hidden stick remains unbroken the girl ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... battle forever than to risk a single wound. Not so are victories either over enemies or over nature gained. Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf. At any rate, it seems the fittest thing for the ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... What of the girl he had seen at her father's camp, the heart's desire of the rugged old Scotchman? In the lightness of her step, in the lift of her head, in speech and gesture and expression of face, she was of the white race, an inheritor of its civilization and of its traditions. Only her dusky color and a certain wild shyness seemed ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... stairs his lightness counted. His bare feet made no sound. He could hear behind him the great mass of Humbert, hurling itself down. Haeckel ran as he had never run before. The last flight now, with the concierge well behind, ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... world is a heavy heart. Next to that, the most burdensome to the walker is a heart not in perfect sympathy and accord with the body,—a reluctant or unwilling heart. The horse and rider must not only both be willing to go the same way, but the rider must lead the way and infuse his own lightness and eagerness into the steed. Herein is no doubt our trouble, and one reason of the decay of the noble art in this country. We are unwilling walkers. We are not innocent and simple-hearted enough to enjoy a walk. We have fallen from that state of grace ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... hours before had voluntarily confessed her love for one man, and was on the eve of compulsorily giving herself up to another one. Had it been any one else but Natasha, Arnold could have felt only disgust; but his love made it impossible for him to believe her guilty of such unworthy lightness as her words bespoke, even on the plain evidence before him, so he simply choked back his anger as best he might, and followed towards the house, speechless with astonishment at the marvellous change that had come ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... all the taxi windows and was struck with the architectural beauties of the streets. With the exception of Munich I have never seen a modern town comparable to New York. The colour of the stone and lightness of the air would put vitality into a corpse; and in spite of a haunting recollection that the lady in the gallery had had enough of me, I returned to the Ambassador happy ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... work in India, and employed the spare time that missionary work left him in bringing his invention to a workable state. The invention is described as a 'box which with the aid of clockwork rises in the air, and goes with such lightness and strong rapidity that it succeeds in flying a journey of seven leagues in an hour. It is made in the fashion of a bird; the wings from end to end are 25 feet in extent. The body is composed of cork, artistically joined together and well fastened ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... as characteristic of the Gaulish race." At all events, the language of the Gauls disappeared in Central France to make way for the language or the Capital—the modern French, founded on the Latin. The Gaulish race, nevertheless, preserved their characteristics—quickness, lightness, mobility, and elasticity—qualities which enabled them quickly to conceive new ideas, and at the same time to quickly abandon them. The Franks had given the country the name it now bears—that of France. ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... walked with a peculiar, rolling motion of the body. He certainly was stout. There were no angles about him anywhere, nothing but rotundity. Withal, and despite the curious, rotary gait, there was a suggestion of quickness and of well-balanced lightness about all his movements. His hands and feet I thought quite remarkably small. There was a short section of the bole of a large tree, with a flattened base, lying on the ground near the stairway. The gentleman subsided ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... to be asked, o' course," said Mr. Kybird, with an attempt at dignity, rendered necessary by a certain lightness in his friend's manner. "The old woman don't like the Nugent lot, but ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... that of Epicurus, magnificam vocem, an heroical speech, "A fool still begins to live," and accounts it a filthy lightness in men, every day to lay new foundations of their life, but who doth otherwise? One travels, another builds; one for this, another for that business, and old folks are as far out as the rest; O dementem senectutem, Tully exclaims. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... expensive business. The balloons were made of the finest, lightest Japanese silk, carefully prepared and still more vigorously tested. They were made by the most famous of the world's balloon-makers, Lachambre, and required the spending of money unstintedly. The motors cost according to their lightness rather than their weight, and all the materials, cordage, metal-work, etc., were expensive for the same reason. The cost of the hydrogen gas was very great also, at twenty cents per cubic meter (thirty-five cubic feet); and as at each ascension all ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... his wonted graceful lightness of manner he walked on with her, leaving the other ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... The lightness of the new peer's tone revolted Maltravers, and he turned impatiently away. But Lord Vargrave, resolving not to suffer the conversation to glide back to sorrowful subjects, which he always hated, turned round to Ernest, and said, "Well, my dear Ernest, I see by the papers ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shown, from the moment we got to sea, that he was to have no boy's play, but that the ship was to carry all she could, and that he was going to make up by "cracking on'' to her what she wanted in lightness. In this way we frequently made three degrees of latitude, besides something in longitude, in the course of twenty-four hours. Our days we spent in the usual ship's work. The rigging which had become slack from being long in port was to be set up; breast backstays got up; studding-sail ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... O brawling love! O loving hate! O anything, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness! serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... silence, refrain from brushing a fly off the nose, or suppress a cough or sneeze. The same exhibition of collective action is seen in the care with which the children move to avoid making a noise during their work. The lightness with which they run on tiptoe, the grace with which they shut a cupboard, or lay an object on the table, these are qualities that must be acquired by all, if the environment is to become tranquil and free from disturbance. ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... saddle with the lightness of a man of half his years, and his eyes rested on the pack-saddle on ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... aborigines are the birch-builders. They detect by the river-side the tree barked with material for canoes. They strip it, and fashion an artistic vessel, which civilization cannot better. Launched in the fairy lightness of this, and speeding over foamy waters between forest-solitudes, one discovers, as if he were the first to know it, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... looking at Gunson as if he thought him mad. "Leave fo' Indian man come find? No. Quong set him." And going quickly and delicately over the stones with a step that was almost cat-like in its lightness, he had reached my bundle almost before Gunson could protest. Swinging it up on his head as he turned, he began to come back as quickly as he went, but now he began to ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... glad. Sometimes they think of the ashes and cinders and wonder whether the pleasure will last. Then the lightness goes out of their feet and the smiles from their rosy lips. The thing is to enjoy it while you are here. You are a very delightful Cinderella; I must ask godmother to keep a watch over you. I ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... long story, become very tiresome because of its want of weight and grasp, and the temptations it offers to a weak rhymester to stuff it with endless tags. But for a short tale in deft hands it can apply its lightness in the best fashion, and put its points with no lack of sting. The fabliau-writer or reciter was not required—one imagines that he would have found scant audiences if he had tried it—to spin a long yarn; he had got to come to his jokes and his business pretty rapidly; and, as La Fontaine ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... receiver, since as transmitters and receivers they are practically the same as those in ordinary use for other purposes. The watch-case receiver is nearly always employed for operators' purposes on account of its lightness and compactness. It is used in connection with a head band so as to be held continually at the operator's ear, allowing both of her hands to ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... leaned over the world, a dark care, an immovable fate, bearing down with the weight of his presence all aspiration, all budding delights of children and young persons: all must crouch before him, and uphold his glory with the sacrificial death of every impulse, every admiration, every lightness of heart, every bubble of laughter. Or—which to a mind like Robert's was as bad—if he did not punish for these things, it was because they came not within the sphere of his condescension, were not worth his notice: of sympathy ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... with a mixture of kaolin and Mellville gravel clay, and the gear is packed in the carburizing material. Bohnite, a commercial carburizing compound is used exclusively at this plant. This does excellent work and is economical. Broadly speaking, the economy of a carburizing compound depends on its lightness. The space not occupied by work must be filled with compound; therefore) other things being equal, a compound weighing 25 lb. would be worth more than twice as much as one weighing 60 lb. per cubic foot. It has been claimed that certain compounds can be used over and over again, ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... to sing like the birds, from "lightness of heart, and very joy of living." After a few moments' silence, a bird-song was whistled by the "mates in the tree," eliciting strong words of praise, as well as surprise, ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... carpeted with powdered pearls and kept in place by a thousand dewy strands hanging from above like the chains of a lamp and supporting them from below like the anchors of a vessel. These little airy edifices had all the fantastic lightness of the elf-world and all the vaporous freshness of dawn. They recalled to me the poetry of the north, wafting to me a breath from Caledonia or Iceland or Sweden, Frithiof and the Edda, Ossian and the Hebrides. All that world of cold and mist, of genius and of reverie, where ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Chaucer preserves his own distinct personality. If he quizzes in the rime of Sir Thopaz the wearisome idleness of the French romance he retains all that was worth retaining of the French temper, its rapidity and agility of movement, its lightness and brilliancy of touch, its airy mockery, its gaiety and good humour, its critical coolness and self-control. The French wit quickens in him more than in any English writer the sturdy sense and shrewdness of our national disposition, corrects its extravagance, and relieves its somewhat ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... monkey, till at last he reached the branch which bore the nest, where he stooped puzzled, for Mrs and Mr Passer must have had an eye to safety when they constructed their nest; for unless Master Harry had possessed the activity and lightness of body of the old cock jackdaw he was so lately talking about, there was no chance of his getting any of the ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... the envy of the British, who imitated their models without success and tried to utilize them for cruisers when captured, but destroyed their sailing qualities by altering their rig and strengthening their hulls at the expense of lightness and symmetry. ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... its height. The central aisle is one hundred and thirty-two feet in altitude,—only surpassed by that of Beauvais, which is fourteen feet higher. It was then that the cathedral of Rouen was built, with its elegant lightness,—a marvel to modern travellers. Soon after, the cathedral of Cologne appears, more grand than either,—but left unfinished,—with its central aisle forty-four feet in width, rising one hundred and forty feet into the air, with ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... impressed by my son's work and the beauty that he brought on to the stage of the Imperial, wrote to me that the symbolism of the first act according to Ibsen should be Dawn, youth rising with the morning sun, reconciliation, rich gifts, brightness, lightness, pleasant feelings, peace. On to this sunlit scene stalks Hiordis, a figure of gloom, revenge, of feud eternal, of relentless hatred and uncompromising unforgetfulness of wrong. At the Imperial, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... cruelly thoughtless," I said, in a voice that trembled slightly. Then, catching up the paper, I continued, with attempted lightness, "We have found this journal, that we mutually read, a fruitful theme. What do you think of ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... not inspired by any deeper motive than the common run of contemporaneous drawing-room verses, those of Charles of Orleans are executed with inimitable lightness and delicacy of touch. They deal with floating and colourless sentiments, and the writer is never greatly moved, but he seems always genuine. He makes no attempt to set off thin conceptions with a multiplicity of phrases. His ballades are generally ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she thought, after a little over an hour that the first expected movement made itself felt—a long trembling shudder through the wood beneath her hands, followed by a strange sensation of lightness, as if the whole table rose a little from the floor. Then, almost before the movement subsided, a torrent of little taps poured itself out, as delicate and as swift and, it seemed, as perfectly calculated, as the rapping of some minute electric hammer. This was new to her, yet ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... countenance that spoke the lightness of her heart, hastily took her leave, saying she did not dare be out longer, lest her mother should discover her excursion. Cecilia insisted, however, upon her going in a chair, which she ordered her servant to attend, and ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... the halfway point; the acceleration rate decreased, and the gravity indicator dropped, little by little. Everybody was enjoying the new sense of lightness, romping and skylarking like newly landed tourists on Luna. It was fun, as long as they landed on their feet at each jump, and the food and liquids stayed on plates and in glasses and cups. Yves Jacquemont began posting ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... whether the occupants of this house were at home or not. The place had evidently been in the hands of painters and cleaners since he saw it last: the stone-work was scrupulously white, the wood-work was painted a delicate green. The visitor lifted his well-defined eyebrows at the lightness of the color, as he turned to the door and rang the bell. It was easy to see that he was an observant man, upon whose eyes very few things ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... herself a little over this when Hope returned with a long thin band of white Indian cotton, steeped in water, and, taking her hand gently, began to bind her wrist with great lightness and delicacy. And as he bound it he said, "There, the ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... early hour of the day when it was announced that the meeting would be held, groups of colored people of all ages and both sexes began to assemble. They were all talking earnestly as they came, for some matter of unusual interest seemed to have usurped for the moment their accustomed lightness and jollity of demeanor. Nimbus, as the most prosperous and substantial colored man of the region, had always maintained a decided leadership among them, all the more from the fact that he had sought thereby to obtain no advantage for ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... Maggie, rather indifferently. Indeed, it seemed as if her lightness of heart had suddenly failed her. "Well, perhaps he is deeply involved in schemes for the resurrection of the Polish kingdom, or something of ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... St. Louis now bids fair to rival ere long the "Queen of the West;" Mr. Irving describes her as a small trading place, where trappers, half-breeds, gay, frivolous Canadian boatmen, &c., &c., congregated and revelled, with that lightness and buoyancy of spirit inherited from their French forefathers; the indolent Creole of St. Louis caring for little more than the enjoyment of the present hour; a motley population, half-civilized, half-barbarous, thrown, on his canvas, into one general, confused ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... no selfish happiness he felt. He thought of his mother and sisters at home,—of all those to whom he was indebted; and in the lightness of his spirit, after its heavy burden had been taken away, he lifted up his heart in thanksgiving to the Giver of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... topics—if they come in the way—are made use of for the purpose of insinuating or enforcing some useful truth. Point and epigram are the last things thought of; and therefore it is that Pope's translations, admirable as in themselves they are, fail to give an idea of the lightness of touch, the shifting lights and shades, the carelessness alternating with force, the artless natural manner, which distinguish these charming essays. "The terseness of Horace's language in his Satires," it has been ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... friends," said the President, with a good-humoured seriousness, "let me tell you that the position of either of you is no joke. It is too serious for any lightness and for any passion. I do not want to hear a word about your grievances. I see quite enough. I see a lady driven from home, deprived of her children, and tormenting herself with thoughts of revenge because she has no other object. I see ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... a wondrous rustling everywhere! The steady shadows shook and thinned and died, The shining grass flashed brightness back for brightness, And sleep was gone, and there was heavenly lightness. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... their rows of impatient and outstretched muzzles; and the first glimmers of light creeping over the layers of stones that supported the embankment of the park, lit up the figure of the old woman, running in the dew, with the lightness of a girl, despite her seventy years—verifying exactly each morning all the wealth of the domain, anxious to make sure that the night had not taken away the statues and the vases, uprooted the hundred-year-old quincunx, dried up the springs which filtered into ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... I found a lady travelling—from Sasellano, I understood; and I had the privilege of aiding her to cross the ford." Dieppe spoke with a calculated lightness. ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... yellowish-white of the walls; on one side a martyrdom of St. Catharine, on the other a Crucifixion. Their pale blues and lilacs, their sharp pure greens and thin crimsons, made subtle harmony with the general lightness and cleanness of the abandoned chapel. A poor little altar with a few tawdry furnishings at the further end, a confessional box falling to pieces with age, and a few chairs—these were all that ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... He had been carried from the ship and from the train, but when we drew up to Stormfield, where Mrs. Paine, with Katie Leary and others of the household, was waiting to greet him, he stepped from the carriage alone with something of his old lightness, and with all his old courtliness, and offered each one his hand. Then, in the canvas chair which we had brought, Claude and I carried him up-stairs to his room and delivered him to the physicians, and to the comforts and blessed air of home. This ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... more human than humane," laughed Kemp. He was glad to see that she had roused herself from her sad musings; but a certain set purpose he had formed robbed him now of his former lightness of manner. ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... have rambled away again. I intended to have remarked to you the effect produced by a grove of towering beech, the airy lightness of their foliage admitting a degree of sunshine, which, giving a transparency to the leaves, exhibited an appearance of freshness and elegance that I had never before remarked. I thought of descriptions of Italian scenery. But these evanescent graces seemed the effect of enchantment; ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... S.R. II. p. 100, 'The lightness and inaccuracy with which the "Great African" proceeds is all the better illustrated by the fact, that not only does he accuse Marcion falsely, but he actually defines the motives for which he expunged the passage which never existed etc.... he actually repeats the ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot |
