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More "Agility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... such mere sublunary matters. The girl had promised nothing positive for the future. She kept him on the brittle edge of nervous expectation. The opposition of the dancer had been successfully met by threats of dismissal; Hugh continued to lose flesh and gain in vocal and pedal agility. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... it was decidedly impressive. The crowd scattered and I with them, for we suddenly realized that another wall might fall with a crash and that we might be caught. This is the only reason I can assign for our agility in getting away, unless it might be that we simply followed the first and natural impulse of ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks
... legal profession, Mr. Bradlaugh would have easily mounted to the top and earned a tremendous income. I have heard some of the cleverest counsel of our time, but I never heard one to be compared with him in grasp, subtlety and agility. He could examine and cross-examine with consummate dexterity. In arguing points of law he had the tenacity of a bull-dog and the keenness of a sleuth-hound. He always fortified himself with a plethora of "cases." The table in front of him groaned with a ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... anyone else, who might also like to say something, a chance to do other than exhaustedly await the turn that never comes. Once in a while—a very long while—one meets a brilliant person whose talk is a delight; or still more rarely a wit who manipulates every ordinary topic with the agility of a sleight-of-hand performer, to the ever increasing rapture of ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... natives. In reading the accounts of early days in California I am struck with the endurance of hardship, exposure, and wounds by the natives and the adventurers, the rancheros, horsemen, herdsmen, the descendants of soldiers and the Indians, their insensibility to fatigue, and their agility and strength. This is ascribed to the climate; and what is true of man is true of the native horse. His only rival in strength, endurance, speed, and intelligence is the Arabian. It was long supposed that this was racial, and that but for the smallness of the size ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... held that Christ, in His Birth, assumed the gift of "subtlety," when He came forth from the closed womb of a virgin; and that He assumed the gift of "agility" when with dry feet He walked on the sea. But this is not consistent with what has been decided above (Q. 14). For these gifts of a glorified body result from an overflow of the soul's glory on to the body, as we shall explain further ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... much agility, also a little to one side, because there was nothing else to do, reflecting in a kind of inconsequent way, that after all Zikali's Great Medicine was not worth a curse. The lion landed on my side of the wall and reared itself upon its hind legs before getting ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... skipper braced himself firmly against the topmost head, raised the telescope to his eye, and took a good long look at the stranger, closed the glass sharply, and descended to the deck again with all the agility of a monkey—or ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... his attention. With surprising agility for one so old, he did all that was necessary to lay it up snugly for the night. Then he clambered into a small rowboat that trailed at the stern, loosed the rope that held it and with a few deft pulls at the oars rowed in until he grounded on the beach. The ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... Pilgrims went up that hill with ease, because they had these two men to lead them up by the arms; also, they had left their mortal garments behind them in the river, for though they went in with them, they came out without them. They, therefore, went up here with much agility and speed, though the foundation upon which the city was framed was higher than the clouds.[322] They, therefore, went up through the regions of the air, sweetly talking as they went, being comforted, because they safely got over the river, and had ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... her margin of safety was next to negligible, for as she swung nimbly to the lower branches the creature in pursuit of her crashed among the foliage almost upon her as it sprang upward to seize her. It was only a combination of good fortune and agility that saved her. A stout branch deflected the raking talons of the carnivore, but so close was the call that a giant forearm brushed her flesh in the instant before she ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the common kind, none of the minor description apparently inhabiting the interior, if I except some Rock Wallabi, noticed on the Barrier Range. The last beautiful little animal always escaped us in consequence of its extreme agility ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... STEWART Dances the Hornpipe; Jumps a great height from his Horse, and with surprising agility throws himself into different attitudes while his horse is in ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... fort and its cannons none the less because of his adventure, and as he grew older he learned to drop down into it from the garden fence, and climb back again, with the agility of a monkey. The garden itself was not very extensive, but Bert took a great deal of pleasure in it, too, for he was fond of flowers—what true boy, indeed, is not?—and it contained a large number within its narrow limits, there being no less than two score rose bushes of different varieties, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... "bossy." He and another small darkey were sent off in a skiff to cast the schooner loose from her moorings and tow her to the shore, and the minute that duty had been performed he jumped out, seized a bundle which he had left on the bank, and was climbing back over the side with the agility of a monkey when Jack ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... accuracy of eye, presence of mind, dexterity of hand, and above all a subtle sense of touch, who are as it were born into God's world for the sole and special purpose of becoming distinguished card-sharpers. The pickpockets' profession demands extraordinary nimbleness and agility, a terrific certainty of movement, not to mention a ready wit, a talent for observation and strained attention. Some have a positive vocation for breaking open safes: from their tenderest childhood they are attracted by the mysteries of ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... Middlerib himself, could doubt that he was, at least for the time, most thoroughly cured of rheumatism. His own boy could not have carried himself more lightly or with greater agility. But the cure was not permanent, and Mr. Middlerib does not like to ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... aboard the Earnest, Capt. Edward Dane, preparations are made by Mr. M. Boyton for proceeding ashore to assist in his brother's departure. A boat is lowered from the davits. It is soon manned, your artist slipping down the rope with the agility of a sailor. He is the last straw. The boat is pulled off. The Earnest steams slowly on, for three o'clock is close at hand and that is the hour fixed for Captain Boyton's start from the Cran aux Anguilles, El Chine, about two hundred ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... nebber stop for nuffin, de rain nor de shine, de northers nor de anything-umph! not even de rheumatiz." Here the old man cut short his soliloquy, stooping down to rub the afflicted member that so retarded his progress, and whose pain was an ever-present reminder that his agility and youth were gone forever. Erecting himself, he began again, "Dis bin a putty hard winter on mos' anybody, 'specially on de rheumatiz. But for de w'iskey bitters of de boss, old Peter wouldn't be as spry is he is. Boss says, 'W'iskey bitters mighty good for anything,' an' I believe him. ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... being conceived to be closely associated with a rebellious disposition. After thirty-six years the statute was repealed. While the act was in force it was evaded by people carrying their clothes in a bag over their shoulders. The prohibition was hateful to all, as impeding their agility in scaling the craggy steeps of their native fastnesses. In 1748 the punishment assigned by the act of 1746 was changed into ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... qualities of a successful libretto writer. He was too serious, and despite the lightness of his touch, there was a certain rigidity in him which made him unapt at versification which required quickness, agility, and variety. When he attempted to give his verse gayety of manner, he did not get beyond awkward simulation of an ease ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... chiefs who guarded a small pass on the superior rock, but, endeavouring to climb up, was cruelly obstructed by his own unhappy weight and tendency towards his centre, a quality to which those of the Modern party are extremely subject; for, being light- headed, they have, in speculation, a wonderful agility, and conceive nothing too high for them to mount, but, in reducing to practice, discover a mighty pressure about their posteriors and their heels. Having thus failed in his design, the disappointed champion bore a cruel rancour to the Ancients, which he resolved ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... to Momus, "if thou'lt lend me of thy height, thou shalt have of my agility and we will set up ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... the street there was a man coming slowly behind her. For a moment she thought it was the Diviner in pursuit, but something in the gait soon showed her her mistake. There was a heaviness in the movement of this man quite unlike the lithe and serpentine agility of Aloui. Although she could not see the face, or even distinguish the costume in the morning twilight, she knew it for Androvsky. From a distance he was watching over her. She did not hesitate, but walked on quickly again. She did not wish him to know that she had seen him. When ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... near them any object whatever, they do not fail to catch on to it with surprising agility. A blade of grass, a bit of straw, the handle of my tweezers which I hold out to them: they accept anything in their eagerness to quit the provisional shelter of the flower. It is true that, after finding themselves on these inanimate objects, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... descent practicable with care, and Mark took the lead, going down with plenty of agility, and closely ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... be made from the position of guard. As far as practicable, they will be made on the balls of the feet to insure quickness and agility. No hard and fast rule can be laid down as to the length of the various foot movements; this depends entirely on the situations occurring ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... off the horse, and entered the house with the Venetian cavalier, accepting his supper. They both seated themselves at the table. The Frenchman fought so well with his jaws, he twisted the morsels with so much agility, that he showed herself equally learned in suppers, and showed it again in dexterously draining the wine flasks without his eye becoming dimmed or his understanding affected. Then you may be sure that ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... much in agility, he had an animallike sense of balance. Sprawling, helpless, he saw the convulsed shadow that was Donnegan take form as a straight shooting body that plunged through the air above him. Lefty Joe dug his left elbow into the floor of the car and whirled back upon his shoulders, bunching ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... excess of the number that can be supported; hence at some period or other of their lives there must be a struggle for existence. And what is the infallible result? If one organism were a perfect copy of the other in regard to strength, skill, and agility, external conditions would decide. But this is not the case. Here we have the fact of variety offering itself to nature, as in the former instance it offered itself to man; and those varieties which are least ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... faculties and powers. A man in Boston a few years ago, by directing his attention exclusively for a long time to the single act of lifting, educated his body to the power of lifting enormous weights. But this power was gained at the expense of agility, grace, and many other bodily qualities quite as important as that of lifting weights. So the mental faculties may become one-sided by injudicious training. The memory may be inordinately developed at the expense of the reasoning power, the reason at the ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... wildest terror and in helpless agony, while Philibert rushed without hesitation into the water, swam out to the spot, and dived with the agility of a beaver. He presently reappeared, bearing the inanimate body of her brother to the shore. Help was soon obtained, and, after long efforts to restore Le Gardeur to consciousness,—efforts which seemed to last an age to the despairing girl,—they at last succeeded, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... species of ant-bears in South America that can—and he therefore knew he was quite safe on his perch. But his feelings were very different when the red body of the puma came in sight. It could run up the smoothest trunk in the forest with as much ease and agility as a cat, and there would be no chance of escaping from it if it felt disposed to attack him. Of this the boy was fully conscious, and no wonder ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... suggest a feeling of security in the country. A few misguided people, who completely misunderstand the situation, hold that footballers should go to the Front and fight; but the Government take a more prudent view and will not allow this, holding that their agility on the field in League Matches and so forth is of high service as an anodyne and distraction. I have heard of more than one case of a well-known herculean player, accustomed not only to big money but applause and hero-worship, seriously wondering ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... the fight, and were in deadly earnest. The Sauk had learned of the panther-like agility of the Shawanoe, and he knew no light task was before him. It would not be child's play to wrench the scalp-lock from the crown of the handsome warrior who was not afraid of any man, but Hay-uta was warranted in feeling a strong confidence in ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... With the agility of a cat he sprang on to the wood-pile, pitched off enough cordwood to expose my entire "cellar;" then going across to Lige, he coolly took the axe out of his hand. His face was white and set, but his voice was natural ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... beards, they tattoo curly locks along their faces, always bordered by a vandyke fringe, which must task their utmost ingenuity. Tanee, who has followed us with some of his warriors, is the very exquisite of a Kenowit. He is made like a Hercules, and is proud of showing his strength and agility. He piques himself upon having the best sword, of fine Kayan make and native metal, and the strongest arm in his tribe. He sits most of the day sharpening one or another of these swords, feeling and looking ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... and delight they saw how the young count, red in the face and with bloodshot eyes, dragged Mitenka out by the scruff of the neck and applied his foot and knee to his behind with great agility at convenient moments between the words, shouting, "Be off! Never let me see your face ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... has done this?" "Mr. Medland," said an officious probationer, "he jumped over the rail and broke it." He walked up to the offender—all listened for the storm. He calmly said, "Mr. Medland, you are fond of jumping—go to Sadler's Wells—it is the best academy in the world for improving agility." A student as he passed held up his drawing, and said confidently, "Here, sir—I finished it without using a crumb of bread." "All the worse for your drawing," replied Fuseli, "buy a two-penny loaf and rub it out." "What do you see, sir?" he ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... German stood in his position like a wall, watched his opportunity, and contrived to disarm his opponent over and over again with his cut and thrust. The latter maintained that this mattered not, and proceeded to exhaust the other's wind by his agility. He fetched the German several lunges too, which, however, if they had been in earnest, would have sent him ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... said Uncle Tom, with unexpected mental agility, and with the obvious relief of a man who has got safely round a difficult corner. "We will. Now, how about ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... down the pencil, and with astonishing agility let himself rapidly, but carefully, off the stool on which he had been sitting, keeping the palms of his hands on the seat beside his hips until he felt his feet touch the floor. Then he darted at a book-shelf, pulled down a ponderous tome, flapped it open in a clear space on the floor, and ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... over and whispered something in her ear, when she started, and the cards, which she was just gathering, fell from her hands. With unusual agility she rose, and taking the emperor's arm, turned away without a word of ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... The agility this native exhibited in spearing fish was astonishing. In shallow water he would actually course the fish till he got them within spearing depth, when, although his prey darted past, he struck it with the most ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... swarthy complexion; his hat cocked on the left ear; his habit, on warm evenings, of wearing his coat over one shoulder, like a hussar's dolman; his manner of leaping over the stiles, not as a feat of agility, but in the ordinary course of progression—all these peculiarities were, as one may say, so many causes of scorn and offence to the inhabitants of the village. They wouldn't in their dinner hour lie flat on their backs on the grass to stare at the sky. Neither did they ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... liked your course sir; that first took him. I oft have heard him say, how he admired Men of your large profession, that could speak To every cause, and things mere contraries, Till they were hoarse again, yet all be law; That, with most quick agility, could turn, And [re-] return; [could] make knots, and undo them; Give forked counsel; take provoking gold On either hand, and put it up: these men, He knew, would thrive with their humility. And, for his part, he thought he should be blest To have his heir of such a ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... ideal passion; his letters to Marie were masterpieces of grace and style. Nathan made her the light of his life; he undertook nothing without consulting his "guardian angel." In despair at being on the popular side, he talked of going over to that of the aristocracy; but, in spite of his habitual agility, even he saw the absolute impossibility of such a jump; it was easier to become a minister. Marie's precious replies were deposited in one of those portfolios with patent locks made by Huret or Fichet, two mechanics ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... head, and the wild vines that were entangled with it in every direction; and he reached the foot of the tree just as the flames were beginning to scorch its outmost branches. He sprang upward; and, climbing with the agility of a squirrel, he was soon in the highest fork of the tree, and enabled to look down in security on the devastating fire beneath him. All around was one wide sea of ruddy flames, that shot up in forked and waving tongues high amid the heavy clouds of smoke. Happily ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... arrived at an advanced age, still retained much of the strength and agility of his youth, which, combined with the experience he had acquired in the game, rendered him a very formidable opponent. He advanced with a stately pace, bearing in one hand a piece of scarlet cloth to entice the animal, and in the other his sword. Having ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... the animals was pathetic; they shrank back, cowered, trembled, breathed hard and heavily, and stumbled and plunged painfully. It was sickening to see their terror and suffering, the struggling and slipping into cracks, the blood and torture. The mules with their small legs and wonderful agility were more frightened than hurt, but the horses were splashed with blood up to their knees, and their poor eyes ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... with some difficulty, first helped Frau Kastenmayr upon her strong steed, then, with very mingled feelings, aided Barbara to mount the noble Andalusian. While she placed her little foot in his hand to spring thence with graceful agility into the saddle, the widow, with forced courtesy, invited the young gentleman to accompany her and her brother to Prufening. There would be a merry meal, which she herself had provided, in the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the silver disc and the protruding "tummy" had become quite a familiar sight in his camp; it came and went with the nervous agility of ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... you were, sir! ...... ... With most quick agility could turn And return; make knots and undo them, Give forked ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Stonehenge, who had returned two hours earlier with the good news that the fleet had moved into position only sixty light-minutes off Capella IV. I had reached the point in my thinking where I had decided it was useless to keep Hoddy and Stonehenge apart except as an exercise in mental agility. Inasmuch as my brain was already weight-lifting, swinging from a flying trapeze to elusive flying rings while doing triple somersaults and at the same time juggling seven Indian clubs, I ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... of the fleet at Portsmouth by George III., in 1789, there was a boy who mounted the shrouds with so much agility, as to surprise every spectator. The king particularly noticed it, and said to Lord Lothian, "Lothian, I have heard much of your agility, let us see you run up after that boy." "Sire," replied Lord Lothian, "it is my duty to follow ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... been carrying in his hand. With half a dozen furious blows he sent the woodwork into splinters, and, springing up with a lithe, tiger-like jump, he clambered through the gap, big man as he was, with surprising agility. Then there was a dead silence for a few seconds and we waited in suspense. But presently oaths and protests came from far back and drew nearer and nearer, until I knew that the some one who had refused to answer had been duly secured. The gates ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... the hour when he evoked this national reprisal. His powdered head and rather clumsy efforts to retaliate excited shouts of laughter from the adjoining balconies. The young American, fresh from tennis and college athletics, darted about and dodged with an agility impossible to his heavily built foe; and each effective shot and parry on his side was greeted with little cries of applause and the clapping of hands on the part of those who were watching ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... could only have been executed by one with unusual strength and agility, Phil let the rope slip through his hands just enough to slacken his speed. Instantly he threw himself around the center pole, twisting the rope around and around it, each twist slackening his upward flight a little. He knew that, were his head to ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... perceive that there really was some likeness. In stature the difference was great. Lewis, in spite of highheeled shoes and a towering wig, hardly reached the middle size. Lochiel was tall and strongly built. In agility and skill at his weapons he had few equals among the inhabitants of the hills. He had repeatedly been victorious in single combat. He was a hunter of great fame. He made vigorous war on the wolves which, down to his time, preyed on the red deer of the Grampians; and by his hand perished ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... nosegay to his Serenity and was caught up again to his airy vaulting-ground. After this ingenious feat came another called the "Force of Hercules," given by a band of youths who, building themselves into a kind of pyramid, shifted their postures with inexhaustible agility, while bursts of fireworks wove yellow arches through the midday light. Meanwhile the crowds in the streets fled this way and that as a throng of uproarious young fellows drove before them the bulls that were to be baited in the open squares; and wherever a recessed doorway or the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... gathered and broke upon them. They braved it till it became a drenching down-pour; then they leaped from their machines and fled to any shelter they could find, under trees and in doorways. The men used their greater agility to get the best places, and kept them; the women made no appeal for them by word or look, but took the rain in the open as if ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "come from —," able to perform feats of agility, a "jest nominal," depending on the first part of ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... work, and Jemmy had chosen a fat, dumpy, red-faced girl, in a bright orange-coloured muslin gown, with black velvet Vandyked flounces, and green boots—a sort of walking sunflower, with whom he was pointing his toe, kicking out behind, and pirouetting with great energy and agility. His male vis-a-vis was a waistcoatless young Daniel Lambert, in white ducks, and a blue dress-coat, with a carnation in his mouth, who with a damsel in ten colours, reel'd to and fro in humble ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... By accustoming the Voice of a Learner to be lazy and dragging, he is rendered incapable of any considerable Progress in his Profession. Whosoever has not the Agility of Voice, in Compositions of a quick or lively Movement, becomes odiously tiresome; and at last retards the Time so much, that every thing he sings appears to be out ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... and was eating him to death. In these circumstances the missionary administered an emetic to the reluctant patient, in the presence of some incredulous spectators, who had never known a white man to extract a reptile from the person of a bewitched Native. Further, by some agility of the hand, the missionary produced from his pocket unobserved, just as the emetic was acting, the baby lizard he had taken from the rocks. So smartly was this done that everybody, including the patient, believed the reptile to have been extracted from his body by the ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... me. I believed he was laughing at what he considered the surprising agility of the squirrel, while I was laughing at him. Here was another manifestation of the Jap's simplicity and capacity. If all Japanese were like Takahashi they were a wonderful people. Men are men because they do things. The Persians ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... scientific method of aiming its missiles or into a huge machine for long-distance night-bombing work capable of carrying from two to a dozen men and from two to four tons of bombs. During this time the strictly fighting plane, usually a single-seater, increased in speed, "ceiling," and agility till it could dart, twist, and dive about, three to five miles above the trenches, protecting friendly bombing and observation planes below from enemy attack or swooping down to send enemy planes in flames ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... they live in troops, or even in herds of hundreds. Being armed with powerful canine teeth and wolf-like jaws, they are formidable antagonists, and other animals do not dare to attack them. It is because of their natural weapons, their readiness to fight like fiends, and their combined agility and strength that the baboons have been able to live on the ground and survive and flourish in lands literally reeking with lions, leopards, hyenas and wild dogs. The awful canine teeth of an old male baboon are quite as dangerous as those ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... Jaws, the athlete. His enormous shoulders, his bull neck, contrasted with Fanfar's delicate form. Gudel tossed heavy weights and bent iron bars, and did all sorts of wonderful things. No one noticed the agility with which Fanfar, in his subordinate role, passed these weights to his employer. And now, the principal feat was to be performed. Fanfar rolled a barrel upon the stage, on which already stood a curious apparatus of bars and chains. Over ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... is an Irishman, who has been vastly more lucky, dancing a jig, with a footless stocking near him, tied at each end, packed as full as it can hold of 'the fine stuff,' as he calls it, while with wonderful agility he flourishes a heavy pickaxe and spade over his head, and screams at the highest pitch of his voice: 'Sure, now, and isn't my fortune made!' By and by, getting at once hoarse and tired, he desists from his exertions, and entreats a boy near him 'to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... mental gymnastic. Everywhere throughout creation we find faculties developed through the performance of those functions which it is their office to perform; not through the performance of artificial exercises devised to fit them for those functions. The Red Indian acquires the swiftness and agility which make him a successful hunter, by the actual pursuit of animals; and through the miscellaneous activities of his life, he gains a better balance of physical powers than gymnastics ever give. That skill in tracking enemies and prey which ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... violence and fierceness, and Crichton contented himself calmly to ward his passes, and suffered him to exhaust his vigour by his own fury. Crichton then became the assailant; and pressed upon him with such force and agility, that he thrust him thrice through the body, and saw him expire: he then divided the prize he had won among the widows ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... climbers, as one would suppose from their organization. In their gambols they swing from limb to limb to a great distance, and leap with astonishing agility. It is not unusual to see the 'old folks' (in the language of an observer) sitting under a tree regaling themselves with fruit and friendly chat, while their 'children' are leaping around them, and swinging from tree to ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... process. He was tall and well built, broad in the shoulders, but lean as a greyhound, with grave eyes, rather stern, and a moustache turning grey. I judged him to be about sixty years of age, but his movements showed a suppleness of strength and agility that contradicted the years. The face was full of character and resolution, the face of a man to be depended upon, and the straight grey eyes, it seemed to me, wore a veil of perplexed anxiety that he made no attempt to disguise. The whole appearance of the man at once clothed ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... furious, tussle, for a coon is gifted with considerable strength and agility, though seldom a match for the right, kind of ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... the females are possessed of this accomplishment, which is called pitkoo-she-rak-poke, and it is not uncommon to see several of the younger females practising it. A third part of the game, distinguished by the word keitik-poke, consists only in falling on each knee alternately—a piece of agility which they perform with tolerable quickness, considering the bulky and awkward nature ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the bank, carrying the constable with him. The steel band of the handcuff nipped the wrist of Stoliker, who, with an oath and a cry of pain, instinctively grasped the links between with his right hand, to save his wrist. Like a cat, Yates was upon him, showing marvelous agility for a man who had just tumbled in a heap. The next instant he held aloft ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... fencer, and gymnast. Pugilism was the fashion with the young bloods of Gotham at that time, especially such of them as had any tendency to politics: and among these boys of nineteen, there were not a few who would have tackled a fancy man in his prime, and at no great odds either, their great agility making up for their want of downright strength. Travis's friend and senior by one year, George Purcell (who afterwards served with credit as a volunteer in the Mexican war, and ultimately became a judge in California), had on one ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... Wee Andra had been furnishing hilarious entertainment for the village by his agonized efforts to skate. Donald had undertaken the herculean task of instructing him in the art, and no one envied him his position. For while the Glenoro giant was not utterly devoid of agility on his native element, on the ice, and crippled by skates, he was as helpless as an ocean steamship without an engine and almost as difficult to navigate. The crowd generally gave him a wide space for their gyrations, ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... favored by the moonlight, and every eye turned in that direction. He ran down the abrupt declivity beneath him; he gained the continued sweep of jumbled rocks which immediately walled in the little valley, springing from one to another of them with such agility and certainty that it seemed almost magical; and a general whisper of fear now attested the fact of his being dressed in a straw hat, a short jacket, and loose white trousers. As he jumped from the last rock upon the sward of the pass, the spectators drew back; but he, not ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... And Deck increased his speed, bounding over the meadow trenches with an agility that would have done credit to a trained athlete. He had barely gained the lawn when Dorcas broke from Gaffy Denny's grasp and fled down the porch steps toward him. At the same time Hope appeared, followed by Mrs. ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... their gray foreheads, their plump ruddy breasts, their strong, well-feathered pinions, each one ten ounces at the least. Think how these jolly old cocks tower away, with their shrill whistle, through the tree-tops, and twist and dodge with an agility of wing and thought-like speed, scarcely inferior to the snipe's or swallow's, and fly a half mile if you miss them; and laugh to scorn the efforts of any one to bag them, who is not an out-and-outer! No chance shot, no stray pellet speaks for these—it ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... officers, and the chaplains always were supplied with tents; and then a hasty meal was snatched before the sun was fairly above the horizon, and the day's work commenced. The endurance exhibited by the rebels, their personal strength, swiftness and agility; their tenacity of life, and the ease with which their worst wounds were healed, excited the astonishment of the surgeons and officers of the regular army. The truth is, that the virtuous lives led by that ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... this as an answer to their question, and felt perfectly convinced that the agility of circus riders and tumblers depended upon the quantity of frogs eaten, and they looked upon Toby with no little degree ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... in these garlands, spoons, and other little valuables, are placed. The high smooth round pole is then well greased; and now he who can climb up to the top may have what he can get,—a very laughable scene as you may suppose, of awkwardness and agility, and failures on the very brink of success. Now began a dance. The women danced very well, and, in general, I have observed throughout Germany that the women in the lower ranks degenerate far less from ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... careful reconnoissance that no one was watching or stirring at that end of the house, with the stealth and agility of a cat he went from roof to roof and ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... li west of Tseng-ch'eng Hsien. On that mountain was found a stone called yuen-mu shih, 'mother-of-pearl.' In a dream she saw a spirit who ordered her to powder and eat one of these stones, by doing which she could acquire both agility and immortality. She complied with this injunction, and also vowed herself to a life of virginity. Her days were thenceforth passed in floating from one peak to another, bringing home at night to her mother the fruits she collected on the ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... number of vagrant, gipsy-like groups'; and a full description of them has been given by Babu Rajendra Lal Mitra, who considers them to resemble the gipsies of Europe. "They are noted for a light, elastic, wiry make, very uncommon in the people of this country. In agility and hardness they stand unrivalled. The men are of a brownish colour, like the bulk of Bengalis, but never black. The women are of lighter complexion and generally well-formed; some of them have considerable claims to beauty, and for a race so rude and primitive in their habits ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... warily and doubled with real agility. But Finn was easily her master in the arts of the chase, and his strength was ten times greater than that of any fox in Sussex. The vixen was still well within sight from Desdemona's cave when her time came. She leaped and snapped, and faced overwhelming ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... Norbert was by birth a sturdy Switzer, and thought little of these Swabian Alps; and he climbed after his guide through the most rugged passages of Eberhard's shortest and most perpendicular cut without a moment's hesitation, and with agility worthy of a chamois. The young baron turned for a moment, when the level of the castle had been gained, perhaps to see whether he were following, but at the same time came to a sudden, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... detective who had known Peace in Yorkshire met him in Farringdon Road, and pursued him up the steps of Holborn Viaduct, but just as the officer, at the top of the steps, reached out and was on the point of grabbing his man, Peace with lightning agility slipped through his fingers and disappeared. The police never had a shadow of suspicion that Mr. Thompson of Peckham was Charles Peace of Sheffield. They knew the former only as a polite and chatty old gentleman of a scientific turn of mind, ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... it found vent in various gambols and effusions of humour on the way to the wine merchant's. While Erskine, buoyed by high health and ardent hope, scarcely felt the ground that he trod, the sight of a ditch by the side of the road, tempted him to exercise his agility. The impulse, and obedience to the impulse, were the same. He made the attempt, but the ditch was too wide for his spring, and he leaped a little short of the opposite bank. His dress above was splashed with foul water, and his legs ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... came in to me. He had gone above, my man was sure; he had not gone to the old lady's cabin. I remember a queer vision when the steward told me this—the wild flash of a picture of Jasper Nettlepoint leaping with a mad compunction in his young agility over the side of the ship. I hasten to add that no such incident was destined to contribute its horror to poor Grace Mavis's mysterious tragic act. What followed was miserable enough, but I can only glance at it. When I got to Mrs. Nettlepoint's door she ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... palace. It had a cock near the bottom to let out the water, when it began to grow stale; and two servants could easily fill it in half an hour. Here I often used to row for my own diversion, as well as that of the queen and her ladies, who thought themselves well entertained with my skill and agility. Sometimes I would put up my sails, and then my business was only to steer, while the ladies gave me a gale with their fans; and, when they were weary, some of their pages would blow my sail forward with their breath, while ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... triumph; scared the Pope so thoroughly that he was willing to sign anything I wished; and, best of all, after a few petty delays, convinced the French people that I was too big a man for a mere consulship. It was my chamois-like agility in getting down the Alps that really made me Emperor. As for the army, it fought nobly. It was so thoroughly chilled by the Alpine venture that it fought desperately to get warm. My grenadiers, congealed to their very souls, went where ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... lively steeple-chase was going on. The riding was extremely pretty, as French military riding always is. Few of the mounts were thoroughbreds—the greater number, in fact, being local cart-horses barely broken to the saddle—but their agility and dash did the greater credit to their riders. The lancers, in particular, executed an effective "musical ride" about a central pennon, to the immense satisfaction of the fashionable public in the foreground and of ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... was strewed afar, but in a squatting posture; so that they sat in a sequence, like graduated specimens, the smaller howling. But soon the doctor's face filled with horror, and he uttered a far louder and unearthly screech, and kicked and struggled with wonderful agility for ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... my cap on tight for me!" SAM dutifully adjusted the cap more firmly on his father's head, and the old gentleman, resuming his kicking with greater agility than before, tumbled Mr. STIGGINS through the bar, and through the passage, out at the front door, and so into the street, the kicking continuing the whole way, and increasing in vehemence rather than diminishing every time ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... attractions was a "strong man" who went through the usual performance of tossing iron balls and letting them roll back down his arms, lifting heavy weights, etc. Apparently Lincoln had never seen such a combination of strength and agility before. He was greatly interested. Every now and then he gave vent to the ejaculation, "By George! By George!" After the speech was over, Governor Hoyt introduced him to the athlete; and as Lincoln stood looking down at him from his great height, evidently pondering that one so small ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... car-steps!" he shouted to Barbara. She had not leaped and clambered up and down the stair in the Acoma cliff all her life for nothing, and her strength and agility stood her in good stead in this moment of supreme necessity. She leaped from the horse's back, landed upon the upper step, and whirled ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... Bee-moth, its ravages. Defiance against it, 240. Its habits. Known to Virgil. Time of appearance. Nocturnal in habits, 241. Their agility. Vigilance of the bees against the moth. Havoc of sin in the heart, 242. Disgusting effects of the moth worm in a hive. Wax the food of the moth larvae. Making their cocoons, 243. Devices to escape the bees. Time of development, 244. Habits of the female ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... unable to quit the desolate island. I seized my oar (which I had long since determined to present to the Philadelphia Museum if ever I were preserved) and with it plunged headlong into the foaming surf. Such was my good fortune, and my strength and agility, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... shorter than the Spanish; and this (with the rig of those days) gave them an ease in manoeuvring, which utterly confounded their Spanish foes. "The English ships in the fight of 1588," says Camden, "charged the enemy with marvellous agility, and having discharged their broadsides, flew forth presently into the deep, and levelled their shot directly, without missing, at those great ships of the Spaniards, which were altogether heavy and unwieldy." Moreover, the Spanish fashion, in the West Indies at least, though not in the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... assisted her, but she, with the agility of youth, easily outstripped them, and stood alone on the summit, surveying the fair scene before her. A light barque was sailing up the river, and as she gazed on it Lorelei uttered a loud cry, ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... very straight-limbed, showing both activity and strength. His head was smaller than usually is the case, which gave him the appearance of great lightness and agility. His countenance was very pleasing, being expressive of continual good humor, which was indeed but corresponding to his real character. He was dressed in a sort of hunting-coat of deer-skin, blue cloth leggings, a cap of raccoon's skin, with a broad belt round his waist, ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... should escape altogether from tasting the calamities of war. And this translated the estimate of my guilt from the public jurisdiction to that of the individual, sometimes capricious and harsh, and carrying out the public award by means of legs that ranged through all gradations of weight and agility. One kick differed exceedingly from another kick in dynamic value; and, in some cases, this difference was so distressingly conspicuous as to imply special malice, unworthy, I ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... doubtless soon come to divide mankind into three classes, namely: those who step lively, those who do not step lively, and those who step too lively. If Aristotle himself were to cross the bridge, you would see nothing in the Peripatetic Philosopher but a reprehensible lack of agility. ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... on diluted cow's milk. It was so small at birth that the father passed his ring over the foot almost to the knee. On the thirteenth day it weighed 1250 grams, and at the end of a week it was taking the breast. In December, 1879, it had 16 teeth, weighed 10 kilograms, walked with agility, could pronounce some words, and was especially intelligent. Capuron relates an instance of a child born after a pregnancy of six and a half months and in excellent health at two years, and another ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... this beery intruder of his grievous error in taking Professor Thunder' celebrated Missing Link, Mahdi, from the tangled jungles of Darkest Africa, for a cheap fake. Nickie sprang to the perch with great agility, caught it with one hand, slowly drew up a leg, hooked a hind claw to the bar and ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... farmer scribbled a word or two on a piece of paper, which he folded and gave to Mr Chivers with some hurried instruction; and Mr Chivers steered his way out with agility. But meanwhile the bidding for Barton's Orchard had ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... further, for just then Dave leaped to his feet with an agility that surprised even himself. Stiff though he was, he ran at Merwell, hurling him flat. Then he bumped into Jasniff, who made a weak attempt to stop him. The two swung around, and Jasniff was sent crashing into the table, knocking over the lantern. ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... that the pulse had run up to one hundred and sixty-eight beats in a minute, showing how much harder it was for the heart to do its work when restricted by tight clothing. No acrobat would attempt to perform feats of strength or of agility if restricted even so much ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... exertion which is one of the first requisites of the intellectual life? Would a man who is about to enter upon the consideration of problems, the correct solution of which will demand all the strength and agility of his mind, be helped or hindered by their use? These are questions which are asked every day, and especially by the young, who seek in vain for an adequate reply. The student grappling with the early difficulties of science and literature, wishes to know whether he will be wiser to ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... in their wide, clumsy boats called sampans, swarmed in the harbour. Sculling alongside, the boatman caught the rail of the steamer with his boat-hook and with the agility of a monkey scrambled up the long pole, dropped it into the water and began to hustle for business. The babel of voices bidding for passengers was like the tumult of Niagara hack-drivers, but we were so fortunate as to be met by Dr. W. F. Faries ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... with the energy of one determined to conquer or die, and at the same time with the presence of mind necessary for fighting the quarrel out to the best advantage. Resolved not again to expose himself to such dreadful blows as he had just obtained, he employed the advantage of superior agility, increased by the comparative lightness of his armour, to harass his antagonist by traversing on all sides, with a suddenness of motion and rapidity of attack against which the knight—in his heavy panoply—found it difficult to defend himself ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... like jewelry. It gave him pleasure to contemplate the supple, fine outlines of her form, the whiteness of her belly, the graceful pose of her head. But it was especially when she was playing that he felt most pleasure in looking at her; the agility and youthful lightness of her movements were a continual surprise to him; he wondered at the supple way in which she jumped and climbed, washed herself and arranged her fur, crouched down and prepared to spring. However rapid her spring might be, however slippery the stone she ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... Mary lost her presence of mind, and replied; "In the first floor, front." Quigg mounted the stairs with surprising agility, and gave a hard rap at the door of the ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... thunder bellowed. The storm was growing furious. "Yet I have had a marvelous dream. Now I awaken. I must go on in the old round. As long as my wits preserve their agility I must be able to amuse, to flatter and, at need, to intimidate the patrons of that ape in the mirror, so that they will not dare refuse me the market-value of my antics. And Sarah Drew has declined an alliance such as this in favor of a fresh-colored complexion ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... he leaped like a greyhound. Forgotten was the rushing torrent, and his own danger. He thought only of that frantically clinging man. He reached the edge of the stream, leaped upon the nearest logs, and, with the agility of a wildcat, threaded his way through that terrible labyrinth of ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... hour; and when he had succeeded in getting us all out was in a moment at the top of a high tree, leaping from branch to branch, throwing himself on coffee shrubs below, swinging himself up again in a flash, leaping, bounding! a picture of agility, strength, and happiness. The usual morning gathering of Rajahs and their followers, with Klings and Sikhs, was there, and I suspect that they thought adult Europeans very foolish for being ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... who was apparently the chief. The women, the old men, and the children followed, trickling gradually out of the shadow of the trees but remaining where they could disappear in a flash if alarmed. They were all perfectly naked, tall and slender and large-eyed, their muscles strung for speed and agility rather than massive strength. Their bodies gleamed a light bronze color in the sun, and Kieran noticed that the men were beardless and smooth-skinned. Both men and women had long hair, ranging in color from black to tawny, and very clean and glistening. They were a beautiful people, as deer are ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... vol. V. —E. D. AND AUTHOR. We are fully supplied with literary material by experienced writers. —SOLOMON C. Acrobats do not use any artificial preparation to increase their suppleness. Constant practice is the secret of the agility displayed by them. —W. B. The construction of a photographic camera was detailed in No. 13, Vol. IV; while the making of blue prints formed the subject of an article in No. 51, Vol. II. —NINTH AVENUE. Interesting ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... sight of the embroidered star confirmed in his decision that the foreigner must be a person of consequence, with increased agility whipped up the portmanteau and led the way to the sleeping-rooms. Here curiosity put on a new form; the women servants, determined to have their wishes gratified as well as the men, had arranged themselves on each side of the passage through which the count ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... to make the attempt. The noble animal, excited by the spur, leaped over the intrenchments overthrown by the Indians, and the two were soon side by side. The Indian brandished his hatchet, Diaz his sword, and for some seconds there was a trial of agility, courage, and address. Each sustained his country's reputation, but the Indian's hatchet broke to pieces the sword of the Mexican. The two combatants then seized one another round the body and tried to drag each other from their horses, but ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... are the fingers of the right hand nimbler than the fingers of the left? A. It proceedeth from the heat that predominates in those parts, and causeth great agility. ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... difficulty reined him in a few paces away. The snake with a broken neck lay lifeless on the ground, while Walter, sobbing dryly, had sunk into the arms of the captain, who had flung himself from his horse with surprising agility for ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... happy self-identification with a being conceived as a type of human beauty and excellence, by being as far as possible beautiful oneself, creating beautiful objects, composing beautiful verse, training the body to its highest pitch of strength and agility, and displaying its powers in manly contests. This conception of religion, for a short time realised in Greece, still haunts the mind as a vision which once seen can never be forgotten. No one whose eyes have opened to that vision can regard any religious acts in which the effort after ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... he cried, springing out of bed with surprising agility for his years, and switching on the electric lights. Hurrying to the window which commanded the sweep of the driveway he peered out. In the faint light the indistinct outline of a ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... proportion to the other faculties and powers. A man in Boston a few years ago, by directing his attention exclusively for a long time to the single act of lifting, educated his body to the power of lifting enormous weights. But this power was gained at the expense of agility, grace, and many other bodily qualities quite as important as that of lifting weights. So the mental faculties may become one-sided by injudicious training. The memory may be inordinately developed at the expense of the reasoning power, the reason at the expense of the imagination, ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... however, we saw him leap from the ground with the most marvellous agility and begin to dance about slapping at ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... rode down on the bull, took up his tail, and, wrapping the brush on the pommel of his saddle, turned his horse abruptly to the left, rolling the bull over like a hoop, and of course dismounting himself in the act. Then before the dazed animal could rise, with the agility of a panther the vaquero sprang astride his loins, and as he floundered, others leaped from their horses. Toro was pinioned, and dispatched with ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... seen. The reason is apparent,—not that they are smarter than white men, but they feel promoted; they feel as though their whole sphere of life was advanced and enlarged. They are willing, obedient, and cheerful; move with agility, and are full of music, which is almost a sine ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... going on. The riding was extremely pretty, as French military riding always is. Few of the mounts were thoroughbreds—the greater number, in fact, being local cart-horses barely broken to the saddle—but their agility and dash did the greater credit to their riders. The lancers, in particular, executed an effective "musical ride" about a central pennon, to the immense satisfaction of the fashionable public in the foreground and of the gallery on ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... the Prussian battalions had swarmed over into their own trench, paying no heed to the solitary figure in the black shadow as they passed him, and, marking the position of the gun, Dennis scrambled up in their wake with the agility of a cat, and darted into the gun emplacement single-handed, just as young Wetherby and Hawke saw him and gave ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... rapid, described in Kalevala as the scene where one of the heroes went swirling round and round; we watched women steering with marvellous agility and skill, and there, on the bank, we saw a stalwart Finn, with an artistic pink shirt, awaiting our arrival to pilot us down again, our host preferring to employ a pilot for the descent when he had any one ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... as one who makes up his mind, bold, and throwing off his numbness—with the agility of a squirrel, or perhaps of an acrobat—he turned his back on the creek, and set himself to climb up the cliff. He escaladed the path, left it, returned to it, quick and venturous. He was hurrying landward, just as though he had a destination ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... year, and probably in the full meridian of his physical powers; but those powers became rather mellowed than decayed by time, for 'his age was like a lusty winter, frosty yet kindly;' and, up to his sixty-eighth year, he mounted a horse with surprising agility, and rode with the ease and gracefulness of his better days. His personal prowess, that elicited the admiration of a people who have nearly all passed from the stage of life, still serves as a model for the manhood of ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... raged at one extreme of the lists, the next at the other; and so well inured, from their very infancy, to the weight of mail were these redoubted champions, that the very wrestlers on the village green, nay, the naked gladiators of old, might have envied their lithe agility and supple quickness. ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... manage to live through the winter, and are fully grown in May. Amongst the wolf-spiders generally, we find a difference between the movements of the males and females. If hard pressed, the females escape by a succession of short runs, but the males can manage to jump from leaf to leaf with much agility. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... we place near them any object whatever, they do not fail to catch on to it with surprising agility. A blade of grass, a bit of straw, the handle of my tweezers which I hold out to them: they accept anything in their eagerness to quit the provisional shelter of the flower. It is true that, after finding themselves on these inanimate objects, they soon recognize that they have gone astray, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... him,—he seemed to have lost his steadiness and self-possession. Nevertheless he continued his upward course. But when he had gained the part of the rope which sloped upwards to the temple, and was about to exhibit some daring feat of agility, twice did he make the effort unsuccessfully, and then, in a third violent attempt, missed his foothold, and fell to the ground ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... returning home late. He was least known to those to whom he rendered most assistance. Rarely had he thanks for it, never halfpence, but not unfrequently blows and abuse. For the last he cared nothing; the former, owing to his great agility, seldom visited him with any directness. A certain reporter of humorous scandal, after his third tumbler, would occasionally give a graphic description of what, coming from a supper-party, he once saw about ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... staff in the machine-shop were Messrs. J. H. Vail and W. S. Andrews. Mr. Vail had charge of the dynamo-room. He had a good general knowledge of machinery, and very soon acquired such familiarity with the dynamos that he could skip about among them with astonishing agility to regulate their brushes or to throw rosin on the belts when they began to squeal. Later on he took an active part in the affairs and installations of the Edison Light Company. Mr. Andrews stayed ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... several times, according as the stick is advanced or depressed. Sometimes the emperor holds one end of the stick, and his first minister the other: sometimes the minister has it entirely to himself. Whoever performs his part with most agility, and holds out the longest in leaping and creeping, is rewarded with the blue-colored silk; the yellow is given to the next, and the green to the third, which they all wear girt twice about the middle; and you see few great persons round about this court who are not ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... scrambled in with unusual agility for him, and again they were off, the gray taking them along with leaps and bounds, but the road was smooth, and the dust laid by frequent showers was like velvet under the horse's feet. Stiles drew himself up, clinging to the side of the buggy ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... of the bone Bwana Nyele's eyes lit up, he uttered an astonishing bellow of delight, and sprang forward with such agility for so large a man that he almost succeeded in snatching the talisman from Simba's hands. Acting precisely on his instructions the latter backed away, pointing over ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... Osgod was making a long step from one tuft to another the boy stooped and caught his foot, and with a roar of surprise and fury Osgod fell head-foremost into the morass. At the same moment the lad darted away with a yell of defiance, leaping from tuft to tuft with the agility of a hare. Several of the men started after him, but unaccustomed to the treacherous bog four or five were immersed in it to their waist before they had gone ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... the girl aside and spoke rapidly in French to his companion. Then with mincing agility he stepped ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... the very top of an ancient castle of that name in the county of Cork in Ireland, extremely difficult of access; so that to have ascended to it, was considered as a proof of perseverance, courage, and agility, whereof many are supposed to claim the honour, who never atchieved the adventure: and to tip the blarney, is figuratively used telling a marvellous story, or falsity; and also sometimes to express ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... train was entering the station, and dropped her child onto the metals. She tried to jump after it but was held back, and Mary, who had just come up, jumped in her stead, and by a miracle of strength and agility was just able to clutch the child and get onto the six-foot way ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... animal—say the mechanical imitation of a tiger or a gazelle with the living original; the first a wonderfully moving piece of machinery, illustrating the limit of human constructive power; perfectly under control, the movements smooth, unvarying, rhythmical, charming, excelling in agility and power its living prototype—but still, scientific—to the discerning eye, artful. The other, something more than rhythmical, more than smooth, beyond the control of human agency, beyond the power of man ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... simplicity of character so remarkable in the domestic species; but that where they had been often fired at they were exceedingly wild, alarmed their companions on the approach of danger by a hissing noise, and scaled the rocks with a speed and agility that baffled pursuit." The mountain men of early days tell precisely the same thing of the sheep. Fifty or sixty years ago they were regarded as the gentlest and most unsuspicious animal of all the prairie, excepting, of course, the buffalo. They did not understand that the sound ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... the calamities of war. And this translated the estimate of my guilt from the public jurisdiction to that of the individual, sometimes capricious and harsh, and carrying out the public award by means of legs that ranged through all gradations of weight and agility. One kick differed exceedingly from another kick in dynamic value; and, in some cases, this difference was so distressingly conspicuous as to imply special malice, unworthy, I conceive, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... himself, for his master had been a bruiser in his youth, and neither his left hand nor his right arm had yet forgot their cunning so far as to leave him less than a heavy overmatch for one unskilled, whatever his strength or agility. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... annoyed, however, at first, by leopards than any other animal. My cattle could not stray beyond the fences, nor could my laborers venture abroad at any time without weapons. I made use of spring-traps, pit-fall, and various expedients to purify the forest; but such was the cunning or agility of our nimble foes that they all escaped. The only mode by which I succeeded in freeing the homestead of their ravages, was by arming the muzzle of a musket with a slice of meat which was attached by a string to the trigger, so that the load ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... half-picked bird, ascended with eager agility, lined another projection of the floe with some object on the New Brunswick shore, seemed puzzled, looked more carefully, and then slowly descended, apparently sad ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... the unlocked garage doors. He had taken less approving note of the three guardian collies: Lad, still magnificent and formidable, in spite of his weight of years;—Bruce, gloriously beautiful and stately and aloof;—young Wolf, with the fire and fierce agility of a tiger-cat. All three had watched him, grimly. None had offered the slightest move to make friends with the smooth-spoken visitor. Dogs have a queerly occult sixth sense, sometimes, in regard to those who mean ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... reached for another. This he carefully cut at the end, lighting it with graceful, elegant deliberation. The Mexican was a distinguished-looking man above medium height. A little past forty years of age, he possessed all the agility of a boy of twenty. Frequently his sudden, agile movements indicated the possession of unusual strength. Dark, like most of his countrymen, constant exposure to the tropical sun had made his face almost the color of mahogany. His ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock
... bounded from the ground with fury. What would have been our fate had he succeeded in shaking off or breaking the lassos! Fortunately, there was no danger of this. An Indian dismounted, and, with great agility, attached to the trunk of a solid tree the two lassos that retained the savage beast; then he gave the signal that his office was accomplished, and retired. Two hunters approached, threw their lassos over the animal, and fixed the ends to the ground with stakes; and now ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... the reins go loose, and instantly the little horse went slowly, as if all his spirit and agility had suddenly ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... entered the field of operatic composition when it was hampered with a great variety of dry forms, and utterly without soul and poetic spirit. The object of composers seemed to be to show mere contrapuntal learning, or to furnish singers opportunity to display vocal agility. The opera, as a large and symmetrical expression of human emotions, suggested in the collisions of a dramatic story, was utterly an unknown quantity in art. Gluck's attention was early called to this radical inconsistency; ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... for the impenetrable armor and leveled lances of the King's colossal head. But they did not meet fairly. The black stranger was much too crafty for that. At the last moment he swerved nimbly aside, wheeled with an agility that was marvelous for a creature of his bulk, and thrust at the shoulders of the colossus with a fierce, rooting movement like the ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... outside them. Okanagan passed his arms about his shoulders, and they rose with a jerk and stood swaying unevenly for a moment, while Seaforth wondered with a curious feeling of helplessness whether they would ever accomplish the journey to the canoe. It would have tested the agility of an unencumbered man, while he was almost worn out, and Alton ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... gathers before the restaurant, shouts, throws mud, and then lets fly a volley of stones; the grenadiers draw their sabers. Forthwith a shout is heard just in front of them, a nous les Marseillais! upon which the gang jump out of the windows with true southern agility, clamber across the ditches, fall upon the grenadiers with their swords, kill one and wound fifteen.—No debut could be more brilliant. The party at last possesses men of action;[2636] and they must be kept within reach! ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... circus, which for a time made me renounce all athletic exhibitions. Six horses were stationed side by side in the ring before a spring-board, and the whole company of gymnasts ran and turned somersaults from the spring over the horses, alighting on a mattress spread on the ground. The agility of one finely developed young fellow excited great applause every time he made the leap. He would shoot forward in the air like a javelin, and in his flight curl up and turn over directly above the mattress, dropping on his feet as lightly as a bird. This play went on for some minutes, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... considerable time; and by observing this regimen for a few days thou wilt see the effects of my art." The first day Ogul was out of breath and thought he should have died with fatigue. The second he was less fatigued, slept better. In eight days he recovered all the strength, all the health, all the agility and cheerfulness ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... noise, and a canary's pipe is the most piercing and persistent of noises, welcome to that large majority of mankind which prefers sound of any kind to silence. Moreover, a cage presents just the degree of hindrance to tempt a cat's agility. That Puss habitually refrains from ridding the household of canaries is proof of her innate reasonableness, of her readiness to submit her finer judgment and more delicate instincts to the ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... The flag had been run up, it being Empire Day, and, marshalling us beneath it, Graham taught boys and girls how to "hurrah." He was in his element. Afterwards he gave the boys a lesson in skipping, and quite surprised me by his agility. One or two tried and much enjoyed it, but the rest were too shy. Later on William came to ask for another rope, and looking out of the passage window I saw a group of boys watching big Ben the crippled man who was skipping with intense enjoyment, and leaping about ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... legs, felt now but little apprehension of the dogs, though a new source of alarm presented itself by the time the Chippewa was barely able to sustain his weight on his feet, and long before he could use them with anything like his former agility. The manner in which the savages came together in the hut, and the gestures made by their chief, announced pretty plainly that a watch was about to be set for the night. As it was probable that the sentinel would take his station near the prisoner, the bee-hunter was at a loss to decide ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... convey the debris to the pit-head. Few words were spoken, except when a warning shout was given, when some loose rubble poured down from the great gaping cavern in the roof, and then men jumped and sprang to safety with the agility of desperation, to wait till the rumbling had ceased, only to leap back again into the yawning hell, tearing at the stones, and trying to work their way into the place where they knew Geordie and the boy were lying. It ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... all, the living runner. The duty of the latter consisted in carrying messages to or from exposed positions when no other means would do. Usually a volunteer from any branch, he was selected because of courage, agility and ability to get through somehow, no matter how great the opposing odds. I was present in an Observation Post near Jolney talking to Colonel Lewis, when a runner came rushing across No Man's Land through a leaden hail, saluted, handed a message to Captain Payne, ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... waters were hissing, and embracing, and swirling back, and trying to leap the cliffs, and feeling with all their awful strength and agility for some channel through which they might reach and ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... the larger males until they are strong enough to protect themselves, feeding in the mean time upon fish and flesh of every description. In the water they move with agility, but on land their long bodies and short legs prevent rapid motion. They migrate during droughts from one slough or bayou to another, crossing the intervening upland. When discovered on these journeys by man, the alligator feigns death, or at least appears to be in an unconscious state; ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... said, without vanity, that I was an apt pupil, and in the course of half a dozen lessons I had arrived at very considerable agility in the waltzing line, and could twirl round the room with him at such a pace as made the old gentleman pant again, and hardly left him breath enough to puff out a compliment to his pupil. I may say, that in a single week I became an expert waltzer; but as I wished, when I came out publicly in ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a long day, the air fine. We enjoyed the advantages of vigour of mind, and strength and agility of body, and everything else essential to those engaged in such an undertaking, and so had no other difficulties to face than those of the region itself.' ... 'At first, owing to the unaccustomed quality ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... horrible, terrible! Was ever poor gentleman so scar'd out of his seven senses? A bear? Nay, sure it cannot be a bear, but some devil in a bear's doublet; for a bear could never have had that agility to have frighted me. Well, I'll see my father hanged before I'll serve his horse any more. Well, I'll carry home my bottle of hay, and for once make my father's horse turn Puritan, and observe fasting-days, for he gets not a bit. But soft! this way she followed me; therefore ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... these, as though to show that under the ashes of his old democratic enthusiasm still lived its wonted fires, and that the inspiration of a popular cause was only needed to reanimate them, we find, with less of the youthful lightness of touch and agility of movement, a very near approach to the vigour of his early journalistic days. Whatever may be thought of the historic value of the parallel which he institutes between the struggle of the Low Countries ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... recently dropped into several London theatres and halls of variety I have been struck by the numerical strength, agility and apparently abounding vitality of the young men forming the chorus. These gallant fellows sing and caper with the utmost spirit throughout the whole evening, both in musical comedy or revue; and in London alone, where revues are now being ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... this time. He appeared again in about an hour, when sixteen or seventeen Indians swam off and encompassed him; and, by continually tormenting him, drove, him insensibly ashore. On grounding, the force with which he struck the ground with his fins is not to be expressed, neither can I describe the agility with which the Indians strove to dispatch him, lest the surf should set him again afloat, which they at length accomplished with the help of a dagger lent them by Mr Randal. They then cut him into pieces, which were distributed among all who stood by. This fish, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... the agility of a gazelle, rushed again to the door, and clung with both hands to ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... cries had filled us with dread; but the ferocious beast, having heard a noise near the little hill where it was, made a leap over his head, and disappeared in the woods. He returned, a little frightened at the boldness and agility of the creature, and gave up the pursuit till the following night. On the evening of the following day, he caused some negroes to come from the island of Babaguey, whom he joined with his own, and putting himself at their head, he thought he would ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... turned away towards his cabin, while his ship fellows continued to talk among themselves of this new example of his great agility. ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... alone," he thought, and without further hesitation leaped up the side of the schooner with the agility of ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... Ruhle sprang forward with the agility of a panther. The imitation Malacca cane descended with a dull thud upon the lad's head, and like a felled ox Vernon fell ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... flung down his tools, which clattered loudly on the hard rock, as he leaped from his perch with the agility of one whose muscles are all in full ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... missed the boat and fell into the sea, but the child immediately leaped overboard, and diving after it, brought it up again. To reward his performance, we dropped some more beads to him, which so tempted a number of men and women, that they amused us with amazing feats of agility in the water, and not only fetched up several beads scattered at once, but likewise large nails, which, on account of their weight, descended quickly to a considerable depth. Some of them continued a long while under water, and the velocity with which we ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... when he reached the little station of Winton and left the train, a tall, sturdy boy, the superior of many a man in size, strength and agility. His saddle bags over his arm, he went at once to the liveryman with whom he had left his horse on his journey to Charleston, and asked for another, his best, for the return ride to Pendleton. The liveryman stared at him a moment or two and then burst ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fifteenth had it become general. The Aragonese brought it to Naples, and the Borgias to Rome. Hitherto the only thing of the sort which had been seen was the bull-baiting in the Piazza Navona or on the Testaccio. Caesar was fond of displaying his agility and strength in this barbarous sport. During the jubilee year he excited the wonder of all Rome by decapitating a bull with a single stroke in one of these contests. On January 2d he and nine other Spaniards, who probably were ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... and Charley with difficulty reined him in a few paces away. The snake with a broken neck lay lifeless on the ground, while Walter, sobbing dryly, had sunk into the arms of the captain, who had flung himself from his horse with surprising agility for a man ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... to Jane's companionship. She was still a good little girl: but there was something automatic and formal in her goodness, as though it were a kind of moral calisthenics that she went through for the sake of showing her agility. An early consciousness of virtue had moreover constituted her the natural guardian and adviser of her elders. Before she was fifteen she had set about reforming the household. She took Mrs. Lethbury in hand first; then she extended ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... the platform with the agility of an elephant and working himself into a passion for a set tirade against the Emperor Napoleon, when those accurst feet of mine—no, poor feet, I can not blame you for drumming then, nay, I could not have blamed you had your dumb instinct thus ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... pleasure in an activity for which he is particularly well-equipped, and therefore often exercises it without any object. Further, if he is an acrobat or a dancer, not only does he take leaps which other people cannot execute, but he also betrays rare elasticity and agility in those easier steps which others can also perform, and even in ordinary walking. In the same way a man of superior mind will not only produce thoughts and works which could never have come from another; it will not be here alone that he will ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... aforesaid. I always wondered how I caught her every day; and when I had tied her head to one post and her heels to another, I wiped the sweat from my brow, and thought I was paying dear for the eccentricities of genius. A genius she certainly was, for besides her surprising agility, she had other talents equally extraordinary. There was no fence that she could not take down; nowhere that she could not go. She took the pickets off the garden fence at her pleasure, using her horns as handily as I could use a ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... delay was most vexatious. Every moment lost to the pursuit was more than a minute gained by the pursued. Lighter by far and trained to mountain climbing, the Apache covers ground with agility almost goatlike. It was long after seven, said Stannard's watch, and not a glimpse had they caught of Indian other than their own. It was just half past the hour, and Stannard with an impatient snap of the watch-case was about thrusting it back in his pocket, when, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... seat of the carriage, while my father sat on the other. I can see Mr Hall descending at a blacksmith's shop to re-light his pipe, making his way directly to the forge, and jumping aside with unwonted agility, when a huge dog growled at him. I can recall his look, when rallied on his agility, after his return to the carriage. 'You seemed afraid of the dog, sir,' said my father. 'Apostolic advice, sir—Beware of dogs,' rejoined Mr Hall." Dr Leifchild, in another part of ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... "As to his agility and the strength of his body," said the Spaniard, as if he were thinking of certain allegories which were to mark the archduke's triumphal entry, "they are so deficient as to leave him unfit for arms. I consider him incapable ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... animal spirits when alone. Why else should he be dancing? The shadow from the next room evidently showed that he was. Again and again his thin form crossed the window, his arms waved, and a gaunt leg was kicked up with surprising agility. He seemed to be barefooted, and the floor must be well laid, for no sound betrayed his movements. Sagfoerer Herr Anders Jensen, dancing at ten o'clock at night in a hotel bedroom, seemed a fitting subject for a historical painting in the grand style; ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... Adams always wore the cassock; but he did not read AEschylus. Mr. Vandyke was at least sixty; yet if a colt, a pig, or any other quadruped entered his paddock, he sprang from his seat with more than youthful agility, and vociferously chased the intruder from his domain. I could not but smile to behold the parson running after a pig and mingling his cries with those of ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... the fast-arriving pails of water came into capital play. They had to be used economically, of course, but they did the work as effectually as if they had been the streams of a steam fire-engine. Hard work for Ham and Dab, and now and then the strength and weight and agility of the former were put to pretty severe tests, as Dab danced around under the scorching heat or slipped ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... becoming state of trustworthy unconcern. That night in my own upper chamber I spent many hours in testing my powers and studying more remarkable attitudes of locust flight, and I even found to be within myself some new attainments of life-like agility, such as feigning the continuous note of defiance with which the insect meets his adversary, as remaining poised in the air for an appreciable moment at the summit of each leap, and of conveying to the body a sudden and disconcerting sideway movement in the course of its ascent. So immersed ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... lessons in gymnastics, of which science a certain Colonel Amoros was the apostle. This worthy colonel gave prizes to everybody, so as to make his classes popular. These prizes took the form of collars, inscribed in large painted letters with the particular merit of the pupil rewarded, such as agility, courage, strength, &c. One pupil was given a prize for "hidden virtue." After the gymnastic lessons came riding lessons, for which we were taken to the Cirque Olympique, I and my two elder brothers being always put in the charge of a single ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... in herds of hundreds. Being armed with powerful canine teeth and wolf-like jaws, they are formidable antagonists, and other animals do not dare to attack them. It is because of their natural weapons, their readiness to fight like fiends, and their combined agility and strength that the baboons have been able to live on the ground and survive and flourish in lands literally reeking with lions, leopards, hyenas and wild dogs. The awful canine teeth of an old male baboon are quite as dangerous as those of any leopard, and even the leopard's ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... going through the various motions necessary to depict these actions the movement of the dance is kept up, the body bent forward in a crouching position, the feet leaving the ground alternately in rapid motion but never out of time with the music. Such agility and tirelessness one could scarcely find ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... immunity to poisons, yet did not care unnecessarily to suffer the laceration of fangs. Rather did he choose to rely upon the further protective gifts that nature had given him: length and strength, speed and agility, and a skin that blended elusively with the ground colors; therefore, revolving in these smaller circles, he seemed to make almost a continuous line, without beginning or end, and the rattler was at a loss to act. Now, profiting ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... all points where he has crossed the road. Here he has leisurely passed within rifle-range of the house, evidently reconnoitring the premises with an eye to the hen-roost. That clear, sharp track,—there is no mistaking it for the clumsy footprint of a little dog. All his wildness and agility are photographed in it. Here he has taken fright, or suddenly recollected an engagement, and in long, graceful leaps, barely touching the fence, has gone careering up the hill as fleet ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... time a slender pole, forty feet in height, had been erected by a set of native tumblers, who presently exhibited before us various feats of extraordinary agility and strength—some of these are almost too curious to be believed by those who are not aware of the flexibility and dexterity of the Hindoos. We were most surprised and amused by the exploits of a lady of forty, which is considered ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... quickly, so skilfully, that the Wizard did not guess what had happened. He snatched at the image but when he had almost grasped it, it withdrew from him swiftly. When he pursued it, it darted now to this side, now to that, with marvelous agility, always seeming just within reach of his fingers, yet always just eluding them as they began to close upon it, and each time he failed he heard the laughter ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... possibly overhaul. Still we did not feel safe, and I suggested to Ngouta he should rise up and help; but he declined, stating he was a married man. Obanjo cheering the paddlers with inspiriting words sprang with the agility of a leopard on to the bamboo staging aft, standing there with his gun ready loaded and cocked to face the coming foe, looking like a statue put up to himself at the public expense. The worst of this was, however, that while Obanjo's face was to the coming foe, his back was to the crew, and they ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... next hoist, however, rent his garments, and lacerated a portion of his person which he had always considered especially sacred; but as the thrust heaved him upwards at the same time, and gave a fresh impulse to his agility, he succeeded in scrambling upon a bough that kept him just out of danger. No one may describe the pangs of despair by which he was assailed when he beheld the utter destruction of his only rifle. He threw his cap in the face of the bull, but he only lost ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... had had time to cast aside her fur cloak, to fasten upon her slender, arched feet, clad in dainty, laced boots, a pair of steel skates, with tangent blades, and without either grooves or straps, and to dart out upon this miniature sheet of water with the agility of a person accustomed to skating on the great lakes ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... by the family likeness in their teeth.* For me, I'm going to pay a visit to the monkeys' house; I'm sure there to find some provision, always a matter of importance to a rat. The door is shut, but I'll not trouble the keeper to open it for me!" So saying, with wonderful agility he began to climb the building, and soon vanished through ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... Tunstall was before him, and was disposed to make an issue of the dropped boots. Only by his superior agility was Racey enabled to dodge all save a few drops of a full ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... slashed with orange-tawny, those ostrich plumes, blue, red, and yellow, those party-colored hose and pink shoon, became the noble baron wondrous well," Fatima acknowledged. "It must be confessed that, though middle-aged, he hath all the agility of youth. But alas, madam! The noble baron hath had ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... what do you mean?" says mamma; and Lady Kew, jumping up on her crooked stick with immense agility, tore the card out of Ethel's bosom, and very likely would have boxed her ears, but that her parents were present ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... go on to Zanzibar came, we were a completely trained picked body of men. In manoeuvring we could compete with any corps of Guards—naturally only in those exercises which give dexterity and agility in face of a foe, and not in the parade march and the military salutes. In these last respects we were and remained as ignorant as Hottentots. But we could, without serious inconvenience, march or sit in the saddle, with only brief halts, ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... was the herald of the gods, and as such was represented as having winged ankles (Gk. ptenopedilos): his name is here used as a synonym both for agility ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... of country. Their horsemanship was celebrated: they gallopped amidst the trees—now stooping, now leaning to the right or to the left; avoiding obstruction and escaping collision with wonderful agility. They lived a half savage life; were the reckless oppressors of the natives; often the accomplices of the bushrangers, and accused of many crimes. To brand the cattle, they were driven within an enclosure seven feet high, and when exhausted by hunger, one man armed ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... retained a seat in the saddle for an instant. Diablo, squealing, snorting, and grunting with effort, was dashing back and forth, flinging himself aloft, coming down on one stiff leg, doubling back with jackrabbit agility. ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... it was this way," said Roscoe after hie had scrambled with amazing agility up to his "perch" in a tree several hundred feet distant but in full view of the stream. Tom had climbed up after him and was looking with curious pleasure at the little kit of rations and other ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... sheep upon his mare. They were now too far off to be overtaken; and our people, not being able to engage the enemy, amused themselves with a sham-fight in their return home. They displayed superior strength and agility in handling the lance, and great boldness in riding at full speed over rugged and rocky ground. In the exercise with the lance the rider endeavours to put the point of it upon the shoulder of his adversary, thus showing that his life is in his power. When the parties become heated, they ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... of the elf had to expend themselves in the same way. As a child she had ever been as remarkable for surprising feats of agility as for fun, frolic, mischief, and diablerie. And every one of these traits augmented with her growth. Feats of agility became a passion with her—her airy spirit seemed only to find its full freedom in rapid ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... that! You know, Gentlemen, that I have such a strange and natural Agility in turning—I shall whip about yet, and leave 'em all ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... to-day did she perform feats of daring and agility that would have done credit to a flying fish. No one had eyes for her except an agitated mother and grandmother, who finally ordered her summarily out of the water and ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... but in a low voice all the time. When in the course of his investigation he found the side exit and the winding stair down which Wilfred had rushed to find his brother dead, Father Brown ran not down but up, with the agility of a monkey, and his clear voice came from an outer ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... became famous throughout the district, and many of the younger men made special trips to Bali to examine it. Arni would beam with joy and strut around with a knowing, self-satisfied expression on his face, and would tell of the patience, the agility, and the marksmanship he had to put into killing this monstrously clever fox. It certainly wasn't hard to kill all you wanted of these devils, if you just had the powder and shot and were willing to give your time to it, he would say, as ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... principle that God has spoken, not in order to make acute theologians, or to provide materials for controversy, but in order to help us to love. The whole of these latest letters of the Apostle breathe the mellow wisdom of old age, which has learned to rate brilliant intellectualism, agility, incontroversial fence and the like, far lower than homely goodness. And so, says Paul, 'the end of the commandment ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... that afternoon to "red up" a little for her, for her rheumatism had been very bad. With wonderful agility she rose and made ready for bed. First, however, she carefully examined the latch on her kitchen door. Now this latch had a bad habit of locking itself if the door was closed quickly. Mrs. McGuire tried it and found it would ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... called a Cattamount. It has a tail like a Lyon, its legs are like Bears, its Claws like an Eagle, its Eyes like a Tyger. He is exceedingly ravenous and devours all sorts of Creatures that he can come near. Its agility is surprising. It will leap 30 feet at one jump notwithstanding it is but 3 months old. Whoever wishes to see this creature may come to the place aforesaid paying one shilling each shall be welcome for ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... have the gout in their toes or the rheumatism in their joints; some are stiff with age, some feeble with disease; some are so lean that their bones would rattle, and others of such ponderous size that their agility would crack the flagstones; but many, many have leaden feet because their hearts are far heavier than lead. It is a sad thought that I have chanced upon. What a company of dancers should we be! For I too am a ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
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