"Flighty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his purpose about Smith with much more steadiness than Hume felt able to give him credit for. Townshend, it need perhaps hardly be said, was the brilliant but flighty young statesman to whom we owe the beginnings of our difficulties with America. He was the colonial minister who first awoke the question of "colonial rights," by depriving the colonists of the appointment of their own judges, and he was the Chancellor ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... been dragged to death by that damned flighty horse of his," he said. "I found him in the brush this side of Granite Creek. Had his foot caught in the stirrup. I thought I'd best leave him there till the coroner ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... slightest liberty with her, every one very clearly recognised the simple candour with which she responded to my kindly and solicitous attentions. They could not fail to see that the link existing between us was not to be compared to any ordinary liaison, and we had the satisfaction of seeing the flighty young lady who had so openly angled for me fall into a ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... small hook she used for pulling out the loops of her tatting. "Katherine Liddell is an uncommon sort of girl," she said, "but I like her. I have an idea that she likes me better than any of the others did, yet there are not many things on which we agree. She is a little flighty in some ways, but she has some sense too, some notion of the value of money; she does not lose her dead about dress, nor does she buy costly baubles at the jewellers'. She, certainly wastes a good many pounds on books, when ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... beautiful ones. After they had been married for eight years, Rosina met this Spaniard. He must have amounted to something. She wasn't a flighty woman. She came home and told Dudley how matters stood. He persuaded her to stay at home for six months and try to pull up. They were both fair-minded people, and I'm as sure as if I were the Almighty, that she did try. But at the end of the time, Rosina went ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... continued Dora, "to have you to help me to keep my flighty progenitors in order. ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... one maid goes the others want to, and it has been a difficult matter to keep them all contented and busy. Gabrielle was a good nurse, but a bit flighty and quite excitable." ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... the fox stopped short again in mid career, and crouched down; but Matyi did not leap over him as the flighty Armida had done, but, as the fox turned towards him with gnashing teeth, he snapped suddenly at him from the opposite side like lightning, and in that instant all that one could see was the fox turning a somersault in the air. Matyi, seizing ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... the red Robin sing His English ballad, "Come, beautiful Spring!" And Master Owlet's melodious tune, "O, meet me under the silvery moon!" Then, as flighty Miss Humming-bird didn't care To sing for the high and mighty Glendare, The close of the evening's performance fell To the fair young Nightingale, Mademoiselle. Ah! the wealth of each wonderful note That came from the depths of her tiny throat! She carolled, she trilled, and she held ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... a bit of it! SHE had not finished her fling and never did madder chase ensue than the one which at length ended in effectually cornering the flighty one. ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... to that hysterical hat, Mrs. Paige. Probably it went war mad and followed the soldiers to the ferry. You can never count on hats. They're flighty." ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... to her in any way. Mattie is a capital little housekeeper. She is economical, and full of clever contrivances. It is not as though I asked you to try Isabel. She is well enough, too, in her way, but a little flighty, and rather too pretty, perhaps—" but here a laugh from ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... in useful and happy thought; it is passed in rapid and feverish speculation. There is no question of reviving the brain; it is not recreation that is gained, but distraction, and the brain, instead of being ready to concentrate its power upon work, is enfeebled and rendered vague and flighty. Supposing a youth spends but one hour per day in handling pieces of pasteboard and trying to win his neighbour's money, then in four weeks he has wasted twenty-four hours, and in one year he wastes thirteen ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... corn spilled in a golden shower, and the doves, fickle as all flighty things are, deserted Merrihew for ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... pasture, stretching away leafless, treeless, without bud or flower, herd or herdsman, church or cottage, to the shadowed horizon, looming dark as the twilight deepened, was in sympathy with the gloom which had come upon me as Martin Hall ceased to speak. I had thought the man a fool and witless, flighty in purpose and shallow in thought, and yet he seemed to speak of great mysteries—and of death. In one moment the jester's cloak fell from him, and I saw the mail beneath. He had made a great impression upon me, ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Nogood, hold a contract made in London by your uncle, a director of this company, to be engaged on arrival as clerk at L10 a week. You, Mr. Boozer, are to be engaged at L6 a week as book-keeper; and you, Mr. Flighty, at L5 a week as an assistant engineer, and so on. Now, gentlemen, in my position as manager here I may tell you plainly that your relatives and friends—the directors in London—are not conversant with the business here in detail. Were they, I am certain, ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... married just six months, after, as he put it, the hardest courtship a man ever undertook. She was more like a piece of quicksilver than a girl. She was as uncertain as a spring wind, as flighty as a ball of thistledown—"Doesn't know her own mind for ten minutes together," he groaned. "Hasn't any mind at all," he'd think an hour later. While, on the following day, it might be—"That woman is too deep, she is dodging all round me, she ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... the castle, Lucy was transported to her own chamber, where she remained for some time in a state of absolute stupor. Yet afterwards, in the course of the ensuing day, she seemed to have recovered, not merely her spirits and resolution, but a sort of flighty levity, that was foreign to her character and situation, and which was at times chequered by fits of deep silence and melancholy and of capricious pettishness. Lady Ashton became much alarmed and consulted the family physicians. But as her pulse indicated no change, they ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... Farsa de Ines Pereira, in which there is more action and development of character than in his preceding, or indeed his subsequent, plays. He represents the aspirations and repentance of Ines, the 'very flighty daughter of a woman of low estate.' Despite the warnings of her sensible mother she rejects the suit of simple and uncouth Pero Marques for that of a gentleman (escudeiro) whose pretensions are far greater than his possessions. ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... see, protecting a young girl agin herself is one thing. He might feel different if a married woman wanted to turn fool. Now, Joyce, I ain't ever going to say anything more about this, 'less it's necessary. I know you're pretty and maybe a bit more flighty along of that, but being married and having your own work, may tone you down. If you'll stick by me, I'll stick by you; and in time Mr. Gaston can be a friend to both of us and no harm done. You understand, don't ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... true to-day may not be true to-morrow. All our opinions should be marked, "Subject to change without notice." We cannot all indulge ourselves in the complacency of the maiden lady who gave her age year after year as twenty-seven, because she said she was not one of these flighty things who say "one thing to-day ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... think, Mr. Bruce, I don't think!' An' when I went down an' put me foot on those piles of rope an' bolts of canvas, they went down, all soft, under me. Ye understand? Oh, I knew there was somethin', rememberin' those flighty women, an' the foc'sle bonnets blowin' off. The water had rushed into the fore-peak, an' had driven the ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... woman, who retrieved an insignificant appearance by a distinguished manner and, sitting there in a well-worn waterproof, talked with striking familiarity of the courts of Europe. There was nothing flighty about Mrs. Touchett, but she recognised no social superiors, and, judging the great ones of the earth in a way that spoke of this, enjoyed the consciousness of making an impression on a candid and susceptible mind. Isabel at first had answered a good many questions, and it was from her ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... determined to send Councillor Hopper, keeper of the privy seal, and myself, hitherwards, to execute the resolutions of his Majesty." Two such personages as poor, plodding, confused; time-serving Hopper, and flighty, talkative Havre, whom even Requesens despised, and whom Don John, while shortly afterwards recommending him for a state councillor, characterized, to Philip as "a very great scoundrel;" would hardly be able, even if royally empowered, to undo the work of two preceding administrations. Moreover, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... advanced stage. The face that might have been handsome was the reflection of a roue, dashing, devilish. He was fair-haired and tall, taller than his companions by half a head. With reckless abandon he drank and sang and jested, arrogant in his flighty merriment. His cohorts were not far behind ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... a state of distracted and flighty tribulation, not knowing what to make of it, nor, indeed, knowing the worst; for the neighbours did not tell her half they might, nor drop a hint of the dreadful suspicion that dogged her ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... it independent of the body or any other refuge. I have spoken of the path of meditation as the first, since the yogin has first to crush his senses and the mind (and direct them to that path). The mind, which constitutes the sixth, when thus restrained, seeks to flash out like the capricious and flighty lightning moving in frolic among the clouds. As a drop of water on a (lotus) leaf is unstable and moves about in all directions, even so becomes the yogin's mind when first fixed on the path of meditation. When ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... factiousness, as flighty critics of French affairs sometimes imply, that has made civil equality the passion of modern France. The root of this passion is an undying memory of the curse that was inflicted on its citizens, morally and materially, by the fiscal ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... Annabel died in two days, and afterward Maggie took the fever. Yes, she has been quite changed since then. She always had moods, as she called them, but not like now. Sometimes I think she is almost flighty." ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... who had a Roman firmness, was absolutely determined that her son should not marry "a penniless girl whose education had been so flagrantly neglected, who was vain and flighty, with a mocking humour and a conspicuous lack of principle." At this point the story becomes exceedingly interesting. A Balzac would strip it of its romantic trappings, and would penetrate into its physiology. Out of Rosina's sight, and diverted by the ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... with a bit of muslin, and Elsie sat near by with her father's letter in her hand, her soft dark eyes now glancing over it for perhaps the twentieth time, now at the face of one or the other of her companions, as Lottie rattled on in her usual gay, flighty style, and Aunt Wealthy answered her sometimes with a straightforward sentence, and again with one so topsy-turvy that her listeners ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... everybody says has ever been universally received as indisputable testimony. Many people, indeed, averred that Grim never had been quite right—that he always had been queer, and that since his mad marriage with that flighty bit of a child, Jacquelina, he ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... wished and prayed his wife would be. And I like to have her near us, for she understands my sighs And I see my brave boy smiling when I look into her eyes." Now the presence of his sweetheart seems to fill our home with joy. She's no longer young and flighty—she's the girl who ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... attack upon the Dardanelles had a traditional attractiveness for the British mind. Old men had been brought up from childhood with "forcing the Dardanelles" as a familiar phrase; it had none of the flighty novelty and vulgarity about it that made an "aerial offensive" seem so unwarrantable a proceeding. Forcing the Dardanelles was historically British. It made no break with tradition. Soon after Turkey entered the war British submarines appeared in the Sea ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... interval, it was to check Blanche, who would have gone up to interrupt her with queries about the perpetual blue merino. He sat down with Blanche on the staircase window-seat, and did not let her go till he had gently talked her out of flighty spirits into the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... from that, I think, that he took up politics of the rabid sort. He was a fanatical Radical—a Socialist—or typical Liberal, as they used to call themselves, of the advanced school. Energetic—flighty—undisciplined. Overwork upon a controversy did this for him. I remember the pamphlet he wrote—a curious production. Wild, whirling stuff. There were one or two prophecies. Some of them are already exploded, some of them are established facts. ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... told me—the disappearance of that old man. Nobody about here can recognize him from my descriptions. He walked toward the old mill down the Newark road, and the next time I looked up he was gone. The people in the house there think I am flighty in my mind for insisting upon his ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... explained later on? Would you believe that the crazy fellow had conceived a passion for Dounia from the beginning, but had concealed it under a show of rudeness and contempt. Possibly he was ashamed and horrified himself at his own flighty hopes, considering his years and his being the father of a family; and that made him angry with Dounia. And possibly, too, he hoped by his rude and sneering behaviour to hide the truth from others. But at last he lost all control and had the face to make Dounia an open and shameful proposal, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Too flighty. I did used to think about doing just that, curiously enough, but I seem to have drifted away from the idea. Oh, I'm a fine ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... nigger was setting by the pallet with his head propped on his knees sound asleep; so I motioned them in quiet, and they slipped up on him and grabbed him and tied him before he knowed what he was about, and we never had no trouble. And the boy being in a kind of a flighty sleep, too, we muffled the oars and hitched the raft on, and towed her over very nice and quiet, and the nigger never made the least row nor said a word from the start. He ain't no bad nigger, gentlemen; that's what I think ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... news, and said that all I had to do was to write an act introducing my characters, and that I ought, for the sake of contrast, to give her a mother. Some impish spirit suggested to me the idea of making a mother much younger than her daughter, that is, a very flighty ordinary woman, impulsive and feather-brained, with a mania for attending sales and collecting odds and ends at bargain prices. Full of this idea I wrote ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... took great delight in exercising Tommy and Patty (who were big enough to be trusted) in flighty and would often skim round the whole island with them before I could walk half through the wood. And she would teach them also to swim or sail, I know not which to call it, for sometimes you should see them ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... man, in his broken way, replied that then he (the herb-doctor) was the person he sought—the person spoken of by the other person as yet unknown. He then, with flighty eagerness, wanted to know who this last person was, and where he was, and whether he could be trusted ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... was very fond of her father, but it was a fondness which considered his love of speech-making and his flighty enthusiasms with smiling tolerance. Her cooler and more critical way of looking at things had caused her, young as she was, to distrust his judgment in practical affairs, and about most matters she had long ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... the comedy; after fifteen or twenty minutes Mrs. Vervain opened her eyes and said, "But before you commence, Florida, I wish you'd play a little, to get me quieted down. I feel so very flighty. I suppose it's this sirocco. And I believe I'll lie ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... unwillingly undertake beaten arguments, lest I should handle them at another's expense. Every subject is equally fertile to me: a fly will serve the purpose, and 'tis well if this I have in hand has not been undertaken at the recommendation of as flighty a will. I may begin, with that which pleases me best, for the subjects are all linked ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... too literal can spoil the talk of a whole tableful of men of esprit.— "Yes," you say, "but who wants to hear fanciful people's nonsense? Put the facts to it, and then see where it is!"—Certainly, if a man is too fond of paradox,—if he is flighty and empty,—if, instead of striking those fifths and sevenths, those harmonious discords, often so much better than the twinned octaves, in the music of thought,—if, instead of striking these, he jangles the chords, stick a fact into him like a stiletto. But remember ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... followed, we became better acquainted. He had great abilities, a genial temper, and no vices; but he had one defect,—he could not speak in the tone of the people. There was some paralysis on his will, that, when he met men on common terms, he spoke weakly, and from the point, like a flighty girl. His consciousness of the fault made it worse. He envied every daysman and drover in the tavern their manly speech. He coveted Mirabeau's don terrible de la familiarite, believing that he whose sympathy goes lowest is the man from whom ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... whom they have proposed themselves, they have one invariable method of self-defence: 'Temper, mum? Well, I 'ave my faults, I daresay, but not that; all as knows me knows my temper is 'eavenly. But the fact is, mum, Mrs. Jones [her late mistress] was a bit flighty.' And she touches her forehead, and even sometimes winks, to indicate aberration of the intellect. A really good-tempered servant is now rare; and there are very few who will bear 'speaking to' when their work ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... peasant has loved and wooed Lola before entering military service. At his return he finds the flighty damsel married to the wealthy carrier Alfio, who glories in his pretty wife and treats her very well.—Turridu tries to console himself with another young peasant-girl, Santuzza, who loves him ardently, and to ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... for three minutes there was a lively fusillade all along the northward side. Then it slowly died away, and other voices, close at hand,—someone speaking his name,—called the lad's attention. He was weak from loss of blood, and just a little dazed and flighty. He had meant three hours agone that when next he encountered his post commander his manner should plainly show that senior that even a second lieutenant had rights a major was bound to respect. But, only mistily now, he saw bending over ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... her mind to carry matters with a high hand; but at the telephone she hesitated. Calling him up at such an hour of the morning demanding his attendance on such a fanciful errand—wouldn't he think it odd? No, he would think it the most natural thing in the world for her to be so flighty. Reassured, she gave the club number and stood waiting, listening to the half-syllables of switched-off voices and the crossing click, click, that was bringing her fate nearer to her. She heard some one coming up the stairs ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... by the fire. She was a small, daintily-made woman, and beautiful even at fifty-five. She had keen, black eyes and nervous, flighty ways. A smile, half cynical, half inviting, lit up ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... when the Queen of Hearts was a stout, dowdy old lady, with no traces of beauty, and himself a flighty, amiable old gossip of seventy, Karl Victor von Bonstetten wrote to the Countess of Albany from Rome: "I never pass through the Apostles' square without looking up at that balcony, at that house where I saw you for the ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... equal energy it otherwise might be. The moral qualities of the laborers are fully as important to the efficiency and worth of their labor as the intellectual. Independently of the effects of intemperance upon their bodily and mental faculties, and of flighty, unsteady habits upon the energy and continuity of their work (points so easily understood as not to require being insisted upon), it is well worthy of meditation how much of the aggregate effect of their labor ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... gaze so quietly that he was puzzled. About her was neither nervous anticipation nor flighty vivacity. The actions of her audience of two left her in-curious and calm. You see, she was used to the lodger. Also she had worked to be famous so long that all the flowery borders of self were worn down to the keen edge ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... an obese and flighty Spheroid who spends her time pirouetting round in a circle with ...
— This Giddy Globe • Oliver Herford
... impossible to divine, to measure, to thwart. The sage Oo-koo-koo stood motionless, his eyes narrowing, his long, flat, cruel mouth compressed as with a keen scrutiny he marked all the characteristics of the strangers,—first of one, then deliberately of the other. A war captain (his flighty name was Watatuga, the Dragon-fly, although he looked with his high nose and eagle glance more like a bird of prey), assuming precedence of the others, pressed up beside the prophet, and the challenge of his eyes and the contempt that dilated his ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... acquaintance with Cecilia, was perfectly satisfied with the turn that matters had taken, since his utmost vanity had never led him to entertain any matrimonial hopes with her, and he thought his fortune as likely to profit from the civility of her friends as of herself. For Morrice, however flighty, and wild, had always at heart the study of his own interest; and though from a giddy forwardness of disposition he often gave offence, his meaning and his serious attention was not the less directed to the advancement of his own affairs: he formed no ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... sailors in the ship—ship of the state, or of one's own soul: the echoes and beams and shadows of that half-illuminated cavern, the human mind: the caged birds in the Theatetus, which are like the flighty, half-contained notions of an imperfectly educated understanding. Real notions are to be ingrained by persistent thoroughness of the "dialectic" method, as if by conscientious dyers. He makes us stay to watch such dyers busy with their purple stuff, as he had done; ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... said Arlington, "I think the thing is absolutely impossible, unless the Duke has had some quarrel with your Majesty, of which we know nothing. His Grace is very flighty, doubtless, but this ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... on the other hand, been too severely condemned by others who have involved it in its entirety in broad and sweeping condemnation. As if it were possible that so great labour on the part of so great a naturalist should have led him to 'a fantastic conclusion' only—to a 'flighty error,' and, as has been often said, though not written, to 'one absurdity the more.' Such was the language which Lamarck heard during his protracted old age, saddened alike by the weight of years and blindness; ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... again, scandalized.] — Let you not be minding if it's flat or rounded she is; for she's a flighty, foolish woman, you'll hear when you're off a long way, and she making a great noise and ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... up some eggs out 'n the nestes, but it'd look sort o' flighty to go egg-huntin' here at midnight—an' he ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... her little daughter with an approving smile, and Deacon Turner, that dreadful tithing-man up in the gallery, thought his lecture had done that "flighty little creetur" a great deal of good—or else it was his dollar, he ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... observations I long since came to the conclusion that in money matters we are the most flighty and unbusinesslike people in the world. I, who like to go to the root of matters, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Roche. He's the best man we've got for some of the hardest work, but you're too flighty with your temper, Larry, and you know it. We respect you just as much, but not to plan things for the rest of us. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... from James Russell Lowell's poem at Harvard were shown his father at Rome, instead of being pleased the latter said, "James promised me when I left home, that he would give up poetry and stick to books. I had hoped that he had become less flighty." The world is full of people at ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... would have told you. I saw him speaking to you. He had received some telegram about a horse. He's the most flighty man in the world about such things. I am to write to him before I leave this to-morrow." Then the Duchess did not believe a word of the engagement. She felt at any rate certain that if there was an engagement, Lord Rufford did not mean ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... said, when he had jabbed a bunch of copy paper into my hand and given me a pencil from his vest pocket, 'mind you, I won't stand for the high and flighty philosophical, and I perceive you have a tendency that way. Throw in the local color, wads of it, and a bit of sentiment perhaps, but no slumgullion about political economy nor social strata or such stuff. Make it concrete, to the ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... of flighty like, and whispered, 'Good-bye, dear house!' and then ran out to the wagon. I expect she meant that for you and your grandmother, as much as for me, so I'm particular to tell you. This house had always ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... had the mind of Sir Peter been so agitated as it was during and after the perusal of Kenelm's flighty composition. He had received it at the breakfast-table, and, opening it eagerly, ran his eye hastily over the contents, till he very soon arrived at sentences which appalled him. Lady Chillingly, who was fortunately busied at the tea-urn, did not observe the dismay on his countenance. It was visible ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Salteena peevishly I dont know if I shall like it the bow of the ribbon is too flighty for my age. Then he sat down and eat the egg which Ethel had so kindly laid for him. After he had finished his meal he got down and began to write to Bernard Clark he ran up stairs on his fat legs and took out his blotter ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford
... man, woman, or child in the neighborhood but knew it by heart. Some always pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one point on which he always remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally gave it full credit. Even to this day they never hear a thunder-storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... the truth, his conduct, when he first mentioned our engagement to my uncle, had been (so far as appearances went) a little flighty and strange. The vicar had naturally questioned him about his family. He had answered that his father was dead; and he had consented, though not very readily, to announce his contemplated marriage to his mother. Informing us ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... its branches. This branch, however, she cultivated more assiduously than any other and was continually running in to confer with "Cousin Rose," whom she considered the wisest, dearest, kindest girl ever created. And Rose, finding that, in spite of her flighty head, Kitty had a good heart of her own, did her best to encourage all the new hopes and aspirations springing up in it under the warmth of the first genuine ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... meanness was justifiable economy, and that his dissimilarity from me was perhaps the very thing which ought to induce me to marry him, because he would correct my failings. I knew I was too inconsiderate, too rash, too flighty, and I said to myself that his soberness would be a good ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... said, "as I am na mich o' a lass's mon mysen, and I wunnot say as I ha' mich opinion o' woman foak i' general—they're flighty yo' see—they're flighty; but I mun say as I wur tuk by that little wench o' th' Parson's—I ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... intervention of the old king until he lost his reason. After she went abroad in 1814, she travelled widely, but her English attendants soon retired from her service, and she incurred fresh suspicion by her flighty and undignified conduct. She had no part in the rejoicing for the marriage, or in the mourning for the death, of the Princess Charlotte; and in 1818 a secret commission, afterwards known as the Milan commission, was sent out by the prince regent to collect evidence for ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... Pindaric than it appears; he had just been speaking of the Court of Petersburg, and that Lady was then there." [Sherlock, ii. 27.] Whereupon Sherlock hops his ways again; leaving us considerably uncertain. But, by a curious accident, here, at first-hand, is confirmation of the flighty creature;—a Letter from Excellency Elliot himself having ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and pair, ruled over by a tyrannical coachman, he had provided her with a herd of little animals for harness or saddle, and a young groom, for whom Coombe was answerable. Mrs. Curtis groaned and feared the establishment would look flighty; but for the first time Rachel became the colonel's ally. "The worst despotism practised in England," she said, "is that of coachmen, and it is well that Fanny should be spared! The coachman who lived here when mamma was married, answered her request to go ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Nonsense, you flighty canary-bird!" said Mac; "you owe me nothing, so have done with that. Sit down and smoke a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... into the breakfast-room, she was saluted with the customary remonstrance which her flighty disregard of all punctuality habitually provoked from the long-suffering household authorities. In Miss Garth's favorite phrase, "Magdalen was born with all the senses—except ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... Geraldine gayly, "We shall drink a votre succes dans la guerre," and the flighty girl raised a glass of wine on high. Several of the guests crowded around and all were about to drink ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... sporty, mannish in her tastes, aggressive toward her companions. Dorothea may have a balanced thyroid and pituitary and so lead the class as good-looking, studious, bright, serene and mature. Florence, who has rather more thyroid than her pituitary can balance, will be bright but flighty, gay but moody, energetic, but not as persevering. And so ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... mention a remark of his, as a specimen of the ignorance in which Americans usually remain during their flighty visits to these scenes, where they associate only with one another. And I do it the rather as this seemed a really thoughtful, intelligent man; no vain, vulgar trifler. He said, "The people seem only to be looking on; they ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... have had a voice that was full and resonant and deep. So from reading the plays of Moliere we can imagine the robust figure of Magdeleine Bejart, the grace of La Grange, the pretty petulance of the flighty fair Armande. ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... cried: "Don't talk about Julia! I will not hear about Julia!" for she was always held up as a pattern of excellence. Truth to tell she bored her own mother terribly; but that is not strange, for by a curious freak of nature, Mrs. Allan Carey was as flighty and capricious and irresponsible and gay and naughty as Julia was steady, limited, narrow, conventional, and dull; but the flighty mother passed out of the Carey family life, and Julia, from the age of five onward, fell into the charge of a pious, unimaginative governess, ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... peculiar kind, of whom it was said, "Non vir sed Veluti," had as much to do with the success of the opera as its merits. Lord Mount Edgcumbe, however, an excellent critic, wrote of it "as quite of the new school, but not copied from its founder, Rossini; original, odd, flighty, and it might be termed fantastic, but at times beautiful. Here and there most delightful melodies and harmonies occurred, but it was unequal, solos being as rare as in all the modern operas." This was the last of Meyerbeer's operas written ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... right and proper possessions, this Mr. Morris had a wife and children. They were the right sort of wife, and the right sort and number of children, of course; nothing imaginative or highty-flighty about any of them, so far as Mr. Morris could see; they wore perfectly correct clothing, neither smart nor hygienic nor faddy in any way, but just sensible; and they lived in a nice sensible house in the later ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... responded gloomily. "It's nip an' tuck 'tween him an' Mark Wilson. That girl draws 'em as molasses does flies! She does it 'thout liftin' a finger, too, no more 'n the molasses does. She just sets still an' IS! An' all the time she's nothin' but a flighty little red-headed spitfire that don't know a good husband when she sees one. The feller that gits her will live to regret it, that's my opinion!" And Cephas thought to himself: "Good Lord, don't I wish I was regrettin' it ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... (and nothing can be greater), yet she holds out on the strength of her original pretensions for a long time, and plays the upstart with decency and imposing consistency. Indeed, her infatuation and caprices are akin to the flighty perversity of a disordered imagination; and another turn of the wheel of good or evil fortune would have sent her to keep company with Hogarth's Merveilleuses in Bedlam, or with Decker's group of coquettes in the same place.—The other parts of the play are a dreary lee-shore, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the things I am going to do, with the aid of your practical advice, if I have your approval, the people will be at first rather afraid of me. They will privately suspect I am mad. It will, also, not seem at all unlikely that an American should be of unreasoningly extravagant and flighty mind. Stornham, having long slumbered in remote peace through lack of railroad convenience, still regards America as almost of the character of wild rumour. Rosy was their one American, and she disappeared from their view so soon that she had ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... out all the package and dropped it in, and, having stuffed the pocket again, at once emptied it to see that her piece had not slipped through some ambushed hole. Aunt Corinne was considered a flighty damsel by all her immediate relatives and acquaintances. She had a piquant little face containing investigating hazel eyes. Her brown hair was cut square off and held back from her brow by a round ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... conservatism, the conservatism that holds on to what has been gained if it is good, that insists on discipline and heed to the plain teaching of experience, that refuses to go into hysterics of enthusiasm over every flighty suggestion, or to follow every leader simply because he proposes something new and strange—I do not mean the conservatism that refuses to try anything simply because it is new, and prefers to energetic life the stagnation that inevitably ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of letters with money came for her, but didn't seem to cheer her much. There was a beast in the jungle,—no doubt of that,—but she was taking good care to hide him. Didn't seem to care much about taking care of herself, even when she must have known that it looked bad for her. She was a flighty, volatile sort of creature; made a lot of what I'd done for her in bringing over the doctor. That doctor was a brick, too. Lots of good people in the world, boys. Let me see; Dan, feel in that shooting-coat of mine on the nail behind you and you'll ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... of mind in the chief actor have, as well as those of the feelings, a high importance. From an imaginative, flighty, inexperienced head, and from a calm, sagacious understanding, different things are ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... to see you again," was Miss Wright's greeting. "You and I are to keep house and look after these flighty young folks, I understand." ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... had heard of Madam Schuyler, I was a good deal surprised to find that Guert was somewhat of a favourite. But even the most intellectual and refined women, I have since had occasion to learn, feel a disposition to judge handsome, manly, frank, flighty fellows like my new acquaintance, somewhat leniently. With all his levity, and his disposition to run into the excesses of animal spirits, there was that about Guert which rendered it difficult to despise him. The courage of a lion was in his eye, and his front and bearing were precisely ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... about as thirsty as a desert coyote; also, he looked flighty. I was reaching for the canteen when I happened to think what pleasure it would be to Miss Sampson to minister to him, and I drew back. "Wait a little." Then with an effort I plunged. "Vaughn, listen. Miss ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... certainly a very amiable rake and a very earnest bigot. "There can be no doubt," says our historian, in his convincing way, "that he often paused in his reckless career, filled with remorse, wrestling with his flighty spirit, to overcome his unseemly sports"; and as to the sincerity of his fanaticism, "to suppose otherwise is to charge a mere youth with a hypocritical cunning worthy of the Borgias in their zenith." Masterly strokes like these are, of course, intended ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... together, so like a big family, that Lois Montgomery's escapade was a tragedy at every hearth-side. It was immeasurably shocking that a young woman married to a reputable man, and with a child still toddling after her, should have done this grievous thing. To say that she had always been flighty, and that it was what might have been expected of a woman as headstrong as she had been as a girl, was no mollification of the blow to the local conscience, acutely sensitive in all that pertained to the honor and sanctity of the ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... it was in April or May of this year, 1606, and consequently a few days after his return from Sedan, that he surprised me one night as I sat at supper, and, requesting me to dismiss my servants, let me know that he was in a flighty mood; and that nothing would content him but to play the Caliph in my company. I was not too willing, for I did not fail to recognise the risk to which these expeditions exposed his person; but, in the end, I consented, making only the condition that Maignan should follow us at ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... Wawa; 'tay baby!" she would stop below at Mrs. Hoffstott's door to beg, almost with tears, that she would look after things a little, and not let flighty Molly neglect the child; which the good woman was always ready to do. Those were anxious days, which even the madame's and Mrs. Macon's ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... never ought to have asked for the security, George, and when you never ought to have got it, all things considered. But what's done can't be undone. You are always an honourable and straightforward fellow, as far as lays in your power, though a little flighty. On the other hand, you can't admit but what it's natural in us to be anxious with such a thing hanging over our heads. So forget and forgive all round, George. Come! ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... mind a thing undreamed. He was phlegmatic, stolid to such a degree that one could not but wonder how the Revolution had any meaning to him at all. And yet love of freedom glowed sombrely and steadily in his dim soul. In ways it was indeed good that he was not flighty and imaginative. He never lost his head. He could obey orders, and he was neither curious nor garrulous. Once I asked how it was that ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... seriously considered as a permanent wheeler in the Racing Team. His qualifications were not brilliant, but he had proved in the Juvenile Race that he possessed the power to enforce his authority on flighty and reckless dogs; and on the trip to the Hot Springs that his courage was equal ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... her heart, she is a good soul, is a flighty creature and she accepted the attentions of the comedian which his wife was not supposed to be jerry to. But one day some gabby girl put wifey next. We were all down to the station waiting for the train to come in when up romps wifey to this doll, who is making the big talk ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... Fallow field: I have saved her from being a convicted liar this very day. Worse! for what would have been talked of the morals of the house, supposing the scandal. Oh! indeed I was tempted to bring that horrid mad Captain into the house face to face with his flighty doll of a wife, as I, perhaps, should have done, acting by the dictates of my conscience. I lied for Lady Jocelyn, and handed the man to a lawyer, who withdrew him. And this they owe to me! Kindness? They have given us bed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... tongue how awful! O power of lungs how mighty! Whence draw ye, honest gentlemen, your constant wind supply? Whence comes your inspiration, belligerent or flighty? Your common-place that grovels and your metaphors so high? Pray, why not try, for novelty, a kind of solo speaking? One man upon his legs—only one upon the floor? For eloquence,'tis possible, does not consist in shrieking, And really where's the argument in all this thundering roar? ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... Yet he really did not wish it in the last analysis—would have been grieved temporarily if she had deserted him. However, in the case of Sohlberg, detectives were employed, the new affair with the flighty pupil was unearthed and sworn to by witnesses, and this, combined with the "lettahs" held by Rita, constituted ample material wherewith to "hush up" the musician if ever he became unduly obstreperous. So Cowperwood and Rita's ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... been speaking all this time? He has everything to do with it. And as for not knowing them. I am sure Rose was at first delighted with Miss Roxbury. And Amy was as delighted with her, and wanted to be intimate, I know. But Rose is such a flighty, ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... knowledge of the Christ-principle, and its application to the needs and problems of her fellow-men. Her business was the reflection of her Father's business. Other ambition she had none. The weak, transient, flighty, so-called intellectual life which she saw about her sent no call across the calm currents of her thought. Her education was religious in the strictest, deepest sense, for she was ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Miss Priscilla, slowly, "that you are not aware of the position your arms have taken. It is most unbecoming." Mrs. Reilly's arms dropped to her sides. "And as for this girl you speak of, I hear she is, as I say, very flighty." ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... Member for Finsbury, examined—Had known the deceased for some years. Had the highest notion of the robustness of his constitution. Would have taken any odds upon it. Deceased, however, within these last three or four weeks had flighty intervals. Talked very much about the fine phrenological development of Sir Robert Peel's skull. Had suspicions of the deceased from that moment. Deceased had been carefully watched, but to no avail. Deceased inflicted a mortal wound ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... it began that day. Not once a day, and sometimes not once in twenty days, did any human being speak to him. The village baker would not sell him bread; his groceries he had to buy from the neighbouring parishes, for the grocer's flighty wife called for the constable when he entered the bake-shop of Pontiac. He had to bake his own bread, and do his own cooking, washing, cleaning, and gardening. His hair grew long and his clothes became shabbier. At last, when he needed a new suit—so torn had his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... devoted to his master, but he looked upon McKeith's marriage as a pernicious investment. His republican upbringing could not stomach the 'Ladyship,' and he persisted in calling Lady Bridget Mrs McKeith. He considered her flighty and extravagant in her ideas, and was always divided between unwilling fascination and grumpy disapproval. To-night he was in the latter mood and this incensed ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... coming out of church, an affected, flighty Frenchwoman, with her fluttering fop of a husband, and a boy, habited a-la-mode de Paris, claim our first attention. In dress, air, and manner, they have a national character. The whole congregation, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... a vain, flighty woman," Marlow said, in reply to his wife's remark. "She likes to have young men like Jimmy trailing after her; and Grimmer only laughs. I suppose it's what they call being 'smart.' Pity he doesn't put ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... others, had been chiefly caused by unwise marriage. Instead of choosing sensible and active wives to look after their home affairs and regulate the household, the Carnes for several generations now had wedded flighty ladies of good birth and pretty manners, none of whom brought them a pipkinful of money, while all helped to spend a potful. Therefore their descendant was now living in the kitchens, and had no ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... manner was now so different. Van Zandt was older, but he was not so very old, not more than sixty, and old age in itself is not sufficient to make a man surly and to sour his temper. That the Major had had trouble in his family was well known. His wife had been flighty and foolish, and it was believed that she had run away from him; and his only son was a wild lad, who had been employed by Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co., out of regard for the father, and who had disgraced himself beyond forgiveness. ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... escaped into the limitless realm of fancy, and advancing with fabulous bounds, and nothing can check it. For them everything happens, and anything may happen. They make no effort to conquer events, to overcome resistance, to overturn obstacles. By a sudden caprice of their flighty imagination they become princes, emperors, or gods, are possessed of all the wealth of the world, all the delightful things of life, enjoy all pleasures, are always strong, always beautiful, always young, always beloved! They, alone, can ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... "so as I was saying, Mistress Boozer bein' young and flighty in them days, and rightful proud of the bonnet she had took so long to earn, wore it to the spectacle, ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... that Jack's given over the wheel to Bobolink, while he is back looking after the motor. Now, Bobolink is a cracker-jack of a fellow to get up all sorts of clever schemes for sprinkling creepers in the night; but he's a little apt to be flighty when it comes to running a boat. There! what did I tell you, Paul; they've run aground, as sure ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... What kind of a girl was she? What were her most noticeable characteristics? Had she any pronounced likes and dislikes? Was she in the habit of doing things just to be contrary? Was she a girl of good judgment, or flighty ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... were kangaroos and Dave was trying to get a shot at them. The inspector, by-the-bye, had a habit of glancing now and then in the direction of his horse, as though under the impression that it was flighty and restless and inclined to bolt on opportunity. It was an anxious moment for all parties concerned—except the inspector. They didn't want HIM to be perturbed. And, just as Dave reached the foot of the tree, the inspector ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... conviction that it was the same he had seen by fitful glimpses before. It was altogether indescribable, unlike anything he had ever seen or read of. On his return, Ady met him and caught him in her arms, as if to lead him back to the wood. Yet he was fitful, anxious, and flighty, as if he knew not where to go, or what to do. Again the rapid whisperings, so sharp and intense as sometimes to appear like hissing of strange foreign creatures. It seemed as if his soul was on fire, and urged him he ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... said. "If the public's so flighty, why does it take so much stock in what these wolves print about ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... his dominions could be as faithless as his father. His wars and his extravagance exhausted his treasury, and he oppressed his subjects by taxes. In 1080 he brought down upon himself the vengeance of Alphonso VI. of Castile by a typical piece of flighty oriental barbarity. He had endeavoured to pay part of his tribute to the Christian king with false money. The fraud was detected by a Jew, who was one of the envoys of Alphonso. El Motamid, in a moment of folly and rage, crucified the Jew and imprisoned the Christian members of the mission. Alphonso ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... won't do for a teacher," said old Mrs. Jones, when the pastor invited Bertha to enter the Sunday-school as a worker. "Too flighty!" ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... for Tressady, and yet no charm. As a boy he had had no love for his home and very few acquaintances in the village. His mother hated the place and the people. She had married very young—for the sake of money and position—to his dull old father, who nevertheless managed to keep his flighty wife in order by dint of a dumb, continuous stubbornness and tyranny, which would have overborne a stronger nature than Lady Tressady's. She was always struggling to get away from Ferth; he to keep her tied there. He was ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... see him! Yes, that would be the best way of all; it couldn't help succeeding. He imagines you as a flighty Parisienne; he is afraid of you; he is more angry with me for loving you than for refusing to carry on his practice. If he could only see you, ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... gulped, shaking himself. "I'm as flighty as a gal. What th'—" He looked back. Queenie was nuzzling his arm questioningly. Her ears were cocked forward; her surprised face was almost ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... account his own physical condition. Since rising from his bed of fever he had carefully avoided all fatigue, according to his doctor's injunction. But now, after this morning's efforts, his legs were weak and his head was flighty. Things showed a tendency to dance before his eyes in a way that he had not experienced heretofore. When he lay upon the ground an hour ago he did it, among other reasons, to avoid ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... floor and dance—at least, not very much. Perhaps nobody will ask me, anyway; of course I can expect nothing from Theodore Brower, who couldn't waltz any more than he could fly. No; I'll just sit in the box, and then nobody can say that I am giddy, or flighty, or trying ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... Custis, however, did not remain there long, for he had fallen in love, and the following year was married to Eleanor Calvert, not without some misgivings on the part of Washington, who had observed his ward's somewhat flighty disposition, and who gave a great deal of anxious thought to his future. At home as abroad he was an undemonstrative man, but he had abundance of that real affection which labors for those to whom ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Monty furrowed his forehead, as a man does who is trying to think things out—"To say I would forgive it is to admit that it's wrong, but ah! the boy-officer's been so grand, and so boyishly unconscious of his grandeur all the time. I remember one flighty youth, who sat down on the firing-step the night before he had to go over the top, and wrote a simple letter to everybody he'd cared for. He wrote to his father, saying: 'If there's anything in my bank, I'd like ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Friday last, as I sat in the servants' hall after supper, the young woman, Ellen Butters, my lady's London maid, came screeching downstairs like a creature gone mad, that my lady was murdered, and frightened us all out of our senses. As she was always a flighty young person, I didn't believe her. I ordered her to be quiet, and tell us what she meant. Instead of doing it she gave a sort of gasp and fell fainting down in a heap. I made them lay her down on the floor, and then follow me up to the nursery. We went in a body—I at the head. There ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... insisted Gay. "He was a real benevolent-looking old fellow, the kind that understands young people, and he'd know that it was just that Christmas has gone to our heads, and made us a little flighty. I'm sure that his name is James, and that he has six old maid daughters. He lives out West, and he's taking home a trunk full of ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... "That you shall, you flighty harum-scarum. And to think o' the likes o' you dictating to me about nostrums and physickings," replied the farm-wife, with a comfortable laugh. "I'll soon be having Mary teaching me to toss a buckwheat 'slap-jack.' Now see an' cut from the sides o' that ham where ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... that Chirpy Cricket would have been quite upset by the breaking up of his torchlight procession. But being naturally cheerful, he merely smiled and said that it was plain that the Fireflies were a very flighty family. ...
— The Tale of Freddie Firefly • Arthur Scott Bailey
... to leave, sir. And I look at it this way, that nobody understanding what the spying and bribes offered and taking prisoners is all about, is most peculiar. We got to know where we stand, that's what it's come to, sir. And the widow being flighty-like and Flynn coming home and saying nothing, but shaking his head when we ask him where he's been—You see for yourself, sir, how it ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... I am designing are not only in existence, but actually already in hand. If, therefore, this attempt to solve the Jewish Question is to be designated by a single word, let it be said to be the result of an inescapable conclusion rather than that of a flighty imagination. ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... disabled him from all work, and begged him to come to his assistance. The voice had come to him at the time of the accident. As a rule, however, the voices seemed vagarious, and he attached no importance to them, except as phenomena which interested him slightly. There was nothing flighty about him, no indication of monomania—he reasoned well, but from the point of view of a man who has had only an elementary education, knowing nothing of philosophy; he had no religious crotchets, and apparently thought little or not at all on religious matters—was, in fine, a natural and ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... never marry,' Nina cried. 'Because, first, I don't approve of matrimony as an institution. And then—as you say—Lord help my husband. I should be such an uncomfortable wife. So capricious, and flighty, and tantalising, and unsettling, and disobedient, and exacting, and everything. Oh, but a horrid wife! No, I shall never marry. Marriage is quite too out-of-date. I shan't marry; but, if I ever meet a man and love him—ah!' ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... May, there reached me the letter—and the packet—to which I refer. The packet consisted of four note-books, quite crowded throughout with those giddy shapes of Pitman's shorthand, whose ensemble so resembles startled swarms hovering in flighty poses on the wing. They were scribbled in pencil, with little distinction between thick and thin strokes, few vowels: so that their slow deciphering, I can assure the reader, has been no holiday. The letter also was pencilled in shorthand; and this ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... Raeburns were English, an' they had high notions o' their position. The mother was dead, and the three girls managed the home. Florence was the youngest, and the other two were older than her by ten years or more. Consequently, they thought her a bit flighty, an' needin' o' some restriction. They did not let her associate with any o' the neighbors, an' a great fuss they raised when she made friends with me while her horse took a drink at the trough when she was passing. I pitied the child, fer ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... that moment I saw that he thought me a fool and an idiot. He went away, and I saw him no more. Yet I still hoped. I dreamed of their joy at finding me, and the reward that my wealth would give them. Perhaps I was a little weak still, perhaps a little flighty, too, at times; but I was quite happy that year, even in my disappointment, for I ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... you see, Lona is no longer young, and lately she began to be obsessed with home-sickness; but she never would admit it. (Smiles.) How could she venture to risk leaving such a flighty fellow as me alone, who before I was nineteen had ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... man was a flighty youth who had fired on the French Premier and wounded him. He, however, had not long to wait for his trial. He was taken before the tribunal within three weeks of his arrest and was promptly condemned to die.[38] Thus the assassin was justified by the jury and the would-be ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon |
