"Flimsy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... account in The Times[18], "was returning officer, and was assisted in the count by thirty miners—a body of utterly untrained men whose hands, accustomed by daily usage to the contact of pickaxe and shovel, were new and strange to the somewhat delicate task of fingering and separating flimsy ballot papers. They had received no instructions before they were assembled in the room as to the duties they would be required to transact, and the expedition, good-humour, and correctness with which they got through the several stages of the count justly ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... brutes That make the fields their dwelling. If a snake Crawl from beneath our feet we do not ask A license to destroy him: our good governors Hedge in the life of every pest and plague That bears the shape of man; and for what purpose, But to protect themselves from extirpation?— This flimsy barrier you have overleaped. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... had driven with him, it would be impossible for him to decline sailing with Buller; but he must see the boat. There was a train for his home at a quarter past seven; if he were not on the premises he could not be asked to sail. If Buller's boat were a little, flimsy thing, he would take that train—but he would wait ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... are there any alterations? To begin with, it seems to me hardly possible that the insect can go back to the cutting once the piece is detached from the leaf: it lacks the necessary support to gnaw the flimsy disk with any precision. A tailor would spoil his cloth if he had not the support of a table when cutting out the pieces for a coat. The Megachile's scissors, so difficult to wield on anything not firmly held, would do ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... his experience of the Society," he said, "and never perhaps in the history of astronomy, had an alleged discovery of such magnitude and consequence been promulgated on the strength of such flimsy evidence;" and after traversing in detail all the arguments of his opponent, he declared it his firm conviction that the effects which Professor Gazen had thought fit to advance as a "discovery," were neither more nor less ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... had to follow the Tressidys into the country on a pretence of hunting, or some other flimsy pretext of the sort, I would be near her. I had luckily kept my head sufficiently to breathe no word of love to Karine. I had even dwelt with some emphasis upon my "friendship," as though to assure her that she need fear no more, need dread no persecution at my hands. I believed that she did ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... at home and she did it. Some fabrication about the girls at the watchworks did the trick. Fried chicken, chocolate cake. She packed them deftly and daintily. High-heeled shoes, flimsy blouse, rustling skirt. Nap Ballou was waiting for her over in the city park. She saw him before he espied her. He was leaning against a tree, idly, staring straight ahead with queer, lackluster ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... stirs a cornfield. "Nor is there anything in this world so perfect as the truth. If the truth opened an abyss which plunged me into hell, I would sooner know it, than attempt to enter Paradise across the flimsy fabric of ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... Could you forget what you wrote there? Only your lips refused me. Even when they refused me, they were warm with my kisses. They were mine, as you were, body and soul. You loved me, Hermia—from the first. These flimsy barriers you're raising, I'll ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... devotes ten pages to an attempt to prove that immorality is not characteristic of uncivilized races in general. He leads off with that preposterous statement of Barrow that "a Kaffir woman is chaste and extremely modest;" and most of his other instances are based on equally flimsy evidence. I shall recur to the subject repeatedly. It is hardly necessary to call the reader's attention to the unconscious humor of the assertion of Westermarck's friend Cousins that "between their ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... perhaps, to go forth unfinished, remanded just there to death. The ten-thirty express was now pulling out through the yards in a powerful clamor of clattering switches and hearty pulsations that shook the flimsy walls of St. Isidore's, and drew new groans from the man on the chair. The young nurse's eyes travelled from him to a woman who stood behind the ward tenders, shielded by them and the young interne from the group about the hospital chair. This woman, having no uniform of any sort, must be ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... very lightly, for even then she did not wake. She lay there with her head upon her arm. And now close to her, his eyes growing used to the shadows, he saw her quite plainly, the wonder of the parted lips, the gleam of the white limbs beneath their flimsy covering. ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... was drawn from him to a window in the story over his head, by the rapid blowing in and out of a curtain. As there was a lighted gas-jet near by, I watched the gyrating muslin with apprehension, and was shocked when, in another moment, I saw the flimsy folds give one wild flap and flare up ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... long grass a love-craz'd Maid, Smiling aghast; while stream to every wind Her gairish ribbons, smear'd with dust and rain; But brain-sick visions cheat her tortur'd mind, And bring false peace. Thus, lulling grief and pain, Kind dreams oblivious from thy juice proceed, THOU FLIMSY, ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... Montgomery Street, from Sacramento to Jackson, and about the plaza. Gambling was the chief occupation of the people. While they were waiting for the cessation of the rainy season, and for the beginning of spring, all sorts of houses were being put up, but of the most flimsy kind, and all were stores, restaurants, or gambling -saloons. Any room twenty by sixty feet would rent for a thousand dollars a month. I had, as my pay, seventy dollars a month, and no one would even try to hire a servant under ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the flimsy idea that life with a past is attended. There's now—only now—and no past. There's never a past; it has ended. Away with the obsolete story and all of its yesterday sorrow! There's only Today, almost gone, and in front of Today stands ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... sheer relief. The absurdity of such an accusation, she was sure, would carry proof in itself that Charlie was innocent. No matter who was trying to spoil his reputation, they could not possibly succeed with such a flimsy and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... had parted and she was alone in her room, sleep refused her offices: twelve: one: two.... and her eyes still were staring into the darkness.... Not a sound; all was quiet. She rose from her couch, her hair streaming, her body all aglow. She donned a flimsy, rose-colored dressing gown, opened her door, crept silently down the hall and went bodily into young Holbrook's room. In a dressing gown and slippers he sat, reading a magazine; he must have been restless, too. "Why Mrs. Reed—Eileen—what is ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... flimsy sheet again and re-read the pitiful words. The letter could be answered easily enough. If she replied truthfully, she would relate a tragic history of a winter of lonely despair lived out in the ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... premises and paint out the signs they have permitted to occupy their fences and barns and sheds? Who would do these things but an impertinent meddler who is so inexperienced in life that he sets his own flimsy judgment against that of ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... champion and say, "Thank God, she is my wife and I am proud of it!" That is what you or I would have answered. But the gauzy curtain that was covered over this foul tableau, has been lifted up, and you see it in all it hideous deformity. As I have before stated, you have seen, gentlemen, the flimsy evidence upon which is attempted to predicate a conviction for grand larceny. I am confident that in spite of all the attempts that have been made by a shameless wanton and her pretended husband, to crush ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... growing more sultry and oppressive every moment; a heavy storm was evidently gathering—already a few heat-drops had fallen. Malcolm was a man who noticed details; he perceived at once that the ragged cover of the perambulator offered a flimsy and insufficient protection. Then he glanced at the umbrella in his hand; it was a dandified article, with ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the precise moments occupied by this conversation, that Mr. Bodery, seated at his table in the little editor's room, opened the flimsy brown envelope of a telegram. He spread out the pink paper, and Mr. Morgan, seated opposite, raised his head from the closely-written sheets upon which his ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... circumstances in which we are placed. The great refinement of many poetical gentlemen has rendered them practically unfit for the jostling and ugliness of life, and they record their unfitness at considerable length. The bold and awful poetry of Job's complaint produces too many flimsy imitators; for there is always something consolatory in grandeur, but the symphony transposed for the piano becomes hysterically sad. This literature of woe, as Whitman calls it, this MALADIE DE RENE, as we like to call it in Europe, is in many ways a most humiliating and sickly phenomenon. ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sergeant was ordered to be taken to the village square, where a dozen old men of the village were being held by the Germans under sentence of death on the flimsy charge of having resisted the Prussians. One by one these unhappy Frenchmen were being lined up before a firing squad and shot down. The sergeant, who, of course, was to share a like fate, was reserved for ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... this flimsy structure of logic, he headed down to "The Hot Seat." He banged on the lobby doors for a while without any good result, and finally leaned against one of the side doors, which opened. Malone fell through, recovered his balance and found himself facing an old, bewhiskered man with a dustpan, ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... dangerous shower, that cools the earth without interrupting our pleasures for dreary days, is approaching. No one whose dwelling is not better protected than most of those which bear the vain and flimsy decorations called "lightning-rods" can know whether his own house may not in a few moments receive a ruinous stroke, or that it may not be his lot to enter eternity with the first flash from that dark, towering mass of sulphurous hue that already casts its ominous ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... permit me to turn my face towards this stone wall, for I cannot bear to look at the flimsy piece of wire, which is the only battlement of defence that interposes betwixt me and the precipice." He spoke of the bronze balustrade, six feet high, and massive in proportion. Thus saying, and holding fast by the physician's arm, Ursel, though himself a younger and more able man, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... This message spread consternation among the native teachers, domestics and adherents, some of whom heard that a royal order had arrived for the banishment of all foreign teachers. Mr. Hough was detained at the court-house from day to day on the most flimsy pretences, ignorant of the language, and with no one to intercede with the government in his behalf, for it was contrary to etiquette for a woman to appear before the Viceroy, his family being ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... shrug of the shoulders, and turned impatiently on his heel. But Ada was not to be torn away. She ran her eye over the stock, marvelling at the cheapness of everything. Jonah, finding nothing better to do, lit a cigarette, and turned a contemptuous eye on the bales of calico, cheap prints, and flimsy lace displayed. Presently he began to study the tickets with extraordinary interest. They were all alike. The shillings in gigantic figures of red or black, and across the dividing line elevenpence three-farthings pencilled in strokes as modest ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... Miss Dorothy. "Well, dear, I hope your grandmother will not be very hard on you. The only point I can see that needs blame, is your wearing that flimsy delicate frock, but as you had never been blackberrying before, you couldn't know the unkindness ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... eyes, their rifles cracked sharply, to be generally rewarded with a howl of pain from some cutthroat who had been winged. But there could be but one end to such a battle. The convicts were well protected behind big trees, while the flimsy sides of their canoes afforded the brave little band of Seminoles almost no protection. Still they fought stubbornly on, answering shot with shot until the point and canoes were shrouded ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... for people of the flimsy, vain, pain-shunning, pleasure-seeking character of Charlie Ferrola, to be taken at times, as such people will be, in the grip of an inexorable power, and held face to face with the sternest, the most awful, the most frightful realities of life. Charlie Ferrola was one of ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... shaped for the island of Falconera, in a track which has been so elegantly described by Falconer, in a poem as far surpassing the uncouth productions of modern times, as the Ionian temples surpassed those flimsy structures contributing to render the fame of the originals eternal. This island, and that of Anti Milo, were made in the evening, the latter distant fourteen or sixteen miles from the more extensive island of Milo, which ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... I spoke of Magic Carpets we writer chaps have. A thing of flimsy dreams and fancies! But I forgot the millionaire's. His is real, made of legal-tenders woven intricately, wonderfully. Does he wish a palace, a yacht, a rare jewel? Whiz! There you are, sir. No flowery flourishes; the cold, hard, beautiful facts of reality. Killigrew had his Magic Carpet, ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... children, and to some grown people, too, the stage is a little dream world of absolute realities. Their imaginations turn the picture that is placed before them into real, throbbing life. They do not see the unreality of the art, the suggestive effects, the flimsy delusions; to them the play is real life, the stage is a real drawing room or a real wood, and they cannot conceive of the actors existing outside their parts. But the critic must look deeper; he must understand the machinery that produces the effects and he must weigh ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... Thallus, inly softer you than any furry rabbit, Or glossy goose's oily plumes, or velvet earlap yielding, Or feeble age's heavy thighs, or flimsy filthy cobweb; ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... blaze had faded from my eyes—there was a dull, dead sound, as of some heavy body falling upon the floor, which shook beneath me as I lay. I sprang to a sitting posture and groped at my side for my gun; my notion was that some wild beast had leaped in through the open window. While the flimsy structure was still shaking from the impact I heard the sound of blows, the scuffling of feet upon the floor, and then—it seemed to come from almost within reach of my hand, the sharp shrieking of a woman in mortal agony. So horrible a cry I had never heard nor conceived; it utterly ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... except this, Silesia is now his. Neisse got (which would be the desirable thing), or put under "mask" as Glogau is, and as Brieg is being, Austria possesses not an inch of land within these borders. Here are some Epistolary snatches; still in the light style, not to say the flimsy and uplifted; but worth giving, so transparent are they; off hand, like words we had heard his Majesty SPEAK, in his ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... jambs and sill. American or Spanish influence occasionally shows itself in the employment of sawed boards for lintels, sills, and jambs. The wooden features of the windows exhibit a curiously light and flimsy construction. ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... self-surrender and seclusion. The softest music breathes from a full orchestra. Gold is everywhere, in slugs, doubloons, and heaps of nuggets. Gold reigns here. Silver is a meaner metal hardly attainable. Bank notes are a flimsy possibility of the future. Piles of yellow sovereigns and the coinage of every land load the tables. Sallow, glittering-eyed croupiers sweep in, with affected nonchalance, this easy-gained harvest of ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... Sutton's office on a pleasant summer afternoon. It was the first missive of the sort in Zeke's experience, yet he felt no slightest chill of apprehension. His mood was too firmly joyous to be easily shaken. He merely wondered, and felt no fear whatever, as he pulled out the sheet of flimsy paper, and unfolded it, while his employer sat looking on curiously, himself already suspicious of trouble. Zeke read the typewritten words through stupidly, under the first shock uncomprehending. Then, he repeated ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... me, with a full discharge on the back of it, to be shown on occasion, but to secure to him the benefit of my service, I was to sign new indentures for the remainder of the term, which were to be kept private. A very flimsy scheme it was; however, it was immediately executed, and the paper went on accordingly, under ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... terra incognita for each new navigator. There have been some who appear to be inclined to withhold from Major Powell the full credit which is his for solving the great problem of the Southwest, and who, therefore, make much of the flimsy story of White, and even assume on faint evidence that others fathomed the mystery even before White. There is, in my opinion, no ground for such assumptions. Several trappers, like Pattie and Carson, had gained a considerable knowledge of the general course ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... around him,—like himself bobbing about upon the tiny waves. One, however, soon monopolised his attention; and that was a barrel of somewhat flimsy structure, and about the size of those usually employed for carrying flour. Snowball recognised it also as an old acquaintance in the store-room, and knew that it was filled with the best kind of biscuit,—a private ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... a visitor, Maria?" she asked, flapping the flimsy pink telegram gaily in front of her. "Here's Mr. Tony Brabazon wiring to know if ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... the sort of life we were then leading might have become habitual, and he might possibly have been saved from the sad fate that awaited him. However, though tempted for a moment, he refused because it did not seem a good investment, being a flimsy little building, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... bank-notes; and upon all the walls there were coloured and uncoloured engravings of ships framed and glazed, and catalogues of merchandise that had been sold, or was to be sold, hanging loosely one on the other. Besides these, there were a great many of those flimsy papers that record the state of things on 'Change, hanging here and there on the brass rails of the desks, from little hooks in the walls, and in any other available spot. And in all the premises there ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... must see my wedding dress" cried Gladys, and getting up the two girls walked to the bed whereon lay a flimsy mass of tule and satin crowned with orange blossom and glittering ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... both of them, seem to have a good supply of shell. To the Jews, God showed Himself once as a pillar of fire by night; to the French soldier whose God is the 75 He reveals Himself in just the same way, safeguarding his flimsy trenches from the impact of the infidel horde. The curse of the method is its noise—let alone its cost. But last night it came off: no Turks got through anywhere on the French front and the men had not to stand to their arms or use their rifles. We British, worse luck, can't dream of ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... modicum of truth in it, none the less. The life one led out here was not calculated to tone down any innate restlessness of temperament: on the contrary, it directly hindered one from becoming fixed and settled. It was on a par with the houses you lived in—these flimsy tents and draught-riddled cabins you put up with, "for the time being"—was just as much of a makeshift affair as they. Its keynote was change. Fortunes were made, and lost, and made again, before you could say Jack Robinson; whole townships shot up over-night, to be deserted the moment ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... hypocrisy, the leering pretence of reverence, the affectation of penitence, the whole fraudulent design, so flimsy that the writer himself seemed to be mocking at it, was open to Cornelia, and she read the letter through with distinct relief. Whatever the fascinations of Mr. Dickerson were when he was personally at hand, he had none at a distance, and when she ran over the pages a second ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... enlightened nation, where every citizen is an independent sovereign; send your royalty and, aristocracy to all mighty smash, raise the cap of Liberty on the lofty pole of Democracy, and let the sinews of men obtain their just triumphs over the flimsy rubbish of intellect and capital! Tyranny alone makes differences. All men are equal!"—He concluded his harangue just in time to save a fit, for it was given with all the fuss and fury of a penny theatre King Richard; in fact, I felt ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... of these nests, and studied them: flimsy things, constructed of a few dried grasses, inwoven with horsehair and cobwebs. Before next spring the rains would dissolve ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hall is a great success. We had all the framework sawn out here; it is solid, almost massive work, very unlike the flimsy wooden buildings that are run up in a week or two in most colonial villages. It is so large that our party of 145, plus 9 English, sit in the aisles without occupying any part of the middle of the room. This gives us ample ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... samples of the flimsy stuff, our teachers of what nobody knows, would palm upon us as demonstration of the Being and ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... This argument, flimsy as it is, is nevertheless the instar omnium of the Christian Divines to prove the abolishment of this Law: (for the other arguments adduced by them as prophecies of it from the 1 ch. of Isaiah, and some of the Psalms, are nothing, to the purpose; they being merely declarations of God, that he preferred ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... fairly common, and have, therefore, been selected to point a moral. Poisoning fish is a poor sort of sport, perhaps, but there are two classes of fishermen—the hungry and the artistic. The latter use flimsy tackle and complicated gear, and play the game, giving the victims to their wiles a sporting chance. Though not the only representative of the hungry class, the black boy generally fishes on an empty stomach, and his demeanour coincides. No slobbering sentiment affects ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... with their refined, infinitesimal, homeopathic 'developments' of deity; metaphysical wolves in Socratic cloaks. Oh, they have much to answer for! 'Spring of philosophy!' ha! ha! They have made a frog pond of it, in which to launch their flimsy, painted toy barks. Have done with them, Beulah, or ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... handed her the flimsy scrap of paper, and went quickly into the next room. Honor's eyes took in the curt ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... earnings will be squandered on such perishable adornments as feathers, artificial flowers, or ribbons. The purchases of his spouse are certain to be governed by extreme frugality. She selects the family raiment with a view to durability. Flimsy finery that the sun would fade, shoddy materials that a shower of rain would ruin, offer no temptations to her. When she expends a few sous on the cutting of her boy's hair, she has it cropped until his cranium resembles the soft, furry skin of a mole, thus ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... felt no touch of conscience; What served him pleased him, and without a murmur He stamped his broad seal on these lawless deeds. What at that time was right, because thou didst it For him, to-day is all at once become Opprobrious, foul, because it is directed Against him. O most flimsy superstition! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... haven't known. He's a man, a plain, hot-blooded fighting man, and I was tired of conventional languidness. But I began to doubt and see I wasn't strong enough to live his life. I had wrapped myself up in flimsy artificialities until they got needful and I couldn't break loose." She paused and looked up. "Well, you are my kind, Lance, and if you want me, I am willing. I'll tell Jim, but I shrink. He may not understand, and it ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... them at bay for a minute by the quickness of his defence, but being compelled to give back he was parrying a couple of their blades in front, when the third got in a thrust beneath his arm. It was as if the hostile sword had stricken a stone wall. The flimsy and treacherous blade went to flinders, and the would-be robber was left staring at the guard suddenly grown light ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... of plaster from the wall would slide and smash, and now some loosened tile would rattle down the roof and crash into the empty greenhouse below. Elizabeth shuddered, and was still; Denton wrapped his gay and flimsy city cloak about her, and so they crouched in the darkness. And ever the thunder broke louder and nearer, and ever more lurid flashed the lightning, jerking into a momentary gaunt clearness the steaming, dripping room ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... to avoid disturbing my father—I can see his face on the flimsy cot pillow now, looking sadly fragile and worn—I crept out from our tent in time to see the upper edge of the sun's disc (like a golden dagger of the Moorish shape) flash out its assurance across the sea, and gild ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... And has He ever interfered? He it is who created the sexes and placed between them the strong attraction that often works more evil and misery than good; and what barrier has He ever interposed between woman and man, her natural destroyer? None!—save the trifling one of virtue, which is a flimsy thing, and often breaks down at the first temptation. No, my dear Princess; the 'Eternal God,' if there is one, does nothing but look on impassively at the universal havoc of creation. And in the blindness and silence of things, ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... Clara," Mrs. Mallet went on, actually venturing to oppose the infallible authority. "A nipping morning. And such a flimsy coat! Might not the dear child be allowed to judge for herself in a matter purely of her ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... The passion of investigation, which had grown lusty by long exercise, rose within him triumphing over his personal inclinations. Too much was at stake to miss a chance like this. Honour in this situation seemed like a flimsy sentiment. He waited for the answer of the girl's lover with ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... but can you imagine his astonishment a little later, when two of that second squad came running in, all breathless, and told him that though they fully explained the magnificence of the wedding supper, some turned upon their heels with a flimsy excuse, others rudely laughed outright in the messengers' faces, and—oh, the horror of it!—still others actually stoned and beat some of the messengers to death!—and their bodies were even at that moment lying in the street, being licked ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... Solomon Don Dunce, "Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet. Through all the flimsy things we see at once As easily as through a Naples bonnet— Trash of all trash!—how can a lady don it? Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff— Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it." And, veritably, Sol is right enough. The general tuckermanities ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... lines for. Somewhat of a pensive cast what you admire. The lines may come before the Law question, as that cannot be determined before Hilary Term, and I wish your deliberate judgment on that. The other may be flimsy and superficial. And if you have not burnt your returned letter pray re-send it me as a monumental token of my stupidity. 'Twas a little unthinking of you to touch upon a sore subject. Why, by dabbling in those accursed Annuals ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... Bat, vicious-faced, unkempt, disreputable, lay sprawled out on one of the dive's bunks, an opium pipe beside him. But Larry the Bat was not smoking; instead, his ear was pressed closely against the boarding that formed the rather flimsy partition at the side of the bunk. One heard many things in Chang Foo's if one cared to listen—if one could first win one's way through the carefully guarded gateway, that to the uninitiated offered nothing more interesting ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... hands, but he had neither the height nor the weight, being a flimsy creature alongside a man like me, and, besides, I was blazing to that height of wrath that I could have bit into a chisel. I gave him first the one and then the other, so that I could hear his head rattle and crack, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with them to Dover. Rose, in the midst of all her new and womanly care for her sister and Robert, was very sweet to him. In any other circumstances, he told himself, he could easily have broken down the flimsy barrier between them, but in those last twenty-four hours he could press no ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... distances; they could not, or rather they would not, adopt as a standard the two short hours' march between the Port and the inland Fort of El-Wijh. When, however, the trick was pointed out to them, they at once threw it aside as useless. No pretext was too flimsy to shorten a march or to cause a halt—the northerners did the same, but with them we had a controlling power in the shape of Shaykh Furayj. And like the citizens, they hate our manner of travelling: they love to sit up and chat through half the night; and to rise before dawn ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... or the other,—smoking, gambling, or putting final touches to their toilet in the broad light of day. The native officers alone aspired to a certain degree of privacy. Their huts were detached a little space from those that guarded the horses; and flimsy walls of grass matting, set around them, imparted a suggestion of dignity and aloofness from ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... 181.).—Cordially do I agree with every word of your correspondent LAUDATOR TEMPORIS ACTI, and especially as to the prayer-books for churches and chapels, printed by the Universities. Experto crede, no solicitude can preserve their "flimsy, brittle, and cottony" leaves, as he justly entitles them, from rapid destruction. Might not the delegates of the University presses be persuaded to give us an edition with the morning and evening services printed on vellum, instead of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... to buy flimsy furniture, however cheap. As a rule, there is too much furniture in the American home. It is better to get along with a few good, durable articles, even though a little expensive, than with a profusion of inferior ones. These soon reveal their "cheap and nasty qualities," ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... why Lydia should not handle that flimsy piece of cambric and lace, the most important of which was the key which Jean had taken from the secretaire in Lydia's absence, and had ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... the hungry flames burst in through the flimsy closet door and came licking along the ceiling. Bob's eyes smarted and burned, and his lungs felt as if they would burst. He remembered his Boy Scout studies in First Aid, though, and threw himself beside Sure Pop on the floor, where the smoke was not so thick. Together ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... strangely, and how strongly, has that hypothesis maintained its ground, even after nebulous masses have been resolved into clusters of stars. If gravity be the result of retro-acting forces, there could be no element of attraction in the flimsy gaseous particles whereby they might be drawn together. If gravity be the result of retro-acting forces, then must those forces have their existence somewhere. But where could there be found in flimsy gases any such special centres ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... stage, now appeared but a flimsy article of furniture, with frayed and torn upholstering, and carving which had long since lost its gilded magnificence. Seated amid the jumble of theatrical appliances and accoutrements—scenery, rolled up rug-fashion, property trunks, stage clock, lamps and draperies—she accepted ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... 290: Byron did not altogether approve of Scott's poetry, but he felt its effectiveness. In his "Reply to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine," Byron wrote: "What have we got instead [of following Pope]? A deluge of flimsy and unintelligible romances, imitated from Scott and myself, who have both made the best of our bad materials and ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... 1720. Tordenskjold was roused from sleep at five, and, after saying his prayers, a duty he never on any account omitted, he started for the place appointed. His old body-servant vainly pleaded with his master to take his stout blade instead of the flimsy parade sword the Admiral carried. Muennichhausen advised against it; it would be too heavy, he said. Stahl's weapon was a long fighting rapier, and to this the treacherous second made no objection. Almost at the first thrust he ran the Admiral through. The ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... known how to wage such a bout; and both men knew little concerning the science of self-defense. What happened—without any further abusive language—was this: the longshoreman and the cowboy (while using due caution against coming too close to the flimsy railing of the stairs) each set ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... higher Court. We thus see that as far back as 1874 this king of litigants had already had set aside by the higher Courts as many as some 1,900 distinct and separate judgments. How many more of those based on the same flimsy tissue of his distorted imagination he actually realized on is not known. As far as can be ascertained, the issue of insanity was never raised, at any rate by the Court, prior to the perjury trial, and it was only when this master litigant, after having been active as a complainant ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... on Sunday, and the note which you were so kind as to send with it, I can only repay you in this the old paper of unproductive thanks, but the sincerity of them will be held in some estimation by the mind actuated by the kindness that has excited them, and, therefore, flimsy as they are, I venture to beg your acceptance of them. I have nothing new, Madam, to send you for your entertainment from this great city. That the Regent is going to divorce the Princess of Wales, and excite the hope of the husbands and the fear of the wives—that under such an example, all the ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... much money, more money than she could possibly have used for herself in any legitimate way. First, she got her father to give her all she could get out of him. Her second step would be to write to me for all I could spare, making flimsy excuses for ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... very adaptable—you interest yourself in their pursuits, and so deceive them into a false estimate of your worth. Your education—speak not of it; it is but flimsy stuff. ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... presume," he announced, thrusting his hand nervously into his pocket and bringing out a fistful of papers. So eager and excited was he that, unnoticed, he dropped one flimsy sheet, many times folded, ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... understood female nature. It was by advice from this friend that he had been instigated to plead his own cause. "Of course she means to accept you," the friend had said. "Why the mischief shouldn't she? But she has some flimsy, old-fashioned country idea that it isn't maidenly to give in at first. You tell her roundly that she must marry you." Mr. Gibson was just reaching that roundness which his friend had recommended when the lady left ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... of the trunk, his father the other, and piloted by the hotel man, with Mr. Grigsby, lugging the hand baggage, in their wake, they climbed two flimsy flights of stairs to the third floor! The hotel man led the way down a narrow hall of rough boards, and flung open ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... in, in a flimsy dressing gown of yellow, with blue ribbons in it, her hair wet and still done up in a towel. Superbly she trusted to her big eyes of limpid brown, and to the marble-like pallour of her complexion, the twin laughing dimples in her cheeks ... she ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... see us do. How will you manage when a regular storm comes? Take it from me, the wind shakes the tree-tops finely! He has many a time come whistling through my old branches; and how do you think that you'll come off, with that flimsy finery which you ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... Over his pelisse he wore occasionally a long cape or short cloak, which was fastened with a brooch or strings across the breast and flowed over the back and shoulders. The material composing the cloak was in general exceedingly light and flimsy. The head-dress commonly worn seems to have been a round cap, which was perhaps ornamented with jewels. The vest and trousers were also in some cases richly jewelled. Every king wore ear-rings, with one, two, or three pendants. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... knew that our shy young gentleman was coming to help me, and that we should become acquainted without an introduction. So it was, sure enough. He saw what the trouble was, managed to disentangle my feet without drowning me in the process or upsetting his little flimsy craft, and, as I was somewhat tired with my struggle, took me in tow and carried me to the landing where he kept his canoe. I can't say that there is anything odd about his manners or his way of talk. I judge him to be ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... what you ask. It is not in the power of words—certainly not of my words—to portray such wondrous beauty; scarcely could an Apelles, a Zeuxis, a Parrhasius,—a Phidias or an Alcamenes, do justice to it; as for my flimsy workmanship, it will but insult ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... by French and English firms. The drawing-room of 1850 to 1860 was apparently incomplete without occasional chairs, a screen with painted panel, a work table, or some small cabinet or casket of this decorative but somewhat flimsy material. ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... he is too much a Greek for the age that appreciates "la belle Helene," too much a lyric dramatist to please the contemporaries of Sardou; he lends too much sentiment and dainty refinement to characters as flimsy as those of ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... 5:15 o'clock in the morning when the terrific earthquake shook San Francisco and the surrounding country. One shock apparently lasted two minutes and there was an almost immediate collapse of flimsy structures all over the former city. The water supply was cut off and when fires broke out in various sections there was nothing to do but to let the buildings burn. Telegraphic and telephone communication was shut off. Electric light and gas plants were ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... storm set in, and next day the boys found their flimsy wigwam blown down—nothing but ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of Madame; with a proviso, That as the curtains of that bed are of a flimsy transparent cotton, and appear likewise too scanty to draw close, that the fille de chambre shall fasten up the opening, either by corking pins, or needle and thread, in such manner as shall be deem'd a sufficient barrier ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... whispering to the mischievous wild beast which lurks in the bottom of all our hearts, now, "Rouse up! art thou a man and darest not do this thing?" now, "Rise, kill and eat—it is thine, wilt thou not take it? Shall the flimsy scruples of this teacher, or the sanctified cant of that, bar thy way, and balk thee of thine own? Thou hast strength to brave them—to brave all things in earth, or heaven, or hell; put out thy strength and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... off to the ends of the earth, building Grecian temples and Veronese palaces, some entire and some in slices, dreary, indefinite-looking objects, devoid of all constructive principles within, and ornamented with falsified gewgaws without, stuck on in the hope of hiding rather than helping out the flimsy design. Our 'national style' we are sure can never be born of any such travesties. Borrowed architecture never ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... streets as in the matter of art he would have studied a picture. The little yellow, blue, green, white, and brown street-cars which he saw trundling here and there, the tired, bony horses, jingling bells at their throats, touched him. They were flimsy affairs, these cars, merely highly varnished kindling-wood with bits of polished brass and glass stuck about them, but he realized what fortunes they portended if the city grew. Street-cars, he knew, were his natural vocation. Even more than stock-brokerage, even more than banking, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... monopoly is as common and as disagreeable as any other. Yet when we observe how much these rattles are caressed, 'tis wonderful there are so few. Talent is by no means indispensable, and is the more valuable in proportion as it is flimsy or superficial. The great art lies in the choice of a subject. Let it be some liaison in the beau monde—the appearance of a new singer or actress—the detail of a recent duel, with particulars and embellishments, and your fortune is made at once. Do not affect any thing like a literary ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... I pitied her. I always thought her a poor, flimsy little thing. But that ought n't to make any difference, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a beard of flies' legs, a flimsy, old, grey, ruined, shaggy beard—beard without comprehension, beard without shame, without any feminine respect—beard which pretends neither to feel nor to hear, nor to see, a pared away beard, a beaten down, disordered, gutted beard. May the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... keys of that trunk?" Upon Mrs. Mackenzie's exclamation of "What nonsense!" Clive, putting his foot upon the flimsy oil-covered box, vowed he would kick the lid off unless it was instantly opened. Obeying this grim summons, the fluttering women produced the keys, and the black box ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there was, and because we fried it we called it steak, and because we called it steak we said we enjoyed it, though it was utterly tasteless. The hide was quite rotten and useless, being as thin and flimsy as brown paper. It was impossible now to push farther out west, and a retreat to the Shoeing Camp had to be made, though we could not reach it in a day. Thermometer while on this creek 99, and 100 degrees in shade. This place was ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... famous sugar-plantations. Midway on the northern side, lie the beautiful estates of "Belmont" and "Belle Alliance." Early one morning in the middle of October, 1878, a young man, whose age you would have guessed fifteen years too much, stood in scrupulously clean, ill-fitting, flimsy garments, on the strong, high levee overlooking these two plantations. He was asking the way to a place called Grande Pointe. Grand Point, he called it, and so may we: many names in Louisiana that retain the French spelling are habitually ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... delivered last Wednesday: we will refer to it. Mum! mum! Ah, here it is. 'The Chancellor of the Exchequer rose and—' mum! mum! ah—'I am of—o-pinion that—if, upon a fair review of our situation, there shall appear to be nothing hollow in its foundation, artificial in its superstructure, or flimsy in its general results, we may safely venture to contemplate with instructive admiration the harmony of its proportions and the ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... impression that it is beyond defence and impossible to justify. It is not surprising that people begin to say: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Let us experience all we desire. Let us act like the normal healthy creatures that we are. Let us ignore the flimsy barriers a corrupt and imbecile moral code would erect between us and what ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... frivolities into such a scene, but Jane said her mind ran on it, and it was 'anything to take off her thoughts from that man.' So I went into her room, and oh! if you could have seen the poor thing, with her short breath and racking cough, her cheeks burning and her eyes glistening at that flimsy trumpery. One bunch of the silver flowers on my skirt was wrong; she spied it, and they would not thwart her, so she would have the needle, and the skeleton trembling fingers set them right. They said she would sleep the easier for it, and she thanked ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... such flimsy notes, for the housekeeper can see through them in the light. I have just received this letter from Leipzig, but I don't mean to send the Quartet yet; we can talk of this on Sunday. Three years ago I only asked 40 ducats for a quartet; we must therefore refer ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... of the most graphic and entertaining of modern writings. If we were, through any misadventure, sent to jail, we would stipulate for permission to carry into our cell Hakluyt's Voyages. The narratives of modern travellers are often learned, more often flimsy, and from the universality of locomotion, much given, like the prayers of the old Pharisees, to tedious repetitions. A tour in Greece or Italy now affects us with unutterable weariness. A journey from London to York affords ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... fashion in the scientific world which every now and then decrees that certain people shall be ignored, no matter how sound their work, or that certain hypotheses shall be treated as matters of faith, no matter how flimsy their structure. Man does not all at once become a creature of pure reasoning by assuming the robe of science and entering the laboratory. But national prejudices are not pre-eminent among the forces which dictate these fashions. Indeed in the English intellectual ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... there is something fine in this too: it is good that he SHOULD fail, that he should have these honest naive notions regarding the beau monde, the characteristics of which a namby-pamby tea-party painter could hit off far better than he. He is a great deal too downright and manly to appreciate the flimsy delicacies of small society—you cannot expect a lion to roar you like any sucking dove, or frisk about a drawing-room like ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to keep her a close prisoner until the thing they were about to do was finished. She beat upon it, called to Rosario to let her out, wrung her hands in her desperation. Then she remembered the window. It was a cheap and flimsy case, and had been jammed so that her strength was not ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... more upon this subject to your Lordship, but I am afraid I have already said too much. I would rather, for my own part, have the solid reputation of your most respectable president, though exposed to the insults of a brutal mob, than all the vain and flimsy applause that has ever yet been bestowed upon either or both the other two.—I have the honour to be, with the highest esteem and regard, my Lord, your Lordship's most obliged and ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... little as he went to the door she had indicated. When his fingers touched the knob, it turned fumblingly under another hand than his own; the door opened, and he confronted the girl whom he had tried to befriend the day before. She had evidently just gotten out of bed, and into a flimsy blue kimono, which she was holding together at the throat with one hand, while with the other she steadied herself against the wall. She stared blankly into his eyes, and her face was very white indeed, with her hair ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... of Bessy. Sally has a great wish for a white hin, and we've ne'er a one of that sort at our place. I've brought a wad of hay in the basket meself, for 'fraid yous might be short of it up here." Jerry gave a kick to the basket, which betrayed the flimsy nature of its contents by rolling over with a wobble on ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... lately amusing myself with Levi's book, in answer to Dr. Priestley. It is a curious and tough work. His style is inelegant and incorrect, harsh and petulant to his adversary, and his reasoning flimsy enough. Some of his doctrines were new to me, particularly that of his two resurrections: the first, a particular one of all the dead, in body as well as soul, who are to live over again, the Jews in a state of perfect ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... gentleman of the attic. Nevertheless I did, as I went out, throw a glance up to the window of the court—alas! there were more panes broken, the placard was gone, the veil was gone—there was nothing but a flimsy web which a bold spider had stretched across one of the comers. I felt sure that the last six months had brought its changes to other houses, as well as ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... career, rendering it necessary for him to push the man in the right jaw, incidentally allowed him to show his master just a little that he could do. The man had been dumped against the wall, but he was still undaunted. With thin mud dropping from one leg of his flimsy pantaloons, he came forward again, did this chair coolie, whom I had just paid off—for it was assuredly one of the trio—leading out again one of those little wiry, shaggy ponies, and wished to do another deal. He had, however, struck a snag. We ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... Editor, you intend, so soon as the war is over, to enlarge the Review, without increasing the subscription-price ... and then if Southern patronage ceases to be bestowed chiefly on the flimsy and immoral literature of the North, and Southern pens cease to prostitute themselves for pay by ministering to the vile and sensual literary appetites of the Yankees, then, we say, this Review will rank with the ablest for ability, and far above ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to be a printed circular, with some lines in pencil added on the empty page. Printed lines and written lines swam before her eyes. She felt, rather than saw, Lady Janet's attention steadily and suspiciously fixed on her. With the matron's arrival the foredoomed end of the flimsy false pretenses and the ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... improved his lands, the next care is to provide a mansion worthy the residence of a landholder. A huge palace of pine boards immediately springs up in the midst of the wilderness, large enough for a parish church, and furnished with windows of all dimensions, but so rickety and flimsy withal, that every blast gives it ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... furniture," said Porthos, while the comte was looking about, "are constructed in a ridiculously flimsy manner. In my early days, when I used to sit down with far more energy than is now the case, I do not remember ever to have broken a chair, except ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... lands of Karnak and Luxor, is the light more pure and admirable than in these great bare plains of Numidia and the region of the Sahara. Is there not enchantment for the eyes of the metaphysician in this play of light, these nameless interfulgent colours which appear flimsy as the play of thought? For the glowing floating haze is made of nothing—of lines, of gleam, of unregulated splendour. And all this triumph of fluctuating light and elusive colour is quenched with the sun, smoulders ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... open and the lamp burning, and by midnight he was sleeping heavily in the adjoining room. And the wind got up in the night: it played with the muslin curtains, flinging them out like streamers into the room; played with the flimsy parasol lamp-shade until it tilted, and the little lamp was ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... Recorder office also—12.25 a.m. They would be well into the rush of the night's work by now. The boys would be in from assignments and pounding out "copy" in the city room. The wires would be warming up and the "flimsy" arriving at the telegraph editor's desk in bunches, and old man Jeffreys would be reaching in the left bottom drawer of his scarred old desk for his little package of bread and cheese with an apple or a banana to top it off; he always ate that twenty-five minutes after midnight, ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... an unpainted wooden table, and behind it sit half-life-size waxen figures of the Holy Family, made by the very worst artist that ever lived, perhaps, and clothed in gaudy, flimsy drapery. [1] The margravine used to bring her meals to this table and DINE WITH THE HOLY FAMILY. What an idea that was! What a grisly spectacle it must have been! Imagine it: Those rigid, shock-headed figures, with corpsy complexions and fish glass eyes, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that Harding had told him—at least in discreet outline—of their conversation. She also saw that if she reopened the subject she would find herself straightway whirled out upon a stormy sea of danger that might easily overwhelm her flimsy boat. She silently and sullenly dropped into her place; she ministered to the general's pleasure in packages of finery. But she did not exclaim, or admire, or respond in any way. The honeymoon was over. Her dream of ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... sage of Donnaville. Let him but get his applications past the land ring's tool in the state land office, and a receipt issued for his first payment, and Donnaville would be no longer a dream. Should the applications be rejected later on some flimsy pretext, he would commence a mandamus suit to enforce the selection of his lands, and force action of the pending applications of the land ring, whereby they so artfully "tied up the basis" of exchange. If he should find himself opposed ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... office of the sympathizers with the cause I was furnished with the address of certain Carlists in confidential positions in France, and letters were sent on in advance, so as to secure me a favourable reception. Armed with a sheet of flimsy stamped in blue with the escutcheon of Charles VII., and the legend "Secretaria Militar de Londres," and with, what was more potent, a big credit on a banking-house, I started afresh on ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... purchased. The furniture looked poor, and the carpets almost threadbare; but there was such a dainty spirit of cleanliness abroad, such exquisite neatness of repair, and altogether so bright and cheerful a look about the rooms—everything so above-board—no shifts to conceal poverty under flimsy ornament—that many a splendid drawing-room would give less pleasure to those who could see evidences of character in inanimate things. But whatever poverty there might be in the house, there was full luxuriance in the ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the gun, and welcome, Nick; only be careful how you shoot. One of those charges at close range would go through the flimsy planking of my boat like a bullet. Here, take the gun. And if there's anything else I can do to make you comfortable, let me know. I'm the most ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... Transcriber's note: The original text refers to "vitres epaisses", thick panes, without specific dimensions. Glass only a millimetre thick would have been rather flimsy.] ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... dividing a force already too weak. If the blacks make another serious attack upon us we shall have enough to do to hold our own here together, without having part of us defending a flimsy hut, which they would serve at once as they will us here if we don't take very ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... As it was evident that the Spanish children could not be disposed of in both markets at the same time, it was plain to the dullest comprehension that either the brokerage of Toledo or of Girono was a sham, and that a policy erected upon such flimsy foundations would soon ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sottish braves—the Long-Knife's tavern-chiefs— Who sell their honor like a pack of fur, Make favour with the pale-face for his fee, And caper with the hatchet for his sport. I am a chief by right of blood, and fling Your false and flimsy treaties in your face. I am my nation's head, and own but one As greater than myself, ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... a flimsy thing," he heard her say, as if in self-argument. "It wouldn't stand many wearings before it would look a sight. It wouldn't wash—man as you are, Mr. Mostyn, you know it wouldn't wash. I'm going to take it off and try to have some sense. I'm in no position ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... sudden inspiration, born of a growing fear for the stability of his house of cards, so flimsy in construction, he ran down to Jitomir, and the half-crazed adventurer only lingered an hour with the Intendant of Madame Alixe Delavigne's grand old domain. He found the bird flown. Had he been duped? A permission to view the old chateau was courteously accorded, and then Alan Hawke soon ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... repeated the Proveditore scornfully. "Whence comes, then, your manifest misery and poverty? Whence comes it that you turn robbers, if in the pay of Austria? No, Dansowich, you will not deceive us by such flimsy pretexts! Your gains, lawful and unlawful, are wrested from you by the archducal counsellors, in whose hands you are mere puppets. 'Twas they who prompted you to tell the Turks that you were in league with Venice; that the republic encouraged your misdeeds, and shared the profits ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... There is, shall we say, no science of sociology—merely a heap of vague, empirical observations, too flimsy to be useful in strict logical inference? I should, I confess, be apt to say so myself. Then, you may proceed, is it not idle to attempt to introduce a scientific method? And to that I should emphatically reply, No! it is of the highest importance. The question, then, will ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... round when, the day before Christmas, the postman came along the bleak and flimsy street and left a letter for him. Cope was away from the house, and Rosalys, studying the envelope's penmanship and even its postmark, found vague confirmation of her theory: some college girl—one ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... the first attempt, his face blank of expression, a sign Drew had come to recognize as the Texan's withdrawal from a situation or action of which he did not approve. There were five men squeezed together on the flimsy-looking raft and they had strung out their mounts in a line, the head of one horse linked by leading rope to the tail of ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... friends, he was respited and deported to France; he died at Orthez early in the following year. His verses are modelled on those of Melendez Valdes; though not deficient in technique or passion, they are often disfigured by spurious sentimentality and by the flimsy philosophy of the age. Cienfuegos was blamed for an unsparing use of both archaisms and gallicisms. His plays, Pitaco, Zoraida, La Condesa de Castilla and Idomeneo, four tragedies on the pseudo-classic French ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various |
