"Frail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pardon, lady, for this fault I cry, And wiser still I grow remembering it. Yea, will I see what folly 't were to think That largess dropped from thee like dews from heaven, Could e'er be paid by work so frail as mine! To nothingness my art and talent sink; He fails who from his mental stores hath given A thousandfold to match one ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... any good. In waging his battle with mysterious nature, he only unfits himself by seeking gain. In the same way, to a lesser degree, the law and the ministry should not be gainful professions. When the question of personal gain and advancement comes in, the frail human being succumbs to selfishness, and then to error. Like the artist, the doctor, the lawyer, the clergyman, the teacher should be content to minister to human needs. The professions should be great monastic orders, reserved for those ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... as if his support had been uncalled upon, a frail reed at best. Lund had not needed him, would he need him, save as an aid, not altogether necessary, with Hansen ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... moment began a fearful knocking on a side door, that threatened the speedy demolition of the frail barrier. "Run, run," whispered Ragem, as if in the extremity of terror, "the police ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... expression was abstracted, her eyes had an inward look. He hoped her headache had not got worse. She did not look at all pretty now. She seemed a frail little creature with a sad thoughtful face and an air of being alone in the midst of a merry company. Poor little thing! He felt as if he had known her for years. She seemed curiously out of harmony with all these people. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... circulation and suggest all kinds of remedies. But throughout a long life I have been a close observer and have come to the conclusion that indigestion and improper circulation are no more the cause of this nightly terror than of rain and wind, though a frail condition will make the one as well as the other harder to endure. Wait, my reader, until you are as old and experienced a dreamer as I am, and you shall see for yourself these terror-inspirers and bloodcurdlers, these buffoons and jesters at work in the shapes in ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... upon duty over the royal prisoners, had difficulty, not merely in saving them from this horrible inhumanity, but also in preventing their prison from being forced. Three-coloured ribbons were extended across the street, and this frail barrier was found sufficient to intimate that the Temple was under the safeguard of the nation. We do not read that the efficiency of the three-coloured ribbons was tried for the protection of any of the other prisoners. No doubt the executioners had their ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... fence. Half a dozen paces distant the old man stood among the stones in a silent paroxysm of rage. He waved his long arms in the air, anon clenching his fists and shaking them at some object beyond him. His frail old body fluttered back and forth, right and left, as if he were doing a weird dance among the rocks. The violence of his emotion was something terrible to witness and fairly startled the girl. Had he screamed, or sobbed, or shrieked, or moaned, the scene would have ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... feel that the circumstances of his life became critical. "I feel," he says, "that I am on the point of securing or losing the fruit of my labors for life." Rome and Niebuhr seemed the only haven in sight, and thither Bunsen now began to steer his frail bark. He arrived in Rome on the 14th of November, 1816. Niebuhr, who was Prussian Minister, received him with great kindness, and entered heartily into the literary plans of his young friend. Brandis, Niebuhr's secretary, renewed in common with his old friend his study of Greek philosophy. A native ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... and a half inches in inside diameter, made of string, rags, newspaper, cotton wadding, bark, Spanish moss, and feathers, lined with fine root fibre, I think. The feathers were not inside for lining, but outside on the upper edge. It was, like the foundation, so frail that, though carefully managed, it could only be kept in shape by a string around it, even after the mass of twigs had been removed. I have a last year's nest, made of exactly the same materials, but in a much more substantial manner; so perhaps the cedar-tree birds were not so skillful builders ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... is exactly what Billy Magee wanted to know as, closing the waiting-room door behind him, he stood staring just inside. Were the features against which that frail bit of cambric was agonizingly pressed of a pleasing contour? The girl's neatly tailored corduroy suit and her flippant but charming millinery augured well. Should he step gallantly forward and inquire in sympathetic tones as to the cause of her woe? Should he carry chivalry even to ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... the form of amiable prepossessions. A vast mass of mystic and traditional lumber still enters into the foundations of Conservatism, and if all this "wood, hay, and stubble" were to be burnt up it would fare ill with the frail fabric overhead. The practical policy of Conservatism would not alter, and could not be altered much, but its pretensions would have to be pitched in a lower key, and the excessive modesty of the part which alone remains to it in the ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... group on the eastern shore began to grow larger as the hours wore on. Washington was there wrapped in his cloak, and in that inscrutable silence denoting the crisis of a lifetime. Did his thoughts go back to that eventful hour when he was guiding a frail raft through the surging ice of the Monongahela? Knox was there animating the utterly cheerless scene by his loud commands to the men in charge of his precious artillery, for which the shivering troops were impatiently ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... half to herself a wild little Scottish ballad, chiming it in with water and wind and bird music, taking first one part and then another; looping together a long chain of pine needles the while,—then throwing back her sleeve, and laying the frail work across her arm, above the tiny hair chain, the broad band of gems and the string of acorns, which banded it; in short, disporting herself generally. But not the "lullaby, baby, and all," of the old rhyme, ever had a more sudden and ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... and down to the shore, where he deposited his precious burden in a skiff which an old one-eyed boatman brought at his call. He would fain have stepped aboard also, but ere he could do so the boatman pushed off and the frail craft was soon lost to sight. The bereaved father then slowly wended his way home, taking comfort from the thought that Odin himself had come to claim the young hero and had rowed away with him "out into ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... essential—a nipple that is large enough for the child to grasp properly. Within wide limits what the mother eats or drinks, whether she be robust or whether she has always been something of an invalid, matters not at all. A frail woman may naturally not be able to stand the strain of nursing for many months, but that is not here the point in question. We are dealing only with the establishment of lactation and with the milk supply of the early days and weeks which is of such vital importance for the child. ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... intricate mazes to which Phebe had no clue. But no color came to Felicita's pale face, and no light into her dim eyes. There was a painful and weird feeling often in Phebe's heart that Felicita herself was not there; only the fair, frail form, which was as insensible as a corpse, until this spirit came back to it. At such times Phebe was impelled to touch her, and speak to her, and call her back again, though it might be to ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... he could say. He took her in his arms, so worn, so wasted, so sad; wan as the fluttering snow without. All his man's heart overflowed with infinite love and pity as he held that frail form in his ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... would they be? Oh! why hath not the Mind 45 Some element to stamp her image on In nature somewhat nearer to her own? [C] Why, gifted with such powers to send abroad Her spirit, must it lodge in shrines so frail? ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... an uncle, with whom at the age of nine he went to reside in Rome. In the house of this bachelor uncle the poor little orphan pined away. Fever succeeded fever, until his guardian felt that companionship with boys in play and study was the only chance of saving so frail a life as Gabriello's. Accordingly he placed the invalid under the care of the Jesuits in their Collegio Romano. Here the child's health revived, and his education till the age of twenty throve apace. The Jesuits seem to have ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Gladys. You see, I didn't know what to do; you are so different from any girl I have ever met. I never know exactly what will please you and what will aggravate you. Upon my word, you have no idea what an amount of power you have in those frail little hands.' ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... conjure up a menacing picture when a person is called not only a general, but a militant one. In appearance Alice Paul is anything but menacing. Quiet, almost mouselike, this frail young Quakeress sits in silence and baffles you with her contradictions. Large, soft, gray eyes that strike you with a positive impact make you feel the indescribable force and power behind them. A mass of soft ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... worthily deserve A higher place ... Than frail Booetes, who was placed above Only because the gods did else foresee He should the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... best-loved of all, to his daughter Nora; but at the present moment he was in danger. In the barn, too, he was in much greater danger than he had been when in the safe seclusion of the Castle. It would be possible for any one to creep up to the barn at night, to push open the somewhat frail windows or equally frail door, and to accomplish that deed which had already been attempted. Nora knew well that she must act, she must do something—what, was the puzzle. Squire O'Shanaghgan was one of the most generous, open-hearted, and affectionate ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... years old, white-haired, a descendant of the cavaliers, as thin and frail as the house she lived in, robed in the cheapest and cleanest dress I ever saw, with an air as simple as a ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... own theory about inspiration which will not always come,—especially will not come if wine-cups overnight have been too deep. All this has ever been odious to me, as being unmanly. A man may be frail in health, and therefore unable to do as he has contracted in whatever grade of life. He who has been blessed with physical strength to work day by day, year by year—as has been my case—should pardon deficiencies caused by sickness or infirmity. ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... against the masts, and the sight of the same cloudless sky and endless expanse of tumid sea, with surface unbroken by the tiniest ripple, save when a dolphin leaped out of the water or a fairy nautilus glided by in his frail shell craft—were longing for the advent of the north-east trades, which Captain Dinks had expected them to "run into" ever since they lost their first favourable wind, there came a visitor to the Nancy Bell, the most dreaded of all the perils of ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... Well, I can't tell it any better than the real thing—a story recorded by James Madison from the final moments of the Constitutional Convention, September 17th, 1787. As the last few members signed the document, Benjamin Franklin—the oldest delegate at 81 years and in frail health—looked over toward the chair where George Washington daily presided. At the back of the chair was painted the picture of a Sun on the horizon. And turning to those sitting next to him, Franklin observed that artists found it difficult in their painting to distinguish ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... in the midst of the Revolutionary struggle, leaving the frail bark, in which were centered fond and long-cherished hopes, tossing upon uncertain and dangerous waters. A fearful storm was raging when his immediate successor put off the robes of office, and ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... for several minutes oblivious to everything else. Neither did he see his hard taskmaster watching him in the distance. But when he again resumed his hoeing he worked more fiercely than ever, and there was danger at times lest the frail hoe should break beneath his tremendous strokes. Up one row and down another he moved all the afternoon. He seemed like a giant tearing up the earth, rather than a man performing a prosaic task. When toward evening the sky darkened, the wind began to blow and the rain to ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... turning point in the disease, and from that time the little one began to amend. But very weak and frail, she was still in need of weeks of continued tender, ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... and called to know if any one was there alive. In answer to her repeated calls came the answer of the engineer, who had caught hold of and made a lodgment in a tree-top, and around whom the waters were still rapidly rising, sending floating logs, trees, and driftwood against his frail support, and threatening momentarily ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Lynn's rough, hard, salt-savored life Blossom was the one thing sweet and beautiful. Blossom was the little frail wisp of a child that Judith loved. This other child, here on the sand, watching her with friendly wonder, reminded her a little of Blossom. Anyway, they were both sweet ...
— Judith Lynn - A Story of the Sea • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... my soul!' Bommaney cried out. His chin fell upon his breast, and his eyes stared at the floor, seeing nothing. He felt like a man upon a raft, who sees the bindings of the frail thing break apart. Shipwrecked already, and now the last hope gone! He hardly knew, if he could have asked himself the question clearly, why he so particularly desired to see Barter. He hardly knew what Barter could have done for him, except ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... in time, his strong arms grasping the frail, bent figure as it sank to the floor. As he lifted her bodily from her feet, intent upon carrying her to the open air, her bony fingers sank into his arm with the grip of death, and—could he believe his ears!—a low, mocking ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... in the rear, The stern battalia crowned. No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang, Still were the pipe and drum; Save heavy tread, and armor's clang, The sullen march was dumb. There breathed no wind their crests to shake, Or wave their flags abroad; Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake, That shadowed o'er their road. Their vaward scouts no tidings bring, Can rouse no lurking foe, Nor spy a trace of living thing, Save when they stirred the roe; The host moves like a deep sea wave, Where ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... is it of shepherds and sheep-folds; nor is there a spot in it where the name of the fair Leandra is not heard. Here one curses her and calls her capricious, fickle, and immodest, there another condemns her as frail and frivolous; this pardons and absolves her, that spurns and reviles her; one extols her beauty, another assails her character, and in short all abuse her, and all adore her, and to such a pitch has this general infatuation gone that there are some who complain of her ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Roly, "there." And he slowly unclosed a fat little fist, and in it Paul saw, with a revulsion of feeling that turned him dizzy and faint, the priceless talisman itself, the identical Garuda Stone, with part of the frail gilt ring still ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... her surprise, could scarcely refrain from laughter, for Otto's words were fulfilled almost to the letter. Amid a strife of elements that caused their frail erections to tremble, the little door burst open, and Dominick, stooping low to save his head, entered. He was followed by the gaunt, dark form of Malines, who, in rough garments and long fishermen's boots, with pistols in belt, and cutlass by his side, was a particularly ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... care what they'd think," she returned feverishly, her frail fingers plucking nervously at the arms of her chair. ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... diamonds. And he was holding his audience spellbound:—Hindus of every calling; students in abundance; a sprinkling of Sikhs and Dogras from the lines. Some form of hypnotism,—was it? Perhaps. Even Roy could not listen unmoved, when the spirit shook the frail creature like a gust of wind and the hollow chest-notes vibrated with appeal or command. Such men—and India is full of them—are spiritual dynamos. Who can calculate their effect on an emotional race? And they no longer confine ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... on the backs of ponies up and down the hills of the country. It was generally necessary to cross rivers by fording, though, where the water was too deep for this, rude and clumsy ferry-boats were provided. Occasionally, over a narrow stream, a frail footbridge would be built. ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... desire, On me that am too weak to bear a shift upon me dight. Ay, tears of blood I weep, for that my censors say to me, "A sudden sword, from out his lids thou lovest, shall thee smite." Ah, would my heart were like to thine, even as my body is Like to thy waist, all thin and frail and dwindled for despite! Thou, that my prince in beauty art, a steward[FN126] hast, whose rule Aggrieves me and a chamberlain[FN127] that doth me foul upright. He lies who says, "All loveliness in Joseph was comprised." How many Josephs are there not within thy beauty bright! I force myself to ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... gospel. "If I am considered worthy, there is no vocation I would so gladly follow," was dear Herbert's answer. Those who knew him best would most assuredly have said that he was worthy, compared to the usual standard of frail ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... he seen her sitting there! And now he would not see her any more. And only three days ago she had been sitting in the basket chair. How well he remembered her words, her laughter, and now ... now; was it possible he never would hear her laugh again? How frail a thing is human life, how shadow-like; one moment it is here, the next it is gone. Here is her work-basket; and here the very ball of wool which he had held for her to wind; and here is a novel which she had lent to him, and which he had forgotten to take away. He would never read ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... was only a part of what went on, but the crowd had gotten into a good humor and was joking, and I had fallen into the same spirit. The first person I looked for when I entered the car was, of course, the sick woman. I soon picked her out: a sweet, frail-looking lady, with that fatal, transparent hue of skin and fine complexion. She was all muffled up, although the car was very warm. Every seat was either occupied or piled high with bags. Well, ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... who distinctly perceives that the perpendicular columns, or places in which figures are written, may distinguish their value under various different denominations, as gallons, furlongs, shillings, &c. We should not tease children with long sums in avoirdupois weight, or load their frail memories with tables of long-measure, and dry-measure, and ale-measure in the country, and ale-measure in London; only let them cast up a few sums in different denominations, with the tables before them, and let the practice of addition be preserved ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... that Naomi, daily handling sick little Three Legs, might have caught the malady that first darkened the vision of the poor little animal, and then caused the frail life to flicker ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... afterwards the newspapers announced one morning that the famous Fanny Clairet, the celebrated horizontal, whose caprices had caused a revolution in high life, that queen of frail beauties for whom three men had committed suicide, and so many others had ruined themselves, that incomparable living statue, who had attracted all Paris to the theater where she impersonated Venus in her transparent ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... illegitimate birth. "I was mad from the time I was told of my birth," he wrote, and until madness supervened he suffered from a "wounded imagination." He was morbid, shy, and irritable, and his energy—the explosive energy of this frail youth was amazing; because he had been refused the use of a ship boat he wasted three months digging out a canoe from a log of wood. Like Paul Gauguin, he saw many countries, and his eyes were trained ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... you said good by; but now that I am called, it is sweet to know that you are happy, and sweeter still to think that you came back to me at the last. Be kind to her, Waring. I know you love her; but guard her tenderly,—she is but frail. I die content, my child, quite content; do ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... from a blow. His frail dream of passion was shattered like a bubble at her words. A wave of bitter self-contempt that its existence had been possible swept over him. The blood surged into his cheeks. Ninitta saw the flush ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... his master's cloak. As I saw Lord Castleton step into the street, and wrap himself in his costly mantle lined with sables, I observed, more than I had while he was in the room, the enervate slightness of his frail form, and the more than paleness of his thin, joyless face; and then, instead of envy, I felt compassion for the owner of all this pomp and grandeur,—felt that I would not have exchanged my hardy health and easy humor and vivid capacities of enjoyment in things ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... service is open to all, nay, we stumble on to the path daily without knowing it. Ivan Tourguenieff, in one of his beautiful poems in prose, says, 'I was walking in the street; a beggar stopped me—a frail old man. His inflamed, tearful eyes, blue lips, rough rags, disgusting sores—oh, how horribly poverty had disfigured the unhappy creature! He stretched out to me his red, swollen, filthy hands; he groaned and whimpered for alms. I felt ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... doctors said that this frail, delicate child could not live. He might die at any moment. In the event of his death, Mr. James Milligan would succeed to the fortune. He waited and hoped, but the doctors' predictions were not fulfilled. Arthur lived. It was his mother's care that saved him. When he had to be strapped to a board, ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... Emile upon her knees, and asked Csar a thousand questions about his father with reference to matters of an intimate nature, which made him feel, without reasoning on the subject, that she had loved Hautot with all the strength of her frail ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... get through with it! Get through with it!" He stared at his visitor and blinked rapidly; a moment later he shook all over. "Lavendar, it will kill me!" He was very frail, this shrunken old man in the green dressing-gown and high beaver hat, with his lower lip sucked in like a frightened child's. The torch of life, blown so often into furious flame by hurricanes of rage, had ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... Madame Angelique because she is a woman in a thousand, this frail beauty of New France, its Madame de Pompadour in brilliance, however the comparison may hold in virtue, and because, if I prosper at all in the friendship, I hope to hear from her the inner news of events here which, by its usefulness to General ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... pursues the task, and sets in act What He promised. So He calls Noys to seek A copy of His will, Idea of the human mind, To whose form the spirit should be shaped, Rich in every virtue, which, veiled in garb Of frail flesh, is to be hidden in a shade of body, Then Noys, at the King's order, ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... other oyster-women to be seen at Tenby, but none so trim as good Dame Trudge. Here and hereabout grow the largest, if not the sweetest, oysters in Great Britain, and their cultivation is chiefly the work of the gentler sex. They do not look very gentle—or at least very frail—as you come upon a group of oyster-women in their masculine hats and boots munching their bread and cheese under a wall, but they are a good-natured race, and most respectful to their betters. Anything less suggestive of Billingsgate than the language of these Welsh fisher-women could ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... donatives the treasure, or rather the indigence, of the state. The emperor immediately resigned to his brothers the possession of the Morea; and the brittle friendship of the two princes, Demetrius and Thomas, was confirmed in their mother's presence by the frail security of oaths and embraces. His next occupation was the choice of a consort. A daughter of the doge of Venice had been proposed; but the Byzantine nobles objected the distance between an hereditary monarch and an elective magistrate; and in their ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... forked blue veins of the temples, and it paled and came again as readily as a girl's. Girlish, too, were the limpid eyes, which, but for a trick of dropping unexpectedly, seemed always to be gazing, in thoughtful surprise, at something that was visible to them alone. As to the small, frail body, it existed only for sake of the hands: narrow hands, with long, fleshless fingers, nervous hands, that ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... answered him. The men at the edge of the raft, armed with long sticks, pressed with violence against the shore to send off the frail construction with sufficient impetus to force its way through corpses and ice-floes ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... my Dear, tho Flesh and Blood be frail, yet the dear Hopes of thee has made me hold out with a Herculean Courage— Stay, where shall I carry her? not to my own Apartment; Ariadne may surprize me: I'll to the Mountebank here i'th' Piazza, he has a Cure for all things, even for longing Love, and for a Pistole or two ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... upward and downward it carried him, but after each new sally of the element he was brought nearer to the ground. The freaks of cyclonic storms are the rule of cyclonic storms, demolish giant trees, and in the same gust they transport frail infants for miles and deposit them unharmed ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not gone far, when Philip, noticing how frail Peter was, hailed a car, and they rode to Grand Street, changed there and went east. Midway between the Bowery and the river, they got out and walked south for a few blocks, turned into a side street that was hardly more than an ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... talk drivel. It makes me sick. Leave Adrian alone and listen to a living man," he shouted, all the pent-up intellectual disgusts and sex-jealousies bursting out in a mad gush. "A real live man who would walk through Hell for you!" He caught her frail body in his great grasp, and she vibrated like a bit of wire caught up by a dynamo. "My love for you has nothing whatever to do with Adrian. I've been as loyal to him as one man can be to another, ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... hand. "And to think of that poor girl—tonight! It's dreadful." She looked into the fire that she had lit when he came in, the warm light fell upon her dark purple dress, and left her features in a warm shadow. She looked such a slight, frail thing to be troubled so. "We must follow her." Her resolution seemed magnificent. "I have no one ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... affection of a beloved and noble-hearted husband. A tiny voice is calling "Mamma;" the shy, useless girl you have known is now a mother, thinking, and trembling while she smiles, how strong is love, how frail is life. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... hands. There is some power, no doubt, that makes you strong in spirit, but frail in body; while I am strong to live but weak of heart. But ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... such a check as he might have wished for, to look at that grim old castle, recollect who he was, and think of the frail tenure of all earthly joy, especially for one of the house of Morville. Could that abode ever be a home for a creature like Amy, with the bright innocent mirth that seemed too soft and sweet ever to be overshadowed ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I don't know. I think, not over three or four minutes. She came from her hiding place, crouching this time, and joined us. She was, probably, of normal Earth size—a small, frail-looking girl something over five feet tall. We saw now that she was quite young, still in her teens. We lay staring at her, amazed at her beauty. Her small oval face was pale, with the flush of pink upon her cheeks—a face queerly, transcendingly beautiful. It was wholly human, yet somehow unearthly, ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... of her bodily being was, as I knew, so frail, there was no show of frailness in her gracious presence. She was tall for a woman, and her coloring was fresh and sane; her bust and limbs were moulded with a wise and restrained generosity that ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... you," said the excited messenger, "that if you reject his offered clemency, you do it at your peril, and the blood of the innocent will be required at your hands. He knows the weakness of your resources, and he will come with power to shake these frail walls to their foundations, and make the stoutest heart within them ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... the sisters was quite natural. Though weakened by sorrow and misery, the Bacchanal Queen, with a constitution as robust as the other was frail and delicate, was necessarily longer than her sister in feeling the effects of the deleterious vapor. After a moment's silence, Cephyse resumed, as she laid her hand on the head she still held upon her knees, "You say nothing, sister! You ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... of the same race as the forefathers of the French, streamed southward from the valley of the Po. The Romans were alarmed by such tall men, with fierce eyes, and fair, flowing hair, whose swords crashed through the frail Roman helmets. They sent a large army to stop the invaders, but in the battle, which was fought only twelve miles from ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... addressing me, "is an old frail man, little used to the company of strangers; but in former days he has had kindness from members of your house, and it would be a satisfaction to him, I think, to have the privilege of ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... English, so smiled expansively, her bony arms folded across her stomach. Her oldest daughter, a frail-looking girl in the twenties, but with a sad and spiritual beauty of the Madonna in her big eyes and straight black hair, gave us a shy good-day. Three boys, just alike in their slender, stolid Indian good looks, except ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... seem to be put up for hugging. If a man puts his arm around a seven-teen-year-old girl of the present day, and sort of closes in on the belt, he expects to hear something break. Many a humane man lets go before he has got a girl half hugged because the girl looks so frail that he is afraid he will break ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... reciprocated, it seemed, by the little girl. It struck me, albeit, that it was a perilous thing for a man of Dutton's vehement, fiery nature to stake again, as he evidently had done, his all of life and happiness upon one frail existence. An illustration of my thought or fear occurred just after we had finished tea. A knock was heard at the outer-door, and presently a man's voice, in quarrelling, drunken remonstrance with the servant who opened it. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... but a frail barrier to crime of this character in all parts of the world, and the facts of Chinese infanticide are indisputable. The witnesses are too numerous, the crime is too public, and the evidences of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a little atom of a country do alone? One can only wonder that she ever dared to dream of freedom! But a desire for freedom makes frail, weak bodies marvellously strong sometimes. She resolved that she would not longer endure the Turkish yoke; and she called to her old kinsmen in Greece to come and take her into their Christian kingdom. She said: "We are the same in race and ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... present life, though in seeming it give delight and sweetness, is well thrust from us. At the very moment of its being it ceaseth to be, and for our joy repayeth us with sorrow sevenfold. Its happiness and its sorrow are more frail than a shadow, and, like the traces of a ship passing over the sea, or of a bird flying through the air, quickly disappear. But the hope of the life to come which the Christians preach is certain, and as surety sure; howbeit in this world it hath tribulation, whereas ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... churchmen high in authority, and without doubt the charges were often true, because a robe and a rope girdle, or the reversal of haberdashery, do not change the nature of a man. Down under the robe, you'll sometimes find a man frail of soul—grasping, sensual, selfish. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... which grows on a particular shrub. There are vast numbers of these barks all through the archipelago, which they manage very dexterously both with sails and oars, and the natives often venture as far as Conception in these frail vessels. They are much addicted to fishing, and procure vast quantities and many kinds of excellent fish on the sea around their shores. Of these they dry large quantities, which they export to Chili and Peru, and the other countries on the Pacific Ocean. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... the silkiest hair. This was a shock to one who had lived apart from women for several years, and had good cause to expect nothing but disaster from their influence. For a moment the impulse was strong to release the captive; luckily reason prevailed, and I tightened my grip on the frail prize, whose frame was shaken with sobs and whose bearing denoted the most abject despair. I gave many timid reassurances by word and hand before the sobs came slower and fear began to loose its hold. As she raised her head I took occasion to pass my right hand lightly over her face. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... ride, Though twice ten thousand men have died On this eventful day To gild the military fame Which thou, for life, in traffic tame Wilt barter thus away. Shall future ages tell this tale Of inconsistence faint and frail? And art thou He of Lodi's bridge, Marengo's field, and Wagram's ridge! Or is thy soul like mountain-tide, That, swelled by winter storm and shower, Rolls down in turbulence of power, A torrent fierce and wide; Reft ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... while trying to beat her own record of nine hours and two minutes from New York to Albany. She required eleven hours on our trip. Under conditions then obtaining, it took me a day and a half more to reach Lake Ontario. Here, happily, I picked up a frail steam craft, owned by an adventurous soul who was not unwilling to risk his life and that of others on the uncertain and ice-filled waters of Ontario. With him I negotiated to carry me with others down the St. Lawrence. At that time, ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... skies, Intent "the topmost arch" of heaven to scale, When heeding naught that would oppose its rise, It breaks with fearless nerve the tempest-gale— And spreads its wings like a majestic sail, Full on the bosom of the raging blast, Thy spirit soar'd—but ah! too like us frail, When the same breeze which bore it from the dust Wing'd home the fatal shaft that tore ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... accustomed freedom of outdoors he would have sworn soulfully and smashed the bandbox over the Honorable J. Percival's bald head. Now, in the stilted confines of that ornate parlor, he nursed the bandbox on his knees, as part of the rest of the spider-legged and frail surroundings. When they retired to their team he carried the bandbox held gingerly out in front of him, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... nevertheless gave forth a pleading, human quality like the still small angelic voice. Davos pondered these problems, pondered Chopin's celestial touch and the weaving magic of his many-hued poems; Chopin—Keats, Shelley, and Heine battling within the walls of a frail ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... morning sun, On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops, On the red pinings of their forest-floor, 5 Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines The mountain-skirts, with all their sylvan change Of bright-leaf'd chestnuts and moss'd walnut-trees And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began. Swiss chalets glitter'd on the dewy slopes, 10 And from some swarded shelf, high up, there came Notes of wild pastoral music—over all Ranged, diamond-bright, the eternal wall of snow. Upon ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... listened joyfully to the beating of the rhythm of life. He joined in the hope of those who denied his past agonies. What would be, would be, as he had dreamed. Ten years before, in night and suffering, Olivier—the little Gallic cock—had with his frail song announced the distant day. The singer was no more; but his song was coming to pass. In the garden of Prance the birds were singing. And, above all the singing, clearer, louder, happier, Christophe suddenly heard the voice of ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... made for such work, inasmuch as she could never endure to see blood or wounds; yet was it in this tending of the sick that I had reason to mark and understand how strong was the spirit of this frail, slender flower. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... time I had hardly advanced twenty steps, when I heard a frail and strangled cry, apparently in mid-air behind me, and glancing, saw the creature lying at the gateway, a white thing in black stubble-ashes. She had evidently jumped, well outward, from a small casement of lattice on a level with the little shaknisier grating, through ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... employed in coiling down a rope—in the capacity he had reverted to—while his supplanter received the rating; but he eyed the ceremony stoically and without resentment. He had failed, and, of his less frail brethren, another was raised up in his stead. ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... judgment of his own parents, of one of those errors which are worse. A hundred times the possible advantages of marrying a Miss Barrett could never have balanced for them the risks and dangers he had incurred in wresting to himself the guardianship of that frail life which might perish in his hands, leaving him to be accused of having destroyed it; and they must have awaited the event with ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... preparations in wax; beginning with models of leaves, seeds, plants, inferior animals; and gradually ascending, through separate organs of the human frame, up to the whole structure of that wonderful creation, exquisitely presented, as in recent death. Few admonitions of our frail mortality can be more solemn and more sad, or strike so home upon the heart, as the counterfeits of Youth and Beauty that are lying there, upon their ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... The trackless trade winds. Tui Tua Kau, "King of the Reefs," had ventured over far From Tonga's shore. Caught by a wanton gale, His idle racing, lengthened in a whim To cheat his laughing mates, grew a wild flight. The frail canoe seemed, on the angry sea, A sweet rose petal blown across the night. Yet wisely now the winds had mind to crown Their joyous undertaking, and upon The shores of Fiji's isles they drew their prize. The maidens on the shore had seen afar ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... upon the vessel's prow, before The sinking sun had kissed the glittering seas: "'Twas here Columbus with his Genoese Steered his frail barks toward the unknown store, With hope unfaltering, though all hope seemed o'er; Calm 'mid the mutineers the prophet mind Saw the New World to which their eyes were blind, Heard on its continents the breakers' roar, Told of the golden promise of the main, While cursed ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... Preparations were at once made for a journey abroad. But it seemed as if it were already too late; and the invalid herself opposed the project with gentle obstinacy. Thin and pale in the great armchair, where the insidious and obscure nervous malady made her appear smaller and more frail every day without effacing the smile of her eyes or the charming grace of her wasted face, she clung to her native land and wished to breathe her native air. Nowhere else could she expect to get well so quickly, nowhere else would it be so easy ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... in smooth undistinguishable sands, from this, we say, it follows that we must not attempt to join Mr. Tatler in his simple division of students into Law, Divinity, and Medical. Nowadays the Faculties may shake hands over their follies; and, like Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight (in Love for Love) they may stand in the doors of opposite class-rooms, crying: "Sister, Sister—Sister everyway!" A few restrictions, indeed, remain to influence the followers of individual branches of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... through the frail wall with a jog of his powerful shoulder, and found himself—where? —in the open lake! Island there was none. It had sunk during the night. In its place, the watery immensity ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... wondering very anxiously whether he would find Mrs. Dangerfield on the bank of the stream that evening watching her children fish. His night's rest had trebled his interest in her and his desire to see more, a great deal more, of her. The appeal to him of her frail and delicate beauty ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... out. That was the explanation of this fantastic journey. George Fox, after gathering a 'great people' up in the North, was now himself kept a close prisoner in Carlisle Gaol: yet he was the magnet attracting this lad, frail of body but determined of will, to travel right across England for the hope of speaking with ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... they started through the twanging and spinning storm. The sea rolled and rose so high on their left, and was so near them on their right, that it seemed as if they were traversing its bottom like the Children of Israel. Nothing but the frail bank of pebbles divided them from the raging gulf without, and at every bang of the tide against it the ground shook, the shingle clashed, the spray rose vertically, and was blown over their heads. Quantities of sea-water trickled ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... inflammation of the mind, which can withstand such onslaughts for many years before a sudden reaction of the body shows the connection between the two. Ishmael, who took no interest in damsels in tights or in the exuberant proportions of the "frail" ladies that amused Killigrew, found himself waiting for that moment every evening, and his satisfaction when he caught it was rather that of a person who is pleased at verifying something he has had the acumen to discover than ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... farewell, and thanking her for her kind attention to us during our visit to Stromness, we made our way to the sloop, which seemed a frail-looking craft to cross the stormy waters of the Pentland Firth. We did not, of course, forget our large basket which we had had so much difficulty in finding, and which excited so much attention and attracted so much curiosity towards ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... down into the sea formed lines of rocks, hardly rising above the water-level, which fringed the headlands with perilous reefs, against which the waves broke continuously at the slightest wind. It required some bravery to approach them, and no little skill to steer one of the frail boats, which these people were accustomed to employ from the earliest times, scatheless amid the breakers. The coasting trade was attracted from Arvad successively to Berytus, Sidon, and Tyre, and finally to the other towns ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Tokelau or Union Groups—are all expert shark fishermen; but the wild people of Paanopa (Ocean Island) stand facile princeps. I have frequently seen four men in a small canoe kill eight or ten sharks (each of which was as long as their frail ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... power steadily grew in the period that followed. He sent his brothers and relatives to administer the regions along the upper Yangtze; those fertile regions were the basis of his power. In 371 he deposed the reigning emperor and appointed in his place a frail old prince who died a year later, as required, and was replaced by a child. The time had now come when Huan Wen might have ascended the throne himself, but he died. None of his family could assemble as much power as Huan Wen had done. The equality ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... stream; sometimes, he would wander along the coast, questioning the sailors, chatting with the ravageurs, or junk gatherers, or stretched at full length amid the irises and tansy he would lie for hours watching the frail insects that play on the surface of the stream, water spiders, or white butterflies, dragon flies, chasing each other amid the willow leaves, or ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... of the sage and the ignorant remain, and where they enjoy the fruit of their good and evil deeds! Do thou listen to the regulations on this subject! Man with his subtle original body created by God lays up a great store of virtue and vice. After death he quits his frail (outer) body and is immediately born again in another order of beings. He never remains non-existent for a single moment. In his new life his actions follow him invariably as shadow and, fructifying, makes his destiny happy or miserable. The wise man, by his spiritual ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... it was observed that even inside the harbor the boats were tossed to and fro, and that beyond the jetty the waves rose mountains high, dashing upon the shore with a terrible uproar, it was readily believed that not one of those frail boats would be able with safety to reach a fourth part of the distance between the shore and the vessels at anchor. A pilot-boat, however, notwithstanding the wind and the sea, was getting ready to leave the harbor, for the ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... exerted by one frail woman, a woman not of noble birth, with only beauty, sweetness of disposition, amiability, goodness, and brilliant accomplishments as her weapons! It was not a case of the moth and the flame, but the operation of a wise philosophy, the precepts of which were decently, moderately and carefully inculcated; ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... who was a cripple from disease of the spine. She was the only daughter, and, being well up in her teens, would have been a great help to her mother if she had been well. "Cobbler" Horn was deeply moved by the pale cheeks and frail bent form of the invalid girl. He induced his sister to call at the cottage, and they took the poor suffering creature under their care. It was not unnatural that the young secretary should also be enlisted in this kindly service. First she ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... and louder, the traitors came nearer and nearer. One brave lady named Catherine Douglas, hoping to keep them out, and so save the King, thrust her arm through the iron loops on the door where the great bolt should have been. But against the savage force without, her frail, white arm was useless. The door was burst open. Wounded and bleeding, Catherine Douglas was thrown aside and the wild horde stormed into ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... worn out its frail body in the work of the world crosses the threshold of eternity, the darkness that gathers around our hearts has in it a relief of light. Nature has suffered no violence; the power of the body has been exhausted in good service, and the tired ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... more daintily touched. Yet here they were, opening by the thousand, with no human eye to look upon them. Quite as common (Wordsworth's expression, "Ground flowers in flocks," would have suited either) was the alpine enchanter's night-shade (Circaea alpina); a most frail and delicate thing, though it has little other beauty. Who would ever mistrust, to see it, that it would prove to be connected in any way with the flaunting willow-herb, or fire-weed? But such incongruities are not confined to the "vegetable kingdom." The wood-nettle ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... love which to this world confined A spirit whose strong flight, for heaven designed, No mean example might one man bestow. Thou, who didst view my wonderings and my woe, Great King of heaven! unseen, immortal mind! Succor this weary being, frail and blind; And may thy grace o'er all my failings flow! Then, though my life through warring tempests passed; My death may tranquilly and slowly come; And my calm soul may flee in peace at last: While o'er that space which shuts ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... any one. These were produced in reality by a little toy instrument concealed in the mouth. He growled and stalked about, and looked so like the real thing that more girls than Leucha shrank back in alarm as he approached the frail barrier which separated the ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... with the mathematics. And doubtless these are set- offs. But they cannot change the fact that Professor Blackie has retired, and that Professor Kelland is dead. No man's education is complete or truly liberal who knew not Kelland. There were unutterable lessons in the mere sight of that frail old clerical gentleman, lively as a boy, kind like a fairy godfather, and keeping perfect order in his class by the spell of that very kindness. I have heard him drift into reminiscences in class time, though not for long, and give ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a slight, frail figure, dressed in a nun-like garb, and recognized the housekeeper. If possible she seemed paler than usual, and her eyes were fixed upon him with a strange wistful earnestness. Her appearance was so unexpected, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... and glens of sweet Arcadia. Far away by the lonely sea dwelt his fair young wife, and his lovely babe Orsilochus; but dearer than home or wife or babe to Alpheus, was the free life of the huntsman among the mountain solitudes. For he loved the woods and the blue sky and the singing birds, and the frail flowers upon the hillside; and he longed to live among them always, where his ears could listen to their music, and his eyes ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... faithless to love, but equally indifferent to anything except love. As Candace in Alexander has the crude though not unamiable naturalism of a chanson heroine, so Cressid—so even Briseida to some extent—has the characteristic of the frail angels of Arthurian legend. The cup would have spilled wofully in her husband's hand, the mantle would scarcely have covered an inch of her; but though of coarser make, she is of the same mould with the ladies of the Round Table,—she is of the first ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... any," said Edie; "it will just be a big broad stone laid down to cover the treasure. Ah, that's it! There was a Wallace stroke indeed! It's broken! Hurrah, boys, there goes Ringan's pickaxe! It's a shame o' the Fairport folk to sell such frail gear. Try the shovel; at ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... seen a buffalo so far to the eastward and he was therefore much astonished at the sudden appearance of the shaggy-headed beast. He gave a yell of alarm, which was followed by another yell from Dave, as the frail shelter bent beneath the weight of ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... strange to civilized ears, accustomed only to the routine of daily life and not inured to danger and wild surroundings. But the soldier who has snatched a hasty doze in the trenches, the sailor who has heard a fierce gale buffeting the walls of his frail ark, can appreciate the reason why Iris, weary and surfeited with excitement, would have slept were she certain that the next sunrise would mark her ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... necessity of lightness, the weight of the various elements had to be kept at a minimum, and the factor of safety in construction was therefore exceedingly small, so that the machine as a whole was delicate and frail and incapable of sustaining any unusual strain. This defect was to be corrected in later models by utilising data gathered in future ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... eyes flashed angrily. "Do you mean to intimate that my strength and power are broken, and that I can never recover my realm? Do you mean that the Barbarina, whom the king so shamefully deserted, so cruelly humiliated, is a frail butterfly? That the purple hue of beauty has been brushed from my wings? that I can no longer charm and ravish the beholder because a rough hand ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... resolved to employ the weeks of absence in provision for a night of plenty and felicity. He then composed his emotions as he could, and expressed, in wild numbers and uncouth images, his hopes, his sorrows, and his fears. "O life!" says he, "frail and uncertain! where shall wretched man find thy resemblance, but in ice floating on the ocean? It towers on high, It sparkles from afar, while the storms drive and the waters beat it, the sun melts it above, and the rocks shatter it below. What art thou, deceitful pleasure! ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... What though my frail eyelids refuse Continual watchings to keep, And, punctual as midnight renews, Demand the ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... frame and osier work lined with leather, after the model of those used in the Channel among the Britons and subsequently by the Saxons, to be prepared in the camp and transported in waggons to the point where the bridges had stood. On these frail barks the other bank was reached and, as it was found unoccupied, the bridge was re-established without much difficulty; the road in connection with it was thereupon quickly cleared, and the eagerly-expected supplies were conveyed to the camp. Caesar's happy idea ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... led him into the general office, where he introduced him to the associate editor, Mr. White, a slender, frail little man whose hand seemed strangely cold, as if he were suffering from a chill, and whose whiskers were sparse ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... nature, in this particular, infectious?" the young man rather whispered than uttered aloud—"Does her friend feel the same indulgence for the infirmities of a frail nature to which she really seems ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... bloweth where it listeth. But the wind of literary inspiration has rarely shaken the bungalows of India, as, in the tales of the old Jesuit missionaries, the magical air shook the frail "medicine tents," where Huron conjurors practised their mysteries. With a world of romance and of character at their doors, Englishmen in India have seen as if they saw it not. They have been busy in governing, in making war, making peace, building bridges, laying down ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... the blessings of Almighty God upon the land which Columbus claims in the name of the House of Castile. In the background we see waving palms and dark-skinned men who gaze with awe upon the white discoverers. In another scene we see the cold wintry waves surge and dash around the frail craft fighting its way across dark tempestuous seas from Plymouth, the little bark tossed like a feather here and there until she lands on that rock-bound coast known as New England. We see that little colony—Freedom's seed—germinate and thrive; first the grain, then the ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... unto thy Honour, Friend; And should she yield, as Women are no Gods, Where were thy future Joys? What is't could make thee happy, or restore That true Contentment which thou hadst before? Alas! thou tempt'st me too, for I am frail, And Love above my Friendship ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... pale, Not any slenderest shaft and frail, A prism over glass—green gorges lone, Toppled; nor lace of traceries fine, Nor pendant drops in grot or mine Were jarred, when the stunned ship went down. Nor sole the gulls in cloud that wheeled Circling one snow-flanked peak afar, But nearer fowl the floes that ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... The wonders of this morning's wind and sun and clouds were expressed in a flow of words so right and sentences so perfectly balanced that they would have seemed pedantic had they not been clearly as spontaneous as the wordless notes of a bird in song. The frail, sweet voice rose and fell, lingered, quickened, in all manner of trills and roulades. That he himself could not hear it, seemed to me the greatest loss his deafness inflicted on him. One would have expected ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... morning robe of delicate lilac tint, Mrs. Laurance's sad tear-stained face seemed in its glory of golden locks, almost as fair as her child's. But one was just preparing to launch her frail argosy of loving hopes upon the sunny sea that stretched in liquid splendour before her dazzled eyes; the other had seen the wreck of all her heart's most precious freight, in the storm of varied griefs, that none but Christ could hush ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... inward vanquishment he at least was feeling its effect. For years his writings had made him the target for a world of women, and many men. The men he had regarded with indifferent toleration. The women were his life—the "frail and ineffective creatures" who gave spice to his great adventure, and made his days anything but monotonous. He was not unchivalrous. Deep down in his heart—and this was his own secret—he did not even despise women. But he had ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... concerning him in disproof of his absolute moral perfection, if any of his Jerusalem disciples had chosen to set up this as a dogma of religion. Yet no one would blame me, as morose, or indisposed to acknowledge genius and greatness, if I insisted on believing James to be frail and imperfect, while admitting that I knew almost nothing about him. And why?—Singly and surely, because we know him to be a man: that suffices. To set up James or John or Daniel as my Model, and my Lord; to be ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... silvery waters, Two lilies white and frail; And one is ever laughing gladly, The other, ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
... he replied, thickly. Then slowly he turned that worn dark face to the wall. His frail breast heaved. And his lean hand made her a slight gesture of ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... are too high, too difficult, for the human mind to grasp," exclaimed Abishai, pressing his brow. "The frail vessel must burst that has such hot molten gold poured within it. All that I can answer to what you have said is this. I believe not—and never will believe—that when Messiah, the Hope of Israel, ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... The sharp edge of a steep corn-field ran near, and, stripped of blade and tassel, the stalks and hooded ears looked in the coming dusk a little like monks at prayer. In the sunlight across the river the corn stood thin and frail. Over there a drought was on it; and when drifting thistle-plumes marked the noontide of the year, each yellow stalk had withered blades and an empty sheath. Everywhere a look of vague trouble lay upon the face of the mountains, and when the wind blew, the silver ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... Frail bark! I loose my anchored mind And large, before the prosperous wind Desert the strand - A new Columbus sworn ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... against the morning sky. He tortured himself to find analogies. The isle was like the rim of a great vessel sunken in the waters; it was like the embankment of an annular railway grown upon with wood: so slender it seemed amidst the outrageous breakers, so frail and pretty, he would scarce have wondered to see it sink and disappear without a sound, and the waves ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... day when this mass of matter that we call the earth had been cut off and sent whirling into space, a molten drop from the fierce vortex of its central sun! And, what is the strangest thought of all, I can sit here myself, a tiny atom spun from drift of storms, and concourse of frail dust, and, however dimly and faintly, depict the course of things, trace, through some subtle faculty, the movement of the mind of God through the aeons; and yet, though I can send my mind into the past and the future, though I can see the things that are not and the things that are, I am denied ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... places lived and let live, and was accordingly a general favourite. His morality was neither better nor worse than the average of his companions; but if he was sensual, he was at least not base; and there were frail women who blessed "little Freddy," and his shy and secret generosity, from having saved them from ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... he was a great pedestrian and no enemy to good claret, he may have pointed with these minute guns his allocutions to the bench. His humour was perfectly equable, set beyond the reach of fate; gout, rheumatism, stone and gravel might have combined their forces against that frail tabernacle, but when I came round on Sunday evening, he would lay aside Jeremy Taylor's Life of Christ and greet me with the same open brow, the same kind formality of manner. His opinions and sympathies dated the ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson |
