"Faint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... passed through this, with its desecrated altars and its ruined ecclesiastical finery, into the sacristies and other rooms behind, including one lofty room lined entirely with blue-and-white tiles. While there, I heard, to my surprise, a faint and very distant sound of a sweeping broom. It echoed through those empty, roofless halls with a weird sound, for at that moment there was only an occasional growl of artillery in the air. Everything else was strangely quiet. ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... relentless pursuer of a poor creature so daring as to walk alone at night through the silent streets. He stood in thought, and seemed by his attitude to hesitate. She could see him dimly now, under the street lamp that sent a faint, flickering light through the fog. Fear gave her eyes. She saw, or thought she saw, something sinister about the stranger's features. Her old terrors awoke; she took advantage of a kind of hesitation on ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac
... can't hardly tell, Clara Belle," Mrs. Simpson replied, with a faint smile. "I can't seem to remember the pain these days without it's extra bad. The neighbors are so kind; Mrs. Little has sent me canned mustard greens, and Mrs. Benson chocolate ice cream and mince pie; there's the doctor's drops to make me sleep, and these blankets and that great ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a faint hope of a sure and pure happiness," he said. "I have found one who I know can strengthen me and comfort me, if she will. I am seeking to be worthy of her. I am worthy of her so far as adoration can make me. I am ready ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... teeth to die as his shells and round-shot fell steadily; and with how firm a cheer ye dashed at him, if he gave you any chance at all of a grapple! From the wild burst with which ye triumphed at Oulart Hill, down to the faint gasp wherewith the last of your last column died in the corn-fields of Meath, there is nothing to shame your valour, your faith, or your patriotism. You wanted arms, and you wanted leaders. Had you ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... for any threatenings of the storm. What the men of his time thought and felt about Bacon it is not easy to ascertain. Appearances are faint and contradictory; he himself, though scornful of judges who sought to be "popular," believed that he "came in with the favour of the general;" that he "had a little popular reputation, which followeth me whether I will or no." No one for years had discharged the duties of his office ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... grew conscious of a faint, gradual revealing of the mountain-tops, which for a time had been black, jagged pieces cut out from the spangled fabric of a starry sky. A ripple of pearly light wavered over them, like the reflection of the unseen river mirrored ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... mollibus implicas lacertis, my Elinor? Nay," George added, a faint smile illumining his wan but noble features, "why speak to thee in the accents of the Roman poet, which thou comprehendest not? Bright One, there be other things in Life, in Nature, in this Inscrutable Labyrinth, this Heart on which thou leanest, which are equally unintelligible ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... time—on the fiftieth day from that on which Dick and Phil were rescued from the sinking boat, to be precise—with the rising of the sun a faint blue blur, wedge-shaped, with the sharp edge pointing toward the south, appeared upon the horizon, straight ahead, and the joyous shout of "Land ho!" burst from the lips of the man stationed as lookout upon the lofty forecastle. Yes; there it was; land, unmistakably, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... suggestion concealed beneath the words, and yet glowing like the golden threads in a robe of samite, or like that device of the old binders by which a vivid picture appeared on the shut edges of a book. He tried to imitate this art, to summon even the faint shadow of the great effect, rewriting a page of Hawthorne, experimenting and changing an epithet here and there, noting how sometimes the alteration of a trifling word would plunge a whole scene into darkness, as if one of those blood-red fires had instantly been ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... frighten her, I'd like to know? You're talking nonsense, Love Ellsworth; so please carry her to her room as quickly as possible, so that we can bring her out of that faint, and find out what was ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... in the night very quiet and indifferent, he said in a faint voice, "Let Sperber come." And when his old neighbor entered, he felt for his hand and held on to it as if in terror; but nothing could be done for him. He wanted to speak, and after a hard struggle he got out, "well—born—and dying—very ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... districts of the department. Even the Royalist gentry were impressed with a respect for his person, which gratitude for the restitution of their lands had failed to inspire, and which, it must be acknowledged, the first faint hope of vengeance against their enemies entirely obliterated in almost every member of that intolerant faction. Other princes have shown an equal fondness for minute details with Napoleon, but here is the difference. The use they made of their knowledge ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... the shore on the land side of the mound, with a favourite old book of Scottish ballads in his hand, every now and then stooping to gather a sea anemone—a white flower something like a wild geranium, with a faint sweet smell, or a small, short stalked harebell, or a red daisy, as large as a small primrose; for along the coast there, on cliff or in sand, on rock or in field, the daisies are remarkable for size, and often not merely tipped, but dyed throughout with ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... before he is initiated. The principal religious exercise of Fakirs is known as Zikr, and consists in the continual repetition of the names of God by various methods, it being supposed that they can draw the name from different parts of the body. The exercise is so exhausting that they frequently faint under it, and is varied by repetition of certain chapters of the Koran. The Fakir has a tasbih or rosary, often consisting of ninety-nine beads, on which he repeats the ninety-nine names of God. The Fakirs beg both from Hindus and Muhammadans, and are sometimes troublesome and importunate, inflicting ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... face became pale. The old expression of sadness returned to his lips. With head bent down, and a faint color stealing over his cheeks, he went toward the door, and passed though it, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... Such faint light then as can be thrown upon the Reudigni of Tacitus disconnects them with the Angli both geographically and ethnologically, connecting them with the Prussians, and placing ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... it was the turible depression of bein' stuck in such a hole, or some sudden weakenin' of the brain; but anyhow, in that same town of Lost Dog, Agamemnon G. Jones and Hy Smith ran hollerin' into a faint away game. ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... the prospect, and the bright sun of a charming day lightened up the western sky That was all, except to say 'thanks and good-bye,' and descend the stairs. There were 417 of them stairs, and before I reached the bottom I was dizzy, faint, seasick, and filled with a decoction of tickle, so that I had to shut my eyes and ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... thought she was going to faint. He divined then that she had understood him, would have denied him nothing, not even her life, in that moment. But she was overcome, and he suffered a pang of regret at ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... universal execration. To-day, M. Leroux is fulfilling a mission of salvation, for which, whatever he may say, he will be rewarded. Like those gloomy invalids who are always talking of their approaching death, and who faint when the doctor's opinion confirms their pretence, our materialistic society is agitated and loses countenance while listening to this startling decree of the philosopher, "Thou shalt die!" Honor then to M. Leroux, who has revealed to us the cowardice of the Epicureans; ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... A faint voice was heard from the pulpit, and there was a moment when those who remembered a better state of things, began to fancy that principles would once more assert their ascendency, and that the community would, in a measure, be purified. But this ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... we here concerned in assigning to its historical source each particular trait in individual works, rather than in tracing the general development of an idea, it would be casier to distinguish a faint and slightly cynical reminiscence of Daphnis and Chloe in the Aminta and Pastor fido than in ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... there, nor was she exactly seeing the sweep of grass that spread out in front of them, nor the flowering shrubs on every side. Hyde Park was ablaze with flowers on this hot summer's day and in addition a whole bed of heliotrope was in bloom just behind their chairs. The faint sweet scent of the flowers mixed with Joan's thoughts and brought a quick vision of Aunt Janet. But more deeply still her mind was struggling with a desire to know what exactly it was that swayed her when ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... hasty, familiar hands, in its red silk shroud. After two dead months the first string had snapped, sharply striking the sensitive body of the instrument. The second string had broken near Christmas, but no one had heard the faint moan of its going. The violin lay mute in the dark, a faint odour of must creeping over the smooth, soft wood. Its twisted, withered strings lay crisped from the anguish of breaking, smothered under the silk folds. The fragrance of Siegmund himself, with which ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... of the summer air, came stealing the faint sound of a distant bell, seeming to deepen the silence ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... across the lower hills and tops the snow-clad peaks. It becomes darker and darker, the lights fade to beautiful opalescent hues, until, when the curtain falls on the act, with JOHN and WILL on the scene, it is pitch dark, a faint glow coming out of the door. Nothing else can be seen but the glow of the ash on the end of each man's cigar as he puffs it in silent meditation on ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... A faint sound, almost indistinguishable, echoed up the gulch to him. Miraculously his nervousness vanished. Every nerve was keyed up, every muscle tense, but he was cool as water ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... are plenty round here; that is salt water, not fresh. Look away to the right, and you see it through the opening of the woods again and again: and now look above the woods. You see a faint blue line, and gray and purple lumps like clouds, which rest upon it far away. That, child, is the great Atlantic Ocean, and those are islands in the far west. The water which washes the bottom of the lawn was but ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... great jeopardy of disappointment and sorrow, and the chance of life's joys; we must each stand in his lot; we must send children forth into the harvest of the earth for sheaves, and whether they faint and die under their load, or deck themselves with garlands,—still, let them be laborers together with God, and let us not seek exemption for them. But if God ordains their early translation to heaven, what can earth afford them in the way of pleasure, granting the cup to be full and unalloyed, ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... not gon above 20 yards before Lindsey on a sudden stood still and cry'd out, by all that's good he was seized with such unaccountable terrours & astonishment that it was impossible for him to stir one step further. Upon which Cromwell call'd him faint-hearted fool, & bid him stand there & observe or be witness: and then advancing to some distance from him, he met with a grave elderly man, with a roll of parchment in his hand, who deliver'd it to Cromwell, who eagerly perused it. Lindsey, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... even to crawl over to his friend's side. Hugh saw him coming and shut his teeth. Arthur was too feeble to prize them open with his hands, but he had no difficulty in knocking out a couple with the butt end of the bottle, and with a faint groan of triumph he succeeded in pouring the contents down the cavity just ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... all, a faculty which seemed peculiar to himself, and which can hardly be described as other than instinctive, of seizing and comprehending by a single effort the general outlines of the grammatical structure of a language from a few faint indications—as a comparative anatomist will build up an entire skeleton from a single bone—enabled him to overleap all the difficulties which beset the path of ordinary linguists, and to attain, almost by intuition, at ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... A faint echo comes from far up the siding where Tommy's presence is vaguely indicated by half a dozen cows moving slowly—very slowly—down towards ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... of Cambodia live two mysterious sovereigns known as the King of the Fire and the King of the Water. Their fame is spread all over the south of the great Indo-Chinese peninsula; but only a faint echo of it has reached the West. Down to a few years ago no European, so far as is known, had ever seen either of them; and their very existence might have passed for a fable, were it not that till lately communications were regularly maintained between ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... breezes hard struggled her breast, Slow, slow beat her heart, as she hastened to rest; No more shall sharp anguish her faint bosom rend, For the strong arm of death was the arm of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... the quick suspicion of jealousy in the movement by which he joined Julian; there was the ready resentment of jealousy in the tone in which he pronounced the words, "Leave her to me." Julian resigned her in silence. A faint flush appeared on his pale face as he drew back while Horace carried her to the sofa. His eyes sunk to the ground; he seemed to be meditating self-reproachfully on the tone in which his friend had spoken to him. After having been the first to ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... by his whimsical language, the cap-and-bells which he loved to assume, Paul watched affectionately the smiling face of Donald Courtier. Momentarily a faint tinge of melancholy had clouded the gaiety of Don's grey eyes; for this chance meeting had conjured up memories of a youth already slipping from his grasp, devoured by the all-consuming war; memories of many a careless hour treasured now as exquisite relics are treasured, of many a good ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... was that which recommended them; and not those Substantial Entertainments which they everywhere abound in. According they were continually talking of their Maid, Night Cap, Spectacles, and CHARLES LILLIE. However there were, now and then, some faint endeavours at Humour and sparks of Wit: which the Town, for want of better entertainment, was content to hunt after, through a heap of impertinences; but even those are, at present, become wholly invisible and quite swallowed up in ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... himself to what he considered his physical disadvantages, but no one would ever know how he had studied the photographs of the big men in the front of things, trying to detect in them some single feature to which his own bore a faint resemblance. ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... contracted in these tenements, yet not even a whisper was heard, not the remotest suggestion that the men of wealth who thus deliberately profited from disease and death, were criminally culpable, although faint and timorous opinions were advanced that they ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... fixed on him. "Somewhat—somewhat he might have said of knightly training for his son—but—but what do I know?" he added, as his father pressed hard on his foot; "it was all in your ear, for as he lay on your breast, his voice grew so faint, that I could hear ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of these, they decided, could hold any comparison with Susan's. It was Marion who, though she did not recognize the poem, could not forget "Storied West Rock," that listened with a troubled face, and only added a few faint words to ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... same of John Bampfylde. A sensitive mind is scarce ever satisfied with the reception it meets, when, in first heat of composition, it hopes to delight some listener, to which it first communicates its new effusions. It almost always considers itself to be "damn'd by faint praise." I have known fervid authors who, if they read or communicated a piece before it was finished, never went on with it. They thought it became blown upon, and turned from it with coldness, disgust, and despair. Yet ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... my attention was attracted by a faint gleam cast upon the bottom of the staircase. It grew stronger, hovered for a moment in my sight, and then disappeared. That it proceeded from a lamp or candle, borne by some one along the passages, was no untenable opinion, but was far less probable than ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... and runs through the eye and ear till it fades off on the neck; the space of white between these two bands on the forehead runs back and contracts behind the ears. In the Thibetan animal it contracts just behind the eyes, and is continued as a faint narrow streak only as far as the ears. In the English one the cheeks are broadly white between the eye-band and the black throat; in the Thibetan there is a little white below the eye, and this is bordered by a narrow black stripe, beneath which ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... flower in her fair young breast; (Oh, the faint, sweet smell of that jasmine flower!) And the one bird singing alone to his nest; And the one star over ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... hundreds of thousands of times, and sometimes more than a million of times. Even under such intense magnifications, it can be seen only with great difficulty, since it is colorless in life, and it is hard to color or stain it with dyes. Its spiral form and faint staining have led to its being called the Spirochaeta pallida.[4] It is best seen by the use of a special device, called a dark-field illuminator, which shows the germ, like a floating particle in a sunbeam, as a brilliant white spiral against a black background, ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... moon. We passed Cardcaster Place. Perhaps old Wardingham, that pillar of the old Conservatives, was there, fretting over his unsuccessful struggle with our young Toryism. Little he recked of this new turn of the wheel and how it would confirm his contempt of all our novelties. Perhaps some faint intimation drew him to the window to see behind the stems of the young fir trees that bordered his domain, the little string of lighted carriage ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... true." I am well aware that of the few who read these words, many will discredit them, or say that they are written for some object, or for party purposes. But it is not the case; they are written in the interest of the truth, and in the somewhat faint hope that they may awaken a portion of the public, however small, to a knowledge of our responsibilities to the unfortunate Zulus. For try to get rid of it as we may, those responsibilities rest upon our shoulders. When we conquered the Zulu nation and sent away the Zulu ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... a moment, but his brief militant mood was ebbing fast. After a faint protest he shuffled off, and Sally heard him go into her room. She breathed a deep breath of relief ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... one of life-saving and effort. He sent Slip over to drag away one of the young men from his game, and they rigged up two square trunks and a waterproof tarpaulin into an operating table. Then, as Slip was faint and sick, the two drove him back to the gambling boat, while they, the graduate and the student, entered upon a gamble with a human ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... to the two ladies where as usual they were sitting at work. It was another September day of sultry heat, yet the verandah was also in the morning a pleasant place, sweet with the honeysuckle fragrance still lingering, and traversed by a faint intermittent breeze. Both ladies raised their heads to look at the young man as he came towards them, and then, struck by something in his face, could not take their eyes away. He came straight to his mother and stood there in front of her, looking down and ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... make crowds weep by twanging a lute, ride the most vicious horses, take standing jumps over the heads of tall men, and who were, moreover, so impressionable that books were to them as jewels and flowers, and who "grew faint at the sight of sunsets and stately persons." Such as these, we may depend upon it, had little time to give to considering their own effect upon posterity. When the sun rules the day, there is no question about his supremacy; it is when we are concerned with scanning the sky for lesser lights to ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... old man, the immense muscles of the young man who was to be his rebellious pupil, the jaws of the ugly bulldog, and the heartless giggle of the girl, gave Ralph a delightful sense of having precipitated himself into a den of wild beasts. Faint with weariness and discouragement, and shivering with fear, he sat down on ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... the Christmas holidays, she started to walk the ten blocks to her little home, for car-fare was a tax beyond her purse, and losing her weary footing, she fell heavily to the ground. By the aid of a kindly policeman she was able to reach home, in great suffering, only to faint when she finally reached her room. Peter, who was then about seven years old, was badly frightened. He ran for their next door neighbor, a kindly German woman. She lifted Zelda into bed and sent for a physician, and although he could find no other injury than a badly ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... reefs taups'ls at sight of a squall brewing to wind'rd; and we're as safe as a church, then, ye know, with a man at the wheel as knows his duty." "This relieves my mind," the lady says, "very much; but I couldn't think why she kept sniffing all the time at her smelling bottle, as she wor agoin to faint. "Don't take it to heart so, yer ladyship," I says at last; "I'll look after the young gentleman till he finds his sea-legs." "Thank you," says she; "but, I beg your pardon, would you be kind enough for to open the winder, and look out if ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... seemed to miss me. Mr. Langenau talked constantly to Miss Lowder, with whom he had been dancing, and never looked once toward where I had been sitting. A long time after, when they had been dancing—hours it seemed to me—Miss Lowder seemed to feel faint or tired, and Mr. Langenau came out with her, and took her ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... up the first class in geography, and proceeded to hear the lesson. In about five minutes her keen ear became conscious of a faint whispering sound. She glanced quickly in the direction of Anna Maria: evidently it was her little tongue that was wagging. But it was wagging very gently, and its waggery was addressed to one of the best girls in school. Miss Matilda thought, Perhaps she is asking some necessary questions: I will ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of spots is quite distinct in the male, but in the female is very faint, or is often wholly imperceptible. This fly measured 0.22 to 0.25 inch in length, the females being usually rather larger than the males." The eggs are white, smooth, somewhat oval in outline, and about one twenty-fifth of an inch in length. Usually not more than half a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... distressed, and would have clasped her, but upon her appearance of loathing it desisted, only moving its jaw upward and downward, as if it would cry for help but could not for want of its parts of speech. At length, she growing more and more faint, and likely to die of fear, the spectre suddenly, as if at a thought, began to swing round its hand, which was loose at the wrist, with a brisk motion, and the finger bones being long and hard, and striking sharply against each other, made a loud noise like to the springing of ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... drumming and humming became fainter, and at last the sounds died away. But still the faint clicking of the rattles marked each step of the men ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... her, the novel sensation of his bristly beard against her face, the strong scent of tobacco, and the sense that she was unwelcome, all contributed towards complete self-betrayal. Dizzy from her voyage; faint, sick, and unhinged, she almost pushed him away from her and sank down on a hall-chair with a burst of sobbing which she could not control. She was terribly ashamed of herself next moment; but the next moment was too late. She had made as bad a beginning as she had it ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... to give some faint idea of the horrors of that hopeless captivity. As we have already said scarcely any one who endured imprisonment for any length of time in the churches lived to tell the tale. One of these churches was standing not many years ago, and the marks of bayonet thrusts ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... the spectacles I wore prevented him from noticing the searching scrutiny of my fixed gaze. His face was shadowed by a faint tinge of melancholy; his eyes were thoughtful ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... and wait and watch for you. Each hour that passes, every tolling bell, proclaims this world is not our home. We are but pilgrims here, journeying to our Father's house. Some have a long and weary road to wander; shadowed o'er with doubts and fears, they often tire and faint upon life's roadside; yet, still all wearied, they must move along. Some make a more rapid journey, and complete their pilgrimage in the bright morn of life; they know no weariness upon their journey, no ills or cares of toil-worn age. I and my comrades here are among ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... he sought out the little news-sheet, to make sure that he had read aright; his servant had folded it up and laid it aside on a shelf, he unfolded it with a hand which trembled; the same lines stared at him in the warm light of sunrise as in the faint glimmer of the floating wick. The very curtness and coldness of the announcement testified to its exactitude. He did not any longer doubt its truth; but there were no details, no explanations: he pondered on the possibilities ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... garments, Lady Anstruthers sat and watched her with normal, simply feminine interest growing in her eyes. The things were made with the absence of any limit in expenditure, the freedom with delicate stuffs and priceless laces which belonged only to her faint memories ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the vibrations, seems to deaden them; and besides, who could hear us, in the depths where we now are? Then, groping in the absolute darkness, he makes his way up the sloping passage. The hurried patter of his sandals and the flapping of his burnous grow faint in the distance, and the cries that he continues to utter sound so smothered to us soon that we might ourselves be buried. And meanwhile we do not move. But how comes it that it is so hot amongst ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... tranquil lake; those ruinous temples with a quiet flight of birds about them; the mysterious figures of men emerging from the woods on the edges of the water, bent serenely on some simple business, had the magical charm; and then those faint mountains closing the horizon, all rounded with the golden haze of evening, seemed to hold, in their faintly indicated heights and folds, a delicate peace, a calm repose, as though glad just to be, just to wait in that reposeful hour for ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... universe, and of the events of 'the far backward and abyss of time.' It comforts us, and it makes us thankful, to see from what small and blundering beginnings our numberless volumes of science have sprung. And it comforts us, and makes us thankful, to see how the first faint streaks of spiritual and moral light, that fell on our race, gradually increased, till at length the day-spring and the morning dawned, and then the full bright light of the Sun of Righteousness brought the effulgence of ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... popular of Dr. Doddridge's hymns is also the richest one of all in lyrical and spiritual life. It is a stadium song that sounds the starting-note for every young Christian at the outset of his career, and the slogan for every faint ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... back to that picture of yesterday: old Fort Leavenworth on the bluff; the little and big ravines that billow the landscape about it; the faint lines of trails winding along the hillsides toward the southwest; the unclouded skies so everlastingly big and intensely blue; and, hanging like a spray of glorious blossoms flung high above me, the swaying folds of the wind-caressed flag, now drooping on its tall ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... Faint rays of moonlight made the room not entirely dark, but Ree could see no sign of the intruder as he stepped softly to the middle of the floor. It was a useless action; for, as he was between the three dark walls and the window in the outer wall, the robber could easily see him ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... the destruction they wrought, their fierceness and their might are dismissed with a smile, and mentally relegated to a place amongst the fairy tales that delighted our childhood's days, when the idea of belief or disbelief simply did not enter the question. Yet what are the dragon stories but faint memories of those gigantic and fearsome beasts which roamed the earth in the "dim, red dawn of man"—their names, as we read the labels on their skeletons in our museums, being now the most fearsome things about them! No one can deny that the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and all ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... me a gift—a flawed jar of turquoise blue, faint turquoise green round the lip. He saw I understood. And then I bought a little gold cap and a wooden box of jade-green Kabul grapes. About a rupee, all told. But it was Eastern merchandise, and I was trading from Balsora and Baghdad, and Eleazar's camels were swaying ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... gaping and circular, the animal lies on its side, and if very young, soon dies. On each side of the opening is a line showing the extent of the mouth. When arrived at greater maturity it can make no noise until the mouth is fully developed, and then a faint hissing note; it has no power to stand until very large, and the hair is about to shoot out from the skin. An animal in so helpless a situation could not possibly, with all the aids and contrivances of the mother, attach itself to the nipple and ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... quaintly pretty, and rather Holland-like with its miniature bridges and canal. Then to Exmouth, with its flowering "front," its tiny "Maison Carree" (which would remind one more of Nimes if it had no bay windows), and its exquisite view across silver river, and purple hills that ripple away into faint lilac shadows in the distance. Then we struck inland, to Exeter, and at Exeter we stopped two days, in the very oldest and queerest but nicest ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... faint reminiscence. "We grew up together, went to the same grade school and high school. It seems like there was never a time when Alice and I didn't know each other. Our folks lived next ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones
... life. From very pity this man cannot speak of health when he sees the canker in the rose which blooms upon the cheek, when he perceives that, despite the appearance of strength and vigour, "the whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint." He has not told us pleasant things to-day, though we would have liked to hear them, and he would have been glad to tell them, because he is too deeply concerned for us to prophesy golden groves ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... from the bushes that clad the crags, and so singularly did it harmonise in its uncouth ugliness with the wild nature of the scene immediately around her, and the wizard traditions of the place, that the colour left her cheek, and a faint cry broke ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... retrospect, I seem to see myself adrift upon a horse's back amid a sea of roses. The various outposts were within a five-mile radius, and it was one long, delightful gallop, day and night. I have a faint impression that the moon shone steadily every night for two months; and yet I remember certain periods of such dense darkness that in riding through the wood-paths it was really unsafe to go beyond a walk, for fear ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... fallen upon a wild Florida forest, and all was still save for the hooting of a distant owl and the occasional plaintive call of a whip-poor-will. In a little clearing by the side of a faint bridle-path a huge fire of fat pine knots roared and crackled, lighting up the small cleared space and throwing its flickering rays in ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... would recover, and I did not venture. Indeed, Jane forbade me; she is a sort of lioness and her whelps. Well, the next day came Mr. Morrison, who is the Mr. Richardson to this concern, and by-and-by he asked to see me. He kept the doctor in the next room. I believe he thought I should faint or make some such performance, for he began about his painful duty, and frightened me lest my poor uncle should be worse, only he was not the right man to tell me. So at last it came out that we were ruined, and I was not an heiress at all, at all! If it had not ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her hand a most statesmanlike roll of MSS. The eyes scan me coolly and interrogatively but the pleasant voice gives me a yet pleasanter greeting. There's something very attractive, even fascinating in that voice—a faint echo of the alto vibration—the tone of power. Her smile is very sweet and genial, and lights up the pale, worn face rarely. She talks awhile in her kindly, incisive way. "We're not foolishly or blindly aggressive," says she, tersely; "we don't lead a fight against the true and noble ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... imitations of man's handicraft, or specimens of the colossal vegetation of an earlier age. Some are gigantic, while others bear a ludicrous resemblance to misshapen dwarfs, suggesting, as they stand like pygmies round their mightier brethren, a group of mediaeval jesters in a court of kings. In the faint dusk of evening, as one flits by them in the moving train, their weird, uncanny forms appear to writhe in pain, and he is tempted to regard them as the ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... end of the choir sparkled as if it had been built of precious stones set cunningly. In contrast to the roof with its alternating spaces of whiteness and color, the two aisles lay to right and left in shadow so deep that the faint gray outlines of their hundred shafts were scarcely visible in the gloom. I gazed at the marvelous arcades, the scroll-work, the garlands, the curving lines, and arabesques interwoven and interlaced, ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... corner of the room. The Queen began to rattle in her throat. The nurse gave the alarm, and said the Queen was dying. The Princess Caroline was sent for, and Lord Hervey. The princess came in time; Lord Hervey was a moment too late. The Queen asked in a low, faint voice that the window might be opened, saying she felt an asthma. Then she spoke the one word, "Pray." The Princess Emily began to read some prayers, but had only got out a few words before the Queen shuddered and died. The Princess Caroline held a ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... caricature, of the most intense intellectual action as shown in the efforts of creative thought. The physiological characteristics of such mental episodes indicate a lowering of the animal life, the respiration is faint and slow, the pulse loses in force and frequency, the nerves of special sense are almost inhibited, the eye is fixed and records no impression, the ear registers no sound, necessary motions are performed unconsciously, the condition approaches that of trance. There is also an alarming ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... green in spring, and the nights are calm. It seems the least little bit like what it used to be in Wisconsin on the lake. But there we had such lovely woodsy hills, and great meadows, and fields with cattle, and God's real peace, not this vacuum." Her voice grew faint. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... spoke, and stood facing them in her beautiful indolent grace. She was garbed in some white soft stuff, which floated round her like a cloud, the wide hanging sleeves were lined with faint shell-like pink, and fell away from her bare lovely arms to the hem of her floating draperies. She looked like some goddess of mythology, rather than a living woman, and as Julian Estcourt gazed at her he felt a sudden thrill ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... more softly gray; the great watch stars shut up their holy eyes; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the Blue Hills, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... dragging and stealthy, some light and free, passed up and down the stairs, and every step made her heart leap with apprehension. Had he gone? Oh, why had he not gone? There was danger in every moment. Presently she heard a faint, almost inaudible knock at her door; she rose quickly and opened it a little way; no one was standing outside, the corridor was empty; but she heard someone descending the stairs below her. She took a few steps out ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... candour respecting his probability of succeeding as a novelist, and I confess my expectations were not very sanguine. He saw this and said, 'Well, I don't see why I should not succeed as well as other people. Come, faint heart never won fair lady—let us try.' I remember when the work was put into my hands, I could not get myself to think much, of the Waverley Honour scenes, but to my shame be it spoken, when he had reached the exquisite scenes of Scottish manners ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... have been a perpetual annoyance to him. At any time he would have enjoyed befooling and tormenting Othello. Under ordinary circumstances he was restrained, chiefly by self-interest, in some slight degree perhaps by the faint pulsations of conscience or humanity. But disappointment at the loss of the lieutenancy supplied the touch of lively resentment that was required to overcome these obstacles; and the prospect of satisfying the sense of power by ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... shining to all, Whilst in itself it doth decay; It seems to free whom it doth thrall, And lead our pathless thoughts astray. It is the spring of wintered hearts Parched by the summer's heat before Faint hope to kindly warmth converts. My daily note shall be therefore— Heigh ho, chil love ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... house of a gentlewoman," Miss Wigger explained. "My servant attends visitors, when they leave me." A faint smell of soap made itself felt in the room; the maid appeared, wiping her smoking arms on her apron. "Door. I wish you good-morning"—were the last words of ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... the snow-flakes, Merry snow-flakes! How they fall from yonder sky, Coming lightly, coming sprightly, Dancing downwards, from on high. Faint or tire, will they never, Wheeling round and round forever. Surely nothing do I know, Half so merry as the snow; Half so merry, merry, merry, As the dancing, ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... Sagarika or the ocean Maid." The likeness—the necklace—the recovery of the damsel from the sea—leave no doubt in the mind of Vasubhuti that this is the daughter of the king of Simhala, Ratnavali. Vasubhuti advances to her who looks at him. They recognize each other and both faint. After some time they recover. As Ratnavali goes to embrace the queen at her invitation, she stumbles. At the request of the queen who blushes for her cruelty, the king takes the chains off Ratnavali's feet. Yaugandharayana ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... A faint smile hovered upon her lips. "I have thanked Him, Padre—for you and for me," she said; "for you, that you really are His child, even if you don't know it; and for me that I know He always hears me. That was what the good man Jesus said, you know, when he waked Lazarus out of the death-sleep. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... scarce believe my eyes; real gravy; how glorious; and rice too. Think of it! Let me be silent about the dish of stewed peaches—I might fill pages—a dish fit for the gods. Wonder what the look and smell of a vegetable is? Have just faint recollection of such names as potatoes, onions, beans, cauliflower, pumpkin, but I get a bit blurred when try to discriminate; long absence has stunted my memory. Believe there is a vegetable called beetroot too, ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... glen it was, open and level, though, in the centre, ran a tangled waving line of evergreen shrubs, marking the course of a pretty bright creek, which, half hidden by luxuriant vegetation, ran beside the faint track leading to one of Captain Brentwood's mountain huts. Along this track we could plainly see the hoof marks of the men we ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... incapable of being struck with any weapon in battle, endued with great strength, neighing cheerfully, well-trained and of the Sindhu breed, yoked unto his car and drawing the vehicle excellently, always preserving in the midst of battle, did they become weak and faint? Coolly bearing in battle the roar of elephants, while those huge creatures trumpeted at the blare of conchs and the beat of drums, unmoved by the twang of bows and showers of arrows and other weapons, foreboding the defeat of foes by their very appearance, never drawing long breaths (in consequence ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Sorrow Cast thy heart, do not faint or wail; Let thy hand be firm and steady, Do not let thy spirit quail: But wait till the trial is over, And take thy heart again; For as gold is tried by fire, So a heart must be ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... body struck against the bank and he was hauled out. He was half drowned, and Hans and Pete threw themselves upon him, pounding the breath into him and the water out of him. He staggered to his feet and fell down. The faint sound of Thornton's voice came to them, and though they could not make out the words of it, they knew that he was in his extremity. His master's voice acted on Buck like an electric shock, He sprang to his feet and ran up the bank ahead of the men to the point ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... she would faint. "You—you must obey your father," she quavered. Until her son should marry Nan Brent she could not force herself to the belief that he could possibly commit such ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... invalids had been increased. My younger sister, Emily, who, when I had left the house, was trembling on the balance,—who had been pronounced to be delicate, but with that false-tongued hope which knows the truth, but will lie lest the heart should faint, had been called delicate, but only delicate,—was now ill. Of course she was doomed. I knew it of both of them, though I had never heard the word spoken, or had spoken it to any one. And my father was very ill,—ill to dying, though I did not know it. And my mother had decreed to send my elder ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... on, De Courcy," he said in a faint voice, as he remarked the sudden check which had been given to the advance by his fall. Then, as if obedient to the command, they renewed the ascent, each man eyeing him as he past with a look in which ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... decent tradesmen who earned their bread by the sweat of their brow: [587:3] the presbyters of a modern prelate have generally each the charge of a congregation, and are supposed to be entirely devoted to sacred duties. Even the ancient city bishop had but a faint resemblance to his modern namesake. He was the most laborious city minister, and the chief preacher. He commonly baptized all who were received into the Church, and dispensed the Eucharist to all the communicants. He was, in fact, properly ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... came a sharp pause in the singing, and after that a cry—a faint, startled cry. Then Mme. Glozel's head was thrust out of the window three floors up, and she called to Jean Jacques to come quickly. As she bade him come, some strange premonition flashed to Jean Jacques, and with thumping heart he hastened up the staircase. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ever too. They're getting redder and redder. It's not a dull red," he said, with a faint return of his old interest in the curious physical; "it's a gleaming red. They lowe. A' last nicht they wouldna let me sleep. There was nae gas in my room, and when the candle went out I could see them ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... as rapidly as possible, lost to the chatter going on around him. He imagined, in his feverishness, that he heard faint "yaps" every now and then; and he almost expected to see everybody lay down knife ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... fearful lest he should be seen in the moonlight, he leaped over the first fence that he came to, with almost the last effort he could make, and then staggered in at an open door—through a passage—into a front parlour, and there fell, faint, and utterly spent and speechless, at the feet ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... the literary taste of the metropolis began to feel the first symptoms of life. As yet, however, they were very faint. Two or three periodicals were attempted, and though of very considerable merit, and conducted by able men, none of them, I believe, reached a year's growth. The "Dublin Literary Gazette," the "National Magazine," ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... the piper of Donald of the Isles. But he gave my gudesire a nudge as he offered them; and looking secretly and closely, Steenie saw that the chanter was of steel, and heated to a white heat; so he had fair warning not to trust his fingers with it. So he excused himsell again, and said he was faint and frightened, and had not wind ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... 29th the barbarities practised by this inhuman fiend reached their climax in the torturing to death of Lieutenant Piera. The following description gives some faint idea of one of the most diabolical crimes ever ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... gust of gallantry swept over Abner. "Let me have the card," he said. "I have given my autograph a good many times"—looking at the faint pencilling—"but I don't recognise this." He drew out a lead-pencil and rewrote the name big and black above the other. "There," he said,—"a souvenir of the occasion." He handed the card back with the authentic autograph of a distinguished ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... though we all came alike into the world, and are the children of wrath by nature (Eph 2:1-3); yea, though we have alike so weakened ourselves by sin (Rom 3:9), that the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint (Isa 1:5), being altogether gone out of the way, and every one become altogether unprofitable, both to God and ourselves (Rom 3:12); yet that God should open mine eyes, convert my soul, give me faith, forgive my sins, raise me, when I fall; fetch ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... had not even grown up to his own long, thin legs. Possibly no boy ever had hair of such a homely red. Certainly few could have been found with bigger freckles. But it was his eyes which accented the plainness of his features. You know the color of a ripe gooseberry, that indefinable faint purplish tint; well, that ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... "No, but a faint trace on the right cheek," he whispered back. She turned then and looked at him, and her eyes challenged his. And yet it is to be supposed that Hilda ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... The first faint rays breaking gradually through clouds of mist, and dimly revealing the outlines of surrounding peaks; then long, bright streams, piercing the gloomy depths of the valleys, chasing gigantic shadows, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... gigantic ruins? How can they affect to sweat and stagger and groan under their burdens, to whom the mines of Newfoundland, richer than those of Mexico and Peru, are now thrown in as a make-weight in the scale of their exorbitant opulence? What excuse can they have to faint, and creep, and cringe, and prostrate themselves at the footstool of ambition and crime, who, during a short, though violent struggle, which they have never supported with the energy of men, have amassed more to their annual accumulation than ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the purple mist, like the mantle of the departing prophet from his fiery chariot. Over the castle walls, and the trees of the garden, rose the large moon; and between the contending daylight and moonlight there were as yet no shadows. But at length the shadows came; transparent and faint outlines, that deepened into form. In the valley below only the river gleamed, like steel; and here and there the lamps were lighted in the town. Solemnly stood the leafy lindentrees in the garden near them, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... tenderfoot" to come to the bar and set up drinks for the crowd. Roosevelt walked deliberately towards him, and before the bully suspected it, the "tenderfoot" felled him with a sledgehammer blow. In falling, a pistol went off wide of its mark, and the bully lay in a faint. Before he could recover, Roosevelt stood over him ready to pound him again. But the bully did not stir, and he was carried off into another room. The crowd congratulated the stranger ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... continually, and faint battle-hymns, And cries, and clashes, and the groans of men; And dreadful shadows strove upon the hill, And dreadful lights crept up from out the marsh— Corpse-candles gliding over ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... between her teeth; "now is the time not to faint! I never fainted—never. Come and show me that hole in the fence. There is no one about. ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... accumulation is inodorous, and rapidly becomes dry. The commode can stand in any convenient place in or out of doors. For use in bedrooms, hospital wards, infirmaries, etc., the commode is invaluable. It is entirely free from those faint, depressing odors common to portable water-closets and night-stools, and through its admission one of the greatest miseries of human life, the foul smells of the sick-room, and one of the most frequent ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Gentiles, whose superstitions, though various, rendered them both hostile to this new religion, and incited them to persecutions which subjected the "weak and defenceless disciples of the meek and lowly Jesus" to trials and sufferings, fears and temptations of which we can have but a faint conception.—The grand hypothesis on which the gospel was advocated, and by which it succeeded in obtaining vast multitudes of Jewish as well as Gentile converts, was the resurrection of Jesus, who was publicly executed on a cross by the Roman authority instigated by the rulers ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... A faint hope stirred in Cara's heart. Perhaps, if she yielded to his wishes now, without further argument, she might be able, later on, to induce him to reconsider his decision—to persuade him to be merciful. He seemed to read her thoughts with an ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler |
