"Fleetness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The fleetness of the horse and the skill of his rider kept the latter out of harm's way till the elephant seemed to be exhausted. The Americans thought he had done enough for one day, and the horseman retired. The great beast which had borne the brunt of three ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... they have developed their fleetness as a protection from enemies. Their greatest menace is the wolves, but since we demonstrated that these animals cannot travel faster than about thirty miles an hour, the antelope are perfectly safe unless they ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... the Sultan bring his boasted horses, Prancing with their diamond-studded reins; They, my darling, shall not match thy fleetness When they course with thee ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... master. And how lightly the child rode him, with never a tug or a kick! And oh, how splendid it was to be flying thus through the air! Horses were made to be ridden; and he had never before savoured the true joy of life, for he had never known his own strength and fleetness. Forward! Backward! Faster, faster! To floor! To ceiling! Regiments of leaden soldiers watched his wild career. Noah's quiet sedentary beasts gaped up at him in wonderment—as tiny to him as the gaping cows in the fields are to you when ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... amidst a cavalcade of wild clouds, along the ruddy array of shattered arches, variegating the grassy plain with its uncouth palatial and sepulchral ruins, in ebony and gold, illuminated the purple and green recesses of the Sabine hills, and caressing with capricious fleetness their woody towers and towns, bequeathed to the north a calm blue vault, wherein, as in some regal hall of state, the dome of St Peter's, the rotunda of the Colosseum, the vast basilicas of Santa Maria Maggiore, and San Giovanni Laterana, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... he kissed and toyed with and disarranged her hair. In revenge, she snatched from his pocket his little black memorandum-book and some letters and read, or pretended to read them, and seizing her opportunity she broke from him and ran with the utmost fleetness up ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, "Every man his own horse." The best of the lot was Chiron, who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse added the fleetness of man. The scripture story of the head of John the Baptist on a charger shows that pagan myths ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... full-grown negro to mount the smallest, and two others the largest. This burthen did not seem at all disproportionate to their strength. At first they went at a tolerably sharp trot, but when they became heated a little, they expanded their wings as though to catch the wind, and moved with such fleetness, that they scarcely seemed to touch the ground. Most people have, at one time or another, seen a partridge run; and consequently know that there is no man whatever able to keep up with it; and it is easy to imagine, that if this bird had a longer step, its speed ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... Furthermore, they were close to the prairie, reaching which, they had all the opportunity they could desire to leave their enemies behind. In a fair trial of speed, neither of the hunters had any misgivings as to the fleetness of their animals, even if it should become necessary to place the additional weight of the lad upon one. Still, the route was difficult, and in many places it seemed almost impossible to make their way along, the horses stumbling, and on one or two occasions ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... Hiawatha, Skilled in all the craft of hunters, Learned in all the lore of old men, In all youthful sports and pastimes, 5 In all manly arts and labors. Swift of foot was Hiawatha; He could shoot an arrow from him, And run forward with such fleetness, That the arrow fell behind him! 10 Strong of arm was Hiawatha; He could shoot ten arrows upward, Shoot them with such strength and swiftness, That the tenth had left the bow-string Ere the first to earth had fallen! 15 He had mittens, Minjekahwun, Magic mittens made of ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... incomparable Boots. Uthlakanyana is as precocious as Herakles or Hermes. He speaks before he is born, and no sooner has he entered the world than he begins to outwit other people and get possession of their property. He works bitter ruin for the cannibals, who, with all their strength and fleetness, are no better endowed with quick wit than the Trolls, whom Boots invariably victimizes. On one of his journeys, Uthlakanyana fell in with a cannibal. Their greetings were cordial enough, and they ate a bit of leopard together, and began to build a house, and killed a couple of cows, but the cannibal's ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... his plaid over the head of the man that stood next to him, and jumped over the wall on to a large dung heap that stood immediately below. He was a little stunned, but instantly recovering himself, flew with the fleetness of a deer to Mackenzie's camp, and informed his chief of the state of matters within the stronghold. Kintail renewed the siege and brought his scaling ladders nearer the castle. The defenders seeing this, and knowing that their mishap and consequent plight had been disclosed by Duncan ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... Saladin showed no liking for the red men, and would not permit any of them to lay hands on him. It was an easy matter to do this, for among them all there was not one that could approach him in fleetness. He suffered them to come quite near, and then, flinging up his head with a defiant neigh, sped beyond their reach like an arrow darting from ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... easy to distinguish it from that of a little dog,—it is so sharply cut and defined! A dog's track is coarse and clumsy beside it. There is as much wildness in the track of an animal as in its voice. Is a deer's track like a sheep's or a goat's? What winged-footed fleetness and agility may be inferred from the sharp, braided track of the gray squirrel upon the new snow! Ah! in nature is the best discipline. How wood-life sharpens the senses, giving a new power to the eye, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... beginning of a fresh life for John Broom. With many other idle or homeless boys he now haunted the barracks, and ran errands for the soldiers. His fleetness of foot and ready wit made him the favourite. Perhaps, too, his youth and his bright face and eyes pleaded for him, for British soldiers are a ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... the word jeldi, explained to the jampannis that the Miss Sahib desired, above all things, fleetness, and that she had no mind to sit behind a team ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... possessions on the Pacific are no longer in the hands of foreign carriers, but are transported in American steamers of the first class, convertible, at a very small expense, into war steamers, should occasion require, which have commanded the admiration of the world by their fleetness and the elegance of their accommodations for the travelling public. Our Southern ports are, consequently, no longer frequented by British steamers, commanded by officers of the British crown, whose legitimate business it is to collect intelligence respecting the approaches to and defenses ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... a little more against the North British[65] reviewer assuming that each variation which appears is a strongly marked one; though by implication you have made this very, plain. Nothing in your whole article has struck me more than your view with respect to the limit of fleetness in the racehorse and other such cases; I shall try and quote you on this head in the proof of my concluding chapter. I quite missed this explanation, though in the case of wheat I hit upon something analogous. ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... inferior animals are captured. And, secondly, when the Indian does succeed in lassoing a first-rate horse he keeps it for his own use. Thus, those who have not visited the far-off prairies and seen the mustang in all the glory of untrammelled freedom, can form no adequate idea of its beauty, fleetness, and strength. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... banquet being prolonged so late according to the custom of his nation. And as they were departing, our men chanced to come upon them suddenly, but could neither stay nor capture any of them owing to the darkness of the night and the fleetness of their horses, on which they fled at random in all directions. A number of sutlers and slaves, however, who were following them on foot, our men slew; the few who escaped being likewise protected by ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... of four milk-white horses, trapped in silver, which this cunning lord had observed Timon upon some occasion to commend; and another lord, Lucullus, had bestowed upon him in the same pretended way of free gift a brace of greyhounds, whose make and fleetness Timon had been heard to admire; these presents the easy-hearted lord accepted without suspicion of the dishonest views of the presenters; and the givers of course were rewarded with some rich return, a diamond or some jewel of twenty times the value ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... he might find in the only habitable building of the camp. Aided by a prospector named Nick Porter, Frank and his chums visited Happenchance and there found the professor. They had adventures in helping the professor get his location notice on file, and only Merry's fleetness of foot and good judgment saved a prospective bonanza mine ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... to the stair-case together, while Emily, who, during this discourse, had trembled so excessively, that she had with difficulty supported herself, seemed inspired with new strength, the moment she heard the sound of their steps, and ran along the gallery, dark as it was, with the fleetness of a fawn. But, long before she reached its extremity, the light, which Verezzi carried, flashed upon the walls; both appeared, and, instantly perceiving Emily, pursued her. At this moment, Bertolini, whose steps, though swift, were not steady, and ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... father were both anxious for the chance to buy them, and pushed through their business at Falkirk as fast as possible to get to Haddoch. At that time the dealers accomplished all their journeys on horseback, and prided themselves on the fleetness of their saddle-horses. My father thought no one his match in the saddle. He reached Haddoch on Wednesday at midnight—the first cattle-market day at Falkirk being on Tuesday—but the first thing he observed ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... determining which is the best runner, nothing is more natural than that their burdens should be equalized. But if your object were to send an important and critical piece of intelligence, could you without incongruity place obstacles to the speed of that one whose fleetness would secure the best means of attaining your end? And yet this is your course in relation to industry. You forget the end aimed at, which is the well-being ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... her. Many in sad faith sought for her, Many with crossed hands sighed for her, But these, our brothers, fought for her, At life's dear peril wrought for her, So loved her that they died for her, Tasting the raptured fleetness ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... from his grasp, and ran with all speed. Joe and Tom followed me, but fear gave me fleetness. Behind I could hear Joe's panting voice, crying, "Come back!" but the agony in his tone set me running faster. I flew through the archway, and saw the small procession half-way across the cove. At my shout ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... since leaving home the three did their best. Separated from each other by just enough space to give play to the limbs, they sped down the icy river with the fleetness of the hurricane, their movements almost the perfect counterpart ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... extreemly quick of sight and their sense of smelling very accute it is almost impossible to approach them within gunshot; in short they will frequently discover and flee from you at the distance of three miles. I had this day an opportunity of witnessing the agility and superior fleetness of this anamal which was to me really astonishing. I had pursued and twice surprised a small herd of seven, in the first instance they did not discover me distinctly and therefore did not run at full speed, tho they took care before they ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... again 'Rorie!' My voice died in the silence, but there came no answer back. If there were indeed an enterprise afoot to catch my uncle, it was plainly not in fleetness of foot, but in dexterity of stalking, that the hunters placed their trust. I ran on farther, keeping the higher spurs, and looking right and left, nor did I pause again till I was on the mount above Sandag. I could ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who had engaged with Eumenes near the land did the same. The Romans and Eumenes pursued with much perseverance, as long as the rowers were able to hold out, and they had any prospect of annoying the rear of the enemy; but finding that the latter, by reason of the lightness and fleetness of their ships, baffled every effort that could be made by theirs, loaded as they were with provisions, they at length desisted, having taken thirteen ships together with the soldiers and rowers, and sunk ten. Of the Roman fleet, only the one Carthaginian ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... Whence the sudden warm winds blow, Shaking all the pine's huge branches, Melting all the fallen snow, Dwelt the Sksika, the Blackfeet; They whose ancestor, endued, With the dark salve's magic fleetness, First on foot the deer pursued. Gallantly the Braves bore torture While their Sun-dance fasts were held, While the drums beat, and the virgins Saw the pains by manhood quelled. As each writhing form triumphant Called on ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... forest he sped with all his fleetness of foot and quickness of spirit; and when at last he found that no voice would answer him, he burst ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... lie will I tinge my tale: trial is the test of men; this it was that delivered the son of Klymenos from the Lemnian women's slight. He, when he had won the foot-race in bronze armour[1], spake thus to Hypsipyle as he went to receive his crown: 'For fleetness such am I: hands have I and a heart to match. So also on young men grow oftentimes grey hairs even before the natural season ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... and in the last war with England, privateers of the Baltimore build were universally famed for their swiftness and superior sailing qualities. "A Baltimore clipper" became the expression among shipbuilders for a vessel of peculiar make; in the construction of which, fleetness was considered of more importance than a carrying capacity. When the attention of naval architects was directed to the construction of swift sailing ships, they were compelled to adopt the clipper shape. Hence the title "Clipper Ship," which has now extended ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... its tail dyed red. He never walked, unless when he went to say his prayers; and even in the night two or three horses were always kept ready saddled at a little distance from his own tent. The Moors set a very high value upon their horses; for it is by their superior fleetness that they are enabled to make so many predatory excursions into the negro countries. They feed them three or four times a day, and generally give them a large quantity of sweet milk in the evening, which the horses ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... slackened, has enabled me to gain upon her considerably; and when I again catch sight of her she is not more than fifty yards ahead. Forward! good horse—forward! Life or death hangs upon thy 338 fleetness. Vain hope! another turn brings us in sight of the brook, swollen by the breaking up of the frost into a dark, turbulent stream. Fanny perceives it too, and utters a cry of terror, which rings like a death-knell on my ear. There seems no possibility ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... running lightly towards the target accompanied by the excited Mike, and her twinkling legs held such fleetness that the trained athlete barely caught up with her as she finished the dash, and triumphantly laid her finger on a ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... and fleetness, Days when my sight shall be clear and my heart rejoice; Come from the sea with breadth of approaching brightness, When the blithe wind laughs on the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... reached in the afternoon of the second day. There were found, just six men and two women, the fleetness of whose steeds had enabled them to win in the race for life. All the others had fallen, among them Caleb Barnwell, the leader of the Quixotic scheme, and the founder of the town which died with him. The valley of the Rio Pecos was not prepared for any settlement unless one organized ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... while the window curtains were drawn, though it was scarcely dusk without, and candles brought; then the ices were served, and then the coffee; and then the clock on the mantelpiece, as if it took malicious satisfaction in the fleetness with which Time (wreathed in flowers) slips away from mortals, set up a silvery chime—it sounded like the angelus rung from some cathedral in the distance—to tell Flemming that his hour was come. He had still ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... gives our years of fading strength Indemnifying fleetness; And those of youth, a seeming length, Proportioned to their sweetness. The ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... day the journey was pursued toward Windsor. The King urged his desire to stop at Bagshot, and dine in the forest at the house of Lord Newburgh. He had been apprised that his friend would have ready for him a horse of extraordinary fleetness, with which he might make one more effort to escape. The horse had been kicked by another horse the day before and was useless. That last faint hope was gone. On the night of December 23d the King slept, a prisoner surrounded with hostile guards, in the noble castle which in the days ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... his destination it was necessary to run the gantlet of the enemy, for every opening from the Plaza was completely exposed to their fire. But trusting in the fleetness of his horse, the young lieutenant leaped into the saddle and, swinging himself down, Indian fashion, on one side of his steed so as to shield himself behind its body, he dashed away on his perilous mission. A roar of muskets greeted him at every corner, but he flashed safely by, leaping a high ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... weigh in this national accounting. There will be no money to squander, and women to a unit will stand behind those men who think a recreation field is of more value than a race track. It will be the woman's view, there being but one choice, that it is better to encourage fleetness and skill in boys and girls than in horses. If we have just so much money to spend and the question arises as to whether there shall be corner saloons or municipal kitchens, public sentiment, made in good measure by women, will ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... waiting for the championship game were over. This was the game, and it was just like any other game; Jimsy was there—here, there, everywhere, and they would fight, fight. And you couldn't beat L. A. High. The mud was horrible. It took grace and fleetness and made a mock of them; both teams were playing raggedly. Well, of course they would, at first; it was so frightfully important. They would shake down ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... when fighting with infantry, are very daring. This temper of mind results from his consciousness of his superior fleetness; which, together with his better knowledge of woods, assures to him extrication out of difficulties, though desperate. This is extinguished when he finds that, he is to save himself from the pursuit of horse, and with its ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... occupied an eight-room-and-two-baths apartment near by. Sara, with much of the fleetness gone from her face and a smile tempered by a look of unshed tears, marketing now by white-enameled desk telephone or, on days when the limp from an old burn down her thigh was not too troublesome, walked up to a plate-glass butcher shop on 125th Street, where there was not so ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... most nobly mounted. Macdonald made a dash at him, in full confidence of getting a gallant charger. But the good book tells us, that "the race is not always to the swift;" and owing partly to the fleetness of his horse, and partly to a most extraordinary sort of accident, colonel Gainey made his escape from our Scotsman. The chase was towards Georgetown, distant little more than two miles. Never on earth did two horses or horsemen make greater exertions. Fear ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... however, for his needs. It told him of a strange, hairless, black ape with feathers growing upon its head, who launched death from a slender branch, and then ran, with the fleetness of Bara, the deer, toward ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... victor sped with the fleetness of the deer to his own tribe. The men, waiting for the battle signal, followed him to the deserted camp. They returned laden with weapons, the finest of bows and arrows, spears, war bonnets, stores of food, and ...
— Two Indian Children of Long Ago • Frances Taylor
... Clayton was, finding his club a more comfortable place than his home, in those days of his wife's disillusionment and hesitation about the future. Many weak creatures are curiously armed for the unequal conflict of existence—some with fleetness of foot, some with a pole-cat weapon of malignance, some with porcupine quills, some with a 'possumlike instinct for "playing dead." Of these last was Fitzhugh. He knew when to be silent, when to keep out of the way, when to "sit tight" and wait. His wife had discovered that he was ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... sentinel to the earth, and then stretched swiftly away in flight. But numbers of warriors, aroused by the sound of the blow, were instantly after him in hot pursuit. The flying Wauchee was most remarkable for his fleetness of foot, and could easily have distanced his pursuers, but for his wounded ankle, which greatly impeded his motions; and in a short time, after a desperate struggle, he was overpowered, and roughly dragged back to the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... settled me in this land of the Tauri, where barbarian Thoas rules[8] the land, o'er barbarians, [Thoas,] who guiding his foot swift as the pinion, has arrived at this epithet [of Thoas, i.e. the swift] on account of his fleetness of foot. And she places me in this house as priestess, since which time the Goddess Diana is wont to be pleased with such rites as these,[9] the name of which alone is fair. But, for the rest, I am silent, fearing the Goddess. ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... bizarre forms and this carnival of lust and power, the manward impulse was nourished and forwarded. In Eocene times nearly half the mammals lived on other animals; it must have been an age of great slaughter. It favored the development of fleetness and cunning, in which we too have an interest. Our rude progenitor was surely there in some form, and escaped the slaughter. Then or later it is thought he took to the trees to escape his enemies, as the rats in Jamaica have ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... was never absent from his place; no little runnings up to Montfort House or Hill Street just to tell them the authentic news, or snatch a hasty repast with furtive delight, with persons still more delightful, and flattering one's self all the time that, so far as absence was concerned, the fleetness of one's gifted brougham horse really made it no difference between ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... said, tenderly, "forgive me the fright I gave you, but I knew of old your fleetness of foot, and if the forest once encircled you, how was I ever to ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... sweet fancies, Cluster round; But they do not mar the sweetness Of this still September fleetness With a sound. ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... Neva, and one night, the eve of a dash to Amsterdam, he, with O'Hara, Loveday, and five clerks, sat swotting till morning broke, sustained by gin and soda-water. The priest lived with wide eyes at the easy fleetness with which Hogarth rolled off him the greatest affairs: as when on the day after his return from Holland he stood, his thumbs in his waistcoat armholes, with quite the right air of serene City-king, his tallness possessing considerable natural courtliness, and the De Beers' ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... and that he must stand a chase. His first impulse was to turn around and ride back, in the direction whence he had come; but in that direction lay the thicket through which he could not ride rapidly, and so if he should take that course, he would lose the advantage which he hoped to gain from the fleetness of his particularly good horse. Besides, in the thicket he must of course leave a trail easily followed. Just beyond the group of Indians he saw the open fields, and he made up his mind at once that he would push his horse into a run, dash right through the camp of the savages, pick up ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... intellectum humanum rebus et naturae parem), and this could only be done by a revolution in methods. The ancients had all that genius could do for man; but it was a matter, he said, not of the strength and fleetness of the running, but of the rightness of the way. It was a new method, absolutely different from anything known, which he proposed to the world, and which should lead men to knowledge, with the certainty and ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... its limbs began to tremble. It seemed to have no power to fly, but stood looking with mute wonder at the object which fascinated it. The monster uncoiled itself, and glided from the tree. Still the stag did not attempt to fly, yet in fleetness it could have outstripped the wind. There it stood, a willing victim. In another moment the serpent had sprung upon it, and encircled it in its monstrous folds. As we could not rescue the stag, and had no wish to interfere with the serpent, we hurried from the spot. We ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... loose hands! The winged fleetness Of immortal feet is gone; And your scents have shed their sweetness, And your flowers are overblown. And your jewell'd gauds surrender Half their glories to the day; Freely did they flash their splendour, Freely ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... object of their pursuit, chanced to be unharboured first, and broke cover very near where the Lady Emma and her brother were stationed. An inexperienced varlet, who was nearer to them, instantly unloosed two tall greyhounds, who sprung after the fugitive with all the fleetness of the north wind. Gregory, restored a little to spirits by the enlivening scene around him, followed, encouraging the hounds with a loud tayout,—[Tailliers-hors; in modern phrase, Tally-ho]—for which he had the hearty curses of the huntsman, as well as of the baron, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... a good runner; and when it is stated that he was certain Tippo Sahib was skurrying at his heels, it need not be added that he "surpassed himself" in the way of fleetness. Finding, after running a short way, that the beast was not after him, Jim flung aside the torch and went through the window like a cannon shot, rolling over and striking the other side of the room before his flight was checked. A lad of his years, however, rarely suffers from hard knocks ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... Claverhouse, and no act so wicked that it was not believed of him. During the hours of day he ranged the country, a monster thirsting for the blood of innocent men, and the hours of the evening he spent with his associates in orgies worthy of hell. His horse, famous for its fleetness and beauty, was supposed to be an evil spirit, and as for himself, everyone knew that Claverhouse could not be shot except by a silver bullet, because he was under the protection of the devil. Perhaps it is not too much to say that during those black ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... given up when Edgeworth told Lord March that he did not depend upon the fleetness or strength of horses to ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... Kid's death was fast yielding to amazement at Baldy's unsuspected fleetness. Trustworthy he had always been, and obedient and faithful—but his pace now was a revelation. ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... child!" Mr. Leland began in piteous tones; but she had already sprung to her feet and was flying toward the house with the fleetness ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... will probably supersede equestrian performances on the turf. The horse will no longer be tortured for the amusement of man; but fellow bipeds, equipped in querpo, will start for the prize, and, with the fleetness of a North-American Indian, bound along the lists, amid the acclamations and cheers of admiring multitudes. The competition between man and man in the modern foot-race is certainly fair; but, for the better regulation of the movements of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... interval which must be utilized to the utmost, if the youth hoped to escape. While the snow would reveal his trail so plainly that it could be followed without the least difficulty, yet his own fleetness ought to enable him to keep so far in advance of the Sioux that they could not gain another shot at him. True, he was deprived of his matchless pony, but the red men were also on foot, and therefore they stood on equal terms, with the opening in ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... any physical accomplishment in which I have confidence it is my fleetness of foot. At that time an Indian runner could not have escaped me, much less a clumsy, long-heeled negro. I knew that if I could once more got my eyes upon the black, I would soon overhaul him; but therein lay the difficulty. In my hesitation I had given him a long start; and he was now out of ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... considerations, dangers and probabilities flashed through her mind with the fleetness of thought, and she came to conclusions with the same rapidity. Doubtless, she pursued the best course. She could presume on Duffel's cowardice, but she dare not trust his word or ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... Seeing a door open in the side of the barrow, he looked in, and beheld a great banquet. One of the attendants offered him a cup, which he took, but would not drink. Instead of doing so, he poured out the contents, and kept the vessel. The fleetness of his beast enabled him to distance all pursuit, and he escaped. We are told that the cup, described as of unknown material, of unusual colour and of extraordinary form, was presented to Henry I., who gave it to his brother-in-law, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... gorgon of my imagination constituted the theme of neighborhood gossip. Several negroes had seen it, and fled its fierce pursuit, barely escaping its voracious mouth and attenuated claws, through the fleetness of fear. The old hardshell Baptist preacher, of the vicinage, had proclaimed him from the pulpit as Satan unchained, and commencing his thousand years of wandering ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... snow-eaves weighed down the broad-roofed Tyrolese houses, that were sunk to the window-sashes in snow. Peasant-women, full-skirted, wearing each a cross-over shawl, and thick snow-boots, turned in the way to look at the soft, determined girl running with such heavy fleetness from the man, who was overtaking her, but not gaining any power ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... night's existence, for one; and for another, the look of the dead man with his bald head and garland of red curls. Both struck cold upon his heart, and he kept quickening his pace as if he could escape from unpleasant thoughts by mere fleetness of foot. Sometimes he looked back over his shoulder with a sudden nervous jerk; but he was the only moving thing in the white streets, except when the wind swooped round a corner and threw up the snow, which was beginning to freeze, in spouts of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... girl fleetness as she ran beside him in the night, and he marvelled at her.—No pueblo girl could have kept that pace. It was plain that she had lived with the rovers of the desert. All the long hours had she been without food or drink, yet she ran like ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... seized upon the maiden as for an instant she caught the gaze of mingled malice and sensuality they bent upon her; and seizing Henri's hand, she flew over the ground toward La Tour with the fleetness of a ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... the face of a cliff when the wind is high, or like the rush of March wind over the smooth plain, or like the fleetness of the stag roused from his lair by the hounds and covering his first field, was the rush of those steeds when they had broken through the restraint of the charioteer, as though they galloped over fiery flags, so that the earth shook ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... sound. Often, as a child, she had waked at such a clamour, and pictured homeless people walking on the road, and now, though she heard no footsteps, she seemed to feel the approach of noiseless feet, bringing the unknown. For her, youth's delights of strength and fleetness were paid for by the thought of the many years in which her happiness could be assailed. Age might be feeble, but it had, she considered, the consolation of knowing something of the limitations of its pain. ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... away until Christmas, on wings of fleetness that made the days seem as if they had only been hours since Arethusa had come to Lewisburg. Life was crowded so full of new experiences and happenings that she had absolutely no smallest room or time for any moments of home-sickness for the ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... care of the estate after the death of her husband, and continued her love of fine horses. She possessed several of rare beauty and fleetness. Among them was an Arabian colt, full grown, broken to the harness, but not to the saddle. He would not allow a man to ride him. He was so high strung, and so fractiously opposed to any one getting upon his back, that Mrs. Washington had forbidden any one on the ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... bring his broadest horses, Prancing with their diamond-studded reins; They, my darling, shall not match thy fleetness, When they course with thee the ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... crying. Over the knoll two youths hurried. Down among the ferns to the right came a man, heading them off from the wood. Ugh-lomi left her arm, and the two began running side by side, leaping the bracken and stepping clear and wide. Eudena, knowing her fleetness and the fleetness of Ugh-lomi, laughed aloud at the unequal chase. They were an exceptionally straight-limbed couple for ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... on and on; and this lasted long, and faster and faster must she follow lest it vanish, and she gathered her skirts into her girdle, and fell to running fleet-foot after the fleeing shadow, which she loved dearly even amidst the jaws of death; and all her fleetness of foot had Birdalone to put forth in following up the chase; but even to die in the pain would she ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... things to animals which have, on the whole, been long surpassed? Has she not allowed the ant and the bee to retain superiority over man in the organisation of their communities and social arrangements, the bird in traversing the air, the fish in swimming, the horse in strength and fleetness, ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... that a person with a brain vitiated by an accumulation of hereditary defects is incapable of that degree of moral excellence which is manifested by men of the soundest brains, we utter a truism as self-evident, apparently, as when we say that the ox is incapable of the fleetness of the horse or the ferocity of the tiger. It is immaterial whether the cerebral condition in question is one of original constitution or of acquired deficiency, because the relation between the physical and the moral must be the same in the one case as in the other. In the toiling masses, who, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... on that point it will be found to vary,—cabbages in their leaf,—corn in size quality of grain, both in times of year,—kidney beans for young pod and cotton for envelope of seeds &c. &c.: dogs in intellect, courage, fleetness and smell : pigeons in peculiarities approaching to monsters. This requires consideration,—should be introduced in first chapter if it holds, I believe it does. It ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... and say that wolves were the best adapted to the given surroundings. If all these animals continued to live side by side in the given environment, they could be compared only as to specific details—size, strength, cunning, fleetness in running, swimming or flying, concealment from enemies, etc. Then the biologist would probably make his meaning perfectly clear by stating that one is specialized in one ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... the ground-cuckoo or snake-killer. Though omnivorous, this bird lives chiefly on reptiles and mollusks. It is decked in a gay plumage of coppery green, with streaks of white on the sides and a topknot of deep blue. In fleetness of foot it is said to equal the horse. Many stories are told of its surrounding a coiled sleeping rattlesnake with strips of cactus and then tantalizing its victim until, baffled in every attempt to get away, the snake finally inflicts ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... they possess great natural talents and ability—that cleverness or genius can be a substitute for diligence. Here the old fable of the hare and the tortoise applies. They both started to run a race. The hare, trusting to her natural gift of fleetness, turned aside and took a sleep; the tortoise plodded on and won the prize. Constant and well-sustained labor carries one through, where cleverness apart from this fails. History tells us that the greatest genius is most diligent in the cultivation of its powers. ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... hundredth time he measured the width of space separating him from Jerry Card. Wrangle had ceased to gain. The blacks were proving their fleetness. Venters watched Jerry Card, admiring the little rider's horsemanship. He had the incomparable seat of the upland rider, born in the saddle. It struck Venters that Card had changed his position, or the position of the horses. Presently ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... I a Ladas, Rhesus' chariot yok'd to snowy coursers, Add each feathery sandal, every flying Power, ask fleetness of all the winds of heaven, 20 Mine, Camerius, and to me devoted; Yet with drudgery sorely spent ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... deadly-wounded nor sword nor quiver found; His shield alone beside him lay there upon the ground. This from the bank he lifted and straight at Hagan ran; Him could not then by fleetness ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... said, the whole vegetable world, and through it the animal; the lilies of the field are his workmanship, the verdure of the meadows, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. He forms the muscles, he urges the blood, he builds the brain. His fleetness is in the lion's foot; he springs in the panther, he soars in the eagle, he slides in the snake. He builds the forest and hews it down, the power which raised the tree, and which wields the ax, being one and the same. The clover sprouts and blossoms, and the scythe ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... his bidding; received the note and was off with unusual fleetness. But the door which closed upon his form did not shut out the expression of his sober face and humid glance from the vision of Mr. Everett. In fact, from some cause, tears had sprung to the eyes of the musing boy at the very moment he was called upon to render a service; and, ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... well named for his fleetness; but he was mounted superbly, and I suspect the whole thing ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... absolutely compelled. Both horse and rider seemed as though they could not exist while separated, and yet Silvertail (thus was the stallion named) was not more remarkable in sleekness of coat, soundness of carcase, and fleetness of pace, than his rider was in the characteristics of ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... representative of those mighty vagrants, who had chased the deer during thousands of years, and were chasing it now in the Spirit Land. Wandering down through the waste of ages, the woods had vanished around his path; his arm had lost somewhat of its strength, his foot of its fleetness, his mien of its wild regality, his heart and mind of their savage virtue and uncultured force; but here, untamable to the routine of artificial life, roving now along the dusty road, as of old over the forest leaves, here was ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... away by enthusiasm, and spoke louder than was consistent with Moravian decorum, or suitable to the place where she was. Her eyes sparkled, and the dainty little foot which peeped forth from under her dress seemed altogether suited to trip with fairy fleetness through the merry ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... sit in the stores and watch the sliders. The shoe-shops of McKernan and Potts were the scenes of many heated arguments as to the fleetness of ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... playmate is stretching beside, As loath to be vanquished in love or in pride, While upward he glances his eyeball of jet, Half dreading thy fleetness may distance him yet. Ah, Marco, poor Marco—our pastime to-day Were reft of one pleasure ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... man may be viewed in two ways: the one according to its end, and then he is great and incomparable; the other according to the multitude, just as we judge of the nature of the horse and the dog, popularly, by seeing its fleetness, et animum arcendi; and then man is abject and vile. These are the two ways which make us judge of him differently, and which occasion ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... were quartered here in 1814-5, the officers were in the frequent habit of racing with each other. These races were gaily attended by the inhabitants; and I heard, from more than one mouth, the warmest commendations bestowed upon the fleetness of the coursers and the skill of ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... known and unknown, who, having no recollection of anything, joined blindly in defence of their prison-house. Among these was Orlando, at sight of whom Astolpho, with all his confidence not daring to encounter him, turned and fled, owing his escape to the strength and fleetness of Bayard. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Prince of the Ryls added: "For my part I will allow to every deer that assists Claus the privilege of eating my casa plants, which give strength, and my grawle plants, which give fleetness of foot, and my marbon plants, which ...
— The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... under false pretences. You pretend to yourselves and to each other that you have come out of a love of sport, but you have not done so, and you know it. Sport is a plausible pleasure; to love horses and take delight in their fleetness is a pardonable vanity, but you are here to practise an unpardonable vice. You have come to gamble, and your gambling is attended by every form of intemperance and immorality. I am not afraid to tell you so, for God ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... he was open. He accepted, therefore, of the strange commission now entrusted to him without hesitation; stipulating, only, that he might take from the stables of the king a horse which was much celebrated for its amazing power and fleetness. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... virgin queen of the Volsci, one of the heroines in the "AEneid," noted for her preternatural fleetness on the racecourse, and her grace; (2) also a sister of the HORATII (q. v.), killed by her brother because she wept at the death of her affiance, one of the CURIATII (q. v.), whom ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... thee now to find. Not were I framed the Cretan guard, nor did I move with Pegasean wing, nor were I Ladas, or Persius with the flying foot, or Rhesus with swift and snowy team: to these add thou the feathery-footed and winged ones, ask likewise fleetness of the winds: which all united, O Camerius, couldst thou me grant, yet exhausted in mine every marrow and with many a faintness consumed should I be in my quest for thee, O friend. Why withdraw thyself in so much pride, O friend? ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... by the Scythian cavalry, who had pressed their secret and nocturnal march: the tremendous sound of the chagan's whip gave the signal of the assault, and Heraclius, wrapping his diadem round his arm, was saved with extreme hazard, by the fleetness of his horse. So rapid was the pursuit, that the Avars almost entered the golden gate of Constantinople with the flying crowds: [71] but the plunder of the suburbs rewarded their treason, and they transported beyond the Danube two hundred and seventy ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... from some fine Spanish horses, which Robert de Belesme, {188} earl of Shrewsbury, brought into this country: on which account the horses sent from hence are remarkable for their majestic proportion and astonishing fleetness. ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... suspected that Fouquet had buried himself in some subterranean road, or that he had changed the white horse for one of those famous black ones, as swift as the wind, which D'Artagnan, at Saint-Mande, had so frequently admired and envied for their vigor and their fleetness. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... determining hereditary characteristics; just as environment in the ages past changed the foot of the evolving horse from a flat, "cushiony" foot with many toes (much needed in the soft bog of his earlier existence) into the "hoof foot" of later days, when harder soil and necessity for greater fleetness, assisted by some sort of "selection" and "survival," conspired to give us the foot of our modern horse, and this story is all plainly and serially told in the fossil and other remains found in our own hemisphere. It would ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... hear, let no one see!" he said in a breath of excitement. Then he sprang cat-like to the door, whirled it open, scudded round the angle of the passage to the entrance of the room where the fraudulent collection was kept, and went in with the silent fleetness of a panther. And a moment later, when Captain Travers and Mrs. Bawdrey swung in through the door and joined him, they ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... that Brahman is the only Doer. He had appeared before them in a mysterious form; but the whole of the unfathomable Brahman could not be seen in any definite form; so at the moment of vanishing, He manifested more of His immeasurable glory and fleetness of action by a ...
— The Upanishads • Swami Paramananda
... of symmetry, fleetness, and force, It is said that all animals yield to the Horse; While my spirit I feel, and my figure I view In the brook, I'm inclined to believe it is true; But still, mighty Jupiter, still, by your aid, In my form might some further improvements be ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... macaroons, glittering liqueurs, magically-preserved tropical spices, and jellies of celestial tropical fruits, displayed themselves profusely at an instant's notice. But Mr. Tartar could not make time stand still; and time, with his hard-hearted fleetness, strode on so fast, that Rosa was obliged to come down from the bean-stalk country to ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... woo the bride well; for there are heretics who lay claim to her good will. I met a rover of strange rig and miraculous fleetness, in rounding the headlands of Otranto, who seemed to have half a mind to follow the felucca in ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... place I did not reach without falling in with two of those violent squalls which are called norte in the Gulf of Mexico. I was to lie there on the watch, ready to attack privateers if the Mexican Government should resort to that form of warfare—the fleetness of the Creole fitting her specially for such service. Meanwhile my visit was very pleasant to me, after the horrors of Sacrificio and the yellow fever. The commander of an English corvette, the Satellite, gave a dinner to M. de Parseval, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... ninth, Blake, the first man up, lined low toward right center. The hit was safe and looked good for three bases. No one looking, however, had calculated on Reddie's Ray's fleetness. He covered ground and dove for the bounding ball and knocked it down. Blake did not get beyond first base. The crowd cheered the play equally with the prospect of a run. Dorr bunted and beat the throw. White hit one of the high fast balls Scott was serving and sent it close to ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... short distance, in order to give her a start, and then pursued her so quickly and so lightly that you could not have tracked his footsteps if the field had been strewn with flour. In a very few springs he had overtaken the doe, and had so impressed Moscione with his fleetness of foot that he begged Quick-as-Thought to go with him, promising at the same ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... bolted, and he after her, as well as he could, which was not with his usual fleetness by any means. When Annie had rounded a corner, not in the master's way home, she stopped, and looked back for Alec. He was a good many paces behind her; and then first she discovered the condition of her ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... no power in the world of physical forces, or apart from our own kind, that heeds us or turns aside for us, or bestows one pitying glance upon us. Life has run, and still runs, the gantlet of a long line of hostile forces, and escapes by dint of fleetness of foot, or agility in dodging, or else by ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... satisfied when he found himself safely seated on the animal. He certainly was seated, but as to riding, it was what the donkey seemed resolved he should not do, and there he continued to sit, perfectly still and quiet, for some minutes, for although the animal had shown great fleetness and alacrity when George was attempting to stop him, it was very different now George was endeavouring to make him go on. George kicked as hard as he could kick with both his heels, and flogged with all his might, ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... nothing is more natural than that their burdens should be equalized. But if your object were to send an important and critical piece of intelligence, could you without incongruity place obstacles to the speed of that one whose fleetness would secure you the best means of attaining your end? And yet this is your course in relation to industry. You forget the end aimed at, which is the well-being of the community; you set it aside; more, you sacrifice it by ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... whose naivete reminds me of the little Louise Schwerin of earlier days. Well, let us speak on that subject which interests most deeply all who know you; let us speak of your happiness. You sigh. Have you already paid your tribute? Do you realize the fleetness ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Proctor escaped by the fleetness of his horses, escorted by 40 dragoons and a number of ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... of life and sanguinary fierceness of disposition, no wonder the grizzly bear is a dreaded creature. Were he possessed of the fleetness of the lion or tiger, he would be a more terrible assailant than either; and it is not too much to say that his haunts would be unapproachable by man. Compared with the horse, however, he is slow of foot; and there is another circumstance scarcely less favourable to ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid |
