"On air" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has been sacrificed. Giotto succeeded in presenting the idea, the feeling, the pith of the event, and pierced at once to the very ground-root of imagination. Masaccio thinks over-much, perhaps, of external form, and is intent on air-effects and colouring. He realises the phenomenal truth with a largeness and a dignity peculiar to himself. But we ask whether he was capable of bringing close to our hearts the secret and the soul of spiritual things. Has not art ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... out into the teeming streets of London, walking on air. It was his first appointment—he was earning money, and it seemed ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... means 'the sultan fires,'—were afraid as the devil of him. So the Grand Turk, and Asia, and Africa, had recourse to magic. They sent us a demon, named the Mahdi, supposed to have descended from heaven on a white horse, which, like its master, was bullet-proof; and both of them lived on air, without food to support them. There are some that say they saw them; but I can't give you any reasons to make you certain about that. The rulers of Arabia and the Mamelukes tried to make their troopers believe that the Mahdi could keep ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... said, "Brave lad! A moment's courage, and it is done. This stake must be driven through her. It well be a fearful ordeal, be not deceived in that, but it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your pain was great. From this grim tomb you will emerge as though you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... Romans both in public and in private. And he conversed commonly with sorcerers, and constantly listened to profane oracles which portended for him the imperial office, so that he was plainly walking on air and lifted up by his hopes of the royal power. But in his rascality and the lawlessness of his conduct there was no moderation or abatement. And there was in him absolutely no regard for God, and even when he went to a sanctuary to pray and ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... that fifteen minutes sped like one. He never remembered, afterwards, whether he showed Miss Sheldon the ship, or not, or at least, how much of it. He only knew that he trod on air, and his ears were thrilled with music, that his blood leaped and tingled with the warm personality and rippling laughter of this pretty Mission lady. He suddenly found himself back on the poop by her side, and his foot stumbled on the top step because his eyes would not leave her ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... like immortal Caesar, die with decency. Balth. Away! and thank thy lucky star I have not Brayed thee in thine own mortar, or exposed thee For a large specimen of the lizard genus. Lamp. Would I were one!—for they can feed on air. Balth. Home, sir! and be more honest. Lump. If I am not, I'll be more wise, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the tiny lantern, hanging as if on air, The disciples sat unspeaking. Amaze and peace were there. For his voice, more lovely than song of all earthly birds, In accents humble and ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... with the old, worried look on his face. He came back radiant, and seemed to walk on air, and he never even heard the jeers of the Banbury crowd as he passed them. He made a beckoning motion to Frank, and the two ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... scheme, but I determined to pursue it. I loved Dora too much to lose her, and if three weeks' absence would procure me the happiness of my life, why should I hesitate to avail myself of the proffered opportunity. I rode on air as the express I had taken shot from station to station, and by the time I had arrived at Christopher Street Ferry my plans were all laid and my time disposed ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... now a Knight. The same honor was promised to Herdegen—honor on honor, pleasure on pleasure, bravery and display! In the stead of our old sun twenty, meseemed, were blazing in the heavens. Many a time it was as though my breath came so lightly that I could float on air, and then again a nightmare load oppressed me. Even through the night, in my very dreams, the sounds of music and singing ceased not; but when I awoke the question would arise: "To ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I walked on air when I entered the familiar street and saw, in the distance, the house I knew so well. The street was silent. I reached the house, pulled myself together and knocked at the door. Happiest of thoughts coursed through my mind. What a wealth of news ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... her stay, the former belief made him feel like treading on air, or like the hero of many a magazine story; but as time went on this flattering supposition began to fail him, when Nuttie showed her weariness of the subjects which, in his exclusiveness, he deemed the only ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... morning I appeared to tread on air, but I could not help laughing out aloud at the, I thought, ridiculous and anything but picturesque dresses of the women. Their coal-scuttle bonnets and their long waists diverted me, although I was sorry ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... world! Without plants there could be no life of any kind on earth. It is the plants that produce life. Through them come animals, and even men and women and little girls. The plants feed on the earth and air, which men and animals cannot do. A man or a lamb cannot eat the soil or live on air, but a plant lives by eating the minerals and gases and water of the earth and air, and the man and the lamb eat the plants, and so are able to live. Without the plants we could not exist, and without the insects, which fertilize the plants, so that they can grow, the plants themselves ...
— Every Girl's Book • George F. Butler
... Lockhart's on a small ditto and two thick 'uns, and a marine. I took midnight walks under moons which—pardon the decadent adjectives—were pallid and passionate. I am sure they were at that time: all moons were. Then, the lightness of my stomach would rise to the head, so that I walked on air, and brilliance played from me like sparks from a cat's back. I could have written wonderful stuff then—had I the mind. I wandered and wandered; and that is about all I remember. Bits of it come back to me at ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... Parvas sages subsisting on air and water come unto this best of the mountains ranging through the air. And on the summits of the mountain are seen amorous Kimpurushas with their paramours, mutually attached unto each other; as also, O Partha, many Gandharvas and Apsaras clad in white silk vestments; ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... too," she answered, "that upon this azure Pale-gleaming ghostly stream, impalpable— So faint, so fine that scarcely it bears up The petals that the lantern strews upon it,— These great black barges float like apparitions, Loom in the silver of it, beat upon it, Moving upon it as dragons move on air." "Thus always," then I answered,—looking never Toward her face, so beautiful and strange It grew, with feeding on the evening light,— "The gross is given, by inscrutable God, Power to beat wide wings upon the subtle. Thus we ourselves, so fleshly, fallible, ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... respectable surroundings and the prospect before you, you are not over-anxious to claim brotherhood with a fellow of my sort. As long as you believe in me sufficiently not to leave me in the lurch, I shall be fairly content. But I cannot live on air, and have little else to support me. Don't be afraid I shall turn up again now until you want me. If I did, it would be not so much to see you as to see some one else to whom, rake as I am, I have lost my heart, and to whom I look to you to put in a good word on ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... days, Tillie walked on air, and to Mrs. Getz and the children she seemed almost another girl, with that happy vibration in her usually sad voice, and that light of gladness in her soft pensive eyes. The glorious consciousness was ever with her that the teacher was always near—though she saw him but seldom. This, ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... the stairway, watching like a lover for the appearance of Madame La Tour, the outer door again clanked, and Klussman stepped into the hall. His big presence had instant effect on Le Rossignol. Her music tinkled louder and faster. The playing sprite, sitting half on air, gamboled and made droll faces to catch his eye. Her vanity and self-satisfaction, her pliant gesture and skillful wild music, made her appear some soulless little being from the woods who ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... when we had saluted each other, "and I have brought a litter and men to carry it. Faith, if I lay in it, I should be asleep ere ever they had borne me ten paces. What a life it is that I lead! Late to bed and up by prime, so busy is my mistress; and she lives as it were without sleep, and feeds on air." ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... was illumined; he walked the room like one treading on air as the joy within him found its ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... not know that this was a mere trick to deceive us. To make sure of him we should have watched the west prairie and gone up the river for his real landing place. How he lived I do not know. An Indian can live on air and faith in a promise, or hatred of a foe. At last he lulled even ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... reaches across death with the platinum plate. He is heard of the unborn. If he speaks in either one of his worlds he takes two worlds to speak with. He will not be shut in with one. If he lives in either he wraps the other about him. He makes men walk on air. He drills out rocks with a cloud and he breaks open mountains with gas. The more perfect he makes his machines the more spiritual they are, the more their power hides itself. The more the machines of the man loom in human life the more they reach down into silence, and into darkness. ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... and told her that if she came at half past five he would be ready for her. It was so late that he had to walk home, but it did not seem a long way, for he was intoxicated with delight; he seemed to walk on air. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... compressed with a certain force, the temperature will rise above what it was before, in a degree proportioned to the compression. If the air be allowed immediately to escape from under the pressure, it will recover its original temperature, because the fall in heat, on air expanding from a certain pressure, is equal to the rise on its being compressed to the same; but if, while the air is in its compressed state, it be robbed of its acquired heat of compression, and then be allowed to escape, it will issue at a temperature as much below the original one, as it rose ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... when I learned that I was the young gentleman in question, and that I was really to go to the Lakes and beyond, may be imagined. I seemed to walk on air, so great was my elation. You will not marvel now that I fail to recall very distinctly the ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... spoken and touched the hearts of emotional people, they came trickling back to his father's church, to the "British" Church, as David now called it. Little Bethel was empty, and the pastor-blacksmith not yet out of the asylum at Swansea. The Revd. Howel Williams trod on air. His sermons became terribly long and involved, but that was no drawback in the minds of his Welsh auditory; though it made his son swear inwardly and reconciled him to the approaching return to Fig ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... at me suspiciously. I think some of the wildness of the woods must still hang about me.—Anyway, I walk along on air, I fear nothing. I could hug all the passers-by. My book is at the publisher's! I could beg, I think, if I had to, and do it serenely, exultingly. I have only a dollar—but have I ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... seventh heaven, walking as if on air. A proletarian government at last, the first in history! A government of working-men like himself, running their own affairs, without the help of politicians or bankers! Coming out before the world ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... Mitchell's good opinion seemed almost the most important thing in the world, went about as if she were treading on air, and repeated the precious sentence to herself as proudly as if it were a ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... never a happier boy in the world than I was at that moment. My head was in the clouds. I trod on air. I could scarcely keep from dancing round the parlor. At last the dream of my life was to come true! At last I was to be given a chance to seek my fortune, to have adventures! For I knew perfectly well that it was now almost time for the Doctor to start upon another voyage. Polynesia had ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... good folks are vanished, the scandal having scattered them to the winds. He begins to breathe again, and employ his hours to better purpose. If he loses both money and reputation he must feel, I should think, as though treading on air. The last fools gone! And no sage lacks ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... answer for my father," Gladys replied, "but I should imagine he would be only too glad to employ you. The only thing is the salary. You can't live on air, you know, and with the poor attendances he gets now, I don't see how he ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... anticipation as he strode from the store, his new rope in his hand. He would rope that cayuse and just about burn the ground for the Concho! Maybe he wouldn't make young Andy White sit up! The Ridin' Kid from Powder River was walking on air when— ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... which he had to pass were nearly empty, the taverns, the barracks, and most of the officers' quarters being elsewhere. And so, with a heart elated beyond my power of expression, he leaped finally into the rear garden of the Faringfield mansion, and strode, as if on air, toward ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... left to hide itself among the numerous corners and crevices which are found among the timbers of a vessel's hold? It might procure sustenance in the bilge-water, or in the ballast rubbish, or perhaps, like the chameleon, crabs could exist on air? ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... thy Gerard. Yestreen I wearied of being shut up in litter, and of the mule's slow pace, and so went forward; and being, I know not why, strangely full of spirit and hope, as I have heard befall some men when on trouble's brink, seemed to tread on air, and soon distanced them all. Presently I came to two roads, and took the larger; I should have taken the smaller. After travelling a good half-hour, I found my error, and returned; and deeming my company had ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... walked away, while Mrs. Meredith almost trod on air as she climbed the three flights of stairs and sought her niece's chamber. Over the interview which ensued that night we pass silently, and come to the next morning, when Anna sat alone on the piazza ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... politics, and I have kept my word to the extent of reading as little about them as possible. But I can assure you that I know as much about them as anybody not in the accursed business. It is in the air—" "There are so many things in the air that they get mixed up. Your whole argument is based on air. Now, mon ami, you turn to to-morrow and study up the record of every man in that Senate, as well as the legislative methods of his State. When you know all about it, I shall be delighted to be instructed. But I don't want any more air. Now come in to dinner, and if you allude to the ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... fact that the big boys should get to their homes as soon as possible and dry their boots and stockings. He dismissed the pupils, and so that eventful day was ended. Jack's boots were full of dampness still, and his feet were chilly, but as he walked home he walked on air. ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... over the rough rocks like one who treads on air, I hastened to the brink of the platform. If the car were on the further side of the summit I should be able to see the wide ocean, but if, as I fondly hoped, it were on the hither side, I should enjoy a far-off glimpse of the city and its holy island, which had become a heaven to me. How different ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... month, by eating fruits at the interval of three nights; and the second by eating at the interval of the six nights; and the third by eating at the interval of a fortnight. When the fourth month came, that best of the Bharatas—the strong-armed son of Pandu—began to subsist on air alone. With arms upraised and leaning upon nothing and standing on the tips of his toes, he continued his austerities. And the illustrious hero's locks, in consequence of frequent bathing took the hue of lightning ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... of sunset when Iskender parted from the Frank. His very brain was laughing, and he trod on air as he strode off, hugging the great umbrella. At noonday he had had his meal at the hotel (no matter though it was flung to him in the entry as to a dog) and afterwards had walked again with the Emir, showing his Honour the chief buildings ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... the abandoned campoodies of the Paiutes are spots of desolation long after the wattles of the huts have warped in the brush heaps. The campoodies are near the watercourses, but never in the swale of the stream. The Paiute seeks rising ground, depending on air and sun for purification of his dwelling, and when it ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... fashionable hairdresser's establishment. By signs and with considerable labour I finally made my mission known, and at last ascertained that an assistant was required, and I could present myself the following morning. I went off treading on air, absolutely delighted with my success. In fact I was so elated as to omit to notice that this shop was in one of the three streets forming a triangle and an island in a "Y" formed by the two ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... as if walking on air. I felt as if I had gained greater peace and happiness than I had ever expected to experience." ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... some extent be a chameleon and feed on air. But it need not be the musty breath of the multitude. He can find his needful support in the judgement of those whose judgement he knows valuable, and such ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... rode back to Carteret Park beside the Indian officer and his daughter as a man might ride in a trance. Surely within an hour the whole world had been changed! He rode on air instead of solid soil, and the sunshine of heaven was not half so brilliant ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... and the sunshine creep With soft caress O'er billowy plain and mountain steep And wilderness — A velvet touch, a subtle breath, As sweet as love, as calm as death, On earth, on air, so soft, so fine, Till all the soul a spell ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens |
