"Gay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... small services were possible in the case of a man who went about Canada as a Johnny Head-in-air, with his mind in another hemisphere; and it was understood that he was to leave them at Vancouver. In the forced association of their walks and rides, Elizabeth showed herself gay, kind, companionable; although often, and generally for no reason that he could discover, something sharp and icy in her would momentarily make itself felt, and he would find himself driven back within ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not proof against the temptation which one so young and so sweetly winning brought to his fancy or his senses. The poor Sibyll—she was no faultless paragon,—she was a rare and singular mixture of many opposite qualities in heart and in intellect! She was one moment infantine in simplicity and gay playfulness; the next a shade passed over her bright face, and she uttered some sentence of that bitter and chilling wisdom, which the sense of persecution, the cruelty of the world, had already taught her. She was, indeed, at that age when the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... came the "fandango." There we meet the same faces, without much alteration in the costumes. The senoras and senoritas alone have doffed their morning dresses, and here and there a pretty poblana has changed her coarse woollen "nagua" for a gay flounced muslin. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... sundown and overspreading all; not a star showed; there was only an end of a moon, and that not due before the small hours. Round the village, what with the lights and the fires in the open houses, and the torches of many fishers moving on the reef, it kept as gay as an illumination; but the sea and the mountains and woods were all clean gone. I suppose it might be eight o'clock when I took the road, laden like a donkey. First there was that Bible, a book as big as your head, which I had let myself in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... revealed great, protruding collarbones. "Come," she said abruptly, "get out of those rags and into something modern." She opened a closet door and selected a gown from a number hanging there. It was white, and there was a gay ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... love which you have gained—this first love of a man who has known no other and will know no other while he lives!—to bring about his ruin? This other, at whose head you threw me—beware of him. He is light-hearted and gay, perhaps. You call him a clown; he is cunning and brave; and unless you judge him at his true value, your fabric of schemes will fall ere it reaches its culmination. Could even you trick him with words? No. You were compelled to use force. Is he not handsome, Madame?" ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... much mass of him to be moved. The smaller man, with the same degree of sensibility, is at once carried off his feet; he wants to do something he did not want to do before; he views all the universe in a new light through his tears; he is gay or enthusiastic, melancholy or passionate, as things come and go to him. Therefore the high creative poet might even be thought, to a great extent, impassive (as shallow people think Dante stern), receiving indeed all feelings to the ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... position; the multitude sitting, crouching, or crawling all round him. Near the king's barge were a number of gold boats; and the side of the river, in this quarter, was lined with those of the nobility, decked with gay banners, each having its little band of music, and some dancers exhibiting occasionally on their benches. Shortly after our arrival, nine gilt, war-boats were ordered to manoeuvre before us. The Burmans nowhere appear to so much advantage as in their boats, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... for the Construction of a Gay Flower Garden, with Directions for preventing the Depredations of Insects. To which are added—1. A. Catalogue of Plants, with their colours, as they appear in each season.—2. Observations on the Treatment and Growth of Bulbous Plants; curious ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... play, and harmless play, Like kissing in the ring, When lads and lasses of spirits gay Dance like young lambs in Spring. That Spring will wane too fast, alas! But while it yet is here, Let youth enjoy, or girl or boy, The dance to youth so dear. Then pithy JAYNE, my plucky JAYNE, Don't heed the bigot's cry, But meet them, meet them down at Chester ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... address the graduating class of the Harvard Divinity School. The blank pantheism which he then enunciated called forth from Professor Henry Ware, Jr., a sermon in the college chapel on the personality of God, which he sent with a friendly note to Mr. Emerson. The gay and Skimpolesque reply of the sage is an illustration of that flippancy with which he chose to toy in a literary way with momentous questions, and which was so exasperating to the earnest men of positive religious convictions with whom he had been ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... solemn look—unless you regard him closely. But it is a very sly, knowing look, if you take pains to stare boldly into his eyes. Like many human beings, he is fond of clothes, and he particularly likes gay ones, but perhaps that is because ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... months. They were received as men risen from the dead, for the diviners had declared that they had perished long ago. The returned adventurers were the lions of the day. They strutted around in their gay European suits, with their guns over their shoulders, to the abounding admiration of the women and children, calling themselves Livingstone's "braves", who had gone over the whole world, turning back only when there was no more land. To be sure they returned about ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... feelings. "Life," he began somewhat haltingly, to break the embarrassing pause, "is only serious when we make it so; and as soon as we make it serious it makes us unhappy. So I've adopted one invariable rule: to laugh and be gay." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... wild parts of San Bernardino and San Diego counties; he may even still start a grizzly in the Sierra Madre range in Los Angeles County. Hunting and exploring in the mountains, riding over the mesas, which are green from the winter rains and gay with a thousand delicate grasses and flowering plants, is manly occupation to suit the most robust and adventurous. Those who saunter in the trim gardens, or fly from one hotel parlor to the other, do not see the best of Southern California in ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... place very frequently in the tower room, where she felt herself to be more than welcome. Indeed, the old lady seemed almost as fond of her as she was of the bright, generous heiress. Caroline would not consent to mingle with the gay crowd which kept up a brilliant carnival all day long in the park, in the vast drawing-room, everywhere, except in that one old tower where the countess spent her quiet life. At the grand festival she had resolved to come forth and do the honors of her own castle, but until ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... record of tolerance of foreign bodies in the skin and muscles of the back for an extended period. Gay speaks of a curious case in which the point of a sheath-knife remained in the back of an individual for nine years. Bush reported to Sir Astley Cooper the history of a man who, as he supposed, received ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... were more successful. "Now," Richard Carey writes, (February 7, 1769,) "it is mortifying to many of the inhabitants that they have obtained their wishes, and that such numbers of ladies attend. It is a bad thing for Boston to have so many gay, idle people in it." There is much comment, in the letters and journals, upon these balls and concerts, and some of it not very flattering to the ladies ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... policeman, "you needn't get gay. I know my duty. So, if you don't mind, I'll take you to headquarters, saving you the trouble of asking for ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... am here. Does fortune thus begin? Yes, this has had to come, and all these colors I know because I dreamed them, mingled thus. We drink from goblets which a little child, With eyes that sparkle as through garlands gay, Holds out—but from the branches of a tree-top Black drops drip down into the goblet's bowl And mingle death and night ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... sought for everywhere, he could never be found. Still the report of these strange deaths, so sudden and so incomprehensible, was bruited about Paris, and people began to feel frightened. Sainte-Croix, always in the gay world, encountered the talk in drawing-rooms, and began to feel a little uneasy. True, no suspicion pointed as yet in his direction; but it was as well to take precautions, and Sainte-Croix began ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... action is entirely shut up in the very central parts (which cannot now be reached on account of the snow) of the Cordilleras. In the south of the R. Maypu I examined the Tertiary plains, already partially described by M. Gay. (5/3. "Rapport fait a l'Academie Royale des Sciences, sur les Travaux Geologiques de M. Gay," by Alex. Brongniart ("Ann. Sci. Nat." Volume XXVIII., page 394, 1833.) The fossil shells appear to me to be far more different from the recent ones than in the great Patagonian formation; it will ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... up his anger pretty well, He said, "I have a notion, and that notion I will tell; I will nab this gay young sorter, terrify him into fits, And get my gentle wife to chop him into ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... travelling for the first time on the Continent, does not write a "Diary?" No sooner have we slept on the shores of France—no sooner are we seated in the gay salon at Dessin's, than we call, like Biddy Fudge, for "French pens and French ink," and forth steps from its case the morocco-bound diary, regularly ruled and paged, with its patent Bramah lock and key, wherein we are to record and ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... away through the gay woods, drenched with dew, which sparkled where the sunlight lit upon it. Long and lonely was the way, until towards the evening they met with a poor old man on foot, ragged, lame, and dirty, and bearing a great burden. It was in a narrow ride of the forest, and there ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... and boulevards, which a few years since were gay with a laughing crowd of joyous-hearted men and women, youths and maidens, to-day are gloomy, with the shadow of sorrow and death on them. On a conservative estimate it will be found that in all the towns and cities of France, one in three women will be dressed ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... thus engaged, Master MacGreedy took advantage of the general abstraction to secure half-a-dozen crackers to his own share; he retired to a corner with them, where he meant to pick them quietly to pieces by himself. He wanted the gay paper, and the motto, and the sweetmeats; but he did not like the report of the cracker. And then what he did want, ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in the bush, for instance, has his severe trials to go through, but their trials are not to be compared to those of the commander of the party. How often when the rest are sleeping must he be watchful? How frequently, while others are gay, must he feel thoughtful! These remarks may easily be applied to the following description of the coast near Shark's Bay, in the N. W. of the island of New Holland. There was great beauty in the scenery, both the sky and the ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... that he discovered, of exquisite beauty and delicious odour, to bear his name—one that refuses to exchange the silent glen and melancholy wood for the more gay parterres of horticulture.'—Rambles in Sweden ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... gesture you see him true to a refined conception; and the dullest cur, beholding him, pricks up his ear and proceeds to imitate and parody that charming ease. For to be a high-mannered and high-minded gentleman, careless, affable, and gay, is the inborn pretension of the dog. The large dog, so much lazier, so much more weighed upon with matter, so majestic in repose, so beautiful in effort, is born with the dramatic means to wholly represent the part. And it is more pathetic and perhaps more instructive ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... To others, all supplanted in their turn; Till 'mid this crowded neighbourhood of things That are by nature most unneighbourly, 625 The head turns round and cannot right itself; And though an aching and a barren sense Of gay confusion still be uppermost, With few wise longings and but little love, Yet to the memory something cleaves at last, 630 Whence profit may be drawn ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... during the last days numerous converts are made and received by baptism into the church. This meeting is looked forward too by the colonists with many mingled feelings. By the grave and good it is hailed as an event of sacred importance, and by the gay and thoughtless as a season of sight-seeing and dress-displaying. Those in whose neighbourhood it was last year are glad it is not be so this time; and those near the place it is to be held, are calculating the sheep and ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... view. The rustic table of rough wood was covered with a short cloth and was spread with zakouskis. It was a meal under the open sky, a seat and a glass in the clear azure. The evening could not have been softer and clearer. And, as the general felt so gay, the repast would have promised to be most agreeable, if Rouletabille had not noticed that Matrena Petrovna and Natacha were uneasy and downcast. The reporter soon saw, too, that all the general's joviality ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... market-days, about an hour after the ordinary finishes, and not unfrequently in the same room. The market-towns derive great benefit from this habit of congregating on the market-day. It is the day, too, for paying visits by the ladies. Gay costumes pass through the streets, and bright eyes look out of the windows of the hotels upon the crowd of farmers. The yards of the various hostelries are made almost impassable by the innumerable variety of ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... the objects round seemed to speak to me of their inner meaning, but my companion was not at all moved by, nor interested in her surroundings. She helped to make the picture more strange and lovely as she sat by me on a rock, with her shining clothes and brilliant face under the gay sunshade, but mentally she jarred on me by her complete indifference to any influence of the scene. I almost wished I were alone here, to sit upon this tremendous ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... loved—one who often afterwards told her he wondered how he could have been so blind—blind, he said, as the old place, which was kept, in accordance with the Colonel's last commands, closed in front, but bright and gay behind, while Paul Capel used to say, "It is astonishing how much human sunshine can be got into a ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... it had been celebrated for its vast cellarage, which had contained some rare old wines. And in the days of the Grand Monarch young bucks were wont to quit the gay salons of the ladies, in order to repair to the Cheval Borgne for ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... its quality, for intense excitations always produced both quickened and deeper breathing. The heart was quickened in harmony with the quickened breathing. Neither breathing nor heart was ever slowed. As regards the capillary pulsation, an influence was exerted chiefly, if not exclusively, by gay and exciting melodies, which produced a shrinking. Throughout the experiments it was found that the most profound physiological effects were exerted by those pieces which the subject found to be most emotional ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Flattering me with impossibilities: My Eyes too quicke, my Heart o're-weenes too much, Vnlesse my Hand and Strength could equall them. Well, say there is no Kingdome then for Richard: What other Pleasure can the World affoord? Ile make my Heauen in a Ladies Lappe, And decke my Body in gay Ornaments, And 'witch sweet Ladies with my Words and Lookes. Oh miserable Thought! and more vnlikely, Then to accomplish twentie Golden Crownes. Why Loue forswore me in my Mothers Wombe: And for I should not deale in her soft Lawes, Shee did corrupt frayle ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... wear neither lace, flounces, lappets, rings, bracelets, necklaces, ear-rings, nor any thing belonging to this class. Both sexes are also particular in the choice of the colour of their clothes. All gay colours such as red, blue, green, and yellow, are exploded. Dressing in this manner, a Quaker is known by his apparel through the whole kingdom. This is not the case with any other individuals of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... there feeling the soft, warm breeze playing about me, to drink in the perfume-laden air, and to gaze abroad upon the sun-bathed, gently sloping lawns interspersed here and there with neat, symmetrically shaped flower-beds, gay with luxuriant, rainbow-tinted blooms, to watch the tall palms swaying as the wind swept through their clashing fronds, to note the magnificent butterflies and the brilliant-plumaged birds flitting hither and thither, with the blue foam-flecked ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... Michelangelo fell under very different influences; and these left a far more lasting impression on his character than the gay festivals and witty word-combats of the lords of Florence. In 1491 Savonarola, the terrible prophet of coming woes, the searcher of men's hearts, and the remorseless denouncer of pleasant vices, began that Florentine career which ended with his martyrdom ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Jack's individual repertory contained an exhaustless number, both sad and gay. There were Carry me Back to Old Tennessee, The Sailor's Grave, Aura Lee, with her golden hair, who brought sunshine and swallows indiscriminately to each locality which she graced with the said golden hair, and ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... bloodshed than there was such a general ebullition of fun and amusement as might be expected from the collection of such a band of spirited youths. Not to speak of dances, teas, and indoor entertainments, gay sleighing parties, out to the scene of "battle" of West Stockbridge, as it was jokingly called, were of daily occurrence, and every evening Mahkeenac's shining face was covered with bands of merry ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... soon she forgot the well dressed crowd of men and women by whom they were surrounded, the light hum of gay conversation, the band which was playing the fashionable air of the moment. She saw instead the long line of men of many races, stripped to the waist and toiling as though for their lives under a tropical sun, she saw the great brown water-jars passed down the line, men fainting beneath ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this position I cannot say, to me it seemed eternity. I was eventually freed from it by the echo of a gentle laugh, so kind, and gay, and girlish, that my terror at once departed, and, on raising my head, I perceived that the cause of my panic was nothing more than a broad beam of moonlight on a particularly prominent angle ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... followed this determination Was just such as our damsels did desire, Now all the world was out for its vacation, In truth no opportunity was nigher; All seemed to rise with spirits somewhat higher Which were at most times jocular and gay, And all agreed that they should seize their sire A time befitting on that self-same day, To coax him gently round to let them ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... early, convinced of the good effect of sleep on her complexion, and Joanna prowled unhappily from room to room, glancing about mechanically for dust which she knew could not be there ... the farm was just a collection of gleaming surfaces and crackling chintzes and gay, dashing colours. Everything was as she wished it, yet did ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... midst of this throbbing, gay and delightful Saratoga, we must not forget that it was here the fathers of the Republic achieved their most decisive victory. The battle was fought in the town of Stillwater, at Bemis Heights, two and a half miles from the Hudson. The defeat of St. Leger and the triumph of Stark ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... days that are sunny He's getting his honey; In days that are cloudy He's making his wax: On pinks and on lilies, And gay daffodillies, And columbine blossoms, ...
— McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... The former was very gay, his kindly face alight with amusement and anticipation. Presently came a throb from the engine room, and the Evangeline sheered off down the river, past the new St. Marys where staring red brick ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... their open barouche, with its four prancing and gaily decorated horses, which was in waiting at the Switchem station. After several addresses had been read and replied to, the cortege passed slowly on towards Vellenaux, the cavalry filing in rear and the gay holiday seekers following as best they could. On arriving at the principal entrance the party alighted, the host and hostess, and their invited guests proceeded to the grand hall, where a magnificent collation awaited ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... a message for my dear mistress?" she cried in an accent of gay reproach. "And you never breathed a word of it to me. Mr. Sterling, I shall begin to think you are a conspirator. How long did you say you had known that good Mr. Place? But I am talking while her majesty is waiting. ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... every one of them there, except myself, was doomed within an hour to have taken the dreadful step from time into eternity, it seems strange that advancing fate should have thrown no shadow on their hearts. On the contrary, they were quite gay, being extremely pleased at the successful issue of their mission and the prospect of an immediate return to their wives and children. Even Retief was gay, for I heard him joking with his companions about myself and my "white-bread-week," ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... That very afternoon he brought us some ducks in exchange for pork, and Moodie asked him to stay and take a glass of whiskey with him and his friend Mr. K—-. The old man had arrayed himself in a new blanket-coat, bound with red, and the seams all decorated with the same gay material. His leggings and moccasins were new, and elaborately fringed; and, to cap the climax of the whole, he had a blue cloth conical cap upon his head, ornamented with a deer's tail dyed blue, and ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... head in a merry protest, though she felt herself flush slowly under the gay deference ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... before I go, and send him for Molly Tooney. Molly is a good enough woman, and if I send for her, she will come to you until you have suited yourselves with servants. And now, my dear child, where did you find that gay dress? Upstairs in some old trunk, I suppose. Stand over there and let me look at you. It is a good forty years since I have seen that gown. Do you know to whom it used to belong? But of course you do not. It was ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... Mary Brooks sagely, helping herself to another sandwich. "I suppose you gay young sophomores don't realize it, but it's ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... oaths, and compliments, too, plenty. O sad and wild excess! and happy those White days, that durst no impious mirth expose: When conscience by lewd use had not lost sense, Nor bold-faced custom banished innocence! Thou hadst no pompous train, nor antic crowd Of young, gay swearers, with their needless, loud Retinue; all was here smooth as thy bride, And calm like her, or that mild evening-tide. Yet hadst thou nobler guests: angels did wind And rove about thee, guardians of thy mind; These fetched thee ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the gay assembly of youths, eager for excitement, saw Garnet pass by correctly dressed, balancing his colossal body on legs that looked too small for it. They saw him enter Estrada-Rosa's house, and heard the sound of the door being shut upon him. Nothing more was ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... tempest assists the arms of our oarsmen; the hurricane is our servant, it drives us whithersoever we wish to go." The sagas also reveal other characteristics of the Northmen: a cruelty and faithlessness which made them a terror to their foes; an almost barbaric love of gay clothing and ornament; a strong sense of public order, giving rise to an elaborate legal system; and even a feeling for the romantic beauty of their northern home, with its snow-clad mountains, dark forests of pine, sparkling waterfalls, ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... summer weather. The scene on the water was a lively one. Boats of every description were gliding, glinting, drifting about at work or play, and we leaned over the rail from time to time, contemplating the gay throng. Several lines of ferry boats were making regular trips at intervals of a few minutes, and river steamers were coming and going from the wharves, laden with all sorts of merchandise, raising long diverging swells that ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... royal seal, in a box curiously chased and ornamented. A gorgeous canopy of brocade was supported above his head by the officers of the municipality, who, in their robes of crimson velvet, walked bareheaded by his side. Gay troops of dancers, clothed in fantastic dresses of gaudy-colored silk, followed the procession, strewing flowers and chanting verses as they went, in honor of the president. They were designed as emblematical of the ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... hedge, is the glossy green foliage, sometimes brushing our boat on either side. And we scare up multitudes of water fowl, unused to such invasion of their solitudes. Wild duck, teal, grey snipe, shags, and many kinds that no one on board knows the names of, start from under our very bows. Not gay plumaged birds, though, for the most part; only now and then a pair of kingfishers, flashing green and orange as they fly, or the purple beauty of a pukeko, scuttling away into the depths ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... usual, to my beloved aunt. I want to go to Lenox, but—I want to be here on the hill, too. So runs the world. We can't manage to have all the things we want at the same time; so hurrah for Lenox and the gay world again! Come here to the door with me, children. Let us say farewell to ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... as we drove up the Avenue de l'Opera and across the Grand Boulevard, for it seemed to me that all the gay loungers must observe Diaz' condition. We followed darker thoroughfares, and at last the cab, after climbing a hill, stopped before a house in a street that appeared rather untidy and irregular. I got out first, and Diaz stumbled after me, while two women on the ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... discouraged, timid, and vacillating. Extremely self-conscious, he thinks himself the observed of all observers. If others are indifferent toward him, he is depressed; if interested, they have some deep motive; if grave, he has annoyed them; if gay, they are laughing at him; the truth, that they are minding their own business, never occurs to him, and if it did, the thought that other people were not interested in him, would ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... think there is the same reason to forbid philosophy as to take away rhetoric from our feasts. For philosophy is quite of another nature; it is an art of living, and therefore must be admitted into every part of our conversation, into all our gay humors and our pleasures, to regulate and adjust them, to proportion the time, and keep them from excess; unless, perchance, upon the same scoffing pretence of gravity, they would banish temperance, justice, and moderation. It is true, were we to feast before ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... interest I felt in him. The dreary, dispirited look died out of his face, some mysterious hope brightened his features and slid like a blue flame over his wrinkles. He smiled and wiped his brow, that fearless, terrible brow of his, and at length grew gay like a ...
— Facino Cane • Honore de Balzac
... left for the Court House, where addresses were to be received, the deep-mouthed guns of the fleet in the harbour, the ringing bells of the city churches and the cheers of the people sounded a combined welcome. Through several arches and gay decorations—the Japanese and Chinese arches being noteworthy—the parade proceeded, with the Premier of Canada in a carriage at its head. At the pavilion, in front of the Court House, the Royal visitors ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... Dane to herself, with a fearful yawn. "I'll die of stagnation if this sort of thing keeps on. Mariana, howling in the Moated Grange, must have felt a good deal as I do just at present—a trifle worse, maybe, for I don't wish I were dead altogether. The Tombs is gay and festive compared to Fifth Avenue on a rainy day. I wish I were back playing Fanchon the Cricket, free and happy once more, wearing spangles as Ophelia of Denmark, and a gilt paper crown as Cleopatra of Egypt, I wasn't married then; and I didn't go moping about, like an old hen with ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... arms, Without his tent; his comrades slept around, Their heads upon their bucklers laid; their spears Stood upright, on the butts; the burnish'd brass Like Heav'n's own lightning, flashing far around. Stretch'd on a wild bull's hide the chief repos'd, A gay-wrought carpet roll'd beneath his head. Gerenian Nestor close behind him stood, And touched him with his foot, and thus in tone Reproachful spoke: "Arouse thee, Tydeus' son! Why sleep'st thou thus all night? or know'st thou not That on the very margin of the ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... mistake!" says gay Mr Councillor Egan, on the way from the Law Courts, with his mulberry face and his mulberry velvet coat. 'Twas to Lawyer Curran he said it, and in a small city like Dublin the name held, and the two were called ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... finished, were walking with rapid steps to and fro about the square. There were two or three pretty faces amongst them. Beneath the avenues of the vines with which the slope of Mashuk is covered, occasional glimpses could be caught of the gay-coloured hat of a lover of solitude for two—for beside that hat I always noticed either a military forage-cap or the ugly round hat of a civilian. Upon the steep cliff, where the pavilion called "The Aeolian Harp" is erected, figured the lovers of scenery, directing ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... pursuing did not pass the glare. Jonathan made certain it disappeared before reaching the light, and he knew his eyesight too well not to trust to it absolutely. Advancing nearer the yard, he heard the murmur of voices in gay conversation, and soon saw figures moving about ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... blue waters and lift their heads to the very clouds. Beautiful rivers watered fertile valleys, luscious fruits hung from the trees, fragrant flowers carpeted the ground, and the air was filled with the songs of birds of gay plumage. There were scenes of nature's magnificence such as are found only in the tropics. Columbus, as he gazed upon them in admiration, little thought that this beautiful island was to witness his greatest sorrows, that it was to be his final resting place, and that it was in later generations ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... face in a glass, you wouldn't ask, I guess. Tomatoes ain't in it for redness. I won't dance at your wedding, and I won't break my heart, either," and with a gay nod Mrs. Lydia Vrain tripped away, evidently quite forgetful of the ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... King was riding merrily. He carolled a gay chanson. His retinue followed at a distance. Francesco Melzi saluted and drew rein. He spoke a word in the monarch's ear. The two men stood with uncovered heads. They looked toward the western windows. The gay ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... "love," as every body knows, "envieth not." We met like brothers. I read in his looks the smiling evidence of his love towards me: and I felt the strongest wish to perpetuate his partiality. Friendship was gay within my heart, and thenceforth all nature WITHOUT put on her loveliest aspects. The island of sand no longer seemed a dreary waste. Brighter rolled the blue waves of ocean beneath the golden beam; and sweeter murmured the billows on their sandy beach. ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... tuned his pipes, for he was aching to get at them and only too glad to furnish music for the gay company of kindly hearted folk who were giving him his first evening's pleasure since he had left the ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... of replying in the same gay, bantering tone, Harry sighed deeply, and, still holding her hand, ...
— Hayslope Grange - A Tale of the Civil War • Emma Leslie
... been rambling all the night, And sometime of this day; And now returning back again, We bring a garland gay. A garland gay we bring you here; And at your door we stand; It is a sprout well budded out, The work ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Cabinet. Many complimentary remarks were interchanged, but there were no set speeches; and after remaining a quarter of an hour or so the guests re-entered their carriages and were escorted to the Capitol. Pennsylvania Avenue presented an animated appearance, the gay and varied dresses of the ladies at the windows and on the sidewalks forming a kaleidoscopic framework for the column of citizen soldiers. The District militiamen never looked better nor stepped more proudly, and five companies of colored men marched with the swinging gait of ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... land of drowsy-head it is, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, For ever ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... although it was very far indeed from what could be regarded as critical, there is to be remarked in telegrams and letters of this period a growing appreciation of its irksomeness. But dark as the sky looked it was flecked by many a brighter patch. There was a gay as well as a grave side to life in the besieged town, and to both Mr. Pearse does justice in a letter written on 21st December under the heading, "Amenities of a Siege." It ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... "This is a gay and lively beginning for a hermit," she thought, as she made her way around the house, "and I don't see how on earth I am ever going to get through that window again. There is nothing to stand on. I did not expect to go back until ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... to the grand boulevard, and turned westward along the splendid, humming, roaring thoroughfare gay with flags and gleaming with such plate-glass as Nick the militant would have loved to shatter. Certainly there was nothing like this street in the Quarter. The Quarter could equal it neither in shops, nor in cafes, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... walked forth in Baker Street As sober as a Quaker, Whom did I have the luck to meet? I met a jolly Baker. His voice was gay, his eye was bright, His step was light and airy, His face and arms were powdered white— I think he was a fairy; He danced beneath the April moon, And as he danced he trolled Wild snatches of an ancient rune, Yet all the burden of his tune Was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... the pansied moss a checker'd gloom, Bend with new fruits, with flow'rs successive bloom. Pleas'd, their light limbs on beds of roses press'd, In slight undress recumbent Beauties rest; On tiptoe steps surrounding Graces move, And gay Desires ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... gay, quivering, defiant look. It delighted her to pit these wide and threatening generalisations against the Maxwell power—to show the heir of it that she at least—father or no father—was no hereditary subject of his, and bound to no blind admiration ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The gay, yet thoughtful, Henri closed the door of the room, and, with what was left of the fast-receding daylight illuminating his person, struck an attitude. Leaning on the stick with which he had provided himself, he twirled the heavy moustaches—artificial affairs ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... confusion, and Miss Piner was undressed with the utmost expedition, and sincerely rejoiced to be rid of the encumbrance of that finery which in another situation would have excited her envy. Our little heroine, whose sense as well as serenity was uncommon, reflected that gay clothes must, certainly in themselves be of little value, since they could not prevent the approach of disease, or suspend for a moment the attacks of pain; that the pleasure they bestowed, as it was ill-founded, was ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... for your needs. The first thing you must do when you reach London is to procure suitable garments for your presentation to the king. Your clothes are well enough for a country gentleman, but are in no way fit for Court. I need not say to you, do not choose over-gay colours, for I know that your tastes do not lie in that direction. I don't wish you to become a courtier, Edgar; for, though it is an excellent thing to be introduced at Court and to be known to high personages there, that is an altogether different thing from being a hanger-on of the Court. ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... opened the bag that Mungo had placed in readiness for him in what was evidently the guest-room of the castle, transformed the travelling half of himself into something that was more in conformity with the gay nature of his upper costume, complacently surveyed the result when finished, and hummed a chanson of Pierre Gringoire's, altogether unremembering the encounter in the wood, the dead robber, and the stern nature of his embassy here ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... just rounded the paddock, and who slowly bore down upon us as they drifted from stall to stall in a haphazard inspection of the great racing plant at Latonia. Prominent upon the person of each member of this party was a bountiful strip of yellow ribbon. The effect was decidedly gay. ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... to one of its many sub-headings, "A Humorous Outcrop concerning two Maids and a Man." It related, with many gay sallies of "wit," how Van had piloted Mr. J. Searle Bostwick into the hands of the convicts, recently escaped, packed off his charges, Miss Beth Kent and her maid, and brought them to Goldite by way of the Monte Cristo mine, in time to behold the discomfited entrance of the ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... just here, if she is never to feel serious? Of course she is to have very thoughtful hours! The merely gay, happy-go-lucky kind of a girl is not the most helpful, nor the most valuable. There is very deep happiness sometimes in thoughtfulness,—do you not know it? What makes you quiet when you row in and out of the shadow-filled coves along the river-border, or when ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... Aramis, and then, as if the idea which had flashed across his mind were impossible, "Oh," he said, "I have very little society at present. If I must own it to you, dear M. d'Herblay, the fact is, to stay at the Bastile appears, for the most part, distressing and distasteful to persons of the gay world. As for the ladies, it is never without a certain dread, which costs me infinite trouble to allay, that they succeed in reaching my quarters. And, indeed, how should they avoid trembling a little, poor things, when they see those ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a pilgrim. At last I began to long for my native country, that I might repose after my travels and fatigues in the places where I had spent my earliest years, and gladden my old companions with the recital of my adventures. Often did I figure to myself those with whom I had sported away the gay hours of dawning life, sitting round me in its evening, wondering at my tales ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... and kicked the chairs and read his novel, and was generally extremely uneasy, so that the clerks began to find him a nuisance, not having any idea that he was a real living swell. And still it rained, and the newspaper vendors looked in, all drizzly and wet, and the gay feathers of New York ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... Court, and at the head of them Sir Lancelot du Lake, friend of King Arthur, and winner of all the jousts and tournaments where Knights meet to gain honour. Day by day they rode together apart and he told her tales of gallant deeds done for love of beautiful ladies, and they passed under trees gay with the first green of spring, and over hyacinths covering the earth with sheets of blue, till at sunset they drew rein before the silken pavilion, with the banner of Uther Pendragon floating on the top. And Guenevere's ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... feared that the cold might, when you by and bye have some crabs to eat, accumulate in your intestines," lady Feng pleaded, "that I tried to induce you, dear senior, to have a laugh, so as to make you gay and merry. For one can, when in high spirits, indulge in a couple of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the lessons are ended, Our pencils and books laid away; And gathered to-night in the class-room There are many young hearts blithe and gay. There are loving congratulations From classmate, and teacher, and friend; A smile! Then a sigh at the parting, And the feeling ...
— Silver Links • Various
... impatiently pawing the ground,—held in by the coachman, who had been seated a quarter of an hour on his box,—the elegant phaeton with which we are familiar rapidly turned the angle of the entrance-gate, and cast out on the doorsteps M. Andrea Cavalcanti, as decked up and gay as if he were going to marry a princess. He inquired after the count with his usual familiarity, and ascending lightly to the second story met him at the top of the stairs. The count stopped on seeing the young man. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... able to give a little tea and sugar all round. I patched up an old coat for William, and as a last thing watered the garden. The nasturtiums, which I hope will run up the wall of the house, are just beginning to bloom. The sitting-room looks quite gay with daisies, grasses and ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... Boone was now on his way into Kentucky for the Transylvania Company, other border leaders of renown or with their fame still to win were present, and among them James Robertson, of serious mien, and that blond gay knight in ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... congratulated him upon his entry into a life exactly similar to their own. Indeed, the more precisely similar it proved to be, the more he would be respected when he reached their advanced age. The future unfolded to him was not gay. He was to live forty, fifty or even sixty years in the same round of traditions and hampered by the same net of prejudices. He might have his romance, as his father had had before him, but there was nothing beyond that. His father seemed perfectly satisfied ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... clad in "soft raiment," or "taking thought for the morrow." They recollected what He said to the young Ruler, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow Me." And so they put off their "gay clothing," their "gold, and pearls, and costly array;" they "sold that they had, and gave alms;" they "washed one another's feet;" they "had all things common." They formed themselves into communities for prayer and praise, for labour and ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman |
