Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Lofty   /lˈɔfti/   Listen
Lofty

adjective
(compar. loftier; superl. loftiest)
1.
Of high moral or intellectual value; elevated in nature or style.  Synonyms: elevated, exalted, grand, high-flown, high-minded, idealistic, noble-minded, rarefied, rarified, sublime.  "Argue in terms of high-flown ideals" , "A noble and lofty concept" , "A grand purpose"
2.
Of imposing height; especially standing out above others.  Synonyms: eminent, soaring, towering.  "Lofty mountains" , "The soaring spires of the cathedral" , "Towering icebergs"
3.
Having or displaying great dignity or nobility.  Synonyms: gallant, majestic, proud.  "Lofty ships" , "Majestic cities" , "Proud alpine peaks"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Lofty" Quotes from Famous Books



... the poet, with contentment, was a far richer establishment than the gilded barouche and the dappled grays of childless Mrs. Lofty. Riches are often childless; poverty is often contented. Happiness is a golden spell inwoven with most of our lives at certain times, whether we be rich or poor. The first surprise of the newly-rich comes in the non-discovery of additional happiness. Additional cares and duties come thickly enough. ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... the most complete enjoyment of civil liberty. On an occasion so interesting and important in our history, and of such anxious concern to the friends of freedom throughout the world, it is our imperious duty to lay aside all selfish and local considerations and be guided by a lofty spirit of devotion to the great principles on ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson

... response: important, with other passages, to show how naturally it came to them (i.e. the Hellenes and Xenophon) to give a spiritual application to their rules of bodily and mental training. These things to them are an allegory. The goal is lofty, if not so sublime as St. Paul's or Comte's, the Christians or Positivists (there has been an alteration for the better in the spiritual plane, and Socrates helped to bring it about, I believe), but ceteris paribus, the words of St. Paul are the words of Hystaspas ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... citizens displaying crest or coat-of-arms. What is novel is suggested method of taxation. Differing from the dog-tax, levied at a common rate, it is proposed that our old nobility shall, in this fresh recognition of their lofty estate, be dealt with on a sliding scale. A duke will have his pre-eminence recognised by an exceptionally high rate of taxation. Marquises, earls and a' that will be mulct on a descending scale, till the lowly knight is reached. He will be compensated for comparative obscurity in the glittering ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various

... their forefathers. How could they dispense with the carved altar-work?—how, with the pictured windows, where the light of common day was hallowed by being transmitted through the glorified figures of saints?—how, with the lofty roof, imbued, as it must have been, with the prayers that had gone upward for centuries?— how, with the rich peal of the solemn organ, rolling along the aisles, pervading the whole church, and sweeping the soul away on ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... country abounds, were beyond all description splendid, taking into consideration the remoteness of the Jesuit towns from the outside world. Frequently — as, for instance, in the mission of Los Apostoles — the churches had three aisles, and were adorned with lofty towers, rich altars,*1* super-altars, and statuary, brought at great expense from Italy and Spain. Though the churches were often built of stone, it was not usual for the houses of the Indians to be so built; but in ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... bore, And when the storm was o'er, Cloud-like we saw the shore Stretching to leeward; There for my lady's bower Built I the lofty tower, Which, to this very ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... to sing. But Ned saw sentinels walking among the tumuli and along the Calle de los Muertos which led from the Citadel to the southern front of the Pyramid of the Moon. He was very glad now that he had sought this lofty refuge, and ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... describing the funeral of Constantine the Great, says that the body of the blessed prince was placed on a lofty bier, and the ministers of God and the multitude of the people, with tears and much lamentation, offered up prayers and sacrifice for the repose of his soul. He adds that this was done in accordance with the desires of that religious monarch, who had ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... general, Antarctica has the lowest mean temperature and the highest wind-velocity of any land existing. This naturally follows from the fact that it is a lofty expanse of ice-clad land circumscribing the Pole, and that the Antarctic summer occurs when the earth is farther from the sun than is the case during the ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... a nation; he laid securely the foundations on which succeeding generations have built. He was calm, too, with rare exceptions; an expert in self-control. But there was mingled with his calmness a certain coldness. He was lofty and pure, but we should hardly go to him for instruction in the interior secrets of the spiritual life. His achievements were in another field. His claim to our gratitude rests on other grounds. The spiritual life is calm, but serenely calm; irradiated by ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler

... overhead. There was the busy hum of insect life from the adjacent woods, a deep murmur from the sluggish tide of the great Caribou River which drained the country for miles around. The occasional sigh that floated upon the air spoke of lofty pine crests bending under a light top breeze which refrained from disturbing the lower air. The night left the impression of unbreakable peace, of human content, and a world where elemental storms ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... interpret, and at times correct, the less developed by the more perfect consciousness of God. The Scriptures, like the land in which their scenes are laid, are a land of hills and valleys, of lofty peaks of spiritual elevation and of dark ravines of human passion and doubt and cruelty; and to view it as a level plain of religious equality is to make serious mistakes. Ecclesiastes is by no means on the same level with Isaiah, nor Proverbs ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin

... the light that never was on sea or land. Such a life can but give expression to its inward harmony. Every pure and healthy thought, every noble aspiration for the good and the true, every longing of the heart for a higher and better life, every lofty purpose and unselfish endeavor, makes the human spirit stronger, more harmonious, and more beautiful. It is this alone that gives a self-centered confidence in one's heaven-aided powers, and a high-minded cheerfulness, ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden

... moveable, so as to shift about to the best pastures for their cattle in the valleys among the mountains, which far up in the country were at this time covered with snow, but those near the sea, though very lofty, were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... perceived God's maiden Edris, stepping softly through the bloom. When should he again meet her? Alas! ... not till Death, the beautiful and beneficent Herald of true Liberty, summoned him to those lofty heights of Paradise where she had habitation. Not till then, unless, ... unless, ... and his heart beat with a sudden tumult as he recollected her last words, . . "UNLESS THE LONGING OF THY ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... constancy, and myself the most fortunate man in Europe. My old castle-building propensities came back upon me in an instant, and I pictured myself, with Lady Jane as my companion, wandering among the beautiful scenery of the Neckar, beneath the lofty ruins of Heidelberg, or skimming the placid surface of the Rhine, while, "mellowed by distance," came the rich chorus of a student's melody, filling the air with its flood of song. How delightful, I thought, to be reading the lyrics ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... them; and, as no peer did support Smollett, obviously they were "varnished ruffians." He erred as he would not err now, for times, and ways of going wrong, are changed. But, at best, how different are his angry couplets from the lofty melancholy of Johnson's satires! ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... bluffs that overlook the river, along through this region, charm one with the grace and variety of their forms, and the soft beauty of their adornment. The steep verdant slope, whose base is at the water's edge is topped by a lofty rampart of broken, turreted rocks, which are exquisitely rich and mellow in color—mainly dark browns and dull greens, but splashed with other tints. And then you have the shining river, winding here and there and yonder, its sweep interrupted at intervals by clusters of wooded islands ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... character, nor his tastes permit of this. In the fire of adolescence the life-giving spirits, retained in the blood and distilled again and again, inspire his young heart with a warmth which glows in his eye, a warmth which is felt in his words and perceived in his actions. The lofty feeling with which he is inspired gives him strength and nobility; imbued with tender love for mankind his words betray the thoughts of his heart; I know not how it is, but there is more charm in his open-hearted generosity than in the artificial eloquence of others; or rather ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... O'Rourke," is a jeu d' esprit not altogether contemptible, and has been translated into German. Thomas, the hero, was, in fact, the gamekeeper of an Irish peer, whose eccentricities gave rise to the tale. The "flight" is made on an eagle's back, from Hungry Hill, a lofty mountain at the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... dating back at least eight centuries, but devoid of regularity, and not indicating the date of its erection by the style of its architecture. The ground floor consists of innumerable small rooms, a few large and lofty apartments, and an immense hall. The walls, which are full of chinks and crannies, are of that immense thickness which proves that our ancestors built for their remote descendants, and not in our modern fashion; for we are beginning to build in the English style, that is, barely for one generation. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Vich Ian Vohr offered to take Waverley up to be presented to his sister. They found Flora Mac-Ivor in her parlour, a plain and bare chamber with a wide prospect from the windows. She had her brother's dark curling hair, dark eyes, and lofty expression, but her expression seemed sweeter, though not, perhaps, softer. She was, however, even more fiercely Jacobite than her brother, and her devotion to "the King over the Water" (as they called King James) was far more unselfish than that of Vich Ian Vohr. Flora Mac-Ivor had been educated ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... Webb, 'bewrayed his credit' in 'The Poetaster,' 1601-1602, where Pantalabus 'was meant for Shakspere.'* If so, Pantalabus is described as one who 'pens high, lofty, and in a new stalking strain,' and if Shakespeare is the Poet Ape of Jonson's epigram, why then Jonson regards him as a writer, not merely as an actor. No amount of evil that angry Ben could utter about the plays, while ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang

... south at Tekoa, John Baptist, and during His Temptation our Lord Himself. The tops of the broken desert hills to the east are lower than the village. The floor of the Jordan valley is not visible, but across its felt gulf the mountains of Gilead form a lofty horizon. ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... eyeing this censor with a look of disdain, replied, in a solemn, lofty tone: "He that from affectation imitates the extravagancies recorded of Don Quixote, is an impostor equally wicked and contemptible. He that counterfeits madness, unless he dissembles, like the elder Brutus, for ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... was a very long walk to "grandpa's house"; he used to get very tired and his father would lift him up and place him on his shoulder; from this lofty, even perilous, height he could look down upon the top of his mother's bonnet,—a most astonishing view and one ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... mainsail, and actually lolled among icebergs. There we were stuck. That is one of the disadvantages of a sailing-vessel: you have to depend on the wind,—the most capricious thing in the universe. I suppose the air-current had veered about from north-east to north, so that the lofty cliffs intercepted them completely. ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... retrace my steps at this point to many other matters, which I have left far behind me in going on at once to the end of this financial labyrinth. And first let me tell what happened to that monstrous personage, Alberoni, how he fell from the lofty pinnacle of dower on which he had placed himself, and lost all consideration and all importance in the fall. The story ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... suggested so inevitably what we call "the other world," one detecting about her some odour of the worm, with the feeling that here was rather ghost than woman. And yet I can hardly convey to you the why of this, except by dry details as to the contours of her lofty brow, meagre lips, pointed chin, and ashen cheeks. She was tall and deplorably emaciated, her whole skeleton, except the thigh-bones, being quite visible. Her eyes were of the bluish hue of cigarette smoke, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... Mona spoke in a lofty tone. "It's only one of my working frocks. I've got two. The other's a blue one. Mother's ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... the world a great man, a man of rare spirit and transcendent power, a man with a lofty mission, he first prepares a woman to be his mother. Whenever in history we come upon such a man, we instinctively begin to ask about the character of her on whose bosom he nestled in infancy, and at whose knee he learned ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... to meet the situation. We left it to the devil—or Madame. And she, with the lofty serenity of one who through long and grievous misunderstanding has won home at last, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various

... of the church she followed them With a lofty step and mien: His bride was like a village maid, Maude Clare was like ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... watching the terns and kingfishers busily seeking their suppers over the glassy water; and at night we sat on deck while the moon rose higher in the quiet sky, and the dark river banks assumed a clearer ebony as she rose above the lofty fringe of trees, until the towing-path lay a track of pure silver reaching away to the dim belt of woodland ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... returned home, one evening, after another weary tramp. As I looked from my lofty attic, and saw Paris glittering with her million lights, I said to myself: 'Must I perish of hunger in these streets? Must I starve in the midst of that abundance which might be mine but for the fact that I am a woman? No! I shall abjure my sex, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the center of this platform was a smaller one, raised still higher; on this was placed the seat of honor, which was covered by a lovely canopy of artistically interwoven ferns and flowers. A broad flight of rough board steps, carpeted and decorated, led up to the lofty seat on this unique chariot. While our hero and the "Master of Ceremonies" were climbing to reach it, the procession quickly formed about the chariot into an elongated hollow square, eight ranks deep; the children ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... very poor way, one would think, of making loyal subjects. But the reasons that were urged in support of such drastic punishment were astonishingly frank: "It doesn't pay to be loyal," one was told; "we might as well have been rebels." Not a very lofty form of patriotism. ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... easy-going good-nature, that, despite his social insipidity, made La Fontaine the most acceptable of every-day companions. It would be easy to repeat many stories illustrative of this personal quality in La Fontaine, while to tell a single story illustrative of any lofty trait in his character would he perhaps impossible. Still, La Fontaine seemed not ungrateful for the benefits he received from others; and gratitude, no commonplace virtue, let us accordingly reckon to the credit ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... some common ancestor, and must therefore, at some remote epoch, have occupied the same area, from which their descendants have spread to the regions they now inhabit. In the numerous cases in which the same group now occupies countries separated by oceans or seas, by lofty mountain-chains, by wide deserts, or by inhospitable climates, we have to consider how the migration which must certainly have taken place has been effected. It is possible that during some portion of the time which has elapsed since the origin of the group ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... came to the trap was the pig. He viewed it with contempt, and, to show his disdain of his enemies and his disregard for their snare, he tried to walk through it with a lofty tread. He found he had undervalued it, however, when, in spite of his struggles, he was caught ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... reduced to the very bottom of society. At the tables of the outcasts of society, he did not hesitate to be a cheerful guest, surrounded by publicans and sinners. And when flouted and reproached by smooth and lofty ecclesiastics, as an ultraist and leveler, he explained and justified himself by observing, that he had only done what his office demanded. It was his to seek the lost, to heal the sick, to pity the wretched;—in a word, to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... sure, he had lost the opportunity of securing a situation on that day—and he needed work urgently—but he had fixed upon an ideal—a standard of his own, to be the goal of all his efforts and struggles. And such an ideal was priceless to him. It would prove priceless to any boy, for without lofty aims no young man can ever hope to occupy a ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey

... mystery; many stay with us all summer long, and some brave the winters in our midst. Some of these slight creatures, guided by unerring instinct, travel true to the meridian in the hours of darkness, slipping past like a 'thief in the night,' stopping at daybreak from their lofty nights to rest and recruit for the next stage of the journey. Others pass more leisurely from tree to tree, in a ceaseless tide of migration, gleaning as they go; the hardier males, in full song and plumage, lead the way for the weaker females and yearlings. With tireless industry ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... smokehouse; beyond the palings was the orchard; beyond the orchard were the negro quarter and the tobacco-fields. The front yard was entered over a stile, made of sawed-off logs of graduated heights; I do not remember any gate. In a corner of the front yard were a dozen lofty hickory-trees and a dozen black-walnuts, and in the nutting season riches ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... for Demodokos came in leading the bard, who was blind. The gods had deprived him of sight, but had bestowed upon him the gift of song. They gave him a seat on a silver throne, amid the guests, and hung his harp against a lofty pillar, close above his head, where he could ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer

... fire-engine house with a gymnasium, whose poles and swings and horizontal bars, seen indistinctly over the wall, have the look of gibbets. A bugle rings out in the yard, and that blast carries the marquis back thirty years, reminds him of his campaigns in Algeria, the lofty ramparts of Constantine, Mora's arrival in the regiment, and duels, and select card-parties. Ah! how well life began! What a pity that those infernal cards—Ps—ps—ps—However, it's worth something to have ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... that it would be well to instil into the child the love of good for its own sake, and that a sense of duty rather than the fear of punishment should deter from evil. This opinion is generally recognized as lofty, but impracticable. To imagine that the child could be stimulated to work merely by a desire to do his duty is a "pedagogic absurdity"; nor is it credible that a child could persevere in the paths of industry ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... was yet an infant, as Caius Drusus relates, being laid in his cradle by his nurse, and in a low place, the next day he was not to be found, and after he had been sought for a long time, he was at last discovered upon a lofty tower, lying with his face towards the rising sun [249]. When he first began to speak, he ordered the frogs that happened to make a troublesome noise, upon an estate belonging to the family near the town, to be silent; and there goes a report that frogs never ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... gave reason to believe that he would speak out, and that too in a lofty and energetic manner during the progress of the trial. "When I am before my judges," said he, "my language shall be conformable to truth and the interests of my country." What would that language have been? Without doubt there was no wish that ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... the preceding generation, wherein a highly dignified, and sometimes pompous, style was thought the only fitting dress for a public deliverance. Great, noble and stirring as these older masters were in their lofty and impassioned eloquence, we are sometimes oppressed when we read their sounding periods for any great length of time—even allowing for all that we lose by missing the speaker's presence, voice, and fire. So let us model our platform narration, as our other forms of speech, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... vestige of human habitation now remains of Old Sarum, as we have shown once a place "of great importance—and a city adorned with many proud structures—a splendid cathedral and other churches—a castle with lofty towers and ramparts—regular streets and houses—and once the residence of a numerous population." But all these have passed away, and nought is left to tell the tale of their greatness, but a few crumbling wrecks of massy walls; whilst vast fosses and elevated ramparts remain to mark ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various

... showing the supremacy accorded to the latter. A temple to En-lil at Lagash, and known as E-adda, 'house of the father,' by virtue of the relationship existing between the god of Nippur and Nin-girsu, is mentioned by Uru-kagina. The temple is described as a lofty structure 'rising up to heaven.' In the north, Nippur remains the place where his worship acquired the greatest importance, so that Nippur was known as the "land of Bel." The temple sacred to him at that place ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... that he might become the father of twenty sons and twenty daughters, would regard it as a malediction rather than a blessing. It is certain that the time is now rapidly approaching when child-bearing will be regarded rather as a lofty privilege, permissible only to those who have shown their power rightly to train and provide for their offspring, than a labour which in itself, and under whatever conditions performed, is beneficial to society. (The difference between the primitive and modern ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... seated, Mr. Pakenham," said Mr. Tyler, and he gestured also to us others to take chairs near his table. Mr. Pakenham, in rather a lofty fashion, it seemed to me, obeyed the polite request, but scarcely had seated himself ere he again rose with an important clearing of his throat. He was one who never relished the democratic title of "Mr." accorded him by Mr. Tyler, whose plain and simple ways, not much different now ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... travel thither do business with the assistance of seven interpreters in seven languages. So far our knowledge extends. But of the land on the other side of the bald men none can give any trustworthy account because it is shut off by a separating wall of lofty trackless mountains, which no man can cross. But these bald men say—which, however, I do not believe—that men with goat's feet live on the mountains, and on the other side of them other men who sleep six months ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... tide washed with a pleasant rippling sound, and above which there rose the walls of a stately building facing south-west; small as compared with Somerset and Northumberland houses, midway between which it stood, yet a spacious and noble mansion, with a richly decorated river-front, lofty windows with sculptured pediments, floriated cornice, and two side towers topped with leaded cupolas, the whole edifice gilded by the low sun, and very beautiful to look upon, the windows gleaming as if there were a thousand candles burning within, a light that gave a false idea of life ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... denied that there is high virtue in the culture of the mind, when directed to pure and elevated objects, and accustoming itself to travel in lofty paths! The mind cannot attain the necessary refinement, nor have its sight cleared of the film of earthly grossness, unless the heart throws off the dregs of coarser feeling, and keeps its wings afloat on a lighter and airier atmosphere. It may be said, that there ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... loneliness of the grave,—for the church-yard was filled with monuments of a past generation,—the solitude of the ocean, and the busy street. Was she so involved in duties, or in cares, as to be unmindful of all these diverse tongues that told their various story in that lofty and lonely apartment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... does not merely describe their actions from the outside, attributing them arbitrarily to motives which are pretty sure to be the lowest possible, because it is easier to conceive a low motive than a lofty one, and to call a man a villain than to unravel patiently the tangled web of good and evil of which his thoughts are composed. He has attempted to conceive of his characters as he would if they ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley

... a ripe and good one; Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading; Lofty and sour to them that loved him not, But to those men that sought him sweet as summer. 1587 SHAKS.: Henry VIII., Act iv., ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various

... Gilmour was; her example of self-sacrifice in the Master's cause was lofty in itself, and is stimulating to every Christian mind. Yet it is to be greatly feared that the first of these journeys aggravated, if it did not actually develope, the disease from which she ultimately died. She found the ceaseless round of millet and mutton so unpalatable as at the last to be able ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... looked pleased at sight of the comforts that waited them, but a little awed with the great lofty room. Over the face of Franks, notwithstanding his little Serpent of the Prairies had crept away through the long tangled grass of the universe, passed a gleam of joy mingled with gratitude: much was now begun to be set to rights between him and the high government. But the mother was with the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... places before himself these lofty aims has undertaken a task which will call forth all his powers. He must control himself before he can control others; he must know mankind before he can manage them. He has no private likes or dislikes; he does not conceal personal enmity under the disguise of moral ...
— Gorgias • Plato

... "The lofty follower of the sun, Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves, Drooping all night, and, when he warm returns, Points her enamour'd bosom to ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... He did not even wait to put on his hat, and his mother, following with it, found him in the forefront of the crowd that always gathers about the mail coach in a country town, gazing up at the driver, who sat in superb dignity upon his lofty seat, as though he had never beheld so exalted a being ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... only one story high, are constructed of wood, and furnished with large regular window openings in the upper part, which are securely closed by beams, instead of glass. In the interior, the apartments are built very lofty and airy: they have the full height from the level of the ground to the roof, without the interruption of an intermediate arch. The outer walls and beams of the houses are painted with a dark brown oil colour, which gave to the ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... values in selling back to us those my father found he could not spare. In every case these volumes were rare and hard to come by, greatly in demand, 'the pick of the basket,' and so forth. Well, I suppose that is commerce. At the time it seemed to me amply to justify all my father's lofty scorn and hatred for everything in any way connected ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... this time passed out of the drawing-room, and now, ascending three steps, they went through a curtained recess into Angela Sovrani's studio,—a large and lofty apartment made beautiful by the picturesque disorder and charm common to a great artist's surroundings. Here, at a grand piano sat Angela herself, her song finished, her white hands straying idly over the keys,—and near her stood the gentleman whom the Abbe ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... of August, and was detained there three weeks, trying to obtain a better vessel. None being found, the lateen sails of the Pinta were altered into square sails. While here the crews were frightened by seeing flames burst out of the lofty peak of Teneriffe. Shortly after a vessel arrived from Ferro, which reported that three Portuguese caravels were watching to capture the squadron of Columbus, who, suspecting that the King of Portugal had formed a hostile plan in revenge for his having embarked in the ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... right ahead," said Editor Hacker. "This is a democracy, and it is not for us to assume that even the humblest citizen lacks lofty aspirations." ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg

... the soldiery,—that has been noted,—but of the generals. One diarist of the time saw four marshals at Anspach. He sketches Bernadotte as "a very tall dark man with fiery eyes under thick brows." Humble as was his origin, his ambitions were lofty and he was beginning to make ventures on his own account, not for the master who had made him. There was also Mortier, fairly tall, "with a stupid sentinel look"; considering his career, he was probably putting up his mask. There too were "Lefebvre, an ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... brooms. It bears a small pointed leaf of a pleasant smell, and its seed is contained in a berry, about the size of a pea, notched into five equal parts on the top. The soil on the west and south sides of the bay is black mould with a mixture of fine white sand and is very rich. The trees are lofty and large, and the underwood grows so close together that in many places it is impassable. The east side of the bay is a rich loamy soil; but near the tops of the hills is very much encumbered with stones and rocks: the underwood thinly placed and small. The trees on the south, south-east, ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh

... confessed that, amidst the nations of Western Asia, this level was, on the whole, not a very lofty one. Both the Hamitic and Semitic races were, as a rule, of a naturally sensuous disposition; the former being, moreover, distinguished by a very decidedly material turn of mind. The Kushites, of whom ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... do you say to a little ground and lofty tumbling," said Whippleby, winking at the performers, who stood in a circle ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... No lofty ceilings there were seen, No windows clear, or gardens green, Or rooms with neat division. But, in a corner, she could find Of viands, sorted to her ...
— Surprising Stories about the Mouse and Her Sons, and the Funny Pigs. - With Laughable Colored Engravings • Unknown

... yet he dared not follow, for he feared the grave, thoughtful man, in spite of his determination to regard and treat him with lofty disdain. ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... other, still adhering to his image of the mountain of self-knowledge, he makes his famous appeal to the Bible, as the supreme test of truth, the only sure guard that the mystic has against being deluded in his lofty speculations:— ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various

... was awake, and the stillness was awful. It was a place of tombs. And those tombs were haunted by dreams. Away towards the west, the moon lay on the steep-sloping edge of a rugged cloud, appearing to have rolled half-way down from its lofty peak, and about to be launched off its baseless ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... called Fort John, or Laramie. This was a large post having more the air of military construction than the fort at the mouth of the river. It is on the left bank, on a rising ground some twenty-five feet above the water; and its lofty walls, whitewashed and picketed, with the large bastions at the angles, gave it quite an imposing appearance in the uncertain light of evening. A cluster of lodges, which the language told us belonged to Sioux Indians, was pitched under the walls; ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... nuttily complacent, So airy-poised upon thy rubbered feet, The cynosure, no doubt, of all adjacent Regard along that hit of Regent Street, My thanks. In rather less than half a twinkling Thy lofty air and high Olympian gaze Have taught me that of which I had no inkling Throughout ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various

... that of Spain, for example, sending aloft its trophy of Moorish shields and its effigy of the world-seeking Genoese to an elevation of forty-six feet. The Moorish colonnade of the Brazilian pavilion lifts its head in graceful rivalry of the lofty front reared by the other branch of the Iberian race. In so vast an expanse this friendly competition of Spaniards and Portuguese becomes, to the eye, a union of their pretensions; and a single family of thirty-three millions in Europe and America combines to present us with two of the handsomest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... to turn the head of the descendant of the corporals, and this was no difficult matter, since, far from being in a hurry to get back to his village, Orso seemed very happy at Ajaccio, although he knew nobody there. Furthermore, Miss Lydia had a lofty purpose in her mind; it was nothing less than to civilize this mountain bear, and induce him to relinquish the sinister design which had recalled him to his island. Since she had taken the trouble to study the young man, she had told herself it would be a pity to let him rush upon his ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee

... and spreading plains, and many a stately city crowned. If underneath the o'erbearing load bows down his weary head, 't is then The mighty earthquakes are abroad, and shaking down the abodes of men. Around earth's pillar moved they slowly, and thus in humble accents blest Him the lofty and the holy, that bears the region of the East. And southward dug they many a rood, until before their shuddering sight The next earth-bearing elephant stood, huge Mahapadmas' mountain height. Upon ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... this at a distance of ten days' journey there is another hill of salt and spring of water, and men dwell round it. Near this salt hill is a mountain named Atlas, which is small in circuit and rounded on every side; and so exceedingly lofty is it said to be, that it is not possible to see its summits, for clouds never leave them either in the summer or in the winter. This the natives say is the pillar of the heaven. After this mountain these men got their name, for they are called Atlantians; ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... branding, banishment, or even death. It is a common impression that the larger number of colonists were God-fearing people who led upright, blameless lives, and this impression is correct; few nations have ever had so high a percentage of men of lofty ideals. It is natural, therefore, that such people should be most severe in dealing with those who dared to lower the high morality of the new commonwealths dedicated to righteousness. But even the ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... beautiful cemetery to assume a decidedly bright greenish tint, and the trees were beginning to bud. It was in every respect a most typical day. The cemetery lies just south of Greencastle, surrounding a lofty hill within plain view, and but a short distance from the colonial mansion of the Bryan's, where the lovely Pearl was born and had grown to womanhood, from which she had attended the Greencastle school and graduated with the highest honors. It was here in the city of the dead, ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown

... late train. Next morning they drove to Sleagill—a pretty village, with a Norman church tower standing squarely in the midst of lofty trees, and white-washed cottages and ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy

... Edward North Buxton, together with Mr. Croad, the Clerk of the Board. They soon found proof of his great energy, and his power of expressing his views in clear and forcible language; but they also found that with all his strong convictions and lofty ideals he was able and willing to enter into the views of others, and to look at a practical question from its several sides. He could construct as well as criticise. Having entered a public arena somewhat late in life, and being of a sensitive nature, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... is always that about the memories of those far-off young days, their lofty dreams long since scattered, their virgin delights long since lost in the drudgery of earthly experience, which ever and anon seizes the heart unawares and fills it with that infinite weakness: that mourning for the dead and gone past, which ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... talked. I said I was unable to reach the lofty altitude of the Prof when even a fair mystery was concerned. I was more like Oswald with his childish curiosity. How, then, did the young woman open the trunk? Of course, I could guess the answer. She had found she could really ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... of warfare it would have been difficult to imagine—the lofty mountain sides; the long lines of little puffs of smoke, among the brushwood and rocks; the white smoke arising from the trees, in the bottom; the quick, dull bursts of the shells—as a spectacle, it was most striking. The noise was prodigious. The steep ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... willingly have lent it me, or if not, I made up my mind to walk the whole distance, and beg for a crust of bread and a drink of water should there be no other means of obtaining food. My spirits rose as the lofty cliffs of Dover hove in sight, and rounding the North Foreland, we at length, the wind shifting, stood majestically up the Thames. When off the Medway, the wind fell, and the tide being against us, we had to come to an anchor. We had not been there long when ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... two, was lofty enough. He marched to and fro beyond the rail, his heavy shoes flailing down on the hardwood floor. Every morning the bang of those boots started the old pains to thrusting in Mac Tavish's neck. But Officer Rellihan was the mayor's major-domo, officially, and Stewart's pet and protg and worshiping ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... the seed of the son of Arkeisios is not, methinks, utterly hated by the blessed gods, but someone will haply yet remain to possess these lofty halls and the ...
— On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay • Hugh E. Seebohm

... as she had said, in one of those expansive moods when his thoughts were lofty and grand. He opened up his heart and disclosed hopes and ambitions never before suspected by her; and as she listened it became apparent that she, Mary Fortune, was somehow involved in them all. Yet she let him talk on, for his presence was like wine ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... cause for which to work than the peace of righteousness; and high honor is due those serene and lofty souls who with wisdom and courage, with high idealism tempered by sane facing of the actual facts of life, have striven to bring nearer the day when armed strife between nation and nation, between class and class, between man and man shall end throughout the world. Because all this is ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... distance of York from this strong landlady he had (for good reasons of his own) appointed the place of meeting with Sir Duncan Yordas at the rival hostelry, the inn of Thornwick. Widow Precious had a mind of uncommonly large type, so lofty and pure of all petty emotions, that if any one spoke of the Thornwick Inn, even upon her back premises, her dignity stepped in and said, "I can't abide the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... extraordinary production. His lofty indignation retorts on the feeble irony of his antagonist with keen and caustic accusations; and the green strength of youth was still seen in the old man whose head was ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... gazed at its lofty mountains, and geological magnificence, the ancient race of men, who were found here, constituted by far the most curious and thought-inspiring problem. Volcanoes and vast plains and mountains were elements in the geography of the old world, and their occurrence here, soon assimilated ...
— Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... southward as far as the eye can reach. It must have had a very gradual slope, and the waters must have been very shallow; for at that time no great mountains had been uplifted, and deep oceans are always the concomitants of lofty heights. We do not, however, judge of this by inference merely; we have an evidence of the shallowness of the sea in those days in the character of the shells found in the Silurian deposits, which shows that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... interior of the Arcade, similar in its use to the Burlington Arcade, and, although wider and more lofty, including three stories in height, it is not so long. The passage forms an acute angle with the Strand, running to the back of St. Martin's Church, and is divided by large pilasters into a succession of compartments; the pilasters are joined by an arch; and the compartments are domed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various

... hanging garlands of various climbing vegetables, both shrubs and plants. One of these had white flowers, each as big as a small funnel, the tube five or six inches in length, and not thicker than a tobacco-pipe. It was curious to observe the wild squash, (a species of cucurbita,) which grew upon the lofty limbs of the trees: its yellow fruit, somewhat of the size and shape of a large orange, pendant over the water. In some parts there were steep cliffs on each side of the river. During the middle of the day the weather was so intensely ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... embodying the results of years of travel and research, entirely revolutionize all our theories as to the geographical and physical character of Central Africa. Instead of lofty mountains and sandy deserts, we have a wide basin, or rather series of basins, with lakes and great rivers, and a soil fertile even when compared with the abounding exuberance of our own Western valleys ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... under a splendid porte-cochere and ushered by numerous flunkies into the presence of the Countess. She received me in a tremendous room with a lofty ceiling, and in a preliminary talk of an hour she took off the first keen edge of ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... Marius has discovered that Jean Valjean is not his murderer, but his savior; that he has, at imminent peril of his life, through the long, oozy quagmire of the sewer, with his giant strength, borne him across the city, saved him; and now, too late, Marius began to see in Jean Valjean "a strangely lofty and saddened form," and has come to take this great heart home. But God will do that himself. Jean Valjean is dying. He looks at Cossette as if he would take a look which would endure through eternity, kisses a fold of her garment, and half articulates, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... they used a sort of small kettle-drum, with a guitar-like handle to it. But after a while, the evening dances seemed to vary from the devotional to the complimentary and to the diverting; but the daylight ones were altogether devotional. Apotheola led one of the less lofty order, and he is one of the most popular and respected of their chiefs. Its music seemed to consist of an exclamation from him of Yo, ho, ho! yo, ho, ho!—to which the response appeared as if complimentary, and to contain only the animated and measured ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the Invalides, and seized 28,000 stand of arms and some cannon. At the other extremity of Paris the ancient fortress of the Bastille towered over the workmen's quarter and commanded the city. Whenever the guns thundered from its lofty battlements, resistance would be over, and the conquered ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... been imbued with memories of the old wars. A few miles from his father's domain rose the Castle of the Isle, which, in the middle of the sixteenth century, Zringi had defended against the Turks, displaying lofty courage and unconquerable audacity, and forcing Soliman the Magnificent to leave thirty thousand soldiers beneath the walls, the Sultan himself dying before he could subjugate the Hungarian. Often had Andras's father, casting his son upon a horse, set out, followed by a train ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... and moved away then, looking—from the smooth deck of the 'Dream' shadowed by her full white sails out to the peaks of the majestic hills whose picturesque beauties are sung in the wild strains of Ossian, and the projecting crags, deep hollows and lofty pinnacles outlining the coast with its numerous waterfalls, lochs and shadowy creeks. A thin and delicate haze of mist hung over the land like a pale violet veil through which the sun shot beams of rose and gold, giving a vaporous unsubstantial effect to the scenery as though it were gliding ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... vehemently, with a vexed expression of countenance, while Violet bent over and kissed her. Captain Winstanley swayed himself slowly backwards and forwards upon the heels of his boots, and whistled to himself sotto voce, with his eyes fixed upon some lofty region of empty air. He vouchsafed not the faintest notice of ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon

... the whole matter had been originally made up between these two, with no very spontaneous inclination on the part of the bride. (1) Knox's idea of marriage, as I have said, was not the same for all men; but on the whole, it was not lofty. We have a curious letter of his, written at the request of Queen Mary, to the Earl of Argyle, on very delicate household matters; which, as he tells us, "was not well accepted of the said Earl." (2) We may suppose, however, that his own home was regulated in a similar spirit. I can ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... such complications. The intriguer came forward promptly, and, receiving the Caulaincourt despatches, together with a verbal explanation from the Emperor, was quickly in readiness for the duty of counselor, to which he was called. Napoleon himself assumed a lofty tone. On August fifteenth he held a levee at St. Cloud to which all the representatives of foreign powers were summoned; those of Russia and Austria stood near together. Again, as on the famous occasion before the rupture of the peace of Amiens, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... you seek," said she, and again she broke the silence like the moon breaking through the clouds, "what manner of maid is she? For a maid abides in this wood, maybe it is she whom you seek. Is she but a lovely face you seek? Is she but a lofty mind? Is ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... the communion table there stood a curious piece of stone-work, admired much by strangers and travellers: a stately skreen it was, well wrought, painted and gilt, which rose up as high almost as the roof of the church, in a row of three lofty spires, with other lesser spires growing out of each of them. This now had no imagery work upon it, or any thing else that might justly give offence, and yet because it bore the name of the high altar,[20] was pulled all down with ropes, lay'd low ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips

... to have lofty principles ready at hand! The fresco painter must have a sure touch, and a quick hand, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... for all, walk round to the other side and take a header a la hussarde off those lofty bulwarks, and kill myself for good and all? Alas! I should only blur the dream, and perhaps even wake in my miserable strait-waistcoat. And I wanted to see the mare once ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... reed matting (see "Matting"), which forms a dwelling impervious to rain. Some of the chiefs' huts are as much as 40 feet long, and 12 high; the other huts are considerably smaller. Many of these reed dwellings are contained in compounds enclosed by lofty reed fences; the reeds being planted upright, and simply strung together by a thread run through them, as they stand side by side. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... teeming with life. The roadway itself is swarming with pedestrians, trudging along in both directions; some there are with the inevitable umbrellas held above their heads, but more are carrying them under their arms, as though in lofty contempt of 130 ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... the accomplishment of the deed, and consists in not failing to accomplish what one has confidently begun. In this respect Tully mentions magnificence, which he describes as being "the discussion and administration," i.e. accomplishment "of great and lofty undertakings, with a certain broad and noble purpose of mind," so as to combine execution with greatness of purpose. Accordingly if these two be confined to the proper matter of fortitude, namely to dangers of death, they will be ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... flattering proposal of Lord Byron to prefix my name to the very grand and tremendous drama of 'Cain.'[*] I may be partial to it, and you will allow I have cause; but I do not know that his Muse has ever taken so lofty a flight amid her former soarings. He has certainly matched Milton on his own ground. Some part of the language is bold, and may shock one class of readers, whose line will be adopted by others out of affectation or envy. But then they must condemn the 'Paradise Lost,' if they have ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... the form of beauty itself. One of Blopstock's remarkable psalms begins: "Moons wander round the earth, earths round suns, the whole host of suns wander round a greater sun, Our Father, that art thou.'' In this inexpressibly lofty verse there is essentially, and only in an extremely intensified fashion, evidence of the existence of God, and if the convinced atheist should read this verse he would, at least for the moment, believe in his existence. At the same time, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... exterior of the splendid mansion had challenged the admiration of the guests, the interior presented a scene of Oriental magnificence which might have astonished even the Count of Monte Cristo. The party were conducted to the grand and lofty apartment where the Nautch was to be given. Immense mirrors reflected the brilliancy of a thousand lights; the floor was covered with the richest of carpets, the luxurious divans and sofas were overspread with the cloths of Cashmere; the elaborate richness of the costumes of the Oriental ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... the acacia in delicacy of white, or in profusion of blossoming. Nodding their heavy plumes and parting their leafy tresses in the breeze, they are the charm of every spot where they grow; whether as here, alternating in beautiful relief by the lofty wall of the aqueduct, commingling their snowy bunches amidst thousands of red and white Banksian roses; or else standing sentinel with a weeping willow over some garden fountain. Whether alone or in company, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... aloud for them, and he suited his action to his sentences. Had Rosamund been accustomed to leading articles which are the composition of men of an imposing vocabulary, she would have recognized and as good as read one in Cecil's gestures as he tilted his lofty stature forward and back, marking his commas and semicolons with flapping of his elbows, and all but doubling his body at his periods. Mr. Romfrey had enough of it half-way down the column; his head went sharply to left and right. Cecil's peculiar foppish slicing down of his hand pictured him protesting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of orthodoxy as Bishop Mant and Dr. Faussett straightway took the field, and with such effect that the Family Library, a very valuable series in which Milman's history appeared, was put under the ban, and its further publication stopped. For years Milman, though a man of exquisite literary and lofty historical gifts, as well as of most honourable character, was debarred from preferment and outstripped by ecclesiastics vastly inferior to him in everything save worldly wisdom; for years he was passed in the race for honours by divines who ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... Divinity. One will shew us the sun, the moon, or the stars; the other will shew us the sea, the lakes, the rivers, which furnish him his subsistence, the trees which afford him an asylum against the inclemency of the weather; another will shew us a rock of an odd form; a lofty mountain; or a volcano that frequently astonishes him by its emission of lava; another will present you with his crocodile, whose malignity he fears; his dangerous serpent, the reptile to which he attributes his good or bad fortune. In short, each individual will make you behold his phantasm or his ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... stood upon a wooded hill. Except directly in front, trees of great height surrounded it. The tips of their branches brushed the windows; interlacing, they continued until they overhung the wall of the estate. Where it ran with the road the wall gave way to a lofty gate and iron fence, through which those passing could see a stretch of noble turf, as wide as a polo-field, borders of flowers disappearing under the shadows of the trees; and the chateau itself, with its terrace, its many windows, its high-pitched, sloping roof, ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis

... my tribe, of the nature of his mission? Why should he, whose totem-fathers live about Shaugawaumekong (La Pointe), be, at his own will, made the representative of the ancient band of the red men whose totem is the lofty Crane? Say, father? Father, we ask you to know; we ask of you to tell why this strange man has so strangely gone to smoke with the great chief of ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... The lofty table-lands of the Andes were also the seat of an advanced Indian culture. At the time of the Spanish conquest the greater part of what is now Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile had come under the sway of the Incas, the "people of the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... his words with care. We naturally become profoundly interested, expectant, and, to the limit of our powers, critical. If a man has seen one thing that he can call simply and finally the desire of his heart, it ought to be worth looking at. We expect something large, lofty, inclusive. And we find this: 'That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.' Let us examine this desire, And, first of all, we must free our minds from mere literalism. If we do not, ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth

... and blew smoke out of their mouths and through their nostrils. Their power was such that they commanded thunder and lightning (discharge of artillery), and that at meal times they sat down at a clothed table. From their lofty port, their bearded faces, and rich attire, they might have been the very gods manifesting themselves to the natives; so the Prince thought it wise to accept the friendly overtures of such marvellous strangers. Besides obtaining ample ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... the party leave the hills, now gorgeous in their autumnal brilliancy, the rocky roads, and the swiftly running streams of the up-country, and enter the lonely region where the great turpentine trees rear their lofty crests, and interminable sandy roads stretch away into dimness between columns of stately pines whose lofty tops make solemn ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... I resigned myself to the will of God. Not knowing what to do, I climbed up to the top of a lofty tree, from whence I looked about on all sides, to see if I could discover any thing that could give me hopes. When I gazed towards the sea I could see nothing but sky and water; but looking over the land I beheld something white; and coming down, I took what provision I had left, and went ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... that I could of the enemy, I clambered up a lofty tree which stands just without the town. From this post, by the aid of a glass, I was able to make out their lines and camp. Whilst I was gazing I chanced to observe a man slinking along under cover of the birch-trees half-way between ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... boxes that she carried. The wool and hair were floated in to the shore, and there Mielikki, wife of the forest-god, found them and joined the wool and hair together by magic spells. Then she laid the bundle in a birch-bark basket and bound it in the top of the lofty pine, and there the young bear was ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind

... lofty rock, watching the movements of a Hare whom he sought to make his prey. An archer, who saw the Eagle from a place of concealment, took an accurate aim and wounded him mortally. The Eagle gave one look at the arrow that had entered his heart ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... in some measure like a gentleman. For this he had been rewarded by a decrease in the rate of his spiritual submergence, but his bedraggled nature could no longer walk without treading on its own plumes; and the poor lady who had bartered herself for a lofty alliance, speedily found her mistake a sad one and her life uninteresting, took to repining and tears, alienated her husband utterly, and died of a sorrow almost too selfish to afford even a suggestion of purifying efficacy. But Florimel had not inherited immediately from her mother, so far ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... graven plates. The handsomest helmet worn by any regiment in Europe, is that of the old gardes du corps of Charles X., the same as that now worn by the gardes municipaux a cheval in Paris; a metal helm with leopard-skin visir; a lofty crest, with a horse-tail streaming down the back, and a high red and white feather rising from the left side. Beauty of natural form, the sharp contrast of flowing lines between the feather and the tailed crest, and the general brilliancy of colour, render this by far ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... I presumed nothing upon the great admission she had so gravely made. This was a woman to be worshiped rather than wooed. I told her all the story of my life. I described my home in that strange, wild, ancient, lofty land; my mother, my brothers; the wide, old, roomy house; the trees, the flowers, the ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... process, but the influences which sway courts are obscurer,—often, probably, beyond the sphere of the consciousness of the judges themselves. Nor is this the worst; for, as I have already explained, the very constitution of a court, if it be a court calculated to do its legitimate work upon a lofty level, precludes it from keeping pace with the movement in science and the arts. Necessarily it lags some years behind. And this tendency, which is a benefit in the dispensation of justice as between private litigants, becomes a menace when courts are involved in politics. A long line of ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... saw important changes in our literature. The last of the great nineteenth century poets were vanishing from the literary scene, their places being taken by others, whose poetry, though hardly as profound and lofty in conception, was more lyrical and simple in manner, with greater delicacy and refinement of form. Especially in the prose-writing of the period, there were signs of flourishing growth. Gunnar Gunnarsson wrote The Church ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... "I certainly admire those lofty sentiments of yours. I admit they are maybe what ought to be. But the way I see it they just don't fit the facts. Out here the Federation space fleet is supposed to be the big stick. Only right now it's off playing mumbly-peg ...
— This One Problem • M. C. Pease

... the street takes a slight bend; and immediately before you, you see it spanned by the lofty crumbled arch of St. Andrew's Gate, with its two mighty towers one on each side. Just as you see it you are at Columbus's house. The number is thirty-seven; it is like any of the other houses, tall and narrow; and there is a slab built into ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... elevated and wooded island was discovered by the ship Barwell in 1798; it was afterwards (1810) visited by the French navigators, who called it by the native name Tucopia. On the S.W. side of the island is a wooded, picturesque valley, surrounded by lofty mountains, and containing a small but well-inhabited village. Two singularly isolated basaltic rocks, of some elevation, partially bare, but at parts covered by shrubs, rise from about the centre of the valley. When close ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various

... for Boys, that not only contain considerable information concerning cowboy life, but at the same time seem to breathe the adventurous spirit that lives in the clear air of the wide plains, and lofty mountain ranges of the Wild West. These tales are written in a vein calculated to delight the heart of every lad who loves to read of pleasing adventure in the open; yet at the same time the most careful parent need not hesitate to place ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... controls once more and there was a quick shift to another coast, a rugged, wave-beaten shore. Closer they drew until they observed a lofty palisade that extended for miles along the barren waterfront. They saw a fire atop this elevation and active men and women at various tasks within the narrow circle of its warmth. A cave mouth opened at the brink of the precipice near ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... can exalt this tiny seedling to the impressiveness of spreading noontime shade; can magnify yonder apparent duplicate to the full symmetry of a shrub; can ruthlessly diminish the present importance of certain grand and lofty growths to its true status of flower or animal. So from a dead uniformity of size he casts forward in the years to a pleasing variation of shade, of jungle, of open glade, of flowered vista; and he goes away full of expert admiration for "X.'s bully garden." With this ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... "These are two forelands, well known to sailors, nigh twenty miles asunder, and the proverb passeth for the periphrasis of an impossibility." The Head, which is nearly insular, has a chapel dedicated to St. Michael on its summit. St. Michael was widely claimed as a patron of lofty and exposed places (such as the two St. Michael's Mounts); it was considered his especial function to disperse and set at naught all evil forces of tempest and thunderstorm. Rame Church, dating from the thirteenth ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... beer-brewer Pschorr; his works have always fetched large prices—his publishers have paid him as much as a thousand dollars for a single song; and he has always been able to earn great sums by conducting. No matter how lofty and severe his art might have become, he would always have been able to live as he chose. There is no doubt that he would have earned quite as much money with "Salome" and "Der Rosenkavalier" had they been works of high, artistic merit as he ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... with wide, feverish eyes. From an out-jutting point of rock on the lofty rim he saw a tiny white dot waving to and fro against the blue-black sky. The watchers above had seen the flash of the revolver shots and were fluttering the white flag in responsive signal. Though on the world ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... after an eighteen months' voyage. It was in the dock in Dundee, where we had brought a full cargo of jute from Calcutta. We had been paid off that morning, and I had come on board to take my sea-chest away and to say good-bye. In his slightly lofty but courteous way he inquired what were my plans. I replied that I intended leaving for London by the afternoon train, and thought of going up for examination to get my master's certificate. I had just ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... the deacon, putting on a lofty air, "you're a good man to do business with; you're a respectable citizen, except that you sell rum. But there's some things you can't understand, and it's no use for me to waste time talking to you about them. If your mind was clearer, if it had been enlightened in the true way, you would ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton

... a family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so spacious that it contained many thousand inhabitants. Some of these good people dwelt in log huts, with the black forest all around them, on the steep and difficult hillsides. Others had their homes in comfortable farmhouses, and cultivated the rich soil ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... soldiers. And how far their influence went to mollify public sentiment concerning them, will be considered in its appropriate place. Suffice it now to say, that cruel and hurtful, unjust and immoral, as the institution of slavery was, it had not robbed the Negro of a lofty conception of the fundamental principles that inspired white men to resist the arrogance of England; nor did it impair his enthusiasm in the cause that gave birth to a new republic amid the shock ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... deck of the Ajax was one of surpassing beauty and interest. The bright moonbeams rested on the waters, and left a silvery track upon the waves. Ahead and astern, the lofty masts of the squadron tapered darkly towards the sky, whilst the outline of every rope and spar was sharply defined against the clear blue vault of heaven. Every man in the ship, from the commander to the youngest boy, could feel and understand ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... himself was a grey-headed man, of lofty stature and majestic bearing. His eldest son was older than he had been himself when he became the little Duke, and he had even begun to remember his father's project, of an old age to be spent in retirement ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge

... suspicion falling on herself. Her youth and inexperience, borne upward on the lofty wings of sacrifice, had not foreseen the damning significance which might gather round her secret visit to Flint House and her subsequent disappearance. Not even when she heard of her father's death had the folly of her contemplated action dawned on her. Her dreamy unpractical temperament, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... almost imperceptible draught of warm, damp air that came creeping out from the northward. So light was the breeze that it scarcely wrinkled the glassy smoothness of the long undulations upon which the brig rocked and swayed heavily while her lofty trucks described wide arcs across the paling sky overhead, from which the stars were vanishing one after another before the advance of the pallid dawn. And at every lee roll her canvas flapped with a rattle as of a volley of musketry to the masts, ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... head of the column emerged into open air it found itself on a small table-land, flanked on the left by the Garry, and on the right by a tier of low hills sparely dotted with dwarf trees and underwood. Above these hills to the north and east rose the lofty chain of the Grampians crowned by the towering peaks of Ben Gloe and Ben Vrackie. In front the valley gradually opened out towards Blair Castle, about three miles distant, and along this valley Mackay naturally ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris

... leaves—the boys were still there, and seemed to have half possession of the place. Overhead green paroquets screamed, flying to and fro between carved teak foliage and the green palm tops. The interior of the building was all gilded wood—a marvel of carpentry; there were lofty golden teak tree pillars and gilded door panels with gilded figures in relief, and yellow buff cane mats on the floor. Light only came in through doorways and chinks in the woodwork in long shafts, but such light! ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... displays To copy all Great Britain's courtly ways. Though lofty aims catastrophe entail, We'll gloriously succeed ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... principle of literary liberty, already understood by the thinking and reading world, is not less completely adopted by that immense crowd, eager for the pure emotions of art, that throngs the theatres of Paris every night. That lofty and puissant voice of the people, which is like that of God, writes that poetry henceforth shall have the same matter as ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... by sweeps of steps. On either side are large bronze panels, bearing groups of figures. One of these will be a symbolic design showing the spirit of the people descending to lay offerings on woman's altar. Lofty pillars crowned by figures representing Victory, are to be placed at the approaches. Surmounting the arch will be the chief group of the composition, symbolizing Woman Glorified. She is rising from her throne to greet War and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various



Words linked to "Lofty" :   high, impressive, majestic, noble, loftiness, soaring



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com