"Light-hearted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the field." So he remained at the castle and took a walk with Mr. Emilius. Mr. Emilius asked a good many questions about Portray, and exhibited the warmest sympathy with Lizzie's widowed condition. He called her a "sweet, gay, unsophisticated, light-hearted young thing." "She is very young," replied her cousin. "Yes," he continued, in answer to further questions; "Portray is certainly very nice. I don't know what the income is. Well; yes. I should think it is over a thousand. Eight! No, I never ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... to report to General Custer for duty. It was my first personal interview with the great cavalryman. He was at his headquarters, in the woods, taking life in as light-hearted a way as though he had not just come out of a fight, and did not expect others to come right along. He acted like a man who made a business of his profession; who went about the work of fighting battles and winning victories, as a railroad superintendent goes about the ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... the mind of a hard and stern man engaged in an arduous and disappointing task. The new lieutenant had no military experience, he was the scion of a ruined patrician family, and, if the gossip of Rome were true, his previous life suggested the light-hearted adventurer rather than the student of politics or war. In his early youth he seemed destined to continue the later traditions of his family—those of an unaspiring temper or a careless indolence, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... fact, a young man of an old family; but he had been unsuccessful in his studies, and had lost his father and mother. He was naturally light-hearted and magnanimous; not particular in minor matters; immoderately fond of spear-exercise and fencing, of gambling and boozing; even going to such excesses as spending his nights in houses of easy virtue; playing the fife, thrumming the harp, and going in for everything and anything. Being ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... complication of papers, books, bottles, and rubbish spread out thereon—remnants from the household stores of the late occupier. Liddy, the maltster's great-granddaughter, was about Bathsheba's equal in age, and her face was a prominent advertisement of the light-hearted English country girl. The beauty her features might have lacked in form was amply made up for by perfection of hue, which at this winter-time was the softened ruddiness on a surface of high rotundity that we meet with in a Terburg or a Gerard Douw; and, like the presentations ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... rich table—a reasonable dole—to patch up the ragged edges of their frayed fortunes. Then she would not be oppressed with the sense of shame, this weight of riches she shrank from using. She had murdered her own happiness; she had killed her own youth. Never again could she know the joyousness of light-hearted girlhood, while nothing the world might give her could atone for the terrible trespass which had broken the harmony of her moral nature by the perpetual sense of unatoned wrong-doing. How she wished she had never come to Castleford! True, her seeing Mr. Errington did ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... should never see blackened ashes on a cheek which was only fitted for the red paint. The shield of the Fire Eater should never face to the lance—the little brown bat flapped fiercely in the wind and screamed for blood and scalp braids. The warrior traveled lazily on his journey—light-hearted and fiercely resolved. ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... He had nothing to spend in the fair; still less, anything left over. But he remembered that he was out of debt,—that Meredith, would twit him no more,—and he began to whistle, so light-hearted, that no amount of money could have made him happier. He only left off whistling to thank Hugh earnestly for having persuaded him to open his heart to ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... in his young eyes; but when he saw Mortimer throw open the office door, humming a light-hearted air, he rubbed his eyelids with the sleeve of his dusty coat, as if it were a question in his mind whether or not he ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... but slowly and listlessly. The people seemed as cheerful and light-hearted as ever. The volcano was one of their crosses, and they bore it patiently. The theatres would remain closed for some weeks to come, but the great Museo Nationale was open, and Uncle John and his nieces were much interested in the bronze and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... does the advance of age cast a shadow over my mind; in most matters it is a pure gain. Even though a certain peculiar quality of light-hearted happiness visits me more rarely—a happiness like that of a lark that soars, beats her wings, and trills in the blue sky—yet the loss is more than compensated for by the growth of an equable tranquillity, neither rapturous nor sad, which abides ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... 6,000l. Moore lived, more or less, all his days from hand to mouth, and Lord John Russell, who was always ready in a quiet fashion, in Kingsley's phrase, to help lame dogs over stiles, frequently displayed towards the light-hearted poet throughout their long friendship delicate and generous kindness. He it was who, in conjunction with Lord Lansdowne, obtained for Moore in 1835 a pension of 300l. a year, and announced the fact as one which was 'due from any Government, but much more from one some ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... heartily, in this particular, that they could hardly conceal their real feelings from Bill Harmon. Nothing could so have accorded with their secret desires as the "fool changes" made by the "crazy Hamilton boys"; light-hearted, irresponsible, and frivolous changes that could never have been compassed by the Careys' slender income. They had no money to purchase horse or cow or pig, and no man in the family to take care of them if purchased; so the ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... more earnest endeavor. Has he toiled the summer long, endured every privation, encountered inconceivable perils, only to find himself at its close poorer than when he began? Reluctantly he leaves the mountain-side where the drifting snows have begun to gather, but seemingly as light-hearted as when he came, for his unshaken hope bridges the winter and feeds upon the limitless possibilities of the future. Full of wonderful stories are these same hope-sustained prospectors—tales that are bright with the glitter of silver and gold. Not a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... severe battles afterwards to be known as the Seven Days. His calm and collected action had been of the very character to inspire that confidence, and could not have wrought more effectually to that end had it had no other purpose. Some men, jubilant and light-hearted when all their plans are progressing favorably, permit their words to become few and their manner sombre and abstracted when difficulties thicken, creating fear and distrust in the minds of those around them, even when they themselves have not lost confidence and are only ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... the rosy dawn. . . . . I shall leave you here, with a leader fair; One gentle, with faith and fear of her worth. She shall lead you on through that Italy That the gods have loved; and may it be A light-hearted hour that, hand in hand, You wander the warm and ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... is Pearlie," said Mrs. Watson, as she beat up the bread-batter downstairs, "she's that light-hearted and free from care, and her eighteen years old. She's like somethin' that don't belong on earth, with her two big eyes shinin' like lamps, and the way she sings through the house, settin' the table or scourin' the milk pails ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... an animated conversation about many subjects not connected with the siege of Ladysmith. Now, the major has a remarkably youthful appearance, and when he chooses to assume the devil-may-care manner of a light-hearted subaltern, it fits him easily. Moreover, his shoulder-chains bore no distinctive badge of rank. There was nothing, in fact, to show that he was anything more than a cavalry lieutenant, whom no sense of responsibility oppressed. ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... They were absurdly light-hearted, as they started on their little jaunt. Lady Kelsey had slipped a couple of banknotes into George's hand and told them to have a good time. They dined at the Carlton, went to a musical comedy, which amused Lucy because her ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... more than one romp by the way, one quite as light-hearted and irresponsible as the other; though behind Patricia lay more than one neglected task, and before her companion stretched a ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... off, and I thought it 'ud be a good thing for Lovedy. Besides, I had a real fancy for him; so I promised. I never even guessed as my girl 'ud mind, and I went home to our one shabby little room, quite light-hearted like, to tell her. But oh, Cecile, I little knew my Lovedy! Though I had reared her I did not know her nature. My news seemed to change her ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... the country, and the prospect now growing more and more portentous of an immediate rupture with Rome. On my way I passed through streets of more than Roman magnificence, exhibiting all the signs of wealth, taste, refinement, and luxury. The happy, light-hearted populace were moving through them, enjoying at their leisure the calm beauty of the evening, or hastening to or from some place of festivity. The earnest tone of conversation, the loud laugh, the witty retort, the merry jest, fell upon my ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... you find but little satisfaction in your amusements and gaiety; for whilst you appear to enter into them in a light-hearted manner, you ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... shows with what light-hearted frivolity he could approach this tremendous subject ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... demeanor, a calm self-possession, a deliberate balance of mind, and a repose of the emotional nature, which he had never before observed, except in much older women. She had had, as he could well imagine, no romping girlhood, no season of careless, light-hearted dalliance with opening life, no violent alternation even of the usual griefs and joys of youth. The social calm in which she had expanded had developed her nature as gently and securely as a sea-flower is unfolded below the reach of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... impossible to hold aloof from such light-hearted merry-making, and Mordaunt went with the tide. Perhaps instinct warned him that it was the surest way to overcome that barrier of shyness, unacknowledged but none the less existent, that kept him still a stranger to his little fiancee's confidence. Her dainty daring notwithstanding, ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... into the buggy without speaking, though the clinging touch of her hand thrilled him. He had known her as a light-hearted girl, full of frolicsome impulses and mischievous tricks, and had loved her with a passion that kept her ever before him. He had seen her when that love-lit image had been veiled by the gloom of seeming disillusion. He had seen her striving to sacrifice herself in order to shield the man who had ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... was a docile child, sunny and sweet-tempered, and that very pliancy of nature was what caused the nun many a moment of uneasiness. What would become of her once she had left the shelter of her convent home and was exposed to the influence of the light-hearted, merry, soulless mother from whom she had inherited her beauty; the mother whose only god was pleasure, whose one ambition was to be the best dressed, the most popular, the most envied woman in her set. The only hope lay in keeping ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... that Tamihana Tarapipipi who appeared before us in an earlier chapter. From the light-hearted youthfulness of the "bonnet" episode, this young son of the great Waharoa had passed into a grave and thoughtful manhood. After his father's death, his ability had led to his being elected chief instead of his elder brother. Together with a strong desire for knowledge there was ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... the whole party; but amidst the unceasing torrent of words, little could be distinguished, save when the ear was saluted with an outburst of nature's universal and unvaried language in the shape of a light-hearted laugh. By and by, my attention became directed, by an occasional shout of merriment, to a group of Seedies clustered round a fire near me. Negroes in this country are much the same as in other parts of the World—a happy, easily-contented ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... operas, confiding, affectionate, and happy. "The sight of all these beings again restored to the sweet sentiments of primitive brotherhood is an exquisite delight almost too great for the soul to support," and the Frenchman, more light-hearted and far more childlike than he is to-day, gives himself up unrestrainedly to his social, sympathetic, and generous instincts. Whatever the imagination of the day offers him to increase his emotions, all the classical, rhetorical, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... waiting to be dragged forth to the light of day and despatched by a blow on the head. It was to the honey-laden blossoms of this tree that the noisy cockatoos and parrots used to flock. Let the kangaroo be wary and waterfowl shy, but whilst he had his beloved gum-tree, little cared the light-hearted black." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... The cadets would come in the evenings to look at it; that colossus of pink flesh, bearing the child on its shoulders, advancing its angular legs carefully through the waters, leaning on a palm tree that looked like a broom, was for them by far the most noticeable thing in the church. The light-hearted young men delighted in measuring its ankles with their swords and afterwards calculating how many swords high the blessed giant could be. It was the readiest application that they could make of those mathematical calculations with which they were so much worried in the academy. ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... The thought was predominant, and he let it sway him with a selfish disregard to other influences. Everything had changed during his twenty years of absence; and the strangeness broke in upon him as if in condemnation. Here again was the chattering, light-hearted throng, and their presence only added additional pangs. Not a familiar face to greet him. Even the fields and woodlands had a different aspect. All the success of the past decade, which had given wealth and a recognized place in the world ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... grander than ever, its walks unchanged. Soft-hearted Baracconi, in love with those times more than with the Middle Age, speaks half tenderly of the people who used to meet there, calling them collectively a gay and light-hearted society, gentle, idle, full of graceful thoughts and delicate perceptions, brilliant reflections and light charms; he regrets the gilded chairs, the huge built-up wigs, the small sword of the 'cavalier servente,' and the abbe's silk mantle, the semi-platonic friendships, the jests ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... scared the Monkey till he fled. That holy mark of sanguine ore That gleamed on Sita's brow before, Shone by that close embrace impressed Upon the hero's ample chest. Then Sita, when the beast who led The monkey troop, afar had fled, Laughed loudly in light-hearted glee That mark on Rama's chest to see. A clump of bright Asokas fired The forest in their bloom attired: The restless blossoms as they gleamed A host of threatening monkeys seemed. Then Sita thus to Rama cried, As longingly the flowers she eyed: "Pride of ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... surprises, then Tristan und Isolde may be called the most dramatic of Wagner's works. In the first act we had the picture of a woman of volcanic temperament goaded to fury by cruelty and insult; in the second we have the same woman gentle, light-hearted, caressing, with nothing left of her past self except the irresistible force of her will. Isolde is not restrained by any scruples about honour, nor need she have any; in full possession of the man she loves, she can abandon herself to the moment. The music almost shows ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... a party rode out from Cedar Mountain to see the Indian camp; and, leading the light-hearted procession, were Belle Boyd on her pony and the Preacher on Blazing Star. It was not easy to see Red Cloud. He was much wrapped up in his dignity and declined to receive any one under the rank of "Soldier High Chief" (Colonel). But they found much to interest them in the Sioux camp, and ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Mrs. Caryll, and by her tone Rosamond felt satisfied that her aunt was quite pleased with her, and it was a very contented and light-hearted Miss Mouse who fell asleep that evening at Caryll after her usual pleasant half-hour or so with her ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... artist walked past them hurriedly, moved to leave all the ferment and agitation behind him. If he had thought to forget his sorrows among the light-hearted revel of those that did not ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Compere Martin was welcomed by a legion of women, children, and mongrel curs; and, as poverty and gayety generally go hand in hand among the French and their descendants, the crazy mansion soon resounded with loud gossip and light-hearted laughter. ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... Vienna. They paraded through the streets, and were greeted by Emperor Ferdinand in person. He consented to everything and issued an imperial rescript, promising a liberal constitution to the rest of Austria as well. The light-hearted Viennese indulged in indescribable jubilations. On March 18, the Emperor drove through the city. Somebody put a revolutionary banner into his hands. The black, red and gold ensign of united Germany was hoisted over the tower of St. Stephen. In an intoxication of joy ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... the path again, almost light-hearted in her relief from that vague terror which had held her for the past hour. From the corral Sorry and Jim came walking up the path to meet the wagon which was making straight for the bunk-house instead of going first ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... place was forgotten by all then, and never was such a shout of laughter heard before within those walls. But Fred could not join in it, to save him. He had too lately stood in the place of an individual bearing quite too many opprobrious epithets, to feel very light-hearted. ...
— Edna's Sacrifice and Other Stories - Edna's Sacrifice; Who Was the Thief?; The Ghost; The Two Brothers; and What He Left • Frances Henshaw Baden
... and the approaching downfall of the slaveholders. The theatres were filled with delighted audiences, who hailed every scoffing allusion to the "Southern chivalry" with enthusiasm, and gaiety and confidence reigned supreme. Little dreamt the light-hearted multitude that, in the silent woods of the Luray Valley, a Confederate army lay asleep beneath the stars. Little dreamt Lincoln, or Banks, or Stanton, that not more than seventy miles from Washington, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... trusted. "If I read you aright, Captain Ellerey," she said, with a radiant smile, "it is not your nature to be frivolous, to catch pleasure as it flies and play with it while the bubble lasts; yet must you school yourself to do so. The light-hearted cavalier and careless lover will not be suspected of any deep design, and it would be well that that should seem your character at Court. More easily will you keep the nearer to our person, for love of pleasure and the gratification of the moment is thought to ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... humiliations and disasters. That did not prevent her supping with a wonderful appetite and joyously holding her own under Delobelle's jocose remarks concerning her vocation and her future triumphs. She felt light-hearted and happy, fairly embarked for the land of Bohemia, her true country. What more would happen to her? Of how many ups and downs was her new, unforeseen, and whimsical existence to consist? She thought about that as she fell asleep in Desiree's great easy-chair; but she ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... symposium. He trod the Agora and walked under the porticos where he had lounged in the golden evenings after the brisk stroll from the wrestling ground at Cynosarges, and had chatted and chaffered with light-hearted friends about "the war" and "the king," in the days when the Persian seemed very far away. Last of all an instinct—he could not call it desire—drove him to seek the house ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... tragedy, yet in no soul was there the least feeling of exultation. The fate of the victims was too awful, too sudden for anyone to feel aught but horror at the thought of it, and deep sorrow for one at least who had perished in his sins. The light-hearted lawyer took one look at the remains of him, whom, within the past few days, he had seen so often in the full enjoyment of life and health, and resolved that never again, in prose or verse, would he speak of the person, whose crimes and cunning had returned so avengingly upon his own head, as ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... But before she left him she darted to the side of a trusty warrior and gave a passionate command, then started swiftly back on the long wood path leading to Werewocomoco. The next night no one could make her laugh or join in the dances around the big fire, nor did she show any likeness to the light-hearted, romping, singing little tomboy, ringleader among her playmates. Pocahontas had lost a comrade, and her childish heart was sore at the loss. But when the warriors returned from Jamestown she became merry and ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... making his way back to the Pontiac with that light-hearted optimism that had characterized his parting with Sleight. It was this quality of his nature, fostered perhaps by the easy civilization in which he moved, that had originally drawn him into relations with the man he had just quitted; a quality that had been troubled and darkened by those ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... north. The pursuits of peace and of simple patriarchal lives, notwithstanding the fact of much in connection therewith that is wretched, and forbidding to a civilized man, seem to beget in these people a degree of domestic tranquility and contentment which, united to their light-hearted and cheery disposition, is an additional reason for believing the sum of human happiness to be constant ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... named Leopold Koerner, gathered a little group on whose grief few could look without tears. First, around the lad's neck clung his pretty blue-eyed sister, Madeline; then his younger brother Heinrich, ever till this day a merry, light-hearted little fellow. Then came their sturdy old grandmother, trying to put a brave face on the matter, and winking vigorously to keep back the tears. Leopold's father had been killed in the great French Revolution,—his widow had died soon after, "of ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... night on which they should sleep in the temple. On that night the god came to them, they said, in that mood or state where they lay "between asleep and awake, sometimes as in a dream and then as in a waking vision—one's hair stood on end, but one shed tears of joy and felt light-hearted." Others said they definitely saw him. He came and told them what to do; on waking they did it and were healed; or he touched them then and there, and cured them as they lay. Some of the cures recorded on the monuments are perhaps ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... of spring day when all the buds look like feathers and the sun has been bathing in milk. I was walking down the Champs Elysees, sniffing secret violets in the air and feeling as joyous as if the world were entirely full of primroses and larks and light-hearted passers-by whom I would never see again. In the distance a barrel organ became more and more distinct and as I drew nearer and the noise grew louder, I wanted to dance and sing. It was in tune with my mood. A symbol of ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... satirically; "that suits you—except it should be 'occidentis partibus:' our Sir Asinus comes from the west. And by my faith, I think I will in future dub you Sir Asinus, in revenge for calling me—me, the most cheerful of light-hearted ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... endeavor a sudden leap; yet she was fully prepared, and I hesitated. Would she actually shoot me down? Could it be possible the girl would take my life? I could scarcely conceive of such a probability, she seemed so womanly in every way, so light-hearted, and yet there was no laugh now in her eyes, no lack of determination in the firm ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... the Lensmand's table are putting their heads together; there is a representative from the Bank, the storekeeper has sent his assistant; there is something the matter; the creditors are not satisfied. Brede is called up, and Brede, careless and light-hearted, only nods and is agreed—"but who'd ever have thought it didn't come up to more?" says he. And suddenly he raises his voice ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... is safe, "for all that lives wishes to love, no one will give up love," least of all this Nibelung, the heat of whose sentiments had come near scorching them! And they laugh and swim around the gold with their light-hearted Wallalaleia, diversified with mocking personalities to the gnome down ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... precisely that racial rejuvenation of which, as we have seen, Anglo-Saxon England stood in need. For the Normans brought with them from France the zest for joy and beauty and dignified and stately ceremony in which the Anglo-Saxon temperament was poor—they brought the love of light-hearted song and chivalrous sports, of rich clothing, of finely-painted manuscripts, of noble architecture in cathedrals and palaces, of formal religious ritual, and of the pomp and display of all elaborate pageantry. In the outcome they largely reshaped the heavy mass of Anglo-Saxon life into forms of ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... In his light-hearted way he bared his head and looked up to the sky. But there was a deeper ring in his voice. It almost seemed as if he ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... The light-hearted boys are now hardened middle-aged men, if the seas, rocks, fevers, and the deadlier enemies that beset a sailor's life on shore have spared them; and the then strong men have bowed themselves, and the earth or ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... attempting to check them in their amusement, while Maurice, at sight of the universal cheerfulness and the good order with which their first day's march was conducted, felt a revival of confidence. The remainder of the allotted task of the day was performed with the same light-hearted alacrity, although the last five miles tried their endurance. They had abandoned the high road, leaving the village of Prosnes to their right, in order to avail themselves of a short cut across a sandy heath diversified by ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... another. If they were truly alive to the duty of conclusiveness, or to the inexpressible magnitude of the subjects which nominally occupy their minds, but really only exercise their tongues, this elegant Pyrrhonism would be impossible, and this light-hearted ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... he ever spent fell in 1883, the year of the great gale. In that year there was cruel trouble, and the number of folks wearing mourning that one met in Hull and Yarmouth, and the other places, was enough to make the most light-hearted man feel miserable. Black everywhere—nothing but black at every turn; and then the women's faces looked so wistful, and the children seemed so quiet, that I couldn't bear to walk the streets. The women ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... from the window; but he had quaffed so deeply of the morning glory, that the sinister frescos no longer depressed him. They were ridiculously unimportant,—nothing more than stains on the wall, in fact. Balder could not tell why he felt light-hearted. It was solemn light-heartedness,—not the gayety of sensuous spirits, such as he had experienced heretofore. It had little to do with physical well-being, for the young man was still faint and dizzy, and weak from hunger. Behold, then, at the foot of the ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... light-hearted badinage, a fair summer afternoon, a zephyrish breeze coming in tiny cat's-paws out of the north-west, and a cloudless sky. At the landing-stage Griswold made himself useful, paying out the sea-line of the movable mooring buoy ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... face, Gilbert. It's no use for you to put on a pretence of being cheerful and light-hearted with me. I know you too well to be deceived by that kind of thing—I could see how absent-minded you were all dinner-time, in spite of your talk. You can't ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... in the early morning, the great mountains and the waters beneath it bathed in wondrous tints such as one finds nowhere outside of these far northern regions. The boys were light-hearted, happy, and were looking forward eagerly to experiences in the wilds of Alaska that should wholly satisfy their ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... old couple when presently Mrs. Wayne, very well pleased with her evening, took her departure. He assisted her into her taxi, and as he came upstairs with a buoyant step, he wished it were not ridiculous at his age to feel so light-hearted. ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... his most boyish, light-hearted fashion, "that sounds interesting. But it's a new name ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... toils are begun; And the wheat-sheaves so thick on the valleys are piled, That the land in its glorious profusion has smiled. The reaper has shouted the furrows among; In the midst of his labour he breaks into song; And the light-hearted gleaners, forgetful of care, Laugh loud, and exult ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... and their very horses were caparisoned in barbaric style, with fantastic trappings. The outset of a band of adventurers on one of these expeditions is always animated and joyous. The welkin rang with their shouts and yelps, after the manner of the savages; and with boisterous jokes and light-hearted laughter. As they passed the straggling hamlets and solitary cabins that fringe the skirts of the frontier, they would startle their inmates by Indian yells and war-whoops, or regale them with grotesque ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... early childhood she had been allowed to play with them. She was fond of their games and had always evinced far more interest in marbles, tops and even baseball than she had in dolls. Still, at sixteen, she was not a hoyden nor a tomboy, but a merry, light-hearted girl with a strong, healthy body and a feeling of comradeship toward boys in general which was to carry her far in ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... The light-hearted way in which she spoke quite robbed the words of any sting they might otherwise have conveyed, and Margaret was able to join in the laughter which this very mild way of describing the feeling she had shown the ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... and tender, Still all unbroken to sorrow and strife. Come to the Bridegroom who, silk-clad and slender, Brings thee the Honour and Burden of Life. Bidding farewell to thy light-hearted playtime, Worship thy Lover with fear and delight, Art thou not ever, though slave of his daytime, Choti Tinchaurya, queen of his night? Choti Tinchaurya ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... change; it was easier to breathe; it was fresher. People somehow disapproved of the fact that her eyes were so radiantly blue, and that her two rows of perfect white teeth were constantly shining from out between her soft, peach-like lips. They said she was light-hearted; they said she was a butterfly. Benjamin Dorn was of the opinion that she was a creature possessed of the devil of sensuality and finding her completest satisfaction in earthly finery and frippery. For some time there had been an affair of an intimate nature between her and Baron von Auffenberg. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... bread-and-butter, and a dirty, soaking, handkerchief that he and Billy had used for a towel. There was something else there, too—a dark, wet, pulpy, soggy-looking thing with pieces of gum and molasses candy and other things sticking to it. Sidney took it out and held it toward me in a proud, light-hearted way: ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... in his power for to make things pleasant like and all plain sailing, or else to cause the crew for to smell brimstone afore their time, I tell you! That Macdougall, now, though you laugh in that light-hearted way, ain't to be trifled with, Mister Leigh, I warn you; and if you go for to raise his dander ag'in you, why, you won't find it worth grinning at, that's sartin, for he's as nasty as he's spiteful, and every man Jack of us hates him like pizen, and wishes ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... appreciating the connection with the rabbi's family. Mark himself appears happy in the hope of securing Sarah for his wife. But as to Sarah, I can scarcely divine her feelings; she is too young and light-hearted fully to comprehend the step before her. She seems delighted with the occasion that bestows upon her so many handsome presents; and beyond this I think she scarcely casts a thought. The marriage will be solemnized at the synagogue, and the reception held here at home. Mark has ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... the hang-dog look of the few true men among the ranks, who shrank that a soldier should find them in their present associations. The brigadier's moustache ill hid the working of his mouth. Then the ludicrous setting of the scene appealed to his light-hearted nature, and, laughing heartily, he turned to his staff with the single comment, "Gadzooks! they conspire against the fame of my fair name. There is only one place in the wide world that I can lead that 'push' to, ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... habitually light-hearted, soon recovers, and makes an effort to imbue the others with cheerfulness like ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... weaknesses. He will never drive you away, for you are the mother of his beloved children, and he has loved you himself tenderly. However, his coldness is going to increase. Will you be sufficiently light-hearted, or sufficiently imprudent, to await on a counterscarp the rigours of December ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... could see in the flush of his cheek, and in the unusual brightness of his eye, all the excitement of fever—he was making an effort almost beyond his strength, but he succeeded—and when his mother rose to leave the room, it was with the impression that her son was the gayest and most light-hearted of the company. Twice or thrice she had risen with the intention of retiring, but O'Connor, with an eagerness which I alone could understand, had persuaded her to remain until the usual hour of her departure had long ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... seem monstrously cruel of me, but I was now quite light-hearted again. Even when Mary fled from the shop where she had left her watch, and I had peace of mind to note how thin and worn she had become, as if her baby was grown too big for her slight arms, even then I was light-hearted. Without attempting to follow her, I sauntered homeward ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... best is the modern society of Vienna. His heroes are mostly men engaged in a quest for the joys of life, but never attaining whole-hearted enjoyment, because of their innate streak of world-weariness. When the hero of his Anatol (1893) calls himself "light-hearted pessimist," Schnitzler creates a term which fits as well his Fedor in Maerchen (1894), his Fritz in Liebelei (1895), and other specimens of a type related to the heroes of Musset and other Frenchmen. His women, too, have a streak of French blood, ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... out Uncle Mathew's address and pay him a surprise visit ... She laughed in the cab and felt gay and light-hearted until she remembered the cause of her visit. Poor, poor Aunt Anne! Oh, she did hope that she would be well enough to recognise her and to show pleasure at seeing her. The cab had stopped in the well-remembered ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... nature had turned for love. Ahmed had not sought her. When first she came to his palace she had been too young except for him to treat as a pretty child, and the relationship of father and daughter then established had never yet been broken in upon. And the light-hearted, sunny-natured Druze girl had taken life just as she found it, regarding herself as Ahmed's daughter, and rejoicing in her home of love and beauty she ceased to remember that one day he would inevitably claim her as ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... the king's chair, saying to him—'Sire, the queen is very happy, and would be still more so to see your majesty.' On that day, Louis XIII. would have given his crown away to the veriest beggar for a 'God bless you.' Animated, light-hearted, and full of gayety, the king rose from the table, and said to those around him, in a tone that Henry IV. might have adopted,—'Gentlemen, I am going to see my wife.' He came to your beside, madame, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... smoke that floated lazily out of the galley funnel and away over the lee cat-head to the melody of a rollicking sea-ditty chanted by the cook, as he busied himself with the preparation of breakfast, imparted that sense of homeliness and light-hearted happiness which seemed to be all that was required to satisfactorily ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... to make our school a prison," said the sweet voice to the attentive throng, drinking in every word. "We want our girls to be happy and light-hearted and gay; we hope to fill every hour with sunshine and music and laughter. We are anxious that each one of you shall love Ivy Hall with your whole heart—not merely because of the merry days you enjoyed inside its walls, ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... several times during that first day she made wondering observations. She looked in vain for the light-hearted companionable young fellow with whom she had become intimate in cousinly fashion, and whom she had fully hoped to consult about a certain affair of her own. She saw an air of oppressive bitterness and absence of mind that discouraged her greatly. "There is no mistaking his expression of countenance," ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... be happy, light-hearted folk, and all removed their caps and bowed low when the red wagon with its load of ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... howls proceeded from a species of monkey: at which discovery Martin laughed very much, and rallied his companion on being so easily frightened; but Barney gladly joined in the laugh against himself, for, to say truth, he felt quite relieved and light-hearted at discovering that his ghosts were ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... snatch of lively song, feeling very gay and light-hearted, when, coming across a gray travelling-dress a little worse for the wear, her song suddenly ceased, while tears gathered in her eyes, then began to fall drop by drop as she stood gazing down, upon this relic ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... continued wet and cold; still, under cover of the colonnades and on the fine boulevards there is always so light-hearted and gay a throng, and so much to interest one, that it is impossible to feel dull. Things here, however, quickly change from gay to grave. A general officer's funeral passed through the boulevards where we were standing, followed by a procession in which ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... stared into the darkness of the room, seeing the whole picture again, and feeling the awful misery of the broken man who had gone by the way of transgressors. The man who had once been light-hearted and happy, who had sung in his choir, and who had read the lessons for the Rev. Francis Heath and helped him with ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... then courted, admired, you had sympathetic compassion on the raw, sullen boy; left those, who then seemed to me like the gods and goddesses of a heathen Pantheon, to come and sit beside your father's protege and cheeringly whisper to him such words as make a low-born ambitious lad go home light-hearted, saying to himself, "Some day or other." And what it is to an ambitious lad, fancying himself lifted by the gods and goddesses of a Pantheon, to go home light-hearted muttering to himself, "Some day or other," I doubt if even ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for master called me himself, and told me what they wanted him for. It was two men in plain clothes, and there was a cab outside and a p'liceman on the box. 'Of course it's all a mistake, Sarah,' he said to me, as light-hearted as you please, 'and don't let Miss Lesley or your Missus be anxious. I dare say I shall be back in an hour or two.' And then he asked the men if he might write a note, and they let him, though they read it as he wrote, the nasty wretches!"—and Sarah snorted contemptuously, ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... are so different, my lady,' said Steadman, with a gloomy brow. 'His lordship is so light-hearted and careless, his mind taken up with his horses, guns, dogs, fishing, shooting, and all kinds of sport. He is not a gentleman to take much notice of anything out of his own line. But this Mr. Hammond is different—a very thoughtful gentleman, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... never met him before, and knew nothing at all about him. It was one of those inexplicable things which can not be answered. Otherwise Hillard enjoyed himself vastly. He found these people full of hope, light-hearted, generous, intelligent, ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... me: "Did you ever do the Blondin act before, because we are walking a razor-edge right now. We're between the devil and the 'deep sea,' anyway, and I think myself the 'deep sea' will get us." As I looked at him something happened, and I felt light-hearted as though miles from danger—all fear of death was taken away. What did it matter if we were killed?—it was a strange sense of security in a ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... with the pleasure of a great relief. She had always scorned the idea that her lover had even made a shot at Carroway, often though the brave lieutenant had done the like to him; and now she felt sure that he could clear himself; or how could he be so light-hearted? "You see that I am scarcely fit to lead off a country-dance with you," said Robin, still holding both her hands, and watching the beauty of her clear bright eyes, which might gather big tears at any moment, as the deep blue sky is a sign of sudden rain; ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... it in a convenient place; and coming hither again some days after, I took up my calabash, and setting it to my mouth found the wine to be so good that it presently made me not only forget my sorrow, but grow vigorous, and so light-hearted that I began to sing and dance as ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... it was likely to upset their mature religious convictions by its assaults on orthodoxy. Their disappointment when two stout tomes, dealing historically with the status and duties of Deans, were delivered to them, was the theme of cheerful comment amongst the light-hearted members of the Dean's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various
... were good fellowship and kind words, the light-hearted salute, the joyous mien. It was an occasion that came near to being festal, and Solon Denney was its hero. He sought to bear his honors with the modesty that is native to him, but in his heart he knew that we now spoke of him glibly as the Boss of Little ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... and discontented, for it is forced and against the will. Voluntary poverty, on the contrary, is joyous, free, and light-hearted. To show you how cheerfully and pleasantly he talked on this subject, I will give you one or two ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... came Marx and his beautiful bride. One may speculate as to Jenny's estimate of her husband. Since his boyhood, she had not seen him very much. At that time he was a merry, light-hearted youth, a jovial comrade, and one of whom any girl would be proud. But since his long stay in Berlin, and his absorption in the theories of men like Engels and Bauer, he had become a very different sort of man, ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... nations. England seems bent on seeing the whole world as dull as itself, and dull in the same way. So this second party is, in some French houses, a happy protest on the part of the old spirit of our light-hearted people. Only, unfortunately, so few houses protest; and the reason is a simple one. If we no longer have many suppers nowadays, it is because never, under any rule, have there been fewer men placed, established, and successful ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... Happy and light-hearted, We three the time will while. And, when sometimes a season parted, Still think of us, and smile. But come to us in gloomy weather; We'll weep, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... this ship was a favourite goat, good-tempered, affectionate, and playful; but a single vice counterbalanced all his virtues: he took a drop. A year or two ago some light-hearted tempter taught him to sip grog; he took to it kindly, and was now arrived at such a pitch that at grog-time he used to butt his way in among the sailors, and get close to the canteen; and, -by arrangement, an allowance was always served out to him. On imbibing it, he ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... excitement caused by the unexpected entrance of Mellor with his challenge from St. Bede's, Devey had risen with the other fellows, and remained standing, Plunger breathed more freely, and began to feel quite light-hearted again. ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... in a single agricultural village. Comparing the uncommunicative deportment of a bevy of English bricklayers, who will build a house without exchanging much beyond an occasional pipe-light, with the vivacious gaiety of these light-hearted sons of Han, the problem becomes interesting enough to demand a solution of the question—What is it these Chinamen talk about? And the answer is, Money. It may be said they talk, think, dream of nothing else. They certainly live ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... two hours, until the bag of stones was well down the saurian's throat. Then he set out for The Pass. He was painfully hungry now, but he was light-hearted. Never again would he have to risk the death that infested the Great Sea-Swamp. Within thirty days he would be home—home on Earth. He and Beth would get a little house out in the country and have a little garden, and he could relax and watch his daughter ...
— The Wealth of Echindul • Noel Miller Loomis
... ferocious-looking Ogresses of this cast. There are noble trees about the house. Balcaskie put me in mind of poor Philip Anstruther, dead and gone many a long year since. He was a fine, gallant, light-hearted young sailor. I remember the story of his drawing on his father for some cash, which produced an angry letter from old Sir Robert, to which Philip replied, that if he did not know how to write like a gentleman, he did not desire ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... fellows.... He was beating off a drunken Comus crew, with some of active ill-will. His dress was rich—he was not Roman, evidently—the surge had foamed and dragged across from the bonfire and the open place to the dark mouth of a poor street. Many a thing besides light-hearted ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... Alabama, she would work round us like a cooper round a cask; an encouraging simile to one who has looked upon that cheerful and much one-sided performance. We were all too young—I, the senior lieutenant, was but twenty-two—and too light-hearted to be troubled with forebodings; and, indeed, there was in reason no adequate inducement for the Confederate cruiser to alter her existing plans in order to take the Macedonian. Had we come fairly in her way, to gobble a large percentage of the Naval Academy might ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... rapidly coming on by Nature's calendar of leaf and bird, of deepening green in the park and light-hearted woman's ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... to her, as she thought he might have done. She knew he wrote to Diana occasionally, but she would not inquire about him; and Diana, supposing that Anne heard from him, volunteered no information. Gilbert's mother, who was a gay, frank, light-hearted lady, but not overburdened with tact, had a very embarrassing habit of asking Anne, always in a painfully distinct voice and always in the presence of a crowd, if she had heard from Gilbert lately. Poor Anne could only blush ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a light-hearted boy of twelve, with kind impulses toward every one, something happened to rouse in him a bitter ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... for thee than I can tell, dear Mary; but still I find that to busy one's self in many ways, and to put on as light-hearted a look as one can muster, is a help to grief. See now poor Elizabeth Tilley. She hath cried herself ill, and must tarry in bed where is naught to divert her grief. Is it not better to keep afoot and be of use ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... Some as they approach middle age, some only when they are old, wake up to understand that they have parents. To some the perception comes with their children; to others with the pang of seeing them walk away light-hearted out into the world, as they themselves turned their backs on their parents: they had been all their own, and now they have done with them! Less or more, have we not all thus taken our journey into a far country? But many a man of sixty is more of a son to the father gone from the earth, than he ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald |
