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Blithe   Listen
adjective
Blithe  adj.  Gay; merry; sprightly; joyous; glad; cheerful; as, a blithe spirit. "The blithe sounds of festal music." "A daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Blithe" Quotes from Famous Books



... gay happy hearts to the woodland we strayed, When autumn its rich pensive beauty displayed; The robin was chanting her sweet farewell song, While blithe little ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower

... the mine-field plans which I have furnished. But you, Watson"—he stopped his work and took his old friend by the shoulders—"I've hardly seen you in the light yet. How have the years used you? You look the same blithe ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... other occasions, too, taken away for a time, and then returned again to her seclusion at Woodstock. These changes, perhaps, only served to make her feel more than ever the hardships of her lot. They say that one day, as she sat at her window, she heard a milk-maid singing in the fields, in a blithe and merry strain, and said, with a sigh, that she wished ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... children, whom the present day had nurtured so cleanly and so tenderly? Their bringing-up had been the complex result of so much enlightened effort. War, pestilence, famine, slaughter, were only names in a history book to them. They thought hardship was sport. A blithe summer month had plunged them into the most terrible war of the scarred old earth. The battlefields where they had mustered, stunned, but tingling with vigor and eagerness, were becoming the vast cemeteries of their generation. The field where lay the young ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway

... He went blithe and light-hearted, though he thought me insane; he returned with the air of a serving-man who, expecting to find a well-equipped pantry, had wandered into ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... back, Thompson!" Steve was making for the door, with apologies. "You're not in the way a bit. Sit down, man! Your six thousand won't be a starter, Joe. I've got some four thousand myself, in red, red gold. All I have in the world—wish it was more." His blithe insouciance ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... regarding the said J. Augustus Redell. He was a blithe, joyous creature, still in the sunny thirties, and what he didn't know about the lumber business—particularly the marketing of lumber products—could be tucked into anybody's eyes without impairing their eyesight. Mr. Redell had fought his way up from office boy with the Black ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... for her? Does she ever find time to run about with other children, playing the games which the generations hand down from one to the other? Does she ever play "tag," or "gray wolf," or "I spy?" Does she ever swing in a hammock like other girls when the days are long and blithe and sweet, as free from care as a cloud or a butterfly? Does life hold for her one sparkle in its poor cup of wine, one flavor that is not sordid and low and mean? You say it is easy to sit here all day selling apples, and wonder why I hold this sallow-faced girl up for special pity. ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden

... alone sat listlessly That lavish board beside; The one a fair-haired stripling, tall, Blithe-brow'd and eager-ey'd, Caressing still two hounds in leash, That ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... blithe scene came Glory, just as the fable was ended for the fourth time, bringing the last little chick, flushed and rosy from a bath; born into beauty, like Venus from the sea; her fair hair, combed and glossy, hanging about her neck in curls; and wrapped, not ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... more than by his poems with the fitness of his title, The Children's Poet. One cannot fail to find, in such words as those in the following extract from a letter, the gentleness of his regard for children: "My little girls are flitting about my study, as blithe as two birds. They are preparing to celebrate the birthday of one of their dolls; and on the table I find this programme, in E.'s handwriting, which I purloin and send to you, thinking it may amuse you. What a beautiful world this child's world is! So instinct with life, so illuminated ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... foliage and flowers. The chief ornament of the walls was a large and indifferent copy of Raphael's "St. Cecilia;" there were, too, several gouache drawings of local scenery: a fiery night-view of Vesuvius, a panorama of the Bay, and a very blue Blue Grotto. The whole was blithe, sunny, Neapolitan; sufficiently unlike a sitting-room in Redheck House, Bartles, Lancashire, which Mrs. Baske had in her mind as ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... chattering gayly among the fiery tops of the oaks or the dun foliage of the hickory, that shot up its shelving trunk and spread its forked branches far over the smooth, moss-spotted boles of the beeches, and the limber boughs of the elms. Lithe and blithe he was, for his harvest ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... went through these days, tender, happy, blithe as a bird; a song on her lips whenever she went about the house; a caress in her very touch for the dear old people who had been father and mother to her in her loneliness; realizing only vaguely what it was going to be to them when she was gone and they were all alone ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... swan than ever sung in Po, A shriller nightingale than ever bless'd The prouder groves of self-admiring Rome. Blithe was each valley, and each shepherd proud, While he did chant his rural minstrelsy: Attentive was full many a dainty ear, Nay, hearers hung upon his melting tongue, While sweetly of his Fairy Queen he sung; While to the waters' fall he tun'd for fame, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... was satisfied with the life he had chosen, and getting tenderly pitiful over the losses he might learn to regret when it was too late. His dreams seemed to be pleasant ones, however; for once he laughed a blithe, boyish laugh, good to hear; and when he woke, he rubbed his blue eyes and stared about, smiling like a ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... more jocund than any, As blithe as the month of June, Do carol and sing like birds of the spring, No nightingale sweeter in tune; To bring in content, when summer is spent, In pleasant delight and play, With mirth and good cheer to end the whole year, And ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various

... came with the inevitable demand. He was a cheerful fellow in his sorry business, blithe as an old stager of an undertaker at a first-class funeral. He chatted about the crisis, and, as a matter of course, brought all the latest news from State Street. Monroe listened to one piece of news, but had ears for no more. "Sandford and Fayerweather had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... are in melancholy men, to celestial influences: which opinion Mercurialis de affect, lib. cap. 10. rejects; but, as I say, [2540]Jovianus Pontanus and others stiffly defend. That some are solitary, dull, heavy, churlish; some again blithe, buxom, light, and merry, they ascribe wholly to the stars. As if Saturn be predominant in his nativity, and cause melancholy in his temperature, then [2541]he shall be very austere, sullen, churlish, black of colour, profound ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... months must elapse before we are hurled from our security. We became ephemera, to whom the interval between the rising and setting sun was as a long drawn year of common time. We should never see our children ripen into maturity, nor behold their downy cheeks roughen, their blithe hearts subdued by passion or care; but we had them now—they lived, and we lived—what more could we desire? With such schooling did my poor Idris try to hush thronging fears, and in some measure succeeded. It was not as in summer-time, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... her blithe way up the dark hill road. She had been hungry for other things than music and sympathy and friendship, this youngest of the ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... Burns was obliged to bring his car to a short standstill, so that some delighted friend might grasp King's hand and tell him how good it seemed to see him out. With one and all the young man was very blithe, though he let them do most of the talking. They all told him heartily that he was looking wonderfully well, while they ignored with the understanding of the intelligent certain signs which spoke ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond

... cabin, reed Robin! Threyce welcome, blithe warbler, to me! Noo Siddaw hes thrown a wheyte cap on, Agean I'll gie shelter to thee! Come, freely hop into mey pantry; Partake o' mey puir holsome fare; Tho' seldom I bwoast of a dainty. Yet meyne, man or ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... mother, under rood;[1] the cross. Behold thy son with glade mood; cheerful. Blithe mother mayst thou be." "Son, how should I blithe stand? I see thy feet, I see thy hand Nailed to ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... all of us," sang Lucile, cheerily. "And if my nose does not deceive me, there issueth from the regions of various kitchens a blithe and savory odor—as of fresh muffins, golden-yellow eggs, just fried to a turn, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... Into the blithe and breathing air, Into the solemn wood, Solemn and silent everywhere! Nature with folded hands seemed there, Kneeling at her evening prayer! Like ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... approaching from the direction of Charlie's house, whistling a tune which somehow seemed familiar. She promptly warned herself it could not be Charlie. She never remembered to have heard Charlie whistling so blithe an air. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... to life and liberty, and no bird in the sky, no deer on the mountain, felt more blithe and happy than he soon ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... haze lies over the meadow, and rising out of it, and soaring toward the blue is the lark, flinging out that matchless matin song, so rich, so thrilling, so lavish! As the blithe melody fades away, I hear the plaintive ballad-fragments of the robin on a curtsying branch near my window; and there is always the liquid pipe of the thrush, who must quaff a fairy goblet of dew between his songs, I should think, so fresh and ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... in the trees, Blithe as the bird on the bough, Blithe as the bees in the sweet Heart's-ease ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... at life ye've taen the grue, An' winnae blithely hirsle through, Ye've fund the very thing to do - That's to drink speerit; An' shune we'll hear the last o' you - An' blithe ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of power, yet blithe and debonair, Rallying his friends with pleasant banter gay, Or half a-dream chaunting with jaunty air Great words of Goethe, catch of Beranger, We see the banter sparkle in his prose, But knew not then the undertone that flows ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury

... blithe "Nonsense, Daniel, let me manage this!" Mrs. Colebrook turned again to Susan. The man, not unlike the little Daniel of long ago who fled to the attic, shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of utter irresponsibility, turned his back and walked to the farther side ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter

... Had a small studio in the town, Where, all the winter, blithe and gay, She drew and painted day by day. She envied not the rich. Her art And work made sunshine in her heart. Upon her canvas, many a scene Of summers past, in golden green Was wrought again. The snow and rain Pelted upon her window-pane; ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... day to the Giver of a', There 's been naething unworthy o' him that 's awa'! Then here is to them that are far frae us a', The friend that ne'er fail'd us, though farest awa'! Health, peace, and prosperity wait on us a'; And a blithe comin' hame to the friend that ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... grows out of the custom of dancing in large bands and accompanying the figure of the dance with song. "If the people," says M. Pitre, "find out who is the composer of a canzone, they will not sing it." Now in those lands where a blithe peasant life still exists with its dances, like the kolos of Russia, we find ballads identical in many respects with those which have died out of oral tradition in these islands. It is natural to conclude that originally ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... she now did, the sound of it was worth going miles to hear. There are all shades of temperament and character in laughter, which is the one thing of which we are least self-conscious; hers revealed not only a sense of humor, rare in her sex, but a blithe, happy nature, which made allies at once of those upon whose ears her merriment fell. Trowbridge's eyes sparkled with his appreciation ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... down on a rock by the way, swore as never I heard man swear, French, English, Spaniard, or Scot; and at length laughed, and said it was fortune of war, and so was content. This skirmish being thus ended, we returned, blithe and rich men every one of us, what with prisoners, horses, arms, and all manner of treasure taken with the baggage. That night we slept little in Guermigny, but feasted and drank deep. For my own part, I know not well where I did sleep, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... sounds of mirth in the night-air ringing, And lamps from every casement shown; While voices blithe within are singing, That seem to say "Come," in every tone. Ah! once how light, in Life's young season, My heart had leapt at that sweet lay; Nor paused to ask of graybeard Reason Should I the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... past. "Blithe as a knight in his bridal array," Thayer was echoing the call of his future destiny. Because he had won a single battle, there was no reason he should lay ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... the Sun, whose charmed cup Whoever tasted lost his upright shape, And downward fell into a grovelling swine?) This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks, With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth, Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son Much like his father, but his mother more, Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named: Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age, Roving the ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... Sara Lee had dreamed of war was like this. This was dreary and sodden and hopeless. Those fresh troops at the crossroads that day had been blithe and smiling. There had been none of the glitter and panoply of war, but there had been movement, the beating of a drum, the sharp cries of officers as the ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... I to that old Andronicus, And temper him with all the Art I haue, To plucke proud Lucius from the warlike Gothes. And now sweet Emperour be blithe againe, And bury all thy feare in ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... polish, but she imagined, very fearlessly, that the spark was out. She was not a nature that was easily alarmed or daunted; beneath her look of delicate fragility was a very sturdy confidence, and she had the implicit sense of security instinct in the kitten whose blithe days have known nothing but kindness. Yet she felt herself ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... clouds, or weeping rain, Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light Engendered, hangs o'er Eildun's triple height: Spirits of Power assembled there complain For kindred Power departing from their sight; While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain, Saddens his voice again and yet again. Lift up your hearts, ye Mourners! for the might Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes; Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows, Follow this wondrous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various

... the folk'll be blithe to see him—if it was not for the occasion of his coming! If there's aught a body can do ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... been married some two weeks, when Octave proposed in the afternoon that they should go for a walk, she agreed. Her preparations were soon completed, and they started off, blithe and lively as children on a holiday ramble. As they loitered in a wooded path, they heard a dog barking in the cover. It was Bruno, who rushed out, and, standing on his hind legs, ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... whether (as some sager sing) The frolic wind that breathes the spring Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-Maying— There, on beds of violets blue And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew Fill'd her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... trudged slowly along Park Row, the assassin began to expand and grow blithe. "B'Gawd, we've been livin' like kings," he said, smacking ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... a blithe, courageous young midshipman, was gayly chattering with his protectress. There he was laughing at her good-naturedly as she trembled for his sake, and chattering broken German as best he could. Wealth is a good thing, and health a better; but surely high ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... the upland with his team The ploughman dimly like a phantom glides: What time that noisy spot of life, the lark, Climbs, shrill with ecstasy, the trembling air; And "Cuckoo, Cuckoo," baffling whence it comes, Shouts the blithe egotist who cries himself; And every hedge and coppice sings: What time The lover, restless, through his waking dream, Nigh wins the hoped-for great unknown delight, Which never comes to flower, maybe; elsewhere, The worshipped Maid, a folded rose o'er-rosed By rosy dawn, asleep ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner

... And or ye come to Nottingham, Mine head then dare I lay! That ye shall meet with good ROBIN, In life if that he be: Or ye come to Nottingham With eyen ye shall him see!" Full hastily our King was dight, So were his Knightes five, Everych of them in monks' weed, And hasted them thither blithe. Our King was great above his cowl, A broad hat on his crown. Right as he were Abbot like, They rode up into the town. Stiff boots our King had on, For sooth as I you say, He rode singing to green wood, The convent ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... from table to hearth, bustled buxom Mrs. Bassett, flushed and floury, but busy and blithe as the queen bee of this busy little ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... his clatter are away, Where does the little Echo stay? Perched on a rock to watch for him? Or keeping a lookout from some limb? If he were to push his boat to land, Would he find her footprint on the sand? Or would she come to his blithe "hello," Red as a rose, or white as snow? Ah no, ah no! Never can Teddy ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... girl am I, My songs are gay and blithe; For in my humble country home I lead a free, glad life. Through fertile fields and gardens mine, I love at will to roam, And as I wander gayly sing, This is my own, free home, My ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... these few days are over, The navvies they will part, And go back to their gangers With blithe and cheerful heart; And Jack he will be hooting, And getting drunk full soon; I wish there was a railway ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine

... perfectly reproduced, nor with a more distinct revelation of a new spirit, than in this poem. It is retrospective and contemplative, but it is also full of the buoyancy of youth, of the consciousness of poetic skill, and of blithe anticipation. Its tender reminiscence and occasional fond elegiac strain are but clouds of the morning. Its literary form is exquisite, and its general impression is that of bright, elastic, confident power. It was ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... upwards. She was very earnest in her Confirmation preparation, most anxious to do right and to contend with her failings; but the struggle at present was easy; and the hopes, joys, and incentives shone out more and more upon her in this blithe stage of ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... but I have only a few more words to say. The ancients had a beautiful fable about the water of Lethe, in which the soul that was bathed straightway forgot all that was sad and evil in its previous life; the most stained, disgraced, and mournful of souls coming forth fresh, blithe, and bright as a baby's. I suppose my absurd misunderstanding arose from a vague notion that the blood of Christ had in it something like this virtue of Lethe water. Just think how blessed a thing for men it would be if ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy

... melody would long ago have been noised abroad. I thought of the rialejo, the celebrated organbird or flute-bird, and of the various ways in which hearers are affected by it. To some its warbling is like the sound of a beautiful mysterious instrument, while to others it seems like the singing of a blithe-hearted child with a highly melodious voice. I had often heard and listened with delight to the singing of the rialejo in the Guayana forests, but this song, or musical phrase, was utterly unlike it in character. It was pure, more expressive, softer—so low that at a distance ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... stout beer; Which freely drink to your lord's health, Then to the plough, the commonwealth, Next to your flails, your fans, your fats, Then to the maids with wheaten hats: To the rough sickle, and crook'd scythe, Drink, frolic boys, till all be blithe. Feed, and grow fat; and as ye eat Be mindful that the lab'ring neat, As you, may have their fill of meat. And know, besides, ye must revoke The patient ox unto the yoke, And all go back unto the ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... Palace of Sleep, lost in the mountain forests, but here there was no hope coming with the springing footsteps of a blithe young prince. The sleepers in this palace could not be waked by a wish, or a magic kiss, for they were ghosts, ghosts everywhere—in the great kitchen, with all its huge polished utensils ready for the meal which would never be cooked, and its neat plain dishes ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... home to shades of underground, And there arrived, a new admired guest, The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round, White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest, To hear the stories of thy finish'd love From that smooth tongue whose music hell ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... are not all together soon, they may never be together on earth again; and it is far better that they should come home, and have a few blithe days to mind on afterward, than that their first home-coming should be to a home with the shadow of death upon it. They must ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... adieu! Many and blithe have been the hours which I have spent around, and in, and on you—and it may well be I shall never see you more—whether reflecting the full fresh greenery of summer; or the rich tints of cisatlantic autumn; or sheeted ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... insults, and I retorted in the same tone. We were on the point of coming to a far worse quarrel than before. However, the folk kept us asunder; and when I had finished my bastions, I touched some score of crowns, which I had not expected, and which were uncommonly welcome. So I returned with a blithe heart to finish ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... unexpected chance of being able to keep Finn. He had made up his mind that Finn would be chosen, and was quite prepared and glad to make the sacrifice; but it was a notable sacrifice, and if the same end could be served without losing Finn, why that was blithe news. He was not sure of his intention to keep either of the bitch pups, and in any case he would not have thought of keeping both of them. But honesty and real gratitude made him, impelled him, to point out to the visitor that she might never again have the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... of brains, gave the world ideas that were promptly claimed by others. But this time it was not an Englishman, but a Pole, who appropriated an Irishman's invention. This nocturne is called a forerunner to the Chopin nocturnes. They are really imitations of Field's, without the blithe, dewy sweetness of the Irishman's. First, let me put out the lamps. There is a moon that is suspended like a silver bowl over the Wissahickon. It is ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... Store Thompson's wife, who was as blithe and brisk as she had been twenty years before, and she had no difficulty in kissing Scotty this time, though she had to stand ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... mismanagement. He landed, and whilst waiting for further orders from home he has joined the Rangers, in order to learn their methods of fighting. Never was hardier or braver man, or one more cheerful and blithe. Even the stern Rogers himself unbends when he is near. He has been the very life of our party since he ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... dame more buxom, blithe, and free, Than Fredegonde you scarce would see. So smart her dress, so trim her shape, Ne'er hostess offered juice of grape, Could for her trade wish better sign; Her looks gave flavour to her wine, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had postponedly encountered that thing in sorrow's technicals called ruin. He had been an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do; owned a house and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three blithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, planted in a grove. But one night, under cover of darkness, and further concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into his happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to tell, the blacksmith ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... last, proved a genuine success, and Paul heartily enjoyed the well-earned reward for years of honest work. One blithe May morning, he slipped early into the art-gallery, where the statue now stood, to look at his creation with paternal pride. He was quite alone with the stately figure that shone white against the purple draperies ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... thee a piece of advice, which will stand thee in good stead, if thou canst carry it out to the letter. First of all, thou must ride home from the Thing, and by that time thy husband will have come back, and will be glad to see thee; thou must he blithe and buxom to him, and he will think a good change has come over thee, and thou must show no signs of coldness or ill-temper, but when spring comes thou must sham sickness, and take to thy bed. Hrut will not lose time in guessing what thy ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... sheep. When Handel composed his beautiful air, "Let me wander not unseen," he plainly regarded this word in the more poetical sense. The song breathes the shepherd's tale of love (perhaps addressed to "the milkmaid singing blithe") far more than it conveys a dull computation of the number of "his fleecy care." Despite of that excellent commentator, Tom Warton, who adopted Headley's suggestion, it is to be hoped that readers ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various

... timid rider, admired them both from her position, which was always behind, though they tried to accommodate their pace to hers. A pang of envy that was almost jealousy pierced her heart as she looked at them—so young, so vigorous, and so blithe. ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... round him grew Stronger, and all blithe winds that blew Blither, and flowers that flowered anew More glad of sun and air and dew, The shadow lightened on his soul And brightened into death and died Like winter, as the bloom waxed wide From woodside on to riverside And southward ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... dancing, so far well, for a sound sleep would have brought a blithe wakening, and all be tight and right again; but, alas and alackaday! the violent heat and fume of foment they were all thrown into, caused the emptying of so many ale-tankers, and the swallowing of so muckle toddy, by way of cooling and refreshing ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... shut their eyes on it; therefore, both parties, as if actuated by the same spirit, made a desperate effort to join, and the greater part effected it; but some were knocked down, and others were separated from their friends, and blithe to become silent members ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... 'tisna David! The return o' the Prodeegal—he! he! So ye've seen yer auld dad at last, and the last; the proper place, say ye, for yen father—he! he! Eh, lad, but I'm blithe to see ye. D'ye mind when we was last thegither? Ye was kneelin' on ma chest: 'Your time's come, dad,' says you, and wangs me o'er the face—he! he! I mind it as if 'twas yesterday. Weel, weel, we'll say nae mair about it. Boys will be boys. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... when I came back from getting the extra cot ready in the bunk-house, my infant prodigy was on the new hired man's back, circling the dinner-table and shouting "Gid-dap, 'ossie, gid-dap!" as he went, a proceeding which left the seamed old face of Whinstane Sandy about as blithe as a coffin-lid. So I coldly informed the newcomer that I'd show him where he could put his things, if he had any, before we went out to look over the windmill. And Peter rather astonished me by lugging back from the motor-car so discreetly left in the rear ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... red-men rally With dance and song the woods resound; The hatchet's buried in the valley; No foe profanes our hunting-ground! The green leaves on the blithe boughs quiver, The verdant hills with song-birds ring, While our bark canoes, the river Skim, like swallows ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis

... led in the past. Pythagoras had already forbidden the folly of spoiling the present by remorse; and he, too, did not do this. It would have been repugnant to his genuinely Greek nature. Instead of looking backward with peevish regret, his purpose was to look with blithe confidence toward the future, and to do his best to render it better and more fruitful than the months of revel ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... built a lodge for fasting, Built a wigwam in the forest, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, In the blithe and pleasant Spring-time, In the Moon of Leaves he built it, And, with dreams and visions many, Seven whole ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow

... Ethelberta seemed blithe enough without him. One more day went, and he did not come, and then her manner was that of apathy. Another day passed, and from fanciful elevations of the eyebrow, and long breathings, it became apparent that Ethelberta had decidedly passed the indifferent stage, and was getting seriously out ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... he was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances, than anything else. Nothing that he wore then fitted him or seemed to belong to him; and everything that he wore then grazed him. On the present festive occasion he emerged from his room, when the blithe bells were going, the picture of misery, in a full suit of Sunday penitentials. As to me, I think my sister must have had some general idea that I was a young offender whom an Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my birthday) and delivered over to her, to be dealt with according ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... the Mermaid whom he had nursed in a fever in his far-away West Indian home, and it was the praises of Captain Maitland that the lad was always singing. What a pleasant visitor he had been! What a regretful longing he had left behind him for such another blithe stout-hearted English boy who might call that house his home! His late host wondered if he were in Plymouth, and decided to try and find him out next morning, but one of his fishermen friends came to invite him to go on a two days' cruise, ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham

... now are gane, a' who ventured to save, The new grass is springing on the tap o' their grave; But the sun through the mirk blinks blithe in my e'e: "I 'll shine on ye yet in your ain countrie." It 's hame, an' it 's hame, hame fain wad I be, An' it 's hame, hame, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... to the lively Irishman. He jumped to the conclusion that O'Dowd, while aligned with the others in the flesh, was not with them in spirit. His blithe heart was a gallant one as well. The lovely prisoner at Green Fancy had a chivalrous defender among the conspirators, and that fact, suddenly revealed to the harassed Barnes, sent a thrill of exultation through ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... heart delighted hears her praise, As with unconscious loveliness she strays, 'Such,' let me say, with tears of joy the while, 'Such was the softness of my Mary's smile; Such was her youth, so blithe, so rosy sweet, And such her mind, unpractis'd in deceit; With artless elegance, unstudied grace, Thus did she gain in every ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... the district, fifty of whom the Crowner beheaded, and, according to the barbarous practice of even much later times, exposed their heads for the edification of the surrounding lieges high upon the castle walls. Randolph himself soon after arrived and, says the same chronicler, was "right blithe" to see the goodly show of heads "that flowered so weel that wall" - a ghastly warning to all treacherous or plundering "misdoaris." From what occurred on this occasion it is obvious that Kenneth either did not attempt or was not ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... and more luxurious than any to be found in the East; rough it at ten-dollar-a-day hotels; rough it by touring car over the most magnificent automobile roads to be found on this continent. We were a daring lot and resolute; each and every one of us was brave and blithe to endure the privations that such an expedition must inevitably entail. Let the worst come; we were prepared! If there wasn't any of the hothouse lamb, with imported green peas, left, we'd worry along on a little bit ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb

... evening, when all without was bleak and stormy and all within were blithe and gay,—when song and story made the circuit of the festive board, filling up the chasms of life with ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... I hear a murmur on the meads,— Where as of old my children seek my face,— The low of kine, the peaceful tramp of steeds, Blithe shouts of men in many a pastoral place, The noise of tilth through all my goodliest land; And happy laughter of a dusky race Whose brethren lift them from their ancient toil, Saying: 'The year of jubilee has come; Gather the gifts of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... but rich in the things of home and heart. Luise, the first-born, had been staying with a Spanish relative, who had taken charge of her education, and had now come back to her native Lisbon "for good." Three younger children there were—blithe, affectionate prattlers—whose glee at the recovery of Luise had been so exuberant, so boisterous, that they were now sent to play in the neighboring vineyards, that they might not ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... use the common phrase, "had made a clean breast of it," he became quite himself again. He had settled the point which had been worrying his mind, and doubtless considered himself established as a man of sentiment in my opinion. Before we had finished our morning's stroll, he was singing as blithe as a grasshopper, whistling to his dogs, and telling droll stories: and I recollect that he was particularly facetious that day at dinner on the subject of matrimony, and uttered several excellent jokes, not to be found in Joe Miller, that made the bride elect blush ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... through dell and dingle, Where the blithe fawn trips by its timid mother, Where the broad oak, with intercepting boughs, Chequers the sunbeam in the green-sward alley— Up and away!—for lovely paths are these To tread, when the glad Sun is on his throne Less pleasant, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... Wednesday's child is merry and glad, Thursday's child is sorry and sad; Friday's child is loving and giving; Saturday's child must work for its living; While the child that is born on the Sabbath day Is blithe and bonny ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... zephyr, blithe new-comer, Urging to purchase patent-leather boots, Hats of a virgin glossiness, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various

... time, diversion, nor glory in this world like that of the profession of arms and making war in the way we have. How blithe were we when we rode forth at hazard and hit on a rich abbe, an opulent prior or merchant, or a string of mules from Montpelier, Narbonne, Limoux, Toulouse, or Carcassonne laden with the fabrics of ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... inspirit, animate, raise the spirits, inspire; perk up; put in good humor; cheer the heart, rejoice the heart; delight &c (give pleasure) 829. Adj. cheerful; happy &c 827; cheery, cheerly^; of good cheer, smiling; blithe; in spirits, in good spirits; breezy, bully, chipper [U.S.]; in high spirits, in high feather; happy as the day is long, happy as a king; gay as a lark; allegro; debonair; light, lightsome, light hearted; buoyant, debonnaire, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... midsummer visit, which the king, not dreaming of her evil purpose, immediately hastened to do. Two minstrels, Werbel and Swemmel, were sent with the most cordial invitation. Before they departed Kriemhild instructed them to be sure and tell all her kinsmen that she was blithe and happy, and not melancholy as of yore, and to use every effort to bring not only the kings, but also Hagen, who, having been at Etzel's court as hostage in his youth, could best act ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... O auspicious King, that Hasan al- Habbal (the Rope-maker) continued his story, saying.—Thereupon Sa'di asked me, "How farest thou by this industry? Me thinks thou art blithe and quite content therewith. Thou hast worked long and well and doubtless thou hast laid by large store of hemp and other stock. Thy forbears carried on this craft for many years and must have left thee much of capital and property which thou hast turned to good ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... musical, gay with blossom and fleetness, Days when my sight shall be clear and my heart rejoice; Come from the sea with breadth of approaching brightness, When the blithe wind laughs on the ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various

... will have no great successe, I doubt. That being done, I down to Thames-streete, and there agreed for four or five tons of corke, to send this day to the fleete, being a new device to make barricados with, instead of junke. By this means I come to see and kiss Mr. Hill's young wife, and a blithe young woman she is. So to the office and at noon home to dinner, and then sent for young Michell and employed him all the afternoon about weighing and shipping off of the corke, having by this means an opportunity of getting him 30 ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... one vast mount of solid stone A mighty temple has been cored By nut-brown children of the sun, When stars were newly bright, and blithe Of song along the rim of ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... morning dawned. The rorid earth upon, Old Sol looked down, to do his work siccate, My sneek I raised to greet the ethe sun, And sauntering forth passed out my garden gate. A blithe specht sat on yon declinous tree Bent on delection to its bark extern; A merle anear observed (it seemed to me) The work, in hopes to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... blithe, gladsome step was heard upon the flagstones of the terrace. A manly, ringing voice, which sent a thrill to Winnifred's heart, cried "Mother!" and in another instant Lord Mordaunt Muddlenut, for he it was, had folded the ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... frayed and soiled and torn! Poor kind wild eyes so dashed with light quick tears! Poor perfect voice, most blithe when most forlorn, That rings athwart the sea whence no man steers Like joy-bells crossed with death-bells in our ears! What far delight has cooled the fierce desire That like some ravenous bird was strong to tire On ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Joan's examiners was to try and discover whether her reported visions and her voices were from Heaven or not. This was the crucial question over which these churchmen and lawyers puzzled their brains during those three weeks of the blithe spring-tide at Poitiers. How were they to arrive at a certain knowledge regarding those mystic portents? All the armoury of theological knowledge accumulated by the doctors of the Church was made use of; ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... which were out of keeping with the old chintz covers. It was a delightful room, however; the blue sea glimmered between the curtains, and, turning my eyes toward it, my heart gave the leap which I had looked for. I grew blithe as I saw it winking under the rays of the afternoon sun, and, clapping my hands, said I was glad to get home. We left Veronica at the table, and mother resumed her conversation with me in a corner of the room. Presently Temperance came in with Charles, bringing fresh plates. ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... but leaves the poet free to choose or invent appropriate forms. In this species of verse Arnold was not wholly at ease. As has been said, one searches in vain through the whole course of his poetry for a blithe, musical, gay or serious, offhand poem, the true lyric kind. The reason for this is soon discovered. Obviously, it lies in the fundamental qualities of the poet's mind and temperament. Though by no means lacking in emotional sensibility, Arnold was too ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... period soever of life is always a child. Within these plantations of God a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed in the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of universal being circulate through me; I am a part or particle of God. I am the lover of uncontained ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... on every spray The warbling birds exalt their evening lay; Blithe skipping o'er yon hill, the fleecy train Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain: The glassy ocean, hush'd, forgets to roar, But trembling, murmurs ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... visit at Coldback, and there he saw Unna, and was pleased with her, for she was a blithe woman and a bonny. The end of it was that he asked her in marriage of Eric; at which Brighteyes was glad, but said that he must know Unna's mind. Unna hearkened, and did not say no, for though Asmund was somewhat gone in years, still he was an upstanding ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard

... 'Be blithe as lambs in April are, As flies when fruits are red; 185 May God forbid that thought of me Should ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... struggling in the nightmare's grip, Fears he has let Time's scanty forelock slip, And lost a great occasion Of self-advancement. How that mouth's a-writhe With hate, on platforms oft so blandly blithe In golden-tongued persuasion! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various

... her for a true-hearted maiden!" cried Culverhouse, with a lover's easily-stirred enthusiasm. "Cuthbert, since thou knowest so much, thou shalt know more. I have made shift to write to Kate about this purpose of mine to visit the forest glades on blithe May Day; and she has sent me a little missive, fresh and sweet and dainty like herself, to tell me that she will ride forth herself into the forest that day, and giving the slip to her sisters or servants, or any who may accompany her, will meet ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... the robins, lusty as of old, Hunt the waste grass for forage, or prolong From every quarter of these fields the bold, Blithe phrases of their never-finished song. The white-throat's distant descant with slow stress Note after note upon the noonday falls, Filling the leisured air at intervals With his own ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman

... strictly determined law. The dreams fade, become unreal and unsubstantial; though not rarely, in some glimpse of retrospect, the pilgrim turns, ascends a hillock by the road, and sees the far-off lines, the quiet folds, of the blue heights from which he descended in the blithe air of the morning, and knows that they were desirable. Perhaps the happiest of all are those who, as the weary day advances, can catch a sight of some no less beautiful hills ahead of him, their hollows full of misty gold, where the long journey may end; ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... he said, after a few inanities had been succeeded by an awkward pause. "I've got to talk business with you, so I suppose we may as well begin, eh?" His tone was fairly blithe, but it was that of a man who was throwing off with powerful ease the weariness of somewhat exasperating annoyances. Since lunch he had had a ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... fallen in the night but Hermia splashed through the mud and water joyously, like a child, thankful nevertheless for Markham's thoughtfulness which had provided her last night with a pair of stout shoes and heavy stockings. To a spirit less blithe than hers the outlook would have been gloomy enough, for all the morning the clouds scurried fast overhead and squalls of rain and fog drove into the misty south. The trees turned the white backs of their shivering leaves to the wind and dripped moisture. The birds silently preened ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... to be still lingering about these wind-swept fells, about the farmhouses, with their rough serviceable walls, of the same stone as the crags behind them, and the ravines, in which the shrunken becks trickle musically down through the debris of innumerable Decembers. The country is blithe, but soberly blithe. Nature shows herself delightful to man, but there is nothing absorbing or intoxicating about her. Man is still well able to defend himself against her, to live his own independent life of labour and of will, and to develop the tenacity ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... last two rarely seen. Linnets, however, were abundant, now gathered in small flocks composed mainly of young birds in plain plumage, with here and there an individual showing the carmine-tinted breast of the adult male. Unhappily, a dreary fate was in store for many of these blithe twitterers. ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... corn The blithe quail pipes at morn, The merry partridge drums in hidden places, And glittering insects gleam Above the reedy stream, Where busy spiders spin their ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... when she arrived at the Hotel Denderah in Kulla, where the lovely porous jugs come from; in fact, so blithe was she that Ellen, inclined to despondency and of a ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... from his word departed His virtues were so rare; His friends were many and true-hearted, His Poll was kind and fair: And then he'd sing so blithe and jolly; Ah, many's the time and oft! But mirth is turned to melancholy, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... kept as it is, even as it is now; that Philae could be preserved even as it is now! The spoilers are there, those blithe modern spirits, so frightfully clever and capable, so industrious, so determined, so unsparing of themselves and—of others! Already they are at work "benefiting Egypt." Tall chimneys begin to vomit smoke along the Nile. A damnable ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... was in a lovely humor when Alexander came around. It was close and hot, and, after buying sondaes at the drug store on the corner below, Alexander suggested riding out and strolling along some of the paths of Druid Hill Park. He put it humbly, but he was most blithe and ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump

... much in life pleasanter than a long ramble on the road in leaf-green, sun-gold summer. Then it is Nature's merry-time, when fowls in woods them maken blithe, and the crow preaches from the fence to his friends afield, and the honeysuckle winketh to the wild rose in the hedge when she is wooed by the little buzzy bee. In such times it is good for the heart to wander ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... vice Departed in the train of avarice? Or do ambitious longings, angry fret, The terror of the grave, torment you yet? Can you make sport of portents, gipsy crones, Hobgoblins, dreams, raw head and bloody bones? Do you count up your birthdays year by year, And thank the gods with gladness and blithe cheer, O'erlook the failings of your friends, and grow Gentler and better as your sand runs ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... the sanctions of duty. There was one conspicuous exception on the banks of the Niagara. Mary Lawson, the daughter of the village miller and merchant of the little hamlet of Youngstown, that nestled under the wing of Fort Niagara on the American side of the river, was as blithe and bonnie a lass of eighteen summers as ever gladdened a father's heart. Admirers Mary had in plenty, but the must eligible of them all, in the opinion of the village gossips, was young Ensign Roberts, attached to the American forces at ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... merry, 't is merry, in good greenwood So blithe Lady Alice is singing; On the beech's pride, and oak's brown side, 35 Lord Richard's ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... for, in spite of his sorrow, he could not but admire the slender spring. He could not tell why, perhaps because he had always associated Nora with the gaiety of the spring-time. She was thin like the spring, and her laughter was blithe like the spring. She seemed to him like a spirit, and isn't the spring like a spirit? She was there in the cow-parsley just coming up, and the sight of the campions between the white spangles reminded him of the pink flowers she wore in her hat. The underwood was full of bluebells, but ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... because she fears that her husband is in love, or is going to be in love, with those companions of his student hours. If, instead of being folios, quartos, octavos, and the like, the Judge's books were buxom, blithe maidens, his wife could hardly be more jealous of the Judge's attentions to them than she is under existing circumstances. On one occasion, having found the Judge on two successive afternoons sitting alone in the library ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... "As blithe a peer," said Smith, "as ever turned night to day. Nay, it shall be an overflowing bumper, an you will; and I will drink it super naculum.—And how stands the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... looks are blithe and sweet, And what is best of a', Her reputation is complete, And ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... went to sleep 'mong them that sleep alway; And the blithe little lad began anew to sing... Sorrow is like a fruit: God doth not therewith weigh Earthward the branch strong ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... thy rounded cheek is fresh and fair, While beauty lingers, laughing, in thine eyes, Ere thy young heart shall meet the stranger, "Care," Or thy blithe soul become the home of sighs, Were it not kindness should I give thee rest By plunging this sharp dagger in thy breast? Dying so young, with all thy wealth of youth, What part of life wouldst thou not claim, in sooth? Only the woe, Sweetheart, that ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... as she stood feeding the tame pets from her hand, calling their fanciful names, laughing at their pranks, and heartily enjoying the winter sunshine, the fresh wind, and the girlish pastime. As Treherne slowly approached, he watched her with lover's eyes, and found her very sweet and blithe, and dearer in his sight than ever. She had shunned him carefully all the day before, had parted at night with a hasty handshake, and had not come as usual to bid him good-morning in the library. He had taken no notice of the change as yet, but now, remembering his promise to ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard

... and one interest. He came upon him with the effect of bouncing out from behind a screen with a series of funny, flat little questions. Sometimes Winn thought he was going to be angry with him, but he never was. There was a blithe impersonal touch in Dr. Gurnet, a smiling willingness to look on private histories as of less importance than last year's newspapers. It was as if he airily explained to his patients that really they had better put any facts there were on the files, and let the housemaid use the rest for ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome

... it is that you find such people so fickle and uncertain in their spirits; Now on the mount, then in the valleys; now in the sunshine, then in the shade; now warm, then frozen; now bonny and blithe, then in a moment pensive and sad; as thinking of a portion nowhere but in hell. This will cause smiting on the breast; nor can I imagine that the Publican was as yet farther than thus far in the Christian's progress, since yet he was smiting upon ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... see? Why, with a trip and a courtesy, As if to say,—"Good day, good day," Out steps a tiny bird! And though no soul were near to hear He'd pipe that same blithe word. ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... I hid my rage at the legal mandate which here compelled us to "go no faster than a man can walk." Under an air of blithe insouciance I disguised my fears, never starting perceptibly at "any toot" behind us which might mean Sir Alec on our track, and appearing to enjoy with the free spirit of a boy, the one great amusement of ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... to hear the merry lark, That bids a blithe good-morrow; But sweeter to hark in the twinkling dark To the soothing song of sorrow. Oh, nightingale! what doth she ail? And is she sad or jolly? For ne'er on earth was sound of mirth So ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various

... nothing—he could not think of death and her together. So he and the widow Kalm walked on silently—and so slowly that they soon lost sight of the two blithe sisters. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... back broken before they would help me in the burgh's work, and all the world kens the difference of the weight between public business in burgh and landward. What are their riots to me? have we not riots enough of our own?—But I must be getting ready, for the council meets this forenoon. I am blithe to see your father's son on the causeway of our ancient burgh, Mr. Alan Fairford. Were you a twelve-month aulder, we would make a burgess of you, man. I hope you will come and dine with me before you go away. What think you of to-day at two o'clock—just a roasted chucky ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... The return o' the Prodeegal—he! he! So ye've seen yer auld dad at last, and the last; the proper place, say ye, for yen father—he! he! Eh, lad, but I'm blithe to see ye. D'ye mind when we was last thegither? Ye was kneelin' on ma chest: 'Your time's come, dad,' says you, and wangs me o'er the face—he! he! I mind it as if 'twas yesterday. Weel, weel, we'll say nae mair about it. Boys will be boys. Sons will be sons. Accidents ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... more refreshing than a sight of somebody's home? Generally, at whatever place we stopped, we saw only the "men-folks;" the family, often half-breed, being huddled away in the rear. Here, in the room in which the guests were received, lay the smiling baby in its old-fashioned cradle. Two blithe little girls danced in and out, and the old grandfather sat holding a white-haired boy. When dinner was over, the great business of drying the clothes was resumed by the travellers and the family; and we held our wrappings by the fire, and turned them about, until we became so drowsy that we lost ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton



Words linked to "Blithe" :   unconcerned, lightsome, blithesome, light-hearted



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