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Frail   Listen
adjective
frail  adj.  (compar. frailer; superl. frailest)  
1.
Easily broken; fragile; not firm or durable; liable to fail and perish; easily destroyed; not tenacious of life; weak; infirm. "That I may know how frail I am." "An old bent man, worn and frail."
2.
Tender. (Obs.) "Deep indignation and compassion frail."
3.
Liable to fall from virtue or be led into sin; not strong against temptation; weak in resolution; also, unchaste; often applied to fallen women. "Man is frail, and prone to evil."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Frail" Quotes from Famous Books



... the day broke, my friends the wolves set up a parting benediction, so loud, and wild, and near to the house, that I was afraid lest they should break through the frail window, or come down the low wide chimney, and rob me of my child. But their detestable howls died away in the distance, and the bright sun rose up and dispersed the wild horrors of the night, and I looked once more timidly around me. The sight of the table spread, and the uneaten ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... young and fervent minds, that require a ceremony to keep them fast—yes, dear, and women more than others do. After that, they cease to have to rely upon themselves—a reliance their good instinct teaches them is frail. There, now; have I put my ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Sam., xix, 4. "O star-eyed Science! whither hast thou fled?"—Peirce cor. "Why do you tolerate your own inconsistency, by calling it the present tense?"—Id. "Thus the declarative mood [i.e., the indicative mood] may be used in asking a question: as, 'What man is frail?'"—Id. "What connection has motive, wish, or supposition, with the the term subjunctive?"—Id. "A grand reason, truly, for calling it a golden key!"—Id. "What 'suffering' the man who can say this, must be enduring!"—Id. "What is Brown's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... council inquires, give him the papers lying on the right-hand side of the writing-table under the smaller leaden weight. Remember me to Barbara and the children. If money is needed, ask Van Hout in my name for the rest of the sum due me; he knows about it. If you feel lonely, visit his wife or Frail von Nordwyk; they would be glad to see you. Buy as much meal, butter, cheese, and smoked meat, as is possible. We don't know what may happen. Take Barbara's advice! ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Debt. Defectum (something wanting) Defect Defeat. Dilat[-a]re Dilate Delay. Exemplum Example Sample. Fabr[)i]ca (a workshop) Fabric Forge. Factionem Faction Fashion. Factum Fact Feat. Fidelitatem Fidelity Fealty. Fragilem Fragile Frail. Gent[-i]lis Gentile Gentle. (belonging to a gens or family) Historia History Story. Hospitale Hospital Hotel. Lectionem Lection Lesson. Legalem Legal Loyal. Magister Master Mr. Majorem (greater) ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn

... hitherto endeavored to find a road to heaven, following your example and my father's; but now, for so great a reward, will I struggle on more bravely.' 'Struggle on,' he replied, 'and know this—not that thou art mortal but only this thy body. This frail form is not thyself. It is the mind, invisible, and not a shape at which a man may point with his fingers. Know thyself to be a god. To be strong in purpose and in mind; to remember to provide and to rule; to restrain and to move the body it is placed over, as the great God ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... about my being free, he looked at his wife and sighed, combing his whiskers with his skinny bird's claws, and showing the biggest freckles on the backs of his hands that I think I ever saw. He was still more stooped and frail-looking than when I saw him last; and when I told him I had settled down for life on my farm, I could see that I had lost caste with him. He was pining for the ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... Powers was joined by Italy—a surprising development which can only be explained on the ground of Italy's feeling that she could not hope for security at home, or for colonial expansion in the Mediterranean, so long as she remained in isolation. The Triple Alliance so constituted had a frail appearance, and it was hardly to be expected that Italy would receive strong support from partners in comparison with whose resources her own were insignificant. But the Triple Alliance has endured to the present day, ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History

... a glass house. break, crack, snap, split, shiver, splinter, crumble, break short, burst, fly, give way; fall to pieces; crumble to, crumble into dust. Adj. brittle, brash [U.S.], breakable, weak, frangible, fragile, frail, gimcrack|, shivery, fissile; splitting &c. v.; lacerable[obs3], splintery, crisp, crimp, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... alone in heroic opposition to the Conqueror of Christendom. Frail, old, and deserted even by those upon whose support he had relied, the Pope, Pius VII., had courage to oppose the Conqueror of the world. While John Stanhope was in Paris the celebrated interview took place between the aged Pontiff and the autocrat to whom the Vicar of Christ was but as a temporal ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... very rich and insolent. The poor were want-stricken and despairing. Fathers gazed at their children's pale faces, and knew not where to find food for them. Mothers hugged their frail infants to bosoms drained by famine. Want gnawed at the vitals. Despair had come, like a black and poisonous mist, to strangle ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... edge of a group of half a dozen or more men in evening dress, and women in filmy white—already close to him—so near that the frail stuff of her skirt brushed him, and the subtle, fresh aroma of her seemed to touch his cheek like ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... deeper into the steel wall of the pipe. Soon it broke through, and the slight rush of air was stopped by the insertion of a tightly fitting rubber tube. The tube terminated in a heavy rubber balloon, which surrounded a frail glass bulb. The man stood tense, one hand holding before his silica-and-steel helmeted head a large pocket chronometer, the other lightly grasping the balloon. A sneering grin was upon his face as he awaited the exact second of action—the ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... a frail craft in which to undertake such a journey as ours, being only some two feet six inches beam, by about sixteen inches deep, and twenty feet long; hollowed out of a single log. She had no thwarts, and the paddlers were ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... JUPITER: Why have the secret powers of this strange world 240 Driven me, a frail and empty phantom, hither On direst storms? What unaccustomed sounds Are hovering on my lips, unlike the voice With which our pallid race hold ghastly talk In darkness? And, proud ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... a fault, in what matter soever it be do not trouble nor afflict thyself for it. For they are effects of our frail Nature, stained by Original Sin. The common enemy will make thee believe, as soon as thou fallest into any fault, that thou walkest in error, and therefore art out of God and his favor, and herewith ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... men immediately beached the frail bark, and as they did so the water all ran away. "What an extraordinary thing," we thought, and when they pulled her right on to shore we saw the last ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... that was a poser. My brother-in-law's chauffeur, who was lent to me for a month, unbent sufficiently to go to town and press a bill into the hand of the head gardener of "The Place" of the village, so that we might have the grass mowed from that lawn. Alas for frail human nature! It seems that he disappeared from view about once in so often, and that his feet at that moment were trembling on the brink. So he slid over the edge, and the next man in charge had other friends with other cows. I tried the vegetable man next. He was a pleasant Greek, and promised ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... of a true fisherman Roseleaf sat quietly for two hours, during which time he had drawn out but few specimens. The long walk had, however, given him the appetite he needed, and he now pulled his frail craft toward the shore, with the intention of lighting a fire and preparing a meal. But even when he had nearly reached land he saw splinters flying beneath his feet, and immediately after heard a dull sound which showed what had caused ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... Master," I urged anxiously. How was I going to get him to the Rue des Saladiers? His arm round my neck weighed cruelly on my frail body. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... of the frail little man picked him up and carried him into the room and pulled off his elastic congress gaiters, and his coat and vest, and his detached cuffs, and his permanently tied tie, ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... gratitude. You know enough, doubtless, of the process of canonisation to be aware that, a hundred years after the death of Damien, there will appear a man charged with the painful office of the DEVIL'S ADVOCATE. After that noble brother of mine, and of all frail clay, shall have lain a century at rest, one shall accuse, one defend him. The circumstance is unusual that the devil's advocate should be a volunteer, should be a member of a sect immediately rival, and should make haste to take upon ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... they appear to depend more upon hunting than the sea for their subsistence. This I judged from the very inferior state of their canoes which are very much less ingeniously formed than even the frail ones of the Port Jackson natives; being merely sheets of bark with the ends slightly gathered up to form a shallow concavity, in which they stand and propel them by means of poles. Their huts are more substantially constructed and more ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... listening, until, overcome by curiosity, I bent down and lifted the flap of the letter-box. The interior of the hall was plainly visible. Mr. Annot had ceased singing and was now standing before the mirror which hung beside the hatstand. He was a trifle unsteady, and swayed on his frail legs, but he was staring at himself with a kind of savage intensity. At last he turned away and I caught the expression on his face.... With a slight shiver, I let down the flap noiselessly. There was something in ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... economy to gingerbread decoration, seemed to be but poor materials for vessels-of-war. The tremendous recoil of a rifled cannon fired from one of those airy decks, meant to stand no ruder shock than the vibration caused by dancing pleasure-parties, would shake the whole frail structure to pieces. Yet the ingenuity born of necessity, and the energy awakened by the immediate prospect of war, led the Confederate engineers to convert some of these pleasure-palaces into the most terrible engines of destruction chronicled in the annals of war. The ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... frail, and wrinkled. One side of her face shone in the lamplight with a strange hue, like tarnished silver. In her throat was a small bluish wound; ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... you saw her," answered the priest; "she was always rather frail, but I do not see that ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... care of his patients, saw the Bells and told them of his intended absence, and spent some time talking with the frail little child who had become greatly attached to him. As he rose to go, he turned to the couch once more. "What shall I send you from Boston, little Miss Alice?" he said kindly, and the girl replied in true child fashion, "Candy." ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens

... answer him, but sinking on her knees by the child, began to sob with a passionate grief that shook her frail form as a tree is ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... Thompson, determined to risk hoisting the sail. Accordingly this was done—with some difficulty, for the mast had to be drawn out and shipped—although the women screamed as the weight of the air bent their frail craft over till the gunwale was almost ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... doth Pitt deem the land crying loud to him— Frail though and spent, and an hungered for restfulness Once more responds he, dead fervours to energize Aims to concentre, slack efforts to bind. THOMAS HARDY, The Dynasts, Act i, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... in a sense incommunicable to other books, it is inspired. Yet, on the other hand, as they will not tell lies, or countenance lies, even in what seems the service of religion, they cannot hide from themselves that the materials of this imperishable book are perishable, frail, liable to crumble, and actually have crumbled to some extent, in various instances. There is, therefore, lying broadly before us, something like what Kant called an antinomy—a case where two laws equally binding ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... an instant, and fell, another beginning the process instantly. It amused Abel Keeling to watch them. Why (he wondered) were all the drops the same size? What cause and compulsion did they obey that they never varied, and what frail tenuity held the little globules intact? It must be due to some Cause.... He remembered that the aromatic gum of the wild frankincense with which they had parcelled the seams had hung on the buckets ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... converting a cheap affair into one of some pretensions, remember that one of the most telling points is the character of your porch railing. So at once remove the cheap one with its small, upright slats and the insignificant and frail top rail, and have a solid porch railing (or porch fence) built with broad, top rail. Then place all around porch, resting on iron brackets, rail-flower boxes, the tops of these level with the top of the rail, and paint the boxes the colour ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood

... make your million in a year, and return scandalously independent. It's in your American blood." Frail white fingers tapped an arm of the chair as their owner stared gravely into the fire. "I confess I envy ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... papa; I hope it may; but you may rest assured, that whatever happens, the lesson you have taught me, will, aided by divine support, sustain my soul, so long as the frail tenement in which it is lodged may last. ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... France. The Russians under Wittgenstein now appeared in his rear, and one of his divisions was either destroyed or captured. Napoleon had passed over the Beresina with a part of his army by means of two frail bridges, leaving the defence of the retreat to Victor. A scene ensued which defies description. The retreating French tumbled each other into the stream, or voluntarily rushed in to escape the fire of the Russians; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... What paineth thee In others, in thyself may be; All dust is frail, all flesh is weak; Be thou the same ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... "Even so, O frail and joyous Youth, who, wandering hither and thither, in every direction, flyest wherever thy instinct calls thee—even so thou dost often tear thy wings upon ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... made a mistake? Was the surmise which his intuition had suggested to him and which was based upon a frail groundwork of slight facts, was this ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc

... Sir, best Convey yourself into a sugar-chest; Or, if you could lie round, a frail were rare: And ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson

... degrades the ideals of the country. When a woman's ears and nose, the crown of her head, her neck, arms, hands, waist, ankles, and toes are made to sparkle with the wealth of the family, and to bear down the frail body of the proud victim, they cease entirely to set off the personal beauty of the woman herself, and become rather a counter attraction; and she is admired not for what she is, but for ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... the president,[**] one Maccail had in the interval been put to the torture, under which he expired. He seemed to die in an ecstasy of joy. "Farewell, sun, moon, and stars; farewell, world and time; farewell, weak and frail body: welcome, eternity; welcome, angels and saints; welcome, Savior of the world; and welcome, God, the Judge of all!" Such were his last words: and these animated speeches he uttered with an accent and manner which struck all ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... of their appetites, had consumed themselves too quickly. Louiset, dead in infancy; Jacques Louis, a half imbecile, carried off by a nervous disease; Victor returned to the savage state, wandering about in who knows what dark places; our poor Charles, so beautiful and so frail; these are the latest branches of the tree, the last pale offshoots into which the puissant sap of the larger branches seems to have been unable to mount. The worm was in the trunk, it has ascended into the fruit, and is devouring it. But one must never despair; families ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... no help for it," said the doctor. He was looking at Lady Mary as he spoke. Her face was deathly; her little frail hand grasped the table. ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... see and interpret Charley's action, and their guns were quickly turned upon his frail craft. As he drew nearer the drifting dugout and came within range, a perfect hail of bullets splashed the water into foam around him. He did not falter or hesitate, but with long clean strokes of the paddle, sent his light little craft flying towards his goal. Perhaps it ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... of the year, of day and May the prime, How fitly do we scale the steep dark stair, Into the brightness of the matin air, To praise with chanted hymn and echoing chime, Dear Lord of Light, thy sublime, That stooped erewhile our life's frail weeds to wear! Sun, cloud and hill, all things thou fam'st so fair, With us are glad and gay, greeting the time. The College of the Lily leaves her sleep, The grey tower rocks and trembles into sound, Dawn-smitten Memnon of ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells

... damned foolish for ladies to leave their scissors about;—the frail thread of a worthless life is soon snipped. I wish to God my fate had been true to its first destination, and made a parson of me;—I should have made an excellent country Joll. I think I can, with confidence, pronounce the character that would have been given of me:—He ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... philosophy of success, Phoebe proceeded to initiate me into the first process of my job, which consisted in pasting slippery, sticky strips of muslin over the corners of the rough brown boxes that were piled high about us in frail, tottering towers reaching to the ceiling, which was trellised over with a network of electric wires and steam-pipes. Two hundred and fifty of these boxes remained to be finished on the particular order upon which Phoebe was working. Each must be given eight muslin strips, four on the box ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... Chinagos the virtues and excellences of French law. There was nothing like setting an example once in a while; and, besides, of what use was New Caledonia except to send men to live out their days in misery and pain in payment of the penalty for being frail and human? ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... Earthen vessels, frail and slight, Yet the golden Lamp we bear; Master, break us, that the light So may fire the murky air; Skill and wisdom none we claim, Only seek to lift ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule

... sun went down Jean set his sail, meaning to make a rapid dash across the bay, and seeing no cause for concealing his movements. There was more swell than he liked for so frail a craft, but wind and tide were favourable to the enterprise, and the night was exceptionally bright, the moon being full; this brightness would have been fatal had the inhabitants been on the alert, but under present circumstances the pale beams ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous

... on golden harps play; Come, come away; come, come away; Falling and frail is your cottage of clay; Come, come away; come, come away: Come to these mansions, there 's room yet for you, Dwell with the Friend ever faithful and true; Sing ye the song, ever old, ever new; Come, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... something of the stars as the sailors' friends; and she had one of the most memorable evenings of her life when he explained to her something of the science of navigation and made her see how their great greyhound of the ocean, just like the first frail barks of the Tyrians, picked its way across trackless wastes of sea by the infallible guidance of "the friendly stars." All this particularly interested Mary Alice because of Some One who lived much in the open and ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin

... lower wing guided them. Bell jumped to the rocks first, and stumbled, and then rose to lift Paula down and take The Master's small, frail body from ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... girl came into the room. She was younger than Isabelle—ten years old, perhaps. She was fair and frail with a discontented ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... do niver such a thing,' said Sylvia. 'Thou's too frail to go out i' t' night air such a night ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... sense, my dear sir," rejoined Campana; "but we are all frail, erring creatures, and he was hardly dealt by. He is now gone to his heavy, heavy account, and I may as well tell you the poor boy's sad story at once. Had you but seen him in his prattling infancy, in ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... borderers built in the times of the Indian War, from 1750 to 1800. They were framed of the round logs, untouched by the ax except for the notches at the ends where they were fitted into one another; the chimney was of small sticks stuck together with mud, and was as frail as a barn swallow's nest; the walls were stuffed with moss, plastered with clay; the floor was of rough boards called puncheons, riven from the block with a heavy knife; the roof was of clapboards split from logs and laid loosely on the ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... a lusty, roaring fashion, as a healthy beefy boy hates a sick cat and torments it to madness. When she displeased him, he beat her, and knocked her frail form on the floor. The children could tell when this had happened. Her eyes would be red, and there would be blue marks on her face and neck. "Poor Mrs. Tony," they would say, and nestle close to her. Tony did not roar at her ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar

... set on attempting the rescue, she prevailed over both her father's judgment and her mother's entreaties; and into that awful sea the boat was at length launched. Though every billow threatened to engulf the frail craft, yet it nevertheless rode through the mountainous waves and drew near the rock where the helpless men and women were standing face to face with death. When it was sufficiently close to the shore William Darling sprang out to help the weary perishing creatures, whilst Grace was left ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... Meshkovsky, a neat, frail little man, was coming down the hall, looking worried. The strikes in the Ministries, he told us, were having their effect. For instance, the Council of People's Commissars had promised to publish the Secret Treaties; but Neratov, the functionary in charge, had disappeared, ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... which my father and mother and myself—then a child two years old—were passengers, I had been committed to a raft formed of a state-room door, and bolstered with pillows to keep me from rolling off. By an accident this frail craft was carried away from the burning steamer, then aground, and I was separated from my father, who, I grieve to say, was intoxicated at the time, and unable to do all that he would have accomplished ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic

... sharp bill, a series of punctures along the margins of one or more leaves. The punctured edges are then drawn together, by means of strands of cobweb, to form a purse or pocket. When this has been done the frail bands of cobweb, which hold the edges of the leaves in situ, are strengthened by threads of cotton. Lastly, the purse is cosily lined with silk-cotton down or other soft material. Into the cradle, thus formed, three or four ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar

... That is when they travel openly; but they have hidden passages and winding galleries under the snow, which undoubtedly are their main avenues of communication. Here and there these passages rise so near the surface as to be covered by only a frail arch of snow, and a slight ridge betrays their course to the eye. I know him well. He is known to the farmer as the deer-mouse, to the naturalist as the Hesperomys leucopus,—a very beautiful creature, nocturnal in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... entered a highly dramatic figure. He came on to the scene suddenly and with much uproar, in a way that would have made his fortune in a transpontine drama. I shall always regret I have not got that man's portrait, for I cannot do him justice with ink. He dashed up on to the verandah, smote the frail form of Mr. Glass between the shoulders, and flung his own massive one into a chair. His name was Obanjo, but he liked it pronounced Captain Johnson, and his profession was a bush and river trader ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... surpass them all in the art of catching jackshark. It was the fortunate experience of the writer to live among these people for many years, and to be inducted into the native method of shark-catching. In frail canoes, made of short pieces of wood, sewn together with coco-nut fibre, the Ocean Islanders will venture out with rude but ingeniously contrived wooden hooks, and capture sharks of a girth (not length) that no untrained ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke

... anxious—to do so, but just at the point of accomplishment their little failings of blindness and perversity come in. They are determined to retain their husbands' complete allegiance, but their devices and contrivances are mostly dull blunders. Considering what a frail tie, based on illusion, binds the sexes, my wonder as a bachelor is that men are, as a rule, as faithful to their wives as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... a look of the deepest disdain in his direction. "Why should you cling so hard to that wretched life of yours, Sergius?" said she. "It has done harm to many and good to none—not even to yourself. However, it is not for me to cause the frail thread to be snapped before God's time. I have enough already upon my soul since I crossed the threshold of this cursed house. But I must speak or I shall ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... judgment, Lord!" The pious mother prays; Impute not guilt to thy frail child! She knows not what ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... heaps provokes them forth. If then this world, which holds all nations, Suffers itself such alterations, That not this mighty massy frame, Nor any part of it can claim One certain course, why should man prate, Or censure the designs of Fate? Why from frail honours, and goods lent Should he expect things permanent? Since 'tis enacted by Divine decree That nothing mortal shall ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... heavy contributions on merchandise, increasing many-fold the price at which it must ultimately be sold. The routes by sea had many of the same dangers, along with others peculiar to themselves. The storms of the Indian Ocean and its adjacent waters were destructive to vast numbers of the frail vessels of the East; piracy vied with storms in its destructiveness; and port dues were still higher than ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... saint and began to kiss whatever part of the image was within reach—the handles of the litter, the decorations of the pedestal, the bronze body itself. The tottering structure of wood and metal began to stagger and reel like a frail bark tossing over a sea of shrieking heads and extended ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... had seen a man, supposedly dead on the operating table, jerk suddenly to his feet and scream. I had seen a young girl, not long before, awake in the midst of an operation, with the knife already in her frail body. Surely, after those definite horrors, no unknown danger would send me cringing back to the man who was waiting so bitterly for me ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... easy to see what had happened. The storm had demolished the crumbling walls of the old building, and the tower, itself frail and tottering, stood alone, high above the prostrate ruins. If the winds should again arise it must fall, and at any moment its shaken foundations might give ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton

... cried, on her solitary height, with the full accent of envy marking the verb; and when she wrote enviously to her friend of the life among bright intelligences, and of talk worth hearing, it was a happy signification that health, frail though it might be, had grown importunate for some of the play of life. Diana sent her word to name her day, and she would have her choicest to meet her dearest. They were in the early days of December, not the best of times for improvized gatherings. Emma wanted, however, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... means to make little parties, in which the time glides away insensibly. Then I have a small collection of books which are at your service. You may amuse yourself with Shakespeare, or Milton, or Don Quixote, or any of our modern authors that are worth reading, such as the Adventures of Loveill, Lady Frail, George Edwards, Joe Thompson, Bampfylde Moore Carew, Young Scarron, and Miss Betsy Thoughtless; and if you have a taste for drawing, I can entertain you with a parcel of prints ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... constructive capacity. Of these, perhaps the best are the instances in which the creatures have been caught in pitfalls, made by digging a hole in the paths of the wilderness which they are accustomed to follow, the surface being covered with a frail platform so arranged as to conceal the excavation. When one of a tribe is caught in the trap, the others, if time allows before the hunters come to the ground, will in an ingenious way release him. I doubt if the most practicable manner ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... of dread did now attack Frank, as he thought of the descent of a heavy man by the frail rope. If it had been he who was to go down, it would have been different, and he would have ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... happens to do any good. In waging his battle with mysterious nature, he only unfits himself by seeking gain. In the same way, to a lesser degree, the law and the ministry should not be gainful professions. When the question of personal gain and advancement comes in, the frail human being succumbs to selfishness, and then to error. Like the artist, the doctor, the lawyer, the clergyman, the teacher should be content to minister to human needs. The professions should be great monastic orders, reserved for those who have the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... spiritual beggary here, and for the eternal burnings hereafter! Oh, look upon that babe! It is the gift of God—given to thee, mother, to nurse for Him. Look upon that cherished one! See its smile of confidence turned to you! It is a frail and helpless bark on the tumultuous sea of life; it looks to you for direction,—for compass and for chart; your prayers for it will be heard; your hand can save it; the touch of your impressions will be a savor of life unto life, or of death ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... the world was building or pulling down something,—people hardly knew what as yet. There were very few streets in which high scaffoldings on long poles could not be seen, fastened from floor to floor with transverse blocks inserted into holes in the walls on which the planks were laid,—a frail construction, shaken by the brick-layers, but held together by ropes, white with plaster, and insecurely protected from the wheels of carriages by the breastwork of planks which the law requires round all such ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac

... what she contemplated, utterly wrong, and wild to madness; but the girl was ripe for such temptation and frail with a weakness due to long years of deprivation. Full half of her heart's desire was here, free to her covetous fingers, a queen's trousseau of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... as feeble as any new-born thing. When it stirred, and uttered little elemental sounds—"my fault, my fault"—she forgot the wrong he had done her, in seeing the wrong he had done himself.... "Oh, my Maurice—my Maurice!" But most of the time she did not hear this frail cry of the sense of sin! She thought entirely and angrily of herself; she said, over and over, that she was going to leave him. She was absorbed in hideous and poignant imaginings, based on that organic curiosity which is experienced only by the woman who meditates upon "the ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... out or ordered it from beginning to end. That would have been another man's way of doing it. He collected from his notebooks such thoughts as seemed to bear upon his subject, strung them together, and made an end when he had enough. The connection or relation between his thoughts is always frail and often invisible; some compare it with the thread which holds the pearls of a necklace together; others quote with a smile the epigram of Goldwin Smith, who said that he found an Emersonian essay about as ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... middle stature, thin, and even frail, as he stood defined against the sky; with the complexion of the student, and the student's aspect. The attentive droop of his shoulders and head, the straining of the buttoned coat across his chest, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... up from the sailors—a cry of heartrending agony,—a mass of enormous billows rolling steadily on together hurled themselves like giant assassins upon the frail and helpless vessel and engulfed it—it disappeared with awful swiftness, like a small blot on the ocean sucked down into the whirl of water—the vast and solemn greyness of the sea spread over it like a pall—it was a nothing, gone into nothingness! I watched one giant wave ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... him was the rude mountain bridge, and on the other side—freedom. Scarcely a dozen lengths away was Lenora, and close behind her came Quest. He slackened speed as he walked his horse cautiously on to the planked bridge. Suddenly he gave a little cry. The frail structure, unexpectedly insecure, seemed to sway beneath his weight. Lenora, who had been riding fast, was unable to stop herself. She came on to the bridge at a half canter. Craig, who had reached the other side in safety, ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... If traitors can, the basis is but frail. I mean such traitors as the vacant world Echoes most stunningly: not fur-robed knaves Whose whispers raise the dreaming bloodhound's ear Against benighted famished wanderers; While with remorseless guilt they undermine Palace and shed, ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor

... so gratifying to frail mortality as a good dinner when most wanted and least expected. It was perfectly dark before the action finished, but, on going to take advantage of the fires which the enemy had evacuated, we found their soup-kettles ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... to his party. That Cicero was wrong in supposing that the Republic, which had in fact already fallen, could be re-established by the strength of any one man, could be bolstered up by any leader, has to be admitted; that in trusting to Pompey as a politician he leaned on a frail reed I admit; but I will not admit that in praising the man he was hypocritical or unduly self-seeking. In our own political contests, when a subordinate member of the Cabinet is zealously serviceable to his chief, we do not accuse him of falsehood ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... being of mankind,—not, be it observed, of the being of any individual or of any aggregation of individuals; but of humanity as a whole. For this reason, also, is nature orderly, complete, and permanent,—that it is conditioned not upon our frail and faulty personalities, but upon our impersonal, universal human nature, in which is transacted the miracle of God's incarnation, and through which ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... much of the world as we like with pleasant shade, and pure blossom, and goodly fruit? Who forbids its valleys to be covered over with corn till they laugh and sing? Who prevents its dark forests, ghostly and uninhabitable, from being changed into infinite orchards, wreathing the hills with frail-floreted snow, far away to the half-lighted horizon of April, and flushing the face of all the autumnal earth with glow of clustered food? But Paradise was a place of peace, we say, and all the animals were gentle servants to us. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... glaringly evident that not long could elapse before wall and man would come down with a hideous, shattering run. A slip, a wilder clutch at his frail support, might in ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... a great loss of life must soon occur, either by the people on the frail refuge of the steamer's bridge being swept off it, or by the bridge itself being carried away by the seas, which were becoming more solid every moment, Jarvist and his comrades thought the cork fender was a long time in reaching them. Lives of men ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor

... so utterly crushed that he was revealing the inmost secrets of his soul to this frail girl, scarcely caring to conceal from her how ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... tiny pink rose, no larger than the nail of my little finger. Stalk and leaves were there, and golden pollen lay in its delicate heart. Each fairy-petal blushed with June fire; the frail leaves were exquisitely green. Withal it was as hard and unbendable as a ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... For, if I knew thou wert on that design, (As I must know, because our souls are one,) I should not wander, but by sure instinct Should meet thee just half-way in pilgrimage, And close for ever; for I know my love More strong than thine, and I more frail ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... recovered themselves long before I did, and I found myself helping them clumsily and unintelligently to raise the frail body of the old lady, while John Silence carefully replaced the covering over the grave and scraped back the sand with his foot, while he issued ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... we unable to know the rule of right and wrong in details, but we cannot know whether there is right or wrong. At times the poet seems inclined to say that evil is a phenomenon conjured up by the frail intelligence ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... my mortal eye with the brief appearance of their curly locks of golden light and laughing faces fair and faint as the people of a rosy dream. Or where the floating mass so imperfectly obstructs the color of the firmament a slender foot and fairy limb resting too heavily upon the frail support may be thrust through and suddenly withdrawn, while longing fancy follows them in vain. Yonder, again, is an airy archipelago where the sunbeams love to linger in their journeyings through space. Every one of those ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the manners of the country girls in England and in America; attributing the reserve of the former to the climate—to the absence of genial suns. But it must be their stars, not the zephyrs, gently stealing on their senses, which here lead frail women astray. Who can look at these rocks, and allow the voluptuousness of nature to be an excuse for gratifying the desires it inspires? We must therefore, find some other cause beside voluptuousness, I believe, to account ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... despite her surprise, could scarcely refrain from laughter, for Otto's words were fulfilled almost to the letter. Amid a strife of elements that caused their frail erections to tremble, the little door burst open, and Dominick, stooping low to save his head, entered. He was followed by the gaunt, dark form of Malines, who, in rough garments and long fishermen's boots, with pistols in belt, and cutlass by his side, was a particularly ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne

... slams the door viciously behind him. Eileen walks slowly back towards the fire-place, her face fixed in a dead calm of despair. As she sinks into one of the armchairs, the strain becomes too much. She breaks down, hiding her face in her hands, her frail shoulders heaving with the violence of her sobs. At this sound, Murray turns from the windows and comes ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill

... of March, 1872, in far-away Africa, whither he had nobly gone to carry the bright, cheering, and refining light of his musical genius, his frail constitution yielding to a fever, he died ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... floating on the deep; its frowning towers and battlements relieved here and there by tall graceful spars, which imagination could easily have transformed into spires and pinnacles of churches and turrets. On it came proudly through the waters, as if impatient to crush the frail vessel that lay in its path, utterly helpless and all but hopeless. Even the elements seemed to have conspired for the destruction of that devoted ship; no friendly breeze arose to send it bounding beyond the reach of danger; ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... aware of what was at my feet, kneeling there, face buried in clasped hands, too soft, too small, too frail to hold a man's whole destiny. And, as I bent to kiss them, I scarce dared clasp them, scarce dared lift her to my arms, scarce dared meet the frightened wonder in her eyes, and the full sweetness of them, and the love breaking through their azure, as ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... women; Ben Legend a sea-dog who cannot speak without a nautical metaphor; Jeremy an idealised comic servant; and Foresight grotesque farce. Angelica is a shrewd but hearty 'English girl,' and Miss Prue a veritable country Miss; while Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight are broadly skittish matrons. There is nothing in the play to strain the attention or to puzzle the intellect, and it is full of laughter: no wonder it was a success. It is, intellectually, on an altogether different ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... in his saw-mill and grist-mill, and during the winter months picked up a meager education at the district school. He has said that it was the rude and imperfect mills of his father that first turned his attention to machinery. He was not fitted for hard work, however, as he was frail in constitution and incapable of bearing much fatigue. Moreover, he inherited a species of lameness which proved a great obstacle to any undertaking on his part, and gave him no little trouble all through life. At the age ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... strange mixture. The kindest-hearted man in the world, he is a human bloodhound when once the lure of the trail has caught him. He scarcely eats or sleeps when the chase is on, he does not seem to know human weakness nor fatigue, in spite of his frail body. Once put on a case his mind delves and delves until it finds a clue, then something awakes within him, a spirit akin to that which holds the bloodhound nose to trail, and he will accomplish the apparently ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner

... "trousseau" to her mind; and then he sent her a letter, which had evidently accompanied a whole box full of finery, and in which he requested that she might be dressed in everything her heart desired. This was the first letter, ticketed in a frail, delicate hand, "From my dearest John." Shortly afterwards they were married, I suppose, from the intermission ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... wife. He had found a lady at Colwyn Bay, whom he had known as a girl. She was a widow, had just lost her father, with whom she lived, and was very miserable and forlorn. I need not say we all wrote the most friendly letters. She came, a frail, delicate creature, with one child. My mother did all she could for her, but was much baffled by her reserve and shrinking. Then—bit by bit—through some extraordinary chances and coincidences—I needn't go through it all—the ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... trelliss'd porch, a mirror'd hall, A Hebe, laughing from the wall, Frail vases from remote Cathay,— While, under arms and armour wreath'd In trophied guise, the marble breath'd— A peering ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker

... are not immortal, my child. Every day loosens my frail hold of earthly things, and even Peggy's strong arm will in time grow weak. Your young strength will then be ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... the lone spaces which are still your own; by the rushing rapids where you spear the great "namha" ( sturgeon) will we light the evening fire and lie down to rest, lulled by the ceaseless thunder of the torrent; the lone lake shore will give us rest for the midday meal, and from your frail canoe, lying like a sea-gull on the wave, we will get the "mecuhaga" (the blueberry) and the "wa-wa," (the goose) giving you the great medicine of the white man, the the and suga in exchange. ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... royal place, A gentle lady, and the hand That sways the sceptre of this land, How frail and weak Soft is the voice and fair the face; She breathes amen to prayer and hymn No wonder that her eyes are dim, And pale ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... So the raft grew under his hands, broad as the floor of a stout merchantship. And he fenced her with bulwarks, piling up blocks of wood to steady them. Last of all he made mast and sail and rigging; and when all was ready he thrust the frail vessel with rollers and levers ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell

... women who are frail are most susceptible to the strain of nursing, especially if they fail to get sufficient rest. All nursing mothers ought to have at least eight hours of sleep in the twenty-four. The night-feeding, generally advisable for the first six to eight weeks, ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... "While thus kindly treated by the family with whom nominally a governess, I was on the terms of a friend with Signor Ludovico Cicogna, an Italian of noble birth. He was the only man I ever cared for. I loved him with frail human passion. I could not tell him, my true history. I could not tell him that I had a child; such intelligence would have made him renounce me at once. He had a daughter, still but an infant, by a former marriage, then brought up in France. He wished to take her to ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... admit, as has been suggested, that these frail objects should have been saved from the plunder and burning of the villas and preserved by the Anglo-Saxons as curiosities. Glasses with knobs, "a larmes," abound in the Anglo-Saxon tombs, and similar ones have been found ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... would change the old dream for new treasure? Make not youth's sourest grapes the best wine of our life? Need he reckon his date by the Almanac's measure Who is twenty life-long in the eyes of his wife? Ah, Fate, should I live to be nonagenarian, Let me still take Hope's frail I.O.U.s upon trust, Still talk of a trip to the Islands Macarian, And still climb the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... excursion, meant no more to me than a week of rooms gloomy and games forbidden; the decease of King Augustin, my uncle, appeared at the first instant of even less importance. I recollect the news coming. The King, having been always in frail health, had never married; seeing clearly but not far, he was a sad man: the fate that struck down his brother increased his natural melancholy; he became almost a recluse, withdrew himself from the capital to a retired residence, and henceforward was little more than a name in ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... everything in her power for its realisation. The large, pleading, dilated eyes were fixed upon her wistfully, steady in their gaze, though the poor white lips quivered like those of a child. Margaret gently rose up and stood opposite to her frail mother; so that she might gather the secure fulfilment of her wish from the calm steadiness ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... from the moment he learned the tin box was missing, that only the frail, fair fingers of Minnie Merle could have abstracted it, but justice demanded that he should have indisputable proof of her presence in V—— after twelve o'clock, for he had not left the library ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... upon the man. He had told her that he valued life but little, that at best no great length of days awaited him; and now she thought that wandering about the cliffs by night he might have met the death he did not fear. Then she remembered he was but a sick man always, with frail breathing parts; and her thoughts turned to the shed, and she pictured him lying ill there, unable to communicate with friends, perhaps waiting and praying long hours for her footfall as she had been ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... put his hand to the plough, shall look behind him, is not fit for the kingdom of heaven.' The loss of the body being then without comparison less to be feared than that of the soul, according to the principles of Eternal Wisdom, I am resolved to sacrifice a frail and miserable life for everlasting happiness. In fine, I have set up my rest, I will undertake this voyage, and nothing is capable of altering my resolution. Let all the powers of hell break loose upon me, I despise them, provided ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... harmony, but he always bore it bravely, and, when possible, lent the aid of his own high, sweet tenor, to the nasal clamour. After the hymn came a short prayer, delivered as though the speaker really believed that his God was at hand, and would instantly listen to any petition humbly proffered by frail creatures. At the end of a short pause, Walter Musgrave stood up to speak. He broadened his chest and straightened himself, unconsciously hinting at his physical power. He then read his text in a low voice: "Why is life given to a man whose way is hid, ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... dark, but it sufficed the fugitive to make good his passage from Caprera to the island of Maddalena. A strong south-east breeze was blowing; the waves, however, were rather favourable to the venture, as they hid the frail bark from any eyes that might be peering through the night. Garibaldi did not fear; he had often put out on this terrible sea when lashed to fury to succour sailors in their peril. On reaching Maddalena he scrambled over the rocks to the house of an English lady who was delighted to give him hospitality. ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... James continued to prosper; he rose to be cashier in the bank, and he won a calm but certain place in Christine's regard. She had never quite recovered the shock of her long illness; she was still very frail, and easily exhausted by the least fatigue or excitement. But in James' eyes she was perfect; he was always at his best in her presence, and he was a very proud and happy man when, after eight years' patient waiting and ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... an appointment is not fit even to fight a duel, so the man who cannot keep an appointment with himself is not sane enough even for suicide. It is not easy to mention anything on which the enormous apparatus of human life can be said to depend. But if it depends on anything, it is on this frail cord, flung from the forgotten hills of yesterday to the invisible mountains of to-morrow. On that solitary string hangs everything from Armageddon to an almanac, from a successful revolution to a return ticket. On that solitary string the Barbarian is hacking heavily, with a sabre which ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton

... her arms around Aunt Mary and clung to her. How small and frail she was! Somehow Honora had never realized it in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... sheepishly, as he caught sight of us. But he kept "eyes front" and refused to give any further sign as he marched bravely on behind that brave music. He is learning the law of the pack. For some first frail ideas of service are beginning to incubate in that egoistic little bean of his. And he's suffering, I suppose, the old contest between the ancestral lust to kill and the new-born inclination to succor and preserve. That means he may some day be "a gentleman." ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... for't, Kaytherine; hearken and you'll hear my cry across the cauldriff sea." It was a call from the heart which transported Katherine to Thrums in a second of time, she seemed to see her mother again, grown frail since last they met—and so all was well for Meggy. Tommy did not put all this to himself but he felt it, and after that he could not have written the letter differently. Happy Tommy! To be an artist is a great thing, but to be an artist and not know it is the ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... much less dangerous to assail in this way than the elk or even the common deer (Cervus Virginianus), as the latter, when brought in contact with the frail birch-canoe, often kick up in such a manner as to upset it, or break a hole through its side. On the contrary, the moose is frequently caught by the antlers while swimming, and in this way carried alongside without either difficulty ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... read and reread the letter with breathless curiosity. In the letter which was also a small snap-shot picture of the girl. Petka looked at the picture and did not know what to say. To judge from her photograph, she was a frail spinster, with high cheekbones, a long neck and a nose like a frozen potato. But the trimming of her hair, her city hat with flowers, and her whole American bearing made her interesting enough to the ambitious tailor. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... him by head and shoulders, d—ning his curiosity, that would not let gentlemen be private in their own inn. Apparently mine host considered his own presence as no intrusion, for he crowded up to the table on which I had laid down the leaden box. It was frail and wasted, as might be guessed, from having lain so many years in the ground. On opening it, we found deposited within, a case made of porphyry, as the stranger ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... A frail sound of a tunic trailing across the infertile earth, and the sonorous weeping of the old bells. The dying embers of the horizon smoke. White ancestral ghosts go lighting ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos

... were about two hundred and fifty yards away. A rifle-bullet would reach them more quickly than anything, and Jack drew a careful bead on the nearest worker and fired. His bullet went through the arm which had just swung up the heavy blade for a fresh stroke at the frail bridge, and the dah dropped into the water, while the dacoit's yell of pain came clearly to the ears of the party now gathered on the ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... curses, but there was no pause. I could mark their faces now, cruel, angry, revengeful; the hands that grasped the veranda railings; the leaping bodies; the rifle-butts uplifted to batter down our frail defences. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... think that a robust organization is any warrant of long life, nor that a frail and slight bodily constitution necessarily means scanty length of days. Many a strong-limbed young man and many a blooming young woman have I seen failing and dropping away in or before middle life, and many a delicate and slightly constituted ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... with a rapidity that seemed almost the quick result of the working of some machine; and those closest to the grave's brink crouched down, and, intent as they were upon the progress of events, heeded not the damp earth that fell upon them, nor the frail brittle and humid remains of humanity that occasionally ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... person prized, In portrait is immortalized. Engravings, woodcuts, are supplied, And through the world spread far and wide. Upon them all is seen his name, And ev'ry one admits his claim; Even the image of the Lord Is not with greater zeal ador'd. Strange fancy of the human race! Half sinner frail, half child of grace We see HERR WERTHER of the story In all the pomp of woodcut glory. His worth is first made duly known, By having his sad features shown At ev'ry fair the country round; In ev'ry alehouse ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... day and by night for four long months thy roarings have not ceased—the shores of the sea are strewn with wrecks, its keel-welcoming surface has become impassable, the earth has shed her beauty in obedience to thy command; the frail balloon dares no longer sail on the agitated air; thy ministers, the clouds, deluge the land with rain; rivers forsake their banks; the wild torrent tears up the mountain path; plain and wood, and verdant dell are despoiled of their loveliness; our very cities are wasted by thee. Alas, what will ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... the embellishing of statues, amass together all the gold and precious stones in the world; the worship must not be referred to the statues, for the Deity does not exist in colours artfully disposed, nor in frail matter destitute of sense and motion." Plutarch says in the same treatise,(358) "that as the sun and moon, heaven, earth, and the sea, are common to all men, but have different names, according to the difference of nations and languages; in like manner, though there is ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... Head, at the elevation of four hundred or more feet, this supposition assumes a great degree of probability; and it would further seem that the subsiding of the waters has not been at a period very remote, since these frail branches have yet neither been all beaten down nor mouldered away by ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... shoots forth at first all embarrassment, still retaining much of the child, and ever and unconsciously betraying her sex. This period is very unpropitious for some girls, who suddenly shoot up, become ugly, sallow and frail, like plants before their due season. For those, however, who, like Miette, are healthy and live in the open air, it is a time of delightful gracefulness which once passed ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... and fix the imputation, upon its unprincipled authors. The loop on which this absurd tale is made to hang, is the frail and feeble certificate of Ketcham, Gardner and Cowles. That I should be authorised to apply an epithet more severe than that of frail and feeble, I take it upon me to prove in the first place by the certificate itself, compared with one which the same men issued last spring: And in the next place by a plain statement of facts, given under the solemnity of an oath, leaving it at present for ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector

... formed one friendship among them, a friendship born of her protective instinct, with Millicent Saunders, a frail, pale wisp of a child, whose black eyes looked very big indeed in her thin face, framed in a mass of black hair. The other pupils were apt to look down on Millicent, because, though few of them ran to finery, Millicent was shabby indeed. Pollyooly was quite unaffected by this, ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson

... in despite of reason, still endure! Alas! the sermon of the rose we will Not wisely ponder; nor the sobs of grief Lulled into sighs of rapture; nor the cry Of fierce defiance that again is still. Be patient—patient with our frail belief, And stay it yet a little ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley



Words linked to "Frail" :   human, imperfect, sapless, rickety, fallible, feeble, debile, frailness, weakly, fragile, weight unit, decrepit, delicate, breakable, infirm, basket



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