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Light-hearted   Listen
adjective
Light-hearted  adj.  Free from grief or anxiety; gay; cheerful; merry.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Light-hearted" Quotes from Famous Books



... keeping his journal no longer possible for him. That strain, so long continued, broke him down, and he never recovered from it so as to be what he had been before. Nevertheless, when she became convalescent, the reaction from his dark misgivings made him, for a time, as light-hearted as a boy; and, the carnival happening to be coincident with her recovery, he entered into the fun of it with a zest and enjoyment that surprised himself. But, again, it presently became evident that her recovery was ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... so proud and light-hearted all that day, I so vividly retained on my face the feeling of Zinaida's kisses, with such a shudder of delight I recalled every word she had uttered, I so hugged my unexpected happiness that I ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... very grave, and it was quite a different man to the light-hearted little Italian that I knew who related to me a strange chapter in his life. As a young man, Pesca had belonged to, a secret society for the removal of tyrants. He was still a member of the society, and could be called upon to act at any time. The ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... a remarkably light-hearted little place, but it never had entered into quite so gay a season as this memorable August when Captain Bertram came ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... and went away half dazed and a prey to many emotions, but strangely light-hearted withal: and as once before, he walked when he might have ridden. But the mixed-emotion mood was not immortal. At the Clarendon he found a committee of Civic Leaguers waiting to ask him if he would stand as a "Good Government" candidate ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... not only missed my occasional glimpses of her pretty, slim figure, always draped in some soft black stuff with a bit of scarlet at the throat, but I inferred that she did not go about the house singing in her light-hearted manner, as formerly. What had happened? Had the honeymoon suffered eclipse already? Was she ill? I fancied she was ill, and that I detected a certain anxiety in the husband, who spent the mornings ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... overrun by the Turks, as other Balkan states were, and as a consequence they still retain, like the Greeks, a native aristocracy of culture. Physically, they are fairer than most of the Balkan Slavs and more refined in appearance. By temperament they are light-hearted, joyous, frivolous, ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... Ida stood in the broad carriage sweep, with her back to the stately old mansion which had sheltered her so long, and in which, despite her dependency and her poverty, she had known some light-hearted hours. Now, where was she to go? and what was she to do with her life? She stood with the autumn wind blowing about her—the fallen chestnut leaves drifting to ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... the leaves; but mentally she was busy turning over other leaves, which had by far most of her attention. The pages that memory read the record of the old times passed in that very room, and the old childish light-hearted feelings that were, she thought, as much beyond recall. Those pleasant times, when the world was all bright and friends all fair, and the light heart had never been borne down by the pressure of care, nor sobered by ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... the odds on the gladiators who were to fence at the approaching Saturnalia. While thus occupied, he overtook Flaminius, who, with a heavy step and a melancholy face, was sauntering in the same direction. The light-hearted young man ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... party which had gathered together in the shady heart of Haven Woods. The Selwyns, Sara and Elisabeth, Miles Herrick and the Lavender Lady were all there, and, in addition, there was a large and light-hearted contingent from Greenacres, where Audrey was entertaining a houseful of friends. Only Garth had not ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... their feet, and stood in awkward reverence while the National Anthem of our brave Belgian Allies was in course of execution. I looked at Helen, and Helen looked at me, and we both tried not to look too regretfully at our plates as we also adopted the prevailing pose. Not one note of that light-hearted anthem did the orchestra miss, and when it was over the warmth in our hearts almost compensated for the coldness of our fish. We decided to jump at ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various

... was great in rank, beauty, wealth and intellect, yet through the various scenes of the light-hearted drama, Elizabeth only swung her head, muttered and sighed, while her courtiers evinced great amusement at the predicament of the various lovers in the play. Nothing can minister to ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... longer a prisoner at Woodstock, she rides gaily into Oxford. At the northern gate she is welcomed by the mayor, and the city bestows its gifts of plate and money. For days her scholarly mind is entertained with public disputations, relieved at intervals by theatrical shows. It is all brilliant and light-hearted; a weight has been taken from ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How

... rim of the canoe and the meaning of which I did not understand when I left Talagouga. We sorted ourselves out hastily and sent her at it again. Smash went a sorely tried pole and a paddle. Round and round we spun in an exultant whirlpool, which, in a light-hearted, maliciously joking way, hurled us tail first out of it into the current. Now the grand point in these canoes of having both ends alike declared itself; for at this juncture all we had to do was ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... meant her playful retort as a mere light-hearted quibble. It annoyed her, a young person of much consequence, to have ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... the light-hearted Canadian reply, "would I tell you this is the road if I were not quite certain? Only one year ago I travelled it, and can I forget so soon? Oh, no—I remember every ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... in the field." So he remained at the castle and took a walk with Mr. Emilius. Mr. Emilius asked a good many questions about Portray, and exhibited the warmest sympathy with Lizzie's widowed condition. He called her a "sweet, gay, unsophisticated, light-hearted young thing." "She is very young," replied her cousin. "Yes," he continued, in answer to further questions; "Portray is certainly very nice. I don't know what the income is. Well; yes. I should think it is over a thousand. Eight! No, I never heard it said that it was as much as that." When Mr. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... where John Gilpin takes the Babes in the Wood en croupe; and the bewitchingest Queen of Hearts coquets the Great Panjandrum himself "with the little round button at top"—a land, in short, of the most kindly and light-hearted fancies, of the freshest and breeziest and healthiest types—which is ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... appeared more light-hearted than usual that evening, as he chatted and joked with his friends among the performers. He did not wish the man or men whom he had overheard off on the lot to know that he was the eavesdropper. He felt that he could make better progress in his investigation were they ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... To set up a new independent kingdom! In the existing state of Balkan affairs, when the Great Powers——But of course it can be nothing but a girlish joke, a piece of light-hearted ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... Ruth that these people who had a moment before been so devout and concentrated in church should in an instant switch their whole thought to a day of eating and merrymaking. But she soon found their light-hearted gaiety very infectious. Before she knew it, she was sputtering away in the best French she had and entering into the fun with all ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... of some charity, who, in their white linen trousers and blue coats, formed a prominent feature of the display. Far from being puffed up with their consequence, they gossiped cheerfully with the spectators in the pauses of the march, and made jests to each other in that light-hearted, careless way observable in old men taken care of, and with nothing before them to do worth speaking of but to die. I must own that the honest facchini who bore the candles were equally affable, and even freer with their jokes. But in ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... on a day of grey mist and drizzling rain, which completely hid any view of the surrounding country, and of necessity confined our attention to the stones (and wet grass!) immediately beneath our feet. But another visit was on a day of wind and sunshine, and in the company of a group of light-hearted students. We explored the ruins of Borcovicus, walked along the broad and broken top of the Wall, and climbed up hill and down dale with it under the pleasantest conditions, if a trifle breezy on the heights. ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry

... the discovery with appropriate remarks, but the situation called for deeds rather than words. The cumbrous craft was swinging gayly out into the stream, displaying a light-hearted energy and ease of motion which would certainly not have been forthcoming had it been the object of her unwilling crew to get her ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... were a party of officers bound from Monterey to Santa Fe, escorted by two-and-twenty Apaches and some twelve or fifteen families of Ciboleros. I knew the officers, and was very glad to have intelligence from California. Isabella was as bright as ever, but not quite so light-hearted. Padre Marini, the missionary, had embarked for Peru, and the whole city of Monterey was still laughing, dancing, singing, and love-making, just as I ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... resembling a gentleman of the turf; one would not wish a refined and modest scholar to wear the outward air of a fast fellow, or an aged and venerable statesman to appear with all the peculiarities of a young dandy. The flowers, feathers, and furbelows which a light-hearted young girl of seventeen embellishes by the airy grace with which she wears them, are simply ridiculous when transferred to the toilet of her serious, well-meaning mamma, who bears them about with an anxious face, merely because ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... if it is?" Esther demurred. "I suppose he has a right to say what he likes, hasn't he?" But she was laughing as she spoke; she felt wonderfully happy and light-hearted. "I believe ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... News from all nations lumbering at his back. True to his charge, the close packed load behind, Yet careless what he brings, his one concern Is to conduct it to the destined inn; And having dropped the expected bag, pass on. He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch! Cold and yet cheerful; messenger of grief Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some; To him indifferent whether grief or joy. Houses in ashes and the fall of stocks. Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks Fast as the periods ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various

... revelation. A prevailing sadness, occasionally a painful tone of bitterness, characterized these more serious moods of his, but I do not think that, at the end of that week, I would, if I could, have changed the man, whom I was learning to revere and to pity, for the light-hearted playmate whom I felt was lost to me ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... hand, and the two indulged in a mutual squeezing affair, in which the honors were about even. Big Bob certainly looked happier than Jack could ever remember seeing him before. Well, he had good reason for feeling light-hearted, since in a flash he had been enabled to throw overboard the terrible weight that had for days and weeks been lying upon his soul, and making life unhappy ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... seldom speaking, and never laughing nor joking. However true this may be in regard to some tribes, it certainly was not the case with most of those who lived upon the great Plains. These people were generally talkative, merry, and light-hearted; they delighted in fun, and were a race of jokers. It is true that, in the presence of strangers, they were grave, silent, and reserved, but this is nothing more than the shyness and embarrassment felt by a child in the presence ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... mother, and as I grow old I like to sit with only them by me; for their voices and looks carry me back to the happiest period of my life, and make me, for the moment, as young as I used to be then, though not quite so light-hearted. "It's quite a marriage of affection, pa," said Bella, after a short silence. "Yes, my dear," said I; "but such marriages do not always turn out the happiest." "I am sorry to hear you express your opinion against marriages of affection, pa," said Bella, colouring a little. ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald

... the morning in peals that were well calculated to call the Caesars from their tombs and which might, indeed, have been mistaken for the final trumpet calls of Gabriel. But the Romans take their pleasures rather sadly and sternly,—not like the light-hearted Florentines in song and laughter, or with the joyous abandon of the Neapolitans,—so there was no special manifestation on the part of the populace, and the day, cold, gloomy, and cheerless, did not ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... bark, as the black-and-white warbler, or feed from the ground or the thicket as does the worm-eating? Did he snatch flies on the wing as the necklaced Canadian warbler, or glean from the brook's edge as our water thrush? The struggle for existence has not been absent from the lives of these light-hearted little fellows, and they have had to be jack-of-all-trades ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... one of her companions I never could abide, and I'm sure that girl is at the bottom of some mischief. By-and-by Mary's walks homewards were not alone. She was joined soon after she came out by a man; a gentleman. I began to fear for her, for I saw she was light-hearted, and pleased with his attentions; and I thought worse of him for having such long talks with that bold girl I told you of. But I was laid up for a long time with spitting of blood; and could do nothing. I'm sure it made made ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... was not really so light-hearted. I could not help thinking of what this night might have been if Kennedy had been alive. Indeed, I was glad to take up my white mask, throw a long coat over my outlandish costume and hurry off in my waiting car in order to forget everything that reminded ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... not so rattle-headed as he seemed, and the more he reflected, the more desirable such a machine appeared to him. Four years passed, and with a wife and three children to support in a great city on a salary of nine dollars a week, the light-hearted boy had become a thoughtful, plodding man. The thought of the sewing-machine haunted him night and day, and he finally resolved ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... on the road in the bright moonlight and looked about her. She had thrown back the hood of Marcos' military cloak and now set her mantilla in order. Which was all the preparation this light-hearted bride made for the supreme moment. And perhaps she never knew all that ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... borne by any other family—and remained there for two hundred years, going to England only when, Venice falling into decay, it was necessary to go where they could live in safety. He wrote the account of his travels to his sister in a series of affectionate and light-hearted letters, which charmingly betray his own personality, and which are full of the most vivid pictures of Malta, Corfu, Albania, the Plains of Troy, Turkey—which was kind to his race when a cruel and unreasoning ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... for future Army service were wholly in the balance. But Captain Goodwin had impressed upon him that good spirits would have a lot to do with his chances. So strong was his will that Prescott was actually almost light-hearted when it came around time to eat his evening meal of ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock

... But you have no right to love him; honor and honesty are in the way, friendship not considered at all. You'll spring up in the sun again after a little while, like fresh grass that's trodden on, just as happy and light-hearted as before. Let me have this one without any more interference—there are plenty in the world that you would stand heart-high to with your bright little head, just as ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... A merry, light-hearted student, he arrived in Berlin in 1821. A curious spectacle is presented by the Jewish Berlin of the day, dominated by the salons, and the women whose tact and scintillating wit made them the very centre of general society. The traditions of Rahel Levin, Henriette Herz, and other ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... to me that night to ask me about living here. 'What he was once to me,' she said, 'is buried in a grave, side by side with what I was to him. But I have thought of this; and I will make the trial. In the hope of saving him; for the love of the light-hearted girl (you remember her) who was to have been married on a New Year's Day; and for the love of her Richard.' And he said he had come to her from Lilian, and Lilian had trusted to him, and she never could forget that. So they were married; and when they came home here, and I ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... and the wild roses were trooping in. When the broom is in flame there seems to be no colour but yellow; but when the wild roses come we remember that the broom was flaunting. It was not quite a lady, for it insisted on being looked at; while these light-hearted things are too innocent to know that there is anyone to look. Grizel was sitting by the side of the stream, adorning her hat fantastically with roses red and white and some that were neither. They were those that cannot decide whether they ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... the other side of the fire, sits Edith, smiling and light-hearted as ever, and with the same fair, sweet face; but a plain golden band, circling one white finger, proclaims that the gay, laughing girl has found a woman's true place in the world, and that the grave, gentlemanly captain has won his suit in ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... to this forsaken region, yet he wakes up from his sleep with a smile on his face and a question as to how a nice, large, juicy steak would go about now. This is no place for jokes, yet his jokes are cheering and make us all feel more light-hearted. He is the "life of the funeral" and by his cheerfulness has kept our spirits from sinking to a dead level, and when the Esquimos commenced to get cranky, by his diplomacy he brought them to think of other subjects than going back ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson

... collected in Twice-Told Tales (vol. i. 1837, vol. ii. 1842) some are painted in gay and lively hues, the prevailing tone of the book is sad and mournful. The light-hearted philosophy of the wanderers in The Seven Vagabonds, the pretty, brightly coloured vignettes in Little Annie's Rambles, the quiet cheerfulness of Sunday at Home or The Rill from the Town Pump, only serve to throw into darker ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... cottage by the mine, has kept her secret well, whispering it only to the rushing wind and the running brook, which have told no tales to the gay, light-hearted girl, save to murmur in her ear that a life untrammeled by etiquette and form would be a blissful life indeed. And Maggie, listening to the voices which speak to her so oft in the autumn wind, the running brook, the opening flower, and ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... by before Vanderlyn again saw Peggy, and then he had found her changed—transformed from a merry, light-hearted girl into a pensive, reserved woman. During the interval he had often thought of her as one thinks of a delightful playfellow, but he only came to love her after their second meeting—when he had seen, at first with honest dismay, and then ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... Bohemianism still—there will always be Bohemianism. But the present will never wear the same air of fantasy as the past. It is the same with all things. Every circumstance take its colour from the immediate surroundings, and you cannot expect to get the same light-hearted Bohemianism in the midst of an orderly, church-going, police-conducted district. What hope is there for a troubadour nowadays with the latest regulations upon street noises? We must dispense with troubadours and get our Romance elsewhere. So ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... not altogether favourable. It was understood that he painted pictures and played very finely on the piano, and every one could see that he dressed in the most fashionable manner and that he was handsome and light-hearted. But it could not be hid that he often came for money, which old Mr. Tresham had sometimes to borrow in St. Penfer for him. And business men noted the fact that his visits were so erratic and frequently so long in duration that it was hardly likely ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... what harm they were doing with their light-hearted songs. David himself was pleased with the praise of the young women, as we might expect; but as the tall king rode on he grew more angry, saying to himself as he spurred forward his horse, "What more can he have but the kingdom itself?" And he watched David from that ...
— Children of the Old Testament • Anonymous

... a book goes for a great deal. The opening of Our Mutual Friend is much more instinctively energetic and light-hearted than that of any of the other novels of his concluding period. Dickens had always enough optimism to make his stories end well. He had not, in his later years, always enough optimism to make them begin well. ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton

... a kindly look the two young people walking on in front of her. Whatever pleased her son pleased her, and she was glad to see him enjoy himself in so light-hearted a fashion. These two were chatting to each other in the friendliest manner: sometimes they stopped to pick up wild flowers: they were as two children together under the fair and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... few sous behind. Madame would come in from the kitchen, raise her arms and sigh something about closing their doors, but, after all, they knew they should keep right on giving as long as they had anything to give. One of their daughters, a strapping, light-hearted colt of a girl, told us some of the things they had seen as she paused in the hall after preparing our rooms. Her sister stood beside her, and together they declaimed in an ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... and admiration, not in little Tarascon, mind you, but in Paris; who sends joy abroad and creates torture at home; a charming companion, a kind master, a subtle politician, a wonderful talker, but a light-hearted and faithless husband, a genial liar, a smiling and good-natured deceiver; the true image of the gifted adventurer who periodically emerges from the South and goes northward finally to conquer and govern the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... had pleaded his cause upon a higher level, that Naida Karetsky also had formed a different impression of the world which he was studying so earnestly,—what a transformation he could have brought upon this light-hearted and joyous scene! The scales had so nearly balanced; at the bottom of his heart he was conscious of a certain faint contempt for the almost bovine self-satisfaction of a nation without eyes. Literature ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... I read you aright, Captain Ellerey," she said, with a radiant smile, "it is not your nature to be frivolous, to catch pleasure as it flies and play with it while the bubble lasts; yet must you school yourself to do so. The light-hearted cavalier and careless lover will not be suspected of any deep design, and it would be well that that should seem your character at Court. More easily will you keep the nearer to our person, for love of pleasure ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... turn to glance around him, even while he was building the fire ashore and cooking the supper over it for a change. He could not get the warning of his boatmate out of his head, and Jack noticed that for a wonder the usually merry and light-hearted Irish lad made no attempt to carol any of his favorite school ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel

... cheery, light-hearted, agreeable; all that my own was not as I answered "Nothing!" for this was not the first time my next-door neighbor had tried to scrape ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... mythological operas, confiding, affectionate, and happy. "The sight of all these beings again restored to the sweet sentiments of primitive brotherhood is an exquisite delight almost too great for the soul to support," and the Frenchman, more light-hearted and far more childlike than he is to-day, gives himself up unrestrainedly to his social, sympathetic, and generous instincts. Whatever the imagination of the day offers him to increase his emotions, all the classical, rhetorical, and dramatic material at his command, are employed for the embellishment ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Middle West. He took but one book in his bag. It was by Whitman (the poet of cities, mark). And he determined to read it every evening in his bedroom after the toils of the day. The first part of the trip ran in the country. "Afoot and light-hearted" he took to the open road every morning, and reveled every evening in such things as "Manahatta," "The Song of Joys," and "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Then he carried his poet of cities to a city. But the two would have nothing to do with one another. And to the traveler's ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... herself such airs. She supposed it was because she was the granddaughter of Sir Henry Biddulph that she took upon herself to have such whims, and not sit at the head of her table, or make tea for her company in a civil decent way. Poor Mr. Buxton! What a sad life for a merry, light-hearted man to have such a wife! It was a good thing for him to have agreeable society sometimes. She thought he looked a deal better for seeing his friends. He must be sadly moped ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... well. Her face flushed, too, at the slight awkwardness of the meeting, and she passed him with her eyes bent on the candle-flame that she carried just below her nose. Thus it happened that when confronting her he smiled; and then, with the manner of a temporarily light-hearted man, who has started himself on a flight of song whose momentum he cannot readily check, he softly tuned an old ditty that she seemed ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... was light-hearted and easy. He had come to cheer up his chum, but found there was no ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock

... Portuguese. The lower classes are as indolent and sensual here as in other parts of the province, a moral condition not to be wondered at in a country where perpetual summer reigns, and where the necessities of life are so easily obtained. But they are light-hearted, quick-witted, communicative, and hospitable. I found here a native poet, who had written some pretty verses, showing an appreciation of the natural beauties of the country, and was told that the Archbishop of Bahia, the primate of Brazil, was a native of Cameta. It ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... whole two hundred yards to his lodgings in the carpenter's house. He ran as though the entire field of brilliant stars were at his heels. There was bewilderment, happiness, exhilaration in his blood. He had never felt so light-hearted in his life. He felt exactly fifteen years of age—and a half. The half was added to ensure a good, safe margin over ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... fact, a young man of an old family; but he had been unsuccessful in his studies, and had lost his father and mother. He was naturally light-hearted and magnanimous; not particular in minor matters; immoderately fond of spear-exercise and fencing, of gambling and boozing; even going to such excesses as spending his nights in houses of easy virtue; playing the fife, thrumming the harp, and going in for everything and anything. Being ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... terrible tragedy, yet in no soul was there the least feeling of exultation. The fate of the victims was too awful, too sudden for anyone to feel aught but horror at the thought of it, and deep sorrow for one at least who had perished in his sins. The light-hearted lawyer took one look at the remains of him, whom, within the past few days, he had seen so often in the full enjoyment of life and health, and resolved that never again, in prose or verse, would he speak of the person, whose crimes and cunning ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... mind, said my father, o' the time when they first cam' among us, an' how kin' was a' the neebors to his pale sad-lookin' wife and the bonny light-hearted Geordie, who was owre young at the time, to realize to its fu' extent the sad habit into which his father had fa'n. When Mr. Stuart first came to our village he again took up his aul' habits o' industry, an' for a long time would'na taste drink ava; but when the excitement o' the sudden change ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... days, being as merry-hearted, and full of jokes, and as open as a child. One winter day an old friend found him and his wife dancing madly about the room; knowing Mozart's fondness for this pastime—his favourite of all forms of amusement—the friend expressed his pleasure at finding them so light-hearted, when Mozart, pointing to the empty stove, explained that they were dancing in order to keep themselves warm, as they had no money to purchase fuel. Horror-struck, the caller darted from the house, and returned in a few minutes with ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... have been heard to mutter words not usually included in his vocabulary when he read this. As he had only taken a ticket to Montreal, the latter part of the announcement, although it happened to be true, was an absolute invention on the part of the light-hearted paragraphist ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke

... as nature, like the wind Melancholy or light-hearted without reason, And like the waxing or the waning moon Ever pale and lovely: you are like these Because you are free and live by your own law; While I, desiring life and half alive, Dream, hope, regret and fear and blunder on. Your beauty is your life and my content, And I will liken you ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... anguish lay'd. And o'er her darling dead Pity hopeless hung her head, 40 While 'mid the pelting of that merciless storm,' Sunk to the cold earth Otway's famish'd form! Sublime of thought, and confident of fame, From vales where Avon[127:1] winds the Minstrel came. Light-hearted youth! aye, as he hastes along, 45 He meditates the future song, How dauntless lla fray'd the Dacyan foe; And while the numbers flowing strong In eddies whirl, in surges throng, Exulting in the spirits' genial throe 50 In tides of power his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... her, and whispered to her, and caressed her, and seemed playful and even light-hearted, as if the day were a day of joy; but out strongly against his mirth stood the solemn spirit of her sorrow; and when he went to bring over Dunroe, and when he took her passive hand, in order to place it in his—the agony, the horror, with which she submitted to the act, were expressed in a ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... laboring under some fearful nightmare; but when she persisted, and I questioned her, and found the horror true, I was like a man turned instantly into stone, save for one intolerable throb within. I am still so; everything passes by me like a dream. She was so young, seemingly so innocent and light-hearted. I loved her! Gentlemen, you have thought me guilty of my wife's death,—this young fairy-like creature to whom I ascribed all the virtues! and I was willing, willing that you should think so, willing even to face the distrust and opprobrium of the whole world,—and so was her sister, the ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... gentle with David from that time on, and tried to return to his old light-hearted ways. On the day David was to have his first broiled sweetbread he caught the nurse outside, borrowed her cap and apron and ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... if I do I will wear it spoiled until it drops into rags," replied Katherine. "I call it my happiness skirt, and I wear it only when I feel happy. To-day the winter has somehow got into my bones or up in my head, and I feel as light-hearted and reckless as if I had been having oxygen pumped into me by a special contrivance; so plainly this is the proper time for ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... at this, foolish, light-hearted mirth which drenched the air all about her with the perfume of young gaiety. "Is it Miss Druid, or Mrs. Druid?" was ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... Saint had reached ere long That festal mount. Thousands with bannered line Scaled it light-hearted. Never favourite lamb In ribands decked shone brighter than that hour The fair flank of Knock Cae. Heath-scented airs Lightened the clambering toil. At times the Saint Stayed on their course the crowds, ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... lain and watched the brightening scene for a time, I got up, and having stretched and shaken my clothes into some sort of order, we strolled down the hill and joined the light-hearted crowds that twined across the plain and through the streets of their city of booths. They were the prettiest, daintiest folk ever eyes looked upon, well-formed and like to us as could be in the main, but slender and willowy, so dainty and ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... it in the sun; its wings and legs were stuck together, glued.... How awkwardly it moved, how clumsily it attempted to get clear!... After prolonged efforts, it somehow gets better, crawls, tries to open its wings ... but there is no more frolicking for it, no more light-hearted buzzing in the sunshine, as before, when it was flying through the open window into the cool room and out again, freely winging its way into the hot air.... The fly, at least, fell through none of its own doing into the dreadful web ... ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... but lying down with his head doubled back on his side as he slept, calm, unthoughtful, ox-like. Which seemed likelier to decide the nation's fate, the earnest thinkers indoors, or the ox-like sleeper without? Which seemed more vital to Israel, the bearded council in King Saul's tent, or the light-hearted shepherd-boy hurling stones across the brook at Bethlehem? At Laersdalsoren it was as before: deluded by Borgrevinck's eloquent plausibility, all put their heads in the noose, their lives and country in his hands, seeing in this treacherous monster a very angel of self-sacrificing ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... speak of increasing health and a cheerful spirit. I notice that those who ride in nice, well-padded carriages are always wrapped in thought, gloomy, fault-finding, or sick; while those who go on foot are always merry, light-hearted, and delighted with everything. How cheerful we are when we get near our lodging for the night! How savoury is the coarse food! How we linger at table enjoying our rest! How soundly we sleep on a hard bed! If you only want to get to a place you may ride in a post-chaise; ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... cloudless sky. If the car bottom made a hard seat, the passengers' spirits were elastic enough to endure all the bumps and jolts with equanimity. Hatless, though bundled in ulsters and sweaters, they laughed and sang and shouted in the indefatigably light-hearted fashion that is characteristic only of babies and ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... heavens, upon millions of our fellows. They stand, as the great German poet describes himself as standing, in one of the most pathetic of his lyrics, before the marble image of the fair goddess, who has pity on her face and beauty raying from her limbs, but she has no arms. So tears fall undried. The light-hearted savage is a fiction. What a heavy gloom lies upon his past and his present, which darkens into an impenetrable mist that wraps ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... in tragedy, that everything would be henceforth on a dignified, even an austere basis. But here she was, chaffing the colonel and chattering childish jargon to Anne. Jeffrey looked at her, first with a tolerant surprise. Then he smiled. Seeing her so light-hearted he was pleased. This was a Lydia he approved of. He need neither run clear of her poetic emotions nor curse himself for calling on them. He went out to his hoeing with an unformulated idea that the tension of social life had let up ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... young lady in a gay light-hearted tone. "You have come to put in an 'execution' against his lordship. You did quite right: you ought to treat him so. You don't know the hundredth part of his godless dealings. For did you know, you would long since have beheaded ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... fields, and the clear river passing under its high banks through deep pools. It served to remind him sadly of his beloved Thames, the green banks fringed with comfrey and loosestrife, the drooping willows, the cool smell of the weedy weir; of glad hours of light-hearted enjoyment with his boy-companions, full ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... climbed up the ladder of course. I acknowledge being unusually light-hearted and happy this morning, but I have not as yet grown wings. Sam said I could not climb up that straight ladder, but I found it ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... the "country gentleman," was hardly able to live so extravagant a life, and accordingly remained at home, sometimes making friends of the villagers, standing god-father to peasant-children, or inviting heavy-booted but light-hearted plowmen to dance in the castle courtyard. But often his life was dull enough, with rents hard to collect, and only hunting, drinking, and gossip ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... as usual. Some dissimulation was required on Graciella's part to preserve her usual light-hearted manner toward him. She may have been to blame in taking the colonel's attentions as intended for herself; she would not soon forgive his slighting reference to her. In his eyes she had been only a child, who ought to go to school. He had been good ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... work was over, the boys and their sisters often cantered over to Canterbury to tea, and sometimes, but more seldom, to the Jamiesons' estancia. The light-hearted young Englishmen were naturally more to their fancy than the quiet and thoughtful Scotchmen. The latter were, however, greatly esteemed by Mr. and Mrs. Hardy, who perceived in them a fund of ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... being so cold; and he drank some. He found it very good, certainly, for he had grown unaccustomed to it, and he poured himself out another glassful, which he drank at two gulps. And then, almost immediately he felt quite merry and light-hearted from the effect of the alcohol, just as if some great happiness were flowing ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... note to the address, changed his uniform, and ordered his carriage to be got ready. Light-hearted and happy, he walked up and down his little room humming, even gave two little skips in the air, twisted a book of songs into a roll, and was tying it up with blue ribbon.... The door opened, and Lutchkov, in a coat without epaulettes, with a cap ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... Prohack sympathised with and comprehended his son's general attitude towards life. Charlie had gone to war from Cambridge at the age of nineteen. He went a boy, and returned a grave man. He went thoughtless and light-hearted, and returned full of magnificent and austere ideals. Six months of England had destroyed these ideals in him. He had expected to help in the common task of making heaven in about a fortnight. In the war he had learnt much about ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... the school-room. In fact, Oakford was his native place, though he was passing his old age in Dacrefield, and he had a natural desire to see it again, and a natural belief that the spot where he had been young and strong, and light-hearted, had ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... out Uncle Mathew's address and pay him a surprise visit ... She laughed in the cab and felt gay and light-hearted until she remembered the cause of her visit. Poor, poor Aunt Anne! Oh, she did hope that she would be well enough to recognise her and to show pleasure at seeing her. The cab had stopped in the well-remembered street before ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... that, being then young, she and Miss Susan undertook a long attendance upon the sick bed of their sister, Miss Kitty, whom I have heard remembered among her contemporaries as the merriest and most entertaining of human beings. This light-hearted young lady was dying of consumption. The sad duties of such attendance being divided among many sisters, as there then were, the night watches devolved upon the two ladies I have named: I think, as being ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... London to join the Church, John; Golly is going there, too, as hospital nurse. There's a pair of you! He! he! Look after her, John, and protect her Manx simplicity." Before John could recover himself, Golly was at his side executing the final steps of a "cellar-door flap jig" to the light-hearted refrain:— ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... on one boat, as a rule; just why it is not so easy to understand. Perhaps they liked the experience of change; perhaps both captain and pilot liked the pursuit of the ideal. In the light-hearted letter that follows—written to a friend of the family, formerly of Hannibal—we get something of the uncertainty of the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... spoken of in any such way. I assume you mean that this man, though a stranger, might have said or done something to annoy or offend Miss Van Allen. Well, if he had done so, Victoria Van Allen never would have killed him! She is the gentlest, most gay and light-hearted girl, and though she never tolerates any rudeness or familiarity, the idea of her killing a man is too absurd. You might as well suspect a dove or a ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... very pretty object, and that we take such outward signs of innocent liveliness to our heart of hearts. The people, in the town and in the country, are a busy people who work hard; they are sober, temperate, good-humoured, light-hearted, and generally remarkable for their engaging manners. Few just men, not immoderately bilious, could see them in their recreations without very much respecting the character that is so easily, so ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... claim of Him. This courage is a proof of our immortality, greater even than gardens 'when the eve is cool.' Pray for it. 'Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.' Be not merely courageous, but light-hearted and gay. There is an officer who was the first of our Army to land at Gallipoli. He was dropped overboard to light decoys on the shore, so as to deceive the Turks as to where the landing was to be. He pushed a raft containing these in front of him. It was a frosty ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie

... happy and light-hearted, that is, he was innocent; and then gradually the horrible fact returned to his memory. Recently, or a long time ago, he had killed a man. That was always the end of the dream; his lightness and gaiety of spirits vanished, and he felt again the load that he was eternally ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... went, and I just sat there and stared. When she started in there was a deep frown on her forehead, but as she walked I saw her face clear, and when she had completed the round a dozen times or more, I saw her throw back her head in a light-hearted way, and then she ran ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey

... an extremely light-hearted and courteous host, but he frowned suspiciously when he asked if I knew a correspondent named Senator Albert Beveridge. I hastily repudiated Beveridge. I knew him not, I said, as a correspondent, but as a politician ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis

... connections are but vanity!" they said, shaking their heads. The middle-aged sisters looked out of the sheltered home, which perhaps they had not chosen for themselves, with a sort of wistful feeling, half pity, perhaps half envy, upon the "poor little thing" who was running out so light-hearted into the storm. They had long ago retired into waterproofs and goloshes, and had much unwillingness to wet their feet—which things are a parable. They went back and closed the door, only when the first flash of lightning ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... the cook chaunted, with that sad intonation of voice for which, somehow or other, the light-hearted African race always seem to have such a strange predilection. Sam touching the strings of the banjo in harmonious chords to a sort of ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... fashion. I like dreamy music, although it always makes me melancholy— indeed, all music affects me the same way, in spite of my not being by any means what you would call a sad person. On the contrary, I am supposed to be one of the most light-hearted fellows imaginable, and, certainly, laugh more than I ever cry. However, mirth and sadness are closer allies than people generally suspect. All emotion proceeds, more ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... higher law. In a conversation held with his friend Krumpholz, he expressed doubts as to the value of his work hitherto. "From now on I shall strike out on a new road," he said. He is now dominated by a greater seriousness; his mission has been shown him. Adieu now to the light-hearted mode of life characteristic of his friends and of the time. His new road led him into regions where they could not follow; from now on he was more and more unlike his fellows, more misunderstood, isolated, a prophet in the wilderness. Placed here by Providence specially for a unique ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... of that overpowering influence; and any rest was impossible till we had drawn nearer to the central peace. This seemed to Hugh to be not a theory but an intensely inspiring and practical thought. How light-hearted, how brave a secret! Instead of desiring that all should be made plain at once, one could rejoice in the thought that one was certainly speeding homewards; and experience was no longer a blind conflict of forces, but a joyful nearing of the central sum of things. At all events, what a blitheness, ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... very small quantities. They were now forced to eke out their failing provisions by eating horseflesh. Baxter was altogether disheartened; and, if to return had not been as dangerous as to go forward, Eyre would himself have abandoned the attempt. The three natives, however, were still as light-hearted and merry as ever; whilst the food lasted they were always full of frolic ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland

... knees calmer and more light-hearted, and gave each other a solemn affectionate kiss, before they went down again to the play-ground. But they avoided the rest of the boys, and took a stroll together along the sands, talking quietly, and happily, and hoping bright ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... perhaps, many of those light-hearted boys would be lying in the trenches, or in some ditch, stark and dead, or in some hospital maimed and crippled ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking

... Knowing but little of the April brevity of his uncle's mating impulse, he had mentally embroidered the bare instinct with some of the idealism in which his own emotion was clothed. His imagination pictured Cyrus and Belinda starting as light-hearted adventurers to sail the chartless seas of romance. What remained of their gallant ship to-day except a stark and battered hulk wrecked on the pitiless rocks of the actuality? A month ago that marriage had seemed merely ridiculous to him. Standing now beside the little window, where the ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... two hours, until the bag of stones was well down the saurian's throat. Then he set out for The Pass. He was painfully hungry now, but he was light-hearted. Never again would he have to risk the death that infested the Great Sea-Swamp. Within thirty days he would be home—home on Earth. He and Beth would get a little house out in the country and have a little garden, and he could relax and watch his daughter ...
— The Wealth of Echindul • Noel Miller Loomis

... The light-hearted boys are now hardened middle-aged men, if the seas, rocks, fevers, and the deadlier enemies that beset a sailor's life on shore have spared them; and the then strong men have bowed themselves, and the earth or ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... nothing in the wording of the message that was unlike Enriquez's usual light-hearted levity, but the fact that he should have TELEGRAPHED it to me struck me uneasily. That I should have received it at the hotel where his wife and Professor Dobbs were both staying, and where I had had such a singular experience, seemed to me more than a mere coincidence. ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... keenness, Might be told in seven narrations, Or in eight tales be recounted. Long I flew on path of thunder, On the roadway of the rainbow, And the hailstone's toilsome pathway; Onwards thus I sailed light-hearted, Heedless, far into the distance, And at length three worlds discovered, One the country of the maidens, One where dwell the curly-headed, One the world of prattling children, Where the little ones are tended; There it is ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... Basilio de la Barca, a person of so noble a figure and countenance that to all those who beheld him he became the type of perfect beauty, so that a 'Basilio de la Barca' came to be a proverbial expression in Montevidean society when anyone surpassingly handsome was spoken of. Though he had a gay, light-hearted disposition and loved social pleasures, he was not spoilt by the admiration his beauty excited. Simple-minded and modest he remained always; though perhaps not capable of any very strong passion, for though he won, without seeking it, the hearts of many fair women, he did not marry. He might ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... lady or she wasn't. A man was a gentleman or he wasn't. That should be the beginning and the end of the social code....When she had been younger she had lamented her mean position because it excluded her from the light-hearted and brilliant pleasures of youth; but as she grew older this natural craving had given place to a far deeper ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... other was dangerous. Here Gerstaecker separated from his companion, giving him the safe road, and, with his rifle on his arm and his knapsack slung upon his shoulders, struck off alone into the forest-path light-hearted as a boy, and sure, whatever might happen, of enjoying a fresher and healthier excitement in that journey through the woods of Australia than the dwellers in crowded cities ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... the name and cousinage" of Phillips, who, though an old maid, was one of those unhappily rare individuals who do not think it necessary to rail against those amusements which they are no longer in a situation to enjoy. She was neither as young, nor as rich, nor as light-hearted, as she had been; but it was difficult to imagine that she could ever have been more truly cheerful and happy than she seemed now. So, instead of cutting short every sally of youthful spirits, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... thing he would think of doing. Never did I see the virtue of resignation in higher perfection than in the laughing, light-hearted Almeida. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... possible humiliations and disasters. That did not prevent her supping with a wonderful appetite and joyously holding her own under Delobelle's jocose remarks concerning her vocation and her future triumphs. She felt light-hearted and happy, fairly embarked for the land of Bohemia, her true country. What more would happen to her? Of how many ups and downs was her new, unforeseen, and whimsical existence to consist? She thought about that as she fell asleep in Desiree's great easy-chair; ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... the end—the end of his two and a half days of solitude—the end of his light-hearted exile on Baldpate Mountain. He thought of Bland, lean and white of face, gay of garb, fleeing through the night, his Arabella fiction disowned in the real tragedy that had followed. He thought of Cargan and Max, also fleeing, wrathful, ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers

... slightly, smiling with light-hearted malice. "By no means. But, at the same time, if I've a whim to be complimented, I do think you might be ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... merry light-hearted fellow, fonder of a joke than hard work, yet ever keeping a sharp eye to the "main chance," as the ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey

... in a half-conscious coming back to the thoughts and enjoyments of the time before their troubles had overtaken them. She was very young still, quite young enough to grow light-hearted and mirthful; and if her mother had been well, it would truly have seemed like the old happy ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson

... dangers, as well as those they had yet to undergo. But this was more than their commander was able to do. "My own meditations," adds Captain Grey, "were of a more melancholy character, for I feared that the days of some of the light-hearted group were already numbered, and would soon be brought to a close. Amid such scenes and thoughts we were swept along, while this unknown coast, which so many had anxiously yet vainly wished to see, passed before our eyes ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... familiar about the musical text told me that before me, inverted, was the C-sharp Major Prelude in the first book of the Well-tempered Clavichord. Mechanically my fingers began that most delicious and light-hearted of caprices—I did not dare to touch the music—and soon I was rattling through it, all my thoughts three thousand miles away in a little Ohio town. When I had finished I arose in grim silence, took the music, held it toward ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... Harrow to a light-hearted serious-brained girl. The picked men of the Schools of Oxford and Cambridge came there as junior masters, so that one's partners at ball and croquet and archery could talk as well as flirt. Never girl had, I venture to say, a brighter ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... and business got worse and worse. There was an air of downright gloom about the circus. Men, women and children were in the "dumps," a most unnatural condition to exist among these whilom, light-hearted adventurers. When they lifted up their heads, it was to deliver continuous anathemas to the leaden skies; when they allowed them to droop, it was to ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... like a welcome now. Anyway, mother, whatever happens you must not worry. Everything is all right when you get right up to it—even death. I just wish I could see you, and make you understand how light-hearted I feel. I never felt better; my only trouble is that you will be worried about me, but just remember that everything is fine, and that ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

... There was but little suggestion of any death-wound about the manner or speech of this light-hearted and frank-spoken fellow who now welcomed his old friend Ogilvie ashore. He swung the gun-case into the cart as if it had been a bit of thread. He himself would carry ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... most perfect set of white teeth,—black hair, and very dark blue eyes; and there you have her. United to this beauty of person was a most fascinating natural manner; not the manner of a flirt, but that of a light-hearted, pure-minded girl, as gay as a lark released from captivity, and not unlike it in its new freedom, for she had not escaped from a first-rate finishing school in Paris more than ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties

... readily. Perhaps we are sometimes amused when we ought to be angry. Perhaps we jest when it is our plain duty to reform. Here lies the danger of our national light-mindedness,—for it is seldom light-heartedness; we are no whit more light-hearted than our neighbours. A carping English critic has declared that American humour consists in speaking of hideous things with levity; and while so harsh a charge is necessarily unjust, it makes clear one abiding difference between the nations. An Englishman ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... fluttered its yellow leaves in applause, and the sourwood threw at him by the breeze's hand a cluster of its scarlet foliage. The mouse-gray goldenrod nodded approval of his mood, and the oak-trees swung their yet green boughs in sympathy with his light-hearted ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... Cimon, in whose dining room he had enjoyed many a bright symposium. He trod the Agora and walked under the porticos where he had lounged in the golden evenings after the brisk stroll from the wrestling ground at Cynosarges, and had chatted and chaffered with light-hearted friends about "the war" and "the king," in the days when the Persian seemed very far away. Last of all an instinct—he could not call it desire—drove him to seek ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... society of Vienna. His heroes are mostly men engaged in a quest for the joys of life, but never attaining whole-hearted enjoyment, because of their innate streak of world-weariness. When the hero of his Anatol (1893) calls himself "light-hearted pessimist," Schnitzler creates a term which fits as well his Fedor in Maerchen (1894), his Fritz in Liebelei (1895), and other specimens of a type related to the heroes of Musset and other Frenchmen. His women, too, have a streak of French blood, both his ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... awoke she felt remarkably light-hearted and cheerful. She got up early, and went with Andrew and Jack to see the adorable rabbits. So judicious was she on this occasion that both boys returned with her to breakfast in the ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade

... striking up for a fresh dance, a wild German waltz air; and mingled with that German music his ear caught the sprightly sounds of the French laugh, one laugh distinguished from the rest by a more genuine ring of light-hearted joy, the laugh that he had heard on entering the gardens, and the sound of which had then saddened him. Looking towards the quarter from which it came, he again saw the "Ondine of Paris." She was not now the centre of a group. She had just found Gustave Rameau, and ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... surged in, in light-hearted misunderstanding of the perils Oswald had led Denny into—I mean through, with Mr. Red House and another gentleman, and loud voices and candles that dripped all over everybody's hands, as well as their clothes, and the solitary ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit

... resemblance to Laura; and, thirdly, that Laura herself was strikingly like her father. Mr. Philip Fairlie had been one of the notoriously handsome men of his time. In disposition entirely unlike his brother Frederick, he was the spoilt darling of society, especially of the women—an easy, light-hearted, impulsive, affectionate man—generous to a fault—constitutionally lax in his principles, and notoriously thoughtless of moral obligations where women were concerned. Such were the facts we knew—such was the character of the man. Surely the plain ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... "Right-o!" replied that light-hearted damsel. "Just one warning—don't be scared at anything that happens; it's all in fun! Don't say I told you, though. No, I can't explain. I'm not allowed. You'll ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... The language of this light-hearted and noisy race was Dutch, already corrupted by English idioms, and occasionally by English words;—a system of change that has probably given rise to an opinion, among some of the descendants of the earlier colonists, that the latter tongue is merely a patois of the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... was once more falling back into his old condition of mental distress, and he saw the lines gather on the usually smooth forehead of his mother. But Fred was by nature a light-hearted lad, who tried to look on the brighter side of things. He put these dismal thoughts resolutely aside as much as he could and took his part in the various pleasures that the young people of the ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman

... Their light-hearted laughter mingled delightfully—fresh, free, uncontrolled, peal after peal. She sat huddled up like a schoolgirl, lovely head thrown back, her white hands clasping her knees; he, both feet squarely on the floor, leaned forward, ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers



Words linked to "Light-hearted" :   blithe, blithesome, lightsome



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