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Lofty   /lˈɔfti/   Listen
Lofty

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






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Lofty" Quotes from Famous Books



... of East and West Looe are among the most picturesque on the southern seaboard. The estuary on the sides of which they are situated, is confined between lofty hills whose slopes are covered with allotment gardens and orchards. The bridge that crosses the creek a quarter of a mile from the haven mouth, was erected in 1855, when it displaced a remarkable old bridge of fifteen arches. In the days of the third ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath

... the others close behind them. Jack mounted on Tom Barnum's shoulders. He found the ceiling sloped up to a lofty peak. Running his hands up each slope, he could discern no irregularity. But, suddenly, nearing the top, where the sides drew together, he felt a strong draught of ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... resembled one of my native English rivers than those I had hitherto seen in Scotland. It was narrow, deep, still, and silent; although the imperfect light, as it gleamed on its placid waters, showed also that we were now among the lofty mountains which formed its cradle. "That's the Forth," said the Bailie, with an air of reverence, which I have observed the Scotch usually pay to their distinguished rivers. The Clyde, the Tweed, the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Floods of foam pouring from the high paddle-boxes on either side and reuniting in the wake of the boat left behind a track of dazzling whiteness, over which trailed two dense black banners flung from its lofty smokestacks. ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... desert beach, Where the white foam was scatter'd, A little shed uprear'd its head, Though lofty barks were shatter'd. The sea-weeds gath'ring near the door, A sombre path display'd; And, all around, the deaf'ning roar Re-echo'd on the chalky shore, By ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor

... the bush straightens itself up again, proud of its treasure. Thus it would be with you, a plant transplanted from Europe to this stony ground, if you did not look about for some support and belittle yourself. Alone and lofty, you ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... did not know that Carrizales was asleep, it would not be amiss to ask him, where now were all his jealous cares and precautions? What now availed the lofty walls of his house, and the exclusion from it of every male creature? What had he gained by his turning-box, his thick walls, his stopped up windows, the enormously strict seclusion to which he had doomed his family, the large jointure he had settled on Leonora, the presents he was ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... "whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin." They prove that apostate man has sunk, in one respect, to a lower level than that of the irrational creation. For, high ideas and truths cannot raise him. Lofty impulses result in no alteration, or elevation. Even Divine influences leave him just where they find him, unless they are exerted in their highest grade of irresistible grace. A brute surrenders himself ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... easy a matter shall it be to God to blow a man out of his dwelling place! Sin hath prepared you for it, he needeth no more but blow by his Spirit, or look upon you, and you will not be. You who are now lofty and proud, and maintain yourselves against the word, when you come to reckon with God, and he entereth into judgment, you shall not stand—you will consume as before the moth; your hearts will fail you—"who may abide the day of his coming?" ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... but without leaving her seat, and just looked at a chair in a way that seemed to say, "I permit you to sit down;" and that done, she carried the glass to her lips with the same admirable firmness of hand she showed in driving. Her lofty manner, coupled with her beautiful but rather haughty features, smacked of imperial origin. Yet she was the writer to "jorge," and four years ago a shrimp-girl, running into the sea with legs as ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... own aggrandizement was but the means to that end. Whatever were his views on the crown of England, he never attempted to realize them by violence and disorder. His mind was too well regulated not to know the incurable vice of such means, and too lofty to accept the yoke they impose. But when the career was opened to him by England herself, he did not suffer himself to be deterred from entering on it by the scruples of a private man; he wished his cause to triumph, and he wished to reap the honor of the triumph. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... Fortune, I see thy worst: let doubtful states, And things uncertain, hang upon thy will: Me surest death shall render certain still. Yet, why is now my thought turn'd toward death, Whom fates have let go on, so far in breath, Uncheck'd or unreproved? I that did help To fell the lofty cedar of the world, Germanicus; that at one stroke cut down Drusus, that upright elm; wither'd his vine; Laid Silius and Sabinus, two strong oaks, Flat on the earth; besides those other shrubs, Cordus and Sosia, Claudia Pulchra, Furnius and Gallus, which I have ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... the banquet hall on the monarch's entrance was magnificent. Panelled with black lustrous oak, and lighted by mullion windows, filled with stained glass and emblazoned with the armorial bearings of the family, the vast and lofty hall was hung with banners, and decorated with panoplies and trophies of the chase. Three long tables ran down it, each containing a hundred covers. At the lower end were stationed the heralds, the pursuivants, and a band of yeomen of the guard, with the royal badge, a demi-rose crowned, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the incomparable Jenny with lofty resolution, "it bain't he as I do want. I mid ha' been took up wi' some sich foolish notion afore, bein' but a silly maid, but now I be a married 'ooman, an' I do know how to ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... the proper grasp of the educational needs of his country is shown by his forceful speech made for national aid to education. He contended that the natural result of this mental improvement will be to impart a better understanding of our institutions, and thus cultivate a loyal disposition and lofty appreciation for them. "The military prowess and demonstrated superiority of the Prussians, when compared to the French, especially in the late war [The Franco-Prussian War]," said he, "is attributable ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... even fail of inflicting any pain whatever on others; but they make themselves as disgusting as they could desire. And in many cases they succeed in inflicting a good deal of pain. A very low, vulgar, petty, and uncultivated nature may cause much suffering to a lofty, noble, and refined one,—particularly if the latter be in a position of dependence or subjection. A wretched hornet may madden a noble horse; a contemptible mosquito may destroy the night's rest which would have recruited a noble brain. But without ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... approached, hover above the town of Richmond. There are pretty villas and cheerful houses in its streets, and Nature smiles upon the country round; but jostling its handsome residences, like slavery itself going hand in hand with many lofty virtues, are deplorable tenements, fences unrepaired, walls crumbling into ruinous heaps. Hinting gloomily at things below the surface, these, and many other tokens of the same description, force themselves upon the notice, and are remembered ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... author of his Memoires; "never did man speak more boldly than he about it; it seemed as if he were recounting another's perils when he described his own to his servants and his guards, who were the only witnesses of such lofty manliness." His sister, the Princess of Conde, had a memorial prepared for his defence put before him. He read it carefully, then he tore it up, "having always determined," he said, "not to (chicaner) go pettifogging for (or, dispute) his life." "I ought by rights to answer before the Parliament ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... the room was instantly turned toward the lofty ceiling, but nothing out of the ordinary was to ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson

... lifts us out of the miseries of life is the sublime fruit of injustice. Every immortal deed was an act of fearful injustice; the world of grandeur, of triumph, of courage, of lofty aspiration, was built up on injustice. Man would not be man but for injustice. Hail, therefore, to the thrice glorious virtue injustice! What care I that some millions of wretched Israelites died under Pharaoh's lash or Egypt's sun? It was well that they died that I might ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... felt at home, if not by birth and descent, at all events by social connexion, habits of life, and ways of thought, while in the latter he, whose own country's was still a half-fledged literary life, found ready to his hand masterpieces of artistic maturity, lofty in conception, broad in bearing, finished in form. There still remain, for summary review, the elements proper to his own poetic individuality—those which mark him out not only as the first great poet of his own nation, but as a great poet for ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... course he wanted others. What was his astonishment to find that in all his dominions, which contained no less than twenty-seven millions of people, there were not above five-and-twenty servants altogether! They were so lofty about it, too, that instead of discussing whether they should hire themselves as servants to Prince Bull, they turned things topsy-turvy, and considered whether as a favour they should hire Prince Bull to be their master! While they were arguing ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... something lofty and imposing, just because it was so ancient, was the house he had in his mind, and he could not conceal his chagrin as his eye took in the small, low building, with its high windows and tiny panes of glass, paintless and blindless, standing there alone among the hills, Morris understood it perfectly; ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... in her resignation. She didn't care for the child a bit, and the lonely, gloomy Priory had got on her nerves. She wasn't going to put up with such a life and, having just come out of some ducal family, she bullied de Barral in a very lofty fashion. To pacify her he took a splendidly furnished house in the most expensive part of Brighton for them, and now and then ran down for a week-end, with a trunk full of exquisite sweets and with his hat full of money. The governess spent it for him in extra ducal style. She was ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... apparent physical pain, but with some mental suffering. The last audible words that he uttered were a prayer for the forgiveness of his sins. That appeal was made to Almighty God. Let, then, his fellow-mortals be proud of his many virtues, his lofty patriotism, and undaunted courage, while they judge leniently of those faults, which, had they been curbed, might have been trained into virtues. Let it not be said ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... as they lolled within a yard of me, manifesting a lofty and contemptuous disregard for all save themselves, waited upon most deferentially by the smiling fat fellow, and stared at by the aged man with as much admiring awe as if they had each been nothing ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... higher than the old; that no case can be shown of the refining and improving process alleged to be the source of current religions, whereas many cases of degeneracy from pure teachings can be adduced; that even among savages, if their religions be carefully studied, many traces of lofty ideas can be found, ideas which are obviously above the productive capacity of the ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... which were published in pamphlet form, were marked for their literary finish, their wealth of learning and suggestion, their deep philosophical insight, and their lofty patriotism. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... life is one continuous prayer, one unceasing aspiration after the holy. I have no conception of a life insensible to that which is not above itself lofty. I would not take it on myself to say I have been 'born again,' but I know that I have passed from death to life. Things below have no hold upon me further than as they lead to things above. It is not a moral restraint that I have over myself, but it is such a change, ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... without keeping the lead in hand. The river is very abundant in many kinds of fish, not only such as we have here, but others which we have not. The country is thickly covered with massive and lofty forests, of the same kind of trees as we have about our habitation. There are also many vines and nut-trees on the bank of the river, and many small brooks and streams which are only navigable with canoes. We passed near Point St. Croix, which many maintain, as I have ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain

... of lofty strong stone walls around their house, offices, and other property, and, thus secure, they awaited anxiously the expected visit of their ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... defend themselves. They had 220 sail in all—a force, considering its character, extremely formidable. Their vessels were too strong to be run down. The galleys carried turrets; but the bows and sterns of the Veneti were still too lofty to be reached effectively by the Roman javelins. The Romans had the advantage in speed; but that was all. They too, however, had their ingenuities. They had studied the construction of the Breton ships. They had provided sickles with ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... he differs much from his contemporaries, but the standard he has reached is as high as that which has been attained by Lowell and Longfellow. In lofty verse he is strong and unconventional, writing always with a firm grasp on his subject, and emphasizing his perfect knowledge of melody and metre. As a writer of occasional verse he has not had an equal in our time, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... its accompaniments, was most beautiful and interesting. The river, a narrow one, flowed through a dense and continuous forest; rich and lofty trees over-arched it, affording agreeable shade, and on the branches were to be seen great numbers of kingfishers, parrots, and other birds of rich plumage, which filled the air at least with sound, if not with melody. The concert was further swelled by the constant cries of wild ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... vari-colored throngs that covered the floor, but no familiar face looked upon us. Strange to us as the old, impassive monumental dukes of Brabant who occupy the niches, the people made way to let us pass from the doorway between the lofty brace of towers to the high altar, which is a juggler's apparatus, and has concealed machinery causing the sacred wafer to come down seemingly of its own accord at the moment when the priest is about to lift the Host. All was unfamiliar and splendid, and we came away, feeling as if ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... distinguished by their indifference and narrow-mindedness. They drank and played cards, married rich women, and always had a bad, insidious influence on those round them. Only the girls had any moral purity; most of them had lofty aspirations and were pure and honest at heart; but they knew nothing of life, and believed that bribes were given to honour spiritual qualities; and when they married, they soon grew old and weak, and were hopelessly lost in the mire of ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... characters are mixed—true! yet still we feel indignant to discover some of the greatest often combining the most opposite qualities; and then they are not so much mixed as the parts are naturally joined together. Could one imagine that so lofty a character as Warburton could have been liable to have incurred even the random stroke of the satirist? whether true or false, the events of his life, better known at this day than in his own, will ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... was fine, and Yeobright walked on the heath for an hour with his mother. When they reached the lofty ridge which divided the valley of Blooms-End from the adjoining valley they stood still and looked round. The Quiet Woman Inn was visible on the low margin of the heath in one direction, and afar on the other hand ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... (there about thirty miles from its point of joining the St. John) ran down the middle of the spot, which formed a sort of dish, the high and rocky hills rising all round it, except at the outlet of the creek, and these hills crowned with lofty pines: in the hills were the sources of the creek, the waters of which came down in cascades, for any one of which many a nobleman in England would, if he could transfer it, give a good slice of his fertile estate; and in the creek, at the foot of the cascades, there ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett

... cowslip and buttercup humility of seclusion. Tall mulberry trees, with festoons of the luxuriant vine, purple with ponderous clusters, trailed and trellised between and over them, shade the wide fields of stately Indian corn; luxuriance of lofty vegetation (catalpa, and aloe, and olive), ranging itself in lines of massy light along the wan champaign, guides the eye away to the unfailing wall of mountain, Alp or Apennine; no cold long range of shivery gray, but dazzling light of snow, or undulating breadth of blue, fainter and ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... joy my lofty gratulation Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band: And when to whelm the disenchanted nation, Like fiends embattled by a wizard's wand, The Monarchs marched in evil day, 30 And Britain joined the dire array; Though dear her shores and circling ocean, Though many ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... the rocky shore of the Isle of Monte-Cristo became visible. The Count's visage brightened as he saw it and a thrill of pleasure passed through him. Though the Haydee was yet at a considerable distance he could plainly descry the lofty peak upon which he had stood and watched the smugglers depart in their tartane, La Jeune Amelie, on that eventful morning when, with his gun and pickaxe, he had started out to prosecute his search destined to be fraught with so much excitement and to be crowned with such a glorious, dazzling result. ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg

... breath, and settling ourselves to enjoy our well-earned rest, we sat in silence for a time. The gentle breeze blew past us, and we inhaled the fragrant air. It was enough for a time to look on, for the glorious old city was before us, with its towers, and spires, and lofty buildings between us and the distance. On one side Arthur's Seat, and on the other the Castle, the crown of the city. The view extended far and wide—on to the waters of the Forth and the blue hills of Fife. The view is splendidly ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... look an appearance of severity, yet she knew how to make it imposing when she chose. Her hair was beautiful, long, and soft; its light-brown color agreed marvellously well with her complexion, which was a mixture of delicacy and freshness. At the dawn of her lofty power the empress was fond of putting on for a head-dress a red Madras, which gave her the piquant appearance of a creole. But what more than any thing else contributed to the charm which invested her whole person was the sweet tone ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... are often exacting, claiming the guardianship which belongs only to parents. But Maggie yields to her obstinate brother as well as to her unreasonable and vindictive father, governed by a sense of duty, until, with her rapid intellectual development and lofty aspiration, she breaks loose in a measure from their withering influence, though not from technical obligations. She almost loves Philip Wakem, the son of the lawyer who ruined her father; yet out of regard ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... only reached through knowledge. But in so far as this is only the deciphering of the secrets revealed in the Holy Scriptures through the Logos, secrets which the believer also gains possession of by subjecting himself to them, all knowledge is a reflection of the divine revelation. The lofty ethical and religious ideal of the man made perfect in fellowship with God, which Greek philosophy had developed since the time of Plato and to which it had subordinated the whole scientific knowledge of the world, was adopted and heightened by Clement, and associated not only with Jesus Christ ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... at least begin with the free evening lectures?"—with which Dresden shone through the illuminations of many profound and oracular professors in lofty pulpits. He submitted that his German was too feeble of wing to enable him to soar into the heights ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... level of my politics! That was it. The affairs of the world, of mortal men, they were as the affairs of ants to pretty Sylvia. A lofty and soaring view, you say? Why, no; not that exactly, for what remained of real and vital moment in her mind, to the exclusion of all serious interest in humanity? There remained, as a source of much gratification, ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... Indian guard—the Last of the Great Chiefs—break not the silence. Who can ask death to retreat? And who put in shackles the decrees of destiny? The world annals contain no heroism and no bravery more lofty and enduring than that furnished by the record of the red man. But the summital requirement is at hand. These old heroes, few in number, must with their own moccasined feet measure the distance in ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon

... the face with a pair of large and sensible grey eyes. Nature had certainly built her to be one of those towers of women, strong for themselves, for their sex, and often for men also, who possess a peculiar power, given in quite full measure to no male creature, of large sympathy and lofty composure. But the doctor saw at a glance that some adverse fate had disagreed with the intentions of nature, and fought against them with success. Circumstances must have arisen in this woman's life to break down her unusual equipment of courage and resolution, or if not to break it ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... with a lofty air, but not loudly. "Don't you see he's not a bit like the fairies we read about in books? Why, he was afraid ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris

... let us proceed to astronomy, about which I am willing to speak in your lofty strain. No one can fail to see that the contemplation of the heavens draws the soul upwards.' I am an exception, then; astronomy as studied at present appears to me to draw the soul not upwards, but downwards. Star-gazing is just looking ...
— The Republic • Plato

... paced to and fro was of a solid dignity, well fitted to serve as an environment for its owner. It was very large, and lofty. There was massiveness in the desk that stood opposite the hall door, near a window. This particular window itself was huge, high, jutting in octagonal, with leaded panes. In addition, there was a great fireplace set with tiles, around which was woodwork elaborately carved, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana

... Good heavens! amazement all! See yonder tower just nodding to the fall: See where an army covers all the ground, Saps the strong wall, and pours destruction round; The ruin smokes, destruction pours along; 51 How low the great, how feeble are the strong! The foe prevails, the lofty walls recline — O God of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... are some young men left who can write something else besides the love trash that's so popular," said Mr. Higgins. Old men generally have a strong aversion or lofty contempt for everything relating to the love matters ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... a hundred lofty windows bathed the clustering pillars, the magnificent nave and choir in a soft, roseate glow. To the girls it seemed that all the glory, all the romance, all the pomp and splendid grandeur of the ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... plain, up a slight rise, down into a shallow valley, and into the cottonwood, riding recklessly through the trees and urging the pony at a headlong pace through the underbrush—crashing it down, scaring the rattlers from their concealment, and startling the birds from their lofty retreats. ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... to advance beyond it. Nothing was to be seen there in every direction but immense masses of weather-beaten sandstone-rock, towering over each other in all the sublimity of desolation; while a deep chasm, intersecting a lofty ridge covered with blasted trees, seemed to cut off every hope of farther progress. But all these difficulties have now long since been got over, and stage-coaches are able to run across what were a few years ago deemed impassable hills. Yet, when this dreary barrier of barren mountains has been ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

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

... It is not this! Your spirit, high and bold, Scorning all tamer joys, will have it so! No cold Can chill its ardor! Such a soul would sate Its deathless craving in some lofty flight, Some deed sublime, and read its shining fate By the Aurora's light! For fruitful fellowship, it seeks the wild, The frozen waste, Where the world's venturous heroes—reconciled To sunless, shuddering gloom— To joyless solitude—with ardor taste Their ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various

... of nature that spoke in these words came to the hearer's heart with wondrous power and freshness. He looked at Elizabeth; she was gazing full on him, and lofty was the bearing of the girl; she had set her own fears and all danger and suspicion at defiance in these words. Partly he saw and understood, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... that followed, the Honorable Percival Hascombe discovered that the satisfaction of being exclusive is usually tempered by the discomfort of being bored. So lofty and forbidding had been his manner that no one had ventured to intrude even a casual good morning. A bachelor under thirty, with a competence of such dimensions that it had entailed incompetency, and a doting family that danced attendance upon his every whim, he was figuratively ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice

... different provinces of India than is often to be found between the different countries of Europe. Few differ more widely than the Deccan and Bengal—the Deccan, a great table-land raised on an average over 2,000ft. above sea level, broken by many deep-cut river valleys and throwing up lofty ridges of bare rock, entirely dependent for its rainfall upon the south-west monsoon, which alone and in varying degrees of abundancy relieves the thirst of a thin soil parched during the rest of the year by a fierce ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... of our arrival at Leper Island the schooner was lying almost becalmed under the lee of the lofty central portion of the island, about three-quarters of a mile from the shore. The boats were in sight at some distance. The recruiter-boat had run into a small nook on the rocky coast, under a high bank, above which stood a solitary hut backed by dense forest. The government agent ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... pines and granite crags, its course is run through plunging rapids to the final assault on the sea, where wide sand-barrens and desolation prevail. Fremont understood this from his guides and says: "Lower down, from Brown's Hole to the southward, the river runs through lofty chasms, walled in by precipices of red rock." ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... Casco Bay is the background for this romance. A beautiful woman, at discord with life, is brought to realize, by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul to the blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside vanity and self love. A delicately humorous work with a lofty motive underlying ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... Peering into the shadowy room lighted only from the window behind her, she made out a head looking in at the door, the face almost hidden by a capacious sunbonnet. She was not long in recognizing her visitor of the day before. It was like a sudden dropping from a lofty mountain height down into a valley of annoyance to hear Miranda's sharp ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... some paces distant, saw the lofty figure of the chieftain standing in front of his principal men. Well he knew them all. There were the crafty Pipe, and his savage comrade, the Half King; there was Shingiss, who wore on his forehead a scar—the mark of the ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... church. Having climbed the steep and narrow street, I entered the most wonderful Gothic building that has ever been built to God on earth, as large as a town, full of low rooms which seem buried beneath vaulted roofs, and lofty galleries ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... that I had to 'room' myself and dress as dowdily as she does that I really couldn't look anybody in the face. What must the boys think of her? And if it wasn't for her being in it, our class would be the smartest and dressiest in the college—even those top-lofty senior girls admit that." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Edward's visit, William the Conqueror's messengers came before the chief men of Exeter demanding their submission. But the citizens sent back the lofty answer that 'they would acknowledge William as Emperor of Britain; they would not receive him as their immediate King. They would pay him the tribute which they had been used to pay to Kings of the English, but that should be all. They would swear no oaths to him; they would not receive him ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... Chesterfield must have been mortified by the lofty contempt, and polite, yet keen satire with which Johnson exhibited him to himself in this letter, it is impossible to doubt. He, however, with that glossy duplicity which was his constant study, affected to be quite unconcerned. Dr. Adams mentioned to Mr. Robert ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... impression that Calcutta is rightly called the city of palaces. On the great plain adjoining the river, at some distance from each other, are two notable objects—Fort William and Government House. Beyond the plain lies Chowringhee, a range of lofty houses extending for more than a mile, with balconies and flat roofs, giving one an impression of grandeur, which is scarcely sustained when more nearly seen, as that which looked at a distance like marble is found to be stucco and plaster. Behind Chowringhee are a number of wide streets with ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... youth in the black soutane, who had remained at my bridle throughout the discussion, now listening and now staring, nodded and resumed his way; and I followed. After proceeding a little more than fifty yards he stopped before a mean-looking doorway, flanked by grated windows, and fronted by a lofty wall which I took to be the back of some nobleman's garden. The street at this point was unlighted, and little better than an alley; nor was the appearance of the house, which was narrow and ill-looking, though ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... galleries, some higher than the most lofty cathedrals, others like cloisters, narrow and winding—these following a horizontal line, those on an incline or running obliquely in all directions—connected the caverns and allowed free ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... severance from the Roman Catholic church was effected by Luther and Melanchthon; but these men did not live long enough to give the symmetry and polish to their work which it really needed. Unfortunately, their successors failed to perform the necessary task. But lofty as our ideas of the Reformation should be, we must not be blind to the fact that German Protestantism bears sad evidences of early mismanagement. To-day, the Sabbath in Prussia, Baden, and all the Protestant nationalities is hardly ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... beat down upon us with such force that we made an unintentional halt on coming to a well by the wayside. It was one of those picturesque wells so familiar in Eastern landscape—a beam balanced on a lofty pole, with a rod hanging from one end, to which is attached ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... escaped him. "Now, let us conclude between us two that bargain which I promised to make with you one day when you found me very little at Blois. Do me justice, monsieur, when you think that I do not make any one pay for the tears of shame I then shed. Look around you; lofty heads have bowed; bow yours, or choose the exile that will best suit you. Perhaps, when reflecting upon it, you will find that this king is a generous heart, who reckons sufficiently upon your loyalty to allow you to leave him ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... who had succeeded Rosecrans, stormed the breastworks half a mile from the base of Missionary Ridge. The next day Grant sent "Fighting Joe Hooker" to sweep Bragg's detachment from Lookout Mountain. Mist lay along the lofty slopes as the gallant Hooker and his men moved up them, soon veiling the entire column from sight; and it was only by the rattle of the musketry that Grant knew how the fight progressed. This was the famous "Battle Above the Clouds." Hooker pounded the enemy ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... island, almost every breath of air has been a storm, and what is worse, a storm with all its severity, but without its magnificence, for the sea is here so broken into channels that there is not a sufficient volume of water either for lofty surges or ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... of its life, the tower had been greatly improved as a place of residence. The contrast was remarkable between the dreary gray outer walls, and the luxuriously furnished rooms inside, rising by two at a time to the lofty eighth story of the building. Among the scattered populace of the country round, the tower was still known by the odd name given to it in the bygone time—"The Clink." It had been so called (as was supposed) in allusion to the noise made by ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... ears filled with the divine converse of angels, who then talked face to face with his sires, as with beloved younger brethren, and of whose golden words only the music remained to him, vibrating forever in his soul, and making him yearn to have all sounds of earth harmonize therewith. In the poet's lofty heart Truth hangs her aerie, and there Love flowers, scattering thence her winged seeds over all the earth with every wind of heaven. In all ages the poet's fiery words have goaded men to remember and regain their ancient freedom, and, when they had regained it, have tempered it ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... before the cathedral, and looked up at the lofty Gothic spire which seemed to tower above the whirling snow. As well as he could see some damage had been done to the roof by shells, but the beautiful stained-glass windows were uninjured. He stood there gazing, and he knew in his heart that he was ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... abandonment by her old admirer Pakenham; so Polk will cajole her into disclosures, never fear. In return, when the time comes, he will send an army of occupation into her country! And all the while, on the one side and the other, he will appear to the public as a moral and lofty-minded man." ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... thee now within a cave to dwell. I will provide for thy redress, and all things shall be well. A darksome den must be thy lofty lodging now. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... it as with a glorious garment? Hail to thee, my parent! as thou sittest there, in thy widow's weeds, in the dusky parlour in the house overgrown with the lustrous ivy of the sister isle, the solitary house at the end of the retired court shaded by lofty poplars. Hail to thee, dame of the oval face, olive complexion, and Grecian forehead; by thy table seated with the mighty volume of the good Bishop Hopkins spread out before thee; there is peace in thy countenance, my mother; it is not worldly ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... Reverend Henry, adopting his lofty style. "We must cut the whole lot. There is no ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various

... She was never very beautiful; but had a world of grace and witty intelligence; and knew a Voltaire when she saw him. Was the soul of courtesy and benignity, though proud enough, and carrying her head at its due height; and was always very charming, in her lofty gracious way, to mankind. Interesting to all, were it only as a living fragment of the Grand Epoch,—kind of French Fulness of Time, when the world was at length blessed with a Louis Quatorze, and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... way of news yet, but I am disposed to believe that nothing can be accomplished here, and that if anything is to be done we must go on to Yeddo. It is still hot, but the air, which comes down from these lofty hills, is, I think, fresher than that which passes over the boundless level in the vicinity ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... for an honest and a well-born man. It is only just to add that in detail and when after all deductions he describes the just man, he invites us to contemplate virtues which if not sublime are none the less remarkably lofty. ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet

... was gradually discerned to be charged with lofty meaning and to be capable of being turned into a dim shadowing of something greater than itself. You will find that God begins to be spoken of in the later portions of Scripture as the Kinsman-Redeemer. I reckon eighteen instances, of which thirteen are in the second ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... Further than infancy and idiocy: The men around him, not the man himself, Are looked at, and by these is he preferred. 'Tis the green mantle of the warrener And his loud whistle, that alone attract The lofty gazes of the noble herd: And thus, without thy countenance and help Feeble and faint is still our confidence, Brief ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor

... some portly persons, passing beneath the lofty window, espied the parrot perched upon the sill and heard it speak the poet's line. Breathless with amazement, they stopped and cried out: ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan

... He was very lofty and erect in the meager light, rather a superb figure, if the girl had had eyes for it. But she, to all seeming, was dazed. He went in silence at her side till they reached the street and saw that the open door of the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... our rambles has heretofore required so much patience, that, though a delight to the enthusiast, few have time to acquire any great intimacy with them. To get this acquaintance with the birds, the observer has need to be prepared to explore perilous places, to climb lofty trees, and to meet with frequent mishaps. To be sure if every veritable secret of their habits is to be pried into, this pursuit will continue to be plied as patiently as it has ever been. The opportunity, however, ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... had brought lightning through the night, and this morning there was the gentle drizzle that sometimes follows a heavy thunderstorm. Hints of the farther blue showed themselves in a lofty sky of delicate and drifting gray. The blackbirds and thrushes welcomed the cooler air with a gush of musical piping, as if the liquid tenderness of the morning had actually got into their ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... suited to the most desperate adventures; and when he had fixed his choice, he piously visited the cell of Severinus, the popular saint of the country, to solicit his approbation and blessing. The lowness of the door would not admit the lofty stature of Odoacer: he was obliged to stoop; but in that humble attitude the saint could discern the symptoms of his future greatness; and addressing him in a prophetic tone, "Pursue" (said he) "your design; proceed to Italy; you ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... chasm that separated the hall and the entrance tunnel, we came to the long defile that formed the latter and passed through it swiftly, the lofty archer guards remaining as stern and immovable as when I had first come through. We then came to the winding stairs that occupied the hollowed innards of a massive and ancient tree, of which kind many were to be found in Daem, being at least fifty feet thick and 700 feet high, ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn

... some disappointment at its appearance. Instead of finding, as they had expected, a palace, there was nothing but a large garden enclosed by a lofty wall, and having a small mosque at one end. It had evidently been a place of retirement when the Kings of Oude desired to get away from the bustle and ceremony of ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... brief; he reined his horse impatiently to the left, riding straight toward the flaunting sign upon the lofty false front of the Old Trusty saloon. But short as was his indecision it had not ended before he had glimpsed at the far end of the street the incongruous lines of an ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... open air. Indeed, the country very much resembles in its character the land of Judea, being rocky, parched, and in many places waste, though in others abounding in corn and wine and oil. In the interior parts of the district the scenery is wild and grand, especially in the valleys lying under the lofty mountain of Lozere. But the rocks and stones are everywhere in ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... could be found in any of his surroundings to encourage his lofty aspirations; what with the coarse father whose only mastery was of the trowel by day, and at night the pipe; and the simple grandmother who dwelt with wonder, and almost with alarm on every progressive step of the boy. As he looked from the small loop-hole that admitted the light and ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... November, That was the very time, A fine and lofty schooner brig, The Happy Return, of Lyme, The bold and noble Captain Escaped from the deep, And died with cold that very night Near ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... covers their charming porticoed house from top to toe and fills their grounds. Ever since they can remember they have specialized in wistaria; and they are not young, and wistaria grows fast. The fine old trees that stand in the Mannings' grounds are merely lofty trellises for the vines, white and mauve, to sport upon. The Mannings' garden cost less money, perhaps, than any notable garden in Aiken; and when in full bloom it is, perhaps, the most beautiful garden in the ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... future, but his ambitious hopes had been quickly deceived. He saw the Baron de Chipotier, the Comte de Boisflottant, and the son of Pillardin, the lucky millionaire, successively come into the regiment, and these sprigs of lofty lineage, full of brilliancy and loquacity, naturally eclipsed the modest qualities of the obscure upstart soldier. Spending their life in cafes, overwhelmed with debt, loved by the women, they laughed among themselves at all the minutiae of the service, which they treated ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... strode with dignity to and fro before his captive. His dark, impassive face gave no clew to his thoughts; but his lofty bearing, his measured, stately walk were indicative of great pride. Then he spoke ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... thinking of Mrs. Dane's suspicions that there was some secret between them, that she, Lilian, was afraid would come to light. But she had never in her wildest moments dreamed of the truth. Mrs. Boyd had all the limitation of a commonplace nature, sweet, devoted, with no lofty aspirations. The refinements of Barrington House wore upon her. She did try, for Lilian's sake, to adapt herself to some of them but the effort was plainly visible to practiced eyes. If she had lived—but then the confession would hardly have been made. For, ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Lofty position of Augustine in the Church Parentage and birth Education and youthful follies Influence of the Manicheans on him Teacher of rhetoric Visits Rome Teaches rhetoric at Milan Influence of Ambrose on him Conversion; Christian experience Retreat ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... Hugo heard his daughter's voice proclaiming in lofty, pitying tones, "Pooah Daddie velly stupid man, he was a velly bad nengine, ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker

... now standing in the middle of the room, with his hands buried in the pockets of his breeches, his manner and attitude once more calm, debonnair, expressive of lofty self-possession and of absolute indifference. He came quite close to the meagre little figure of his exultant enemy, thereby forcing the latter to ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... which held the town. The new castle rose on the eastern bank of the Thames, broken here into a number of small streamlets, one of which served as the deep moat which encircled its walls. A well marked the centre of the wide castle-court; to the north of it on a lofty mound rose the great keep; to the west the one tower which remains, the tower of St. George, frowned over the river and the mill. Without the walls of the fortress lay the Bailly, a space cleared by the merciless policy of the ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green



Words linked to "Lofty" :   noble, impressive, high, elevated, loftiness, idealistic



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