air-built

Certainly, by contrast with his air-built image of himself as a worthy astronomer, received by all the world, and the envied husband of Viviette, the present imputation was humiliating.

Two on a Tower 2006

She had smiled at it as such when Dorcas used to hint at it; but are there no castles in the clouds which we like to inhabit, although we know them altogether air-built, and whose evaporation desolates us?

Wylder's Hand 2003

I was grieved for him; I was grieved for the overthrow of all our air-built castles; but, with the elasticity of youth, I soon recovered the shock.

Agnes Grey 1931

They rarely summon the courage to attack those heroic dummies which are not soldiers but idols set up in a glorious battlefield that never existed except as a romance among the unimaginative; the fine figures and the splendid war that were air-built of a rapture.

Waiting for Daylight 1915

Her time passed in listening to the complaints of the impoverished aristocrats, or in attending to the air-built projects of their triumphant adversaries.

Memoirs of Mary Robinson Mary Elizabeth Robinson 1895

Certainly, by contrast with his air-built image of himself as a worthy astronomer, received by all the world, and the envied husband of

Two on a Tower Thomas Hardy 1884

Before him lay an awful necessity -- the necessity of going to Beaubocage to tell those who loved him how their air-built castles had been shattered by this deed of his.

Charlotte's Inheritance 1875

I tried to address myself to the volume before me, but my busy imagination had turned architect, and was erecting air-built tenements of the most magnificent and gorgeous nature.

Odd Leaves from the Life of a Louisiana "Swamp Doctor" 1858

She had smiled at it as such when Dorcas used to hint at it; but are there no castles in the clouds which we like to inhabit, although we know them altogether air-built, and whose evaporation desolates us?

Wylder's Hand Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 1843

But many a man who would have stood within a home dismantled, strong in his passion and design of vengeance, has had the firmness of his nature conquered by the razing of an air-built castle.

Martin Chuzzlewit Charles Dickens 1841