"Sprightly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... consisting entirely of articles written by females employed in the mills, has attracted much attention and obtained a wide circulation. This may be in part owing to the novel circumstances of its publication; but it is something more and better than a mere novelty. In its volumes may be found sprightly delineations of home scenes and characters, highly wrought imaginative pieces, tales of genuine pathos and humor, and pleasing fairy stories and fables. 'The Offering' originated in a reading society of the mill girls, which, under the name of the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the classes for examination to-day was a sergeant, fifty years old at least, but still sprightly and active; not very well posted in the infantry tactics now in use, but of more than ordinary intelligence. The class had not impressed the Board favorably. This Sergeant we thought rather too old, and ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... full of sprightly dialogue, can be already detected something of the art of the conteur which will appear in Chaucer, and something almost of the art of the novelist, destined five hundred years later to reach such a high development in England. The curiosity of the ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Vintner in Montreal, the Third of May, 1767, a Mulatto Negro Slave, named Andrew, born in Maryland Twenty-three Years of Age, middle sized, very active and sprightly, has a remarkable large Mouth, thick lips, his Fingers crooked, speaks good English and French, a little Dutch and Earse; is supposed to have with him forged Certificates of his Freedom, and Passes. Whoever takes up and secures the said Negro, so that his Master ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... the counter in Crenshaw's store at Balaam's Cross Roads, where the heavy odor of black molasses battled with the sprightly smell of salt fish. The merchant held the Scratch Hiller in no small esteem. Their intimacy was of long standing, for the Yancys going down and the Crenshaws coming up had for a brief space flourished on the same social level. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... Madame de Brinvilliers, after a dinner party, in a merry mood, said, showing her a little box, "Here is vengeance on one's enemies: this box is small, but holds plenty of successsions!" That she gave back the box into her hands, but soon changing from her sprightly mood, she cried, "Good heavens, what have I said? Tell nobody." That Lambert, clerk at the palace, told her he had brought the packets to Madame from Sainte-Croix; that Lachaussee often went to see her; and that she ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Broderick it is 'Fergus here' and 'Fergus there,' just as though he were alive and in the next room, and she was expecting him in every moment. Sometimes in the twilight it makes me quite creepy to hear her speaking in that sprightly voice, just as though she were making believe that he ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... ability to shield him from any adverse influence which might deflect his footsteps from his predestined goal. She impressed it on the mind of Catie, also, that it was her girlish duty to herd her immature companion into the proper fold; that her young and sprightly charms, her girlish loyalty should be to her as a shepherd's crook, the guiding wand to be applied ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... In his wish to be sprightly he had used words without thinking of their meanings. Suddenly he realized that "father" and "mother" really meant father and mother—people whom he had himself at home. He was very uncomfortable, and thought Rickie had been rather queer. He too ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... who winked and did not believe a word of it, because the human being is the noblest subject of art—but only because he wished to show himself by actual experience how much more charming in character, and sprightly in intelligence, and beautiful in person and manner, Hope Wayne was ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... person at the hospital! With a dainty white dotted Swiss apron tied in sprightly bows about her waist, "in sweet perfection cast," she sat near the window sewing or embroidering some bit of finery that must be finished for the wedding, and by her hands alone. Jim was so full of joy he didn't care how long it took his broken ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... instilled into her nature so long ago that she was no longer conscious of it, she wished to do them good by suggesting only such thoughts as men associate with pure, good women; and from an earnest, yet sprightly mind, she took a genuine interest herself in the subjects on which ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... pretty; much more so, indeed, than either had deemed it to be; while, secured behind the cushion or pillion, on which she rode,—for not a jot of saddle had she,—was a little bundle containing such worldly comforts as were necessary to one seriously bent upon a journey. She was mounted upon a sprightly pony, which she managed with more address and courage than would have been augured from her former timorous demeanour; and it was plain that she had put him to his mettle through the woods, with but little regard to the sloughs and puddles which had so ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... of posterity is likely to rest, not on his verses, but upon a sprightly hodgepodge of imaginary table-talk, called "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table"—a warm-hearted, kindly book, which still ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... I've been down sullar," she said aloud, "it's two year." She 'was lighting a candle as she spoke. In another moment, she was taking sprightly steps down the stairs ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... the caudle into small silver tumblers, and gave them to us. "The Bequest of a Friend" was engraved on them. Her fingers were like ice, and her head shook with fatigue; but her voice was sprightly and her smile bright. Ann ate a good deal of sponge cake, and omitted the caudle, but I drank mine to the memory of the ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... made was up the Straits, where he touched at Gibraltar, and went soon after to Leghorn, the port to which they were bound. Being a young sprightly lad the mate carried him on shore with him, and being a man of intrigue, made use of him to go between him and an Irish woman, who was married to an Italian captain of a ship. The lady's husband was in Sicily, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... ours to walk through, will it not, Colonel Tarleton?" she said, playing the sprightly minx to the very climax of perfection. Then she dipped us a curtsy. "Au revoir, gentlemen. 'Tis a thousand pities you had not joined sooner and so had the red coat and small-sword to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... exultation, duly followed by depression. Her spirits were so uncertain, that things too minute to justify narration turned the scale either way: a word from Mrs. Dodd—a new face at St. Anne's Church looking devoutly her way—a piece of town gossip distilled in her ear by Mrs. Maxley—and she was sprightly or languid, and both ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... did miss My Lady, perched upon the stoic mule while like an Arab chief I convoyed her. The steady miles, I admitted, were going to be as disappointing as tepid water, when not aerated by her counsel and piquant allusions, by her sprightly readiness and the essential elements of her blue eyes, her facile lips, and that bright hair which no ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... boarding-school. Her parents had been earnestly sollicited to allow her making this friendly visit on such an extraordinary occasion; and two days ago she arrived with her mother, who did not chuse that she should come without a proper gouvernante. The young lady is very sprightly, handsome, and agreeable, and the mother a mighty good sort of a woman; so that their coming adds considerably to our enjoyment. But we shall have a third couple yoked in the matrimonial chain. Mr Clinker ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... and casts a gloom over the company; a good one begets others, and the talkers go to telling stories; which is very good entertainment in moderation, but is not to be mistaken for that unwearying flow of argument, quaint remark, humorous color, and sprightly interchange of sentiments and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... an heiress in expectancy, and moved in the most fashionable society, and was, with all, a gay and sprightly girl, Kate, as a natural consequence, drew around her the gilded moths of society, not a few of whom got their wings scorched, on approaching ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... woman, stout but sprightly, in whom Gregory recognized the agitated mother of the pretty girl, evaded Miss Scrotton's extended hand and darted past her to place herself in front of Madame von Marwitz. She wore a large, box-like hat from which a blue ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... subject, notwithstanding his continental wanderings, can have been but that of an external spectator. Still in an age when critical utterance was more than ordinarily full-wigged and ponderous, it dared to be sprightly and epigrammatic. Some of its passages, besides, bear upon the writer's personal experiences, and serve to piece the imperfections of his biography. If it brought him no sudden wealth, it certainly raised his reputation with the book-selling world. A ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... saw his moving lips and both changes of countenance. He saw also the look which Ruth threw toward Mrs. Morris, where that lady and Godfrey moved slowly in conversation,—he ever so sedate, she ever so sprightly. And he saw Isabel glance as anxiously in the same direction. But then her eyes came to his, and under her voice, though with a brow all sunshine, she said, ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... a fresh complexioned, sprightly young fellow of six or seven and twenty, with dark, frank-looking eyes, a prominent nose, and thin mobile lips. He had dark-brown hair, closely cropped; and, as became one of his profession, he was guiltless of either beard or moustache. Like Mirpah, he inherited his eyes and nose from his mother, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... demure—of lowly port; Or sprightly maiden—of Love's court, In thy simplicity the sport Of all temptations. A Queen in crown of rubies drest, A starveling in a scanty vest, Are all as seems to ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... all, WHAT IS THE CONDITION OF THE CHILD?—It ought to have the sprightly appearance of health, to bear the marks of being well nourished, its flesh firm, its skin clean and free from eruptions. It should be examined in this respect, particularly about the ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... vicious, and low. If there were no other use in the conversation of ladies, it is sufficient that it would lay a restraint upon those odious topics of immodesty and indecencies, into which the rudeness of our northern genius is so apt to fall. And, therefore, it is observable in those sprightly gentlemen about the town, who are so very dexterous at entertaining a vizard mask in the park or the playhouse, that, in the company of ladies of virtue and honour, they are silent and disconcerted, ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... call for his ukulele—a sort of miniature guitar of Portuguese invention. Then, with strumming and tumtuming, the live cigarette laid aside to the imminent peril of polished wood, his full baritone would roll out in South Sea hulas and sprightly French and ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... intelligence. But if a man should enter, a single one, and not even a man of distinction, the same conversation would suddenly become more spirituelle and more agreeable. The conversation of men is doubtless less sprightly when there are no women present; but ordinarily, although it may be more serious, it is still rational, and they can do without us more easily than ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... something about Ferdinand Frog that made everybody smile. It may have been his amazingly wide mouth and his queer, bulging eyes, or perhaps it was his sprightly manner—for one never could tell when Mr. Frog would leap into the air, or turn a somersault backward. Indeed, some of his neighbors claimed that he himself didn't know what he was going to do next—he was ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey
... was a child of remarkable intelligence, and that she early showed a tender regard for the whites and rendered them willing and unwilling service, is the concurrent evidence of all contemporary testimony. That as a child she was well-favored, sprightly, and prepossessing above all her copper-colored companions, we can believe, and that as a woman her manners were attractive. If the portrait taken of her in London—the best engraving of which ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... free—Can you be so Unconscionable, Madam, to let me say all these fine things to you without one single Compliment in Return? View me well, am I not a proper Handsome Fellow, ha? Can you prefer that old, dry, wither'd, sapless Log of Sixty-five, to the vigorous, gay, sprightly Love of Twenty-four? With Snoring only he'll awake thee, but I with Ravishing Delight wou'd make thy Senses Dance in Consort with the Joyful Minutes—ha? not yet, sure she is Dumb—Thus wou'd I steal and touch thy Beauteous Hand, (Takes bold of her Hand) till by degrees ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... kit?" burst out the third member of the party indignantly—a sprightly youth with a very short tunic and a pert expression. "Do they want you to return your small kit when you get the mitten? Watch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... spectators liked it. They thought it was in the play. She was so pretty, so sprightly, so graceful, and so astoundingly modest that they wanted more of her. After the performance no fewer than a dozen men asked the producer why he didn't give that little girl with the black hair more of ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... after a smart rap at the door, in flounced a sprightly, elegant lady, very gay and very ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... mighty throne;) 200 The smiles of Beauty, though those smiles were dear, Could hardly charm me, when that friend was near: My thoughts bewilder'd in the fond surprise, The woods of IDA danc'd before my eyes; I saw the sprightly wand'rers pour along, I saw, and join'd again the joyous throng; Panting, again I trac'd her lofty grove, And Friendship's feelings ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... into a deep sleep, and my dream was continued. The curtains again parted, and I beheld Clarimonde, not as on the former occasion, pale in her pale winding-sheet, with the violets of death upon her cheeks, but gay, sprightly, jaunty, in a superb travelling-dress of green velvet, trimmed with gold lace, and looped up on either side to allow a glimpse of satin petticoat. Her blond hair escaped in thick ringlets from beneath a broad black felt hat, decorated ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... which I have served him—at his own expense, be it said. No; my ascendancy over him has been too long established, and I know that, like a prime minister who has been hastily dismissed, I shall be ultimately recalled. And yet he is not without gleams of sense, is occasionally sprightly, and has perceptions of principle that might have made him a man—an individual being: but now, having neither firmness, resolution to carry out a good purpose, nor self-respect, he is a miserable and wretched cipher, whose ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... easily obtained from Hadwin a description of the person and carriage of his nephew. Every circumstance evinced the identity of their persons. Wallace, then, was the engaging and sprightly youth whom I had encountered at Lesher's; and who, for purposes not hitherto discoverable, had led me into a ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... Nelly there were all the necessary conditions for committing the offense. She was{72} a bright mulatto, the recognized wife of a favorite "hand" on board Col. Lloyd's sloop, and the mother of five sprightly children. She was a vigorous and spirited woman, and one of the most likely, on the plantation, to be guilty of impudence. My attention was called to the scene, by the noise, curses and screams that ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... would have sputtered with indignation. He never realized that Buff escaped many a "bawling out" because the officers respected the father's long years of faithful service and did not want to humiliate him. He knew that his boy flew high occasionally, but that was because he was "jess nachally sprightly and full o' devilment." No one could deny that Private Wilson was one of the finest animals, physically, that ever wore the uniform; or that he had gained a wide reputation among his comrades and the Filipinos on account of his terrible abilities in a hand-to-hand engagement. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... trouble singeth, Waking half the world from rest; Now it wails in murmuring sadness, As a child at words unkind; Now it comes with merry gladness, Floating weirdly on the wind. Ah! 'tis sad;—-yet sprightly-hearted; Song of Birth and gloomy Bier; Death-dirge for the Days departed; Carol for the coming Year. Is it that the voice reminds thee Of the wasted moments past? Saith it that the New Year finds thee Where ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... that lovely bloom, And closed in death that speaking eye, And buried in a green grass tomb, What once breathed life and harmony! Surely the sky is all too dark, And chilly blows the summer air,— And, where 's thy song now, sprightly lark, That used to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... back from a strenuous month in the country. Mr. and Mrs. Sprightly, the young married couple who were in charge of the mission station, and I were relaxing around the tea table. I told about the work I had been doing, and answered interested questions. Finally the talk drifted into lighter channels, and Mrs. Sprightly told a funny ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... forth, the rival of his beams Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames. Fair nymphs, and well-dressed youths around her shone, But every eye was fixed on her alone. On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss, and Infidels adore. Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose, Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as those: Favours to none, to all she smiles extends; Oft she rejects, but never once offends. Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike, Yet graceful ease, and sweetness ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... Indians were rather ugly and ill made, their legs and arms being peculiarly slender, their cheek-bones high, and their eyes projecting. The females, with the same character of form, were somewhat more handsome. Both sexes appeared cheerful and sprightly, but afforded many indications of being both cunning and vicious. The men shave the hair off their heads, except a small tuft on the top, which they suffer to grow, so as to wear it in plats over the shoulders. In full dress, ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... forward into his vague, new life than those equally vital elements of his old self—his poems! How strangely did their moods contrast with his—his father's playful good-humour, Lady Thiselton's sprightly camaraderie and ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... fierce attacks across impassable marshes. "Good," put in a third some one. "Let's puzzle the German staff by persuading him that we have an Etonian General in this part of the line, a very celebrated 'wet-bob.'" Which sprightly suggestion made the Brigadier-General smile. But it was my good fortune to go one better. I had to partner him at bridge, and brought ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... Messer Brunetto argued, and must needs express the perfidious folly in words, what better vehicle could he have for his salacious fancy than the forms and modes and moods which contented the amorous Ovidius, and the sprightly Tibullus, and the hot-headed, hot-hearted Catullus, and the tuneful Petronius, and so on, to much the same purpose, through a string of ancient amorists? But we that were younger than Messer Brunetto, and simpler, and certainly more ignorant, we found a great pleasure ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... buried with much pomp in the Church of St. Mary at Ware, and his monument stands in a side chapel near the chancel. There, thirteen years later, his loyal lady and sprightly biographer was laid beside him in the vault and beneath the monument which she says: "Cost me two hundred pounds; and here if God pleases ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... with the fruits of our own fondly mingled toils! Methinks, my love, I already see that distant sun rising with gladsome beams on our dew-spangled flowers. I hear the wild wood-birds pouring their sprightly carols on the sweet-scented morning. My heart leaps with joy to their songs. Then, O my husband! if we must go, let us go without a sigh. God can order it for our good. And, on my account, you shall cast no lingering ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... have no idea of matrimony, mon cher?" said the lady, attempting to use a sprightly tone, but looking at him with a glance so earnest that it showed what importance she attached to ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... Lord Alington's trainer, is 74 years of age, and one of the most successful men the turf has ever known. In spite of his age he is as sprightly as a young man; and I should say many another "good 'un" is to be expected ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... of argument," said this sprightly youth; and so they parted for the time, little dreaming, either of them, what a chain they were weaving round their two hearts, and this little business the ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... only have been retained in existence, from that love of antique pomp and establishment which has embellished our Court with so many gold-sticks and white rods, and such trains of beef-eaters and grooms of the stole—though it has submitted to the suppression of the more sprightly appendages of a king's fool, or a court jester. That the household poet should have survived the other wits of the establishment, can only be explained by the circumstance of his office being more easily converted into one of mere pomp and ceremony, and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... tell about a thing like that," Miss Polly was saying in her sprightly way, quite as if she were discussing the pattern of a dress or the stitching of a seam. "It was feelin', I reckon, and feelin' is one of the things nobody can count on. But you did mighty well, even if you didn't marry Arthur. I saw Mr. George downtown yesterday, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... company and makes him entirely unfit for the conversation of the polite world." "I don't know how the mathematics may assist the judgment, but they have a great tendency to make men dull. I who am far from being sprightly even in my gaiety, am the very reverse of it at this time." Certainly to produce sprightliness is neither the aim nor the general effect of mathematics. That while military education was carried on, general culture was not wholly neglected, is proved by the famous exclamation ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... spirits, in high feather; happy as the day is long, happy as a king; gay as a lark; allegro; debonair; light, lightsome, light hearted; buoyant, debonnaire, bright, free and easy, airy; janty[obs3], jaunty, canty[obs3]; hedonic[obs3]; riant[obs3]; sprightly, sprightful[obs3]; spry; spirited, spiritful[obs3]; lively, animated, vivacious; brisk as a bee; sparkling, sportive; full of play, full of spirit; all alive. sunny, palmy; hopeful &c. 858. merry as a cricket, merry as a grig[obs3], merry ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... And now, while all her thoughts with Capac rove Thro former scenes of innocence and love, In distant fight his fancied dangers share, Or wait him glorious from the finish'd war; Blest with the ardent hope, her sprightly mind A vesture white had for the prince design'd; And here she seeks the wool to web the fleece, The sacred emblem ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... huge iron spur, with a rowel five or six inches in diameter. His horse, who stood quietly looking over his head, had a rude Mexican saddle, covered with a shaggy bearskin, and furnished with a pair of wooden stirrups of most preposterous size. The next man was a sprightly, active little fellow, about five feet and a quarter high, but very strong and compact. His face was swarthy as a Mexican's and covered with a close, curly black beard. An old greasy calico handkerchief was tied round his head, and his close buckskin dress ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... on this grey spring day, that she gazed undaunted at the world, with the shadows all about her, and hummed a sprightly tune through warm red lips that were kissed ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... comin' up fast. My! I hate to git my clothes wet." And off she set at a rapid pace, keeping abreast of her companion and making gay but elephantine attempts at sprightly conversation. Before Cameron's unsympathetic silence, however, all her sprightly ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... man scratched his head all the way. The boys got on brilliantly, and were up and down again before the old lady had accomplished her half-dozen stairs. But most of the penitents came down, very sprightly and fresh, as having done a real good substantial deed which it would take a good deal of sin to counterbalance; and the old gentleman in the watch-box was down upon them with his canister while they were in this ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... hopes that you had given over, at this time of day, those very sprightly airs, which I have taken the liberty to blame you for, as often as you have given me occasion to so do; and that has been ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... as they might be, the stupendous collection was uncovered, and there were displayed, on a raised platform some two feet from the floor, running round the room and parted from the rude public by a crimson rope breast high, divers sprightly effigies of celebrated characters, singly and in groups, clad in glittering dresses of various climes and times, and standing more or less unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes very wide open, and their nostrils very much inflated, and the muscles of their legs and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... named Perrette set out one morning from her little dairy-farm with a pail of milk which she cleverly balanced upon her head over a pad or cushion. She hurried with sprightly steps to the market town, and so that she might be the less encumbered, wore a kirtle that was short and light—in truth a simple petticoat—and shoes low and easy. As she went, her thoughts ran upon the price to be gained for her milk, and she schemed ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... range of characters. It is with the grave, the earnest, the exalted, the affectionate, the mournful, that he succeeds: he is not destitute of humour, as his Wallenstein's Camp will show, but neither is he rich in it; and for sprightly ridicule in any of its forms he has seldom shown either taste or talent. Chance principally made the drama his department; he might have shone equally in many others. The vigorous and copious invention, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... my sprightly bat?" asked D'Harmental; "for I do not forget that it is to her I owe the happiness of having offered my services to ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... add that my wife does not often talk in this unfeeling manner. But she suffers at times from a desire to live up to a sort of honorary reputation for sprightly humour, conferred upon her by undiscriminating admirers in the days before she became engaged to me. As a matter of fact, her solicitude on my behalf was largely due to an ambition to see a little paragraph in the newspapers, announcing that "Mr Adrian Inglethwaite, M.P., Director of the Sub-Tropical ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. Strange cozenage! none would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;[276-1] And from the dregs of life think to receive What the first sprightly running ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... Boone was living alone in Kentucky, his intellectual exercises were doubtless of the quiet, slow, heavy character. Other white men joined him. Under the social stimulus, his thinking became more sprightly. Suppose that in time he had come to write vigorously, and to speak in the most eloquent, brilliant manner, does any one imagine that he would have lost in mental vigor by the process? Would not the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... and the Beast, all resemblance between the two stories should have been got rid of, as, up to the Ball Scene, except for the absence of the Pumpkin and the Mice, it is difficult to distinguish between the two fairy tales. But, when last I saw Cinderella, wasn't ROSINA VOKES the sprightly heroine, and her brother with the wonderful legs the Baron? I think so: but I will not be too much of a laudator temporis acti, and will be thankful that one of the youthful Commissioners thoroughly enjoyed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... while that the sprightly March Hare was thus leaping on to success, Mr. Arthur Presby Carter sat quietly in his office and watched the antics of this youthful upstart. He was surprised, very much surprised; indeed he had, perhaps, never been more surprised in all his life. He had long thought he knew ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... publication of a play by Henry Arthur Jones is a matter for congratulation.... In 'The Manoeuvres of Jane' we see Mr. Jones in his most sprightly mood and at the height of his ingenuity;... its plot is plausible and comic, and its dialogue is witty." The ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... &c., and, above all, for her letters, most of which are to her daughter, Lady Bute (as Mme. de Sevigne's are to her daughter, Mme. de Grignan), and which are in no respect inferior to those of the French lady in sprightly wit, while in the variety of their subjects they are far superior, as giving the account of Turkish scenery and manners, and also of those of other countries which her husband visited on various diplomatic missions, while Mme. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... the young people met upon the seashore near the old castle ruins for sprightly pastimes, or rural dances, or to sing catches, Colin was the merriest among them. But as soon as Marietta arrived the rascally fellow was silent, and all the gold in the world couldn't make him sing. What a pity, when he had such a fine voice I Everybody listened to it so ...
— The Broken Cup - 1891 • Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke
... know in what year) established himself in the good graces of Mademoiselle Meserai, an actress of the Theatre Francais, who was both pretty and sprightly. The conquest was not difficult, in the first place, because this had never been her character towards any one, and, secondly, because the artiste knew the great wealth of the count, and believed him to be prodigal. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... was only twenty, a sprightly, active young man, of a brown color. He came from Middle Neck, Cecil county, where he had served under William ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... that—a wonderful old creature!" said the general, just as if he were a sprightly young fellow talking of the oldest inhabitant of the district. "She's not one of them that are half buried: she's wide enough awake, I'll be bound. Gad! what a handsome woman she was when I saw her first! Well, lads, let's join the ladies: I'm none of your steady-going old topers. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... memoirs give evidence of no such thing; it is only in her letters, not intended for the world, that we are aware of the inadvertence of moments. We may overhear a laugh at times, but not in those consciously sprightly hours that she spent with her convent-school friend gathering fruit and counting eggs at the farm. She pursued these country tasks not without offering herself the cultivated congratulation of one whom cities had failed to allure, and who bore in mind the examples of ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... nub of the argument, with incomparable felicity, as follows:—you will recall that the two protagonists had a difference, originating in the fact that the former called the latter "Little Prig." Bun made a very sprightly retort, summing up to ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... figured duly That, if we appraised him truly, Horace must have been a brick; And no wonder that with ranting Rhymes he went a-gallivanting Round with sprightly Lydia Dick! ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... Whitefriars Library of Wit and Humour (HENRY & Co.). Most of the stories and, I think, the best that go to make up this delightful volume have already appeared in The Granta, a Cambridge magazine, which London papers are accustomed to speak of as "our sprightly contemporary." They now seek and are sure to obtain a wider public and a more extended fame. There is in these stories a curious mixture of humour, insight and pathos, with here and there a dash of grimness and a sprinkling ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... set trash of phrase, Ineffably, legitimately vile, That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise, Nor foes—all nations—condescend to smile. Not even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil, That turns and turns to give the world a notion Of ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... languor and to sensuous dreams. Mid-August is near and though here and there a belated azalea bloom still glows white in the dusk of the swamp its odor seems to have no power to ride the wind. Instead a cleaner, finer perfume dances in rhythmic motion down the dell, swaying in sprightly time to the under rhythm of the brook's tone, a scent that seems to laugh as it greets you, yet in no wise losing its inherent, gentle dignity. The wild clematis is the fairest maiden of the woodland. She, I am convinced, knows all the brook says and loves to ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... Rabbits," with many promptings and encouraging nods from the teacher. The Dutchman's youngest got up to recite "The Burial of Sir John Moore," and, though shaking from head to foot, attacked the doleful stanzas in a high key and with sprightly gesticulations. "Frenchy's" brother spoke in his own tongue a piece that was suitable to the occasion; much to his amazement, it elicited peals of laughter. When he sat down, the program wound on its tedious, recitative way until the tree was ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... novels are probably those which deal in exact reproduction of ordinary incidents and conversation, related in a sprightly and humorous style. This accords with the taste of present-day readers, many of whom take up a book only for the momentary amusement that it gives them, and are well content with interminable dialogues that do little more than echo, with a certain spice of epigram and smart repartee, the ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... haven't put in an hour of solid work for a month, Bob I ought to be ashamed, and I am." He paused. "But there's no use jumping all over myself if I haven't," he resumed, shifting to a more sprightly tone. "I've said I was going to take a spurt soon and I mean ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... jumped to his feet and was answering her greeting with an awkward bow, clasping the iron railing in order not to fall. Cupido jumped into the house and was followed by the young man, who took pains to make the climb gracefully and sprightly. ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was about fourteen years of age. She was the daughter of the king's second wife, Queen Anne Boleyn. She had been educated a Protestant. She was not pretty, but was a very lively and sprightly child, altogether different in her cast of character and in her ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... a strong relief to his face, which caught the bright light of the blazing fire. The face was not unlike that of a satyr; there was the same slightly protruding forehead, full, in this case, of prominences, all more or less denoting character; the same turned-up nose, with a sprightly cleavage at the tip; the same high cheek-bones. The lines of the mouth were crooked; the lips, thick and red. The chin turned sharply upwards. There was an alert, animated look in the brown eyes, to which their pearly whites gave great brightness, and which expressed passions now subdued. ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... sprightly music calls to the dance; and first the stately Polonaise, in easy gradation between walking and dancing. To the surprise of the whole room and the indignation of main of the high nobles, the Crown Prince of Reisenburg led off the Polonaise with the unknown fair ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... with her was so easy that it made me feel my own motion graceful; the swirl of mingled feelings impelled me to recognize how superior she was in other things, and to proudly set her off against each lovely or dignified or sprightly figure there; and when the music closed abruptly, we started laughing together for the conservatory of which I have spoken, at the end of the vast rooms. This conservatory ended in a circular enlargement divided ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... the vale, and over into the next where his cart lay, was not sprightly for a slim young fellow of twenty-four. His spirit was perturbed to aching. The breezes that blew around his mouth in that walk carried off upon them the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... himself to Lord and Lady Marchmont, talking to them freely and pleasantly, answering Selina's questions, much to her amusement and satisfaction, and Lord Marchmont comparing notes with him, as old Etonians delight to do with "the sprightly race, disporting" for the time being, on the "margen green" of Father Thames. A particularly lively, pleasant, entertaining, well-mannered boy was Gerald, but, all the time, Marian was feeling that he was holding aloof both from her and Edmund, never allowing either ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... undertook to give her drawing-lessons, making her come every day to the hotel, and often keeping her there several hours. Her pupil was rather dull of comprehension, and caused her to grow a little cross sometimes; but she always made amends to the girl by her caresses and sprightly talk. ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... their conversation would have been sprightly enough, I warrant. But as here they saw around them one and another amazing triumph of industry and art, they grew earnest, spoke exaltedly of this great age, and marvelled at the tangle of chances that had thrown them here together. John called it, pensively, ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable |
