"Archness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... country estate in Surrey. He is remembered now for several things—for having entertained Peter the Great of Russia; for having, while young, won the affections of Dorothy Osborne, whose letters to him are charming in their grace and archness; for having been the patron of Jonathan Swift; and for fathering the young girl named Esther Johnson, a waif, born out of wedlock, to whom Temple gave a place in ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... subject, is received with loud applause; and the same vocalist "gags" in the regular business like a man inspired. Even Miss M. Melvilleson, in the revived Caledonian melody of "We're a-Nodding," points the sentiment that "the dogs love broo" (whatever the nature of that refreshment may be) with such archness and such a turn of the head towards next door that she is immediately understood to mean Mr. Smallweed loves to find money, and is nightly honoured with a double encore. For all this, the court discovers nothing; and as Mrs. Piper ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... weapon by his side, not even a dagger. Naturally,—one generally lays aside one's arms when one is about to swear solemnly before an altar. Onucz approached him obsequiously and kissed the hand of his mysterious leader with profound respect, whilst Anicza approached him with roguish archness, adroitly feigning a superstitious fear of her magician ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... through all sorts of varying moods, until one could scarcely tell whether the affectation lay in a certain cynical audacity in her speech, or whether it lay in her assumption of a certain coyness and archness, or whether there was any affectation at all in the matter. However that might be, there could be no doubt about the sincerity of those gray eyes of hers. There was something almost cruelly frank in the clear look of them; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... centennial flower of that thrifty and peculiar stock. More especially in his later writings and speakings do we see the native New England traits,—the alertness, eagerness, inquisitiveness, thrift, dryness, archness, caution, the nervous energy as distinguished from the old English unction and vascular force. How he husbands himself,—what prudence, what economy, always spending up, as he says, and not down! How alert, how attentive; what an inquisitor; always ready with some test question, with some ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... one word before peace is quite restored," went on Phillis, with something of her old archness, "or else I will fetch my sisters, and you will have ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... Spaniards, like the Italians, talk with their whole bodies,—hands, arms, head, trunk, and all. The ladies, as usual, were each supplied with that prime necessity, a fan; and it is astonishing what a weapon of coquetry it becomes in the delicate hands of a Spanish beauty. Its coy archness is beyond comparison, guided by the pliant wrist of the owner, concealing or revealing her eloquent glances and features. With her veil and her fan, a Spanish woman is armed cap-a-pie, and in Cupid's warfare ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... said Elizabeth with that archness which, despite her fifty-five years, she continued to employ, "didst thou not know that thy queen placed thee ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... your friend's distresses had been surmounted, and if she had affected prudish airs in revolving the subject: but to sit down to write it, as methinks I see you, with a gladdened eye, and with all the archness of exultation—indeed, my dear, (and I take notice of it, rather for the sake of your own generosity, than for my sake, for, as I have said, I love your raillery,) it is not so very pretty; the delicacy of the subject, and the delicacy of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... gay spirit does she foil The Pedant's meditated hit! What happy archness in her smile! What pointed meaning in ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... to notice the change on Alf at Jenny's interruption. From the painful concentration upon memory which had brought his eyebrows together there appeared in his expression the most delighted ease, a sort of archness that made his face look healthy ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... rich in personal attractions; a fairy-like form; a clear olive complexion; large, deep eyes of Italian brown; a profusion of silken tresses, raven-black; her address mingling the reserve of a pretty young Englishwoman with a certain natural archness and gaiety that suited well her French accent. A lovelier vision, as all who remember her youth have assured me, could hardly be imagined, and from that hour the fate of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... the lady protested, with an extravagant archness. "Mrs. Phillips, this is Mr. Barnes. We were just ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Stuart's skin had that exquisite blond whiteness which made her beauty so celebrated. Her fresh and piquant face, with its pure lines, shone with the roguish mischief of childhood, expressed in the regular eyebrows, the vivacious eyes, and the archness of the pretty mouth. Already she displayed those feline graces which nothing, not even captivity nor the sight of her dreadful scaffold, could lessen. The two queens—one at the dawn, the other in the midsummer of life—presented at this moment the utmost contrast. ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... lady chuckled, crumpled her lids, and went through the pantomime of archness. "Not today. One at a time, ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... him emit his mewing little laugh, and heard him say, with the elephantine archness affected by certain dry ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... you know, of course, Mrs. Dinks," said Miss Newt, with a very successful imitation of archness and a little bend of ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... with the Esquimaux continued, and many occasions occurred in which they displayed great good humour, and a degree of archness for which we could have scarcely given ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Shakespeare was made a living thing—that glorious ideal, in shaping which the great poet "from all that are took something good, to make a perfect woman." Toward Polixenes, in the first scene, her manner was wholly gracious, delicately playful, innocently kind, and purely frail. Her quiet archness at the question, "Will you go yet?" struck exactly the right key of Hermione's mood. With the baby prince Mamillius her frolic and banter, affectionate, free, and gay, were in a happy vein of feeling and humour. Her simple dignity, restraining ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... pause for a few moments, and then, as they walked homeward down the green glen, Edie said, with something more of her usual archness, 'So after all you haven't fallen in love with Lady Hilda! Do you know, Mr. Le Breton, I rather fancied at Oxford you liked me just a little tiny bit; but when I heard you were going to Dunbude I said to myself, "Ah, now he'll never care for a quiet country girl like me!" And when I knew you were ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... me, you naughty, unfeeling man," she began, with an elephantine attempt at archness. "I was going to ask you to take me down to the schoolrooms, but I shall have to go alone if you fly away ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... was not easily conceded that she was a delightful vocalist. Many of her songs seemed like the ghosts of the blissful happy songs she had sung in her youth. There was something half painful in their jocund gayety and archness. I went far away from the piano and seated myself with a group of young people, paying little attention to the music. Presently, however, a strain sought me out, a sweet, passionately reiterated strain: it seemed to be supplicating, imploring; it filled me with a restless pain. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... don't believe Mr. Hazlehurst can make a tender speech; I don't believe he has got any heart," said Miss Adeline, looking an attempt at archness. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... possession of authority and command. Three steps more and we come to the "Flight into Egypt," by Correggio, the Virgin with a charming spirited face wholly suffused with inward light in which the purity, archness, gentleness and wildness of a young girl combine to shed the tenderest grace and impart the most fascinating allurements. Alongside of this a "Sibyl" by Guercino, with her carefully adjusted coiffure and drapery, is the most spiritual and refined ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... and the local huissier and the bachelor chemist all beat the hafts of their knives on the table in applause, and she sang, with a vivacity and archness Paul had never before observed in her, a snatch of cheap ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... of my hours pure sunshine? She was the most graceful creature I have ever seen, I think, and surely merrier lips and eyes were never seen—eyes very blue and soft—hair golden, and flowing like sunset on her shoulders—a mouth which had a charming archness in it—and withal an innocence and modesty which made one purer. These were the first traits of the child, she was scarcely more, which struck a stranger. But she grew in beauty as you conversed with her. She had the most delightful voice I have ever heard—the kindest and most tender ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... at the elder for an instant with some archness, "surely you English gentlemen, who have so much propriety, would not rather ... there was young Mr. Bradbury, we heard talked of yesterday, whom every farmer with a red-cheeked ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... graceful in her movements. Her manner is indeed very fascinating from a combination of unconscious dignity with ladylike simplicity. Her expression is sweet and gentle, with the same look of sadness about her eyes that the king has, but she has a brightness and archness of expression which give a great charm to her appearance. She has sorrowed much: first, for the death, at the age of four, of her only child, the Prince of Hawaii, who when dying was baptized into the English Church by the name of Albert Edward, Queen Victoria and ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... accompanied by a young man with a sensible look; and a young lady, pretty, gentle, and engaging, with languishing, soft eyes; though with a smile and an expression of countenance that showed an innate disposition to archness ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... of course?" assented Mr. DIBBLE, with what might have passed for an attempt at archness if he had not been so wholly ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... like many others in the Epistle, is rather retailed, than invented, by Horace, has been thought by some Criticks rather extravagant; but it acquires in this place, as addressed to the elder Piso, a concealed archness, very agreeable to the Poet's stile and manner. Pope has applied the precept with much humour, but with more open raillery than need the writer's purpose ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... quoth Diana, and tossed her head archly disdainful. "La! Sir Rowland, your modesty will be the death of you." Archness became this lady of the sunny hair, tip-tilted nose, and complexion that outvied the apple-blossoms. She was shorter by a half-head than her darker cousin, and made up in sprightliness what she lacked of Ruth's gentle dignity. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... no archness in her glance; her humor was wholly masculine. A firm mouthy brilliant, dark eyes, the heavy Morganstein brows that met over the high nose, gave weight and intensity to anything she said. Her husband, in coaching her for the coming campaign at Washington, ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... I began with my usual toast, the Church; for this I was thanked by the chaplain, as he said the church was the only mistress of his affections.—'Come tell us honestly, Frank,' said the 'Squire, with his usual archness, 'suppose the church, your present mistress, drest in lawnsleeves, on one hand, and Miss Sophia, with no lawn about her, on the other, which would you be for?' 'For both, to be sure,' cried the chaplain.—'Right Frank,' cried the 'Squire; 'for may this glass ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... disappointed him, adding, that Moore would go down to posterity by his Melodies, which were all perfect. He said that he had never been so much affected as on hearing Moore sing some of them, particularly "When first I met Thee," which, he said, made him shed tears: "But," added he, with a look full of archness, "it was after I had drunk a certain portion of very potent white brandy." As he laid a peculiar stress on the word affected, I smiled, and the sequel of the white brandy made me smile again: he asked me the cause, and I answered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... wits were now at work to make Anthony's suit in some way or another subservient to this object. Once committed to a purpose of such duplicity, no wonder that contrivances and plots not altogether justifiable should ensue; and Kate's natural archness and vivacity, coupled with the mischievous temper of her maid, gave their proceedings a more ludicrous character than the dignity of the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Winsome, with a touch of archness in her tone or in her look—Ralph could not tell which, though he eyed her closely. He wished for the first time that the dark-brown eyelashes which fringed her lids were not so long. He fancied that, if he could only have seen the look in the eyes hidden ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... a flower from the sun and wind, and there was a soft dewy look about her flushed cheeks, and her very full red lips. At the corner of her mouth, near her square little chin, a tiny white scar showed like a dimple, giving to her lower lip when she laughed an expression of charming archness. I remember these things now—at the moment there was no room for them ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... kissed him, but this time tenderly, with all the archness gone. "Thank you, dadda, for yielding," she said, "for 't would have been horrible to ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... large, deep-set and dazzling, of the finest Italian brown; and a profusion of silken tresses, black as the raven's wing; her address hovering between the reserve of a pretty young Englishwoman who has not mingled largely in general society, and a certain natural archness and gayety that suited well with the accompaniment of a French accent. A lovelier vision, as all who remember her in the bloom of her days have assured me, could hardly have been imagined; and from that hour the fate of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... which he was amazingly proud. The laird came riding past, and seeing Jamie sitting on the bridge, accosted him:—"Ay, Fleeman, are ye here already?" "Ou ay," quoth Fleeman, with an air of assumed dignity and archness not easy to describe, while his eye glanced significantly towards the mutton, "Ou ay, ye ken a ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... to consider the precise compass of that question. "That I can't exactly answer," she replied with soft archness. ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... think Mrs. Blanchflower's girl could work musical miracles. They clamoured until the singer came forward and sang them, "What's a the steer, Kimmer?" and she finished the song with triumphant archness. In the interval between the first and the second part of the concert, Sir John imperatively demanded that the young lady should be brought to him, and he grumbled out words of approval ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... to ask you," Clara went on, in a weaker, stammering voice, "if you knew that Edwin's left school to-day." Her archness had deserted her. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... yourself drawn to any place where ancient prejudices are garnered up," she answered, not without archness. "I know by the stand you take about our cause that you share the superstitions of the old bookmen. You ought to have been at one of those really mediaeval universities that we saw on the other side, at Oxford, or Goettingen, or Padua. You would have been in perfect sympathy ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... warmer than the reflection of a moonbeam on a lake; and yet it was wondrous beautiful. A fascination stole over the senses of young Wolfgang. He stared at the lovely apparition with fixed eyes and distended jaws. She looked at him with ineffable archness. She lifted one beautifully rounded alabaster arm, and made a sign as if to beckon him towards her. Did Wolfgang—the young and lusty Wolfgang—follow? Ask the iron whether it follows the magnet?—ask the ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... camp-dogs her playfellows, the caserne oaths her lullaby, the guidons her sole guiding-stars, the razzia her sole fete-day: it was little marvel that the bright, bold, insolent little friend of the flag had nothing left of her sex save a kitten's mischief and coquette's archness. It said much rather for the straight, fair, sunlit instincts of the untaught nature, that Cigarette had gleaned, even out of such a life, two virtues that she would have held by to the death, if tried—a truthfulness that would have scorned a lie as only fit for cowards, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... love I hold so free, My fond possessions come to be Clouded with grief; These fairy kisses, This archness innocent, Sting me with sorrow and disturbed content: I think of what my portion might have been; A dearth of blisses, A famine of delights, If I had never had what now I value most; Till all I have seems something I have lost; A desert underneath the garden shows, ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... had with me a lovely girl, whose truly English style of beauty, her brilliant bloom, heightened by her eager animation, her lips dimpled with a thousand smiles, and her whole countenance radiant with glee and mischievous archness, made her an object of admiration, which the English expressed by a fixed stare, and the Italians by sympathetic smiles, nods, and all the usual superlatives of delight. Among our most potent and malignant adversaries, was a troop of elegant masks in a long open carriage, the form of which ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... the other, and both giving the example, that public difference on a religious or political subject is quite consistent with the exercise of the duties of personal kindness and esteem. Wesley is said, in this instance, to have relaxed into a most agreeable companion; and O'Leary, by his wit, archness, and information, was an inexhaustible source of ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... the almanac; but my Princess reigns and rules.' And he looked at her with a fond admiration that made the heart of Seraphina swell. Looking on her huge slave, she drank the intoxicating joys of power. Meanwhile he continued, with that sort of massive archness that so ill became him, 'She has but one fault; there is but one danger in the great career that I foresee for her. May I name it? may I be so irreverent? It is in herself - her ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... melodies which, unknown to us before, we had learnt from her singing to admire beyond all the fashionable trash of the day, were gratified with untiring good-nature. Somehow I thought that she avoided my eye, and answered my remarks with less than her usual archness and vivacity. I could bear it on this evening less than ever; a hair will turn the scale, and I had just been, half ludicrously, half seriously, affected by Welsh nationality. One cannot help warming ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... replied, "that there was no occasion to tell her. Why shouldn't I rebel as well as Aunt Wynnie, I wonder?" she added, looking archness itself. ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... that half an hour ago, my dear," Mrs. Abbey responded with playful archness. "Mr. Fyfe will dine with us ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair |
