"Frolicsome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the battle-line he used to begin his day by a plunge in the adjacent river. He would come into breakfast looking radiant, and even then was ready for a frolic. "Some of us would be a bit down at times," said Captain Gates, "but Paul never. He was always merry. He had immense strength. In frolicsome moods he would lift a brother officer in his arms like a child, hold him helpless, and then drop him gently on the ground; but it took three or four of us to get him down. To see him come down a village in his Tank ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, bidding him good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, as was equally his custom, he gave me his hand. Diana, who chanced to be in a frolicsome humour (she was not painfully controlled by his will; for hers, in another way, was as ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... gown And wool-knit slippers, comfortable and pretty, To the radiant breakfast table trotted down, Inclined to have some frolic and be witty (As frolicsome as any in the City) And chaff his daughters in his usual style; Minutiae omitted in this ditty, For to relate 'twould not be worth the while, I therefore must, my reader, ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... paused, there was one of those fantastically carved stone gutters with which Gothic edifices bristle, and, in a crevice of that gutter, two pretty wallflowers in blossom, shaken out and vivified, as it were, by the breath of air, made frolicsome salutations to each other. Above the towers, on high, far away in the depths of the sky, the cries ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... candour, a loyalty and an affection which delight me. It is the love of a young man and the friendship of a comrade." There was a honeymoon in the little flat looking on the Quay Malaquals. Their friends shared the joy of the happy couple, as we see by Musset's frolicsome lines: ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... went on, "thet things was already a-gettin' kind o' frolicsome round hyeh agin; thet the Marcums 'n' Braytons was a-takin' up the ole war, 'n' would be a-plunkin' one 'nother every time they got together, 'n' a-gittin' the whole country in fear 'n' tremblin'—now thet Steve Marcum had ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... the gods, who had slain her father, the storm giant, is an emblem of the unbending rigidity of the ice-enveloped earth, which, softened at last by the frolicsome play of Loki (the heat lightning), smiles, and permits the embrace of Nioerd (summer). His love, however, cannot hold her for more than three months of the year (typified in the myth by nights), as she is always secretly longing for the wintry storms ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... legends and gloomy creations of the Celt assume a mild and frolicsome feature when interpreted by the Saxon mind. The malevolent Poocah becomes in England the fun-loving Puck, who delights in playing his pranks on ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... impressions which remained through life. But he does not seem to have been regarded as a gloomy or a religious youth by his contemporaries. When told in after years that he had been described as a "gay and frolicsome fellow," he replied, "Ah! sir, I was mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit; so I disregarded all power and ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... veterans appeared to be generally of the same age, and to have seen hard toil and service. The fifer was the most remarkable of the party. In spite of his age and white hair, his puffed cheeks and the sly twinkle of his eyes gave him a kind of jolly, frolicsome appearance, which would indicate that age could not chill ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... el hawa, lit. daughters of love. This is the ordinary meaning of the phrase; but the girl in question appears to have been of good repute and the expression, as applied to her, is probably, therefore, only intended to signify a sprightly, frolicsome damsel. ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... and even the most frolicsome little brooks were again quiet for a moment. Then they all cried together, "O king, we will be good. There were never better nurses than we will be ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... Tiney lived to be nine years old, and died at last, I have reason to think, of some hurt in his loins by a fall. Puss is still living, and has just completed his tenth year, discovering no signs of decay nor even of age, except that he is grown more discreet and less frolicsome than he was. I cannot conclude, sir, without informing you that I have lately introduced a dog to his acquaintance, a spaniel that had never seen a hare, to a hare that had never seen a spaniel. I did it with great caution, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... round to some object that called her attention, while writhing her uncouth features into a most diabolical grimace. She thundered out an oath which made Roque invoke Santa Maria; but he was not a little scandalized when he discovered that the occasion of the hag's indignation was her frolicsome husband, who, without the least regard to her presence, was carrying on, in the presence of his wife, a little coquetry with a ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... round. Strictly speaking, a round is a circular dance in which the performers hold each other by the hands. The term, however, is fairly applicable to the frolicsome gambols of a group of lambs in a spring meadow. Certain rounds became famous enough to be individualised, as e.g. Sellenger's or St. Leger's round, mentioned in the May-day song, 'Come Lasses and Lads.' Cp. Macbeth, iv. 1; Midsummer Night's ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... could give her husband was of a rare sort. She could sympathize with him wholly in heart and intellect. She encouraged him to fresh endeavors and continual improvement. Thus he went on year by year broadening his mind, strengthening his faculties, and improving his reputation. The days of frolicsome gaiety were over. He now lived in a more serious vein, and felt a deeper, more satisfying happiness. It was much more the ideal life of a poet than that of Thoreau, paddling up and down Concord River in search of the inspiration which only comes ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... white-foam-faced, Brooks and rivers in whirling haste, All of his family, frolicsome, naughty. If ever the mountains the fjord would immure, Their narrows press nigher, a prison sure;— His water-hands then with a gesture haughty Seize the whole saucy pass like a shell; Set to his mouth, he begins to blow it With western-gale-lungs,—and ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... on the tallest stake in the fence, chipping up an apple for the seeds, his tail conforming to the curve of his back, his paws shifting and turning the apple, he is a pretty sight, and his bright, pert appearance atones for all the mischief he does. At home, in the woods, he is the most frolicsome and loquacious. The appearance of anything unusual, if, after contemplating it a moment, he concludes it not dangerous, excites his unbounded mirth and ridicule, and he snickers and chatters, hardly able to contain himself; now darting up the trunk of a tree and squealing in derision, then hopping ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... or four. Their strength is enormous, and they are so fierce that they do not hesitate, upon occasions, to attack man himself. Their method of killing horses is very deliberate. Two wolves generally undertake the cold-blooded murder. They approach their victim with the most innocent-looking and frolicsome gambols, lying down and rolling about, and frisking presently, until the horse becomes a little accustomed to them. Then one approaches right in front, the other in rear, still frisking playfully, until they think themselves near enough, when ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... has a new revelation of piscine character and beauty, and perhaps can better understand the enticings of a siren or fantastic Lurlei than the classical scholar. In the flush of aureal light tinging their pearly glimmering armor are the radiant, graceful, frolicsome inhabitants of the sea. The glutinous or oily exudation that covers them is a brilliant varnish. Their lustrous colors, variety of crystalline tints and beautiful markings and spots, attract the eye of the artist ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... Saints in the Gila Valley undoubtedly found much that was foreign to their habits of life. A tale of the frolicsome cowboy is told by Isaac P. Robinson of Thatcher, who was in ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... of the weary ox is the vision of green fields and splashing waters! And down on the farm, when the cows come home at sunset, fragrant with the breath of clover blossoms, how rich is the feast of happiness when the frolicsome calf bounds forward to the flowing udder, and with his walling eyes reflecting whole acres of "calf heaven" and his little tail wiggling in speechless bliss, he draws his evening meal from nature's commissariat. The snail lolls in his shell and thinks himself a king in the grandest palace in the ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... was in itself the tenderest welcome; and it was an ennobling thought to Reuben, that he had at last placed himself (or fancied he had) upon the same moral plane with that good woman. As for Rose, the joyous, frolicsome, charming Rose, whom he had thought at one time to electrify by his elegant city accomplishments,—was not even the graceful Rose a veteran in the Christian army in which he had but now enlisted? Why, then, should ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... were fairly presentable; and they were all Christian martyrs compared to Rowley; but they were in a frolicsome and rollicking humour that promised danger as we approached the town. They sang songs, they ran races, they fenced with their walking-sticks and umbrellas; and, in spite of this violent exercise, the fun grew only the more extravagant with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... chamber, fast asleep. One of the windows was open, for it was noon, and the day so sultry that the little girl was wrapped in nothing less ethereal than slumber itself. The queen came into the room, and not observing that the baby was on the bed, opened another window. A frolicsome fairy wind, which had been watching for a chance of mischief, rushed in at the one window, and taking its way over the bed where the child was lying, caught her up, and rolling and floating her along like a piece of flue, or a dandelion-seed, carried her with it through the opposite ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... rather, That round the tall fire-ladders sweeps, And stealthy, then, along the coping creeps: Quite virtuous, withal, I come, A little thievish and a little frolicsome. I feel in every limb the presage Forerunning the grand Walpurgis-Night: Day after to-morrow brings its message, And one keeps ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the "great world;" and because she had gained it all the old things of her lost past grew unalterably sweet to her now that they no longer could be called hers. The brown, kind, homely, tender face of grand'mere; the gambols of white and frolicsome Bebe; the woods where, with every spring, she had filled her arms with sheaves of delicate primroses; the quaint little room with its strings of melons and sweet herbs, its glittering brass and pewter, its wood-fire with ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... and a loose gown of lace and frills without her stays, Peggy's only protest was against her wearing anything else—so adorable was she. When this happy, dreamy indolence began to pall upon her—and she could not stand it for long—she would be up at sunrise helping Peggy wash and dress her frolicsome children or get them off to school, and this done, would assist in the housework—even rolling the pastry with her own delicate palms, or sitting beside the bubbling, spontaneous woman, needle in hand, aiding with the family mending—while Peggy, glad of the companionship, ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... insect here and there, And darted up and down the butterfly, That seemed a living blossom of the air, The flocks came scattering from the thicket, where The violent rain had pent them; in the way Strolled groups of damsels frolicsome and fair; The farmer swung the scythe or turned the hay, And 'twixt the heavy swaths his children ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... himself detained on deck by groups of elegant maidens who would beg him for new dances in the coming week. His footsteps were surrounded with white fluttering skirts, veils that waved like colored clouds, laughter and trills, Spanish chatter that appeared set to music:—all the frolicsome jargon of a ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... blest," keeping them company; while I enjoyed a fit of coughing, which caused my head to spin in a way that made the application of a cool banister both necessary and agreeable, as I waited for the frolicsome wind to restore the breath I'd lost; cheering myself, meantime, with a secret conviction that pneumonia was waiting for me round the corner. This piece of advice had been offered by several persons for a week, and refused by me with the obstinacy with which my sex is so ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... not linger to enlarge on the amusing display of these frolicsome creatures. Their manners and habits are now so well known to the world, having been so often described by eyewitnesses, that it would be only indulging self-conceit, to add my account in full to the rest. I cannot help wishing, however, that my readers could see them for themselves. Especially ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... Bacchanalia of fun. This faculty will at times assert its rights as well as others; and hence several nations have set apart certain festivals, such as Saturnalia, Carnivals, &c., in which the people may give themselves altogether up to frolicsome follies, that when once the fit is over, they may for the rest of the year remain quiet, and apply themselves to serious business. The Old Comedy is a general masquerade of the world, during which much passes that is not authorised by the ordinary rules of propriety; ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... Paris, and thence to Cherbourg to cross the English Channel to Southampton, London. This channel, which has a well-merited reputation for being gay and frolicsome, was extremely gracious, allowing us to glide over its placid bosom with ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... little less noise if they could favor her, as she had company below." Then the three sat down on the floor, and Jenny and Charlie planned a midnight attack upon the tin boiler. Amy, who was more sedate and cautious, advised them to desist; but 'twas just the exploit for Jenny's frolicsome, mischievous temperament. Charlie was to take a pillow-case, and creep softly under the bed, and fill it from the supposed contents of the mysterious boiler, while Jenny stood at the kitchen door to assist him in bearing the precious burden ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... regarding the Imprest Account which I had answered; a batch of Corps and Divisional routine orders had come in, notifying the next visits of the field cashier, emphasising the need for saving dripping, and demanding information as to the alleged damage done to the bark of certain trees by our more frolicsome horses. Another official envelope I opened showed that Records were worrying whether a particular regimental sergeant-major was an acting or ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... his eyes half shut and half open, too tired to pay longer attention to their games, but, on the whole, considerably more amused than offended with the liberties they took, for they seemed good-natured creatures, and more frolicsome than positively ill-mannered, he became suddenly aware that two of them had stepped forward from the walls, upon which, after the manner of great spiders, most of them preferred sprawling, and now stood in the middle of the ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... supposition is—the fact may be at least half imaginary. "The iambus," says he, "is expressive of dignity and grandeur; the trochee, on the contrary, according to Aristotle, (Rhet. Lib. Ill,) is frolicsome and gay. It were difficult to assign a reason of this difference that would be satisfactory; but of the thing itself, I imagine, most people will be sensible on comparing the two kinds together. I know not whether it will be admitted as a sufficient reason, that ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... looking on as he was busy with his cooking. When she was not thus engaged she played contentedly with Beppo, prattling to him in such a manner, that Oliver often forgot what he was about while listening to her. She played with him, too, frolicsome little games of hide-and-seek, in which he grew as eager as herself; and sometimes she stole his spectacles, or handkerchief, or anything she could lay her mischievous fingers upon to hide away ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... with ticket of admission to theatrical entertainment by adolescent students at Westminster College, I presented myself at the scene of acting in a state of liveliest and frolicsome anticipation on a certain Wednesday evening in the month of December ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... working for him while away on his senatorial tour. Mrs. Bird, looking the very picture of delight, was superintending the arrangements of the table, ever and anon mingling admonitory remarks to a number of frolicsome juveniles, who were effervescing in all those modes of untold gambol and mischief that have astonished ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... in feeling and temperament, a frolicsome, heedless boy. In an hour he had become ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... the beautiful Aurora, of whom so much hath been written, said, and sung, did, with her rosy fingers, nip and tweak Miss Pecksniff's nose. It was the frolicsome custom of the Goddess, in her intercourse with the fair Cherry, so to do; or in more prosaic phrase, the tip of that feature in the sweet girl's countenance was always very red at breakfast-time. For the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... to her task the milkmaid goes. The cattle come crowding through the gate, Lowing, pushing, little and great; About the trough, by the farm-yard pump, The frolicsome yearlings frisk and jump, While the pleasant dews are falling;— The new-milch heifer is quick and shy, But the old cow waits with tranquil eye; And the white stream into the bright pail flows, When to her ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... that day, I went with the letter to the Rat Hole: knowing that Skipper Tommy would by that time be in from the Hook-an'-Line grounds; for the wind was blowing fair from that quarter. I found the twins pitching the catch into the stage, with great hilarity—a joyous, frolicsome pair: in happy ignorance of what impended. They gave me jolly greeting: whereupon, feeling woefully guilty, I sought the skipper in the house, where he had gone (they said) to get out ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... I am," said she, laughing; "don't say more about it, but tell me some more of your adventures." And, fearing she was neglecting the youth who had got over his frolicsome fit and become very shy, she added: "I wish both of you to talk ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... after the death of 'Fan,' Ellen had another fawn given to her. She called this one Jack,—it was older, larger, and stronger, but was more mischievous and frolicsome than her first pet. It would lie in front of the fire on the hearth, like a dog, and rub its soft velvet nose against the hand that patted it very affectionately, but gave a good deal of trouble in ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... and necks composed of threads fine as gossamer, blacker than jet and shining like spun glass-hair that looked as if no comb or brush could ever tame its beautiful wildness. And in spirit they were what they seemed: such a wild, joyous, frolicsome spirit with such grace and fleetness one does not look for in human beings, but only in birds or in some small bird-like volatile mammal—a squirrel or a marmoset of the tropical forest, or the chinchilla of ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... condescended to love a man but she lavishes a heap of affection on a little gray Skye terrier which she takes around with her wherever she goes. This dog was given her by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and having recently lost a favorite Newfoundland pet, she accepted the frolicsome Skye with hearty gratitude. She has taught the apt brute every variety of trick and its intelligence seems to be unlimited. The little creature sleeps on her bed, eats from her hand, has blankets, gold and silver collars and every kind of ornament and comfort. Miss Anthony is accompanied by this ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... slept well a single night thinking of it, and after we rounded Cape Gardner and entered the comparatively smooth Chatham Strait, they all rejoiced, laughing and chatting like frolicsome children. ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... stairs, Pomander in advance; they heard the signs of an Irish orgie—a rattling jig played and danced with the inspiriting interjections of that frolicsome nation. These sounds ceased after a while, and Pomander laid his ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... not likely that at other times They are quite decent midgets, capable Of thinking for themselves, and also acting Discreetly on their own initiative, Not drilled and herded, yet gregarious— A wise yet frolicsome community? ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... his style of delivery, now pressed to his chest, now raised aloft, now debased to the cobbles—had once had some dignity and proportions. Continual maltreatment had long since taken all the gay and frolicsome curl out of its brim, while the crown had so often collapsed that the scars of ill-usage were visible upon it. And yet at a distance this relic of a former fashion, as handled by Baeader,—it was so continually in his grasp and ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... thence round to the east, in the far horizon, swept the shores of Greenland, its glaciers, peaks, and headlands, all tortured by mirage into a thousand fantastic shapes, as if Dame Nature had risen from her couch in frolicsome mood. Between this scene and my feet, icebergs of every size and shape, rich with fretting of silvery icicle, and showing the deepest azure tint or richest emerald, strewed a mirror-like sea, glowing with the ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... youngsters! Who of us with the burden of life's toil and care weighing us down, ever saw a frolicsome group of them, happy in their freedom from trouble and care, and did not wish he might slip his shoulders from under the load of his fifty years and be a boy again? What a pity it is that we must age and die in our wrinkles, leaving nothing better ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... one of later date, And tenfold talent, as I'm told, in Bow-street, Where kindlier nurtured souls do congregate, And, though there are who deem that same a low street Yet, I'm assured, for frolicsome debate And genuine humor it's surpassed by no street, When the "Chief Baron" enters, and assumes To "rule" o'er ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... have one?" Bertram demanded one day. "Really, Will, I'm beginning to think she's a myth. Long years ago, from the first of April till June we did have two frolicsome sprites here that announced themselves as 'Billy' and 'Spunk,' I'll own. And a year later, by ways devious and secret, we three managed to see the one called 'Billy' off on a great steamship. Since then, ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... sense of humour. There is all the difference in the world between a sense of humour and a sense of fun, and truth to tell, the Contessa had no more humour than a frolicsome kitten. She had always been in a frolic of some sort, when I had known her in Davos, whither she had gone because she thought it would be "what you call a lark"; and she was in a frolic now, judging by her merry ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... up the loch which lay be neath flooded with morning light, the sun basking on its broad expanse, and glittering in a myriad sparkles on the, narrows beneath them beside which the blanket-washing had been. A frolicsome breeze blew down the hill towards them in little flicks and eddies. One of these drew a flossy tendril of Winsome's golden hair, which this morning had red lights in it like the garnet gloss on ripe wheat or Indian corn, and tossed it over her brow. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... and frolic, for instance, could not combine with the august and graver sentiments of awe and worship, though both could dwell together in the same heart. And here apparently, as yet, he only touched that frolicsome fringe of consciousness that knew these wild and playful lesser forms. Thus, while he was aware of other more powerful figures of wonder all about him, he never quite achieved their full recognition. The ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... made a transition from the frolicsome allegretto of the bachelor to the heavy andante of ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... presence of an intruder, but the sagacious animal, when he had carefully snuffed out a recognition, fawned and whined upon him, running round and round towards the house, with gambols frolicsome and extravagant enough to have excited the smiles of any human ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... rider bold, Who never did things by half, And so he hitched to his cart one day A strong and frolicsome calf. ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... chase after three of the biggest boys of the school was proposed—and friend and foe, frolicsome as ever, were soon united in a ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... him; he could drive an ox team, cook a meal of victuals, turn a pan of flap-jacks with a flop, and possessed many other frontier accomplishments. One day when Doty was engaged in the duty of cooking flap-jacks another frolicsome fellow came up and took off the cook's hat and commenced going through the motions of a barber giving his customer a vigorous shampoo, saying:—"I am going to make a Jayhawker out of you, old boy." Now it happened at the election for captain in this division ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... time full of interest and pleasure. What a variety of moods, from the frolicsome to the pathetic, he displayed! But evidently his wife's death had laid hold upon his very soul, and there seemed so much more of sadness and tenderness than on his former visit, when he had enjoyed her bright companionship. On one occasion, referring to a medical missionary who had brought ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... was being buffeted by winds from every quarter of the compass of sensation. And through it all, she struggled to drive words together into sentences, words, that like a flock of witless sheep upon open ground, would not be driven, but ran this way and jumped that in a frolicsome imbecility ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... of Poesy, whose white cliffs Cloud its deeps with their hieroglyphs, Alpine fantasies heaped and wrought At will by the frolicsome winds of Thought,— By shores of Beauty, whose colors pass Faintly into the misty glass,— By hills of Truth, whose glories show Distorted, broken, and dimmed, as we know,— Kissed by the tremulous long green tress Of the glistening ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... a lightsome hour was that, And joyful were we to see The sunny face of ilk bonnie brat, So full of frolicsome glee. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... casualties and decay of fire, and storm, and time. Here the unfortunate Savage has held his intellectual "noctes" and enlivened the old moralist with his mad philosophy. It was from this mansion that "the Bastard" roused the doctor on the memorable night (or morn) when they set out on one of those frolicsome perambulations, which genius, in its weakness and misgivings, sometimes indulges, and which was worthy of the days of modern Corinthianism. We can imagine the sleepy, solemn face of Johnson, the meagre phiz of Savage, and the more rotund features of Boswell, around the board, and the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... people could find ample shelter under its widespread branches; and we often knew of English gentlemen forming hunting or shooting excursions to the island, and encamping for weeks together beneath this delightful pavilion. Their only hosts were frolicsome monkeys and whole colonies of doves, peacocks, wood-pigeons and singing birds, that find a permanent abode among the thick foliage, and plentiful sustenance from the small, scarlet-colored figs that hang pendent from every branch. The banian tree may ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... thither with such frolicsome darts that his back fin made the water fly. "E han!" whooped the Fish, "this ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... in a quite orderly manner. Modestly they stepped along and carried their tails on their arms like trains, as the devil grandmother, who sets great value on propriety, had taught them. But it did not last long; they became frolicsome, turned wheels and somersaults, and shrieked at the same time like real imps. The beautiful moon, who was looking kindly out of a window in Heaven, they derided, thrust out their tongues and made faces (German: long noses) at her, and finally began to pluck ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... to ask you," replied Jane, swirling her scarf over her shoulders to tame down a frolicsome little breeze that danced to the jazz music stealing in the cloak room. "There is a positive mystery about all this. Can't you see how much Ted ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... see a lot o' lads All frolicsome an free, An hear ther noisy voices, As they run an shaat wi' glee; But if ther's onny sooart o' lad Aw like better nor another, 'At maks mi heart mooast truly glad, It's th' lad ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... without sufficient foundation of truth, are related of him at this time, which indicate that he was of a frolicsome and mischievous turn: among these is a statement that he was arraigned for deer-poaching in the park of Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote. A satirical reference to Sir Thomas in one of his plays,[30] leads us to think that there ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... coming," repeated Frances, rising to her feet. "Although you must remember, father, that six years make a change. Ellen may not be quite so kittenish and frolicsome now." ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... climates of class conventionality, would the worlds clerical, legal, mercantile, military, naval, or dandy, have extinguished this man, if any one of them had caught him in its snares! Where would then have been his frolicsome enthusiasm that nothing could dispirit; his inveterate oddities of thought, speech, and action, which made all his friends laugh at him and bless him in the same breath; his affections, so manly in their firmness, so womanly in their tenderness, so childlike ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... all was life and stir. As the animals came into the lane, they lifted their heads, sniffed the air from the mountain side, and became eager and excited. Stiff-legged old cows, as well as young calves, kicked up their hind legs and made frolicsome leaps this way and that. They rushed playfully or angrily at each other, clashing their horns, and giving a short bellow if worsted in the tussle; then they dashed off to assail other members of the crowd. Everything combined to form ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... dread of being charged with egotism has prevented the author's stating publicly, and once for all, that the portrait of Rossetti in Aylwin showing him to be the creature of varying moods, gay and even frolicsome at one moment, profoundly meditative at the next, deeply dejected at the next, but always the most winsome of men, is true to the life. It is more than hinted in the story that D'Arcy's melancholy was the result of the loss of one ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... are with the French revolution, used as a stage motive, "The Red Carnation" threw such a new light upon it all, that we were a trifle dumfounded. Miss Tyler gracefully revised it for us, and made it appear as a somewhat gay and frolicsome time. Moreover, it had all the modern improvements. It seemed to be steam-heated and electric-lighted, and although Marie Antoinette did not make her entrance in an automobile, you felt that it was waiting ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... steady, and never quiet. It was indeed like the younger brother, ever ready for play, although, as a matter of fact, it had been there long before the Canal had been even thought of by the men who built it. But thousands of years couldn't make that River grow old. It was full of frolicsome ripples that gleamed in the sun, and of rapids and waterfalls. Here it would flow swiftly, and there almost stop as if it wanted to fall asleep. And every once in a while it would dart swiftly like small boys or dogs chasing butterflies. Sometimes it would leap over the stones or, at the dam, ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... say that she was not forgotten by Wilford Cameron, but as the weeks went by and it did not come, a shadow had fallen upon her spirits, and the family missed something from her ringing laugh and frolicsome ways, while she herself wondered why the household duties given to her should be so utterly distasteful. She used to enjoy them so much, but now she liked nothing except to go with Uncle Ephraim out into the ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... to be in a more than usually frolicsome mood, and was making pellets out of the soft part of the rolls he had brought for lunch, and throwing them about. In trying to hit a boy who sat between him and Mr. Snelling's desk, he somehow or ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... sat quietly meditating at my table, I heard something bounce in at the closet window, and skip about from one side to the other; whereat although I were much alarmed, yet I ventured to look out, but not stirring from my seat; and then I saw this frolicsome animal frisking and leaping up and down, till at last he came to my box, which he seemed to view with great pleasure and curiosity, peeping in at the door and every window. I retreated to the farther ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... so blithely resounding? Hear'st thou its echoes through wood and through plain? Oh, might I now, on my nimble steed bounding, Join with the jocund, the frolicsome train. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... weird, fierce longing. I saw a maiden approach taller and finer than the rest. One glance of her soft, wild eyes and I flew to her arms. "Back, Indians!" I shouted, "honor your queen!" and entered the lists of the frolicsome dance. Wilder beat the drum and faster. As the old Indian warmed to his work, he broke out in a doleful, monotonous song, the words of which I did not understand. It sounded to ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... His face expressed timidity and inward hesitation. At that moment one of the girls—the same who had introduced the old grand mother—the girl with the swarthy face and dark, frolicsome eyes, exclaimed ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... company in whatever state of mind we meet, and can entertain each other without expecting always to rejoice. The wine we found to be generous and warming, but with such a heat as moved us rather to be cheerful than frolicsome. It revived the spirits, without firing the blood. We commended it till two of the clock this morning; and having to-day met a little before dinner, we found that, though we drank two bottles a man, we had ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... snow, Filling the sky and earth below; Over the housetops, over the street, Over the heads of the people you meet, Dancing, Flirting, Skimming along! Beautiful snow! it can do no wrong. Flying to kiss a fair lady's cheek, Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak, Beautiful snow from the Heaven above, Pure as an ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... to the good friends who have been looking after her while I'VE been shooting up targets. But Polly's right. She CAN handle a craft and so can this little redhead," laughed Captain Stewart, pulling a lock of Polly's hair which the frolicsome wind had loosened. ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... of spite or wanton playfulness, or for the gratification of a whalish whim, the act had cost the huge leviathan no greater effort than might have been used in brushing off a fly; and after its accomplishment the old bull went bowling on after its frolicsome school, gliding through the water apparently with as much unconcern as if nothing ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... mid-April, and the freshness of the prune. The leaves on the trees are but tender and tiny, and through them the sun sends his might. The tulips are all a-blaze and a-stare, making one blink with the dazzle of their odorless beauty: the frolicsome young wind is shaking out their balm from the hyacinth-bells, and the sweet Nancies—my flowers—blowing all together, are swaying and ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... great changes in the world. Here the rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labor; this labor is founded on the basis of self-interest; can it want a stronger allurement? Wives and children, who before in vain demanded a morsel of bread, now fat and frolicsome, gladly help their father to clear those fields, whence exuberant crops are to arise to feed them all; without any part being claimed either by a despotic prince, a rich abbot, or a mighty lord.... The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... creeds. In Aunt Nancy's case, however, it appeared that she had been able to enjoy that variety which is so gratifying a feature of human experience. Notwithstanding the fact that she had never been on the back of a horse in her life, she unerringly selected the freshest and most frolicsome of the Irish ponies as her mount. It appears further that she was finally lifted to the saddle of this animal as the result of a distinct understanding between Mr. James George Jackson and her guide that the latter gentleman was not only to accompany ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... with his thoughts. About noon the sky began to clear; it grew brighter and brighter. Moni came out of his cave and looked around. The goats once more sprang gayly here and there, and the little kid was quite frolicsome from delight at the returning sun and made the ...
— Moni the Goat-Boy • Johanna Spyri et al
... he flew into a rage and tried to tyrannize, she scorned to retort in any way and generally locked him out of the library. What she thought of her father's intentions concerning herself, no one knew; she never alluded to the subject, and if in a frolicsome mood Hugh broached it, she invariably cut the discussion short. When he went to college in a distant state, she felt infinitely relieved, and during his vacations secluded herself as much as possible. Yet the girl's heart ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... outside, but the Little Red Chimney room was full of firelight when the Candy Man was ushered in, in the wake of the children, by cordial Uncle Bob. It was a frolicsome, magical light that played about a row of red stockings hanging from the shelf above it; that advanced to the farthest corner and then retreated; that coaxed and dared the unlighted Christmas tree by the piano to wake up and do its part; that gleamed ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... and Edward, with no painful parting in prospect, made themselves very merry over their packing. They were much like two children, and except when overcome by the recollection of her recent bereavement, Zoe was as playful and frolicsome ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... call To their mates mercurial, And the tree-boughs creak and strain In the wind; When the river's rough with foam, And the new-made clearings smoke, And the clouds that go and come Shine and darken frolicsome, And the frogs at evening croak Undefined Mysteries of monotone, And by melting beds of snow Wind-flowers blossom all alone; Then I know That the bitter winter's dead. Over his head The damp sod breaks so mellow,— Its mosses tipped with points of yellow,— I cannot ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... dawns upon them. This period is the favourite playground of the myth-spirits, where they disport themselves freely, or lounge heavily and listlessly, according to their different natures. The Egyptian spirits were of the heavier and duller kind—not light and frolicsome, like the Greek and the Indo-Iranian. It has been said that Egypt never produced more than one myth, the Osirid legend; and this is so far true that in no other case is the story told at any considerable ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... resist. It was at once defiant and alluring, tender and mocking, artless and mischievous. No man could make it out; no man might see it twice alike in the space of an hour. No more was the girl herself twice alike in an hour, or a day, for that matter. She was far more like some frolicsome creature of the woods than like a mortal woman. The quality of wildness which Willan had felt in her voice was in her nature. Neither her grandfather nor her mother had in the least comprehended her during the few months she ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... knees, as it were, in water, totally regardless of appearances, and utterly indifferent as to catching cold. As regards the population of this locality, rats were, perhaps, in excess of human beings; and it might have been observed that the former were particularly frolicsome and fearless. ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... he is indeed upon the point of running headlong into the fiercest dangers;—it is the state, the wretched, discased, vicious state, dying apparently, yet full of teeth and mischief, that he is about to handle in his argument with these fine, lightsome, frolicsome preparations of his, without any perceptible 'mittens'; it is the heart of that political evil that his time groans with, and begins to find insufferable, that he is going to probe to the quick with that so delicate weapon. It is a tilt against the block and the rack, and all the instruments of ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... cricketing costume, and exhibited the health and manners of youthful Englishmen of station. Frolicsome young bulls bursting on an assemblage of sheep, they might be compared to. The chairman welcomed them a trifle snubbingly. The colour mounted to the cheeks of Mr. Raikes as he made incision in the cheese, under their eyes, knitting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... scraps of vaudevilles, as though she had been alone, frolicsome refrains which her hoarse and guttural ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... in his arm,—a little coquettish device to which he was wont; but he keeps the little hand in his with a nervous clasp that is new, and that makes her tremble all the more when his speech grows impassioned, and the easy compliments of his past days of frolicsome humor take a depth of tone which make her heart thrill strangely. Meantime, they had come to the garden-end ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... theater, Mark Twain has had to live down his past. His earlier writing gave but little promise of the enduring qualities obvious enough in his later works. Noah Brooks has told us how he was advised if he wisht to "see genuine specimens of American humor, frolicsome, extravagant, and audacious," to look up the sketches which the then almost unknown Mark Twain was printing in a Nevada newspaper. The humor of Mark Twain is still American, still frolicsome, extravagant, and audacious; but it is riper now and richer, and it has taken unto itself other ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... built around one half of the sidewall of the Shed. In shape, its upper part was like the top half of a loaf of bread. In motion, here, it rested on some sort of wheeled vehicle, and it was reared up like an indignant caterpillar, and a blue-white flame squirted out of its tail, with coy and frolicsome flirtings ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... which should justify the good opinion his countrymen had formed of him, should reasonably satisfy the expectations excited by his lighter books, and lay for him the basis of enduring reputation. All that he had done before was the play of careless genius, the exercise of frolicsome fancy, which might amuse and perhaps win an affectionate regard for the author, but could not justify a high respect or secure a permanent place in literature. For this, some work of scholarship and industry ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... Billy Whiskers—frolicsome, mischief-making, adventure-loving, Billy Whiskers—is the friend of every boy and girl the country over, and the things that happen to this wonderful goat and his numerous animal friends make the best sort of reading ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... self-consciousness of love—that till now had held him back from the gratification of his desire? He sprang up and he danced the tarantella, danced it almost as if he had danced it all his life, with a natural grace, a frolicsome abandon that no pure-blooded Englishman could ever achieve, danced it as perhaps once the Sicilian grandmother had danced it under the shadow of Etna. Whatever Gaspare did he imitated, with a swiftness and a certainty that were amazing, and Gaspare, ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... slightly connected, In quarrels and fights they'd been often detected; Though 'tis true, all dislikes for this day were forbidden, Yet mutual antipathies could not be hidden. Noble horses of Spanish extraction there came, The chief of whose party was terribly lame; For it seems that in one of his frolicsome scampers, Beneath a hot sun in the wide spreading Pampas, By the rich purple fruit of the Cactus allured, And feeling a thirst that could not be endured, He approach'd it to eat, but his nose was not proof Against the sharp thorns, so he struck with his hoof, When they pierced his ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... laying up sweets these energetic chaps sought new information. They followed the trails of fox, 'coon and rabbit; they watched the habits of the noisy crows holding a caucus in the woods; they kept company with the red squirrel and the frolicsome chipmunk as they stored away the chestnuts and juicy hickories for their winter's supply ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... time; which of the two was the greatest imposter it would be very difficult to decide, although the former appears to have borne off the palm of successful fraud and imposition. Miss Hannah, who, in her younger days, had been a very frolicsome lass, became all at once converted into a saint, and set up for a severe and rigid moralist; and she had the merit of establishing the gang generally known by the title of the SAINTS, amongst our politicians. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... filled Marjorie with a great awe; she slipped out to unburden herself to Linnet, but Linnet was setting the tea-table in a frolicsome mood and Marjorie's heart could not vent itself ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... for in the wake of this pair comes another dragging a rude sled made of a buffalo's ribs, well covered with soft furs, while still another has borrowed his mother's large raw-hide for the occasion. After their frolicsome ride through the brightly lighted village, they are all in a happy mood, ready to listen to the interesting ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... poor Irving, the brave Volunteer— The soldier, the man, is now on his bier; He was with you all round, as well as the ranks, Full of wit, and good humour, and frolicsome pranks. ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... evening they had made half their journey and stopped at a wayside inn—the inn of L'Agneau dansant. On a squeaking sign before the ancient stone structure, which looked as if it must have been there in the days of post-chaises, a frolicsome lamb danced upon his hind legs, smiling to all who paused there an invitation to join him in this innocent pastime and not take the world too seriously. The good humor of the crude painting appealed to Monte. He grinned ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... myself an idea, I had in my arms a species of a monster, the refuse of nature, of men and of love. I carried my stupidity so far as to speak to her of the discovery I had made. She, at first, took what I said jocosely; and in her frolicsome humor, did and said things which made me die of love. But perceiving an inquietude I could not conceal, she at length reddened, adjusted her dress, raised herself up, and without saying a word, went and placed herself at a window. I attempted to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... in a frolicsome mood," he said. "It has sport with the men of Tandakora. It dances, and it throws jests at them. It says, 'You think you can catch me, but you cannot. Why do you come so slowly? Why don't you hurry? I am here. See, I wait a little. I do not go as fast as I can, because I wish to give ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... George passed with his frolicsome companion through the same field where Mr. and Mrs. Danvers had noticed the donkey browsing in the hedges, and the animal was still browsing, and picking up nettles and flowers, and enjoying his freedom. George might just as well have ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... indiscreet set, rattling, chattering, and capering in defiance of all law and order, tumbling over precipices, and picking themselves up at the bottom, no whit wiser or more disposed to be tranquil than they were at the top; in fact, seeming to grow more mad and frolicsome with every leap. Well, that is just the way brooks do here in the Alps, and the people, taking advantage of it, have built a little shanty, where they show up the capers of this child of the mountain, as if he tumbled ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the people back and guarding with his knights the security of the journey. Near Marmoustiers the seneschal, rendered sleepy by the heat, seeing it was the month of August, waggled about in his saddle, like a diadem upon the head of a cow, and seeing so frolicsome and so pretty a lady by the side of so old a fellow, a peasant girl, who was squatting near the trunk of a tree and drinking water out of her stone jug inquired of a toothless old hag, who picked ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... character; but in spite of my efforts all has tended to cause coldness, and even aversion, between the bridal pair. Joan, scarcely fifteen, is far ahead of her age. Gifted with a brilliant and mobile mind, a noble and lofty character, a lively and glowing fancy, now free and frolicsome as a child, now grave and proud as a queen, trustful and simple as a young girl, passionate and sensitive as a woman, she presents the most striking contrast to Andre, who, after a stay of ten years at our court, is wilder, more gloomy, more intractable than ever. His cold, regular features, impassive ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... capital in these teasing moods. To be sure, he buffeted one about tremendously, but his claws were sheathed, and there was a contagiousness in his frolicsome humor. Moreover one learned to look upon one's self in the light of a public benefactor. To submit to be knocked about by the Bibliotaph was in a modest way to contribute to the gayety of nations. If one was not absolutely happy one's self, there was a ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... Plato says, light, nimble, demoniac. There are pieces in Plutarch where he forgets his theme; where the proposition of his argument is only found by incidence, stuffed and half stifled in foreign matter. Observe his footsteps in the Daemon of Socrates. O God! how beautiful are these frolicsome sallies, those variations and digressions, and all the more when they seem most fortuitous and careless. 'Tis the indiligent reader who loses my subject, and not I; there will always be found some word or other in a corner that is to the purpose, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... fierce that they do not hesitate, upon occasions, to attack man himself. Their method of killing horses is very deliberate. Two wolves generally undertake the cold-blooded murder. They approach their victim with the most innocent looking and frolicsome gambols, lying down and rolling about, and frisking pleasantly until the horse becomes a little accustomed to them. Then one approaches right in front, the other in rear, still frisking playfully, until they think themselves near enough, when they make a simultaneous rush. The wolf ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... strange owl-faced little monkey with great staring eyes and face ringed with pale fur—one of those night apes seldom seen by man; a small troop of kinkajous, slender, long-tailed animals which looked to be monkeys, but were not, and which leaped deftly among the branches like frolicsome little devils let loose to play under the jungle moon; a big scaly iguana, its back ridged with saw teeth and its pendulous throat pouch dangling grotesquely under its jaw; and more than one deadly snake and huge ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... and culminating in the huge mass of the Cecilia Metella tomb, with the mediaeval battlements on its summit. And it was on that walk that we met the calf of The Marble Faun: "A well-grown calf," my father says in his notes, "who seemed frolicsome, shy, and sociable all at the same time; for he capered and leaped to one side, and shook his head, as I passed him, but soon came galloping behind me, and again started aside when I looked round." How little I suspected then (or the bull-calf either, for that matter) that he ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... to the irascible side of his nature was his tender love for his children, of which he had four, the last born in 1825. In them he took constant delight. In their games Babbo, as he was affectionately termed, was the most gleeful and frolicsome of them all. When he was separated from them he was in continual anxiety. On one of his trips he received the first childish letter from his son Arnold. In his reply the concluding lines reveal the intense affection of ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... confinement of the frowning walls, and in company with the whole school, in orderly procession, and duly escorted by an usher, tramped past the church and into the pleasant green fields that lay beyond the quaint houses of the village. Edgar Goodfellow was there too—Edgar the gay, the frolicsome, the lover of sports and hoaxes and ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... 'knowing very well what I was about.' But, he adds, 'it seems I judged too well of the world'; and he points his moral with a story of 'the great Dr. Clarke,' who, 'unbending himself with a few friends in the most playful and frolicsome manner,' saw Beau Nash in the distance, and was instantly sobered. 'My boys,' quoth he, 'let us be grave—here comes a fool.' Macaulay was not exactly Beau Nash, nor was Boswell 'the great Dr. Clarke'; but, as Macaulay, working on Wolcot's lines, was presently to show, Boswell did right to ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... sir, my heart is frolicsome and free - (Hey, but he's doleful, willow, willow waly!) Nobody I care for comes a-courting me - Hey, willow waly O! Nobody I care for Comes a-courting - therefore, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... had not walked a quarter of an hour when every trace of gloom had left her face, which had assumed its customary brightness, and she began to sing with a spiteful hilarity as we walked forward, and indeed seemed to be approaching one of her waggish, frolicsome moods. But her fun in these moods was solitary. The joke, whatever it was, remained in her own keeping. When we approached the ruined brick tower—in old times a pigeon-house—she grew quite frisky, and twirled her ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... the case. The frolicsome wolves had varied their amusement by springing upward among the lowermost branches. A brute would make a jump, and, landing upon the limb, sustain himself until one or two of his comrades imitated his performance, when they would all ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... sportive, frolicsome, lively, exhilarating, vivacious, jolly, blithe, airy, boon, convivial, jovial, joyous; brilliant, dashing, gallant, showy; garish, gaudy, flashing, tawdry; (Colloq.) loose, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... sea-swallows sweep over the bubbling crests like flights of silver arrows. It is very joyous. You have set off early, of course, and the rabbits have not yet turned into their holes for their day-long snooze. Watch quietly, and you may perhaps see how they make their fairy rings on the grass. One frolicsome brown rogue whisks up his white tail, and begins careering round and round; another is fired by emulation and joins; another and another follow, and soon there is a flying ring of merry little creatures who ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... upon most of her operations a certain character of gravity and majesty. Order and symmetry attend upon her steps, and unity in variety is the law by which her movements are guided. But, beneath the surface of the earth, she seems a frolicsome child, or a sportive undine, who wreaths the unmanageable stone into weird and quaint forms, seemingly from no other motive than pure delight in the exercise of overflowing power. Everything is playful, airy, and fantastic; there is no spirit of soberness; ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... with long steps the path he had previously trodden with Arsinoe. A stone table across the path, brought him to a stand-still, and he took a fancy for leaping it. The third time he came up to it he sprang over it with a long jump. But no sooner had he done the frolicsome deed than he paused, shook his head at himself and muttered to himself: "Like a boy!"—He felt indeed like a happy child. But as he waited he became calmer and graver. He acknowledged to himself, with sincere thankfulness, that he had now found ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... You see, not frolicsome and wild, As such a child should be; For though she was just nine, no more, Another little child she bore, Almost as ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald |
