"Playful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... found out his mistake. This young wife of his, full of mirth and high spirits as she was, had a deeper nature and a stronger will than he suspected. If a constant round of amusements could have satisfied her, she might have accepted the playful caresses of her indulgent husband, and been content with the share of affection which he bestowed upon her. But Beatrice asked for more than this. She was bent on having sole possession of her lord's heart—of reigning there at least without ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... same time a sort of capricious complacency, something frivolous and playful, could be seen in the midst of all these plaintive exclamations. In the evening we drank ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... she like so many people, and why had she seemed pleased when all the French and Bohemian boys, and the priest himself, crowded round her candy stand? Why did she care about any one but him? Why could he never, never find the thing he looked for in her playful, affectionate eyes? ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... brother has a fancy of playing at landlord," she said, looking at us in a playful way. "He has built a hostel for the English and the Italians of the Court. It was to be a new Paris, was it not so? And no doubt it would have been, but that the distance was over great. It was indeed almost a Paris in the happy days of ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... peculiar incidents. He took up a point as remote as might be from the personal appeal. "It is curious how little we know of such matters, after all the love-making and marrying in life and all the inquiry of the poets and novelists." He addressed himself in this turn of his thought, half playful, half earnest, to me, as if I united with the functions of both a responsibility for ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... from his young hostess's heart the weight that he had put there the previous evening by his mocking and contemptuous manner. He let himself go, spoke after his own manner, and gave up the jesting, playful tone which he always had ready for women. She listened to him with silent attention, no matter what he talked about. The wide leaps his mind took did not seem to weary her in the following. To his astonishment, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... at the corner of Bridge Street, Westminster, and in going to the House of Lords he frequently stopped to inquire if I wanted a frank. His conversation, at the same time, was of a milder vein, and with the single exception of one day, while dining together at the St Alban's, it was light and playful, as if gaiety ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... was in a playful mood, and as soon as the little girl's back was turned she sprang lightly out of her bed and went scampering ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came softened from below; The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young, The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school, The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind,— These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And filled each pause the nightingale ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... you, old chap?" cried Dyke, giving the large bird a playful poke, which had the effect of sending him off remonstrating angrily, as if he resented such liberties being taken with his ribs. For he turned when he reached the fence, and stood fluttering his short wings, clucking, and making threatening ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... meal Winifred remembered her unfinished book, and thought to get it as she stepped from the elevator. She knocked lightly at Mrs. Latimer's door. She heard a faint rustle inside, then all was still. Again she gave a soft, playful battering of open palms on the panels; then she fled to her own apartments, and flung herself face downward on the pillowed couch, weeping as though ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... dear Laura," he answered, "that they are a very playful band of cut-throats, and next time you ask me to stay, I hope you and Jack will ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... is another child who is living a strangely unnatural life, which strikes no one as unnatural because it is "our custom." She is quite a little girl, and as playful as a kitten. Her soft round arms and little dimpled hands looked fit for no harder work than play, but she was pounding rice when I saw her, and looked tired, and as if she ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... wasps, when they are about fifty, had reduced him to a position as chief bookkeeper and taken Nancy out of her first year in Farmington. Oliver had spent nine months on a graduate scholarship in Paris and Provence in 1919. Both had friends there and argued long playful hours planning just what sort of a magnificently cheap apartment on the Rive Gauche they would have when they ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... near, and she put up her face; they were both smiling, both on the brink of laughter, all was so innocent and playful; and the Prince, when their lips encountered, was dumbfoundered by the sudden convulsion of his being. Both drew instantly apart, and for an appreciable time sat tongue-tied. Otto was indistinctly conscious of a peril in the silence, but could find no words to utter. Suddenly ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bread, thinly spread with soup essence, or cafe au lait (when the dripping, lard or potted meat had finally vanished). The meal itself was rather nauseating, but afterwards it was most gratifying to be able to say that you had had tea! When this playful little "strafe" was removed by an order from Hanover the accumulated parcels nearly caused the death of the Germans working in the distributing room. Letters were very slow in arriving. Once a general, while inspecting the camp, entered ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... and expressive of varied feeling his face is!" she thought, watching it change under the playful badinage ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... however, be remembered, that this indulgence does not display itself only in sarcasm towards others, but sometimes in playful allusion to the notions commonly entertained of his own laborious task. Thus: 'Grub-street, the name of a street in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called Grub-street[869].'—'Lexicographer, a writer ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... this room which I have never seen and which you have always kept from me ... It's woman's curiosity!" she said, in a tone which she tried to render playful. ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... for days and years, over plains, through the rifts of high mountains, across rivers and through great lonely silences, with just a dog for a companion. A white dog with small black spots, very playful and enduring, and though not large, he was very brave to contend with all that was fearful. At night he curled up close to her and licked her hand, and in the morning before the weary hours, he played ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... had been a dashing soldier he might have been a far less dutiful son, a far less satisfactory member of society than he was and yet have awakened a feeling in his mother's breast which she had never given to him. Now he was embarrassed somewhat by her playful insistence on her mother's right to her boy for a time. Playfulness sat as ill on her as could well be imagined, and he was captious over her raillery on his hurry to be at his cousin's side, calling it atrocious taste in his irritable mind, he who ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... this up whenever you please, but I hope you will never please to do so. You see how I leave you your own free will, as friends usually do, with a proviso, a hope at least, that you are never to use it on any account—like the child's half guinea pocket-money, never to be changed." Her playful tone relieved, as she intended it should, Helen's too keen emotion; and this too was felt with the quickness with which every touch of kindness ever was felt by her. Helen pressed her friend's hand, and ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... Swift's exposure of the corrupt bishops, the "holy Persons" in the House of Lords (Travels, II, vi). Believing that Swift's pungent satire on the church hierarchy is good and true, he makes the dean himself the target of a playful bit of raillery, a type of irony for which Swift and Arbuthnot ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... with 25 which he viewed the person behind, gaining upon him at the imminent hazard of tripping him up; to see him gradually expend the painful force which he had put on at first and turn slowly round on the slide, with his face towards the point from which he had started; to contemplate 30 the playful smile which mantled on his face when he had accomplished the distance and the eagerness with which he turned round when he had done so and ran after his predecessor, his black gaiters tripping pleasantly through the snow and his eyes beaming cheerfulness and gladness through his spectacles. ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... you said, Let's give as little, and grab as much as we can. Of course, that is a playful way of putting it; but between ourselves, ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... for us a genial feeling Survives, or one in need of healing, The power, dear Rock, around thee cast, Thy monumental power, shall last For me and mine! O thought of pain, That would impair it or profane! Take all in kindness then, as said With a staid heart but playful head; And fail not Thou, loved Rock! to keep Thy charge ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... There is an enormous amount in the story. The amorous Tupman had scarcely entered the hall of a strange house when he began osculatory attempts on the lips of one of the maids; and when Mr. Pickwick and his friends called on Mr. Winkle, sen., at Birmingham, Bob Sawyer made similar playful efforts—being called an "odous creetur" by the lady. In fact, the custom seemed to be to kiss when and wherever you could conveniently. Getting drunk after any drinking, and at any time of the day, seemed to be common enough. There was a vast amount of open fields, &c., about ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... circling around the edge of a great windfall. A low wind was beginning to move in the tops of the spruce and cedar, and soft splashes of snow fell on their heads and shoulders, as if unseen and playful hands were pelting them from above. Again and again David caught the swift, ghostly flutter of the snow owls; three times he heard the wolf-howl; once again Baree's dismal, homeless cry; and then they came suddenly out of the thick gloom of the forest into ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... feeling. To me, at least, it is a constant joy to watch the iridescence of his sentences, which gives to each of them not merely one, but innumerable meanings. And through so much of this particular play runs a spirit that can only be called playful—a spirit which finds its most typical expression in the delightful figure of Albert Rhon, the poet who takes the place of the otherwise inevitable physician. I like to think of that figure as more or less embodying the author's conception of himself. ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... mathematical reasoning or in a telegraphic style, where absolutely nothing is rhetorical and speech is denuded of every feature not indispensable to its symbolic role. Between these two extremes lies the broad field of poetry, or rather of imaginative or playful expression, where the verbal medium is a medium indeed, having a certain transparency, a certain reference to independent facts, but at the same time elaborates the fact in expressing it, and endows it with affinities alien to its proper nature. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... personal relationship, of a fundamental antagonism of interests and beliefs, resolutely maintained on both sides. George Sand, with her lifelong passion for propaganda and reformation, labors earnestly to bring Flaubert to her point of view, to remould him nearer to her heart's desire. He, with a playful deference to the sex and years of his friend, addresses her in his letters as "Dear Master." Yet in the essentials of the conflict, though she never gives over her effort, he never budges a jot; he has taken his ground, and in his last ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... mine, she had stood in awe of his violence; but except for that one time when he had attempted to steal a kiss, he had reserved his rough violence for his enemies. Yet—and somehow the thought thrilled her—it might be, after all, that he was shy; and that playful, bear-like hug was only his boyish way of hinting at the wish in ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... her father. "As if I cared for my aunt's money!" she would say. "I wish she may not leave it to me." And she was sincere in the wish. Their controversies frequently amused Mr. Huntley. Agreeing in heart and mind with his daughter, he would yet make a playful show of taking his sister's part. Miss Huntley knew it to be show—done to laugh at her—and would grow as angry with him ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... upon tales; and therefore 'twas certainly wrong in Slawkenbergius to send them into the world by that name!—there are a few of them in his eighth, ninth, and tenth decads, which I own seem rather playful and sportive, than speculative—but in general they are to be looked upon by the learned as a detail of so many independent facts, all of them turning round somehow or other upon the main hinges of his subject, and added to his work as so many illustrations ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... admit that it is very little. The sense of proprietorship in three such finished products is something, to be sure; and, after all, I suppose they have—concealed somewhere—a real affection for their old dad. At times they are facetious—almost playful—as on my birthday; but I fancy that arises from a feeling of embarrassment at not knowing how to be intimate with a parent who crosses their path only twice a week, and then on ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... in the first speech I made, in which I very distinctly made that charge, he thought for a good while I was in fun!—that I was playful—that I was not sincere about it—and that he only grew angry and somewhat excited when he found that I insisted upon it as a matter of earnestness. He says he characterized it as a falsehood as far as I implicated his moral character ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... said Tito, with playful decision, opening his scarsella and dropping in the little key. "I shall drown ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... Vicar of Wakefield, was by nature a lover of happy human faces, and she could be playful herself on occasion; but she had little if any of the saving sense ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... perhaps," I replied, in the same playful vein, "the poetical portion of my nature that has set me at this work. But I cannot satisfy myself as to the denouement of my story, and I desire your aid ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... Baumes," is not to be recommended to those afflicted with giddiness. Little sunshine reaches the heart of the gorge, yet below the turf is brilliant, a veritable islet of green threaded by a tiny river. The natural walls shutting us in have a majestic aspect, but playful and musical is the Seille as it ripples at our feet. Travellers of an adventuresome turn can explore the stalactite caverns and other marvels around; not the least of these is a tiny lake, the depth of which has never been sounded. For half-a-mile the valley winds towards the straggling ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... see just the same formulas in the fifteenth century letters of the Stonor family (Stonor Letters and Papers, Camden Society), though in these letters we seem often to find a lighter and more playful touch than was common among the Pastons. I may refer here to Dr. Powell's learned and well written book (with which I was not acquainted when I wrote this chapter), English Domestic Relations 1487-1653 ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... of those impenetrable women; she can make herself what she pleases to be: playful, childlike, distractingly innocent; or reflective, serious, and profound enough to excite anxiety. She came to Madame d'Espard's dinner with the intention of being a gentle, simple woman, to whom life was known only through its deceptions: a woman full of soul, and calumniated, ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... day. It began with the typical African thunderstorm—deafening, continuous rolls and crashes of heavy cloud-artillery, and lightning that blazed and darted without intermission, and ran zigzagging in a horrible, deadly, playful fashion over the veld, as though looking for dishonest folks to shrivel. One terrible flash struck the wheel-oxen, a thin double tongue of blue flame sped flickering from ridge to ridge of the six gaunt backs ... there was a smell of burning hair—a reek of sulphur. The team lay outstretched ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Anarchy. Consider how much liberty we gain by the loss of the common liberty to kill. Thereby one may go to and fro in all the ordered parts of the earth, unencumbered by arms or armour, free of the fear of playful poison, whimsical barbers, or hotel trap-doors. Indeed, it means freedom from a thousand fears and precautions. Suppose there existed even the limited freedom to kill in vendetta, and think what would happen in our ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... of tea came to instant grief. Sir John uttered an exclamation of decided annoyance; Nora exclaimed, "Oh, Miss Bernard Temple, what a mess you have made of your dress!" and Susy roused herself sufficiently to shake a playful finger at Antonia. ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... moderato, is in sonata-form. The second, in the key of the relative minor, entitled Fantasie, has in it more of the spirit of Beethoven than of Emanuel Bach. The Finale is in rondo form; the middle section consists of a playful Duettino, containing ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... arose; Our Parliaments from this proceed And all our other Courts indeed. Linen Linen's first used in twelve-five Woollens alone in vogue before. Glass Windows In eleven-eight-nought first came to pass The novelty of window glass. And doubtless playful little boys Full of children's simple joys, Cracked as our youngsters often do With stones or ball a pane or two. Richard Coeur de Lion from one Crusade Coeur de Lion Returning was a prisoner made. 1189-1199 But Blondel played an Air he knew, The King joined in; Voila the clue. This ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... the clearness and dreamy sweetness of the gaze of a child. She was a product of the border: southern vivacity and northern gravity had resulted in a restless mixture; she was fond of musing, and, playful as a young animal, was capable of arousing in men of all ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... Confiding in their youthful sentinel, sound slept the valorous toxophilites, as up and down, and there and back again, marched on the noble Childe. At length his repeater told him, much to his satisfaction, that it was half-past eleven, the hour when his watch was to cease; and so, giving a playful kick to the slumbering Wolfgang, that good-humored fellow sprung up from his lair, and, drawing his sword, proceeded to ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... looked very bright and cosy. A little gray kitten that I had brought Kitty was asleep on the quilt; Phoebe had taken a great fancy to the pretty, playful little creature, and it was always with her; Kitty's large wax doll was lying with its curly head on ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... for an unyielding will like that of the Donna Isabella; but the part she had played in the sacred ceremonies and the surrounding emblems of peace and good-will were softening influences. More potent even than these was the persuasive contact of the little hands which opened and shut in playful touches at her throat. I could see from the varying expressions of her face that she questioned herself. Should she yield? The pride of birth, the disobedience of a youthful son to a mother of her indulgent nature, the stigma of a low connection ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... or playful, Lord and Lady Northmoor had, it may be perceived, no lack of good sense in their strange new surroundings. It was hard not to feel like guests on sufferance, and next morning, a Sunday, was wet. However, under their waterproofs and umbrellas trudging ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... quite lively now in London with riots of our own—a more exciting process than merely reading of our neighbors' across the Channel. Last night a mob, in its playful progress though this street, broke the peaceful windows of this house. There have been great meetings in Trafalgar Square these two last evenings, in which the people threw stones about, and made a noise, but that was all they did by all accounts. They have smashed ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... is hardly fair. My friend has been repeating to cynical youth the confessions of an amorous husband's affection for his middle-aged and somewhat—" The Colonel in playful mood laid his hand upon the stranger's shoulder, an action that necessitated his looking straight into the stranger's eyes. The Colonel drew himself up stiffly ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome
... jest will lighten the gloom. Necessary requests for the sugar or the milk or the stewed apples are phrased with a curtly formal civility. We shall be other men at noon or at night, vastly other, sunnier men, with abundance of quip and jest and playful sally with the acid personal tang. But from warm beds of repose! We avoid each other's eyes, and one's subdued "please pass that sirup pitcher!" is but tolerated like some boorish ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... him with his gun, carrying an eighteen-to-the-pound ball, and aiming full at his head. The monster turned, and sinking down like a rock, went directly under the boat, making his appearance a hundred rods off, apparently unhurt. He continued his playful gambols as before, finally moving off out of the harbor till he was lost in ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... the village school, Wedded a maid of homespun habit; He was stubborn as a mule, She was playful as a rabbit. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... Snow came up, and the three Misses Snow, and the Balfours, and the neighbors; and there were kisses and hand-shakings, and good wishes. Jim beamed around upon the fluttering and chattering groups like a great, good-natured mastiff upon a playful collection of silken spaniels and smart terriers. It was the proudest moment of his life. Even when standing on the cupola of his hotel, surveying his achievements, and counting his possessions, he had never felt the thrill which moved him then. The little woman was his, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... to wish it, Mr. Sharp—" Eve glanced her playful eye up at him as she pronounced the name—"I will be as credulous as a believer in animal magnetism: and that, I fancy, is pushing credulity to the verge of reason. It is now settled between ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... that Ripton's father seemed doubtful. Ripton cited his father's habitual caution. Richard made a playful remark on the necessity of sometimes acting in opposition to fathers. Ripton agreed to it—in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not know what to say. The words were those of a man in love; but the tone was so playful and jesting that she could not possibly receive them in a ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... things went on much the same, Walter not daring to tell the girl all he felt, but seizing every opportunity of a tete-a-tete, and missing none of the proximity she allowed him, and she never seeming other than pleased to be his companion. Her ways with him were always pretty, and sometimes playful. She was almost studious to please him; and if she never took a liberty with him, she never resented any he took with her, which certainly were neither numerous nor daring, for Walter was not presumptuous, least of ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... Hermit could do would break Ringtail of this playful habit. At length he was compelled to move his hammock, swinging it between a corner of the cabin and a small spruce having no long, horizontal branches. Here for a time he slept in peace, until Ringtail discovered ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... office alone for almost three hours. The old man, who he knew was his master, and the young man, who was inclined to be impatient with him when he felt playful, had both gone out. The door was locked and there was nobody on the other side of it to answer a vigorous scratch or even a pleading whine. When people knocked, they went ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... as to us And all it seemed; in ages long gone by A hunter's son, playing with forest girls By Yamun's spring, where Nandadevi stands, Sate umpire while they raced beneath the firs Like hares at eve that run their playful rings; One with flower-stars crowned he, one with long plumes Plucked from eyed pheasant and the junglecock, One with fir-apples; but who ran the last Came first for him, and unto her the boy Gave a tame fawn and his heart's love ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... in a prison, and be attended by a gaoler. It is sad enough to see dismal, doleful men and women, but it is a truly lamentable and unnatural sight to see a doleful child! The young ought to be as playful and as full of innocent mischief as a kitten. There will be quite time enough in after years ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... exciting as a stag hunt to the pack, as full of surprises as the wild chase through the soft snow after a litter of lynx kittens. And though they knew it not, they were learning things every hour of the sunny, playful afternoons that they would remember and find useful all the ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... food and drink. But Demeter, still grief-worn and dejected, refused her friendly offers, and held herself apart from the social board. At length, however, the maid-servant Iambe succeeded, by means {54} of playful jests and merriment, in somewhat dispelling the grief of the sorrowing mother, causing her at times to smile in spite of herself, and even inducing her to partake of a mixture of barley-meal, mint, and water, which was prepared ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... present, we can only say that the religious conception uprises from the human intellect in one mood, that of earnest contemplation and submission: while the mythical ideas uprise from another mood, that of playful and erratic fancy. These two moods are conspicuous even in Christianity. The former, that of earnest and submissive contemplation, declares itself in prayers, hymns, and "the dim religious light" of cathedrals. The second mood, that of playful and ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... life, but, in spite of both these objections, she is an interesting and not untouching figure to those who like to know all the many-webbed stuff out of which their brothers and sisters are made. The Manon Lescaut of the unfortunate Abbe Prevost, kindly, bright, playful, tender, but devoid of the very germ of the idea of that virtue which is counted the sovereign recommendation of woman, helps us to understand Madame de Warens. There are differences enough between them, and we need not mistake them for one ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... when I thought of her playful ways, her dear, young supple limbs, her thick, wavy, blonde hair, which she would push back now and then with both her hands, the tears welled up in my ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... I cannot hold them. Well, when I have made a bouquet in which the colors blend like tapestry, and the red contrasts with white, and the greens and the browns cross each other, when all seems so abundant, the breeze so playful, the flowers so many that their fragrance mingles and their buds interlace,—well, then I am happy, for I see what is passing in me. At church when the organ plays and the clergy respond, there are two distinct songs speaking to each other,—the ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... confused and erroneous statement. The two faculties are distinct, Wit being intellectual and occupying a small space adjacent to Causality or Reason, while Mirthfulness, or the sentiment of the ludicrous, is just above it, and should properly be called Humor. The mirthful or playful faculty is in the posterior region adjacent to Approbativeness, and may be quite conspicuous when there is neither wit nor humor in the mirth. Imitation, Mirth or Humor, and Wit follow each other in a line. The so-called organ of Wit (Gall) or Mirthfulness (Spurzheim) is the seat of the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... she was when pleased—by a snap at others. For although she was not given, any more than other young people are, to plaguesome self-inspection, she could not help feeling that she was no longer the playful young Dolly that she loved so well. A stronger, and clearer, yet more mysterious will than her own had conquered hers; but she would not confess it, and yield entire obedience; neither could she cast it off. Her pride still existed, as strong ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... take the Greek women instead of Shakespeare's; and instance, for chief ideal types of human beauty and faith, the simple mother's and wife's heart of Andromache; the divine, yet rejected wisdom of Cassandra; the playful kindness and simple princess-life of happy Nausicaa; the housewifely calm of that of Penelope, with its watch upon the sea; the ever patient, fearless, hopelessly devoted piety of the sister and daughter, in Antigone; the bowing down of Iphigenia, lamb-like and silent; and, finally, the ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... understand," the actress said disgustedly. "You are clumsy, Philadelphus, when you are playful. If this is all, I shall return to ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... pany ti makran tes ton patraloion katadikes aphestekasin', Fr. 49. Usener, from Philodemus, De Rhet. This may be only a playful reference to Plato's phrase about being a patraloias of his father, Parmenides, Soph., ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... Astrology's Last home, a musty pile of almanacs, And an old chronicle of border wars And Indian history. And, as I read A story of the marriage of the Chief Of Saugus to the dusky Weetamoo, Daughter of Passaconaway, who dwelt In the old time upon the Merrimac, Our fair one, in the playful exercise Of her prerogative,—the right divine Of youth and beauty,—bade us versify The legend, and with ready pencil sketched Its plan and outlines, laughingly assigning To each his part, and barring ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... road. It was all misty and strange and unnatural. I came to Wilson's house; I saw Mrs. Wilson and I saw Miss Penclosa. I hardly recall what we talked about, but I do remember that Miss P. shook the head of her crutch at me in a playful way, and accused me of being late and of losing interest in our experiments. There was no mesmerism, but I stayed some time and ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... but thousands. The streets were blocked with applicants, every one eager for that minimum wage. The police could not handle the mob. It was there for a purpose and it intended to stay.... When it was rebuked, or if some one tried to tell them there were no jobs for it, it threw playful stones through the windows. It was there at dawn; it still remained ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... detract from his honor and purity as a man, or his dignity as a prince. On the contrary, I often had occasion to admire the lofty thought and exalted conceptions which seemed most to occupy his mind. He was winning in the invariableness of his amiability, often playful in spirits and manner, and warm in his affections. He was a most fondly attached son and seemed to idolize his mother. When speaking of her, the intonations of his voice and his whole manner were often as gentle and feminine ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... with stormy passion nor with mawkish whining, but in a courtly manner; lovers who deem an epigram a finer tribute than a sigh. So the tender fondness of a middle-aged man for an infant is elevated above the commonplace by assuming the tone of playful gallantry. ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... these fascinating productions? They are such as all, imbued with even a moderate degree of taste and feeling, must respond to. But there is another poem of Gray's, less read, perhaps, than these, but which, from its humor and arch playful style, is apt to make a strong and lasting impression on an enthusiastic juvenile mind. It opens so abruptly and oddly, that attention is bespoke from the first line. It is entitled "A ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... breathed deeply the satisfaction of it, an exploding rifle echo shattered the stillness. With excited sputtering came the prompt answer of a fusillade. She was new to the West; but some instinct stronger than reason told the girl that here was no playful puncher shooting up the scenery to ventilate his exuberance. Her imagination conceived something more deadly; a sinister picture of men pumping lead in a grim, close-lipped silence; a lusty plainsman, with ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... He made a playful show of looking over his shoulder to the invisible recipient of Longstreet's confidences; at the moment a door behind him opened and a new face did actually appear. Barbee's glance grew into a stare of surprise. Then he turned square ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... his arm around her and gave her a playful squeeze. "Sorry, old girl, what was it? About High Jinks and Low Jinks? Ha! Dashed funny that, don't ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... a great man. You can't deny that," he said with the playful manner in which he might have prodded a kitten in order to ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... He was a playful little cuss to be sure, one of those "ne'er-grow-ups" you meet about stables, and ready enough to gossip when I gave him ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... entertainment, we were often allowed to sit up and see them off; my father, as I remember, always in full uniform, always ready and waiting for my mother, who was generally late. He would then chide her gently, in a playful way and with a bright smile. He would then bid us good-bye, and I would go to sleep with this beautiful picture on my mind, the golden epaulets ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... good friend," said he, with that playful, petulant smile flitting over his face again. "It is my first and last fight. Let me down as softly as you can on mother earth, the mother of both you and me; so we are brothers; and this may be a brotherly act, though it does not look so, nor feel so. Ah! that ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... (201), opposite the Temple, has been immortalised by Tennyson as thoroughly as the "Devil" was by Ben Jonson. The playful verses inspired by a pint of ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of Stolypin," was Azef's playful allusion to the ever-ready gallows to which he, plotting with Rasputin, Manuiloff, Guerassimof, and others, was so constantly sending innocent persons. Truly, Russia was a strange country even ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... a shallow lake, Where grasses rank and mammoth rushes grow, And playful fish their bright fins nimbly shake, Or madly chase each other to and fro, The larva of the dragon-fly submerged, In family large, had taken their abode, And tho' the waves around them daily surged, Upon the bending grass ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... here is a large body of some sort. We have come upon a great river, a great lake, an immense plain, a rugged mountain. We feel that this mind requires a large space to turn in. The page nearly always gives a sense of mass and multitude. All attempts at the playful or humorous seem ungainly. The style is processional and agglomerative. Out of these vast, rolling, cloud-like masses does there leap forth the true lightning? It seems to me there can be no doubt about ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... sprang towards us. In her playful tyranny, which she loved to exercise and he to submit to, she insisted on knowing what Lord Ravenel ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... form and drapery harmoniously flow! How softly distinct stands the lithe image against the purple hues of the sky! Then again comes the sweet voice, gay and carolling as a bird's,—now in snatches of song, now in playful appeals to that dull four-footed friend. She is telling him something that must make the black ears stand on end, for I just catch the words, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Army Works Corps, bringing a small French Zouave to my canteen, evidently with the view of standing treat. The Frenchman seemed mischievously inclined, and, probably relying upon the good humour on the countenance of his gigantic companion, began a little playful badinage, ending with the taunt of "Redan, no bono—Redan, no bono." I never saw any man look so helplessly angry as the Englishman did. For a few minutes he seemed absolutely rooted to the ground. Of course he could have crushed his mocking friend with ease, but how ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... another I can see you are concealing something. You are strangely downcast, and yet you pretend to be playful in spirit; but ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... never supposed that Zeus would give the matter a thought the next morning; much less that he would make such a stir about it, and think himself so mightily injured; my little manoeuvre with the meat was merely a playful experiment, to see which he would choose. It might have been worse. Instead of giving him the inferior half, I might have defrauded him of the whole. And what if I had? Would that have been a case for putting heaven and earth in commotion, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... she outlined a playful scenario for her next interview with Arthur Russell; but grew solemn again, thinking of the impression she had already sought to give him. She had no twinges for any underminings of her "most intimate ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... Washington to that town. With all her majestic self-command, she did not disguise the pleasure with which she received the special request of the managers that she would honor the occasion with her presence. There was even a happy flutter in the playful rejoinder that "her dancing days were pretty well over, but that if her coming would contribute to the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... practice. But the truth is that the men of that day were not strong in such fine-spun speculations. It was a refinement from which even Lamb, who loved a paradox as well as any man, would have shrunk with playful indignation. ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... Besides the playful way in which he manipulates the commerce of the district, Pirate Tom has another mode in which he adds to his gains. At some of the river townships and stations there is no hotel, or store, where liquor can be obtained. The only immediate facility that settlers and ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... own simple yet poetical home, that to me the character of Edgar Poe appeared in its most beautiful light. Playful, affectionate, witty, alternately docile and wayward as a petted child-for his young, gentle, and idolized wife, and for all who came, he had, even in the midst of his most harassing literary duties, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... are mostly vocal, for school and church use, though some are of a gay and playful nature. The best remembered of his secular and sacred styles are his blithe aria to the song of Moore, "Life let us cherish, while yet the taper glows" and the sweet choral that voices ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... that everything should be done in good taste and order. Her opinions on woman's nature, sphere, destiny, were thoroughly digested, and any speaker that did not come up to her exact ideal, was taken delicately to task when her turn came to speak. As some one remarks, "she had a playful way of tapping a speaker in a public meeting, as a skillful driver touches his horses with the tip end of his whip." Once, says Wendell Phillips, she tried the experiment on me when I had ventured to say that one of the drawbacks to the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... act in subduing them. They were all thoroughly at home and perfectly contented now, and Phil had chained the last one down, except the baby elephant, that usually was left free to do as it pleased, providing it did not get too playful. ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... character—which rendered either the assurance or the hope unwarrantable. He was not tall, but he was strong and active. He was not exactly handsome, but he was possessed of a genial, hearty disposition, a playful spirit, and an earnest soul; also a modestly reckless nature which ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... interesting things in moving about is the fact that only once in a while do I see a face typically Chinese. I forget they are Chinese a great deal of the time. They just seem like dirty, poor miserable people anywhere. They are cheerful but not playful. I should like to give a few millions for playgrounds and toys and play leaders. I can't but think that a great deal of the lack of initiative and the let-George-do-it, which is the curse of China, is connected with the fact ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... as we contemplate them, and read or hear their lovely language, written or spoken for us, not in frightful black letters, nor in dull sentences, but in fair green and shadowy shapes of waving words, and blossomed brightness of odoriferous wit, and sweet whispers of unintrusive wisdom, and playful morality. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... had risen the instant he caught sight of the newcomer, and even at the half-playful tone of the colonel would relax in no degree his soldierly sense of the proprieties. He stood erect and held his hand at the salute, only very slowly lowering it to take the one so frankly extended him by the captain, who, however, ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... the family circle. As his adopted daughter, Washington had watched over her with parental solicitude. Tradition says that he frequently inculcated the most valuable precepts when talking seriously with her; and in his most playful mood would give her words of wisdom that took root in her mind and heart. This fact is so well exhibited in the following letter of his, written to Nelly, when she was about sixteen years of age, that we give ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... to one another, sometimes: "Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry?" They believed they would be sorry. "For," said they, "the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hillsides are the children of the water; and the smallest, bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... The plot is simple, the handling of it direct and skilful, there is no propaganda to interfere with the characters, who are few, interesting, and admirably drawn. The contrast between the lion of Albrit (so often compared to King Lear) and the playful children is a master-stroke. Free from effectism, dealing only with inner values of the heart and morals, El abuelo can properly rank as one of the masterpieces of modern drama. Its theme is diametrically opposed to the traditional Spanish ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... His varied information (for hardly any subject escaped him) rendered him a very entertaining companion. His observations on the character of different nations were very liberal; marking their various traits, their virtues and vices, with playful humorousness, quite free from bigotry, or ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... delightful language for the natives, and for all who have thoroughly mastered its spirit. Its genius is airy and sparkling. It is especially the language of society, because society is, theoretically, the playful encounter of sprightliness and wit. It is the worst language I know of for poetry, ethics, and the habit of the Saxon mind. It is wonderful in the hands of such masters as Balzac and George Sand, and is especially adapted to their purposes. Yet their books are forbidden to Nancy ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... occasionally, and his indulgence of playful digressions from the most serious discussions, often give his style an air of familiar conversation, notwithstanding the laborious collections which supply his text. He was capable of writing excellent poetry, but he seems to have cultivated this talent too little. The English verses ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... late, and Hepsy, otherwise Hephzibah, was for ever on his track with a yellow jug in her hand; they called it the "Hunting of the Snark," for they were wont to treat the minor accidents of life in a playful fashion. ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the sofa. "And now what has my little culprit to say for herself?" he asked pleasantly, putting on a playful magisterial air. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... a different kind. It was written on the fleshly tables of the heart. To Oxford men he seemed like an elder brother, brilliant, playful, lovable, yet profoundly wise; teaching us what to think, to admire, to avoid. His influence fell upon a thirsty and receptive soil. We drank it with delight; and it co-operated with all the best traditions of the place in making us lifelong lovers of romance, and truth, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... passed down the yard. There was the sound of a smothered titter, then a playful resounding slap, and a gurgling laugh from one ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... said I; and I carried her upstairs and began undressing her by the nursery fire, which Bessy had kept up. I called my little lammie all the sweet and playful names I could think of,—even while my eyes were blinded by my tears; and at last, oh! at length she opened her large blue eyes. Then I put her into her warm bed, and sent Dorothy down to tell Miss Furnivall that all was ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... but with an increasing abandon, half laughter and half tears, the clear young soprano voice took up its playful paraphrase, ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... "I understand, sir, that he was the most active and playful of the litter, and chewed up all his brothers' ears, sir. And the kennel people thought it was so clever ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... And the guests of every sort— The elocution chap With rhetoric on tap; The mimic and the funny dog; The social sponge; the money-hog; Vulgarian and dude; And the prude; The adiposing dame With pimply face aflame; The kitten-playful virgin— Vergin' on to fifty years; The solemn-looking sturgeon Of a firm of auctioneers; The widower flirtatious; The widow all too gracious; The man with a proboscis and a sepulcher beneath. One assassin picks the banjo, and ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... lot, and comprised as many varieties as there are different breeds of pigeons. There were Chocolats, Muskymotes, Cariboos, Brandies, Whiskies, Corbeaus, and a few others. During the fight they had kept wonderfully quiet, but now they seemed to know that it was over, and began, after the playful manner of their kind, to indulge in a spirited battle on their own account. Rory snatched up a whip with the object of seeing ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... the trapper, tossing a hand into the air as his whole countenance lighted with the recollections the name revived. "They called her Alice! Elsie or Alice; 'tis all the same. A laughing, playful child she was, when happy; and tender and weeping in her misery! Her hair was shining and yellow, as the coat of the young fawn, and her skin clearer than the purest water that drips from the rock. Well do I remember her! I ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... exhibited. In this century, Dante gave to Europe his great epic poem, the lyric muse awoke at the call of Petrarch, while Boccaccio created a style of prose, harmonious, flexible, and engaging, and alike suitable to the most elevated and to the most playful subjects. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... so often playful and fidgety and uncanonical in behaviour? Does the choirmaster advertise 'Naughty boys preferred,' or do musical voices commonly exist in unregenerate bodies? With all the opportunities they must have outside ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... caught the secret of her meaning. She was rejoicing that this little one should some time become one of the mothers of her race. We chatted over it a little longer and she gave me several playful "digs" about my own tribe thinking so much less of motherhood than hers, and so much more of battle and bloodshed. Then we drifted into talk of the sockeye run and of the hyiu ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... of his aides, who came to his tent, April 29th, to inform him that the enemy had crossed the Rappahannock River in heavy force, General Lee made the playful reply: ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... to be playful and scold her: "You must not talk nor think of death," he said. "Your bridal-day is to come first; I know all; Edward Dodd has told me he loves you. He is a fine noble fellow; you shall marry him: I wish it. Now, for his sake, summon all your resolution, and make ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... white wings glimmered in the sunset-light, and her pet dove flew to her, circling round and round till it dropped on her outstretched arm. She caught it to her bosom, kissing its soft head tenderly, and murmuring playful words to it. Robin watched her, as with this favourite bird-playmate she disappeared across the garden and into the house. Then he gave a gesture half of despair, half ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... had looked upon these conflicts as merely playful; and so I fancy most of them were. But this time the bulls seemed to be in earnest. The loud cracking of their helmet-covered foreheads against each other, their fierce snorting and bellowing, and, above all, their angry manner, convinced ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... much of the same age with Delia (for so I shall call her) and both equally playful, spirituous, and good-natured, it is hard to say which of them took the greatest delight in the society of the other. Natura was never well out of the presence of Delia, nor Delia contented but when Natura was ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... my heart tells me that I cannot. I came down here resolved to resist any influence she might attempt to have over me. Her likeness showed me how beautiful she was, but it could not tell me the dangerous fascination of her low liquid voice, her half-playful, half-melancholy smile, and that bewitching walk, with all its stately grace, so that every fold as she moves sends its own thrill of ecstasy. And now that I know all these, see and feel them, I am told that to me they can bring no hope! That I am too poor, too ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... right lonesome. A friend of mine gets a little too playful fo' the evah-increasin' meetropolitan spirit of this yere camp, and tries a little tahget practice on the main bullyvard, an' finds the atmospheah onhealthful in consequence. Hearin' that the quiet solitude of Lost Trail is what he needs, he lit out with the following circumstance ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... letters came from Frank, and were always reported to me, but, of course, never shown. If there was any change in her manner, it was more steadily affectionate to her father and mother than ever; the fitful, playful ways of her girlhood were subdued, but, except to me, she showed no symptom of pain, no show of apprehension: with me alone she sometimes drooped and sighed. Once she laid her little head on my neck, and, holding me ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... dream in the Tower. Richard said his conscience-stricken, soul-torturing speech—"Richard loves Richard, that is I am I." in a matter-of-fact way. It is a great tragic note in Shakespeare, but in Berlin it was quite a playful matter. Just as the murderers played at murdering Clarence, so Richard joked with himself over, "is there ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... rather playful terms with the extraordinary bursts of wrath to which Henry H. Rogers occasionally gives way, and which sweep through the "System's" shrine like a tornado; but this was my first experience, and it was a shock and a revelation. Just what was going to happen next I could not imagine. I remembered ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... foliage) RULES: Governed by severe Exhibits apparent playful rules of Repetition, Freedom. There are Axiality, Symmetry, etc., underlying Rules, which which are apparent to are detected by the scientific the passer-by. Hence Botanist; but these Artificial foliage, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... Scotch fashion of whipping for every act of disobedience or of simple, playful forgetfulness was still kept up in the wilderness, and of course many of those whippings fell upon me. Most of them were outrageously severe, and utterly barren of fun. But here is one that ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... martial displays, is instructed in the arts of striking, parrying, and shielding by the older men, who strike at him with a stick but arrest the blow before it goes home. And we have found it impossible to introduce among them a more realistic mode of playful fencing. The ground of this reluctance actually to strike one another in fencing is probably their strong feeling for symbolism and the prevailing tendency to believe that the symbolical art brings about that which it symbolises. In part also it is due to the fact that ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... to tell a love-story,—perhaps two or three love-stories,—when I set out with the intention of repeating instructive, useful, or entertaining discussions, naturally alarms me. It is quite true that many things which look to me suspicious may be simply playful. Young people (and we have several such among The Teacups) are fond of make-believe courting when they cannot have the real thing,—"flirting," as it used to be practised in the days of Arcadian innocence, not the more modern and more questionable ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and bronze claim a place in that cyclus of art of which the metopes of the Parthenon are the highest point of excellence. The pictures that embellish the walls, the unzoned nymphs, the bounding Bacchantes, the grotesque Fauns, the playful arabesques, all are informed with the airy and creative spirit ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... whirled the fire backward and sidewise so that it had surrounded the meagre little space that they had cleared and had now outflanked them. Their own manoeuvre had been turned against them. There was but one way to run, straight down the hill with the fire roaring and panting after them. It was a playful, tricky monster that cackled gleefully behind them, laughing at ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... he ain't," smiled Timothy, who was always playful with women when he wasn't brutal. None knew better than he the use and ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock |
