"Sprightliness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the best intentions in the world, these dullards, and some of them love me even; but they are tiresome all. Even Chatellerault, when he has a fancy for a jest—as in your case perpetrates it with the grace of a bear, the sprightliness of an elephant." ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... threw off his poems in the mere fancy of an idle moment, with no care for their subsequent revision; indeed, a collected publication was not made until the lapse of four or five years after his death. A certain vivacity and sprightliness is the secret of their popularity, which, from their first appearance to the present day, has never been totally lost, though at no period could they be said to have commanded an extensive range of readers. Previous to the collection of 1838, four or five ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... new life, much as she dreads the parting from her mother (Calendar of Clarendon Papers, vol. ii. p. 401.)] Anne Hyde possessed no special charm of person, and had no claim to rank amongst the beauties of the Court. But she was gifted with much sprightliness and humour, and although the scandals that assailed her virtue were triumphantly refuted she was frank enough not to hide such attraction of manner as she possessed, nor harshly to reject advances. She soon made a deep impression ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... step as a proposal. Ever since he had seen Elsie Melville at Mrs. Rennie's party, her face and form, and her pleasant voice with its Scotch accent, recurred more frequently in his thoughts than those of any woman he had seen. Her elegance, her gentleness, her sprightliness, had struck him at sight, and her forlorn condition was very interesting. Her poetical talents, of which he had heard from Peggy, impressed him a good deal, and the manner in which she had taken so industriously to the only means of ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... principle that a strawberry is quicker to spoil than a pumpkin, it takes less to render a woman obnoxious than to make a man unfit for decent company. I am no lover of butter-mouthed girls, of prudes and "prunes and prism" fine ladies; I love sprightliness and gay spirits and unconventionality, but the moment a woman steps over the border land that separates delicacy of feeling, womanliness and lovableness, from rudeness, loud-voiced slang and the unblushing desire for notoriety, she becomes, in the ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... degrees of vivacity, of mobility, of disposition to anger, sadness, or gaiety; such a meat, because it lies heavy on the stomach, engenders moroseness and melancholy; such another, because it facilitates digestion, creates sprightliness, and an inclination to oblige and to love. The use of vegetables, because they have little nourishment, enfeebles the body, and gives a disposition to repose, indolence, and ease; the use of meat, because it is full of nourishment, and of spirituous ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... glittering satire. Butler introduced me to Sybil, and thereby opened up to me a new world of interest and amusement. When Butler entertained boys at breakfast or dinner, he was a most delightful host, and threw off all magisterial awfulness as easily as his gown. His conversation was full of fun and sprightliness, and he could talk "Cricket-shop," ancient and modern, like Lillywhite or R. H. Lyttelton. In time of illness or failure or conscience-stricken remorse, he showed an Arthur-like simplicity of religion which no ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... faint, and his eye dim, and his heart craven, her faculties were in full perfection—her cheek still wore the blush of youth, and her step was lighter than the fawn of four moons. And, if time had abated nothing of her wondrous beauty and sprightliness, neither had it of her goodness, and kind attention to the wants of the poor Indians. Her care that they should want for nothing was as much exerted as ever—still their hunting-grounds and their rivers were the best stocked of any in all the land, and their war expeditions ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... last Commencement was Much Ado about Nothing. It was selected six months before, and studied with the material in mind, the students in the literature class, available for the different parts. What is there, thought I, in Beatrice—sprightliness covering intense womanly feeling—that our vivacious, healthful Ruth Brown cannot master; and what in Benedick, her masculine counterpart, beyond the power of Moore to conceive and render? It is chiefly girlish ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... by Tippy—her real name was Xantippe—in plucking out Aunt Kizzie's grey hairs, and in fixing her up to appear to the best advantage for youth and sprightliness. She was only sixty, but hard labor and severe usage had ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... sprightliness and ideal grace of the widow, in spite of the witty sallies of the buccaneer, the supper was a gloomy one for Croustillac. His habitual assurance had given place to a kind of vague inquietude. The more charming Angela seemed to him, ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... animated, and vigorous; what is little is gay, what is great is splendid. He may be thought to mention himself too frequently; but while he forces himself upon our esteem, we cannot refuse him to stand high in his own. Everything is excused by the play of images and the sprightliness of expression. Though all is easy, nothing is feeble; though all seems careless, there is nothing harsh; and though, since his earlier works, more than a century has passed, they have nothing yet ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... journey to England, he gave up law to devote himself exclusively to the pursuit of letters. In 1827, he brought out his "Buch der Lieder," and followed this up with the first part of his famous "Reisebilder." Heine's lyrics, by their unwonted grace and sprightliness, captivated German readers. Some of his songs, like that of the "Lorelei" or "Thou Art Like a Flower," soon became German folksongs. More characteristic, perhaps, of Heine's light ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... an elevated stature. None of the resources of the toilet were neglected by her, and for a long time the most elegant women in Paris took the ton for dress from Mademoiselle CONTAT. Besides, she always had a delicacy of discrimination in her delivery, and a varied sprightliness in the minutiae of her acting. Her voice, though sometimes rather shrill, is not deficient in agreeableness, but is easily modulated, except when it is necessary for her to express feeling. The inferiority of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... the table of the Count de la Galissoniere was not a dull affair of mere eating and drinking. The conversation and sprightliness of the host fed the minds of his guests as generously as his bread strengthened their hearts, or his wine, in the Psalmist's words, made their faces to shine. Men were they, every one of them possessed of a sound mind in a sound body; and both were well feasted ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... of fifteen, Frederic was taught at home, in his father's school. He now entered the Warsaw Lyceum, and proved a good student, twice carrying off a prize. With this studiousness was joined a gaiety and sprightliness that manifested itself in all sorts of fun and mischief. He loved to play pranks on his sisters, comrades and others, and had a fondness for caricature, taking off the peculiarities of those about him with ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... she became the wife of Mr. Seth D. Whitney. Her literary career began about 1856, since which time she has written several novels and poems; a number of them first appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly." Her writings are marked by grace and sprightliness. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... are going to laugh and that a performance is bound to be funny, nothing on earth can keep them from enjoying themselves. The most serious remark will be greeted with howls of approval; the most ancient joke takes on a novel and present sprightliness. In the slang of the stage, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... their absence of matter by an unwholesome vitality of delivery. They look triumphantly round the room, as if courting applause, after a torrent of diluted truism. They talk in a circle, harping on the same dull round of argument, and returning again and again to the same remark with the same sprightliness, the same ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his stores, his wit, thought, and language were entirely Roman, and his style was Latin of the purest and most elegant kind—not, indeed, controlled by much deference to the laws of metrical harmony, but full of pith and sprightliness, bearing the stamp of colloquial vivacity, and suitable to the general briskness of his scenes. Yet in the tone of his dialogue we miss all symptoms of deference to the taste of the more polished classes of society. Almost all his comedies were adopted from the new comedy of the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... gather together his wits and his sprightliness for his next meeting. He had decided he must make a percentage in other ways. He schemed in all known ways. He would accept the ten pounds—but really, did ever you hear of anything so ridiculous in your life, ten pounds!—dirty old screw, dirty, screwing ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... was dark, no light save one pierced the interstices of the ill-fitting shutters. Editha paused a moment at the gate, looking at the house—a great black mass, blacker than the surrounding gloom. That had been her home for many years now, ever since her youth and sprightliness had vanished, and she had had nowhere to go for shelter. It had been her home ever since Richard, her youngest boy, had entered it, too, ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... and gaze into the mirror. Can one describe that face—the lovely brown eyebrows; the eyes, like a spring sky, just as the light, fleecy clouds are leaving it after a shower; the perfect roses, dipped in milk, of the skin; the lips where good-nature, sprightliness, and love, lay mingled in ambush; the dewy teeth never quite concealed? It is, indeed, useless to attempt it. And, what is very remarkable, Bella knew it. 'There, Percy,' said she, 'your indiscretion is cleared away, and now upon my word ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... with the reign of Nero. To this belongs a constellation of some of the most brilliant authors that Rome ever produced. And they are characterised by some very special traits. Instead of the depression we noticed under Tiberius we now observe a forced vivacity and sprightliness, even in dealing with the most awful or serious subjects, which is unlike anything we have hitherto met with in Roman literature. It is quite different from the natural gaiety of Catullus; equally so from the witty frivolity of Ovid. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... teaches me spooling is fresh and cheerful and jolly; I grant her all this. She lives at home. I am told by my subsequent friends that she thinks herself better than anybody. This pride and ambition has at least elevated her to neat clothes and a sprightliness of manner that is refreshing. She does not hesitate to evince her superiority by making sport of me. She takes no pains to teach me well. Instead of giving me the patent knotter, which would have simplified ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... 'Dotty Dimple' and the 'Little Prudy' books to our youthful imaginations, but we have no doubt the little folks of to-day will find the story of 'Flaxie Frizzle' and her young friends just as fascinating. There is a sprightliness about all of MISS CLARKE'S books that attracts the young, and their purity, their absolute cleanliness, renders them invaluable in the eyes of parents and all who are interested in ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... Albert Co., from Bay Verte, from Amherst, from Nappan, from Sackville, and from all the surrounding country. There was the grandfather and grandmother, whose silvery hair and bent form contrasted strongly with sprightliness of the young toddlers who were very much in evidence. But a smile was on every face and nobody was made to feel that he was a stranger. From the top of the highest tree floated the Canadian ensign, while nearer the house the ancient folds of the Union Jack ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... to see how young Percy delighted to assist in waiting on these visitors to "The Soldiers' Rest,"—how his sprightliness pleased and amused them. His own great embarrassment seemed to be that he had lost all his clothes at the time he was wounded, so was compelled to wear the unbleached shirts with blue cottonade collars ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... forth to more adventures and new glories in the transportation department, the line of his activities being between Paris and the coast, and Tom had seen him no more. He had given the compass to Tom as a "souvenir," and Tom, whose sober nature had found much entertainment in Archer's sprightliness, had cherished it as such. It was useful sometimes, too, though he had to be careful always to remember that it was the "wrong ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... on any subject was not startling. They did not talk enough together to come to the argument of any one point. In the accepted and popular phrase, she had her ideas and he had his. Once in a while he would meet a woman whose youth, sprightliness, and humour would make his wife seem rather deficient by contrast, but the temporary dissatisfaction which such an encounter might arouse would be counterbalanced by his social position and a certain matter of policy. He could not complicate ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... Josephine herself of the events of her life; and that part contributed by M'lle. Le Normand, completes a biography of the gifted, the fortunate and unfortunate queen of Napoleon. The Memoirs of Josephine sparkle with French sprightliness, and abound with French sentiment. Her style is eminently graceful, and the turn of thought such as we would expect from the most accomplished and fascinating woman of her times. The narrative is neither very copious nor very regular; but all that is told is of the deepest ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... the climate and the scenery, exert an appreciable and an acknowledged influence on the mental characteristics of a people. The sprightliness and vivacity of the Frank, the impetuosity of the Arab, the immobility of the Russ, the rugged sternness of the Scot, the repose and dreaminess of the Hindoo are largely due to the country in which they dwell, the air they breathe, the food they ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... a gentleman of fortune; she was tall and well-shaped, with a sprightliness in her countenance which often attracts beyond more regular features joined with an insipid air: nor is this kind of beauty less apt to deceive than allure; the good humour which it indicates being often mistaken for good nature, and the vivacity ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... not exhausted my ammunition! You wish to imitate the sparrow? But the sparrow does not, slyly and meanly mischievous, make a cult of sprightliness is not funny with authority, is not the pedant of flippancy! You percher among low bushes, who never care to fly, you wish to imitate—[Turning to one of the exotic COCKS cackling behind him.] Silence, Cock of Japan! or ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... I says, and I expect I sighed when I mentioned it, 'when a certain domesticated little Mary's lamb I could name was some instructed himself in the line of pernicious sprightliness. I never expected, Perry, to see you reduced down from a full-grown pestilence to such a frivolous fraction of a man. Why,' says I, 'you've got a necktie on; and you speak a senseless kind of indoor drivel that reminds me of a storekeeper or a lady. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... he thought her inferior in some respects to Julia, he acknowledged to himself that she was one of the most charming girls he had seen, and was as much struck with her modesty and simplicity as with her sprightliness and beauty. ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... There is to us a freshness about it which proves how deeply the writer must have been stirred by that wonderful character; it shows too that, with all her intensely religious and mystic temperament, Joan of Arc had a good part of sprightliness and bonhomie in her character, which endeared her to those whose good fortune it was ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... blisters, galls off the skin, with the acrimony of its sharp quickness." The baser its objects, the brighter its gleam. It is stimulated by the desire to give pain, rather than the wish to communicate pleasure. Marston is not without sprightliness, but his sprightliness is never the sprightliness of the kid, though it is sometimes that of the hyena, and sometimes that of the polecat. In his Malcontent he probably drew a nattering likeness of his inner self: yet the most compassionate reader of the play would experience little pity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... charming as were the 'Dotty Dimple' and the 'Little Prudy' books to our youthful imagination, but we have no doubt the little folks of to-day will find the story of 'Flaxie Frizzle' and her young friends just as fascinating. There is a sprightliness about all of Miss CLARKE'S books that attracts the young, and their purity, their absolute cleanliness, renders them invaluable in the eyes of parents and all who are interested in the welfare, ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... visitors from abroad, who delighted in pacing the shady walks, listening to the wit and wisdom of Sir Thomas, or conversing with the daughters, who had been highly educated, and had much of their father's humor and sprightliness. Even Henry VIII. himself, then one of the most brilliant and graceful gentlemen of his time, would sometimes arrive in his royal barge, and talk theology or astronomy with Sir Thomas; or, it might be, crack jests with him and his ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the delightful element of vicarious sympathy, or dramatic transference, which, brought into play successfully, with some degree of wit and sprightliness of expression, may raise letter-writing to the level ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... you as if they had continual sorrow of heart, as if some wrong of past ages had set its seal on their features. The Chinaman has very little sense of the ludicrous, and he is lacking in the elements of intellectual sprightliness and vivacity which lead a Frenchman or an American to appreciate and enjoy a sally of wit, a bon mot, or a joke. Life indeed is better, and a man can bear his burdens with more ease if he has a sense of humour. Some of the great characters in history have often come out of ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... rolled from her eyes, Sometimes she pierced the air with cries, For hours together she would fret Because their toys she could not get. Ah, then! how changed this pretty child, No longer amiable and mild. That fairy form and smiling face Lost all their sprightliness and grace. Her tender mother often sighed, And to reform her daughter tried. "Oh! Minnie, Minnie," she would say, "Quite yellow you will turn ...
— Slovenly Betsy • Heinrich Hoffman
... certain busy sprightliness in some young people which from I know not what views, parents are apt to encourage in hopes of its one day producing great effects. I will not say that they are always disappointed in their expectations, but I will venture ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... was master of such another clean-going frigate as herself. The whole company partook of this favourable change that evidently appeared in our lover's recollection, and enlivened his conversation with such an uncommon flow of sprightliness and good humour, as even made an impression on the iron countenance of Pipes himself, who actually smiled with satisfaction ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... place of life. His best work after all is to be found in the books that are almost wholly farcical, Le nez d'un notaire (1862); Le roi des montagnes (1856); L'homme a l'oreille cassee (1862); Trente et quarante (1858); Le cas de M. Guerin (1862). Here his most genuine wit, his sprightliness, his vivacity, the fancy that was in him, have free play. "You will never be more than a little Voltaire,'' said one of his masters when he was a lad at school. It was a true prophecy. (F. T. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... dim presentiment of her early death. I remember hearing Miss Sedgwick say that she should always think the better of Verplanck for having been the husband of Eliza Fenno. Several of her letters written to him before their marriage are preserved, which, amidst the sprightliness natural to her age, show a more than usual thoughtfulness. She rallies him on being adopted by the mob, and making harangues at ward meetings. She playfully chides him for wandering from the Apostolic Church to hear popular preachers and clerks that sing well; which ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... her eyes sparkled. There was no doubt that there was a sprightliness about Emily ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... a-head of the frigate, but had not gone far before the Alceste, still at anchor, was observed to be surrounded with boats. In about an hour she weighed and stood to sea. Captain Maxwell had received another visit from the old Chief, whose appearance was described as being quite altered; his sprightliness and curiosity all gone, and his easy unceremonious manner exchanged for cold and stately civility: he looked embarrassed and unhappy, as it appeared, from an apprehension of having offended Captain Maxwell. When this was discovered, no pains were spared ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... comes the hour at last, May shake our hillsides with her bugle-blast; Not ours the task; but since the lyric dress Relieves the statelier with its sprightliness, Hear an old song, which some, perchance, have seen In stale gazette or cobwebbed magazine. There was an hour when patriots dared profane The mast that Britain strove to bow in vain; And one, who listened ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the quiet exercise of mind, depend upon a perfect circulation: is it a wonder then, when this becomes impeded the body looses of its health, and the temper of its sprightliness? to be otherwise would be the miracle; and he inhumanly insults the afflicted, who calls all this a voluntary frowardness. Its slightest state brings with it sickness, anguish and oppression; and innumerable ills follow its advancing steps, unless prevented by timely ...
— Hypochondriasis - A Practical Treatise (1766) • John Hill
... depreciation of the female sex go other characteristics which point to Hellenic influences: lack of commercial morality, of veracity, of seriousness in religious matters; a persistent, light-hearted inquisitiveness; a levity (or sprightliness, if you prefer it) of mind. The people are fetichistic, amulet-loving, rather than devout. We may certainly suspect Greek or Saracen strains wherever women are held in low estimation; wherever, as the god Apollo himself said, "the mother is but the nurse." In the uplands of Calabria the mother ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... The frame does not even pretend to close on Athos' jaw, and the wise dog wears it like a decoration. A little farther we meet that ancient grey cat, who has no discoverable name, but is famous for the sprightliness and grace with which she bears her eighteen years. Not far from the cat one is sure to find Carlo—the bird-like, bright-faced, close-cropped Venetian urchin, whose duty it is to trot backwards and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... visited the Sabbath school. The superintendent was an interesting young colored man. We attended the recitation of a Testament class of children of both sexes from eight to twelve. They read, and answered numerous questions with great sprightliness. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... physical movement, he would have been supposed, at first sight, a man who would take life easy, and concern himself as little as possible about public affairs. But, after all, there is a quality in the head of a great department which is quite distinct from sprightliness, and that is wisdom. This he possessed in the highest degree. The impress which he made on our fiscal system was not the product of what looked like energetic personal action, but of a careful study of the prevailing conditions ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... and smooth as cherries. And yet in spite of such fineness of finish there was no magic about her, no allure, no subtlety. Achieving graceful greetings he inwardly deplored it, noting as he spoke how shy she was and how she sought to hide it under a crude sprightliness. There was a shyness full of charm, a graceful gaucherie delightful to watch as the gambolings of young animals. But Chrystie was too conscious of herself and of him to be ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... life, freed from the weight of state affairs, and necessary regal accompaniments, can form a correct judgment of the unaffected goodness of his heart; the easy affability, and pliant condescension, with which he can divest 298every one around him of any feeling of restraint—the uncommon sprightliness and vivacity he displays in conversation—the life and soul of all that is elegant and classical, and the willing participator and promoter of a good joke. Suffice it to say, the reception was flattering in ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... was a rational speech—it was, therefore, a dull one. Lord Randolph is not what he was. The voice which was formerly so resonant has become muffled and sometimes almost indistinct, and the manner has lost all the sprightliness which used to relieve it in the olden days. The House of Commons is like the Revolution—it often swallows its ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... should have been placed in the Place de la Republique, but was relegated by official stupidity to the Place des Nations, are examples of this patrician charm in carriage, in form, in feature, in expression. They have not the witchery, the touch of Bohemian sprightliness that make such figures as Carpeaux's "Flora" so enchanting, but they are at once sweeter and more distinguished. The sense for the exquisite which this betrays excludes all dross from M. Dalou's rich magnificence. Even the "Silenus" group illustrates ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... style is partly due to the declining taste of the period, partly to an idea of his own that he could write in the manner of Sallust. It alternates between a sort of laboured sprightliness and a careless, conversational manner full of endless parentheses. Yet Velleius has two real merits: the eye of a trained soldier for character, and an unaffected, if not a very intelligent, ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... First Lieutenant!" said he. "Look at these fowls!" They were sorry looking birds, it is true, but Chinese chickens are not renowned for their beauty and sprightliness of appearance at ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... not even Handel can excel"; and it is thus, with his reader's mind attuned to the appropriate key, that Fielding ushers in his heroine: "... lo! adorned with all the Charms in which Nature can array her; bedecked with Beauty, Youth, Sprightliness, Innocence, Modesty, and Tenderness, breathing Sweetness from her rosy Lips, and darting Brightness from her sparkling Eyes, the lovely Sophia comes." Of middle size, but rather inclining to tall, with dark hair "curled so gracefully ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... by processions, pictures, and newspapers, the cannon's flesh, hundreds of thousands of men, uniformly dressed, carrying divers deadly weapons, leaving their parents, wives, children, with hearts of agony, but with artificial sprightliness, go where they, risking their own lives, will commit the most dreadful act of killing men whom they do not know and who have done them no harm. And they are followed by doctors and nurses, who somehow imagine that at home they cannot serve simple, peaceful, ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... truth was that Harry began to rise rapidly in her good opinion. His sprightliness was gentlemanly and agreeable, and he contrived, besides, to assume the look and air of a man who only indulged in it in compliment to her uncle, and, of course, indirectly to herself, with whom, it was but natural, he should hope to make him an ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... too, were in every mouth; and the Parisians, who at every epoch have been so addicted to wit, were so much the more enraptured with the impromptu good things which fell from Joseph's lips, that the Bourbons were entirely deficient in sprightliness. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... my dear, what the matter is. It is without fragrance, and without sprightliness, and generally about half as hot as ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... money, he cannot want leisure," he said. "We know, on the contrary, that he has so much of both that he is glad to get rid of them at the idlest haunts in the kingdom." Notwithstanding, when he did arrive, Frank Churchill carried all before him by reason of his good looks, sprightliness, and amiability. Emma and he soon became great friends. He favoured an idea of hers, that Jane's refusal to go to the Dixons' in Ireland was due either to Mr. Dixon's attachment to her, or to her attachment to Mr. Dixon. When a Broadwood ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... most celebrated beauties of that age. Mrs. Manley was paying a visit to a lady of her grace's acquaintance, when she was introduced into the favour of this royal courtezan; and as the duchess of Cleveland was a woman of parts and genius, she could not but be charmed with the sprightliness of her conversation. She was fond of new faces, and immediately contracted the greatest intimacy with our poetess, and gave her a general invitation to her table. The lady at whose house the duchess became acquainted with Mrs. Manley, soon perceived her indiscretion in bringing them together; ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... as usual. They displayed all that sprightliness and good-humour which my praises had led Mountford to expect; subjects, too, of sentiment occurred, and their speeches, particularly those of our friend the son of Count Respino, glowed with the warmth of honour, and softened into the tenderness of feeling. Mountford was charmed with his companions. ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... also an Elizabethan judge who aimed at sprightliness on the Bench, a clever mot is attributed. The case before him was one concerning the limits of certain land. The counsel having remarked with emphasis, 'We lie on this side, my lord,' and the opposing counsel with equal ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... came in to dress her, and whilst this took place, the mother beheld with delight the improvement which had taken place in her darling's person, which was taller, and considerably better formed, as she had cured herself of stooping, and all her motions indicated sprightliness and agility. ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... house in St. James's Market. Mrs. Barry had possibly had some training under Davenant, who secured her an engagement, and she was at first a failure. She was destined for tragedy and tragic actresses are not made in five minutes, but comedy demanded little more than inborn sprightliness and high spirits. Lavinia had both, and ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... resided the illustrious surgeon Desplein, in his youth. There he fraternized with: Horace Bianchon, then house-physician at Hotel-Dieu; Leon Giraud, the profound philosopher; Joseph Bridau, the painter who later achieved so much renown; Fulgence Ridal, comic poet of great sprightliness; Meyraux, the eminent physiologist who died young; lastly, Louis Lambert and Michel Chrestien, the Federalist Republican, both of whom were cut off in their prime. To these men of heart and of talent Lucien de Rubempre, the poet, sought to attach himself. He was introduced ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... worse—she said it awkwardly, with a sprightliness, gracious yet affected, that did not become her at all. She meant, of course, to annoy her husband, and his face showed that she had succeeded. He turned away to the fire with a sulky frown, while she stood smiling, holding out a ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... here, and for a time Lewis tried to rally Nita about what he styled her sympathy with the chamois-hunter, but Nita did not retort with her wonted sprightliness; the flow of her spirits was obviously checked, and did not return during their walk ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... I have said, we may conclude, men and women were made as counterparts to one another, that the pains and anxieties of the husband might be relieved by the sprightliness and good-humour of the wife. When these are rightly tempered, care and chearfulness go hand in hand; and the family, like a ship that is duly trimmed, wants neither sail ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... spite of Myrtilla's efforts to make friends, the conversation sustained a distinct loss in sprightliness by ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... as well as woman. They are most becoming to you, my dear girls,—even brighter and richer and dearer than any jewels with which you may adorn yourselves. They consist mostly of pleasant, well-chosen words, sympathetic, hearty tones, sprightliness, and certain winsome modulations ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... treated as sheer encumbrances and hindrances to the rise of a new literature. That which led to a remarkable revulsion of my feelings with regard to those German composers who hitherto had been admired and respected, was partly the influence of these critical skirmishes, and the luring sprightliness of their tone; but mainly the impression made by a fresh visit of Schroder- Devrient to Leipzig, when her rendering of Borneo in Bellini's Romeo and Juliet carried every one by storm. The effect of it was not to be compared with anything that had been witnessed theretofore. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the natural sequence of events. Matt, the cook, roused all the camp at six o'clock with a tremendous banging on a piece of boiler plate hung by a wire. Long before that Stella heard her brother astir. She wondered sleepily at his sprightliness, for as she remembered him at home he had been a confirmed lie-abed. She herself responded none too quickly to the breakfast gong, as a result of which slowness the crew had filed away to the day's work, her brother striding in the lead, ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... pieces bearing the general character which we have described, the French are certainly better fitted than any other people,—their native gaiety and sprightliness of disposition,—the polish which their manners so readily acquire,—their irrepressible confidence and self-conceit,—their love of shewing off, and attracting attention, give really a stage effect to many of their ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... years they had been very merry. Our children having taken a great fancy to acting charades, we all took part in them by turns. Their Aunt Caroline and their father were the stars of the company, and to this day they recollect her irresistible sprightliness as a coquettish French kitchen-maid attempting the conquest of their father, in the character of the typical Englishman of French caricatures. She smiled, curtsied, and whirled about him, handling her brass pans so daintily, tossing them so dexterously, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... disposition, did, unexpectedly and contrary to usage, cry "Baa" loudly, causing my mother-in-law to fear that I was a dull—until that night in the Zenana she had the great happiness to overhear me outwitting all the females present by the sprightliness of my badinage. ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... everything, but sufficient for nothing," says Amiel, who probably felt he needed some excuse for burying so much of his Gallic sprightliness in Teutonic gloom; and dulness, it must be admitted, has the distinct advantage of being useful for everybody and sufficient for nearly everybody as well. Nothing, we are told, is more rational than ennui; and Mr. Bagehot, contemplating the "grave files of speechless men" who have ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... phrases, uttered with a deplorable accent,—not being able to carry the flavor in his mouth,—and, though free and sprightly enough in talking English, having no idea of what passes for freedom and sprightliness with the French. He knew nothing of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, or Dutch, nor indeed of any ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... about both in body and mind. Seeing which, Richard had begged his mother to take the dog with her on leaving town. Camp benefited, unquestionably, by his return to country air. His coat stared less. He carried his ears and tail with more sprightliness and conviction. Still he fretted after his absent master, and followed Katherine's footsteps very closely, his forehead more than ever wrinkled, and his unsightly mouth pensive notwithstanding its perpetual grin. He attended her now, squatting beside her when she ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... ice-bound trees in all their primitive ruggedness. The snow and sleet were vigorously driven by the wind that howled continuously. The light from the forked-tree cast through the window rays that resembled moonlight, as they mingled with the radiance within, while outside it twinkled with the sprightliness of old-fashioned humour. ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... seemed, to her also. I was put at my ease at once, and from that moment onward felt the wonderful fascination of a manner so peculiarly her own; it was a frank, whole-souled, sincere manner, with a certain indescribable piquancy and sprightliness blending with the earnestness which made her very ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... growing by the hour, or at least so it seemed, and increasing in sprightliness each day. He even insisted on following her to the entrance of the cavity when she departed and met her there when she returned. The fear that he might some day disobey her injunction and sally forth alone in her absence did not once occur to her. ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... came to our house would tell strange tales of this black land, and some of the stories I am inclined to think were true. One man said he saw a young bull-dog fly at a boy and pin him by the throat. The lad jumped about with much sprightliness, and tried to knock the dog away. Whereupon the boy's father rushed out of the house, hard by, and caught his son and heir roughly by the shoulder. "Keep still, thee young —-, can't 'ee!" shouted the man angrily; "let 'un ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... mother. She was looking at her two kinsmen with such sweet sprightliness that he had trouble to make her see his uplifted cigar. She met his parting smile with a gleam of terror and distrust, but he shook his head and reddened as ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... Dunciad, his anger got the better of his wit when in Book IV. he dethroned Theobald to exalt Colley Cibber. For Cibber, with a thousand faults, so far from being dull had a buoyancy of heart and a sprightliness of intellect wholly out of harmony with the character ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... etiquette and ceremony. It was thus that the father and mother of Lady Jane, anticipating that she might one day become a queen, watched and guarded her incessantly, subjected her to a thousand unwelcome restraints, and repressed all the spontaneous and natural gayety and sprightliness which belongs properly ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and coquetting; "HAS some wit and manner, but wearies you at last: her charms, now on the decline, were never so considerable as rumor said; in the long-run she bores you with her French gayeties and sprightliness: her character for gallantry is too notorious. She quite corrupted Marwitz, in this and a subsequent visit; turned the poor girl's head into a French whirligig, and undermined any little moral principle she had. She was on the road ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... intelligence, charmed with her sprightliness and wit, the man was for a time lost in the lover, and enough of fondness and affection were manifested to satisfy the confiding Mary, who had invested her earthly idol with every attribute of perfection. ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... frightful weather, so we have theatricals. How stupid they are, my dear, these drawing entertainments in the repertory of real life! All is forced, coarse, heavy. The jokes are like cannon balls, smashing everything in their passage. No wit, nothing natural, no sprightliness, no elegance. These literary men, in truth, know nothing of society. They are perfectly ignorant of how people think and talk in our set. I do not mind if they despise our customs, our conventionalities, but I do not forgive them for not knowing them. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the girl, to him she was the seventh wonder of the earth. Wantonly alive, dexterously alert to all that came her way, sportive, indifferent, joyous, she had all the boy's sprightliness, but none of his weaknesses. She was a born tease; she loved bright and beautiful things; she was a keen judge of human nature, and she had buoyant spirits, which, however, were counterbalanced ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... their glory; lounged frequent hours in the museums; and was the first to run after every new attraction placarded at the corners. He was greatly taken with the agility of an Armenian girl, upon the wire and slack-rope, who was in truth a second Fenella in the sprightliness of her nimble exhibitions. Day Francis, the conjuror, was his admiration. He was delighted with Rannie, the old ventriloquist, and the first in America; and Potter, the late sable and celebrated professor of legerdemain, in slight-of-hand, ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... days ago," said D'Artagnan, and he portrayed with Gascon wit and sprightliness the magnificence of Porthos in his Chateau of Pierrefonds; nor did he neglect to launch a few arrows of wit at the excellent ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to describe some of his humorous adventures, and continued in this vein till they arrived once more at the chateau. Sometimes the countess laughed, but he could see that her sprightliness was gone. When they came under the porte cochere he sprang from his horse and assisted her to dismount; and he did not relinquish her hand till he had given it a friendly pressure. She stood motionless on the steps, centered a look on him which he failed to interpret, then ran swiftly ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... most agreeable memories connected with Button's," says Leigh Hunt, "is that of Garth, a man whom, for the sprightliness and generosity of his nature, it is a pleasure to name. He was one of the most amiable and intelligent of a most amiable and ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... in which Fox and Lord North, in female attire, and the Duchess in her large picture hat, but decollettee, and with bare arms, are busy singing a dirge on the defeated opponent. Georgina, a figure of delicious sprightliness and beauty, points to the tombstone marked "Here lies poor Cecil Ray," while the spectacled profile of Burke peeps into the door. And here I may remark again how astonishingly to my own experience a study of these prints makes history real, vivid, and living. These dry bones of bygone politics ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... machinery for the introduction of an enormous number, a truly Dickensian profusion, of subsidiary characters. Jinny indeed is above criticism, but the trouble with many, indeed with most, of the others, seemed to me to be their exaggerated sprightliness of speech, just a little too clever to be credible and not quite amusing enough to be palatable in large doses. To me the real pleasure of the book comes from the author's craftsmanlike use of words and the humour and imagination of his descriptions and asides. But if I may be humbly candid beyond ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... is curiously alike in one feature. There is an almost sprightliness in their conviction that what they can write in these circumstances would exactly suit any paper, daily or weekly, morning or evening. All they have to do is to give up their odd savings of time to the work; all you—their ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... Sandford: "She has a great share of sprightliness—and I think I never saw her in better spirits than she was ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... character, and each finding in the other rich materials for observation, their love of ridicule could not withstand such a temptation, and they freely criticised each other to common friends, who, as is usually the case, agreed with both. Still, however, there was a whim and sprightliness even about their mischief, which made it seem rather an exercise of ingenuity than an indulgence of ill nature; and if they had not carried on this intellectual warfare, neither would have liked the other ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... once, and without useless opposition, to what appeared almost to be my fate. The appointed time was come, and my now accepted suitor arrived; he was in high spirits, and, if possible, more entertaining than ever. I was not, however, quite in the mood to enjoy his sprightliness; but whatever I wanted in gaiety was amply made up in the triumphant and gracious good humour of my mother, whose smiles of benevolence and exultation were showered around as bountifully as the summer sunshine. I ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... come out of it at the end of my pen, was for her a deep basin in which she would have blackened her gold- clocked pink stockings up to the garter, I can assure you that she was great, and imposing even in her sprightliness. ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... indefinite number of people who have to be hand-in-hand, irrespective of sex, forming in this way a straight line or a circle or a serpent-like series of curves. They go through certain simple evolutions, into which more or less energy and sprightliness are introduced. The stationmaster looked on approvingly and then decided to join us, and after a little time he was followed by the porter. Our violinist was in excellent form, so that we continued dancing until some of us were as crimson ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... grow weaker, and fade, just as flowers do. Their sad life would have begun again if the spring had not come, and with it brought deliverance. The two friends, full of new sprightliness, get up a fishing party one day. A foolish accident makes them both fall into the river, ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... the true distance, and then throw themselves back against the nearest prop. The women exhibit a great similarity of tall, relaxed forms, with consistent dress and demeanour; and are not remarkable for sprightliness of manners. Intellectual culture has not yet made much progress among the generality of either sex; but the men, from their habit of travelling, and their consequent intercourse with strangers, have greatly the advantage, in the means ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... the long grass; or the relief we felt at being able to gaze ahead once more and see something of the country that we were traversing. 'Twas like a sudden release from prison. Our jaded horses felt with us the exhilaration of the change, and moved with greater sprightliness than they had shown for days. As the sun began its circle downward, vast rolling hills of white and yellow sand arose upon the right of our line of march,—huge mounds, many of them, glistening in the sunshine, ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... without occupation. He gave a course of lectures at the University on his explorations, where every seat was taken, and even the stage and windows were filled. The sprightliness, grace and intellect Linnaeus brought to bear ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... well as his air and voice, had much of roughness in it: yet he could at any time deposit this, and appear all gentleness and good-humour. He was not ungenteel, nor entirely devoid of wit, and in his youth had abounded in sprightliness, which, though he had lately put on a more serious character, he could, when he ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... explain—a device not uncommon to all of us. I was fearful of not getting within this outward armouring, but gradually as we talked and Harriet poured him a third cup of hot coffee he dropped into a more familiar tone. He told with some sprightliness of having seen threshings in Mexico, how the grain was beaten out with flails in the patios, and afterwards thrown up in the wind to ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... hair black, straight, and occasionally pugged up behind; complexion swarthy, though, in their case, tolerably clear; feet very small; and hands sizable. Add to this description an ever-genial, pleased expression of countenance, with considerable sprightliness of manner dashed with something like naivete; then picture them in trousers and jackets, with their hoods, and those irresistibly comical "tails,"—and you have Wutchee and Wunchee, the belles of ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... one of Mrs. Ansell's arts to bring to the breakfast-table just the right shade of sprightliness, a warmth subdued by discretion as the early sunlight is tempered by the lingering coolness of night. She was, in short, as fresh, as temperate, as the hour, yet without the concomitant chill which too often marks its human atmosphere: ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... family life in places of public resort, in constant contact and intercommunion with other families; and the social and conversational instinct has thus been daily strengthened. Hence the reunions of these people have been characterized by a sprightliness and vigor and spirit that the Anglo-Saxon has in vain attempted to seize and reproduce. English and American conversazioni have very generally proved a failure, from the rooted, frozen habit of reticence and reserve ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... the Arterial Blood; a more than ordinary Warmth strengthens and dilates the Hear; the Extremities are cool; he feels Light to himself, and imagines he could tread on Air; his Head is held up; his Eyes are roll'd about with Sprightliness; he rejoices at his Being, is prone to Anger, and would be glad that all the World could take Notice ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... elegance, and his knowledge of English letters put Paul to shame. With all his learning and his philosophic agnosticism, he was as simple-hearted as a child. Annette took the greatest fancy to him and welcomed his visits, and played round him with a sprightliness her husband had never before observed in her. 'She is changing,' he thought, 'and changing for the better.' The new conditions seemed as if they brought new life and developed a novel character. But he noticed that her outbursts ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... bevy here of the famous beauties of Charles II.'s court,—full of the affected airs and languishing graces which Sir Peter Lely knew well how to paint, and rarely showing any thing in their portraits of the sprightliness which some of them at least possessed in life. The only one of Sir Peter's full-length beauties, who calls up any associations but such as belong to Grammont's Memoirs, is Margaret Lucas, the Duchess of Newcastle. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... two Haymans—Giles and Jesse perfectly silent, and very well dressed, with special creases down their evening trousers. Then old Jolyon alone. Next, Nicholas, with a healthy colour in his face, and a carefully veiled sprightliness in every movement of his head and body. One of his sons followed him, meek and subdued. Swithin Forsyte, and Bosinney arrived at the same moment,—and stood—bowing precedence to each other,—but on the door opening they tried to enter together; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... is, that the verses in question form part of a collection of nursery songs and rhymes by Charles Lamb, published many years ago, but now quite out of print. This, however, is a mere surmise on my part, and has no better foundation than the vein of humour, sprightliness, and originality, obvious enough in the above extract, which we find running through and adorning all he wrote. "Nihil quod ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... Street toward Julia's Party, there was something in his mien and look more dramatic than mere sprightliness; and when he came within sight of the ineffable house and saw its many lights shining before him, he breathed with profundity, ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... Miss Regan danced with amazing sprightliness, performing wonderful steps. Her ostrich plumes seemed to whirl round and round him, he had a painful feeling that every one was grinning, and a mad desire to rush out of the house and ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... real and what was fanciful, so as to leave the impression that these things were only true from an ideal point of view. She clung to these fables as a Breton; as a Gascon she was inclined to laugh at them, and this was the secret of the sprightliness and gaiety of her life. This state of things has been the means of giving me what little talent I may have for historical studies. I have derived from it a kind of habit of looking below the surface and hearing sounds which other ears do not catch. The ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... "poor ignorant sinner" that I am! that the ascent up the steps of a coach was attended with any more perils, than that of the stairs that lead to her bed-room; or that a girl, perhaps twenty years my junior, glowing in the full bloom of youth, health, and sprightliness, and with a step as light and elastic as Virgil's Camilla, required the assistance of such an old weather-beaten beau as myself. How often have I been pouted at by the ripest, rosiest, lips in the world, for omitting to wait upon their owner home, on a dark, stormy, evening, and half a mile ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... writes, "some book which requires attention and study. You will, I fear, lose the habit of study, which would be a greater misfortune than to lose your head." He praised, too, the ease, good-sense, and sprightliness of her letters, and said truly that her style, at its best, was not inferior to that of ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... unconditioned, the oyster absolute, without a qualifying adjective, is the pickled oyster. Mrs. Trecothick, who knew very well that an oyster long out of his shell (as is apt to be the case with the rural bivalve) gets homesick and loses his sprightliness, replied, with the pleasantest smile in the world, that the chicken she had been helped to was too delicate to be given up even for the greater rarity. But the word "shell-oysters" had been overheard; and there was a perceptible crowding movement towards ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... society of the loveliest children in the world can bestow. May your days be clear sunshine; and may a gentle rain give balm to your nights, that the flowers and birch-trees may salute you in the morning with all their fragrance! May the kids frisk and play tricks before you with unusual sprightliness; and may the song of birds, the hum of bees, and the distant waterfall, with now and then the shepherd's horn resounding from the mountains, entertain you with a full chorus of Highland music! My imagination ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... a sort of Egeria to certain men of genius, who came to read to her their writings, to consult her in their arguments, and to discuss with her the literature and politics of the day,—through all which her mind moved with an equal step, yet with a sprightliness and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... those daily diseases of hunger and thirst were to be carried off by such bitter drugs as we must use for those diseases that return seldomer upon us? And thus these pleasant as well as proper gifts of Nature maintain the strength and the sprightliness ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... calmly and with a sprightliness that seemed strange for men used to the grim work of war. There was something in their carriage that told their officers that they would give a good account of themselves ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... found her thoughtful and silent. She did not reply to me with her usual sprightliness during the few moments that I was able to talk with her; the expression of her eyes had changed; there was something deeper and less glowing in their depths; instead of dazzling me by their excessive splendor, as had often happened to me before, they seemed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... "Honourable first-class passengers will graciously condescend to keep their seats. Second-class passengers will be good enough to favour us by walking. Third-class passengers will kindly come out and push." And push they did, no doubt, kimonos rolled up thighwards, with good humour, sprightliness and cheerful grunts, as is the way ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... principal fault of this bee (if I must keep up the simile) is that he was not sufficiently choice in the flowers which he visited; and, of course, did not always extract the purest honey. Nearly allied to Clement in sprightliness, and an equally gossipping bibliographer, was PROSPER MARCHAND;[142] whose works present us with some things no where else to be found, and who had examined many curious and rare volumes; as well as made himself thoroughly acquainted with ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... softening. It is there an established rule to deck out the chief characters with every vice in fashion however gross; but as such characters, if viewed in a true light, would be disgustful, care is taken to disguise their deformity under the embellishments of wit, sprightliness and good humour, which, in mixed company makes a capital figure. It requires not much thought to discover the poisonous influence of such plays. A young man of figure, emancipated at last from the severity and restraint of a college education, repairs to the capital disposed ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... heard of Fanny Forester,—'charming Fanny Forester,' as she is deservedly called? Her sketches have been more generally read and admired than those of almost any other periodical writer of our day. There is a freshness, grace, sprightliness, purity, and actualness about them, which charms and invigorates; and we are glad to find them collected and published in a form both elegant and convenient. Miss Chubbuck, it will be remembered, was married a few months ago to the Rev. Dr. Judson, ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... jar. He called it "Mice Will Play." He had kept it quiet and hidden away ever since he wrote it, waiting to find a partner who fitted his conception of "Helen Grimes." And here was "Helen" herself, with all the innocent abandon, the youth, the sprightliness, and the flawless stage art that his critical ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... a masculine taste or not. He went into the mysteries of feminine attire with almost as much assiduity as a mother displays when buying a daughter's trousseau, and insisted upon Maurice sharing his interest and caution. All sense of humor, all boyish sprightliness vanished from him in this important epoch of his life. The suspicion, the intensity of the bargaining contadino came to the surface. His usually bright face was quite altered. He looked elderly, subtle, and almost Jewish as he slowly passed ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... fancy and the beauty of his diction. His Ode on the Passions is universally esteemed for its sudden and effective changes from the bewilderment of Fear, the violence of Anger, and the wildness of Despair to the rapt visions of Hope, the gentle dejection of Pity, and the sprightliness of Mirth and Cheerfulness. His Ode on the Death of Thomson is an exquisite bit of pathos, as is also the Dirge on Cymbeline. Everybody knows and admires the ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... Hilda, I have taken a fancy to try my hand at it," said Zillah, laughingly, full of delight at the ease with which she had gained her desire. "You see," she went on, with unusual sprightliness of manner, "I got hold of a 'Complete Letter-Writer' this morning; and the beauty, elegance, and even eloquence of those amazing compositions have so excited me that I want to emulate them. Now it happens ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... an incident as anything that I have yet told you. The instant before the helmet was put on, there stood Perseus, a beautiful young man, with golden ringlets and rosy cheeks, the crooked sword by his side and the brightly polished shield upon his arm—a figure that seemed all made up of courage, sprightliness and glorious light. But when the helmet had descended over his white brow, there was no longer any Perseus to be seen! Nothing but empty air! Even the helmet that covered him with its invisibility ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... He is particularly unhappy in coining names expressive of characters. His lines are commonly smooth and easy, and his thoughts always religiously pure; but who is there that, to so much piety and innocence, does not wish for a greater measure of sprightliness and vigour? He is at least one of the few poets with whom youth and ignorance may be safely pleased; and happy will be that reader whose mind is disposed by his verses, or his prose, to imitate him in all ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... and kissed his hand several times. 'This is an old room,' he remarked, with a sudden sprightliness of manner, looking round when he got near the door, 'I have been so interested that I have not observed it. But ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... simplicity, in paying his awkward compliment to the young lady, who had, according to his mode of estimating, the least pretensions to notice of any one present. Flora Campbell was neither rich nor beautiful, but she had a happy mixture in her manners of Scottish sprightliness and English reserve. She had an eager desire to improve herself, whilst a nice sense of propriety taught her never to intrude upon general notice, or to recede from conversation with airs of counterfeit humility. Forester admired ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... composer and head of a large publishing house in Vienna, for six variations on a waltz by him (Diabelli). The dance was always a favorite musical form with Beethoven in his lighter moments, and the variation form,—capable of a degree of sprightliness, vivacity and originality in the right hands which give it an entrancing effect, to which we come again and again with pleasure, was something peculiarly his own at every stage of his artistic career. His ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... rather over-reached himself in presenting this picture of marital joys to my horizon, Captain Pharo resumed the subject with sprightliness. ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... think of all the grace, loveliness, and generosity of the many Southern women I have known and loved; when I recall the admirable qualities which distinguished them, the grace of manner, the social tact and address, the intellectual sprightliness, the openness and hospitality of soul, the kindliness and sympathy of heart, the Christian gentleness and charity; I can but say to my Northern sisters, These deluded women of the South would, in themselves, be worthy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... kind is, perhaps, the most gaudy of all the bird-kind; the length and beauty of whose tail, and the various forms in which the creature carries it, are sufficiently known and admired among us. India is, however, his native country; and there he enjoys himself with a sprightliness and gaiety unknown to him in Europe. The translators of Hindoo poetry concur in their description of his manners; and is frequently alluded to by the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various |
