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Playfully   /plˈeɪfəli/   Listen
Playfully

adverb
1.
In a playful manner.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Playfully" Quotes from Famous Books



... Count Gamba, sometimes, indeed, playfully, but more often with the bitterest satire, for having purchased for the use of his family, while in Greece, 500 dollars' worth of cloth. This he used to mention as an instance of the Count's imprudence and extravagance. Lord Byron ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... I don't, Pet," continued Mr. Minford, patting her playfully on the cheeks; "but you were the dearest and sweetest of my guardian angels. You know you were, you rogue. Why, sir, you will hardly believe it, but this little creature, when she knew our money was nearly gone, taught ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... worthy vicar expresses, in the words of Mr. Wordsworth's own epitome, "his apprehensions that he had detained his auditors too long—invites them to his house—Solitary, disinclined to comply, rallies the Wanderer, and somewhat playfully draws a comparison between his itinerant profession and that of a knight-errant—which leads to the Wanderer giving an account of changes in the country, from the manufacturing spirit—Its favourable effects— The other side of the picture," ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... common-sense, and who was honest and bold, they have always charmed their readers. The Odes of Horace are unrivalled for their grace and felicitous language, but express no great depth of feeling. His Satires do not originate from moral indignation, but the writer playfully shoots folly as it flies, and exhibits a wonderful keenness of observation of the ways of men in the world. His Epistles are his most perfect work, and are, indeed, among the most original and polished forms of Roman verse. His Art of Poetry is not a complete theory of poetic art, ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... help, mamma," added Christy playfully, as he rose from the sofa. "I have not been butchered, and I haven't anything but a little bullet-hole through the fleshy part of my left arm. Don't make a baby of me; for a commander in the Confederate navy told me that God made some fully-developed ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... (1893); and Histoire Contemporaine (1897-1900), the latter consisting of four separate works: 'L'Orme du Mail, Le Mannequin d'Osier, L'Anneau d'Amethyste, and Monsieur Bergeret a Paris'. All of his writings show his delicately critical analysis of passion, at first playfully tender in its irony, but later, under the influence of his critical antagonism to Brunetiere, growing keener, stronger, and more bitter. In 'Thais' he has undertaken to show the bond of sympathy that unites the pessimistic sceptic to the Christian ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... cold water swashed about its legs, and turned playfully to bite its groom. Gilmour, still stooping, dug his elbow up beneath its ribs. The animal wheeled in anger, but Gilmour ran to its head with most manful blasphemy, and led it to the stable door. The off hind ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... fights between the males of herds of mule deer, white-tailed deer and elk are of frequent occurrence, but in a wild state they rarely end in bloodshed or death, save from locked antlers. Many times, however, two bucks will come together, and playfully push each other about without being angry. Many pairs of bucks have been found with their antlers fast locked in death—and I never see a death lock without a feeling of grim satisfaction that neither of the quarrelsome brutes had had an opportunity to attack some defenseless ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... right," went on Andy, playfully poking his brother in the ribs, "and it stove in my boat. If I could catch the beggar I'd sell his hide or oil or whatever is valuable about him, and ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum

... a faint noise as of a snapping branch, then some light thuds along the ground, and to the left of us out of the dark forest, a dainty creature flitted along the trail and playfully splashed into the water. Six others of her sisters followed her, with two little ones, and they were all splashing about in the water like so many sportive mermaids when their lordly master appeared—a fine bull ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson

... cantle of the saddle he poured water into his big hat, watching sympathetically while the big horse drank. Some few drops that still remained in the hat after the horse had finished he playfully shook on the animal's head, smiling widely at the whinny of delight that greeted the action. He merely wet his own lips from the water-bag. Then for an instant, after replacing the bag, he stood at the black's shoulder, ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer

... pale, and, as it were, anxious; dark billows of clouds threatened to swallow up its silver coracle, and presently the world grew suddenly black with its submergence, the woods and meadows disappeared, and Henry and Angel began playfully to strike matches to see each other's faces. Thus they suddenly flared up to each other out of the darkness, like Rembrandts seen by lightning, and then they were lost again, and were only voices fumbling for each other ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... way and he found it,' Mrs. Selwyn suggested, whereupon Soame Rivers tapped her playfully upon the wrist, carrying on the quotation with the words of Prince Hal, 'Peace, chewit, peace.' Mr. Soame Rivers was a very free-and-easy young gentleman, occasionally, and as he was a son of Lord Riverstown, much might be ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... the wily canon annoyed Pepe Rey more and more every moment, but, determined to control himself and to conceal his anger, he answered only with vague words. Dona Perfecta then took up the theme and said playfully: ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... on special terms. Absolutely the only concert or public meeting held in Bloemfontein while the Guards were in the neighbourhood was in connection with the Army Temperance Association, Lord Roberts himself presiding; and concerning him the soldiers playfully said, "He has water on the brain." Through all this weary time of waiting our troops were as temperate as Turks, and much more chaste; so that the soldiers' own pet laureate is reported to have declared, ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... more rapidly than usual. She advanced to the couch, and tapped Mercy playfully on the cheek with two of ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... the house he saw the light in his father's window, and pictured to himself the cold, pale face bending over the musty books. "Poor old dad!" he murmured. Some sons would have tapped playfully at the window, but Cardo did not, he turned round the corner of the house, passing by the front door, which was closed, and did not look inviting, to the other side, where the clatter of wooden shoes and a stream of light from the open doorway made some show of cheerfulness. ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... wonderful game of yours. Now I'm glad to be waited on, hand and foot! Never mind, I'll be on my own two feet yet, one of these days; then I'll see who steps around," he finished, picking up one of the crutches at his side and shaking it playfully at the little girl. They were sitting in the ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter

... water jugs, or washing clothes; a string of camels were drinking; several donkeys were rolling playfully over and over in the water, and some dyers were wringing out newly-dyed garments, causing waves of many colors ...
— The Cat and the Mouse - A Book of Persian Fairy Tales • Hartwell James

... up his abode in Wilhelmine's house at Schaffhausen, made matters worse by what he conceived to be witty and subtle pleasantries. He was never done with his allusions to 'mon cher futur beau frere a Vienne,' and he playfully called ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... and playfully, yet with a certain nervous tension of voice and manner that seemed to illustrate her theory. At least, Clarence, in quick sympathy with her slightest emotion, was touched by it. There is no more insidious attraction in the persons we admire, than ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... fish an instant, with such a frail line? Ah, mamma! don't tease me by such tactics! I am but an insignificant mouse, and you and Mr. Congreve are such a grim pair of cats, that I should never venture the faintest squeak. Don't roll me under your velvet paws, and pat me playfully, trying to arouse false hopes of escape, when all the while you are resolved to devour me presently. Don't! I am a wiry mouse, proud and sensitive, and some mice, it is said, will not permit insult added ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... the empty air and arose. Punching Lefty playfully in the ribs he passed his hands behind that person's back. Not finding the lost head-gear he laughed and, tripping Lefty up, fell with him and, reaching up on the table for his glass, poured the contents down Lefty's back ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... volunteered to make a dress and caps, adding, playfully, "As my dear grandma is gone, you must let me adopt you and do all I can for you. There are four of us girls always looking round for somebody to help. You can call on ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various

... drawing her hands away, and speaking half playfully, "you really frighten me! And even if you were never to see me again, wouldn't it be a very good thing for you? You would have got rid of ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... splendid days, 175 This little flower, that loves the lea, May well my simple emblem be; It drinks heaven's dew as blithe as rose That in the king's own garden grows; And when I place it in my hair, 180 Allan, a bard is bound to swear He ne'er saw coronet so fair." Then playfully the chaplet wild She wreathed in her ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... playfully, with a toss of black curls and a distracting glance of eyes blue as the heavens above them. "A poet, Monsieur, and I never suspected it, for all that I held you a great scholar. My father says ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... "Daughters," whispered the poet playfully, "are you so soon tired of the brilliant gems of satire which our master dramatist ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers

... melancholy troubled me; but, for we knew he spoke the truth in regard to the farming, the matter was settled so. I should much have preferred that Harry return to Fairmead, but it was clear that the task most suited me. Perhaps Johnston guessed my reluctance, for he said playfully: "Is not banishment worse than snow slides or the high peak's frost, and what are all the flowers of the prairie to the blood-red rose of the valley that was ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... Art, and playfully imitating her, is in Ovid; but that of a mixture of cultivation and wildness is, as far as I am aware, Tasso's own. It gives him the honour of having been the first to suggest the picturesque principle of modern gardening; as I ought to have remembered, when assigning ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... mother and father, or their friends and relatives. In his rapt mind he beheld Miss Pratt walking beside him "through life," with her little parasol and her little dog—her exquisite face always lifted playfully toward his own (with admiration underneath the playfulness), and he heard her voice of silver always rippling "baby-talk" throughout all the years to come. He saw her applauding his triumphs—though these remained indefinite in his mind, and he was ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington

... sometimes two, now splitting, now one grown, Now leaving lust, now lust's high lusts delaying, Now eyeing lust not wide, but from askance Jumping round on lust's half-unexpectance; Then softly gripping, then with fury holding, Now playfully playing, now seriously, now lying By the side of lust looking at it, now spying Which way to take lust in ...
— Antinous: A Poem • Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa

... was as she said, her inviolable rule to receive no married man without his wife at her parties. Nor was there often occasion for her to use this stipulation. The young people whom I had met at her house, had always been maids and bachelors, and now and then, a young married couple who playfully enacted a chaperon part. Mrs. Reeves, a widow, was probably the oldest of the crowd, but she was well ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... were his moral and intellectual attributes, that he may be pronounced to have been not one, but many. It was this multiform aspect that led the world to compare him with a medley host of personages: "within nine years," as he playfully records, "to Rousseau, Goethe, Young, Aretino, Timon of Athens, Dante, Petrarch, Satan, Shakespeare, Buonaparte, Tiberius, AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Harlequin, Henry VIII., Mirabeau, Michael Angelo, Diogenes, Milton, Alfieri, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... animal. She was a picture of lean muscle and bone, with a beautiful small head, and ears that looked little larger than well-polished mussel-shells. She stood pawing the ground impatiently while Scipio tied her to the post, and she nuzzled his ribs playfully with her twitching lips in the most friendly spirit. But Bill's eyes were suddenly arrested by the manner in which she was saddled and bridled. Poor Scipio had blundered in a ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... Le Gardeur! but it would be a pretty ruse de guerre, were it true. The good wives naturally feel nervous at being left alone—I should myself," added she, playfully. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... invitation, then decided to relieve herself of shawl and bonnet. The heat in the drawing-room was intense, and Monsieur Letellier hastened to open a window, at which he remained standing, struck by the sight of a lilac bush which was already budding. Pauline, meantime, had begun playfully running after Lucien behind the chairs and couches, left in confusion by ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... leaf out of her bouquet, and flings it playfully over her left shoulder, meaning thereby to intimate that her vital organ is "as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various

... vein we should question at the start whether any such praise of monarchy had been spoken, and then we should suppose it had, and begin playfully to consider what the honors and distinctions were that women had enjoyed under monarchy. We should make a merit at the start of throwing up the sponge for republics. We should own they had never done the statesmanlike qualities of women justice. We should glance, ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... omnipresent. But as witchcraft died out, partly through the growth of knowledge, and partly through sheer weariness on the part of its devotees, the Devil began to lose his power. His agency in human affairs was seen to be less potent than was imagined. People called him Old Nick playfully, as they might talk of a toothless old mastiff whose bark was worse than his bite. At length he was regarded as a perfect fraud, and his sobriquet took a tinge of contempt. He is now utterly played out except in church and chapel, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... the time with her, and beg for a song or a story from the inexhaustible supply with which her memory was stored, and there they would remain, fascinated by her sweet, low voice until she would be obliged to playfully chase them out of the house to compel them to return to school. From the teacher, for tardiness, punishment was a very frequent occurrence, but it made slight impression upon the girls in comparison with the enjoyment of listening to one of mother's thrilling ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland

... for look you, do you see, there is scarcely a cause in court but you are employed in it on one side or the other. I should therefore be glad to know, Mr. Yorke, do you see, whether this be the case." Playfully denying that he possessed any celebrity as a writer on legal matters, Yorke, with an assumption of candor, admitted that he had some thoughts of lightening the labors of law-students by turning Coke upon Littleton into verse. Indeed, he confessed that he ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... the wharf, tied his canoe to a pile, and arrived at his own gangway to find Leyden at bay. Rolfe's sturdy figure barred the ladder; Bill Blunt grinned happily over the rail, tapping the wood playfully with the biggest iron belaying pin the ship afforded; while natives on deck and on the wharf looked on full of ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle

... the object of Cecilia to be the restoration of harmony, the boy was ushered into the room without further delay. The contents of his small basket, consisting chiefly of essences, and the smaller articles of female economy, were playfully displayed on the table by Katherine, who declared herself the patroness of the itinerant youth, and who laughingly appealed to the liberality of the gentlemen ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... all four feet close together, near, but not too near, the unknown but clearly hostile intruder; and to my surprise, the snake turned and made off towards the window. Stoffles trotted lightly after, obviously interested in its method of locomotion. Then she made a long arm and playfully dropped a paw upon its tail. The snake wriggled free in a moment, and coiling its whole length, some three and a half feet, fronted ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... heard his voice or his heavy, firm steps; but when the father, smiling kind-heartedly, and talking playfully in a loud voice, took him upon his knees or threw him high up in the air with his big hands ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... her stay in Baden some person attempted familiarity with Constanze and was rewarded with a box on the ears. Mozart wrote playfully to her advising her to be even more generous with her punishment, and suggesting that the man's wife would ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... eager and relentless. His main fault, as I thought, was attempting too much finish and effect, and I used to tell him so. He acknowledged that I was right, and when taking up a new plate he used to say playfully: "Now this is going to be a good etching; you don't believe it because you are a little sceptic, but you'll see—I mean not to carry it far." Then before biting he showed it me with "Look at it before it is spoilt." It was rarely spoilt in the biting, but ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... were not walking up and down, or playfully scuffling, they were reading novels; in fact, I do not imagine that anywhere else in the world is there a half, or a tenth part, so much fiction consumed as in the English summer resorts. It is probably of the innutritious lightness of pop-corn; I had never the courage to look at the volumes ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... at my look, her cheeks, though swarthy, blushed. She was certainly interested, and somewhat confused, and paused a moment in her mastication. Ham was the viand she was engaged upon, and she (playfully, I have no doubt) ate with her knife. I have remarked the same occasional superiority to what might be called Fourchettism and its prejudices in others ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... amiable and polite hostess, lets him take her to dinner, and says playfully that she means to reconcile him to humanity. He altogether declines. Man is a vicious beast, who persecutes and devours others, he says, making all the time a particularly good dinner while denouncing the slaughter of animals, and eulogising the "sparkling brook" ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... to scourge them out of this place." And then, half playfully, half seriously, and wholly conscious of the ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore

... his men and on the guns; the ships, as we are told, were changed to floating gardens. But the sailors did not disembark. Some ladies, members of the plebiscite, besought the Admiral to come ashore, and hoping to persuade the men, they climbed on board and playfully seized many sailors' caps, which in the town, they said, could be redeemed. Then shortly afterwards, the Yugoslav officials came to greet the Admiral, as did the commandant of the Yugoslav troops which had been for several days guarding the town. Meanwhile some unknown ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... sample of his stone-throwing, and at this pastime he also far surpassed his competitors. Before long, the feeling of the crowd began to set against him, showing itself first in the smaller fry, who began half playfully to throw pebbles and lumps of dry earth at him. Then they would run up slyly and strike him with sticks. Presently the large ones began to tease him in like manner, till the contagion of hostility ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... said Mr. Poyser, meaning to check her playfully, "don't let's have any crying. Crying's for them as ha' got no home, not for them as want to get rid o' one. What dost think?" he continued to his wife, who now came back into the house-place, knitting with fierce rapidity, as if that movement were a necessary ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... unemotional; Italian Infantry, looking usually even less expressive, but ready to burst into electrical enthusiasm at a touch, at a word, at a sign.... A British General, all smiles, rode past on his horse and stopped to ask me a question or two. He tapped me playfully on the helmet with his riding crop. "When will you get your guns across the river?" he asked. "As soon, Sir, as the Sappers can build a bridge that will carry them," ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton

... his sleeve, was delighted and his eyes shone with satisfaction. He took a step forward and attempted to take Eva in his arms. But she evaded him playfully, while he pursued her. Finally she could bear no more. The game revolted her. She made the excuse that she must attend her father, ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... no right to think so. That was one reason, but not the only one. I have heard it said that that play enlarges the knuckles, and I don't choose to have these little hands of mine robbed of their beauty," he added, playfully raising ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley

... door of exit. We had scarcely passed into the ante-room, when one of the Queen's attendants came to us with the expressed hope of her Majesty that the General had sustained no damage, to which the Lord-in-Waiting playfully added, that in case of injury to so renowned a personage, he should fear a declaration of war by the ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... birth with a fatal mark, without forming a motive for superstitious fear with the Princess, nevertheless made an impression upon her mind. As the Empress already had a great number of daughters, she ardently desired to have another son, and playfully wagered against her wish with the Duc de Tarouka, who had insisted that she would give birth to an archduke. He lost by the birth of the Princess, and had executed in porcelain a figure with one knee bent on the earth, and presenting tablets, upon which ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... playfully at his servant's grumbling. "Gossip Tristan," he asked, "do you know why I have come to this hovel to-night? I do not walk abroad like a king-errant in mere idleness of mind. I have come to learn what company my lord the Grand Constable keeps." Tristan's shaggy ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... had a decidedly religious tone. We who wrote for it were loyal to our Puritanic antecedents, and considered it all-important that our lightest actions should be moved by some earnest impulse from behind. We might write playfully, but there must be conscience and reverence somewhere within it all. We had been taught, and we believed, that idle words were a sin, whether spoken or written. This, no doubt, gave us a gravity of expression rather ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... appearance; and her lameness, by giving her an air of childish dependence, added to the illusion caused by her fair, clustering ringlets and infantine rosiness of complexion. She wanted to bring me forward;—she coaxed, caressed, and playfully threatened, nor desisted till her mother said, with ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... "Macaire." Henry was always plotting to be funny. When Toole, as Jacques Strop, hid the dinner in his pocket, Henry, after much labour, thought of his hiding the plate inside his waistcoat. There was much laughter later on when Macaire, playfully tapping Strop with his stick, cracked the plate, and the pieces fell out! Toole hadn't to bother about such subtleties, and Henry's deep-laid plans for getting a laugh must have seemed funny to dear Toole, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... sis," cried John, playfully, taking up the gun from against the body of the tree, and ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... if he had not behaved as she commanded him. In our Saga, too, the gudewife of Bjorn the boaster threatens him with a separation if he does not stand faithfully by Kari; and in another Saga of equal age and truthfulness, we hear of one great lady who parted from her husband, because, in playfully throwing a pillow of down at her, he unwittingly struck her with his finger. In point of fact, the customary law allowed great latitude to separations, at the will of either party, if good reason could be shown for ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... and soon each cab has its load of happy home-comers and swings rapidly away to make room for fresh arrivals hurrying up for fares. Hospitable suggestions come pouring in, and it is as though it were altogether a new experience when one steps cautiously on the land, half expecting it to dip away playfully from under one's feet. A little boy puts my thoughts into words when he exclaims, "How steady the ground is!" and becomes a still more faithful interpreter of a wave-worn voyager's sensations when, a couple of hours later, he demands permission to get out of his delicious little white bed that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... altogether a mistake. The secret of printing must have been discovered many thousands of times before it was used, or could be used. The inventive powers of man are divine; and also his stupidity is divine—as Cowper so playfully illustrates in the slow development of the sofa through successive generations of immortal dulness. It took centuries of blockheads to raise a joint stool into a chair; and it required something ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... clean dirt," she laughingly said, when Miss Dorothy playfully scolded her for it. "This kind of dirt is healthful, and it isn't going to hurt me if a few dusty twigs or a bit of dried grass or weeds should cling to my gown. You must remember, Sister Dorothy, ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson

... and they wandered off to a neighbor's premises where they were promptly found and killed. Later importations I confined to my basement, where I built an artificial pool with frogs and fish in it. However, I could never induce the bull snakes to eat any of these batrachians. They would, almost playfully, stalk the frogs, but at the moment when one was within reach, the snake would glide away. Neither would the snakes, unless force-fed, eat anything they had not ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke

... now began to treat their prisoners with great brutality. However, on one occasion the biter was bitten. It happened that one of the drunken crew, playfully cutting at a prisoner, missed his mark and accidentally slashed Captain Low across his lower jaw, the sword opening his cheek and laying bare his teeth. The surgeon was called, who at once stitched up the wound, but Low found some fault with the operation, as well he ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... child," answered the Captain, playfully; "but they feel all the time as if they were going to, and when they don't feel that way, they feel ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... annoyed me to watch the little pugnose careering playfully round me. How she danced round me, without any attempt to conceal the fact that I took her fancy; and how ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... regal bird of the jungles of North Queensland acquire this lightning-like stroke? The answer is, by constant and intelligent practice while young. A year or two ago I had frequent opportunities for observing a pair of young cassowaries patiently, yet playfully, performing martial exercises. They were about the size of a full grown bustard (say, 28 lb. weight); but if their bulk had been in ratio to their lightheartedness and playfulness, they would have loomed large ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... condottiero, whose true aims he was far from suspecting, and whose services he was eager to enlist, the Duke heaved himself up from his seat and went down the staircase shouting greetings to the soldier, and playfully calling him Galeotto in its double sense, and craving to know where he had been hiding himself ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... is beyond that of Porthos, who cannot play by himself, and knows not even how to take a solitary walk, while David invents playfully all day long. Lastly, when David is discovered of some offence and expresses sorrow therefor, he does that thing no more for a time, but looks about him for other offences, whereas Porthos incontinently repeats his ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... and did. "I've already answered a note from Mr. Van Camp this morning; Auntie. No, don't worry," she playfully answered a sudden anxious look that came upon her aunt's countenance, "I've not said 'yes' to him. But he's coming to see me at twelve. If I don't give him a chance to say what he has to say, he'll take one anywhere. He's capable of proposing on the street-cars. ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... animated, and her sisters pressed her to tell them if she knew of any secret; but she playfully shook her head, and said that if she did know she would not mar the romaunt that was to be played out ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a letter written to his wife while he was engaged on the business of the Railway Gauge Commission. It contains reminiscences of some people who made a great figure in the railway world at that time, and was preceded by a letter which was playfully addressed "From the Palace of ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... was at the door of the Hospice. The little wooden keg hung from his collar. Rollo, with another collar and keg, romped beside him, pulling playfully at Jan's hairy neck, while Brother Antoine and other monks stood on the upper step, smiling and saying, "He is just like his father, and Rex was descended from Barry! Prince Jan is of royal blood. He will be a ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker

... bent over the cat in her lap, stared absently into its green eyes where it lay playfully patting the rags that hung ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... plain by this burlesque, or, perhaps, playfully literal comparison, that he meant now, and tried, to dissipate ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... blow fell the Queen had experienced a feeling of coming evil. So powerfully did this affect her that she begged Gugemar for a garment of his. The knight marvelled at the request, and asked her playfully for what reason she desired such a ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... visited the environs of Brohl. Gertrude was unusually silent; for her temper, naturally sunny and enthusiastic, was accustomed to light up everything she saw. Ah, once how bounding was that step! how undulating the young graces of that form! how playfully once danced the ringlets on that laughing cheek! But she clung to Trevylyan's proud form with a yet more endearing tenderness than was her wont, and hung yet more eagerly on his words; her hand sought his, and ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and glance, and gathers up his dropped bridle. They come closer. Their two near shoulders approach each other, the two elbows touch, and two dissimilar hands hold down the leaves. The two horses playfully bite at each other; it is their way ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... each machine two mechanics, under the eye of the airman, went carefully over the mechanism until all were satisfied. Up they went, singly or in pairs, gyrating playfully, always climbing, and swooping higher, higher, until to the naked eye they became mere dots ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry

... beat quicker. But before he could speak on she looked away to his fretting horse and then across to the battery, where a growing laugh was running through the whole undisciplined command. "What is it about?" she playfully inquired, but then saw. In response to the neigh of Greenleaf's steed Hilary's had paused an instant and turned his head, but now followed on again, while the laughter ended in the clapping of a hundred hands; for Kincaid's horse had the bridle free on his neck and was ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... me; I am happy to inform them that it was not so. Whatever a man's individual character may happen to be, he has always a strong inclination in him to reply to an attack in the spirit in which it is made. He does not call the person who playfully ridicules his foibles a whitened sepulchre or an unspeakable scoundrel, and the same principle holds good when it comes to actual physical fighting. If a French gentleman were to call me out, I daresay I should go to the ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... 'I was then a scholar in the Gates of Learning, and attired as a Sahib. Do not forget, Holy One,' he went on playfully. 'I am still ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... for them on their return, and Olivia hurried upstairs to take off her hat. She was just stepping into the dining-room, when Marcus caught hold of her, and blindfolded her playfully. ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... had done before. He was now most forcibly struck by his eyes, of a slightly turbid gray, whose glances, vague, unsteady, indiscernible, became at moments cold and dull as lead. Never had M. Leminof been so amiable to his secretary; he spoke to him playfully, and looked at him with an expression of charming good nature. They had conversed for a quarter of an hour when the sound of a bell gave notice that dinner was served. Count Kostia conducted Gilbert to the dining-room. It ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... was touched. "No, Herbert, you must not talk so. You are a dear, good, noble fellow, worthy of any lady in the land," she said, half playfully, half tenderly and laying her little soft white hand ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley

... loftier canvas began to swell and flutter, then the topsails and courses napped against the masts, and cat's-paws ran playfully over the water. Presently ripples were seen on all sides, and every sail swelled out. The ship gathered way, but instead of keeping before the wind, the captain ordered the maintopsail to be backed, and we lay to waiting for the stranger, while ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston

... lovers place a woman on a pedestal and say, "She never has made a mistake." [Taking her by each arm he playfully shakes her.] Well, we don't need any pedestals. I just know you never ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter

... delight frantically. The big mastiff stopped and nosed his sympathy through the fence for a moment and walked slowly on, Satan frisking and barking along inside. At the gate Hugo stopped, and raising one huge paw, playfully struck it. The gate flew open, and with a happy yelp Satan leaped into the street. The noble mastiff hesitated as though this were not quite regular. He did not belong to the club, and he didn't know that Satan had ever been away from home after dark in his life. For a moment he seemed ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.

... deep-voiced man from an outlying college, who said, 'For my part I will say that under these circumstances, or in these circumstances, or in spite of these circumstances, or hovering playfully above ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... I been reading? The Standard: "Double Bigamy;" "Speech of the Mayor." And later—eh? yes! I meandered Through some chapters of Vanity Fair. How it fuses the grave with the festive! Yet e'en there, there is nothing so fine - So playfully, subtly suggestive - ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... that Gideon will ever forget the Langham Hotel. No Count Tarnow was one thing; no John Dickson and no Ezra Thomas, quite another. How, why, and what next, danced in his bewildered brain; from every centre of what we playfully call the human intellect incongruous messages were telegraphed; and before the hubbub of dismay had quite subsided, the barrister found himself driving furiously for his chambers. There was at least a cave ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Blawflum (Jamieson), a deception. 'Prine' may be prein, pin, a thing of little value. Moor is playfully described as ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... the animal gets on its legs by an elastic swing, and its ears are raised and its eyes wide open, so that we can see that the latter are large and dark, with long eyelashes. Then the jerboa raises himself to his full height and playfully measures his cage by one bound from corner to corner. Soon after, the fresh food receives due attention, the animal either jumping toward it in rabbit fashion or crawling slowly on all fours. When it has reached its goal ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... by Buck's side. He took his head in his two hands and rested cheek on cheek. He did not 10 playfully shake him, as was his wont, or murmur soft love curses; but he whispered in his ear. "As you love me, Buck. As you love me," was what he whispered. Buck whined ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... a corner in the small hours of the morning, I came suddenly upon a gang of drunken roughs ripe for mischief. The leader had a long dirk-knife with which he playfully jabbed me in the ribs, insolently demanding what I thought of it. I seized him by the wrist with as calm a pretence of considering the knife as I could summon up, but really to prevent his cutting me. I felt the point pricking through ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... by the sound of a slight scream. It was Miss Husted. She had met Mr. Costello on the stairway, and that gentleman had frightened her by playfully poking her in the ribs and bursting ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... Egypt and Abyssinia on a more satisfactory footing, though it was through no fault of his that they were in such a bad condition. In spite, therefore, of his state of health, he left Cairo on August 30, 1879, on a mission to the Abyssinian king, Johannis. Writing home he playfully alludes to a ridiculous report that was being circulated, that he intended to throw off allegiance to Egypt, and set up as an independent Sultan, similar to what the American adventurer, Burgevine, proposed to do in China. "The Khedive said, after some circumlocution, 'Was I ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... Indian woman that presided in his kitchen partook so freely of liquor of her own manufacture that she became hilariously drunk early in the morning, and for the peace of the household and safety of the dishes, which she playfully shied at whoever came within reach, she was ejected, and Mathewson prepared his own meals. At The'venet's, however, everything went smoothly, and the sumptuous meal of baked whitefish, venison, with canned vegetables, plum ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... child!" he replied, playfully patting her cheek. "There is no tumult. Our Boston mobs are satisfied with what mischief they have already done. The king's ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... not sure. She would write and inquire. Anna proposed that she should sit down, but the parson playfully held her closer. "This is my guardian angel," he explained, smiling beatifically at her, "the faithful mother of my children, now grown up and gone their several ways. Does the gracious Miss remember the immortal lines of Schiller, 'Ehret ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... through a dense brake, I arrived at a thin belt of forest, through which I was obliged to crawl, and, in half an hour, I had arrived within one hundred and forty yards of a group of zebras, which were playfully biting each other under the shade of a large tree. Suddenly rising up, I attracted their attention; but the true old rifle was at my shoulder, and "crack—crack" went both barrels, and two fine zebras, a male and female, fell dead under the tree where they had stood. In a few ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... and give us the practical part, so we can learn by practice as well as theory," said Mr. Hayden, playfully. ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... my defeat, I suffered repeatedly. You may understand, perhaps, a natural impatience. I expostulated—playfully, of course. Happily the road was not overlooked. Finally, the entire apparatus became rigid, and I abandoned the unequal contest. For all practical purposes the tricycle was no better than a heavy chair without castors. It was a case ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... they considered he had made good. He appeared to be in the best of spirits. Seated on an up-turned bucket, drawing meditatively on his well-seasoned briarwood, he looked a perfect picture of content. Not so, however, the "little 'un," as the boys playfully addressed the dwarf. The motion of the vessel did not harmonize with peculiarities of his interior arrangements, and unless the Gem stopped rolling and pitching there was evidently trouble ahead. Matters were ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville

... you, old boy," said Montagu, playfully shaking Eric by the shoulder, "you're as silent as Zimmerman on Solitude, and as doleful as Harvey on the Tombs. I expect you've been going through a select course of Blair's Grave, Young's Night Thoughts, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... pretty gentle antics with a little hare that danced fearlessly within his grasp. Then in would come twelve elephants, six males in togas, six females with the veil and pallium; they took their places on couches around an ivory table, dined with great decorum, playfully sprinkled a little rosewater over the nearest spectators, and then received more guests of their unwieldy kind, who arrived in ball dresses, scattered flowers, and performed ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... trouble troubles you,'" said her father, playfully pinching her cheek. "You'll find it easier to escape persecution on land than on shipboard. Henny didn't seem at all anxious to renew his acquaintance with you. He evidently finds sliding down bannisters more to his taste. Maybe Howell ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston

... everything pertaining to farming furnished the material for most of the amusement that was going. Fortunately, he was always good-natured. Gertie, with unusual good spirits, entered into the joke of the thing at once and even bantered Reggie playfully upon ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... over his childhood. At the village school he learned the rudiments of the English language. In after life he often playfully boasted that the dame who taught him to spell flattered him into learning his letters by telling him he would prove a scholar. The notes and habits of the birds and wild animals of the vicinity early excited his attention, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... it certainly was true that Miss Stanbury was rather ill about the same time. "You know, you naughty Lothario, that you did give her some ground to hope that she might dispose of her unfortunate niece," said Camilla playfully to her own one, when this illness was discussed between them. "But you are caught now, and your wings are clipped, and you are never to be a naughty Lothario again." The clerical Don Juan bore it all, awkwardly indeed, but with ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... young man of Dunbar, Who playfully poisoned his Ma; When he'd finished his work, He remarked with a smirk, "This will cause ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... to her and takes her playfully by the ear.) The same little featherhead! Suppose, now, that I borrowed fifty pounds today, and you spent it all in the Christmas week, and then on New Year's Eve a slate fell on my head and ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen

... had seen Mr. Carver smoke a pipe and sometimes he would pick me up and playfully blow rings of smoke in my face and laugh at me so I scurried away for fear I should have to take one of those nasty things in my mouth. As I was leaving the theatre one man called out to me to "beat it," and, as I could not understand their language, ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe

... cliff-like brow, self-possest, and holding his extraordinary powers of conversation in easy command; clinging to his northern accent with evident relish; full of lively anecdote, and with a streaming humor, which floated everything he looked upon. His talk playfully exalting the familiar objects, put the companion at once into an acquaintance with his Lars and Lemurs, and it was very pleasant to learn what was predestined to be a pretty mythology. Few were the objects and lonely the man, "not a person to speak to within sixteen miles except ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... windows of Bronwylfa. It was a very different house. The former is described as a tall, staring brick house, almost destitute of trees; the latter as a perfect bower of roses, peeping out like a bird's-nest from amidst the foliage in which it was embosomed. The contrast is playfully depicted in a dramatic scene between Bronwylfa and Rhyllon. The former, after standing for some time in silent contemplation of Rhyllon, breaks out into the following vehement ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... behind her on tiptoe, and tapped her on the head. "Boh!" he playfully shouted at her ear. "Never tell me again I ca'n't ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll

... the tips of the fingers he still held, as she got up from her couch, he bowed low as she passed him to go towards the bedroom; and she, before quitting the room, made a sweeping curtsey, half playfully, and then kissed the tops of her fingers to him as she ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... for a second, and then broke into a great, roaring guffaw. He thumped Faull on the back playfully—but the play was rather rough, for the victim was sent staggering against the wall before ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... she shook her finger at him playfully, "you surely have an effective way of making a confession. I don't really know whether to praise you for your sobriety or scold you for horrifying ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... too late. William has already said his lesson, and I'm sure he knew it perfectly," said Mary, half-reproachfully and half-playfully. ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... forgetting what he had done, went that way himself, received the charge in the lower part of his body, and died of the wound. I don't like them here, but I've never yet given directions for them to be taken away." She added, playfully, "Man-traps are of rather ominous significance where a person of our sex ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... steady work, she spent a few days with an uncle and aunt who were staying at Bonn, but the gay boarding-house life contrasted so unfavourably with the happy Christian fellowship at Kaiserswerth, that she was thankful to return to her duties, playfully writing:—"The nun will not soon again leave her cell, for it was with very nun-like feelings she met the world again." Yet she was no misanthrope. She did not bring to God a heart which had tried earth's pleasures ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... snobbish superiority, but to the females he was affability itself. The reader will scarcely believe that I have seen this weird animal squat gravely in front of one of the opposite sex, extend his right paw and tap her playfully on the jowl, the compliment being returned by an affectionate lick on Tchort's right ear. But this is a fact, and only one of many extraordinary eccentricities which I observed amongst our canine friends ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... a queen, and she my maid. She unpinned my linen collar and unhooked my dress, while I sat wonder struck, saying nothing until I felt the fleecy blue silk being thrown over my shoulders, when I essayed to articulate something. But when my head emerged from the dress, she playfully covered my mouth with her hand, and proceeded to fasten the dress which seemed just to fit; then came the delicate lace and the lemon bow. Taking my hand she led me to the glass, surveyed me from head to foot, clapped her hands like a glad child, ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell

... no end to the praises and commendations which Whiskerandos received for this simple device. He took little notice of them, however, and only playfully observed, "It is Ratto who should have thought of this, since nature has furnished black rats with two hundred and fifty distinct rings in their tails, while brown ones have ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.

... the genus courtesan. The two old boys had been packed off at last! When she was able to rejoin him Nana found Georges still hiding exemplarily behind the curtain. The room was dark. He pulled her down onto the floor as she sat near him, and together they began playfully rolling on the ground, stopping now and again and smothering their laughter with kisses whenever they struck their bare feet against some piece of furniture. Far away, on the road to Gumieres, Count Muffat walked slowly home and, hat in hand, bathed his burning forehead in the ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... small kettle of boiling water on the fire.—"Why, Mollee! my goot girl!" said Mr. Vanderclump, in a low and somewhat melancholy tone, (his eyes had mechanically followed these latter proceedings,) "Mollee! that is ponch!" —"La, sir! and why not?" replied the damsel, almost playfully. "Why not be comfortable and cheery? I am sure"—and here she meant to look encouraging, her usual simper spreading to a smile—"I am sure Betty and I would do our best to make ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... bound the creature gave landed it at his feet, where it immediately rolled over on to its side, then turned upon its back, and with touches soft as those of a kitten pulled at the boy's legs and feet, looking playfully ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... joyfully on the final lap. The object of the journey was to visit Mr. Sinclair of Sandwick, a gentleman well worth going fifty miles to see. Mr. Sinclair has many qualities that make a man notorious. He went to Australia in an emigrant ship many years ago, and wrote a book upon it, in which he playfully remarks that he got the full value of his passage money, inasmuch as there was a birth, a death, and a suicide, between Plymouth and Melbourne. Another of his distinctions is great dexterity in playing the violin, his favourite pieces being "The Scalloway Lasses" ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... pearl- encrusted box, and lit it with all the abandon of a Society darling, "may I be jiggered if this is not ripping! What say you?" he continued, addressing young PULYER WRIGHT, the Coxswain, and tossing him playfully four times to the raftered ceiling—"shall we not beat the dastard foe from Camford to-morrow?" A roar of applause sprang from the smoking mouths ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various

... not surprising that this match, among many others, was talked of in the very infancy of the parties, perhaps with little expectation that anything would ever come of it. The prince was a sprightly boy, and, it is said, so delighted his namesake, Henry the Second, that the monarch playfully asked him whether he would like to be his son-in-law—a question which the boy found no difficulty in answering in the affirmative. In fact, the matter went so far that, when the young Bearnese was little over three years of age, Antoine of Bourbon ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... clever enough to be the good little woman of our lives here, my dear," he returned playfully; "the little old woman of the child's (I don't ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... hand became quite still and the eyes of Aunt Amy slowly filled with a great amazement. Here was an unbelievable thing—a doctor who did not argue or deny or playfully scold her for "fancies." A doctor who took her seriously and showed every intention of believing what she said. No one, save Dr. Coombe, had ever ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... her bicycle, and will sometimes show their freshness and play, by catching hold of her skirt with their teeth, as once happened to me and gave me a fall. Foxhounds are however so intelligent that the animal who playfully caused my discomfiture, looked sorrowfully at me as I lay sprawled out with my machine on the ground, and I feel sure that when I reproached him, he understood the drift of my remarks, for he never afterwards attempted to touch my skirt, though he has ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... it to him to pass to a form of harmless diversion in which he can have a share." And then he says to the little man: "I am sure, sir, that Mrs. Charles will be charmed to have you for her partner in the opening dance of what we playfully ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier

... one of the few art-treasures left to the impoverished adventuress, rare and fragile Venetian flacons, and tiny goblets of opal and ruby glass. These glasses were the especial admiration of Douglas Dale, and Paulina filled the ruby goblet with curacoa. She touched the edge of the glass playfully with her lips as she handed it to her lover; but Victor observed that she ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... and the growling changed to a whining cry of joy, and in an instant the dog was leaping up at my face, playfully biting at my hands, and then darting at Jimmy he began the same ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... a letter to an Italian friend domiciled in France. Erasmus was probably writing from Bedwell in Hertfordshire, where Sir William Say, Lord Mountjoy's father-in-law, had a country-house. For the practice which Erasmus playfully describes in the second paragraph, see an additional ...
— Selections from Erasmus - Principally from his Epistles • Erasmus Roterodamus

... deep in her nature, and had felt forlorn when life had called him away to where her words of comfort could not reach him. But when once she had hinted this to her father, he had pedantically convinced her that her feeling was unchristian, and Inga had playfully remarked that the hope that some one might soon find the open Polar Sea would go far toward consoling her for her loss; for Augusta had glorious visions at that time of the open Polar Sea. Now, the Polar Sea, and many other things, far nearer and dearer, ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... de eyes. Den of course you lofe me. It vas de nature. But vis me it vas not so easy; no, not near so easy. I tink maybe you ver' nice man," she tipped it off upon her finger ends half playfully, constantly flashing her eyes up into his puzzled face. "I tink you ver' good man; I tink you ver' strong man; I tink maybe you be ver' nice to Mercedes. 'T is for all dose tings dat I like you, senor, like you ver' mooch; but lofe, dat means more as ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... you, Marie, who want the stockings to darn and the puddings to make," she retorted playfully. "Not I! And, do you know? I believe I shall turn matchmaker yet, and find you a man; and the chiefest of his qualifications shall be that he's wretchedly hard on his hose, and that ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter

... being forcibly reminded of the Baron's laconic style. It is needless to add that the amazing account of De Tott's origin is grossly libellous. The amount of public interest excited by the aeronautical exploits of Montgolfier and Blanchard was also playfully satirised. Their first imitator in England, Vincenzo Lunardi, had made a successful ascent from Moorfields as recently as 1784, while in the following year Blanchard crossed the channel in a balloon and earned the sobriquet Don Quixote de la Manche. His grotesque ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... her guardian, playfully pinching her cheek and privately surprised at its floury feeling. "What would you say if I told you that, since our shrewd EDDY retired from the contest, I have been wishing to see you and our Southern friend here brought to just such terms as you appear to have reached? What would you ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various

... or playfully get into habits of speech or act which become so natural that they speak or act as they do not intend, to their discomfiture. Professor Phelps told of some Andover students, who, for sport, interchanged the initial consonants of adjacent words. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... is for Philaemon's sake, that you have so long been looking wistfully toward the Illyssus?" said Eudora, playfully. ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child

... grew daily until it became irresistible; and at length, in the temporary absence of my notary, I made a three days' escape with a friend, saw Talma act, and was even introduced to him by Adolphe. His playing opened a new world to me, and the great man playfully foretold ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... contained in his Elia essay "New Year's Eve," in the London Magazine for January, 1821. There is no evidence that Campbell disapproved of the essay. Canon Ainger suggests that Lamb may have thus alluded playfully to the pessimism of his remarks, so opposed to the pleasures of hope. When the Quarterly did "come in," in 1823, it was with cold words, as ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... hat on. When Dwight inquired playfully, "Don't we look like company?" she did not reply. He looked at her speculatively. Where had she gone, with whom had she talked, what had she told? Ina looked at her rather fearfully. But Mrs. Bett rocked ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale

... which must accompany it, she paused before the difficulties which mechanically presented themselves. Senator North might naturally feel surprise to receive a present from a young woman with whom he had talked exactly six minutes. If she wrote playfully, offering a small tribute at the shrine of statesmanship, he might wonder if she worked slippers for handsome young clergymen and burned candles before the photograph of a popular tenor. She might send them anonymously, but ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... magazines we read of the great West—"the poor man's paradise"—"the stoneless land of plenty"; of its delightful climate, of the ease with which the farmer prospered on its rich soil. Uncle Peabody spoke playfully of going West, after that, but Aunt Deel made no answer and concealed her opinion on that subject for a long time. As for myself, the reading had deepened my interest in east and west and ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... Kennaston cried, playfully, "you, like many of us, have become an alien to Nature in your quest of a mere Earthly Paradox. Epigrams are all very well, but I fancy there is more happiness to be derived from a single impulse from a vernal wood than from a whole problem-play of smart sayings. So few of us are natural," ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... and be silent, whatever pleasure it might give me to speak on that subject,' said the count; 'and I trust Lady Dashfort will reward me by the assurance that, however playfully she may have just now spoken, she seriously disapproves and ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... feel the mettle of the big typical fellow, and so I said playfully: "Say, Joe, come to confession—you're a sheepman, ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... Keats"—the Johnny Keats who had allowed himself to be "snuffed out by an article." As a schoolboy he had been fond of fighting, and as a man he had his share of militancy. He had a quite healthy sense of humour, too—not a subtle sense, but at least sufficient to enable him to regard his work playfully at times, as when he commented on an early version of La Belle Dame ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... part,' continued Vetranio, drawing Camilla towards him, and playfully tapping her little dimpled hand, 'I am in anxious expectation of the Goths, for I have designed a statue of Minerva, for which I can find no model so fit as a woman of that troublesome nation. I am informed upon good authority, that their limbs are colossal, and their sense ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... in the hall, and pinched her cheek playfully as she passed her. "You make a charming little hostess, my dear," she said. "I looked out several times, and you were so absorbed with your play that it made me wish that I could be a little girl again, and join you with my poor old Nancy Blanche doll and my grand Amanthis that papa brought ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston



Words linked to "Playfully" :   playful



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