"Tricksy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... account of his endeavors with a mischievous light in her blue eyes and a prankish smile edging her pink lips ... and she might, after that, have left just a line to tell him to cancel his arrangements.... But what could he expect from such a tricksy sprite of a girl? Only twenty-seven hours before he had seen her, flagrantly tardy, nonchalantly unrepentant, first mock and then annihilate the worthy and earnest young Englishman who had endeavored to correct her ways ... He had known then the volatile stuff that she was made ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... according to the received rules of fence, he firmly upheld the honour of his calling, and in the exercise of it was uniformly fearless, independent and incorrupt." The Brazen is partial, one-sided, tricksy, misleading, immoral; serving personal and interested purposes and contemptuously forgetful of every obligation which an honest and honourable pen owes to the public and to itself. Such critiques ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... our metropolis, we love to watch the ebbing of population, the dwindling from groves of chimneys and worlds of bricks and mortar to tricksy cottages marshalled with the plumb-line, or sprinkled over "farmy fields" facing Macadamized roads, and collecting more dust in one month than would have ransomed all the captive kings of history, sacred or profane. There we ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... and as for this pitying face, with its sudden sadness, what more did it mean? Major Andre said of her later that Mistress Darthea was like a lake in the hills, reflecting all things, and yet herself after all. But how many such tricksy ways, pretty or vexing, she was to show some of us in the years to come did ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... species quite so barbarous in style as the anecdotes about Phanes and Prajapati which are preserved in the Orphic hymns and in the Brahmanas. The conduct of the earlier dynasties of classical gods towards each other was as notoriously cruel and loathsome as their behaviour towards mortals was tricksy and capricious. The classical gods, with all their immortal might, are, by a mythical contradiction of the religious conception, regarded as capable of fear and pain, and are led into scrapes as ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... with Madame Bonaventure, "there is no urgency; and it may be prudent to pause a few moments, as you suggest, good Lupo. But I will not suffer him to depart. I perceive, from her gestures and glances, that our tricksy hostess is plotting some scheme with him. Plot away, fair mistress; you must have more cunning than I give you credit for, if you outwit me a second time in the same day. I can guess what she proposes. You note that side door near them, Lupo? ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... popular god, yet his tricksy ways caused him to be looked upon with suspicion. Every one was anxious to stand well with him. In some of the cities of ancient Greece, as Sparta and Athens, he was worshipped with great solemnity, and every five years festivals were held in ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... discretion, how his words are suited! The fool hath planted in his memory An army of good words: and I do know A many fools, that stand in better place, Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... years. The figures at the bells are those which once stood out from the facade of St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street, and are now in Lord Londesborough's garden in Regent's Park. Lamb shed tears when they were removed. The tricksy sprite and the candles (brought by Betty) need no explanatory ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... endure his pangs a little longer!" cried Miriam, turning to Kenyon with a tricksy, fitful kind of mirth, that served to hide some solemn necessity, too sad and serious to be looked at in its naked aspect. "You love us both, I think, and will be content to suffer for our sakes, one other day. Do I ask ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mind, and end his doubts? Ruth had been more tricksy than usual that day, and in a flow of spirits quite inconsistent, it would seem, in a young lady ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... discretion, how his words are suited! The fool hath planted in his memory An army of good words; and I do know A many fools, that stand in better place, Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word Defy the matter." ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... of ethical pleasure in it, as being of the good tradition, of the old honest, simple material, from which pleasing effects in literature and civilization were wrought. He liked giving the children books, and writing tricksy fancies in these, where he masked as a fairy prince; and as long as he lived he remembered ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... could see the rose-tinted, beautiful countenance, framed as if asleep in the billowing luxuriance of unloosed auburn hair. He fancied her beholding visions as she wrought the music—visions full of barbaric color and romantic forms. As his mind swam along with the gliding, tricksy phantom of a tune, it seemed as if he too could see these visions—as if he gazed at them ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... power to believe that he could relinquish her; at all events, Phoebe had sagacity enough to infer that she was not indifferent to him, though as the provoking damsel ran down-stairs, Phoebe's loyal spirit first admitted a doubt whether the tricksy sprite might not prove as great a torment as a delight to Robin. 'However,' reflected she, 'I shall make the less mischief if I set it down while ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Heavens! When I think of all the cackle I have turned out for the heroes of the Halls!!! No wonder that the task I've now to tackle— Something new and smart for TRICKSY TRIP!—appals. I have tried three several songs—and had to "stock 'em," She's imperative; her last Great Hit's played out, And she wants "a new big thing that's bound to knock 'em." And "she'd like it by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... gentlemen, we have met to do honor to a happy event which has befallen one of our friends. It used to be said that Fortune was blind, but I believe that she is only short-sighted or tricksy, and that she has lately brought a good pair of glasses which enabled her to discover in the town of Havre the son of our worthy friend Roland, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... considerable quantity of Wisconsin currency is liable not only to the occasional loss consequent upon the absquatulation of a tricksy wild-cat, but also to great perplexity as to the name of the gentleman who countersigns the bills. These inscrutable counter-signatures are accomplished by ROBERT MENZIES, our excellent Deputy Bank Comptroller. His cabalistic 'R. Menzies' does not greatly resemble a well-executed ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... operation of this first law of economics. Production exists solely for the sake of consumption, and must therefore—as ought long since to have been seen—depend, both in its amount and in the character of its means, upon the amount of consumption. And if some tricksy Puck were to carry off overnight to some European country all our wealth and all our machinery, without taking to that country our social institutions as well, it is as certain that that country would not be a farthing richer than it was before, ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... is master Jacob trim indeed, That is all tricksy and gallant, so God me speed! Now I see apparel setteth out a man. Doth it become Esau so? nay, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... little beast; so don't mind him, but have a cup of tea, and go to bed. You can make your gown decent to-morrow; and, if I see the tricksy peddler, I'll give him ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... are interested in interpretations of life; and it is true too that we are a little impatient now of fancy and imagination, and want to get at facts, because we feel that fancy and imagination, which are not built on facts, are very tricksy guides to life. But the view seems to me both depressed and morbid which cannot look beyond, and see that the world is passing on in its own great unflinching, steady manner. It is like the view of a child who, confronted with a pain, a disagreeable incident, a tedious day of drudgery, wails that ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hinted, we find consummate vigor, a true inspiration; his burning thoughts step forth in fit burning words, like so many full-formed Minervas, issuing amid flame and splendor from Jove's head; a rich idiomatic diction, picturesque allusions, fiery poetic emphasis, or quaint tricksy twins; all the graces and terrors of a wild imagination, wedded to the clearest intellect, alternate in beautiful vicissitude. Were it not that sheer sleeping and soporific passages, circumlocutions, repetitions, touches even of pure doting jargon so often intervene.... ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... often to laugh at your honest simple neighbour Flamborough, and one way or another generally cheated him once a year. Yet still the honest man went forward without suspicion, and grew rich, while I still continued tricksy and cunning, and was poor, without the consolation of ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... among such kelp and corals as a merman might. All about me I hear the stirring of the little people and now and then soft airs fanned from invisible wings touch my cheek. It may be moth, or bat, or tricksy Ariel for all I know or care, such glamour does the haunted air throw about him who will leave the brown earth behind and plunge ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... know all about it. She is full of spirits, and only needs to be taught what to do with them to be as nice a little girl as Daisy. Those quick wits of hers would enjoy lessons if they were rightly directed, and what is now a tricksy midget would soon become a busy, happy child. I know how to manage her, for I remember how my blessed ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... still, and then the band, With movements light and tricksy, Made stream and forest, hill and strand, Reverberate ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Maltese, with great yellow eyes, fur as soft as velvet, and silvery paws as lovely to look at as they were thistly to touch. Toby certainly pleaded hard for Miss Lucinda's theory of a soul; but his was no good one: some tricksy and malign little spirit had lent him his share of intellect, and he used it to the entire subjugation of Miss Lucinda. When he was hungry, he was as well-mannered and as amiable as a good child,—he would coax, and purr, and lick ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... every school-boy anticipates the effects of throwing a stone into a glass shop; and to this we must also ascribe the otherwise unaccountable pleasure which individuals have taken in practising the tricksy pranks of a goblin, and filling a household or neighbourhood with anxiety and dismay, with little gratification to themselves besides the consciousness of dexterity if they remain undiscovered, and with the risk of loss of character and punishment should ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... loins up to perturb Our theory of the Middle Verb; Or Turk-like brandishing a scimitar O'er anapasts in comic-trimeter; Or curing the halt and maimed 'Iketides,' [Footnote: "The Suppliants," a fragment of a play by Aeschylus.] While we lounged on at our indebted ease: Instead of which, a tricksy demon Sets her at Titus or Philemon! When ignorance wags his ears of leather And hates God's word, 'tis altogether; Nor leaves he his congenial thistles To go and browse on Paul's Epistles. —And you, the ...
— Christmas Eve • Robert Browning
... poet of a quite different stamp. He is as heedless, gay, and prodigal of his poetical wealth, as the other is careful, reserved, and parsimonious. The genius of both is national. Mr. Moore's Muse is another Ariel, as light, as tricksy, as indefatigable, and as humane a spirit. His fancy is for ever on the wing, flutters in the gale, glitters in the sun. Every thing lives, moves, and sparkles in his poetry, while over all love waves his purple light. His thoughts are as restless, as many, and as ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... that was heavenly sweet, Has flown upon the tricksy air: Fate's hand is on thee; drop thy leaves, And go among the things ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various |
