"Frisking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... insisted on my keeping still, and came to my bedside, and sat in friendly converse, listening to the history of my morning excursion, till a ring at the bell of our ante-room made me desire to have nobody admitted. Alex again, however, frisking about, prevented Pauline, my little femme de chambre, from hearing me, and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... only on foot, was situated on top of a hill. Around the clean-swept yard, petunias, verbena, and other flowers were supplemented by a large patch of old-fashioned ribbon grass. A little black and white kitten was frisking about and a big red hen lazily scratched under a big shade tree in search of food for her brood. Julia's daughter, who was washing "white people's clothes" around the side of the house, invited us into the living room where ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... market the butter and eggs, on the proceeds of which the frugal little household subsisted. For his part, Rab seemed fully conscious of his own important and responsible position in the widow's family, gave up all frisking and frolicking ways, and conducted himself in a staid and sober manner on his way to and from the market-town, and assumed towards the children in their little rides a sort of protecting, patronizing, paternal character, which was really ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... a poet, though the needs of his family at Eureka South kept the bread and butter question in the foreground. He must see "old man Palmer" to talk over the death of Cummins. He was comforted a little when the old man's small black dog, Bruce, came frisking down the trail to meet him; and when Sammy, the cat, tail in air and purring a thousand welcomes, rubbed his sleek fur against the visitor's boots, Keeler ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... angrily and started to utter a sneering reply, when the first good swell caught the boat—a great lazy, greasy fellow. The Quinn went up and then down, and after her shot the rowboat, like a young colt frisking at the end of her tether, then careening down the incline on her side as though to ram the stern of the tug ahead, which, fortunately, ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... was, that Mrs. Newton said it with watery eyes and clasped hands, lying on her bed and looking up to heaven; and Fanny—merry little thing!—said it frisking and jumping about the room, clapping her hands together, and laughing her ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... until a scream from the children announced that Ah-ging-goos, the second son, had fallen in, and anxiety reigned until the well-drenched Chipmunk partly crawled and was partly hauled ashore; and then laughter echoed in the river valley, for The Chipmunk was at times much given to frisking about and showing off, and this ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... Tommy, after frisking round her as though in welcome of an old friend, calmly established himself beside her and laid his black head upon her knee. She noted it and smiled for the first time, a marvelously sweet and gentle smile. More, she placed her slender ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... to the roof of a building, and, frisking about there, broke in the tiling. The owner went up after him, and quickly drove him down, beating him severely with a thick wooden cudgel. The Ass said: "Why, I saw the Monkey do this very thing yesterday, and you all laughed heartily, as if it ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... Mora's shoulder. What had become of the unfortunate girl when that support had failed her? Would the lesson profit her in the future? And, by a strange coincidence, while he was thinking thus of Felicia, a great white grey-hound went frisking along a tree-lined avenue in the sloping garden before him. One would have said that it was Kadour himself,—the same short hair, the same fierce, slender red jaws. Paul, at his open window, was assailed in an instant by all sorts of visions, sweet and depressing. Perhaps the superb scenery ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... browsing on the side of the hill, and the little kids frisking by their dams. "These," thought I, "perhaps are the only food and nourishment of these poor friars." I walked to Port Praya, and returned to my floating prison, the slave ship. The officer who was conducting her ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... another loud hail from up the path toward the house and down came the General at top speed, with a plumy setter frisking in his wake. "Aunt Viney says for you to come there to her this minute. They is a-going to be the party and it's right by the Bible to have it, some for Mr. Mark, too. Tobe Poteet said 'shoo' when I told him he couldn't come, 'cause they ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... days after, the broad German face and the flaxen head appeared, leading that fat ball, Phoebe, and Robin frisking in triumph beside her. Henceforth a great friendship arose between the children. Phoebe soon lost all dread of those who petted her, and favoured them with broad smiles and an incomprehensible patois. Owen made very much of her, and pursued and imitated ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... held one hand high above his head. The Russian leader stepped forward and confiscated the doctor's pistol. He repeated the process with Carnes and McCready, frisking them thoroughly for concealed weapons. At his command, six of the Russians stepped forward. The Americans took their place in the midst of the guard and were marched to the truck. The balance of the Russians moved over to the American's plane. The truck rolled forward and approached ...
— The Solar Magnet • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... the dog and children ran races together; but no child could run so fast as the dog, with its four legs. It went frisking home, and the grandmother called out, "Why, Frolic!" thinking, for a moment, it was the dog they had before, and that Floribel would come bounding in after it. From that time she always ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... sexes and nearly all ages were frisking about the garden or sitting in the open air in front of the flagstaff and the temple, drinking wine and coffee or smoking. The dancing had not begun yet. Ferguson said there was to be an exhibition. The famous Blondin was going to perform ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... conveniency. As I sat quietly meditating at my table, I heard something bounce in at the closet-window, and skip about from one side to the other: whereat, although I was much alarmed, yet I ventured to look out, but not stirring from my seat; and then I saw this frolicsome animal frisking and leaping up and down, till at last he came to my box, which he seemed to view with great pleasure and curiosity, peeping in at the door and every window. I retreated to the farther corner of my room; or box; but the monkey looking in at every side, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... taking tea in our garden when we saw a snake 2 ft. long frisking on the lawn close to our feet. Fortunately one of our fowls had got loose from the cage, and came to pick up the crumbs. When it caught sight of the snake it pounced upon it, and a great battle was fought between fowl and serpent. After ten minutes' hard fighting, the snake lay dead. Your readers ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... By-the-bye, a thousand pair of gladiators fought during the games—a round thousand, and such clean-made, well-built fellows, and they came against each other so gallantly! You should have see it; I can't go through it. There was a lot of satyrs, jumping and frisking, in burlesque of the martial dances which preceded them. There was a crowd of trumpeters and horn-blowers; ministers of the sacrifices with their victims, bulls and rams, dressed up with gay wreaths; drivers, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... still no tracks were in sight. Anxiously he listened for the terrible yet thrilling rush of a train which he remembered so well. He ought to be in hearing distance of them by now. But nothing broke the forest stillness save the twitter and song of birds, the scurrying of rabbits or frisking of squirrels with occasionally the sound of some larger animal in ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... all—bonnets untying all— Petticoats rapping and flapping and slapping all, Crinolines flowing and blowing and showing all Balmorals, dancing and glancing, entrancing all; Feats of activity— Nymphs on declivity— Mothers in extacies— Fathers in vextacies— Lady-loves whisking and frisking and clinging on True-lovers puffing and blowing and springing on, Dashing and clashing and shying and flying on, Blushing and flushing and wriggling and giggling on, Teasing and pleasing and squeezing and wheezing on, Everlastingly ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the ships; by day, through a brilliant sunlit sea, a cool breeze—so cool that only at noon was the heat tropical—and over smooth water, blue as sapphire. Music night and morning, on each ship, and music coming across the little waves at any hour from the ships about. Porpoises frisking at the bows and chasing each other in a circle around bow and stern as though the transports sat motionless; schools of flying-fish with filmy, rainbow wings rising from one wave and shimmering through the sunlight to the foamy crest of another—sometimes hundreds of yards away. Beautiful ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... he would see about that some day. She couldn't make small of him. Ah, no. She'd dance all right—all right. McTeague was not an imaginative man by nature, but he would lie awake nights, his clumsy wits galloping and frisking under the lash of the alcohol, and fancy himself thrashing his wife, till a sudden frenzy of rage would overcome him, and he would shake all over, rolling upon the bed and biting ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... while passing through the woods the dog saw the rabbit frisking in the tall grass. Quick as a flash the dog started after him. The little fellow ran and, to save himself, jumped into the hollow of an oak tree. The opening was too small for the other to follow and as he looked in he heard only the merry laugh of the frisky rabbit, "Hee, hee! ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... his feet, and forcibly realized the truth of Longfellow's, "And things are not-what they seem!" Instead of the ferocious, bloodthirsty bulldog, Caesar Napoleon, a huge, half-grown St. Bernard pup gamboled inside the gate, frisking about gleefully, and exhibiting, even so that Hicks, with all his innate dread of dogs, could understand it, a vast friendliness. In fact, he seemed trying to say, "That's fun. Come on and play with ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... would come bounding out of his bed, and Major Partridge would start strutting around, and Mister Wren would shake the dew from his feathers and begin to sing, and in a few minutes all the birds and animals that had been sleeping all night would be frisking and flying around, the sun would begin to shine, the dew would go away, and it would be daylight ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field
... wide, and flanked on each side by braken and boulders. Indeed, nearly half the island consists of brakes and granite blocks. I will mention the various items of interest as we pass along, if the reader will supply his own imaginings of whirling seagulls, frisking rabbits, sea breezes, bellowing surge as it bumps and breaks against the granite sides of the island, flowers and bloom, singing birds and sweet-smelling shrubs, etc. These things a mere pen, however facile and graceful, cannot adequately describe without the help of the reader's brain; ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... to the citadel!" cried Borroughcliffe; "'tis the game of war, and shows science: but had you kept closer to your burrow, the rabbits might now have all been frisking about in that pleasant abode. The eyes of a timid hind were greeted this morning, while journeying near this wood, with a passing sight of armed men in strange attire; and as he fled, with an intent of casting himself into the sea, as fear will sometimes urge one of his kind to do, he luckily ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the palace. But the only beasts they found were two black foals of wondrous beauty, fitted for the king's riding; it seemed a pity to kill them, for what harm could two little foals do anyone? So they let them run away, frisking over the plain, and returned to ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... them in the sun until they were hard, and then came to "butt" with the goat. At the first shock, when the goat butted her with her horns, the horns of dough broke all to pieces; then the goat butted her again in her bowels and broke her in twain, and out jumped Sunaisil and Rabab, frisking and leaping and calling out "ya imme," oh, my mother, Oh, my mother! The Ghoul being dead they had no more fear, and lived long and happy lives ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... rapture of creation; for whatever his edict demands from organic or inorganic nature, springs up beneath his hand. Even the townsman's heart is refreshed by the green blade and the golden ear, the quietly pasturing cow and the frisking colt, the shade of the woods and the perfume of the fields; but far stronger, higher, nobler is the enjoyment of the man who, walking over his own land, can say, "All this is mine; all this is a blessing upon my energy and insight." For he does not merely supinely enjoy the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... of what is going on outside—never being fooled, never being wheedled or coaxed out of their retreat. "Can't fool Mr. Griggs," some broker says, as he tries to get his papers signed out of his turn. Uptown these same foxes are running around loose in an abandonment of jollity, frisking here and there, all restraint cast aside—trusting everybody—and glad to. That's why I couldn't understand his tone of voice when I ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... child start alone, and the villain was waiting to devour her; when at the same moment he perceived some wood-cutters who might observe him, and he changed his mind. Instead of falling upon Blanchette he came frisking up to her like a ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... worrisome fiend hath possest thee, Nosing and snuffling so round the door? Go behind the stove there and rest thee, There's my best pillow—what wouldst thou more? As, out on the mountain-paths, frisking and leaping, Thou, to amuse us, hast done thy best, So now in return lie still in my keeping, A quiet, ...
— Faust • Goethe
... Latium, is an empty name! And now, with lofty chiefs of ancient time, The pigmy heroes roam the Elysian clime. Or, if belief to matron-tales be due, Full oft, in the belated shepherd's view, Their frisking forms, in gentle green array'd, Gambol secure amid the moonlight glade: Secure, for no alarming cranes molest, And all their woes in long oblivion rest: 210 Down the deep vale and narrow winding way They ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... an unspeakable pleasure it will be to look down from heaven and see Rigby, Masterton, all the Campbells and Nabobs, swimming in fire and brimstone, while you are sitting with Whitefield and his old women, looking beautiful, frisking and singing; all which you may ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... deformed man had evidently taken a dislike to the gray haired and milky faced groom; for no sooner had he pocketed his notes than he set to pacing the room rapidly, frisking his fingers alternately behind and before him, and casting half angry glances over his shoulder at him. I took advantage of this display of irrascibility on the part of the lecturer, and passed into the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... content herself with this explanation. Gringoire took her by the hand; his companion picked up the lantern and walked on in front. Fear stunned the young girl. She allowed herself to be led away. The goat followed them, frisking, so joyous at seeing Gringoire again that it made him stumble every moment by thrusting its horns ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... Henry," answered his friend, "that they miss the drip of oars, the shade of the overhanging willows, the suggestive whisper of waters frisking over the ripples at the ford? How can they make love in such ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... the boy hunters were up and stirring at the "peep of day." They felt refreshed and cheerful. So did their animals, for the grass was good. Jeanette was frisking about on her trail-rope and endeavouring to reach "Le Chat," whom she would have kicked and bitten to a certainty, but that the lasso-tether restrained her. Jeanette little dreamt how near she had been to her last kick. Had she known that, it is probable she would ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... safely across the lawn with the wild beasts frisking about them, and doing no manner of harm; although, as they mounted the steps of the palace, you might possibly have heard a low growl, particularly from the wolves, as if they thought it a pity, after all, ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... brig was surrounded by boats full of people, eager to hear an explanation of the phenomenon. They could scarcely credit our assertions when we told them how we had got along, till we showed them the monster frisking about under the bows almost as tame and docile as ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... I walked about the grounds with Frank Bracebridge and Master Simon, or Mr. Simon, as he was called by everybody but the squire. We were escorted by a number of gentlemanlike dogs, that seemed loungers about the establishment, from the frisking spaniel to the steady old stag-hound, the last of which was of a race that had been in the family time out of mind; they were all obedient to a dog-whistle which hung to Master Simon's buttonhole, and in the midst of their gambols would glance ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... a war waging Its caverns and rocks among; Rising and leaping, Sinking and creeping, Swelling and sweeping, Showering and springing, Flying and flinging, Writhing and ringing, Eddying and whisking, Spouting and frisking, Turning and twisting, Around and around With endless rebound; Smiting and fighting, A sight to delight in; Confounding, astounding, Dizzying, and deafening the ear with ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... as we were leaving the machine-shop to continue our round of investigations that my cat suddenly took it into his head to jump down from my shoulders and stretch his own legs a little; and away he scampered—being much given to such frisking dashes, as I later discovered, though for the next week or so after that one he went limping on three legs mighty soberly—first down the deck aft, and then past me and up a dark passage leading ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... sleep about sunrise, in time to catch a glimpse of the Coyote passing over the ridge. As soon as she was out of sight he got on his feet and went to the edge, there to witness the interesting scene of the family breakfasting and frisking about within a few yards of him, utterly unconscious of ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... trained in artistic values and artistic weights and measures, to study all the arts and sciences of the beautiful, and then she is charming. Most useful, most needful, these little women: they have the centripetal force which keeps all the domestic planets from gyrating and frisking in unseemly orbits, and, properly trained, they fill a house with the beauty of order, the harmony and consistency of proportion, the melody of things moving in time and tune, without violating the graceful appearance of ease which ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... can be sold away from its mother, and the mother hardly knows of it; and whoever pays for it, to him it belongs. But a person cannot be sold, and he who is unwilling cannot be led away by a halter. Yonder comes Farmer Rodel and his horses, with a large colt frisking beside them. You will be put in harness soon, colt, and perhaps you, too, will be sold. A man cannot be bought—he merely hires himself out. An animal for its work gets nothing more than its food and drink, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... to be recorded next day. A workingman in the square, looking about him for a pipe-light, espied the paper frisking near the curb-stone. He picked it up with the obvious intention of lighting it at the stove of a wandering vender of hot chestnuts who had just crossed the square. The workingman followed, twisting the paper as he ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... bountifulness. The tall herd's-grass, the rustling corn, and the whitened grain waved in the summer's breeze, and bespoke the plenty that followed the toil and industry of the husbandman. The herds were feeding in the fields. The innocent lambs, free from care, were leaping and frisking about—some in the sun and some in the shade—while their more sober dames were either grazing, or quietly masticating the food they had ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos
... on 26th June—he was brought up for judgment and condemned to death. "God's death," he exclaimed, on being led back to the Tower, "will the Queen suffer her brother to be offered up as a sacrifice to the envy of his frisking adversary?" He died a natural death in the Tower in September 1592. It is probable that had he lived the Queen would have pardoned him. It was rumoured at the time that she intended to do so. While such an intention ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... ears of corn, now come, And to the pipe sing harvest home. Come forth, my lord, and see the cart Dressed up with all the country art: The horses, mares, and frisking fillies Clad all in linen white as lilies. The harvest swains and wenches bound For joy, to see the ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... lonely cry and answered it, and an hour later she was frisking about him with doggish enthusiasm. The yellow wolf accepted her lavish display of affection with dignity; his joy in the reunion was a match for her own, but the wolf in him was unequal to matching the effusiveness ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... for a while. Recovering himself, he snatched a long knife out of his sock and made for me murderously, but I had meantime fished out a guinea and now held it out to him. He took it with the eager curiosity of a child, looked at it wonderingly, made out what it was, and then ran leaping and frisking up and down the yard, holding it high over his head, and shouting, "Ta ginny, ta ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... himself. Their method of killing horses is very deliberate. Two wolves generally undertake the cold-blooded murder. They approach their victim with the most innocent looking and frolicsome gambols, lying down and rolling about, and frisking pleasantly until the horse becomes a little accustomed to them. Then one approaches right in front, the other in rear, still frisking playfully, until they think themselves near enough, when they make a simultaneous rush. The wolf which approaches in rear is the ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... sunny morning, when a boy, I was seated on a rock watching a flock of lambs, that were frisking and skipping about in a meadow. An old lady by name S., and a gentleman by name M., met within a few yards from where I sat. After the usual salutations; "Well, Mrs. S.," said the gentleman, "I understand that you have sustained a heavy loss by fire." ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... top-boots and brass buttons, in his later days, after he had been sheriff indeed, one of the finest specimens of the old London merchant); Miss Hobson, I say, invited him and little Tommy into the grounds of the Hermitage; did not quarrel with the innocent child for frisking about in the hay on the lawn, which lay basking in the Sabbath sunshine, and at the end of the visit gave him a large piece of pound-cake, a quantity of the finest hothouse grapes, and a tract in one syllable. Tommy was ill the next ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... long story short, the story-teller made his choice of a hare; the old man threw the cord round him, struck him with the wand, and lo! a long-eared, frisking hare was skipping and ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... tone of intense excitement, for a herd of zebra seemed suddenly to have risen out of the ground a couple of miles away, where nothing had been visible before, the beautifully striped, pony-like animals frisking and capering about, and pausing from time to time to browse on the shoots of the sparsely spread bushes. There were hundreds of them, and the brothers sat watching them for ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... shall know, Highness, but not now. I return to Chateauneuf on certain necessary businesses; to-morrow I set out at cockcrow for Milan and the Visconti's livery. Farewell!" He mounted and rode away in the golden August sunlight, the hounds frisking about him. The fox-brush was fastened in his hat. Thus Tristran de Leonois may have ridden a-hawking in drowned Cornwall, thus statelily and composedly, Katharine thought, gazing after him. She went to her apartments, singing an inane song ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... obey, Temper'd to thy warbled lay. O'er Idalia's velvet-green The rosy-crowned Loves are seen On Cytherea's day With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures, Frisking light in frolic measures; Now pursuing, now retreating, Now in circling troops they meet: To brisk notes in cadence beating, Glance their many-twinkling feet. Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare: Where'er she turns the Graces homage ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... frisking, emerged into view once more, heralding the returning paletot; the watering-pot was deposited beside the well; it had fulfilled its office; how glad I was! Monsieur washed his hands in a little stone bowl. There was no longer time for a lesson now; ere long the prayer-bell ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... and leaping and paddling and waddling and frisking and scampering came a strange procession. There were Rover and Brownie and little Wienerwurst, Teddy and Methusaleh and all the horses, Primrose, Daisy, Buttercup, Black-Eyed Susan and all the cows. He could see their tongues hanging out—it was so ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... returned genially, her guilty tremor not escaping his observation, but having at the same time no explicable significance to him. "It's frisking around ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... and for this given us reason, which is a rudder to steer us against tempests and our ambitious desires, and there is a means of easing the imaginations of one's brain by fasting, excessive labours, and other virtues; and instead of frisking and fretting like a child let loose from school, you should pray to the virgin, sleep on a hard board, attend to your household duties, and never ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... red holly-berries, had fallen back on her shoulders, and her cheeks were flushed with exercise. A pretty little white dog was with her, leaping up eagerly for a cluster of holly-berries which she playfully shook above his head. She whirled swiftly round and round the frisking animal, her long red ribbons flying on the breeze, and then she paused, all aglow, swaying herself back and forth, like a flower on its stem. A flock of doves, as if attracted toward her, came swooping down from the sky, revolving ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... the while at her valour and stout-heartedness. They fared on lustily and ceased not so doing all that night and halted not till the day broke with its shine and sheen and the sun shone bright upon plain and height when they came to a wide riverino lea wherein the gazelles were frisking gracefully. Its surface was clothed with green and on all sides fruit trees of every kind were seen: its slopes for flowers like serpents' bellies showed, and birds sang on boughs aloud and its rills in manifold runnels flowed. And indeed it was as saith the poet and saith well and accomplisheth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... this turn of affairs, that you hum airs and carelessly chew bits of straw and thread, while still in your shirt and drawers. You are like a hare frisking on a flowering dew-perfumed meadow. You leave off your morning gown till the last extremity, when breakfast is on the table. During the day, if you meet a friend and he happens to speak of women, you defend them; you consider women charming, delicious, ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... About them frisking, played All beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase In wood or wilderness, forest or den; Sporting the lion romped, and in his paw Dandled the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards, Gambled before them; the unwieldy elephant, To make them mirth, used ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... Vulcan may now renew his wonted custom of making the other gods laugh by his hopping so limpingly, and coming off with so many dry jokes, and biting repartees. Silenus, the old doting lover, to shew his activity, may now dance a frisking jig, and the nymphs be at the same sport naked. The goatish satyrs may make up a merry ball, and Pan, the blind harper may put up his bagpipes, and sing bawdy catches, to which the gods, especially when they are almost drunk, shall give a most profound ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... little fellows, who, although not human, possess many of the most distinguishing characteristics of humanity, in their actions. They have often been classed with the marmot by prairie Travellers; but, to my own mind, partake more of the nature of the squirrel or rabbit. In frisking, flirting, sitting erect, or barking, they resemble the former; while, in feeding and burrowing, they may ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... attempts of a little gray village cat, which I got to be a companion to the survivor, to emulate the gymnastics of its wild comrade. At night the little cats were put into a basket, and went on with the spare tents to my next halting place; and on my arrival next morning I would find them frisking about the tent roof between the two canvasses, or scrambling up the trees under which we were pitched. Whilst I was at work I usually had one in my lap and the other cuddled behind my back on the chair. One day one of them, which had been exploring the hollows of an old tree ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... River-water. It is suppos'd by some, to deduce its first original from the putrifaction of Rain-water, in which, if it have stood any time open to the air, you shall seldom miss, all the Summer long, of store of them frisking too and fro. ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... anything more. I knew now why the birds were singing so sweetly that morning, and why the squirrels in the yard were frisking so gayly. Everything was glad because she was ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... leaps, and the lightness of his tread like unto some powerful and frisking beast, he advances by quick and impetuous bounds, and nor mountain nor precipice arrests his progress. Already has the King of Persia fallen into his hands. "At his sight he was exasperated; efferatus est in eum," says the prophet; "he strikes him down, he tramples him under foot; none can save ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... the cowardice as well as elegance of a female. His imagination was perpetually clouded with terrours, and he could scarcely refrain from screams and outcries at any accidental surprise. He durst not enter a room if a rat was heard behind the wainscot, nor cross a field where the cattle were frisking in the sunshine; the least breeze that waved upon the river was a storm, and every clamour in the street was a cry of fire. I have seen him lose his colour when my squirrel had broke his chain; and was forced to throw water in his face on the sudden entrance of a black cat. Compassion ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... read are familiar with the habits and morals of an insect called the "paper-louse," an insect of really marvellous celerity and behavior; it undergoes its mysterious transformations in a ream of white paper which you have carefully put away; you see it gliding and frisking along in its shining robe, that looks like isinglass or mica,—truly a little ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... illustrious Philip van Artevelde, that I will deal with the nefarious case in question if I can. I am a little doubtful of the practicability of doing so, and frisking outside the bounds of the law of libel. I have that high opinion of the law of England generally, which one is likely to derive from the impression that it puts all the honest men under the diabolical hoofs of all the scoundrels. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... and let it rest in the air a little over the edge of the roof. It seemed firm enough to walk upon, so he took courage and put out the other foot. Dorothy kept hold of his hand and followed him, and soon they were both walking through the air, with the kitten frisking beside them. ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... laughs at herself for her smallness and for her vagaries, just with the same ease and ridicule as if she were speaking Of some other person ; and, while perpetually hinting at being old and broken, she is continually frisking, flaunting, and playing tricks, like a ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... calling one set of them together the other set ran scampering off, and the queen found out that she must just give up her way for once and follow theirs. On went the sheep, up hill and down dale, nibbling and frisking and trotting to their hearts' content, till the queen ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with solemnity, and they immediately entered into close conference. Davie Gellatley was also seen in the group, idle as Diogenes at Sinope, while his countrymen were preparing for a siege. His spirits always rose with anything, good or bad, which occasioned tumult, and he continued frisking, hopping, dancing, and singing the ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... was crowded, like some old-time immigrant ship. Women in plaid shawls and frilled caps, men in somber black as befitted a monthly occasion. Squawking of ducks and hens, trudging of donkeys, creaking of carts, unbelievably stubborn bullocks and heifers being whacked by ash-plants, colts frisking. Girls with baskets of eggs and butter; great carts of hay and straw. Apple-women with bonnets of cabbage-leaves against the sun. Herring-men bawling like auctioneers. Squealing of young pigs. An old clothes dealer hoarse with effort. A ballad singer split the air with an English translation of ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... named Chidlie's Cape, which lay in 6 degrees and 10 minutes of latitude. The 2nd and 3rd were calm and foggy, so were the 4th, 5th, and 6th. The 7th was fair and calm, so was the 8th, with a little gale in the morning. The 9th was fair, and we had a little gale at night. The 10th we had a frisking gale at west-north-west; the 11th fair. The 12th we saw five deer on the top of an island, called by us Darcie's Island. And we hoisted out our boat, and went ashore to them, thinking to have killed some of them. But ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... can play. Says Karl Groos: "Perhaps the very existence of youth is due in part to the necessity for play; the animal does not play because he is young, but he is young because he must play." Play is a constant factor in all grades of animal life. The swarming insects, the playful kitten, the frisking lambs, the racing colt, the darting swallows, the maddening aggregation of blackbirds—these are but illustrations of the common impulse of all the animal world to play. Wherever freedom and happiness reside, there play is found; wherever play is lacking, there the curse has fallen ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... afforded the artists a happy field for a display of their originality and skill, and it is on these stretches of smooth-plastered surface that gems of Egyptian art are often found. A pavement from the palace of Akhnaton at Tell el Amarna shows a scene in which a cow is depicted frisking through the reeds, and birds are represented flying over the marshes. In the palace of Amenhotep III. at Gurneh there was a ceiling decoration representing a flight of doves, which, in its delicacy of execution and colouring, is not to be classed with ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... the middle of the street, out of respect to the prince came to dance under his windows: Monsieur Poussatin, in a little black jacket, danced in the middle of this company, as if he was really mad. I immediately recognized him for my countryman, from his manner of skipping and frisking about: the prince was charmed with his humour and activity. After the dance, I sent for him, and inquired who he was: 'A poor priest, at your service, my lord,' said he: 'my name is Poussatin, and Bearn is my native country: I was going into ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... his pupil by speed of foot, had recourse to the most honied epithets the Latin vocabulary affords to persuade his return. But to MI ANIME, CORCULUM MEUM, and all such classical endearments, the truant turned a deaf ear, and kept frisking on the top of the rising ground like a goblin by moonlight, making signs to his new acquaintance, Tressilian, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... watching for his mistress to come back,' said Leonard; 'but she must have passed an hour ago, and she does not deserve to have him, for she never looked back for him; and he had run up to me, frisking and making much of me, as if he had found ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he begged the governor to permit him the use of his lute, to soften by the harmonies of his instrument, the rigours of his prison. At the end of a few days, this modern Orpheus, playing on his lute, was greatly astonished to see frisking out of their holes, great numbers of mice, and descending from their woven habitations crowds of spiders, who formed a circle about him, while he continued breathing his soul-subduing instrument. He was petrified ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... dropped fruits upon the ground. All animals that bite the grass or browse the shrubs, whether wild or tame, wandered in this extensive circuit, secured from beasts of prey by the mountains which confined them. On one part were flocks and herds feeding in the pastures, on another all the beasts of chase frisking in the lawns, the sprightly kid was bounding on the rocks, the subtle monkey frolicking in the trees, and the solemn elephant reposing in the shade. All the diversities of the world were brought ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... conveyance. Among them was Percy Lavin, who had the extraordinary tenor voice, and along with it an exuberance of confidence in his future that made him as destructive of coherence in company as a large frisking pup. Leslie had at the very first meeting felt that it would be her sacred mission to ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... rises to the surface. She could have remained below, running under full headway, for six hours before coming to the surface. So the day goes on. Toward nightfall smoke again is seen on the horizon. It proves to be a large freighter ladened, apparently, with cattle. Two destroyers are frisking about her, crossing her bow, cutting around her stern. The steamship herself is zigzagging, rendering accurate calculations as to her ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... married; but although he had no children, he had an exceeding love for them. When well, he delighted in giving juvenile parties, and rejoiced at seeing the children frisking about in the happiness of youth—a contrast which threw the misery of his own early life into strange relief. His domestic favourites were his dog and his cat, both of which he dearly loved. He was also most kind and generous ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... said old Peter, a little lamb who ran round and round Alenoushka, frisking and leaping, with its little tail tossing ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... afoot, found him curled at the front door of the ranch-house. Chance braced himself on his fore legs and yawned. Then stretching he rose and, frisking about Corliss, tried to make himself understood. Corliss glanced toward the corral, half expecting to see Sundown's horse. Then he stepped to the men's quarters. He greeted Wingle, asking him if ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... England their idiosyncrasies are limited to noisy jubilant services in their Chevrah, the worshippers dancing or leaning or standing or writhing or beating their heads against the wall as they will, and frisking like happy children in the presence of ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of their store; and the lordly and majestic bull. With them was intermingled the horse, whose limbs seemed to be formed for speed and beauty. At a small distance were the stag with branching horns, the timid deer, and the sportive, frisking fawn. Even from the rugged precipices, that seemed intended by nature to lie waste and useless, depended the shaggy goat and the tender kid. Beside all this, Roderic had had communicated to him, by a supernatural afflatus, that wondrous art, as yet unknown in the plains ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... may survey the Naiades. Highgate, where Coleridge lived, Enfield, where Charles Lamb dwelt, are not far off. Turning eastward, there is the river Lea, in which Izaak Walton fished; and farther on—ha! what do I see? What are those little fish frisking in the batter (the great Naval Hospital close by), which fixed the affections of the enamored American while he resided in London, and have been floating in his dreams ever since? They are said by the naturalists to be of the species Blandamentum album, and are by vulgar aldermen ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... together) appeared to pay the slightest attention to the dog or to notice him in any way. The dog kept close to his friend, the red cow, during the day, sometimes sitting gravely on his haunches and watching her eat, at other times frisking about her, as though asking for a romp. When she started to return home he followed close at ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... they stepped out of the swing and tiptoed through the grass around the corner of the house. Even the dog went noiselessly, instead of frisking and barking as he usually did when starting anywhere. Their return was equally stealthy. As they slipped through the gate Georgina looked back at the old man. He was still sitting on the step, his face in his hands, as if he were bowed down by some weight too heavy for his shoulders ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... be supposed that this kid was contented with always running close to its mother's side. Kids are very fond of dancing and frisking about, and this one was more fond of it than any other in the ...
— The Goat and Her Kid • Harriet Myrtle
... eat till he had watered his horse. Sol had gone nearly forty-eight hours without a sufficient drink, and that was long enough, even for a desert-bred beast. No three raiders could keep Gale away from that well. Taking his rifle in hand, he faced up the arroyo. Rabbits were frisking in the short willows, and some were so tame he could have kicked them. Gale walked swiftly for a goodly part of the distance, and then, when he saw blue smoke curling up above the trees, he proceeded slowly, with alert eye and ear. From the lay of the land and position of trees seen by ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... the trail were old buffalo paths and willows. Indeed, we saw them everywhere we went on land, showing how numerous those animals were in times past. In 1793 Sir Alexander Mackenzie describes them as grazing in great numbers along these very banks, the calves frisking about their dams, and moose and red deer were equally numerous. In 1828 Sir George Simpson made a canoe journey to the Coast by way of this river, and they were still very numerous. The existing tradition is that, some sixty years ago, a winter occurred of unexampled severity ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... the air with the stiff chill breeze in her face and Boru frisking beside her, she threw off some of the depression that was making the day horrible. The grocery was only a couple of blocks away, and she soon had her package and was on her ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... son of a peer who dies before you. And now they were rich, they were all going to be very good boys, let us hope. Kew, we know, married one of the Dorking family, that second Lady Henrietta Pulleyn, whom we described as frisking about at Baden, and not in the least afraid of him. How little the reader knew, to whom we introduced the girl in that chatty offhand way, that one day the young creature would be a countess! But we knew it all the while—and, when she was walking about with the governess, or ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray |
