"Vivacious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the Rue de la Paix, bright and vivacious, in which he now finds himself, and the companion of the Neuchatel family! Endymion had only returned to Paris the previous evening, and the Neuchatels had preceded him by a week; so they had seen everybody and could ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... great a favourite of Anne of Austria as the Constable de Luynes was of Louis the Just. The French Court was then very brilliant, and gallantry the order of the day. Marie de Rohan was naturally vivacious and dashing, and, yielding herself up to the seductions of youth and pleasure, she had lovers, and her adorers drew her into politics. Her beauty and captivating manners were such as to fascinate and enthral the least impressible ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... George II. to prepare the way for the epoch of Reform, and it was therefore fitting that the statesman who more than any other bore the brunt of the battle in 1830-32 should write his biography. Lord Russell's biography of Fox, though by no means so skilfully written as Sir George Otto Trevelyan's vivacious description of 'The Early History of Charles James Fox,' is on a more extended scale than the latter. Students of the political annals of the eighteenth century are aware of its value as an original and suggestive contribution to the facts and ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... that said nothing; of eyes the most speaking and most beautiful in the world; a carriage of the head gallant, majestic, graceful, and a look the same; smile the most expressive, waist long, rounded, slight, supple; the gait of a goddess on the clouds; her youthful, vivacious, energetic gayety, carried all before it, and her nymph-like agility wafted her everywhere, like a whirlwind that fills many places at once, and gives to them movement and life. If the court existed after her it was but to languish away." [Memoires de St. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... corner. What else?" The two laughed together as at a good joke. But there was a tightening in the man's throat. He wondered how soon, after next week, he would again be sitting at table opposite that vivacious young face. ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... dramatist, born at Paris, where he became director of the Opera Comique; was celebrated as a vivacious playwright and composer of operas; during a temporary absence from Paris he established his Comedy Company in the camp of Marshal Saxe during the Flanders campaign; his memoirs and correspondence give a bright picture of theatrical ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... there, one on the bed and one on the couch; and they thanked her, but—never came. She coddled the General with cool champagne cup when he was in the throes of mal de mer, and held him prisoner with her vivacious chatter when he was well enough to care to talk. But, after all, her most serious trouble seemed to consist in keeping Billy Gray at respectful distance. He sought her side day after day, to Armstrong's mild amaze, as has been said; and when he could not be with her was moody, ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... the vivacious woman said to herself was a soft "Poor Susy!" dropped into the heart of a September rose as ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lives in the old-fashioned vivacious history-books (which if they die out, as they show some signs of doing, will carry with them half the historic sense of the nation) as the hero of an anecdote of an unsuccessful attempt made upon his ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... for him; he carried messages and brought programs as though it were his greatest pleasure in life, and all the people in his section thought him a charming boy, feeling that he remembered and admired them. As the house filled, he grew more and more vivacious and animated, and the colour came to his cheeks and lips. It was very much as though this were a great reception and Paul were the host. Just as the musicians came out to take their places, his English teacher arrived with checks for the seats which a ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... Modjeska. That was before he came to Chicago, and seemed to be the overture to a friendship that continued to exchange its favors and tokens of affection to the close of his life. The doings of the Madame and Count Bozenta, her always vivacious and enjoyable husband, were perennial subjects for Field's kindliest paragraphs. As he says, he was a great theatre-goer, but Field became a constant one when "Modjesky" came to town. Her Camille—a character in which she was ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... on the saddle, with a leg curled round the horn; he whistled the vivacious air of Tule, Tule Pan, a gay fanfaronade of roistering notes, the Mexican words for which are, for considerations of ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... has just read through some of the vivacious correspondence of Bronson Howard—a sheaf of letters sent by him to Brander Matthews during a long intercourse. The time thus spent brings sharply to mind the salient qualities of the man—his nobility of character, his soundness ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... a moment, knowing she had been overheard, though there was pleasure in her confusion. "Yes, I heard you," said the lady, in a vivacious voice, answering her look. "What ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... changed, for her countenance was now bright and vivacious, and her eyes merry and sparkling. The hard set expression had gone, and she looked very ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... plain blue frock and hat which had cost more than Jane Foley would spend on clothes in twelve months, had a face dazzling by its ingenuous excitement and expectation. Her little nose was extraordinarily pert; her forehead superb; and all her gestures had the same vivacious charm as was in her eyes. The white-aproned, streamered girl who took the order for lemonade and sponge-cakes to a covered bar ornamented by advertisements of whisky, determined to adopt a composite of the styles of both the customers on her next ceremonious Sunday. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... and cynically minded baby, but twelve months of late suppers and many plays had already blighted her rose-leaf skin and sown three fine, nervous little wrinkles between her delicately arched eyebrows. She was very vivacious, but, as Gerty Bridewell had observed, it was a vivacity that was hardly justified, since possessing neither the means nor the manner exacted by the more exclusive circles, she had been compelled to compromise with a social body which made up in members what ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... was over, the big living room became the scene of an important family council. A vivacious girl of sixteen clad in a smart white linen frock with shoes to match, took her young cousins in charge, expecting to entertain them, while their elders were engaged in a discussion that would in no way likely be of interest to young minds. She informed ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... before a wood fire in the library. So numerous were their social engagements they rarely had time for a quiet talk together. Wilhelmine was in good spirits. De Naarboveck listened with an indulgent smile to her vivacious account of the little happenings and doings of her day. Presently a more serious subject came up for discussion. The word "marriage" was mentioned. Wilhelmine blushed and lowered her eyes, while the baron sounded her teasingly on her feelings ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... looked very blank indeed until he thought of the master, and then he recovered a great portion of his usual vivacity. Small men are always vivacious. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... four cheap fellows, sonorously garbed, were leaning over the counters, wrestling with the mediatorial hand-coverings, while giggling girls played vivacious seconds to their lead upon the strident string of coquetry. Carter would have retreated, but he had gone too far. Masie confronted him behind her counter with a questioning look in eyes as coldly, beautifully, warmly blue as the glint of summer sunshine on an iceberg ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... spirits were slightly depressed for a short period by this unlooked-for result of such a harmless pleasantry, but being promptly elevated by the attentions of the host and several glasses of wine, he soon recovered, and became even more vivacious than before, insomuch that the stout gentleman previously referred to, assured us that although he had known him since he was that high (something smaller than a nutmeg-grater), he had never beheld him in ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... the extravagant fancy that it is possible, except in some rare instances of premature thoughtfulness, to turn inward into deep habitual reflection, the spirit that naturally goes outward in these vivacious, active, careless beings, when we assert that it is possible to teach many of them with a degree of success, in very juvenile years, to apprehend and admit somewhat of such a consideration. We have many times seen this exemplified in fact. We ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... Richard said, looking off toward the bare village in its mantle of trampled snow. "It— it is—a shock." And he folded the cable and returned it to his pocket. "We were married twenty-three years," he said, simply. "She was an extremely pretty girl, vivacious and happy—I imagine hers was a ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... (met during my American visit in her then phase of a German Baroness), herself an authoress and a cantatrice, daughter of Dr. Granville, the well-known historian of Spas. I recollect, too, in those early times, Mrs. Jameson, then a celebrated writer, and a vivacious leader of literary society; and much nearer this day, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, whom I found too taciturn, and as if scared at the notice she excited, quite to realise one's expectation of a famous lioness. With her I ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... bright American girl, the book is sure to command wide attention. The volume is handsomely bound and copiously illustrated with views drawn, if we mistake not, by the author's own fair hands, so well do they accord with the vivacious spirit of her narrative." ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... laughter in the drawing-room cease. There was a short silence, then the sound of footsteps across the hall and the abrupt opening of the door of the room in which he was waiting. Julien looked up quickly. It was, after all, what he had expected! A somewhat vivacious-looking little lady in a muslin gown and elaborate hat held out both her hands to him. In the darkened light of the room she might very well have passed for a younger and less serious edition ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... evening frock. But the frown passed away, effaced by an expression much softer and tenderer than anything she had allowed Arthur to see of late. Of course she delighted in Arthur's success; she was proud, indeed, through and through. Hadn't she always known that he had this gift, this quick, vivacious power of narrative, this genius—for it was something like it—for literary portraiture? And now at last the stimulus had come—and the opportunity with it. Could she ever forget the anxiety of the first lecture—the difficulty she had had in making him finish ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... one degree of elevation; but take some opportunity of attending him from the cellar to the garret, and try upon him all the various degrees of rarefaction and condensation, tension and laxity. If he is neither vivacious aloft, nor serious below, I then consider him as hopeless; but as it seldom happens that I do not find the temper to which the texture of his brain is fitted, I accommodate him in time with a tube of mercury, first marking the point most favorable to his intellects, according to rules which I have ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... during dinner; the Contessa confused by having so many people introduced to her in a lump, got all their names wrong, and addressed her neighbours as Captain Flint and Major Puffin, and thought that Diva was Mrs. Mapp. She seemed vivacious and good-humoured, dropped her eye-glass into her soup, talked with her mouth full, and drank a good deal of wine, which was a very bad example for Major Puffin. Then there were many sudden and complete pauses ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... of his liberty seemed rather to depress this cheerful and vivacious philosopher, and I wondered what the woman could be from whose companionship the man chose to be protected by jail-bolts. I asked the landlord about her, and his reply was descriptive and sufficient. He ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the pontiffs of Hierapolis to sacrifice to the great deity in silence, impercussively, without any vociferous or obstreperous sound. My design is not to enter into a privation of gratitude towards you, but by a vivacious formality, though matter were to abstract itself from me, excentricate to you ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... good deal of persecution of the native Christians in the district, and only recently a band of soldiers had strung up the native pastor by the thumbs and beaten him senseless. He was our host that night and seemed to be a bright, vivacious, little man but quite deaf as a result of his cruel treatment. He never recovered and died a few weeks later. Mr. Caldwell had come to investigate the affair, for the missionaries are invested by the people themselves with a good ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... in what looks like a black silk umbrella cover with rows of fringe and a train tacked to it, and she wears a red, red rose coquettish over one ear. As she swoops down on us from the drawin' room she cuts loose with the vivacious chatter. ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... contempt; he who now comes up the creaking stair to thy little studio in the second floor to inspect thy last effort before thou departest, the little stout man whose face is very dark, and whose eye is vivacious; that man has attained excellence, destined some day to be acknowledged, though not till he is cold, and his mortal part returned to its kindred clay. He has painted, not pictures of the world, but English pictures, such as Gainsborough himself might have done; beautiful rural ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... has not had an equal in our time, and his pen for threescore years has been put to frequent use in celebration of all sorts of events, whether military, literary, or scientific. Bayard Taylor said, "He lifted the 'occasional' into the 'classic'," and the phrase happily expresses the truth. The vivacious character of his nature readily lends itself to work of this sort, and though the printed page gives the reader the sparkling epigram and the graceful lines, clear-cut always and full of soul, the pleasure is not quite the same as seeing ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... actors mere buffoons," exclaim the northern critics, whose imaginations have a coldness in them, like a frost in spring. But when the art of Extemporal Comedy flourished among these children of fancy, the universal pleasure these representations afforded to a whole vivacious people, and the recorded celebrity of their great actors, open a new field for the speculation of genius. It may seem more extraordinary that some of its votaries have maintained that it possessed some peculiar advantages over written compositions. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... live, quick, alert, brisk, lively, subsisting, animate, existent, living, vivacious. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... in waiting, but we can't expect him to stand out of his money much longer. I'm afraid in the end we'll have to give up The Derby Winner. But it is no good my worrying you about our troubles,' concluded Bell, in a more vivacious tone; 'what do you wish to see father about, Miss Whichello? Anything ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... unkind, so utterly lacking in hospitality or courtesy. After his second call at the commanding officer's, and a sprightly chat with this beaming, bright-eyed, vivacious young woman, Dr. Bayard had ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... not be forgotten, presumably extends to mind as well as to body. It is not merely skin-deep. Contrast the stoical Red Indian with the vivacious Negro; or the phlegmatic Dutchman with the passionate Italian. True, you say, but what about the influence of their various climates, or again of their different ideals of behaviour? Quite so. It is immensely ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... before the beginning of the last act he was able to take a quite new and gleeful interest in life, for the young woman from Savannah came fluttering into the Elliston box, bearing in tow the beautiful and vivacious Mrs. Frank L. Sharpe! ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... the women are stupid, sulky, and phlegmatic, the men are vivacious, timid, inquisitive, and garrulous beyond belief. They make excellent domestic servants, are cleanly, and even tedious in the nicety with which they arrange dishes on a table or clothes on a bed. They have also their friendships after the manner of woman, embracing one another, sleeping on the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... same age and did not look unlike each other, although I was not so pretty by half. You can see by the portrait how beautiful she was, and it does her scant justice, for half her charm lay in her arch expression and her vivacious ways. She had her little faults, of course, and was rather over much given to romance and sentiment. This did not seem much of a defect to me then, Amy, for I was young and romantic too. Mother never cared much for Eliza, I think, but everyone else liked her. One winter ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... which man or woman falls, blow of brutal tyranny, heartless desertion, weight of domestic care too heavy to bear—are not blows such as these constantly striking people down? In this long parenthesis we are wandering ever so far away from M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d'Ivry, and from the vivacious Florac's statement regarding his kinsman, that ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... north Atlantic and the German Ocean. From Erin and England and the land o' cakes they came, had a few days of staring bright-eyed happy incredulity as to the permanency of such conditions, and then settled down to take it as it was, endless days of sunshine and stirring vivacious air—as though they had always known ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that night, tired and happy. To his revived spirits and his new attitude toward life in its present state, the city had suddenly turned gay and vivacious. Twice during the evening he passed Spantz's shop. It was dark, upstairs and down. He wondered if the unhappy Olga was looking at him from behind the darkened shutters. But even if she were not—la, la! He was ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Tuscany, he made a marble tomb, with a very beautiful scene, in the Pieve of Montepulciano, and a lavatory of marble, on which Andrea Verrocchio also worked, in the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo in Florence; and in the house of Lorenzo della Stufa he wrought some heads and figures that are very spirited and vivacious. Then, departing from Florence, he betook himself to Rome, in order to try to imitate the antiques to the best of his ability; and during this time, while studying these, he made a tabernacle of the Sacrament in stone, which is to be seen in S. Pietro ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... produce, and an accurate comparison of the old and new husbandry.'[440] It is said that though he really understood the theory and practice of farming he failed utterly in small economies. He was also far too vivacious and fond of society for the monotonous work of the plain farmer. At the same time his failures gave his observant mind a clear insight into the principles of agriculture. He was indefatigable in inquiries, researches, and experiments; ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... futile to be worth while watching as it passed. Into a Slough of Despond, such as Solomon experienced when he wrote his famous "Ecclesiastes," Aubrey sank unconsciously, and,—to do him justice,—most unwillingly. His was naturally a bright, vivacious, healthy nature—but he was over- sensitively organised,—his nerves did not resemble iron so much as finely-tempered steel, which could not but suffer from the damp and rust in the world's conventionalities. And some "little rift within the lute" chanced to him, as it often chances to many, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... that Maurice had been called upon to watch beside a bed of sickness, and his was one of those vivacious temperaments to which sleep is so indispensable that an overpowering somnolence will fling its charms about the senses, and bear the spirit away captive, even in the soul's most unwilling moments. Five o'clock had struck ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... and to medical treatment; and it is remarkable how many men of dissolute lives take up the same sort of reading, in the vain hope of repairing a course of dissolute living. As a writer, his style was at once forcible and lively; as a companion, he was wildly vivacious: madly, perilously, did he outrage decency, insult virtue, profane religion. Charles II. liked him on first acquaintance, for Rochester was a man of the most finished and fascinating manners; but at length there came a coolness, and the witty courtier was banished from Whitehall. Unhappily for ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... sources of American history anterior to 1700. The reasons for undertaking such a project are for the most part obvious. No modern history, however excellent, can give the reader all that he can get from the ipsissima verba of the first narrators, Argonauts or eyewitnesses, vivacious explorers or captains courageous. There are many cases in which secondary narrators have quite hidden from view these first authorities, whom it is therefore a duty to restore to their rightful position. In a still greater number of instances, the primitive narrations have ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... had a vivacious, unusually mobile face. At first sight he appeared younger than his years. The high, white forehead gave an impression of freshness and vigour; the eyes blazed one moment with intelligence, emotion or gaiety, a moment later they wore a meditative, dreamy expression, then again they looked young, ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... couriers arrived bringing official accounts of the victory gained over the veteran cavalry of the States in the very presence of the stadholder, followed by the crowning triumph of Wachtendonk, the demonstrations of joy were all the more vivacious in consequence of the previous gloom. Spinola himself followed hard upon the latest messengers, and was received with ovations. Never, since the days of Alexander Farnese, had a general at the Spanish court been more cordially caressed or ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... attention. I couldn't help hearing what they said, but I could refrain from looking at Anne. She was becoming vivacious, and I found myself strangely disliking her vivacity. It was then that I began to take note of the furnishing of the room which, when I considered it, was so peculiarly not in the manner of the familiar English farm-house. ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... military stores, upwards of 500 brass cannon fell into the hands of the conqueror; and Augereau was sent to Paris, to present the Directory with sixty stands of colours. He was received with tumults of exultation, such as might have been expected, on an occasion so glorious, from a people less vivacious than ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... a very spirited rehearsal, and Maggie was her old vivacious, daring, clever self once more. That inward change which no doubt had taken place brought an added charm to her ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... massed together, as they were in 1904 in the Pavilion de Marsan, display more or less well-defined extra-Flemish characteristics—a modern feeling for Nature and an intimate realism in the treatment of landscapes, a freer, more supple and more vivacious drawing of the human figure—reasonably explained by the theory of a school of painters expressing independent local feeling and genius. But even if all the paintings which the patriotic bias of French critics now attributes to French or Franco-Flemish masters[212] be accepted, the continuity ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... from letters written by one of Hannah's vivacious sisters. "Since I last wrote, Hannah has been introduced by Miss Reynolds to Baretti and to Edmund Burke (the 'Sublime and Beautiful' Edmund Burke!). From a large party of literary persons assembled at Sir Joshua's she received the most encouraging compliments; and the spirit with ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... Carroll did not come direct to the Brewster table. Instead, he stopped to greet the elderly man in the near-by group, and presently drew up a chair. At first, their conversation was low-toned, but presently the young native added his more vivacious accents. ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... together with my silver plume." If this fantastic assemblage of ornament were set upon the "Heddus roll," so graphically described, it is easy to understand the denunciations of the time upon women's headgear. In no contemporary record or account, no matter who the writer, can be found such a vivacious and witty description of the modish hairdressing of that day as in the ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... attractive girlish face. Her eyes were deep blue, and were tenanted with such a merry, roguish gleam, that Charlie's hitherto well-regulated heart beat in a most unruly manner when she fixed her eyes upon his. Her brown, round, vivacious face took on a deeper hue, as Narcisse eagerly shook hands with her and introduced her to Charlie. "Jessie Cunningham is a very pretty name," mused Charlie, as they followed her into the quaint little kitchen, in the middle of which ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... build, being of the same height and size. They were slender, yet gave a suggestion of sturdiness. Carol's face was a delicately tinted oval, brightened by clear and sparkling eyes of blue. She was really beautiful, bright, attractive and vivacious. She made friends readily, and was always considered the "most popular girl in our crowd"—whatever Carol's crowd at the time might be. But she was not extremely clever, caring little for study, and with no especial talent ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... (The Poacher), a bustling comedy of intrigue and disguise, which owes its name to the mistake of a foolish old village schoolmaster, who fancies that he has shot a stag in the baronial preserves. The chief incidents in the piece arise from the humours of a vivacious baroness, who disguises herself as a servant in order to make the acquaintance of her fiance, unknown to him. The music of 'Der Wildschuetz' is no less bright and unpretentious than that of 'Czar und Zimmermann'; in fact, these two works may be taken as good specimens ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... to Madame Mohl, who is well and as vivacious as ever. When Monckton Milnes was in Paris he dined with him in company with Mignet, Cavour, George Sand, and an empty chair in which Lamartine was expected to sit. George Sand had an ivy wreath round ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... book consider it the best of its kind in any language. Its outstanding features are its "practicalness", and its bright, easy, vivacious style. Every chapter is full of practical points, of easily applicable advice; it is entirely free from any fads and mysterious methods of treatment, any hints at hocus-pocus. It is a sane, rational, ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... bear them out!" Dr. Holmes cried, vivacious in movement and glance as a boy. "Where else are the little door-yards that hold their glint of sunlight so tenaciously, like the still light of wine in a glass? Year after year it is ever there, the golden square of precious sunbeams, held on the ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... arrival, with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the bluebird, or the faint trill of the song sparrow; and the ph[oe]be's clear, vivacious assurance of his veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in his lay he describes a circle or an ellipse in the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, I suspect, as an artistic flourish, thrown ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... presence. My younger days sprang up beside me like brothers. No one talked, looked, flashed, frowned, beamed, as he did! had such prompt liveliness as he! such tenderness! No one was ever so versatile in playfulness. He took the colour of the spirits of the people about him. His vivacious or sedate man-of-the-world tone shifted to playfellow's fun in a twinkling. I used as a little fellow to think him larger than he really was, but he was of good size, inclined to be stout; his eyes were grey, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... more and no less than trying to nail up a board that Piggy had torn down in struggling to get out of his durance. He had grown so large that Miss Lucinda was afraid of him; his long legs and their vivacious motion added to the shrewd intelligence of his eyes, and his nose seemed as formidable to this poor little woman as the tusk of a rhinoceros: but what should she do with him? One might as well have proposed to her to kill and cut up Israel as to consign Piggy to the "fate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... pitch, may fairly trust to see them realized. She would fain that her son's wife should be handsome; this she wished for his sake, that he might be proud of his wife, and because men love to look on beauty. But she was afraid of vivacious beauty, of those soft, sparkling feminine charms which are spread out as lures for all the world, soft dimples, laughing eyes, luscious lips, conscious smiles, and easy whispers. What if her son should bring her home a rattling, rapid-spoken, painted piece of Eve's ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... my share," whispered Page, and then he found himself being introduced by his first name to two highly colored queens of the ballet, and all four proceeded at once to a private supper-room. Albert found the girls bright, vivacious, and expressive, so far as a superficial use of slang goes: they ordered the choicest and highest-priced items on the bill of fare; called for champagne and drank it freely; addressed their escorts as "Cully," "Old Sport," and "Old Stocking;" smoked ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... "Tales of Irish Life" will remind the reader more of Lever or Sam Lover than of "Lavengro." It is effervescent and audacious, ringing with all the fun of the fair, and spiced with the constant presence of a vivacious and irresistible personality. The sixteen illustrations by Erskine Nicol are in precisely the same vein, matching Mrs Hall's sketches so manifestly that it is strange they have never been united before. ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... a longing to please her, to be gallant and witty, as in the most successful days of his youth, one of those instinctive desires that excite all the faculties of charming, that make the peacock spread its tail and the poet write verses. Quick and vivacious phrases rose to his lips, and he talked as he knew how to talk when he was at his best. The young girl, animated by his vivacity, answered him with all the mischief and playful shrewdness that were ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... they may appear." His native genius, or by whatever other term we may describe it, betrayed the wayward predispositions of some of his poetical brothers: "Taciturn and placid for the most part, but at times loquacious and most vivacious, and usually in the most opposite extremes; stubborn and impatient against force, but most open to kindness, more restrained by the dread of reprimand than by anything else, susceptible of shame to excess, but inflexible if violently opposed." Such is the portrait ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... trinkets, blonde lace, and other female finery, resolved to trick herself out like Jezebel, and win her lord once more; whilst the pernicious old aunt, who still lived on, notwithstanding all those twenty years of patience, as vivacious as before, grumbled and scolded so much at this upsetting of her house, that there was really some risk of her altering the will at last, and cutting out Jane ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... companion's ignorance acted upon the girl like magic. She became vivacious, and beamed with the glow of satisfaction kindled by the privilege of being the first to relate ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... every word that the ramblers uttered. They were talking no secrets. They were merely indulging in the ordinary vivacious chat of relatives who have long been parted in person though not in soul. But it was not to the words that Eustacia listened; she could not even have recalled, a few minutes later, what the words were. It was to the alternating voice that gave out about one-tenth of them—the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... believe I should know the whole family even without this photograph!—The lady sitting in the chair, to whom the photographer's snapshot has not done justice, is worthy of Nancy's praise,—and Bill Harmon's. What a pretty, piquant, curly head Nancy has! What a gay, vivacious, alert, spirited expression. The boy is handsome and gentlemanly, but he'll have to wake up, or Nancy will be the man of the family. The girl sitting down is less attractive. She's Uncle Allan's daughter, and" (consulting the letter) "Uncle Allan has nervous prostration ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... colonel who dashed along so like a knight with the graceful and much-admired Mrs. D., whose husband was abroad serving his country; what gallant captain of dragoons (captains of infantry were looked upon as not what they might be) promenaded so imperiously with the vivacious Miss E.; and what distinguished foreigner sat all night in the corner holding a suspicious and very improper conversation with Miss F., whose skirts never were free of scandal, and who had twice got the pretty parson into difficulty with his church. Hence there was a perpetual ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... of his youth, when his journalistic criticisms on the politics, literature, art and drama of the Restoration period set all tongues wagging, to the day when his many-sided gifts bore him to power under Louis Philippe, he stood for all that is most beloved by the vivacious sons of France. His early work, The History of the French Revolution, had endeared him to the survivors of the old Jacobin and Girondin parties, and his eager hostility to England during his term of office flattered the Chauvinist feelings that steadily grew in volume during ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... over and pay our respects to her," Speed suggested. They went, Lincoln being carefully dressed in his first suit of black clothes. Miss Todd was a bright, vivacious girl of middle stature, twenty-two years old. She was fashionably dressed and carried her head proudly—a smart-looking, witty, well spoken girl but not especially handsome. She was most agreeable to the young men. Honest Abe was deeply ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... a virtuous life, as hard-working peasants do. Married at twenty, he had loved but one woman in his life, and since he had become a widower, although he was naturally impulsive and vivacious, he had never laughed and dallied with any other. He had faithfully cherished a genuine regret in his heart, and he did not yield to his father-in-law without a feeling of dread and melancholy; but the father-in-law had always managed his family judiciously, ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... I'm so glad to see you; jump right out, and come in," exclaimed Mrs. Bryant, as the car stopped. She was a pretty, vivacious little lady, with cordial hospitality beaming from her gray eyes, and Mr. Bryant, a tall, dark-haired man, was no ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... causes of this earlier development and more abundant manifestation of womanly intellect in France? The primary one, perhaps, lies in the physiological characteristics of the Gallic race—the small brain and vivacious temperament which permit the fragile system of woman to sustain the superlative activity requisite for intellectual creativeness; while, on the other hand, the larger brain and slower temperament ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... a naturally vivacious disposition the part of a blighted being presented difficulties. I had an excellent appetite, I liked society, I liked out-of-door sports, I was fond of handsome clothes. Now all these things were incompatible with the doleful character I was to assume, and I proceeded to cast them from me. ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the Bluebird, or the faint trill of the Song-Sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle or an ellipse in the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... We always slept on board, and the sound of the Malays' songs came across the water to a late hour of the night. The musical instruments we heard were tom-toms, Jews'-harps, and frequently fiddles. The Malays are a merry, vivacious people, and fond of several games. The most interesting was a game at football, which was generally played in the evening. The ball is small, made of ratan, hollow, elastic, and light. One of the players dances it for a short time on his foot, sometimes on his arm or thigh, and then striking ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... a steady-voiced, olive-skinned young man, in pleasant contrast to Anne's vivacious fairness, and together they journeyed uptown and then west to the Kensington, for a final decision upon the one vacant apartment. The rooms were of fair size, they were all light, and the agent had at least half a yard of applicants upon a ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... arranged in the costumes depicted by Holbein, Vandyk, or Lely, the garb of ancient days, seated by their stately seniors, whilst the antlered deer, then the free denizens of the forest, stood at bay, half-startled at the merry party which had invaded their solitude; and the squirrel, little more vivacious in its furry jacket than the stiffly-dressed little bipeds, sprang from bough to bough overhead; and the hare and rabbit bounded along over the distant upland. But we must return to our ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... quailed in the face of danger. The side of Mrs. Stanton that I like best to think of is her home life, her family affections and her friendships. I was once a guest for several days in the same house with her and other leaders and she was so vivacious, so fresh, so full of joy of life that it was delightful to be with her. She was so witty that no one wanted to leave the room a minute for fear of losing something she might say. I used to love to see her after she took a nap; though so advanced in years she would always ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... murmur of laughter—half actual and half suggested—with which she underlined the conversation, became loud and clear, as she allowed her vivacious glance to strike straight into his ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... see nothing that acquaints us with human sentiments or human actions; we place it with the fairest and the noblest progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction with learning; but Othello is the vigorous and vivacious offspring of observation impregnated by genius. Cato affords a splendid exhibition of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers just and noble sentiments, in diction easy, elevated, and harmonious, but its hopes ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... her low forehead, curved and golden like a crescent moon. Her large prominent eyes, her short tip-tilted nose with dilated nostrils, and her thick ruddy lips, when regarded apart from one another, would have looked ugly; viewed, however, all together, amidst the delightful roundness and vivacious mobility of her countenance, they formed an ensemble of strange, surprising beauty. When Miette laughed, throwing back her head and gently resting it on her right shoulder, she resembled an old-time Bacchante, her throat distending with sonorous gaiety, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... that we hope shortly to send you some American verses and prose of good intent? My vivacious friend Margaret Fuller is to edit a journal whose first number she promises for the 1st of July next, which I think will be written with a good will if written at all. I saw some poetical fragments which charmed me,—if only the writer consents to ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... eyes, sparkling with fun and merriment, are shaded by thick, curly lashes. She has a small, determined mouth, and the chin slightly upturned, gives a piquante expression to the intelligent face—so bright and vivacious. Her hair is of a fair-brown colour, a little lighter than her eyelashes, and is piled up high on the top of her head, breaking away into natural curls over her brow. She is clad in an exquisite ...
— Mrs. Hungerford - Notable Women Authors of the Day • Helen C. Black
... possible-ill-health might bring the girl to his feet, as it had often done before in the case of other women; but it did not seem to produce the least effect. She stood silent, immobile, with her eyes still fixed upon the floor. Silence and stillness were so unusual in one of Ethel's vivacious temperament, that Oliver began ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... self-reliance, came back in a flood. She fairly radiated charm, glowing as she held George and Alice under the spell of her voice, the spell of her happy planning. Her letters to Warren were in the old, tender, vivacious strain. She was interested in everything, delighted with everything in Clark's Hills. She begged him for news; Vivian had a baby? And Kent Parmalee was engaged to Eliza Bowditch—what did Magsie's say? And did he miss her? The ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... and graces formerly supposed to be the result of heredity and environment. The duty of each teacher to consult daily a card catalogue of duties, beginning with Apperception and Adenoids and going on to Vaccination, Ventilation, and the various vivacious variations on the three R's. The obligation resting upon the well-to-do citizen not to leave for his country place, but to remain in the city in order to give the force of his example, in his own ward, to a safe and sane Fourth of July. The obligation resting ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... reformer, in Church matters as in politics, followed him here, as we see by his letters; and it was not till his "Life and Correspondence" appeared that his neighbors here understood him. It has always been difficult, perhaps, for them to understand anything modern, or at all vivacious. Everybody respected Dr. Arnold for his energy and industry, his services to education, and his devotedness to human welfare; but they were afraid of his supposed opinions. Not the less heartily did he honor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... she has a directness and simplicity that no more identifies her with a European woman of any class than with the well-known exigencies of diplomacy. Madame Waddington strikes one as quite remarkably fearless and downright; she appears to be as outspoken as she is vivacious; and as her husband had a highly successful career as a diplomatist, and as his debt to his brilliant wife is freely conceded, Madame Waddington is certainly a notable instance of the gay persistence of an intelligent American woman's personality, combined with the ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... mornings, the hotel steps and the esplanade would be dotted with anxious groups waiting for breakfast, and observing the omens of the sky. If these are favourable, a little before eight a broad stream sets towards the station, and fills the sunny platform with a vivacious crowd. Masters, who organise the several expeditions, use the interval to count heads and sort their parties. The benevolent Cambrian railway supplies spare carriages and return tickets at single fares. Presently the train is sighted sliding down ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... young, broad-shouldered, handsome, optimistic, buoyant. And there, too, was Elizabeth, also young, and pretty and gayly chatty and vivacious. And there, too, was he, Sears Kendrick, no longer young, even in the actual count of years, and feeling at least twice that count—there he was, ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... protestations of delight at beholding his intercessor and ransomer. Drusus could hardly recognize in the supple-limbed, fair-complexioned, vivacious lad before him, the wretched creature whom Alfidius had driven through the streets. Agias's message was short, but quite long enough to make Drusus's pale cheeks flush with new life, his sunken eyes rekindle, and his languor vanish ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... quarter of the hall where our host and hostess stood to receive their guests. His eye was roaming hither and thither and his manner was both eager and expectant. Whom was he seeking? Some one of the many bright and vivacious girls about me, for he turned almost instantly ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... Lord Shaftesbury with his beautiful lady, and her father and mother, Lord and Lady Palmerston. Lord Palmerston is of middle height, with a keen, dark eye, and black hair streaked with gray. There is something peculiarly alert and vivacious about all his movements; in short his appearance perfectly answers to what we know of him from his public life. One has a strange mythological feeling about the existence of people of whom one hears for many years without ever seeing them. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... that charmed circle. Graphic and lively as it will be seen are their writings, their wit was at times so keen-edged that it is said to have caused considerable alarm to the dandies and belles of their generation, who suffered from the too vivacious criticism of their young contemporaries. This was more particularly so in the case of Marianne, the eldest daughter, afterwards the anonymous author of the satirical novel Almack's. Brilliant and full of humour as is her correspondence, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... in June. The sky was cloudless and dazzlingly blue, but the heat of the sun's rays was tempered by a deliciously cool breeze, and the foliage of the trees that clothe the pleasant slopes round the vivacious little town of Aix-les-Bains afforded plenty of shade to the pedestrian. Aix was, as usual, very crowded and very gay. German potentates abounded: French notabilities were not wanting: it was rumored that English royalty was coming. A very motley crowd of divers nationalities drank the ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... towards the dancers, and Devereux by her side—not to join in the frolic; it was much pleasanter talking. But the merry thrum and jingle of the tambourine, and vivacious squeak of the fiddles, and the incessant laughter and prattle of the gay company were a sort of protection. And perhaps she fancied that within that pleasant and bustling circle, the discourse, which was to her so charming, might be longer maintained. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... tall doors opened, and the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Briseville appeared. They were both small, thin, vivacious, of no age ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... very large place, and has quietly settled down into a state of serene prosperity. I have my boots repaired here by an artist who informs me that he studied in the penitentiary; and I visit the lunatic asylum, where I encounter a vivacious maniac who invites me to ride in a chariot drawn by eight ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... This vivacious and reverend hero has given birth to a proverb peculiar to this county, "The vicar of Bray will be vicar of Bray still." But how has it happened that this vicar should be so notorious, and one in much higher rank, acting the same part, should have escaped notice? ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... others similar to it in his experience, and he understood well enough that a sensitive young girl might feel ashamed of having shown too much feeling, or might have taken offence at some detail in his conduct which had entirely escaped his own notice. Young and vivacious women are peculiarly subject to this sort of sensitiveness, as he was well aware. There was nothing to be done but to be quiet, attentive in small things, and to wait for fair weather again. After all, he had crossed the Rubicon, and had been very well received on the other side. It would ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... the Baroness d'Isola, a tiny blonde with a cloud of fluffy curls all over her forehead, vivacious and grimacing as a young monkey, called to ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... admired her spirit, but refused to obey her. Colonel Gilbert smiled contemplatively, He was of a different school—of that school of Frenchmen which owes its existence to Napoleon III.—impassive, almost taciturn—more British than the typical Briton. De Vasselot, on the contrary, was quick and vivacious. His fine-cut face and dark eyes expressed a hundred things that his tongue had no time to put into words. He was hard and brown and sunburnt, which at once made him ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... industriously, but no model was present; his pictures were advantageously arranged, and his own plain vivacious person set off by a dove-colored blouse and a maroon velvet cap, so that everything was as fortunate as if he had expected the beautiful young English lady exactly at ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... undeviating fidelity. He was thankful, selfishly, no doubt—he often said so to himself—for her loneliness, because he believed himself able to cheer it and to alleviate it. And at last he had ceased to dread any change in her way of life. His Adela had evidently at last "settled down." Her vivacious temperament, her almost greedy love of life, were abated. He had her more or less ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... that it shows the way, not whether it is lamp or candle, tallow or wax. Our only real interest in Zadig lies in the conceptions of which he is the putative father; and his biographer has stated these with so much clearness and vivacious illustration, that we need hardly feel a pang, even if critical research should prove King Moabdar and all the rest of the story to be unhistorical, and reduce Zadig himself to the shadowy condition ...
— On the Method of Zadig - Essay #1 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... acquire the French language and begin her education. And so to Boulogne I went, to a school in the oddly named "Rue tant perd tant paie," in the old town, kept by a rather sallow and grim, but still vivacious old Madame Faudier, with the assistance of her daughter, Mademoiselle Flore, a bouncing, blooming beauty of a discreet age, whose florid complexion, prominent black eyes, plaited and profusely pomatumed black hair, and full, commanding ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... he were Irish. His voice, very guttural and quick, with a kind of lively bitterness in it, was of a kind of Irish voice new to me at that time. I had known a good many Irish people; but they had all been vivacious and picturesque, rapid in intellectual argument, and vague about life. There was nothing vivacious, picturesque, rapid or vague about Synge. The rush-bottomed chair next to him was filled by talker after talker, but Synge was not talking, he was ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield
... uniforms lent an air of distinction to the scene, and Allison and Kitty each began a conversation in such a vivacious way, that Mary found it difficult to decide which group to attach herself to. She did not want to lose a word that any one was saying, and the effort to listen to several separate conversations was as much of a strain as trying to watch ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... and incredulity, rather than anger, and Eunice's voice was gentle. In such a mood, she was even more attractive than in her more vivacious moments. ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... of the average height, weighing about a hundred and thirty pounds. She was rather compactly built, had a well rounded face, rich dark-brown hair, and bluish-gray eyes. In her bearing she was proud, but handsome and vivacious; she was a good conversationalist, using with equal fluency the ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... himself like a misanthropic oyster, and was about as interesting. This was the one point upon which we always disagreed. Peter couldn't endure girls; I was devoted to them by the wholesale. The Croyden girls were pretty and vivacious. I had a score of flirtations during my ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the least sluggish is the blood flowing in the veins of Spizella pallida, for he is a vivacious little body, flitting about actively in the hedges and bushes, and sometimes mounting into the trees, chanting his little alto strain all the while, as if his life depended upon it. He is one of the comparatively few birds who is lavish of his ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... were laughing and talking and seemed very merry. As a rule I should have waved a "good morning" and passed on for my solitary walk. To-day I went up to them. My mother appeared to be in an excellent temper, the Prince looked quite easy and happy. Victoria was a little pale but very vivacious. She darted a quick look at me, and cried out the moment I had ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... while ready to sink with fatigue. The gentlemen did not return to luncheon, but a caller dropped in—a clergyman, Mr. Jones; and Miss Burleigh took the opportunity of his entrance to vanish, making a sign to Miss Fairfax to come too. They went into the garden, where they were met by a vivacious, pretty old lady, Miss Hague, a former governess of Miss Burleigh, who now acted as assistant ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... unlovely belar, when the wind sighed through its coarse, scanty, grey-green tresses; and she loved to contemplate the silvery plumage of the two drooping myalls which, because of their rarity here, had been allowed to remain in the horse-paddock. For the last two or three springs of her vivacious existence, she had watched the deepening crimson of the quondong, amidst its thick contexture of Nile-green leaves; she had marked the unfolding bloom of the scrub, in its many-hued beauty; she had revelled in the audacious black-and-scarlet ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... for laying hens, we only found empty shells in the hen-coop, the rats having sucked the eggs before us. Gilbert, to save our eggs, bought a vivacious little terrier, who killed more fowls than rats; and as to the few little chickens that were hatched—despite the cold and damp—they gradually disappeared, devoured by the birds of prey, falcons ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... the scenery exquisite, his companion vivacious in the extreme, Lady Helena in her most genial mood. But Sir Victor Catheron sat very silent and distrait all the way. Rallied by Miss Stuart on his gloom, he smiled faintly, and acknowledged he felt a trifle out of sorts. As he made the confession he paused abruptly—clear and sweet, ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... whole day. In the morning I hear him getting up early, at sunrise or before, humming to himself, scuffling about his chamber with his thick boots, and at last taking his departure for a solitary ramble till breakfast. Then he comes in, cheerful and vivacious enough, eats pretty heartily, and is off again, singing French chansons as he goes down the gravel-walk. The poor fellow has nobody to sympathize with him but B——, and thus a singular connection is established ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... pronounce it "Nebuchadnezzar." The devil, it is alleged, studied for seven years to learn the Basque tongue; at the end of that time he had mastered only three words and abandoned the task in disgust. "And the result is," adds a vivacious writer, "that he is unable to tempt a Basque, because he cannot speak to him, and that consequently every Basque goes straight to heaven. Unfortunately, now that the population is beginning to talk French, (which the devil knows terribly well,) this ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... strangely subdued and quiet. Her little restless movements were still for once; and her quick, vivacious face was ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... Clifford, his brother, the Honorable George Heathercliffe, Ray Vandyck, O'Meara, and Mr. Bathurst. Mr. Bathurst, who now appears what he is; a handsome gentleman, about thirty years of age, clever, vivacious, eminently agreeable. Mr. Wedron, like Brooks, has served out his day, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... streets and the populace continually en scene; the people who are at home on the sunny side in winter, or the shady side in summer; there is the social life of the nobility, which is brilliant and vivacious. The excursions, of which Naples is the centre, are the chief interest to travellers, and these, while possible in winter, are far more enjoyable in the early spring. Still even in midwinter the days are sunny, and while the air is crisp and cool, it is ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... everybody—except always his mother, the merest word from whom would at once rouse all the rebel in his blood. In person he was tall and loosely knit, with large joints and extremities. His face was handsome and vivacious, expressing far more than was in him to express, and giving ground for expectation such as he had never met. He was by no means an ill- intentioned fellow, preferred doing well and acting fairly, and neither at school ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... after his recent experience with Mary Owens, distrusted his ability to make any woman happy—much less the belle from Louisville, so brilliant, vivacious, well educated and exacting. He seemed to grow morbidly conscious of his shortcomings, and she was high-strung. A misunderstanding arose, and, between such exceptional natures, "the course of true ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... volume for young people, in which the habits, humors, and eccentricities of insects are delightfully described. The secrets and charms of insect-land are laid open by her vivacious pen, and the astonishing insects are described in a manner that makes ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... flat, a leader or so-Lunatcharsky, Kameniev-hurrying along in the centre of a group all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces, and bulging portfolios under their arms. The extraordinary meeting of the Petrograd Soviet was over. I stopped Kameniev-a quick moving little man, with a wide, vivacious face set close to his shoulders. Without preface he read in rapid French a copy of ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... tall," thought I, "and of exquisite grace and dignity. She is not quite so courtly as her father, for she has been brought up in the retirement of the country. Neither is she of such vivacious deportment; for the tones of her voice are soft and plaintive, and she loves pathetic music. She is rather pensive—yet not too pensive; just what is called interesting. Her eyes are like her father's, except that they ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... no good—it was all a weariness. But she was so heartily ashamed of her feelings, that she worked the more vehemently for them, and the utmost show that they outwardly made was, that Margaret thought her less vivacious than her wont, and she was a little too peremptory at times with Mary and Blanche. She had so much disliked the display that Flora had made about Cocksmoor, that she had imposed total silence on it upon her younger sisters, and Dr. Spencer had ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... will not stay to discuss—it were too wide a question; but thus much we can briefly and indisputably show, that he utterly misconceives, as well as underrates, the kind of research to which psychologists are addicted. As M. Comte's style is here unusually vivacious, we will quote the whole passage. Are we uncharitable in supposing that the prospect of demolishing, at one fell swoop, the brilliant reputations of a whole class of Parisian savans, added something to the piquancy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... world and all that it inhabits, were concentrated in Charles Fox, William Pitt, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the circle of men of pleasantry, loose lives, and vivacious temperaments, who, with whatever diminishing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... French were in want of some new excitement, and grieving to find that the pompe funebre of Napoleon, and the inauguration of his statue upon the monument of the victories that never took place, had not made the intense impression upon the minds of his vivacious subjects that he had intended it should produce, begins to think, that before long a fresh emeute will once more throw up the barricades and paving-stones in the Rue St. Honore and Boulevard des Italiens. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... a delightful little book on French rivers, written some years ago by a vivacious and highly imaginative gentleman named Molloy. It is a rose-tinted volume from the first page to the last, so full of gay adventures that it would lure a mollusc from his shell. Every town and every village yields some fresh delight, some humorous exploit to the four oarsmen who risk their ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... thing really mastered her: the fixed idea that Jim must be saved. As it deepened, the other life that she had lived became like the sports in which we shared when children, full of vivacious memory, shining with impulse and the stir of life, but not to be repeated—days and deeds outgrown. So the light of one idea shone in her face. Yet she was intensely human too; and if her eyes had not been set on the greater ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... their London, it was inexplicable. Miss Schley was pretty and knew how to dress. These facts, though of course denied by some, as all facts in London are, were undeniable. But Miss Schley had nothing to say. She was not a brilliant talker, as so many of her countrywomen are. She was not vivacious in manner, except on rare occasions. She was not interested in all the questions of the day. She was not—a great many things. But she ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... interrupted the vivacious Tomlinson, "that the identity of your former meanness with your present greatness would be easily traced; the envy and jealousy of your early friends aroused; a hint of your whereabout and your aliases given to the police, and yourself grabbed, with ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
