"Frisking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... rises with a clash. The lion bounds into the arena. He rushes round frisking in his freedom. He sees Androcles. He stops; rises stiffly by straightening his legs; stretches out his nose forward and his tail in a horizontal line behind, like a pointer, and utters an appalling roar. Androcles crouches and hides his face in his hands. The lion gathers himself for a spring, ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... 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. It makes ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... grunt. Miki, meanwhile, was carefully smelling of him from his rump to his muzzle. There was apparently nothing missing, for he gave a delighted little yap at the end, and, in spite of his size and the dignity of increased age, he began frisking about Neewa In a manner emphatically expressive of his ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... frowned upon him, and he scowled at them. He realized that his only chance in this desperate venture lay in getting at the elder first, and frisking him away before the women had opportunity to open their mouths. A word from them might check operations. And then, with the capture once made, if he could speed his horse fast enough to allow him an uninterrupted quarter of an hour at the tavern with the minister, he ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... humor in which the Russians delight. Here you find frozen oxen, calves, sheep, rabbits, geese, ducks, and all manner of animals and birds, once animate with life, now stiff and stark in death. The oxen stand staring at you with their fixed eyes and gory carcasses; the calves are jumping or frisking in skinless innocence; the sheep ba-a at you with open mouths, or cast sheep's-eyes at the by-passers; the rabbits, having traveled hundreds of miles, are jumping, or running, or turning somersaults in frozen tableaux ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... king continued three months in this cruel humour; in which time, merely for his pleasure, many men lost their lives, and many were grievously wounded. Afterwards, and till I came away, twelve or fifteen young lions were made tame, and used to play with each other in the king's presence, frisking about among people's legs, yet doing no harm in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... a paradise to gain, 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, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... 'While little Krishna was frisking about among the milkmaids of Govardhan,' continued my old friend, 'stealing their milk, cream, and butter, Brahma, the creator of the universe, who had heard of his being an incarnation of Vishnu, the great preserver of the universe, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Rose Mamie," came 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 wasn't a-going to be no ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... both 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 on a tightrope in another ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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
... places and gave themselves with utter abandon to the wild impulses of wild natures in a wild world; and there was such a scene of uncurbed, animal hilarity as I never dreamed possible. Savage, furious, almost ferocious like the frisking of a pack of wolves, that at any time may fall upon and destroy a weaker one, the boisterous antics of these children of the forest fascinated me. Filled with the curiosity that lures many a trader to his undoing, I rose and went across to the thronging, shouting, shadowy ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... a greater disaster 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 went, when—good luck again—a ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... strong for me in your hearts; but, fortunately for my client, it is not so. I will show you on the most unquestionable evidence that it was not the first nor the second time that Mr. Darbyshire had mounted this prohibited but tempting steed. He had been seen, as one of the witnesses expresses it, 'frisking about' on this beautiful animal, and asking his neighbors what they thought of such a bit of blood as that. He had on one occasion been as far as Crich fair with her, and had allowed her to be cheapened by several dealers as if she were his own, and then proudly rode off, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... there a suppressed glow of orange shot with a redder tinge showed through the dusky gloom of the leaves. Lo! there they were, hundreds of them, over three inches in diameter, bold, gaudy, rich, the best possible examples of nature's pristine exuberance of force and color. Two gray squirrels were frisking about among the highest sprays, and it was my good fortune that my friend carried on his shoulder a forty-four-calibre rifle; for, though it was death to the nimble little animals, it proved to be the instrument with which I procured ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... full of hopes, they loose the lengthing twine, Bait harmless hooks, and launch a leadless line! Their shadows on the stream, the sun behind— Egregious anglers! are the fishes blind? Gull'd by the sportings of the frisking bleak, That now assemble, now disperse, in freak; They see not deeper, where the quick-eyed trout, Has chang'd his route, and turned him quick about; See not those scudding shoals, that mend their pace, Of frighten'd bream, and silvery darting ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... unconscious of the approach of an enemy, stood for some time suckling her young one, which seemed about two years old; they then went into a pit containing mud, and smeared themselves all over with it, the little one frisking about his dam, flapping his ears and tossing his trunk incessantly, in elephantine fashion. She kept flapping her ears and wagging her tail, as if in the height of enjoyment. Then began the piping of her enemies, which was performed by blowing into a tube, or the hands closed together, as boys ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... of his 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, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... expression blended with intelligence, a strong and lovely character. She entered the door of the log school-house, and gently drew within it the youngest of her charges. Around the school-house we saw other groups of sturdy boys and chubby girls, frisking and shouting gaily ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... 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 ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... lover sits a musing, With arms across, and's eyes up lift, As if he were of sence bereft. Till sometimes to himself he's speaking, Then sighs as if his heart were breaking. Here in a corner sits a Phrantick, And there stands by a frisking Antick, Of all sorts some and all conditions Even Vintners, Surgeons and Physicians. The blind, the deaf, and aged cripple Do here ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... leave her flock feeding, as soon as they discovered she was gone, they all began to bleat most piteously, and would continue to do so till she returned; they would then testify their joy by rubbing their sides against her petticoat and frisking about. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the squadron was a Lieutenant Williamson whom I'd never met before. But he knew all about me before the 'copter hit the ground. I could almost feel his sense of perception frisking me from the skin outward, going through my wallet and inspecting the Private Operator's license and my Weapon-Permit. I found out later that Williamson was a Rhine Scholar with a Bachelor's Degree in Perception, ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... 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 ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... short time to arrange our camp, then Big Pete followed by the frisking dogs slipped silently into the woods. He was gone scarcely a quarter of an hour when he reappeared again without the dogs, motioned for me to get my gun and ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... best news you could tell me," and Dr. Alec rubbed his hands heartily. "Let the girl run and shout as much as she will it is a sure sign of health, and as natural to a happy child as frisking is to any young animal full of life. Tomboys make strong women usually, and I had far rather find Rose playing football with Mac than puttering over bead-work like that ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... 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 true assailant; the rush ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 to his domestic servants; and all who knew him well, sorrowfully ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... in a 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 ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... the house. Though neither spoke, they went slowly, each buried in thought. The gentle zephyrs, the frisking squirrels, the nodding flowers, the singing birds, were all unheeded by them. When the home was reached, he found his mother standing in the door, ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... 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 ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... softens so many faces had not been allowed its perfect work on hers. She looked older now than her years and there were hard lines that some day would be avarice, uncharity, and other evil traits. Then this girl was an idle butterfly, frisking from one folly to another in a wicked and worldly fashion, even despising the plain faith her father had intended ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... away forever. The little 3-room house, approachable 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
... it is," he returned genially, her guilty tremor not escaping his observation, but having at the same time no explicable significance to him. "It's frisking ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... his scorn. He leaned forward across the table. Begging my pardon for an intrusion in my affairs, he asked me if I were not aware that the world was slipping away from me. God knows. Perhaps. I had come frisking to that restaurant. I left it broken and decrepit. The youngster had his manuscripts and his anarchy. He held the wriggling world by its futuristic tail. It was not my world, to be sure, but it was a gay world and daubed ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... joke. Bete!" returned the angry Frenchman, bestowing a savage kick on one of the unoffending pups which was frisking about his feet. The pup yelped; the slut barked and leaped furiously at the offender, and was only kept from biting him by Sam, who could scarcely hold her back for laughing; the captain was uproarious; the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... canyon turned and twisted this way and that, and the rift was so small that they were able to touch both walls at the same time by stretching out their arms. Toto had run on ahead, frisking playfully, when suddenly he uttered a sharp bark of fear and came running back to them with his tail between his legs, as dogs ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... before retreating 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, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... be 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
... would spend the day that separated him from the happy evening as joyously as might be. He dashed out in the direction of the Tuileries, dreaming of walking there until it was time to dine at Very's. And now, behold Lucien frisking and skipping, light of foot because light of heart, on his way to the Terrasse des Feuillants to take a look at the people of quality on promenade there. Pretty women walk arm-in-arm with men of fashion, their adorers, couples greet each other with a glance as they pass; how different ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... little one clambered about his legs in ecstasy. Among the huts stood one more imposing than the others, and toward this the chief and his family wended their way. In front of the hut stood an empty bullock cart. Attached to one of the wheels was a frisking kid. The little child paused to play ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... with a faint nip of last night's frost lingering in the air. They made a fine little procession through the woods, Aunt 'Phrony leading, followed by children, a darky with baskets, her grandson "Wi'yum," and lastly the dogs, frisking and frolicking and darting away every now and then in pursuit of small game. A very weary and hungry little party gathered about the baskets at one o'clock, and three little pairs of white hands were stained almost as brown as those of Aunt 'Phrony and William. But everybody was happy, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... not? Some women ought to be stupid. What you call dullness I call repose. Give me a calm woman, a slow woman,—a lazy, majestic woman. Show me a gracious virgin bearing a lily; not a leering giggler frisking a rattle. A lively woman would be the death of me.... Why shouldn't the Sherrick be stupid, I say? About great beauty there should always reign a silence. As you look at the great stars, the great ocean, any great scene of nature, you hush, sir. You laugh at a pantomime, but you are still in a ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... watched with interest. At first the colt was shy, but gradually, under stimulus of its appetite, it drew nearer, then ran frisking away, again drew near. Ben held out the pan, shook it at intervals, displaying its contents to the best advantage. Colt nature could not resist the appeal. The sleek thoroughbred cast aside all scruples, came close, and thrust a silken muzzle deep ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... curate now to do his routine work, and he frisks about, a good deal as he pleases. Poor beggar! He takes his very frisking sadly, nowadays. And then, after you've nailed him, would you call up Olive, nine-two-three, and tell her I'm to be abandoned, all afternoon. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... are really unconnected, 'to gamble' being 'to gamle' or 'game', and 'to gambol' being akin to French gambiller, to fling up the legs (gambes or jambes) like a frisking lamb.] ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... 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 ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... vessel and she 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 ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... begging, particularly if men were about the streets. Their dances were of the most disgusting kind that could be conceived; the most lascivious attitudes and gestures, young girls and married women, travelling with their fathers, would indulge in, to the extent of frisking about the streets ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... 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 ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... watching the gestures of the trees in taking the snow, examining separate crystals under a lens, and learning the methods of their deposition as an enduring fountain for the streams. Several times, when the storm ceased for a few minutes, a Douglas squirrel came frisking from the foot of a clump of dwarf pines, moving in sudden interrupted spurts over the bossy snow; then, without any apparent guidance, he would dig rapidly into the drift where were buried some grains of barley that the horses had left. The Douglas squirrel does not strictly ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... of hunger is somewhat singular. We no longer regard sheep, for instance, as the fleecy or the bleating flock. Their wool or their baaing is nothing to us—we think of necks, and jigots, and saddles of mutton; and even the lamb frisking on the sunny bank is eaten by us in the shape of steaks and fry. If it is in the morning, we see no part of the cow but her udder, distilling richest milkiness. Instead of ascending to heaven on the smoke ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... frisking gayly on the rocky steeps of a mountain valley, chanced to meet, one on each side of a deep chasm through which poured a mighty mountain torrent. The trunk of a fallen tree formed the only means ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... dog, who had been frisking about and wagging his tail, sat up and begged, looking from one to the other of the young people ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... range country. In every direction broad meadows stretch away to the horizon where numberless cattle roam and are the embodiment of bovine happiness and contentment. Scattered about in irregular groups they are seen at ease lying down or feeding, and frisking about in an overflow of exuberant life. Cow paths or trails converge from every point of the compass, that lead to springs and water holes, on which the ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... through some of the ravines the party had been greatly amused by the antics of troops of apes. Sometimes these sat tranquilly on the hillside, the elder gravely surveying the little caravan, the younger frisking about perfectly unconcerned. Sometimes they would accompany them for a considerable distance, making their way along the rough stones of the hillside at a deliberate pace, but yet keeping up ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... "Alice, or the Mysteries"—I have known it, I say, do more execution upon the congregated amount of midriff, than the best joke of the evening. (There is one passage in that "thrilling" performance, where Alice, overjoyed that her lover is restored to her, is represented as frisking about him like a dog around his long-absent proprietor, which, whenever I have taken it in hand, has been rewarded with the most vociferous and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... perhaps a position underneath the bamboo staging might be more healthy than one on the top of it, exposed to every microbe of a bit of old iron and what not and a half that according to native testimony would shortly be frisking through the atmosphere from those Fan guns; and moreover I had not forgotten having been previously shot in a somewhat similar situation, though in better company. However I did not say anything; neither, between ourselves, did I somehow believe ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... went home across Africa frisking and whisking his trunk. When he wanted fruit to eat he pulled fruit down from a tree, instead of waiting for it to fall as he used to do. When he wanted grass he plucked grass up from the ground, instead of going on his knees as he used to do. When the flies bit him he broke ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... 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 ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... moistening their dry marrow; their new principles of vitality were supposed by them to be found in the powers of the mind; this seemed more reasonable, but proved to be as little efficacious as those other philosophers, who imagine they have detected the hidden principle of life in the eels frisking in vinegar, and allude to "the bookbinder ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... white headstones gleam in the sun. Ancient oaks line the lichened wall of the churchyard: their leaves not yet to thick as they will be a month hereafter. Beyond the wall, I see a very verdant field, between two oaks; six or seven white lambs are lying there, or frisking about. The silver gleam of a river bounds the field; and beyond are thick hedges, white with hawthorn blossoms. In the distance there is a great rocky hill, which bounds the horizon. There is not a sound, save when a little flaw of air brushes a twig against the wall some feet below ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... is for you to stand right where you are without making any breaks until I get through frisking ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... antithesis would have been less offensive. The Nabob's millions would have established equilibrium and even turned the scale in his favor. But Paris does not as yet place money above all the other powers, and, to be convinced of that fact, one had only to see that stout merchant frisking about with an amiable smile before the great nobleman, and spreading beneath his feet, like the courtier's ermine cloak, his ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... 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
... go on in his thieveries, and nimble-fingered juggles; the sooty 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 attention. ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... Yes, all this frisking and skipping is but the hypocrisy of bleeding vanity—haeret lateri—they are just the flush, wriggle, and hysterics ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... for the horses and mules. All round the desert rose in humps of sand, melting into stony ground where the saltpetre lay like snow on a wintry world. There were but few signs of life in this place; some stockings drying on the wall of a ruined Arab cafe, some kids frisking by a heap of sacks, a few pigeons circling about a low square watch-tower, a black donkey brooding on a dust heap. There were some signs of death; carcasses of camels stretched here and there in frantic and fantastic postures, some bleached ...
— The Desert Drum - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... Jet. Nurse Nancy had provided a ribbon and a little tinkling bell for each. Jet had a scarlet ribbon and a gold bell, and Snow a blue ribbon and a silver bell. Nancy also produced two balls of knitting worsted, and it was very funny to see the kitties frisking about the floor after the dangling balls. This gave a pleasantly exciting finish to the evening, and the play went on until ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... bargain was not such pleasant hearing as the rest of it. Still the lad had a mind to try for the Princess. So he was taken out to the paddock where the hares were, and a pretty sight it was to see them hopping and frisking about, hundreds and hundreds of ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... 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
... smelling of rose and benjamin as if he were still at Versailles or Choisi. Grand Jean decorated the back of his head with a little pigtail, which much resembled a head of asparagus, and was always jumping and frisking from one shoulder to the other. His snuff-box was of rare enamel, his ruffles of point-lace, and his artistic performances in the culinary art were all carried on in vessels of solid silver. He was, from the point of his ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... the goats came frisking along; and after having relieved them of their milk, Walter drank some, ate a little black bread to it, and then put the rest of the milk in a flat pan, which he set carefully in the cool cellar. When the goats had returned to the hills, and ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... remarkable motions. First he would give some little springs, then make a bow; then, with his slim legs, he would give a lively spring in the air, clapping his feet as he did so, and then turn round cleverly, skipping and frisking about in a comical manner, smiling as if he had an audience, twisting his poor little puppet-like body, bowing pathetic and ridiculous little greetings into the empty air. He ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... witches prove beyond contradiction that all sorts of people, spirits which assume light airy bodies, or crazed bodies coacted by foreign spirits, seem to have some pleasure (at least to assuage some pain or melancholy) by frisking and capering like satyrs, or whistling and screeching (like unlucky birds) in their unhallowed synagogues and Sabbaths. If invited and earnestly required, these companions make themselves known and familiar ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... 'make an effort' at all. Mrs. H- (the captain's wife), a young Cape lady, and I are the only 'female ladies' of the party. The other day we saw a shoal of porpoises, amounting to many hundreds, if not some thousands, who came frisking round the ship. When we first saw them they looked like a line of breakers; they made such a splash, and they jumped right out of the water three feet in height, and ten or twelve in distance, glittering green ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... than Tory. What in Antony Buller was a conservative Christian meekness was in Lord Blatchford a progressive Christian briskness; but his belief in popular progress was accompanied by a smile at its incidents, as though it were a kind of frisking to which the masses ought to be welcome so long as it did not assume too practical a character or endanger any of the palings within the limits of which it ought to ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... and I suspect it was not true; but indeed my travels with the drovers had rendered me indulgent, and perhaps even credulous, in the matter of dog-stories. Beautiful, indefatigable beings! as I saw them at the end of a long day's journey frisking, barking, bounding, striking attitudes, slanting a bushy tail, manifestly playing to the spectator's eye, manifestly rejoicing in their grace and beauty—and turned to observe Sim and Candlish unornamentally plodding in the rear with the plaids about their bowed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... find the dog there in the morning. But the dog was there, most evidently waiting for breakfast, grinning his delight at not being cursed or kicked at, and frisking round the cabin yard in a mad race after nothing in particular, and indicating in every way possible that he was the happiest dog that ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... 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 ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... 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 time he ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... of mules once galloped off suddenly, on the plains of the Cimarone, and ran half a mile, when they halted in apparent satisfaction. The cause of their freak was found to be a buffalo-calf, which had strayed from the herd. They were frisking around it in the greatest delight, rubbing their noses against it, throwing up their heels, and making themselves ridiculous by abortive attempts to neigh and bray; while the poor calf, unconscious of its attractive qualities, stood trembling in their midst. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... Hiawatha!" In his fingers Hiawatha 65 Felt the loose line jerk and tighten; As he drew it in, it tugged so, That the birch canoe stood endwise, Like a birch log in the water, With the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 70 Perched and frisking on the summit. Full of scorn was Hiawatha When he saw the fish rise upward, Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, Coming nearer, nearer to him, 75 And he shouted through the water, "Esa! esa! shame upon you! ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... a favorite the little Dog was with his Master, how much caressed and fondled, and fed with good bits at every meal; and for no other reason, as he could perceive, but for skipping and frisking about, wagging his tail, and leaping up into his Master's lap: he was resolved to imitate the same, and see whether such a behavior would not procure him the same favors. Accordingly, the Master was no sooner come home from walking about his fields and gardens, and was seated in his easy-chair, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... shapes, Of little frisking elves and apes To earth do make their wanton scapes, As hope of pastime hastes them: Which maids think on the hearth they see When fires well-near consumed be, There dancing hays[2] by two and three, Just ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... in the tree, and there he saw a lovely little girl squirrel, frisking about on the branches. Then Squinty was no longer afraid. Out of the leaves he jumped, giving a squeal ...
— Squinty the Comical Pig - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... peep of green grass and sunlight, and all at once came out in an open space in the middle of the castle. And there you would see cows quietly grazing, or ruminating under the shade of young trees, and perhaps a calf frisking about, and trying to catch its own tail; and sheep clambering among the mossy ruins, and cropping the little tufts of grass sprouting out of the sides of the embrasures for cannon. And once I saw a black goat with ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Why, what a plague, my old fellow, has given you that rueful-looking countenance? I am sure you was not plucked upon Maro Common or Homer Downs{17} in passing examination with the big wig this morning; or has Tom been frisking{18} you already with some of his jokes about the straits of independency{19}; the waste of ready{20}; the dynasty of Venus,{21} or the quicksands ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... in man so tell-tale as his spectacles; that the mouth may be compressed and the brow smoothed artificially, but the sheen of the barnacles is diagnostic. And truly it must have been thus with Kelland; for as I still fancy I behold him frisking actively about the platform, pointer in hand, that which I seem to see most clearly is the way his glasses glittered with affection. I never knew but one other man who had (if you will permit the phrase) so kind a spectacle, and that was Dr. Appleton.[5] But ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 hall, where Bessie, having ceased her singing, was busily arranging ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... 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, to let the ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... away from him, and let his head drop back on the pillow. The door opened, and Nikolai Petrovitch entered, cheerful, fresh, and ruddy. Mitya, as fresh and ruddy as his father, in nothing but his little shirt, was frisking on his shoulder, catching the big buttons of his rough country coat with his ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... the little pigs, Brindle Bess the cow, and then the baby mice (who soon wouldn't be babies any more, by the way) up in the loft. And of course they went across the road to see the lamb that by now was well acquainted with Mary Jane; and they played with Bob who came frisking to meet them. And last of all they showed John the ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson
... 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 ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... badly. He then undertook to wash Gringalet, whose white coat, spotted with black, was sadly in want of cleansing. Unfortunately, the dog was hardly out of the water when he began rolling himself in the dust, and, as dirty as ever, came frisking ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... clear that they were watching the bacha all the time. Still he did not move, and they began to run further and further out into the open ground. Then two or three came out together, and began leaping and frisking about. Presently the hitherto immovable bacha leaped off the rock, spreading wide its huge wings, and like a flash of lightning from a thunder-cloud darted down on a klipdach on which it had fixed its keen eye. In vain the unfortunate klipdach attempted to leap away. ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Corybantes or Salvationists of Judaism. In 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 ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... dominion is no more: 200 Yea, though to both superior far in fame, Thine empire, 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... old Daisy seated herself in a very dignified way right in front of the book. In a few minutes, little Ring came frisking along, and, without paying the least regard to Madam Daisy, up she jumped, and whisked the ...
— The Nursery, April 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... out, and all take wing again, to join their queen. This happens much more frequently in the case of after-swarms, whose young queens, instead of exhibiting the gravity of the old matron, are apt to be constantly flying about, and frisking in the air. When the bees cluster again on the tree, the process ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... 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.
... not have even your heel vulnerable by the gout, that such a Pythagorean as I am should yet be subject to it! It is not two years since I had it last, and here am I with My foot again upon cushions. But I will not complain; the pain is trifling, and does little more than prevent my frisking about. If I can bear the motion of the chariot, I shall drive to Strawberry tomorrow, for I had rather only look at verdure and hear my nightingales from the bow-window, than receive visits and listen to news. I can give you no ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... gilded roofs glittering in the sun. Here might be seen the wealthy Christian ladies walking in the streets, their dresses embroidered with Scripture parables, the Gospels hanging from their necks by a golden chain, Maltese dogs with jewelled collars frisking round them, and slaves with parasols and fans trooping along. There might be seen the ever-trading, ever-thriving Jew, fresh from the wharves, or busy negotiating his loans. But, worst of all, the chariots with giddy or thoughtful pagans hastening to the academy ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... 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 be ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... 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, put me in such a fright, that I wanted presence ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... to her at our rate of going," shouted out the captain in the same pitch of voice, which might have been heard a mile away at the least; for, although there was a strong breeze the wind did not make much noise, and the Atlantic waves were only frisking about in play without any great commotion. "Mind you pilot us right: it would spoil the Susan Jane's figure-head, I reckon, to ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... 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 of the dog ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... on his return. The Ass had, it is true, a good deal of work to do, carting or grinding the corn, or carrying the burdens of the farm: and ere long he became very jealous, contrasting his own life of labour with the ease and idleness of the Lap-dog. At last one day he broke his halter, and frisking into the house just as his master sat down to dinner, he pranced and capered about, mimicking the frolics of the little favourite, upsetting the table and smashing the crockery with his clumsy efforts. Not ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... round, just into its former stance, without missing one jot. Ha, said Tripet, I will not do that at this time, and not without cause. Well, said Gymnast, I have failed, I will undo this leap. Then with a marvellous strength and agility, turning towards the right hand, he fetched another frisking gambol as before, which done, he set his right-hand thumb upon the hind-bow of the saddle, raised himself up, and sprung in the air, poising and upholding his whole body upon the muscle and nerve of the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... stood in the doorway and blinked and blinked. He rubbed his eyes, for the bright sunlight hurt them. But soon he and Silkie were frisking and tumbling about ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey |
