"Playful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at Brook Farm, always equable and playful, wholly simple and frank in manner. He talked readily and easily, but not controversially. His smile was singularly attractive and sympathetic, and the earnestness of which I have spoken gave him an unconscious personal dignity. His temperament ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... Colonel Howard in matters of female dress, the case was very different with Alice Dunscombe, This lady gazed with a steady eye and reproving countenance on the fantastical turban, until Katherine threw herself by her side, and endeavored to lead her attention to other subjects, by her playful motions ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... friends, to sip out of their glass, and ask each other how they were getting on. It was not long before the stiff veneer of bourgeoisie which bored me had worn off. The people emerged in their true selves: natural, gentle, sparkling with enjoyment, playful. Playful is, I think, the best word to describe them. They played with infinite grace and innocence, like kittens, from the old men of sixty to the little boys of thirteen. Very little wine was drunk. Each guest had a litre placed before him. Many did not finish theirs; and for very few was ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... was probably a special friend of the family, who with Mary was directing it. While Jesus' command was being obeyed, His first miracle was performed. "When the ruler had 'tasted the water now become wine, and knew not whence it was,' ... he called the bridegroom," and in a playful joke praised the goodness of the wine which he imagined had purposely been kept ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... I ever saw Rockminster sit out a morning performance," observed Percy Lestrange, with a playful grin. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... events which no one believed could ever happen had apparently occurred and seemed likely to be permanent, I gave the whole thing up like a riddle which it was beneath me to unravel, and turned away in disgust from the contemplation of this puzzling world. As a playful reminiscence of our hopes of the year 1852, I suggested to Uhlig that in our correspondence during that year we should ignore its existence and should date our letters December '51, in consequence of which this said month of December seemed of ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... not. There is no knowing how long we might have stood there staring at each other, but for a sudden gust of wind that whisked off my hat, whereupon the young man and I both started downhill in pursuit. The wind was playful, and led us a fine dance; we were obliged to laugh. When at last he caught and handed back to me my property, we were thoroughly exhausted and sat down at the foot of the hill on the mossy tree-roots. ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... or hear their lovely language, written or spoken for us, not in frightful black letters nor in dull sentences, but in fair green and shadowy shapes of waving words, and blossomed brightness of odoriferous wit, and sweet whispers of unintrusive wisdom, and playful morality. ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... of a shallow lake, Where grasses rank and mammoth rushes grow, And playful fish their bright fins nimbly shake, Or madly chase each other to and fro, The larva of the dragon-fly submerged, In family large, had taken their abode, And tho' the waves around them daily surged, Upon the ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... (or as the gentleman in the next box facetiously observes, 'cutting it uncommon fat!')—ladies, with great, long, white pocket-handkerchiefs like small table-cloths, in their hands, chasing one another on the grass in the most playful and interesting manner, with the view of attracting the attention of the aforesaid gentlemen—husbands in perspective ordering bottles of ginger-beer for the objects of their affections, with a lavish disregard of expense; and the said objects washing down huge quantities ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... his surprise, that they were not really birds, but the leaves of the burdock tree, which shone with the colors of a peacock's tail. The lion and the tiger, gentle and tame, were springing about like playful cats among the green bushes, whose perfume was like the fragrant blossom of the olive. The plumage of the wood-pigeon glistened like pearls as it struck the lion's mane with its wings; while the antelope, usually so shy, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... would," agreed Rhodes. "Think what a hundred years of cactus, sand, and occasional temblors can do to a desert, to say nothing of the playful zephyrs. Why, Cap, the winds could lift a good-sized range of hills and fill the baby rivers with it in that time, for the winds of the desert have a ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... pleased. Briggs thought Mrs. Fisher a dear old lady, and showed he thought so; and again the magic worked, and she became a dear old lady. She developed benignity with him, and a kind of benignity which was almost playful—actually before tea was over including in some observation she made him the ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... all shone out the great Athenian sage, And father of Philosophy! Tutor of Athens! he, in every street, Dealt priceless treasure; goodness his delight, Wisdom his wealth, and glory his reward. Deep through the human heart, with playful art, His simple question stole, as into truth And serious deeds he led the laughing race; Taught moral life; and what he taught ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... creaked, as he walked A song of menace rumbled. Thus he came, The champion of A. D. Blood, commissioned To terrify the liberals. Many fled As when a hawk soars o'er the chicken yard. He passed the polls and with a playful hand Touched Brown, the giant, and he fell against, As though he were a child, the wall; so strong Was hog-eyed Allen. But the liberals smiled. For soon as hog-eyed Allen reached the walk, Close on his steps paced Bengal Mike, brought in By Kinsey Keene, the subtle-witted one, To match ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... however, we must note the fact that Groos gives a wider extension to the concept of play than other writers, and that he regards as love-games processes which others might perhaps describe as sexual manifestations. According to Groos, caressing contact is to be regarded as playful when, in the serious intercourse between the sexes, such contact appears to be merely a preliminary activity rather than an end in itself. Here two cases are possible: in one the carrying out of the instinctive activity to its real end is prevented by incapacity or by ignorance; in the other, ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... glad to be alive, was in a playful mood, full of attractive grace. Renine, lest he should startle her, refrained from alluding to the compact into which they had entered at his suggestion. She told him how she had left La Mareze and said that she ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... writing a letter to Cassandra, exhorting her to read Pope in preference to Dostoevsky, until her feeling for form was more highly developed. He set himself down to compose this piece of advice in a shape which was light and playful, and yet did no injury to a cause which he had near at heart, when he heard Katharine upon the stairs. A moment later it was plain that he had been mistaken, it was not Katharine; but he could not settle himself ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... playful vein to Kate, and you must not and will not care for that. He had understood from your letter that you and the majority had all, like the 'Athenaeum,' understood the 'Curse for a Nation' to be directed against England. Robert was furious about the 'Athenaeum'; no ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... think it is rather grasping of you to want to make more money, Daddy, when you have got so much already?" broke in Mary, in a playful tone, yet with some underlying seriousness ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... their baths. She lets them go about the schoolroom instead of compelling them to sit still at their desks in cramped positions. In this way they get knowledge that they never forget. They learn to read and write and figure in playful ways through the proper direction of their curiosity. Little tots of four, or even younger, are often able to read, and there has been no forcing. All has come about ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... room, and the sense of security inspired by the closed doors and shutters, that I had ever felt even the slightest apprehension earlier in the day. I sang as I washed up the tea-things; and even the cat seemed to catch the infection of my good spirits. I never knew the pretty creature so playful ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... her who is no more. And now, while I write, a recollection flashes upon me that I have never known the paternal name of her who was my friend and my bethrothed, and who became the partner of my studies, and finally the wife of my bosom. Was it a playful charge on the part of my Ligeia? or was it a test of my strength of affection, that I should institute no inquiries upon this point? or was it rather a caprice of my own—a wildly romantic offering on the shrine of the most passionate devotion? I but indistinctly recall the fact itself—what ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... we?" he said to the child, with a playful appeal to that passion for the joint possession of a ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... must be laid aside. In his manners, likewise, little Karlee was the very tautology of his namesake with the gray moustache,—the same wary self-possession, the same immovable gravity and nice decorum. Like a little courtier, he made his small salaam, and through his grandfather replied to some playful questions I addressed to him, with good emphasis and discretion, without either awkwardness or boldness, and especially without a smile. When I gave him a rupee, he construed it as the customary signal, and with another small ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... More playful than a frolic boy, More watchful than a sentinel, By day and night your constant joy To guard ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... dress and forward manners inclined Germain to judge the widow old and ugly, although she was certainly not either. He thought that such finery and playful manners might well suit little Marie's years and wit, but that the widow's fun was labored and over bold, and that she wore her fine clothes in ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... when a soft south breeze was in motion, Maurice reminded her with an air of playful severity, that, so far, they had not learned to know even their nearer surroundings; while of all the romantic explorings in the pretty Muldental, which he had had in view for them, not one had been undertaken. Louise was not fond of walking in the country; she tired easily, and was always content ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... positions, he had already lost his native tongue. In mind, at least, he was quite denationalised; thought only in English—to call it so; and though by nature one of the mildest, kindest, and most feebly playful of mankind, he had been so long accustomed to the cruelty of sea discipline that his stories (told perhaps with a giggle) would sometimes turn me chill. In appearance he was tall, light of weight, bold ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... took from his young hostess's heart the weight that he had put there the previous evening by his mocking and contemptuous manner. He let himself go, spoke after his own manner, and gave up the jesting, playful tone which he always had ready for women. She listened to him with silent attention, no matter what he talked about. The wide leaps his mind took did not seem to weary her in the following. To his astonishment, she did not yawn ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... and Purpose. It is important to understand the mood and purpose of an author. We are not in a position fairly to judge a work until we know its spirit and object. Until we know whether the writer is playful or earnest, joyous or sad, satirical or serious, we cannot give his words the right tone and value; and until we see clearly what he is driving at, we cannot properly estimate the successive steps in his production nor judge of ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... cousins to the contrary. I wish my amiable countrywomen would consider one moment, that virtue is never so lovely as when dressed in smiles: the virtue of women should have all the softness of the sex; it should be gentle, it should be even playful, ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... cunning and cruelty legibly imprinted on them. He said a few words to the Spaniard in charge, glanced round the deck at the helpless prisoners, made a jesting remark or two, at which of course everybody dutifully laughed, gave George—who unfortunately happened to be nearest him—a playful kick in the mouth with his heavy boot, and then sauntered leisurely down into the cabin, where, from the repeated loud bursts of laughter, and the singing which soon arose, a carouse seemed to have been promptly ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... plantation accomplishment, and while professing high contempt for what he called "cold shelf-knowledge," his reputation for wisdom, wisdom as gleaned in observation and experience and "ripened by insight," was supreme, while his way of casually tossing it off in bits in playful epigram finally gave the word its plural form so that the expression "Do-Funny Wisdoms" came into ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... however, would be checked by the recollection, that it was shocking to lower two happy spirits in Heaven into playful little girls upon earth; and she took refuge in the thought of the coming chance of playfellows, when Lord de la Poer was to bring his family to London. She had learnt the names and ages of all the ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Azef's playful allusion to the ever-ready gallows to which he, plotting with Rasputin, Manuiloff, Guerassimof, and others, was so constantly sending innocent persons. Truly, Russia was a strange country even ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... irony, appeared a few weeks before his death, contains the accents of immortality. And "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester" (unfortunately too long to reprint in this volume), is fully as characteristic of the lighter and more playful side of Brooke's temperament. Both these phases are combined in "The Great Lover," of which Abercrombie has written, "It is life he loves, and not in any abstract sense, but all the infinite ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... he took things as they came, and now that he knew the girl for what she was he did not allow himself the slightest liberty. He was a fervent suitor, to be sure, yet he courted her with jests and concealed his ardor behind a playful raillery. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... the entrance of Miss Betsey Smead. She was a comely, bustling, cheerful little woman of about forty-five, with a playful spirit ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... gentle enough, yet it contained a sort of playful irony, which, at the moment, Jessie Mowbray resented. She turned. There was impatience in the eyes which confronted him. She regarded ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... accosted me with the politeness natural to a Frenchman, and asked me how I had liked the lady who had given me my supper. I told him what had happened, at which he laughed, and asked me to come and see his ballet-girl. We found her under the hairdresser's hands, and she received me with the playful familiarity with which one greets an old acquaintance. I did not think much of her, but I pretended to be immensely struck, with the idea of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... heavily, and still the Doctor gave no orders. He seemed regularly absorbed in his thoughts. The Beaver was growing impatient, and his men were having hard work to quiet their fiery little steeds, which kept on snorting and pawing up the sand, giving a rear up by way of change, or a playful bite at some companion, which responded with a squeal ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... exceedingly easy to match and beat it out of the author himself—you must go to the maddest of the seventeenth-century metaphysicals—say to Edward Benlowes himself. But this is nothing: it is at worst an obvious playful exaggeration, very like some things of Dickens's own transposed into another key. But take this opening of the fifteenth chapter of ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... of having escaped from a man inspired by a grimly playful ebullition of high spirits. It must have been most distasteful to him; and his solemnity got damaged somehow in the process, I perceived. There were holes in it through which I could see ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... rolled by in innocence and truth, And playful childhood melted into youth, As dies the dawn in rainbows, ray by ray In blushing beauty stealing into day. And thus too passed, unnoticed and unknown, The sports of childhood, fleeting one by one. Like broken dreams, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... in the woods now, and grew in just such a shady place. When the breezes crept down under the trees they waved the fern gracefully about so that it gently touched the tall rushes that grew above it and cast little shadows on the moss at its feet. Now and then a playful sunbeam darted through the crevices in the leaves and found the fern, and at night drops of dew stole silently in and made a glistening crown upon its head. But there were no children then to find it. It was long, long ago, when the earth was young, and nowhere on its broad surface was ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... have supposed, at first sight, that there was no design, for they seemed to lie as if cast there from careless and playful hands; but it was a most harmonious confusion; and as I looked at the play of their colours, especially when the waters were in motion, I came at last to feel as if not one little pebble could be displaced, without injuring the effect of the whole. Beneath this floor of the water, ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... their home. He exhibits the suffering of such a character all the more effectively because, with his kindly compassion there is mixed a delicate flavour of irony. The more tragic scenes affect us, perhaps, with less sense of power; the playful, though melancholy, fancy seems to be less at home when the more powerful emotions are to be excited; and yet once, at least, he draws one of those pictures which engrave themselves instantaneously ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... In playful vein Dickens professes to record his disappointment at failing to receive any recognition from a "native", in the person of a phlegmatic greengrocer, when he revisits Rochester, and revives the associations of ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... hand, on the whiteness of which the teeth of the captive had left a small purple wound. In her playful carelessness, she let fall a sprig of wind-flowers and two or three violets. Arlington gallantly picked ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... Browning, but at least it transformed his accents. He sang neither the "De Profundis" of love nor the triumphal ode of love that increases from anniversary to anniversary; but he knew the flying sun and shadow of romantic love, and staged them in music of a delicious sadness, of a fantastic and playful gravity. His poems, regarded as statements of fact, are a little insincere. They are the compliments, not the confessions, of a lover. He exaggerates the burden of his sigh, the incurableness of his wounded ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... as it was, Mrs. Payne had already apparelled herself in her paint and powder and driven down. Seen by the morning sunlight, her smeared face with its brilliant artificial smile revealed a pathos which was rendered more acute by its effect of playful grotesqueness. She was like a faded and decrepit actress who, fired by the unconquerable spirit of her art, forces her wrinkled visage to ape the romantic ecstasies of passion. Age which is beautiful only ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... Eusebius, how I have put a coal under the very fountain of your blood—and it is boiling at a fine rate. Let me allay it, and follow the stage directions of "soft music;" only on this occasion we omit the music, and take the rhyme. So here do I exhibit conscience in its playful vein. Our friend S., the other day, repeated me off the following lines; he cannot remember where he had them—he says it was when a boy that he met with them somewhere. Call it the Conscientious Toper; yet that is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... lost its dam Within the spacious park; And simple as the playful lamb Had followed in ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... draw from actual observation an estimate of your son's character and abilities, I do not hesitate to express my opinion that he possesses, along with other and excellent natural endowments, a very uncommon share of genius. Gentle and cheerful in his intercourse with others, playful and ready in conversation, he is capable of acquirements and knowledge far beyond his years, while his reason is so clear and so jealous of error, that he will not rest satisfied without a most exact solution of whatever appears to him obscure. He has ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... fat as a doe, And playful and spry as a cat; But now I am as dull as a hoe, And as lean and as weak as ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... pies of pork; O'er hard-boil'd eggs the saltspoon shook; Leapt from its lair the playful cork: Yet some there were, to whom the brook Seem'd sweetest beverage, and for meat They chose the red root ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... there is scarcely one of either sex who does not pay some respect to it; and of one thousand knives that may happen to be transferred between intimate friends (and lovers) it is safe to say that not less than nine hundred and ninety have the omen guarded against by a half playful demand and acceptance of some small coin in return, giving the transfer some slight fiction of being a mercantile transaction. The statistics of how many loves or friendships have really been severed ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... did not even hear the half playful, half angry dispute between these two. Vic was a heady youth, much given to rebelling against the authority of Helen May who bullied or wheedled as her mood and the emergency might impel, as sisters do the world over. Peter was thinking of his two hundred dollars ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... might have a little play on the green turf, and she cool her hot eyes and lips in the air. As she sat there watching the pretty clumsiness of her boy, and springing forward to intercept his falls, the influence of sun and air, the playful joy of the child, the soothing stillness of all Nature, stole into her heart till it dreamed a dream of hope. Perhaps the budding blossom of promise might become floral and fruitful; perhaps her child might yet atone for the agony of the past;—a time might come when she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Harry who replied. He told the whole story as far as it was known to himself, dwelling especially upon the character and actions of that strange being who had played the role of monarch. Harry's light and playful nature threw a tinge of comicality around the whole story, which was highly appreciated by all his hearers. And so it was that a smile began to go round, until at length it deepened and developed into laughter, and so went on ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... to a wonderful height," says Emerson, "so regular, so lucid, so playful, so new and disdainful of all boundaries of tradition and experience, that the hearers seem no longer to have bodies or material gravity, but almost they can mount into the air at pleasure, or leap at one bound out of this poor solar system. I say this of his speech exclusively, ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... of the lake, In silent, undisturbed repose, Where sounds of strife no slumbers break, Heedless alike of friends and foes, They slept the long, long sleep of death, Through centuries of rolling years, While o'er their forms the zephyrs' breath In playful eddyings oft appears. Their race has faded from the shore And left few traces that they were; The war-whoop now resounds no more, They bowed before White Conqueror. Full many a fathom 'neath the wave, Their forms have mouldered side by side, While shadowy hemlocks fringe the ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... of America contain some good clear-headed articles; but I sought in vain for the playful vivacity and the keenly-cutting satire, whose sharp edge, however painful to the patient, is of such high utility in lopping off the excrescences of bad taste, and levelling to its native clay the heavy growth of ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... language, and expressed his belief in the authenticity of Ossian's Poetry[120]. Dr. Johnson took the opposite side of that perplexed question; and I was afraid the dispute would have run high between them. But Sir Adolphus, who had a very sweet temper, changed the discourse, grew playful, laughed at Lord Monboddo's[121] notion of men having tails, and called him a Judge, a posteriori, which amused Dr. Johnson; and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... was too heavy to permit continuance in a playful vein, and he told her substantially what had been said. "Well," she concluded, with a complacent little nod, "I think I'll let him pay his addresses a while longer. The absurd fellow to go and idealize me so! Time will cure such folly, however. Papa, there's something ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... pretty, sentimental romance, showing that Jasmin possessed the brightness and sensibility of the Troubadours. As one may say, he had not yet quitted the guitar for the flageolet; and Marot, who spoke of his flageolet, had not, in the midst of his playful spirit, those tender accents which contrasted so well with his previous compositions. And did not Henry IV., in the midst of his Gascon gaieties and sallies, compose his sweet song of Charmante Gabrielle? Jasmin indeed is the poet who is nearest the region ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... up with a smile into her lover's face. Algernon seemed perfectly to understand the meaning of that playful glance, and replied to it in lively tones, "Yes, dear Nell, sing my favorite song!" and Elinor instantly complied, with a blush and another sweet smile. Mark was no lover of music, but that song thrilled to his soul, and the words never afterwards ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... They are as if placed there by Nature as a sportive check to man's further intrusion; and as the waters come hurrying down, led, as it were, by some Undine jealous for her realm, their murmurings seem to say, in playful, yet earnest remonstrance,—"Let our gambols divert you; we will hasten to you; but approach no nearer! Permit us to guard the sanctuary of our hidden sources, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... clouds his intrepid and vigorous spirit. Lively and gallant sallies of humour to his female friends, sagacious judgments on the position of Europe to political people, bits of learned criticism for erudite people, tender and playful chat with his two daughters, all these alternate with one another with the most delightful effect. Whether he is writing to his little girl whom he has never known, or to the king of Sardinia, or to some author who sends him a book, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... of a different kind. It was written on the fleshly tables of the heart. To Oxford men he seemed like an elder brother, brilliant, playful, lovable, yet profoundly wise; teaching us what to think, to admire, to avoid. His influence fell upon a thirsty and receptive soil. We drank it with delight; and it co-operated with all the best traditions of the place in making us lifelong lovers of romance, and truth, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... enemies, dreaming of Empire, besought by kings and armies to put countries and continents straight, a man whose notice blasted or blessed young men of letters, poets, peers or politicians, who at once scared and compelled every one he met by his freezing silence, his playful smile, or the weight of his moral indignation: the truth being that he was a mixture ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... love-tale as full of romance and movement as could be desired. Admirably told it was, as I recollect it; crisp with the healthy vigor of American wintry atmosphere, with bright touches of humor, and, here and there, passages of sentiment, half tender, half playful. It was something new in our literature, and gave promise of valuable work to come. But the writer was not destined to fulfil the promise. In the next year, from the camp of his regiment, he wrote one or two admirable descriptive sketches, touching upon the ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... possible that this man was in truth attached to her, and was repelled simply by her own manner? She was aware that she had fallen into a habit of fighting with him, of sparring against him with words about indifferent things, and calling his conduct in question in a manner half playful and half serious. Could it be the truth that she was thus robbing herself of that which would be to her as to herself she had frankly declared the one treasure which she would desire? Twice, as has ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... temptation, Mr. Brant," she said, with a playful smile, which dazzled Clarence with its first faint suggestion of a refined woman's coquetry; "but I'm afraid that Mr. Peyton would think me going mad in my old age. No. Go on and enjoy your gallop, and if you should see those giddy girls anywhere, send them home early for chocolate, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... might say a castigation, well deserved, and not readily forgotten. His abhorrence also of injustice, or unworthy conduct, in its diversified shapes, had all the decision of a Roman censor; while this apparent austerity was associated, when in the society he liked, with so bland and playful a spirit, that it abolished all constraint, and rendered him one of the most agreeable, as well as the most intelligent ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... in mine eye. Not like the formal crest of latter days: But bending in a thousand graceful ways; So graceful, that it seems no mortal hand, Or e'en the touch of Archimago's wand, Could charm them into such an attitude. We must think rather, that in playful mood, Some mountain breeze had turned its chief delight, To show this wonder of its gentle might. Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry; For while I muse, the lance points slantingly Athwart the morning air: some lady sweet, Who cannot feel for cold her tender feet, From the worn top of some old ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... seer relapsed into silence, and gazed long and intently upon the stars, as, more numerous and brilliant with every step of the advancing night, their rays broke on the playful waters, and tinged with silver the various and breathless foliage. So earnest was his gaze, and so absorbed his thoughts, that he did not perceive the approach of a Moor, whose glittering weapons and snow-white ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... drooping shoulder, the rounded bust, clean limbs, well-turned ankle, fine almost to a fault, the light springy step, the graceful easy carriage, the absence of sheepishness or shyness, an air cheerful without noise, a manner playful without rudeness, and you have the true son or daughter of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... cried; "you hurt. I wonder if you hate red hair. Is that the reason you are trying to pull mine out? Please, somebody, take this playful beast away." ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... not going to give me away—ah, papa, I could never bear that any more than you; you are taking a partner in the concern," she added with playful tenderness, smiling archly through ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... and dear friend of Miss Martineau; but after Mrs. Chapman's death, it was Miss Whitney's to dispose of, and, representing as it did her ideal modern woman, she gave it in 1886 to Wellesley, where modern womanhood was in the making. In later years, irreverent youth took playful liberties with "Harriet", using her much as a beloved spinster aunt is used by fond but familiar young nieces. No freshman was considered properly matriculated until she had been dragged between the rungs of Miss Martineau's great ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... country proceeded to get the agent used to it. The news went over the sage-brush from Belle Fourche to Sweetwater, and playful, howling horsemen made it their custom to go rioting with pistols round the ticket office, educating the agent. His lungs improved, and he came dimly to smile at this life which he did not understand. But the company discerned no humor whatever in having its water-tank ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... work hard and lacking in feeling. The east window and the chapel now used as the baptistery are both fine examples of perpendicular architecture and worthy of careful study. The carved detail round the east window with its playful treatment of flying buttresses, battlements, and pinnacles is charming in its delicacy and proportion; and some of the detail is almost as sharp as when it left the mason's hand four hundred years ago. The chapel is, in its way, perfect, a complete ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... specimens. Apparently have endoskeleton, but organization of the internal organs remains obscure. Thought to be mammalianoid—there's a fence-sitter for you—but can't be certain of this because no young have been observed, nor any females in gestation. Extremely gregarious, curious, playful, irresponsible, etc., etc., etc. Habitat under natural conditions: uncertain. Diet: uncertain. Social organization: uncertain." Kielland threw down the paper with a snort. "In short, the only thing we're ...
— The Native Soil • Alan Edward Nourse
... cackling of my old Goose may yet save England!' This wholly unexpected sally proved too much for the Duke, who burst out into a hearty laugh. 'By G——d, Shelley!' said he, 'you are right: give me your honest hand.'" The Duke then returned to Apsley House and "penned a playful letter to Lady Shelley." ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... Medoza the loon swam with his mate, occasionally uttering a cry of joy. Here and there the playful Hogan, the trout, sprang gracefully out of the water, in a shower of falling dew. As the maiden hastened along she scared up Wadawasee, the kingfisher, ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... aesthetics of human habiliments, look at the lovely lines of the female face; contemplate that fairest type of the animated creation; observe the soft emotions of her gentle soul, now shooting forth rays of tender light from between her long enclasping eyelashes, now arching her rosy lips into the playful lineaments of Cupid's mortal bow; or gaze upon the subdued and affectionate contentment of the maternal countenance—remember, while you were yet young, your mother's look of love, that look which was all-powerful to master ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... Vicar of Wakefield, was by nature a lover of happy human faces, and she could be playful herself on occasion; but she had little if any of the saving sense ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... melancholy platitudes, and is suddenly delivered of a joke—of two jokes—it is a little hard to expect him to hide his light under a bushel. He could have buried scandal in his breast forever, but to put an extinguisher on the sparks of his playful fancy—no, these things are beyond a man's control. And as the idea of the goose, with all its subtle humor, sank deeper and deeper into Sir Peter's mind, he was irresistibly tempted to impart it to Lady ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... invalids. As to the beaver-rats or musk-rats of Canada, they are extremely sociable. Audubon could not but admire "their peaceful communities, which require only being left in peace to enjoy happiness." Like all sociable animals, they are lively and playful, they easily combine with other species, and they have attained a very high degree of intellectual development. In their villages, always disposed on the shores of lakes and rivers, they take into account the changing level of water; their ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... pleased to engage the attention of Theodora. He was voluble; she had very little to reply. Things went smoothly. Josiah was appreciating an exceedingly good breakfast, and the playful sallies of the fair widow. All, in fact, was couleur ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... valley, centuries ago, Grew a little fern-plant, green and slender, Veining delicate and fibres tender, Waving in the wind, crept down so low; Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it; Playful sunbeams darted in and found it; Drops of dew stole down by night and crowned it; But no foot of man e'er came that way, Earth was young ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... manner with her was not playful, and that his face was serious. "I was only in joke," said she; "of course I was only joking. But is anything the matter? ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... of whipping for every act of disobedience or of simple, playful forgetfulness was still kept up in the wilderness, and of course many of those whippings fell upon me. Most of them were outrageously severe, and utterly barren of fun. But here is one that ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... living-room, with the kitchen in the corner, made his interesting confidence relative to the suitcase. He made it in mouth-filling phrases, with many teasing generalizations about the ways of the world and the evils of modern society, which was only his gempman's way when playful. But by close application his auditors soon got at the heart of his meaning, to wit: Doctor actually was going uptown to his swell Uncle Beirne's swell Noo Year's reception ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... say to one another, sometimes, Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hillsides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide-and-seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... a son nor a relation; this is my only boy," Mr. Sherwood replied, reaching for Georgie's ear in a playful manner. ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... because he wanted to be waited upon once more by her with the playful, gracious manner, just tinged with affectionate mockery, which he knew so well; and then he talked to her and Fraeulein Mozer, with a heavy sense of the unsatisfactory nature of this triangular conversation for a ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... an extraordinarily successful piece of workmanship. There was nothing very wicked surely about that coquettish bending of her head, those playful escapes from her husband's embrace, that heel-and-toe tripping, that lithe elusiveness, that ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... She was sixteen and he was barely twenty. The dawn crept in among the wooden pillars of the hut and looked at those lovely children sleeping in one another's arms. The sun hid behind the great tattered leaves of the plantains so that it might not disturb them, and then, with playful malice, shot a golden ray, like the outstretched paw of a Persian cat, on their faces. They opened their sleepy eyes and they smiled to welcome another day. The weeks lengthened into months, and a ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... harken ere I die. Fairest—why fairest wife? am I not fair? My love hath told me so a thousand times. Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday, When I past by, a wild and wanton pard, Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail Crouch'd fawning in the weed. Most loving is she? Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains Flash in the ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... showery, Scott was attended by one of his retainers, named Tommie Purdie, who carried his plaid, and who deserves especial mention. Sophia Scott used to call him her father's grand vizier, and she gave a playful account one evening, as she was hanging on her father's arm, of the consultations which he and Tommie used to have about matters relative to farming. Purdie was tenacious of his opinions, and he ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... Memotas was at his side, and with him at once examined his dogs and compared his train with those that had thus far kept ahead. Memotas was delighted with the inspection, for, while the other trains seemed about exhausted at the terrific rate their drivers had pushed them, Alec's were as playful and lively as though the race had only begun. So, barring accident or foul play, there seemed to be no reason why Alec should not win with flying colours. Two of the half-breeds with very vicious trains now pushed on with four minutes of a start. An Indian followed two minutes ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... also in its employment of the weapons of wit and humor. The general style most suitable to its spirit and character he considered to be that most in use in the ordinary and daily intercourse of society. He admired a simple and playful use of language, and he affected, as he asserts, a common and almost plebeian manner of writing, using words of every-day stamp in his correspondence. In his view of letter writing, its style and manner ought to vary with the complexion of its subject matter, and be subjected to no abstract system ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... old chap," replied Heywood, curtly. "These playful little animals get first notice. You're ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... would swoop down from above upon the swaying stem of some tall and stately palm that bent like grass before the wind, break it off short with a roar at the bottom, and lay it low at once upon the ground, with a crash like thunder. In other places, little playful whirlwinds seemed to descend from the sky in the very midst of the dense brushwood, where they cleared circular patches, strewn thick under foot with trunks and branches in their titanic sport, and yet left unhurt all about the surrounding forest. Then again a special cyclone of gigantic ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... and Adair, though they were under the impression that it was owing to their own merits, and were apt accordingly to take liberties with him. He behaved to them as a good-natured bear might towards a couple of playful children whom he could ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... though the eye, fatigued with the extension of its powers, was glad to repose on the verdure of woods and pastures, that now hung on the margin of the river below; to view again the humble cottage shaded by cedars, the playful group of mountaineer-children, and the flowery nooks that appeared among ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... us turn to the book itself and see if it furnishes any evidence on the point. The very title, with its quaint phrasing, shows no common genius, and as Washington Irving says, "bears the stamp of his [Goldsmith's] sly and playful humour." As the book was published in 1765, it would most likely have been written just at the time when Goldsmith was working most industriously in the service of Newbery (1763-4), at which period it ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... clear and true, his illustration both copious and felicitous, his rapid citation of historical precedents surprising even to those who thought they had themselves exhausted the subject. His temper was too amiable and serene for stinging wit or biting sarcasm, but he had a playful humor which kept the minds of his hearers in that receptive and compliant state which disposed them the more readily to give full and generous consideration to all the strong parts of his argument. It might ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... ear a playful tweak, and mischievously imitating his tone and manner. "And I never realised until to-night how young you are, or how companionable you can be. I believe that if you'd been at this house party from the beginning, ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... toilingly on a slip of paper. "Sh! This is ver' solemn. I could not sleep, and so I make my testament." She put her finger to her lips as though her whisper were only a part of a playful mystery and beckoned him, and he went towards her, reluctant, yet unresisting like a man hypnotized. He had a childish longing to touch all that colour, to take up great handfuls of it and feel its ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... his sister good morning with warm, brotherly affection and gave her a playful pat or ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... and defined as "a warm, tender, fellow-feeling with all that exists," as "the sport of sensibility and, as it were, the playful, teasing fondness of a mother for a child" ... as "a sort of inverse sublimity exalting into our affections what is below us,... warm and all-embracing as ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Murray regarded Estelle reminded Edna of the account given by a traveller of the playful mood of a lion, who, having devoured one gazelle, kept his paw on another, and, amid occasional growls, teased and toyed ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... wicked, and wise, A je ne sais quoi about thee lies, Charming the cold, cheering the sad, Giving gaiety to the glad; Brilliant, brave, bewitchingly bright, Playful, pranksome, proudly polite; Softly sarcastic, shyly severe, Falsely frank, which fascinates fear! Not handsome—no hero 'half divine,' Features not faultless, fair, and fine; With raven locks, O! 'Rufus the Red,' I can't in conscience cover thy head; Nor shall I stoop to falsehood mean, And swear ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... A socialism or a communism is not necessarily a slavery, and there is no freedom under Anarchy. Consider how much liberty we gain by the loss of the common liberty to kill. Thereby one may go to and fro in all the ordered parts of the earth, unencumbered by arms or armour, free of the fear of playful poison, whimsical barbers, or hotel trap-doors. Indeed, it means freedom from a thousand fears and precautions. Suppose there existed even the limited freedom to kill in vendetta, and think what would happen in our suburbs. Consider the inconvenience of two households in a modern suburb ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... that a pleasant gloom made the spot sombre, in contrast with these light and laughing little figures. On perceiving me, they rose up, tittering among themselves. It seemed that, there was a sort of playful malice in those who first saw me; for they allowed the other to keep on paddling, without warning her of my approach. I passed along, and ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... playful manner with which she disposed of friend and foe, was aghast at this outbreak. He saw another Yetta. Her face was ugly and revengeful. She sawed the air with her ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... twins' hands and faces in the back-yard as usual, and left them for an instant to get a towel from the kitchen. When she returned, she looked blankly about, for there was no sign of the two dripping faces and the uplifted streaming hands. They had a playful habit of hiding from her, knowing that in no other way could they make her so unhappy; so she stood still for some moments, calling them, at first sharply, then piteously, but with no result. She ran ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of it direct and skilful, there is no propaganda to interfere with the characters, who are few, interesting, and admirably drawn. The contrast between the lion of Albrit (so often compared to King Lear) and the playful children is a master-stroke. Free from effectism, dealing only with inner values of the heart and morals, El abuelo can properly rank as one of the masterpieces of modern drama. Its theme is diametrically opposed to the traditional Spanish conception of ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... fairy superstition in England we may remark that it was of a more playful and gentle, less wild and necromantic character, than that received among the sister people. The amusements of the southern fairies were light and sportive; their resentments were satisfied with pinching or scratching ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... eyes from the picture. The likeness was perfect. Here was the pretty youthful oval of her face—the same playful blue eye—the sensitive red lips seeming about to sparkle into a smile—even the golden brown mist of hair that ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... Playful as Mr. Hawkesworth's manner was, Lily saw the earnestness that was veiled under it: she felt the solemnity of Eleanor's appeal, and knew that this was no time to let herself be swayed by her wishes. There was a silence. At last, after ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said the miller, heartily. "If Aglaia had lived I could wish for nothing better than for her to have grown up to be just such a little woman as you are. Maybe you are Aglaia," he continued, falling in with her playful mood; "can't you remember when we lived at ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... that is perfectly sound doctrine.... And shall we begin with Clark's Field?" he asked, turning to Adelle with one of his playful, kindly smiles. ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... cleaving prows in order brave To a speeding wind and a bounding wave, A gallant armament: Each bark built out of a forest-tree Left leafy and rough as first it grew, And nailed all over the gaping sides, Within and without, with black bull-hides, Seethed in fat, and suppled with flame, To bear the playful billows' game. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... the end came very suddenly, just when it was least expected. Hatty had seemed better that day; there was a strange flicker of life and energy; she had talked much to her mother and Bessie, and had sent a loving, playful message to Tom, ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... manners. She had passed the spring of youth, but her wit prolonged the triumph of its reign, and they mutually assisted the fame of each other; for those, who were charmed by her loveliness, spoke with enthusiasm of her talents; and others, who admired her playful imagination, declared, that her personal graces were unrivalled. But her imagination was merely playful, and her wit, if such it could be called, was brilliant, rather than just; it dazzled, and its fallacy escaped the detection of ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... familiarly known to all my neighbors as "the Grand Duc de Huiry" and he looks the part. Still, from my point of view, he is not an ideal cat. He is not a bit caressing. He never fails to purr politely when he comes in. But he is no longer playful. He never climbs up to my shoulder and rubs against my face as some of Amelie's commoner cats will do. He is intelligent and handsome—just a miniature tiger, and growls like a new arrival from the jungle when he is displeased— and he is a great ratter. ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... to have been a man of considerable social talent, lively in conversation, and dealing in playful wit and amusing sarcasm. Dominici relates that two Spanish officers, visiting at his house one day, entered upon a serious discussion on the subject of alchemy. The host, finding their talk some what tedious, gravely informed ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... were, on board, a British custom-house officer, a sensible, pleasant man, who played chess with me; two ladies, rather pretty, who did not molest us, point exigentes, bien amiable; five little children, who neither cried nor quarrelled the whole way! yet cheerful and playful. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis |
