"Playfulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Stone Face, then, was a work of Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... the face of Amulya—beautiful, radiant with devotion. He did not wait, despairing, for the blow of fate to fall, but rushed into the thick of danger. In my misery I do him reverence. He is my boy-god. Under the pretext of his playfulness he took from me the weight of my burden. He would save me by taking the punishment meant for me on his own head. But how am Ito bear this terrible mercy ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... for some time splashing about and puffing with all his might; a sort of playfulness which struck me as remarkable for so grave and sedate a character; and then a most unusual floundering, attended with a gurgling of the ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... lately stood before us dressed in such fulness of terror. But indeed the Poet's skill at heightening any feeling by awakening its opposite; how he manages to give strength to our most earnest sentiments by touching some spring of playfulness; and to further our liveliest moods by springing upon us some delicate surprises of seriousness;—all this is matter of ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... to him quietly, all of the pretty triumph and playfulness gone, so that she stood like an angel in the soft glow of the skies, much older than he had ever seen her before, and smiled at him with a new and wonderful tenderness as she held out her ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... having been seconded and drunk with resounding cordiality, Henry responded in a speech of mingled playfulness and emotion, assuring them, on his part, that though they might not be poets, he thought no worse of them for that, but should always remember them as the best fellows he had ever known. The talk then became general, and tender with ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... and howled with increasing violence around the granary where Arthur lay tossing upon his hard bed. It seized the door and rattled it in wanton playfulness, as if to deceive the sick man with the hope that a friend's hand was on the latch, and then raced blustering and screaming down to the meadows below. The fanning mill and piles of grain bags made fantastic shadows on the ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... of New Zealand came to take leave, he said, half in earnest, half in playfulness, 'Lady Patteson, will you give me Coley?' She started, but did not say no; and when, independently of this, her son told her that it was his greatest wish to go with the Bishop, she replied that if he kept ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there or at Homburg in the future years; but our friendship was kept alive by active correspondence. Literature was naturally his vocation, and he wrote much and well, with exemplary industry, enlivening his papers in 'Blackwood,' till his death in August 1865, with the same manly sense, the same playfulness of fancy and flow of spontaneous humour, which made his society and his letters ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... wife. He learned from the newspapers, that she had quitted Paris, as it was supposed, for Baden-Baden: her name soon made its appearance in an article written by that same M'sieu Jules. In this article, a sort of friendly condolence pierced through the customary playfulness; Feodor Ivanitch's soul was in a very ugly state when he read that article. Later on, he learned that a daughter had been born to him; at the end of a couple of months, he was informed by his peasant-steward, ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... principle to keep the incapables for a single term only, since that is enough for them; but to the clever ones I allot a double course of instruction." And, true enough, any lad of brains was retained for this finishing course. Yet he did not repress all boyish playfulness, since he declared it to be as necessary as a rash to a doctor, inasmuch as it enabled him to diagnose ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... writings will be missed; and on this account the full enjoyment and comprehension of De Quincey must always remain a luxury of the literary and intellectual. But his skill in narration, his rare pathos, his wide sympathies, the pomp of his dream-descriptions, the exquisite playfulness of his lighter dissertations, and his abounding though delicate and subtle humour, commend him to a larger class. Though far from being a professed humorist—a character he would have shrunk from—there is no more expert worker in a sort of half-veiled and elaborate humour ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... from incidents which a short time previously she would have looked upon as the most insane triflings;—thus was the weariness of her thoughts relieved by disporting in the water, as we ere now saw her, or by contemplating the playfulness of the birds. Presently she wandered into the vale, and gathered a magnificent nosegay of flowers: then the whim struck her that she would weave for herself a chaplet of roses; and as her work progressed, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... each other, striving to penetrate the sense of Aboniel's last words. While yet they gazed, they were startled by a loud crash from an adjacent closet, and were even more discomposed as a large monkey bounded forth, whose sleek coat, exuberant playfulness, and preternatural agility convinced all that the deceased philosopher, under an inspiration of supreme irony, had administered to the creature every drop of the Elixir ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... as a strong barrier against the evil noises of rumor! Am I selfish or ungenerous? The Lord forbid it! No matter how I am compromised, no matter how I am misjudged,—I am still willing to take you as my lawful wife Froeken Thelma,—but," and here he shook his forefinger at her with a pretended playfulness, "I will permit no more converse with Sir Philip Errington; no, no! I cannot allow it! . . . I ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... smiled. Of a man of his appearance one could hardly say that he smiled playfully; but there was something in his expression that remotely suggested playfulness. ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the steam first, and you will get accustomed to their playfulness," he returned. "Here, Ormonde, haven't you a rug for Miss Liddell? It may come on ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... demented my unfortunate companion. At a period when such vagaries of thought most fully possessed me, and when we had been at work perhaps an hour and a half, we were again interrupted by the violent howlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in the first instance, had been, evidently, but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a bitter and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's again attempting to muzzle him, he made furious resistance, and, leaping into the hole, tore up the mould frantically with his claws. In ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... there is a sly suggestion of Lowell's playfulness. Of course every one may compete in the search for the Grail, and the "time subsequent to King Arthur's reign" includes the present time. The Romance of King Arthur is the Morte Darthur of Sir Thomas Malory. ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... eyes were holden that they should not know him." This simple statement has more than once caused "smiles in tears;" smiles at the half playfulness of Jesus talking to these two beloved disciples as a tender father sometimes talks to his little children; and tears at the condescending love of Christ our God and Lord, walking as a wayfaring man with two of his heartbroken creatures. Can you take this in, ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... the playfulness of his wit, and the exhilarating whim of his manner. My ill humour soon evaporated; and yielding to the sympathetic gaiety he had inspired, I said to him—'You are a wicked wit, Belmont. But, though I laugh, do not imagine I ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... he refused to enter the lists. When the popular proprietor of the tin shop came sauntering along the sidewalk with nose uptilted, waving genial greetings to the various groups on the steps, Chris Auermann's expression would suddenly change to one of fatuous playfulness. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... perhaps the prettiest. Idyllic as Daphnis and Chloe, romantic as Romeo and Juliet, tender as Undine, remote as Cupid and Psyche, yet with perpetual touches of actual life, and words that raise pictures; and lightened all through with a dainty playfulness, as if Ariel himself had hovered near all the time of its writing, and Puck now and again shot ...
— Aucassin and Nicolette - translated from the Old French • Anonymous
... residence—a large, white, pretentious dwelling, surrounded and embellished by all the appointments of wealth. The house was a huge cube, ornamented at its corners and cornices with all possible flowers of a rude architecture, reminding one of an elephant, that, in a fit of incontinent playfulness, had indulged in antics characteristic of its clumsy bulk and brawn. Outside were ample stables, a green-house, a Chinese pagoda that was called "the summer-house," an exquisite garden and trees, among which latter were carefully cherished the seven ancient ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... revolution in the theatre. Before her time, the essential requisites for the parts which she performs, were sensibility, decorum, nobleness, and dignity, even in diction, as well as in gestures, and deportment. Those qualities are not incompatible with the grace, the elegance of manners, and the playfulness also required by those characters, the principal object of which is to interest and please, which ought only to touch lightly on comic humour, and not be assimilated to that of chambermaids, as is done by Mademoiselle CONTAT. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... seem to know the first rudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and a harrow as being the same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and you recommend the domestication of the polecat on account of its playfulness and its excellence as a ratter! Your remark that clams will lie quiet if music be played to them was superfluous—entirely superfluous. Nothing disturbs clams. Clams always lie quiet. Clams care nothing whatever about ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... I whispered. 'Are you mad? You may enrage him. Do not touch the rope! Do not touch it again!' Oh, the recklessness, the unthinking playfulness of woman! How can we guard against it? How can we be ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... the words in the dictionary when he knew them by intuition, remind him of orders to be written for his buildings, and manage him as her pupil. If she ruled, it was with perfect calmness and simplicity, and the playfulness was that of brother and sister, not even with the coquettish ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... degree. Haydn and Mozart seem again to be aiming at contrast; after a dignified opening Allegro and a soft, graceful slow movement, they frequently wind up with a Finale of which the chief characteristics are humour, playfulness, and merriment, so that the listener may part company from them in a ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... come: how could she know? To her it meant simply an ordinary call at an unfortunate hour; for she was tired—he could see that—and worried—he could see that also. And he!—had he ever been so solemn, so implacably in earnest, so impatient of the playfulness which at another time he would have found merely amusing? Why was he all at once growing so petty with her and exacting? Little by little he went over the circumstances judicially, in an effort to restore her to lovable ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... many graceful writers who possess true poetical genius, and enjoy a high local reputation. The "Zophiel" of Maria Brooks (1795-1845) evinces an uncommon degree of power in one of the most refined and difficult provinces of creative art. Frances S. Osgood (1812-1850) was endowed with great playfulness of fancy, and a facility of expression which rendered her almost an improvisatrice. Her later poems are marked by great intensity of feeling and power of expression. The "Sinless Child" of Elizabeth Oakes Smith is a melodious and imaginative poem, with many passages of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... "on a spree." To the unsophisticated Uncle Billy their smiling seemed only a natural and kindly recognition of his happiness, and he nodded and smiled back to them with unsuspecting candor and innocent playfulness. "These yer 'Frisco fellers ain't ALL slouches, you bet," he added to himself half aloud, at the back ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... young prince might prepare his lesson before breakfast, did not pacify his accusers. So little Louis Charles was taught no more arithmetic, but he continued to learn eagerly all that was offered his quick retentive mind to assimilate. His playfulness and mischievous pranks were a great comfort to the failing spirits of the king and queen, and the tact he showed in his manner and words were nothing less than wonderful in so young a boy. He never mentioned Versailles or the Tuileries or anything ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... too many of which had already scarred his thin shoulders, he ransacked his brains for telling subjects, and forced from his memory the lines which told most, and told most quickly, of the pathetic look on Rufus's face, the anger, pleasure, or playfulness of the mill cats. Perhaps none of us know what might be forced, against our natural indolence, from the fallow ground of our capabilities in many lines. The spirit of a popular subject in the fewest possible strokes ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... its returning. That in itself appalled him. There was some joy in feeling the temptation there, as a thing to be dallied with. He dallied with it now. He dallied with it to the extent of saying, with a smile he tried to temper to playfulness: ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... shouldn't tell stories,' Mrs. Waltham began, with playfulness which was not quite natural. 'Who was it that wanted to go and speak a word to Letty ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... portrait made by his friend Giotto, shows him as a young man perhaps of twenty to twenty-five years, with a face noble, beardless, strong, intelligent and pensive—a face which would not lead one to suspect an appreciation of humor. Yet writers find two distinct forms of that quality—a playfulness in his eclogues and a grotesqueness in certain of his assignments to punishments in Hell. Contrasting with this picture of his early life is the face of his death mask and of the Naples bust, suggesting ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... the old affection was trembling on the verge of some warmer sentiment, and left her with a sense of responsibility never felt before. Obeying the impulse, she said, with a pretty blending of earnestness and playfulness, "If I wear the bracelet to remember you by, you must wear this to remind you of ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... the curtain which separates the inner from the outer being, and the features of the spirit are seen to be distorted with anguish. To this class of individuals belonged Widow White. Oh, how she felt as she trod to and fro within that dim-lit room! Her son—her only son, in the endearing playfulness of whose infantile smiles she had so often exulted; upon whose boyish accents she had so frequently hung with transport, and for whom she had pictured out such a bright and glorious future, was a condemned ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... apologised to the serious bard for inviting him when his mock umbra was to be present. Astonished, she perceived that both men of genius felt a mutual esteem for each other's opposite talent; the ridiculed had perceived no malignity in the playfulness of the parody, and even seemed to consider it as a compliment, aware that parodists do not waste their talent on obscure productions; while the ridiculer himself was very sensible that he was the inferior poet. The lady-critic had imagined that PARODY must necessarily be malicious; and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... a good means of softening social distances. A stiff, grave, man is always in danger of being feared too much. On the other hand, as the self-love of many people is suspicious in the extreme, you must expect that your most innocent playfulness will often be ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... invigorating sea breeze may coax a few brighter roses," said the fond father, emphasizing his words by patting Marguerite's cheek with childlike playfulness. ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... elegance and refinement. The actress who, we think, comes nearest to her in genteel comedy, is Mrs Henry Siddons, in her beautiful representation of such parts as Beatrice or Viola; but she has not the same appearance of natural light-hearted buoyancy and playfulness of disposition; you see occasional transient indications of a serious thoughtful turn of mind, which assumes gaiety and cheerfulness, rather than passes naturally into it; which you admire, because it places the actress in a more amiable light, but which takes off from the fidelity ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... life, and observance of the law of universal labor. "Fruitfulness" contains charming pictures of homely married life, delightful glimpses of childhood and youth: the first smile, the first step, the first word, followed by the playfulness and the flirtations of boyhood, and the happiness which waits on the espousals of those who truly love. And the punishment of the guilty is awful, and the triumph of the righteous is the greatest that can be conceived. All those features have been retained, so far ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... in its playfulness, this volume is likely to give as much pleasure to the elder folk as ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... fraction towards the great purpose. Emily has confessed that she worked away a good deal of vague, weary depression, and sense of monotony into those Greek choruses: but to us she was always a sunbeam, with her ever ready attention, and the playfulness which resumed more of genuine mirth after the first effort and strain of spirits ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the model of politeness and refinement. Xenophon is thoroughly the gentleman; gentle in breeding and in soul. All the men he describes are so, while the shades of manner are distinctly marked. There is the serene dignity of Socrates, with gleams of playfulness thrown across its cool, religious shades, the princely mildness of Cyrus, and the more domestic elegance of the ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... was Captain in the 79th—leaned forward and tried to put his hand upon the child's shoulder, not unkindly, but with a rough playfulness of the soldier. Gilian shrank back, his face flushing crimson, then he realised the stupidity of his shyness and tried to amend it by coming a little farther into the room and awkwardly attempting the salute in which the Sergeant More had tutored him. The company was amused at the courtesy, but ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... which were represented George Thompson and a black woman with this significant allusion to the riot, made as if addressed to himself by his dusky companion in disgrace: "When are we going to have another meeting, Brother Thompson?" The cat-like creature had lapsed into a playful mood, but its playfulness would have quickly given place to an altogether different fit did it but know that Garrison was watching it from the window of the very room where a few weeks before he had nearly fallen into ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... revolutionary—often as simple in their mechanism as they are astonishing in their results, have been given to a delighted world. Some of Edison's inventions have a character at present of little more than picturesque playfulness, such as the Phonograph, perhaps the most remarkable of these minor inventions; the Aerophone, by which sounds are amplified without loss of distinctness; the Megaphone, an instrument which, inserted in the ear, so magnifies sounds that faint whispers may be heard a thousand feet; the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... of conviviality, and a treat delicious to those who have the sense to comprehend it; but it implies a trust in the company not always to be risked." The truth is, that many, eminent for their genius, have been remarkable in society for a simplicity and playfulness almost infantine. Such was the gaiety of Hume, such the bonhomie of Fox; and one who had long lived in a circle of men of genius in the last age, was disposed to consider this infantine simplicity as ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... business hand with plenty of flourishes, and in sentences very carefully composed. But he managed in his precise and prim way to convey to Katy the notion that he was pining away for her company. And she, missing the giggle and the playfulness from the letter, thought his distress extreme indeed. For it would have required a deeper sorrow than Smith Westcott ever felt to make him talk in the stiff conventional fashion in which his ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... whether or not I should take the opportunity to knock him down. That was undoubtedly the proper course. But I could not bring myself to do it. A spirit of wild mischief possessed me; a strange, unnatural buoyancy and fierce playfulness that impelled me to play insane, fantastic tricks. It was a singular phenomenon. I seemed suddenly to have made the acquaintance of a hitherto unknown moiety of a ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... labors of another day, and she was standing near a school-house door, intently occupied in giving some directions to an old soldier. In my whole life I do not think I ever saw a more beautiful creature. The airiness of the lithe little figure, the playfulness in the nod of the graceful head, the look of joyous innocence on that perfect face, flitted through my mind like a bright ray of sunshine during the entire day. Every morning, for years after, I met that child; and every morning her beaming smile cheered my young life like a glimpse of heaven. I ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... recall the simple gravity, not demure but perfectly solemn, with which, on the deck of a Hudson River steamboat, as we were passing West Point, he indicated to me the Kosciuszko monument, saying briefly, "That's the place where Freedom shrieked." It was the quality of his temperament that made his playfulness delicious. Setchell was the mental descendant of Burton, as Burton was of Reeve and as Reeve was of Liston. Actors illustrate a kind of heredity. Each species is distinct and discernible. Lester Wallack maintained the lineage of Charles Kemble, William Lewis, Elliston, and Mountfort—a line in ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... same freshness and fertility in the collection called "Artists' Wives" as in the "Letters from my Mill," and the "Monday Tales," but not the same playfulness and fun. They are severe studies, all of them; and they all illustrate the truth of Bagehot's saying that a man's mother might be his misfortune, but his wife was his fault. It is a rosary of marital infelicities that Daudet has strung ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... temperament and religious theory, utterly opposed to the position of those who are horrified at every demonstration of mirth and playfulness in social life, and who seem to think that everything, decent and immortal, depends upon the style in which people carry their feet. On the other hand, I can see nothing but ruin, moral and physical, in ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... left the room, and the abbess gave her attention again to the children, making occasional remarks on their health, beauty, playfulness, and so forth, which were all sympathetically responded to by Salome, until they heard the sounds of approaching voices and footsteps, and the visiting ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... endeavor to surprise by whimsical combinations; and as his whole performance is nothing but foam and glitter, he will, it is true, engage the attention for a time, but build up and confirm nothing in the understanding. His playfulness is, like the gravity of the other, thoroughly unpoetical. To string together at will fantastical images, is not to travel into the realm of the ideal; and the imitative reproduction of the actual cannot be called the representation of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... House. These friends then took Lamon into a room, locked the door, and in the most solemn and impressive manner laid upon him the responsibilities of guarding Lincoln's person until they should reach Washington. The scene was concluded by Dubois with a mixture of solemnity and playfulness, who said: "Now, Lamon, we intrust the sacred life of Mr. Lincoln to your keeping; and if you don't protect it, never return to Illinois, for we will murder ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... moreover, she was a somewhat more matronly Carmen than the fancy, stimulated by earlier performances of the opera or the reading of Mrime's novel, was prepared to accept; but it was in harmony with the new picture that she stripped the character of the flippancy and playfulness popularly associated with it, and intensified its sinister side. In this, Frulein Lehmann deviated from Mme. Hauk's impersonation and approached that of Mme. Trebelli, which had been brought to public notice at the first Italian season at the Metropolitan ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Fate, with that playfulness which some take too seriously or quite amiss, set her queer stage as long ago as 1838 for the comedy of certain lives, and rang up the curtain one dark evening on no fitter scene than the high road from Gateshead to Durham. It was raining hard, and a fresh breeze from the south-east swept a ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... The gay playfulness with which his eyes twinkled was evidently caused by the sight of the nimble Jew, whose body seemed to be made of india rubber, and the two corkscrew curls behind his ears of a fiery red, seemed to dance to and ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... was and yet have awakened a feeling in his mother's breast which she had never given to him. Now he was embarrassed somewhat by her playful insistence on her mother's right to her boy for a time. Playfulness sat as ill on her as could well be imagined, and he was captious over her raillery on his hurry to be at his cousin's side, calling it atrocious taste in his irritable mind, he who had never been irritable, to whom it would have seemed the worst of taste ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... people she knew, young men were not now attracted by girls as they had been in her young days. There was a kind of cool and friendly matter-of-factness in the way they treated them, a sort of almost scientific playfulness. And Cecilia felt uneasy as to how far this was to go. She seemed left behind. If young people were really becoming serious, if youths no longer cared about the colour of Thyme's eyes, or dress, or hair, what would there be left to care for—that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... not excel," flung at him. He enjoyed the expression of knock-out opinions such as: "I always bless God for making anything so strong as an onion!" He laughed easily, not from humour so much as from a romping playfulness. He took a young boy's pleasure in showing off the strength of his mane of dark brown hair. He would get a child to get hold of it, and lift him off the ground by it "with no apparent inconvenience." He was at the same time nervous and restless. ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... exhibited a strange mixture of ferocity and mirth. Savage, and almost brutal in their expression, still an atmosphere of fun hovered about them—a Will-o'-the-wisp sort of playfulness, unnatural and decoying, like the capricious gambols of that renowned ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... within a few weeks of eighty years of age, (which was in January, 1838,) she wrote to me in the following vein of playfulness: ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... such attack, Tilton taunted his wife with her quick recovery. It was a taunt that pulled tight on the corners of his mouth; it was lacking in playfulness. Beecher was present at the bedside of the propped-up invalid. They turned on Tilton, did these two, and flayed him with their agile wit and ready tongues. Tilton protested they were wrong—he was not ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... said Juanna at last with a rather pathetic attempt at playfulness. How could she be cheerful, poor girl, when her feet were sore and her head was aching, and she wished that she ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... bewilderment had frozen on her face. Had not that something, akin to anger, which her nature had felt to be emanating from him remained so potently to oppress her, she could almost have thought the thing a joke—some freakish mood of playfulness after all the other moods he had shown. But no such thought was possible. The glitter in his eyes had been unmistakable. Then, ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... lay his hoof playfully on our shoulder. Still, as we have noticed that the pointless puns and stupid jocularity of the boy may ultimately be developed into the epigrammatic brilliancy and polished playfulness of the man; as we believe that racy wit and chastened delicate humor are inevitably the results of invigorated and refined mental activity, we can also believe that Germany will, one day, yield a crop of ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... astonishment (after his own matrimonial experience) at Hardyman's folly in marrying at all, diffused a wide circle of gloom, wherever he went and whatever he did. His accomplished wife, forcing her high spirits on everybody's attention with a sort of kittenish playfulness, intensified the depressing effect of the general dullness by all the force of the strongest contrast. After waiting half an hour for his mother, and waiting in vain, Hardyman led the way to the tent in despair. ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... as I expected," whispered Max, who was too intent upon the work in hand to heed his friend's playfulness. "Now I will light the lantern and we will go upstairs. The door of the manager's room is sure to be locked, but we shall ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... raptures. She begins to read Burns with youthful delight, dilates upon his exhaustless imagination, his versatility, and then she suggests a very just criticism. 'Does it not appear' she says, 'that versatility is the true and rare characteristic of that rare thing called genius—versatility and playfulness;' then she goes on to speak of two highly-reputed novels just come out and ascribed to Lady Morley, 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Sense ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... susceptible. The ever-green passions of this venerable sinner threw out fresh shoots; and she became enamoured of the attentive and admired Englishman. Horace was susceptible of ridicule: there his somewhat icy heart was easily touched. Partly in vanity, partly in playfulness, he encouraged the sentimental-exaggeration of his correspondent; but, becoming afraid of the world's laughter, ended by reproving her warmth, and by chilling, under the refrigerating influence of his cautions, all the romance of ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... cannot dress. And that was not all. A certain buoyancy, hitherto unsuspected, crept into her manner, as the corpuscles multiplied in her veins—an archness. She talked more, and threw up a spray of playfulness. And, with a growing energy, she began to revise the exquisite aesthetic balance of Dunstone's house. She even ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... received me with the same artless demonstrations of affection. There was a mellowed softness in her countenance, and a tender languor in her eye, I had not remarked the preceding day. Then there was more of the vivacity and playfulness of the young girl; now, more of the deep fervour and the composed serenity of the thoughtful woman. This change was too consonant to my taste—too flattering to my self-love—not to be rejoiced in; and as I pressed her yielding form in silent rapture to my own, I more than ever felt she was indeed ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... granted him the same favours I had bestowed upon you. In my just indignation I loaded him with the most bitter insults, I called him a cowardly spy and slanderer, for he could not have seen anything but childish playfulness, and I declared to him that he need not flatter himself that any threat would compel me to give the slightest compliance to his wishes. He then begged and begged my pardon a thousand times, and went on assuring me that I must lay to my rigour the odium of the step he had taken, the only excuse for ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... chains, and gratings of strong iron, There rust amid the accumulated ruins 490 Now mingling slowly with their native earth: There the broad beam of day, which feebly once Lighted the cheek of lean captivity With a pale and sickly glare, now freely shines On the pure smiles of infant playfulness: 495 No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair Peals through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes Of ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Borden, who were enjoined to conceal the nature of his sickness from him in order to keep off the priests and save her from a humiliating dismissal. The King's improvement allowed Madame du Barry to divert him by her usual playfulness and conversation. But La Martiniere, who was of the Choiseul party, and to whom they durst not refuse his right of entry, did not conceal from the King either the nature or the danger of his sickness. The King then sent for Madame du Barry, and said to her: "My ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of the Christ-child ranges from the sleeping Babe from whose innocent face the Madonna of the Diadem softly lifts a veil, to the grave boy whom the Chair Madonna clasps in her arms. Every shade of playfulness, of affection, of dignity, and of contemplation, is mirrored in the long series of pictures in which he embodied his ever-changing ideal of the ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... commanded. "I have heard that your head is like the head of Medusa, and turns into stone all upon whom you look. But I should like to have a close look at you, and to talk to you before I turn into stone," he added in a spirit of playfulness that ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... delights of the evening, and being in a decidedly limp condition, Mrs. Damerel and her protegee drove home. Fanny said nothing of what had passed between her and Horace. The elder lady, after keeping silence for half the drive, spoke at length in a tone of indulgent playfulness. ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... Sleeping Beauty who replied. "Never mind, Cinderella," she said. "You know I realize quite well what it is to be bored." She had spoken gently; and now she smiled with a certain playfulness. "The prince with the missing slipper will find you soon enough. You've only to be patient, and the day will come when you'll seldom be bored ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... terrible loss to me, though it was great gain to her. Before her death we were separated for a time—only a short time,—but it proved to be a blessed separation, for the letters she wrote me sparkled with love and wit and playfulness, as though they had been set with pearls and rubies and diamonds. I shall show you my treasures before going to bed. I keep them in that box on the sideboard, to be always handy. It is not large, but its contents are more precious to me than ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... part of Firmness lies Heroism, or Hardihood, next to which come Health and Oratory, then Approbativeness and Playfulness, running into Sense of Honor and Magnanimity. Approbativeness, Playfulness, Honor, Magnanimity and Self-sufficiency might as one group be almost included in the old conception of Approbativeness. Magnanimity is a faculty closely akin to Self-esteem or Pride, but belongs ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... sympathises with tumult or distress, even in their extremes, but there is no tumult, no sorrow in itself, only a chastened and exquisitely peaceful cheerfulness, deeply meditative; touched without loss of its own perfect balance, by sadness on the one side, and stooping to playfulness upon the other. I shall never cease to regret the destruction, by fire, now several years ago, of a drawing which always seemed to me to be the perfect image of the painter's mind at this period,—the drawing of Brignal Church near Rokeby, of which a feeble idea may still be gathered ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... away in the van of the chorus. Even the Mexicans, who comprised over half the regiment, chanted forth the tune. They had heard it often enough, and thought it a species of appropriate national hymn. Only the colonel of the troop rode in silence, but not gloomily. This playfulness of his pet before a snarl was music that he liked. The other Missouri colonels (brevet) were as boys ever, were still only Joe Shelby's "young men for war." There was Colonel Marmaduke of Platte. There was Colonel Crittenden of Nodaway. There was ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... as if from eternal bronze—"aere perennius"—The Odes of Horace are the consummate expression of the pride, the reserve, the tragic playfulness, the epicurean calm, the absolute distinction of the Imperial Roman spirit. A few lines taken at random and learned by heart would act as a talisman in all hours to drive away the insolent pressure of the vulgar ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... death in 1836. He was a man of the highest gifts,—so truly many-sided, that it would be presumptuous in me to attempt to describe him, except under those aspects in which he came before me. Nor have I here to speak of the gentleness and tenderness of nature, the playfulness, the free elastic force and graceful versatility of mind, and the patient winning considerateness in discussion, which endeared him to those to whom he opened his heart; for I am all along engaged upon matters of belief and opinion, and am introducing others into ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... positively forbid any more talking," said Arthur, with a mixture of authority and playfulness. "Here is the ambulance. Help me to lift him in, men," to the by-standers. "And you, cousin Zoe, get into your carriage, and drive on behind it, or ahead ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... dancing men of quality this season, it seems to me, who are obscured by dancing ladies of fame, and not such warrantable artistry. Perhaps it is because male anatomy allows of greater eccentricity and playfulness. There are no girls who have just such laughing legs as the inimitable Frances White. It is the long-legged American boy who beats the world in this sort ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... be touched with silver; he seemed a man without an atom of care more than humanity counts reasonable; his speech was not unlike that of an Englishman, for, although born in Glasgow, he had been to Oxford. He spoke respectfully to his wife, and with a pleasant playfulness to his daughters; his manner was nowise made to order, but natural enough; his grammar was as good as conversation requires; everything was respectable about him-and yet-he was one remove at least from a gentleman. Something hard to define ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... character of the men on the Star Circle Ranch. They were given to loud laughter, but he noticed that most of this laughter was at the misfortunes of others. And they were always playing jokes on one another and cutting up tricks; but beneath this playfulness there seemed to be a sort of fierceness—something like the ferocity that lurks beneath the play ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... excepted. Their names were Careless and Atlas.....There was a story in circulation that Atlas, on account of his size and clumsiness, had been banished to the cart-breed; till by some accident, either of playfulness or fright, several of them started together; and his vast advantage in speed happening to be noticed, he was restored to his blood companions.....Alas for the men of Nottingham, Careless was conquered. I forget whether it was at two ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... was, that the art which did it all was no where discernible.[9] You might have supposed (so exquisitely was the wild and the cultivated united) that all had somehow happened, not been contrived. It seemed to be the art of Nature herself; as though, in a fit of playfulness, she had imitated her imitator. But the temperature of the place, if nothing else, was plainly the work of magic, for blossoms and fruit abounded at the same time. The ripe and the budding fig grew on the same bough; green apples were clustered upon those with red cheeks; the vines in ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... hair inclined to red, her mouth was wide, but her complexion was exquisite; and the lips, ever laughing, were parted over a splendid set of teeth, an attribute rare in those days when the teeth were often decayed in youth. She had, too, a charm of manner natural to her, and a playfulness of conversation, which, springing from a cultivated mind, rendered her society most fascinating. "Her heart, too," writes Wraxall, her cotemporary, "might be considered as the seat of those emotions which sweeten human life, adorn our nature, ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... her father and the others must have heard the shot and would be on their way back to see what the matter was. It would therefore be as well to comply with her request and try to explain that their seemingly ungrateful conduct had only been the outcome of their innate playfulness. If they had erred it was in carrying a joke ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... delicate rendering of the gauzy kerchief veiling her neck, but it is far less wonderful than the delicate interpretation of her expression. The fine sensitiveness of her nature, her lively fancy and sense of humor, her playfulness, her coquetry, her impulsiveness, her volatile temperament—all this we read in the shining eyes and the smiling mouth, though no one can say how they were made to tell so much. The signs of her birth and breeding are in every line, yet she is something ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... violins give a pianissimo "hee-haw" which is fully as witty in its musical aptness as Mendelssohn's clown-theme in the Overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream; and in the ensuing dialogue their prophecy is verified. As with many other great artists, Bach's playfulness occasionally showed itself inconveniently where little things shock little minds. The hilarious aria, "Ermuntre dich," in the church cantata, Schmuecke dich, o liebe Seele, is one instance, and the quaint representation of the words "dimisit inanes" in the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... wisdom,[146] and day by day he was increasing in discretion. In discretion, shall I say, or in holiness? If I say both, I shall not regret it, for I should say the truth.[147] He behaved as an old man, a boy in years without a boy's playfulness. And when because of this he was regarded with reverence and astonishment by all, he was not found on that account, as commonly happens, more arrogant, but rather quiet and subdued in all meekness.[148] Not impatient of rule, not shunning discipline, not averse ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... one of them began, "at the buoyant youthful spirit which you still retain, at your jovial animation, your lively poetical playfulness. All the rest of us have grown so old, and the weight of years presses so heavily upon us, while you are still jesting, and pleasure has lost none of its freshness or charms ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... were done out of spite or wanton playfulness, or for the gratification of a whalish whim, the act had cost the huge leviathan no greater effort than might have been used in brushing off a fly; and after its accomplishment the old bull went bowling ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... Mulledwiney's. The fact is, we have had a PERSONAL difficulty." He paused, glanced around him, and continued in a low, agitated voice: "Yesterday I came upon him as he was sitting leaning against the barrack wall. In a spirit of playfulness—mere playfulness, I assure you, sir—I poked him lightly in the shoulder with my stick, saying 'Boo!' He turned—and I shall never forget ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte |
