"Sprightly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sprightly and elate, but I was in no sort of mood to share in his buoyancy. Physically I had fully recovered from my terrible manhandling, but in spirit I still writhed at the outrage of it. And the worst was I could do nothing. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... give Counsels of virtuous knowledge to their sons. The father with a story points his speech, The mother with a kiss. Of different tastes, the boys: the elder one, Grave, studious, reads and thinks the livelong day; The younger, sprightly, gay, and graceful, too, Leaps, laughs incessant, and in games delights. One evening, as their wont, at father's side, And near a table where their mother sewed, The elder Rollin read. The younger played: Small care had he for Rome's ambitious deeds, Or Parthian prowess; his whole ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... College of New-Jersey, was married to a daughter of the renowned Mr. Jonathan Edwards, late of Northampton. She is a young lady of about twenty-one. Her person may be called agreeable; her natural genius seems to be sprightly, and, no doubt, is greatly improved by a very virtuous education. In short, she appears to be one every way qualified to make a man of sense and piety happy in the conjugal relation. As to the courtship or marriage, I shall not descend to particulars; but only observe, in ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... replied the countess, with a sprightly air and a charming touch of the German brogue. "I was waiting to be reminded of that; for there is a condition, which I wish to propose to your excellency, before the promised ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... out, middle-aged, but still sprightly, and still, if the truth must be told, with an idiot dream in my heart of some romantic encounter, I look at the passers-by, say in Sloane Street, and then I begin to imagine moonfaces more alluring than any I see in that thoroughfare. But then again vaster thoughts visit me, remote metaphysical ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... history of the progress of despotism. These effusions of zeal were not, however, all in the "sublime" style: the legislative dignity sometimes condescended to unbend itself, and listen to metrical compositions, enlivened by the accompaniment of fiddles; but the manly and ferocious Danton, to whom such sprightly interruptions were not congenial, proposed a decree, that the citizens should, in future, express their adorations in plain prose, and without any ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... with Mr. Aylett and his sister, he was, if all went prosperously, to revisit Ridgeley at the end of six weeks, when his design was to entreat his betrothed to name the wedding day. The prospect might well support him under the present trial. He bore Rosa's badinage gallantly, tossing back sprightly and telling rejoinders that called forth the smiling applause of the auditors, and commanded her respectful recognition of him as a ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... dozen sparkish admirers who were somewhat taken aback when they discovered that the "gentlewoman who had never appear'd on any stage before" could more than hold her own in repartee and give the fops of fashion as good as or better than they gave. How could they tell that the sprightly young budding actress had graduated in the wit and slang of ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... of solemn Night Fills at his vase her orb of light— Imparted lustre—thus we see The solar virtue shines by Thee. EIRESIONE! we'll no more For its fancied aid implore, Since bright oil and wool and wine And life-sustaining bread are Thine; Wine that sprightly mirth supplies, Noble wine ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... assuredly not the least able of the three, a pale, dark-haired Romeoish youth with burning eyes, whom Cowperwood had encountered doing some little work for Laughlin, and who was engaged to work on the West Side with old Laughlin as ostensible organizer and the sprightly De Soto Sippens as practical adviser. Stimson was no mooning Romeo, however, but an eager, incisive soul, born very poor, eager to advance himself. Cowperwood detected that pliability of intellect which, while it might spell disaster ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... long since, perhaps; But now that sense is alter'd: you would have me, Like to a puddle, or a standing pool, To have no motion nor no spirit within me. No. I am like a pure and sprightly river, That moves for ever, and yet still the same; Or fire, that burns much wood, yet ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... Determine; but I believe it must be generally Imputed to the Former, as it cannot be suppos'd, that either of the Universities, are at any time without a polite Converse; tho' I take leave to observe, that there is a great deal of difference between a finish'd Oxonian, and a sprightly Senator. ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... to be upon terms of intimacy with every clerk in the office, came leisurely out into the room, and looked me over with what I felt to be a shrewd and yet not unkindly glance. "It's the second he's sent down in two weeks," he observed, "but this one seems sprightly enough. What's ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... viol, the lute[12] was the most popular stringed instrument. It was used both as a Solo instrument on which to play sprightly 'Ayres,' or as an accompaniment for the voice, or 'in consort' with other instruments. Naturally, it figured frequently in 'serenading' especially when a love song had to be sung outside a lady's window. ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... breathed over the scene, and vivified each colour of the landscape. The bright dewdrops hung trembling from the branches of the trees, which at intervals overshadowed the road; and the sprightly music of the birds saluted the rising day. Notwithstanding her anxiety the scene diffused a soft complacency ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... as, at the age of eighty-four, he pays a famous visit to Paris,—a sprightly old man with wrinkled face, and with sharp old eyes peering out from either side of the long nose, beaming with pride at the flattery of his admirers, sparkling with pleasure as he makes a witty repartee. The ladies call ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... from Dante; a long-line of shadowy figures, veiled in the veil of Madonna Laura, ladies beloved of Lorenzo and Michael Angelo, of Ariosto, and Tasso, and Camoens, and Cervantes, passes through the world; nay, even the sprightly-mistress of Ronsard, half-bred pagan and troubadour has airs of dignity and mystery which make us almost think that in this dainty coquettish French body, of Marie or Helene or Cassandrette, there really may be an immortal soul. But with the Renaissance—that movement ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... until young Dr. Bellamy showed signs of desertion. Then the spirit of resistance was roused, and she watched her lover narrowly, gnashing her teeth sometimes when she saw his ill-concealed admiration for her sprightly little cousin, who could say and do with perfect impunity so many things which in another would have been improper to the last degree. She was a tolerably correct reader of human nature, and, from the moment she witnessed the meeting between Lucy and the rector of St. Marks, ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... listlessness and headaches; Nature herself sufficiently declaring her sense of our presumption in aspiring to regulate our frail waking courses by the measures of that celestial and sleepless traveler. We deny not that there is something sprightly and vigorous, at the outset especially, in these break-of-day excursions. It is flattering to get the start of a lazy world, to conquer death by proxy in his image. But the seeds of sleep and mortality are in us; and we pay usually, in strange qualms before night ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... dash."—Nutting's Practical Gram., p. 126; Frazee's Improved Grammar, p. 187. More use may have been made of the curves than was necessary, and more of the parenthesis itself than was agreeable to good taste; but, the sign being well adapted to the construction, and the construction being sometimes sprightly and elegant, there are no good reasons for wishing to discard either of them; nor is it true, that the former ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... 333: Let us be introduced to the sprightly figure and expression of character of this renowned Coventry captain, before we speak particularly of his library. "CAPTAIN COX (says the above-mentioned Master Laneham) came marching on valiantly before, clean trust and gartered above the knee, all fresh ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... a gentleman of high culture—an Oxford wrangler, it was said—about forty years of age, with a daughter of sixteen, an only child. Of course the first time I saw her at church I fell desperately in love: boys always do that with a new face. She was a sprightly girl, with soft blue eyes, dark hair, fair complexion, white teeth, a lithe figure ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... miles along a back trail, and then was so tired that I stayed for two hours at a ranch, where I heard, to my dismay, that I must ride twenty-four miles farther before I could find any place to sleep at. I did not enjoy yesterday's ride. I was both tired and rheumatic, and Birdie was not so sprightly as usual. After starting again I came on a hideous place, of which I had not heard before, Hayden's Divide, one of the great back-bones of the region, a weary expanse of deep snow eleven miles across, and fearfully lonely. I saw nothing the whole way but a mule lately dead lying by the road. ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... "No more absorbing romance of the war has been written than 'The Firefly of France.' In a sprightly, spontaneous way the author tells a story that is pregnant with the heroic spirit of the day. There is a blending of mystery, adventure, love and high endeavor that will charm ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... billiard-room and a bowling-alley. I must be self-supporting, and 'I will never desert Mr. Micawber,' so I should make beds and dust in Hotel Number One, and in Hotel Number Two entertain the guests with my music and my 'sprightly manners,'—that's what Mr. Greenwood calls them, and the only reason I am sorry we live in a republic is that I can't have him guillotined for doing it, but must swallow my wrath because he pays ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... Jacks was in company, there could be no dullness. Alone with his host and hostess, Otway would have found the occasion rather solemn, and have wished it over, but Arnold's melodious voice, his sprightly discussion and anecdotage, his frequent laughter, charmed the ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... the Home Town passed out of his Life. He told himself that he would be true to Miss Russell and all the other Members of her sprightly Profession. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... of this character as they should be rendered. There is only one phase of it that comes fairly within Miss Anderson's grasp. Of vivacity there is not a spark in her nature; a heavy-footed impassiveness weighs upon all her efforts to be sprightly. The refinement, the subtlety, the animation, the ton, of an actress of the Comedie Francaise she does not so much as suggest. Womanly sympathy, tenderness, and trust, those qualities which constitute a far deeper ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... flying and I should not like you to be late for dinner. For Heaven's sake, ladies, tear from the clutches of the women, whose toilettes you do very wrong in imitating, your husbands' affections. Are you not more refined, more sprightly, than they? Do for him whom you love that which these women do for all the world; do not content yourselves with being virtuous—be attractive, perfume your hair, nurture illusion as a rare plant in a golden vase. Cultivate a little folly when practicable; put away your marriage-contract ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... curtsied low, and her gentlemen bowed profoundly as he reached the group. He instantly recognised them, and seemed enchanted at their sight. A sprightly conversation ensued, in which he addressed himself chiefly to the lady, who seemed accustomed to his notice, yet to receive it with a species of rapture. The gentlemen also had the easy address of conscious welcome ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... we shall speak more fully hereafter. In gay, and sprightly, and laughing comedy she is most at home. Her ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... family nurse, but as she was growing old and somewhat infirm, she required a pair of young, sprightly feet to run after little Lemmy to keep him out of mischief, and to carry the teething, worrying baby about. Tidy was ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... unkindly fogs depress to earth Her tender blossom; choke the streams of life, And blast her spring! Far otherwise design'd Almighty Wisdom; Nature's happy cares 230 The obedient heart far otherwise incline. Witness the sprightly joy when aught unknown Strikes the quick sense, and wakes each active power To brisker measures: witness the neglect Of all familiar prospects, [Endnote D] though beheld With transport once; the fond attentive gaze Of young astonishment; ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... left hand. Annette is fair, has light auburn hair-not the first tinge of her mother's olive invades her features. Her little cheerful face is lit up with a smile, and while toying with the rings on her mother's fingers, asks questions that person does not seem inclined to answer. Vivacious and sprightly, she chatters and lisps until we become eager for her history. "It's only a child's history," some would say. But the mother displays so much fondness for it; and yet we become more and more excited by the strange manner in which ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... am, and fine When I drink my cap'ring wine: Then to love I do incline, When I drink my wanton wine: And I wish all maidens mine, When I drink my sprightly wine: Well I sup and well I dine, When I drink my frolic wine; But I languish, lower, and pine, When I want ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... slight eminence in what was otherwise a flat and dreary outlook, there stood the stump of a tree. It was a tired stump, strongly reminiscent of the morning after. It had had a hard life, and much of its pristine glory had faded. No longer did the sprightly sparrow chirrup cheerfully to its young from leafy branches; no longer did cattle recline in its shade during the heat of the day. It was just a stump—a stump ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... would have said, "if it be not irrational in a man to count his feathered bipeds before they are hatched, we will conjointly astonish them next year." Boswell. "Sir, I hardly understand you." Johnson. "You never understood anything." Boswell (in a sprightly manner). "Perhaps, sir, I am all the better for it." Johnson. "I do not know but that you are. There is Lord Carlisle (smiling)—he never understands anything, and yet the dog is well enough. Then, sir, there is Forster—he understands ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... grows sick, Alice, I long so to behold Rose, with her pure white forehead, And Maud, with her curls of gold; And Willie, so gay and sprightly, So merry and full of glee—, O, my heart yearns to enfold ye, My smiling ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... spirits, in high feather; happy as the day is long, happy as a king; gay as a lark; allegro; debonair; light, lightsome, light hearted; buoyant, debonnaire, bright, free and easy, airy; janty[obs3], jaunty, canty[obs3]; hedonic[obs3]; riant[obs3]; sprightly, sprightful[obs3]; spry; spirited, spiritful[obs3]; lively, animated, vivacious; brisk as a bee; sparkling, sportive; full of play, full of spirit; all alive. sunny, palmy; hopeful &c. 858. merry as a cricket, merry as a grig[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... pretty daughters, whom he kept in a tower under lock and key, so dangerous a town is Coimbra! But we set our wits to work to catch a sight of the beautiful recluses. By means of a nosegay tied to the end of a long stick we drew two sprightly faces, well worthy their reputation, to the window, and so we made acquaintance. Then we were fetched to go over the university, the honours of which were done us by the "grand master" in a blue and gold gown, assisted by two professors who spoke French admirably well. ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... some knowledge of music, with a tolerable voice; I now turned what was once my amusement into a present means of subsistence. I passed among the harmless peasants of Flanders, and among such of the French as were poor enough to be very merry, for I ever found them sprightly in proportion to their wants. Whenever I approached a peasant's house toward nightfall, I played one of my merriest tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day; but in truth I must own, whenever I attempted to entertain persons of a higher rank, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... in the once cheerful old Hall! Mr. Aubrey sitting in the library, intently engaged upon books and papers—Mrs. Aubrey and Kate now and then, arm in arm, walking slowly up and down the galleries, or one of the rooms, or the hall, not with their former sprightly gayety, but pensive, and often in tears, and then returning to the chamber of their suffering parent. All this was sad work, indeed, and seemed, as it were, to herald ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... slain during the assault or sack of the city. The intimacy thus begun soon kindled on my part, into an intense admiration. Coralie was gentle, artless, confiding as she was beautiful, and moreover—as Jeannette, her sprightly, black-eyed maid informed me in confidence—extremely rich. Here, gentlemen, was a combination of charms to which only a heart of stone could remain insensible, and mine at the time was not only young, but particularly sensitive ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... greate exsperience, and had committed no oversights in his conducte, was willinge to heare every thinge debated, and alwayes concurred with the most reasonable opinion, and though he was not of many wordes, and was not quicke in hearinge, yett upon any action, he was sprightly and commaunded well; The Prince was rough, and passionate and loved not debate, liked what was proposed, as he liked the persons who proposed it, and was so greate an enimy to Digby and Culpeper, who were only present in debates of the Warr with the Officers, that he crossed ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... miniature guitar of Portuguese invention. Then, with strumming and tumtuming, the live cigarette laid aside to the imminent peril of polished wood, his full baritone would roll out in South Sea hulas and sprightly ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... snow-flakes! How they fall from yonder sky, Coming lightly, coming sprightly, Dancing downwards, from on high. Faint or tire, will they never, Wheeling round and round forever. Surely nothing do I know, Half so merry as the snow; Half so merry, merry, merry, As the dancing, ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... most brilliant, but the only great house of reception and constant society in England. His marvellous social qualities, imperturbable temper, unflagging vivacity and spirit, his inexhaustible fund of anecdote, extensive information, sprightly wit, with universal toleration and urbanity, inspired all who approached him with the keenest taste for his company, and those who lived with him in intimacy with the warmest regard for his person. This event may be said with perfect truth to 'eclipse the gaiety of nations,' for besides ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... man of letters, "what a hardship is it, that many an illiterate fellow, who cannot construe the motto of the arms on his coach, shall raise a fortune and make a figure, while I have little more than the common conveniences of life!" Was it, then, to raise a fortune, that you consumed the sprightly hours of youth in study and retirement? Was it to be rich that you grew pale over the midnight lamp, and distilled the sweetness from the Greek and Roman springs? You have then mistaken your path, and ill ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... of sprightly, fresh, or free, With the calm sweetness may compare Of the pale form half slumbering there. Therefore this one dear couch about We linger hour by hour: The love that each to each we bear, All treasures of enduring care, Into her lap we ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... music of a banjo band. Ever and anon a company of the careless creatures would pause and dance for pure gayety of heart. Then they would recline under the shade of the wild bandanna-tree,—I know this vegetable only through the artless poetry of the negro minstrels,—while sleek and sprightly negresses, decked with innocent finery, served them beakers of iced ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... slender hands. This was one of them. Fortune had left her, sorrow had baptized her; the routine of labor and the loneliness of almost friendless city-life were before her. Yet, as I looked upon her tranquil face, gradually regaining a cheerfulness that was often sprightly, as she became interested in the various matters we talked about and places we visited, I saw that eye and lip and every shifting lineament were made for love,—unconscious of their sweet office as yet, and meeting the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... portrait-painting differed from Van der Helst's, with a common enthusiasm. He scrutinized with patient loyalty everything that they indicated to him, and not infrequently they appeared to like very much the comments he offered. These were chiefly of a sprightly nature, and when Julia laughed over them he felt that she was ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... having purchased a hardy and spirited horse and two asses, arranged to accompany it. He obtained also the services of Johnson, a negro who spoke both English and Mandingo. Dr Laidley also provided him with a negro boy named Demba, a sprightly youth who spoke, besides Mandingo, the language of a large tribe in the interior. His baggage consisted only of a small stock of provisions, beads, amber and tobacco, for the purchase of food on the road; a few changes of linen, an umbrella, pocket ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... not, were always for calling him to her. She said pretty things—for she was Miss Chudleigh. He said pretty things—for he was Mr. Cibber; and all the company, men and women, seemed to think they had an interest in what was said, and were half as well pleased as if they had said the sprightly things themselves; and mighty well contented were they to be secondhand repeaters of the pretty things. But once I faced the laureate squatted upon one of the benches, with a face more wrinkled than ordinary with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... occasion when he opposed Lord Campbell's Bill for the suppression of indecent publications, and made a speech which was more creditable to his wit than his taste, and perfectly horrifying to Lord Campbell, who inflicted a most damaging verbal castigation on his very sprightly but ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Every Monday morning, in the classroom, Tinkleby passed round an old missionary box, crying, "Now then! pay up, you beggars. No broken glass or brace buttons!" It was always a race to get the collection over by the time Mr. Ward entered the room; but the sprightly Tinkleby, who seemed to have undertaken the combined duties of president, secretary, and treasurer, hurried through it somehow; and each week the box grew heavier, and the hearts of the contributors lighter ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... partly down: I cannot depict what an air he had of being out of place, like a man shipwrecked there. Uncle Adam had his station at the business table in the midst. Valuable rows of books looked down upon the place of torture; and I could hear sparrows chirping in the garden, and my sprightly cousin already banging the piano and pouring forth an acid stream of song ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... boaster—would I mention four or six of the prettiest women about town, and swear I was to escort them.—Being a lover of truth, I confess I shall steal alone into an upper box, to fix my attention on the performance of the piece.—Perhaps, after all is over, I may step to the box of some sprightly, chatty girl, such as lady ——,—hear all the scandal of the town, ask her opinion of the play, hand her to her chair, and so home, to spend a snug evening with sir Edward Ganges, who has promised to meet me here ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... Father Thames, for thou hast seen Full many a sprightly race Disporting on thy margent green The paths of pleasure trace; Who foremost now delight to cleave With pliant arm, thy glassy wave? The captive linnet which enthral? What idle progeny succeed To chase the rolling circle's speed Or ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... apothecary's daughter. She added that one day Madame de Brinvilliers, after a dinner party, in a merry mood, said, showing her a little box, "Here is vengeance on one's enemies: this box is small, but holds plenty of successsions!" That she gave back the box into her hands, but soon changing from her sprightly mood, she cried, "Good heavens, what have I said? Tell nobody." That Lambert, clerk at the palace, told her he had brought the packets to Madame from Sainte-Croix; that Lachaussee often went to see her; and that she herself, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... which come but too rarely to human beings. At the request of Mr. Doran I read the manuscript which he had just brought with him from Europe. I read the story itself first and afterwards the preface, or foreword. This, I think, was as it should be. By rights a preface however sprightly and well done—and a preface by Sir James Barrie would have to be well done—should be served with a book as cheese is served with a dinner: at its finish and ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... New Year's article, the result of one of those peculiar experiences which sometimes occur to us writers. I had planned an article, gay, sprightly, wholly domestic; but as I began and sketched the pleasant home and quiet fireside, an irresistible impulse wrote for me what followed,—an offering of sympathy to the suffering and agonized, whose homes have forever been darkened. ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... peculiarly gracious and smiling, and spoke of the Hymeneals as though they were even more than ordinarily joyful and happy in their promise. To Lizzie he was almost affectionate, and Mrs. Carbuncle he flattered to the top of her bent. The power of the man in being sprightly under such a load of trouble as oppressed the household, was wonderful. He had to do with three women who were worldly, hard, and given entirely to evil things. Even as regarded the bride, who felt the horror of her position, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... he was now associated with, gave Horatio a manly way of thinking much sooner than otherwise perhaps he might have had, yet did not rob him of his vivacity: some of the queen's women, and the young ladies about the princess, particularly mademoiselle Charlotta, had a thousand sprightly entertainments among themselves, into which he, the baron de la Valiere, and some others who had attachments at ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Venus hates this cold disdain;— Cease then its rigors to maintain, That sprightly joys impede, Lest the strain'd cord, with which you bind The freedom of my amorous mind, ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... the fact, but the knowing ones stood open-mouthed when Henley's negro assistants led six well-groomed horses into the square. The Chester band played in the balcony of the court-house, and Henley's exhibit kept gay and sprightly step to the music, as if glad to be once more in their accustomed element. The mane of each animal was decorated with a blue ribbon bow, to which was fastened a card holding the price asked. In no case was it low, and yet when the day was over Henley ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... direction, and devoted himself with exuberant talent and unconscionable facility to satisfy the frivolous tastes and refined animality of royal and courtly patrons. For it was a time when life was envisaged as a perpetual feast of enjoyment; a vision of roguish eyes and rouged and patched faces of sprightly beribboned and perfumed gallants, playing at shepherds and shepherdesses, of luxurious sensuality untrammelled by a Christianity minus the Ten Commandments, soon to be hustled away by the robust and democratic ideals of David. Another early work of Fragonnard ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... asked the little girl to find her hairbrush, and blundered over the buttons of her nightgown, Emeline hummed a sprightly air. She never ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... his table, religiously victualled this time, and with them his beloved brother Joseph, not the least happy of the guests in the reconciliation with Uriel and the near prospect of the treasuryship. What a handsome creature he was! thought Uriel fondly. How dignified in manners, yet how sprightly in converse!—no graven lines of suffering on his brow, no gray in his hair. The old wine gurgled, the old memories glowed. Joseph was let into the secret of the engagement—which was not to be published for some months—but was too sure of the part he had played to suspect he had been ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Gretel in a sprightly tone. "You can do this. You can get a pair a little too small for you, and too big for me, and we can take turns and use them. Won't that be fine?" Gretel clapped her ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... of the busy feet, Whose wrappings were wont to lie In the basket, awaiting the needle's time, Now wandered so far away; How the sprightly steps to a mother dear, Unheeded fell on the ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... side of the field the artillerymen and cavalrymen ate, holding their reins under their arms, while their officers stood around some temporary table, served by canteen men of the united divisions. Tiny columns of blue smoke rose where coffee was making, and everywhere were the swift movement and sprightly good-fellowship in which the soldier feels himself ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... the world, an incident and an instrument of the political redemption of the people among whom it arose. "In free and tranquil countries," said the novelist Guerrazzi in conversation with M. Monnier, the sprightly Swiss critic, recently dead, who wrote so much and so well about modern Italian literature, "men have the happiness and the right to be artists for art's sake: with us, this would be weakness and apathy. When I write it ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... the end of the garden. His wife, a pretty-featured, well-formed, graceful young woman, of not more than two or three-and-twenty, was, they told me, the daughter of a schoolmaster, and certainly had been gently and carefully nurtured. They had one child, a sprightly, curly-haired, bright-eyed boy, nearly four years old. The wife, Ellen Irwin, was reputed to be a first-rate hand at some of the lighter parts of her husband's business; and her efforts to lighten his toil, and compensate by increased ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... for it, gentlemen," said Colonel Starbottle, who had been known in Sacramento as a Gentleman of the Old School, "there's some lovely creature at the bottom of this." The gallant Colonel then proceeded to illustrate his theory, by divers sprightly stories, such as Gentlemen of the Old School are in the habit of repeating, but which, from deference to the prejudices of gentlemen of a more recent school, I refrain from transcribing here. But it would appear that even the Colonel's theory ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... "Edwin's girl," and had been so always. She had grown out of the likeness that we longed for in her cradle days, or else we had grown out of the perception of it; for though the external resemblance in hair and complexion still remained, nothing could be more unlike in spirit than this sprightly elf, at once the plague and pet of the family—to ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... "it's comin' up fast. My! I hate to git my clothes wet." And off she set at a rapid pace, keeping abreast of her companion and making gay but elephantine attempts at sprightly conversation. Before Cameron's unsympathetic silence, however, all her sprightly attempts came to ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... separation of nineteen years, was a joyous one, their animated conversation keeping time with the quick, impetuous throbbing of their hearts. The pleasure of our day there was also much enhanced by the sprightly—even brilliant conversation of the hotel proprietress, Mrs. Green, whose three-score years and ten were worn as gracefully as many ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... Exclude each one that would disturb The fairy architects, or curb The wild creations of their mirth, All that would wake the soul to earth. Choose ye the softly-breathing-flute, The mellow horn, the loving lute; The viol you must not forget, And take the sprightly flageolet And grave bassoon; choose too the fife, Whose warblings in the tuneful strife, Mingling in mystery with the words, May seem like notes ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... wonderful old creature!" said the general, just as if he were a sprightly young fellow talking of the oldest inhabitant of the district. "She's not one of them that are half buried: she's wide enough awake, I'll be bound. Gad! what a handsome woman she was when I saw her first! Well, lads, let's join the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... A sprightly novel that hits off to perfection the present antagonism between the rebellious younger generation ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... the literary or scientific sort, the style of speaking should be colloquial. It ought to bring the hearer pretty near to the speaker. If the subject and language are light, the speaking will be sprightly and comparatively swift. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... keenest sense of the pathos of beauty and of youth in death and sorrow. He has forgotten el gran tradimento. He only remembers how comely Grifonetto was, how noble, how frank and spirited, how strong in war, how sprightly in his pleasures and his loves. And he sees the still young mother, delicate and nobly born, leaning over the athletic body of her bleeding son. This scene, which is perhaps a genuine instance of what we may call the neo-Hellenism of the Renaissance, finds ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... country woman named Perrette set out one morning from her little dairy-farm with a pail of milk which she cleverly balanced upon her head over a pad or cushion. She hurried with sprightly steps to the market town, and so that she might be the less encumbered, wore a kirtle that was short and light—in truth a simple petticoat—and shoes low and easy. As she went, her thoughts ran upon ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... vale, and over into the next where his cart lay, was not sprightly for a slim young fellow of twenty-four. His spirit was perturbed to aching. The breezes that blew around his mouth in that walk carried off upon them the accents ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... left, she heard a ringing laugh, followed by loud, sprightly talking. It was not her lover's voice, and endeavoring, while she waited for Andreas, to catch what was being said on the other side of the door, she distinctly heard the body-physician (for no other pronounced the Greek language in that curious, halting ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... first time he turned and looked directly at his neighbour. She was a woman whose fair hair was turning grey, well-dressed, sprightly, agreeable. She had a humorous mouth and ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the best of it, and also of the remarks that followed, for he was sooner seated than Mrs. Davis turned all her powers of sprightly conversation upon the subject of Nina. Half of the nobility of Italy, she averred, were sighing—or busily doing sums—at the feet of the American heiress. There was a particularly fascinating Sansevero—he was not called Sansevero, but di Valdo (curious custom of having half a dozen ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... of argument," said this sprightly youth; and so they parted for the time, little dreaming, either of them, what a chain they were weaving round their two hearts, and this little ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... Eton when a fire occurred in one of the houses, two boys perishing in the flames. He tells us that this tragedy made an impression on him, for it fell at a time in his life when "one begins to fear death." Fear is a word which meets us even in the sprightly pages of A Spiritual AEneid, a volume perhaps more fitly to be ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... woman bows low. It is Haydn, and there is sprightly malice in his music. The glorious periwigged giant of Halle conducts a chorus of millions; Handel's hailstones rattle upon the pate of the Sphinx. "A man!" cries Stannum, as the heavens storm out their cadenced hallelujahs. The divine youth approaches. His ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... was ended, he perceived Marie rush to the window, and then hastily, and with a dainty coyness withdraw her head from the pane. Simultaneously he heard a sprightly tune whistled, as if by some glad, young heart that knew no care. Looking now, he saw a tall, well-formed young whiteman, a gun on his back, and a dog at his heels, walking along the ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... trusted them still. Ingenuous Helen was sometimes your role, With her appetites, charms, and all else beside; Sometimes Roman probity wielded your soul, In honor becoming your rule and your guide. And though in a convent as guardian nun, You might have well managed some sprightly fun, In the world, as a keeper of treasures untold, Preferred you would be to a ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... hawa, lit. daughters of love. This is the ordinary meaning of the phrase; but the girl in question appears to have been of good repute and the expression, as applied to her, is probably, therefore, only intended to signify a sprightly, frolicsome damsel. ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... the lips are past mending. The effervescence and sparkle of wine can only be known as the glass is filled. The fine art of conversation can be perfected only by choice spirits whose hearts are light, whose sprightly wit, gay good humor and alert intelligence make ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... as it almost appeared, of the other mighty Union. Not with malice, or snug satisfaction, as the men of the North in their agony said, but certainly without any proper anguish yet, and rather as a genial and sprightly spectator, whose love of fair play perhaps kindles his applause of the spirit and skill of the weaker side. "'Tis a good fight—let them fight it out!" seemed to be the general sentiment; but in spite of some American vaunt and menace (which of late ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... the upper margin of the straggling town of St. Louis, Jack Halloway introduced George and Victor Shelton and Deerfoot to his mother. She was a sprightly little lady, who could not have weighed a hundred pounds, and whose soft, wavy, white hair and pink cheeks and regular features spoke of the unusual beauty that was hers when she was the belle of the town. She had a serene beauty ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... Mrs. Russell to descend. After this he assisted Katie out of the cab, and Ashby saw that she looked as fresh, as bright, and as blooming as a rose, that she showed not a trace of care or anxiety, and that she was as sprightly and coquettish ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... all good company and makes him entirely unfit for the conversation of the polite world." "I don't know how the mathematics may assist the judgment, but they have a great tendency to make men dull. I who am far from being sprightly even in my gaiety, am the very reverse of it at this time." Certainly to produce sprightliness is neither the aim nor the general effect of mathematics. That while military education was carried on, general culture was not wholly neglected, is proved by the famous exclamation ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... about Ferdinand Frog that made everybody smile. It may have been his amazingly wide mouth and his queer, bulging eyes, or perhaps it was his sprightly manner—for one never could tell when Mr. Frog would leap into the air, or turn a somersault backward. Indeed, some of his neighbors claimed that he himself didn't know what he was going to ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey
... it may seem, trees fight with each other for a place in the sunlight. Sprightly trees that shoot skyward at a swift pace are the ones that develop into the monarchs of the forest. They excel their mates in growth because at all times they are exposed to plenty of light. The less fortunate trees, that are more stocky and sturdy, and less ...
— The School Book of Forestry • Charles Lathrop Pack
... speaking, his eyes often met those of Helene, but neither turned away the head. They gazed into each other's face for a moment with grave looks, as though heart were being revealed to heart; but after a little they smiled and their eyes dropped. Juliette, fidgety and sprightly, though she would often assume a studied languor, allowed them no opportunity for lengthy conversation, but burst with her interruptions into any talk whatever. Still they exchanged a few words, quite commonplace, slowly articulated sentences which seemed to assume a deep meaning, and to linger ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... belong to some coterie. He must get the esprit de corps on his side: he must have literary bail in readiness. Thus they prop up one another's rickety heads at Murray's shop, and a spurious reputation, like false argument, runs in a circle. Croker affirms that Gifford is sprightly, and Gifford that Croker is genteel; Disraeli that Jacob is wise, and Jacob that Disraeli is good-natured. A Member of Parliament must be answerable that you are not dangerous or dull before you can be of the entree. ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... sat beside him, endeavouring to get up a flirtation—for Bella was an inveterate flirt. Besides being pretty, she was sprightly and full of life—a giddy gay thing, much addicted to that dangerous practice of fluttering round improprieties with cheerful recklessness. She was one of those human moths whose wings, alas! are being constantly singed, ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... He is a free joker on serious subjects, but a good-natured man, and says sprightly things with no ill grace: the lady a little reserved, and haughty, though to-day was freer than usual; as ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... in the life of the fisher-boy—a new departure. It had brought him for the first time in his young life into personal contact as it were, with the dark side of life, and had made an indelible impression on his soul. It did not indeed abate the sprightly activity of his mind or body, but it sobered his spirit and, in one day, made him more of a man than several years of ordinary life could have accomplished. The most visible result was a manly consideration of, and a womanly tenderness towards, his mother, which went a long way ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... Ribston pippin, an English apple. Wide branching like the oak, and its large ridgy fruit, in late fall or early winter, is one of my favorites. Or the thick and more pendent top of the belleflower, with its equally rich, sprightly uncloying fruit. ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... Geoffry Daymond from the comparative obscurity of the stone lion's neighbourhood, but he had been for some moments furtively watching them both, himself lost to view in the crowd about the band-stand. She would have been surprised indeed if she could have guessed the effect upon the sprightly cavalier of this new evidence of the confidential relations existing between herself and his friend; and indeed, when a moment later he met them, with a facetious sally, it is doubtful whether anything short ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... Memoirs of Washington, by George Washington Parke Custis, page 41. Washington wrote many other letters to his sprightly foster-child, but they have been lost or destroyed. These serve to show how his comprehensive mind had moments of thought and action to bestow on all connected with him, and how deeply his affections were interested ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... deer was not greatly hurt by the cowardly hunter. John and the Hermit nursed her tenderly, and so great was their knowledge of healing balms that she was soon nibbling the grass about their dooryard, as sprightly as ever, save for a slight ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... when fairies light On Cassilis Downans^2 dance, Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze, On sprightly coursers prance; Or for Colean the rout is ta'en, Beneath the moon's pale beams; There, up the Cove,^3 to stray an' rove, Amang the rocks and streams To ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... whenever thrown into his company; and sought, by flattering his self-love, to make him feel in the best possible humour with himself while in her society. In this way she succeeded in drawing him frequently to her side, where Emeline was always to be found. A sprightly, well-educated, and finely accomplished girl, Emeline soon interested the young M. C.; and he showed her, as has been said, a good deal of attention during the winter, and Mrs. Minturn flattered herself that her ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... opportunity of a coffee-house, they repair thither, take each man a dish or two (so far from causing, that it cures any dizziness, or disturbant fumes): and so, dispatching their business, go out more sprightly about their affairs, than before.... Lastly, For diversion ... where can young gentlemen, or shop-keepers, more innocently and advantageously spend an hour or two in the evening than at a coffee-house? ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the bargain, if we are to believe Pee-wee Harris. I am not so sure that the ten merit badges of bugling, craftsmanship, architecture, aviation, carpentry, camping, forestry, music, pioneering and signaling should be awarded this sprightly scout (for Pee-wee is as liberal with awards as he is with gum-drops). But there can be no question as to the propriety of the music and architecture awards, and I think that the aviation award would ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... lives here is terrible. Think of it, mademoiselle; we have no theatre, no music, no society, and no domestic life. To find a lady here is like the miraculous advent of an angel." Mary blushed, and had no courage to make the sprightly answers she had ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... out of the station Nancy Nelson noticed for the first time that the sky had become overcast and the clouds threatened rain. Scorch O'Brien, the odd new friend she had made, was so sprightly a soul that she really had not observed the change ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... bursting shell and brick-dust intermingled, blood-red. Beyond the ridge all-conquering British aeroplanes occupied the firmament, observing for "mother" and "granny" and signalling encouragement or reproof to these ponderous but sprightly relatives as their shells hit or ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... The sprightly figure and gaudy plumage of the Red Bird, his vivacity, strength of voice, and actual variety of note, and the little expense with which he is kept, will always make him ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... Annette, with tresses all curling bright, Sporting and frisking like lambkin or kid, Foot it so sprightly, and dance it all down aright— Never for languor shall Annette be chid. Right hand and left again, Round about set amain, Jokingly, ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... it well enough, but there were times—usually in the spring—when without being conscious of what was the matter with him he mourned his lost youth. For Tutt was only forty-eight and he had had a grandfather who had lived strenuously to upward of twice that age. He was vigorous, sprightly, bright-eyed and as hard as nails, even if somewhat resembling in his contours the late Mr. Pickwick. Mrs. Tutt was tall, spare, capable and sardonic. She made Tutt comfortable, but she no longer appealed to his sense of romance. Still she held him. As the playwright hath said "It isn't good looks ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... Palace is Gothic made sprightly and sunny; Gothic without a hint of solidity or gloom. So light and fresh is the effect, chiefly the result of the double row of arches and especially of the upper row, but not a little due to the zig-zagging of the brickwork and ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... a head too large for the body, and having a thick neck and extended veins, was generally strong and of a martial spirit. When the head was long and of conical shape, the person was generally impudent and rash; and, if sprightly in early life, was supposed to lose spirit and vivacity before reaching the age of thirty years. A well-proportioned head, but slightly compressed at the sides, denoted a person of good apprehension, proceeding from the spirits domiciled there. A spherical head denoted inconstancy, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... by Rouquin, volatile and cheery as in the days of old. The sprightly Frenchman was beaming with friendliness and good spirits. He conveyed a startling bit of personal news to Mr. Bingle without the slighest ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... wonder had been that she had managed to keep the roof over her head. She had died a few months after her husband's release. Melinoff, if he had had no other virtue, had at least loved his wife, and the Melinoff of old, then a sprightly enough man for his years, was no more, and it was a decrepit, stoop-shouldered, dirty and grey-bearded figure that shuffled now around the old-clothes shop, apathetic of "bargains," where before it had been a man whose keenness was matched only ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... by any means, but how could I suppose my wise oldest brother would care for such a trifle?" returned the little girl in a sprightly tone. ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... fell back, and George, blinking, radiant, and abashed, found himself in the arms of an exceedingly sprightly and youthful dame, with pale, frizzled hair, and ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... much the execution suffers by this expedient. However well they may be disguised, there is an inherent clumsiness in them, which it is impossible for them to shake off, so as to represent with justness the sprightly graces and delicacy of the female sex. The very idea of seeing men effeminated by such a dress, invincibly disgusts. An effeminate man appears even worse than a ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... indeed could scarcely be imagined, than between the winning manners and sprightly disposition of this youthful princess, as they displayed themselves amid the festivities of her court and the homage of her suitors, and the grave and awful character of Governess of the church, with which ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... secured. But these were slight difficulties for our brilliant "pushful" young man. He could make his way, and his mission found him interest. He certainly saw as much of Bath as anyone could in the time. Yet, gay and sprightly as was his account of Bath, there may have been a reason why Boz may have not recalled the place with pleasurable feelings. It will be recollected that, after giving a few lines to the account of Mr. Pickwick and friends being set down at the White Hart, ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... which it seems every transatlantic sister is aware by intuition, that one supreme duty of the sex, as it is represented in society, is to know how to talk a little to everybody, to talk always in sprightly fashion, and never to adopt the English woman's depressing method of answering all conversational efforts and overtures ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... with it upon deck in the most extravagant joy, viewed it over and over with delight, and there formed it into a really very becoming drapery. She appeared quite conscious of her increased attractions in this attire, leaped about in the most sprightly manner, and called on all the persons of the Court to admire her. In short, a young European lady on first decorating herself with the most costly Persian shawl, would not have been half so happy as this young Princess ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... the people, but Pair had done wonders by way of civilising her. She had learned English, and prattled it with an accent so quaint and sprightly as to give point to her otherwise perhaps somewhat commonplace observations. She was fond of reading; she could play a little; she was an excellent housewife, and generally a very good-natured and quite presentable little person. She was ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... arts-shop where, among walls softened with silky Turkish rugs and paintings of blue dawn amid the dunes, were tables of black-and-white china, sports hats, and Swiss toys, which the Grimsby summer colony meekly bought at the suggestion of the sprightly Miss Mitchin. ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... little dog called Mukaka, who got dragged under the sledge in one of the mad penguin rushes the dog-teams made when we were landing stores from the Terra Nova: his back was hurt and afterwards he died. "He is paired with a fat, lazy and very greedy black dog, Noogis by name, and in every march this sprightly little Mukaka will once or twice notice that Noogis is not pulling and will jump over the trace, bite Noogis like a snap, and be back again in his own place before the fat dog ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... reflections upon the important question of berries in such a pithy saying as that which Walton repeats. His tongue must have been in close communication with his heart. He must have had a fair sense of that sprightly humour without which ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... a livelier scene than the excavation of these ruins. Men diligently dig away at the earth, and bevies of young girls run to and fro without cessation, with baskets in their hands. These are sprightly peasant damsels collected from the adjacent villages most of them accustomed to working in factories that have closed or curtailed operations owing to the invasion of English tissues and the rise of cotton. No one would have dreamed ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... 'This way, gentlemen! This is Miss Barry's room.' Gentlemen! My dears, I thought I should pass away! Then there came great, loud men's steps, and I heard Mr. Monk's voice—'This is one of our most interesting inmates, Bishop! Eighty-seven years old, and as sprightly as a girl. A most pious and exemplary person. Good morning, Miss Barry! How is your ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... is a chapter devoted to the newspaper critics, and it is interesting to note the good-nature with which the sprightly cantatrice handles these touchy gentlemen. Not an unkind word is said; occasionally a foible or a trait is hit off, but all is done cleverly and in the most genial temper. Considerable space is devoted to the Chicago critics—Messrs. Upton, Mathews, McConnell, and Gleason—who, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... spirited adventures any bright boy could want than is to be found in this series of historical biography, it is difficult to imagine. This volume is written in a most sprightly manner; and the life of its hero, Fernan Magellan, with its rapid stride from the softness of a petted youth to the sturdy courage and persevering fortitude of manhood, makes a tale of marvellous ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... help me when I asked you," was the sprightly retort. "And I'm sure it's not like you to forget anything about ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... belongs, it seems to me, as much to the woman and her children as it does to you. You must remember that some things that are legally right are not morally right. I shall not take your case, but will give you a little advice, for which I will charge you nothing. You appear to be a sprightly, energetic man: I would advise you to try your hand at making ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... in the family circle, and there is much rivalry among the little folks as to who shall tell them best. Teona has a good memory and ready wit, and his versions are commonly received with approval, but it happens that little Tanagela, his cousin, has just won a triumph by her sprightly way of telling the fourth evening's tale of the seven warriors. The little maid listens to-night with burning cheeks and shining eyes, eager to repeat her success with ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman |
