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More "Brisk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dexterity of plot, glancing play at witty talk, characters really human and humanly real, spirit and gladness, freshness and quick movement. 'Half a Rogue' is as brisk as a horseback ride on a glorious morning. It is as varied as an April day. It is as charming as two most charming girls can make it. Love and honor and success and all the great things worth fighting for and living for the involved in 'Half a ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... at the stiff, erect figure of his father as they clambered out of the copter and headed at a fast clip toward the Administration Building of the Enclave. He wondered just how much pain and anguish his father was keeping hidden back of that brisk, ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... very jolly. We hauled in our lines and our anchors, and spread our canvas, while the wind was brisk and the evening was coming on; white-caps danced and tumbled all over the bay. It looked stormy far out in the open sea as we crossed the channel; thin tongues of fog were lapping among the western hills, as though the town were about to be devoured by some ghostly ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... you, gentlemen," was the Prime Minister's brisk welcome. "Sorry I can't talk French to you. Politics, these last ten years, haven't left us much ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... requested to plant plentifully, the feathery leaves of the young carrots, the beans already in white bloom, the sword-like leaves of the corn hardly long enough to wave as yet, and the river with boats and canoes—why, it had never been so brisk and ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... black beaver, and sat in the true attitude of a coachman—wrists pliant, elbows square, she handled her whip in a scientific manner; and had not Tom declared her sex, Bob would hardly have discovered it from her outward appearance. She was approaching them at a brisk trot, greeting her numerous acquaintance as she passed with familiar nods, at each giving her horses an additional touch, and pursing up her lips to accelerate their speed; indeed, she was so intent ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... against the piano-case, with a final lamentation of "Oh, it's a shame! I'll never speak to any of you again! How perfectly mean! Oh!" The last exclamation signalized the start of the horses at a brisk mountain trot, which the driver presently sobered to a walk. The three remaining girls followed, mocking and cheering, and after them lounged the three remaining men, at a respectful distance, marking the social interval between them, which was to be bridged only in some ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... after she had finished singing she stood motionless, absorbed by the far horizon; then suddenly she gave a little shake of the body and said in a brisk, playfully chiding way: ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Why, I do think you are looking remarkably well to-day," cried the matron, her brisk step, bright face, and cheery voice eloquent of her splendid vitality ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... left Virginia at school, I went to call upon old Nanny, whom I found quite brisk and lively, sorting old keys ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... the Cima, wrote of his baskets to Harwood, but stayed away past his melons, his grapes and his olives. By early winter we heard of him shooting the moose in New Brunswick, and later planning a system of art education in the Massachusetts schools, and it was not till the brisk days of March that we learned the west wind was bringing him our ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... taken him for an old-fashioned country solicitor. He was, as a matter of fact, the Vice-Master and Senior Fellow of the College—Mr. Redmayne, who had spent his whole life there. He greeted the younger man with a kindly, brisk, ironical manner, saying, "You look very virtuous, Kennedy! What are ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... obeyed, and from the shattered fragments of the shell, just as the last stroke of twelve ceased, out stepped the Fairy Copetta, as sharp, fresh, and brisk from top to toe as if she had just been made, and not in the least as if she had found her quarters in the peahen's egg either close or confining. She shook out her petticoat with a brisk little flirt, hopped lightly down from the table, and hit ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... dog too, and it became a little silky lapdog that could nestle in your palm. Then he changed the old mare into a brisk, piebald palfrey. Then he changed himself so that he became the living image of Ae, the son of the King of Connaught, who had just been married to Ivell of the Shining Cheeks, and then he changed mac an Da'v into the likeness of Ae's attendant, and then they all ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... would be quite affable in passing, little knowing it was each other's blood they were after. My man, at the moment when we take up the narrative, was walking about in a wood, looking for a job. Half an hour earlier he had been busily engaged in a brisk battle, but, owing to his not keeping his mind on it, he'd got detached and now found himself in one of those peculiarly peaceful solitudes which only exist in the heart of the war zone. Whether the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... resounded throughout the crowd. It was succeeded by a volley of fresh execrations against the rector, and an angry demonstration of bludgeons, accompanied by a brisk shower of peas from ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... battalions headed for a point a little to the west of the present Belgian monument, while for some unexplained reason the rear portion diverged to the left, and breasted the slope later than the others and nearer Hougoumont. Flanked by light guns that opened a brisk fire, and most gallantly supported by Donzelot's division close on their right, the leading column struggled on, despite the grape and canister which poured from the batteries of Bolton and Bean, making it wave "like corn blown ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... inhabitants were wounded. On the first alarm, the Adelantado seized a lance, and sallied forth with seven or eight of his men. He was joined by Diego Mendez and several of his companions, and they drove the enemy into the forest, killing and wounding several of them. The Indians kept up a brisk fire of darts and arrows from among the trees, and made furious sallies with their war-clubs; but there was no withstanding the keen edge of the Spanish weapons, and a fierce blood-hound being let loose ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... layer of the paste, then some egg prepared as for Bola d'Amor, then slices of citron, and a layer of egg marmalade, sprinkle each layer with cinnamon, and fill the dish with alternate layers. A rich puff paste should line the dish, which ought to be deep; bake in a brisk oven, after which, sugar clarified with orange flour-water must be poured over till the syrup has thoroughly ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... the following night, supposed to indicate hostility, induced the officer, on duty at the western post, to open a pretty brisk fire of musketry, with several discharges from the large guns. This, however, proved a most fortunate circumstance, for it was not only the cause of bringing immediate relief to the settlement, but was finally productive ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... there are also gradations of these characters, who had better find employment from those requiring "hands" only. Successful work on a fruit farm, or in a garden, requires a quick brain, a keen eye, a brisk step and a deft hand. Many of its labors are light, and no profit can follow unless they are performed with despatch, at the right time and in ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... Dollington. He bowed and smiled in the most unexceptionable of white chokers and the dapperest of dress coats, and drew off the whitest imaginable pair of kid gloves, when he sat down to the piano, subsiding in a sort of bow upon the music-stool, and striking those few, brisk and noisy chords with which such artists proclaim silence and ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Moon is up; by Heaven, a lovely eve! Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand; Now lads on shore may sigh, and maids believe[eg]: Such be our fate when we return to land! Meantime some rude Arion's restless hand[eh] Wakes the brisk harmony that sailors love; A circle there of merry listeners stand Or to some well-known measure featly move, Thoughtless, as if on shore they ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... and upon each bill he placed certain monies in accordance with the sum marked thereon. Having fixed the residue of his coins and having seen that he held ten pounds, his mind was filled with such bliss that he said within himself: "A nice little amount indeed. Brisk are affairs." ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... quarter hoss. Sally wuz nigh 'bout well, an' 'llowed she'd be ready ter go ter wuk de nex' week; when one mo'nin' I tuk the basket an' went down ter pick some corn. Jest ez I'd got de basket nigh 'bout full, who should start up dar, outen de bushes, on'y jes Marse Hooper; an' he sez, mighty brisk-like, 'So? I 'llowed I'd cotch yer 'fore I got fru! ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... them at sea without a quiet chuckle at the inevitable consequences of the first "reef-topsail breeze." Fancy those solemn, stately Patricians, whose very puns are ponderous enough to set their galleys a streak deeper in the water, fancy them in a brisk sea with a nor'wester brewing to windward, watching off the port of Carthage for Admiral Hasdrubal and his fleet to come out. They were good hand-to-hand fighters,—none better; and so they won their victories, no doubt; but, having ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... shall not be brought to shame the second time; and I shall do sagely; so nock an arrow to thy bow, and abide me here, and stir not hence; for I shall enter this thicket without the hounds, and arouse the quarry for thee; and see that thou be brisk and clean-shooting, and then shalt thou have ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... a prisoner for life, as was indicated by his red cassock and his green cap. He was serving out his sentence at the galleys of Toulon, whence he had been brought for this case. He was a small man of about fifty, brisk, wrinkled, frail, yellow, brazen-faced, feverish, who had a sort of sickly feebleness about all his limbs and his whole person, and an immense force in his glance. His companions in the galleys had nicknamed ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and then started off at a brisk pace, their flight concealed by the tall cotton-plants. They reached Memphis about eleven o'clock, and found Dr. Horton at home, having just finished his lunch. They were admitted at once to the dining-room, where the doctor sat picking his teeth. He had never seen ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... Merrick, in his brisk way. "This fellow, shabby as he looked, might be anything—from a strolling artist to a gentleman down on his luck. But what's the news, Thomas? How are ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... discussion was, who would lead with Mr. Rollins? The train went puffing into the crowded depot: the ladies hastened forth, and in a moment were on the street; cabs and carriages were passed in disdain; a brisk walk of a block carried them to the main thoroughfare and into the heart of the shopping district; a rush of hoofs and wheels and pedestrians there encountered them, and the roar assailed their sensitive and unaccustomed ears, yet high above it all pierced ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... off at a brisk pace, eager to reach home, and galloped swiftly over the hard, frozen ground. After the sun had gone down, the wind rose and a searing cold settled over the valley, whitening Jon's moustache where his ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... at the bottom." A process of sifting and drying is then described, and the gravel is all spread out to be examined, "they never examine the stuff they have washed but between the hours of ten and three, lest any cloud, by interposing, intercept the brisk beams of the sun, which they hold very necessary to assist them in their search, the diamonds constantly reflecting them when they shine on them, rendering themselves ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... the fee for joining the Broker's Exchange, and he had to borrow money for his personal expenses in the face of his diminished salary check from Ford, Wetherbee & Co. He realized, too, that the difficulties would scarcely decrease, even in the face of brisk business. The office furnishings would one day have to be met in full, the typewriting machine paid for, the stationery and printing bills settled. During all this time he and Helen would have to live and keep up a decent, not ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... daughters! easy, brisk, and free; Good humour'd, debonnaire, and degagee: Though still fantastic, frivolous, and vain, Let not their airs and graces give us pain: Or fair, or brown, at toilet, prayer, or play, Their motto ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... sight. It was steep, and Chris stood silent and intent on the top step, listening. A deep woman's voice loudly singing, "Farewell and Adieu, to you, Spanish ladies—" came rolling up the stairwell to the accompaniment of a brisk clatter of pots and pans. What rose also to Chris's nostrils was a smell of newly baked bread, frying bacon, and woodsmoke, and the combination put an end to his indecision. For a while he decided to call a truce to any attempt ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... to help us?" asked the brisk fellow who had told Grandaddy Beaver that he thought Timothy Turtle ought to go ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... for the Sockdolager Mine was on and Wunpost led off up the canyon with a swagger. His fast walking mule stepped off at a brisk pace and the pack-mule, well loaded with provisions and grain, followed along up Judson Eells' road. First it led through the Gorge, now clinging to one wall and now crossing perforce to the other, and as Wunpost saw the work of the powder-men above him he ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... kindling eye and glowing cheek, took off his hat, and flourishing it above his head, bade him exultingly Farewell!—then cantered off at a brisk pace; after glancing angrily round to see that his servant followed. Honest John set spurs to his horse and rode after his master, but not before he had again warned Barnaby to retreat, with many significant gestures, which indeed he continued to ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... earned large wages had he lived in the nineteenth century. These 'Palmy Days' are not long enough, however, to permit the introduction of all the characters, nor the outlining of the entire story, with its brisk love-interest. But this bit of dialogue, which occurs after Sable has discovered the much-alive Lord Brumpton, is too ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... the night; and after that he seemed always to be partially awake, aware of increasing cold and damp. The dark mantle turned gray, and then daylight came quickly. The morning was clear and nipping cold. He threw off the wet blanket and got up cramped and half frozen. A little brisk action was all that was necessary to warm his blood and loosen his muscles, and then he was fresh, tingling, eager. The sun rose in a golden blaze, and the descending valley took on wondrous changing hues. Then he fetched ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... her own independence. On the contrary, she gains something, and that is the respect of every true-hearted man that knows her." And his step lagged more and more in spite of my conscientious efforts to maintain the brisk pace in which I had indulged before I had encountered him ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... with brisk approval. "It's fair of you to tell me that." The girl stood for a moment considering, a pencil pressed against her lips. "I suppose the letters are not mine to give. They belong to father. ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... were no better than camp-followers. Confidence, too, did Ercole gather from that magnetism of Francesco's unfaltering confidence; for he seemed to treat the matter as a great jest, a comedy played for the Duke of Babbiano and at that same Duke's expense. And just as Francesco's brisk tone breathed confidence into Fortemani and Valentina, so, too, did it breathe it into Fortemani's wretched followers. They grew zestful in the reflection of his zest, and out of admiration for him they came to admire ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... bake my bridal bread, Or brew my bridal ale? And wha will welcome my brisk bride, That ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... a milk-pail as love in that girl's heart! Be done with this, and be a man. After the league of the lions, let us have a conspiracy of mice, and pull this piece of machinery to ground. You were brisk enough last night when nothing was at stake and all was frolic. Well, here is better sport; ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the second floor, where the five took up positions near the front windows. A short distance from the ranchhouse they could see the enemy, consisting of a detachment of some twenty of Pesita's troopers riding at a brisk trot in ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to Broadstairs was about two miles, and the walk thither was enlivened by a drunken commentary on the fallacy of human hopes in general on the part of Mr Jones, and a brisk fire of caustic repartee on ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... his comrade at once started at a brisk pace and walked all night in the direction of Hennebon. Their clothes soon dried, and elated at their escape from danger they struggled on briskly. When morning broke they entered a wood, and lay there till evening, as they feared to continue their journey lest they might fall ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... King had both come for Miss Langham, and while the latter was helping her to a place on the cushions, and repeating his regrets that the men were not coming also, Hope started the launch, with a brisk ringing of bells and a whirl of the wheel and a smile over her shoulder at the figures ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... what they think," I said, as we rode on over the splendid open highland, with the brisk bracing air whistling past our ears, and our horses seeming thoroughly to enjoy the run; "we've shown the enemy time after time that ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... her maternal instinct, by her perpetual desire to sing, and by a sort of brusque grace, which I could feel the of very well even as a child. She was the soul of the house, which she filled with her systematic and joyous activity. My father was just as slow as she was brisk. I can recall very well that placid face of his, over which at times an ironical smile used to flit. He was fatigued with active life; and he loved his fatigue. Seated beside the fire in his big arm-chair, he used to read from morning till night; and it is from ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... darn," he acknowledged to himself. Instead of applying the gag he departed to the opposite side, sat down and began to think. At the end of a long moment he rose and approached her with a brisk set manner. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... large revenue without any strenuous exertion. Manufacturers can therefore allow themselves many little liberties, which would be quite inadmissible if the price of manufactured goods were lowered by brisk competition. Ask a Lancashire manufacturer if he could allow a large portion of his workers to go yearly to Cornwall or Caithness to mow a field of hay or reap a few acres of wheat or oats! And if Russia is to make great industrial ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Vickers, the ex-Mayor of the city. His near neighbor was the venerable James Montgomery, whose pupil he had been during the short time that the poet conducted a school. Mr. Vickers took me to visit the poet at his residence at The Mount. A short, brisk, cheery old man, then seventy-one, came into the room with a spry step. He wore a suit of black, with old-fashioned dress ruffles, and a high cravat that looked as if it choked him. His complexion was fresh, and snowy hair crowned a noble forehead. He had never married, but resided with ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... box in the ear. I sprang up and pushed him back as he recovered. He slipped on the green ooze of the steps and fell: this was all I saw, for the crowd made a rush and closed. Obed and Mr. Tomlinson had hurried Margit into the boat: I leapt after them: and we pushed off under a brisk shower of dirt and stones. We were soon out of range, and reached the ship ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... but my generosity is like Grace's, and could not help itself. There were the letters to write of, and the verses! and then, you know, 'femme qui parle' never has done. Let me hear! and I will be as brisk as a monument next ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Mr. Pettifer, with a brisk nod of intelligence, immediately assumed his steward face, and went with his quiet, helpful, steward step into the parlour, where the captain had the great satisfaction of seeing him, through the glass door, take the child in his arms (who offered no objection), ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... "A brisk trade for furs was soon opened; the Dutch traders were scrupulously honest in their dealings and purchased by weight, establishing it as an invariable table of avoirdupois, that the hand of a Dutchman weighed one pound, and his foot two pounds. It is true, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... upon my home-coming. The wind had softened down, but a fine rain, cold and clammy, came drifting up from the sea. Had I been left to myself I should have found myself as much at a loss as I had been when I first landed; but my companion walked with a brisk and assured step, so that it was evident that he guided himself by landmarks which were invisible to me. For my part, wet and miserable, with my forlorn bundle under my arm, and my nerves all jangled by my terrible experiences, I trudged ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... once more, and saw Christian and Hopeful go down near the foot of these hills, where lies the land of Conceit, which joins the way to Mount Zion, by a small lane. Here they met a brisk lad, whose name was Ignorance, to whom Christian said: Whence come you, and to ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... with a miscellaneous lot of goods, which Lincoln opened and put in order in a room that a former New Salem storekeeper was just ready to vacate, and whose remnant stock Offutt also purchased. Trade was evidently not brisk at New Salem, for the commercial zeal of Offutt led him to increase his venture by renting the Rutledge and Cameron mill, on whose historic dam the flatboat had stuck. For a while the charge of the mill ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... that Arthur Gride plainly apprehended it to be the forerunner of his putting his threat of throwing him into the street in immediate execution; for he thrust his head out of the window, and holding tight on with both hands, raised a pretty brisk alarm. Not thinking it necessary to abide the issue of the noise, Nicholas gave vent to an indignant defiance, and stalked from the room and from the house. Arthur Gride watched him across the street, and then, drawing ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... She was a brisk, trim young woman from St. John's, new to the occupation, whose administration of the telegraph office was determined ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... us up from Quartes with its church and bickering windmill. The hinds were trudging homewards from the fields. A brisk little woman passed us by. She was seated across a donkey between a pair of glittering milk-cans; and, as she went, she kicked jauntily with her heels upon the donkey's side, and scattered shrill remarks among the wayfarers. It was notable that none of the tired men ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a brisk trade in wounded: sisters and doctors both hard at work. The "Stobarts" were resting, and had built a camp fire outside the door of their hovel. We got lunch ready, ruining recklessly another biscuit tin. While we were eating ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... in the enviable position of one who, at eleven o'clock, had succeeded in disposing of his entire stock in trade, and that at an excellent profit, as we soon shall see. Business had been more brisk with him than with many merchants on a larger scale, who sometimes keep open their shops all day without taking in enough to pay expenses. But, then, it is to be considered that in Paul's case expenses were not a formidable item. He had ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... land, as yet invisible to the crew's eyes, is announced by the brisk order of the chief mate to the boatswain: "We will get the anchors over this afternoon" or "first thing to-morrow morning," as the case may be. For the chief mate is the keeper of the ship's anchors and the guardian of her cable. There are good ships and bad ships, comfortable ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... young figures came out from the shadow of the woods into the moonlighted open space. An old cock crowed loudly from his perch in the shed, as if he were a herald of royalty. The little girls were hand in hand, and a brisk young dog capered ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... pipe, and arose with an air of decision. He went at a brisk pace out of the wood and was upon the road again. He progressed like a man with definite business in view until he reached a house. It was a large white farm-house with many outbuildings. It looked most promising. He approached the side door, and a dog sprang from around a corner and barked, ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... engaged about a twelvemonth in my new place, a very pleasant little shop, though the pay was less and the work harder than I had had with Monsieur C——, when, one morning, standing at the shop-window, I saw that gentleman pass: very brisk, very spruce, very plump he looked. Glancing in, (I flatter myself that a show-window arranged as I could arrange it would attract any one's eye,) he espied me. A speedy recognition and a long conversation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... that brisk, cheerful manner. She was so full of life and energy. She died of fever at Rome—we were staying there. She was only two-and-twenty, and she was to have been married that summer. Her poor mother never got over the shock; before the autumn ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was powerful when I reached the summit, and I was so warm that I walked about barefoot on the frozen snow without inconvenience, preferring it to continuing in wet stockings: the temperature at the time was 29.5 degrees, with a brisk south-east moist wind, and the dew point ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... in the sudden darkness. A brisk wind had sprung up. It rattled among the trees, and set the dead leaves in gentle, rustling motion. It suggested to Bobby the picture which had been forced into his brain the night of his grandfather's ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... to his aunt's, given himself a brisk rubbing down and changed his wet clothing for another suit he fortunately happened to have with him. Thanks to his strong constitution and vigorous health, he felt no ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... purse in the streets; and while, with mingled oaths, blessings, shrieks, and yells, men, women, and children scrambled for the money, the bravo, taking the rein of the horse, led it a few paces through the village at a brisk trot, and then, turning up a narrow lane to the left, in a few minutes neither houses nor men were visible, and the mountains closed their path on either side. It was then that, releasing the bridle and slackening his pace, the guide turned his dark eyes on Glyndon with an ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... hitherto conceived and partly carried out an ideal that was dear to my heart. Rowley and I descended from our claret-coloured chaise, a couple of correctly dressed, brisk, bright-eyed young fellows, like a pair of aristocratic mice; attending singly to our own affairs, communicating solely with each other, and that with the niceties and civilities of drill. We would pass through the little crowd before the door with high-bred preoccupation, ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was derived from the constant violation of them. Few English statesmen knew or cared to know anything about colonial affairs. Left to themselves the American colonies grew rich. Their merchants, especially in New England, carried on a brisk and extremely profitable contraband trade. In exchange for lumber, fish, and cattle the New England merchants obtained sugar and molasses, and bullion from the French and Spanish colonies; and vast quantities of rum were distilled in Boston and ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... and the man who had got us into the difficulty by falling asleep on his watch, was killed; and no less than nine of our men, myself among the number, were hurt in this brisk business. All the wounds, however, were slight; only three of the injuries taking the parties off duty. As for the poor fellow who fell, he owed his death to risking too much, in order to recover ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... Brave, generous, witty, and exactly free From loose behaviour or formality; Airy and prudent, merry but not light; Quick in discerning; and in judging, right; They should be secret, faithful to their trust, In reasoning cool, strong, temperate, and just; Obliging, open, without huffing, brave; Brisk in gay talking, and in sober, grave; Close in dispute, but not tenacious; tried By solemn reason, and let that decide; Not prone to lust, revenge, or envious hate; Nor busy meddlers with intrigues of state; Strangers to slander, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... "you young things suppose we old folks can be as brisk as yourselves; but if I am to be scolded, leave Mr. George unawed by your presence, and go out, my dear, while the sun lasts: I know by the ways of that blackbird that the day ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Convent court, the peaceful and dreamy stillness contrasted strangely with the gorgeous brightness of the day outside. The splendid sunshine, the sparkling sea, the songs of the boatmen, the brisk passage of gliding sails, the bright hues of the flowers that garlanded the rocks, all seemed as if the earth had been arrayed for some gala-day; but the moment she had passed the portal, the silent, mossy court, with its pale marble nymph, its lull of falling water, its turf ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... cutting into his fingers, and that made him stop, and set his teeth, and push open the door of the vestibule. He touched the button under the name "Dale," and called up, huskily, "Is Miss—Mrs. Dale in?" A brisk voice asked his name. "A friend of Mrs. Dale's," he said, very low. There seemed to be a colloquy somewhere, and then he was told to "come right along!" He turned to the stairway, and as he walked slowly up, it ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... with a brisk "Aye, sir! In a few moments he received permission to touch down on the newly colonized planet. Then, turning his attention to the control board, he requested a ground-approach check ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... public business should be suspended in order to discuss abstract propositions. He believed that this doctrine of courtesy was being carried to great lengths.[241] Evidently the young Senator, fresh from the brisk atmosphere of the House, was restive under the conventional restraints of the more sedate Senate. He had not ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... type of machine is good for a few months of active service, just holds its own for a few more, and then becomes obsolete except as a training bus. To surpass or even keep pace with the Boche Flying Corps on the mechanical side, it has been necessary for the supply department to do a brisk trade in new ideas and designs, experiment, improvement, ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... her hat on a peg in the hall, and was quickly ready. She put on her black kid gloves; determination sat upon her mouth, and Christian virtue rested between her brows. Setting out with a brisk step, the conviction was obvious in every movement that duty called, and to that clarion note Maria Jackson would never turn a deaf ear. She went like a Hebrew prophet, conscious that the voice of the Lord was ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... A brisk cannonade was kept up, on both sides, the whole way, and a great many lives were lost The two brothers thought they should be safe at Ramchora, under the protection of the British Government; but the Nazim's force ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... and bonny she was, and fu' o' nonsensical book-lore. She took a liking to the place, and there are some that pretend to ken, that say she took mair than a liking to the Laird's son. I would not say for that; he was a brisk lad for so douce a lady. Well, well, Hamish, they cast out, and away goes the lass in a huff to her ain folk, and then back comes the word o' her wedding (some South-country birkie her man was, o' the name o' Stockdale, if I mind ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... gate and carried her off. All her relatives rode hard after them and came up with them in this ghyll. Then there happened what was, in one way, a rather remarkable thing—the abducted maid firmly declined to be rescued. There was a brisk encounter, I believe two or three were killed; but she rode off to Scotland with her lover. I suppose I needn't ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... wearing big yellow sabots, and perhaps the grocer's son and heir, a boy about twelve years old. Madame is dressed entirely in black, not because she is in mourning, but because it is the rural fashion; she wears a knitted shoulder cape, a high black collar, and moves in a brisk, businesslike way; the two men wear the blue-check overalls persons of their calling affect, in company with very clean white collars and rather dirty, frayed bow ties of unlovely patterns. Along the counter stand the poilus, young, old, ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... persons, who, strange enough, made it their business to conduct these people to and fro, and did not consider it their duty to insult the traveller. For a moment my mind reverted to the contrast at home; but not long. As I stood admiring and amused at once, a bright, brisk little fellow stepped up to me, and asked what my purpose was, and which way I would go. He spoke in Greek first, but, seeing I did not catch his meaning, relapsed into very passable Italian, quite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... "reveille" everybody turns out in pajamas or swimming tights and indulges in a brisk ten-minute setting-up exercise. This should be made snappy, giving particular attention to correcting stooping shoulders and breathing. Boys should not be excused from this exercise unless ill. At ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... started off at a brisk pace. Phil to tell Mrs. Cahill of his good fortune. Teddy to bid good-bye to the people with whom he had been ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... set out on their ride, she was careful not to let the brisk pace falter. They stopped for luncheon at a ranch-house where there were many people at the table; but on the way home, when nearing the big bend, Kurt rode up to her; his detaining hand on the bridle slackened the speed she was ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... somewhere down among the Arran hills, interrupted the speaker, and drew the attention of the two young men to the fact that in the east and south-east the stars were no longer visible, while something of a brisk breeze had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... and unhurriedly, carrying him aimlessly along the resilient walkway, under the warm glow of the street lights. The people around him walked as casually and with seemingly as little purpose as he did. There was none of the brisk sense of urgency that he felt inside the walls ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... absence. The business part of the town consisted of a general store that served also as a post office, a blacksmith shop and three saloons, to one of which a dance hall was attached. Business seemed brisk in these, judging from the many mustangs that were tied to rails outside, patiently waiting for their masters who were "tanking up" within and accumulating their daily quota of "nose paint." A Mexican in a tattered serape was sitting on the steps of the store rolling a cigarette, ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... morn, with staff and sandal-shoon, We travel brisk and cheery, But some have laid them down ere noon, And all at eve are weary; The noontide glows with no repose, And bitter chill the eve is, The grasshopper a burden grows, "Ars ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... to its antiquity—had never been commercially anything more important than a coasting port with a fairly large local trade in ox-hides and indigo. The clumsy deep-sea galleons of the conquerors that, needing a brisk gale to move at all, would lie becalmed, where your modern ship built on clipper lines forges ahead by the mere flapping of her sails, had been barred out of Sulaco by the prevailing calms of its ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the king had appointed major-general of his intended army, told him, that he could not give him assurance but he might be taken out of his bed, if the rebels should make a brisk attempt to that purpose. All the king's attendants were full of well-grounded apprehensions. Some of the lords having desired that a message might be sent to the parliament with overtures to a treaty, Charles, who well knew that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... you what, Mary," he said at last, "I'll take a brisk walk down the road towards Minehead. I should think that's the only place where he'd try for work. I daresay ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... join Lord Collingwood's fleet in the Mediterranean. I need not go through all the events of that cruise. We took a great many prizes, and had a good many actions with batteries. Spain joined France, and we had a brisk time of it and gained an immense amount of credit, and should have gained a very large amount of prize-money had it not been for the rascality of the prize-court at Malta, which had, I believe, been instigated by some one in London to adopt as hostile ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... in—quite a nosegay, to be sure! How else could they pass the time, six mortal hours endure Till night should extinguish day, when matters might haply mend? Meanwhile no bad resource was—watching begin and end Some trial for life and death, in a brisk five minutes' space, And betting which knave would 'scape, which hang, from ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... considerable risk, unless it is taken prior to the frenzied stage, bleeding almost to fainting should be resorted to, and followed by a brisk purge. Take one ounce of Barbadoes aloes, and ten to fifteen drops of Croton-oil; mix the aloes with one pint of water and the oil, using the mixture as a drench. One pound of Epsom-salts will answer the purpose very well, in cases where the aloes and oil cannot be ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... or 6 ounces of whisky should be given in 1 pint of water. Cold water may be used as an enema and should also be showered upon the body of the horse from the hose or otherwise. This should be continued until the temperature is down to 103 deg. F. Brisk friction of the limbs and the application of spirits of camphor often yields good results. The administration of the stimulants should be repeated in one hour if the pulse has not become stronger and slower. In either case, when reaction ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... two-thirty," summarized Prescott, glancing through the typewritten words on the unfolded sheet. "Practice march by battalions from two-forty-five to three-forty-five. Squad drill from four o'clock until retreat. That looks brisk, Greg." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... of good King Arthur there lived in the County of Cornwall, near to the Land's End of England, a wealthy farmer, who had an only son named Jack. Jack was a brisk boy, and of a ready wit: he took great delight in hearing stories of Giants and Fairies, and used to listen eagerly while any old woman told him of the great deeds of the brave Knights of King Arthur's ...
— The Story of Jack and the Giants • Anonymous
... Australia the Legislature has had to appoint a close season for kangaroos, else would extinction of the larger marsupials be at hand. We should have been forced to such action also, if the American market for kangaroo-hides had continued as brisk as formerly." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... of medical experience among neurasthenic and hysterical women, Dr. William Owen had never encountered a more puzzling case than the one before him on this brisk winter morning when he set forth to answer the urgent appeal of Penelope Wells. Here was a case fated to be written about in many languages and discussed before learned societies. A Boston psychologist was even to devote ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... what it was a' aboot." God knows, I thought, as I stood looking at him, he had his reasons for wondering—reasons for wondering how it could possibly come to be that he lay there, left alone, feeble and full of pain, when he ought to have been as bright and as brisk as the birds that never got near him—reasons for wondering how he came to be left there, a little decrepid old man pining to death, quite a thing of course, as if there were no crowds of healthy and ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... court was only concerned with a specified offense, and that it was not permissible to drag in extraneous and largely supposititious matter. During the sweltering days the trial lasted, there were brisk encounters between the lawyers, and several points the prosecution sought to prove were ruled irrelevant. As a climax, came George's story, which caused a sensation, though the close-packed assembly felt that he scarcely did justice ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... a little, I was gone over into sleep, and waked not for seven good hours; and then to hear the fizzing of the water, very brisk and cheerful, and so to have mine eyes open in a moment, and to know by my time-keeper or dial, that was somewhat like to a watch of this age, that I had slumbered through seven good hours. But this to be learned ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... Governor Boon and others, bound for England in the London Indiaman. We had a pleasant voyage from the cape to St Helena, and thence to England, arriving off the Land's-end towards the close of July. On coming into the British channel we had brisk gales from the west, with thick foggy weather. In the evening of the 30th July we anchored under Dungeness, and that same night some of the supercargoes and passengers, among whom I was one, hired a small vessel to carry us to Dover, where we arrived the next morning early. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... the town, and I see one old gentleman goes to it. There are shops with no customers seemingly, and the lazy tradesmen look out of their little windows at the single stranger sauntering by. There is a stall with baskets of queer little black grapes and apples, and a pretty brisk trade with half a dozen urchins standing round. But, beyond this, there is scarce any talk or movement in the street. There's nobody at the book-shop. "If you will have the goodness to come again in an hour," says the banker, with his mouthful of ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rarely fire less than fifty shells at us during a two-hour patrol. Making a low general average, the number is nearer one hundred and fifty. On our present front, where aerial activity is fairly brisk and the sector is a large one, three or four hundred shells are wasted upon us often before we ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... to bed one night expecting to find Jack asleep, Frank discovered him tramping round and round the room airily attired in a towel, and so dizzy with his brisk revolutions that as his brother looked he tumbled over and lay panting like a ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... going to put me to school: Peter's head was so full of it, that he scarce slept a wink all the night, and he got up the next morning at four o'clock, put on his Sunday clothes, washed his face and hands, combed out his hair, and looked as brisk as a bee; and about six o'clock, away his father and he trudged to Lady Bountiful's; as soon as they arrived, they were ordered into her Ladyship's parlour. Well, says she, Gaffer Pippin, since you cannot afford to put Peter to school, I will send him at my own expence: so carry this letter ...
— The History of Little King Pippin • Thomas Bewick
... leisureliness vanished, however, from the moment when he issued from his hotel, and he became as brisk and busy as a cricket intent on ravaging an entire wheat field in a series of ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... climbed Gracious Street hill, we turned into Candlestick Street and drove along at a brisk pace, George and I watching the houses ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... and irritating brine are unbearable if not promptly washed off. For a piece of soap (the ship's allowance being unusually small), shirts, stockings, and even tobacco, were gladly bartered; and those who had been shrewd enough to lay in a stock before sailing drove a brisk trade. ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... morning after many hot days, and a fresh, invigorating breeze swept over the sand hills from the sea. It was to be presumed that Dorothy, having leisure, was going to the edge of the sea for a breath of the brisk air there. ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... the best in every inn, and look upon all his extravagances as so much gained upon the thieves. And, above all, where, instead of simply spending, he makes a profitable investment for some of his money when it will be out of risk of loss. So every bit of brisk living, and, above all, when it is healthful, is just so much gained upon the wholesale filcher, death. We shall have the less in our pockets, the more in our stomachs, when he cries, ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... brisk walk up and down the deck for a time the girls tucked themselves snugly into their deck chairs by the ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... widest Saxe stood aside listening, his head on one side, his hand beckoning familiarly to La Mothe, as up the dark well of stairs there came the rise and fall of a man's voice in a brisk chant. No words could be caught, but the air ran trippingly, and if the higher notes broke in a crack which told of age or misuse, or both together, the lower ran clear and full, and the tune ran on with a rollicking, careless ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... country continues to derive most of its foreign exchange from tourism, remittances, and bauxite/alumina. The global economic slowdown, particularly after the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001, stunted economic growth; the economy rebounded moderately in 2003-04, with brisk tourist seasons. But the economy faces serious long-term problems: high interest rates; increased foreign competition; a pressured, sometimes sliding, exchange rate; a sizable merchandise trade deficit; large-scale unemployment; and a growing ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... days on which Bedelia and the trap were not out, Bedelia enjoying the brisk trots about the country quite as much as ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... persuadeth them that have believed the truth, to wait for the accomplishment of it, as by his own example he did himself—'I wait for the Lord,' 'my soul waiteth,' 'and in his word do I hope.' It is for want of hope that so many brisk professors that have so boasted and made brags of their faith, have not been able to endure the drum[3] in the day of alarm and affliction. Their hope in Christ has been such as has extended itself no further ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... courage, the day is ours: I am the oldest commander in the army, and have always observed something ominous and fatal in such a dull, hollow and feeble noise as the enemy made in their shout, which prognosticates that they are all doomed to die by our hands this night; whereas ours was brisk, lively and strong, and shows we have vigor and courage.' These words, spreading quickly through the army, animated the troops in a strange manner. The event justified the prediction; the Highlanders obtained a ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... his pipe back into his mouth and confusedly searched in his pockets for a match; but I knew I had struck down deep into a common experience. Here was this brisk and prosperous farmer having his dreams too—dreams that even ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... which enclosed her like a pool. When they were more than usually tall she lifted the baby to the top of her head, that it might be out of the reach of their drenching fronds. On higher ground, where the wind was brisk and sustained, the rain flew in a level flight without sensible descent, so that it was beyond all power to imagine the remoteness of the point at which it left the bosoms of the clouds. Here self-defence was ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... stomach. See? But I know now-I know now! What we're going to do first, my man, is an examination for concealed arms—an examination for concealed arms. And look here! When I tell you to do a thing, don't start off at a gabble—do it brisk." ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... he had it wouldn't have disgusted him the way the other sort of thing did me to-day. A brisk little altercation is nothing, with unlimited hours of friendliness and understanding before and after. But a perpetual drizzle of fault finding and exactions—would make a fellow go hang himself. Mrs. Robeson, do you know, you're a very ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... the morning of Christmas Eve that the china punch-bowl was broken. Mr. Skratdj had a warm dispute with Mrs. Skratdj as to whether it had been kept in a safe place; after which both had a brisk encounter with the housemaid, who did not know how it happened; and she, flouncing down the back passage, kicked Snap, who forthwith flew at the gardener as he was bringing in the horseradish for the beef; who, stepping backwards, trod upon the cat; ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... younger girl some twelve summers old, and a lad of ten, who were easily to be known for his children; an old woman also, who had her livelihood there, and helped the household; and moreover three long young men, who came into the house after we had sat down, to whom Will nodded kindly. They were brisk lads and smart, but had been afield after the beasts that evening, and had not ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... But the sentries were once more alert. Through the silence they heard a tapping noise on the lake, which turned out to be made by a Canadian who was trying the strength of the ice with the back of his axe to see if it would bear. This led to a brisk defence. When the French advanced over the ice the British gunners sent such a hail of grape-shot crashing along this precarious foothold that the enemy were glad to scamper off as hard as ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... a partisan overnight; and when he had stopped to get his mail he had been lured behind the window by the debate in progress. He was in the midst of some impromptu remarks when he recognized a certain brisk step behind him, and Isaac D. Worthington himself ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... are, and that you are as brisk as you are pretty. Just give me a breakfast, and I promise you that you shall see Washington before your father, mother, ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate
... is a brisk little woman of about 30, of the lower middle class, neatly but cheaply dressed in a black merino skirt and a blouse, rather pert and quick of speech, and not very civil in her manner, but sensitive and affectionate. She is clattering away busily at her machine whilst Morell opens the last of ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... and reach'd the Ride Where gaily flows the human tide. Afar, in rest the cattle lay; We heard, afar, faint music play; But agitated, brisk, and near, Men, with their stream of life, were here. Some hang upon the rails, and some On foot behind them go and come. This through the Ride upon his steed Goes slowly by, and this at speed. The young, the happy, and the fair, The old, the sad, the worn, were there; Some vacant, and some musing ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... tiny broadside that did brisk execution on the frigate. Tordenskjold had hauled both his guns over on the "fighting side" of his vessel. There ensued a battle such as Homer would have loved to sing. Both sides banged away for all they were worth. In the midst of the din and smoke Tordenskjold ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... increased it to fourteen; and as before I drank but fourteen ounces of wine, I now increased it to sixteen. This increase and irregularity, had, in eight days time, such an effect upon me, that, from being chearful and brisk, I began to be peevish and melancholy, so that nothing could please me; and was constantly so strangely disposed, that I neither knew what to say to others, nor what to do with myself. On the twelfth day, I was attacked with a most violent pain in my side, which held ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... descriptive of the past of the Hill, all adjourn for a generous dinner under the trees of Akin Hall, or latterly under a tent beside the Meeting House, partaken of by four hundred people, of all groups and classes, and followed by brisk, happy speeches by visitors present. This, after almost two centuries of keen interest in the question of amusements, is the last and most perfect expression of the capacity ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... bell at the shop-door, Mrs Plornish came out of Happy Cottage to see who it might be. 'I guessed it was you, Mr Pancks,' said she, 'for it's quite your regular night; ain't it? Here's father, you see, come out to serve at the sound of the bell, like a brisk young shopman. Ain't he looking well? Father's more pleased to see you than if you was a customer, for he dearly loves a gossip; and when it turns upon Miss Dorrit, he loves it all the more. You never heard father in such voice as he is at present,' said Mrs Plornish, her ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... was fairly recovered, and I myself felt strong again, I prepared to descend the Zambesi. A number of my men were out elephant-hunting, and others had established a brisk trade in firewood, as their countrymen did at Loanda. I chose sixteen of those who could manage canoes to convey me down the river. Many more would have come, but we were informed that there had been a failure of the crops at Kilimane from ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... often a boy, or it may be a little girl, to bring back the pony. They run by the side, but down hills always seat themselves behind on the luggage as best they can. The traveller drives himself, and the little horses are so brisk that, whatever the state of the road may be, they run down the mountains as fast as they can clatter, and so sure-footed that they are scarcely ever known to fall; but a person of weak nerves has no business to be ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... eyes. A brisk little gorse bush was bursting from the ground. A few feet away another was ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... standing on the alighting board, with their heads turned towards the entrance, the extremity of their bodies slightly elevated, and their wings in such rapid motion that they are almost as indistinct as the spokes of a wheel, in swift rotation on its axis. A brisk current of air may be felt proceeding from the hive, and if a small piece of down be suspended by a thread, it will be blown out from one part of the entrance, and drawn in at another. What are these bees expecting to accomplish, ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... to speak in a brisk, business-like tone. "La Feria belongs to me, personally, and I have managed it for several years, just as I manage Las Palmas, across the river. I am a woman of affairs, General Longorio, and you ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... written in 1915, for the amusement of my wife and myself at a time when life was not very amusing; it was published at the end of 1917; was reviewed, if at all, as one of a parcel, by some brisk uncle from the Tiny Tots Department; and died quietly, without seriously detracting from the interest which was being taken in the World War, then ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... seat, turned the carriage, and drove off at a brisk pace to announce our coming at the plantation, while Scip and I rode on at a ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... again," said Anne, "I want to see her coming towards me, brisk and laughing, just as ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Sergeant, gave the worthy fellow a tot to restore circulation, pulled on his gum-boots and sallied forth on the rounds. By 12.45 he had assured himself that the line guards were functioning in the prescribed "brisk and soldierly manner," and that the horses were all properly tucked up in bed, and so ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... about the commencement of September Nature wears a more pleasing aspect, which lasts till the middle of October. It is then clear and beautiful, just cold enough to kill all the mosquitoes, and render brisk exercise agreeable. About this time, too, the young ducks begin to fly south, affording excellent sport among the marshes. A week or so after this winter commences, with light falls of snow occasionally, and hard frost during the night. Flocks of snow-birds (the harbingers ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... and there the navy were called into action; we had to get the carronades and mortars up a hill almost inaccessible; we did it, much to the surprise of the troops, who could hardly believe it when the battery opened fire. After a brisk cannonading of ten hours, Pigeon Island surrendered, and then the admiral stood into, and anchored the fleet in Fort Royal Bay; not, however, in time to prevent the French from setting fire to the frigates which were in the harbour. A few days after, the town of St. Pierre and the town ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... were carrying baskets of coal on their shoulders from barges into the bunkers of the Moltke. Near by other laborers were hoisting crates of lemons and oranges and lowering them into the hold of an English steamer. A little rowboat with a stove on board was running a brisk restaurant business, selling bread, coffee, fried eggs, fried potatoes, and fried fish to boatmen and laborers, who managed to devour the viands without assistance ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... compare with some of these machines in their own line? In fact, wherever precision is required man flies to the machine at once, as far preferable to himself. Our sum-engines never drop a figure, nor our looms a stitch; the machine is brisk and active, when the man is weary; it is clear-headed and collected, when the man is stupid and dull; it needs no slumber, when man must sleep or drop; ever at its post, ever ready for work, its alacrity never flags, its patience never gives in; its might is stronger ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... life of over ninety years," whispered old Quarterpage, who had met them at the cemetery gates, looking fresh and brisk in spite of his shortened rest, "I have never seen this done before. It seems a strange, strange thing to interfere with a dead man's ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... satisfaction of seeing his friend, and hearing from his own lips that he was gradually advancing to recovery. Thus reassured, and not willing to intrude himself more than necessary, he remained quietly for another month, and, feeling now almost restored to health, walked with brisk step to Stamford. It was a glorious summer morning—date, the last day of June, 1823. The green fields glistened in the sunshine, and the nightingale sang in Burghley Park; more beautiful, the poet fancied, than he had ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... whom, though before unnoticed by him, he now found following immediately behind the teams. These consisted of some half-dozen sturdy logmen, with their implements, appointed to pair off with the drivers of the teams, so as to provide two men to each yoke of oxen; the hunter, Phillips, with his brisk wife and buxom daughter, bearing a basket of plates, knives, forks, spoons, and extra frying-pans, to supply any deficiency Mrs. Elwood might find in furnishing her tables or in cooking for so large a company; and lastly, Comical Codman, as he was often ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... Beyond the rock, a brisk fire made dimly visible what appeared to be a large cavern. The fire seemed to be in the exact center of a large underground room and beyond it Hal thought he could make out the mouths of dark passageways that led ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... anchor in Harwich road, where we lay wind bound with some Newcastle ships; and there being good anchorage, and our cables found, the seamen forgot their late toil and danger, and spent the time as merry as if they had been on shore. But on the eight day there arose a brisk gale of wind, which prevented our tiding it up the river; and still increasing, our ship rode forecastle in, and shipped several ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... hundred and forty in number, overtook him about sunset at Wooster River, where the swollen stream was crossed by a narrow bridge. Hertel and his followers made a stand on the farther bank, killed and wounded a number of the English as they attempted to cross, kept up a brisk fire on the rest, held them in check till night, and then continued their retreat. The prisoners, or some of them, were given to the Indians, who tortured one or more of the men, and killed and tormented children and infants ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... and by a sort of brusque grace, which I could feel the of very well even as a child. She was the soul of the house, which she filled with her systematic and joyous activity. My father was just as slow as she was brisk. I can recall very well that placid face of his, over which at times an ironical smile used to flit. He was fatigued with active life; and he loved his fatigue. Seated beside the fire in his big arm-chair, he used to read from morning till night; and it is from ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... in the direction from which they had come, and set out at a brisk pace. They plodded along for an hour through the open country, finally coming ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... whar did ye get that hauver meal bannock? O silly blind body, O dinna ye see? I gat it frae a young brisk sodger laddie, Between Saint Johnston and bonnie Dundee. O gin I saw the laddie that gae me't! Aft has he doudl'd me up on his knee; May Heaven protect my bonnie Scots laddie, And send him safe hame to his ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... sudden wildfire-blaze of patriotism, if it was simply a blaze, had long since had time to expire. The Red Sea we had passed through was surely sufficient to quench any light flame kindled merely in the leaves and brushwood of our national character. Instead of a brisk and easy conquest of a rash rebellion, such as seemed at first to be pretty generally anticipated, we had closed with a powerful antagonist in a struggle which was all the more terrible because it was unforeseen. The country had soon digested its hot cakes of enthusiasm, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... "stores"; but I must not leave my artist, and shall let the saddler growl to himself for the present. The polished writer goes on to speak of the ruddy farmer who strolls round in elephantine fashion and hooks out sample-bags from his plethoric and prosperous pockets; the dealers drive a brisk trade, the small shopkeepers are encouraged by their neighbours from the country, and everything is extremely idyllic and pure and pretty and representative of England at her best. The old church rears its quaint height above the quainter houses that cluster near. In the churchyard ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... with a quick brisk fire. Every part should be trimmed off that cannot be eaten. Wash the meat well. The skin should be taken off and skewered on again before the meat is put on the spit; this will make it more juicy. Otherwise tie paper over the fat, having soaked ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... which would set them free. And yet the school-mistress gazed at the stage-coach, which had at last reached the top of the hill, and the horses, as if under new inspiration, were jogging along in a brisk trot, and were rapidly approaching the school-house. Suddenly the face of the young school-mistress grew pale, and then crimson, as she caught a glimpse of a face that leaned wearily beside the coach-door and ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... with a few brisk remarks about Science, headed them back to Regulus, of whom and of Horace and Rome and evil-minded commercial Carthage and of the democracy eternally futile, he explained, in all ages and climes, he spoke for ten minutes; passing thence to the next ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... Leicester Beating oars 280 The stern was formed A gilded shell Red and gold The brisk swell Rippled both shores Southwest wind Carried down stream The peal of bells White towers Weialala leia ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... what, Mary," he said at last, "I'll take a brisk walk down the road towards Minehead. I should think that's the only place where he'd try for work. I daresay I ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... had, under cover of various patches of vegetation, stolen up to within a hundred yards of the side, and were now manifestly preparing to make a rush across the open, bearing their battering-ram with them. Thanks, however, to Teresita's warning cry, we were just in good time to pour in a brisk fire upon them almost before they had fairly started upon their rush, and three or four men went down, throwing the others into momentary confusion, which afforded us the opportunity to treat them to a second volley. As this second volley ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... and so truly did he inherit this family peculiarity, that he had not been a year in the government of the province before he was universally denominated William the Testy. His appearance answered to his name. He was a brisk, wiry, waspish little old gentleman, such a one as may now and then be seen stumping about our city in a broad-skirted coat with huge buttons, a cocked hat stuck on the back of his head, and a cane as high as his chin. His face was broad, but his features were sharp; ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... dessert-spoonfuls of feculina. Boil the sweetened milk, flavoring it with a few drops of vanilla essence. When it is boiled, take it from the fire, and let it get cold, mixing in the flour by adding it slowly so as not to make lumps. Put it back on a brisk fire and stir till it thickens; add then the melted chocolate, and when that is gently stirred in take off your pan, and again let it get cold. At the moment of cooking the souffle, add three whites of eggs beaten stiff. Butter a deep fireproof dish, and pour in the mixture, only filling up ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various
... page of palate God has given you! I write of these things as a fleshly man, confessedly and knowingly fleshly, and more than usually aware of my liability to err; I know myself for a gross creature more given to sedentary world-mending than to brisk activities, and not one-tenth as active as the dullest newspaper boy in London. Yet still I have my uses, uses that vanish in monotony, and still I must ask why should we bury the talent of these bright sensations altogether? ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... anxieties how her Brother would now be. The travelling party consisted, besides the King, of seven persons: Prince August Wilhelm, King's next Brother, Heir-apparent if there come no children, now a brisk youth of eighteen; Leopold Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, Old Dessauer's eldest, what we may call the "Young Dessauer;" Colonel von Borck, whom we shall hear of again; Colonel von Stille, already heard of (grave men of fifty, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... suggested that the fire was almost too near the back of the house for its continuance to be unattended with risk; for though no danger could be apprehended whilst the air remained moderately still, a brisk breeze blowing towards the house might ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... they show each other. I know several of sense who can be diverted with this couple; but I see no curiosity in the thing, except it be, that Spondee is dull, and seems dull; but Dactyle is heavy with a brisk face. It must be owned also, that Dactyle has almost vigour enough to be a coxcomb; but Spondee, by the lowness of his ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... often so deftly hidden that you would not be likely to find it in a long hunt. In the spring of 1898 a pair of orchard orioles took up their residence in the trees about my house, the male singing his brisk overtures, the female seen only at flitting intervals and never heard. Watch as I would, I could not surprise her laying the timbers of her cottage, which I felt sure was being built somewhere in the trees. Indeed, I did not discover it until autumn came, long after the orioles, old ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... will see by the instructions and summons enclosed. Their instructions were to reconnoiter the country, roads, creeks, and the like, as far as the Potomac, which they were about to do. These enterprising men were purposely chosen out to procure intelligence, which they were to send back by some brisk despatches, with the mention of the day that they were to serve the summons, which could be with no other view than to get reinforcements to fall upon us ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... mean by that?" he shouted, but as the butcher walked on without deigning to reply, he let off his indignation by yelling in at the open door of a tobacco-shop and making off at a brisk run. ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... in locating Hart Jones, for he was striding from lathe to workbench to boring mill, issuing his orders with the sureness and decision of a born leader of men. He welcomed me in his most brisk manner and immediately assigned me to a portion of the work in the chemical laboratory—something I was at ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... poor, good man, who had neither money nor possessions. Money, indeed! We had dry bread to eat, and that was all! Now and then, after the arrival of a great caravan, when heads to be shaved were plentiful, and his business brisk, we indulged in our dish of rice, and our skewer of kabob, but otherwise we lived like beggars. A bit of bread, a morsel of cheese, an onion, a basin of sour curds—that was our daily fare; and, under these circumstances, can you ask me for money, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... guests, who were still somewhat unsteady from their previous evening's entertainment. Although it was yet very early, the whole household was already up. The cook was mercilessly slaughtering in the poultry-yard; Celestin was gathering white cherries in the garden. Porthos, brisk and lively as ever, held out his hand to Planchet's, and D'Artagnan requested permission to embrace Madame Truchen. The latter, to show that she bore no ill-will, approached Porthos, upon whom ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... moment were grouped some of the joyous members of that jovial sodality. There was Navailles, the brisk, the dissolute, the witty, always ready to risk everything, including honor, for a cast of the dice, for a kiss, for a pleasure or a revenge. There was Noce, pleasure-loving, pleasure-giving, always good-tempered, always good-humored, always serenely ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... little fishing village of Hauxley, with the chimneys and pit-head engines of Ratcliffe and Broomhill Collieries darkening the sky to the south-west. Passing the Bondicar rocks and rounding the point we enter the "fairway" for Warkworth Harbour and Amble, where a brisk exportation of the coal of ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... breakfast-table, and conversation is brisk. More than once Lady Ruth watches the face of John Craig. She is anxious to hear what success he met with on the preceding night, and will doubtless find an opportunity for a quiet little chat after ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... its white crest, a huge billow rose up before them, as if to crush the little vessel into matchwood, but she lifted and passed right over it, and then over another and another, for there was a brisk breeze from off the shore; and after a few minutes of terrible peril the beautifully built vessel glided into smooth water, rapidly leaving the roaring surf behind, though the rollers extended far enough out, and the schooner ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... through the streets of the town, as Christian might have walked in the City of Destruction. What was one to fly from? and whither was the pilgrimage to tend? The streets were full of busy comfortable people, some, like Mr. Brisk, men of considerable breeding, some again, like the two ill-favoured ones, marked for doom; here and there was a young woman whose name might have been Dull. What was one's duty in the matter? Was one indeed to repent, with groans and cries, for a corruption of heart ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the morning the rain ceased and a brisk wind came up from the southwest. As the stars began to show themselves, the wind carried to the keen nostrils of several wolves the scent of the buffalo carcass. The wolves were hungry, and with little yelps ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... Burton's lips came together a bit grimly. "But—there ARE wonderful things that won't sell, you know. However," he finished with brisk cheerfulness, "this isn't one of my pictures, nor a bit of Susan's free verse; so there's some hope, I guess. Anyhow, we'll see—but we won't tell John ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... camp was struck and packed; the oxen, rested and invigorated by roving over and cropping the rich grasses that grew in luxuriance along the banks of the river by which they had encamped, moved with a brisk step along their shady track, while the voices of the drivers sounded musically, reverberating through the stillness of the forest. Towards noon they came to one of those singularly interesting geological features of the west, a Prairie. This was something entirely new to ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... up in her brisk way. She was holding something concealed in her little pinafore. She looked very mysterious. She had a round cherub face and two great big blue eyes, and short hair, which she wore in a curly mop all over her head. Dolly was the youngest girl in the school and a great ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... on the calm, sober, unvarying affection, and reasonable indulgence he and his sister had met with all their lives from the best of parents. Returning to the topic of topics, he proposed an engagement. "I have a ring in my pocket," said this brisk wooer, looking down. But this Mrs. Dodd thought premature and unnecessary. "You are nearly of age," said she, "and then you will be able to marry, if you are in the same mind." But, upon being warmly pressed, she half conceded even this. "Well," ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... was smouldering with excitement. The diners looked about them as they talked, some talked loudly and seemed to be expressing sentiments. Newspaper vendors appeared at the intersection of the arcades, uttering ambiguous cries, and did a brisk business of flitting white sheets ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... de Frontignac had also gone to spend the day with some of her Newport friends. And Mary, quite well pleased with the placid and orderly stillness which reigned through the house, sat pleasantly murmuring a little tune to her sewing, when suddenly the trip of a very brisk foot was heard in the kitchen, and Miss Cerinthy Ann Twitchel made her appearance at the door, her healthy glowing cheek wearing a still brighter color from the exercise of a three-mile walk in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... us the tobacco I had brought that we might smoke with him; the Doctor went to fetch our pipes; Marcas filled his, and then he came to sit in our room, bringing the tobacco with him, since there were but two chairs in his. Juste, as brisk as a squirrel, ran out, and returned with a boy carrying three bottles of Bordeaux, some Brie cheese, and ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... down, they immediately made sail in pursuit of a schooner that had watched the opportunity of their being employed with us to run in under the walls, and was at this moment chased by a ship and a gun-boat, who had got within gun-shot and kept up a brisk fire on her. So soon as the others came up, all hands opened on the gallant little hooker who was forcing the blockade, and peppered away; and there she was, like a hare, with a whole pack of harriers after her, sailing and sweeping in under their fire towards the doomed ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... the sloop made her way south at a brisk rate, occasionally sighting low, white beaches to starboard. Sometime in the first dog-watch her boom went over and she ran her slim nose in past Cape May, heading up the Delaware with the hurrying tide, while the brig's long-boat, towing behind, ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... last-mentioned island, not being able to make above two miles that day. On July 1st the weather was calm, and about noon they were three leagues from Dwaersindenwegh, that is, Thwart-the-way Island; but towards the evening they had a pretty brisk wind at north-west, which enabled them to gain that coast. On the 2nd, in the morning, they were right against the island of Topershoetien, and were obliged to lie at anchor till eleven o'clock, waiting for the sea-breeze, which, however, blew so faintly that they were not able to make above two ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... has found a good thing and means to make the most of it. Mr. Allen himself was not of importance to him, but news about him was. And this fact crowning the story of his violation of the revenue law and his prospective loss of a million, would make a brisk breeze in the paper to which he was attached, and might waft him a little further on as an ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... convince you of that," says Doc Pinphoodle, speakin' up brisk and cocky, "by putting to this young lady a ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... the pure ether of that lovely clime, as the Ione, under all sail, glided out from the calm waters of the harbour of Valetta on to the open sea. No sooner had she got beyond the shelter of Saint Elmo than she heeled over to the force of a brisk north-westerly breeze, which sent her through the water at the rate of some seven or eight knots an hour, to the no small satisfaction of all on board. No time had been lost in getting ready for sea. The purser had got off his stores with unusual despatch; ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... we can go," said Mr. Lanley, and he stood up. "I have a car here, but it's open. Is it too cold? Have you a fur coat? I'll send back to the house for an extra one." He paused, brisk as he was; the thought of those four flights ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... his head significantly, seated himself sideways on one of his mules, his gun across his knees, and, leading the other by the bridle, trotted off at a brisk pace down a mountain path nearly opposite to the venta. Ten minutes later the dragoon, having regained, in some degree, the use of his legs, resumed his boots, took his saddle and valise on his shoulders, and set out on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... more must have been employed as lapidaries in the execution of those delicate engravings on hard stone, wherewith the seal, which every Babylonian carried, was as a matter of course adorned. The ordinary trades and handicrafts practised in the East no doubt flourished in the country. A brisk import and export trade was constantly kept up, and promoted a healthful activity throughout the entire body politic. Babylonia is called "a land of traffic" by Ezekiel, and Babylon "a city of merchants." Isaiah says "theory of the Chaldaeans" was "in their ships." The monuments show that ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... water flowed back before the swans, and one of these gentle concentric undulations softly floated the brioche towards the child's wand. Just as the swans came up, the stick touched the cake. The child gave it a brisk rap, drew in the brioche, frightened away the swans, seized the cake, and sprang to his feet. The cake was wet; but they were hungry and thirsty. The elder broke the cake into two portions, a large one and a small one, took the small one ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and lean curve and that the moonlight caught the height of her cheek-bone; the fact that her hands were small but heavily gloved as they gripped the steering-wheel; the fact that a white witch light was on the road; the fact that the brisk breeze of their passage stirred and fluttered a little not only the brown hair of her head but the black fur on her cap. All these facts were to him certain ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... they resolved with themselves to make prise of him and his effects, as they had also done with the French captain. Mr. Annesley, poor man, little dreaming of their design, came on board as soon as the wind served; and the next night a brisk gale blowing, they tore him suddenly out of his bed and tossed him over. Roche and Cullen being with others in the great cabin, he swam round and round the ship, called out to them, and told them they should freely have all his goods if they would take him in ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... the darkened room until a cheerful clatter of crockery below heralded the approach of tea-time. He heard Miss Miller call her uncle in from the garden, and with some satisfaction heard her pleasant voice engaged in brisk talk. At intervals Mr. Wragg laughed ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... old lady, who was brisk enough for her years; "thou dost not seem no younger since I saw thee in Cornwall, and the mirror yonder ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... on this day just past the middle of October, the air was keen and brisk. There had been frost for several nights past. Sleighing might be looked for in ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... since the recent rains, were covered with ice. The wind had a velocity of 10 to 12 meters per second (22 to 27 miles an hour). We thought it would die down before long, and so remained indoors the early part of the morning. But when ten o'clock arrived, and the wind was as brisk as ever, we decided that we had better get the machine out and attempt a flight. We hung out the signal for the men of the life saving station. We thought that by facing the flyer into a strong wind, there ought to be no trouble in launching it from the level ground about camp. ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... Adams's principles of government were not unlike those of his father: both believed in a brisk, energetic national administration, and in extending the influence and upholding the prestige of the United States among foreign powers. John Adams built ships; John Quincy Adams built roads and canals. Both Presidents were trained statesmen of the same school as their English and French contemporaries. ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... were talking The little bird's mother Was flying and wheeling In circles above them; She listened to all, And descending just near them 310 She chirruped, and making A brisk little movement She said to Pakhom In a voice clear and human: "Release my poor child, I will pay a ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... are young ladies,—charming creatures,—who, in about ten minutes, are going to die, and are sure they shall die, and don't care if they do; whom anxious papas, or brothers, or lovers consign with all speed to those dismal lower regions, where the brisk chambermaid, who has been expecting them, seems to think their agonies and groans a regular ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... squatters for their beef and mutton. The miners required to be clothed, and the tailor and shoemaker must be had, whatever might be the prices they charged. Mechanics and artisans of every class found their labours in demand, and handsomely paid for. The merchants, also, found trade both brisk and lucrative; while the imports in 1850 were worth only three-quarters of a million, those of three years later were worth about twenty times that amount. After this enormous increase in population and business, it was found that there was quite as great an ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... the discovering of a plot, and that these were times when a young fellow who would stick at nothing and fear nobody might do wonders. The Revolution,—such was the language constantly held by Titus and his parasites,—had produced little good. The brisk boys of Shaftesbury had not been recompensed according to their merits. Even the Doctor, such was the ingratitude of men, was looked on coldly at the new Court. Tory rogues sate at the council board, and were admitted to the royal closet. It would ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had no anxiety about getting further off, as that was an impossibility, as he was now jammed up against the ice. So he pulled in his sail and then let it out, until at length he found the right angle for the brisk wind to cause him to gradually draw away from the side he had been on. When in the middle of the channel so pleased was he with his novel craft that he let out his sail, and for a time sped along north between the two icy shores. Then, observing an ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... can write a rattling good yarn, full of excitement and real mystery. Thoroughly brisk in action, the story is told in a virile ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... Trying to turn and steam back the way they had come, they were pinned down. And while they were held there, another steamer entered the upper end of the trap and was disabled. Guns moved by sweat, force, will and hand-power, were wrestled around the banks to attend to the Undine. And after a brisk duel her officers and ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... been flyin' eround as brisk as a bee," he remarked. "I feel as if I had spraint one leg and spavined t'other. The sun was over the fore yard when we got back, and since then, we went to see the wild animals, a hip'pottermas, an' lions, an' tigers, an' snakes, an' a bird with a neck as long as a hoe handle, ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... would attribute all the captain's unkind treatment of him to something wrong in himself, and he every day tried beyond his strength to obtain a look of approbation from his stern master. But, alas! he knew not to whom he looked; although he was cuffed and kicked about whenever he tried to be brisk in the task allotted to him, he was always the same patient, melancholy little fellow, throughout ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... can be very brisk in movement and resourceful in ideas stands in front of the other players and repeats this verse rapidly, imitating each time he repeats the verse some one action characteristic of the members of a band. For instance, the first time he may go through the pantomime of playing ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... corpse. "Dhrink an' th' divil! eyah! dhrink an' th' divil!"—sadly. "Larry, me pore bhoy! niver more will ye come a-whoopin' ut out av Cow Run on yeh 'Duster' horse . . . shpiflicated belike an' singin' 'Th' Brisk Young Man." Austerely he glanced at Yorke, "'Tis a curse, this ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... real grooms sit behind their masters in fine dog-carts or carriages. Mrs. Moss nodded as they drove past the lodge, and Ben touched his torn hat-brim in the most dignified manner, though he could not suppress a broad grin of delight, which deepened into a chuckle when Lita went off at a brisk trot along ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... chief's horse rolled over, almost reaching their position with the impetus of the charge. The chief himself lay beside his horse, for another shot had ended his career. As two other horses had fallen, the rest of the band wheeled aside and galloped away, followed by a brisk fire from the white men, who had again crouched behind their ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... made on purpose for her to enjoy herself in. There had been a patter of rain the night before, which had kept the leaves awake talking to each other till nearly morning, but by dawn the small winds had blown brisk little puffs, and whisked the heavens clear and bright with their tiny wings, as you have seen Susan clear away the cobwebs in your mamma's parlor; and so now there were only left a thousand blinking, burning water drops, hanging like convex mirrors at the end of ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... and a more annoying one, is the different senses in which one and the same word is employed; its various meanings all have a certain connection, which only makes the matter more puzzling. So one brisk, lively little word is obliged, like a servant in a poor family, to perform all sorts of duties; for instance, one particular combination of syllables expresses the ideas of sleep, rest, reclining, sitting, leaning, and all other things ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... money, they received Testaments in return for refreshing the missionaries. "Is this right?" Borrow enquires of Mr Brandram. The village priests frequently proved of considerable assistance; for when they pronounced the books good, as they sometimes did, the sale became extremely brisk. After an absence of eight days, Borrow returned to Madrid. Shortly afterwards, when on the eve of starting out upon another expedition to Guadalajara and the villages of Alcarria, he received a letter from Victoriano saying that he was in ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... or regretfully that the girl spoke; the brisk content of her answers drove Mrs. Barclay almost ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... way to Italy, (it may as well be confessed,) where I had fully intended to open my rainy day's work; but Turner has kept me, and then Auvergne, and then the brisk battle-song of a Troubadour. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... A foot so brisk I said must bear A heart that's clean and clear; If that companion blithe would come, I should ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... galleys would row faster than the Dragon, and being so fully manned would be able to keep all their oars going; but against the wind their advantage would be increased greatly, for lying low in the water they would offer but little resistance to it, and would be able to make way at a brisk pace, while the Dragon could scarce ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... as to him, who works for debt, the day; Long as the night to her, whose love's away; Long as the year's dull circle seems to run When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one: So slow th' unprofitable moments roll, That lock up all the functions of my soul; That keep me from myself, and still delay Life's instant business to a future day: That task, which ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... little nap before dressing for the german. Perhaps the most interesting question now up for discussion was, who would lead with Mr. Rollins? The train went puffing into the crowded depot: the ladies hastened forth, and in a moment were on the street; cabs and carriages were passed in disdain; a brisk walk of a block carried them to the main thoroughfare and into the heart of the shopping district; a rush of hoofs and wheels and pedestrians there encountered them, and the roar assailed their sensitive and unaccustomed ears, yet high above it all pierced and pealed ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... quite affable in passing, little knowing it was each other's blood they were after. My man, at the moment when we take up the narrative, was walking about in a wood, looking for a job. Half an hour earlier he had been busily engaged in a brisk battle, but, owing to his not keeping his mind on it, he'd got detached and now found himself in one of those peculiarly peaceful solitudes which only exist in the heart of the war zone. Whether the battle was over ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... in brisk speech that led to one or two interludes of angry interruption across the Table. When he made an end of speaking, debate relapsed into former condition of languor. Talk dully kept up till ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... day was gone, and darkness was settling over the prairie. Quite a brisk breeze was blowing, and, as the position of the party was sheltered against this annoyance, Hopkins proposed that they should remain where they were ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... I can go quite well by myself. You look more tired than I do," he said. "Come, we shall be late," and he set off down the hill at a brisk pace. ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... variety of John Bunyan's characters, a richer and a more endless variety than are the features of their faces. Christian and Christiana, Obstinate and Pliable, Mr. Fearing and Mr. Feeblemind, Temporary and Talkative, Mr. By- ends and Mr. Facing-both-ways, Simple, Sloth, Presumption, that brisk lad Ignorance, and the genuine Mr. Brisk himself. And then Captain Boasting, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Wet-Eyes, and so on, through a less known (but equally well worth knowing) company of municipal and military characters ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... settled to brisk action, every move of which Carley watched with keen eyes. The usurping of a woman's province by a man was always an amusing thing. But for Glenn Kilbourne—what more would it be? He evidently knew what he wanted, ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... would you say to a general decoration of everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvet furniture, to abundance of little tables, to abundance of little seats, to brisk bright waiters, to great convenience, to a prevailing cleanliness and tastefulness, postively addressing the public, and making the Beast ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... castle of the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, blue stocking, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles. Their brisk, withered little dames, in close crimped caps, long-waisted short-gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pincushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... has ever recorded,' fought his way on foot, in the midst of the fray, like a young ensign who had his first laurels to win. And, in truth, the day was not one for cunning manoeuvres, directed, at a distance, by a skillful tactician. It was a brisk close contest, hand to hand and eye to eye—a Homeric encounter, in which the chieftains were to prove a right to command by their personal prowess. Alexander, descending suddenly—dramatically, as it were—when the battle seemed lost—like a deity from the clouds-was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... nature knew when the brain would bear no more; and just at sunrise, when Frank had tried to nerve himself for a fresh struggle by plunging face and a good portion of his head into cold water previous to having a good brisk rub, and then lain down to think out his difficulty once more, unconsciously choosing the best attitude for clear thought, a calm and restful sensation stole over him. One moment he was gazing at the bright light stealing in beside his blind; the next he was in profound mental darkness, ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... alone by his dining-room fire, remembered only what had been good and pleasant in his former state. He was aware that his brother William and William's wife, Maud, both thought that even now he had much to be thankful for. His line of business was brisk, scarcely touched by foreign competition, his income increasing at a steady rate of progression, and his children were exceptionally healthy. But, alas! now that, in place of there being a pretty little Mrs. Tapster on whom to spend easily ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... felt that her disappointment was so great that he preferred to lie to her, assuring her that what he had said was nothing, that he had only touched the surface, that he had not time to go into it all properly, that there was more in it than that. Then she would interrupt with a brisk, "More in it? What?... Do tell me!", but he did not tell her, for he realised how petty it would appear to her, and how different from what she had expected, less sensational and less touching; he was afraid, too, lest, disillusioned in the matter ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... glanced at the contents of the box with a supercilious smile. "Too old-fashioned, my lord,—long ago played out. Yet," he added, with a gleam of interest, "for a consideration I might offer something—ahem!—that would make a taking substitute for these trifles. Give me," he continued, in a brisk, business-like way, "a slight percentage and a bonus down, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... says Mr. Wedron, with brisk good nature, "let's get down to business. Mr. Vandyck, I am here to save Clifford Heath; I was at the inquest; I have had long experience in this sort of business, and I arrive at my conclusions rapidly, after a way of my own. ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... having escaped, with the exception of strengthened vigilance no further notice would be taken, so that his mind was considerably relieved about the matter, and his heart felt lighter and his pace more brisk in returning than when in the morning he had set ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... camp crowded with savages. In a short time we had established trade relations and were doing a brisk business. Two years before we should have had to barter exclusively; but now, thanks to Horne's attempt to collect an annual hut tax, money was some good. We had, however, very good luck with bright blankets and cotton cloth. Our beads did not happen here to be in fashion. ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... head started aching. She suggested a brisk walk. The air might do her good. But he persuaded her to lie down on the couch instead. The touch of his fingers on her hot forehead was soothing, too soothing. She relaxed luxuriously, closing ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... Rose to have gained in firmness and dignity, and perhaps she was right. Nor had she failed to notice that one or two small, straight pieces of grey hair could now be seen near the temples. He looked a little older, a little more brisk, a little more firm, and distinctly more cheerful since his reverses. It is no paradox to speak of cheerfulness in sorrow, or to say that the whole nature may be happier in grief than in the days of apparent pleasure. It is not only in those who have acquired deep religious peace that ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... trade in Birjand, but quite a brisk transit trade. The industries are practically confined to carpet-weaving, the carpets being renowned all over Persia for their softness, smooth texture, and colours, which are said never to fade, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... well-written stories of adventure you should get Mr. Mitford's latest novel. The characters are well portrayed, the story written in a brisk, virile style ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... Augsburg, zealous Catholics. Trade was at a standstill, and they could protest that all their capital was at the Emperor's mercy, at Antwerp, at Seville, in the Indies, or else in Portugal. It was convenient to forget the brisk traffic which still continued with friendly Lyons. Zeal for the Lutheran cause seemed limited to a Catholic, Piero Strozzi the Florentine exile, who in his hatred for the Hapsburgs was vainly spending his fortune on revenge, striving for aid from Venice, negotiating loans from France. There ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... springing to his feet he made a dash for the street. He heard the sexton shouting angrily after him, but he paid no heed. On and on he ran until he reached his room where Tag gave him a wildly delighted welcome, and in a very short time thereafter the stand at "Tode's Corner" was doing a brisk business. ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... as a tin whistle to a trombone. Sleep was a nightmare. It was after six a.m. before the head of the column moved out towards the desert track. The rear did not get away before eight o'clock, much too late an hour for marching in the Soudan. The weather was hot, the sun scorching despite a brisk southerly breeze. Lieutenant H. M. Grenfell had charge of the fine Cyprus mule train for carrying the British divisional baggage. There was with the column a great following of native servants mounted upon sturdy Soudan donkeys. The gawky camel shuffles along, a picture of woe with a load ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... in face of it was in brisk contrast to the bland afternoon on which we had parted from Madeira. No flocking coracles surrounded our steamer, with crews eager to plunge into the hissing brine for shillings or equivalent quarters. The whitecaps looked snow cold ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... short time a brisk fire was burning. The other men now began to rouse up. The mate ordered Mike Coffey to act as cook. Among the articles saved was a large iron fish-kettle. The provisions were now turned over to discover what was most ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... mother took brisk and proprietary charge of Jane and shared her laurels happily. "Yes, indeed," she beamed, her gray crepe arm through the girl's, "I can tell you, we're pretty proud of her!" She had clearly ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... We know something as to what a physical trainer can do with a bunch of raw foot-ball material. We know how the gymnasium can metamorphose a loose-jointed, lop-sided, stoop-shouldered, shamble-gaited young fellow. We know what the brisk recruiting officer can do with the "awkward squad." In the one case as in the other, the physical training stands him upon his feet; it takes the kinks out of his back; it throws his head up; it unties the knots in his legs; it puts fire into his eye. The good red blood courses thru his ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... him, and he ran on in his way thinking how English and trustworthy they seemed, liking the green parrot that rubbed its head affectionately against the grey ringlets of a very ladylike old person; and Mrs. Heald, brisk as a bee, notwithstanding her lame leg, who led the way up the ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... health of the old or young sheep to hurry up the hill-sides in such wild fashion as that in which they rushed away from Rose's attempts to intrude on their society. Nettle may come, for he is but a tiny terrier, and so fond of his mistress that he never strays a yard away from her horse's heels. Brisk, my beautiful, stupid water-spaniel, is also allowed an outing. He is perfect to look at, but not having had any educational advantages in his youth, is an utter fool; amiable, indeed, but not the ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... to venture? Have no fear if you also bring your best. But if we enter on work like this as to a mere market for our wares, and with no other thought than to make a brisk business with those that buy and sell; we well may pray that some merciful scourge of small cords drive us also hence to dig or beg (which is more honourable), lest worse ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... journey which began at ten o'clock on the evening of June 6. Two Arabs led me on my mule slowly and solemnly through the narrow streets of Baghdad in the warm summer night. An oil lamp flickered dully here and there, but the bazaars were brisk and lively. Here sat thousands of Arabs, talking, eating, drinking, and smoking. It was the month of fasting, when nothing is eaten until ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... hence, A brisk cherub something sips, Whose soft influence Adds sweetness to his sweetest lips; Then to his music, and his song Tastes of this breakfast all ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... that, although Wealth had its privileges, it was held in trust for the welfare of Mankind, and that the children of the Rich could not too early learn the advantages of Self-restraint and the vanity of a mere gratification of the Senses. Early and frequent morning ablutions, brisk morning toweling, half of a Graham biscuit in a teacup of milk, exercise with the dumb-bells, and a little rough-and-tumble play in a straw hat, check apron, and overalls would eventually improve that stamina necessary for his future Position, and repress ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the Government to withdraw some of their troops from the continent. France for a while was flattered and fluttered by a series of brisk successes which left almost the whole of the Austrian Netherlands in her possession at the end of the campaign of 1746. The battle of Lauffeld, near Maestricht, in Holland, in the summer of 1747, in which the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... gather, the pullets came into Hickleybrow about three o'clock in the afternoon. Their coming must have been a brisk affair, though nobody was out in the street to see it. The violent bellowing of little Skelmersdale seems to have been the first announcement of anything out of the way. Miss Durgan of the Post Office was at the window as usual, and saw the ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... but exceedingly cautious correspondent, but beneath the surface of her brisk little bulletins were many significant implications. Rush had made two or three trips to town for consultations with Martin Whitney ... Doctor Steinmetz, presence unaccounted for, had been a guest one day at lunch... Graham's father had come ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the rest, demanded My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf. I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold, To be so pestered with a popinjay, Out of my grief and my impatience, Answered neglectingly, I know not what; He should, or he should not;—for he made me mad. To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman, Of guns, and drums, and wounds; (God save the mark!) And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth Was parmaceti for an inward bruise; And that it was a great pity, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... exquisite union of sense and manner, the faultless balance of matter and style, are qualities for which in the Englishman you look in vain. You read, and you read not only without enthusiasm but without interest. The verse is merely brisk and fluent; the invention is common; the wit is not very witty; the humour is artificial; the wisdom, the morality, the knowledge of life, the science of character—if they exist at all it is but as anatomical preparations ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... Cesaire Horlaville, a little man with a big paunch, supple nevertheless, through his constant habit of climbing over the wheels to the top of the wagon, his face all aglow from exposure to the brisk air of the plains, to rain and storms, and also from the use of brandy, his eyes twitching from the effect of constant contact with wind and hail, appeared in the doorway of the hotel, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Large round baskets, full of frightened ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... of his limited resources. He depended much upon a hearing which was preternaturally acute and sensitive, and was guided as much by the voice and manner, as by the aspect of those among whom he lived. He had a brisk, peremptory mode of address, full of humorous mannerisms of speech. He spoke and taught crisply and decisively, and uttered fine and feeling thoughts with a telling brevity. He had strong common sense, ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... is then described, and the gravel is all spread out to be examined, "they never examine the stuff they have washed but between the hours of ten and three, lest any cloud, by interposing, intercept the brisk beams of the sun, which they hold very necessary to assist them in their search, the diamonds constantly reflecting them when they shine on them, rendering ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... she gave Brownie one good brisk rubbing with some of the straw, to warm them both. She made him a ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... and requests an immediate audience with Commander Hanson," announced one of the brisk, little attaches of Base, before I'd had time to draw a second breath of ...
— Vampires of Space • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... "Even so have others said ere now." "Were they women?" said Osberne. "Thou art brisk and keen, youngling," said the man. "Yes, they were women: but it was long ago." "Yet thou lookest no old man," said Osberne. "I have seen old men: they be ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... army, was in command of the district, but was purposely deceived by the municipal authorities, to the end that troops might not be at hand to quell the riot and stop the assassination which had been planned with diabolical ingenuity. The slaughter, in point of numbers, resembled that of a brisk military engagement in the field. The number killed outright was about forty. The wounded exceeded one hundred and fifty, of whom perhaps one-third were severely injured, many of them mortally. The city police of New Orleans aided the rioters. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... another Saturday evening, a fortnight after that disastrous one, and Miss Quincey was taking the air in Primrose Hill Park. She was walking to keep herself warm, for the breeze was brisk and cool. There was a little stir and flutter in the trees and a little stir and flutter in her heart, for she had caught sight of Dr. Cautley in the distance. He was coming round the corner of one of the intersecting walks, coming at a frantic ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... Carl was tipped back in a chair at Eddie Klemm's, one foot on a rung, while he discussed village scandals and told outrageous stories with Eddie Klemm, a brisk money-maker and vulgarian aged twenty-three, who wore a "fancy vest" and celluloid buttons on his lapels. Ben Rusk hesitatingly poked ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Bevans, of Danbury, Mass., held a lively centennial reception in the parlors of the West Street Church, April 14, 1886. Her health, hearing and speech were good, and her step brisk. She attributes her age and good health to good habits and allowing nothing to trouble or worry her. She has always ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various
... Libbie whispered her news to Betty, they were both on their way to recitation with Miss Jessup whose current events class both girls nominally enjoyed. To-day Betty found it impossible to fix her mind on the brisk discussions, and half in a dream heard Libbie ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... keen. Much talk annoys the testy and morose, But 'tis not well to be reserved and close. Act Davus in the drama: droop your head, And use the gestures of a man in dread. Be all attention: if the wind is brisk, Say, "Wrap that precious head up! run no risk!" Push shouldering through a crowd, the way to clear Before him; when he maunders, prick your ear. He craves for praise; administer the puff Till, lifting up both hands, he cries "Enough." But when, rewarded and ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... time, was rough and whitecapped, and a brisk wind was blowing down from the north-east. It was no easy task to get a rope around first one dummy torpedo, and then the other. Yet at last this was done, and the heavy objects were hoisted ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... a small live eel down his throat; as long as the eel remained in his stomach, the horse would appear brisk and lively ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... on her usual errand Mrs. Corfield met her at the hall-door, "Alick will be glad to see you, my dear," she called out, radiant with happiness, as the girl crossed the threshold. "We are in the drawing-room to-day, as brisk and bonny as a bird: such a treat ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... long walks together, and once they decided to walk from Hartford to Boston—about one hundred miles. They decided to allow three days for the trip, and really started one morning, with some luncheon in a basket, and a little bag of useful articles. It was a bright, brisk November day, and they succeeded in getting to Westford, a distance of twenty-eight miles, that evening. But they were lame and foot-sore, and next morning, when they had limped six miles or so farther, Clemens telegraphed ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... voyage; at the same time his fancy played with the question whether that uncouth, melancholy waitress had found a moment to wash her face before hurrying to fetch his coffee. He amused himself by contrasting her sloven dejection with the brisk neatness of the service at St. Johnswort; but through all he never lost the awe, the sense of responsibility which he bore to the vision vouchsafed him, doubtless for some reason and to some end that ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... long." He touched his horse with a quirt and the animal continued down the trail at a brisk trot. ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... old. They are dug out from old graves in the course of ploughing, and the finder of one of them considers himself a lucky man indeed. He sees visions of an unprecedentedly rich harvest, or of an extraordinarily brisk trade, if he happens to be in the commercial line, as the nomoli is the presiding deity of crops and commerce. If the good services of the god are required on the farm a small shrine is erected there for it and a great big ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... sometimes unaware of the comical effect of some chance juxtaposition of words and ideas, whereby a dormant metaphor is set on its legs. Thus Leslie Stephen in his life of Swift wrote: Sir William Temple, though he seems to have been vigorous and in spite of gout a brisk walker, was approaching his grave. And again when he was triumphantly recording the progress of agnosticism he has: Even the high-churchmen have thrown the Flood ...
— Tract XI: Three Articles on Metaphor • Society for Pure English
... smoke and a promenade on deck, where is no motion to discompose our steps, we think of a game of whist. We ask the brisk and capable stewardess from Ireland if there are any cards in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... just that brisk, cheerful manner. She was so full of life and energy. She died of fever at Rome—we were staying there. She was only two-and-twenty, and she was to have been married that summer. Her poor mother never got over the shock; before the autumn she had ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was absorbed in silent prayer throughout the Mass; but at its conclusion, when we came out of the cathedral, she was unusually gay and elate. She conversed vivaciously with me concerning the social merits and accomplishments of the people we were going to visit; while the brisk walk through the frosty air brightened her eyes and cheeks into warmer lustre, so that on our arrival at the Grand Hotel she looked to my fancy even ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... than a mile from the brisk little town of Nyack, on the Hudson river, and near where the road makes a sharp turn and winds up into the mountain, there lived, in the year 1803, an honest old farmer of the name of Hanz Toodleburg. Hanz was held in high esteem by his neighbors, many of whom persisted ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... pipes are simmering, Dip this wand of clay[13] within; If like glass the wand be glimmering, Then the casting may begin. Brisk, brisk now, and see If the fusion flow free; If—(happy and welcome indeed were the sign!) If the hard and the ductile united combine. For still where the strong is betrothed to the weak, And the stern in sweet marriage is blent with the meek, Rings ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... for damage to paint, which they subscribed for there and then, and give Bob and me a extra half-sovereign each; but I wouldn't go down that line again not for twenty half-sovereigns." And the guard shook his head slowly, and got up and blew a clear, brisk toot-toot. ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... old age make four, provided he lessen the quantity as his years increase. And this is what I do, agreeably to my own experience; therefore my spirits, not oppressed by much food, but barely kept up, are always brisk, especially after eating, nor do I ever find myself the worse for writing immediately after meals, nor is my understanding ever clearer, or am I apt to be drowsy, the food I take being in too small ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... thing left off. All three had the first thought. The tree had been there for the five years they had known the boarding-house. Each one of them was active and strong. No one of them had even thought of climbing it. Beyond that, Inglewood felt first the mere fact of colour. The bright brisk leaves, the bleak blue sky, the wild green arms and legs, reminded him irrationally of something glowing in his infancy, something akin to a gaudy man on a golden tree; perhaps it was only painted monkey on ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... his seat at the back while the car was turning, and they were off at a brisk pace down the mountain, not waiting this time to double on their tracks, but splashing through the Creek only once and on ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... you are, and that you are as brisk as you are pretty. Just give me a breakfast, and I promise you that you shall see Washington before your father, mother, ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate
... time, and at last he went out. It was fortunately a fine day—a clear, cold, January day; but he had no sooner breathed the brisk frosty air than a terrible fit of coughing seemed to threaten his frail existence. He did not turn back though; and I watched him slowly pass down the street, holding on by the rails, and every now and then stopping to take breath. I saw a policeman ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... the Sunday-school children after Christmas," Connie confided, as at the end of a brisk walk, they came to the parting of the ways. "I should like you girls, if you will, to help me with the kiddies. The brothers are invited too, if ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... danger from which the alleged future wished to rescue its alleged past. A brisk, completely deracialized broadcaster ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... eyes automatically followed her brisk motions and watched while she deftly started the blaze, it was easy to see that he was too deep in his own meditations to sense what she was doing. Perhaps had his mood not been such an abstract one he would ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... were warlike dances by men in armor, who went through the movements of attack and defense. In mimetic dances the hands and arms played a part. There were peaceful dances or choral dances, marked by rhythmic grace. Sometimes these were slow and measured, and sometimes more lively. Specially brisk were the dances at the festivals of Dionysus (Bacchus). Symbolic dances of a religious character, these Bacchic dances were the germ of the drama. Recitations were first introduced between hymns that attended the choric dances. Then, later, followed the dialogue. (8) ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... business, or the District Board, or the County Council—it is enough that your experience and practical knowledge of affairs are in request—and, better still, it will give you something to do. So, after a delay due to your own importance, you march into your study, and find a brisk stranger, with red whiskers and a flexible mouth, absorbed in documents which he has brought with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... There ensued a brisk discussion, in the course of which the horrified boys learned that some time during the night the second mate had vanished. The ship had been searched, but he was not aboard her, nor had there been any sign of struggle. ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... stout man, supporting himself against the rough pine counter. "Things is liable to brisk up in a hour or two, though, when the boys begin to drift in. Stranger around these parts, ain't yuh?" ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... approach to the land, as yet invisible to the crew's eyes, is announced by the brisk order of the chief mate to the boatswain: "We will get the anchors over this afternoon" or "first thing to-morrow morning," as the case may be. For the chief mate is the keeper of the ship's anchors and the guardian of her cable. There are good ships and bad ships, ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... unlocked, which was on the back of the prison. On turning the corner of the cook house, I found myself unexpectedly open to the fire of soldiers on the ramparts of the south wall;—their fire was kept up in so brisk a manner, that it appeared almost impossible to enter without being shot; but finding my situation very dangerous, I was determined to enter the prison, or die in the attempt. For that purpose, myself, with a number of others that had been standing ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... ready with a brisk compliment to pretty maid or pretty woman, or pretty matron, answered her as swiftly as you please, "She shall be named by your name, dainty, if you will lend me ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... But this brisk young man, with an atmosphere about him of always being ten minutes ahead of time, already had one of his very muddy boots inside the door, and eagerly awaited the answer to his question; so it was useless to reply to the latter in German, and ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... attempt to force the passage. But as the hour came the spirit of the corsair rose to answer the challenge: it was one thing to get Dragut-Reis into a trap, it was quite another to keep him there. Accordingly, he assembled all his troops, dragged cannon to the mouth of the harbour, and opened so brisk a foe on the Christian ships as to compel them to haul out of range. These tactics left Doria unaffected; there was but one way out of the harbour, and he felt quite convinced that when Dragut had had enough of starvation ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... discover how easy it is to survive a little discomfort. About five, her anxious watch was rewarded by the appearance of a cloud of dust, out of which presently emerged old Whitey's ears and the top of the well-known carryall. They stopped at the gate. There was Alexander, brisk and smiling, very glad to see his "little misses" again, and to find them so glad to go home. Mrs. Worrett, however, did not discover that they were glad; no indeed! Elsie and John were much too polite for that. ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... that same curve in the road, where the two riders had paused an hour ago in sight of the little hamlet, a man on horseback appeared, riding at a brisk trot up the ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... visit to the church, Charlie Bowen had gone back to the office after supper, as he often did when business was brisk, forgetting that it was the first Monday in the month, and that the official board of the Jerusalem Church would hold their ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... Chexington he came to think of it as a rare and sacramental function. Amanda had become very beautiful in quiet, grey, dove-like tones; her sun-touched, boy's complexion had given way to a soft glow of the utmost loveliness, her brisk little neck that had always reminded him of the stalk of a flower was now softened and rounded; her eyes were tender, and she moved about the place in the manner of one who is vowed to a great sacrifice. She dominated the scene, and Lady Marayne, with a certain astonishment ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... brought to the camp on carts. On the next day they opened fire. One of them was disabled by the French cannon, but Captain Hazen brought up two more, of larger size, on ox-wagons; and, in spite of heavy rain, the fire was brisk on ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... third and fourth days there was no perceptible fall in the barometer. Trade was brisk with Snelling, and a brass band was playing national airs on a staging erected on the green in front of the post-office. Nightly meetings took place at Grimsey's Hall, and the audiences were good-humored and orderly. Torrini advanced some Utopian theories touching a universal distribution ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... presented to him; and in his social life he was extremely unconventional, and inclined to merry pranks. His books are as delightful as was their writer. They are records of accurate, useful, eye-opening details as to fauna, all the world over. They are written with a brisk, sincere informality that suggest the lively talker rather than the writer. He takes us a-walking in green lanes and woods, and a-wading in brooks and still pools—not drawing us into a class-room or a study. He enters into the heart ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... land would, in a short time, be able to supply their daily needs. In addition, they would ship to England raw materials needed there, and absorb in return articles produced by the English craftsmen, and such imports from foreign lands as were surplus in England. Thus, a brisk trade was anticipated, and did develop, but not in the direction forecast in ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... paid an early visit to the Chancellor on his way to the review, and found M. Selpdorf, though brisk and urbane as ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... said with proper alacrity; but for a moment they remained looking at each other fixedly. Something like a faint smile altered the set of the chief mate's lips just before he moved off forward with his brisk step. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... forts had a short time before been strengthened by the besieged, and the former was scarcely finished when the Margrave of Rysburg attacked it. The celerity with which he went to work surprised the enemy before they were sufficiently prepared for defence, and a brisk assault quickly placed Liefkenshoek in the hands of the Spaniards. The confederates sustained this loss on the same fatal day that the Prince of Orange fell at Delft by the hands of an assassin. The other batteries, erected on the island of Doel, were partly abandoned by ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... side by side, to the brisk kick and spurt and crackle of the fluid spark leaping between the two brass knobs in the little operating-room just above where they sat. They could hear it distinctly, above the drone of the wind and the throb of the engines ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... oysters and oysters policemen. How sad it all was—that masterly flourish of the knife with which the oysterman ruthlessly hurried dozen after dozen into eternity; that deferential 'Sir' in his voice to every demand of his customer; that brisk alacrity with which he bid his assistant bring 'the ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... attack was attempted by the Austrians on the evening of September 6, 1916, against the Italian lines on Monte Civarone in the Sugana Valley. After brisk fighting the Austrians had to withdraw, abandoning their arms and ammunition and leaving some dead ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... were to say that I understood them as well, I should say what would be an untruth: and nothing is more disgusting than an affectation of knowing what you have, comparatively, very little knowledge of." We continued our route towards the convent, at a pretty brisk pace; with great surprise, on my part, at the firm and rapid movements of the Professor. Having reached the convent, we entered, and were admitted within the chapel. The nuns had just retired; but we were shewn the partition of wood which ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... down among the Arran hills, interrupted the speaker, and drew the attention of the two young men to the fact that in the east and south-east the stars were no longer visible, while something of a brisk breeze had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... learned, he wrote, that the messenger who carried a former letter from the trenches for him had been killed en route by an exploding shell, and the contents of his mail pouch scattered and destroyed. Moreover he had been very busy. Fighting had been brisk, there had been a good many casualties in his company, but he himself, save for some superficial wounds received on the Fourth of July, was unhurt and ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... Habit.] As to the Person of the present King. He is not tall, but very well set, nor of the clearest colour of their complexion, but somewhat of the blackest; great rowling Eyes, turning them and looking every way, alwayes moving them: a brisk bold look, a great swelling Belly, and very lively in his actions and behaviour, somewhat bald, not having much hair upon his head, and that gray, a large comely Beard, with great Whiskers; in conclusion, a very comely man. He ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... and named Chloe. "She was as brisk as a bee, prettily spotted, and as gentle as a lamb." We are now prepared for trouble, for the lesson of the story is surely not hidden. Chloe was fastened to the chaise, a cat secured to serve as a passenger, and "Francis drove his little ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... spinning busily. She, although some of her neighbors might be, was not asleep. Oh, no! Seldom was Madame McAllister caught napping, save at orthodox hours, between ten p.m. and six a.m. In spite of her seventy-six years, was she hale and hearty, bright and active. She was a brisk little body, and had a most intelligent face. Her eyes were dark and bright with animation, and her coloring was brown and healthy, unlike that of her neighbors of the same age, for, as a rule, French Canadian women of the lower classes lead very hard-working ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... He couldn't have it, that's all. Old man Minick would stroll over to the desk marked Satterlee, or Owens, or James. These brisk young men would toss an upward glance at him and concentrate again on the sheets and files before them. Old man Minick would stand, balancing from heel to toe and blowing out his breath a little. He looked a bit yellow and granulated and wavering, there in the cruel morning light of the big ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... York; vigorous, hardy and productive; free from disease; bunch medium, long and narrow, generally shouldered, compact; berry medium, roundish oblong, black, covered with bloom; juicy; somewhat acid; colors early, but should hang late to become thoroughly ripe; brisk vinous flavor, but somewhat of the aroma of the frost grape; makes a dark red wine, of good body, and much resembling claret, but not equal to Norton's Virginia, or even the Concord, in my estimation. Although safe and reliable, I think it has lately been over praised as a wine grape, and ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... on him, but said nought. Then he said: "Since this is come above ground, which to say sooth I looked for, as ye are two such brisk lads, and the woman such a pearl of beauty, I bid you this way to take: let us bring her down into the peopled parts in peace and good fellowship, and then go all three before a priest and take God's Body at his hands, and pray it may choke us and rot us if we take her not straight to the ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... So brisk is the trade carried on between Tahiti and the United States, that the cost of this vessel was more than covered by the freights the first year after she was built. In addition to these ships, there are those which run backwards and forwards to Valparaiso, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... shiver and palpitate! His eyes were fast closed; his tiny claws, which looked slender as cobwebs, were knotted close to his body, and it was long before one could feel the least motion in them. Finally, to our great joy, we felt a brisk little kick, and then a flutter of wings, and then a determined peck of the beak, which showed that there was some bird left in him yet, and that he meant at any rate to find out where ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... at the Portman home shortly after eight o'clock. He was perfectly calm and in full possession of himself. A brisk manservant opened the door and ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... that I had visited it once before, and had done the usual round of sight-seeing. His manner was brisk and to the point, as became a man of business, but when we stopped at Bele-Ostrof, on the opposite side of the small winding river that separates Finland from Russia proper, the Customs officer who came to examine our baggage exchanged a ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... sharp contest of about four hours, the Grand Vizier Hali, seeing the battle go against him, put himself at the head of his guard of horse, pushed through a defile, and made a very brisk charge; but his men could not sustain the contest; and he, having received two wounds, was carried off the field to Carlowitz, where he died the next day. The Aga of the Janisaries and Mahomet Bassa were also slain. The whole loss of the Turks ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... to accept your comic opera from an unknown beginner. It's clever, there's no denying that, and I hope the fact won't be allowed to tell against it: but the music's bright and lively; the songs are quaint and catching; the dialogue's brisk and not too witty; and there's plenty of business—plenty of business in it. I incline to think we can get together a house at the Ambiguities that'll enter into the humour of the thing, and see what your play's driving at. ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... a few faint stars, the sky Dreams; and lonely, below, the little street Into its gloom retires, secluded and shy. Scarcely the dumb roar enters this soft retreat; And all is dark, save where come flooding rays From a tavern window: there, to the brisk measure Of an organ that down in an alley merrily plays, Two children, all alone and no one by, Holding their tattered frocks, through an airy maze Of motion, lightly threaded with nimble feet, Dance sedately: face to face they gaze, Their eyes shining, ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... for the road and the pace was brisk. It was not until half the distance had been covered that Joyce, who was riding beside the ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... commenced at once to take a survey of the place. A few dozen houses or so, with a large store, where every necessary of life was supposed to be procurable (at least an Icelander's necessities), constituted the town. We entered the store in search of some native curiosities to carry home. A brisk trade was being carried on in sugar candy, large sacks of which were purchased by the farmers, who had come to meet the steamer and barter their goods for winter supplies. Never was any shopping done under greater difficulties than our ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... enormous superstructures without yielding to the pressure; but to the torrent they are as wheat to the millstone. The streams which pour down the southern scarp of the Mediterranean Alps along the Riviera di Ponente, near Genoa, have short courses, and a brisk walk of a couple of hours or even less takes you from the sea-beach to the headspring of many of them. In their heaviest floods, they bring rounded masses of serpentine quite down to the sea, but at ordinary high water ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... to make their country self-productive and self-sustaining. We may, I think, accordingly look forward to the time, not very far distant, when Japan will cease to import machinery and other foreign products for which there has hitherto been a brisk demand, when she will build her own warships and merchant steamers, as she now partially does, and generally be largely independent of those Western Powers of which she has heretofore been such ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... and leaving the Lautaro and the brigs outside, the flag-ship crowded all sail during the night—though without a pilot—arriving next morning at the island of Puna, under which two large vessels were anchored, and instantly attacked, when, after a brisk fire of twenty minutes, they struck, proving to be the Aguila, of 20 guns, and Vigonia, of 16 guns, both laden with timber, destined for Lima. The village of Puna was also taken possession of. On rejoining the other vessels with the prizes, they ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... a hatchet and a flag placed at the door to indicate that he was not to be disturbed for any reason whatever; until at last the cloud would lift, the signals would be removed, and the Governor would reappear, brisk and cheerful. ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... by Kouli Khan, the late Sovereign of Persia, who took possession and plundered their capital city Bochara, which was extremely populous and wealthy. This country of Usbeck Tartary is situate in a very happy climate and fruitful soil, and carries on a very brisk trade to the East and West parts of Asia: it was the country of the victorious Tamerlane, who subdued most of ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... a lady riding a cycle in skirts a strange one—for in South Germany the 'rational' costume is so universal among women cyclists that 'tis the skirt that provokes unfavourable comment from those jealous guardians of female propriety, the street boys. I hurried on at a brisk pace past the Palm-Garden and the suburbs, with my loose hair straying on the breeze behind, till I found myself pedalling at a good round pace on a broad, level road, which led towards a village, by ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... for a mile, through the fallen timber, through an icy cold stream, up a steep slope slippery with boulders and pine needles, and had paused, to catch breath, when they heard, below and behind, a series of brisk volleys and a chorus of wild yells; then, ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... at that instant, but bid the man good-night, and go up into the palace again with a brisk assured air, as if I knew what I was about. A bell beat eight from the clock-tower, as I went. Then when I had turned the corner to the left, I stopped again to reckon up what ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... heat turned on in her room. She complains all day of cold when not complaining of other things. She puts such a strain on her stomach that it takes all of her vitality to look after her food; therefore she has no vitality left with which to resist the cold. Of course she resists the idea of a good brisk walk in the fresh air, and yet, if she took the walk and enjoyed it, it would start up her circulation, give her blood more oxygen, and help her stomach to go through all ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... as the boat moved steadier, and I was able to spread a larger amount of canvas. Lashing the tiller, I crept forward and shook out an additional reef, hauling the ropes taut. By this time the wind had steadied into a brisk breeze, and the rain had ceased. Crawling back across the thwarts, I took the jumping tiller again into my hands, and held her nose to it, seeking every advantage. I had brought back with me a tin of biscuit from the bow locker, more as an excuse for opening ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... a sharp mental appetite, answers help to satisfy it; and so, by their united influence, a brisk circulation of ideas may be produced—which, as master Burton assures ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various
... his company, or all that would follow him, to the Confederate army. The greater portion of his company, one of the finest in the State-guards, elected to go with him. Desirous, while about it, of doing a brisk business in guns, he confiscated those of a neighboring Home-guard company, and brought them to Morgan's camp—they were immediately placed in the hands of the unarmed men, who, finding an organized force making for the Confederate ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... of the town, when the bawlers suddenly ceased, took an abrupt leave of the coffin and its bearers, fairly turned on their heels, accompanied by the official holy standard-bearer, and went back at a brisk trot, having, it seems, fulfilled the functions required of them. Obsequies more heartless in their manner of performance, it was never the fate of the four to behold. The impression left by this sight assorted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... you may see the ruins of what must have been a very beautiful monastery, built high on a hill, swept by brisk and health-giving winds with the strength and freshness of moorland and sea. This monastery, part of which was for monks, and part for nuns, was ruled by Abbess Hild.[A] This seems strange to us, but it was because the Celtic usage prevailed in the ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... Dwight, "to propose a little stroll before bedtime." He roved about the room. "Where's my beautiful straw hat? There's nothing like a brisk walk to induce sound, restful sleep," he told ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... in. The creature, possessed by some sudden frolic, darted away behind the well-curb. Clara was always a bit of a romp, and, with never a thought of her daintily-slippered feet, she flung her trailing dress over one arm and was off over the three-inch snow. The cat led her a brisk chase, and she came in flushed, and panting, and pretty, her little feet drenched, and the tip of a Maltese tail just visible above a great bundle she had made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... same cause both have fought: He oft in such attempts as these Came off with glory and success; 910 Nor will we fail in th' execution, For want of equal resolution. Honour is like a widow, won With brisk attempt and putting on; With ent'ring manfully, and urging; 915 Not slow ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... Patrick retreated in good order, leading the Padre by an ear. The Antrims sat down, licked their cuts, puffed some of the Woodbines, then went back and pitchforked the Bosch in his tender spots. The Bosch collected fresh help and bobbed up again. Business continued brisk all day, and when night fell the Antrims were left masters of ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... olive-branch. A vacant space was left for the jewels, which were to be set partly in the dove and partly on the spot where the box is usually opened. The jeweller, to whom the execution and the requisite stones were intrusted, was named Lautensak, and was a brisk, skilful man, who, like many artists, seldom did what was necessary, but usually works of caprice, which gave him pleasure. The jewels were very soon set, in the shape in which they were to be put upon the box, on some black wax, and looked very well; but they would not come off ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... on the stairs for the third time that day. Not the brisk, efficient steps of a federal official, but the hesitant, self-conscious steps of a junior ...
— The Perfectionists • Arnold Castle
... the arrangement afforded my small equestrian extreme delight and triumph. My whole afternoon was spent in shifting my bed and bed-room furniture from a room on the ground-floor to one above; in the course of which operation, a brisk discussion took place between M—— and my boy Jack, who was nailing on the vallence of the bed; and whom I suddenly heard exclaim in answer to something she had said—'Well den, I do tink so; and dat's the speech of a man, whether um bond or free.' A very trifling ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... the name before and could not imagine what he wanted with me; but, of course, I asked her to show him up. In he walked, a middle-sized, dark-haired, dark-eyed, black-bearded man, with a touch of the Sheeny about his nose. He had a brisk kind of way with him and spoke sharply, like a man who knew the ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... am on the point of starting on another trip into Africa," wrote Livingstone from Rovuma Bay, "I feel quite exhilarated. The mere animal pleasure of travelling in a wild, unexplored country is very great. Brisk exercise imparts elasticity to the muscles, fresh and healthy blood circulates through the brain, the mind works well, the eye is clear, the step firm, and a day's exertion makes the evening's ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... me good news, as usual. You have been very brisk and helpful in this business of the Revolution Book, and I give you many thanks and commendations. It will be a very brave day when cash actually reaches me, no matter what the number of the coins, whether ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... look for him. His song is most noticeable after sundown, when other birds are silent; for which reason he has been aptly called the Vesper-Sparrow. The farmer following his team from the field at dusk catches his sweetest strain. His song is not so brisk and varied as that of the Song-Sparrow, being softer and wilder, sweeter and more plaintive. Add the best parts of the lay of the latter to the sweet, vibrating chant of the Wood-Sparrow, and you have the evening hymn of the Vesper-Bird,—the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter. ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... foller it up, and don't let on for your life it warn't you that did it, and you'll be master once more in your own house. She's all docity jist now—keep her so.' As we returned we saw a light in the keepin' room, the fire was blazin' up cheerfulsome, and Marm Porter moved about as brisk as a parched pea, though as silent as dumb, and our supper was ready in no time. As soon as she took her seat and sot down, she sprung right up on eend, as if she had sot on a pan of hot coals, and coloured all over; and then tears ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... carts had already passed by on their way to the Park carrying materials for platforms, and had been cheered by some of the more eager spirits. The tradesmen were divided in feeling, some foreseeing a brisk demand for things to eat and drink in the next few days, the more timid not denying this but doubting whether payment might not be dispensed with, and nervously enlarging on the cost of plate glass. Organisers ran busily to and fro, displaying already, ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... disturbance of the geese, who had settled themselves quietly for the night in their usual bivouac around the ruins of an old waggon. The Warners ceased their supper to listen and look; and they saw emerging from the woods, and rolling down the hill at a brisk trot, the cart of one of those itinerant tin merchants, who originate in New England, and travel from one end of the Union to the other, avoiding the cities, and seeking customers amongst the country people; who, besides buying their ware, always invite them ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... about, and stood looking at the mare, and the light, shining, open buggy behind her. The sunshine had the after- storm glister; the air was brisk, and the breeze blew balm from the heart of the pine forest. "Miss Breen," he broke out, "I wish you'd take a little dash through the woods with me. I've got a broad-track buggy, that's just right for these roads. I don't suppose it's the thing at all to ask you, on such short acquaintance, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of pilgrim. There are not many pilgrims like this bright brisk youth. A few more young gentlemen like this, and the pilgrimage way would positively soon become fashionable and popular, and be the thing to do. Had you met with this young gentleman in society, had you noticed him beginning to come about your church, you ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... compliments and requests an immediate audience with Commander Hanson," announced one of the brisk, little attaches of Base, before I'd had time to draw a ...
— Vampires of Space • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... attention, at first, by mere size. Then one had time to observe that although he hadn't the sleek and careful grooming of successful New Yorkers, he wore his clothes as, say, Coeur de Lion must have worn mail. He hadn't the brisk business manner, either; but there radiated from him an assured authority, as of one used to having his orders obeyed without question. No one could pass him over with a casual eye. I have known ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... completely changed the conditions of my life,[96] I held most earnestly by this same temper of mind and this same endeavour; and although I still always lived in isolation as to my personal inner life, yet I was at many points in full contact with the brisk mental effort and activity of that stirring time (1805 to 1810), as regards teaching, philosophy, history, politics, ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... Half a mile's walk conveyed us round a bend in the land which shut out our bower from view, and for some time we advanced at a brisk pace without speaking, though our eyes were not idle, but noted everything, in the woods, on the shore, or in the sea, that was interesting. After passing the ridge of land that formed one side of our valley—the Valley ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... marble floor, as passengers from the express hurried anxiously to the street, or more gaily straggled through, shouting with friends who came to greet them; and among these moving groups there walked a youthful fine lady noticeably enlivening to the dullest eye. She was preceded by a brisk porter who carried two travelling-bags of a rich sort, as well as a sack of implements for the game of golf; and she was warm in dark furs, against which the vasty clump of violets she wore showed dewy gleamings ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... out long and drooping arms, that swayed to and fro in the biting wind. The sullen sky overhead added its tone of dreariness to the picture. There was no cheerful whir of factories and shops, no brisk steps of men going to and fro, though there were enough standing around in groups with scowling faces and compressed lips, or flushed with ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... secular clergy. It was endowed very generously by Philip III. who placed the Jesuits in control of it in 1619. To help to provide for the support of the students the Irish merchants, who carried on a brisk trade with Seville and Cadiz at this period, bound themselves to bestow on the college a certain percentage on every cask of wine they shipped, while Paul V. granted permission to the fishermen of the province of Andalusia to fish on six Sundays or holidays on condition ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill, And while the sun and moon endure Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure, I'd face it as a wise man would, And train for ill and not for good. 'Tis true the stuff I bring for sale Is not so brisk a brew as ale: Out of a stem that scored the hand I wrung it in a weary land. But take it: if the smack is sour, The better for the embittered hour; It should do good to heart and head When your soul is in my soul's stead; ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... are gone out of town, Which shows very plainly that Trim could have earned large wages had he lived in the nineteenth century. These 'Palmy Days' are not long enough, however, to permit the introduction of all the characters, nor the outlining of the entire story, with its brisk love-interest. But this bit of dialogue, which occurs after Sable has discovered the much-alive Lord Brumpton, is too good ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... partly carried out an ideal that was dear to my heart. Rowley and I descended from our claret-coloured chaise, a couple of correctly-dressed, brisk, bright-eyed young fellows, like a pair of aristocratic mice; attending singly to our own affairs, communicating solely with each other, and that with the niceties and civilities of drill. We would pass through the little ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for us to learn that a British subject included in the last census holds Shakspere to be supreme in the presentation of character; still, it is as admissible for any one to make this statement about himself as to rub his hands and tell you that the air is brisk, if only he will let it fall as a matter of course, with a parenthetic lightness, and not announce his adhesion to a commonplace with an emphatic insistance, as if it were a proof of singular insight. We mortals should chiefly like ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... our midst and shouted, "Ambulance Americaine, en avant!" Putting spurs to his horse, he galloped down the road, we following at a brisk trot. Halfway to Rueil he drew up and said, "Pass that windmill, turn to the right, and you will be on the field." We plunged on through potato-patches and vineyards, our hearts in our mouths. As we drew past ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... little cabin on the river's side a brisk walk of ten minutes brings Power Magill to the gates of Donaghmore. As he passes up the drive he stops and turns aside for an instant to look at the ruins of the old Abbey, standing grim and cold and gray in ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... whirled, and under cover of the dense veil, the active little vessel moved away just in time to escape a murderous volley of shot, shrapnel, and ball, which was poured into the smoke she had left behind her! The pirates followed this up with a wild cheer and a brisk fire of musketry, which only ceased when, discovering their mistake, they beheld the gun-boat emerge from the smoke, steer round the end of their line, and, slewing to port, deliver another volley of great guns and small arms, that raked them all from stem to stern, doing terrible execution ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... to "the Grave and Reverend Signor with the palatial Boko," when his thoughts were recalled to gravity by the sound of his name. He rose with alacrity and was fielded by an expert policeman from a brisk attempt to get into the vacant dock. The clerk to the Justices repeated the ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... savages—have found satisfactory certain wild orgies in primitive war-dances; others—we shall soon call them "out of date"—have found simpler a bottle of whisky or a glass of champagne; still others find a cold shower more invigorating, or a brisk walk or a good stiff job which sets them aglow with the sense of accomplishment. But there are always those who, for one reason or another, find most satisfactory of all a chronic emotional tippling, or a good old-fashioned emotional spree. Persons ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... is cured by an amalgama of tin and quicksilver, such as is used on the back of looking-glasses; an ounce should be taken every two hours, till a pound is taken; and then a brisk cathartic of Glauber's salt two ounces, and common salts one ounce, dissolved in two wine pints of water, half a pint to be taken every hour till it purges. The worm extends from the stomach to the anus, and the amalgama tears it from the intestine by mechanical pressure, acting upon it ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Brisk and smiling, Mrs. Presty presented herself in the waiting-room. "We have got rid of our enemy!" she announced, "I looked out of the window and saw him leaving the hotel." She paused, struck with the deep dejection expressed in her daughter's attitude. "Catherine!" she ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... story, simple, tender and pretty as one would care to read. The action throughout is brisk and pleasing; the characters, it is apparent at once, are as true to life as though the author had known them all personally. Simple in all its situations, the story is worked up in that touching and quaint strain ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... always he fell short a little. The last man he came to was Smith. He put his hand on Smith's shoulder and began to talk to him; and when he finished, the thermometer had scored seven minutes! The company then moved toward the smoking-room, where cigars, beer and anecdotes would be in brisk service until midnight, and as ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... Washington wid Mr. General Pierce,' says one, whose face was black, and bright, and full of the quizzical; while another, with a flat crooked nose gave a cunning wink out of his left eye. This being detected by a superior, in the brisk person of a son of the Emerald Isle, who stood well six feet in his boots, a 'soucer' with the broad front of his knuckle bones, between the colored gentleman's two eyes, was the rejoinder—a most striking remonstrance, that laid ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... reached. And then—the transformation! A yokel enters—a soldier leaves. The slouch has gone from his shoulders, his chest is thrown forward, his legs straightened, his chin 'well off the stock,' his step brisk, his carriage military. They are tough as whip-cord, sober, docile, and terribly in earnest. They are orderly, decent, and reputable. They need no sentries, and none are placed; they never get drunk, they are not riotous, ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... Sanctuary now—it was down the next cross street. He reached the corner and turned it, heading east; but his brisk walk had changed to a nonchalant saunter—there were some people coming toward him. It was the Gray Seal now, alert and cautious. The little group passed by. Ahead, the tenement bordering on the black alleyway loomed up—the Sanctuary, with its three entrances and exits; ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... isn't it?" he said genially, as he took a few brisk turns up and down the poop, and taking off his wide, soft hat of fala leaf, he let the cool night breeze play upon his head. And as he walked past the light of the lantern hanging from the centre of the awning, just over the skylight, and Barry noticed his clean-cut handsome features, and calm, ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... much a widowed wife will moan, When her old husband's dead and gone, I may conceive it; But that she won't be brisk and gay, If another offer the next day: ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... can see him through my glass, climbing up the green mountain-path; he walks with a brisk, rapid step, almost running; what a hurry he seems in ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... red, An' grass is dewy wet, An' roun' the blackberry's a-spread The spider's gliss'nen net, Then I do dreve the cows across The brook that's in a vog, While they do trot, an' bleaere, an' toss Their heads to hook the dog; Vor the cock do gi'e me warnen, An' light or dark, So brisk's a lark, I'm up at break ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... blunt and plain-spoken to a fault; otherwise she was a brisk, well-meaning, but very ignorant girl. She had not been with us a week before Miss Matilda and I were astounded one morning by the receipt of a letter from a cousin of hers, who had been twenty or thirty years in India, and who had lately, as we had seen by the "Army List," returned to England, ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... contest of about four hours, the Grand Vizier Hali, seeing the battle go against him, put himself at the head of his guard of horse, pushed through a defile, and made a very brisk charge; but his men could not sustain the contest; and he, having received two wounds, was carried off the field to Carlowitz, where he died the next day. The Aga of the Janisaries and Mahomet Bassa were ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... dyed too deep a shade. In some cases hydrosulphite has proved a useful reducing agent; it can be easily prepared from ordinary bisulphite of soda in the following manner. Add 10 oz. ammonia (0.9 specific gravity) to a gallon of bisulphite of soda, 32 deg. Tw.; then add slowly under a brisk stirring 10 oz. zinc-dust, and let the entire mixture settle well, using only the clear solution. Treat the goods from fifteen to twenty minutes in a bath of 140 deg. F., to which first add at the boil 3/4 oz. acetic acid, 10 deg. Tw., per gallon water, and then 4 to 6 gallons ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech
... landscape, the huge and solemn trees, and the distant outline of the haunted house, exercised a sombre influence on me, which, together with the fatigue of a day of travel, and the brisk walk we had had, disinclined me to interrupt the silence in which my companion ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... changed to "ah." Perhaps he was a Russian in reduced circumstances; he reminded me slightly of certain sceptical cosmopolite Russians whom I had met on the Continent. While in my extravagant way I followed this train—for you see I was interested—there appeared a short brisk man with reddish-brown hair, with a vulgar nose, a sharp blue eye and a red beard confined to his lower jaw and chin. My putative Russian, still in possession of the rug, let his mild gaze stray over the dingy ornaments of the ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... of spot cotton have again experienced quite a brisk inquiry (una demanda muy activa) from spinners, who have freely (abundantemente) covered forward sales (para sus entregas ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... get on, in God's name; for we have much to do." There was now no trace of gentleness in his voice. It was brisk and rasping, and the lips through which it passed were curved in scorn. "I take it, Mr. Pollexfen, that the wicked treason of these three rogues being established—indeed, admitted by them—there is no more to ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... invested by the savage force, and something like a regular siege commenced. A brisk firing ensued. In the course of the day the Indians left one of their dead to fall into the hands of the besieged—a rare occurrence, as it is one of their most invariable customs to remove their wounded and dead from the possession of the enemy. The besieged had four men wounded and one ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... neighborhood. He possessed two social qualifications which invariably impress the average English mind—he was an old soldier, and he was a man of few words. The conclave on the platform insisted on taking his opinion, before it committed itself positively to an opinion of its own. A brisk fire of remarks exploded, as a matter of course, on all sides; but everybody's view of the subject ended interrogatively, in a question aimed pointblank at ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... for dinner!" and afraid to trust himself to say another word, he turned to one of the groups near and at last got from the room. He did not go up to his own, but on into the front hall, and so out into the night. A brisk wind was blowing, and the moon, a young, frosty moon was bright. He knew the place well, and paced a stone terrace undisturbed. It was on the other side all was noise and bustle, where the ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... M., the first section of the Loudoun Artillery, under his command, "proceeded to the crest of the hill on the West Side of Bull Run, commanding Stone Bridge. * * * Here." continues he, "I posted my section of Artillery, and opened a brisk fire upon a column of the Enemy's Infantry, supposed to be two regiments, advancing towards me, and supported by his battery of rifled cannon on the hills opposite. These poured into my section a steady fire ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... drum dance season, from "Tcauyak" meaning drum. It lasts from November to March, and is a continuous succession of feasts and dances, which makes glad the heart of the Eskimo and serves to lighten the natural depression caused by day after day of interminable wind and darkness. A brisk exchange of presents at the local festivals promotes good feeling, and an interchange of commodities between the tribes at the great feasts stimulates trade and results in each being supplied with the ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... and there was talk of a new hotel. Also there was talk of several new stores, but Hamilton and Company were inclined to believe this merely talk and did not worry about it. Their trade was unusually brisk and the demand for Mary-'Gusta's services as salesgirl interfered considerably with her duties as ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a very brisk and up-to-date fashion. She arranged that a good music-master was to come twice a week from Southampton. Mistresses for languages were also to arrive from the same place. A pretty little pony-cart which she bought for the purpose conveyed these good ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... with a curiously abashed expression, carrying a great tin cracker-box in one hand and a large basket in the other. We said good-morning as politely as we knew how to Mrs. Jameson, and she returned it with a brisk air which rather took our breaths away, it was so indicative of urgent and very pressing business. Then, to our utter astonishment, up she marched to the nearest basket on the table and deliberately took off the cover and began taking ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the notary public live?" I demanded. Now the notary public vended books, and to this personage I was recommended by my friend at Saint James. A boy conducted me to the house of Senor Garcia, for such was his name. I found him a brisk, active, talkative little man of forty. He undertook with great alacrity the sale of my Testaments, and in a twinkling sold two to a client who was waiting in the office, and appeared to be from the country. He was an enthusiastic patriot, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... lemons, and plantains were to be given for every bead, with positive orders not to deal at all with any who would not submit to that rule. After a little holding off, the natives consented to this rule, and our dealing became frank and brisk; so that during our stay we purchased 15-1/4 tons of rice, 40 or 50 bushels of their peas and beans, great store of oranges, lemons, and plantains, eight beeves, and great numbers ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... looking very well, considering the circumstances. His cheeks were thinner, and had lost their colour; his hair had turned gray; he seemed less robust than formerly; but his mind was brisk and alert, and his eyes retained their ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... desk, he was handing in the volumes to the young woman whose duty it was to receive them when he was hailed by a brisk little man in an alpaca coat, with a skin like ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... reach'd the Ride deg. deg.107 Where gaily flows the human tide. Afar, in rest the cattle lay; We heard, afar, faint music play; 110 But agitated, brisk, and near, Men, with their stream of life, were here. Some hang upon the rails, and some On foot behind them go and come. This through the Ride upon his steed 115 Goes slowly by, and this at speed. The young, the happy, and the fair, The old, the sad, the worn, were there; ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... that Hugh left the house and walked alone through the streets of the town, as Christian might have walked in the City of Destruction. What was one to fly from? and whither was the pilgrimage to tend? The streets were full of busy comfortable people, some, like Mr. Brisk, men of considerable breeding, some again, like the two ill-favoured ones, marked for doom; here and there was a young woman whose name might have been Dull. What was one's duty in the matter? Was one indeed to repent, with groans and cries, for a corruption of heart that had been bestowed upon ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... butter the size of a walnut, half a cup milk, pinch of salt, flour enough to make thick enough for layer cake, with a teaspoonful baking powder sifted through. Spread batter smooth, dot with bits of butter on top, and bake in a brisk, but not scorching oven, half an hour or longer if needed—the apples must be thoroughly cooked. Serve hot or cold—preferably hot, with hard ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... Jesuits were specially obnoxious to the Holy Synod), wishes to observe a solar eclipse only visible in Russia. Another traveller, Mr. Fairman, is summarily arrested near Rovno where the Tsar's visit is making the police unduly brisk for the moment. Morier procures him a prompt apology; but, not content with this, the Englishman now thinks himself entitled to a personal audience with the Tsar and the gift of some decoration to compensate him, which suggestion draws a curt reply from the much-vexed ambassador. ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... life of this new, thriving, bustling town, the traditions and manners of an English gentleman of the Old School. Still in his early sixties, he carried his years with all the vigour of a man twenty years his junior. As he daily took his morning walk for his mail, stepping with the brisk pace of one whose poise the years had not been able to disturb, yet with the stately bearing consistent with the dignity attaching to his position and office, men's eyes followed the tall, handsome, white-haired, well set up gentleman ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... bread in the milk until perfectly soft; add sugar and the rose or orange water; beat the mixture up with the yolks of the eggs; beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and mix them lightly with the rest; pour the whole into a well-buttered pie-dish and bake the souffle for 1/2 an hour in a brisk oven; serve immediately. ...
— The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book • Thomas R. Allinson
... hovers round and round, Capers with a nimble bound, Plants his foot on easy ground, Through the glass to view it: Love shoots sudden glance for glance, Spurs the steed, and rests the lance, With a brisk and bold advance, Sworn ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... perhaps unfit For the brisk petulance of modern wit. His hair ill-cut, his robe, that awkward flows, Or his large shoes, to raillery expose The man you love; yet is he not possess'd Of virtues, with which very few are blest? While underneath this rude, uncouth disguise, A ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... eel down his throat; as long as the eel remained in his stomach, the horse would appear brisk and ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... was merely calling your attention to something I thought perhaps you had forgotten." Then he got up' and his tone changed, became brisk, almost friendly. "Now, about this building thing. If you're in earnest I think it can be managed. You won't get any money to ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... who were conscious of ancestry, while graver, possibly more pushing, people from the North-eastern States, soon to outnumber them, were a little inclined to ridicule what they called their "illusory ascendency." There was a brisk competition of churches, and mutual improvement societies such as the "Young Men's Lyceum" had a rival claim to attention with ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... into the road. The person who had used these abrupt means desired her to tie a handkerchief over her head and not wait for a hat, and, leading her to a stile where there was a horse saddled, with a pillion on its back, he desired her to seat herself, and then, mounting, they set off at a brisk trot. After travelling for an hour and a half, they entered a paved court, or yard, and her conductor, lifting her off her horse, led her into the house, and thus addressed her: 'You must now suffer me to put this cap and bandage ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... he inherit this family peculiarity, that he had not been a year in the government of the province before he was universally denominated William the Testy. His appearance answered to his name. He was a brisk, wiry, waspish little old gentleman, such a one as may now and then be seen stumping about our city in a broad-skirted coat with huge buttons, a cocked hat stuck on the back of his head, and a cane as high as his chin. ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... fragment of a velvet waistcoat, and a pair of tight nankeens, so short as hardly to reach below his calves. A little foraging cap, that had long since seen its best days, set off an open, good-humored countenance, bronzed by sun and wind. He was led about by a brisk, middle-aged woman, in straw hat and wooden shoes; and a little barefooted boy, with clear, blue eyes and flaxen hair, held a tattered hat in his hand, in which he collected eleemosynary sous. The old fellow had a favorite song, which he used to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... I hate that sort of thing," I said, coldly, as we passed from the warmth of the little front shop where the plump girls were still filling pasteboard boxes with holiday cakes, to the brisk chill of the winter street. The little black-and-gilt sign swung and creaked in the wind. Whimsically, and with the memory of that last cream-filled cake fresh in my mind, I saluted the letters that ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... day advanced the wind continued to freshen until about the hour of noon. It was then blowing a brisk gale. Fortunately for the crew of the Catamaran, it did not become a storm. Had it done so their frail craft must have been shivered, and her component parts once more scattered over ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... exchange the excitement of the chase for a bit of civil war. Without that the country would have grown dull, and ale and venison lost their flavor. There was no gay London in those days, and a good brisk skirmish with their neighbors in helm and hauberk was the way of spending their season. It was their parliamentary debate, and was necessary to thin their woods. Protection and Free Trade were as much the great topics of interest as they are now, only they did not trouble ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... Brisk young bagmen, tourists fine, Old commuters along the line, Brakemen and porters glanced ahead, Smiled as the signal, sharp, intense, Pierced through the shadows of Providence: "Nothing amiss— Nothing!—it is Only Guild calling ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... was determined to make a full stop at the organ, which is perhaps the most harmonious I ever played upon; but placed in a dark, dingy recess, feebly lighted by lamps, not calculated to inspire triumphant voluntaries. The monks, who had all crowded around me when I first began, in expectation of brisk jigs and lively overtures, soon took themselves away upon hearing a strain ten times more sorrowful than that to which they were accustomed. I did not lament their departure, but played dismally on till our horses came round to the gate. We mounted, spurred back through ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... were few days on which Bedelia and the trap were not out, Bedelia enjoying the brisk trots about the country quite as much ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... dismal feet, till she reflected it wouldn't help matters any to lose heart, and so she set forward at a brisk pace again. Miss Rhys pushed down the window screen and set to work with a complacent smile at the prospect of having her errand performed ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... part in Florence. We have good reason to believe that he went to Rome in September 1532, and stayed there through the winter. It is probable that he then formed the friendship with Cavalieri, which played so important a part in his personal history. A brisk correspondence carried on between him and his two friends, Bartolommeo Angelini and Sebastiano del Piombo, shows that he resided at Florence during the summer and early autumn of 1533. From a letter addressed to Figiovanni ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... entered, at Westburnflat, upon the open marshy level, which, expanding about half a mile in every direction, gives name to the spot. In this place the character of the stream becomes changed, and, from being a lively brisk-running mountain-torrent, it stagnates, like a blue swollen snake, in dull deep windings, through the swampy level. On the side of the stream, and nearly about the centre of the plain, arose the tower of Westburnflat, one of the few ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... feel that the book gives a more attractive portrait of Titania Chapman, the plutocrat's daughter, than ever can be materialised in the film-man's "close-up." I am afraid that Mr. MORLEY will not thank me for praising his brisk melodrama at the cost of his ramblings in literature. But, if he has the knowledge, he lacks the fragrance; not to put too fine a point on it, he is long-winded and tends to bore in his disquisitions upon books and bookishness; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... was now the most prominent point to pass. From Table Bay I could count on the aid of brisk trades, and then the Spray would soon be at home. On the first day out from Durban it fell calm, and I sat thinking about these things and the end of the voyage. The distance to Table Bay, where I intended to call, was about eight hundred ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... was a good deal of bustle and confusion, and also a little delay; for Maria, who had held the cabman's exact fare tightly grasped in one hand all the way, dropped it in getting out of the cab. A brisk young porter, however, came to their assistance: he picked up the money, shouldered the luggage, and showed Maria where to take the tickets; then he led them down some slippery steps and on board the steamboat, which ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... day, for he had returned and intended to call on him that afternoon. When Braesig arrived, he sprang from his saddle with so much force that one might have thought he wanted to go through the road with both legs. "Oho!" cried Hawermann, "how brisk you are! You're all right now, ar'n't you?" "As right as a trivet, Charles. I've renewed my youth." "Well, how have you been getting on, old boy?" asked Hawermann, when they were seated on the sofa and their pipes were lighted. "Listen, Charles. Cold, damp, watery, clammy-that's about what it ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... I reached camp just as the supper was ready, and after our meal George, Job, Gilbert, and I crossed to climb the hill on the other side, which rose 540 feet above our camp. It was 7.45 A.M. when we started; but a brisk climb brought us to the top in time to see the sunset, and one of the most magnificent views I had ever beheld. Some miles to the east was the lake winding like a broad river between its hills. In every direction there were hills, and ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... original prose story to set by the side of the many examples extant in French literature; nothing resembling the French stories of the thirteenth century, so delightful in their frank language, their brisk style and simple grace, in which we find a foretaste of the prose of Le Sage and Voltaire; nothing to be compared, even at a distance, in the following century, with the narratives of Froissart, who, it is true, applied to history his genius for pure ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... he said. "At Valley Hill you were as brisk as a bee, always wanting to help in every thing. Here you seem unwilling to move. ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... he had never enjoyed a run more than he did on this occasion. A brisk wind was blowing behind them, they found there was more downhill than up, the road was absolutely clear, and they were able to take the declines at a pace which took the sting out ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... sorrowful commencement for a campaign, a sad presage which was destined not to remain unfulfilled. De Noort, who was furious over this foul play, landed from his ships 120 men; but he found the Portuguese so well entrenched, that after a brisk skirmish in which seventeen more of his men were either killed or wounded, he was obliged to weigh anchor without having been able to avenge the wicked and cowardly perfidy to which his brother and twelve of his companions had fallen victims. On the 25th December, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... windings of which they were well, acquainted with, whence they fired close upon our troops; whose situation rendered them unable to defend themselves. During the time of this foolish and useless enterprise; especially while the firing was brisk, Bonaparte, exhibited much impatience, and it must be confessed, his anger was but natural: The Nablousians halted at the openings of the mountain defiles. Bonaparte reproached Lannes bitterly for having uselessly exposed ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... conspicuous by their absence. The business part of the town consisted of a general store that served also as a post office, a blacksmith shop and three saloons, to one of which a dance hall was attached. Business seemed brisk in these, judging from the many mustangs that were tied to rails outside, patiently waiting for their masters who were "tanking up" within and accumulating their daily quota of "nose paint." A Mexican in a tattered serape was sitting on the steps of the store rolling a cigarette, ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... to us how, when still a little child, he first beheld the sea. He had escaped from the parental home, allured by the brisk and pungent air and by the "peculiar noise, at once feeble and great," which could be heard beyond little hills of sand to which led a certain path. He recognised the sea; "before me something appeared, something sombre ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... arrived with a miscellaneous lot of goods, which Lincoln opened and put in order in a room that a former New Salem storekeeper was just ready to vacate, and whose remnant stock Offutt also purchased. Trade was evidently not brisk at New Salem, for the commercial zeal of Offutt led him to increase his venture by renting the Rutledge and Cameron mill, on whose historic dam the flatboat had stuck. For a while the charge of the mill was added to Lincoln's ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... Terry saw a man with shoulders of martial squareness enter. And there was a touch of the military in his brisk step and the curt nod he sent at Marvin as he passed the latter. He had not taken off his sombrero. It cast a heavy shadow across the upper part of ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... suddenly it was interrupted by a very brisk fire of artillery and musketry. A radiant flash seemed to light up the emperor's face, and proudly raising his head, he ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... your door, where it continues for months to trip up the feet of every wayfaring man quite as provokingly as it sometimes tripped up those of the wearer. It is the waste of hoop-skirts, as much as anything else, that keeps the manufacture so brisk. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... before, it was a bright October evening, with the clear sky, rich sunshine, and brisk breezy freshness, which indicate that loveliest of the American months,—dinner was over, and with a pitcher of the liquid ruby of Latour, a brace of half-pint beakers, and a score —my contribution—of those most exquisite of smokables, the true old Manila cheroots, ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Corpuscles of Light falling on their sides, being for the most part Reflected Inwards from one Particle to another, and thereby engag'd as it were and kept from Rebounding Upwards, they communicate their brisk Motion, wherewith they were impell'd against the Black Body, (upon whose account had they fallen upon a White Body, they would have been Reflected Outwards) to the Small parts of the Black Body, and thereby Produce in those Small parts such an Agitation, as (when we feel ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... went wandering away to his dear Lucy. Although he would not have allowed any fear of losing his own life to oppress him, he could not help dreading the idea of plunging her in grief and exposing her to long months of anxious suspense. Still his officers, as they watched his calm countenance and brisk manner, fancied he was as light-hearted as ever, and some thought that he could not have realised the fearful position in which ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... through some wide realm o'er vale and height, Though seeking only holiday delight; [3] At least, not owning to himself an aim To which the sage would give a prouder name. [4] No gains too cheaply earned his fancy cloy, 15 Though every passing zephyr whispers joy; Brisk toil, alternating with ready ease, Feeds the clear current of his sympathies. [5] For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn; And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn! 20 Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head, And dear the velvet green-sward to his tread: [6] Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... in some back meadow. There's a hay load a-coming—when it comes. And later still they all get driven in: The fields are stripped to lawn, the garden patches Stripped to bare ground, the apple trees To whips and poles. There's nobody about. The chimney, though, keeps up a good brisk smoking. And I lie back and ride. I take the reins Only when someone's coming, and the mare Stops when she likes: I tell her when to go. I've spoiled Jemima in more ways than one. She's got so she turns in at every house As if she had some sort of curvature, No matter if I have no errand ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... commentary on Aristotle: how ready and how quick is indicated by the fact that within a year of its publication in France Congreve could count on an audience's recognizing a reference to it. In the Double Dealer (II, ii) Brisk says to Lady Froth: "I presume your ladyship has read Bossu?" The reply comes with the readiness of a cliche: "O yes, and Rapine and Dacier upon Aristotle and Horace." A quarter of a century later Dacier's reputation was still great enough to allow Charles Gildon to eke out the second ...
— The Preface to Aristotle's Art of Poetry • Andre Dacier
... A sudden brisk tap on the door drew a startled movement from the men and a frightened cry from the girls. The door opened and the head ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... true prophet. In an hour a brisk wind from the west had blown the storm away and burnished the sky like a new jewel. All things animate suddenly awoke and field and road were alive with people. The birds appeared from tree and bush and set joyously about getting their belated breakfasts. A miracle had happened, it seemed ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... been busy all day, from early breakfast-time till late in the afternoon; and old Father Time has gone onward somewhat less heavily than is his wont when I am imprisoned within the walls of the Custom House. It has been a brisk, breezy day, an effervescent atmosphere, and I have enjoyed it in all its freshness,—breathing air which had not been breathed in advance by the hundred thousand pairs of lungs which have common and invisible property ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... Carlists set off at a brisk pace towards the mountains, which they reached before the Christinos had found and passed the distant ford. When the dragoons arrived at the foot of the sierra, Don Baltasar and his men were already out of sight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... cup of tea; it will help you to think more than anything," said Susy, and in a brisk and businesslike fashion she dived into the cupboard, took out the cups and saucers, a little box of biscuits, a tiny jug of milk, a caddy of tea, and proceeded to fill the little teapot. By-and-by tea was ready, and Susy brought a cup ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... as far as Union Square and then sat down on one of the park benches to rest. Nearly all the benches were filled with people and in idle curiosity Dick began to scan the various types of men present, from bright, brisk clerks to fat and unshaved bummers, ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... who barest thy leg for lovers to look upon, That by the sight of the leg the rest they may infer, Who passest the cup around midst thy gallants, brisk and free, Nought seduces the folk but the cup[FN136] and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... usual stunt. Said: 'What's happened?' And 'Where am I?' But I knew the answer to the last well enough. There's no moss growing on my brain. 'I think that'll do for the present, sister,' said the little man, and the nurse left the room in a sort of brisk well-trained way. But I caught her handing me out a look of deep curiosity as she ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... The cautious punters risk their single pounds, Till, fired with generous rage, they double stake And offer more than prudent dealers take. My Lady[16] through her glass with keen delight Observes the brisk beginnings of the fight; To some propitious, but to me unkind, With candour owns the bias of her mind, And asks of Fortune the severe decree T' enrich the happy Skew,[17] to ruin me. The fickle Goddess heard one-half the prayer, The rest was ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... until they are two specks against the dazzling brightness of the sky, and you can no longer look at them—this is to me pleasure and occupation enough for a long summer's morning. Or to watch the gulls, hanging motionless head on to a brisk wind, or swooping and diving for fish, black and white and grey changing swiftly across them as they turn different angles of back and breast and wing to the sun; or to sit on a high moorland as the evening ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... no place to play in but the living-room or the street. It is not squalor—it is crowded life. The people are pushed together by the necessities of existence. These people have no dislike to it at all: it is right enough to them, and so long as business is brisk they are happy. The man who lies sleeping so calmly seems to me to indicate the immensity of the life around more than all the rest. He is oblivious of it all; it does not make him nervous or wakeful; he is so used to it, and bred to it, that ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... patrol, in dirty cotton uniforms, and soldiers in broadcloth, are returning from morning muster; for in this hot climate the burden of the day's duties is discharged before breakfast. Under the arches (portales), and in the open market-place, men and women are driving a brisk trade, in the most quiet way, in meats, and vegetables, and huxter's wares. Nature has denied to the butcher of hot climates the privilege of salting meat, but he makes amends for this defect by cutting his tough ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... sooner made our appearance in the harbour at Massacre Island, on the 14th, than we were attacked by about three hundred warriors. We opened a brisk fire upon them, and they immediately retreated. This was the first battle I ever saw where men in anger met men in earnest We were now perfectly safe; our Manila men were as brave as Caesar; they were anxious to be landed instantly, to fight these Indians at once. They felt as much superior, ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... moments later, in the face of brisk sniping from the houses higher up the street, James Bogle, officer's servant,—a member of that despised class which, according to the Bandar-log at home, spend the whole of its time pressing its master's trousers and smoking his cigarettes somewhere back in billets,—led out ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... as the office of Squire Tappit, the justice, was called throughout the village: action, trespass. "For the fun of the thing" we stood trial. The day came, and all the vagabonds of the village,—those whose continual cry is that they "can never get any thing to do," and therefore drive a brisk business at doing nothing,—were in attendance. The justice was a hot-tempered old fellow, somewhat deaf, and,—if his nose was any evidence,—fond ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... to have adopted a more meditative pace than befits a brisk constitutional if I say that I also fell a-thinking before the shabby facade of the old Chigi Palace. But it seemed somehow in its grey forlornness to respond to the sadly superannuated expression of the opposite church; and indeed in any condition what self-respecting ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... throughout the crowd. It was succeeded by a volley of fresh execrations against the rector, and an angry demonstration of bludgeons, accompanied by a brisk shower of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... this insensible perspiration, which becomes offensive when the impurities collecting upon the surface of the skin are not frequently removed. The entire surface of the body should be washed every day; and if this is done on rising in the morning, with cold water, and followed with brisk rubbing with a coarse towel, it will furnish an effectual safeguard against taking cold. This, however, should be remitted, when there is any danger to be apprehended from the sudden application of cold; ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... tame conclusion to the morning's alarms when a brisk voice answered, 'Come in,' at her knock, and Violet lay very comfortably reading, her eyes bright and lively, and her cheeks with almost their own colour. Her sweet smile and grateful face chased away ill humour; and Theodora was so affectionate and agreeable as to surprise herself, and ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as why should he not? And I could earn a little too; it was not so bad there. And then and for long the place was a pretty place, the little grey cottage among the trees, if the cupboard hadn't been so bare; one can't live on flowers and nightingale's songs. Then the children came brisk, and the wages came slack; and the farmer got the new reaping-machine, and my binding came to an end; and topping turnips for a few days in the foggy November mornings don't bring you in much, even when you havn't just had a baby. And the skim milk was long ago gone, and the leasing, ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... when, finding that the rulers of Venice were enlisting soldiers, he entered their service; and before he had had much experience of that calling he was made Captain of two hundred men. The army of the Venetians had advanced by that time to Zara in Sclavonia; and one day, when a brisk skirmish took place, Morto, desiring to win a greater name in that profession than he had gained in the art of painting, went bravely forward, and, after fighting in the melee, was left dead on the field, even as he had ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... their meal in silence, for they had come to an understanding. The afternoon was too short and cold for real estate business to be brisk, and nobody in Carey's Crossing noted that the front window of Darley Champer's little office was covered with a newspaper blind all the rest of that day, nor did anybody pay attention to the whereabouts of the stranger—Mr. Thomas Smith, ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... distressing whirling noise inside my head, and was so giddy I was obliged to sit down, not before, however, I had shot a man in the main-channels who I thought had fired the shot at me. We had kept up a brisk firing, and must have killed several of their men, when they got long spars with a spike at the end over the side, and endeavoured to drive them through the bottom of our boat. The lieutenant, who was now more himself, found boarding her impracticable, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... up and thought of Mr. Conne. But this was his time off and he had the right to think about anything he pleased. He could not be reprimanded for just thinking. Nothing would tempt him to run the risk of another encounter with one of those stern, brisk-speaking officers, but he ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... us of a chick which, for seven or eight months on end, kept itself in condition for running, always fit, always brisk, without taking the least beakful of nourishment from the day when it left the egg, we could find no words strong enough to express our incredulity. Now this paradox of activity maintained without the stay of food is realized by the Clotho Spider ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... when at home, at Huntsville, Texas; the inhabitants mostly live, says Humboldt, Beeswax, Borax, or some of the other historians, by hunting. The wolves act as watchmen at night, relieved now and then by the Ingins, who make the wig business brisk by relieving straggling citizens of their top-knots. A man engaged in a quiet smoke, sees a deer or bear sneaking around, and by taking down his rifle, has steaks for breakfast, and a haunch for next day's dinner, right at his door. Vegetables and ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... door and walked in. Immediately, in accordance with a pre-arranged code of signals, Penny dropped one book. We right-turned. We did it in faultless time, turning as one man, and each of us bringing his left foot with a brisk stamp on the floor. Then, a suitable silence having ensued, Penny dropped two books. Instantly we obeyed. In single file, our left feet stamping rhythmically, with heads erect and eyes front, we marched after Mr. Caesar, ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... don't want to come, because I've got some very important business to ask you to attend to for me," answered Jane, in the brisk tone of voice she uses in doing business with women, and which interests them intensely by its very novelty and flatters them by seeming to endow them with a kind of brain they didn't know they possessed. "I want you to go upstairs and get my pocketbook. ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... lady; for a few months after the episode Madam Coleman wrote: "Sally won't go to school nor to church and wants a nue muff and a great many other things she don't need. I tell her fine things are cheaper in Barbadoes. She says she will go to Barbadoes in the Spring. She is well and brisk, says her Brother has nothing to do with her as long as her father is alive." The same lady informs us that Sally's instruction in writing cost one pound, seven shillings, and four pence, the entrance fee for dancing lessons, one pound, and the bill for dancing lessons for four months, ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... recalled his own high courage and expectant youth, and wondered if this boy had stronger mettle than his own equipment. Then he remembered Rachael Levine and hoped. He lived to see hope fulfilled beyond any achievement of his imagination, although the correspondence, brisk for a time, gradually subsided. From Hugh Knox and Mrs. Mitchell Alexander heard constantly, and it is needless to state that his aunt kept him in linen which was the envy of his friends. His beruffled ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... rich" to a cousin or so. More subtle is "medium body." This must be Uncle Hilary; he takes little exercise nowadays and his figure is suffering. Soon he will be "full-bodied" or "full and round." "Elegant, high class" is my Cousin Isabel. "Pretty flavour" also is hers. "Fresh and brisk" is Aunt Hannah. And could anything be more descriptive of Aunt Geraldine than ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... power, if he would, to master all these with the money and men that he hath had the command of, and may now have, if he would mind his business. In the Treasury-chamber an hour or two, where we saw the Country Receivers and Accountants come to attend; and one of them a brisk young fellow (with his hat cocked like a fool behind, as the present fashion among the blades is) committed to the Serjeant. By and by I upon desire was called in, and delivered in my Report of my Accounts. Present, Lord Ashly, Clifford, and Duncomb. But I do like the way of these lords, that ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... The firing now became brisk on both sides, but the French fired much quicker than we did, the reason being—as I afterward learned—that our Captain had given the most imperative orders to the first lieutenant that the gun-captains were not to fire until they had made sure of their aim; and the ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... of rats and mice, Of flies and frogs and bugs and lice, Commands thee to come forth this hour, And gnaw this threshold with great power, As he with oil the same shall smear— Ha! with a skip e'en now thou'rt here! But brisk to work! The point by which I'm cowered, Is on the ledge, the farthest forward. Yet one more bite, the deed is done.— Now, Faust, until ...
— Faust • Goethe
... morning of Christmas Eve that the china punch bowl was broken. Mr. Skratdj had a warm dispute with Mrs. Skratdj as to whether it had been kept in a safe place; after which both had a brisk encounter with the housemaid, who did not know how it happened; and she, flouncing down the back passage, kicked Snap; who forthwith flew at the gardener as he was bringing in the horse-radish for the beef; who stepping ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... think her too good a sailor, I ought to add that she continued sea-sick, at intervals, during the whole passage. We were nine weeks and two days at sea, during which period we experienced only one day of contrary wind. We had a brisk breeze 'right aft' all the way from the Bay of Biscay (which we never entered) to the 'calm latitudes;' that is to say, to the space about five or six degrees broad near the equator, where the trade-winds cease, and where it ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... appeared to have neglected to shave for at least a week. Nobody appeared to be particularly interested, and during his slow progression from Wellington Street to the Savoy Hotel he smoked cigarettes almost continuously. Trade was far from brisk, and the vendor of prophecies filled in his spare time by opening car doors, for which menial service he collected one three-penny bit ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... surprised by a calm under the land, we were afraid of approaching too near, lest we should not be able to stem the strong currents which set towards it. A gentle breeze arising, enabled us to get out to sea, where the wind became favorable, and pretty brisk; it was resolved that the boat should not go on shore: and we resumed our course going at eight knots. We had remained three hours opposite Funchal bay. At nightfall Madeira was in full sight: the next morning at sun-rise we saw the islands called Salvages, and in the evening ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... His turkey was lean. I know it. He cannot hide that turkey. The gaunt fowl obtrudes himself from every part. On the other hand, none but the primest of prime turkeys could have set in motion this brisk old gentleman with the ruddy check and hale, clear eye, whom we next pass. A most stanch and royal turkey lurks behind that portly front—a sound and fresh animal, with plenty of cranberries to boot.—What ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... he saw one of his men flung up into the air by a toss from one of the beasts, who had carried him on his horns for twenty yards before giving the final pitch. The fellow came down flat on his face, but the skin was not pierced, and no bone was broken. His comrades gave him a brisk shampooing, and in a week he ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... great beauty when she was young, for there was nothing particular, as far as I can remember, either in mouth or nose. She had a great gold-headed stick by her chair; but I think it was more as a mark of state and dignity than for use; for she had as light and brisk a step when she chose as any girl of fifteen, and, in her private early walk of meditation in the mornings, would go as swiftly from garden alley to garden alley as any one ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
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