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More "Vivacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... greatly troubled. It was with incredulous vivacity that he inquired of Mr. Underwood if it were indeed true that ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... plumage: attraction, of himself, to all visitors of taste. Number two. Canaries of unrivalled vivacity and intelligence: worthy of the garden of Eden, worthy also of the garden in the Regent's Park. Homage to ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... enter into the generous aspirations of a Savonarola, and the selfish desires of a Grandcourt, with equal perspicuity. Her readers do not feel less familiar with the dull barrenness of Casaubon than with the pregnant vivacity of Mrs. Poyser. In the study of the inward workings of the human mind, George Eliot is unsurpassed by any novelist. Thackeray alone can dispute her pre-eminence in this respect. However much the reader may recoil from the horror of Little Hetty's crime, he cannot deny ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... volcanoes, and all such little escapades will be over, they will, in lawyer's phrase, 'cease and determine,' as soon as our Earth reaches the age of maidenly bashfulness. Poor thing! It's quite natural, you know, in a healthy growing girl. A little overflow of vivacity, a pirouette more or less, what harm should that do to any of us? Nobody takes more delight than I in the fawn-like sportiveness of an innocent girl, at this period of life: even a shade of espieglerie does not annoy me. But still my own impressions incline ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Justin's mixed nationality and the circumstance that in soul and mind he was entirely his mother's child, with nothing—or an imperceptible little—of his father. As his mother's nature had been, so was Justin's—joyous. But Everard's training of him had suppressed all inborn vivacity. The mirth and diablerie that were his birthright had been overlaid with British phlegm, until in their stead, and through the blend, a certain sardonic humor had developed, an ironical attitude toward all things whether sacred or profane. This had been ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... were priceless. And Pearse had not failed to notice the green jade skull-charm that depended from Milo's columnar neck, a jade skull with pearls for teeth like the altar brooch of Dolores. And Tomlin, for all his expressed scorn, was tingling with ardent desire for such piquant beauty and vivacity as Pascherette's. If such a creature were the slave, then what could the mistress be? He assumed a more complaisant attitude, and added his vote: "A good way of passing away this odious calm ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... retreat is impossible; for a people cannot restore the vivacity of its earlier times, any more than a man can return to the innocence and the bloom of childhood; such things may be regretted, but they cannot be renewed. The only thing, then, which remains to be done is to proceed, and to accelerate the union of private with public interests, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... and appealing of all Western novels. There is action and vivacity at all times, and the reader's interest never sways for an instant. The story is admirably written and runs along smoothly at all ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... Leonarda," is much in favour of a Spanish original; why should not Le Sage have repeated the expression "Dame Leonarde," on which we have a few observations to offer, had it not been that he thought the word under his eyes at the moment would lend grace and vivacity to the narrative. A French writer would have said, "Tenez, Leonarde," or perhaps, "Tenez, Madame Leonarde;" but such a phrase as "Tenez, Dame Leonarde," in a French writer, can be accounted for only by the translation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... library, and Mr. Hazlewood greeted his son with a vivacity which for weeks had been ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... were exceedingly effective. His despatches were laconic and clear. He knew something about everybody of note, and if he had always been in a private station his intellectual force would have attracted attention in almost any vocation he might have selected. His natural vivacity, wit, and intensity would have secured friends and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... and just put in a few days that might prove to every one concerned that we're in earnest. It's exactly because we're in earnest that, dash it, we needn't be so awfully particular. I mean, don't you know, we needn't be so awfully afraid." He showed a vivacity, an intensity of argument, and if Maisie counted his words she was all the more ready to swallow after a single swift gasp those that, the next thing, she became conscious he paused for a reply to. "We didn't come, old girl, did we," he pleaded straight, "to stop right away for ever and put ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... contrary, we find them excelling in literature and the arts, in ingenuity, and where exertion is required in trying circumstances, that they are capable of heroism, but there is a natural life and vivacity in the French character that inclines not to study, nor strict application, unless the position in life renders it necessary. The English very frequently are by nature disposed to reflection and even like often to be alone, consequently ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... sisters made a point of being in the drawing-room before the dusk came on, and of lighting the gas at the first hint of twilight. They didn't believe in Miss Lydia Carew—but still they meant to be beforehand with her. They talked with unwonted vivacity and in a louder tone than was their custom. But as they drank their tea even their utmost verbosity could not make them oblivious to the fact that the perfume of sweet lavender was stealing insidiously ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... say beforehand, that I must decline the proposal it contains to pay a visit here. I trust I may be excused for desiring an interval of complete freedom from such distractions as have been hitherto inevitable, and especially from guests whose desultory vivacity makes ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... allowance, at which she made a very polite courtesy and greatly relieved my embarrassment by giving a hearty shake of the hand and wishing me a pleasant journey. This was the last I saw of my Norwegian Diana. She is a young damsel of great beauty and vivacity, not to say a little wild. I trust she is now happily married to the ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Saturday, the pool sent quietly into the Exchange to buy one thousand shares; that, by way of feeler. The old gray buccaneer was right; Northern Consolidated climbed fifteen points with the vivacity of a squirrel, and rested mockingly at fifty-eight. Following this disheartening experiment, which resulted in nothing more hopeful than a demand for further margins from the pool's brokers, there were no more efforts to "buy." The pool was marked for death; but that, while discouraging, offered ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of his lesson, seizing his trusty stick and coming out with his habitual vivacity, he very nearly cannoned just outside the drawing-room door into the back of Miss de Barral's governess. He stopped himself in time and she turned round swiftly. It was embarrassing; he apologised; but her face ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... finished speaking: tears fell from her eyes. We watched them flow in silence without seeking to console her. But suddenly she dried them, and said to us with her capricious vivacity, "Well, what is the matter with you that you are so sad? Is that the effect fairy-stories produce upon you? Have you never heard of Orco, the Venetian Trilby? Have you never met her at evening in the churches or on the Lido? She is a good devil, who only does harm to oppressors ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... your romantic proportions were suddenly reduced. You were less formidable to deal with as a lover. That is how I came to consent to the walk we took in the forest. Ah me! I should have taken warning from your enigmatical silence. And indeed I did tremble with vivacity in my effort to break it. But you only looked mysteriously confident about something and kept your own counsel, giving me a nod or a quizzical smile now and then, as if what I was saying really had no bearing whatever upon the issue at hand.... ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... the attic window, which, overlooked the river, and in winter by the fireside, recounting again and again all she knew of him, especially of how good he always was to her. There were a vividness and vivacity in all she said of him which charmed their imagination and kept the memory of him alive in their hearts. Phebe gave dramatic effect to her stories of him. Hilda could scarcely remember him, though she believed she did; but to Felix he remained the tall, handsome, kindly father, who was his ideal ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... nothing but solitude—in a musical work of art the movement follows the outflow of the artist's own emotions. Now gently gliding, now gracefully leaping, now violently stirred, penetrated, or laboriously contending with the natural expression of passion, the stream of sound, in primitive vivacity, bears over into the hearer's soul unimagined moods which the artist has overheard from his own, and finally raises him up to that repose of everlasting beauty of which God has allowed but few of his elect favorites to be ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... defects and the merits which characterize the literature of aristocratic ages. And indeed a very superficial survey of the literary remains of the ancients will suffice to convince us, that if those writers were sometimes deficient in variety, or fertility in their subjects, or in boldness, vivacity, or power of generalization in their thoughts, they always displayed exquisite care and skill in their details. Nothing in their works seems to be done hastily or at random: every line is written for the eye of the connoisseur, and is shaped after ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... vivified her Castilian traits. Her mother was a Spaniard—partly Moorish, however. Her father was an Irishman. There you have it—the dreamy romance of Spain, the exotic touch of the Orient, and the daring, unreasoning vivacity of the Celt. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... hands which done the heaviest and hardest work of the family. No word of cheer or praise ever passed her mother's lips. All this, and it was no wonder her life was crushed out, that her step had no lightness, and her eye none of the vivacity of youth. The out-door work, such as caring for the cattle, was, at last added to her other burdens; yet all this she would have done willingly, could her soul have received something which she felt she so much needed-the light and blessing of love. She was deeply ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... oracle: "In the Bacchic procession many carry the thyrsus, but few are inspired." The possibility of ultimate failure threatens him more and more while he reflects; as the chasm which you wish to leap grows impassable, if you measure and deliberate. But the vivacity of youth preserves him from any permanent misanthropy or doubt. Nature makes us blind where we should be injured by seeing. We partake of the lead of Saturn, the activity of fire, the forgetfulness of water. His academic praises console him, maugre his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... front of and facing the other players and rapidly repeats this verse, performing some action that the other players immediately imitate—such as beating a drum, playing a fiddle, sawing wood. Without pausing he varies his actions, the others continuing to follow his movements. Rapidity of time and vivacity determine the success ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... university degree; that she would neither bite nor philosophize on all occasions; that she was quite as full of life and frolic as if she had never seen a university. You can imagine the effect of this vivacity upon the profoundest of men, and you can see how this clever woman's ability at small talk made a comrade of a notable academician. As the dinner progressed the talk between these two wavered from jest ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... advantage to his own country at home; for, at the solicitation of the booksellers, he now (1777) undertook to write the Lives of the English Poets. The judicious selection of the facts which he relates, the vivacity of the narrative, the profoundness of the observations, and the terseness of the style, render this the most entertaining, as it is, perhaps, the most instructive of his works. His criticisms, indeed, often ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... to learn from Shifting Sands the disadvantages of a haphazard education, the unfair position of woman in the labour-market, or merely the irony of fate. And this is a pity because, though the manner of the story is very episodic, there are scenes and conversations of considerable vivacity and truth. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... throng, and conversing earnestly with her companion, a resolute-looking man scarce entering upon the prime of life, with a Gipsy complexion, but a bearing in which it is not difficult to recognise the soldier. He is talking to his protectress—for such she is—with a military frankness and vivacity, which even to that royal personage, accustomed though she be to exact all the respect due to her rank, appear by no means displeasing. The lady is verging on the autumn of her charms (their summer must have been scorching indeed!), and though a masculine beauty, is a ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... wrote his Treatise on the use of such instruments in War, and was never happy unless he was seeing or doing something—preferably under arms. And in every sentence also there is that curious directness of statement which is of such advantage to vivacity in any memoir. Thus of Gobert, who served under him, he has a little footnote: "This unfortunate young man lost his head at the same time General Dillon suffered, and a very amiable young man he was, and an ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... principles they both professed, he, on the contrary, presented the Benthamic doctrines in the most startling form of which they were susceptible, exaggerating everything in them which tended to consequences offensive to anyone's preconceived feelings. All which, he defended with such verve and vivacity, and carried off by a manner so agreeable as well as forcible, that he always either came off victor, or divided the honours of the field. It is my belief that much of the notion popularly entertained of the tenets and sentiments ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... dwellings were not collected round the habitation of a missionary. Their number has considerably augmented, but the sphere of their ideas is not enlarged. They have progressively lost that vigour of character and that natural vivacity which in every state of society are the noble fruits of independence. By subjecting to invariable rules even the slightest actions of their domestic life, they have been rendered stupid by the effort ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... forced efforts to raise the spirits of the company, as plainly marked the flagging of his own. Ratcliffe watched the scene with the composure of a vigilant but uninterested spectator. Mareschal alone, true to the thoughtless vivacity of his character, ate and drank, laughed and jested, and seemed even to find amusement in ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... the collected courage of a brave man more impressive than any menace; and courage is a thing which acts upon all natures, however vile. Strongly moved by the calm audacity of the magistrate the ruffian, who had seized the knife with menacing vivacity, now set it down upon the table, and with a faltering voice said, "Vous etes un brave, citoyen!" then after a pause, "I am a lost man—it's all up with me; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... determination to see everything.[155] It marked her strength of character, and she joined to it much tact, and always addressed people on the right side. So she stands high, and deservedly so, for to these active qualities, more French I think than English, and partaking of the Creole vivacity and suppleness of character, she adds, I believe, honourable principles and an excellent heart. As a lion-catcher, I could pit her against the world. She flung her lasso (see Hall's South America) over Byron himself. But then, poor soul, she is not happy. She ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... talking about the baby? Dion wondered, as for a moment he watched them, forgetting his surroundings. Rosamund was speaking with her usual swift vivacity. At home she was now often rather quiet, moving, Dion sometimes thought, in an atmosphere of wide serenity; but in society she was always full of sunshine and eager life. Something within her leaped up responsively at the touch ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... look while bringing their young to feed within half a dozen feet of you. They perch on the croquet-arches in the midst of a noisy game. They sing directly over your head with the utmost spirit and vivacity, hardly ceasing all the forenoon, and again bursting out toward evening and maintaining their song until every other bird's lay is hushed in the twilight. White of Selborne would have delighted in such a freak on the part of these pretty gay strangers, who have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... be young, she invariably overdoes it. The gypsy horse-dealers, when they have a particularly ancient horse to dispose of administer a nostrum to the animal, which has the effect of keeping him continually in motion, and bestowing on him a temporary vivacity which a colt would hardly exhibit. Lady Morgan is unnecessarily frisky. The gypsy's horse, when the effect of the medicine has passed off, becomes more aged and infirm than ever. What a terrible reaction must have been the lot of this old lady, after all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... had been engaged in a most dishonest attempt did not trouble him in the least. Yet, had he been offered a large bribe to commit robbery in the usual ways, he would have rejected the proposition with scorn. Miss Carmichael, knowing his character, was sorry for him, little thinking that his returning vivacity under her genial influence smote Coristine's heart, as the evidence of double disloyalty on the lady's part, to her friend, Miss Du Plessis, and to him. Tiring of her single-handed work, she turned to Mr. Bigglethorpe, saying: "You ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the same sort are found, with much more sparkling wit, in the Latin works of Walter Map.[284] This Welshman has the vivacity of the Celts his compatriots; he was celebrated at the court of Henry II., and throughout England for his repartees and witticisms, so celebrated indeed that he himself came to agree to others' opinion, and thought them worth ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... breathing man wide awake to look less animated. The correct Englishman, drawing himself up from his bow into rigidity, assenting severely, and seemed to be in a state of internal drill, suggests a suppressed vivacity, and may be suspected of letting go with some violence when he is released from parade; but Grandcourt's bearing had no rigidity, it inclined rather to the flaccid. His complexion had a faded fairness ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... them was most close, and lasted until Miss Mitford's death in 1855. Their correspondence was constant and voluminous, as was that, in fact, of Miss Barrett with all of her intimate friends. These letters of hers from her sick room are no more remarkable for number than for brightness and vivacity. Little mention is made of her ailments, except when her friends have specifically demanded news of her health, and the letters deal rather with literary than with other subjects. This was, of course, most natural; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... public needed to be educated up to the "Freischuetz" music. "Preciosa" was founded on a Spanish story, "The Gypsy of Madrid," and Weber has written for it some of his most charming melodies, full of Spanish color, life and vivacity. Nowadays the opera is neglected, but we often hear the overture. It is to be noted that the overtures to each of Weber's operas contain the leading themes and melodies of the operas themselves, showing with what skill the artist wrought. When Weber's widow presented the original score of "Der ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... with the pope complicated the relations of France. Napoleon then addressed himself to cardinal Fesch. Fesch was a zealous churchman, and overflowing with Italian vivacity: he defended the papal pretensions with obstinate ardour; and such was the warmth of his discussions with the emperor, on a former occasion, that the latter got into a passion, and told him, "that he would compel him to obey." "And who contests your power?" returned the cardinal: ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... in the champagne. She had her little moment of exhilaration, of self-delighting ease and vivacity—then dizziness, then awful nausea, and awful ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... name of Jason, who was reputed to have had domestic relations elsewhere. But although subjugated and exorcised, she at least was reminiscent. To my inquiries about the Sluysdaels, she answered with a slight return of her old vivacity:— ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... say," declared Erica, in the sudden vivacity inspired by the discovery that this was probably no demon. Her doubts were renewed, however, by ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... furniture, richly trimmed with gold; in her hand she carried a naked sword instead of a riding-whip. Her countenance is described as being agreeable, and her figure handsome;[279] her eyes were fine, and her hair as black as jet. In conversation she was full of intelligence and vivacity.[280] The Prince, it is said, rode out of the lines to receive her, and to welcome the addition to his army, and conducted her to a tent with much ceremony. It was reported that Mrs. Cameron continued in the camp as the commander of her troop, and accompanied the Prince ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... vivacity of children, people did their best to raise the impulsiveness and movement of their characters, what might we not expect from a ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... day has become a greater favorite with boys than "Harry Castlemon;" every book by him is sure to meet with hearty reception by young readers generally. His naturalness and vivacity lead his readers from page to page with breathless interest, and when one volume is finished the fascinated reader, like ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... inferred that we desire to reduce women to the condition of a humiliating inaction. Far from it. In the position we would place them they could never feel, think, or act with greater interest or vivacity. Whilst it is desirable that every kind of artifice or intrigue should be interdicted from the interior of their domesticity, it is quite permissible for them to watch attentively important matters that may be occurring in public life. To that function ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... large and flat feet, unaccustomed to any rapid exercise, moving over boards, oilcloth and carpet. Then the swing door sang, and the Prophet, opening his eyes, perceived Madame Malkiel moving forward with considerable vivacity, and screaming as she moved, her bonnet depending down her back and the rabbit-skins flowing from her ample shoulders. Immediately behind her ran her spouse, holding in one hand a silver pepper castor, and in the other a small and ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... knew, with the door shut on him, how she fell on her sofa—her vivacity quenched, her soul spent. He never knew that having failed, (as she thought) to draw him to her with what she was, she had vainly, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... save the man who was advancing. How should she have noticed the scornful glances which her unrestrained vivacity elicited? ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... company at dinner on the 16th of October, at my lodgings in Old Bond-street, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Bickerstaff[242], and Mr. Thomas Davies. Garrick played round him with a fond vivacity, taking hold of the breasts of his coat, and, looking up in his face with a lively archness, complimented him on the good health which he seemed then to enjoy; while the sage, shaking his head, beheld him with a gentle ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... not supremely brilliant, but filled with something that took the place of both qualities—something best described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that she encountered in her path ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... is M. LANGLES:[28] an author of equal reputation with Monsieur Gail—but his strength lies in Oriental literature; and he presides more especially over the Persian, Arabic, and other Oriental MSS. To the naivete of M. Gail, he adds the peculiar vivacity and enthusiasm of his countrymen. To see him presiding in his chair (for he and M. Gail take alternate turns) and occupied in reading, you would think that a book worm could scarcely creep between the tip of his nose and the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... darkness enveloped the gulf, she began to entertain Tisdale with an experience in the Sierras, a little adventure on one of those journeys with her father, when she had driven Pedro and Don Jose. But though she told the story with composure, even with a certain vivacity and charm, as she might have narrated it to a small and intimate audience in any safe drawing-room, her self-control was a transparency through which he saw her anxiety manoeuvering, in spite of his ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... foliage of the acacias, shed on Honorine the pale gold, ambient glory in which Raphael and Titian, alone of all painters, have been able to enwrap the Virgin. Her brown eyes expressed both tenderness and vivacity; their brightness seemed reflected in her face through the long downcast lashes. Merely by lifting her delicate eyelids, Honorine could cast a spell; there was so much feeling, dignity, terror, or contempt in her way of raising or dropping those veils of the soul. She could freeze ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... with so much vivacity and feeling that I felt a little sorry for my contemptuous thoughts of her. She had said her say, and she behaved with more reticence and more apparent delicacy than I should have been disposed to give her credit for. She said something to the count in a low and rapid voice, and he answered ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... attracted by the other's knowledge. And then gradually something had been added to this. Kennedy had been amused by the frankness and simplicity of his rival, while Burger in turn had been fascinated by the brilliancy and vivacity which had made Kennedy such a favourite in Roman society. I say "had," because just at the moment the young Englishman was ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... departure of this woman, that Lucy Ashton, urged by her parents, announced to them, with a vivacity by which they were startled, "That she was conscious heaven and earth and hell had set themselves against her union with Ravenswood; still her contract," she said, "was a binding contract, and ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... that I first saw Lady Wilde. I was introduced to her by Willie, Oscar's elder brother, whom I had met in Fleet Street. Willie was then a tall, well-made fellow of thirty or thereabouts with an expressive taking face, lit up with a pair of deep blue laughing eyes. He had any amount of physical vivacity, and told a good story with immense verve, without for a moment getting above the commonplace: to him the Corinthian journalism of The Daily Telegraph was literature. Still he had the surface good nature and good humour of healthy youth and was generally liked. He took me to his mother's ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... company, which of his works he thought the best? "I don't know," answered he, "which is my best production; but this (pointing to his son, who was present) is certainly my worst." "It is," replied the son, with vivacity, "because no Carthusian had a hand in it," alluding to the report that the best passages in his father's tragedies had been written by a Carthusian friar, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... and inaugurated a series of questions on his own account to learn what had become of the regiment. As Jean went on to tell that the colonel had been seen crossing the city to reach his camp at the head of what few men were left him, Gilberte again thoughtlessly spoke up, with the vivacity of a woman whose beauty is supposed ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... a reserved nature is sometimes more attractive to women than the most fluent vivacity. Possibly there was also a melancholy grace in this sardonic soldier's manner that affected her, for she looked up, ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... Helen, of her courage, of her great loss, then of her supreme regret, at which point he would make his plea. But Jane would give him no help at all. Silent she sat looking into the fire, all the vivacity and brilliance of the past hour gone, and in its place a gentle, pensive sadness. The firelight fell on her face, so changed from what it had been in those pre-war days, now so long ago, yet so familiar and so dear. To-morrow at this hour he would be far down the ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... cheerful, for a wonder. He ate with good appetite and shewed in his movements and manner and voice when he spoke a restrained vivacity ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... on the intended movement, which was to take place within three days, and, on this subject, Gerald evinced a vivacity that warmed into eagerness. He had risen early that morning, with a view to obtain the permission of the Commodore to make one of the detachment of sailors who were to accompany the expedition, and, having succeeded in obtaining the command of one of the two gun-boats which were destined to ascend ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... popular manners, I went to the Strada di Porto, where I now am. All about me animated throngs of people crowd and press before the eating-places; and I float like a waif among these living surges, which, even while they submerge you, still caress. For this Neopolitan people has, in its very vivacity, something indescribably gentle and polite. I am not roughly jostled, I am merely swayed about; and I think that by dint of thus rocking me to and fro, these good folks want to lull me asleep on my feet. I admire, as I tread the lava pavements of the strada, those porters and fishermen ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... after the Restoration, were such as depended rather upon the intricacy than the probability of the plot; rather upon the vivacity and liveliness, than on the natural expression of the dialogue; and, finally, rather upon extravagant and grotesque conception of character, than upon its being pointedly delineated, and accurately supported through the representation. These particulars, in which ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... (he was shot by one of the Englishmen whom he had always treated with the greatest friendship) had a great desire for knowledge, an admirable natural understanding and a vivacity of mind seldom met with amongst uncultivated nations. He made innumerable inquiries concerning our manners and customs, our King, our form of government, the population and produce of our country, and the manner in which our ships and houses were built. He ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... a male physician, then, and see," returned he, jumping into his chaise, and relieving his own nerves with a crack of the whip, which put new vivacity into those ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... as was natural, made a deep impression on Temple. He was only twenty. Dorothy Osborne was twenty-one. She is said to have been handsome; and there remains abundant proof that she possessed an ample share of the dexterity, the vivacity, and the tenderness of her sex. Temple soon became, in the phrase of that time, her servant, and she returned his regard. But difficulties, as great as ever expanded a novel to the fifth volume, opposed their wishes. When the courtship commenced, the father of the hero was sitting ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... greater variety than I had before noticed amongst the people of the great South Sea nation on any former occasion. The whole, though I am unequal to its description, was supported with a wonderful degree of spirit and vivacity; so much indeed that some of their exertions were made with such a degree of agitating violence as seemed to carry the performers beyond what their strength was able to sustain; and had the performance finished with the third act, we should have retired from their theatre with ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... and permeated the silence of the valley, realized a little of that great white rampart's awful serenity. She also wondered vacantly what the two men on the verandah were talking about; but in this she was wrong, for Hallam, overcharged with Western vivacity, was talking, and ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... staying at Cranston's, with whom I had danced, to whom I had made pretty speeches, and had given the bell button that was sewn just over my heart. She certainly was not the best of them, for I can see now that she was vain and shallow, with a pert boldness, which I mistook for vivacity and wit. Three years ago, at the age of twenty, my knowledge of women was so complete that I divided them into six classes, and as soon as I met a new one I placed her in one of these classes and created her according to the line of campaign I had laid down as proper for that class. Now, ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... have justified a repetition in the present day of Sismondi's enthusiastic estimate of the women of the First Empire. She had that melange du meilleur ton, 'with the purest elegance of manner, and a store of varied information, with vivacity of impression and delicacy of feeling, which,' as he declared to Madame d'Albany, 'belongs only to your sex, and is found in its perfection only in the best ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the height of what was suffered, Stung with too keen a sympathy, the Maid Brooded with moving lips, mute, startful, dark! 255 And now her flushed tumultuous features shot Such strange vivacity, as fires the eye Of Misery fancy-crazed! and now once more Naked, and void, and fixed, and all within The unquiet silence of confusd thought 260 And shapeless feelings. For a mighty hand Was strong upon her, till in the heat of soul To the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... singing, like the common Robin. Like the Robin, too, who sings at all hours excepting those of darkness, he is a persevering songster, and seems to be inspired by living in the vicinity of man. In his manners, however, he bears more resemblance to the Red Thrush, being distinguished by his vivacity, and the courage with which he repels the attacks of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... daily; be taught to practice temperate, prudent, and regular habits; learn the laws of health and how to obey them, the physiology of their own bodies, and what is demanded for health and strength. Such a course of early physical training will impart beauty, vivacity, cheerfulness, amiability, strength of mind, warmth of heart, and moral stability, more surely and rapidly than can otherwise be done. Girls thus trained will possess a higher and nobler womanhood, exert a ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... exchanging glances of intelligence—they had exchanged no glances at all. Both sat staring vaguely out into the ballroom, and, for a time, they did not speak. Over their heads the music reached a climax of vivacity: drums, cymbals, triangle, and sleighbells, beating, clashing, tinkling. Here and there were to be seen couples so carried away that, ceasing to move at the decorous, even glide, considered most knowing, they pranced and whirled through the throng, from wall ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... cricket, and other sports, as well as winter evening games, filled up the ample leisure from the duties of the schoolroom. One or two extracts from his journal are sufficient to show that, although still weakly, he was not lacking in boyish vivacity and in a healthy desire to emulate his elders. When Grenville and Fox joined their forces and so brought about the Ministry of 'All the Talents' the lads obtained a holiday—a fact which is thus recorded in sprawling schoolboy hand by Lord John ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... together with the usual characters of a society novel appear in Molly Bawn; and the personages are invested, if not with the divine gift of life, with a certain wire-strung movement which does not lack vivacity, and in some cases novelty; the villain, for example, having but little employment in his original capacity, and being utilized as a laughing-stock for the amusement of his victims. Even the grammar ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... numbering among her teachers one of Mozart's sons. She seems to have won the esteem of Schumann, who dedicated his humoreske to her, and gave high praise to many of her works. According to his reviews, her Second Caprice is "fresh and rhythmical, full of life and vivacity and delicate workmanship;" her fantasie, "Adieu et Retour," has two movements that are "highly original, characteristic, and scarcely offering a weak point for attack;" while her waltzes are spoken of as almost the best that appeared ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... sitting, gazing, with hand lifted above her eyes, at a Murillo—a ragged Spanish boy, true equally to the life and to the peculiar characteristics of that artist—dark ground-work, keen, arch expression, great vivacity, with an air of pregnant humor which speaks of more than is shown, and makes you fancy that other pictures are to follow in which the same boy must appear in different phases ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... never hear good of themselves," answered Maud, with a vivacity that betokened confusion. "Had you come a minute sooner, master Bob, it ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... His vivacity was gone, a sudden cloud had come over his bright face, his figure seemed to have collapsed, the light seemed to have faded out of his hair. With a shuffling step, the very antithesis of his brisk, elastic tread, he turned to the door and passed ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... seriously endangered by this affair?" asked the cardinal with vivacity. "Is it possible that this trifling misunderstanding between two servants can exercise an influence upon a long-cherished friendship and harmony of two powers whose relations, whether friendly or otherwise, may uphold or destroy ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... properly attribute to him any one temperament. He was neither sanguine, like Peter, nor choleric, like Paul, nor melancholy, like John, nor phlegmatic, as James is sometimes, though incorrectly, represented to have been; but he combined the vivacity without the levity of the sanguine, the vigor without the violence of the choleric, the seriousness without the austerity of the melancholic, the calmness without the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... world caught into its irresistible vivacity the two boys in the morning of their youth, and before long they had forgotten the irremediable woes of their elders, as their elders also forgot the problems of national woes ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a certain pretension to knowing something about the world. In the man who was talking to you I recognized a Parisian, because he had an English air; and while he affected stiffness, he showed perfect ease and particular vivacity." ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... brother bashaw, who lay wind-bound in the same harbor. This latter captain was a Swiss. He was then master of a vessel bound to Guinea, and had formerly been a privateering, when our own hero was employed in the same laudable service. The honesty and freedom of the Switzer, his vivacity, in which he was in no respect inferior to his near neighbors the French, the awkward and affected politeness, which was likewise of French extraction, mixed with the brutal roughness of the English ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... know...." Sarah murmured vaguely. This was the only reference to the estrangement. She went on with more vivacity. "And then Mr. Cannon has always had ideas about boarding-houses and furnished rooms and so on. He always did say there was lots of money to be made out of them if only they were managed properly; only they never are.... He ought to know; he's been ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... clapped their hands for joy, nodding to one another with such vivacity, that the glow-worms upon their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... have not got much benefit either. We met first, some four years ago, on Cheyne Walk here: a tall, broad, burly man, with gray hair, and large, fierce-rolling eyes; of the most restless, impetuous vivacity, not to be held in by the most perfect breeding,—expressing itself in high-colored superlatives, indeed in reckless exaggeration, now and then in a dry sharp laugh not of sport but of mockery; a wild man, whom no extent of ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... d'Erfeuil, a Frenchman who had been his companion in the journey into Italy. The Prince Castel Forte and all the other guests paid her the most assiduous attention; Oswald gazed on her for the most part in silence, wondering at the mingled sweetness and vivacity of her conversation, realising that she possessed a grace that he had never met before. Although she invited him to meet her again, he did not go on the next evening; he was restrained by a kind of terror at the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... DRAWING ROOM, it was amusing to behold the vivacity of Lisardo; who, leaping about Lysander, and expressing his high gratification at the discourse he had already heard, and his pleasure at what he hoped yet to hear, reminded us of what Boswell has said of Garrick, who used to flutter ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... (1747-1794).—Poetess, was of good Cumberland family, and received the sobriquet of "The Muse of Cumberland." Her poems, which were not collected until 1842, depict Cumbrian life and manners with truth and vivacity. She also wrote some fine songs in the Scottish dialect, including "Ye shall walk in Silk Attire," and "What ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... rest of the party, who were joined, however, by the two priests. The young girl no sooner caught sight of the Bishop from the farther end of the hall, where the little dog had followed her among the orange trees, than all trace of her vivacity disappeared. ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... exhibited above his hands a plump visage, and a generally white skin though yellow in spots. His hands were dimpled. His abbatial face had something of the Dutch burgomaster in the placidity of its complexion and its flesh tones, and of the Breton peasant in the straight black hair and the vivacity of the brown eyes, which preserved, nevertheless, a priestly decorum. His gaiety, that of a man whose conscience was calm and pure, admitted a joke. His manner had nothing uneasy or dogged about it, like that of many poor rectors whose existence or whose ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... in silence. Except for the emphasis which nature had given to his features, he was a presentable person. Flying side-whiskers made his mouth appear grotesquely wide, and the play of strong feelings had produced vicious wrinkles on his spare face. He appeared to be a man of energy, vivacity and vulgarity, reminding one of a dinner of pork and cabbage. He was soon forgotten in the excitement of a delightful day, whose glories came to a brilliant end in that banquet which introduced the nephew of ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... as he had left the room, Mr. Lindsay accompanying him, Mrs. Lindsay turned with an almost impatient vivacity to Aurora. "At last I can tell you!" she exclaimed. "Do you know who is in Venice, who sent me a note while you were at church, and who will dine with us ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... Stuart Belches, for whom Scott had felt perhaps the only deep passion of his life, and memory of whom was to come to the surface touchingly in his old age. Miss Charpentier, or Carpenter, as she was called, with her vivacity and quaint foreign speech "caught his heart on the rebound"; there can be no doubt that, in spite of a certain shallowness of character, she made him a good wife, and that his affection for her deepened steadily to the end. The young couple went to live at Lasswade, a village near Edinburgh, on ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... best and highest mode; and he wore his sword as if it were a part of himself. It was no more in his way than if it were his right arm. Indeed, all his movements were full of confidence and ease; and yet it was the vivacity, vitality, and ready response of his face ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... been reading a French story this morning," she said quickly. "There is a character in it—a priest. The author says of him that he had 'une imagination faussee et troublee.'" She paused, then added with great vivacity—"I thought it ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... accomplished person, I assure you," continued Quicksilver, "and has all the arts and sciences at her fingers' ends. In short, she is so immoderately wise, that many people call her wisdom personified. But, to tell you the truth, she has hardly vivacity enough for my taste; and I think you would scarcely find her so pleasant a travelling companion as myself. She has her good points, nevertheless; and you will find the benefit of them, in your ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... the breakfast at Rockhold on the preceding-day, darkened by the sullen wrath of the Iron King and eaten in the most gloomy silence! Here were affectionate attentions and jests and laughter. Violet was in such gay spirits that her vivacity became contagious, and Fabian and Clarence often laughed aloud, and Corona was won to smile ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... matching well the physically capable body below, a body of wide shoulders and well-knit muscles and a deep chest that might have belonged to a youth of eighteen instead of seventeen. Compared with Tim Otis, who was of the same age, Don Gilbert suffered on only two counts—quickness and vivacity. Tim, well-muscled, possessed a litheness that Don could never attain to, and moved, thought and spoke far more quickly. In height Don topped his friend by almost a full inch and was broader and bigger-boned. They were both, ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Francis said this with great vivacity, then taking up some ashes he scattered them over the head of the novice, repeating, "There is the breviary, there ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... The eager vivacity of the second speaker—the note of undiluted and almost childlike glee with which she acknowledged that a visit to a luxurious hotel was a red letter day in her life—caused the man to glance at the two young women who had unconsciously disturbed him. Evidently, they had just risen ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... too tedious a work for the vivacity of my temper to polish bears into men. I should have died of the spleen before I had made any proficiency in it. My desire was to shine among those who were qualified to judge of my talents. At Paris, at Rome I had the glory of ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... piece of work than the so-called Tree of the Cross, in the Florentine Academy: a thing like a huge fern, with medallion histories in each frond, it can scarcely be considered a work of art, and stands halfway between a picture and a genealogical tree. Yet in some of its medallions there is a great vivacity of imaginative rendering; for instance, the Massacre of the Innocents represented by a single soldier, mailed and hooded, standing before Herod on a floor strewn with children's bodies, and holding up an infant by the arm, like a ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... The big man in the stern of the boat took off his hat in reply, and waved his hand, too. The rower pulled with the vivacity that comes to men near the end of a task, and the boat shot into the Pool of the Saint, where Ruffo was at that moment ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... moved, and certainly spoke, with an almost superfluous vivacity and alertness. There was in them a feverish activity, which contrasted with the English deliberation, which had sometimes exasperated him. Now he felt that this slowness of movement was born of the tranquillity of the well-trimmed ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... exacting, and required very little to amuse her. Of course, she was not intellectual, since she read but few books and received only the rudiments of education; but she was as learned as her brothers, and quicker in her wits. She had the vivacity which a healthy life secures. Nor was she beautiful, according to our standard. She was a ruddy, cheerful, active, healthy woman, accustomed to exercise in the open air,—to field-sports and horseback journeys. Still less was she what we call fashionable, for the word ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... face, with two youthful, flashing brown eyes, full of roguish intelligence and fiery provocation. With this exterior, the style of his demeanour and conversation corresponded; bold, bright, pungent, eager, full of thought, so that amid all the bubbling copiousness and easy vivacity of his talk, a certain purpose was never lost sight of in his remarks and illustrations."—Friedrich Carl Meyer.] who was at this time a man of fifty, was no ordinary character. He was sagacious, warm-hearted, honest, straightforward to bluntness, painstaking, just, benevolent to a remarkable ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... his excessive vivacity was that, when he wanted any thing done, he expected the person nearest to him should not only instantly obey, but conceive what he meant from the pointing of his finger, the turn of his head, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... known many women, denizens of le grand monde, who have adorned it with equally brilliant talents, equally captivating beauty, equally sparkling wit and vivacity of intelligence. And I have known many, denizens of the studious and the book world, gifted with larger powers of intellect, and more richly dowered with the results of thought and study But I do not think that I ever met with one who possessed in so large a degree the choice product ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... institution. Any misadventures necessarily following from this course my friends had gilded over with the flattering insinuation that I was "too vivacious" for this sort of discipline, or "too fragile" for that, though I am bound to say that, in such cases, my "vivacity" had generally sealed my fate before the delicacy of my constitution ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... air of vivacity, that women, whether in courtship or out of it, dislike not, I was leading her once more to the door, and, as I intended, to Sir Harry, wherever ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... eighteenth century, occupied himself much more with his library than with public affairs. He wished to discharge his duty to his country respectably, without disturbing the peaceful tenor of his life. M. Raynouard, a native of Provence and a poet, had more vivacity of manner and language, without being of an adventurous temperament. It was said that his loud complaints against the tyrannical abuses of the Imperial Government, would not have prevented him from being contented with those moderate concessions which satisfy honour ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... year, to have lodgings in the same house with him, and to eat at the same table, in the family of one of the professors, and as one of a small circle, all connected with college, and a good deal remarkable for the freedom and vivacity of their conversation. After graduating, I saw him only occasionally, until the last few months of his life, which he passed here, near the close of my first year's residence at the college as a ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... size; straight, firm, strong built, and compact, with the air of native lordliness and command. His countenance was peculiarly beautiful, full and rounded as if young; fresh-coloured; and beaming with health, spirit, and vivacity. Its almost womanly sweetness was chastened and redeemed by the massiveness of the head, the deep penetrating eye, and an aspect of uncommon elevation and nobleness. Till the last, he was the very personification of the old Dux—the Duke of Chivalry—the foremost leader and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Higgins found his companion bubbling over with vivacity. Her pretty chin was in the air and every word bore the promise of a laugh. He afterward recalled one little incident of their walk through the frosty night, and repeated it to Anderson Crow with more awe than seemed necessary. They were ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... thin-chested, slight unspeakably, Neat-footed, weak-fingered, in his face,— Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race, Bold-lipped, rich tinted, mutable as the sea, The brown eyes radiant with vivacity,— There shines a brilliant and romantic grace, A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace Of ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... to the mind at the name of MOORE! The brilliant wit, the elegant scholar, the most charming poet of sentiment our literature possesses! His vivacity and versatility were quite as remarkable as his fancy and command of melody. He has been admitted, by rare judges of personal merit, to have been, with the single exception of the late Chief Justice Bushe, the most attractive of companions. An attempt has, in some quarters, we have ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... must own myself extremely blameable, because I knew the world and human nature, I will say, better than the lady, who never before had been trusted into it upon her own feet: and who, notwithstanding that wit and vivacity which every one admires in her, gave herself little time for consideration. I ought, therefore, to have more carefully guarded against inconveniencies, which I knew were so likely to arise from such intimacies; and the rather, as I hinted, because the lady had no apprehension at all of any: ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... that look. But the wonder was only a passing shadow on his thought. Inwardly his whole being was possessed by thankfulness. All the vivacity had returned to his face. Long before Mrs. Manderson ended her story he had recognized the certainty of its truth, as from the first days of their renewed acquaintance he had doubted the story that his imagination ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... friend!" exclaimed the Senator, with all that vivacity of pantomimic gesture so characteristic of the South, "the reality far exceeds the imagination. She is an angel! Even in our country, famous for its beautiful women, Dona Rosarita is certainly loveliest ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... is fixed for to-morrow, and all the morning has been passed in attendance for our passports.—This affair is not so quickly dispatched as you may imagine. The French are, indeed, said to be a very lively people, but we mistake their volubility for vivacity; for in their public offices, their shops, and in any transaction of business, no people on earth can be more tedious—they are slow, irregular, and loquacious; and a retail English Quaker, with all his formalities, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... more than smile or stare From all the 'squires and 'squiresses around, Who wonder'd at the abstraction of his air, Especially as he had been renown'd For some vivacity among the fair, Even in the country circle's narrow bound (For little things upon my lord's estate Were good small talk for others ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... a fine frosty night, with no wind and the thermometer below zero, the brain works with much vivacity; and the next moment I had seen the circumstance transplanted from India and the tropics to the Adirondack wilderness and the stringent cold of the Canadian border. Here then, almost before I had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the dialogue with its peculiarities, a translation must have been necessary for the benefit of the general reader. The Scottish dialect may be therefore considered as laid aside, unless where the use of peculiar words may add emphasis or vivacity ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... over the delights of golf and unconsciously making a very beautiful picture of herself in her interest and forced vivacity, when she became conscious for the first time of a strange young man who was standing alone before the fireplace looking at her, and frankly listening to all the nonsense she was talking. She guessed that he had been ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... deep, you would soon penetrate him, if they would leave you to yourself. His vanity would be your clue. Never man had more: Yet, as Mrs. Fortescue observed, 'never did man carry it off so happily.' There is a strange mixture in it of humourous vivacity:—Since but for one half of what he says of himself, when he is in the vein, any other ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... herself by the assistance of Reason: And considering the Outrage she receiv'd, not as coming from a great King, but a Man blinded and possest by Don Alvaro, she thought him not worthy of her Resentment; her fair Eyes animated themselves with so shining a vivacity, they answer'd for the purity of her Sentiments; and fixing them steadfastly on the King, 'If the Prince Don Pedro have Weaknesses, (reply'd she, with an Air disdainful) he never communicated 'em to me; and I am certain, I ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... foreigners were both British, the youngest being a young Irishman of a good family, and of the name of Fitzgerald. We had been quite captivated by his constant good humour and vivacity of spirits; he was the life of our little evening encampments, and, as he had travelled on the other side of the Pacific, we would remain till late at night listening to his interesting and beautiful narratives of his ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... antechamber, when all at once a lady's robe passed, rubbing against the doors of a lateral salon which opened upon the gallery. A lady, young, pretty, and gay, scolding an officer of the household, entered by that way, and expressed herself with much vivacity. The officer replied in calm but firm sentences; it was rather a little love pet than a quarrel of courtiers, and was terminated by a kiss on the fingers of the lady. Suddenly, on perceiving Raoul, the lady became silent, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... manner had wholly changed since the close of the inquest; before he had been morose and irritable; now he was all vivacity and good spirits. One of his first acts, after the verdict had been given, was to write the above-mentioned letter, which Miller had secured as before. Having taken a copy of it, Miller had mailed it in ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... one had been interested in the welfare of these men through their vivacity and good{21} nature, and the assistance they had cheerfully rendered in bearing their portion of whatever labour might be going on, their detention formed the subject of all our conversation, and numerous conjectures were hazarded as ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... was a match for any four. Gallic ancestry gave her a vivacity that could easily mount to fury. Her large eyes flashed a scorching denial at her accusers. Her slender, eloquent arms constantly menaced the tableware. Her high, clear soprano voice rose to what would have been a scream had it not possessed so ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... continually in her apartments, preferring her company to that of younger women. Partial to children, she would join in all our sports, and sit down to play "hunt the slipper," with us and our young companions. But with all her vivacity, she was a strictly moral and religious woman. She could be lenient to indiscretion and carelessness, but any deviation from truth and honesty on the part of my brother or myself, was certain to be visited with severe punishment. ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... No, no. I have overlooked your class. But stay—I think I can forward you to a friend. Let me see, what time is it? (Produces watch, and lets it fall.) Dear me! It has stopped, as I live! (With vivacity.) My dear fellow, here is a chance for you. You ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... around Victor Hugo—Alfred de Vigny, Emile Deschamps, Sainte-Beuve, David d'Angers, and others—"studied and felt the real Middle Ages in their architecture, in their chronicles, and in their picturesque vivacity." Nor should we overlook in connection with romanticism Cousin's aesthetic teaching, according to which, God being the source of all beauty as well as of all truth, religion, and morality, "the highest aim of art is to awaken ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... attempted in the shorter form: Mr. Martin uses it as often as he uses the heroic: perhaps Mr. Howes is the only translator since Creech who employs the heroic throughout. Some of my readers may possibly wonder why I in particular, having rendered the AEneid in a measure which, whatever its vivacity, may be thought deficient in dignity, should turn round and repudiate it in a case where vivacity, not dignity, happens to be the point desired. I can only say that it is precisely the colloquial nature of the metre which makes me stand in doubt of it for my present ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... renowned for their gayety. She was one of those hostesses whose vivacity never relaxes, and whose ready answers pass for sparkling wit. According to her own standard, a party was a success or a failure as it was noisy or quiet. Consequently she talked and laughed continuously. Startling colors were her particular weakness, and by the scent of extract of ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... Hannah's favourite; resembled her. The boy, Peter, was blond, like his mother. In Joan was repeated the grandmother's sallow skin, dark eyes, vivacity, force. The two, so far apart in years, were united by a strong natural bond of sympathy and alikeness. When they were together on some errand or excursion they had a fine time. If it ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... have a look at the strangers. Among them were the two daughters of the chief. They were not much darker than Spanish women, and had graceful figures and really beautiful features. Their teeth were brilliantly white; and their eyes full of expression and vivacity, heightened by the colour they had given to their eyelashes and eyebrows by means of a blue stone. Their dress consisted of a woollen robe, which covered them from the shoulders, where it was secured by a silver buckle, and hung ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... The men had all made a stampede for the kitchen; the women sat on chairs and benches against the wall, some of them leaning their heads back wearily, while others fanned themselves and their neighbors with vigor, not relaxing for a moment the somewhat strained vivacity which they felt that the occasion demanded. Bub Quinn's Aggy—no one knew her last name—sat a little apart from the others. She was apparently absorbed in the contemplation of her pocket-handkerchief, a piece of coarse finery, which she held by the ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... sooth, a trifle. Which, however, I will pray mesdames to accept as an excuse for my vivacity. 'Tis these little foolish trifling wounds that fret a man, worthy sir. Why, look ye now, sweeter temper than our Gerard never breathed, yet, when the bear did but strike a piece no bigger than a crown ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... COAT—Smooth variety: Smooth, very dense and not too fine or short. Rough variety: Very dense and wiry. HEIGHT—Not exceeding 16 inches. Pocket Beagles must not exceed 10 inches. GENERAL APPEARANCE—A compactly-built hound, without coarseness, conveying the impression of great stamina and vivacity. ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... rather silent but important-looking gentlemen, morning cigars afire, gradually formed ranks in arm-chairs under the colonnade; people passing and repassing began to greet each other with more vivacity; veranda and foyer became almost animated as the crowd increased. And now a demure bride or two emerged in all the radiance of perfect love and raiment, squired by him, braving the searching sunshine with confidence in her beauty, her plumage, and a kindly planet; and, in pitiful contrast, here ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... evening in the house of one of the richest inhabitants, Don Antonio Padron, where we found assembled at a tertulia all the good company of Trinidad. We were again struck with the gaiety and vivacity that distinguish the women of Cuba. These are happy gifts of nature to which the refinements of European civilization might lend additional charms but which, nevertheless, please in their primitive ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... and groves. You hear their piping in the meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings, the air is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... lump. The dress-uniform of the Ninth was everywhere, the black shakos and epaulettes, white pompons, cross-belts and gloves, and multiplicity of brass buttons, lending the immense assemblage a singular spirit and vivacity. ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... had in my work, I showed him my Cree Indian Testament, in Evans' Syllabic Characters, and explained the invention to him. At once his curiosity was excited, and jumping up he hurried off for pen and paper, and had me write out the whole alphabet for him, and then with that glee and vivacity for which His Lordship was so noted, he constituted me his teacher, and commenced at once to master them. Their simplicity, and yet wonderful adaptation for their designed work became clearly recognized by him, for in a short time he read a portion of the Lord's Prayer. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Dillingham than for the details of his new home. Now he could see them together—the mother of his children, and the woman who had already won his heart away from her. The shapely lady, with her queenly ways, her vivacity, her graceful adaptiveness to persons and circumstances, was sharply contrasted with the matronly figure, homely manners, and unresponsive mind of his wife. He pitied his wife, he pitied himself, he pitied his children, he almost pitied the dumb walls and the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... considered to be about two hundred thousand, of whom fifty thousand are Indians. "Essentially a Frenchman, (says Mr. Hall,) the Canadian is gay, courteous, and contented. If the rigours of the climate have somewhat chilled the overflowing vivacity derived from his parent stock, he has still a sufficient portion of good spirits and loquacity. To strangers and travellers he is invariably civil; and he seems to value their good word beyond their money. He is considered parsimonious, because all his gains arise ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... to jar with any preconceived notion of Giorgionesque sobriety or reserve. Yet here, if anywhere, we get that fuoco Giorgionesco of which Vasari speaks, that intensity of feeling, rendered with a vivacity and power to which the artist could only have attained in his latest days. In this splendid group there is a masculine energy, a fulness of life, and a grandeur of representation which carries le grand style to its furthest limits, and if Giorgione ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... extraordinary range of expression.... She sings, recites, speaks, laughs, and cries (literally), and some of her selections are given in a sort of Irish patois' (oh, my beloved Manx!) 'that comes from her girlish lips with charming vivacity and drollness.' All of which, though it is quite right, and no more than my due, of course, made me sob so long and loud that my good little hippopotamus came upstairs to comfort me, but, finding me ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... influx. Through the exquisite shock of the beautiful he reaps an accession of mental magnetism. Thus through the beautiful we commune the most directly with the divine; and, other things being equal, to the degree that men respond to, are thrilled by, this vivacity of divine presence, as announced by the beautiful, to that degree are they elevated ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... February 14, 1820, Madame (as the Duchess of Berry was called after the Duchess of Angouleme became Dauphiness) was but twenty-five when her father-in-law, Charles X., ascended the throne. She was certainly not pretty, but there was in her something seductive and captivating. The vivacity of her manner, her spontaneous conversation, her ardor, her animation, her youth, gave her charm. Educated at the court of her grandfather, Ferdinand, King of Naples, who carried bonhomie and familiarity to exaggeration, and lived in the company ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Irish vivacity of intelligence under the taciturn gravity of a Spanish lawyer, and backed by the influence of two noble houses, O'Brien had attained to a remarkable reputation of sagacity and unstained honesty. Hand in glove with the clergy, one of the judges of ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... pretensions as a writer." "But," says Mrs. Piozzi, "the features of peculiarity, which mark a character to all succeeding generations, are slow in coming to their growth." That ingenious lady adds, with her usual vivacity, "Can one, on such an occasion, forbear recollecting the predictions of Boileau's father, who said, stroking the head of the young satirist, 'This little man has too much wit, but he will never speak ill of ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... But what do you think his answer was? Why, with his usual Gothic vivacity, he said I only wanted him to throw off his wig, to convert it into a ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... called "the Cove." The first break in the happy family circle was made by the departure of a daughter to another State to engage in teaching. Few letters were written in those days, and the postal service was a slow and small concern. But this absent school-teacher had written with much care and vivacity to the dear circle at home as regularly as the months came around. But now, for long, anxious weeks, no tidings from the absent one had reached that saddened home at the Cove. "Why don't we get a letter from ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... and graceful figure of Chancellor Livingston, and his polished wit and classical taste, contributed not a little to deepen the impression resulting from the ingenuity of his argument, the vivacity of his imagination, and the dignity of his station."—Chancellor Kent's address before The Law Association of New York, October 21, 1836. George Shea, Life of Alexander ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Bourdeaux, had been acquired by his family in consequence of the marriage of his father with the daughter of the first president of that tribunal. From his earliest years young Montesquieu evinced remarkable readiness and vivacity of mind; a circumstance which determined his father to breed him up to the "magistracy," as it was termed in France—a profession midway, as it were, between the career of arms peculiar to the noble, and the labours of the bar confined to persons of plebeian origin, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... found in Haslewood's Preface, which precedes our text of "Thersites." It may be added, that whatever shortcomings may be apparent in these productions from a literary and dramatic point of view, they are by no means devoid of a fair share of shrewd humour and pointed vivacity, and are, moreover, not unimportant contributions, especially when their early date is considered, to the illustration of manners. The low-comic view predominates in most of them, and we meet with occasional ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... another of his personal characteristics, namely, his undying and unalterable faith in his own ideas and conclusions, whether they had achieved recognition or not. He could lay aside a scheme which had not found immediate and successful application, and turn his attention, with undiminished vivacity, to something else; but he never owned to a real defeat. And now the problem presented at Baltimore seemed to him a providential call for his intervention. If the English engineers could not run their locomotives around sharp ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... well matched. She, of course, was the better looking of the two, a really pretty and attractive young woman indeed, but the vivacity of Anscombe's face, the twinkle of his merry blue eyes and its general refinement made up for what he lacked—regularity of feature. I think he had just told her one of his good stories which he always managed to make so humorous by a trick of pleasing and harmless exaggeration, and they were both ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... wisdom and simplicity, so tempering each other, as to make the simplicity refined and the wisdom unaffected—the same gentle magnanimity of spirit, intolerant only of tyranny and injustice—and, in addition to all this, a range and vivacity of conversation, entirely his own, which leaves no subject untouched or unadorned, but is, (to borrow a fancy of Dryden,) "as the Morning of the Mind," bringing new objects and images successively into view, and scattering its own fresh light over all. Such a visit, therefore, could not fail to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... DONA JOSEFA TUDO, enters. She is a young and beautiful woman, the vivacity of whose large dark eyes is now clouded. She is wrapped up for flight. The servant ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... still appalled, respected the silence of its chief; but Fragoso, comprehending scarce half the gravity of the situation, and carried away by his customary vivacity, came ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... of good passages, passages abounding in vivacity, in the colour and play of life.... The pith of the book lies in its singularly fresh and vivid pictures of the humours of the gold-fields,—tragic humours enough they are, too, here ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... their brother came in. The two girls were both over twenty years of age. Hester, the elder, was remarkably handsome, and much resembled her father in voice and manner. Kate was of much smaller build, full of vivacity, and her big, merry brown eyes matched the dimples on her soft, sun-tanned cheeks. Harry, who was Randle's youngest child, was a heavily-built, somewhat sullen-faced youth of eighteen, and the native ...
— "Old Mary" - 1901 • Louis Becke
... This distaste was, however, counterbalanced by the girl's quickness in other respects. By dint of memory, and an excellent ear, she soon had at her finger ends whole passages of Scripture, together with a number of psalms and hymns, from one to the other of which she ran with a vivacity and heedlessness, that often pained her teacher. She was soon the leader of the little choir, and could sing, with wonderful correctness, "Shall we gather at the river?" "I think when I read that sweet story ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... the public will—not even hypothetically to insinuate a fault; not a syllable could he utter even in the way of dissent from the favourite speculations of the moment. If he did, instantly a roar of menaces recalled him to a sense even of personal danger. And, again, the mere vivacity of his audience, requiring perpetual amusement and variety, compelled a man, as great even as Demosthenes, to curtail his arguments, and rarely, indeed, to pursue a theme with the requisite fulness of development or illustration; a point in which the superior dignity ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... to neither and still to both types of the cultured Indian. The solemn, silent, almost heavy manner of the one so commingled with the gesticulating Frenchiness and vivacity of the other, that one unfamiliar with native Canadian life would find it difficult ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... came; and Pedgift Junior, punctual to his time, came with it. His vivacity of the morning had all sparkled out; he greeted Allan with his customary politeness, but without his customary smile; and, when the headwaiter came in for orders, his dismissal was instantly pronounced in words never yet heard to issue from ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... of the French aristocracy in the days of its highest splendour, a finished gentleman, a brave soldier, and a skilful diplomatist. His courteous and insinuating manners, his Parisian vivacity tempered with Castilian gravity, made him the favourite of the whole Court. He became intimate with the grandees. He caressed the clergy. He dazzled the multitude by his magnificent style of living. The prejudices which the people of Madrid had conceived against the French character, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... moment the confidence of Venice revived. The fleet, now superior in strength to the enemy, began to attack them with vivacity. After several months of obstinate resistance, the Genoese—whom their republic had ineffectually attempted to relieve by a fresh armament—blocked up in the town of Chioggia, and pressed by hunger, were obliged to surrender. Nineteen galleys ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... jerked and vibrated oddly. Mrs. Forrester nodded, smiled, acquiesced. She was rather fond of Eleanor. Their talk was for each other. Miss Woodruff, unheeded, but with nothing of the air of one consciously insignificant, sat looking before her. Beside Eleanor's vehemence and Mrs. Forrester's vivacity she made Gregory think of a ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... regulation of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure; and it infinitely abates the evils of vice. Rousseau, a writer of great force and vivacity, is totally destitute of taste in any sense of the word. Your masters, who are his scholars, conceive that all refinement has an aristocratic character. The last age had exhausted all its powers in giving a grace and nobleness to our mutual appetites, and in raising them into a higher class and ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... I meant nothing!" she retorted with sudden vivacity. And she made a face at him, laughing under his nose. "I do that when I mean nothing, Monsieur! Do you see? But you are Gascon, and given, I fear, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... was typical, but in a totally different way. She was a type of that county life which railways have gradually modified, and by this time almost obliterated. She was a woman remarkable for her vivacity, wit, and humor. At county balls she was an institution. At country houses throughout Devonshire and Cornwall she was a familiar and welcome guest, and to half of her hosts and hostesses she was in one way or another related. ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... good humoredly to Jim. The two friends went out into the crisp, clear air. The snow crunched under their feet as they paced along the platform, and the elixir of the atmosphere made every bit of them tingle with its vivacity and life. ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... Often—strong man as he was—would he allow his feelings to overcome him when thinking of the possibilities which he believed life might have had in store for him. The constant mental strain under which he found himself seemed to affect but lightly his keen sense of vivacity. Wearily did he pass some of his time amidst the verdancy of the woods. The sun often rose and set unheeded by the fugitive. When darkness set in he would furtively steal out to a friend's hut, where he would participate in the frugal supper, and afterwards engage in the family worship, which ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... any habitation, makes incessant raids upon poultry. It is tamed without difficulty, and will run to meet its master, and seems to value his caresses; yet, like the squirrel, which it resembles in its vivacity, it will suddenly bite the hand of any one who feeds it. The flesh of this animal ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... this would be turning one's back, as it were, upon the Deity. The elbow may not rest upon the cushion. The head, held erect, but not haughtily, should move upon the atlas gently and suavely, avoiding 'lightness' and undue vivacity. The lips must not smile; but, when occasion calls for it, they may display a saintly joy. The eyebrows must not be raised too high towards the hair-roots; nor should one be elevated while the other is depressed. The voice should be at times tremolando, and the tone periodically ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... This miserable degradation of man affords ample subject for reflection; but it is excessively painful to see the human countenance thus become an object of horror and repugnance. I remarked, however, in several of these poor creatures, a degree of vivacity bordering on astonishment, produced on them by external objects. As they never recognize what they have already seen, they feel each time fresh surprize, and the spectacle of the world, with all its details, is thus for ever new to them; it is, perhaps, the compensation for their sad state, for certainly ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... looked at her daughter. All the girl's face had lacked of vivacity and happy expression it wore now, making ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... Tao priest to consult the gods." Gerrit heard this with a frowning countenance. If Nettie were not there he would put Dunsack forward with the hypothetical crew to which he belonged. He felt as sorry for Nettie, he discovered, as ever. It moved him to see her vivacity of life, her appealingly warm color, slowly dulled by Salem and the adventitious circumstance of her birth. What a dreary existence she led in the harsh atmosphere of her grandfather and the solemn house on Hardy Street! At one time he had fancied that he might change it... when now here was Taou ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... privilege of personal acquaintance with famous writers and artists whom I can now recall as I saw them, talked with them, heard them, in that pleasant library, that most lively and agreeable dining-room. How could it be otherwise, with such guests as he entertained, and with his own unflagging vivacity and his admirable social gifts? Let me live ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... long they held it, how soon they were dispossessed, how and at what intervals and with what uncertain footing they returned. We do not accept them because they were popular in their day, and we do not reject them because they are not suitable to ours. They have lost no vivacity or strength or grace by their exclusion from the stage and their exile to literature—to that permanent theatre for which the poet, freely using any and every form of dramatic ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... debut as Beatrice, in Shakespeare's glorious comedy, "Much Ado About Nothing,"—a character well calculated to display her arch vivacity and charming sprightliness. I saw her rehearse the part, and was satisfied that she must achieve a brilliant triumph,—an opinion that was fully concurred in by her gratified instructor, and also by the manager and several of the leading ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... truth, it must be owned that if she had not had bestowed upon her by nature gifts of beauty and vivacity so extraordinary, and had been cursed with a thousandth part of the vixenishness she displayed every day of her life, he would have broken every bone in her carcass without a scruple or a qualm. But her beauty seemed but to grow with every hour that passed, and it was by exceeding ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of the guests suspected it. Shelby was diverted by Mrs. Van Dam's unimagined vivacity; while his wife had no immediate room for any impression save satisfaction that this autocrat, who held that punctuality should be the politeness of democracy no less than princes, had been caught napping. It was clear that she meant to bury the hatchet, and Cora, with ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... excessive vivacity was that, when he wanted any thing done, he expected the person nearest to him should not only instantly obey, but conceive what he meant from the pointing of his finger, the turn of his head, or ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... no more than that, perhaps twenty at the most—possessed, in addition to the allurements of face and shape that went very near perfection, a sparkling vivacity and a grace of movement the like of which Andre-Louis did not remember ever before to have beheld assembled in one person. And her voice too—that musical, silvery voice that had awakened him—possessed in its exquisite modulations an allurement ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... Lady Froth, 'a great coquet, pretender to poetry, wit, and learning,' and one would almost as lief have seen Mrs. Mountfort in the part as the Bracegirdle's Millamant. Her serious folly and foolish wisdom, her poem and malice and compliments and babbling vivacity—set off, it is fair to remember, by a pretty face—are atonement for a dozen Maskwells. She is a female Witwoud, her author's first success in a sort of character he draws to perfection. The scene between Mellefont and Lady Plyant, where she insists ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... from his friend with the same light-hearted vivacity as he had manifested in all their intercourse. Le Bourdon gave him his own rifle, plenty of ammunition, and various other small articles that were of value to an Indian, accepting the Chippewa's arms in return. The exchange, however, was greatly to the advantage of the savage. As for Peter, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... of our journey; then some point between Boonesboro' and Frederick; then Frederick, where we should find railroad transportation direct for Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. This was a pretty fancy, and we discussed it with great vivacity. It beguiled the march and helped us amazingly over the abominable roads and through the more abominable rain. There was but little singing, however, "Homeward Bound" being as yet far from fait accompli. ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... of questions on his own account to learn what had become of the regiment. As Jean went on to tell that the colonel had been seen crossing the city to reach his camp at the head of what few men were left him, Gilberte again thoughtlessly spoke up, with the vivacity of a woman whose beauty is supposed to ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... his faculties unimpaired, and his memory stored with the recollections of his extraordinary and eventful career, and an inexhaustible mine of anecdotes, his delight was to narrate, which he used to do with an abundance, a vivacity, and a finesse peculiar to himself, and to the highest degree interesting and attractive. No name was once held in greater detestation in England than that of Talleyrand. He was looked upon universally as a sink of moral and political profligacy. Born at the end ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Her face was of that plumpness to give it charm, delicate in contour, rich with the freshness of the bloom of youth. Her carriage betrayed breeding and dignity. And all was sweetened by a magnetism and vivacity that charmed all who came within her influence. Still her attitude was the more ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... had few equals as an agreeable letter-writer. The author was in official correspondence with him through his whole missionary life, and never ceased admiring his vivacity, humor, and felicity of expression, the aptness of his thoughts, and his very appropriate quotations of Scripture. He had the power, beyond most men, of passing at once and by an easy transition, from the merriest laughter to the most serious topics. His ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... affected. Davies, who is not a scribbler, has always beaten us all in the war of words, and by his colloquial powers at once delighted and kept us in order. H. and myself always had the worst of it with the other two; and even M. yielded to the dashing vivacity of S.D. But I am talking to you of men, or boys, as if ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... led him home to his lodgings over the river, and installed themselves as they could, all smoking and talking at once, while he opened his boxes and disposed some of his belongings in their places. They told him all the news, with the vivacity of men who have twenty- four hours the start of a friend. The Rhine Korps had increased its numbers considerably and seemed already inclined to show its teeth to the Westphalia Korps. The Saxon Korps had lost ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... they exercise their wits, according to their intelligence, their vivacity, their resources, and their boldness, in the struggle with the terrible discomfort. Each one seems to make the revealing declaration, "This is all that I knew, all I was able, all that I dared to do in the great misery which has ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... eyes of the softest blue; and her hair luxuriant, and of the finest texture and richest brown. Her other beauties must be left to the imagination; but it ought not to be omitted that she was barely eighteen, and had all the freshness, the innocence, and vivacity of that most charming period of woman's existence. No wonder she ravished every heart. No wonder, in an age when love-making was more general even than now, that she was beset by admirers. No wonder her father's ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... years old. I was happy, satisfied with everything, as one is at that age, full of joy and vivacity. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... actor, was the author of several vivacious Irish tales, including The Wild Irish Girl (1806), O'Donnel (1814), and The O'Briens and the O'Flaherties (1827); also two books on society in France and in Italy characterised by "more vivacity and point than delicacy," and ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... ruined in its taste for pleasure. No; her whole character seemed to change with a change of fortune. Her sorrows, the depression of her spirits, were forgotten, and she assumed all the simplicity and the vivacity of a youthful mind. She was like a serpent upon a rock, that casts its slough, and appears again with the brilliancy, the sleekness, and the elastic activity of its happiest age. She was playful, full of confidence, kindness and sympathy. ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... particularly on the extraordinary force and beauty of the word, '[Greek: episkeptontas].'" I, also, have often heard him quote long passages from the Greek dramatists, particularly from "Aristophanes," really impromptu, and with as much facility and vivacity as if he had been reading English. I have already intimated that he read many of the new publications of the day. One of these was Mr. Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome," with which he was much amused, saying that "some of them were very clever and spirited;" and, after reading ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... pleasure in reading of them in natural history books! The living bird, viewed closely and fearless of our presence, is so much more to the mind than all that is written—so infinitely more engaging in its spontaneous gladness, its brilliant vivacity, and its motions so swift and true and yet so graceful! Even leaving out the melody, what a charm it would add to our homes if birds were permitted to take the part there for which Nature designed them—if they were the "winged wardens" of ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... seized eagerly, and immediately divided amidst the Spectators. Whoever became possessor of a Bead, preserved it as a sacred relique; and had it been the Chaplet of thrice-blessed St. Francis himself, it could not have been disputed with greater vivacity. The Abbot, smiling at their eagerness, pronounced his benediction, and quitted the Church, while humility dwelt upon every feature. Dwelt She also ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... volition—arrest the former, and obey the latter. This will place him on the safe side of practice. We always know where to look for the real Scientist, and always find him there. I agree [10] with Rev. Dr. Talmage, that "there are wit, humor, and enduring vivacity among God's people." ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... that, as they rode together through some of the prettiest roads in the most beautiful part of Normandy, M. de Talbrun began to talk, with an ever-increasing vivacity, of the days when they first met, at Treport, relating a thousand little incidents which Jacqueline had forgotten, and from which it was easy to see that he had watched her narrowly, though he was ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... sort of painting; and, in truth, some that are to be seen by his hand are marvellous—among others, that of a German of the Fugger family, a man of rank and importance, who was then living in the Fondaco de' Tedeschi at Venice, was painted with great vivacity. ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... information and amusement from the present volume. The work itself will have a standard place in all Collections of Voyages and Travels; a place which it will fully merit, by the industry and ardour of research conspicuous throughout, as well as by the spirit vivacity and good sense of the general narrative."—Quarterly ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... en England und Portugal. Hamb. 1802. 8vo.—This work, by Mad. Barnard, is written with that peculiar charm and vivacity of style, which it would seem females only can attain. There are in it curious notices of Berlin, Hanover, and Cuxhaven, besides those ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... eldest son of Alfred, was a noble, dark-eyed, princely boy, full of vivacity and spirit; and, from the first moment of introduction, seemed to be perfectly fascinated by the spirituelle graces of ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... encouraging. The reason why it is worth your while to get the best possible education you can, to continue it as long as you can, to make the very most of it by using all your intelligence and industry and vivacity, and by resolving to enjoy every detail of it, and indeed of all your school life, is that it will make you—you yourself—so much more of a person. More—as being more pleasant to others, more useful to others, in an ever-widening sphere of influence, ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson
... honest man's paternal breast, as he saw the frank picture of a Prodigal Son rolled out before him; and had to gaze into the most revolting deeps of the passions and vices. Yet he felt himself irresistibly dragged along by the uncommon vivacity of action in this wild Drama; and at the same time powerfully attracted by the depth, the tenderness and fulness of true feeling manifested in it: so that, at last, out of those contradictory emotions of his, a clear admiration and pride for his Son's bold and rich spirit ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... I know not, and am in no condition to guess. A certain snappish vivacity (very unlike the style of Frederick whom it personates); a wearisome grimacing, gesticulating malice and smartness, approaching or reaching the sad dignity of what is called 'wit' in modern times; in general the rottenness of matter, and ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... spoke, Rose entered the chapel with the same vivacity she had shown in leaving it, leading by the hand her father, whose sluggish though firm step, vacant countenance, and heavy demeanour, formed the strongest contrast to the rapidity of her motions, and the anxious ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the assistance of Reason: And considering the Outrage she receiv'd, not as coming from a great King, but a Man blinded and possest by Don Alvaro, she thought him not worthy of her Resentment; her fair Eyes animated themselves with so shining a vivacity, they answer'd for the purity of her Sentiments; and fixing them steadfastly on the King, 'If the Prince Don Pedro have Weaknesses, (reply'd she, with an Air disdainful) he never communicated 'em to me; and I am certain, I never contributed ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... that others feel no interest in the children who to your eyes seem so perfect, and have no inclination to act as inquisitors over their little talents and accomplishments. Spare your friends the thousand-and-one anecdotes of the extraordinary cleverness, vivacity, or piety of the little people you love so blindly: do not excoriate their ears by making them listen to recitations or the strumming of sonatos; or weary their eyes by requesting them to watch the leaping and kicking of small stick-like legs.' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... biography, was born on the 2d of November, 1755. Few of the inhabitants of this world have commenced life under circumstances of greater splendor, or with more brilliant prospects of a life replete with happiness. She was a child of great vivacity and beauty, full of light-heartedness, and ever prone to look upon the sunny side of every prospect. Her disposition was frank, cordial, and affectionate. Her mental endowments were by nature of a very superior order. Laughing ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... was tiny and dried-up: a mummy with the face of a grey-hound, her skin close to her bones, her lips painted, little penetrating blue eyes, and great vivacity in her movements. She dressed in a showy manner; wore jewels on her bosom, on her head, on ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... it will be exposed to, and bewildered in, uncertainty.—From an enthusiastic warmth of temper, indeed, we may for a while be encouraged to persist in some favourite doctrine, or to adhere to some adopted system; but when that enthusiasm, which is founded on the vivacity of the passions, gradually cools and dies away with them, the opinions it supported drop from us, and we are thrown upon the inhospitable shore of doubt.—A striking proof of the necessity of some moral rule of wisdom and virtue, and some system of happiness established by unerring ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... to watch for their steps as they took their morning walks together that bright first year of their married life! They seemed to have the life and vivacity of children. She always accompanied him in his walks, in his visits to the poor, in relief to the sick, by the bedside of the dying; she was like his shadow, and always haunted him for good. It might be said ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... She wore a red silk gown with a good many frills about the shoulders. She was very slight, and affected frills to conceal it. Out of this mass of red frills arose her little, alert head and face, homely, but full of vivacity. Maria thought her very nice. She would have liked her better for a mother than Ida. When Miss Zella Holmes smiled it ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in all, since 1884). "Your games always delight me, as they seem in my humble judgment specimens of chess skill remarkable for originality and vivacity."—12th ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... more than sixty years it has measured out in this beautiful Irish home the hours of a life given to good works and gracious usefulness. To-day, with all the vivacity of interest in the people and the place which one might look for in a woman of twenty, this charming old lady of eighty-three, showing barely threescore years in her carriage, her countenance, and her voice, entertained us with minute and most interesting accounts ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... time I received by post a set of verses which bear quite a resemblance to the senile vivacity of the verses which the real Gladstone addressed to my illustrious example of autobiographical art. The verses I received were anonymous, and as a matter of fact the postmark on the envelope was Beaconsfield. Still, ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... refreshing air of novelty, and the people that figure in it are depicted with a vivacity and subtlety that are very ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... as they were journalistically written in Paris, London, Switzerland, and the Forest of Fontainebleau. In particular I have left the critical judgments alone, for the good reason that I stand by nearly all of them, though perhaps with a less challenging vivacity, to ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... brilliant on the side of his companion. The playhouse, the opera, with every occurrence in high life, he seemed perfectly master of; and talked of some reigning beauties of quality in a manner the most feeling in the world. Harley admired the happiness of his vivacity, and, opposite as it was to the reserve of his own nature, began to be much ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... in all the gymnastic exercises suitable to his age, whereas absolute repose was prescribed for him. Dr. Glennie says, however, that, once back in the study-room, Byron's docility was equal to his vivacity. He had been instructed according to the mode of teaching adopted at Aberdeen, and had to retrace his steps, owing to the difference of ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... And what courage, what vivacity she threw into the business! Delaine, who had seen her till now as a person whose natural reserve was rather displayed than concealed by her light agreeable manner, who had often indeed had cause to wonder where and what might be the real woman, followed her from ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... OF WINES.—The inhabitants of a beer-drinking or spirit-drinking country will never possess the vivacity of wit and the light-heartedness of those who live in a wine-producing land. It is not by any means the alcohol in itself which constitutes the worth and goodness of wine, for beer may contain as much, and spirits ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... America contain some good clear-headed articles; but I sought in vain for the playful vivacity and the keenly-cutting satire, whose sharp edge, however painful to the patient, is of such high utility in lopping off the excrescences of bad taste, and levelling to its native clay the heavy growth of dulness. Still less could ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... to introduce me to a society of those geniuses; but I found them exceedingly formal and reserved — They seemed afraid and jealous of one another, and sat in a state of mutual repulsion, like so many particles of vapour, each surrounded by its own electrified atmosphere. Dick, who has more vivacity than judgment, tried more than once to enliven the conversation; sometimes making an effort at wit, sometimes letting off a pun, and sometimes discharging a conundrum; nay, at length he started a dispute upon the hackneyed comparison betwixt blank verse ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... made me wiser or better I dare not say, but it shows by its progress that I am capable of keeping a resolution. Perhaps I should not congratulate myself on this; perhaps it only serves to show I am more a man of method and less a man of originality, and have no longer that vivacity of fancy that is inconsistent with regular labour. Still, should this be the case, I should, having lost the one, be happy to find myself ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... this point the poor boy had held on with his wonted vivacity, but he stopped suddenly. The corners of his mouth began to twitch, and, laying his head on his mother's ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... hanging on their rear, and seeking only an opportunity to make a sudden descent upon them, many of the Huguenots were disposed to take advantage of the proximity of the German cities to disperse and find a refuge there. But Conde, with his never-failing vivacity and cheerfulness, and Coligny, with his "grave words," succeeded in checking their despondency until the welcome news of John Casimir's approach was announced. He brought six thousand five hundred horse, three thousand foot, and four cannon of moderate ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... judicious eye with a strong resemblance of Paul Veronese: he has all the vivacity and ease of that great painter, and fully equals him in his fancy for the singular and the shining in his draperies; but, as he shares his beauties, he is not without his faults. His composition is sometimes improper, and his design always incorrect; but with these blemishes, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... together—whirling hither and thither in express trains, for the purpose of making one exciting public appearance after another, each of them a little world of animated impersonations—he accomplished with such unfailing and unflagging vivacity, with such an easy step, such an alert carriage, with such an animated voice and glittering eye, that for a long while at least we were under the illusion. Hurrying about England, Ireland, and Scotland as ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... fine as the Abdulsamat, but a quiet, peaceful boat, without any pretensions; and really any "old tub" is safe on the Straits of Malacca except in a "Sumatran." I stayed on deck for some time enjoying the exquisite loveliness of the night, and the vivacity of two of my companions, Mr. Maxwell, the Assistant Resident here, a really able and most energetic man, very argumentative, bright, and pleasant; and Captain Walker, A.D.C. to Sir W. Robinson, on his way from the ceaseless ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... 'pon honour! A little girl with the vivacity of sixteen and brown eyes, brown hair—in fact, ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... to wonder or fancy; they sat down, and P. engaged in conversation, without much vivacity, but with his usual ease. The first quarter of an hour passed well enough. But soon it was observable that Mrs. P. was drinking glass after glass of wine, to an extent few gentlemen did, even then, and soon that she was actually excited by it. Before this, her manner ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... acquired serenity, Delsarte did not always refuse to satisfy his native impulses. I have already alluded to cases in which these returns to impetuous vivacity occurred, and how he rose above these relapses. Whether his peaceful spirit arose from religious feeling, or whether it was the result of moral strength, it breathed the spirit of the gospel; but it must also be confessed that our artist mingled with it much ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... advice: notwithstanding my vivacity, I can assume upon occasion a very majestic air; and indeed, I overheard some one saying at the ball, 'Who is that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Sarah murmured vaguely. This was the only reference to the estrangement. She went on with more vivacity. "And then Mr. Cannon has always had ideas about boarding-houses and furnished rooms and so on. He always did say there was lots of money to be made out of them if only they were managed properly; only they never are.... He ought to know; he's been a bachelor long enough, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... unlucky days for doing them. It contains doctrines and precepts relative to agriculture, navigation, civil and family life. Hesiod was the first of a Boeotian school of poets. He lacks the poetic genius of Homer, and the vivacity and cheerfulness which pervade ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... young stranger who had ventured into his dominions. When the old gentleman had sufficiently impressed on everybody that he had observed all necessary precaution in studying the character and inquiring into the antecedents of Lavender, he could not help confessing to a sense of lightness and vivacity that the young man seemed to bring with him and shed around him. Nor was this matter of the sketches the only thing that had particularly recommended Lavender to the old man. Mackenzie had a most distinct dislike ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... living and the dead. Naturally taciturn, unjoyful, and ever oppressed by that brooding consciousness of guilt hanging like a cloud over her memory, formless, vague, but never lifting, Fina's changeful temper and tumultuous vivacity were intensely wearisome to her. Nevertheless, she was forbearing if not loving, and the people said rightly when ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... to amuse her. Of course, she was not intellectual, since she read but few books and received only the rudiments of education; but she was as learned as her brothers, and quicker in her wits. She had the vivacity which a healthy life secures. Nor was she beautiful, according to our standard. She was a ruddy, cheerful, active, healthy woman, accustomed to exercise in the open air,—to field-sports and horseback journeys. Still less was she what we call fashionable, for the word was not known; nor was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... her most recent release, as the diaphragm opened on her receiving a box of chocolates, sent by her lover, and playfully feeding one of them to her beautiful collie, "Laddie," as he romped about upon a divan and almost smothered her with affection. The vivacity and charm of the scene were in sad contrast with what ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... outlooks for more. "The Husband, young and dissolute (SANS MOEURS), given up to a crapulous life, from which his relatives could not correct him, was continually committing infidelities to his Wife. The Princess, who was in the flower of her beauty, felt outraged by such neglect of her charms; her vivacity, and the good opinion she had of herself, brought her upon the thought of avenging her wrongs by retaliation. Speedily she gave in to excesses, scarcely inferior to those of her Husband. Family quarrels broke out, and were soon publicly known. The antipathy that ensued took away all hope ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... happened to come to a halt close to him. "Shockin' time they're playing this waltz in," he heard the soldier exclaim with humorous vivacity (he was apparently the funny man of the regiment, and had brought a silent but appreciative comrade with him as ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... is here given only to poetical works which have lived beyond their cradles and have taken rank amongst the treasures of the national literature. Thanks to sociability of manners, vivacity of intellect, and fickleness of taste, light and ephemeral poesy has obtained more success and occupied more space in France than in any other country; but there are successes which give no title to enter into a people's history; quality and endurance of renown are even more requisite in literature ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... all very well; but I don't call that keeping his promise to me, to come rushing into the place just as we are beginning to dance; after travelling all night perhaps, and knocking himself up in all sorts of ways, and with no more animation or vivacity left in him than a man who is walking in his sleep. Besides, he ought ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... most lifelike fashion. One almost catches the winged syllogisms as they fly from lip to lip. We are almost drawn into the dispute ourselves, and are disposed to ventilate a score of outrageous paradoxes, for the mere satisfaction of contradicting such wiseacres. These heads are painted with a vivacity and an energy worthy of the Dutch great masters of the seventeenth century. In fact, there is something caught, no doubt, from the early schools of Flanders; for Dominic was the contemporary of the glorious masters protected by Philip the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... thread of black metal which she passed through the holes of a draw-plate fixed to the vise. Seated in front of the bench, Lorilleux, quite as small of stature, but more slender in the shoulders, worked with the tips of his pliers, with the vivacity of a monkey, at a labor so minute, that it was impossible to follow it between his scraggy fingers. It was the husband who first raised his head—a head with scanty locks, the face of the yellow tinge of old wax, long, and ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... courts of the first and second Georges. Selwyn, however, probably inherited his wit and his enjoyment of society from his mother, who was Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte. Horace Walpole writes of her as "Mrs. Selwyn, mother of the famous George, and herself of much vivacity, and pretty." ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... to be a palace where a thousand children and their teachers lived with extreme vivacity in an atmosphere of ozone from which all draughts and chilliness had been eliminated. As a malcontent native of the Isle of Chilly Draughts, this attribute of the atmosphere of the Horace Mann School impressed me. Dimensionally I found ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... speak, perhaps," said Margaret, the natural vivacity of whose temper could never be long suppressed by any situation, however disadvantageous, "but I cannot be silent. Godfather, you do me wrong— and no less wrong to this young nobleman. You say his words want a warrant. I know where ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... much shaking of hands mingled with "God bless you's" and other good wishes to the four couples, at the churchyard gate, Mr. Poyser answering for the rest with unwonted vivacity of tongue, for he had all the appropriate wedding-day jokes at his command. And the women, he observed, could never do anything but put finger in eye at a wedding. Even Mrs. Poyser could not trust herself to speak as the neighbours shook hands with her, and Lisbeth began ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... girl had flirted with him outrageously. He turned up his ugly nose especially at 'blue stockings'; said all literary women were 'hopeless pedants and slatterns,' and quoted that abominable Horace Walpole's account of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's 'dirt and vivacity.' I really thought Gordon would throw him overboard. I wonder what he would say if he could see you darning Uncle Allan's socks. Oh, Edna, dearie! I am sorry to ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... published, Professor Tyndall has presented a noble illustration of the acuteness and subtlety of his intellectual powers, the scope and insight of his scientific vision, his singular command of the appropriate language of exposition, and the peculiar vivacity and grace with which he unfolds the results of intricate ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... are constantly in it, and are ever ready to show the curiosities to strangers and to give them every necessary information. Mr. Peale has now passed his eightieth year, and appears to possess the vivacity and, I may almost add, ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... was carried out with incomparable brilliancy of method, and vivacity of style. Defoe was thoroughly master of his subject; he had read every history that he could lay his hands on, and his connexion with King William had guided him to the mainsprings of political action, and fixed ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... extremely glad to see you." And she shook hands with each of her visitors. Her visitors were a little shy, but they had very good manners; they responded with smiles and exclamations, and they apologized for not knowing the front door. The lady rejoined, with vivacity, that when she wanted to see people very much she did not insist upon those distinctions, and that Mr. Westgate had written to her of his English friends in terms that made her really anxious. "He said you were so ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... English actor, "of great glee and much comic vivacity," was the original Clincher in Farquhar's Constant Couple (1699), Boniface in The Beaux' Stratagem (1707), and Sir Francis Courtall in Pavener's Artful Wife (1717). He played at all the London theatres of his time, and in the summer at a booth at Bartholomew Fair. He had three sons, all actors, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... inclination, but with the regular drudgery of a craftsman. In spite of all discouragements, he appeared to a visitor in his family, still considered the most devoted in the island to the French monarchy because so favored by it, as being "full of vivacity, quick in his speech and motions, his mind apparently hard at work in digesting schemes and forming plans and proudly rejecting every other suggestion but that of his own fancy. For this intolerable ambition he was often reproved by the elder ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Master's hat whirled in the air and fell some yards away. The sentry thinking it remarkable the sleeper should not awaken, thereupon drew near; and the next moment, with a great shout, informed the camp their prisoner was escaped. He had left behind his Indian, who (in the first vivacity of the surprise) came near to pay the forfeit of his life, and was, in fact, inhumanly mishandled; but Secundra, in the midst of threats and cruelties, stuck to it with extraordinary loyalty, that he was quite ignorant of his master's plans, which might indeed be true, and of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... else to escape them, nor where else to betake themselves for protection, many of them leaped overboard and swam to the VICTORY; and were actually helped up her sides by the English during the action. The Spaniards began the battle with less vivacity than their unworthy allies, but they continued it with greater firmness. The ARGONAUTA and BAHAMA were defended till they had each lost about four hundred men; the SAN JUAN NEPOMUCENO lost three hundred and fifty. Often as the superiority of British courage has been proved against ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... the company he was now associated with, gave Horatio a manly way of thinking much sooner than otherwise perhaps he might have had, yet did not rob him of his vivacity: some of the queen's women, and the young ladies about the princess, particularly mademoiselle Charlotta, had a thousand sprightly entertainments among themselves, into which he, the baron de la Valiere, ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... who steps from her carpets to her coupe without the vulgar contact of the streets. Her head was small, which always lends height to a woman. Her pretty face had all the bloom of fresh fruit. Smiling and gay, additional vivacity was imparted by large, clear eyes and brilliant teeth, which were to be seen even when her face was in repose. The mobility of her countenance was extraordinary. Either this, or the lips half parted as if about to speak, or the narrow brow,—something there was, at all events, ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... sex was uplifted and purified by the vote, and he naturally depicted them with the man-engendered vices that were then a part of their unhappy heritage. This "NeugierdeMotiv" (Curiosity Motive) is made up of agitated, sharply accentuated sixteenth notes played with incredible vivacity and culminating in a terrifying orchestral crash where entrance is made into the hidden chamber, with its famous tableau so eloquent of the polygamous instinct of man; an instinct only kept in subjection by the most stringent laws and ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Barlow, while he had with the greatest care preserved him from all false impressions had taken great pains in cultivating the faculties of his mind. Harry, indeed, never said any of those brilliant things which render a boy the darling of the ladies; he had not that vivacity, or rather impertinence, which frequently passes for wit with superficial people; but he paid the greatest attention to what was said to him, and made the most judicious observations upon subjects he understood. For this reason, Miss Simmons, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... broke in, in her turn, with vivacity speaking "Son, you are certainly right. We parents set the example. 'Twas not in time of pleasure that we made choice of each other, And 'twas the saddest of hours, that knitted us closely together. Monday morning,—how well I remember! ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... lectures and conversation of Millar. Jeffrey used to say that the most bracing exercises a student in Glasgow underwent in those days were the supper disputations at Professor Millar's house, and that, able and learned as his works are, "they revealed nothing of that magical vivacity which made his conversation and his lectures still more full of delight than of instruction." Though he always refused to accept Smith's doctrine of free trade, Millar was the most effective and influential apostle of Liberalism in Scotland in that age, and Jeffrey's father could never forgive ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... Wells thought chiefly of the brightening in her child's manner, and the alert vivacity of eye and voice such as she had not seen in her since she had lost her mother; but be that as it might, her words were the very sanction so much longed for, and ere long Honora had her writing-case before her, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... space of five years; during which his attention to the interests of the settlement was most unremitted; his humanity and condescension rendered him inestimably dear to every bosom, which confessed the influence of grateful feelings; and his cheerful vivacity and private worth caused him to stand highly in the estimation of those who were honoured by a participation in his hours of recreative enjoyment. The necessary consequence of his abstracted devotion to the service of the settlement, for a long period, was the obtainment of a ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... week with his friends. Alice had grown up into a charming young woman, full of life and vivacity, and even prettier than she had promised to be as a girl. They went about together to all the sights of London, for Mr. Palethorpe said that he didn't care about going, and young people were best left to themselves. When the time came for parting, Will for the first time experienced a feeling of ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... book range from the charm of Sterne to the vivacity of Lady Dorothy Nevill, from a eulogy of Poe to a discussion of Disraeli as a novelist. The variety, the scholarship, the portraiture of the book make it a pleasure to read; and, even when Mr. Gosse flatters in his portraits, his sense of truth impels ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... evening when Seagreave came down, Pearl was not resting after her exertions, but ran forward to greet him with unwonted vivacity, and drew him toward a window in a dim corner of the room, out of earshot of ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Milton's expression, 'by his heavenly overpowered,' pours itself in adoration; whilst, in the inimitable cast of Adam's figure, we trace the hint of that half-conscious moment, when sleep began to give way to the vivacity of the dream inspired. In Raffaelle, creation is complete—Eve is presented to Adam, now awake; but neither the new-born charms, the submissive grace, and virgin purity, of the beauteous image; nor the awful presence of her Introductor, draw him from his mental trance, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... of such a restless Vivacity, that he could not be contented without Intrigues, which made him eagerly apply himself to forming another. Having found out the fortunate Prisoner, he put the Purse into his Hands with these Words. "Virtue, my Lord, is ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... had just completed her eighteenth year, and was gifted by nature with a vivacity and ardency of feeling that gave a heightened zest to the enjoyments of that happy age. She was artless but intelligent; cheerful, with a deep conviction of the necessity of piety; and uniform in her practice of all the ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... before, we had learnt from her singing to admire beyond all the fashionable trash of the day, were gratified with untiring good-nature. Somehow I thought that she avoided my eye, and answered my remarks with less than her usual archness and vivacity. I could bear it on this evening less than ever; a hair will turn the scale, and I had just been, half ludicrously, half seriously, affected by Welsh nationality. One cannot help warming towards a community which are so warm-hearted among themselves. Visions ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... incidents consisted in her various devices to foil the pursuit of the Baron and save her father. Some of these incidents were indebted to the Comic Muse, and kept the audience in a broad laugh. Her arch playfulness here was exquisite. With what vivacity she duped the High Sheriff, who had the commands of his king to take the Bandit alive or dead, into the belief that the very Lawyer employed by the Baron was the criminal in disguise, and what pearly teeth she showed when the Lawyer was seized and gagged! how dexterously ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... geography, history, and science, the articles are all within readable limits, accurate, and up to the times; while in the biographical and literary articles there is a freshness and originality of criticism, and a vivacity of style, seldom met with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... of this speech, "that he can sit there, and sit, and sit, and sit, when he knows at this hour I am always somewhere about the house or grounds, and never in my room? Well, if he likes to sit there, let him sit"; and with this she looked up with some vivacity into the face of her landlord and asked him if even his pigeons and his chickens were blooded, and if the pigs were also of good descent. As she spoke she slightly accelerated ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
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