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Briskness   Listen
noun
Briskness  n.  Liveliness; vigor in action; quickness; gayety; vivacity; effervescence.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Briskness" Quotes from Famous Books



... pushed resolutely on, pausing only to care for the tired animal. At length the road entered a deep wood and she gave a sigh of relief as the grateful shade of the trees enveloped her. The horse too seemed to revive somewhat and went forward with more briskness. ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... and then with great briskness, "Beastly grind, all the same." The Judge had a fit of coughing, and Urquhart got up and looked about. Then the Judge said that he too should catch it if he didn't go back ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... the Expedition would go to him at once. He departed, and in two minutes had disappeared among the trees. I payed out the rope myself, while everybody watched the crawling thing with eager eyes. The rope crept away quite slowly, at times, at other times with some briskness. Twice or thrice we seemed to get the signal, and a shout was just ready to break from the men's lips when they perceived it was a false alarm. But at last, when over half a mile of rope had slidden away, it stopped gliding and stood absolutely still—one minute—two ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... verb, and that he said it worse on the seventh repetition than on the first. After an evening, when Gillian had gone to a musical party with Aunt Ada, and Fergus did his lessons under Aunt Jane's superintendence, he utterly cast off his sister's aid. There was something in Miss Mohun's briskness that he found inspiring, and she put in apt words or illustrations, instead of only rousing herself from a book to listen, prompt, and sigh. He found that he did his tasks more thoroughly in half the time, and rose in his class; and busy as his aunt was, she made the time not only ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of domestic life, he was an affectionate man. The briskness of the last campaign, and the number of his friends who dropped off in the course of it, strongly warned him that if he would once again see his daughter, now attaining womanhood, it would be well to lose no time ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... "Aha! it's time, is it?" to his man in a hearty kind of way, and hoisted himself out of his chair with unusual briskness. ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... And whence reaps it this happiness? Whence indeed, but from me only, by whose procurement it is furnished with little of wisdom, and so with the less of disquiet? And when once lads begin to grow up, and attempt to write man, their prettiness does then soon decay, their briskness flags, their humours stagnate, their jollity ceases, and their blood grows cold; and the farther they proceed in years, the more they grow backward in the enjoyment of themselves, till waspish old age comes on, a burden to itself as well as others, and that so heavy and oppressive, as none ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... the consulate, there entered a tall, active man, very well dressed, with black, thick-curling hair and keen, blue eyes. He seemed under thirty years of age, but had the self-confident manner of a man of the world, and a great briskness of demeanor and speech. He sat down and began to tell of his experiences; he had been all over the world, and knew everything about the world's affairs, even the secrets of courts and the coming movements of international ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... with equal briskness: "I've an important fact. Just had Markes on secret wave-length. He tells me that Spawn has been saving up his quicksilver for six months past. He's got several hundred thousand dollar-standards' worth of it in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... I would carry it myself, and, taking it out of the boat, shouldered it and walked up alongside Jerry, who stumped along with much less briskness than formerly; indeed I saw that he was greatly aged since we last met. On reaching home, after Susan had welcomed him, he caught her ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston

... me about the whole scene was its extraordinary animation and briskness. All the folk round the fires and outside of them moved about quickly and with the same kind of liveliness which might animate a camp of more natural people at the rising of the sun. It was as though they had just got up ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... With military snap and briskness the battalion was formed. Then at brisk command, the battalion turned to the left in column of fours, marching down the hot, sun-blazed ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock

... N. activity; briskness, liveliness &c. adj.; animation, life, vivacity, spirit, dash, energy; snap, vim. nimbleness, agility; smartness, quickness &c. adj.; velocity, &c. 274; alacrity, promptitude; despatch, dispatch; expedition; haste &c. 684; punctuality &c. (early) 132. eagerness, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... flower-patches, spreading away to the hills that swell afar until the peaks of the Atlas, cool with everlasting snow, close the view. One is tempted to linger there lovingly, though darkness is falling. There is a gift of blandness and briskness in the very breathing of the air. When you have had your fill of the beauties on the land side, turn to the sea, meet the evening breeze that comes floating up with a flavour of iodine upon it, range round the sweeping vista, from giant Calpe ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... June 9th, the bombardment at Prag abated, and never rose to briskness again; the place of trial for decision of that Siege having flitted else-whither, as we said. About that time, rumors came in, not so favorable, from the Duke of Bevern; which Friedrich, strong in hope, strove ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... down towards us, shewing Spanish colours, and making a signal as to a consort; but, seeing we did not answer her signal, she instantly loofed close to the wind and stood to the southward. Our people were now all in high spirits, and put about ship with great briskness; and, as the chase appeared a large ship, and had mistaken us for her consort, we imagined that she must be a man of war, and probably belonged to the squadron of Pizarro. This induced the commodore to order all the officers ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... Servants in briskness who excel, Friends who can keep a secret well, And merry men who love their lass, And drink your health ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various

... with the cries of paper-boys. The nurses whispered together excitedly in their leisure moments; the doctors seemed to acquire an added briskness. Once or twice she heard the measured tramp of feet in the streets below, as a regiment was moved from one quarters ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... at him again through narrowing eyelids, the playfulness all vanished. "You do yourself injustice, sir, as I am a woman. Your wits want nothing more in briskness." She rose, and looked down upon him engrossed in his broth. "For a dissembler, sir," she pronounced upon him acidly, "I think it would be difficult ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... they left the station; but in the aspect of those they saw there was something that told of a greater heat than they had yet known in Boston, and they were sensible of having reached a more southern latitude. The air, though freshened by the over- night's storm, still wanted the briskness and sparkle and pungency of the Boston air, which is as delicious in summer as it is terrible in winter; and the faces that showed themselves were sodden from the yesterday's heat and perspiration. A corner-grocer, seated in a sort of fierce despondency upon a keg near his shop door, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... author of this book, is an American all over. He has the rapidity and eagerness of mind that the champagny atmosphere of our northern hills gives to those who are stout enough not to be wilted by our hot summers. For briskness, thriftiness, energy, and alacrity, it is hard to find his match. He has made a book of travels, and will make a hundred, unless somebody finds him a place at home where he will have an indefinite number of labors-of-Hercules to keep him busy,—or unless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... to think much more rapidly than the men with whom Birt was associated, and his briskness in arranging the matter had an incongruous suggestion of the giddiness of youth. He said that he would go home with Birt to fetch the spade, and while there he could settle the terms with the boy's mother, and then they could ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)

... fingers moved of themselves, and she was amazed to be so bright and full of activity during the hours of faintness before breakfast, when she had so often felt her heart upon her lips. And throughout the day she had the same consciousness of physical well-being, the same briskness of movement. She must be always on the move, walking, running, doing something, expending her strength. At times all that she had lived through seemed to have no existence; the sensations of living that she had hitherto ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... no means pleased with the briskness of this address, eyed the dusty and way-worn pedestrian from head to foot; then, looking over his shoulder towards the door, he said, as he ensconced himself yet more firmly ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... woman, Granny Hall, looking like another creature, smoke-dried and withered indeed, but all briskness and animation. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... quite frightened about it. Why was he so irritable to-day? Was he going to develop nerves at the finish? Yes, it was evident, the warm air of the south did not suit him, he had lost his briskness, looked so tired. There was nothing for it, her husband was more to her than her picture, she would leave off her ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... difference between ourselves and them is that we promptly and explicitly obey it; we don't palter with it in the slightest; 'we don't bandy words with our sovereign,' as Doctor Johnson said. I wonder," the speaker added, with the briskness of one to whom a vivid thought suddenly occurs, "how it would work if one went and did exactly the contrary of what was ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... your thoughts!" she said, with cheerful briskness. This ancient formula of the farm-land had always rather jarred on Theron. It presented itself now to his mind ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... before Jean de Gravois had lost a little brother, who had disappeared one day in the woods; and there were those who hinted that Ledoq was that brother, for Jean and he were as like as two peas in the ready use of their tongues, and were of the same build and the same briskness. ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood

... not again wander into visions. He was all briskness as he served her bacon and eggs, took a plate of them to Mr. Boltwood in the Gomez, gouged into his own. Having herself scoured the tin plates, Claire was not repulsed by their naked tinniness; and the coffee in the broken-handled china cup was ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... If you wish to succeed with Alida, Patroon, you must put more briskness into the adventure. The girl has a cross of the Frenchman in her temper, and none of your deliberations and taciturnities will gain the day. This visit to the Lust in Rust is Cupid's own handywork, and I hope to see you both return to town as amicable ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... with a professional briskness, when she nearly bowled him over. "We seem to be in something of a hurry! Is this the patient ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower

... briskness—portentous apparently of coming speech—did certainly at that moment enliven the curate's manner. He jerked his head from side to side like a bird; he cleared his throat, and clasped his hands, and looked ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... our noisy time," said King, with a suspicious briskness in his tone. "Come on, girls, ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells

... mourned Marilla, gustily. She felt a dismal suspicion that this was going to daunt her. But her habit of facing things came to the front. "Wednesday's only four days off," she said, with a fine assumption of briskness. "I don't suppose he said anything about a wedding ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors

... musketry that was now audible behind the park of Montivilliers, the trees of which overhung the road, made it evident that something of importance was occurring in that direction. Should the enemy gain possession of the park Bazeilles would be at their mercy, but the briskness of the firing was in itself proof that the general commanding the 12th corps had anticipated the movement and that the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... the floor sets her "all a-tremble." As dinnertime approaches, you see that woman stepping briskly about the house, a light in her eye, a flush on her cheek, vivacity in her motions. She is "living on excitement;" "it is ambition which keeps her up." Her husband, coming in to his dinner, takes her briskness and vivacity as matters of course, regarding her, probably, as a woman who has nothing to do but to stay in the house all day. He has no more idea of the condition of that ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz

... the employers very soon detected that it was running below its possible output. There was a curious lack of briskness in the work—a curious constraint among the new workers. Yet the employers were certain that the women were keen, and their labour potentially efficient. They put their heads together, and posted up a notice in the factory to the effect that whatever might be the increase in the output of piece-work, ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... combines most of the gentle influences of the southland, with a certain briskness and clearness of atmosphere usually ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

... on to the island, just under the tower, and Father Brown, whether from the mere touch of dry land, or the interest of something on the other bank of the river (which he stared at very hard for some seconds), seemed singularly improved in briskness. They entered a wooded avenue between two fences of thin greyish wood, such as often enclose parks or gardens, and over the top of which the dark trees tossed to and fro like black and purple plumes upon the hearse of a giant. The tower, as they left it behind, ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... with business-like briskness, "if you're looking for a fight, you can set right to me. You needn't think you can come down here and run things—you—" He followed this with an easy roll of oaths, intended to goad ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... Dallington, with briskness and decision, 'no affectation between us. Drop this assumed unconcern. You know, you know well, that no incident could occur to you at this moment more mortifying than the one I have communicated, which deranges your plans, and probably ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... apoplexy, and who moves heavily under the burden of himself,—such a man is a doleful and disagreeable object. But if he have vivacity enough to pervade all his earthiness, and bodily force enough to move lightly under it, and if it be not too unmeasured to have a trimness and briskness in it, then it is good and ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Montreal by the special boat tonight," Mrs. Keith said with characteristic briskness. "The hotel's crowded, the town's full, and you keep meeting people whom you know or have heard about. I came here to see Canada, but I find it hard to realize that I'm not in London; ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... eight fillings. Thus managed, this single ale was fit to send out the fifth day after brewing. When this ale is racking off the butts, to be sent out, would recommend putting two ounces of ground rice into each barrel which will create briskness, and much improve the beer. Ran the small beer into the hop back of the strong beer, and so on the coolers, thereby giving it a chance to lick up all the strong ale it met with in its progress to the tun, which ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... party moved forward, now with considerable briskness, there being no cause for tardiness or delay. Sego and Edith conversed in low tones, every look and action showing their perfect happiness, while the hardy leader of the Riflemen was as wretched an object ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis

... being thrown from their horses and the rest put in disorder, several parties ran forward, both from the Samnite line, to cut off those who had fallen, and from the Roman, to protect their friends. In consequence the battle became a little more brisk, but the Samnites had come forward with more briskness, and also in greater numbers, and the disordered cavalry, with their affrighted horses, trod down their own party who came to their relief. Flight commencing in this quarter, caused the whole Roman line to turn their backs. ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... to take a great part of his attitudes from the serious stile, but to give them another turn and air in the composition; that he may avoid confounding the two different stiles of serious and half-serious. For this last, it is impossible to have too much agility and briskness. ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

... matters of speech, choice of words and ideas, as it is with matters of feeling. The mind can rust as well as the body if it is not rubbed up in Paris; but the thing on which provincialism most sets its stamp is gesture, gait, and movement; these soon lose the briskness which Paris constantly keeps alive. The provincial is used to walk and move in a world devoid of accident or change, there is nothing to be avoided; so in Paris she walks on as raw recruits do, never remembering that there may be hindrances, for there are none ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... interlocutor with a certain genial fury of inspection. He seemed to be in a state of some excitement; he spoke volubly and almost boisterously, and his voice was full-toned and powerful, though pleasant to the ear. He turned himself, as he spoke, with a burly briskness, from one side to another, addressing himself first to this auditor and then to that, his words bursting forth from beneath his white moustache with such an impetus of hearty breath that it seemed as if all opposing arguments must ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... suggested that (although his white waistcoat outlined an ellipse still respectable) a crescendo of portliness was playing diminuendo with his youth. And, though his walk was brisk, it was not lively. The expression of his very red face indicated that his briskness was spurred by anxiety, and a fattish groan he emitted on the top step added the impression that his comfortable body protested against the mental spur. In the hall he removed his narrow-brimmed straw hat and presented a rotund and amiable ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... his plate; "you know'd your old aunty'd keep the best for you. O, let you alone for dat! Go way!" And, with that, aunty gave George a nudge with her finger, designed to be immensely facetious, and turned again to her griddle with great briskness. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... answered Durrance. He descended the steps with Mrs. Adair, and left Ethne standing upon the terrace. The last scene of pretence had been acted out, the months of tension and surveillance had come to an end, and both were thankful for their release. Durrance showed that he was glad even in the briskness of his walk, as he crossed the lawn at Mrs. Adair's side. She, however, lagged, and when she spoke it was in a ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... something would come to your minds about how we are to spend the rest of the day," put in Elfreda, with her usual briskness. "It isn't ten o'clock yet, and we've had our breakfast and our swim. Let's get together and decide now. Remember this is our greatest, dearest day. We specially reserved it. So we ought to make ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower

... relate to taste and fine writing, which are our object," &c.—Id. "Of those affecting situations which make man's heart feel for man."—Id. "We see very plainly, that it is neither Osmyn nor Jane Shore that speaks."—Id. "It should assume that briskness and ease which are suited to the freedom of dialogue."—Id. "Yet they grant, that none ought to be admitted into the ministry, but such as are truly pious."—Barclay cor. "This letter is one of the best that have been written about Lord Byron."—Hunt cor. "Thus, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... had sat down, hot and tired, under a lovely chestnut, with my lap full of flowers which I was arranging and tying up in bunches in order to carry them home more easily. I heard footsteps, which I recognised by their briskness and firmness, and looking up I saw my brother approach, walking, as usual, erect, with his head well thrown back but with stern lines in his face which I had not seen there before. I looked up smiling, expecting his usual kind greeting, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... apprehension that my spirits would sink. We bade adieu to each other affectionately in the carriage. When he had got down upon the foot-pavement he called out, "Fare you well;" and, without looking back, sprung away with a kind of pathetick briskness, if I may use that expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle to conceal uneasiness, and impressed me with a foreboding of our long, ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... another, will not make these objections, because the consciousness of his own literary perils will make him tender in his judgments. And yet there is something even in the pressure of business which sometimes promotes briskness of mind, since the art of speaking is one which is placed very much ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... how he feels about our friends over there. Malediction. Just so. Very proper. But it seems as though he had a bone to pick with all the world," drawled Sebright, a little sleepily. Then, resuming his briskness, he bantered, "So you don't want to go to England, Mr. Castro? No friends there? Sus. per col., ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... sense of their beauty. The dressing part of our sex, whose minds are the same with the sillier part of the other, are exactly in the like uneasy condition to be regarded for a well-tied cravat, a hat cocked with an uncommon briskness, a very well-chosen coat, or other instances of merit, which they ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... the tender skies, the plentiful rains of the early season. The singing of birds is in it, and the health and frolic of lusty Nature. It is the product of liquid May touched by the June sun. It has the tartness, the briskness, the unruliness of spring, and the aroma and intensity ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... the boarder reduced to the simplest expression of that term. Yet, like most human creatures, he has generic and specific characters not unworthy of being studied. I notice particularly a certain electrical briskness of movement, such as one may see in a squirrel, which clearly belongs to his calling. The dry-goodsman's life behind his counter is a succession of sudden, snappy perceptions and brief series ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... hardly spoken to him in the four days that had elapsed since Haydon's last visit, for the disgust she had felt that day had endured. But there was something new in his manner now—a briskness, a business-like air that made her ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer

... grumbling and stamping their feet to keep warm. By-and-by the day-boarders began to drop in one by one, several of them, from a want of tact in adapting themselves to the general tone, earning decided unpopularity at once by a cheerful briskness and an undisguised satisfaction at having something definite to ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... with unwonted briskness the light cotton sheet which covered him. He buttoned hastily the tunic which he had unfastened before lying down, and just as d'Alcacer was expecting him to swing his feet to the deck impetuously, he lay down again on the pillow ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... his mother said. He was exceedingly pleased with his little room. He would remain at home for the present, he said,—help with the hay-making, and study. Where he should go later he did not know; but it made not the least difference to him. He had acquired a briskness and vigor of thought which it did one good to see, and an animation in the expression of his feelings which is so refreshing to a person who the whole year through strives to repress his own. The school-master ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... the Desert I rode through a village which lies near to the city on the eastern side, there approached me with busy face and earnest gestures a personage in the Turkish dress. His long flowing beard gave him rather a majestic look, but his briskness of manner, and his visible anxiety to accost me, seemed strange in an Oriental. The man in fact was French, or of French origin, and his object was to warn me of the plague, and prevent me from entering ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... this foil of his so very widely known, that third parties took it up, and handled it on some occasions with considerable briskness. It was one of the most exasperating attributes of Bounderby, that he not only sang his own praises but stimulated other men to sing them. There was a moral infection of clap-trap in him. Strangers, modest enough elsewhere, started ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... the number of our slaves. Call your mother, Polykarp." The youth obeyed with cheerful alacrity, and when Dame Dorothea—who was sitting at the loom with her daughter Marthana and some of her female slaves—saw him rush into the women's room with a glowing face, she rose with youthful briskness in spite of her stout and dignified figure, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of the home of Doc and Miss Dennihan, they paused and stepped behind a fence, for the door of the neat little house was open and the lady herself was sweeping off the steps, with the briskness inseparable ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels

... found out Craterus to be there, they should go over to his side. He himself, with three hundred of his best horse, led the right wing against Neoptolemus. When having passed a little hill they came in view, and were seen advancing with more than ordinary briskness, Craterus was amazed, and bitterly reproached Neoptolemus for deceiving him with hopes of the Macedonians' revolt, but he encouraged his men to do bravely, and forthwith charged. The first engagement was very fierce, and the spears being soon broken to pieces, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... altogether, and we are reminded that we have quitted the Lozere for the Aveyron. The air has lost the matchless purity and exhilarating briskness of Sauveterre and Montpellier-le- Vieux. Alike sky, atmosphere, and vegetation recall the south. Pink and white oleanders bloom before every door; the quince, the mulberry, the peach, ripen in every garden. We long to get at our boxes and exchange woollen travelling-dresses ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... leeks with verdure covers the ground; And o'er ten li the paddy blossom fragrance doth abound. In days of plenty there's a lack of dearth and of distress, And what need then is there to plough and weave with such briskness? ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... interfere with each other. Of these applicants none pleased me. One of them was a dark-haired, dark-eyed, rather spare person, whose youthful energies had been so improved by years that I was sure her briskness of action, her promptness of speech, and her evident anxiety to get to work and to keep at it would eventually ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... it, if you had need to go to my room. The descent is easy down the wall into the ditch; and so, once more farewell, until I see thee again, my dear son." And with this the intrepid Father mounted the buffet with great agility and briskness, stepped across the window, lifting up the bars and framework again from the other side, and only leaving room for Harry Esmond to stand on tiptoe and kiss his hand before the casement closed, the bars fixing as firmly as ever, seemingly, in the stone arch overhead. When ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... occasionally with Diana, who never understood him, but oftenest with himself, because, as he said, he liked not only to talk to a sensible man but also to hear what a sensible man had to say. He never stood still for a moment, but kept "bobbing around" with the effervescent briskness of a bee, at one time roosting at the top of the ladder, at another peering through the floor light, now to the right, then to the left, always humming scraps from the Opera Bouffe, but never changing the air. In the small space which was then a whole world to the ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... point came the faint cry of a sentinel, announcing to a sleepy world that all was well, and after that the silence hung heavily as ever over the city. The cold was not unpleasant to either of them, muffled as they were in heavy clothing, for it imparted briskness and vigour to their strong young bodies, and they went on at a swift pace through the densest part of the city, into the thinning suburbs and then toward the fields and open spaces which lay on the nearer side of the earthworks. Not a human being did they see ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... reason the higher privileged from exceptions; and I am mistaken if, when it is grown up and by experience and discipline brought to savor something like man, if in the same instant that beauty does not fade, its liveliness decay, its pleasantness grow flat, and its briskness fail. And by how much the further it runs from me, by so much the less it lives, till it comes to the burden of old age, not only hateful to others, but to itself also. Which also were altogether insupportable did not I pity its condition, in being present with it, and, ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus

... command literally. For, his horse going into the air with great briskness at the impact of Racey's toe, even as the puncher had intended it should, he, Luke Tweezy, bit his tongue so hard that he wept involuntary ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... his bag open with businesslike briskness. "Concussion. Got a glancing blow from the light fixture. Seems as if she'd been trying to wrap herself up in the bedclothes and got in the worst place she ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... Ibrahim and Hamza to the orange-gardens up the river which Baroudi had mentioned to Nigel. They lay on the western bank of the Nile, between Luxor and Armant, and at a considerable distance from Luxor. But it chanced that the wind was fair, and blew with an unusual briskness from the north. The sailors set the great lateen sails of the felucca, which bellied out like things leaping into life. The greenish-brown water curled and whispered about the prow, and the minarets of Luxor seemed to retreat swiftly from Mrs. Armine's eyes, as if hastening ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... suddenly, "I have so little time." His briskness dropped into a half complaint, like a faintly suggested avowal of impotence. "I have been at it four years now. It struck me—you seemed to coincide so singularly ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... praises of my friend. We talked of nothing else, and our conversation terminated only with the arrival of a quick little woman who drove herself up to the door in a "carryall," and whom I saw toss the reins upon the horse's back with the briskness of a startled sleeper throwing back the bed-clothes. She jumped out of the carryall and she jumped into the room. She proved to be the minister's wife and the great town-gossip, and she had evidently, in the latter capacity, a choice morsel to communicate. I was as ...
— Four Meetings • Henry James

... briskness for so large a man, pulled some folded charts from his pocket. Without a word the three men rose and went over to the table, pushing aside the china bowl filled with flowers to spread the charts flat on the table ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... little bank, the shabby little banker, renewed that sense of disillusion that pervaded Peter's home-coming. In Boston the mulatto had done his slight banking business in a white marble structure with tellers of machine-like briskness and neatness. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... the briskness of his ordinary pace, walked by Ephraim's side and contented himself with the gracious scene, passing remarks upon weather and crops. Soon, for the value of time always pressed upon him, his business-like voice took ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... have numbered sixty or sixty-five years; but a certain briskness and appearance of vigor in his movements made it probable that he was aged more from captivity than the course of time. He received the enthusiastic greeting of his young acquaintance with evident pleasure, as though his chilled affections were rekindled and ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... do anything but describe it in words. As with regard to the Poussin above mentioned, one can never pass it without bearing away a certain pleasing, dreamy feeling of awe and musing; the other landscape inspires the spectator infallibly with the most delightful briskness and cheerfulness of spirit. Herein lies the vast privilege of the landscape-painter: he does not address you with one fixed particular subject or expression, but with a thousand never contemplated by himself, and which only arise out of occasion. You may ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... twenty racking moments went by before they came in. Richard King was older than Jimsy's father but he had the same look of race and pride, and his wife was a plain, rather tired-looking Englishwoman with very white teeth and broodingly tender blue eyes which belied the briskness of her manner. ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... briskness and spirit into my walk, I went up to the door, which was standing open, most hospitably, and showing a large lighted hall, all hung round with spoils of the chase, armour, &c, the details of which I had not time to notice, for the instant I stood on the threshold a huge porter appeared, ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... field of usefulness was denied Private Gillian, for Lieutenant Ames came out from the pergola and said with official briskness, "Oh, never mind that, Gillian. I can help Miss Ainsworth with it. You'd better run along with Muggs and enjoy your liberty period. Much obliged ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... beard was beginning {to grow}; the colour of his beard was that of gold; and golden-coloured hair was hanging from his shoulders to the middle of his shoulder-blades. In his face there was a pleasing briskness; his neck, and his shoulders, and his hands, and his breast {were} resembling the applauded statues of the artists, and {so} in those parts in which he was a man; nor was the shape of the horse beneath that {shape}, faulty and inferior ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... From the briskness of the street, with its lamps aglitter in the lingering May evening, O'Neill entered to the sober gloom and the restless echoes of the great studio. He had come to hate the place of late. The high poise of its walls, ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... read the Bible and an historical lesson, as well as play on a piano and sing, and they wrote some very difficult passages from dictation without any errors, and in a flowing, legible handwriting that I am disposed to envy. Their accent and intonation were pleasing, and there was a briskness and emulation about their style of answering questions, rarely found in country schools with us, significant of intelligence and good teaching. All but the younger girls spoke English as fluently as Hawaiian. I cannot convey a notion of the blitheness and independence ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... at nine in the morning only, he quitted his cantonments to march to Wavres: when he reached Walhain, he heard the cannonading at Mont St. Jean. Its continually increasing briskness left no doubt, that it was an extremely serious affair. General Excelmans proposed, to march to the guns by the right bank of the Dyle. "Do you not feel," said he to the marshal, "that the firing makes the ground tremble under our feet? let us march straight to ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... summoned to the telephone, where Evie was asking if she should find her in. Miriam judged from the tones of the transmitted voice that the worst had been made known. She was not, however, prepared for the briskness with which, ten minutes later, Evie whisked into the room, her cheeks aglow with excitement and her heavenly eyes dancing with ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... than an oath now and than," said the baker. "Like spice in a bun it lends a briskness. But it needs the hearty manner wi't. The Deacon there couldna let blatter wi' a hearty oath to save his withered sowl. I kenned a trifle o' a fellow that got in among a jovial gang lang syne that used to ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... woman, with no time for day-dreams and she was often annoyed (and secretly alarmed) at her son's tendency to wander off into a world of his own making. Now she shook him, but gently, and spoke with her usual briskness. ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger

... will like to know my feelings, that I felt so overwhelmed with this news as not to be able to go about my usual business. Yet the rest on board the vessel has been very grateful to me. The quiet cheerfulness and briskness will all come again, as I think; and yet I think too that I shall be an older and more thoughtful ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... certain shrillness in his voice, but the sitter gave no heed to these tokens, which he would have regarded as of no importance had he seen them. The talk was at first rather rambling, and was not kept up with much briskness on either side. Fenton, indeed, was so absorbed in the task which lay before him that he hardly followed the other's remarks, and he suddenly became aware that he had lost the thread of conversation altogether, so that he could not possibly imagine what the connection ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar: it seeming to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable; a notable skill, that he can dexterously accommodate them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. (Whence in Aristotle such persons are termed [Greek], dexterous men; and [Greek], men of facile or versatile manners, who can easily turn themselves to all things, or turn all things to themselves.) It also procureth delight, ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... thought, and language were entirely Roman, and his style was Latin of the purest and most elegant kind—not, indeed, controlled by much deference to the laws of metrical harmony, but full of pith and sprightliness, bearing the stamp of colloquial vivacity, and suitable to the general briskness of his scenes. Yet in the tone of his dialogue we miss all symptoms of deference to the taste of the more polished classes of society. Almost all his comedies were adopted from the new comedy of the Greeks, and though he had studied both the old and the middle comedy, Menander ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... them as your husband intends to train Phil. It may be that he will never be called upon to draw a sword, but the time he has spent in acquiring its use will not be wasted. These exercises give firmness and suppleness to the figure, quickness to the eye, and briskness of decision to the mind. A man who knows that he can, at need, defend his life if attacked, whether against soldiers in the field or robbers in the street, has a sense of power and self reliance that a man, untrained in the use of the strength God has given him, can never ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... stepped into the corral with her usual briskness, and, walking deliberately past him, turned up an empty box in a far corner and sat down upon it, and called to him. From the instant of her entrance he had held himself back, but when she called him he rushed eagerly to her side. She placed her arms around ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... scowling down at him. Behind it were the edges of a group of out-buildings. He veered around toward these. Outside the garage he saw the chauffeur, with his livery coat off, polishing a fender. Great! Perhaps he could persuade the chauffeur to help him. He put on what he felt to be a New York briskness, furtively touched his tie again, and ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... still occupied with his grievances. I think the shots must have stimulated his nerve centres, for he had abandoned the languid drawl with which, in happier moments, he was wont to comment on life's happenings, and was dealing with the situation with a staccato briskness. ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... door to door, have changed with the changing times. The loveliness is perhaps more striking, less distinctive; with the flower-like heads have passed the old grace and the old dependence, and the undulatory walk has quickened into buoyant briskness. It is all modern—as modern as the red brick walls that are building where a quaint ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... direct the pageant should see to it that the players speak the dialogue in the episodes with the utmost briskness. There should be no waits and pauses. Simon Scarlett especially should enunciate clearly and swiftly, with dash and fire in both voice and gesture. Even if some of the words are lost, it is better to keep up the tempo of the piece. Philippe Beaucoeur should also speak with ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay

... o'clock Bertheroy put in an appearance. Although he was sixty-eight, he showed as much briskness and sprightliness as any young sawbones calling in a friendly way to perform a little operation. He had brought an instrument case, some linen bands and some lint. However, he became angry on finding the injured man nervous, flushed and hot ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... few men like—him." Brigit took a sock out of the basket and looked at it absently. There was a short silence, during which Felicite did not speak, but she was watching her visitor in the glass. Then she said suddenly, with a certain briskness in her voice, "Shall I tell you about him? About my husband, you know, not about the ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... cannot be said that Dr Drummond discouraged the project; he simply did not mention it and as it was known to have been communicated to him this represented effectively the policy of the closed door. He found himself even oftener in East Elgin, walking about on his pastoral errands with a fierce briskness of aspect and a sharp inquiring eye, before which one might say the proposition slunk away. Meanwhile, the Methodists who, it seemed, could tolerate decentralization, or anything short of round dances, opened a chapel ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... when they saw a broadside preparing, and to continue in that posture until it had been given, after which they rose, and presuming the danger to be over for some time, worked their guns and fired with great briskness, until they supposed that another broadside was ready to be fired, when they acted as before. The plan adopted by the commodore, however, rendered this practice ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... wore a hat, and was dressed in a coarse suit of blue nearly new, and doubtless his Sunday's best. He was smoking a pipe. I greeted them in English and sat down near them. They responded in the same language, the younger man with considerable civility and briskness, the other in a tone of voice denoting ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... conservative self-satisfaction and repose which centuries of age may bestow, the spirit of life itself is the aspiration for change. Ambition itself only means the insistence on change. Each day is to be better than yesterday fuller of plans, of briskness, of initiative. Each to-day demands of to-morrow new men, new minds, new work. A to-day which has not launched new ships, explored new countries, constructed new buildings, added stories to old ones, may consider itself a failure, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... morn. I was as stiff and sore as if I had been whipped, my clothes were sodden and heavy, and not till I had washed my face and hands in the burn and stretched my legs up the hill-side did I feel restored to something of my ordinary briskness. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... walked, however, some footsteps approached behind her, the footsteps of a man; and owing to the briskness of his advance he was close at her heels and had said "Good morning" before she had been long aware of his propinquity. He appeared to be an artisan of some sort, and carried a tin pot of red paint in his hand. He asked in a business-like manner if he should take ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... rays were clearly visible through the thick wood in their rear. The early morning, too, had been cold—almost frosty—so much so, that the wild ducks, which generally evinced a good deal of shyness, NOW, seemingly emboldened by the briskness of the atmosphere, could be seen gliding about in considerable numbers, about half a mile below them; while the fish, on the contrary, as though dissatisfied with the temperature of their element, refused to do what ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... the name of eloquence, and which must carry distinction with it wherever men are gathered together. The next is, that adroit and practical style of speaking by which the details of public business are carried forward; a style which requires briskness of capacity, united to extent of information, and in which the briskness must not be suffered to become flippant, and the detail to become dull. We are perfectly confident, that, beyond those two classes, no speaker can ever expect ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... up at the door, and the flutter of a veil as the vehicle passed through the entrance; and this was the only glimpse I ever caught of the little lady that dingy office called mistress. There was, however, a certain briskness in the movement of the clerks, and a glow of pleasure on their faces, that always denoted a visit; and very frequent those visits were. Without in any way obstructing it, her pretty interest seemed to throw a halo ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong

... had expected to see that figure; but vaguely he wished there were not so much briskness and self-confidence in the set of the massive head and shoulders. The young man believed absolutely in his love; but he would have been gratified to detect a something of depression in the enemy's air, which he might translate as a ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... changed to his dinner jacket he rejoined them in the drawing-room. Barbara held out her hand to Letty, with a briskness indicating relief. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... good points, and in much the same manner that a jockey does in showing off a horse. Those who appeared to be drowsy were made to bite a piece of ginger, or take a pinch of snuff. If these excitements did not prove sufficient to give them an air of briskness, they were wakened up by a pull of the ear, or a slap on the face, which made them look about them. Miller was so inquisitive, and his observations were so unlike those of a bona fide purchaser, that the dealers soon began to suspect he did not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various

... frank, did I try to. Neither could I hang an article on one picture. I might envy George Moore, for an interval the critic of the Speaker, now the London Nation, because he could and did. I can remember him at an Academy Press View making the interminable round with a business-like briskness until, perhaps in the first hour and the last room, he would come upon the painting that gave him the peg for his eloquence, make an elaborate study of it, tell us his task was finished, and hurry off exultant. But envy him as I might, I couldn't borrow ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... feel hungry, do you?" responded the old woman in the same language. "Good! I am prepared for that. Wait but a moment, caro mio, until I can heat the broth, and your hunger shall soon be satisfied." And with the birdlike briskness which characterised all her actions she moved away into the shadows, presently returning with three iron rods in her hand, which she dexterously arranged in the form of a tripod over the fire, and from which she suspended a small iron pot. Then, taking a few dry sticks from a bundle heaped up near ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... muscular. There was nothing mean or secretive about him. He was wonderfully hopeful, but had not the stuff to push his way into wealth. He was tall, slim, and pale; had a languor which showed itself even in his briskness; was most amiable, cheerful, and communicative. He called Pip "Handel," because Pip had been a blacksmith, and Handel composed a piece of music entitled The Harmonious Blacksmith. Pip helped him to a partnership in an ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... it than that," observed Thorpe, with an added element of business-like briskness in his tone. "If I let you out in this way—something, of course, you could never have dreamed would happen—you must do some things for me. I should want you, for example, to go back to Mexico at once. Of course, I'd pay your expenses out. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... water in these regions. In fact, the rainfall, instead of washing the surface and collecting in streams, sinks into the fissured chalk and percolates through it. When this formation is suitably tapped, we obtain water of exceeding briskness and purity. A large glass globe, filled with the water of a well near Tring, shows itself to be wonderfully free from mechanical impurity. Indeed, it stands to reason that water wholly withdrawn from surface contamination, and percolating through so clean a substance, should be pure. It has been ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... front seat at the next public meeting of the section, applauded vigorously when the President referred to the need of more briskness in France and England and asked for a private interview after the meeting was over. In a few well-chosen words he offered his services to run messages over the frontier. Off his platform the President was quite a practical man ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various

... over, Excellenz," she said with the briskness she had picked up from her American friends, "let us come to the point. I infer you did not take a day's journey and put up with this abominable hotel to tell me that you are forming a Federation of Austria and the South German States. You were sometimes kind enough ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... was of a different order. "That man has an eye for theology," was the remark of a competent judge on some early paper of Dalgairns's which came before him. He had something of the Frenchman about him. There was in him, in his Oxford days, a bright and frank briskness, a mixture of modesty and arch daring, which gave him an almost boyish appearance; but beneath this boyish appearance there was a subtle and powerful intellect, alive to the problems of religious philosophy, and ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... mariners—Cullen, Wife, and Neale—this Irish pirate shipped himself on board a French snow at Cork in November, 1721, for a passage to Nantes. Owing to Roche's briskness, genteel manners, and knowledge of navigation, the master used occasionally to place him in charge of the vessel. One night a few days out a pre-arranged mutiny took place, the French crew being butchered and thrown overboard. The captain, who pleaded for ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... the State Fair were of a different character. The audiences were composed of leading men from nearly all the counties of the State. Though the discussion of party questions had been going on all summer with more or less briskness, yet such was the general confusion in politics that many honest and intelligent voters and even leaders were still undecided in their opinions. The fair continued nearly a week. Douglas made a speech on the first day, Tuesday, October 3. Lincoln replied to him on ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... attendance on these works of art was in all respects, shabbiness excepted, unlike the former personage. His whole appearance and manner denoted briskness. Though threadbare, he expressed to the crowd that poverty had not subdued his spirit, or tinged with any sense of shame this honest effort to turn his talents to some account. The writing which formed a part of his composition was conceived in a similarly cheerful tone. ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens

... then to inquire what the Speaking Oak had said. But the briskness of her tone encouraged the young man; and, besides, he had never in his life felt so vigorous and mighty as since taking this old woman on his back. Instead of being exhausted he gathered strength as he went on; and, struggling up against the torrent, he at last gained the opposite shore, ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... floated, when they cut away their yawl, having been sunk by a shot. They hove taught their cable, and then cut it away, together with the two hawsers, and sent the pinnace a-head to tow the ship off. Just as the ship got afloat, the enemy fired with great briskness from their new battery, their shot raking through the Success between wind and water, killed one of her men, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... a minute; this stove heats up quick," cried Fanny, with agitated briskness. She began pulling the kindlings out ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... continued near two Hours, but not with near that Briskness it began; and the old Woman rising, bid me see the Smoke of Cormaco. Captain Thomas, said she, send away ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt

... troubled face as he passed us on his way to the door. When he had left us, I caught sight of Phillis's face, as, thinking herself unobserved, her countenance relaxed for a moment or two into sad, woeful weariness. She started into briskness again when her mother spoke, and hurried away to do some little errand at her bidding. When we two were alone, cousin Holman recurred to Holdsworth's marriage. She was one of those people who like to view an event from every side of probability, or even possibility; and ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... held out his hand. He looked with something like wonder at the nerve-shattered man who had risen to his feet with a certain air of briskness. ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... over, a miracle smile overwhelming her air of briskness. "We'd appreciate the opportunity to ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)

... home now could only be compared to the wild desire for the woods a few weeks back! We made an early start. The team horses knew that road. They knew they were now on the way home. What difference that made! Jaded as they were they trotted along with a briskness never seen before on that trip. It began to be a job for us to keep up with Lee, who was on the wagon. Unless a rider is accustomed to horseback almost all of the time a continuous trot on a hard road will soon stove him up. My horse had ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... Then, though the bottles should be clean and dry, yet if the corks be not new and sound, the liquor will be damaged; for if the air can by any means penetrate, the liquor will grow flat, and never rise. As soon as a cask of liquor begins to grow vapid, and to lose its briskness, while it is on the tap, it should be drawn off immediately into bottles; and in order to quicken it, put a piece of loaf sugar into every bottle, about the size of a walnut. To forward the ripening, wrap the bottles in hay, and set them in a warm place; straw will ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... think of: Rebecca her advance with her employers—Amelia her own absorbing topic. When the two girls met, and flew into each other's arms with that impetuosity which distinguishes the behaviour of young ladies towards each other, Rebecca performed her part of the embrace with the most perfect briskness and energy. Poor little Amelia blushed as she kissed her friend, and thought she had been guilty of something very ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... spirit; he moved with his customary briskness—he had become quite himself again, since ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... words out with a certain degree of briskness. Katharine started a little, as if the announcement disturbed ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... happy man felt Titmouse as he returned to Oxford Street; entering Messrs. Tag-rag's premises with alacrity, just as they were being opened, and volunteering his assistance in numerous things beyond his usual province, with singular briskness and energy; as if conscious that by doing so he was greatly gratifying Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, whose wishes upon the subject he knew. He displayed such unwonted cheerfulness and patient good-nature throughout the day, that one of his ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... that day the grave-diggers' labors were pushed on with briskness. A large number of natives took part, under the direction of Queen Moini's first minister. All must be ready at the hour named, under penalty of mutilation, for the new sovereign promised to follow the defunct king's ways, ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... answered, with an attempt at her usual briskness. "You caught me off my guard, Mr. Barrett. The fact is, I am ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray

... with evident ill will. He had wakened in good spirits, but was fast returning to his sullenness of the previous day. He took his time in going from the bench-mark to the first turning point. Blake moved up past him with inspiring briskness, but the younger man kept to his leisurely saunter. In rounding the corner of the hill twice as much time was consumed ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... the sail away and stood up, but had instantly to sit again, my legs being terribly cramped. A drink of spirits helped me; my blood presently flowed with briskness. ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell



Words linked to "Briskness" :   smartness, liveliness, sprightliness, spirit



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