"Vivacious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nation, in any garb, and for no fraction of a moment could the beholder doubt her nationality. She was French in appearance, in expression, in movement, in thought, in character, and in deed; lovable, intelligent, vivacious, easily irritated, but still more easily pleased, sharp of tongue, tender of heart, and full to overflowing with humour. In appearance Marie was small and slight, with a sallow complexion which was the bane of her life, black hair and beautiful white teeth. ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... expected to engage in any sort of formal social activity. Avoid expensive dinner parties and substitute informal gatherings where both the preparation and the cost of food will be slight. If you are original and vivacious hosts, your guests ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... been under his roof for years, let themselves be seen by him as seldom as need be. In person he is a little, withered-up, yellow-skinned man, as dry as a last year's pippin, but very keen, bright and vivacious. He speaks such excellent English that he must have lived in this country for many years. One thing I have discovered about him, that he is a great smoker. He has a room set specially apart for the practice of the sacred rite to which he retires every day as soon as dinner is over, and from which ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... into his head that his antagonist had treated him with contempt; and went so far, in consequence, notwithstanding Shelley's known sentiments against duelling, as to proffer him a sort of challenge, at which Shelley, as might be expected, only laughed. Lord Byron, however, fearing that the vivacious physician might still further take advantage of this peculiarity of his friend, said to him, "Recollect, that though Shelley has some scruples about duelling, I have none; and shall be, at all times, ready to take ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... consider it the best of its kind in any language. Its outstanding features are its "practicalness", and its bright, easy, vivacious style. Every chapter is full of practical points, of easily applicable advice; it is entirely free from any fads and mysterious methods of treatment, any hints at hocus-pocus. It is a sane, rational, common-sense book. Every physician who will make a study of this book will become ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... a member of the great country family. Her head was small, and crowned with a mass of jet black hair. My first impression on entering the large, rather dimly lighted room was unfavourable, but that vanished instantly under the charm of a manner so graceful and vivacious, that in a moment I seemed to be standing in a brilliant Parisian salon rather than in the sombre drawing-room of an English country house. Every poise of her dainty head; every gesture of those small, perfect hands; every modulated tone of the voice, whether sparkling with laughter or caressing ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... strain, bright and vivacious, and strong enough in its foolishness and its unexpected tragedy to prove its ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... air of distinction to the scene, and Allison and Kitty each began a conversation in such a vivacious way, that Mary found it difficult to decide which group to attach herself to. She did not want to lose a word that any one was saying, and the effort to listen to several separate conversations was as much of a strain as trying to watch ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... submission to her mother's will was consideration for her brother and his career. For while for her father she cherished an affectionate pride and for her mother an amused and protective pity, her great passion was for her brother—her handsome, vivacious, audacious and mercurial brother, Tony. With him she counted it only joy to share her all too meagre wages whenever he found himself in financial straits. And a not infrequent situation this was with Tony, ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... life was broken in 1813 by a genial meeting in London with the ambitious Madame de Stael, and again with the vivacious little Irishwoman, Maria Edgeworth. She was keeping her promise of not writing more; but during a visit to Sir Walter in 1820 her imagination was touched by Scotch tales, and she published 'Metrical Legends' the following ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... gentleman who found his greatest interest in outdoor sports and was characterized by some native shrewdness and a genial but rather abrupt manner. He laid down his tools and looked up with an air of humorous resignation as his wife came in. Mrs. Foster was a slender, vivacious ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... depressed. Hers was the misery of an active person denied activity. She had prepared herself as an aid in her father's business, and now he had no business. In this alkali desert of inanition Prue's vivacious temper ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... because he has become a Christian is disgusted with ball-playing, the little girl who because she has given her heart to God has lost her interest in her waxen-doll, are morbid and unhealthy. You ought not to set the life of a vivacious child to the ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... wields a hatchet. Perhaps this utter indifference to the firebrand is our national strength—even though it comes from a too-sluggish imagination, a too great imperviousness to new dangers. English people possess too great a sense of humour ever to become Bolshevik. They may not be witty and vivacious and effervescingly bright, but they possess an innate sense of the ridiculous which is their national safeguard against any very bloody form of revolution. So we suffer infuriated cranks—if not ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... compartment, who, quite early in the evening, drew out a silk handkerchief and covered his head and face therewith, leading us to suppose that he had sunk into oblivion. We therefore carried on a very pleasant and vivacious conversation, as the night was warm and we were not inclined to sleep. Suddenly the old Cure pulled off the handkerchief and said in a gruff voice, "It is the time for sleeps and not for talks." and, having uttered this stinging rebuke, re-covered his head and left us in penitent ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... they deserve, and are considered as fitted for little else than to perform menial offices, even as in the East, where they are viewed in the light of servants and slaves. The Basque females differ widely in character from the men; they are quick and vivacious, and have in general much more talent. They are famous for their skill as cooks, and in most respectable houses of Madrid a Biscayan female may be found in the kitchen, queen ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... medium height, with a form of the fairest earthly loveliness and exquisite grace. Her eyes were so deep a blue, that at first I mistook them for brown. Her hair was the color of a ripe chestnut frosted with gold, and in length and abundance would cover her like a garment. She was vivacious and fond of athletic sports. Her strength amazed me. Those beautiful hands, with their tapering fingers, had a grip like a vise. They had discovered, in this wonderful land, that a body possessing perfectly developed muscles must, by the laws of nature, ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... well she acted, all and every part, By turns,—with that vivacious versatility, Which many people take for want of heart. They err—'tis merely what is called mobility, A thing of temperament and not of art, Though seeming so, from its supposed facility; And false—though true; for surely they're sincerest, Who ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... extraordinary success of the piece, Mrs Peagrim, who certainly does nothing by halves, entertained the entire company to a supper-dance after the performance. A number of prominent people were among the guests, and Mrs Peagrim was a radiant and vivacious hostess. She has never looked more charming. The high jinks were kept up to an advanced hour, and every one agreed that they had never spent a more delightful evening.' There! Type as many copies as are necessary, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... Day Vera, beneath the gaiety with which she met the vivacious sallies of Mr Bittenger, waited in horrible suspense for the dream to fulfil itself. Stephen alone observed her agitated condition. Stephen said to himself: 'The quarrel is getting on her nerves. She'll yield before she's a day older. It will do her good. Then I'll make it up to ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... and in the various characters that came their way the student might easily have found matter for a very complete dictionary of rogues. But I must content myself with a few paragraphs. I received the impression of a life intense and brutal, savage, multicoloured, and vivacious. It made the Marseilles that I knew, gesticulating and sunny, with its comfortable hotels and its restaurants crowded with the well-to-do, tame and commonplace. I envied men who had seen with their own eyes the sights ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... d'Isola, a tiny blonde with a cloud of fluffy curls all over her forehead, vivacious and grimacing as a young monkey, called to him in ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... Wallaby brought the news, and we were so sad that we nearly broke up our assembly. But it would have been a pity to do so, really, as the young birds enjoy themselves so much at the 'Bower of Pleasure'. But," said the Satin Bird, with a sudden change of tone from extreme sorrow to one of vivacious interest I must show you the way to the bower, or you would ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... this; she was well aware that, under the same circumstances, she should have said much more than he had, and she was curious as to what had been said of her, which could have produced this effect on a boy generally so vivacious and warm-tempered as Charles. After cogitating upon it some time, she at length concluded that Mr. Harewood had endeavoured to impress on the minds of his family the consequence she possessed, as an only child and a great heiress; ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... She didn't get just the effect she anticipated from this lovely performance because Polacco, who is Miss Mason's husband, came and sat down beside her—there was nothing spidery about him, thank goodness—and in a running and vivacious commentary expressed his lively contempt for this opera of Gounod's. At its best it was bad Faust. Its least intolerable melodies were quotations from Faust,—an assertion which he proved from time ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... first volume of this series, entitled "The Motor Girls; Or, A Mystery of the Road," we became acquainted with these vivacious young ladies. Cora Kimball, the first to own her own motor-car, the Whirlwind, was the only daughter of Mrs. Grace Kimball, a wealthy widow of the little town of Chelton. Jack Kimball, Cora's brother, a typical college boy, had ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... time I saw courtesans I heard of Aspasia who sat on the knees of Alcibiades while discussing philosophy with Socrates. I expected to find something bold and insolent, but gay, free, and vivacious, something of the sparkle of champagne; I found a yawning mouth, a fixed ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... a girl of no very special characteristics; she leant on Rosamund, admiring her far more vivacious ways and appearance, glad to be in her society, and somewhat indifferent to every one else in ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... brightest of blue eyes, nor her fairest of complexions, nor those rich luxuriant tresses—that formed the greatest charm in Emily Sherwood. It was the delightful combination she displayed of a cheerful vivacious temper with generous and ardent feelings. She was as light and playful as one of the fawns in her own park, but her heart responded also to every noble and disinterested sentiment; and the poet who sought a listener for some lofty or tender strain, would have found the spirit that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... happened that a still more remarkable Englishwoman was in the Belgian capital, but she was not remarked; and Queen Victoria passed unknowing before the steady gaze of one of the mistresses in M. Heger's pensionnat. "A little stout, vivacious lady, very plainly dressed—not much dignity or pretension about her," was Charlotte Bronte's comment as the royal carriage and six flashed by her, making her wait on the pavement for a moment, and interrupting ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... pure, and benevolent in his feelings; but he was of a dull mind, void of energy, and with an obstinacy of character that did not supply the place of an enlightened firmness. He had married (1770) Marie Antoinette, the daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa. The vivacious young queen, as well as the youthful king, at first charmed the people. But her disregard of court etiquette, and her gay, impulsive ways, provoked the dislike of many high in station, and exposed her to the natural but unmerited ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... earthy steam rose enveloping us, but as these cleared away the air was as cool and pure and sweet as in a New England orchard in May. On a bush by the trail a tiny wren appeared and burst into song like a vivacious firecracker. Rock squirrels darted here and there, and tiny cactus flowers opened their sleepy eyes and poured out fragrance. And then, by and by, it was evening and we were ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... Burt Winchester, a steady-voiced, olive-skinned young man, in pleasant contrast to Anne's vivacious fairness, and together they journeyed uptown and then west to the Kensington, for a final decision upon the one vacant apartment. The rooms were of fair size, they were all light, and the ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... shock," Richard said, looking off toward the bare village in its mantle of trampled snow. "It— it is—a shock." And he folded the cable and returned it to his pocket. "We were married twenty-three years," he said, simply. "She was an extremely pretty girl, vivacious and happy—I imagine hers was a ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... at an early hour, and, after some conversation with Madame de Lafayette, to whom she declared she was in admirable health, she attended mass, and then went to the room of her daughter, Mademoiselle d'Orleans. She was in glowing spirits, and enlivened the whole company by her vivacious conversation. After calling for a glass of succory water, which she drank, she dined. The party then repaired to the saloon of Monsieur. He was sitting for his portrait. Henrietta, reclining upon a lounge, apparently ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... because she had radiance to shed, but because her lips and teeth framed themselves that way. She too was of her race, alert, vivacious, and as neat as a trivet, as became a former midinette of the rue de la Paix and ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... O'Meara's library; Constance, Mrs. Aliston, Mrs. O'Meara, Sir Clifford, his brother, the Honorable George Heathercliffe, Ray Vandyck, O'Meara, and Mr. Bathurst. Mr. Bathurst, who now appears what he is; a handsome gentleman, about thirty years of age, clever, vivacious, eminently agreeable. Mr. Wedron, like Brooks, has served out his ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... their excellence, which overpowers the eyes of the Human Mind, as the Philosopher says in the second book of the Metaphysics, and he affirms their existence. Though we have not any perception of them from which our knowledge can begin, yet some light from their most vivacious essence shines upon our intellect, inasmuch as we perceive the above-mentioned reasons and many others, even as he who has the eyes closed affirms the air to be luminous, because of some little brightness or ray of light which passes through the pupils; as it is with the bat, for ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... doubt but that the Southern European races are the most vivacious, the most energetic, as well as the toughest in the world. They have produced all the great conquerors. Christianity, when it found it necessary to overcome them, innoculated them with its Semitic virus, but this virus has not only failed to make ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... decisive strokes on the emphatic ideas. Deliver it in a vivacious manner, noting the elastic touch-action of the tongue. A flexible, responsive tongue is absolutely essential to good ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... the gate once more, Marilyn between us, vivacious and rather charming. I noticed that she made no reference to the incident in the hallway, the precipitate manner in which she left us and the very evident confusion of Merle Shirley. Kennedy, too, seemed disposed to drop the matter, although it was obviously significant. For ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... my good-natured companions, Madame Perrodon, and the vivacious Mademoiselle Lafontaine. They both perceived that I was out of spirits and nervous, and at length I told them what lay so heavy at ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Nicholas bowed low, and still riveted his eyes on the book with such open admiration, that Marmaduke thought it right to excuse his abstraction; but there was something in that admiration which raised the spirits of Sibyll, which gave her hope when hope was well-nigh gone; and she became so vivacious, so debonair, so charming, in the flow of a gayety natural to her, and very uncommon with English maidens, but which she took partly, perhaps, from her French blood, and partly from the example of girls and maidens ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... must. You must not say such things—" she paused, conscious that the eyes of many to whom she had purposed presenting the Prince were turned curiously upon them, although fortunately, from distances comparatively remote. She forced a vivacious smile for the benefit of observers and continued, "You must not say these things until I tell you you may. . . . Now, please!" as the Prince showed indications of ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... his vivacious way struck out some of the phrases which became proverbial with later economists. 'Give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock and he will turn it into a garden. Give him a nine years' lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert.'[38] 'The magic of PROPERTY turns sand to gold.'[39] ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... the courtyard, and the vivacious little woman cried, "My dear, how glad I am to see you!" and she stretched out both hands. Evelyn was more pleased to see her friend than she expected to be, and while listening to her she envied her for being so happy, and she wondered why she ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... had an equal in our time, and his pen for threescore years has been put to frequent use in celebration of all sorts of events, whether military, literary, or scientific. Bayard Taylor said, "He lifted the 'occasional' into the 'classic'," and the phrase happily expresses the truth. The vivacious character of his nature readily lends itself to work of this sort, and though the printed page gives the reader the sparkling epigram and the graceful lines, clear-cut always and full of soul, the pleasure is not ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... one on the bed and one on the couch; and they thanked her, but—never came. She coddled the General with cool champagne cup when he was in the throes of mal de mer, and held him prisoner with her vivacious chatter when he was well enough to care to talk. But, after all, her most serious trouble seemed to consist in keeping Billy Gray at respectful distance. He sought her side day after day, to Armstrong's mild amaze, as has been said; and when he could not ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... the continent. As in his later relation to George Sand, the passion of a poet, Alfred Musset, rivalled his, so at this time he found a rival in the Polish poet, Julius Slovaki. The pretty, vivacious, and perhaps somewhat flirtatious girl, Comtesse Maria Wodzinska, was the bone of contention, or, rather, the "rag and the bone and the hank of ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... The vivacious chef de cuisine started up at once, took up his position at the foot of the tree which Disco had just left, leaned his back against it, and straightway went to sleep, in which condition he remained till morning, leaving the camp ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... into other people by slight contortions of countenance and alterations of voice. The histrionic abilities of Dickens probably affected the social antics of many writers at this epoch. Warren also told stories in a vivacious and engaging manner, though, as they were about things and people out of the sphere of his younger auditors, I remember only the way of the telling, not what was told. I recalled, later, his anecdotes of Kit North, who was a friend of his, on account of the contrast between the stalwart ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... has little trace of the wistful melancholy of his verse. It is almost always urbane, vivacious, light-hearted. The classical bent of his mind shows itself here, unmixed with the inheritance of romantic feeling which colors his poetry. Not only is his prose classical in quality, by virtue of its restraint, of its definite aim, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... I mean by our set," went on the vivacious old "Gainsborough," "the aristocrats whose conversation is limited to the weather and scandal, and who are so frightfully dull! Dull! My dear Ross you know how ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... contributions of the President to the Academy, appeared the vivacious portrait of Lord Rosebery's little daughter, The Lady Sybil Primrose, who appears in white with a blue sash, carrying a doll. A Portrait of Mrs. A. Hichens and Phoebe were the only other pictures this year. A frieze, Music, was shown, ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... black silk whispered all the time, and loose ends of black ribbon trembled. The black silk had an air of old gentility about it, but it was very shiny; there were many bows, but the ribbons were limp, having been pressed and dyed. Her face, yellow and deeply wrinkled, but sharply vivacious, was overtopped by a bunch of purple flowers in a nest of rusty black ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... are sharper and closer,—like cracks in a hard and solid mass;—and there is much more of the startling contrast of light and shade, as well as more angular boldness of outline; to all which the more abundant waters add a fresh and vivacious interest. Looking back through one of these abysmal gorges, one sees two torrents dashing together, the precipice and ridge on one side, pitch-black with shade; and that on the other all flaming gold; while behind rises, in ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... turn, married Mary Van Cortlandt, the child of another of the leading Dutch families of the city. This Peter Jay had ten children of whom John, the subject of this article, was the eighth, born in New York in 1745. In him were therefore united the vivacious blood of France with the solid qualities of the Dutch; and, accordingly, we find in him something of the liveliness of the French along with a great deal of Dutch prudence ...
— Revolutionary Heroes, And Other Historical Papers • James Parton
... Cora at the manicure's, or the dressmaker's, or shopping, or telephoning luncheon arrangements with one of the Crowd. Ray and Cora were going out a good deal with the Crowd. Young married people like themselves, living royally just a little beyond their income. The women were well-dressed, vivacious, somewhat shrill. They liked stories that were a little off-colour. "Blue," one of the men called these stories. He was in the theatrical business. The men were, for the most part, a rather drab-looking lot. Colourless, good-natured, ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... imperfections of his biography. If it brought him no sudden wealth, it certainly raised his reputation with the book-selling world. A connexion already begun with Smollett's 'Critical Review' was drawn closer; and the shrewd Sosii of the Row began to see the importance of securing so vivacious and unconventional a pen. Towards the end of the year he was writing for Wilkie the collection of periodical essays entitled 'The Bee'; and contributing to the same publisher's 'Lady's Magazine', as well as to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... every ten miles, all day long, and fairly flew over the hard, level road. We jumped out and stretched our legs every time the coach stopped, and so the night found us still vivacious and unfatigued. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... quite "the thing" for strangers who came to New York to go and hear Dr. Tyng. Even on Sunday afternoons the house was filled; for at that service he preached what he called "sermons to the children"—but they were not only sprightly, simple and vivacious enough to attract the young, they also contained an abundance of strong meat for persons of older growth. He was an enthusiast in Sunday school work—had 2,500 scholars in his mission schools, and possessed an unsurpassed power in nailing the ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... vivacious lilac a generation after the door and lintel and the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet-scented flowers each spring, to be plucked by the musing traveller; planted and tended once by children's hands, in front-yard plots—now standing by wallsides in retired ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... fields. He had had the impertinence to set to music several of those mystic canticles which are still sung in Protestant communities. And he had avoided preserving the choral character. Far from it: he had a horror of it; he had given them a free and vivacious character. Old Gerhardt would have shuddered at the devilish pride which was breathed forth now in certain lines of his Song of the Christian Traveler, or the pagan delight which made this peaceful stream of his Song of Summer bubble over ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... evidently fallen. The woods were just mellowing into October; the large, shining horse-chestnuts dropped at my feet as I walked along; the jay screamed over the trees; and occasionally a red squirrel—larger and softer-looking than ours, not so sleek, nor so noisy and vivacious—skipped among the branches. Soldiers passed, here and there, to and from some encampment on the farther side of the park; and, hidden from view somewhere in the forest-glades, a band of buglers filled the woods with wild ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... gone and her whole vivacious nature changed at the end of the Craigenputtoch period is proved by sentences from her letters, To his mother ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... Jorce was dressed sombrely in black cloth, was extremely voluble and vivacious, and impressed Lucian with the idea that he was less a fellow mortal than a changeling from fairyland. Quite an exceptional man was Dr. Jorce, and, as the Italian ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... Rembrandt, in some qualities of delineation unrivalled even by him." "The Two Elves," says Hamerton, "especially the nearer one, who is putting on his breeches, are drawn with a point at once so precise and vivacious, so full of keen fun and inimitably happy invention, that I have not found their equal in comic etching anywhere ... the picturesque details of the room are etched with the same felicitous intelligence; but the marvel of the work is in the expression of the strange little ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... life of Mr. and Mrs. Secord was a most happy one. Their third daughter, Mrs. Harriet Smith, who still survives, a cheerful and vivacious lady of eighty-six, says that her father and mother were most devoted to each other, and lived ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... why you are here," she said, as the little American burst into vivacious explanations. "I am quite ready to do anything Julian wishes. You know—or, perhaps, you do not know—that he trained my clairvoyante faculties long ago. They are natural to me, I suppose; but you do ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... a vivacious, well-looking, well-dressed, agreeable young fellow—he was a Barnacle, but on the more sprightly side of the family—and he said in an easy way, 'Oh! you had better not bother yourself about ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... in a railway train was a married lady with a little daughter; opposite, facing them, was another child, a son, and a coloured "lady" with a baby. The mother of these children was a beautiful matron with sparkling eyes, in exuberant health and vivacious spirits. Near her sat a young lieutenant, dressed to kill and seeking a victim. He scraped up an acquaintance with the mother by attentions to the children. It was not long before he was essaying to make himself very agreeable to her, and by the time the sun began to decline, one would have ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... of this latest of the prophets is the vivacious dialogue of which our text affords one example. God speaks and the people question His word, which in reply He reiterates still more strongly. The other instances of its occurrence may here be briefly ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... prices for laying hens, we only found empty shells in the hen-coop, the rats having sucked the eggs before us. Gilbert, to save our eggs, bought a vivacious little terrier, who killed more fowls than rats; and as to the few little chickens that were hatched—despite the cold and damp—they gradually disappeared, devoured by the birds of prey, falcons and eagles, which carried them off ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... "ah, we purpose building you a palace, but if they conquer me you will not even possess a cabin!" [Footnote: Napoleon's words.—Vide "Memoirs of the Duchess d'Abrantes."] The emperor's head dropped on his breast, and a pause ensued, which the child, usually so vivacious, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... Had he taken the road to Darwan with his escort, he might eventually have returned at the head of larger forces, but it would have been to find that the Rani had been drugged and hurried to the funeral pyre, and that Kharrak Singh had "died of grief"—little likely as the vivacious youngster appeared to ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... cabinet, so that when, very soon afterwards, the couriers arrived bringing official accounts of the victory gained over the veteran cavalry of the States in the very presence of the stadholder, followed by the crowning triumph of Wachtendonk, the demonstrations of joy were all the more vivacious in consequence of the previous gloom. Spinola himself followed hard upon the latest messengers, and was received with ovations. Never, since the days of Alexander Farnese, had a general at the Spanish court been more cordially caressed or hated. Had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... by this special sort of susceptibility in one of its least agreeable forms. His sentiment was neither robustly and courageously animal, nor was it an intellectual demand for the bright and vivacious sympathies in which women sometimes excel. It had neither bold virility, nor that sociable energy which makes close emotional companionship an essential condition of freedom of faculty and completeness of work. There is a certain ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... from possessing what might be termed a retiring disposition. This was in a large measure due to a naturally vivacious temperament; for the rest, it was fostered by peculiarly congenial surroundings. In this environment individuality was free to express itself until it encountered opposition, when it was still more ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... from a comparison of races is no better. Germans are vigorous and Turks are long-lived, and they are all great smokers. But certainly the Germans do not appear so vivacious, nor the Turks so energetic, as to afford triumphant demonstrations in behalf of the sacred weed. Moreover, the Eastern tobacco is as much milder than ours as are the Continental wines than even those semi-alcoholic mixtures which prevail at scrupulous communion-tables. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... claims on my memory do not in all cases lend themselves to very exact statement. Most of them were English, and some of them, then in the bloom of youth and beauty, have between that time and this played their parts in the London world and ended them. But not a few were foreign—vivacious Northerners from New York, with the sublimated wealth of all Paris in their petticoats; Southerners whose eyes were still plaintive with memories of the Civil War; Austrians such as the von Hugels; Germans such as Countess Marie and Countess ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... large hazel eyes, sparkling with fun and merriment, are shaded by thick, curly lashes. She has a small, determined mouth, and the chin slightly upturned, gives a piquante expression to the intelligent face—so bright and vivacious. Her hair is of a fair-brown colour, a little lighter than her eyelashes, and is piled up high on the top of her head, breaking away into natural curls over her brow. She is clad in an exquisite tea-gown of dark blue plush, with a soft, hanging, loose front of a lighter shade of ...
— Mrs. Hungerford - Notable Women Authors of the Day • Helen C. Black
... take as our text this morning," announced the absent-minded clergyman, consulting his memorandum, "the sixth and seventh verses of the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs." Never suspecting that his vivacious son and heir had found the memorandum in his study on the previous night, and, knowing that his papa had composed a sermon celebrating the increased severity of dry law enforcement, had diabolically changed the chapter and ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... cause to regret her marriage. She was reconciled to her daughters sufficiently to renew a friendly intercourse; but the elder ones set up a separate establishment. Piozzi died not long afterwards. She was still a vivacious old lady, who celebrated her 80th birthday by a ball, and is supposed at that ripe age to have made an offer of marriage to a young actor. She died in May, 1821, leaving all that she could dispose of to a nephew of Piozzi's, who had been ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... student in Egbert Benson's office, his remarkable industry impressed clients and teacher, but when his voice sounded the praises of John Jay, few could have anticipated that this young man, small in stature, vivacious in speech, quick in action, with dark eyes and a swarthy complexion, was destined to become one of the most famous jurists in a century. Ambrose Spencer had not yet scored his first political honour, but his herculean frame and stately presence, with eyes and complexion ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... to pervade Beech Park as the carriage stopped, and augured well for its mistress's intention of being more than usually vivacious. It was found to be occasioned by the arrival of her brother Lord Lindore's servants and horses, with the interesting intelligence that his Lordship would immediately follow; and Lady Emily, wild with delight, forgot everything in the prospect ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... see him most characteristically in his correspondence with Turgot. What Turgot loved in Condorcet was his 'simplicity of character.'[6] Turgot was almost as much less vivacious than Condorcet, as Condorcet was less vivacious than Voltaire. They belonged to quite distinct types of character, but this may be a condition of the most perfect forms of sympathy. Each gives support where the other is most conscious of needing it. Turgot was one of those serene, capacious, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... that Montaigne brought to bear on his English reader, though the more we consider this quality of spontaneity in the essayist the more we shall realise its perennial fascination. The culture-content of Montaigne's book is more than even the self-revelation of an extremely vivacious and reflective intelligence; it is the living quintessence of all Latin criticism of life, and of a large part of Greek; a quintessence as fresh and pungent as the essayist's expression of his special individuality. For Montaigne stands out among all the humanists ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... gracious Englishman, in whose veins circulates the vivacious blood of France! Another glass? A bas!—the bottle is empty! Never mind! Vive le vin! I, the old soldier, order another bottle, and half a pound ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... S. C. HALL. "Tales of Irish Life" will remind the reader more of Lever or Sam Lover than of "Lavengro." It is effervescent and audacious, ringing with all the fun of the fair, and spiced with the constant presence of a vivacious and irresistible personality. The sixteen illustrations by Erskine Nicol are in precisely the same vein, matching Mrs Hall's sketches so manifestly that it is strange they have never been united before. To look at them is to laugh. 330 pp. Buckram, ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... at Sandsgaard had always been considerable, for his attractive and vivacious wife had been fond of parties, masquerades, and entertainments, and her tastes had been ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... a high value. They also prize tobacco for chewing. We always slept on board, and the sound of the Malays' songs came across the water to a late hour of the night. The musical instruments we heard were tom-toms, Jews'-harps, and frequently fiddles. The Malays are a merry, vivacious people, and fond of several games. The most interesting was a game at football, which was generally played in the evening. The ball is small, made of ratan, hollow, elastic, and light. One of the players dances it for a short time on his foot, sometimes on his arm or thigh, and ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... might strike his senses favourably. The other caught the expression of his eye; and perhaps he mistook its meaning, when he suffered his construction of what it said to animate him to pursue his whimsical analysis of the flags, with an air still more cheerful and vivacious ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... was alive, vivacious. The eyes were large, dark, bright, the lips were ripe and smiling, the cheeks weather-bronzed but ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... once tumbled over the edge and prepared to carry not only the luggage, but the female passengers ashore. Alden seeing this prospect, tore off his boots and stockings, and plunging into the chill water hastened to the stern of the boat where a slender, vivacious girl, brown, dark-eyed, and with cheeks glowing with the dusky richness of a peach, stood balancing herself like a bird and giving orders to a young man already ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... was too sprightly to allow of their walking at a slow pace on her account, but she was very grateful to be talked to, and very willing to talk to any extent: so, when they came to their part of the town, she was more brisk and vivacious than ever. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... only the inevitable, nay the exacted courtesies to his neighbour, he performed still greater prodigies with the green peas, and it was not until he leaned back for a deft operation with a pocket comb, that the vivacious, blue-eyed one got her chance to ask if it were not the Herr Professor Hauptmann, the great authority on the Lombard tongue. The query floored him; he could not deny that it was, and as curlylocks began ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... writer, a vivacious delineator of life and manners, even when he exhibits his versatility at the cost of some of his most attractive characteristics. In 'Sunrise' we have a combination of romance and politics, its motive supplied by the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... idle! absurd, absurd! . . . Is papa well? Are you well? and Tabby? You ask about Queen Victoria's visit to Brussels. I saw her for an instant flashing through the Rue Royale in a carriage and six, surrounded by soldiers. She was laughing and talking very gaily. She looked a little stout, vivacious lady, very plainly dressed, not much dignity or pretension about her. The Belgians liked her very well on the whole. They said she enlivened the sombre court of King Leopold, which is usually as gloomy as a conventicle. Write to me again soon. Tell me whether papa really ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... if his stature were less lofty than the Giant's, yet his shoulders were even broader. And, in truth, what a pair of shoulders they must have been! As I told you, a long while ago, they once upheld the sky. The Pygmies, being ten times as vivacious as their great numskull of a brother, could not abide the Giant's slow movements, and were determined to have him on his feet. So they kept shouting to him, and even went so far as to ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was given to self-denying toil, had yet something angelically coquettish in her manner, a spiritual-worldliness which was the clarified likeness of this- worldliness. O, had they seen the Hotel Dieu at Montreal? Then (with a vivacious wave of the hands) they would not care to look at this, which by comparison was nothing. Yet she invited them to go through the wards if they would, and was clearly proud to have them see the wonderful ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the house itself seems lighter and more cheerful-like without her, ma'am," said this young person, who was of a vivacious temperament, and upon whom the dowager's habitual dreariness had been a heavy affliction; "and you're looking all the better already for not ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... blank indeed until he thought of the master, and then he recovered a great portion of his usual vivacity. Small men are always vivacious. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... business in every detail of culture, expenses, and produce, and an accurate comparison of the old and new husbandry.'[440] It is said that though he really understood the theory and practice of farming he failed utterly in small economies. He was also far too vivacious and fond of society for the monotonous work of the plain farmer. At the same time his failures gave his observant mind a clear insight into the principles of agriculture. He was indefatigable in inquiries, researches, and experiments; and the best proof of the ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... if he were Irish. His voice, very guttural and quick, with a kind of lively bitterness in it, was of a kind of Irish voice new to me at that time. I had known a good many Irish people; but they had all been vivacious and picturesque, rapid in intellectual argument, and vague about life. There was nothing vivacious, picturesque, rapid or vague about Synge. The rush-bottomed chair next to him was filled by talker after talker, but Synge was not talking, ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield
... the single experience and to be absorbed in it. Out of this emerges by degrees an apprehension of ourselves contrasted with our experiences. Even, however, when this self-consciousness is once established, it may on vivacious or morbid occasions be overthrown. It by no means attends all the events of our lives. Yet it marks all conduct that can be called good. Goodness which is distinctively personal must in some way express the formation and maintenance of ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... drunk the health of Napoleon the present, Napoleon the past, and Napoleon the future, and they had done it from cobwebby, mouldy bottles out of the uttermost depths of Pierre's cellars. They were pleasantly, agreeably conscious of going home, and they talked a great deal of the vivacious, though heartbroken mother of little Napoleon, who, despite her shabby frock, was the life of the party. And Monsieur Jean—he, the great artist and stricken father—he too was gay and amusing. He sang a wonderful little French ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... admiring soldiery was more characteristic than the "Rock of Chickamauga." Between him and Sherman the old affection of schoolmates at the Military Academy was still warm. Sherman still called him "Tom," the nickname of cadet days, and Thomas evidently enjoyed, in his quiet way, the vivacious talk and brilliant ideas of his old friend, now his commander. His army so much outnumbered the organizations of McPherson and Schofield that, as a massive centre, it was necessarily the chief reliance of Sherman for the results of the campaign, and was personified in its leader's ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Winifred, accenting the second syllable strongly and contriving at once to be vivacious ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the old man, casting a glance of affection upon the vivacious Magdalena. "You had better read that letter again. Ragnar is a son who has his heart in ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... stateliness of a Spanish beauty, and the coarse fulness of outline which has always been admired in the Netherlands, Elsa was still without doubt a beautiful woman, though how much of her charm was owing to her bodily attractions, and how much to her vivacious mien and to a certain stamp of spirituality that was set upon her face in repose, and looked out of her clear large eyes when she was thoughtful, it would not be easy to determine. At any rate, her charms were sufficient to make a powerful impression upon Adrian, who, forgetting ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... prominent characteristics of the great Hampden, whose noble qualities were generously acknowledged even by his political enemies. Thus Clarendon described him as a man of rare temper and modesty, naturally cheerful and vivacious, and above all, of a flowing courtesy. He was kind and intrepid, yet gentle, of unblameable conversation, and his heart glowed with love to all men. He was not a man of many words, but, being of unimpeachable character, every word he uttered carried weight. "No man had ever a greater ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... diverting enough, and had hard work to retain my dignity, and not join in the merriment. It was darker at the foot of the hill, yet the crowd did not diminish, although they stood in ankle deep mud, and seemed less vivacious. Now and then I heard some voice name Cassion as we passed, recognizing his face in the torch glow, but there was no sign that he was popular. Once a man called out something which caused him to stop, hand on sword, but ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... presently returning to look after her forlorn brother, but, finding I had been taken to the kitchen for something that might at least alleviate the pangs of hunger, she rejoined the girls in the parlor, where there was already a dance under way. Althea was a bright-spirited girl, vivacious, alert, appreciative and companionable. She forthwith took her place in the Brook Farm community with the best grace. She readily made friends with Abby Ford and her sister, with Annie and Mary Page, with the Barlow ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... that we hope shortly to send you some American verses and prose of good intent? My vivacious friend Margaret Fuller is to edit a journal whose first number she promises for the 1st of July next, which I think will be written with a good will if written at all. I saw some poetical fragments which charmed me,—if only the writer consents to ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... ambition of an insatiable benevolence, which, not contented with reigning in the dispensation of happiness during the contracted term of human life, had strained, with all the reachings and graspings of a vivacious mind, to extend the dominion of their bounty beyond the limits of nature, and to perpetuate themselves through generations of generations, the guardians, the protectors, the nourishers ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... Snevellicci had no sooner swallowed another glassful than he smiled upon all present in happy forgetfulness of having exhibited symptoms of pugnacity, and proposed 'The ladies! Bless their hearts!' in a most vivacious manner. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... had asked himself, seated in the rear of the theater? How coldly critical had been her auditors; some of the faces about him ironical; the bored, tired faces of men who had well-nigh drained life's novelties; the artificially vivacious faces of women who played at light-heartedness and gaiety! Yet how free from concern had she been, as natural and composed as though her future had not depended upon that night! When she won an ovation, he had himself forgotten to applaud, but had sat there, looking ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... dress; there was something of the fair Spaniard in her beauty, though it lacked the spirituality of that rare type; to Winifred's grey-haired, corseted solidity; to Soames, of a certain grey and flat-cheeked distinction; to the vivacious Michael Mont, pointed in ear and eye; to Imogen, dark, luscious of glance, growing a little stout; to Prosper Profond, with his expression as who should say, "Well, Mr. Goya, what's the use of paintin' this small party?" finally, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the fullest extent of approbation. The secret bond of sympathy which chained his interest to the Commodore, might have owed its being to another cause. In the countenance of the latter there was much of that eagerness of expression, and in the eye that vivacious fire, that flashed, even in repose, from his own swarthier and more speaking features; and this assimilation of character might have been the means of producing that preference for, and devotedness to, the cause of the naval ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... examination of her. He remembered her as a long-legged little girl who had no great promise of good looks: he was not quite sure that she had grown into good looks now. But she was an eminently bright and vivacious young woman, strong, healthy, vigorous, with fine eyes and teeth and hair, and a colour that betokened an intimate acquaintance with outdoor life. And already, in the conversation at the bank, and in Polke's report of his interview with him, he had learnt ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... Hunniwell, Captain Sam's daughter, dropped in on her way to the post office. The captain was a widower and Maud was his only child. She was, therefore, more than the apple of his eye, she was a whole orchard of apples. She was eighteen, pretty and vivacious, and her father made a thorough job of spoiling her. Not that the spoiling had injured her to any great extent, it had not as yet, but that was Captain Sam's good luck. Maud was wearing a new dress—she had a new one every ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... dialogue, wherever the words of Jesus occur, the accompaniment is furnished by a string quartette, which serves to distinguish them from the others, and invests them with a peculiar gentleness and grace. The incidental choruses, sung by the People and the Apostles, are short and vivacious in character, many of them being in madrigal form. The chorales, fifteen in number, as has already been said, were taken from the Lutheran service. One of them, which Bach also liberally used in ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... individuals, as in States, have their value and import. Indeed, that sublime impulse of perfectibility, always vivacious, always working under various forms and with one underlying purpose, would be futile without them, and fatuous. And what were life without this incessant striving of the spirit? What were life without its angles of difficulty and defeat, and its apices ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... never finished, to show that his accomplishments in oil painting were of a very high order indeed. I need only refer to the famous head in the National Gallery known as The Shrimp Girl to explain what I mean. In this surprisingly vivacious and charming sketch we see something that is not inferior to Hals, in its broad truth and its quick seizure of the essentials of what had to be rendered. In another unfinished piece, which is now in the South London Art Gallery at Camberwell, we see the same powerful qualities ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... cunning-eyed Greeks, who throng the streets of Pera, at the unprotected Creole woman, who took Constantinople so coolly (it would require something more to surprise her); while the grave English raised their eyebrows wonderingly, and the more vivacious French shrugged their pliant shoulders into the strangest contortions. I accepted it all as a compliment to a stout female tourist, neatly dressed in a red or yellow dress, a plain shawl of some other colour, and a simple straw wide-awake, ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... The beast would catch the reflection of another ape in the glass and quickly bound to a more remote perch. The keeper told me that for a week his charge had barely eaten. It slept with the mirror held tightly in its paws. Now, what did the mirror mean to the animal! I believe"—here she became very vivacious—"I really believe that it was developing self-consciousness, and in time it would become human. On our way back from Heligoland, where we were entertained on the emperor's yacht at the naval manoeuvres, we paid another visit to our monkey house. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... curiously enough entered the lists as a newspaper man. From the sporting page he was graduated to police news, then the city desk, at last closing his career as the genius who invented the weekly Sunday thriller, in many colors of illustration and vivacious Gallic style which interpreted into heart throbs and goose-flesh the real life romances and tragedies of the preceding six days! He had conquered the paper-and-ink world—then deep within there stirred the call for participation in ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... notwithstanding this immense and constant stream of new and vigorous blood, it never suffices to raise the urban population to the same level of physical and nervous stability which the rural population possesses. More alert, more vivacious, more intelligent, even more urbane in the finer sense, as the urban population becomes,—not perhaps at first, but in the end,—it inevitably loses its stamina, its reserves of vital energy. Dr. Cantlie very properly defines ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... confinement and show much affection. A wah-wah, as the animal is called in this part of the world, will throw his arms around the neck of his master, and is even more human in his behaviour than the orang-utan, from which he differs in temperament, being more vivacious and inclined to mischief. In a kampong I once saw a young gibbon repeatedly descend into a narrow inclosure to tease a large pig confined there. The latter, although three or four times as large, seemed entirely at his mercy and was submissive and frightened, even when his ears were ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... by the treachery which had revealed his plans to Keimer, and perceiving that his paper was unpopular and heavy, Franklin very wisely decided to establish his own reputation as a vivacious writer, before entering upon the important undertaking of issuing a journal in his own name. There was a small paper then published in the city called "The Mercury." He commenced writing a series of very witty and satirical articles ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... the passer-by where relief from all curable infirmities was to be sought and found. Its brilliancy attracted the attention of a devious youth, who dashed his fist through the glass and upset my modest luminary. All he got by his vivacious assault was that he left portions of integument from his knuckles upon the glass, had a lame hand, was very easily identified, and had to pay the glazier's bill. The moral is that, if the brilliancy of ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... shops, where on shelves of marble were ranged the vases of wine and oil, and before whose thresholds, seats, protected from the sun by a purple awning, invited the weary to rest and the indolent to lounge—made a scene of such glowing and vivacious excitement, as might well give the Athenian spirit of Glaucus an excuse ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... style had something so fresh and so quaint that it can be accounted for only by going to the books which Toepffer studied. His dii majores were Montaigne and Amyot, and Paul Louis Courier, a learned Hellenistic scholar, as well as vivacious writer of the French Revolution and of the first Empire. For Montaigne Toepffer cherished the highest admiration. In his "Reflections and Short Disquisitions upon Art," (Reflexions et Menus Propos,) ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... Her father—alert, vivacious, handsome, with finely cut lips that were quick to smile, and dark eyes that smiled when the lips were still—followed her to the earth, shook out his ruffles, and extended his gold snuffbox to his good friend Mr. Jaquelin. The gentleman ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... learn her own habitation, came down to her room to be dressed for dinner, and to criticize cousins, aunt, house and all. The cousins were not striking—both were on a small scale, Caroline the best looking in features and complexion, but Horatia the most vivacious and demonstrative, and with an air of dash and fashion that was more effective than beauty. Lucilla, not sensible to these advantages, broadly declared both young ladies to be frights, and commented ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them to deliver up all strongholds in their possession and depart out of France. She must have been thinking it all out before and arranging it in her mind, it flowed from her lips so smoothly, and framed itself into such vivacious and forcible language. Still, it might not have been so; she always had a quick mind and a capable tongue, and her faculties were constantly developing in these latter weeks. This letter was to be forwarded presently from Blois. Men, provisions, and money were offering in plenty now, and Joan appointed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she showed, her delight in life, her high faith in something large, eternal, and advancing. Her health was evidently very frail, but she made light of it—it was almost the only thing she did not seem to find interesting. How could this clever, vivacious woman, Howard asked himself, retain this wonderful freshness and sweetness of mind in such solitude and dulness of life? He could imagine her the centre of a salon—she had all the gifts of a saloniste, the power of keeping a talk in hand, of giving her entire thought to her neighbour, ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... she could have forgiven him; and it was not surprising that the partners with whom she danced at the college assemblies during the next five years described her to each other as steely. Indeed, she danced and prattled with such vivacious energy, and her black eyes shone so like beads, that college tradition twisted her story until it ran that she had thrown over Tom Whittemore, the most popular man of his day, and that she had no more heart than a nether millstone. And all the time, just ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... the royal Elephant, carrying Media, myself, Jarl, and Samoa; Mohi the Teller of Legends, Babbalanja, and Yoomy, and six vivacious paddlers; their broad paddle-blades carved with the royal boars' tusks, the same tattooed on their chests for ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... army," pursued the Cigarette, with vivacious eloquence, "but if his example is followed, he'll ruin the Prefets, close the Bureaux, destroy the Exchequer, beggar all the officials, make African life as tame as milk and water, and rob you, M. le Colonel, of your ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... squire's charity, which is bounteous; and, to do Master Simon justice, he performs this part of his functions with great alacrity. Indeed I have been entertained with the mixture of bustle, importance, and kindheartedness which he displays. He is of too vivacious a temperament to comfort the afflicted by sitting down moping and whining and blowing noses in concert; but goes whisking about like a sparrow, chirping consolation into every hole and corner of the village. ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... handsome toilettes of the ladies added much to the brilliant effect. Doctor Schoolman and his wife were receiving, and our party joined the line of guests making their orderly way toward them. Doctor Schoolman was very amiable, and his wife, a vivacious little lady in satin and artificial curls, chatted volubly with the members of the flock ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... appeared in the last two years. I do not know, in fact, of any book that is more useful to the teacher just at present than Professor Frank McMurry's How to Study and Teaching how to Study. It is a book that is both a help and a delight, for it is clear and well-organized, and written in a vivacious style and with a wealth of concrete illustration that holds the attention from beginning to end. The chief fault that I have to find with it is the fault that I have to find with almost every educational book ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... the streets, so that it can never have any continuity—the most elaborate "plan or chart" or "fragment from their dream of human life" is sure to be rudely destroyed by the passing traffic. Although they start over and over again, even the most vivacious become worn out at last and take to that passive "standing 'round" varied by rude horseplay, which in time becomes so ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... quite out of shape with his fists, riddling him with revolver bullets, running him through in all directions with duelling swords, tearing him in pieces with wild horses and hanging him out of his own front window. These vivacious actions all looked possible and delightful to Lushington as he walked up and down his little sitting-room. Then came the cold shower-bath of returning common-sense. He sat down, filled a pipe ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... extracts are from letters written by one of Hannah's vivacious sisters. "Since I last wrote, Hannah has been introduced by Miss Reynolds to Baretti and to Edmund Burke (the 'Sublime and Beautiful' Edmund Burke!). From a large party of literary persons assembled at Sir Joshua's she received the most encouraging compliments; and the spirit with which she returned ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... "Nebuchadnezzar." The devil, it is alleged, studied for seven years to learn the Basque tongue; at the end of that time he had mastered only three words and abandoned the task in disgust. "And the result is," adds a vivacious writer, "that he is unable to tempt a Basque, because he cannot speak to him, and that consequently every Basque goes straight to heaven. Unfortunately, now that the population is beginning to talk French, (which the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... visit to-day from Dr. P——, who has lent me the works of Bichat and Broussais, which he recommends me to read. He is a most agreeable companion, and as vivacious as if he was only twenty. He reminds me sometimes of my old friend Lady Dysart, whose juvenility of mind and manner always pleased as much as it ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... for England and admiration of her ways, shooting at Sandringham, competing at Cowes, sending telegrams of congratulation to the University boat-race winners, ingratiating himself with all he met by his social gifts, his vivacious conversation, his ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... did," I replied. "What a beautiful young man he was! His aquiline nose, his fair complexion, his brilliant eyes, his lithe form, his intelligent and vivacious expression,—all these irresistibly attracted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... different style and size from the book above noticed is this little neatly-printed pamphlet with flexible covers, occupying sixty-six pages, of songs, to be used by pupils in connection with their industrial labors. They are vivacious, pithy, adapted to the purpose in hand, and doubtless would cheer and brighten many an hour that might otherwise pass in the humdrum of an unrelieved toil, and at the same time impress upon the memory and heart a ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 4, April, 1889 • Various
... valentine music, dreamy stuff to accord with the shaded lamps which displayed the tables in a lower rosy light. It helped to extend the mysterious and romantic shadows. The pale, disembodied masks of the waiters swam in the dusk above the tinted light. I had for a companion a vivacious American lady from the Middle West, and she looked round that prospect we had of an expensive cafe, and said, "Well, but I am disappointed. Why, I've been looking forward to seeing the ocean, you know. And ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... action only when the main personality relaxed its control and became dormant; so that thereafter the child alternated between two states, one very quiet, industrious and conscientious, the other vivacious and mischievous; and the main personality never remembered what was done in this secondary, mischievous state. In such cases, it would appear that the cleavage resulted from a violent thrusting out from the main personality of tendencies inconsistent with the dominant (here serious) attitude ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... apartment, drinking the most delicious tea I had ever tasted out of a hand-painted cup of china which I knew must be worth its weight in gold, munching cakes and biscuits of wonderful flavour, and being treated quite as an equal by this smartly dressed and vivacious American lady. Not the least of her charms was that she had the knack of putting one absolutely at one's ease; and presently she began to question ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... of her companion's ignorance acted upon the girl like magic. She became vivacious, and beamed with the glow of satisfaction kindled by the privilege of being the first to relate a morsel ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... it was a warning," continued the vivacious George. "W'y'e should come to me I don't know. One thing is I think 'e always 'ad a bit of a ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... she, with a vivacious little laugh, "I have poured out my whole soul before you, and, in return, I want you to gratify a curiosity which is fairly eating me up. Why were you so anxious to find my Cousin Junius? And how did you ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... particular part of the epistle represents an actual dialogue between a Jew and Gentile, since the form of question and answer appears to me there simply rhetorical. The Apostle Paul was learned in rhetoric; and I think he described so, by a rhetorical and vivacious form, that struggle between the flesh and the spirit common to all Christians; the spirit being triumphant through God in Christ Jesus. These are my impressions. Yours are different. And since we should not probably persuade each other, and since we are both of ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon |
