"Vivacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... No, no. I have overlooked your class. But stay—I think I can forward you to a friend. Let me see, what time is it? (Produces watch, and lets it fall.) Dear me! It has stopped, as I live! (With vivacity.) My dear fellow, here is a chance for you. You ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... around Victor Hugo—Alfred de Vigny, Emile Deschamps, Sainte-Beuve, David d'Angers, and others—"studied and felt the real Middle Ages in their architecture, in their chronicles, and in their picturesque vivacity." Nor should we overlook in connection with romanticism Cousin's aesthetic teaching, according to which, God being the source of all beauty as well as of all truth, religion, and morality, "the highest aim of art is to awaken ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... attempted in the shorter form: Mr. Martin uses it as often as he uses the heroic: perhaps Mr. Howes is the only translator since Creech who employs the heroic throughout. Some of my readers may possibly wonder why I in particular, having rendered the AEneid in a measure which, whatever its vivacity, may be thought deficient in dignity, should turn round and repudiate it in a case where vivacity, not dignity, happens to be the point desired. I can only say that it is precisely the colloquial nature of the metre which makes me stand in doubt of it for my present ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... renowned for their gayety. She was one of those hostesses whose vivacity never relaxes, and whose ready answers pass for sparkling wit. According to her own standard, a party was a success or a failure as it was noisy or quiet. Consequently she talked and laughed continuously. Startling colors were her particular weakness, and by the scent of extract of ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... Hannah's favourite; resembled her. The boy, Peter, was blond, like his mother. In Joan was repeated the grandmother's sallow skin, dark eyes, vivacity, force. The two, so far apart in years, were united by a strong natural bond of sympathy and alikeness. When they were together on some errand or excursion they had a fine time. If it ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... have a look at the strangers. Among them were the two daughters of the chief. They were not much darker than Spanish women, and had graceful figures and really beautiful features. Their teeth were brilliantly white; and their eyes full of expression and vivacity, heightened by the colour they had given to their eyelashes and eyebrows by means of a blue stone. Their dress consisted of a woollen robe, which covered them from the shoulders, where it was secured by a silver buckle, and hung ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... The men had all made a stampede for the kitchen; the women sat on chairs and benches against the wall, some of them leaning their heads back wearily, while others fanned themselves and their neighbors with vigor, not relaxing for a moment the somewhat strained vivacity which they felt that the occasion demanded. Bub Quinn's Aggy—no one knew her last name—sat a little apart from the others. She was apparently absorbed in the contemplation of her pocket-handkerchief, a piece of coarse finery, which she held by the ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... sooth, a trifle. Which, however, I will pray mesdames to accept as an excuse for my vivacity. 'Tis these little foolish trifling wounds that fret a man, worthy sir. Why, look ye now, sweeter temper than our Gerard never breathed, yet, when the bear did but strike a piece no bigger than a crown ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... COAT—Smooth variety: Smooth, very dense and not too fine or short. Rough variety: Very dense and wiry. HEIGHT—Not exceeding 16 inches. Pocket Beagles must not exceed 10 inches. GENERAL APPEARANCE—A compactly-built hound, without coarseness, conveying the impression of great stamina and vivacity. ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... rather silent but important-looking gentlemen, morning cigars afire, gradually formed ranks in arm-chairs under the colonnade; people passing and repassing began to greet each other with more vivacity; veranda and foyer became almost animated as the crowd increased. And now a demure bride or two emerged in all the radiance of perfect love and raiment, squired by him, braving the searching sunshine with confidence in her beauty, her plumage, and a kindly planet; and, in pitiful contrast, here ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... evening in the house of one of the richest inhabitants, Don Antonio Padron, where we found assembled at a tertulia all the good company of Trinidad. We were again struck with the gaiety and vivacity that distinguish the women of Cuba. These are happy gifts of nature to which the refinements of European civilization might lend additional charms but which, nevertheless, please in their primitive ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... and groves. You hear their piping in the meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings, the air is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... lump. The dress-uniform of the Ninth was everywhere, the black shakos and epaulettes, white pompons, cross-belts and gloves, and multiplicity of brass buttons, lending the immense assemblage a singular spirit and vivacity. ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... had in my work, I showed him my Cree Indian Testament, in Evans' Syllabic Characters, and explained the invention to him. At once his curiosity was excited, and jumping up he hurried off for pen and paper, and had me write out the whole alphabet for him, and then with that glee and vivacity for which His Lordship was so noted, he constituted me his teacher, and commenced at once to master them. Their simplicity, and yet wonderful adaptation for their designed work became clearly recognized by him, for in a short time he read a portion of the Lord's Prayer. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Dillingham than for the details of his new home. Now he could see them together—the mother of his children, and the woman who had already won his heart away from her. The shapely lady, with her queenly ways, her vivacity, her graceful adaptiveness to persons and circumstances, was sharply contrasted with the matronly figure, homely manners, and unresponsive mind of his wife. He pitied his wife, he pitied himself, he pitied his children, he almost pitied the dumb walls and the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... considered to be about two hundred thousand, of whom fifty thousand are Indians. "Essentially a Frenchman, (says Mr. Hall,) the Canadian is gay, courteous, and contented. If the rigours of the climate have somewhat chilled the overflowing vivacity derived from his parent stock, he has still a sufficient portion of good spirits and loquacity. To strangers and travellers he is invariably civil; and he seems to value their good word beyond their money. He is considered parsimonious, because all his gains arise ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... to jar with any preconceived notion of Giorgionesque sobriety or reserve. Yet here, if anywhere, we get that fuoco Giorgionesco of which Vasari speaks, that intensity of feeling, rendered with a vivacity and power to which the artist could only have attained in his latest days. In this splendid group there is a masculine energy, a fulness of life, and a grandeur of representation which carries le grand style to its furthest limits, and if Giorgione ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... extraordinary range of expression.... She sings, recites, speaks, laughs, and cries (literally), and some of her selections are given in a sort of Irish patois' (oh, my beloved Manx!) 'that comes from her girlish lips with charming vivacity and drollness.' All of which, though it is quite right, and no more than my due, of course, made me sob so long and loud that my good little hippopotamus came upstairs to comfort me, but, finding me ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... influx. Through the exquisite shock of the beautiful he reaps an accession of mental magnetism. Thus through the beautiful we commune the most directly with the divine; and, other things being equal, to the degree that men respond to, are thrilled by, this vivacity of divine presence, as announced by the beautiful, to that degree are they elevated ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... February 14, 1820, Madame (as the Duchess of Berry was called after the Duchess of Angouleme became Dauphiness) was but twenty-five when her father-in-law, Charles X., ascended the throne. She was certainly not pretty, but there was in her something seductive and captivating. The vivacity of her manner, her spontaneous conversation, her ardor, her animation, her youth, gave her charm. Educated at the court of her grandfather, Ferdinand, King of Naples, who carried bonhomie and familiarity to exaggeration, and lived in the company ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Irish vivacity of intelligence under the taciturn gravity of a Spanish lawyer, and backed by the influence of two noble houses, O'Brien had attained to a remarkable reputation of sagacity and unstained honesty. Hand in glove with the clergy, one of the judges of ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... pretensions as a writer." "But," says Mrs. Piozzi, "the features of peculiarity, which mark a character to all succeeding generations, are slow in coming to their growth." That ingenious lady adds, with her usual vivacity, "Can one, on such an occasion, forbear recollecting the predictions of Boileau's father, who said, stroking the head of the young satirist, 'This little man has too much wit, but he will never speak ill of ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... But what do you think his answer was? Why, with his usual Gothic vivacity, he said I only wanted him to throw off his wig, to convert it into a ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... called "the Cove." The first break in the happy family circle was made by the departure of a daughter to another State to engage in teaching. Few letters were written in those days, and the postal service was a slow and small concern. But this absent school-teacher had written with much care and vivacity to the dear circle at home as regularly as the months came around. But now, for long, anxious weeks, no tidings from the absent one had reached that saddened home at the Cove. "Why don't we get a letter from ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... and graceful figure of Chancellor Livingston, and his polished wit and classical taste, contributed not a little to deepen the impression resulting from the ingenuity of his argument, the vivacity of his imagination, and the dignity of his station."—Chancellor Kent's address before The Law Association of New York, October 21, 1836. George Shea, Life of Alexander ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Bourdeaux, had been acquired by his family in consequence of the marriage of his father with the daughter of the first president of that tribunal. From his earliest years young Montesquieu evinced remarkable readiness and vivacity of mind; a circumstance which determined his father to breed him up to the "magistracy," as it was termed in France—a profession midway, as it were, between the career of arms peculiar to the noble, and the labours of the bar confined to persons of plebeian origin, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... found in Haslewood's Preface, which precedes our text of "Thersites." It may be added, that whatever shortcomings may be apparent in these productions from a literary and dramatic point of view, they are by no means devoid of a fair share of shrewd humour and pointed vivacity, and are, moreover, not unimportant contributions, especially when their early date is considered, to the illustration of manners. The low-comic view predominates in most of them, and we meet with occasional ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... another of his personal characteristics, namely, his undying and unalterable faith in his own ideas and conclusions, whether they had achieved recognition or not. He could lay aside a scheme which had not found immediate and successful application, and turn his attention, with undiminished vivacity, to something else; but he never owned to a real defeat. And now the problem presented at Baltimore seemed to him a providential call for his intervention. If the English engineers could not run their locomotives around sharp ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... well matched. She, of course, was the better looking of the two, a really pretty and attractive young woman indeed, but the vivacity of Anscombe's face, the twinkle of his merry blue eyes and its general refinement made up for what he lacked—regularity of feature. I think he had just told her one of his good stories which he always managed to make so humorous by a trick of pleasing and harmless exaggeration, and they were both ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... wisdom and simplicity, so tempering each other, as to make the simplicity refined and the wisdom unaffected—the same gentle magnanimity of spirit, intolerant only of tyranny and injustice—and, in addition to all this, a range and vivacity of conversation, entirely his own, which leaves no subject untouched or unadorned, but is, (to borrow a fancy of Dryden,) "as the Morning of the Mind," bringing new objects and images successively into view, and scattering its own fresh light over all. Such a visit, therefore, could not fail to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... DONA JOSEFA TUDO, enters. She is a young and beautiful woman, the vivacity of whose large dark eyes is now clouded. She is wrapped up for flight. The servant ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... still appalled, respected the silence of its chief; but Fragoso, comprehending scarce half the gravity of the situation, and carried away by his customary vivacity, came ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... of good passages, passages abounding in vivacity, in the colour and play of life.... The pith of the book lies in its singularly fresh and vivid pictures of the humours of the gold-fields,—tragic humours enough they are, too, here ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... their brother came in. The two girls were both over twenty years of age. Hester, the elder, was remarkably handsome, and much resembled her father in voice and manner. Kate was of much smaller build, full of vivacity, and her big, merry brown eyes matched the dimples on her soft, sun-tanned cheeks. Harry, who was Randle's youngest child, was a heavily-built, somewhat sullen-faced youth of eighteen, and the native ...
— "Old Mary" - 1901 • Louis Becke
... This distaste was, however, counterbalanced by the girl's quickness in other respects. By dint of memory, and an excellent ear, she soon had at her finger ends whole passages of Scripture, together with a number of psalms and hymns, from one to the other of which she ran with a vivacity and heedlessness, that often pained her teacher. She was soon the leader of the little choir, and could sing, with wonderful correctness, "Shall we gather at the river?" "I think when I read that sweet story ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... the public will—not even hypothetically to insinuate a fault; not a syllable could he utter even in the way of dissent from the favourite speculations of the moment. If he did, instantly a roar of menaces recalled him to a sense even of personal danger. And, again, the mere vivacity of his audience, requiring perpetual amusement and variety, compelled a man, as great even as Demosthenes, to curtail his arguments, and rarely, indeed, to pursue a theme with the requisite fulness of development or illustration; a point in which the superior dignity ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... to neither and still to both types of the cultured Indian. The solemn, silent, almost heavy manner of the one so commingled with the gesticulating Frenchiness and vivacity of the other, that one unfamiliar with native Canadian life would find it difficult ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... came; and Pedgift Junior, punctual to his time, came with it. His vivacity of the morning had all sparkled out; he greeted Allan with his customary politeness, but without his customary smile; and, when the headwaiter came in for orders, his dismissal was instantly pronounced in words never yet heard to issue from ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... of the French aristocracy in the days of its highest splendour, a finished gentleman, a brave soldier, and a skilful diplomatist. His courteous and insinuating manners, his Parisian vivacity tempered with Castilian gravity, made him the favourite of the whole Court. He became intimate with the grandees. He caressed the clergy. He dazzled the multitude by his magnificent style of living. The prejudices which the people of Madrid had conceived against the French character, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... moment the confidence of Venice revived. The fleet, now superior in strength to the enemy, began to attack them with vivacity. After several months of obstinate resistance, the Genoese—whom their republic had ineffectually attempted to relieve by a fresh armament—blocked up in the town of Chioggia, and pressed by hunger, were obliged to surrender. Nineteen galleys ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... jerked and vibrated oddly. Mrs. Forrester nodded, smiled, acquiesced. She was rather fond of Eleanor. Their talk was for each other. Miss Woodruff, unheeded, but with nothing of the air of one consciously insignificant, sat looking before her. Beside Eleanor's vehemence and Mrs. Forrester's vivacity she made Gregory think of a ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... regulation of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure; and it infinitely abates the evils of vice. Rousseau, a writer of great force and vivacity, is totally destitute of taste in any sense of the word. Your masters, who are his scholars, conceive that all refinement has an aristocratic character. The last age had exhausted all its powers in giving a grace and nobleness to our mutual appetites, and in raising them into a higher class and ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... I meant nothing!" she retorted with sudden vivacity. And she made a face at him, laughing under his nose. "I do that when I mean nothing, Monsieur! Do you see? But you are Gascon, and given, I fear, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... was typical, but in a totally different way. She was a type of that county life which railways have gradually modified, and by this time almost obliterated. She was a woman remarkable for her vivacity, wit, and humor. At county balls she was an institution. At country houses throughout Devonshire and Cornwall she was a familiar and welcome guest, and to half of her hosts and hostesses she was in one way or another related. ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... good humoredly to Jim. The two friends went out into the crisp, clear air. The snow crunched under their feet as they paced along the platform, and the elixir of the atmosphere made every bit of them tingle with its vivacity and life. ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... Often—strong man as he was—would he allow his feelings to overcome him when thinking of the possibilities which he believed life might have had in store for him. The constant mental strain under which he found himself seemed to affect but lightly his keen sense of vivacity. Wearily did he pass some of his time amidst the verdancy of the woods. The sun often rose and set unheeded by the fugitive. When darkness set in he would furtively steal out to a friend's hut, where he would participate in the frugal supper, and afterwards engage in the family worship, which ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... any habitation, makes incessant raids upon poultry. It is tamed without difficulty, and will run to meet its master, and seems to value his caresses; yet, like the squirrel, which it resembles in its vivacity, it will suddenly bite the hand of any one who feeds it. The flesh of this animal ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... this would be turning one's back, as it were, upon the Deity. The elbow may not rest upon the cushion. The head, held erect, but not haughtily, should move upon the atlas gently and suavely, avoiding 'lightness' and undue vivacity. The lips must not smile; but, when occasion calls for it, they may display a saintly joy. The eyebrows must not be raised too high towards the hair-roots; nor should one be elevated while the other is depressed. The voice should be at times tremolando, and the tone periodically ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... This miserable degradation of man affords ample subject for reflection; but it is excessively painful to see the human countenance thus become an object of horror and repugnance. I remarked, however, in several of these poor creatures, a degree of vivacity bordering on astonishment, produced on them by external objects. As they never recognize what they have already seen, they feel each time fresh surprize, and the spectacle of the world, with all its details, is thus for ever new to them; it is, perhaps, the compensation for their sad state, for certainly ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... looked at her daughter. All the girl's face had lacked of vivacity and happy expression it wore now, making ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... Tao priest to consult the gods." Gerrit heard this with a frowning countenance. If Nettie were not there he would put Dunsack forward with the hypothetical crew to which he belonged. He felt as sorry for Nettie, he discovered, as ever. It moved him to see her vivacity of life, her appealingly warm color, slowly dulled by Salem and the adventitious circumstance of her birth. What a dreary existence she led in the harsh atmosphere of her grandfather and the solemn house on Hardy Street! At one time he had fancied that he might change it... when now here was Taou ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... privilege of personal acquaintance with famous writers and artists whom I can now recall as I saw them, talked with them, heard them, in that pleasant library, that most lively and agreeable dining-room. How could it be otherwise, with such guests as he entertained, and with his own unflagging vivacity and his admirable social gifts? Let me live ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... long they held it, how soon they were dispossessed, how and at what intervals and with what uncertain footing they returned. We do not accept them because they were popular in their day, and we do not reject them because they are not suitable to ours. They have lost no vivacity or strength or grace by their exclusion from the stage and their exile to literature—to that permanent theatre for which the poet, freely using any and every form of dramatic ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... debut as Beatrice, in Shakespeare's glorious comedy, "Much Ado About Nothing,"—a character well calculated to display her arch vivacity and charming sprightliness. I saw her rehearse the part, and was satisfied that she must achieve a brilliant triumph,—an opinion that was fully concurred in by her gratified instructor, and also by the manager and several of the leading ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... truth, it must be owned that if she had not had bestowed upon her by nature gifts of beauty and vivacity so extraordinary, and had been cursed with a thousandth part of the vixenishness she displayed every day of her life, he would have broken every bone in her carcass without a scruple or a qualm. But her beauty seemed but to grow with every hour that passed, and it was by exceeding ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of the guests suspected it. Shelby was diverted by Mrs. Van Dam's unimagined vivacity; while his wife had no immediate room for any impression save satisfaction that this autocrat, who held that punctuality should be the politeness of democracy no less than princes, had been caught napping. It was clear that she meant to bury the hatchet, and Cora, with ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... excessive vivacity was that, when he wanted any thing done, he expected the person nearest to him should not only instantly obey, but conceive what he meant from the pointing of his finger, the turn of his head, or ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... no more than that, perhaps twenty at the most—possessed, in addition to the allurements of face and shape that went very near perfection, a sparkling vivacity and a grace of movement the like of which Andre-Louis did not remember ever before to have beheld assembled in one person. And her voice too—that musical, silvery voice that had awakened him—possessed in its exquisite modulations an allurement ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... Lady Froth, 'a great coquet, pretender to poetry, wit, and learning,' and one would almost as lief have seen Mrs. Mountfort in the part as the Bracegirdle's Millamant. Her serious folly and foolish wisdom, her poem and malice and compliments and babbling vivacity—set off, it is fair to remember, by a pretty face—are atonement for a dozen Maskwells. She is a female Witwoud, her author's first success in a sort of character he draws to perfection. The scene between Mellefont and Lady Plyant, where she insists ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... from his friend with the same light-hearted vivacity as he had manifested in all their intercourse. Le Bourdon gave him his own rifle, plenty of ammunition, and various other small articles that were of value to an Indian, accepting the Chippewa's arms in return. The exchange, however, was greatly to the advantage of the savage. As for Peter, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... of our journey; then some point between Boonesboro' and Frederick; then Frederick, where we should find railroad transportation direct for Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. This was a pretty fancy, and we discussed it with great vivacity. It beguiled the march and helped us amazingly over the abominable roads and through the more abominable rain. There was but little singing, however, "Homeward Bound" being as yet far from fait accompli. ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... of questions on his own account to learn what had become of the regiment. As Jean went on to tell that the colonel had been seen crossing the city to reach his camp at the head of what few men were left him, Gilberte again thoughtlessly spoke up, with the vivacity of a woman whose beauty is supposed to ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... his faculties unimpaired, and his memory stored with the recollections of his extraordinary and eventful career, and an inexhaustible mine of anecdotes, his delight was to narrate, which he used to do with an abundance, a vivacity, and a finesse peculiar to himself, and to the highest degree interesting and attractive. No name was once held in greater detestation in England than that of Talleyrand. He was looked upon universally as a sink of moral and political profligacy. Born at the end ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Her face was of that plumpness to give it charm, delicate in contour, rich with the freshness of the bloom of youth. Her carriage betrayed breeding and dignity. And all was sweetened by a magnetism and vivacity that charmed all who came within her influence. Still her attitude was the more ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... had few equals as an agreeable letter-writer. The author was in official correspondence with him through his whole missionary life, and never ceased admiring his vivacity, humor, and felicity of expression, the aptness of his thoughts, and his very appropriate quotations of Scripture. He had the power, beyond most men, of passing at once and by an easy transition, from the merriest laughter to the most serious topics. His ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... affected. Davies, who is not a scribbler, has always beaten us all in the war of words, and by his colloquial powers at once delighted and kept us in order. H. and myself always had the worst of it with the other two; and even M. yielded to the dashing vivacity of S.D. But I am talking to you of men, or boys, as if ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... led him home to his lodgings over the river, and installed themselves as they could, all smoking and talking at once, while he opened his boxes and disposed some of his belongings in their places. They told him all the news, with the vivacity of men who have twenty- four hours the start of a friend. The Rhine Korps had increased its numbers considerably and seemed already inclined to show its teeth to the Westphalia Korps. The Saxon Korps had lost ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... they exercise their wits, according to their intelligence, their vivacity, their resources, and their boldness, in the struggle with the terrible discomfort. Each one seems to make the revealing declaration, "This is all that I knew, all I was able, all that I dared to do in the great misery which has ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... eyes of the softest blue; and her hair luxuriant, and of the finest texture and richest brown. Her other beauties must be left to the imagination; but it ought not to be omitted that she was barely eighteen, and had all the freshness, the innocence, and vivacity of that most charming period of woman's existence. No wonder she ravished every heart. No wonder, in an age when love-making was more general even than now, that she was beset by admirers. No wonder her father's ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... years old. I was happy, satisfied with everything, as one is at that age, full of joy and vivacity. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... actor, was the author of several vivacious Irish tales, including The Wild Irish Girl (1806), O'Donnel (1814), and The O'Briens and the O'Flaherties (1827); also two books on society in France and in Italy characterised by "more vivacity and point than delicacy," and ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... ruined in its taste for pleasure. No; her whole character seemed to change with a change of fortune. Her sorrows, the depression of her spirits, were forgotten, and she assumed all the simplicity and the vivacity of a youthful mind. She was like a serpent upon a rock, that casts its slough, and appears again with the brilliancy, the sleekness, and the elastic activity of its happiest age. She was playful, full of confidence, kindness and sympathy. ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... particularly on the extraordinary force and beauty of the word, '[Greek: episkeptontas].'" I, also, have often heard him quote long passages from the Greek dramatists, particularly from "Aristophanes," really impromptu, and with as much facility and vivacity as if he had been reading English. I have already intimated that he read many of the new publications of the day. One of these was Mr. Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome," with which he was much amused, saying that "some of them were very clever and spirited;" and, after reading ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... pleasure in reading of them in natural history books! The living bird, viewed closely and fearless of our presence, is so much more to the mind than all that is written—so infinitely more engaging in its spontaneous gladness, its brilliant vivacity, and its motions so swift and true and yet so graceful! Even leaving out the melody, what a charm it would add to our homes if birds were permitted to take the part there for which Nature designed them—if they were the "winged wardens" of ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... seized eagerly, and immediately divided amidst the Spectators. Whoever became possessor of a Bead, preserved it as a sacred relique; and had it been the Chaplet of thrice-blessed St. Francis himself, it could not have been disputed with greater vivacity. The Abbot, smiling at their eagerness, pronounced his benediction, and quitted the Church, while humility dwelt upon every feature. Dwelt She also ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... volition—arrest the former, and obey the latter. This will place him on the safe side of practice. We always know where to look for the real Scientist, and always find him there. I agree [10] with Rev. Dr. Talmage, that "there are wit, humor, and enduring vivacity among God's people." ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... that, as they rode together through some of the prettiest roads in the most beautiful part of Normandy, M. de Talbrun began to talk, with an ever-increasing vivacity, of the days when they first met, at Treport, relating a thousand little incidents which Jacqueline had forgotten, and from which it was easy to see that he had watched her narrowly, though he was ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... sort of painting; and, in truth, some that are to be seen by his hand are marvellous—among others, that of a German of the Fugger family, a man of rank and importance, who was then living in the Fondaco de' Tedeschi at Venice, was painted with great vivacity. ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... information and amusement from the present volume. The work itself will have a standard place in all Collections of Voyages and Travels; a place which it will fully merit, by the industry and ardour of research conspicuous throughout, as well as by the spirit vivacity and good sense of the general narrative."—Quarterly ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... en England und Portugal. Hamb. 1802. 8vo.—This work, by Mad. Barnard, is written with that peculiar charm and vivacity of style, which it would seem females only can attain. There are in it curious notices of Berlin, Hanover, and Cuxhaven, besides those ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... eldest son of Alfred, was a noble, dark-eyed, princely boy, full of vivacity and spirit; and, from the first moment of introduction, seemed to be perfectly fascinated by the spirituelle graces of ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... encouraging. The reason why it is worth your while to get the best possible education you can, to continue it as long as you can, to make the very most of it by using all your intelligence and industry and vivacity, and by resolving to enjoy every detail of it, and indeed of all your school life, is that it will make you—you yourself—so much more of a person. More—as being more pleasant to others, more useful to others, in an ever-widening sphere of influence, ...
— Three Addresses to Girls at School • James Maurice Wilson
... honest man's paternal breast, as he saw the frank picture of a Prodigal Son rolled out before him; and had to gaze into the most revolting deeps of the passions and vices. Yet he felt himself irresistibly dragged along by the uncommon vivacity of action in this wild Drama; and at the same time powerfully attracted by the depth, the tenderness and fulness of true feeling manifested in it: so that, at last, out of those contradictory emotions of his, a clear admiration and pride for his Son's bold and rich spirit ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... I know not, and am in no condition to guess. A certain snappish vivacity (very unlike the style of Frederick whom it personates); a wearisome grimacing, gesticulating malice and smartness, approaching or reaching the sad dignity of what is called 'wit' in modern times; in general the rottenness of matter, and ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... spoke, Rose entered the chapel with the same vivacity she had shown in leaving it, leading by the hand her father, whose sluggish though firm step, vacant countenance, and heavy demeanour, formed the strongest contrast to the rapidity of her motions, and the anxious ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the assistance of Reason: And considering the Outrage she receiv'd, not as coming from a great King, but a Man blinded and possest by Don Alvaro, she thought him not worthy of her Resentment; her fair Eyes animated themselves with so shining a vivacity, they answer'd for the purity of her Sentiments; and fixing them steadfastly on the King, 'If the Prince Don Pedro have Weaknesses, (reply'd she, with an Air disdainful) he never communicated 'em to me; and I am certain, I never contributed ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... that others feel no interest in the children who to your eyes seem so perfect, and have no inclination to act as inquisitors over their little talents and accomplishments. Spare your friends the thousand-and-one anecdotes of the extraordinary cleverness, vivacity, or piety of the little people you love so blindly: do not excoriate their ears by making them listen to recitations or the strumming of sonatos; or weary their eyes by requesting them to watch the leaping and kicking of small stick-like legs.' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... biography, was born on the 2d of November, 1755. Few of the inhabitants of this world have commenced life under circumstances of greater splendor, or with more brilliant prospects of a life replete with happiness. She was a child of great vivacity and beauty, full of light-heartedness, and ever prone to look upon the sunny side of every prospect. Her disposition was frank, cordial, and affectionate. Her mental endowments were by nature of a very superior order. Laughing ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... was tiny and dried-up: a mummy with the face of a grey-hound, her skin close to her bones, her lips painted, little penetrating blue eyes, and great vivacity in her movements. She dressed in a showy manner; wore jewels on her bosom, on her head, on ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... it will be exposed to, and bewildered in, uncertainty.—From an enthusiastic warmth of temper, indeed, we may for a while be encouraged to persist in some favourite doctrine, or to adhere to some adopted system; but when that enthusiasm, which is founded on the vivacity of the passions, gradually cools and dies away with them, the opinions it supported drop from us, and we are thrown upon the inhospitable shore of doubt.—A striking proof of the necessity of some moral rule of wisdom and virtue, and some system of happiness established by unerring ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... to watch for their steps as they took their morning walks together that bright first year of their married life! They seemed to have the life and vivacity of children. She always accompanied him in his walks, in his visits to the poor, in relief to the sick, by the bedside of the dying; she was like his shadow, and always haunted him for good. It might be said ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... She wore a red silk gown with a good many frills about the shoulders. She was very slight, and affected frills to conceal it. Out of this mass of red frills arose her little, alert head and face, homely, but full of vivacity. Maria thought her very nice. She would have liked her better for a mother than Ida. When Miss Zella Holmes smiled it ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in all, since 1884). "Your games always delight me, as they seem in my humble judgment specimens of chess skill remarkable for originality and vivacity."—12th ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... more than sixty years it has measured out in this beautiful Irish home the hours of a life given to good works and gracious usefulness. To-day, with all the vivacity of interest in the people and the place which one might look for in a woman of twenty, this charming old lady of eighty-three, showing barely threescore years in her carriage, her countenance, and her voice, entertained us with minute and most interesting accounts ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... time I received by post a set of verses which bear quite a resemblance to the senile vivacity of the verses which the real Gladstone addressed to my illustrious example of autobiographical art. The verses I received were anonymous, and as a matter of fact the postmark on the envelope was Beaconsfield. Still, ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... refreshing air of novelty, and the people that figure in it are depicted with a vivacity and subtlety that are very ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... as they were journalistically written in Paris, London, Switzerland, and the Forest of Fontainebleau. In particular I have left the critical judgments alone, for the good reason that I stand by nearly all of them, though perhaps with a less challenging vivacity, to ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... brilliant on the side of his companion. The playhouse, the opera, with every occurrence in high life, he seemed perfectly master of; and talked of some reigning beauties of quality in a manner the most feeling in the world. Harley admired the happiness of his vivacity, and, opposite as it was to the reserve of his own nature, began to be much ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... in all the gymnastic exercises suitable to his age, whereas absolute repose was prescribed for him. Dr. Glennie says, however, that, once back in the study-room, Byron's docility was equal to his vivacity. He had been instructed according to the mode of teaching adopted at Aberdeen, and had to retrace his steps, owing to the difference of ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... And what courage, what vivacity she threw into the business! Delaine, who had seen her till now as a person whose natural reserve was rather displayed than concealed by her light agreeable manner, who had often indeed had cause to wonder where and what might be the real woman, followed her from ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... OF WINES.—The inhabitants of a beer-drinking or spirit-drinking country will never possess the vivacity of wit and the light-heartedness of those who live in a wine-producing land. It is not by any means the alcohol in itself which constitutes the worth and goodness of wine, for beer may contain as much, and spirits ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... America contain some good clear-headed articles; but I sought in vain for the playful vivacity and the keenly-cutting satire, whose sharp edge, however painful to the patient, is of such high utility in lopping off the excrescences of bad taste, and levelling to its native clay the heavy growth of dulness. Still less could ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... to introduce me to a society of those geniuses; but I found them exceedingly formal and reserved — They seemed afraid and jealous of one another, and sat in a state of mutual repulsion, like so many particles of vapour, each surrounded by its own electrified atmosphere. Dick, who has more vivacity than judgment, tried more than once to enliven the conversation; sometimes making an effort at wit, sometimes letting off a pun, and sometimes discharging a conundrum; nay, at length he started a dispute upon the hackneyed comparison betwixt blank verse ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... made me wiser or better I dare not say, but it shows by its progress that I am capable of keeping a resolution. Perhaps I should not congratulate myself on this; perhaps it only serves to show I am more a man of method and less a man of originality, and have no longer that vivacity of fancy that is inconsistent with regular labour. Still, should this be the case, I should, having lost the one, be happy to find myself ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... this point the poor boy had held on with his wonted vivacity, but he stopped suddenly. The corners of his mouth began to twitch, and, laying his head on his mother's ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... hanging on their rear, and seeking only an opportunity to make a sudden descent upon them, many of the Huguenots were disposed to take advantage of the proximity of the German cities to disperse and find a refuge there. But Conde, with his never-failing vivacity and cheerfulness, and Coligny, with his "grave words," succeeded in checking their despondency until the welcome news of John Casimir's approach was announced. He brought six thousand five hundred horse, three thousand foot, and four cannon of moderate ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... judicious eye with a strong resemblance of Paul Veronese: he has all the vivacity and ease of that great painter, and fully equals him in his fancy for the singular and the shining in his draperies; but, as he shares his beauties, he is not without his faults. His composition is sometimes improper, and his design always incorrect; but with these blemishes, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... together—whirling hither and thither in express trains, for the purpose of making one exciting public appearance after another, each of them a little world of animated impersonations—he accomplished with such unfailing and unflagging vivacity, with such an easy step, such an alert carriage, with such an animated voice and glittering eye, that for a long while at least we were under the illusion. Hurrying about England, Ireland, and Scotland as ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... fine as the Abdulsamat, but a quiet, peaceful boat, without any pretensions; and really any "old tub" is safe on the Straits of Malacca except in a "Sumatran." I stayed on deck for some time enjoying the exquisite loveliness of the night, and the vivacity of two of my companions, Mr. Maxwell, the Assistant Resident here, a really able and most energetic man, very argumentative, bright, and pleasant; and Captain Walker, A.D.C. to Sir W. Robinson, on his way from the ceaseless ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... 'pon honour! A little girl with the vivacity of sixteen and brown eyes, brown hair—in fact, ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... to wonder or fancy; they sat down, and P. engaged in conversation, without much vivacity, but with his usual ease. The first quarter of an hour passed well enough. But soon it was observable that Mrs. P. was drinking glass after glass of wine, to an extent few gentlemen did, even then, and soon that she was actually excited by it. Before this, her manner ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... acquired serenity, Delsarte did not always refuse to satisfy his native impulses. I have already alluded to cases in which these returns to impetuous vivacity occurred, and how he rose above these relapses. Whether his peaceful spirit arose from religious feeling, or whether it was the result of moral strength, it breathed the spirit of the gospel; but it must also be confessed that our artist mingled with it much ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... advice: notwithstanding my vivacity, I can assume upon occasion a very majestic air; and indeed, I overheard some one saying at the ball, 'Who is that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Sarah murmured vaguely. This was the only reference to the estrangement. She went on with more vivacity. "And then Mr. Cannon has always had ideas about boarding-houses and furnished rooms and so on. He always did say there was lots of money to be made out of them if only they were managed properly; only they never are.... He ought to know; he's been a bachelor long enough, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... unlucky days for doing them. It contains doctrines and precepts relative to agriculture, navigation, civil and family life. Hesiod was the first of a Boeotian school of poets. He lacks the poetic genius of Homer, and the vivacity and cheerfulness which pervade ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... young stranger who had ventured into his dominions. When the old gentleman had sufficiently impressed on everybody that he had observed all necessary precaution in studying the character and inquiring into the antecedents of Lavender, he could not help confessing to a sense of lightness and vivacity that the young man seemed to bring with him and shed around him. Nor was this matter of the sketches the only thing that had particularly recommended Lavender to the old man. Mackenzie had a most distinct dislike ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... living and the dead. Naturally taciturn, unjoyful, and ever oppressed by that brooding consciousness of guilt hanging like a cloud over her memory, formless, vague, but never lifting, Fina's changeful temper and tumultuous vivacity were intensely wearisome to her. Nevertheless, she was forbearing if not loving, and the people said rightly when ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... to amuse her. Of course, she was not intellectual, since she read but few books and received only the rudiments of education; but she was as learned as her brothers, and quicker in her wits. She had the vivacity which a healthy life secures. Nor was she beautiful, according to our standard. She was a ruddy, cheerful, active, healthy woman, accustomed to exercise in the open air,—to field-sports and horseback journeys. Still less was she what we call fashionable, for the word was not known; nor was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... her most recent release, as the diaphragm opened on her receiving a box of chocolates, sent by her lover, and playfully feeding one of them to her beautiful collie, "Laddie," as he romped about upon a divan and almost smothered her with affection. The vivacity and charm of the scene were in sad contrast with what ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... outlooks for more. "The Husband, young and dissolute (SANS MOEURS), given up to a crapulous life, from which his relatives could not correct him, was continually committing infidelities to his Wife. The Princess, who was in the flower of her beauty, felt outraged by such neglect of her charms; her vivacity, and the good opinion she had of herself, brought her upon the thought of avenging her wrongs by retaliation. Speedily she gave in to excesses, scarcely inferior to those of her Husband. Family quarrels broke out, and were soon publicly known. The antipathy that ensued took away all hope ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... happened to come to a halt close to him. "Shockin' time they're playing this waltz in," he heard the soldier exclaim with humorous vivacity (he was apparently the funny man of the regiment, and had brought a silent but appreciative comrade with him as ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... is here given only to poetical works which have lived beyond their cradles and have taken rank amongst the treasures of the national literature. Thanks to sociability of manners, vivacity of intellect, and fickleness of taste, light and ephemeral poesy has obtained more success and occupied more space in France than in any other country; but there are successes which give no title to enter into a people's history; quality and endurance of renown are even more requisite in literature ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... all very well; but I don't call that keeping his promise to me, to come rushing into the place just as we are beginning to dance; after travelling all night perhaps, and knocking himself up in all sorts of ways, and with no more animation or vivacity left in him than a man who is walking in his sleep. Besides, he ought ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... most lifelike fashion. One almost catches the winged syllogisms as they fly from lip to lip. We are almost drawn into the dispute ourselves, and are disposed to ventilate a score of outrageous paradoxes, for the mere satisfaction of contradicting such wiseacres. These heads are painted with a vivacity and an energy worthy of the Dutch great masters of the seventeenth century. In fact, there is something caught, no doubt, from the early schools of Flanders; for Dominic was the contemporary of the glorious masters protected by Philip the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... thread of black metal which she passed through the holes of a draw-plate fixed to the vise. Seated in front of the bench, Lorilleux, quite as small of stature, but more slender in the shoulders, worked with the tips of his pliers, with the vivacity of a monkey, at a labor so minute, that it was impossible to follow it between his scraggy fingers. It was the husband who first raised his head—a head with scanty locks, the face of the yellow tinge of old wax, long, and ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... courts of the first and second Georges. Selwyn, however, probably inherited his wit and his enjoyment of society from his mother, who was Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte. Horace Walpole writes of her as "Mrs. Selwyn, mother of the famous George, and herself of much vivacity, and pretty." ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... to be a palace where a thousand children and their teachers lived with extreme vivacity in an atmosphere of ozone from which all draughts and chilliness had been eliminated. As a malcontent native of the Isle of Chilly Draughts, this attribute of the atmosphere of the Horace Mann School impressed me. Dimensionally I found ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... speak, perhaps," said Margaret, the natural vivacity of whose temper could never be long suppressed by any situation, however disadvantageous, "but I cannot be silent. Godfather, you do me wrong— and no less wrong to this young nobleman. You say his words want a warrant. I know where ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... much shaking of hands mingled with "God bless you's" and other good wishes to the four couples, at the churchyard gate, Mr. Poyser answering for the rest with unwonted vivacity of tongue, for he had all the appropriate wedding-day jokes at his command. And the women, he observed, could never do anything but put finger in eye at a wedding. Even Mrs. Poyser could not trust herself to speak as the neighbours shook hands with her, and Lisbeth began ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... girl had flirted with him outrageously. He turned up his ugly nose especially at 'blue stockings'; said all literary women were 'hopeless pedants and slatterns,' and quoted that abominable Horace Walpole's account of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's 'dirt and vivacity.' I really thought Gordon would throw him overboard. I wonder what he would say if he could see you darning Uncle Allan's socks. Oh, Edna, dearie! I am sorry to ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... published, Professor Tyndall has presented a noble illustration of the acuteness and subtlety of his intellectual powers, the scope and insight of his scientific vision, his singular command of the appropriate language of exposition, and the peculiar vivacity and grace with which he unfolds the results of intricate ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... are constantly in it, and are ever ready to show the curiosities to strangers and to give them every necessary information. Mr. Peale has now passed his eightieth year, and appears to possess the vivacity and, I may almost add, ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... was carried out with incomparable brilliancy of method, and vivacity of style. Defoe was thoroughly master of his subject; he had read every history that he could lay his hands on, and his connexion with King William had guided him to the mainsprings of political action, and fixed ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... The big man in the stern of the boat took off his hat in reply, and waved his hand, too. The rower pulled with the vivacity that comes to men near the end of a task, and the boat shot into the Pool of the Saint, where Ruffo was at that moment ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... extremely glad to see you." And she shook hands with each of her visitors. Her visitors were a little shy, but they had very good manners; they responded with smiles and exclamations, and they apologized for not knowing the front door. The lady rejoined, with vivacity, that when she wanted to see people very much she did not insist upon those distinctions, and that Mr. Westgate had written to her of his English friends in terms that made her really anxious. "He said you were so ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... English actor, "of great glee and much comic vivacity," was the original Clincher in Farquhar's Constant Couple (1699), Boniface in The Beaux' Stratagem (1707), and Sir Francis Courtall in Pavener's Artful Wife (1717). He played at all the London theatres of his time, and in the summer at a booth at Bartholomew Fair. He had three sons, all actors, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... inclination, but with the regular drudgery of a craftsman. In spite of all discouragements, he appeared to a visitor in his family, still considered the most devoted in the island to the French monarchy because so favored by it, as being "full of vivacity, quick in his speech and motions, his mind apparently hard at work in digesting schemes and forming plans and proudly rejecting every other suggestion but that of his own fancy. For this intolerable ambition he was often reproved by the elder ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Master's hat whirled in the air and fell some yards away. The sentry thinking it remarkable the sleeper should not awaken, thereupon drew near; and the next moment, with a great shout, informed the camp their prisoner was escaped. He had left behind his Indian, who (in the first vivacity of the surprise) came near to pay the forfeit of his life, and was, in fact, inhumanly mishandled; but Secundra, in the midst of threats and cruelties, stuck to it with extraordinary loyalty, that he was quite ignorant of his master's plans, which might indeed be true, and of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... else to escape them, nor where else to betake themselves for protection, many of them leaped overboard and swam to the VICTORY; and were actually helped up her sides by the English during the action. The Spaniards began the battle with less vivacity than their unworthy allies, but they continued it with greater firmness. The ARGONAUTA and BAHAMA were defended till they had each lost about four hundred men; the SAN JUAN NEPOMUCENO lost three hundred and fifty. Often as the superiority of British courage has been proved against ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... the company he was now associated with, gave Horatio a manly way of thinking much sooner than otherwise perhaps he might have had, yet did not rob him of his vivacity: some of the queen's women, and the young ladies about the princess, particularly mademoiselle Charlotta, had a thousand sprightly entertainments among themselves, into which he, the baron de la Valiere, ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... who steps from her carpets to her coupe without the vulgar contact of the streets. Her head was small, which always lends height to a woman. Her pretty face had all the bloom of fresh fruit. Smiling and gay, additional vivacity was imparted by large, clear eyes and brilliant teeth, which were to be seen even when her face was in repose. The mobility of her countenance was extraordinary. Either this, or the lips half parted as if about to speak, or the narrow brow,—something there was, at all events, ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... sex was uplifted and purified by the vote, and he naturally depicted them with the man-engendered vices that were then a part of their unhappy heritage. This "NeugierdeMotiv" (Curiosity Motive) is made up of agitated, sharply accentuated sixteenth notes played with incredible vivacity and culminating in a terrifying orchestral crash where entrance is made into the hidden chamber, with its famous tableau so eloquent of the polygamous instinct of man; an instinct only kept in subjection by the most stringent laws and ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Barlow, while he had with the greatest care preserved him from all false impressions had taken great pains in cultivating the faculties of his mind. Harry, indeed, never said any of those brilliant things which render a boy the darling of the ladies; he had not that vivacity, or rather impertinence, which frequently passes for wit with superficial people; but he paid the greatest attention to what was said to him, and made the most judicious observations upon subjects he understood. For this reason, Miss Simmons, ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... broke in, in her turn, with vivacity speaking "Son, you are certainly right. We parents set the example. 'Twas not in time of pleasure that we made choice of each other, And 'twas the saddest of hours, that knitted us closely together. Monday morning,—how well I remember! ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... lectures and conversation of Millar. Jeffrey used to say that the most bracing exercises a student in Glasgow underwent in those days were the supper disputations at Professor Millar's house, and that, able and learned as his works are, "they revealed nothing of that magical vivacity which made his conversation and his lectures still more full of delight than of instruction." Though he always refused to accept Smith's doctrine of free trade, Millar was the most effective and influential apostle of Liberalism in Scotland in that age, and Jeffrey's father could never forgive ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... Wells thought chiefly of the brightening in her child's manner, and the alert vivacity of eye and voice such as she had not seen in her since she had lost her mother; but be that as it might, her words were the very sanction so much longed for, and ere long Honora had her writing-case before her, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... space of five years; during which his attention to the interests of the settlement was most unremitted; his humanity and condescension rendered him inestimably dear to every bosom, which confessed the influence of grateful feelings; and his cheerful vivacity and private worth caused him to stand highly in the estimation of those who were honoured by a participation in his hours of recreative enjoyment. The necessary consequence of his abstracted devotion to the service of the settlement, for a long period, was the obtainment of a ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... week with his friends. Alice had grown up into a charming young woman, full of life and vivacity, and even prettier than she had promised to be as a girl. They went about together to all the sights of London, for Mr. Palethorpe said that he didn't care about going, and young people were best left to themselves. When the time came for parting, Will for the first time experienced a feeling of ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... book range from the charm of Sterne to the vivacity of Lady Dorothy Nevill, from a eulogy of Poe to a discussion of Disraeli as a novelist. The variety, the scholarship, the portraiture of the book make it a pleasure to read; and, even when Mr. Gosse flatters in his portraits, his sense of truth impels ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... evening when Seagreave came down, Pearl was not resting after her exertions, but ran forward to greet him with unwonted vivacity, and drew him toward a window in a dim corner of the room, out of earshot of ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Milton's expression, 'by his heavenly overpowered,' pours itself in adoration; whilst, in the inimitable cast of Adam's figure, we trace the hint of that half-conscious moment, when sleep began to give way to the vivacity of the dream inspired. In Raffaelle, creation is complete—Eve is presented to Adam, now awake; but neither the new-born charms, the submissive grace, and virgin purity, of the beauteous image; nor the awful presence of her Introductor, draw him from his mental trance, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... of such a restless Vivacity, that he could not be contented without Intrigues, which made him eagerly apply himself to forming another. Having found out the fortunate Prisoner, he put the Purse into his Hands with these Words. "Virtue, my Lord, is ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... had just completed her eighteenth year, and was gifted by nature with a vivacity and ardency of feeling that gave a heightened zest to the enjoyments of that happy age. She was artless but intelligent; cheerful, with a deep conviction of the necessity of piety; and uniform in her practice of all the ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... before, we had learnt from her singing to admire beyond all the fashionable trash of the day, were gratified with untiring good-nature. Somehow I thought that she avoided my eye, and answered my remarks with less than her usual archness and vivacity. I could bear it on this evening less than ever; a hair will turn the scale, and I had just been, half ludicrously, half seriously, affected by Welsh nationality. One cannot help warming towards a community which are so warm-hearted among themselves. Visions ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... incidents consisted in her various devices to foil the pursuit of the Baron and save her father. Some of these incidents were indebted to the Comic Muse, and kept the audience in a broad laugh. Her arch playfulness here was exquisite. With what vivacity she duped the High Sheriff, who had the commands of his king to take the Bandit alive or dead, into the belief that the very Lawyer employed by the Baron was the criminal in disguise, and what pearly teeth she showed when the Lawyer was seized and gagged! how dexterously ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... geography, history, and science, the articles are all within readable limits, accurate, and up to the times; while in the biographical and literary articles there is a freshness and originality of criticism, and a vivacity of style, seldom met with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... of this speech, "that he can sit there, and sit, and sit, and sit, when he knows at this hour I am always somewhere about the house or grounds, and never in my room? Well, if he likes to sit there, let him sit"; and with this she looked up with some vivacity into the face of her landlord and asked him if even his pigeons and his chickens were blooded, and if the pigs were also of good descent. As she spoke she slightly accelerated ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton |
