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Enliven   /ɛnlˈaɪvən/   Listen
Enliven

verb
(past & past part. enlivened; pres. part. enlivening)
1.
Heighten or intensify.  Synonyms: animate, exalt, inspire, invigorate.
2.
Make lively.  Synonyms: animate, invigorate, liven, liven up.



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"Enliven" Quotes from Famous Books



... I'm sorry. I hoped you'd stay to dinner and enliven us a little. Jim and I don't have very jovial evenings, do we, Jim? Sometimes I think I might as well be ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... One truth prepares for a second. If it is a solemn and sad fact that men are sinners, and blind and dead in their trespasses and sin, it is also a cheering fact that the Holy Spirit can enlighten the darkest understanding, and enliven the most torpid and indifferent soul; and it is a still further, and most encouraging truth and fact, that the Holy Spirit is given to those who ask for it, with more readiness than a father gives bread to his hungry child. Here, ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... several of this band seemed so much disconcerted as to excite among the spectators strong prepossessions of their guilt. The real murderer had a countenance incapable of betraying him—a sullen, dark look, which neither the feast nor wine cup could enliven, and which the peril of discovery and death could ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... on with very little amusement somehow. Here were two or three thousand people packed in the street, and all they had to enliven their festive gathering was the same old toys their fathers' fathers' fathers had ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... honourable, and contemn what was base in a light satiric vein of talk which was instructive and edifying to the hearers. Nor was Lykurgus himself a man of unmixed austerity: indeed, he is said by Sosibius to have set up the little statue of the god of laughter, and introduced merriment at proper times to enliven their wine-parties and other gatherings. In a word, he trained his countrymen neither to wish nor to understand how to live as private men, but, like bees, to be parts of the commonwealth, and gather round their chief, forgetting ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... applications of mathematical truths, not being raised on ascertained facts, can only accidentally represent the real laws of the physical system; they will, however, vivify the student's apprehension of harmony in the same manner as a happy parable, though not founded in real history, will enliven ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... yet, there seemed little chance of anything to enliven her. The village, in the valley and up the stream, was hidden by turns of the land and trees; her father's house beneath the hill crest was out of sight and hearing; not even a child was on the beach; and the only movement was of wavelets leisurely ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... used to have kind friends around him at the pier, to enliven his long waiting hours. But Glory Goldie nearly always tramped there alone. She spoke to no one, and folks were glad to leave her in peace, for they felt that there was something uncanny about her which had been the ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof

... every assistance that was possible. At one stage of the very delicate operation of fashioning a reflector, it is necessary for the workman to remain with his hand on the mirror for many hours in succession. When such labours were in progress, Caroline used to sit by her brother, and enliven the time by reading stories aloud, sometimes pausing to feed him with a spoon while his hands were engaged on the task from which he could not desist ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... our situation! widely different from what it once was. Yes, once we were a happy people! Liberty shone upon our land, bright as the sun that gilds yon fields; while we and our fathers rejoiced in its lovely beams, gay as the birds that enliven our forests. But, alas! those golden days are gone, and the cloud of war now hangs dark and lowering over our heads. Our once peaceful land is now filled with uproar and death. Foreign ruffians, braving us up to our very firesides and altars, leave ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... from school, the girls would find Geordie perched on the paling of one of Gowrie's fields, while the cattle grazed within the fences, watching for their coming to enliven a lonely hour with their talk and news of school doings. His eye used to glisten with pride and pleasure as he watched the little Jean appear, carrying her books and slate, and already bearing many traces of civilising influences. And it is not to ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae

... before, Ruth developed her idea, which was that they should have a pic-nic, perhaps several of them during vacation, "as it would be so expensive to go away for a length of time you know. Just a family affair," she continued, "and we will take the children along to enliven us." ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd

... hymns With joy and wonder fill the blest, In choirs of warbling seraphims, Known and distinguished from the rest, Attend, harmonious saint, and see Thy vocal sons of harmony; Attend, harmonious saint, and hear our prayers; Enliven all our earthly airs, And, as thou sing'st thy God, teach us to sing of thee; Tune every string and every tongue, Be thou the Muse ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... flower enliven railroad ditches, gutters, moist meadows and brooksides - curious, for it has the peculiarity of remaining in any position in which it is placed. With one puff a child can easily blow the blossoms to the opposite side of ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... decease of the former these attentions were more constantly needed by the survivor. It was striking to notice Eliza's cheerful alacrity to relinquish, when her turn came round, her favorite pursuits, often for some weeks together, in order to comfort and enliven the declining days of ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... "what I call poetry, real poetry; it is this—to tame the rivers, and to compel their wild falls to produce wealth and comfort, whilst woods are felled on their banks and corn-fields cultivated; human dwellings spring up, and cheerful activity and joyful voices enliven the country. Look! that may ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... not offer me any pleasure here, I will at least enjoy myself in another way, and enliven my dismal leisure by putting Amphitron out of all patience. This may not be very charitable in a God; but I shall not bother myself about that; my planet tells me I am somewhat ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere

... rapid fuse that goes a hundred yards a second—for firing mines and so on. The latter is carefully distinguished from the former by a conspicuous red thread. Also, as you know, it is the habit of the enemy and ourselves when the trenches are near enough, to enliven each other by the casting of homely but effective hand-grenades made out of tins. When a grenade drops in a British trench somebody seizes it instantly and throws it back. To hoist the German with his own petard is particularly ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... defiantly into your eyes, nose, and mouth; almost preventing a necessary amount of sight and breath: and they had collected to such depth, that walking was a matter of much labor, and only a few plucky pedestrians were out to enliven the quiet shrouded streets. Olive plunged rapidly along with her head down and seemed more engrossed with her own thoughts, than with any contemplation of the weather, for she whisked the impudent ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... as this royal chapel, built purely for the glory of God and with no thought of mercy or consolation for human infirmity. The frescos of Luca Giordano show the attempt of a later and degenerate age to enliven with form and color the sombre dignity of this faultless pile. But there is something in the blue and vapory pictures which shows that even the unabashed Luca was not free from the impressive influence ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... by); and lived there, with the Neumark for apanage, a true man's life;—mostly with a good deal of business, warlike and other, on his hands; with good Books, good Deeds, and occasionally good Men, coming to enliven it,—according ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... trains himself not to knock against, overturn, and break things; softening his movements more and more, he gradually becomes their perfectly free and self-possessed director. In the same way the child will accustom himself to do his utmost not to soil the gay and pretty things which enliven his surroundings. Thus he makes progress in his own perfection, or, in other words, it is thus he achieves the perfect coordination of his voluntary movements. It is the same process by which, having enjoyed silence and music, he will do all in his power to avoid discordant noises, which have ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... genial moon smiled down upon the Camp-fire Girls and sent his myriad of rays like a serenading party to enliven the festive scene. The place looked like some enchanted grove. A platform had been built for the dancing, several little khaki-colored tents that had done service in the North Woods (north of Bridgeboro) dotted the lawn, the emblem of the Camp-fire Girls waved above the summer-house, bathed in ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... peripatetic lectures." This morning, however, the Doctor was unusually silent. His daughter Anna walked by his side, affectionately waiting, in the hopes of an opportunity to bring forward some subject to enliven him. Charles also accompanied him. The rest of the children kept behind, wondering where he was going; Willie especially sauntering at some distance, and thinking that he would rather have been out by himself ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston

... safely, and arrived at Holyhead by daybreak. He had meant to go over deliberately all that he should say to the Viceroy, when questioned, as he expected to be, on the condition of Ireland. It was an old story, and with very few variations to enliven it. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... see their efforts, when Ascott came in of evenings, to enliven for his sake the dull parlor at No. 15. How Johanna put away her mending, and Selina ceased to grumble, and Hilary began her lively chat, that never failed to brighten and amuse the household. Her nephew even sometimes acknowledged that wherever ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... anticipating the sport in store for me when her will and Erle Palma's come in conflict. Won't the sparks fly! We shall have a domestic shower of meteors to enliven our daily dull routine! You know the stately and august head of this establishment savours of Fitz-James, and in all matters of controversy acts fully out what ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... dinner together. They are often expensive parties to a serious-minded mountain swain who can not surrender the day's privileges to a rival or will not yield his dignity and rights to fun-makers who enliven the biddings by making the basket, brought by "his girl," cost at least as ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan

... not appear to have been in the full possession of her mother's fortune until after the Restoration. She had lived, with scarcely an interruption, a life of society; now she was thrown on her own resources, with little except music to cheer and enliven her. It was not only the loss of Paris that exiles under the Empire had to endure. They were subjected to an annoying surveillance by the police, and even the friends who paid them any attention ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... small regiment in the corridor to wait until a previous class was over and they could enter the lecture hall. Waiting is often dull work, and Gipsy had considered herself a public benefactor in seeking to enliven the tedium of her form mates. Doreen's notions on the subject of discipline did not appeal ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil

... read instead of print my speech,— Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower Refuses obstinately blow in print." R. and B. IX. Johannes-Baptista ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... Conrad, growing more and more enraged; "he was quite right not to meddle with that which goes on in secret; although we, as miners, cannot see the matter exactly in the same light as he did. Solid masses have grown like the rest of us; and who can say whether they may not enliven and further the shooting and coalescing of the metallic particles round ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... hunt two hares yesterday,' Nedopyuskin began again with an effort, obviously wishing to enliven the conversation; 'yes, indeed, very big hares they ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... spectacle of all to my mind was, that the bridegroom was decidedly tipsy. He seemed rather affronted at all the distress. We danced a Monferrino; I with the bridegroom; and the bride crying the whole time. The company did their utmost to enliven her by firing pistols, but without success, and at last they began a series of yells, which reminded me of a set of savages. But even this delicate method of consolation failed, and the wishing good-bye began. It was altogether so melancholy an affair that Madame B. dropped ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter

... will thank me with your whole soul for refusing to listen to you now. You do not know how much misery I am saving you. I have no heart to give. You want a young, fresh life to help yours; a gay, lively temperament to enliven your despondency; some one still young enough to absorb herself in you and make all her existence yours. I could not do it. I can give you nothing. I have done my best to persuade myself that some day I might begin ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... the ego-friskish imitate. Such a critic in the jovial person of Mr. Chesterton, or Professor Phelps, or Heywood Broun, contributes much to the vividness of our sense for books. But their imitators, although they sometimes enliven, more ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... And then again we may hark back to the greater world of letters, wherein poet and scholar, from petty fabulist to the great dramatists, from Homer's majesty to Lucian's wit, share in the love of Nature and enliven the delicate background of their story with allusions to ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... who were to follow the example. For if women were allowed to remain, chastity of expression and decorum of behaviour would be more likely to be insured. There presence also would operate as a check upon drunkenness. Nor can there be a doubt, that women would enliven and give a variety to conversation; and, as they have had a different education from men, that an opportunity of mutual improvement might be afforded by the continuance of the two in the society ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... The lady was grieving, He spoke to her civil, and tipp'd her a wink; And the more that she fretted, He soother'd and petted, And gave her a glass her own health just to dhrink; Her pulse it beat quicker, The thrifle o' liquor Enliven'd her sinking heart's cockles, I think; So the MORAL is plain, That if love gives you pain, There's nothing can cure it like ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... his inward state, continued an unfailing well-spring of cheerfulness and courage. Not a disheartening word escaped him, nor a sign of weakening. And his efforts to enliven his companion were persistent—and successful. Being of a hopeful and self-reliant nature this task was not so ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell

... us sit and enliven a proper dinner with talk upon topics of legitimate interest and ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... would escape falling a victim to melancholy, preserve your faith with precious care, enliven it constantly by fervent prayer, by meditation and the abundant graces received through the Sacraments. Let its pure light be the rule of your thoughts and actions, accustom your mind to dwell upon things that are practical, and consequently useful, sedulously avoiding all speculative or doubtful ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi

... him great occasion to marvel at the resources of the English language, submitted to have his cravat put on; and being dressed, and finding himself in a brisk flow of spirits after this exercise, went downstairs to enliven 'Dombey' and his ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... crossed the river when they did; a single day might have proved fatal to them. We would fain lessen to our own imagination the dangers which surround us, and eagerly grasp at every circumstance that tends in any way to enliven our future prospects. That Providence, whose protection has hitherto been so beneficently extended to us, will, we confidently hope, continue that protection, and lead us in safety ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley

... October the whole division had entrenched itself in the vicinity of Sharpenhoe and Sundon. To enliven the exercise night manoeuvres were hastily planned. Our share was to march at about 11 p.m., after a hard day and half a tea, and to continue marching through the most intricate country until five o'clock ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills

... but a few miserable broken-down buffalo bulls, not worth killing. The snow lay fifteen inches deep, and made the travelling grievously painful and toilsome. At length they came to an immense plain, where no vestige of timber was to be seen, not a single quadruped to enliven the desolate landscape. Here, then, their hearts failed them, and they held another consultation. The width of the river, which was nearly a mile, its extreme shallowness, the frequency of quicksands, and various other characteristics, had at length made them sensible ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... hand-bell summoned the butler, and an Arcadian meal was speedily set out on a table in the hall, where a great fire of logs burnt as merrily as if it had been designed to enliven a Christmas-keeping household. Indeed there was nothing miserly or sparing about the housekeeping at the Grange, which harmonised with the sombre richness of Lady Warner's grey brocade gown, from the old-fashioned silk mercer's at the sign of the Flower-de-luce, in Cheapside. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... same process is to be traced. In early works we find sometimes no expression at all, or an apparent stolidity which is really the absence of expression; in the archaic smile we see an attempt to enliven the face, and possibly also, as we have noticed, to express and even to induce the benignity of the deity. But this attempt, made with inadequate artistic resources, tends to result in a mere grimace; and as we approach the transitional age before the ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner

... receive hospitality at their cost; and at last they return to their own abode, to entertain their guests, rich and noble like kings, and simple and unconstrained like shepherds. Many a tale of their wondrous adventures serves to enliven these sumptuous feasts. Amongst others, I remember to have heard my friends relate one at which my hair stood on end. Possibly I may gain some more complete information on the subject from you. It appears that several years ago, just about the time of the Christmas festival, Gotthard and ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... so mixed a one. It produced in him a vague disappointment, a drop that was deeper even than the fall of his elation the previous night. The good of what he had done, if he had done so much, wasn't there to enliven him quite to the point that would have been ideal for a grand gay finale. Women were thus endlessly absorbent, and to deal with them was to walk on water. What was at bottom the matter with her, embroider as she might and disclaim ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... a marked peculiarity; a great deal of the time he seemed like a school-boy, just released from his task. In the midst of the most serious topic under discussion he was fond of asking permission to sing a comic song, or he would beg to be allowed to enliven the occasion by the instant introduction of a brief double-shuffle. Barry Cornwall told me that when he and Charles Lamb were once making up a dinner-party together, Charles asked him not to invite a certain lugubrious friend of theirs. "Because," said Lamb, "he would ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... sensation of the hour. Novelty established them as temporary belles; they were petted by their hostesses, attended by small cohorts of admirers, and formed the centre for a round of festivities specially arranged to enliven ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... making faces of disgust which simply delighted the teller. Braun would stop at once, and soothe his friend and laugh. At the next meal he would begin again. His hospital pleasantries seemed to have the power to enliven the impassive Anna. She would break her silence with a sudden nervous laugh, which was something animal in quality. Perhaps she felt no less disgust than Christophe at the things that ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... low distant hills of Baranya. Alas! this is not the Danube of Passau, and Lintz, and Molk, and Theben. But now the Drave pours her broad waters into the great artery. The right shore soon becomes somewhat bolder, and agreeably wooded hills enliven the prospect. This little mountain chain is the celebrated Frusca Gora, the stronghold of the Servian language, literature, and nationality on the ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... eloquence for which it has been renowned of old. I am willing to conclude that all the judges are not alike somniferous; and that if the acuteness of our GIFFORDS, and the rhetoric of our DENMANS, sometimes instruct and enliven the audience, there will be found Judges to argue like GIBBS and to decide like ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... Was wholly intent on the incoming train. That great one eyed monster puffed out its black breath, Shrieked, snorted and hissed, like a thing bent on death, Paused scarcely a moment, and then sped away, And two actors more now enliven our play. ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... the purple spring, Ere the soft nightingale essays to sing; Ere the first swallow sweeps the fresh'ning plain, Ere love-sick turtles breathe their amorous pain; Let festive glee th' enliven'd village raise, Pan's blameless reign, and patriarchal days; With pastoral dance the smitten swain surprise, And bring all Arcady before ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... Lord, Lord, if these homekeeping minstrels had crossed your Atlantic or my Mediterranean, and tasted a little open boating in a white squall—or a gale in 'the Gut'—or the 'Bay of Biscay,' with no gale at all—how it would enliven and introduce them to a few of the sensations!—to say nothing of an illicit amour or two upon shore, in the way of essay upon the Passions, beginning with simple adultery, and compounding it as they ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... enliven the dark room with light and fire. But I saw now that the thin, yellow, hard face had changed sadly. She fixed her two little black eyes on me, evidently startled by the expression ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... festive little supper the evening before in his atelier, but it was generally felt to be a melancholy failure, for not even the artist's rather forced gaiety, nor M. Linders' real indifference, could enliven it. As for the old German, he sat there, saying little, eating less, and smoking a great deal; and Madelon at his side was speechless, only rousing herself later in the evening to coax him into playing once more all her favourite tunes. ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... The incidents which enliven and add interest to the historic page, have proved of spontaneous and vigorous growth in the new settlements of America. Nearly every book which deals with the early planting and progress of the American ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... not been much correspondence with the Rectory, and on the first forenoon, as Mrs. Egremont and Nuttie were trying to enliven the drawing-room with the flowers sent up to meet them, they were surprised by the entrance of Blanche, ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... principally upon the sports that would enliven and entertain the company during the day; suggestions from any and every one being in order; and, by the time the meal was concluded, all felt that they had every prospect of a most ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley

... counties of Cumberland and Northumberland. The scenery is fine on those broad and placid waters, sheltered by overhanging cliffs, 600 feet in height. The river appears smooth as a mirror, and affords access by boats and small vessels, to the little sheltered cots and farms, which now enliven the margin. These patches are of no great extent, and occur alternately on each bank of this noble stream, comprising farms of from thirty to a ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... manner entirely New and Entertaining, and enliven'd with real Characters, drawn from life, and fited to instill the Principles of all Social Virtues into ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... upon the move, that I had no thought of writing to you, and no letters of yours put me in mind that I should do so. Here I am stationed for some time, unless I succeed in the application I mean to make shortly for permission to visit England. At present Vincent, Glegg, and Williams, 49th, enliven this lonesome place. They are here as members of a general court martial, and are soon to depart, when I shall be left to my own reflections. Should I be so lucky as to obtain leave, I shall not commence ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... seized the opportunity to carry Fleda up and introduce her to her dressing-room, and take account of Lady Peterborough's commission, and ladies and ladies' maids soon formed a busy committee of dress and decorations. It did not enliven Fleda it wearied her, though she forgave them the annoyance in gratitude for the pleasure they took in looking at her. Even the delight her eye had from the first minute she saw it, in the beautiful room, and her quick sense of the carefulness with ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... each number of the Spectator consisted of a single essay. The object of these periodicals was to reflect the passing humors of the time, and to satirize the follies and minor immoralities of the town. "I shall endeavor," wrote Addison, in the tenth paper of the Spectator, "to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality. . . . It was said of Socrates that he brought Philosophy down from Heaven to inhabit among men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me that I have brought Philosophy out of closets and ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... on their journey. Their walk, however, was a long and dreary one. Contrary to what they had ever before experienced, in jaunts of this length through the woods, not a single hunting adventure occurred, to enliven the tedium of the way. For, although the heavens above were made vocal with the screams of wild geese, still pouring along in their hurried flight to the south, to escape the elemental foe behind, like the rapidly succeeding detachments ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... directions, avoid the trees and the sky, and you will have, in summer or winter, a dozen different colors. Look in the same places to-morrow, and they will all be changed, an endless variety. Some one of these soft and neutral tints should clothe the body of your house. Enliven it, if you choose, with dashes of crimson, green, or even blue and gold, but use these bright colors carefully. Aim to make your house (in this as in all other respects) in harmony with its surroundings, not defiant of them. Your proffered advice shall be duly applied, for ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... immortal composer Haydn was on his visit to England, in 1794, his chamber-door was opened one morning by the captain of an East Indiaman, who said, "You are Mr. Haydn?" "Yes." "Can you make me a 'March,' to enliven my crew? You shall have thirty guineas; but I must have it to-day, as to-morrow I sail for Calcutta." Haydn agreed, the sailor quitted him, the composer opened his piano, and in a few minutes the march was written. He appears, however, ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous

... and having first visited the works at Greenside, she afterwards went to Leith to see the Smeaton, then loading for the Bell Rock. On stepping on board, Mrs. Dickson seemed to be quite overcome with so many concurrent circumstances, tending in a peculiar manner to revive and enliven the memory of her departed father, and, on leaving the vessel, she would not be restrained from presenting the crew with a piece of money. The Smeaton had been named spontaneously, from a sense of the obligation which ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... or the domestic ballad; from the strains that enliven the harvest-home and festival, to the love- ditties which the country lass warbles, or the comic song with which the rustic sets the village hostel in a roar. In our collection are several pieces exceedingly scarce, and hitherto to be met with only in broadsides and chap-books ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... genius. So much the better, my dear—those men of genius are dangerous husbands; they have so many oddities and eccentricities, there is no managing them, though they are mighty pleasant men in company to enliven conversation; for example, your favourite, Clarence Hervey. As it is well known he is not a marrying man, you never can have thought of him. You are not a girl to expose yourself to the ridicule, &c., of all your female acquaintance by romance and nonsense. I cannot conceive that ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... "As you are all right again it can do you no harm, it will even enliven you. The best thing will be for Don Vigilio to come for you at nine o'clock and accompany you. Wait for ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... sir," suggested Apollo, "it is all very well to enliven the reverend eremite; but don't you think it is rather a liberty to make such jokes at the expense ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... hardly treated. He had scarcely spoken a word during dinner, and should, I think, have been allowed to say something of the flavor of the horse. It did not, however, appear from his countenance that he had felt, or that he resented the interference; though he did not make any further attempt to enliven the conversation. ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... what you are going to make of the 365 days which follow it. You regard the date as a kind of spiritual Spring Cleaning, and to good housewives there is all the vigorous promise of a Big Achievement even in buying a pot of paint and shaking out a duster. And, though Fate usually helps to enliven Christmas-time by arranging a big railway accident or burning a London store down, and the newspapers, in search of something to frighten us now that the war is over, by referring to Germany's "hidden army" and an unprecedentedly colossal strike in the New Year, the human spirit soars above ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... a charming companion, and her dancing and laughter—for she laughed at times like the tinkling of a silver bell—did much to enliven their ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum

... throne, fortunate in the possession of a paragon-wife, and a steward of the household not to be equalled—no other than Ottocar—that particular friend, who, in the prologue, tried to get a finis put to his mortal career. The jocose ruffians here enliven the scene—one by being cast into a dungeon for asking Ottocar (evidently the Colburn of his day), an exorbitant price for the copyright of a certain manuscript; the other, by calling the courtier a man of genius, and being taken into his service, as no ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 9, 1841 • Various

... sun rose and sent his level beams along the stream, the thin stratum of mist, or malaria, rose also and dispersed, but the light was not able to enliven the dull water nor give any hint of its apparently fathomless depth. Venerable mud-turtles crawled up and roosted upon the old logs in the stream, their backs glistening in the sun, the first inhabitants of the metropolis to begin the active ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... and frosty, so that an open fire added much to the evening's enjoyment. Each morning, however, before his departure, Mr. Britton stopped for a few words with Darrell; some quaint, kindly bit of humor, the pleasant flavor of which would enliven the entire day; some unhackneyed expression of sympathy whose very genuineness and sincerity made Darrell's position seem to him less isolated and solitary than before; or some suggestion which, acted upon, relieved the monotony of the tedious hours ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... "Another girl missing." The circumstance (which might have been no more than coincidence) that three girls had disappeared within the last eight weeks leaving no trace behind, had stimulated the professional scribes to link the cases, although no visible link had been found, and to enliven a somewhat dull journalistic season with theories about "a ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... which he had secured an occasional fresh passenger, seemed actually to have expired. Our two friends on board, however, had been so often disappointed that they did not allow a single bright anticipation to enliven their hearts, till they actually heard the order given "to cast off the fasts and haul in the planks." And even then their hopes were instantly dampened by the sudden reversion ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton

... sickroom was a different place now, when we had Allan's cheery visits to enliven our long evenings. A brighter element seemed introduced into the house. I wondered if Carrie felt as I did! if her heart leaped up with pleasure at the sound of his merry whistle, or the light springing ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... was the victim of almost constant ill health. In many of his personal habits he was peculiar and eccentric. With the wisdom of a sage, he combined the simplicity of a child. Many amusing anecdotes are related of his oddities in the lecture-room, which will serve to enliven the biography that will doubtless be prepared at an early date. We have received no particulars concerning his death, which is said to have been announced by private ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various

... from ordinary railway affairs that helped to enliven the latter part of my time on the County Down, and added variety to the work imposed by the Railway and Canal Traffic Act and the revision of Rates and Charges, was a project in which I became engaged connected ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow

... enliven the party, stated, with watch in hand: "I'll presint a box of candy to the loidy that makes the homeliest face within ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... naturally a thoughtful man, the simplest meal satisfied him, all he required was that it should be prepared artistically; and he maintained that the art of cookery consisted in exciting the taste. He used to say, "to excite a stomach of Papier Mache, and enliven vital powers almost ready to depart, a cook needs more talent than he who has ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... earnestly. "It cannot seem strange to you that time should often hang heavily on his hands, and I am grateful to any one who helps me to enliven his hours." ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... the sparrows and the grasshoppers saw what he was about to do, they begged him to spare it, and said to him, "If you destroy the tree we shall have to seek shelter elsewhere, and you will no longer have our merry chirping to enliven your work in the garden." He, however, refused to listen to them, and set to work with a will to cut through the trunk. A few strokes showed that it was hollow inside and contained a swarm of bees and a large store of honey. Delighted with his find ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... Facheux, an admirable series of scenes, in three acts, and in verse, was "planned, written, rehearsed, and represented in a single fortnight." Many of his dramatic effusions were precipitated on the stage; the humorous scenes of Monsieur de Pourceaugnac were thrown out to enliven ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... useful they may be, are utterly poor and meagre when compared to this. The astronomical portion of Mr. Pinnock's book is excellent, and the historical memoranda, which follow the account of each country, are highly interesting, and tend to enliven the study of geography, while they furnish a fund ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone

... and pointedly and with an air of novelty, is the classic manner of journalism. Johnson goes heavily and directly to the point, handling well worn moral themes in general and dogmatic language without any attempt to enliven them with an air of discovery or surprise. Yet they were, in a sense, discoveries to him; not one of them but was deeply and sincerely felt; not one but is not a direct and to us a pathetically dispassionate statement of the reflection ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... relieved the dull monotony. Altogether the cantonment of Rohar was an unlovely and uninteresting place. Yet it is but an example of many such stations in India, lonely and soul-deadening, some of which have not even its saving grace of sport to enliven existence in them. ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... which a world might arise. It is a Platonic idea—though Plato never entertained it—an essence, non-existent and immutable, not in the same field of reality at all as a world of moving and colliding things. Such an essence is not conceivably the seat of the variations that enliven the world. It is only in thought that we may pass from infinite Being to an existing universe; and when we turn from one to the other, and say that now energy has emerged from the bosom of God, we are turning over a new leaf, or rather picking up an entirely different volume. The natural ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana

... excitement which answered in the absence of happier stimulations to keep up his heart and courage. After a struggle like that in which he had been engaged, it was hard to come again into the peaceable routine without any particular hope to enliven or happiness to cheer it, which was all he had at present to look for in his life; and it was harder still to feel the necessity of being silent, of standing apart from Lucy in her need, of shutting up in his own heart the longing he had towards her, and refraining himself from the desperate thought ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... she cried, as she ceased playing: "here I have performed some of your favourite airs, and that too without eliciting a word of commendation. You are inexpressibly dull to-night; nothing seems to enliven you. What ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... could do now, as she is so weak and miserable, but it has just occurred to me that if she gets stronger under Dr. Fisher's treatment, you might help her to a light, pleasant occupation which would enliven ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett

... to enliven the party, and, although outward decencies were observed after a fashion, Lorelei was sickened by the sheer license that she felt on every hand. Unable to endure the growing heat of Hayman's advances, she slipped away at last and hid herself in another room, only to ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... of good things brought in from the pastry-cook's to enliven her; silk handkerchiefs and aprons abounded, and the servants at home received injunctions to inquire after Barbara's ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie

... and America, and is acquainted with books and with many sciences; but such simple objects of contemplation suffice me, who have no time to bestow on more extensive observations. Happily these require no study, they are obvious, they gild the moments I dedicate to them, and enliven the severe labours which I perform. At home my happiness springs from very different objects; the gradual unfolding of my children's reason, the study of their dawning tempers attract all my paternal attention. I have ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... advocate, and not a good one. He understood how to set forth his narrative of the case with piquancy of anecdote, to excite, if not the feeling, at any rate the sentimentality of his hearers, and to enliven the dry business of legal pleading by cleverness or witticisms mostly of a personal sort; his better orations, though they are far from coming up to the free gracefulness and the sure point of the most excellent compositions of this sort, for instance the Memoirs of Beaumarchais, yet ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... Sir, I hear," said the man, touching his cap with a comic expression, which didn't at all tend to enliven the future pupil. "That's the door," he continued, "and you'll have to give him the doctor's note;" and, pointing to a door at the end of the passage, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... drawings, the work of satirists of the pencil. R. Kempf, Boardman Robinson, and George Bellows, enliven the magazine with their pungent visions and their cutting words. Kempf shows us War crushing in his embrace France, England, and Germany, crying out: "Come on in, America, the blood's fine!" The four linked figures are dancing on a sea of blood ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... Artist: the "kinsman" of Cyrus again, and the light by-play to enliven the severe history. The economic organising genius of Cyrus is ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... them, then—they don't know I'm here—and see if a little company won't enliven our long Canadian winter. You three, Grace, Rose and Eeny, have been living here like nonettes long enough. We must try and alter things ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... descriptive poem is independent of something like dramatic spirit to give it interest with human beings. How dull a thing would even the great descriptive poem of the Creation be without Adam and Eve, their history and hapless fall, to enliven it! But I cannot see why you should not infuse a dramatic spirit into your poem on Spring, which is only the development of the living principle in Nature. See how full of life those descriptive scenes in the 'Midsummer Night's Dream' and the 'Winter's Tale' are. Characters may describe the beauties ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... dig his spade haphazard into the earth and by that act liberate a small stream which shall become a mighty river. Not less casual perhaps, certainly not less momentous in its consequences, was the first attempt, by some enterprising ecclesiastic, to enliven the hardly understood Latin service of the Church. Who the innovator was is unrecorded. The form of his innovation, however, may be guessed from this, that even in the fifth century human tableaux had a place in the Church ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... in the usual dispirited, dull way. Our talk became daily more prosaic and superficial. We had not the energy to express our deepest sentiments, and things which were formerly pleasant were strange to us now. We had no spur to enliven our thoughts in our monotonous life. To the careless there was nothing startling in this moral numbness, but the more sensitive among us grieved over it, and were humiliated by the shallowness that ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo

... selected for his amusement. Small thanks were due to the books, however, if the girl's readings were in any degree more successful than her elderly cousin's. Phoebe's voice had always a pretty music in it, and could either enliven Clifford by its sparkle and gayety of tone, or soothe him by a continued flow of pebbly and brook-like cadences. But the fictions—in which the country-girl, unused to works of that nature, often ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... once prevailed in old-fashioned circles, that when a lady or gentleman was unable to sing a song, he or she should enliven the company with a story. As we find ourself in the predicament of not being able to describe (to our own satisfaction) nice little couples in the abstract, we purpose telling in this place a little story about a nice little couple ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... painting. The temples and palaces, designed to shut out light and heat, were long squares of heavy stone, gloomy as the cave from which their plan may have originated. Carving and color were used to brighten and enliven the interior. The battles, the judgment scenes, the Pharaoh playing at draughts with his wives, the religious rites and ceremonies, were all given with brilliant arbitrary color, surrounded oftentimes by bordering bands of green, yellow, and blue. Color showed ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke

... instruments of torture. The Austrians have made the French much regretted here. It is since the last peace that the population of Venice has diminished a fourth, and the palaces of the nobles have been abandoned. There is no commerce; the Government spend no money, and do nothing to enliven or benefit the town (there has not yet been time to see the effect of making it a free port). The French employed the people, and spent money and embellished the place. They covered over a wide canal and turned it into a fine ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... door, where she had stopped the general. "For my sake say no more, I entreat, I do dislike to hear so much said about anything or anybody. What sort of a road is it to Old Forest?" continued she; "why should not we ladies go with you, my dear Clarendon, to enliven ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... Temple. By the advice of his physician, he had now begun to abstain from wine, and drank only water or lemonade. He had brought two companions into his new dwelling, such as few other men would have chosen to enliven their solitude. On the ground floor was Miss Anna Williams, daughter of Zechariah Williams, a man who had practised physic in Wales, and, having come to England to seek the reward proposed by Parliament for the discovery of the longitude, ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... in Paris, an incident occured, the recollection of which has served to enliven many a social occasion. It was the exciting time succeeding the attempted assassination of Napoleon by Orsini. Mr. Lee always wore a long, sandy beard, and in his travels sported a soft, broad-brimmed hat. One day, while walking about the streets, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... most innocent of all diuretics. The ignorant reader (between whom and the former the distinction is extremely nice) will find himself disposed to stare, which is an admirable remedy for ill eyes, serves to raise and enliven the spirits, and wonderfully helps perspiration. But the reader truly learned, chiefly for whose benefit I wake when others sleep, and sleep when others wake, will here find sufficient matter to employ his speculations for the rest of his ...
— English Satires • Various

... Drury had been invited to enliven grandmamma, and every one augured a beautiful day and perfect enjoyment. The morning was beautiful, but alas! Sophy was hors de combat, far too unwell to think of making one of the party. She bore the disappointment magnanimously, and even the pity. Every one was sorry, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... familiar, and which is found in the discourses of our elder divines. Like them, he did not scruple, now and then, to introduce an anecdote from history, or borrow an allusion from some non-scriptural author, in order to enliven the attention of his audience, or render an argument more plain. And the good man had an object in this, a little distinct from, though wholly subordinate to the main purpose of his discourse. He was a friend ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... possesses too little interest, to induce us to give more than an outline of what passed. The captain and the chaplain belonged to that class of friends, which may be termed argumentative. Their constant discussions were a strong link in the chain of esteem; for they had a tendency to enliven their solitude, and to give a zest to lives that, without them, would have been exceedingly monotonous. Their ordinary subjects were theology and war; the chaplain having some practical knowledge of the last, and the captain a ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... took our porridge of a morning, we had a device to enliven the course of a meal. He ate his with sugar, and explained it to be a country continually buried under snow. I took mine with milk, and explained it to be country suffering gradual inundation. You can imagine us exchanging bulletins; ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... Obstinate donkey and of tackling a huge Anatolian pilgrim. He mounted the Neddy's back face to tail, and inserting his left thumb like a clyster, hammered it with his right when the donkey started at speed. For the huge pilgrim he used a ladder. These shows now obsolete, used to enliven the Ezbekiyah Gardens every evening and explain Ovid's Words, "Delicias videam, Nile ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... when she began to recognize these bounds of life she faded a little into a still neutrality that might soon have made an old woman of her. The sisters were dark, wholesome wenches, known as trainers at the gatherings they were always summoned to enliven; but Lydia seldom found their mirth exhilarating. Only when Eben Jakes appeared at the door, that spring twilight, a droll look peering from his blue eyes, and a long forefinger smoothing out the smile from the two lines in his lean cheeks, and asked, as if there were some richness of humor in the ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... yearning like a god in pain for his far-away aphelion in Kabul. Morning bashfully overtakes him; and the train dances into stations festooned with branches of olive and palm. A feu-de-joie of champagne corks is fired; special correspondents in clean white trousers enliven the scene; Baron Reuter's ubiquitous young man turns on rapturous telegrams; and a faint smile dawns darkly on the Gryphon's ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... His Heir is a Nephew, Karl August Christian, of Zweibruck; whom perhaps it would not be painful to him to disappoint a little of his high expectations. On the whole, Peace; plentiful provision, titular and other, for his Illegitimates; and a comfortable sum of ready money over, to enliven the Theatricals, Dusseldorf Picture-Galleries and Dilettante operations and Collections,—how much welcomer to Theodor than a Baiern never so religiously saved entire at the expense of quarrel, which cannot but be tedious, troublesome and dangerous! ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... with joy o'er the cheering prospect. She kissed and fondled Louise and even teased her. Reading or chatting to the blind girl, sewing her frocks or performing a thousand and one kindly services, her sole thought was to distract and enliven the prisoned ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... of the speedwell, which enliven our wayside hedges in spring-time, are said to display in their markings a representation of the kerchief of St Veronica, imprinted with the features of Christ. [20] According to an old tradition, when our Lord was on His way to Calvary, ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... Charity, a plant divinely nursed, Fed by the love from which it rose at first, Thrives against hope, and, in the rudest scene, Storms but enliven its unfading green; Exub'rant is the shadow it supplies, Its fruit on earth, its ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... at no trouble to entertain me; but you must not refuse a poor, sad fellow a word of counsel and cheer. I shall think hard of you if you decline to let me drive you a little way. Besides, the freshness of the morning is all lost on you there. Now, set Marion a good example, and she will, in turn, enliven me later." ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... Mr. Rollo. You are just in time to enliven Mr. Falkirk's breakfast, over which he ran some risk of ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner



Words linked to "Enliven" :   ginger up, shake up, deaden, spirit, shake, brace, arouse, excite, jazz up, energise, spirit up, pep up, stimulate, liven, stir, energize, perk up, encourage, juice up, inspirit



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