"Liveliness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sweep a chamber where a precious pearl had been dropped. I must have a companion in my search, partly to help me look about, and partly because I was getting nervous and felt lonely. Charley said he would go with me,—Charley, my Captain's beloved friend, gentle, but full of spirit and liveliness, cultivated, social, affectionate, a good talker, a most agreeable letter-writer, observing, with large relish of life, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... constructing a story, in the depiction of character, in deepening the interest by the alternation of happiness and misfortune, he was to go far beyond his initial triumph,—still with many Dickensians, who love him chiefly for his liveliness of observation and broad humour, Pickwick remains ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... a Liveliness of Expression to be preserv'd in Pastoral as well as other Poetry; now I affirm that 'tis impossible to perform this without Old-Words; unless a Writer make Shepherds talk Sublimely, and with ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... mist about them has a faint greenish tinge, while the four stars, together with three others at no great distance, which follow a fold of the nebula like a row of buttons on a coat, always appear to me to show an extraordinary liveliness of radiance, as if the strange haze ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... words verbatim. I really looked at the young lady in astonishment, that she should see nothing but a want of liveliness in a picture, which most of us feel to be sublime. But Miss D——- had an old grudge against you, for not having made her papa's villa sufficiently prominent in your view ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... traditional French view, because while the Americans believed enormously in their own powers, the French at that time (before Cantigny and the Second Marne) had the gravest doubts. The American confidence suffused the American stereotype, gave it that power to possess consciousness, that liveliness and sensible pungency, that stimulating effect upon the will, that emotional interest as an object of desire, that congruity with the activity in hand, which James notes as characteristic of what we regard as "real." [Footnote: Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 300.] The French ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... catch a glimpse of the various magnates whose arrival was expected. At the Queen's Head stood a large array of carriages, and the streets were thronged with gay groups of pedestrians, and full of bustle and liveliness. ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... grasp before beginning to discuss the problems which await it in the polling-booths and in the everyday conversations which more weightily mould the fate of the world. He is a propagandist historian, and his work has the liveliness given by an air ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... interest and admiration, the flights of genius; or, with cooler approbation suck in the instruction, which has been elaborately prepared for them by the profound thinker, ought not to be disgusted, if they find the former choleric, and the latter morose; because liveliness of fancy, and a tenacious comprehension of mind, are scarcely compatible with that pliant urbanity which leads a man, at least to bend to the opinions and prejudices of others, instead of ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... perfumed the air. Then he came to a clump of bushes, into which darted one of the goats that had by this time become almost wild. The goat's rush disturbed a huge sow with a litter of quite new pigs, the gruntings and squeakings of which gave liveliness to an otherwise quiet and ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... the commonplace, REMBRANDT and good SIR WALTER—only these Could paint her all to you: experienced ease And antique liveliness and ponderous grace; The sweet old roses of her sunken face; The depth and malice of her sly, grey eyes; The broad Scots tongue that flatters, scolds, defies; The thick Scots wit that fells you like a mace. These thirty years has she been nursing here, Some of them under ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... four days at Hong Kong. Please send the gist of this letter dull as it is to Mrs. Clark. When I began it I thought I would have plenty of time to finish it on shore. Of course, after this all I write and this too, I suppose will be censored. So, there will not be much liveliness. I have no taste to expose my affections to the Japanese staff. ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... being laid down as a principle, a man who will assign art in the Iliad, will argue wrong. He may extol the harmony of the verses, the justness and magnificence of the expressions, the simplicity and liveliness of images, the due proportion of the parts of the poem, its perfect unity, and inimitable conduct; he may object that chance can never make anything so perfect, and that the utmost effort of human wit is hardly capable to finish so excellent ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... there was a real habitual affection and much mutual help. She was proud of his steady progress to distinction, proud of each intimation of respect he won; she admired and respected his work; she recognised that he had some magic, of liveliness and unexpectedness that was precious and enviable. So far as she could help him she did. And even when he knew that there was nothing behind it, that it was indeed little more than an imaginative ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... hear of his being seen at the Umpty Club and Gaston's, chatting with Pearl Preston (one of those people, you know, Daphne, who're immensely talked about but never mentioned). And then a "certain liveliness" set in at the official residence of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... moment Lady Henry's door-bell presented itself. The vigor with which Sir Wilfrid rang it may, perhaps, have expressed the liveliness of his unspoken scepticism. He did not for one moment believe that General Warkworth's letters had been the subject of the conversation he had witnessed that morning in the Park, nor that filial veneration had had anything whatever to say ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... high to see the individual, and the latter too low to survey the whole. But the disadvantage of this direction of mind was not confined to knowledge and mental production; it extended to action and feeling. We know that the sensibility of the mind depends, as to degree, on the liveliness, and for extent on the richness of the imagination. Now the predominance of the faculty of analysis must necessarily deprive the imagination of its warmth and energy, and a restricted sphere of objects ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... time Angila was at a party where she met Robert Hazlewood, who talked to her for some time. It was not a dancing party, and consequently they conversed together more than they had ever done before. He seemed extremely amused with her liveliness, and looked at her with unmistakable admiration. Had Augusta Lenox been there to see, perhaps Angila would not have received his attentions so graciously; but there being nothing to remind her of his being her "favorite aversion," she talked with animation, pleased with the admiration ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... same year there was a spurt of unusual liveliness from the Indian quarter. Several white men were killed, and it was Captain Donnelley who was selected to head one of the posses and risk the brunt of the battle. The Captain's scrapbook, which he was kind enough to let me look over, revealed many an interesting incident, and one would never ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... his chum in the Western ocean trade, out of the fulness of his heart and the liveliness of ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... up to shake hands with me. He was of the middle height, about five feet eight or nine. My first impression of him was of a dark, grave face, with a great deal in it, changing from the liveliness of conversation to a gravity of scrutiny. After we had shaken hands, I passed to the other end of the room to greet other friends. We did not speak to each ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield
... N. activity; briskness, liveliness &c adj.; animation, life, vivacity, spirit, dash, energy; snap, vim. nimbleness, agility; smartness, quickness &c adj.; velocity, &c 274; alacrity, promptitude; despatch, dispatch; expedition; haste &c 684; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Camillus, instead of by the payment of the agreed ransom, as modern writers consider proven, while his putting of set speeches into the mouths of his characters may be described as a conventional usage of ancient historians, which certainly added to the liveliness of the narrative and probably was neither intended to be taken literally nor ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... pudding with sourish red sauce; but to make up, the beer and wine first-rate! With just such a dinner the tavernkeeper at Soden regaled his customers. The dinner, itself, however, went off satisfactorily. No special liveliness was perceptible, certainly; not even when Herr Klueber proposed the toast 'What we like!' (Was wir lieben!) But at least everything was decorous and seemly. After dinner, coffee was served, thin, reddish, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... feet,—nay, although (which does not always happen) those feet should scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately upon the fingers,—is not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe, that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem, and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must contain at least one thought, either in a little degree different from the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it to his candour, whether there is ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... did not see him; but almost all my time was spent in watching for Mrs. Middleton, who was indefatigable in her attention to him, and who, from hour to hour, brought me messages from him, and accounts of the various fluctuations in his state. When I went into the drawing-room, Rosa's liveliness, Mr. Escourt's mute attitude of defiance, Mr. Manby's tediousness, and Mr. and Mrs. Moore's over-solicitude about everything, in turns ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... these pictures were not stiff and formal like Egyptian decorative art, but executed by Greek artists with such liveliness and truth that they seemed about to speak; and Melissa could have fancied many times that they were moving toward her from the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was a dull one. Mrs. Easterfield did her best, Claude Locker did his best, and Mr. and Mrs. Fox did their best to make things lively, but their success was poor. Miss Raleigh, the secretary, sat ready to give an approving smile to any liveliness which might arise, and Mrs. Blynn, with the dark eyes and soft white hair, sat sewing and waiting; never before had it been necessary for her to wait for liveliness in Mrs. Easterfield's house. A mild rain somewhat assisted the dullness, for everybody ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... Austen and her sister in the street at Olney, and persuaded Mrs. Unwin to invite them to tea. Their coming was the beginning of a cordial friendship. Lady Austen, without being less earnest, had a liveliness that satisfied Cowper's sense of fun to an extent that stirred at last some jealousy in Mrs. Unwin. "She had lived much in France," Cowper said, "was very ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... young doctor who sat at Isabelle's right asked her if she could play or sing, and when she said no, he asked her if she could skee. Those were the only personal remarks of the meal. Margaret, who was very much at home, entered into the talk with unwonted liveliness. It was a workshop of busy men and women who had finished the day's labor with enough vitality left to react. The food, Isabelle noticed, was plentiful and more than good. At the end of the meal the young men lighted cigarettes, and one of the nurses also smoked, while a box ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... these customers with their rocking-chairs and boots seemed to multiply themselves indefinitely, and, becoming exhilarated by the legal business transacted around them, bestirred themselves to jocularity and argument, thus adding to the liveliness of the occasion. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... smiled and beckoned with a sort of intimate liveliness and understanding that quite warmed Craven's heart. There was a table free, just one, under Vesuvius erupting. Craven took it, quickly ordered all the Italian dishes he could think of and a bottle of Chianti Rosso, and then looked ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... published for many a day a more remarkable book on France than this, which professes to be the impressions of a Flaneur.... It has all the liveliness and sparkle of a work written only for amusement; it has all the solidity and weight of a State paper; and we expect for it not a little political influence as a fair, full, and masterly statement of the Imperial policy—the first and only good account that has been given ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... possesses thus but little interest, we interrupt it constantly with pleasant conversation, and even with discussions on matters foreign to the game itself, in all which Pepita displays such clearness of understanding, such liveliness of imagination, and a grace of expression so extraordinary, ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... the "New Bath," what must the Old Bath be like? As I feared to go to bed, I sat in the coffee-room as long as I might; but three young men were imparting their private adventures to each other with such freedom and liveliness that I felt I ought not to listen to their artless prattle. As I put the light out, and felt the bedclothes and darkness overwhelm me, it was with an awful sense of terror—that sort of sensation which I should think going down in a diving-bell ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Shelley used to say, "did he display himself to more advantage than on these occasions; being at once polite and cordial, full of social hilarity and the most perfect good humour; never diverging into ungraceful merriment, and yet keeping up the spirit of liveliness throughout the evening." About midnight his guests generally left him, with the exception of Captain Medwin, who used to remain, as I understand, talking and drinking with his noble host till far into the morning; and to the careless, half mystifying ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... dinner his hostesses and a few of their friends, and afterwards made a party at a game of whist with Mesdames de Brienne, de Vandeuvre, and de Nolivres. During this game, as also at the table, his conversation was animated and most interesting, and he displayed such liveliness and affability that every one ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... changed its character; however the fascination remained for Dolly. The talk was no longer on personal subjects; it went gaily and jovially over all sorts of light matters; an excellent supper was served; and in the novelty and the brightness and the liveliness of all about her, Dolly was in a kind of bewitchment. It was a lull, a pause in the midst of her cares, a still nook to which an eddy had brought her, out of the current; Dolly took the full benefit. She would not think of trouble. Sometimes a swift feeling of ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... best manner; the description of the lone hut to which the lad comes—the ruffian who inhabits it—the designs which he has upon the life of his new guest, and the manner in which his daughter defeats them, are told with admirable liveliness and effect. The young man escapes, and with him the girl who had prevented his murder. Both are young, interesting, and tender hearted; she loves but him, and would die of starvation without him. Ernest Maltravers cannot resist the claim of so unprotected a creature; ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... considerably more entertaining reading than those of 1761. In the first of the latter series, for instance—the sermon on Shimei—a discourse in which there are no very noticeable sallies of unclerical humour, the quality of liveliness is very conspicuously present. The preacher's view of the character of Shimei, and of his behaviour to David, is hardly that, perhaps, of a competent historical critic, and in treating of the Benjamite's insults to the King of Israel he appears to take no account ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... fact, however, as the ship advanced; and while she went through the pass called the Narrows, Eve expressed her delight. Mademoiselle Viefville was in ecstasies, not so much with the beauties of the place as with the change from the monotony of the ocean to the movement and liveliness of the shore. ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... that you would step out of your office to see if anything new had happened during the last sixty minutes—would stop as you went to lunch and stop as you came back? We knew from the faces of our friends what our own faces were like. In company we pumped up liveliness, but in the street, alone with our apprehensions—do you remember? For our future's sake may everybody remember, ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... that there was a certain unusual liveliness about the usually languid figure of Fisher. The ordinary image of him in March's mind was that of a pallid and bald-browed gentleman, who seemed to be prematurely old as well as prematurely bald. He was remembered ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... Maretti, and her name was Santa. The professor himself was a little half-famished looking man, full of learning, by the show of which he was in the habit of boring everybody who came near him. Santa made up for this by her liveliness and her warm interest in my affairs. Amid music and laughter I spent many happy hours in her house, made friends, and was encouraged to make my debut as an improvisatore. I had written to Eccellenza a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... bottle of sighs and tears]. Then he came upon Inoculation; went along over an incredible multitude of other medical subjects. Into all he threw masterly glances; spoke of all with the soundest [all in superlative] knowledge of the matter, and with no less penetration than liveliness and sense. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... moment it leaves you with the impotent desire to hurt your adversary. No, I am inclined to think that the only thing which is wasteful is anything which suspends interest and animation and the love of life; and I don't blame idle and extravagant people who live with zest and liveliness for doing that. I only blame them for not seeing that their extravagance is keeping people at the other end of the scale in drudgery and dulness. Of course the difficulty of it is, that if we offered ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Mr. Hazlitt, perhaps too enthusiastically, describes as attainable in a background of Rembrandt's—"You stagger from one abyss of obscurity to another"—I cannot feel it an entirely glorious speciality to be distinguished, as Rembrandt was, from other great painters, chiefly by the liveliness of his darkness, and the dullness of his light. Glorious, or inglorious, the speciality itself is easily and accurately definable. It is the aim of the best painters to paint the noblest things they can see by sunlight. It was ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... here and there through the garden and give a certain sense of liveliness to the area. Some are by famous names, others by those less renowned, but as a whole they make little impression on one, chiefly, perhaps, because one does not come to the Garden of the ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... our selves with Prospects of constant Delight, and destroy in our Minds the Seeds of Fortitude and Virtue, which should support us in Hours of Anguish. The constant Pursuit of Pleasure has in it something insolent and improper for our Being. There is a pretty sober Liveliness in the Ode of Horace to Delius, where he tells him, loud Mirth, or immoderate Sorrow, Inequality of Behaviour either in Prosperity or Adversity, are alike ungraceful in Man that is born to die. Moderation in both Circumstances is peculiar to generous ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... been the means of rousing them out of their almost unconquerable tendency to sleep. Frank felt the highest possible relief, since he was now freed from the responsibility that had of late been so heavy. In Bob, however, there was the exhibition of the greatest liveliness. Bob, mercurial, volatile, nonsensical, mobile, was ever running to extremes; and as he was the first to fall asleep, so now, when he had awaked, he was the most wide awake of all. He sang, he shouted, he laughed, he danced, he ran; he seemed, in ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... amalgamated the four gallants of A Cure for a Cuckold in the person of Mr. Spruce, at the expense of a dramatic scene (I, ii, 31-125); and he ended the sub-plot with the fourth act instead of bringing its persons into the final scene, with some loss of liveliness and a concomitant gain in unity of effect. He modernized his dialogue entirely, bringing up to date the usage and allusions of his original, and restraining the richness of its metaphor by removing the figures altogether or by substituting others ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... pursued the jeweller, his voice rising almost to a scream, "you may have forgotten the transient fears which drove you to this highly proper precaution. For you the sun will shine, the larks sing, your blood will course with its accustomed liveliness, and your breast expand to the health-giving breeze. I don't blame you for it—oh, dear, no! not in the least. But you will admit it's a totally different thing to repose beneath the churchyard sod on a mere point ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... unscathed out of the hands of the theologians; but even if sacerdotal interference spoiled the legend concerning them, it did not altogether disfigure it. Here and there in it is still noticeable a sincerity of feeling and liveliness of imagination such as are never found in those of Shu and of Sibu. This arises from the fact that the functions of these gods left them strangers, or all but strangers, to the current affairs of the world. Shu was the stay, Sibu the material foundation ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... are generally the personifications of good humour and liveliness,' returned Argent; 'the pleasantest possible servants and the best voyagers. Listen to him now, carolling a "chanson" as he manages his smutty cookery. That's the ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... a picture of Mary, the village beauty, taking her share in the work, and how the labourers in their unwonted liveliness and ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... run beside us, partly to shew us the way, and partly to take back from the sea-side the horses, of which they were the owners. One of them was a man of great liveliness and activity, of whom his companion said, that he would tire any horse in Inverness. Both of them were civil and ready-handed. Civility seems part of the national character of Highlanders. Every chieftain is a monarch, and politeness, ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... by William Cowper in the year 1782, when Lady Austin was lodging in the Vicarage at Olney, and spent every evening with Cowper and Mrs. Unwin, cheering Cowper greatly by her liveliness. One evening she told the story of John Gilpin's ride in a way that tickled the poet's fancy, set him laughing when he woke up in the night, and obliged him to turn it next day into ballad rhyme. Mrs. Unwin's son sent it to the Public Advertiser, for the poet's corner. It was printed in that ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... attentive to his mother; he no more brought his books into the drawing-room, but gave himself to her company. He read to them, but he had little to talk about; and Eliza and Caroline both wished his stupid examination, past and over, that he might be restored to his natural liveliness. ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... entomological tours. On these excursions the acquaintance between the mozo and the senor was considerably developed. The youth had naturally a gay and confident disposition, and added not a little to the liveliness of the trips. Marcoy profited by their stricter connection to converse with him about the cultivation of the farm at Sausipata, making use of a venial deception to let him think that the plan of operations had been communicated by the governor ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... disfavor by the more conservative Romans, and her position was rather, one might say, on the outer edge of the inner circle. There were those who liked her, and who found her amusing and lively; indeed, that was the trouble—it was her liveliness that had banished her to the outer edge, instead of making a place for her in the inmost circle, where Eleanor Sansevero, for ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... misses you," retorted Mrs. Kybird, unable to restrain herself; "'e must miss your conversation and what I might call your liveliness." ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... intellectual versatility and acuteness unrivaled in modern times. '"O ingenia magis acria quam matura," said Petrarch, and with truth, about the wits of the Florentines; for it is their property by nature to have more of liveliness and acumen ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... evident) overlap one another without an end-pause where in Italian it is almost universal, namely, after the sixth line. The result of the innovation is far from successful: it destroys the flow of the verse and gives it an air of abruptness. Of the liveliness, vivacity and pungency of the tale, no idea can be given by quotation: two of the stanzas in which the moral is enforced, the two finest, perhaps, in the poem, are, ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... the matter. He was a member of the American Society, and later of the American Branch of the Society for Psychical Research. Dr Hodgson knew him very well, and liked to talk to him on account of the soundness of his judgment and the liveliness of his intelligence. But neither time nor circumstances had allowed ties of affection or real friendship to be established ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... a liveliness and a zeal which, in her threatened situation, had something touching in it, Marie Antoinette arrayed herself for the ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... through Sicily and Malta. 2 vols. 8vo. 1776.—Liveliness of description of scenery and manners, couched in an easy and elegant style, has rendered these volumes extremely popular, notwithstanding they do not display much learning or knowledge, and are even ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... came in. And the company brought in a new atmosphere, as company always does, something of the disturbance of out-doors, and a good deal of its healthy cheer. The direct news that the thermometer was approaching zero, with a hopeful prospect of going below it, increased to liveliness our satisfaction in the fire. When the cider was heated in the brown stone pitcher, there was difference of opinion whether there should be toast in it; some were for toast, because that was the old-fashioned way, and others were against it, "because it does not taste good" ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... empty. That brisk April air seems somehow in key with the mood of the Avenue—hard, plangent, glittering, intensely material. It is a proud, exultant, exhilarating street; it fills the mind with strange liveliness. A magnificent pomp of humanity—what a flux of lacquered motors, what a twinkling of spats along the pavements! On what other of the world's great highways would one find churches named for the material of which they are built?—the Brick Church, ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... don't think it's a nunnery," he said. By and by he let his gaze wander back to the town, in which he detected an appearance of liveliness and bustle not usual in New England villages, large or small. The main street was dotted with groups of men and women; and isolated figures, to which perhaps the distance lent a kind of uncanny aspect, were to be seen hurrying hither ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... texture of her hand But with a hand's touch understand? Shaped in eternity were these Body's miracles, where the seas Their continuous rhythm learned, And the stars in their bright order burned. From stars and seas was motion caught When flesh, blood, bone and skin were wrought Into swift lovely liveliness. Oh, but beauty less and less Than beauty grows. The cheeks fall in, Colour dies from the smooth skin, And muscles slack and bones are brittle; Veins and arteries little by little Delay the tides of the blood: That is a ditch that was a flood. Then all but dry bones ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... somewhat suddenly, as if they had walked close by the side of the wall to screen themselves from observation. One of them, a man, drew back hastily; the other, a female, crossed the stile, and advanced towards her—It was Effie. She met her sister with that affected liveliness of manner, which, in her rank, and sometimes in those above it, females occasionally assume to hide surprise or confusion; and she carolled ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... that being developed by Alexander Gerard, William Duff, and some of the other contemporary associatioassociationistsnlsts. In order, however, to emphasize the importance of imagination, by which he largely means the imagistic liveliness of the poet's mind, he allows that the imagination is secondary only in didactic or ethical poetry. Such forms are perhaps best understood as hybrid, a kind of poetizing of philosophy, a sort of reasoning in verse, and therefore ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... irritation of the nerves very distressing to witness. In order to divert his attention from the life with which he could no longer mingle, it was decided that novelty of scene might have a beneficial result. His family therefore proceeded to travel, but that the liveliness of his daughters was undiminished and their taste for society as keen, appears by a letter written by Marianne from Tunbridge Wells to ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... Cruelty, which an ingenious Writer of our own compares to that of Caligula, who wished the Roman People had all but one Neck, that he might behead them at a Blow. I shall therefore only Remark, that as Liveliness and Assurance are in a peculiar manner the Qualifications of the French Nation, the same Habits and Customs will not give the same Offence to that People, which they produce among those of our own Country. Modesty is our distinguishing Character, as Vivacity is theirs: And when this our National ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... for the fight was a sort of avenue between great trees, whose broad leaves warded off the direct sun, and whose shade had as yet no black shadows. The turf was as elastic to the foot as a firm mattress. In the trees, birds were singing with liveliness; in the distance, horned cattle browsed, and a pair of horses stood gazing at the combatants, startled, no doubt, by this invasion of their pasturage. From the distance came the faint, mellow ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... genius, and no doubt the many sorrowful experiences of his youth deepened the gloom of his inherited temperament. Those who know him well are aware that he has great tenderness of heart and abundant playful humour; that his mind is one of extraordinary liveliness, and that he sympathises keenly and cordially with the joys and sorrows of others; and yet that he seems saturated with sadness, isolated from companionship, lonely and alone. It is this temperament, combined with a sombre and melancholy aspect of countenance, that has ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... of the sables which muffled her ears and fell to her heels would have focused attention, not to mention the eager liveliness of her face. But on this occasion no one returned her vivid glances. Everyone was busy with their own affairs and friends. The only person seeming as isolated and lonely as herself was another girl, who, having made a tour from one end of the train to ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... see how D—— keeps up this see-saw, which you'll remark has prodigious wit in it. He says there is a great deal of coat in your waistcoat, and a great deal of waistcoat in your coat; that there is a great deal of liveliness in your stupidity, and a great deal of stupidity in your liveliness; but to write you all he says, would require rather more fire in my grate, than there is at present; and my fingers would undoubtedly be numbed, for there is a great deal of snow ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... ladies did not drink it; Osborne did not like it; and the consequence was that Jos, that fat gourmand, drank up the whole contents of the bowl; and the consequence of his drinking up the whole contents of the bowl was a liveliness which at first was astonishing, and then became almost painful; for he talked and laughed so loud as to bring scores of listeners round the box, much to the confusion of the innocent party within it; and, volunteering to sing a song (which he did in that maudlin high key peculiar to gentlemen ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the contents of the mind do not influence the world, if the form of expression does not cooperate. In Erasmus the quality of his talent is a very important factor. His perfect clearness and ease of expression, his liveliness, wit, imagination, gusto and humour have lent a charm to all he wrote which to his contemporaries was irresistible and captivates even us, as soon as we read him. In all that constitutes his talent, Erasmus is perfectly and altogether a representative ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... loose upon its hinges the passer-by may behold the evidences of loneliness and gloom,—the very embodiment of desolation,—a void, a silence, that is almost portentous. The roof, with its crop of quaint gables, in which proportion has been sacrificed to an effort to attain architectural liveliness, is covered with a greenish-grey moss on the north side, and has long been given over to decay on all sides. The cat-squirrels that occasionally scamper across the crumbling shingles have as much as they can do, with all their nimbleness, to find a secure foot-hold. ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... elated when informed by his mother that the liveliness of her hair as she combed it was caused ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... and purifies; but this leaves only an evil result: it darkens all the world, and all our views of it. Let us try to make every little child happy. The most selfish parent might try to please a little child, if it were only to see the fresh expression of unblunted feeling, and a liveliness of pleasurable emotion which in after-years we shall never know, I do not believe a great English barrister is so happy when he has the Great Seal committed to him as two little and rather ragged urchins whom I saw this very afternoon. I was walking along a country-road, and overtook ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... stopped laughing, and walked away toward his desk. Mr. Newman, standing by the big arm-chair from which he had just risen, looked after him with a sudden liveliness growing in his face. The experience through which he had just come, abiding with him as so secure a memory, precluded the doubts he might otherwise have felt; Carrick's words and his excitement, so unusual in him, and the clear, unquestionable sense of recollection ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... dresses very youthful and gaily, and attends to her person with no little complacency. She appears to me uncultivated in knowledge, though an adept in the manners of the world, And all that. She chooses to be much more lively than her brother; but liveliness sits as awkwardly upon her as her pink ribbons. in talking her over with MrsThrale who has a very proper regard for her, but who, I am sure, cannot be blind to her faults, she gave me another proof to those I have ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... that if I was minister, I should receive everybody, because it would be my duty to do so; but, being a private individual, I receive whomsoever I please, and at what hour soever I please!" Disconcerted by the liveliness of the retort, the great seignior did not utter one word in reply. We must even believe that from that moment he resolved not to visit any but ministers, for the plain man of science heard ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... his subject: for speaking not only with little or no preparation, but without much attention to a regular method, for the instruction of the peoples, he suffered himself often to be carried sway with the ardor with which some new important thought inspired him. Yet the purity of his language, the liveliness of his images and similes, the perspicuity of his expression, and the copiousness of his invention, never fall: his thoughts and words flow everywhere in a beautiful stream, like an impetuous river. He interweaves excellent moral instructions against vain-glory, detraction, rash judgment, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... came from the jagged depths of the mountains, full of light and liveliness. It had scarcely run six miles from its source before it touched our mill-wheel; but in that space and time it had gathered strong and copious volume. The lovely blue of the water (like the inner tint of a glacier) was partly due to its ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... talked at table he talked in the Convention. His peculiar style of oratory was now formed. It was not altogether without ingenuity and liveliness. But in any other age or country it would have been thought unfit for the deliberations of a grave assembly, and still more unfit for state papers. It might, perhaps, succeed at a meeting of a Protestant ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... magnificence of the princes who raised them, the skill of the workmen, the riches of the ornaments diffused over every part of them, and the just proportion and beautiful symmetry of the parts, in which their greatest beauty consisted, seemed to vie with each other; works, in many of which the liveliness of the colours remains to this day, in spite of the rude hand of time, which commonly deadens or destroys them: all this, I say, shows the perfection to which architecture, painting, sculpture, and all other arts, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... penny of that money is my own: not one of those transactions has the smallest interest for me or anyone else in the world but him; and even he couldnt stand it if he had to do it all himself. And I'm envied: aye, envied for the variety and liveliness of my job, by the poor devil of a bookkeeper that has to copy all my entries over again. Fifty thousand entries a year that poor wretch makes; and not ten out of the fifty thousand ever has to be referred to again; and when all ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... particular evening did not promise any marked increase in the general liveliness. Mrs. Ashburn announced lugubriously to all whom it might concern that she had eaten no lunch; Martha mentioned that a Miss Hornblower had called that afternoon—which produced no sensation, though Cuthbert seemed for a ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... Jawn, an' between us politics don't intherest me no more. They ain't no liveliness in thim. Whin Andy Duggan r-run f'r aldherman against Schwartzmeister, th' big Dutchman,—I was precinct captain then, Jawn,—there was an iliction f'r ye. 'Twas on our precinct they relied to ilict Duggan; f'r the Dutch was sthrong down be th' thrack, an' Schwartzmeister ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... happy nature had always been content; but when I saw how exceedingly she enjoyed the variety, liveliness, and occupations brought by the Cradocks, I felt that it had been scarcely kind to seclude her to gratify my own sole pride; but then there had been nobody like the Cradocks—to drop ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of excessive azure (simple blue country, observe), is one of the chief wonders of the painting: so that this masterpiece can no more furnish an apology for the continuance of a practice which, though it gives some liveliness of character to the warehouses of Amsterdam, is fit only for a place whose foundations are mud, and whose inhabitants are partially animated cheeses,—than Caravaggio's custom of painting blackguards should introduce an ambition among mankind ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... the straw is taken up to the cottages and piled up in an outhouse, or more often in a corner of the kitchen, where it brings a new liveliness of colour. ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... spoke much of Uncle Charles; her conversation beyond any person's I ever met; she was in fine spirits. Her dress, which well became her gigantic person, very rich. I shall pass over our conversation which was full of liveliness, of marvels and wonders, manners and customs of the people, plagues, troubles, and famines &c. &c. I went back to the brig the following day and returned in the afternoon to Djoun, taking with me Mr. Forrester, my surgeon, who she requested I would allow to arrange her medicines which ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... part that is afflicted, as the head or stomach, then it will not so then appear by the members, which are unconnected with such grievances; but the lower part of the body exactly sympathising with them, their liveliness, on the contrary, makes it apparent; for nature's force, and the spirits that have their intercourse, first manifest themselves therein; which occasions midwives to feel the genitals of children, to know in what part the gulf is residing, ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... attained because of the predominance of the thin vowels. The third stanza calls for a pitch lower than the first and a slowness and solemnity of movement quite in contrast to the moderate rate of the first and the liveliness and gaiety of the second. It will be seen in these readings that there is an overlying melody in the stanzas, quite distinct from the rhythm that depends upon the meter, and that in the reading the meter naturally falls subservient to the melody of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... pecksniffery and sentimentality ever since the days of Irving and Hawthorne. Poe led one of them—as critic more than as creative artist. His scathing attacks upon the Gerald Stanley Lees, the Hamilton Wright Mabies and the George E. Woodberrys of his time keep a liveliness and appositeness that the years have not staled; his criticism deserves to be better remembered. Poe sensed the Philistine pull of a Puritan civilization as none had before him, and combated it with his whole artillery of rhetoric. Another rebel, of ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... where it always had been and everything all right and very bright with him and with the world about him. He did not go under without a struggle. But as Max Beerbohm's caricature—the 1908 one I mean—brought out all too plainly, there was in his very animation, something of the alert liveliness of the hunted man. Do what he would he had a terrible irrational feeling that things, as yet scarce imagined things, were after him and would have him. Even as he makes his point, even as he gesticulates ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... of him I saw nothing until the evening except at meals; the other was enjoying the midsummer holidays without any great elation; a singularly thin and abject, stunted creature he was, whose chief liveliness was to pretend to be a monkey, and who I am now convinced had some secret disease that drained his vitality away. If I met him now I should think him a pitiful little creature and be extremely sorry for him. Then I felt only a wondering aversion. He sniffed horribly, he was tired out ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... Henrietta, who has for some time been seriously in love with Lionel, is at last united to him; and it is almost needless to add that the fortunes of Plunkett and Nancy are also joined. The charm of "Martha" is its liveliness in action and tunefulness in music. Though not a great opera from a musical point of view, it is one of the most popular in the modern repertory, and though few others have been performed so many times, it still retains that popularity. Its melodies, though sung ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... and tall lances, to the extremities of 20 which were, in many cases, attached small pennons of about a span's breadth, which, fluttering in the air as the breeze caught them, joined with the restless motion of the feathers to add liveliness to ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... reply to this frank comment on her liveliness, and after a short pause, Miss Clegg sighed heavily a ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... a very superior Warbler, having a lively, animated strain, reminding you of certain parts of the Canary's, though quite broken and incomplete; the bird the while hopping amid the branches with increased liveliness, and indulging in fine sibilant chirps, too ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... short work, though exceedingly simple and inartificial, is not without its merits. It has the directness, the perspicuity, and the liveliness of Caesar's Commentaries or of the Duke of Wellington's Despatches. Montesquieu[1317] says of it:—"Hanno's Voyage was written by the very man who performed it. His recital is not mingled with ostentation. Great commanders write their actions with simplicity, because they ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... forced liveliness, about a cargo of grain, a certain Furst in Riga, a raise in customs duties somewhere. Suddenly he says, bending ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... guests, whose appetites had been sharpened by their morning exercise, did honor to Madame Sejournant's cooking; they took their wine without water, and began gradually to thaw under the influence of their host's good Burgundy; evincing their increased liveliness by the exchange of heavy country witticisms, or relating noisy and interminable stories of their hunting adventures. Their conversation was very trying to Julien's nerves. Nevertheless, he endeavored to fulfil his duties as master of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... from all this that I was not in love with Clara. Her beauty and liveliness, with a gaiety which not seldom assumed the form of grace, attracted me much, it is true; but nothing interferes more with the growth of any passion than a spirit of questioning, and, that once roused, love begins to cease and pass into pain. Few, perhaps, could have arrived at the point of admiration ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was he in that the staid Starbuck, his .. official superior, quietly resigned to him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely manifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of the whale as a flavorish thing to his palate. A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... His liveliness was infectious; they all set to work with a will, and in a few moments a crackling wood-fire blazed cheerily on the ground, and the gipsy preparations for the al fresco supper went on apace amid peals of laughter. Soon the fragrance of steaming coffee arose and mingled itself ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... sentences is more adapted for this kind of speaking than any other. They sometimes appear involved, to an ordinary mind, from their length, and the abundance of illustration and explanation which they embrace; but the extraordinary vigor with which the delivery is kept up, and the liveliness of fancy or of humor that flashes at every turn of the thought, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... many calls upon his poverty: there are none upon your wealth. And indeed, madam, if you will let me touch this matter with a needle, there is but one point in common to your two positions: that each had a daughter more remarkable for liveliness than duty.' ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... even the assumed vivacity which this suspected insult had robbed him of, sufficiently to enter into conversation with any appearance of ease or pleasure. But, after a while, soothed by the attentions of Cecilia and Mr Monckton, his uneasiness wore off, and the native spirit and liveliness of his character broke forth with their ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Eden Place were cheerful and hospitable in their appearance, and were marked by an air of liveliness and good- fellowship. Bed linen hung freely from all the windows, for there was no hard and fast law about making up beds at any special hour, though a remnant of superstition still existed that it was a good thing to make up a bed before you slept in ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... still the complete lady's horse is expected to be capable of performing it with great precision of step, and but little concussion to the rider:—many ladies regarding it,—however discountenanced by the majority, perhaps,—as preferable, from its vigour, liveliness, and dash, ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... in Caroline's light prattle lifted the last veil that concealed the real youth and genuine character of the Stranger's physiognomy; he seemed to bid farewell to the ideas that haunted him, and showed the natural liveliness that lay beneath the solemnity of ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... reckless fashion. Yet the celebration of New Year's Eve was not marred, and lusty choruses came up from the ward-room till long after midnight. Next morning at breakfast our ranks had noticeably thinned through the liveliness of the ship, but it is wonderful how large an assembly we mustered for the New Year's dinner, and how cheerfully the toast was drunk to "The best year we ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the dramatis personae go to Varro and discourse to him "because he was known to them as a maker of books." as to the poetical value of this dress we are no longer allowed to form any certain judgment; there still occur in our fragments several very charming sketches full of wit and liveliness— thus in the -Prometheus Liber- the hero after the loosing of his chains opens a manufactory of men, in which Goldshoe the rich (-Chrysosandalos-) bespeaks for himself a maiden, of milk and finest wax, such as the Milesian bees ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... a strange contest we are here considering. Which of us would for a moment doubt our ability to decide in a dispute as to the liveliness or sadness of any given melody?—yet here we see the greatest poets, the favoured children of nature, utterly at variance on a point concerning which we should have expected to find even the most ordinary minds ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... works in literature and science produced, yet the general taste was capricious, fantastical, or grovelling; and in this point, as in all others, was youth subject to delusion, frequent in proportion to the liveliness of the sensibility, and strong as the strength of the imagination. Every age hath abounded in instances of parents, kindred, and friends, who, by indirect influence of example, or by positive injunction and exhortation, have diverted ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... was conspicuous by his familiar tone and by the liveliness of his repartees. In him you have a man who does not hesitate to call things by their names. Thus he remarked aloud to M. Francis, from one end of the room to the other: "I say, Francis, that old swindler of yours has made a nice thing out of us again this week." And as the other drew ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... ought, with a throat formation like that, to have been a singer, but in every kind of music Scrap was dumb except this one music of the speaking voice; and what a fascination, what a spell lay in that. Such was the liveliness of her face and the beauty of her colouring that there was not a man into whose eyes at the sight of her there did not leap a flame of intensest interest; but, when he heard her voice, the flame in that man's eyes was caught and fixed. It was the same with every man, ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... granddaughter, whom she had taken away from the convent before the beginning of the holidays. Since she had fully arranged the marriage with M. de Talbrun, it seemed important that Giselle should acquire some liveliness, and recruit her health, before the fatal wedding-day arrived. M. de Talbrun liked ladies to be always well and always lively, and it was her duty to see that Giselle accommodated herself to his taste; sea-bathing, life in the open air, and merry companions, were the things she ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... right; I know it well," said Daker, very earnestly, but resuming his normal air of liveliness in an instant. "It's a bad atmosphere, but decidedly amusing. The esprit of a good salon is delicious—nothing short of it. I like to bathe in it: it just suits me, though I can't contribute much to it. We Englishmen are not alert enough ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... travels, and they compared notes: but they always came back to this superlative old fraud. After long wise and disconnected talk about the set of the wind, or the rates of pay on various lines, or stowage, or freights, or rigs, or currents, or the characters of various skippers and mates, or the liveliness or sulkiness or homeliness or fickleness of this or that kind of cargo, they would revert extra-professionally to Uncle Tibe: of whom the old stories would be repeated over and over, with long pauses, chuckles, slow appreciations—'Ay, Tibe! . . . He ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... comfort, essential to the well-being of a school. She remained with her brother at Holdgate, till the time of his second marriage, when change was again her allotment. After a short absence from York she finally settled there. Her declining health rendered repose needful, although the liveliness of her spirits enabled her greatly to enjoy frequent intercourse with her friends;—and the school, the scene of her former labours, was an ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous
... hours to spend—for it was but little past seven o'clock—and nothing to do but to sit there and gossip. An innocent pastime that; I have no fault to find with it, excepting that it had the appearance of being very dull. The people looked comfortable, but there was no liveliness in them. No trace of vivacity in their faces gave the smallest reason to suppose that my coming had interrupted any enjoyment of the evening. A listless contentment in being at home together, with the day's ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... Scandinavian ground, Mr Boas, who, as a traveller, is decidedly of the gossiping and inquisitive class, fills three chapters with all manner of pleasant chatter about himself, and his feelings, and his fancies, and the travelling companions he meets with. His liveliness and versatility, and a certain bantering satirical vein, in which he occasionally indulges, would have caused us to take his work, had we met with it in an English translation, for the production of a French rather ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... forward and one hand at the waist, elbow out and waist pressed in. He is well built, his face much better looking than his photographs show, nose rather long and eyes very keen and observing. Possessed of a great youthfulness of manner and a boyish liveliness and interest in life, his traits are somewhat American rather than German. He is a good sportsman and excels at many sports, is proud of his trophies but not afraid to meet other men in contest ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... vanishing summits, where the snows take on the livid, spectral tints of the lunar universe. Pallor, petrifaction, silence, death itself. And the good Tartarin, so warm, so living, was beginning to lose his liveliness when the distant cry of a bird, the note of a "snow partridge" brought back before his eyes a baked landscape, a copper-coloured setting sun, and a band of Taras-conese sportsmen, mopping their faces, seated on their empty game-bags, in the slender shade of an olive-tree. The ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... appeared to be under an agreeable confusion, every lady, by her eye, seeming to think she had met with a deserved rebuke; and which not seeming to expect, it abated her liveliness all the time after. ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... fortune. When, several years afterwards, I again saw him in Zurich, I observed that his appearance had unfortunately changed in a manner quite disconcerting: he looked really extraordinarily common and dirty; his former refreshing liveliness had turned into the usual Jewish restlessness, and it was easy to see that all he said was uttered as if he regretted that his words could not be turned to better account ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Sometimes even the public carriages have this superabundant crew, slightly modified—one to drive, one to sit by and see it done, and one to stand up behind and yell—yell when there is anybody in the way, and for practice when there isn't. It all helps to keep up the liveliness and augment the general sense of swiftness and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... character, that we have found this biography one of the most instructive and entertaining we ever read. If Mr. Parton sometimes exaggerates his hero's merits, he is also outspoken in regard to his faults. If here and there a little Carlylish, his style has the merit of great liveliness, and his pictures of frontier-life are full ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... hope for me—the hope of recognizing you, whether you approach me from a distance, or whether I divine your identity in following you. And then the city becomes charming to me, and the women whose figures resemble yours stir my heart with all the liveliness of the streets, hold my attention, occupy my eyes, and give me a sort of ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... festal ferment, the laughter and merriment; a desire to escape from the very exuberance of high spirits and cheer led the soldier to make his way slowly from the ball-room to the balcony, where, although not removed from the echoes of liveliness within, he looked out upon the quietude of the night. Overhead stretched the sky, a measureless ocean, with here and there a silvery star like the light on a distant ship; an unfathomable sea of ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... These passages are all thoroughly in keeping with the general tone of the lesser work: it would be tautology to add that they are no less utterly out of keeping with the general tone of the other. But in their own way nothing can be finer: they have a tragic liveliness in ghastliness, a grotesque animation of horror, which no other poet has ever conceived or conveyed to us. The difference between Michael Angelo and Goya, Tintoretto and Gustave Dore, does not quite efface the right of the minor ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... she even read his favourite book of Wild Sports, though her feelings were constantly lacerated by the miseries of the slaughtered animals. Her couch was to him as a home, and he had awakened her bright soft liveliness which had been ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge |
