"Sportive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... did Grecian chisel trace A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace, Of finer form or lovelier face! What though the sun, with ardent frown, Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown,— The sportive toil, which, short and light Had dyed her glowing hue so bright, Served too in hastier swell to show Short glimpses of a breast of snow: What though no rule of courtly grace To measured mood had trained her pace,— A foot more light, a step more ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... of as much importance as the accompanying exertion; and as not supplying these mental stimuli gymnastics must be radically defective, and can never serve in place of the exercises prompted by nature. For girls as well as boys the sportive activities to which the instincts impel are essential to bodily welfare. Whoever forbids them, forbids the divinely-appointed means to ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... wife, and half-a-dozen noisy, ragged children, took possession of the quiet bachelor's abode. The furniture had been sold to pay the expenses of the funeral, and a few trifling bills; and, save the kitchen and the two attics, the empty house, uninhabited, was surrendered to the sportive mischief of the idle urchins, who prowled about the silent chambers in fear of the silence, and in ecstasy at the space. The bedroom in which Caleb had died was, indeed, long held sacred by infantine superstition. But one day ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sometimes to the swell and fulness of Dryden, without his inflections; delicate and masterly in his descriptions; graceful in one of the greatest graces of poetry, its transitions; alike successful in his sportive or grave, his playful or melancholy mood; he may long bid defiance to the numerous competitors whom the friendship or flattery of the present age is ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... The genus is remarkable for the number of its species having ornamental foliage, and not less so, perhaps, for the insignificance of their flowers. The species under notice (E. japonicus) in cultivation has proved sportive, which habit has been taken advantage of, whence the numerous forms, including the one I have selected for these remarks. Some of the Spindle Trees do not flower in this climate, and others, which do, produce ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... in accents low, The sportive kind reply: Poor moralist! and what art thou? A solitary fly! Thy joys no glittering female meets, No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets, No painted plumage to display: On hasty wings thy youth is flown; Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone— ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... baby laugh and sportive glee, Her spirit's airy lightness, Surround the pleasant prairie home ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... sea, Bounding and free, O soothe me to sleep with thy sweet lullaby! As when a child, Sportive and wild, Thy waves and I gamboll'd, ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... him to be 'sportive and brightsome' and full of 'playful humor,' and 'two things especially are to be noted in them—individuality and directness of expression.' Individuality and directness of expression! We wonder what Mr. Matthews thinks these ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... and sportive speech, And mirthful tales of earlier years, Though deep within the soul of each Lay thoughts too ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... bleak instability by the row of lights along the sides of the jetty, the rapid motion landward of the wavetips producing upon his eye an apparent progress of the pier out to sea. This pier-head was a spot which Christopher enjoyed visiting on such moaning and sighing nights as the present, when the sportive and variegated throng that haunted the pier on autumn days was no longer there, and he seemed alone with ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... observation, convince himself that her grief for his long absence was really injuring her looks. How wearily she had striven to prevent letting a tear fall upon the tinted paper, what heroic courage she had expended in finding sportive turns of speech, subdued, even mirthful expressions, could not be perceived in the little missive. Robert read it with distrust, but, in spite of the most cautious scrutiny, he did not find a single word whose vehemence could disquiet him, not a single letter which was nervously emphasized or written, ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... a glance of tenderness and admiration into the interior of the precious pouch, readjusted his toilet, rubbed up his boots, dusted his poor half sleeves, all gray with ashes, whistled an air, indulged in a sportive pirouette, looked about to see whether there were not something more in the cell to take, gathered up here and there on the furnace some amulet in glass which might serve to bestow, in the guise of a trinket, on ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... awkward. He had a constitutional melancholy, the clouds of which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking: yet, though grave and awful in his deportment, when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently indulged himself in pleasantry and sportive sallies. He was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might incline him to a belief of the marvellous, and the mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with jealousy. He had a loud voice, and a slow deliberate utterance, which no doubt gave some ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Wales, in which no fewer than 130 persons were disguised; which, with that in 1401, I have already described. Philip Stubbes, the Puritan, says: "In 1440, one captain John Gladman, a man ever true and faithful to God and the King, and constantly sportive, made public disport with his neighbours at Christmas. He traversed the town on a horse as gaily caparisoned as himself, preceded by the twelve months, each dressed in character. After him crept the pale attenuated figure of Lent, clothed in herring skins, and mounted ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... tyranny of fashion; yet it was graceful, and did not in the least degree approach an unseemly obesity; and how magnificently did it expand into a glorious bust, whereon two "hillocks of snow" projected their rose-tinted peaks, in sportive rivalry—revealed, with bewildering distinctness, by the absence of any concealing drapery! When she smiled, her lips, like "wet coral," parted, and displayed teeth of dazzling whiteness, and when she laughed, she did so musically. Her hand would ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... never do comfortably without. She did—almost always—believe that Henry loved her, and quite always that his father and sister loved and even wished her to belong to them; and believing so far, her doubts and anxieties were merely sportive irritations. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... be mirthful and merry." Quoth Khwajah Hasan, "O my lord, thou dost indeed provide much pleasant entertainment." Then the slave-boy Abdullah standing by began to strike the tambourine whilst Morgiana rose up and showed her perfect art and pleased them vastly with graceful steps and sportive motion; and suddenly drawing the poniard from her belt she brandished it and paced from side to side, a spectacle which pleased them most of all. At times also she stood before them, now clapping the sharp-edged dagger under her armpit and then setting it against her breast. Lastly she took the tambourine ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... unbridled dominion of the passions disturbs the peace of the individual and the harmony of society. Sin makes a man at variance with himself, with his neighbour, and with the whole constitution of things. He is restless as the ocean, impelled by every contrary wind, and tossed about by every sportive billow. The desire of happiness exists; but he is ignorant of the true means of it, and is perpetually pursuing it by a method which only plunges him into greater misery. To this cause must be ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... becomes an absolute torrent, with mud-thickened water, which cascades round one's ankles in a sportive way, and round one's knees in the hollows in the path. On we go, the path underneath the water seems a pretty equal mixture of rock and mud, but they are not evenly distributed. Plantations full of weeds show up on either side of us, and we are evidently ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... of the eminent American judge, Joseph Story, relates of him[236]—"To dumb creatures he was kind and considerate, and indignant at any ill usage of them. His sportive nature showed itself in the nicknames which, in parody of the American fondness of titles, he gave to his horses and dogs, as, 'The Right Honourable Mr Mouse,' or ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... whereas, when one has but to lift one's eyes in order to receive the exquisite shocks of thrilling form and color and motion that leap invisibly from mountain and groves and stream, then one feels as if one had surprised the Father in his tender, sportive, and loving moments. ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... memory was of sun and a dance of leafy shadows on the wall of the cave, the which shadows held my attention so that I had no will to look otherwhere; for these were merry shadows that leapt in sportive gambols, that danced and swayed, pleasing me mightily. And as I watched these antic shadows I could hear the pleasant murmur of the little rill without the cave, that bubbled with sweet, soft noises like small, babbling ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the garden-plats Were happy-hearted youths and merry girls Toiling and singing. Grandsires too were there, Sitting contented under their own vines And fig-trees, while about them merrily played Their children's children like the sportive lambs That frolicked on the foot-hills. Low of kine, Full-uddered, homeward-wending from the meads, Fell on the ear as soft as Hulder's loor Tuned on the Norse-land mountains. Like a nest Hid in a hawthorn-hedge a cottage stood ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... has hitherto been spent in struggling with poverty. But all the rigours of fortune have not been able to repress the frequent efforts of his lively and vigorous imagination. Some of these poems are of a serious cast; but the strain which seems most natural to the author, is the sportive and humorous. It is to be regretted, that the Scottish dialect, in which these poems are written, must obscure the native beauties with which they appear to abound, and renders the sense often unintelligible to an English reader. Should it, however, prove true, that the author has been taken ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... full of vigour and vivacity, accompanied me. I saw several others, of different ages, who were walking there. But what surprised me was to see a great many of them amusing themselves by various agreeable and sportive games with young girls elegantly dressed, listening to their songs, and joining in their dances. The monk, who accompanied me, listened with great civility and kindness to the questions I put to him concerning his order. The ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Our Lady" with his "Kynd Kittok," in which God has his eye on the soul of an intemperate ale-wife who has crept into Paradise. "God lukit, and saw her lattin in, and leugh His heart sair." Examples of this kind of sportive irreverence are common enough; their root is in human nature: and they could not be absent in the mythology of savage or of ancient peoples. To Zeus the myths of this kind would come to be ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... was the son of my wife's sister; therefore my relation only by marriage. He was certainly the most extraordinary child I ever beheld. I cannot recollect him but with inconceivable emotions of affection. Of all the sportive little creatures I ever met with, he was the most active, the most undaunted, and the most winning. Heaven bless the sweet boy! He was my delight. My eyes overflow whenever I recall to mind the feats of his childhood, which can never be long forgotten by me. My wife and her sister ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... till every thing that chears In thee had yielded to the weight of years; Extreme old age had wasted thee away, And left thee but a glimmering of the day; Thy ears were deaf; and feeble were thy knees,— saw thee stagger in the summer breeze, 20 Too weak to stand against its sportive breath, And ready for the gentlest stroke of death. It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed; Both Man and Woman wept when Thou wert dead; Not only for a thousand thoughts that were, Old household thoughts, in which ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... the soothing persuasion that Providence is eminently watchful over the helpless, and extends an especial care to those who are not capable of caring for themselves. So used, it breathes the same feeling as "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb"—or the more sportive adage, that "the fairies take care of children and tipsy folk." The persuasion itself, in addition to the general religious feeling of mankind, and the scarcely less general love of the marvelous, may be accounted for from our tendency to exaggerate all effects that seem disproportionate ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... this enchanting brook form a lovely island, variegated by the most sportive hand of nature. This shall be yours. We will plant it with jessamines and woodbine, and call it Cyprus. It seems formed for the residence oL the loves and the graces, and is therefore yours by the best of titles. It is indeed ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... crucible hath brought at last, The cherished shapes that all so fondly gaze Upon us from the dim poetic past! Else might these moonlit prairies show at dawn, The dew-swept circle of the elfin dance— These woodlands teem with sportive fay and faun— These grottoes glimmer with sweet Echo's glance. Perchance a future Homer might have wrought From out the scattered wreck of ages fled, Some long lost Troy, where mighty heroes fought, And made the earth re-echo ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... battery, if it could be honoured with such a name. But had its power been as extensive as the view from it, it would have amply sufficed. The day was now most beautiful and spring-like, and various flowers, with sportive butterflies and other insects, enlivened the mountain side. The broad blue lake lay beneath, and in the extreme distance the position of Scutari itself could be distinguished. Three ranges of mountains were visible, rising one above ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... doe, feeding, and a tall water-fowl. On the shoulder is scratched with a point, in very antique Attic characters running from right to left, [Greek: os nun orchaeston panton hatalotata pais ei, tou tode]. "This is the jug of him who is the most delicately sportive of all dancers of our time." The jug is attributed to the eighth century. [Footnote: Walters, History of Ancient Pottery, vol. ii. p, 243; Kretschmer, Griechischen Vasen inschriften, p. 110, 1894, of the seventh century. ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... suffered, three years before, on the same spot, and of the insolence with which their enemy had then triumphed over them. They now triumphed in their turn. The Dutch struck medals. The Spaniards sang Te Deums. Many poems, serious and sportive, appeared, of which one only has lived. Prior burlesqued, with admirable spirit and pleasantry, the bombastic verses in which Boileau had celebrated the first taking of Namur. The two odes, printed side by side, were read with delight in London; and the critics at Will's pronounced ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... interval I remember it so well. In the solitude of my own chamber, I bade farewell separately to all those little trifles that surrounded me: God bless the good old clock that hast so oft awakened me. Beautiful raven, whom I taught to speak and to say "Lorand," on whom wilt thou play thy sportive tricks? Poor old doggy, maybe thou wilt not be living when I return? Forsooth old Susie herself will say to me, "I shall never see you again Master Desi." And till now I always thought I was angry with Susie; but now I remark that it will ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... false adulterate eyes Give salutation to my sportive blood? Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, Which in their wills count bad what I ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... or two the fire would die out against that barrier, always provided the west wind did not rise and in sportive mockery fling showers of sparks across to start a hundred little fires burning in the woods behind their line of defense. A forest fire was never beaten until it was dead. The men rested, watched, patrolled their line. ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... me rather a special letter, proposing relief in kind. He had got into a little trouble by leaving parcels of mud done up in brown paper, at people's houses, on pretence of being a Railway- Porter, in which character he received carriage money. This sportive fancy he expiated in the House of Correction. Not long after his release, and on a Sunday morning, he called with a letter (having first dusted himself all over), in which he gave me to understand ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... keen reproach to the clergy of that day. Charles V., however pious that emperor affected to be, had a missal painted for his mistress by the great Albert Durer, the borders of which are crowded with extravagant grotesques, consisting of apes, who were sometimes elegantly sportive, giving clysters to one another, and in more offensive attitudes, not adapted to heighten the piety of the Royal Mistress. This missal has two French verses written by the Emperor himself, who does not seem ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... was the key note to the old Negro's character and temperament. He was making a sort of privileged game with a sportive twist out of his ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... reading the following passage in Mr. Capel Lofft's beautiful and interesting Preface to Nathaniel Bloomfield's Poems, just published:—"It has a mixture of the sportive, which deepens the impression of its melancholy close. I could have wished, as I have said in a short note, the conclusion had been otherwise. The sours of life less offend my taste than its ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... so affectionate it grew, And its delighted mistress knew As well as she her mother; Nor would it e'er her lap forsake, But hopping round about would make Some sportive trick ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... an airy, sportive vein he wrote, with the firm purpose and the distinct thought visible under the sparkle. Before the regiment left Washington, as he has recorded, he said good-bye and went down the bay to Fortress Monroe. Of his unshrinking and sprightly industry, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... I think, the result of that active but melancholy Fancy, which can travel far into views of Life and Nature from a slight occasion. It has a mixture of the Sportive which deepens the impression of it's melancholy Close. I could have wish'd, as I have said in a short Note, the Conclusion had been otherwise. The sours of Life less offend my Taste than its sweets delight it. But when I think what NATHANIEL must have felt in passing through Life, I more ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... matchless shape termed Grecian; and her mouth—in form, a triumph of all things heavenly, in expression, a triumph of all things hellish. The magnificent turn of its short upper lip, and the soft voluptuous line of its under lip; its sportive dimples and ripe red colour; its even rows of dazzling, pearly teeth were adorable; but they appealed to the senses, and in no sense or shape to the soul. Her brows, slightly irregular in outline, met over the nose; her eyelashes were of great length, ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... day I got up early, cut myself a stick, and set off beyond the town-gates. I thought I would walk off my sorrow. It was a lovely day, bright and not too hot, a fresh sportive breeze roved over the earth with temperate rustle and frolic, setting all things a-flutter and harassing nothing. I wandered a long while over hills and through woods; I had not felt happy, I had left home ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Ulysses answered him and said, "Then I will tell you what seems best to me. First wash and put on tunics, and bid the maids about the house array themselves. Then let the sacred bard with tuneful lyre lead us in sportive dancing, that men may say, hearing us from without, 'It is a wedding,' whether such men be passers-by or neighboring folk; and so broad rumor may not reach the town about the suitors' murder till we are gone to our well-wooded farm. There ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... his Prose on several occasions, has A Letter from LEXIPHANES[1179]; containing Proposals for a Glossary or Vocabulary of the Vulgar Tongue: intended as a Supplement to a larger DICTIONARY. It is evidently meant as a sportive sally of ridicule on Johnson, whose style is thus ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... larger Dwarf, any more than they could see the countless little ones. Even Annie and the clergyman were stone-blind: so that Klaus, speaking unintelligibly at every turn, had to bear the jokes of all; for young and old, woman and man, chimed readily in with the tone of sportive raillery, as soon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... bull on Afric's strand, And crops with dancing head the daisy'd land; With rosy wreathes Europa's hand adorns His fringed forehead and his pearly horns; Light on his back the sportive damsel bounds, And, pleas'd, he moves along the flowery grounds; Bears with slow step his beauteous prize aloof, Dips in the lucid flood his ivory hoof; Then wets his velvet knees, and wading laves ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... revenge. At length that desire was gratified. The Restoration emancipated thousands of minds from a yoke which had become insupportable. The old fight recommenced, but with an animosity altogether new. It was now not a sportive combat, but a war to the death. The Roundhead had no better quarter to expect from those whom he had persecuted than a cruel slavedriver can expect from insurgent slaves still bearing the marks of his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... believe in, or at least tell stories of, ghosts, which conduct themselves much as in our old-fashioned ghost stories. They haunt people in a rather sportive and irresponsible way. The souls or shadows of respectable persons go to the bleak country called the Sand Hills, where they live in a dull, monotonous kind of Sheol. The shades of the wicked are 'earth-bound' and ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... homeward journey. The general mood of gayety had even risen, for Mimi was dancing a waltz with Glogowski on the greensward. Topolski was so drunk that he continually kept talking to himself and quarreling with Majkowska. Kotlicki smiled and kept close to Janina who had become very sportive and merry. She smiled at him and conversed with him, hardly remembering his recent proposal. He was sure that the impression of it had merely glided over her soul and sunk away ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... gay, a. merry, sportive, frolicsome, lively, exhilarating, vivacious, jolly, blithe, airy, boon, convivial, jovial, joyous; brilliant, dashing, gallant, showy; garish, gaudy, flashing, tawdry; (Colloq.) ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... gather flowers, Then feast like spirits in their promised bowers, Then plunge and revel in the rolling surf, Then lay our limbs along the tender turf, And, wet and shining from the sportive toil, Anoint our bodies with the fragrant oil, And plait our garlands gathered from the grave, And wear the wreaths that sprung from out the brave. But lo! night comes, the Mooa[371] woos us back, The sound of mats[372] are heard along our track; 30 Anon the torchlight dance shall fling its ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... middle, sinks down below the waves, and is inevitably drowned, if he cannot regain his balance. The only hope of doing this, is placed in the proper application of his oar, and, therefore, the dexterous management of this implement forms the early study of the young Greenlanders. In their sportive parties they row about in a thousand different manners. They dive under their boats, and then set them to rights with their paddle; they learn to glide over the roughest billows, and face the greatest dangers with intrepidity, till in the end they acquire sufficient strength ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... twenty summers I have seen The sky grow bright, the forest green; And many a wintry wind have stood In bloomless, fruitless solitude, Since childhood in my pleasant bower First spent its sweet and sportive hour, Since youthful lovers in my shade Their vows of truth and rapture made; And on my trunk's surviving frame Carved many a long-forgotten name. Oh! by the sighs of gentle sound, First breathed upon this sacred ground; By all that Love has ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... we had in the barn three loads of hay, and Merton had packed four crates of berries ready for market. Bobsey was now running about, as lively as a cricket, and Winnie, with a child's elasticity, was nearly as sportive. Bagley, after making up his half-hour, came up the lane with a rake, instead of his ugly dog as on the evening before. A few moments later, he helped me lift the crates into the market wagon; and then, after a ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... his friends were much amused with this sportive conversation of Louis's, and Edward made many smart replies, especially joking the cardinal, who, he knew, "was a gay man with the ladies, and a boon companion ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... together in glowing August weather, The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right; And dear she was to doat on, her swift feet seem'd to float on The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... excursion on the water was planned for the morning, and Edward and Fanny were wakened from their slumbers by the tones of the bugle; a soft Irish melody being breathed by Spillan, followed by a more sportive one from the other minstrel of ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... painted nothing but "gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire." His subtlety exceeds that of all other dramatic writers, insomuch that a celebrated person of the present day said that he regarded him rather as a metaphysician than a poet. His delicacy and sportive gaiety are infinite. In the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM alone, we should imagine, there is more sweetness and beauty of description than in the whole range of French poetry put together. What we mean is this, that we will produce out of that single play ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... at the same time, thousands of birds, which had been perched on the rocks, or floating in the water, rose into the air, with loud screams, circling round our heads; while porpoises, or some other huge monsters of the deep, kept gambolling around us, and now and then leaping out of the water in sportive humour. ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm Of mute, ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... soul burning in hell fire." In this element of mediaval life, this feature of mediaval literature, a terrible belief lay under the gay raillery. Here is betrayed, on a wide scale, that natural reaction of the faculties from excessive oppression to sportive wit, from deep repugnance to superficial jesting, which has often been pointed out by philosophical observers as a striking fact in the psychological history ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... their own credit in their private accounts between self and conscience, vaguely hoping thereby to bamboozle somebody besides themselves—perhaps the recording angel. So, this morning, he hunted up the other children, as his mother had bidden him, and made a manful—nay, desperate—effort to be sportive at home; but the little fort, within the shelter of whose wooden walls had been their home ever since that melancholy night two years ago, had never seemed to him so dull and lonesome. The hunters and field-laborers, belonging to the station, were ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... grass, the shining snake, Loving the sun, a sinuous way doth take, Its fixed journey to its home 'twill make. Even as in tranquil vale reluctant rill, In sportive twinings nigh its parent hill, Proceedeth onward to ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... Haydn because he was not Beethoven; or, in our times, Tchaikowsky because his music does not resemble that of Brahms. Blase pedants often call Haydn's music "tame"; we might as well apply that adjective to the antics of a sportive kitten. As for the "amiable prattle" of his style we do not speak in a derogatory way of the fresh, innocent voices of children, though we need not listen to them continually. Haydn, in short, is Haydn,[115] ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... hollowed above the savory mechanism invented by Patricia Whipple. Down one side of River Street to its last shop, and up the other, they progressed haltingly. At many of the windows the capitalist displayed interest only of the most academic character. At others he made sportive threats. Thus before the jewellery shop of Rapp Brothers he quite unnerved Merle by announcing that he could buy everything in that window if he wanted to—necklaces and rings and pins and gold watches—and he might do this. If, say, he did buy that black marble clock with the prancing ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... sonnetteer's complacent condonation of the young man's offence chiefly suggests the deference that was essential to the maintenance by a dependent of peaceful relations with a self-willed and self-indulgent patron. Southampton's sportive and lascivious temperament might easily impel him to divert to himself the attention of an attractive woman by whom he saw that his poet was fascinated, and he was unlikely to tolerate any outspoken protest on the part of his protege. There is no ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... effect it'll have on the house. It may turn it into the blood house of Wrykyn. Shields himself may get quite sportive. ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... man, uncertain as the wind, by nature formed the creature of caprice, and as Atropos wills, day by day, we number to our loss some mirth-enlivening soul, whose talents gave a lustre to the scene.-Serious and solemn, thoughts be hence away! imagination wills that playful satire reign:—by sportive fancy led, we ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... withdrawn. Her ladyship's tears were gliding down her cheeks. Miss Egerton, greatly amazed at the oddness of this closet scene, turned to Miss Beaufort, who a moment before having caught a glimpse of the distressed countenance of the count, could only bow her head to Sophia's sportive observation. ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... say this for them, that they intended to do him no harm; their lunges were sportive and not in earnest; but diverting as the sport was to them, it was the very contrary to the old man, whose cries proclaimed that he thought his last hour ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... relief. She thought the pleasure was owing to the appeal to old times, recalling happy days of wild frolics, sometimes shared, sometimes censured by her grown-up playfellow; the few hours with his sister that had influenced her whole life; and the lectures, earnest, though apparently sportive, by which he had strengthened and carried on the impression; that brief time, also, of their last spending together, when his sorrow for his sister was fresh, and when John was almost in a hopeless state, and ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a sportive cruelty" (Or:) "What an unkindness there is in jesting!"—Claudian in ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... fingers touched the lyre, In satire fierce, in pleasure gay, Shall not my Thralia's smiles inspire, Shall Sam refuse the sportive lay? ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... that long generation, Lee. And it is I who have lived it, not you. Lived it and outlived the woman who began it. The gods in a sportive mood made us for each other—and then sent me into the world too soon. . . . I must go on. It is not in me to go back nor to remain becalmed. Hohenhauer told me many cruel truths. Those women at my dinner might have enlightened me if I had not deliberately bandaged ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... sportive, but not mischievous, in the human sense. They frolic in the pure delight of motion. By mortal standards of age they are between childhood and youth, when limbs are long and bodies supple. Their only draperies are narrow scarfs which they twist ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... some varieties, both old and new, are far more constant in character than others. Colonel Le Couteur was forced to reject some of his new sub-varieties, which he suspected had been produced from a cross, as incorrigibly sportive. With respect to the tendency to vary, Metzger[551] gives from his own experience some interesting facts: he describes three Spanish sub-varieties, more especially one known to be constant in Spain, which in Germany assumed their proper character only during hot summers; another ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... was still some three hours from his setting. The sphere that ever is sportive like a child has been variously interpreted; perhaps Dante only meant the sphere of the heavens which by its ever varying aspect suggests the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... that if he had properly conceived it he had it in him to master it—he might have found the stage a gold mine, but he would have found, too, that it is a gold mine which cannot be worked in a smiling, sportive, half-contemptuous spirit, but only in the sweat of the brain, and with every mental nerve and sinew strained to its uttermost. He would have known that no ingots are to be got out of this mine, save after sleepless nights, days of gloom and discouragement, and other days, again, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... were farther apart and more friendly; while the young people, happy as a flock of birds in the sunny days of mate-choosing, and freshly blooming as the landscape—around them, were out on the mown field adjacent to the house, whirling in the sportive ring, bounding in the merry dance, chatting in agreeable groups, or chasing one another on flying feet to exact or administer some little forfeit, or whisper some mirthful ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... that whenever he opened it, he might be reminded of her, and her memory might become a part of his daily life. With these were preserved some letters of his own, written to her about the same time, and of a sportive character. In one of these he laments the passing away of the good old customs, and simple ways of living in the country, supplanted by the usages of town life. Everybody was then reading Coelebs in Search of a Wife, and Verplanck who had just been looking over some ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... times, grinding their teeth at us, especially when we were slaughtering the fish on the bank. We kept watch during the entire night, as on that occasion they were truly vicious. Our dogs, for a change, became quite sportive. One of them, named Negrino, got furious with the ariranhas, and, driven mad by their unmusical noises, actually jumped into the stream to go to their attack. In a moment he had quantities of ariranhas upon him, and was bitten savagely, one ear being nearly torn off. He ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... of some Mussulman mosque. Broad-breasted oaks, like sturdy old warriors, rose here and there, while poplars and chenart-trees, assembled in groups and surrounded by underwood, looked like children ready to wander away to the mountains, to escape the summer heats. Sportive flocks of sheep—their fleeces speckled with rose-colour; buffaloes wallowing in the mud of the fountains, or for hours together lazily butting each other with their horns; here and there on the mountains noble steeds, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... rather the expression of a mental chuckle, as though he had suddenly seen something to laugh at in the very character of the universe. The face has plumped and reddened, the light-coloured eye has acquired a twinkle, the firm mouth has relaxed into a sportive smile. You can imagine him now capping a "mot" or laughing deeply at a daring jest; but you cannot imagine him with profound and reverend anxiety striving like a giant to make right, reason, and the will ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... Waiting until his supper cool, And maid whose cheek outblooms the rose, As bright the blazing fagot glows, Who, bending to the friendly light, Plies her task with busy sleight, Come, show thy tricks and sportive graces, Thus circled round with merry faces: Backward coiled and crouching low, With glaring eyeballs watch thy foe, The housewife's spindle whirling round, Or thread or straw that on the ground Its shadow throws, by urchin sly Held out to lure thy roving eye; Then ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... reposed upon the shore; Extended lay her beauteous form, a hundred feet and more. The sun, with rays flammivomous, beat on the blue-black sand; And sportive little Saurians disported on the strand; But oft the Iguanodon reproved them in their glee, And said, "Alas! this Saurian Age is not what it ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... if they desire to war, Why should we hinder such a sportive game? They own those isles, and why should we debar Them pastimes, for "they know ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... visor down, rode slowly into the green space, amidst the cheers of his party. The two Knights, at either end, gravely fronted each other; they made the courtesies with their lances, which, in friendly and sportive encounters, were customary; and, as they thus paused for the signal of encounter, the Italians trembled for the honour of their chief: Montreal's stately height and girth of chest forming a strong contrast, even in armour, to the form of his opponent, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the sportive prelude of more serious trouble. Nunquam imprudentibus imber incidit: as the servant perhaps reflected, who, on Monday, January 29th, was conveying the dinner of his master's family from the Hotel kitchen to ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... was but a sportive play (not dreaming that Ganymede was his very Rosalind), yet the opportunity it gave him of saying all the fond things he had in his heart, pleased his fancy almost as well as it did Ganymede's, who enjoyed the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... opened on a quiet piazza, shaded by fruit-trees in blossom, and overlooking a small artificial lake stocked with pretty, sportive fish. ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... of a crowd of interested people, chiefly bearded men, who paid him sportive homage, and pretty women, as he illustrated, by means of a wineglass, two knives, and a saltspoon, his new invention for having one's boots fastened by electricity, which was to do for Marconigrams, expose radium as a foolish fraud, and consign clock-work ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... opened, and Prince Augustus William entered; his countenance was gay and careless, he had come to see the queen-mother, and had been directed to this saloon. Already sportive and jesting words were on his lips, when he perceived this strange scene; Laura on her knees, pale and trembling, before the proud queen, who left her disdainfully in her humble position. It was a sight that the ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... see the consecrated grove Of Cyprus, sacred once to Cretan Jove. 60 The ship beneath her lofty pressure reels, And to the freshening gale still deeper heels. But now, beneath the lofty vessel's stern, A shoal of sportive dolphins they discern, Beaming from burnish'd scales refulgent rays, Till all the glowing ocean seems to blaze: In curling wreaths they wanton on the tide, Now bound aloft, now downward swiftly glide; Awhile beneath the waves their tracks remain, And burn in silver streams along the ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... youthful playfulness, that led him to this outbreak. I have often noticed that even quiet horses, on a sharp November morning, when their coats are beginning to get the winter roughness, will give little sportive demi-kicks, with slight sudden elevation of the subsequent region of the body, and a sharp short whinny,—by no means intending to put their heels through the dasher, or to address the driver rudely, but feeling, to use a familiar word, frisky. This, I think, is the physiological condition of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... at the end of the "Miles Standish" volume. Some of these have a pathos and interest which all will perceive, but the depth and tenderness of which not all can know. "The Children's Hour" is a strain of parental love, which haunts the memory with its melody, its sportive, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... through the soft waves, our swift boat glided on. It was not propelled by the breeze; it was ruled by our own sportive hearts. Whithersoever we wished, thither did it move, obediently, as though it were ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... aigrette which sprouted from a knob of hair tightly twisted on the top of her head. As the evening advanced and the exercise of the dance loosened Mrs. Tutts's simple coiffure, the aigrette slipped forward until that lady resembled nothing so much as a sportive unicorn. ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... person which had just been rubbed in the ice. A minute later it was on its flank, with all four legs stretched out, and its muzzle in the snow; and all these changes were made with the most extreme deliberation, and as if the animal was intent only upon its own enjoyment, and was as sportive as the unwieldy fat calves rolling about near their ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... Nature stamps upon most of her operations a certain character of gravity and majesty. Order and symmetry attend upon her steps, and unity in variety is the law by which her movements are guided. But, beneath the surface of the earth, she seems a frolicsome child, or a sportive undine, who wreaths the unmanageable stone into weird and quaint forms, seemingly from no other motive than pure delight in the exercise of overflowing power. Everything is playful, airy, and fantastic; there is no spirit of soberness; no reference to any ulterior end; nothing from which ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... Francois did not attempt to interfere. He had no desire to do so. He looked upon the death of the tarantula as a just punishment; moreover, the chameleon, from its fine colours, its sportive habits, and its harmlessness—so far as man is concerned—is a general favourite with all; and it was so with Francois. In fact, Francois, as well as his brothers, who had often watched this little creature gambolling among the leaves, and feeding upon flies and ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... are inexhaustible, even in conception:—no—this Prometheus not merely forms men, he opens the gates of the magical world of spirits; calls up the midnight ghost; exhibits before us his witches amidst their unhallowed mysteries; peoples the air with sportive fairies and sylphs:—and these beings, existing only in imagination, possess such truth and consistency, that even when deformed monsters like Caliban, he extorts the conviction, that if there should be such ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... the gentle bard, was there, And Hemans, tender as she's fair— And Croly, whose bright genius beams Ever on virtue's fairest themes; With Burns, the muse's darling child— And Luttrell, laughing, sportive, wild, As when be penn'd for Julia's eye, His sweet "Advice" for what? for why? And Crabbe, who misery portrays, With crowds of others, crown'd with bays, Who shed around their bright'ning beams, And cheer'd ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various
... while the blue waves of the Chesapeake rolled in murmuring music by, or, lashed by the ocean wind, heaved in foaming billows, roaring against the walls, I yielded myself to the wizard spell of genius and passion. The officers as they passed would try to break the enchantment by gay and sportive words, but all in vain. I have sat there, drenched by the salt sea-spray, and knew it not. I was called the little bookworm, the prodigy, the dream-girl, a name you have inherited, my darling Gabriella; and my father seemed proud of the reputation I had established. ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the secret that underlies all works of genius. For once, the possessor of the divine gift heard its secret revealed and himself explained to himself; his work was set before him as the full play of his spirit. Beginning with nature, where our author always began, and finding there a free and sportive element, he carries it into human life; making the contention that its aim should be, and that its destiny will be, to free itself from the constraint of mere work and rise into that natural action of the faculties ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... deck, in which sport Willy joined. Others climbed up the shrouds, preferably on the inside,—this method of exercise, although very difficult, being considered safer in case of a sudden lurch of the vessel. And the many other sportive things they did, and the many pleasant anecdotes they told, nearly all relating to the discomfiture of clergymen under various embarrassing circumstances, caused Captain Burke to say to Mrs. Cliff that he had never imagined that parsons were such jolly fellows, and so far as he was concerned, he ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... proceedings of Judge Lynch. We took no pains to conceal our horror of unnecessary bloodshed, and shared the views of civilized Christendom about duelling. Now and then, to be sure, a Southerner in one of his sportive moods would stab an inattentive waiter in some Northern hotel, or a chivalrous son of South Carolina, elegantly idling away a few years in a New-England university, would shoot some base-born tutor, or, as an episode ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... the Four Temperaments (Phlegmatic, Melancholy, Coleric and Sanguine). Mythological figures, vases ornamented with bas-reliefs of Louis XIV and great men of his reign, fountain groups representing the chief rivers of France, water nymphs, sportive babies, beasts in combat—sculpture massive, graceful, grotesque—all added their individual lure to the dells, the walks and the ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... much and emit such a still small voice at the hinder end of it all. All this while he walks about the room, smokes cigarettes, occupies divers chairs for divers brief spaces, and casts his huge arms to the four winds like the sails of a mill. He is a most sportive Prince. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... work, no Stuart picture being without one; the rolling clouds oftentimes are confused with the convoluted body of the caterpillar, little difference being made in the design. The birds were of very brilliant plumage, and the world was evidently a very gay and sportive place when these fair ladies spent their leisure over this embroidery! These early pictures seldom show the religious feeling that afterwards slowly worked its way through the Stuart days (though, perhaps, disguised under royalistic symbolism), until in the reign of Queen Anne it ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... settled himself upon a divan near Madame, with all the complacency of a man whose own foresight has saved him a serious trouble, and said after mature deliberation, gazing thoughtfully at the sportive cherubs on the ceiling: ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... dear and precious than life itself? and yet for this are none beholden, save to me alone. For it is neither the spear of throughly-begotten Pallas, nor the buckler of cloud-gathering Jove, that multiplies and propagates mankind: but my sportive and tickling recreation that proceeded the old crabbed philosophers, and those who now supply their stead, the mortified monks and friars; as also kings, priests, and popes, nay, the whole tribe of poetic gods, ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... wheat, barley, and other kinds of corn, and these fathers of the Fatherland already hoped for grand victories and heroic deeds. This, said Luther, he wrote in fun, but in serious fun, to chase away if possible the heavy thoughts which crowded on his mind. A few days later he enlarged further on this sportive simile in a letter to his Wittenberg table-companions, i.e. the young men of the university who, according to custom, boarded with him. He was delighted to see how valiantly these knights of the Diet strutted about ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... nature darkness, becomes altogether a vehicle and fixure of light, a mean of developing its beauties, and unfolding its wealth of various colors without disturbing its unity, or causing a division of the parts. The sportive ideal, on the contrary, consists in the perfect harmony and concord of the higher nature with the animal, as with its ruling principle and its acknowledged regent. The understanding and practical reason are represented as the willing ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... him to be 'sportive and brightsome' and full of 'playful humor,' and 'two things especially are to be noted in them—individuality and directness of expression.' Individuality and directness of expression! We wonder what Mr. Matthews thinks these ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... go both old and new, Bindings, and prose, and rhymes, With Shakespeare as with Padeloup The sportive lord has naught to do, He reads The ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... title from one of the characters of the novel, an escaped negro slave, who has received from his sportive master the name of "Peculiar Institution." The great dramatic fact of the story lies in the kidnapping of the infant child of wealthy Northern parents who have been killed in a steamboat-explosion on the Mississippi. The child, a girl, is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... Videhan lady's face Still shines with undiminished grace. What if the borrowed colours throw O'er her fine feet no rosy glow, Still with their natural tints they spread A lotus glory where they tread. In sportive grace she walks the ground And sweet her chiming anklets sound. No jewels clasp the faultless limb: She leaves them all for love of him. If in the woods her gentle eye A lion sees, or tiger nigh, Or elephant, she fears no ill For Rama's arm supports her still. No longer be their fate ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... (Bellpunchus familiaris) is readily capturable in this country. The habits of the bookmakers (marsupialis vulgaris) may be studied, and their curious habits learned by anybody willing to incur the expense in the inclosures set apart for their exhibition at the various racecourses, where their sportive gambles are the subject of great interest (and principal) on the part ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... astonishment in contemplating the wonderful changes which have been wrought there, in such brief space of time, by industry and enterprise. Where then stood mighty and unbroken forests, through which the savage passed on his mission of blood; or stalked the majestic buffaloe, gamboled the sportive deer, or trotted the shaggy bear, are now to [291] be seen productive farms, covered with lowing herds and bleating flocks, and teeming with all the comforts of life.—And where then stood the town of Losantiville ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... 29 (Clough, iv. 35): "And indeed if, as Xenophon says, in conversation good men, even in their sports and at their wine, let fall many sayings that are worth preserving." See Grote, "Plato," ii. 228 foll. as to the sportive ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... solemnity upon his withered countenance; the night was very windy, and every instant a rapid current seized the unhappy sea-green vesture, whirled it in the air, and threw it, as if in scorn, over the very face of the miserable professor. The constant recurrence of this sportive irreverence of the gales—the high sides of the basket, and the trembling agitation of the inmate, never too agile, rendered it a work of some time for Monsieur Margot to transfer himself from the basket to the ladder; at length, he had fairly ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for the evening, the motley fruits that grace it. Each should be previously marked to correspond with the character to be drawn, which would secure a token of their majesties' favour for each individual of the sportive train. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various
... women are always judging one another before they are finished. A raw boy, with only the undeveloped elements of manhood in him, is denounced as a dunce. A light-hearted, sportive girl, with an incontinent overflow of spirits, is condemned as a hoiden. Neither boy nor girl is half made. There is only the frame-work of the man and woman up, and it does not appear what they are to become. A young man is wild, and judged accordingly. It is not remembered that there are various ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... here, Where the free waters leap, Shouting in sportive joyousness Adown the rocky steep: Where zephyrs crisp and cool The fountains as they play, With health upon their wings of light, And gladness on their way. Oh, would that she were here, With these balm-breathing ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... tall, broad-shouldered, handsome Englishman, and the trim, dainty little figure in fleecy white, with the ermine wrap thrown over the pretty plump shoulders and round neck, on which rare diamonds, that would have paid a king's ransom, gleamed fitfully whenever the sportive breeze ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... black hair. There were also a little, grave wife and a fat, grave baby; and these, when they were visible, received separate and distinctive nods, and always returned them. The hide-sellers and tanners were, for the most part, crude and sportive persons with whom he could have nothing in common; they lived, apparently, on drink and uproar; and he had come to regard the silversmith and his family as vague friends. He pressed his face closer to the glass of the double casement ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... I opened the morning paper—the Morning Post, as it happened—and ran hastily up and down the columns, active exercise having been recommended to me. What cared I for politics, foreign news, or even the sportive intelligence? All I sought for was a paragraph headed 'Horrible Disclosures,' or, 'Awful Death of a Baronet.' I ran up and down the ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... town built upon Wooden Piles, as is also Petersburg, and in some order Venice; and from its Timber supports, gave rise to the sportive saying of Erasmus when he first came hither, that he had reached a City where the Citizens lived, like Crows, upon the tops of Trees. And again he waggishly compared Amsterdam to a maimed Soldier, as having Wooden Legs. This Erasmus was, I conjecture, a kind of Schoolmaster, and very learned; ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala |
