"Sportiveness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... think that about the first indication that all that glittered in the mansuetude of Firenze la Gentile was not gold, showed itself on the occasion of an attempt to naturalise at Florence the traditional sportiveness of the Roman Carnival. There and then, as all the world knows, it has been the immemorial habit for the population, high and low, to pelt the folks in the carriages during their Corso procession with bonbons, ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... exhausted by so rapid and feverish a tide of life,—and succeeded by other shapes of a similar wild energy. It was like nothing so much as the phantasmagoric play of the northern lights. In the mere exercise of the fancy, however, and the sportiveness of a growing mind, there might be little more than was observable in other children of bright faculties; except as Pearl, in the dearth of human playmates, was thrown more upon the visionary throng ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the result of an unthinking or uncalculating mind, or that it was in her case, as it frequently is in others, associated with qualities which exclude the finer and better feelings of female nature. It was by no means so. With all her gaiety and sportiveness, she had a heart filled with all the tenderest sensibilities of a woman. Her attachments were warm and ardent. In character, simple and sincere, Rosy could have died for those she loved; and so finely strung were the sympathies of her nature, that they were wrought on at will by either ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... a time surprised to observe the strange volatility of sailormen. They will pass in an instant from jollity to woe, and, when just snatched from the jaws of death, will give the rein to jests and sportiveness as if life were nothing but a perpetual holiday. Some of my comrades were perfectly hilarious, and began to talk and laugh as freely as they might in the forecastle, far from a hostile shore. I had to warn them very earnestly against so imperiling the ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... hide both snow and them, and that sets in Ere afternoon is out. A heavy thing, A country fireside in a winter's night, To one bred in the town,—where winter's said, For sun of gaiety and sportiveness, To beggar ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... capable of higher excellencies, but unambitious to attain them. There was nothing to alarm or overpower. On whatever topic she touched, trivial or severe, it was alike en badinant; but in the midst of this sportiveness, her genius poured itself forth in a thousand delightful fancies, and scattered new graces and ornaments on every object within its sphere. In its wanderings from the trifles of the day to grave questions of morals or philosophy, it carelessly struck out, and as ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... of his fellow-citizens." He was an expert swimmer, and was in the constant habit of bathing, whenever circumstances would permit. Not unfrequently the first beams of the rising sun, as they fell upon the beautiful Potomac, would find Mr. Adams buffeting its waves with all the sportiveness and dexterity of boyhood, while a single attendant watched upon the shore. When in the Presidency, he sometimes made a journey from Washington to Quincy on horseback, as a simple citizen, accompanied only ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward |
