"Vivacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not only possess beauty, but they are celebrated for discretion, modesty, and unfeigned diffidence, as well as wit, vivacity, and good nature. Whoever heard of a Philadelphia lady setting up for a reformer, or standing out for woman's rights, or assisting to man the election grounds, raise a regiment, command a legion, or address a jury? Our ladies glow with a higher ambition. They soar to rule the hearts ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... about the same time as a brother-in-law; and last, as a friend with many interests in common. In the Speculative he spoke frequently, and read some papers. We recognised his brilliancy, and we delighted in his vivacity; but we misread the horoscope of his future. We voted him a light horseman, lacking two essentials for success—diligence and health. We wondered where he had got the deftness and rhythm of his style, not knowing that the labour out ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... of the boats, the anchored yacht, the darkening skies, the looming island. We sat down fourteen souls, that might have met in some great country house, and there have gathered in friendship and frivolity. Never in all my life had I seen Miss Ruth so full of vivacity or girlish charm. Her laughter was like the music of bells; the jest, the kindly word was for every man; and yet sometimes I, at her side, could look deep into those grey-blue eyes to read a truer story there. And in the babble of the talk she would whisper some treasured word to me, ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... very mixed, and quite as much conversation went on in French as in English. It seemed to the strangers as if the balance of gentlemanly deportment, and yet vivacity of manner, might possibly lie on the side of those who spoke the former tongue. Next to Arthur sat the sallow States'-man, bolting his breakfast with unconscionable speed, and between whiles, in a high treble voice, volunteering his opinion pretty freely on Canadian matters, as if he ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... after the Duchess of Angouleme became Dauphiness) was but twenty-five when her father-in-law, Charles X., ascended the throne. She was certainly not pretty, but there was in her something seductive and captivating. The vivacity of her manner, her spontaneous conversation, her ardor, her animation, her youth, gave her charm. Educated at the court of her grandfather, Ferdinand, King of Naples, who carried bonhomie and familiarity to exaggeration, and lived in the company of peasants ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... greatly troubled. It was with incredulous vivacity that he inquired of Mr. Underwood if it were indeed true that ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... plumage: attraction, of himself, to all visitors of taste. Number two. Canaries of unrivalled vivacity and intelligence: worthy of the garden of Eden, worthy also of the garden in the Regent's Park. Homage to ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... enter into the generous aspirations of a Savonarola, and the selfish desires of a Grandcourt, with equal perspicuity. Her readers do not feel less familiar with the dull barrenness of Casaubon than with the pregnant vivacity of Mrs. Poyser. In the study of the inward workings of the human mind, George Eliot is unsurpassed by any novelist. Thackeray alone can dispute her pre-eminence in this respect. However much the reader may recoil from the horror of Little Hetty's crime, he cannot deny ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... volcanoes, and all such little escapades will be over, they will, in lawyer's phrase, 'cease and determine,' as soon as our Earth reaches the age of maidenly bashfulness. Poor thing! It's quite natural, you know, in a healthy growing girl. A little overflow of vivacity, a pirouette more or less, what harm should that do to any of us? Nobody takes more delight than I in the fawn-like sportiveness of an innocent girl, at this period of life: even a shade of espieglerie does not annoy me. But still my own impressions incline ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Justin's mixed nationality and the circumstance that in soul and mind he was entirely his mother's child, with nothing—or an imperceptible little—of his father. As his mother's nature had been, so was Justin's—joyous. But Everard's training of him had suppressed all inborn vivacity. The mirth and diablerie that were his birthright had been overlaid with British phlegm, until in their stead, and through the blend, a certain sardonic humor had developed, an ironical attitude toward all things whether sacred or profane. This had been ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... were priceless. And Pearse had not failed to notice the green jade skull-charm that depended from Milo's columnar neck, a jade skull with pearls for teeth like the altar brooch of Dolores. And Tomlin, for all his expressed scorn, was tingling with ardent desire for such piquant beauty and vivacity as Pascherette's. If such a creature were the slave, then what could the mistress be? He assumed a more complaisant attitude, and added his vote: "A good way of passing away this odious calm ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... retreat is impossible; for a people cannot restore the vivacity of its earlier times, any more than a man can return to the innocence and the bloom of childhood; such things may be regretted, but they cannot be renewed. The only thing, then, which remains to be done is to proceed, and to accelerate the union of private with public interests, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... and appealing of all Western novels. There is action and vivacity at all times, and the reader's interest never sways for an instant. The story is admirably written and runs along smoothly at all ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... Leonarda," is much in favour of a Spanish original; why should not Le Sage have repeated the expression "Dame Leonarde," on which we have a few observations to offer, had it not been that he thought the word under his eyes at the moment would lend grace and vivacity to the narrative. A French writer would have said, "Tenez, Leonarde," or perhaps, "Tenez, Madame Leonarde;" but such a phrase as "Tenez, Dame Leonarde," in a French writer, can be accounted for only by the translation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... library, and Mr. Hazlewood greeted his son with a vivacity which for weeks had been ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... were exceedingly effective. His despatches were laconic and clear. He knew something about everybody of note, and if he had always been in a private station his intellectual force would have attracted attention in almost any vocation he might have selected. His natural vivacity, wit, and intensity would have secured friends and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... and just put in a few days that might prove to every one concerned that we're in earnest. It's exactly because we're in earnest that, dash it, we needn't be so awfully particular. I mean, don't you know, we needn't be so awfully afraid." He showed a vivacity, an intensity of argument, and if Maisie counted his words she was all the more ready to swallow after a single swift gasp those that, the next thing, she became conscious he paused for a reply to. "We didn't come, old girl, did we," he pleaded straight, "to stop right away for ever and put ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... contrary, we find them excelling in literature and the arts, in ingenuity, and where exertion is required in trying circumstances, that they are capable of heroism, but there is a natural life and vivacity in the French character that inclines not to study, nor strict application, unless the position in life renders it necessary. The English very frequently are by nature disposed to reflection and even like often to be alone, consequently ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... sisters made a point of being in the drawing-room before the dusk came on, and of lighting the gas at the first hint of twilight. They didn't believe in Miss Lydia Carew—but still they meant to be beforehand with her. They talked with unwonted vivacity and in a louder tone than was their custom. But as they drank their tea even their utmost verbosity could not make them oblivious to the fact that the perfume of sweet lavender was stealing insidiously ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... say beforehand, that I must decline the proposal it contains to pay a visit here. I trust I may be excused for desiring an interval of complete freedom from such distractions as have been hitherto inevitable, and especially from guests whose desultory vivacity makes ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... allowance, at which she made a very polite courtesy and greatly relieved my embarrassment by giving a hearty shake of the hand and wishing me a pleasant journey. This was the last I saw of my Norwegian Diana. She is a young damsel of great beauty and vivacity, not to say a little wild. I trust she is now happily married to the ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Saturday, the pool sent quietly into the Exchange to buy one thousand shares; that, by way of feeler. The old gray buccaneer was right; Northern Consolidated climbed fifteen points with the vivacity of a squirrel, and rested mockingly at fifty-eight. Following this disheartening experiment, which resulted in nothing more hopeful than a demand for further margins from the pool's brokers, there were no more efforts to "buy." The pool was marked for death; but that, while discouraging, offered ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of his lesson, seizing his trusty stick and coming out with his habitual vivacity, he very nearly cannoned just outside the drawing-room door into the back of Miss de Barral's governess. He stopped himself in time and she turned round swiftly. It was embarrassing; he apologised; but her face ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... finished speaking: tears fell from her eyes. We watched them flow in silence without seeking to console her. But suddenly she dried them, and said to us with her capricious vivacity, "Well, what is the matter with you that you are so sad? Is that the effect fairy-stories produce upon you? Have you never heard of Orco, the Venetian Trilby? Have you never met her at evening in the churches or on the Lido? She is a good devil, who only does harm to oppressors ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... your romantic proportions were suddenly reduced. You were less formidable to deal with as a lover. That is how I came to consent to the walk we took in the forest. Ah me! I should have taken warning from your enigmatical silence. And indeed I did tremble with vivacity in my effort to break it. But you only looked mysteriously confident about something and kept your own counsel, giving me a nod or a quizzical smile now and then, as if what I was saying really had no bearing whatever upon the issue at hand.... ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... the attic window, which, overlooked the river, and in winter by the fireside, recounting again and again all she knew of him, especially of how good he always was to her. There were a vividness and vivacity in all she said of him which charmed their imagination and kept the memory of him alive in their hearts. Phebe gave dramatic effect to her stories of him. Hilda could scarcely remember him, though she believed she did; but to Felix he remained the tall, handsome, kindly father, who was his ideal ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... nothing but solitude—in a musical work of art the movement follows the outflow of the artist's own emotions. Now gently gliding, now gracefully leaping, now violently stirred, penetrated, or laboriously contending with the natural expression of passion, the stream of sound, in primitive vivacity, bears over into the hearer's soul unimagined moods which the artist has overheard from his own, and finally raises him up to that repose of everlasting beauty of which God has allowed but few of his elect favorites to be ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... defects and the merits which characterize the literature of aristocratic ages. And indeed a very superficial survey of the literary remains of the ancients will suffice to convince us, that if those writers were sometimes deficient in variety, or fertility in their subjects, or in boldness, vivacity, or power of generalization in their thoughts, they always displayed exquisite care and skill in their details. Nothing in their works seems to be done hastily or at random: every line is written for the eye of the connoisseur, and is shaped after ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... vivified her Castilian traits. Her mother was a Spaniard—partly Moorish, however. Her father was an Irishman. There you have it—the dreamy romance of Spain, the exotic touch of the Orient, and the daring, unreasoning vivacity of the Celt. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... hands which done the heaviest and hardest work of the family. No word of cheer or praise ever passed her mother's lips. All this, and it was no wonder her life was crushed out, that her step had no lightness, and her eye none of the vivacity of youth. The out-door work, such as caring for the cattle, was, at last added to her other burdens; yet all this she would have done willingly, could her soul have received something which she felt she so much needed-the light and blessing of love. She was deeply ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... oracle: "In the Bacchic procession many carry the thyrsus, but few are inspired." The possibility of ultimate failure threatens him more and more while he reflects; as the chasm which you wish to leap grows impassable, if you measure and deliberate. But the vivacity of youth preserves him from any permanent misanthropy or doubt. Nature makes us blind where we should be injured by seeing. We partake of the lead of Saturn, the activity of fire, the forgetfulness of water. His academic praises console him, maugre his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... front of and facing the other players and rapidly repeats this verse, performing some action that the other players immediately imitate—such as beating a drum, playing a fiddle, sawing wood. Without pausing he varies his actions, the others continuing to follow his movements. Rapidity of time and vivacity determine the success ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... university degree; that she would neither bite nor philosophize on all occasions; that she was quite as full of life and frolic as if she had never seen a university. You can imagine the effect of this vivacity upon the profoundest of men, and you can see how this clever woman's ability at small talk made a comrade of a notable academician. As the dinner progressed the talk between these two wavered from jest ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... advantage to his own country at home; for, at the solicitation of the booksellers, he now (1777) undertook to write the Lives of the English Poets. The judicious selection of the facts which he relates, the vivacity of the narrative, the profoundness of the observations, and the terseness of the style, render this the most entertaining, as it is, perhaps, the most instructive of his works. His criticisms, indeed, often ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... to learn from Shifting Sands the disadvantages of a haphazard education, the unfair position of woman in the labour-market, or merely the irony of fate. And this is a pity because, though the manner of the story is very episodic, there are scenes and conversations of considerable vivacity and truth. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... throng, and conversing earnestly with her companion, a resolute-looking man scarce entering upon the prime of life, with a Gipsy complexion, but a bearing in which it is not difficult to recognise the soldier. He is talking to his protectress—for such she is—with a military frankness and vivacity, which even to that royal personage, accustomed though she be to exact all the respect due to her rank, appear by no means displeasing. The lady is verging on the autumn of her charms (their summer must have been scorching indeed!), and though a masculine beauty, is a ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... wrote his Treatise on the use of such instruments in War, and was never happy unless he was seeing or doing something—preferably under arms. And in every sentence also there is that curious directness of statement which is of such advantage to vivacity in any memoir. Thus of Gobert, who served under him, he has a little footnote: "This unfortunate young man lost his head at the same time General Dillon suffered, and a very amiable young man he was, and an ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... principles they both professed, he, on the contrary, presented the Benthamic doctrines in the most startling form of which they were susceptible, exaggerating everything in them which tended to consequences offensive to anyone's preconceived feelings. All which, he defended with such verve and vivacity, and carried off by a manner so agreeable as well as forcible, that he always either came off victor, or divided the honours of the field. It is my belief that much of the notion popularly entertained of the tenets and sentiments ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... dwellings were not collected round the habitation of a missionary. Their number has considerably augmented, but the sphere of their ideas is not enlarged. They have progressively lost that vigour of character and that natural vivacity which in every state of society are the noble fruits of independence. By subjecting to invariable rules even the slightest actions of their domestic life, they have been rendered stupid by the effort ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... forced efforts to raise the spirits of the company, as plainly marked the flagging of his own. Ratcliffe watched the scene with the composure of a vigilant but uninterested spectator. Mareschal alone, true to the thoughtless vivacity of his character, ate and drank, laughed and jested, and seemed even to find amusement in ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... the collected courage of a brave man more impressive than any menace; and courage is a thing which acts upon all natures, however vile. Strongly moved by the calm audacity of the magistrate the ruffian, who had seized the knife with menacing vivacity, now set it down upon the table, and with a faltering voice said, "Vous etes un brave, citoyen!" then after a pause, "I am a lost man—it's all up with me; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... determination to see everything.[155] It marked her strength of character, and she joined to it much tact, and always addressed people on the right side. So she stands high, and deservedly so, for to these active qualities, more French I think than English, and partaking of the Creole vivacity and suppleness of character, she adds, I believe, honourable principles and an excellent heart. As a lion-catcher, I could pit her against the world. She flung her lasso (see Hall's South America) over Byron himself. But then, poor soul, she is not happy. She ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... talking about the baby? Dion wondered, as for a moment he watched them, forgetting his surroundings. Rosamund was speaking with her usual swift vivacity. At home she was now often rather quiet, moving, Dion sometimes thought, in an atmosphere of wide serenity; but in society she was always full of sunshine and eager life. Something within her leaped up responsively at the touch ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... look while bringing their young to feed within half a dozen feet of you. They perch on the croquet-arches in the midst of a noisy game. They sing directly over your head with the utmost spirit and vivacity, hardly ceasing all the forenoon, and again bursting out toward evening and maintaining their song until every other bird's lay is hushed in the twilight. White of Selborne would have delighted in such a freak on the part of these pretty gay strangers, who have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... be young, she invariably overdoes it. The gypsy horse-dealers, when they have a particularly ancient horse to dispose of administer a nostrum to the animal, which has the effect of keeping him continually in motion, and bestowing on him a temporary vivacity which a colt would hardly exhibit. Lady Morgan is unnecessarily frisky. The gypsy's horse, when the effect of the medicine has passed off, becomes more aged and infirm than ever. What a terrible reaction must have been the lot of this old lady, after all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... had been engaged in a most dishonest attempt did not trouble him in the least. Yet, had he been offered a large bribe to commit robbery in the usual ways, he would have rejected the proposition with scorn. Miss Carmichael, knowing his character, was sorry for him, little thinking that his returning vivacity under her genial influence smote Coristine's heart, as the evidence of double disloyalty on the lady's part, to her friend, Miss Du Plessis, and to him. Tiring of her single-handed work, she turned to Mr. Bigglethorpe, saying: "You ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the same sort are found, with much more sparkling wit, in the Latin works of Walter Map.[284] This Welshman has the vivacity of the Celts his compatriots; he was celebrated at the court of Henry II., and throughout England for his repartees and witticisms, so celebrated indeed that he himself came to agree to others' opinion, and thought them worth ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... breathing man wide awake to look less animated. The correct Englishman, drawing himself up from his bow into rigidity, assenting severely, and seemed to be in a state of internal drill, suggests a suppressed vivacity, and may be suspected of letting go with some violence when he is released from parade; but Grandcourt's bearing had no rigidity, it inclined rather to the flaccid. His complexion had a faded fairness ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... them was most close, and lasted until Miss Mitford's death in 1855. Their correspondence was constant and voluminous, as was that, in fact, of Miss Barrett with all of her intimate friends. These letters of hers from her sick room are no more remarkable for number than for brightness and vivacity. Little mention is made of her ailments, except when her friends have specifically demanded news of her health, and the letters deal rather with literary than with other subjects. This was, of course, most natural; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... public needed to be educated up to the "Freischuetz" music. "Preciosa" was founded on a Spanish story, "The Gypsy of Madrid," and Weber has written for it some of his most charming melodies, full of Spanish color, life and vivacity. Nowadays the opera is neglected, but we often hear the overture. It is to be noted that the overtures to each of Weber's operas contain the leading themes and melodies of the operas themselves, showing with what skill the artist wrought. When Weber's widow presented the original score of "Der ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... with the pope complicated the relations of France. Napoleon then addressed himself to cardinal Fesch. Fesch was a zealous churchman, and overflowing with Italian vivacity: he defended the papal pretensions with obstinate ardour; and such was the warmth of his discussions with the emperor, on a former occasion, that the latter got into a passion, and told him, "that he would compel him to obey." "And who contests your power?" returned the cardinal: ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... in the champagne. She had her little moment of exhilaration, of self-delighting ease and vivacity—then dizziness, then awful nausea, and awful ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... name of Jason, who was reputed to have had domestic relations elsewhere. But although subjugated and exorcised, she at least was reminiscent. To my inquiries about the Sluysdaels, she answered with a slight return of her old vivacity:— ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... say," declared Erica, in the sudden vivacity inspired by the discovery that this was probably no demon. Her doubts were renewed, however, by ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... furniture, richly trimmed with gold; in her hand she carried a naked sword instead of a riding-whip. Her countenance is described as being agreeable, and her figure handsome;[279] her eyes were fine, and her hair as black as jet. In conversation she was full of intelligence and vivacity.[280] The Prince, it is said, rode out of the lines to receive her, and to welcome the addition to his army, and conducted her to a tent with much ceremony. It was reported that Mrs. Cameron continued in the camp as the commander of her troop, and accompanied the Prince ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... vivacity of children, people did their best to raise the impulsiveness and movement of their characters, what might we not expect from a ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... day has become a greater favorite with boys than "Harry Castlemon;" every book by him is sure to meet with hearty reception by young readers generally. His naturalness and vivacity lead his readers from page to page with breathless interest, and when one volume is finished the fascinated reader, like ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... inferred that we desire to reduce women to the condition of a humiliating inaction. Far from it. In the position we would place them they could never feel, think, or act with greater interest or vivacity. Whilst it is desirable that every kind of artifice or intrigue should be interdicted from the interior of their domesticity, it is quite permissible for them to watch attentively important matters that may be occurring in public life. To that function ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... large and flat feet, unaccustomed to any rapid exercise, moving over boards, oilcloth and carpet. Then the swing door sang, and the Prophet, opening his eyes, perceived Madame Malkiel moving forward with considerable vivacity, and screaming as she moved, her bonnet depending down her back and the rabbit-skins flowing from her ample shoulders. Immediately behind her ran her spouse, holding in one hand a silver pepper castor, and in the other a small and ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... knew, with the door shut on him, how she fell on her sofa—her vivacity quenched, her soul spent. He never knew that having failed, (as she thought) to draw him to her with what she was, she had vainly, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... save the man who was advancing. How should she have noticed the scornful glances which her unrestrained vivacity elicited? ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... company at dinner on the 16th of October, at my lodgings in Old Bond-street, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Bickerstaff[242], and Mr. Thomas Davies. Garrick played round him with a fond vivacity, taking hold of the breasts of his coat, and, looking up in his face with a lively archness, complimented him on the good health which he seemed then to enjoy; while the sage, shaking his head, beheld him with a gentle ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... not supremely brilliant, but filled with something that took the place of both qualities—something best described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that she encountered in her path ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... is M. LANGLES:[28] an author of equal reputation with Monsieur Gail—but his strength lies in Oriental literature; and he presides more especially over the Persian, Arabic, and other Oriental MSS. To the naivete of M. Gail, he adds the peculiar vivacity and enthusiasm of his countrymen. To see him presiding in his chair (for he and M. Gail take alternate turns) and occupied in reading, you would think that a book worm could scarcely creep between the tip of his nose and the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... darkness enveloped the gulf, she began to entertain Tisdale with an experience in the Sierras, a little adventure on one of those journeys with her father, when she had driven Pedro and Don Jose. But though she told the story with composure, even with a certain vivacity and charm, as she might have narrated it to a small and intimate audience in any safe drawing-room, her self-control was a transparency through which he saw her anxiety manoeuvering, in spite of his ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... foliage of the acacias, shed on Honorine the pale gold, ambient glory in which Raphael and Titian, alone of all painters, have been able to enwrap the Virgin. Her brown eyes expressed both tenderness and vivacity; their brightness seemed reflected in her face through the long downcast lashes. Merely by lifting her delicate eyelids, Honorine could cast a spell; there was so much feeling, dignity, terror, or contempt in her way of raising or dropping those veils of the soul. She could freeze ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... with so much vivacity and feeling that I felt a little sorry for my contemptuous thoughts of her. She had said her say, and she behaved with more reticence and more apparent delicacy than I should have been disposed to give her credit for. She said something to the count in a low and rapid voice, and he answered ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... attracted by the other's knowledge. And then gradually something had been added to this. Kennedy had been amused by the frankness and simplicity of his rival, while Burger in turn had been fascinated by the brilliancy and vivacity which had made Kennedy such a favourite in Roman society. I say "had," because just at the moment the young Englishman was ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... departure of this woman, that Lucy Ashton, urged by her parents, announced to them, with a vivacity by which they were startled, "That she was conscious heaven and earth and hell had set themselves against her union with Ravenswood; still her contract," she said, "was a binding contract, and ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... that I first saw Lady Wilde. I was introduced to her by Willie, Oscar's elder brother, whom I had met in Fleet Street. Willie was then a tall, well-made fellow of thirty or thereabouts with an expressive taking face, lit up with a pair of deep blue laughing eyes. He had any amount of physical vivacity, and told a good story with immense verve, without for a moment getting above the commonplace: to him the Corinthian journalism of The Daily Telegraph was literature. Still he had the surface good nature and good humour of healthy youth and was generally liked. He took me to his mother's ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... company, which of his works he thought the best? "I don't know," answered he, "which is my best production; but this (pointing to his son, who was present) is certainly my worst." "It is," replied the son, with vivacity, "because no Carthusian had a hand in it," alluding to the report that the best passages in his father's tragedies had been written by a Carthusian friar, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... and inaugurated a series of questions on his own account to learn what had become of the regiment. As Jean went on to tell that the colonel had been seen crossing the city to reach his camp at the head of what few men were left him, Gilberte again thoughtlessly spoke up, with the vivacity of a woman whose beauty is supposed ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... a reserved nature is sometimes more attractive to women than the most fluent vivacity. Possibly there was also a melancholy grace in this sardonic soldier's manner that affected her, for she looked up, ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... Helen, of her courage, of her great loss, then of her supreme regret, at which point he would make his plea. But Jane would give him no help at all. Silent she sat looking into the fire, all the vivacity and brilliance of the past hour gone, and in its place a gentle, pensive sadness. The firelight fell on her face, so changed from what it had been in those pre-war days, now so long ago, yet so familiar and so dear. To-morrow at this hour he would be far down the ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... cheerful, for a wonder. He ate with good appetite and shewed in his movements and manner and voice when he spoke a restrained vivacity ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... on the intended movement, which was to take place within three days, and, on this subject, Gerald evinced a vivacity that warmed into eagerness. He had risen early that morning, with a view to obtain the permission of the Commodore to make one of the detachment of sailors who were to accompany the expedition, and, having succeeded in obtaining the command of one of the two gun-boats which were destined to ascend ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... popular manners, I went to the Strada di Porto, where I now am. All about me animated throngs of people crowd and press before the eating-places; and I float like a waif among these living surges, which, even while they submerge you, still caress. For this Neopolitan people has, in its very vivacity, something indescribably gentle and polite. I am not roughly jostled, I am merely swayed about; and I think that by dint of thus rocking me to and fro, these good folks want to lull me asleep on my feet. I admire, as I tread the lava pavements of the strada, those porters and fishermen ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... after the Restoration, were such as depended rather upon the intricacy than the probability of the plot; rather upon the vivacity and liveliness, than on the natural expression of the dialogue; and, finally, rather upon extravagant and grotesque conception of character, than upon its being pointedly delineated, and accurately supported through the representation. These particulars, in which ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... (he was shot by one of the Englishmen whom he had always treated with the greatest friendship) had a great desire for knowledge, an admirable natural understanding and a vivacity of mind seldom met with amongst uncultivated nations. He made innumerable inquiries concerning our manners and customs, our King, our form of government, the population and produce of our country, and the manner in which our ships and houses were built. He ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... a male physician, then, and see," returned he, jumping into his chaise, and relieving his own nerves with a crack of the whip, which put new vivacity into those ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... as was natural, made a deep impression on Temple. He was only twenty. Dorothy Osborne was twenty-one. She is said to have been handsome; and there remains abundant proof that she possessed an ample share of the dexterity, the vivacity, and the tenderness of her sex. Temple soon became, in the phrase of that time, her servant, and she returned his regard. But difficulties, as great as ever expanded a novel to the fifth volume, opposed their wishes. When the courtship commenced, the father of the hero was sitting ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... greater variety than I had before noticed amongst the people of the great South Sea nation on any former occasion. The whole, though I am unequal to its description, was supported with a wonderful degree of spirit and vivacity; so much indeed that some of their exertions were made with such a degree of agitating violence as seemed to carry the performers beyond what their strength was able to sustain; and had the performance finished with the third act, we should have retired from their theatre with ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... and permeated the silence of the valley, realized a little of that great white rampart's awful serenity. She also wondered vacantly what the two men on the verandah were talking about; but in this she was wrong, for Hallam, overcharged with Western vivacity, was talking, and ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... staying at Cranston's, with whom I had danced, to whom I had made pretty speeches, and had given the bell button that was sewn just over my heart. She certainly was not the best of them, for I can see now that she was vain and shallow, with a pert boldness, which I mistook for vivacity and wit. Three years ago, at the age of twenty, my knowledge of women was so complete that I divided them into six classes, and as soon as I met a new one I placed her in one of these classes and created her according to the line of campaign I had laid down as proper for that class. Now, ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... have justified a repetition in the present day of Sismondi's enthusiastic estimate of the women of the First Empire. She had that melange du meilleur ton, 'with the purest elegance of manner, and a store of varied information, with vivacity of impression and delicacy of feeling, which,' as he declared to Madame d'Albany, 'belongs only to your sex, and is found in its perfection only in the best ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to the height of what was suffered, Stung with too keen a sympathy, the Maid Brooded with moving lips, mute, startful, dark! 255 And now her flushed tumultuous features shot Such strange vivacity, as fires the eye Of Misery fancy-crazed! and now once more Naked, and void, and fixed, and all within The unquiet silence of confusd thought 260 And shapeless feelings. For a mighty hand Was strong upon her, till in the heat of soul To the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... singing, like the common Robin. Like the Robin, too, who sings at all hours excepting those of darkness, he is a persevering songster, and seems to be inspired by living in the vicinity of man. In his manners, however, he bears more resemblance to the Red Thrush, being distinguished by his vivacity, and the courage with which he repels the attacks of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... daily; be taught to practice temperate, prudent, and regular habits; learn the laws of health and how to obey them, the physiology of their own bodies, and what is demanded for health and strength. Such a course of early physical training will impart beauty, vivacity, cheerfulness, amiability, strength of mind, warmth of heart, and moral stability, more surely and rapidly than can otherwise be done. Girls thus trained will possess a higher and nobler womanhood, exert a ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... exchanging glances of intelligence—they had exchanged no glances at all. Both sat staring vaguely out into the ballroom, and, for a time, they did not speak. Over their heads the music reached a climax of vivacity: drums, cymbals, triangle, and sleighbells, beating, clashing, tinkling. Here and there were to be seen couples so carried away that, ceasing to move at the decorous, even glide, considered most knowing, they pranced and whirled through the throng, from wall ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... cricket, and other sports, as well as winter evening games, filled up the ample leisure from the duties of the schoolroom. One or two extracts from his journal are sufficient to show that, although still weakly, he was not lacking in boyish vivacity and in a healthy desire to emulate his elders. When Grenville and Fox joined their forces and so brought about the Ministry of 'All the Talents' the lads obtained a holiday—a fact which is thus recorded in sprawling schoolboy hand by Lord John ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... together with the usual characters of a society novel appear in Molly Bawn; and the personages are invested, if not with the divine gift of life, with a certain wire-strung movement which does not lack vivacity, and in some cases novelty; the villain, for example, having but little employment in his original capacity, and being utilized as a laughing-stock for the amusement of his victims. Even the grammar ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... numbering among her teachers one of Mozart's sons. She seems to have won the esteem of Schumann, who dedicated his humoreske to her, and gave high praise to many of her works. According to his reviews, her Second Caprice is "fresh and rhythmical, full of life and vivacity and delicate workmanship;" her fantasie, "Adieu et Retour," has two movements that are "highly original, characteristic, and scarcely offering a weak point for attack;" while her waltzes are spoken of as almost the best that appeared ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... sitting, gazing, with hand lifted above her eyes, at a Murillo—a ragged Spanish boy, true equally to the life and to the peculiar characteristics of that artist—dark ground-work, keen, arch expression, great vivacity, with an air of pregnant humor which speaks of more than is shown, and makes you fancy that other pictures are to follow in which the same boy must appear in different phases ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... never hear good of themselves," answered Maud, with a vivacity that betokened confusion. "Had you come a minute sooner, master Bob, it ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... His vivacity was gone, a sudden cloud had come over his bright face, his figure seemed to have collapsed, the light seemed to have faded out of his hair. With a shuffling step, the very antithesis of his brisk, elastic tread, he turned to the door and passed ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... seriously endangered by this affair?" asked the cardinal with vivacity. "Is it possible that this trifling misunderstanding between two servants can exercise an influence upon a long-cherished friendship and harmony of two powers whose relations, whether friendly or otherwise, may uphold or destroy ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... properly attribute to him any one temperament. He was neither sanguine, like Peter, nor choleric, like Paul, nor melancholy, like John, nor phlegmatic, as James is sometimes, though incorrectly, represented to have been; but he combined the vivacity without the levity of the sanguine, the vigor without the violence of the choleric, the seriousness without the austerity of the melancholic, the calmness without the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... world caught into its irresistible vivacity the two boys in the morning of their youth, and before long they had forgotten the irremediable woes of their elders, as their elders also forgot the problems of national woes ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a certain pretension to knowing something about the world. In the man who was talking to you I recognized a Parisian, because he had an English air; and while he affected stiffness, he showed perfect ease and particular vivacity." ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... brother bashaw, who lay wind-bound in the same harbor. This latter captain was a Swiss. He was then master of a vessel bound to Guinea, and had formerly been a privateering, when our own hero was employed in the same laudable service. The honesty and freedom of the Switzer, his vivacity, in which he was in no respect inferior to his near neighbors the French, the awkward and affected politeness, which was likewise of French extraction, mixed with the brutal roughness of the English ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... know...." Sarah murmured vaguely. This was the only reference to the estrangement. She went on with more vivacity. "And then Mr. Cannon has always had ideas about boarding-houses and furnished rooms and so on. He always did say there was lots of money to be made out of them if only they were managed properly; only they never are.... He ought to know; he's been ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... clapped their hands for joy, nodding to one another with such vivacity, that the glow-worms upon their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... have not got much benefit either. We met first, some four years ago, on Cheyne Walk here: a tall, broad, burly man, with gray hair, and large, fierce-rolling eyes; of the most restless, impetuous vivacity, not to be held in by the most perfect breeding,—expressing itself in high-colored superlatives, indeed in reckless exaggeration, now and then in a dry sharp laugh not of sport but of mockery; a wild man, whom no extent of ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... d'Erfeuil, a Frenchman who had been his companion in the journey into Italy. The Prince Castel Forte and all the other guests paid her the most assiduous attention; Oswald gazed on her for the most part in silence, wondering at the mingled sweetness and vivacity of her conversation, realising that she possessed a grace that he had never met before. Although she invited him to meet her again, he did not go on the next evening; he was restrained by a kind of terror at the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... DRAWING ROOM, it was amusing to behold the vivacity of Lisardo; who, leaping about Lysander, and expressing his high gratification at the discourse he had already heard, and his pleasure at what he hoped yet to hear, reminded us of what Boswell has said of Garrick, who used to flutter ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... (1747-1794).—Poetess, was of good Cumberland family, and received the sobriquet of "The Muse of Cumberland." Her poems, which were not collected until 1842, depict Cumbrian life and manners with truth and vivacity. She also wrote some fine songs in the Scottish dialect, including "Ye shall walk in Silk Attire," and "What ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... rest of the party, who were joined, however, by the two priests. The young girl no sooner caught sight of the Bishop from the farther end of the hall, where the little dog had followed her among the orange trees, than all trace of her vivacity disappeared. ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... exhibited above his hands a plump visage, and a generally white skin though yellow in spots. His hands were dimpled. His abbatial face had something of the Dutch burgomaster in the placidity of its complexion and its flesh tones, and of the Breton peasant in the straight black hair and the vivacity of the brown eyes, which preserved, nevertheless, a priestly decorum. His gaiety, that of a man whose conscience was calm and pure, admitted a joke. His manner had nothing uneasy or dogged about it, like that of many poor rectors whose existence or whose ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... in silence. Except for the emphasis which nature had given to his features, he was a presentable person. Flying side-whiskers made his mouth appear grotesquely wide, and the play of strong feelings had produced vicious wrinkles on his spare face. He appeared to be a man of energy, vivacity and vulgarity, reminding one of a dinner of pork and cabbage. He was soon forgotten in the excitement of a delightful day, whose glories came to a brilliant end in that banquet which introduced the nephew of ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... as he had left the room, Mr. Lindsay accompanying him, Mrs. Lindsay turned with an almost impatient vivacity to Aurora. "At last I can tell you!" she exclaimed. "Do you know who is in Venice, who sent me a note while you were at church, and who will dine with us ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... Stuart Belches, for whom Scott had felt perhaps the only deep passion of his life, and memory of whom was to come to the surface touchingly in his old age. Miss Charpentier, or Carpenter, as she was called, with her vivacity and quaint foreign speech "caught his heart on the rebound"; there can be no doubt that, in spite of a certain shallowness of character, she made him a good wife, and that his affection for her deepened steadily to the end. The young couple went to live at Lasswade, a village near Edinburgh, on ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... best and highest mode; and he wore his sword as if it were a part of himself. It was no more in his way than if it were his right arm. Indeed, all his movements were full of confidence and ease; and yet it was the vivacity, vitality, and ready response of his face ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... been reading a French story this morning," she said quickly. "There is a character in it—a priest. The author says of him that he had 'une imagination faussee et troublee.'" She paused, then added with great vivacity—"I thought it ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... accomplished person, I assure you," continued Quicksilver, "and has all the arts and sciences at her fingers' ends. In short, she is so immoderately wise, that many people call her wisdom personified. But, to tell you the truth, she has hardly vivacity enough for my taste; and I think you would scarcely find her so pleasant a travelling companion as myself. She has her good points, nevertheless; and you will find the benefit of them, in your ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... the breakfast at Rockhold on the preceding-day, darkened by the sullen wrath of the Iron King and eaten in the most gloomy silence! Here were affectionate attentions and jests and laughter. Violet was in such gay spirits that her vivacity became contagious, and Fabian and Clarence often laughed aloud, and Corona was won to smile ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... matching well the physically capable body below, a body of wide shoulders and well-knit muscles and a deep chest that might have belonged to a youth of eighteen instead of seventeen. Compared with Tim Otis, who was of the same age, Don Gilbert suffered on only two counts—quickness and vivacity. Tim, well-muscled, possessed a litheness that Don could never attain to, and moved, thought and spoke far more quickly. In height Don topped his friend by almost a full inch and was broader and bigger-boned. They were both, ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Francis said this with great vivacity, then taking up some ashes he scattered them over the head of the novice, repeating, "There is the breviary, there ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... The eager vivacity of the second speaker—the note of undiluted and almost childlike glee with which she acknowledged that a visit to a luxurious hotel was a red letter day in her life—caused the man to glance at the two young women who had unconsciously disturbed him. Evidently, they had just risen ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... too tedious a work for the vivacity of my temper to polish bears into men. I should have died of the spleen before I had made any proficiency in it. My desire was to shine among those who were qualified to judge of my talents. At Paris, at Rome I had the glory of ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... piece of work than the so-called Tree of the Cross, in the Florentine Academy: a thing like a huge fern, with medallion histories in each frond, it can scarcely be considered a work of art, and stands halfway between a picture and a genealogical tree. Yet in some of its medallions there is a great vivacity of imaginative rendering; for instance, the Massacre of the Innocents represented by a single soldier, mailed and hooded, standing before Herod on a floor strewn with children's bodies, and holding up an infant by the arm, like a ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... The big man in the stern of the boat took off his hat in reply, and waved his hand, too. The rower pulled with the vivacity that comes to men near the end of a task, and the boat shot into the Pool of the Saint, where Ruffo was at that moment ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... moved, and certainly spoke, with an almost superfluous vivacity and alertness. There was in them a feverish activity, which contrasted with the English deliberation, which had sometimes exasperated him. Now he felt that this slowness of movement was born of the tranquillity of the well-trimmed ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... exacting, and required very little to amuse her. Of course, she was not intellectual, since she read but few books and received only the rudiments of education; but she was as learned as her brothers, and quicker in her wits. She had the vivacity which a healthy life secures. Nor was she beautiful, according to our standard. She was a ruddy, cheerful, active, healthy woman, accustomed to exercise in the open air,—to field-sports and horseback journeys. Still less was she what we call fashionable, for the word ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... face, with two youthful, flashing brown eyes, full of roguish intelligence and fiery provocation. With this exterior, the style of his demeanour and conversation corresponded; bold, bright, pungent, eager, full of thought, so that amid all the bubbling copiousness and easy vivacity of his talk, a certain purpose was never lost sight of in his remarks and illustrations."—Friedrich Carl Meyer.] who was at this time a man of fifty, was no ordinary character. He was sagacious, warm-hearted, honest, straightforward to bluntness, painstaking, just, benevolent to a remarkable ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... his excessive vivacity was that, when he wanted any thing done, he expected the person nearest to him should not only instantly obey, but conceive what he meant from the pointing of his finger, the turn of his head, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... known many women, denizens of le grand monde, who have adorned it with equally brilliant talents, equally captivating beauty, equally sparkling wit and vivacity of intelligence. And I have known many, denizens of the studious and the book world, gifted with larger powers of intellect, and more richly dowered with the results of thought and study But I do not think that I ever met with one who possessed in so large a degree the choice product ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... institution. Any misadventures necessarily following from this course my friends had gilded over with the flattering insinuation that I was "too vivacious" for this sort of discipline, or "too fragile" for that, though I am bound to say that, in such cases, my "vivacity" had generally sealed my fate before the delicacy of my constitution ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... air of vivacity, that women, whether in courtship or out of it, dislike not, I was leading her once more to the door, and, as I intended, to Sir Harry, wherever ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... eighteenth century, occupied himself much more with his library than with public affairs. He wished to discharge his duty to his country respectably, without disturbing the peaceful tenor of his life. M. Raynouard, a native of Provence and a poet, had more vivacity of manner and language, without being of an adventurous temperament. It was said that his loud complaints against the tyrannical abuses of the Imperial Government, would not have prevented him from being contented with those moderate concessions which satisfy honour ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... year, to have lodgings in the same house with him, and to eat at the same table, in the family of one of the professors, and as one of a small circle, all connected with college, and a good deal remarkable for the freedom and vivacity of their conversation. After graduating, I saw him only occasionally, until the last few months of his life, which he passed here, near the close of my first year's residence at the college as a ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... size; straight, firm, strong built, and compact, with the air of native lordliness and command. His countenance was peculiarly beautiful, full and rounded as if young; fresh-coloured; and beaming with health, spirit, and vivacity. Its almost womanly sweetness was chastened and redeemed by the massiveness of the head, the deep penetrating eye, and an aspect of uncommon elevation and nobleness. Till the last, he was the very personification of the old Dux—the Duke of Chivalry—the foremost leader and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Higgins found his companion bubbling over with vivacity. Her pretty chin was in the air and every word bore the promise of a laugh. He afterward recalled one little incident of their walk through the frosty night, and repeated it to Anderson Crow with more awe than seemed necessary. They were ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... thin-chested, slight unspeakably, Neat-footed, weak-fingered, in his face,— Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race, Bold-lipped, rich tinted, mutable as the sea, The brown eyes radiant with vivacity,— There shines a brilliant and romantic grace, A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace Of ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... to the mind at the name of MOORE! The brilliant wit, the elegant scholar, the most charming poet of sentiment our literature possesses! His vivacity and versatility were quite as remarkable as his fancy and command of melody. He has been admitted, by rare judges of personal merit, to have been, with the single exception of the late Chief Justice Bushe, the most attractive of companions. An attempt has, in some quarters, we have ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... must own myself extremely blameable, because I knew the world and human nature, I will say, better than the lady, who never before had been trusted into it upon her own feet: and who, notwithstanding that wit and vivacity which every one admires in her, gave herself little time for consideration. I ought, therefore, to have more carefully guarded against inconveniencies, which I knew were so likely to arise from such intimacies; and the rather, as I hinted, because the lady had no apprehension at all of any: ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... that look. But the wonder was only a passing shadow on his thought. Inwardly his whole being was possessed by thankfulness. All the vivacity had returned to his face. Long before Mrs. Manderson ended her story he had recognized the certainty of its truth, as from the first days of their renewed acquaintance he had doubted the story that his imagination ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... friend!" exclaimed the Senator, with all that vivacity of pantomimic gesture so characteristic of the South, "the reality far exceeds the imagination. She is an angel! Even in our country, famous for its beautiful women, Dona Rosarita is certainly loveliest ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... is fixed for to-morrow, and all the morning has been passed in attendance for our passports.—This affair is not so quickly dispatched as you may imagine. The French are, indeed, said to be a very lively people, but we mistake their volubility for vivacity; for in their public offices, their shops, and in any transaction of business, no people on earth can be more tedious—they are slow, irregular, and loquacious; and a retail English Quaker, with all his formalities, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... more than smile or stare From all the 'squires and 'squiresses around, Who wonder'd at the abstraction of his air, Especially as he had been renown'd For some vivacity among the fair, Even in the country circle's narrow bound (For little things upon my lord's estate Were good small talk for others ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... a fine frosty night, with no wind and the thermometer below zero, the brain works with much vivacity; and the next moment I had seen the circumstance transplanted from India and the tropics to the Adirondack wilderness and the stringent cold of the Canadian border. Here then, almost before I had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the dialogue with its peculiarities, a translation must have been necessary for the benefit of the general reader. The Scottish dialect may be therefore considered as laid aside, unless where the use of peculiar words may add emphasis or vivacity ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... over the delights of golf and unconsciously making a very beautiful picture of herself in her interest and forced vivacity, when she became conscious for the first time of a strange young man who was standing alone before the fireplace looking at her, and frankly listening to all the nonsense she was talking. She guessed that he had been ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... deep, you would soon penetrate him, if they would leave you to yourself. His vanity would be your clue. Never man had more: Yet, as Mrs. Fortescue observed, 'never did man carry it off so happily.' There is a strange mixture in it of humourous vivacity:—Since but for one half of what he says of himself, when he is in the vein, any other ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... herself by the assistance of Reason: And considering the Outrage she receiv'd, not as coming from a great King, but a Man blinded and possest by Don Alvaro, she thought him not worthy of her Resentment; her fair Eyes animated themselves with so shining a vivacity, they answer'd for the purity of her Sentiments; and fixing them steadfastly on the King, 'If the Prince Don Pedro have Weaknesses, (reply'd she, with an Air disdainful) he never communicated 'em to me; and I am certain, I ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... foreigners were both British, the youngest being a young Irishman of a good family, and of the name of Fitzgerald. We had been quite captivated by his constant good humour and vivacity of spirits; he was the life of our little evening encampments, and, as he had travelled on the other side of the Pacific, we would remain till late at night listening to his interesting and beautiful narratives of his ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... antechamber, when all at once a lady's robe passed, rubbing against the doors of a lateral salon which opened upon the gallery. A lady, young, pretty, and gay, scolding an officer of the household, entered by that way, and expressed herself with much vivacity. The officer replied in calm but firm sentences; it was rather a little love pet than a quarrel of courtiers, and was terminated by a kiss on the fingers of the lady. Suddenly, on perceiving Raoul, the lady became silent, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... manner had wholly changed since the close of the inquest; before he had been morose and irritable; now he was all vivacity and good spirits. One of his first acts, after the verdict had been given, was to write the above-mentioned letter, which Miller had secured as before. Having taken a copy of it, Miller had mailed it in ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... one had been interested in the welfare of these men through their vivacity and good{21} nature, and the assistance they had cheerfully rendered in bearing their portion of whatever labour might be going on, their detention formed the subject of all our conversation, and numerous conjectures were hazarded as ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... was a match for any four. Gallic ancestry gave her a vivacity that could easily mount to fury. Her large eyes flashed a scorching denial at her accusers. Her slender, eloquent arms constantly menaced the tableware. Her high, clear soprano voice rose to what would have been a scream had it not possessed so ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... continually in her apartments, preferring her company to that of younger women. Partial to children, she would join in all our sports, and sit down to play "hunt the slipper," with us and our young companions. But with all her vivacity, she was a strictly moral and religious woman. She could be lenient to indiscretion and carelessness, but any deviation from truth and honesty on the part of my brother or myself, was certain to be visited with severe punishment. ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat |
