"Playful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... appeared a few weeks before his death, contains the accents of immortality. And "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester" (unfortunately too long to reprint in this volume), is fully as characteristic of the lighter and more playful side of Brooke's temperament. Both these phases are combined in "The Great Lover," of which Abercrombie has written, "It is life he loves, and not in any abstract sense, but all the infinite little familiar details of life, remembered and catalogued ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... of the accomplished Zee. The children of the Vril-ya, having upon their minds the weight of so many active duties and grave responsibilities, are not generally mirthful; but Taee, with all his wisdom, had much of the playful good-humour one often finds the characteristic of elderly men of genius. He felt that sort of pleasure in my society which a boy of a similar age in the upper world has in the company of a pet dog or monkey. It amused him to try and teach me the ways of his people, as it amuses a nephew of ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... playful than a frolic boy, More watchful than a sentinel, By day and night your constant joy To guard and ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... D'Artagnan gave him playful buffet on the shoulder, and as they had reached the station where they were to breakfast, the conversation ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Pecksniffs, when they retired with Mrs Todgers from this place of espial, leaving the youthful porter to close the door and follow them downstairs; who, being of a playful temperament, and contemplating with a delight peculiar to his sex and time of life, any chance of dashing himself into small fragments, lingered behind to walk ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... garden-door with her little child, now just trying to walk, that he might have a little play on the green turf, and she cool her hot eyes and lips in the air. As she sat there watching the pretty clumsiness of her boy, and springing forward to intercept his falls, the influence of sun and air, the playful joy of the child, the soothing stillness of all Nature, stole into her heart till it dreamed a dream of hope. Perhaps the budding blossom of promise might become floral and fruitful; perhaps her child might yet atone for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... brother has a fancy of playing at landlord," she said, looking at us in a playful way. "He has built a hostel for the English and the Italians of the Court. It was to be a new Paris, was it not so? And no doubt it would have been, but that the distance was over great. It was indeed almost a Paris in the ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... love you, and you loved her in return. This, as well as I can now recollect, was what I felt in my early days, before I was old enough to be amused by her cleverness. But soon came the delight of her playful talk. She could make everything amusing to a child. Then, as I got older, when cousins came to share the entertainment, she would tell us the most delightful stories, chiefly of Fairyland, and her fairies had all characters of their own. ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... only half-playful. There was a shade of sadness in it. Christian must have divined ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... saddest-lookin' boob I ever seen in my life! If he wasn't the original old Kid Kill-Joy, he was the bird that rehearsed him, believe me! Y'know just from lookin' at this guy, a man would get to thinkin' about his past life, the time he throwed the baby down the well when but a playful child, how old his parents was gettin' and the time Shorty Ellison run off with the red-headed dame that lived over the butcher's. You wished you had saved your money or somebody else's, suddenly findin' out ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... what suspicion there is no knowing, but Teutgaud halted in front of that in which the bishop was huddled up, and had it opened, crying, "Is there any one here?" "Only a poor prisoner," answered the bishop, trembling. "Ha! ha!" said the playful bandit, who recognized the voice, "so it is you, Master Isengrin, who are hiding here! "And he took him by the hair, and dragged him out of his cask. The bishop implored the conspirators to spare his life, offering ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the encampment were immediately ready to help us, especially the women, Artanga, and the twelve-year-old, somewhat spoiled Vega-favourite Reitinacka. They ran hither and thither like light-hearted and playful children, to put the net in order and procure all that was needed for the fishing. We had carried with us from the vessel a net nine metres long and one deep. Along its upper border floats were fixed, to the lower was bound a long pole, to which were fastened five sticks, by which ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... confession to Sir Robert, and received much advice and counsel, together with a qualified approval of his plans and hopes,—and he found Miss Noel still in bed, although it was mid-day and she not the least punctual and energetic of her sex. In reply to his playful reproaches she replied that she was "feeling very, very queer," and he cheerfully assured her that she "had best stop in bed a day or two and all would be well," after which he told her that he was not going back to England with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... white wings glimmered in the sunset-light, and her pet dove flew to her, circling round and round till it dropped on her outstretched arm. She caught it to her bosom, kissing its soft head tenderly, and murmuring playful words to it. Robin watched her, as with this favourite bird-playmate she disappeared across the garden and into the house. Then he gave a gesture half of despair, half of ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... Erse language, and expressed his belief in the authenticity of Ossian's Poetry[120]. Dr. Johnson took the opposite side of that perplexed question; and I was afraid the dispute would have run high between them. But Sir Adolphus, who had a very sweet temper, changed the discourse, grew playful, laughed at Lord Monboddo's[121] notion of men having tails, and called him a Judge, a posteriori, which amused Dr. Johnson; and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... busied themselves about Phemy, who was as playful and teasing as a pet kitten while they dressed her, but Steenie kept in the darkest corner, watching every thing, but offering no unneeded help. Without once looking or asking for him, never missing him ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... was partly in jest—a half-playful mixture of mock resignation and pretended indifference: but immediately he resumed his place beside Miss Wilmot, and from that hour to this—during all that evening, and all the next day, and the next, and the next, and all this morning (the 22nd), he has never given me one kind word ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... right lonesome. A friend of mine gets a little too playful fo' the evah-increasin' meetropolitan spirit of this yere camp, and tries a little tahget practice on the main bullyvard, an' finds the atmospheah onhealthful in consequence. Hearin' that the quiet solitude of Lost Trail is what he needs, he lit out with the following circumstance ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... Bim interrupted. "For he did claw at himself, and leap about over the ice like a playful puppy, save from the way he growled and squealed it was plain it was not play but pain. Never did ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... as the benediction was pronounced by its wearer. And through it all he said to himself that all would be well if only she understood, if only she had the supreme self-consciousness to play the game. After all he knew her so little. He was certain of her exquisite, playful fancy, but had she imagination? Would she see the value of the moment and watch herself moving through it? Or would she live it with that feminine, unhumourous seriousness which is woman's weakness? She had an exquisite independence, he was certain that she had humour, and he remembered how alive ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... gentle enough, yet it contained a sort of playful irony, which, at the moment, Jessie Mowbray resented. She turned. There was impatience in the eyes which confronted him. She ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... yard had had quite enough of that night in the hospital. It would fall on him in one of those half-playful, half-vicious attacks that are the humor of the street, and sometimes it was rather a battered Joey who returned to Clayton's handsome office, to assist him in running ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sword of wit," as that faculty has been termed, was wielded by O'Leary in the more serious circumstances of life, as well as in its playful hours. An instance where the painful exercise of this was happily spared, occurred at one of the meetings of the English Catholics, during the celebrated Blue Book Controversy. One of the individuals who was expected to advocate the objectionable ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... just then re-entered the room, and was assuring her mamma that Winifred had been as playful as ever all the remainder of the evening, and was now fast asleep ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... He made a playful show of looking over his shoulder to the invisible recipient of Longstreet's confidences; at the moment a door behind him opened and a new face did actually appear. Barbee's glance grew into a stare of surprise. Then he turned square about in his chair again and snapped out: 'Deal, can't you?' ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... was talking with spirit, though feeling evidently entered into her part of the discourse; but she paused for nearly a minute after Jasper had made the last observation before she uttered another word. Then she continued, in a manner less playful, and one critically attentive might have fancied in ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... victory so humiliating to herself? Therefore, unshaken in my preconceived opinion, I told her that I placed implicit confidence in all she had just said respecting the state of her heart previous to the playful nonsense which had been the origin of my love for her, and that I promised never in the future to allude again to my accusation of seduction. "But," I continued, "confess that the fire at that time burning in your ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... foxes that are so eager for this kind of fun. Later in the season—either because the cubs have lost their playfulness, or because they must hunt so diligently for enough to eat that there is no time for play—they seldom do more than take a gallop together, with a playful jump or two, before going their separate ways. At all times, however, they have a strong tendency to fun and mischief-making. More than once, in winter, I have surprised a fox flying round after his own bushy tail so rapidly that tail and fox together looked like ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... "It's playful," assented the skipper. "The old man thinks a rare lot of it. I think I shall have a little bit in that quarter, so keep your eye on ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... chorus for twelve the following morning, and the sextette for eleven, he told Rose to report at the earlier hour. And a moment later, she heard Dave say to the big show girl named Vesta Folsom (some one with a vein of playful irony must have been responsible for this christening), "Well, maybe I ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... now, as Marvell stood, Loyal to Truth dethroned, nor could be wooed To trust the playful tiger's velvet paws: And if the second Charles brought in decay Of ancient virtue, if it well might wring Souls that had broadened 'neath a nobler day, To see a losel, marketable king Fearfully watering with his realm's best blood ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... saluted as "mate!" or who was crazy enough to dream of wearing a long black coat or a tall black hat, would find life harassing at the diggings. But, at any rate, in New Zealand diggers did not use revolvers with the playful frequency of the Californians of Mr. Bret Harte. Nor did they shoe the horse of their first Member of Parliament with gold, or do a variety of the odd things done in Australian gold-fields. They laughed heartily ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Everything went splendidly till a typhoon hit us amidships and sent us careening, blind, battered and soaked into this red and white refuge of a hotel, that clings to the side of a mountain like a woodpecker to a telephone pole. I have seen storms, but the worst I ever saw was a playful summer breeze compared with the magnificent fury of this wind that snapped great trees in two as if they had been young bean-poles, and whipped the usually peaceful lake into raging waves that swept through a gorge and greedily licked up ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... centuries ago, Grew a little fern leaf, green and slender, Veining delicate and fibers tender, Waving when the wind crept down so low; Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it; Playful sunbeams darted in and found it; Drops of dew stole down by night and crowned it; But no foot of man e'er came that way; Earth ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... intelligent dragoon, sought to vary the ennui of the march, and to assert their superiority over the Kaffirs in the matter of stage-driving, by taking the fourgon and its half broken team full gallop down the incline terminating in Houwater vlei. A playful and exhilarating expedient, which ruined the brigadier's spring vehicle for ever and a day, and denied the staff many home comforts for ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... Smiler, and thought as Smiler was too many for him. I daresay there was a few words between him and Smiler. I wouldn't wonder if Smiler didn't threaten to punch Benjamin's head,—which well he could do it,—and if there wasn't a few playful remarks between 'em about penal servitude for life. You see, Mr. Bunfit, it couldn't have been pleasant for ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the fascinating playful ways, whose ringlets were once as pretty as yours, ma'am. I have visited her in her home several times this week—you were always out—I thank you for that! I was alone with her, and ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... Pope, whose 'Rape of the Lock' is the masterpiece of that poetry. It is, in fact, the most brilliant society-poem in the literature. De Quincey pronounces it to be, though somewhat extravagantly, "the most exquisite monument of playful fancy that universal literature offers." Bishop Warburton, one of the great critical authorities of the age, believed in the infallibility of Pope, if not ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... Waddles in the ice and snow, And the playful polar bear Nips the hunter unaware; Where the air is kind o' pure, And the ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... about to mount to have a look at the standard compass and see what course the helmsman was steering, on his way from the poop, where I had noticed him talking with the skipper as I came up the booby-hatch from below. "Hullo, Haldane!" he cried, shouting almost in my ear, and giving me a playful dig in the ribs at the same time; this nearly knocked all the breath out of my body. ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... his arm around her and gave her a playful squeeze. "Sorry, old girl, what was it? About High Jinks and Low Jinks? Ha! Dashed ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... fancy,—such is a Jerroldian paper of the best class in "Punch." It stands out by itself from all the others,—the sharp, critical knowingness, sparkling with puns, of Beckett,—the inimitable, wise, easy, playful, worldly, social sketch of Thackeray. In imagery he had no rivals there; for his mind had a very marked tendency to the ornamental and illustrative,—even to the grotesque. In satire, again, he had fewer competitors than in humor;—sarcasms ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... "Villain," "Sweetheart"—besides two additions: a "Prologue" and "Epilogue." Here MacDowell is in one of his happiest moods. It was a fortunate and charming conceit which prompted the plan of the series, with its half-playful, half-ironic, yet lurkingly poetic suggestions; for in spite of the mood of bantering gaiety which placed the pieces in such mocking juxtaposition, there is, throughout, an undertone of grave and meditative tenderness which it is one of the peculiar properties of MacDowell's art to communicate ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... are not going to give me away—ah, papa, I could never bear that any more than you; you are taking a partner in the concern," she added with playful tenderness, smiling ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... laughed until her fat sides wobbled like a fur muff filled with playful kittens. "Dear, dear," she exclaimed, with tears in her eyes. "I thought you would understand. It's because the people don't have the ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... addressed the banker, now not so furious as awkwardly embarrassed. "They were playing and the young lady was to go through the marriage ceremony with the first man to enter the room, a common farce hereabouts, as you know; and I was the first man to enter. Don't blame me for a playful custom, or the ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... House." Nevertheless he went briskly to the stable, led out and saddled a handsome grey mare, petting her the while, and keeping up a running commentary of caressing epithets to which Rabbit responded with a whinny and playful reaches after Jeff's red flannel sleeve. Whereat Jeff, having loved the horse until it was displaced by another mistress, grew grave and suddenly threw his arms around Rabbit's neck, and then taking Rabbit's nose, thrust it in the bosom of his shirt and held ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... their amusement with all the solicitude of a private householder. His manners are filled with a beaming, sympathetic and exquisite courtesy. He is necessarily a gentleman in his manners, having all his life lived that sporting, playful, supervisory and white-handed existence proper at once to the master of a plantation and the owner of a hotel. His society is constantly sought, his table is pounced upon by ladies with backgammon in the morning, by gentlemen ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... moment. The music almost shows the flush upon her cheek, and she seems twenty years younger. She is quite conscious of the inevitable end, and quite prepared to meet it, but that is as nothing in the fulness of the present moment. Her words and her actions are characterized by a playful recklessness, an abandon which finds admirable expression in a characteristic motive (No. 9). Thematically related to this is another motive which we shall meet with very frequently in the sequel (No. ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... the pedlar repeated with playful modesty. "There is a young girl here," he went on in a high falsetto, "who, owing to the great ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... we put the Turkeys to sleep, can I recover the skill which I then possessed? To-day it is no longer the playful trick of a schoolboy; it is a matter of serious research. I happen to have the very subject that I need: a Turkey-hen, doomed soon to be the victim of our Christmas merry-making. I repeat with her the method of manipulation which I employed so successfully ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... of Addison was never more playful than in his account of that anagrammatist, who, after shutting himself up for half a year, and having taken certain liberties with the name of his mistress, discovered, on presenting his anagram, that he had misspelt her surname; by which he was so thunderstruck with his ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... we get many delightful reminiscences in "Praeterita," with entertaining talks of his childhood days, his youthful companions, his toys and animate pets, his early playful adventures in authorship, and other garrulities with which, late in life when the work, as it remains, was incompletely put together, he beguiled the weariness and feebleness of old age. But we are anticipating, for we are writing ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... I was looking for you. Permit me to present Mynheer Gansevoort, of Albany. Mistress Betty Wolcott and Captain Yorke. As for you, sir,"—to Yorke, with a playful tap of her fan to engage his attention,—"you have not yet claimed my hand for a dance. Pray, what excuse can you devise ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... waves. Water creatures supplement her, but she seems made on too goddess-like a scale to disport herself with them. It is interesting to contrast this nymph of the fathomless trough of the sea with the arch and playful Water Sprites of the froth and ripple, on the columns within the Court of Ages. This statue is placed in the Forecourt of Ages, facing the Marina, the court that is designed to graduate the richness of the larger court ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... the person behind, gaining upon him at the imminent hazard of tripping him up; to see him gradually expend the painful force which he had put on at first and turn slowly round on the slide, with his face towards the point from which he had started; to contemplate 30 the playful smile which mantled on his face when he had accomplished the distance and the eagerness with which he turned round when he had done so and ran after his predecessor, his black gaiters tripping pleasantly through the snow and his eyes beaming cheerfulness and gladness ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... the call "Zosia"—that was her aunt's voice! She sprinkled out all at once to the birds the remnant of the dainties, and twirling the sieve as a dancer a tambourine and beating it rhythmically, the playful maiden began to skip over the peacocks, the doves, and the hens. The birds, disturbed, fluttered up in a throng. Zosia, hardly touching the ground with her feet, seemed to tower high above them; before her the white doves, which she startled in her course, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... of black eyes if you make another bad joke!" laughed Tom, giving his chum a playful push. "But seriously, I'm mighty well pleased with this stuff; it turned out better than I dared hope. You know, I got the idea for bendable glass while I was trying to figure out a way to make a huge telescope mirror. That was before ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... I'll turn over the second volume, and read you another morceau, in which I assume the more playful vein. I have imitated one of our modern writers, who must be correct in her language, as she knows all about heroes and heroines. I must confess ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... cordial glow, penetrating that unseemly shroud, has given evidence of self-conviction, you felt that you had dealt too harshly with an old friend, and hastened to make it up with him again by a playful titillation, more in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... is a sonata? It is a musical composition which consists of movements fast or slow, sad or playful, according to the varying mood of ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... was a good-looking young fellow, threw his hat down on the bench beside him. He had fair hair and a white skin—both, he understood, much admired by the dark-eyed daughters of the Baleares. He shook his finger with a playful condescension at the widow Navarro, with whom he was always kind enough to exchange a few light pleasantries. And she, womanlike, suited her fire to the calibre of the foe, for ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... o'er each expressive line, To think the sweet creation so confin'd, That such a boy, so fair, and so divine, Was but the playful prattler of her mind; ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... except an airplane. Swimming to it was out of the question. Shouting and screaming to it was feasible, of course. Radio operations were conceivable. But reach it no one could. The adventurer would have been swallowed in mud. This safe isolation would continue for a couple of hours and then the playful water would come rippling in again spreading a glinting coverlet over the flats once more and lifting the ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... left we could hear the hounds, and the music of their voices, toyed with by the playful wind, rolled itself into melodious little echoes that broke pleasantly upon the ear, now loud, now faint, now far and now near. The first burst of speed, which had been terrific, had settled down into a steady run, but I knew by the sound that the ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... carpet in her dressing-room disarranged, and had inquired into the mystery of the secret passage. She chid Miss Alicia in a playful, laughing way, for her boldness in introducing two great ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... most gay, yet benevolent manner, and smiled, not disdainfully, but in playful mockery of himself. Then his countenance suddenly darkened, and in that shrill tone peculiar to himself, he cried, "I fought a good battle last night; higher conquest the plains of Greece never saw me achieve. Now I am the first man in the state, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... almost playful rhythm of the music twines about the deep religious feeling expressed in the words, like the arms of an infant about the neck of its thoughtful, ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... bear (Ursus Euryspilus) is one of the most amusing and playful of all bears; begs in the most earnest manner, and when it has more to eat than it can hold in its paws and mouth, places the surplus on its hinder feet, as if to keep it from being soiled; and when vexed or irritated, will never ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... Mabel, with an expression that seemed to me half serious and half playful. "But I wish you would tell me something about your German sprites. I am so very ignorant ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... comes on" and praises poetry written "Wild without art, and yet with pleasure wild" (Gotham [1764], II, 167-169, 172, 212). His satire—with its deliberate, irreverant, "Byronic" run-on lines, fanciful digressions, playful indifference to formal structure, impulsively involuted syntax, long, wandering sentences—seems to move, as does Robert Lloyd's satire (at a somewhat slower pace), toward a genuinely new style. In being chatty, fluid, iconoclastic, ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd
... It is important to understand the mood and purpose of an author. We are not in a position fairly to judge a work until we know its spirit and object. Until we know whether the writer is playful or earnest, joyous or sad, satirical or serious, we cannot give his words the right tone and value; and until we see clearly what he is driving at, we cannot properly estimate the successive steps in his production nor judge of its worth ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... his early paintings were placed in the church of S. Piero Maggiore, one a Virgin and Child of great beauty. The infant clasps its arms round its mother's neck—a charming attitude—which suggests a playful effort to hide from the young S. John, who is running towards him, by nestling closer to the dearer resting place. The picture is now in the Uffizi and has been long known as Raphael's Madonna del Pozzo. [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... me to her bosom, and prayed for me. Her tears, falling upon my head, seemed to penetrate to my very heart. This was my first religious impression, and was never effaced. Though thoughtless, and full of playful mischief, I never afterwards knowingly grieved my Mother, or gave her other ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... in dress and her free and easy manners made her appear old and ugly to him, although she was neither. He thought that such coquettish attire and such playful manners would be well suited to the age and keen wit of little Marie, but that such pleasantry on the widow's part was heavy and stale, and that there was no distinction in the way she wore ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... around the edge of a great windfall. A low wind was beginning to move in the tops of the spruce and cedar, and soft splashes of snow fell on their heads and shoulders, as if unseen and playful hands were pelting them from above. Again and again David caught the swift, ghostly flutter of the snow owls; three times he heard the wolf-howl; once again Baree's dismal, homeless cry; and then they came suddenly out of the thick gloom ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... of his private life added much to the dignity of his public character. In the relations of son, brother, uncle, master, friend, his conduct was exemplary. In the small circle of his intimate associates, he was amiable, affectionate, even playful. They loved him sincerely; they regretted him long; and they would hardly admit that he who was so kind and gentle with them could be stern and haughty with others. He indulged, indeed, somewhat too freely in wine, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in a short time she and Dudley were seated tte—tte, while the invalid remained on his couch. They were gay from spontaneity of pleasure, and Hal would have been surprised at the cheeriness of het grave brother, had she seen how he responded to Doris's playful mood. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... bent her head to accept the crude throne with a queen's graciousness, Jezebel, roused into playful humor, thrust forth her claws and, encountering Bob as he rose from his stooping posture, fixed them with ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... of that. It was one of Mazarin's playful devices. I was to have had it while in Paris; and his Eminence put me off for no other reason than to worry me. Ah, well, he ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... having reached the foot of the hill that led out of the valley stopped, too, as if paralysed by its owner's efforts at parody. It had been jerking and bucking like a playful mustang for some time past, and behaving in an altogether curious manner, but now it was stiller than the dead. Tryon waggled the levers to no avail, then flung himself out of the car and got busy with the crank. Not ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... be divided into three groups. One combines fantastic, half-playful images: The Sad Man, Rubbers, Capriccio, The Patent-Leather Shoe, A Barkeeper's Coarse Complaint. (First appeared in Aktion, in Simplicissimus, in March, Pan and elsewhere). Pleasure in what is purely ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... to point to a playful practical joke:—Jacob, Aaron’s sister’s son, renders count of 20 marks, for an amerciament, for taking off a priest’s cap, and for the deed of Gerard de Sailby.—33 ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... little mockingly playful imitation of a stride she walked the first two fingers of her right hand across the surface of the table to ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... sat at the long table in the Treasurer's house, refreshing ourselves after the fatigues of the march to and from the city, and the anxiety of awaiting an attack, which had not come. He bowed towards the Maid in speaking, calling her by a playful title in vogue amongst the officers and Generals who were her friends. "Though what prompted you to that act of sagacity is more than I know. I had no misgivings that there would be ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... afraid, my lord duke, that the fare I can offer will seem to you only another form of revenge on my part," said de Sigognac with playful courtesy; "but do not, I beseech you, attribute to resentment the meagre repast for which I shall be obliged to claim your indulgence. You must know how gladly I would put before you a sumptuous meal if I could; and what we can give you will at least, as ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... that Adam is not content, for we hear him soliloquizing: "It is not good that the man should be alone." The clay of which the first of men is formed is beginning to assert itself. He watches the panther fondling his playful cubs, the eagle's solicitude for his imperial brood perched on the beetling crag, and the paternal instinct awakes within him. He hears the mocking- bird trilling to his mate, the dove pitying the loneliness ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... but I was often compelled to carry my little Matilda on my shoulders. Both were delighted with the shade of the woods, and were so amused with the delightful birds that inhabited them, and a pretty little sportive green monkey, that they became as playful as ever. They sang and prattled; but often asked me if papa and Alfred would not soon return to see these pretty creatures, and if we were going to seek them. These words rent my heart, and I thought it best then to tell them they would meet no more on earth, and that they ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... instantly arrests the attention and commands the admiration of the spectator. He looks as if just awakened from a deep slumber; his eye-lids are tinged with red, and the motion of his limbs betokens the sudden consciousness of suspended existence; his playful smiling features are radiant with joy at recognizing his mother, toward whom his hands are invitingly opened. His figure is foreshortened, and to such a degree that his legs are out of the canvass, instinct with life and motion. His flesh has the plumpness and transparency of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... gnawed at, hungry, as often as he would, and was, like a lover, always there. This good mother knew no other pleasures than those of his rosy lips, had no other caresses that those of his tiny little hands, which ran about her like the feet of playful mice, read no other book than that in his clear baby eyes, in which the blue sky was reflected, and listened to no other music than his cries, which sounded in her ears as angels' whispers. You may be sure that she was always fondling him, had a desire ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... which those results are reached, ought, say the friends of physical science, to be made the staple of education for the bulk of mankind. And here there does arise a question between those whom Professor Huxley calls with playful sarcasm "the Levites of culture," and those whom the poor humanist is sometimes apt to ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... is to say that M. Halevy's irony is delicate and playful. There is no harshness in his manner and no hatred in his mind. We do not find in his pages any of the pessimism which is perhaps the dominant characteristic of the best French fiction of our time. ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... latter days: But bending in a thousand graceful ways; So graceful, that it seems no mortal hand, Or e'en the touch of Archimago's wand, Could charm them into such an attitude. We must think rather, that in playful mood, Some mountain breeze had turned its chief delight, To show this wonder of its gentle might. Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry; For while I muse, the lance points slantingly Athwart the morning air: some lady sweet, Who cannot feel for cold her tender feet, From the worn top of some ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... propose to do, Tamar?" said the Laird. Tamar was fully aware that she had power to cause her patron at any time, to yield to her caprices; and she now used this power, as women know so well how to effect these things—not by reason—or persuasion, but by those playful manoeuvrings, which used in an evil cause have wrought the ruin of many a more steadfast character ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... day as I rocked him He smiled of a sudden, And I smiled in answer.... A strange thing befell me Some days after that: As I prowled in the forest 400 I aimed at a squirrel; But suddenly noticed How happy and playful It was, in the branches: Its bright little face With its paw it sat washing. I lowered my gun:— 'You shall live, little squirrel!' I rambled about In the woods, in the meadows, 410 And each tiny floweret I loved. I went home then And nursed little ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... was his knowledge of Push methods that sealed his tongue. No one would risk his skin by giving evidence. If the police had brought the offenders to book, the magistrates, who seemed to regard these outrages as the playful excesses of wanton blood, would have let them off with a light punishment, and the streets would never have been safe for him again. So he held his tongue, thankful to have escaped ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... pastor advanced with his congratulations, and Mrs. Snow came up, and the three Misses Snow, and the Balfours, and the neighbors; and there were kisses and hand-shakings, and good wishes. Jim beamed around upon the fluttering and chattering groups like a great, good-natured mastiff upon a playful collection of silken spaniels and smart terriers. It was the proudest moment of his life. Even when standing on the cupola of his hotel, surveying his achievements, and counting his possessions, he had never felt the thrill which moved him then. The little woman ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... hill the village murmur rose; There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, The mingled notes came softened from below; The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young; The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school; The watchdog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind,— These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And filled each ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... In playful vein Dickens professes to record his disappointment at failing to receive any recognition from a "native", in the person of a phlegmatic greengrocer, when he revisits Rochester, and revives the associations of haunts ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... withholding from him any part of her regard, she caressed his proud head and crest, while, looking in her eyes, he seemed to ask her what she wanted, or what he could do to show his attachment. At this moment a shriek of distress was heard on the shore, from the playful group which had been lately so jovial. The Lady looked, and saw ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... pleased when all the French and Bohemian boys, and the priest himself, crowded round her candy stand? Why did she care about any one but him? Why could he never, never find the thing he looked for in her playful, affectionate eyes? ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... laughing way not merely with our British kinsmen, but with alien peoples across the usually impenetrable barrier of translation. The fortune of his jesting lay not in his ears, but in the hearts of his hearers. It was at once appealing and revealing. It flashed its playful light into the nooks and corners of our own being, and wove close bonds with those at whom we laughed. There was no bitterness in it. He was neither satirist nor preacher, nor of set purpose a teacher, though it must be a dull reader that does not gather from his books the lesson of the value ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... a sign either of an evil disposition or of deep and constant grief. From behind his half-lowered eyelashes they shone with a kind of phosphorescent gleam—if I may so express myself—which was not the reflection of a fervid soul or of a playful fancy, but a glitter like to that of smooth steel, blinding but cold. His glance—brief, but piercing and heavy—left the unpleasant impression of an indiscreet question and might have seemed insolent had it not been ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... wood-cutters and charcoal-burners, she passed the first years of her life. Even while still a child she seems to have attracted wide-spread attention on account of certain peculiarities of temperament and conduct. It was noticed that though naturally gay and playful she occasionally assumed a strangely intent and serious manner; that in her happiest moments she was subject to unaccountable fits of shuddering and shivering; and that she seemed keenly alive not merely to the sights and sounds of ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... on the beach watching the waves—the tireless, endless, continuous toss, break, splash; toss, break, splash! Always the same climbing combers smoothly traveling in from eternity, mounting their hills to the playful height of liquid summits, then rolling down in an ocean of foam, to splash on the beach into the most alluring of earth's ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... They were very playful and inclined to talk—to do anything but lie quiet and go to sleep. Edna sent the quadroon away to her supper and told her she need not return. Then she sat and told the children a story. Instead of soothing it excited them, and added to their wakefulness. She left them in heated argument, ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... which stood open, and here she was met by a maid very bonny and fair, who led her tenderly down from my sight. Yet, in a minute, this same maid appeared, and ran along the decks to me, and caught my two hands, and shook them, and looked up at me with such roguish, playful eyes, that she warmed my heart, which had been strangely chilled by the greeting of the poor mad woman. And she said many hearty things regarding my courage, to which I knew in my heart I had no claim; but I let her run on, and ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... 'neath each blossom a fay lies dreaming? Or is it on yonder silver lake Where the fish in green and gold are sparkling? Or is it among those ancient trees Where the tremulous shadows move soft and darkling? Oh, no! said the moon, with a playful smile, The best of my beams are for ever dwelling In the exquisite eyes, so deeply blue, And the eloquent glance of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... As we shall not again have occasion to speak of them in this story we will here say that the following summer they came North, together with Jenny and Cousin Frank, the latter of whom was so much pleased with the rosy cheeks, laughing eyes, and playful manners of Bessie Lee that when he returned home he coaxed her to accompany him; and again was there a wedding in St. Luke's, and again did Miss Carson make the bridal outfit, wishing that all New Orleans gentlemen would come to S—— for ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... gave the world a surprise. Those who judged France by her playful Paris thought that if a Frenchman gesticulated so emotionally in the course of everyday existence, he would get overwhelmingly excited in a great emergency. One evening, after the repulse of the Germans on the Marne, I saw two French reserves dining in a famous restaurant ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... I, jabbin' him playful in the ribs, "how about you and that Miss Adams? Did you follow her to ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... informs the Public that he has purchased, at considerable expense, a Collection of Living Animals, harmless and playful. ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... an' full of fancies that a-way, Nell indulges in playful specyoolations about Annalinda an' little Enright Peets gettin' married later on. Not that she intends anything, although Texas takes it plenty serious, which shows how his egotism is already ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to wish it, Mr. Sharp—" Eve glanced her playful eye up at him as she pronounced the name—"I will be as credulous as a believer in animal magnetism: and that, I fancy, is pushing credulity to the verge of reason. It is now settled between us, that you do conceive it an honour ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... and bearing was crowned by the beauty of her face, in which the insipidity of regular features was redeemed by exquisite coloring of rose and white, and by the dusk brilliance of the eyes. The tender lips were wreathed to playful reproach, as she addressed the lover for whom she ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... comprised as many varieties as there are different breeds of pigeons. There were Chocolats, Muskymotes, Cariboos, Brandies, Whiskies, Corbeaus, and a few others. During the fight they had kept wonderfully quiet, but now they seemed to know that it was over, and began, after the playful manner of their kind, to indulge in a spirited battle on their own account. Rory snatched up a whip with the object of ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... lonely meal Winifred remembered her unfinished book, and thought to get it as she stepped from the elevator. She knocked lightly at Mrs. Latimer's door. She heard a faint rustle inside, then all was still. Again she gave a soft, playful battering of open palms on the panels; then she fled to her own apartments, and flung herself face downward on the pillowed couch, weeping as though her heart ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... she put up her face; they were both smiling, both on the brink of laughter, all was so innocent and playful; and the Prince, when their lips encountered, was dumbfoundered by the sudden convulsion of his being. Both drew instantly apart, and for an appreciable time sat tongue-tied. Otto was indistinctly conscious of a peril in the silence, ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Friday A.M., now!' says Silas, playful, over his shoulder to Elspie. But Elspie didn't answer. She was just sittin' there, still an' quiet, an' she didn't ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... the dame that day - Addressed her in his playful way - "And did it want a wedding ring? It was a tempting ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... nor over strict; I know how to make excuses for youthful folly, and what I have permitted in my own presence is sufficient proof of this. Consult your friend as to your own duty, he will tell you there is all the difference in the world between the playful kisses sanctioned by the presence of father and mother, and the same freedom taken in their absence and in betrayal of their confidence, a freedom which makes a snare of the very favours which in the parents' presence were wholly innocent. He will ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... weapon into the Old Lady's hands. It was many weapons in one. It could be turned on in all its broad robust humour—"Fooliana!" Or refined away into a playful or delicate suggestion, pointed with an uplifted finger—"Fooli!" Or cut down and compressed ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... the trapper, tossing a hand into the air as his whole countenance lighted with the recollections the name revived. "They called her Alice! Elsie or Alice; 'tis all the same. A laughing, playful child she was, when happy; and tender and weeping in her misery! Her hair was shining and yellow, as the coat of the young fawn, and her skin clearer than the purest water that drips from the rock. Well do I remember her! ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... humanity. He has attended to our little conveniences; and forwarded our letters. Mr. Barnes never descends to little contemptible extortions; nor is he on the continual watch, lest his dignity should suffer by a look, a tone, or a playful interjection. When Osmore is absent, and Barnes gives orders, they are instantly and cheerfully obeyed. If there is any disorder, this worthy Scotchman can, by a word, restore harmony, of which we might give many instances. In reprimanding a boy, the other day, for ill behavior, he said ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... they tore up the sad-sodded earth with the strength of their bitter rage, for the mighty princes of the proud province of Conchobar would not allow them to proceed to the great camp till all should be arrived. Two youths, swarthy and huge, in the front of that company; soft, playful eyes in their heads; about them, dark-grey tunics with silver pins set with stones; great, horn-topped swords with sheaths they bore; strong, stout shields they bore; hollow lances with rows of rivets, in their hands; glossy tunics next to their skin." "We know well that company," quoth Fergus; ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... whose thick curls clustering about her forehead almost touched her eyebrows. Her beautiful eyes were dark, her nose short, while her superb teeth and rich, ruby-colored lips gave her the effect of a pretty doll; and she had gayety, playful vivacity, gracious effrontery, and a passionate caressing glance. Dressed extravagantly, like the Parisian woman who has not a sou, but who adorns everything she wears, she had an ease, a freedom, a natural elegance that was charming. With this she had the voice of a child, a joyous laugh, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to laugh at some young unfortunate who thought he was making himself very agreeable. 'Really and truly, upon my word and honor, I positively thought I—should—die: as sure as I'm alive.' You pretty liar! You smiling murderess! You playful puss, gracefully toying with the victims your sweet mouth kills! Those expletives were like five strong men standing in a row, and you were like a bright, innocent-looking electric machine, with its transparent and clear-voiced ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the bar in general, have a very happy influence upon the character. And, take it altogether, there may be collected from it a greater mass of shrewd, observant, droll, playful, and generous spirits, than from any other equal numbers of society. They live in each other's presence like a set of players; congregate in courts like the former in the green room; and break their unpremeditated ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... that—it would be exceedingly easy to match and beat it out of the author himself—you must go to the maddest of the seventeenth-century metaphysicals—say to Edward Benlowes himself. But this is nothing: it is at worst an obvious playful exaggeration, very like some things of Dickens's own transposed into another key. But take this opening of the fifteenth chapter of Diana of ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... engrossed with her own happiness, should hardly have observed the road taken by Pownal, or been conscious of how far they had driven, until some remark of his attracted her attention to the scenery. She then perceived that they were in the midst of the Indian settlement on the Severn, and to a playful question of Pownal, inquiring how she would like to leave her card with Queen Esther, she replied by expressing her delight at the proposition. Esther's cabin stood some little distance off from the main ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... somewhat offsets the sinuous charm of the figure. Under the upper basin are four piping Pans, not notable individually, but adding to the decorative effect. The wall around the lower pool carries a playful frieze ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... rid of this kitten," said Jan. "It's wee happy and Playful—too much like Glory Goldie herself. It's best to have it ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... paused with a foot in the stirrup and interrupted him with a playful gesture; then as the horse stirred, he mounted and ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... eyes at the familiar landmarks of the trail. All was just as it had been when she rode down it at dawn that morning, Andy and Jeff ahead on their mules whistling, singing, skylarking like two playful bear cubs. It was herself that was changed. She pushed the cheap hat off her hot forehead and tried to win to some coherence of thought and—so far had she already come on a new, strange path—looked back with wondering uncomprehension, as upon the ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... very much in and was playful of almost everything, some important and some unimportant, as riding on Elephants and Horses and Ponies, racing of them and racing of rowing boats, firing on birds and beasts of prey, dancing and singing in various ways pleasantly, and various ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... remembered and wept for among the half-civilized friends of her exile, the poor, the sick, the needy and the oppressed. She makes the gentle, half-playful boast in one of her letters from the Nile that she is "very popular," and has made many cures as a Hakeem, or doctor, and that a Circassian had sat up with a dying Englishman because she had ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... consideration than he might have done under other circumstances, out of respect to Rogers and Adair, though they were under the impression that it was owing to their own merits, and were apt accordingly to take liberties with him. He behaved to them as a good-natured bear might towards a couple of playful children whom he could munch up in ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Bunyan; nothing harsh or savage. His natural humour perhaps saved him. His few recorded sayings all refer to the one central question; but healthy seriousness often best expresses itself in playful quaintness. He was once going somewhere disguised as a waggoner. He was overtaken by a constable who had a warrant to arrest him. The constable asked him if he knew that devil of a fellow Bunyan. 'Know him!' Bunyan said. ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... eyes flashed unusual fire, seemed to wish fervently to win back that regard which she, perhaps, feared to have lost already, and with her playful and witty conversation electrified the whole company. Jacobi, who was excited in no ordinary manner, drank one glass of wine after another, talked and laughed very loud, and looked between whiles upon Elise with glances which expressed his sentiments in no doubtful manner. These glances ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... in the same playful vein, "the poetical portion of my nature that has set me at this work. But I cannot satisfy myself as to the denouement of my story, and I ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... that he may have erred in the other extreme; and that having thought himself intitled, even in argument, to a certain degree of playful discussion, may have pushed it, in a few places, even to levity. This error might be yet more easily reformed than the other.—The Book is perhaps, as it stands, too bulky for the subject; but if the Reader ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... me. Anything I could do would be only too little for one who has stood by me the way you have. I want you to feel that I'm your friend in the deepest meaning of that word. You can count on me for anything." Then in a lighter tone as he gave the shoulder a half-playful slap he ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... said Wallace, hesitating and considering. "We don't desire to see in boys the sedateness and gravity of demeanor that we like to see in men. We like to see them playful and joyous while ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... why don't you come to see me?' He was in a playful mood. 'What do you want? A new automobile?' I answered, 'I haven't any automobile, new or old, and you know it. What I want is you. I always loved you—surely I proved that to you.' 'What you proved to me was that you were a sort of wild-cat. I'm afraid of you. And anyway, I'm tired ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... grateful for small favours and most affectionate by nature. To be sure, being affectionate with a bull about the size and general specifications of a furniture-car had its drawbacks. She was liable to lean up against you in a playful, kittenish kind of a way, and cave in most of your ribs. It was like having a violent flirtation with a landslide to venture up clost to Emily when she was in one of her tomboy moods. I've know' her to nudge a friend with one of her ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... showery, Scott was attended by one of his retainers, named Tommie Purdie, who carried his plaid, and who deserves especial mention. Sophia Scott used to call him her father's grand vizier, and she gave a playful account one evening, as she was hanging on her father's arm, of the consultations which he and Tommie used to have about matters relative to farming. Purdie was tenacious of his opinions, and he and Scott would have long disputes in front of ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... of sculpture in the church itself is a ciborium by Desiderio da Settignano, in the chapel at the end of the right transept—an exquisite work by this rare and playful and distinguished hand. It is fitting that Desiderio should be here, for he was Donatello's favourite pupil. The S. Lorenzo ciborium is wholly charming, although there is a "Deposition" upon it; the little Boy is adorable; but ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... grace. Benvenuto Cellini, who describes his character with much minuteness, has left us a picture of a hot-tempered, but genuine and kind-hearted man, whose taste was elegant, and whose wit, from the playful spirit with which it was pervaded, and from a certain tendency to innocent levity, approached to humour. He was liable to violent bursts of feeling; and his inability to control himself, his gesticulations, his exclamations, ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... was leaning lightly against one of the supporting columns. A playful smile parted her lips as ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... playful, Lord and Lady Northmoor had, it may be perceived, no lack of good sense in their strange new surroundings. It was hard not to feel like guests on sufferance, and next morning, a Sunday, was wet. However, under their waterproofs ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge |
