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High-spirited   Listen
adjective
High-spirited  adj.  Full of spirit or natural fire; haughty; courageous; impetuous; not brooking restraint or opposition.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"High-spirited" Quotes from Famous Books



... misunderstood to mean that none are ladies and gentlemen who do not eat with silver forks, or that all persons that go about in carriages deserve those gracious names. I have met with persons calling themselves gentlemen, who evidently thought it manly and high-spirited to swear at their servants, and who were incapable of appreciating any anecdote which was not profane or coarse; and I have met, as all who go amongst the poor have met, men who well deserved that noble epithet ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... have been written against time in a debtor's prison, under the influence of such liquor as Catherina Bountinall or Doll Tearsheet would have flung at the tapster's head with an accompaniment of such language as those eloquent and high-spirited ladies, under less offensive provocation, were wont to lavish on the officials of an oppressive law. I have read a good deal of bad verse, but anything like the metre of this play I have never come across in all the range of that excruciating ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... place was oppressive to the bright, high-spirited young man. The bare severity of the building was bad enough in church, he felt, but in Sunday school it was disastrous. It should be a bright place, full of light and life. He made up his mind he would set Miss Cotton and the Ladies' Aid to redouble ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... first looked over the letter I received last night, my mind instantly dictated a high-spirited vindication of the consistency, integrity, and faithfulness of the friendship thus abruptly reproached and cast away. But a sleepless night gave me leisure to recollect that you were ever as generous as precipitate, and that your own heart would do justice to mine, in the ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... said, it did not suit her that her companion should be engaged to marry her late sister's nephew. Not a word had been said about the deanery for the last month or two, and Lucy, though her hopes in that direction had once been good, was far too high-spirited to make any suggestion herself as to her reception by her lover's family. In the ordinary course of things she would have to look out for another situation, like any other governess in want of a place; but she could do this only by consulting Lady Fawn; and Lady Fawn when consulted ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... delicate, though not less striking, connection between the story of Guise and of Monmouth, there are other collateral allusions in the piece to the history of that unfortunate nobleman, and to the state of parties. The whole character of Marmoutiere, high-spirited, loyal, and exerting all her influence to deter Guise from the prosecution of his dangerous schemes, corresponds to that of Anne, Duchess of Monmouth.[35] The love too which the king professes to Marmoutiere, and which excites the jealousy of Guise, may bear ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... 'Irish difficulties,' as well as the justice of feeble, insincere, and baffled statesmen in casting the blame of Irish misery and disorder on the unruly and barbarous nature of Irishmen. They will recollect that the aristocracy of Ireland are the high-spirited descendants of conquerors, with the instinct of conquest still in their blood. The parliament which enacted the Irish land laws was a parliament composed almost exclusively of men of this dominant race. They made all political power dependent on the ownership of land, thus creating for themselves ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... that he advised men was sure to be the best for them to do. Gentle and generous, he unravelled every man's knotty points who came to see him about them. Bergthora was his wife's name; she was Skarphedinn's daughter, a very high-spirited, brave-hearted woman, but somewhat hard-tempered. They had six children, three daughters and three sons, and they all come ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... eighteen years of age when he took his place on the honorable Saxon throne of Alfred the Great. He was a high-spirited young man, warm-hearted and brave. He conquered Cumberland from the Ancient Britons, and protected his kingdom against the fierce sea-kings of the North. Like his great ancestor, King Alfred, he was ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... the importance of these things," Kenwardine remarked in an indulgent tone. "It's difficult to avoid getting a jar now and then, though I've tried to shield you as much as possible. Fuller's young and high-spirited, and you really mustn't judge his ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... brought to a close by the death of the noble-minded, high-spirited Philip; when the Christians had slaked their revenge in his blood, exposed his head in triumph on a pike, and captured his helpless innocent child of nine years old; would it be credited, that there was council held to put this child to death, and that ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... of Michael the Stammerer, was one of the most active and high-spirited princes who reigned at Constantinople during the middle age. In offensive or defensive war, he marched in person five times against the Saracens, formidable in his attack, esteemed by the enemy in his losses and defeats. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... had forgotten that it was no easy matter to keep these high-spirited boys, bent on a row, in decent subjection; and after the third hour passed without a supernatural exhibition, I observed, from certain winks and whispers, that they were determined to get up indications ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... actual matter, from church parade to gas-attacks, which readers on this side will not by now have seen or heard about, times beyond number; but one can imagine sympathetically with what concern it will all be received in the homes oversea; and after turning its high-spirited and encouraging pages can warmly echo the admonition of their writer: "Pacifists and small-army people ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various

... Iranian plateau: to the west and north-west by the principalities and nomad tribes, mostly of Aramoan extraction, who now for a century had peopled the mountains of the Tigris and the steppes of Mesopotamia. They were high-spirited, warlike, hardy populations, proud of their independence and quick to take up arms in its defence or for its recovery, but none of them possessed more than a restricted domain, or had more than a handful of soldiers at its disposal. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the sulky boy is more to be blamed than pitied. That he is an odious, disagreeable fellow, there is no doubt. But perhaps it's not all his own fault. Some boys are of duller natures than others. The high-spirited, healthy, sanguine fellow will flare up at a moment's notice, and let fly without stopping to think twice of the injury done him, while the dull boy is altogether slower in his movements: words don't come to his lips so quickly, or thoughts ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... Peters coming out of the House fall out with his lady (from whom he is parted) about this business; saying that she disgraced him. But she hath been a handsome woman, and is, it seems, not only a lewd woman, but very high-spirited. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... Zarah was no high-spirited heroine, but a timid, gentle, loving girl, subject to fears, shrinking from danger, peculiarly sensitive to pain whether physical or mental. Though related both to Solomona and Hadassah, Zarah had neither the calm fortitude of the one, nor the exalted spirituality of the other; ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... so sorely and so absurdly discomposed us all. I could hardly believe that I had actually wasted hours of precious time in worrying myself and everybody else in the house about the best means of laboriously entertaining a lively, high-spirited girl, who was perfectly capable, without an effort on her own part or on ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... overhauled and he himself picked up by a British man-of-war, the Lightning, then returning from the West Indies, where it had formed part of the fleet under the command of Admiral Benbow. Young Wells, being a likely lad enough, well-spoken and high-spirited, was at once entered on the books as officer's servant, in which capacity he both gained great popularity on account of the freedom of his manners, and found an opportunity for indulging in those practical pleasantries for which he had all ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... best of his recollection, the Editor never saw him abroad without an umbrella; which in fine weather he used as a parasol, to preserve his eyes. He even rode with it on horseback, a very awkward operation, considering the high-spirited animals that composed his stud, and the constitutional malady in his hip-joint, which, in addition to his weight (for he was a remarkably strong-built man), and his never riding without military spurs, reduced his danger ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... 'Edgeworth's Patronage,' I have gotten a high compliment, I perceive. Whether this is creditable to me, I know not; but it does honour to the editor, because he once abused me. Many a man will retract praise; none but a high-spirited mind will revoke its censure, or can praise the man it has once attacked. I have often, since my return to England, heard Jeffrey most highly commended by those who know him for things independent of his talents. I admire him for ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... on the matter, for the Empress herself expressed so decidedly her wish to take Balbilla with her to the Nile, that any resistance would have been unduteous. Still; in her secret heart, she could not but confess to herself that her high-spirited and wilful foster-child—for so she loved to call Balbilla—would undoubtedly have carried out her purpose without ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... were redder. She was a quick-tempered, high-spirited young woman. "Hands off! he's mine," her manner, more than her words, said to Auntie, who would have liked to listen to a few wifely confidences as she and her niece sat ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... main reason lies in the one fact, which is notorious to everyone, and that is that Sir Eustace was a confirmed drunkard. To be with such a man for an hour is unpleasant. Can you imagine what it means for a sensitive and high-spirited woman to be tied to him for day and night? It is a sacrilege, a crime, a villany to hold that such a marriage is binding. I say that these monstrous laws of yours will bring a curse upon the land—God will not let such wickedness endure.' For an instant she sat up, her cheeks ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,

... sufficient power to control the actions of the individual states. The great experiment was to be tried by the representatives of the nation while listening to the sad lessons derived from the history of all past republics, and beneath the scrutiny of an active, restless, intelligent, high-spirited people, who were too fond of liberty to brook any great resistance to their inclinations, especially if they seemed to be coincident with ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... customary starting-point at the head of the street, a half-mile away, so that the old-fashioned sleigh was surrounded by the light, fancy cutters of the rival racers, and old Jack was shambling awkwardly along in the midst of the high-spirited and smoking nags that had just ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... have listened to a proud, high-spirited woman trying to prove that women would equal men in material accomplishment, if only they had a chance, you get so sad that you find yourself helping her out—digging up De Sevignes, De Staels, and other "great" women who have made up in brains for what they perhaps lacked ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... mantle, a war-worn soldier, his complexion tanned to deep brown, his hair bleached with toil and sun, a scar on his cheek, a halt on his step—altogether a man in whom none would have recognized the bright, graceful, high-spirited young Hospitalier of twenty years since. Only when he spoke, and the smiling light beamed in his eye, could he be known for Sir ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... brothers in the upper class of the Edinburgh grammar school, known as the High School. Though he had had some lessons in Latin with a private tutor, he was behind his class in this subject, and being a high-spirited and sensitive boy, he felt rather keenly this disadvantage. Perhaps the fact that he could not be one of the leaders of his class made him careless; at any rate, he could never be depended upon to prepare his lesson, and at no time did he make a consistently good record. However, he found ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... I didn't recognize the symptoms. Very pretty and very clever and very high-spirited, her mother says. Is there ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne

... grew up a very silent, handsome, shy young fellow. The girl, dark, voluble, and rather interesting. The husband, more and more immersed in his business, was absent from home for long periods irritable after some of these home-comings; boisterously high-spirited following other trips. Now growling about household expenses and unpaid bills; now urging the purchase of some almost prohibitive luxury. Anyone but a nagging, self-absorbed, and vain woman such as Flora would have marked these unmistakable signs. But Flora was a taker, ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... sleep in a hammock, to coliar the bulls and shout with the vaqueros at rodeo, to be the first at the games and the races, to wear his silken clothes and lace ruffles, and eat the delightful dishes his mother's cooks prepared! And then he was a very high-spirited young gentleman. Although the same obedience, almost reverence, was exacted of him by his parents that was a part of the household religion in California, yet as the youngest child, who had been delicate ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton

... an enthusiastic, high-spirited girl," he urged upon his surprised hearer, who expected a very different expression of opinion. "This fellow Anstruther is a plausible sort of rascal, a good man in a tight place too—just the sort of fire-eating blackguard who would fill the heroic bill where a ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... to the right hand or the left, halting at the word of command, or dashing forward at full speed at the sound of the trumpet or signal of the officer. He was, when young, a dark, dappled iron-gray, and considered very handsome. His master, a young, high-spirited gentleman, was very fond of him, and treated him from the first with the greatest care and kindness. He told me he thought the life of an army horse was very pleasant; but when it came to being sent abroad over the sea in a great ship, he ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell

... suspected by some that they were privately married: if so, the secret had been closely kept, and baffled all the inquiries of the stern old uncle. Still there was much, not only in the manner, at once modest and dignified, but in the character of Catherine, which was proud and high-spirited, to give colour to the suspicion. Beaufort, a man naturally careless of forms, paid her a marked and punctilious respect; and his attachment was evidently one not only of passion, but of confidence and esteem. Time developed in her mental qualities far superior to those of Beaufort, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... are few more incongruous and sadly affecting things than a woman of fine intellect and strong passions, without self-control or truly religious feeling. She is like a ship whose rudder is unhung; she is like a horse, rapid, high-spirited, untamed to the bridle; or, higher still, she is like a cherub fallen from its sphere of glory, with no attending seraph; without law, without the control of love, whose course no intelligence can anticipate and no wisdom guide. Religion seems to have in ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... high-spirited children, I thank God." Mr. Simeon sighed. "Moreover, as it happened, they wanted my Liddell and Scott to play at ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... a good whip, and the horse, though young and rather high-spirited, was, he said, very dependable on the whole, and had never caused him any trouble. We spun along at a brisk trot—the last village separating us from the Hall was past, and we were on a high eminence, almost within sight of ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... the spirit of political independence commenced to revive; and during the reign of Elizabeth the spirit of liberty and sense of responsibility manifested by the House of Commons were such as repeatedly to thwart the designs and to alter the policy of this high-spirited monarch. It was, however, the severity of the policy of the last of the Tudors and the first two of the Stuart kings against the dissenting Protestants, that identified the struggle for religious liberty, ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... especially. One was the chapter relating her experiences at the Dramatic Academy, which is full of life and actuality, and should be read by all middle-aged supporters of that institution who wish to obtain a glimpse of its hard-working and high-spirited heart. The other is the episode of the muddled elopement, in which Nan and Tony, having got as far as Dover on their way to the Higher Liberty, severally——But I don't think I will spoil for you the delightful comedy of what happens at Dover by repeating ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various

... supporting so base and degenerate a prince, who was willing to sacrifice every consideration to his present safety: and he foresaw that, if the administration should fall into the hands of those gallant and high-spirited barons, they would vindicate the honour, liberty, and independence of the nation, with the same ardour which they now exerted in defence of their own. He wrote letters therefore to the prelates, to the nobility, and to the king himself. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... visit the Austrian court and stayed there two years, had many conversations with Marie Louise, which certainly were unlikely to inspire her with any taste for the French Revolution or for General Bonaparte. It is easy to understand how extremely the high-spirited and haughty Queen of the Two Sicilies must have been distressed and revolted by the sufferings and death of her sister, Marie Antoinette. There was something very solemn in the way in which she told her children what took place in Paris October 16, 1793. ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... hold anything uncomfortably sacred—though indeed he held all things sacred with a kind of eagerness that charmed me. Instead of meeting him in dolorous pietistic mood, I met him, I remember, as at school or college one suddenly met a frank, smiling, high-spirited youth or boy, who was ready at once to take comradeship for granted, and walked away with one from a gathering, with an outrush of talk and plans for further meetings. It was all so utterly unlike the subdued and cautious and sensitive ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... all along the line of street, until the carriage came nearly opposite the entrance gate of the Alameda, still going slowly; at which the pampered, high-spirited horses seemed to chafe and fret. Just then, however, they showed a determination to change the pace, or at all events the direction, by making a sudden start and shy to the right; which carried the off wheels nearly nave-deep ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... their freedom. Janet will be just the right wife for Erskine, good tempered and yielding. He is a dear person, but obstinate. When he once makes up his mind, nothing will move him. It would never do for him to have a high-spirited wife." ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... toy of no importance, to make him keep a gentle kind of stirring in the research and quest thereof. In like manner, these small scolding debates and petty brabbling contentions, which frequently we see spring up and for a certain space boil very hot betwixt a couple of high-spirited lovers, are nothing else but recreative diversions for their refreshment, spurs to and incentives of a more fervent amity than ever. As, for example, we do sometimes see cutlers with hammers maul their finest whetstones, therewith to sharpen ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... been strange if the older slave-holding communities on her southern and eastern border had seen with distrust and dislike the advance of the young free state, and had given her that nickname partly out of envy and partly out of contempt. Their citizens were high-spirited and generous, but they had not the public spirit which New England had imparted to Ohio, for public spirit comes from equality and from the feeling for others' rights, and the very supremacy which the slaveholders enjoyed was fatal to this feeling. ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... hopes and fears, and in the greatest sense the mutual interests of the peoples of the earth. If, unheeding this, any people make their part of the earth ugly with acts of tyranny and baseness, they threaten the security of all; if unconscious of it, a people always high-spirited are plunged into war with a neighbour, now a foe, and yet fight, as their nature compels them, bravely and magnanimously, they but drive their enemy back to the field of a purer life, and, perhaps, to the realisation ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... high-spirited man more than a menace. Sir Charles, threatened in his wife's hearing, shot out his right arm with surprising force and rapidity, and knocked Wheeler down in ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... rain still pounded unweariedly on the roof, Aunt Abigail told the story of a high-spirited young ancestress, who had lived back in the colonial times, and in the stirring days of '76 had pitted her wits against one of King George's officers, and won from him a concession which was perhaps equally a tribute ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... more recent poems in The Lonely Dancer (1913) show a keener individuality and a finer lyrical passion. His prose fancies are well known—particularly The Book Bills of Narcissus and the charming and high-spirited fantasia, The Quest of the ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various

... proud woman's soul. The coward Gaston, when passing through Moulins, sought an interview. Richelieu, also, whose emissary received the following message: "Tell your master, that my tears reply for me and that I am his humble servant." Years after, Louis XIV. visited the once beautiful and high-spirited Italian, now an aged abbess occupying a bare cell and from his lips, despot and voluptuary though he was, might always be expected the right word in the right place. "Madame," he said, on taking leave, "we may learn something here. I need not ask you to pray ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... forced to restrain such feelings as these in his presence. He took all the blame to himself. He would not allow her to reproach herself. He it was, he insisted, who had been alone to blame in subjecting a generous, high-spirited girl to such terrible treatment—to imprisonment and spying and coercion. So great was his own grief that Edith found herself forced from the position of penitent into that of comforter, and often had to lose ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... brought about by their consciousness that his intellect was superior to theirs, and that his ideas were too thoroughly Prussian to constitute anything but a serious danger to their English liberalism. The effect of influences such as these upon a high-spirited and impulsive youth, at the time entirely devoid of experience or of knowledge of the world, may readily be conceived. It naturally led to an increase of what his parents regarded as his presumptuousness and forwardness of manner, and consequently to a growth of their severity ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... courage; reassure, encourage, embolden, inspirit, cheer, nerve, put upon one's mettle, rally, raise a rallying cry; pat on the back, make a man of., keep in countenance. Adj. courageous, brave; valiant, valorous; gallant, intrepid; spirited, spiritful^; high-spirited, high-mettled^; mettlesome, plucky; manly, manful; resolute; stout, stout-hearted; iron-hearted, lion-hearted; heart of oak; Penthesilean. bold, bold-spirited; daring, audacious; fearless, dauntless, dreadless^, aweless; undaunted, unappalled, undismayed, unawed, unblanched, unabashed, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... determined loyalist, and hated the covenanters, not without reason. His father, a haughty high-spirited baron, and chief of a clan, happened, in 1639, to sit down in the desk of provost Lesly, in the high kirk of Aberdeen He was disgracefully thrust out by the officers, and, using some threatening language to the provost, was imprisoned, like ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... fighting and display. When in his cups he would often call for a horseshoe and twist it into a knot with his powerful fingers. Many were his mistresses; but the one for whom he cared the most was a beautiful and high-spirited Swedish girl of rank, Aurora von Konigsmarck. She was descended from a rough old field-marshal who in the Thirty Years' War had slashed and sacked and pillaged and plundered to his heart's content. From him Aurora von Konigsmarck seemed to have inherited ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... say that the unpleasant experience that he has undergone—his detention for twelve hours in a police cell, and his appearance here—is ample punishment for his boyish escapade, which might have been committed by any high-spirited young ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... girls! They laughed at Rose because she was so much more like what God meant a woman should be than they. A weak-minded, shallow girl would have succumbed to their ridicule, and soon have become like them, but high-spirited Rose only despised them, and gradually sought out and found some companionship with those of the better sort in the large store. But there seemed so much hollowness and falsehood on every side that she ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... But this high-spirited prisoner was not content with merely enlivening his own and his friends' captivity—day and night that active brain of his was plotting escape. One attempt to get away by land failed at once, but with him a failure only ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... married,—flowers and confectionery, and one thing or other; and, since I have been here now, he has done the same, and I really didn't know what to do about it. You know I didn't want to quarrel with him, or get his ill-will; he's a high-spirited fellow, and a man one doesn't want for an enemy; so I have just passed it ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... those old geometers, poets, orators, historians, philosophers, and statesmen, who ought, in Lord De la Zouch's and his son's tutor's judgment, to occupy exclusively the head of the aforesaid Delamere for some five years to come. That youngster—happy fellow!—frank, high-spirited, and enthusiastic—and handsome to boot—was heir to an ancient title and very great estates; all that his father had considered in looking out for an alliance was—youth, health, beauty, blood—here they ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... and sing to him; but everything I did for this one was a perfect drag,—yet I was afraid to refuse anything. He was very imperious, and harsh to the children. Elise was a timid little thing; but Henry was bold and high-spirited, like his father, and he had never been brought under, in the least, by any one. He was always finding fault, and quarrelling with him; and I used to live in daily fear and dread. I tried to make the child respectful;—I tried to keep them apart, for I held on to those children like death; ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... of interruptions. There are a good many valuable and inspiring things which can only be done when one is in the mood, and to secure a mood is not always an easy matter; there are moods which are as coy as the most high-spirited woman, and must be wooed with as much patience and tact: and when the illusive prize is gained, one holds it by the frailest tenure. An interruption diverts the current, cuts the golden thread, breaks the exquisite harmony. I have ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... confusion with the wife of the present rector. It is as if there were two Mrs. John Smiths, one of whom is called Mrs. Helen; Maxa being, of course, a feminine Christian name. Of the five children the eldest is the high-spirited, impulsive Bruno, who is just of an age to go away to a city school. Next comes his sister Mea, whose fault is that she is too submissive and confiding. Kurt, the second boy, is the most enterprising and humorous of the family; whereas, Lippo, ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri

... of it. He's noble, high-spirited, the soul of honor. He was always good and never gave me an hour's sorrow in his life until this ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... the destruction of the monarchy. While the French were smarting under defeat and stung by the knowledge that their natural defender, the king, was leagued with their enemies, this foreign soldier warned a high-spirited and gallant nation that he was come to restore Louis XVI. to his authority, and threatened to treat as rebellious any town that opposed his march, to shoot all persons taken with arms in their hands, and in the event of any insult being offered to the royal family ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... he was 15 T. made the acquaintance of a pretty blonde of the same age. She was a high-spirited hoiden. They were soon close friends and later lovers. They wrote a number of letters to each other and exchanged locks of hair and presents. Their talk about love was unreserved. One day she told T. that she had been sexually embraced by a former lover, a boy of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... call you a pair of fine high-spirited girls," said the old gentleman heartily, interrupting in his turn, "and all I can say is I wish I ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... its edge, prepared, it would seem, to push it still farther back. Julian was much surprised, and somewhat frightened, at what he witnessed, for the tales of the nursery had strongly impressed on his mind the terrors of the invisible world. Yet, naturally bold and high-spirited, the little champion placed himself beside his defenceless sister, continuing to brandish his weapon in her defence, as boldly as he had himself been ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... the advantage of him; and at last, with his young wife, and the remnant of his property contained in a valise, he retired to Boulogne, in the hope that some of his wife's relatives who resided in that town would have larger bowels of compassion than those he had left in the city. The once gay and high-spirited officer found himself mistaken: they could not give any encouragement to one who had set so bad an example to the younger members of their families; should they support Madame O'Farrel, their own daughters might be throwing themselves away on some of the Irish adventurers, with whom ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston

... have often mistaken their hen-feathered opponents in the cock-pit for real hens, and by the mistake have lost their lives. (7/47. 'The Field' April 20, 1861. The writer says he has seen half-a-dozen cocks thus sacrificed.) The cocks, though dressed in the feathers of the hen, "are high-spirited birds, and their courage has been often proved:" an engraving even has been published of one celebrated hen-tailed victor. Mr. Tegetmeier (7/48. 'Proceedings of Zoolog. Soc.' March 1861 page 102. The engraving of the hen-tailed cock just ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... overseer was a coward, and that if he could work upon his fears by supposing me to be too high-spirited to stand a whipping, he would probably save me from Hines' malice, and keep the overseer to his work. Good overseers were hard to get in the South. An intelligent Christian man would not have such a position under any circumstances, and ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson

... at that age," he remarked. "He was at Harrow, but he shied at college, and there was no one to insist upon his going. The pair of them had only a firm of lawyers for guardians. He's just a good-looking, clean-minded, high-spirited young fellow, full of beans, and needing the bit every now and then. But, of course, he's no different from the run of young fellows of his age, and if an adventure came his way I suppose he'd see ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... reconciliation; but he had come as the martyr, as one injured. His egotism at such a time, joined to his attempt to make light of things, of treating what had happened as a mere "moment of exasperation," as "one of those episodes inseparable from the lives of the high-spirited," only made her heart sink and grow cold, almost as insensible as the flesh under a spray of ether. He had been neither wise nor patient. She had not slept after that bitter, terrible scene, and the morning had found her like one battered by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... in bachelor days moving may be a huge lark, a humorous escapade. We remember some high-spirited young men, three of them, who were moving their chattels from rooms on Twenty-first Street to a flat on Irving Place. Frugality was their necessary watchword, and they hired a pushcart in which to transport the dunnage. It was necessary to do this ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... Danish mission was the price which she exacted from Peregrine Bertie, lately called up to the house of peers as lord Willoughby of Eresby in right of his mother, for her reluctant and ungracious recognition of his undeniable title to this dignity. On the occurrence of this first mention of a high-spirited nobleman, afterwards celebrated for a brilliant valor which rendered him the idol of popular fame, the remarkable circumstances of his birth and parentage must not be omitted. His mother, only daughter and heir of the ninth ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... partiality; but we believe him to have been as honest and courageous a man as ever lived. We will go further, and say that, though passionate and often wrongheaded, he was a singularly fair controversialist, candid, generous, too high-spirited to take mean advantages even in the most exciting disputes, and pure from all taint of personal malevolence. It must also be admitted that his opinions on ecclesiastical and political affairs, though in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... did not mean that he ought to go into the House by way of getting an income. If he takes up the title of course he could not do so. If he takes it, he must regard himself as an Italian. I should think him quite as respectable, earning his bread as a clerk in a public office. They tell me he's a high-spirited fellow. If he is, that ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... our poor human ways of thinking; but she may possibly grow into saintship, in view of a certain sturdy religious sense of duty that belongs to her, and a faith that is always glowing. At present she is a high-spirited, sensitive girl,—not without her pride and her lesser vanities, not without an immense capacity for loving and being loved, but just now trembling under that shock to her sensibilities which we have detailed,—but never fainting, never despairing. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... to return to the manner of pleasant social things) Senator Lewis will go on home with me, and you—(he is hurrying out) come when you can. (to the SENATOR) Madeline is such a high-spirited girl. ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell

... violent, only long training and severe experience had taught him self-control, and when he gave way to passion his bursts of fury were still tremendous. Mrs. Lee's evident personal disgust, even more than her last sharp rebuke, passed the bounds of his patience. As he stood before her, even she, high-spirited as she was, and not in a calm frame of mind, felt a momentary shock at seeing how his face flushed, his eyes gleamed, and his ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... yield, high-spirited when crossed, yet carrying off even her stubbornness and quick temper by the brilliancy, the wit, the lively and bold audacity which she cast around them, Agnes ruled in her circle an imperious and despotic queen; while her slaves, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... was obsessed by a sense of unfaithfulness. But there was no alternative; if he wanted to get on he must adapt himself in everything, in prejudices and opinions alike. But he promised himself to flout the lot of them so soon as he felt sufficiently high-spirited. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... on a social footing. Herein lies a grave danger to English colonial policy. Your semi-European educated native, having partly absorbed European manners, resents this subordination and ostracism. So, with this high-spirited, rather clever young rajah. I accepted his invitation to whiskey "pegs" and subsequent dinner at his bungalow. One visit led to another and we were soon rather intimate. The young Rajah, having the usual native taste for luxury well developed and his income stopped, ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves

... he's a high-spirited, right-actin' gentleman. But what do you reckon he'd feel obliged to do if a body stole one of ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... in one of the big private diningrooms a brilliant, high-spirited company of revellers. One of Mrs. Fenwick's guests was Lutie Tresslyn. He sat opposite her at one of the big round tables, and for an hour he had watched with moody eyes her charming, vivacious face as she conversed with the men on either side of her. She ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... great fires on the hearth, as to endanger the safety of the edifice. A lady of the Livingstone family who had apartments there remonstrated with General Hawley, who treated her fears with contempt. "I can run away from fire as fast as you can, General," answered the high-spirited dame, and with this sarcasm took horse for Edinburgh. Very soon after her departure her apprehensions were realized; the Palace of Linlithgow caught fire and was burned to the ground. The ruins alone remain to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... eh?" Trowbridge skillfully managed his horse, which was high-spirited enough to still be sportive in spite of the long ride of the morning. "Every cloud's got a silver lining, as the poet says. And another thing, it shows Rexhill's real motive, don't forget that. Oh, we'll get 'em by and by. Sure thing, we will. Well, ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... Presbyterians. The opposing system was discredited in their mind by the policy by which it was promoted. It was a policy of coercion, of bribery, of dissimulation and artifice, of resort to every kind of influence that is intolerable to a free and high-spirited people. It was a policy that harassed the most faithful and honourable men in the Church, and preferred the most unscrupulous and obsequious to places of power. There was not one of those concerned in it, from ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... necked, murmurers, disobedient, unwilling to trust God's goodness, though He had shown them all those glorious signs and wonders for their sakes, and brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm. Were they high-spirited and brave? On the contrary, they were mean-spirited and cowards, murmuring against Moses and against God, if anything went wrong, for setting them free; ready to go back and be slaves to the Egyptians rather than face danger and fight; ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... had staked life and good fame and everything on the final issue of his work, yet himself and his law partner, Peter T. Abell, went back from the Wakarusa never to lift a finger again in that business. Mr. S. is a high-spirited, hot-blooded, proud-spirited Virginian. His law partner, Col. Abell, had a temper as unbending as Andrew Jackson, and did to the day of his death hold a faith in the institution of slavery as abiding as John C. Calhoun. ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... resources; all combination with other towns being unavailing from their great distance. Our situation was no ordinary one. Had there been some mysterious robbers among us, the chances of a visit, divided among so many, would have been too small to distress the most timid; while to young and high-spirited people, with courage to spare for ordinary trials, such a state of expectation would have sent pulses of pleasurable anxiety among the nerves. But murderers! exterminating murderers!—clothed in mystery and utter darkness—these were objects too terrific for any family to contemplate ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... was a splendid girl, high-spirited and active; had been raised on the frontier and was ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... portents of a second flight of the Bourbons, and a second reinstatement (that almost fabulous phase of contemporary history), all these things took the Marquis by surprise at the age of sixty-seven. At that time of life, the most high-spirited men of their age were not so much vanquished as worn out in the struggle with the Revolution; their activity, in their remote provincial retreats, had turned into a passionately held and immovable conviction; and almost all of them were shut in by the enervating, ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... so! Well, I once had a good friend who had foolishly given her heart to a handsome, high-spirited boy. She was a mere child and it was a very touching relationship: knightly devotion on his part and tender sighings on hers. Then the young heroine had the misfortune to become very jealous, and so far forgot ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... simple truth. He lived in his sensations, spurring himself to fresh ones as he had but just now been spurring his horse to sate the greed of conquest in him. And this high-spirited, gallant creature—he could feel her vital courage in the very ring of her voice—offered a rare fillip to his jaded appetite. The dusky, long-lashed eyes which always give a woman an effect of beauty, the splendid fling of head, and ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... processes of organic nutrition as influenced by the truth or falsity of their component ideas. Their tendency to personification is stronger, because of the much greater nearness they have to the individual desire. The one aspiration of a high-spirited people when subjugated will be freedom; and in the lower stages of culture they will be very certain to fabricate a myth ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... and lack of experience, many of the girls were as naughty as they dared, and defied her authority on every occasion. Amongst the ring-leaders in what may be called "the opposition", I regret to say Enid Walker held a foremost place. She was a very high-spirited, headstrong girl, who resented any restraint; she either took a violent fancy to people, or disliked them equally heartily: anyone who could gain her affection could lead her most easily, otherwise she ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... it all; he looked his apathetic, sulky self—a man whom nothing would ever galvanize into real good-fellowship. How could so intelligent a woman as Blanche think that any money could compensate a clever, high-spirited girl like Bubbles for marrying a James Tapster? Varick was glad Bubbles was not "in front." She was probably divesting herself of that extraordinary witch costume of hers behind the little curtained aperture to ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes

... hacking off the piece of pork, a high-spirited black pony dashed into the courtyard, attached to a calash driven by a very stout, merry-eyed priest, who pulled up at ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... and mother looked at each other with shocked understanding. The surprise attending the letter had caused both parents to forget, for the moment, the effect of this wonderful promise of fortune, whether true or false, on imaginative, high-spirited Nan. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... Pieresc, though he had no faith in the vain science of astrology, yet, alarmed at whatever menaced the life of a beloved monarch, consulted with some of the king's friends, and had the Spanish almanac laid before his majesty. That high-spirited monarch thanked them for their solicitude, but utterly slighted the prediction: the event occurred, and in the following year the Spanish friar spread his own fame in a new almanac. I have been occasionally struck at ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... peculiarities tell upon them, either by affecting their dispositions or being caught by them and reproduced. To take one example among many, the pitch and intonation of the voice often impress more than the words. A nurse with a querulous tone has a restless nursery; she makes the high-spirited contradictory and the delicate fretful. In teaching, a high-pitched voice is exciting and wearing to children; certain cadences that end on a high note rouse opposition, a monotonous intonation wearies, deeper and more ample tones are quieting and reassuring, but ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... neighborhood of South Chicago there lived a number of young girls, healthy, high-spirited, and full of that joy of life which always must be fed—if not with wholesome food, then husks. For parents these girls had fathers who worked twelve hours a day in the steel mills and came home at night half dead from lack of rest and sleep; and mothers who toiled equally ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... child was a son, who owed nothing to his father but the prospect of a fair inheritance, for he was little like him in form, and not at all in mind: he was a fine, manly, generous, and high-spirited youth—such as would have been thought too early born, had his appearance been made before the hereditary servility of his family was forgotten. The knight, too, had an only child, a daughter; who, in personal appearance ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various

... you'd gather her in all right to start with," he interrupted; "but there are other things," he added, turning a little toward me and looking me in the face. "Suppose she didn't turn out just as you thought! She's a wild, high-spirited sort of creature—is Eve. She loves the music and the rattle of life. I can't fancy her in one of those out-of-the-way, God-forsaken little mudholes you call an English village, sitting in an early-Victorian drawing-room all the afternoon, ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... bespoke a keen sense of enjoyment. Certainly this high-spirited old lady was not much like the ordinary plague patient. Dinah knocked lightly at the door, and entered, the two girls following her ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... is the attempt which is so often made by the educator to impose his own habits and tastes on natures that are essentially different. It is common for men of lymphatic temperaments, of studious, saintly, and retiring tastes, to endeavor to force a high-spirited young man starting in life into their own mould—to prescribe for him the cast of tastes and pursuits they find most suited for themselves, forgetting that such an ideal can never satisfy a wholly different nature, and that in aiming ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... latter days of March there came a third letter from Rachel O'Mahony. Like the other letter it was cheerful, and high-spirited; but still it seemed to speak of impending dangers, which Frank, though he could not understand them, thought that he ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... policy of his country. Bold and prudent, courageous and wise, he had known better than anybody how to estimate the true interests of Holland, and how to maintain them everywhere, against Cromwell as well as Mazarin, with high-spirited moderation. His great and cool judgment had inclined him towards France, the most useful ally Holland could have. In spite of the difficulties put in the way of their friendly relations by Colbert's commercial measures, a new treaty was concluded between ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... and damaged offspring—idiots, imbeciles, mental or moral deficients, and so forth, who unfortunately are fertile. Thus the prevention of venereal disease is a eugenic force. It is in fact the only eugenic force in operation at present. Generally speaking, it is the well-developed and high-spirited and enterprising young men who travel most, and who, therefore, are most likely to contract and spread venereal disease. They come in contact with a much larger number of women than those who stay at home instead of wandering abroad. These well-to-do ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout

... was young, good-looking, and strong. She carried her double burden with ease, laying back her ears and champing her bit like the high-spirited mare she was. Passing in front of the pasture, she caught sight of her mother, whose name was the Old Gray as hers was the Young Gray, and she whinnied in token of good-by. The Old Gray came nearer ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... think me very curious and impertinent; but Paris is about the most dangerous capital a high-spirited and generous young gentleman could visit without a Mentor. If you have not an experienced friend as a companion during ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... canvas sacking tied with brown ribbons, while his wife wore a purple djibbah with a richly embroidered yoke. He was a small, dark, reserved man, with a large inflexible-looking convex forehead, and his wife was very pink and high-spirited, with one of those chins that pass insensibly into a full, strong neck. Once a week, every Saturday, they had a little gathering from nine till the small hours, just talk and perhaps reading aloud and fruitarian refreshments—chestnut sandwiches buttered ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... months engaged on Persuasion. It was begun before she went to London in the autumn of 1815 for the publication of Emma; but that visit and all that happened to her during the winter must certainly have interrupted its composition, and possibly modified its tone. It is less high-spirited and more tender in its description of a stricken heart than anything she had ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... was to stand by his friends, France and Belgium, in the face of the monstrous outrage that was being forced upon them. He is out, in fact, to save civilization and human decency. Consequently he finds it just a little difficult to understand how a warm-hearted and high-spirited nation can be expected to remain "neutral even ...
— Getting Together • Ian Hay

... of goodly warrior / many a coat was rent, For in the country's custom / they tourneyed as they went, Until before the palace / the monarch did dismount. They tended fairest ladies / as knights high-spirited ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler

... shock of astonishment, Sam Marlowe had listened to his father's harangue with a growing indignation which, towards the end of the speech, had assumed proportions of a cold fury. If there is one thing the which your high-spirited young man resents, it is being the toy of Fate. He chafes at the idea that Fate had got it all mapped out for him. Fate, thought Sam, had constructed a cheap, mushy, sentimental, five-reel film scenario, and without consulting ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... a warm-hearted, high-spirited girl, clever and ambitious, and disposed at first to look contemptuously on poor Arthur, whose humble labors appear in most dingy and sordid colors, when contrasted with the fair Fanny's gorgeous dreams. She is not a very fascinating nor a very real heroine; but she is ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... clan, whose home we spoke of in the opening of our sketch, had long existed a warm friendship and a mutual high regard. Yamashiro, though more fond of society and good living than Nakayama, was nevertheless, like him, a high-spirited and well-read man. He had four children, two sons and two daughters. The oldest son, named Taro, was now twenty years old, of manly figure, diligent in study, and had lately acted as a high page, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... very elevated walks of ambition are open either to their pupils or their own children. . . . Suppose that, having done my best to draw attention to the claims of those I have the honour to represent, I return to them without hope; how long will high-spirited men endure a position in which their loyalty subjects their mines to monopoly, their fisheries to unnatural competition, and in which cold indifference to public improvement or national security is the only response they meet when they ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant

... numerous merits; "Scotch, real Scotch, a noggin of it, my boy, with soda in a long glass; glug, glug, down it goes, hissin' over the hot coppers. You know the trick, my son, it's no use pretendin' you don't"—and thereupon the high-spirited warrior dug me good-humouredly in the ribs, and winked at me with an eye which, if the truth must be told, was bloodshot to the very verge ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various

... he felt like doing it. He was in the right, and knew he was. He was high-spirited and utterly without fear. And yet he never even defended himself. lie let Paul bully him and beat him. He endured to have himself looked upon as a coward - although you may observe that all the time he did not budge an inch from the line of conduct he had chosen. And ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.

... don't know anything about this young man, except that he is good-looking, and somewhat high-spirited, and strong-limbed, and has a generous style of nature,—all very promising, but by no means proving that he is a proper lover for Iris, whose heart we turned inside out when we opened that sealed book ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... as they have been traced, the family were violent, passionate, high-spirited, but unrestrained in the indulgence of their desires by any of the cardinal principles of morality. Byron's father, one of Byron's biographers tells us, had outraged in his previous family life not only the principles of religion, but also the ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... everyday umbrella, a commonplace umbrella half a century ago; an umbrella that would have elicited no remark from our great-grandmothers, hardly a smile from our grandmothers; but an umbrella well calculated to excite the affections and stimulate the imagination of an impulsive, high-spirited, and impressionable boy. It was an umbrella not easily forgotten; an umbrella that necessarily produced a large and deep impression on ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... not," cried Dare, flourishing a cane which he held in his hand. "Whether you are a cavalry officer or not, I will make you dismount from that horse," and he advanced with a threatening gesture towards the high-spirited Scotchman. A fatal moment. Fletcher drew a pistol and ordered Dare to stand back. Dare still advanced, when, to the horror of all the bystanders, the pistol exploded, and Dare fell mortally wounded to the ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston

... Don Juan arrived at Messina and was joyously received by the city and the fleet. Nevertheless, it was the 12th of September before the decision was finally reached to seek out the Turkish fleet and offer battle. Fortunately Don Juan was a high-spirited youth who shared none of his brother's half-heartedness; he went to work to organize the discordant elements under his command into as much of a unit as he could, and to imbue them with the idea of aggressive action. In this ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... hearing the words repeated. After all, one can not wonder at his thoughtlessness and enthusiasm. Around Chetwynde all the associations of his life were twined. Until he had joined the regiment he had known no other home; and beyond this, to this high-spirited youth, in whom pride of birth and name rose very high, there had been from his earliest childhood a bitter humiliation in the thought that the inheritance of his ancestors, which had never known any other than a Chetwynde for its ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... underneath it, and upon this couch, leaning back amongst pink cushions, was Bobby's stepmother. True was already sitting upon a footstool, and her head was in her lap, her mother was stroking back her hair gently and tenderly. Mrs. Allonby looked to most people a mere laughing high-spirited girl, with wonderful black hair and mischievous face and eyes, but that was generally the side she showed to outsiders. To her husband and child there was deep, never-dying love in her looks and tones; and Bobby caught a glimpse of this, small boy as he was, when she ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre

... accomplished sister shared his splendid establishment in Malaga; and for her my father formed an engrossing attachment, reciprocated in the fullest, almost simultaneously with his friendship for her brother. Zea favored the suit of the high-spirited and clever young Englishman, whose intelligence, independence, and perseverance, to say nothing of his good looks and his engaging manners, had quite won his heart. By policy, too, no less than by pleasure, the match recommended itself to him;—my father would make ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... a fine, high-spirited young fellow; Alfred, good-looking and good-tempered, but indolent; James, a slim, sickly lad, who inherited from his mother a fatal tendency to decline. She died while he was a baby, and he was petted from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... the German Embassy in Paris was very difficult, and unfortunately their first ambassador after the war, Count Arnim, didn't understand (perhaps didn't care to) how difficult it was for a high-spirited nation, which until then had always ranked as a great military power, to accept her humiliation and be just to the victorious adversary. Arnim was an unfortunate appointment—not at all the man for such a delicate situation. We had known ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... enemy that threatened our common Empire. So magnanimous was their charity that they found it impossible to credit the harsh and unchristian allegations levelled at the KAISER and his countrymen. But it could hardly be expected that so high-spirited and energetic a race could indefinitely pursue a course of inaction. The relentless logic which has always been a distinguishing feature of the Celt has impelled them, since the cessation of formal hostilities, to express their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various

... mother and a banished queen, from hamlet to hamlet and from chateau to chateau, appealing to human nature high and low on its romantic side, and at the end of a victorious conspiracy unfurling in France the ancient standard of the monarchy, was too dazzling not to attract a young, high-spirited woman, bold through her very ignorance, heroic through mere levity, able to endure anything but depression and ennui, and prepared to overbear all opposition with plausible platitudes ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... of the civilized world, to be printed and reprinted with sensational head-lines in every newspaper, and talked over by every scandal-monger on the face of the earth; was it any wonder—not that it was right—but was it any wonder that this high-spirited, educated woman, sprung from as respectable a family as any in the great State of Missouri, proud of her ancestry, and prizing her good name above everything on this earth, when she heard herself thus adjudged in one breath to be guilty of forgery, perjury, and unchastity, ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham

... blame. The elder of these uncles, the Duke of Lancaster, was called John of Gaunt—because he had been born a Ghent, a town in Flanders. He was becoming an old man, and only tried to help the king and keep things quiet; but Henry, his eldest son, was a fine high-spirited young man—a favorite with everybody, and was always putting himself forward—and the king was very much ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge

... standing there slim and straight, with the furred mantle just slipping over her smooth shoulders, radiant with good health, good looks, perfectly contented with herself and the whole world, as it behooves a handsome, high-spirited young woman to be with her surroundings, looking bright, unconcerned, good-humoured, in spite of her mother's fussy criticisms: Aunt Philippa was always ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... up a pretty, clever, and high-spirited boy. Usually well-behaved, he was, however, sometimes violent. He had a will of his own, and asserted it; his elder brother was less passionate, less purposeful, and, in their wrangles, it was Albert who came out top. The two boys, living for the ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... sorely, that a private petition was sent in to have it stopped. This I was most glad to do, for our meals had been rendered a little unpleasant by mortified tears bedewing the face of the gentle Zoe, while indignant sobs and haughty looks betokened the harassed feelings of the high-spirited Lilly. ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... the little girl could never withstand, and indeed few people ever had the opportunity to drive so frisky and high-spirited a horse as Rufe was when he consented to assume the bit and bridle. He was rarely so accommodating, as he preferred the role of driver, with what he called "a pop-lashEE!" at command. She forgot ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)

... impregnable fastnesses, and Amalatok returned to Poloeland "covered with glory,"—some of his followers also covered with wounds, a few of which had fallen to his own share. The success, however, was not decided. On the whole, the result was rather disappointing, but Amalatok was brave and high-spirited, as some people would say. He was not going to give in; not he! He would fight as long as a man was left to back him, and bring Grabantak to his knees—or die! Either event would, of course, have been of immense advantage to both nations. He ground ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne

... me now. She was so light-hearted that her laugh is what comes first across the years; so high-spirited that she would have wept like Mary of Scots because she could not lie on the bare plains like the men. I hear her, but it is only as an echo; I see her, but it is as a light among distant trees, and the middle-aged man can draw no nearer; ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... colony of Massachusetts. During one of his voyages for the purpose of obtaining arms and provisions for his establishment at St. John, his castle was attacked by D'Aulnay, and successfully defended by its high-spirited mistress. A second attack however followed in the fourth month, 1647, when D'Aulnay was successful, and the garrison was put to the sword. Lady La Tour languished a few days in the hands of her enemy, and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... farewell. Also, excluding what remained of my ammunition and provisions, my wagon was loaded to its utmost capacity with gold and precious stones; and it no longer crawled over the ground at a bare three miles an hour, but proceeded at quite double that speed behind the sturdy, sprightly, high-spirited team of twenty-four zebras, which would have travelled half as fast again had I not determined to work them very lightly, in view of the long, toilsome ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... glass—it can be seen through at a glance; and he has no idea of concealing a single thought from those he trusts, though he is close enough with the world in general; and I can tell you that he is as true as steel, and as brave and high-spirited as he ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... her seventeenth year, beautiful, gifted, high-spirited and generous-hearted. And if willful—why, even that seemed to give a prononce shade to her character, that rather heightened the brilliancy of ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... the Waverley novels, was published in 1823. For the main idea of the tale Sir Walter was indebted to some papers found by his younger brother, Thomas Scott, in the Isle of Man. These papers gave the story of William Christian, who took the side of the Roundheads against the high-spirited Countess of Derby, and was subsequently tried and executed, according to the laws of the island, by that lady, for having dethroned his august mistress and imprisoned her and her family. "Peveril" is one of the most ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... to finance, he came home in the evenings high-spirited and determined to enjoy himself. His voice was firm and his eye steady when he spoke to his wife; there was no trace of self-consciousness in his demeanour. She admired the masculinity of the brain that could forget by an effort of will. She felt that he trusted her to forget ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... came in before dinner to me, high-spirited noble fellow as ever, and true to his friend. Agrees with my feelings to a comma. He thinks Cadell's account must turn up trumps, and is ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... to come, however. To a high-spirited girl, used to the greatest freedom, the constant surveillance was unbearable. She was not locked up, but in all other respects she felt ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard

... I don't know! She was high-spirited as a girl, a little willful and impulsive, but with the best heart in the world. She lost her mother too soon; and in her girlhood we had no home—not even the half-homes possible to naval officers. She had a good natural voice and wanted to study music, so after we had been settled at Madison ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... greatly increased by a rise in the value of property he possessed in the town of L——, and which lay contiguous to that of her husband. Two or three of the older inhabitants of the Hill had remembered Sir Philip in his early days, when he was gay, high-spirited, hospitable, lavish. One observed that the only person in L—— whom he had admitted to his subsequent seclusion was Dr. Lloyd, who was then without practice, and whom he had employed as an assistant in certain ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... destroy ships in harbour or with poor-spirited crews—that is to say, it will simply be an added power in the hands of the nation that is predominant at sea. And, even then, it can be merely destructive, while a sane and high-spirited fighter will always be dissatisfied if, with an indisputable superiority of force, he ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... character, and giving to her face at times a look of pleasant humour, which it would otherwise have lacked. Her mouth was large, and full of character, and her chin oval, dimpled, and finely chiselled, like her father's. I beg you, in taking her for all in all, to admit that she was a fine, handsome, high-spirited ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... corn-meal porridge, so eminently good that it was ever mentioned with respect in the plural, as "them porridge," all are described with the exuberant joyousness of a happy, healthful old age in remembrance of a happy, high-spirited, and healthful youth. ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... kingdoms of Zapage and Komar are about ten or twenty days easy sail from each other, and the kingdoms were in peace with other when the following event is said, in their ancient histories, to have occurred. The young and high-spirited king of Komar was one day in his palace, which looks upon a river much like the Euphrates, at the entrance, and is only a day's journey from the sea. One day, in a discourse with his prime minister, the conversation turned upon ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... river. He used only a habitual form of speech when he threatened the "yard-arm", instead of the tree. Major James gave him no time to make the correction. He was entirely weaponless, and Ardesoif wore a sword; but the inequality, in the moment of his anger, was unfelt by the high-spirited citizen. Suddenly rising, he seized upon the chair on which he had been sitting, and floored the insolent subordinate at a blow; then hurrying forth without giving his enemy time to recover, he mounted his horse, and made his escape to the woods ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... harsh voice was heard in the royal closet. It was Elizabeth's. She chidingly bade Mr. Dean return from his ungodly digression and revert to his text. The next day the frightened dean wrote a most abject apology to the high-spirited queen. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... between two court ladies for the possession of the Duc de Richelieu and an old print of the deadly public contest of Francois de Vivonne and Guy de Jarnac and then strayed languidly to the other paraphernalia of a high-spirited bachelor's rooms—foils, dueling pistols and masks—trappings that but served to recall to the land baron ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... had other things to think of in the silence of her room. Another woman would have unburdened herself to a confidante; but Polly was too loyal to her father to shatter his beliefs, and too high-spirited to take another and a lesser person into her confidence. She was certain that Aunt Chloe would be full of sympathetic belief and speculations, but she would not trust a nigger with what she couldn't tell her own father. ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... the country, a place remote and quiet, and consequently led a very solitary, humdrum life, because I was ever fond of books and flowers and the solitude of trees—a selfish man always. And so, at last, because she was young and high-spirited, she ran away from my lonely cottage with one who was a villain. And I grieved for her, young sirs, I grieved much and long, because I was lonely, but I grieved more for my name, my honorable name that she had ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... guns ever thundering nearer, she can yet spare a moment to strike shrewdly and hard for her own side in the other struggle towards feminine emancipation which is always obviously close to her heart. Certainly she has well earned the right to be heard with respect. Read this high-spirited account of the difficulties—mud, disease, prejudice, famine—through which the writer brought her charge triumphantly to safety, and you will be inclined, with me, to throw your critical cap into the air and thank Heaven ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various

... Magalhaes had found him half-dead with hunger and fatigue in the neighboring forest. The Portuguese had an excellent heart; he did not ask the unknown where he came from, but what he wanted. The noble, high-spirited look which Joam Garral bore in spite of his exhaustion had touched him. He received him, restored him, and, for several days to begin with, offered him a hospitality which lasted ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... undiscovered dominions granted to the Crown of Portugal by Pope Eugenius IV. Some of the king's counsellors are said to have urged him to have Columbus assassinated; it would be easy enough to provoke such a high-spirited man into a quarrel and then run him through the body.[524] To clearer heads, however, the imprudence of such a course was manifest. It was already impossible to keep the news of the discovery from reaching Spain, and Portugal ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... Department, and the New York bankers, whose aid was essential, forced the President, sorely against his will, to give the place to General John A. Dix. This proved an excellent appointment. General Dix was an old Democrat, but of the high-spirited type; he could have tolerated secession by peaceable agreement, but rose in anger at menaces against the flag and the Union. He conducted his department with entire success, and also rendered to the country perhaps the greatest service that was done by any man ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... 'Young and high-spirited as I then was, I found it impossible to bear such brutal treatment, and one day when I was about fourteen years of age, in a fit of anger and despair, I left the home of my cruel aunt, and found myself a wretched wanderer in the streets of London, ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker



Words linked to "High-spirited" :   high-spiritedness, exuberant, spirited, ebullient



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