"Liveliness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conversation to the times which had now, within a few short years, become the "ancien regime." She brought back that period to the count's mind by the liveliness of her remarks and sketches, and gave him so many opportunities to display his wit, by cleverly throwing repartees in his way, that he ended by thinking he had never been so charming; and that idea having rejuvenated him, he endeavored to inspire this seductive young woman with his own good ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... rich. He had many calls upon his poverty: there are none upon your wealth. And indeed, madam, if you will let me touch this matter with a needle, there is but one point in common to your two positions: that each had a daughter more remarkable for liveliness than duty.' ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... feet,—nay, although (which does not always happen) those feet should scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately upon the fingers,—is not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe, that a certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem; and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must contain at least one thought, either in a little degree different from the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it to his candour, whether ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... discuss the problems which await it in the polling-booths and in the everyday conversations which more weightily mould the fate of the world. He is a propagandist historian, and his work has the liveliness given by an air ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... the sprightly, talkative, sanguine child, and to underestimate the intelligence of the child who is less emotional, reacts slowly, and talks little. One occasionally finds a feeble-minded adult, perhaps of only 9- or 10-year intelligence, whose verbal fluency, mental liveliness, and self-confidence would mislead the offhand judgment of even the psychologist. One individual of this type, a border-line case at best, was accustomed to harangue street audiences and had served as "major" in "Kelly's Army," a horde of several hundred unemployed men who a few years ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... his lamentations during his illness, and, though but imperfectly known, it added largely to the expectations connected with the unlooked-for return of the schooner. In short, it would not have been easy to devise a circumstance that should serve to increase the liveliness of feeling that, just then, prevailed on the subject of Deacon Pratt and his assets, than the arrival of the Sea Lion, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... from this Spanish journey, which had been full, as we all know, of most entertaining adventures, related with much liveliness and spirit by himself, he was regarded as a kind of 'lion' in the literary circles of London. When we first saw him it was at the house of a lady who took great pleasure in gathering 'celebrities' in ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... only do its simple words strike us with all the force of our own homely Saxon terms, but its compounds also, preserving their physical significations almost unimpaired, call up in our minds concrete images of the greatest definiteness and liveliness. It is thus that German seems to us pre-eminently a poetical language, and it is thus that we are naturally inclined to overrate rather than to depreciate the poetry that is written ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... of soul must needs, almost without their knowing it, receive many rude blows, from the very fact of their marriage. (See Meditations entitled The Predestined and Of the Honeymoon.) Most of the means of defence instinctively employed by husbands are nothing but traps set for the liveliness of feminine affections. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... one passenger on board that seems perfectly happy, if one may judge from the liveliness of the songs with which he greets us whenever we approach his cage. It is "Harry," the captain's goldfinch—"the captain's mate," as the sailors term him. This pretty creature has made no fewer than twelve voyages ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... cold in his nose, told Mrs. Rincer a riddle, asked Miss Rincer when she would be prepared to marry him, and paid his compliments to Miss Brett, another young lady in the bar, all in a minute of time, and with a liveliness and facetiousness which set all these young ladies in a giggle. "Have a drop, Pen: it's recommended by the faculty, &c. Give the young one a glass, R., and score it up to ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... many books of travel, by women, that are, at least, entertaining, and contain some penetrating and just observations. There has, however, been none since Lady Mary Wortley Montague, with as much talent, liveliness, and preparation to observe in various ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... What beautifully delineated wings!" exclaimed Jussuf. "Oh that I might possess the rare insect! The dyers who stain my silk stuffs, and the weavers, might take the liveliness of the colours, the design, and the well-wrought combination ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... had brought aboard with me. By dint of exhortation so earnest that it almost amounted to bullying I succeeded in awaking the Frenchmen to a sense of the urgency of the case, and persuaded them to put some liveliness into their movements, by which means we quickly hauled in the whole of the signal halliards, to the other end of which a light heaving-line was bent. This also we dragged away upon for dear life, and presently I had the satisfaction of seeing the end of the City of Cawnpore's ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... came to a clump of bushes, into which darted one of the goats that had by this time become almost wild. The goat's rush disturbed a huge sow with a litter of quite new pigs, the gruntings and squeakings of which gave liveliness to an otherwise ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... saving of his income and sparing of his words, can have no pressing necessity for the money of others; and, on occasion, he may afford to speak plainly. Your niece has shown so decided a preference for another, that it has materially lessened the liveliness of my regard." ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... with Prospects of constant Delight, and destroy in our Minds the Seeds of Fortitude and Virtue, which should support us in Hours of Anguish. The constant Pursuit of Pleasure has in it something insolent and improper for our Being. There is a pretty sober Liveliness in the Ode of Horace to Delius, where he tells him, loud Mirth, or immoderate Sorrow, Inequality of Behaviour either in Prosperity or Adversity, are alike ungraceful in Man that is born to die. Moderation in both Circumstances is peculiar ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... the tenacity with which the memory holds them. These scenes were of daily occurrence; and the small number of remarkable circumstances connected with childhood and youth having few rivals to compete with them in attracting the attention, were witnessed frequently with all the vigour and liveliness of the youthful mind, as yet unburdened with care. They were of course frequently subjected to observation, and as frequently reiterated by the mind, and have on these accounts ever since been vividly pictured by the imagination, and continue familiar to the memory. ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... surrounded with sick, the female part forming the majority. Some beautiful faces and forms were clothed in rags; the plaited hair and necks of these even were loaded with ornaments. The females were rather under the middle stature, strongly built, and possess considerable vivacity, and liveliness. The complexion of those not much exposed to the sun was of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... composed in great measure of children and young people, is generally a cheerful one enough, even in gloomy weather.... It would be difficult to conceive beforehand how much can be added to the enjoyment of a household by mere sunniness of temper and liveliness ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... activity; briskness, liveliness &c. adj.; animation, life, vivacity, spirit, dash, energy; snap, vim. nimbleness, agility; smartness, quickness &c. adj.; velocity, &c. 274; alacrity, promptitude; despatch, dispatch; expedition; haste &c. 684; punctuality &c. (early) 132. eagerness, zeal, ardor, perfervidum aingenium[Lat][obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... signboards, bottled-porter stores, the statues of saints and little chapels which jostle the stranger's eyes as he goes up the famous stairs from the Water-gate, make a scene of such pleasant confusion and liveliness as I have never witnessed before. And the effect of the groups of multitudinous actors in this busy cheerful drama is heightened, as it were, by the decorations of the stage. The sky is delightfully brilliant; all the houses and ornaments are stately; castle and palaces are ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... formation of the lips for which the word "simpering" seems to have been created. Phileas Beauvisage was endowed with so great a contentment with himself that he smiled on all the world and under all circumstances. Those simpering lips smiled at a funeral. The liveliness that abounded in his infantine blue eyes did not contradict that ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... not wholly that of the serving-woman. We noted in her the liveliness of wit seldom absent from the Italian poor. She was a great babbler, and talked willingly to herself, and to inanimate things, when there was no other chance for talk. She was profuse in maledictions of bad weather, which she held up to scorn as that dog of a weather. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... apparently joyous at any rate, gives to its fetes. There, men of talent communicate their wit to fools, and fools communicate that air of enjoyment that characterizes them. By means of this exchange all is liveliness. But a ball in Paris always resembles fireworks to a certain extent; wit, coquetry, and pleasure sparkle and go out like rockets. The next day all present have forgotten their wit, their coquetry, ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... constantly increasing liveliness and gayety to compare the social virtues with the tender sentiments. "The latter," said he, "can never fail us; we always carry them about with us, and every one becomes a master in them without practice: but we must go in quest of the former, we must take some trouble about them; and, though ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... wife are conspicuously wanting. I must confess that all the boys and girls brought before me from the Manchester mills had a depressed appearance, and were very pale. In the expression of their faces lay nothing of the usual mobility, liveliness, and cheeriness of youth. Many of them told me that they felt not the slightest inclination to play out of doors on Saturday and Sunday, but preferred to be quiet ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... blue against the parapets overhead; there are houses on one side, but on the other open space and sea, and dim clouds in the extreme distance. The atmosphere is full of light, and gives a sense of liveliness! every atom of it is in motion. How delicate are the fore legs of these thoroughbred horses passing! Small and slender, the hoof, as the limb rises, seems to hang by a thread, yet there is strength and speed in those sinews. Strength is often associated with size, ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... is enwrapped in so profound a mystery; and there has been little to restrain the fancy, because so little is certainly known of the physical condition of other worlds. Recently, indeed, a somewhat sudden and severe check has been placed on the liveliness of imagination which had enabled men formerly to picture to themselves the inhabitants of other orbs in space. Spectroscopic analysis and exact telescopic scrutiny will not permit some speculations to be entertained ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... rhymes. The lines (again of set purpose, it is evident) overlap one another without an end-pause where in Italian it is almost universal, namely, after the sixth line. The result of the innovation is far from successful: it destroys the flow of the verse and gives it an air of abruptness. Of the liveliness, vivacity and pungency of the tale, no idea can be given by quotation: two of the stanzas in which the moral is enforced, the two finest, perhaps, in the poem, are, ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... friends here staying to supper—just a bachelor's friends, you know, taking pot-luck without any ceremony, very good fellows, not polished, perhaps, but sound of heart, Sylvia my girl, sound of heart." All his perplexity had vanished; he had taken his part; and he rattled along with a friendly liveliness which cleared the shadows from Sylvia's thoughts and provoked upon her face her rare and winning smile. He rang ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... precious pearl had been dropped. I must have a companion in my search, partly to help me look about, and partly because I was getting nervous and felt lonely. Charley said he would go with me,—Charley, my Captain's beloved friend, gentle, but full of spirit and liveliness, cultivated, social, affectionate, a good talker, a most agreeable letter-writer, observing, with large relish of life, and keen sense of humor. He was not well enough to go, some of the timid ones said; but ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and lost so much of his cheerfulness that he got to be but a dull companion for me; though likely enough what ailed him was the reflex of my own poor spirits, made low by my constant bodily weariness, and had I shown any liveliness he would have been lively too. But I was too tired to think much about him—or about anything else—as day after day I stood in the bow of the boat working my saw up and down with a deadly dull monotony: that had no break ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... thrown forward and one hand at the waist, elbow out and waist pressed in. He is well built, his face much better looking than his photographs show, nose rather long and eyes very keen and observing. Possessed of a great youthfulness of manner and a boyish liveliness and interest in life, his traits are somewhat American rather than German. He is a good sportsman and excels at many sports, is proud of his trophies but not afraid to meet other men in ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... was overwhelmed with the rapidity and liveliness of Gary's utterances, which he rattled forth as lightly as if they had ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... at all to the liveliness of the house. She was shy and nervous. Of Dan she was, or pretended to be, quite afraid, and if she happened to have blossomed into talk during his absence, she would stop the moment he appeared—a habit which annoyed him extremely. To ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... likely he would have kept it, too; I cannot say for certain, because I have learnt to doubt. I am a doctor—I have seen too much—and he did not appear to great advantage yesterday. You really must forgive my saying so—but after the liveliness of his young days, coupled with the tendencies he has inherited, do you think he really had any right to be surprised if people doubted him?—if his fiancee doubted him? Had he really any right to feel insulted, or to demand apologies? Apologies for what? For having doubted ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... faculty we may suppose even the greatest Poet to possess, there cannot be a doubt that the language which it will suggest to him, must often, in liveliness and truth, fall short of that which is uttered by men in real life, under the actual pressure of those passions, certain shadows of which the Poet thus produces, or feels to be produced, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... as ever he was, when both he and Allan Quatermain were younger. Lady Ragnall, who is an old friend to readers of The Ivory Child, reappears here, having in her possession a mysterious and potent herb, which she persuades Allan to inhale. Then the fun takes on a great liveliness. Allan is wafted back to the days when Egypt was under the domination of the Persians, and he in his ancient existence performed some of the very doughtiest of deeds. No one living can tell such a tale with a greater dexterity and zest than ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... set forth under no less than fourteen different heads. "The approaches and manners" of the reverend gentleman are not considered such "as to attach and endear his congregation to him." He is reported to be subject "to an occasional exuberance of animal spirits, and at times to display a liveliness of manner and conversation which would be repugnant to the feelings of a large portion of the congregation of Banff." Others of the objections assert, that his illustrations in the pulpit do not bear upon his text—that his subjects are incoherent and ill deduced; and the reverend gentleman ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... sitting by a window at one time, with a girl named Jane M'Coy, when one of the old nuns cams up and spoke to us in a tone of liveliness and kindness which seemed strange, in a place where everything seemed so cold and reserved. Some remark which she made was evidently intended to cheer and encourage me, and made me think that she felt some interest in me. I do not recollect what ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... to marry. By daylight the dear Contessa was undeniably plain: that was something, but in these short days, tea would be conducted by artificial light, and by artificial light she was not so like a rabbit. What was worse was that by any light she had a liveliness which might be mistaken for wit, and a flattering manner which might be taken for sincerity. She hoped men were not so easily duped as that, and was sadly afraid that ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... materially."—Knight, on the Greek Alph., p. 16. "Where neither noise nor motion are concerned."—Blair's Rhet., p. 55. "Neither Charles nor his brother were qualified to support such a system."—Junius, p. 250. "When, therefore, neither the liveliness of representation, nor the warmth of passion, serve, as it were, to cover the trespass, it is not safe to leave the beaten track."—Campbell's Rhet., p. 381. "In many countries called Christian, neither ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... up with the liveliness of twenty years, and, with a loud clattering of old overshoes, ran to ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... 23rd, and marching via Kruistraat and Zillebeke proceeded to "Sanctuary Wood," where we relieved the 5th East Yorkshires in trenches 7 to 12. These trenches were good, being both narrow and deep. There was a good deal of liveliness on both sides, and things were anything but pleasant in the region of a wood. whose title was something of a misnomer. The Transport too, had many good runs for their money when bringing up rations and stores. The congestion on the ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... Caroline went out. There had been a change in the wind, which now blew lustily from the north-east, and the sun was shining. As she came down the street leading to the promenade, the surface of her mind responded to the pricking liveliness of the salt air and the sight of the open sea in front of her. A heavy rain towards dawn had washed down mud from the cliffs which the high tide had carried away, so now the water was a milky dun-colour, scattered with millions of opal lights, answering more ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... give them a chance of seeing something of the liveliness and bustle of "The Corner," as that part of the village was called, where stood the tavern, ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... exhibits other personal qualities than these, which, if less often remarked, are at any rate unconsciously enjoyed. Boswell had great social charm. His friends are agreed upon his liveliness and good nature. Johnson called him 'clubbable,' 'the best traveling companion in the world,' 'one Scotchman who is cheerful,' 'a man whom everybody likes,' 'a man who I believe never left a house without leaving a wish ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... of the sables which muffled her ears and fell to her heels would have focused attention, not to mention the eager liveliness of her face. But on this occasion no one returned her vivid glances. Everyone was busy with their own affairs and friends. The only person seeming as isolated and lonely as herself was another girl, who, having made a tour from one end of the train to the other in vain quest of a seat, ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... which always struck us children at first with astonishment, was interrupted very gaily by our aunt, whose liveliness broke in upon it like the sound of a horn amid the stillness of a forest. Her cheerful voice was audible even in the hall, and when she crossed the threshold we flew to her, and the spell was broken. For she, the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... London in 1756, earned money in various ways, and spent it all. "The Vicar of Wakefield," perhaps the greatest of all Goldsmith's works, was published on March 27, 1766, after Dr. Johnson had raised L60 for him on the manuscript of it. The liveliness and grace of Goldsmith's style were never more plainly manifested than in this delightful story; and its faults—it contains many coincidences and improbabilities—are far more than atoned for by the masterly portrait of the simple, manly, generous, and wholly lovable vicar who ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... farthing. A merry grig; a fellow as merry as a grig: an allusion to the apparent liveliness of a grig, ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... German accent, no matter what tongue he used, but it was perceptible only to the trained ear. And yet, to Fitzgerald's mind, the man was at times something Gallic in his liveliness. ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... spoke much of Uncle Charles; her conversation beyond any person's I ever met; she was in fine spirits. Her dress, which well became her gigantic person, very rich. I shall pass over our conversation which was full of liveliness, of marvels and wonders, manners and customs of the people, plagues, troubles, and famines &c. &c. I went back to the brig the following day and returned in the afternoon to Djoun, taking with me Mr. Forrester, my surgeon, who she requested I would ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... accounted for. If we ask for the causes of this striking success, they are perhaps not very far to seek. For one thing, the book is remarkable both for its variety and its animation. Horace Walpole wrote about it to Lady Aylesbury in terms that do not at all overstate its liveliness: "It tells one everything in the world; how to make conquests, invasions, blunders, settlements, bankruptcies, fortunes, etc.; tells you the natural and historical history of all nations; talks commerce, navigation, tea, coffee, china, mines, salt, spices; ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... gay glances of certain damsels that came on board at Detroit, and, though Butler might afterwards be seen sticking from his pocket, it had not weight to impede him from many a feat of lightness and liveliness. I doubt if it went with him from the boat. Some there were, even, discussing the doctrines of Fourier. It seemed pity they were not going to, rather than from, the rich and free country where it would be so much easier than with us to try the ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... originate there. It is where all sorts of people are seen and met with in large numbers; its varied scenes are always magnetic. Both old and young are attracted by activities of all kinds; the "white way" in every city is a constant bid for numbers. In the city there is always more liveliness if not more life than in the country. Activity is apparent everywhere. Everything seems better to the young person from the country; there is more to see and more to hear; the show windows and the display of lighting ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... cold: a great wind flaps and tangles the flags; the tops of the buses are almost empty. That brisk April air seems somehow in key with the mood of the Avenue—hard, plangent, glittering, intensely material. It is a proud, exultant, exhilarating street; it fills the mind with strange liveliness. A magnificent pomp of humanity—what a flux of lacquered motors, what a twinkling of spats along the pavements! On what other of the world's great highways would one find churches named for the material of which they are built?—the Brick Church, ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... be queint, the resemblance Of him that hath in me so fresh liveliness, That to put other men in remembrance Of his Person I have here the likeness Do make, to the end in Soothfastness, That they that of him have lost thought and mind, By this peniture ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... Hawthorne. Poe led one of them—as critic more than as creative artist. His scathing attacks upon the Gerald Stanley Lees, the Hamilton Wright Mabies and the George E. Woodberrys of his time keep a liveliness and appositeness that the years have not staled; his criticism deserves to be better remembered. Poe sensed the Philistine pull of a Puritan civilization as none had before him, and combated it with his whole artillery of rhetoric. Another rebel, of course, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... Gibbon, Voltaire, Mason, and others, while his evenings were passed in the society of his friends, a mode of enjoying his time in which he was eminently calculated to shine, since abundant testimony has come down to us from many competent judges of the charm of his conversation; the liveliness of his disposition acting as a most attractive frame to the extent and variety of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... time that day he had looked at and tried on the moccasins, just to reassure himself that they were made for his feet and nobody else's, and to take a few quiet turns in them about the room, just to see if they felt as easy as they fitted well. Now, with greater liveliness and earnestness than ever, his thoughts returned to the matter he had so near at heart; nor would they let him rest until he had answered the question which, for the seventh time that day, he had put to himself: "Shall I on with the moccasins and go ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... augmentation the imitating part sings twice as slow as the leader, or sometimes still slower. This obviously should impart a new dignity to the melody, and in diminution the expression is generally that of an accession of liveliness.[1] Neither of these devices, however, continues to appeal to the ear if carried on for long. In augmentation the answering part lags so far behind the leader that the ear cannot long follow the connexion, while a diminished answer will ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... great physical strength; he had delicate and chiselled features, a brilliant complexion, and light hair, abundant and glossy, which, through his grandmother Isabel, he inherited from the family of the Counts of Hainault. He displayed liveliness and elegance in his tastes; he was fond of amusements, games, hunting, hounds and hawking-birds, fine clothes, magnificent furniture. A holy man, they say, even reproached the queen his mother with having winked at certain inclinations evinced by him towards irregular connections. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Margaret, who had found witchcraft gainful, and, while herself almost a child, had brought away children as offerings to the Devil, now betook herself, with another girl, Lisalda, of the same age, to denouncing all the rest. By word of mouth or in writing she revealed all; with the liveliness, the noise, the emphatic gestures of a Spaniard, entering truly or falsely into a hundred impure details. She frightened, amused, wheedled her judges, drawing them after her like fools. To this corrupt, wanton, crazy girl, they entrusted the right of searching about the ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... insensible to her amiability, nor yet to her liveliness and prettiness; but it had just the opposite effect. While she stood pulling his jacket, he heard the voices on the high-road all ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... is in imminent danger of coming out without them; and there is a third, into which the quiet people go, for it is less noisy than either. There is an immensity of promenading, on crutches and off, with sticks and without, and a great deal of conversation, and liveliness, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... to determine in which of these passages the leading thought is expressed best, in which is to be found the most energy, the deepest feeling, the most touching shortness. I think one should prefer the passage of Shakspeare, because the direct mention of the corporal existence gives a magnificent liveliness to the picture, and because the very contrast of the space appears most lively by it; whereas, at the first reading of the other passages, it is not the human being, consisting of body and soul, which comes in our mind, but only the human ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... possession among Old English poets; but, as Professor Cook says, "the order of events is not that of the original narrative. Many transpositions have been made in the interest of condensation and for the purpose of enhancing the dramatic liveliness ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous
... (the collector's informant added) was peculiarly charmed with the amiable behaviour of these interesting enthusiasts of friendship. He found not in them the gravity, formality, and demureness of virgin recluses, but the ease of liveliness, and animated conversation of happy, cultivated, ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... says, "I was struck by the union of venerable antiquity with extreme liveliness and gaiety. We have nothing of the sort in England. Till the time of James the First, I imagine, our houses were almost all of wood, and have in consequence disappeared. In York there are some very old streets; but they are abandoned to the lowest people, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... affectionate animal that I know of is the common brown Mongoose: it is a creature between the squirrel and the monkey, with all the liveliness but without any of the mischief of the latter. Unfortunately they will not live in our country, or they would supersede the cat altogether; they are very clean, and their attachment is beyond all conception to those who have ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the principal orators of the next generation, are praised as masters of an oratory learned, majestic, and harmonious in its character.[263] These were succeeded by Antonius, Crassus, Cotta, Sulpicius, and Hortensius; who, adopting greater liveliness and variety of manner, form a middle age in the history of Roman eloquence. But it was in that which immediately followed that the art was adorned by an assemblage of orators, which even Greece will find it difficult to match. Of these Caesar, Cicero, Curio, Brutus, Caelius, Calvus, and Callidius, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... dreary edifice is the "New Bath," what must the Old Bath be like? As I feared to go to bed, I sat in the coffee-room as long as I might; but three young men were imparting their private adventures to each other with such freedom and liveliness that I felt I ought not to listen to their artless prattle. As I put the light out, and felt the bedclothes and darkness overwhelm me, it was with an awful sense of terror—that sort of sensation which ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fragile prettiness common among New England country girls. But the bearing and rearing of a family of children, and the matronizing of a houseful of hungry school-boys in such a way as to make ends meet, had substituted a faded and worried look for her natural liveliness of expression. She bore up bravely, however, against the embarrassments of the occasion. In particular, it pleased her to take a facetious view of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... of a contemporary, the book which continues the account of the Sicilian expedition, and ends with the disaster at Syracuse. "In the describing and reporting whereof," Plutarch writes, "Thucydides hath gone beyond himself, both for variety and liveliness of narration, as also in choice and excellent words." "There is no prose composition in the world," wrote Macaulay, "which I place so high as the seventh book of Thucydides.... I was delighted to find in Gray's letters, the other day, this query to Wharton: 'The retreat from Syracuse,—is ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... in a style of great liveliness and beauty. As a writer for the young, the author is surpassed by very few, if any ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank
... comprehend these English ladies. That Vere was greatly attracted by him he thoroughly believed. How could it be otherwise? Her liveliness he considered direct encouragement. And then she had gone out to the terrace after dinner, leaving her mother. That was to make him follow her, of course. She wanted to be alone with him. In a Neapolitan girl such conduct would ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... was keenly on the alert to catch a glimpse of the various magnates whose arrival was expected. At the Queen's Head stood a large array of carriages, and the streets were thronged with gay groups of pedestrians, and full of bustle and liveliness. ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... Golden sky. Full church, and more liveliness than sometimes. Shall I call the liveliness of this day a gale of the Spirit, or was all natural? I know that all was not of grace; the self-admiration, the vanity, the desire of honor, the bitterness—these were all breaths of earth or hell. But was there no grace? Lord, Thou knowest. I dare not ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... with a cultivated mind was as pleasant to him now as the sight of a lady had been in his college days. Honor liked conversation too; and Miss Wells, Lucilla, and Owen had been rather barren in that respect, so there was a great deal of liveliness, in which Humfrey took his full share; while good Mrs. Saville looked like what she was, her husband's ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... discouragement. I do desire to magnify the exceeding riches of God's grace to me, if I may do so without increasing the charge of arrogant assumption. I know that among the diversity of gifts which he bestows on his creatures, he granted me a portion of mental energy, a quickness of perception, a liveliness of imagination, an aptitude for expressing the thoughts that were perpetually revolving in my mind, such as to fit me for literary occupation. I know that Satan, to whom such instruments are exceedingly valuable, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... should think 'e misses you," retorted Mrs. Kybird, unable to restrain herself; "'e must miss your conversation and what I might call your liveliness." ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the colors of the tulip, or to improve the proportions of the lily of the valley? The criticism which says, of sculpture or portraiture, that here nature is to be exalted or idealized rather than imitated, is in error. No pictorial or sculptural combinations of points of human liveliness do more than approach the living and breathing beauty. In landscape alone is the principle of the critic true; and, having felt its truth here, it is but the headlong spirit of generalization which has led him to pronounce it true throughout ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... swell visibly in a few hours. After the Baden slopes the flat thoroughfares of 'Charles's Rest' seemed somewhat uninteresting, though a busy fair which was proceeding in the streets created a quaint and unexpected liveliness. On reaching the old-fashioned inn in the Lange-Strasse that they had fixed on, the women of the party betook themselves to their rooms and showed little inclination to see more of the world that day than could be gleaned ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... girl smiled and beckoned with a sort of intimate liveliness and understanding that quite warmed Craven's heart. There was a table free, just one, under Vesuvius erupting. Craven took it, quickly ordered all the Italian dishes he could think of and a bottle of Chianti Rosso, and then looked ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... impossibility. All we know is that there are dead feelings, dead ideas, and cold beliefs, and there are hot and live ones; and when one grows hot and alive within us, everything has to re-crystallize about it. We may say that the heat and liveliness mean only the "motor efficacy," long deferred but now operative, of the idea; but such talk itself is only circumlocution, for whence the sudden motor efficacy? And our explanations then get so vague and general ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... short work, though exceedingly simple and inartificial, is not without its merits. It has the directness, the perspicuity, and the liveliness of Caesar's Commentaries or of the Duke of Wellington's Despatches. Montesquieu[1317] says of it:—"Hanno's Voyage was written by the very man who performed it. His recital is not mingled with ostentation. Great commanders write their actions with simplicity, because they receive more honour from ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... shut out from her the bright, happy life of the past. Her duties were performed as before. With others she was sufficiently animated; but when alone, she was wretched. Thus the months rolled on, till they became a year; and I, who had never been deceived by her occasional liveliness, began to think what I could do to change the current of her thoughts, which seemed to have no ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... always had been and everything all right and very bright with him and with the world about him. He did not go under without a struggle. But as Max Beerbohm's caricature—the 1908 one I mean—brought out all too plainly, there was in his very animation, something of the alert liveliness of the hunted man. Do what he would he had a terrible irrational feeling that things, as yet scarce imagined things, were after him and would have him. Even as he makes his point, even as he gesticulates airily, with his rather distinctively North European nose Beerbohmically enlarged and ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... hands with me. He was of the middle height, about five feet eight or nine. My first impression of him was of a dark, grave face, with a great deal in it, changing from the liveliness of conversation to a gravity of scrutiny. After we had shaken hands, I passed to the other end of the room to greet other friends. We did not speak to each other again ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield
... sisters, however, and the liveliness of Agnes, soon changed the character of their dialogue. For an hour they ran and chased each other, and played about, after which Charles took his leave of them for the evening. Jane, as usual, being the last he parted from, whispered to him,as ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... apple-trees, and these were overgrown with mistletoe; so, by way of correcting his idea that the English are a sad and gloomy people, I informed him of the use made of this parasite by young people in the country at Christmas-time. Instead, however, of being thereby impressed with our national liveliness, he looked with a sort of supercilious contempt upon a people who could require the intervention or sanction of anything external in such a matter, and turned the conversation ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... made an earlier experiment, without date, in such adolescent journalism; it was printed with a pen on small note-paper, and contained such serious matter as belongs to themes at school on "Solitude" and "Industry," with the usual addresses to subscribers and the liveliness natural to family news-columns. The composition is smooth and the manner entertaining, and there is abundance of good spirits and fun of a boyish sort. The paper shows the literary spirit and taste in its very earliest bud; but no ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... wayward man of genius, and no doubt the many sorrowful experiences of his youth deepened the gloom of his inherited temperament. Those who know him well are aware that he has great tenderness of heart and abundant playful humour; that his mind is one of extraordinary liveliness, and that he sympathises keenly and cordially with the joys and sorrows of others; and yet that he seems saturated with sadness, isolated from companionship, lonely and alone. It is this temperament, combined with a sombre and melancholy aspect ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... came frequently to see us when she was in England. She was one of my most intimate friends, warm-hearted and kind, a charming companion, with all the liveliness and originality of an Irishwoman. For seventeen years I was in constant correspondence with her. The cleverness and animation as well as affection of her letters I cannot express; certainly women are ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... how completely he had wound himself round their hearts. He had done so, not by being proud, or boastful, or self-opinionated, or by paying them court, by any readiness to take offence, or by flattery, or by any other mean device, but by his bravery and honesty, by his gentleness and liveliness, by his readiness to oblige, and general good-nature and uprightness, and by being true to himself and true to others—doing to them as he would be done by. They became at last very sad—that is to say, as sad as midshipmen in a dashing frigate, with a good captain, can become during war time; ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... his appearance of high health and persistent overflow of liveliness were ascribed by his family to continuous out-door exercise, nor did they dream that the sweet fever and delirium of love was upon him. Rose gave him an anxious glance or two, but poor Rose had trouble enough of her own. That cold night at the Oak Ridges, ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... naval battle of the Great War was fought on August 28, 1914. "A certain liveliness in the North Sea" was reported through the press by the British admiralty on the 19th of August. Many of the smaller vessels of the fleet of Admiral von Ingenohl, the German commander, such as destroyers, light cruisers, and scouting cruisers, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... minds by a species of Socratic inquiry. But Hugh never thought of quarrelling with the books provided; he seized upon any trace of humanity or amusement that they afforded, any symptoms of character and liveliness, and simply evaded the improving portion, which blew like a dry wind over his spirit. When his father talked over the books with the child, he listened tolerantly to the boy's amusement at how the cake had rolled ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... take the place of carabaos here to a great extent. There is the usual stone fort that seems to belong to some scene of a comic opera. America was represented here by a Young Men's Christian Association, a clubhouse, and a presidente. The troops then stationed in the town added a certain tone of liveliness. ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... and affectionate feelings which are so strongly marked in all he has ever written, for, from his youth upward, he was wedded to the lovely and the beautiful. In his letters, these feelings were occasionally expressed with much liveliness, terseness, and originality. ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... as she was called from her father's profession, made her first appearance in Galuppi's "Sofonisba" in Lucca, after five years of severe training. She was beautiful, intelligent, witty, full of liveliness and grace, with an expression full of coquettish charm and espieglerie. Her acting was excellent, and her singing already that of a brilliant and finished vocalist. It is not a marvel that the excitable Italian audience received her with the most passionate plaudits of admiration. ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... evening did not promise any marked increase in the general liveliness. Mrs. Ashburn announced lugubriously to all whom it might concern that she had eaten no lunch; Martha mentioned that a Miss Hornblower had called that afternoon—which produced no sensation, though Cuthbert seemed for a moment inclined to ask who ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... indeed there was rather more play than work going on. The people make a kind of holiday of these occasions. Every fine night parties of the younger people assembled on the sands, and dancing and games were carried on for hours together. But the requisite liveliness for these sports was never got up without a good deal of preliminary rum-drinking. The girls were so coy that the young men could not get sufficient partners for the dances without first subscribing for a few ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates |
