"Pertness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not answer. Her pertness, her Anglo-Saxon vivacity, were gone; her face was wooden, expressionless; her restless eyes slow-moving and dull; her cheek-bones, always noticeably high, looked higher, and her skin was murky ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... squirrel comes and goes, but the red squirrel we have always with us. He will live where the gray will starve. He is a true American; he has nearly all the national traits—nervous energy, quickness, resourcefulness, pertness, not to say impudence and conceit. He is not altogether lovely or blameless. He makes war on the chipmunk, he is a robber of birds' nests, and is destructive of the orchard fruits. Nearly every man's hand is against him, yet he thrives, and ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... brows knotted into a frown. "Nay, let him go to Brittany with the others," said he harshly. "I wonder, John, that you should bring back to my memory this youth whose pertness is too fresh that I should forget it. But some one must go to Brittany in your stead, for the matter presses and our people are hard put to it to hold their own." He cast his eyes over the assembly, and they rested upon the stern features ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mechanism of a pair of nut-crackers from the back of its head, with effect; that it has a little black tongue capable of much talk; above all, that it is mostly gay in plumage, often to vulgarity, and always to pertness;—all these characters should surely be represented to the apprehensive juvenile mind, in sum; and not merely the bird's ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... pleasures, amused by her precocious vivacity, fostering her sauciness, extolling the wit of her audacious speeches, and extremely resenting all poor Honora's attempts to counteract this terrible spoiling, or to put a check upon undesirable diversions and absolute pertness. Every conscientious interference on her part was regarded as duenna-like harshness, and her restrictions as a grievous yoke, and Lucilla made no secret that it was so, treating her to almost unvaried ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sure," said the old man, no whit offended or displeased by the boy's pertness; for the spirit of bon camaraderie which existed between them was not easily disturbed. "Well, now, I'm jes' comin' to it right spang off. Well, ye see, I been over to Millville this mornin' in the boat, accordin' to custom, when the water ain't too rough, an' bein' off ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... will always leave behind some evidence of this, whether they pass through life in a public or private capacity. Flippant pertness, with some wit, is too often mistaken for talent—and a still tongue with a sage look, will sometimes pass for wisdom. But wherever there is talent or wisdom, it makes ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... was the very image of a spoiled child and natural vagabond, replied with all the pertness and insolence of one that had been over indulged, "that the things were his—he had paid for his lodgings, and nobody had anything ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... said Florence, indulging in a little pertness as she saw that the situation would no more suit her than she it. ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... blushing modesty and unaffected simplicity of Charlotte passed unnoticed; but the forward pertness of La Rue, the freedom of her conversation, the elegance of her person, mixed with a certain engaging JE NE SAIS QUOI, perfectly ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... watchful eye detects every movement and expression of his companions,—the calm, earnest, loving, pitying look of Jesus; and the excited, scornful, surprised, joyful, constantly changing looks of the woman. He first marks her pertness of manner; then the respectful "Sir"; then the reverence for a prophet; and at last the belief and joy ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... the half-caste child, the lisping chee-chee, or Eurasian, grandiloquently so called, much given to sentimental minstrelsy, juvenile polkas, early coquetry, and early beer, hot curries, loud clothes, bad English, and fast pertness. I never think of them without recalling a precocious ballad-screamer of eight years who was flourished indispensably at every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various |
