"Playful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sending up an inarticulate lamentation; but the indifference of the officers forbade the notion of tragedy in her case. She was perhaps a local celebrity; the children left off their games, and ran gayly trooping after her; even the young fellow and young girl exchanging playful blows in a robust flirtation at the corner of a liquor store suspended their scuffle with a pleased interest as she passed. March understood the unwillingness of the poor to leave the worst conditions in the city for comfort and plenty in the country when he reflected upon this dramatic ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Mabel, with an expression that seemed to me half serious and half playful. "But I wish you would tell me something about your German sprites. I am so very ignorant in such ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... once been a mischievous boy and had had a teacher we could not believe. It was curious. Mazeppa playful? We exchanged glances, and giggled softly. We tried to imagine Mazeppa playful and having a teacher. And did his teacher also——? We were afraid to think of such a thing. But Elya stopped ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... generosity deserved trust; however, we women could not be persuaded to render it. We got out and admired, from afar, the process. Left by our guide and prop, we found ourselves in a wide field, where, by playful quips and turns, an endless "creek," seemed to divert itself with our attempts to cross it. Failing in this, the next best was to whirl down a steep bank, which feat our charioteer performed with an air not unlike that of Rhesus, had he but been as suitably ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... ones you can find in the woods now, and grew in just such a shady place. When the breezes crept down under the trees they waved the fern gracefully about so that it gently touched the tall rushes that grew above it and cast little shadows on the moss at its feet. Now and then a playful sunbeam darted through the crevices in the leaves and found the fern, and at night drops of dew stole silently in and made a glistening crown upon its head. But there were no children then to find it. It was long, long ago, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... to one another, sometimes: "Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry?" They believed they would be sorry. "For," said they, "the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hillsides are the children of the water; and the smallest, bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... of day she would slip into the workroom of the Delobelles, amuse herself by watching their work and looking at all the insects, and, being already more coquettish than playful, if an insect had lost a wing in its travels, or a humming-bird its necklace of down, she would try to make herself a headdress of the remains, to fix that brilliant shaft of color among the ripples of her silky hair. It made ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... most delicate little lady that ever scampered merrily across the floors, scratched between the walls, and gave utterance to little cries of joy at finding nuts, meal, and crumbs of bread in her path; a true fay, pretty and playful, with an eye clear as crystal, a little head, sleek skin, amorous body, rosy feet, and velvet tail—a high born mouse and a polished speaker with a natural love of bed and idleness—a merry mouse, more cunning than an old Doctor of Sorbonne fed on parchment, lively, white bellied, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... shook a playful forefinger at him. "I was a mother to my husband's regiment, Captain Garrett, I assure you. Quite. I used to say to all our subalterns, 'Now, remember that this house is open to you at any time.' I felt that they were so far from their ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... bear seemed to be the better, and sometimes would land so hard a cuff on his comrade as to knock the latter rolling down the hill, in which case the aggrieved one, recovering himself, with ears laid back would run up once more at his antagonist and resume the half-playful combat. ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... the more annoying because he was conscious that Ruth amused and interested him in no slight degree. She had the rare quality of being genuine. She stood for what she was, without effort or self-consciousness. Whether playful or serious, she was always real. Beneath a reserved and rather quiet manner there lurked a piquant unconventionality. The mixture of earnestness and humor, which were so closely interwoven in her nature that he could never tell ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... perish of want. It was plain enough to her why he avoided her. He had seen that she loved him; he would not encourage false hopes in her breast. Had she not been warned, ere ever she met him, that he abjured marriage? She remembered, with a breaking heart, her own first playful words ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... little demons that had hold of him, went skipping and springing round and round. But although so fierce a fighter, so inhospitable to every other cat, Phosphor is the most affectionate little soul. He is still very playful, though so large, and last summer to see him bounding on the grass, playing with his tail, turning somersaults all by himself, was quite worth while. When we first happened to go away in his early years he wouldn't speak to us when we came back, he felt so neglected. I went ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... And sometimes, in the day, above the wave I for a moment saw a lovely face, Pearled in a clinging mass of shell-wreathed hair, Peering upon me with strange, smiling eyes. Gay fishes, in the sunlight gleaming, swam With playful fires of evanescent hues; And birds did sometimes rest their weary wings Upon my shoulder, pecking at the fruit Which I did share with them, ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... his fingers at him sometimes at first, as he would have done to a playful animal; but when Jules drew back, frightened by his foreign speech and rough voice, he began to dislike the timid child. After awhile he never noticed him except to push him ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Idle Rich (LANE). Conceive this arch-humourist let loose, if so rough a term may be applied to so delicate a wit, among the sordid and fleshly plutocracy of a progressive American city; imagine his polished satire expending itself on such playful themes as the running of fashionable churches on strictly commercial lines, dogma and ritualism being so directed and adapted as to leave the largest possible dividends on the Special Offertory Cumulative Stock, and your appetite will be whetted for an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... my new clothes a secret if you don't I shall not divulge any more secrets to you. I have got quite a library. The Master has not taken his rattan out since the vacation. Your little kitten is as well and as playful as ever and I hope you are to for I am sure I love you as well as ever. Why is grass like a mouse you cant guess that he he he ho ho ho ha ha ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... other how they were getting on. It was not long before the stiff veneer of bourgeoisie which bored me had worn off. The people emerged in their true selves: natural, gentle, sparkling with enjoyment, playful. Playful is, I think, the best word to describe them. They played with infinite grace and innocence, like kittens, from the old men of sixty to the little boys of thirteen. Very little wine was drunk. Each guest had a litre placed before him. Many did not ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... Lavish proceeded through the streets of the city of Florence, short, fidgety, and playful as a kitten, though without a kitten's grace. It was a treat for the girl to be with any one so clever and so cheerful; and a blue military cloak, such as an Italian officer wears, only increased the ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... and of all her kin, what did she? mourn, and weep, and give herself up to melancholy? she was quite incapable of such weakness. If she had no children left, she at least had grandchildren—she must take care of them—the tender little playful babes, her own flesh and blood, and all that was left upon the earth of her late son. And she did take care of them—the care that Pharaoh took of the Israelitish infants—the care that Herod took of the nurslings ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... fields, what horse can bear to see another horse, or even a donkey, turned into the next paddock without running up to have a chat with him? Horses that work together are always on speaking terms. Much rubbing of soft noses, pricking backwards and forwards of the ears, with a snort, playful bite, or whinny, is their talk. After much talk of this sort between two splendid cart-horses, standing in harness, I once saw a fine plan carried out. They had been drawing a heavy load, and were quietly enjoying their feed, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... sing, and dance, and play, And gild the close of Life's short Holiday! No second Childhood can my S—— wear; The first yet boasts an incomplete career. Amid the duties of maturer age, The playful Child was blended with the Sage; And e'en th' important labours of the State, The secret Councils, and the deep Debate, Have oft been left unfinished, to enjoy Some childish pastime, or some fangled toy, Then fear not,—tho' thy years are almost past, My friendly Ray shall chear ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... the first book handy—an "Essay upon Light and Shade in Painting." Well, we were in the dark—with Rembrandt;—when the room appeared to fill with odoriferous vapour, and a blonde fairy stealthily touched our shoulder, making a mock salutation, that startled us very much:—it was our playful sister, whom we complimented upon appearance and expedition; well knowing ladies to be unable to dress in a given time for a ball, whatever they ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... evening editions agreed, however, that when interviewed, Mr. Brandes was nursing a black eye and a badly swollen lip, which, according to him, he had acquired in a playful sparring encounter with his business manager, ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... them. There was certainly a correspondence between the snarling action of the mouth and the dangerous form of the teeth, perfect as that in any snarling animal; and such animals, it should be remembered, snarl not only when angry and threatening, but in their playful moods as well. Other and more important correspondences or correlations might have existed; and the voice was certainly unlike any human voice I have ever heard, whether in white, red, or black man. But the time I had for observation was short, the conversation revealed nothing further, and ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... of record, and, after shaking hands with Lionel, and kissing my long-lost brother, I was left alone with the Gironacs, half expectant of a playful scolding. ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... tail at regular intervals during flight, as might be supposed, but keeps it closed until he descends to a perch, when it is opened for a moment in the act of alighting. However, if he has occasion to wheel or make a sudden turn in the air, either for an insect or in a playful prank, his scissors fly open, one might almost say spontaneously, no doubt serving the double purpose of rudder and balancing pole. When closed, the tail is very narrow, looking almost like a single plume. On the perch (except when he desires to shift his position, ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... ascertained, beyond the possibility of doubt, that she cannot see a ray of light—cannot hear the least sound—and never exercises her sense of smell, if she have any. Of beautiful sights, and sweet sounds, and pleasant odours she has no conception: nevertheless, she seems as happy and as playful as a bird or a lamb; and the employment of her intellectual faculties, or the acquirement of a new idea, gives her a vivid pleasure, which is plainly marked ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore
... the lion at first looks at them very calmly, and very often wags his tail as if in a playful humour; but when they approach nearer, he growls, as if to warn them off. Then, as they continue to approach, he gradually draws up his hind-legs under his body, ready for a spring at them as soon as they are within distance, ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... timidity wore off, he began to utter very agreeable speeches, and related many pleasant anecdotes; moreover, he began to heave sighs and sobs. His face was handsome and worth seeing; I began to like him beyond control. I, from the affections of my heart, and the relish I felt for his playful humour, every day gave him rewards and gratuities; but the wretch always appeared before me in the same clothes that he had been accustomed to wear, and they even were dirty ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... of his private life added much to the dignity of his public character. In the relations of son, brother, uncle, master, friend, his conduct was exemplary. In the small circle of his intimate associates, he was amiable, affectionate, even playful. They loved him sincerely; they regretted him long; and they would hardly admit that he who was so kind and gentle with them could be stern and haughty with others. He indulged, indeed, somewhat too freely ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... carpet in her dressing-room disarranged, and had inquired into the mystery of the secret passage. She chid Miss Alicia in a playful, laughing way, for her boldness in introducing two great ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... again, the dewy morn With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, And living as if ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... joyful sailor embarks on board of his ship, the sails are spread to catch the playful gale, swift as an arrow he cuts the rolling wave. A few days thus sporting on the briny wave, when suddenly the sky is overspread with clouds, the rain descends in torrents, the sails are lowered, the gale begins, the vessel is carried with great velocity, and the shrouds ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... signature Elia. [13] With this delightful sketch the essayist Elia may be said to have been born. In none of Lamb's previous writings had there been, more than a hint of that unique vein,—wise, playful, tender, fantastic, "everything by starts, and nothing long," exhibited with a felicity of phrase certainly unexcelled in English prose literature,—that we associate with his name. The careful reader of ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... addressed the banker, now not so furious as awkwardly embarrassed. "They were playing and the young lady was to go through the marriage ceremony with the first man to enter the room, a common farce hereabouts, as you know; and I was the first man to enter. Don't blame me for a playful custom, or the action of ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... to traverse this highway in their one-horse wagons. From ruts and ridges alike protruded the imperishable granite boulder, which wheels and feet might polish but never efface. On either side of the roadway was traced an erratic furrow, professing to do duty for a drain, and at intervals emptying a playful current across the track ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... on a love-tale as full of romance and movement as could be desired. Admirably told it was, as I recollect it; crisp with the healthy vigor of American wintry atmosphere, with bright touches of humor, and, here and there, passages of sentiment, half tender, half playful. It was something new in our literature, and gave promise of valuable work to come. But the writer was not destined to fulfil the promise. In the next year, from the camp of his regiment, he wrote one or two admirable descriptive sketches, touching upon the characteristic points of the campaigning ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... as easily and tenderly as a baby, paying her a sort of reverential deference and fond admiration that rendered them a beautiful sight, in such full, redoubled measure was his fondness repaid by the little, clever, fairy-looking woman, with her playful manner, high spirits, keen wit, and the active habits that even confirmed invalidism could not destroy. She had small deadly white hands, a fair complexion, that varied more than was good for her, pretty, though ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... because it is an indication of some kind of sentiment. You don't want any sentiment laboriously made out in such a thing. You don't want any maudlin show of it. But you do want a pervading suggestion that it is there. It makes all the difference between being playful and being cruel. Again I must say, above all things—especially to young people writing: For the love of God don't condescend! Don't assume the attitude of saying, "See how clever I am, and what fun everybody else is!" Take any shape ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... to be scandalised even at seeing now, passing quite close to them, the trucks of a playful little railway belonging to a local industry, that are ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... dress and forward manners inclined Germain to judge the widow old and ugly, although she was certainly not either. He thought that such finery and playful manners might well suit little Marie's years and wit, but that the widow's fun was labored and over bold, and that she wore her ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... from his young hostess's heart the weight that he had put there the previous evening by his mocking and contemptuous manner. He let himself go, spoke after his own manner, and gave up the jesting, playful tone which he always had ready for women. She listened to him with silent attention, no matter what he talked about. The wide leaps his mind took did not seem to weary her in the following. To his astonishment, she did not yawn once. "She ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... delight. She refused to go behind the fact—the glad fact that Richard once more was with her, that her eyes beheld him, her ears heard his voice, her hands met his. Every little act of thoughtful care, every pretty word of half-playful affection, confirmed her thankfulness and made the present blest. Even this somewhat morbid tendency of his to shut himself away from the observation of all acquaintance, conferred on her such sweetly exclusive ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... more; the tablet commemorated, I was about to say the virtues, but rather the existence of a former Rutherford of Hermiston; and Archie, under that trophy of his long descent and local greatness, leaned back in the pew and contemplated vacancy with the shadow of a smile between playful and sad, that became him strangely. Dandie's sister, sitting by the side of Clem in her new Glasgow finery, chose that moment to observe the young laird. Aware of the stir of his entrance, the little formalist had kept her eyes fastened and her face prettily composed ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came softened from below; The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young, The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school, The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind,— These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And filled each pause ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... seemed perfectly natural she should do so, and without the faintest suggestion of boldness or immodesty. Her face glowed with the pleasure and interest of it, and with her short dress and tumbled hair she looked every bit the charming child of seventeen that she was, innocent and playful, proud of her native town, and alive beyond her years to the sense of its ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the light of cheerfulness fall upon her face, and you wished never to see it beam with any other spirit. In her met those extremes of character peculiar to her country. Her laughing lips expanded with the playful delicacy of mirth, or breathed forth, with untaught melody and deep pathos, ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... wish the Arabian Tales were true; my imagination ran on unknown influences, on magical powers and influences. I thought life might be a dream, or I an angel, and all this world a deception, my fellow angels by a playful device concealing themselves from me, and deceiving me with the semblance of a ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... about this time that I noticed the beginning of the monarch's serious attachment for me. Till then it had been only playful badinage, good-humoured teasing, a sort of society play, in which the King was rehearsing his part as a lover. I was at length bound to admit that chaff of this sort might end in something serious, and his Majesty begged me to let him have La Valliere ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... her character with astonishing success. The contrast between her girlish innocence and the voluptuous sentiment of Gounod's heroine cannot fail to strike the most careless listener. The climax of this scene, the delightfully tender and playful quartet, which culminates in a burst of hysterical laughter, is a stroke of genius. In the prison scene Boito rises to still greater heights. The poignant pathos of the poor maniac's broken utterances, the languorous beauty of the duet, and the frenzied terror ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... her seat, she strove to shake off the hideous delusion. Sometimes the soft cordial tones of her mother,—her mother, who was in the grave,—seemed again dispensing those lessons of virtue of which her own life had afforded so pure an example: sometimes the playful caresses of her boys seemed to grow warm upon her lips—around her neck. Yes! she could hear them, see them:—little Charles, who, in his very babyhood, had been accustomed to uplift his tiny arm in championship of his own dear mother;—Digby, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... has won the wager now? Do you still believe it is an inconceivable thought that the modest daughter of a decorous Nuremberg race, entitled to enter the lists of a tourney, would grant a young knight a midnight meeting?" And addressing her companions, she continued, in an explanatory yet still playful tone: "She was ready to wager the beautiful brown locks which she now hides modestly under a kerchief, and even her betrothed lover's ring. It should be mine if I succeeded in leading her to commit such an abominable deed. But I was content, if I won the wager, with a smaller forfeit; yet ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Another playful cyclone had snatched up a farmer who wore red and white striped socks. The cyclone had blown all the red out of the socks, the story teller had said, so that when they found the farmer flattened against a barn door as if he had been pasted ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... it and makes it roar until the whole house shakes. Whenever he feels an emotional impulse, he vents it at the organ or the piano, or by singing. When he stops, he is satisfied; his mind is cleared; and he is in a good-humored, playful frame of mind, such as ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... apparelled herself in her paint and powder and driven down. Seen by the morning sunlight, her smeared face with its brilliant artificial smile revealed a pathos which was rendered more acute by its effect of playful grotesqueness. She was like a faded and decrepit actress who, fired by the unconquerable spirit of her art, forces her wrinkled visage to ape the romantic ecstasies of passion. Age which is beautiful only when it has become expressive of repose—of serene renouncement—showed to Laura's eyes ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... brothers Grimm. Some of the Cornish fairies, the Small People, like the Indrasan people, live underground (Hunt's Romances and Drolls of the West of England, pp. 116, 118, 125), aid those to whom they take a fancy and are very playful among themselves (ib. p. 81); they have the most ravishing music (ib. pp. 86, 98); their singing is clear and delicate as silver bells (ib. p. 100); everything about them is joyous and beautiful (ib. ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... partaken of dejeuner, and now, before nightfall, the four children had gathered round a table by the window, absorbed in a playful occupation which delighted them. Helped by Ambroise, the twins, Blaise and Denis, were building a whole village out of pieces of cardboard, fixed together with paste. There were houses, a town hall, a church, a school. And Rose, who had ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... sometimes ridiculed, and even disliked by their schoolfellows. He was dreamy, for instance, and rather solitary. From his earliest childhood he was fond of creeping into a corner to read, and yet he was a general favorite all the while he was at school. He was rarely playful or merry, but any one could see at the first glance that this was not from any sullenness. On the contrary he was bright and good-tempered. He never tried to show off among his schoolfellows. Perhaps because of this, he was never afraid of any one, yet the boys immediately understood ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... part on a certain night, furnishes conversation for an hour. Observations on a new actress perhaps follow. Such subjects appear more interesting to such persons, than the innocent conversation, or playful pranks, of their children. If the latter are noisy, they are often sent out of the room as troublesome, though the same parents can bear the stunning plaudits, or the discordant groans and hissings ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... with other qualities than energy, determination, and common sense. He was not witty. He had no talent for repartee, and the most industrious collector of anecdotes will find few good things attributed to him. But he possessed a kindly humour which found vent in playful expressions of endearment, or in practical jokes of the most innocent description; and if these outbursts of high spirits were confined to the precincts of his own home, they proved at least that neither by temperament nor principle was he inclined ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... woman Lady Hamilton gave him,—admiration and appreciation, undisguised and unmeasured, yet bestowed by one who had the power, by the admission of even unfriendly critics, of giving a reality and grace to the part she was performing. He was soon at her feet. The playful gallantry with which Ball, Elliot, and even old St. Vincent[74] himself, paid court to a handsome woman, greedy of homage, became in Nelson a serious matter. Romantic in temperament, he was all ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... was nervous, irritable, anxious. But the uncertainty of his humor made his gayety more charming. That artistic gayety, bursting out suddenly like a flame, caressed love without offending it. And the playful wit of her lover made Therese marvel. She never could have imagined the infallible taste which he exercised naturally in joyful caprice and in familiar fantasy. At first he had displayed only the monotony of passionate ardor. That alone had captured her. But since then she had discovered in him ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the morning being fine and clear, the birds resumed in a playful, lackadaisical way the demolition of the nests; without apparent cause, save the shriek of a passing cockatoo, they fled into the jungle. Did not see them again until late in ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... once created developed a will of their own, and insisted on carrying the plot of the story along lines quite different from those originally intended by the author. This has actually happened, sometimes because the thought-forms were ensouled by playful nature-spirits, or more often because some 'dead' novelist, watching on the astral plane the development of the plan of his fellow-author, thought that he could improve upon it, and chose this method of putting forward ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... Easton's syrup of the hypophosphites will recall at once the state of cerebral erethrism, of general mental alacrity, that followed on a dose. Again, champagne (followed perhaps by a soupcon of whisky) leads to a mood essentially humorous and playful, while about three dozen oysters, taken fasting, will in most cases produce a profound and even ominous melancholy. One might enlarge further upon this topic, on the brutalising influence of beer, the sedative quality of lettuce, the stimulating consequences of curried chicken; but enough ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... 'Douglas, why don't you come to see me?' He was in a playful mood. 'What do you want? A new automobile?' I answered, 'I haven't any automobile, new or old, and you know it. What I want is you. I always loved you—surely I proved that to you.' 'What you proved to me was that you were a sort of wild-cat. ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... beach, was a world of enchantment second only in beauty to the glacier itself, for many of the bergs had been stranded there by the playful tides. They stood there now towering up in a thousand different forms, hundreds of feet above one's head, drawing all the light of the sunbeams into their glittering recesses, turning them there into violet, purple, and crimson hues, mauve, saffron, and emerald, ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... compared his train with those that had thus far kept ahead. Memotas was delighted with the inspection, for, while the other trains seemed about exhausted at the terrific rate their drivers had pushed them, Alec's were as playful and lively as though the race had only begun. So, barring accident or foul play, there seemed to be no reason why Alec should not win with flying colours. Two of the half-breeds with very vicious trains now pushed on with four minutes of a start. An ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... example, for Keats is so wholly the artist, it is his remoteness from the daily life about him that makes him the man of no one country or time. His poetry has a kind of universality, but universality within a definite sphere, and that sphere is the world of things lovely and fair. In a playful mood Keats writes to his sister: "Give me Books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and a little music out of doors, played by somebody I do not know . . . and I can pass a summer very quietly without ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... a slight amount of humour in these adaptations, and it seems to have been congenial to the poets mind. Generally he was more turned to philosophy, and the slow measures he adopted were more suited to the dignified and pompous, than to the playful and gay. Occasionally, however, there is some sparkle in his lines, and, we read in "The Rape of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... uttered these last sounds, the boy's wide mouth puckered up in a comical look of distress, and he rubbed the cuff of his jacket across his blinking eyes. Mrs. Ginniss gave him a slap, on the shoulder, intended to be playful, but actually heavy enough to have thrown a slighter person out of ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... they really are, and Mrs. Sclater, gazing through the glass, found, she imagined, large justification of displeasure. She opened the door sharply, and stepped in. Gibbie jumped from his seat on the counter, and, with a smile of playful roguery, offered it to her; a vivid ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... which he knows thoroughly, Page was wholly at the mercy of a sympathetic listener. His tongue tripped itself in his readiness to answer, to expound, to tell his experiences, to pour out a confidently accurate and precise flood of information. Sylvia began to take a playful interest in trying to find a weak place in his armor, to ask a question he could not answer. But he knew all the answers. He knew the relative weight per cubic foot of oak and pine and maple; he knew ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the songs which they sang during the most bloody war which the Anglo-Celtic race has ever waged—the only war in which it could have been said that they were stretched to their uttermost and showed their true form—"Tramp, tramp, tramp," "John Brown's Body," "Marching through Georgia"—all had a playful humour running through them. Only one exception do I know, and that is the most tremendous war-song I can recall. Even an outsider in time of peace can hardly read it without emotion. I mean, of course, ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... its subject, and also in its employment of the weapons of wit and humor. The general style most suitable to its spirit and character he considered to be that most in use in the ordinary and daily intercourse of society. He admired a simple and playful use of language, and he affected, as he asserts, a common and almost plebeian manner of writing, using words of every-day stamp in his correspondence. In his view of letter writing, its style and manner ought to vary with the complexion of its ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... was customary for the shepherds and peasants who attended the festivals of Dionysus, to dress themselves in the skins of goats and other animals, and, under this disguise, they permitted themselves all kinds of playful tricks and excesses, to which circumstance the conception of the Satyrs is by ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... be sarcastic," she chided, giving him a playful tap. "If you feel strong enough, ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... house, he cried piteously all day and all night. When the north wing was locked against him, he went back to the grave and could not be coaxed away. Finally, my mother proposed that he be allowed to stay there, until cold weather. He was the plantation-pet all summer, growing plump, but never playful, with nourishing food and rest. His meals were sent to him twice a day, but he partially supported himself by catching birds and field-mice in the burying-ground, which he never left. We got used to his presence ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... acknowledged as such by many generations; and especially the works of Rabelais, Montaigne, Sterne and Swift. There is nothing I know of in Antiquity like it. That which comes nearest is perhaps the Platonic Dialogue. But of this, although there is something of the playful and fanciful on the surface, there is in reality neither in the language (which is austerely determined to its end), nor in the method and progression of the work, any of that headlong self-asserting capriciousness, which, if not discernible in the plan of Teufelsdrockh's Memoirs, ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... This tender and playful little letter, with its childlike simplicity of fancy and gentle authority of tone, encourages us to believe that Catherine appreciated the full advantages of being an aunt. We have other indications that the ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... reached to all. One, who lived on the air of sweet sounds, and who was almost always to be found seated by her harp or some other instrument, had, till the late storm, been generally merry and playful, though sometimes sad. But for a long time after that, she was often found weeping, and playing little simple airs which she had heard in childhood—backward longings, followed by fresh tears. Before long, however, a new element manifested itself in her music. It became yet more wild, and ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... in Bunyan; nothing harsh or savage. His natural humour perhaps saved him. His few recorded sayings all refer to the one central question; but healthy seriousness often best expresses itself in playful quaintness. He was once going somewhere disguised as a waggoner. He was overtaken by a constable who had a warrant to arrest him. The constable asked him if he knew that devil of a fellow Bunyan. 'Know him!' Bunyan said. 'You might ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... hoarse with having little else to do, Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, Or curb a runaway young star or two,[fz] Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon Broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal blue, Splitting some planet with its playful tail, As boats are sometimes by ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... glittering leaves, shone in the morning sun beside the footpath, which wound along the moss-grown feet of the backs of the mountains. It conducted to a spring of the clearest water, which after it had filled its basin, allowed its playful vein to run ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... nation, and were softened by the presence, in more than usual measure, of Italian genius and grace. Benvenuto Cellini, who describes his character with much minuteness, has left us a picture of a hot-tempered, but genuine and kind-hearted man, whose taste was elegant, and whose wit, from the playful spirit with which it was pervaded, and from a certain tendency to innocent levity, approached to humour. He was liable to violent bursts of feeling; and his inability to control himself, his gesticulations, his exclamations, and his tears, all represent to us ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... he momentarily forgot that it was written to Jenny, and only remembered that it had come from Isabel. In the snare of the incense he even accused himself for having left them unread so long, and then to think that nearly six months had gone by since the second letter had brought its half-playful reproach for forgetfulness.... "Ah! Jenny, I'm afraid you're a fickle little ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... I became on rather playful terms with the extraordinary bursts of wrath to which Henry H. Rogers occasionally gives way, and which sweep through the "System's" shrine like a tornado; but this was my first experience, and it was a shock and a revelation. Just what ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... being bound he declared aloud that the whole plot was of his contriving, and that nobody else had any share in it. Brought before the Dey, he said the same. He was threatened with impalement and with torture; and as cutting off ears and noses were playful freaks with the Algerines, it may be conceived what their tortures were like; but nothing could make him swerve from his original statement that he and he alone was responsible. The upshot was that the unhappy gardener was hanged by his master, and the prisoners taken possession of by the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... was talking with spirit, though feeling evidently entered into her part of the discourse; but she paused for nearly a minute after Jasper had made the last observation before she uttered another word. Then she continued, in a manner less playful, and one critically attentive might have fancied in a ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... will best adorn my lowly brow; but Annie, bright Annie Evalyn, shall wear naught but the proud laurel and queenly jessamine;" and, giving a twirl to her pretty wreath, she tossed it over her friend's high, marble-like brow, bestowing a playful kiss on either cheek as ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... like a boy of that age for use upon a picnic, Mrs. Linceford," Leslie had pleaded, with playful parody, in his behalf, when the lady had hinted something of her former sentiment concerning the encroachments and monopolies of "boys of that age." And so ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... natives. I kept one myself for about a year, which accompanied me in my voyages and became very familiar, coming to me always on wet nights to share my blanket. It is a most restless creature, but is not playful like most of the American monkeys; the restlessness of its disposition seeming to arise from great nervous irritability and discontent. The anxious, painful, and changeable expression of its countenance, and the want of purpose in its movements, betray this. Its actions ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... beguile the tedium of the journey. Also they often lead to your picking up chance acquaintances. I have known one stone placed in a dimly lighted corridor of a train productive of much merriment and harmless banter. Being of considerable weight they do not readily respond to a playful kick, but having no sharp corners they are seldom responsible for serious injury ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... unchecked, unbridled undisciplined; luxuriant, rampant, exuberant, excessive, rank; dissolute, licentious, immoral, unchaste; frolicsome, playful, sportive; reckless, heedless, inconsiderate. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... potato-ball,—a fellah carries one in his breeches-pocket, an' shoots y' right threugh his own pahnts, withaout ever takin' on it aout of his pocket. The stable-keeper, who it may be remembered once exchanged a few playful words with Mr. Gridley, got a hint from some of these unfeeling young men, and offered the resources of his stable to the youth supposed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... delighted in melting tenderness and playful coquetry, in "Statira" or "Millamant;" and even at an advanced age, when she played ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... of loss, this sense of the beloved as of something secret and far and scarcely to be attained, like the Holy Grail, is the dominant theme of the poems, even in The Song of Wandering Aengus, that poem of almost playful beauty, which tells of the "little silver trout" ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... be more innocent than flowers! They are like children undimmed by sin. They are emblems of purity and truth, a source of fresh delight to the pure and innocent. The heart that does not love flowers, or the voice of a playful child, cannot be genial. It was a beautiful conceit that invented a language of flowers, by which lovers were enabled to express the feelings that they dared not openly speak. But flowers have a voice for all,—old and young, rich and ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... over strong, held it on her lap, while Silas puffed again dutifully at the pipe, which occupied his other arm. An ash in the hedgerow behind made a fretted screen from the sun, and threw happy playful ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... by her own manner? She was aware that she had fallen into a habit of fighting with him, of sparring against him with words about indifferent things, and calling his conduct in question in a manner half playful and half serious. Could it be the truth that she was thus robbing herself of that which would be to her as to herself she had frankly declared the one treasure which she would desire? Twice, as has been said before, words had seemed to tremble on his lips which might have ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... known till that famous night; For the gems and the flowers that shone in the scene, O'ermatched the regalia of princess and queen. No gaudy slave to a fair one's brow Was the rose, or the ruby, or emerald now, But lighted with souls by the playful elves, The brilliants and ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... book deal in like manner, from the point of view of a good-natured Tory of Queen Anne's time, with the feuds of the day between Church and Dissent. Other chapters unite with this topic a playful account of another chief political event of the time—the negotiation leading to the Act of Union between England and Scotland, which received the Royal Assent on the 6th of March, 1707; John Bull then consented ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... thing was perceptible about the Doctor's eyes, not only to himself in the glass, but to everybody else; namely, that they had an unaccustomed gleaming brightness in them; not so very bright either, but yet so much so, that little Pansie noticed it, and sometimes, in her playful, roguish way, climbed up into his lap, and put both her small palms over them; telling Grandpapa that he had stolen somebody else's eyes, and given away his own, and that she liked his old ones better. The poor old Doctor did his best to smile through his ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "New Papa" is reserved for her tenderer or playful moments now,) "are you quite sure that papa will come ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... pointed horn at close quarters might do him mortal harm; and it must be a situation trying to the patience of them both. The Lion seems to say "No prancing!" as if he knew his peril; and the Unicorn to threaten a playful dig at his flank, as if he understood ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... she, with a cordial but sweetly playful smile; "but I have a privilege which is at the same time my burden and loneliness. I often pity the young men and maidens, for they cannot have a friendship or an intimacy without their relatives or themselves ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... A playful breeze the waters curled, Touched their light waves and passed them by, Then fanned a bird whose wings unfurled Were waving on the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Mortimer had begun to show a degree of infirmity which sometimes made his son uncomfortable that he should have to live alone. To bring those joyous urchins and little, laughing, dancing, playful girls into his house was not to be thought of. What was wanted was some young relative to live with him, who would drive him into the town and home again, dine with him, live in his presence, and make his ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... playful manner with which she disposed of friend and foe, was aghast at this outbreak. He saw another Yetta. Her face was ugly and revengeful. She sawed the air with ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... themselves in the single blanket. The eye beamed fitfully upon them, occasionally a wave of lambent tremulousness passed across it; its weirdness was an excuse for their drawing nearer each other in playful terror. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... wish," said she. "Let them say what they will." Then, with playful solemnity, she put her hand in her apron pocket and drew forth a large glass bead. "Bury this," said she, giving it to Hans, "where I have stamped, and ere moonrise thy wish ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... fast on to the verge of either folly or madness. He threw himself on the couch, when the voice of Altdorff came like a winged harmony upon his spirit. The page was seated in the narrow cloisters,—the lute, his untiring companion, enticing a few chords from his touch, playful and gentle as the feelings that awaked them; some old and quaint chant, scarce worth the telling, but cherished in the heart's inmost shrine, from the hallowed nature of its associations. A deep slumber crept heavily on the cavalier, but the merchant's daughter still haunted him: ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... passed. The men still talked. I was tantalized by the crying of the penguins, and by the whale, evidently playful, which came so close that it spouted and splashed a biscuit-toss away. I saw Mr. Pike's head turn at the sound; he glanced squarely in my direction, but did not see me. Then he returned to listening to the mumble ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... went on much the same, Walter not daring to tell the girl all he felt, but seizing every opportunity of a tete-a-tete, and missing none of the proximity she allowed him, and she never seeming other than pleased to be his companion. Her ways with him were always pretty, and sometimes playful. She was almost studious to please him; and if she never took a liberty with him, she never resented any he took with her, which certainly were neither numerous nor daring, for Walter was not presumptuous, ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... discover no merit; but the best of it has a distinctly grotesque quality that reminds one of Hood's weird cleverness in playing with grim subjects. This quality, and the peculiar Japanese method of mingling the playful with the terrific, can be suggested and explained only by reproducing in Romaji the texts of various ky[o]ka, with ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... gentleman in the next box facetiously observes, 'cutting it uncommon fat!')—ladies, with great, long, white pocket-handkerchiefs like small table-cloths, in their hands, chasing one another on the grass in the most playful and interesting manner, with the view of attracting the attention of the aforesaid gentlemen—husbands in perspective ordering bottles of ginger-beer for the objects of their affections, with a lavish disregard of expense; and the said objects washing down huge quantities ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... and turn him at will! three or four playful words like these, precious all the more that her general manner was so haughty and reserved, caused Tom to forget her pride, her whims, her various caprices, her too palpable indifference to himself. He offered the flowers with humble gratitude, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... with her little child, now just trying to walk, that he might have a little play on the green turf, and she cool her hot eyes and lips in the air. As she sat there watching the pretty clumsiness of her boy, and springing forward to intercept his falls, the influence of sun and air, the playful joy of the child, the soothing stillness of all Nature, stole into her heart till it dreamed a dream of hope. Perhaps the budding blossom of promise might become floral and fruitful; perhaps her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Of fabrics golden wrought with curious art; And all the gathered wealth of eastern climes. First choose the well-formed sandals—meet to guard And grace her delicate feet; then for her robe The tissue, pure as Etna's snow that lies Nearest the sun-light as the wreathy mist At summer dawn—so playful let it float About her airy limbs. A girdle next, Purple with gold embroidered o'er, to bind With witching grace the tunic that confines Her bosom's swelling charms: of silk the mantle, Gorgeous with like empurpled hues, and fixed With clasp of gold—remember, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... voice hailed him. He looked up and saw the Dowager, and, behind her, the figure of her son. Away in the meadows the lights of his men's torches darted hither and thither like playful jack-o'-lanterns. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... no remark, everything done being the counterpart of yesterday, excepting that the king, growing bolder with me in consequence of our talking together, became more playful and familiar—amusing himself, for instance, sometimes by catching hold of my beard as the rolling of ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... friendships with many of her school-fellows, and seems to have been decidedly popular with the authorities as well, in spite of the high spirits which amid congenial company found vent in harmless mischief and a sort of organized playful insubordination. The school had two parties: the sages or good girls, and the diables, their opposites. Among the latter Aurore conscientiously enrolled herself and became a leader in their escapades, acquiring ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... form of a comet—that is, a globe, and a bearded tail to it, diminishing gradually to a point. This beautiful constellation seemed very sportive and delightful. It was much in the form of a tadpole! and, without ceasing, went, full of playful giddiness, up and down, all over the heaven on the concave surface of the nutshell. One time it would be at that part of the heavens under my feet, and in the next minute would be over my head. It was never at rest, but for ever going east, west, north, or south, and paid no more respect to ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... not upon thy paths—thy fields Are not a spoil for him—thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray, And howling to his gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... final lecture came, and he was off for Elmira with the smallest possible delay. Once there, the intervening days did not matter. He could join in the busy preparations; he could write exuberantly to his friends. To Laura Hawkins, long since Laura Frazer he sent a playful line; to Jim Gillis, still digging and washing on the slopes of the old Tuolumne hills, he wrote a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... air. At times the cyclone would swoop down from above upon the swaying stem of some tall and stately palm that bent like grass before the wind, break it off short with a roar at the bottom, and lay it low at once upon the ground, with a crash like thunder. In other places, little playful whirlwinds seemed to descend from the sky in the very midst of the dense brushwood, where they cleared circular patches, strewn thick under foot with trunks and branches in their titanic sport, and yet left unhurt all about the surrounding forest. Then again ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... state of things. Now, the idea of having to tell a love-story,—perhaps two or three love-stories,—when I set out with the intention of repeating instructive, useful, or entertaining discussions, naturally alarms me. It is quite true that many things which look to me suspicious may be simply playful. Young people (and we have several such among The Teacups) are fond of make-believe courting when they cannot have the real thing,—"flirting," as it used to be practised in the days of Arcadian innocence, not the more modern and more questionable recreation which has reached us from the home ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Mary Virginia's sensitiveness to all beauty, nor her playful fancy and vivid imagination, he was clear-brained and clean-thinking, with that large perspective and that practical optimism which seem to me so essentially American. He saw without confusion both the thing as it was and as it could become. With only enough humor ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... enough, the stern mouth was seen to have a downward turn at its corners that hinted at a vein of humour lying hid somewhere. The hint was well-sustained, for underneath all his sternness and severity the doctor concealed a playful humour, that at times came to the surface, and gratefully ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... cuts with the whip, which made him unmanageable, so I let him go. We had a pleasant time catching him again, when he got among the Lima-bean poles; but his owner led him back with a very self-satisfied expression. "Playful, ain't he, 'squire?" I replied that I thought he was, and asked him if it was usual for his horse to play such pranks. He said it was not "You see, 'squire, he feels his oats, and hain't been out of the stable for a month. Use him, and he's as kind as a kitten." With ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... like the formal crest of latter days: But bending in a thousand graceful ways; So graceful, that it seems no mortal hand, Or e'en the touch of Archimago's wand, Could charm them into such an attitude. We must think rather, that in playful mood, Some mountain breeze had turned its chief delight, To show this wonder of its gentle might. Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry; For while I muse, the lance points slantingly Athwart the morning ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... will shine—but whose acute consciousness of something meretricious in his metal, made him doubt if the public would accept coinage from his mint; and so caused him to wear tentative disguises, whether he elaborated a romance or a keen and playful witticism—and who really did injustice to his own powers,—not from modesty but meanness,—even he, the son of a prime minister and heir to a peerage—a man who was himself always something of a trickster, now mystifying a blind old woman at Paris; now sending open letters, privately nullified, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... and was going to tell something about her; but the ambassador's wife, with playful ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... have no business to be out as late as this and an east wind blowing," he said, in a playful scolding tone. "Rose, you should not have allowed it. But come in. There is a jolly fire in the dining-room, and tea is quite ready. Next time you go to London, I mean to ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... convince them of the harmlessness of his beverage, he swallowed several bottles of it in their presence; then he got cramps, but concealed his pains under a playful exterior. He even got the mixture sent to his own residence. He drank some of it with Pecuchet in the evening, and both of them tried to persuade themselves that it was good. Besides, it was necessary not to let it go to waste. Bouvard's ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... dense and brown, In the leafy darkness of the place, One could not distinguish form nor face, Only a bulk without a shape, A darker shadow in the shade; One scarce could say it moved or stayed, Thus it was we made our escape! A foaming brook, with many a bound, Followed us like a playful hound; Then leaped before us, and in the hollow Paused, and waited for us to follow, And seemed impatient, and afraid That our tardy flight should be betrayed By the sound our horses' hoof-beats made, And when we ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... in their love-songs is in general gentle and often playful, indicating more of tenderness than of passion. If, however, they are excited to anger, their hatred becomes rage; and is poured forth in imprecations, of which no other language has a like multitude. But these imprecations are not stereotype, as is the case with most ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... convey a very delicately veiled compliment, but this young woman's tone rather embarrassed him. He saw in a moment that she was beyond the reach of the playful and ingenious banter which he had contrived to make the ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... the courts. However, that isn't what I came here for at all. I came to ask you a question and one of you two are going to answer before I leave—keep your hand up, and in sight, Lacy; make another move like that and it's liable to be your last. I am not here in any playful mood, and I know your style. Lay that gun on the desk where I can see it—that's right. Now move ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... bought at half its value by the British government and placed in the British Museum, where it is still known as the "Elgin Marbles." From his father, we are told by his biographer,[2] he inherited "the genial and playful spirit which gave such a charm to his social and parental relations, and which helped him to elicit from others the knowledge of which he made so much use in the many diverse situations of his after life." The deep piety and the varied culture of his mother "made her admirably qualified to be ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... could have put so grotesque a fancy into his head? and then he smiled as he traced it to Sylvia's playful suggestion that the bottle might contain a "genie," as did the famous jar in the "Arabian Nights," and to her father's pedantic correction of the word to "Jinnee." Upon that slight foundation his sleeping brain had built ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... in the matter of star-making was never better expressed than in one of his many playful moods with the pencil. Like Caruso, he was a caricaturist. Few things gave him more delight than to make a hasty sketch of one of his friends on any scrap of paper that lay near at hand. He usually made these sketches ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... tender and green Might these two brothers, playful be seen: Never they quarrelled; no angry words, Hastily uttered, shocked the ...
— The Nursery, November 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 5 • Various
... says Dicky, pokin' him in the vest playful. "You don't mean to say you don't know Skid Mallory, the Great Skid, best quarterback we ever turned out, the one that went through Harvard for forty-five yards, and that with a broken ankle? Don't ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... taken now, and he eagerly scanned the action of the great Polar bear, which appeared to be in quite a playful mood, and had another roll and gambol on the ice before beginning to preen and clean its long, soft, whitish fur again as ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... old man laugh as none but a happy man can; and he could not help feeling what a terrible revulsion a few words from him might cause. He had watched the playful manner of Sue, and had joined in the gay raillery of the moment. A word from him would crush her spirit, and bow that loving mother to the ground. The scene had not been one of his own choosing; and he would gladly escape the necessity of dissembling ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... In a playful manner Brian caught hold of Elsie by the back of the neck, much in the same way as he might have done a small boy at the Grammar School, but ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... you, boys, that I've been practising to-day." He had not touched the strings for forty-eight hours! There was a covert smile, sad, playful, not malicious, on his face as his hands ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... little later following himself to have lunch with his intended, her mother, and her emigre uncle. The middle of the day was spent in strolling or sitting in the shade. A watchful deferential gallantry trembling on the verge of tenderness, was the note of their intercourse on his side—with a playful turn of the phrase concealing the profound trouble of his whole being caused by her inaccessible nearness. Late in the afternoon General D'Hubert walked home between the fields of vines, sometimes ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... rallied her playfully on the consequences of last night's dissipation; but her thoughts were otherwise engrossed, and she replied carelessly and with an air of abstraction far different from her usual playful and unrestrained spirit. The mind was absorbed, restricted to one sole avenue of thought: all other impressions ceased to communicate their impulse. Her brother departed soon afterwards to his morning avocations; but Alice sat in the porch. She looked ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... take me into partnership, me and my goods," said the Auvergnat, as he took La Cibot's plump arm and gave it playful taps like hammer-strokes. "I don't ask her to bring anything into the firm but her good looks! You are making a mistake when your stick to your Turk of a Cibot and his needle. Is a little bit of a porter the man to ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... that in style of conversation, in ingenuity and ability of argument, this company would compare with any company of white gentlemen that we met in the island. In that circle of colored gentlemen, were the keen sallies of wit, the admirable repartee, the satire now severe, now playful, upon the measures of the colonial government, the able exposure of aristocratic intolerance, of plantership chicanery, of plottings and counterplottings in high places—the strictures on the intrigues of the special ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... her when she was taken by surprise), but with a charming gladness of expression, and then bent with easy grace to have the star fixed near her shoulder. That little ceremony had been over long enough for her to have exchanged playful speeches and received congratulations as she moved among the groups who were now interesting themselves in the results of the scoring; but it happened that she stood outside examining the point of an arrow with rather an absent air when Lord Brackenshaw ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the navies of the West. He landed some soldiers to rifle the fruits of the royal gardens, and pointed with silver, or most probably with fire, the arrows which he discharged against the palace of the Caesars. [111] This playful outrage of the pirates of Sicily, who had surprised an unguarded moment, Manuel affected to despise, while his martial spirit, and the forces of the empire, were awakened to revenge. The Archipelago and Ionian ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... easily as most men do in their particular province. His habit was not only to read but to reread the best of his books frequently, and he was continually supplying himself with better editions of his favorites. In current, playful conversation with friends he quoted right and left, in brief and at length, from the classics, ancient and modern, and from the drama, tragic and comic. In his speeches, on the contrary, he quoted but little, and only when he seemed to run upon a thought already expressed ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... with sunshine. Don Pedro, Prince of Arragon, in Spain, had gained so complete a victory over his foes that the very land whence they came is forgotten. Feeling happy and playful after the fatigues of war, Don Pedro came for a holiday to Messina, and in his suite were his stepbrother Don John and two young Italian lords, Benedick ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... young gentlemen of the island had suddenly ceased to pay their graceful homage at the altar of Terpsichore. In an Indian isle not to dance was as bad as heresy. The ladies rallied the recreants, but their playful sarcasms failed of their wonted effect. In the natural course of things they had recourse to remonstrances, but their appeals were equally fruitless. The delicate creatures tried reproaches, but the boyish cynics ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... most willing prisoner, too—at any other time," answered I, with an attempt to fall in with the playful mood in which she had spoken the last words, while yet my anger was rising, and my anxiety increasing, as I noted the continued absence of the men from the deck. "But at this moment," I continued, "I have no option; that fellow O'Gorman must be brought to book at once, or my authority will ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... President concludes yet another demoralising bargain with a ruthless and omnipotent caterer. Then—this is the cream of the joke—the day before we expect to move, the Practical Joke Department puts out a playful hand and sweeps us all into some half-completed huts at D, somewhere at the other end of the Ordnance map, and leaves us there, with a happy chuckle, to sink or swim ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... earnestness of his mind. Indignatio facit versus. His better genius was his spleen. It was the biting acrimony of his temper that sharpened his other faculties. The truth of his perceptions produced the pointed coruscations of his wit; his playful irony was the result of inward bitterness of thought; his imagination was the product of the literal, dry, incorrigible tenaciousness of his understanding. He endeavoured to escape from the persecution ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... and poplars all along by the water's edge. Now and again there is a great splash in the middle of the stream, which makes one think that a fish large enough to swallow some unsuspecting Jonah of Perigord must be there in a playful mood; but this is merely the effect upon the imagination of a sudden noise breaking in upon the monotonous sounds of the night which are so ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... either, my dear father. said a playful voice from under the ample inclosures of the hood, than to kill deer with a smooth-bore. A short pause followed, and the same voice, but in a different accent, continued. We shall have good reasons for our thanksgiving to night, on ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the room where their parents sat quietly conversing, and soon began to sing some of the songs and to enact some of the scenes from operas, performances of which they had occasionally witnessed at the theatre. This they did, of course, in childlike, playful manner, yet not without a showing, considering their ages, of a surprising degree ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... Snow came up, and the three Misses Snow, and the Balfours, and the neighbors; and there were kisses and hand-shakings, and good wishes. Jim beamed around upon the fluttering and chattering groups like a great, good-natured mastiff upon a playful collection of silken spaniels and smart terriers. It was the proudest moment of his life. Even when standing on the cupola of his hotel, surveying his achievements, and counting his possessions, he had never felt the thrill which moved him then. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... the book itself and see if it furnishes any evidence on the point. The very title, with its quaint phrasing, shows no common genius, and as Washington Irving says, "bears the stamp of his [Goldsmith's] sly and playful humour." As the book was published in 1765, it would most likely have been written just at the time when Goldsmith was working most industriously in the service of Newbery (1763-4), at which period it will ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous |
