"Raciness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... devoted affection. Frank returned the attachment with all the natural warmth of his character. He delighted in the rough openness, which never degenerated into rudeness or disrespect; for Jacob, while free and unconstrained in his manner, instinctively knew his place and kept it. There was also a raciness and good sense in his observations, which made Frank find in him a pleasant companion in their many wanderings, both on horse and on foot. Frank was always a welcome guest at "The Rocks," where he learned to value and reverence Abraham ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... given by Captain Medwin of the manner in which Lord Byron spent his time in Switzerland, has the raciness of his Lordship's own quaintness, somewhat diluted. The reality of the conversations I have heard questioned, but they relate in some instances to matters not generally known, to the truth of several of which I can myself bear witness; moreover they have much of the ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... the wine had coloured Gotthold's cheek; dim forms of forest trees, dwindling and spiring, scarves of the starry sky, now wide and now narrow, raced past the windows, through one that was left open the air of the woods came in with a nocturnal raciness; and the roll of wheels and the tune of the trotting horses sounded merrily on the ear. Toast followed toast; glass after glass was bowed across and emptied by the trio; and presently there began to fall upon them a luxurious spell, under the influence of which little ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... contains, place it high both as a life-romance and also as a record of contemporary history. After studying the laboured periods of Varchi, we turn to these memoirs, and view the same events from the standpoint of an artisan conveying his impressions with plebeian raciness of phrase. The sack of Rome, the plague and siege of Florence, the humiliation of Clement VII., the pomp of Charles V. at Rome, the behaviour of the Florentine exiles at Ferrara, the intimacy between Alessandro de' Medici ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... has less of London life and town-bred character than most of its predecessors; but what may thus be gained in variety is lost in raciness, breadth, and effect. The peculiar classes forced into existence by the hotbed of a great city, and owing a part of their gusto to town usage, may be narrow enough if compared with general nature, but they are broader than the singularities whom Mr. Dickens copies or invents as representatives ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... chamber, would make a student miserable. They who are at work abroad are not cold, but rather it is they who sit shivering in houses. As with temperatures, so with flavors; as, with cold and heat, so with sour and sweet. This natural raciness, the sours and bitters which the diseased palate refuses, are ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... or personal pamphlets in prose or verse; such as the extravagant Supplicacyon for the Beggers, a rabid tirade against the clergy, or Skelton's rhyme Why come ye nal to Court, an attack chiefly on the Cardinal. The splendid raciness of Hugh Latimer's sermons belongs to oratory rather than to letters. The exquisite prose of Cranmer found its perfection in the solemn music of the Prayer-book of Edward VI. The translations of the Bible made no great ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... demi-god with a very human heart,—or, at any rate, a "divine" with a thorough knowledge of the world. It was probably these qualities that made him such a prominent figure in his day, and it is certainly these that give his Recollections their unique importance and raciness. They provide "by far the most vivid picture of Scottish life and manners that has been given to the world since Scott's day." This edition has been equipped with a series of thirty-six portraits reproduced in photogravure of the chief personages who move in its ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... Sunday-school classes, and though she talked at first of their raciness and freedom, she soon longed after the cleanliness, respectfulness, and docility of the despised little Bridgefordites, and uttered bitter things of Micklethwayte turbulence, declaring—perhaps not ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is one of the first of American humorists, and in popularity he is a close rival of O. Henry. His "Ruggles of Red Gap," published at the beginning of the war, achieved a distinct success in England, while the raciness and vivacity of "Ma Pettengill" have furthered the author's reputation as an inimitable delineator of Western comedy. An English edition of this author's works is in course of preparation, of which the ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... the most picturesque histories, he contrives to give merely a list of the events and a diagram of the scenes. Whatever illustrated character in princes or people he carefully excludes, and the raciness of anecdote and the flavor of manner and epoch distil not into his compilation from the elder historiographers. I have therefore to go back, in my present purpose, to the authors whose substance he has desiccated; and with their help, and that of one ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... of Mr George Whitefield Bunyan Smith. The chapel was, if possible, fuller than on the former evening, and the majority of members was, as before, women. A movement throughout the assembly—a whispering, and a ceaseless expectoration, indicated the raciness and interest which attached to the matter in hand, and every eye and mouth seemed opened in the fulness of an anxious expectation. I sat quietly and uncomfortably, and my heart beat palpably against my clothes. I endeavoured to paint the villany of Mr Smith in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Jack Bannister; Stephano, Suett; Hellena, Mrs. Jordan; Angelica, Mrs. Ward; Florinda, Mrs. Powell; Valeria, Mrs. Kemble; Lucetta, Miss Tidswell. It is not entirely worthless from a purely technical point of view, but yet very modest and mediocre. As might well be surmised, the raciness and spirit of The Rover entirely evaporate in the insipidity of emasculation. This is the last recorded performance of Mrs. Behn's brilliant ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... gave a fillip to my laziness, which has been intolerable; but I am so taken up with pruning and gardening,—quite a new sort of occupation to me. I have gathered my jargonels; but my Windsor pears are backward. The former were of exquisite raciness. I do now sit under my own vine, and contemplate the growth of vegetable nature. I can now understand in what sense they speak of father Adam. I recognize the paternity while I watch my tulips. I almost fell with him, for the first day I turned a drunken gardener (as he let in the serpent) ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... are not what stamp him a great artist. He would no doubt be glad to get rid of them if he could, at least to keep them in abeyance and make them less obtrusive; he would give anything for the freedom, raciness, and wildness of Shakespeare. But he is not equal to these things. The culture, the refinement, the precision of a correct and mechanical age have sunk too deeply into his soul. He has not the courage or the spring to let himself go as Shakespeare did. Tennyson, too, speaks the language of poets, ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs |
