"Briskness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could have reached their destination in less than twenty minutes if they had gone forward with the briskness that the weather justified; but there was an argument of some kind between them—I judged that the stuttering man had no stomach for the part he was to play as a horse-thief. At any rate, there was a dispute of some kind, and they stopped on the road at least half a dozen times to ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... request to have a pair of shoes cleaned which I have left up-stairs, she plies imaginary brushes, and goes completely through the motions of polishing the shoes up, and laying them at my feet. I smile at the brisk little woman in perfect satisfaction with her briskness; and the brisk little woman, amiably pleased with me because I am pleased with her, claps her hands and laughs delightfully. We are in the inn yard. As the little woman's bright eyes sparkle on the cigarette I am smoking, I make bold to offer her one; she accepts it none the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... blue cranesbill along the road, big ash-trees along the river, sheep, birds, sunshine, and showers—somehow contrive to keep themselves in health, to live, grow, decline, die, be born again, without making a mess or creating a fuss. The air, under the grey sky, is cool, even cold, with infinite briskness. And this impression of briskness, by no means excluded by the sense of utter isolation and repose, is greatly increased by a special charm of this place, the quantity of birds to listen to and watch; great blackening flights of rooks from the ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... now M Street was different—full of marketers and of briskness. The old bridge was crowded. As her car swooped up the hills and skirted the curves to Polly Widdicombe's she began to be afraid again. But she was committed to the adventure and she was eager for the worst of it. She found the house without trouble and ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... I'll call up and ask when it is expected that he can see visitors," announced Fogg, with business briskness. "I wish Franklin had been ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... movement was only a diversion under cover of which we might have a chance to escape, but it was being executed with so much briskness and spirit that Bothwell could ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... difference between ourselves and them is that we promptly and explicitly obey it; we don't palter with it in the slightest; 'we don't bandy words with our sovereign,' as Doctor Johnson said. I wonder," the speaker added, with the briskness of one to whom a vivid thought suddenly occurs, "how it would work if one went and did exactly the contrary of what was intimated to the ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... ships. He was a frank, easy young man, lithe and brisk, but not muscular. There was nothing mean or secretive about him. He was wonderfully hopeful, but had not the stuff to push his way into wealth. He was tall, slim, and pale; had a languor which showed itself even in his briskness; was most amiable, cheerful, and communicative. He called Pip "Handel," because Pip had been a blacksmith, and Handel composed a piece of music entitled The Harmonious Blacksmith. Pip helped him to a partnership ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... over, a miracle smile overwhelming her air of briskness. "We'd appreciate the opportunity ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... got no city consciousness. Chicago was simply a wilderness through which one had to find one's way. She felt no interest in the general briskness and zest of the crowds. The crash and scramble of that big, rich, appetent Western city she did not take in at all, except to notice that the noise of the drays and street-cars tired her. The brilliant window displays, the splendid furs and stuffs, the gorgeous ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... down the corridor, a saucy, red-cheeked young woman with business briskness in her manner came from an inner office and smiled boldly at him. She was Loretta Murfree, the new filing clerk who had been installed only that morning ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... Oscar Noyes, the author of this book, is an American all over. He has the rapidity and eagerness of mind that the champagny atmosphere of our northern hills gives to those who are stout enough not to be wilted by our hot summers. For briskness, thriftiness, energy, and alacrity, it is hard to find his match. He has made a book of travels, and will make a hundred, unless somebody finds him a place at home where he will have an indefinite number of labors-of-Hercules to keep him busy,—or unless some African prince cuts ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... little bank, the shabby little banker, renewed that sense of disillusion that pervaded Peter's home-coming. In Boston the mulatto had done his slight banking business in a white marble structure with tellers of machine-like briskness and neatness. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... front seat at the next public meeting of the section, applauded vigorously when the President referred to the need of more briskness in France and England and asked for a private interview after the meeting was over. In a few well-chosen words he offered his services to run messages over the frontier. Off his platform the President was ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... attendance on these works of art was in all respects, shabbiness excepted, unlike the former personage. His whole appearance and manner denoted briskness. Though threadbare, he expressed to the crowd that poverty had not subdued his spirit, or tinged with any sense of shame this honest effort to turn his talents to some account. The writing which formed a part of his composition was conceived ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... spring leeks with verdure covers the ground; And o'er ten li the paddy blossom fragrance doth abound. In days of plenty there's a lack of dearth and of distress, And what need then is there to plough and weave with such briskness? ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... cavalry, and saluted the colours as he passed, BONAPARTE (attended by all his retinue, including a favourite Mamaluk whom he brought from Egypt), took a central position, when the different corps successively filed off before him with most extraordinary briskness; the corps composing the consular guard preceded those of the garrison and all the others: on inquiry, however, I find, that this ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... in. Richard King was older than Jimsy's father but he had the same look of race and pride, and his wife was a plain, rather tired-looking Englishwoman with very white teeth and broodingly tender blue eyes which belied the briskness of her manner. ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... had seen the plant of individualism flower so wonderfully was setting in a sky orange with coming storms. Rumours of war added to the briskness of a London turbulent at the close of the summer holidays. And the streets to Jolyon, who was not often up in town, had a feverish look, due to these new motorcars and cabs, of which he disapproved aesthetically. He counted these vehicles from his hansom, and made the proportion of them one ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... came forward to help us—I am excepting, you understand, your father, Freme, and Holcomb. I owe them a debt of gratitude which I can never repay. Why have you come, Dinsmore?" he added, turning abruptly, with something of the briskness of ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... fell silent, as if in embarrassment over an admission so at variance with the tenets of a lifetime. Then he spoke with sudden briskness: ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... semi-military driver, pull up at the door, and the flutter of a veil as the vehicle passed through the entrance; and this was the only glimpse I ever caught of the little lady that dingy office called mistress. There was, however, a certain briskness in the movement of the clerks, and a glow of pleasure on their faces, that always denoted a visit; and very frequent those visits were. Without in any way obstructing it, her pretty interest seemed to throw a halo ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... o'clock, and Miss Murray, who sat next to Miss Thornton, suspected that it had had something to do with her neighbor's ill-temper. But Miss Thornton, delicately approached, had proved so ungracious and so uncommunicative, that Miss Murray had retired into herself, and attacked her work with unusual briskness. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Indeed, for close-quarter righting pot-leg is far more comprehensive, and far less likely to miss than the lonely modern bullet. Moroever, his crew had quite as much dread for him as they had for the enemy, and as a consequence they fought with a briskness which made even their ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... looked at his interlocutor with a certain genial fury of inspection. He seemed to be in a state of some excitement; he spoke volubly and almost boisterously, and his voice was full-toned and powerful, though pleasant to the ear. He turned himself, as he spoke, with a burly briskness, from one side to another, addressing himself first to this auditor and then to that, his words bursting forth from beneath his white moustache with such an impetus of hearty breath that it seemed as if ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... seemed to the young man the incarnation of April. He put down his pen, and shaded his eyes with his hand. Then the inner door from the hall opened, and a pompous but genial voice exclaimed with heavy briskness— ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... With military snap and briskness the battalion was formed. Then at brisk command, the battalion turned to the left in column of fours, marching down the hot, ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... three other mariners—Cullen, Wife, and Neale—this Irish pirate shipped himself on board a French snow at Cork in November, 1721, for a passage to Nantes. Owing to Roche's briskness, genteel manners, and knowledge of navigation, the master used occasionally to place him in charge of the vessel. One night a few days out a pre-arranged mutiny took place, the French crew being butchered and thrown overboard. The captain, who pleaded for mercy, was also ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... these were men of monstrous stock, termed by antiquity giants; these by their exceeding great bodily stature surpassed the size natural to mankind. Those who came after these were the first who gained skill in divination from entrails, and attained the Pythonic art. These surpassed the former in briskness of mental parts as much as they fell behind them in bodily condition. Constant wars for the supremacy were waged between these and the giants; till at last the sorcerers prevailed, subdued the tribe of giants by arms, and acquired not merely the privilege of ruling, but also ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... of his so very widely known, that third parties took it up, and handled it on some occasions with considerable briskness. It was one of the most exasperating attributes of Bounderby, that he not only sang his own praises but stimulated other men to sing them. There was a moral infection of clap-trap in him. Strangers, modest enough elsewhere, started up at dinners ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... walk through the forest, but the day was come, and the air made for briskness and elasticity. They searched occasionally by the side of the brook for a footstep preserved in mud, or any other sign that Long Jim had passed, but they found nothing. Nevertheless, they still felt sure of ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sea runs the promontory of Circaeum,—familiar to the boys from their studies in Homer and Virgil,—while over the water the white sails of swift-moving vessels passed to and fro. The waves broke on the strand, fishing-boats were drawn up on the beach, and there were wonderful briskness ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... keep warm. By-and-by the day-boarders began to drop in one by one, several of them, from a want of tact in adapting themselves to the general tone, earning decided unpopularity at once by a cheerful briskness and an undisguised satisfaction at having something definite ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... her couch with tolerable briskness, after the last benediction, Mr Dombey took her arm in his and led her ceremoniously downstairs; one of the very tall young men on hire, whose organ of veneration was imperfectly developed, thrusting his tongue into his cheek, for the entertainment of the other very tall young ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... he opened suddenly, "I have so little time." His briskness dropped into a half complaint, like a faintly suggested avowal of impotence. "I have been at it four years now. It struck me—you seemed to coincide so ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... intercourse takes place at such times of disturbance, it would have a bad effect upon the child. But though generous restoratives may be employed for invigorating nature, yet all excess should be carefully avoided, for it will check the briskness of the spirits and make them dull and languid, and as it also interferes with digestion, it must necessarily be an enemy to copulation; for it is food taken moderately and that is well digested, which enables a man to perform the dictates of Nature ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... brushwood, the flower-patches, spreading away to the hills that swell afar until the peaks of the Atlas, cool with everlasting snow, close the view. One is tempted to linger there lovingly, though darkness is falling. There is a gift of blandness and briskness in the very breathing of the air. When you have had your fill of the beauties on the land side, turn to the sea, meet the evening breeze that comes floating up with a flavour of iodine upon it, range round the sweeping vista, from giant Calpe away ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... after June 9th, the bombardment at Prag abated, and never rose to briskness again; the place of trial for decision of that Siege having flitted else-whither, as we said. About that time, rumors came in, not so favorable, from the Duke of Bevern; which Friedrich, strong in hope, strove visibly to disbelieve, but at last could ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... when they cut away their yawl, having been sunk by a shot. They hove taught their cable, and then cut it away, together with the two hawsers, and sent the pinnace a-head to tow the ship off. Just as the ship got afloat, the enemy fired with great briskness from their new battery, their shot raking through the Success between wind and water, killed one of her men, and wounded ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... dismissed the taxi and walked briskly to the huge waiting-room. There she dropped the briskness, and went leisurely down its long length to the drug stand, where she bought a few stamps and then passed out through the middle aisle to the train shed, inquiring on the way of an attendant the time of the ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... Timworth, seated at his desk, and with his flag lieutenant standing by, greeted his callers with exceeding briskness. ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... The briskness of our friendships depends on the time when—the place where. To men in prison a familiar face is the next thing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... close, the pulse of Anzac seemed to quicken. Men went about their work with increased energy, the Cove was busier than ever, and life altogether in that sun-scorched, sordid spot seemed less burdensome. Staff officers walked about with unaccustomed briskness, and made unnaturally long visits to observation points, gazing absorbedly at Turkish terrain. Visible signs there were that the dormant days of Anzac were drawing to an end, and that at last the summer lethargy would give place to times of action. Rumours filled the air. ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... lost none of the briskness of youth, despite his lameness, nor his fingers their skill, but his face was a mass of wrinkles. His keen, black eyes, bristling gray beard, predatory nose, and saturnine wit, together with his brusque manner, made ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... in words. As with regard to the Poussin above mentioned, one can never pass it without bearing away a certain pleasing, dreamy feeling of awe and musing; the other landscape inspires the spectator infallibly with the most delightful briskness and cheerfulness of spirit. Herein lies the vast privilege of the landscape-painter: he does not address you with one fixed particular subject or expression, but with a thousand never contemplated by himself, and which only arise out of occasion. You may always be looking ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... capital shortly after four in the morning. He dozed in his seat, the grateful breath of the summer night fanning his face through the screen. The Duke found him there, appearing as he had departed, his coat on his arm, his collar in his hand. He was full of the briskness of the dawn in spite of his short ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... Commissioner now of Scotland Yard, a person of weight and importance—had changed a great deal during the last few years. His hair had become gray, his walk more dignified. There was the briskness, however, of his best days in his carriage and in the flash of his brown eyes. He held out his hand to his ancient foe ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... plate; "you know'd your old aunty'd keep the best for you. O, let you alone for dat! Go way!" And, with that, aunty gave George a nudge with her finger, designed to be immensely facetious, and turned again to her griddle with great briskness. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... as often as he was able, he astonished the neighbours with his broadcloth, his beaver hat, and the ample plies of his neckcloth. Though an eminently solid man at bottom, after the pattern of Hob, he had contracted a certain Glasgow briskness and APLOMB which set him off. All the other Elliotts were as lean as a rake, but Clement was laying on fat, and he panted sorely when he must get into his boots. Dand said, chuckling: "Ay, Clem has the elements of a corporation." "A provost and corporation," ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... . . . Let me see, what size were you saying? H'm, six-seven-eighths, as I should judge." Young Mr Benny pulled out a drawer with briskness, ran his hand through a number of genuine Panamas of identical pattern, selected one, and poised it on the tips of his fingers, giving it the while a seductive twist. "If you will stand so, Captain, while I tilt the glass ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... sufficient after-canvas for her to carry with advantage. She ceased firing. "Hurrah! she is going to strike," we exclaimed; but the wreck of the maintop-mast was quickly cleared away, and she commenced again with greater briskness than ever. In return, the corvette plied her fast and furiously with shot, which must have told pretty severely among her people on deck, though, of course, we could not see the damage which was done. The brig was within a quarter of ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... veranda, Frederick watched a man coming up the driveway. By the roll of the sea in his walk, Frederick could guess for whom the stranger came. The face was swarthy with sun and wrinkled with age that was given the lie by the briskness of his movements and the alertness in the keen black eyes. In the lobe of each ear was a tiny circlet ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... his palms together with what was intended to be business-like briskness; he stepped up and down the dark hall, peering right and left. But for all his assumption of confidence, his ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... — N. 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Drummond discouraged the project; he simply did not mention it and as it was known to have been communicated to him this represented effectively the policy of the closed door. He found himself even oftener in East Elgin, walking about on his pastoral errands with a fierce briskness of aspect and a sharp inquiring eye, before which one might say the proposition slunk away. Meanwhile, the Methodists who, it seemed, could tolerate decentralization, or anything short of round dances, opened a chapel with a cheerful sociable, and popularized ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... gentlemen, I'm rather in your way,' said Toole with a gloomy briskness; 'I think 'tis better I should go. I—I'm somewhat amazed, gentlemen, and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... hope was slow to shape itself in my heavy mind, I was quick enough to act upon it when once it had taken form. With a briskness that quite astonished me I got on my feet and walked aft to the cabin—the cabin pantry being the most likely place in which to look for food put up in tins; and I was farther encouraged by finding the hatch open ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... auspices. Arrangements have also been made for the Hong-Kong-Australia Steamship Company to make Zamboanga a port of call. Here, as in all the chief ports of the Archipelago, greater advantages for trade have been afforded by the administration, and one is struck with the appearance of activity and briskness as compared with former times. These changes are largely owing to the national character of the new rulers, for one can enter any official department, in any branch of public service, from that of ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... customary spirit; he moved with his customary briskness—he had become quite himself again, since I had seen ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... was an alert little woman with a provincial accent and the briskness of a cock-sparrow, whose prettiness, combined with ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... single ale was fit to send out the fifth day after brewing. When this ale is racking off the butts, to be sent out, would recommend putting two ounces of ground rice into each barrel which will create briskness, and much improve the beer. Ran the small beer into the hop back of the strong beer, and so on the coolers, thereby giving it a chance to lick up all the strong ale it met with in its progress to the tun, which it entered at 65 with three gallons of yest, and was cleansed within ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... there. Harold, a quiet fellow about nineteen, was more like his half-sister than any other member of the family, and there was no need that either should explain to the other why they were glad to leave the nervous briskness of the more occupied room. It was their habit to spend their evenings here, and Sophia arranged that Eliza should bring her own sewing and work at it under her direction. Harold very often read aloud to them. It ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... was a piano, with another piano-lamp, but no one used it save Tinka. The hard briskness of the phonograph contented them; their store of jazz records made them feel wealthy and cultured; and all they knew of creating music was the nice adjustment of a bamboo needle. The books on the table were unspotted and laid in rigid parallels; not ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... intrepid Father mounted the buffet with great agility and briskness, stepped across the window, lifting up the bars and framework again from the other side, and only leaving room for Harry Esmond to stand on tiptoe and kiss his hand before the casement closed, the bars fixing as firmly as ever, seemingly, in ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... confident hopes of a still further addition to the house of Spruggins at no remote period), increased the general prepossession in his favour. The other candidates, Bung alone excepted, resigned in despair. The day of election was fixed; and the canvass proceeded with briskness ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... to be some briskness in the after-supper trade, and Louise suspected that it was founded upon the news of her arrival at Cap'n Abe's store. Several of his rather tart rejoinders reached her ears as she went from kitchen to livingroom and back again. Finally removing the apron, her task done, she seated ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... strike the Hearts of their Beholders with new Sense of their Beauty. The dressing Part of our Sex, whose Minds are the same with the sillyer Part of the other, are exactly in the like uneasy Condition to be regarded for a well-tied Cravat, an Hat cocked with an unusual Briskness, a very well-chosen Coat, or other Instances of Merit, which they are impatient to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... said Mrs. Dallington, with briskness and decision, 'no affectation between us. Drop this assumed unconcern. You know, you know well, that no incident could occur to you at this moment more mortifying than the one I have communicated, which deranges your plans, and probably may destroy your views. You cannot misconceive my ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... suitable that Barbara Jerome should have a large dog, for both in mind and body she was on the large scale herself. She had a pleasant, high-coloured face, was very tall, enormously stout, and moved with great briskness and vigour. She had something to say on any subject that came on the board; and, what was less usual in these days of universal knowledge, there was invariably some point in what she said. She had, in the ordinary sense of the word, no manners at all, but ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... The briskness of the night also sharpened Pennington's appetite. They were deep in autumn, and the winds from the mountains had an edge. The foliage had turned and it glowed in vivid reds and yellows on the slopes, although the intense colors were hidden now by ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... oath now and than," said the baker. "Like spice in a bun it lends a briskness. But it needs the hearty manner wi't. The Deacon there couldna let blatter wi' a hearty oath to save his withered sowl. I kenned a trifle o' a fellow that got in among a jovial gang lang syne that used to sweer tremendous, and he bude to do the same the bit ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... proper Path of Action. There is so much Rapture and Extasie in our fancied Bliss, and something so dismal and shocking in our fancied Misery, that tho' the Inactivity of the Body has given Occasion for calling Sleep the Image of Death, the Briskness of the Fancy affords us a strong Intimation of something within ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... his desk he found another telegram from Styles. It was imperatively worded and as he read it the briskness and satisfaction went from his bearing. He walked to the window and stood there looking down at the city, and, as it had been in looking ahead at the State-house, he now looked out over the city really seeing and understanding it, ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... Montivilliers, the trees of which overhung the road, made it evident that something of importance was occurring in that direction. Should the enemy gain possession of the park Bazeilles would be at their mercy, but the briskness of the firing was in itself proof that the general commanding the 12th corps had anticipated the movement and that the position ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... stirrups and then unclasped his arms, and the mule, taking fright at the terrible blow, made off across the plain, and with a few plunges flung its master to the ground. Don Quixote stood looking on very calmly, and, when he saw him fall, leaped from his horse and with great briskness ran to him, and, presenting the point of his sword to his eyes, bade him surrender, or he would cut his head off. The Biscayan was so bewildered that he was unable to answer a word, and it would have gone hard with him, so blind was Don Quixote, had not the ladies in the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... occasionally with Diana, who never understood him, but oftenest with himself, because, as he said, he liked not only to talk to a sensible man but also to hear what a sensible man had to say. He never stood still for a moment, but kept "bobbing around" with the effervescent briskness of a bee, at one time roosting at the top of the ladder, at another peering through the floor light, now to the right, then to the left, always humming scraps from the Opera Bouffe, but never changing the air. In the small space which was then a whole world to the travellers, ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... crannies errant trickles of water might lose themselves, and perhaps fertilize exotic flora yet unborn. At this moment I espied a wheelbarrow in the distance, and went for it with that purposeful briskness, which may sometimes be used in fatigues of this sort to disguise your real intentions. For it is of the greatest importance in a fatigue to have an implement; it is the outward symbol of labour; if ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... world and the chill of an autumn morn. I was as stiff and sore as if I had been whipped, my clothes were sodden and heavy, and not till I had washed my face and hands in the burn and stretched my legs up the hill-side did I feel restored to something of my ordinary briskness. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... the Expedition would go to him at once. He departed, and in two minutes had disappeared among the trees. I payed out the rope myself, while everybody watched the crawling thing with eager eyes. The rope crept away quite slowly, at times, at other times with some briskness. Twice or thrice we seemed to get the signal, and a shout was just ready to break from the men's lips when they perceived it was a false alarm. But at last, when over half a mile of rope had slidden away, it stopped gliding and stood absolutely still—one minute—two ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Handsome engaged in and kept up, during the whole of his reign, with frequent alternations of defeat and success, a really serious war. In the thirteenth century, Flanders was the most populous and the richest country in Europe. She owed the fact to the briskness of her manufacturing and commercial undertakings, not only amongst her neighbors, but throughout Southern and Eastern Europe, in Italy, in Spain, in Sweden, in Norway, in Hungary, in Russia, and even as far as Constantinople, where, as we have seen, Baldwin I., Count of Flanders, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... daily visits to his daughter's sick-room. In spite of her head, she could not help noticing something peculiar in his manner. He did not talk, because conversation was forbidden during these attacks, but there was an increased briskness in his eyes and step as he approached her, and, she fancied, more of anxious care in his tone when he spoke. She was sure he had something ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... {monstrous} nature {of thine}. His beard was beginning {to grow}; the colour of his beard was that of gold; and golden-coloured hair was hanging from his shoulders to the middle of his shoulder-blades. In his face there was a pleasing briskness; his neck, and his shoulders, and his hands, and his breast {were} resembling the applauded statues of the artists, and {so} in those parts in which he was a man; nor was the shape of the horse beneath that {shape}, faulty and inferior to {that of} the man. Give him {but} the neck and the head {of ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... held out his hand. He looked with something like wonder at the nerve-shattered man who had risen to his feet with a certain air of briskness. ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... due time; still, to judge of their leisurely approach and their languid knock, a little suspicious of the whole affair. But the moment the door opened, and their eyes fell on the table, their manner changed to one of the most amiable briskness. ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... sensitive winch to meet wile with wile, and determination with a firmness of which gentleness is the warp and woof. While it lasts, and when the fish are in a sporting humour, there is nothing more exciting than sea-trout angling. Perhaps for briskness of sport one ought to bracket with it the Mayfly carnival of the non-tidal trout streams in the generally hot days of early June, when the English meadows are in all their glory, and the fish for a few days cast shyness ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... and scanty fare in a part of the way, but all of us suffered alike. They made themselves thoroughly disliked by their foul talk and abuse, and if anything tended more than another to show me that theirs was a moral unfitness for travel, it was the briskness assumed when they knew they were going back to the coast. I felt inclined to force them on, but it would have been acting from revenge, and to pay them out, so I forbore. I gave Mataka forty-eight ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... with cheerful alacrity, and when Dame Dorothea—who was sitting at the loom with her daughter Marthana and some of her female slaves—saw him rush into the women's room with a glowing face, she rose with youthful briskness in spite of her stout and dignified figure, and called out to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... conservative self-satisfaction and repose which centuries of age may bestow, the spirit of life itself is the aspiration for change. Ambition itself only means the insistence on change. Each day is to be better than yesterday fuller of plans, of briskness, of initiative. Each to-day demands of to-morrow new men, new minds, new work. A to-day which has not launched new ships, explored new countries, constructed new buildings, added stories to old ones, may consider itself a failure, unworthy even of being consigned to ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... eye sharp to detect failings or foolishness, an admirer of briskness and vivacity, why did she welcome John Duck, that incarnation of stolidity and slowness, that enormous mountain of a man? Because extremes meet? No, since she was always complaining of Iden's dull, motionless life; so it was not ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... frightened about it. Why was he so irritable to-day? Was he going to develop nerves at the finish? Yes, it was evident, the warm air of the south did not suit him, he had lost his briskness, looked so tired. There was nothing for it, her husband was more to her than her picture, she would leave off her painting ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... where we are," said Lupin, with cheerful briskness. "Guerchard will be here in ten minutes with a warrant for my arrest. ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... on horseback, Denzil and Angela on foot, and spent two or three very active hours before breakfast in rousing the otter from his holt, and following every flash of his head upon the stream, with that briskness and active enjoyment which seem a part of the clear morning atmosphere, the inspiring breath of dewy fields and flowers unfaded by the sun. All that there was of girlishness in Angela's spirits was awakened by those merry morning scampers by the margin of the stream, which had often to be forded ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... should go over to his side. He himself, with three hundred of his best horse, led the right wing against Neoptolemus. When having passed a little hill they came in view, and were seen advancing with more than ordinary briskness, Craterus was amazed, and bitterly reproached Neoptolemus for deceiving him with hopes of the Macedonians' revolt, but he encouraged his men to do bravely, and forthwith charged. The first engagement was very ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Neither could I hang an article on one picture. I might envy George Moore, for an interval the critic of the Speaker, now the London Nation, because he could and did. I can remember him at an Academy Press View making the interminable round with a business-like briskness until, perhaps in the first hour and the last room, he would come upon the painting that gave him the peg for his eloquence, make an elaborate study of it, tell us his task was finished, and hurry off exultant. But envy him as I might, I couldn't borrow his briskness. I had ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... should train them as your husband intends to train Phil. It may be that he will never be called upon to draw a sword, but the time he has spent in acquiring its use will not be wasted. These exercises give firmness and suppleness to the figure, quickness to the eye, and briskness of decision to the mind. A man who knows that he can, at need, defend his life if attacked, whether against soldiers in the field or robbers in the street, has a sense of power and self reliance that a man, untrained in the use of the strength ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... youth. It is born of the copious dews, the fragrant nights, the tender skies, the plentiful rains of the early season. The singing of birds is in it, and the health and frolic of lusty Nature. It is the product of liquid May touched by the June sun. It has the tartness, the briskness, the unruliness of spring, and the aroma and intensity ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... "In a few moments," ran his official report, "Lieutenant Jackson, commanding the second section of the battery, who had opened fire upon the enemy's works from a position on the right, hearing our fire still further in front, advanced in handsome style, and kept up the fire with equal briskness and effect. His conduct was equally conspicuous during the whole day, and I cannot too highly commend him to the Major-General's ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... to Benny. "Which whipped?" he asked, with his own native briskness, as if this, now, was common ground, and he was ready to talk ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... If you wish to succeed with Alida, Patroon, you must put more briskness into the adventure. The girl has a cross of the Frenchman in her temper, and none of your deliberations and taciturnities will gain the day. This visit to the Lust in Rust is Cupid's own handywork, and I hope to see you both return to town as amicable as the Stadtholder ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... TREBELL. [With great briskness.] Your present need is a good shaking.... I seriously mean that. You get to attach importance to these shades of emotion. A slight physical shock would settle them all. That's why I asked you to kiss ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... and Amos wore airs of cheerful briskness that deceived the public. No one could have thought that Amos was fearing his undoubtedly crazed clerk might become uncontrollable at any moment, or that the clerk was mentally parting from Amos forever in a scene of tense dramatic value in which his ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... and stood up, but had instantly to sit again, my legs being terribly cramped. A drink of spirits helped me; my blood presently flowed with briskness. ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell |
