"Playfulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... elegance and refinement. The actress who, we think, comes nearest to her in genteel comedy, is Mrs Henry Siddons, in her beautiful representation of such parts as Beatrice or Viola; but she has not the same appearance of natural light-hearted buoyancy and playfulness of disposition; you see occasional transient indications of a serious thoughtful turn of mind, which assumes gaiety and cheerfulness, rather than passes naturally into it; which you admire, because it places the actress in ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... that way of jesting, that schoolboy playfulness allied with that audacity, the quizzing expression of those eyes, and lastly that Christian name of Alexandre, which was not his name at all and which only one person used to give him, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... at him again through narrowing eyelids, the playfulness all vanished. "You do yourself injustice, sir, as I am a woman. Your wits want nothing more in briskness." She rose, and looked down upon him engrossed in his broth. "For a dissembler, sir," she pronounced upon him acidly, ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... if she had had the most brilliant education. The auspicious opening of a flower transplanted into a soil that suits it, shone through Louise's whole being. My manner towards her partakes of a tenderer playfulness, a more affectionate gallantry. After all, Richeport is better than Pont de l'Arche, for there is nothing like fighting on ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... was a work of Nature in her mood of majestie playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed as ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Cheap Jack, too many of which had already scarred his thin shoulders, he ransacked his brains for telling subjects, and forced from his memory the lines which told most, and told most quickly, of the pathetic look on Rufus's face, the anger, pleasure, or playfulness of the mill cats. Perhaps none of us know what might be forced, against our natural indolence, from the fallow ground of our capabilities in many lines. The spirit of a popular subject in the fewest possible strokes was what Jan had to aim at for his daily bread, under peril ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a matter of my own and Mulledwiney's. The fact is, we have had a PERSONAL difficulty." He paused, glanced around him, and continued in a low, agitated voice: "Yesterday I came upon him as he was sitting leaning against the barrack wall. In a spirit of playfulness—mere playfulness, I assure you, sir—I poked him lightly in the shoulder with my stick, saying 'Boo!' He turned—and I shall never forget ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... they cannot enter with genial sympathy into any gaiety whatever, but, least of all, when the gaiety trespasses a little into the province of the extravagant. In such a case, not to sympathize is not to understand; and the playfulness, which is not relished, becomes flat and insipid, or absolutely without meaning. Fortunately, after all such churls have withdrawn from my audience in high displeasure, there remains a large majority who are loud ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... avised: "'Twere dole to all of us, The world should lose a maid so beauteous: Let me now see her; since I am her liege lord, Her spirits must wage war with death at my strong word." In such half-serious playfulness, he wends, With Lisa's father and two chosen friends, Up to the chamber where she pillowed sits, Watching the door that opening admits A presence as much better than her dreams, As happiness than any longing seems. The ...
— How Lisa Loved the King • George Eliot
... that he could have given; but since it was done he sent one to his mother in Vermont, and then he wrote his name on another, and sent it to Miss Simpson in New Hampshire. He hoped, of course, that she would return a photograph of herself; but she merely acknowledged his with some dry playfulness. Then, after disappointing him so long that he ceased to expect anything, she enclosed a picture. The face was so far averted that Langbourne could get nothing but the curve of a longish cheek, the point of a nose, the segment of a crescent eyebrow. The girl said that as they should probably ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... obtained absolution for her unguarded remarks on the promenade deck of the steamer, had begun to be seen a great deal with Miss Stanley. She had even blushingly shaken hands with big Lieutenant Lee, whose kind brown eyes were full of fun and playfulness whenever he greeted her. But it was noticed that something, all of a sudden, had occurred to mar the growing intimacy; then that the once blithe little lady was looking white and sorrowful; that she avoided Miss Stanley for two whole days, ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... this bear, the cat, the dog, and a small blue mountain bird, or lory, of New Holland, to mess together and eat out of the same dish. His favourite playfellow was the dog, whose teasing and worrying was always borne, and returned with the utmost good humour and playfulness. As he grew up he became a very powerful animal, and in his rambles in the garden he would lay hold of the largest plantains, the stems of which he could scarcely embrace, and tear them up by the roots." The late ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... dressed in such fulness of terror. But indeed the Poet's skill at heightening any feeling by awakening its opposite; how he manages to give strength to our most earnest sentiments by touching some spring of playfulness; and to further our liveliest moods by springing upon us some delicate surprises of seriousness;—all this is matter of ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... her feet. "That's right," he said with a kind of nursely playfulness, and he turned ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... perfect good-humour, with a certain indulgent kindness—a tone Mrs. Wade had used from the first in talking with Lilian. A manner of affectionate playfulness, occasionally of caressing protection, distinguished her in this intercourse; quite unlike that by which she was known to people in general. Lilian did not dislike it, rather was drawn by it into ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... between the sheriff and Cyrus Allen on the springless board that served as a seat atop the lofty sideboards of the wagon. The crude wooden wheels rumbled and creaked and jarred along the deep-rutted road, jouncing the occupants of the vehicle from side to side with unseemly playfulness. Back in the bed of the wagon, under a gaily coloured Indian blanket, lay the outstretched body of Jasper Suggs, seemingly alive and responsive to the jolts and twists and turns of the road. The rear end gate had been removed and three men sat with their heels dangling outside, their ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... her tone, despite its playfulness, a delicate finality that told him plainly that she had no intention of pursuing the subject further, and, curiously, the man's heart smote him for a moment. He felt as if in some fashion wholly ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... appointments of wealth. The house was a huge cube, ornamented at its corners and cornices with all possible flowers of a rude architecture, reminding one of an elephant, that, in a fit of incontinent playfulness, had indulged in antics characteristic of its clumsy bulk and brawn. Outside were ample stables, a green-house, a Chinese pagoda that was called "the summer-house," an exquisite garden and trees, among which latter were carefully cherished the seven ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... to be boisterous, I perceived that Em'ly's mission was approaching its end. They were too heavy for her, and their increasing scope of playfulness was not in her line. Once or twice they knocked her over, upon which she arose and pecked them severely, and they retired to a safe distance, and sitting in a circle, yapped at her. I think they began ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... were the refrain of a familiar old ballad, and he continued to hum this as he straightened up and set his hands on his hips, regarding the twins through wickedly narrowed eyes. He was flushed with drink and inclined, as always at such times, to swagger with a sort of savage playfulness. ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... Perhaps there is an intellectual composure in his manner, which may, in some passages, be said to approach to the reserved and prosaic; but he unbends from this graver strain of reflection to tenderness, and even to playfulness, with an ease and grace almost exclusively his own; and connects extensive views of the happiness and interests of society with pictures of life that touch the heart by their familiarity. He is no disciple of the gaunt ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... of our party had ever been numbered amongst the spiritualists, least of all Mr. Y——. We Theosophists did not believe in the playfulness of departed souls, though we admitted the possibility of some mediumistic phenomena, while totally disagreeing with the spiritualists as to the cause and point of view. Refusing to believe in the interference, and even ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... becomes vapid; and his "Criticism on Female Beauty," though it contains some extremely sensible remarks, also contains much which is suggestive of Mr. Tupman. Yet his miscellaneous writing has one great merit (besides its gentle playfulness and its untiring variety) which might procure pardon for worse faults. With no one perhaps are those literary memories which transform and vivify life so constantly present as with Leigh Hunt. Although the world was a perfectly real thing to him, and not by any means seen only through ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... employed by the Cardinal Amboise in his castle of Gaillon,—of Tours, with its Pierre Valence, its Francois Marchant, its Viart and Colin Byart, out of whose rich and picturesque craft-spirit arose the quaint fancies of the palaces of Blois and Chambord, and the playfulness of many an old Flemish house-front. Such a Renaissance would not have come among these venial sins of naivete, this sportive affluence of invention, to overturn ruthlessly and annihilate. Its mission would inevitably have been, not to destroy, but to fulfil,—to invest these strange ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... a fragrant breeze Through the dark cedar-trees And round about my temples fondly lingers, In gentle playfulness, Like to the soft caress Bestowed in happier days by ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... at the governor's end, Gering at the other. It was noticed by Iberville that Gering's eyes were much on Jessica, and in the spirit of rivalry, the legitimate growth of race and habit, he began to speak to her with the air of easy but deliberate playfulness which ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... working men of the Middle West, that were just coming into fashionable approval. His soft hat was of a discreet dark brown, and from under it his clear eye flamed like a topaz. He stopped Anthony enthusiastically, slapping him on the arms more from a desire to keep himself warm than from playfulness, and, after his inevitable hand shake, exploded ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... in it streaming straight behind, one ear pricked forward and the other turned sharply back, the great horse swept grandly along at a pace that was rapidly bringing him even with the rear line of the flying group. And yet so little was the pace to him that he fairly gambolled in playfulness as he went slashing along, until the deacon verily began to fear that the honest old chap would break through all the bounds of propriety and send his heels antically through his treasured dashboard. Indeed, the spectacle that the huge ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... his hostess with paternal playfulness, and the young man with an ease which might have been acquired on the Stock Exchange and in the dressing-rooms of "leading ladies." He spoke a faultless, colourless English, from which one felt he might pass with equal mastery ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... his usual ease in his manner when at last he bowed before the King. Presently it occurred to her to suspect that he had already recognized her,—perhaps from the doorway,—and in her rush of relief at the idea of the shock being over, she found even an impulse of playfulness. Borrowing one of Elfgiva's graces, she swept back her rustling draperies in a ceremonious ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... "In dulci jubilo"[19] has, with all its religious feeling, something of the nature of a dance, and unites in a strange fashion solemnity, playfulness, and ecstatic delight. No other air, perhaps, shows so perfectly the reverent gaiety ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... you now?" She shook her head, but there was something almost of playfulness in her manner of doing it. "Ah, but I know you did. And why shouldn't you speak out, now that we are to be man and wife? I like a girl to speak out. I suppose if I want to be with you, you want as much to be ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... his cabbages and picked his strawberries. It was the largest and most beautiful dog I have ever seen, of a fine shade of yellow in color, and of proportions so extraordinary that few persons could pass him without stopping to admire. He had the strength and calm courage of a lion, with the playfulness of a kitten, and an intelligence that seemed sometimes quite human. One thing this dog lacked. He was so destitute of the evil spirit that he would not defend himself against the attacks of other dogs. He seemed to have ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... team itself added to the unvarying picture. One of the wagons bore on its canvas hood the inscription, in large black letters, "Off to California!" on the other "Root, Hog, or Die," but neither of them awoke in the minds of the children the faintest idea of playfulness or jocularity. Perhaps it was difficult to connect the serious men, who occasionally walked beside them and seemed to grow more taciturn and depressed as the day wore on, ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... spontaneity, freedom, a degage air. It is in rhythm what the perfect prose letter should be and is—flowing and unpremeditated without slovenliness—having the characteristics of the best conversation, as differentiated from mere argument or harangue. Its second quality is playfulness—a refusal to be too much in earnest in any direction, and a determination not to go to any unwelcome extreme. It has touches of sentiment and traces of wit and humour; but its dominant note is one of tempered geniality. Sometimes it may lean to the sentimental, sometimes to ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... this question might perhaps bring il disiato riso, the long-wished-for smile, but the Scarabee interpreted it in the simplest zoological sense, and neglected its hint of playfulness with the most absolute unconsciousness, apparently, of anything ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... as he grew stronger and sturdier he evinced much curiosity, playfulness and drollery, and to these characteristics would have to be added, when he became partly grown, a kind of bear sense of humor which ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... husband, her grief-stricken child, and, in looking, she knew that while it was so near she could not dwell on the possibilities of freedom. So she talked with her friend, able to smile, able, once or twice, to use toward him her more intimate tone of affectionate playfulness. ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... with no charm of past association, only a memory of forced human toil,—now, then, and before the war. They are not happy, these black men whom we meet throughout this region. There is little of the joyous abandon and playfulness which we are wont to associate with the plantation Negro. At best, the natural good-nature is edged with complaint or has changed into sullenness and gloom. And now and then it blazes forth in veiled but hot anger. I remember one big red-eyed black whom we met by the roadside. ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... gaiety. In contrast with so many princesses who weary their companions and are wearied by them, she amused herself and others. Entering a family celebrated by its legendary catastrophes, she had lost nothing of the playfulness which was the essence of her nature. The Tuileries, the scene of such terrible dramas, did not inspire her as it did the Duchess of Angouleme, with sad reflections. When she heard Mass in the Chapel of the Chateau, she did not say to herself that here had resounded ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Hausfrau, much busied about the service of her lord. Mr. NORMAN MCKINNEL as Wachner easily contrived to convey the typically Teuton blend of brutishness, and domestic sentimentality, combined with the heavy playfulness which by a curious delusion, ineradicably racial, is mistaken over there for humour. "Ja, ja," he says complacently, "I have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... of gesture she pressed her lips lightly upon it. It would have needed something stronger than mere flesh and blood to resist the natural playfulness and charm of her action, combined with her unparalleled beauty, and the King, who was daily and hourly proving for himself the power and intensity of that Spirit of Man which makes clamour for higher ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... again, I entreat you, to the serious; and do not imagine that because by nature you are inclined to playfulness, you must therefore write ludicrous things better. Many of your stories would make the gravest men laugh, and yet there is little wit ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... said; and yet there was something more than childish grace in that light, but rounded form, where beauty was more than budding, but not quite blossomed, like a moss-rose in its loveliest state of loveliness. And her mind too; there was nothing childish in her thoughts except their playfulness. The morning dew-drops had not yet exhaled; but the day-star of the mind was well up ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... the kind Father who had willed my surroundings to be those of comfort and prosperity, what did I do? Good reader! I smiled half consciously, and thus sanctioned her belief in my domestic happiness. I veiled the sorrow that dwelt in my young heart with the shadows of a borrowed playfulness, and I sullied the baby innocence of my unsuspecting soul with a ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... last, she smiled, and to make the caressing pride of her closing tone still prettier, lifted her figured muslin out sidewise between thumb and forefinger of each hand with even more archaic grace than playfulness. ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... had been an exceedingly happy one. Her father, Sir Thomas More, was a man of the utmost worth, and was both earnestly religious and conscientious, and of a sweetness of manner and playfulness of fancy that endeared him to everyone. He was one of the most affectionate and dutiful of sons to his aged father, Sir John More; and when the son was Lord Chancellor, while the father was only a judge, Sir Thomas, on his way to his court, never failed to kneel down before ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... You see, I make it my principle to keep the incapables for a single term only, since that is enough for them; but to the clever ones I allot a double course of instruction." And, true enough, any lad of brains was retained for this finishing course. Yet he did not repress all boyish playfulness, since he declared it to be as necessary as a rash to a doctor, inasmuch as it enabled him to diagnose what lay ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... engine whose playfulness and prankishness were mentioned in my last, came whinnying up, harnessed to an empty truck in which was a bench with a green cloth, emblematic of Ireland. This was better than convulsively clinging to the engine while she madly careered along narrow and dizzy precipices, every kick threatening ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... as ours, but so much interrupted by playfulness that it is impossible to measure their exact strength. Lydia's 'amour propre' was wounded in an incurable manner by that revelation of her own peculiarity. Certain incidents of her American life recurred to her, which she comprehended more clearly. She recalled the portrait of her ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... assure you he did so only by compulsion; he would have come gladly if Uncle Sam had not ordered him off in another direction," Violet answered, with pretty playfulness of ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... and drunk with resounding cordiality, Henry responded in a speech of mingled playfulness and emotion, assuring them, on his part, that though they might not be poets, he thought no worse of them for that, but should always remember them as the best fellows he had ever known. The talk then became general, and tender with reminiscence. After all, what a lot of pleasant things ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... and red, bush-crowned and splashed with green—our familiar, friendly cliffs, for each and every part of whom we have a name. The sun slid out from a parting of clouds in the east, warming the dour waves into playfulness. ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... small variation in the transepts. But, notwithstanding the general uniformity of the whole, no two compartments are precisely alike; and the capitals are infinitely varied. It is singular to see such a playfulness of ornament in a building, whose architect appears, at first view, to have contemplated only grandeur and solidity.—The four arches which support the central tower are on a magnificent scale. The archivolts ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... expression, in your proposed print from my "Sodger's Return," it must certainly be at—"She gaz'd." The interesting dubiety and suspense taking possession of her countenance, and the gushing fondness, with a mixture of roguish playfulness, in his, strike me as things of which a master will make a great deal. In great haste, but in great ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... And what Cynthia said was as different from ordinary conversation to the child as a fairy tale, being interspersed with terms of endearment which her mother and grandmother would have considered high-flown, and have been shamefaced in employing, and full of a whimsical playfulness which had an undertone of pathos in it. Cynthia was not still for a minute, and seemed to feel that much of her power lay in her speech and voice, like some enchantress who cast her spell by means of ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... me, and I see a ship that I would guarantee to go anywhere it was possible for men to go, and accomplish anything it was permitted man to attempt. I had a cruise on board of her not long ago to Manu'a, and was delighted. The goodwill of all on board; the grim playfulness of - quarters, with the wounded falling down at the word; the ambulances hastening up and carrying them away; the Captain suddenly crying, 'Fire in the ward-room!' and the squad hastening forward with the hose; and, last and most curious spectacle ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moment towards the eye of her father, and perceiving that he spoke in playfulness, without suffering a cloud to shadow a countenance that usually varied with her emotions, she continued the discourse, which had, in fact, only been resumed by ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... "She has the playfulness of the young leopard, and the cruelty," he thought, with a sense of disgust; forgetting that she did not know what he knew, and that, if Cigarette had waited to laugh until death had passed by, she would have never laughed all her life through, in the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... through towards the white pyramids. All that part of the ground was alive with rabbits. Georgiana had spread for them a banquet of Lucullus, a Belshazzar's feast. It had been done to please me, I knew, and out of a certain playfulness of her own; out there are other charities of hers, which she thinks known only to herself, that show as well the divine drift of ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... mystery, the approaching vision was piquant and graceful enough to have reminded a much older boy of a spotless white kitten, for, in spite of a charmingly managed demureness, there was precisely that kind of playfulness somewhere expressed about her. Just now it was most definite in the look she bent upon the light and fluffy burden which she carried nestled in the inner curve of her right arm: a tiny dog with hair like cotton and a pink ribbon round his neck—an animal sated with indulgence and idiotically ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... brought out the meaning of a line of poetry or a painting; beset by the restlessness which meant another period of travel; intense as fire itself, gripping his hands in hers in a defiance of possession; in moods when both its sadness and its playfulness said, "I don't care!" and again, fleeing from his presence to hide ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... happiness. It is not wit nor subtle humour, but a combination of pure mirth with the enthusiasm of warm friendship, that maintains one's interest in the simple life of the new Drumston. There is an abundance of farcical fun and playfulness which force laughter, and never approach an unkindness. The men avoid being smart at each other's expense; and if they cannot claim to be clever or heroic, they are at least good fellows, any one of whom might serve as a ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... minute he looked as if he were about to take up the matter seriously and argue it with her; but the next moment he smiled and tossed his head with jaunty playfulness—Bertram, to tell the truth, had now had quite enough of what he privately termed "scenes" and "heroics"; and, manlike, he was very ardently longing for the old easy-going friendliness, with all unpleasantness banished ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... "That playfulness of sorrow ne'er beguiles; It smiles in bitterness: but still it smiles, And sometimes with the wisest and the best. Till even the scaffold echoes ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... wanter be too previous," suggested Wynbrook. But their verdict, when they at last met the new cousin, was unanimous, and their praises extravagant. To their inexperienced eyes she seemed to possess all her aunt's gentility and precision of language, with a vivacity and playfulness all her own. In a few days the whole camp was in love with her. Yet she dispensed her favors with such tactful impartiality and with such innocent enjoyment—free from any suspicion of coquetry—that there were no heartburnings, and the unlucky man ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... 't was no more than that. I pulled the cloth from the table whilst he ate. He was a quick-tempered gentleman, and my playfulness offended ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... addressed. After awhile he peeps round and pats his blanket knowingly, and, finding she takes no further notice of him, lounges back to his corner again.) Oh, 'ere you are again! Now jest you put that bottle back. (The Warrior giggles, with much appreciation of his own playfulness.) Look sharp now. I know ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... trees beside the house. It consisted of baked fish, served up in banana leaves, roasted yams, poe-poe, a preparation of bread-fruit, and an excellent kind of pudding, made of cocoa-nut-pulp and taro. It was easy to perceive that Olla, with all her playfulness and girlish vivacity, ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... him laconically for his thoughtfulness, and bade him "good-night," without a responsive gleam of playfulness. Her heart was weighed down with sick horror. The almost certainty of which he spoke with professional coolness, was to her, who had never within her recollection stood beside a death-bed, a thing too frightful to be anticipated without dread, however its terrors ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... dignity to her whole appearance. Her hair was a rich, dark brown, fine and glossy, and although neatly arranged about the head, evidently required but little training to enable it to fall gracefully about her neck in beautiful ringlets. The general expression of her face, was a soft, bewitching playfulness, which, combined with the half timid, benevolent look, beaming from her large, mild, hazel eye, invariably won upon the beholder at the first glance, and increased upon acquaintance. Her voice we have already spoken of as ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... you want to tell Peter Ivanovitch something in my favour," said Razumov, with grim playfulness. "Well, then, you can tell him that I am very much in earnest about my ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... sand, the old 'forker,' seeing the problem to be solved, took the bit in his teeth and started for Picolata. At the first dash the forker went ahead. He had laid his course, as they say at sea, and no up-helm or down-helm had the slightest effect upon him. His mind was made up; no wavering, no playfulness, no scarishness, no looking to the right or left. Picolata was the point; 'no two ways' to Picolata; he was on the right way, and he was the horse to do it in double-quick time. The little grey had evidently thought it was too hot for any thing in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... dancing men of quality this season, it seems to me, who are obscured by dancing ladies of fame, and not such warrantable artistry. Perhaps it is because male anatomy allows of greater eccentricity and playfulness. There are no girls who have just such laughing legs as the inimitable Frances White. It is the long-legged American boy who beats the world in this ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... from an active mind severe thought and unflagging attention, have scarcely had their due weight with the general reader, nor secured their just meed of admiration. He was singularly careless, writes his editor, in distributing his pleasing illustrations of playfulness, or pathos, or epigrammatic expression. His 'mission' he considered to be that of an instructor and improver; and the flowers which, equally with more substantial things, were the produce of his ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... the unfortunate Highland Brigade. One of these had been shot through the wrist of his left hand at Magersfontein, and he was now returning shot through the wrist of his right hand. The next, said he, with gruesome playfulness, will be through the head. Corporal Evans, of the Gloucesters—one of two brothers whose name is much honoured at Aldershot—I found in the midst of this huge convoy stricken with dysentery. The Cornwalls seemed to have suffered almost as heavily in proportion ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... near Matlock, then jumping across to Dr. Somebody's whose son's tutor you were likely to be, and would to God the dancing demon may conduct you at last in peace and comfort to the "life and labors of a cottager." You see from the above awkward playfulness of fancy, that my spirits are not quite depressed; I should ill deserve God's blessings, which since the late terrible event have come down in mercy upon us, if I indulged regret or querulousness,—Mary ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... see!" says Mrs. Huntley, to my surprise—after the experience I have had of her fine taste in monosyllables—beginning the conversation. I look at her with a little wonder. Her voice is quite as low as ever, but there is an accent of playfulness in it; and on her face a sparkle of esprit, whose possible existence I had not conjectured. Certainly, she showed no symptom of playfulness or esprit during our late talk. I have yet to learn that ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... just been enacted, and, in fact, it was like some sudden return to ancient and forgotten history. Moreover, it had the disadvantage of conveying an entirely wrong impression of what had really taken place; it shifted back the attention to what was after all more or less playfulness, or at the worst, mere verbal disorder, from the odious, brutal resort to physical violence which had just taken place. Moreover, it put a wrong complexion on even the verbal disorder, for it put the initiative with me instead of with Mr. ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... I know there is nothing but personal vanity, and a mischievous desire to excite my jealousy, and, perhaps, to torment his friend; and she, no doubt, is actuated by much the same motives; only, there is more of malice and less of playfulness in her manoeuvres. It is obviously, therefore, my interest to disappoint them both, as far as I am concerned, by preserving a cheerful, undisturbed serenity throughout; and, accordingly, I endeavour to show the fullest ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... encounter provoked Jack to unfair play, Abe shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Then he made peace with him, drew out the better quality in him; and the two reigned "like friendly Caesars" over the village crowd, Abe tempering Jack's playfulness when it got too rough, and winning ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... the enigme-sonnets may be of interest, to show in what intellectual playfulness and ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... thin man, a sort of familiar spirit, appeared as if by magic. Before entrusting the old man to this mysterious guardian, the lovely child, with deep veneration, kissed the ambulatory corpse, and her chaste caress was not without a touch of that graceful playfulness, the secret of which only ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... for a warmer country about that time, and perhaps some who have not wings may be off with them," replied Fluella, in the same tone of playfulness and emotion. ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... replied. "He might prop a little, certainly; but it's only playfulness." So I swung into the deep seat of the stolen saddle, and lightly touched the lotus-loving Memphian with ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... and the features of the spirit are seen to be distorted with anguish. To this class of individuals belonged Widow White. Oh, how she felt as she trod to and fro within that dim-lit room! Her son—her only son, in the endearing playfulness of whose infantile smiles she had so often exulted; upon whose boyish accents she had so frequently hung with transport, and for whom she had pictured out such a bright and glorious future, was a condemned felon, and the morrow would open its great eye upon him for the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... manner was a little stony. It had quite lost its playfulness. He looked almost gloomily on the mother who had upheld the pillars of ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... INTERFERENCE, after all, are only a certain playfulness of the mind which ends at playing upon words. The comic in TRANSPOSITION is much more far-reaching. Indeed, transposition is to ordinary language what ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... logs," she said softly. "Father Confessor, I've come to confess." There was something under the playfulness that touched Drew. "I told Connie that I wanted to talk to you about a plan of mine; well, so it is, but I want you to put the stamp of your ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... with strange intentness. His playfulness was extinguished, and his face looked all ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... before us is of all pretty love-stories perhaps the prettiest. Idyllic as Daphnis and Chloe, romantic as Romeo and Juliet, tender as Undine, remote as Cupid and Psyche, yet with perpetual touches of actual life, and words that raise pictures; and lightened all through with a dainty playfulness, as if Ariel himself had hovered near all the time of its writing, and Puck now and again shot a whisper ...
— Aucassin and Nicolette - translated from the Old French • Anonymous
... action. Neither his statue nor picture are extant, he never allowing them in his life, and utterly forbidding them to be made after his death. He is said to have been a little man, of a contemptible presence; but the goodness of his humor, and his constant cheerfulness and playfulness of temper, always free from anything of moroseness or haughtiness, made him more attractive, even to his old age, than the most beautiful and youthful men of the nation. Theophrastus writes, that the Ephors laid a fine upon Archidamus for marrying a little wife, "For" said they, "she will bring ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... strong iron, There rust amid the accumulated ruins 490 Now mingling slowly with their native earth: There the broad beam of day, which feebly once Lighted the cheek of lean captivity With a pale and sickly glare, now freely shines On the pure smiles of infant playfulness: 495 No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair Peals through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes Of ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... died, has slipped much out of mind. His verses on the adventures of the Kentish rustic who came to London to get justice in the law courts, and his words set to the action of an old piece of rustic mumming, "Bicorn and Chichevache," here represent his vein of playfulness. He was a monk who taught literature at Bury St. Edmunds, and was justly looked upon as the chief poet of the generation who lived ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... wide, and a flaming necktie competing with his bright red cheeks, which contrasted strongly with his dark hair and beard. He was, however, a strong manly fellow, with a great deal of determination mingled with good humour. Usually in high spirits, he often displayed a boyish playfulness that resembled the gambols of a big good-natured dog. He was musical too, and would sing Annie Laurie for you at any time, accompanying himself on the piano. To practical joking he was rather addicted, and once I was his reluctant accomplice, but am glad to say it was the last time I ever engaged ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... Baiae, Nero devoted himself to her with the most assiduous attention. He prepared magnificent banquets for her, and entertained her with a great variety of amusements and diversions. In his conversation he sometimes addressed her with a familiar playfulness and gayety, and at other times he sought occasions to discourse with her seriously on public affairs, in a private and confidential manner. Agrippina was completely deceived by these indications, and her heart was filled ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... we are told, had a strong personal resemblance to Benjamin Franklin. Sagacity, benevolence, and playfulness were expressed in both physiognomies. Bentham, however, differed from the man whose intellect presents many points of likeness, in that he was not a man of the market-place or the office. Bentham was in many respects a child through ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... place a dumb, white look of pain and bewilderment had frozen on her face. Had not that something, akin to anger, which her nature had felt to be emanating from him remained so potently to oppress her, she could almost have thought the thing a joke—some freakish mood of playfulness after all the other moods he had shown. But no such thought was possible. The glitter in his eyes had been unmistakable. Then, ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... Siegfried, throwing the ball at me. The ball I did not catch, but the "dear" epithet I picked up; for it struck me that the same phrase was often attached to my name as well as to that of other less intimate acquaintances, and sometimes with a special, humorous playfulness. Now I caught it. Of course I was their "dear" friend, for did not I sit there and do nothing, and let them waste their money ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... sympathy are morally worthy, affording a practice to those fundamental prejudices toward right and wrong which are the earliest acquisitions of a young soul. The other characteristics of the tale—the rhythmic, the grotesque, the weird, and the droll—are mere recreation, the abundant playfulness which children require to rest them from the dangers and ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... many graceful writers who possess true poetical genius, and enjoy a high local reputation. The "Zophiel" of Maria Brooks (1795-1845) evinces an uncommon degree of power in one of the most refined and difficult provinces of creative art. Frances S. Osgood (1812-1850) was endowed with great playfulness of fancy, and a facility of expression which rendered her almost an improvisatrice. Her later poems are marked by great intensity of feeling and power of expression. The "Sinless Child" of Elizabeth Oakes Smith is a melodious and imaginative poem, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... you limited the use of it to the apothecary's shop and the kitchen. The first is an equivocal use; by introducing it into the kitchen you make it an art fundamental to all others. But if what you had stated had really meant to be serious, it would not have deserved a reply; as it is in mere playfulness, it shall not be thrown away. I want eloquence, however, to adorn my subject, yet it is sufficiently exciting even to awaken feeling. Persons in general look at the magnificent fabric of civilized society as the result ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... this playfulness by. "What seems to me a fundamental error of that book is its constant implication of a constant fear of death. I can very well imagine, or I can easily allow, that we are badly made, and that there are all sorts of 'disharmonies,' as Metchnikoff ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... softened a little his feeling towards Arthur. Surely his attentions to Hetty must have been of a slight kind; they were altogether wrong, and such as no man in Arthur's position ought to have allowed himself, but they must have had an air of playfulness about them, which had probably blinded him to their danger and had prevented them from laying any strong hold on Hetty's heart. As the new promise of happiness rose for Adam, his indignation and jealousy began to die out. Hetty was not made unhappy; he almost believed that she liked him best; ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... you see her?" continued Renovales with a good-natured smile that had not lost its playfulness. "Didn't she 'kid' you, for wearing ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Laetitia Landon in her grandmamma's modest lodging in Sloane Street,—a bright-eyed, sparkling, restless little girl, in a pink gingham frock,—grafting clever things on commonplace nothings, frolicking from subject to subject with the playfulness of a spoiled child,—her dark hair put back from her low, but sphere-like forehead, only a little above the most beautiful eyebrows that a painter could imagine, and falling in curls around her slender throat. We were nearly of the same age, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... baby. Once, when some friends upon whom he was calling happened to be just going out, he said, 'Leave me the baby and I shall be quite happy.' Several little fragments of letters with doggerel rhymes and anecdotes suited for children recall his playfulness with infants, and as we grew up, although we learnt to regard him with a certain awe, he conversed with us most freely, and discoursed upon politics, history, and literature, and his personal recollections, as if we had been his equals, though, of course, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... view again on the crests succeeding. The fleet was returning like a frightened herd in stampede, each boat plunging in the combers with the bellow of the tempest upon its heels. Would they make the lee of the Breakwater? The wind in devilish playfulness would here tear off a shred of canvas, there a yard, and there a mast or a tiller, till a rudderless craft, caught abeam by a mountain of greenish water, would seem surely to be swallowed up. Some of the boats ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... reach our mouths. Caroline grows upon me every time I see her; she is as quick as lightning, understands with half a word literary allusions as well as humour, and follows and leads in conversation with that playfulness and good breeding which delight the more because they are so seldom found together. We stayed till between three and four in the morning. Lord Longford had, to save our horses which had come a journey, put a pair of his horses and one of his postillions ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... remained true to herself. Dropping her girlish playfulness she assumed a quiet, gentle dignity, which became her even better than her gayer mood had done, making her ten times more popular and more sought after, until she begged to go away, persuading Wilford ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... over a bar, and whinnied a farewell, while the others seemed to be in high glee at the change. They threw up their heads and snorted; and one that was of a cream colour, and the smallest of the lot, began to display a playfulness that upset all the rest. The way he displayed his humour was by stretching out his neck, baring his teeth, and running at and biting his companions in turn—a trick which necessitated a good deal of agility, ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... topics, his pure polished style, and his appearance of dispassionate conviction secured the pleased attention of his audience. The more tedious parts of his argument or narrative were from time to time relieved by touches of the playfulness which is more popular than humour; but the colleagues and opponents who thoroughly understood his object, knew that it was pursued ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... sentence there is a sly suggestion of Lowell's playfulness. Of course every one may compete in the search for the Grail, and the "time subsequent to King Arthur's reign" includes the present time. The Romance of King Arthur is the Morte Darthur of Sir Thomas Malory. Lowell's specific ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... she not Brian Wendover's affianced wife? How far was she to trust in him, to lean upon him, in this crucial hour of her life? There had been so much playfulness in their love-making, his tone had been for the most part so light and sportive, that now, when she stood, as it were, face to face with destiny, she hardly knew how to think of him, whether as a rock that she might ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... heard him for some time splashing about and puffing with all his might; a sort of playfulness which struck me as remarkable for so grave and sedate a character; and then a most unusual floundering, attended with a gurgling of the ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... certain that he would; for he had all the lineaments of a young man of indomitable courage and resolution—the steady eye, the firm lip, all under the high brows of intellect, nor unmixed with the beauty that belongs to these moral expressions which in the playfulness of the social hour he had been reducing to materialism, well knowing all the while that he was arguing for effect and applause from those who only gave him the return of stultified petulance. What if that mother and sister, who loved ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... To use her own expression, she was "horrified." She expected Dick Stanmore, and with a girlish playfulness sufficiently denoting the terms on which they stood, had been lying in wait at the top of the stairs, preparing to take a good shot, and drop the wreath, one of Simon's faded properties, on that head which she now loved better ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... steadily back into the lovely face, where the underlying spirit of mockery was transmuted into an innocent playfulness like a child's. ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... this affectionate assurance: "our hearts are willing, and arms ready, to maintain your authority as chief magistrate."[256] On the 29th of July, the erratic General Charles Lee, who was then in Charleston, sent on his congratulations in a letter amusing for its tart cordiality and its peppery playfulness:— ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... well," she remarked, with tender playfulness. "That's all you've got to do. Me and ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the church-yard!' said the white gentleman, with an ambiguous playfulness, very like a sneer. 'I'm too old to play Horatio; but standing at his elbow, if the Prince permits, I have a friendly word or two to say, in my own ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... by the hair, and her face was half turned towards him; her long chestnut hair was floating in the stream of the wind, and threw its shadow over her fair forehead. Her hazel eyes were fixed on her pursuer, with a meaning look of playfulness, and a light smile was hovering on her lips. The colours which arrayed her delicate limbs were ethereal ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... banter, of haughtiness and playfulness, made Francesca at this moment the most fascinating creature in the world. The dinner and the evening were full of cheerfulness, justified, indeed, by the relief of the two refugees, but ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... couple of times close to the ceiling: her tiny face was laughing; laughing also were her huge, black, luminous eyes. The merry playfulness of her capricious flight shivered ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... This will be the most direct evidence of what is at least from my point of view a social relation. There can be no general definition of the form which this address will take. There may be as many special languages, as many attitudes, and as much playfulness and subtlety of symbolism as in human intercourse. But, on the other hand, there are certain utterances that are peculiarly appropriate to religion. In so far as he regards his object as endowed with both power and goodness the worshipper will use the language of adoration; and the sense ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... their helmets again, and appeared to be undecided in their minds as to whether the cripple was chaffing them or not. But though his voice had a certain playfulness of tone, his face was quite ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... and to the transfigurings worked upon troubled remembrances by retrospects so vast as those of fifty years, was in this instance greatly aided to my own feelings by the alliance with the ancient phantom of the forest mountain in North Germany. The playfulness of the scene is the very evoker of the solemn remembrances that lie hidden below. The half-sportive interlusory revealings of the symbolic tend to the same effect. One part of the effect from the symbolic is dependent upon the great ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... amid heaps of broken stone That mingled slowly with their native earth. There the broad beam of day, which feebly once Lighted the cheek of lean captivity With a pale and sickly glare, then freely shone On the pure smiles of infant playfulness. No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair Pealed through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes Of joy fingered winds and gladsome birds And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... And should he make the Child An instrument of falsehood, should he teach her To stretch her arms, and dim the gladsome light Of infant playfulness with piteous looks Of ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... Thereupon Abe gave up the idea of going to St. Louis and six days later took the stage for the capital, at Rutledge's door, where all the inhabitants of the village had assembled to bid him good-by. Ann Rutledge with a flash of her old playfulness kissed him when he got into the stage. Abe's long arm was waving in the air as he looked back at his cheering friends while the stage rumbled down the road toward the great task of his life upon which he was presently to begin in the little ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... Romans still further away from the idea that he looked upon himself as absolute monarch, Caesar undertook the government of the regions given him for ten years. In the course of this time he promised to reduce them to quiet and he carried his playfulness to the point of saying that if they should be sooner pacified, he would deliver them sooner to the senate. Thereupon he first appointed the senators themselves to govern both classes of provinces except Egypt. This land alone, for the reasons mentioned, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... volkameria that ever blooms. Her beauty grew more beautiful, her mind recovered strength. The continual sparkle of this happiness was a secret between ourselves, for she dreaded the eye of the Abbe Dominis, the representative of the world; she masked her contentment with playfulness, and covered the proofs of her tenderness ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... Theodore, with an attempt at playfulness, as the other turned toward him with eager questioning eyes. "I withdraw my prohibition, sir, as regards the papers, and will permit you ...
— Three People • Pansy
... artless demonstrations of affection. There was a mellowed softness in her countenance, and a tender languor in her eye, I had not remarked the preceding day. Then there was more of the vivacity and playfulness of the young girl; now, more of the deep fervour and the composed serenity of the thoughtful woman. This change was too consonant to my taste—too flattering to my self-love—not to be rejoiced in; and as I pressed her yielding form in silent rapture to my own, I more than ever felt she was indeed ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... illusion. Always conspicuous by its effulgence, it is invisible to the Kurus; and in ascertaining the strength or weakness of the Pandavas, that discus offers the best ground. Indeed, that scion of Madhu's race, endued with great might, vanquished with an effort and in seeming playfulness the formidable Naraka and Samvara and Kansa and (Sisupala) the chief of Chedis. Possessed of divinity and of soul superior to everything, that most exalted of male beings can, by his will alone, bring the earth, firmament, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... minds are melancholy. When we become like little children, our very playfulness tells that we are seeing deep, when we see that God is love in His works as well as in Himself, and we look at Nature as a baby does, as a beautiful mystery which we scarcely wish to solve. And therefore deep things, which the intellect in vain struggles ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... notes in Thayer's biography. She seems to have called the composer "a tyrant," and he has much playfulness of allusion to the idea, and there is much about the wretchedness of his health. Amalie Sebald seems to have been of great solace to him, but, like all the rest, she married some one else, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... king, and joyfully greeted by the Birchlegs, who were strong in that district. Little Haakon was then less than two years old, and it is said that the old loyalists, who were eager to have a king of the royal blood, used in playfulness to pull him between them by the arms and legs, to make him ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... not forget the kindly face of Humphry Davy, whose gracious playfulness was ever a charm to the Wordsworths. The safety-lamp was then only an unspoken word, and perhaps few foresaw the sweetness and light that these two men would yet ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... how pleasing is it to have a ready and frequent opportunity of watching, at the outlet of a lake, the stream, pushing its way among the rocks, in lively contrast with the stillness from which it has escaped! and how amusing to compare its noisy and turbulent motions with the gentle playfulness of the breezes that may be starting up, or wandering here and there, over the faintly-rippled surface of the broad water! I may add, as a general remark, that in lakes of great width the shores cannot be distinctly ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... "Knickerbocker." Yet, much as we still admire it, does it wholly satisfy us? Is there not as much room as ever for an edition that shall express primarily not the absurdity of its subject-matter, but the delicate playfulness of Irving's humor and the lightness and grace of his exuberant style? Has there ever been a final "Don Quixote"? Certainly not in the recent monumental editions with their quagmire of footnotes. Moreover, if we had a final edition of the great romance it would not remain ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... or less marked of course in each case. A cold may appear periodically at the end of each month, an increase of irritability and waywardness may be observed, or, on the contrary, a decrease of the regular restless playfulness. The ghost of sex begins to haunt ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... pretty. There was a lurking playfulness about the corners of Juliana's mouth which conjured up the sound of rippling laughter. Had I acted on impulse, I should have clasped Juliana ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... from the sea; it came with a south-wind playfulness, which tossed the girl's glistening hair with free touch and kissed the glowing ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... playfulness, and partly by protestations, Lady Cecilia half convinced Helen; but from this time she refrained from repeating compliments which, true or false, did no good, and things went on better; observing ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... feeling heart. Her loss was a terrible loss to me, though it was great gain to her. Before her death we were separated for a time—only a short time,—but it proved to be a blessed separation, for the letters she wrote me sparkled with love and wit and playfulness, as though they had been set with pearls and rubies and diamonds. I shall show you my treasures before going to bed. I keep them in that box on the sideboard, to be always handy. It is not large, but its contents ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... envying the loud playfulness and mirth. Of those who passed him, gay in youth and hope, He took at Jupiter a shilling's worth Of gazing, through the showman's telescope; Sounds as of far-off bells came on his ears, He fancied 'twas the music ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... regarded with a species of deference amounting even to awe. Had it not been for the childlike, unconscious simplicity of her manners, the young people of her age would have shrunk away from her, as from one entirely out of their line of thought and feeling; but a certain natural and innocent playfulness and amiable self-forgetfulness made her a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... look of set felicity she wore. For an instant he was tempted to show his annoyance at the intrusion. Then, because she was a pretty woman and did not belong to him, he grew almost playful, with the playfulness of an uncertain tempered ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... to her father's side, sat upon a stool before him, and placed her arms upon his knee. The incumbent drew her head there, and touched her cheek in playfulness. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... a combination of playfulness and grace that it is a somewhat ungracious task to refer to particular numbers. In these regards it is the most Mozartean of all the composer's operas. The first act opens with a sparkling duet between Figaro and Susanna, in which she informs ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... wagon in accordance with custom and tradition, modifying the method of construction somewhat perhaps to meet altered conditions of circumstances, and then ornamenting his work by no particular set design or rule, but partly from inherited aptitude and partly from playfulness or fancy. In the house-carpenter attached to some of our old English family estates, there will also be found, here and there, surviving representatives of the traditional "joyner" of the seventeenth century, and in Eastern countries, particularly in Japan, ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... touch of playfulness, "I have seldom received a stronger compliment. After this compliance I think I could venture to ask ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... mascots have a social gathering. They were brought into a ring formed by grinning soldiers. All went well for a moment or two. They grinned, caressed, and made merry. Just in the very heights of the ecstacies, a playful young monk, that had been exchanging "sheep's eyes" with "Paterno," in a fit of playfulness made a grab for the latter's tail, but lo! there was none. The news spread like the incoming of "amigos" after the capture of a Filipino town. A damper fell upon the meeting. All scorned the maimed fellow with that frosty bearing that a reigning belle bestows upon a promising debutante, ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves |
