"Sportive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... says he, with the whipcord in his mouth, and proceeding to wind up his sportive engine. "You was a-saying that Harry was very poor now, and that we oughtn't to help him. That's what you was ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I opened the morning paper—the Morning Post, as it happened—and ran hastily up and down the columns, active exercise having been recommended to me. What cared I for politics, foreign news, or even the sportive intelligence? All I sought for was a paragraph headed 'Horrible Disclosures,' or, 'Awful Death of a Baronet.' I ran up and ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... I moved upon the rolling seas, Or sank on Nature's flowery lap to rest, Or raised my light wings on the sportive breeze, The conscious earth with joy her god confess'd. While Mirth and Gladness round my footsteps play'd, And bright-haired Hope led on the laughing Hours. As man and beast in holy union stray'd To share the lucid streams and ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... the Blackfeet believe in, or at least tell stories of, ghosts, which conduct themselves much as in our old-fashioned ghost stories. They haunt people in a rather sportive and irresponsible way. The souls or shadows of respectable persons go to the bleak country called the Sand Hills, where they live in a dull, monotonous kind of Sheol. The shades of the wicked are 'earth-bound' and mischievous, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... Thou little, sportive boy, This blooming age of thine Is like to-day, so full of joy; And is the day, indeed, That must the sabbath of ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... answered him and said, "Then I will tell you what seems best to me. First wash and put on tunics, and bid the maids about the house array themselves. Then let the sacred bard with tuneful lyre lead us in sportive dancing, that men may say, hearing us from without, 'It is a wedding,' whether such men be passers-by or neighboring folk; and so broad rumor may not reach the town about the suitors' murder till we are gone to our well-wooded farm. There ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... is imprisoned and twitted by a clown. Here is an ignoramus, and Dogberry is placed on the judge's bench. These contrasts might, indeed, be tragic enough, but they are actually comic. Such characters are not ruled by fate but by a sportive chance. The gods connive at them. They are ruled, like tragic characters, by necessity and blindness; but the blindness, instead of leading to tragic ruin, leads only to being caught as in some harmless game of blind-man's-buff. There is retribution, but Falstaff is only pinched ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... get on their knees, as if they might be in a devotional posture of body. They talked as if they really believed that this might be so. I do not know how this impression has come about; but I have heard this before, and guess that some mischievous or sportive person tried to make some one else believe that cattle and sheep kneel only on New Year's night, when the truth is that they kneel whenever they lie down to rest. I have often thought it a pity that people are so ready to believe in marvelous and supernatural ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... deep-red blood of many a vine, That we may largely quaff, and sing The praises of the god of wine, The son of Jove and Semele, Who gave the jocund grape to be A sweet oblivion to our woes. Fill, fill the goblet—one and two: Let every brimmer, as it flows, In sportive ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... voice at the hinder end of it all. All this while he walks about the room, smokes cigarettes, occupies divers chairs for divers brief spaces, and casts his huge arms to the four winds like the sails of a mill. He is a most sportive Prince. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... circumstances as they happened, the rumours which clustered about it from the minds of men without, the many moods, fancies, dispositions, which it for the moment brought out into light, playing round the fact, the half-sportive flights with which lawyers, judges, quidnuncs of the street, darted at conviction and snatched hap-hazard at truth, are all wrought together into one self-sufficient ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... knew this gesture of her father's; it was the omen of some kindly, often sportive suggestion, such as he loved to surprise his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... women are always judging one another before they are finished. A raw boy, with only the undeveloped elements of manhood in him, is denounced as a dunce. A light-hearted, sportive girl, with an incontinent overflow of spirits, is condemned as a hoiden. Neither boy nor girl is half made. There is only the frame-work of the man and woman up, and it does not appear what they are to become. A young man is wild, and judged accordingly. It is not remembered that there ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... "Miles Standish" volume. Some of these have a pathos and interest which all will perceive, but the depth and tenderness of which not all can know. "The Children's Hour" is a strain of parental love, which haunts the memory with its melody, its sportive, affectionate, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... beautiful domain, and she culls the fairest of flowers and weaves bright garlands, and adorns the brow of her beloved with his own thoughts, while he even thinks that she is bestowing treasures out of herself upon him. This gives to woman a sportive grace, a gentle lovingness, an apparent wilfulness, a delight in the power which she has through man, while she knows that he is the link that binds her to Heaven, and thus she is humble and grateful and yielding in the height of her power. How beautiful is the life of conjugial ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... and twenty. He was the son of my wife's sister; therefore my relation only by marriage. He was certainly the most extraordinary child I ever beheld. I cannot recollect him but with inconceivable emotions of affection. Of all the sportive little creatures I ever met with, he was the most active, the most undaunted, and the most winning. Heaven bless the sweet boy! He was my delight. My eyes overflow whenever I recall to mind the feats of his childhood, which can never ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... bleak, lonely, wild, Where seal, 'mid icebergs, sportive play, Far westward wander'd nature's child, And wigwam ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... knocked him flat in the muddy street; then springing up again like a flash, he resumed his place on the gate, and looked as innocent as a lamb. But the man picked himself up slowly, and turning round, poured a torrent of angry words on the sportive youth. ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... following day they made their appearance, being heated and weary with their marches, they all stripped and went into the Lake to bathe previous to embarking for Mackinaw. Unsuspicious of danger they played with the sportive waves as they dashed upon the shore, and were swimming and diving in all directions, when the terrific yell of armed warriors broke upon their ears. It was but the work of a moment and one hundred defenseless Indians perished ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... design'd By Fate in the same sentence to be join'd. Raised by the breath of popular acclaim, They mounted to the pinnacle of fame; There the weak brain, made giddy with the height, Spurr'd on the rival chiefs to mortal fight. Thus sportive boys, around some basin's brim, Behold the pipe-drawn bladders circling swim; 870 But if, from lungs more potent, there arise Two bubbles of a more than common size, Eager for honour, they for fight prepare, Bubble meets bubble, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... blaming Haydn because he was not Beethoven; or, in our times, Tchaikowsky because his music does not resemble that of Brahms. Blase pedants often call Haydn's music "tame"; we might as well apply that adjective to the antics of a sportive kitten. As for the "amiable prattle" of his style we do not speak in a derogatory way of the fresh, innocent voices of children, though we need not listen to them continually. Haydn, in short, is Haydn,[115] and the vitality and ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... he shouts, "who ventures to draw nigh, His town shall perish, and himself shall die." Onward, though maimed, he presses to his prey. Twice five times circling round the field they fly; For no mean stake or sportive prize they play, Lo, Turnus' life and blood are wagered ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... capturable in this country. The habits of the bookmakers (marsupialis vulgaris) may be studied, and their curious habits learned by anybody willing to incur the expense in the inclosures set apart for their exhibition at the various racecourses, where their sportive gambles are the subject of great interest (and principal) on the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... This sport increased until the long stretch of water, which had been as calm as St. Regis Lake at twilight, resembled the quick current of a Canadian stream. It was a fascinating, wonderful sight. But it was also peculiarly exasperating, because when the fish roll in this sportive, lazy way they will not bite. For an hour I trolled through this whirlpool of flying spray and twisting tarpon, with many a salty drop on my face, hearing all around me the whipping crash of ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... sweeter still, through all the day I seem to hear her winsome prattle— I seem to feel her hands at play, As though they gave me sportive battle. ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... disputed objects are amusing playthings—the sportive productions of idle wags who inhabited the various sites—seems to be the most recent opinion which finds acceptance among local antiquaries. But this view involves the contemporaneity of occupancy of the respective sites, of ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... blind effect of love and chance, Formed by their sportive parents' ignorance, Bear from their birth the impressions of a slave; Whom heaven for play-games first, and then for service gave: One then may be displaced, and one may reign, And want of merit render ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... was my fortune to read the book in the very garden (of that admirable Shaftesbury inn) which, under a transparent disguise, is the scene of Uncle Simon's restoration. Naturally this enhanced my enjoyment of a sportive little comedy, which I can most ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... George took a heavy, sportive interest in his pretty girl, but Julia could not realize their relationship sufficiently to permit of any liberties. She smiled an uneasy, perfunctory smile when George kissed her, and moved away from the arm he would ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... they see the consecrated grove Of Cyprus, sacred once to Cretan Jove. 60 The ship beneath her lofty pressure reels, And to the freshening gale still deeper heels. But now, beneath the lofty vessel's stern, A shoal of sportive dolphins they discern, Beaming from burnish'd scales refulgent rays, Till all the glowing ocean seems to blaze: In curling wreaths they wanton on the tide, Now bound aloft, now downward swiftly glide; Awhile beneath the waves ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... Lady" with his "Kynd Kittok," in which God has his eye on the soul of an intemperate ale-wife who has crept into Paradise. "God lukit, and saw her lattin in, and leugh His heart sair." Examples of this kind of sportive irreverence are common enough; their root is in human nature: and they could not be absent in the mythology of savage or of ancient peoples. To Zeus the myths of this kind would come to be ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... their sportive pennons waved Thousands of angels, in resplendence each Distinct and quaint adornment. At their glee And carol smiled the Lovely One of heaven That joy was in the eyes of all ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... which her "poor dear papa" had been in the habit of frightening obstreperous White Boys, who might assail the sacred premises of Ballybrogue Castle—the ancestral seat of the Earls of Planetree in sportive Tipperary, as I believe I've told you before. The weapon, she informed me, was a most efficient one, having once been known—when missing the advocate of "young Ireland" it was aimed at—to demolish a whole ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... finest imagination, the most delicate taste, the sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic skill—in a word, a sculptor and a poet too—could have first dreamed of a Faun in this guise, and then have succeeded in imprisoning the sportive and frisky thing in marble. Neither man nor animal, and yet no monster, but a being in whom both races meet on friendly ground. The idea grows coarse as we handle it, and hardens in our grasp. But, if the spectator broods long over the statue, he will be conscious of its spell; all ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sportive Creatures, and of spotted hue, Which suckled twice a day, I keep for you: These Thestilis hath beg'd, and beg'd in vain, But now they're Hers, since ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... very young; that her conduct was not design so much as girlish mischief and high spirits; and that if young men have their frolics, sow their wild oats, and enjoy their pleasure, young women may be permitted sometimes their more harmless vagaries of gaiety, and sportive outbreaks of wilful humour. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that she were here, Where the free waters leap, Shouting in sportive joyousness Adown the rocky steep: Where zephyrs crisp and cool The fountains as they play, With health upon their wings of light, And gladness on their way. Oh, would that she were here, With these balm-breathing trees, The sylvan daughters of the sun, The rain-cloud, ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... Connor some ten years after the occurrence of the events above narrated. Everything looked the same as when I had left it; the old trees stood as graceful and as grand as ever; no plough had violated the soft green sward; no utilitarian hand had constrained the wanderings of the clear and sportive stream, or disturbed the lichen-covered rocks through which it gushed, or the wild coppice that over-shadowed its sequestered nooks—but the eye that looked upon these things was altered, and memory was busy with other days, shrouding ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... after phalanx, they their host Pour'd dense along, while Phoebus in the van Display'd the awful aegis, and the wall Levell'd with ease divine. As, on the shore Some wanton boy with sand builds plaything walls, 445 Then, sportive spreads them with his feet abroad, So thou, shaft-arm'd Apollo! that huge work Laborious of the Greeks didst turn with ease To ruin, and themselves drovest all to flight. They, thus enforced into the fleet, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... favourite subject. O fy 'divine Clarinda!' " I suspect, although quite unconsciously on the part of the lady, who was bent on his redemption, they but used the favourite subject as a stalking-horse. In the meantime, the sportive acquaintance was ripening steadily into a genuine passion. Visits took place, and then became frequent. Clarinda's friends were hurt and suspicious; her clergyman interfered; she herself had smart attacks of conscience, but her heart had gone from her control; it was altogether ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... broad-shouldered, handsome Englishman, and the trim, dainty little figure in fleecy white, with the ermine wrap thrown over the pretty plump shoulders and round neck, on which rare diamonds, that would have paid a king's ransom, gleamed fitfully whenever the sportive breeze tossed back ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... them, that they intended to do him no harm; their lunges were sportive and not in earnest; but diverting as the sport was to them, it was the very contrary to the old man, whose cries proclaimed that he thought his last hour ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... the dawn of day cheerful and easy. Thus infancy and youth are singularly happy, and mothers attend their offspring with maternal feeling and delight; they are neither disturbed by painful commands or restraint; and it is a picture of perfect happiness to see these children of nature in sportive groups and infantine diversion. This happy infancy and gay youth is peculiarly calculated to organise a vigorous manhood, and a firm old age; and, I am persuaded, that these are the physical causes why the Negro race are so muscular in body, and procreative of their species. In some countries ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... "She shall be sportive as the fawn That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm Of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... Railway Hotel, puffing a cigarette, briskly turning and returning with something of the motion of a captive lion. I knew that pinky cheek, I knew that bright blue eye; yet here, in the wilds of Galway who could it be? He plays with two sportive spaniels, and cries "Down, Sir, down." Thy voice bewrayeth thee, member for North Galway! The Parnellitic Colonel Nolan, thou, in propria persona. What makes he here? When the great Bill impends, why flee the festive scene? I'll speak a little with ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... warm attachments of refined society? Here the dead was raised to his long-cherished hopes, and the lost was found. Here all doubt and danger were buried in the vortex of oblivion; sectional differences no longer disunited their opinions; like the freed bird from the cage, sportive claps its rustling wings, wheels about to heaven in a joyful strain, and raises its notes to the upper sky. Ambulinia insisted upon Elfonzo to be seated, and give her a history of his unnecessary absence; assuring him the family had retired, consequently they would ever remain ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... determine if I need abbreviate this blissful moment, I saw the enraged animal disappearing in the side-door of the barn; and it was a nice, comfortable Durham cow, that somewhat rare but possible thing—a sportive cow. ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... eager ways to see, But mark their choice when they To choose their sportive garb are free, The moral ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... declared himself greatly amused with his pilgrimage: the sight of the Tagus pleased him, Cintra delighted him; he talked Latin at the convent, fed on oranges, embraced every body, asked news of every body and every thing; "and we find him," says Moore, "in this charming, gay, sportive, schoolboy humor, just at the very moment that 'Childe Harold' is about to reveal to the world his misanthropy, disgust, and insensibility. Lord Byron went from Lisbon to Seville, going seventy miles a day on horseback in the heat of a Spanish July, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... sportive, frolicsome, lively, exhilarating, vivacious, jolly, blithe, airy, boon, convivial, jovial, joyous; brilliant, dashing, gallant, showy; garish, gaudy, flashing, tawdry; (Colloq.) loose, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... in the cradle; two or three of the other little ones, weary with their sportive play, had been laid in their cribs. Henric and Lewis, two lovely boys of five and six years old, having promised to be very good, if allowed to sit up till their father's return, were watching their mother, who was employed in roasting a fine fat quail which their cousin, ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... chamber, I bade farewell separately to all those little trifles that surrounded me: God bless the good old clock that hast so oft awakened me. Beautiful raven, whom I taught to speak and to say "Lorand," on whom wilt thou play thy sportive tricks? Poor old doggy, maybe thou wilt not be living when I return? Forsooth old Susie herself will say to me, "I shall never see you again Master Desi." And till now I always thought I was angry with Susie; but now I remark that it will be ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... snow-white foam, the beautiful rivulet pursued its sportive way over tessellated stones which flashed through the eddies of the glassy, sunlit, amber-coloured water with the silken sheen of a patchwork carpet or costly ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... of barren imagination, the absence from it of the spiritual, nothing in him which as yet desires, through the sorrow and strife of life, God's infinitude, or man's love; a natural life indeed, forgiveable, gay, sportive, dowered with happy self-love, good to pass through and enjoy, but better to leave behind. But Sordello will not become the actual artist till he lose his self-involvement and find his soul, not only in love of his Daphne but in love of man. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... forth through innumerable crevices in the rock—crevices which the sharpest eye in the country had never seen before. Curiosity led them towards the turret, when they were charmed by the most exquisite sounds ever emitted by a fiddle-string, which, joined to the sportive mirth and glee accompanying it, reconciled them in a great measure to the scene, although they knew well enough the inhabitants of the nook were fairies. Nay, overpowered by the enchanting jigs played by the fiddler, one ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... But we had considerably more than a capful of wind, and there was a turgent ground-swell on, which made our boat—double-engined, and as trim and tidy a craft as ever sped across the span from shore to shore—behave rather lively, with sportive indulgence in a brisk game of pitch-and-toss that proved anything but comfortable ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... such criticism would be to protest its irresponsible infancy, and admit that it was a more or less amiable blatancy in individuals, and not art at all. Young animals often gambol in a delightful fashion, and men also may, though hardly when they intend to do so. Sportive self-expression can be prized because human nature contains a certain elasticity and margin for experiment, in which waste activity is inevitable and may be precious: for this license may lead, amid a thousand failures, to some real discovery and advance. Art, like ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... not only Pennsylvania that served as the theater of his sportive eccentricities. The police reported his appearance in other states; in Kentucky near Frankfort; in Ohio near Columbus; in Tennessee near Nashville; in Missouri near Jefferson; and finally in Illinois in the ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... bring memories of squalor, filth, hunger, wretchedness, dull toil, unspeakable misery. Take it at its best, and consider what a modern engagement really means. Recollect, moreover, that I am about to use sentences accurate as a photograph. The sportive Pressman says, "Vernon began to find the enemy's cloud of sharp-shooters troublesome, so the 5th sought better cover on the right, leaving Brown free to develop his artillery fire." "Troublesome!" Translate that word, and it means ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... curious hand had carv'd The ocean girding in the land; the land; And heaven o'ershadowing: here cerulean gods Sport in the waves, grim Triton with his shell; Proteus shape-changing; and AEgeon huge,— His mighty arms upon the large broad backs Of whales hard pressing: Doris and her nymphs: Some sportive swimming; on a rocky seat Some their green tresses drying; others borne By fish swift-gliding: nor the same all seem'd, Yet sister-like a close resembling look Each face pervaded. Earth her natives bore, Mankind;—and ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... hand upon the horse's neck, as he sprang into the saddle he simultaneously swung the sharp scimiter in his right hand so deftly as to cut off the head of the groom who held the bridle. From his behaviour in these sportive moods one may judge what he was capable of on serious occasions. He was a fair sample of the Barbary monarchs. The foreign policy of these wretches was summed up in piracy and blackmail. Their corsairs swept the Mediterranean and ventured far out upon the ocean, capturing merchant vessels, ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... that Walpole's chief excellence is in his letters. His sportive spleen, his polished sarcasm, and his keen insight into the ways of men, place him at the head of all epistolary authorship. He has had but two competitors for this fame,—it is remarkable that they were both women,—De Sevigne in France, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... balance. The only hope of doing this, is placed in the proper application of his oar, and, therefore, the dexterous management of this implement forms the early study of the young Greenlanders. In their sportive parties they row about in a thousand different manners. They dive under their boats, and then set them to rights with their paddle; they learn to glide over the roughest billows, and face the greatest ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... released monk to give his Utopian dream the form of an abbey, but an abbey in which the opposite should obtain of all that he had so heartily hated in his own monastic experience. A humorously impossible place and state was the Abbey of Theleme,—a kind of sportive Brook Farm set far away in a world unrealized. How those Thelemites enjoyed life, to be sure! It was like endless plum pudding—for everybody to eat, and ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... much more correct the name Chalcis is than the name Cymindis—do you deem that a light matter? Or about Batieia and Myrina? (Compare Il. 'The hill which men call Batieia and the immortals the tomb of the sportive Myrina.') And there are many other observations of the same kind in Homer and other poets. Now, I think that this is beyond the understanding of you and me; but the names of Scamandrius and Astyanax, which he affirms to have been the names of Hector's ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... the fire would die out against that barrier, always provided the west wind did not rise and in sportive mockery fling showers of sparks across to start a hundred little fires burning in the woods behind their line of defense. A forest fire was never beaten until it was dead. The men rested, watched, patrolled their ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the morsel—flesh obscene of dog, Or vermin, or, at best, of cock purloined From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race, They pick their fuel out of every hedge, Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unqueuched The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin, The vellum of the livery ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... be vile than vile esteem'd, When not to be receives reproach of being; And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing: For why should others' false adulterate eyes Give salutation to my sportive blood? Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, Which in their wills count bad what I think good? No, I am that I am, and they that level At my abuses reckon up their own: I may be straight though they themselves be bevel; By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown; Unless this general ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... it has already been remarked, had much vivacity and sportive humour, with very engaging frankness of temper and manners. Early in her widowhood she was rallied in a large company upon Dr. Darwin's passion for her, and was asked what she would do with her captive philosopher. 'He is not very fond of churches, I believe,' said she, 'and even if he would ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... accompanied by the Bhojas, the Andhas, and the Kukuras, came to Duryodhana with an Akshauhini of troops. And the body of his troops composed of those mighty soldiers, who wore on their persons garlands of many-coloured flowers, looked as graceful as a number of sportive elephants that have passed through a wood. And others led by Jayadratha, the dwellers of the land of Sindhusauvira, came in such force that the hills seemed to tremble under their tread. And their force, counting an Akshauhini, looked like ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... with inconstancy, you will find me Italian in faithfulness and memory. While writing the name of "Eugenie," my thoughts have often led me back to that cool stuccoed salon and little garden in the Vicolo dei Cappucini, which echoed to the laughter of that dear child, to our sportive quarrels and our chatter. But you have left the Corso for the Tre Monasteri, and I know not how you are placed there; consequently, I am forced to think of you, not among the charming things with which no doubt ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... Lippo, by your leave! You need not clap your torches to my face. Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk! What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds, And here you catch me at an alley's end Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up, Do,—harry out, if you must show your zeal, Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... times, grinding their teeth at us, especially when we were slaughtering the fish on the bank. We kept watch during the entire night, as on that occasion they were truly vicious. Our dogs, for a change, became quite sportive. One of them, named Negrino, got furious with the ariranhas, and, driven mad by their unmusical noises, actually jumped into the stream to go to their attack. In a moment he had quantities of ariranhas upon him, and was bitten savagely, ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the dame, who, I heard, was sneering and critical? this the blue-stocking, of whom I stood in terror and dislike? this wondrous woman, full of counsel, full of tenderness, before whom every mean thing is ashamed, and hides itself; this new Corinne, more variously gifted, wise, sportive, eloquent, who seems to have learned all languages, Heaven knows when or how,—I should think she was born to them,—magnificent, prophetic, reading my life at her will, and puzzling me with riddles like ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... excursion on the water was planned for the morning, and Edward and Fanny were wakened from their slumbers by the tones of the bugle; a soft Irish melody being breathed by Spillan, followed by a more sportive one from the other minstrel of the ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Bard!—to wake thy silent lyre Our British Muse, our charming Seward, deigns!— With more harmonious tones, more sportive fire Beneath her ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... furnace-room. Those errors were avoided, and during three out of the four acts the movement of the piece was fluent, continuous, and cumulative. In this respect both the drama and the performance were instructive. Henry Arthur Jones has diversified his serious scenes with passages of sportive humour and he has freighted the piece with conventional didacticism as to the well-worn question of capital and labour. The humour is good: the political economy need not detain attention. The value ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... several years the intense desire of license and of revenge. At length that desire was gratified. The Restoration emancipated thousands of minds from a yoke which had become insupportable. The old fight recommenced, but with an animosity altogether new. It was now not a sportive combat, but a war to the death. The Roundhead had no better quarter to expect from those whom he had persecuted than a cruel slavedriver can expect from insurgent slaves still bearing the marks of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hadst liv'd, till every thing that chears In thee had yielded to the weight of years; Extreme old age had wasted thee away, And left thee but a glimmering of the day; Thy ears were deaf; and feeble were thy knees,— saw thee stagger in the summer breeze, 20 Too weak to stand against its sportive breath, And ready for the gentlest stroke of death. It came, and we were glad; yet tears were shed; Both Man and Woman wept when Thou wert dead; Not only for a thousand thoughts that were, Old household thoughts, in which thou hadst thy share; But for some precious boons ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... voice one day And glancing at my side, Fair Love, all breathless, flushed with play, A butterfly did ride. "Whither away, oh sportive boy?" I asked, he tossed his head; Laughing aloud for purest joy, And past me ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... loved one, I am prison'd" "Ich grolle nicht," "Die alten boesen Lieder," "I lay my all, love, at thy feet," "Aus meiren grossen Schmerzen mach' ich die kleinen Lieder"—all with the same calm superiority, and that light, half-sportive accompaniment. The only thing that gave him a little trouble was that fatal point, "Ich legt' auch meine Liebe, Und meinen Schmerz hinein;" but even of this he ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... But, gentle sir, if they desire to war, Why should we hinder such a sportive game? They own those isles, and why should we debar Them pastimes, for "they ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... mine, as you usually do, but I am sending you some wares of another sort, exotic trifles, the fruit of my playtime. You will receive with this letter some hendecasyllabics of mine with which I pass my leisure hours pleasantly when driving, or in the bath, or at dinner. They contain my jests, my sportive fancies, my loves, sorrows, displeasures and wrath, described sometimes in a humble, sometimes in a lofty strain. My object has been to please different tastes by this variety of treatment, and I hope that certain pieces will be liked by every one. Some of them will possibly strike you ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... continually made in the observances of Class Day, and in twenty years after the period last mentioned, its character had in many particulars changed. Instead of the Latin, an English oration of a somewhat sportive nature had been introduced; the Poem was either serious or comic, at the writer's option; usually, however, the former. After the exercises in the Chapel, the class commonly repaired to Porter's Hall, and there partook of a dinner, not always observing with ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... last autumn and winter, till I had a bad illness. I am now at work on it again; and go full sail, like my hero. There are six Cantos done, roughly, besides what you saw. I have struck out most of the absurdest couplets, and given the whole a higher though still sportive tone. It is becoming a kind of Odyssey, with a laughing and Christian Achilles for hero. One may manage to wrap, in that chivalrous brocade, many things belonging to our Time, and capable of interesting it. The thing ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... the universe. Fancy turns her sister's wizard instruments into toys. She takes a telescope in her hand, and puts a mimic star on her forehead, and sallies forth as an emblem of astronomy. Her tendency is to the child-like and sportive. She chases butterflies, while her sister takes flight with angels. She is the genius of fairies, of gallantries, of fashions; of whatever is quaint and light, showy and capricious; of the poetical part of wit. She adds wings and feelings to the images of wit; and ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... Widespreading-sand Island," where they had to starve in the midst of plenty; so likewise was I, the only thing which I had to thank our sojourn off the province of Shan-tung for being the nickname Larkyns gave me in his sportive fancy on my return on board from Pekin after ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... times, recalling happy days of wild frolics, sometimes shared, sometimes censured by her grown-up playfellow; the few hours with his sister that had influenced her whole life; and the lectures, earnest, though apparently sportive, by which he had strengthened and carried on the impression; that brief time, also, of their last spending together, when his sorrow for his sister was fresh, and when John was almost in a hopeless state, and when she had been the one of the family to whom he came to pour out his grief, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the player seemed to frolic over the keys, as though they toyed with the vibrations of the strings. The sounds were sportive and jocund; they rippled like laughter; they were capricious as the merriment of a coquette. Then they merged into a sweet and warbling cadence—a cadence of inimitable tenderness, the very suavity of which was rendered more piquant by its lavish variations. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... from his snug bed he gathered the waste-basket into his arms and commenced to dig in it like a sportive terrier. After a messy minute or two he successfully excavated the crumpled little gray tissue circular and smoothed it out carefully on his humped-up knees. The expression in his eyes all the time was quite a curious mixture of mischief ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... the Gobbo, the Veccio also disappears, and I hear vaguely—for in Venice you never know any thing with precision—that he has found a regular employment in Padua, and again that he is dead. While he lasts, G. has a pleasant, even a sportive manner with this poor old man, calculated to cheer his declining years; but, as I say, cases of insolent and aggressive misery fail to touch her. The kind of wretchedness that comes breathing woe and sciampagnin ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... afternoon they soared along, sometimes swooping low above an alluring bit of scenery and again heading their machines skyward in pure exuberance of spirits. Their troubles at Meadville forgotten, they flew their machines like sportive birds; never had any of them experienced more fully the joy of flight, the sense of freedom that comes from traveling untrammeled into ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... fell into a muse. Her question recurred to her; but it was hardly likely, she felt, that her little companion could enlighten her. Nora was a bright, lively, spirited child, with black eyes and waves of beautiful black hair; neither at rest; sportive energy and enjoyment in every motion. ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... ones. Even Annie and the clergyman were stone-blind: so that Klaus, speaking unintelligibly at every turn, had to bear the jokes of all; for young and old, woman and man, chimed readily in with the tone of sportive raillery, as soon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... songs and ballads which were called forth by passing events were usually amorous, sportive, gay, and often gross, yet suited ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... must introduce to you Before aught else, this jovial crew, To show how lightly life may glide away; With the folk here each day's a holiday. With little wit and much content, Each on his own small round intent, Like sportive kitten with its tail; While no sick-headache they bewail, And while their host will credit give, Joyous and free from ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... electrified it with a new and peculiar fervour of eloquence, such as had never been heard among us before, how manifold, how multiform have been this man's generous vindications of our great Bard! Now broad in humour; now sportive and playful; now sarcastic, scornful, and searching; now calmly philosophic in criticism; now thoughtful and solemn, large of reverent discourse, 'looking before and after,' with all the sweetest by-plays of humanity, with every reconciling softness of charity—such, in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... gentler manners reign, I turn; and France displays her bright domain. 240 Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease, Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please, How often have I led thy sportive choir, With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire? Where shading elms along the margin grew, 245 And freshened from the wave the Zephyr flew; And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still, But mocked ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... visited. Even the guide had not come on with us, but was employed in showing other parties about the fortifications. It was clear that this portion of the building was left desolate, and that the experiment might be safely made. So the sportive rector declared that he would for a short time wear the regimentals which had once contained the valorous ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... of her various suitors, in the first scene with Nerissa, what infinite power, wit, and vivacity! She half checks herself as she is about to give the reins to her sportive humor: "In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker."—But if it carries her away, if is so perfectly good-natured, so temperately bright, so lady-like, it is ever without offence; and so far, most unlike the satirical, poignant, unsparing wit of Beatrice, "misprising ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... of private character. Adorni himself foamed at the mouth with rage, impotent for the present, but which he prepared to give deadly effect to at the proper time. But, whilst it laughed, Klosterheim also trembled. Some persons, indeed, were of opinion that the answer of The Masque was a mere sportive effusion of malice or pleasantry from the students, who had suffered so much by his annoyances. But the majority, amongst whom was Adorni himself, thought otherwise. Apart even from the reply, or the insult which had provoked it, the general impression ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... against each other like that," said Ada Pratt, archly, to Lord Newhaven, for though Ada was haughty in general society she could be sportive, and even friskily ingratiating, towards those of her fellow-creatures whom she termed "swells." "Why, half Middleshire will be saying that ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... to revel in falsehood, and scatter destruction around her. With this single exception, there is not the slightest appearance of compunction or reflection among them. On the contrary, they seem to have been in a frivolous, sportive, gay frame of thought and spirits. There is, perhaps, in this view of their conduct and demeanor, something to justify the belief that they were really demented. The fact that a large amount of skilful art and adroit cunning ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... among the forces destined to mold the elements which were to be formulated in the politics of the State and the enterprises of the Church. A close observer, gifted with a keen discrimination and retentive memory, a decided relish for the ludicrous and the sportive, and always ready to give a religions turn to thought and conversation, he is admirably adapted to portray and recite what ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... in a sportive mood, "let us go a-courting to her who is so handsome, perhaps she may fancy ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... robust, followed me stoutly, as I took care not to walk too far without resting; but I was often compelled to carry my little Matilda on my shoulders. Both were delighted with the shade of the woods, and were so amused with the delightful birds that inhabited them, and a pretty little sportive green monkey, that they became as playful as ever. They sang and prattled; but often asked me if papa and Alfred would not soon return to see these pretty creatures, and if we were going to seek them. These words rent my ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... wrath retired: (His was the strength that mortal might exceeds, And his the unrivall'd race of heavenly steeds:) But Thetis' son now shines in arms no more; His troops, neglected on the sandy shore. In empty air their sportive javelins throw, Or whirl the disk, or bend an idle bow: Unstain'd with blood his cover'd chariots stand; The immortal coursers graze along the strand; But the brave chiefs the inglorious life deplored, And, wandering o'er the camp, required ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... in sportive mood To Syracusan strains, nor blushed within The woods to house her. When I sought to tell Of battles and of kings, the Cynthian god Plucked at mine ear and warned me: "Tityrus, Beseems a shepherd-wight to feed fat sheep, But sing a slender song." Now, Varus, I- For lack there ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... the reign of Augustus was the great delight of that Emperor and his friend Maecenas. Bathyllus, of Alexandria, was the first to introduce it to the Roman public, but he had a dangerous rival in Pylades. The latter was magnificent, pathetic, and affecting, while Bathyllus was gay and sportive. All Rome was split into factions about their respective merits. Athenaeus speaks of a distinguished performer of his own time (he died A.D. 194) named Memphis, whom he calls the "dancing philosopher," ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... introduction to the earl within the last half-hour, and had not concealed his admiration for the earl's daughter. He had entreated the honor of a formal introduction to the exquisite creature with whom he had conversed on sportive terms last night at the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... and dogs grew dull; His kitten, late a sportive elf; The woods and lakes, so beautiful, 740 Of dim stupidity were full. All grew dull ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... memory was of sun and a dance of leafy shadows on the wall of the cave, the which shadows held my attention so that I had no will to look otherwhere; for these were merry shadows that leapt in sportive gambols, that danced and swayed, pleasing me mightily. And as I watched these antic shadows I could hear the pleasant murmur of the little rill without the cave, that bubbled with sweet, soft noises like small, babbling voices and brake ever and anon into elfin laughter. And presently, mingled ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... tongue that would wither him forever, and end the vile persecutions I wuz undergoin', when before I could speak the gang plank wuz charged back agin Mr. Pomper's foot in a way that made him leap back like a sportive elephant, and for the moment I wuz free. But as I wended my pensive way up to the hotel, I made up my mind that if he ever approached me agin I would plainly tell him what wuz what, and so end my purturbations of mind; for I felt if ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking: yet, though grave and awful in his deportment, when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently indulged himself in pleasantry and sportive sallies. He was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might incline him to a belief of the marvellous, and the mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Bounding and free, O soothe me to sleep with thy sweet lullaby! As when a child, Sportive and wild, Thy waves and I ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... knew to guide, and on each part the light Diminish'd fades, intensest in the midst; So burn'd the peaceful oriflame, and slack'd On every side the living flame decay'd. And in that midst their sportive pennons wav'd Thousands of angels; in resplendence each Distinct, and quaint adornment. At their glee And carol, smil'd the Lovely One of heav'n, That joy was in the eyes ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... again went through his complete list of maneuvers, first rearing high out of the water, turning one side of his head and then the other toward me, then ducking into the depths with a final flourish of his tail, to reappear presently on the other side of me, as sportive as before. ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... the Westcott House dance Mary was again her gay and sportive self. If she was bored, she concealed it admirably, and that in spite of the fact that her little scheme of playing freshman seemed doomed to failure. Mary had walked out of chapel that morning with the front row, and, even without the enormous bunch of ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... very much in Day's manner. The merciless harrying of the word "kind" at the beginning of Act v. reminds one of similar elaborate trifling in Humour out of Breath; and the amoebaean rhymes in the contention between Gemulo and Silvio (Act i.) are, in their sportive quaintness, as like Day's handiwork as they are unlike Lilly's. In reading the pretty echo-scene, in Act iv., the reader will recall a similar scene in Law Trickes (Act v., Sc. I). On the other hand, the delightful songs of the fairies[97] (in Act iii.), ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... Establishments for Young Ladies noisy play like that daily indulged in by boys is a punishable offence; and we infer that it is forbidden, lest unladylike habits should be formed. The fear is quite groundless, however. For if the sportive activity allowed to boys does not prevent them from growing up into gentlemen, why should a like sportive activity prevent girls from growing up into ladies? Rough as may have been their play-ground frolics, youths who have left school do not indulge in leap-frog in ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... to which the children had exposed themselves. Without doubt their immunity was due to their very audacity. Apparently the boar had not connected these fearless mites with human beings whom he knew to be vulnerable, but had fancied them sportive elves, against whom his tusks would be powerless. Peggy registered a vow not to let Dorothy out of her sight again while the ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... course, since the proposition comes from her husband," Edward remarked, with a sportive look at her; then glancing at his own little wife: "and as I approve, Zoe will be equally ready ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... whose harmless play Beguiles the rustic's closing day, When drawn the evening fire about, Sit aged crone and thoughtless lout; Come, show thy tricks and sportive graces, Thus circled round with merry faces. Backward coiled, and crouching low, With glaring eyeballs watch thy foe. The house wife's, spindle whirling round, Or thread, or straw, that on the ground Its shadow throws, by urchin sly, ...
— Baby Chatterbox • Anonymous
... joined internally; and it did me so much good that I bought the anti-administration newspaper of Charleston and, getting out of bullet range, put my back against a tree and tried to read. Mercury was ever a blithe and sportive god, and his gambols on Mount Olympus were noted in days of yore; but the modern namesake—or else my present position—had soporific tendencies; and fear of the target shooters growing dimmer and dimmer, I ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... absolute torrent, with mud-thickened water, which cascades round one's ankles in a sportive way, and round one's knees in the hollows in the path. On we go, the path underneath the water seems a pretty equal mixture of rock and mud, but they are not evenly distributed. Plantations full of weeds show up on either ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the following may not be weaker and weaker, till willingness ensue, is the point to be tried. I will illustrate what I have said by the simile of a bird new caught. We begin, when boys, with birds; and when grown up, go on to women; and both perhaps, in turn, experience our sportive cruelty. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... happy in love and honor, should she Klea come between the couple to divide them? Should she jealously snatch Irene from his arms and carry her back to the gloomy temple which now—after she had fluttered awhile in sportive freedom in the sunny air—would certainly seem to her doubly sinister and unendurable? Should she be the one to plunge Irene into misery—Irene, her child, the treasure confided to her care, whom she had sworn ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... life Looks cheerful, when one carries in one's heart The unalienable treasure. 'Tis a game, Which, having once reviewed, I turn more joyous Back to my deeper and appropriate bliss. [Breaking off, and in a sportive tone. In this short time that I've been present here. What new unheard-of things have I not seen; And yet they all must give place to the wond Which this mysterious ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... splendor, thinking of kindly Selene moving on her peaceful path above, of Artemis hunting in the moonlight, of the nymphs of the waters, and the dryads just now perhaps stealing out of the great trees to dance with sportive fauns, the chant suddenly broke out again in solemn measure, and she heard, to deep manly voices, the beginning of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... days last year, I mind, When the maple trees turned red, They flew away like the sportive wind, But I gathered the joys they left behind, As I gather the leaves, but to-day I find That the joys, like the leaves, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the dashing young blade who for thirty years had been the Beau Brummel of George Brotherton's establishment; but a rather weazened little man whose mind illumined a face that still clung to sportive youth, while premature ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Princess Summer in robes of green. And the King of day smiled down upon her And wooed her, and won her, and made her queen. Fruit of their union and true love's pledges, Beautiful roses bloomed day by day, And rambled in gardens and hid in hedges Like royal children in sportive play. ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... lifted his stick from his knee, and she stood there again as blithe and sportive ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... of the Mexican coast, the occasional appearance of a whale with its column of water thrown high into the air, and the sportive action of schools of porpoises which is constantly met with, the passage was slightly monotonous. On the twenty-third day from New York we ended the voyage at ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... school of sperm whales appeared, disporting all around the ship, apparently conscious of our helplessness to interfere with them. Notwithstanding our extraordinary haul, Captain Slocum went black with impotent rage, and, after glowering at the sportive monsters, beat a retreat below, unable to bear the sight any longer. During his absence we had a rare treat. The whole school surrounded the ship, and performed some of the strangest evolutions imaginable. As if instigated by one common impulse, they all elevated their massive heads above the ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... and was gazing out at sea. In her hand was a book, which she was not reading—who, indeed, could read collectedly, with that fresh breeze lifting such a pleasant array of dancing white-caps, and rolling inward those strong bodies of surf, which broke upon the shore with the ring of sportive Titans? Her handkerchief had fallen off her head, and her curls were flying wantonly in the breeze. I did not, for the moment, dream that she had any connection with the lighthouse, but rather that she was a chance ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... still remains, but when it is quite without any trace of its former life we call it a "shell". Of itself a shell cannot communicate at a seance, or take any action of any sort; but such shells are frequently seized upon by sportive nature-spirits and used as temporary habitations. A shell so occupied can communicate at a seance and masquerade as its original owner, since some of his characteristics and certain portions of his memory can be evoked by the ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... but still full of vigour and vivacity, accompanied me. I saw several others, of different ages, who were walking there. But what surprised me was to see a great many of them amusing themselves by various agreeable and sportive games with young girls elegantly dressed, listening to their songs, and joining in their dances. The monk, who accompanied me, listened with great civility and kindness to the questions I put to him concerning ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... grenadiers. The next morning sixty picked men, with arms hidden under their cloaks, were sent in for rations. The hour was too early, and the French soldiers loitered about under pretence of waiting for the quartermaster. Some sauntered into the Spanish guard-house. Others, by a sportive scuffle on the drawbridge, prevented its being raised, and occupied the attention of the garrison. Suddenly a signal was given. The men drew their weapons and seized the arms of the Spaniards. The grenadiers rushed ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... genius Formed for converse with the muses He devoted his life to the literature of his country. As author of "The Lay Preacher," And as first editor of the Port Folio, He contributed to chasten the morals, and to Refine the taste of this nation. To an imagination lively, not licentious, A wit sportive, not wanton, And a heart without guile, he United a deep sensibility, which endeared Him to his friends, and an ardent piety, Which we humbly trust recommended him to his God. Those friends have erected this tribute of their Affection ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... friendly; while the young people, happy as a flock of birds in the sunny days of mate-choosing, and freshly blooming as the landscape—around them, were out on the mown field adjacent to the house, whirling in the sportive ring, bounding in the merry dance, chatting in agreeable groups, or chasing one another on flying feet to exact or administer some little forfeit, or whisper some ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... peeved and sarcastic. "To be sure," he says, "I feel honored that the young man should make my house his headquarters whenever his fancy leads him to indulge his sportive instincts. Youth must be served, you know. But Mrs. Hollister has such a charmingly unreasonable way of holding me responsible for her son's conduct! And since she happens just now to be our guest—well, ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... brood, had forthwith captured one, and for that was undergoing penance. It was a beautiful tableau, which was never forgotten! We went there on visits for many summers. Uncle William was a kind-hearted, "sportive" man, who took Bell's Life, and I can remember that there was a good supply of English reading in the house. My uncle had three sons, all much older than I. The eldest, Stearns, was said to have first popularised the phrase "posted up," to ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... often think of them. What were they now doing? Taking themselves seriously and rushing about, as usual, haggard and careworn—like those sagacious ants that scurry hither and thither, and stare into each other's faces with a kind of desperate imbecility, when some sportive schoolboy has kicked their ridiculous nest into the air and upset all their ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... the shadows leaped into the woods, and again darted back to the fire, quivering about it in a mute, astonished dance. The wood crackled, and the leaves of the trees rustled softly. Alarmed by the waves of the heated atmosphere, the merry, vivacious tongues of fire, yellow and red, in sportive embrace, soared aloft, sowing sparks. The burning leaves flew, and the stars in the sky smiled to the sparks, luring ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... of this enchanting brook form a lovely island, variegated by the most sportive hand of nature. This shall be yours. We will plant it with jessamines and woodbine, and call it Cyprus. It seems formed for the residence oL the loves and the graces, and is therefore yours by the best of titles. It is indeed ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... purely fanciful outline of imaginary land. Terra Australis was the playground of the cartographers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They seemed to abhor blank spaces. Some of the most beautiful of the old maps make the oceans busy with spouting whales, sportive dolphins, and galleons with bellying sails; but what to do with the great staring expanse of vacancy at the bottom their authors did not know. So they drew a crooked line across the map to represent land, and stuck upon it the label Terra Australis, ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... frequent packings, diverted the course of the kitchen steam which entered by the door next it; this piece of furniture was covered with prints, some caricatures of other days, some sporting sketches—breaking cover—the Derby—fast coaches—the ring, &c.—some opera beauties, on whom sportive and original ensigns had depicted enormous moustaches, and others of rather an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various |
