"Sprightly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... kept a lodging-house near the springs at Aix-la-Chapelle, having lost his wife, committed the management of his family to his daughter, a sprightly, well-made, ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... after a smart rap at the door, in flounced a sprightly, elegant lady, very gay and very certain ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... there, tho' Sir Stephen paid something for my Learning, I was used like a Servant, and was forced to get what Scraps of Learning I could by my own Industry, for the Schoolmaster took very little Notice of me. My young Master was a Lad of very sprightly Parts; and my being constantly about him, and loving him, was no small Advantage to me. My Master loved me extreamly, and has often been whipped for not keeping me at a Distance. He used always to say, That when he came to his Estate I should have a ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... arrived at our journey's end, and we are happy to have got out of and away from the steamer, where we have been cooped up for the last weeks. However, we had a very gay time during those weeks, and some very sprightly companions. Among them a runaway couple; he was a Mr. Aulick Palmer, but I don't know who she was. One could have learned it easily enough for the asking, as they were delighted to talk about themselves and their elopement, ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... hum of conversation that had preceded it; and as he looked down the great singer saw many acquaintances who made signs of greeting to him, and the ex-Queen waved her painted fan high in the air, while a sprightly little Neapolitan duchess, who was in Rome for a visit and had known him a long time, actually blew him a kiss from the tips of her small gloved fingers. He smiled gravely, nodded once or twice, and disappeared behind ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... what's this I hear about Charley?" demanded Cousin Jimmy, whose sprightly manner was never sprightlier than in the hour of tragedy or the house of mourning. "What does he mean by letting you run away ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... by a dozen or more; but were not so numerous as the sun-birds, which were difficult to accurately enumerate, owing to their sprightly behaviour. Next came the shining calornis (about ten), friar birds (about eight), wood swallows (six, all in a row—a band of white among the red flowers); bee-eaters (about the same number), and so on down the list in ever-shifting places ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... very thing I want!' exclaimed Gudbrand. 'I'd far rather have that gay, sprightly creature than this huge, stupid brute.' Whereupon, without an instant's hesitation, he exchanged the hog ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... could have enjoyed each other's company as Zebulon Pike and myself did. He was so small and so old, but so cheerful and so sprightly, and a real Southerner! He had a big, open fireplace with backlogs and andirons. How I enjoyed it all! How we feasted on some of the deer killed "yisteddy," and real corn-pone baked in a skillet down on the hearth. He was so full of happy recollections and had ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... old gentleman stood informed concerning the reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that name at him. He threw me into the greatest confusion by laughing heartily and replying in a very sprightly manner, "No, to be sure; you're right." And to this hour I have not the faintest notion what he meant, or what joke he ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... casements of it shaded with the barberry tree. But you seem curious as to Mademoiselle. Perhaps there is a petite affaire of the heart between you. Well, Heaven bless Monsieur, and may you dream that you are walking with your love in the corn-fields!" Saying this, the sprightly girl left me with the characteristic trip of French gaiety. I had the curiosity to remain awake till her sister and herself passed through my chamber to their own. The girls laughed as they went through the room, and had not even the modesty (for so I must call it) to close their ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... experience, during which Mrs. Delarayne had discovered new haunts and new households in which she could behave, even if she were not accepted, as a person who was not of "mediaeval antiquity," her taste for this kind of life had developed. Enamoured as this sprightly quinquagenarian had always been of the other sex, and resolute as she was to show that an old war-horse could prance as bravely as a colt to the stirring trumpet call of youth, she had entered heart and soul into an existence which her late husband would have deprecated as strongly ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... Bridgman. 'She was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on the twenty-first of December, 1829. She is described as having been a very sprightly and pretty infant, with bright blue eyes. She was, however, so puny and feeble until she was a year and a half old, that her parents hardly hoped to rear her. She was subject to severe fits, which seemed ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... introduced to Dr. John Brown, who is reckoned one of the best exegetial scholars in Europe. He is small of stature, sprightly, and pleasant in manners, but with a high bald forehead and ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... not attend parties, although sprightly, taking girls like themselves would have been welcomed in almost any circle. The fact was, people would have been glad enough to invite them, had their mother not been jealous of any attention paid to her daughters that ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to observe how Rembrandt's theory of guild portrait-painting differed from Van der Helst's, with a common enthusiasm. He scrutinized with patient loyalty everything that they indicated to him, and not infrequently they appeared to like very much the comments he offered. These were chiefly of a sprightly nature, and when Julia laughed over them he felt that she was very ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... departed. As for me, I entered the bridal chamber, where I found my true husband sitting in the alcove, him before whom the singers had unveiled me and who flung them the red gold by handsful, till he made all the poor there rich; and I passed the night in the arms of my sprightly husband, with the black eyes and joined eyebrows." When her father heard this, the light in his eyes became darkness, and he cried out at her, saying, "O wanton, what is this thou sayest? Where are thy senses?" "O my father," rejoined she, "thou breakest ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... party, in a merry mood, said, showing her a little box, "Here is vengeance on one's enemies: this box is small, but holds plenty of successions!" That she gave back the box into her hands, but soon changing from her sprightly mood, she cried, "Good heavens, what have I said? Tell nobody." That Lambert, clerk at the palace, told her he had brought the packets to Madame from Sainte-Croix; that Lachaussee often went to see her; and that she herself, not being paid ten pistoles ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... lit. daughters of love. This is the ordinary meaning of the phrase; but the girl in question appears to have been of good repute and the expression, as applied to her, is probably, therefore, only intended to signify a sprightly, frolicsome damsel. ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... were not liked the better by the master, as were in favor with his wife. She was a sprightly, good-looking woman, with black eyes, and was beheld with transport by the boys, whenever she appeared at the school-door. Her husband's name, uttered in a mingled tone of good-nature and imperativeness, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... and render them drowsy and indisposed ... whereas, having now the opportunity of a coffee-house, they repair thither, take each man a dish or two (so far from causing, that it cures any dizziness, or disturbant fumes): and so, dispatching their business, go out more sprightly about their affairs, than before.... Lastly, For diversion ... where can young gentlemen, or shop-keepers, more innocently and advantageously spend an hour or two in the evening than at a coffee-house? ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... this tender age [his seventh year] an uncommon capacity; nay we may say, something quite extraordinary (etwas ganz Ausserordentliches). He is a most alert and vivacious Prince; he has fine and sprightly manners; and shows a certain kindly sociality, and so affectionate a disposition that all things may be hoped of him. The French Lady who [under Roucoulles] has had charge of his learning hitherto, cannot speak of him without enthusiasm. ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... occasional publication of a play by Henry Arthur Jones is a matter for congratulation.... In 'The Manoeuvres of Jane' we see Mr. Jones in his most sprightly mood and at the height of his ingenuity;... its plot is plausible and comic, and its dialogue is ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... the manner of some of the originals, might have been at first intended, and of the conversation introducing or ending some of those taken from the collection of the Queen of Navarre, a part is even now, though incongruously, retained.[41] By rejecting the gallant speeches of the courtiers and sprightly replies of the ladies, and making them unconnected stories, the idea of civility was no longer appropriate, and therefore gave place to a title equally alliterative in the adoption of ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... his master to the hall, where the former was at one and the same time the admiration and laughter of all the servants. It hardly need be observed, that the clever and sprightly Miss Arabella Mason considered Ben as one much beneath her, that is, she said so on his first arrival at Madeline hall; but, strange to say, that two years afterwards, just at the time that reports had been raised that she had been frequently discovered in ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... already had experience as a pioneer, having gone out to Barbadoes at eighteen, and became one of the earliest planters in that island. Ardent, energetic, and with his fathers deep tenderness for all who depended on him, he was one who could least be spared. "A sprightly and hopeful young gentleman he was," says Hubbard, and another chronicle gives more minute details. "The very day on which he went on shore in New England, he and the principal officers of the ship, walking out to a place now called by the Salemites, Northfield, to view ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... populous county of Chester. When the war-fever swept down his beautiful valley, and the drum called the young men from villages and farms, this ancient yeoman and miller—for he was both—took a musket at the sprightly age of sixty-five, and joined a Volunteer company. Neither ridicule nor entreaty could bend his purpose; but the Secretary of War, hearing of the case, conferred a brigade quartermastership upon him. He threw off the infirmities of age, stepped as proudly as any youngster, and became, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... have been a good contrast just then. I, leaning quietly on my crutch-stick, with something of a care-worn, patient air; he, having hold of my arm, and bowing in every direction with the most elastic politeness, and an expression of face whose sprightly cheerfulness and good-humour knew no bounds. The difference between us must have been more striking yet, as we advanced towards the table, and the amiable gentleman, adapting his jocund step to my poor tread, had his attention divided between treating my infirmities ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... fellow, who cannot construe the motto on his coach, shall raise a fortune, and make a figure, while I possess merely the common conveniences of life." Was it for fortune, then, that you grew pale over the midnight lamp, and gave the sprightly years of youth to study and reflection? You then have mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry. "What reward have I then for all my labor?" What reward! A large comprehensive soul, purged from vulgar fears and prejudices, able to interpret the works of man and God. ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... greasy dish water in order to make them look slick and lively. When spectators would come in the yard the slaves were ordered out to form a line. They were made to stand up straight and look as sprightly as they could; and when they were asked a question they had to answer it as promptly as they could, and try to induce the spectator to buy them. If they failed to do this they were severely paddled ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... like mad Tom's, our chiefest care, Was horse to ride, and weapon wear. Such nights we've had; and, though the game Of manhood be more sober tame, And though the field-day, or the drill, Seem less important now—yet still Such may we hope to share again. The sprightly thought inspires my strain! And mark how, like a horseman true, Lord Marmion's march ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... fable is wild and pleasing. I know not how the ladies will approve the facility with which both Rosalind and Celia give away their hearts. To Celia much may be forgiven for the heroism of her friendship. The character of Jaques is natural and well preserved. The comick dialogue is very sprightly, with less mixture of low buffoonery than in some other plays; and the graver part is elegant and harmonious. By hastening to the end of his work, Shakespeare suppressed the dialogue between the usurper ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... and forward between him and the window, keeping up a gay and sprightly conversation, which indicated, it must be said, a species of innocence in the midst of all ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... difference in their characters produced a harmonious combination; he was of a romantic, and somewhat serious cast; she was all life and gladness. I have often noticed the mute rapture with which he would gaze upon her in company, of which her sprightly powers made her the delight: and how, in the midst of applause, her eye would still turn to him, as if there alone she sought favor and acceptance. When leaning on his arm, her slender form contrasted finely with his tall, manly person. The fond, confiding air with which ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... Miss Hamm and I repaired to the parlour adjacent, where a most delightful evening was had. Miss Hamm's conversation, even though marked by a levity not at all times in keeping with the nature of the subject under discussion, is, I find, sprightly and diverting in the extreme. All in all, time passed most swiftly. A suitable hour of departure had arrived before I remembered that I had altogether failed to bring up the topic which was the occasion of my visit—to wit, our prospective part ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... breakfast dishes, formed the basis of a spirited debate. There were pro-prunists and there were con-prunists. The parsnip had its champions and its antagonists; the carrot its defenders and its assailants. In this quarter was the cabbage heartily indorsed, there was it belittled and made naught of. The sprightly spring onion, already socially scorned in some of the best lay circles, suffered attack at the hands of at least one scientific ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... well-nigh black, fantastically turned and carved, with a great urn-like capital and base, and shaped midway, like a gigantic lance-handle. Its curtains were of thick and faded tapestry. I was always a lover of such antiquities, but I confess at that moment I would have vastly preferred a sprightly modern chintz and a trumpery little French bed in a corner of the Brandon Arms. There was a great lowering press of oak, and some shelves, with withered green and gold leather borders. All the furniture ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... was waiting at the corner, followed them down the road. Edwin could not begin to talk. And Mr Heve kept silence. Behind him, Edwin could hear the jingling of metal on Mr Heve's sprightly horse. After a couple of hundred yards the doctor stopped at ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... who are men of moods. Whenever we meet them, we try to determine which of their moods is dominant, that we may know how to treat them. If the severe mood be on, we would just as soon think of whistling at a funeral as indulging in a jest; but if the cloud be off, we have a sprightly friend and a pleasant time with him. Goldsmith's pedagogue was a man of moods, and ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... the dead man should be carried to the poop to await a sailor's burial; then he turned, and with less sprightly step descended the main companion. In the saloon he found Elsie and Christobal watching the stairs expectantly. The girl had the dog in her arms, and Courtenay perceived, for the first time, that Joey's off fore paw had been cut by the broken glass which littered the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... affairs. He thought her won and grew very tender; he kissed her hands many times, called her his dear heart, became, in a word, the clumsy gallant he claimed to be. All this too she endured: she began to gabble at random, sprightly as a minion, with all the shifts of a girl in a strait place ready at command. Her fear was double now: she must learn the trend of the singer and his horse, and prevent Galors from hearing either. This much she did. The sound came steadily on. She heard the horse's hoofs ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... "No more absorbing romance of the war has been written than 'The Firefly of France.' In a sprightly, spontaneous way the author tells a story that is pregnant with the heroic spirit of the day. There is a blending of mystery, adventure, love and high endeavor that will charm ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the drawing-room, you see there a young celibate, sprightly, scented, wearing a fine necktie, in short a perfect dandy. He is a man who holds you in high esteem; when he comes to your house your wife listens furtively for his footsteps; at a ball she always dances with him. If you forbid her to see him, she makes a great outcry and ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... so astounded at the impudence of this confession, coming from the mouth of one who had been leading the exercises of a pious Christian family, that I was fairly bereft of speech. Decimus Saxon whistled a few bars of a sprightly ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... these ignoble tastes and pursuits, the King was by no means deficient in natural abilities. He was much superior to even Louis XIV. in logical acumen and sprightly wit. He was an agreeable companion, and could appreciate every variety of talents. No man in his court perceived more clearly than he the tendency of the writings of philosophers which were then fermenting the germs of revolution. "His sagacity kept him from believing ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... of respectability like a garment, clean and somber, in an environment of careful behavior. Greenwich Village, not having fully awakened to the commercial advantages of being a locale, had not yet stretched between itself and the rest of New York that gauzy and iridescent curtain of sprightly impropriety and sparkling intellectual naughtiness, since faded to a lather tawdry pattern. An early pioneer of the Villager type, emancipated of thought and speech, chancing upon No. 11 Grove, would ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of the times. Besides the sermon, I was very well pleased with the sight of a fine lady that I have often seen walk in Graye's Inn Walks, and it was my chance to meet her again at the door going out, and very pretty and sprightly she is, and I believe the same that my wife and I some years since did meet at Temple Bar gate and have sometimes spoke of. So to Madam Turner's, and dined with her. She had heard Parson Herring take his leave; tho' he, by reading so much of the Common Prayer as he did, hath cast himself out ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... sweetness of that smile lingered in my memory and seemed to give me hope. I would see her again. I would ask her directly, and she would not have the heart to refuse. Marion's graver face did not inspire that confident hope which was caused by the more genial and sympathetic manner of her sprightly elder sister. ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... can only have been retained in existence, from that love of antique pomp and establishment which has embellished our Court with so many gold-sticks and white rods, and such trains of beef-eaters and grooms of the stole—though it has submitted to the suppression of the more sprightly appendages of a king's fool, or a court jester. That the household poet should have survived the other wits of the establishment, can only be explained by the circumstance of his office being more easily converted into one of mere pomp and ceremony, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... inquisitive, analytic, and scientific spirit. "The French, in point of national character, hold nearly the same relative place amongst the nations of Europe that the Athenians held amongst the States of Ancient Greece." And whilst it is admitted the French are quick, sprightly, vivacious, perhaps sometimes light even to frivolity, it must be conceded they have cultivated the natural and exact sciences with a patience, and perseverance, and success unsurpassed by any of the nations of Europe. And so the Athenians were the Frenchmen ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... be sure that it was not her power of saying things of this sort that kindled Rousseau's flame, but rather the sprightly naturalness, frankness, and kindly softness of a character which in his opinion united every virtue except prudence and strength, the two which Rousseau would be least likely to miss. The bond of union between them was subtle. ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... and his wife were childless, but one inmate made the great, silent, shady house bright with life. Lucinda Fairbanks, a niece of Captain Cooper's by his only sister, was a handsome, sprightly girl of eighteen or twenty, and a great favorite in the ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... nothing strange in that, Bob; let me tell you, that sprightly grace and insinuating manner of yours will do some ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... Prince of Orange, him we have seen more than once in times past: a young fellow in comparison, sprightly, reckoned clever, but somewhat humpbacked; married an English Princess, years ago ("Papa, if he were as ugly as a baboon!")—which fine Princess, we find, has stopt short at Cassel, too fatigued on the present occasion. "His ESPRIT," continues Wilhelmina, "and his conversation, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... is to be found in the human family by a traveler is difficult to be described. Indeed, every hundred miles would take a small volume. Straggling play-actors and tightrope dancers had found their way to Paris, besides other amusements which were to be found in this sprightly little town, which had a tendency to make our time pass very agreeably. On Wednesday night at 11 o'clock, I was called to visit Miss Craughan, sister of Col. Craughan, an old acquaintance. I found her dangerously ill with quinsy. Large bleedings and some other ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason
... which Rameau made his dainty harpsichord piece known as "La Poule." The motto of the club, "Bandie xe le done," is frequently proclaimed with more or less pomposity; Florindo's "Ah, Rosaura," with its dramatic descent, lends sentimental feeling to the love music, and the sprightly rhythm which accompanies the pranks of Colombina keeps much of the music bubbling with merriment. In the beginning of the third act, not only the instrumental introduction, but much of the delightful music which follows, is permeated with atmosphere and local color derived from ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... afternoon, in those years when Cowper's accomplished friend, Lady Austen, made a part of his little evening circle, that she observed him sinking into increased dejection. It was her custom, on these occasions, to try all the resources of her sprightly powers for his immediate relief, and at this time it occurred to her to tell him the story of John Gilpin, (which had been treasured in her memory from her childhood), in order to dissipate the gloom of the passing hour. Its effects on the fancy of Cowper had the air ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... talk to the reader with the tender vivacity of youth. But when he began to speak, and as he grew more earnest in conversation, I ceased to be sensible of his age; sometimes, indeed, its dusky shadow darkened through the gleam which his sprightly thoughts diffused about his face, but then another flash of youth came out of his eyes and made an illumination again. I never witnessed such a wonderfully illusive transformation, before or since; and, to this day, trusting ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... miss My Lady, perched upon the stoic mule while like an Arab chief I convoyed her. The steady miles, I admitted, were going to be as disappointing as tepid water, when not aerated by her counsel and piquant allusions, by her sprightly readiness and the essential elements of her blue eyes, her facile lips, and that bright hair which no ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... arrival in London I found that his guest at dinner at the Ritz one night was the sprightly ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... launch whale-boat from sheer-plank of ship at sea, I shall take good heed, that my comrade be a sprightly fellow, with a rattle-box head. Be he never so silly, his very silliness, so long as he be lively at it, shall be ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... differences then. So, upon a time it happened, just when a great war had arisen, and Lawrence (for that was the knight's name) was sitting, and thinking of war, and his departure from home; sitting there in a very grave, almost a stern mood, that Ella, his betrothed, came in, gay and sprightly, in a humour that Lawrence often enough could little understand, and this time liked less than ever, yet the bare sight of her made him yearn for her full heart, which he was not to have yet; so he caught her by the hand, and ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... in vain, but could not risk having to pass another night in the place. Almeric was able to sit his horse with difficulty, Hubert taking the reins and riding at his side and supporting him from time to time with his arm. The sprightly lad was ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... Mr. Sanders and the sprightly widower at Beauty's side, with Florence and Mr. Dill so close behind that, before they had gone a block, Newland found it necessary to warn this rear rank that the heels of his new shoes were not part of the pavement. ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... must be beastly heavy—there is scarcely a star to be seen," ejaculated John Hardy, who was on the driver's seat with a sprightly girl of nineteen for his companion. "What'll you bet the snow catches us before ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... You must remember that some things that are legally right are not morally right. I shall not take your case, but will give you a little advice, for which I will charge you nothing. You appear to be a sprightly, energetic man: I would advise you to try your hand at making ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... the Persian carpet. The air was hot but nimble, and of a vivacious and stimulating quality. It fluttered some loose papers on the writing-table near the open window. It fluttered the delicate laces and fine muslin frills of Lady Calmady's morning-gown. There was a sprightly mirthfulness in the touch of it, not unpleasing to her. For it seemed to speak of the ever-obtaining youth, the incalculable power of recuperation, the immense reconstructive energy resident in nature and the physical domain. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... sprightly music calls to the dance; and first the stately Polonaise, in easy gradation between walking and dancing. To the surprise of the whole room and the indignation of main of the high nobles, the Crown Prince ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... daughter of the Reverend Bernard Fanshawe, who held a valuable living in the diocese of Bath and Wells. Our family, a very large one, was noted for a sprightly and incisive wit, and came of a good old stock where beauty was an heirloom. In Christian grace of character we were unhappily deficient. From my earliest years I saw and deplored the defects of those relatives whose ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... time and patience to wade through a long story, will find here many pithy and sprightly tales, each sharply hitting some social absurdity or social vice. We recommend the book heartily after having read the three chapters on "Taking a Newspaper." If all the rest are as sensible and interesting as these, and doubtless they are, the book is ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... and sprightly (Earle, Papuans, p. 123), and with limbs which, corresponding to their stature, are uncommonly slender, but well formed (Semper, Journal of Anthropology for October, 1870, p. 135). Well-built little men with broad chests, symmetrical limbs, and ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... man stood near the water's brink, waist deep in the curling vines. As he gazed upon the scarecrow figure in the stern of the dory a sprightly interest ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... at it in some surprise. He repeated the glances several times in the course of the evening, as he sat chatting with his wife's friend. Miss Dallas was very sprightly in conversation; had read some, had thought some; and had the appearance of having read and thought about twice as much as ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... kind and cheerful, to shift the scene as much as possible, to keep up a succession of new ideas, apply to the study of some art or science, and to read and write on such subjects as deeply engage the attention. These will sooner expel grief than the most sprightly amusements, which only aggravate instead of relieving the anguish of a ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... proprietor came back with four bottles in his hands. They had all suddenly become talkative and merry; a lively joy filled all hearts. The count seemed to perceive for the first time that Madame Carre-Lamadon was charming; the manufacturer paid compliments to the countess. The conversation was animated, sprightly, witty, and, although many of the jokes were in the worst possible taste, all the company were amused by them, and none offended—indignation being dependent, like other emotions, on surroundings. And the mental atmosphere had gradually become filled with gross imaginings ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... lights at once, and put them in all the principal rooms of the house. We will have an illumination in honor of our arrival, papa," she said, in a sprightly tone, turning to him with one of her sweetest smiles, "and besides, I want to see ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... The sprightly company, which had taken for its motto "Sic juvat transcendere montes," looked and worshiped. There was a moment of silent devotion, broken by one of the gentlemen demanding if 't were not time for dinner; another remarked that they might ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... becoming elevated, and divided into eight lobes. It is, in fact, a pile of cup-shaped pieces, very loosely connected together. A little later, these pieces free themselves successively, and the sedate polype disappears in a company of sprightly young medusae. These beings, indeed, still differ in some respects from the adult animal; but the differences gradually vanish, and we have the perfect jelly-fish as the final result of this ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... a sprightly nod at the surgeon, "since we've undertaken to cure the captain, the most sensible thing for us to do IS to cure him. You shall prescribe when and how the doses of society are to be administered." Then to Lane, "Not ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... a sprightly "Birthday Impromptu" and a fuga giocosa, which deals wittily with that theme known generally by the words "Over the Fence Is Out!" The "Nocturne" begins like Schumann, falls into the style of his second Novellette, thence to the largo of Beethoven's Sonata (op. 10, No. 3), thence ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... residing in the town had been treated, Bonaparte had discontinued receiving the visits of the Admiral; yet on the present occasion he behaved towards him as though nothing had happened. At length they left the Briars and set out for Longwood. Napoleon rode the horse, a small, sprightly, and tolerably handsome animal, which had been brought for him from the Cape. He wore his uniform of the Chasseurs of the Guard, and his graceful manner and handsome countenance were particularly remarked. The Admiral was very attentive to him. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... admiration of his age, and the delight of every country wherein he has displayed his engaging wit, dispensed his generosity and magnificence, or practised his inconstancy: it is owing to this that the sallies of a sprightly imagination have produced those admirable bons-mots which have been with universal applause transmitted to posterity. It is owing to this that he preserved his judgment free and unembarrassed in the most trying situations, and enjoyed an uncommon presence of mind and facetiousness of temper ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at him with an agitated face, as if she would have told him something. Next moment, she was down upon her knees before the basket; speaking in a sprightly voice, and busy with ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... tells us how they used to go down into the cellar, sit astride of the cask, and drink, and sich des heitern Lebens freuen with genial and sprightly sallies; and his picture has no faint smack of Auerbach's Keller (Faust). See Leben, v. ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... was yet lost in the contemplation of these treasures of the arts and sciences, he was startled by the approach of a strong and sprightly step; and, turning with instinctive reverence to the door of entrance, he was met by the tall, and animated, and stately figure of the patriot himself, his countenance beaming with intelligence and benignity, and ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Sunday upon which the previously-recorded conversation took place, to make the acquaintance of the sprightly P. Blinders, Acting-Secretary to Commandant Selig Brounckers, Head Laager, Transvaal Republic and Orange Free State's United ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... contentedly out of his small, bright eyes, Jane Vail was what he and his mother termed the life of the party, but although she played an unfaltering part in the comedy of, "Well, partner! Didn't you get my signal? Now who's asleep?" and the sprightly games which followed, and exclaimed prettily over the decked supper table, deep under the high-piled masses of her dark hair, dark thoughts were stirring. She seemed to herself to be marching inexorably to the crossroads, which was silly, because she had spent exactly that sort of day and evening ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... If I were to judge from her costume, she had only just arrived, and the morning air had left upon her cheek a bloom that contributed greatly to the effect of her lovely countenance. Although very young, her form had all the roundness of womanhood; while her gay and sprightly manner indicated all the sans gene which only very young girls possess, and which, when tempered with perfect good taste, and accompanied by beauty and no small share of talent, forms an irresistible power ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... while the girl on his arm talked on in pretty, broken English and sprightly haste about something he had lost the drift of—"I told him I was courting Josephine. But I never proved it to him. And now just look at this! Look at the whole sweet mess! Something has got to be done." He did not mean something ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... that, notwithstanding his sprightly wit, he never exposed by his raillery those vague, incoherent, and noisy discourses, those rash censures, ignorant decisions, coarse jests, and all that empty jingle of words which at Babylon went by the name of conversation. He had learned, in ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... the saddle, led his horse toward the corral, and whistled a sprightly ditty as he ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... father and mother, her brother Henry, and herself. She had a constant flow of good spirits, and the charming domestic talent of making every trifle a source of amusement to herself and others: she was sprightly, without being frivolous; and the uniform sweetness of her temper showed, that she was not in the least in want of flattery, or dissipation, to support her gaiety. But Forester, as the friend of her brother, thought ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... you don't want us,' said Jessie, with her sprightly frankness. 'We shouldn't have thought of coming if it hadn't been that we met Mr. Hood just this side of the bridge, and he forced us to come on; he said it wouldn't be very long before he was back himself. But of course we shan't stay tea, ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... that something like compassion often shone on him from her frank eyes, and her compliance had no touch of the tender docility which lovers long to see. She still avoided Treherne, but so skillfully that few observed the change but Annon and himself. In public Sir Jasper appeared to worship at the sprightly Rose's shrine, and she fancied her ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... of Francie's lovers now appeared, one after the other; she had made each promise to come early. They were all clean-shaven and sprightly, with that peculiar kind of young-man sprightliness which had recently invaded Kensington; they did not seem to mind each other's presence in the least, and wore their ties bunching out at the ends, white waistcoats, and socks with clocks. All had handkerchiefs ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... winning aspect, that wore perpetually an attractive smile, grins horribly a naked, ghastly skull. The eye that outshone the diamond's brilliancy, and glanced its lovely lightning into the most guarded heart—alas! where is it? Where shall we find the rolling sparkler? How are all its sprightly beams eclipsed!' The tongue, flesh, &c., are dwelt upon ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... singularly crisp and clear across the waters. Beyond her and still abreast was another great ship, the surging army upon her decks reduced to a brown mass in the distance. And far off on either side of this flotilla of three, and before it and behind it, was a sprightly little destroyer, moving this way and that, like a ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... satisfaction and content; for while everything beneath heaven employs the ways and means placed at its disposal by nature for the advancement and commodity of its being, these, in order to appear of a more sprightly and enlightened wit, not accepting anything which has not been tried and balanced a thousand times with the most subtle reasoning, sacrifice their peace of mind to doubt, uneasiness, and feverish excitement. It is not without reason ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... his hoofs firmly in the sandy road, permitted the Major's chunky little body to pass over his head and through space for about ten feet, landing, with much force, on his stomach. The old fellow was an artist at curse words and the more I laughed the more he cursed. He was a sprightly little fellow and on gaining his feet grabbed for the bridle, but Mr. Mule shook his head, made a side step, and the devil could not have caught him again until he reached the barn. I dismounted and with much difficulty my friend scrambled into my saddle, with myself on behind. But ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... "pinch," which was a little characteristic, Emily Owen might have had grave doubts, even after the warning of the day before, whether this could be the sprightly young man whom she had known so well; and the very mother who bore him, if she could have seen him in that situation, would have been almost as excusable for not recognizing her offspring, as that traditional ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... quarter of a mile from the spot on which Carl Werner had fixed his residence lived a brother German, Franz Rainer. Franz was a widower, with one child, a son, named Ernest. He was a hard, stern man, and the first smiles which had lighted the existence of the young Ernest were caught from the sprightly Meeta and her kind-hearted mother. The children became playfellows and friends. It was a wild country in which they lived. A very short walk from their own doors brought them into a forest which seemed to their young imaginations endless; ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... husband, a Spaniard, had been slain during the assault or sack of the city. The intimacy thus begun soon kindled on my part, into an intense admiration. Coralie was gentle, artless, confiding as she was beautiful, and moreover—as Jeannette, her sprightly, black-eyed maid informed me in confidence—extremely rich. Here, gentlemen, was a combination of charms to which only a heart of stone could remain insensible, and mine at the time was not only young, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... a dreamless sleep, her brain was motionless, and lay within the cranium; but when her sleep was imperfect, and she was agitated by dreams, her brain moved and protruded without the cranium. In vivid dreams the protrusion was considerable; and when she was awake and engaged in active thought or sprightly conversation, ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... out laughing; Pelisson and Loret followed his example. At this juncture, the bishop of Vannes appeared, with a roll of plans and parchments under his arm. As if the angel of death had chilled all gay and sprightly fancies—as if that wan form had scared away the Graces to whom Xenocrates sacrificed—silence immediately reigned through the study, and every one resumed his self-possession and his pen. Aramis distributed the notes of invitation, and thanked them ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "Lessening the miseries of her subjects," so the historians declare, she governed the wide Empire of China wisely, discreetly, and peacefully; and she displayed upon the throne all the daring, wit, and wisdom that had marked her actions when, years before, she was nothing but a sprightly and determined little Chinese maiden, on the banks ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... letters made very agreeable events. She did not write often, but her letters were tolerably long when they did come, and very sprightly in tone. There was constant mention made of many new names, which conveyed no idea to Molly, though Mrs. Gibson would try and enlighten her by running commentaries like ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... sent to dear Mr. Balim's lodgings. This, however, the papa resolutely opposed, observing, in what a short young lady behind us termed 'quite a bearish way,' that if Mr. Balim didn't choose to come, he might stop at home. At this all the daughters raised a murmur of 'Oh pa!' except one sprightly little girl of eight or ten years old, who, taking advantage of a pause in the discourse, remarked, that perhaps Mr. Balim might have been married that morning—for which impertinent suggestion she was summarily ejected from the room by her ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... morning, in the classroom, Tinkleby passed round an old missionary box, crying, "Now then! pay up, you beggars. No broken glass or brace buttons!" It was always a race to get the collection over by the time Mr. Ward entered the room; but the sprightly Tinkleby, who seemed to have undertaken the combined duties of president, secretary, and treasurer, hurried through it somehow; and each week the box grew heavier, and the hearts of the contributors lighter as they looked forward to ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... pioneer days, and next to him also a youth. Commerce, however sordid, still implies morality and the generous side of man. On the third side stands the solemn figure of Religion, sober and haggard, the symbol of Faith and martyrdom. And the young man, next to it, seems sprightly and strong. Why must Religion be interpreted as dispensing comfort alone? Should it not also give strength and joy? In the last corner stands Pestalozzi, the teacher, and a boy looks up into his kind face. We crave for action and capability more than for knowledge and facts. And we crave for love ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... the last guest had arrived, and the Harlowe's hospitable home was the scene of radiant good cheer. Mrs. Gray, enthroned in a big chair in one corner of the drawing room, was in her element, and the young folks vied with each other in doing her homage. The sprightly old lady was never so happy as when surrounded by young folks. She had a word or smile for each one, and the new girls who had at first felt rather timid about meeting her, were soon entirely at ease in ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... to descend. After this he assisted Katie out of the cab, and Ashby saw that she looked as fresh, as bright, and as blooming as a rose, that she showed not a trace of care or anxiety, and that she was as sprightly and coquettish ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... were of some position in the West. Yet she smiled them firmly away, to the wonder of Jansen, and to its satisfaction, for was it not a tribute to all that she would distinguish no particular unit by her permanent favour? But for one so sprightly and almost frivolous in manner at times, the self-denial seemed incongruous. She was unconventional enough to sit on the side-walk with a half-dozen children round her blowing bubbles, or to romp in any ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to begin, Miss Mary, while you are here, and then you can go on by yourself," said Madame De La Motte, in her usual sprightly way. ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... are handsome, and of a sprightly temper, and their countenances are more regular than those of the common Negroes; the hair in both men and women is much longer, and not so woolly, but they have a most disgusting custom of forming ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... would seem that there was not sustenance enough among the hidden stores of the season to keep them from starvation. The woodman, however insensible he may be to the charms of all such objects, is gladdened and encouraged in his toils by the sight of these sprightly creatures, some of which, like the Jay and the Woodpecker, are adorned with the most beautiful plumage, and are all pleasantly garrulous, filling the otherwise silent woods with constant and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... their hair. They had been carefully trained by Miss Barbour, the drill mistress, and went through their parts with a joyousness reminiscent of the Golden Age. The Morris Dance which followed, rendered by members of Forms III. and IV., though hardly so graceful, was sprightly and in good time, the fantastic dresses with their bells and ribbons suiting most of their wearers. It was felt that the Juniors had distinguished themselves, and "Dollikins," who with Miss Barbour had worked hard on ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... the best of it, and also of the remarks that followed, for he was sooner seated than Mrs. Davis turned all her powers of sprightly conversation upon the subject of Nina. Half of the nobility of Italy, she averred, were sighing—or busily doing sums—at the feet of the American heiress. There was a particularly fascinating Sansevero—he ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... head too large for the body, and having a thick neck and extended veins, was generally strong and of a martial spirit. When the head was long and of conical shape, the person was generally impudent and rash; and, if sprightly in early life, was supposed to lose spirit and vivacity before reaching the age of thirty years. A well-proportioned head, but slightly compressed at the sides, denoted a person of good apprehension, proceeding from the spirits domiciled there. A spherical head denoted ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... what can be more exhilarating than the innocent mirthfulness, the unaffected kindnesses, the witty speeches, the sprightly conversations which are universally incident to such occasions? No wonder Lycurgus decreed that the Spartans should eat in public. Ostensibly, it was for the sake of the grave conversations of the elders at such times, but really, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... Frog that made everybody smile. It may have been his amazingly wide mouth and his queer, bulging eyes, or perhaps it was his sprightly manner—for one never could tell when Mr. Frog would leap into the air, or turn a somersault backward. Indeed, some of his neighbors claimed that he himself didn't know what he was going to ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey
... flush on it born of health, fresh air and sunlight, her eyes shining, the blue of the open sea in their luminous depths. He received a new impression of her. She belonged to the morning, formed part of the gladness of universal Nature, an unfettered nymph-like being. To-day her mood was sprightly, bidding farewell to ceremony. Yet, he felt, she remained perplexing, because more detached than is the feminine habit, poised and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... us was that of making fierce attacks across impassable marshes. "Good," put in a third some one. "Let's puzzle the German staff by persuading him that we have an Etonian General in this part of the line, a very celebrated 'wet-bob.'" Which sprightly suggestion made the Brigadier-General smile. But it was my good fortune to go one better. I had to partner him at bridge, and ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... almost as great a gossip as Mr. Crow, told everybody in the neighborhood that he had never heard such a hubbub. But then, like his cousin Mr. Crow, Jasper was not a lover of music. And it was true that sprightly Bobby Bobolink and his dashing friends made no attempt to sing together. To be sure, they sang all at the same time; but each one of them sang his own song in his own way, just as if his was the only one that ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... woman has learned, first, that which it seems every transatlantic sister is aware by intuition, that one supreme duty of the sex, as it is represented in society, is to know how to talk a little to everybody, to talk always in sprightly fashion, and never to adopt the English woman's depressing method of answering all conversational efforts and ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... reprobate. He must have felt a certain piquancy in writing down the most atrocious sentiments in his own respectable parlour. He would show that the quiet humdrum old tradesman could be on paper as sprightly and audacious as the most profligate man about town. As quiet people are apt to do, he probably exaggerated the enormities which such men would openly avow; he fancied that the world beyond his little circle ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... loomed up before the anxious housekeeper. A sprightly widower belonging to the same church as Martha, came home with her every Sunday night, and class-meeting night, which ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Almah, my jealousy was excited, and I began to think that the party of philosophical Radicals were not so agreeable as the orthodox cannibals whom I first met. As for Layelah, she seemed quite unconscious of any disturbance in my mind. She was as amiable, as sprightly, as inquisitive, and as affectionate as ever. She even outdid herself, and devoted herself to me with an ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... in a little house in a garden behind a picket fence. Ellen is a sprightly, erect, black woman ninety years old. Beady little eyes sparkled behind her glasses as she talked to us. Her manner is alert, her mind is very keen and her memory of the old days very clear. Though the temperature was in the high nineties she wore two waists, and her clothes ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... was never seen any one, who led so Austere and Pious a Life, as this young Votress; she was a Saint in the Chapel, and an Angel at the Grate: She there laid by all her severe Looks, and mortify'd Discourse, and being at perfect peace and tranquility within, she was outwardly all gay, sprightly, and entertaining, being satisfy'd, no Sights, no Freedoms, could give any temptations to worldly desires; she gave a loose to all that was modest, and that Virtue and Honour would permit, and was the most charming Conversation that ever was admir'd; and the whole World that ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... Venus hates this cold disdain;— Cease then its rigors to maintain, That sprightly joys impede, Lest the strain'd cord, with which you bind The freedom of my amorous mind, ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... of Buchan says that Smith had no ear for music, but there are few things he seems to have nevertheless enjoyed better than the opera, both serious and comic. He thought the "sprightly airs" of the comic opera, though a more "temperate joy" than "the scenes of the common comedy," were still a "most delicious" one.'[177] "They do not make us laugh so loud, but they make us smile more frequently." And he held the strongest opinion that music ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... delicately out to teas and church, as sufficient intercourse with this world and preparation for the next, now had clubs and classes where they pounced on subjects not even mentionable fifty years ago, and shook them to shreds in their well-kept teeth. There was sprightly talk about class-consciousness, and young women who, if their incomes had been dissipated by inadequate trusteeship, would once have taught school according to a gentle ideal, now went away and learned to be social workers, and came back to make self-possessed speeches ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... return to London, in Eighteen Hundred Forty-four, he dined at Sergeant Talfourd's. After the dinner a well-dressed and sprightly old gentleman introduced himself and begged that Browning would inscribe a copy of "Bells and Pomegranates," that he had gotten specially bound. There is an ancient myth about writers being harassed by autograph-fiends ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... some one called, and a sprightly brunette appeared for an instant on the first landing, but vanished quickly at ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... Nairn, are already familiar in the drawing-room and the cottage. For winning simplicity, graceful expression, and exquisite pathos, her compositions are especially remarkable; but when her muse prompts to humour, the laugh is sprightly ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... China Sea, midway between Manila and Hong Kong, her nose to the North. She was a smart clipper of sixty tons burden, with a slightly uptilted stern, and as clever a line forward as a pleasure yacht. She was English, comparatively new, and, properly used by the weather, was as swift and sprightly of service as an affectionate woman. Her master was Captain Carreras, a tubby little man of forty-five, bald, modest, and known among the shipping as "a perfect lady." He wore a skull-cap out of port; and as constantly, except during meals, carried one of a set of rarely-colored ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... you say about me?" asked the sprightly Mrs. Vickers from within. "You wicked men, leaving ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... to some she'd fetch 'em home something real pritty, and so did. An' then they come home t'other way, round the Horn, an' she done so well, an' was such a sight o' company, the other child'n was jealous, an' she promised she'd go a v'y'ge long o' each on 'em. She was as sprightly a person as ever I see; an' could speak well o' ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... us at the American Hotel. The meeting of the cousins, after a separation of nineteen years, was a joyous one, their animated conversation keeping time with the quick, impetuous throbbing of their hearts. The pleasure of our day there was also much enhanced by the sprightly—even brilliant conversation of the hotel proprietress, Mrs. Green, whose three-score years and ten were worn as gracefully as ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... were sufficiently reduced for their slender throats. A little flock of these titmice came daily to pick a dinner out of my woodpile, or the crumbs at my door, with faint flitting lisping notes, like the tinkling of icicles in the grass, or else with sprightly day day day, or more rarely, in spring-like days, a wiry summery phe-be from the woodside. They were so familiar that at length one alighted on an armful of wood which I was carrying in, and pecked at the sticks without fear. I once had a sparrow alight upon ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... For as in a body when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital, but to rational faculties, and those in the acutest and the pertest operations of wit and subtlety, it argues in what good plight and condition the body is; so when the cheerfulness of the people is so sprightly up, as that it has not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of controversy and new invention, it betokens us not degenerated, nor drooping to a fatal decay, by ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... a sprightly, adventurous nerve in the mind, and would pull his velvet sleeves busily up—such was his little ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... his junk bottle, well charged with heart-inspiring Hollands, he issued jollily from the city gate, which looked out upon what is at present called Broadway; sounding a farewell strain, that rung in sprightly echoes through the winding streets of New Amsterdam. Alas! never more were they to be gladdened by the melody of their ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... else, dead or living. Yet these seem happy in this nonsense. The indolent days appear to have deadened hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. They shall strut and fret their hour upon this little stage. Let that sprightly girl forget the sudden death which made her an orphan; the nervous broker his faithless wife; the grey-haired soldier his silly and haunting sins; the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... result was a new chapel with excellent schools there; it then moved eastward, and the consequence was a school chapel in St. Mary-street. In Croft-street, Canal- street, and on the Marsh, it has also outposts, whose officers are fighting the good fight with lung, and head, and heart, in a sprightly and vigorous fashion. Originally, what is termed the "circuit" of Lune-street embraced places 18 or 20 miles from Preston; but the area of the sacred circumbendibus was subsequently reduced; and its servants now find that they have as much on hand as they ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... homely, red-headed giant of a man with an engineering magazine sticking out of his coat pocket. He was standing at a book counter reading Dickens like a schoolboy and laughing in all the right places, I know, because I peaked over his shoulder to see. Another time it was a sprightly little, grizzled old woman, staring into a dazzling shop window in which was displayed a wonderful collection of fashionably impossible hats and gowns. She was dressed all in rusty black, was the little old lady, and she had a quaint cast in her left eye that gave her the oddest, most ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... very heart grows sick, Alice, I long so to behold Rose, with her pure white forehead, And Maud, with her curls of gold; And Willie, so gay and sprightly, So merry and full of glee—, O, my heart yearns to enfold ye, My smiling ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... that sprightly person, shaking her fist at the big senior. "Don't you dare try to spare me, Miss! I am getting so strong and healthy I am ashamed of myself. ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... very chaste; and if any one of them happen to have a child before marriage, her fortune is spoiled. They are very sprightly and good humoured, and the women generally handsome. Their manner of handling infants is very rough: as soon as the child is born, they plunge it over head and ears in cold water, and they bind it naked to a board, making ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... drifting across a big territory of grazing land, winter-feeding the sheep near Largo, and while preparing to drive south again and into the high country—Pete met young Andy White, a clean-cut, sprightly cowboy riding for the Concho outfit. Andy had ridden down to Largo on some errand or other and had tied his pony in front of the store when Montoya's sheep billowed down the street and frightened the pony. Young Pete, ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... that she is going away." No more for two silent minutes; no more until Mrs. Markham dropped her hand from her eyes, turned to Norcross, and said in a normal, sprightly tone: ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... SUCH will actually be our—posthumous glory! Meanwhile—for there is plenty of time until then—we should be least inclined to deck ourselves out in such florid and fringed moral verbiage; our whole former work has just made us sick of this taste and its sprightly exuberance. They are beautiful, glistening, jingling, festive words: honesty, love of truth, love of wisdom, sacrifice for knowledge, heroism of the truthful—there is something in them that makes one's heart swell ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... such set trash of phrase, Ineffably, legitimately vile, That even its grossest flatterers dare not praise, Nor foes—all nations—condescend to smile. Not even a sprightly blunder's spark can blaze From that Ixion grindstone's ceaseless toil, That turns and turns to give the world a notion Of endless ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... sentiment, nice feeling and the sport and play of the softer passions are totally unknown, and where reason and philosophy are at so low an ebb! In more enlightened countries, when age may have weakened the ardour of joining in the sprightly female circle, or inclination lead to more serious conversations, numberless resources are still left to exercise the faculties of the mind, and society may always be had for such as ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... them." It can have little vitality, as it is easily killed with a bit of stone propelled out of a trade musket by the vilest gunpowder, and the timid bushmen, when failing to shoot it unawares, do not fear to attack it openly. As a rule, the larger the Simiad, the less sprightly it becomes; and those most approaching man are usually the tamest and the most melancholy—perhaps, their spirits are permanently affected by their narrow escape. The elderly male (for anthropoids, like anthropoi, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton |
