"Vivacious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exemplary during his brief tenure of office, and certainly it was not in his time that the folk christened the royal box at the theatre the 'loose box,' in allusion to the rather dubious English guests of the vivacious viceroy. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... attractive feature in Madame WADDINGTON'S new book, My First Years as a Frenchwoman (SMITH, ELDER), is the revelation, undesignedly made, of a keen-sighted, vivacious, exceedingly womanly woman. During her residence in France as the wife of a highly placed Minister she had rare opportunity of watching the progress of historic events from a favoured standpoint behind the scenes. When she married M. WADDINGTON, in later years ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... Tennessee. Here, as an attorney and later as an investor, he was professionally, financially and socially successful. His father had been liberal in the use of wines and cordials, and young Orr himself always remained a "good fellow," just the kind of a man to attract a vivacious, socially proud daughter of the South. He was thirty-five when he married— accounted an age of discretion. His experience with womankind was so ample that he should have made no mistake in his final, irrevocable choice, and, be it said to his honor, ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... particular part of the epistle represents an actual dialogue between a Jew and Gentile, since the form of question and answer appears to me there simply rhetorical. The Apostle Paul was learned in rhetoric; and I think he described so, by a rhetorical and vivacious form, that struggle between the flesh and the spirit common to all Christians; the spirit being triumphant through God in Christ Jesus. These are my impressions. Yours are different. And since we should not probably ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... a small person, nearing her twenty-second year. She had handsome gray eyes, tastefully arranged brown hair, and a vivacious and pleasing face. Her hands were small, her feet were small, and she did not look as if she weighed a hundred pounds, although, in fact, her weight was considerably more than that. Her dress was a simple one, on ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... were Irish. His voice, very guttural and quick, with a kind of lively bitterness in it, was of a kind of Irish voice new to me at that time. I had known a good many Irish people; but they had all been vivacious and picturesque, rapid in intellectual argument, and vague about life. There was nothing vivacious, picturesque, rapid or vague about Synge. The rush-bottomed chair next to him was filled by talker after talker, but Synge was not talking, he was answering. When someone spoke to him ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield
... here," she said, as the little American burst into vivacious explanations. "I am quite ready to do anything Julian wishes. You know—or, perhaps, you do not know—that he trained my clairvoyante faculties long ago. They are natural to me, I suppose; but you ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... alike. The fifteen sous basket, to use Dumas' fine illustration, in Paris, is very like the Vienna, the Berlin, or the London basket. The ladies are beautiful, exquisitely dressed, vivacious, and, early in the evening, well-mannered. At the outset you might think yourself at your embassy; at the close you catch yourself hoping you will get away safely. Shrill voices pipe in corners of the room. "On sautera!" People are ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... of his venerable head, with its thick snow-white hair and beard, his regular features, and eyes sparkling with the fire of youth, was a pleasure to her, and as, in his vivacious, winning manner, he expressed his joy at meeting her again, as he drew her to his heart and kissed her brow, after she had told him that, in the name of the Most High, she had called Hosea "Joshua" and summoned him back to his people that he might command their forces, she felt as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the last week raced by, with all the charm of sky and field that the magic of Indian summer can lavish, and for Benton and Cara, they raced also with the sense of fast-slipping hope and relentlessly marching doom. Outwardly Cara set a pace for vivacious and care-free enjoyment that left Mrs. Porter-Woodleigh, the "semi-professional light-hearted lady," as O'Barreton named her, "to trail along in the ruck." Alone with Benton, there was always the furrow between the brows and the distressed gaze upon the mystery beyond the sky-line, ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... into the hands of a very different Lord Holland, and has become famous among the houses of London. Of his daughter, Lady Diana, I can learn nothing but that she died unmarried. She seems to have been of a lively, vivacious temperament, and very popular with the other sex. There is a slight clue to her character in the following scrap of letter-writing still preserved among some old manuscript papers of the Hutton family. She writes to Mr. Hutton to escort her in the Park, adding—"This, I ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... reputation, was chosen as not too far from home to send a mite seven years old, to acquire the French language and begin her education. And so to Boulogne I went, to a school in the oddly named "Rue tant perd tant paie," in the old town, kept by a rather sallow and grim, but still vivacious old Madame Faudier, with the assistance of her daughter, Mademoiselle Flore, a bouncing, blooming beauty of a discreet age, whose florid complexion, prominent black eyes, plaited and profusely pomatumed black hair, and full, commanding figure, attired for fete days, in salmon-colored merino, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... widowed mother and five younger brothers and sisters. Brief as was his record in school, we note the following prophetic facts: he displayed singular aptitude for study, he was conscientious yet vivacious, he was by nature adverse to anything rude or coarse. Joshua Bates, King's last teacher, describes the lad as "slight of build, golden haired, with a homely face which everybody thought handsome on account of the beaming eyes, the winning ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... of my questions failed, a substantive or two, an adverb, and a little pantomime generally sufficed to convey the meaning to my hearers. In their intercourse with one another, they are, as a rule, voluble, vivacious, showing the possession of relatively active brains and mental fertility. Certainly, most of the Seminole I met cannot justly be called either stupid or intellectually sluggish, and I observed that, when invited to think of matters with which they are not familiar ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... to keep their host's mind off the painful topic of viands. "Sitting here makes one feel as though he ought to be going to take a train somewhere," said one. "Yes, the express for Weehawken," said the vivacious host. From this it was only a step to speaking of Brooklyn. The secretary explained that the club had outlined a careful itinerary in that borough for proximate pursuit. Lawton told that he had at one time written an essay on the effect of Brooklyn on the dialogue of the American ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... people to understand that the presence of a man,—especially a strange man,—alone in the house with a young woman, was fraught with unpleasant possibilities. But, before he could speak, the child-woman had launched into a vivacious, if ungrammatical, explanation and story of what had occurred. In substantiation she now raised her short skirt and lifted the bandaged foot, with utter freedom from embarrassment, and laughed deliciously until an ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... courtesans I heard of Aspasia who sat on the knees of Alcibiades while discussing philosophy with Socrates. I expected to find something bold and insolent, but gay, free, and vivacious, something of the sparkle of champagne; I found a yawning mouth, a ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... able to look up. Alas for her secrets, offered, taken, and forgotten! But Vicky's vivacious fingers groped in her empty cupboard. "And then, as well as that, you ought to love him. You see, you've promised; it's all been made so sacred. You never forget it—the clergyman, and the altar, and the hymns. You're all in white—veiled. And you kneel there—before the altar—and ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... looked very blank indeed until he thought of the master, and then he recovered a great portion of his usual vivacity. Small men are always vivacious. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... sex? If this is true, why is it? Women, as a rule, in "society" at any rate, have more leisure than men. In the facilities and felicities of speech they commonly excel men, and usually they have more of that vivacious dramatic power which is called "setting out a thing to the life." With all these advantages, and all the world open to them in newspapers and in books, they ought to be the leaders and stimulators of the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... States, have their value and import. Indeed, that sublime impulse of perfectibility, always vivacious, always working under various forms and with one underlying purpose, would be futile without them, and fatuous. And what were life without this incessant striving of the spirit? What were life without its angles of difficulty and defeat, and its apices of triumph and power? A banality ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... good weather. The colonel had several times invited Miss Laura to drive with him, and had taken her once; but she was often obliged to stay with her mother. Graciella could always be had, and the colonel, who did not like to drive alone, found her a vivacious companion, whose naive comments upon life were very amusing to a seasoned man of the world. She was as pretty, too, as a picture, and the colonel had always admired beauty—with a ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... themselves. His orders were to allow inmates of the officers' quarters to pass in or out at night without challenge, provided he "recognized them to be such." Now, Mullins felt morally certain that these two were Mrs. Plume and Mrs. Plume's vivacious maid, a French-Canadian damsel, much admired and sought in soldier circles at the post, but Mullins had not seen their faces and could rightfully insist it was his duty and prerogative to do so. The question was, how would the "commanding officer's lady" like and take it? Mullins ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... of the vivacious temperament, yes?" Jakie had scrambled from the seat to within the door and was standing there smiling appreciatively ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... BETTY LEICESTER, "vivacious, whole-souled girl of the period," whose summer residence in a New England village introduces elements of fuller and sweeter life. A home-missionary of the better sort.—Sarah ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... past enjoyments in the vivacious company of Merry well, could not fail to be revived in the minds of Dashall and his Cousin; and as some persons, with due attention to his safety, had manifested their interest and regard for him by obtaining his admission to the Priory, where he was at this moment pursuing his ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Schuyler were pretty. Carolina, the younger, pale, blue-eyed, fair-haired and vivacious; her sister equally blonde, but a trifle quieter. Although they were gracious to him, Grant fancied that one flashed a questioning glance at the other when there was a halt in the conversation. Then, ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... of white, vivacious figures, gay almost, though never wholly frivolous—for these men were full of purpose, full of an ardor that seduces even where it seems grotesque—I took with me a child of ten called Ali, from the village of Kafiah; and as I looked from him to the walls around ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... depicted by Holbein, Vandyk, or Lely, the garb of ancient days, seated by their stately seniors, whilst the antlered deer, then the free denizens of the forest, stood at bay, half-startled at the merry party which had invaded their solitude; and the squirrel, little more vivacious in its furry jacket than the stiffly-dressed little bipeds, sprang from bough to bough overhead; and the hare and rabbit bounded along over the distant upland. But we must return to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... stage? You, gentlemen, probably have observed it even more than I have; but when he sees a slim girl with yellow curls capering around in tights behind the footlights, a young man's imagination runs riot and he fancies her the incarnation of coquetry and the personification of vivacious loveliness. I admit it—the present Mrs. Dillingham was a dancer. On the stage she used to ogle me out of my shoes and off it she'd help me spend my money and drink my wine and jolly me up to beat the cars; but once I'd married her she changed completely. Instead of a dashing, snappy, ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... vivacious figure (so low that he might pass under your chin without ever catching the eye even for a moment, says Lockhart), was far more impressive when familiar than at first sight. Lord Cockburn praises his legal abilities (whether as judge or advocate) almost without qualification; but ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Lathom, where, in a few years, she had risen, from a station among the lower domestics to a confidential place about the person of the countess. Here she excited no small share of admiration; and it was partly to avoid the fervid advances of some vivacious gallants that she resolved on quitting so exposed and dangerous a position; the more especially as the lowering aspect of the times, and the uncertain termination of the coming struggle, might have left her without a protector, and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... innumerable beauties which enamour us of its authour, but we see nothing that acquaints us with human sentiments or human actions; we place it with the fairest and the noblest progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction with learning, but "Othello" is the vigorous and vivacious offspring of observation impregnated by genius. Cato affords a splendid exhibition of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers just and noble sentiments, in diction easy, elevated and harmonious, but its hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart; the composition ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... a vivacious, generous, rather mocking disposition which rebels against monotony, and whose originality shines through everything, and in spite of everything. He is fluent in five or six languages, and entertains with droll conceits, or with reminiscences of famous artists and composers.... ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... deal more he told us, not only with the utmost brilliancy and enjoyment, but with a certain vivacious candour— speaking of himself as if he were not at all his own affair, as if Skimpole were a third person, as if he knew that Skimpole had his singularities but still had his claims too, which were the general business of the community and must not be slighted. He was quite enchanting. If I felt ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... vivacious young wife of twenty-two. Afternoon dress at first, but choose one that may be quickly changed. Changed to kimono as indicated in text. On last entrance she wears a Pierrette costume, white pumps, ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... using this method everywhere, even in such a case as hers—even where his purpose, that is to say, is pictorial, to give the sense of a various and vivacious background—is forced to crystallize and formulate his characters very sharply, if they are to make their effect; it is why he is so often reduced to the expedient of labelling his people with a trick or a phrase, which they have to bring with them every time they appear. ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... my astonished gaze back to Sir Philip; yes, unmistakably it was on Margrave that his look was fixed. Impossible to associate crime with the image of that fair youth! Eccentric notions, fantastic speculations, vivacious egotism, defective ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... very well, thank you," said Miss Chetwynd, and her expression grew exceedingly vivacious. Her face glowed with pride as she added, "Of course ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... garden, and being shown round it by Mr. Longworth, gave him a dollar, which the latter good-humouredly put into his pocket, and it was not till he was asked to go into the house that the stranger discovered him to be the owner.[10] He is, however, delightfully vivacious, and full of agricultural hobbies. His wife is a very pleasing, primitive-looking person. We tasted at their house some of the ham for which this city, called by the wits Porkopolis, is so remarkable. The maple sugar is used in curing ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... way to your eye. It has only some comparatively dull red leaves for a rallying-point, or kindling-stuff, to start it, and it becomes an intense scarlet or red mist, or fire, which finds fuel for itself in the very atmosphere. So vivacious is redness. The very rails reflect a rosy light at this hour and season. You see ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... on the other hand, seems to be a joyous, vivacious bird. Wordsworth applies to it the adjective ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... whether my words were good, bad, or unworthy of consideration. Not only did I endeavor not to think of him, but I tried not to see either him or his wife. The silent, motionless figure of the one, and the silent but animated and vivacious figure of the other, filled with an eager desire to do her work properly, with a bubbling and hearty love for her husband, and an evident joyousness in the fact that she could love, work, and watch, all at the same time, drove ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... had so unwillingly accepted. In her drawing-rooms she brought together, at brilliant entertainments, the old aristocracy and the new nobility of Holland, and taught the stiff society of that country the fine, unconstrained tone, and the vivacious intellectual conversation of Parisian society. It was under Hortense's fostering hand that art and science first made their way into the aristocratic parlors of Holland, giving to their social reunions a higher and ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... their hands to their breasts, some crossing them, and some beating their hands, showing the extremity of their grief at the death of the Son of God, and all melt into the air, from the middle downwards, or from the middle upwards. In this work which is well executed in fresh and vivacious colouring, the joints of the lime are so well made that it looks as if it had all been done in a single day: in it I have found the arms of Walter, Duke of Athens, but as it contains no date or other writing, I cannot affirm ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... my good-natured companions, Madame Perrodon, and the vivacious Mademoiselle Lafontaine. They both perceived that I was out of spirits and nervous, and at length I told them what lay so ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... duty summoned away Colonel Rolleston, and the others returned to the garden, where daylight struggled with the newly-risen moon. A soft breeze came up from the lake, reviving after the glaring day. Cecil was distraite and silent, so Lilla's vivacious tongue attracted around her the gentlemen of the group, and, without any effort of his, Major Fane found himself ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... he was, young, broad-shouldered, handsome, optimistic, buoyant. And there, too, was Elizabeth, also young, and pretty and gayly chatty and vivacious. And there, too, was he, Sears Kendrick, no longer young, even in the actual count of years, and feeling at least twice that count—there he ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... on which they set a high value. They also prize tobacco for chewing. We always slept on board, and the sound of the Malays' songs came across the water to a late hour of the night. The musical instruments we heard were tom-toms, Jews'-harps, and frequently fiddles. The Malays are a merry, vivacious people, and fond of several games. The most interesting was a game at football, which was generally played in the evening. The ball is small, made of ratan, hollow, elastic, and light. One of the ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... characteristic of the story-tellers of the Swahili, a people of mixed Arab and Negro descent at Zanzibar;[12] and it is perhaps inevitable in a professional reciter whose audience, like himself, is restless and vivacious in so high a degree. The only case in which any restraint would be certain to be felt is where a narrative believed to be of religious import is given. Under the influence of religious feeling the most mobile of races become conservative; and traditions of a sacred character are the most ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... by our set," went on the vivacious old "Gainsborough," "the aristocrats whose conversation is limited to the weather and scandal, and who are so frightfully dull! Dull! My dear Ross you know how dull ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... little man, horribly pitted with the small-pox, and afflicted with green spectacles, above which he darts glances of vivacious intelligence, asked us if we felt warm enough, the room having no fire. Politeness required us to say yes, although he had already given signs of incendiarism by striking a match, when, from a distant and dark ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... valleys are sharper and closer,—like cracks in a hard and solid mass;—and there is much more of the startling contrast of light and shade, as well as more angular boldness of outline; to all which the more abundant waters add a fresh and vivacious interest. Looking back through one of these abysmal gorges, one sees two torrents dashing together, the precipice and ridge on one side, pitch-black with shade; and that on the other all flaming gold; while behind ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... alive, vivacious. The eyes were large, dark, bright, the lips were ripe and smiling, the cheeks weather-bronzed ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... a lazy place. Felix had felt half asleep through the earlier days of his stay, and Lance seemed to be lulled into a continual doze whenever he was unoccupied, and that was almost always. It had grieved his elder brother to see this naturally vivacious being so inert and content with inaction, only strolling about a little in early morning and late evening, and languid and weary, if not actually suffering, during the heat and glare of the day. He was now, with his air-pillow and a railway rug, lying on the beach beside ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Latin form it would bear at Rome, "they are Angles." The deacon's pity veiled itself in poetic humour. "Not Angles but Angels," he said, "with faces so angel-like! From what country come they?" "They come," said the merchant, "from Deira." "De ira!" was the untranslatable wordplay of the vivacious Roman—"aye, plucked from God's ire and called to Christ's mercy! And what is the name of their king?" They told him "AElla," and Gregory seized on the word as of good omen. "Alleluia shall be sung in AElla's ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... parents. Their fighting instincts had sometimes set her face to face with a sort of shadowed valley, in whose blackness she faintly heard the far-off clash of weapons. Now she was caught away from this subtle tumult, and as she looked into her husband's vivacious dark eyes she felt that a little weight which had lain long on her heart was lifted from it. She had thought herself happy before, now she knew herself utterly happy. Life seemed to have no dark background. Even love itself was not spoiled by a ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... fearless, energetic; the other was gentle, clinging, and timid; or the one was more ardent, the other more calm and placid; or again, the one was the more independent, original, and self-contained; the other the more generous, hasty, and vivacious. In short, the difference was that of intensity or energy in one or other of its protean forms; it did not extend more deeply into the structure of the characters. The more vivacious might be subdued by ill health, until ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... vivacious manner, pressed her to speak, and made conjectures as to the quality of her secret. Marietta found herself involved in a net of cross-questions and answers, and took refuge at last in absolute silence. She rose and told the marquis she would return in eight days, to know whom the ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... day was devoted to gayety, and with the male population carousing in too many instances, though there were restrictions against selling intoxicants to the Indians inside the stockade. The Frenchman drank a little and slowly, and was merry and vivacious. Groups up on the Parade were dancing to the inspiriting music, or in another corner two or three fiddles played the ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Genius of life, the old cunning Proteus, nestling close beside us, and showed that the dullness and prose we ascribe to the age was only another of his masks:—"His very flight is presence in disguise:" that he had put off a gay uniform for a fatigue dress, and was not a whit less vivacious or rich in Liverpool or the Hague, than once in Rome or Antioch. He sought him in public squares and main streets, in boulevards and hotels; and, in the solidest kingdom of routine and the senses, he showed the lurking daemonic ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... color. Verboeckhoven is seen here at his best, his Flock of Sheep in a Storm, a large and carefully-finished work, being replete with all the most striking characteristics of his genius. Madou's Interrupted Ball is a brilliant and vivacious representation of a village festival troubled by the intrusion of a group of dandies of the Directory—gay Incroyables who chuck the country damsels under the chin, rouse their swains to jealous wrath and otherwise misconduct ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... expanded quickly in the sympathetic atmosphere of the Nicolls household. Before long, Montrose, with its "blue Scotch Calvinism," was but a memory. Instead of being snubbed and scolded, she was petted and encouraged. As a result, she grew cheerful and vivacious, full of high spirits and laughter. Perhaps because of her mother's Spanish blood, she matured early. At sixteen she was a woman. A remarkably attractive one, too, giving—with her raven tresses, long-lashed violet eyes, and graceful figure—promise of the ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... accordingly, without delay. Mr. Disraeli was out, but I found Mrs. Disraeli at home. She was a little, plain, vivacious woman; one who, like an india-rubber toy, you have only to touch, and it issues sound. But she was obviously no common-place woman. Her comments upon what she had seen already in Manchester were acute, ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... a person of few words. Following him down the passage I was suddenly interrupted by a small woman, who stepped out from what proved to be the dining-room door. She was a bright, vivacious, dark-eyed lady, more French ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... book consider it the best of its kind in any language. Its outstanding features are its "practicalness", and its bright, easy, vivacious style. Every chapter is full of practical points, of easily applicable advice; it is entirely free from any fads and mysterious methods of treatment, any hints at hocus-pocus. It is a sane, rational, common-sense book. Every physician who will make a study of this ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... Georgiana, wife of the fifth Duke of Devonshire. The duchess was not only one of the most beautiful, vivacious, and fascinating women of the day, but was likewise an ardent politician. Whilst canvassing for the election of Fox, she purchased the vote of a butcher for a kiss, and received from an Irish mechanic ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... we hope shortly to send you some American verses and prose of good intent? My vivacious friend Margaret Fuller is to edit a journal whose first number she promises for the 1st of July next, which I think will be written with a good will if written at all. I saw some poetical fragments which charmed me,—if only the writer consents to ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... wife listened to all that was said, and looked at each other, and looked at him, and asked him a good many questions. They were neither of them hasty, but, as the woman's manner was the more vivacious, so her questions, when translated, showed a somewhat quicker wit. When all was said, like wise people, they pronounced no sentence, either upon Trenholme's actions or upon those of the creature ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... fair, close-clipped head at the far side of the table. He seemed in no hurry to speak to her—a fact duly scored against him in Miss Darsie's mind, and this indifference served to pique her into a more vivacious reception of ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... surrounded and saw Anson Durand's fine figure emerging from that quarter of the hall where our host and hostess stood to receive their guests. His eye was roaming hither and thither and his manner was both eager and expectant. Whom was he seeking? Some one of the many bright and vivacious girls about me, for he turned almost instantly ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... to carry on a spirited conversation with Mr. Britt. At best, his range of topics was limited, and in his present frame of mind he was about as vivacious as a deaf mute. He was quite content to sit with the high heels of his cowboy boots—from which a faint odor of the stable emanated—hung over the rung of his chair, and to watch the Schoolmarm's hand plying the needle ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... slave as in the days when his mistress had occupied her place at the board, ready to do her bidding. It was the way upon Barsoom, so I endured the anguish of it, though it wrung my heart to see that silent chair where should have been my laughing and vivacious Princess keeping the great hall ringing with her ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... undertaking such a project are for the most part obvious. No modern history, however excellent, can give the reader all that he can get from the ipsissima verba of the first narrators, Argonauts or eyewitnesses, vivacious explorers or captains courageous. There are many cases in which secondary narrators have quite hidden from view these first authorities, whom it is therefore a duty to restore to their rightful position. In a still greater number ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... softer and tenderer than anything she had allowed Arthur to see of late. Of course she delighted in Arthur's success; she was proud, indeed, through and through. Hadn't she always known that he had this gift, this quick, vivacious power of narrative, this genius—for it was something like it—for literary portraiture? And now at last the stimulus had come—and the opportunity with it. Could she ever forget the anxiety of the first lecture—the difficulty ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... forceful personality, and showed tremendous power for good in establishing high intellectual standards in the public schools. Thoroughness was one of Miss Patterson's most striking characteristics as a teacher. She was a quick, alert, vivacious and indefatigable worker. During Miss Patterson's administration, which lasted altogether twelve years, three important events occurred: the name "Preparatory High School" was dropped; in 1877, the first high school commencement ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... doors opened, and the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Briseville appeared. They were both small, thin, vivacious, of no age in particular, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... custom into New Netherland,[21] to the great offense of all properly disposed people; yet we may reasonably doubt whether the young mynheers and frauliens of New Amsterdam, in that day, were any more innocent of this lover's pastime, than their vivacious Connecticut neighbors. Indeed, can it be for one moment supposed that the good Hollanders—a most unchanging and conservative race—should have been so far false to the traditions of their fathers, and the honor of the ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... free to attend her had they not been impecunious and unsuccessful in more lucrative ways. They had left her to Mademoiselles and Fraeuleins quite complacently, but they did not wish her to be like these too-sullen or too-vivacious ladies. ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... spirits were entirely gone and her whole vivacious nature changed at the end of the Craigenputtoch period is proved by sentences from her letters, To his mother ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... the evening meal was dispatched with a general expression of cheerfulness about the board. Anita seemed less downcast than usual, and the vivacious Alice made life and merriment for all. She was witty where wit was proper, and sensible in ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... nature, and very fine intellectual quality. This volume, which is tender and winning, and at the same time vigorous and incisive, shows the fine grain of the man's nature. The subject is an old one; the treatment is fresh, vivacious, and genuinely religious."—The Outlook. ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... its characteristic quality of mind; we recognize Scotch thrift, English persistency and Irish quickwittedness wherever we see it; we know something, too, of the emotional, vivacious nature of the French, and the resourcefulness of the American; but what about the Canadian—what will be our distinguishing feature in the years to come? The cartoons are kind to us—thus far—and in representing Canada, draw a sturdy young fellow, ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... (enters. She is about forty-three, but doesn't look it. Her dress is simple and in perfect taste. Her movements are vivacious, and at times almost youthful in their swiftness. Her hair is deeply blonde in color and very heavy. Her eyes are merry, good-humored most of the time, and easily filled with tears. She comes in with a smile and nods in a friendly manner ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... a long theological talk to relate, which must be dull reading to some of my young and vivacious friends. I don't know, however, that any of them have entered into a contract to read all that I write, or that I have promised always to write to please them. What if I should sometimes write ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to the teacher just at present than Professor Frank McMurry's How to Study and Teaching how to Study. It is a book that is both a help and a delight, for it is clear and well-organized, and written in a vivacious style and with a wealth of concrete illustration that holds the attention from beginning to end. The chief fault that I have to find with it is the fault that I have to find with almost every educational book that comes from the press to-day,—the tendency, namely, ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... Leon de Chassepot had nothing, I believe, to do with the invention of the guns which bear his name. But he has a glance like a rifle-shot, and at fourscore years 'Spring still makes spring in the mind' of this vivacious veteran. I asked him how Amiens behaved when the news came there of the capture of Paris by the revolutionists of September 4, 1870. Was the new republic hailed with enthusiasm? 'Enthusiasm!' he said scornfully; ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... different type from the younger, had an austere loveliness denoting pride and birth, a brunette of the quality that has contributed so much to the fame of Southern women. Hope Georgia, more girlish, and a vivacious blonde, was the especial pet of her father, and usually succeeded in doing ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... A most interesting and vivacious tale, dealing with society life at the Hub, with perhaps a tinge of the flavor of Vagabondia. The story has appeared serially in The Ladies' Home Journal, where it was received with marked success. We are ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... with the graceful and much-admired Mrs. D., whose husband was abroad serving his country; what gallant captain of dragoons (captains of infantry were looked upon as not what they might be) promenaded so imperiously with the vivacious Miss E.; and what distinguished foreigner sat all night in the corner holding a suspicious and very improper conversation with Miss F., whose skirts never were free of scandal, and who had twice got the pretty parson into difficulty with his church. Hence there was a perpetual outgoing ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... London. Among the principal, and certainly the oldest, was Sir John Leigh, who resided in a handsome house in the Strand. I frequently paid him a visit, and was now sorry to see that his health was breaking, and that he was becoming gradually weaker and weaker. Still he was as vivacious and full of anecdote as ever, while he took a keen ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... stateliness of a Spanish beauty, and the coarse fulness of outline which has always been admired in the Netherlands, Elsa was still without doubt a beautiful woman, though how much of her charm was owing to her bodily attractions, and how much to her vivacious mien and to a certain stamp of spirituality that was set upon her face in repose, and looked out of her clear large eyes when she was thoughtful, it would not be easy to determine. At any rate, her charms were sufficient to make a powerful impression upon ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... Neale, on his part, made a somewhat shyer examination of her. He remembered her as a long-legged little girl who had no great promise of good looks: he was not quite sure that she had grown into good looks now. But she was an eminently bright and vivacious young woman, strong, healthy, vigorous, with fine eyes and teeth and hair, and a colour that betokened an intimate acquaintance with outdoor life. And already, in the conversation at the bank, and in Polke's report of his interview with him, he had learnt that she had ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... battlements of Beaurevoir stunned but did not long incapacitate her. Hunger, bonds, and the protracted weariness of months of cross-examination produced an illness but left her intellect as keen, her courage as unabated, her humour as vivacious, her memory as minutely accurate as ever. There never was a more sane and healthy human being. We never hear that, in the moments of her strange experiences, she was 'entranced,' or even dissociated from the actual occurrences of ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... Ganders are vivacious animals. Farmer Ady of Segary had a gander that was fifty yeares old, which the soldiers killed. He and his gander were both of the same age. (A goose is now living, anno 1757, at Hagley hall in Worcestershire, full fifty ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... round and vivacious. The woman to whom she talked was dark and slender, but also ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... nauseating puffery of "society belles" has grown out of the unpardonable bad taste—not to say presumptuous insolence—which the American press has ever displayed in dealing with the fair sex. First it was "the accomplished" or "the vivacious" Miss So-and-so. That "caught." Every woman likes to be thought accomplished or interesting, just as every man delights to see himself paraded in the papers as a "public-spirited citizen." Then the press grew bolder and introduced the adjectives "charming," "fascinating," ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... surprised into a little over-consciousness. Mrs. MacSpadden was a vivacious acquaintance at St. Kentigern, whom he certainly—and not without some satisfaction—expected to meet at Glenbogie House. He raised his ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... not had an equal in our time, and his pen for threescore years has been put to frequent use in celebration of all sorts of events, whether military, literary, or scientific. Bayard Taylor said, "He lifted the 'occasional' into the 'classic'," and the phrase happily expresses the truth. The vivacious character of his nature readily lends itself to work of this sort, and though the printed page gives the reader the sparkling epigram and the graceful lines, clear-cut always and full of soul, the pleasure is not quite the same as seeing and hearing him ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... things were not so impecunious in Ireland as they subsequently became, but there was always a vivacious Hibernian scorn for false pretension, and a determination to have the best possible time, such as you can read in Lever's novels of old, and the capital tales of those two clever ladies, Miss Martin and Miss ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... born in 1820, known by the sobriquet of Carabine, was present at Josepha Mirah's house-warming on the rue de la Ville-l'Eveque, in 1838. Five years later, being then mistress of the wealthy F. du Tillet, Mademoiselle Sinet supplanted the vivacious Marguerite Turquet as queen of the lorettes. [Cousin Betty.] A woman of splendid appearance, Seraphine was one of the marching chorus at the Opera, and occupied the fine apartment on the rue Saint-Georges, where before her Suzanne du Val-Noble, Esther van Gobseck, Florine, and ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... curiously enough entered the lists as a newspaper man. From the sporting page he was graduated to police news, then the city desk, at last closing his career as the genius who invented the weekly Sunday thriller, in many colors of illustration and vivacious Gallic style which interpreted into heart throbs and goose-flesh the real life romances and tragedies of the preceding six days! He had conquered the paper-and-ink world—then deep within there stirred the call for participation in ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... men's public urinal they perceived an icecream car round which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were getting rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a particularly animated way, there being some ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... a wild and undetermined fantasy was narrowly inspecting these two doves that had flown into our ark. The young man, tall, agile and athletic, wore a mass of black shining curls clustering round a dark and vivacious countenance which, if it had not greater expression, was at least more active and attracted readier notice, than the quiet faces of our countrymen. At his first appearance he had been laden with a neat mahogany box of about ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The vivacious chef de cuisine started up at once, took up his position at the foot of the tree which Disco had just left, leaned his back against it, and straightway went to sleep, in which condition he ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... for another kind. He thought he was now about to reproduce the old days of the Charmettes, true to his inveterate error that one may efface years and accurately replace a past. He forgot that instead of the once vivacious and tender benefactress who was now waiting for slow death in her hovel, his house-mates would be a poor dull drudge and her vile mother. He forgot, too, that since those days the various processes of intellectual life had expanded within ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... a vivacious, well-looking, well-dressed, agreeable young fellow—he was a Barnacle, but on the more sprightly side of the family—and he said in an easy way, 'Oh! you had better not bother yourself about ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... was not absolutely sterile, it was because his intellectual quality itself was vivacious and brilliant. Though he remained ever a stranger to Russia and his fellows, as he did to himself, he became the most observant of travelers. Though as the foreigner he perceived only the superficial and picturesque elements of ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... his greatest interest in outdoor sports and was characterized by some native shrewdness and a genial but rather abrupt manner. He laid down his tools and looked up with an air of humorous resignation as his wife came in. Mrs. Foster was a slender, vivacious woman, fond ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... with Caleb's reminiscences) there was Badger, owned by a farmer and worked for some years by Caleb—the very best stump-tail he ever had to help him. This dog differed from others in his vivacious temper and ceaseless activity. When the sheep were feeding quietly and there was little or nothing to do for hours at a time, he would not lie down and go to sleep like any other sheep-dog, but would spend his vacant ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... chronicler of this second voyage, was full of curiosity over every strange sight he met with. He was also blessed with the pen of a ready writer. So we get a story that is more vivacious than Hakluyt's retelling of the first voyage or Hawkins's own account of the third. Sparke saw for the first time in his life negroes, Caribs, Indians, alligators, flying-fish, flamingoes, pelicans, and ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... presently he recognized the coachman. The horses were moving at a walk, very slowly; but at length Harboro recognized the General Manager's wife, reclining under a white silk sunshade and listening to the vivacious chatter of a young woman by her side. They would be coming over to attend the services in the Episcopal church in Eagle Pass, Harboro realized. Then he recognized the young woman, too. He had met her at one of the affairs to which he had ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... lads, and one among them struck her fancy. The helmsman who had bowed to her was slight and swarthy, with Southern eyes, vivacious manners, and a singularly melodious voice. A Spaniard, she thought, and pleased herself with this picturesque figure till a traitorous smile about the young man's mouth betrayed that he was not unconscious of her regard. She colored as ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... medical practice; pronounced nervous and emotional irritability during adolescence; aversion to young women in society; stubborn clinging to celibacy. In posture, gait and general movements, the following may be noted: vivacious in conversation; possessed of great mobility of facial expression; anteroposterior sway marked and occasionally anterosinistral, and greatly augmented so as to approach Romberg symptom on closure of eyes, ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... meaning that his fame should survive—Mr. Tennyson is still more vivacious, 'non omnino moriar,'—'I will not die at all; my body shall be as immortal as my verse, and however low I may go, I warrant you I shall keep all my wits ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... (for the ordinary English taste is simple, though sound, in that particular), but he makes acquaintance with more varieties of hop and malt liquor than he previously supposed to exist. I remember a sort of foaming stuff, called hop-champagne, which is very vivacious, and appears to be a hybrid between ale and bottled cider. Another excellent tipple for warm weather is concocted by mixing brown-stout or bitter ale with ginger-beer, the foam of which stirs up the heavier liquor from its depths, forming a compound of singular vivacity and sufficient body. ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... entire organization that the mental processes are exceedingly rapid, and the physical manifestations are equally prompt. The movements of the body are quick, the brain is active, the eye bright, intelligent and keen sighted, the expression of the face vivacious, the voice musical, the speech rapid, and the individual often anticipates the thought of those with whom he converses; if you hesitate on a word he will instantly supply it. Such persons are keenly sensitive to surrounding circumstances, ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... the ground that he had forgotten something, and she chided him merrily for being forgetful. As he sat with her David could have groaned aloud. How vivacious she had become! but she was sparkling in false colours. After what he knew had been her distress of a few minutes ago, it was a painted face to him. She was trying to deceive him. Perhaps she suspected that he had seen her crying, ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... true oriental love for rich costumes, a taste that their national dress permitted them to gratify to the utmost. Next to the splendour of the dresses, Charlie was surprised at the grace and spirit of the dancing, which was far more vivacious than that of western nations. The Poles were long considered to be the best dancers in the world. It was their great national amusement; and all danced, from noble to peasant, entering into it with spirit and enthusiasm, and uniting the perfection of rhythmical motion with the grace and ease peculiar ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... existence. Richard Cceur de Lion was thirty-one, and had but just ascended the throne where he was to shine as the most valiant and adventurous of knights rather than as a king. Philip Augustus, though only twenty-three, had already shown signs, beneath the vivacious sallies of youth, of the reflective and steady ability characteristic of riper age. Of these three sovereigns, the eldest, Frederick Barbarossa, was first ready to plunge amongst the perils of the crusade. Starting from Ratisbonne about Christmas, 1189, with an army of one hundred ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and had made merry over its follies. The desire to make the world he knew too well a better place than he found it is just as keen in the wit and humourist of thirty-nine; a desire, moreover, undulled by twenty years of vivacious living. Surely not the least amazing feature of Fielding's genius is this dual capacity for exuberant enjoyment, and incisive judgement. "His wit," said Thackeray, "is wonderfully wise and detective; it flashes ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... Atlantic and the German Ocean. From Erin and England and the land o' cakes they came, had a few days of staring bright-eyed happy incredulity as to the permanency of such conditions, and then settled down to take it as it was, endless days of sunshine and stirring vivacious air—as though they had always known it and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... youth could not for one instant get rid of a strange, unpleasant feeling which was absolutely new to him. . . . It seemed to him that he was in love with Anna Fyodorovna, the Shumihins' cousin, who was staying with them. She was a vivacious, loud-voiced, laughter-loving, healthy, and vigorous lady of thirty, with rosy cheeks, plump shoulders, a plump round chin and a continual smile on her thin lips. She was neither young nor beautiful— Volodya knew that perfectly well; but for some reason he could not help ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... people! I'm so glad to see you; jump right out, and come in," exclaimed Mrs. Bryant, as the car stopped. She was a pretty, vivacious little lady, with cordial hospitality beaming from her gray eyes, and Mr. Bryant, a tall, dark-haired man, was no less enthusiastic in ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... perfectly clear vehicle for the conveyance of thought: we are as rarely at a loss for the meaning of one of Sterne's sentences as we are, for very different reasons, for the meaning of one of Macaulay's. And his language is so full of life and colour, his tone so animated and vivacious, that we forget we are reading and not listening, and we are as little disposed to be exacting in respect to form as though we were listeners in actual fact. Sterne's manner, in short, may be that of a bad and careless writer, ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... even the King's jests failed in making him smile. He was apparelled entirely in black velvet, with a cloak bordered with the costly fur of the black fox. All his followers were similarly attired. The sombre Venetian presented a striking contrast to his vivacious companion, the gay and graceful De Tremouille, who glittered in white satin, embroidered with leaves of silver, while the same colour and the same ornaments were adopted by ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... of life in New York 60 years ago. The story is charmingly told. The book is full of vivacious narrative, describing the amusements employments and the social and domestic life of Old ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a vivacious humour, and rattled the car across the hills at a good pace. They had a quarter of an hour to wait at the busy little station. Brian and Ida walked up and down the platform talking, while Reginald looked after the pony and the luggage. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... ague-shaken patients to be seen, and there was not even a case of minor surgery to relieve the tediousness of the morning office hour. Perhaps it was for this reason, perhaps it was for the sake of old acquaintance, that he gave Hubert a most cordial reception, and launched at once into a sea of vivacious talk. Cornelia, who was in the office, excused herself on the ground that she was cramming for her final examination, and seated herself at a ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... inspir'd understanding can come at 'em." The blockheads, however, have capacity enough to snatch hastily at the money lying on their council table. Walpole's jealousy of power, it may be remembered, had driven almost every man of ability out of his ministry. Then comes a vivacious parody on the fashionable auctions of the day. Lots comprising "a most curious remnant of Political Honesty," a "delicate piece of Patriotism," and a "very clear Conscience which has been worn by a judge and a bishop" and on which no dirt will stick, go for little or nothing, while ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... spouse unknown, With whom of old she fill'd a lofty throne.— Then Portia comes, who fire and steel defied, And Julia, grieved to see a second bride Engage her consort's love.—The Hebrew swain Appears, who sold himself his love to gain For seven long summers—a vivacious flame, Which neither years nor constant toil could tame!— Then Isaac, with his father, joins the band, Who, with his consort, left at God's command, Led by the lamp of faith, his native land.— David is next, by lawless passion sway'd; And, adding crime to crime, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... picturesque; Venice is a dream city; but Naples is simply—fascinating. There is the common life of the streets and the populace continually en scene; the people who are at home on the sunny side in winter, or the shady side in summer; there is the social life of the nobility, which is brilliant and vivacious. The excursions, of which Naples is the centre, are the chief interest to travellers, and these, while possible in winter, are far more enjoyable in the early spring. Still even in midwinter the days are sunny, and while the air is crisp and cool, ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... this earlier development and more abundant manifestation of womanly intellect in France? The primary one, perhaps, lies in the physiological characteristics of the Gallic race—the small brain and vivacious temperament which permit the fragile system of woman to sustain the superlative activity requisite for intellectual creativeness; while, on the other hand, the larger brain and slower temperament ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... explain a novel set of ideas by comparison with simpler ideas obvious to all his listeners; and he sought to arrest attention or to drive home a conclusion by some brilliant phrase that bit into the memory. These two arts, the art of the phrase-maker and the art of explaining by vivacious and simple comparison, he brought to a high perfection. The fundamental method of his exposition was simply the method of comparative anatomy, the result of a habit of thinking which makes it impossible to have any set of ideas brought ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... decisive strokes on the emphatic ideas. Deliver it in a vivacious manner, noting the elastic touch-action of the tongue. A flexible, responsive tongue is absolutely essential ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... Butter, in his gay yellow jacket, looking wore to the knife. There was turgid old Brown Sugar, who had evidently heard the advice, go to the ant, thou sluggard! and, and mistaking the last word for Sugared, was going as deliberately as possible. There was the vivacious Cheese, in the hour of its mite, clad in deep, creamy, golden hue, with delicate traceries of mould, like fairy cobwebs. The Smoked Beef, and Doughnuts, as being more sober and unemotional features of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... brand new Krag-Jorgensen donated by Uncle Sam, and the inevitable and ever ready machete swinging in a case of embossed leather on the left hip. Very young they were, and very old; and wiry, quick-eyed, intelligent, for the most part and, in countenance, vivacious and rather gentle. There was a little creek next, and, climbing the bank of the other side, Grafton stopped short, with a start, in the road. To the right and on a sloping bank lay eight gray shapes, muffled from head to foot, and Grafton would have ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... despondency—ay, and even contempt; he who now comes up the creaking stair to thy little studio in the second floor to inspect thy last effort before thou departest, the little stout man whose face is very dark, and whose eye is vivacious; that man has attained excellence, destined some day to be acknowledged, though not till he is cold, and his mortal part returned to its kindred clay. He has painted, not pictures of the world, but English pictures, such ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... come to Budapest all the young women, urged on to insubordination, had removed their veils, and Kalora had boldly invaded another compartment to engage in rapt and feverish dialogue with a little but vivacious Frenchwoman. ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... coarse hair rebelled upon his head and chin; and he had a broad, flat nose, that had been broken in two places by the kick of an Assyrian mule. Withal, Socrates talked delightfully; and it is not hard to imagine that Xanthippe's pretty face, plump figure, and vivacious manners served as an inspiration to the young philosopher's wit. So it was not long ere Xanthippe found herself entertaining a ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... man's daughter. She and I were of the same age and did not look unlike each other, although I was not so pretty by half. You can see by the portrait how beautiful she was, and it does her scant justice, for half her charm lay in her arch expression and her vivacious ways. She had her little faults, of course, and was rather over much given to romance and sentiment. This did not seem much of a defect to me then, Amy, for I was young and romantic too. Mother never ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... utterance that Montaigne brought to bear on his English reader, though the more we consider this quality of spontaneity in the essayist the more we shall realise its perennial fascination. The culture-content of Montaigne's book is more than even the self-revelation of an extremely vivacious and reflective intelligence; it is the living quintessence of all Latin criticism of life, and of a large part of Greek; a quintessence as fresh and pungent as the essayist's expression of his special individuality. For Montaigne stands out among all the humanists of the epochs of ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... accounted a good hand at speaking in the debating society, and though rather more prolix than Bertram, and not quite so vivacious, had been considered almost more than a match for his cousin on account of his superior erudition and more practised delivery; but now his voluble gift of words deserted him. "He was much obliged to them," he said; "though perhaps, on the whole, ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... la Motte first met the Duke of Hereward, then a very handsome man of middle age, of accomplished mind and courtly address. The beautiful, pale, grave brunette at once interested the English duke more than all the blooming and vivacious beauties at the French capital could do. At every ball, dinner, concert, play, or other place of amusement where Mademoiselle de la Motte appeared with her parents, the Duke of Hereward sought her out; and the more he saw of her, the more interested he became in her; and ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... in the most vivacious humor, as is generally the case in such company and on such an occasion; and, as the gossip went the round of the town, it arrived in time at Soeren's door. All were agreed that it was a most unhappy marriage, and a miserable home; ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... a bright American girl, the book is sure to command wide attention. The volume is handsomely bound and copiously illustrated with views drawn, if we mistake not, by the author's own fair hands, so well do they accord with the vivacious ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... Easter-day, proclaiming her arrival with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the Bluebird, or the faint trill of the Song-Sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle or an ellipse in the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... At least by the boys. And certainly Betty was good to look upon. Her face showed her character. There was a calm thoughtfulness about it that suggested strength of mind, and yet it was not the type of face called "strong." It was purely girlish, and it reflected her bright and vivacious manner perfectly. How her features lighted up when she spoke—or listened—her friends well knew. Her eyes seemed always to be dancing with fun, yet they could look calmly ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope |
