"Playful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fall." It was decided to let the mascots have a social gathering. They were brought into a ring formed by grinning soldiers. All went well for a moment or two. They grinned, caressed, and made merry. Just in the very heights of the ecstacies, a playful young monk, that had been exchanging "sheep's eyes" with "Paterno," in a fit of playfulness made a grab for the latter's tail, but lo! there was none. The news spread like the incoming of "amigos" after the capture of a ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... occasionally, and his indulgence of playful digressions from the most serious discussions, often give his style an air of familiar conversation, notwithstanding the laborious collections which supply his text. He was capable of writing excellent poetry, but he seems to have cultivated this talent too little. The English verses prefixed to ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... an end and a small fraction of the assembly filed out to the family burying ground on the hill behind the house. Here came a repetition of what had been enacted in the back parlour, only there was the distraction of the wind which would be playful and of a robin, perched on a near-by fence post, who would not be depressed but sang away its liquid, throaty warble as though the whole ceremony had been arranged for its own entertainment. It came quickly to an end. Mr. Mosby was sent on his way with all due ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... adored him. He was handsome. His cheeks had the glow of health; his eyes—the finest in the world—the brilliancy of genius, and were soft as a tender and affectionate heart could render them. The same playful fancy, the same sterling and innoxious wit that was shown afterwards in his writings, cheered and delighted the ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... Leicester's hand with playful contempt and looked up and she was smiling the devil-smile. A horse whinnied like ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... up naturally, like daisies in the grass, at every turn. I have said enough, too, to indicate the type of Celtic temperament to which Leamy's belonged. His habitual mood was the exquisitely sensitive, the tender, playful, reverent mood. He was, in this, the antithesis of the "cloudy and lightning" Standish O'Grady, whose temperament, equally Gaelic, is that of the fighting bard, delighting in battle, fierce, fuliginous, aristocratic, pagan, with the roll of Homeric hexameters in his martial style. If O'Grady ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... playful and inclined to talk—to do anything but lie quiet and go to sleep. Edna sent the quadroon away to her supper and told her she need not return. Then she sat and told the children a story. Instead of soothing it ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... spoil for him,—thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... conventional mentions of Aristotle's name in Shakespeare's works. One is a very slight allusion to Aristotle's "checks" or "moral discipline" in The Taming of the Shrew. That passage is probably from a coadjutor's pen. In any case, it is merely a playful questioning of the title of "sweet philosophy" to monopolize a young ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... came, and he was off for Elmira with the smallest possible delay. Once there, the intervening days did not matter. He could join in the busy preparations; he could write exuberantly to his friends. To Laura Hawkins, long since Laura Frazer he sent a playful line; to Jim Gillis, still digging and washing on the slopes of the old Tuolumne hills, he wrote a letter ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... down and write. And this is called life! How is it nobody has described the agonizing discord in the soul of a writer who has to amuse the crowd when his heart is heavy or to shed tears at the word of command when his heart is light? I must be playful, coldly unconcerned, witty, but what if I am weighed down with misery, what if I am ill, or my child is dying ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... develops the great importance of the child's play as tending to strengthen his inheritance in the acquisition of adaptations to his environment. The influence of play on character, and its relation to education, are suggestively indicated. The playful manifestations affecting the child himself and those affecting his relations to others have been carefully classified, and the reader is led from the simpler exercises of the sensory apparatus through a variety of divisions to inner imitations and social ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... its ingenuity and energy. Girlhood is not all a holiday season; it is more a working time, a study hour, an apprenticeship. True, it has buoyant spirits, and should let them out with fresh good-will at proper times. It has its playful moods, which should not only be indulged but encouraged, but not wholly for the sake of the momentary enjoyment, but rather to infuse the forming character largely with the element of cheerfulness. A gloomy ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... ideal to him of everything a dog should be. He follows Jack in all respects; and he pays Jack the sincere flattery of imitation. Jack, an Irish setter, is a thorough gentleman in form, in action, and in thought. Some years Roy's senior, he submits patiently to the playful capers of the younger dog; and he even accepts little nips at his legs or his ears. It is pleasant to watch the two friends during an afternoon walk. Whatever Jack does, that does Roy; and Jack knows it, and he gives Roy hard things to do. He leads Roy to the summit of ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... another correspondent, who apologizes for opposing "so high an authority as Dr. Gray," but says that he had obtained some of these fishes from persons who lived at a considerable distance apart, or considerably out of range of the playful pail ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... replied Blueskin, in a tone intended to be gentle, but which sounded like the murmuring whine of a playful bear. "How much ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Mary Virginia's sensitiveness to all beauty, nor her playful fancy and vivid imagination, he was clear-brained and clean-thinking, with that large perspective and that practical optimism which seem to me so essentially American. He saw without confusion both ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... its diction as in its treatment of its subject, and also in its employment of the weapons of wit and humor. The general style most suitable to its spirit and character he considered to be that most in use in the ordinary and daily intercourse of society. He admired a simple and playful use of language, and he affected, as he asserts, a common and almost plebeian manner of writing, using words of every-day stamp in his correspondence. In his view of letter writing, its style and manner ought to vary with the complexion of its subject matter, and be subjected to ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... still sunshine, standing squarely alone in a broad space of yellow sand, was Monsieur Joseph's house, not very old, for the kitchens and stables had belonged to a little chateau long since pulled down. It also was built of cream-coloured stone, with a little tower to the west of it, with playful ironwork and high mansard windows. An odd feature was that it had no actual door. All the lower windows opened down to the ground, with nothing but a stone step between them and the sandy soil, so that the ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... ready.' The mother shut tight her sunken mouth, and regarded her daughter with playful challenge. 'Because,' she continued, 'I didn't known when you were coming.' She gave a jerk with her arm, like an orator who utters the incontrovertible. 'But,' she added, after a tedious dramatic pause, 'I can soon have it ready. What ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... cheering vibrations with the gladness of our hearts, with the hope arisen from the tomb of despair. With buoyant spirit, let us join in the merry mood of the winged songsters; let us share the gaiety of the flowers and trees, and let our playful humor blend with the musical flow and tinkle of the silvery, shimmering rivulet. Greetings, let fond greetings burst from the smiling lips on this most happy of all occasions! The natal day of the flowers, the tender season of love and beauty, ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... Snow came up, and the three Misses Snow, and the Balfours, and the neighbors; and there were kisses and hand-shakings, and good wishes. Jim beamed around upon the fluttering and chattering groups like a great, good-natured mastiff upon a playful collection of silken spaniels and smart terriers. It was the proudest moment of his life. Even when standing on the cupola of his hotel, surveying his achievements, and counting his possessions, he had never felt the thrill which moved him then. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... they hear behind them the rush of another coming genius. The tired critics sleep less soundly in the front row of the stalls, the fine and frivolous ladies who come to the opera to talk the whole evening are told that for once they will have to be silent, the reporters put on little playful airs of mystery to say that they have been allowed to assist at a marvellous rehearsal or have been admitted to see the future diva putting on her cloak after a final interview with Schreiermeyer, whose attitude before her is described as being that of the donor ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... what would happen. I looked at them with eager interest. They were really beautiful; black and white in stripes, with long bushy tails. Black and white, and so self-possessed!—a thought struck me. "Mephitis," I gasped, and instantly put several feet more between us. So attractive and playful were they, however, that notwithstanding I feared it might be hard to convince their mamma, should she appear, of my amiable intentions, I could not resist another look. Calm as a summer morning walked off one of the mephitis babies, holding his pretty tail straight up like a kitten's, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... country is stony and barren, a multitude of old women are dragged forward on horses, waggons or carriages, and with much trouble are got into the water. On the other side of the fountain they appear as young maidens splashing about and amusing themselves with all kinds of playful mischief; close by is a large pavilion into which a herald courteously invites them to enter and where they are arrayed in costly apparel. A feast is prepared in a smiling meadow, which seems to be followed by a dance; the gay crowd loses itself in a neighbouring grove. The men ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... at a banker's in the city. In the evening, at the close of the entertainment, as the guests were departing, the duke was startled and alarmed by hearing the son of the banker, in a loud and somewhat playful tone, call out, "The carriage of the Duke of Orleans." For a moment he was much embarrassed. But perceiving that neither the young man nor any of the company turned their eyes to him, he recovered his self-possession, and calmly inquired ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... is worth coming to; the instrument seems but the organ of the man's own feelings; its mournful tones are only a paraphrase of his sighs; its brilliant arabesques are but the playful expression of his own delight with every thing and every body! His cheek is warm, his eyes sparkle, his hands detonate thunder and lightnings from the keys, and he concludes as suddenly as he began; the very silence is felt, and the breathless guests, who have watched ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... the circumstances of the case, it was at least sufficiently evident that the feelings which had prompted me at the moment had been attributed to their true cause. Rosa, especially, tormented me by allusions and playful attacks, which I could hardly bear with patience; and at last I showed my annoyance in so marked a manner, that she abstained from any ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... spring; a smiling Arcadia; a Decameron of sentiment; a tender meditation; attentions with vague glances; words that lull the soul; a platonic gallantry, a leisure occupied by the heart, an idleness of youthful company; a court of amorous thoughts; the emotional and playful courtesy of the young newly married leaning upon the offered arm; eyes without fever, desire without appetite, voluptuousness without desire, audacious gestures regulated like the ballet for a spectacle, and tranquil defences disdainful of haste ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... and customs. His varied information (for hardly any subject escaped him) rendered him a very entertaining companion. His observations on the character of different nations were very liberal; marking their various traits, their virtues and vices, with playful humorousness, quite free from bigotry, or ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... sauntered off humming gaily, making playful passes at the trees with his riding-crop ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... bestowed upon a pretty little playful kitten which had been following the girl about the ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... the work of a Wordsworth in a clime softer than that of the Fells. The lays of Edwin Morris and Edward Bull are not among the more enduring of even the playful poems. The St Simeon Stylites appears "made to the hand" of the author of Men and Women rather than of Tennyson. The grotesque vanity of the anchorite is so remote from us, that we can scarcely judge of the truth of the picture, though the East has still her parallels to St Simeon. From ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... an inarticulate lamentation; but the indifference of the officers forbade the notion of tragedy in her case. She was perhaps a local celebrity; the children left off their games, and ran gayly trooping after her; even the young fellow and young girl exchanging playful blows in a robust flirtation at the corner of a liquor store suspended their scuffle with a pleased interest as she passed. March understood the unwillingness of the poor to leave the worst conditions in the city for comfort and plenty in the country when he reflected upon this ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... are brisk and playful in the remote glens, even on the morning of the cold Friday. Here is our Lapland and Labrador, and for our Esquimaux and Knistenaux, Dog-ribbed Indians, Novazemblaites, and Spitzbergeners, are there not the ice-cutter and wood-chopper, the ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... the Greek women instead of Shakespeare's; and instance, for chief ideal types of human beauty and faith, the simple mother's and wife's heart of Andromache; the divine, yet rejected wisdom of Cassandra; the playful kindness and simple princess-life of happy Nausicaa; the housewifely calm of that of Penelope, with its watch upon the sea; the ever patient, fearless, hopelessly devoted piety of the sister and daughter, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... Mothers by the dozen were out with their infants, holding them aloft tenderly, to show them the noose and the cross-beam. Fathers came with their sons, and explained very carefully to them the method of strangulation. Little girls, on their way to workshops, had turned aside to see the playful affair, and traders in fancy soap and shoe-blacking, pea-nuts and shrimps, Banbury cakes, and Chelsea buns, and Yarmouth bloaters, were making the morning hilarious with their odd cries and speeches. Along the chimney-pots of Green Arbour ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Fechner's playful satire by the spectacle of those poets who ape angelic modes of progression. The poet who desires to achieve the music of the spheres may impart to his movement the planetary impulse if he can suggest to our ears the illusion of the swift rush of rustling wings, but he must never forget that ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... the letter, she read it again and again. She felt convinced, from the absence of any playful remarks, from Ruth's unusual brevity and lack of detail, that something was wrong; but she knew that if her daughter did not write freely she could not force her confidence. So she carried the trouble to her Heavenly Father, and asked Him to ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... slow succession, until we counted no less than twenty black snakes, none of them less than thirteen feet long, and from ten to fifteen inches in circumference. They appeared to be as playful as puppies, and rolled over and over each other in their gambols; but at the least movement on our part their sport ceased, and they seemed to form themselves in hostile array as though to repel an attack. Then their mouths opened and their huge ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... you a gold ring too, my girl—one o' them real shiners," promised Joe, thinking that as he was in for the penny he might as well pledge himself to the pound. "Ah! that makes you sit up, I'm thinkin'," and the generous man gave his wife a playful poke in the ribs. ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... nobles at the board in a somewhat similar style to this, with jocose and playful remarks, which had the effect of entirely diverting from their minds every thing like suspicion, he said that he must go away for a short time, but that he would presently return. In the mean time, ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... tones to what we see through it; and a glass of rare strength and clearness too, to let us see more than we could ourselves, and bring nature up to us and near to us. Nothing can atone for the want of truth, not the most brilliant imagination, the most playful fancy, the most pure feeling, (supposing that feeling could be pure and false at the same time;) not the most exalted conception, nor the most comprehensive grasp of intellect, can make amends for the want of truth, and that for two reasons; ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... cannot conceive how the Vault[21] has got about,—but so it is. It is too farouche; but, truth to say, my satires are not very playful. I have the plan of an epistle in my head, at him and to him; and, if they are not a little quieter, I shall embody it. I should say little or nothing of myself. As to mirth and ridicule, that is out of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the natural claim of dialectic to be the Queen of the Sciences is once more affirmed. This latter is the bond of union which pervades the whole or nearly the whole of the Platonic writings. And here as in several other dialogues (Phaedrus, Republic, etc.) it is presented to us in a manner playful yet also serious, and sometimes as if the thought of it were too great for human utterance and came down from heaven direct. It is the organization of knowledge wonderful to think of at a time when knowledge itself could hardly be said to exist. It is this more than any other element ...
— Philebus • Plato
... during the last eighteen months. One lady, in particular, who is exceedingly clever, but who has a dread of all republics, on account of having lost a near friend during the reign of terror, was especially in the practice of resorting to this argument, whenever, in our frequent playful discussions of the subject, I have succeeded in disturbing her inferences, by citing American facts. "Mais, Monsieur, l'Amerique est si jeune, et vous avez les vertus que nous manquons," etc. etc. has always been thought a sufficient answer. Now ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... dying pretty often lately," answered Snap with a smile. "You ought to become a dyer by trade!" And then he ducked as Whopper made a playful pass at his head. ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... should beat but ours, And we might live, love, die alone! Far from the cruel and the cold,— Where the bright eyes of angels only Should come around us, to behold A paradise so pure and lonely! Would this be world enough for thee?"— Playful she turned, that he might see The passing smile her cheek put on; But when she marked how mournfully His eyes met hers, that smile was gone; And, bursting into heartfelt tears, "Yes, yes," she cried, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... of these pictures discloses a remarkable variety in action and grouping. On the other hand, the Madonnas are quite similar in general type. With the exception of the Zingarella, who is the most motherly, they are all in a playful mood. The same playfulness, but of a more sweet and motherly kind, lights the face of the Madonna della Scala. The composition is somewhat in the portrait style, showing the mother in half length, seated under a sort of canopy. The babe clings closely to her neck, turning about at the spectator ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... bold fork through pies of pork; O'er hard-boil'd eggs the saltspoon shook; Leapt from its lair the playful cork: Yet some there were, to whom the brook Seem'd sweetest beverage, and for meat They chose the red root of ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... sand was firm, and then they would scour fearlessly along it with many tossings of their heads and playful attempts at biting one another. But so soon as they came upon the green froth of the "quaking bogs" or the snake-bell shine of the shivering sands, it was each for himself again—or rather for himself ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... playful, intercourse between them may perhaps best be exemplified by the petition sent up by Mr. Keble on an alarm that the copse on Ladwell hill was about to be cut down in obedience to the dicta of agricultural judges who much objected to trees ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... Angela's chamber. Early as it was, Mrs. Payne had already apparelled herself in her paint and powder and driven down. Seen by the morning sunlight, her smeared face with its brilliant artificial smile revealed a pathos which was rendered more acute by its effect of playful grotesqueness. She was like a faded and decrepit actress who, fired by the unconquerable spirit of her art, forces her wrinkled visage to ape the romantic ecstasies of passion. Age which is beautiful only when it has become expressive of repose—of serene renouncement—showed ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... bushes to my bicycle and wheeled it on to the drive. I saw the car start; but Madame Fortune being in playful mood, my own engine refused to start at all, and when ten minutes later I at last aroused a spark of life in the torpid machine I knew that ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... would be flying about, quite indifferent as to whom they would hit. The opposing political sides had one great end in view, and that was to break each other's heads, and they deeply resented anybody else attempting to interfere with that playful form of amusement, so that oftentimes both sides would turn their attention on the police and soldiers, causing us quite considerable inconvenience. However, I must say this, that on no occasion when I was on duty at such so-called political meetings and elections did ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... utter.' Among them many people, I think, would be inclined to reckon their tender affections for members of their own family. They would rather cover their strongest emotions under some veil of indirect insinuation, whether of playful caress or ironical depreciation, than write them down in explicit and unequivocal assertions. That, however, was not Fitzjames's style in any case. His words were in all cases as straightforward and downright as if he were giving evidence upon oath. If he thinks ill of a ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... of record, and, after shaking hands with Lionel, and kissing my long-lost brother, I was left alone with the Gironacs, half expectant of a playful scolding. ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... and walked along the sofa to where our present cat, "Kim," was asleep. The spirit cat, with a look of almost human fun, patted Kim's head, the latter awaking with a start. Rufie-Oofie continued to make playful dabs at Kim's ears, Kim following each movement with glaring eyes, distinctly seeing and realizing that another cat was invading his sofa, but not in the least angry with him and quite ready to play. ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... a mountain, but we're leavin' of our dent, An' our teeth-marks bitin' scenery they will show the way we went; We're a liftin' half-creation, and we're changin' it around, Just to suit our playful purpose when we're ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... the days when I was young, A playful little boy, When my piping treble rung To the notes of early joy. Oh, the sunny days of spring, When I sat beside the shore, And heard the small birds sing;— Shall I never hear ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... quite playful, and disturbs Jane very much by asking after her father. What a warm drive you must have had, Harriet; you had better throw off your hat, and stay with ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... warnin'; just a lick and she is through; Waring set his gun to smokin' Playful like, like he was jokin', And—a Chola lay a-chokin' ... and a buzzard cut ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... resigned her sway to Autumn in the green valleys of the Susquehanna and her tributaries, which spread out among the hills like the branches of some mighty forest tree, over whose curving and playful waters the green plumes of the forest trees had waved during the summer, now changed with the season; and Summer, the queen of flowers and ripening fruit, had wrapped herself in a mantle of green, and laid down to die as the sun gradually declined ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... quitted Oswald, and prevented him from uttering a word, gently imposing silence upon him whenever he wished to speak. She found the art of varying the hours by reading, music, and sometimes by a conversation of which the burden was supported by herself alone; now serious, now playful, her animation of spirits kept up a continual interest. All this charming and amiable attention concealed that disquietude which internally preyed upon her, and which it was so necessary to conceal from Lord Nelville; though ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... the General entered, she came forward to meet him with the gracious manner which some one had told me was a part, not of her Bland, but of her Fairfax inheritance. "That's a pretty tea-gown you've got on," observed the great man, in the playful tone in which he might have remarked to a baby that it was wearing a beautiful bib. "You haven't been paying much attention to fripperies of late, Ben tells me. Have you seen any hats? I don't know anything better for a woman's low spirits, my dear, than ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... of trees, at the distance of a few paces from the river. This walk was in the evening a favorite resort of the Pompeians, but during the heat and business of the day was seldom visited, save by some groups of playful children, some meditative poet, or some disputative philosophers. At the side farthest from the river, frequent copses of box interspersed the more delicate and evanescent foliage, and these were cut into a thousand quaint ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... cried that young woman, with the air of a playful potentate who has requested a favoured courtier to drop the ceremonious "Your Majesty" ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... daintiest red and white suit that could be imagined, skirted and stockinged, with her curls escaping from a coquettish red handkerchief, timorously advancing and drawing back from the wave rush with little, appealing cries, was as fascinating as a playful kitten. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... offers the best medium to convey the abstractions of the mind, since each has its own method of expression, independent of pure reason. But painter and poet, in the degree they attain greatness, express more than themselves. Ariosto, intent only to amuse, reflects with playful wit and skepticism the splendid luxury and joy of living in Renaissance court life. The care with which he chiselled each line proves that his real seriousness and conscience lay in his artistic purpose. Without Ariosto's wit, Paolo Veronese depicted a similar ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... his tone playful, but there was a something sharp and aggressive in his manner, at which she colored slightly, no less than ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... into vermeil dyes, And melts them later into twilight dews, Shedding on flowers the baptism of the skies; So glows the Ideal in the air we breathe, So from the fumes of sorrow and of sin, Doth its warm light in rosy colours wreathe Its playful ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... act in subduing them. They were all thoroughly at home and perfectly contented now, and Phil had chained the last one down, except the baby elephant, that usually was left free to do as it pleased, providing it did not get too playful. ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... I played a couple of games recently with a wide faced young man who grew very playful and threw the parlor furniture at me because I trumpeted his ace. I fancy I must have did wrong. The fifth time I trumpeted his ace the young man arose, put on his gum shoes, and skeedaddled out of the house. Is it not considered a breach ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh
... this toast in a graceful and playful strain. In the former part of the evening, in reply to a toast on the chancery department, Vice-Chancellor Wood, who spoke in the absence of the Lord Chancellor, made a sort of defence of the Court of Chancery, not distinctly alluding to Bleak House, but evidently not without reference to it. The ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... operations upon his farm. Almost every thing that he did was for some purpose of convenience and utility, and he himself undertook nothing more than was necessary to secure the useful end. But his kind and playful co-operator, nature, would always take up the work where he left it, and begin at once to beautify it with her rich and luxuriant verdure. For example, as soon as the fires went out over the clearing, she began, with ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... the actress said disgustedly. "You are clumsy, Philadelphus, when you are playful. If this is all, I shall ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... much; I look, listen, think and write. My most intimate friends are men of more insight, quicker wit, more playful fancy and, in all ways, abler men than I am, but you will find ten of them for one of me. I note what they say, think it over, adapt it and give it permanent form. They throw good things off as sparks; ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... he was a great man among the ladies (question, what sort of ladies?). He was a great puppy, and when he passed the mids he regarded them with an air of patronage, which they returned by a look of sovereign contempt. The second lieutenant of marines was quite a different character. He was as playful as a kitten, and never happier than when skylarking with the mids in the cockpit. He was not a bad soldier, and a promising officer. When at sea he always worked the ship's reckoning for his amusement. The mids, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... who took up his residence in the stomach and regulated the whole affair; while others still would make it out to be a chemical operation, and thus constitute the stomach a sort of laboratory. But to all these ridiculous hypotheses Sir John Hunter has applied the following playful language: "Some will have it that the stomach is a mill; others that it is a fermenting vat; and others that it is a stewpan; but in my view of the matter, it is neither a mill, a fermenting vat, nor a stewpan, but ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... sting. Not that she would have listened to any such hypothesis. O no—for wasn't she saying all the time that such thoughts of the future were improper, and wasn't Gabriel far too poor a man to speak sentiment to her? Yet he might have just hinted about that old love of his, and asked, in a playful off-hand way, if he might speak of it. It would have seemed pretty and sweet, if no more; and then she would have shown how kind and inoffensive a woman's "No" can sometimes be. But to give such cool advice—the very advice she had asked for—it ruffled ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... the next place, be turned into blandishments; her vehement upbraidings into gentle murmuring—how dare you, traitor!—into how could you, dearest! She will draw you to her, instead of pushing you from her: no longer, with unsheathed claws, will she resist you; but, like a pretty, playful, wanton kitten, with gentle paws, and concealed talons, tap your cheek, and with intermingled smiles, and tears, and caresses, implore your consideration for her, and your constancy: all the favour she then has to ask of you!—And this is the time, were it given to man to confine himself to one ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the capting of the Kickin Warier. "Wilyim got a little owly the tother day, and got to prancin around town on that old white mare of his'n, and bein in a playful mood, he rid up in front of the Court 'us whar old Judge Perkins was a holdin Court, and let drive his rifle at him. The bullet didn't hit the Judge at all; it only jes whizzed parst his left ear, lodgin in the wall behind him; but what d'ye spose the ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... fascinating playful ways, whose ringlets were once as pretty as yours, ma'am. I have visited her in her home several times this week—you were always out—I thank you for that! I was alone with her, and ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... and lank—martial ardour gave him no time to attend to the fripperies of the coxcomb. These are but small particulars, but such are very important in the character of a great man. With his hair curled, he was jocular, even playful; with it lank, he was a great disciplinarian—had military subordination strong in respect—and the birch gyrated freely; but when he was full blown in powder, he was unbearable,—there was then combined all the severity of the soldier and the dogmatism of the pedagogue, with ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... took from his young hostess's heart the weight that he had put there the previous evening by his mocking and contemptuous manner. He let himself go, spoke after his own manner, and gave up the jesting, playful tone which he always had ready for women. She listened to him with silent attention, no matter what he talked about. The wide leaps his mind took did not seem to weary her in the following. To his astonishment, she did not yawn once. "She must be very much in love," ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... American Review for March, 1913, edited by Colonel George Harvey, the original Wilson man, who had mentioned Wilson as a Presidential possibility back in 1904, when such a suggestion was regarded as only a playful eccentricity, who had begun to work hard for him in 1911, and who had finally been asked by Wilson himself to give up his activity because the connection of one of Harvey's magazines with J. P. Morgan & Co. was hurting ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... half playful, half mocking words came back to her with foreboding. Was he indeed only a phantom lover? Just a creation of her own brain and desire? She tried to thrust the thought from her; she was tired and fanciful; in the morning she would be all right; it was not fair to him, ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... stationed at their tasks throughout the long apartment, telling them to wait for the show till it should pass by the shop, and not think to imitate their master in all his ways—saying these things in a half earnest and half playful manner—we crossed the street, and soon reached the level roof, well protected by a marble breastwork, of the building he had ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... might be seen to be an original in his way, and all the springs of his life were kept oiled by a quiet humor, which sometimes broke out in playful sparkles, despite the gravity of the pulpit and the awfulness of the cocked hat. He had a placid way of amusing himself with the quaint and picturesque side of life, as it appeared in all his visitings among a very primitive, yet very ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... this book deal in like manner, from the point of view of a good-natured Tory of Queen Anne's time, with the feuds of the day between Church and Dissent. Other chapters unite with this topic a playful account of another chief political event of the time—the negotiation leading to the Act of Union between England and Scotland, which received the Royal Assent on the 6th of March, 1707; John Bull then consented to receive his "Sister Peg" into his house. The Church, of course, ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... that Maria had given to Mr. Delafield to continue where she left him, until her return, she expressed no surprise at not finding him in the room. The countenance of this young lady exhibited a droll mixture of playful mirth and sadness; she glanced her eyes once around the apartment, and perceiving it was occupied only by her friend, she ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... hold that armed giant law beneath my feet in leading-strings, and see it struggle with fruitless efforts against the sacred power of majesty! To tame the stubborn passions of the people, and curb them with a playful rein, as a skilful horseman guides the fiery steed! With a breath—one single breath—to quell the rising pride of vassals, whilst the prince, with the motion of his sceptre, can embody even his wildest ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... up to be raffled off again for the good of the cause. And none of that moonlight loitering along shaded streets for him, where the dirk is so often drove stealthily between a man's ribs, and him thinking all the time he's only indulging in a little playful nonsense. Often as not he'd take two girls at once, where all could be merry without danger ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... of opinion, that eggs would be of more importance to himself and Betts, than hog's flesh. Then there was the goat; she would soon cease to be of any use at all, and green food was not to be had for her. A little hay, however, remained; and Mark was fully determined that Kitty, as the playful little thing was called, should live at least as long as that lasted. She was fortunate in being content with a nourishment that no ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... P for Playful. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. You will want to do something other than play, of course. You will have some home responsibilities, but sandwiched in with the work may there be a ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright
... it had surrounded the meagre little space that they had cleared and had now outflanked them. Their own manoeuvre had been turned against them. There was but one way to run, straight down the hill with the fire roaring and panting after them. It was a playful, tricky monster that cackled gleefully behind them, laughing ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... silently, bending her face over the fountain, and dropping amidst its playful spray the leaves of a rose which she had abstractedly ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... passed. The men still talked. I was tantalized by the crying of the penguins, and by the whale, evidently playful, which came so close that it spouted and splashed a biscuit-toss away. I saw Mr. Pike's head turn at the sound; he glanced squarely in my direction, but did not see me. Then he returned to listening to the mumble ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... upon his back and fairly wallowed at my feet; jumped up and sprang upon me, rolling me upon the ground by his great weight; then wriggling and squirming around me like a playful puppy presenting its back for the petting it craves. I could not resist the ludicrousness of the spectacle, and holding my sides I rocked back and forth in the first laughter which had passed my lips in many days; the ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to Rod's excitement. Each of those minutes brought the old warrior nearer his game. Seldom, thought Rod, had such a scene been unfolded to the eyes of a white boy. The complete picture—the playful rompings of the dumb children of the wilderness; the stealthy approach of the old Indian; every rock, every tree that was to play its part—all were revealed to their eyes. Not a phase in this drama in wild life escaped them. Five minutes, ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... toiling down in the town with wood and with timber as his father and grandfather did every day of their lives. He was a strong and healthy little fellow, fed on the free mountain-air, and he was very happy, and loved his family devotedly, and was as active as a squirrel and as playful as a hare; but he kept his thoughts to himself, and some of them went a very long way for a little boy who was only one among many, and to whom nobody had ever paid any attention except to teach him his letters and tell him to fear God. August in winter was only a little, hungry ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... replied Heywood, curtly. "These playful little animals get first notice. You're not the ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... to wish it, Mr. Sharp—" Eve glanced her playful eye up at him as she pronounced the name—"I will be as credulous as a believer in animal magnetism: and that, I fancy, is pushing credulity to the verge of reason. It is now settled between us, that you do conceive it an honour to be an American, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... village school, Wedded a maid of homespun habit; He was stubborn as a mule, She was playful ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... burla, a joke, fun, playful trick), a form of the comic in art, consisting broadly in an imitation of a work of art with the object of exciting laughter, by distortion or exaggeration, by turning, for example, the highly rhetorical ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... tonga, I hired saddle horses—not without considerable difficulty—and evening had arrived when we started to descend from Mure, which is at an altitude of 5,000 feet. This stage of our journey had nothing playful in it. The road was torn in deep ruts by the late rains, darkness came upon us and our horses rather guessed than saw their way. When night had completely set in, a tempestuous rain surprised us in the open country, and, owing to the thick ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... looked upon these conflicts as merely playful; and so I fancy most of them were. But this time the bulls seemed to be in earnest. The loud cracking of their helmet-covered foreheads against each other, their fierce snorting and bellowing, and, above all, their angry ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... most playful one of the pack," said Emett, and then he placed the limp, bloody body in a crack, and laid several slabs of ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... man who committed robbery, arson and murder to his own violin accompaniment—only wretched! What next, I wonder? When modern philanthropy begins to apologize for Nero, modern philanthropy has arrived at a pretty pass indeed! We shall hear next that Bloody Queen Mary was as playful as a kitten; and if poor dear Henry the Eighth carried anything to an extreme, it was the practice of the domestic virtues. Ah, how I hate cant! What were we talking about just now? You wander from the subject, Julian; you are what I call bird-witted. ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... Mistress Alice, that you were a heroine, and would have been ready to gird on my sword and bid me go forth and fight in a noble cause," said Stephen, in a half playful, half serious tone. ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... the orator? Where's Lebedeff? Has he finished? What did he talk about? Is it true, prince, that you once declared that 'beauty would save the world'? Great Heaven! The prince says that beauty saves the world! And I declare that he only has such playful ideas because he's in love! Gentlemen, the prince is in love. I guessed it the moment he came in. Don't blush, prince; you make me sorry for you. What beauty saves the world? Colia told me that you are a zealous Christian; is it so? Colia says you ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... nervous young woman in 'Excelsior,'" David Linton said, with a laugh. "Cheer up, my girl—there's no need to worry about Monarch and me. He's only playful; hasn't an atom of vice, and I know him very well by now. I never put my leg over ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... they reached the town. By no pressure would she ride up the street with him. "That's the right of another woman," she said, with playful malice, as she put on her pattens. "I wonder what you are thinking of! Thank you for the lift in ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... lion at first looks at them very calmly, and very often wags his tail as if in a playful humour; but when they approach nearer, he growls, as if to warn them off. Then, as they continue to approach, he gradually draws up his hind-legs under his body, ready for a spring at them as soon as they ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... those little creatures always are, and so gentle and playful that it became a great favorite. Following the different members of the family about, it was caressed and welcomed everywhere. One morning, after gamboling about as usual, until weary, it threw itself down in the sunshine, ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... playful glance at his new profession of politician: he spoke half-playfully. Was it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and somewhat playful character this story recalls the insipid statues of the fourteenth century, it has justly become celebrated, its spirit is thoroughly Franciscan; that transcendent idealism, which sees in perfection and joy two equivalent ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... pay the sum he would be striking a blow for the liberty of the subject, he manfully held out against what he considered an unjust punishment for such diminutive frivolities as he had indulged in." . . . At times incidents of a disturbing and playful nature have roused the wrath of the Chairman and Secretary to a pitch awful to behold. At one time Mr. H. (a member who soon resigned) spent a considerable part of a meeting under the table, till he found himself used as a public footstool and a doormat combined. At another as ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... derby. Galusha, crouching behind the tomb, had been holding it fast to his head with one hand. Now, startled by Pulcifer's statement that he had seen Miss Hallett, he let go his hold. And a playful gust lifted the hat from his head, whirled it like an aerial teetotum and sent it rolling and tumbling to the feet of the ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... lent to her exceedingly well-bred diction quite a charm, and she was playful and adoring enough to pinch each cheek of her brother's as she tiptoed to ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... His manner expressed a playful and reproachful affection. Their eyes met. Hester tried hard to maintain her antagonism, and he was well aware that he was but imperfectly able to gauge the conflict of forces in her mind. He resumed his pleading with her—tenderly—urgently. And at last she gave way, at least apparently. She allowed ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... (201), opposite the Temple, has been immortalised by Tennyson as thoroughly as the "Devil" was by Ben Jonson. The playful verses inspired by a pint of generous port ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... carpet in her dressing-room disarranged, and had inquired into the mystery of the secret passage. She chid Miss Alicia in a playful, laughing way, for her boldness in introducing two great men ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... literary and critical power. Balzac had enormous respect for her intellect, and references to the splendid "analytical" forehead, which must have been a striking feature in her face, occur as often in his letters as admiring allusions to her pretty dimpled hands, or playful jokes about her droll French pronunciation. Her miniature by Daffinger,[*] taken in the prime of her beauty, gives an idea of great energy, strength of will, and intelligence. She is dark, with a decided mouth, and rather thick lips as red as a child's. Her hair is black, and is plainly ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... joking," Timothy Turtle told him. "You mustn't mind my playful ways. Just make me a coat and I'll ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... yonder hill the village murmur rose. There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came softened from below; The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young, The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school, The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind,— These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And filled each pause ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... hardened nature which can be unmoved by the soft touch, the playful childishness, and the hundred ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... separated. Mrs. Hertz belongs to the Harrison school of Positivists. I went with her to one of Mrs. Orr's receptions, where we met Robert Browning, a fine-looking man of seventy years, with white hair and mustache. He was frank, easy, playful, and brilliant in conversation. Mrs. Orr seemed to be taking a very pessimistic view of our present sphere of action, which Mr. Browning, with poetic coloring, was trying ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... full of hairpins, and she mumbled something he did not understand. He kept his arms about her insistently, and rubbed his chin on her smooth shoulder with a little laugh. She struggled to free herself, but he held her teasingly, and finally accepting the playful tussle as an apology, though she knew it was not an adequate one, she gave up. She was resolved not to split hairs with her husband over small matters; she ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... a smile she slipped up to Alene and gave her what on the surface seemed a playful pinch on the arm but Alene drew back with a rueful glance while tears of pain came into her eyes, and when she thought herself unobserved she pulled up her sleeve and found a great bruised spot already getting black ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... all arrayed in our best, and our bravest; like strips of blue sky, lay the pure blue collars of our frocks upon our shoulders; and our pumps were so springy and playful, that we danced up ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... valley, centuries ago, Grew a little fern-leaf, green and slender, Veining delicate and fibres tender; Waving when the wind crept down so low. Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it, Playful sunbeams darted in and found it, Drops of dew stole in by night, and crowned it, But no foot of man e'er trod that way; Earth was young, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... parted with, which was agreed to. Emma and John took possession of their pets, and fed them with milk, and in a few days they became very tame; one being chained up near the house, and the other at Malachi's lodge. They soon grew very playful and very amusing little animals, and the dogs became used to them, and never attempted to hurt them; indeed, very often Oscar and the bear would be seen rolling about together, the best friends in the world. But in a few months they became too large for pets, and too troublesome, so one was ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat |
