"Vivacious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... servant in the room gathering the tea-cups; but Lady Betty Stafford, having been brought up in the purple, was not to be deterred from speaking her mind by a servant. Her cousin was either more prudent or less vivacious; he did not answer on the instant, but stood looking through one of the windows at the leafless trees and slow-dropping rain in the Mall, and only turned when Lady Betty ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... last time, every detail of that rugged countenance was as fresh in his memory as it was at that moment in the Cafe de l'Ecole. As for Danton, all unconscious of the young American's scrutiny, his gaze was bent upon the pretty, vivacious little beauty who sat behind the caisse, and had so lately become Madame Danton. As he looked, the harsh features softened and a sentimental expression came into the keen eyes. "'Tis the same conquered, slavish look the ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... to be 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 than ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... disturb her, dear Mr. Embury," begged the vivacious Fifi; "she's out for blood! She's in the den, with three of our wizards ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... from the window and lit the lamp, and, wheeling round, held up the light to a photograph, and studied it with a pleased face. It was the portrait of a pretty girl, very sweetly grave, and looking as if it could be very sweetly vivacious. When he had looked at it for a longish time he nodded and smiled, as if the pictured lips had actually spoken to him. There was a tumbler standing beside the photograph with a bunch of hothouse flowers in it, the one bright spot of ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... 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 from my mind every thought of travel or foreign experiences. Without the ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... London, and applied himself diligently to his business. An occasional visit to Lichfield, and a correspondence that he maintained with Miss Seward, served to keep his flame sufficiently alive. His letters are vivacious and characteristic, and the pen-and-ink drawings with which his text was embellished gave them additional interest. Here is a specimen of them. It will be noted, that, according to the sentimental fashion of the day, his correspondent must be called ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... contrast than that between these two young women at this moment. Clemence, lying upon her bed motionless and white as the sheet which covered her, resembled Juliet sleeping in her tomb; Aline, rosy, vivacious, and more petulant than usual, looked very much the madcap Mademoiselle de Corandeuil had reproached her with being. Her face was full of that still childish grace, more lovely than calm, more pleasing than impressive, ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... the people, or who, speaking of politics, tell us of the current situation. Excessive laughter, jokes, and violent gestures are not permitted. Every one keeps his limbs quiet, even avoiding those vivacious and inoffensive gestures which are the natural accompaniment of conversation; the tone of voice is so modulated as to be scarcely audible. The ancient preacher would say, "These people have carried ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... his best verse is its ease and heartiness; this singer's gift lies in the almost personal bond established between the poet and his public. People have such a good time reading his vivacious lines because Noyes had such a good time writing them. Rhyme in a thumping rhythm seems to be not merely his trade but his morning exercise. Noyes's own relish filled and quickened glees and catches like Forty Singing Seamen (1907), the lusty choruses in Tales of the Mermaid Tavern ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... The steed trained for Elis never bore in its proportions the evidence of blood and rare breeding more visibly than the dark brilliant eye of this young man, his broad low transparent brow, expanded nostril and sensitive lip, revealed the passionate and somewhat arrogant character of the vivacious Greek of ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... the occasions when I had to fly to Copenhagen it was Winifred and not General Thario who met me at the airport. "General T is so upset," she explained in her vivacious way, "that I had to come instead. But perhaps I should ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... analysis was so objective that it resulted in a painting closely approaching European standards. The taste expressed in landscape was likewise evident in figures. There were brilliant and harmonious colors, a charm which became exquisite in the coquettish and vivacious faces of women with ivory skin and brilliant eyes, of graceful movements, and with long, slender, delicate hands, incarnations of the fairies of ancient legend or historic beauties whose memory ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci
... his way to a ranch, a New York physician and his daughter Nancy, a Canadian of English descent, and a young French-Canadian studying law are the chief characters of this charming summer novel, abounding in bright and interesting conversations. This pleasing story of the love affairs of vivacious Nancy, the heroine, has for a background the many places of interest in and ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... couples are not expected to engage in any sort of formal social activity. Avoid expensive dinner parties and substitute informal gatherings where both the preparation and the cost of food will be slight. If you are original and vivacious hosts, your guests will have ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... a pleasurable palpitation as she walked with her hostess across the little entry to the door of the drawing-room, where her eyes encountered an inviting and vivacious scene. Some ten or a dozen guests, laughing and talking gayly, filled the spaces between the furniture; an upright piano was embedded in a corner, and the lady who had just executed the waltz had swung around on the stool, and was smiling up at a man who stood beside her with his hand in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was, every inch an empress. Her figure was perfect, her carriage quick and graceful, and she lacked nothing physically to make her a splendid type of womanhood and ruler. Her features were more vivacious and pleasing than they were really beautiful; her complexion was of an olive tint, and her face illumined by orbs of jet half hidden by dark lashes, behind which lurked the smiles of favour or ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... receipts and expenditure, together with the corresponding cash, had been due at two o'clock, and despite the paralytic stroke it was less than a quarter of an hour late. On one side of the bag and the book were ranged the older women,—Mrs. Lessways, thin and vivacious, and Mrs. Grant, large and solemn; and on the other side, as it were in opposition, the young, dark, slim girl with her rather wiry black hair, and her straight, prominent eyebrows, and her extraordinary expression ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... are 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 do not require to be ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... instantly looked vivacious and almost smart. But an undecided expression came into ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... murmur of laughter—half actual and half suggested—with which she underlined the conversation, became loud and clear, as she allowed her vivacious glance to strike straight into his upturned ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... 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
... small. Pictures, vignettes, sketches, epigrams will survive rather than elaborate works of art; these gems of wit and fancy will have to be picked out of a mass of rubbish; and they will be enjoyed for their vivacious originality and Voltairean pungency, not as masterpieces or complete creations. That Disraeli wrote much stuff is true enough. But so did Fielding, so did Swift, and Defoe, and Goldsmith. Writers are to be judged by their best; and it does not matter so very much if that best is little ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... time I saw 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 fixed eye and ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... the same time manifesting disapproval of her by a fine reserve. Amelia felt herself scanned quietly, coldly, and half curiously, as if she belonged to some strange and hitherto unknown type, and her vivacious egotism began to fail her. She was much relieved therefore when Mildred excused herself and went to her room, for careless, light-hearted, and somewhat giddy Belle imposed no restraint. Roger, however, did not recover himself, for he saw that he had made a false step in his effort to win ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... or stolen, from Herr Schaackhofer's Grand Museum, the celebrated Patagonian Giant, Ugolulah. Height 8 ft. 2 in., elegant figure, handsome, intelligent features, sprightly and vivacious in conversation, of engaging address, temperate in diet, harmless and tractable in disposition. Answers to the nickname of Fritz Sneddeker. Any one returning him to Herr Schaackhofer will receive Seven Thalers Reward, and no ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... gracious Englishman, in whose veins circulates the vivacious blood of France! Another glass? A bas!—the bottle is empty! Never mind! Vive le vin! I, the old soldier, order another bottle, and half a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... hands behind him, glancing downward with cold gray eyes, but not in the least degree inclining his stately head to listen to Lady Laura Armstrong, who was seated on a sofa near him, fanning herself and prattling gaily after her usual vivacious manner. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... proportioned and graceful. Her features were regular and expressive, and her complexion was very delicate; yet it has retained its freshness until now, instead of fading, as is the case with most clear, soft complexions. She was then, and is still, a beautiful woman. She was very vivacious and witty, was fond of society, and cared less for domestic pursuits than to have a gay time in a large company. She was petted and indulged a great deal, being the youngest and a beauty, so that she was not often called upon to practice self-denial. It is ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... parlor where the mellow candle light shone softly on the harp and on an old-fashioned picture which hung above it. It was an oil painting, a portrait of a young girl in a short-waisted white satin dress, clasping in her hands a red rose. The face was small and vivacious, and the bright brown eyes seemed to look straight into the eyes of the girls as they stood before ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... concentration of light, and the art of composing a picture are not understood in old Persian paintings, and the result is that it is most difficult to see a picture as an ensemble. The eye roams all over the painting, attracted here by a patch of brilliant yellow, there by another equally vivacious red, here by some bright detail, there by something else; and like so many ghosts in a haunted room peep out the huge, black, almond-shaped eyes, black-bearded heads, all over the picture, standing like prominent patches out of the plane ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... which displayed the tables in a lower rosy light. It helped to extend the mysterious and romantic shadows. The pale, disembodied masks of the waiters swam in the dusk above the tinted light. I had for a companion a vivacious American lady from the Middle West, and she looked round that prospect we had of an expensive cafe, and said, "Well, but I am disappointed. Why, I've been looking forward to seeing the ocean, you ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... the conduct of Eaglenose, who also accompanied the hunting expedition. That vivacious youth, breaking through all the customs and peculiarities of Red Indian etiquette, frequently during the journey came and talked with Moonlight, and seemed to take special ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... had gone Mr. Skidder got very busy erasing the tall, black-haired heroine from his latest (unproduced) play and inserting a small, roguish one with heavy, bright hair and vivacious features. ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... he encountered the proprietress herself. She was a large woman whose hands, feet, and features seemed to swim towards him out of a sea of person. They emerged, so to speak. But she had great dark, vivacious eyes that counteracted the bulk of her body, and betrayed the fact that in reality she was both vigorous and alert. When he first caught sight of her she was knitting in a low chair against the sunlight ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... de 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 it must ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... the circumstance subconsciously, at a moment when Miss Calendar's hand, small as a child's, warm and compact in its white glove, lay in his own. And then she was on the sidewalk, her face, upturned to his, vivacious with excitement. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... such as he never before had experienced. In his first impression of this charming girl he made one slight mistake. He divined at once that the man by whom she was accompanied, who had gray hair, a broad, open brow, vivacious eyes, shaded by beautiful, heavy eye-brows, belonged to some learned fraternity; but he imagined that this individual with a white cravat, who had evidently preserved his freshness of heart, although past sixty years of age, was the fortunate suitor ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... Curzons arrived, and a hasty glance showed me that Phyllis was a charming girl. She was tall, slightly built, with a figure both upright and graceful, and a handsome, somewhat proud face. When in perfect repose her expression was somewhat haughty; but the moment she spoke her face became vivacious, kindly, charming to an extraordinary degree; she had a gay laugh, a sweet smile, a sympathetic manner. I was certain she had the kindest of hearts, and was sure that Allen ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... from dry land, and the men and boys at once tumbled over the edge and prepared to carry not only the luggage, but the female passengers ashore. Alden seeing this prospect, tore off his boots and stockings, and plunging into the chill water hastened to the stern of the boat where a slender, vivacious girl, brown, dark-eyed, and with cheeks glowing with the dusky richness of a peach, stood balancing herself like a bird and giving orders to a young man ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... street. Such—quite apart from his sprightly past—was Christopher Foy, who now entered with Creagan. He was about thirty, above middle height, every mold and line of him slender and fine and strong. His face was resolute, vivacious, intelligent; his eyes were large and brown, pleasant and fearless. A wide black hat, pushed back now, showed a broad forehead white against crisp coal-black hair and the pleasant tan of neck and cheek. But ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... Isabel seemed to feel sovereign contempt, properly repressed by politeness, for what, in a low whisper to a female friend on the other side of her, she called, 'the self-sufficient inanity of this sad coxcomb.' Other coxcombs, of a more vivacious style, who stationed themselves round her mother, or to whom her mother stretched from box to box to talk, seemed to engage no more of Lady Isabel's attention than just what she was compelled to give by Lady Dashfort's ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... in all: Spirits vivacious, with longings that spur them, Depths full of song, with billows that stir them, Folk of the fjord and the ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... as our text this morning," announced the absent-minded clergyman, consulting his memorandum, "the sixth and seventh verses of the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs." Never suspecting that his vivacious son and heir had found the memorandum in his study on the previous night, and, knowing that his papa had composed a sermon celebrating the increased severity of dry law enforcement, had diabolically changed ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... perch. The keeper told me that for a week his charge had barely eaten. It slept with the mirror held tightly in its paws. Now, what did the mirror mean to the animal! I believe"—here she became very vivacious—"I really believe that it was developing self-consciousness, and in time it would become human. On our way back from Heligoland, where we were entertained on the emperor's yacht at the naval manoeuvres, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... England and admiration of her ways, shooting at Sandringham, competing at Cowes, sending telegrams of congratulation to the University boat-race winners, ingratiating himself with all he met by his social gifts, his vivacious conversation, his prodigious ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... to come," said the vivacious little hostess, as she took Patty and Marie to their ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... which marriage had brought to this maiden of Murano; but he could not help thinking how easily she wore her honors, and how she graced them; all Venice was at her feet, and she preferred the dull talk of a few ecclesiastics to the vivacious gallantry of the brilliant young nobles who thronged her salons—the more anxious to please this queen of the day, that their efforts won only the dignified and gracious, yet reserved, recognition that was extended to all her guests alike. She was the very reverse of Venetian in character ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... was not to be confided in. Lively enough, and playful she was, but on that very account the more to be distrusted. Who knew, but that like some vivacious old mortal all at once sinking into a decline, she might, some dark night, spring a leak and carry us all to the bottom. However, she played us no such ugly trick, and therefore, I wrong ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... a minute register of my business in every detail of culture, expenses, and produce, and an accurate comparison of the old and new husbandry.'[440] It is said that though he really understood the theory and practice of farming he failed utterly in small economies. He was also far too vivacious and fond of society for the monotonous work of the plain farmer. At the same time his failures gave his observant mind a clear insight into the principles of agriculture. He was indefatigable in inquiries, researches, and experiments; ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... Alligators were common on most parts of the coast; in some places we also saw small herds of Capybaras (a large Rodent animal, like a colossal Guinea-pig) among the rank herbage on muddy banks, and now and then flocks of the graceful squirrel monkey (Chrysothrix sciureus), while the vivacious Caiarara (Cebus albifrons) were seen taking flying leaps from tree to tree. On the 22nd, we passed the mouth of the most easterly of the numerous channels which lead to the large interior lake of Saraca, and on the 23rd ,threaded a series of passages between islands, where ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... afternoon. The beauty of even the most beautiful woman ebbs and flows from hour to hour. Nella's this afternoon was at the flood. Vivacious, alert, imperious, and yet ineffably sweet, she seemed to radiate the very ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... the same air of bright prosperity in the glowing and vivacious light of the fine and tasteful shops. They are good shops, and their windows are displayed with an artistry that one finds is characteristic throughout Canada. They offer the latest and smartest ideas in blouses and gowns, jewellery and boots and ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... 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 the complimentary assurance that he could light ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... evade the civilities and importunities of those who were stopping at the hotel, or who came there to waylay him at the entrance, or to encounter him in the restaurant. He could not always refuse to sit down at tables when attractively-dressed and vivacious women made room for him, or to linger over cigars and wine with their husbands and escorts ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... Command of the tongue is a valuable accomplishment to cultivate. Many a young girl is actually fidgety, because she thinks to be a success she must be "full of life" and always "on the go." She wants to be bright and vivacious. If such is her temperament and her vivaciousness comes spontaneously it is perhaps attractive, though it is ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... impression on my mind, and I really lived in this faith until some years ago it happened upon a stormy night I was kindly escorted from a bleak railway station to the little out-of- the-way town it represented by a sprightly and vivacious newsman, to whom I propounded, as we went along under my umbrella—he being most excellent company—this old question, what was the one all- absorbing passion of the human soul? He replied, without the slightest ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... The short, 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 ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... stay. Mr. Jacks," she explained to Gertie, "is naturally attracted to his club, not only because he finds there all the latest news concerning his profession, but because it gives him an opportunity of coming into contact with other bright, vivacious spirits." She took Gertie's coat and hat. "Perhaps we can get him to tell us some ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... two predecessors in being morally pure, and benevolent in his feelings; but he was of a dull mind, void of energy, and with an obstinacy of character that did not supply the place of an enlightened firmness. He had married (1770) Marie Antoinette, the daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa. The vivacious young queen, as well as the youthful king, at first charmed the people. But her disregard of court etiquette, and her gay, impulsive ways, provoked the dislike of many high in station, and exposed her to the natural but unmerited suspicion, on the part ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... is well made, rather tall than otherwise. His hair is long, his beard thin, his colour brass-like, yet sometimes inclining to European whiteness; his eye expanded and vivacious, somewhat a la Chinoise; nose large; and, true to the Malay race, his cheek bones are high and prominent. He is passionately fond of dancing and music; is, when in love, very loving; cruel towards his enemies; never forgives an act of injustice, and ever avenges it with ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... vivacious girl, perhaps a year or more older than Ruth, and really handsome, having her brother's olive complexion with plenty of color in cheeks and lips. And that her nature was impulsive and frank there could be no doubt, for she immediately leaped out of the automobile, when it had stopped, ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... the average height, weighing about a hundred and thirty pounds. She was rather compactly built, had a well rounded face, rich dark-brown hair, and bluish-gray eyes. In her bearing she was proud, but handsome and vivacious; she was a good conversationalist, using with equal fluency the French ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... long-settle and folding her hands in her apron took a long look at her visitors through a pair of unusually large spectacles. And Brereton, genuinely interested, took an equally long look at her; and saw a woman who was obviously very old but whose face was eager, intelligent, and even vivacious. As this queer old face turned from one to the other, its wrinkles smoothed ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... Poet had not been Vivacious, as well as Stupid, he could [not,] in the Warmth and Hurry of Nonsense, [have] been capable of forgetting that neither Prince Voltager, nor his Grandfather, could strip a Naked Man of his Doublet; but a Fool of a colder ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... submission to her mother's will was consideration for her brother and his career. For while for her father she cherished an affectionate pride and for her mother an amused and protective pity, her great passion was for her brother—her handsome, vivacious, audacious and mercurial brother, Tony. With him she counted it only joy to share her all too meagre wages whenever he found himself in financial straits. And a not infrequent situation this was with Tony, who, while he seemed to have inherited from his mother the vivacity, ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... never finished, to show that his accomplishments in oil painting were of a very high order indeed. I need only refer to the famous head in the National Gallery known as The Shrimp Girl to explain what I mean. In this surprisingly vivacious and charming sketch we see something that is not inferior to Hals, in its broad truth and its quick seizure of the essentials of what had to be rendered. In another unfinished piece, which is now in the South London Art Gallery at Camberwell, we see the same ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... mountain camp-experience of the merry family, the captain, his daughters, the vivacious Rob, and the irrepressible ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... was in arms undaunted next day. Her leap of sixty feet from the 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 ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... of water; and doubtless many days which he could spare from the instruction of youth at St. Edmund's Bury were spent about the London streets, of the sights and sounds of which he has left us so vivacious a record—a kind of farcical supplement to the "Prologue" of the "Canterbury Tales." His literary career, part of which certainly belongs to the reign of Henry V, has some resemblance to Chaucer's, though it ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... 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 ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... to appear in the society columns; but not so veiled that they could not be recognized. "A romance is developing between a noble lord, who served in the ranks during the war, and a vivacious beauty, three times widowed, well-known in fashionable circles, etc." One paper published a photograph of them riding side by side. After that sceptics who had not seen for themselves, ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... have got their bright uniforms of yellow and black, the courting begins. All the goldfinches of a neighborhood collect together and hold a sort of musical festival. To the number of many dozens they may be seen in some large tree, all singing and calling in the most joyous and vivacious manner. The males sing, and the females chirp and call. Whether there is actual competition on a trial of musical abilities of the males before the females or not, I do not know. The best of feeling seems to pervade the company; there is no sign of quarreling or ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... of no very special characteristics; she leant on Rosamund, admiring her far more vivacious ways and appearance, glad to be in her society, and somewhat indifferent to every one ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... bitterness of the whole day. In the morning I hear him getting up early, at sunrise or before, humming to himself, scuffling about his chamber with his thick boots, and at last taking his departure for a solitary ramble till breakfast. Then he comes in, cheerful and vivacious enough, eats pretty heartily, and is off again, singing French chansons as he goes down the gravel-walk. The poor fellow has nobody to sympathize with him but B———, and thus a singular connection is established between ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wicked!" she said severely, to the infinite amazement of the vivacious Rosine. "You think I would show myself to people half clothed? How is it possible! I would not so disgrace myself! It would bring shame ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... and almost childlike: it exhibits a rapid play of thoughts, and even of emotions: it is both vivacious and refined, both eager and sweet. It would seem as if here were the impossible combination, the ideal union, so often dreamed of by poets and artists, of girlish simplicity and innocence with womanly cleverness ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... himself on 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
... immediate familiarity that sprung up between the Norwegian and ourselves, and showed their cordial acquiescence by shaking us also by the hand. Hurrying through the villagers our new friend led us with triumphant strides and a vivacious air towards his cottage, and calling forth his wife, bade her salute us, which she did with that modest and simple demeanour common to her countrywomen. Gratified that he had so far conduced, as he imagined, to our comfort, the Norwegian would insist on our entering ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... work of 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 spirit ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... powerfully affected Otto's soul; only in one direction had he shown no interest—in the political direction, and it was precisely politics which had most occupied the grandfather in his seclusion. But Otto's soul was too vivacious, too easily moved, too easily carried away by what lay nearest him. "One must first thoroughly enter into life, before the affairs of the world can seize upon us!" said he. "With the greater number of those who in their early youth occupy themselves with politics, it is merely affectation. ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... vivid appreciation of all that is beautiful in art and nature, literature and life. No man in London, I should think, has so many and such devoted friends in every class and station; and those friends acknowledge in him not only the most vivacious and exhilarating of social companions, but one of the moral forces which have done most to quicken their consciences ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... showed me a little picture,—the photograph portrait of his father dressed as a soldier, with the medal for bravery which he had won in 1866, in the troop of Prince Umberto: he had the same face as his son, with the same vivacious eyes ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... 'non omnis moriar,' 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
... squire's house as in the parsonage itself. Although most of his brothers and sisters were too old to be his companions, the group in which his first years were passed was an unusually spirited and vivacious one. Newman, who was one of Hurrell's visitors from Oxford, has described the young girls "blooming and in high spirits," ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... talents to writing of presidents and diplomats and fascinating foreign lands, contributes to our list her first novel, POLLY THE PAGAN, a story of European life and "high society." The story is unfolded in the lively letters of a gay and vivacious American girl traveling in Europe, and tells of the men whom she meets in Paris, in London or Rome, her flirtations (and they are many and varied!) and exciting experiences. Among the letters written to her ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... universal eagerness for political texts and their commentary.... Amid such 'wild uproar' the gentle voice of the Muse is scarcely audible." In these early years of the century literature was wretchedly paid. John Davis, the vivacious English writer of travels, offered, in 1801, two novels to any bookseller in the country who would publish them, on the condition of receiving fifty copies. The booksellers of New York could not, he said, undertake them, for they were dead of the fever. It is interesting to find Dennie ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... was one of affectionate raillery as she gathered her draperies about her in the automobile. The notion of Anna's responsibilities amused her; Anna was so untouched by them—as smooth-skinned, as slim and vivacious, as the forty-year-old mother of two boys entering college, a girl in the schoolroom and another in the nursery, as she had been as ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... seeking the chop-house, wherein the vivacious and tireless youth of the staff were wont to linger over supper, he turned into a side street and betook himself to a small cafe as yet unfrequented by the night-owls of journalism. Seeley was a beaten ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... "That the lad being now wedded to his spiritual bride, it was hard to threaten him with ane temporal spouse in the same day." He then laughed a hoarse and brief laugh, and was suddenly grave and silent, as if abashed at his own vivacious effort. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... glimpses of 'mother' and 'Julia.' I believe I should know the whole family even without this photograph!—The lady sitting in the chair, to whom the photographer's snapshot has not done justice, is worthy of Nancy's praise,—and Bill Harmon's. What a pretty, piquant, curly head Nancy has! What a gay, vivacious, alert, spirited expression. The boy is handsome and gentlemanly, but he'll have to wake up, or Nancy will be the man of the family. The girl sitting down is less attractive. She's Uncle Allan's daughter, ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... as much: at the same time, the unusual melancholy of an in general most vivacious young lady made me wonder at your having acted so precipitately. The lady's heart is yours, if there ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... 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
... meditated upon this conversation, the more enigmatical it appeared that the mother never spoke of missing her only living child—never pined for the sound of her vivacious talk and the sight of her winning ways. Curiosity—her strong love for all children, and a lively interest in Florence and Florence's father, the two who assuredly did feel the separation—got the ascendency over discretion that night, when Rosa, too nervous ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... her hair black, her eyes dark brown, her lips ruby-red, and her nose and chin finely chiselled. She had a cameo-like face and complexion of olive tint that told of the land of vines and figs in sunny Italy. Her step was elastic, her manner vivacious and confiding. Her dress was always tidy and stylish. Usually she carried a roll of music in one hand as she left the conservatory, and lovely flowers in the other that had been expressed either by the ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... so large as San Nicolas, has a greater air of life about it; and in fact we liked it so well, that, as ——- observed, we seemed inclined to consider it, not as a colon, but a full stop. You must not expect more vivacious puns in tierra caliente. We rode back from San Nicolas in the afternoon, accompanied by the proprietor, and had some thoughts of going to Matamoras in the evening, to see the "Barber of Seville" performed by a strolling company in the open air, under a tree! admittance twenty-five ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... general development of human manners of which the stage has been always an element and a very lively measure or index, will be grateful to Mr. Lowe for this revised and charmingly illustrated edition of Dr. Doran's pleasant old book. Three hundred years and more of a singularly varied and vivacious sort of history!—it was a bold thing to undertake; and Dr. Doran did his work well—did it with adequate "love." These Annals of the English Stage, from Thomas Betterton to Edmund [74] Kean, are full of the colours of life in their most emphatic ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... were visited by several friendly Arabs, short and thin, but strong and sinewy people. Their complexion was yellowish-brown, their eyes were small and vivacious. An assumed dignity barely disguised their native vivacity, and their guttural speech reminded us very strongly of the Jews. Their dress consisted of a rough cotton shirt, a white woolen cloak and a red and yellow kerchief, half-silk, which each ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... liberty seemed rather to depress this cheerful and vivacious philosopher, and I wondered what the woman could be from whose companionship the man chose to be protected by jail-bolts. I asked the landlord about her, and his reply was descriptive and sufficient. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... hour or more they sat there, finding conversation easy, strangely interesting to two persons who had nothing whatsoever in common. He was charmed, delighted with this vivacious girl. And yet something mournful seemed to shade the brilliant face now and then. It did not come and go, moreover, for the frank, open beauty was always the same; it was revealed to him only at intervals. Perhaps he saw it in her dark, ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... all glances were riveted, all mouths open; and, in fact, when she danced thus, to the humming of the Basque tambourine, which her two pure, rounded arms raised above her head, slender, frail and vivacious as a wasp, with her corsage of gold without a fold, her variegated gown puffing out, her bare shoulders, her delicate limbs, which her petticoat revealed at times, her black hair, her eyes of flame, she was ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... existence. Stow and Dugdale had recorded the date when a Norman favorite obtained the royal license to "embattle it;" it had done duty on Christmas cards with the questionable snow already referred to laid on thickly in crystal; it had been lovingly portrayed by a fair countrywoman—the vivacious correspondent of the "East Machias Sentinel"—in a combination of the most delightful feminine disregard of facts with the highest feminine respect for titles. It was rich in a real and spiritual estate of tapestries, paintings, armor, legends, and ghosts. Everything ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Mrs. Hannah More in a sensible letter from Mrs. Barbauld, written to Miss Edgeworth about this time, declining to join in an alarming enterprise suggested by the vivacious Mr. Edgeworth, 'a Feminiad, a literary paper to be entirely contributed to by ladies, and where all articles are to be accepted.' 'There is no bond of union,' Mrs. Barbauld says, 'among literary women any more than among ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... 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 ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... and poets seems to render culture superfluous, their rapid intuitions anticipating the tardy conclusions of experience. Her letters are full of spirit: not always strictly grammatical; not irreproachable in orthography; but vigorous and vivacious. After a lengthened interview with her, an enthusiast exclaimed, "Now do I understand how Goethe has become the man he is!" Wieland, Merck, Buerger, Madame de Stael, Karl August, and other great people sought her acquaintance. The Duchess Amalia corresponded ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... my perfect knight; and I will always buy my carpets through you. (Apollodorus bows joyously. An oar appears above the quay; and the boatman, a bullet-headed, vivacious, grinning fellow, burnt almost black by the sun, comes up a flight of steps from the water on the sentinel's right, oar in hand, and waits at the top.) ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... now more or less familiar, but it is one which the Elizabethan Poet and Philosopher became acquainted with under circumstances calculated to make a much more vivid impression on the sensibilities than the most accurate and vivacious narratives and expositions of it which ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... a certain degree of dignity, accompanied though it may be with rags and filth, is always observable in their manners. The alacrity, good nature, and enthusiasm so characteristic of the Germans, and the dexterous play of muscles and vivacious suavity of the French, are wholly deficient in the Russians—such of them, at least, as have retained their nationality. The higher classes, of course, who frequently spend their summers at the watering-places ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... suitable. What prophetic parents! How admirably they kept their heads at the font. The squirrel is very vivacious—is it a brave front, a blind eye or ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... shelves of marble were ranged the vases of wine and oil, and before whose thresholds, seats, protected from the sun by a purple awning, invited the weary to rest and the indolent to lounge—made a scene of such glowing and vivacious excitement, as might well give the Athenian spirit of Glaucus an excuse for ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... quite out of shape with his fists, riddling him with revolver bullets, running him through in all directions with duelling swords, tearing him in pieces with wild horses and hanging him out of his own front window. These vivacious actions all looked possible and delightful to Lushington as he walked up and down his little sitting-room. Then came the cold shower-bath of returning common-sense. He sat down, filled a pipe ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... Boswell have made us so intimately acquainted. A bottle of claret and a game of whist solaced his leisure hours; and these were not numerous: he was constantly to be found in his studio, late at night, hard at work long after his assistants had retired: a vivacious, honest, warm-hearted man, much and justly esteemed by his ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... by purchase 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 ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... and grown people stared lazily at me as I passed, but showed no such alert and vivacious curiosity as a community of Yankees would have done. I turned up a street that led me to the castle, which looked very picturesque close at hand,—more so than at a distance, because the towers and walls have not a sufficiently ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... longish, as I think the head itself was (its 'length' going horizontal); he was large-boned, lean, but still firm-knit, tall, and strong-looking when he stood; a right good old steel-gray figure, with rustic simplicity and dignity about him, and a vivacious strength looking through him which might have suited one of those old steel-gray Markgrafs [Graf Grau,'Steel-gray'] whom Henry the Fowler set up to ward the 'marches,' and do battle with the intrusive heathen, in ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... 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; 'why should it be? The people of Amiens ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... was it her natural instinct?—suffice it to say that Pilar never by any chance alluded in their conversations to her past. She was fond of talking, and talked a great deal, and her conversation was always startling, original and vivacious; her power of imagination as lively as her sparkling eyes, springing from the nearest object to the furthest, from the ordinary to the sublime, but never one word escaped her which might remind Wilhelm that she had gone ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... one of those gentle, kindly-mannered, sweet-dispositioned women with whom one instantly finds oneself on the most friendly and cordial terms, while Miss Lucy with equal celerity revealed herself as a sprightly, high-spirited maiden without a particle of artificiality about her, bright and vivacious of manner, with plenty to say for herself, but at the same time thoroughly sensible. As for Mr Todd, he was, as I have said, a typical Scotsman, but I ought to have added "of the very best sort", for from beneath his superficial businesslike keenness ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... 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 ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... 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 ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... signaled with her sunshade, and hurried through the little gate toward him. He paused, turned, and stood waiting for her. He had not seen her, even at a distance, for nearly a year, and her improved appearance struck him forcibly. Her color was splendid, her eyes were sparkling and vivacious. She was perfectly groomed ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... other thing really mastered her: the fixed idea that Jim must be saved. As it deepened, the other life that she had lived became like the sports in which we shared when children, full of vivacious memory, shining with impulse and the stir of life, but not to be repeated—days and deeds outgrown. So the light of one idea shone in her face. Yet she was intensely human too; and if her eyes had not been set on the greater glory, the other thought ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... rattled in and out of stone-paved villages, along open stretches of moonlit road, past villas and olive groves. Children screamed after them, dogs barked, Constance and her four nuns were very vivacious, and Tony's gloom deepened with ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... or four days, walking much further than he had ever been accustomed to, and his limbs ached sorely—nevertheless, with the sense of rest and relief from strain, came a certain exhilaration of spirit, like the vivacious delight of a boy who has run away from school, and is defiantly ready to take all the consequences of his disobedience to the rules of discipline and order. For years he had wanted a "new" experience ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... news, busily engaged in collecting cosmetics, trinkets, blonde lace, and other female finery, resolved to trick herself out like Jezebel, and win her lord once more; whilst the pernicious old aunt, who still lived on, notwithstanding all those twenty years of patience, as vivacious as before, grumbled and scolded so much at this upsetting of her house, that there was really some risk of her altering the will at last, and cutting out Jane Tracy ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... national character. No philosophy is cheaper or more vulgar than that which traces all history to diversities of ethnological type and blend, and is ever presenting the venal Greek, the perfidious Sicilian, the proud and indolent Spaniard, the economical Swiss, the vain and vivacious Frenchman. But it is certainly true that in France the liberty of the press represents a power that is not familiar to those who know its weakness and its strength, who have had experience of Swift and Bolingbroke and Junius. Maury once said, "We ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... early hour, and, after some conversation with Madame de Lafayette, to whom she declared she was in admirable health, she attended mass, and then went to the room of her daughter, Mademoiselle d'Orleans. She was in glowing spirits, and enlivened the whole company by her vivacious conversation. After calling for a glass of succory water, which she drank, she dined. The party then repaired to the saloon of Monsieur. He was sitting for his portrait. Henrietta, reclining upon a lounge, apparently fell into a doze. Her friends ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... innutrition, emaciation, shortness of breath, palpitation, nervous debility, are all symptoms of this exhaustion. Subsequently, the yellow skin reveals the bones, the sunken eyes are surrounded by a leaden circle, the vivacious imagination becomes dull, the active mind grows insipid—in short, the spring, or vital force, having lost its tension, every function wanes in consequence. Excessive lustful enjoyment produces feebleness, and finally terminates in disease ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... was a good shot with the cross-bow, as well as with the gun, and even learned how to load a cannon. He was hardly less unweariedly devoted to the chase than his father. He could not vie with him in intelligence and knowledge, nor with his deceased brother Henry in vivacious energy and in popularity of disposition; but he had learnt much from his father, at whose feet he loved to sit; and his brother's tastes for the arts and for the experimental sciences, especially the former, had passed to him. In ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... comparing the two; then, having formed her decision, walked rapidly away with the resolute stride of the woman who tears herself regretfully from the artful temptations of the shop-window. As she hurried along, the Marquis de Monpavon, vivacious and superb, with a flower in his buttonhole, saluted her at a distance with the grand flourish of the hat so dear to the vanity of woman, the acme of elegance in the way of street salutations, the hat raised high in ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the accompaniment is furnished by a string quartette, which serves to distinguish them from the others, and invests them with a peculiar gentleness and grace. The incidental choruses, sung by the People and the Apostles, are short and vivacious in character, many of them being in madrigal form. The chorales, fifteen in number, as has already been said, were taken from the Lutheran service. One of them, which Bach also liberally used in his "Christmas Oratorio," beginning, "Acknowledge me, my Keeper," appears five times in the progress ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... characteristic of Scotland, the result of its godly motherhood, the severe discipline of its social conditions, its stern toil, its warm church life, its missionary enthusiasm. Mature in mind and body, she retained the freshness of girlhood, was vivacious and sympathetic, and, while aglow with spirituality, was very human and likeable, with a heart as tender and wistful as a child's. What specially distinguished her, says one who knew her well, were ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... she was deeply moved, her hair was velvet smooth, and also dark, and the play of feelings grave and gay which lighted up her mobile face when in conversation was a constant charm to those who knew the vivacious girl. When she first met John Hancock she had won an enviable popularity by reason of her beauty and grace, and was admired and sought after even more than her sisters had been; yet no compliments or admiration spoiled her sweet naturalness or ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... both took an interest in her. She was too sprightly to allow of their walking at a slow pace on her account, but she was very grateful to be talked to, and very willing to talk to any extent: so, when they came to their part of the town, she was more brisk and vivacious than ever. ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... in the beauty and romance of Florence. The street crowds, so vivacious, so good-humored, the vivid Florentine faces, enchanted her. More astonishing than storied buildings, or even imperishable art, were the figures that moved across the red-and-gold background of the city's history,—figures like Dante, Lorenzo the Magnificent, ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... they are of the vivacious temperament, yes?" Jakie had scrambled from the seat to within the door and was standing there smiling ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... toured the continent. As in his later relation to George Sand, the passion of a poet, Alfred Musset, rivalled his, so at this time he found a rival in the Polish poet, Julius Slovaki. The pretty, vivacious, and perhaps somewhat flirtatious girl, Comtesse Maria Wodzinska, was the bone of contention, or, rather, the "rag and the bone and the hank ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... Ever bright, vivacious, and in good spirits, she awakened Bobby to a new interest in life. The philosophy with which she regarded tumultuous events, the easy cynicism with which she dismissed a discussion which bordered upon the serious, seemed to deprive him of any means of enlightening ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... 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 ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... what I mean 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 ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... understanding. Her quick wit rallied him and awoke echoes of his past youth, until they began to laugh and jest with the camaraderie of boy and girl. With their better acquaintance her assumption of masculinity fell from her, and she became the "womanly woman"—dainty, vivacious, captivating. ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... consequence, notwithstanding Shelley's known sentiments against duelling, as to proffer him a sort of challenge, at which Shelley, as might be expected, only laughed. Lord Byron, however, fearing that the vivacious physician might still further take advantage of this peculiarity of his friend, said to him, "Recollect, that though Shelley has some scruples about duelling, I have none; and shall be, at all times, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... sat opposite me at table on board the steamer. During the entire run from Sandy Hook to Fastnet Light he addressed no one at meal-times excepting his table steward. Seated next to him, on the right, was a vivacious gentleman, who, like Gratiano in the play, spoke "an infinite deal of nothing." He made persistent and pathetic attempts to lure his silent neighbor (we had christened him "William the Silent") into conversation, but a monosyllable was always the poor result—until one day. It was the ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... as these in command, with that steel-eyed general on the watch—energy and intellectual force personified in his keen, vivacious face—the old faults of 1870 could not happen so easily again, and Germany counted without this renaissance of France. These men do not minimize the strength of the German defensive, but there is no fear in their hearts about the final issue of the war, and ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... active, vivacious, and keen-witted. He is proud of his lineage, earnest, and hospitable. The mother not only takes care of the home but educates the children; and, strange as it may seem to the outside world, illiteracy is ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... barbarous Spain of the sixteenth century; and lastly, in the beggars covered with sores, pale, starving, with their malodorous rags, you feel strangely the swarming poverty of the vast population, downtrodden and vivacious, which you read of in the picaresque novels of a later day. And these same characteristics, the deep religious feeling, the splendour, the poverty, the extreme sense of vigorous life, the discerning may find even now among the Andalusians for all the modern modes with which, as with coats of ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... if one be a girl and very pretty and made much of by adoring parents and a host of boys and men, the world is an extremely nice place inhabited exclusively by individuals pressing forward to do her reverence. She is beautiful, she is vivacious, filled with delight; she is a sparkling fountainhead of joy. She is so superabundantly supplied with eager happiness that she radiates happiness. If she thinks a very great deal of herself, so for that matter does every other individual in the world; it is merely ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... had a 'go.' The machine bounded forward like an agile greyhound. You had but to touch it, and it ran of itself. Never had I ridden so vivacious, so animated a cycle. I returned to him, sailing, with the gradient reversed. The Manitou glided smoothly, as on a gentle slope, ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... kisses, intermingled with the quick vivacious chattering of the boatmen bargaining over their fares. A perfect Babel of sound! Several passengers were landing—so a harvest was being reaped by ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... example of cold, scornful invective. More than any other Spanish dramatist, Alarcon is preoccupied with ethical aims, and his gift of dramatic presentation is as brilliant as his dialogue is natural and vivacious. It has been alleged that his foreign origin is noticeable in his plays, and there is some foundation for the criticism; but his workmanship is exceptionally conscientious, and in El Tejedor de Segovia he had produced ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the 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
... young couple attacking a steak and chips in an obscure hostelry with avidity. They had collected a Gladys Mary and a Marjorie, been baffled by one change of address, and had been forced to listen to a long lecture on universal suffrage from a vivacious American lady whose Christian name ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... Dollond, with an upward inclination of her vivacious shoulders, repudiated the notion. A whim of her own, she explained to Rainham confidentially, as they came abreast in the narrowing path, while Mr. Dollond strolled a little behind, cutting down vagrant weeds absently ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... regretted it. Still, feeling very unimportant herself, she was reconciled to the superiority of the whiskered Englishman as to a natural fact. Gerald's behaviour slightly lowered him in her esteem. Then she looked at him—at his well-shaped neatness, his vivacious face, his excellent clothes, and decided that he was much to be preferred to any heavy-jawed, long-nosed ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... single glance. And as, since her misfortunes, her rule has been never to make an enemy, since these easily crop up along one's path, she is careful never to utter anything which could irritate the feelings or wound the pride of the most sensitive. Her descriptions are so varied, so vivacious, that they fascinate a whole crowd. If now and again some little touch of irony escapes her, she knows how to temper and even instantly to neutralise this by terms of praise at once natural ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... 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 ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... short prelude the first act opens with a vivacious chorus of the guests at Violetta's supper, leading to a drinking-song ("Libiamo, libiamo") in waltz time, sung first by Alfred and then by Violetta, the chorus echoing each couplet with very pretty effect. After a long dialogue between the two, closing with chorus, Violetta has a ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton |
