"Briskness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Path of Action. There is so much Rapture and Extasie in our fancied Bliss, and something so dismal and shocking in our fancied Misery, that tho' the Inactivity of the Body has given Occasion for calling Sleep the Image of Death, the Briskness of the Fancy affords us a strong Intimation of something within ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... halves, I consider myself as liable to duty as long there is any fair demand to be made upon me. You will have heard from William all that was to be heard of our hopes and of our disappointments, and you will know likewise from him that our stock of those articles is not yet exhausted, although the briskness of the market is a little affected by the absence of the King. The Berlin reviews being over, he has begun a military progress, which will carry him through Brunswick, Minden and Wesel to Cassel and to Anspach, and after various reviews in those ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... over until times are what they call 'more suitable,' that is when they can make bigger profits by paying less in wages. This has a tendency to constantly keep wages down, besides affording a stock argument against unionist agitations for high wages. But, in any case, the fits of industrial briskness and idleness which occur in all countries are enough to account for the continual tendency of wages to a bare living amount for those working, as many of those not working stand hungrily by to jump into their places if they get rebellious or attempt ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... the briskness of a tune from a circus band. Sang darted for the corral fence. Now, three sides of the corral were railed, and so climbable, but the fourth was a solid adobe wall. Of course Sang went for the wall. There, finding his nails would not stick, ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... great briskness.] Your present need is a good shaking.... I seriously mean that. You get to attach importance to these shades of emotion. A slight physical shock would settle them all. That's why I asked you to kiss me ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... he opened suddenly, "I have so little time." His briskness dropped into a half complaint, like a faintly suggested avowal of impotence. "I have been at it four years now. It struck me—you seemed to coincide so singularly ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... been too little appreciated, and he was fortunate in that the work which fell to him, at the first, and again at the last of this war, was peculiarly suited to his professional characteristics; but he was not interchangeable with Rodney. In the latter there was a briskness of temper, a vivacity, very distinguishable from Howe's solidity of persistence; and he was in no sense one to permit "discipline to come to nought," the direction in which Howe's easy though reserved disposition ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... stepped into the corral with her usual briskness, and, walking deliberately past him, turned up an empty box in a far corner and sat down upon it, and called to him. From the instant of her entrance he had held himself back, but when she called him he rushed eagerly to her side. She placed her arms around his neck, drew his head down into ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... dinnertime approaches, you see that woman stepping briskly about the house, a light in her eye, a flush on her cheek, vivacity in her motions. She is "living on excitement;" "it is ambition which keeps her up." Her husband, coming in to his dinner, takes her briskness and vivacity as matters of course, regarding her, probably, as a woman who has nothing to do but to stay in the house all day. He has no more idea of the condition of that ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... and stood up, but had instantly to sit again, my legs being terribly cramped. A drink of spirits helped me; my blood presently flowed with briskness. ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... century which had seen the plant of individualism flower so wonderfully was setting in a sky orange with coming storms. Rumours of war added to the briskness of a London turbulent at the close of the summer holidays. And the streets to Jolyon, who was not often up in town, had a feverish look, due to these new motorcars and cabs, of which he disapproved aesthetically. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... went by before they came in. Richard King was older than Jimsy's father but he had the same look of race and pride, and his wife was a plain, rather tired-looking Englishwoman with very white teeth and broodingly tender blue eyes which belied the briskness ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... Murray, who sat next to Miss Thornton, suspected that it had had something to do with her neighbor's ill-temper. But Miss Thornton, delicately approached, had proved so ungracious and so uncommunicative, that Miss Murray had retired into herself, and attacked her work with unusual briskness. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... to quicken. Men went about their work with increased energy, the Cove was busier than ever, and life altogether in that sun-scorched, sordid spot seemed less burdensome. Staff officers walked about with unaccustomed briskness, and made unnaturally long visits to observation points, gazing absorbedly at Turkish terrain. Visible signs there were that the dormant days of Anzac were drawing to an end, and that at last the summer lethargy would give place to ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... in, Captain," said Jean, assuming an air of briskness the confusion of her face belied. "Come away in, I am proud to see you ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... attendance on these works of art was in all respects, shabbiness excepted, unlike the former personage. His whole appearance and manner denoted briskness. Though threadbare, he expressed to the crowd that poverty had not subdued his spirit, or tinged with any sense of shame this honest effort to turn his talents to some account. The writing which formed a part of his composition was conceived in a similarly cheerful tone. It breathed ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... now changes altogether, and we are reminded that we have quitted the Lozere for the Aveyron. The air has lost the matchless purity and exhilarating briskness of Sauveterre and Montpellier-le- Vieux. Alike sky, atmosphere, and vegetation recall the south. Pink and white oleanders bloom before every door; the quince, the mulberry, the peach, ripen in every garden. We long to get at our boxes and exchange woollen travelling-dresses ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... once or twice with considerable energy ere he returned, cursing the absent Antonio in language that would have outmatched the Italian's own. Then, having relieved his feelings, he abruptly laughed to himself and pursued his errand with business-like briskness. ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... sitting in her favourite sunny corner of the kitchen and Clemantiny was flying around with double briskness. The latter's thin lips were tightly set and disapproval was writ large in every flutter of ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... morning. He dozed in his seat, the grateful breath of the summer night fanning his face through the screen. The Duke found him there, appearing as he had departed, his coat on his arm, his collar in his hand. He was full of the briskness of the dawn in spite of his short rations ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... with tolerable briskness, after the last benediction, Mr Dombey took her arm in his and led her ceremoniously downstairs; one of the very tall young men on hire, whose organ of veneration was imperfectly developed, thrusting his tongue into his cheek, for the entertainment of the other very tall young ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Fate, in a strange humour, had decreed That what It wrote, none but Itself should read; Much, too, It chatter'd of dramatic laws, Misjudging critics, and misplaced applause; 160 Then, with a self-complacent, jutting air, It smiled, It smirk'd, It wriggled to the chair; And, with an awkward briskness not Its own, Looking around, and perking on the throne, Triumphant seem'd; when that strange savage dame, Known but to few, or only known by name, Plain Common-Sense appear'd, by Nature there Appointed, with plain Truth, to guard the chair, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... from an apprehension that my spirits would sink. We bade adieu to each other affectionately in the carriage. When he had got down upon the foot-pavement, he called out, 'Fare you well;' and without looking back, sprung away with a kind of pathetick briskness, if I may use that expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle to conceal uneasiness, and impressed me with a foreboding of our ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... woman, Granny Hall, looking like another creature, smoke-dried and withered indeed, but all briskness ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... time of the year: you can do anything but describe it in words. As with regard to the Poussin above mentioned, one can never pass it without bearing away a certain pleasing, dreamy feeling of awe and musing; the other landscape inspires the spectator infallibly with the most delightful briskness and cheerfulness of spirit. Herein lies the vast privilege of the landscape-painter: he does not address you with one fixed particular subject or expression, but with a thousand never contemplated by himself, and which only arise out ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that they did not interfere with each other. Of these applicants none pleased me. One of them was a dark-haired, dark-eyed, rather spare person, whose youthful energies had been so improved by years that I was sure her briskness of action, her promptness of speech, and her evident anxiety to get to work and to keep at it would eventually drive ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... and changed to his dinner jacket he rejoined them in the drawing-room. Barbara held out her hand to Letty, with a briskness indicating relief. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... the whole scene was its extraordinary animation and briskness. All the folk round the fires and outside of them moved about quickly and with the same kind of liveliness which might animate a camp of more natural people at the rising of the sun. It was as though they had just got ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... through scientific rifling. Indeed, for close-quarter righting pot-leg is far more comprehensive, and far less likely to miss than the lonely modern bullet. Moroever, his crew had quite as much dread for him as they had for the enemy, and as a consequence they fought with a briskness which made even ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... with three other mariners—Cullen, Wife, and Neale—this Irish pirate shipped himself on board a French snow at Cork in November, 1721, for a passage to Nantes. Owing to Roche's briskness, genteel manners, and knowledge of navigation, the master used occasionally to place him in charge of the vessel. One night a few days out a pre-arranged mutiny took place, the French crew being butchered and thrown overboard. The captain, who pleaded ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... Fair were of a different character. The audiences were composed of leading men from nearly all the counties of the State. Though the discussion of party questions had been going on all summer with more or less briskness, yet such was the general confusion in politics that many honest and intelligent voters and even leaders were still undecided in their opinions. The fair continued nearly a week. Douglas made a speech on the first day, Tuesday, October 3. Lincoln replied to him on the following day, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... kepi in hand and with all the stalwart briskness of the flag-presentation's day and hour Hilary Kincaid stepped into the room and halted, as large-eyed as on that earlier occasion, and even more startled, before the small figure ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... me any reason to think otherwise," she said. Her secret agitation peeped out in the added briskness of her tones. ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... lost none of the briskness of youth, despite his lameness, nor his fingers their skill, but his face was a mass of wrinkles. His keen, black eyes, bristling gray beard, predatory nose, and saturnine wit, together with his brusque manner, made strangers fear him. But ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... juice of the grape. These substances deposit slowly in the vessel in which they are kept. To this is owing the improvement of wine from age. Those wines which effervesce or froth, when poured into a glass, contain also carbonic acid, to which their briskness is owing. The peculiar flavour and odour of different kinds of wines probably depend upon the presence of a volatile oil, so small in quantity that ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... eye sharp to detect failings or foolishness, an admirer of briskness and vivacity, why did she welcome John Duck, that incarnation of stolidity and slowness, that enormous mountain of a man? Because extremes meet? No, since she was always complaining of Iden's dull, motionless life; so it was not ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... The briskness of our friendships depends on the time when—the place where. To men in prison a familiar face is the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... and briskness the battalion was formed. Then at brisk command, the battalion turned to the left in column of fours, marching down the hot, sun-blazed ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... that it was the custom of the Spaniards to fall down on deck when they saw a broadside preparing, and to continue in that posture until it had been given, after which they rose, and presuming the danger to be over for some time, worked their guns and fired with great briskness, until they supposed that another broadside was ready to be fired, when they acted as before. The plan adopted by the commodore, however, rendered this practice ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... serviceable and lucid style, a power of clear statement, which afterwards stood him in good stead. His official work gave him the power of seeing the point, it gave him an economy of words, an effective briskness and solidity of presentment; at the same time his literary work prevented him from degenerating into a ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... toward these. Outside the garage he saw the chauffeur, with his livery coat off, polishing a fender. Great! Perhaps he could persuade the chauffeur to help him. He put on what he felt to be a New York briskness, furtively touched his tie again, and ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... Frederick watched a man coming up the driveway. By the roll of the sea in his walk, Frederick could guess for whom the stranger came. The face was swarthy with sun and wrinkled with age that was given the lie by the briskness of his movements and the alertness in the keen black eyes. In the lobe of each ear was a tiny circlet ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... desirability of buying improved property—preferably residential property—and suddenly recalled that he had something very choice in which they might be interested. At this juncture Conward's mood of deliberation gave way to one of briskness; he summoned a car, and in a few minutes his clients were looking over the property which he had recommended. Mrs. Hardy, who, during her husband's lifetime had never found it necessary to bear financial responsibilities or make business decisions, was an amateurish buyer, her tendency being ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... snapped the gaunt man, with evident relief but no abatement whatever of his briskness, and he very hastily walked over to the right wings, where Jimmy, the house electrician, piloted the trio with equal relief through the clustered mass of singers to the door behind the boxes. As they emerged into the auditorium the raucous voice of the gaunt man was heard to shout: "All ready now. ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... before trial?" He said this coldly and sternly; and then added, "Perhaps you are aware that I am a man, and I might say a brother, for you were a thief, you know!" Then changing his tone entirely, "I say, Jacobs," said he, with cheerful briskness, "do you remember cracking the silversmith's shop in Lambeth along with Jem Salisbury and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... barbers were negroes, he was their great man, and it was their habit to give him a "reception," his entrance being always the signal for a flurry of jocular hospitality, followed by general excesses of briskness and gaiety. But it was not so ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... That sparkling briskness—the tang—which is the best the temperate climate has to offer, gives the Native Son his high powered strenuosity. That developing softness—lush—(every Native Son will admit the lush) which is the best the semi-tropical element has to contribute, gives him his size and comeliness. ...
— The Native Son • Inez Haynes Irwin
... gustily. She felt a dismal suspicion that this was going to daunt her. But her habit of facing things came to the front. "Wednesday's only four days off," she said, with a fine assumption of briskness. "I don't suppose he said anything about a ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... performer have gained by divesting himself of the impersonation? Could the man Elliston have been essentially different from his part, even if he had avoided to reflect to us studiously, in private circles, the airy briskness, the forwardness, and 'scape goat ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Station she dismissed the taxi and walked briskly to the huge waiting-room. There she dropped the briskness, and went leisurely down its long length to the drug stand, where she bought a few stamps and then passed out through the middle aisle to the train shed, inquiring on the way of an attendant the time of the next express from Baltimore. To his answer ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... something would come to your minds about how we are to spend the rest of the day," put in Elfreda, with her usual briskness. "It isn't ten o'clock yet, and we've had our breakfast and our swim. Let's get together and decide now. Remember this is our greatest, dearest day. We specially reserved it. So we ought to make the most ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... spattered upon her by the full stream which the Doctor poured into the vessel of the boy's intellect. So that she had even some knowledge of the rudiments of Latin, and geometry, and algebra; inaccurate enough, but yet with such a briskness that she was sometimes able to assist Ned in studies in which he was far more deeply grounded than herself. All this, however, was more by sympathy than by any natural taste for such things; being kindly, and sympathetic, and impressible, she took the color ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... looked at him again through narrowing eyelids, the playfulness all vanished. "You do yourself injustice, sir, as I am a woman. Your wits want nothing more in briskness." She rose, and looked down upon him engrossed in his broth. "For a dissembler, sir," she pronounced upon him acidly, "I think it would be difficult ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... the promontory of Circaeum,—familiar to the boys from their studies in Homer and Virgil,—while over the water the white sails of swift-moving vessels passed to and fro. The waves broke on the strand, fishing-boats were drawn up on the beach, and there were wonderful briskness and animation in ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... thoughtfully. He turns to me with sudden briskness. "What's that, Lizzie girl? A fish-boat? Good. We may need it. Let's ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... travelled with more briskness, not only lured by the chance of coming up with the herd of rein-deer, but pursued by the moss-grown phantom of a mountain couch. An endless forest of firs lay on our right hand, and the nearer we approached it, the more clearly we could hear the howl of wolves; and whenever we reached ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... So, putting a little briskness and spirit into my walk, I went up to the door, which was standing open, most hospitably, and showing a large lighted hall, all hung round with spoils of the chase, armour, &c, the details of which I had not time to notice, for the instant I stood on the threshold a huge porter appeared, in ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... Georgetown now M Street was different—full of marketers and of briskness. The old bridge was crowded. As her car swooped up the hills and skirted the curves to Polly Widdicombe's she began to be afraid again. But she was committed to the adventure and she was eager for the worst of it. She found the ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... and had sat down, hot and tired, under a lovely chestnut, with my lap full of flowers which I was arranging and tying up in bunches in order to carry them home more easily. I heard footsteps, which I recognised by their briskness and firmness, and looking up I saw my brother approach, walking, as usual, erect, with his head well thrown back but with stern lines in his face which I had not seen there before. I looked up smiling, expecting his usual kind greeting, but instead of that he strode straight up ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... attended the Reading will recall the admirable briskness, and more admirable spirit with which Boz delivered the passage "by the evidence of the unimpeachable female whom I shall place in that"—here he brought down his palm with a mighty slap on the desk, and added, after a moment's pause, "Box before you." It ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... wild desire for the woods a few weeks back! We made an early start. The team horses knew that road. They knew they were now on the way home. What difference that made! Jaded as they were they trotted along with a briskness never seen before on that trip. It began to be a job for us to keep up with Lee, who was on the wagon. Unless a rider is accustomed to horseback almost all of the time a continuous trot on a hard road will ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... the learned gentleman, smiling rather sadly, 'one can go so far in dreams, when one is young.' He sighed again, and then adding with a laboured briskness, 'I hope you'll have a—a—jolly game,' he went into his room and shut ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... speaker was an alert little woman with a provincial accent and the briskness of a cock-sparrow, whose prettiness, combined with pertness, ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... From the briskness of the street, with its lamps aglitter in the lingering May evening, O'Neill entered to the sober gloom and the restless echoes of the great studio. He had come to hate the place of late. The high poise of its walls, like the sides of a well, the pale shine of the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... of Montivilliers, the trees of which overhung the road, made it evident that something of importance was occurring in that direction. Should the enemy gain possession of the park Bazeilles would be at their mercy, but the briskness of the firing was in itself proof that the general commanding the 12th corps had anticipated the movement and that the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... changed with the changing times. The loveliness is perhaps more striking, less distinctive; with the flower-like heads have passed the old grace and the old dependence, and the undulatory walk has quickened into buoyant briskness. It is all modern—as modern as the red brick walls that are building where a ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... crowd in the street, indicates unusual briskness in trade and a general air of prosperity will ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... feel no manner of uneasiness from the motion in dancing; on the contrary, being only apprehensive of the presence of her husband, which would have destroyed all her happiness, she danced with uncommon briskness, lest her ill stars should bring him back before she had fully satisfied herself with it. In the midst, therefore, of her capering in this indiscreet manner, her cushion came loose, without her perceiving it, and fell to the ground in the very middle of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the outward signs of eagerness. They talked with warm interest of people and events unknown to Penrod; they laughed enthusiastically about things beyond his ken; they appeared to have arranged a perfect way to enjoy themselves, no matter whether he was with them or elsewhere but presently their briskness began to slacken; the appearance of interest became perfunctory. Within ten minutes the few last scattering semblances of gayety had passed, and they lapsed into the longest and most profound of all their silences indoors that day. Its effect upon Penrod was to make him yawn and settle himself ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... his customary spirit; he moved with his customary briskness—he had become quite himself again, since I ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... lady. Ah, well, you looks good-tempered if you don't want to buy nothing. Do you see if you can't find me an old body, now, for my girl—now do'ee try; she's confined in a tent on the common—nothing but one of our tents, my good lady—that's true—and she's doing jest about well' (with briskness and an air of triumph), 'that she is! She's got twins, you see, my lady, but she's all right, and as well as can be. She wants to get up; and she says to me, "Mother, do'ee try and get me a body; 'tis hard to lie here abed and ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... small act to take pride in, but in lieu of more important duties it had to serve. For the past six weeks the advent of city people at Thornwood had stirred up old ambitions in him. A new sprightliness was observable in his gait, a briskness in his speech, which Aunt Caroline did not hesitate to characterize as ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... of the gentle influences of the southland, with a certain briskness and clearness of atmosphere usually found in ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... along the river, sheep, birds, sunshine, and showers—somehow contrive to keep themselves in health, to live, grow, decline, die, be born again, without making a mess or creating a fuss. The air, under the grey sky, is cool, even cold, with infinite briskness. And this impression of briskness, by no means excluded by the sense of utter isolation and repose, is greatly increased by a special charm of this place, the quantity of birds to listen to and watch; great ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... distributed along the gun and berth-decks, with similar orders; and, to crown all, several carronade guns were unshipped from their carriages, and swung in their breechings from the beams of the main-deck, so as to impart a sort of vibratory briskness and ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... in disorder, several parties ran forward, both from the Samnite line, to cut off those who had fallen, and from the Roman, to protect their friends. In consequence the battle became a little more brisk, but the Samnites had come forward with more briskness, and also in greater numbers, and the disordered cavalry, with their affrighted horses, trod down their own party who came to their relief. Flight commencing in this quarter, caused the whole Roman line to turn their backs. And now the Samnites had no employment ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... An unwonted briskness—portentous apparently of coming speech—did certainly at that moment enliven the curate's manner. He jerked his head from side to side like a bird; he cleared his throat, and clasped his hands, and looked with a gentle interest at the company. Getting into spirits seemed, in the case ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... the island, just under the tower, and Father Brown, whether from the mere touch of dry land, or the interest of something on the other bank of the river (which he stared at very hard for some seconds), seemed singularly improved in briskness. They entered a wooded avenue between two fences of thin greyish wood, such as often enclose parks or gardens, and over the top of which the dark trees tossed to and fro like black and purple plumes upon the hearse of a ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... spoke with professional briskness. He himself would not have tried to save any of the foot—better amputate at once at the line of demarcation, get a good flap of healthy tissue and make a proper stump. "That scar tissue'll never heal—it'll always be tender and break when he tries to use it; he has been here four months now, and ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... with surprising briskness for so large a man, pulled some folded charts from his pocket. Without a word the three men rose and went over to the table, pushing aside the china bowl filled with flowers to spread the charts flat on the table top. Captain Blizzard leaned ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... continued near two Hours, but not with near that Briskness it began; and the old Woman rising, bid me see the Smoke of Cormaco. Captain Thomas, said she, send ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... this single ale was fit to send out the fifth day after brewing. When this ale is racking off the butts, to be sent out, would recommend putting two ounces of ground rice into each barrel which will create briskness, and much improve the beer. Ran the small beer into the hop back of the strong beer, and so on the coolers, thereby giving it a chance to lick up all the strong ale it met with in its progress to the ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... they must hold themselves in readiness to start before dawn next morning, as the conductor wished to avail himself of the first peep of daylight in passing several torrents on the road which lay beyond Savona. Velvet-cap assented with a grunt; one of the sisters—all briskness at night, but fit for nothing of a morning—proposed not to go to bed at all; while the other—quite used up at night, but "up to everything" of a morning—undertook to call the whole party ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... lithe and brisk, but not muscular. There was nothing mean or secretive about him. He was wonderfully hopeful, but had not the stuff to push his way into wealth. He was tall, slim, and pale; had a languor which showed itself even in his briskness; was most amiable, cheerful, and communicative. He called Pip "Handel," because Pip had been a blacksmith, and Handel composed a piece of music entitled The Harmonious Blacksmith. Pip helped him to a partnership ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... happened to be shopping in the winter briskness of the packed and brilliant Avenue, she telephoned Leslie at about the luncheon hour. Leslie when last they met had said that she would confidently expect Norma to run out and lunch with her ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... activity; briskness, liveliness &c. adj.; animation, life, vivacity, spirit, dash, energy; snap, vim. nimbleness, agility; smartness, quickness &c. adj.; velocity, &c. 274; alacrity, promptitude; despatch, dispatch; expedition; haste &c. 684; punctuality ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... foot of the table, with Hackeeboocoo on his right, and Madera on his left. They were all in great spirits, and ate and drank freely, and though they complained of the size of the glasses, and of the strength of the wine, tasted every thing from punch to champagne: the briskness of the last indeed surprised them not a little, and effectually muddled two of them for some time. Cheese was the only thing they all objected to, probably on account of its being made of milk, which they never taste. The interpreter ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... his bag open with businesslike briskness. "Concussion. Got a glancing blow from the light fixture. Seems as if she'd been trying to wrap herself up in the bedclothes and got in the worst ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... awoke to a clear, rain-washed world and the chill of an autumn morn. I was as stiff and sore as if I had been whipped, my clothes were sodden and heavy, and not till I had washed my face and hands in the burn and stretched my legs up the hill-side did I feel restored to something of my ordinary briskness. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... said, dreamily, and then with great briskness, "Beastly grind, all the same." The Judge had a fit of coughing, and Urquhart got up and looked about. Then the Judge said that he too should catch it if he didn't go ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... frost; and icicles, or, as old-fashioned people call them, aglets, of three or four feet long, ornament the overhanging ledges, prone to fall to the beach—far, far below—when a thaw releases them from their present stations. But the air is so very keen that nothing but the briskness of our walk, and the enlivenment of an occasional spell of snow-balling, in which the seniors are tempted to join the juniors, prevent our stagnating into 'pellucid pillars' ourselves. So much, then, for our January ramble. The season of which I have now to speak was most different. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... malady and was accustomed to open a case and then let it take care of itself while he slumbered audibly beneath the dais; even Ephraim Tutt, the gaunt, benignly whimsical-looking attorney, in his rusty-black frock coat and loose-hanging tie; his rotund partner, whose birdlike briskness and fat paunch inevitably brought to mind a distended robin in specs; and the degage Bonnie Doon in his cut-in-at-the-waist checked suit—he ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... masques; Device, the fantastic gallant,—these are well-known figures in Shirley's plays. No other playwright of that day could have given us such exquisite poetry as we find in Captain Underwit. The briskness, too, and cleverness of the dialogue closely recall Shirley; but it must be owned that there are few plays of Shirley's written with such ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... author of this book, is an American all over. He has the rapidity and eagerness of mind that the champagny atmosphere of our northern hills gives to those who are stout enough not to be wilted by our hot summers. For briskness, thriftiness, energy, and alacrity, it is hard to find his match. He has made a book of travels, and will make a hundred, unless somebody finds him a place at home where he will have an indefinite number of labors-of-Hercules to keep him busy,—or unless some African prince ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... with the cries of paper-boys. The nurses whispered together excitedly in their leisure moments; the doctors seemed to acquire an added briskness. Once or twice she heard the measured tramp of feet in the streets below, as a regiment was moved from ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... barely out of his teens were to succeed in 'conquering London,' and bending it to his will, he would certainly need all his briskness and readiness ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... morning sunshine which it represents. It could not be more lustrous in its lines, if he had given it the last touch an hour ago. Three or four artists were copying it at that instant, and positively their colors did not look brighter, though a great deal newer than his. The alacrity and movement, briskness and morning stir and glow, of the picture are wonderful. It seems impossible to catch its glory in a copy. Several artists, as I said, were making the attempt, and we saw two other attempted copies leaning against the wall, but it was easy to detect failure in just ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... feeling the pulse, listening to the beatings of the heart with his stethoscope, gently drawing down the lower lid of one of the eyes to observe the colour of the membrane, and, in a word, doing all those things which he was accustomed to do under the circumstances with a promptness and briskness which showed how little he feared that the old man would wake under his touch. He noted some of the results of his observations in a pocket-book. Unorna stood still ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... frightened about it. Why was he so irritable to-day? Was he going to develop nerves at the finish? Yes, it was evident, the warm air of the south did not suit him, he had lost his briskness, looked so tired. There was nothing for it, her husband was more to her than her picture, she would leave ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... the thick wood in their rear. The early morning, too, had been cold—almost frosty—so much so, that the wild ducks, which generally evinced a good deal of shyness, NOW, seemingly emboldened by the briskness of the atmosphere, could be seen gliding about in considerable numbers, about half a mile below them; while the fish, on the contrary, as though dissatisfied with the temperature of their element, refused to do what the men called "the amiable," by approaching the ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... night), listening to her tearful descant and singing the praises of my friend. We talked of nothing else, and our conversation terminated only with the arrival of a quick little woman who drove herself up to the door in a "carryall," and whom I saw toss the reins upon the horse's back with the briskness of a startled sleeper throwing back the bed-clothes. She jumped out of the carryall and she jumped into the room. She proved to be the minister's wife and the great town-gossip, and she had evidently, ...
— Four Meetings • Henry James
... 9th, the bombardment at Prag abated, and never rose to briskness again; the place of trial for decision of that Siege having flitted else-whither, as we said. About that time, rumors came in, not so favorable, from the Duke of Bevern; which Friedrich, strong in hope, strove visibly to disbelieve, but at last could not. Bevern reports ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... division, under that gallant officer Sir Samuel Hood, received it next, and stood after them. At nine the enemy began to cannonade my van, which was returned with the greatest briskness. The baffling winds did not permit part of the centre division to get into action with the enemy's rear till half-past eleven; and then only the ship next me in line of battle, &c. The enemy's cannonade ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... his cuffs, opened and closed all the drawers of his desk as though seeking something—he found it where he had left it, hanging on a peg behind the door, and put it on—and said with great determination and briskness: ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... seat at the next public meeting of the section, applauded vigorously when the President referred to the need of more briskness in France and England and asked for a private interview after the meeting was over. In a few well-chosen words he offered his services to run messages over the frontier. Off his platform the President was quite a practical ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... with equal briskness: "I've an important fact. Just had Markes on secret wave-length. He tells me that Spawn has been saving up his quicksilver for six months past. He's got several hundred thousand dollar-standards' worth of it in ingots ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... in whose mossy crannies errant trickles of water might lose themselves, and perhaps fertilize exotic flora yet unborn. At this moment I espied a wheelbarrow in the distance, and went for it with that purposeful briskness, which may sometimes be used in fatigues of this sort to disguise your real intentions. For it is of the greatest importance in a fatigue to have an implement; it is the outward symbol of labour; if observation falls ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... which he had given up. If Ned felt any regret, it was all carefully hidden from his friend's observation, and the missives, which Noll received through the skipper's kindness, were fairly bubbling over with the briskness and bright ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... cavalry, and saluted the colours as he passed, BONAPARTE (attended by all his retinue, including a favourite Mamaluk whom he brought from Egypt), took a central position, when the different corps successively filed off before him with most extraordinary briskness; the corps composing the consular guard preceded those of the garrison and all the others: on inquiry, however, I find, that this ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... then to inquire what the Speaking Oak had said. But the briskness of her tone encouraged the young man; and, besides, he had never in his life felt so vigorous and mighty as since taking this old woman on his back. Instead of being exhausted he gathered strength as he went on; and, struggling up against the torrent, he at last gained ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... I'll call up and ask when it is expected that he can see visitors," announced Fogg, with business briskness. "I wish Franklin had ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... to Benny. "Which whipped?" he asked, with his own native briskness, as if this, now, was common ground, and he was ready to talk ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... so lacking in his old definite briskness where their holidays were concerned, would daunt Rachael with a sense of utter forlornness. Sometimes she offered a plan, but it was invariably rejected. There were friends who would have been delighted at an unexpected ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... genial fury of inspection. He seemed to be in a state of some excitement; he spoke volubly and almost boisterously, and his voice was full-toned and powerful, though pleasant to the ear. He turned himself, as he spoke, with a burly briskness, from one side to another, addressing himself first to this auditor and then to that, his words bursting forth from beneath his white moustache with such an impetus of hearty breath that it seemed as if all opposing ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... their carriages they could not. Transferring the horses to Nuttie, the two sisters hurried on towards the scene of action, but Blanche's white satin boots did not carry her far, and she turned on meeting her uncle. He spoke with a briskness and alacrity that made him like another man in this emergency, as he assured the anxious ladies that their friends were safe, but that they could not be extricated till the carriage was lifted from the hole into which it had sunk amid bricks, stones, and broken timbers. He sent his ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... silent, as if in embarrassment over an admission so at variance with the tenets of a lifetime. Then he spoke with sudden briskness: ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... was Latin of the purest and most elegant kind—not, indeed, controlled by much deference to the laws of metrical harmony, but full of pith and sprightliness, bearing the stamp of colloquial vivacity, and suitable to the general briskness of his scenes. Yet in the tone of his dialogue we miss all symptoms of deference to the taste of the more polished classes of society. Almost all his comedies were adopted from the new comedy of the Greeks, and though he had studied both the old and the middle comedy, Menander and ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... of dictating to one man and replying to another, will not make these objections, because the consciousness of his own literary perils will make him tender in his judgments. And yet there is something even in the pressure of business which sometimes promotes briskness of mind, since the art of speaking is one which is placed very ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... the hearts of their beholders with new sense of their beauty. The dressing part of our sex, whose minds are the same with the sillier part of the other, are exactly in the like uneasy condition to be regarded for a well-tied cravat, a hat cocked with an uncommon briskness, a very well-chosen coat, or other instances of merit, which they are impatient ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... feels about our friends over there. Malediction. Just so. Very proper. But it seems as though he had a bone to pick with all the world," drawled Sebright, a little sleepily. Then, resuming his briskness, he bantered, "So you don't want to go to England, Mr. Castro? No friends there? Sus. per col., and that sort ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... could have reached their destination in less than twenty minutes if they had gone forward with the briskness that the weather justified; but there was an argument of some kind between them—I judged that the stuttering man had no stomach for the part he was to play as a horse-thief. At any rate, there was a dispute of some kind, and they stopped on the road at least half a dozen ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... that most of the leaders of parties began the Session in excellent fighting trim. Mr. Morley has been living in the pleasant green meadows and fields of the Phoenix Park, and looks five years younger than he did last year. The Old Man astounded everybody by his briskness; and Mr. Balfour also entered on the fray with every sign of being in excellent health and spirits. There had been a great roar of triumph when he came into the House, and throughout his speech—clever, ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... hill, however insignificant its altitude, is always an inspiring vantage point from which to survey the surrounding world. There is a briskness of atmosphere on a hilltop which is inspiriting to the most jaded of faculties; there is a sparkling vitality in the breath of the morning air which must ever make life a joy and the world seem an inexpressible delight in which ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... a diversion under cover of which we might have a chance to escape, but it was being executed with so much briskness and spirit that Bothwell could ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... six, if you can," Tom said with continued briskness. "It interests me. I'll do my best. And I want you to get your ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... his eye along the decks and then looked aloft: there was something bird-like in the briskness of his ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... inculcated. About two and a half years ago a couple of cottages in this locality were "thrown into one," and arranged so as to moderately accommodate those caring about religion, and willing to have it in a "good old Methodist" style. There was considerable briskness of trade hereabouts at that time, ships were made in the adjoining yards, the bubble of speculation was being strongly blown, large numbers of strong-armed men, caring more for ale in gallon jugs than either virtue in tracts or piety ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... to make them useful. They had but poor and scanty fare in a part of the way, but all of us suffered alike. They made themselves thoroughly disliked by their foul talk and abuse, and if anything tended more than another to show me that theirs was a moral unfitness for travel, it was the briskness assumed when they knew they were going back to the coast. I felt inclined to force them on, but it would have been acting from revenge, and to pay them out, so I forbore. I gave Mataka forty-eight yards of calico, and to ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... men like—him." Brigit took a sock out of the basket and looked at it absently. There was a short silence, during which Felicite did not speak, but she was watching her visitor in the glass. Then she said suddenly, with a certain briskness in her voice, "Shall I tell you about him? About my husband, you know, not about the ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... mind was of a different order. "That man has an eye for theology," was the remark of a competent judge on some early paper of Dalgairns's which came before him. He had something of the Frenchman about him. There was in him, in his Oxford days, a bright and frank briskness, a mixture of modesty and arch daring, which gave him an almost boyish appearance; but beneath this boyish appearance there was a subtle and powerful intellect, alive to the problems of religious philosophy, ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... miracle smile overwhelming her air of briskness. "We'd appreciate the opportunity to ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... his little room. He would remain at home for the present, he said,—help with the hay-making, and study. Where he should go later he did not know; but it made not the least difference to him. He had acquired a briskness and vigor of thought which it did one good to see, and an animation in the expression of his feelings which is so refreshing to a person who the whole year through strives to repress his own. The ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... mulberry and elm trees which afford rest to swallows. That wide extent of spring leeks with verdure covers the ground; And o'er ten li the paddy blossom fragrance doth abound. In days of plenty there's a lack of dearth and of distress, And what need then is there to plough and weave with such briskness? ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin |
