"Frisky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on the mountain are frisky and gay, The birds in the forest are restless with play, The maidens rejoice at the advent of spring, Yet my fair Rose to me ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... schoolmaster had read in Rabe's grammar: Nemo saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit, and had always looked upon dancing as a species of insanity. True, he had watched puppies and calves dancing when they felt frisky, but he did not believe that Cicero's maxim applied to the animal world, and he was in the habit of drawing a sharp line between men and animals. Now, as he sat watching these young people who were quite sober, and neither hungry nor thirsty, moving round and round to the slow ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... is newspaper nuff for me. I looks at her ebery mornin' wen she comes inter dis kitchen. Ef her face is long an' she walks kine o' droopy den I thinks things is gwine wrong for dem. But ef she comes out yere looking mighty pleased, an' larffin all ober her face, an' steppin' so frisky, den I knows de Secesh is gittin' de bes' ob de Yankees. Robby, honey, does you really b'lieve for good and righty dat dem Yankees ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... the pony. Young Pete, hazing the burros, saw the pony pull back and break the reins, whirl and dash out into the open and circle the mesa with head and tail up. It was a young horse, not actually wild, but decidedly frisky. Pete had not been on a horse for many months. The beautiful pony, stamping and snorting in the morning sun, thrilled Pete clear to his toes. To ride—anywhere—what a contrast to plodding along with the burros! To feel a horse between his knees again! To swing up and ride—ride across ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the family, but none ancient; as if the Berkeleys had been commissaries, and raised themselves in the last war. There is a plentiful addition of those of my Lord Berkeley of Stratton, but no knights templars, or barons as old as Edward I.; yet are there three beds on which there may have been as frisky doings three centuries ago, as there probably have been within these ten ears. The room shown for the murder of Edward II., and the shrieks of an agonizing king, I verily believe to be genuine. It is a dismal chamber, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the right to christen our new mate. He called him "Jim." In a couple of days Jim came around all right, and got very frisky. Every man in the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Killjoy as she had, hoping that her nervous, frisky step would lead me toward the adventure she ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... carnival-time, when noisy revelers of either sex and ungainly processions of tipsy masques and mummers waked Mechelen out of its long sleep, and all the town seemed one vast estaminet, did one feel one's self to be alive. Even at night, and in the small hours, frisky masques and dominoes walked the moonlit streets, and made loud old Flemish ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... crisp, and rustling leaves. How beautifully they go to their graves! how gently lay themselves down and turn to mould!—painted of a thousand hues, and fit to make the beds of us living. So they troop to their last resting-place, light and frisky. They put on no weeds, but merrily they go scampering over the earth, selecting the spot, choosing a lot, ordering no iron fence, whispering all through the woods about it,—some choosing the spot where the bodies of men are mouldering beneath, and meeting them half-way. How many flutterings ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... to have managed it, Ethel." Then with a touch of anxiety, "I hope all this cleverness was natural—I mean, I hope it wasn't champagne. You know, Ethel, we think as we drink, and Fred isn't used to those frisky wines. Mostyn cellars are full of old sherry and claret, and Fred's father was always against frothing, ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... its empty halls, And 'mong its spreading acres, Where birds and bees and frisky squirrels ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page
... again, though, she breaks into an exclamation of dismay. The leaders of the straggling procession have safely reached the door of the byre close by; but one frisky young cow, suddenly swerving through an open gate, breaks away down a sloping field of turnips at a lumbering gallop. The herdsman is out of sight round a bend ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... the poor thing was rocking of his own accord, rocking to attract my attention. He saw in me a possible purchaser. He wanted to show me that he was still sound in wind and limb. Had I a small son at home? If so, here was the very mount for him. None of your frisky, showy, first-hand young brutes, on which no fond parent ought to risk his offspring's bones; but a sound, steady-going, well-mannered old hack with never a spark of vice in him! Such was the message that I read in the glassy eye fixed on me. The nostril ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... behind when she came away, and she said indeed she did, and he was a dear, and she loved him so, and was he well?—and just drowned him in questions about that creature. And he said it was a young bull now, and very frisky; and he was to bear a principal hand at a funeral; and she said, "The bull?" and he said, "No, myself"; but said the bull did take a hand, but not because of his being invited, for he wasn't; but anyway he was away over beyond the Fairy Tree, and fell asleep on the grass with his ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... jest this way, Westerfelt," he began, with an effort. "I've bought this blamed hoss frum Bill Stone an' I want to leave 'im heer with you. I want you to put 'im through any sort o' work you see fit; he's too blam' fat an' frisky anyhow." ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... thankee. In fact I incline to the belief that they are rather more frisky than usual in ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... entered the room gingerly, and there, on the pillow of his bed, sprawled and whimpered a wee white kitten; not a jumpsome, frisky little beast, but a slug-like crawler with its eyes barely opened and its paws lacking strength or direction—a kitten that ought to have been in a basket with its mamma. Lone Sahib caught it by the scruff of its neck, handed it over to the sweeper ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... jogging on and forcing us to jog on, neither going ahead herself nor suffering us to do so,—a perfect and most provoking dog in a manger. Her girl-associate would look behind every now and then to take observations, and I mentally hoped that the frisky Bucephalus would frisk his mistress out of the cart and break her ne— arm, or at least put her shoulder out of joint. If he did, I had fully determined in my own mind to hasten to her assistance and shame her to death with delicate and assiduous kindness. But fate lingered like all the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... assistance, or touching the rock with the hands, then whatever one wishes will "come true". This feat it is almost impossible to accomplish, as the stone has been worn smooth by countless feet before ours; still the youthful and frisky members of our party must attempt the ascent, with a run, a rush, and a shout, while the ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... rascal do but swim straight across that pond and then turn about and swim back again, without pausing for breath? Not only that, but, when in the very deepest portion, he dove, floated on his back, trod water, and kicked up his heels like a frisky colt. ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... presence. However frisky they were before, mother and child were hushed and quiet when Mr. Pendennis walked into the drawing-room, his newspaper under his arm. And here, while little Pen, buried in a great chair, read all the books of which he could lay hold, the Squire perused his ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gazing at it, there was a sound of small hoofs, clumsily galloping on the Campagna; and soon his frisky acquaintance, the buffalo-calf, came and peeped over the edge of the excavation. Almost at the same moment he heard voices, which approached nearer and nearer; a man's voice, and a feminine one, talking the musical tongue of Italy. Besides the hairy visage of his four footed ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... merchants and employers who reside in the villas opposite have had time to look over their correspondence, come sundry neat turn-outs from the stables and coach-houses in the rear of the villas: a light, high gig, drawn by a frisky grey, into which leaps young Oversea the shipbroker—a comfortable, cushioned four-wheel drawn by a pair of bay ponies, into which old Discount climbs heavily, followed perhaps by his two daughters, bound on a shopping-visit to the city—and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... alteration we should undertake. We were, however, of course not neglecting the details of our colonial establishment. There were all the animals to be attended to; the goats and sheep had both presented us with additions to our flock, and these frisky youngsters had to be seen after; to prevent them straying to any great distance—for we had no wish to lose them— we tied round their necks little bells, which we had found on board the wreck, and which would assist us to track them. Juno, too, had a fine litter of puppies, but, in spite ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Ned," he said, "that you'll have to look out for your traps yourself; these little rats haven't been driven for four days, and they're feeling pretty frisky." ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... mere devil by title!—a very devil. It was alert and frisky, flushing, filling the thin cold idea of Henrietta at a thought; and in the thought it made Carinthia's intimate charm appear as no better than a thing to enrich a beggar, while he knew that kings could never command the charm. Not love, only the bathing in Henrietta's incomparable beauty ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... only tell you what happened a long time since) you had better go and call on the squirrel, and say I sent you, and he will inform you. He is about the best fellow I know; it is true he will sometimes bite when he is very frisky, it is only his play, but you can look sharp and put your hands in your pockets. He is the best of them all, dear; better than the fox, or the weasel, or the rat, or the stoat, or the mouse, or any of them. He knows all that is going on, because the starlings, who ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... cat, you know, my dear, will eat cooked meat, and even salt meat, with bread and milk and many other things. I knew a person who had a black kitten called 'Wildfire,' who would sip whiskey-toddy out of his glass, and seemed to like it as well as milk or water, only it made him too wild and frisky." ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... are inevitably provoked. This is particularly pleasant on the marshy table-lands of Lapland, where, if he takes a notion to bolt with you, your pulk bounces over the hard tussocks, sheers sideways down the sudden pitches, or swamps itself in beds of loose snow. Harness a frisky sturgeon to a "dug-out," in a rough sea, and you will have some idea of this method of travelling. While I acknowledge the Providential disposition of things which has given the reindeer to the Lapp, I cannot avoid thanking Heaven that I am not a Lapp, and that I shall never ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... where the fat cook cheered them on, and Mary, the maid, tried to head off Frank as Jack rushed out into the garden. But the pursuer ducked under her arm and gave chase with all speed. Then there was a glorious race all over the place; for both were good runners, and, being as full of spring vigor as frisky calves, they did astonishing things in the way of leaping fences, dodging round corners, and making good ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... moil; intermeddle, interfere, interpose; obtrude; poke one's nose in, thrust one's nose in. Adj. active, brisk, brisk as a lark, brisk as a bee; lively, animated, vivacious; alive, alive and kicking; frisky, spirited, stirring. nimble, nimble as a squirrel; agile; light-footed, nimble-footed; featly[obs3], tripping. quick, prompt, yare[obs3], instant, ready, alert, spry, sharp, smart; fast &c. (swift) 274; quick as a lamplighter, expeditious; awake, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... behind them; and the second night I said to the sentry abaft, as I was looking at them smelling under the counter—'Soldier,' says I, 'them sharks are mustering under the orders of Yellow Jack,' and I no sooner mentioned Yellow Jack, than the sharks gave a frisky plunge, every one of them, as much as to say, 'Yes, so we are, d——n your eyes.' The soldier was so frightened that he would have fallen overboard, if I hadn't caught him by the scruff of the neck, for he was standing on the top of the taffrail. ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... saying to her?" asked the old maid, quite frisky with excitement, and delighted to hear that ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... said, when the vein had been closed, "the spring weather brings me as much fulness as a young buck o' twenty. I'd be frisky yet, if't wasn't for them legs. Set down, there; you've news to ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... had taken so much pains to see. There was a preliminary race, which excited comparatively little interest. After this the horses were shown in the paddock, and many of our privileged party went down from the stand to look at them. Then they were brought out, smooth, shining, fine-drawn, frisky, spirit-stirring to look upon,—most beautiful of all the bay horse Ormonde, who could hardly be restrained, such was his eagerness for action. The horses disappear in the distance.—They are off,—not yet distinguishable, at least to me. A little ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... our travellers, changing attitudes, formed the new group with tolerable success. Even Barbican, who had been to Paris in his youth, yielding for a moment to the humor of the thing, acted the naif Anglais to the life. The Captain was frisky enough to remind you of a middle-aged Frenchman from the provinces, on a hasty visit to the capital for a few days' fun. Ardan ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... leg. One'd think he was half daft to hear him talk sometimes, too. Seems like as if it galled him a bit to rub along with the old auntie, and I shouldn't wonder if the old auntie herself felt about as snug as a bell-wether tied to a frisky colt. However, I s'pose the A'mighty knows what He's about, and it's always the old cow's notion as she never was a ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... Squirrel paid a visit to Farmer Green's place. Although he had learned that the farmyard was not without its dangers, after one adventure Frisky was always sure to return, sometime, as if ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... friendship for Claudio, and a heart-felt reverence for Isabella; as if on purpose to teach us that "the web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together." And perhaps the seeming "snow-broth blood" of Angelo puts him upon affecting a more frisky circulation than he really has. For an overacted austerity is not the right way to win others out of a ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... him down gently as he reached Bayard's stall, and another touching scene of affectionate greeting was enacted. The poor old pony laid his head lovingly on his master's shoulder, and actually tried to kick up his hind legs in a frisky way in honour of the great event; also, he received the horse that de Sigognac had ridden all the way from Paris, and which was put in the stall beside his own, very politely, and seemed pleased to have a companion in ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... line of life, and it was well for me they were; for though he was good-natured, he was very shiftless, and it was, as our national proverb says, "like pulling teeth," to teach him. But at the end of the next week he could say, with quite my easy and frisky air,— ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... for a daily entertainment! For several days in succession last year I spent a half-hour observing his frisky gambols on the hillside across the dingle below my porch, as he jumped apparently for mice in the sloping rowen-field. How quickly he responded to my slightest interruption of voice or footfall, running to the ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... of a powder puff she now carries an antiskeptic bandage. It makes me sick; it's all the same with women in England. 'Ere's another picture called 'Bathin' as usual.' A dozen of girls out in the sea (jolly good legs some of 'em 'as, too) 'avin' a bit of a frisky. Listen what it says: 'Despite the trying times the English girls are keepin' a brave 'eart——' Oh! 'ang it, Pat, they're nothin' to the French girls, them birds ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... well He might—and brought them up with skill, in time To save his fame with each accomplish'd belle, Who still regretted that he did not rhyme. There wanted but this requisite to swell His qualities (with them) into sublime: Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Maevia Mannish, Both long'd extremely to be sung ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... of those horrid, frisky little beasts! They roll their eyes and bounce about so, I should die of fright," cried Rose, clasping ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... ladies, yet somehow she always looked as though she belonged to another day and time. When she drove about the city she scorned the modern automobile. She went in the spickest and spannest little carriage drawn by an old, sleek and still frisky roan horse with a gold mounted harness and her driver was a colored man as haughty and aristocratic looking as Mrs. Hargrave herself; ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... did so, look upon a person he did not love as an object indispensable for his moral exercises; but I have not yet fallen so low. If I want to exercise myself in patience, I will buy dumb-bells or a frisky horse, but I'll leave human ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the stable for some time, and that's what made him so frisky," said the foreman, who was soon going to leave Three Star. "He ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... recognize the fact that the public has rights they are bound to respect. It is the disregard of these rights that fills our cars with smoke, dust, and exhalations, and puts box stoves full of hot coals in the corners, ready to cook the human stew whenever a frisky car shall take a notion to turn a somersault. The invention needed is a conscience for corporations—an invention, by the way, scarcely less difficult than the one advertised for in our last issue, namely, a plan for preventing the sale of intoxicating ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... dear old sun came up above the trees, My frisky little shadow came out into the breeze; I didn't see him coming, but, when I turned around, His head was at the window, and he ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... know about two fat little summer turkeys she was going to stuff with corn-pone and green sage, and fillet mignon seemed foolish eating beside them. But when the little bit of a baby pig, roasted whole with an apple in its mouth, looking too frisky and innocent for worlds with his little baked tail curled up in the air, arrived from Mrs. Caruthers Cain, I went out into the garden and laughed at the idea of having spent money for lobsters, to be shipped alive and to be served broiled in ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... decided Uncle Felix; "but we've been pretty warm once or twice all the same." He lumbered after the other three, yet something frisky about him, as about a pony released into a field and still ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... Take Marco for Michiela; Giulio for Leonardo; Carlo for Cupid. Take the Chief for the audience. Take him for a frivolous public. Ah, my Pippo!" (Agostino laughed aside to him). "Let us lead off with a lighter piece; a trifle-tra-la-la! and then let the frisky piccolo be drowned in deep organ notes, as on some occasions in history the people overrun certain puling characters. But that, I confess, is an illustration altogether out of place, and I'll simply jot it down in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lady," said Hannah. "I know that finely, I'd have liked it myself when I was young and frisky like you." ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... manuscript and read aloud while I declaimed from the other. Adele listened with a pained frown on her forehead, Janet laughed and teetered recklessly to and fro on her frisky chair, Laura fidgeted at the window and filled every pause with a threat to leave us instanter for the tournament positively had to be written up that day. Finally I put the question to the vote, for Jo ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... boy! Next time don't try to get frisky!" whispered the prompter, holding Glas so tightly by the leg that he could not move. "You are done for! You tried to fix Dobek, now Dobek has fixed ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... the tramp," the prisoner told him, "he was settled in an empty freight car, and bound for the city. He was as frisky as ever then. I'd have joined him only I didn't want to pull up broke in the city; and I thought there ought to be some rich pickings for a clever crook around these regions. That's where I made my one big mistake. And now I'm going ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... brilliant, auburn hair; lively, independent, frisky hair, each glittering thread standing out by itself and asserting its own individuality; tempestuous hair that never "stays put;" capricious hair that escapes hairpins and comes down unexpectedly; hoydenish hair that makes the meekest ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... party, Cousin Robin?" said Carnaby, who was waiting for them in the doorway. "I had a good tuck-in of strawberries. The ladies were a little young for my taste; just immature girls; no one under sixty, and rather frisky, don't you think? By the way did you see Number One ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... certain I knew how to behave myself wherever I went, and that whatever was advisable for them to know concerning me they would know without the assistance of Miss Bettie Simcoe or Mrs. Caperton (she is a frisky little widow who has no use for young girls) or any other Twickenham-Towner. And then, perhaps because he was so flustered he didn't know what he was saying, he told me riches were a great temptation to any young man, and everybody, of course, knew my father was wealthy, ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... of the "charms wherewith to charm," and whose conversation is always vapid and silly to the point of absolute exhaustion on the part of those who are forced to listen to it. These sixteen-year-old marriages are, however, the only explanation frisky English matrons can give for having such alarmingly prolific families of tall sons and daughters, and it is a happy and convenient excuse—one that provides a satisfactory reason for the excessive painting of their faces and dyeing of their hair. Being young (as they so nobly assert), ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... loud crackling noise, a fire of sticks is applied to the boiling caldron's side, by the heat in frisky bells the liquor dances; within the water rages, and high the smoky fluid in foam overflows. Nor can the wave now contain itself; the black steam flies ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... music to fall dreamily upon these quiet roads. The neighbourhood seemed to breathe a tranquil prosperity. Red-cheeked emissaries of butcher, baker, and grocer, order-book in hand, knocked cheerily at kitchen doors, and went smiling away; the ponies they drove were well fed and frisky, their carts spick and span. The church of the parish, an imposing edifice, dated only from a few years ago, and had cost its noble founder a sum of money which any church-going parishioner would have named to you with proper awe. The population was largely female, ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... is the man whose wife is gone away! From cares exempt, he dwells in perfect peace. His heart is light as boy's on holiday. He walks abroad and joys in his release. The cat is gone, the frisky mouse doth play. The fox remote, walk forth the wandering geese. So he, delivered, thinks his troubles past, O halcyon ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... tenderly adjusting the garment, "let him sleep. He will be as frisky as a lamb when he wakes. How far are we ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... right here when dey put on dem fust new streetcars. Little bitty mules pulled 'em 'long and sometimes dey had a right hard time draggin' dem big old cars through mud and bad weather. Now and den day got too frisky and run away; dat was when dem cars would rock and roll and you wished you could git off and walk. Most of de time dem little mules done good and us was jus' crazy 'bout ridin' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... little details, and the gambols of two grey kittens in the porch, an old dog lying, with his nose on his paws, entirely regardless of his frisky neighbours. ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... who fired, as they were hidden in the ditches. The noise seemed to please the men, who were slouching along heavily in their best clothes, and Patu left his wife, and running up to a farm servant whom he perceived behind a tree, took his gun and fired a shot himself, as frisky as a young colt. Then they went on, beneath the apple trees which were heavy with fruit, through the high grass and through the midst of the calves, who looked at them with their great eyes, got up slowly and remained standing, with their muzzles turned ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... splash and splutter of a half-dozen flutter wheels. If, on account of your brains being heavier than your heels, you chance to turn a somersault, and your head goes under, your heels will pop up like a pair of frisky, ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... go about with miscellaneous escorts, to play the combined parts of frisky matron and society beauty—an intoxicating experience; while the supporter of that proud position played the humble role of chief comer-stone, unseen and unconsidered in the basement of the fabric. He attended to his investments and increasing ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... had better keep an eye on that frisky young gentleman when we return to New York," continued the old detective, wisely. "It may lead to a solution of the problem we are so anxious ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... been a woeful Bartholomew for Carlow chickens) and underneath, where the dogs paced faithfully, swung buckets and fodder for the horses, while colts innumerable trotted dose to the maternal flanks, viewing the world with their big, new eyes in frisky surprise. ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... psychology of the sonata form is false. Men and women do not feel happy for ten minutes as in the opening allegro of a sonata, then melancholy for another ten minutes, as in the following adagio, then frisky, as in the scherzo, and finally, fiery and impetuous for ten minutes as in the finale. The movements of our minds are seldom so systematic as this. Sad and happy thoughts and moods chase one another incessantly ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... the opposite side of the room. Sometimes, for a moment or two, the shadow remained immovable, as if it were painted on the wall. Then, all at once, it began to quiver, and leap, and dance, with a frisky motion. Anon, seeming to remember that these antics were unworthy of such a dignified and venerable chair, it suddenly stood still. But soon it began to ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... shut up, lessons were over, spirits rising fast, and vacation had begun. The quiet town seemed suddenly inundated with children all in such a rampant state that busy mothers wondered how they ever should be able to keep their frisky darlings out of mischief; thrifty fathers planned how they could bribe the idle hands to pick berries or rake hay; and the old folks, while wishing the young folks well, secretly blessed ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... As frisky each as shooting star, These tiny electricians are The Lampyrine Linnaean— Or lightning-bugs, that sparkling gleam Like scintillations in ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... his father I give Nellie to when I went away. She was a frisky filly then—she don't look nothin' ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... ice a bit, however. He plunged in, time after time, to fetch out my in-thrown stick, with a frisky bound; emerging after the performance with ice-pendants to his glossy, silken ears and coat smartly curled, as if he had just paid a visit to Truefitt's, and been manipulated by the dexterous hands of one of the assistants at that celebrated ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... homeward, none the worse for their spill, excepting a good shaking up, a few handfuls of snow merrily forming rills and rivulets down their necks, some badly battered hats and torn coats, and one of them, at least, with some wholesome lessons regarding handling four frisky horses when the air is frosty and a number of lives may depend upon ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Gott. I found his groups of young figures connected with animals very refreshing after the grander attempts of the present time. They seem real growths of his habitual mind,—fruits of Nature, full of joy and freedom. His spaniels and other frisky poppets would please Apollo far better than most of the marble nymphs and muses ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... to the Colonel. And so she led him past the low, crooked outbuildings at the back, where he saw old Uncle Ben busy over the preparation of his dinner, and frisky Rosetta, his daughter, playing with one of the Colonel's setters. Then Virginia took a well-worn path, on each side of which the high grass bent with its load of seed, which entered the wood. Oaks and hickories and walnuts and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the matter with that horse? asked Williams. He's as frisky as if he had been shut ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... potency" that sallow, haggard, half-starved peasants, French soldiers, scarlet-costumed contadinas, Swiss guards, German artists, English lords, and herdsmen from the Campagna, all "joined hands in the dance" which the musician himself led with the frisky, frolicsome step of the ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... fitin for the Old Flag, which had allers bin on the ticket HE'D voted, and he was too old to Bolt now. The 'Squire is all right at heart, but it takes longer for him to fill his venerable Biler with steam than it used to when he was young and frisky. As I previously informed you, I am Captin of the Baldinsville Company. I riz gradooally but majestically from drummer's Secretary to my present position. But I found the ranks wasn't full by no means, and commenced ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne
... had to fix up their cars. Duncan was tired - the other boys were frisky - so he nicely suggested that they "do as they jolly pleased with his car, so long as they left room for ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... it you? Well, there ain't nobody more welcome in this hotel!" exclaimed a small, frisky figure, rushing through the crowd, and seizing him earnestly by ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... and the barking of dogs in other and more distant villages; while, over all, the moon was rising, and the darkened countryside was beginning to glimmer to light again under her beams. What a glorious picture! Yet no one thought of admiring it. Instead of galloping over the countryside on frisky cobs, Nikolasha and Aleksasha were engaged in dreaming of Moscow, with its confectioners' shops and the theatres of which a cadet, newly arrived on a visit from the capital, had just been telling them; while their father had his mind full of how best to stuff his guests with yet more food, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... full of sport, and felt lively as a cricket. Oh, yes, I know the small, frisky fellow you call a cricket, with his little old black legs, and have heard him sing. So on this calm and lovely afternoon I began leaping upward instead of forward, and all at once I heard sounds of music floating across the upper sea. You can believe I floundered alongside, and oh, such sweetness ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... Holdup, "she can afford to buy more; at least, her mamma can, which is much the same; though to be sure, 'tis a fine thing to be independent. For my part, I think there is ten times more said about those filthy negroes than signifies: dear me! they are not to compare to my Frisky; 'tis the most angelic creature of a dog! worth fifty blacks any day, unless, to be sure, they ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... took the Grays all a-back, And feeling less coltish and frisky, They resolved to elate the cause of their state, And also their ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... a Nelly I have come to be! Is it possible that I once rode frisky colts bareback and had no nerves! I mustn't have nerves! They make one old. Mr. Blumenthal said so. But how to avoid them? Oh, I must be careful; so careful! How do women dare ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... any more dinner after this. As to Limby, he was as frisky afterwards as if nothing had happened; and, about half an hour from the time of this disaster, cried for ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... swinging low, absorbed in meditative digestion, and soberly retasting the sweetly succulent grass of the hollows, and the crisper and tastier acidity of the sorrel- mixed grass of the knolls. Behind them came Spotty and Speckly, young and frisky matrons of but a year's standing, who yet knew no better than to run with futile head at Roger, and so encourage that short-haired and short-tempered collie to snap at their heels. Here also, skirmishing on flank and rear, ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... been taken when its mother was shot with a poisoned arrow; its teeth were incomplete, and the face was pale and mottled, the glowing scarlet hue not supervening in these animals before mature age; it had also a few long black hairs on the eyebrows and lips. The frisky little fellow had been reared in the house amongst the children, and allowed to run about freely, and take its meals with the rest of the household. There are few animals which the Brazilians of these villages have not succeeded in taming. I have even seen young jaguars running loose about ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... described in a steeple chase, and 'making play' at a terrific pace. And certainly enough is exhibited of the old boy's hoofs, and their spanking qualities, to warrant our backing him against a railroad for a rump and dozen; but, after all, there is nothing to grow frisky about, as Longinus does, who gets up the steam of a blue-stocking enthusiasm, and boils us a regular gallop of ranting, in which, like the conceited snipe[10] upon the Liverpool railroad, he thinks himself to run a match with Sampson; ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... arrived, the delegates, sich ez wuz on hand, held a informal meetin to arrange matters so ez they wood work smooth when the crowd finally got together. Genral Wool wuz ez gay and frisky ez though he reely belonged to the last ginerashn. There wuz Custar, uv Michigan, with his hair freshly oiled and curled, and busslin about ez though he hed cheated hisself into the beleef that he reely amounted ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... alongside the fence. Rattler would go in to the stack, and she would shut him in. That would simplify the catching of him when he was needed. She would find something in which to carry water to him, if he was too frisky to lead to the creek. Billy Louise was no coward with horses, but she recognized certain fixed limitations in the management of a snuffy brute like Rattler. He was not like Blue, whom she could bully and tease and coax. Rattler was distinctly a man's saddle-horse. ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... nor all brave like the house-fly, nor all sweet and innocent and gentle like the lamb, nor all murderous like the spider and the tiger and the wasp, nor all thieves like the fox and the bluejay, nor all vain like the peacock, nor all frisky like the monkey. These things are all in him somewhere, and they develop according to the proportion of each he received in his allotment: We describe a man by his vicious traits and condemn him; or by his fine traits and gifts, and praise him and accord him high merit for their possession. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... into Society. Rossiter held that war-time parties were scandalous. He poohpoohed the idea that immodest dancing with frisky matrons or abandoned spinsters was necessary to restore the shell-shocked nerves of temporary captains, locally-ranked majors, or the recently-joined subaltern. He was far too busy for twaddly tea-fights and carping at hard-worked generals ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... suddenly inducted into the scene of action. Then there began a frisky game of maneuvers. The little, would-be rider proved as wary and nimble as the colt on which she finally succeeded in shooting a bridle. Another round of come and go, and one leg went over the slender neck, and then down the glossy back slid the lithe figure. ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... go! One frisky crab shot out a long claw and nearly grabbed Mona's finger, which so scared her that she dropped her side of the flat basket, and the crabs all slid out on the floor instead of ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... inelegant) had indeed an exaggerated idea of his own age, and sometimes said that he supposed he was going on four hundred, which was true enough, in fact; but for the exact date, he referred to his youngest son,—a frisky and humorsome lad of eighty years, who had received us at the gate, and whom we had at first mistaken for the veteran, his father. But when we beheld the old man, we saw the difference between age and age. The latter had settled ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Her constitution, however, was so severely affected that it was long a doubt if ever she would be well again. She looked lean and sickly for above a year, but began to mend the spring after, and by midsummer became fat and frisky. ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... since the beginning, though she has watched and studied our world from all its sides through uncounted ages. We men are alternately delighted, humiliated, and terrified when women anticipate our wishes, perceive our weaknesses, and detect our shortcomings, whether we be frisky young colts in the field or sober stagers plodding along between the matrimonial shafts in harness and blinkers. We pride ourselves on having the strength to smash the shafts, shake off the harness, and kick the cart to pieces if we choose, and there are men who can and do. But the ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... the green gloom I advanced bravely, my heart beating with all the pleasure of one who was exploring some unknown land. I saw no living thing by the way, save two grey rabbits that scuttered across my path and vanished in the undergrowth on the other side. Pretty frisky creatures! how I should like to have caught them, and fed them, and made pets of them ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... call, You better run, Brudder 'Possum, git out de way! You better run, Brudder 'Possum, git out de way! Run some whar an' hide! Ole moon am sinkin' Down behin' de tree. Ole Eph am thinkin' An' chuckelin' wid glee. Ole Tige am blinkin' An' frisky as kin be, Yo' chances, Brudder 'Possum, Look ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... "she comes to her senses! Give a woman like Mrs. Kinloch time enough to consider, and she will not turn her back on her true interest. O Theophilus, you are not by any means a fool! Slow and steady, slow and steady you go! Let the frisky woman appear to have her way,—you will win ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... other inhabitants of Little Hintock had become aware of the nocturnal experiment about to be tried, and were also sauntering stealthily after the frisky maidens. Miss Melbury had been informed by Marty South during the day of the proposed peep into futurity, and, being only a girl like the rest, she was sufficiently interested to wish to see the issue. The moon was so bright and the night so ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... thunder-storm during the night. In this respect, however, it is an object of envy rather than otherwise, for myriads of fleas, larger than I would care to say, for fear of being accused of exaggeration, hold high revel on our devoted carcasses all the livelong night. From the swarms of these frisky insects that disport and kick their heels together in riotous revelry on and about my own person, I fancy, forsooth, they have discovered in me something to be made the most of, as a variety of food seldom coming ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... boys up now. It's too late. They're all safe home, with their boots off, and their wives talkin' to them. Even the girl couldn't make 'em forget the honor of capturing Crop-eared Jose here in Colina, so run along, run along. The girl's too pretty to be hurt with a frisky horse. My Lord!" striding down the hall again, "you fools stop scrapping with that termagant and put her out, ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... with the rest, 'n' Heaven help me now, for I never was more beat out in all my life. I was up awful early this mornin' to be sure o' not bein' left, 'n' I may in confidence remark as I 've thought many times to-day as if I had been left I 'd of been a sight better off. Long rides is very frisky for them as is young 'n' in love 'n' likes to drive alternate, but for a woman o' my age, bein' wedged solid for sixteen miles at a time is most tryin'; 'n' comin' back some o' them smart Meadville boys had the fine idea o' puttin' walnuts under the seats, 'n' ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... in my mind, and I had to use it. At the beginning of one's career, if one were to calculate too carefully, impulse, momentum, daring, original conception would be lost. To be too audacious, even to exaggerate, is no crime in youth nor in the young artist. As a farmer once said to me regarding a frisky mount, it is better to smash through the top ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... The frisky damsels explored ruins, ran races on the hard beach, sniffed the salt breezes, and astonished the natives by swarming up and down 'precipices,' as ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... the mail. As the road lay through the most attractive part of the Divide country, on several occasions Margaret Elliot and her brother had accompanied him. Tonight Wyllis had business with Lockhart, and Margaret rode with Eric, mounted on a frisky little mustang that Mrs. Lockhart had broken to the sidesaddle. Margaret regarded her escort very much as she did the servant who always accompanied her on long rides at home, and the ride to the village was a silent one. She was occupied with thoughts of another world, and Eric was wrestling ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... some of the game, they moved forward, across the little clearing, and then through the woods for the best part of a quarter of a mile. During that time they saw several squirrels, but were unable to get a shot at the frisky animals. ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... Frisky on one side of him and Jasper Jay on the other Mr. Crow thought that maybe he could keep drier because they were there. But he hoped no one else would ...
— The Tale of Old Mr. Crow • Arthur Scott Bailey
... to the good old whiskey, Drink 'er daown! Here's to the good old whiskey, It makes you feel so frisky, Drink 'er—' ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... says Peets, plumb cheerful an' frisky, same as them case-hardened drug folks allers is when some other sport passes in his checks—'no malady whatsoever. His jag simply stops on centers, as a railroad gent'd say, an' I'm ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... think Mr Cumbermede's horse a little too frisky for you, Clara? I know so little about you, I can't tell what you're fit for.—She used to ride pretty well as a girl,' ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... a fuss and a bother, forsooth, was made By that man-tormentor, Gustavus, the Swede, Whose camp was a church, where prayers were said At morning reveille and evening tattoo; And, whenever it chanced that we frisky grew, A sermon himself from the saddle ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... he wishes to take exercise, and Fukuroku Jin wants to show how frisky he can be, even if he is old, they have a wrestling match together. Daikoku nearly always beats, because Fukuroku Jin is so tall that he has to bend down to grip Daikoku, who is fat and short, and thus he becomes ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... "Frisky," because he is so very lively. He is so nimble with his heels, that it is not safe for a small boy to go very near him now; but Willie expects to ride ...
— The Nursery, June 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 6 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... children forget I am quite old. They catch hold of me, and make me play so hard, that I am afraid I shall never get to be a very mouldy old lady, sitting in a corner, with my head tied up in a flannel petticoat, to keep off the draught. I'm afraid I shall always be frisky. What do you think about it, ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... a very dear and funny little dog and she was very fond of him. To be sure, he was often wild and bad just like Charles Stuart, but then he was so neat and cute and frisky and altogether lovable. He had a cunning face, queerly marked. Round one eye was a large black patch, which gave him a disreputable air, and his habit of putting his little head on one side and looking supernaturally ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... develop a growing distaste for the company of your kind, or in fact, any kind. 'Tis a day when the sea, grown frisky, kicks up its nimble heels and tosses its frothy mane. A cigar tastes wrong then and the mere sight of so many meat pies and so many German salads at the entrance to the dining salon gives one acute displeasure. By these signs you know that you are on the verge of being taken down with climate ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... us want to hug them. There were enchanting angels, and there were huge fauns and satyrs. There were placid landscapes where, it may be, the artist's soul, teeming with the life of all time, took its rest and recreation sporting with the nymphs of the woodland streams or with the frisky dryads of ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... is she sees Mr. Frisky Squirrel, old Mr. Plodding Turtle, Mr. Bunny Rabbit, and many others; but never until yesterday did she make the acquaintance of the gray goose, and then it was owing to Master Teddy's mischief that she found a new friend among ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... attached to the bit, I also had to overleap, so that the next moment I found myself standing erect with the reins between my legs, holding on to a horse behind me still standing in her arrested tracks. Remounting, I soon found the frisky mules and started them toward misery. Driven into the corral where their freight had been divided into packs of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds, they were one by one saddled, cinched, and packed. A small mule would seem to be unequal to ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... by the stately white cat; slowly the ragged coat was opened and out sprang a frisky plebeian kitten right under the Angora's aristocratic nose. What a picture it was. The little black kitten startled and dazed by the light and warmth, and a great prince of a cat towering over her. ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... critters all was p'osp'ous, now would be de chance Fu' to tease ol' Pa'son Hedgehog, givin' of a dance; Case, you know, de critters' preachah was de stric'est kin', An' he nevah made no 'lowance fu' de frisky min'. ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... tired now in every cell. "Funny! Vacation doesn't seem to have done me a bit of good," he lamented. "Paul's frisky as a colt, but I swear, I'm crankier and nervouser than when I came ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... basket of rushes. While she waited she looked about, and kept finding something curious or pleasant to interest and amuse her. First she saw a tiny rainbow in a dewdrop that hung on a blade of grass; then she watched a frisky calf come down to drink on the other side of the brook, and laughed to see him scamper away with his tail in the air. Close by grew a pitcher-plant; and a yellow butterfly sat on the edge, bathing its feet, Daisy said. Presently she discovered ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... disagreeable traits, just as much individuality in their badness, as human beings. Under kind treatment, daily petting, and generous feeding, "Dolly" is too frisky and headstrong for a ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... we walked forward, and indeed seemed to be approaching one of her waggish, frolicsome moods. But her fun in these moods was solitary. The joke, whatever it was, remained in her own keeping. When we approached the ruined brick tower—in old times a pigeon-house—she grew quite frisky, and twirled her basket in the air, and ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... dinner, Aleck's team stepped off for the barn, wet, but fresh and frisky as ever, and in perfect heart. Don's horses appeared fretted and jaded, while Ranald brought in his blacks with their glossy skins white with foam where the harness had chafed, but unfretted, and apparently as ready for work ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... he had tumbled from their frisky pony at one shot, near Paint Creek, and the whish of the bullet grazing his head, and his dive for a tree, only whetted his appetite for more fun; consequently when the Daniel Boone party turned about, he and his comrade Montgomery lingered, to experiment ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... cloudless and the nag, who was inclined to be frisky, would suddenly start off at a gallop every now and then. As they entered the commune of Etouvent Jeanne's heart beat so that ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... dinner, and dressed by our new cook, Munseer Cordongblew. I bore it very well; eating, for my share, a filly dysol allamater dotell, a cutlet soubeast, a pully bashymall, and other French dishes: and, for the frisky sweet wine, with tin tops to the bottles, called Champang, I must say that me and Mrs. Coxe-Tuggeridge Coxe drank a very good share of it (but the Claret and Jonnysberger, being sour, we did not much relish). However, the feed, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... honeyed, the acidulated, and bibulous-godly (mostly Scottish), the bibulous-ungodly (mostly English), the slut with a clean outside to things, the painstaking sloven, the peculative (here one majestic sample), the reduced in circumstances, the confidential, the reserved, the frisky, the motherly, the step-motherly—a most excellent assembly for ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... of horses and mules all waiting saddled up. We had arranged an officers' paper chase and every officer attended; those who couldn't find chargers had perforce to ride mules. The hares (Captain Burnett on "Mrs. Wilson" and 2/Lieut. Todd on the frisky black) were given ten minutes' grace and then, led by "Sunloch" (Lieut.-Colonel Griffiths "up") the rest of us swung out of the Park and off towards Labuissiere. The pace was very hot and most of us soon dropped behind, though the mules, keeping ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... boy." But I want to tell my story. For two or three days Charlie went each morning to his neighbor's barn, and after milking the cow turned all the creatures to pasture, and every night drove them home again. One morning, as he stood by the bars waiting for them all to pass out, a frisky year-old calf—"a yearling" the farmers call them—instead of going orderly over the bars, as a well-disposed calf should, just gave a side jump and shook her horns at Charlie. "Over with you!" called ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... little quirk to his mouth the gruff Senior Surgeon jerked his glance back from the open window where with the gleam of a slim torn-boyish ankle the frisky young Spring went scurrying ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... curvet, caracole; foot it, bob, bounce, flounce, start; frisk &c (amusement) 840; jump about &c (agitation) 315; trip it on the light fantastic toe, trip the light fantastic, dance oneself off one's legs, dance off one's shoes. Adj. leaping &c v.; saltatory^, frisky. Adv. on the light fantastic toe. Phr. di salto ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... back, our hero felt some qualms of regret, for he was old and heavy, while the horse was young, frisky, and headstrong, so that, in less than half an hour, behold, our would-be cavalier was on foot again, vainly striving to drag along by the bridle a creature that cocked up his head at every puff of wind, and capered and pranced at every stone that ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... until after his death. The poor seneschal had already great trouble to follow his lady to the chase, without being dismounted; he sweated under the weight of his trappings, and almost expired in that pursuit wherein his frisky wife cheered her life and took great pleasure. Many times in the evening she wished to dance. Now the good man, swathed in his heavy clothing, found himself quite worn out with these exercises, in which he was constrained ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... the road, looking at the fluffy, dark-red young cattle that mooed and seemed to bark at me. They seemed happy, frisky cattle, a little impudent, and either determined to go back into the warm shed, or determined not to go back, I could not ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... keeps the keys Of pleasure's temple. Round about were hung The glorious features of the bards who sung In other ages—cold and sacred busts Smiled at each other. Happy he who trusts To clear Futurity his darling fame! Then there were fauns and satyrs taking aim At swelling apples with a frisky leap And reaching fingers, 'mid a luscious heap Of vine leaves. Then there rose to view a fane Of liny marble, and thereto a train Of nymphs approaching fairly o'er the sward: One, loveliest, holding her white band toward The dazzling sun-rise: ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... soldier's wife, I should have been terribly alarmed; but my soldier does not like to see himself disgraced in his other half, and so I was fain to keep up my courage, till, at length, after we had passed Fetcham, the frisky animal plunged till he fastened the shaft against a hedge, and then, little Betty beginning to scream, I inquired of the postilion if we had not better alight. If it were not, he said, for the dirt, yes. The dirt then was defied, and I prevailed, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... twice, a recitation, very spiritedly rendered in a powerful Scottish accent, varied the proceedings; and once we sought in vain to dance a quadrille, eight men of us together, to the music of the violin. The performers were all humorous, frisky fellows, who loved to cut capers in private life; but as soon as they were arranged for the dance, they conducted themselves like so many mutes at a funeral. I have never seen decorum pushed so far; and as this was not expected, the quadrille was soon whistled ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... teeth, and a snort, snort, from the wakeful nostril of our mute companions, (equo ne credite, Teucri!)—one stinted quadruped was ransacking the manger for hay, another was cracking his beans to make him frisky to-morrow, and more than one seemed actually rubbing his moist nose just under our bed! This was not all; not a whisk of their tails escaped us, and when they coughed, which was often, the hoarse roncione shook the very tressels of our bed; in short, we ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... this hill when my tricycle became frisky and showed signs of wanting to run, and I got a little nervous, for I didn't fancy going fast down a slope like that. I put on the brake, but I don't believe I managed it right, for I seemed to go faster and faster; and then, as the machine didn't need any working, I took ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... church till I found a minister that was up to 'em all in Greek and all that, and he said right the contrary; and then I took right hold, and jined the church,—I did now, fact," said John, who had been all this time uncorking some very frisky bottled cider, which ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the table and flashed the twinkle of a wink to the waiter. "Gad! Doll, if you look at me with them frisky eyes I—" ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... one there, that's all white, with black ears—Well! he dotes on poppies. He is very clever at picking them out from the other weeds. The other day he got the colic. So I took him and kept him warm in my pocket. Since then he has been quite frisky.' ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... away from us on the bridal tour, when her letters came back to us almost every day, just like herself, merry, frisky little bits of scratches,—as full of little nonsense-beads as a glass of Champagne, and all ending with telling us how perfect he was, and how good, and how well he took care of her, and how ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... been a conservative principle of mine that my times of exercise should coincide with those of my wife, and for two years I have proved to her that I take an ever fresh pleasure in giving her my arm. If the weather is not suitable for walking, I try to teach her how to drive with success a frisky horse; but I swear to you that I undertake this in such a manner that she does not learn very quickly!—If either by chance, or prompted by a deliberate wish, she takes measures to escape without ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... The sage Anack Courted a frisky Samian body, Singing her praise In metered phrase As flowing as his ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... go. The first few weeks of May had been, to my starved city eyes, a dazzling pageant of beauty. The landscape glowed with yellow daffodils, pink peach blossoms, and the bright green of new wheat; the fields were alive with the frisky joyousness of spring lambs and colts, turned out to pasture. It was with a keen feeling of reluctance that I faced the prospect of New York's brick and stone and asphalt. My work was calling, but I lazily postponed my departure from ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... should be the first to suggest it, except that you have a positive genius for conquest. But still, as you say, there is something very troublesome about them; and it would be better, as I understand you to suggest, that we should starve him for a day or two first, so that he may be a little less frisky when we take ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... love's sake. I begin to see what men call red Beelzebub, and that's an end to all true fellowship. Whiffle your tufted bee's wing, Signior Cobweb, I beseech you—a little fiery devil with four eyes floats in my brain, and flame's a frisky bedfellow. Avaunt! avaunt ye! Would now my true friend Bottom the weaver were at my side. His was a courage to make princes great. Prithee, Queen Tittany, no ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... eaten had made them feel rather sleepy, but now they were beginning to recover from the effects of it, and now they suddenly became quite frisky. Punch leaped over Judy's back, and then chased her into the middle of the road and back again. Even old Jumbo caught the infection, and though he very seldom condescended to take any notice of the other rabbits, now ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... baby-house furnished with little beds and chairs and tables; and they had a big Newfoundland dog, Old Bruno; and Dumps and Tot both had a little kitten apiece; and there was "Old Billy," who once upon a time had been a frisky little lamb, Diddie's special pet; but now he was a vicious old sheep, who amused the children very much by running after them whenever he could catch them out-of-doors. Sometimes, though, he would butt them over and hurt ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... spirit!" chuckled the master, a gleam of interest illumining his cavernous eyes. "Young!—frisky!—an affair of honor to-day is but nursery sport. Two children with tin swords are more diverting. The world goes backward! A counter-jumper thinks he can lunge, because he is spry, that he can touch a button because he sells them. And I am wasting ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... believe she was too startled to decline it. She accepted his arm with a look of blank amazement, and the two set off together through the April slosh, followed by the inevitable juvenile guard. Judging from the bespattered condition of Timothy's overcoat that night, the younglings danced about him like frisky satyrs all the way; but he wore the face of one who has walked with angels ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... leading the frisky little animal, and Master Rayburn chuckled a little, for the boy bent his head, rounded his shoulders, and paid not the slightest heed to the order he ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... romance, for the attraction and possibility of adventure, and because he is young. If a reader wants to see petty characters displayed in all their meannesses, if this be realism, surely certain of Mr. Kipling's painted and frisky matrons are realistic enough. The seamy side of Anglo-Indian life: the intrigues, amorous or semi-political—the slang of people who describe dining as "mangling garbage" the "games of tennis with the seventh commandment"—he ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang |
