"Enliven" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out this stormy gloom, Thy dear smile shall brightly steal; O'er my heart's enliven'd bloom, O'er the ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... so all along the street white and dark red are the only colors to be seen. From a distance all the houses produce an effect of black trimmed with strips of linen, and present an appearance partly festal, partly funereal, leaving one in doubt whether they enliven or depress. At first sight I felt inclined to laugh: it seemed impossible that these houses were not playthings and that serious people could live inside them. I should have said that after the fete for which they had been constructed they must disappear like paper frames ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... Russians no roads. There is no amusement except in the lumbering diligences of France, that gabbling and indiscreet country, where every one is in a hurry to laugh and show his wit, and where jest and epigram enliven all things, even the poverty of the lower classes and the weightier cares of the solid bourgeois. In a coach there is no police to check tongues, and legislative assemblies have set the fashion of public discussion. When ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... it does!" seconded Button. "And you owe it to the poor untraveled animals to give out some of your experiences to them, to enliven their humdrum lives and tell them about the outside world. Just see what a lot of pleasure the Dog and Cat Club give those stay-at-homes who have never been outside the suburbs of New York City—and most of them have never ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... the walls, but kept the inspection to himself. He arranged and rearranged, he plunged his hand rapidly into certain mysterious boxes, singing in one of the falsest of voices an old French refrain to enliven the situation. ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... Katherine, entering, her fair cheek glowing with animation, 'only dahlias, but they will look pretty, and enliven his room. Oh! that I might write him a little word, and tell him I am here! Do not you think ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... meetings of the Philosophical Society a new mode of proceeding was introduced this term. To enliven the meetings, private members were requested to give oral lectures. Mine was the second, I think, and I took for subject The Machinery of the Steam Engines in the Cornish mines, and especially of the Pumping Engines and Pumps. It made an excellent lecture: the subjects were at that ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... plenty of room in Castlewood House, and Mrs. Mountain served to enliven the place. She played cards with the mistress: she had some knowledge of music, and could help the eldest boy in that way: she laughed and was pleased with the guests: she saw to the strangers' chambers, and presided over the presses and the linen. She was a kind, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... beautiful. The reader will look in vain for those glowing descriptions of American scenery, and graphic delineations of the peculiarities of the American character with which other travellers have endeavored to enliven and diversify their journals. Coming among us on an errand of peace and good will—with a heart oppressed and burdened by the woes of suffering humanity—he had no leisure for curious observations of men and manners, nor even for the gratification of a simple and unperverted taste ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... my own Ellen, to cheer my old age and enliven our deserted hearth. You must not leave me yet, dearest. I cannot part ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... after was appointed colonel in charge, which high position he worked for and earned by faithful service. I think what made us such good friends was our early comradeship in the volunteers. We used to have march-outs to Esquimalt, to Cadboro Bay or to Beacon Hill and back, and to enliven the march would sing songs; those with a good chorus which were joined in by the rest. These days of the past were often talked over by us in later years, while I, to please the Collector of Customs, Mr. Hamly, in 1884, resigned membership in the militia, after eighteen years as a volunteer ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... it may—when Reynolds can no more enliven a theatre by his Dramatist, this comedy will grow dull in excellent company—for Congreve's "Way of the World" was hissed, it is said, from a London stage, the last time it was ...
— The Dramatist; or Stop Him Who Can! - A Comedy, in Five Acts • Frederick Reynolds
... I might read instead of print my speech,— Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower Refuses obstinately blow in print." R. and B. IX. ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... "Smuggle the Keg," "Booly Horn," "Dock," "Loup the Frog," "Foot and a Half," "Bools," "Pitch and Toss," or any one of another dozen, all of which are essentially boys' games, and have no rhymes to enliven their action. But if it is to be a game in which both sexes may equally engage, or a game for girls alone, then almost certainly there is a rhyme with it. Somehow girls have always been more musical than boys, ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... at Dublin in 1795, and poisoned himself in the dock.[4] A third was William Thompson, known as 'Blarney,' a painter, who had married a rich wife in 1767, but had apparently spent her money by this time.[5] Mrs. Stephen condescended to enliven the little society by her musical talents. The prisoners in general welcomed Stephen as a champion of liberty. A writ of 'Habeas Corpus' was obtained, and Stephen argued his case before Lord Mansfield. The great lawyer was naturally less amenable to reason than the prisoners. He was, however, impressed, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... came to announce that my dinner was ready. I went down the winding staircase to the vast lonely hall, where I usually ate alone—the master of the house being absent on a journey; but though my appetite was that of a convalescent, I am sure I did not enliven the meal for myself by my usual humorous observations: to the officer, for example, that I was doubtful whether the beef was camel, or the mutton was donkey. Ali seemed rather surprised, especially when I asked him, abruptly, who it was that sang ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... wrote for a monthly magazine an out-door paper—a summer study, intended to enliven the reader's feeling rather than enlighten his understanding—and timed the production of it so that it should appear during the winter. The thought that it would be read only by bright firesides cheered me not a little in the writing. The editor, endeavoring ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... in a voluptuosity of fear, she stole out into the cloister where the darkness was pierced by the milky spots of the window panes. Nobody!... Then she would sit down in the monks' cemetery vainly awaiting the apparition of the ghostly friar to enliven her monotonous ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... see what can be done," he said to himself, trying to enliven the long minutes of his waiting, minutes which seemed to grow longer and ever longer, like ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was in Paris, an incident occured, the recollection of which has served to enliven many a social occasion. It was the exciting time succeeding the attempted assassination of Napoleon by Orsini. Mr. Lee always wore a long, sandy beard, and in his travels sported a soft, broad-brimmed hat. One day, while walking about the streets, he was arrested and taken to the Palais de Justice. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... were scarcely of the kind to enliven foreign travel, though they made her so easy and pleasant a companion; but he saw at once how they would fall into place in their proper setting. He had no fear of being oppressed by them, for his artistic ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... Towards sundown the same gigantic negro entered the room again, bringing us our evening meal. When he left we were locked up for the night, with only the contemplation of our woes, and the companionship of the multitudes of mice that scampered about the floor, to enliven us. ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... of his prairie foes, we also despatched him with a shot of a rifle. It was an act of humanity, but still the destruction of this noble animal in the wilderness threw a gloom over our spirits. The doctor perceiving this, thought it advisable to enliven us with the ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... joy o'er the cheering prospect. She kissed and fondled Louise and even teased her. Reading or chatting to the blind girl, sewing her frocks or performing a thousand and one kindly services, her sole thought was to distract and enliven the prisoned soul behind ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... of his melodious, yet manly voice, will be remembered by me till every vision of this changing scene are forgotten. The polished and fascinating ingenuousness of his manners contributed not a little to enliven our promenade. He sang with exquisite taste, and the tones of his voice, breaking on the silence of the night, have often appeared to my entranced senses like more than mortal melody.' But besides his graces of person, he had a most delightful wit, ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... legendary, the historical, or the domestic ballad; from the strains that enliven the harvest-home and festival, to the love- ditties which the country lass warbles, or the comic song with which the rustic sets the village hostel in a roar. In our collection are several pieces exceedingly scarce, and hitherto ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... serve to enliven the dull tones of our Home Office archives. There one reads of bread riots and meal riots so far back as May 1792, in which stalls are overturned and despoiled; also of more persistent agitation in the factory towns of the North. Liverpool leads off with a dock-strike ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... from the front. Open the gate in that stone balustrade. Come southward to the garden side of the house. Lady Montfort's flower-garden. Yes; not so dull!—flowers, even autumnal flowers, enliven any sward. Still, on so large a scale, and so little relief; so little mystery about those broad gravel-walks; not a winding alley anywhere. Oh, for a vulgar summer-house; for some alcove, all honeysuckle and ivy! But the dahlias are splendid! Very true; only, dahlias, at the best, are such uninteresting ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... garden thyme, used for flavouring, is credited with many virtues. It is said to inspire courage and enliven the spirits, and for this reason should be taken by melancholy persons. It is good against nervous headache, flatulence, and hysterical ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... the very victory had removed that excitement which answered in the absence of happier stimulations to keep up his heart and courage. After a struggle like that in which he had been engaged, it was hard to come again into the peaceable routine without any particular hope to enliven or happiness to cheer it, which was all he had at present to look for in his life; and it was harder still to feel the necessity of being silent, of standing apart from Lucy in her need, of shutting up in his own heart the longing he had towards her, and refraining himself ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... can be nothing but a morbid dumb show, for they are so far from the bench that not a word of the proceedings could be heard. Only once in a while the shrieks and imprecations of a struggling hysterical woman as she is hurried out of court can enliven the scene. ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... black things looked so rusty in the spring sunshine, she could not satisfy herself with anything she had. All Aunt Victoria's possessions were hers, and she examined her boxes, looking for something to enliven her own sombre dress, and found some lace which she turned into a collar and cuffs and sewed on. When she saw herself in the glass with this becoming addition to her dress, her face brightened at the effect. She knew that Aunt Victoria would have been pleased to see ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... an experienced and self-reliant woman. No doubt, distrustful of banks as of railway companies, she kept her money hidden in her bedroom. I pitied my poor young friend; he would need all his gaiety to enliven the domestic side of the Cafe ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... so that an open fire added much to the evening's enjoyment. Each morning, however, before his departure, Mr. Britton stopped for a few words with Darrell; some quaint, kindly bit of humor, the pleasant flavor of which would enliven the entire day; some unhackneyed expression of sympathy whose very genuineness and sincerity made Darrell's position seem to him less isolated and solitary than before; or some suggestion which, acted upon, relieved the monotony of the tedious hours ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... mademoiselle," he replied as he placed his hand on his heart. And inspired with the wish to say something pretty or comical, which might serve to enliven the meeting, he added: "You see, your health has been taking a rest. Now it will ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... can," I answered; "but it is only at times that the power of song comes upon me. For that I must wait; but I have a feeling that if I work well, song will not be far off to enliven the labour." ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... honour'd stem! what ancestors Where those you sprang from, and what years were mark'd In your first childhood? Tell me of the fold, That hath Saint John for guardian, what was then Its state, and who in it were highest seated?" As embers, at the breathing of the wind, Their flame enliven, so that light I saw Shine at my blandishments; and, as it grew More fair to look on, so with voice more sweet, Yet not in this our modern phrase, forthwith It answer'd: "From the day, when it was said ' Hail Virgin!' ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... from the roofs where they build their nests, storks make yearly pilgrimages to Mecca, halcyons carry the souls of the faithful to Paradise. Thus he protects and feeds them, through a sentiment of gratitude and piety; and they enliven the house, the sea, and the sepulchre. Every quarter of Stamboul is full of the noise of them, bringing to the city a sense of the pleasures of country life, and continually refreshing the soul ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... in education. Textbooks, trade journals, dictionaries, and other publications could more effectively teach or describe; scientific journals could include in the body of text neat and accurate pictures to enliven the pages and illustrate the equipment and procedures described. Articles on travel could now have convincingly realistic renditions of architectural landmarks and of foreign sights, customs, personages, and views. The wood ...
— Why Bewick Succeeded - A Note in the History of Wood Engraving • Jacob Kainen
... efforts of the novelist's influential friends, the Count de Lobau, who was responsible for the arrest, showed himself inexorable, and a second day was spent in captivity, which Werdet came again towards evening to enliven. A whole pile of perfumed epistles sent by feminine sympathizers was lying on the table, and the publisher had to open them and read them aloud to his companion. When a third day's confinement was decided on by the authorities, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... screwed up his courage sufficiently to enable him to request a private interview with Mr. Honeywood in the library, the Squire most humanely relieved him from a large load of embarrassment, and checked the hems and hums and haws that our hero was letting off like squibs, to enliven his conversation, by saying, "I think I guess the nature of your errand - to ask my consent to your engagement with my ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... of his grandfather, and even of his mother, from whom he inherited it. A grove and thicket now occupy the site of the former manor, and screen the view of each wing from the other. Vegetable gardens and berry patches lie near at hand, and beds of brilliant but not rare flowers enliven the immediate vicinity of ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... dig his spade haphazard into the earth and by that act liberate a small stream which shall become a mighty river. Not less casual perhaps, certainly not less momentous in its consequences, was the first attempt, by some enterprising ecclesiastic, to enliven the hardly understood Latin service of the Church. Who the innovator was is unrecorded. The form of his innovation, however, may be guessed from this, that even in the fifth century human tableaux had a place in the Church service ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... that of the Body, so much superior are the Pleasures of one to those of the other: It is no wonder then, that the Assemblies of Friends are dull and heavy, that Feasts and Wine are flat Entertainments, unless some ingenious Persons are present to improve their Taste, and enliven ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... through Europe and America, and is acquainted with books and with many sciences; but such simple objects of contemplation suffice me, who have no time to bestow on more extensive observations. Happily these require no study, they are obvious, they gild the moments I dedicate to them, and enliven the severe labours which I perform. At home my happiness springs from very different objects; the gradual unfolding of my children's reason, the study of their dawning tempers attract all my paternal attention. I have to contrive little punishments for their little faults, small ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... of the establishment improvised, immediately upon alighting from the railway train, by a parvenu of colossal wealth, in great haste to enjoy himself. Although there was no sign of a woman's dress about the table, no bit of light and airy material to enliven the scene, it was by no means monotonous, thanks to the incongruity, the nondescript character of the guests, gathered together from all ranks of society, specimens of mankind culled from every race in France, in Europe, in the whole world, from top to bottom of the social scale. First ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... again,—self-important, presuming, familiar, ignorant, and ill-bred. She had a little beauty and a little accomplishment, but so little judgment that she thought herself coming with superior knowledge of the world, to enliven and improve a country neighbourhood; and conceived Miss Hawkins to have held such a place in society as Mrs. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... channel, and turning to all points of the compass, so that nearly three miles had to be travelled to make good one. Clumps of the beautiful palms were occasionally passed, growing mostly in the river bed, and where they appear, they considerably enliven the scenery. During my sojourn in this glen, and indeed from first starting, I collected a great number of most beautiful flowers, which grow in profusion in this otherwise desolate glen. I was literally surrounded by fair flowers of every changing hue. Why Nature should scatter such ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... enthusiasm, however, upon which it is borne, the lyrical strain which pervades it, yield their true effect. The rich resources derived from the national epos are here happily utilised, and the pure versification and brilliant style of the whole stir our admiration." It well serves to diversify and enliven the usually dry annals of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," and cannot be spared in the great dearth of poetry of ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous
... winter season, are well patronized, and with one or two exceptions are successful in a pecuniary sense. There are usually from 50,000 to 100,000 strangers in the city, and the majority of these find the evenings dull without some amusement to enliven them. Many of them are persons who come for pleasure, and who regard the theatres as one of the most enjoyable of all the sights of the city; but a very large portion are merchants, who are wearied with buying stock, and who really need some pleasant relaxation after the fatigues ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... at least consoling to feel that only a very small minority of those who read this is destined to enliven our thoroughfares with such grotesque images as is furnished by the plate for 1945. The confidently asinine demeanour of this youth is hardly relieved by the absurdity of a watch suspended by a chain from the crown of his hat. That society protested ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... save that of sheep-pens or lumber-rooms. Destitute of windows, so that the sun and air found admittance only through the doorway, without fireplaces, boarded floors, or plastered walls, they presented simply so many square feet of space walled in by stone and mortar. But Fancy had the power to enliven, furnish, people them. She suggested that their very number was an indication of sociability, excitement, noise, and mirth. Here, as in all feudal dwellings, the vast disproportion between the space allotted to the dependents and that reserved for the lord ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... you see our situation! widely different from what it once was. Yes, once we were a happy people! Liberty shone upon our land, bright as the sun that gilds yon fields; while we and our fathers rejoiced in its lovely beams, gay as the birds that enliven our forests. But, alas! those golden days are gone, and the cloud of war now hangs dark and lowering over our heads. Our once peaceful land is now filled with uproar and death. Foreign ruffians, braving us up to our very firesides and altars, leave us no alternative but ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... sixty-fourth year, suffering from rheumatism and a painful affection of one of her eyes, a condition altogether very unpropitious in which to commence the career of arms in the capacity of field-marshal to a youthful Queen. Notwithstanding all this, however, she exerted herself to enliven everybody, to console, to inspire fortitude and a spirit of joyousness around her, never to see things on their darkest side or through her ailing eye, but to obey rather the buoyant spirit and an inclination to hope for the best, which was ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... and enliven by adding something that is not necessarily or very closely connected with that to which it is added; to illustrate is to add something so far like in kind as to cast a side-light upon the principal ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... piles from the mud shore you will see the white-painted factories and their great store-houses for oil; each factory likely enough with its flag at half-mast, which does not enliven the scenery either, for you know it is because somebody is "dead again." Throughout and over all is the torrential downpour of the wet-season rain, coming down night and day with its dull roar. I have known it rain six mortal ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... uninteresting, save for the cheerful efforts of Arobin to enliven things. Mrs. Highcamp deplored the absence of her daughter from the races, and tried to convey to her what she had missed by going to the "Dante reading" instead of joining them. The girl held a geranium leaf up to her nose and said nothing, but ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... some church charity, and the purchaser and the girl have dinner together. They are often expensive parties to a serious-minded mountain swain who can not surrender the day's privileges to a rival or will not yield his dignity and rights to fun-makers who enliven the biddings by making the basket, brought by "his girl," cost at least as ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... ferocious aspect than the lion himself, but are quite timid. We never could, by waving a red handkerchief, according to the prescription, induce them to venture near to us. It may therefore be that the red colour excites their fury only when wounded or hotly pursued. Herds of lechee or lechwe now enliven the meadows; and they and their younger brother, the graceful poku, smaller, and of a rounder contour, race together towards the grassy fens. We venture to call the poku after the late Major Vardon, a noble-hearted African traveller; but fully ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... "It cannot seem strange to you that time should often hang heavily on his hands, and I am grateful to any one who helps me to enliven his hours." ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... way to enliven any conversation than by dropping the remark that a human being always does what he wants to do. Simple as the statement seems, it is quite enough to quicken the dullest table-talk and ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... caught the juices. Bakestones, griddles and clay ovens were at hand to stand on the hot embers, and later, ovens were built into the fireplaces. From cranes, simple at first and later with convenient arrangements for tipping, hung the pots for boiling. Bellows were at hand to enliven dying embers. On a rough table stood the brass mortar and iron pestle for mixing, the flesh-hook for handling meats, brass skimmer, rolling-pin, and other handy cooking utensils. Besides, in an adjoining space, there were ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... no more, but rising from her meal had recourse to the window and her own thoughts. These were in unison with the neglected garden and the sullen pool, which even the sunshine failed to enliven. Her heart was torn between the sense of Sir George's treachery—which now benumbed her brain and now awoke it to a fury of resentment—and fond memories of words and looks and gestures, that shook her very frame and left her sick—love-sick and trembling. She did not look forward or form ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... that he did not at first find them out. It was explained that Madame de Selinville was residing with her aunt, and that, having come to visit her father, he had detained the ladies to supper, hoping to enliven the ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are just in time to enliven Mr. Falkirk's breakfast, over which he ran some risk of ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... sensation than by any verbal description. A good life is the prolepsis of Divine science—the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Divinity is a true efflux from the eternal light, which, like the sunbeams, does not only enlighten, but also heat and enliven; and therefore our Saviour hath in His beatitudes connext purity of heart to the beatific vision." "Systems and models furnish but a poor wan light," compared with that which shines in purified souls. "To seek our divinity merely in books ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... to Leith to see the Smeaton, then loading for the Bell Rock. On stepping on board, Mrs. Dickson seemed to be quite overcome with so many concurrent circumstances, tending in a peculiar manner to revive and enliven the memory of her departed father, and, on leaving the vessel, she would not be restrained from presenting the crew with a piece of money. The Smeaton had been named spontaneously, from a sense of the obligation which a public work of the description of the Bell Rock owed to the labours ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the path is enough to enliven a long day's walk in even a commonplace or dreary country-side. Something that we have seen from miles back, upon an eminence, is so long hid from us, as we wander through folded valleys or among woods, that our expectation of seeing it again is sharpened ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... simplest meal satisfied him, all he required was that it should be prepared artistically; and he maintained that the art of cookery consisted in exciting the taste. He used to say, "to excite a stomach of Papier Mache, and enliven vital powers almost ready to depart, a cook needs more talent than he who has solved the ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... inner walls were of the same material, fronted with enamelled bricks representing hunting scenes. The figures, according to this author, were larger than the life, and consisted chiefly of a great variety of animal forms. There were not wanting, however, a certain number of human forms to enliven the scene; and among these were two—a man thrusting his spear through a lion, and a woman on horseback aiming at a leopard with her javelin—which the later Greeks believed to represent the mythic Ninus and Semiramis. Of the character ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... driven off the stage, by the offence which the mummy and crocodile gave the audience, while the exploded scene was yet fresh in memory, it happened that Cibber played Bayes in the Rehearsal; and, as it had been usual to enliven the part by the mention of any recent theatrical transactions, he said, that he once thought to have introduced his lovers disguised in a mummy and a crocodile. "This," says he, "was received with loud claps, ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... ancient sun. Slowly the spirals came nearer to the fires. The sun fed. Its old warmth returning, it smiled at its lone child. The air of the planet of the Lorens grew warmer and fresher. The plains seemed to shake themselves as a new spring returned to enliven the land and take up its old work of helping life to begat new life. Out there in empty space, Odin fancied, Death lowered his scythe and smiled and shrugged his lean shoulders as he went away ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... stokeholes where the poor beggars of sailors are expected to pass their time without getting roasted too. Then there might be, as a sort of prize puzzle, a plan of these here recent manoeuvres, with the Umpire's opinion of the whole blessed jumble tacked on to it. Then, to enliven the proceedings. Lord GEORGE might take his turn with the rest of the Admiralty Board, and give us, every half hour or so, a figure or two of the Hornpipe, just to let the public see that they have got some sort of nautical "go" about them to warrant them in drawing their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... rose the Government bush out of which we get our firewood, standing grand and gloomy amid huge cliffs and crags; even the summer sunshine could not enliven it, nor the twitter and chirrup of countless birds. In front, the chain of hills we were crossing rolled down in gradually decreasing hillocks, till they merged in the vast plains before us, stretching away as far as ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... do more than you ask. I shall give you a biographical sketch—sketch, do you hear?—of Lady Hervey, and notes on her letters, in which I shall endeavour to enliven a little the sameness of my author. Don't think that I say sameness in derogation of dear Mary Lepel's powers of entertainment. I have been in love with her a long time; which, as she was dead ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... deserves; for they are in fact exactly the sort of people he would like. We are sometimes a little in want of animation among ourselves: my sisters seem out of spirits, and Tom is certainly not at his ease. Dr. and Mrs. Grant would enliven us, and make our evenings pass away with more ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... situation for ornamental buildings. From attention to this circumstance they have not the air of being crowded or disproportioned; they never intrude upon the eye; but wherever they appear always shew themselves to advantage, and aid, improve, and enliven the prospect. ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... notable attack on the tassel a ring was heard at the front door, and a moment later a loud, hearty, and unmistakably hungry voice resounded in the hall. It belonged to the local doctor, who had also taken part in the day's run and had been bidden to enliven the evening meal with the entertainment of his inexhaustible store of sporting and social reminiscences. He knew the countryside and the countryfolk inside out, and he was a living unwritten chronicle of the East Wessex hunt. His conversation seemed exactly the right ...
— When William Came • Saki
... he says, "present to such an auditory the most sententious tragedy that ever was written, observing all the critical laws, as height of style, and gravity of person, enrich it with the sententious chorus, and, as it were, enliven death in the passionate and weighty Nuntius; yet after all this divine rapture, O dura messorum ilia, the breath that comes from the uncapable multitude is able to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... coffee or tea steaming away, and the inspiring fragrance of frying bacon wafted on the evening air. When we stopped long enough Andy would give us boiled beans or stewed dried apples as a treat. If we desired to enliven the conversation all that was necessary was to start the subject of the "light" back at the camp where we first met Douglas Boy. Every one would soon be involved except Prof. who only laughed and inserted from time ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... the lady. "Look at my Clare. She will not dance on her cousin's birthday with anyone but him. What are we to do to enliven these people?" ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... quod verum est, sed quod verisimile', is the dramatist's rule. At all events, the poet who chooses transitory manners, ought to content himself with transitory praise. If his object be reputation, he ought not to expect fame. The utmost he can look forwards to, is to be quoted by, and to enliven the writings of, an antiquarian. Pistol, Nym and 'id genus omne', do not please us as characters, but are endured as fantastic creations, foils to the native wit of Falstaff.—I say wit emphatically; for this ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... then informed him that he was needed in the ward. Merciful providence had been pleased to put a period to the sufferings of the lady who was enceinte which she had borne with a laudable fortitude and she had given birth to a bouncing boy. I want patience, said he, with those who, without wit to enliven or learning to instruct, revile an ennobling profession which, saving the reverence due to the Deity, is the greatest power for happiness upon the earth. I am positive when I say that if need were I could produce a cloud of witnesses to the excellence of her noble exercitations which, so far from ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... presence and the light of His countenance, who is the life of the universe, will inspire good men with when they shall have a sensation that He is the sustainer of their being, that they exist in Him; when they shall feel His influence to cheer and enliven and support their frame, in a manner of which we have now no conception? He will be in a literal sense their strength and their ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... state, continued an unfailing well-spring of cheerfulness and courage. Not a disheartening word escaped him, nor a sign of weakening. And his efforts to enliven his companion were persistent—and successful. Being of a hopeful and self-reliant nature this task ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... ordinary education in Scotland; but the future poet, to use a familiar expression, wanted "an ear." Throughout life he, however, was highly susceptible of the delights of music, though his own execution was confined to a single song, with which he attempted to enliven the social board, but, it is stated, with such unmusical oddity as to content his hearers with a single specimen of his vocal talent. His early rambles around the "hills and holms of the border," is said to have kindled ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... above Jimmy Adkins, the mine boss's boy, and Edith May Jonas, the liveryman's only daughter, every Mexican face recorded a slow smile of triumph. "'Sta 'ueno!" they would whisper, watching Edith May, who upon such occasions was wont to enliven things by bursting into tears, and who commonly brought upon the following day a note from her mother, stating that Edith May must be excused for missing in spelling because she had not been at all well and ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... miserable broken-down buffalo bulls, not worth killing. The snow lay fifteen inches deep, and made the travelling grievously painful and toilsome. At length they came to an immense plain, where no vestige of timber was to be seen, not a single quadruped to enliven the desolate landscape. Here, then, their hearts failed them, and they held another consultation. The width of the river, which was nearly a mile, its extreme shallowness, the frequency of quicksands, and various other characteristics, had at length made them sensible of their errors ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... of ten hours, and the reflection that I should have to spend the time partly in the church and partly on the dark and rat-haunted staircase, without being able to take a pinch of snuff for fear of being obliged to blow my nose, did not tend to enliven the prospect; however, the hope of the great reward made it easy to be borne. But at one o'clock I heard a slight noise, and looking up saw a hand appear through the grated window, and a paper drop on the floor of the church. I ran to pick it up, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... answered, meaningly, but Senor Garavel concealed any recognition of the tone by a formal bow, and the meal progressed with only the customary small talk to enliven it. ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... softening his movements more and more, he gradually becomes their perfectly free and self-possessed director. In the same way the child will accustom himself to do his utmost not to soil the gay and pretty things which enliven his surroundings. Thus he makes progress in his own perfection, or, in other words, it is thus he achieves the perfect coordination of his voluntary movements. It is the same process by which, having enjoyed silence and music, he will ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... two new speeches has been interpolated a speech by Adam which does not occur in the original. The same trick is resorted to repeatedly. Note, for instance, Jacques first speech on the deer (Act II, 7) and Oliver's long speech in IV, 3. The purpose of this is plain enough—to enliven the dialogue and speed up the action. Whether or not it is a legitimate way of handling Shakespeare ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... As Freemasonry aims to enliven the spirit of Philanthropy, and promote the cause of Charity, so we dedicate this Hall to Universal Benevolence; in the assurance that every brother will dedicate his affections and his abilities to the same generous purpose; that while he displays a warm and ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... overwhelming, smote upon her heart, such as we feel in the presence of a secret enemy, and Lord Greville's increasing uneasiness and abstraction since he had returned to the mansion of his forefathers, did not tend to enliven its gloomy precincts. The wind beat wildly against the casement of the apartment in which they sat, and which although named "the lady's chamber," afforded none of those feminine luxuries, which are now to be found in ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... has a length of 300, and a breadth of 200 miles, and is much the largest of all the oases, which enliven the immense desert of Northern Africa. It relieves, however, in only an imperfect degree, the parched appearance of the surrounding region. It is not irrigated by a river, nor even a streamlet of any dimensions; the grain ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... one sought for its natural beauties, and the winter mists of Yorkshire were rather more evident for the absence of the hostess on account of them, so that the singular guests whom Milnes collected to enliven his December had nothing to do but astonish each other, if anything could astonish such men. Of the five, Adams alone was tame; he alone added nothing to the wit or humor, except as a listener; but they needed ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... think I am writing too often; I rather trust you will be glad to hear of me...Though my journey is very pleasant, and the good state of my health, the freshness of the air, and the variety of objects enliven my spirits, yet I cannot help longing for you. Pray, my love, take care of your health that I may have the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... in view, but, to make a show of their supposed talents."—Blair's Rhet., p. 344. "No other but these, could draw the attention of men in their rude uncivilized state."—Ib., p. 379. "That he shall stick at nothing, nor nothing stick with him."—Pope. "To enliven it into a passion, no more is required but the real or ideal presence of the object."—Kames, El. of Crit., i, 110. "I see no more to be made of it but to-rest upon the final cause first mentioned."—Ib., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of this, and on approaching the corner of the salt mountain, we had an incident to enliven the tediousness of the hot journey. A party of Arabs came in sight. Our men discovered them first, and running forwards, primed their guns, or lighted the match of the lock, drew their swords and screamed, making bare the right arm, ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... not merely soothed and quieted. In this fashion a girl may treat a young man as a brother. She may tell him his faults in all kindness. She may listen to his dreams, ambitions, aspirations, and encourage with approval, incite by gentle sarcasm, or enliven by kindly sportiveness; but her person is her own, and he should be made to feel that beyond these bounds he may not pass. Such friendship may endure vicissitude, or separation, and be through life a source of truest inspiration. To be such a friend to a noble man ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... appear to have been in the full possession of her mother's fortune until after the Restoration. She had lived, with scarcely an interruption, a life of society; now she was thrown on her own resources, with little except music to cheer and enliven her. It was not only the loss of Paris that exiles under the Empire had to endure. They were subjected to an annoying surveillance by the police, and even the friends who paid them any ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... is finished, I must render my obligations to M. Mendes and numerous French friends, for their kind assistance and valuable aid, including my confreres of "The Graphic," who have allowed me to enliven the walls with pictures from their stores; and last, and not least, my best thanks are due to an English Peer, who placed at my disposal his unique collection of prints and journals of the period bearing upon the subject—a subject I am pretty familiar with. ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... destitute of the seasonings, of the acumen, which is thy talent, how extremely shocking must their letters be!—But do thou, Lovelace, whether thou art, or art not, determined upon thy measures with regard to the fine lady in thy power, enliven my heavy heart by thy communications; and ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... personal habits he was peculiar and eccentric. With the wisdom of a sage, he combined the simplicity of a child. Many amusing anecdotes are related of his oddities in the lecture-room, which will serve to enliven the biography that will doubtless be prepared at an early date. We have received no particulars concerning his death, which is said to have been announced by private letters ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... were pretty tired, and did not care to remain up too long. Perhaps Mrs. Trotter might have liked to have these lively fellows in to sing for her, and enliven her monotonous life a little; but considering that they half expected to be hard pushed on the morrow, Elmer advised that they try to get all the sleep possible ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... aim, and the needle and the thread were as far apart as ever, while the small imp sitting quiet at her side was unsuspected. Not once nor twice only was this little game successfully played. It used to enliven the hot, sleepy afternoon, while the bars of light were crawling slowly—oh! so slowly—across the floor. He knew school would be over when the outer edge of sunlight touched the corner of the box-bed against the wall, where the little girl that lived there ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... intellectual movement in Greece is didactic rather than scientific, in the widest acceptation of the term. We have not yet here those strifes and debates which at the present time agitate and enliven the modern mind in Europe. We teach, and teach. This is our mission for the present. Debate, which, if I may so express myself, is the luxury of science,—strife, which betokens a vigorous body trained ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... slowly up the road, ragged himself, the car and harness almost ready to drop to pieces, the mare, I am sure, in the last week of her existence, we were glad that he had his Celtic fancy to enliven his life a bit,—that fancy which seems a providential reaction against the cruel despotisms ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... him so neglectful of his hostess, that the little lady's spasmodic efforts to enliven him with spiced snippets of gossip—more than one item of which had emanated from himself—fizzled out dismally, long before the meal was over; and it was with an audible sigh of relief that she glanced across at Mrs Desmond, and got upon her feet with as much dignity as a cushion, a plump ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... earth. One of these days you will thank me with your whole soul for refusing to listen to you now. You do not know how much misery I am saving you. I have no heart to give. You want a young, fresh life to help yours; a gay, lively temperament to enliven your despondency; some one still young enough to absorb herself in you and make all her existence yours. I could not do it. I can give you nothing. I have done my best to persuade myself that some day I might begin life again with the old hopes and feelings, but it is no use. The ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... wrote in a manner entirely New and Entertaining, and enliven'd with real Characters, drawn from life, and fited to instill the Principles of all ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... possible, more solitary than the night. The noise of the wild turkey, the croaking of the raven, or the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech tree, did not much enliven the dreary scene. The various tribes of singing birds are not inhabitants of the desert. They are not carnivorous and therefore must be fed from the labors of man. At any rate they did not exist in this country ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... city—the flags of different nationalities, the sturdy English cross on its ground of blood, the French tricolor, the banner of the great North German empire, and the Italian and the Spanish colors—sometimes, of an afternoon, the whole scene enliven'd by a fleet of yachts, in a half calm, lazily returning from a race down at Gloucester;—the neat, rakish, revenue steamer "Hamilton" in mid-stream, with her perpendicular stripes flaunting aft—and, turning ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... faces with a gay cotton handkerchief and throw another of a still brighter hue over their shoulders. When you add to this that they wear a full, flowing, stiffly-starched cotton gown of a third bright color, you can perhaps form some idea of how they enliven the streets. Swarms of children everywhere, romping and laughing and showing their white teeth in broadest of grins. The white children strike me at once as looking marvelously well—such chubby cheeks, such sturdy fat legs—and all, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... predecessors shed; Whilst an alluding hymn some artist sings, We toast, Confusion to the race of kings! At monarchy we nobly show our spight, And talk, what fools call treason, all the night. Who, by disgraces or ill fortune sunk, Feels not his soul enliven'd when he's drunk? Wine can clear up Godolphin's cloudy face, And fill Jack Smith with hopes to keep his place: By force of wine, ev'n Scarborough is brave, Hal[2] grows more pert, and Somers not so grave: Wine can give Portland wit, and Cleaveland sense, Montague learning, Bolton eloquence: Cholmondeley, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... the way from Paris to Strasbourg, I am persuaded that we did not meet six travelling equipages. The lumbering diligence and steady Poste Royale were almost the only vehicles in action besides our own. Nor were villas or chateaux visible; such as, in our own country, enliven the scene and put the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the account of this kind of solitary imprisonment is insufferably tedious, unless there is some cheerful or humorous incident to enliven it—a tender gaoler, for instance, or a waggish commandant of the fortress, or a mouse to come out and play about Latude's beard and whiskers, or a subterranean passage under the castle, dug by Trenck with his nails ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... consort and his brother had done before them. We had arranged to be 'at home' to all our kind friends in Honolulu at four o'clock, at which hour precisely the Governor sent the Royal band on board to enliven the proceedings. Soon our other visitors began to arrive; but the Queen appeared to be so well amused that she did not leave until five o'clock. By-half-past six, the last of our guests (over 150 in number) had said farewell, and there only remained the band to be shown round ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... advance-pickets of the encroaching slums, like a stag before a pack of hounds. Here he ensconced himself, placed his tin cup on the top of his organ, together with the few pairs of shoe-laces which proclaimed him a merchant within rather than a beggar without the law, and proceeded to enliven the still quiet neighborhood with the dreadfully strained measure of Verdi's "Miserere." He turned the handles of the little organ fitfully, so that now the strains of sorrow arose at such long intervals as hardly to be connected with one another, and now all huddled and ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... oppress the Countess and even Count Tristan, and render their days burdensome. I am laying up a store of materials to enliven these scenes of weariness and loneliness. I have made myself quite a proficient in piquet, that I may pass long evenings playing with the count; I have noted and learned all the old airs that his mother ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... relieved the dull monotony. Altogether the cantonment of Rohar was an unlovely and uninteresting place. Yet it is but an example of many such stations in India, lonely and soul-deadening, some of which have not even its saving grace of sport to enliven existence ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... not know, but I have sometimes thought that with the ample funds you so generously bestowed upon me, I shall open a school for orphan children, taking charge myself, and so doing some good. Will you be the lady patroness, and occasionally enliven us with the light of your countenance? I have left the hospital but once since you were here, and then I went to Wilford's grave. Forgive me, Katy, if I did wrong in wishing to kneel once upon the sod which covered ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... breeding would be best appreciated. But his own keen relish of life, and his delight in watching the lights and shades of human character, took him into that wider circle where witty and notable men are always eagerly sought after to grace the feasts or enliven the heavy splendour of the rich and the unlettered. He was still young, and happy in the animal spirits which make the exhausting life of a luxurious capital endurable even in spite of its pleasures. ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... Cicero had no conviction and no passion; he was nothing but an advocate, and not a good one. He understood how to set forth his narrative of the case with piquancy of anecdote, to excite, if not the feeling, at any rate the sentimentality of his hearers, and to enliven the dry business of legal pleading by cleverness or witticisms mostly of a personal sort; his better orations, though they are far from coming up to the free gracefulness and the sure point of the most excellent compositions of this sort, for instance the Memoirs of Beaumarchais, yet ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... most remarkable results was the production of that work, which annihilated the whimsical labours of Warburton, Edwards's "Canons of Criticism," one of those successful facetious criticisms which enliven our literary history. Johnson, awed by the learning of Warburton, and warmed by a personal feeling for a great genius who had condescended to encourage his first critical labour, grudgingly bestows a moderated praise on this exquisite satire, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... her fate the day preceding the eventful one. Eleanor pacified her by presenting her with a net-lace collar to enliven her ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... cockroaches crawling all over his coat and waistcoat. I should like to see a conchologist in a simple costume of shells. An osteopath, I suppose, would be agreeably painted so as to resemble a skeleton, while a botanist would enliven the street with the appearance of a Jack-in-the-Green. So while I regarded the astronomical lecturer in the astronomical coat as a figure distinguishable, by a high degree of differentiation, from the artless astronomers of my island home (enough their simple loveliness for me) ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... things are not for the best in the best of all possible worlds would seem to result from the wise remarks made by the fishermen who enliven the scene in "Pericles, Prince of Tyre." They compare landlords to whales who swallow up everything, and suggest that the land be purged of "these drones that rob the bee of her honey"; and Pericles, so far from being shocked at such revolutionary and vulgar sentiments, is impressed by their weight, ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... philosophy of life, and the most practical common sense, flashes of laughable personal history, and gems of scholarship. It is always certain that the lecture will be rendered in inimitably bright and cheery style that will enliven her audience, which, while laughing and applauding, will listen intently throughout. No wonder she is a favourite with lecture goers, for few can give them so delightful an evening ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... if he had not made it familiar, and which is found in the discourses of our elder divines. Like them, he did not scruple, now and then, to introduce an anecdote from history, or borrow an allusion from some non-scriptural author, in order to enliven the attention of his audience, or render an argument more plain. And the good man had an object in this, a little distinct from, though wholly subordinate to the main purpose of his discourse. He was a friend ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... seldom probes to the quick, or penetrates beyond the surface; and, therefore, he leaves no stings in the minds of his readers, and in this respect is far less interesting than Fielding. His novels always enliven, and never tire us: we take them up with pleasure, and lay them down without any strong feeling of regret. We look on and laugh, as spectators of a highly amusing scene, without closing in with the combatants, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... contribution, as you know, to abstract moral and political theory, a generalisation of weighty changes of character in men and states. But his observations on the concrete traits of individuals, young or old, which enliven us on the way; the difference in sameness of sons and fathers, for instance; the influence of servants on their masters; how the minute ambiguities of rank, as a family becomes [132] impoverished, tell on manners, on temper; all the play of moral colour in the reflex ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... companion for two or three months? Mrs. Mirvan proposes to spend the ensuing spring in London, whither for the first time, my grandchild will accompany her: Now, my good friend, it is very earnestly their wish to enlarge and enliven their party by the addition of your amiable ward, who would share, equally with her own daughter, the care and attention of Mrs. Mirvan. Do not start at this proposal; it is time that she should see something of the world. When young people are too rigidly sequestered from it, their lively and ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... You'd sure give her an elegant pain, else," added Curly, in a tired voice. He was steadily staring down the trail in a manner that suggested indifference to any coming storm. Somebody laughed half-heartedly. But Curly had no desire to enliven things, and ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... to picture the early days of Leonora in that great city, as one of the girls who trot gracefully over the sidewalks with music sheets under their arms, or enliven the narrow side streets with all those trills and cadences that come streaming ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... never fancied the critics could hold him to the very letter, as in the rendering of a classic author. He confesses to some errors and promises corrections in a possible new edition. He begs the public to judge the translation in accord with its purpose "to delight and enliven the public and to acquaint the Germans with a really wonderful genius." To substantiate his statement relative to the obstacles in his way, he outlines in a few words Sterne's peculiar, perplexing style, ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... see the strange positions of the three occupants of the sitting-room; and the sight scared them even more than their appearance surprised us, for they turned and fled. We could not help laughing, and wondering what strange tales of our eccentricities would enliven ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... the day in the parlor, dining by his bedside and only leaving him when he went to sleep for the night. The occupation which gave him most pleasure, among the many with which his family sought to enliven him, was the reading of newspapers, to which the political events then occurring gave great interest. Monsieur Claes listened attentively as Monsieur de Solis read them ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... sights during his visit to the city; that he had got "smarted up," as his mother called it, a good deal; that he had been to Mrs. Clymer Ketchum's party, where he had looked upon life in all its splendors; and that he brought back many interesting experiences, which would serve to enliven his conversation for a long time. But he had failed in the great enterprise he had undertaken. He was forced to confess to his revered parent, and his esteemed friend Susan Posey, that his genius, which was freely acknowledged, was not thought to be quite ripe ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... custom to enliven banquets with slaughter, and to combine with the repast the dire spectacle of men contending with the sword, the dying in many cases falling upon the cups, and covering the tables with ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... immortal composer Haydn was on his visit to England, in 1794, his chamber-door was opened one morning by the captain of an East Indiaman, who said, "You are Mr. Haydn?" "Yes." "Can you make me a 'March,' to enliven my crew? You shall have thirty guineas; but I must have it to-day, as to-morrow I sail for Calcutta." Haydn agreed, the sailor quitted him, the composer opened his piano, and in a few minutes the march was written. He appears, however, to have had a ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... proofs of that logic and eloquence for which it has been renowned of old. I am willing to conclude that all the judges are not alike somniferous; and that if the acuteness of our GIFFORDS, and the rhetoric of our DENMANS, sometimes instruct and enliven the audience, there will be found Judges to argue like GIBBS and ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin |
