"Playfully" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... again, in a manner at once condescending, arch, and affable; and said, putting her arm round her sister in a playfully affectionate way: ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... playfully, "Mind what you are about, monsieur; that sentence which I translated for you is not of a very, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... you would, George," said his cousin, who seemed more playfully inclined than usual. "But," she added, with a smile, "would your ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... laudatory epithet such as ingeniosissimi is necessary. I believe that the word opiniosissimi (an adj. not elsewhere used by Cic.) was manufactured on the spur of the moment, in order to ridicule these two philosophers, who are playfully described as men full of opinio or [Greek: doxa]—just the imputation which, as Stoics, they would most repel. Hermann's spinosissimi is ingenious, and if an em. were needed, would not be so ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... arose, her fur bristling. Spotty leaped at her, barking playfully. Away ran Poots, her black tail sticking straight up in the air. And after them raced the four little Blossoms, shouting ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... up from the harbor to the big house on the hill, and fluttered playfully past the window vines into the children's convalescent ward. It was a common saying at the hospital that the tidal breeze always reached the children's ward first. Sometimes the little people were waiting for it, ready with their welcome; but to-day there were none to laugh a greeting. ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... up his abode in Wilhelmine's house at Schaffhausen, made matters worse by what he conceived to be witty and subtle pleasantries. He was never done with his allusions to 'mon cher futur beau frere a Vienne,' and he playfully called his sister 'la ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... minutes the two brothers playfully called each other nicknames, going back to the days of their boyhood in Corsica, while Joseph stood by, looking bored and every moment growing more impatient. Finally ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... convalescence was slow but it was steady, and even in his weakness he felt a peace and happiness such as he had rarely tasted. This frugal but restful home in which he found himself, with the ministrations of "Muddie" and "Sissy," as he playfully called his aunt and the little cousin who had adopted him as her "Buddie," were to him, after his struggle with hunger, fever and death, like a safe harbor to ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... flashing with tears. It was so strange a joy to find herself cared for, when she had believed she was old and hard: the very idle jesting made her youth and happiness real to her. Holmes saw that with his quick tact. He flung playfully a crimson shawl that lay there about her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... cabs immediately leave the stand, for your especial accommodation; and the evolutions of the animals who draw them, are beautiful in the extreme, as they grate the wheels of the cabs against the curb-stones, and sport playfully in the kennel. You single out a particular cab, and dart swiftly towards it. One bound, and you are on the first step; turn your body lightly round to the right, and you are on the second; bend gracefully beneath the reins, working round to the left at the same time, and you are in the cab. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... children in the truths of salvation; but it might seem rash to affirm that their teachings were always either wise or useful, since Father Vimont tells us approvingly, that they reared their pupils in so chaste a horror of the other sex, that a little girl, whom a man had playfully taken by the hand, ran crying to a bowl of water to wash off the unhallowed influence. [ Vimont, Relation, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... to sway. Darwin Powers, an old but frisky man, stood up beside the fiddlers, whistling, with sobriety and vigour, as they played. It was a pleasure to see some of the older men of the neighbourhood join the dizzy riot by skipping playfully in the corners. They tried to rally their unwilling wives, and generally a number of them were dancing before the night was over. The life and colour of the scene, the fresh, young faces of the girls some of them ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... Beaumont, smiling, and tapping her son playfully on the shoulder, "time enough to talk of that when the end of the month comes. How often have I seen young men like you change their minds, and fall in and out of love in the course of one short month! At any rate," continued Mrs. Beaumont, "let us pass to the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... wish those dreadful cannon-balls would not come so close to one," sung out poor Harry, half playfully, half in earnest, as a round shot came crashing through the bulwark close to where we lay, throwing the splinters about us, ploughing up the deck, and passing out at a ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... Dona Isabel, the eldest daughter, was born at Duenas, October 1st, 1470. Their second child and only son, Juan, prince of the Asturias, was not born until eight years later, June 30th, 1478, at Seville. Dona Juana, whom the queen used playfully to call her "mother-in- law," suegra, from her resemblance to King Ferdinand's mother, was born at Toledo, November 6th, 1479. Dona Maria was born at Cordova, in 1482, and Dona Catalina, the fifth and last child, at Alcala de Henares, December 5th, 1485. The daughters all lived ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... fierceness in her nature which in time may endear her to my heart. Last night, for instance, we were at a ball at the Baron P——'s, and we danced together incessantly. While we were whirling about to the rhythm of an intoxicating melody, I, feeling pretty sure of my game, whispered half playfully in her ear: 'Countess, what would you say, if I should propose to you?' 'Propose and you will see,' she answered gravely, while those big black eyes of hers flashed at until I felt half ashamed of my flippancy. Of course I did not venture to put the question then and ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... storm went on, the Republicans crying for a free ballot and a fair count, flaunting on a banner the picture of a man stuffing a ballot-box and two men with shot-guns playfully interrupting the performance, and hammering into the head of the State that no man could be trusted with unlimited power over the suffrage of a free people. Any ex-Confederate who was for the autocrat, any repentant ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... arms he held her close, whispering incoherent, broken words in her ear, while the little yellow dog, thinking it was a game, snapped playfully ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... She playfully hit his fingers with her sunshade. Mutual acquaintances bowed to them from the footpath. Friends waved their hands to him ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... dialoge is for the time being playfully accepted by Buddha as the All-god. To the Buddhist himself Brahm[a] and all the Vedic gods are not exactly non-existent, but they are dim figures that are more like demi-gods, fairies, or as some English scholars call them, 'angels.' Whether Buddha himself really believed in them, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... always plotting to be funny. When Toole, as Jacques Strop, hid the dinner in his pocket, Henry, after much labour, thought of his hiding the plate inside his waistcoat. There was much laughter later on when Macaire, playfully tapping Strop with his stick, cracked the plate, and the pieces fell out! Toole hadn't to bother about such subtleties, and Henry's deep-laid plans for getting a laugh must have seemed funny to dear Toole, who had only to come on and say ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... peacefully asleep, But when the sun rose, I rose too and ran without. I hastily gathered the sweetest flowers I could find, shaking them from the branches. I came near the dwelling of my love with my sweet scented burden. As I came near she saw me, and called playfully, "What birds are you flying here so early?" "I am a handsome youth and not a bird," I replied, "But like a bird I am mateless and forlorn." She took a garland of flowers off her neck and gave it to me I in ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... people were not walking up and down, or playfully scuffling, they were reading novels; in fact, I do not imagine that anywhere else in the world is there a half, or a tenth part, so much fiction consumed as in the English summer resorts. It is probably ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... in the night. But, as he was not spoiled by indulgence, it is but fair to conclude that her gentle method of educating him was tempered by firmness on proper occasions—a quality somewhat rare in grandmothers. A letter from one of her descendants playfully says: ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... from her front bedroom window at the boy crossing the street in the dim pre-dawn light, with a cat and three half-grown kittens gamboling about him. Occasionally Arlo Junior would shake something out of a paper to the ground and the cats would immediately roll and frolic and slap playfully at one another, acting as the girl had never seen ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... it before him. At length, one day, Cleopatra caused the petals of some flowers to be poisoned, and then had the flowers woven into the chaplet which Antony was to wear at supper. In the midst of the feast, she pulled off the leaves of the flowers from her own chaplet and put them playfully into her wine, and then proposed that Antony should do the same with his chaplet, and that they should then drink the wine, tinctured, as it would be, with the color and the perfume of the flowers. Antony entered very readily into this proposal, and when he was about to drink the ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... it came down, he found it difficult only in the inner sanctuaries to maintain the status quo ante Gryson. There was no shadow of suspicion or coolness in his father's kindly smile and genial greeting, and Mrs. Honoria rallied him playfully upon the narrow margin by which he had held his own and Patricia's places at the Gordon dinner-table the night before. Only in Patricia's eyes he read a curious questioning, a hint that they were finding something in his eyes which ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... Voltaire had for a long time past been demanding these reforms, and he was satisfied with them. "Have not the Parliaments often been persecuting and barbarous?" he wrote; "I wonder that the Welches [i. e., Barbarians, as Voltaire playfully called the French] should take the part of those insolent and intractable cits." He added, however, "Nearly all the kingdom is in a boil and consternation; the ferment is as great in the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... far behind in the race. The girl's exuberant vitality asserted itself all over her, from head to foot. Her figure—taller than her sister's, taller than the average of woman's height; instinct with such a seductive, serpentine suppleness, so lightly and playfully graceful, that its movements suggested, not unnaturally, the movements of a young cat—her figure was so perfectly developed already that no one who saw her could have supposed that she was only eighteen. She bloomed in the full ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... manner. Instead of approaching the moral consciousness of one's readers with stern, lugubrious countenance, and ponderous or lamentable voice, you make your appearance with a smile and a joke, punch the reader playfully in the ribs, and say, as it were, "Ha! ha! I've a good thing to tell you!" Although I have many imitators, some of whom have attained an excellence in the art which may be considered classic, yet I may fairly claim to have originated this branch of literature, and, while ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... called again, thinking as I drew near how much fineness of soul and life, seen or unseen, must have existed in earlier generations to have produced this man, I noticed the in conspicuous sign over his door, P.T.B. Manouvrier, and as he led me at once into the back room I asked him playfully what such princely abundance of initials ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... of Paul, she ran up to him playfully, when all of a sudden an unaccountable embarrassment seized her; a lively red coloured her cheeks, and her eyes no longer dared to fix themselves ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... with the unscrupulous greediness of women who cling desperately to the very scraps and rags of love, any kind of love, as a thing that of right belongs to them and is the very breath of their life. She put both her hands on Almayer's shoulders, and looking at him half tenderly, half playfully, she said— ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... the cat in her lap, stared absently into its green eyes where it lay playfully patting the rags that ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... as well for Captain Hunken, who sat in an arm-chair by the fireplace smoking and watching her—and had been sitting and watching her for a good half an hour admiringly, without converse. "Spillikins" is a game during which, though it enjoins silence on the looker-on, a real expert can playfully challenge a remark or tolerate one, now and again. Also, you can make astonishing play with it if you happen to possess a pretty ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Valmai nodded playfully to Cardo and his friend as they drew near, and, taking Corwen's soft, white ear, drew her towards them ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... pushed him away and slapped his cheek playfully; it was like the tap of a light breeze against granite. Then ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... of expresses: and on many lines you ought to calculate the probabilities of arrival by anything rather than the time-tables. Collisions, however, are certainly rare; the most common accident is when the train breaks through one of the crazy wooden bridges, or, obeying the direction of some playfully eccentric pointsman, plunges headlong over an embankment into some peaceful valley below. The steam-signals are very peculiar; the engine never whistles, but indulges in a prolonged bellow, very like the hideous sounds emitted by that hideous semi-brute, yclept ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... received him very politely, but said playfully, "I was in hopes, Mr. Cameron, that you would prove to be ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... sounded like the tiny knuckles of a fairy's hand, knocking lightly and playfully on the inside of ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... replied playfully, "an Olympian divinity, such as I am, requires a whole army of slaves. Beware ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... deny it, Evelyn? Now, look me in the eyes and say 'No' if you dare," and I grasped her slender wrists playfully. She opened her large, blue eyes and fixed them full ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... his wife, tapping him playfully on the arm. "You are incorrigible. Dirty! why, that ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... very loyal, so she wanted to call the little first-born "Missouri." Mr. Lane said she might, but that if she did he would call the other one "Arkansas." Sometimes homesickness would almost master her. She would hug up the little red baby and murmur "Missouri," and then daddy would growl playfully to "Arkansas." It went on that way for a long time and at last she remembered that Sedalia was in Missouri, so she felt glad and really named the older baby "Sedalia." But she could think of nothing to match the name ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... the girl, playfully, "you said you wanted me particularly to-day, so, at great inconvenience to myself, and mother, I have come. If it isn't important you'll get into grave trouble. I was going to help Seth hoe the ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... only is he just, he is sympathetic. He brings out their worth, their valour, such grandeur of character as they have, with all the power of his art, making no distinction in this respect between friend and foe. If they have a ridiculous side he uses it for the purposes of his art, but genially, playfully, without malice. If there was a laugh left in the Covenanters, they would have laughed at their own portraits as painted by Scott. He shows no hatred of anything but wickedness itself. Such a novelist is a most ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... to be the restoration of harmony, the boy was ushered into the room without further delay. The contents of his small basket, consisting chiefly of essences, and the smaller articles of female economy, were playfully displayed on the table by Katherine, who declared herself the patroness of the itinerant youth, and who laughingly appealed to the liberality of the gentlemen in behalf ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... attention to him. She was whispering and laughing with Alexis, who had let down her long dark hair, and was now playfully twining it around ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... she paused before the difficulties which mechanically presented themselves. Senator North might naturally feel surprise to receive a present from a young woman with whom he had talked exactly six minutes. If she wrote playfully, offering a small tribute at the shrine of statesmanship, he might wonder if she worked slippers for handsome young clergymen and burned candles before the photograph of a popular tenor. She might send them anonymously, but that would not give her the least ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... delightful little laugh, and tapped me playfully with her fan—she and Jasmine were in evening dress. Then, looking roguishly up into my eyes, ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... tease you are!" laughingly interposed Miss Minot, as she playfully tweaked the girl's ear. "I wonder how long the things would last you if you had ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... wharf, tied his canoe to a pile, and arrived at his own gangway to find Leyden at bay. Rolfe's sturdy figure barred the ladder; Bill Blunt grinned happily over the rail, tapping the wood playfully with the biggest iron belaying pin the ship afforded; while natives on deck and on the wharf looked on full of ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... [Playfully, with a glance at HILDA.] Oh that I will, you may be very certain! [Laughs.] So your prediction has come ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... thinks nobody is noticing her. It's so wonderfully sad and so perfectly beautiful that it makes me pity her in spite of myself," ended Madeline with a sudden rush of feeling. "But I can't love her, even for you, you funny child," she added playfully, pulling ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... away, sprang up the bank, and landed directly on Ben's back as he lay peeping over. A peal of laughter greeted him; and, having got the better of his master in more ways than one, he made the most of the advantage by playfully worrying him as he kept him down, licking his face in spite of his struggles, burrowing in his neck with a ticklish nose, snapping at his buttons, and yelping joyfully, as if it was the best joke in the world to play hide-and-seek ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... his voice or his heavy, firm steps; but when the father, smiling kind-heartedly, and talking playfully in a loud voice, took him upon his knees or threw him high up in the air with his big hands the ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... lounging in the cool doorway of the garage. Nick, in sheer exuberance of spirits, squared off, doubled his fists, and danced about Elmer in a semicircle, working his arms as a prizefighter does, warily. He jabbed at Elmer's jaw playfully. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... to entertain, as the Indian woman that presided in his kitchen partook so freely of liquor of her own manufacture that she became hilariously drunk early in the morning, and for the peace of the household and safety of the dishes, which she playfully shied at whoever came within reach, she was ejected, and Mathewson prepared his own meals. At The'venet's, however, everything went smoothly, and the sumptuous meal of baked whitefish, venison, with canned vegetables, ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... within him like an adored and tyrannical mistress. Reine appeared constantly before him as he had contemplated her on the outside steps of the farmhouse, in her never-to-be-forgotten negligee of the short skirt and the half-open bodice. He again beheld the silken treasure of her tresses, gliding playfully around her shoulders, the clear, honest look of her limpid eyes, the expressive smile of her enchanting lips, and with a sudden revulsion of feeling he reflected that perhaps before a month was over, all these charms would belong to Claudet. Then, almost at ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to the city of New York during the winter of 1824-25, where he made many friends and had many admirers. He was always remembered by the youthful name of Willy and Penaci, or the bird—a term that was playfully bestowed by the Chippewas while he was still in his cradle. He was, indeed, a bird in our circle, for the agility of his motions, the liveliness of his voice, and the diamond sparkle of his full hazel eyes, reminded one of ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... district I meant to traverse in olden times was notorious for its brigands; even thirty years ago the prosperous tradesman, voyaging on his mule from town to town, was liable to be seized by unromantic outlaws and detained till his friends forwarded ransom, while ears and fingers were playfully sent to prove identity. In Southern Spain brigandage necessarily flourished, for not only were the country-folk in collusion with the bandits, but the very magistrates united with them to share the profits ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... the rich red lips in their midnight setting looking like some giant rose in full bloom that an elephant's hoof had trodden upon. So the show proceeded. At last one of the bridesmaids stepped from amidst her sisters, and playfully pushed the bride in the direction of her home. Then the "pout" gave way to a smile, the white teeth gleaming in the gap like tombstones in a Highland churchyard. I had been a bit scared of her "pout," but when she smiled I looked round anxiously ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... invitation. To the credit of Bill be it recorded that he did not attempt to correct the mistake, but gravely touched glasses with him, and after saying "Here's another nail in your coffin,"—a cheerful sentiment, to which "And the hair all off your head," was playfully added by the others,—he threw off his liquor with a single dexterous movement of head and elbow, and ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and surely the greatest event in Pan's rapidly developing career, though he did not know it then, was when his mother took him over to see his baby, Lucy Blake. It appeared that the parents in both homesteads playfully called her "Pan's baby." That did not displease Pan, but it made him singularly shy. So it was long before his mother could get him to make the acquaintance of ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... of the week, the governor, as Heaton had styled Mark, and as Bridget had begun playfully to term him, gave the opinion that it was necessary for them to tear themselves away from their paradise. Never before, most certainly, had the Reef appeared to the young husband a spot as delightful as he now found it, and it did seem to him very possible for ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... profusion of dark hair. Her gypsy hat, ornamented with scarlet ribbons and a garland of red holly-berries, had fallen back on her shoulders, and her cheeks were flushed with exercise. A pretty little white dog was with her, leaping up eagerly for a cluster of holly-berries which she playfully shook above his head. She whirled swiftly round and round the frisking animal, her long red ribbons flying on the breeze, and then she paused, all aglow, swaying herself back and forth, like a flower ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... the head of the electoral ticket of the state of Illinois. He usually was on the ticket. He playfully called himself one of the electors that seldom elected anybody. In Illinois the honors of the election were evenly divided between the two parties. Buchanan carried the state by a handsome majority, but Bissell was elected governor by a good majority. Lincoln had ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... all hope that," remarked Dick Bird—"Dicky Bird" was the name which had been playfully bestowed upon him by his chums, and by which he was generally known—"we all hopes that; but I, for one, feels uncommon duberous about it. There's hardly a capful of wind as blows but what some poor unfort'nate craft leaves her ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... would be stamped with unusual atrocity, were but the more likely to make its fascinations irresistible. Hence he dallied with the thoughts of murdering her whom he loved best, and indeed exclusively—his wife Csonia; and whilst fondling her, and toying playfully with her polished throat, he was distracted (as he half insinuated to her) between the desire of caressing it, which might be often repeated, and that of cutting it, which ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... in the afternoon—in the street below Aunt Ruby's, and waited for her boarders to come out. Ruth had persuaded Mrs. Tascher to go, and the doctor, with a painful attempt to appear natural, kept beside her and was scrupulously attentive to her comfort. Ruth playfully claimed Hugh as her escort. Bruce, true to agreement, monopolized Miss Custer in a masterly way, much to her surprise. She tried to snub him at first, but he ignored all her efforts in that direction with consummate stupidity, and in the end she submitted with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... not without the guilty remembrance of having one day playfully seized one of the small Mandy's bristling plaits, daintily between finger and thumb, threatening to cut them all away with the scissors which she carried. Yet she could not but believe that there was some deeper motive underlying ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... above grew louder, and presently an object apparently travelling like a thunderbolt came out of the shadow. It was, notwithstanding the speed it made, gambolling playfully, with head tossed sideways and tail in the air, and when Miss Deringham fancied it must turn aside for a tangled brake, went smashing straight through it. As it emerged with an exultant flourish of head and tail two other objects became ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... are in the habit of saying ma'am to their superiors: it is required of them," remarked Mrs. Perkin. But, although her tone was one of rebuke, she said the words lightly, tossed the last of them off, indeed, almost playfully, as if the lesson was meant for one who could hardly have been expected to know better. "And what place did you apply for in the house?" she went ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... auction; and the farmers bid eight thousand talents, or six million dollars, for the taxes of Coele-Syria, Phoenicia, and Samaria. Joseph then bid double that sum, and, when he was asked what security he could give, he playfully said that he was sure that Euergetes and the queen would willingly become bound for his honesty; and the king was so much pleased with him that the office was at once given to him, and he held it for ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... himself hugely. He was with the two people he liked most. He was having a spirited game among interlaced shadows and sudden, substantial obstacles of rock. He nuzzled the fleeing pair playfully, and followed them after his own lazy and intricate and incredibly whimsical fashion. His private mode of locomotion was not bounded by the possibilities involved in feet and tiring legs. He scampered and ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... the rock at the first practicable place, Basil mounting first, and lowering one end of his "strucca" for me to hold by. Mr Popham followed, saying, playfully, in my ear, "Ticklish work, ain't it; this holding on by one's nails ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... not then discovered. But this is altogether a mistake. The secret of printing must have been discovered many thousands of times before it was used, or could be used. The inventive powers of man are divine; and also his stupidity is divine—as Cowper so playfully illustrates in the slow development of the sofa through successive generations of immortal dulness. It took centuries of blockheads to raise a joint stool into a chair; and it required something like a miracle of genius, in the estimate of elder generations, to reveal the possibility ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... work. Either he now gives you a clew by which, amid the mazes of apparent sheer frivolity on his part, you may follow till you win your way to some veiled serious meaning that he had all the time, but never dared frankly to avow; or else he is playfully misleading you on a false scent, which, however long held to, will bring you out nowhere—in short, is quizzing you. Let the reader judge for himself. Here is the opening passage,—the "Author's Prologue," it is called ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... distinguished an uncle. On the accession of Vespasian, the elder Pliny was called to Rome by the Emperor, and when his nephew—vixdum adolescentus—joined him in the capital, he took charge of his studies. At the age of fourteen the young student had composed a Greek tragedy, to which he playfully refers in one of his letters, and in Rome he had the benefit of attending the lectures of the great Quintilian and Nicetes Sacerdos, and of making literary friendships which were to prove of the utmost value to him in after ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... at his wife's impatience, and she said playfully: "What you laughin' at? I guess you're full as excited as what I be, ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... cachelot, (the sperm-whale), suddenly break the water within fifteen yards of the boat. Its head, which composed nearly a third of its entire bulk, seemed a mountain of flesh. A couple of small calves followed it, and came swimming playfully around us. For a minute or two, the cachelot floated quietly at the surface, where it had first appeared, throwing a slender jet of water, together with a large volume of spray and vapour into the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... laughed, and saying that "Mr. Everett was a mash kind of a boy," swore eternal enmity toward him, and under the mask of friendship—watched! Eleven years before, when Anna was a baby, Mrs. Livingstone had playfully told the captain, who was one day deploring his want of a wife, that if he would wait he should have her daughter. To this he agreed, and the circumstance, trivial as it was, made a more than ordinary impression ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... intelligence that Edgar Elliott, his aristocratic sister Jane, his unaristocratic sister little Fanny, and Herbert Allen—a young lieutenant, by the way, and, by the way, the red-hot flame of my harem-scarem sister—would all four honor Dough-nut Hall, the name we had playfully given our old homestead, with ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... words of Mr. Wordsworth's own epitome, "his apprehensions that he had detained his auditors too long—invites them to his house—Solitary, disinclined to comply, rallies the Wanderer, and somewhat playfully draws a comparison between his itinerant profession and that of a knight-errant—which leads to the Wanderer giving an account of changes in the country, from the manufacturing spirit—Its favourable effects— The other side of the picture," etc., etc. After these very ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... changed our mood entirely. The cutter rolled confidingly in the morning breeze, and the sun glowed warm and golden. In picturesque cascades the green forest seemed to rush down the slopes to the bright coral beach, on which the sea broke playfully. Once in a while a bird called far off in the depths of the woods. It was delicious to lie on the warm beach and be dried and roasted by the sun, to think of nothing in particular, but just to exist. Two wild pigs ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... is again playfully interpreted by the Babylonians—through association with Nin—as 'the lady' par excellence. She was the chief goddess of the city of Uruk. Her temple at Uruk is first mentioned by Ur-Gur, of the second dynasty of Ur. It is restored and enlarged by Dungi, the successor of Ur-Bau, and ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... by Buck's side. He took his head into his two hands and rested cheek on cheek. He did not playfully shake him, as he was wont, or murmur soft love curses; but he whispered in his ear. "As you love me, Buck. As you love me," [Footnote: As you love me, Buck. Compare this incident with the words whispered to his horse by the rider in Browning's "Ghent to Aix."] was ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... found Thompson in Vic's room, next to mine; and just as I scientifically dislocated my arms to unhook my frock, which does up behind, Mother came in. "Betty," she said, quite playfully for her, "I have a very pleasant surprise for you. You would never be able to guess, so I will tell you. I have consented to let you go and visit Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox and Miss Woodburn in America. Aren't ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... words in desperation, and Mammy Warren gave her a radiant smile, and poked her playfully in the ribs, and said that she was quite the funniest gel she had ever come acrost. After this Connie was quite silent until the little party found ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... highly?" Fred echoed her gravity playfully. "You are delicious when you fall into your vernacular." ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... playfully). You stay here, my dear Sergius: there's no hurry. I have a word or two to say to Paul. (Sergius instantly bows and steps back.) Now, dear (taking Petkoff's arm), come and ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... with Emily! Fiercely now did Julian pour his thoughts that way; if only hoping to forget murder in another strong excitement. Julian listened to his mother's counsels; and that silly, cheated woman playfully would lean upon his arm, like a huge, coy confidante, and fill his greedy ears (that heard her gladly for very holiday's sake from fearful apprehensions), with lover's hopes, lover's themes, his Emily's perfection. Delighted ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... intention or purpose of deceiving is in the essence of the lie; for if a man says that which is not true, supposing it to be true, he makes a misstatement, but he does not lie; or, again, if he speaks an untruth playfully where no deception is wrought or intended, as by saying, when the mercury is below zero, that it is "good summer weather," there is no lie in ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... you stare at me like that?" she said playfully. "I assure you I feel much better; your remedy has proved most effectual. This room is most delightedly cool," she added, with the same perfect composure, "and the sound of the gavotte from the ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... to lead me to a very clear understanding," he said playfully, and yet with a tone that half acknowledged her meaning. "Do you ever remember what you have taught me?—They say one should at the end of the year, reckon up all the blessings it has brought,—but I know not where to begin, nor how to recount them. This year!—it has been like the shield in the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... hidden them, and no amount of coaxing could persuade her to bring them back. "You refused me a vacation when I asked for it," she said, "so I'm going to have it perforce;" and, playfully catching up the little dumpy figure of her governess, she carried her out upon the piazza, and, seating her in a large easy-chair, bade her take snuff, and comfort too, as ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... to feel the mettle of the big typical fellow, and so I said playfully: "Say, Joe, come to confession—you're a sheepman, now ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... his, and he buries it in his soft beard, or bites the fingers playfully. Her warm cheek is against his on the pillow, and he can feel the flush come and go, the curious little heat that bespeaks agitation. It is an odd, new knowledge, pleasing withal, and though he is in some doubt about the wisdom, he ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... pausing, an amused listener to a childish and vehement political discussion between his step-daughter, Miss Lister, and myself—a discussion which he from time to time stirred up to increased animation by playfully mischievous suggestions.' ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... sordid speculations for the future. In such cases, when my instructions were not disturbed by untoward circumstances, the result has always been a desirable one. But how much patience and perseverance has this required! I have reflected much and have often spoken, both seriously and playfully, of the slow advancement of my pupils. Allow me here to describe five phases or ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... and Morning I have had various ends in view— subordinate, I grant, to the higher and more durable morality which belongs to the Ideal, and instructs us playfully while it interests, in the passions, and through the heart. First—to deal fearlessly with that universal unsoundness in social justice which makes distinctions so marked and iniquitous between Vice and Crime—viz., between ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... control finances, if you would fain grow to be good men and contribute hereafter good men to the taxable population. Proceed with your virtuous transactions on 'Change. Never mind each other's toes; they who have corns must not care for being cornered. (Meant playfully.) Inflate the market with your heavy purchases. Blow the market, and "corner the shorts." Be a "bear," if you will; and when you play at "bull," remember the frog in the fable, who would be an ox, and went ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... ridiculous endearments amuse her. She must not allow such opportunities of creating envy to pass, so she shows the letters as they come along to her most intimate friends, amongst whom Barras still continues high on the list, and with an air of dizzy pride she playfully says Bonaparte is "very droll." And really, Josephine was right. Some of his letters are "droll," but they are genuine, and this highly honoured woman, launched into prominence and position, and reaping the laurels of his work disgraced her womanhood ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... after, Sir Isaac Newton, in an address on education at Cambridge, playfully referred to the fact that in his boyhood he did not have to prevaricate to escape punishment, his grandmother being always willing to lie for him. His grandmother was his first teacher and his best friend as long as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... was not long held in suspense; a volley of inelegant phrases saluted his ears, while the thong of a hunting-whip twisted playfully about his leg. Finding the play unequal, he wisely gave up the game—by dropping his bird on one side, and himself on the other; at the same time reluctantly leaving a portion of his nether ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... Rose, half playfully but with a tear trembling in her eye, "you have stolen a march upon us, and I can ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... crew now began to treat their prisoners with great brutality. However, on one occasion the biter was bitten. It happened that one of the drunken crew, playfully cutting at a prisoner, missed his mark and accidentally slashed Captain Low across his lower jaw, the sword opening his cheek and laying bare his teeth. The surgeon was called, who at once stitched up the wound, but ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... informed me, 'Coming directly, sir,' and vanished. For a long time I heard nothing but the whir and roar of the fire. There were also whistling sounds. The boats jumped, tugged at the painters, ran at each other playfully, knocked their sides together, or, do what we would, swung in a bunch against the ship's side. I couldn't stand it any longer, and swarming up a rope, clambered aboard over ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... continued Vetranio, drawing Camilla towards him, and playfully tapping her little dimpled hand, 'I am in anxious expectation of the Goths, for I have designed a statue of Minerva, for which I can find no model so fit as a woman of that troublesome nation. I am informed upon good authority, that their limbs are colossal, and their sense ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... festival, which was celebrated annually at Orchomenus in Boeotia and elsewhere, in honour of Dionysus Agrionius, by women and priests at night. The women, after playfully pretending for some time to search for the god, desisted, saying that he had hidden himself among the Muses. The tradition is that the daughters of Minyas, king of Orchomenus, having despised the rites of the god, were seized with frenzy and ate the flesh of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Thou art no Pearl of mine!" said the mother half playfully; for it was often the case that a sportive impulse came over her in the midst of her deepest suffering. "Tell me, then, what thou art, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of our friends; but seen, as they saw it, on a clear summer day, with the wide expanse of blue water breaking under the influence of a gentle breeze into curling waves, which with gathering force dashed playfully upon the yellow ledges and shining beaches, with flocks of sea-gulls sweeping in graceful circles or brooding upon the surface, no ordinary description ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... is laid near the ill-famed Ilsenstein. Hansel has filled his basket with strawberries, and Gretel is winding a garland of red hips, with which Hansel crowns her. He presents her also with a bunch of wild flowers and playfully does homage to this queen of the woods. Gretel enjoying the play, pops one berry after another into her brother's mouth; then they both eat, while listening to the cuckoo. Before they are aware of it, they have eaten the whole contents of the basket ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... of heat which disfigures, licks playfully, clouds, blackens, and boils a man as a fire does a pot; and on recognizing these pilferings from what he had grown to regard as his own treasury, Christopher's fingers began to nestle with great vigour in the palms of his hands. Three or four minutes passed, when the unknown rival gave ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... and servile amiability. The long, wiry white hair of his neck fell flat; he wagged his bushy white tail; he pawed the snow and playfully tossed his long, pointed nose as he crept near. But had Jimmie Grimm been more observant, more knowing, he would have perceived that the light in the lanky pup's eyes ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... ill?' In the old familiar tones, to which I was so much accustomed, a voice replied, 'I am well, now.' With no other thought than that of greeting her joyfully, I sprang out of bed. There was no Rosa there! I moved the curtain, thinking she might perhaps have playfully hidden herself behind its folds. The same feeling induced me to look into the closet. The sight of her had come so suddenly, that, in the first moment of surprise and bewilderment, I did not reflect that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... was not sufficiently aware of the magnitude of the occasion. But I soon perceived that his calmness was the repose of conscious power. He was not only at ease, but sportive and full of anecdote; and as he told the Senate playfully the next day he slept soundly that night on the formidable assault of his gallant and accomplished adversary. So the great Cond slept on the eve of the battle of Rocroi; so Alexander slept on the eve of the battle of Arbela; and so they awoke ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... remiss!" he said playfully, and with an expression of relief. "Professional men get into these ways. They have much to distract them. At least, you cling fast, no doubt, to the ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... reconciled to me again, and spoke playfully to me last night about marrying Miss Belle Upton, who is to visit Helen next week and attend the closing of Madam Truxton's school. Well, 'we shall see what we shall see,' but I hardly think I will. She can hardly eclipse 'Leah Mordecai the beautiful,'—that's ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... wish for? Why, that may be yours Without any magic!" the fair maiden cried: A favour so slight one's good-nature secures;" And she playfully ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... playfully superior smile: "We are apt to think ourselves the discoverers of every country where we chance to be set down; and so Adam thought he was the first man on the earth, though his sons went out and found cities where they learned the arts of civilization. ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... superiority, but to the females he was affability itself. The reader will scarcely believe that I have seen this weird animal squat gravely in front of one of the opposite sex, extend his right paw and tap her playfully on the jowl, the compliment being returned by an affectionate lick on Tchort's right ear. But this is a fact, and only one of many extraordinary eccentricities which I observed amongst our canine friends while journeying ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... shaking his fist playfully at his old school-fellow. "Well, I feel ten years younger than I did half an hour ago, and this settles ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... that Gideon will ever forget the Langham Hotel. No Count Tarnow was one thing; no John Dickson and no Ezra Thomas, quite another. How, why, and what next, danced in his bewildered brain; from every centre of what we playfully call the human intellect incongruous messages were telegraphed; and before the hubbub of dismay had quite subsided, the barrister found himself driving furiously for his chambers. There was at least a cave ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hair cut. Yuh know it?" he said, with a huskiness in his voice, and pulled a tangle playfully. Then his eyes swung round defiantly to Cash. "It's stealing to keep him, but I can't help it. I'd rather die right here in my tracks than give up this little ole kid. And you can take that as it lays, because I ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... if they were red, but they were, in fact, of an oak-color. In the evening she looked at her brother's face and said that she saw his nose. He asked her to touch it, which she did. He then slipped a handkerchief over his face and asked her to look again, when she playfully pulled it off and asked, 'What ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... and stir. As the animals came into the lane, they lifted their heads, sniffed the air from the mountain side, and became eager and excited. Stiff-legged old cows, as well as young calves, kicked up their hind legs and made frolicsome leaps this way and that. They rushed playfully or angrily at each other, clashing their horns, and giving a short bellow if worsted in the tussle; then they dashed off to assail other members of the crowd. Everything combined to form a hubbub of lowing and bellowing, horn ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... you by your wife! Your poor, wise wife in whom you would not confide!" She tapped him playfully on his fat cheek. ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... who used their great art to represent at once the most sacred and holiest forms, and also scenes which few people now like to look upon in company—scenes and descriptions which may perhaps from the habits of the time may have been playfully and innocently produced, but which it is certainly not easy to dwell upon innocently now. And apart from these serious faults, there is continually haunting us, amid incontestable richness, vigour, and beauty, a sense that the work ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church |
