"Sportively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... written after dinner, or after hearing good news,—that he had received from the king another grant of wine, for instance,—and he discourses of love and lovers' raptures, and the disappointments of life, half sportively, half sadly, like one who has passed through all, felt the sweetness and the bitterness of it, and been able to strike a balance. He had his share of crosses and misfortune, but his was a nature which time and sorrow could only mellow and sweeten; and for all that had come and gone, he loved ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... is often incorrectly used. Allusion is the by-play of language. It means to hint at by remote suggestions, to speak of figuratively or sportively. ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... smiled, as she ever did, at her husband's attempted witticisms; but what he regarded as light, delicate shafts, winged sportively and carelessly, had rather the character of any heavy object that came to hand thrown at her with heedless, inconsiderate force. It is due Mr. Arnot to say that he gave so little thought and attention to the wounds and bruises he caused, ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... became a gentleman of fortune, in a suite of chambers in a comfortable palace overlooking the swift-flowing Adige—a riotous yellow stream that cut the town into two parts, and was spanned here and there by rough-hewn stone bridges, which it sometimes sportively washed away. It was a brave old town that had stood sieges and plagues, and was full of mouldy, picturesque buildings and a gayety that has since grown somewhat mouldy. A goodly place to rest in for the wayworn pilgrim! ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... complicated coils, twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the timid eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies, and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any unknown ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... of water-drops in deep caves, where heavily, and perpetually, and gnawingly, they eat into the ground on which they fall? Hast thou heard the murmuring of the brook that flows on sportively between green banks, whilst nodding flowers and beaming lights of heaven mirror themselves in its waters? There is a secret twittering and whispering of joy in it. There hast thou pictures of two kinds of still life, which are different the one from the ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... beg of you, Lady Ashmorton! The suggestion is extremely repugnant to me. Besides, I'm behaving this way because I arose with the purely humourous fancy that my head was a fine large accordeon, and that some meddler had drawn it out too far. I'm sportively pretending that I can press it back into shape. Now you and sis never get up with any such light poetic notion as that. You know you don't—don't attempt to deceive me." He glanced over the table with ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... on thy lady call. This is said gayly, or sportively, as keeping up the idea of a knight-errant. ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... where a quick and luxuriant vegetation had succeeded to the stubborn barrenness and monotony of winter. Not a vestige of that dense mass of ice which, three months previously, had borne them over lake and river, was now to be seen. The sun danced joyously and sportively on the golden wave, and where recently towered the rugged surface of the tiny iceberg, the still, calm, unbroken level of the mirroring lake was only visible. On the beach, just below the town, and on a line with the little fleet, that lay at anchor between the island ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... fall in floods; flowers and trees spring up, come to maturity and then die. Therefore, when man has questioned Nature as to the why and the wherefore of life, similar answers have come from all parts of the earth; so it happens that man's games, which often sportively reflect his serious thoughts, show ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... of lamps, disposed with taste and fancy. The gay and various dresses of the company, some of whom were seated on the turf, conversing at their ease, observing the cotillons, taking refreshments, and sometimes touching sportively a guitar; the gallant manners of the gentlemen, the exquisitely capricious air of the ladies; the light fantastic steps of their dances; the musicians, with the lute, the hautboy, and the tabor, seated ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... break through, and usurp the place of emperor; but it is only for a moment; for it is pleasing to note how the presence of Livia quickly restores him to himself; when, with more grace than one would look for, he acknowledges his fault, ascribing it sportively to the fogs of the German marshes. It amuses us to observe the power which the polished manners and courtly ways of Livia exercise over Aurelian, whose ambition seems now as violently bent upon subduing the world by the displays of taste, grace, and magnificence, as it once was to do it—and ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... the Pixies—the fairies of the common traditions and of the poets—some such fairies as Shakspeare describes for us in several of his plays, especially in "Midsummer-Night's Dream," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "The Tempest," and "Romeo and Juliet"—fairies who gambol sportively. ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... my father sportively, for the transitions of his passions were unaccountably sudden,—and what has this whelp of mine to ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... prow, A copper helmet on his yellow locks, With eyes of blue, a manly, heaving breast, His sword held firmly in his mighty hand. I follow him upon his rapid course, And all my dreams run riot round his bark, And frolic sportively like merry dolphins In ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... were not giving to this little homily the attention it deserved. They had begun to trifle as girls are wont to do. Catching at the tiny bisque cupid that hung from the chandelier, Emily sportively sent it flying toward Kate, who swung it back again. Thus they kept it flitting to and fro, faster and faster. Finally, Emily hit it with a jerk. The cord by which it was suspended snapped; the dainty bit ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... maskers like arrows of light To gather their gear for the revel bright. To the dazzling peaks of far-off Peru, In emulous speed some sportively flew, And deep in the mine, or 'mid glaciers on high, For ruby and sapphire searched heedful and sly. For diamonds rare that gleam in the bed Of Brazilian streams, some merrily sped, While others for topaz and emerald stray, 'Mid the cradle cliffs ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... just idea of his gaiety in connection with his dignity and gravity, which his name expressed. As we know nothing of his family, of course it will be understood that Calvin was his Christian name. He had times of relaxation into utter playfulness, delighting in a ball of yarn, catching sportively at stray ribbons when his mistress was at her toilet, and pursuing his own tail, with hilarity, for lack of anything better. He could amuse himself by the hour, and he did not care for children; perhaps something in his past was present to his memory. ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... what she calls me?" laughed the empress in return. "Yesterday I had a letter from her in which she calls me, sportively, 'Ma ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Mrs. Brown. You won't be Brown long," he added, sportively. "How will you like to be ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the shoulder of Kosadaasa, having just then confidence produced in me, with flushed cheek and wide expanded eye. Then she being caused to have a glancing look like that of Kandarpa when first descended to earth, corresponding therewith having her gracefully-curved creeper[12] eyebrows sportively playing; with the network of the rays of light of her lips oscillated by the waves of the wind of her breath, like twigs moved in sport, as if beating off the bees eager to catch the perfume of heir lotus-face. In the circular whirlings of the ball (caused) by ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... exertion was spared to induce them to express their gratitude for the Indulgence. Circular letters, imploring them to sign, were sent to every corner of the kingdom in such numbers that the mail bags, it was sportively said, were too heavy for the posthorses. Yet all the addresses which could be obtained from all the Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists scattered over England did not in six months amount to sixty; nor is there any ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... everything that attaches her to the country, the people and the ways she has left. The Parisian shopkeepers had made everything for her from measures and models sent from Vienna. Napoleon had had these models shown him, and taking one of the shoes, which were remarkably small, he had sportively stroked his valet's cheek with it, and said, "See there, Constant; here's a shoe that will bring good luck with it. Did you ever see feet ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... to my vanity and self-appreciation to learn that you have missed me," she returned sportively, but with a slightly ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... Melissa's brother, and a distinguished artist, he smiled expectantly. Even when he learned that Alexander was being hunted down for some heedless jest against the emperor, he only threatened Melissa sportively with his finger; but on being told that this jest dealt with the murder of Geta, he seemed startled, and the tone of his voice betrayed serious displeasure as he replied to the petitioner, "Do you suppose that I have three heads, like the Cerberus at the feet of your god, that you ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... mouths of his predecessors,—there was nothing further left but, early and late, to look about him for some subject-matter which he might determine to use. Here, too, we were much led astray. People were constantly repeating a saying of Kleist, which we had to hear often enough. He had sportively, ingeniously, and truly replied to those who took him to task on account of his frequent, lonely walks, "that he was not idle at such times,—he was going to the image-hunt." This simile was very suitable for a nobleman ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... little girl was amusing herself with a child, near Carlisle Bridge, Dublin, and was sportively toying with the child, he made a sudden spring from her arms, and in an instant fell into the river. The screaming nurse and anxious spectators saw the water close over the child, and conceived that he had sunk to rise no more. A Newfoundland dog, which had been accidentally passing ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... negative, and with a few flaps of their wings they go whirring on. Ugh! I forgot to mention for the edification of any of our lady friends that at night rats emerge from beneath the various rocks and sportively run over one's recumbent form. So, for guarding kopjes, ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... and he turned to go. He endeavoured to speak sportively as they went on. 'Diogenes Laertius says that philosophers used voluntarily to deprive themselves of sight to be uninterrupted in their meditations. Men, becoming lovers, ought ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... sportively farther and farther from the shore. The water broke, now and again, and slapped ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... of box that sportively engage, And mimick real battels in their rage, Pleas'd I recount; how smit with glory's charms, Two mighty monarchs met in adverse arms, Sable and white: assist me to explore, Ye Serian nymphs, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various
... Welsh's paternal grandfather) was her pet name used to distinguish her from the Welshes of her maternal grandfather's household, especially from her mother's younger sister, whose name was also Jeannie Welsh. Conscious of procrastinating too long in writing, Miss Welsh here sportively enlarges Pen not into Penfillan, but into Penelope, the name of Ulysses' faithful wife, who put off so long the hateful task of choosing a husband from the wasteful and riotous horde of suitors assembled in her house during Ulysses' ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... and unkind, Gabriella," said the master in a low, subdued voice, "and I fear I was so yesterday. I intended to do you good. I began sportively, but when I saw you getting excited and angry, I became angry and excited too. My temper, which is by no means gentle, had been previously much chafed, and, as is too often the case, the irritation, caused by the offences of many, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Maverick, who was strangely puzzled by her contradictory moods. But for one thing, he must have tried to cage the dazzling, elusive spirit: he, too, had a strong sense of honor toward his friend; and he could only imagine her playing sportively with the few who came within her radius, not setting herself to win any forbidden regard. What might have made some women sad and silent—the consciousness that an old lover had over-lived his passion—seemed to sting her ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... on Susan about noon the next day. She was still in bed. He was dressed in the extreme of fashion, was wearing a chinchilla-lined coat. He looked the idle, sportively inclined son of some rich man in the Fifth Avenue district. He was having an affair with a much admired young actress—was engaged in it rather as a matter of vanity and for the fashionable half-world associations ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west 445 The orange sky of evening died away. Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the reflex of a star 450 That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes, When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth |
