"Archness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thirty-five, who has arrived at the age of violent, tempestuous passion, were to preserve the slightest traces of the caressing archness of her love affairs at twenty, were not to understand that she ought to express herself differently, look at her lover differently, and kiss him differently were not to see that she ought to be Dido and not a Juliette, she would infallibly disgust nine lovers ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... of her, and dared to speak his mind even to her! On her part, on those occasions, such an air, as if she had a learner before her; and was ready to rap his knuckles, had nobody been present to mediate for him; that though I could not but love her for her very archness, yet in my mind, I could, for their sakes, but more for her ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... rather tall, had a pleasing countenance, a very intelligent and lively eye, and, if not quite handsome, was very near it. His address was good, he talked with fluency and spirit, and there was an archness and pleasantry in his manner which interested, though it was hardly understood by, her. Catherine felt herself in high luck; and they parted, on the lady's side at least, with a strong inclination for ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... let this opportunity pass of entertaining the chiefs according to our fashion. He appeared to have settled this question with himself just as the chiefs resumed their seats, for rising half off his chair, and with a mixture of archness and simplicity, as if he had made an amusing discovery, cried out in English, "When all drunk then go ashore!" Though Madera, as will be seen, was not quite right in his guess, there was enough of truth in his remark to raise a hearty laugh among those who understood him; and as he joined ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... stranger sometimes feels. A school-teacher leading her troop of merry children on their morning walk around the bastion, nodded to us pleasantly and forthwith the whole company of chubby-cheeked rogues, looking up at us with a pleasant archness, lisped a "guten morgen" that made the hearts glad within us. I know of nothing that has given me a more sweet and tender delight than the greeting of a little child, who, leaving his noisy playmates, ran across the street ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... all that could be easily remedied," she added, with a touch of archness. Then Mr. Iglesias thought it time to depart. In the hall his host held him, literally by the buttonhole, looking up with squinting blue eyes ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... air and sky and scene, or the yet more delicate graces that characterize the music of Creole voice and speech and the light of Creole eyes; to set forth the gracious, unaccentuated dignity of the matrons and the ravishing archness of their daughters. To Frowenfeld the experience seemed all unreal. Nor was this unreality removed by conversation on grave subjects; for few among either the maturer or the younger beauty could do aught but listen to his foreign tongue like unearthly strangers in the old fairy tales. ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... to consider the precise compass of that question. "That I can't exactly answer," she replied with soft archness. ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... surprise, and somewhat to my mortification, Therese greeted me with her old sunny smile. Her "Bon jour, Monsieur," was as cordial as ever; and it even seemed to me—and that didn't in the least tend to compose me—that her eyes sparkled with an archness which I had never seen in them before, and that her voice had in it a tinge of malice, as she held out to me two of her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... and I was at no loss to discover the reason. I had with me a lovely girl, whose truly English style of beauty, her brilliant bloom, heightened by her eager animation, her lips dimpled with a thousand smiles, and her whole countenance radiant with glee and mischievous archness, made her an object of admiration, which the English expressed by a fixed stare, and the Italians by sympathetic smiles, nods, and all the usual superlatives of delight. Among our most potent and malignant adversaries, was a troop of elegant masks in a long open carriage, the form of which was ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... Francais is Fleury. He is an actor completely fitted for the French style of comedy. He gives you the idea of a perfect gentleman, with much wit and liveliness, and consummate confidence and self-possession; who delivers himself with inimitable archness and pleasantry, but without the least exaggeration or buffoonery; who has too high an opinion of himself and his powers, to descend to broad jokes or allusions belonging to the lower kinds of humour. Those who ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... before the children whom he gathered to his heart had each and all suffered some fall or bump or bruise which, if not of his intention, was of his infliction, and which was regretted with such winning archness that the very mothers of them could not resist him, and his victims dried their tears to follow him with glad cries of "Span-yard, Span-yard!" Injury at his hands was a favor; neglect was the only real grievance. He went about rolling his small black head, and darting roguish ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... lady protested, with an extravagant archness. "Mrs. Phillips, this is Mr. Barnes. We were just talking ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sun and wind, and there was a soft dewy look about her flushed cheeks, and her very full red lips. At the corner of her mouth, near her square little chin, a tiny white scar showed like a dimple, giving to her lower lip when she laughed an expression of charming archness. I remember these things now—at the moment there was no room for them ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... many of my hours pure sunshine? She was the most graceful creature I have ever seen, I think, and surely merrier lips and eyes were never seen—eyes very blue and soft—hair golden, and flowing like sunset on her shoulders—a mouth which had a charming archness in it—and withal an innocence and modesty which made one purer. These were the first traits of the child, she was scarcely more, which struck a stranger. But she grew in beauty as you conversed with her. She had the most delightful voice I have ever heard—the kindest and most tender ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... Then, trying to rally her drooping spirits, she continues, with an attempt at a smile, "Tell me that you too will accept mine should you be in any danger. Remember, the mouse once rescued the lion!"—and she smiles again, and glances at him with a touch of her old archness. ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... an unbearable little savage formerly?" asked Lenore, laughing in the midst of her tears, and looking at Anton with girlish archness. ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Elizabeth with that archness which, despite her fifty-five years, she continued to employ, "didst thou not know that thy queen placed thee there ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... H. was, he had a strange defect in his eyes: one of them was smaller than the other, and in his efforts to reduce them to an equality, he sometimes produced a whimsical archness of physiognomy. He did not relish its being noticed, however, and thought the young Irishman ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... Archness, however, was thrown away on Fontenoy. He stood beside her, awkward and irresponsive. Not being allowed to be womanish, she could only try once more ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... than Harry. She was, at any rate, at that ripe age when beauty in woman seems more solid than in the budding period of girlhood, and she had come to understand her powers perfectly, and to know exactly how much of the susceptibility and archness of the girl it was profitable to retain. She saw that many women, with the best intentions, make a mistake of carrying too much girlishness into womanhood. Such a woman would have attracted Harry at any time, but only a woman with a cool brain and exquisite art could have made him lose ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... purchased for his grandson. There was a little laughing, red-cheeked, white-headed gown-boy of the school, to whom the old man had taken a great fancy. One of the symptoms of his returning consciousness and recovery, as we hoped, was his calling for this child, who pleased our friend by his archness and merry ways; and who, to the old gentleman's unfailing delight, used to call him "Codd Colonel." "Tell little F—— that Codd Colonel wants to see him"; and the little gown-boy was brought to him: ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... benevolence and truth of feeling. The boy was turned of sixteen; an age in England when youth does not yet put on the appearance of manhood; and he retained all the evidences of a gay, generous boyhood, rendered a little piquant, by the dash of archness, roguery, and fun, that a man-of-war is tolerably certain to impart to a lad of spirit. Nevertheless, his countenance retained an expression of ingenuousness and of sensitive feeling, that was singularly striking in one of his sex, and which, in spite of her beauty of feature, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... were much in fashion, and were known by memory to the people, the parodies upon them would naturally strike and please, when they were accompanied by the grimaces of a good comedian, who mimicked with archness a serious character. Such is the malignity of human nature; we love to laugh at those whom we esteem most, and by this make ourselves some recompense for the unwilling homage which we pay to merit. The parodies upon these poets, made by ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Medora, with some archness. She had been conscious enough of his spare waist, his sinewy arms, his swelling chest. "It was easy enough to see where the noise came from," she ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... lodgings in Old Bond-street, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Bickerstaff[242], and Mr. Thomas Davies. Garrick played round him with a fond vivacity, taking hold of the breasts of his coat, and, looking up in his face with a lively archness, complimented him on the good health which he seemed then to enjoy; while the sage, shaking his head, beheld him with a gentle complacency. One of the company not being come at the appointed hour, I proposed, as usual upon such occasions, to order dinner to be served; adding, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... attractions; a fairy-like form; a clear olive complexion; large, deep eyes of Italian brown; a profusion of silken tresses, raven-black; her address mingling the reserve of a pretty young Englishwoman with a certain natural archness and gaiety that suited well her French accent. A lovelier vision, as all who remember her youth have assured me, could hardly be imagined, and from that hour the fate of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... Le Gardeur! Why will not men content themselves with knowing we love them, without stripping our favors of all grace by making them duties, and in the end destroying our love by marrying us?" A flash of her natural archness came over her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... her eyes flashed a sudden gleam of archness. "Monsieur flatters himself," she said, with a smile that just revealed the ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... rules." And he looked at her with a fond admiration that made the heart of Seraphina swell. Looking on her huge slave, she drank the intoxicating joys of power. Meanwhile he continued, with that sort of massive archness that so ill became him, "She has but one fault; there is but one danger in the great career that I foresee for her. May I name it? may I be so irreverent? It is in herself—her heart ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... discrimination of the passions, however essential on the stage, are but of a secondary importance in a school. It is plain, open, distinct, and forcible pronunciation which school-boys should aim at; and not that quick transition from one passion to another, that archness of look, and that jeu de theatre, as it is called, so essential to a tolerable dramatic exhibition, and which actors themselves can scarcely arrive at. In short, it is speaking rather than acting which school-boys should be taught, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... is best known to yourself, though I think perhaps I could divine,' said she, with that archness and grace that always seemed to remove the unfavourable impression that her proceedings might have given. ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge |
