"Briskness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scientific rifling. Indeed, for close-quarter righting pot-leg is far more comprehensive, and far less likely to miss than the lonely modern bullet. Moroever, his crew had quite as much dread for him as they had for the enemy, and as a consequence they fought with a briskness which made even ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... the pageant should see to it that the players speak the dialogue in the episodes with the utmost briskness. There should be no waits and pauses. Simon Scarlett especially should enunciate clearly and swiftly, with dash and fire in both voice and gesture. Even if some of the words are lost, it is better to keep ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... movement was only a diversion under cover of which we might have a chance to escape, but it was being executed with so much briskness and spirit that Bothwell could not guess its ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... frank, did I try to. Neither could I hang an article on one picture. I might envy George Moore, for an interval the critic of the Speaker, now the London Nation, because he could and did. I can remember him at an Academy Press View making the interminable round with a business-like briskness until, perhaps in the first hour and the last room, he would come upon the painting that gave him the peg for his eloquence, make an elaborate study of it, tell us his task was finished, and hurry off exultant. But envy him as I might, I couldn't borrow ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... evening, when Gillian had gone to a musical party with Aunt Ada, and Fergus did his lessons under Aunt Jane's superintendence, he utterly cast off his sister's aid. There was something in Miss Mohun's briskness that he found inspiring, and she put in apt words or illustrations, instead of only rousing herself from a book to listen, prompt, and sigh. He found that he did his tasks more thoroughly in half the time, and rose in his class; and busy as his aunt was, she made the time not only for ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his little room. He would remain at home for the present, he said,—help with the hay-making, and study. Where he should go later he did not know; but it made not the least difference to him. He had acquired a briskness and vigor of thought which it did one good to see, and an animation in the expression of his feelings which is so refreshing to a person who the whole year through strives to repress his own. The school-master grew ten ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... I followed could have reached their destination in less than twenty minutes if they had gone forward with the briskness that the weather justified; but there was an argument of some kind between them—I judged that the stuttering man had no stomach for the part he was to play as a horse-thief. At any rate, there was a dispute of some kind, and ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... open with businesslike briskness. "Concussion. Got a glancing blow from the light fixture. Seems as if she'd been trying to wrap herself up in the bedclothes and got in the worst place she ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... summoned to the telephone, where Evie was asking if she should find her in. Miriam judged from the tones of the transmitted voice that the worst had been made known. She was not, however, prepared for the briskness with which, ten minutes later, Evie whisked into the room, her cheeks aglow with excitement and her heavenly eyes dancing with a ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... siesta; twenty racking moments went by before they came in. Richard King was older than Jimsy's father but he had the same look of race and pride, and his wife was a plain, rather tired-looking Englishwoman with very white teeth and broodingly tender blue eyes which belied the briskness of her manner. ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... see if you can't find me an old body, now, for my girl—now do'ee try; she's confined in a tent on the common—nothing but one of our tents, my good lady—that's true—and she's doing jest about well' (with briskness and an air of triumph), 'that she is! She's got twins, you see, my lady, but she's all right, and as well as can be. She wants to get up; and she says to me, "Mother, do'ee try and get me a body; 'tis hard to lie here abed and be well enough to get up, and ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... clear, rain-washed world and the chill of an autumn morn. I was as stiff and sore as if I had been whipped, my clothes were sodden and heavy, and not till I had washed my face and hands in the burn and stretched my legs up the hill-side did I feel restored to something of my ordinary briskness. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... toward these. Outside the garage he saw the chauffeur, with his livery coat off, polishing a fender. Great! Perhaps he could persuade the chauffeur to help him. He put on what he felt to be a New York briskness, furtively touched his tie again, and ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... briskly about the house, a light in her eye, a flush on her cheek, vivacity in her motions. She is "living on excitement;" "it is ambition which keeps her up." Her husband, coming in to his dinner, takes her briskness and vivacity as matters of course, regarding her, probably, as a woman who has nothing to do but to stay in the house all day. He has no more idea of the condition of that woman ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... said Jean, assuming an air of briskness the confusion of her face belied. "Come away in, I am proud to see ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... with himself, because, as he said, he liked not only to talk to a sensible man but also to hear what a sensible man had to say. He never stood still for a moment, but kept "bobbing around" with the effervescent briskness of a bee, at one time roosting at the top of the ladder, at another peering through the floor light, now to the right, then to the left, always humming scraps from the Opera Bouffe, but never changing the air. In the small space which was then a whole world ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... shrillness in his voice, but the sitter gave no heed to these tokens, which he would have regarded as of no importance had he seen them. The talk was at first rather rambling, and was not kept up with much briskness on either side. Fenton, indeed, was so absorbed in the task which lay before him that he hardly followed the other's remarks, and he suddenly became aware that he had lost the thread of conversation altogether, so that he could not possibly imagine ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... gustily. She felt a dismal suspicion that this was going to daunt her. But her habit of facing things came to the front. "Wednesday's only four days off," she said, with a fine assumption of briskness. "I don't suppose he said anything about a wedding ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... Argument they pretend to maintain, they are laid upon their Backs, and constantly beaten to Pieces, till they have not a Word more to say; and when this has been repeated above half a Score times, they still retain the same Arrogance and mal-a-pert Briskness they were made to set out with at first; and immediately after every Defeat, they are making fresh Challenges, seemingly with as much Unconcern and Confidence of Success, as if Nothing had pass'd before, or they remember'd Nothing of what had happened. Such an Undauntedness in assaulting, ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... once or twice with considerable energy ere he returned, cursing the absent Antonio in language that would have outmatched the Italian's own. Then, having relieved his feelings, he abruptly laughed to himself and pursued his errand with business-like briskness. ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... Activity. — N. activity; briskness, liveliness &c. adj.; animation, life, vivacity, spirit, dash, energy; snap, vim. nimbleness, agility; smartness, quickness &c. adj.; velocity, &c. 274; alacrity, promptitude; despatch, dispatch; expedition; haste &c. 684; punctuality &c. (early) 132. eagerness, zeal, ardor, perfervidum ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... with his stethoscope, gently drawing down the lower lid of one of the eyes to observe the colour of the membrane, and, in a word, doing all those things which he was accustomed to do under the circumstances with a promptness and briskness which showed how little he feared that the old man would wake under his touch. He noted some of the results of his observations in a pocket-book. Unorna stood still ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... now, with a sudden briskness that startled them into feverish obedience. "You, Fra Domenico, cut off your sacerdotals, and gird high your habit. There is climbing for you. Here, a couple of you, move aside that altar-step. My men and I have spent the night ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... if you can," Tom said with continued briskness. "It interests me. I'll do my best. And I want you to get ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... and Wilts will remember the scarcity of water in these regions. In fact, the rainfall, instead of washing the surface and collecting in streams, sinks into the fissured chalk and percolates through it. When this formation is suitably tapped, we obtain water of exceeding briskness and purity. A large glass globe, filled with the water of a well near Tring, shows itself to be wonderfully free from mechanical impurity. Indeed, it stands to reason that water wholly withdrawn from ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... dozed in his seat, the grateful breath of the summer night fanning his face through the screen. The Duke found him there, appearing as he had departed, his coat on his arm, his collar in his hand. He was full of the briskness of the dawn in spite of ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... Bertheroy put in an appearance. Although he was sixty-eight, he showed as much briskness and sprightliness as any young sawbones calling in a friendly way to perform a little operation. He had brought an instrument case, some linen bands and some lint. However, he became angry on finding the injured man nervous, flushed ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... author of this book, is an American all over. He has the rapidity and eagerness of mind that the champagny atmosphere of our northern hills gives to those who are stout enough not to be wilted by our hot summers. For briskness, thriftiness, energy, and alacrity, it is hard to find his match. He has made a book of travels, and will make a hundred, unless somebody finds him a place at home where he will have an indefinite number of labors-of-Hercules ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Normandy. Established by usage and utility, ere recognized by the law, their origin bespake a healthy energy. Foreign manufacturers were welcomed as settlers in the Burghs,—the richer the better. No grudge was entertained against the Fleming; and the material prosperity of the country and the briskness of commerce carried on in all the great towns, proves that the pack-horses could tramp along the old Roman roads with facility. Indeed, amongst the Normans the commercial spirit was indigenous. The Danes and the folk of Danish blood were diligent traders. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... her couch with tolerable briskness, after the last benediction, Mr Dombey took her arm in his and led her ceremoniously downstairs; one of the very tall young men on hire, whose organ of veneration was imperfectly developed, thrusting his tongue into his cheek, for the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... silent, as if in embarrassment over an admission so at variance with the tenets of a lifetime. Then he spoke with sudden briskness: ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... now M Street was different—full of marketers and of briskness. The old bridge was crowded. As her car swooped up the hills and skirted the curves to Polly Widdicombe's she began to be afraid again. But she was committed to the adventure and she was eager for the worst of it. She found the ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... would not go with him to his house; I declined it, from an apprehension that my spirits would sink. We bade adieu to each other affectionately in the carriage. When he had got down upon the foot-pavement, he called out, 'Fare you well;' and without looking back, sprung away with a kind of pathetick briskness, if I may use that expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle to conceal uneasiness, and impressed me with a foreboding of our ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... obeyed the command literally. For, his horse going into the air with great briskness at the impact of Racey's toe, even as the puncher had intended it should, he, Luke Tweezy, bit his tongue so hard that he wept involuntary tears of ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... Montivilliers, the trees of which overhung the road, made it evident that something of importance was occurring in that direction. Should the enemy gain possession of the park Bazeilles would be at their mercy, but the briskness of the firing was in itself proof that the general commanding the 12th corps had anticipated the movement and that ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... beauty. The dressing part of our sex, whose minds are the same with the sillier part of the other, are exactly in the like uneasy condition to be regarded for a well-tied cravat, a hat cocked with an uncommon briskness, a very well-chosen coat, or other instances of merit, which they are impatient to ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... much smaller than his wife, with a certain air of defunct style about him. He had quite a fierce bristle of moustache, and a nervous briskness of carriage, yet there was something that was unmistakably conciliatory and subservient in his bearing toward Mrs. Jameson. He stood aside for her to enter the pew, with the attitude of vassalage; he seemed to respond with an echo of deference to every rustle of her silken ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the whole scene was its extraordinary animation and briskness. All the folk round the fires and outside of them moved about quickly and with the same kind of liveliness which might animate a camp of more natural people at the rising of the sun. It was as though they had just got up full of vigour to commence ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... division, under that gallant officer Sir Samuel Hood, received it next, and stood after them. At nine the enemy began to cannonade my van, which was returned with the greatest briskness. The baffling winds did not permit part of the centre division to get into action with the enemy's rear till half-past eleven; and then only the ship next me in line of battle, &c. The enemy's cannonade ceased upon my rear's approach, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... suddenly, "I have so little time." His briskness dropped into a half complaint, like a faintly suggested avowal of impotence. "I have been at it four years now. It struck me—you seemed to coincide so singularly with ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... I wonder, by the by, that it never came into my head to give the Colonel a dose of the cordial whereof I partook last night. I have no faith that it is a valuable medicine—little or none—and yet there has been an unwonted briskness in me ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the home of Doc and Miss Dennihan, they paused and stepped behind a fence, for the door of the neat little house was open and the lady herself was sweeping off the steps, with the briskness ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... sing, and they wrote some very difficult passages from dictation without any errors, and in a flowing, legible handwriting that I am disposed to envy. Their accent and intonation were pleasing, and there was a briskness and emulation about their style of answering questions, rarely found in country schools with us, significant of intelligence and good teaching. All but the younger girls spoke English as fluently as Hawaiian. I cannot convey a notion of the blitheness and independence ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... not interfere with each other. Of these applicants none pleased me. One of them was a dark-haired, dark-eyed, rather spare person, whose youthful energies had been so improved by years that I was sure her briskness of action, her promptness of speech, and her evident anxiety to get to work and to keep at it ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... dismissed the taxi and walked briskly to the huge waiting-room. There she dropped the briskness, and went leisurely down its long length to the drug stand, where she bought a few stamps and then passed out through the middle aisle to the train shed, inquiring on the way of an attendant the time of the next express from Baltimore. To his answer she didn't attend, nevertheless ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... he said, 'I lament that I know so little of Thee.' The patronage and the confession are alike characteristic. As he drew near the scaffold, the model of which he had given to his native city a few years since, he stepped with an agile briskness; he examined the halter, destined for his neck, with an ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... taking fright at the terrible blow, made off across the plain, and with a few plunges flung its master to the ground. Don Quixote stood looking on very calmly, and, when he saw him fall, leaped from his horse and with great briskness ran to him, and, presenting the point of his sword to his eyes, bade him surrender, or he would cut his head off. The Biscayan was so bewildered that he was unable to answer a word, and it would have gone ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Chloe, heaping the smoking batter-cakes on his plate; "you know'd your old aunty'd keep the best for you. O, let you alone for dat! Go way!" And, with that, aunty gave George a nudge with her finger, designed to be immensely facetious, and turned again to her griddle with great briskness. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Pawling is some bird himself," remarked Skidder, picking up his hat and turning to Puma, who rose with lithe briskness, put on his hat, and began to ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... unbecoming cloak, he saw that she was young and slight. For the rest, she seemed to bring with her, into the warm, tranquil atmosphere of the place, heavy with midday musings, a breath of wind and outdoor freshness—a suggestion that was heightened by the quick decisiveness of her movements: the briskness with which she divested herself of her wrappings, the quick smooth of the hair on either side, the business-like way in which she drew up her chair to the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... mulberry and elm trees which afford rest to swallows. That wide extent of spring leeks with verdure covers the ground; And o'er ten li the paddy blossom fragrance doth abound. In days of plenty there's a lack of dearth and of distress, And what need then is there to plough and weave with such briskness? ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and briskness the battalion was formed. Then at brisk command, the battalion turned to the left in column of fours, marching down the hot, sun-blazed road ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... the cries of paper-boys. The nurses whispered together excitedly in their leisure moments; the doctors seemed to acquire an added briskness. Once or twice she heard the measured tramp of feet in the streets below, as a regiment was moved from ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... can do is to take a great part of his attitudes from the serious stile, but to give them another turn and air in the composition; that he may avoid confounding the two different stiles of serious and half-serious. For this last, it is impossible to have too much agility and briskness. ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... sat next to Miss Thornton, suspected that it had had something to do with her neighbor's ill-temper. But Miss Thornton, delicately approached, had proved so ungracious and so uncommunicative, that Miss Murray had retired into herself, and attacked her work with unusual briskness. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... the amenities are over, Excellenz," she said with the briskness she had picked up from her American friends, "let us come to the point. I infer you did not take a day's journey and put up with this abominable hotel to tell me that you are forming a Federation of Austria and the South German States. You were sometimes kind enough to ask ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... State Fair were of a different character. The audiences were composed of leading men from nearly all the counties of the State. Though the discussion of party questions had been going on all summer with more or less briskness, yet such was the general confusion in politics that many honest and intelligent voters and even leaders were still undecided in their opinions. The fair continued nearly a week. Douglas made a speech ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... the bombardment at Prag abated, and never rose to briskness again; the place of trial for decision of that Siege having flitted else-whither, as we said. About that time, rumors came in, not so favorable, from the Duke of Bevern; which Friedrich, strong in hope, strove visibly to disbelieve, but at last could not. Bevern reports that Daun is ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... hand and with all the stalwart briskness of the flag-presentation's day and hour Hilary Kincaid stepped into the room and halted, as large-eyed as on that earlier occasion, and even more startled, before the ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... kept up, during the whole of his reign, with frequent alternations of defeat and success, a really serious war. In the thirteenth century, Flanders was the most populous and the richest country in Europe. She owed the fact to the briskness of her manufacturing and commercial undertakings, not only amongst her neighbors, but throughout Southern and Eastern Europe, in Italy, in Spain, in Sweden, in Norway, in Hungary, in Russia, and even as far as Constantinople, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... temperament, an eye sharp to detect failings or foolishness, an admirer of briskness and vivacity, why did she welcome John Duck, that incarnation of stolidity and slowness, that enormous mountain of a man? Because extremes meet? No, since she was always complaining of Iden's dull, motionless life; so it was not the contrast to her ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... the first eight fillings. Thus managed, this single ale was fit to send out the fifth day after brewing. When this ale is racking off the butts, to be sent out, would recommend putting two ounces of ground rice into each barrel which will create briskness, and much improve the beer. Ran the small beer into the hop back of the strong beer, and so on the coolers, thereby giving it a chance to lick up all the strong ale it met with in its progress to the tun, which it ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... been fought, and neither man was wounded. But whilst Lord Claud looked just as cool and steady as at the start, the dark adversary was flushed and inclined to pant, and the beads of sweat stood upon his forehead notwithstanding the briskness of ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Then, with a sudden briskness: "Let the Citizen La Boulaye not go forth until I return," he bade the gaoler; and to Caron he said: "You will have the ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... wrote, none but Itself should read; Much, too, It chatter'd of dramatic laws, Misjudging critics, and misplaced applause; 160 Then, with a self-complacent, jutting air, It smiled, It smirk'd, It wriggled to the chair; And, with an awkward briskness not Its own, Looking around, and perking on the throne, Triumphant seem'd; when that strange savage dame, Known but to few, or only known by name, Plain Common-Sense appear'd, by Nature there Appointed, with plain Truth, to guard the chair, The pageant ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... eye he saw this prosaic tub sublimed into a romantic pool, and girdled by a rockery, in whose mossy crannies errant trickles of water might lose themselves, and perhaps fertilize exotic flora yet unborn. At this moment I espied a wheelbarrow in the distance, and went for it with that purposeful briskness, which may sometimes be used in fatigues of this sort to disguise your real intentions. For it is of the greatest importance in a fatigue to have an implement; it is the outward symbol of labour; if observation falls on you, you can ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... reins in the most unprofessional manner, and the horse turned to The Appointed Way with briskness that bespoke his impatience and a desire for more ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... brilliant, and looked at his interlocutor with a certain genial fury of inspection. He seemed to be in a state of some excitement; he spoke volubly and almost boisterously, and his voice was full-toned and powerful, though pleasant to the ear. He turned himself, as he spoke, with a burly briskness, from one side to another, addressing himself first to this auditor and then to that, his words bursting forth from beneath his white moustache with such an impetus of hearty breath that it seemed as if all opposing arguments must be blown quite away. Meanwhile he flourished in the air an ebony ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... briskness. He himself would not have tried to save any of the foot—better amputate at once at the line of demarcation, get a good flap of healthy tissue and make a proper stump. "That scar tissue'll never heal—it'll always be tender and break when he tries ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... sir,—to insure genuineness. . . . Let me see, what size were you saying? H'm, six-seven-eighths, as I should judge." Young Mr Benny pulled out a drawer with briskness, ran his hand through a number of genuine Panamas of identical pattern, selected one, and poised it on the tips of his fingers, giving it the while a seductive twist. "If you will stand so, Captain, while I tilt ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... sensitive winch to meet wile with wile, and determination with a firmness of which gentleness is the warp and woof. While it lasts, and when the fish are in a sporting humour, there is nothing more exciting than sea-trout angling. Perhaps for briskness of sport one ought to bracket with it the Mayfly carnival of the non-tidal trout streams in the generally hot days of early June, when the English meadows are in all their glory, and the fish for a few days cast shyness to the green and ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... says Mr. Yardo thoughtfully. He turns to me with sudden briskness. "What's that, Lizzie girl? A fish-boat? Good. We may need it. Let's ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... disposed of in the library, by the servant, under the pretence that Mr. Whedell was not yet up. But Mr. Whedell was up and dressed before six o'clock, and was watching for the expected carriage, through the window blinds of his apartment. He ran down to the door with juvenile briskness to ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the streets as usual, although so many are out of work there. Several, in the garb of factory operatives, were leaning upon the bridge, and others were trailing along in twos and threes, looking listless and cold; but nobody seemed in a hurry. Very little of the old briskness was visible. When the mills are in full work, the streets are busy with heavy loads of twist and cloth; and the workpeople hurry in blithe crowds to and from the factories, full of life and glee, for factory labour is not so hurtful to healthy life as it was thirty years ago, nor ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... monstrous stock, termed by antiquity giants; these by their exceeding great bodily stature surpassed the size natural to mankind. Those who came after these were the first who gained skill in divination from entrails, and attained the Pythonic art. These surpassed the former in briskness of mental parts as much as they fell behind them in bodily condition. Constant wars for the supremacy were waged between these and the giants; till at last the sorcerers prevailed, subdued the tribe of giants by arms, and acquired not merely the privilege of ruling, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... If you wish to succeed with Alida, Patroon, you must put more briskness into the adventure. The girl has a cross of the Frenchman in her temper, and none of your deliberations and taciturnities will gain the day. This visit to the Lust in Rust is Cupid's own handywork, and I hope ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... often ends. These traits in the Autocrat suggested that he would yet tell a distinct story, which indeed came while the trilogy of the Breakfast Table was yet proceeding. Elsie Venner and the Guardian Angel, the two novels of Holmes's, are full of the same briskness and acuteness of observation, the same effusiveness of humor and characteristic Americanism, as the Autocrat. Certain aspects of New England life and character are treated in these stories with incomparable vivacity and insight. Holmes's picture is of ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... small, plump, fair woman, with a bright, clear eye, and an extraordinary air of neatness and briskness. But these qualities were evidently combined with an unaffected humility, and the Doctor gave her his esteem as soon as he had looked at her. A brave little person, with lively perceptions, and yet a disbelief in her own talent for social, as distinguished from practical, affairs—this was ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... men like—him." Brigit took a sock out of the basket and looked at it absently. There was a short silence, during which Felicite did not speak, but she was watching her visitor in the glass. Then she said suddenly, with a certain briskness in her voice, "Shall I tell you about him? About my husband, you know, not about the ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... intends to train Phil. It may be that he will never be called upon to draw a sword, but the time he has spent in acquiring its use will not be wasted. These exercises give firmness and suppleness to the figure, quickness to the eye, and briskness of decision to the mind. A man who knows that he can, at need, defend his life if attacked, whether against soldiers in the field or robbers in the street, has a sense of power and self reliance that a man, untrained ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... He had an unusually fresh appearance; he had put on a bright green riding-coat, with a bunch of violets in the button-hole, and had the air of an old bachelor trying to rejuvenate himself. He had not, however, his usual briskness and vivacity; but loitered about the room with somewhat of absence of manner, humming the old song—"Go, lovely rose, tell her that wastes her time and me;" and then, leaning against the window, and looking upon the landscape, he uttered a very audible sigh. ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... in her favourite sunny corner of the kitchen and Clemantiny was flying around with double briskness. The latter's thin lips were tightly set and disapproval was writ large in every flutter of her ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... elderly gentleman came in, and was warmly welcomed by Dr. ———. He was a very short man, but with breadth enough, and a back excessively bent,—bowed almost to deformity; very gray hair, and a face and expression of remarkable briskness and intelligence. His profile came out pretty boldly, and his eyes had the prominence that indicates, I believe, volubility of speech, nor did he fail to talk from the instant of his appearance; and in the tone ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... self-satisfaction and repose which centuries of age may bestow, the spirit of life itself is the aspiration for change. Ambition itself only means the insistence on change. Each day is to be better than yesterday fuller of plans, of briskness, of initiative. Each to-day demands of to-morrow new men, new minds, new work. A to-day which has not launched new ships, explored new countries, constructed new buildings, added stories to old ones, may ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... table, with Hackeeboocoo on his right, and Madera on his left. They were all in great spirits, and ate and drank freely, and though they complained of the size of the glasses, and of the strength of the wine, tasted every thing from punch to champagne: the briskness of the last indeed surprised them not a little, and effectually muddled two of them for some time. Cheese was the only thing they all objected to, probably on account of its being made of milk, which they never taste. The ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... not. Transferring the horses to Nuttie, the two sisters hurried on towards the scene of action, but Blanche's white satin boots did not carry her far, and she turned on meeting her uncle. He spoke with a briskness and alacrity that made him like another man in this emergency, as he assured the anxious ladies that their friends were safe, but that they could not be extricated till the carriage was lifted from the hole into which it had sunk amid ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... upon me. You will have heard from William all that was to be heard of our hopes and of our disappointments, and you will know likewise from him that our stock of those articles is not yet exhausted, although the briskness of the market is a little affected by the absence of the King. The Berlin reviews being over, he has begun a military progress, which will carry him through Brunswick, Minden and Wesel to Cassel and to Anspach, and after various reviews ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... the necessity of dictating to one man and replying to another, will not make these objections, because the consciousness of his own literary perils will make him tender in his judgments. And yet there is something even in the pressure of business which sometimes promotes briskness of mind, since the art of speaking is one which is placed very much in ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... gentlemen, I'm rather in your way,' said Toole with a gloomy briskness; 'I think 'tis better I should go. I—I'm somewhat amazed, gentlemen, and I—I wish ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... her employers—Amelia her own absorbing topic. When the two girls met, and flew into each other's arms with that impetuosity which distinguishes the behaviour of young ladies towards each other, Rebecca performed her part of the embrace with the most perfect briskness and energy. Poor little Amelia blushed as she kissed her friend, and thought she had been guilty of something very like coldness ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... runs the promontory of Circaeum,—familiar to the boys from their studies in Homer and Virgil,—while over the water the white sails of swift-moving vessels passed to and fro. The waves broke on the strand, fishing-boats were drawn up on the beach, and there were wonderful briskness ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... with briskness and decision, 'no affectation between us. Drop this assumed unconcern. You know, you know well, that no incident could occur to you at this moment more mortifying than the one I have communicated, which deranges your plans, and probably may destroy your views. You cannot misconceive my motives ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... grass between the trees was paler, the black was blacker, as the two officers returned across the fields; to the hush of afternoon had succeeded the briskness of evening. Birds were awake and a breeze rustled in the branches; and Captain Hahn was strongly moved ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... water, the sun's rays were clearly visible through the thick wood in their rear. The early morning, too, had been cold—almost frosty—so much so, that the wild ducks, which generally evinced a good deal of shyness, NOW, seemingly emboldened by the briskness of the atmosphere, could be seen gliding about in considerable numbers, about half a mile below them; while the fish, on the contrary, as though dissatisfied with the temperature of their element, ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... Thea got no city consciousness. Chicago was simply a wilderness through which one had to find one's way. She felt no interest in the general briskness and zest of the crowds. The crash and scramble of that big, rich, appetent Western city she did not take in at all, except to notice that the noise of the drays and street-cars tired her. The brilliant window displays, the splendid furs and stuffs, the gorgeous flower-shops, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... in a minute; this stove heats up quick," cried Fanny, with agitated briskness. She began pulling the kindlings ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... a note and changed to his dinner jacket he rejoined them in the drawing-room. Barbara held out her hand to Letty, with a briskness ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... left the station; but in the aspect of those they saw there was something that told of a greater heat than they had yet known in Boston, and they were sensible of having reached a more southern latitude. The air, though freshened by the over- night's storm, still wanted the briskness and sparkle and pungency of the Boston air, which is as delicious in summer as it is terrible in winter; and the faces that showed themselves were sodden from the yesterday's heat and perspiration. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... made this foil of his so very widely known, that third parties took it up, and handled it on some occasions with considerable briskness. It was one of the most exasperating attributes of Bounderby, that he not only sang his own praises but stimulated other men to sing them. There was a moral infection of clap-trap in him. Strangers, modest enough elsewhere, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... walked, however, some footsteps approached behind her, the footsteps of a man; and owing to the briskness of his advance he was close at her heels and had said "Good morning" before she had been long aware of his propinquity. He appeared to be an artisan of some sort, and carried a tin pot of red paint in his hand. He asked in a business-like manner if he should take her basket, which she permitted him ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... announcing to a sleepy world that all was well, and after that the silence hung heavily as ever over the city. The cold was not unpleasant to either of them, muffled as they were in heavy clothing, for it imparted briskness and vigour to their strong young bodies, and they went on at a swift pace through the densest part of the city, into the thinning suburbs and then toward the fields and open spaces which lay on the nearer side of the earthworks. Not a human being ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... into the corral with her usual briskness, and, walking deliberately past him, turned up an empty box in a far corner and sat down upon it, and called to him. From the instant of her entrance he had held himself back, but when she called him he rushed eagerly ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... the cycle here, and send one of the men for it presently," he said. "Luckily I have got Chloe's car, and I can soon run you over, Iris. I suppose that is your motor outside?" he added, turning to Anstice with sudden briskness. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... began, the employers very soon detected that it was running below its possible output. There was a curious lack of briskness in the work—a curious constraint among the new workers. Yet the employers were certain that the women were keen, and their labour potentially efficient. They put their heads together, and posted up a notice in the factory to the effect ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Cauldstaneslap for a well-earned holiday, which he did as often as he was able, he astonished the neighbours with his broadcloth, his beaver hat, and the ample plies of his neckcloth. Though an eminently solid man at bottom, after the pattern of Hob, he had contracted a certain Glasgow briskness and APLOMB which set him off. All the other Elliotts were as lean as a rake, but Clement was laying on fat, and he panted sorely when he must get into his boots. Dand said, chuckling: "Ay, Clem has the elements of a corporation." "A provost and corporation," returned Clem. And his ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of words and ideas, as it is with matters of feeling. The mind can rust as well as the body if it is not rubbed up in Paris; but the thing on which provincialism most sets its stamp is gesture, gait, and movement; these soon lose the briskness which Paris constantly keeps alive. The provincial is used to walk and move in a world devoid of accident or change, there is nothing to be avoided; so in Paris she walks on as raw recruits do, never remembering that there may be hindrances, for there are none in her way ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Amos wore airs of cheerful briskness that deceived the public. No one could have thought that Amos was fearing his undoubtedly crazed clerk might become uncontrollable at any moment, or that the clerk was mentally parting from Amos forever in a scene of tense dramatic value in which his few dignified ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... enchaining frost; and icicles, or, as old-fashioned people call them, aglets, of three or four feet long, ornament the overhanging ledges, prone to fall to the beach—far, far below—when a thaw releases them from their present stations. But the air is so very keen that nothing but the briskness of our walk, and the enlivenment of an occasional spell of snow-balling, in which the seniors are tempted to join the juniors, prevent our stagnating into 'pellucid pillars' ourselves. So much, then, for our ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... shots must have stimulated his nerve centres, for he had abandoned the languid drawl with which, in happier moments, he was wont to comment on life's happenings, and was dealing with the situation with a staccato briskness. ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... dazed by the onslaught, had turned and looked at the door which had closed behind him with a briskness which seemed to say "Good riddance," and muttered, thinking of the clerk's one sanguine suggestion: "Personality! I might as well ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... on to the island, just under the tower, and Father Brown, whether from the mere touch of dry land, or the interest of something on the other bank of the river (which he stared at very hard for some seconds), seemed singularly improved in briskness. They entered a wooded avenue between two fences of thin greyish wood, such as often enclose parks or gardens, and over the top of which the dark trees tossed to and fro like black and purple plumes upon the hearse of a giant. ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... very happy man felt Titmouse as he returned to Oxford Street; entering Messrs. Tag-rag's premises with alacrity, just as they were being opened, and volunteering his assistance in numerous things beyond his usual province, with singular briskness and energy; as if conscious that by doing so he was greatly gratifying Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, whose wishes upon the subject he knew. He displayed such unwonted cheerfulness and patient good-nature throughout the day, that one of his companions, a serious youth, in a white neckerchief, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... flung off with unwonted briskness the light cotton sheet which covered him. He buttoned hastily the tunic which he had unfastened before lying down, and just as d'Alcacer was expecting him to swing his feet to the deck impetuously, he lay down again on the ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... came out with his usual smiling briskness and greeted Tom pleasantly. "Congratulations, Tommy," said he. "I suppose I'll see you among the big guns to-night. You ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... TREBELL. [With great briskness.] Your present need is a good shaking.... I seriously mean that. You get to attach importance to these shades of emotion. A slight physical shock would settle them all. That's why I asked you to kiss ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... young man barely out of his teens were to succeed in 'conquering London,' and bending it to his will, he would certainly need all his briskness ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin |
