high spirits

• “And when there was a waltz and she protested to Robin Strangelove that she did not know the steps and it turned out that he was not very proficient either, Annabelle, dancing alongside them with Lord Wetherby, suggested with uncharacteristic high spirits that they change partners.”

  Snow Angels

• “They were, and chatting in high spirits with Deece, who'd been seconded to Bantur the night Menolly had walked the tables to become a journeywoman, and with Strud, who'd been posted to a sea hold on Igen River that same night.”

  Dragon Drums

• “He had been down to Paris and had returned in high spirits with orders to complete that extensive set of pictures for Marie de Medici; he also had commissions from various churches; and would-be sitters for portraits waited in his parlors, quarreling about which should have first place.”

  Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters

• “A very handsome young Briton he looked to - day, in high spirits and a bright-blue frock-coat, the highest mode — his arm no longer in a sling.”

  Adam Bede

• “He then told a lengthy and energetic tale about two men and five scorpions, and at some point it dawned on me that the two men he was talking about were none other than Davy and Charlie, the abusive British guards on the Beersheva road, and that the sly revenge Ali was describing explained his high spirits when he had rejoined us with the armaments on the road north of town.”

  O Jerusalem

• “I had seen him before in a visit of three days that I made at Feniton with my parents in the September of 1844, when he was an Eton boy, full of high spirits and merriment.”

  Life of John Coleridge Patteson

• “The doctor had not noticed her flushed cheeks, her erratic attention, her tendency to trip over stones, the overemphatic gestures of her hands, and the slight strangulation of her voice; he had achieved precisely that stage of inebriation where high spirits teetered on the edge of nausea and unsteadiness, and decided to withdraw.”

  Captain Corelli's Mandolin

• “Otto looked so sad -- usually he was in high spirits -- that most of these early customers spoke to him or to Joe Schwartz about his health.”

  The Fortune Hunter

• “Once again on the bridge, with his high spirits restored, Langsdorff went through the now familiar routine: action stations, boarding party stand by, "Heave to" and "Do not transmit" signals bent on, the Tricolour hoisted, the 5. 9-inch guns loaded, and the German prize crew in the Newton Beech warned.”

  Graf Spee

• “That was what made my flesh crawl — the sudden capricious change from hellish scheming to playful mischief, from the cold, unspeakably cruel calculation that meant dreadful death for men she'd never seen, to happy high spirits demanding crackling with cherries, and a tea-leaf pillow because her eyes were tired.”

  Flashman and the Dragon

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