sportfulness

Among a family generally sad-hued and shrinking so conspicuous an example is quite prodigal and invites one to ponder upon the sportfulness of Nature.

My Tropic Isle 2003

In long winter nights it was hard to tell who enjoyed sportfulness the better, the children who romped the floor, or the parents who, with lighted countenance, looked at them.

Forty Years in South China The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. Rev. John Gerardus Fagg

So as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained.

English literary criticism Various

When at last, amid infinite mirth and sportfulness, it was completed, she pressed it on Wilhelm’s head with the greatest dignity, and shifted the posture of it more than once till it seemed to her properly adjusted.

Chapter IV. Book II 1917

But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained.

The Defense of Poesy 1909

And, though not constitutionally bellicose, I eagerly accepted his invitation on being assured that I should not be requisitioned to take part personally in such pugilistic exercises, and should observe same from a safe distance and coign of vantage, for I am sufficiently a lover of sportfulness to appreciate highly the sight of courage and science in third parties.

Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. F. Anstey 1895

In long winter nights it was hard to tell who enjoyed sportfulness the better, the children who romped the floor, or the parents who, with lighted countenance, looked at them.

Forty Years in South China Fagg, John Gerardus, 1860-1917 1894

This sunny soul with her sportfulness, her grace of many gifts, with her eyes that flashed and gleamed like lightning, with her voice that was like the warble of a bird, this golden-headed gipsy, this witch, this fairy -- what was the life that lay before her?

The Christian A Story Hall Caine 1892

Among a family generally sad-hued and shrinking so conspicuous an example is quite prodigal and invites one to ponder upon the sportfulness of Nature.

My Tropic Isle 1887

-- We see in every-day life that certain doings of princes or other men of high position who have no unfulfilled desires left have no reference to any extraneous purpose; but proceed from mere sportfulness, as, for instance, their recreations in places of amusement.

The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 George Thibaut 1881