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More "Disport" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wasn't a white child, Miss P'tricia, I'd shore say you was onery. I's going be 'bliged to disport you to your pa, if ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... feats," said the maiden, "and I wish that I could thus disport myself." "I can do yet greater things," said Merlin, "and no one can devise anything which I cannot do, and I can also make it to endure forever." "Indeed," said the girl, "I would always love you if you could show me some ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... picturesque and tower-like crag for the larger specimens of the Falco tribe. The enclosures for Indian and other rare cattle also aid the interesting character of the whole scene. A long glazed building is likewise in progress for monkeys, who may thus disport their recreant limbs in an exotic atmosphere. Apart from these attractions, the grounds themselves have some of the most beautiful features of landscape gardening: they abound with what artists consider ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... life disport themselves round my bed of death, and dance about me like fair women; but if I beckon to them, I must die. Death always confronts me. You must be the barrier ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... state loan; another you read he is annexing, appropriating, or whatever you call it, a vast tract in Africa or Asia; on the third you are informed with all solemnity that he has become director of a new bank, insurance company, or one of those vast concerns in which only Rothschilds and Barings can disport themselves. Now and again you are informed that Sir Stephen Orme has been requested to stand for an important constituency, but that he was compelled to decline because of the pressure of his numerous affairs. There may be a more famous and important individual in the world ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... were not of marble; his heart was not flint nor his skin steel plate: he was flesh and tender; he was a vulnerable, breathing boy, with highly developed capacities for pain which were now being taxed to their utmost. Once he had loved to run, to leap, to disport himself in the sun, to drink deep of the free air; he had loved life and one or two of his fellowmen. He had borne himself buoyantly, with jaunty self-confidence, even with some intolerance toward the weaknesses of others, not infrequently displaying merriment over their mischances; ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... thirty winters by seeming, black-haired, hook-nosed and hawk-eyed, not so fair to look on as masterful and proud. She led a great grey ass betwixt two panniers, wherein she laded her marketings. But now she had done her chaffer, and was looking about her as if to note the folk for her disport; but when she came across a child, whether it were borne in arms or led by its kinswomen, or were going alone, as were some, she seemed more heedful of it, and eyed it more ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... that it is very culpable to be facetious in obscene and smutty matters. Such things are not to be discoursed on either in jest or in earnest; they must not, as St. Paul saith, be so much as named among Christians. To meddle with them is not to disport, but to defile one's self and others. There is indeed no more certain sign of a mind utterly debauched from piety and virtue than by affecting such talk. ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... a town at thy best advantage, Philopomenes Prince of the Achayans, among other praises Writers give him, they say, that in time of peace, he thought not upon any thing so much as the practise of warre; and whensoever he was abroad in the field to disport himselfe with his friends, would often stand still, and discourse with them, in case the enemies were upon the top of that hill, and we here with our army, whether of us two should have the advantage, and how might we safely goe ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Brother," said he, "and for the better disport of the company, here is my fool. Hold up, Saxon Samson, the gates of Gaza ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... order to be born again, and there becoming chrysalises, aurelias, caterpillars, nymphs, and at length butterflies; and having undergone this metamorphosis, and each after its kind been decked with beautiful wings, they ascend into the air as into their heaven, and there disport themselves joyfully, form marriage unions, lay eggs, and provide for themselves a posterity, nourished meanwhile with pleasant and sweet food from flowers. Who that confirms himself in favor of the Divine from the visible things in nature can help seeing ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... from their inn to street and square And places, public and divine, resort; Who, wheresoever they had made repair, Themselves were so accustomed to disport, The girl is with the valets left in care, Who make the beds, and wearied hackneys sort: While others in the hostel-kitchen dight The meal against ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the outer world, but whom one of the sudden downpours which seem an essential part of the opening of the Salon detained under the porch with its floor of hard-trodden gravel, like the entrance to the Circus where the lady-killers disport themselves. It was ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... Friends and companions, Disport yourselves, maidens, Arouse yourselves, fair ones. Come sing we in chorus The secrets of maidens. Allure the young gallant With dance and with song. As we lure the young gallant, Espy him approaching, Disperse yourselves, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... abash folk of their mirth; prithee do not so; let us talk together for our disport of mighty kings ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... not gone to the mid-Lent entertainment as a matter of course. Aurora had shown small knowledge of him when she thought he would consent to see her disport herself before the public as a negress. On the day after, when he learned that she had been the star of the evening as a negro, his frenzied disgust itself warned him of the injustice, the impropriety, of ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... wearily ask each year, what new place or pursuit exhausted earth still keeps for the holiday-maker. 'Tis a sad but sober fact, that the most of men lead flat and virtuous lives, departing annually with their family to some flat and virtuous place, there to disport themselves in a manner that is decent, orderly, wholly uninteresting, vacant of every buxom stimulus. To such as these a suggestion, in all friendliness: why not try crime? We shall not attempt to specify the particular branch — for every one must himself ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... clouds and wind so eagerly? If, like guilty spirits, they repair to some dread conference with powers like themselves, in what wild regions do the elements hold council, or where unbend in terrible disport? ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the other, resort to the Bois de Boulogne and the Champs Elysees, or to the gardens of Beaujon, and Tivoli—or to the yet more attractive magnificence of the palace and fountains of Versailles—where, in one or the other of these places, they carouse, or disport ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... respectable man into his haunts. So he had money enough to procure his peculiar garb, a "mersheen" to run with and fight for, a girl to console him, the "Old Bowery Theatre" to beguile him from his ennui, and the Bowery itself to disport his glory in, he was content. Rows were numerous in this quarter, and they afforded him all the other relaxation he desired. If there be any truth in the theories of Spiritualism, let us be sure his ghost ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... resort were reported upon. For the ranger's experience had taught him that since the men he wanted had money in their pockets to burn gregarious impulse would drive them from the far silent places of the desert to the roulette and faro tables where the wolf and the lamb disport themselves together. ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... to think about them. Their household teaching under Mrs. Elsmere and her old servant Martha—as great an original as herself—was so irregular, their religious training so extraordinary, the clothes in which they were allowed to disport themselves so scandalous to the sober taste of the rector's wife, that Catherine involuntarily regarded the little cottage on the hill as a spot of misrule in the general order of the parish. She would go in, say, at eleven o'clock in the morning, find ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Such a disport had been known previously to the expedition to Moscow, and the favourite divertisement a la Russe, so much in vogue amongst the Parisians for a few subsequent years. Roquefort informs ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 79, May 3, 1851 • Various
... be afraid, Bunny," she answered. "I'm not going to use your charms as a bait to lure this culinary Phyllis into the Arcadia in which you with your Strephonlike form disport yourself." ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... with an innocent laugh, "I think you ought to be. I had no end of trouble to find out where you were. It wasn't exactly the place for you to disport yourself in under the circumstances. If the general had caught you there making eyes at the goddess of the temple.... Oh, my word!... He hates to be bothered with complaints against his officers, you know. And it looked uncommonly like ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... of Captain Ephraim, but he had compensation, for the good captain now diverted into his modest grounds a no-account little brook which was going begging, and dug a snug little basin at the foot of the garden for the Pup to disport himself therein. All through the summer he continued to grow and was happy, playing with Toby, offending the yellow cat, amusing Miss Libby, and affording food for speculation to Mrs. Barnes over her knitting. In the winter Captain ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... true-hearted man, Mr. Taylor, and I shall never forget you, sir." And after a short silence, he added: "All I desire is a chance, for with it, I can make Louise happy. I need but little money, I should not know how to disport a large fortune, but I do desire a comfortable home with pictures and books. And I thank the Lord that I appreciate the refinements of this life." In silence he smoked, looking up at the rings. "Ah, but it was dark for me a short time ago, Mr. Taylor. They made me believe that I was going ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... for there are no fresh beasts here to give you, and it is best, to avoid doubts, that you should return as you came, only showing your powers if any should attempt to arrest you. So let us have done with these heavy matters, and disport us for a while. This servant of yours has made a common boast that he will outshoot any of our picked archers, and now we are ready to go forth and put him to the proof of the butts. Let him know, however, that, notwithstanding our words of yesterday, ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... Pandu. Thy wealth is equal unto that of thy brothers in his entirety. There is great sin in quarrelling with friends. They that are thy grandsires are theirs also. Give away in charity on occasions of sacrifices, gratify every dear object of thy desire, disport in the company of women freely, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... so dignified, so divinely egoistic. But you don't mind being worshipped, do you, Gioconda? Because you know it's your right, of course. There—she's actually condescending to purr! Now we'll come and disport ourselves under the trees, and you shall watch the birds from a safe distance. I know your wicked ways, and I must teach you how to treat your inferiors with proper benignity ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... like a huge wave, was to sweep over the land of the free and the home of the brave, overwhelming its native simplicity with the virtues, tastes, and vices of the other nations against which our forefathers barred the door. Palaces in all but the name stand where the buffalo was wont to disport himself, and where the American eagle in human form once flapped his wings and screamed most viciously in contempt of the effete civilization of the older world. Sons and daughters of the pioneers who bolted their dinners on the stroke of twelve find seven too early for ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... Zeus, With clouds of mist, And, like the boy who lops The thistles' heads, Disport with oaks and mountain-peaks; Yet thou ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... and really hardly anything else, except extremely correct, and always good form, without being too noticeably so, no one would have dreamed that this quiet young man, who looked like a shy subaltern, was simply dying to disport himself on the stage, and that it was the dream of his life to make an utter ass of himself as Hamlet, or a hopeless fool of himself as (say) the hero in Still Waters Run Deep—a play he had seen as a boy and had always ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... to revive her triumphs. She was growing old then, her days were over, and Herve's day was over. Vainly did he pile parody upon parody; vainly did he seize the conductor's baton; the days of their glory had gone. Now Asnieres itself is forgotten; the modern youth has chosen another suburb to disport himself in; the ballroom has been pulled down, and never again will an orchestra play a note of these poor scores; even their names are unknown. A few bars of a chorus of pages came back to me, remembered only by me, all are gone, like ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... grotesque fancy are to be seen on the shrine, although treated outwardly with Renaissance feeling. A realistic life-sized mouse may be seen in one place, just as if it had run out to inspect the work; and the numbers of little tipsy "putti" who disport themselves in all attitudes, in perilous positions on narrow ledges, are full of ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... so often that they hang with the picturesque lines of the best tailor-made garments. That is why well-fed artists of pencil and pen find in the griefs of the common people their most striking models. But when the Philistine would disport himself, the grimness of Melpomene, herself, attends upon his capers. Therefore, Danny set his jaw hard at Easter, ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... islands of Samothraki, Lemnos, Tenedos slumber like purplish fairies on the Aegean Sea: for, usually, I sleep during the day, and keep a night-long vigil, often at midnight descending to bathe my coloured baths in the lake, and to disport myself in that strange intoxication of nostrils, eyes, and pores, dreaming long wide-eyed dreams at the bottom, to return dazed, and weak, and drunken. Or again—twice within these last void and idle six months—I have suddenly run, bawling ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... of modulated Sound From viewless Hybla brought, when Melodies Like Birds of Paradise on wings, that aye Disport in wild variety of hues, Murmur around the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... air is scented with balsam and bey, and a pure crystal stream flows through this valley between two hills covered with giant redwood trees, and rare orchids of the most curious shape and colour toss wantonly in the breeze on the tree and hilltops. Birds and fishes and reptiles disport themselves in the sunshine, and giant butterflies of the most marvellous colours flutter so bravely among the ferns and flowers. There are no tents here in our camp, but we are covered with the fragrant branches of the spicy pines and nutmeg trees. It is a Paradise, ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... hard thrown the Irishman continued to flourish his heels and disport himself in such a lively style, that his spirit became contagious, and the four, who were yet upon the ground, now came to their feet, and after some plunging and rearing, made a rush down the slope, and ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... I of passion-pangs complain; * Have ruth on slave of love so burnt with flaming pain: How long, I ask, shall hands of Love disport with me, * With longings, dolour, sleepliness and bale and bane? Anon I 'plain of sea in heart, anon of fire * In vitals, O strange case, dear wish, my fairest fain! O blamer, cease thy blame, and seek thyself to fly * From love, which makes these eyne a rill of tears to rain. How oft ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... streamlet, where glisten'd Fair feet of the Naiads that skimm'd The shallows; where the Oreads listen'd, Rose-lipp'd, amber-hair'd, marble-limb'd, No lithe forms disport in the river, No sweet faces peer through the boughs, Elms and beeches wave silent for ever, Ever ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... the utmost of his power. And Alimaymon ordered fair palaces to be edified for him, by the wall of the Alcazar, on the outer part, that the Moors of the city might do no displeasure neither to him nor to his companions: and they were hard by a garden of the King's, that he might go out and disport himself therein whensoever it pleased him. And for these things King Don Alfonso loved to serve King Alimaymon. Nevertheless when he saw the great honour of the King of Toledo, and how powerful he was, and ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... IRRATIONAL elements. The RATIONAL myths are those which represent the gods as beautiful and wise beings. The Artemis of the Odyssey "taking her pastime in the chase of boars and swift deer, while with her the wild wood-nymphs disport them, and high over them all she rears her brow, and is easily to be known where all are fair,"(1) is a perfectly RATIONAL mythic representation of a divine being. We feel, even now, that the conception of a "queen and goddess, chaste and fair," the abbess, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... disport we fawn and flatter both, To pass the time when nothing else can please, And train them to our lure with subtle oath, Till, weary of their wiles, ourselves we ease; And then we say when we their fancy try, To play with fools, O ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... melancholy is as strong in these poems as in their joint title. It combines with his delight in emblematic allegory happily enough, in most of these pieces except Mother Hubbard's Tale. This is almost an open satire, and shows that if Spenser's genius had not found a less mongrel style to disport itself in, not merely would Donne, and Lodge, and Hall, and Marston have had to abandon their dispute for the post of first English satirist, but the attainment of really great satire in English might have ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... The zephyrs disport with a light-bosomed song, And the joy-laden songsters flit over the lea— Yet the hours of the spring as they hurry along Bring nothing but ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... forest uplands. "Robert and I go out and lose ourselves in the woods and mountains, and sit by the waterfalls on the starry and moonlit nights," she wrote from their high perch above Lucca in 1849; but their adventures in this kind were on the whole like the noon-disport of the amphibian swimmer in Fifine,—they always admitted of an easy retreat to the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... the mid-winter, and when spring cometh, the weather groweth fair, the wood bloometh, the grass groweth, and ships may glide betwixt land and land. So on a day the king says to his folk: "I will that ye come with us for our disport out into the woods, that we may look upon ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... town [of Carpentras where Fabre was a master at the college]. Twenty yards in front of my house, some pleasure gardens have been opened, bearing a signboard inscribed, 'The Pagoda.' Here, on Sunday afternoons, the lads and lasses from the neighboring farms come to disport themselves in country dances. To attract custom and push the sale of refreshments, the proprietor of the ball ends the Sunday hop with a tombola. Two hours beforehand, he has the prizes carried along the public roads, preceded by fifes ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... where the Wind Veres oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her Saile; So varied hee, and of his tortuous Traine Curld many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve, To lure her Eye; shee busied heard the sound Of rusling Leaves, but minded not, as us'd To such disport before her through the Field, 520 From every Beast, more duteous at her call, Then at Circean call the Herd disguis'd. Hee boulder now, uncall'd before her stood; But as in gaze admiring: Oft he bowd His turret Crest, and sleek enamel'd ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... in the case was that Mr. Cox had not been considerate enough to leave a carriage and a pair of bays on my hands, that I might have had the satisfaction of enabling his daughter to disport herself about the city in a style corresponding to her importance as a member of so respectable ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... all of Northland, In the lowlands sweet the verdure, in the uplands, fields of beauty, With the lake-shore near the hamlet, Near thy home the running water, Where the goslings swim and frolic, Water-birds disport in numbers." Thereupon the bride and bridegroom Were refreshed with richest viands, Given food and drink abundant, Fed on choicest bits of reindeer, On the sweetest loaves of barley, On the best of ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... filled up her days; he knew too well that whist accounted for her evenings. He did not know if there was any margin, any dim intellectual region, out of time, out of space, where Miss Tancred's soul was permitted to disport itself in freedom; she seemed to exist merely in order to supply certain deficiencies in the Colonel's nature. Mrs. Fazakerly had once remarked that Frida was "her father's right hand." It would have been truer to have said that she was right hand and left hand, and legs and brain to the ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... the management, make its debut upon the public stage. Ambitious non-professionals, mostly self-instructed, display their skill and powers of entertainment along the broadest lines. They may sing, dance, mimic, juggle, contort, recite, or disport themselves along any of the ragged boundary lines of Art. From the ranks of these anxious tyros are chosen the professionals that adorn or otherwise make conspicuous the full-blown stage. Press-agents delight in recounting ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... do wrong to disport ourselves in this pleasaunce without our comrade Launfal. It is not well to slight a prince as brave as he is courteous, and of a lineage ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... the child, When from the water's surface thou dost spring, Thyself upon his chamber ceiling fling, And there, in mazy dance and motion wild, Disport thyself—etherial, undefiled. Capricious, like the thinkings of the child! I am a child again, to think of thee In thy consummate glee. How I would play with thee, athirst to climb On sloping ladders of thy moted beams, When ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... mediaeval imagination went to work with it, found it singularly and delightfully plastic to its touch and requirements, and soon made it the centre of a new and charming world, in which a whole army of graceful and romantic fancies, which are always in quest of an arena in which to disport themselves before the mind, found abundant accommodation and nourishment. The fairy land of mediaeval Christianity seems to us the most satisfactory of all fairy lands, probably because it is more in accord with our genius and prejudices than those of the East; and ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... urchins catching butterflies in their caps. It was a forest after the pattern of the original Bois de Boulogne, hot and dusty, a much-frequented and sadly-abused promenade, one of those spots, avaricious of shade, to which the common people flock to disport themselves at the gates of great capitals—burlesque forests, filled with corks, where you find slices of melon and skeletons in ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... have been aroused, let me set them at rest. The marriage was genuine. It was performed in good faith by a genuine alderman. The groom and the great Mr. Cullinan even went so far as to disport genuine and generous white boutonnieres. Daisy cried a little; the words that she had to say seemed so wonderful to her, a new revelation, as it were, of the kingdom and glory of love. But when she was promising to cleave to Barstow in sickness and peril till ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... low cabin that stretched the full length of the "Lady Jane," and that—with its four cosy bunks made up shipshape, its big table, its swinging lamp, its soft bulging chairs (for Great-uncle Joe had been a man of solid weight as well as worth)—was just the place for boys to disport themselves in without fear of doing damage. All about were most interesting things for curious young eyes to see and busy fingers to handle: telescope, compass, speaking trumpet, log and lead and line that had done duty in many a distant sea; spears, bows and arrowheads traded for ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... animals, large-headed, and with long slender bodies, to all appearance covered with a coat of dark brown wool, crawling and floundering about among the kelp, in constantly increasing numbers. Each new ledge of reef, as it rises to the surface, becomes crowded with them, while hundreds of others disport themselves in the ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... gives the turn to a man's taste. From what I see and hear, I should think you can take up anything you like. You are in the deeper water with your classics than I ever got into, and if you are rather sick of that swimming, Cambridge is the place where you can go into mathematics with a will, and disport yourself on the dry sand as much as you like. I floundered ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the old mahogany desk, and smiling, perhaps, at her own fancies, and hiding them away with her papers at the sound of coming steps. Now, the modest papers, printed and reprinted, lie in every hand, the fancies disport themselves at their will in the wisest brains ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... satisfy itself as to the soundness in the faith of the candidates before them. On this score, however, few indulged serious anxiety. Once the Hebraic shoals and snags were safely passed, both examiner and examined could disport themselves with a jaunty self-confidence born of a thorough acquaintance with the Shorter Catechism received during the plastic years ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... constructed (? wire) bowers, the aviaries, the porticoes, the frightful circular edifice (tondo e il ricco edificio), a masterpiece of Palladian stucco work, in which Armida and Rinaldo, Acrasia and her Knight, drearily disport themselves. What has become of Calypso's island? of the orchards of Alcinous? What would the noble knights and ladies of Ariosto and Spenser think of them? What would they say, these romantic, dainty creatures, were they to meet Nausicaa with the washed linen piled ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... of great disport, And full pleasant and amiable of port; Of small hounds had she that she fed With roasted flesh ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rough sleds, on went the round hoods, old hats, red cloaks, and moccasins, and away trudged the four younger Bassetts, to disport themselves in the snow, and try the ice down by the old mill, where the great wheel turned and splashed so merrily ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... was set ful moche hire leste. Hire overlipp wypede sche so clene, That in hire cupp was no ferthing sene Of grec, whan sche dronken hadde hire draughte. Ful semly after hir mete sche raughte, And sikerly sche was of gret disport,{26} And ful plesaunt, and amyable of port, And peynede hir to countrefet cheere Of court, and ben estatlich of manere, And to ben holden digne of reverence. But for to speken of hir conscience, Sche was so charitable and so pitous, ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... home, he was left to his own self and felt very lonely. Neither would he go and disport himself with others; but with the daily return of dusk, he was wont ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... moved and lived; knew every bird and beast with a friendly acquaintanceship. The squirrels that inhabited the trees in the front-yard were won in time by her blandishments to come and perch on her window-sills, and thence, by trains of nuts adroitly laid, to disport themselves on the shining cherry tea-table that stood between the windows; and we youngsters used to sit entranced with delight as they gambolled and waved their feathery tails in frolicsome security, eating rations of gingerbread ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... are we fallen? Save that it is more vulgar, it might be Nice, or the Riviera, or Interkalken, or any other of those towns of carnival whither the bad taste of the whole world comes to disport itself in the so-called fashionable seasons. But in these quarters, on the other hand, which belong to the foreigners and to the Egyptians rallied to the civilisation of the West, all is clean and dry, well cared for and well kept. There ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... two extremely pretty girls were bathing. With the evening sun glinting on their brown bodies and their piquant, oval faces framed by the dusky torrents of their loosened hair, they looked like those bronze maidens which disport themselves in the fountain of the Piazza delle Terme in Rome, come to life. I felt certain that they would take to flight when Hawkinson unlimbered his motion-picture camera and trained it upon them, but they ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... hid the sledge and dogs behind a hummock, and, getting ready their spears and harpoons, prepared for an encounter. After waiting some time a walrus thrust its ungainly head up through the young ice that covered the hole, and began to disport itself in elephantine, ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... power over the fruits of the earth and the beasts of the field we cross a ravine where the forest is allowed to disport itself in ignorance of his yoke, and ascend another eminence where floral beauty, gathered from all quarters of the globe, is fed in imprisonment on its native soil and breathes its native climate. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... vantage he saw Cliges riding with three other striplings who were taking their pleasure, carrying lances and shields in order to tilt and to disport themselves. Now is the duke's nephew bent on attacking and injuring them if ever he can. With five comrades he sets out; and the six have posted themselves secretly beside the wood in a valley, so that the Greeks never ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... people. Let tyrants fear! I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come among you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die among you all, to lay down for my God, for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood even in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... Jimmie and Sir Lucius were dining at Morley's, Victor Nevill emerged from his rooms in Jermyn street, and walked briskly to Piccadilly Circus. He looked quite unlike the spruce young man of fashion who was wont to disport himself in the West End at this hour, for he wore tweeds, a soft hat, and a rather shabby overcoat. He took a cab in Coventry street, and gave the driver a northern address. As he rode through the Soho district he occasionally pressed one hand to his breast, ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... neighborhood—the ravine that is now bridged by one of our public streets. It consisted of two large wings, one for the boys and one for the girls, joined together by a dining hall used by the boys. There were also two pretty gardens in which the boys and girls could disport themselves separately. The large trees that surrounded the building have long since disappeared. The young girl spoken of as a pupil seems to have had her youthful mind captivated by the beauty of the site, and indeed nowhere could the love of nature be ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... laughter, convulse with laughter; set the table in a roar, be the death of one. recreate, solace, cheer, rejoice; please &c 829; interest; treat, regale. amuse oneself, game; play a game, play pranks, play tricks; sport, disport, toy, wanton, revel, junket, feast, carouse, banquet, make merry, drown care; drive dull care away; frolic, gambol, frisk, romp; caper; dance &c (leap) 309; keep up the ball; run a rig, sow one's wild oats, have one's fling, take ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... though a very delightful place for fish to disport in, was shallow, and by no means adapted for the recreation of so large a being as myself; it was, moreover, exposed, though I saw nobody at hand, nor heard a single human voice or sound. Following the winding of the brook I left the meadow, and, passing through two or three thickets, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... man has exerted a very marked and friendly influence upon them, since they so multiply in his society. The birds of California, it is said, were mostly silent till after its settlement, and I doubt if the Indians heard the wood thrush as we hear him. Where did the bobolink disport himself before there were meadows in the North and rice fields in the South? Was he the same lithe, merry-hearted beau then as now? And the sparrow, the lark, and the goldfinch, birds that seem so indigenous to the open fields and so adverse ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... and logic alike. That such strains should exist is an ultimate datum; justification cannot be required of them, but must be offered to each of them in turn by all that enters its particular orbit. There is no will but might find a world to disport itself in and to call good, and thereupon boast to have created that in which it found itself expressed. But such satisfaction has been denied to the majority; the equilibrium of things has at least postponed their day. Yet they are not altogether extinguished, since the equilibrium of things ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... the Senate, on the power of Congress over slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, Mr. Rives, of Virginia, was so unkind as to say, that the gentleman from Massachusetts, "if it so pleased his fancy, might disport himself in tossing squibs and firebrands about this hall; but those who are sitting upon a barrel of gunpowder, liable to be blown up by his dangerous missiles, could hardly be expected to be quite as calm and philosophic." Because he presented antislavery petitions, and insisted ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... manner of drunkenness was perhaps in some respects different from that customary with lords. Though he had only one leg of the flesh, and one of wood, he did not tumble down, though he brandished in the air the stick with which he was accustomed to disport himself. A lord would, I think, have got himself taken to bed. But the Sergeant did not appear to have any such intention. He had come out on to the road from the yard into which the back-door of the house opened, and seemed to John Gordon as though, ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... little peasants! Disport yourselves bravely!" 'Twas gay beyond measure. In each breast awakens A wondrous new feeling, As though from the depths Of a bottomless gulf On the crest of a wave, 180 They've been borne to the surface To find there awaits ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... the King, "When that the father had thus spoken to the lad, they returned together to the castle. When the morrow morning came, the lad arose and heard the birds sing and bethought him that he would go for disport into the forest for the day sith that it was fair. So he mounted on one of his father's horses of the chase and carried his javelins Welshman-fashion and went into the forest and found a stag and followed him ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... thy tambourine that we may play and sing and dance in honour of our master's guest." So he did her bidding and the twain went into the room, the lad playing and the lass following. Then, making a low conge, they asked leave to perform and disport and play; and Ali Baba gave permission, saying, "Dance now and do your best that this our guest may be mirthful and merry." Quoth Khwajah Hasan, "O my lord, thou dost indeed provide much pleasant entertainment." Then the slave-boy Abdullah ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... noticed how many and varied are the names of saints mentioned in these my reflections from "a Terrace in Prague." I do not profess deep knowledge of saints, and do not as a rule venture on the hallowed ground where saints disport themselves. Nevertheless, while dealing with the city of Prague in particular or the Bohemian people in general, and endeavouring to become acquainted with them, you are faced with the fact that there ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... especially feminine, will think this a hard fate for the pious first wife but the idea would not occur to the Moslem mind. After bearing ten children a woman becomes "Umm al-banti w'al-bann"a mother of daughters and sons, and should hold herself unfit for love-disport. The seven ages of womankind are thus described by the Arabs and I translate the lines after a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... As soon as Solon saw this ship sail away from the island, he ordered the women out of the way, dressed up those young men who were still beardless in their clothes, headdresses, and shoes, gave them daggers, and ordered them to dance and disport themselves near the seashore until the enemy landed, and their ship was certain to be captured. So the Megarians, imagining them to be women, fell upon them, struggling which should first seize them, but they were cut off to a man by the Athenians, who ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... own immediate entertaining the revel now began—no lesser word describes it. If, before the departure of his dinner guests, Brown had experienced a slight feeling of fatigue, it disappeared with the pleasure of seeing his present company disport themselves. They were not in the least afraid of him—how should they be, when he had spent months in the winning of their confidence and affection by every clever wile known to the genuine boy lover? That they respected ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... thus disport myself," answered Vivian. "I would always love you if you could show me ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... he cannot quite assume the gay insouciance of the French; if to England, he adores method, learns to grumble and imbibe old ale, yet does not become accustomed to the free, blunt raillery,—the "chaff,"—with which Britons disport themselves; if to China, he lives upon curries and inscribes his name with a camel's-hair pencil, but all Oriental bizarrerie fails to thoroughly amuse him. Wherever he may go, he settles at once and easily into the outward life of the people ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Faust.] None the less it is a penitential prayer, a conference with God in the faith of the eternally good. The eye turned inwards here, too, sees the comforting phenomena it alone can perceive (Allegro 6/8), in which the longing becomes a sweet, tender, melancholy disport with itself; [FOOTNOTE: Ein Wehmuthig holdes Spiel.] the inmost hidden dream-picture awakens as the loveliest reminiscence. And now, in the short transitional Allegro moderate it is as though the Master, conscious of his strength, puts himself ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... such as Mexico is famous for, people these tropic southern lands of Vera Cruz. Along the shores and in the woods and groves, all teeming with prolific life, which the hot sun and frequent rains induce, the giant cranes and brilliant-plumaged herons disport themselves, and gorgeous butterflies almost outshine the feathered denizens. From the tangled boughs the pendant boa-constrictor coils himself, and hissing serpents, basking crocodiles, and prowling jaguars people the untrodden wilds of jungle and lagoon. In these great virgin forests tribes of monkeys ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... anyone waiting by an elder-bush on Midsummer Night at twelve o'clock will see the king of fairyland and all his retinue pass by and disport themselves in favorite haunts, among others the mounds of fragrant wild thyme. How ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Haarlem church disappointing, had it not been for the two or three redeeming features left in the cold, bare structure; the beautiful screen of open brass-work, with its base of dark wood, on which brightly-painted, mystic beasts disport themselves among the coats-of-arms of divers ancient towns; and ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... knows that he must do something to amuse his usual spectators—viz., the tourists—who go back to Manchester or to Omaha and astonish their friends with tales of the goings-on of those dreadful Frenchmen in Paris. The women who disport in the cancan at the same place are simply hired by the season. It is not at the Jardin Mabille that the visitor to Paris need ever look to see genuine revelry: the place is as much a place of jollification ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... with delight the surrounding beauty, so absorbed is she in it that she forgets there is such a person as Jimmy Dalrymple. Quack, quack, quack, go the ducks as she approaches the lake on which they disport themselves, and gazes down at the sky therein reflected and at her own image. But she is not admiring her youthful face and the curly golden hair that stands like a halo round it. No, she is sunk in a dream; the morning has called forth her greatest aspirations; the striving after the unattainable; ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton
... as they much desired, To see whose head with orient Pearles, Most curiously was tyred; And to it selfe the subtle Ayre, Such souerainty assumes, That it receiu'd too large a share From natures rich perfumes. 20 When the Elizian Youth were met, That were of most account, And to disport themselues were set Vpon an easy Mount: Neare which, of stately Firre and Pine There grew abundant store, The Tree that weepeth Turpentine, And shady Sicamore. Amongst this merry youthfull trayne A Forrester they had, 30 A Fisher, and a Shepheards swayne A liuely ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... [38] "A pleasant disport of divers noble personages ... intituled Philocopo ... englished by H. G[ifford?]," London, 1567, 4to; "Amorous Fiametta, wherein is sette downe a catalogue of all & singular passions of love and jealosie incident to an ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... ago stood towards the statesman who is now proudly numbered in their ranks. When he presented himself to be sworn in, it was one of the jokes of the day that Sir Walter Barttelot expected he would approach the Table making "a cart-wheel" down the floor, as ragged little boys disport themselves along the pavement when a drag or omnibus passes. Sir Walter was genuinely surprised to find in the fearsome Birmingham Radical a quietly-dressed, well-mannered, almost boyish-looking man, who spoke in a clear, admirably pitched ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... within sight of Pear-tree Cottage. At a rapid walk Quarrier soon reached his goal, and saw with satisfaction that men and boys were sweeping the snowy surface, whilst a few people had already begun to disport themselves where the black ice came to view. In the afternoon he would come with Lilian; for the present, a second purpose occupied his thoughts. Standing on the bank of Bale Water (thus was it named), he could see the topmost branches of that pear-tree which grew ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... into bed. After all it was only polite to return Cayley's own solicitude earlier in the night. Politeness demanded that one should not disport oneself on the pond until one's friends ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... somewhat different aspect. He experienced something of that temporary relief from personal responsibility that moments of religious sentiment often give to minds that are unaccustomed to religion. He had been free for the time to disport himself in something infinitely larger and wider than his little world, and he took up his duty at the point at which he had left it with something of this sense of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... explanation—unfelt aesthetically. They have not been through the oven. They are artistically insincere. Sentimentality makes strange bedfellows. Rousseau has slipped into the very hole wherein Mr. Frank Dixie and Sir Luke Fildes disport themselves; only, by betraying his vice in a picture that is, for the most part, so exquisitely sure in its simple, delicate expression of a frank and charming vision he gives us an impressive example of the danger, even to a good ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... Duc of Orliance be kept stille withyn the Castil of Pontefret, with owte goyng to Robertis place, or to any other disport, it is better he lak his disport then we were disceyved. Of all the remanant dothe as ye thenketh."—Letter ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... hedges of rare beauty; occasionally you stumble unexpectedly on a rustic bower, tenanted by an Apollo or Greek slave in marble, or else you find yourself on turning an angle on the shady bank of a sequestered pond, in which lively trout disport themselves as merrily as those goldfish you just noticed in the aquarium in the hall hung round with Krieghoff's exquisite "Canadian scenery." You can also, as you pass along, catch the loud notes issuing from the ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... very delightful place for fish to disport in, was shallow, and by no means adapted for the recreation of so large a being as myself; it was, moreover, exposed, though I saw nobody at hand, nor heard a single human voice or sound. Following the winding of the brook ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Tranquil summer passes by, the winter days go by; the young lady still sits writing at the old mahogany desk, and smiling, perhaps, at her own fancies, and hiding them away with her papers at the sound of coming steps. Now, the modest papers, printed and reprinted, lie in every hand, the fancies disport themselves at their will in the wisest ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... the edge of Blackheath, amid very historic surroundings. Some one has called Blackheath the Rotten Row of the olden days, for there royalty and fashionable people of the town went to ride and disport themselves, just as they now do in Hyde Park; and there important guests on the way to London, were wont to be met with much ceremony by the Mayor and certain great citizens. After the battle of Agincourt, the victor, Henry V, when returning ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... a cafe or 'uitspanning.' This word means literally a place where the horse is taken out of the shafts, but it is also a restaurant with a garden attached to it, in which there are swings and seesaws, upon which the guests disport themselves during the afternoon, while in the evening a large hall in the building is arranged for the ball, for that is the conclusion of every 'Boeren bruiloft.' Very often the ball lasts till the cock-crowing, and then, if the 'Bruiloft ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... of these books remind one of "a merry disport," which formerly took place in the hall of the Inner Temple. "At the conclusion of the ceremony, a huntsman came into the hall bearing a fox, a pursenet, and a cat, both bound at the end of a staff, attended by nine or ten couples of hounds ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... here and there were big yellow patches of moss. At the foot of one hill a stream wends its way through the drooping boughs of the stunted shrubs that grow on its edges, and loses itself in a quiet pond where long-legged insects disport themselves on the leaves of the water-lilies. The sun beat down on us. The gnats rubbed their wings together and bent the slender ends of the reeds with the weight of their tiny bodies. We were alone in the ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... if you like," she answered, looking up to smile absently at him. And she began to play a rakish little air which, composed by some rattle-brain at a cafe table, had lately skipped out of the Moulin Rouge to disport itself over Paris. She played it slowly, in the minor, with elfish pathos; while he leaned upon the piano, his eyes fixed upon her fingers, which bore few rings, none, he observed with an unreasonable pleasure, upon the third finger of the ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... tamarisk bushes which fringe its banks, and the district is soon surrounded by a belt of marshy vegetation, affording cover for ducks, pelicans, wild geese, and a score of different kinds of birds which disport themselves there by the thousand. The Pharaohs, when tired of residing in cities, here found varied and refreshing scenery, an equable climate, gardens always gay with flowers, and in the thickets of the Kerun they could pursue their ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... buy merchandise and jewels and ottars[FN660] and gain great profit on them; till, Allah willing, I will make my capital an hundred thousand dirhams. Then I will purchase a fine house with white slaves and eunuchs and horses; and I will eat and drink and disport myself; nor will I leave a singing man or a singing woman in the city, but I will summon them to my palace and make them perform before me." All this he counted over in his mind, while the tray of glass ware,: worth an hundred dirhams, stood on the bench before ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... superintend our games with the strictness that some parents do the studies of their children. He was very particular that we should play the old English games according to their original form; and consulted old books for precedent and authority for every 'merrie disport;' yet I assure you there never was pedantry so delightful. It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... rolled over, like a child's play-boat, by the wave which an exploding or over-setting iceberg would cause. And it might, indeed, be supposed, that, did one of those prodigious creations take a notion to disport its billions of tons in a somersault, it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... Yet for disport we fawn and flatter both, To pass the time when nothing else can please, And train them to our lure with subtle oath, Till, weary of their wiles, ourselves we ease; And then we say when we their fancy try, To play with fools, O what a fool ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... had grown before. When spring came, he saw less of Captain Ephraim, but he had compensation, for the good captain now diverted into his modest grounds a no-account little brook which was going begging, and dug a snug little basin at the foot of the garden for the Pup to disport himself therein. All through the summer he continued to grow and was happy, playing with Toby, offending the yellow cat, amusing Miss Libby, and affording food for speculation to Mrs. Barnes over her knitting. In the winter Captain Ephraim polished him up in his old tricks, ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... were at last allowed to go free; but several young ones became attached to their guardians with surprising rapidity, and followed them like dogs. These antelopes are not larger than a medium-sized sheep, and the young ones in particular look exceedingly pretty with their red tufts, and disport themselves like frisky kids. Miss Ellen and my sister soon had about them a whole menagerie of antelopes, monkeys, and parrots, trained to perform all sorts of tricks for the delectation of the children who ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... admiral in the early years of the nineteenth century, the curving bow windows of the front, now filled with reddish-yellow light, suggested a portly three-decker, sailing seas where those dolphins and narwhals who disport themselves upon the edges of old maps were scattered with an impartial hand. A semicircular flight of shallow steps led to a very large door, which Katharine had left ajar. She hesitated, cast her eyes over the front of the house, marked that ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... entertaining the revel now began—no lesser word describes it. If, before the departure of his dinner guests, Brown had experienced a slight feeling of fatigue, it disappeared with the pleasure of seeing his present company disport themselves. They were not in the least afraid of him—how should they be, when he had spent months in the winning of their confidence and affection by every clever wile known to the genuine boy lover? That they respected him was plainly ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... whom it was the aim of this enemy to carry off, and he had to exert his skill to guard her from the inroad of his great and wily opponent. To protect her the better, he had built a log house, and it was only on the roof of this that he could permit his daughter to take the open air, and disport herself. Now her hair was so long, that when she untied it, the raven locks ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... girls, and a stay at the seaside when I was 12 made the latter at least feasible. When the shore was nearly deserted, between 1 and 2 P.M., the daughters of the fisherfolk used to besiege the bathing machines and disport themselves in the water, bathing and paddling in various stages of nudity. I would pretend that my whole attention was being given to the making of miniature tunnels in the sand, while all the time I slyly peeped at what ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... lady, sent his companion away with her into the pigeon-house, there to teach her the paternoster, while he and the lady, holding her little boy by the hand, went into the bedroom, locked themselves in, got them on to a divan that was there, and began to disport them. And while thus they sped the time, it chanced that the father returned, and, before any was ware of him, was at the bedroom door, and knocked, and called the lady by her name. Whereupon:—"'Tis ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... together, opposing progress; vast chasms yawn beneath his feet when he lands, and at certain places the streams sink into the earth as if by magic, to reappear where least expected. A thundering noise is heard, and a mist hovers in the air, in which thousands of birds disport themselves,— marking the position of the great cataracts of the Corentyn. The scene, however, is too vast to be beheld in its full grandeur from any single point of view. No waterfall in the territory ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... to disport ourselves in this pleasaunce without our comrade Launfal. It is not well to slight a prince as brave as he is courteous, and of a lineage prouder than ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... Mathewson could or could not dance the "Irish Washerwoman," or any other antic dance improvised to that live air; she had only to yield herself to Red Pepper Burns's hands and steps, and let him disport himself around her. A most startlingly hilarious performance was immediately and effectively produced. At the height of it, a door across the sitting-room, which commanded a strip of the bedroom beyond, opened cautiously and Zeke Crandall's ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... became smitten with a violent desire to behold his invisible benefactors. Accordingly, he one night stationed himself behind a knot in the door which divided the living-room of his cottage from the sleeping-apartment. True to their custom, the elves came to disport themselves on his carefully-swept hearth, and to render to the household their usual good offices. But no sooner had the man glanced upon them than he became blind; and so provoked were the fairies at this breach of hospitality that they deserted his dwelling, and ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... for a week, but have, as yet, not been fortunate enough to see any crews. Indeed, I doubt if there are any here. A good many maniacs disport themselves every day in rickety things which look something like gigantic needles, and other people have been riding along the bank, and, very naturally, abusing them loudly for their foolhardy recklessness. But no amount of abuse causes them to desist. I have puzzled my brains ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... midst of its wild and sublime scenery, and yet scarce allowed to look upon it! I was more like a prisoner gazing through the grating of his gaol upon the free world without—like a bird who sees through the wires of its cage the bright-green foliage, amidst which it would gladly disport itself. ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... neegaleco. Dispatch depesxo. Dispel peli, forpeli. Dispensary kuracilejo. Dispense (to give out) disdoni. Disperse dispeli. Display vidajxo, montrajxo. Display (show, pomp) lukso. Displace transloki. Displease malplacxi. Displeasure malplacxo. Disport ludi. Dispose disponi. Disposable disponebla. Disposition inklino. Dispraise mallauxdi. Disproof refuto. Disprove refuti. Dispute disputo. Dispute (quarrel) malpaci. Disputatious disputa. [Error in book: Disputations] ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... punishment of the Doctor, the thoroughly human figures of Genestas and the rest, save the situation from this and other drawbacks. We are not in the Cockaigne of perfectibility, where Marmontel and Godwin disport themselves; we are in a very practical place, where time-bargains in barley are made, and you pay the respectable, if not lavish board of ten francs per day for entertainment ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... be colonies, have a prehistoric time—a dark period of mist and gloom, before the keen light of history dawns upon them. This period is the favourite playground of the myth-spirits, where they disport themselves freely, or lounge heavily and listlessly, according to their different natures. The Egyptian spirits were of the heavier and duller kind—not light and frolicsome, like the Greek and the Indo-Iranian. It has been said that Egypt never produced ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... of passion-pangs complain; * Have ruth on slave of love so burnt with flaming pain: How long, I ask, shall hands of Love disport with me, * With longings, dolour, sleepliness and bale and bane? Anon I 'plain of sea in heart, anon of fire * In vitals, O strange case, dear wish, my fairest fain! O blamer, cease thy blame, and seek thyself to fly * From love, which makes these eyne a rill ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... with which he regards him. Read Hawkins on Fielding, and the scorn with which Dandy Walpole and Bishop Hurd speak of him. Galley-slaves doomed to tug the oar and wear the chain, whilst my lords and dandies take their pleasure, and hear fine music and disport with fine ladies in ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a very serious trouble to Helen that she was not to buy and disport herself in pretty frocks and hats. The desire to dress prettily and tastefully is born in most girls—just as surely as is the desire to breathe. And ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... gates to be opened, went himself to meet King Marcobrun, took him by his white hands, led him into the marble palace, seated him at an oaken table spread with checkered tablecloths and sweetmeats, and they fell to eating and drinking and disport. ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... our 'hairy quadrumanous ancestor' (Darwinian for the primaeval monkey, from whom we are presumably descended) used playfully to disport himself, as yet unconscious of his glorious destiny as the remote progenitor of Shakespeare, Milton, and the late Mr. Peace—in tropical woods, such acrid or pungent fruits and plants are particularly common, and correspondingly annoying. The fact is, our primitive ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... sea-shore town need no lake in which to disport themselves. The great salt sea gives them a free bath, and our village had its bathing beach in common with others of its kind. Of course, then, my swimming ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... instantaneously to the bait and swim gratefully ashore holding it in their mouths. In the middle depth of the waters of the lake, the sardine, the lobster, the kippered herring, the anchovy and other tinned varieties of fish disport themselves with evident gratification, while even lower in the pellucid depths the dog-fish, the hog-fish, the log-fish, and the sword-fish whirl about in ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... Yosemite waterfalls. The bones of many a noble ship lie there, and many a sailor. It would seem unlikely that any living thing should seek rest in such a place, or find it. Nevertheless, frail and delicate flowers bloom there, flowers of both the land and the sea; heavy, ungainly seals disport in the swelling waves, and find grateful retreats back in the inmost bores of its storm-lashed caverns; while in many a chink and hollow of the highest crags, not visible from beneath, a great variety of waterfowl make ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... They were appended to a piece of facetiousness that would not have disgraced the abilities of Mr. John Raikes; but we know that very stiff young gentlemen betray monkey-minds when sweet young ladies compel them to disport. On the whole, it was not a lazy afternoon that the Countess passed, and it was not against her wish that others should ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... abound, till 50 Proserpina's field, To the foison thy lap overflowing its laurel of Sicily yield. Call, assemble the nymphs—hamadryad and dryad— the echoes who court From the rock, who the rushes inhabit, in ripples who swim and disport. "I admonish you maids—I, his mother, who suckled the scamp ere he flew— An ye trust to the Boy flying naked, some pestilent 55 prank ye shall rue." Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... of which was a joy inexpressible; and that joy lost in a crowd of yet greater blisses! But this was a disorder too violent in nature to last long: the vessels, so stirred and intensely heated, soon boiled over, and for that time put out the fire; meanwhile all this dalliance and disport had so far consumed the morning, that it became a kind of necessity to lay breakfast ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... that we may play and sing and dance in honour of our master's guest." So he did her bidding and the twain went into the room, the lad playing and the lass following. Then, making a low conge, they asked leave to perform and disport and play; and Ali Baba gave permission, saying, "Dance now and do your best that this our guest may be mirthful and merry." Quoth Khwajah Hasan, "O my lord, thou dost indeed provide much pleasant entertainment." Then ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... who held his court Within that flowery grove, Sang loudly: "'Twill be rare disport To ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... justify the writing of a book of impressions and experiences. The Highlands and Islands of Scotland are, of course, visited every summer by a great host of excursionists, who go thither to fish, play golf, lounge, climb hills, and otherwise picturesquely disport themselves. A few earnest devotees of science spend their holidays botanising in the glens, scanning the geological strata, looking for fossils, measuring the outlines of brochs and prehistoric forts, or collecting relics of Culdee churches. My journeys were undertaken for none of the objects ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... to William of Nangis, "three noble children, born in Flanders, who were sojourning at the abbey of St. Nicholas in the Wood, to learn the speech of France, went out into the forest of the abbey, with their bows and iron-headed arrows, to disport them in shooting hares, chased the game, which they had started in the wood of the abbey, into the forest of Enguerrand, lord of Coucy, and were taken by the sergeants which kept the wood. When the fell and pitiless Sir Enguerrand ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... butterfly was here realized in all its perfection; not in the pattern of such faded insects as flit among earthly flowers, but of those which hover across the meads of paradise for child-angels and the spirits of departed infants to disport themselves with. The rich down was visible upon its wings; the lustre of its eyes seemed instinct with spirit. The firelight glimmered around this wonder—the candles gleamed upon it; but it glistened apparently ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the half- decayed trunks of former monarchs of the forest that filled its bed—a ditch covered with a superstratum of slimy, green water, lank weeds, and rank vegetation; and wherein, at flood time, urchin anglers could fish for eels and sticklebats, and, at ebb, the village ducks disport themselves and mudlarks play. ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Bunny," she answered. "I'm not going to use your charms as a bait to lure this culinary Phyllis into the Arcadia in which you with your Strephonlike form disport yourself." ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... horseback as the case might require, attended for the security of the Lady Eveline's person. Without this military attendance they could not in safety move even so far as the mills, where honest Wilkln Flammock, his warlike deeds forgotten, was occupied with his mechanical labours. But if a farther disport was intended, and the Lady of the Garde Doloureuse proposed to hunt or hawk for a few hours, her safety was not confided to a guard so feeble as the garrison of the castle might afford. It was necessary that Raoul should announce her purpose to Damian by a special ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... things, isn't it? I'm a vile bad host but I can't help it. At the present moment for example I'm undergoing grinding torments and it doesn't amuse me to make conversation, so you two can cut along and disport yourselves in any way you like. Give Lawrence a drink, will you, my love? . . . . Oh no, thanks, you've done a lot but you can't do any more, no one can, I just have to grin and bear it. Laura, would you mind ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... and fold thy tender sheep, For lo, the great automaton of day In Isis stream his golden locks doth steep; Sad even her dusky mantle doth display; Light-flying fowls, the posts of night, disport them, And cheerful-looking vesper doth ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... blushing brows. Round their fair forms their mingling arms they fling, Meet with warm lip, and clasp with rustling wing.— —Hence plastic Nature, as Oblivion whelms 60 Her fading forms, repeoples all her realms; Soft Joys disport on purple plumes unfurl'd, And Love and Beauty rule the ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... logic alike. That such strains should exist is an ultimate datum; justification cannot be required of them, but must be offered to each of them in turn by all that enters its particular orbit. There is no will but might find a world to disport itself in and to call good, and thereupon boast to have created that in which it found itself expressed. But such satisfaction has been denied to the majority; the equilibrium of things has at least postponed their ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... building, with a red-tiled roof extending over a porch or whitewashed veranda, in which drunken vaqueros had been known to occasionally disport their mustangs, did not offer a very reputable appearance to the eye of young Guest as he approached it in the gathering shadows. One or two half-broken horses were securely fastened to the stout cross-beams of some heavy ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... made for something: as a horse, a vine. Why wonderest thou? The sun itself will say of itself, I was made for something; and so hath every god its proper function. What then were then made for? to disport and delight thyself? See how even common sense ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... tradition, anyone waiting by an elder-bush on Midsummer Night at twelve o'clock will see the king of fairyland and all his retinue pass by and disport themselves in favorite haunts, among others the mounds of fragrant wild thyme. How well Shakespeare ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... mused in the cloister he stopped short with a deep sigh, and stood before the storks, and said: "Away, happy birds; you have leave. Disport yourselves, soaring very high in the sunny heavens, or take your rest on our roofs. I have appeased you with food; but to the hunger of ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... tall and fair, lithe, young and elegant, with attendant maid and two faithful, fabulous beasts that uphold the standards of maidenhood. A simple circle denotes the boundary of the enchanted land wherein she dwells, a park with noble trees and lovely flowers, among which disport the little animals that associate themselves with mankind. For four centuries these hangings have delighted the eye of man, and are perhaps more than ever appreciated now. Certain it is that the art student's easel is often set before them for copying the quaint ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... and it was with a tearful and apologetic face that he said, 'Talaam, Tahib,' when I came home from office. A hasty inquiry resulted in Imam Din informing Muhammad Din that, by my singular favour, he was permitted to disport himself as he pleased. Whereat the child took heart and fell to tracing the ground-plan of an edifice which was to eclipse ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... 'twas whispered among them that after a short evening with the ladies, there were to appear a bevy of London-town dancing girls, who would give them a highly flavoured entertainment; and, as if Bacchus had prematurely begun to disport himself in brain and leg of each beau, he set about to ogle and sigh and wish and—pull a stray curl upon some maiden's forehead or touch her glowing cheek with cold fingers, and some began to illustrate the modus operandi of taking certain game, while another danced a clog ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... fancy are to be seen on the shrine, although treated outwardly with Renaissance feeling. A realistic life-sized mouse may be seen in one place, just as if it had run out to inspect the work; and the numbers of little tipsy "putti" who disport themselves in all attitudes, in perilous positions on narrow ledges, are full of ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... boys and girls of the village, but a large number of their elders. The lake grows lively with the gracefully gliding promenade of skaters, with here and there a group playing at hockey, while others disport themselves at "crack the whip." The friction of so many gliding feet imparts to the frozen surface a low and weirdly humming sound, and the droning note is echoed by the hills, until the valley resounds with monotonous music. There are times when the lake ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... During infancy he is protected from cold and wet, and his mother is coddled by the most nourishing foods, that she may not fail in her duty to him. During childhood he is provided with a warm house, a clean bed, and a yard in which to disport himself, and is fed for growth and bone on skim-milk, oatmeal, and sweet alfalfa. During his youth, corn meal is liberally added to his diet, also other dainties which he enjoys and makes much of; ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... at the college]. Twenty yards in front of my house, some pleasure gardens have been opened, bearing a signboard inscribed, 'The Pagoda.' Here, on Sunday afternoons, the lads and lasses from the neighboring farms come to disport themselves in country dances. To attract custom and push the sale of refreshments, the proprietor of the ball ends the Sunday hop with a tombola. Two hours beforehand, he has the prizes carried along the public roads, preceded by fifes and drums. From a beribboned pole, borne by a stalwart fellow ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... staircase the smart girl preceded Tom, shading the chamber candle with her hand, to protect it from the currents of air which in such a rambling old place might have found plenty of room to disport themselves in, without blowing the candle out, but which did blow it out nevertheless—thus affording Tom's enemies an opportunity of asserting that it was he, and not the wind, who extinguished the candle, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... rose and came to the church, where they found the monks awaiting them. Then, after hearing vespers, they all supped together, talking the while of many excellent stories. After supper they went, according to their wont, to disport themselves somewhat in the meadow, and then retired to rest, in order that their memories might be the sounder ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... laughter, occasion laughter, raise laughter, excite laughter, produce laughter, convulse with laughter; set the table in a roar, be the death of one. recreate, solace, cheer, rejoice; please &c 829; interest; treat, regale. amuse oneself, game; play a game, play pranks, play tricks; sport, disport, toy, wanton, revel, junket, feast, carouse, banquet, make merry, drown care; drive dull care away; frolic, gambol, frisk, romp; caper; dance &c (leap) 309; keep up the ball; run a rig, sow one's wild ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... With faire disport and courting dalliaunce She intertainde her lover all the way: But when she saw the knight his speare advaunce, 120 She soone left off her mirth and wanton play, And bade her knight addresse him to the fray: His foe was nigh at ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... usual plaza in the centre of the town, where the youth and beauty disport themselves in the way peculiar to these mountainous regions, which consists of walking round and round at a good pace to keep up the circulation, as the weather is nearly always cold in Sorata. Illampu, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... Human Comedy: because they represent man giving play to his soul—exercising his highest faculties. Nor does the realistic novelist in such efforts have the air of one who has left his true business in order to disport himself for once in an alien element. On the contrary, he seems absolutely at home: for the time, this is his ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... very social even during the nesting season. Their nests are built among the branches of the fir trees, and there they disport themselves gaily, climbing nimbly, and assisting their movements, as parrots do, with their beaks. They will hang downward for minutes clinging to a twig or cone, seeming to enjoy this apparently uncomfortable position. They fly rapidly, but never to a great distance. "The pleasure ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... we have economized on ourselves, or rather included ourselves in a general scheme of economy in order the better to provide for our guests, I think even New Yorkers would hesitate to criticize the Jardines' iron beds,—especially if they ever got a chance to disport themselves on ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... lie in the spirit. By so doing music becomes a part of life, a congruous addition, a parallel life, as it were, to the vulgar one. I see no reason, in the analogies of the natural world, for supposing that the circumstances of human life are the only circumstances in which the spirit of life can disport itself. Even on this planet, there are sea-animals and air-animals, ephemeral beings and self-centred beings, as well as persons who can grow as old as Matthew Arnold, and be as fond as he was of classifying other ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... Christ, Mahomet, and Luther only lent a different hue to the arena in which youthful nations disport themselves. ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... light; it was not even uttered by the poet—he had merely smiled at it; yet it had the effect of rekindling the vapid embers about the dear old hearthstone of Olney, and the shy, gentle creatures that used to disport there among the hares when nobody was looking became for a moment more real from the citation. Now, the question is, What is the superiority of a new piece of gossip like this, which involves no witticism and confers no wisdom, over the next bit of history that will be exchanged ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... of man's power over the fruits of the earth and the beasts of the field we cross a ravine where the forest is allowed to disport itself in ignorance of his yoke, and ascend another eminence where floral beauty, gathered from all quarters of the globe, is fed in imprisonment on its native soil and breathes its native climate. We predict that woman will seek her home among the flowers on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... thrown the Irishman continued to flourish his heels and disport himself in such a lively style, that his spirit became contagious, and the four, who were yet upon the ground, now came to their feet, and after some plunging and rearing, made a rush down the slope, and were ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... these poems as in their joint title. It combines with his delight in emblematic allegory happily enough, in most of these pieces except Mother Hubbard's Tale. This is almost an open satire, and shows that if Spenser's genius had not found a less mongrel style to disport itself in, not merely would Donne, and Lodge, and Hall, and Marston have had to abandon their dispute for the post of first English satirist, but the attainment of really great satire in English might ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... young noblemen had been tossed, much to the amusement of the queen and her ladies, the king cast his eyes on two young Florentine nobles who had lately arrived at Naples. They were with their tutor, and all three had been laughing heartily at the disport of the king and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... from gray walls and aery pinnacles upon the joyous children of To-day. Youth, in a bright-haired, black-winged-butterfly swarm, streams out of every dark doorway, from the austere shade of study, to disport itself, two by two, or in larger eddying groups, upon the worn gravel, even venturously flits across the sacred green of the turf. There is an effervescence of life in the clear air, and the sun-steeped walls of stone are resonant ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... semblance of a dark-maned stallion. Twelve filly foals did they conceive and bear him, and these, as they sped over the rich plain, would go bounding on over the ripe ears of corn and not break them; or again when they would disport themselves on the broad back of Ocean they could gallop on the crest of a breaker. Erichthonius begat Tros, king of the Trojans, and Tros had three noble sons, Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymede who was comeliest of mortal men; wherefore the gods carried him off to be Jove's ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... proper wit had she, and could both read well and write, merry in company, ready and quick of answer, neither mute nor full of babble, sometimes taunting without displeasure, and not without disport." ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... said Allen. "This is the night when unlicked cubs do disport themselves in our precincts. A mistaken sense of philanthropy has led my mother to make this house the fortnightly salon bleu of St. Thomas's. But there's a pipe at your service in ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... statues of its entablature show vividly against the blue sky, you might think yourself in some warm cosy square of a little provincial town, what with the women of the neighbourhood who sit knitting under the arcade, and the bands of ragged urchins who disport themselves on all sides like school-boys ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... since late noon-tide? 'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined to-day? In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humphrey. Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer, Keeps he for every straggling cavalier; An open house, haunted with great resort; Long service mixt with musical disport. Many fair younker with a feathered crest, Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest, To fare so freely with so little cost, Than stake his twelvepence to a meaner host. Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say He touched no meat of all this livelong day; For sure methought, yet ...
— English Satires • Various
... friendly acquaintanceship. The squirrels that inhabited the trees in the front-yard were won in time by her blandishments to come and perch on her window-sills, and thence, by trains of nuts adroitly laid, to disport themselves on the shining cherry tea-table that stood between the windows; and we youngsters used to sit entranced with delight as they gambolled and waved their feathery tails in frolicsome security, eating rations of gingerbread and bits of seed-cake with as good a relish as any ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... as to delight the heart of a couple of care-free children. The forest was filled with oaks, beeches, walnuts and sugar-maple trees, growing close together and free from underbrush. Now and then there was an open glade called a prairie or "lick," where the wild animals came to drink and disport themselves. Game was plentiful—deer, bears, pheasants, wild turkeys, ducks and birds of all kinds. This, with Tom Lincoln's passion for hunting, promised good things for the family to eat, as well as bearskin rugs for the bare earth floor, and deerskin ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... a goodly tale or two, On which he may disport him at night. His high prudence hath insight very To judge if it be well made or nay. Write him nothing that soweneth to vice. Look if find thou canst any treatise Grounded on ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... the hour for closing impelled toward the outer world, but whom one of the sudden downpours which seem an essential part of the opening of the Salon detained under the porch with its floor of hard-trodden gravel, like the entrance to the Circus where the lady-killers disport themselves. It was ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... wire) bowers, the aviaries, the porticoes, the frightful circular edifice (tondo e il ricco edificio), a masterpiece of Palladian stucco work, in which Armida and Rinaldo, Acrasia and her Knight, drearily disport themselves. What has become of Calypso's island? of the orchards of Alcinous? What would the noble knights and ladies of Ariosto and Spenser think of them? What would they say, these romantic, dainty creatures, were they to meet ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... have a wise regard for your sanitary well-being, you will remain on deck, alike to saturate your lungs with torrents of oxygen and to let your weary eye and mind disport themselves like sea-gulls on the broad waters of the bay. What so fresh and cool and clean and still and sparkling and in perfect contrast to the stern and stony and resounding streets! As you lean over the taffrail, looking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... furtherance of his own coarse ambitions, and who allowed his supporters such a measure of license as was needed to make their support continuing. A shameless new quarter suddenly obtruded itself with an ugly emphasis; unclassifiables, male and female, began to assert and disport themselves more daringly than dreamt of heretofore; and many good citizens who would crowd the town forward to a population of a million and to a status undeniably metropolitan came to stroll these tawdry, noisy new streets with a curiosity of mind at once disturbed, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... yearly supplied by the Candians, Venetians, Sarmatians, with all sorts of excellent birds, eagles, gerfalcons, goshawks, falcons, sparrow-hawks, merlins, and other kinds of them, so gentle and perfectly well trained that, flying from the castle for their own disport, they would not fail to catch whatever they encountered. The venery was a little further ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... the peers of anybody. Some of them choose to remain single: port, porch, portal, portly, porter, portage. Here and there one marries into another family: portfolio, portmanteau, portable, port arms. More often, however, they are wooed than themselves do the pleading: comport, purport, report, disport, transport, passport, deportment, importance, opportunity, importunate, inopportune, insupportable. From our knowledge of the two families, therefore, we should surmise that if any marriage is to take place between them; an ex must be the suitor. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... they had arisen in the morning in robes of unsullied white. Every housetop is spangled with the bright element; soft flakes are coquetting in the atmosphere, and a pure mantle has been spread on all sides, that fairly invites one to disport ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... also a little muddled as to propriety. It would regard with horror the idea of allowing ladies and gentlemen to bathe together, even though completely clad; but it sees nothing out of the way when gentlemen in pre-fig-leaf costume disport themselves, bathing just before the young ladies' boarding-school and the chief hotel, or running joyous races on the beach. I shall never forget the amazement and horror with which an Aberystwithienne ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... longest to disport thyself on a long bridge and art prepared for the dance, but that fearest the trembling legs of the bridgelet builded on re-used shavings, lest supine it may lie stretched in the hollow swamp; may a good bridge take its ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... horses can eat, for there are no fresh beasts here to give you, and it is best, to avoid doubts, that you should return as you came, only showing your powers if any should attempt to arrest you. So let us have done with these heavy matters, and disport us for a while. This servant of yours has made a common boast that he will outshoot any of our picked archers, and now we are ready to go forth and put him to the proof of the butts. Let him know, however, that, notwithstanding our words of yesterday, we shall not hold him to blame if ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... well this morning, cousin?" queried Francis. "Doth not my lady mother instruct me in the tent and cross-stitch each day? Besides doth not even the Queen's Majesty disport herself with the bow? 'Tis the fashion, ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... banished every star from the sky and had driven from the earth the humid vapours of the night, when Filostrato, arising, caused all his company arise and with them betook himself to the fair garden, where they all proceeded to disport themselves, and the eating-hour come, they dined whereas they had supped on the foregoing evening. Then, after having slept, what time the sun was at its highest, they seated themselves, after the wonted fashion, hard by the fair fountain, and ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... situation took on for him a somewhat different aspect. He experienced something of that temporary relief from personal responsibility that moments of religious sentiment often give to minds that are unaccustomed to religion. He had been free for the time to disport himself in something infinitely larger and wider than his little world, and he took up his duty at the point at which he had left it with something of this sense of freedom lingering ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... of being—that is, Being raised to the second power. If the universe subsists, it is because the Eternal mind loves to perceive its own content, in all its wealth and expansion—especially in its stages of preparation. Not that God is an egotist. He allows myriads upon myriads of suns to disport themselves in his shadow; he grants life and consciousness to innumerable multitudes of creatures who thus participate in being and in nature; and all these animated monads multiply, so ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which Leander Yerby hearkened to this criticism intimated a persuasion that there were many obedient people in this world, but few who could so disport themselves in the intricacies of the English language; and Sudley, as he plodded homeward with his rifle on his shoulder, his dog running on in advance, and Leander pattering along behind, was often moved to add the weight of his admonition to ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... love, this moment is like a waste land to be traversed, a land without a tree, alternatively damp and warm, full of scorching sand, traversed by marshes, which leads to smiling groves clad with roses, where Love and his retinue of pleasures disport themselves on carpets of soft verdure. Often the witty man finds himself afflicted with a foolish laugh which is his only answer to everything; his wit is, as it were, suffocated beneath the icy pressure of his desires. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... awful phenomenon soon became visible. From behind the hill was seen a thick shower of burning particles rushing up into the mid air, and presently the broad point of a huge pyramid of fire, wavering in terrible and capricious power, seemed to disport itself far up in the very depths of the glowing sky. On looking again upon the earth they perceived that this terrible circle was extending itself over a wider circumference of country, marking every prominent object ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... For souls Obedient to divine impulse, who urge Their force in steadfastness until the rocks Be hewn of their obstruction, till the swamp's Insatiability be choked and bound A hardened road for traffic and disport, Tall giant arches stride across the flood, Till tortured earth release its mysteries Which straight become slaves pliant unto man, Till labours at the desk at length result In law: who pondering on the stars proclaim Their size and distance and pursue their course; Who work whatever will ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... cargoes waft of modulated Sound From viewless Hybla brought, when Melodies Like Birds of Paradise on wings, that aye Disport in wild variety of hues, Murmur around the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... than his friend in the study of steam, but usually accompanied him when he went over after school to disport himself in the engine-house, interview the stoker, or see if there was anything new ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... there, watching Cayley into bed. After all it was only polite to return Cayley's own solicitude earlier in the night. Politeness demanded that one should not disport oneself on the pond until one's friends ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... conference with God in the faith of the eternally good. The eye turned inwards here, too, sees the comforting phenomena it alone can perceive (Allegro 6/8), in which the longing becomes a sweet, tender, melancholy disport with itself; [FOOTNOTE: Ein Wehmuthig holdes Spiel.] the inmost hidden dream-picture awakens as the loveliest reminiscence. And now, in the short transitional Allegro moderate it is as though the Master, conscious of his strength, puts himself in position ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... name, let me go to my own house," bellowed Mr. Buxton, "and these gentlemen can have the empty house to disport themselves in till doomsday—or till her Grace looks into the matter"; and he made a motion to run down the steps, but his heart sank. Mr. Graves put out a deprecating hand and touched his arm; and Mr. Buxton very readily turned at once ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... free and the home of the brave, overwhelming its native simplicity with the virtues, tastes, and vices of the other nations against which our forefathers barred the door. Palaces in all but the name stand where the buffalo was wont to disport himself, and where the American eagle in human form once flapped his wings and screamed most viciously in contempt of the effete civilization of the older world. Sons and daughters of the pioneers who bolted their dinners on the stroke of twelve find seven too early for elegant convenience. Among ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... and fragrance. We used to rise early, and after breakfast Flurry and I bathed. There was a little bathing-room beyond the cottage with a sort of wooden bridge running over the beach, and there Flurry and I would disport ourselves like mermaids. ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... hand he seiz'd, and to a shady Bank Thick over-head with verdant Roof embower'd, He led her nothing loth: Flowrs were the Couch, Pansies, and Violets, and Asphodel, And Hyacinth, Earths freshest softest Lap. There they their fill of Love, and Loves disport, Took largely, of their mutual Guilt the Seal, The Solace of their Sin, till dewy ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... of marble; his heart was not flint nor his skin steel plate: he was flesh and tender; he was a vulnerable, breathing boy, with highly developed capacities for pain which were now being taxed to their utmost. Once he had loved to run, to leap, to disport himself in the sun, to drink deep of the free air; he had loved life and one or two of his fellowmen. He had borne himself buoyantly, with jaunty self-confidence, even with some intolerance toward the weaknesses of others, not infrequently displaying merriment over their mischances; ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... spectators cast into the flames a kind of toad-stool (Bran) in order to counteract the power of the Trolls and other evil spirits, who are believed to be abroad that night; for at that mystic season the mountains open and from their cavernous depths the uncanny crew pours forth to dance and disport themselves for a time. The peasants believe that should any of the Trolls be in the vicinity they will show themselves; and if an animal, for example a he or she goat, happens to be seen near the blazing, crackling pile, the peasants ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... great disport, And full pleasant and amiable of port; Of small hounds had she that she fed With roasted flesh and milk ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... She bent forward to brush some fresh earth from the leg of her trousers. "But you would have me forego these innocent, healthy-minded, invigorating exercises, I suppose, because I am a woman," she pursued. "You would allow Diavolo to disport himself so at will, and approve rather than object, although he is not so strong as I am. And then these clothes, which are decent and convenient for him, besides being a greater protection than any you permit me to wear, you think immodest ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the rough sleds, on went the round hoods, old hats, red cloaks, and moccasins, and away trudged the four younger Bassetts, to disport themselves in the snow, and try the ice down by the old mill, where the great wheel turned and splashed so ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... a favorite field for cranks to disport themselves upon. Ritson's particular vanity was the past participle of verbs ending in e; e.g., perceiveed. Cf. Landor's notions ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Beautiful birds of variegated and rainbow colours, such as Mexico is famous for, people these tropic southern lands of Vera Cruz. Along the shores and in the woods and groves, all teeming with prolific life, which the hot sun and frequent rains induce, the giant cranes and brilliant-plumaged herons disport themselves, and gorgeous butterflies almost outshine the feathered denizens. From the tangled boughs the pendant boa-constrictor coils himself, and hissing serpents, basking crocodiles, and prowling jaguars people the untrodden wilds of ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... and friendly influence upon them, since they so multiply in his society. The birds of California, it is said, were mostly silent till after its settlement, and I doubt if the Indians heard the wood thrush as we hear him. Where did the bobolink disport himself before there were meadows in the North and rice fields in the South? Was he the same lithe, merry-hearted beau then as now? And the sparrow, the lark, and the goldfinch, birds that seem so indigenous to the open fields and so adverse to the ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... thy best advantage, Philopomenes Prince of the Achayans, among other praises Writers give him, they say, that in time of peace, he thought not upon any thing so much as the practise of warre; and whensoever he was abroad in the field to disport himselfe with his friends, would often stand still, and discourse with them, in case the enemies were upon the top of that hill, and we here with our army, whether of us two should have the advantage, and how might ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... way, with very little regard for the rule of the road. The American who drives, whatever may be his social station, admires the courage of the woman who rides, but he is firmly convinced that she does not understand horses, and gives her all the space available wherein to disport herself. ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... motty if a body speaks. Doesn't the beer want tunning, and thou'rt leesing there o' thy haunches; at thy whys and thy wise speeches. Let me alone wi' the gentles, and get thee to the galkeer. Besides, you see that he knoweth not how to disport himsel' afore people of condition—saving your presence, masters," said the power predominant, as her husband meekly retreated from the despotic and iron rule of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... in a miserable mockery of tenderness, "Oh, my darling! I'm so glad to see you!" and then smack his bill as near like a kiss as he can, and chuckle and laugh and turn somersaults, and otherwise disport himself as parrots ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... Ephel; "for only wet water is cleansing and refreshing. We always take our daily baths in the Lustrous Lake. But here we usually sail and disport ourselves, for it is a comfort not to get wet when you want ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... noblest faculty; but it may, in the event of its contemning reason's dictates, become the source and fountain-head of inordinate lust and an instrument of much moral disaster and ruin. When the intelligence becomes powerless to command and to say what and when and how the affections shall disport themselves, then man becomes a slave to his heart and is led like an ass by the nose hither and thither; and when nature thus runs unrestrained and wild, it makes for the mudholes of lust wherein ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... did not permit himself to be carried away by the sadness of the moment, though he did not remain indifferent to it, and his heart bled at the thought of his people's sufferings. In the human desert, in which he delighted to disport himself, he discovered noble characters, lofty sentiments, generous friendships, and, above all, lives devoted entirely to the pursuit of the ideal undeterred by ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... understand its wonders, and the power of his fellow-spirits shall stand at his behest. Then, too, in a Lily-bush, shall he find the green Snake again, and the fruit of his marriage with her shall be three daughters, which, to men, shall appear in the form of their mother. In the spring season these shall disport them in the dark Elder-bush, and sound with their lovely crystal voices. And then if, in that needy and mean age of inward obduracy, there shall be found a youth who understands their song; nay, if one of the little Snakes look at him with her kind eyes; if the look ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... flint gun from the bird-keeper of the farm to which I had been invited. I ensconced myself behind the door of the pig-sty, determined to make a victim of one of the many rats that were accustomed to disport themselves among the straw that formed the bed of the farmer's pet bacon-pigs. In a few minutes out came an old patriarchal-looking rat, who, having taken a careful survey, quietly began to feed. After a long aim, bang went the gun—I fell backwards, knocked down by the recoil ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... of the gown about his shoulders made him feel somewhat embarrassed as to the carriage of his arms, he stepped into a shop on the way and purchased a light cane, which he considered would greatly add to the effect of the cap and gown. Armed with this weapon, he proceeded to disport himself in the Christ Church meadows, and promenaded up and down ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... room for his imagination—the more space he has in which to disport himself, the more impressive he becomes. His strange poem, How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven, has the vasty sweep congenial to his powers. Simon Legree is as accurate an interpretation of the ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... have noticed how many and varied are the names of saints mentioned in these my reflections from "a Terrace in Prague." I do not profess deep knowledge of saints, and do not as a rule venture on the hallowed ground where saints disport themselves. Nevertheless, while dealing with the city of Prague in particular or the Bohemian people in general, and endeavouring to become acquainted with them, you are faced with the fact that there is in this country a strong and no doubt ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... haunches, so the drama must be on its last legs, when actors turn king's evidence, and exhibit to the public how they flirt and quarrel, and eat oysters and drink porter, and scandalise and make fun—how, in fact, they disport ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... report that you did give to the daughter of the publican at whose house you do now abide, a ring of fine gold, and did also write to her a sonnet in praise of her eyebrows and her lips, and did otherwise wickedly disport with the ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... gentlemen,—those who had fascinations to disport, or were in the habit of disporting what they considered such, were probably still at home consulting the looking-glass until that oracle should announce the auspicious moment for their ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... rowboat from the Alameda. As we passed, we had a good view of a daily Havana spectacle, the washing of the horses. This being by far the easiest and most expeditious way of cleaning the animals, they are driven daily to the sea in great numbers, those of one party being tied together; they disport themselves in the surge and their wet backs glisten in the sun. Their drivers, nearly naked, plunge in with them, and bring them safely back ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... was a strange hubbub in the forest; for it was midnight, and the spirits came from their hiding-places to prowl about and to disport themselves. Barbara beheld them all in great wonder and trepidation, for she had never before seen the spirits of the forest, although she had often heard of them. It was a ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... country life. Beryl, Mrs. Gaspilton, had always looked indulgently on the country as a place where people of irreproachable income and hospitable instincts cultivated tennis-lawns and rose-gardens and Jacobean pleasaunces, wherein selected gatherings of interested week- end guests might disport themselves. Mrs. Gaspilton considered herself as distinctly an interesting personality, and from a limited standpoint she was doubtless right. She had indolent dark eyes and a comfortable chin, which belied the slightly ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... dragged heavily. He camped with his herd on the edge of the settlement, allowing the boys to disport themselves as they saw fit a large part of the time, himself having little desire for the bad whiskey and crooked ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... good many superstitions— none of them in their nature specially mischievous, except indeed as they blurred the idea of divine care and government—just the country for bogill-baes and brownie-baes, boodies and water-kelpies to linger and disport themselves, long after ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... in the dining-hall than Kit Hatton's hounds, was the mule fairly mounted on which the Prince Pallaphilos made his appearance at the High Table after supper, when he notified to his subjects in what manner they were to disport themselves till bedtime. Thus also when the Prince of Purpoole kept his court at Gray's Inn, A.D. 1594, the prince's champion rode into the dining-hall upon the back of a fiery charger which, like the rider, was clothed in a ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... borders of the mainland are full of every kind of evergreen—magnolias, live oak (a species of ilex), orange-trees, etc., and trailing shrubs, with varnished leaves, that bind the tawny, rattling sedges together, and make summer bowers for the alligators and snakes which abound and disport themselves here in the ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... roof is tight, that it keeps out the water, that it excels in those qualities in which it excelled equally three thousand years ago. What you ought to mean is that you have a roof that is flat and has things on it that make it livable, where you can walk, disport yourself, or sleep; a house-top view of your neighbors' affairs; an airy pleasance with a full sweep of stars; a place to listen of nights to the drone of the city; a place of observation, and if you are ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... the road along the Admiralty canal are now the citizens' chief places of disport. Before the year 1869 the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, that skirts the sea on the south side of the old town, was their sole promenade. And even this street was built only a short time ago. Vainly one conjectures where the medieval Tarentines took the air. It must have been ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... just cause forbid me, to wit, that I would not have it possible that, in time to come, any of them should take shame by reason of the things hereinafter related as being told or hearkened by them, the laws of disport being nowadays somewhat straitened, which at that time, for the reasons above shown, were of the largest, not only for persons of their years, but for those of a much riper age; nor yet would I give occasion to the envious, who are still ready to carp at every ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the words of Volsung e'en so must the matter be, And Siggeir the Goth and Signy on the morn shall sail the sea. But the feast sped on the fairer, and the more they waxed in disport And the glee that all men love, as they knew that the hours were short. Yet a boding heart bare Sigmund amid his singing and laughter; And somewhat Signy wotted of the deeds that were coming after; For the wisest of women she ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... really hardly anything else, except extremely correct, and always good form, without being too noticeably so, no one would have dreamed that this quiet young man, who looked like a shy subaltern, was simply dying to disport himself on the stage, and that it was the dream of his life to make an utter ass of himself as Hamlet, or a hopeless fool of himself as (say) the hero in Still Waters Run Deep—a play he had seen as a boy and had always longed to ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... a farce!" he was saying, smiting himself on the breast with his fist. "I disport myself in striped trunks for the sport of the sated mob! I have put out my torch, have hid my talent in the earth, like the slothful servant! But fo-ormerly!" he began to bray tragically, "Fo-ormerly-y-y! Ask in Novocherkassk, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... different aspect. He experienced something of that temporary relief from personal responsibility that moments of religious sentiment often give to minds that are unaccustomed to religion. He had been free for the time to disport himself in something infinitely larger and wider than his little world, and he took up his duty at the point at which he had left it with something of this sense of freedom lingering ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... immediate hurry, the situation of his sister being quite comfortable, the lad could not resist the temptation to disport himself awhile in the cool, refreshing element. He sank until his bare feet touched the pebbly bottom, and then shot upward with a bound; then he went over backward, floundered, and tumbled about ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... a slender rope about his back, and after completing the artifice by a skilful device of massing coloured inks upon our faces, he commanded me to lead him out by a chain and observe intelligently how a captive Boxer chief should disport himself. ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... windows of the house. The hospitality was graceful, there was no profound talk but only pleasant chatter. The daughters were glad to have a chance to try their English and I was glad for the moment to slip out of the foreign bond and disport myself for their benefit in my vernacular, but the Professor needed no practice. His English was quite adequate, as, on the other hand, the German of Bancroft ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... belles-lettres in the more precise sense tend to be deserted in favour of fiction. Sympathetic and imaginative criticism is so apt to be stamped upon by the erudite, who cry out so lamentably over errors and minute slips, that the novel seems to be the only safe vantage-ground in which the amateur may disport himself. ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... often required to emerge from its deep reflections, unbend itself, and alternately disport or repose in utter self-abandonment. It dismissed thought, as it were, in order to become a child again; to deliver itself over to all the caprices of those myriad changeful fugitive impressions that course through the ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... city gates to be opened, went himself to meet King Marcobrun, took him by his white hands, led him into the marble palace, seated him at an oaken table spread with checkered tablecloths and sweetmeats, and they fell to eating and drinking and disport. ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... on went the round hoods, old hats, red cloaks, and moccasins, and away trudged the four younger Bassetts, to disport themselves in the snow, and try the ice down by the old mill, where the great wheel turned and splashed so merrily ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... greatness with the roll of time, and burn More brightly fed with noble deeds. For souls Obedient to divine impulse, who urge Their force in steadfastness until the rocks Be hewn of their obstruction, till the swamp's Insatiability be choked and bound A hardened road for traffic and disport, Tall giant arches stride across the flood, Till tortured earth release its mysteries Which straight become slaves pliant unto man, Till labours at the desk at length result In law: who pondering on the stars proclaim Their size and ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... departments of sacred learning, for it was the province and duty of Presbytery to satisfy itself as to the soundness in the faith of the candidates before them. On this score, however, few indulged serious anxiety. Once the Hebraic shoals and snags were safely passed, both examiner and examined could disport themselves with a jaunty self-confidence born of a thorough acquaintance with the Shorter Catechism received during the ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... effacing every trace of the dust-bank and pottery fragments, and it was with a tearful and apologetic face that he said "Talaam, Tahib," when I came home from office. A hasty inquiry resulted in Imam Din informing Muhammad Din that, by my singular favor, he was permitted to disport himself as he pleased. Whereat the child took heart and fell to tracing the ground-plan of an edifice which was to eclipse the ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... looks like. But a single glimpse into those cool dappled depths, where the sunny water is shoal enough to show bottom, reveals, alas! how little mermaiden and romantic those depths are. For London does not disport itself every Sunday on the Thames without leaving ample traces of that disporting. We see those traces gleaming and glooming there,—empty beer- and wine-bottles, devitalized sardine-boxes, osseous remains of fish, flesh, and fowl, scooped ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... spectacle, the washing of the horses. This being by far the easiest and most expeditious way of cleaning the animals, they are driven daily to the sea in great numbers, those of one party being tied together; they disport themselves in the surge and their wet backs glisten in the sun. Their drivers, nearly naked, plunge in with them, and bring them safely back ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... consciousness of our existence, and quite understands that what I write for you must pass at a considerable height over its simple romantic head. It will take my books as read and my genius for granted, trusting me to put forth work of such quality as shall bear out its verdict. So we may disport ourselves on our own plane to the top of our bent; and if any gentleman points out that neither this epistle dedicatory nor the dream of Don Juan in the third act of the ensuing comedy is suitable for immediate production ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... strictness that some parents do the studies of their children. He was very particular that we should play the old English games according to their original form; and consulted old books for precedent and authority for every 'merrie disport;' yet I assure you there never was pedantry so delightful. It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... his eyes open upon the whole generation of girls whom he met with in society. When he went abroad during the long vacation (instead of going to Lakeside, as he was invited to do), he directed his steps rather to the fashionable resorts, where families disport themselves at the foot of the mountains, than to the Alpine heights where he had generally found a more robust amusement. And wherever he went he bent his attention on the fairer portion of the creation, the girls who fill ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... Leander Yerby hearkened to this criticism intimated a persuasion that there were many obedient people in this world, but few who could so disport themselves in the intricacies of the English language; and Sudley, as he plodded homeward with his rifle on his shoulder, his dog running on in advance, and Leander pattering along behind, was often moved to add the weight of his admonition to the ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... As'ad! I of passion-pangs complain; * Have ruth on slave of love so burnt with flaming pain: How long, I ask, shall hands of Love disport with me, * With longings, dolour, sleepliness and bale and bane? Anon I 'plain of sea in heart, anon of fire * In vitals, O strange case, dear wish, my fairest fain! O blamer, cease thy blame, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... vastly increased by hundreds of water-fowl, which disport themselves on the surface of the lake, as if coquetting with their own reflections, or whistle round its margin ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there i still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy. Meanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic spectacles in the distance evinced the activity of the other ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... most clearly in such things as the luxury of the Ritz Hotels, the parks and palaces of Europe, the number of tube trains and omnibuses running per hour along the rail and roadways of London, and the imitation silk stockings in which cooks and kitchenmaids disport themselves on Sundays. A New Knowledge is abroad—and that New Knowledge is a fuller realisation that the new world is for all men and all women who work and do their duty, for all humanity, and not merely for the few who get rich upon the exploitation of poverty ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... goodly tale or two, On which he may disport him at night. His high prudence hath insight very To judge if it be well made or nay. Write him nothing that soweneth to vice. Look if find thou canst any treatise ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... many a floweret rears its head,—or pink, Or gaudy daffodil. 'Tis here, at noon, The buskin'd wood-nymphs from the heat retire, And lave them in the fountain; here secure From Pan, or savage satyr, they disport: Or stretch'd supinely on the velvet turf, Lull'd by the laden bee, or sultry fly, Invoke the god of slumber.... * ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... whispered among them that after a short evening with the ladies, there were to appear a bevy of London-town dancing girls, who would give them a highly flavoured entertainment; and, as if Bacchus had prematurely begun to disport himself in brain and leg of each beau, he set about to ogle and sigh and wish and—pull a stray curl upon some maiden's forehead or touch her glowing cheek with cold fingers, and some began to illustrate the modus ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... Alimaymon ordered fair palaces to be edified for him, by the wall of the Alcazar, on the outer part, that the Moors of the city might do no displeasure neither to him nor to his companions: and they were hard by a garden of the King's, that he might go out and disport himself therein whensoever it pleased him. And for these things King Don Alfonso loved to serve King Alimaymon. Nevertheless when he saw the great honour of the King of Toledo, and how powerful he was, and that he was the Lord of so great chivalry, and of the noblest city which had belonged ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... steel plate: he was flesh and tender; he was a vulnerable, breathing boy, with highly developed capacities for pain which were now being taxed to their utmost. Once he had loved to run, to leap, to disport himself in the sun, to drink deep of the free air; he had loved life and one or two of his fellowmen. He had borne himself buoyantly, with jaunty self-confidence, even with some intolerance toward the weaknesses of others, not infrequently displaying merriment ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... just at the edge of Blackheath, amid very historic surroundings. Some one has called Blackheath the Rotten Row of the olden days, for there royalty and fashionable people of the town went to ride and disport themselves, just as they now do in Hyde Park; and there important guests on the way to London, were wont to be met with much ceremony by the Mayor and certain great citizens. After the battle of Agincourt, the victor, Henry V, when returning to London, was given a magnificent reception at ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... wrong to disport ourselves in this pleasaunce without our comrade Launfal. It is not well to slight a prince as brave as he is courteous, and of a lineage ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... your knight, Brother," said he, "and for the better disport of the company, here is my fool. Hold up, Saxon Samson, the gates of Gaza are clean ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... of place in the dining-hall than Kit Hatton's hounds, was the mule fairly mounted on which the Prince Pallaphilos made his appearance at the High Table after supper, when he notified to his subjects in what manner they were to disport themselves till bedtime. Thus also when the Prince of Purpoole kept his court at Gray's Inn, A.D. 1594, the prince's champion rode into the dining-hall upon the back of a fiery charger which, like the rider, was clothed in a panoply ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... mightier than Jack of the Tofts, both to uphold thee against him (wherein I shall not fail), and otherwise. But may God make me even as that young man if I be not mightier yet in a few days. But now do thou go and eat and drink and take thy disport; for thou hast served me well; and in a little while I shall make thee knight and lord, and do all I ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... were reported upon. For the ranger's experience had taught him that since the men he wanted had money in their pockets to burn gregarious impulse would drive them from the far silent places of the desert to the roulette and faro tables where the wolf and the lamb disport themselves together. ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... lady-moon, With her coldly drooping beams, Be dancing in the ripple Of the ever-laughing streams, Where the little elves disport In the stilly noon of night, And lave their limbs of ether In the mellow ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Yanguesan carriers, whose way it is to take their midday rest with their teams in places and spots where grass and water abound; and that where Don Quixote chanced to be suited the Yanguesans' purpose very well. It so happened, then, that Rocinante took a fancy to disport himself with their ladyships the ponies, and abandoning his usual gait and demeanour as he scented them, he, without asking leave of his master, got up a briskish little trot and hastened to make known his wishes to them; they, however, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... short, stubby grass and here and there were big yellow patches of moss. At the foot of one hill a stream wends its way through the drooping boughs of the stunted shrubs that grow on its edges, and loses itself in a quiet pond where long-legged insects disport themselves on the leaves of the water-lilies. The sun beat down on us. The gnats rubbed their wings together and bent the slender ends of the reeds with the weight of their tiny bodies. We were alone in the tranquillity of ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... doggerel, and chickerel jostle one another in the water. They rise instantaneously to the bait and swim gratefully ashore holding it in their mouths. In the middle depth of the waters of the lake, the sardine, the lobster, the kippered herring, the anchovy and other tinned varieties of fish disport themselves with evident gratification, while even lower in the pellucid depths the dog-fish, the hog-fish, the log-fish, and the sword-fish ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... have guessed it! What can be expected beyond the letter of their service from one who so neglects his duties? Did you not disport yourself with lewd women in the camp before my very eyes, setting at naught the well-known rules? Hands off the prisoner! This is your last day as praetorian and in Alexandria. As soon as the harbor is opened—to-morrow, I expect—you go on board the ship that carries reinforcements ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... found warlike garrisons as evidence of ownership. Those uncouth barbarian methods are grossly antiquated; the part once played by armed battalions is now performed by bits of paper. A wondrously convenient change has it been; the owners of the resources of nations can disport themselves thousands of miles away from the scene of their ownership; they need never bestir themselves to provide measures for the retention of their property. Government, with its array of officials, prisons, armies and navies, undertakes all of this protection for them. So long as they hold these ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... prayer, a conference with God in the faith of the eternally good. The eye turned inwards here, too, sees the comforting phenomena it alone can perceive (Allegro 6/8), in which the longing becomes a sweet, tender, melancholy disport with itself; [FOOTNOTE: Ein Wehmuthig holdes Spiel.] the inmost hidden dream-picture awakens as the loveliest reminiscence. And now, in the short transitional Allegro moderate it is as though the Master, conscious ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... little black hackney, at his side." King John was first of all lodged in London at the Savoy hotel, and shortly afterwards removed, with all his people, to Windsor; "there," says Froissart, "to hawk, hunt, disport himself, and take his pastime according to his pleasure, and Sir Philip, his son, also; and all the rest of the other lords, counts, and barons, remained in London, but they went to see the king when it pleased them, and they were put upon their honor only." Chandos's poet adds, "Many a dame and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... this? Where are we fallen? Save that it is more vulgar, it might be Nice, or the Riviera, or Interkalken, or any other of those towns of carnival whither the bad taste of the whole world comes to disport itself in the so-called fashionable seasons. But in these quarters, on the other hand, which belong to the foreigners and to the Egyptians rallied to the civilisation of the West, all is clean and dry, ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... Lieut. D'Hubert, with an innocent laugh, "I think you ought to be. I had no end of trouble to find out where you were. It wasn't exactly the place for you to disport yourself in under the circumstances. If the general had caught you there making eyes at the goddess of the temple . . . oh, my word! . . . He hates to be bothered with complaints against his officers, you know. And it looked ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... while Jimmie and Sir Lucius were dining at Morley's, Victor Nevill emerged from his rooms in Jermyn street, and walked briskly to Piccadilly Circus. He looked quite unlike the spruce young man of fashion who was wont to disport himself in the West End at this hour, for he wore tweeds, a soft hat, and a rather shabby overcoat. He took a cab in Coventry street, and gave the driver a northern address. As he rode through the Soho district he occasionally pressed one hand to his breast, and a bundle of bank notes, tucked snugly ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... (Bran) in order to counteract the power of the Trolls and other evil spirits, who are believed to be abroad that night; for at that mystic season the mountains open and from their cavernous depths the uncanny crew pours forth to dance and disport themselves for a time. The peasants believe that should any of the Trolls be in the vicinity they will show themselves; and if an animal, for example a he or she goat, happens to be seen near the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... noblest functions of its art is to describe the deeds and the subjects of stories, and adorned and delectable places with transparent waters in which the green recesses of their course can be seen as the waves disport themselves over meadows and fine pebbles, and the plants which are mingled with them, and the gliding fishes, and similar descriptions, which might just as well be made to a stone as to a man born ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... pegged out by means of the lariats, which allowed them to graze or roll as they pleased. They were tied near a water hole, formed below the spring, so the animals had the three most desirable requisites—food, water and a place to disport themselves. ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... healthy exercise, so that no wonder he had grown lazy and selfish; but his native spirit was not entirely extinguished, and he assured me that a bare bone to growl over, and a little comfortable rain and mud to disport himself in like a dog, were still the greatest treats that could be offered to him. His temper had been farther soured by the spite and envy of dogs around him, who, less petted themselves, and not aware how little his petting contributed to ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... attitudes is the ground-work and exemplar for nature and logic alike. That such strains should exist is an ultimate datum; justification cannot be required of them, but must be offered to each of them in turn by all that enters its particular orbit. There is no will but might find a world to disport itself in and to call good, and thereupon boast to have created that in which it found itself expressed. But such satisfaction has been denied to the majority; the equilibrium of things has at least postponed their day. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... appropriating, or whatever you call it, a vast tract in Africa or Asia; on the third you are informed with all solemnity that he has become director of a new bank, insurance company, or one of those vast concerns in which only Rothschilds and Barings can disport themselves. Now and again you are informed that Sir Stephen Orme has been requested to stand for an important constituency, but that he was compelled to decline because of the pressure of his numerous affairs. There ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... silent blue hills of Macedonia, and where the islands of Samothraki, Lemnos, Tenedos slumber like purplish fairies on the Aegean Sea: for, usually, I sleep during the day, and keep a night-long vigil, often at midnight descending to bathe my coloured baths in the lake, and to disport myself in that strange intoxication of nostrils, eyes, and pores, dreaming long wide-eyed dreams at the bottom, to return dazed, and weak, and drunken. Or again—twice within these last void and idle six months—I have suddenly run, bawling out, from this temple of luxury, tearing off ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... ball, casting away their tires, and among them Nausicaa of the white arms began the song. And even as Artemis, the archer, moveth down the mountain, either along the ridges of lofty Taygetus or Erymanthus, taking her pastime in the chase of boars and swift deer, and with her the wild wood-nymphs disport them, the daughters of Zeus, lord of the aegis, and Leto is glad at heart, while high over all she rears her head and brows, and easily may she be known,—but all are fair; even so the girl unwed ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... wrought Nigh Rivers mouth or Foreland, where the Wind Veres oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her Saile; So varied hee, and of his tortuous Traine Curld many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve, To lure her Eye; shee busied heard the sound Of rusling Leaves, but minded not, as us'd To such disport before her through the Field, 520 From every Beast, more duteous at her call, Then at Circean call the Herd disguis'd. Hee boulder now, uncall'd before her stood; But as in gaze admiring: Oft he bowd His turret Crest, and sleek enamel'd ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... in camp beside the Thames, and all the meadow is filled with green and red tents. The sun, striking on the colours, causes the river to flash for more than a league around. Those in the town had come down to disport themselves upon the river bank with only their lances in their hands and their shields grasped before their breasts, and carrying no other arms at all. In coming thus, they showed those without the walls that they stood in no fear of them. Alexander stood aloof ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... for those that are half domesticated; orchards abounding in old trees with knotholes, admirably fitted for summer homes; elms on which to hang the graceful pensile nests—"castles in air," as Burroughs calls them; meadows in which the lark, vesper sparrow, and bobolink can disport; and forests stretching up into the mountains, wherein the shyest birds can enjoy all the seclusion they desire, content to sing unheard, as the flowers around them bloom unseen, except by those who love them well enough to seek them in their ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... teeth since late noon-tide? 'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he dined to-day? In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humfray. Many good welcomes, and much gratis cheer, Keeps he for every straggling cavalier. An open house, haunted with great resort; Long service mixed with musical disport. Many fair younker with a feathered crest, Chooses much rather be his shot-free guest, To fare so freely with so little cost, Than stake his twelve-pence to a meaner host. Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say He touched no meat of all this live-long day. For sure methought, yet that was ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... these tropic southern lands of Vera Cruz. Along the shores and in the woods and groves, all teeming with prolific life, which the hot sun and frequent rains induce, the giant cranes and brilliant-plumaged herons disport themselves, and gorgeous butterflies almost outshine the feathered denizens. From the tangled boughs the pendant boa-constrictor coils himself, and hissing serpents, basking crocodiles, and prowling jaguars people the untrodden ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... take our horses and our hounds and let us take certain foresters and huntsmen, and let us go forth a-hunting into the green forest; for this day shall be holiday for me and for you and we shall leave care behind us, and for a while we shall disport ourselves ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... hidden from view, and nothing but the bright blue sky is visible, save where one little opening in the foliage reveals the prospect of a grand glittering river, where leviathans of the deep and small fry of the shallows, of every shape and size, disport themselves in the blaze of a ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... neither philosopher nor historiographer could, at the first, have entered into the gates of popular judgments, if they had not taken a great disport of poetry; which in all nations, at this day, where learning flourisheth not, is plain to be seen; in all which they have some feeling of poetry. In Turkey, besides their lawgiving divines they have no other writers but poets. In our neighbour-country Ireland, where, too, learning goes very ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... littered with statues and fountains, each of which has its tutelary deity. In particular, the elementary god of fire solaces himself in one. In another, Enceladus, in lieu of a mountain, is overwhelmed with many waters. There are avenues of water-pots, who disport themselves much in squirting up cascadelins. In short, 'tis a garden for a great child. Such was Louis Quatorze, who is here seen in his proper colours, where he commanded in person, unassisted by his armies ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... I pray, in termys short, Christ keep these birdis bright in bowers, Fra false lovers and their disport, Sic peril lies ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bent forward to brush some fresh earth from the leg of her trousers. "But you would have me forego these innocent, healthy-minded, invigorating exercises, I suppose, because I am a woman," she pursued. "You would allow Diavolo to disport himself so at will, and approve rather than object, although he is not so strong as I am. And then these clothes, which are decent and convenient for him, besides being a greater protection than any you permit me to wear, you think immodest for ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... bones of many a noble ship lie there, and many a sailor. It would seem unlikely that any living thing should seek rest in such a place, or find it. Nevertheless, frail and delicate flowers bloom there, flowers of both the land and the sea; heavy, ungainly seals disport in the swelling waves, and find grateful retreats back in the inmost bores of its storm-lashed caverns; while in many a chink and hollow of the highest crags, not visible from beneath, a great variety of waterfowl make ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... brood, two old and four young, used to disport themselves on the quilt of an old bedridden woman on Otterbourne Hill. It is the popular belief that robins kill their fathers in October, and the widow of a woodman declared that her husband had seen deadly battles, also that he had seen a white ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... enamoured of them as they were feeding, and covered them in the semblance of a dark-maned stallion. Twelve filly foals did they conceive and bear him, and these, as they sped over the rich plain, would go bounding on over the ripe ears of corn and not break them; or again when they would disport themselves on the broad back of Ocean they could gallop on the crest of a breaker. Erichthonius begat Tros, king of the Trojans, and Tros had three noble sons, Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymede who was comeliest ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... little whether Miss Mathewson could or could not dance the "Irish Washerwoman," or any other antic dance improvised to that live air; she had only to yield herself to Red Pepper Burns's hands and steps, and let him disport himself around her. A most startlingly hilarious performance was immediately and effectively produced. At the height of it, a door across the sitting-room, which commanded a strip of the bedroom beyond, opened ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... "Take now thy tambourine that we may play and sing and dance in honour of our master's guest." So he did her bidding and the twain went into the room, the lad playing and the lass following. Then, making a low conge, they asked leave to perform and disport and play; and Ali Baba gave permission, saying, "Dance now and do your best that this our guest may be mirthful and merry." Quoth Khwajah Hasan, "O my lord, thou dost indeed provide much pleasant entertainment." Then the slave-boy Abdullah standing by began to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... immediate entertaining the revel now began—no lesser word describes it. If, before the departure of his dinner guests, Brown had experienced a slight feeling of fatigue, it disappeared with the pleasure of seeing his present company disport themselves. They were not in the least afraid of him—how should they be, when he had spent months in the winning of their confidence and affection by every clever wile known to the genuine boy lover? That they respected him was plainly shown by the fact that, ill trained at home ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... part of life, a congruous addition, a parallel life, as it were, to the vulgar one. I see no reason, in the analogies of the natural world, for supposing that the circumstances of human life are the only circumstances in which the spirit of life can disport itself. Even on this planet, there are sea-animals and air-animals, ephemeral beings and self-centred beings, as well as persons who can grow as old as Matthew Arnold, and be as fond as he was of classifying other people. And beyond this planet, and in the interstices of what our limited senses can ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... noblemen had been tossed, much to the amusement of the queen and her ladies, the king cast his eyes on two young Florentine nobles who had lately arrived at Naples. They were with their tutor, and all three had been laughing heartily at the disport of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... wide and ancient staircase the smart girl preceded Tom, shading the chamber candle with her hand, to protect it from the currents of air which in such a rambling old place might have found plenty of room to disport themselves in, without blowing the candle out, but which did blow it out nevertheless—thus affording Tom's enemies an opportunity of asserting that it was he, and not the wind, who extinguished the candle, and that while he pretended to be blowing it alight again, he was in fact kissing ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... I liked play well enough when I was in the humor for play; but that at present I was not disposed to disport myself, being weary of my life in his palace, and sick of Siam altogether. He received my candor with his characteristic smile and ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... Gouda's wonderful glass, they would have found the Haarlem church disappointing, had it not been for the two or three redeeming features left in the cold, bare structure; the beautiful screen of open brass-work, with its base of dark wood, on which brightly-painted, mystic beasts disport themselves among the coats-of-arms of divers ancient towns; and ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... amusement to be got—drinking, and games, and all sorts of entertainment. Nought, however, of great interest happened there. Hoskuld met many of his kinsfolk there who were come from Denmark. [Sidenote: Of Gilli the Russian] Now, one day as Hoskuld went out to disport himself with some other men, he saw a stately tent far away from the other booths. Hoskuld went thither, and into the tent, and there sat a man before him in costly raiment, and a Russian hat on his head. Hoskuld asked him his name. He said he was ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... morning service, launched his little boat and pushed off into the rippling whispering waters. It was a resumption of the ways of his boyhood; it seemed like a holiday to have left all these cares behind him, just as it used to be when all his lessons were prepared, and he had leave to disport himself, by land or water, the whole afternoon, provided he did not go out beyond the Shag Rock. He took up his sculls and rowed merrily, singing and whistling to keep time with their dash, the return to the old pleasure quite enough ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with what appeared too much buoyancy for the promise of a safe return. Again and again she was driven from her course towards the low rocks on the other side of the bay, and again and again, returned to disport herself, like a sea-animal, as it seemed, upon the backs of the wild, rolling, and ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... watched the ichthyosaurus plow the seas, Churning the waters till the glistening foam Rode on the greenish undulating waves; And huge saurian and reptilian shapes Amphibious and pelagic, swim and crawl, Cleaving the waters with tremendous strokes, Writhing with foul contortions in disport, Splashing and laving in the thermal seas Of the remote and prehistoric past; Thou who hast seen them fail and pass away Shalt also shine when man ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... these vivaries be so many wild geese and ganders and wild ducks and swans and herons that it is without number. And all about these ditches and vivaries is the great garden full of wild beasts. So that when the great Chan will have any disport on that, to take any of the wild beasts or of the fowls, he will let chase them and take them at the windows without ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... purpose of appropriating a larger share of roast pork at their religious feasts, from which women are excluded. Whatever may be thought of these sceptical views, it appears to be certain that the name of Mate is also bestowed on a number of spirits who disport themselves by day in open grassy places, while they retire by night to the deep shades of the forest; and the majority of these spirits are thought to be the souls of ancestors or of the recently departed. Again, there is another class ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... afraid, Bunny," she answered. "I'm not going to use your charms as a bait to lure this culinary Phyllis into the Arcadia in which you with your Strephonlike form disport yourself." ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... care-free children. The forest was filled with oaks, beeches, walnuts and sugar-maple trees, growing close together and free from underbrush. Now and then there was an open glade called a prairie or "lick," where the wild animals came to drink and disport themselves. Game was plentiful—deer, bears, pheasants, wild turkeys, ducks and birds of all kinds. This, with Tom Lincoln's passion for hunting, promised good things for the family to eat, as well as bearskin rugs for the bare earth floor, and deerskin curtains for the still open door ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... and the road along the Admiralty canal are now the citizens' chief places of disport. Before the year 1869 the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, that skirts the sea on the south side of the old town, was their sole promenade. And even this street was built only a short time ago. Vainly one conjectures where the medieval Tarentines took the air. It must ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come among you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die among you all, to lay down for my God, for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... there before your very eyes was the "mylary just a-risin' out of the ground," were ludicrously mistaken, in another their practical conclusion was absolutely sound; for it is in just such air, at such levels above the surface of the water, that the Anopheles most delights to disport himself. Furthermore, while all raw or misty air is "bad," the night air is infinitely more so than that of the day, because this is the time at which mosquitoes are chiefly abroad. In fact, there can be little doubt that this is ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... best advantage, Philopomenes Prince of the Achayans, among other praises Writers give him, they say, that in time of peace, he thought not upon any thing so much as the practise of warre; and whensoever he was abroad in the field to disport himselfe with his friends, would often stand still, and discourse with them, in case the enemies were upon the top of that hill, and we here with our army, whether of us two should have the advantage, and how might we safely goe to find them, keeping still our orders; and ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... had He not at once bound it about with His strength—not wishing that the vessel of my body should be broken—my life would have gone. Then the devils cried much more clamorously, as if they had felt an intolerable pain; forcing themselves to leave terror with me, threatening me so to disport them that such an act as this could not be wrought. But because Hell cannot resist the virtue of humility with the light of most holy faith, the spirit became more single, and worked with tools of fire, hearing in the sight of the Divine Majesty words most charming, and ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... accent as the Parisian, but he cannot quite assume the gay insouciance of the French; if to England, he adores method, learns to grumble and imbibe old ale, yet does not become accustomed to the free, blunt raillery,—the "chaff,"—with which Britons disport themselves; if to China, he lives upon curries and inscribes his name with a camel's-hair pencil, but all Oriental bizarrerie fails to thoroughly amuse him. Wherever he may go, he settles at once and easily into the outward life of the people among whom ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Gardens in an identical situation, and with far less sunshine for the landscape gardener to play with. One thinks of a certain town in Germany where, on a plain as flat as a billiard table, they actually reared a mountain, now covered with houses and timber, for the disport of the citizens. To think that I used to skate over the meadows where that ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... become a new person; he was forgetting himself in a ridiculous manner; letting down his dignity to an alarming extent. Dr. Rylance, the fashionable physician, the man whose nice touch adjusted the nerves of the aristocracy, to disport himself with unkempt, bare-handed young Wendovers! It was an upheaval of things which struck horror to Urania's soul. Easy, after beholding such a moral convulsion, to believe that the Wight had once been part of the ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... expansive as the prairie; but I affirm no man could exaggerate the fury of a blizzard on the unbroken prairie. To one thing only may it be likened—a hurricane at sea. People in lands boxed off at short compass by mountain ridges forget with what violence a wind sweeping half a continent can disport itself. In the boisterous roar of the gale, my shouts to the dogs were a feeble whisper caught from my lips and lost in the shrieking wind. The fine snowy particles were a powdered ice that drove through seams of clothing and cut one's skin like a whip ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... not in any consistent places, but gleaming out here in one year, there in another, like little bits of unexpected sky through cloud; and entirely refusing to allow either bank or terrace to be mown the least trim during her time of disport there. So spared and indulged, there are no more wayward things in all the woods or wilds; no more delicate and perfect things to be brought up by watch through day and night, than her recumbent clusters, trickling, sometimes almost gushing through the ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... of my contemporaries have supposed that the estate of a Benedict forbiddeth the resident therein to disport himself as aforetime, in the flowery fields of fancy, and to ambulate at random through the remembered groves of the academy, or the rich gardens of imaginative delight. Verily this is not so. To the right-minded man, all these enjoyments are increased; ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... the socialism of common folk read ‘John Ball.’ Let him observe how like Titania floating and dancing and playing among the Athenian clowns seems the Morrisian genius floating and dancing and playing among the surroundings in which at present it pleases him to disport. What makes the ordinary socialistic literature to many people unreadable is its sourness. What the Socialists say may be true, but their way of saying it sets one’s teeth on edge. They contrive to state their case with so much bitterness, with so much unfairness—so much lack of logic—that ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... care of him. During infancy he is protected from cold and wet, and his mother is coddled by the most nourishing foods, that she may not fail in her duty to him. During childhood he is provided with a warm house, a clean bed, and a yard in which to disport himself, and is fed for growth and bone on skim-milk, oatmeal, and sweet alfalfa. During his youth, corn meal is liberally added to his diet, also other dainties which he enjoys and makes much of; and during his whole life he has access to clean water, and to the only ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... wooden benches set upon the hill slopes.[*] At the foot of their wide semicircle is a circular space of ground, beaten hard, and ringed by a low stone barrier. It is some ninety feet in diameter. This is the "orchestra," the "dancing place," wherein the chorus may disport itself and execute its elaborate figures. Behind the orchestra stretches a kind of tent or booth, the "skene." Within this the actors may retire to change their costumes, and the side nearest to the audience is provided with a very simple scene,—some kind ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... waiting by an elder-bush on Midsummer Night at twelve o'clock will see the king of fairyland and all his retinue pass by and disport themselves in favorite haunts, among others the mounds of fragrant wild thyme. How well ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... all its bitterness the muskrats knew nothing, save by the growing thickness of the ice that sheltered them. As Bitter Creek shrank to normal, winter level, and the strong ice sank in mid-channel, the air-space along shore increased till they had a spacious, covered corridor in which to disport themselves. Food was all about them—an unlimited abundance of lily-roots and clams; and once in awhile their diet was varied by the capture of a half-torpid sucker or chub. There were no otters in Bitter Creek; and the mink, ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... worker—would it do me harm to disport myself in the flowery mead with the butterflies? Should I feel a distaste for the bread earned by labour and pain after the honey placed, effortless, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... big enough; what was needed was a good stanch sturdy boat of, say, twenty tons or so. And, having arrived at this point in his meditations, Escombe was naturally reminded that he had often wished that he possessed a small yacht wherein to disport himself on the lake. Why should he not have one? His will was law; he had but to speak the word and the best and most skilled workers in the valley would be at his disposal for the construction of the vessel. And as to her design, why, he had always been an enthusiastic yacht sailor, and ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... 'hairy quadrumanous ancestor' (Darwinian for the primaeval monkey, from whom we are presumably descended) used playfully to disport himself, as yet unconscious of his glorious destiny as the remote progenitor of Shakespeare, Milton, and the late Mr. Peace—in tropical woods, such acrid or pungent fruits and plants are particularly common, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... Elsmere, but Catherine did not much like to think about them. Their household teaching under Mrs. Elsmere and her old servant Martha—as great an original as herself—was so irregular, their religious training so extraordinary, the clothes in which they were allowed to disport themselves so scandalous to the sober taste of the rector's wife, that Catherine involuntarily regarded the little cottage on the hill as a spot of misrule in the general order of the parish. She would go in, say, at eleven o'clock in the morning, find her mother-in-law in bed, half-dressed, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... car beside a little stream in which two extremely pretty girls were bathing. With the evening sun glinting on their brown bodies and their piquant, oval faces framed by the dusky torrents of their loosened hair, they looked like those bronze maidens which disport themselves in the fountain of the Piazza delle Terme in Rome, come to life. I felt certain that they would take to flight when Hawkinson unlimbered his motion-picture camera and trained it upon them, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... over the land of the free and the home of the brave, overwhelming its native simplicity with the virtues, tastes, and vices of the other nations against which our forefathers barred the door. Palaces in all but the name stand where the buffalo was wont to disport himself, and where the American eagle in human form once flapped his wings and screamed most viciously in contempt of the effete civilization of the older world. Sons and daughters of the pioneers ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... his fellow-spirits shall stand at his behest. Then, too, in a Lily-bush, shall he find the green Snake again, and the fruit of his marriage with her shall be three daughters, which, to men, shall appear in the form of their mother. In the spring season these shall disport them in the dark Elder-bush, and sound with their lovely crystal voices. And then if, in that needy and mean age of inward obduracy, there shall be found a youth who understands their song; nay, if one of the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... it had lost: it encroaches on the tamarisk bushes which fringe its banks, and the district is soon surrounded by a belt of marshy vegetation, affording cover for ducks, pelicans, wild geese, and a score of different kinds of birds which disport themselves there by the thousand. The Pharaohs, when tired of residing in cities, here found varied and refreshing scenery, an equable climate, gardens always gay with flowers, and in the thickets of the Kerun they could pursue ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and gentlemen,—those who had fascinations to disport, or were in the habit of disporting what they considered such, were probably still at home consulting the looking-glass until that oracle should announce the auspicious moment ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... morsel, and wel keepe, That no drop ne fille upon hire breste. In curteisie was set ful moche hire leste. Hire overlipp wypede sche so clene, That in hire cupp was no ferthing sene Of grec, whan sche dronken hadde hire draughte. Ful semly after hir mete sche raughte, And sikerly sche was of gret disport,{26} And ful plesaunt, and amyable of port, And peynede hir to countrefet cheere Of court, and ben estatlich of manere, And to ben holden digne of reverence. But for to speken of hir conscience, Sche was so charitable and so pitous, Sche wold weepe if that sche saw a mous Caught in a trappe, ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... rocks appear heaped together, opposing progress; vast chasms yawn beneath his feet when he lands, and at certain places the streams sink into the earth as if by magic, to reappear where least expected. A thundering noise is heard, and a mist hovers in the air, in which thousands of birds disport themselves,— marking the position of the great cataracts of the Corentyn. The scene, however, is too vast to be beheld in its full grandeur from any single point of view. No waterfall in the territory surpasses them ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... English Society, the Prince of Wales is a benevolent despot. He wishes it to enjoy itself, to disport itself, to dance, sing, and play to its heart's content. But he desires that it should do so in the right manner, at the right times, and in the right places; and of these conditions he holds that he is the best, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... "Lady Jane," and that—with its four cosy bunks made up shipshape, its big table, its swinging lamp, its soft bulging chairs (for Great-uncle Joe had been a man of solid weight as well as worth)—was just the place for boys to disport themselves in without fear of doing damage. All about were most interesting things for curious young eyes to see and busy fingers to handle: telescope, compass, speaking trumpet, log and lead and line that had done duty in many a distant sea; spears, ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... aspect from the valley below. Among the features of the lower town is the market-place, a triangular area of slightly over four acres, where the market is held every Saturday, and where once a year is also held that great event of Nottingham, the Michaelmas goose fair. Here also disport themselves at election-times the rougher element, who, from their propensity to bleat when expressing disapprobation, are known as the "Nottingham lambs," and who claim to be lineal descendants from that hero of the ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... by the formidable sound of the governed proletariat beyond the walls of the Town Hall. And Edwin's memory, making him feel very old, leapt suddenly back into another generation of male glee-singers that did not disport humorously and that would not have permitted themselves to be interrupted by the shouting of populations; and he recalled 'Loud Ocean's Roar,' and the figure of Florence Simcox flitted in front of him. The proletariat was cheering somebody. The cheers died down. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... case might require, attended for the security of the Lady Eveline's person. Without this military attendance they could not in safety move even so far as the mills, where honest Wilkln Flammock, his warlike deeds forgotten, was occupied with his mechanical labours. But if a farther disport was intended, and the Lady of the Garde Doloureuse proposed to hunt or hawk for a few hours, her safety was not confided to a guard so feeble as the garrison of the castle might afford. It was necessary that Raoul ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... master at the college]. Twenty yards in front of my house, some pleasure gardens have been opened, bearing a signboard inscribed, 'The Pagoda.' Here, on Sunday afternoons, the lads and lasses from the neighboring farms come to disport themselves in country dances. To attract custom and push the sale of refreshments, the proprietor of the ball ends the Sunday hop with a tombola. Two hours beforehand, he has the prizes carried along the public roads, preceded ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... back to Kauai, and one stands with the poet looking down on a piece of ocean where the people are wont to disport themselves. (Maka-iwa, not far from Ka-ipu-ha'a, is said to be such a place.) Verses 12 to 19 in the Hawaiian (13 to 21 in the ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... of it, in forgetting all eclogues and pastorals, Virgil or Theocritus, and indulging in nothing that was out of place in Scotland, it is hard to tell. The Mantuan bard, the oaten reed, Philomela and her songs, Hymen, Ganymede, Bacchus, and all the Olympian band disport themselves in his other verses: but The Gentle Shepherd is void of those necessary adjuncts of the eighteenth-century muse. The wimpling burn is never called Helicon nor the heathery braes Parnassus, and nothing can be ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... whom the approach of the hour for closing impelled toward the outer world, but whom one of the sudden downpours which seem an essential part of the opening of the Salon detained under the porch with its floor of hard-trodden gravel, like the entrance to the Circus where the lady-killers disport themselves. It was a ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... become the source and fountain-head of inordinate lust and an instrument of much moral disaster and ruin. When the intelligence becomes powerless to command and to say what and when and how the affections shall disport themselves, then man becomes a slave to his heart and is led like an ass by the nose hither and thither; and when nature thus runs unrestrained and wild, it makes for the mudholes of lust wherein to ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... some wild sea place! No, no: the only way to give the arrangement any shade of propriety, will be to be elderly, infuse as much vinegar as possible into my countenance, wear my spectacles, and walk at a staid pace up and down the parade, while my two sons disport themselves on the rocks.' ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... statesman who is now proudly numbered in their ranks. When he presented himself to be sworn in, it was one of the jokes of the day that Sir Walter Barttelot expected he would approach the Table making "a cart-wheel" down the floor, as ragged little boys disport themselves along the pavement when a drag or omnibus passes. Sir Walter was genuinely surprised to find in the fearsome Birmingham Radical a quietly-dressed, well-mannered, almost boyish-looking man, who spoke in a clear, admirably pitched voice, and opposed the Prisons ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... catching butterflies in their caps. It was a forest after the pattern of the original Bois de Boulogne, hot and dusty, a much-frequented and sadly-abused promenade, one of those spots, avaricious of shade, to which the common people flock to disport themselves at the gates of great capitals—burlesque forests, filled with corks, where you find slices of melon and skeletons in ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... have been beaten and thrown into Bedlam, where all said I was Jinn-mad and this was caused by none save thyself. I brought thee to my house and fed thee with my best; after which thou didst empower thy Satans and Marids to disport themselves with my wits from morning to evening. So avaunt and aroynt thee and wend thy ways!" The Caliph smiled and, seating himself by his side said to him, "O my brother, did I not tell thee that I would return to thee?" Quoth Abu al-Hasan, "I have no need of thee; and as the byword ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Yes, but all the same,— I must reject all pleas in such a cause. Staunch comrades we have been in times of dearth; Of life's disport she asks but little share, And I'm a homely fellow, long aware God made me for the ledger and the hearth. Let others emulate the eagle's flight, Life in the lowly plains may be as bright. What does his Excellency Goethe say About the white and shining milky way? ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... be affected by that romance of emotion which the hushed and starry aspect of night is calculated to excite. The long-broken luxurious silence that, in their frozen climate, reigns from the going down of the sun to its rise; the wandering and sudden meteors that disport, as with an impish life, along the noiseless and solemn heaven; the peculiar radiance of the stars; and even the sterile and severe features of the earth, which those stars light up with their chill and ghostly serenity, serve to deepen the effect of the wizard tales which are instilled into ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in termys short, Christ keep these birdis bright in bowers, Fra false lovers and their disport, Sic peril ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fields of Summer * (their wild wings rustled his guides' cymars) Looked up from disport at the passing comer, * as they pelted each other with handfuls of stars; And the warden-spirits with startled feet rose, * hand on sword, by ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... sixteen years ago stood towards the statesman who is now proudly numbered in their ranks. When he presented himself to be sworn in, it was one of the jokes of the day that Sir Walter Barttelot expected he would approach the Table making "a cart-wheel" down the floor, as ragged little boys disport themselves along the pavement when a drag or omnibus passes. Sir Walter was genuinely surprised to find in the fearsome Birmingham Radical a quietly-dressed, well-mannered, almost boyish-looking man, who spoke in a clear, admirably pitched ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... wildernesses, green thickets, arches, groves, lawns, rivulets, fountains, and such like pleasant places, (like that Antiochian Daphne,) brooks, pools, fishponds, between wood and water, in a fair meadow, by a river side, ubi variae avium cantationes, florum colores, pratorum frutices, &c. to disport in some pleasant plain, or park, run up a steep hill sometimes, or sit in a shady seat, must needs be a delectable recreation. Hortus principis et domus ad delectationem facta, cum sylva, monte et piscina, vulgo la montagna: the prince's garden at Ferrara, ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... He presumed that these matters, with her household and secretarial work, filled up her days; he knew too well that whist accounted for her evenings. He did not know if there was any margin, any dim intellectual region, out of time, out of space, where Miss Tancred's soul was permitted to disport itself in freedom; she seemed to exist merely in order to supply certain deficiencies in the Colonel's nature. Mrs. Fazakerly had once remarked that Frida was "her father's right hand." It would have been ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... the same,— I must reject all pleas in such a cause. Staunch comrades we have been in times of dearth; Of life's disport she asks but little share, And I'm a homely fellow, long aware God made me for the ledger and the hearth. Let others emulate the eagle's flight, Life in the lowly plains may be as bright. What does his Excellency ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... his friend in the study of steam, but usually accompanied him when he went over after school to disport himself in the engine-house, interview the stoker, or see if there was anything new in ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... and when spring cometh, the weather groweth fair, the wood bloometh, the grass groweth, and ships may glide betwixt land and land. So on a day the king says to his folk: "I will that ye come with us for our disport out into the woods, that we may look upon the ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... could thus disport myself," answered Vivian. "I would always love you if you could show me ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... quarters the genitals of women or young girls, and a stay at the seaside when I was 12 made the latter at least feasible. When the shore was nearly deserted, between 1 and 2 P.M., the daughters of the fisherfolk used to besiege the bathing machines and disport themselves in the water, bathing and paddling in various stages of nudity. I would pretend that my whole attention was being given to the making of miniature tunnels in the sand, while all the time I slyly peeped at what I most desired to see, whether in front ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... winters by seeming, black-haired, hook-nosed and hawk-eyed, not so fair to look on as masterful and proud. She led a great grey ass betwixt two panniers, wherein she laded her marketings. But now she had done her chaffer, and was looking about her as if to note the folk for her disport; but when she came across a child, whether it were borne in arms or led by its kinswomen, or were going alone, as were some, she seemed more heedful of it, and eyed it ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... home, access would be denied them; for Professor Seeley, that stern custodian, has his answer ready for all such seekers. 'If you want recreation, you must find it in Poetry, particularly Lyrical Poetry. Try Shelley. We can no longer allow you to disport yourselves in the Fields of History as if they were a mere playground. ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... the Haarlem church disappointing, had it not been for the two or three redeeming features left in the cold, bare structure; the beautiful screen of open brass-work, with its base of dark wood, on which brightly-painted, mystic beasts disport themselves among the coats-of-arms of divers ancient ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... beings undertake through the fair domains of love, this moment is like a waste land to be traversed, a land without a tree, alternatively damp and warm, full of scorching sand, traversed by marshes, which leads to smiling groves clad with roses, where Love and his retinue of pleasures disport themselves on carpets of soft verdure. Often the witty man finds himself afflicted with a foolish laugh which is his only answer to everything; his wit is, as it were, suffocated beneath the icy pressure of his desires. It would not be impossible for two beings of equal ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... liked play well enough when I was in the humor for play; but that at present I was not disposed to disport myself, being weary of my life in his palace, and sick of Siam altogether. He received my candor with his characteristic smile and ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... vendors linger hopelessly in the kennel, in vain endeavouring to attract customers; and the ragged boys who usually disport themselves about the streets, stand crouched in little knots in some projecting doorway, or under the canvas blind of a cheesemonger's, where great flaring gas-lights, unshaded by any glass, display huge piles of blight red and pale yellow cheeses, mingled with little ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... meet King Marcobrun, took him by his white hands, led him into the marble palace, seated him at an oaken table spread with checkered tablecloths and sweetmeats, and they fell to eating and drinking and disport. ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... that, not wishing to ascend to Heaven too soon, he partook of only half of the pill of immortality, dividing the other half among several of his admirers, and that he had at least two selves or personalities, one of which used to disport itself in a boat on a small lake in front of his house. The other self would receive his visitors, entertaining them with food and drink and instructive conversation. On one occasion this self said to them: ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... pleasaunt and delectable questions, Entituled, A disport of diuerse noble personages, written in Italian by M. Iohn Bocace Florentine and poet Laureat, in his booke named Philocopo: Englished by H. G. Imprinted at London by A. I. and are to be sold in Paules churchyard, by Thomas Woodcocke. ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... the "mylary just a-risin' out of the ground," were ludicrously mistaken, in another their practical conclusion was absolutely sound; for it is in just such air, at such levels above the surface of the water, that the Anopheles most delights to disport himself. Furthermore, while all raw or misty air is "bad," the night air is infinitely more so than that of the day, because this is the time at which mosquitoes are chiefly abroad. In fact, there can be little doubt that this is part of the foundation for that rabid ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... parents do the studies of their children. He was very particular that we should play the old English games according to their original form; and consulted old books for precedent and authority for every 'merrie disport;' yet I assure you there never was pedantry so delightful. It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... beast with a friendly acquaintanceship. The squirrels that inhabited the trees in the front-yard were won in time by her blandishments to come and perch on her window-sills, and thence, by trains of nuts adroitly laid, to disport themselves on the shining cherry tea-table that stood between the windows; and we youngsters used to sit entranced with delight as they gambolled and waved their feathery tails in frolicsome security, eating rations ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... all appearance covered with a coat of dark brown wool, crawling and floundering about among the kelp, in constantly increasing numbers. Each new ledge of reef, as it rises to the surface, becomes crowded with them, while hundreds of others disport themselves ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... the most beautiful month among these mountains; but, according to the present arrangement of matters here, the hotels are shut up by the end of September. With us, August, September, and October are the holiday months; whereas our rebel children across the Atlantic love to disport themselves in July and August. The great beauty of the autumn, or fall, is in the brilliant hues which are then taken by the foliage. The autumnal tints are fine with us. They are lovely and bright wherever foliage and vegetation form a part of the beauty of scenery. But in no other ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... officiating one term as justice of the peace, while by assiduous bootlicking we may, like Rienzi Miltiades Johnsing, obtain a lieutenant-colonelcy—or even a gigadier-brindleship—on the gilded staff of some 2 x 4 governor, and disport in all the glorious pomp and circumstance of war at inaugural balls or on mimic battlefields; hence honors ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... introduction! The situation and gardens are good; it contains among other luxuries a drawing-room, with a delightful swimming-bath for ladies, and another for gentlemen. A mountain stream is turned into two large square reservoirs, where you can disport yourself under the shade of bananas and palm trees, while orange trees, daturas, poinsettias, and other plants, in full bloom, drop their fragrant flowers into the crystal water. There is also a nice little bathing-house, with a douche outside; and the ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... white steed right well harnessed and accoutred at all points, and the Prince of Wales, on a little black hackney, at his side." King John was first of all lodged in London at the Savoy hotel, and shortly afterwards removed, with all his people, to Windsor; "there," says Froissart, "to hawk, hunt, disport himself, and take his pastime according to his pleasure, and Sir Philip, his son, also; and all the rest of the other lords, counts, and barons, remained in London, but they went to see the king when it pleased them, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear! I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come among you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die among you all, to lay down for my God, for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood even ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... tend to be deserted in favour of fiction. Sympathetic and imaginative criticism is so apt to be stamped upon by the erudite, who cry out so lamentably over errors and minute slips, that the novel seems to be the only safe vantage-ground in which the amateur may disport himself. ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... by means of the lariats, which allowed them to graze or roll as they pleased. They were tied near a water hole, formed below the spring, so the animals had the three most desirable requisites—food, water and a place to disport themselves. ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... sunny morning of spring, that Ralph sat alone on the toft by the rock-house, for Ursula had gone down the meadow to disport her and to bathe in the river. Ralph was fitting the blade of a dagger to a long ashen shaft, to make him a strong spear; for with the waxing spring the bears were often in the meadows again; and the day before they had come across a family ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... he went on volubly, "there were days when the loneliness in my office grew positively oppressive. You may remember that room I had in the old Adams and Harper Block? It gave upon a courtyard where the rats from a livery stable came to disport themselves on rainy days. I grew to be a dead shot with the flobert rifle; but lawsy, there's mighty little consideration for true merit in this world! Just because I winged a couple of cheap hack horses one day, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... its own way, with very little regard for the rule of the road. The American who drives, whatever may be his social station, admires the courage of the woman who rides, but he is firmly convinced that she does not understand horses, and gives her all the space available wherein to disport herself. ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... talk long without getting fagged. Wretched state of things, isn't it? I'm a vile bad host but I can't help it. At the present moment for example I'm undergoing grinding torments and it doesn't amuse me to make conversation, so you two can cut along and disport yourselves in any way you like. Give Lawrence a drink, will you, my love? . . . . Oh no, thanks, you've done a lot but you can't do any more, no one can, I just have to grin and bear it. Laura, would you mind ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... old-fashioned flint gun from the bird-keeper of the farm to which I had been invited. I ensconced myself behind the door of the pig-sty, determined to make a victim of one of the many rats that were accustomed to disport themselves among the straw that formed the bed of the farmer's pet bacon-pigs. In a few minutes out came an old patriarchal-looking rat, who, having taken a careful survey, quietly began to feed. After a long aim, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... in her beauty as in her pleasant behaviour. For a proper wit had she, and could both read well and write, merry in company, ready and quick of answer, neither mute nor full of babble, sometimes taunting without displeasure, and not without disport." ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... his own immediate entertaining the revel now began—no lesser word describes it. If, before the departure of his dinner guests, Brown had experienced a slight feeling of fatigue, it disappeared with the pleasure of seeing his present company disport themselves. They were not in the least afraid of him—how should they be, when he had spent months in the winning of their confidence and affection by every clever wile known to the genuine boy lover? That they respected ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... roses without thorns; I think that with a pretty boudoir, on whose table every morning a pretty maid should arrange a pretty nosegay, and with a pretty canary to sing songs in a gilded cage, and pretty gold-fish to disport in a crystal vase, and basted partridges for dinner, his love for the country would have been satisfied. He loved Nature as a sentimental boy loves a fine woman of twice his years,—sighing himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... who knows that he must do something to amuse his usual spectators—viz., the tourists—who go back to Manchester or to Omaha and astonish their friends with tales of the goings-on of those dreadful Frenchmen in Paris. The women who disport in the cancan at the same place are simply hired by the season. It is not at the Jardin Mabille that the visitor to Paris need ever look to see genuine revelry: the place is as much a place of jollification for the people ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... from the Alameda. As we passed, we had a good view of a daily Havana spectacle, the washing of the horses. This being by far the easiest and most expeditious way of cleaning the animals, they are driven daily to the sea in great numbers, those of one party being tied together; they disport themselves in the surge and their wet backs glisten in the sun. Their drivers, nearly naked, plunge in with them, and bring them safely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... in the art; and it was yearly supplied by the Candians, Venetians, Sarmatians, with all sorts of excellent birds, eagles, gerfalcons, goshawks, falcons, sparrow-hawks, merlins, and other kinds of them, so gentle and perfectly well trained that, flying from the castle for their own disport, they would not fail to catch whatever they encountered. The venery was a little further off, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... consideration for its thousands of English readers. There is, however, we are tolerably assured, a certain class of critics who venture to lament that this laughter-inspiring muse should have descended from the sunny Parnassus of its own vernacular to the meads below, where disport the unlearned and uninspired, the mere kids and lambs of its celestial audience: a generous absurdity, at which the very Devil of Delphos might have demurred. These are the dapper gentlemen, who, tripping gayly along to the blasts and tinklings of Lanner's Waltzes, would judge ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... features of the lower town is the market-place, a triangular area of slightly over four acres, where the market is held every Saturday, and where once a year is also held that great event of Nottingham, the Michaelmas goose fair. Here also disport themselves at election-times the rougher element, who, from their propensity to bleat when expressing disapprobation, are known as the "Nottingham lambs," and who claim to be lineal descendants from that hero of the neighboring Sherwood ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... was more like a prisoner gazing through the grating of his gaol upon the free world without—like a bird who sees through the wires of its cage the bright-green foliage, amidst which it would gladly disport itself. ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... keeps out the water, that it excels in those qualities in which it excelled equally three thousand years ago. What you ought to mean is that you have a roof that is flat and has things on it that make it livable, where you can walk, disport yourself, or sleep; a house-top view of your neighbors' affairs; an airy pleasance with a full sweep of stars; a place to listen of nights to the drone of the city; a place of observation, and if you are ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... fading light. The pictures on the walls seemed to stare at the two intruders with cold displeasure. Cherry shivered slightly as the chill struck her. It seemed to her as if these stately knights and dames themselves must surely come down from their frames at such an hour as this; and silently disport themselves in this long gallery. She was glad to feel Kate's arm about her as she commenced circling round and round in her light and airy fashion. As the warm blood began tingling in their veins the pace grew faster and faster, and Cherry's chilliness and ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... they hang with the picturesque lines of the best tailor-made garments. That is why well-fed artists of pencil and pen find in the griefs of the common people their most striking models. But when the Philistine would disport himself, the grimness of Melpomene, herself, attends upon his capers. Therefore, Danny set his jaw hard at Easter, ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... Allen. "This is the night when unlicked cubs do disport themselves in our precincts. A mistaken sense of philanthropy has led my mother to make this house the fortnightly salon bleu of St. Thomas's. But there's a pipe at ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their vows, And hides with mystic veil their blushing brows. Round their fair forms their mingling arms they fling, Meet with warm lip, and clasp with rustling wing.— —Hence plastic Nature, as Oblivion whelms 60 Her fading forms, repeoples all her realms; Soft Joys disport on purple plumes unfurl'd, And Love and Beauty rule ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... gentle lady-moon, With her coldly drooping beams, Be dancing in the ripple Of the ever-laughing streams, Where the little elves disport In the stilly noon of night, And lave their limbs of ether In the mellow flood ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... generally between six and eight o'clock in the morning, when the thermometer is upon an average at about 72 degrees. During this interval the sea is as smooth as glass, and not a zephyr is found to disport even among the topmost boughs of the ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... in the morning, twice or thrice a week, Miss Briggs used to betake herself to a bathing-machine, and disport in the water in a flannel gown and an oilskin cap. Rebecca, as we have seen, was aware of this circumstance, and though she did not attempt to storm Briggs as she had threatened, and actually dive into that lady's ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ottars[FN660] and gain great profit on them; till, Allah willing, I will make my capital an hundred thousand dirhams. Then I will purchase a fine house with white slaves and eunuchs and horses; and I will eat and drink and disport myself; nor will I leave a singing man or a singing woman in the city, but I will summon them to my palace and make them perform before me." All this he counted over in his mind, while the tray of glass ware,: worth an hundred dirhams, stood on the bench before him, and, after looking at it, he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... all those who were with her, and presently after taking seat they brought out and set before the Youth their whole store of edibles and potables and the party fell to eating and drinking and converse, exchanging happy sayings blended with wit and disport and laughter, while the Princess made it her especial task to toy with her host deeming that he knew her not to be the King's daughter. He also stinted not to take his pleasure with her; and on this wise they feasted and caroused and enjoyed themselves and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... of vantage he saw Cliges riding with three other striplings who were taking their pleasure, carrying lances and shields in order to tilt and to disport themselves. Now is the duke's nephew bent on attacking and injuring them if ever he can. With five comrades he sets out; and the six have posted themselves secretly beside the wood in a valley, so that the Greeks never saw them till they issued from the valley, and till the duke's nephew rushes ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... stupendous; whereas we had scarcely a casualty except the death of General Green, an irreparable one. No Confederate went aboard the fleet and no Federal came ashore; so there was a fine field of slaughter in which the imagination of both sides could disport itself. ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... being—that is, Being raised to the second power. If the universe subsists, it is because the Eternal mind loves to perceive its own content, in all its wealth and expansion—especially in its stages of preparation. Not that God is an egotist. He allows myriads upon myriads of suns to disport themselves in his shadow; he grants life and consciousness to innumerable multitudes of creatures who thus participate in being and in nature; and all these animated monads multiply, so to speak, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a pageant which took place at Christmas, 1440, is from the records of Norwich:—"John Hadman, a wealthy citizen, made disport with his neighbours and friends, and was crowned King of Christmas. He rode in state through the city, dressed forth in silks and tinsel, and preceded by twelve persons habited as the twelve months of the year, their costumes varying to represent the different seasons of the year. Alter King Christmas ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... good; it did not exhibit the author of "John Gilpin" in a brilliant light; it was not even uttered by the poet—he had merely smiled at it; yet it had the effect of rekindling the vapid embers about the dear old hearthstone of Olney, and the shy, gentle creatures that used to disport there among the hares when nobody was looking became for a moment more real from the citation. Now, the question is, What is the superiority of a new piece of gossip like this, which involves no witticism and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... rinse them. Thou hast here a lovely village, Finest spot in all of Northland, In the lowlands sweet the verdure, in the uplands, fields of beauty, With the lake-shore near the hamlet, Near thy home the running water, Where the goslings swim and frolic, Water-birds disport in numbers." Thereupon the bride and bridegroom Were refreshed with richest viands, Given food and drink abundant, Fed on choicest bits of reindeer, On the sweetest loaves of barley, On the best of wheaten biscuits, On the richest beer of ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... so clean, That in her cup there was no farthing* seen *speck Of grease, when she drunken had her draught; Full seemely after her meat she raught*: *reached out her hand And *sickerly she was of great disport*, *surely she was of a lively And full pleasant, and amiable of port, disposition* And *pained her to counterfeite cheer *took pains to assume Of court,* and be estately of mannere, a courtly disposition* And to ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... inexpressible; and that joy lost in a crowd of yet greater blisses! But this was a disorder too violent in nature to last long: the vessels, so stirred and intensely heated, soon boiled over, and for that time put out the fire; meanwhile all this dalliance and disport had so far consumed the morning, that it became a kind of necessity to lay breakfast ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... road, the gatherings at the shrines, and the infinite possibilities of gossip with like-minded dowagers. Very often it suits a longsuffering family that a strong-tongued, iron-willed old lady should disport herself about India in this fashion; for certainly pilgrimage is grateful to the Gods. So all about India, in the most remote places, as in the most public, you find some knot of grizzled servitors in nominal charge ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... palaces to be edified for him, by the wall of the Alcazar, on the outer part, that the Moors of the city might do no displeasure neither to him nor to his companions: and they were hard by a garden of the King's, that he might go out and disport himself therein whensoever it pleased him. And for these things King Don Alfonso loved to serve King Alimaymon. Nevertheless when he saw the great honour of the King of Toledo, and how powerful he was, ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... the glory of the poetry; since one of the noblest functions of its art is to describe the deeds and the subjects of stories, and adorned and delectable places with transparent waters in which the green recesses of their course can be seen as the waves disport themselves over meadows and fine pebbles, and the plants which are mingled with them, and the gliding fishes, and similar descriptions, which might just as well be made to a stone as to a man born blind, since ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... certain manly form coming up the garden-walk is wont to cry out in a miserable mockery of tenderness, "Oh, my darling! I'm so glad to see you!" and then smack his bill as near like a kiss as he can, and chuckle and laugh and turn somersaults, and otherwise disport himself as parrots do when they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... Without this military attendance they could not in safety move even so far as the mills, where honest Wilkln Flammock, his warlike deeds forgotten, was occupied with his mechanical labours. But if a farther disport was intended, and the Lady of the Garde Doloureuse proposed to hunt or hawk for a few hours, her safety was not confided to a guard so feeble as the garrison of the castle might afford. It was necessary that Raoul should announce her purpose to Damian by a special messenger ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... anemones and lungworts. Then spring invades the earth, and cellar and stream with honey and pollen, while each day beholds the birth of thousands of bees. The overgrown males now all sally forth from their cells, and disport themselves on the combs; and so crowded does the too prosperous city become that hundreds of belated workers, coming back from the flowers towards evening, will vainly seek shelter within, and will be forced to spend the night on the threshold, ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... tradition, we observe the coexistence of the RATIONAL and the apparently IRRATIONAL elements. The RATIONAL myths are those which represent the gods as beautiful and wise beings. The Artemis of the Odyssey "taking her pastime in the chase of boars and swift deer, while with her the wild wood-nymphs disport them, and high over them all she rears her brow, and is easily to be known where all are fair,"(1) is a perfectly RATIONAL mythic representation of a divine being. We feel, even now, that the conception of a "queen and goddess, chaste and fair," ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... coolness. On the fringed marge Full many a floweret rears its head,—or pink, Or gaudy daffodil. 'Tis here, at noon, The buskin'd wood-nymphs from the heat retire, And lave them in the fountain; here secure From Pan, or savage satyr, they disport: Or stretch'd supinely on the velvet turf, Lull'd by the laden bee, or sultry fly, Invoke the god of slumber.... ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... maidens have never seen the sea. They be stay-at-homes and I would not affright them too sorely by the sight of mountains of water. Have no care for us save to bid some one supply us with food to take along. I know the way down to a smooth beach where we can disport ourselves." ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... has its tutelary deity. In particular, the elementary god of fire solaces himself in one. In another, Enceladus, in lieu of a mountain, is overwhelmed with many waters. There are avenues of water-pots, who disport themselves much in squirting up cascadelins. In short, 'tis a garden for a great child. Such was Louis Quatorze, who is here seen in his proper colours, where he commanded in person, unassisted by his armies and generals, and left to the pursuit ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... Brynhild, "Ill to abash folk of their mirth; prithee do not so; let us talk together for our disport of mighty kings and ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... attain to their joy in life." She bent forward to brush some fresh earth from the leg of her trousers. "But you would have me forego these innocent, healthy-minded, invigorating exercises, I suppose, because I am a woman," she pursued. "You would allow Diavolo to disport himself so at will, and approve rather than object, although he is not so strong as I am. And then these clothes, which are decent and convenient for him, besides being a greater protection than any you permit me to wear, you think immodest ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... desirable method demands a span of horses for a spin out Point Lobos Avenue. We may, however, be obliged to take a McGinn bus that leaves the Plaza hourly. It will be all the same when we reach the Cliff and gaze on Ben Butler and his companion sea-lions as they disport themselves in the ocean or climb the rocks. Wind or fog may greet us, but the indifferent monsters roar, fight, and play, while the restless waves roll in. We must, also, make a special trip to Rincon Hill and South Park to see how and where our ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... strictness that some parents do the studies of their children. He was very particular that we should play the old English games according to their original form, and consulted old books for precedent and authority for every 'merrie disport;' yet I assure you there never was pedantry so delightful. It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... unlike her own hand, she thought. They were appended to a piece of facetiousness that would not have disgraced the abilities of Mr. John Raikes; but we know that very stiff young gentlemen betray monkey-minds when sweet young ladies compel them to disport. On the whole, it was not a lazy afternoon that the Countess passed, and it was not against her wish that others ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... who had fascinations to disport, or were in the habit of disporting what they considered such, were probably still at home consulting the looking-glass until that oracle should announce the auspicious moment for their ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... colours, such as Mexico is famous for, people these tropic southern lands of Vera Cruz. Along the shores and in the woods and groves, all teeming with prolific life, which the hot sun and frequent rains induce, the giant cranes and brilliant-plumaged herons disport themselves, and gorgeous butterflies almost outshine the feathered denizens. From the tangled boughs the pendant boa-constrictor coils himself, and hissing serpents, basking crocodiles, and prowling jaguars people the untrodden ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... In the time of Louis IX., according to William of Nangis, "three noble children, born in Flanders, who were sojourning at the abbey of St. Nicholas in the Wood, to learn the speech of France, went out into the forest of the abbey, with their bows and iron-headed arrows, to disport them in shooting hares, chased the game, which they had started in the wood of the abbey, into the forest of Enguerrand, lord of Coucy, and were taken by the sergeants which kept the wood. When the ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... illustrations; quips and cranks and wanton wiles of the reasoning fancy in deviating self-indulgence; and an allusiveness which sets commentators into note-making effervescence. All these, and more, which belong to wit, are often quite ungoverned, allowed to disport themselves as they please. Such matters delight the unpoetic readers of Browning, and indeed they are excellent entertainment. But let us call them by their true name; let us not call them poetry, nor mistake their art for the art of poetry. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... purchasers, for the buccaneers were willing to buy everything which could be brought from Europe. They were fond of good wine, good groceries, good firearms, and ammunition, fine cutlasses, and very often good clothes, in which they could disport themselves when on shore. But they had peculiar customs and manners, and although they were willing to buy as much as the French traders had to sell, they could not be prevailed upon to pay their bills. A pirate is not the sort of a man who generally cares to pay ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... they come forth in the Spring, strong in numbers, and vigorous in health. If at any time in the winter season, the warmth is so great as to penetrate their comfortable abodes, and to tempt them to fly, when they venture out, they find a balmy atmosphere in which they may disport with impunity. In the Summer, they are protected from the heat, not merely by the thickness of the hollow tree, but by the leafy shade of overarching branches, and the refreshing coolness of ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... light matter.... The comet was most magnificent here. Did I ever mention it in my letters? During the whole period of its visit in this quarter it had night after night a clear blue cloudless sky, spangled with stars innumerable, to disport itself in.... Canton is coming round to tranquillity as fast as we ever had any right to expect; but the absurd thing is that these funny people at Hong-Kong are beginning ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... The rift in the leaden sky had lengthened and widened, and the first pale primrose of the dawn showed beyond. A faint flush followed, and then it seemed as if the night sky slowly rolled itself up and was put away, leaving a floor of silver, deepening to lilac, for the first bright beam to disport itself upon. Then the sea smiled, and the weariness of it, back and forth, back and forth, passed into animation. Its smooth surface became diapered with light airs, and moved with a gentle roll. The sullen murmur rose to a morning song, and a boat with bare mast at ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... these caves I dwell not buried still From sight of Heaven. but often I resort To tops of Lebanon or Carmel hill, And there in liquid air myself disport, There Mars and Venus I behold at will! As bare as erst when Vulcan took them short, And how the rest roll, glide and move, I see, How their aspects benign or ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... after completing the artifice by a skilful device of massing coloured inks upon our faces, he commanded me to lead him out by a chain and observe intelligently how a captive Boxer chief should disport himself. ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... wise regard for your sanitary well-being, you will remain on deck, alike to saturate your lungs with torrents of oxygen and to let your weary eye and mind disport themselves like sea-gulls on the broad waters of the bay. What so fresh and cool and clean and still and sparkling and in perfect contrast to the stern and stony and resounding streets! As you lean over the taffrail, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
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