"Pastime" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Christmas time, His Father an Hog had kill'd, And Tom to see the Pudding made, Fear that it should be spill'd; He sat, the Candle for to Light, Upon the Pudding-Bowl: Of which there is unto this Day A pretty Pastime told: For Tom ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... that look so green and fair! I've heard of fearful winds and darkness that come there, The little brooks, that seem all pastime and all play, When they are angry, roar like lions for ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... fondness ridiculous, and robbed the caresses for which he had longed of all their anticipated ecstasy. Intellectually she fell still further short of his hopes. She looked upon his favorite art of painting as a pastime for amateur and a branch of the house-furnishing trade for professional artists. When he was discussing it among his friends, she would offer her opinion with a presumption which was the more trying as she frequently blundered upon a sound conclusion whilst he ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... entirely, but growing more perceptible than ever with the next whiff from the pipe. The whole figure, in like manner, assumed a show of life, such as we impart to ill-defined shapes among the clouds, and half deceive ourselves with the pastime ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... matter of temperament, and instead of writing briefs, Calvin began translating Luther's Bible into French. He was requested to relinquish this pastime long enough to draw up a legal opinion concerning the divorce of our old friend ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... watching with feverish anticipation for the time when he should win a vast fortune to lay by for the child, his pet and darling, to keep her from want if death should take him away. But of this little Nell knew nothing, or she would have implored him to give up the wicked and dangerous pastime. ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Nevertheless, it may not be amiss to call attention here to the value of such training given almost in play, and without question in such attractive forms as to make character building through its influence an ideal pastime, a valuable investment, and a complete program, for growing girls, who may emerge from the "bundle of habits" as strong members of society, progressive business women, or nicely trained little helpers for the home, or for the more sheltering conditions ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... her friend continued, "the gowns worn are not so expensive as at Ascot, and I believe there is no Royal Enclosure. But the Derby is nevertheless what they call a National Institution. As you know, I disapprove of horse-racing as a pastime: but my brother-in-law in the Civil Service used to attend it regularly, from a sense of duty, with a green ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... they are as clever as all savages, and wonderfully good shots, attempting many wonderful feats. They are swift as deer, when they choose, though somewhat lazy and indolent. All the kings and chiefs have been special adepts in the invigorating pastime of surf-swimming, and the present king's sisters are considered first-rate hands at it. The performers begin by swimming out into the bay, and diving under the huge Pacific rollers, pushing their surf-boards—flat pieces of wood, about four feet long ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... gave vent to all the "oh's" and "ah's" that indicate the perfect visitor. Abner took their host's various amateurish doings in glum silence. It was all very well to indulge in these costly contraptions as a pastime, but if the man had to get his actual living from the soil where would he be? Almost anybody could stand on two legs. ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... spend a quiet hour or two over bezique and music. On these occasions, a carpet cotillon or quadrille has been sometimes indulged in; but it was the exception and not the rule. We were generally satisfied with much milder pastime; our visits rarely exceeding the interval between tea and "supper" time, when we partook of a friendly, though seedy, abernethy and glass of wine or beer; and then ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor: we must all toil, or steal (howsoever we name our stealing), which is worse; no faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The poor is hungry and a-thirst; but for him also there is food and drink: he is heavy-laden and weary; but for him also the Heavens send Sleep, and of the deepest; in his smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest envelops ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime Is ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... way homeward, when this light shone out. Come with me, I beseech you, Reverend sir, else you will be poorly able to do Sabbath duty to-morrow. Aha! see now how they trouble the brain—these books!—these books! You should study less, good sir, and take a little pastime, or these night whimsies will grow ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... others of his race, was not averse to talking, either. The little Filipino knew that he had the whole situation in his hands. With the cruelty of a cat, Tomba delighted in the feline pastime of playing with a victim ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... was privately relishing life with enviable gusto. In those days he could and did: being alive was the most satisfying pastime he could imagine, or cared to, who was a thundering success in his own conceit and in fact as well; since all the world for whose regard he cared a twopenny-bit admired, respected, and esteemed him in his public status, ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... abroad with hair erect and backs curved, to exchange greetings with each other in wary defiance of dogs; kittens sprawled in the sunshine, and made frantic efforts to achieve the impossible feat of catching their own shadows, varying the pastime with more successful, though arduous, attempts at their own tails; dogs bounded and danced, chiefly on their hind legs, round their loved companion man (including woman); juvenile dogs chased, tumbled ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... horse-racing in the Cascine that afternoon; nothing but the usual football. The pastime is well worth a glance, if only for the sake of sympathizing with the poor referee. Several hundred opprobrious epithets are hurled at his head in the course of a single game, and play is often suspended while somebody or other hotly disputes his decision ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... and end by feeling it a shame that you yourself are not in possession. (I take for granted, of course, that as you go and come you are, in imagination, perpetually lodging yourself and setting up your gods; for if this innocent pastime, this borrowing of the mind, be not your favourite sport there is a flaw in the appeal that Venice makes to you.) There may be happy cases in which your envy is tempered, or perhaps I should rather say intensified, by real participation. If you have had the good fortune ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... length draw on the late dinner, when she would make an elaborate toilet, just for pastime, and go to dinner, which always seemed like a funeral feast. Here Claudia formed the habit of drinking much more wine than was good for her: and she did it to blunt her sensibility; to obtund the sharpness of her heartache; ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... fourteen; married about four years ago a French lady at Bordeaux, the father American, with the mother French; two children. A very wet disagreeable day, so that we could not take the usual exercise on deck, and yet tempted to eat more by way of pastime. At dinner one or two Yankees found great fault with my saying "A good deal of factories," declaring it to be bad English, in which Mr. Frankland also acquiesced, thinking it improper to apply the word "deal" to numbers; a deal ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... whisper over the fire. They might have been told, further, that Maulfry and he were very old friends, and from a time long before his entry into religion at Holy Thorn. If there had been love between them, it had left no scar. Love with Galors was a pastime: he might make a woman his mistress, but he could never allow her to be his master. And whatever there had been in this sort, any love now left in Maulfry for the monk was largely tempered with respect. They ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... but I have seen him, nevertheless, and I shall be much surprised if you do not see and hear more of him than you desire before many days are out. That villain does not sail the seas for pastime, you ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... fact is that Bannockburn was fought on a point of chivalry, on a rule in a game. England must "touch bar," relieve Stirling, as in some child's pastime. To the securing of the castle, the central gate of Scotland, north and south, England put forth her full strength. Bruce had no choice but to concentrate all the power of a now, at last, united realm, and stand just where he did stand. His ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... may be sometimes bent too long, and that ever-arduous application, even in patriotic service, is to be avoided. No one can more highly estimate your devotion to the best interests of Britain than I. But I wish to see it tempered with a wise consideration for your own amusement, recreation, and pastime. All work and no play may make Peter a dull boy as well as Jack. And (if I may claim the privilege of friendship to remonstrate) I would say that you do not take enough time for your meals. Dinner, for instance, you habitually ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... the war temporarily deprives such a country and its few misguided prophets whose monomania is dread of that chimera, the "Colossus of the North," of the pastime of nestling up to Europe in the hope of annoying us. It postpones, too, the hope of the morbid ones that we shall come to war with a powerful enemy. Now, perhaps, even these will appreciate the remark ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to drive an eel? No? Well, let me assure you that pig-driving is a pleasant pastime in comparison. We have it on good authority that if you want to drive a pig in a particular direction all you have to do is to point his nose straight and then try to pull him back by the tail. Away ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... who were disputing at the same table, over a child who had been stolen that evening, hold their noses. All circumstances which, two centuries later, "seemed so ridiculous to the court," as Sauval says, "that they served as a pastime to the king, and as an introduction to the royal ballet of Night, divided into four parts and danced on the theatre of the Petit-Bourbon." "Never," adds an eye witness of 1653, "have the sudden metamorphoses of the Court of Miracles ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... violets. A bag and bottle thou shalt have, That richly wrought, and this as brave; So that as either shall express The wearer's no mean shepherdess. At shearing-times, and yearly wakes, When Themilis his pastime makes, There thou shalt be; and be the wit, Nay more, the feast, and grace of it. On holydays, when virgins meet To dance the heys with nimble feet, Thou shalt come forth, and then appear The Queen of Roses ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... in all ages been a pastime of noble minds to try to depict a perfect state of society. Forty years before Shakespeare's birth, Sir Thomas More published his "Utopia" to the world. Bacon intended to do the same thing in the "New Atlantis," but never completed the ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... from the first he had not shown any recognition of Attalus, and had signed to him that they must be strangers to one another. A whole year had passed away in this manner, when one day Leo wandered, as if for pastime, into the plain where Attalus was watching the horses, and sitting down on the ground at some paces off, and with his back towards his young master, so that they might not be seen together, he said, 'This is the time for thoughts of home! When thou ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... airships is not a pastime within the reach of a private purse. The British Government had taken advantage of the enterprise and rivalry of private makers of aeroplanes, whom it wisely permitted to run the risks and show the way. No such policy ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... social results followed were the necessary consequences of the employment of his rare wit and humor on such a work. There is no reason to believe that Cervantes, at first, had any more serious intention than that which he avowed, namely, to give "a pastime to melancholy souls"[19] in destroying "the authority and influence which the books of chivalries have in the world and over the vulgar." That he was not impelled to this work by any antipathy to knightly romances as such—still less by any ambition to repress the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... hunting," observed Gan, "and the stag is killed. He is at the old pastime that he was so fond ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... are found in the comedies of our time, and which are their meat rather than the spice, are the reasons why he who says 'Comedy' seems to speak of a buffoon's pastime. They wrong themselves who give to such gracious poesy a sense so unworthy. True comedy, properly regarded, has for its object the representation in divers personages of almost all the actions of familiar life. ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... they arrived at a large town called Sampaka, where, on hearing that a white man was come into the town, the people, who had been keeping holiday and dancing, left of this pastime, and walking in regular order two by two, with the music before them, came to Mr. Park. They played upon a flute, which they blowed obliquely over the end, and governed the holes on the sides with their fingers. Their ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... that thou hast wavered too long. It is a great foolishness to let the cherry knock against the lips too often or too long. A pretty pastime, perhaps, to will, and not will, to dare, and not dare; but at last the knock comes that drops the cherry—it may be ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... and thinking, one will play with an idle pastime for the sake of keeping one's hands amused as it were, and so I went on working the long slit in the stone, which the blade was making, deeper and deeper. The sand trickled from it in a stream, and then all of a sudden I became aware that I had pierced through the stone into a hole ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... creoles make the negroes who surround them the play-things of their whims: they flog, for pastime, those of their own age, just as their fathers flog others at their will. These young creoles, arrived at the age in which the passions are impetuous, do not know how to bear contradiction; they will have every thing done which they command, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... on in a sort of silent scorn at a young man who could talk so eagerly about "a trumpery raree-show," especially for an object that she did not care about. None of them knew how far it was the pride of authorship and the desire of pastime. Only Jasper said when he ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... great king never permitted any pastime to interfere with the duties of state, which he considered to be superior to (54) all other claims and of paramount importance, and (a) (37) kept himself so far under control that he allowed ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... was a favourite pastime with the gentlemen who attended Mr. Harmony's lectures, to gradually raise up the lecture-table by a concerted action, and when Mr. Harmony's book had nearly reached to the level of his nose, to then suddenly drop the table to its original ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... an occasional vote of protest. He had never attended a primary meeting in his life, always having been too busy with his own career to realise this duty, and too nomadic in his habits to acquire a personal interest in local affairs. To him politics was the pastime of the rich, who could afford it, or the business of the poor, who used it as a means of support. The very word, as Emmet used it, conveyed an impression to his mind like that which Borrow received when his gipsy friends mentioned the mysterious ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... fair ladies at Brighton he drew, Marrowbones, cherrystones, Bundle'em jig. And jogging along with a jolly fat crew, Quite into the sea for coolness he flew, And made some fine pastime for dandies to view. Like an ambling, scambling, Braying-sweet, turn-up feet, Mane-cropt, tail-lopt, High-bred, thistle-fed, ...
— Deborah Dent and Her Donkey and Madam Fig's Gala - Two Humorous Tales • Unknown
... in cardroom circles at the "store," where men were fiercely intolerant of other pursuits than poker, for which pastime Mr. Blakely had no use whatever—no more use than had its votaries for him. He was a dreamy sort of fellow, with big blue eyes and a fair skin that were in themselves sufficient to stir the rancor of born frontiersmen, and ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... engineering. He may or may not have learned to sing, and enough of music to play creditably on lyre or harp. Unlike the young Greek, he will not necessarily have been made to recognise that gymnastic training is an essential part of education. He may indulge in such exercises by way of pastime or for health; he may, and generally will, have been taught athletics; but he does not acknowledge that they have any practical bearing upon his aptitude for either ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... company commander told me. "We learned it from the Blue Devils. They are the toughest set of undersized gentry that I have run into in France. They have forearms as big as three-inch shells, and as hard. Their favourite pastime is juggling hand-grenades that can't possibly explode unless they ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... I know his line of customers; I guess I could tell you about every piece of paper he's got. It's a poor line, wobbly and uncertain. There was a new examiner here not long ago, and he stayed in town two or three days when he usually cleans up in a day. Banking is a business, Lois, not a pastime, and Bill isn't a banker; he's a promoter. ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... social standing, did not share her husband's love of serious literature. She passed far too much of her short lifetime among the romances of the day, till her daughter has to confess that she took no little harm from the books that did her mother no harm but pastime to read. As for other things, her father's house was a perfect model of the very best morals and the very best manners. Alonso de Cepeda was a well-born and a well-bred Spanish gentleman. He came of an ancient and an illustrious Castilian stock; and, ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... from the table of the family. Fruits, tarts, and many a choice bit of cake, found their way through the children's hands to their little favorite, so that she had nothing to wish for in the eating line. Her services with the children were so much in accordance with her taste as to be almost pastime, and the old nurse was as kind and good as a mother could be. Never until this day had she been brought into a real strait; and it was in this emergency that she thought to put Mammy Grace's suggestion to the test. She had attended the weekly prayer ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... have admired and striven to perpetuate the group in the drawing-room. In the old days it was quite the proper thing to snap the family group while they were engaged in some pleasant pastime, such as spinning, or painting china, or playing the piano, or reading a volume of poems. No one ever seemed to bother about the incongruence of the eyes, which were invariably focused at the camera lens. Here they all were. Mrs. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... nearly empty, though full freight-trains rolled from the factory to the main road, of which this was only a branch. So things went on in a leisurely manner, which gave Frank many opportunities of pursuing his favorite pastime. He soon knew all about No. 11, his pet engine, and had several rides on it with Bill, the engineer, so that he felt at home there, and privately resolved that when he was a rich man he would have a road of his own, and run trains as often ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... the Southern States without its coon-hunter. In most, many of them; but in each, one who is noted. And, notedly, he is a negro. The pastime is too tame, or too humble, to tempt the white man. Sometimes the sons of "poor white trash" take part in it; but it is usually delivered over ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... impatience, for he felt that his appeal had availed nothing, and he had no heart for a battle of words. His wit had been tempered in many fires, his nature was non-incandescent to praise or gibe. He had had his share of pastime; now had come his share of toil, and the mood for give and take of words ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Goodman, in after-years was so reduced that, finding, as Sheridan advised his son to do, a pair of pistols handy, a horse saddled, and Hounslow Heath not a hundred miles distance, he took to the pleasant and profitable pastime of which Dick Turpin is the patron saint. He was all but hanged for his daring robberies, but unfortunately not quite so. He lived to suffer such indigence, that he and another rascal had but one under-garment between them, and ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... combined the trade of makers of ironwork with that of Dentists and Clockmakers, and were by Queen Elizabeth united with the Spurriers, or makers of spurs. The motto of the Bowyers' Company, "Crecy, Poictiers, Agincourt," tells of the prowess of our English archers when archery was the national pastime of Englishmen, as well as their support in war. Other allied crafts were connected with the bowyers' art, including the Stringers, or long-bow string makers, and the Fletchers, who made the arrows. The guild of the latter still exists, and forms one of our minor companies. ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... are told, It seems like pastime to grow old; And as Youth counts the shining links That Time around him binds so fast, Pleased with the task, he little thinks How hard that chain will press at last. Vain was the man, and false as vain, Who said—"were he ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... by a steward, but he must permit such discourse only, such shows, such merriment, as promote the particular end and design of such entertainments; and that is, by pleasant conversation either to beget or maintain friendship and good-will among the guests; for an entertainment is only a pastime table with a glass of wine, ending in ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... forms apart, In every scene had kept his heart; Had sighed and languished, vowed and writ For pastime, or to show his wit, But books and time and state affairs Had spoiled his fashionable airs; He now could praise, esteem, approve, But understood not what was love: His conduct might have made him styled A father and the ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... was passionately fond of the chase, and used to neglect attendance on divine worship for this amusement. While he was once engaged in this pastime, a stag appeared before him, having a crucifix bound betwixt his horns, and he heard a voice which menaced him with eternal punishment if he did not repent of his sins. He retired from the world and took ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... bonne, who had taken care of my mother in her infancy and had never left her, now took charge of me. She watched over me faithfully and filled up my childhood with affectionate attention and innocent pastime. My uncle, the Count, who had never been married, loved, petted, and indulged me in every wish. When I grew old enough, he secured a governess well qualified to teach and discipline me. Under her care, with the aid of masters in Latin, music, and drawing, from Amiens, I went through ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... boiling women, dashing out the brains of many a cherub boy and prattling girl, was the pleasing and satisfactory pastime with which Pope Gregory, Catherine de Medicis, and her congenial son gladdened their Christian hearts. The blood of their victims still cries to us from the ground of their Golgotha; for on the south side of the town there is a large green field, called Le Champ des ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... you. Have I not conquered your armies, fired your towns, and dragged your generals at my chariot wheels, since first my youthful arms could wield a spear? And do you think to see me crouch and cower before a tamed and shattered senate? The tearing of flesh and rending of sinews is but pastime compared with the mental agony ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... annihilated by the big brother if I attempted any but the 'sincerest' admiration and respect. Have no fears on that score, but tell us what is to follow this superb dinner. An apple bee, spinning match, husking party, or primitive pastime of some sort, I ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... volume will be largely acceptable in these northern parts, where wrestling is a distinctive pastime."—West ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... volcano before eruption. On a sudden, a shot or two, followed by loud voices and laughter reminded him he had promised, at that hour, and in that sequestered place, to decide a bet respecting pistol-shooting, to which the titular Lord Etherington, Jekyl, and Captain MacTurk, to whom such a pastime was peculiarly congenial, were parties as well as himself. The prospect this recollection afforded him, of vengeance on the man whom he regarded as the author of his sister's wrongs, was, in the present state of his mind, too tempting ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... becomes increasingly interesting as readers grow older and the stories they study become more and more complex and difficult. The study of the characters of Shakespeare's heroes and heroines is more than interesting pastime for men and women—it is good, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... Conway the missionary. This single volume, however, proved to be an ample library to Jacques and his Indian friend. Neither of these sons of the forest was much accustomed to reading, and neither of them would have for a moment entertained the idea of taking to literature as a pastime; but Redfeather loved the Bible for the sake of the great truths which he discovered in its inspired pages, though much of what he read was to him mysterious and utterly incomprehensible. Jacques, on the other hand, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... taste. Such work holds a man together, braced at all points; it does not suffer him to doze or wander; it keeps him actively conscious of himself, yet raised among superior interests; it gives him the profit of industry with the pleasures of a pastime. This is what his art should be to the true artist, and that to a degree unknown in other and less intimate pursuits. For other professions stand apart from the human business of life; but an art has its seat at the centre of the artist's doings ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... write my memoirs I had determined never to do so, nor to write anything for publication. At the age of nearly sixty-two I received an injury from a fall, which confined me closely to the house while it did not apparently affect my general health. This made study a pleasant pastime. Shortly after, the rascality of a business partner developed itself by the announcement of a failure. This was followed soon after by universal depression of all securities, which seemed to threaten ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... unwelcome, into scenes Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, The chamber, or refectory, may die; A necessary act incurs no blame. Not so when, held within their proper bounds, And guiltless of offence, they range the air, Or take their pastime in the spacious field. There they are privileged; and he that hunts Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong. The sum is this: If man's convenience, health, Or safety interfere, his rights and claims Are paramount, ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... the hereditary hatreds were only lulled into temporary repose. But Christian knights who were handsome and gallant might love and woo Moorish maidens who were beautiful; and, as a writer has intimated, love became the business and war the pastime of the Spaniard in Andalusia. Spain was unconsciously inbibing the soft, sensuous charm of the civilization she was exterminating; and the peculiar rhythm of Spanish music, and the subtle picturesqueness which makes the Spanish ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN enters upon its twenty-third year. Probably no publication extent will furnish a more complete and exhaustive exhibit of the progress of science and the arts in this country for the past twenty-two years than a complete file of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. It is a curious and interesting pastime to compare the condition of the mechanic arts as presented in some of our first volumes with that shown in our more recent ones. During all this time, nearly a quarter of a century, our journal has endeavored to represent the actual condition of our scientific and mechanical progress and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... state—exemplifying always either the brute-force that crushes, the skill that foils, the stratagem that surprises, or the ruse that deceives; and such is war to all intents and purposes. The philosophic diversions of science also come in and lend their aid in the game of war—the pastime of heroes and the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... united with man in making it, and was, therefore, morally bound by the flagrant usurpation, and legally concluded by it. Moreover, an excuse for turning the Constitution against her is that doing so deprives her of nothing but the pastime of dropping in a box a little piece of paper. Nevertheless, this dropping, inasmuch as it expresses her choice of the guardians of her person and property, is her great natural right to provide for the safety of her life and of the means to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... were, generally, in easy cannon range, in most places within musket range, and the pickets of the two armies were, for the most part, in speaking distance, and the men often indulged in talking, for pastime. Except in rare instances the sentinels did not fire on each other by day, but sometimes at night firing was kept up by the Confederates at intervals to prevent desertion. During the last months of the siege, circulars were issued by Grant offering ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... errands, however, are the exception. He has most of his time to himself, and passes it in merry rompings with his little brothers and cousins. If he lives near the river he spends a few hours a day in the water, bathing, splashing his playmates, and catching frogs and other edibles. A favorite pastime of his is to make a diminutive bow and ply his arrows at some old stump or some unlucky lizard or other living thing that he may have espied. If monkeys, crows, or other bold marauders are overnumerous, he probably has to sit out in the rude ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... and it's even very good of you to show such courage, for you know that it is not a bit of pastime to sit for me. Never mind, you had better confess to it, you big silly, you are afraid of another woman coming here; ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... own name,) to compear, within the space of forty days, before his master, where it should happen him to appoint, and be for the time, under the pain of disobedience. But whether this summons was proclaimed by vain persons, night-walkers, or drunken men, for their pastime, or if it was a spirit, I cannot tell truly: but it was shewn to me, that an indweller of the town, Mr. Richard Lawson, being evil disposed, ganging in his gallery-stair foreanent the Cross, hearing this voice proclaiming ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... this,' said Mrs Maurice, 'is the result of what, under other circumstances, would be a mere innocent gratification, a pleasant pastime, and a useful exercise.' ...
— Effie Maurice - Or What do I Love Best • Fanny Forester
... own. The executioner Jean became so maddened by the sight of blood flowing beneath his lash, that guards were stationed to prevent undue prolongation of the punishment. Dippe wrote: "My chief pleasure is beheading. When I was young, stabbing was my sole pastime." ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... not marry, my dear Frank?" said the dowager Lady Aveleyn, one day, when a thick fog debarred her son of his usual pastime. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... and hour after hour the line moved slowly along waiting patiently for doughnuts. The Adjutant went away a little while and returned to find some of the same boys standing in line as when he left. Some had been standing five hours! It was the only pastime they had, just as soon as they were off duty, to line up ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... his own child-like fashion, had reared his moonshine castle beam by beam. At first he had regarded it as moonshine and had refused to consider the building of it anything but a dangerously pleasant pastime. And then, little by little, as his dreams changed to hopes, it had become more and more real, until, just before the end, it was the foundation upon which his future was to rest. And down it came, and there was his ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I came upon Astounding Stories on our local newsstand. I immediately procured a copy because Science Fiction is my favorite pastime, so to speak. I was very much overjoyed that another good Science Fiction magazine should come out, and a Clayton Magazine too, which enhances its splendid value still further. I have read various members of the Clayton family and I ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... nothing about the tyranny they are frequently subjected to; and in his days, a man-o'-war was too often literally a floating pandemonium. He makes landsmen believe that Jack is the happiest, most enviable fellow in the world: storms and battles are mere pastime; lopped limbs and wounds are nothing more than jokes; there is the flowing can to 'sweethearts and wives' every Saturday night; and whenever the ship comes to port, the crew have guineas galore to spend ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... "I dig, and hoe, and weed, in this black old earth, for the sake of refreshing myself with what little nature and simplicity may be left in it, after men have so long sown and reaped here. I turn up the earth by way of pastime. My sober occupation, so far as I have any, is with a lighter material. In short, I make pictures out of sunshine; and, not to be too much dazzled with my own trade, I have prevailed with Miss Hepzibah to let me lodge in one of these dusky gables. It is like a bandage over one's ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... reflective turn of mind, and never was entirely willing to learn the things that his keepers sought to teach him. To him, dining at a table was tiresomely dull, and the donning of fashionable clothing was a frivolous pastime, On the other hand, the interior of his cage, and his gymnastic appliances of ropes, trapeze and horizontal bars, all interested him greatly. Every square inch of surface, and every piece of material in his apartment, was carefully investigated, ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... standing by his open window at 3 P. M. one afternoon a week after his sensational return to Bannister College, with the "Prodigious Prodigy" in tow, indulged in the soul-satisfying pastime of twanging his banjo, and roaring, in his subterranean voice, a parody on "I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier." It was actually the first Caruso-like outburst of the pestersome youth that year, but his saengerfest ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... know if we had any parties for pastime? Well ma'am, not many. We never was allowed to have no parties nor dances, only from Christmas Day to New Year's eve. We had plenty good things to eat on Christmas Day and Santa Claus was good to us too. We'd have all kinds of ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... little; it was not their "form" ever to indulge in that way; and the Chief, as dashing a sabreur as ever crossed a saddle, though lenient to looseness in all other matters, and very young for his command, would have been down like steel on "the boys," had any of them taken to the pastime of overmuch ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... mill-pond or a whirlpool," she said, rather sententiously: "we have been stagnant for three days, and I begin to feel flat. Races are tabooed: besides, we cannot always leave mother alone. I propose we go out in the garden and have a game of battledore and shuttlecock;" for this had been a winter pastime with ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... though enlarged, planted with verdant alleys, and otherwise decorated by Charles II., existed in the days of his grandfather, as a public and pleasant promenade; and, for the sake of exercise or pastime, was much ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Nay, he is no coward; A villain, if thou wilt, but not a coward. I've seen him play with swords; it is his pastime. And therefore be not over-confident, He'll task thy skill anon. Look, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... not consider our national pastime beneath a philosopher's attention. I have formed two theories about ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... been a study and a pastime. Every cleric is familiar with the prose translations which aided his boyhood's labours in rendering the poetry of Horace and Euripides into modern speech. But prose efforts are one thing, and poetical ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... Even in this pastime the cousins were rivals. Sir Charles's favorite horse was a magnificent thoroughbred, who was seldom far off at the finish: over good ground Richard's cocktail had no chance with him; but sometimes, ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... let's now place the various bamboo trees under her control. This old mother T'ien was originally a farmer, and everything in the way of vegetables and rice, in and about the Tao Hsiang village, should, albeit they couldn't, planted as they are as a mere pastime, be treated in such earnest as to call for large works and extensive plantations, be entrusted to her care; for won't they fare better if she can be on the spot and tend them with extra diligence at the proper times ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... expression of vital feeling, in its turn communicating the feeling to the appreciator so that he makes it a real part of his experience of life, then the thing called art is only an exercise in dexterity for the maker and a pastime for the receiver; it is not art. But art is not quite the same as life at first hand; it is rather the distillment of it. In order to render the significance of life as he has perceived and felt it, the artist ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... commonwealth knaves.' But listen unto me and take warning. For these things come we to controversy with you. And our name shall be a cannon-shot, before which your Lodge, in the pleasantness whereof ye take pastime, shall be blown into ruins; and we will be as a wedge to split asunder the King's Oak into billets to heat a brown baker's oven; and we will dispark your park, and slay your deer, and eat them ourselves, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... of years ago I was roaming through the Western provinces with a couple of old friends who persist—against my advice, I assure you—in the childish pastime of safe-blowing. We got pinched en bloc, and as I was broke I had to sponge on the yeggs to get ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... was being led to the centre of the green, attracted the attention of the bulk of the spectators, and drew them away from other sports. The actors in the miracle play threw off their dresses to come and witness this delightful pastime, and hardly any of those present seemed to regard for a moment the sufferings of the poor brute, or the savage nature of the ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of individual characters is a pleasant pastime in such a mixed community of thoroughly nice people... men of the most diverse upbringing and experience are really pals with one another, and the subjects which would be delicate ground of discussion between acquaintances are just those which are most freely used for jest.... ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... most delightful pastime one can indulge in. Aside from the pleasure and amusement derived, it cultivates the artistic taste, the love of nature, is a source of instruction, and may be made to serve many useful purposes. The "Dexter" is small, neat and compact. Makes pictures 3-1/2x3-1/2 inches square ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... and restful picture of the Big House and its lands. Now and again overhead there swung slowly an occasional great black bird, its shadow not yet falling straight on the sunlit ground, as it would at midday, when the puppies of the pack would begin their daily pastime of chasing ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... significance. It is this which dates them and which explains the enormous force of expansion that they have had. They came just after the July Revolution, and we must certainly consider them as one of the results of that. A throne had just been overturned, and, by way of pastime, churches were being pillaged and an archbishop's palace had been sackaged. Literature was also attempting an insurrection, by way of diversion. For a long time it had been feeding the revolutionary ferment which it had received from romanticism. Romanticism had demanded the freedom of the individual, ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... is now of a higher kind: as soon as the child comes into school, he will choose, for instance, the letters of the alphabet, or will write, then (his strenuous work) he will read. For recreation he will choose an intelligent pastime, such as looking ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... immediately, but, as it seemed, when he had controlled the unpleasant influence the speaker's enthusiastic mode of address had upon him. It seemed as if he were not merely speaking, and engaging the organist in speech for pastime—but rather because he could not help it. His questions, when he asked them, had a more surprising sound to himself than to the person who answered. And they vexed him—but not Summerman. When Mr. Rush asked him if he supposed it possible for them to ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... reply and he did not urge her further, to her relief; for she did not care particularly about riding, whereas it had been more than a pastime—indeed almost a passion—with ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... that he who comes to anchor on a wife may find himself moored in d—d foul ground, and after all, can't for his blood slip his cable; and that, for his own part, though he might make short trips for pastime, he would never embark in woman on the voyage of life, he was afraid of foundering ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... her character. She exercised a certain fascination over him, as a man grows fond of some beautiful, wicked beast he has half-tamed, though it turn and show its teeth at him sometimes, and be altogether more of a care than a pastime. She was so fair and evil that he could not hurt her; it would have seemed a crime to destroy anything so wondrously made. Moreover, she could amuse him and make many an hour pass pleasantly ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... improved the game itself goes without saying as being a business with him instead of a pastime, and one upon which his daily bread depended, he went into it with his whole soul, developing its beauties in a way that was impossible to the amateur who could only give to it the time that he could spare after the business ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... his time went to the cultivation of his one hobby—the track and horses—for by reason of his financial standing, having large cotton and real-estate holdings in the State, he could afford to use business as a pastime. ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... the prison unto which we doom Ourselves, no prison is; and hence to me, In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound Within the sonnets scanty plot of ground; Pleased if some souls, for such there needs must be, Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, Should find brief solace there as I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... pass their whole time in indolence; except at sunset, when they feed their horses and camels, they lounge about the whole day, without any useful employment, and without even refreshing their leisure by some trifling occupation. To smoke their pipes and drink coffee is to them the most agreeable pastime; they frequently visit each other, and collecting round the fire-place, they keep very late hours. I was told that there are some men amongst them, who play the tamboura, a sort of guitar, but I never heard any of them ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... invented by His Majesty the Emperor Yao who lived about two thousand three hundred and fifty years before Christ, so that granting an error of a couple of thousand years or so, it is still a very ancient pastime. Dominoes are known, but not much patronised; cards, on the other hand, are very common, the favourite games being those in which almost everything is left to chance. As to open-air amusements, youths of the baser sort indulge in battledore ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... medley of truth and fiction, history and mythology, became an inextricable tangle. The birds' beaks, and hooked noses of the masks in the topeng, and of the puppets in the shadow-play, were made compulsory after the Arabic conquest, in order to reconcile the national pastime with the creed of Islam, which forbade the dramatic representation of the human form. The reigning Susunhan evaded the decree by distorting mask and puppet, but although the outside world might no longer recognise the heroes of the play, Javanese knowledge of national tradition easily pierced ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... judgment. The youth who decides against the sweet between meals, we say, has good judgment. And we base our commendation on the proved fact that sweets are real fuel, giving abundantly of heat and energy, and are not to be eaten as mere pastime when the body is already fully supplied with high calorie food not yet burned up; that if sweets are eaten at irregular intervals and at the call of appetite, and not earned by an adequate output of physical work, the digestive apparatus may become clogged, ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... did the others, and went up resolutely into the cardroom. Here they were joined by Lord Grasslough, and were very quickly at work, having chosen loo as their game. Mr Fisker made an allusion to poker as a desirable pastime, but Lord Nidderdale, remembering his poetry, shook his head. 'Oh! bother,' he said, 'let's have some game that Christians play.' Mr Fisker declared himself ready for ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... host's family at Oregon, when they first went there, after all the pains and plagues of building and settling, found their first pastime in opening one of these mounds, in which they found, I think, three of the departed, seated in the ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... but Molly must have a good time. You'll see that she does, won't you, boys?" said Jill, who knew that her share of the fun would be lying on a settee and watching the rest enjoy her favorite pastime. ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... out entertainers which do not have their own entry, e.g. musician. Need singer, dancer, comedian wit —> 840. Amusement. — N. amusement, entertainment, recreation, fun, game, fun and games; diversion, divertissement; reaction, solace; pastime, passetemps[Fr], sport; labor of love; pleasure &c. 827. relaxation; leisure &c. 685. fun, frolic, merriment, jollity; joviality, jovialness[obs3]; heyday; laughter &c. 838; jocosity, jocoseness[obs3]; drollery, buffoonery, tomfoolery; mummery, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... over to town and sometimes he got an answer, for there were other scouts over there. He did it just for pastime. Usually it was the wigwag that he used. But on this morning, noticing the dried leaves all about, he said, "We'll try a smudge, that's pretty good sport; Morse Code, you know." He looked about half-interestedly ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... a hasty gesture, which she did not see, and then, ashamed at his feeling of impatience, went and sat beside her, and arranged the silks in her basket. Engaged in this light pastime, he did not hear a low rap ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... Parliamentary Front has been fairly quiet. The popular pastime of asking when the promised Home Rule Bill is to be introduced is no longer met by suitably varied but invariably evasive replies. The Government has now frankly admitted that the policy of running Home Rule ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... thou solitude? Is not the Earth With various living creatures, and the air Replenished, and all these at thy command To come and play before thee? Knowest thou not Their language and their ways? They also know, And reason not contemptibly: With these Find pastime, and bear rule; thy realm is large. So spake the Universal Lord, and seemed So ordering: I, with leave of speech implored, And humble deprecation, thus replied. Let not my words offend thee, Heavenly ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... distance!"—and that was the origin of the Field of Rest. He added: "There will I gather plants!"—and from this the Field of Reeds took its name. While he gave himself up to this philological pastime, Nuit, suddenly transported to unaccustomed heights, grew frightened, and cried for help: "For pity's sake give me supports to sustain me!" This was the origin of the support-gods. They came and stationed themselves by each of her four legs, steadying these with their hands, and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the chiefe and vttermost walles of his Islandish Monarchie, against all forreine encombrance possible. And in that fortification furthering and assuring to trust best his owne ouersight and iudgement, in yerely viewing the same in euery quarter thereof, and that as it were for his pastime Imperiall, also in Sommer time, to the ende that afterward in all securitie, hee might in Winter time (vacare) be at conuenient leisure on land, chiefly to set foorth God's due honour and secondly ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt |
