"Croquet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hours of leisure when life is most real. The family games after supper, the group around the piano singing old and modern songs, the reading aloud by one member of the circle, the cracking of nuts and the popping of corn, the picnic supper on the lawn, the tennis court or croquet ground, the home parties, the guests ever-welcome at meals, these are but items in a possible scorecard of the sociability of the home. We are giving much thought to all sorts of group activities, but how much attention have we ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... to her under the quaint trellised arch, "I always feel like a croquet ball going through ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... going to be very energetic," said Angela. "We want to play lawn tennis, for one thing. One never gets a chance nowadays, and we both hate croquet." ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... ever read the papers? Don't you know that we've got the Ashes and the Golf Championship, and the Wibbley-wob Championship, and the Spiropole, Spillikins, Puff-Feather, and Animal Grab Championships? Has it come to your notice that our croquet pair beat America last Thursday by eight hoops? Did you happen to hear that we won the Hop-skip-and-jump at the last Olympic Games? You've been out in the woods, ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... and men in scarlet plumes and full-dress uniforms, was a revelation to the sombre battalions whose officers had not yet even purchased their epaulettes and had seen no occasion to wear them. But when Cram and his lieutenants came swaggering about the garrison croquet-ground in natty shell jackets, Russian shoulder-knots, riding-breeches, boots, and spurs, there were not lacking those among the sturdy foot who looked upon the whole proceeding with great disfavor. Cram ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... his eyes, and, sure enough, there were wishbones sticking out of the ground in every direction. He thought they looked like little croquet hoops, but he made no comments, for fear of offending the old gobbler. But he felt that he must say something to make the gobbler think that he was not frightened, so he remarked, in ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... is made up into cakes by men and women, who wrap it in what is known as opium "trash," pack it in boxes and seal them hermetically for export. Each cake weighs about ten pounds, is about the size of a croquet ball, and is worth from ten to fifteen dollars, according ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... Babel having been for some time discontinued, and most of our local legislatures having adjourned, the nearest approach to a confusion of tongues is perhaps now to be found in an ordinary game of croquet. Out of eight youths and maidens caught for that performance at a picnic, four have usually learned the rules from four different manuals, and can agree on nothing; while the rest have never learned any ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... however, Tom exclaimed: "Oh, I'm tired trudging after the thing. Come on, Frank, let's go back home, and I'll beat you a game of croquet." ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... almost every real man feels a certain kind of gratification in being able to get game or fish by the exertion of his own pluck or skill. Some day perhaps this will all be changed, and we shall be contented to take our exercise in the form of massage or croquet, and our food in ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... pleasure in her daily drives with Miss Ludington that the latter ordered a pony chaise for her special use, and when Paul arranged a croquet set on the village green, she permitted him to teach her the game, and even showed some interest ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... the struggle. With a feeble oath, he sat down on a box containing croquet implements, and gave ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... evening, the night before the final and crucial meeting the young minister was walking briskly down the road from the Oa. He had been taking tea with one of his most friendly families and had stayed rather late playing croquet with the young ladies. As he went along the winding thoroughfare it suddenly occurred to him that he could save time if he went over the fields and through the woods, coming out on the road again just above the ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... into her face, and blushed with a scared look. The maid begged her pardon for coming in, saying that she had fancied the bell rang. She brought her clothes and a note. The note was from Betsy. Betsy reminded her that Liza Merkalova and Baroness Shtoltz were coming to play croquet with her that morning with their adorers, Kaluzhsky and old Stremov. "Come, if only as a study in morals. I ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... vessels as to go among the light spray of the summer watering-place to find character that can stand the test of the great struggle of human life. Ah, in the battle of life you want a stronger weapon than a lace fan or a croquet mallet! The load of life is so heavy that in order to draw it, you want a team stronger than one made up of a masculine grasshopper and ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... young girls, and was a true friend to them. She taught them to sew, and instructed them in morals and religion. When I went to Banting some years afterwards, I found a set of modest young women who were much pleased with gifts of needles, thread, and thimbles; they also enjoyed a game of croquet after the lessons were done, and it was wonderful to see what smart taps of the mallet were fearlessly given under their bare feet; for of course the ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... in the hammock, keeping their dresses clean and wondering if there would be ice-cream. Within doors Maudie worried out the "Java March" on the piano, to a dozen or more patient little listeners. On the lawn several little girls played croquet. There were no boys at the party. Wilford was going to have the boys—that is, the Conservative boys the next day. Mrs. Ducker did not believe in co-education. Boys are so rough, except Wilford. He had been so carefully ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... Pyramus and Thisbe set forth in brilliant colours, but in what wondrous manner no one quite knew. For it was true that Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee had walked with kings, danced with dukes, and played croquet with counts, and it was therefore inevitable that she should be regarded as the Empress of Woodbridge. She would have been considered so quite apart from the fact that she had great possessions—in addition to the Court fan ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... humdrum life in England, the receptions at Windsor, the parties in London, and the discussions on the Indian Council. He himself (though not indifferent to honourable recognition of his work) found far more pleasure in the quiet days passed in the home circle, the games of croquet on his lawn, and the occasional travels in Scotland and Ireland. Four years of repose were none too long, for other demands were soon to be made upon him. When Lord Elgin died suddenly in 1863, John Lawrence received the offer of ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... graphic presentation are here selected: dyeing, weaving, spinning, basketry, caning, modelling, painting, pottery, metal work, net making, gardening, etc.: and similarly, in the recreative activities, tennis, golf, hockey, baseball, croquet, bowling, skiing, and skating. A Maypole ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... late Second King, who greatly delighted in equestrian exercises and feats, was Croquet on Horseback,—a sport in which he distinguished himself by his brilliant skill and style, as he did in racing and hunting. This unique equestrian game is played exclusively by princes and noblemen. There are a number of small balls which must be croqueted into two deep holes, with the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... What with the dark, gloomy rooms of the house and the cobwebs and cranky spiders—and the people of St. Augustine believing it to be haunted—so that I could scarcely keep a servant—and green mould in the cellar—and a croquet set—and waiting down South when I distinctly promised to go back with the Sherrills in March—I take it very hard of you, Diane, to be so absent-minded. Ugh! How dark the lake has grown and the wind and the noise of the water. There's hardly a star. Diane, I ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... Burton, the traveller; and Owen Meredith, the poet. There was a portrait of Swinburne when quite a young man, together with his autograph. "I have known Mr. Swinburne all my life," remarked Mrs. Henniker. "I used to play croquet with him when I was quite a little girl, and laugh at him because he used to get in such a passion when I won the game." There was John Bright's signature, there was that of Philippe d'Orleans and General Chanzy, and last, but not least, there ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... "kick" in my kisses. I can't understand why he never revealed to me the fact that he and Lady Allie were playmates as children. In that case, she must be considerably older than she looks. But old or young, I wish she'd stayed in England with her croquet and pat-tennis and broom-stick-cricket, instead of coming out here and majestically announcing that nothing was to be expected of a country which had no ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... from the sheet of note-paper which he held in his hand, and gazed through the open French-windows before which he was standing. It was a very pleasant and very peaceful prospect. There was his croquet lawn, smooth-shaven, the hoops neatly arranged, the chalk-mark firm and distinct upon the boundary. Beyond, the tennis court, the flower gardens, and, to the left, the walled fruit garden. A little farther away was the paddock and orchard, and a little ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have a different showing. Most of these are developed by and for men; but when they are allowed, women take part in them with interest and success. In card games, in chess, checkers, and the like, in croquet and tennis, they play, and play well if well-trained. Where they fall short in so many games, and are so wholly excluded in others, is not for lack of human capacity, but for lack of masculinity. Most games ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... roll out of the way, knocked a box down off a trunk, and the box had some croquet balls in it, which rumbled over the ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Fred's • Laura Lee Hope
... collected by the late Lord Fawn with peculiar reference to the Christian theology of the third and fourth centuries. She had planned the new flower-garden,—though Lady Fawn thought that she had done that herself. She had been invaluable during Clara Fawn's long illness. She knew every rule at croquet, and could play piquet. When the girls got up charades they had to acknowledge that everything depended on Miss Morris. They were good-natured, plain, unattractive girls, who spoke of her to her face as one who could easily do anything to which she might put her hand. Lady Fawn ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Sudbury road. They had played football before Bill, and each had realized his own awkwardness and insignificance. Poor Fluff, almost reduced to tears, with a big black bruise upon his white forehead, confessed that he preferred peaceful games—like croquet, and intended to apply for a doctor's certificate of exemption. Demanding ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... in due course, for next afternoon the Rannoch party drove over in two large brakes, and with other people from the neighborhood and a band from Dumfries, my aunt's grounds presented a gay and animated scene. There was the usual tennis and croquet, while some of the men enjoyed a little putting on the excellent course my uncle, a golf enthusiast, ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... is playing croquet It's really refreshing to see. She wins in the cheerfullest way, Or loses (but rarely!) with glee. She chooses the ball that is blue, And dashes straight into the fray. I want to be present—don't you?— When Charlotte ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... manner, rattling strings of beads and bits of tinsel, mounting over all some pert little hat with a red or green feather standing saucily upright in front, she may look exceedingly pretty and piquante; and, if she came there for a game of croquet or a tableau-party, would be all in very good taste; but as she comes to confess that she is a miserable sinner, that she has done the things she ought not to have done and left undone the things she ought to have done,—as she takes upon her lips most ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... when, under happier circumstances, I would be thinking of bed, to a hot, crowded ballroom; and just at present Calcutta is simply congested with balls. I don't like things that cost a lot; simple little pleasures please me much more. To drive out to Tollygunge of an afternoon, have tea and a game of croquet, look at the picture papers, and come quietly home again, is to me ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... the sights. I used to ride over from Kalawao to Kalaupapa (about three miles across the promontory, the cliff-wall, ivied with forest and yet inaccessible from steepness, on my left), go to the Sisters' home, which is a miracle of neatness, play a game of croquet with seven leper girls (90 degrees in the shade), got a little old-maid meal served me by the Sisters, and ride home again, tired enough, but not too tired. The girls have all dolls, and love dressing them. You who know so many ladies delicately clad, and they who know so many dressmakers, ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Luxembourg you will find a garden of roses, with a rich bronze group of Greek runners in the center, and near it, back of the long marble balustrade, a croquet ground—a favorite spot for several veteran enthusiasts who play here regularly, surrounded for hours by an interested crowd who applaud and cheer the participants in this ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... mammas. They can cipher and sew; have an idea of the rotundity of the earth, with some knowledge of the other countries beyond the sea. They are fully up in all the subjects that are usually taught in Sunday schools. They can play croquet—with flirtation accompaniment—and wear chignons. Oh no! they are not savages. At least, I should ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... arshins in height. {161a} Wood floors are laid down. The windows consist of one sheet of glass. There are rich rugs and costly furniture. The roads around the house are macadamized, the ground is levelled, flower-beds are laid out, croquet- grounds are prepared, swinging-rings for gymnastics are erected, reflecting globes, often orangeries, and hotbeds, and lofty stables always with complicated scroll-work on the ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... by American and English missions, a club where the white "mammies," as all women are called, and the white officers—for Sierra Leone is a coaling station on the Cape route to India, and is garrisoned accordingly—play croquet, ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... have been as good a cook as Winnie. Whatever the reason, no one came whistling up from the bungalow after dinner to suggest "Let's hear 'Old Black Joe,'" or to offer to play a game of croquet. Presently Doctor Hugh announced that he was going to walk down to see Jack, and Rosemary went with him. Sarah and Shirley were, with some difficulty, persuaded ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... alpaca for a year and a day. Engineers, dockmen, express-drivers and mechanics largely make up the citizens of Camden. Of course, Camden has its smug corner where prosperous merchants most do congregate: where they play croquet in the front yards, and have window-boxes, and a piano and veranda-chairs and terra-cotta statuary; but for the most part the houses of Camden are rented, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... the Lord's Supper in their house; partly"—so it was pretended—"for having assisted in demolishing altars." In the great number of similar executions with which the sanguinary records of Paris abound, the fate of Nicholas Croquet and the two De Gastines—father and son—would have been forgotten, but for the extraordinary measures taken in respect to the house where the impiety had been committed of celebrating the Lord's Supper according ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... been made for a barn-like structure called a hotel, with rooms rough and not always ready. The beautiful recreation grounds mentioned in the advertising matter consisted of a plowed field worked over into a space designated as a tennis court and a grass-grown croquet ground. ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... I didn't know anything about myself; but the young gent at the store had been strong for puttin' it in, so I'd let it slide. It's a tin affair, painted bright green, with half a dozen little brass cups sunk in it. Some rubber balls and a kind of croquet mallet goes ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... be LET, FURNISHED, cosily FURNISHED COUNTRY HOUSE, offering rest, recuperation, recreation, and the acme of comfort; 10 bedrooms, 2 bath, 4 reception; stabling, garage, billiards, tennis, croquet, miniature rifle range, small golf course, fringed pool, gardens, walks, telephone, radiators, gas; near town and rail; rent L3 3s. weekly, including gardener's wages."—The Devon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... which played mornings and afternoons in an unpainted pine pagoda planted on a plot of slowly dying grass and decorated with more hanging baskets and Chinese lanterns; there was bathing at eleven and four; and there was croquet on the square of cement fenced about by poles and clothes-lines at all hours. Besides all this there were driving parties to the villages nearby; dancing parties at night with the band in the large room playing away for dear life, with ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... upreared to curb A breed of lackeys and to serve the bank Coadjutor in greed, that is the question. Shall we have music and the jocund dance, Or tolling bells? Or shall young romance roam These hills about the river, flowering now To April's tears, or shall they sit at home, Or play croquet where Thomas Rhodes may see, I ask you? If the blood of youth runs o'er And riots 'gainst this regimen of gloom, Shall we submit to have these youths and maids Branded as libertines and wantons?" Ere His ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... Wood floors are laid down. The windows consist of one sheet of glass. There are rich rugs and costly furniture. The roads around the house are macadamized, the ground is levelled, flower-beds are laid out, croquet-grounds are prepared, swinging-rings for gymnastics are erected, reflecting globes, often orangeries, and hotbeds, and lofty stables always with complicated scroll-work on the ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... coats and placing them there with gentle hands and a smiling face; occasionally she would be painted as a country milk-girl driving the cows to pasture; at other times as a young lady playing at croquet on the lawn and gambolling with children. What a contrast, what a delusion! from rags to silks and satins; from a filthy abode not fit for pigs to a palace; from turnips and diseased bacon to wine and ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... the whole sky. Keeping close beside the ever-widening stream, we dash through little clachans on the bank, beneath long, over-arching avenues of trees, and past the gates of ivy-mantled homes of blessed outlook. Here a croquet party stops playing, for the grass is getting wet with evening dew, and there, in the river, and up to the knees in it, are half a dozen anglers sweeping the wave with their spurious fly. Peebles is not far off, and the quiet nooks of the high road are filled ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... The ranch-house, long, low and fanciful in design, connected by a covered portico with the kitchen, dairies and buildings, was misleading in name, for a succession of higher hills was in sight. A vined pergola, flower gardens, swings, tennis courts and croquet grounds gave the place a ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... practised playing at A kind of heathen cricket, A croquet mallet was the bat, The Squire's ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams
... began to think of his sister. In two days she would be gone to Italy; he would not see her again for a long time, and a whole crowd of memories began to stretch out hands to him. How she and he used to walk together in the walled garden, and on the sunk croquet ground; she telling him stories, her arm round his neck, because she was two years older, and taller than he in those days. Their first talk each holidays, when he came back to her; the first tea—with unlimited jam—in the old mullion-windowed, flower-chintzed schoolroom, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... I'd done what he'd done. Put him on th' Ar-rchey Road, an' he'd be deliverin' ye a lecture on th' sin iv thinkin' ye're able to overcome th' pride iv th' flesh, as Father Kelly says. Two weeks ago I looked with contimpt on Hinnissy f'r an' because he'd not even promise to fast an' obstain fr'm croquet durin' Lent. To-night you see me mixin' me toddy without th' shadow iv remorse about me. I'm proud iv it. An' why not? I was histin' in me first wan whin th' soggarth come down fr'm a sick call, an' looked in at me. ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... none preeminent. Even at this age the principle of organization in games so strong with boys is very slight with girls. Puberty showed the greatest increase of interest among pubescent girls for croquet, and among boys for swimming, although baseball and football, the most favored for boys, rose rapidly. Although the author does not state it, it would seem from his data that plays peculiar to the different seasons were ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... oaks give way to great drooping willows, beneath whose trailing branches the river swirled angrily. On fine Saturday afternoons the band of the regiment stationed here plays on a clear space under some shady trees—for you can never sit or stand on the grass in Natal, and even croquet is played on bare leveled earth—and everybody rides or walks or drives about. When I saw the park there was not a living creature in it, for it was, as most of our summer afternoons are, wet and cold and drizzling; but, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... of everything. I have read all my books, and I hate my piano. The croquet isn't up, and there is nobody to play with ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... single human creature beside us were in sharp pain; but we can read, at breakfast, day after day, of men being killed, and of women and children dying of hunger, faster than the leaves strew the brooks in Vallombrosa;—and then go out to play croquet, as ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... senior, had agreed, with almost feverish eagerness, to the proposed change. Life had been very pleasant in Cheshire, with picnics, water-parties down the Dee, drives to show-places, lawn billiards, and croquet, but a month of it was enough. Sir Victor was immersed in his building projects and his lady-love; Lady Helena, ever since the coming and going of the lady in black, had not been the same. Powyss ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... her kettle to make chocolate, hanging it upon a croquet hoop which she had found in the garden—Philippe's hoop. But Philippe was so powerless, he couldn't even stop his croquet hoop from being heated red-hot in the flames as a kettle-holder ... One must be sensible. He ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... dolls, one after another, from cradle to bed and from bed to tiny chair and sofa. She would parade up and down the walk, using first one doll-carriage, then the other. She would even play a game of croquet against herself. Occasionally she would call in a condescending tone, "You may come in for awhile if you wish, little children." And when the delighted little throng had scampered to her side, she would show them all her toy treasures on condition ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... summer and early autumn croquet and archery offer good excuses for bringing young people together, and reunions of this kind palliate the miseries of those who cannot afford to partake of the expensive gayeties of the London season. The archery meetings ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... both Diana and I spent a great deal of time with them. We became acquainted with many of the Grafton people whom we had not known before, and among others, the family of Mr. Mack Leith. We often went up to the Leiths in the evening to play croquet. Millie and Margaret Leith were very nice girls, and the boys were nice, too. Indeed, we liked every one in the family, except poor old Miss Emily Leith. We tried hard enough to like her, because she seemed to like Diana and me very much, and ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... would go off to his work, and we would disperse, in winter to the different school-rooms, in summer to the croquet-lawn or somewhere about the garden. My mother would settle down in the drawing-room to make some garment for the babies, or to copy out something she had not finished overnight; and till three or four in the afternoon silence would reign in ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... as light as day out-doors. The moon makes the snow look like frosted cake. I can see the croquet ground as plain as can be, and it looks like a great square loaf. There's the arbor, and the seats in it have white cushions on them. How funny it would be to play croquet on the ice! Only the balls would go so ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a little difficult to understand what young people did with themselves in the country when lawn-tennis and croquet were not. There was archery for the few, and a good deal more amateur gardening and walking, with field-sports, of course, for ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Town in which she Hung Forth was given over to Croquet, Mush and Milk Sociables, a lodge of Elks and two married Preachers who doctored for the Tonsilitis. So what could the Poor ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... games began to bore him. His strong arms no longer wanted to play battledore and shuttlecock, they longed to throw stones. The squabbles over a petty game of croquet, which demanded neither ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... grounds were the pride of Nelly Northover's heart. Three quarters of an acre extended here behind the inn, and she had erected swings for the children and laid a croquet lawn for those who enjoyed that pastime. Lawn tennis she would not permit, out of respect for her herbaceous border which surrounded the place of entertainment. At one corner was a large summer-house in which her famous teas were generally taken. The charge was one shilling, and being ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... hear them, whilst he dressed, talking together in the outer room, and, later, he would pass Bunning in the Court without knowing him. He would be introduced one day to Margaret Craven and find the house in which she lived a charming comfortable place, full of light and air, with a croquet lawn at the back of it, and Mrs. Craven, a nice ordinary middle-aged woman, stout possibly and fond of gossip. And instead of being President of the Wolves and a person of importance in the College he would be once again his old self, knowing nobody, scornful ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... look quite fit for a croquet party as he stands now, with a flour-scoop in one hand and a pound of tobacco in the other. But he looks like a man at work, and also like a gentleman, as he is. "Jack ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... the West of England I made the acquaintance of the curate, a boyish young fellow not long from Oxford, who was devoted to sport and a great killer. He was not satisfied with cricket and football in their seasons and golf and lawn tennis—he would even descend to croquet when there was nothing else— and boxing and fencing, and angling in the neighbouring streams, but he had to shoot something every day as well. And it was noticed by the villagers that the shooting fury was always strongest on him on Mondays. They said it was ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... two great classes of over-furnished and unfurnished:—of those in which the Greek marble in its niche, and the precious shelf-loads of the luxurious library, leave the inmates nevertheless dependent for all their true pastime on horse, gun, and croquet-ground;—and those in which Art, honored only by the presence of a couple of engravings from Landseer, and literature, represented by a few magazines and annuals arranged in a star on the drawing-room table, are felt to be entirely foreign to the daily business of life, and entirely unnecessary ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... girlish vanity. She had put on a plain tailor-made skirt of fine dark green cloth, short enough to show the dainty little brown buckled shoes that she specially affected, and a thin white silk shirt and knitted croquet-jacket of white wool. A scarlet leather belt girt her slender waist, and a silver chatelaine jingled a gay tune at her side, and about her white slim throat was a band of scarlet velvet, and her wide-brimmed straw hat had a knot of purple and white clematis ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... they came to the second summer. Miss Gertrude Lawrence was a belle now, and the great house was constantly filled with guests. The Lawrence equipages were seen in every direction. Mrs. Minor was up frequently, in grand state. The lawn was gay with croquet-parties, the evenings were brilliant with lights and music: they had two elegant garden-parties, when the grounds were illuminated with colored lanterns, and the teas were festivals in themselves. Fred had brought home two college chums, and ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... cave some miles away Was next in order. So, one sunny day, Four prancing steeds conveyed a laughing load Of merry pleasure-seekers o'er the road. A basket picnic, music and croquet Were in the programme. Skies were blue and clear, And cool winds whispered of the Autumn near. The merry-makers filled the time with pleasure: Some floated to the music's rhythmic measure, Some played, some promenaded on ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... she had been something of an invalid; she had a sweet, sad face, and delicate hands so thin as to seem almost transparent; and she always sat in a chair under the great tree on the lawn, smiling at us as we soared to dizzy heights in the swing, or played croquet, or scurried through the paths, and in and out of the latticed summer-house with shrieks of laughter and terror. It all ended with a feast at a long table made of sawhorses and boards covered with a white cloth, and when the cake was cut there ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... late,' he said, going up to her. 'We are waiting for you to complete our eight hand croquet, and I ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... boy-companions (for my only brother was ten years older than myself), of course I played no games, except croquet. I was brought up in a sporting home, my father being an enthusiastic fox-hunter and a good all-round sportsman. I abhorred shooting, and was badly bored by coursing and fishing. Indeed, I believe ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... Home his Wife told him. He murmured something about the Last Straw and moved swiftly out of doors. Pulling up the Rover Stake from the Croquet Grounds as he ran, he cleared the Dividing Fence without touching his Hands and began to Clean House. In about a Second there was a Sound as if somebody had stubbed his Toe and dropped a Crockery Store. Then Cyrenius was ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... to say, during any months except those of May, June, and July. It begins about two o'clock and ends about five, and the entertainment consists for the most part of conversation, music, and (if there be a garden) croquet, lawn billiards, archery, &c. "Aunt Sally" is now out of fashion. The refreshments are given in the form of a dejeuner a ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... put it up to me so urgent, I don't care if I do. Course I can't sign as a reg'lar, this bein' my first jab at the simple life; but if you can stand for the punk performance I'll make at progressive euchre and croquet, you can put me on the Saturday night sub list, ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... Wolseley, and the rest of them; and yet the chances are, if you meet him twenty years hence, he will be a captain on the recruiting service, with no forces to marshal but six growing children. Then there is the sentimental sub, the perfect ladies' man, who plays croquet and the flute, pleads guilty to having cultivated the Nine, and affects a simpering pooh-pooh when he is impeached with having inspired that wicked but so witty bit of scandal in the local paper. By singularity of pairing, his fast friend is the muscular ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... A merry country party, A drive, and then croquet, A quiet, well-cooked dinner, Three times at billiards winner,— The evening sped away; When Brown, the dear old joker, Cried, "Come, my worthy broker, The hour is growing late; Your room is cool and quiet, As for the bed, just try it, Breakfast ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... golfing, parish work, horses, church, male millinery, polo and shooting; the young ladies chatted about Paris fashions and provincial adaptations thereof, the London season, the latest engagement, and the necessity of reviving the flirtatious game of croquet. Black coats, coloured dresses, flashing jewels, many-hued flowers,—the restless crowd resembled a bed of gaudy tulips tossed by the wind. And all this chattering, laughing, clattering, glittering mass of well-bred, well-groomed humanity moved, and swayed, and gyrated under ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... croquet or its nearest relative, and was so much the fashion that games were given in order to keep up political influence, perhaps, because the freedom of a garden pastime among groves and bowers afforded opportunities for those seductive arts ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... caring much about books, is still gentleman enough to value good breeding, felt a relief in exchanging the forms of his native language without the shock of hearing that a bishop was "a swell" or a croquet-party "awfully jolly." ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is a private beach, and when we have people in the house at this time of the year we always have the motor-car ready to take them down and back. That is for those who bathe early. Later on it is only a pleasant walk. Then you can learn games if you like,—golf and tennis, cricket and croquet." ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... evident embarrassment. They could not see what he saw—two young girls in gossamer gowns of white, with arms entwining each other's waists, their backs toward him, slowly pacing northward up the mesa and to the right of the road. Some old croquet arches, balls, and mallets lay scattered about, long since abandoned to dry rot and disuse, and, so absorbed were the damsels in their confidential chat,—bubbling over, too, with merry laughter,—they gave no heed to these ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... are!" cried Bea, with a grateful hug, before she answered any questions. "Twelve is enough, don't you think so! Perhaps we'd like to dance, or if the moon should be very bright, we could play croquet and row on ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... to play at croquet on the lawn, Adventurously rove a league away, Or bend their steps upon the summer morn (A mile it was, I fancy), to the bay, Taking a biscuit-luncheon on the way. To wander o'er the shining, yellow sands, Quiet and lone, and watch the snowy spray; And take the curious seaweeds in their hands, ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... Claygate stood just without the village, well surrounded with trees and commanding a pleasant view. A piece of the garden was turfed over to form a croquet green, and Fleeming became (I need scarce say) a very ardent player. He grew ardent, too, in gardening. This he took up at first to please his wife, having no natural inclination; but he had no sooner set his hand to it, than, like everything else he touched, it became with him a passion. He ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Congress of Croquet Players will be held next month at Baden. They will not hold their debates in Latin. Among the points discussed will be, whether it is allowable to pop the question on the croquet ground. Old maids are quoted as thinking that it distracts the game. Younger ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... something of the history of these attempts by the elders to curb the everlasting spirit of youth. At one time they would have eliminated all the sports. But we didn't let croquet become the national game! You ask what this nation of ours will become, and in reply I ask you what will you ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... powdered with stars of multitudinous splendor. The conditions inspired Dunham with a restless fertility of invention in Lydia's behalf. He had heard of the game of shuffle-board, that blind and dumb croquet, with which the jaded passengers on the steamers appease their terrible leisure, and with the help of the ship's carpenter he organized this pastime, and played it with her hour after hour, while Staniford looked on and smoked in grave observance, and Hicks ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... you play croquet, Mr. O'Shea?' said Nina as he entered. 'And we want also to know, are you a captain, or a Rittmeister, or a major? You can scarcely ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... everybody with a chosen few, while her daughter is left to play tennis with that Finnish girl's idea of all manly beauty, "a lieutenant," or knocks a very big ball with a very small mallet through an ancient croquet hoop, that must have come out of the ark—that is to say, if croquet hoops ever went ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... of the middle classes in towns, who have not, poor things, the opportunities which richer girls have, of keeping themselves in strong health by riding, skating, archery,— that last quite an admirable exercise for the chest and lungs, and far preferable to croquet, which involves too much unwholesome stooping.—Even a game of ball, if milliners and shop-girls had room to indulge in one after their sedentary work, might bring fresh spirits to many a heart, and fresh colour to ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... knew what was meant by lots of fun at The Knoll; a romping game at croquet, or the newly-established lawn-tennis, with girls in short petticoats and boys in Eton jackets; a raid upon the plum-trees on the crumbling red brick walls of the fine old kitchen-garden; winding up with a boisterous bout at hide-and-seek in the twilight; and finally a banquet of sandwiches, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... of the lads and lasses betook themselves down the green, shady alleys to the woods in search of blackberries, or to gather bunches of clustering hazel-nuts. The intimate friends of the lady of Vellenaux amused themselves with archery and croquet on the lawn, and strolled about the grounds watching the tenantry and others in their pursuit of pleasure. All the servants and retainers, for none had been discharged, hailed with delight the return of their young mistress and her handsome husband, for both were alike looked ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... kind, and makes one feel perfectly at home. A number of people were assembled upon the croquet lawn and in the great tent playing bridge when we arrived, and as no one seems to introduce any one it has taken me two whole days to find out people's names. Some of them, indeed, I have not grasped ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... his short stay at Barracombe, he had walked through a game of croquet with his mother—it was good practice for his left hand—or he listened disapprovingly to something she inadvertently (forgetting he was not John) read aloud for his sympathy or admiration; or he took a short stroll ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... said Katherine. "Frankly, I didn't like it very much, but then I'm so used to the Glebeshire sea that it all seemed rather tame. There was a good deal of sand blowing about the day I was there, but Paul's house is nice with a garden and a croquet-lawn, and—and—Oh! very nice, and nice ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... The laying out of the golf links in 1897 set going that dignified sport, just as the Wayside Path in 1880 occasioned some mild pedestrianism. But the Hotel diminishes rather than increases in its play-activities; and only games of cards retain a hold upon the guests, who prefer the piazza, the croquet ground, the tennis court, and the golf links ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... open, and he worried with the wheel. At the end of ten minutes I suggested he should hold the forks, and that I should handle the wheel; and we changed places. At the end of his first minute he dropped the machine, and took a short walk round the croquet lawn, with his hands pressed together between his thighs. He explained as he walked that the thing to be careful about was to avoid getting your fingers pinched between the forks and the spokes of the wheel. I replied I was convinced, from my own experience, that there was much truth in what he ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... with its green-white glow the curving road and the line of dark, abandoned, half-ruinous villas. There was not a sound to be heard outside of an occasional rifle shot in the trenches, sounding for all the world like the click of giant croquet balls. I went round to the rear of the house and looked out of the kitchen windows to the lines. A little action, some quarrel of sentries, perhaps, was going on behind the trees, just where the wooded ridge sloped ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan |
