"Gymnastics" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a fine lad; can you lift twenty stone with one hand as you used to do, eh? Your late pap was fantastical in some things, if I may say so; but he did well in having that Swiss to bring you up; do you remember you used to fight with your fists with him?—gymnastics, wasn't it they called it? But there, why I am gabbling away like this; I have only been hindering Mr. PanSHIN (she never pronounced his name PANshin as was correct) from holding forth. Besides, we'd better go and have tea; yes, let's go on to the terrace, my boy, and drink it there; ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... gracefully, were too heavy for most of the girls to do more with than lift them from the floor. She was fond of daring feats on the trapeze, and had to be checked in her indulgence in them. The Professor of gymnastics at the University came over to the Institute now and then, and it was a source of great excitement to watch some of the athletic exercises in which the young lady showed her remarkable muscular strength and skill in managing herself in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... slipped its foot on the frosty road, and then Tom was fain to abridge a movement in music and make a movement in gymnastics toward grasping the front of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... Rumbold walked from his stall to the pulpit for the sermon. Generally he gave out the number of the short anthem which accompanied this manoeuvre, but today he made no such announcement. A discreet curtain hid the organist from the congregation, and veiled his gymnastics with the stops and his antic dancing on the pedals, and now when Mr Rumbold moved from his stall, there came from the organ the short introduction to Bach's "Mein Glaubige Herz," which even Lucia had allowed to be nearly "equal" to Beethoven. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... scarcely set before he felt chilled and uncomfortable. To warm himself he did three minutes' gymnastics. The end of them found him perched on the same old broken twig, and, when he looked down, even as before, mother was climbing ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... Elijah by savagely gashing their half- naked bodies with knives and lances,—a ready way to make blood come, but not to bring fire. The frenzy became wilder as the day declined, and at last, covered with blood, hoarse with shouting, panting with their gymnastics, they 'prophesied,' having wrought themselves into that state of excitement in which incoherent rhapsodies burst from their lips. What a scene to call worship! That is what millions of men are ready to practise to-day. And all the while ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... station and pacing the platform, while the rabble of hunger thronged us on the other side. There was especially a hoy who, after being compassionated in money for his misfortune, continued to fling his wooden leg into the air and wave it at our window by some masterly gymnastics; and there was another boy who kept lamenting that he had no mother, till, having duly feed and fed him, I suggested, "But you have a father?" Then, as if he had never seen the case in that light before, he was silent, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... "Give us an education." They cannot do that. You cannot get an education from the book and the college any more than you can get to New York by reading a travelers' guide. You cannot get physical education by reading a book on gymnastics. ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... the grass. There he stood for a moment, gazing at the sky, alternately puckering his lips and opening them, but without saying a word. Mrs. Armstrong and Barbara, who had followed him, watched these facial gymnastics, the lady with astonishment, her ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... yard, and cut the square sail loose and let it drop on the deck, and I let the jib come down on a run, and managed to bundle it up some way on the bowsprit. This sort of thing took all the nautical gymnastics that I was master of, and entirely occupied my mind, so that I found myself whistling while I worked. I hoped Miss Minturn heard me whistle, because it would not only give her courage, but would let her see that ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... dare say that's all right, young one," observed Tommy, turning away with Dawson. "I see how it is. He has been coached well up in gymnastics, but when he comes to play cricket or football it will be a very different affair. A fellow may learn one thing or so at home very well, but he soon breaks down when he comes to ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... came off vanquished by the verbal gymnastics of her opponent, to whom the arguments in favor of slavery were as familiar as the principles of arithmetic, for Betty had heard the subject discussed by eloquent and interested men ever since she was able to understand what they were ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... pretend to be able to understand it. I think that he is often wilfully misleading. He does not wish to be understood. He delights in paradoxy and moral gymnastics." ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his friend the old monkey, and his troubles seemed to have increased when he stood in front of the cage calling, "Mr. Stubbs! Mr. Stubbs!" and the old fellow would not even come down from off the lofty perch where he was engaged in monkey gymnastics with several younger companions. It seemed to him, as he afterward told Ben, "as if Mr. Stubbs had gone back on him because he knew that ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... an important factor in the problem, as a young man may do with ease and safety, what might be injurious to an older person. In youth, when the body is making its most active development, the judicious use of games, sports, and gymnastics is most beneficial. In advanced life, both the power and the inclination for exercise fail, but even then effort should be made to take a certain ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... Avenue. Sometimes, having agreed to pose for the head and trunk to some young art student, he left his hand-organ behind, and permitted himself the extravagance of riding in a surface car. His boarding of a street-car was a feat of pure gymnastics, swift and virile; so, too, was his ascending or descending of a flight of steps, or the high platform on which he was to pose. Incessant practice, added to natural skill and balance, enabled him to accomplish, ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... most popular public exhibitions is the circus, a sort of travelling Astley's theatre, which belongs to a company in New York. This show visits all the large towns, once during the summer season. The performances consists of feats of horsemanship, gymnastics, dancing on the tight and slack rope, and wonderful feats of agility and strength; and to those who have taste and nerve enough to admire such sights, it possesses great attractions. The company is a large one, often exceeding forty persons; it is provided with good ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... and there are those, I believe, to whom Alvan and Clotilde von Rudiger—'acrobats of the affections' they have been called—are pleasant companions, and the story of those feats in the gymnastics of sentimentalism in which they lived to shine is the prettiest reading imaginable. But others not so fortunate or, to be plain, more honestly obtuse persist in finding that story tedious, and the bewildering appearances it deals with not human beings—not ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... transition to womanhood, and its results are then different, though much graver. In cases of this kind, lessening the mental strain is almost always followed by a cessation of the movements; change of air, country amusements, and a generally tonic treatment perfect the cure, and dancing and gymnastics overcome the remains ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... to keep up appearances—that is, the appearance of being something that you ain't. You're in the fix of a dog chasing his tail—you can't make ends meet, and if you do it'll give you such a crick in your neck that you won't get any real satisfaction out of your gymnastics. You've got to live on a rump-steak basis when you're alone, so that you can appear to be on a quail-on-toast basis when you have company. And while they're eating your quail and betting that they're cold-storage birds, they'll be whispering ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... man was a serious warning to me. I had become, from habit, so extremely active, and fond of displaying my newly-acquired gymnastics, called by the sailors "sky-larking" that my speedy exit was often prognosticated by the old quarter-masters, and even by the officers. It was clearly understood that I was either to be drowned or was to ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... object of this work is not the development of expert gymnasts, but the development of physically sound men by means of a system in which the chances of bodily injury are reduced to a minimum. When individuals show a special aptitude for gymnastics they may be encouraged, within limits, to improve this ability, but never at the ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... conversation rarely went further than "Hello, Mister!" and "Ah, Melons!" a vagabond instinct we felt in common implied a communion deeper than words. In this spiritual commingling the time passed, often beguiled by gymnastics on the fence or line (always with an eye to my window) until dinner was announced and I found a more practical void required my attention. An unlooked for incident drew us ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... the lower bowel causes, as I have pointed out, excessive activity and thereby excessive nutrition of the tissues involved in the morbid process. But sphincter ani gymnastics have been suggested by some one who thinks chronic constipation is owing to a lack of muscular activity of the lower bowels; and ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... to speak, of a sound curriculum. The same may be said of French and German. The difficulties of these tongues in themselves, and the effort required of us to enter into their spirit, imply some degree of intellectual gymnastics, but scarcely enough for our purpose. Of the sciences it behooves one to speak circumspectly, and undoubtedly mathematics and physics, at least, demand such close attention and such firm reasoning as to render them an essential part of any disciplinary education. But there are good grounds ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... little lame girl. After going farther north, into Lapland, where they see the sun shining at midnight, and spend a day with a family of Lapps and their reindeer, Gerda takes Karen home to Stockholm with her so that the child may have the benefit of the famous Swedish gymnastics for her lameness. Then such good times as the three children have together! They go to the winter carnival to see the skating and skiing; they celebrate Yule-tide with all the good old Swedish customs; and there is a birthday party for the twins, ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... easily be developed out of the many forms of physical discipline which are already used by employers on the excuses of education or hygiene. Already in some factories girls are obliged to swim whether they like it or not, or do gymnastics whether they like it or not. By a simple extension of hours or complication of exercises a pair of Swedish clubs could easily be so used as to leave their victim as exhausted as one who had come off the rack. I think it extremely ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... without interruption until lunchtime, a meal which was taken very much when the girls pleased. The time allowed for this light midday refreshment was from half-past twelve to two. The-afternoons were mostly given up to games and gymnastics, although occasionally there were more lectures, and the more studious of the girls spent a considerable part of the time studying in ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... years, was truly wonderful, putting the Prince to his best endeavors to keep up with her. The underground avenue in which they ran seemed of great length; and very shortly the old lady varied the exercise by introducing certain gymnastics. Sometimes, as she stretched out her staff, the ground would suddenly open before her, and she sprang over the wide chasm with the greatest ease; while the poor Prince, all unprepared, would have to strain every muscle in his body to clear, in the midst of his rapid career, the yawning gulf. ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... nature. When I was a boy, the minister offered us the good old remedies of Baptismal Regeneration or Prevenient Grace, instead of bidding us drench our flesh with water or crack our bones with gymnastics." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... males of the land trained to arms in boyhood—during school-days—at that period of life when boys are best fitted to receive such instruction, when they would 'go in' for military drill, as they now go in for foot-ball, cricket, or gymnastics—at that period when they have a good deal of leisure time, when they would regard the thing more as play than work—when their memories are strong and powerfully retentive, and when the principles and practice of military drill would be as thoroughly ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... who had visited Vassar College, after mentioning the fact of its two women professors—Miss Mitchell and Miss Avery—informed us that Elizabeth M. Powell is teacher of gymnastics there, and wonders whether success may not win for Miss Powell a place in the Faculty. There are literary societies in which the girls write and read essays, and give recitations, and have discussions, and President Raymond drills them in elocution or public entertainments. And yet, our friend ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... begin their fraternal gymnastics. I again feel the spirit of speculation strong within me, and say to MARGARET, "Why are gymnasts always born in couples? Why couldn't the Antipodal Cousins, or the Antipodal Relations by Marriage, break their necks together with as much effect as though they were ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... the ground oftener than on a bed. In some cases they submitted to corporal cruelty, being scourged and loaded with chains. The converse error here appeared, for they made a display of their powers of endurance.[2179] The moral gymnastics could be best practiced in solitary life. Many philosophers urged their disciples to leave home and to practice elsewhere,—in another town or in loneliness.[2180] At the end of the third century the ascetic party, in ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... cook good simple meals, marching under orders, knowing how to obey, ready to accept her responsibility, good-natured and lively in rain or sun, in public or in her home.... They continue their courses in sewing, hygiene and gymnastics and assist eagerly at conferences arranged for them to discuss the duties of the Eclaireuses and what it is necessary to do to become ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... coloratura soprano. Your first remark should be that you don't really care for the human voice—the reason being, of course, that symphonic Music, ABSOLUTE music, has spoiled you for things like vocal gymnastics. This leads your bewildered friend to ask you what sort ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... impudently, with a lazy flicker of his lashes, "to apologize for my cousin's untimely intrusion. I really fancied she was safe at the farm. Unfortunately, the house belongs to her. Besides, your crystal gymnastics, Starrett, were as unscheduled as her arrival. As it is, you've nobly demonstrated an unalterable scientific fact. The collision of marble ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... that she was superior to most women in the habit of close attention to whatever she undertook. This was the real key to her facility in languages, history, music, drawing, and calisthenics, as her professor called female gymnastics. The flexible creature's limbs were in secret steel. She could go thirty feet up a slack rope hand over hand with wonderful ease and grace, and hang by one hand for ten minutes to kiss the other to her friends. So the very day she was surprised into consenting to marry Walter secretly she sat down ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... flower of all Protestant leapers. Not having the Cardinal's foible of connecting any vanity with this little accomplishment, knowing exactly what could and what could not be effected in this department of gymnastics, and speaking with the utmost simplicity and candour of his failures and his successes alike, he might always be relied upon, and his statements were constantly in harmony with any collateral testimony that chance happened to ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... a page of Thucydides simpler? Is Persius himself more succinct or obscure? Our teachers used to apologise for teaching us Latin grammar and mathematics by telling us that they were good mental gymnastics. If education is only a matter of mental gymnastics, however, I should recommend horse-racing as an ideal study for young boys and girls. The sole objection to it is that it is so engrossing; it ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... stood in the centre of the room and went through a series of odd gymnastics. Each gun in turn he placed in the holster and then jerked it out, spinning it on the trigger guard around his second finger, while his left hand shot diagonally across his body and "fanned" the hammer. Still he could not make his choice, ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... took hold of me was that which was melodious. The long passages with no striking theme in them conveyed nothing to me, and as to Bach, excepting now and then, his music was like a skilful recitation of nonsense verses. The Marseillaise on a barrel-organ was intelligible, but gymnastics on strings—what did they represent? With pictures the case was somewhat different. I often left Clapton early in order that I might have half an hour at Christie's in quiet, and I have spent many pleasant moments in those rooms on sunny mornings ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... firm's belief in the motto mens sana in corpore sano is the presence of a lady whose whole time is devoted to the physical culture of the girls. Trained in Swedish athletics, this lady and her assistant undertake the teaching, not only of gymnastics, but of swimming and numerous games. Every day drill classes are held, an opportunity being thus provided for all the younger girls to attend a half-hour's ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... the professor was back at his old pompous, high-flown verbal gymnastics, and after supper he entertained them till bedtime with tales of his experiences, to which both boys and girls listened with ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... that was enough; and that Harry, after all these gymnastics, would go home like a boy that had some sense pounded into him by all these hard knocks. Not at all. Up he sprang, ran to Lightfoot, and jumped for the third time upon ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... opened off the sitting-room, and while I was busy with my gymnastics I heard the door open. I thought at first it was Blenkiron, but the briskness of the tread was unlike his measured gait. I had left the light burning there, and the visitor, whoever he was, had made himself at home. I slipped on a green dressing-gown Blenkiron had lent me, ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... spacious, and contained all sorts of apartments, side rooms, round and square basins, small ovens, galleries, porticoes, etc., without counting a space for bodily exercises (palaestra) where the young Pompeians went through their gymnastics. This, it will be seen, was ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... and courageous heart. He cannot improve his condition by any short-cut course or by artificial methods. Above all, he must not be deluded into the temptation of believing that his condition can be permanently improved by a mere battledore and shuttlecock of words or by any process of mere mental gymnastics or oratory alone. What is desired, along with a logical defence of his cause, are deeds, results,—multiplied results,—in the direction of building himself up, so as to leave no doubt in the minds of any one ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... at your service; and a nice little island we've got of it. Now, old boy, there's your road open, and you've just seen the correct way to travel it; so off with you, and show us the latest thing in gymnastics." ...
— Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... behind the high dashboard. Mr. Bangs stood up in order that her gymnastics might interfere, to a lesser degree, with his driving. The equipage began to move up the slope of the hill, bouncing and twisting in ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... same law of gradual modification to the purely psychic element in man, and the results will be the same. Change the education and you will change the capacities of a human being.... For instance, you believe in the powers of gymnastics, you believe that special exercise can almost transform the human body. We go one step higher. The experience of centuries shows that gymnastics exist for the soul as well as for the body. But what the soul's ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... rear a sturdy plant that can hold its own amid the storms. The child should spend as much of its life as possible in the open air, and in the warm months live out-of-doors. City children should be taken to the seashore or country to spend several months every summer. Together with outdoor sports, gymnastics adapted to the age of the child should be begun early and continued throughout life. Good muscular development is attended with good digestion and a well-balanced ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... system of light gymnastics which, with military drill, gave grace and erectness to the carriage, and every Friday afternoon, the large hall was crowded with the parents to enjoy the singing, declamations, gymnastics, dramatics, and drawing exercises, and all went merry ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... these private gymnastics Lincoln shared with his neighbors a public and popular source of intellectual and human insight. The Western pioneers, for all their exclusive devotion to practical purposes, wasted a good deal of time on apparently useless social intercourse. In the Middle Western towns of that day there ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... an ex-druggist, I had a perfect contempt for what I thought Christian Science to be. About six and a half years ago, however, having exhausted all material means at my command, - materia medica, electricity, gymnastics, cycling, and so on, - and being in a hopeless state, the study of Christian Science was taken up. I had been a sufferer from catarrh and sore throat for over thirty years, and in the last five were added several others, ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... first makes admirable loaves, the second excellent dishes, and the third capital wine;—to me these appear to be the exact parallel of the statesmen whom you mention. Now you would not be altogether pleased if I said to you, My friend, you know nothing of gymnastics; those of whom you are speaking to me are only the ministers and purveyors of luxury, who have no good or noble notions of their art, and may very likely be filling and fattening men's bodies and gaining their approval, although the result is that they lose their original flesh ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... of the state. Pythagoras himself, as is well known, paid much attention to the determination of extension and gravity, the ratios of musical tones, astronomy, and medicine. He directed his disciples, in their orgies or secret worship, to practise gymnastics, dancing, music. In correspondence with his principle of imparting to men only such knowledge as they were fitted to receive, he communicated to those who were less perfectly prepared exoteric doctrines, reserving the esoteric for the privileged few ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... cannot tell; large-sized monkeys always wrapped themselves in any bit of cloth they could find, partly in imitation of their keepers, and perhaps also because they are very chilly creatures, and, deprived of their usual violent gymnastics, suffered from cold. A Chinaman had a female orang in his shop while we were at Sarawak, who took a violent liking to the Bishop, and always expected to be noticed when he passed the shop. Then she would ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... the Reverend Doctor Folliott, "he has made a subject for science of the only friend he had in the world." "Ay, my dear," he resumed, the next morning at breakfast, "if my old reading, and my early gymnastics (for, as the great Hermann says, before I was demulced by the Muses, I was ferocis ingenii puer, et ad arma quam ad literas paratior), had not imbued me indelibly with some of the holy rage of Frere Jean des Entommeures, I should be, at this moment, lying on ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... birds are! Dressed in their gay attire, they display it to the best advantage before the fair sex. Is there anything so interesting or so amusing as bird courtship? The rollicking song of the male, an exhibition of his vocal powers worthy of a virtuoso, is accompanied by the most comical gymnastics—bowing, scraping, and side-stepping like a dancing-master; all of which, I am sure, is highly appreciated by the demure little lady. I have seen birds courting in the stately figures of the minuet, crossing over and back, bowing and curtsying, in a dignified ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... him an opportunity, if he felt so disposed, of "jumping," in his turn, on his excitable opponent. The General did feel "so disposed," and proceeded, in popular parlance, to "see" Mr. J. McNeill Whistler and "go him one better." In this species of linguistic gymnastics, by the way, the military Commissioner asks no odds of any one. He began by gently remarking that Mr. Whistler, in his published remarks, had soared far out of the domain of strict veracity. This was not bad for a "starter," and was ably supported ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... reprieve from the ordinary exaction. I once knew (that is, not personally, for I never saw her, but through the reports of her many friends) an intrepid lady, [Footnote: If I remember rightly, some account is given of this palstric lady and her stern Pdo-gymnastics, in a clever book on household medicine and surgery under circumstances of inevitable seclusion from professional aid, written about the year 1820-22, by Mr. Haden, a surgeon of London.] living in the city of London (that is, technically the city, as opposed to Westminster, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... there was a throng before the door. The music had started up, and half a block away you could hear the dull "broom, broom" of a cello, with the squeaking of two fiddles which vied with each other in intricate and altitudinous gymnastics. Seeing the throng, Marija abandoned precipitately the debate concerning the ancestors of her coachman, and, springing from the moving carriage, plunged in and proceeded to clear a way to the hall. Once within, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... in judging anything is that if you have the materials for an intelligent criticism, the case is already prejudiced in your hands. You do not bring a free mind to it, and all your efforts to free your mind are a species of gymnastics more or less admirable, but not really effective for the purpose. The best way is to own yourself unfair at the start, and then you can have some hope of doing yourself justice, if not your subject. In other words, if you went to see the Hamlet of Mme. Bernhardt frankly expecting ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... science is to be found in Sweden in the person of Prof. Hjalmar Oehrwal who has discussed in his essays native and foreign discoveries in the field of psychology. One of his conclusions is that the so-called technical exercises, gymnastics, manual training, sloyd, and the like, are not, as they are erroneously called, a relaxation from mental overstrain by change in work, but simply a new form of brain fatigue. All work, he finds, done under conditions of fatigue is uneconomic whether ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... sort indulge in battledore and shuttlecock without the battledore, and every resident in China must have admired the skill with which the foot is used instead, at this foot-shuttlecock game. Twirling heavy bars round the body, and gymnastics generally, are practised by the coolie and horse-boy classes; but the disciple of Confucius, who has already discovered how "pleasant it is to learn with a constant perseverance and application,"[] would stare indeed if asked to lay ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... am writing at this moment with nothing on but a shirt and pair of white trousers, and have been sitting four hours at this paper, but am as faint with the heat as if I had been at some tremendous gymnastics; and yet we had a thunderstorm ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... for a stipend of twelve hundred livres a year, was to do it all, a compromise became necessary, and it has been agreed for the present, that infants of six years shall be taught only reading, writing, gymnastics, geometry, geography, natural philosophy, and history of all free nations, and that of all the tyrants, the rights of man, and the patriotic songs. —Yet, after these years of consideration, and days of debate, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... handsome Liparian; and the men of the old school are getting up an appetite by games of tennis, bowls, or quoits; while the young Grecianised fops—lisping feeble jokes—saunter by with a listless contempt for such vulgar gymnastics. We are in the Via Appia. Barine sweeps along in her chariot in superb toilette, shooting glances from her sleepy cruel eyes. The young fellows are all agaze. What is this? Young Pompilius, not three ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... enjoyment, "to avoid anything in the nature of an epigram. There is nothing so unconvincing, so stultifying to one's statements, as to express them epigrammatically. People at once give you credit for an attempt at intellectual gymnastics which takes no regard to the truth. I will not, therefore, weary you with a diatribe upon the condition of that heterogeneous mass which is known to-day as Society. I will simply point out to you ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the diary is a clear indication of my pursuits. It is called an "Account of time spent in Literature, Art, Music, and Gymnastics." The reader may observe that Literature comes before Art, so that if I am now an author rather than an artist, the reason may be found in early studies and inclination. Music and gymnastics were, in my view, only a part of general culture, yet of considerable importance ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... which—shuffled in with an armful of yellow paper which he flopped down on the pine table. After a minute he returned with a warbled "Take Me Back to New York Town" and a paste-pot. And upon his third appearance he was practising gymnastics with a huge pair of shears, which ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... of middle stature; his countenance was peculiarly expressive of intelligence. His hair was auburn, his eyes dark, and his complexion clear and sanguine. He was considerably robust, and took delight in practising gymnastics; he desired fame, not less for feats of running and leaping, than in the sedate pursuits of literature. His premature death was the subject of general lamentation; in the "Lord of the Isles," Scott introduced the following stanza in tribute to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... just behind the little girls, heard what they were saying, and pushed his crutch away from him with an impatient gesture as he watched the active lads going through all sorts of comical gymnastics. Beth, who was collecting the scattered Author cards, looked up and said, in her shy yet friendly way, "I'm afraid you are tired. Can I do anything ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... themselves to much unrecorded observation, much unspoken mutual criticism, and the exercise of great patience. It was tiresome for the English to be tied to a language that crippled all spontaneous talk; these linguistic gymnastics were fun to begin with, but soon they became very troublesome; and the Belgians suspected sensibilities in their hosts and a vast unwritten code of etiquette that did not exist; at first they were always waiting, as ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... a home of logic. Rome was the city of law. That law, cold, inflexible, passionless as a sword and quite as effective, Rome brandished at philosophy. It is said that the intellectual gymnastics of Greece were displeasing to her traditions. It is more probable that augurs had foreseen or oracles had foretold that philosophy would divest her of the sword, and with it of her sceptre and her might. Ideas cannot ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... was, without being aware of it, made happier by such little quarrels, which served as cathartics to relieve her bitterness. The soul has its needs, and, like the body, its gymnastics. These uncertainties of temper were accepted by Josette and Jacquelin as changes in the weather are accepted by husbandmen. Those worthy souls remark, "It is fine to-day," or "It rains," without arraigning the heavens. And so when they met in the morning the ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... the points of cattle, and to absorb useful information in homeopathic doses about the various breeds of sheep; but Mack never at any time seemed grateful to Ryder for his kindly condescension, and the affliction under the influence of which Mack indulged in strange and disconcerting gymnastics with his tongue rendered conversation with him something of an ordeal, even to a man of Ryder's insensitive character. Mack's tongue seemed to become too large for his mouth at times, and then he obtruded it, rolled it first in one cheek and then in the other, chewed it, and ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... man and old beside, Why dost gymnastics do? Is such example dignified To set before ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... the death rate, is low, but the morbidity is increasing at this time, in the boy at least. Vigorous physical exercise is now needed. Ordinary play is not enough. Gymnastics also for the development and training of the hand and the wrist, training in quickness and precision of movement are all excellent exercise, all the finer muscles should be trained now, and probably less training should be given to the heavy fundamental muscles ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... Greek" I hear repeating the suave tones of Doctor Florret, echoing as ever the solemn croak of Correctness, "are useful as mental gymnastics." My dear Doctor Florret and Co., cannot you, out of the vast storehouse of really necessary knowledge, select apparatus better fitted to strengthen and not overstrain the mental muscles of ten-to-fourteen? You, gentle reader, with brain fully grown, trained ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... to a swarm of wasps which, roused from their nest, on which he had been standing, covered his lower extremities, and had made their way inside his pantaloons, stinging him on both legs, and crawling up his body. The pain must have been intense, and fully accounted for his gymnastics and frantic efforts to crush the insects. It was some days before he recovered from the wounds he had received, far more painful—as he averred—than the enemy's bullet, I intimated at the time to my friend that the wasps probably were the ghosts ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... of gymnastics is evident in many places, for he makes his characters always at work, some in appropriate occupations, some for the sake of exercise. Although the Phaeacians are externally given to softness, and the suitors are dissolute, he introduces them doing gymnastic feats. And ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... puffing his pipe. "I was disp'sitioned for a wife that a-way when I'm a colt. But that's a long time ago; I ain't in line for no sech gymnastics no more; my years is 'way ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... it off like that, Nanny, for I'm just going to hold your arms like this till you tell me, and it's no use your wriggling like that, for you can't get away; you may be bigger, but you didn't learn gymnastics in your youth, and so you are not so strong in ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... this is the matter; don't you hear? He leaves us his contemporaries, and goes a thousand years off to talk to us, which he does by aid of these tongue-gymnastics and extraordinary compounds— prides himself upon it, too, as if it were a great thing to disguise yourself, and mutilate the ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... labour be implanted in your soul, and you be not wearied either by standing or walking, nor be exceedingly vexed at shivering with cold, nor long to break your fast, and you refrain from wine, and gymnastics, and the other follies, and consider this the highest excellence, as is proper a clever man should, to conquer by action and counsel, and by battling ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... War, when every thing that was elegant and intellectual culminated at Athens. Sophocles had every element of character and person which fascinated the Greeks: beauty of person, symmetry of form, skill in gymnastics, calmness and dignity of manner, a cheerful and amiable temper, a ready wit, a meditative piety, a spontaneity of genius, an affectionate admiration for talent, and patriotic devotion to his country. His tragedies, by the universal consent of the best ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... raucous cry took shape: "Kroojer's reply. Lytest from Sarth Hafricar." That day's papers had spoken of probable war, and Royson wanted to be there. He had dreamed of doing some work for the press, and was a reader and writer in his spare time, while he kept his muscles fit by gymnastics. But those past yearnings were merged in his new calling. He was a sailor now, a filibuster of sorts. The bo's'n's whistle would take the place of the bugle-call. Would that have pleased his mother? Well, poor soul, she had never imagined that her son would be ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... always clearly drawn. In Amsterdam, for example, there are four different grades. In the lower schools the subjects taught are, besides reading, writing, and arithmetic, grammar and history, geography, natural history and botany, drawing, singing and free gymnastics, and the girls also learn needlework, but a large proportion of the pupils are satisfied with a more modest course, and know little more than the three R's. The children attending these schools are between six and twelve years of age, though in some rural districts few of them are less than ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... Bertram Kimball Professorship of Art; the Chair of Music, from the Billings estate; the Chair of Botany, by Mr. H.H. Hunnewell, January, 1901. And in 1908 and 1909, the arrangements with the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics were completed, by which that school,—with an endowment of one hundred thousand dollars and a gymnasium erected on the Wellesley campus through the efforts of Miss Amy Morris Homans, the director, and Wellesley friends,—became a part of Wellesley ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... laboratories of conduct, and they should not only give physical exercise, but should also furnish standards and ideals. There can be no doubt that women are physically more restrained, retiring, non-contesting, and graceful than men; but can dancing, marching, and gymnastics take the place of more aggressive, direct and violent contests in the training of boys? So in industries, women are more given to conserving, arranging and beautifying, more given to clerking and recording, while men are more creative, disbursing, more given to mining, agriculture ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... simple and honest hearts practise what they there learn. Third, that the training of the bodily system should form a regular part of our common-school education,—every common school being provided with a well-instructed teacher of gymnastics; and the growth and development of each pupil's body being as much noticed and marked as is now the growth of his mind. The same course should be continued and enlarged in colleges and female seminaries, which should ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... could only hold each other tight and squeal with delight, for never had they seen anything so funny; but when the gymnastics ended, and the dizzy dog came and stood on the step before them barking loudly, with that pink nose of his sniffing at their feet and his queer eyes fixed sharply upon them, their amusement turned to fear again, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... mother looked up with a quiet smile as the jolly bridegroom burst into a loud laugh. "Ay, Jean my woman, it's time enough to think o' troubles when they come." And then he tossed Miss Josey up to the ceiling with such vigorous jerks, that Flora watched his gymnastics in nervous fear lest the child should fall out of his huge grasp and ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... The conversation turned on gymnastics. Denis, Guy, and Leonetta all seemed to be talking at once; it was a subject that Cleopatra did not know ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... of study lays out a series of obsolescent Swedish gymnastics for each of the years. The work observed was mechanical, perfunctory, and lacking in vitality. Sandwiched in between exhausting intellectual drill, it has the value of giving a little relief and rest. This is good, but ...
— What the Schools Teach and Might Teach • John Franklin Bobbitt
... question is, have you a scheme of life consonant with the spirit of modern philosophy—with the views of intelligent, moral, humane human beings of this period? Or are you one of your robust English brotherhood worthy of a Caligula in his prime, lions in gymnastics—for a time; sheep always in the dominions of mind; and all of one pattern, all in a rut! Favour me with an outline of your ideas. Pour them out pell-mell, intelligibly or not, no matter. I undertake to catch you somewhere. I mean to know you, hark you, rather with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... back and gallop them to town; don't kick up and buck, but be a good and gentle old steed, and join in a hearty horse laugh in their merriment. Take the baby on your knee and gallop him to town; let him practice gymnastics on top of your head and take your scalp; let him puncture a hole in your ear with his little teeth, and bite off the end of the paternal nose. Make your homes beautiful with your duty and your love, make them bright with ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... Hers was no perfunctory task; a mother could not have displayed greater interest in her children. The number of pupils varies from one hundred and ten to one hundred and thirty, a little less than half of them being Catholics. All kinds of primary instruction are given, including gymnastics, singing, and marching. Bible stories hold an important place in this elementary teaching, even those which are sometimes considered to be beyond the reach of children; for there is nothing in any other book to take their place. It is useless to add that not only ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... Hence the Scholastic Philosophy did not advance knowledge, since it did not seek the acquisition of new truths, but only the establishment of the old. Its utility consisted in training the human mind to logical reasonings. It exercised the intellect and strengthened it, as gymnastics do the body, without enlarging it. It was nothing but barren dialectics,—"dry bones," a perpetual fencing. The soul cries out for bread; the Scholastics gave ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... engaged in mental work—home preparation included—longer than at most six hours a day; hence the hours of teaching of any mental subject were limited to three a day, whilst two other school hours were devoted daily to physical exercises—gymnastics, running, dancing, swimming, riding; and for boys, in addition, fencing, wrestling, and shooting. A further principle in Freeland education was that the children should not be forced into activity any more than the adults. We held that a properly directed ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... success to the fact that Mrs. Beale had, as Susan said, but just stepped out. When Sir Claude, watch in hand, had met this fact with the exclamation "Then pack Miss Farange and come off with us!" there had ensued on the stairs a series of gymnastics of a nature to bring Miss Farange's heart into Miss Farange's mouth. She sat with Sir Claude in a four-wheeler while he still held his watch; held it longer than any doctor who had ever felt her pulse; long enough to give her a vision of something like the ecstasy of neglecting such ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... seen or heard or felt by touch; it is entirely independent of the physical senses; it is not Giving or Receiving, it is not even a receiving of some new knowledge from the Reality; it has nothing to do with thought or intellectual gymnastics; all such are seen to be but mist. The nearest description I can formulate is:—A wondrous feeling of perfect peace;—absolute rest from physical interference;—perfect contentment;—the sense of Being-one-with-the-Reality, carrying with it a knowledge that the Reality or Spiritual is nearer to ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... exhausts the vast subject of dyspepsia and arthritis. But without ignoring the utility of thermal waters, of morning promenades, of dry frictions and gymnastics, the sufferers should, above all, be advised to minutely masticate their food, to limit the amount of liquids at meal time, to use salt, which will by no means increase their thirst; and in certain ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... expression just in time to keep his laughter back. The offer of gymnastics clearly involved ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... alas! Six hours after, as I sat looking sadly in the fire, the pangs returned, and the drug had to be re-administered. In short, from that day forth it seemed only by a great effort as of gymnastics, and only under the immediate stimulation of the drug, that I was able to wear the countenance of Jekyll. At all hours of the day and night, I would be taken with the premonitory shudder; above all, if I slept, or even dozed for a moment in ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... girls too, ought to train themselves to habits of agility, and nothing is more calculated to do this than Gymnastics, which may be rendered a source of ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... of Alexander's successors the Jewish system, with its mixture of ethics and ritual, came in collision with the ideas and practice of degenerate Greek culture,—pleasure-loving, nature-worshiping, sensual, with gymnastics and aesthetics, tolerant and tyrannical. The two systems were hostile alike in their virtues and vices. The Greek ruler put down with a strong hand the religious and patriotic scruples of his Jewish subject. The Jew bore persecution with the tough endurance of his race, then rose in ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... I believe, a source of intellectual pleasure which is consistently neglected and even despised. It is regarded as a mere luxury; but we do not make the mistake of substituting gymnastics for games, and removing the pleasure of personal performance. Why can we not also do something to encourage what old Hawtrey used so beautifully to call "the sweet pride of authorship"? The worst of it all is that we look so much to tangible ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... swung herself up somehow and clutched at him with both hands. The half-dead bough, resenting these gymnastics, cracked ominously. There was a gasp, a scuffle. Roy hung on valiantly, dragging her ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... the organization's events, with the exception of boxing, to the Panama-Pacific Exposition. These championships are the blue-ribbon events of the amateur world. They include track and field games, swimming, boxing, wrestling and indoor gymnastics. Three of these championships were staged in San Francisco before the ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... that the stolen fruit was not so sweet to his tongue as Job had expected, or his conscience may at length have begun to act once more. He slowly raised his head and gazed longingly up and down the street, as if yearning to try a wider field for his gymnastics. Then apparently his sense of duty carried the day for, turning reluctantly, he plodded away to the open stable door, and quietly marched into his ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... interrupted their mental gymnastics, save only the stealthy scrape of a pen, the subdued rustle of writing paper, the flutter of ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... recently addressed by Mr. BERNARD SHAW to Mr. G. K. CHESTERTON, for undue indulgence in paradoxical gymnastics, has given great satisfaction to the members of the Society for the Promotion of Simplified Thought. As the President of the Society, Dr. Pickering Phibbs, puts it, to have Mr. SHAW on the side of the angels is enough to make the Powers of Darkness ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... though a moderate one—not by a third equal to salaries in English schools of the same grade—was yet reasonable; and when it is added that it was a day-school; that there was held only one session of five hours, with a roomy interval for lunch, gymnastics and music; that each teacher had a large, well-furnished and cleanly-kept room to himself—a luxury which is rare in the best English schools; that each department was under the charge of a separate ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... training school, (34) whereby it will not be necessary for an old man like myself to strip in public? (35) All I shall need will be a seven-sofa'd chamber, (36) where I can warm to work, (37) just like the lad here who has found this room quite ample for the purpose. And in winter I shall do gymnastics (38) under cover, or when the weather is broiling under shade.... But what is it you keep on laughing at—the wish on my part to reduce to moderate size a paunch a trifle too rotund? Is that the source of merriment? ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... him, and which beat all his others. He could actually turn a somersault backwards with all the ease and finish of a professional acrobat. How he got to do this I don't know. It must have been natural to him and he never found it out before; he was always good at gymnastics—and all things that required grace and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... it proved, was performing most wondrous gymnastics upon the ground,—smelling here, smelling there, too agile to be tipsy, too silent to be mad. I had no desire to be alone in a lonely road at nightfall with a maniac, and I was not sorry when my nearer approach resolved these strange phenomena into a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... were allowed under the Jewish code, and cannot therefore be supposed to be prohibited here. How far either is consistent with the deepest meaning of the law, as expanded and reconsecrated in Christianity, is another question. Their defenders have to execute some startling feats of gymnastics to harmonise ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... preached careful and sober sermons, without oratorical display and with rigid avoidance of levity. He would not make the church a field either for fireworks or jokes, or even for displays of scholarship or intellectual gymnastics. In his opinion, religious establishments were kept up to advance religion and morals. And both he and his wife wrought zealously in the humble but exacting field ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... when put into operation, but radio, as elsewhere, had taken the school by storm. Separate departments had been organized this year for it. It was equally an interesting plaything and a source of mental gymnastics. It was a matter of curiosity, and not to be interested, was to ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... at "footer;" Acton is going in again for the "heavy"—this time without the Coon's help—and those "niggers," Singh Ram and Runjit Mehtah, to Worcester's intense disgust, are the representatives of St. Amory's in gymnastics; and, altogether, Biffen's House is, thanks to Acton's help, perhaps the most ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... wonder if I managed it brilliantly. Some day I'll write a few exercises; just take two lines of some good prose writer, and expand them into twenty, in half-a-dozen different ways. Excellent mental gymnastics!' ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... rest, in a truly royal style. At last, weary of singing and jumping the rope, and singing "Merry O'Jenny," they launched into bolder amusements. They ran over the flower-beds, leaping from bed to bed, trampling down many a fair, vernal bud, and then trying their gymnastics by climbing the fences and the low trees. A white railing divided Miss Thusa's bleaching ground, with its winding rill, from the garden, and as they peeped at the white thread shining on the grass, ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... told whether he watched her for six minutes or sixteen. When her gymnastics were over, she paused to catch up a lock of hair that had come down, and examined with solicitude a little reddish mole that grew under her left arm-pit. Then, with her hand on her hip, she walked unconcernedly across the room and disappeared through the ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... makes us wondrous blind.) Other symptoms followed. His hat, for example, which had hitherto behaved in exemplary fashion, now refused to remain steadily balanced on his head; it took some first-class gymnastics to prevent it from falling to the ground. In fact, while I confined myself to the minor part of Silenus—my native role—this youngster gave a noteworthy representation ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... worse than the stings of twenty wasps. If the brother of that now squashed brute should drop upon me, during my repose, from that roof (which I perceive is of 'guano' leaf, and admirably adapted for scorpion gymnastics), my appearance at the breakfast-table to-morrow, and for days after, will be hideous; to say nothing of personal discomfort and fever. Now, a mosquito net stretched over you on its frame, effectually insures you against such midnight visitors; ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... very mild gymnastics, and occasionally hitting himself on the left arm with the right fist.' Look at my muscle—look at it—and all in ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... he said. 'But isn't education really like gymnastics, isn't the end of education the production of a well-trained, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... at a loose end," he said. He took a gold cigarette-case from his pocket and extracted a cigarette. Traill continued his gymnastics with the shirt, forcing studs through obdurate holes, fastening links and ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... not all: there was no way of lying but straight on your back; unless, to be sure, one's limb went round and round in the ankle, like a swivel. Upon getting into a sort of doze, it was no wonder this uneasy posture gave me the nightmare. Under the delusion that I was about some gymnastics or other, I gave my unfortunate member such a twitch that I started up with the idea that someone was dragging ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... the class routine were so inevitable a consequence of Swedish exercises and gymnastics that Miss Bailey was forced to sacrifice Yetta's physical development to the general discipline and to anchor her in quiet waters during the frequent periods of drill. When she had been in time she sat at Teacher's ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... shore as it was at all prudent for her to approach, she was turned with her head to seaward, and the skipper came down to apprise me of the state of affairs. The boat had taken about twenty minutes to feel her way in, and during that time I had been assiduously practising gymnastics; I was therefore now not only dry but also in a pleasant glow of warmth, and quite ready to undertake the really formidable part of the task that still ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... shaky by half," said young Thorpe. "I haven't kept you up enough in your gymnastics lately. We must have some more leap-frog in the garden; and I'll bring my boxing gloves next time, and open your chest by teaching you to fight. Splendid exercise, and so good for your sluggish ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... comedian. He loved to amuse a crowd and make people laugh. He would go through a great trapeze performance of clownish and absurd gymnastics, and often end it with three or four loud smacks of his big black feet against the wall. This was accomplished by violent kicking backwards. His dancing and up-and- down jumping always made visitors laugh, after which he would ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... were, owing to the shortness of their carabines, drawn up in two ranks, instead of in the regimental style of three ranks. They manoeuvred in line, like all other infantry battalions, but, in addition to the ordinary drill, were trained in gymnastics and double-quick evolutions, as well as in fencing with the bayonet, a special course of sharp-shooting, and what was termed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... grace of their own that bespoke health and dignity. She had a profession, too, which was much beneath most of the be-crimped and smile-wreathed maidens who basked in the favour of the bachelors. She had been to New York and had learned to teach gymnastics, the very newest sort; 'Delsart' or 'Emerson,' or some such name, attached to the rhythmic motions she performed. The Syndicate had no opportunity to criticise the gymnastic performance, for they had not the ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... to go to bed. Not liking to show any distrust of my hosts, I assented with apparent readiness, and followed the old woman into a hall, and up a rude ladder, which I should have found it very difficult to mount had it not been for my early exercise in this kind of gymnastics, when searching for hen's eggs in the barn, at my New ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... that the education which should embrace these subjects and no others would be a real education, though an incomplete one; while an education which omits them is really not an education at all, but a more or less useful course of intellectual gymnastics? ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... gnawing worm of ambition for a while, but a week before that worm had been roused up again with fresh force. The friend of his childhood, a man of the same set, of the same coterie, his comrade in the Corps of Pages, Serpuhovskoy, who had left school with him and had been his rival in class, in gymnastics, in their scrapes and their dreams of glory, had come back a few days before from Central Asia, where he had gained two steps up in rank, and an order rarely bestowed upon ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... bathing, exercises in the open air—precisely not gymnastics, but voluntary exercises, each to his own taste—could have always put off the coming of this climacteric period or soften and make ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... inflicted on the Sokol Gymnastic Association during the war. The sphere of the Sokols' activity does not touch political affairs at all, being reserved to gymnastics and spiritual education. Their activity was public, open to official inquiries and supervision. But this did not save them from persecutions. The first persecution was already committed in 1914 in Moravia, when some branches of the Sokol Association ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... realize how Terpander could, by the power of his song, reconcile the political factions in Sparta, and how Plato could write, in the "Republic," that "any musical innovation is full of danger to the state and ought to be prevented." He looked upon music as a tonic which does for the mind what gymnastics do for the body; and taught that only such music ought to be tolerated by the state as had a moral purpose, while enervating forms should be ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... snare of the devil. Thus Bernard stood for all that was most uncompromising in the theological attitude of the time. Speculative discussion was an abomination; for the end of conversation was spiritual edification, not the advancement of knowledge; and what to strong minds might be mental gymnastics, in the case of weaker brethren caused the undermining of their faith. Against heretics of the commoner sort, such as the Petrobrusians, who impugned the whole system of the Church and appealed to the mere words of Scripture, there ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... the schools can give their pupils for the military life, as well as for any other life, is a well-directed course of gymnastics and the habits of activity, order, initiative, and discipline derived from the practice of the ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... the celebrated German professor, who invented the modern system of gymnastics, is writing his personal memoirs. He is about seventy years of age, and his long life has been ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... the form of athletics, or of workshop effort, or of camping, hunting, etc., is a fundamental condition of healthy growth for the boys and girls. As every group must have its meeting place, this should be first provided, and it should be of a nature that allows gymnastics and hammering and boxing to go on without any restrictions beyond those required by the nature of the little animals. That is, there is need for sleep and rest and meals—and perhaps certain definite hours for school and ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... main force, physical force, brute force; spring, elasticity, tone, tension, tonicity. stoutness &c adj.; lustihood^, stamina, nerve, muscle, sinew, thews and sinews, physique; pith, pithiness; virtility, vitality. athletics, athleticism^; gymnastics, feats of strength. adamant, steel, iron, oak, heart of oak; iron grip; grit, bone. athlete, gymnast, acrobat; superman, Atlas, Hercules, Antaeus^, Samson, Cyclops, Goliath; tower of strength; giant refreshed. strengthening &c v.; invigoration, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... sixteenth. The doctor, who guessed at once that some amorous adventure was on foot, promised to do his best, and so ingeniously plied his patient with drugs and potions that on the sixteenth Doro was out of bed, and busily doing gymnastics to test his strength ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... single hand, but are rather collations or compilations of floating monologues, dialogues or anecdotes. There are no doubt here and there simple discussions but there is no pedantry or gymnastics of logic. Even the most casual reader cannot but be struck with the earnestness and enthusiasm of the sages. They run from place to place with great eagerness in search of a teacher competent to instruct them about the nature of Brahman. Where ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... way out and crossed in the same manner. But Frank was too heavy for such gymnastics. Fisher therefore took a firm grip on the pine, inserted his toe in the crevice, and hung on with all his strength while Frank crossed ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... strength of wrist, which betokened a man well trained in gymnastics, the Englishman seized the coping of the wall, swung himself to the top, and dropped down on the other side. Roland followed with the rapidity of one who is not achieving a feat for the first time. They were both on the other side, where the desertion and desolation were more visible by ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... and achieve success. The impassioned preaching of Whitefield was what gave the "Methodist color." Charles Wesley was much like Whitefield, and was regarded as a greater preacher than his brother because he indulged in more gymnastics—but John was far the greater man. And so the Great Awakening began; other preachers followed the example of the Wesleys, and were preaching in the fields and by the roadside and were organizing "Methodist Societies." But John Wesley ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... hold each other tight and squeal with delight, for never had they seen any thing so funny; but, when the gymnastics ended, and the dizzy dog came and stood on the step before them barking loudly, with that pink nose of his sniffing at their feet, and his queer eyes fixed sharply upon them, their amusement turned to fear again, and they dared ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... hands in the cold stream of clear water running near them, combed their hair, stretched and limbered arms and legs by a series of gymnastics to which they were accustomed, and then, returning to the mouth of the cavern, found, by raking over the ashes, that enough live embers remained to broil the venison more acceptably than any meal that had been prepared since coming ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... desert Demetrius after his defeat, but was entrusted with the care of those cities which Demetrius possessed in Greece, and kept them faithful to his cause. When he made a treaty with Ptolemy, Pyrrhus was sent to Egypt as a hostage, where he hunted and practised gymnastics with Ptolemy, showing great bodily strength and endurance. Observing that Berenike was the most powerful and intelligent of Ptolemy's wives, he paid especial court to her, and, as he knew well how to gain the favour of the powerful, though he ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... whole nation. The Pythian games were celebrated in every third Olympic year, on the Cirrhaean plain in Phocis, under the superintendence of the Amphictyons. The games consisted not only of matches in gymnastics and of horse and chariot races, but also of contests in music and poetry. They soon acquired celebrity, and became second only to the great Olympic festival. The Nemean and Isthmian games occurred more frequently ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... be a good deal of it in Philadelphia and Cincinnati, and all over the country, I'm afraid, for I don't think General Grant cares much about that sort of gymnastics." ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... principles, on which the moral life of man is based. And it is this, I believe, which we find in Fifine, as in Ferishtah's Fancies and the Parleyings; not an exhibition of the argumentative subtlety of a mind whose strength has become lawless, and which spends itself in intellectual gymnastics, that have no place within the realm of either the ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... gymnastics, it is indispensable, almost, to practice a series of muscular exercises, adapted to the expansion of the chest, freedom of the circulation, and general vitality ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... seemed to offer an opportunity for his activity, and which he would have entered if the circumstances had so permitted. His childhood was turbulent and somewhat intractable; but, attaining adolescence, he retained from his former violence a very pronounced taste for physical exercise, especially for gymnastics, little practiced then, to which he was naturally inclined by his ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... with fasting and prayer. Quiet nerves and a full stomach are deaf to its deepest meaning. To most of the audience, Honor and Arms stood as a superb piece of vocal gymnastics; to Beatrix, Thayer was like a live wire, pulsing with a virile scorn of any but uneven contests, defiant only of those mightier than himself. To her mind, he was ready to court heavy odds, bound to conquer them, one and all; and her own pulses beat faster in time to the half-barbarous ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... in the first place, that by physical training—whether in the form of gymnastics or games or what not—we desire to produce a healthier and more perfectly developed body. Some will add a stronger body, but as this term has two meanings constantly confused, it really contains the crux of the question. Stronger may mean stronger in the sense of resistance to ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... last page, paused, blinked, and performed the necessary mental gymnastics to orient his time sense. Alexander, he noticed, was still engrossed, sunk in his autohypnotic trance. Kennon waited until he had finished the legal folder which he was reading and then gently ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... exaction. I once knew (that is, not personally, for I never saw her, but through the reports of her many friends) an intrepid lady, [Footnote: If I remember rightly, some account is given of this palestric lady and her stern Pedo-gymnastics, in a clever book on household medicine and surgery under circumstances of inevitable seclusion from professional aid, written about the year 1820-22, by Mr. Haden, a surgeon of London.] living in the city of London (that is, technically the city, as opposed to Westminster, etc., ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... rubbing furniture, and all the multiplied domestic processes which our grandmothers knew of? A woman who did all these, and diversified the intervals with spinning on the great and little wheel, never came to need the gymnastics of Dio Lewis or of the Swedish motorpathist, which really are a necessity now. Does it not seem poor economy to pay servants for letting our muscles grow feeble, and then to pay operators to exercise them for us? I will venture to say that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... muddled with the figures to be carried in a multiplication sum. As for division, rare indeed were they who reached such heights. In short, the moment a problem, however insignificant, had to be solved, we had recourse to mental gymnastics much rather than to the learned ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre |
