"Merrymaking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... news. He knew Marie's horror of fire—how she suffered with terror when she saw a conflagration, no matter how distant. She was even afraid of the rockets and paper dragons which were used at the celebration at the conclusion of the grape harvest every year. On the evening of the merrymaking Marie was afraid to go to bed. She begged Ludwig to close the blinds and to read to her in a loud voice, so that she might not see the light of the fireworks or hear the tumult on the lake shore. That which amused the revellers at the manor was a ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... days when the farm had been sure of the largest harvest in the neighbourhood this summer festival had been brilliantly celebrated, and as long as Marcus's father had lived the family had still cherished the quaint rites and the merrymaking of a holiday especially dear to the common people of both city and country. But in these later years there had been neither time nor money for any fetes. Piety, however, was still left, and it was characteristic of the scrupulousness persisting in Marcus's mother through all the demoralising ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... inhibition against wearing tartan and the philabeg had been virtually removed, in consideration of the achievements of the "hardy and dauntless men" who, according to Chatham, conquered for England "in every quarter of the globe," he had celebrated the event in a merrymaking, at which the dance was kept up from night till morning; but though he retained, I suspect, his old partialities, he was now a sobered man; and when I ventured to ask him, on one occasion, why he too did not get a Sunday kilt, which, by the way, he would "have set," notwithstanding ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... sudden; there were degrees only in the widening of it. First came embarrassment at meeting. Then all commerce of wish, thought, and speculation, ended. There was no more merrymaking jugglery with identity; each was himself only, and for himself alone. Gone was all brother-gladness. We avoided each other more and more. When we must meet, we made haste to part. Heaven was gone from home. Each yet felt the same way ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... tables and chairs line the sidewalk, and libations are poured forth in honor of the holy person commemorated. For this reason, and because of the more volatile character of the Greek, the general note of his merrymaking is louder than that of the Turk. One may even see the scandalous spectacle of men and women dancing together at a Greek panayiri. The instrument which sets the key of these orgies is the lanterna, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... with the religious spirit was that of good-fellowship and merrymaking. Every sort of feast and game and pageant was a part of the guild system, as it was indeed of life generally at this time when men did not have to depend upon hired professional purveyors of amusement for their edification. What they wanted they did themselves, and this community ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... wishes and said to them, "O my brothers, I will make a voyage with you, but first let me see what you are worth." So I looked into their affairs and found they had nothing left, having wasted all their substance in eating and drinking and merrymaking. However, I said not a word of reproach to them, but sold my stock and got in all I had and found I was worth six thousand dinars. So I rejoiced and divided the sum into two equal parts and said to my brothers, "These three thousand dinars are for you and me to trade with." The other three ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... carnival. Succeeding days, succeeding nights, mounted each a stage to heights of folly. Starred all through was innocent merrymaking, license held in leash. But the gross, the whirling, and the sinister elements came continuously and more strongly into play. Measured sound grew racket, camaraderie turned into impudence. Came at last pandemonium. All without ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... cove, where they had left their young. It had been a pleasant way to spend the time sociably together; and loons like society very much, if they can select their own friends and have their parties in a wilderness lake. But gay and happy as they had been at their merrymaking, Gavia and her mate were not sorry to return to the two Olairs, who had long since wakened from their naps and were glad to see their handsome ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... these vineyards failed, and the dwellings were abandoned. However, after their abandonment, it was customary at times for the villagers to resort to them for drinking and dancing bouts. This tradition continues still in force, and on Easter Tuesday these cave dwellings are visited, and there is merrymaking in them. Between the caves at one time some little taverns had been erected, but these also fell into ruin some forty or fifty ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... parents of Florizel, who had been summoned by the Enchanter, arrived, and there was a wedding after all. When the merrymaking was over, the Enchanter went back to his castle on the Black Rock, while Florizel and Isabella returned to their own country, and lived there happily to a ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... the monks. They show me visions. They show me her, Unn. They show me the shining, sunny sea. They show me the fishermen's camping-ground, where there is dancing and merrymaking. I close my eyes, but still I see. 'Leave me in peace,' I say. 'My friend has murdered, but he is not bad. Let me be, and I will talk to him, so that he repents and atones. He shall confess his sin and go to Christ's grave. We will both go together to the places which are so holy that ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... Jimmy couldn't ever understand what she meant by an old-time Christmas unless she could show him by some faint approach to its merrymaking, and it had been the dream of her life to do this. But every year she had failed, until now she was a ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... while they were all a-merrymaking, Heigho, says Rowley; A Cat and her kittens came tumbling in. ...
— The Little Mother Goose • Anonymous
... people often met for the afternoon and evening. There would be boating and dancing and much merrymaking. The people of this section were less strenuous than the New Englanders. They affiliated largely with their neighbors to the South. Indeed, many of the business men owned tobacco plantations in Maryland and Virginia. They kept in closer contact with the mother country as well. Madam ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Ruth that these people who had a moment before been so devout and concentrated in church should in an instant switch their whole thought to a day of eating and merrymaking. But she soon found their light-hearted gaiety very infectious. Before she knew it, she was sputtering away in the best French she had and entering into the fun with all ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... went to seek his beloved. As he approached her dwelling he heard the sound of music, and observed that every window in the house was illuminated as if for a festival. He asked some revellers whom he met outside the cause of this merrymaking, and was told that ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... a thaw in January or February; but these are rare occurrences. Rain has not fallen in winter but once in many years. The whole winter is a radiant and joyous band of sunny days and starlight nights. This inaugurates the carnival season when sleighing and merrymaking parties in both town and country form one unbroken round ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... my decision, I shall gladly extend to you my leave to celebrate the Electoral Prince's return by a little merrymaking, were it only that the good-for-nothing people of Berlin may see that we and our family are devoted to Count Schwarzenberg now as before, and that their pitiful howls have had no influence upon us and our determinations. Yes, we will come to your ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... bright eyes; Hands of a man who blindly, recklessly, Became your sire by her from whom he sprang. Though I cannot behold you, I must weep In thinking of the evil days to come, The slights and wrongs that men will put upon you. Where'er ye go to feast or festival, No merrymaking will it prove for you, But oft abashed in tears ye will return. And when ye come to marriageable years, Where's the bold wooers who will jeopardize To take unto himself such disrepute As to my children's children ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... their enterprise. Like as Jack, when he returns from his battles with old ocean, having a pocket well lined with hard earnings, fails not to plunge into excess, with the determination to make up for the pleasure lost by years of toil, the brave mountaineers courted merrymaking. From their own accounts, they passed a short time gloriously. This similarity of disposition between trappers and sailors, in regard to pleasure's syren cup and its consequent draft upon their treasures, causing them to forget ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... country, especially in the wine districts where the merrymaking sometimes lasts for days, these festivals are beautiful. In the city it depends largely, of course, on how much the commercial spirit enters into it; but whether they are beautiful or the reverse, they are always entertaining. Single streets, for instance, in San Francisco, are always having carnivals. ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... mediaeval and modern times. All the realist painters, from Breughel to Jordaens and from Jordaens to Teniers, had exalted the joys of popular holidays, and it is remarkable that, during a century when there was so little to eat in the country and so little cause for merrymaking, the works of art which are the truest expression of the people's aspirations dwell on no other subject with so much relish and insistence. The tragic side of life was not represented, and one might venture to say that the admirers ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... bare head from the ground; He listens through the gloom around: The winds have brought him a strange sound Of distant merrymaking. ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... steamer stays in the channel, taking on produce from every plantation, and for two days afterward merrymaking is kept up, then the quiet monotony of a tropical planter's life sets ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... inconceivably maltreated child. I have seen strong men dropping right and left out of battle and squirming in their death-throes, I have seen them by scores blown into the air by bursting shells and their bodies torn asunder; believe me, the witnessing was as merrymaking and laughter and song to me in comparison with the way the sight of that ...
— The Road • Jack London
... merrymaking and piece of work in the large dancing-room of the "Sun." Once, during a pause, the hostess, a buxom portly widow, cried out, "Hold hard, fiddler; do stop—the cattle are all quarrelling with you, and will starve if you don't let the lads and girls go home and feed them. If you've no pity ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... this reign of terror many of the people continued to offer sacrifices to Jehovah at the great altar cut in native rock which stood before the ruins of their temple in Jerusalem. Priests were also doubtless found in the land to conduct these services. The ancient feasts, however, with their joyous merrymaking and the resulting sense of divine favor, were no longer observed. Instead, the people celebrated in sackcloth and ashes the fasts commemorating the successive stages in the destruction of their city (Zech. 7:3-7). While their lot was pitiable and their character seemingly unpromising, these people ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... (firmly) I'll call Gilbert Hythe, if you touch me, darling, (he releases her) Listen, Izod; I've been here, on this bit o' land, resting under this old roof, and working in this old yard, since I was a mite—so high. I've been here in times of merrymaking and times of mourning, and I've seen the grass grow over all the Veritys but one—the Squire who gives me the same living that goes to the best table, and as soft a pillow as lies on the best bed. ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... to explain the author's method, or lack of it, when making himself acquainted with places of interest. Contains also remarks on terraces, which are expected to edify. There is a good deal about the weather of Prague, about the gardens at different seasons, also an account of merrymaking in bygone days, and some reflections, in the same spirit, on ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... the majority of the people, the little frigate Squirrel weighted down by artillery stores but under command of Gilbert himself, because the smaller ship can run close ashore to explore. To keep up the spirits of the men, there is much merrymaking. Becalmed off Cape Breton, Sir Humphrey visits the big ship Delight, where the trumpets and the drums and the pipes and the cornets reel off wild sailor jigs. "There was," says the old record, "little watching for danger." Wednesday, August 26, the sounding line forewarned ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... melancholy with wild humor, the playfulness is sometimes of a kind which invites us to thoughtfulness instead of merriment. This is true also of some Russian composers, whose scherzos have the desperate gayety which speaks from the music of a sad people whose merrymaking is not a spontaneous expression of exuberant spirits but a striving after self-forgetfulness. The Scherzo is the successor of the Minuet, whose rhythm and form served the composers down to Beethoven. It was he who substituted the Scherzo, which retains the chief formal characteristics ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... he cheerfully to his writhing master. "Look, we have reached home. They have taken the mallet and driven in the mooring-post; the ship's cable has been put on land. There is merrymaking and thanksgiving, and every man is embracing his fellow. Our crew has returned unscathed, without loss to our soldiers. We have reached the end of Wawat, we have passed Bigeh. Yes, indeed, we have returned safely; we have ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... added, however, that with all their strictness in Sabbath keeping and catechising, in family and church discipline, there was great license in those days in speech and manner, much hard drinking, and rude merrymaking, due to their rough form of living. They were not what they wanted to be, nor what a loyal posterity perhaps longs to believe them. They had red blood in their veins. They were among the most enterprising men of their generation. ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... but tender and gentle and fond of feasts and merrymaking, was very willing to lift the cares of rule from his shoulders to the younger shoulders of Nessa's son, and the one year thus granted became many years, so that Fergus never again mounted his throne. ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... a corner and gazed at the merrymaking. They left him quite to himself, only now and then a shy glance ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... Herman Mergel, was, in his bachelor days, a so-called orderly drinker—that is, one who lay in the gutter on Sundays and holidays, but during the week was as well behaved as any one, and so he had had no difficulty in wooing and winning a right pretty and wealthy girl. There was great merrymaking at the wedding. Mergel did not get so very drunk, and the bride's parents went home in the evening satisfied; but the next Sunday the young wife, screaming and bloody, was seen running through the village to her family, leaving behind all her good clothes and new household furniture. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... of feasting and entertainment, of music and merrymaking. Spanish officials, prominent civilians of Matanzas and the countryside, drove up the hill to welcome Don Esteban's bride. But before the first fervor of his honeymoon cooled the groom began to fear that he had made a serious mistake. Dona Isabel, ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... one and a happy laugh upon his lips? What wonder is it that the cannon in the Tower thundered a loud welcome, and that all over England, at one season or another, maypoles rose and Christmas fires blazed? For Englishmen at heart are not only monarchists, but they are lovers of good cheer and merrymaking and all ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... It is but right that Mesdemoiselles de Savenaye should be surrounded with young and cheerful society; and even were I in a state to act as master of the revels (here he smiled a little dreamily), my very presence, as you say, would cast a gloom upon their merrymaking—I will go. I will go back to the island to-night—I can rely upon you to assist me to do so quietly without unnecessary scenes or explanations—yes—yes—I know you will be ready to facilitate matters! Strange! It is only a few hours ago ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... more, and Judith made no reply. Though ordinarily she would have hesitated to go against her uncle's expressed wishes, her heart was too much set on this enterprise to allow of easy checking. She made no reply, but her campaign on behalf of the merrymaking went ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... any trade which caused a disagreeable sound, such as that of the blacksmith, carpenter, or mason, to be carried on in their city limits. They dressed in garments of deep purple, tied their hair in gold threads, and the city was famed for its incessant banqueting and merrymaking. It was such luxury as this that Pindar found at the court of Hiero, at Syracuse, whither Aeschylus had retired after his defeat by Sophocles at ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... the queens did part again. Dame Ute and her daughter, / thither passed the twain With train of fair attendants / unto a hall full wide. Din of merrymaking / heard ye there on ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... perception of unusual or commonly unperceived analogies or relations between things apparently unrelated, and has been said to depend upon a union of surprise and pleasure; it depends certainly on the production of a diverting, entertaining, or merrymaking surprise. The analogies with which wit plays are often superficial or artificial; humor deals with real analogies of an amusing or entertaining kind, or with traits of character that are seen to have a comical side as soon as brought to view. Wit is keen, sudden, brief, and ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... and the Egyptian Horse Artillery; two Maxims with division and transport trains, and a number of officers' led horses. As I have already explained, the guns of the 32nd and 37th field batteries, together with the limbers and ammunition, were sent on to Wad Habeshi by water. There was much merrymaking as usual that evening, for we were to start on the morrow. I squatted like many more in the low rough scrub by the river's brink with my caravan around me. During the evening I went out to dine with some officer friends. As I had over a mile to walk to their pitch, ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... but usually there is an interval of several days to permit the house builders to invite all their friends and to provide the necessary food for their entertainment. Although analogous to the Anglo-Saxon "house warming," the qo[.g]an b[)i]g[)i]'n, besides being a merrymaking for the young people, has a much more solemn significance for the elders. If it be not observed soon after the house is built bad dreams will plague the dwellers therein, toothache (dreaded for mystic reasons) will torture them, and the evil influence from the north will cause them all kinds ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... human child, feeling the cold and the roughness of the straw, needing to be warmed and fed and cherished. Christmas is the festival of the natural body, of this world; it means the consecration of the ordinary things of life, affection and comradeship, eating and drinking and merrymaking; and in some degree the memory of the Incarnation has been able to blend with the pagan joyance of ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... and another in the rural districts, should oft entertain at the latter such of their companions as pleased them; and these, riding forth from the city, singly or in goodly numbers, might pass but a single night, but sometimes when occasion served, a fortnight, in merrymaking at their host's expense. Such being a common practice throughout the kingdom little danger of causing suspicion lay in the fact that Winter, Rookwood, Catesby, Wright and such others as had been admitted to their council, departed from London in company. Garnet, indeed, had ridden ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... has heard so much about? Where are those super-orchestras sweating over the scores of seductive waltzes? Where the silken ankles and the glittering eyes, the kisses and the flutes, the beery laughter and the delirious leg shaking? The excesses of merrymaking are nowhere discoverable. Des Moines, Iowa, or Camden, New Jersey, would present quite as festive a spectacle, he thinks, as he gazes up at the sepulchral shadows on the gigantic Opernhaus before him. He cannot understand the nocturnal ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... It reminds one of a perpetual summer Sunday afternoon in a small provincial town. But its voice speaks in its music, often bitterly sad and sweetly regretful, and there is little hint of sunshine or careless merrymaking there. Bach is steeped in cloister gloom, with frequent moments of religious ecstasy. Haydn is generally cheerful in a humdrum sort of way, but when his real feelings begin to speak, not even Mozart is sadder. ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... In such a merrymaking was the community which surrounded the high school at Dexter engaged when the incident occurred which opened Fred's eyes to his own state. Both he and Elizabeth had been in the prize ranks that year, and their friends had turned out in full and made much of them. ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... way in among the boys until he stood very near the minister, and his face wore a sober, thoughtful look. It was only two days since his long talk with himself at the pond. Fourth of July, with all the merrymaking and mischief that it brought to him, had nearly driven sober thoughts from his mind, but the minister's solemn words brought back the memory of his half-formed resolves, and again he said to himself he believed he would reform; this time ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... India has a merrymaking, he is out on the trail. At Delhi he was in the thick of the mummery, beaming on barbaric princes and paynim princesses, blessing banners, blessing trumpeters, blessing proclamations, blessing champagne and truffles, blessing pretty girls, and blessing the conjunction ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... preferred a request for some favor, a holiday or early release. There was wisdom in that. As we grow up we act more or less consciously upon intuitions as to time and place. My companion, I shall not invite you to a merrymaking when a bitter moment befalls you and the flame of life sinks into ashes in your heart; nor yet, however true and trusted, will I confide to you what inward revelations of the mysteries I may have while I sense in ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... of money is usually bestowed on them, and the evening concludes in merrymaking with the money ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... month following a funeral the relatives refrain from all merrymaking. At the expiration of this period all go to a near-by river and with their knives, cut to pieces a braided cord, which has been made since the burial, and as they destroy it they shout "This is a man we are killing. ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... and at ease: Or if in shadow, in a shade of trees Which the sun kisses, where the gay birds sing And where all winds make various murmuring; Where bees are found, with honey for the bees; Where sounds are music, and where silences Are music of an unlike fashioning. Then gaze I at the merrymaking crew, And smile a moment and a moment sigh Thinking: Why can I not rejoice with you? But soon I put the foolish fancy by: I am not what I have nor what I do; But what I was I am, I am ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... took place on the 16th, notwithstanding the public merrymaking. It rained that day, but there is always in the sky a tiny scrap of blue at the service of happiness, which lovers see, even when the rest of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... said, although I myself was not on shore to see what was done, that in all the churches prayers were made for our safe journeying, and there was much marching to and fro of soldiers, as if some great merrymaking were afoot. ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... score. But to Tom's surprise, there were no questions and a few of the men came over to pat him drunkenly on the back. A couple of them dragged the unconscious man out of the compartment and up to sick bay. The others soon forgot the fight and continued their merrymaking. ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... a low voice. "There's something worth seeing, and maybe worth getting too. Just as I was creeping along, not two hundred yards ahead, what should I see before me but a score of big birds all dancing and jigging away together, for all the world as if they were at a wake or some sort of merrymaking. They were all so busy that none of them saw me, and I hurried back, lest you should come upon them suddenly and frighten ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... as the President had prophesied—little attention was paid to the children of the party, but it was glorious fun just to watch the changing scenes and be a part of them, instead of lying tucked away in bed upstairs listening with ever-increasing curiosity and longing to the sounds of merrymaking below. ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... comes in over the dismantled walls. The ivy green climbs along the grey stones. We trace the old hearth and the outline of the stone staircase scarred upon the wall. We conjure up the rest of the structure, but the Northern Wizard is not with us here, as at Kenilworth, to repeople it with life and merrymaking, and it strains the imagination to depart far from the dull, dead present of Fuenterrabia. Perchance of old there came hither knights and ladies, pricking o'er the plaine, perchance here was dancing and wassail. We close our eyes and would fain ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... invasion. All they do is to come up to my cave two or three times a year with a particularly high-scented goat, and sacrifice him: I am permitted to look on whilst they enjoy the feast, and am complimented with a perfunctory dance. However, there is some joking and merrymaking on the occasion, and that ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... but all the same I am tolerably certain that Judith, being Judith, will enjoy prodigious merrymaking in Paris. She is absolutely sincere in her intentions—the earth holds no sincerer woman—but she is a self-deceiver. Her about-to-be-sequestered and meditative self was at that moment sitting on the arm of a chair ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... over, Manabozho suggested to his friends, the assembled birds and animals, that the occasion was proper for a little merrymaking; and taking up ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... disgusted me. There were announcements of concerts and plays and first-nights and private views; there were even small dances. There were advertisements of house-boats and week-end cottages and string bands for garden parties. It struck me that it was rather like merrymaking with a dead body ...
— When William Came • Saki
... Germans who are officially engaged without calling them the bride and bridegroom. They plight their troth with the plain gold rings that will be their wedding rings, and this stage of their union is celebrated with as much ceremony and merrymaking as the actual wedding. The Germans are giving up so many of their quaint poetical customs that the girl of to-day probably wears a fine diamond engagement ring instead of the old-fashioned gold one. But the ring with which her mother and grandmother plighted their troth ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... left than the friends of his wife began to arrive. Many of them did not wait for an invitation, but came as soon as they heard that her husband had gone with his terrible blue beard. Then was there great merrymaking all over the house, and it was overrun from top to bottom with the excited guests, for all were consumed with the desire to see the treasures the castle contained. These were truly wonderful. Rich tapestries hanging on the walls, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... allow himself to be frightened by the spectres which would appear, for they were only soulless phantoms,[65] to try the seeker's courage. If it failed, he would return home with empty hands. The seeker must go to the hill on St. John's Eve, when the bonfires were burning and the people merrymaking. A third of the treasure was to be given to the poor; the rest belonged to ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... shall be free and out of my power.' The dragon then flew away, and they journeyed on with their little whip. They had as much money as they wanted, wore grand clothes, and made their way into the world. Wherever they went they lived in merrymaking and splendour, drove about with horses and carriages, ate and ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... with great yellow eyes, knowing that tidbits would come his way later on. Many witty things were said—or at least we thought them witty—and uproarious was the laughter. Never had the old King orchard known a blither merrymaking ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... coachman, high up on his box, seemed as interested as herself; at least, he sat up very straight and stiff. But it was only his back that Lloyd saw. He had been at a fete the night before. There seems to be always a holiday in Geneva. He had stayed long at the merrymaking and had taken many mugs of beer. They made him drowsy and stupid. The American gentleman and his wife stayed long in the enameller's shop. He could scarcely keep his eyes open. Presently, although he never moved a muscle of his back and sat up stiff ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Cyaxares felt, no doubt, a certain jealousy that the Persians should be the first to broach the matter, but he may also have felt that it was really wiser to run no further risks for the present; he had, moreover, abandoned himself to feasting and merrymaking, and he saw that most of his Medes were in like case. Whatever the reason, this ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... bands of Captain Bonneville's company had now been assembled for some time at the rendezvous; they had had their fill of feasting, and frolicking, and all the species of wild and often uncouth merrymaking, which invariably take place on these occasions. Their horses, as well as themselves, had recovered from past famine and fatigue, and were again fit for active service; and an impatience began to manifest itself among the men once more to take ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... to sin, speaking generally, was entirely absent. The ancient offerings were wholly of a joyous nature,—a merrymaking before Jehovah with music and song, timbrels, flutes, and stringed instruments (Hos. ix. 1 seq.; Amos v. 23, viii. 3; Isa xxx. 3). No greater contrast could be conceived than the monotonous seriousness of the ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... back, my boy. And—say, Phil, mon gars,—don't let that young cub from Herm get ahead of you. He's been making fine play while you've been away." And I waved my hand and sped back to the merrymaking. ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... is one of our great autumn holidays. It is a day of picturesque merrymaking and ceremony, when the stringent rule barring women out of a synagogue is relaxed. On that day, which was a short time before Election Day, I saw an East Side judge, a Gentile, at the synagogue of the Sons of Antomir. He was very short, and the ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... they are back home here under the roofs of thatch. And what a work their women folks make with them when they return! What feasting and merrymaking! What screwing of fiddle-pegs, nimble motion of elbows and long-sustained dancing and skipping. I don't deny that there is clink of glasses, too, at times, to aid the passage of the hours far past ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... he provoked many a ripple and roar of laughter by his telling hits and droll speeches. I found that my neighbor, Mr. Jones, came in for his full share, but he always sent back as good as he received. The sale, in fact, had the aspect of a country merrymaking, at which all sorts and conditions of people met on common ground, Pat bidding against the best of the landed gentry, while boys and dogs innumerable played around and ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... Red Lion; and Englebourn was soon in a ferment of preparation for the wedding. East was not the man to do things by halves; and, seconded as he was by Miss Winter, and Hardy, and Tom, had soon made arrangements for all sorts of merrymaking. The school-children were to have a whole holiday, and, after scattering flowers at church and marching in the bridal procession, were to be entertained in a tent pitched in the home paddock of the Rectory, and to have an afternoon ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... "Again I will build thee and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets and shall go forth in the dances of them that make merry." So the festivities set in, and the Palace was filled with laughter and dancing and merrymaking. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... who never missed a merrymaking of any description within a circle of miles, took on himself to ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... "it's not a parade, but it is a grand merrymaking, and it's because of it that I've brought you here. But I'm tired and hungry, for we've come a long way, so let us sit down by the roadside a bit, and while we rest I'll tell you all about the goings on and what we ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... a while in the darkest corners, witnessing the feasting, hearing the flutes and the chants, listening for a space to the story-tellers and the enthusiastic "Hahs!" They were so full of feasting and merrymaking now that one could almost do as he pleased, and he stole toward the southern end of the village, where he had noticed several huts, much more strongly built than the others. Despite all his natural skill and experience his heart beat very fast when he came to the first. He ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... you are very gallant," said she, as we took seats. "I was not in the mood for merrymaking, and then, I am reading ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... then will we return, I and thou; for that, an thou bring them up to us, they will be affrighted and there will betide them neither joy nor gladness. As for me, I wish but to be with them, that they may cheer me with their company neither give over their merrymaking, so peradventure I may broaden my breast with them, and indeed I swear that needs must I go down to them; else I will cast myself upon them." And she cajoled Jamrah and kissed her hands, till she said, "Arise and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... then in Florence. Lorenzo de' Medici was ruling the turbulent city by keeping it occupied with merrymaking, by beautifying its squares with priceless treasures, by helping its poor but ambitious children to win their heart's desires, by mingling with the citizens at all times, and writing them ballads to sing, and giving them masques ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... lighted mirrors which repeated their reflections several times. Now this same room was dimly lighted by two candles. On one small table tea things and supper dishes stood in disorder, and in the middle of the night a motley throng of people sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly whispering, and betraying by every word and movement that they none of them forgot what was happening and what was about to happen in the bedroom. Pierre did not eat anything though he would very much have liked to. He looked inquiringly ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the victorious crew was a scene of wild merrymaking. The eight muscular lads who had pulled off another victory for Old Eli were gathered in the middle of the car and surrounded by admiring friends, who cheered and sang and smashed one another's hats, and played the very Old Nick ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... Ayrshire, and found occupation at Coilsfield, near Tarbolton, where her acquaintance with Burns soon began. He told a lady that he first saw Mary while walking in the woods of Coilsfield: and first spoke with her at a rustic merrymaking, and "having the luck to win her regards from other suitors," they speedily became intimate. At this period of life Burn's "eternal propensity to fall into love" was unusually active, even for him, and his passion for Mary (at this time) ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... in Tahiti, and though the bars were only adjuncts of the shows, they had become the scenes of a hectic life quite different from former days. The groves, the beach, and the homes were less frequented for merrymaking, the white having brought his own comparatively new customs of men and women drinking together in public houses. And there had crept in on a small scale an exploitation of beauty by those who profited by the receipts at the prize-fights, the ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... way of street salutations, the hat raised high in air above a rigid head. She answered with the polite greeting of the true Parisian, hardly expressed by an imperceptible movement of the figure and a smile in the eyes; and, seeing that exchange of worldly courtesies amid the springtime merrymaking, no one would have suspected that the same sinister thought guided the footsteps of those two, who met by chance on the road they were both following, in opposite directions, but aiming for the ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... shades of passion, as they are exhibited by vulgar minds (such as we see in the works of Hogarth) deserve great praise; but as their genius has been employed on low and confined subjects, the praise that we give must be as limited as its object. The merrymaking or quarrelling of the Boors of Teniers; the same sort of productions of Brouwer, or Ostade, are excellent in their kind; and the excellence and its praise will be in proportion, as, in those limited subjects and peculiar forms, they introduce more or less of the expression of those passions, ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... people of quality the cudgelers were for the moment quite forgot. The head of the house of Jaquelin hurried over the grass to the coach door. "Ha, Colonel Byrd! When we heard that you were staying overnight at Green Spring, we hoped that, being so near, you would come to our merrymaking. Mistress Evelyn, I kiss your hands. Though we can't give you the diversions of Spring Garden, yet such as we have are at your feet. Mr. Marmaduke Haward, your servant, sir! Virginia has missed you these ten years and more. We were heartily glad to hear, t'other day, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... out a part of the sentence, but not enough to translate it. The business of the meeting was completed, and the members separated, all of them feeling that the mutiny of the Young America was more like a merrymaking than anything else. To be decorated with the white ribbon of the order by a beautiful young lady was a privilege which they appreciated, and all of them were thankful that they had not been led astray by the evil counsels which had prevailed ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... good news. Over the telephone wire we agreed that the letter was a justification of our yesterday's little merrymaking. Obviously, I told her, he would live to fight another day. She was of opinion that he had done enough fighting already. If he went on much longer, the poor boy would get quite tired out, to say nothing of the danger of ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... Villefranche the long hilly peninsula of Beaulieu and St. Hospice stretches for fully three miles out into the bay, as green as an emerald, with some twenty pleasure-boats usually clustering about its shores, for the cork woods of St. Hospice are famous for picnics and merrymaking, and its little hotel is renowned ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... a merrymaking, John Roger Churchill Knight introduced Timothy Williams to Green Valley, introduced him in such a way as to pave a wide clear path for him into Green Valley hearts. And so quick was Green Valley's response that before that same merrymaking was over Green Valley was calling him ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... three days before this merrymaking Nancy was in a strange mood, of which I could make nothing, her gaiety being more pronouncedly gay, and her silences continuing longer than I had ever noted them. She spent much of her time in her own room, trying on and having refitted a wonderful gown which Lunardi had sent up ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... turns to humor and merrymaking. In gay dancing trip serious subjects are treated jokingly (the great melody of the horns is mockingly sung by the harp),—in fits and gusts. At the height the (first) tempestuous motive once more dashes upwards and yields to a revel of the (second) whimsical phrase. A sense ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... had at once ceased their merrymaking at the roaring of the lions, and now all were gathered close about the campfires, on which more wood had been piled, to drive away ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... to womanhood, she is shut up for two or three days in the house, all the men of the tribe scour the country to bring in game and fish for a feast, and a Mataco Indian is engaged to drum, sing, and dance in front of the house without cessation, day and night, till the festival is over. As the merrymaking lasts for two or three weeks, the exhaustion of the musician at the end of it may be readily conceived. Meat and drink are supplied to him on the spot where he pays his laborious court to the Muses. The proceedings wind up with ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... servants like to dress with flowers a wooden image in his garden, the fierce figure-head of some wrecked vessel, which they boldly personify as the American Saint. On the other hand, the properties of the Church are as freely used for merrymaking. On public days there are fireworks provided by the priests; they are kept in the church till the time comes, and then touched off in front of the building, with very limited success, by the sacristan. And strangest of all, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various |
