"Plaything" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hard to let slip an opportunity of taking just one peep! I know not whether Pandora expected any toys; for none had yet begun to be made, probably, in those days, when the world itself was one great plaything for the children that dwelt upon it. But Pandora was convinced that there was something very beautiful and valuable in the box; and therefore she felt just as anxious to take a peep as any of these little ...
— The Paradise of Children - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... they have troops, gold, and powerful allies. We have nothing but our honor, our swords, and our good cause. We are the allies of a land poor in itself, and, what is still worse, governed by a weak and faint-hearted emperor; and of France, whose king is the plaything of courtiers and mistresses. Our adversaries know their strength, and are acquainted with our weakness. Look, messieurs, at this letter of George of England to our godmother, Maria Theresa of Hungary; an accident placed it in our hands, or, if you will, a Providence, which, without doubt, ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... yourself on me for the humiliation of being the slave of your passion for me. I was never sure of you for a moment. I trembled whenever a letter came from you, lest it should contain some stab for me. I dreaded your visits almost as much as I longed for them. I was your plaything, not your companion. (She rises, exclaiming) Oh, there was such suffering in my happiness that I hardly knew joy from pain. (She sinks on the piano stool, and adds, as she buries her face in her hands and turns away from him) Better for me if I ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... me by returning it to him," answered Gilbert; "it is a plaything I don't like to see ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... who had come from afar. There was not a square inch about him that had anything to do with modern English life. His visage, which was of the colour of light porphyry, had little of its original surface left; it was a face which had been the plaything of strange fires or pestilences, that had moulded to whatever shape they chose his originally supple skin, and left it pitted, puckered, and seamed like a dried water-course. But though dire catastrophes or the treacherous airs of remote climates had done their ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... the Jew's crab-stick from him, laid hold of it at each end, and snapped it in two across the railing of the box; adding with infinite composure of countenance—'This is an improper plaything for you, master Jackey, and you might do yourself a damage with it. Here is half a crown for you. Take it, man, and buy yoursilf a genteel bit of rattan, to beat the little pug dogs away, when they bark after you ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... the time has come for them to perish, who are no longer warriors, as of old. Well, if so, let them die free, and not as slaves. At least I, in whom their best blood runs, do not seek your mercy, O Barung. I'll be no plaything in your house, who, at the worst, can always die, having done my duty to my God and those who bred me. Thus I answer you as the Child of many Kings. Yet as a woman," she added in a gentler voice, "I thank you for your courtesy. When I am slain, Barung, if I am fated ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... (a broiled chicken and excellent coffee) I walked out by myself. The brook would be a beautiful plaything for my children, and I wish I had such a one for them. As I looked down into it from the bridge, I saw little fish, minnows, small chubs, and perch sporting about and rising eagerly to anything that was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... struggled about his mouth at her bairnly imperiousness, but he came obediently enough and sat down. Nevertheless he took away the heavy axe from her and said, "Put this down, then, or give it to me. It is not a pretty plaything for ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... tired of boys," cried Isaac to a chief dancing near. "What has he done that he be made the plaything of children? Let him die the ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... love itself—the satisfaction of an irresistible desire, the paradise of bliss which merely loving has become for him. What love means he hardly knows. He only knows that he must love. And women love him—half as a plaything to be trifled with, half as a young god to be wounded by. This rising of the star of love as it ascends into the heaven of youthful fancy, is revealed in the melodies Mozart has written for him. How shall ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... "Saduko is very fond of me—fonder than I like indeed, since it causes him to neglect Nandie, who, by the way, has another son, and, although she says little, that makes Nandie cross. In short," she added, with a burst of truth, "I am the plaything, Nandie is the great lady, and that ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... factories, that the unlucky treaty of July 15, 1840, which gave the whole of Syria to the Sublime Porte, was concluded. Four Western Powers had secretly met in London and agreed to deprive the sovereign of the Nile of his conquests, and fling him again at the foot of the throne, which he had treated as a plaything. Mehemet Ali haughtily protested against the desecration of his rights, and France, his faithful ally, with hand on sword-hilt, threatened to draw it against whosoever should touch Egypt. England ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the whole business is," Peter continued, "that we've got a human soul on our hands. We imported a kind of scientific plaything to exercise our spiritual muscle on, and we've got a real specimen of womanhood in embryo. I don't know whether the situation appalls you as much as it does me—" He broke off as he ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... holds a strategic point too valuable to be allowed to pass into the hands of any one of the nations which covet it. And it is also easy to foresee that in the interval existing until its absorption, Korea must remain, also like Turkey, merely the plaything of diplomacy and ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... therefore, querulously maintained that man was the joke and plaything of the gods, the comic poet reversed the picture, and made the gods the playthings of men; in his hands, indeed, everything was upon the broad grin: the gods laughed, men laughed, and animals laughed. Nature was considered ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... marry him—never! I was acting that day, I remember—I had a foolish, clown's part, and as I acted, I felt my eyes being opened; I saw that the worship of the art I had held so sacred was a delusion and an empty dream; that I was a slave, a fool, the plaything of the idleness of strangers. I understood my audience at last, and since that day I have not believed in their applause, or in their wreathes, or in their enthusiasm. Yes, Nikitushka! The people applaud me, they buy my photograph, but I am a stranger to them. They don't know me, I am as ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov
... her young lover and her innocent dreams of the future, troubled herself but little concerning what was taking place around her, and did not perceive that others were ready to make her young heart the plaything of domestic ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... unqualified friendship, and a day rarely went by without a visit from him. He quickly learned to adapt himself to the rule that he must not finger things, nor interrupt when customers were present. He usually brought some plaything with him,—most frequently the flannel donkey,—and amused himself quite happily, with an occasional appeal to the sympathy ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... stormy, doubtful fate I have resolved to join my own; but one thing, Dimitry, I require; I claim that thou Disclose to me thy secret hopes, thy plans, Even thy fears, that hand in hand with thee I may confront life boldly—not in blindness Of childlike ignorance, not as the slave And plaything of my husband's light desires, Thy speechless concubine, but as thy spouse, And worthy helpmate of the ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... would growl or whine in some way to attract attention. After hours of self-amusement he would lie down as if life were useless, and wait until something or somebody came along to amuse him. His greatest delight was in fishing things out of a pan of water, and he would wash every pebble or plaything that he owned and carefully lay it out to dry. One day he pounced upon a rooster who insulted him by drinking from his water vessel, and plucked a long feather from his tail so quickly that we could hardly realise what had taken place. He then had ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... he saw at that moment that the sea had taken good care to secure the boat to itself as a plaything. Having dashed it into small pieces, it was by that time busily engaged in tossing these about among the foam, now hurling the splinters high upon the shore, anon sending up long watery tongues to lick them back, and then casting them under the incoming rollers, to be further ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... learned how to hide emotion by a cold and haughty bearing. From his childhood he had borne a secret sorrow in his heart—the sorrow of seeing his young brother Carl preferred to himself. Not only was Carl the darling of his parents, but he was the pet and plaything of the whole palace. True, the poor little archduke was not gifted with the grace and charming naivete of his brother. He was awkward, serious, and his countenance wore an expression of discontent, which was thought to betray an evil disposition, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... a very handsome man, but if I have not I say so now, and when he had taken his seat, and the gigs, all fine men, were seated each with his oar held upright upon his knees ready to be dropped into the water at the same instant, the craft and her crew formed to my eye as pretty a plaything for grown children as ever was seen. "Give way, men," the oars dipped as clean as so many knives, without a sparkle, the gallant fellows stretched out, and away shot the Dragonfly, like an arrow, the green water foaming into white ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... know, be the plaything of time, and when trouble comes and we wilt and reckon life's ended, the years roll unresting on, and the storm passes, and the dark breaks to grey again, and, may be, even the sun's self peeps forth once more. For our little wits ain't ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... the little island, leaving the lagoons in murky silence. The throngs of curious people that had clustered about the western end of the fire were thinning out rapidly. A light night breeze from the empty spaces of prairie wafted the smoke wreaths northward toward the city of men whose plaything had been taken. At their feet a white column of staff plunged into the water, hissed and was silent. The passion ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... interest today primarily because it is a good story. Its broad satire about the autograph collecting mania of the mid-nineteenth century is deftly combined with the more serious irony of a poet's frantic appeal for help becoming an expensive plaything of the rich, while the poet himself has died of want. Susan Fenimore Cooper's typically understated expression of this irony renders it all the more poignant, and the unspoken message of "The Lumley Autograph" is as relevant today as it ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... store. It seemed to her that she would never tire of looking at the knit dolls, the woolly lambs, the little wooden shops with their queer, painted men and women in them, and all the other fine things. She had never owned a plaything in her whole life; therefore, toys which you and I would not think much of, seemed to her to be ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... between her childish freedom of intercourse with him and the last year or two when they had begun to speak freely to each other as friend to friend. It was a constant surprise and pleasure to the doctor when he discovered that his former plaything was growing into a charming companion who often looked upon life from the same standpoint as himself, and who had her own outlooks upon the world, from whence she was able to give him by no means worthless intelligence; ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... accompanied by a couple of women bearing between them nearly sixty pounds of gold, and detained me more than two hours while he haggled with me over the sale of it. But I had by this time come fully to understand that gold possessed absolutely no value for these people, except as a plaything for the children; and the result was that when at length I bade the man goodbye, and gave the order to trek, the fellow was glad to let me have the whole at my own price, and I secured ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... little song like a bird. This child was never afraid of anything—when the horses pranced past him, and the troopers pushed him aside, he looked up into their faces and smiled. And when he had anything, a piece of bread, or an apple, or a plaything, he shared it with his playmates; and his little face, and his pretty voice, and all his pleasant ways, made that corner bright. He was like a flower growing there; everybody smiled ...
— A Little Pilgrim • Mrs. Oliphant
... fighting man, with bombs and tricks and frantic words, instead of convincing him by her wisdom and attainments, by her demonstrations of knowledge of life and its duties and responsibilities, that she has grown at last indeed fitted to be treated as an equal and a comrade, not as a plaything and a slave. ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... serious matters a man should be serious, and about a matter which is not serious he should not be serious; and that God is the natural and worthy object of our most serious and blessed endeavours. For man, as I said before, is made to be the plaything of God, and this, truly considered, is the best of him; wherefore also every man and woman should walk seriously and pass life in the noblest of pastimes, and be of another mind from what they ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his head, and said no more. For a moment they halted, where the path broadened on a market-place, part shade, part luminous with golden dust. A squad of lank boys, kicking miraculously with flat upturned soles, kept a wicker ball shining in the air, as true and lively as a plaything on a fountain-jet. Beyond, their tiny juniors, girls and boys knee-high, and fat tumbling babies in rainbow finery, all hand-locked and singing, turned their circle inside out and back again, in the dizzy graces of the "Water Wheel." Other boys, and girls still trousered and queued ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... my feelings; become the slave and the plaything of my shameful desires and of my lustful passions!... It must have happened. Yes, it must have happened. Sooner or later I was obliged to fall: it is the chastisement of my presumption and pride. Ah! wretch, you wish to ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... through which they were passing on a summer trip. The stranger was kind, and gave to the child a large green box of bits of old black lace and purple ribbons to play with, but she turned sorrowfully from the somber array of finery, which was the only thing in the way of a plaything the woman had at hand, and stood looking drearily out of the window on the strange, new town, a feeling of utter loneliness upon her. Her little heart was almost choked with the awfulness of the thought that ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... Protector's usurpation of the crown, was not done by violence: in his first royal procession he was unattended by troops; a fickle, intriguing, ambitious, and warlike nobility approved the change; Buckingham, Catesby, and others, urged it. No doubt he himself saw that the crown was not a fit plaything for a twelve years' old boy, in such a time of frequent treason, ferocious crime, and general recklessness. There is no question but what, as Richard had more head than any man in England, he was best fitted to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... making her run up and down the room after my ball. But a little piece of string is the best plaything for her. She will jump right up on ...
— The Nursery, February 1878, Vol. XXIII, No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... piles of exquisite garments of all varieties, all perfectly kept. In these dingy holes, which called themselves nurseries, she found evidence that money had been spent like water so that the child, when she was seen, might look like a small princess. But she found no plaything—no dolls or toys, and only one picture book, and that had "Donal" written on the fly leaf and ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the fool, the posturer, the juggler, the spangled saltinbanco, the people's plaything, that runs and leaps and turns and twists, and laughs at himself and is laughed at by all, and lives by his limbs like his brother the dancing bear and his cousin the monkey in a red coat ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... greater number of men. But has one ever estimated the cost of an invasion, even if it only lasted a week?" In 1850, Leopold II wrote to one of his ministers: "Without means of defence you will be the plaything of everyone." ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... coquette. Mentally and physically there was a certain massiveness in Madame Hanska which was absent in her rivals. She was characterised by an egoism and self-assertiveness unknown to the "dilecta"; while, on the other hand, her principles were too strong to allow her to use a man as her plaything, as Madame de Castries had no scruple in doing. Side by side with her tendency to mysticism, she possessed much practical ability, a capacity for taking the initiative in the affairs of life, as well as considerable literary and critical power. Balzac ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... prison cell before he could be tried. Lount, another of the leaders, had succeeded in reaching Long Point, Lake Erie. With a fellow patriot, a French voyageur, and a boy, he started to cross Lake Erie in an open boat. It was wintry, stormy weather. For two days and two nights the boat tossed, a plaything of the waves, the drenching spray freezing as it fell, till the craft was almost ice-logged. For food they had brought only a small piece of meat, and this had frozen so hard that their numbed hands could not break it. Weakening at each oar stroke, they at last saw the south shore of Lake ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... myrtle of Asia Bright in airily blossoming Boughs, the wood Hamadryades Nurse with showery dew, to be Theirs, a tender plaything. 25 ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... recognize that life is, after all, possible without her. You may shake your head, lad; but you know children cry for the moon sometimes, yet afterwards come to understand that it would not be a desirable plaything." ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... actual joy in the idea that he had, perhaps, a tumour which would prove fatal, that he need not concern himself with anything further, that it was his malady which was going to govern his life, to make a plaything of him, until the not-distant end. If indeed, at this period, it often happened that, though without admitting it even to himself, he longed for death, it was in order to escape not so much from the keenness of his sufferings as from the monotony ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the result of the evening, and fancies that he is beginning to find the child something of a bore. It was a pretty plaything at first, but it can be naughty and troublesome. Ah, Madame Lepelletier, fascinating as you are, if you could see how his thoughts have been wandering, and witness the passion with which he kisses his sleeping child and caresses the bandaged arm, you would ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... fostering; the large deep-blue eyes; the flexile and almost effeminate contour of the harmonious features; altogether made such an ideal of childlike beauty as Lawrence had loved to paint or Chantrey model. And the daintiest cares of a mother, who, as yet, has her darling all to herself—her toy, her plaything—were visible in the large falling collar of finest cambric, and the blue velvet dress with its ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the insecurity of the ground he stood on—Lord Vargrave, irritated and somewhat mortified, sought, as was his habit, whatever amusement was in his reach. In the conversation of Caroline Merton—shrewd, worldly, and ambitious—he found the sort of plaything that he desired. They were thrown much together; but to Vargrave, at least, there appeared no danger in the intercourse; and perhaps his chief object was to pique Evelyn, as well as to gratify his ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... that music was considered rather a beautiful plaything or a mere colour. By itself it was considered effeminate; therefore the early Greeks always had the flute player accompanied by a singer, and the voice was always used with the lyre to prevent the latter appealing directly to the senses. The dance was corrected in ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... give thyself to me?" There was a silence so long and unbroken Katherine was made to realize that her reply was not to be lightly uttered, so she answered with all the strength of a plaything of caprice,— ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... the fish she found within its belly a large diamond which she supposed to be a bit of glass or crystal; for she oft had heard tell of diamonds[FN281] but never with her own eyes had she beheld one. So she gave it to the youngest of the children for a plaything and when the others saw it, by reason of its brightness and brilliancy all desired to have it and each kept it in turn awhile; moreover when night came and the lamp was lighted they crowded round the stone and gazed upon its beauty, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Wegg had explained everything, and explained all so simply and naturally that Louise felt like sobbing with the bitterness of a child deprived of its pet plaything. The band of self-constituted girl detectives had been "put out of business," as Patsy said, because the plain fact had developed that there was nothing to detect, and never had been. There had been no murder, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... jewels, discussed her dresses, or had some lively chatter, which she called learning English. She coaxed, fondled, and domineered prettily over Mr. Ponsonby; and he looked on amused, gratified her caprices, caressed her, and seemed to regard her as a pretty pet and plaything. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... other anatomical relics of departed saints, were said to cure every disease known to man. They had relics that could drive away plagues, give rain, hinder weeds, and in fact, render the natural world the plaything of decaying bones and shreds of dried skin. The monks of Reading had an angel with one wing, who had preserved the spear with which our Lord was pierced. Abbots were found to have concubines in or near the monasteries; midnight revels and drunken feasts were pleasant pastimes for monks weary ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... origin, or the future life. God was to him, as also to Arago, an hypothesis, which he had had no need of up to now. He had no business with the origin of the world, whether Moses or Darwin was right. Darwinism, which seemed so important to his fellows, was only the same kind of plaything of the mind as the creation in six days. The question how the world had originated did not interest him, just because the question how it would be best to live in this world was ever before him. He never thought about future ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... him too, and would reply 'What? why, Charoba!' raised with sweet surprise, And proud to shine a teacher in her turn. Show her the graven sceptre; what its use? 'Twas to beat dogs with, and to gather flies. She thought the crown a plaything to amuse Herself, and not the people, for she thought Who mimic infant words might infant toys: But while she watched grave elders look with awe On such a bauble, she withheld her breath; She was afraid her parents should suspect They had caught childhood ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... take in the idea of shipwreck and death; so, after thinking it over, he decided that Daddy was waiting somewhere for a new boat to be sent to bring him home. This idea was so strong that the child gathered together his store of toy-boats,—for he had many, as they were his favourite plaything,—and launched them, one after another, telling them to find his father, and bring ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... him something more than a plaything—a wonder. It caused his fancy to soar, and little Ben was always happy when his fancy was ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... half-written screed on a rude table improvised by placing a board across the tub; and again the picture, more eloquent, more explanatory of character and of epoch than any written page of history, was a convincing argument that painting was not a plaything. ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... wife cut open this fish to cook it, she found within it a large piece of glass, crystal clear, which she threw to the children for a plaything. A Jewess who entered the shop saw this piece of glass, picked it up, and offered a few pieces of money for it. Hassan's wife dared not do anything now without her husband's leave, and Hassan, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... I did my very best, what he called level best, and when she was done I was as proud of her as—as—well, as your young son here might have been of a new plaything." ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... an article on America, in the periodical in question, and read from it several disparaging expressions concerning Mr. Howel's native country, one of which was, "The American's first plaything ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... so used, the plant gained the names Sanguinary, Thousand leaf, Old Man's pepper, Soldiers' Woundwort. Other local names for it are Staunch grass, Carpenters' weed, and Bloodwort: also, "Old Man's Mustard," "Bad Man's Plaything," and "Devil's Plaything." In Gloucestershire and some other parts, the double-flowered Yarrow is brought to a wedding by [619] bridesmaids as "seven years' love." In Cheshire, children draw the herb across ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... with its ghastly freight, now bruising it against the slimy piles, now hiding it in mud or long rank grass, now dragging it heavily over rough stones and gravel, now feigning to yield it to its own element, and in the same action luring it away, until, tired of the ugly plaything, it flung it on a swamp—a dismal place where pirates had swung in chains through many a wintry night—and left it ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... claim. The noblest beauties of art are those of which the effect is co-extended with rational nature, or at least with the whole circle of polished life; what is less than this can be only pretty, the plaything of fashion, and the amusement of ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... philosophy rests his ultimate chance for happiness, or if not for happiness, content. He knew that until he had sorted and separated from each other the things that mattered and the things that did not matter, he must be the restless plaything of circumstance. In his younger days he had been able to persuade himself that if his point of view on his life work were right and sane, nothing else could hurt him too much. But now, easing himself to the pony's gentle trot and staring into the exquisite blue silence of the desert night, ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... little Fan, which made Anne scream, and Emily, and Amelia Twiss, who was with us, catch hold of the child. The keeper assured us it was only play; but I was well pleased, nevertheless, that there was a grating between that very large cat and the little white mouse of a plaything she contemplated. ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... and is a sorry weight to handle. The contention is, that to withstand the swash of steamboat wakes breaking upon the shore, and the rush of drift in times of flood, a heavy skiff is necessary; there is a tendency to decry Pilgrim as a plaything, unadapted to the great river. A reasonable degree of care at all times, however, and keeping the boat drawn high on the beach when not in use,—such care as we are familiar with upon our Wisconsin ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... she would be returning to the regular job. She would have a page from the Arabian Nights to look upon in the days to come. She understood, though it twisted her heart dreadfully: she was in the eyes of this man a plaything, a pretty woman he had met in passing. If she had saved his life he had in turn saved hers; they were quits. She did not blame him for his point of view. He had come from the top of the world, where women were either ornaments or playthings, while she and hers had always struggled ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... fine customers and them loosening up with the drink. And the ould grannies would have courtesied to me and hate in their hearts. But now a leaf on the wind am I, a broken twig on the stream. And the black men of Ulster have me for a plaything, the men that have a hatred for me and my kind, so that it's a knife they'd put in you, or ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... darkly for the other of you, I should say, as an impartial man, he has represented it fairly. My quarrel with him is, that his works contain nothing worth quoting; and a book that furnishes no quotations, is me judice, no book—it is a plaything. There is no question about the amusement,—amusement of multitudes; but if he who amuses us most is to be our enchanter [Greek text], then my enchanter is the enchanter of ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... political community, wherein he counts as a member of the community, and a life in bourgeois society, wherein he is active as a private person, regarding other men as a means, degrading himself into a means and becoming a plaything ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... by gentle methods. He "invited them to dinner"; "had them often at dinner for a year or more:" but could make no progress in that way. "Who is this we have got for a Governor?" said the noble lords privately to each other: "A Nuremberger Tand" (Nuremberg plaything—wooden image, such as they make at Nuremberg), said they, grinning, in a thick-skinned way: "If it rained Burggraves all the year round, none of them would come to luck in this country;" and continued their feuds, toll-levyings, plunderings, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the pen and brought something back. She held it up and said shyly, "This is Daddy's hat. It used to be the kittens' bed. Now it is their plaything." ...
— Five Little Friends • Sherred Willcox Adams
... Eclipse dashed out from his hiding, and rushed at the golden ball and seized it in his jaws. When Inzana saw the Eclipse bearing her plaything away she cried aloud to the thunder, who burst from Pegana and fell howling upon the throat of the Eclipse, who dropped the golden ball and let it fall towards earth. But the black mountains disguised themselves with ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... evergreens around it, which has often been described by visitors to Concord. Near by is the orchard planted by Emerson, and two miles away his wood-lot, which he describes to Carlyle as his new plaything, and where he proposed to build a tower to which to flee from intrusive visitors. Of the planting of the orchard he ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... 100 for four, and so on. It is unnecessary to observe, with how many inconveniences such a system would be attended when reduced to practice. This discovery of the binary series, which the mathematician, in all probability, considered only as a philosophical plaything, was communicated to Father Bouvet the Jesuit who, happening at that time to be engaged in decyphering the lines of Fo-shee, caught the idea and in an extacy of joy proclaimed to the world that Leibnitz had ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... a child at her side, calling it her darling and her plaything; and yet—more wonder—she does not care for children. What is the reason then. Bassa is apt to fart. (For which she ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... little chamois like that, and just as small: it was not alive, but cut or carved of wood,—such a graceful pretty little plaything as one ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... to have some sort of a plaything. Though no hunter and an indifferent marksman, he had during his life several fancy rifles. Once when he came to Washington to visit me, he brought his rifle with him, carrying the naked weapon in his hand or upon his shoulder. The act was merely the whim of a boy ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... trace the broad river of the canal winding through the desolation for miles beyond. Then I noticed how rapid and effortless is motion in Mars. Volition is so easy and penetrating, the body becomes a mere plaything for the mind. Every function, every part is swayed into vitality by the mind. There is the apparent motion of the limbs, but really the whole frame sweeps on as by an intangible process of translation, and the body is transferred to the point ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... and came to sit down on the hearth at his feet, in an attitude of comical attention. Thereupon he patted her on the head, gently and smilingly, for he was a fond husband still, and she was such a sweet plaything ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... march from Liliput. But what cares Annie for soldiers? No conquering queen is she, neither a Semiramis nor a Catharine, her whole heart is set upon that doll, who gazes at us with such a fashionable stare. This is the little girl's true plaything. Though made of wood, a doll is a visionary and ethereal personage, endowed by childish fancy with a peculiar life; the mimic lady is a heroine of romance, an actor and a sufferer in a thousand shadowy scenes, the chief inhabitant of that wild world with which children ape ...
— Little Annie's Ramble (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fourteen months old Miss Slessor one day went to the dispensary and left her in charge of Mana, who put down a jug of boiling water on the floor beside her. Susie thought it a plaything, and, seizing it, pulled it over upon herself. Instead of calling for "Ma" Mana ran with the child to the bathroom and poured cold water over the wounds. For thirteen days and nights she was never out of Mary's hands. Fortunately Miss Murray, a lady agent who, at her own request, had been ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... the under sex, the very much under sex, in Germany, regarded by the man as his plaything or as his cook-wife and nurse of his children; and she will continue to be the under sex until she develops pride enough to assert herself. She accepts her inferiority without murmur; indeed, she often impresses one as delighting ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... it. I have not been so powerfully moved in years. You have thrilled me. Really I cannot tell you how deeply your theme has sunk into my heart. You have the Northern conscience—so have I; that is why I rebel at being merely the plaything of a careless public. Yes, I will do your play. It is a work of genius. I hope you wrote it in a garret. It's the kind of thing to come from a diet of black ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... still. The den at d was a round pit, like a well, which you could look down into from above: it was about ten feet deep. They used to keep lions in such dens near the palaces and castles in those days. A lion in a den was a sort of plaything in former times, as a parrot or a pet lamb is now: this was in keeping with the fierce and warlike spirit of the age. If they had a lion there in Mary's time, Janet often, doubtless, took her little charge out to see it, and let her throw down food to it from above. The den is there now. ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... distant lands that are living with one here. The Bishop had an exaggerated notion of the population here. I imagine it to be somewhere about 8,000. The language is not very hard, but has quite enough difficulty to make it more than a plaything: the people in that state when they venerate a missionary—a very dangerous state; I do my best to turn the reverence into the right channel and towards its ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... humble little bit of tin and horn; I'm a byword, I'm a plaything, I'm a jest; The virtuoso looks on me with scorn; But there's times when I am better than the best. Ask the stoker and the sailor of the sea; Ask the mucker and the hewer of the pine; Ask the herder of the plain, ask the gleaner of the grain— There's a lowly, ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... envied Claire more than all else was the child, the luxurious plaything, beribboned from the curtains of its cradle to its nurse's cap. She did not think of the sweet, maternal duties, demanding patience and self-abnegation, of the long rockings when sleep would not come, of the laughing awakenings sparkling with fresh water. No! she saw in the child ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... love-tale secret while I can * But, an desire prevail, its needs must show: Night brought me nightly vision, bright as dawn; * While nights of my desire lack morning-glow. I mourn for them[FN61] while they heart-freest sleep * And winds of love on me their plaything blow: Free I bestow my tears, my wealth, my heart * My wit, my sprite: most gain who most bestow! The worst of woes and banes is enmity * Beautiful maidens deal us to our woe. Favour they say's forbidden to the fair * And shedding lovers' blood their laws allow; That naught ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... harmony as we have ever seen—in him all the various lines of Greek culture united, and we get the perfect man. Under the right conditions there might be produced a race of such men—but such a race never lived in Greece and never could. Greece was a splendid experiment. Greece was God's finest plaything—devised to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... very beautiful to me, for she was blooming fast into a gracious womanhood. I felt a secret pride in knowing she was mine, and watched her as I fancied a fond brother might, glad that she was so good, so fair, so much beloved. I ceased to mourn the plaything I had lost, and something akin to reverence mingled with the deepening ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the blood of a lamb.[31] He turned right to the crowd and said, "Who will dare to defy the Kauai boy, for I say to him, my god can give me victory over this man, and my god will deliver the head of this mighty one to be a plaything for my paddlers." ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... sailor who has swam in deep waters, but has come out safe on the other side. Thee is so calm and happy, like Mrs. Jones's little Belinda, who sits in the sun and sings and croons to herself, with never a plaything or anything good about her except her own ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... war and the chase, which has won so many battles and conquered so many kingdoms, has since the introduction of gunpowder been too readily allowed to sink into a plaything for boys. They retain something of a passion for it. Many can remember when they were wont to select the choicest splits of heart-hickory from the wood-pile, lay them aside to season, and then shape them, or have them shaped by stronger and defter hands, into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... three shillings, in preference to paying twenty for the cabin, and having secured a vacant place near the chimney, kept it during the whole passage. The waves were as rough in the Channel as I ever saw them in the Atlantic, and our boat was tossed about like a plaything. By keeping still we escaped sickness, but we could not avoid the sight of the miserable beings who filled the deck. Many of them spoke in the Irish tongue, and our German friend (the student whom I have already mentioned) noticed in many of the words a resemblance ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... heart Must ease itself of this long agony. They call me happy! Did they only know What the chains are, for which they envy me! When I had sacrificed ten bitter years To the proud idol of her vanity; Submitted with a slave's humility To every change of her despotic fancies The plaything of each little wayward whim. At times by seeming tenderness caressed, As oft repulsed with proud and cold disdain; Alike tormented by her grace and rigor: Watched like a prisoner by the Argus eyes Of jealousy; examined like ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... higher than yours," said Laddie, as he looked at his plaything, away up in the air, and then ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's • Laura Lee Hope
... poor plaything to a child with all the toyshops in London to pick and choose from, but it is really very curious and pretty. Bright and smooth to the touch, pencilled with delicate wavy lines, while in its spiral shape it reminds one of winding ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... squirms. Soft-headed, too, for the weakest airs knead and mould it into ever-varying shapes. Now it has a lolling, impudent tongue—a truly unruly member, wagging disrespectfully at the decent night. Now a perky top-knot, and presently no head at all. Lumbering, low-lying, cowardly—a plaything, a toy, a mockery, a sport for the wilful zephyrs. Now it lifts a bully head as it creeps unimpeded across the sea and spreads, infinitely soft, all-encompassing. As if by magic the mainland is blotted out. The sea is dark ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... she took for a piece of glass: indeed she had heard talk of diamonds, but if she had ever seen or handled any she would not have known how to distinguish them. She gave it to the youngest of our children for a plaything, and his brothers and sisters handed it about from one to another, to admire its brightness ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... is not worth anything more, for it is anything but tragic—yet it might become so, if on account of my sins I were to punish myself by marrying Mr. M. I should be of no worth to him, excepting as housekeeper and plaything, and this would not succeed in the long run; for the rest he does not love me, cannot love me seriously, and would certainly easily console ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... size of an American grape-fruit. Being green, and having a skin an inch thick; it withstood the resounding thwacks of the bat quite remarkably. It was fortunate that the diamond was so small, for it would have taken more strength than any of the players possessed to send that plaything any distance. Catching it was only the art of embracing. It had to be guided and hugged to the breast, for it was too big to hold in the hands. The valorous catcher, in spite of his fiercely professional air, invariably dodged it and then ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... spirit soared aloft. Her Gods commanded her implicit faith, her unswerving allegiance. Seated on the storm-clouds, sweeping through space, they represented to her infinite force. She attributed to them no love for mankind, which was in her creed rather their plaything, but she credited them with the will and the power to scatter good and ill before they claimed the soul of the hero to their fellowship, or cast into a lower abyss that of the coward or the traitor. She believed ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... this incident was exceptionally wild and stormy, and, for the first time within memory of living man, the whole of the lower part of the village of Radwell was flooded by the tide. The wild rush of waters had swept away the sea-wall as though it had been a mere plaything, and widespread destruction ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... below the average in those qualities and powers that insure worldly success—the kind of men that are so often crowded to the wall. I can see myself in some of them, especially in Hiram, who had daydreams, who was always going West, but never went; who always wanted some plaything—fancy sheep or pigs or poultry; who was a great lover of bees and always kept them; who was curious about strange lands, but who lost heart and hope as soon as he got beyond the sight of his native hills; and who usually got cheated in every ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... fell to playing with the handkerchief as if it were a ball, casting it into the air and catching it—as it fell. The game was stopped by another hand than mine-a hand emerging from a paletot-sleeve and stretched over my shoulder; it caught the extemporised plaything and bore it away ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... deaf, ye rigid rocks, To human sorrow's plaintive tones, While in your dark recesses Echo dwelt, No idle plaything of the winds, But spirit sad of hapless nymph, Whom unrequited love, and cruel fate, Of her soft limbs deprived. She o'er the grots, The naked rocks, and mansions desolate, Unto the depths of all-embracing air, Our sorrows, not to her unknown, Our broken, loud laments ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... A plaything for the young ones he has found— A dormouse nest; the living ball coil'd round For its long winter sleep; all his thought As he trudged stoutly homeward, was of naught But the glad wonderment in Jenny's eyes, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... of a man. Now I know of a truth that my husband loveth me dearly; and I sicken of Paris, who maketh me his delight. Hateful to me are the ways of men with women. Have I not cause enough to hate them, these long years a plaything for his arms, and a fruit to allay the drouth of his eyes? Am I less a woman in that I am fair, or less woman grown because I can never be old? Now I loathe the sweet lore of Aphrodite, which she taught me too ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett
... added nothing else and met a rapid side glance with unmoving red-brown eyes gazing out from under rugged brows, perhaps irritated Anstruthers. He had been rather enjoying himself, but he had not enjoyed himself enough. There was no denying that his plaything had not openly flinched. Plainly he was not good at flinching. Anstruthers wondered how far a man might go. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and yacht with them. As soon as that begins to happen, Ronnie, a lot of other things will come to an end. Of course I've always known that you don't really care for me, but as soon as the world knows it you are irrevocably damaged as a plaything. That is the great secret that binds us together, the knowledge that we have no real affection for one another. And this afternoon every one will know that you are a great artist, and no great artist was ...
— When William Came • Saki
... his enthusiasm for agriculture the evanescent enthusiasm of the man who in middle age buys a farm as a plaything and tries for the first time the costly experiment of cultivating the soil. He was born on a plantation, was brought up in the country and until manhood he had never even seen a town of five thousand people. First he was a surveyor, and so careful and painstaking ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... news that my sister would be pledged to spend her life as the companion, or, more properly speaking, the plaything, of a man who had so little delicacy of mind, so little self-respect, as to have allowed his feelings (for that he was attached to Fanny, as far as he was capable of forming a real attachment, I could ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... he is free in act; Naught is he but the powerless worthless plaything Of the blind force that in his will itself Works out for ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... make a mistake," said Hadria. "As soon as she sees you she will want the watch, and then you will be placed between the awful alternatives of voluntarily surrendering your freedom, and heartlessly refusing to present yourself to her as a big plaything. In one respect you have not yet achieved a thorough fidelity to your model; you don't seem to enjoy sacrifice for its own sake. That ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... to thank for this - her letters and her suicide. It wasn't as easy as you thought to throw her over for a new soul mate, this Mademoiselle Gabrielle whom you were going to set up as a rival in business to Violette. Violette has her revenge for making a plaything of her heart, and if the dead can take ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... this willful bit of womanhood to make a plaything of that picturesque child of nature, just as loneliness caused him to open his eyes to the existence of that, which in the logical and ordinary course of events, he would have entirely overlooked. But since life is made up almost entirely of contraries, it is not so ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... be asked, had come that plaything of the tempest? From what part of the world did it rise? It surely could not have started during the storm. But the storm had raged five days already, and the first symptoms were manifested on the 18th. It cannot be doubted that the balloon came from a ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... brown men of the apple-tree crews leaned the patched elbows of their old coats on the rails and gloomily surveyed the conviviality on board the plaything crafts. Remarks which they exchanged with one another were framed to indicate a sort of lofty scorn for these frolickers of the sea. The coasting skippers, most of whom wore hard hats, as if they did not want to be confounded with ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... speeches of his own subjects. Nitetis and Phanes were the only human beings, who had ever made him forget that he was a king. With them he was a man speaking to his fellow-man, instead of a despot speaking with creatures whose very existence was the plaything of his own caprice. Such is the effect produced by real manly dignity, superior culture and the consciousness of a right to freedom, on the mind even of a tyrant. But there was something beside all this, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers |
