"Disport" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Drink, drink, little peasants! Disport yourselves bravely!" 'Twas gay beyond measure. In each breast awakens A wondrous new feeling, As though from the depths Of a bottomless gulf On the crest of a wave, 180 They've been borne to the surface To find there awaits them ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... no occupation, and to deprive him of healthy exercise, so that no wonder he had grown lazy and selfish; but his native spirit was not entirely extinguished, and he assured me that a bare bone to growl over, and a little comfortable rain and mud to disport himself in like a dog, were still the greatest treats that could be offered to him. His temper had been farther soured by the spite and envy of dogs around him, who, less petted themselves, and not aware ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... it do me harm to disport myself in the flowery mead with the butterflies? Should I feel a distaste for the bread earned by labour and pain after the honey ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... analogies; the use of far-fetched illustrations; quips and cranks and wanton wiles of the reasoning fancy in deviating self-indulgence; and an allusiveness which sets commentators into note-making effervescence. All these, and more, which belong to wit, are often quite ungoverned, allowed to disport themselves as they please. Such matters delight the unpoetic readers of Browning, and indeed they are excellent entertainment. But let us call them by their true name; let us not call them poetry, nor mistake their art for the art of poetry. Writing ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... for disport we fawn and flatter both, To pass the time when nothing else can please, And train them to our lure with subtle oath, Till, weary of their wiles, ourselves we ease; And then we say when we their fancy try, To play with fools, O what a fool ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... others north-west, so probably its true course amounts to N.N.W. We came to a village about 2' W. of the confluence, whose headman was affable and generous. The village has a meadow some four miles wide on the land side, in which buffaloes disport themselves, but they are very wild, and hide in the gigantic grasses. Sorghum, ground-nuts, and voandzeia grow luxuriantly. The Lofu is a quarter of a mile wide, but higher up three hundred yards. The valley was always ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... all the words of Volsung e'en so must the matter be, And Siggeir the Goth and Signy on the morn shall sail the sea. But the feast sped on the fairer, and the more they waxed in disport And the glee that all men love, as they knew that the hours were short. Yet a boding heart bare Sigmund amid his singing and laughter; And somewhat Signy wotted of the deeds that were coming after; For the wisest of women she was, and many a thing ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... his supporters such a measure of license as was needed to make their support continuing. A shameless new quarter suddenly obtruded itself with an ugly emphasis; unclassifiables, male and female, began to assert and disport themselves more daringly than dreamt of heretofore; and many good citizens who would crowd the town forward to a population of a million and to a status undeniably metropolitan came to stroll these tawdry, noisy new streets with a curiosity of mind at once disturbed, titillated, and somehow ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... often that they hang with the picturesque lines of the best tailor-made garments. That is why well-fed artists of pencil and pen find in the griefs of the common people their most striking models. But when the Philistine would disport himself, the grimness of Melpomene, herself, attends upon his capers. Therefore, Danny set his jaw hard at Easter, and took his ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... of life disport themselves round my bed of death, and dance about me like fair women; but if I beckon to them, I must die. Death always confronts me. You must be the barrier between the world ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... many and varied are the names of saints mentioned in these my reflections from "a Terrace in Prague." I do not profess deep knowledge of saints, and do not as a rule venture on the hallowed ground where saints disport themselves. Nevertheless, while dealing with the city of Prague in particular or the Bohemian people in general, and endeavouring to become acquainted with them, you are faced with the fact that there is in this country a strong and no doubt commendable attraction towards ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... happy," said Irene, who had been helping some of the little girls to climb up and tumble down cocks of hay, and otherwise disport themselves. "I didn't know other children could be so nice; but I find poor children are much nicer than rich ones. They have no manners, which I detest, and just say what they think. They have been telling me some home-truths, and I have been laughing like anything. I didn't know ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... with her household and secretarial work, filled up her days; he knew too well that whist accounted for her evenings. He did not know if there was any margin, any dim intellectual region, out of time, out of space, where Miss Tancred's soul was permitted to disport itself in freedom; she seemed to exist merely in order to supply certain deficiencies in the Colonel's nature. Mrs. Fazakerly had once remarked that Frida was "her father's right hand." It would have been truer to have said that she was right hand and left hand, ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... clouds and wind so eagerly? If, like guilty spirits, they repair to some dread conference with powers like themselves, in what wild regions do the elements hold council, or where unbend in terrible disport? ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... watching Cayley into bed. After all it was only polite to return Cayley's own solicitude earlier in the night. Politeness demanded that one should not disport oneself on the pond until one's ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... of these books remind one of "a merry disport," which formerly took place in the hall of the Inner Temple. "At the conclusion of the ceremony, a huntsman came into the hall bearing a fox, a pursenet, and a cat, both bound at the end of a staff, attended by nine or ten ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... excursion was working itself off in social and convivial songs. But it was not so. The singers were provided with hymn-and-tune books, and what they sang they rendered in long meter and with a most doleful earnestness. It is agreeable to the traveler to see that the provincials disport themselves within bounds, and that an hilarious spree here does not differ much in its exercises from a prayer-meeting elsewhere. But the excursion enjoyed its staid ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... his letters of this time [Footnote: American Note-Books, Vol. I.] how the life wore upon him; and his journal apparently ceased during the whole bucolic experience. How joyously his mind begins to disport itself again with fancies, the moment he leaves the association, even temporarily! And in 1842, as soon as he is fairly quit of it, the old darkling or waywardly gleaming stream of thought and imagination flows freshly, untamably forward. Hawthorne remained with the Brook Farm ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... into the forest uplands. "Robert and I go out and lose ourselves in the woods and mountains, and sit by the waterfalls on the starry and moonlit nights," she wrote from their high perch above Lucca in 1849; but their adventures in this kind were on the whole like the noon-disport of the amphibian swimmer in Fifine,—they always admitted of an easy retreat to the terra ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... programme, was interrupted by the formidable sound of the governed proletariat beyond the walls of the Town Hall. And Edwin's memory, making him feel very old, leapt suddenly back into another generation of male glee-singers that did not disport humorously and that would not have permitted themselves to be interrupted by the shouting of populations; and he recalled 'Loud Ocean's Roar,' and the figure of Florence Simcox flitted in front of him. The proletariat ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... respect, however, it is an object of envy rather than otherwise, for myriads of fleas, larger than I would care to say, for fear of being accused of exaggeration, hold high revel on our devoted carcasses all the livelong night. From the swarms of these frisky insects that disport and kick their heels together in riotous revelry on and about my own person, I fancy, forsooth, they have discovered in me something to be made the most of, as a variety of food seldom coming within their province. But the complaining moans of "Ali-Akbar" from ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... eyen two, sin your disport Was al to seen Criseydes eyen brighte, 310 What shal ye doon but, for my discomfort, Stonden for nought, and wepen out your sighte? Sin she is queynt, that wont was yow to lighte, In veyn fro-this-forth have I eyen tweye Y-formed, sin your vertue ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... joint title. It combines with his delight in emblematic allegory happily enough, in most of these pieces except Mother Hubbard's Tale. This is almost an open satire, and shows that if Spenser's genius had not found a less mongrel style to disport itself in, not merely would Donne, and Lodge, and Hall, and Marston have had to abandon their dispute for the post of first English satirist, but the attainment of really great satire in English might have been hastened by a hundred years, and Absalom and Achitophel have been but a second. Even ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... desires it, make up the bed for 'im," volunteers the military officer, towards eleven o'clock; and, as there isn't much going on, we say, "All right—we'll have it now;" and we disport ourselves in the corridor, while he works a sort of transformation in our Gladstone Bag compartment, which seems greatly to diminish its "containing" capacity. Indeed, if it were not for the floor, the ceiling, and the walls, one ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... different aspect. He experienced something of that temporary relief from personal responsibility that moments of religious sentiment often give to minds that are unaccustomed to religion. He had been free for the time to disport himself in something infinitely larger and wider than his little world, and he took up his duty at the point at which he had left it with something of this sense of freedom ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... what it looks like. But a single glimpse into those cool dappled depths, where the sunny water is shoal enough to show bottom, reveals, alas! how little mermaiden and romantic those depths are. For London does not disport itself every Sunday on the Thames without leaving ample traces of that disporting. We see those traces gleaming and glooming there,—empty beer- and wine-bottles, devitalized sardine-boxes, osseous remains of fish, flesh, and fowl, scooped cheese-rinds, egg-shells, the buttons of defrauded ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... in which two extremely pretty girls were bathing. With the evening sun glinting on their brown bodies and their piquant, oval faces framed by the dusky torrents of their loosened hair, they looked like those bronze maidens which disport themselves in the fountain of the Piazza delle Terme in Rome, come to life. I felt certain that they would take to flight when Hawkinson unlimbered his motion-picture camera and trained it upon them, but they continued their joyous splashing without the slightest trace of self-consciousness ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... wire) bowers, the aviaries, the porticoes, the frightful circular edifice (tondo e il ricco edificio), a masterpiece of Palladian stucco work, in which Armida and Rinaldo, Acrasia and her Knight, drearily disport themselves. What has become of Calypso's island? of the orchards of Alcinous? What would the noble knights and ladies of Ariosto and Spenser think of them? What would they say, these romantic, dainty creatures, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... back to Kauai, and one stands with the poet looking down on a piece of ocean where the people are wont to disport themselves. (Maka-iwa, not far from Ka-ipu-ha'a, is said to be such a place.) Verses 12 to 19 in the Hawaiian (13 to 21 in the ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... flattery! Walk with me to the Battery, And see in glassy tanks the seals, The sturgeons, flounders, smelt and eels Disport themselves in ichthyic curves— And when it gets upon our nerves Then, while our wabbling taxi honks I'll tell you all about the Bronx, Where captive wild things mope and stare Through grills of steel that bar each lair Doomed to imprisonment ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... about them. Their household teaching under Mrs. Elsmere and her old servant Martha—as great an original as herself—was so irregular, their religious training so extraordinary, the clothes in which they were allowed to disport themselves so scandalous to the sober taste of the rector's wife, that Catherine involuntarily regarded the little cottage on the hill as a spot of misrule in the general order of the parish. She would go in, say, at eleven o'clock in the morning, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... state in words to Mrs. Stott, and set out for Deane Hill. It was just possible that the Wonder might have slipped down that steep incline and injured himself. Possible, but very unlikely; the Wonder did not take the risks common to boys of his age, he did not disport ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... the poetry; since one of the noblest functions of its art is to describe the deeds and the subjects of stories, and adorned and delectable places with transparent waters in which the green recesses of their course can be seen as the waves disport themselves over meadows and fine pebbles, and the plants which are mingled with them, and the gliding fishes, and similar descriptions, which might just as well be made to a stone as to a man born blind, since he has never seen that which ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... regret in the case was that Mr. Cox had not been considerate enough to leave a carriage and a pair of bays on my hands, that I might have had the satisfaction of enabling his daughter to disport herself about the city in a style corresponding to her importance as a member of so respectable and wealthy ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... gone, and fold thy tender sheep, For lo, the great automaton of day In Isis stream his golden locks doth steep; Sad even her dusky mantle doth display; Light-flying fowls, the posts of night, disport them, And ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... anyone waiting by an elder-bush on Midsummer Night at twelve o'clock will see the king of fairyland and all his retinue pass by and disport themselves in favorite haunts, among others the mounds of fragrant wild thyme. How ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... Tai-y's return home, he was left to his own self and felt very lonely. Neither would he go and disport himself with others; but with the daily return of dusk, he was wont ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... on Fielding, and the scorn with which Dandy Walpole and Bishop Hurd speak of him. Galley-slaves doomed to tug the oar and wear the chain, whilst my lords and dandies take their pleasure, and hear fine music and disport with ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and jewels and ottars[FN660] and gain great profit on them; till, Allah willing, I will make my capital an hundred thousand dirhams. Then I will purchase a fine house with white slaves and eunuchs and horses; and I will eat and drink and disport myself; nor will I leave a singing man or a singing woman in the city, but I will summon them to my palace and make them perform before me." All this he counted over in his mind, while the tray of glass ware,: worth an hundred dirhams, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Labor Day. The occupations of Mr. Cassidy and Mr. Fink ceased for one passage of the sun. Labor, triumphant, would parade and otherwise disport itself. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... delightfully plastic to its touch and requirements, and soon made it the centre of a new and charming world, in which a whole army of graceful and romantic fancies, which are always in quest of an arena in which to disport themselves before the mind, found abundant accommodation and nourishment. The fairy land of mediaeval Christianity seems to us the most satisfactory of all fairy lands, probably because it is more in accord with our genius and prejudices than those of the East; and it fitted ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... Disport yourselves, little folks; gossip, plump nurses, as you scold your soldiers. Embroider peaceably, young mothers, making from time to time a little game of your neighbors among yourselves; and you, reflective idlers, look at that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... on a fair sunny morning of spring, that Ralph sat alone on the toft by the rock-house, for Ursula had gone down the meadow to disport her and to bathe in the river. Ralph was fitting the blade of a dagger to a long ashen shaft, to make him a strong spear; for with the waxing spring the bears were often in the meadows again; and the day ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... sits writing at the old mahogany desk, and smiling, perhaps, at her own fancies, and hiding them away with her papers at the sound of coming steps. Now, the modest papers, printed and reprinted, lie in every hand, the fancies disport themselves at their will in the wisest brains and the ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... midday rest with their teams in places and spots where grass and water abound; and that where Don Quixote chanced to be suited the Yanguesans' purpose very well. It so happened, then, that Rocinante took a fancy to disport himself with their ladyships the ponies, and abandoning his usual gait and demeanour as he scented them, he, without asking leave of his master, got up a briskish little trot and hastened to make known ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... entertaining the revel now began—no lesser word describes it. If, before the departure of his dinner guests, Brown had experienced a slight feeling of fatigue, it disappeared with the pleasure of seeing his present company disport themselves. They were not in the least afraid of him—how should they be, when he had spent months in the winning of their confidence and affection by every clever wile known to the genuine boy lover? That ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... the Falco tribe. The enclosures for Indian and other rare cattle also aid the interesting character of the whole scene. A long glazed building is likewise in progress for monkeys, who may thus disport their recreant limbs in an exotic atmosphere. Apart from these attractions, the grounds themselves have some of the most beautiful features of landscape gardening: they abound with what artists consider bits of the picturesque. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... which has its tutelary deity. In particular, the elementary god of fire solaces himself in one. In another, Enceladus, in lieu of a mountain, is overwhelmed with many waters. There are avenues of water-pots, who disport themselves much in squirting up cascadelins. In short, 'tis a garden for a great child. Such was Louis Quatorze, who is here seen in his proper colours, where he commanded in person, unassisted by his armies ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... doth also report that you did give to the daughter of the publican at whose house you do now abide, a ring of fine gold, and did also write to her a sonnet in praise of her eyebrows and her lips, and did otherwise wickedly disport with ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... fellowship with everything that moved and lived; knew every bird and beast with a friendly acquaintanceship. The squirrels that inhabited the trees in the front yard were won in time by her blandishments to come and perch on her window-sills, and thence, by trains of nuts adroitly laid, to disport themselves on the shining cherry tea-table that stood between the windows; and we youngsters used to sit entranced with delight as they gamboled and waved their feathery tails in frolicsome security, eating rations of gingerbread and bits of seedcake with ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... windmills and waterwheels, all of which he made to work very well. He also used to tie paper lanterns to the tail of his kite, so as to make the country folk fancy they saw a comet, and in general to disport himself as a ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... perhaps, that minuets have gone out of fashion, if they involved such a test of endurance as that in which Claude Duval and his fair captive now disport themselves with an amount of bodily exertion it seems real cruelty to encore. His concluding caper shakes the mask from his partner's face, and the young lady falls, with a shriek, into his arms, leaving the audience in that happy state of perplexity, which ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... as expansive as the prairie; but I affirm no man could exaggerate the fury of a blizzard on the unbroken prairie. To one thing only may it be likened—a hurricane at sea. People in lands boxed off at short compass by mountain ridges forget with what violence a wind sweeping half a continent can disport itself. In the boisterous roar of the gale, my shouts to the dogs were a feeble whisper caught from my lips and lost in the shrieking wind. The fine snowy particles were a powdered ice that drove through seams of ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... had gotten her breath again, she asked him what next she should do for his disport. And he bade tell him of how she lived with those two women, her aunts, and what she did from day to day. So she sat down as on the other day, with her legs hanging down over the grisly flood, and told him full sweetly of her joys and ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... give their wedding-parties at a cafe or 'uitspanning.' This word means literally a place where the horse is taken out of the shafts, but it is also a restaurant with a garden attached to it, in which there are swings and seesaws, upon which the guests disport themselves during the afternoon, while in the evening a large hall in the building is arranged for the ball, for that is the conclusion of every 'Boeren bruiloft.' Very often the ball lasts till the cock-crowing, and then, if the 'Bruiloft houers' are Roman Catholics, ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... owns to ten her new breasts arise * And like diver's pearl with fair neck she hies: The damsel of twenty defies compare * 'Tis she whose disport we desire and prize: She of thirty hath healing on cheeks of her; * She's a pleasure, a plant whose sap never dries: If on her in the forties thou happily hap * She's best of her sex, hail to him ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... account of a pageant which took place at Christmas, 1440, is from the records of Norwich:—"John Hadman, a wealthy citizen, made disport with his neighbours and friends, and was crowned King of Christmas. He rode in state through the city, dressed forth in silks and tinsel, and preceded by twelve persons habited as the twelve months of the year, their costumes varying to represent the different seasons ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... village, Finest spot in all of Northland, In the lowlands sweet the verdure, in the uplands, fields of beauty, With the lake-shore near the hamlet, Near thy home the running water, Where the goslings swim and frolic, Water-birds disport in numbers." Thereupon the bride and bridegroom Were refreshed with richest viands, Given food and drink abundant, Fed on choicest bits of reindeer, On the sweetest loaves of barley, On the best of wheaten biscuits, On the richest beer of Northland. Many ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... and of his tortuous train Curled many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve, To lure her eye; she, busied, heard the sound Of rustling leaves, but minded not, as used To such disport before her through the field, From every beast; more duteous at her call, Than at Circean call the herd disguised. He, bolder now, uncalled before her stood, But as in gaze admiring: oft he bowed His turret crest, and sleek enamelled neck, Fawning; and licked the ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... ship. As soon as Solon saw this ship sail away from the island, he ordered the women out of the way, dressed up those young men who were still beardless in their clothes, headdresses, and shoes, gave them daggers, and ordered them to dance and disport themselves near the seashore until the enemy landed, and their ship was certain to be captured. So the Megarians, imagining them to be women, fell upon them, struggling which should first seize them, but they were cut off ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... could thus disport myself," answered Vivian. "I would always love you if you could show me ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... disport had been known previously to the expedition to Moscow, and the favourite divertisement a la Russe, so much in vogue amongst the Parisians for a few subsequent ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 79, May 3, 1851 • Various
... buccaneers were willing to buy everything which could be brought from Europe. They were fond of good wine, good groceries, good firearms, and ammunition, fine cutlasses, and very often good clothes, in which they could disport themselves when on shore. But they had peculiar customs and manners, and although they were willing to buy as much as the French traders had to sell, they could not be prevailed upon to pay their bills. A pirate is not the sort of a man who generally cares to pay his bills. When ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... who had fascinations to disport, or were in the habit of disporting what they considered such, were probably still at home consulting the looking-glass until that oracle should announce the auspicious moment ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... inexpressible; and that joy lost in a crowd of yet greater blisses! But this was a disorder too violent in nature to last long: the vessels, so stirred and intensely heated, soon boiled over, and for that time put out the fire; meanwhile all this dalliance and disport had so far consumed the morning, that it became a kind of necessity to lay breakfast and ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... equally at ease in the air, the earth, and the water. He makes himself at home in our beverages and our foods. Our mouths furnish desirable lurking places for him, our hair, and finger-nails are favorite posts of vantage; while he delights to disport himself in our blood. He is the active agent of decay, and the prime cause of disease. He is the most selfish of parasites. The world for a long time disregarded him, but now acknowledges him as one of the mightiest of conquerers; ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... to myself that if it was "only" a neurosis it was one with great possibilities. The fact that collapses are frequent among brain-workers was not easily dismissed from my mind. I feared insanity and began to picture how I would disport myself in a madhouse. It seemed that I could not carry out the medical advice to take vigorous exercise, as it gave me palpitation and made me fear that my heart ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... the general feeling of readers has been constantly becoming more and more strict. At length even that class of works in which it was formerly thought that a voluptuous imagination was privileged to disport itself, love songs, comedies, novels, have become more decorous than the sermons of the seventeenth century. At this day foreigners, who dare not print a word reflecting on the government under which they live, are at a loss to understand how it happens that the freest ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... your knight, Brother," said he, "and for the better disport of the company, here is my fool. Hold up, Saxon Samson, the gates of Gaza ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... F. L. were diminutive, and not unlike her own hand, she thought. They were appended to a piece of facetiousness that would not have disgraced the abilities of Mr. John Raikes; but we know that very stiff young gentlemen betray monkey-minds when sweet young ladies compel them to disport. On the whole, it was not a lazy afternoon that the Countess passed, and it was not against her wish that others should think ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... artist and the new-fangled thinker don't inspire it with that fear, loathing, and disgust which the burgesses instinctively feel towards them. It is a sort of Red Indian Reservation planted in the midst of a vast horde of Poor Whites—colonials at that. Within its boundaries wild men disport themselves—often, it must be admitted, a little grossly, a little too flamboyantly; and when kindred spirits are born outside the pale it offers them some sort of refuge from the hatred which the Poor Whites, en bons bourgeois, lavish on anything that is wild or ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... if this should be done, lay ye hands on the captive and set him free, without fear, and if any one should resist, kill him and fear not. I myself will not enter your city nor dwell therein, but I will build me a place beside the bridge of Alcantara, where I may go and disport myself at times, and repair when it is needful." When he had said these things he bade ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... clean, and really hardly anything else, except extremely correct, and always good form, without being too noticeably so, no one would have dreamed that this quiet young man, who looked like a shy subaltern, was simply dying to disport himself on the stage, and that it was the dream of his life to make an utter ass of himself as Hamlet, or a hopeless fool of himself as (say) the hero in Still Waters Run Deep—a play he had seen as a boy and had ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... procession that was not accompanied, or, rather, in great measure made up of, followers and onlookers. So in this life parade of ours, with its ever varying pageant and brilliant display, there are comparatively few who carry banners, who disport the epaulette, and the gold lace. And sometimes, we who help swell the ranks of those who watch and wait, grow discouraged, almost thinking that life is a failure because it holds no gala-day for us, nothing but sober tints and quiet duties. ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... borders of the mainland are full of every kind of evergreen—magnolias, live oak (a species of ilex), orange-trees, etc., and trailing shrubs, with varnished leaves, that bind the tawny, rattling sedges together, and make summer bowers for the alligators and snakes which abound and disport themselves ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Sarmatians, with all sorts of excellent birds, eagles, gerfalcons, goshawks, falcons, sparrow-hawks, merlins, and other kinds of them, so gentle and perfectly well trained that, flying from the castle for their own disport, they would not fail to catch whatever they encountered. The venery was a little further off, drawing toward ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... explanation—unfelt aesthetically. They have not been through the oven. They are artistically insincere. Sentimentality makes strange bedfellows. Rousseau has slipped into the very hole wherein Mr. Frank Dixie and Sir Luke Fildes disport themselves; only, by betraying his vice in a picture that is, for the most part, so exquisitely sure in its simple, delicate expression of a frank and charming vision he gives us an impressive example of the danger, even to a good ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... believed that our loss was stupendous; whereas we had scarcely a casualty except the death of General Green, an irreparable one. No Confederate went aboard the fleet and no Federal came ashore; so there was a fine field of slaughter in which the imagination of both sides could disport itself. ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... awake. So let us take our horses and our hounds and let us take certain foresters and huntsmen, and let us go forth a-hunting into the green forest; for this day shall be holiday for me and for you and we shall leave care behind us, and for a while we shall disport ourselves in pleasant places." ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... the distance of three hundred yards, would be rolled over, like a child's play-boat, by the wave which an exploding or over-setting iceberg would cause. And it might, indeed, be supposed, that, did one of those prodigious creations take a notion to disport its billions of tons in a somersault, it would raise no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... indulgently on the country as a place where people of irreproachable income and hospitable instincts cultivated tennis-lawns and rose-gardens and Jacobean pleasaunces, wherein selected gatherings of interested week- end guests might disport themselves. Mrs. Gaspilton considered herself as distinctly an interesting personality, and from a limited standpoint she was doubtless right. She had indolent dark eyes and a comfortable chin, which belied the slightly plaintive inflection which she threw into ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... low building, with a red-tiled roof extending over a porch or whitewashed veranda, in which drunken vaqueros had been known to occasionally disport their mustangs, did not offer a very reputable appearance to the eye of young Guest as he approached it in the gathering shadows. One or two half-broken horses were securely fastened to the stout cross-beams of some heavy posts driven in the roadway before it, and a primitive trough ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... not my Latin well this morning, cousin?" queried Francis. "Doth not my lady mother instruct me in the tent and cross-stitch each day? Besides doth not even the Queen's Majesty disport herself with the bow? 'Tis the fashion, good ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... interests, they love the bustle and stir of the open road, the gatherings at the shrines, and the infinite possibilities of gossip with like-minded dowagers. Very often it suits a longsuffering family that a strong-tongued, iron-willed old lady should disport herself about India in this fashion; for certainly pilgrimage is grateful to the Gods. So all about India, in the most remote places, as in the most public, you find some knot of grizzled servitors in nominal ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... goodly tale or two, On which he may disport him at night. His high prudence hath insight very To judge if it be well made or nay. Write him nothing that soweneth to vice. Look if find thou canst any treatise Grounded ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... upon consulting his map, calculated that they were passing over the Uzaramo* country. The soil was thickly studded with cocoa-nut, papaw, and cotton-wood trees, above which the balloon seemed to disport itself like a bird. Joe found this splendid vegetation a matter of course, seeing that they were in Africa. Kennedy descried some hares and quails that asked nothing better than to get a good shot from his fowling-piece, but it would have been powder wasted, since ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... and pottery fragments, and it was with a tearful and apologetic face that he said "Talaam, Tahib," when I came home from office. A hasty inquiry resulted in Imam Din informing Muhammad Din that, by my singular favor, he was permitted to disport himself as he pleased. Whereat the child took heart and fell to tracing the ground-plan of an edifice which was to eclipse ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... woods, where our 'hairy quadrumanous ancestor' (Darwinian for the primaeval monkey, from whom we are presumably descended) used playfully to disport himself, as yet unconscious of his glorious destiny as the remote progenitor of Shakespeare, Milton, and the late Mr. Peace—in tropical woods, such acrid or pungent fruits and plants are particularly common, and ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... to delight the heart of a couple of care-free children. The forest was filled with oaks, beeches, walnuts and sugar-maple trees, growing close together and free from underbrush. Now and then there was an open glade called a prairie or "lick," where the wild animals came to drink and disport themselves. Game was plentiful—deer, bears, pheasants, wild turkeys, ducks and birds of all kinds. This, with Tom Lincoln's passion for hunting, promised good things for the family to eat, as well as bearskin rugs for the bare earth floor, and deerskin curtains ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... there were rumours, that at summer bathing excursions she wore a somewhat similar garment to that of the gymnasium, instead of one of those long serge gowns reaching to the ankles that ladies were wont to disport themselves in amidst the surf—gowns in which it was impossible to do anything but bob up and down at the ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... with doubt had ended—where so many are apt to end, when the world is sunny and success weaves its silken meshes for the disport of self—in a quiet disbelief that angered him no longer, because he had given over all fight with it. But the great dome, flaming with its letters, AEdificabo meam Ecclesiam, shining there for ages, kindled the fight anew. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... Fabell, that lyeth in Edmonton church, who is said to have beguiled the devell by policie for money; but the devell is deceit itselfe, and hardly deceived."—"Belike (says Weever) he was some ingenious, conceited gentleman, who did use some sleightie tricks for his own disport. He lived and died in the reign of Henry the Seventh, says the book of his merry pranks." The book Weever refers to is a pamphlet, now very scarce, called "The Life and Death of the Merry Devil of Edmonton, with the Pleasant Pranks of Smug the Smith, &c." These ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... brook, though a very delightful place for fish to disport in, was shallow, and by no means adapted for the recreation of so large a being as myself; it was, moreover, exposed, though I saw nobody at hand, nor heard a single human voice or sound. Following the winding of the brook I ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... lungworts. Then spring invades the earth, and cellar and stream with honey and pollen, while each day beholds the birth of thousands of bees. The overgrown males now all sally forth from their cells, and disport themselves on the combs; and so crowded does the too prosperous city become that hundreds of belated workers, coming back from the flowers towards evening, will vainly seek shelter within, and will be forced to spend the night on the threshold, where they will be decimated ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... desired, To see whose head with orient Pearles, Most curiously was tyred; And to it selfe the subtle Ayre, Such souerainty assumes, That it receiu'd too large a share From natures rich perfumes. 20 When the Elizian Youth were met, That were of most account, And to disport themselues were set Vpon an easy Mount: Neare which, of stately Firre and Pine There grew abundant store, The Tree that weepeth Turpentine, And shady Sicamore. Amongst this merry youthfull trayne A Forrester they had, 30 A Fisher, and a Shepheards swayne A liuely Countrey Lad: Betwixt which ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... scenery, and yet scarce allowed to look upon it! I was more like a prisoner gazing through the grating of his gaol upon the free world without—like a bird who sees through the wires of its cage the bright-green foliage, amidst which it would gladly disport itself. ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... sleds, on went the round hoods, old hats, red cloaks, and moccasins, and away trudged the four younger Bassetts, to disport themselves in the snow, and try the ice down by the old mill, where the great wheel turned and splashed so merrily in ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Youth of centuries smiles from gray walls and aery pinnacles upon the joyous children of To-day. Youth, in a bright-haired, black-winged-butterfly swarm, streams out of every dark doorway, from the austere shade of study, to disport itself, two by two, or in larger eddying groups, upon the worn gravel, even venturously flits across the sacred green of the turf. There is an effervescence of life in the clear air, and the sun-steeped ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... a good soul, that Aunt Janet, and had a kind, loving heart in her ample bosom. But I fancy there were times when she thought it rather hard that the daughter of a roving adventurer—as she considered him—like Blair Stanley should disport herself in silk dresses, while her own daughters must go clad in gingham and muslin—for those were the days when a feminine creature got one silk dress in her lifetime, and seldom more ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... them; for Professor Seeley, that stern custodian, has his answer ready for all such seekers. 'If you want recreation, you must find it in Poetry, particularly Lyrical Poetry. Try Shelley. We can no longer allow you to disport yourselves in the Fields of History as if they were a ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... should shoot, and fish, and ride, and disport myself gaily over my brother's inheritance—that my own hand deprived him of!" cried Brian, with angry bitterness. "It is so likely! Is it you who have no feeling, or do you fancy that ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... hard fate for the pious first wife but the idea would not occur to the Moslem mind. After bearing ten children a woman becomes "Umm al-banti w'al-bann"a mother of daughters and sons, and should hold herself unfit for love-disport. The seven ages of womankind are thus described by the Arabs and I translate the lines after ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... and the road along the Admiralty canal are now the citizens' chief places of disport. Before the year 1869 the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, that skirts the sea on the south side of the old town, was their sole promenade. And even this street was built only a short time ago. Vainly one conjectures where the medieval Tarentines took the air. It must ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... matter over many times, they agreed that it was in truth not less but even more delightful than they had been given to understand; and so, as they found convenient opportunity, they continued to go and disport themselves with the mute. ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... House. The most desirable method demands a span of horses for a spin out Point Lobos Avenue. We may, however, be obliged to take a McGinn bus that leaves the Plaza hourly. It will be all the same when we reach the Cliff and gaze on Ben Butler and his companion sea-lions as they disport themselves in the ocean or climb the rocks. Wind or fog may greet us, but the indifferent monsters roar, fight, and play, while the restless waves roll in. We must, also, make a special trip to Rincon Hill and South Park to see how and where our magnates ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... satisfy itself as to the soundness in the faith of the candidates before them. On this score, however, few indulged serious anxiety. Once the Hebraic shoals and snags were safely passed, both examiner and examined could disport themselves with a jaunty self-confidence born of a thorough acquaintance with the Shorter Catechism received during the plastic ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... stave off starvation by eating their own haunches, so the drama must be on its last legs, when actors turn king's evidence, and exhibit to the public how they flirt and quarrel, and eat oysters and drink porter, and scandalise and make fun—how, in fact, they disport ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... Bunny," she answered. "I'm not going to use your charms as a bait to lure this culinary Phyllis into the Arcadia in which you with your Strephonlike form disport yourself." ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... attracting the boys with fruits and other little presents, they must draw them into their own vices. This is particularly so as these boys actually go upon the bank in the district of the infidel Sangleys, and there disport, and enjoy themselves; and they are usually naked, or, if dressed, they are almost the same as naked. It is very noticeable with these Sangley people that they intermix with any other people who are here, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... the odour of the last slow drop of blood! By day, by night, through the countless ages, he shall roam through fields eternal as the fancy takes him; shall leap with one great bound from Atlas to the Himalayas; shall course, in his insolent pride, from heaven to earth; disport himself by caracoling in the dust of crumbled empires; shall speed across the beds of dried-up oceans; shall bound o'er ruins of enormous cities; inhale the void with swelling chest, and ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... two beings undertake through the fair domains of love, this moment is like a waste land to be traversed, a land without a tree, alternatively damp and warm, full of scorching sand, traversed by marshes, which leads to smiling groves clad with roses, where Love and his retinue of pleasures disport themselves on carpets of soft verdure. Often the witty man finds himself afflicted with a foolish laugh which is his only answer to everything; his wit is, as it were, suffocated beneath the icy pressure of his desires. ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... had lost: it encroaches on the tamarisk bushes which fringe its banks, and the district is soon surrounded by a belt of marshy vegetation, affording cover for ducks, pelicans, wild geese, and a score of different kinds of birds which disport themselves there by the thousand. The Pharaohs, when tired of residing in cities, here found varied and refreshing scenery, an equable climate, gardens always gay with flowers, and in the thickets of the Kerun they could pursue their favourite pastimes of interminable ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... hummock, and, getting ready their spears and harpoons, prepared for an encounter. After waiting some time a walrus thrust its ungainly head up through the young ice that covered the hole, and began to disport itself in ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... Love," as one of the Chambers of "Rhetoric" in which the hard-handed but half-artistic mechanics and shopkeepers of the Netherlands loved to disport themselves was called, then exhibited upon an opposite scaffold a magnificent representation of Jupiter astride upon an eagle and banding down to the Stadholder as if from the clouds that same principality. Nothing could be neater or ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... cricket-match some of the players, ready costumed in cricket apparel, "take care," if they do not "beware," of the aforesaid maidens; others, impatient for the call of "time," like jockeys cantering before the race, disport themselves over the field, practicing bowling, batting, and, in ball-players' parlance, "catching flies." The whole picture is one of beauty and animation, and that spirit must indeed be dull which does not yield to the exhilarating influences ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... pleasant disport of divers noble personages ... intituled Philocopo ... englished by H. G[ifford?]," London, 1567, 4to; "Amorous Fiametta, wherein is sette downe a catalogue of all & singular passions of love and jealosie incident to an enamoured yong gentlewoman ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... The bones of many a noble ship lie there, and many a sailor. It would seem unlikely that any living thing should seek rest in such a place, or find it. Nevertheless, frail and delicate flowers bloom there, flowers of both the land and the sea; heavy, ungainly seals disport in the swelling waves, and find grateful retreats back in the inmost bores of its storm-lashed caverns; while in many a chink and hollow of the highest crags, not visible from beneath, a great variety of waterfowl make homes and rear ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... been a favorite field for cranks to disport themselves upon. Ritson's particular vanity was the past participle of verbs ending in e; e.g., perceiveed. Cf. Landor's notions ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... gardens are good; it contains among other luxuries a drawing-room, with a delightful swimming-bath for ladies, and another for gentlemen. A mountain stream is turned into two large square reservoirs, where you can disport yourself under the shade of bananas and palm trees, while orange trees, daturas, poinsettias, and other plants, in full bloom, drop their fragrant flowers into the crystal water. There is also a nice little bathing-house, with a douche outside; and the general arrangements ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... reported upon. For the ranger's experience had taught him that since the men he wanted had money in their pockets to burn gregarious impulse would drive them from the far silent places of the desert to the roulette and faro tables where the wolf and the lamb disport ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... of the free and the home of the brave, overwhelming its native simplicity with the virtues, tastes, and vices of the other nations against which our forefathers barred the door. Palaces in all but the name stand where the buffalo was wont to disport himself, and where the American eagle in human form once flapped his wings and screamed most viciously in contempt of the effete civilization of the older world. Sons and daughters of the pioneers who ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... we fallen? Save that it is more vulgar, it might be Nice, or the Riviera, or Interkalken, or any other of those towns of carnival whither the bad taste of the whole world comes to disport itself in the so-called fashionable seasons. But in these quarters, on the other hand, which belong to the foreigners and to the Egyptians rallied to the civilisation of the West, all is clean and dry, well cared ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... of marble; his heart was not flint nor his skin steel plate: he was flesh and tender; he was a vulnerable, breathing boy, with highly developed capacities for pain which were now being taxed to their utmost. Once he had loved to run, to leap, to disport himself in the sun, to drink deep of the free air; he had loved life and one or two of his fellowmen. He had borne himself buoyantly, with jaunty self-confidence, even with some intolerance toward the weaknesses of others, not infrequently ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... consider the accomplishments in the culinary art—in re vel in arte culinaria—which will be necessary for my housekeeper to know. How would you, for instance, dress a dinner for the bishop if he happened to pay me a visit, as you may be certain he will? How would you make pies and puddings, and disport your fancy through all the varieties of roast and boil? How would you dress a fowl that it would stand upon a dish as if it was going to dance a hornpipe? How would you amalgamate the different genera of wine with boiling fluid ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... O foulest of the Jann? I have been beaten and thrown into Bedlam, where all said I was Jinn-mad and this was caused by none save thyself. I brought thee to my house and fed thee with my best; after which thou didst empower thy Satans and Marids to disport themselves with my wits from morning to evening. So avaunt and aroynt thee and wend thy ways!" The Caliph smiled and, seating himself by his side said to him, "O my brother, did I not tell thee that I would return to thee?" Quoth ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... wrong to disport ourselves in this pleasaunce without our comrade Launfal. It is not well to slight a prince as brave as he is courteous, and of a lineage prouder ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... They be stay-at-homes and I would not affright them too sorely by the sight of mountains of water. Have no care for us save to bid some one supply us with food to take along. I know the way down to a smooth beach where we can disport ourselves." ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... He not at once bound it about with His strength—not wishing that the vessel of my body should be broken—my life would have gone. Then the devils cried much more clamorously, as if they had felt an intolerable pain; forcing themselves to leave terror with me, threatening me so to disport them that such an act as this could not be wrought. But because Hell cannot resist the virtue of humility with the light of most holy faith, the spirit became more single, and worked with tools of fire, hearing in the sight of the Divine Majesty words most charming, and promises to give gladness. ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... abash folk of their mirth; prithee do not so; let us talk together for our disport of mighty kings and ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... such as Mexico is famous for, people these tropic southern lands of Vera Cruz. Along the shores and in the woods and groves, all teeming with prolific life, which the hot sun and frequent rains induce, the giant cranes and brilliant-plumaged herons disport themselves, and gorgeous butterflies almost outshine the feathered denizens. From the tangled boughs the pendant boa-constrictor coils himself, and hissing serpents, basking crocodiles, and prowling jaguars people the untrodden wilds of jungle and lagoon. In these ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... bailiff or whatever they call him of the Board of Conservators, awaiting me with a boat at my disposal. So we went off to look at what they call "The Playground"—two bays in which the salmon coming from the sea rest and disport themselves until a fresh comes down the river and they find it convenient to ascend. Harbottle bailiff in question is greatly disturbed at the amount of poaching that goes on in the playground, and unfolded his griefs to me at length. It was a lovely ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... then, her days were over, and Herve's day was over. Vainly did he pile parody upon parody; vainly did he seize the conductor's baton; the days of their glory had gone. Now Asnieres itself is forgotten; the modern youth has chosen another suburb to disport himself in; the ballroom has been pulled down, and never again will an orchestra play a note of these poor scores; even their names are unknown. A few bars of a chorus of pages came back to me, remembered only by me, all are gone, like ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... the open windows of the house. The hospitality was graceful, there was no profound talk but only pleasant chatter. The daughters were glad to have a chance to try their English and I was glad for the moment to slip out of the foreign bond and disport myself for their benefit in my vernacular, but the Professor needed no practice. His English was quite adequate, as, on the other hand, the German of Bancroft was ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... ideal butterfly was here realized in all its perfection; not in the pattern of such faded insects as flit among earthly flowers, but of those which hover across the meads of paradise for child-angels and the spirits of departed infants to disport themselves with. The rich down was visible upon its wings; the lustre of its eyes seemed instinct with spirit. The firelight glimmered around this wonder—the candles gleamed upon it; but it glistened apparently by its own radiance, and illuminated the finger and outstretched ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of modulated Sound From viewless Hybla brought, when Melodies Like Birds of Paradise on wings, that aye Disport in wild variety of hues, Murmur around ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... never ask where you were going. If you asked me, I should not reply. Probably I should not know. On certain months of the year the house might become the exclusive property of one owner, when she might invite her own friends, and disport herself as she pleased. Again, we might devote a certain period to charity, and entertain lame dogs. There's no end to the good and the pleasure that might be got out of that house. 'Pastimes' is its name; isn't it quaint and suggestive? ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and prospered finely. Sailor Jack entered heartily into the work—the more so as his gallant fancy conceived the idea of some day setting up near by a sort of ship's-rigging with shrouds and "ratlines," in which to give the boys lessons, and occasionally disport himself, by way of relief, when his sea-longing should become too much for him. Plans and consultations soon were the order of the day, and Dorry, becoming interested, learned more about pulleys, ropes, ladders, beams, strength of timber, and such things, than any ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... he went on volubly, "there were days when the loneliness in my office grew positively oppressive. You may remember that room I had in the old Adams and Harper Block? It gave upon a courtyard where the rats from a livery stable came to disport themselves on rainy days. I grew to be a dead shot with the flobert rifle; but lawsy, there's mighty little consideration for true merit in this world! Just because I winged a couple of cheap hack horses one day, when my nerves weren't steady, the livery people made me stop, and one of my fellow ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... neighborhood—the ravine that is now bridged by one of our public streets. It consisted of two large wings, one for the boys and one for the girls, joined together by a dining hall used by the boys. There were also two pretty gardens in which the boys and girls could disport themselves separately. The large trees that surrounded the building have long since disappeared. The young girl spoken of as a pupil seems to have had her youthful mind captivated by the beauty of the ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... he saw Cliges riding with three other striplings who were taking their pleasure, carrying lances and shields in order to tilt and to disport themselves. Now is the duke's nephew bent on attacking and injuring them if ever he can. With five comrades he sets out; and the six have posted themselves secretly beside the wood in a valley, so ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... rocks appear heaped together, opposing progress; vast chasms yawn beneath his feet when he lands, and at certain places the streams sink into the earth as if by magic, to reappear where least expected. A thundering noise is heard, and a mist hovers in the air, in which thousands of birds disport themselves,— marking the position of the great cataracts of the Corentyn. The scene, however, is too vast to be beheld in its full grandeur from any single point of view. No waterfall in the territory ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... not under what strange conditions it may manifest its presence; and our most powerful telescopes, besides, do not bring the lunar surface sufficiently near to us to disprove the existence there of even such large creatures as disport themselves upon our planet. Still, we find it hard to rid ourselves of the feeling that we are in the presence of a dead world. On she swings around the earth month after month, with one face ever turned towards us, leaving ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... mignonne of a blonde, with heavenly blue eyes and cherubic yellow hair, who, not knowing his expectations from a California uncle, jilted him for a rich Cuban. Look you, Leo, because I cannot wear Kohinoor, must I disport myself without any diamond necklace? Since he can never own 'La Peregrina,' must he eschew pearl studs in his shield front? We distinctly understand that we are not first prizes; but perhaps we may be something better than total blanks in the lottery, even though we quite ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... of the lower town is the market-place, a triangular area of slightly over four acres, where the market is held every Saturday, and where once a year is also held that great event of Nottingham, the Michaelmas goose fair. Here also disport themselves at election-times the rougher element, who, from their propensity to bleat when expressing disapprobation, are known as the "Nottingham lambs," and who claim to be lineal descendants from that hero of the neighboring Sherwood Forest, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... The zephyrs disport with a light-bosomed song, And the joy-laden songsters flit over the lea— Yet the hours of the spring as they hurry along Bring nothing but sadness ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... that of thy brothers in his entirety. There is great sin in quarrelling with friends. They that are thy grandsires are theirs also. Give away in charity on occasions of sacrifices, gratify every dear object of thy desire, disport in the company of women freely, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... dark look; in short (and here his eyes rested full on Neville's countenance), an Un-English complexion. Having made this grand point, he wandered into a denser haze and maze of nonsense than even a mayor might have been expected to disport himself in, and came out of it with the brilliant discovery that to take the life of a fellow-creature was to take something that didn't belong to you. He wavered whether or no he should at once issue his warrant for the committal of Neville Landless to jail, under circumstances of grave ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... Jimmie and Sir Lucius were dining at Morley's, Victor Nevill emerged from his rooms in Jermyn street, and walked briskly to Piccadilly Circus. He looked quite unlike the spruce young man of fashion who was wont to disport himself in the West End at this hour, for he wore tweeds, a soft hat, and a rather shabby overcoat. He took a cab in Coventry street, and gave the driver a northern address. As he rode through the ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... spring came, he saw less of Captain Ephraim, but he had compensation, for the good captain now diverted into his modest grounds a no-account little brook which was going begging, and dug a snug little basin at the foot of the garden for the Pup to disport himself therein. All through the summer he continued to grow and was happy, playing with Toby, offending the yellow cat, amusing Miss Libby, and affording food for speculation to Mrs. Barnes over her knitting. In the winter Captain Ephraim polished him up in his old tricks, and taught him ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... a large menagerie of lions, elephants, leopards, and similar beasts of disport; he also kept for amusement fifteen or sixteen albinos; and so greedy was he of novelty, that even a cock of peculiar form or colour would have been forwarded by its owner ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... with laughter; set the table in a roar, be the death of one. recreate, solace, cheer, rejoice; please &c. 829; interest; treat, regale. amuse oneself, game; play a game, play pranks, play tricks; sport, disport, toy, wanton, revel, junket, feast, carouse, banquet, make merry, drown care; drive dull care away; frolic, gambol, frisk, romp; caper; dance &c. (leap) 309; keep up the ball; run a rig, sow one's wild oats, have one's fling, take one's pleasure; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... with which Leander Yerby hearkened to this criticism intimated a persuasion that there were many obedient people in this world, but few who could so disport themselves in the intricacies of the English language; and Sudley, as he plodded homeward with his rifle on his shoulder, his dog running on in advance, and Leander pattering along behind, was often moved to add the weight of his admonition to the ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... falsify the nice delicacy of dainty dames, and wanton women's wills, instruments of folly to play and dally withal, in trifling away the treasure of time, to withdraw their minds from more commendable exercises, and to content their corrupt concupiscences with vain disport—a silly poor shift to shun their irksome idleness. The Sybaritical puppies the smaller they be (and thereto if they have a hole in the fore parts of their heads) the better they are accepted, the more pleasure also they provoke, as meet playfellows for mincing mistresses ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... the authorities having seen fit to be uncommonly discreet as to the cause of the young man's withdrawal, no great difficulty was experienced in finding another campus whereon Aunt Mary's pride and joy might freely disport himself. Mr. Stebbins threw himself into the affair with all the tact and ardor of an experienced legal mind and soon after Lucinda's return to her home allowed Arethusa to follow suit, the hopeful younger brother of the latter became ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... in some respects different from that customary with lords. Though he had only one leg of the flesh, and one of wood, he did not tumble down, though he brandished in the air the stick with which he was accustomed to disport himself. A lord would, I think, have got himself taken to bed. But the Sergeant did not appear to have any such intention. He had come out on to the road from the yard into which the back-door of the house opened, and seemed to John Gordon as though, having been ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... rock a few square yards of soil are found or can be laid, are tiny crops of buckwheat, potatoes, and beetroot. The weather has a southern warmth and brilliance, and in and out the burning-hot mountain wall on our left large beautiful brown lizards disport themselves. The road is very solitary. Till within the precincts of Millau, we meet only a few ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... established custom at the Villa Camellia that on the evening of the last day of March (unless that date happened to fall on a Sunday) the pupils were allowed special license after supper, and, regardless of ordinary rules, might disport themselves as they pleased until bedtime. Irene, who had not yet been present on one of these occasions, heard hints on all sides of coming fun, mingled with mystery. Peachy twice began to tell her something, but was stopped ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Allen. "This is the night when unlicked cubs do disport themselves in our precincts. A mistaken sense of philanthropy has led my mother to make this house the fortnightly salon bleu of St. Thomas's. But there's a pipe at your service in ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cannot quite assume the gay insouciance of the French; if to England, he adores method, learns to grumble and imbibe old ale, yet does not become accustomed to the free, blunt raillery,—the "chaff,"—with which Britons disport themselves; if to China, he lives upon curries and inscribes his name with a camel's-hair pencil, but all Oriental bizarrerie fails to thoroughly amuse him. Wherever he may go, he settles at once and easily into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... light; it was not even uttered by the poet—he had merely smiled at it; yet it had the effect of rekindling the vapid embers about the dear old hearthstone of Olney, and the shy, gentle creatures that used to disport there among the hares when nobody was looking became for a moment more real from the citation. Now, the question is, What is the superiority of a new piece of gossip like this, which involves no witticism and confers no wisdom, over the next bit of history that will be exchanged ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... their caps. It was a forest after the pattern of the original Bois de Boulogne, hot and dusty, a much-frequented and sadly-abused promenade, one of those spots, avaricious of shade, to which the common people flock to disport themselves at the gates of great capitals—burlesque forests, filled with corks, where you find slices of melon and skeletons ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... fair maidens, Friends and companions, Disport yourselves, maidens, Arouse yourselves, fair ones. Come sing we in chorus The secrets of maidens. Allure the young gallant With dance and with song. As we lure the young gallant, Espy him approaching, Disperse yourselves, darlings, And pelt him with cherries, With cherries, red currants, With ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... passion-pangs complain; * Have ruth on slave of love so burnt with flaming pain: How long, I ask, shall hands of Love disport with me, * With longings, dolour, sleepliness and bale and bane? Anon I 'plain of sea in heart, anon of fire * In vitals, O strange case, dear wish, my fairest fain! O blamer, cease thy blame, and seek thyself to fly * From love, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... some parents do the studies of their children. He was very particular that we should play the old English games according to their original form; and consulted old books for precedent and authority for every 'merrie disport;' yet I assure you there never was pedantry so delightful. It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... gambol, disport, frisk, skip, caper, romp, revel; wanton, dally, toy, twiddle; impersonate, personate, act; perform, execute; strum, thrum; gamble; simulate, pretend, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... still the grotesque, which now casts into the Christian hell the frightful faces which the severe genius of Dante and Milton will evoke, and again peoples it with those laughter-moving figures amid which Callot, the burlesque Michelangelo, will disport himself. If it passes from the world of imagination to the real world, it unfolds an inexhaustible supply of parodies of mankind. Creations of its fantasy are the Scaramouches, Crispins and Harlequins, grinning silhouettes of man, types altogether unknown to serious-minded antiquity, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... Duc of Orliance be kept stille withyn the Castil of Pontefret, with owte goyng to Robertis place, or to any other disport, it is better he lak his disport then we were disceyved. Of all the remanant dothe as ye thenketh."—Letter ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... for Prince Henry, eldest son of James I., he now proceeded to prepare a similar model for the Prince of Wales, the King's eldest son, afterwards Charles II. This model was presented to the Prince at St. James's, "who entertained it with great joy, being purposely made to disport himself withal." On the next visit of his Majesty to Woolwich, he inspected the progress made with the Leopard, a sloop-of-war built by Peter Pett. While in the hold of the vessel, the King called Phineas to one side, and ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles |
