"Plaything" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... of their happy little talk together Annie Forest, in her usual careless fashion, entered the play-room. She alone, of all the girls, had taken no notice of the new plaything. She walked to her usual corner, sat down on the floor, and began to play cup and ball for the benefit of two or three of the smallest children. Hester did not regard her in the least; she sat with Nan on her knee, stroking back her sunny curls, and remarking on her various charms to several ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... who 'stood in high degree,' happy and apparently secure,—such was the tragic fact to the mediaeval mind. It appealed strongly to common human sympathy and pity; it startled also another feeling, that of fear. It frightened men and awed them. It made them feel that man is blind and helpless, the plaything of an inscrutable power, called by the name of Fortune or some other name,—a power which appears to smile on him for a little, and then on a sudden strikes ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... my dear Emma—as good as to the heavens! and that of itself would stay me from being insane again.' She released herself. 'Signor Percy, you teach me to suspect you of having an idle wish to pluck your plaything to pieces:—to boast of it? Ah! my friend, I fancied I was of more value to you. You must come less often; even to not at all, if you are one of those idols with feet of clay which leave the print of their steps in a room; or fall and crush ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and caressed as she walked through the streets. She was sent for, far and near; borrowed to be looked at; her picture taken by photographers. If one reflects how many foolish and inconsiderate people there are in the world, who have no scruple in making a pet and plaything of a pretty child, one will see how this one unlucky lot of being beautiful in childhood spoiled Lillie's chances of an average share of good sense and goodness. The only hope for such a case lies in the chance of possessing judicious parents. ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... absence, the lady had been fretting. Finally, as the days passed, she became downright angry. "He is neglecting me," she cried; "he goes away from my arms to the society of rough seamen. I am a mere bauble, a plaything for his leisure. He is tired of me, and perhaps on some distant coast he is dallying with a newer sweetheart. But I will try his heart. When I hear of his homecoming, I will go forth on my barge and have the black flag of desolation ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... and commons wild Best befit a thoughtless child, A solid wall, an earthen floor, Prison lights, a padlock'd door, Where's no plaything which he may Turn to harm by random play, For in such sport too oft is found A penny-toy will cost a pound. Be wise and merry;—play, but think; For ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... horse-chestnuts in the front yard and 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 ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... pleasure to torment me," said I, "and I make a very feckless plaything; but let me ask you to be more merciful. At this time there is but the one thing that I care to hear of, and that will be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the powerful ship was being tossed about, the plaything of inconceivable forces. They lived only because the forces did not try to turn the ship more violently, not because of the strength of the ship, for nothing could resist ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... with 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 not be quite so certain ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... confessing to him that I had long loved him: I believe one may, without criminality, make this avowal to one's future husband.... The castle clock at length struck midnight, that hour for ghosts and wandering spirits; after midnight their power vanishes.... Can I yet be the plaything of an illusion?... But no, all is true, my happiness is real, my grandeur is no dream.... The ring I wear upon ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the grief of Constance, had a real truth in history, sharpens the sense of pain, while it hangs a leaden weight on the heart and the imagination. Something whispers us that we have no right to make a mock of calamities like these, or to turn the truth of things into the puppet and plaything of our fancies."—See Characters of Shakspeare's Plays.—To consider thus is not to consider too deeply, but ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... amid the incongruous society of models and artists and, as it were, in the fumes of paradoxes and pipes. A little creature, she served as a plaything for this painter without talent, and he allowed her to romp, bound and leap on the divans like a kitten. Moreover, the child lighted his ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... so much of play, to whom it was spontaneous education and self realisation, was bound to see that toys were important. "The man advanced in insight," he said, "even when he gives his child a plaything, must make clear to himself its purpose and the purpose of playthings and occupation material in general. This purpose is to aid the child freely to express what lies within him, and to bring the outer world nearer to him, and thus to serve as mediator between ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... rational insight as by their halting, traditional maxims. Mohammed felt the unity of God like a philosopher; but people listened to him because he preached it like a sectary. God, as he often reminds us, did not make the world for a plaything; he made it in order to establish distinctions and separate by an immense interval the fate of those who conform to the truth from the fate of those who ignore it. Human life is indeed beset with enough imminent evils to justify this urgent tone in the Semitic moralist and to lend his precepts ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... he's got a weapon like that," he would say with a swaggering air. "I don't care a fig now for the gendarmes. A friend and I went to try it last Sunday on the plain of Saint Denis. Of course, you know, a man doesn't tell everyone that he's got a plaything of that sort. But, ah! my dears, we fired at a tree, and hit it every time. Ah, you'll see, you'll see. You'll hear of Anatole one of these ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... if it did not overflow, and—well, it was known that water sought its level, even if it could not run uphill. Mrs. Abbott had lived for twenty years in San Francisco, and in New Orleans for thirty years before that, and she had seen a good many women in love in her time. This climate made a plaything of virtue. "Virtue—you said?—Precisely. She's not there or we'd see the signs of moral struggle, horror, in fact; for she's not one to succumb easily. But mark my words, ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... creature luxuriated in his moments of stolen happiness with a speechless and stealthy delight which was a new sensation to him. The few young girls whom he had met with, in his father's narrow circle at Zurich, had felt a mischievous pleasure in treating him like a quaint little plaything; the strongest impression he could make on their hearts was an impression in which their lap-dogs might have rivaled him; the deepest interest he could create in them was the interest they might have felt in a new trinket or a new dress. The only women who had hitherto invited his admiration, ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... of amusement 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 ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... with it. This very laudation of continence is itself an emphasis upon sex. These others would play with amorous propensities; trifle with them in their life, in their art, in their philosophy; and then, that dangerous plaything laid aside would, as Machiavel puts it, "assume suitable attire, and return to the company of their equals—the great ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... voyage; it is simply madness to think of performing a journey of five hundred leagues upon a wretched pile of beams, with a counterpane for a sail, a paltry stick for a mast, and a tempest to contend with. As we are totally incapable of steering our frail craft, we shall become the mere plaything of the storm, and it is acting the part of madmen if we, a second time, run any risk upon this dangerous and ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... comes of the hopelessness of ever being understood by them), they dub, in haphazard fashion, egoism. You're not a very discriminating dog, but at least you're free from prejudice. Will you understand me better? A cat is a guest in the house, not a plaything. Truly these are strange times we're living in! The Two-Paws, He and She, have they alone the right to be sad or joyful, to lick plates, to scold, or to go about the house indulging their capricious humors? I too have my whims, my sorrows, my irregular appetite, my ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... before lying down at night, and the first thing to which he turned on awaking in the morning. Thus he got so used to the great salt sea, that when he came to Maplebank and looked at the quiet stream, which glided along so noiselessly at the bottom of the slope before the house, he thought it a mere plaything, and could hardly be made to understand that, innocent as the river appeared, there was water enough in it to drown him ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... be companion and comforter 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 well; and all my ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett
... Tracassier reminded his fellow-citizens, that in the ancient Grecian times of virtuous republicanism (times of which France ought to show herself emulous), an Athenian child was condemned to death for having made a plaything of a fragment of the gilding that had fallen from a public statue. The orator, for the reward of his eloquence, obtained an order to seize every thing in Mad. de Fleury's school-house, and to throw ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... focal distance. Or it may be we find fault with the lamp or the gas-burner for not giving so much light as it used to. At last, somewhere between forty and fifty, we begin to dangle a jaunty pair of eye-glasses, half plaything and half necessity. In due time a pair of sober, business-like spectacles bestrides the nose. Old age leaps upon it as his saddle, and rides triumphant, unchallenged, until the darkness comes which ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ever among people who looked down upon me and only tolerated me for my fortune's sake? Yet that would be the very least part of it all! I could bear all that, if it were for any good. But to become the creature, the possession, the plaything of a man I do not love, when I love another with all my heart—oh, no, no, no! You cannot ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... parents early, and his brothers and sisters had died in infancy, with the exception of the youngest, Matthew, or Mat, as he was generally called. There was so much difference between their ages that Mat was quite a plaything and pet to his elder brother. From all accounts, he was a bright, engaging little ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Poulett Thomson. In the evening Brougham, John Russell, and others arrived. I hear of Brougham from Sefton, with whom he passes most of his spare time, to relieve his mind by small talk, persiflage, and the gossip of the day. He tells Sefton 'that he likes his office, but that it is a mere plaything and there is nothing to do; his life is too idle, and when he has cleared off the arrears, which he shall do forthwith, that he really does not know how he shall get rid of his time;' that 'he does not suffer the prolixity of counsel, and when they ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... his kind, she had to meet him with all that was catlike and subtle and devilish at the command of a woman. She had to win him, foil him, kill him—or go to her death. She was no girl to be dragged into the mountain fastness by a desperado and made a plaything. Her horror and terror had worked its way deep into the depths of her and uncovered powers never suspected, never before required in her scheme of life. She had no longer any fear. She matched herself against this man. She anticipated him. And she felt like a woman who had lately ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... believe thou knowest, Harry, is the sport, the mere plaything, of gratitude and pity. Kindness will melt my firmest resolutions in a moment. Entreaty will lead me to the world's end. Gentle accents, mournful looks, in my brother, was a claim altogether irresistible. The mildness, the condescension which I now witnessed thrilled ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... Daphne would have liked to be a lady, but AEneas did not care in the least. He had the Giant's head to play with and that was reward enough for him. There was not a boy in the neighborhood but envied him his possession of such a unique plaything; and when they would stand looking over the wall of the potato-field with longing eyes, and he was flying over the ground with the head, his happiness knew no bounds; and AEneas played so much with the Giant's head that finally late in the ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... the hours till noon was the question. Hugh had had everything packed up, over which he had any control, for some days. He had not left himself a plaything of those which he might carry: and it frightened him that his mother did not seem to think of packing his clothes till after breakfast this very morning. When she entered his room for the purpose, he was ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... of lives unlike and outside her own. And Janetta's brave but sensitive little face, with its resolute brows and lips and brilliant eyes, gave promise of a determination and an originality which, he felt convinced, would never allow her to become a mere plaything or appendage of a wealthy household, as Margaret Adair seemed to expect. But his words had made an impression. At night, when Lady Caroline and her daughter were standing in the charming little room which had always been appropriated to Margaret's use, she spoke, with ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... summer of Shelley's life. Day by day, he, with Trelawney and Williams, watched for that fatal plaything, the little boat Ariel, which Trelawney had drawn in her actual dimensions for him on the sands of Arno, while he, with a map of the Mediterranean spread before him, sitting in this imaginary ship, had already ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... perhaps, Ralph went less frequently to Colorado Springs, and I came to think that we might possibly be able to continue our lives together for the child's sake. But the novelty wore off from this new plaything, as it had from the others, though it lasted longer than anything else ever had, and then Ralph's absences from the ranch became more and more frequent and of longer duration. I cared little for this, as it enabled ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... also wrote: "Good Lessons for Children, in Verse." Other books were, "A Looking Glasse for Children," "The life of Elizabeth Butcher, in the Early Piety series;" "The life of Mary Paddock, who died at the age of nine;" "The Childs new Plaything" (which was a primer); "Divine Songs in Easy Language;" and "Praise out of the Mouth of Babes;" "A Particular Account of some Extraordinary Pious Motions and devout Exercises observed of late in many Children in Siberia." ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... whimsical idea occurred to me of going myself to inspect the particular spot he mentioned, and seeing whether any enterprise of such a kind would be practicable. This idea, like Beckett's idea of his system, was for me at first no more than a plaything, but the very name of Cyprus had always excited my imagination, and the thought of the island having thus by chance been revived in me, I began to feel that a visit to it would be a very charming adventure, and that Sir Samuel's story of the marble, ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... foaming mountain of water came thundering down on the White Star, so that for a brief moment all thought that she was gone; and almost as she shook herself free, just such another tremendous wave struck the Myrtle, and rolled her over like a walnut-shell skiff, a child's plaything. As the White Star rose on successive waves, her crew twice afterwards saw the Myrtle heave up her side for a second ere she went to the bottom, but of her seven hands no man was ever seen again. Head-reaching into the ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... there possibly be to tell you?" madame Hsing laughed; "it was simply to make you wait and have your repast with the young ladies and then go; but there's also a fine plaything that I'll give you to take back to amuse ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... 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 we describe their potency? Who shall translate ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the rock. The leverage and the weight of the fall snapped the two or three square feet of stanch fibre the axe had spared. That last strong anchorage broke, and the tree flashed into the rapids. The churning, shooting waters made a plaything of it. ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... the mime, 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 and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... most—the black-and-red top, the handsome soldier in the scarlet coat, the jointed snake beside its pipe-like box, and the somersault man, poised heels over head. Beyond these, ranged in a buff row, were the six small ducks acquired at Easter. She gave each plaything a keen glance. They reminded her vividly of the long busy ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... is so fleeting and so subject to the dictates of fashion as opera. It has always been the plaything of fashion, and suffers from ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... from the nation of the Jews, and is vulgarly believed to be one of their instruments of music. Dr. Littleton renders Jews-trump by Sistrum Judaicum. But no such musical intrument is spoken of by any of the old authors that treat of the Jewish music. In fact, the Jews-harp is a mere boy's plaything, and incapable of in itself of being joined either with a voice or any other instrument; and its present orthography is nothing more than a corruption of the French Jeu-trompe, literally, a toy trumpet. It is called jeu-trompe by Bacon, Jew-trump by Beaumont ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 18. Saturday, March 2, 1850 • Various
... known as the 'Fairy-ring,' about which Nether Lochaber has said, in the Highlands of Scotland, 'We can perfectly understand how in the good old times, ere yet the schoolmaster was abroad, or science had become a popular plaything, people—and doubtless very honest, decent people, too—attributed those inexplicable emerald circles to supernatural agency; if, indeed, anything connected with the "good folks" or "men of peace" could properly be called supernatural in times when a belief in fairies and ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... be spoiled. I took my hat and left the house. As I crossed the upper terrace, I saw a small round object lying in the grass—it was Stella's ball that she used to throw for Wyvis to catch and bring to her. I picked up the poor plaything tenderly and put it in my pocket—and glancing up once more at the darkened nursery windows, I waved a kiss of farewell to my little one lying there in her last sleep. Then fiercely controlling all the weaker and softer ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... occasionally veiling her warm, rich cheek, was exercising with a battledore, keeping Little Smash, now increased in size to quite fourteen stone, rather actively employed as an assistant, whenever the exuberance of her own spirits caused her to throw the plaything beyond her reach. In one of the orchards, near by, two men were employed trimming the trees. To these the captain next turned all his attention, just as he had encouraged the chaplain to persevere, by exclaiming, "out of all question, my ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... peace, but custody and stripes. What return can we make, then, but to think out some slow but sure and sweet revenge? It is not necessary to attempt to scale the walls of Heaven. Other things remain. There is this new world, his plaything. It may lie exposed, and we can at least make the attempt to seize it and lay it waste, and thus vex him." As he saw their eyes sparkle, he continued: "We may in this attempt come near to the steps of our old abode and ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... this must have pleased him, as he did not protest against such liberties. He spoke very little to them, and when he did so he did it cautiously as if afraid that his words would hurt or contaminate them. He passed many hours thus as their companion and plaything, watching their lively faces with ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... 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 ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... party was extremely hilarious. Its members had ransacked the toy-shops of the fair, and every man was carrying some plaything and making the most of it, and extolling its greater virtues than the playthings of his fellows. Taranne carried a pea-shooter, and peppered his companion's legs persistently, grinning with delight if any of ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... three on the other side; so, now we have the side scenes. The old box that lies yonder may be the back stairs; and we'll lay the flooring on top of it. The stage represents a room, as every one may see. Now we want the actors. Let us see what we can find in the plaything-box. First the personages, and then we will get the play ready. One after the other; that will be capital! Here's a pipe-head, and yonder an odd glove; they will do very ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... the boy on my back while Solomon carried 'Mis' Scott' in his arms as if she were a baby. He was very gentle with her. To him, as you know, a woman has been a sacred creature since his wife died. He seemed to regard the boy as a wonderful kind of plaything. At the camping-places he spent every moment of his leisure tossing him in the air or rolling on ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... describe the peculiar state of his feelings as he struggled onwards, sometimes blown back to a stand-still, and again driven forward by the gloomy and capricious tyranny of the blast, as if he were its mere plaything. In spite, however, of the conflict of the external elements as they careered over the country around him, he could not shake from his imagination the impression left there by the groan which he had heard at the Grey Stone. A supernatural terror, therefore, was upon him, and he felt as if he ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... contentedly enough until you came.... Ah, child, child! why needed you to trouble me! for to-night I want to be clean as you are clean, and that I may not ever be. I am garrisoned with devils, I am the battered plaything of every vice, and I lack the strength, and it may be, even the will, to leave my mire. Always I have betrayed the stewardship of man and god alike that my body might escape a momentary discomfort! And loving you as I do, I ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... that makes a plaything of everything. In his play he took up, without suspecting it, many of the serious phenomena of life, and gambolled with them in frolicsome bounds. He exercised his small mind as he exercised his body, twisted himself into everything and out ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a hard, implacable pedagogue, and for the fact his scholars suffer. He wields a rod rather than a filigree bow, as old romancers fabled,—no plaything, but a most business-like article, well-poised in the handle, and thence tapering into graceful, stinging nothingness; and not a scholar escapes at ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... just as much of a big child as most men are when another big child tries to take away a plaything. Oh, he was furious, Stewart! But let me tell you something for your comfort. He dwelt most savagely on the fact that you had grabbed in single-handed and beaten a Governor and a United States Senator at their own game! Wonderful, isn't it—admission like that? He has always patronized you ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... from the moving of the love in his heart that answered to the cry of the Boy as arrow to bowstring, Yakootsekaya-ka unfastened the strong and heavy locks of the chest and into the hands of the Boy gave the Moon for plaything. Of Dis-s, the Moon, made he plaything for the Boy. And for that day were the Boy's cries hushed as he spun and tumbled the White World on the lodge floor. And his laughter was music to the ...
— In the Time That Was • James Frederic Thorne
... sort of plaything, or, in Plato's language, a flattery, a sophistry, or sham, in which, without any serious purpose, the poet lends wings to his fancy and exhibits his gifts of language and metre. Such an one seeks to gratify the taste of his readers; he has the 'savoir faire,' or trick of writing, but he has not ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... job. No living person can open the Little Brass God without first learning the way to do it. In fact, the only way the toy can be opened by one unfamiliar with the secret is to break it open with an axe! And that would hardly be done, as the little fellow is rather a cute plaything." ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... lovely and more perfect than has ever been beheld by the dwellers on the Bosphorus. That little girl is no match for a son of our stalwart and broad-shouldered race. Our future generations must still tower proudly above the common herd in every respect; I want no plaything for a wife, but a woman, such as you yourself were in youth—tall, dignified and handsome. My heart goes forth to no gold-crested wren but to a really royal maiden.—Of what use to waste words! Paula, the noble daughter of a glorious father, is my choice. It came upon me just now like ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... twice she wept, Cast down upon the threshold, clamouring For him she loved — the Man of Sixty Spears, And for her father, — and the black bull Tor, Hers and her pride. Yea, twice she turned away Before the awful darkness of the door, And the great horror of the Wall of Man Where Man is made the plaything of Taman, An Eyeless Face ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... gently taking it from her, "but rather too valuable a plaything for my little pet. How did she get hold of it, dearest?" he asked, turning ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... his enormous head gravely, and said in a displeased tone, "Don't you know, child, who this trembling little creature with his struggling tiny animal is, that you have chosen for a plaything? Of all the dwarfs down in the valley below, he is the most useful; he works hard and indefatigably in scorching heat as well as in windy cold weather, so that the fields may produce fruit for us. He who scoffs at or maltreats him will ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... an old story enough. A villain had betrayed this mitherless lassie; used her as a plaything for months, and then, when the inevitable happened, deserted her, leaving her to face a stern father and a world that was not likely to be tender to her. The day she came to me her father had turned her oot—to think o' treatin' one's ain ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... despise thee," said he. "Thou would'st not have an honorable Prince! Thou could'st not prize the rose and the nightingale, but thou wast ready to kiss the swineherd for the sake of a trumpery plaything. Thou art ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... out of the stream one day in a half-drowned state. Donald had mistaken it for a kitten of some new brand, and it was not until some weeks later, when it sprang upon his little girl and buried his claws in her neck, that he realised what sort of plaything—the puma is the lion of the Rocky Mountains—he had introduced into his family. So Donald's wife was suspicious of pets, and when she saw the monkey she was sure it was another lion, and would not allow it to enter the door. But Gum had other ways of ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... her when she was still pure. He remembered the poorness of her raiment, the meekness of her language, the small range of her ideas. The sweet soft coaxing loving smile, which had once been so dear to him, was infantine and ignoble. She was a plaything for an idle hour, not a woman to be taken out into the world with the high ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... kinds of monkeys on the islands. It is common to domesticate them, to train them to do their master's bidding; they become a part of the family, half plaything, half servant. Parrots, too, are adopted into the household and learn to speak its dialect; they are almost uncanny in their chatter and they, too, do all kinds of ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... would form in front of the post-office and stretch like a black snake up Washington Street. Or we watched the yellow omnibuses laboring down Washington Street like clumsy beetles. It seemed to me that a city was the most delightful and absorbing plaything a child could have, and it was a hard arbitrary blow of fate that took me from it to the convent ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... 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." ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... 'if I am to become a stone, I am not going to lie, if I can help it, on some dusty highway, to be kicked here and there by man and beast, flung at dogs, be used as the plaything of naughty children, and become generally restless and miserable. I will be a stone at the bottom of the cool river, and roll gently about there until I find some secure resting-place where ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... gave himself up to gloomy reveries, and moreover acted so strangely; they had never observed anything at all like it in him before. Everything, even his own life, was to him but dreams and presentiments. His constant theme was that every man who delusively imagined himself to be free was merely the plaything of the cruel sport of mysterious powers, and it was vain for man to resist them; he must humbly submit to whatever destiny had decreed for him. He went so far as to maintain that it was foolish to believe that a man could do anything in art or science of his own accord; ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... would see about fifty dollars more. The French child has been converted into an elaborately dressed doll. It is altogether a thing of show, an appendage of its fashionably dressed mother, with frock and parasol to match. It is no longer a child, but a living toy or plaything. ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... You would give him an education, that is true; you would form his mind, but not his character. It is the hardships of life that alone can do that. He cannot be your son; he will be mine. That is better than to be a plaything for your sick child, however sweet he may be. I also ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... metaphysical, and expands in varied language the daring thought, so constantly present in Mr. Hardy's reverie, that God Himself has forgotten the existence of earth, this "tiny sphere," this "tainted ball," "so poor a thing," and has left all human life to be the plaything of blind chance. This sad conviction is hardly ruffled by "The Darkling Thrush," which goes as far towards optimism as Mr. Hardy can let himself be drawn, or by such reflections as those in "On a ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... that debate what shall be done with travellers, it was the best and kindest Spirit that prompted me to this salutary act. For as I drank the wine and dealt with the ham and bread, I felt more and more that I had a right to the road; the stars became familiar and the woods a plaything. It is quite clear that the body must be recognized and the soul kept in its place, since a little refreshing food and drink can do so much to ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... is the prettiest plaything I ever yet saw, neatly kept, and capable of furnishing twenty-five thousand men with arms. Their revenues are about equal to the Duke of Bedford's I believe, eighty or eighty-five thousand pounds sterling a year; every spot of ground belonging to these ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... says the daughter of Munro? Her head is too good to find a pillow in the wigwam of Le Renard; will she like it better when it rolls about this hill a plaything for the wolves? Her bosom cannot nurse the children of a Huron; she will see it ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... would at some time come to light, if he said nothing about it, whereas, should he bring forward his suspicion as an excuse for getting tipsy, the charge would at once be denied, and then he would be less liable to fix the guilt upon the young villain who had made him the plaything of his ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... must have been the favourite name with the little ladies of the time for the plaything on which it is now ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... exercise, sat with his chin resting, in something of a thoughtful and penitential manner, on his slate resting on his knees. Young Jonathan—a cousin of the little Bulls, and a noisy, overgrown lad—was making a tremendous uproar across the yard, with a new plaything. Occasionally, when his noise reached the ears of Mr. Bull, the good gentleman moved impatiently in his chair, and muttered "Con—found that boy in the stripes, I wish he wouldn't make such a fool ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... great romance is Baruch, the astonishing plaything of fate, who started life as a three-dollar-a-week broker's clerk; made millions, lost millions, made millions again, lost millions again; finally, still young, quit Wall Street with a fortune that left the game of the market dull and commonplace, seeking ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... hand a long, single barrel, rifle-bored duelling pistol—of the type used by gentlemen at the beginning of the century. Where he had got it she did not know, but always it had been his plaything. ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... command might hope to discount any little disparity in numbers between itself and its neighbour. Luck and stubbornness and the incalculable counted for much; it was half the battle not to know you were beaten, and it is so still. Even to-day, a great nation, it seems, may still make its army the plaything of its gentlefolk, abandon important military appointments to feminine intrigue, and trust cheerfully to the homesickness and essential modesty of its influential people, and the simpler patriotism of its colonial dependencies when it comes at last to the bloody and wearisome ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... lady thought she would make a rag doll for the little traveler. She rolled two towels up in such a way that they looked very much like a doll, and the little girl eagerly took the new plaything in her arms. She rocked it and loved it; but something troubled her, for she kept feeling the doll's face and holding it out to the friends who sat near her. They did not understand what ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... she worked for the Cause the more she realised that Anarchy was no plaything for spare moments, but a juggling ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... 's a plaything for an hour; Its pretty tricks we try For that or for a longer space— Then tire, and lay ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... 11 for three, 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 solved ...
— 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
... 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
... similar contempt in modern Europe for Nature's ordinance would involve us in the same catastrophe. A low estimate of marriage means contempt of woman; the contempt of woman means her degradation from her position at the side of man as his counsellor and his friend to that of his plaything, the instrument of his pleasure; that again means the enthronement of licence and licentiousness; that, the softening of the brain power of the manhood of the race, leading to degeneracy, imbecility, and ultimate extinction. We need no ecclesiastical organisation ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... had to be visited, but did not appeal to all tastes. The Bazaars did. So did the Zoo, more fascinating than any other zoo, because each animal has its trick, or pet, or plaything. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... but it will go WELL and, before all, DECENTLY. How good, how prudent, how delicate and patient, HE is—that I know. Another man would during these six years have sunk and been drowned eighteen times in the storms which have our poor little barque for a plaything. He alone keeps us ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... little maiden kept her word. She was the favourite plaything of the boys, and got on well with Babie, who was too bright and yielding to ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... could do much good with this plaything,' said Fion; 'it would break at first blow if I were to strike at ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... 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
... this time passed through a couple of fields which formed part of the model farm, and had come to a stile leading into a large meadow. "This I take it," said the Senator looking about him, "is beyond the limits of my Lord's plaything." ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... Lew's opinion, was a display of weakness. A sign he neither liked nor respected. The truth was Dug McFarlane had been hit in a direction of which his subordinate had no understanding. That herd of Aberdeen-Angus cattle had been his plaything. His hobby. He had been devoted to it in a way that would have been absurd to any one but a cattleman. Hank decided this unaccustomed weakness must ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... good advice. But Louis XV was only a boy, a plaything in the hands of his ministers. In an earlier chapter [Footnote: See above, pp. 255 f.] we have seen how under the duke of Orleans, who was prince regent from 1715 to 1723, France entered into war with Spain, and how finance was ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... studied your plaything as long as I have my instrument. But where is monseigneur? I ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... retina of the spectators a vision of the inclined car swinging near the roof like the tail of a kite. And then nothing! Blankness! Blackness! Already the balloon was lost to sight in the vast stormy ocean of the night, a plaything of the winds. The spectators became once more aware of the dull booming of the cannonade. The balloon was already perhaps flying unseen amid ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... The grim remorselessness of that business had no pity for hearts. There was June, the atom with flaming hair, who had climbed all over him, twined and twisted herself about him—about his heart that was made to be the plaything and beloved resort of tiny, helpless things. With characteristic insight he saw he must part with one or with the other; no half-measures could serve in such a situation. In that lay its tragedy. And the tiny, helpless ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the forest was a well, and when the day was warm the King's child went out into the forest and sat down by the side of the cool fountain, and when she was dull she took a golden ball and threw it up high and caught it, and this ball was her favorite plaything. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... different tone. 'I believe I was warm, my dear Edward, but you provoke me with your want of knowledge of the world. You have taken pet at some of Flora's prudery, or high-flying notions of loyalty, and now, like a child, you quarrel with the plaything you have been crying for, and beat me, your faithful keeper, because my arm cannot reach to Edinburgh to hand it to you. I am sure, if I was passionate, the mortification of losing the alliance of such a friend, after ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... an ineffaceable blemish upon you? You can even name Schiller without blushing! Just look at his picture! The fiery, sparkling eyes, looking at you with disdain, those flushed, death-like cheeks: can you learn nothing from all that? In him you had a beautiful and divine plaything, and through it was destroyed. And if it had been possible for you to take Goethe's friendship away from this melancholy, hasty life, hunted to premature death, then you would have crushed him even sooner than ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Hermit was right. The wolf-cub soon became the pet and plaything of the animal kingdom. With food and care he grew into a round, roly-poly ball of fur. He played merrily with Brutus and the kittens. And though at first he was a bit rough, they and John taught him better ways, so that he kicked and ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... the merest toy—a complex plaything, nothing more. Allow me to explain. I have a line of very large greenhouses which extends from one end of my smoking-room. These different houses are kept at varying degrees of heat and humidity so as to reproduce the exact climates of Egypt, China, and the rest. ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... War gave me two days of his valuable time. Every figure with which you could furnish me I am already possessed of. I will be frank with you. What I saw at Aldershot counted for nothing with me in my decision. Your standing army is good, beyond a doubt,—a well-trained machine, an excellent plaything for a General to move across the chessboard. It might even win battles, and yet your standing army are mercenaries, and no great nation, from the days of Babylon, has resisted invasion or held an empire by ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it upon the taut sinew string. This made a twang of a new sort, and again the boy and girl were interested temporarily. But, at last, even this variation of amusement with the new toy became monotonous, and Bark ceased strumming and began a series of boyish experiments with his plaything. He put one end of the stick against the string and pushed it back until the other end would press against the inside of the twig, and the result would be a taut, new figure in wood and string which would ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... "Very well; I accept it!" These words now resounded in his ears like a verdict. He promised himself to play a sure game with Madame Desvarennes. As to Cayrol, he was out of the question; he had only been created as a plaything for princes such as Serge; his destiny was written on his forehead, and he could not escape. If it had not been Panine, some one else would have done the same thing for him. Besides, how could that ex-cowherd expect to keep such a woman ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... matches be taken away from us and put out of reach upon the shelf, we must needs get into our little corner, and scowl and stamp and threaten the dire revenge of going to bed without our supper. The world shall stop till we get our dangerous plaything again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, who has more than enough household matters to mind, goes bustling hither and thither as a hiss or a sputter tells her that this or that kettle of hers is boiling over, and before bedtime we are glad to eat our porridge cold, and gulp down our dignity ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... she continued. "Her little hand touched that strap, she turned it, and looked at it—ah, it was her last plaything! And we were there both together then; she was still alive, I still had her on my lap, in my arms. It was still so nice, so nice! But now I no longer have her; I shall never, never have her again, my poor little Rose, my ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... pretty little bell! Well, in all my life, I never beheld anything more beautiful. Hark ye, my son, will you sell me that bell? What may be the price of it? I have a little grandson at home, and such a nice plaything as it would ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite: Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age: Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before, Till tired he sleeps, and life's ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... so that the brightness might last them home again; and because the Newriches, in their afternoon drive, might be coming out from the city, perhaps, a little later, to look at their waistcoat-pocket plaything. ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... deathless plaything rolls an eye Five hundred thousand cubits high. The smallest scale upon his tail Could hide six dolphins and a whale. His nostrils breathe—and on the spot The churning waves turn seething hot. If he be hungry, ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... the only man who, with a grand theory as to what a wife ought to be, had married from pure fancy; finding too late that she whom he took for a companion was a mere plaything—a doll to be dressed up and sent out into the fashionable world, where alone her happiness could be found. Still the disappointment to such is not the less bitter, because others, too, are suffering ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... desire within her that had not been gratified or that had grown delicious and intense through being thwarted; she had never suffered, never hoped, never feared. The world was there as a plaything; she had seen masks but never faces, she had never looked into a human heart or witnessed ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... play-thing, and the parent, or governor, takes advantage of its desires, and annexes to the indulgence such or such a task or duty, as a condition; and shews himself pleased with its compliance with it: so the child wins its plaything, and receives the commendation so necessary to lead on young minds to laudable pursuits. But shall it not be suffered to enjoy the innocent reward of its compliance, unless it can give satisfaction, that its greatest delight is not in having ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... called by us "Wood Island,'' and by the Mexicans "Isla de los Angeles,'' was covered with trees to the water's edge; and to this two of our crew, who were Kennebec men, and could handle an axe like a plaything, were sent every morning to cut wood, with two boys to pile it up for them. In about a week they had cut enough to last us a year, and the third mate, with myself and three others, were sent over ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... two Spanish torpedo-boat destroyers, those swift, fiendish sharks of the sea, engines of death and destruction, and yet, when the great battle came, it was the unprotected Gloucester, a converted yacht, the former plaything and pleasure-boat of a summer vacation, which, without hesitation or turning, attacked these demons of the sea and sunk them both. I have always thought it the most heroic and gallant individual instance of fighting daring ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... whose lives are destined to be shaped by the impulses of their hearts, rather than by any reasoning process that takes place in their heads, and such natures as these will remain for a long while in the position that I have described. This was my own case. I became the plaything of two contending impulses; the desires of youth were always held in check by a faint-hearted sentimentality. Life in Paris is a cruel ordeal for impressionable natures, the great inequalities of fortune or of position inflame their souls and stir up ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... the church and the plain-song. But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson completed, Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the blacksmith. There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to behold him Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a plaything, Nailing the shoe in its place; while near him the tire of the cartwheel Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of cinders. Oft on autumnal eyes, when without in the gathering darkness Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every cranny and crevice, Warm by the ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... uneasy by the course upon which she had entered. To what did her words tend? If only to a demonstration that fate had used him as the plaything of its irony—if, after all, she had nothing to say to him but 'See how your own folly has ruined you', then she had better have kept silence. She not only appeared to be offering him encouragement, but was in truth doing so. She wished him to understand ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... large manor-house, and very unsatisfactory when you consider it in that light. Indeed, it impressed me, not as a real house, intended for the home of human beings,—a house to die in or to be born in,—but as a plaything,— something in the same category as Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill. The present owner seems to have found it insufficient for the actual purposes of life; for he is adding a wing, which promises to be as ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... overlooking the gardens of the club at Bhutpur. And you have never crept out of it again—won't do so as long as body and mind hang together, or after. It has been a song of degrees.—For years you were to me a delicious plaything; but a plaything with a mysterious soul, after which I felt, every now and again, in worship and awe. The plaything stage came to an end when I was here with you before we went to Paris, four years ago. For I found then, beyond all question of doubt, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... innocent! She sang like the nightingale. She was always happy. Up with the dawn, to sleep with the stars. We were alone, she and I. The sheep supported me and she sold her roses and dried lavender. It was all so beautiful ... till he came. Ah, had he loved her! But a plaything, a pastime! The signore never had a daughter. What is she now? A nameless thing in the streets!" Giovanni raised his arms tragically; the hoots clattered to the floor. "Seven years! It is a long time for one ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... she saw a man hard and cold as that stone at your feet,—a false, hollow, sordid worldling; she made him her idol, beheld in him all that history would not recognize in a Caesar, that mythology would scarcely grant to an Apollo: to him she was the plaything of an hour; she died, and before the year was out he had married for money! I knew another instance,—I speak of myself. I loved before I was your age. Had an angel warned me then, I would have been incredulous as you. How that ended, no matter: but had it not been for that dream of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... uniform, and the centre of an admiring party, who were equally diverted by his consequential airs and by his accounts of his sports among the Moors. Happy fellow, he could adapt himself to any society, and was ready to be the pet and plaything of the ship's company, believing himself, when he thought of anything beyond the present, to be full on the ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... right, and whatever he advised was done. Martin had escaped so many snares from needy fortune-hunters, and had withered in the shell of his suspicion and distrust for so many years, but to become the good man's tool and plaything. With the happiness of this conviction painted on his face, the architect went ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... to Messer Buoninsegni, who acted as intermediary at Rome between himself and the Pope in all things that concerned the facade: "Messer Domenico, I have come to Florence to see the model which Baccio has finished, and find it a mere child's plaything. If you think it best to have it sent, write to me. I leave again to-morrow for Carrara, where I have begun to make a model in clay with Grassa [a stone-hewer from Settignano]." Then he adds that, in the long run, he believes that he shall have to make the model himself, which ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... afternoon train went up the valley while I stood there, staring. It looked so tiny. You're really very high on those Rocks. I noticed you could see your Cousin Hetty's house from there, and the mill and the Powers house. That looked like a child's plaything, so little, under the big pine. And just as I looked at that, I saw a man come out from the house, get on a horse, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... something the earlier offer his fallible opinion, perhaps worth no more than that bit of stone! You would not wait till daylight—you would not wait one hour. You cruel woman! Already you had the best of him, his heart, to throw away at a word as if it were naught—merely a plaything, a tawdry gaud—the best and tenderest and noblest heart that ever beat!—and for a silly quarrel, and for your peevish vanity, you consented to humiliate his honest pride and to hold him up to ridicule, ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... see them nasty spikes on that there wall? Climb it, and you shall find a little yard; An unlatched casement leads you to a hall, Thence to the crib where, odorous with nard, Slumbers the petted plaything; 'twere not hard Out of his cushioned ease (and gorged belike With sweetmeats) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... Millicent had taken possession of her doll. She tried to remember that she was a big girl now, ten years old, and that dolls were for babies like six-year-old Millicent. But "Martha Stoddard" was something more than a plaything to Anne; she could not part with it. But how could she take it ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... to be the Ulysses-like plaything of adverse gods at the War Office; an indefatigably prolific wife; a succession of weak and ailing children; misfortune in the seasons of journeying; misfortune in the moods of the weather by sea and land—under all this ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... specially it fared with Ambrose Gray That time I tell of. He had work'd all day At a great clearing: vig'rous stroke on stroke Striking, till, when he stopt, his back seem'd broke, And the strong arm dropt nerveless. What of that? There was a treasure hidden in his hat— A plaything for the young ones. He had found A dormouse nest; the living ball coil'd round For its long winter sleep; and all his thought As he trudged stoutly homeward, was of nought But the glad wonderment in Jenny's eyes, And graver Lizzy's quieter surprize, When he should yield, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... weak. No sign did Otto give of his discovery, although his heart seemed to jump into his mouth. He did not even check or alter the tone of his conversation, but he changed the subject with surprising abruptness. He had brought up one of the dinghy's oars on his shoulder as a sort of plaything or vaulting-pole. Suddenly, asking Pauline if she had ever seen him balance an oar on his chin, he proceeded to perform the feat, much to her amusement. In doing so he turned his back completely on the savage in ambush, ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... it! the affair 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 himself ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... what his great crowd was waiting for. He had not had time to formulate a plan, but had contented himself with keeping his forces together. And, while, closely compacted, they swayed about, unconscious that they were the plaything of one cool and remarkable boy, he hit upon the scheme of an offensive. He decided that it would be futile to fight here, where all the school-prefects were concentrated; it would be better to transfer the attack to the courtyard of Bramhall House, where only the Bramhall prefects ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... indulgent father asked her name, She would indulge 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
... 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 and Austria covered the Syrian ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... suicide. Suicide! That gave him an idea, why should he not kill himself? It would be easy enough, for he still had his revolver and a few cartridges, and surely it was better than to enter on such a life as awaited him as the plaything of a priestess of a tribe ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... left our womenkind far behind in that respect. The Chinese woman, even the noble lady, does not care for serious affairs. The God of the Mountains, as they call him, made her a flower to pluck, a beautiful plaything for her chosen mate. She remains primitive. That is why, in time, man wearies of her, why the person of imagination looks sometimes westward, finds a new joy and a strange new fascination in a wholly different ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
