"Take the air" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the academy in this town they have erected a sort of gallows for the pupils to practise on. I thought that they might as well hang at once all who need to go through such exercises in so new a country, where there is nothing to hinder their living an outdoor life. Better omit Blair, and take the air. The country about the south end of the lake is quite mountainous, and the road began to feel the effects of it. There is one hill which, it is calculated, it takes twenty-five minutes to ascend. In many places the road ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... war." The gay young men are at the front, the idle young women knitting or nursing or helping the poor, and it is an adventure uncommon enough to be remembered to meet on the street a pretty young lady merely out to take the air, with hands in her muff and trotting in front of her the timorous dachshund, muzzled like a ravening tiger and looking at the world ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... would watch us from afar, holding noisy indignation meetings in a row of weather-beaten trees at the far side of the field. And when some inexperienced pilot lost control of his machine and came crashing to earth, they would take the air in a body, circling over the wreckage, cawing and jeering with the most evident delight. "The Oriental Wrecking Company," as the Annamites were called, were on the scene almost as quickly as our enemies the ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... a great and potent Prince, and during his stay at this place there used to be in his service none but beautiful girls, of whom he had a great number in his Court. When he went to take the air about the fortress, these girls used to draw him about in a little carriage which they could easily move, and they would also be in attendance on the King for everything pertaining to his convenience or ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... grand-vicar of the cathedral, has just turned under the gate," observed Decoud. "He said Mass for the troops in the Plaza this morning. They had built for him an altar of drums, you know. And they brought outside all the painted blocks to take the air. All the wooden saints stood militarily in a row at the top of the great flight of steps. They looked like a gorgeous escort attending the Vicar-General. I saw the great function from the windows of the Porvenir. He is amazing, your uncle, the last ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... I have. Don't you see it?" pointing to an imposing-looking structure in front of which they were just passing. "My clerks is all hard to work in there, while I go out to take the air for the benefit ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... gradual slope of a mile-long hill as swallows take the air; houses, barns, woods, orchards, grain fields, flew by on either side; other cars approaching passed them like cannon balls; the sunlit, undulating world flowed glittering away behind; only the stainless blue ahead confronted ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... I thought I was knockin' 'em dead and these guys thought I was a waiter! Well, I thinks, I'll show them boobs somethin' before I take the air—I can pull that stuff myself! With that I breezes into the next room and there's a hick sittin' at a table, toyin' with a book. He was as near nothin' as anything I ever seen, on the level! He's got a swell dress suit on, but it didn't fit him no better than mine did me and it couldn't have ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... her coach to wait upon your Ladiship, And to be inform'd if you will take the air ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... seated thus alone, became aware that another man was dragging a chair out upon the stoep, intending, like himself, to take the air. Looking up, he saw that it was the man to whom nobody ever seemed to talk, beyond exchanging the time of day, and that in the most curt and perfunctory fashion. He had noticed, further, that this individual seemed no more anxious to converse with other people ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... paths, choked with unkempt weeds. Not an hour before, when he had parted from Inez, he had determined to make sentimental journeys to that same house. For she had walked in those gardens, it was through those gates she had swept in her carriage to take the air in the Plaza; at night, when she slept, some high-ceilinged, iron-barred room of that house had sheltered her. He had pictured himself prowling outside the empty mansion and uncared-for garden, thinking of the exile, keeping vigil in the shadow of her home, freshly resolving to win back ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... such happy faces." said Aunt Madge. "How would you all like to go out by and by, and take the air?" ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... his countenance gracious and wise, his motion good, his speech clear and distinct. He never used exercise but walking, and that generally with some book in his hand, which oftentimes was poetry, in which he spent his idle hours; sometimes he would ride out to take the air, but his most delight was, to go only with me in a coach some miles, and there discourse of those things which then most pleased him, ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... men along the deck smiled when they saw me hurrying aft. The marines on the half-deck smiled as I flew by them. Everybody aboard knew by this time of my five years from home and the little baby waiting. Good old Doctor and Pay, going up to take the air on the quarter-deck, said: 'Hurry, Dick, hurry!' Hurry? I was taking the ladders in single leaps. At the foot of the last one, in the passageway leading to the ward-room, I all but bowled over a little fellow who was looking up the ladder like he was expecting somebody. ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... set his foot. Before long Miss Lyddy was as easy in the coach as if she had ridden in one all her life. She ordered the domestics here and there; she drove to the mercer's and the jeweller's, and she called upon her friends with the utmost stateliness, or rode abroad with them to take the air. Theo and Hetty were both greatly diverted with her: but would the elder have been quite as well pleased had she known all Miss Lyddy's doings? Not that Theo was of a jealous disposition,—far otherwise; but there are cases when a ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... care for this sort of commission. At least, this is no midnight interview. You shall call in broad daylight on the Senora Yturrio. If you and my daughter will take my coach and four to-morrow, I think she will gladly receive your cards. Perhaps also she will consent to take the air of Washington with you. In that case, she might drop in here for an ice. In such case, to conclude, I may perhaps be favored with an interview with that lady. I must have Van Zandt's signature to this ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... scampered across the field to the Frenchman's side as it was seen he was about to take the air again, and a dozen volunteers laid on to the rear frames of his craft and held her back while he started the engine. The Frenchman took his seat with deliberation and adjusted his gloves with care. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... incidents, in order to show that our exploration of the palace was not impeded by any attempt at concealment. We were even admitted to her ladyship's own room—on a subsequent occasion, when she went out to take the air. Our instructions recommended us to examine his lordship's residence, because the extreme privacy of his life at Venice, and the remarkable departure of the only two servants in the house, might have some suspicious ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... of that prince's escape. He found means to convey to him a horse of extraordinary swiftness; and appointed Roger Mortimer, who had returned into the kingdom, to be ready at hand with a small party to receive the prince, and to guard him to a place of safety. Edward pretended to take the air with some of Leicester's retinue, who were his guards; and making matches between their horses, after he thought he had tired and blown them sufficiently, he suddenly mounted Gloucester's horse and called to his attendants, that he had long enough enjoyed ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... affairs, and secluding himself in his own house, he would admit no visitors and open no papers on business. In vain did his most trusted colleagues sue to him for one hour's conversation. As the spring advanced, he retired to a house at Hampstead, and was able at intervals to take the air upon the heath, but was still at all times inaccessible to all his friends." His brother-in-law, Mr. Grenville, wrote:[106] "Lord Chatham's state of health is certainly the lowest dejection and debility that mind or body can be in. ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... two good sermons in his house, at which divers English and Scots, besides those of his family, were present. In the evening the Queen passed through the streets in her coach, with divers other coaches and her servants waiting on her, to take the air, though upon this day; and in the night, many disorderly drunkards were committing debaucheries and insolences in the town, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... in the war zones to meet and talk, but even nurses must rest and take the air, and during the month before the frightful rush of wounded after the British offensive on the Somme began, the four girls, all in different hospitals, maneuvered to obtain leave of absence at the same hour, early ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... too warm for me to be walking out to take the air," she heard, in the heavy mumble of the man's voice. "I don't like being watched, Lydia; and I won't stand it, either. I might ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... had made up his mind to the risk, and merely assisted Berenger in assuming his few equipments, then gave him his arm to go down the stairs. Meeting Guibert on the way, Berenger left word with him that he was going out to take the air with Maitre Pare; and on the man's offering to attend ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Flying Fish II., was waiting about the Needles to attack Hurst Castle and the forts on the Isle of Wight side, preparatory to a rush of two battleships and three cruisers through the narrows, while another was lurking under Hayling Island ready to take the air and rain destruction on the forts of Portsmouth before ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... the side for a hall-door!' soliloquized Andy. 'No, but two holes, one for the quality an' the other for the commonality. An' no deck at all at all for the people to take the air, only all cabins intirely! If it isn't the very dead image of a side of ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... disagreeable to Fleda than when it made its appearance in the doctor's little back parlour on this occasion. With even more than her usual fondness, or Fleda's excited imagination fancied so, Mrs. Thorn lavished caresses upon her, and finally besought her to go out and take the air in her carriage. Fleda tried most earnestly to get rid of this invitation, and was gently unpersuadable, till the lady at last was brought to promise that she should see no creature during the drive but herself. An ominous promise! but Fleda did not ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... from a house too full of people on a hot Sunday afternoon to permit of further lingering in its vicinity, now, he found it impossible to move, fascinated by the beauty of the rare creature slowly coming towards him. For this was a white peacock, tempted by the sudden radiance out to take the air. It paused for an instant as if to consider the effect and stood, displaying a colossal fan of snowy feathers, tipped with glittering frost-like filaments. Perhaps it intuitively knew that Ringfield had never seen one of ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... the dramatis personae are like so many statues "stept from their pedestal to take the air." They come on the stage only to utter pompous sentiments of morality, turgid declamation, and frigid similes. Yet there is throughout, that strength of language, that heavy mace of words, with which, as with the flail of Talus, Johnson lays every thing ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... by the trail of their dirty dollars. And the saddest thing in it all to me is that you generally find one or two able-bodied American citizens kotowing to them like wooden Chinese mandarins when the great men take the air." ...
— A Gentleman's Gentleman - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... I walk to take the air, Your image is for ever there, Among the woods that lose their leaves, Or where the North Sea ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... she reach'd Kofir, which she found disposed to receive her in the same rough Manner as the Country had done. The whole Nation appeared determined against her. One Day she happened, a little indiscretely, to take the Air in her Chariot, while the Streets were full of People, who were celebrating the happy Recovery of their King with all Kinds of Sports and Rejoicings. Possibly she might flatter herself, that the easy Kofirans seeing her appear Abroad to join in the ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... extraordinary care and caution or they will be remediless in case of injury to themselves. They may travel on the Lord's day for all purposes of necessity or charity; and they may also take short walks in the public highway on Sundays, simply for exercise and to take the air, and even to call to see friends on such walks, without liability to punishment therefor under the statutes for the observance of the Lord's day, and they can recover damages for injuries ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... quarter of an hour prep, would be over and the House door unlocked, and he would be able to get in again. Nor would the fact of his being out excite remark, for it was the custom of the House-Prefects to take the air for the few minutes which elapsed between the opening of the door and the final ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... with her husband, but a different ferry, as she wished to go up town. Wilbur acquiesced readily. "It is a mighty fine morning, and you need to get out," he said. Poor Wilbur at this time felt guiltily culpable that he did not own a motor car in which his Margaret might take the air. He had tried to see his way clear toward buying one, but in spite of a certain improvidence, the whole nature of the man was intrinsically honest. He always ended his conference with himself concerning the motor by saying that he could not ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... theirs was much worse. They were looked upon by the officers as so many sheep or pigs, and treated with no more consideration. Crowded together below, allowed to accumulate filth and dirt of every description, their diet bad and scanty, and never encouraged to take the air on deck, disease soon broke out and spread among them. Old and young, married and single of both sexes, were mingled indiscriminately together; and the scenes I witnessed when I was obliged to go below turned me sick with disgust, as they made ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... enough, Sir, but none good; That the Prince's Wounds are small, So that he intends to take the Air this Evening; That he sollicits Laura hard; And, Sir, that you ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... coffee. There was a good deal of coming and going, a tremendous clattering about of children in little wooden sabots, and much good-natured 'chaff' between the people of the inn, who came out to take the air after their day's work, and the passers-by. There seems to be little in the peasants here of that positive morgue, not to say arrogance, which marks the demeanour of their class in the western parts of France. There are regions in Brittany ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... intruders fly at him with furious rage; and I have admired the sovereign indifference and contempt with which he seems to look down upon his puny assailants. When her ladyship drives out, these dogs are generally carried with her to take the air; when they look out of each window of the carriage, and bark at all vulgar pedestrian dogs. These dogs are a continual source of misery to the household: as they are always in the way, they every now and then ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... my date that I am got into a new scene, and that I am retired hither like an old summer dowager; Only that I have no toad-eater to take the air with me in the back part of my lozenge-coach, and to be scolded. I have taken a small house here within the castle and propose spending the greatest part of every week here till the parliament meets; ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... be said that a pilot is safe. When he knows in his own heart that nothing can happen to him which will throw him off his guard, or which will worry him, he can take the air without fear. ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... But a little further thought and I knew there were more capable men than I walking the streets of Boston looking for work. However, a lot could happen before I would have to worry, and so I decided to take the air and think it over. ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... the French and British aviators the German flyers were literally prohibited from the lines of the Allies during all that time. In five days fifteen German machines were brought to the ground. Very few German balloons even attempted to take the air. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... lethargic. He had generally spent the day in pacing up and down his apartment, and dictating conversations and political recollections. But he now sat for hours listlessly and perfectly silent on the sofa. It required the strongest persuasion to induce him to take the air either on foot or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... roused the mountain echoes with his naughty screaming. On this occasion, for a finish, Rashid let go his hold upon the head-rope, the people fled in all directions, and off went our Sheytan with tail erect, scrambling and careering up the terraces, as nimble as a goat, to take the air before returning ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... the cliff. It has the look of a military wall, and it is not a military wall. It supports merely a superb promenade, Dufferin Terrace, a great plank walk poised sheer above the river, the like of which would be hard to equal anywhere. On this the homely people of Quebec take the air in a manner more sumptuous than many of the most ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... motorbike, dirt bike, off-road vehicle, van, minivan, motor scooter, trolley, locomotive; legs, feet, pegs, pins, trotters. traveler &c 268. depot [U.S.], railway station, station. V. travel, journey, course; take a journey, go a journey; take a walk, go out for walk &c n.; have a run; take the air. flit, take wing; migrate, emigrate; trek; rove, prowl, roam, range, patrol, pace up and down, traverse; scour the country, traverse the country; peragrate^; circumambulate, perambulate; nomadize^, wander, ramble, stroll, saunter, hover, go one's rounds, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... her holidays. Things standing thus, it chanced that, the heat being great and Messer Ricciardo having a mind to go a-pleasuring to a very fair country-seat he had, near Monte Nero, and there abide some days to take the air, he betook himself thither, carrying with him his fair lady. There sojourning, to give her some diversion, he caused one day fish and they went out to sea in two boats, he in one with the fishermen, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... company said "Nay," for Rob was evidently bent upon playing the host. But Captain Dawe asked where his daughter and Mistress Stowe had hidden themselves, and got for answer the tidings that they had gone out into the Moorfields to take the air and see an archery contest, the heat in the city having been ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... lacerated back was beginning to heal satisfactorily. So far, indeed, was he recovered that he complained of his confinement, of the heat in his cabin. To indulge him Captain Blood consented that he should take the air on deck, and so, as the last of the daylight was fading from the sky, Jeremy Pitt came ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... sooner he his head had rested there, Than, with deep sleep opprest, he closed his eye: So heavily, no badgers in their lair, Or dormice, overcome with slumber, lie. Martano and Origille, to take the air, Entered this while a garden which was nigh; And there the strangest fraud together bred, Which ever entered into ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the brush and comb, a stroll through the streets with the girls, by leave of Pa, who wished Lily to take the air, then home again, more housework.... The apprentices, who did not yet perform in public, were sent to bed early, while Lily, escorted by Pa, went off to East, West, South or North London. An hour to get there; then undress, dress, appear on the stage under Pa's eye, undress and dress again; another ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... the Queen was passing up the Clyde, an American seaman got on the topgallant, and stood on his head. What was that for, I should be glad to know? Suppose her Majesty was coming along Princes Street, just to take the air like a lady, and look into the shop-windows, and I was to go right up to her, and stand on my head—what would she say? I surmise, that she would turn round to her Lord Gold Stick, and order him to give me a knock on the shins. I know she would, for she is a regular trump, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... rippling brook doesn't always furnish the best water, and the lea furnishes very imperfect forage during nine months of the year. A twenty-acre lot in good grass, in which to take the air, is all that a well-regulated herd of fifty cows needs. The clean, cool, calm stable is much to their liking, and the regular diet of a first-class cow-kitchen insures a uniform ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... Take the air mail service, for instance. This is now only in its infancy, but it is destined to become as common as the railway mail service. It will employ hundreds of airplanes and ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... after they have formed the angle of their separation from the parent stem, always bend downwards so as not to crowd against the other branches which follow them on the same stem and to be better able to take the air which nourishes them. As is shown by the angle b a c; the branch a c after it has made the corner of the angle a c bends downwards to c d and the lesser shoot c ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... watched by a butler and a footman at the summit of the steps and by a footman on the pavement and by the coachman on the box of the carriage. She carried a thick and lovely white shawl, and in this shawl was Lord Woldo and all his many and heavy responsibilities. It was his fancy to take the air thus, in the arms of a woman. He allowed himself to be lifted into the open carriage, and the door of the carriage was shut; and off went the two ancient horses, slowly, and the two adult fat men and the two mature spinsters, and the vehicle ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... wasn't. I thought you was croaked. Cost something to repair the plane, too. I'm saying it did. Had to have a new propeller, and a new crank-case for the motor—cost the old man at the ranch close to three hundred dollars before I turned her over to him, ready to take the air again. That's including what he paid me, of course. But I guess you know what it cost, when ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... the petitions of the postman, scavenger, telegraph man, newsboy, &c., asking you for a Christmas-box. Poor fellows! they get little enough, and a couple of francs is well bestowed on them once a year. After mid-day breakfast or luncheon is over, rich and poor walk out and take the air, and a gaudy, pompous crowd they form as a rule. As regards presents at Christmas, the rule is, in primitive Spain, to send a present to the Cura (parish priest) and the doctor. Many Spaniards pay a fixed annual sum to their medical man, and he attends all the family, including servants. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... frankly. I've got a kind of a ... just to-day ... it comes over me ... the blood, you know ... it seems to go to my head suddenly, once in a while. It's like a ... it's horrible, too ... like an attack of dizziness! I suppose I'll have to ... at least, I think I'll have to take the air a bit. But it's nothing of importance, mother. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... to make love to me, the latest recruit to the oyster pirate fleet, and no mere hand, but a master and owner. She went upon deck to take the air, and took me with her. She knew, of course, but I never dreamed, how French Frank was raging down below. Then Tess joined us, sitting on the cabin; and Spider, and Bob; and at the last, Mrs. Hadley and French Frank. And we sat there, glasses in hand, and sang, while the big demijohn went ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... airships were in use, but none of the large size and wide range required for effective naval reconnaissance. Good and rapid progress, on the other hand, was made with aeroplanes and seaplanes, and when war broke out we had a small but healthy service, both naval and military, ready to take the air. ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... the kind suggestion of the cabman deposited Leek's goods at the cloak-room of South Kensington Station, he was wandering on foot out of old London into the central ring of new London, where people never do anything except take the air in parks, lounge in club-windows, roll to and fro in peculiar vehicles that have ventured out without horses and are making the best of it, buy flowers and Egyptian cigarettes, look at pictures, ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... we went to take the air in St. James' Park, and walked by Rosamund's pond; and here we but just missed seeing the King and Queen; for as we came into it from Charing Cross (where I had seen for the first time in the public street the Punch-show, which ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... have a very eminent example in the ode entitled the Muse, who goes to "take the air" in an intellectual chariot, to which he harnesses fancy and judgment, wit and eloquence, memory and invention: how he distinguished wit from fancy, or how memory could properly contribute to motion, he has not explained; we are, however, content to suppose that he could have justified his own fiction, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... market where the highest price is generally obtained for them. The premises are strongly secured with bolts and bars, and the rooms in which the negroes are confined, surround an open court yard, where they are permitted to take the air. We were accompanied and kindly introduced by an individual who has often been engaged in preventing negroes from being illegally enslaved; and the proprietor of the establishment expressed his approval of his efforts, and that when such cases come before himself in the way of trade, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... no sooner over the river, Down in a forest to take the air, But eighty merchants of London city Came ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... was such an invalid,' I said.—How long is it since she could only take the air in a close carriage, with a gentleman in a black coat on the box? Let me tell you a story, adapted to young persons, but which ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... hotel-yard, down the street, round the corner, out of sight. The man in the tall hat and dress-coat went in; the official group at the threshold dissolved; the statue in ivory and ebony resumed its place; evidently the Hoheit of Coburg, or Montenegro, or Prussia, was not going to take the air. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... barn I had a good chance to observe her incubating habits. I was surprised at the frequent and long recesses that she took during school-hours. Every hour during the warmest days she was off from ten to twelve minutes, either to take the air or to take a bite, or to let up on the temperature of her eggs, or to have a word with her other family; I am at a loss to know which. Toward the end of her term, which was twelve days, and as the days grew cooler, she was not gadding out and in so often, but kept her place ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... certain intervals and changes of the moon, to be both fidler and painter, according as the fly stings:—Be it known to you, that I keep a couple of pads myself, upon which, in their turns, (nor do I care who knows it) I frequently ride out and take the air;—though sometimes, to my shame be it spoken, I take somewhat longer journies than what a wise man would think altogether right.—But the truth is,—I am not a wise man;—and besides am a mortal of so little ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... it is—and shameful it is that so it should be—that the more God gives to men, the less they thank Him, the less they fancy that they need Him: but take His bounties, as they take the air they breathe, unconsciously, and as a ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... stone and brick, almost inextricably wound within one another, by which, if at any time her lodging were laid about by the queen, she might easily avoid peril imminent, and, if need be, by secret issues, take the air abroad, many ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... huge sticks, chased wooden tops upon the ice; while their fathers lay quietly on the stove, issuing forth at intervals with lighted pipes in their lips, to growl, in regular fashion, at the orthodox frost, or to take the air, and thresh the grain spread out in the barn. At last the snow began to melt, and the ice rind slipped away: but Petro remained the same; and, the longer it went on, the more morose he grew. He sat in the middle of the cottage as though nailed to the spot, with the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... 4:46 Whereupon Ptolemee taking the king aside into a certain gallery, as it were to take the air, brought him to ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... noble resolve of saving the Dux from himself, I went out to take the air, and strolled aimlessly in the direction of the pond. A professional burglar could not have ordered his footsteps more circumspectly. I perambulated the pool, whistling a cheerful tune, and looking attentively at the rooks overhead. Not a soul was in ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... him be so unfortunate as to return without her. "Gentle Avenant," said she, "all the reasons you have laid before me, are very good, and I assure you, I would rather favour you than any other; but you must know, about a month since, I went to take the air by the side of a river, with my maids of honour; as I was pulling off my glove, I pulled a ring from my finger, which by accident fell into the river. This ring I valued more than my whole kingdom; whence you may judge how much I am afflicted by the loss of ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... so outwitted his village physician as to be given the freedom for which he ravened; liberty to take the air in his garden, as understood by the doctor, but by him liberty to stand guard down at the edge of that dark pool which would not freeze over,—liberty to take an air sweet with the odors of the parting year, but crowded also with distended ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... sweet to be At home in the deep, deep sea. It is very pleasant to have the power To take the air on dry land for an hour; And when the mid-day midsummer sun Is toasting the fields as brown as a bun, And the sands are baking, it's very nice To feel as cool as a strawberry ice In one's own particular damp sea-cave, Dipping one's feelers in each green wave. It is good, for a very rapacious ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the Dead Sea. This Theophilus she had found dwelling with the Essenes in their cavern home, and none of them had welcomed her more warmly. Some ten days ago, against the advice of Ithiel and others, he had insisted on creeping out to take the air and gather news in the city. Then he was a stout and hale old man, although pale-faced from dwelling in the darkness. From that journey he had not returned. Some said that he had fled to the country, others that he had gone over to the Romans, and yet others ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... resigned. It is a pity it was the last note! for twenty-five thousand paltry francs, to go and take the air of the south at Toulon—it is ridiculous, absurd, stupid! How could a cunning man like you suffer yourself ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... all weathers we take the air—walking, or sitting in little companies talking over each other's ailments and measurements and ills that flesh ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... Here are several squares finely built, and (what I think a particular beauty) the whole set with thick large trees. The Vour-hout is, at the same time, the Hyde-Park and Mall of the people of quality; for they take the air in it both on foot and in coaches. There are shops for wafers, cool liquors, &c.—I have been to see several of the most celebrated gardens, but I will not teaze (sic) you with their descriptions. I dare say you think my letter already long enough. ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... his residence should not be divulged on any account. Notwithstanding which assurance, the cottage was visited next day by eleven gods and demigods, mostly Titans. Elenko found it trying, and was really alarmed when by and by the Furies, having made over their functions to the Devil, strolled up to take the air, and dropped in for a chat, bringing Cerberus. But they behaved exceedingly well, and took back a message from Elenko to Eurydice. Ere long she was on most intimate terms with all the dethroned divinities, celestial, infernal, ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... was a very good governor, as Robert several times assured the Earl of Cork, and allowed them to lack for nothing. In the spring he bought them saddle-horses so that after their studies they might take the air and see their friends. Since a governor had charge of all the funds, it was a great test of his honesty whether he resisted the temptation to economize on the clothes and spending-money of his pupils, and to pocket the part of their allowance so saved. This is why Marcombes ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... the bedroom itself. It was shabby and small, with coarsely-papered walls and a discolored ceiling. Percival remarked that his window had a very wide sill. He never found out the reason, unless it were intended that he should take the air by sitting on it and dangling his legs over the foulest of water-butts. But when night came the broad sill was the favorite battlefield for all the cats in the neighborhood. It might have been pointed out as readily as they point you out the place ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... pox on him, let him go, dormouse: he is in a dream now. He has no other time to sleep, but thus when he walks abroad to take the air. ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... slowly down, And walked about the town, With a cheerful bumpy sound, As they toddled round and round. And everybody cried, As they hastened to their side, 'See, the Table and the Chair Have come out to take the air!' ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... these cushions, may be described, to the female apprehension at least, as "too divine." The cabin is removable at pleasure, and is generally taken off and replaced by awnings in summer. But in the evening, when the fair Venetians go out in their gondolas to take the air, even this awning is dispensed with, and the long slender boat glides darkly down the Grand Canal, bearing its dazzling freight of white tulle, pale-faced, black-eyed beauty, and ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Susan was gone, and was on her way to Bathsheba's,—it was too bad that the poor girl who lived so out of the world shouldn't know anything of what was going on in it. Bathsheba had been in all the morning, and the Doctor had said she must take the air every day; so Bathsheba had on her bonnet a little after Olive had gone, and walked straight up to The Poplars to tell Myrtle Hazard that a certain young gentleman, Clement Lindsay, was coming to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... foliage as is seen at Curzoia and Sebenico. The Austrian-Lloyd office is on the ground floor of a tower of the Venetian period, now a nunnery. It has a trefoiled ogee-window and a great balcony above it, with trellises behind which the nuns can take the air without being seen, recalling those of Sicilian nunneries. All ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... dinner (the day being wonderful hot) to sleep, and each of us took a good nap, and then rose; and Tom Wilson come to see me, and sat and talked an hour. By and by he parted, and we took coach and to take the air, there being a fine breeze abroad; and I went and carried them to the well, and there filled some bottles of water to carry home with me. Here W. Hewer's horse broke loose, and we had the sport to see him taken again. Then I carried them to see my cousin Pepys's ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... then a third. My machine is number seven. I ask my observer, Allard, if he is ready. He answers, "Yes." I start the engine, give it all the gas, like the others roll along the ground for a few seconds, and then take the air. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... occurred in this country. When coaches began to be kept by the gentry, or were hired out, a powerful party found their "occupation gone!" Ladies would no longer ride on pillions behind their footmen, nor would take the air, where the air was purest, on the river. Judges and counsellors from their inns would no longer be conveyed by water to Westminster Hall, or jog on with all their gravity on a poor palfrey. Considerable bodies of men were thrown out of their habitual ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Leeds shall married be To a fine young lady of high quality, How happy will that gentlewoman be In his Grace of Leeds' good company. She shall have all that's fine and fair, And the best of silk and satin shall wear; And ride in a coach to take the air, And have a horse in ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... strongly guarded at night I would try to approach it, but as this cannot be done I must take my chance in the day. To-morrow I will dress myself in your garments and will hide in the wood as near as I can to the hut; then if she come out to take the air I will walk boldly out and speak with her. I see no ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... "You take the air rifle, then," urged Dan, passing it over. As this rather insignificant weapon might possibly be of some use, in the event of more ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... and so to take a tour into the garden of the Tuileries and the other pleasant places of the city. It happened one day that my prince (if I may call him so) had a mind to give me some diversion, and to take the air with me; but, that he might do it and not be publicly known, he comes to me in a coach of the Count de ——, a great officer of the court, attended by his liveries also; so that, in a word, it was impossible to guess by the equipage who I was ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... me, why I don't take the air a-horseback, during this fine weather? — In which of the avenues of this paradise would you have me take that exercise? Shall I commit myself to the high-roads of London or Bristol, to be stifled with dust, or pressed to death in the midst of post-chaises, flying-machines, waggons, and coal-horses; ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... disposition was I, when looking out of my window one day to take the air, I perceived a kind of peasant who looked at me ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... soft, the morning fair, They issued forth to take the air. He ranged the meadows, where a ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... informed Madam Beatrix what her part of the comedy was to be:—"In half an hour," says he, "her Majesty and her favorite lady will take the air in the Cedar-walk behind the new Banqueting-house. Her Majesty will be drawn in a garden-chair, Madam Beatrix Esmond and HER BROTHER, MY LORD VISCOUNT CASTLEWOOD, will be walking in the private garden, (here is Lady Masham's ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the morang of the Nagas. This is a custom of the Thibeto-Burman tribes in Assam, and is not a Khasi institution. There are also high platforms, some 12 ft. or 15 ft. in height, in Lynngam villages, where the elders sit of an evening in the hot weather and take the air. Lynngam houses and villages are usually much cleaner than the ordinary Khasi villages, and although the Lynngams keep pigs, they do not seems to be so much en evidence as in the Khasi village. There is little or no furniture in a Lynngam house. The Lynngam ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... pity the church-yard is locked up. We could spend the time so delightfully in it. But, never mind; let us go down to the Battery,—it 's not a very pleasant place, but it's near, and it's historical, and it's open,—where these drowsy friends of ours used to take the air when they were in the fashion, and had some occasion for the element in its freshness. You can imagine—it's cheap—how they used to see Mr. Burr ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the seventh day Is famous for a grand display Of modes, of finery, and dress, Of cit, west-ender, and noblesse, Who in Hyde Park crowd like a fair To stare, and lounge, and take the air, Or ride or drive, or walk, and chat On fashions, scandal, and all that.— Here, reader, with your leave, will we Commence our London history. 'Twas Sunday, and the park was full With Mistress, John, and Master Bull, And all their little ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... and Violets blue, And Cowslips with their yellow Hue, And Lady's Smocks of Silver white, Paint all the Meadows with Delight, Then shall I meet my charming Fair, On ouzy Banks to take the Air; There shall we taste delicious Love, Equal to what is ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... locomotive; legs, feet, pegs, pins, trotters. traveler &c. 268. depot [U.S.], railway station, station. V. travel, journey, course; take a journey, go a journey; take a walk, go out for walk &c. n.; have a run; take the air. flit, take wing; migrate, emigrate; trek; rove, prowl, roam, range, patrol, pace up and down, traverse; scour the country, traverse the country; peragrate|; circumambulate, perambulate; nomadize[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... But I tell those jackanapeses, sir, that while I admit the wisdom of the Boy Jones precedent, of kidnapping such youths after the expiration of their several terms of imprisonment as vagabonds; hurrying them on board ship; and packing them off to sea again whenever they venture to take the air on shore; I deny the justice of the inference; inasmuch as it appears to me, that the inquiring minds of those young outlaws must naturally lead to their being hanged by the enemy as spies, early in their career; and before they shall have been rated on the books ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... satisfied the janitors of their respectability, moved about with watchfulness and gravity, surveying the counsellors and their ladies with admiring eyes, and extolling the benchers whose benevolence permitted simple tradespeople to take the air side by side with 'the quality.' In 1736, James Ralph, in his 'New Critical Review of the Publick Buildings,' wrote about the square and gardens of Lincoln's Inn in a manner which testifies to the respectful gratitude of the public for the liberality ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... make it necessary, we won't be callin' for the wagon," Casane stated. "Just the three of us'll take a little stroll, like I'm telling you—just stroll out and take the air ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... have seen my lord, for at this hour my lord Alexandros is accustomed to sleep and I to wake. And so I take the air, and am by myself." ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett
... out of doors, they experienced such insults that they left off going anywhere beyond the palace gardens, from which the public were excluded, in order to allow the family to take the air unmolested. Such cries, however, were heard from the terrace outside, that, after being twice driven in by them, the family gave up going out at all Louis had to give up his gardening, and the sight of the flowers he had sown, and to keep within doors ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... Here's an indifferent large Garden parted: The one a Kitchen Garden, that is my Wife's and the Family's; the other is a Physick Garden, containing the choicest physical Herbs. At the left Hand there is an open Meadow, that is only a green Plot enclos'd with a quick-set Hedge. There sometimes I take the Air, and divert myself with good Company. Upon the right Hand there's an Orchard, where, when you have Leisure, you shall see a great Variety of foreign Trees, that I have brought by Degrees ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... game of chess; or pictures in Bond Street, or a long way home to take the air with Bonamy on his arm, meditatively marching, head thrown back, the world a spectacle, the early moon above the steeples coming in for praise, the sea-gulls flying high, Nelson on his column surveying the horizon, and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... elegantly, not to speak at all; for I am sure they will get more by their silence than by their speech. As for politeness: whoever keeps good company, and is not polite, must have formed a resolution, and take some pains not to be so; otherwise he would naturally and insensibly take the air, the address, and the turn of those he converses with. You will, probably, in the course of this year, see as great a variety of good company in the several capitals you will be at, as in any one year of ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... but as I trace over what we went through I see how much common ground we must have found in the one idea that, by good fortune, COULD steady us. It was the idea, the second movement, that led me straight out, as I may say, of the inner chamber of my dread. I could take the air in the court, at least, and there Mrs. Grose could join me. Perfectly can I recall now the particular way strength came to me before we separated for the night. We had gone over and over every feature ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... danger. And I know damned well that Lana Helmer loves it. For when we came through without so much as sighting a muskrat, 'What!' says she, 'Not a savage to be seen and not a shot fired! Lord,' says she, 'I had as lief take the air on Bowling Green—there being some real peril of ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... the Barbie bodies had mustered in strength for Skeighan. In a country brake it is the privilege of the important men to mount beside the driver, in order to take the air and show themselves off to an admiring world. On the dickey were ex-Provost Connal and Sandy Toddle, and between them the Deacon, tightly wedged. The Deacon was so thin (the bodie) that, though he was wedged closely, ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... heat arrives, in June, the young ones, probably aided by their mother, pierce the walls of their cells, leave the maternal tent, of which they know the secret outlet well, take the air on the threshold for a few hours and then fly away, carried to some distance by a funicular aeroplane, the first product of ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... the monster machines began to take the air one after another, units in a vast whole. There was no demonstration, though scores of other aviators and assistants were on the field watching the send-off, speculating as to the momentous business being thus undertaken and often eating ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... constructed hangars, were a half-dozen of the latest pursuit airships—beautiful slim hulls, heavily armored, with armored turrets containing each a quick-firer with the new armor-piercing bullets. One of these ships, Dick's own, was kept perpetually warmed and ready to take the air. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... care of her father. She probably went to him on hearing that he had been seriously hurt by a fall from his horse. In his diary[84] Coke thus describes this accident: "The 3rd of May, 1632, riding in the morning in Stoke, between eight and nine o'clock to take the air, my horse under me had a strange stumble backwards and fell upon me (being above eighty years old) where my head lighted near to sharp stubbles, and the heavy horse upon me." He declares that he suffered "no hurt at all;" but, as a matter of fact, ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... wanted to say at the present time,' continued Fledgeby in a grudging vein, as he got off the stool, 'except that I wish you'd take the air where you can hear the bell, or the knocker, either one of the two or both. By-the-by how DO you take the air at the top of the house? Do you stick your head ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... stretched in Isis' calm retreat, To books and study gives seven years complete, See! strewed with learned dust, his night-cap on, He walks, an object new beneath the sun! The boys flock round him, and the people stare: } So stiff, so mute! some statue you would swear, } Stepped from its pedestal to take the air! } And here, while town, and court, and city roars, With mobs, and duns, and soldiers at their doors; Shall I, in London, act this idle part? Composing songs for fools to get by heart? The Temple late two brother sergeants ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... to your very kind inquiries, dear Sir, I can let you know, that I am quite free from pain, and walk a little about my room, even without a stick: nay, have been four times to take the air in the Park. Indeed, after fourteen weeks this is not saying much; but it is a worse reflection, that when one is subject to the gout and far from young, one's worst account will probably be better than that after the next fit. I neither flatter myself on ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... seated commodiously, His ancient and hereditary house, There dwelt a good substantial country mouse: Frugal, and grave, and careful of the main, Yet one who once did nobly entertain A city mouse, well coated, sleek, and gay, A mouse of high degree, which lost his way, Wantonly walking forth to take the air, And arrived early, and alighted there, For a day's lodging. The good hearty host (The ancient plenty of his hall to boast) Did all the stores produce that might excite, With various tastes, the courtier's appetite. Fitches and beans, peason, ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... Foe at the gates of his College and speeded home. Jimmy had breakfasted and gone forth to take the air. I sat down to open my letters and answer them. In the middle of this my agent arrived. We lunched together and spent the afternoon canvassing. This lasted until dinner, for which I returned to my Club. Thence a taxi took me East again to Bethnal Green ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I take the air, And hear the trains roll by, And dream of all the visions fair That o'er the housetops lie; The meadows where the daisies stray, The bleating sheep, as white as they, The breakers and the sparkling spray, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... to have much of the nature of our flies; they buzzed abroad a month or two in the summer, would venture about dog-days to take the air in the Park, but all the winter slept like dormice; and, if they ever appeared in public after Michaelmas, their faces shewed the difference betwixt their country and ours, for they look in Spain as if they were roasted, and in England as if ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden |
