"Toying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... teeth and clenched his fists. In the street through which he had to go, on the spaces outside the hotels sat ladies and gentlemen toying with strange foods and sipping their wine out of long goblets. They chattered gaily and tasted and pecked with dainty lips and turned-up noses. The waiters ran here, there, like slaves. Those coaxing smells stung like adders and roused ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... chatting with the clerk across his counter and casting glances at the dining-room door. Miss Tevkin had not yet finished her meal and I was watching for her to appear. Presently she did, toying with Miss ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... beautiful birds, heard the pleading of Siegmund, and she thrilled with pleasure, toying ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... drew out a shagreen-covered case and opened it. Within, on a lining of pale blue velvet, lay two small sharp instruments of steel, very highly polished. He lifted one, felt its point, replaced it, set down the case on the carpet, and fell to toying with the ears of the Gordon setter, which had come ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... warfare. To whip the Indians, we must become Indians in our plan and conduct of battle. The civilization and mathematics of war, as practised by cultivated people, are useless in the wilderness, and all our proud and boasted tactics are mere foolish toying and trifling—a waste of time, strength, and opportunity. No one doubts that if our troops could meet the Indians in open field, they would slaughter them like rats; but they know better than to be caught on the open field, except they are ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Zephyrs, wander, Thro' the groves of verdant green; Toying with the lilac yonder— Here, with the ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... Englishman could only talk about my convent and any lovers I might have had; that on the latter point I was to cut him short, and to answer with a laugh that I did not know what he was talking about, and even to tell him that I was a nun in appearance only, and that in the course of toying I might let him see my hair. 'That,' said Capsucefalo, 'won't prevent him from thinking you a nun—yes! and the very nun he is amorous of, for he will have made up his mind that you cannot possibly be anyone else.' Seizing the point ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a while, toying with his glass, his young brow contracted under a painful frown. At length, checking a ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... knew you'd say something like that, mother!' said the daughter, scornfully. She stooped and threw a shawl round her shoulders; gathered up some working materials and a book with which she had been toying during the sitting; and then straightened herself with an air at once ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The pressure of her fingers accented the slight uptilt of her brows to elfishness, and her look was introspective. She might, instead of wondering on the outside, have been the very center of the mystery itself, toying with unthinkable possibilities of revelation. She looked far over the head of Clara Britton's annoyance that ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... the table, but not crowded up close against it; and keep the hands, when not in use to convey food to the mouth, in the lap, beneath the table, never resting upon the table, toying with ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... who was laughing so merrily while she was so angry and so sad, and beheld the Intendant jesting and toying with a cluster of laughing girls who had caught him at the turn of the broad stair of the terrace. They kept him there in utter oblivion of Angelique! Not that she cared for his presence at that ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and sure of her lover delights in toying with a sort of coquetry of love; as if it pleased her to try to win over again that the winning of which gave so ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... the swelling hills shepherds are climbing, Down in the meadows the mowers are seen, Haymakers singing, and village bells chiming; Lasses and lads lightly trip o'er the green, Flying, pursuing, Toying, and wooing— Nature is now as she ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... most shocking circumstances of which she concealed from her husband. She performed all the menial offices in her own little family, which was maintained by pawning her apparel; and both the husband and wife, in some measure, sweetened their cares by prattling and toying with their charming little boy, on whom they doated with an enthusiasm of fondness. Yet even this pleasure was mingled with the most tender and melancholy regret. I have seen the mother hang over him, with ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... then, with a mighty throb, the screw gave a turn, and it was music to my ears. Then the waters of the bay were churned into yeasty waves. The city and shores seemed to glide by and our prow was pointed direct to the blue sea rolling beyond. Soon the joyous billows were toying with our ship, and huge as it was were tossing it as lightly and easily as a ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... country cousins are aware that the Member for Northampton is less an ornament of general society than the oracle of an initiated circle. The smoking-room of the House of Commons is his shrine, and there, poised in an American rocking-chair and delicately toying with a cigarette, he unlocks the varied treasures of his well-stored memory, and throws over the changing scenes of life the mild light of his genial philosophy. It is a chequered experience that has made him what ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... nothing of this until next morning, when, as he was toying with one of the maids, he heard a voice from the window, "Johann! Johann! I will give thee the diamond." And looking up, there was Sidonia. So the knave ran to her, and swore he was only jesting with the maid in the court, for that he would marry no one but her, as he had promised ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... to pass away the long hours, for be often indulged in it, always making his approach in the same deliberate way, tripping daintily a step or two at a time, examining everything in a careless way, tasting a piece of apple-skin, lifting a bit of thread, toying and dallying to all appearance, as he moved, still always advancing, and never turning aside from his purpose till he reached the distance of a foot from the thrush, crouching motionless with crown feathers erect. At that point he often stood a moment, looking grimly ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... next time you find yourself using ridicule or sarcasm to provoke mirth remember you are toying with a habit-forming practice that is likely to get the best of you unless ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... saying that his daughter has gone to the Hills. I believe that he lies! I know that he does! If you had deigned to trust me, I would have followed on her track to hell itself, but you chose to play the woman—the catlike toying with men! Damn him! I owe him one now! If he had openly entertained me in this brilliant visit, I might have re-entered the staff service—in a week. And, you threw all my experience away in ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... the depot, the doors of which were open. Captain Sol entered the waiting room and unlocked the ticket rack and the little safe. Issy, languidly toying with the broom on the front platform, paused in his pretense of sweeping and awaited permission to go home for breakfast. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... good-natured, Susan Talbot. How now," at some sound below, springing to the little window and flinging it back, "you lazy idle wenches—what are you doing there? Is my work to stand still while you are toying with yon vile whelp? He is tangling the yarn, don't you see, thou purblind Jane Dacre, with no eyes but for ogling. There! there! Round the leg of the chair, don't you see!" and down flew a shoe, which made the poor dog howl, and his mistress catch him up. "Put him down! put him down ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... secret of this popular demonstration is soon explained, for almost at the same moment the door is opened abruptly and the magistrate of the place makes his appearance, asking in Spanish to see their passports and the passports of their horses. The dispute thickens. Finally, M. Forgues, toying with his revolver, proclaims that he and his companion are Frenchmen, and not Paraguayans, that no passports are necessary to travel in the country, and that they cannot be interfered with with impunity. At this a change comes over the magistrate. He begs a thousand pardons, and justifies his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... reached us, toying coyly with the boat's canvas at first, but gradually bellying out the sails until at last they "went to sleep." The breeze was, after all, merely the gentlest of zephyrs, only just sufficient to give a ship steerage-way; but, very fortunately ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... The Knight, toying with walnuts, held at the moment four in the palm of his right hand. They broke with a four-fold crack, which sounded but as one mighty crunch. Then, all unconscious of what he did, the Knight opened his great hand and let fall upon the table, a little heap of crushed ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... home, her prayer-book in her hand. She was thinking she could steal out to the evening service; it might not be so much noticed then, her being alone. Listlessly enough she sat, toying with her prayer-book rather than reading it. She had never pretended to be religious, had not been trained to be so; and reading a prayer-book, when not in church, was quite unusual to her. But there ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... night-dress, ornamented with a profusion of lace and ruffles; and standing before a mirror, was admiring her own charms; yet she painted, and had false teeth—defects which were atoned for by a fine bust and magnificent ankle. Her maid, a stout, well-looking girl, was toying with a very pretty boy of eight or nine years of age, and when unobserved, embraced and kissed him with an ardor which betokened a good share of amative sensibility ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... Alic'ia, "a laughing, toying, wheedling, whimpering she," who once held lord Hastings under her distaff, but her annoying jealousy, "vexatious days, and jarring, joyless nights," drove him away from her. Being jealous of Jane Shore, she accused her to the duke of Gloster of alluring lord Hastings from his allegiance, and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... pause, that Clifford and Lucy found themselves—Heaven knows how!—next to each other, and at a sufficient distance from the squire and the rest of the party to feel in some measure alone. There was a silence in both which neither dared to break; when Lucy, after looking at and toying with a flower that she had brought from the place which the party had been to see, accidentally dropped it; and Clifford and herself stooping at the same moment to recover it, their hands met. Involuntarily, Clifford detained the soft fingers in his own; his eyes, that encountered ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... after he passed the window on horseback, and with a heavy sigh Mrs. Murray dropped her head on her hand, compressing her lips, and toying ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... which they naturally spend together, apart from all observers, furnish people of tolerable moderation with such ample opportunity for the enjoyment of either passion, that, if they love, they can support being a few hours in company without toying, or if they hate, without spitting in each ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... a stranger entering the room have supposed that this young man idly lounging in a chair, and toying with a pencil, was resting under an accusation of robbery, and was ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... overcome her timidity. Quite accidentally she stood toying with a bud that she had picked from the flower-bordered roadway. She turned as Sundown jingled up and met him with a murmur of surprise and pleasure. He swung from his horse hat in hand and advanced, bowing. Anita flushed ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... to rise and stand poized, as one may say, for departure, I caught Adrian's eyes, with a gleam in their deep depths. He was, at the moment, toying with the bowl of roses. He took one out, and while the Leading Lady was talking, he eged his way toward my box. There, standing very close, aparently by accident, he droped the ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... boulder at the side of the Tom Thumb Grand Canon. I was even wakeful enough and discursive enough—my hostess had taken but one glass from the bottle—to wonder delightedly about all rocks and stones, and geology, and that sort of thing. It was almost scientific, the way I wondered, as I sat there idly toying with my half-filled glass. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... thought he was making himself very agreeable. 'Really and truly, upon my word and honor, I positively thought I—should—die: as sure as I'm alive.' You pretty liar! You smiling murderess! You playful puss, gracefully toying with the victims your sweet mouth kills! Those expletives were like five strong men standing in a row, and you were like a bright, innocent-looking electric machine, with its transparent and clear-voiced cylinder, which is capable (give it only enough turnings) of making the ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... from one ear to another, and turned up like two horns towards the forehead. Besides that, when they come to the cutting of the hair, what tricking and trimming, what rubbing, what scratching, what combing and clawing, what trickling and toying, and all to tawe out money, you may be sure. And when they come to washing—oh, how gingerly they behave themselves therein! For then shall your mouth be bossed with the lather or foam that riseth of the balls (for they have their sweet balls ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... not going to stay. I've had glory enough out of this town for a while." He picked up his hat and put it on. Lefever thought it well to make no response. He was charged with the maintenance and operation of the stage-line arsenal at Sleepy Cat, and spent many of his idle moments toying with the firearms. He busied himself now with the mechanism of a huge revolver—one that the stage-driver, Frank Elpaso, had wrecked on the head of a troublesome negro coming in from the mines. De Spain in turn took off his hat, poked the crown discontentedly, and, rising with a loss of amiability ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... eyelid the Ramblin' Kid looked into the eyes of Carolyn June. He had seen her coming from the corral and guessed correctly the reason for her second visit to the enclosure. Indeed at that moment his hand was in his pocket toying with the delicate souvenir for which she had gone to search. Yet his face was utterly without emotion as he lifted his hat and stood aside, acknowledging with formal words the introduction. "It's sure a surprisin' day an' pleasant—" he finished, emphasizing "surprisin'" and "pleasant" ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... as to her wishes concerning him. Once she came into the saloon for breakfast before the rest of the party had taken their places. Dan was in his accustomed seat at the head of the table; he arose and wished her good-morning. She replied faintly, and then she sat toying idly with her rusk, her eyes for the most part fastened upon Dan, who had resumed his breakfast as though oblivious of her presence. She seemed trying to make up her mind to speak; but she failed. When Dan arose, bowed slightly, and left the saloon, she was still sitting silent with ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... Her hands were toying with the rope of pearls which hung from her neck. She bent over them, as though examining ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to see me. Capitulated. New billet, Private Early, armed to the teeth, turned up in the evening. Said that he was a Yorkshireman. Said that Yorkshire was the finest county in England, and Yorkshiremen the finest men in the world. Stood toying with his ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... gate she stooped to pick a flower, which she held for a moment to her face; then, toying lightly with it in her fingers, she slipped the latch and continued along the path leading down into the ravine. It was dark and cool down there, with a touch of dampness in the grass, and the balm-of-Gileads across the stream sent a fine moist fragrance through the air. To the right lay ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... in which the Marquise leaned both elbows on the arm of her chair, the toying of her interclasped fingers, the curve of her throat, the indolent lines of her languid but lissome body as she lay back in graceful exhaustion, as it were; her indolent limbs, her unstudied pose, the utter lassitude of her movements,—all suggested that this was a woman for whom life ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... say that this was regular, Birchard?" asked Eugene, toying with his check lovingly. He had just finished figuring that it was worth something ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... suddenly and stood toying with his big watch passing it back and forth through the loop he made of its heavy chain, his gaze steady and earnest and searching ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... pace implying some business of life or death; but a little further on Jim came upon the steaming pair tethered to a post outside a rough structure labelled the 'Miner's Rest,' and at the bar stood the driver toying lazily with a nobbler of brandy. He passed groups of men lounging against the building and sitting in the street, all smoking, none showing particular concern about anything. Their lethargy surprised him. He had ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... reached him, the man had been killed, it is true, without any unnecessary lingering. Even a light blow from those terrific paws would slay the strongest man living. But to see the two cave-tigers toying with the poor body was an insult to the ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... it is a business of Reprobation and Salvation with him, of Time and Eternity: he is in deadly earnest about it! Dilettanteism, hypothesis, speculation, a kind of amateur-search for Truth, toying and coquetting with Truth: this is the sorest sin. The root of all other imaginable sins. It consists in the heart and soul of the man never having been open to Truth;—"living in a vain show." Such a man not only utters and produces falsehoods, but is himself a falsehood. ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... your tone," said Cavalier, who had till now remained silent while toying with his pistol, "you seem to be in command here; have we changed, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... there the next morning; she had contrived that we should remain alone the whole day, which she employed in preparing me for those favors she meant to bestow; not as another woman would have done, by toying and folly, but by discourses full of sentiment and reason, rather tending to instruct than seduce, and which spoke more to my heart than to my senses. Meantime, however excellent and to the purpose these discourses might be, and though far enough ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... thought differently might safely rally his columns of attack. The opinion of Giles Elderkin was not inquired into for the sake of a tame following-after,—that was not the Connecticut mode,—but for the sake of discussing and toying with it: very much as a sly old grimalkin toys with a mouse,—now seeming to entertain it kindly, then giving it a run, then leaping after it, crunching a limb of it, bearing it off into some private corner, giving it a new escape, swallowing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... forefinger, and Lanfear noted the translucence of her long, thin hand in the sunshine striking across the painted iron surface of the garden movable. The translucence had a pathos for his intelligence which the pensive tilt of her head enhanced. She stopped toying with the cards, and looked at ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... south past the Page place. If it were Sunday, not many years ago, and about eleven in the morning, a stranger passing the church would have heard through the open doors and windows the exquisitely sweet voice of Alice Page, clear as a bell and melodious as a bird's, toying and trilling through "Coronation," or some other easily recognized hymn; and had that stranger awaited the close of service he or she would have seen among the congregation filing out one petite and plump little lady, with flower-like face, sparkling ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... his horse idly toying with his dagger, and forced me to watch my servants, the wounded and the dead, being cast into the yawning ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... one, and Rodriguez lay fair in the midst of the shade of another, whereby anyone passing that way would have known which was the older traveller. Morano, according to his custom, was asleep almost immediately; but Rodriguez, with wonder and speculation each toying with novelty and pulling it different ways between them, stayed awhile wakeful. Then he too slept, and a bird thought it safe to return to an azalea of its own; which it lately fled from troubled by the arrival of ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... transatlantic liner raised anchor. The Spaniard, leaning over the rail, saw the black mountain and the huge Rock, its base speckled with rows of lights, grow small as if sinking into the horizon. Its obscure ridge was silhouetted against the sky like a crouching monster toying with a swarm of ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... centuries later,[10] the spirit of Greece shone for one brief moment in a work of pastoral elegance that has survived the changing tastes of succeeding generations. The 'romance of Daphnis and Chloe is the last word of a world of sensuous enervation toying with the idea of vernal freshness and virginity. It is a genuine picture of the purity of awakening love, wrought with every delicacy of sentiment and expression, and yet in such manner as by its very naivete and innocence to serve as a goad to satiated ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... would be stamped with unusual atrocity, were but the more likely to make its fascinations irresistible. Hence he dallied with the thoughts of murdering her whom he loved best, and indeed exclusively—his wife Caesonia; and whilst fondling her, and toying playfully with her polished throat, he was distracted (as he half insinuated to her) between the desire of caressing it, which might be often repeated, and that of cutting it, which ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... No courtier's, toying with a sword, Nor minstrel's, laid across a lute; Chiefs, uplifted to the Lord When all the kings of earth ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... the feather-pated giddy madmen," said Waldemar, "who must be toying with follies when such business ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... situation. And so in five days, while King Leopold was still writing wary recommendations and temperate praise, the prize which had been deemed lost was won, and the Queen who had foredoomed herself to years of maidenly toying with happiness and fruitless waiting, was ready to announce her speedy marriage, with loyal satisfaction and innocent fearlessness, to ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... be joined. She had seen glances hot with wine and lust, claspings of hands, loosened cyclas, and more lascivious reclinings. The gloomy Perolla had yielded a little to the soft influences, and even Hannibal seemed to force himself to toying, if only in the name of courtesy; while, through it all, and more and more as the light of day advanced, Marcia felt the eyes of Iddilcar, priest of Melkarth, burning into her soul. He at least gave no heed to nearer blandishments, and terror and ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... dim light from the shaded windows he had not at first seen the girl. She was seated on a footstool, her hands on her father's knee, her fond face gazing up into his, and that strong, bony hand of his resting on her head and toying with the ribbon, the "snood," as he loved to call it, with which she bound her abundant tresses. At sound of the doctor's voice, Janet, ever apprehensive of ill, had come forth from the dining room, silver brush and towel in hand, and stood at the doorway, gazing austerely. She could not yet forgive ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... hand was at his side, and his left hand was toying with a button on his coat. "Now up," ...
— What The Left Hand Was Doing • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of the infant, as we had not milk, in case Youwarkee could not suckle it. Indeed, I had leisure enough for indulging such reveries; for, having laid in our winter stores, my wife and I had nothing to do but enjoy ourselves over a good fire, prattling and toying together, making as good cheer as we could; and truly that was none of the worst, for we had as fine bread as need to be eaten; we had pears preserved; all sorts of dried fish; and once a fortnight, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... black schooner proudly rides the seas, that breaks softly upon the vine-clad shores of that luxuriant land. Who is this that, wrapped in Persian rugs, and dressed in the most expensive manner, calmly reclines on the quarter-deck of the schooner, toying lightly ever and anon with the luscious fruits of the vicinity, held in baskets of solid gold by Nubian slaves? or at intervals, with daring grace, guides an ebony velocipede over the polished black walnut decks, and in and out the intricacies of the rigging. Who is it? well may be asked. ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... Venus—there he is laughing, in another corner his laughter is turned to tears, and in another he is ingloriously intoxicated. In another direction he is exhibited in his amiable moods, feeding a hare with grapes, or toying with a swan. The next case (86) contains an assortment of ancient glazed articles including glass studs, buttons, &c., from the sepulchres of Etruria; bronze sandals from Armentum; and glazed ware of various shapes. In the 87th ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... her hand with a doubtful air. "And yet," he said, toying with it, half irresolute, "when I went to the white-faced stranger's hut this morning, he did not speak fair; he answered me insolently. His words were bold. He talked to me as one talks to a man, not to a great god. Ula, I wonder if he ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... rose from beside her, and toying with her as he was going away, snatched from her finger the ring with which her husband had espoused her, and which the women of that part of the country guard with great superstition. She who keeps it till her death is held in high honour, while she who chances to lose ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... organs of that little animal, when put in motion, gave a sensible vibration to the whole building! This bird also sometimes makes a small squeak, repeated four or five times; and I have observed that to happen when the cock has been pursuing the hen in a toying way through the ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... refill; now, you pour out again." Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is he. Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery Nile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, all this effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller so proudly sports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his grand features. A terror ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... just after the gas was lighted, while I was lying on the sofa thinking of these things, and toying with Dumps's ears, the door opened and Mrs McTougall entered, with Miss Blythe leaning on her arm. It was the first time she had come down to the drawing-room since her illness. She was thin, and pale, but to my mind more beautiful than ever, for her brown eyes seemed to grow larger and more lustrous ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... Oh, that such wickedness should be in the world (weeping bitterly). But she would never enter the chapel again, and that priest there; nor receive the rites from him. But this was not all; the dear sister must hear how he revenged himself upon her, because she interrupted his toying with the old hag. It was truth, all truth! She (Sidonia) grew so ill with fright and horror that she was unable to disrobe, and threw herself on the bed just as she was, but growing weaker and weaker hour by hour, sent ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Marmontel became his intimate friend, and gave him the opera story of "Demophon" to set to music. It was at this period that Cherubini became acquainted with the works of Haydn, and learned from him how to unite depth with lightness, grace with power, jest with earnestness, and toying with dignity. ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... recall the period of our vernal equinox, and to moralize, with gentle sadness and many wise wags of our frosty polls, upon the events in which that period was prolific; and so, when the cloth was removed yesterday, and we sat toying with our cigars and our Sherry, our talk insensibly drifted back to those merry college-days when we not infrequently "heard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... upon the embers. Half unconsciously his fingers had been toying with a powder flask lying on the table before him, and a small portion of its contents had fallen into his palm. He tossed the black grains into the fire, where they flashed for an instant, sending a pungent ball of white smoke into the room. 'Twas as though the craftiness ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... surprise. 'Yet still, sir,' she answered, smiling a little, and toying with a gold brooch which clasped her habit, 'you must have had some ground, some reason, for supposing you would ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... the whole translunar gamut ranging. There my astral body slides and skims, Choriambic melodies exchanging With the apolaustic cherubims; Weaving in a polyphonic pattern Harmonies that mock at clefs and bars; Toying with the shining rings of Saturn, Throwing star-dust ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... were glittering on Anne's eyelashes; one of her hands was toying nervously with something hidden (possibly Sir Patrick's letter) in the bosom of her dress. "I thank him with my whole heart," she said, in low, faltering tones. "But it is best that he should ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... bride,—and the other a girl of the same age, or something younger, whom he calls 'his wife.' The real bride and bridegroom are not more devoted than they: he all love and attention, and she all blushes and fondness, toying with a little bouquet which he gave her this morning, and placing the scattered rose-leaves in her bosom with nature's own coquettishness. They have dreamt of each other in their quiet dreams, these children, and their little hearts have been nearly broken when the absent one has been ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... one saw when one "looked out of the window" were Irish fairies with dim hair drifting down pallid rivers, there would be some reason for drawing the curtains close and toying in the lamp-light with cameo-carved ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... here in the greenwood, All day in a childish dream, Toying with leaves and flowers, Watching the wavelets gleam, While a world grown old and hoary With the spirit of change is rife, And the outworn past and the present Are ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... said he, "since I have just slain the best friend that I ever had, though he was nought willing to fight with me, and only for this, that I saw thee toying with him; though forsooth thou hast said truly that thou hadst more reason to hate him than love him. Well, since thou wilt not have this youngling slain, I may deem at least that he is no devil of thy making, else wouldst thou be glad of his slaying, so that he might be out ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... detective sat thinking, toying with a pencil on his desk. Moishe BenChaim, like so many others in the Belt, had come out with nothing but his brain and his two hands and the equipment necessary to keep him alive. In thirty years, he had parlayed that into ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... French were only toying with the roaster, because roasting in France was not yet a separate branch of business, as it had become in England and the United States, where keen minds were already at work on the purely commercial coffee-roasting machine. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... tush, he come? then hang Esau! For there is not this day in all the world round Such another hodypeak wretch to be found, And Ragan my man, is not that a fine knave? Have any mo masters such a man as I have? So idle, so loit'ring, so trifling, so toying? So prattling, so trattling, so chiding, so boying? So jesting, so wresting, so mocking, so mowing? So nipping, so tripping, so cocking, so crowing? So knappish, so snappish, so elvish, so froward? So crabbed, so wrabbed, so stiff, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... again. "First you say that Clarence is toying with me, then you say he's trying to steal me. Now it stands to reason ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... little girl was amusing herself with a child, near Carlisle Bridge, Dublin, and was sportively toying with the child, he made a sudden spring from her arms, and in an instant fell into the river. The screaming nurse and anxious spectators saw the water close over the child, and conceived that he had sunk to rise no more. A Newfoundland dog, which had been accidentally ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... seen quite enough of this very entertaining exhibition," she said languidly, toying with a great unset emerald which swung by a thin gold chain about her neck. "Might I entreat you to take pity upon a very lonely woman and return with me ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... Shaykh Nasr, that I never will forsake him.' The Shaykh believed in her oath and said to Janshah, 'Thanks be to Allah, who hath made you arrive at this understanding!' Hereupon the Prince rejoiced with exceeding joy, and he and Shamsah abode three months with Shaykh Nasr, feasting and toying and making merry."— And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... provide him, if not with a career, at least with an occupation, and the young serious face opposite looked as if its owner lacked neither character or ambition. Francesca's speculations took a more personal turn. Out of the well-filled coffers with which her imagination was toying, an inconsiderable sum might eventually be devoted to the leasing, or even perhaps the purchase of, the house in Blue Street when the present convenient arrangement should have come to an end, and Francesca and the Van der Meulen would not be ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... this month, bekase o' the big shoot they allus has in January. An' lor', ee do speak drefful bad o' soom folks," said Mrs. Jellison, with an amused expression. "You know some on 'em, miss, don't yer?" And the old woman, who had begun toying with her potatoes, slanted her fork over her shoulder so as to point towards the Hurds' cottage, whereof the snow-laden roof could be seen conspicuously through the little lattice beside her, making sly eyes the while ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... time after his son had left the table and the private dining-room, the Honorable Senator Sage-Brush sat absently toying with his dessert-spoon. When he rose to go out, the battle light in the gray eyes was the signal which not even his most faithful henchmen could always interpret; but it was a signal which all of them knew by sight, and one which many ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... Give over toying with thy sorrow Which like a vulture feeds upon thy heart; Thou shalt, in the worst company, to-morrow Feel that with men a man thou art. Yet I do not exactly intend Among the canaille to plant thee. I'm none of your magnates, I grant thee; Yet if ...
— Faust • Goethe
... and Glow-worm both show how exquisite is his sensibility. He differs from the other poets by his quasi-analytic method. He seems to be analyzing the beauty of the evening in both these poems. Mrs. Shove's A Man Dreams that He is the Creator is a charming example of fancy toying with a ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... could not help being a sincere man! Whosoever may live in the shows of things, it is for him a necessity of nature to live in the very fact of things. A man, once more, in earnest with the Universe, though all others were but toying with it. He is a Vates, first of all, in virtue of being sincere. So far Poet and Prophet, participators in the 'open secret,' ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... many miles to south-westward of the acacias, Kismet—toying with them for its own delectation—respited them a little while by stumbling them on to a deserted oasis. They turned aside to this only after a long, irrational discussion. The fact that they could both see the same thing, and that they had really come to palm trees—trees they could touch ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... she withdrew her eyes and looked across the table with an expression which Nicholas Colcord could have interpreted had he not been engrossed with Sybil Latham. Evelyn studied him with admiring tenderness as he lounged in his chair, toying idly with a fork, smiling at something his partner was saying, while her mind ran lovingly over the dominant traits of a personality which was so strong, so keenly alive, so sensitive to decent, manly things, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... accept by this expression that half unconscious toying with the power that charms and fires, that follows up confession with reluctance—seems the very essence ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... cool, sweet air the fairy music; and lured on by it step by step they travelled down the fleecy stairway. When they were little more than half way down there came mingled with the music a sound almost as sweet—the sound of waters toying in the still air with pebbles on a shelving beach, and with the sound came the odorous brine of the ocean. And then the children knew that what they thought was a plain in the realms of cloudland was the sleeping sea unstirred by wind or tide, dreaming of the purple ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... glance toward her, but she had found a seat at the table, and was toying idly with a spoon, ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... her cheeks in the fur of her mother's sable muff with which she was toying, and gave a sidelong glance at Mrs. Conwell's face. The study of it assured her that there was no use in "begging off" this time; so she silently laid down the muff and ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... "Kill you," he told her. "Not your husband. I want him as an envoy, to go back and tell the others to clear off." He rocked back and forth in his wheelchair, toying with the gleaming, deadly blaster in ...
— The Hunted Heroes • Robert Silverberg
... not delicate toying, A slim and shimmering mesh; It is two souls wrenched into one, Two bodies made ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... children"—her eyes blinked hard—"which Hugo did not share. We throw out the hint, then, that Clara, during the course of the dispute—we must call it a dispute—accidentally took up this dagger and toyed with it. You know her habit of toying, when she had no knitting or needlework. In the course of playing with it (we suggest) she tried to pull the knife out of its sheath; failed; held it up, so, point upward; pulled again; pulled harder—with a jerk, at last the sheath came off; the dagger sprang up; it wounded Clara fatally. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... throughout. Octavio is very grand, and Max, tho' it may be an easy character to draw, for a man of thought and lofty feeling—for a man who possesses all the analoga of genius, is yet so delightful, and its moral influence so grand and salutary, that we must allow it great praise. The childish love-toying with the glove and Aunt Tertsky in the first act should be omitted. Certain whole scenes are masterly, and far above anything since the dramatists of Eliz. & James the first.' Note on fly-leaf ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Verity, whose society and conversation awakened the literary sense in him as a schoolboy, on holiday from Harchester, now nearly five decades ago. He judged it a matter of good omen, moreover,—toying for the moment with kindly superstition—that the book should issue from a house redeemed by his kinsman from base and brutal uses and dedicated to the worship of knowledge and of the printed word. That fat, soft-bodied, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... in well-feigned astonishment, still toying with the Duchess's temper. "Is the poor actress so honoured in a duchess's thought? Your ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... the shell with which he was toying with a thoughtful smile, held it up that the light might strike through its rose and pearl, then crushed it to dust between ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... know. I'd have cooked up some story." He was leaning over now, toying with the lace that clung to Lucy's arms. "Did you ever have any one of your own friends treated in ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of marriage lost in her disgrace, He mourns a flame revived, and she a love of lace. Now to be wed a well-match'd couple came; Twice had old Lodge been tied, and twice the dame; Tottering they came and toying, (odious scene!) And fond and simple, as they'd always been. Children from wedlock we by laws restrain; Why not prevent them when they're such again? Why not forbid the doting souls to prove Th' indecent fondling of preposterous love? In spite of prudence, uncontroll'd by shame, The amorous ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... solitude, yet accursed in it; dreading as a danger the fame he had once coveted; obscure in spite of learning, hopeless in spite of love, fruitless and joyless in his life, calamitous and shameful in his end,—surely such is no palliative of crime, no dalliance and toying with the grimness of evil! And surely to any ordinary comprehension and candid mind such is the moral conveyed by the fiction of 'Eugene Aram.'"—[A word to the ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... strange conversation took place in the Riverside Drive apartment. She sat on Wheeler's left knee, toying with his platinum chain, a strained, a rather terrible pallor out in her face, but the sobs well under her voice, and its modulation about normal. She had been talking for over two hours, silencing his every interruption until he had fallen ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... elegant boudoir, all crimson and gold, some hours later, sat Pluma Hurlhurst, reclining negligently on a satin divan, toying idly with a volume which lay in her lap. She tossed the book aside with a yawn, turning her superb dark eyes on the little figure bending over the rich trailing silks which were to adorn her own fair beauty on ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... again at Wirgman's, the well-known toy-shop, in St. James's-street, at the corner of St. James's-place, to which he had been directed, but not clearly, for he searched about some time, and could not find it at first; and said, 'To direct one only to a corner shop is TOYING with one.' I suppose he meant this as a play upon the word toy: it was the first time that I knew him stoop to such sport. After he had been some time in the shop, he sent for me to come out of the coach, and help him to choose a pair of silver buckles, as those he had were too small. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... have astonished him to learn that his father, lolling there so easily and toying with a toothpick, shared that constraint. Yet it was so. Captain Vyell did not understand children. Least of all did he understand this son of his begetting. He could be kind to him, even extravagantly, by fits and ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... "I don't really know. I don't seem able to get enthusiastic about it—that's all. I wouldn't mind going down to Dad's office and toying with an adding machine or driving nails in packing cases, but I'm sure I'd fall asleep on the job, or something idiotic like that! You might say I lack the urge," he yawns and grins. "I guess I wasn't built to hustle. I haven't got the pep, as ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... toying with him. He scarcely moved his arm to parry the strokes which his adversary's fury did not suffer him ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... she means by toying away an hour well enough. Pox, I have lost all appetite to her; yet she's a fine woman, and I loved her once. But I don't know: since I have been in a great measure kept by her, the case is altered; what was my pleasure is become my duty, and I have as little stomach ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... her side and reached apologetically for the little, clenched fist. He held it in his big, rough hand, toying nervously with ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... of the room in speechless amazement was the late gay party of gamblers, including Senator Danfield himself. They had reckoned on toying with any chance but this. The pale white face of DeLong among them was like a spectre, as he stood staring blankly about and still insanely twisting the roulette wheel ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... toying idly with the rifle of the dead German. Presently he fell to examining the mechanism of the piece. He glanced again toward the German trenches and changed the adjustment of the sights, then he placed the rifle to his shoulder and took aim. Tarzan was an excellent shot. With his civilized ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... their own nature by excess, did they not know that the laws of God and man forbid such outrage. Again, they would think little even of those laws, were not the law borne out by the sanction of punishment. A law that may be broken with impunity is taken to be the toying of a legislator not in earnest. Men here are as children. A child is cautioned against lying. He reckons little of the caution: he tells a lie, and a flogging ensues. Thereupon his mind reverts to what he was told: he sees that ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... for they had a very great influence on the character of his future work. His success at the Bar was moderate, but his fees increased steadily if slowly. He defended (unsuccessfully) a Galloway minister who was accused among other counts of 'toying with a sweetie-wife,' and it is interesting to find in his defence some casuistry about ebrius and ebriosus, which reminds one of the Baron of Bradwardine. He took part victoriously in a series of battles with ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... of relief flashed across Barker's face—a bit of play lost by neither detective. Carroll was toying idly with a gold pencil on the end of his waldemar. His outward calmness exasperated Leverage. From this point of the interview, the chief of police would have dropped the attitude of trustful friendliness and resorted to a little practical third-degree ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... elbows as he nibbled a pen, while the gymnasium student who had come out first in the examinations had established himself on the front bench, and, with a black stock coming half-way up his cheek, was toying with the silver watch-chain which adorned his satin waistcoat. On a bench in a raised part of the hall I could descry Ikonin (evidently he had contrived to enter the University somehow!), and hear him fussily proclaiming, in all the glory of blue piped trousers which completely hid his boots, ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... consciousness that the people with whom his son was supping were of the smartest set in town for the moment had banished all fears of exposure. From time to time he glanced proudly across to the alcove table where the men were engaged in unfolding their napkins and toying with their glasses, in lively anticipation of the enjoyment to come; while the women, with the hope of eliciting admiration for their hands and the sparkle of their rings, were taking off their gloves and spreading out their fingers on ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... object observed, and gets some of the satisfaction from watching an object that he would get from being that object. Would it not be grand to be a kite, would it not be masterful? Here we stand, slaves of the force of gravity, sometimes toying with it for a moment when we take a dive or a coast, at other times having to struggle against it for our very lives, and all the time bound and limited by it—while the kite soars aloft in apparent defiance ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... After toying with this day-dream, Pitt suddenly broke away to Downing Street. His letter to Auckland, written there on 20th January 1797, announced the decision of the Minister in chillingly correct terms. In pathetically halting and laboured ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... almost entirely to the English-speaking part of the people. The Gallic and Indian blood of the Hunters disdained such poor toying with a single cherry and drank and danced and drank and danced again with an abandon, an ardor and full surrender to the hour characteristic alike of the strength of the heads, the lightness of their heels and the ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... go t'sleep 'ere wi' me. W'll put yo' t' ri's. Y'll 'av' a luvly dress t'morro', an' a go' time. Wait t'l y'see the young man we'll find y' t'morro'. Now go t'bed." Those twining fingers ceased toying with the girl's hair and deftly slipped a protecting hook from an all-too-easy eye in the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... with the persons and localities mixed up with the case of a certain Rev. Mr. M'Naught, minister of Girthon, whose trial, on charges of habitual drunkenness, singing of lewd and profane songs, dancing and toying at a penny-wedding with a "sweetie wife" (that is, an itinerant vender of gingerbread, etc.), and moreover of promoting irregular marriages as a justice of the peace, was about to take place before the General Assembly of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... thus with Mr. Austin Buckingham. He had been toying with the fancy of his story, and especially of this maiden to whom his eyes had become so wonted, and had allowed himself to look at her in so many lights, that she had gradually come to be always before him. The figure of the hero had as gradually disappeared: it was only by an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... a complacent smile, toying with his gold chatelaine, "I really could not have visited you sooner, under the circumstances in which I ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... rooms neatly decorated, the supper prepared, and the guests invited. The latter assembled on the evening in question, and awaited in expectant pleasure the interesting ceremony of marriage. The bride, bedecked in veil and silken gown, and nervously toying with the flowers in her hair, sat in the adjoining room. Nothing was lacking but the groom. For some strange reason he had been delayed. An hour passed, and the guests, as well as the bride, were becoming restless. But they were all doomed to disappointment. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... theatre, to let her see Rosalie, by way of a joke! So, of course, Betty knew of his escapades, and of those of his set; she and her girl friends were whispering and jesting about them. Here sat Oliver, smiling and cynical, toying with Rosalie as a cat might toy with a mouse; and to-morrow he would be with Betty—and could anyone doubt any longer whence Betty had derived her attitude towards life? And the habits of mind that Oliver had taught her as a girl she would not forget ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... He stopped toying with a handful of dry twigs and let them slip away between his fingers. She saw his head come up; saw his eyes narrow. Then her own body stiffened as she realized what she had said. And yet it was, after all, only ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... minutes she was too overcome to say anything; she sat grim and silent, her pale eyes glaring at me, her freckled fingers toying with the diamonds. She was baffled and perplexed—she did not know what ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... where they had rested together, one foot curled beneath her like a child, her head bowed down disconsolately. From one brown hand, now drooping listlessly, a few wild flowers had scattered, and her slim figure was clad once more in the stiff, coarse denim dress of blue. Her other hand was toying with her beads mechanically, as if the fingers had learned their task from long practice. Her dusky eyes were fast upon the lights that wavered ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... of the vestiaire in scarlet breeches and silk stockings. Afterwards they were to go to the little bon-bon play-house up by the more pretentious bon-bon Casino. He was to watch the antics of a band of actors toying with some mimic fate, flippantly, to the sound of music, when his own destiny swung trembling on the last silken thread of tortured suspense! Yet it was better than moping alone, he told himself. He hated loneliness. ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... blazing suns of the southern desert, his hair cropped close to his shapely head, his gray-blue eyes, large, full and steady, fixed unswerving upon her. Leaning on his elbow, one lean brown hand was toying with the sun-bleached ends of his mustache, the other, with the class ring gleaming in the moonlight, lay idly on his knee. Lacking stature, size or weight, the physical attributes that make a man impressive, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... find our poor company intrusive, since we have forced you to become one of us?" she said, toying with her fork, and thereby displaying a white ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... when she placed her hand on the board she was conscious of a vague and nameless fear at this toying with the supernatural. She was twentieth-century, and the thing in essence, as her uncle had said, was mediaeval. Yet she could not shake off the instinctive fear that arose in her—man's inheritance from the wild ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... unimportant. For more than three centuries, the science of electricity remained at very much the same point at which our psychical sciences stand to-day. Men were recording, accumulating, trying to interpret a host of odd and futile phenomena, toying with Ramsden's machine, with Leyden jars, with Volta's rough battery. They thought that they had discovered an agreeable pastime, an ingenious plaything for the laboratory or study; and they had not the slightest suspicion that they were touching the sources of an universal, ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... never seek amusement in toying with human hearts. I should deem myself a villain if I came into your house and stole your purse, and I should think myself no better if I entered the citadel of a woman's heart to steal her affections only to waste their wealth. Her stolen money I might restore, ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... you are risking your whole future,—your profession, your good name, McKay. You're risking your mother's heart for the sport of a girl who is simply toying ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... with her, of twelve or fourteen years old, that lived in the neighbourhood. The maid, whether by appointment or otherwise, meets with a fellow, her sweetheart, as I suppose; he carries her into a public-house, to give her a pot and a cake; and while they were toying in the house the girl plays about, with me in her hand, in the garden and at the door, sometimes in sight, sometimes out of ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... But the idle pageant only increased the inflammation in his shoulder. Even in his sick-room he allowed himself no time for serious thought; but, prating of the orange-groves of Sardinia which he was to receive from the King of Spain, and toying with Rouhet, the beautiful maid of honor by whom Catharine had drawn him into her net, he frittered away the brief remnant of an ignoble life. When visibly approaching his end, he is said, at the suggestion of an Italian physician, to have ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... up and down the yard in his shirt sleeves—the day was very warm—with a flat cloth cap over his close-cut hair, and his hands in his trousers pockets, or toying restlessly with a piece of straw. The parsonage dog had found companions, and the youth followed the dog's frolic with his eyes, and gazed at the chickens and at us children as though he longed to be one of us. The girl's words, "But don't ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... the mantel, toying absently with a bronze model of the Praxiteles Faun which rested ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... very dear to me," said he; and she stood by him now, toying with those gray locks of his, in a caressing manner which he could never know from a child of his own,—never. "If it be your wish to change your home for the little time that remains, it shall be. I have your father's authority to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... brawny arm even while she continued toying playfully with the silken mane, "he know me, he lofe me. He bettah as any man, for he nevah tell lie,—nevah,—only be nice all de time. He ride me till he drop dead, swift, quick, like de bird fly. So I make eet all right, senor. You see ven de daylight come I be San ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... her intently all through the commencement of the third act, as she sat enthralled with the music, her exquisite little hand toying with a small jewelled fan, her regal head, her throat, arms and neck covered with magnificent diamonds and rare gems, the gift of the adoring husband who ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... place on the arm of Gaynor's chair, her hand, whose well-kept beauty caught and held King's eyes for a moment, toying with her husband's ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory |
