"Sporting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prospects by setting up as a rival to Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, known as the "hunting metropolis." Three packs of hounds are hunted regularly during the season within easy distance of the town, which has also annual steeplechases and a hunting club; and this sporting element serves to redeem Leamington from the character of masked melancholy which often strikes a tourist in visiting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... to see that you are a spook of spirit. If you had veins, I believe there'd be sporting blood ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... a heavy sailer, is half-a-mile astern of the first. From the boats, your eye wanders to the spot where the whale was last seen to blow. For some time you can discern nothing, and fancy he must be gone off to sea again. At last a thin white column of vapour is perceptible; the animal is carelessly sporting about, unconscious of danger. The first boat draws rapidly down upon him; it approaches nearer and nearer. The fish has disappeared, but his enemies seem to know the direction in which he is going, and are ready awaiting him when he returns to the surface. ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... community. There sit on the same benches with him the sensitively conscientious student who doubts whether it is a permissible deception of one's neighbor to apply a patch to an old garment so skillfully that it will escape detection; the sporting character who takes it to be the mutual understanding among men that truth shall not be demanded of those who deal in horses and dogs; the youth from Texas who claims that the French philosopher, Janet, cannot be an authority on morals, since he asserts ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... expert pilots, bear with them very pleasant reminiscences of their "school" days. But there were times, and it seems already in the dim and distant past, when learning to fly was a strange, haphazard, and hardly pleasant experience; though it had a sporting interest certainly, and offered such prospects of adventure as commended it to bold spirits who were prepared for hardship, and had a well-filled purse. The last requirement was very necessary. In the bad old days, amusing days though they were without doubt, no fixed charge was made to cover such ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... him that there must be some basis of fact in Cunningham's pearl atoll, and yonder owner was game enough to take a sporting chance; that, or he had been handsomely ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... And in this very house, in the fall of 1814, a bill passed, receiving the approbation of all the branches of your government, authorizing the governor to accept the services of a corps of two thousand free people of color. Sir, these were times which tried men's souls. In these times it was no sporting matter to bear arms. These were times when a man who shouldered his musket did not know but he bared his bosom to receive a death-wound from the enemy ere he laid it aside; and in these times these people ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... lavishes away his substance, may aptly enough be likened to a porpoise sporting in the ocean—the smaller fry play around him, admire his dexterity, fan his follies, glory in his gambols; but let him once be enmeshed in the net of misfortune, and they who foremost fawned under his fins, will first ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various
... an old-fashioned hotel in a small country town. An air of old-fashioned comfort is in evidence everywhere. Old sporting ...
— The Ghost of Jerry Bundler • W. W. Jacobs and Charles Rock
... with a flood of sleep. There under wither'd leaves, forlorn, I slept All the long night, the morning and the noon, But balmy sleep, at the decline of day, Broke from me; then, your daughter's train I heard 360 Sporting, with whom she also sported, fair And graceful as the Gods. To her I kneel'd. She, following the dictates of a mind Ingenuous, pass'd in her behaviour all Which even ye could from an age like hers ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... 24th, 31st, 71st, and 81st, the four infantry regiments on the station, we have men on leave from Malta. They came up to the races, and are waiting for the P. and O. steamer to take them back. That fat little customer is your sporting sub. I only wonder he is not in cords, tops, and spurs. What a hearty voice he talks in! He asks for the Field as if he were giving a view-halloo. Then there is the moist-eyed, mottle-cheeked, puffy, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... beautiful morning; no lowering cloud defaced the serene brilliancy of the sky, and the sunbeams sporting on the polished helmets and glittering trappings of the army, were reflected ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... aware of Ralph, who sat at some distance looking over the pages of an English sporting weekly. Presently he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... am going to fight Bateese," said David. "It is a little sporting event we have fixed up between us for the amusement of—your men. I have heard that Bateese is the best fighting man along the Three Rivers. And I—I do not like to have any other man claim that distinction when ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... Card for 16-page illustrated prospectus for 1897, and premium list of guns, pistols, bicycles, fishing-rods, and all other sporting goods offered free for new subscriptions to The ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, April 22, 1897, Vol. 1, No. 24 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... distance. Suddenly it occurred to Meyer that although here the Matabele were safe from the Makalanga bullets, it was commanded from the greater eminence, and by way of recreation he set himself to harass them. His rifle was a sporting Martini, and he had an ample supply of ammunition. Moreover, he was a beautiful marksman, with sight ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... the sporting virgins play, Their shining veils unbound; along the skies, Tost and ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... sparkling eyes, too, but his mouth, said to be a terrible one, was hidden by his moustaches. And withal he looked a pleasant companion, full of wit to the tip of his little pointed nose, the nose of a sporting dog that is ever scenting game. "What can I do for you, Monsieur l'Abbe?" ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... a broad deep basin, black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's perplexities. What was to be done? the morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished for want of ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... this wise: Seymour, a caricaturist of very considerable merit, though not, as we should now consider, in the first rank of the great caricaturists, had proposed to Messrs. Chapman and Hall, then just starting on their career as publishers, a "series of Cockney sporting plates." Messrs. Chapman and Hall entertained the idea favourably, but opined that the plates would require illustrative letter-press; and casting about for some suitable author, bethought themselves of Dickens, ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... director, interests me only slightly. You know I am not boasting when I say that my fortune is large enough to justify me in incurring a certain amount of financial risk without having to fear any serious modification of my social position if the ventures should happen to turn out ill. I've got the sporting instinct." ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... footmen, commercials, ladies' maids, grooms, dogs, waiting for the empty train that, after deploying hither and thither, picking up some trifle, a horse box or a duke's saloon, at every new raid, is now backing slowly in for its freight. The expectant crowd has ceased from conversation, sporting or otherwise; respectable elderly gentlemen brace themselves for the scramble, and examine their nearest neighbours suspiciously; heads of families gather their belongings round them by signs and explain in a whisper how to act; one female tourist—of ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... but on this afternoon of all others Darsie was anxious not to be late for tea, so, with a sigh of regret, she turned up a side lane leading to the field path to the Manor, and in so doing came face to face with Ralph Percival, who, in his lightest and most sporting attire, was escorting a pack of dogs for an airing. There was the big silky-haired collie whom Darsie loved, the splay-footed dachshund which she hated, the huge mastiff which she feared, with one or two terriers of different breeds— alert, friendly, and gentle-eyed. ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the dulse is seen To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter. There, with a light and easy motion, The fan-coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea, And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean Are bending like corn on the upland lea, And life, in rare and beautiful forms, Is sporting amid those ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... his service a lackey who had accompanied him in his voyage to Mexico. This lackey was my compatriot; and we became the more intimate from there being many resemblances of character between us. We loved sporting of all kinds better than anything; so that he related to me how in the plains of the Pampas the natives hunt the tiger and the wild bull with simple running nooses which they throw to a distance of twenty or thirty paces the end of a cord with such nicety; ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sporting dog," he said, bitterly, "for the first three years of my life. I belonged to a man who keeps a livery stable here in Fairport, and he used to hire ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... identify, that all the London worlds were fully represented in the multitude—the official world, the political, the clerical, the legal, the municipal, the military, the artistic, the literary, the dilettante, the financial, the sporting, and the world whose sole object in life apparently is to be observed and recorded at all gatherings to which admittance is gained by ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... waste Ravaged each bloom by which its path was traced, Sporting at will, and moulding sport to art, With what ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... vulnerable spots to be aimed at, I must again refer the reader to articles from the pen of such men as Sir Samuel Baker, G. P. Sanderson, "Smoothbore," "The Old Shekarry," Gordon Cumming, Jules Gerard, C. J. Andersson, Emil Holub, F. C. Selous, etc, all of whom have either written books on sporting, or whose articles are still to be met with in late numbers ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... perch deposited three hundred and eighty thousand six hundred and forty; and a female sturgeon seven millions six hundred and fifty-three thousand two hundred. The viviparous species are by no means so prolific; yet the blenny brings forth two or three hundred at a time, which commence sporting together round their parent the moment ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... on the whole, to general admiration, He acquitted both himself and horse: the Squires Marvelled at merit of another nation; The boors cried "Dang it! who'd have thought it?"—Sires, The Nestors of the sporting generation, Swore praises, and recalled their former fires; The Huntsman's self relented to a grin, And ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... maternal grandfather" (writes the subject of this history) "was a small farmer who kept a few beagles and greyhounds for hare-hunting. He had three daughters, one of whom became my mother. One of his sporting companions, a doctor of profligate habits and a drunkard, seduced my mother at the age of 20. When her condition was discovered she had to flee from the violence of her father, and I was born some distance from her home. After my grandfather's death I was reared by my grandmother, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... old-fashioned place—probably it had been a fashionable resort for sporting squires at the beginning of the century. The hall was wainscotted in yellow painted wood; on the right-hand side there was a large brown press, with glass doors, surmounted by a pair of buffalo horns; on the opposite wall hung a barometer; and the wide, ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... was more than he should have expected. He was an essayist, fired with a literary ambition that never faltered or grew dim for over sixty years. Once I wrote a brief introduction to a hunting story that won a prize in a sporting journal and I can never forget how pleased Father was with it—"It filled me with emotion," he said, "it brought tears to my eyes—write a whole piece like that and I'll send it to ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... many swallows, too, sporting upon the surface of the water, that entertained me with their motions. Sometimes they dashed into the stream; sometimes they pursued one another so quick, that the eye could scarcely follow them. In one place, where a high, steep sandbank rose directly above the river, I observed many of ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... mountain-nymph as a sea-nymph. She was free as air. She could swim, or she could run. The ocean was her cradle. Our fathers met her as she came, like the Goddess of Beauty, from the waves. They caught her as she was sporting on the beach. They courted her while she was spreading her nets upon the rocks. But an Embargo Liberty, a handcuffed Liberty, Liberty in fetters, a Liberty traversing between the four sides of a prison and beating her head against the walls, is none of our offspring. We abjure the monster! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... we all—they all—know where they are likely to come from. My dear Paul, you cannot keep up the farce any longer. You are not an English gentleman who comes across here for sporting purposes; you do not live in the old Castle of Osterno three months in the year because you have a taste for mediaeval fortresses. You are a Russian prince, and your estates are the happiest, the most enlightened in the empire. That alone is suspicious. You collect your rents yourself. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... a voice of welcome, rising in his seat. Then he too glanced expectantly at Scrope and sat down again. Scrope made no movement, but stood with his eyes cast down on the table like a man lost in thought. It was evident to Wyley that both Shackleton and Tessin had obeyed the sporting instinct, and had left the floor clear for the two men. It was no less evident that Knightley remarked their action and did not understand it. For his eyes travelled from face to face, and searched each with a wistful anxiety for the ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... saloons—and, of course, he had to drink to stay in them. If he drank now and then he was free to make himself at home, to gamble with dice or a pack of greasy cards, to play at a dingy pool table for money, or to look at a beer-stained pink "sporting paper," with pictures of murderers and half-naked women. It was for such pleasures as these that he spent his money; and such was his life during the six weeks and a half that he toiled for the merchants of Chicago, to ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Carlo tables was Wells, who as the once popular music-hall song put it, 'broke the bank' there. He was at the zenith of his fame, about twenty years ago, when his escapades—and winnings—were talked about widely and envied in European sporting circles and among ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... with the letter of his college on his sweater, another may have his class numerals, another may wear a gold football. These are not ordinary things to be purchased at sporting goods stores; they are a reward of merit. The college custom has made it so, and if in some college town the traditions of the university are such that a man, as he passes the Ma Newell gateway at ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... gunboat funnel, nothing to help them in the least, and coming to the conclusion that their only chance of finding her was by quartering the sea as a sporting dog does a field, and at the same time telling himself that the task was hopeless, he bent down to try if he could get a hint from the boatswain, when he muttered to himself the words that had now ceased to ring, and his heart gave quite a jump. For apparently about ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... open and they went in. It was the living-room. A kettle on the fire was singing and puffing steam. There was no sign of a key anywhere. Only a table, some chairs, a disordered sofa, certain sporting newspapers lying about, and a few pictures on the walls. Some of the pictures were of race-horses, but all the rest were memorial cards, and one bore the text, "He shall gather them in his arms." Aggie was shuddering ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... never have enough of hearkening and talking to them, and nothing grieved him more than that every night they went so early away. The thought suddenly crossed him, and he set the village clock an hour back; and, in the evening, with continual talking and sporting, not a soul perceived the delay of the hour. When the clock struck eleven—but it was properly twelve—the three damsels arose, put up their distaffs and things, and departed. Upon the following morrow, certain persons ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... peace, says a sporting paper, is more entertainment for the masses. We have often wondered what our workers do to while away the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... chill and grey after the storm, with a sky obscured by scudding clouds, but a gleam of truant sunshine was sporting wantonly on the hoary castled summit of St. Michael's Mount, and promised to visit the town later on. Mrs. Pendleton walked briskly, and soon ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... tobacco juice, fitted him as a shirt might fit a bean pole. The legs of his pantaloons were thrust inside of his boots, and he wore a fuzzy woollen hat with battered crown and a broad flapping brim. He looked the very picture of an ex-overseer under a cloud, or an itinerant sporting man, anxious ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... fair and clear day, to go out of the city betimes in the morning, either towards Gentilly, or Boulogne, or to Montrouge, or Charanton bridge, or to Vanves, or St. Clou, and there spend all the day long in making the greatest cheer that could be devised, sporting, making merry, drinking healths, playing, singing, dancing, tumbling in some fair meadow, unnestling of sparrows, taking of quails, and fishing for frogs and crabs. But although that day was passed without books or lecture, yet was it ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... not playing at any of the tables in these rooms; but there was hope still. The Sporting Club had now opened for the season, and it was more fashionable at night even than the Casino. Vanno had walked through once or twice, after midnight when the Casino had shut, and found there a scene of great beauty and animation: ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... mind back to the immediate objective. He wondered why Isabel Joy should wear a bowler hat and a mustard-coloured jacket that resembled a sporting man's overcoat; and why these garments suited her. With a whip in her hand she could have sat for a jockey. And yet she was a woman, and very feminine, and probably old enough to be Elsie April's mother! A ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... would beg him to drop another and go on with the hole; if he got into a bad place in a bunker I would assure him it was ground under repair. He was just as friendly in refusing to take these advantages, just as pleasant in offering similar indulgences to me. I thought at first it was part of his sporting way, but it turned out that (absurdly enough) he also was convinced that he was really the better golfer of the two, and could afford ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... BEAUFORT and other noble sportsmen that he too was a hunting man, and that Lord Mayors of London ought as a rule to he hunting men if they would keep up the ancient traditions of their office. Why doesn't his sporting and equestrian Lordship revive the "Lord Mayor's Hounds" of the time of GEORGE THE FIRST? The meet might be in Leadenhall Market, or in a still meater place, Smithfield, and a bag fox being turned out, they might, on a good scenting day, have a fine burst of a good forty minutes, taking ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... down, Australian sporting slang. (1) To induce a man to bet, knowing that he must lose. (2) To advise a man to bet, and then to "arrange" with an accomplice (a jockey, e.g.) for the bet to be lost. (3) To prove superior to a man ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... and, indeed, of propriety, thrift, and common justice. Of all these we have nothing to say—here, at least. Ours is a "free country"—for dogs, if for nothing else. Nor shall we discuss the various qualities, or the different breeds of dogs for sporting purposes. We never go out shooting; nor do we take a hunt—having no taste that way. Perhaps in this we are to be pitied; but we are content as it is. Therefore we shall let the hounds, and pointers, and setters, the springers, and ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... holding many persons. They are an established article of trade, and as the details of their manufacture would be of little practical use to the reader, we will leave them without further consideration. They can be had at almost any sporting emporium, ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... expected to see, there stood in front of it an ordinary office-chair that twirled on a pivot. Books and papers were strewn about the floor and upon the tables; the pictures on the walls were made up largely of colored sporting prints of some rarity, and in a corner stood a commonplace globe such as is to be found in use in public schools to teach children geography. As I glanced about me my first impression was that by some odd mischance I had got into the wrong room, which idea was ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... died out utterly, and Sam proposed that they cast anchor close to shore and take a swim. The others were willing, and soon they had disrobed and donned their bathing trunks and were sporting in the water to their ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... in abruptly, as was her way, over the salad and cheese in the low studded Arts and Crafts dining-room of the fashionable road house, contrived to look as self-conscious as a pretty woman in new sporting clothes. ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... head, a short, drab-coloured overcoat of horsy cut, black and white check trousers, red-skin riding gloves, square-toed walking shoes, a light cane, and a rose in his buttonhole; you would have taken him at first sight for a sporting tipster. Matthieu, who had stopped short at this sudden apparition, and Bonafede, both stood staring in amazement. The new-comer looked at them with a wicked twinkle in his eye, and burst out into ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... the room were pasted a few pictures cut from the illustrated papers, some of them portraits of leading politicians, and some of them portraits of noted pugilists and sporting-men. The picture of a certain judge, who had made himself obnoxious to the fraternity of criminals by his severe sentences, was turned upside down. There was neither table nor chair in ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... the little white stranger, sporting to and fro in the garden like a dancing snow-wreath, and the flock of snowbirds fluttering ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Prefect Thuillier, they hunted the bandits from the macchi, killing between 200 and 300 of them. At the same time an edict was promulgated against bearing arms. It is forbidden to sell the old Corsican stiletto in the shops, and no one may carry a gun, even for sporting purposes, unless he obtains a special licence. These licences, moreover, are only granted for ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... work that way—never! I've got to go out and see if I can't get it mended. Wonder if there's a decent sporting goods store in this part of town. I'll go out ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... Man, and tiny Maid, Who love the Fairies in the glade, Who see them in the tangled grass The Gnomes and Brownies, as they pass, Who hear the Sprites from Elf-land call Go, frolic with these Brownies small, And join these merry sporting Elves, But ever be your ...
— The Goblins' Christmas • Elizabeth Anderson
... with tresses all curling bright, Sporting and frisking like lambkin or kid, Foot it so sprightly, and dance it all down aright— Never for languor shall Annette be chid. Right hand and left again, Round about set amain, Jokingly, laughingly, ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... these points. In the first place, it was shown that in his case there was no conceivable temptation that could have led to the commission of such a crime. He was a man of great wealth, possessed of a fine estate, and free from all pecuniary embarrassments. He was not what was called a sporting man, and therefore could not have secretly accumulated debts while appearing rich. It was shown, also, that his character was stainless; that he was essentially a domestic man, living quietly at Dalton Hall with his wife and child, and ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... triumphantly. "That's where the sporting instinct comes in. You know a thing is going to amuse and excite you. Beyond ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... we would "swipe" a neighbor's skiff and go floating and paddling beneath the overarching trees of Mill River, lazily watching the muskrats sliding down the banks and sporting in the water or building their huts of mud, sticks and leaves; the fish-hawk, plunging beneath the surface and emerging with a struggling victim in his talons which he bore away to a tree-top to tear and eat; then a timid ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... him in the hours of that long night, and he was happy. Time and distance were annihilated, and he was back upon the shores of old Hudson, sporting with its waves, and gliding on its waters. There was the old boat, with the sparkling foam parting from the rushing prow, and the music of the dipping oars was ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... sent by Prince Urusov turned up and asked me for a short story for a sporting magazine edited by the said Prince. I refused, of course, as I now refuse all who come with supplications to the foot of my pedestal. In Russia there are now two unattainable heights: Mount ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... you think you've got a sporting license, and are on the look-out for a partridge? No; I tell you all the Pitskivers is low, and old Pits is the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... people might be made to give themselves away. Suppose they had one of their private meetings to discuss the affairs of the syndicate, and that, unknown to them, witnesses could be present to overhear what was said. Would there not at least be a sporting chance that they would ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... on the stretcher, in her costly sporting garments, with her long, dark lashes sweeping over her hard, little painted face, and a pinched look of suffering about her ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... of varied hue flew around her, and an eagle, sporting in the air and clapping its wings, swooped down and sailed from right to left, fairest of omens the gods could give. This she saw, and recognised its import, but the flowers and murmuring pines ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... cistern and the rowing clothes he used to wear, I feel as if I could hardly ever dig again."—The funeral was plain and unostentatious. It differed in nothing from the ordinary, except that out of deference to sporting men and mathematicians, A engaged two hearses. Both vehicles started at the same time, B driving the one which bore the sable parallelopiped containing the last remains of his ill-fated friend. ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... into tears. But young people's tears have very little saltness or acidity in them, and do not inflame the eyes so much as those of grown persons; so that it is not to be wondered at if, a few moments afterwards, Proserpina was sporting through the hall almost as merrily as she and the four sea-nymphs had sported along the edge of the surf wave, King Pluto gazed after her, and wished that he, too was a child. And little Proserpina, when she turned about, and beheld ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... of Jove, Bacchus whose happy smiles approve; The Cyprian Queen, whose gentle hand Is quick to tye the nuptial band; The sporting Loves unarm'd appear, The Graces loose and ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... was prosaic enough, being Smith, but his first name was Crawford and his home was somewhere in the Far West. He was big and good-looking, and the Boston papers mentioned him as one of the most promising backs on the Harvard Freshman eleven. Next year, so the sporting writers opined, he would almost certainly make the Varsity team. Most of Mary-'Gusta's feminine friends and acquaintances rated him "perfectly splendid" and regarded Edna Keith ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... kissed the other to the ladies of the hareem, and was back again within our lines and taking a glass of wine with the hereditary Grand Duke Generalissimo before he knew that I had mounted. Oddly enough, your old friend is now sporting the identical boots I wore on ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... threads, dashed downward to the sea. Again the spectacle changed, and Vesuvius appeared in flames, reddening the sky, and paling the moon; floods of lava rolled down, and rocks and ashes were tossed aloft. It seemed as if evil spirits were sporting beneath, and the mountain shook in agony. In the distance, peacefully slept the city of Naples, and that broad and beautiful bay, the admiration of the world. These objects, however, did not last. Rudolph soon lingered among sweet-scented orange groves, and plucked the golden ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... declined. The "sporting character" might deign to relax amid proper and fitting surroundings, but not in the sacred precincts of his office. So the ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... tracks, because they lead me into the wildest solitudes of the forest—I follow the trout in its stream, because I am guided into still retreats, by the margin of shady pools, where human foot rarely treads. Once in the haunts of the fish and the game, my sporting energy dies within me. My rod-spear pierces the turf, my gun lies neglected by my side, and I yield up my soul to a diviner dalliance with the beauties of Nature. Oh, I am a rare lover ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... a sporting mood, and the sight of old acquaintances, though they greeted her kindly enough, did not tend ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Magdalen School it was still actively in use; but there were certain rules about the number of offences which must be committed in a given time to call for its application. Green was clever enough to notice this, and to shape his course accordingly; and thus his lessons became, from a sporting point of ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the elements! Utter forth, God, and fill ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... excellent fox-hunter, and as excellent a companion over his bottle at the end of the chace—he was prodigal of his fortune, where his pleasures were concerned, and as those pleasures were chiefly social, his sporting companions and his mistresses (for these were also of the plural number) partook largely of ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... This sporting conversation went on for some time longer, Mrs Patrick not venturing again to join in. At last the doctor broke up the conference of his own accord, and our two heroes, once more adrift, went out for a lounge ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... particularly good. We read of one piece of land where 'each grain had produced six or eight stems, and the smallest ear was half a foot in length, filled with grain.' The streams and rivers, too, teemed with fish. The noise of salmon sporting in the rivers sounded like the rush of a turbulent rapid, and a catch such as 'ten men could not haul to land' was often made in a night. Pigeons were a plague, alighting in vast flocks in the newly planted gardens. If the economic progress of the country had been slow, the reason had ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty
... to one of these exhibitions of valour, between Owen Swift and Brighton Bill, that a reverend and sporting magistrate took my brother John, a nice good schoolboy, in a tall hat. He thought it was the right thing that the boy should see the world. I thought also that what was good for John, as prescribed by his clerical adviser, would not ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... Kirby and his girl were indeed the father and daughter who had applied at the Northern for shelter. It seemed incredible that a young woman of such apparent refinement could be a gambler's daughter, but if it were true she was not only the daughter of a "sporting man," but a very notorious one, judging from general comment. Prompted by curiosity, Pierce dropped in at the Ophir on his way back to work. He found the place crowded, as usual, but especially so at the rear, where the games were running. When he had edged his ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... agents, who say they can keep these blackmailers off, if you'll make it worth their while. But they all wanted too much money for me—and for a while I was at my wits' ends. At last I got a fellow—he's not behaved so badly, all things considered—who had some sporting blood in his veins, and he was willing to do the whole thing for 5,000 pounds, if I could pay 1,500 pounds down, and the rest in shares. But that was just what I couldn't do, you see, so finally he took ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... Confederate "yell" rose up out of the thunder of battle. And the bullets began to sing around us. The cherry trees were quickly deserted by all, but Leigh Robinson. He stayed up there with balls whizzing close to him, and calmly picked and ate cherries,—as if these were humming birds sporting about him,—until he had enough, or more likely, the cherries gave out. Not knowing who was fighting beyond the woods, or what might come of it, we got the guns into battery, facing the woods, to be ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... year or eighteen mouths after my return to Philadelphia there was any incident of note in my life, or that I read anything unless it was Shakespeare, and reviews which much influenced me. However, I was very wisely allowed to attend a gymnasium, kept by a man named Hudson. Here there was a sporting tone, much pistol-shooting at a mark, boxing and fencing, prints of prize-fighters on the wall, and cuts from Life in London, with copious cigar-smoke. It was a wholesome, healthy place for me. Unfortunately, I could not afford the shooting, boxing, &c., but I profited somewhat by it, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... balmy, like a breeze from the mountains perfumed with flowers from a valley of roses. A river, clear as the air itself, sparkled at their feet, while in its clear depths could be seen gold and silver fish sporting in the bright water, and purple eels emitting sparks of fire at every moment, while the broad leaves of the water-lilies, that floated on its surface, flickered with all the colors of the rainbow. The flower in its color ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... remarked, too, that this man, whose relation to Sir Robert was never distinctly ascertained, was the only person to whom he seemed to speak unnecessarily; it was observed that while with the country gentry he exchanged no further communication than what was unavoidable in arranging his sporting transactions, with this person he would converse earnestly and frequently. Tradition asserts that, to enhance the curiosity which this unaccountable and exclusive preference excited, the stranger possessed some striking ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... really? By Jove, and you look fit enough, too, old man. Fancy, heart! Fancy—Jolly sporting of you. Fancy—Oh, I say, old man, do let's have a look at your paper if you've got it on you. I want to see one of ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... seamen that a school of whales basking or sporting on the surface of the ocean, miles apart, with the convexity of the earth between, will sometimes dive at the same instant—all gone out of sight in a moment. The signal has been sounded—too grave for the ear ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... day. Had he ridden Van for two hours under his heavy weight and housings that morning, all would have been lost. There was terror at Tucson when the cavalry trumpets blew the call for mounted inspection, full dress, that placid Sunday morning, and the sporting sergeants were well-nigh crazed. Not an instant was to be lost. Jeff rushed to the stable, and in five minutes had Van's near fore foot enveloped in a huge poultice, much to Van's amaze and disgust, and when the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... expressed a wish that he should produce it, when he immediately untied the bundle, and, to our great Horror, we beheld the head of a Lesghi, whom he had killed in fight on the other side of the Alazann during a sporting expedition, roll on the table. Disgusted at this action, which among these barbarous mountaineers would pass as an excellent joke, we all rose from table, and retired to another apartment, whilst the Eingalo sat down to dinner, and, at every mouthful he took, amused himself ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... saddles, spare saddlery (see chapter on Harness); bags for packing......................................... Water-vessels (see chapter on Water for Drinking)........... Heavy ammunition for sporting purposes. (1 lb. weight gives 10 shots. Otherwise each armed man is supposed to carry a long double-barrelled rifle of a very small bore, say of 70, and ammunition for these is ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... the major with the quick illumination of one of his challenging smiles, "you can generally depend on the Almighty to back the right man when he's fighting the right fight. Suppose you put up a little faith on the event—be something of a sporting character and back David to win. Backing thoughts help in the winnings ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... carcass with his foot,—"even if they had a small arsenal to back 'em up. They'd have dropped rifle and cartridges, and hugged the nearest trunk. I've seen fellers do it scores o' times, bless ye! after they came out here rigged up in sporting-book style, talking fire about hunting bears and moose. But that was all the fire ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... take the lamp or rifle with him—then decided on the rifle, for the lamp might blow out in some unexpected night gust, whereas if he left it where it was it would go on burning and show him the way back to bed again. Besides, he was too unaccustomed to the joy of owning the last new thing in sporting rifles to hesitate for long about what to keep ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... strange and unfamiliar in a sporting sort of travelling ulster of a tawny brown hue and a cap of the same stuff. But there was no mistaking the watery eyes, the sharp nose, the features. He had obviously not seen Robin. His whole attention was rivetted on the ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... same Town there was an Undertaker who had Sporting Blood in his Veins, and he sought out the Manager and made a Match in ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... the other person, and now the two Rover boys were amazed to learn that the party was Dan Baxter. The bully had changed his dress and also the style of wearing his hair, and was sporting ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... 'Then he is not the man?' said the sheriff, giving me a look that told of deep official disappointment. 'Gentlemen,' I replied, still disdaining the sheriff, 'I never saw this poor wretch before. Tra la.' I met one gentleman in the town. I think he belonged to the sporting fraternity. He said, 'Will you have something?' and we went into a place kept by a retired prize-fighter. My friend pointed to a noisy party at the rear end of the room, and said: 'The city authorities.' 'Should they live?' I asked, and my friend said, 'They should ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... has, it is well known, a fine collection of sporting books. There is no sport but what has its literature, and if there is one subject more than another, upon which the English mind is unchanging, it is sport, and this being so, sporting books will always offer a fine ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... dancing like a sparkling aura about her, came out of her garage with a rusty, rattling lawnmower. I'm no authority on gardentools, but this creaking, rickety machine was clearly no match for the lusty growth. The audience felt so too, and there was a stir of sporting interest as they settled down to ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... that his name, his honor, and perhaps his life were in the hands of a wretched girl like this. All the peace and happiness of his life were gone, and he felt like some unhappy prisoner who through the bars of his dungeon sees his jailer's children sporting with lighted matches and a barrel of gunpowder. He was at her mercy, for well he knew that it would resolve into this—that the smallest wish of this girl would become an imperative command that he dared ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... with their scaly tails and blowing into shells, and many a glimmering foam-crest on a deep-blue wave was no transparent bubble-no, the girl distinctly saw that it was the white neck, the gleaming arm, or the snowy foot of one of Nereus's daughters. She believed that she clearly distinguished them sporting joyously up and down through the azure water, now plunging into the depths with their feet, and now with their heads foremost, anon floating gently on the surface of the waves. One held out her hand to another, and in so doing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... islands in the bay. Some of these are white, as if covered with snow, from the deposit upon them of bird-manure. Tens of thousands of wild geese, ducks, gulls, and other water-fowls, were perched upon them, or sporting in the waters of the bay, making a prodigious cackling and clatter with their voices and wings. By the aid of oars and sails we reached the mouth of Sonoma creek about 9 o'clock at night, where we landed and encamped on the low marsh which borders the ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... by his birth, his wealth, and his various historic chateaux, but also by his sporting proclivities, his daring automobile racing, his marvelous fencing, and his spectacular hunting trips, the Duke of Raincy-la-Tour has long been in addition an amateur aviator of considerable fame, and it was to the French Flying Corps that ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... me so much," purred Lady Caroline. Her amusement was usually of the sort that a sporting cat derives from watching the Swedish exercises of a well-spent and carefully ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... begun to talk again. They mentioned a tramp steamer called the Josephine, and Shelley said she was now in port being repaired. Then the conversation drifted to sporting matters, and Cuffer told how he had lost a hundred dollars on ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... Gurney commenced to bristle. "Are you serious about that or are you just making conversation bets? Because if you're serious I'm just shipping man enough to call you for the sheer sporting joy of it." ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... reappeared. His eyes were sparkling and his nostrils quivered. He remained on his hands and knees. He could not be better likened than to an admirable sporting dog on the scent of some unusual game. And, indeed, he was scenting the steps of a man,—the man whom he has sworn to report to his master, the manager of the "Epoque." It must not be forgotten that Rouletabille was first and last ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... was all pretty much alike and looked very comfortable, but the men was as different as if they had been horses. Some looked gay and spirited, and others tired and worn out, as if they had belonged to sporting men and had been driven half to death. And then again there was some that looked fat and lazy, like the old horses on a farm, that the women drive ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... Wales. The scarlet walls were hung with large coloured prints, life size, of very beautiful women, with very gorgeous dresses, all the jewelry being imitated by pieces of coloured tinsel. A number of sporting prints, very large, and also coloured, were arranged in convenient places on the walls. There were fox-hunting scenes, and German stag-hunts, together with a few quiet landscapes, that always recalled the dear old country now so ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... confess that I didn't see so much in the thing. But the more I've thought of it the more its unique charm has appealed to me. It is nothing more nor less than a novel, piquant little adventure. Exactly the sort of thing to attract a man who likes to take a sporting chance. Look at the difficulties of it. Go to a strange town where there are thousands and millions of strange children, locate Mary, isolate her, make friends with her, coax her to the yacht—captivate her, capture her! How are we to do all that, you ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Carruthers, who occupied one end of the table, had the colonel on her right, and her sister-in-law, who took the other end, was supported in the same way by the host. Squire Walker, a portly man, but not too heavy for exercise, with a baldish head and large reddish whiskers, sporting a velveteen shooting coat, high shirt collar, and large blue silk scarf with white spots, was a man of much intelligence and a good talker. His conversation compelled attention, and, like the glittering ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... and fruits of victory; 2. Religious scenes, either mythical or real; 3. Processions generally of tribute-bearers, bringing the produce of their several countries to the Great King; 4. hunting and sporting scenes, including the chase of savage animals, and of animals sought for food, the spreading of nets, the shooting of birds, and the like; and 5. Scenes of ordinary life, as those representing the transport and erection of colossal ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... many improvements in this park, and took much pleasure in riding, sporting, and idly strolling here. He might often be seen with half a dozen dogs at his heels, lounging along by the banks of the ponds, feeding the ducks with his own delicate royal hands. The foolish people were greatly ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... furnished with standard publications on fish, birds and animals, and stories of life in the forest and of the chase. Thirty books were shown, a number of which were kindly furnished by Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co., of New York city. On the center table were kept the current numbers of the leading sporting ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... ingenuity of the Americans when offering their goods for sale, it may be mentioned in conclusion that an Eskimo, who came to the vessel during our stay in the harbour, showed us a printed paper, by which a commercial house at San Francisco offered to "sporting gentlemen" at Behring's Straits (Eskimo?) their ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... in, Edie?" said he; for Mrs. de la Vere's delicate aristocratic beauty seemed to be the natural complement of her sporting style, and to-night there was a wistful charm in her face that the lively Reginald had ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... with a rind of cheese, glancing at the cheese itself, wondering if they could manage another slice, and the men sipping their port wine, puffing at their pipes, William listening most avidly of all, enjoying each sporting term, and ingeniously reminding Mr. Leopold of some detail whenever he seemed disposed to shorten his narrative. The criticism of the Demon's horsemanship took a long while, for by a variety of suggestive remarks ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore |
