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Avocation   Listen
noun
Avocation  n.  
1.
A calling away; a diversion. (Obs. or Archaic) "Impulses to duty, and powerful avocations from sin."
2.
That which calls one away from one's regular employment or vocation. "Heaven is his vocation, and therefore he counts earthly employments avocations." "By the secular cares and avocations which accompany marriage the clergy have been furnished with skill in common life." Note: In this sense the word is applied to the smaller affairs of life, or occasional calls which summon a person to leave his ordinary or principal business. Avocation (in the singular) for vocation is usually avoided by good writers.
3.
pl. Pursuits; duties; affairs which occupy one's time; usual employment; vocation. "There are professions, among the men, no more favorable to these studies than the common avocations of women." "In a few hours, above thirty thousand men left his standard, and returned to their ordinary avocations." "An irregularity and instability of purpose, which makes them choose the wandering avocations of a shepherd, rather than the more fixed pursuits of agriculture."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Avocation" Quotes from Famous Books



... world. Man must follow the standard of virtue of the good and in his acts imitate the example of the righteous. There are virtuous men, versed in holy writ and learned in all departments of knowledge. Man's proper duty consists in following his own proper avocation, and this being the case these latter do not become confused and mixed up. The wise man delights in virtue and lives by righteousness. And, O good Brahmana, such a man with the wealth of righteousness which he hereby acquires, waters the root of the plant in which he finds ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Newport was short, and he went from there to New York, where he soon became an editorial writer for the Tribune. To a Cambridge friend of mine, who met him in Broadway, he expressed great satisfaction with his new avocation. "It is the most delightful position," he said, "that you can possibly conceive of. I can abuse everybody in the world except Greeley, Ripley, and Dana." He inquired after me, and, as my friend was leaving him, sent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... domestic life. 1. Young women should have some avocation. Labor regarded as drudgery. 2. Domestic employment healthy. 3. It is pleasant. 4. It affords leisure for intellectual improvement. 5. It is favorable to social improvement. 6. It is the employment assigned them by Divine Providence, and is eminently ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott

... fidelity with which I clung to my avocation as an educator also influenced my action in this matter. Even if I could not say truly that I had a Fatherland, I must yet acknowledge that every boy, that every child, who might perhaps later on come to be educated by me would have a Fatherland, that ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel

... think were in their peculiar fashion unequalled. Here blooms a cluster of beautiful flowers, covered as it were by a glass shade, but which turns out to be only water. There a miniature palace is in course of erection, with crowds of workmen in its different storeys, each man at his avocation with hammer and chisel, pulley and wheel, and the grave architect himself directing their labour. All this is set in motion by water, and is not a mere doll's house, but a symmetrical model. Then we enter a subterranean grotto, with a roof of pendant stalactites, where the pleasant ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... hundred pounds to this country. With more wisdom than is generally exercised by Irish emigrants, instead of sinking all his means in buying a bush farm, he hired a very good farm in Cavan, with cattle, and returned to his old avocation. The services of his daughter, who was an excellent dairymaid, were required to take the management of the cows; and her brother brought a wagon and horses all the way from the front ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... richly drest, and the bells ringing as they are wont to do upon great festivals, at eight in the morning there assembled in the Church all the brethren of the Monastery, nineteen in number, the other fifteen being absent each in his avocation; and there were present with them Sancho de Ocaa, Merino and Chief Justice of the Monastery; Juan de Rosales, Pedro de Ruseras, and Juan Ruyz, squires of the house; master Ochoa de Artiaga, a mason, with his men; Andres ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... more brilliant by one of those great blue papers in which oranges are now artfully wrapped, leant over the railing and listened; and opposite the nympham discentem there was a capering and acute-eared young satirist of a crossing-sweeper, who had left his neighboring professional avocation and chance of profit, in order to listen to the tale of ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Atlantic to study the possibilities of reaching a modus vivendi. There was no man so well qualified for the mission. Edward Mandell House was a Texan by birth, but a cosmopolitan by nature. His hobby was practical politics; his avocation the study of history and government. His catholicity of taste is indicated by the nature of his library, which includes numerous volumes not merely on the social sciences but also on philosophy and poetry. His intellectual ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... pity and with sorrow for suffering humanity. "I asked him," says Mr. Tweddel, "if after the massacre of Ismail he was perfectly satisfied with the conduct of the day. He said, he went home and wept in his tent." Though Suwarrow spared but little time from his military avocation for social intercourse, his tenderness for children was so great that he could not bear to pass them without notice. He would stop, embrace, and bless them whenever he met them: that he fondly loved his own is sufficiently ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various

... my profession doesn't take a solemn oath to wait until the remains are resting in pieces: it might not be a difficult task to take up an avocation as well as a vocation. I wonder if I couldn't be a pretty good Ghost Maker? Think ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... me, my dear mamma, to write to you. That command I cheerfully obey, in testimony of my ready submission and respect. No other avocation could arrest my time, which is now completely occupied in ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster

... occupation were long, but the work was not particularly heavy, and Edison soon found opportunity for his favorite avocation—chemical experimentation. His train left Port Huron at 7 A.M., and made its southward trip to Detroit in about three hours. This gave a stay in that city from 10 A.M. until the late afternoon, when the train left, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... any subject be the proper avocation of the philosopher," says Strabo, "geography, the science of which we propose to treat, is certainly entitled to a high place; and this is evident from many considerations. They who first undertook to handle the matter were distinguished men. Homer, Anaximander the Milesian, and Hecaeus ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it. My campaign was spoiled. It seemed to me that I was not rightly equipped for this awful business; that war was intended for men, and I for a child's nurse. I resolved to retire from this avocation of sham soldiership while I could save some remnant of my self-respect. These morbid thoughts clung to me against reason; for at bottom I did not believe I had touched that man. The law of probabilities decreed me guiltless of his blood; for ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... man has his avocation, his recreation, you know—golf, roses, coins, first editions, travel. Walter Drury, being a confirmed bachelor, missed both the joys and the demands of home life. No recluse, but, rather, a companionable man, he cared little for what most people call ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... a common saying with business men that it is hard to find a man of absolute integrity, one who even measures up to the standards of commercial honour among those who are religious, either by vocation or avocation. At any rate, it is true that a certificate of religious affiliations by no means is equivalent to a guarantee ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope

... their passions, live in a perpetual avocation of thought. To perceive God in His works a man must, at least, consider them with attention. But passions cast such a mist before the eyes, not only of wild savages, but even of nations that seem to be most civilised and polite, ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon

... enlarged. It was a big room, with an immense, perfectly plain deal table in the middle, stained a dark brown; and the Vicar showed Howard with high glee how each of the four sides of the table was consecrated to a different avocation. "My accounts end!" he said, "my sermon side! my correspondence end! my genealogical side!" There were a number of small dodges, desks for holding books, flaps which could be let up and down, slits in the table through which papers could be dropped into drawers, a cord by which the ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... South are taking up lands. Cool traders are buying great tracts. Temporary officials have eager eyes fixed on the Mexican grants. At all the landings and along the new roads, once trails, little settlements are springing up, for your unlucky argonaut turns to the nearest avocation; inns, stables, lodging-houses and trading-tents are waited on by men of every calling and profession. Each wanderer turns to the easiest way of amassing wealth. The settlers must devise all their own institutions. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... hope that you may be able to take up this most fascinating avocation with pleasure and profit, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various

... the foundations which the master laid. John Torrey, born in New York City in 1796, was the son of a Revolutionary soldier, and in early life determined to become a machinist, but afterwards studied medicine and began to practice in New York, taking up the study of botany as an avocation. He found the profession of medicine uncongenial, and finally abandoned it altogether for science, serving for many years as professor of chemistry and botany at the College of Physicians and Surgeons ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... that was good offered by the inventors preceding him, he carefully re-proportioned the various parts and produced English clocks and watches that were at once the pride and despair of his brother craftsmen. Watches were something of an avocation with him, for his primary trade was in clocks, to which for many years he devoted his entire labor. Probably, however, the problems a watch presented won his interest and led him to try his skill in this new field, with the result that he was soon making watches that as far surpassed his ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett

... came along, when he would hop off, ride a block or two on the end of a truck, and then try a new car, so beating his way down-town. Then he arrived at his office. I have neglected to state that while invention was Jarley's avocation, he was by profession a lawyer, being the junior member of a highly successful firm, at the head of which was no less a person than the eminent William J. Baker, whose record at the bar is too well known to require any further words of mine to recall him to the minds of my readers. ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... had entitled him to admission at either the Ecole Polytechnique or the Ecole Normale,* and he had chosen the latter, entering its scientific section with No. 1 against his name. His father had wished him to make sure of an avocation, that of professor, even if circumstances should allow him to remain independent and follow his own bent on leaving the college. Francois, who was very precocious, was now preparing for his last examination there, and the only rest he took was in walking ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... abrupt departure would be less shocking than to stay and take a formal leave of my lover, whose heart was of such a delicate frame, that, after I told him I should one day withdraw myself in his absence, he never came home from the chase, or any other avocation, without trembling with apprehension that ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... of good family, a noted woodcock shot and salmon fisher, a carpenter, and an incessant pipe-smoker. These being his leading gifts, it will probably, and with accuracy, be surmised by persons conversant with the Irish Church, that he was a survival of its earliest days, when it was still an avocation suitable for gentlemen, and one in which they could indulge without any taint of professionalism being laid to their charge. He was immensely respected and admired by the poor people of the parish (none of whom were included ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... of writing for a bookseller, to which the art of printing has given occasion." We see the political economist, alike insensible to the dignity of the literary character, incapable of taking a just view of its glorious avocation. To obviate the personal wants attached to the occupations of an author, he would, more effectually than skilfully, get rid of authorship itself. This is not to restore the limb, but to amputate it. It is not the preservation of existence, ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... to attain it is the greatest art of life. The prince might gain it if he devoted himself earnestly, not merely in a half-absent dilettante fashion, to some art, science, or useful avocation. Only it required a self-discipline of which, unfortunately, he was incapable. In all pursuits requiring dexterity, all sciences, the first steps are laborious, wearisome, and apparently thankless, and the Canaan which ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... quality commendable. There is the chance; and it appeals to most rational men. Secretive Fortune lures on, promising the bubble pearl 'and proffering that which satisfieth not, until the stress and perils of the avocation tell on the enthusiast, who finds himself not exuberant as wont; that Fortune has been tricking him; that in the pursuit of pearls Chance is oft repellent; and that the prize which seemed impossible to avoid has eluded the most ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... it—by hard work, with a hundred other fellows doing their best to push me back on the side lines; I tried for the crew, and I made it; I rowed two years at New London, and there was some work about that. I'm afraid I made athletics my vocation and studies my avocation, but I tried to do what I undertook as well as I knew how, and some of the boys still think I'm pretty good ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... the price of my critical faculty. All my former habits become suddenly fluid; it seems to me that I am beginning life over again, and that all my acquired capital has disappeared at a stroke. I am forever new-born; I am a mind which has never taken to itself a body, a country, an avocation, a sex, a species. Am I even quite sure of being a man, a European, an inhabitant of this earth? It seems to me so easy to be something else, that to be what I am appears to me a mere piece of arbitrary choice. I cannot possibly take an accidental structure of which the value is purely ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... of these ladies,and worthy ones too, are placed, par force of poverty, in this avocation, unsuited to their abilities, their hearts, their habits, or their former expectations. The government of their young flock is odious to them, and although they may go through the duties of their situation with apparent patience, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... in the island of Islay in Scotland, in 1731, being the son of Ranald McDougall, who emigrated to the province of New York in 1735. The father purchased a small farm near the city of New York, and there peddled milk, in which avocation he was assisted by his son, who never was ashamed of the employment of his youth. Alexander was a keen observer of passing events and took great interest in the game of politics. With vigilance he watched the aggressive steps of the royal government; and when the Assembly, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... The avocation of a colonist, usually so active, had little interest for me. This vast territorial lordship, in which, could I have endeared its possession by the hopes that animate a Founder, I should have felt all the zest and the pride of ownership, was but the run of a common to the passing emigrant, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... THE YOUNG of both Sexes; Relating to the Formation of Character, Choice of Avocation; Health, Amusement, Music, Conversation, Cultivation of Intellect, Moral Sentiments, Social Affection, Courtship and Marriage. By Rev. G. S. Weaver. Price, in paper, 62 ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... on boxes in front of the old Grange store—just as they had idled on boxes before the war. They were the same men, it was the same store, and it was not inconceivable that they were the same boxes. As the men idled they spat, somewhat to the menace of the passers-by, though in defence of this avocation it may be argued that any truly agile person, by watching carefully and seizing opportunity unhesitatingly, could get by undefiled. Sometimes a vehicle rolled into the street toward the Square, ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... was there more familiarly termed Wat Munro. He took his seat with the company, with the ease of one who neither doubted nor deliberated upon the footing which he claimed among them. He was not merely the publican of his profession, but better fitted indeed for perhaps any other avocation, as may possibly be discovered in the progress of our narrative. To his wife, a good quiet sort of body, who, as Forrester phrased it, did not dare to say the soul was her own, he deputed the whole domestic management of the tavern; while he would be gone, nobody could ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... discovereth no symptom of cooling. This is that which I admire in him. I hate people who meet Time half-way. I am for no compromise with that inevitable spoiler. While he lives, J.E. will take his swing.—It does me good, as I walk towards the street of my daily avocation, on some fine May morning, to meet him marching in a quite opposite direction, with a jolly handsome presence, and shining sanguine face, that indicates some purchase in his eye—a Claude—or a Hobbima—for ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... Conchobar and Cuchulainn, and concern the wars of Ulster and Connaught. They are in prose, interspersed with verse. Long before being written, they existed in the shape of well-established texts, repeated word for word by men whose avocation it was to know and remember, and who spent their lives in exercising their memory. The corporation of the File, or seers, was divided into ten classes, from the Oblar, who knew only seven stories, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... as unfruitful in literature as is often supposed. While there have been very few to make literature a vocation, a surprisingly large number have made it an avocation. Law and literature, as we shall have occasion to note, have frequently gone hand in hand. A recent work on Southern literature [*] enumerates more than twelve hundred writers, most of whom have published one or more volumes. There are more than two hundred ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... interested in them. It had grown to a membership of 750. It still kept for its nucleus painters, writers, musicians and actors, amateur and professional. They were a gay group of men, and hospitality was their avocation. Yet the thing which set this club off from all others in the world was ...
— The City That Was - A Requiem of Old San Francisco • Will Irwin

... stranger and bowed to him, and afterwards frightened the host's family by telling it, since they were not aware of any stranger in the house. The room over the great door had always been considered the haunt of peculiar people, who molested nobody living, but appeared there in some quiet avocation, and vanished when ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... Lanyard's reflections that he had paid far too little attention to Senor Arturo Velasco of Buenos Aires, whose avowed avocation of amateur criminologist might easily be synonymous with interests ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... this disconsolate father, that no pleasure, no avocation should ever so entirely engross his mind, but that he should still find an hour for sympathy and friendship. He communicated the invitation of Madam Clement, and insisted upon his compliance, that ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... him. Now, the fact that North is North and South is South and that never these twain shall meet is a proposition all too little considered. One of these days when I can retire from the dull but exacting avocation of tea-broking in the City, I think I shall write a newspaper article on the subject. Anyhow, I hold the theory that the Northerners of all nations have a common characteristic and the Southerners of all nations have a common characteristic, ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... my wrong-doing is the history of hundreds of others. I was a clerk in a bank, and getting on as well as I could expect in that not very progressive avocation, when I had the misfortune to make four very undesirable acquaintances. They were all young men, though rather older than myself, and were close friends, forming a sort of little community or club. They were not what is usually described as 'fast.' They were quite sober and decently-behaved ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... respectability of the various professions is not quite the same as it is with us. There the profession does not disqualify if the man himself be right, nor the claim to the title of gentleman depend upon the avocation followed. I know of one or two clowns in the ring who are educated physicians, and not thought to be any the less gentlemen because they propound conundrums and perpetrate jests instead of ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... the market. Courtenay's literary output, though scanty, was diverse; he wrote light verse, character sketches, and essays, including two controversial pieces in support of the French Revolution.[1] It is apparent, however, that for him writing was hardly more than an avocation. ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay

... and serious loss through the whole period of my existence. See to it that you place a just value upon these privileges, and that you do not abuse them. Whilst most of you, I trust, are fitting yourselves for the employment of farming as an avocation, some, perhaps, may be looking forward to other professions and pursuits. I, however, on this occasion, must confine my remarks to those ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo

... VOCATION—AVOCATION. These words are frequently confounded. A man's vocation is his profession, his calling, his business; and his avocations are the things that occupy him incidentally. Mademoiselle Bernhardt's vocation is acting; her avocations are painting ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... borders. General Sheridan had taken up his headquarters at Fort Hayes, in order to be in the field to superintend the campaign in person. As scouts and guides were in great demand, I concluded once more to take up my old avocation of scouting and guiding ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... of citizens held at the Chamber of Commerce July 23d, deeming that the allaying of excitement is the first step toward restoring order, would urge upon all citizens disposed to aid therein the necessity of pursuing their usual avocation, and keeping all their employees at work, and would, therefore, request that full compliance be accorded to this demand of the committee. The committee are impressed with the belief that the police ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church

... of her avocation. In the perfectly appointed Wellingsford Hospital she had no scullery work. She was a probationer, in training as a nurse. He still ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... to be found true farmer-authors, such as Alfred Huggenberger, who still guides the plow across his fields, or poets who have risen from the ranks of handicraftsmen, such as Jakob Schaffner, or those who prosecute their literary avocation side by side with the business of a restaurateur, like Ernst Zahn. And no other of the compatriots of Pestalozzi (J. C. Heer, Heinrich Federer, Meinrad Lienert, Felix Moeschlin) disdains either, to be in the truest sense a popular poet ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... excellent treatise the author endeavours to show, that the complaint of the shortness of life is not founded in truth: that it is men who make life short, either by passing it in indolence, or otherwise improperly. He inveighs against indolence, luxury, and every unprofitable avocation; observing, that the best use of time is to apply it to the study of wisdom, by which life ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... hostile to the ruling classes of society; and the object of the members is to establish a republican form of government within their city. They are largely merchants or artisans; but they concern themselves with wider interests than those of trade, and often insist that no man, of whatever avocation, shall remain in the city unless he ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... of the antecedents of Summerfield. He was of Northern birth, but of what State it is impossible to say definitely. Early in life he removed to the frontier of Arkansas, and pursued for some years the avocation of village schoolmaster. It was the suggestion of Judge Wheeler that induced him to read law. In six months' time he had mastered Story's Equity, and gained an important suit, based upon one of its most recondite principles. But his ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes

... The earliest avocation of our colonies was that of agriculture; and before 1776 our agricultural industries, owing to the discoveries which had gradually been made as to the capabilities of the then settled districts, had grown to important proportions. It needs but a glance at the map to observe over what ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle

... pursuit of the veriest will-o'-the-wisps that ever danced over the most miasmatic of swamps, who was never his own man, and who died, like Brian de Bois Gilbert, 'the victim of contending passions.' It should never be forgotten that Lamb's vocation was his life. Literature was but his byplay, his avocation in the true sense of that much-abused word. He was not a fisherman, but an angler in the lake of letters; an author by chance and on the sly. He had a right to disport himself on paper, to play the frolic ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... "an account is pretended to be given of the Debates and Proceedings of this House" ("Journals of House of Lords," xix). The third number of "The Political State," Boyer issued on March 17th, giving his reason for the delay in its appearance: "An unavoidable and unvoluntary avocation, of which I may give you an account hereafter, has obliged me to write to you a ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... place: a meeting which bears a family resemblance to our own Public Dinner, in respect of its being a main part of the proceedings that every gentleman present is required to drink something nasty. These Mataboos are a privileged order, so important is their avocation, and they make the most of their high functions. A long way out of the Tonga Islands, indeed, rather near the British Islands, was there no calling in of the Mataboos the other day to settle an earth-convulsing question of precedence; and was there no weighty opinion delivered ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... them to accept. He sank into his accustomed place at home and at the store as naturally as if he had been away only for a day. The news of his return drew around him many of the motley ilk who made trading and swapping both a business and an avocation. They seldom dealt with him, to be sure, but it was a liberal education to hear his experiences, and even better to see him actually make a deal. On his first day at home he had bought a lame horse for the small sum of fifty dollars, after he had delivered a free lecture about the great ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... to me. However limited may be the result of my efforts, I have worked from the very beginning with sincerity of aim, certainly never regarding the profession as a trade; and for some years not considering my avocation as a profession, declining to paint portraits ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... them with more pleasure than on the faces of his children; and listened to their chink with a satisfaction no tone of household love or sweet Alpine melody could call forth. It chanced one day that our hunter, in the pursuit of his ordinary avocation, perceived a tiny cavern hitherto unknown to him. He determined to snatch his hasty noon-tide meal beneath its shelter; and in order to enter it, rolled away a block of stone which obstructed the mouth of the fissure. To his amazement, its removal presented ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... of the North suffer while the slave is cared for and comfortable," why belie ourselves? Malcome's influence is, and always has been, with the whites, and manifestly good in the preservation of order and obedience on the part of the slaves. He pursues his avocation with spirit and enterprise, while he is subjected to menial and oppressive laws. His father visited New York, and was forbidden to return. He appealed again and again, set forth his claims and his integrity to the State and her laws, but all was of no avail. He was hopelessly ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... the patient pursued his avocation of a stone-mason; no further remedy was required; no inconvenience experienced; and the eschar separated in ...
— An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers • John Higginbottom

... produced by the division of labor is unavoidably connected with a corresponding one-sidedness. The Russians, for instance, are exceedingly apt, but they rarely distinguish themselves in any thing.(377) Love of his avocation, or pride in it, is a thing unknown to the Russian workman. He shirks all continuous labor.(378) Experience has shown that the Neapolitans and Italians, in general, exhibit great skill when they work alone; but that when ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... well as I can describe the grievances, the real position of the vine-grower. Although since the British occupation he has escaped the extra extortion of the tax-farmer, he is still the slave of petty vexations and delays, which strangle him in red-tape and render his avocation a misery; without profit, leaving only a bare subsistence. What is to ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... their way to the town. It was a matter of extreme surprise to find no symptom of the least excitement anywhere as they went along. The population was perfectly calm; every one was pursuing his ordinary avocation; the cattle were browsing quietly upon the pastures that were moist with the dew of an ordinary January morning. It was about eight o'clock; the sun was rising in the east; nothing could be noticed to indicate that any abnormal incident ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... by the honors that clustered around his name, pursued his humble avocation with pride and pleasure—with pride, because he had been successful by his own unaided exertions; with pleasure, because he was actually relieving his mother from the entire burden of supporting the family. Since the rescue of Carrie, perch, tom-cod, ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams

... capacity, whilst the lanes leading to it were completely blocked up with crowds of inquisitive inquirers. The professor left his study, the trader his accounts, and the mechanic dismissed for a while the toil of his avocation. ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... aim of the institution is to examine, plan, and organize such branches of industrial avocation as are applicable to females, and open up new avocations of useful industry compatible with the intellectual and mechanical capabilities of the sex, not forgetting their delicacy, and the untutored position of females for practical application ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... of rudeness and insult or worse from which man is to protect woman? From man, of course. Man is, then, woman's natural protector to protect her from man, her natural protector. He is to set himself the task of defending her from his injury of her, and he is charmed with the avocation. He will protect her as Abraham protected Sarah when he took her into Egypt. "Do so-and-so," said Abraham to Sarah, "that it may be well with me,—for thy sake." The history of the Chinese slave woman as she came in contact with the foreigner at Hong Kong and at Singapore proceeds ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell

... explanation in itself merits notice and explanation, because of the fact that the persons named were the holders of such a large amount of warrants imply some inducement on their part to invest in them, more especially as by avocation the majority of them were not brokers but employees in the Custom-House. Some of them have testified that all the warrants they held were paid. Another has refused to disclose for whom he collected. A third ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... think my former calling of the stage a very dignified one; I assure you it appears to me magnificent compared with my present avocation of living by the unpaid labor of others, and those others half of them women like myself. There is nothing in the details of the existence of the slaves which mitigates in my opinion the sin of slavery; ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... applause, congratulation, tears, embraces, and a general joyous explosion of unutterable relief at the fortunate termination of my attempt, we went home. And so my life was determined, and I devoted myself to an avocation which I never liked or honored, and about the very nature of which I have never been able to come to any decided opinion. It is in vain that the undoubted specific gifts of great actors and actresses suggest that all gifts are given for rightful ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... her name. Vocation, school-teacher. Present avocation, getting lost in the snow. Age, yum-yum (the Persian for twenty). Take to the woods if you would describe Miss Adams. A willow for grace; a hickory for fibre; a birch for the clear whiteness of her skin; for eyes, the blue sky seen through treetops; the silk in cocoons ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... the future will select her own avocation and take her own training for it. If she be a houseworker, and many will prefer to be, she will be so valuable in that line as to command much respect and good wages. If she be an architect, a jeweler, an ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... societies, in promoting scientific investigations, in advancing archaeological researches, in every kind of learned inquiry. Their intellectual interests were so catholic and so vigorous that they were not contented with parish and pulpit, and in some cases it would seem that the avocation was as important as ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... Study of vocations and avocations for women. Avocations—the work which serves as play—should be wisely studied, and some avocation adopted by ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... for some years after he began the use of it that chloral produced any sensible effects of an injurious kind, and meantime he pursued as usual his avocation as a painter. Mention has been made of the fact that Rossetti abandoned at an early age subject designs for three-quarter-length figures. Of the latter, in the period of which we are now treating, he painted great ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... fewel to the fire with which Dorilaus was enflamed, that it almost consumed his resolution: he walked about the room some time without being able to speak, much less to quiet the agitation he was in. At last, Louisa, said he, I was only concerned your brother made choice of an avocation so full of dangers;—but I never intended to keep him at home with me:—he should have gone to Oxford to finish his studies; and the reason I send you again to the boarding-school is that you may perfect yourself in such things as you ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... break her heart with grief and anguish. My mother begged and wept, my father scolded and threatened, and thus I was obliged to yield and be a dutiful son. Three days ago my father administered the sacrament to me, and I swore an oath to him at the altar to remain faithful to the avocation he had selected for me, and ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... drinks, and are very superstitious and have great faith in omens. The dress of the men and women resembles that of the Hindus. Infanticide was formerly common among them, but it is said to have entirely died out. They were also formerly robbers by avocation; and though they have improved ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... would utterly perish. Its impression is so indelible, that the greatest difficulty is experienced when attempting to eradicate it. The salutary influence which good example propagates, we find stamped on every avocation in life. In some people a heinous negligence, and in others a culpable apathy is evinced with respect to the principles their conduct is implanting. Profuse illustrations abound in every profession, calling, and trade, of the effect ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles

... bright May morning, as the ladies had made all things tidy, and were seating themselves to their daily avocation of the needle, they heard the garden gate swing, and beheld Mrs. Edson approaching in her little white sun-bonnet and spotted muslin dressing-gown, open from the waist downwards, revealing a fine cambric skirt, wrought in several rows of vines and deep scolloped edges. Mrs. Stanhope ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... home he found his mother engaged in knitting, as usual. This was the only avocation that her almost complete blindness allowed her to pursue; and she followed it constantly. "Ah! here you are, Toto," she exclaimed, joyously. "I didn't expect you so soon. Don't you scent a savory smell? As you must be greatly ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... years in this department, that the breeding of fine cattle in this country is, at the present time, attracting the attention and commanding the best and most intelligent care of not alone the farmers who have been bred to their avocation, but of capitalists, who comprehend the great money values involved, and who either of themselves or through their sons have set out to identify themselves with this great interest. As the result of the fact the display of cattle was more varied as to breeds ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... scapegraces.—In the great nave of the Cathedral, "the dancers, almost naked, with bare necks and breasts, and stockings down at the heel," writhe and stamp, "howling the carmagnole." In the side chapels, which are "shut off by high tapestries, prostitutes with shrill voices" pursue their avocation.[3222]—To descend to this low level so barefacedly, to fraternise with barrier sots, and wenches, to endure their embraces and hiccoughs, is bad enough, even for docile deputies. More than one half of them loathed it beforehand and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... gentleman who had invested largely in Canadian real estate and national enterprises. She had two daughters, aged 18 and 16, respectively (whom Mrs. O'Grady was expected to train and prepare for entrance into society), also a son about 22, who, although educated as a lawyer, pursued no avocation other than the collection of rents on his father's estate, and minor offices in connection with the investment of his money. Randolph Thomson, the young gentleman in question, suddenly became very attentive to his sisters. There was not a single concert or ball of importance to which he did ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer

... feasts of the great as if h had been present at them; and in tattered trousers and dingy shirt-sleeves, cheerfully describing and arranging the most brilliant fetes of the world of fashion. The incongruity of Finucane's avocation, and his manners and appearance amused his new friend Pen. Since he left his own native village, where his rank probably was not very, lofty Jack had seldom seen any society but such as used the parlour of the taverns which he frequented, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... quite a ridiculous state of consternation at so unwonted a sight as the rushing form of the Flying Fish. Flocks of sea-birds of various, and indeed some of hitherto unknown, kinds next made their appearance, industriously pursuing their avocation of fishermen, and—unlike the sea-otters—paying little or no attention to their strange visitors. And finally, as they drew nearer in with the land, seals of various kinds were passed, sportively chasing each other, and pausing ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... of gifts of what did not belong to him, bestowed the living on a cousin, who commuted it for an annual revenue of six hundred and forty gold crowns—a splendid revenue for those days—and poor Bonivard, whose sole avocation was that of gentleman, found it difficult to carry on that line of business with neither capital nor income. He came back, some five years later, into possession of the priory. They were five years of exciting changes, of fierce terrorism and oppression at Geneva, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... me that he would teach me, provided I behaved myself well. He desired that I would come to his cabin every afternoon at six o'clock, a time which interfered little with my avocation of "Poor Jack," and that he would give me a lesson. Before he had finished talking, one of the lieutenants of the hospital sent for him; and Ben remained behind, to point out to me how valuable my knowing how to read and write might one ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... knowing the great man, thought that he would probably use his influence as a statesman to involve his country in war again. To some it may possibly seem strange that Gordon, who had distinguished himself as a soldier, and had saved an empire, should again take up the humble avocation of an engineer officer, but so he did. He was in reality only a captain of engineers, though a brevet lieutenant-colonel in the army, when in February 1865 he returned home. He took a few months' leave, which ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... palms in their hands." You shall there hold fellowship with the fathers of a thousand generations, with the patriarchs, and prophets, and apostles, and martyrs, and reformers, and the "innumerable company of angels." With these you shall engage in the most delightful avocation. There will be no indolence there, as we often find in earthly homes; but all will be continually engaged. "They serve Him day and night in His temple." There will be one unbroken worship, which will afford you rapturous delight. You shall be ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... transcend my orders by doing any thing of the kind," she said quietly, yet resolutely, as she pursued her avocation, that of dusting with a bunch of colored plumes the delicate ornaments of the etagere ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... nodded his head in assent, that being the only reply the avocation of smoking rendered convenient, just at that moment, unless a sort of affirmatory grunt could be construed into ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... their arms; but in spite of their care, his leg was broken by the fall, and he remained ever afterwards lame in one foot. Grateful for the kindness of the Lemnians, he henceforth took up his abode in their island, and there built for himself a superb palace, and forges for the pursuit of his avocation. He instructed the people how to work in metals, and also taught them ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... quite understand," he said, "is the exact meaning of that word 'abduction.' Why should I be suspected of forcibly removing a harmless and worthy young man from his regular avocation, and, as you term it, abducting him, which I presume means keeping him bound and gagged and imprisoned? I do not eat young men. I do not even care for the society of young men. I am not naturally a gregarious person, but ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of a great town. When I arrived there, I was much surprised to see vast numbers of people in different postures, but all immovable. The merchants were in their shops, the soldiery on guard; every one seemed engaged in his proper avocation, yet all were become as stone.... I heard the voice of a man reading Al Koran.... Being curious to know why he was the only living creature in the town,... he proceeded to tell me that the city was the metropolis of a kingdom now governed by his father; that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... Having, in my avocation as lecturer on "The African Race" and "America and the Americans," visited nearly the whole of Ireland, I respectfully submit the following letters and notices, the letters being from gentlemen who kindly presided ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen

... white population to the battle field will not interrupt the course of agricultural pursuit, while every enlistment in the North will take one man away from the tillage of the land or from some industrial avocation." ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... chosen for himself a gentler avocation than his wife's, and one which brought him greater peace of mind—proprietor of the big red stable which spread itself over half a block, he had unconsciously defined himself, as well as his place of business, by having printed in huge white letters with black ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... was covered with scrubby bush abounding in gazelles and guinea-fowl. Here, for the first time, I saw the secretary bird, known to the Arabs as the "Devil's horse." A pair of these magnificent birds were actively employed in their useful avocation of hunting reptiles, which they chased with wonderful speed. Great numbers of wild asses passed us during the march towards evening; they were on their way from the desert to the Atbara river, some miles distant upon the ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... cooped up for a year and more in the narrow confines of Simiti, the ready flow of this man's conversation was like a fountain of sparkling water to a thirsty traveler. He urged him to go on, plying him with questions about his strange avocation. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... rugged region, a medley of fugitives of all ranks and stations,—soldiers, farmers, and artisans; nobles and vassals; bishops and monks; men, women, and children,—brought together by a terror that banished all distinctions of rank and avocation. For a number of years this small band of fugitive Christians, gathered between the mountains and the sea in northwestern Spain, remained quiet, desiring only to be overlooked or disregarded by the conquerors. But in the year 717 a leader came to them, and Spain once more lifted her head in defiance ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... was quietly settled in his avocation at Brunswick as composer and chief Kam-mer-musicus of the ducal court, when he received an offer to compete for the direction of the orchestra at Gotha, then one of the most magnificent organizations in Europe, to be at the head of which would give him an international fame. ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... interesting I found my new avocation on the County Down, which for short the Belfast and County Down Railway was usually called. My salary certainly was not magnificent, 500 pounds a year, but it was about 100 pounds more than the whole of the income I earned in Scotland, ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow

... sort—a florid, stout, and sandy man, who spent most of his life driving over evil country roads in a buggy, securing orders for dairy furniture and certain allied lines of farm utensils. This practice had given him a loud voice and a deceptively hearty manner, to which the other avocation of cheese-buyer, which he pursued at the Board of Trade meetings every Monday afternoon, had added a considerable command of persuasive yet non-committal language. To look at him, still more to hear him, one would have sworn he was a good fellow, a trifle rough and noisy, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... decide at banquet or ball which presented the more imposing appearance, the man of war or he whose avocation was of a peaceful character, so nice ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith

... your lofty inspiration, And carry on the poet's avocation, Just as we carry on a love affair. Two meet by chance, are pleased, they linger there, Insensibly are link'd, they scarce know how; Fortune seems now propitious, adverse now, Then come alternate rapture and despair; And 'tis a true romance ere one's aware. Just such a drama let ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... their hats, and jewelled swords by their sides, fought bravely enough. When they found themselves in the presence of an enemy, they could ably superintend the working of the guns, which they looked upon as their principal avocation; or when boarders had to be repelled, or a boarding-party led, they were generally found fighting bravely at the head of their men. Since Charles the Second, however, made peace with the Dutch, the navy of England had seen no fighting except a few engagements ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston

... a big subject that must be treated broadly, for circumstances alter cases. There is a sane way to look at every problem, and the matter of living beyond our means is one of the major problems we have to face. If every man was alike and every avocation in life was on a parity, it would be possible to dispose of this subject in a paragraph. But men are not alike. What one could do successfully might easily baffle another. Therefore, it seems advisable to consider the subject by looking into ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks

... civilisation is to obliterate those distinctions which are the best salt of life. All the fine old professional flavour in language has evaporated. Your very gravedigger has forgotten his avocation in his electorship, and would quibble on the Franchise over Ophelia's grave, instead of more appropriately discussing the duration of bodies under ground. From this tendency, from this gradual attrition of life, in which everything pointed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... through a thing or two," his friend said, when Frederick confirmed the newspaper account of his having witnessed the sinking of the Roland. "I believe you're a married man and have children and are living in Germany, and as an avocation are doing scientific work, while practising medicine as a vocation. You were thinking of everything else in the world but a trip to America, which never had ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... pleasant for all four, the walk down the mountain road; and the pedestrians enjoyed the scenery all the more with intelligent guides to point out places of interest. The old schoolteacher, having questioned Wilkinson as to his avocation, looked upon him as a superior being, and gratified the little corner of good-natured vanity that lies in most teachers' hearts. Coristine told the wife that he trusted her daughters had good places, where they would receive the respect ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... heard. It has been indicated that he was quick-witted, because he had to be, in the very nature of his avocation. Just now his brain was working rather more rapidly than usual, even: which was one reason why the light had leaped into ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... skilled bureaucracy—a bureaucracy trained from early life to its special avocation—is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business. That art has not yet been condensed into precepts, but a great many experiments have been made, and ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... a wonderful advantage to a man, in every pursuit or avocation, to secure an adviser in a sensible woman. In woman there is at once a subtile delicacy of tact, and a plain soundness of judgment, which ire rarely combined to an equal degree in man. A woman, if she be really your friend, will have a sensitive regard for your character, honor, repute. ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... nothing about the barn, the cow-yard, the chicken-yard, and the haystacks to indicate that Captain Jabe was anything more than a thrifty small-farmer. But, farmer and sailor as he was, Captain Jabe was none the less a grocer, and I think to this avocation ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... Honeyman. "In entering one of these assemblies, one is struck with the immensity of London: and with the sense of one's own insignificance. Without, I trust, departing from my clerical character, nay, from my very avocation as incumbent of a London chapel,—I have seen a good deal of the world, and here is an assemblage no doubt of most respectable persons, on scarce one of whom I ever set eyes till this evening. Where does my good brother ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... orchard. I think it is more adapted to the city man. The ordinary farmer would neglect them, and I should hate to see a farmer get them, but I would like to do anything for the man living in the city with only a small plat of land—my vocation being in the city, my avocation ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... brilliant successes in purely mental vocations, as the result of the development of their intellects, and may keep themselves in a fair degree of health and strength by games, exercise, mountain climbing, farming, or some such avocation, they are, nevertheless, never quite so well satisfied as when they have something to do which not only gives them opportunity for the use of their intellects, but also involves a certain degree of physical activity as a part ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... the lower orders of the people, and the action of which is illustrated by disorders among them. But in Chaucer we find the true philosophy of English society, the principle of the guilds, or fraternities, to which his pilgrims belong—the character and avocation of the knight, squire, yeoman, franklin, bailiff, sompnour, reeve, etc., names, many of them, now obsolete. Who can find these in our compendiums? they must be dug—and dry work it is—out of profounder histories, ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... occupation," said Flint. "It's an avocation, and it isn't silly. Any one of us would enjoy it, if he weren't so self-conscious. And it's more picturesque than golf and takes more skill. And what courtesy! These men form what is really a club—a club in its primitive and ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... season of the year were running finely, the fishermen of the villages on each side of the river were eagerly engaged in securing their finny harvest, on which much of their winter food supply depended. As this was a mutual necessity, each party, by a tacit consent, was allowed to ply this peaceful avocation, for the most part, undisturbed by ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... ultimate aim of which was to ensure that every youth should, by the time that he had reached the age of manhood, twenty-five years, have undergone a course of training, which, without interfering with his civil avocation, would render him a desirable asset as a soldier. With this object in view I submitted ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... of his toil only brightened by one constant hope. It was a strange existence for the lad on the threshold of his young manhood, and many who knew something of his way of life wondered at the steady and dogged persistence with which he pursued his avocation. He appeared to have reached, while yet not much past his boyhood, the grave, passionless calm which comes to most men only after they have outlived the passion of their youth. He was regarded ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... their children. While they are communing on the things of God, a traveling tinker draws near, and, over-hearing their talk, takes up a position where he might listen to their converse while he pursued his avocation. Their words distil into his soul; they speak the language of Canaan; they talk of holy enjoyments, the result of being born again, acknowledging their miserable state by nature, and how freely and undeservedly God had visited ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... receives from such work as this. Her work brings her into contact with other people, broadens her interests, increases her usefulness, and, moreover, is often a recreation. The home-maker needs outside interests. The girl at home is never dull, or unhappy because she is dull, when she has an avocation in addition to her work and ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy

... stews or ponds. The angler sometimes stood or squatted upon the bank; at other times, not content with commanding the mere edge of the water, he plunged in, and is seen mid-stream, astride upon an inflated skin, quietly pursuing his avocation. [PLATE CXXVI., Fig. 1.] Occasionally he improved his position by amounting upon a raft, and, seated at the stern, with his back to the rower, threw out his line and drew the fish from the water. Now and then the fisherman was provided with a plaited basket, made ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... such a state of nerves—if I may use the expression, in such a state of funk—that every passer-by, however innocent, is looked at with suspicion by his neighbour if his avocation happens to take him abroad between the hours of one and ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... boys, will remember what I have said. I shall now tear down the insulting notice, and put it into your hands, Avonley, as head of the school, that you may make further inquiries." He left the room, and the boys resumed their usual avocation till twelve o'clock. But poor Eric could hardly get through his ordinary pursuits; he felt sick and giddy, until everybody noticed his strange embarrassed ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... of the so-called middle class, the very bone and sinew of the Republic; here I was monarch of all I surveyed, and untrammeled by the cramming regulations of the public schools, I pursued the delightful avocation of a true educator. E and duco is the etymology of the word, to lead out, to develop the latent energies of the mind. I had chemical and philosophical apparatus with which to perform experiments in illustrative teaching of the sciences, and all were ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... that Tuck was an old Yale man and that his avocation in life seemed to be tennis. The engineers had a good court in the woods and after Tuck found that Jim liked the game, he took the boy over to the court every afternoon before supper and beat him with monotonous regularity. And Jim ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... one Willis Hubbard, an automobile agent by profession, lady's man and general Lothario by avocation. His handsome dark face stood out clearly in the dusk. She could see the avid shine in his eyes. She hated him all of a sudden, though hitherto she had secretly rather admired him, though she had always steadily refused ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... tavern-porch. Four or five privates lay here fast asleep, and the bar-room was occupied by a bevy of young officers, who were emptying the contents of sundry pocket-flasks. Behind the bar sat a person with strongly-marked Hebrew features, and a watchmaker was plying his avocation in a corner. Two great dogs crouched under a bench, and some highly-colored portraits were nailed to the wall. The floor was bare, and some clothing and miscellaneous articles hung from beams ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... a mile from it I plunged out of the moonlight into the pitch darkness of a hollow lane cutting through Don Jaime's hacienda. Banana palms were growing thick to right and left; the way was narrow and deep—it was a fine place for cutthroats, but that avocation had lost much of its romantic charm from the fact that, not three weeks before, an actual cutthroating had taken place, a Chinese merchant having been boloed by tusilanes. Well, I was trotting through, my right hand somewhat close to my holster, when from the right, close, there came ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... cap and apron, and was sitting on the north porch, making an unbleached cotton shirt for Mr. Peter Hill, who always wore unbleached shirts at harvest-time. Mrs. Hill was a thrifty housewife. She had pursued this economical avocation for some little time, interrupting herself only at times to "shu!" away the flocks of half-grown chickens that came noisily about the door for the crumbs from the table-cloth, when the sudden shutting down of a great blue cotton umbrella ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... returns to Washington, where the wounded and sick have mainly been concentrated. The Capital city, truly, is now one huge hospital; and there Whitman establishes himself, and thenceforward, for several years, has but one daily and nightly avocation. ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... But a hectic disorder, that had threatened Mrs. Edgeworth's life while yet a child, now returned upon her with increased virulence; and the kind and beautiful mistress of Edgeworthstown was compelled to forego this and every other earthly avocation. Mr. Day expanded his little tale into the delightful story of "Sandford and Merton," a book that long stood second only to "Robinson Crusoe" in the youthful judgment of the great boy-world; and in later years, Maria Edgeworth included "Harry and Lucy" in her "Early Lessons." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... chiefly had to convey to him was the assurance of her sympathy. Of such assurances, however, he had already a voluminous collection, and it would not have been worth his while to forsake a fruitful avocation merely to hear Mrs. Penniman say, for the thousandth time, that she had made his cause her own. Morris had something of his own to say. It was not an easy thing to bring out, and while he turned it over the ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... against the grain; and when he encounters him in the ways of error, he leaps upon him joyously, scalps him in print before the eyes of men, kicks him gaily back into the paths of truth and soberness, and resumes his avocation with that peculiar zest an act of virtue does undoubtedly impart. Indeed, Mr. Whistler, so far from being the critic's enemy, is on the contrary the best friend that tradesman has ever had. For his function is to ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... parish of Durrisdeer, and county of Dumfries, on the 25th June 1812. At the age of sixteen, in February 1828, he arrived in London, and entered a house of business in the city. During the nine ensuing years, he assiduously pursued his avocation, and strove to make himself master of the elements and practice of trade. In 1837 he commenced on his own responsibility, and every succeeding year has advanced him in mercantile prosperity and position. Now, at the head of the firm of Bennoch, Twentyman, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... my pore worm?' says the black-coat gent, addressin' of Texas; 'an' whatever avocation has you ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... starving. Such a picture, if drawn by a foreigner, would arouse English indignation from shore to shore; but it is home-drawn. The only foreign delineation is in the author's Jehoiachin Settle, a stage Yankee, whose avocation is planting English children in Canada after the manner of Miss Rye. Settle is a preposterous failure, but every other limb of the writer's argument is strong ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... in the office of the Dutch consul, and an order, issued after some provocation, on May 15th, that if any woman should "insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and shall be held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation." This order provoked protests both in the North and the South, and also abroad, particularly in England and France, and it was doubtless the cause of his removal in December 1862. On the 1st of June he had executed one W.B. Mumford, who had ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... pulpit, in the medical profession, and especially in political life, tact is the sine qua non to the highest degree of individual success. However gifted one may be, he cannot win conspicuous laurels in any calling or avocation, if he be deficient in tactfulness. The man who best understands human nature, knows how to approach people, and possesses the art of leading them, is the one who will invariably have the largest following and will possess the greatest amount of influence ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... to which there had been none comparable in the world as it then existed; on all this the Moslem had now to turn his back, and to earn a precarious living by the strong hand. War, sanguinary and incessant, was henceforward to be his lot, and it must be said that he turned to this ancient avocation with a zest which left but little to be desired from the point of view of those by whom he was led. In the new life of bloodshed and adventure he seemed to delight. Like the free-lance in all ages, he seems to have squandered ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... obliged to give way to an indispensable avocation, I will make thee taste a little, in thy turn, of the plague of suspense; and break off, without giving thee the least hint of the issue of my further proceedings. I know, that those least bear disappointment, who love most to give it. In twenty instances, hast thou afforded me ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... the right of the citizen to be free in the enjoyment of all his faculties; to be free to use them in all lawful ways; to live and work where he will; to earn his livelihood by any lawful calling; to pursue any livelihood or avocation, and for that purpose to enter into all contracts which may be proper, necessary and essential to his carrying out to a successful conclusion the ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin



Words linked to "Avocation" :   hobby, interest, avocational, pastime, spare-time activity, pursuit, spelaeology, by-line



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