"Gymnastic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fearlessness. "At present," he had written, "he is influenced more by curiosity than by a care for truth, according to the character of the [83] young. Certainly, he differs strikingly from his equals in age, by his passion for a vigorous intellectual gymnastic, such as the supine character of their minds renders distasteful to most young men, but in which he shows a fearlessness that at times makes me fancy that his ultimate destination may be the military life; for indeed the rigidly logical tendency of his mind ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... importance is considered properly equipped unless the staff includes a gymnastic and games mistress. Several systems of gymnastics are practised in England, but the Swedish system is steadily proving its superiority; so much is this felt that a number of teachers who have previously taken a two years' course of training in some other system, are at the present time ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... 20. In the gymnastic exercises suppose that a man has torn thee with his nails, and by dashing against thy head has inflicted a wound. Well, we neither show any signs of vexation, nor are we offended, nor do we suspect him afterwards as a treacherous fellow; and yet we are on our guard against him, not however as ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... drawing-room mantelpiece as a means of attracting any visitors' custom to Larkin. Still she need not have spoken in that angry tone, and called her "ill-bred." "Ill-bred" was a very uncomfortable word to have suddenly thrust upon one. Pauline leapt up at the gymnastic bar, and swung and wriggled there to shake ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... days in which Pompey dedicated the theatre wherein we take pride even at the present time. In it he provided an entertainment consisting of music and gymnastic contests, and in the hippodrome a horse-race and the slaughter of many beasts of all kinds. Five hundred lions were used up in five days, and eighteen elephants fought against men in heavy armor. Some of these beasts were killed immediately and others much later. For some of them, ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... of Reff Ritter's story took some time, and he was asked several questions by Captain Putnam and Josiah Crabtree. He said that he had just been getting ready to take some gymnastic exercise when Jack and some of his chums had come in and begun to talk about his father, saying that they had ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... been designed on strictly scientific principles, and has been recognized by educators throughout the world as a most valuable and practical one. Stockholm has long maintained a Royal Gymnastic Institute, where it has been taught with ever increasing efficiency since 1813. The system has met with great popularity and has proved adaptable as a home-culture course. The object of this work is to enable any one to put into practise the principles on which sound ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... towns, at Allevard or Marestel, he was dragged from the mairie to the Grande Place, between rows of firemen, in noisy processions, whose accompanying brass instruments split his ears, under pink-striped tents, draped with tricolor flags, before interminable files of gymnastic societies, glee clubs, corporate bodies, associations, Friends of Peace, or Friends of War societies! Then wandering harangues; commonplace remarks, spun out; addresses, sprinkled with Latin by professors of rhetoric; declarations of political faith by eloquent municipal councillors, all delighted ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... breeches blown out by Fame, big as her cheeks, and a ten thousand of that sort would never think of retreating. Their spectral advance on quaking London through Kentish hopgardens, Sussex corn-fields, or by the pleasant hills of Surrey, after a gymnastic leap over the riband of salt water, haunted many pillows. And now those horrid shouts of the legions of Caesar, crying to the inheritor of an invading name to lead them against us, as the origin of his title had led the army of Gaul of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... all the acrobatics of the air, and would urge them on with the motto—'Stunt, or die.' Those who could not or would not learn to side-slip, to loop, to imitate a fall out of control, and to perform a dozen other gymnastic feats in the air had little prospect of a long flying career in France. But the first winter of the war was innocent of all these fighting manoeuvres. Group Captain J. G. Hearson, who made acquaintance with the Central Flying School at that time, has kindly contributed some notes ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... combinations the most completely foreign to its purpose. Dozens of chairs hooked on to washing-stands, which with difficulty poised themselves on the shoulders of sideboards, which in their turn stood upon the wrong side of dining-tables, gymnastic with their legs upward on the tops of other dining-tables, were among its most reasonable arrangements. A banquet array of dish-covers, wine-glasses, and decanters was generally to be seen, spread forth upon the bosom of a four-post bedstead, for the entertainment of such genial company as half-a-dozen ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... rhythmic grace. When the music was popular they accompanied it on their voices. After supper their heels grew lighter, and the laughter and gossip louder, but never beyond the bounds of decorum. A few Dutch dancers tried to introduce the more gymnastic methods in vogue in their own clubs, where the kangaroo is dancing master, but the sentiment of the floor was against them. Hannah danced little, a voluntary wallflower, for she looked radiant in tussore silk, and there was an air of refinement ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a series of gymnastic efforts, during which you have nearly begun your day out of bed on your head, you are successful. It is then requisite to pause and take breath. This cessation of energy affords an opportunity for the servant to appear with your hot water, without ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... was nearly driving him into a state of positive collision with his own master; in fact he was, like Tom at Almack's, putting the whole of the dancers into confusion, from his ignorance of the intricacies of the African dance, and his total inability to compete with his partner in her gymnastic evolutions. One of the most graceful movements, according to the opinion of the natives, consists in a particular part of the body, situated, as the metaphysicians would term it, a posteriori, coming into contact with a similar part of the body of the partner, with as much violence as ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... where will be the difference between them and the military, or what would they get by submitting to their government? and upon what principles would they do it, unless they should establish the wise practice of the Cretans? for they, allowing everything else to their slaves, forbid them only gymnastic exercises and the use of arms. And if they are not, but these should be in the same situation with respect to their property which they are in other cities, what sort of a community will there ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... the less prominent muscles! To guide the body in trapeze work, every well-trained acrobat knows he must have a quiet mind, a clear head, and obedient muscles. I recall a woman who stands high in gymnastic work, whose agility on the triple bars is excellent, but the nervous strain shown in the drawn lines of her face before she begins, leaves one who studies her carefully always in doubt as to whether she will not get confused before her difficult performance ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... vivid recollection is, however, of running down from the top of a rock some six hundred or eight hundred feet high, by a steep flight of steps, without stopping, or rather of the consequences of this imprudent gymnastic performance. I could scarcely move for ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... seeking divine influence, his mind was prepared to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit; and he had a deep conflict to pass through, which he confided to his mother, and which he seemed to think was the presage to suffering. In performing some gymnastic exercises he received a fall on the head, which after some time was followed by a paralytic affection of the whole body, so that he became entirely helpless, and his speech was taken away. It was only his tender mother who could ascertain his wants and administer to them, which she did with unceasing ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... presented more than five thousand books), a Working Men's Club and Newsroom, a Choral Society, supplied with an excellent library of music; a Recreation Club, provided with a bowling green; and a cricket ground, with quoits, and gymnastic apparatus, Mr. Akroyd has also allotted a large field to his workmen, dividing it into small gardens varying from a hundred to two hundred and forty square yards each. The small rent charged for each plot is distributed in prizes given at an annual ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... the "Sokol" Gymnastic Association, was imprisoned, but was again released owing to lack of proofs. A similar fate also met the Czech Social Democratic leader Dr. Soukup, who was for some time kept ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... you ought to give me a chance to get some,' and I thought to myself that I would pick up rocks that could be heaved. 'Oh no,' says he, with one of them smiles of his—'oh no; I just want to open our conference with a little gymnastic exhibition.' And so sayin', he rolled up his shirt-sleeves—he hadn't no coat on—and he picked up one of them rocks with both hands, and then he gave it a swing with one hand, like you swing a ten-pin ball, and he sent that rock about ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... tempted to "show off" a little when it comes to gymnastic exercises. Neale seized the rope and began to mount it, stiff-legged and "hand over hand." It was a feat that a professional acrobat would have found easy, but that very few ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... happens that I have thought more of exercise lately, and have taken regular evening walks, besides playing my old gymnastic tricks every day." ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... there may have been others that went under the ice. Professor Brice and Mr. Crews are going to make a thorough search." Crews was the gymnastic instructor. ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... with a convulsion of fear when he thought of any active exertion to avoid it, and shivered in all his long, thin limbs. Then he pulled out his Baedeker and began to write his will upon the flyleaf, but his hand twitched so that he was hardly legible. By some strange gymnastic of the legal mind a death, even by violence, if accepted quietly, had a place in the order of things, while a death which overtook one galloping frantically over a desert was wholly irregular and discomposing. It ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... never smiled; he never made a remark; he always gathered me tenderly up when I plunged off, and helped me on again without a word. When he had been teaching me twice a day for three weeks I introduced a new gymnastic—one that he had never seen before—and so at last a compliment was wrung from him, a thing which I had been risking my life for days to achieve. He gathered me up and said mournfully: "Mr. Clemens, you can fall off ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... say of their education? Were they not to be trained in gymnastic, and music, and all other sorts of knowledge which were ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... disadvantages: first, because of late hours and heated rooms; and secondly, because some of the current dances seem equally questionable to the mamma and the physiologist. But it is doubtful whether any possible gymnastic arrangement for a high-school would be on the whole so provocative of the wholesome exercise as a special hall for dancing, thoroughly ventilated, and provided with piano and spring-floor. The spontaneous festivals of every recess-time would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... and the elephant continued their gymnastic exercises on the lawn, while Maria turned her eyes without moving her head ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... perhaps, of a star broken up into thousands of pieces, of which the telescope has discovered eighty-two at present. Some of these asteroids are so small that they could be walked round in a single day by going at a gymnastic pace. ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... this foundation we go on to specific training of the charger—still working, of course, concurrently at the gymnastic side of his training also—to accustoming him to the curb, then by the end of February the remount ought easily to be ready to be ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... My gymnastic-performing imp vanished through the bars. In an incredibly short space of time he reappeared, clothed—but, alas! I cannot tell how the imp was clothed, except to say that Emily being a tall, woman and ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... GYMNASIUM.—Containing the most improved methods of applying Gymnastic, Callisthenic, Kinesipathic and Vocal Exercises to the Development of the Bodily Organs, the invigoration of their functions, the preservation of Health and the Cure of ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... "Shells of the Ocean," and other melodies of a lugubrious type, are the special favourites of the barrack-room. I remember once hearing a cockney recruit attempt "The Perfect Cure" with its accompanying gymnastic efforts; but he was I not appreciated, and indeed, I think broke down in the middle for want ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... ledge of stone from which a tattered rug still hung, I came upon two nails driven a few feet apart into a fissure of the rock. I had driven those nails myself long before for a certain gymnastic attachment much in vogue at the time, and on looking closer, I discovered hanging from them the rope-ends by which I was wont to pull myself about. So far there was nothing to rouse any but innocent reminiscences. But when I heard the dog's low moan and saw him leap ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... somewhat dingy entrance, cried out, "Keep clear of the dog!" and a few paces farther, "Take care, or the monkey will fly at you!" an incident recalling the old vagaries of the menagerie at Newstead. The biographer's reminiscences mainly dwell on his lordship's changing moods and tempers and gymnastic exercises, his terror of interviewing strangers, his imperfect appreciation of art, his preference of fish to flesh, his almost parsimonious economy in small matters, mingled with allusions to his domestic calamities, and frequent ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... the brain (haud rediturus) over one of the noblest—if it be not a treason to discriminate—of all the dead one has known who have died for England. Graciousness was in all his doings and in all the workings of his mind. The music and gymnastic whereof Plato wrote, that should attune the body to harmony with the mind, and harmonise all the elements of the mind in a perfect unison, had done their work upon him. He seemed—at any rate, to the eyes of those ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... inferiority keenly. Not only was Ernest an excellent shot, but at the end of a long day's sport he would come in apparently fresh and untired, while Harry, although bodily far the most powerful, would be completely done up; and at gymnastic exercises he could do with ease feats which Harry could at first not even attempt. In this respect, however, the English lad in three months' time was able to rival him. His disgust at finding himself ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... be sparring their nightly six rounds (in two batches of three rounds each). In another, Drummond, who was going up to Aldershot as a feather-weight, would be putting in a little practice with the instructor. On the apparatus, the members of the gymnastic six, including the two experts who were to carry the school colours to Aldershot in the spring, would be performing their usual marvels. It was worth dropping into the gymnasium of an evening. In no other place in the school were so many ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... outside. In ten minutes it seemed as if all the boys in San Francisco had gathered in that street. They formed a crowd round the door which almost stopped the traffic; and when the policeman shortly appeared he was rather disgusted to find that it was only a monkey performing gymnastic exercises on a door-knocker. Roughly ringing the bell, he ordered Donald to take in his monkey. Donald replied meekly that he was not responsible for the monkey, but the officer said he would be summoned for 'obstructing the thoroughfare and causing ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... who resided on shore ascended by a ladder to the gun-deck, which had been turned into a schoolroom; how six cadets occupied the space intended for each gun-carriage, where hammocks hung from hooks served them instead of beds; how the chapel was in a closet opened only on Sundays. He described the gymnastic feats in the rigging, the practice in gunnery, and many other things which, had they been well described, would have been interesting; but Fred was only a poor narrator. The conclusion the young ladies seemed to reach unanimously after hearing his descriptions, was ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... of our little promenade I was guilty of impatiently shaking off a sudden seizure of my arm in his big paw. If ever, in an hour, the Elsinore had been less gymnastic than at that moment, I had not noticed it. So I shook off the sustaining clutch, and the next moment the Elsinore had smashed down and buried a couple of hundred feet of her starboard rail beneath the sea, while I had shot down the deck and smashed myself ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... Fontes Aponi were warm springs near Padua. An altar, inscribed to Apollo Aponus, was found at Ribchester, and is now at St. John's College, Cambridge. (Wright, "Celt, Roman, and Saxon", p. 320.) (12) See Book I., 411, and following lines. (13) For the contempt here expressed for the Greek gymnastic schools, see also Tacitus, "Annals", 14, 21. It is well known that Nero instituted games called Neronia which were borrowed from the Greeks; and that many of the Roman citizens despised them as foreign and profligate. Merivale, chapter liii., cites this passage. (14) Thus paraphrased by ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... child who learns for the whole eight hours; if, in short, they will teach girls not merely to understand the Greek tongue, but to copy somewhat of the Greek physical training, of that "music and gymnastic" which helped to make the cleverest race of the old world the ablest race likewise: then they will earn the gratitude of the patriot and the physiologist, by doing their best to stay the downward tendencies of the physique, and therefore ultimately of ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... truly prefers, the student should have tried all that are possible; before he can choose and preserve a fitting key of words, he should long have practised the literary scales; and it is only after years of such gymnastic that he can sit down at last, legions of words swarming to his call, dozens of turns of phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice, and he himself knowing what he wants to do and (within the narrow limit of a man's ability) able to ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Split, whose nickname honored a gymnastic feat which no other Madigan, however athletic, could accomplish half so successfully ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... webs were of silk. I see now how much Benedict owes to Baruch. The Rabbinical gymnastic is no ill-training, though unmethodic. Maimonides de-anthropomorphises God, the Cabalah grapples, if confusedly, with the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... letter which has been preserved to us, he describes with much spirit and erudition this extraordinary ascent, before whose profound significance all the Alpine exploits of our time shrink into paltry gymnastic exercises. ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... and he is willing to swear to seventy times, without counting the occasional diversions made by the brute for the purpose of snatching at Mr. Lamb's pantaloons and hair. Just as Mr. Lamb had about made up his mind that the cat would conclude the gymnastic exercises by eating him, the animal dashed through the glass sash of the door into the shop, whisked two jars of licorice root and tooth-brushes off the counter, tore out the ipecac-bottle and four jugs of hair-dye, smashed a bottle of "Balm of Peru," alighted on the bonnet of a ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... word in explanation of that frank and innocent nudity which is so characteristic a trait of the best Greek art. The Greek admiration for the masculine body and the willingness to display it were closely bound up with the extraordinary importance in Greece of gymnastic exercises and contests and with the habits which these engendered. As early as the seventh century, if not earlier, the competitors in the foot- race at Olympia dispensed with the loin-cloth, which had previously been the sole covering worn. In other ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... like a heavy sheet of lead, but I stepped out boldly and made steady progress. The road got to be worse; I came among deep ruts and treacherous sloughs, and the fields on each side of the road were flooded. In some parts the road was a sand swamp, and the walk became converted into a gymnastic exercise; a leaping about towards what seemed the hard and knobby places that appeared among the mud. This exercise soon made me conscious of the knapsack, to which I was then not thoroughly accustomed. It was not so much the weight that I ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... there is no chance for this, there can always be physical culture, an opportunity to build one's self up in health, to live sanely and wisely, to get plenty of sleep, and to take corrective exercise. In physical culture a girl should find out what she most needs—almost any gymnastic instructor in school or college would be glad to outline work—and then in ten or fifteen minute exercises develop herself along ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... new building, contains the Wilder Mineralogical Cabinet and the college archives. A new dormitory has been erected by the liberality of the late Ex-Governor Morgan, of New York, and during the present year a spacious building of stone has been erected for gymnastic purposes. As new buildings have been constructed, old ones have been rearranged and better adapted for the various uses of the college, and so it has been provided with the means of enlarging and improving its work, and it is believed that few, if any, of our colleges are better ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... his mate was badly wounded in spite of this achievement, the observer swung one leg over the side of the fusillage and climbed on to the wing—figure for a minute the air pressure on his body during this gymnastic feat—until he was beside the pilot, faint and drenched with blood, who had nevertheless got his machine back ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... next two days passed slowly. The boys went fishing and swimming, and they also did some shooting at a target which they set up behind the barn, and whiled away some time at boxing and in gymnastic exercises. Dick also spent an hour in penning a long letter to Dora Stanhope, who, as my old readers are well aware, was his dearest girl friend. Dora and her mother lived not far from Putnam Hall, and Dick and his brothers ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... raised to the highest offices in the State. Philosophy, however, did not so much absorb his affections, but that he found time to cultivate the fine arts, (painting he both studied and practised,) and such gymnastic exercises as he held consistent with his public dignity. Wrestling, hunting, fowling, playing at cricket (pila), he admired and patronized by personal participation. He tried his powers even as a runner. But with these tasks, and entering ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... queer and dull. One girl was very handsome, but cold and uninteresting; one who sang was also very pretty and engaging, and a dear little thing. But the dancing was contortions, more or less graceful, very wonderful as gymnastic feats, and no more. But the captain called out to one Latifeh, an ugly, clumsy-looking wench, to show the Sitt what she could do. And then it was revealed to me. The ugly girl started on her feet and became the 'serpent of old Nile,'—the head, shoulders and arms eagerly bent forward, ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... Gymnastic exercises were not thought of; and, except cricket, they had no manly games to strengthen their muscles and improve their forms. There was a dancing-master; but as he had the art of making a toil of a pleasure, few of the boys learned. A drill-sergeant came once a week, but ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... woods all gray, Whom I meet on my walk of a winter day, You're busy inspecting each cranny and hole In the ragged bark of yon hickory bole; You intent on your task, and I on the law Of your wonderful head and gymnastic claw! ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... their curiosity, had entirely disarmed my suspicions, and I as gladly showed them what I could do as I watched to see their habits. The whole afternoon was passed in exhibiting to these strange beings all of the various gaits and modes of motion and gymnastic exercises which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... Court-house yard. Squire Buckalew (sidelong at the others but squarely at Eskew) had volunteered the information that Cory was a reformed priest. Stung by the mystery of Eskew's silence, the Squire's imagination had become magically gymnastic; and if anything under heaven could have lifted the veil, this was the thing. Mr. Arp's reply may ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... numbers. This was especially true of the Cameronians, who were ever ready to give a reason for the faith that was in them. The Episcopalians lacked the Westminster Catechisms as a means of intellectual gymnastic. So far, therefore, they were handicapped, and indeed reduced to the mere persistent assertion that they, and they alone, were the apostolic Church, and if any out of their communion were saved, it must only be by the uncovenanted ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... at the other end of the island, on the banks of the Harlem River, there stands the old warehouse which modern progress has converted into the Highfield Athletic and Gymnastic Club. The imagination, stimulated by the title, conjures up a sort of National Sporting Club, with pictures on the walls, padding on the chairs, and a sea of white shirt-fronts from roof to floor. But the Highfield differs in some respects from this fancy picture. ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... (from Pahlau) a brave, a warrior, an athlete, applied in India to a champion in any gymnastic exercise, especially in wrestling. The Frenchman calls him "Balavan"; and the Bresl. text in more than one place ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... State which is constructed by Socrates. The first care of the rulers is to be education, of which an outline is drawn after the old Hellenic model, providing only for an improved religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gymnastic, a manlier strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the individual and the State. We are thus led on to the conception of a higher State, in which 'no man calls anything his own,' and in which there is neither 'marrying nor giving in marriage,' and 'kings ...
— The Republic • Plato
... black caps—and with their flags flying, drums beating, and band playing, they march to the parade-ground, where they give a fine exhibition drill. After the parade they are trained in various difficult and skillful gymnastic exercises. ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the various domestic utensils which he employed in his daily training—an old armchair; a broom; a large gilt portrait frame through which he would leap twenty-five times every morning; a marble clock; a pair of water buckets; an old trunk lid, and other articles of the kind. Close beside his gymnastic apparatus we keep three trunkfuls of note-books and reports representing as many years devoted labour at his studies. At the age of twenty-six my father was a veritable Hercules and held the position of ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... Once or twice I have wrestled with it, and for a time felt its chilling touch on my life; so I speak with knowledge when I say that evil is of no consequence, except as a sort of mental gymnastic. For the very reason that I have come in contact with it, I am more truly an optimist. I can say with conviction that the struggle which evil necessitates is one of the greatest blessings. It makes us strong, patient, helpful men and women. It lets ...
— Optimism - An Essay • Helen Keller
... been sadly punished in the melee; and between temper and dread he was hardly controllable, and bearing hard against the curb in a wild desire to rush off. In fact, I fully expected at any moment to be shaken from my grasp, as, oddly enough, even in that time of peril, I recalled the gymnastic sport of giant strides of my schooldays, and held on; but I was certain we were now too late, and that it was only a matter of moments before we should be overtaken and cut down or taken prisoners by a strong party of the Boers ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... weak hands and arms I recommend simple gymnastic exercises to be done morning and evening. Physical strength is a very necessary essential for a brilliant technic; the student who would accomplish big things must possess it ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... that where those exercises called gymnastic are in esteem, those who enter the lists never concern themselves about dangers: that where the praise of riding and hunting is highly esteemed, they who practise these arts decline no pain. What shall I say of our ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... with his big limbs and his blue eyes. Loerke would go toboganning or skating, in little snatches, but he was indifferent. And his fine, thin nostrils, the nostrils of a pure-bred street arab, would quiver with contempt at Leitner's splothering gymnastic displays. It was evident that the two men who had travelled and lived together, sharing the same bedroom, had now reached the stage of loathing. Leitner hated Loerke with an injured, writhing, impotent hatred, and Loerke treated Leitner with a fine-quivering ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... the temper of the people who rushed into the war with the confidence of a schoolboy and who limped out like a man overtaken in his gymnastic exercise by a paralytic stroke. The war taught the South a very useful lesson, but did not sufficiently convince it that it was preeminently a supercilious, arrogant people, who did not and do not possess all the virtue, intelligence, ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... to the care of their health and happiness. The public games, such as the Greek ambassador might politely applaud, exhibited a faint and feeble copy of the magnificence of the Caesars: yet the musical, the gymnastic, and the pantomime arts, had not totally sunk in oblivion; the wild beasts of Africa still exercised in the amphitheatre the courage and dexterity of the hunters; and the indulgent Goth either patiently tolerated or gently restrained ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... began preparing ourselves for the contest. Although habitually in good physical condition, we undertook special training for the big event. By running, the use of dumbbells and other gymnastic practices, we strengthened our muscles and increased our endurance. Our field shooting was also directed toward rapid delivery and the quick judgment of distances on level, uphill, and falling ground. In fact, we planned to leave no factor ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... flash of athletic vigor, the music quickens, the arms move more rapidly to the click of the heated castenets, the steps are more pronounced, the whole woman is agitated, bounding, pulsing with physical excitement. It is a Maenad in an access of gymnastic energy. Yes, it is gymnastics; it is not grace; it is scarcely alluring. Yet it is a physical triumph. While the spectators are breathless, the fury ceases, the music dies, and the Spaniard sinks into a chair, panting with triumph, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Outdoor Girls and their boy chums were too active to remain quiet long, even after plum pudding. Allen was the first to become restless, and the others soon caught it from him. He rose, went through some gymnastic exercises, then looked about him curiously. "I wonder if there are any more places like this hereabout?" he said. "Does anybody want to take a little tramp and find out? You look about as energetic as a bunch of turtles. Come on, let's ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... left. The Commandant was an old pupil of the Polytechnic, and had always had a taste for music: but what he loved most of all in it was the mathematical problem: it seemed to him—(as up to a point it is)—a magnificent mental gymnastic: and he racked his brains in the invention and solution of puzzles in the construction of music, each more useless and extravagant than the last. Of course, his military career had not left him much time for the development of his mania: but since his retirement he had thrown ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... of mental discipline. Accordingly, when the titles of the professorships were under discussion, it seemed right not to take my designation from the classes I instruct in history and philosophy, but from the general gymnastic development of the female members of the college, which it is likewise my duty to oversee. I know, of course, that the prejudices of the public would hold me in greater esteem as a teacher of some ancient lore than in the capacity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... impossible cures. One man wants to be made clever, another to be made fat, another to be cured of insanity, another of tobacco, another of whisky, another of hunger, another of tea; another wants to be made strong, so as to conquer in gymnastic exercises; most men want medicine to make their beards grow; while almost every man, woman, and child wants to have his or her skin made as white as ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... continuous brake, operated by exhausting the air from some appliance under each car, and so causing the pressure of the atmosphere to apply the brakes. 2. Nos. 4, 5, 13 and 17, Vol. IV are out of print. 3. After indulging in gymnastic exercises, it is said that the hands can be kept in good condition by rubbing ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... teachers and all the students belong. It is a kind of co-operative society for the "purchase and distribution of daily necessities," but one of its objects is "the maintenance of public morality." Then there is the students' association which has literary and gymnastic sides, the one side "to refine wisdom and virtue," the other "for the rousing of spirit." Mention may also be made of a "discipline calendar" of fixed memorial days and ceremonies "that all the students should observe": the ceremony of reading the Imperial Rescript ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... additional advantages of safety and elegance, and with far greater pleasure to the spectator? The vigorous movements of the pantomime—turn and twist, bend and spring— afford at once a gratifying spectacle to the beholder and a wholesome training to the performer; I maintain that no gymnastic exercise is its equal for beauty and for the uniform development of the physical powers, —of agility, suppleness, and ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... subsequently proceeding to the university of Bonn. There Prince Albert devoted himself especially to natural science, political economy and philosophy, having for teachers such men as Fichte, Schlegel and Perthes; he diligently cultivated music and painting, and excelled in gymnastic exercises, especially in fencing. The idea of a marriage between him and his cousin Victoria had always been cherished by their uncle, King Leopold I. of Belgium, and in May 1836 the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and his two sons paid a visit to Kensington ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... their time, in spirit and in thought. Ling's realism went so far that his Northern gods and warriors, "everlastingly killed but to revive again," were deemed "pork-eating and mead-drinking yokels." They were soon forgotten, and Ling himself is best known as the inventor of gymnastic exercises on scientific principles, an art now practiced all the world over as "Swedish gymnastics." Geijer, whose Viking gave a pure and true picture of Viking life seen in its own light, was himself ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... had seen—not with Miss Lavinia's permission—set Andy fairly wild, and later astonished his playmates with prodigious feats of walking on a barrel, somersaulting, vaulting with a pole, and numerous other amateur gymnastic attainments. ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... house to country house. In the British Museum, verifying references for literary gents, if they can get references to verify. Asking leave to describe their friends' parties in The Leidy's News. Trying for places as golfing governesses, or bridge governesses, or gymnastic mistresses at girls' schools, or lady laundresses, or typewriters, or lady teachers of cookery, or pegs to hang costumes on at dress-makers'. The most beautiful girl I ever saw was doing that once; I met her when I was shopping with my aunt who left ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... A pair of pantaloons, that, when sustained by a single suspender, completely equipped him, formed his every-day suit. How, with this lavish superfluity of clothing, he managed to perform the surprising gymnastic feats it has been my privilege to witness, I have never been able to tell. His "turning the crab," and other minor dislocations, were always attended with success. It was not an unusual sight at any hour of the day to find Melons suspended ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... joys, and ensure the harmonious development of all our powers, have we not been forgetting that hand and foot may cause us to stumble, and that we had better live maimed than die with all our limbs? There is a true asceticism, a discipline—a 'gymnastic unto godliness,' as Paul calls it. And if our faith is to grow high and bear rich clusters on the topmost boughs that look up to the sky, we must keep the wild lower shoots close nipped. Without rigid self-control and self-limitation, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... dancing-women appeared, but five men dressed in shirt and trousers, danced together with spirit and grace. The music was provided by a drum, made out of an old tin box. Many of the steps reminded me of a Highland reel, but were curiously mixed up with calisthenic, and even gymnastic exercises; the hands in particular were used very gracefully, and they often took off their hats and waved them to and fro. But they also climbed on each other's shoulders, and did other strange things. After dancing for some time, they sang songs to us in a curious, low, weird ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... Meanwhile the gymnastic exercise continued with unabated vigor. There was not an instant's pause. The mountain lion was busier perhaps than it ever had been in its life. It was battling for its life, too, and it ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... she with her little hand Lashed and reined in the rapid steed she raced, Tossed the huge javelin, wrestled on the sand, And by gymnastic toils her sinews braced; Then through the devious wood and mountain-waste Tracked the struck lion to his entered den, Or in fierce wars a nobler quarry chased; And thus in fighting field and forest glen, A man to savage beasts, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... would be put out of joint. I became interested. How, I wondered, do I put on my jacket? I rose, took it off, found that my right arm slipped automatically into its sleeve, tried the reverse process, discovered that it was as difficult as an unfamiliar gymnastic operation. Why, said I, I am a mere bundle of little habits of which I am unconscious. This thing must be looked into. And then came into my mind that fascinating book of Samuel Butler's on Life and Habit. Yes, certainly, here ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... piled in one corner: and in the midst of countless hillocks of gymnasium shoes and sweaters and singlets in untidy brown parcels there stood the stout leather-jacketed vaulting horse waiting its turn to be carried up on the stage and set in the middle of the winning team at the end of the gymnastic display. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... the muscles of the body, if those of the chest are not brought into strong action in expelling or compressing the air within the lungs, does not lead to the contraction of the muscles round the eyes. I have observed my sons using great force in gymnastic exercises, as in repeatedly raising their suspended bodies by their arms alone, and in lifting heavy weights from the ground, but there was hardly any trace of contraction in the muscles round ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... Wooden gymnastic wands are used, half as many as there are players. Draw a line across the room or grass; divide the players into two divisions, one on each side of the line, each player facing his opponent. These ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... juice of the tobacco plant. In one corner Field had a cupboard-shaped pigeon-file, alphabetically arranged, for the clippings he daily made—almost all relating some bit of personal gossip about people in the public eye. Scattered about the floor were dumb-bells, Indian clubs, and other gymnastic apparatus which Field never touched and which the janitor had orders not to disturb in their disorder. Above Field's desk for some time hung a sheet of tin, which he used as a call bell or to drown the ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... forget the sensations I experienced in making the passage of the huaro. I had felt giddy enough in going over the 'soga' bridges and 'barbacoas' common throughout Peru, but the passage of the huaro is really a gymnastic feat of no easy accomplishment. I was first tied, back downwards, with my back resting in the concavity of the bent wood; my legs were then crossed over the main rope—the bridge itself—with nothing to hold them there farther than my own muscular exertion. With my hands I clutched ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... every means were disciplined for a soldier's life. The Spartan men likewise fed at public tables, and slept in barracks, only making occasional visits to their own houses. No money was in circulation except iron: no one was permitted to possess gold or silver. Girls were separately drilled in gymnastic exercises and made to be as hardy as boys. Marriage was regulated by the State. There was more purity, and women had a higher standing, in Sparta than in other parts of Greece. The strength of the Spartan ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... drove her cook to distraction with divers dieting systems, from Banting's and Dr. Salisbury's to the latest exhortations of some unknown newspaper prophet. She bought elaborate gymnastic appliances, and swung dumb-bells and rode imaginary horses and propelled imaginary boats. She ran races with a professional trainer, and she studied the principles of Delsarte, and solemnly whirled on one foot and swayed ...
— Different Girls • Various
... The necessary gymnastic in all these three cases is free action. The constant and interesting movement of others is the best of incitements to the abulic; motion directed into the channel of orderly exercise develops the inhibitory powers of the too impulsive ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... physical training should be such that the men look forward to it with pleasure, not with dread, for the mind exerts more influence over the human body than all the gymnastic paraphernalia ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... audacity which belong peculiarly to the youth of a metropolis. He was now about twenty years old, short in stature, but remarkably strong made, eminent for his feats upon holidays at foot-ball, and other gymnastic exercises; scarce rivalled in the broad-sword play, though hitherto only exercised in the form of single-stick. He knew every lane, blind alley, and sequestered court of the ward, better than his catechism; was alike active ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the Promotion and Preservation of Health, with Illustrated Prescriptions of Swedish Gymnastic Exercises for Home and Club Practice. ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... rations. To increase the amount and variety they were allowed to steal. But they were careful not to be detected, lest they should be severely punished. Likely this was a device for training them to stealthy and cautious movements. After the time of their maturity they continued gymnastic culture. They hunted the goats, boars, stags, and bears on the rugged heights of the Taygetus range. There was no system of liberal education; mental growth and development were not sought as ends. They were ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... conduces to utility where the happiness and health of children are concerned, Martial science has yet to learn. The grounds contained no flowers and but few trees; the latter ruined in point of form and natural grace to render them convenient supports for gymnastic apparatus. A number of the younger girls, unveiled, but dressed in a dark plain garment reaching from the throat to the knees, with trousers giving free play to the limbs, were exercising on the different swings and bars, flinging the light weights and balls, or handling the substitutes ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... members of this family are born with certain predispositions—latent ancestral memories, we may say, of the occupations of previous generations. To make these effective, it is necessary only to awaken them, and this may be done simply by the sight of other persons performing gymnastic feats. These they learn in weeks, where others, without such ancestral memories, ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... himself in a corner and prepared to refresh himself with a pipe of bang in the most natural and civilised fashion imaginable; and young Obo—for so Yohama called him—entered upon a series of gymnastic exercises with his father—for such Kambira was— which partook of the playfulness of the kitten, mingled with the eccentricity and mischief ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... band, playing tom-tomic strains—the lyric style of dinner-gong music that tears holes in the air. The leader was an imitator of Sousa and had his gymnastic eccentricities down to a fine point. He executed a fantasia on his horn of plenty that brought a shower of silver on the stage. We were told that the members of the orchestra were called the "Flowers of Music from Stamboul," and were working their passage to the "halls" of the European capitals. ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... the friendly jousts of neighbors on the common play-ground of the neighborhood, with the dances under the walnut-trees of sunny Provence. The game is an invigorating one, and even those who do not know it are pleased with its animation. We have hitherto neglected that gymnastic culture which made the Greeks the graceful people they were, and which contributed to the cultivation ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... fields by day, except in winter, I even paid the expense of the light. Now, if not on that site, certainly on thousands of others, in schools springing from such beginnings, the community provides not only chalk and electric light, but pencils, paper, books, lenses, compasses, lathes, libraries, gymnastic apparatus, pianos, and even food, if not free, at any rate at cost, in addition to trained teachers, trained in public normal schools, and janitors, and automatic ventilators to insure pure air, and thermostats to preserve an even temperature. ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... to act like young gentlemen and not like brutes, Garrison," returned the gymnastic instructor warmly. "However, if you wish to place Brown among the substitutes, I will not oppose you. His weight might help you to win some game if it was running very close and some of your best players dropped out." ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... ancient states of Greece, foreign trade was prohibited altogether; and in several others, the employments of artificers and manufacturers were considered as hurtful to the strength and agility of the human body, as rendering it incapable of those habits which their military and gymnastic exercises endeavoured to form in it, and as thereby disqualifying it, more or less, for undergoing the fatigues and encountering the dangers of war. Such occupations were considered as fit only for slaves, and the free citizens of the states were prohibited from exercising them. Even in those ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... was far from an admirable accountant at his best; but this day he was what he termed "the limit." Totals fled him like birds, with a whir of wings. A sun-gleam hypnotized him once, for he did not know how long; and his nose, a little later, followed for several gymnastic minutes the flutter of ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... of the mountains is not thus transient or fugitive; on the contrary, it stops us at every step, and imposes upon us the necessity of a very hard, though wholesome gymnastic. Contemplation here has to be bought at the price of the most violent action. Nevertheless, the opacity of the earth, like the transparency of the air, frequently deceives and bewilders us. Who can forget that for ten years, Ramon, in vain, sought ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... ever in my delight. She began to menstruate at 12, was regular till 17; then got chlorotic for a few months, soon recovered, though menstruation was often irregular, but never painful. Sexual experience began at 25. I have often wondered if a moderate self-gymnastic of the faculty, in Venturi's sense, would not have educated her genital sphere, and made her a still better comrade—excluded the periods of irregularity and frigidity. The stage of latency was too protracted. We often noticed that, when menstruation was due or nearly so, prolonged love-sports ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... girl of thirteen could hold her own with many of a larger growth. Did she go to school to-day? asked I. No, was the answer, she has not been for some time, as she was beginning to get quite a serious curvature of the spine, so now she goes regularly to a gymnastic doctor. I almost feel ashamed to criticize such noble institutions as the schools of New York; but truth compels me to do this. Hitherto, nothing whatever has been done to train the bodies of the tens of thousands who are educated there. All that is done is excellent, ...
— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop
... convent; it had a yellow portal with a Latin inscription which sang the gymnastic glories of Saint Pascual Bailon. Above the inscription there was a picture, in which a monk, no doubt Bailon, was dancing among ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... not the whole of this remarkable church. It has not yet adopted Mrs. Stowe's suggestion of providing billiard-rooms, bowling-alleys, and gymnastic apparatus for the development of Christian muscle, though these may come in time. The building at present contains eleven apartments, among which are two large parlors, wherein, twice a month, there is a social ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... flat-topped height called Letna; it is, as it were, an eastward prolongation of the Castle Hill. Here is a large recreation ground for the use of such bodies as Sokol societies. In the arena, before a large and appreciative but critical public, the Socialist Sokols gave their display of gymnastic exercises on the occasion I have in mind. It was a stirring sight: ten to twenty thousand young men and maidens went through their graceful movements in perfect unison to the strains of their national music. It must be borne in mind that those exercises have not only ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... goad, and Tiha stumbled and wabbled in gymnastic efforts to make speed. Since, when the farther beach had been reached, the positions would be reversed and Wiwau would carry the stones back while Tiha prodded, and since Wiwau knew that for what she gave Tiha ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... late sir Richard Hill, have failed in all their attempts to tie up the hands of the people from their old sports. They have declaimed in parliament, and they have declaimed in print, against all the gymnastic exercises which time immemorial have been the pride and the pastime of the hardy natives of the British islands. Never did Robespierre weep such unfeigned tears over "sweet bleeding humanity," as those good souls have shed over the broken heads, and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... that this must have been the great secret of the perfection to which the Greek and Roman sculptors brought their works; as they constantly contemplated the display of the human form in all its beauty in their various gymnastic exercises, which enabled them to transfer to marble such ease and elegance as we, living in an age of coats and breeches, never ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... shoulders, an odd sort of cap on his head, a strangely twisted staff in his hand and a short and very crooked sword hanging by his side. He was exceedingly light and active in his figure, like a person much accustomed to gymnastic exercises and well able to leap or run. Above all, the stranger had such a cheerful, knowing and helpful aspect (though it was certainly a little mischievous, into the bargain) that Perseus could not help feeling his ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... of our trio were performing gymnastic feats during these awfully silent minutes of waiting, is to say little. All the repressed motion of their bodies seemed concentrated in these organs, which raced, leaped, stopped short, and pounded, vibrating to such ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... fought and its victories won. And there is, no doubt, a great deal of truth in this theory. The acquisitions of the class-room will all be found useful in future, and your only regret will be that they have not been more extensive and thorough. The gymnastic of study is suppling faculties which will be indispensable hereafter. Yet there is room amidst your studies, and without the slightest disparagement to them, for a message more directly from life, to hint to you, that more may be needed in the career to which you are ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... down the centre of the car, was that miserable little monkey, Matches, making a fool of herself and everybody else. Who but that little imp of mischief would have done such a thing as to get up in the middle of the night and go through a lot of gymnastic exercises on the bell-rope? It was her swinging and jerking on the rope that rang the bell and brought the engine to that ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... north and south; Prussia hounded Jahn for five long years, this Jahn whose gymnastic societies had been so helpful in hardening young men to Prussian army services; and the poet Arndt, whose impassioned verse intensified the National spirit of Germany, was shamefully treated, his papers scattered and the ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... already. In Egypt the girls as well as the boys are kept to such gymnastic exercises. My limbs were trained to flexibility by running, postures, and games ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... weather permitted, excursions of several miles were made through the beautiful scenery of the surrounding country. In summer the children went frequently to bathe in the lake, the borders of which offered, in winter, fine opportunities for skating. In bad weather they resorted to gymnastic exercises in a large hall expressly fitted up for that purpose. This constant attention to regular bodily exercise, together with the excellent climate of Yverdon, and the simplicity of their mode of living, proved ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... Every child after birth was exhibited to public view, and, if deemed deformed and weakly, was exposed to perish on Mount Taygetus. At the age of seven he was taken from his mother's care, and handed over to the public classes. He was not only taught gymnastic games and military exercises but he was also subjected to severe bodily discipline, and was compelled to submit to hardships and suffering without repining or complaint. One of the tests to which he was subjected was a cruel scourging ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... but he must have seen (for he had much intelligence) that his case was a bad one; and this reflection no doubt had something to do with the final act by which (in the old Roman way) he fell upon his own assegai and dropped backwards—an admirable gymnastic—off one of the high ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... Krisiloff School. Her sturdy little legs were trained at the practice bar. Her baby arms curved obediently above her head or in fixed relation to the curve of her body in the dance. She understood and carried into effect the French technical terms. It was called gymnastic and interpretive dancing. There was about it none of the spontaneity with which a child unconsciously endows impromptu dance steps. But it was graceful and lovely. Hannah thought Joan a second Pavlowa; took vast delight in watching her. Taking Joan and Peter to these dancing classes ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... said to be a disgrace to murder guests in Greece, and in Iphigenia amongst the Taurians the same doctrine is stated when Greeks are to be the victims of the contrary rule. "Barbarian" was a cultural category. To be Greek was to have city life with market place, gymnastic training, and a share in the games.[1645] These were arbitrary marks of superiority such as the members of an esoteric corporation always love, but the time came when the Greek history contained so many shameful things that the Greeks ceased to talk of the contrast with barbarians. It ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... muscles of the back, the suspended insect raises itself and fixes the talons of the anterior limbs in the empty skin above it. Never did acrobat, hanging by the toes to the bar of a trapeze, raise himself with so stupendous a display of strength in the loins. This gymnastic feat accomplished, the ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... farming that I do not find it easy to keep up our talk without reaching matters where they cannot follow me, and since the novelty of my photographs has passed off I have some difficulty in giving them the entertainment they seem to expect from my company. To-day I showed them some simple gymnastic feats and conjurer's tricks, which gave ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... of the human race. If a wife is only half of the scissors, as Franklin suggests, she is often the half with the point. But feminine ability is not of the ruling kind. You dance, for instance, better than men, if the gymnastic capers of acrobats and tumblers can be called dancing at all; but you cannot wield a sledge-hammer as vigorously, and your excellent performances, numerous in literature, rarer in art, and still more rare in science, seem ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... all, and it was with a feeling of joy that she felt the animals come to a halt, saw the black one, upon a word of command, get docilely to its knees, heard Howesha grumbling fiercely to the moon as she went through the same gymnastic performance, and felt her own rocking and pitching until it came to the ground. Whereupon she dismounted lightly, and reeled against the man as the entire desert, herself and camels included, turned a complete somersault, after ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... but have you ever tried that particular form of gymnastic exercise? Directly I begin to get out of the car, she will topple over, and I wouldn't for the world give you the trouble of collecting my fragments at ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... Nero, likewise, occupied with a new palace the south-east corner of the hill, overlooking the valley, where the Coliseum was afterward built. Domitian rebuilt the "domus Augustana," injured by fire, adding to its accommodations a stadium for gymnastic sports. The same emperor raised an altogether new palace, in the space between the house of Augustus, on one side, and those of Caligula and Tiberius on the other. Septimius Severus and his son restored the whole ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... view; and the contrast between them is remarkable. In the one case nearly the whole of a large garden is turned into an open, gravelled space, affording ample scope for games, and supplied with poles and horizontal bars for gymnastic exercises. Every day before breakfast, again towards eleven o'clock, again at mid-day, again in the afternoon, and once more after school is over, the neighbourhood is awakened by a chorus of shouts and laughter as the boys rush out to play; and for as long as they remain, ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... and Dick should run races across the common on their way towards the south parade, in which gymnastic display Miss Nellie and Rover both joined, for company sake as well as to set a good example; the big black retriever going over more ground than either of the competitors ere they reached 'The Moorings,' as Mrs Gilmour's house ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... to his lawful home was celebrated by a feast in which, by a confusion of circumstances, the book played the part of the fatted calf, being read afresh from beginning to end. During his earlier and more agile years the Rabbi used to reach the higher levels of his study by wonderful gymnastic feats, but after two falls—one with three Ante-Nicene fathers in close pursuit—he determined to call in assistance. This he did after an impressive fashion. When he attended the roup at Pitfoodles—a ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... some offence, and the designer hastened to soothe the displeasure which he had thoughtlessly excited. Stephanos, known by the surname of Castor, who was highly distinguished for gymnastic exercises, was a sort of patron to the little artist, and not unlikely by his own reputation to bring the talents of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... being taken and carefully trained apart for their high office. This training will be administered to the three component parts of the soul, the rational, the spirited and the appetitive, while the educational curriculum will be divided into two sections, Gymnastic for the body and Artistic for the mind—the latter including all scientific, mathematical and literary subjects. After a careful search, in this ideal state Justice, the principle of harmony which keeps all classes of the ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... cases gain cleanly habits, and get entirely rid of that repulsive appearance which an idiot left to himself is almost sure at last to acquire. Active exercises are what they resort to in the first instance; they have a large school-room fitted up with ladders and gymnastic apparatus of all kinds. We saw little boys, who shortly before were scarcely able to stand alone, climbing places which made me tremble for their safety, but it was curious to observe with what ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... and trusted ambassador of all the gods, and conductor of shades to Hades. He presided over the rearing and education of {118} the young, and encouraged gymnastic exercises and athletic pursuits, for which reason, all gymnasiums and wrestling schools throughout Greece were adorned with his statues. He is said to have invented the alphabet, and to have taught the art of interpreting foreign languages, and his versatility, sagacity, and cunning were ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... of Athens, and commemorated also the union of the old Attic towns under one government. There were two, the greater held every fourth year, the lesser annually. They were celebrated with sacrifices, races, gymnastic and musical contests, and various other amusements and solemnities, among which was the carrying the pictured robe of Pallas to her temple. The Dionysia, or festival of Bacchus, will be spoken of more fully ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... less serious affairs held the rooms; an eminent actor was pleased to parody another eminent actor who was also present. This led to a scene in which each caricatured the other, and a French poet did gymnastic feats on the floor and upset a tray of soda-water, and a German conductor fluffed out his hair and died like Marguerite. And when in the earlier hours of the morning part of the guests had gone away, and part were broiling ham in the kitchen, Sylvia sang again, ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... children to themselves. The occupations pursued in the Kindergarten are the following: free play of a child by itself; free play of several children by themselves; associated play under the guidance of a teacher; gymnastic exercises; several sorts of handiwork suited to little children; going for walks; learning music, both instrumental and vocal; learning the repetition of poetry; story-telling; looking at really good pictures; ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... of culture. His features were high and refined, and, without being handsome, irresistibly attractive. He turned out to be a delightful playmate for the children, and astonished them and the rest of the company by surprising gymnastic feats in the rigging. The speech of these two Britishers gave the untravelled American a new appreciation of the beauty and significance of the English language. Not all Englishmen speak good English, but when ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... For you may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is due to the great and subtle power of Love; but those who, having their affections set upon him, are yet diverted into the paths of money-making or gymnastic philosophy are not called lovers—the name of the genus is reserved for those whose devotion takes one form only—they alone are said to love, or to be lovers." "In that," I said, "I am of opinion that you are right." ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... Japanese will become before the close of the next century much superior to what they now are. For such belief there are three good reasons. The first is that the systematic military and gymnastic training of the able-bodied youth of the Empire ought in a few generations to produce results as marked as those of the military system in Germany,—increase in stature, in average girth of chest, in muscular development ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn |
