"Picnic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... order of a secret and mysterious rite, which met once a week in convenient woodsheds and stable-lofts—took an oath with hands solemnly clasped in the intricate grip of the order, that "they would never ask Miss Matchin to go to party, picnic, or sleigh-ride, as long as the stars gemmed the blue vault of heaven," from which it may be seen that the finer sentiments of humanity were not unknown ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... whirl of rout, and ball, and picnic, race-meeting, polo-match, and what-not, Paul Howard Alexis stalked misunderstood, distrusted; an object of ridicule to some, of pity to others, of impatience to all. A man, if it please you, with a purpose—a purpose at the latter end of the ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... that would command cash. At this season the highway was often blocked with long trains of wagons that would not give way for other vehicles. At night the wagons would be parked on the roadside near a creek, and the farmers and their boys would have a regular joyous picnic on provisions brought from home. This was the life of a farmer before the days of railroads, and I am not sure but it was a more happy one than now. Then the village blacksmith or shoemaker, the tinker, the carpenter and the mechanic of every ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... palaver—Bucongo of the Lesser Isisi is getting a little too enthusiastic a Christian, and Ahmet has been sending some queer reports. I've been putting off the palaver for weeks, but Administration says it has no objection to my making a picnic ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... a picnic meal," she announced. "There's caviare in that jar at your elbow. Begin on that brown bread-and-butter while I cut some more. Find yourself a cup; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... better fer yuh if yuh'd shot it out," sneered Blacksnake, "because Gentleman John will have somethin' in store fer yuh that yuh won't like. Wait till he sets eyes on yuh, Cotton-picker! Boilin' alive will seem like a picnic! I knew we'd get yuh sooner or later, if yuh kept stickin' yore nose ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... was nearly to the river he heard the voices of children playing on the bank. So he crept carefully forward under the bushes until he came to a place where he could peer through. There, sure enough, were five or six little boys and girls having a picnic. Some were in wading, skirts and trousers rolled up above the knees, while others were just spreading out a tablecloth on the mossy bank preparatory to setting their ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... Clarke observed thoughtfully. "I can very well conceive of a lecherous text-book of the calculus, or of a reporter's story of a picnic in which burnt, under the surface, undiscoverable, save to the initiate, the tragic passion of ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... with wandering all day in the jungle, was glad of a glass of wine, which was soon got out of the provision basket. Then we opened a tin of soup, and fed our tired and hungry children, who behaved all through those terrible days as if it was a picnic excursion got up for their amusement. They enjoyed everything, and were no trouble at all, either Alan or Mab. Edith was a baby, and suffered very much from want of proper food—but that was later on. Mr. Helms and his crew rowed our boat into Jernang Creek, where there were some Malay ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... is a sort of popular amusement at which a great deal of work is done. The farmer invites all his friends to help him clear a rye field, for example. They all come in eager haste, and generally have a sort of picnic. Work proceeds much quicker in company than alone, and while they reap with old-fashioned sickles, they chat and laugh and sing their national songs, eat and make merry on small beer, that terrible concoction which we explained before is called ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... length, and maps, reports and records of the recent campaign were being laboriously yawned over at odd intervals during the sunshiny days, far more thought and time and attention were being given to riding, driving, tramping and picnic parties—even croquet coming in for honorable mention—while every night had its "hop" and some nights their ball that lasted well toward morning, and for the first time in its history "head-quarters" ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... go," she told him, firmly; and, reading the expression in her face, he felt a dizzy wonder. "We'll find a nice secluded spot; then we'll sit down and wait for night to come. We'll pretend we're having a picnic." ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... required of her at a moment's notice: to be excused from school and pass cakes at a tea at the Everards'; to leave a picnic before the potatoes were roasted, because Mollie had appeared, inexorable; unaccountable things, but she was to be safe to-night. May night was not such a wonderful night for any little girl as it ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... plays there are, the more you learn from observation, as well as from personal effort, to make the parts you play seem as unlike one another as possible. A day like this admits of no drives, no calls, no "teas"; you see, then, a theatrical life is not one long picnic. ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... pain—that he had either drawn his characters from persons there, or had meant to give any actual description of the colony. Emerson refused, in a kind and characteristic letter, to join the undertaking, and though he afterwards wrote of Brook Farm with not uncharitable humour as "a perpetual picnic, a French Revolution in small, an age of reason in a patty-pan," among its founders were many of his near friends. In 1844 the growing need of a more scientific organization, and the influence which F.M.C. Fourier's doctrines, as modified by Albert Brisbane ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... arrangements with Mr. Harman. There was much tennis, much croquet, much cycling to the Hythe sea-wall and bathing from little tents and sitting about in the sunshine, and Mr. Harman had his first automobile with him—they were still something of a novelty in those days—and was urgent to take picnic parties to large ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... digressions they talked over projects for building, first their own, and next other cities, in brick of all sorts; giving figures of output and expenses of plant that made one gasp. To the eye the affair was no more than a novel or delicious picnic. What it actually meant was a committee to change the material of civilisation for a hundred miles around. I felt as though I were assisting at the planning of Nineveh; and whatever of good comes to the little town that was born lucky I ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... Miss Watersea's picnic happened, and it was a good one. Evan enjoyed himself so well he forgot to write Frankie her weekly letter. He would have had to mention Julia in it, anyway, and perhaps it was as well to ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... meet a young man at the station" replied Donna sweetly. "A tall young man with a forty-four-inch chest and a pair of hands that will look as big as picnic hams to you when I tell him that ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... interfering elements at a picnic, implies the temporary displacement of assured profit and pleasure in ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... for certainly her slight cough was less frequent and her step was firmer; perhaps she had learned the unending lesson which the patient pines are never weary of repeating to heedful or listless ears. And so one day she planned a picnic on Buckeye Hill, and took the children with her. Away from the dusty road, the straggling shanties, the yellow ditches, the clamor of restless engines, the cheap finery of shop-windows, the deeper glitter of paint and ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... home when we sat down on our black bear-skin, gay Persian carpet and clean new mats, to rest with our backs to the wall, sipping our tea with the air of comfortable men, and chat over the incidents of the "picnic," as Livingstone persisted in calling our journey to the Rusizi. It seemed as if old times, which we loved to recall, had come back again, though our house was humble enough in its aspect, and our servants ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... Well, let's have a little picnic trip of our own to-morrow. We'll take Peter and some grub—get a dawn start ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... Mrs. Templeton, and Mrs. Cottingham, all of whom are visiting Mrs. Turesdel, the hostess of Monday's picnic, were keenly appreciative of such bits of beauty as the day revealed. Florida, herself a hostess of lavish hospitality, seemed to be more radiant, and when night came and the boat pulled her way out into the bay, ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... very well the enamel-trimmed oil stove and the tinned dainties and the expensive suitcases. Casey went back to camp feeling as though he had stumbled upon a picnic of feeble-minded persons. He wondered what in hell two men of such a type could be doing out there, a hundred miles and more from an ice-cream soda and a barber's chair. He wondered too how "Fred" had expected to ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... of a lake, runs through the piece from the first sentence to the last; and the scene is brought to a close by the approach of a thunder-storm, which spreads consternation among these unsubstantial guests, much like that which takes place at a picnic under similar circumstances; and Hawthorne, with his customary mystification, leaves us in doubt as to whether they ever reached terra ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... strange emigrant from the Far West, the Barn-Swallow, and the white-breasted species, are abundant, together with the Purple Martin. I know no prettier sight than a bevy of these bright little creatures, met from a dozen different farm-houses to picnic at a way-side pool, splashing and fluttering, with their long wings expanded like butterflies, keeping poised by a constant hovering motion, just tilting upon their feet, which scarcely touch the moist ground. You will seldom see them actually perch ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... knowledge of geology shown by Trevittick in The Hillyars and the Burtons, and by the encyclopaedic Dr. Mulhaus in his lecture at the picnic in the grass-covered crater of Mirngish, there is nothing to suggest that the author had any personal acquaintance with mining in the colonies. The experience that was so fresh and abundant in his mind is put aside ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... he left his hotel and walked up Madison Avenue. Twenty-sixth Street was deserted and as littered with papers, peanut shells, and various other debris as a picnic train. The mounted police had disappeared. From the great building came the first roar of the thousands assembled, whether in approval or the reverse it would be difficult to determine. They roared upon the slightest pretext and they would roar steadily until half-past ten or eleven, when ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... our tea out. We'll have a picnic and we'll take Eliza. I'll go out and get the cakes." "I sha'n't eat no cake, Master Jerry," said Eliza's voice, "so don't you think it. You'd see it going down inside my chest. It wouldn't he what I should call nice of me to have cake ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... condition of the French emigrants at Coblentz during this summer of 1791 is nothing short of a psychological marvel. They regarded the Revolution as a jest, and the flight to the Rhine as a picnic. These beggared aristocrats, male and female, would throw their money away by day among the wondering natives, and gamble among themselves at night. If they ever thought of the future it was only as the patricians in Pompey's ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... neighbourhood. As to shooting, there are only a few snipe to be found here and there, and while looking for these you must beware of snakes and other venomous reptiles, which abound both in the country and in town. I remember a terrible fright a large picnic party, at which I assisted, was thrown into while lunching in the garden of a villa, almost in the town of Rio, by a lady jumping up from her seat with a deadly whip-snake hanging on her dress. I once myself ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... between home pleasures and the great world, and saw that Lucien gave up the delights of vanity for them, and exclaimed to himself, "They will not spoil him for us!" Now and again the three friends and Mme. Chardon arranged picnic parties in provincial fashion—a walk in the woods along the Charente, not far from Angouleme, and dinner out on the grass, David's apprentice bringing the basket of provisions to some place appointed before-hand; and at night they would come back, tired somewhat, but the whole excursion ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... new sofa groaned beneath the weight. It was a curious and unsavoury inaugural ceremony. Maude put a rug over the prostrate form, and they returned to their boiling kettle and their uncooked eggs. Then they laid the table, and served the supper, and enjoyed this picnic meal of their own creating as no conventional meal could ever have been enjoyed. Everything seemed beautiful to the young wife—the wall-paper, the pictures, the carpet, the rug; but to him, she was so beautiful in mind, ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... have a picnic to-night," said Nancy, "but we didn't say that we wouldn't sit up in bed like little ladies and partake ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... bit; the poor cross little things who fret and tease and worry are the ones who should be praised when they make an effort not to be disagreeable. But I am not going to preach any more. I am going down-stairs to make some sponge-cake for the picnic you and Lisa and I ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... the girl, "the next time you hitch up Barney for me, I wish you'd put a kicking-strap on him. I had a picnic with him coming down the ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... home comforts back," he vowed sullenly. "The Beach hain't what it used ter be. Goin' on a picnic with Abe Rose is like settin' yer teeth into a cast-iron stove lid covered with a thin layer o' ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... objects close to the water's edge. There could be but one animal of such size and colour in this region, and I became quite stirred up over the prospect of an encounter with what looked like a bear picnic. I watched eagerly as we approached, rather wondering how we were going to manage five of them, when in a most inexplicable manner they dwindled suddenly, and my five bears had become as many ducks. It was the first time I had ever seen so striking an example of mirage. We secured ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... platters, small chickens garnished with sugar and rose-water, a sort of galantine, tarts of almonds and honey, caramels of pine-seed. From the gallery overhead came the tinkle of a rota, a kind of guitar. The musician produced a whimsical tune suggesting a picnic of lords and ladies in the garden of an antique villa, where trick fountains, masked by blossoms, drenched the unwary with streams of water. But in the chimney of the great, cold fireplace behind my back the wind still growled ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... miles back of the firing-line and had been marching through the rain since early morning; but, as the sergeant said, "A bloke standin' by the side o' the road, watchin' this 'ere column pass, would think we was a-go'n' to a Sunday-school picnic." The roads were filled with endless processions of singing, shouting soldiers. Seen from a distance the long columns gave the appearance of imposing strength. One thought of them as battalions, brigades, divisions, cohesive ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... on a wet day. Indeed, it is a most mournful affair altogether, unless you have a particularly merry house party. There is absolutely nothing to do. The heavens weep at such inopportune moments too. There is sure to be some large picnic, some delightful gathering on the "tapis," when they choose to exhibit their griefs. And they never notice how unwelcome such a display of feelings is, but go on weeping, weeping, weeping all day long, until at last you catch the malady yourself, and are obliged ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... depend upon how many and what kinds of atoms group together to play the larger game. Whenever there is a big game it doesn't mean that the little atomic groups which enter into it are all changed around. They keep together like a troop of boy scouts in a grand picnic in which lots of troops are present. At any rate they keep together enough so that we can still call them a group, that is an atom, even though they do adapt their game somewhat so as to fit in with other ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... boat, and if there really is nothing we can do to help you here, why, Frank wants to take you all—with Mrs. Havel, if she is agreeable—for a trip around the lake. We've got supplies aboard and we'll stop somewhere and make a picnic dinner." ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... sociological designation for any number of people, larger or smaller, between whom such relations are discovered that they must be thought of together. The "group" is the most general and colorless term used in sociology for combinations of persons. A family, a mob, a picnic party, a trade union, a city precinct, a corporation, a state, a nation, the civilized or the uncivilized population of the world, may be treated as a group. Thus a "group" for sociology is a number of persons ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... you ridiculous boy, I can't go," laughed Pollyanna, holding feebly back, as he tugged at her dress-sleeve. "I can't go to that picnic with you!" ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... up now all right enough, but just wait a bit. They may come back with their feathers picked, for the job they've struck aint a summer picnic, and ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... glowed with all the gorgeous colouring for which North American woods in autumn are celebrated. An open grassy space just beyond the landing-place seemed to have been formed by nature for the express purpose of accommodating picnic parties. ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... well that day, and the picnic dinner proceeded in a very stately and dignified manner. Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article of furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing else to knock the baby's head against, and sat staring about her ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... resistance worth mentioning, and as the routes of both columns lay through a region teeming with everything necessary for their support, and rich even in luxuries, it struck me that such campaigning was more a vast picnic than like actual war. The country supplied at all points bread, meat, and wine in abundance, and the neat villages, never more than a mile or two apart, always furnished shelter; hence the enormous trains required to feed and ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... evening of the picnic, Sina breathed deeply, and her comely bust was clearly denned beneath the thin bodice, as she began to sing, "Oh, beauteous Star of Love." Pure and passionate, her notes floated out on the evening air. Yourii remained motionless, gazing at her, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... just felt like giving her a good hug when she told you her plan. It is really just for me that she is going to let you give the picnic here." ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... The keen air of the table-land, these climbs up and downstairs have given the old gentleman from the Tuileries an appetite such as he has not known for a long time, so that he chats and laughs as if he were at a picnic, and at the moment of departure, as they are all standing, raises his glass, nodding his head, to drink, "To Be-Be-Bethlehem!" Those present are moved, glasses are touched, then, at a quick trot, the carriage bears the party away down the long avenue of limes, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... mean!" corrected Wendy. "Can't run up even an Allied flag on British soil without first claiming it for the King! I'd like to have a picnic here!" ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... succotash [U.S.], supawn [obs3][U.S.], trepang[obs3], vanilla, waffle, walnut. table, cuisine, bill of fare, menu, table d'hote[Fr], ordinary, entree. meal, repast, feed, spread; mess; dish, plate, course; regale; regalement[obs3], refreshment, entertainment; refection, collation, picnic, feast, banquet, junket; breakfast; lunch, luncheon; dejeuner[Fr], bever[obs3], tiffin[obs3], dinner, supper, snack, junk food, fast food, whet, bait, dessert; potluck, table d'hote[Fr], dejeuner a la fourchette[Fr]; hearty meal, square meal, substantial meal, full meal; blowout*; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... makes the beef better, and all the conditions of which I have spoken make it possible to keep cattle on the open range out here, where one would think they would perish of cold and starvation. But it is no picnic to run a winter range, as we will all learn before spring ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... Sunday morning, that the Bricklayers' Picnic took place that day at Shell Mound Park, and to Shell Mound Park he went. He had been to the working-class picnics too often in his earlier life not to know what they were like, and as he entered the park he experienced a recrudescence of all the old sensations. After all, they ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... baskets of provisions with them, as to a picnic. We met in an ancient grove upon a hillside. I spoke to them and told them the dreadful tale of the destruction of the world. I need not say that they were inexpressibly shocked by the awful narrative. Many of ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... Clint's knee. "There's a fine chance for a fellow who is willing to work and learn on this team. If you'll make up your mind to it, you can go right ahead and play tackle against Claflin. But you'll have to plug like the dickens, Thayer. It won't be any picnic. I want a chap who is willing to work hard; not only that, but who will take the goad without flinching. Think ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... it was! He forgot all about the stiffness in his legs in the pure enjoyment of those moments. No school picnic had ever approached it, for everything was so gloriously new and fresh. The beautiful land stretched undulating right away to the blue-tinted mountains, the water-pool sparkled in the sunshine, the horses and cattle grazed in the thick rich grass, and the ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... first trip of the season and the Inverness was crowded from stem to stern. The picnic was given by the Sons of Scotland, so every Presbyterian in the town was there. But there were many more, for Lawyer Ed had gone out into the highways and byways of other denominations and nationalities and had compelled Methodists and Anglicans and Baptists and folk of every creed to ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... a picnic, I've told you a hunderd times! You think it's one those ole-fashion things YOU used to go to—sit on the damp ground and eat sardines with ants all over 'em? This isn't anything like that; we just go out on the trolley to this farm-house ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... a fine organization," said Mrs. Hollister, knitting steadily with the yellow lace falling over her still pretty hands. "I wish we had known of something like that in my young day. Why, it must be like one continuous picnic." ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... carriage of the rich and poor—Lady Woodford may be seen employing it, to visit her gardens at St. Antonio; and in the service of the humblest of her subjects, will it be enlisted, as they wend their way to a picnic in the campagna. Every variety of steed is put ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... our absence must have been noticed long ago. When we did not return in time for the picnic lunch or tea, someone must have wondered where we were; and it is quite possible we were seen to enter the Temple ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... let yourself out." For a space he drummed and mused. Suddenly a knuckle cracked loudly. Mr. Gordon flinched and glared at it, startled as if it had offended him by interrupting a train of thought. "Here!" said he brusquely. "There's a Sewer-Cleaners' Association picnic to-morrow. They're going to put in half their day inspecting the Stimson Tunnel under the North River. Pretty idea; isn't it? Suppose I ask Mr. Greenough to send you out on the story. And I'd like a look at it ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Una as a particularly capable young woman. Dozens of others were more masterful at trimming the Christmas tree for Wesley Methodist Church, preparing for the annual picnic of the Art Needlework Coterie, arranging a surprise donation party for the Methodist pastor, even spring house-cleaning. But she had been well spoken of as a marketer, a cook, a neighbor who would take care of your baby while you went visiting—because ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... Elfreda, her eyes very round. "You must be a mind reader, for that's precisely what I've been thinking about all morning. I'm so glad you proposed it. What do you say, girls? How about a picnic?" ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... me between them. He asked me to his house, feasted me, and then butchered me most miserably as though I were a fat beast in a slaughter house, while all around me my comrades were slain like sheep or pigs for the wedding breakfast, or picnic, or gorgeous banquet of some great nobleman. You must have seen numbers of men killed either in a general engagement, or in single combat, but you never saw anything so truly pitiable as the way in ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... will," said Miss Goldthwaite serenely. "We are to have a picnic up the Peak on Monday, in Judge Keane's waggon. I've set my heart on Lucy and Tom, and half a ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... under the ban of the Church, and women are now rarely hired to 'keen.' There is a craze to have a number of priests attending the service, and a good many of them do go, very well pleased, as to a picnic. ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... surmised, they were content with the floor. When the household grew, and she could not leave the children so often, she would sometimes walk with them to Adiabo on the Calabar River, taking provisions with her, and there, halfway, would meet and picnic ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... income—to determine how I should be treated in this family; and he would say to me, "Dick, you are going to be asked to dinner on Saturday next"; or, "I say, old fellow, they're going to leave you out of that picnic at Powerscourt. You'll find the Clancys rather cold at your ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Musica, and the Fables here quoted, which satirize the peculiar foibles of literary men. They have been translated into many languages; into English by Rockliffe (3rd edition, 1866). The fable in question describes how, at a picnic of the animals, a discussion arose as to which of them carried off the palm for superiority of talent. The praises of the ant, the dog, the bee, and the parrot were sung in turn; but at last the ostrich stood ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... were not a vicious lot; the Jimmies and Johnnies, the Dans and Eds, were for the most part neighbours, no more anxious to antagonize Emeline's father than she was. They might kiss her good-night at her door, they might deliberately try to get the girls to miss the last train home from the picnic, but their spirit was of idle mischief rather than malice, and a stinging slap from Emeline's hand afforded them, as it did her, a certain ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... supper with their families once a day, on Sundays three times. The women left the fields to go fix supper and see after their cabins and children. They hauled their water in barrels and put it under the trees. They cooked washpots full of chicken and give them a big picnic dinner after they lay by crops and at Christmas. They had gourd banjos. Mama said ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... that at the most riotous moment of the picnic an old gentleman passed near the lively crowd. He was quite inoffensive, pleasant-mannered, and walked leaning on his cane, yet, had the statue of the Commander in Don Juan suddenly appeared it could not have produced such consternation as his presence ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the added centuries contributing its spangles of reason, philosophy, and grace. Who among all the short-kirtled damsels of all the eclogues will match us this fair, lithe, witty, capricious, mirthful, buxom Rosalind? Nowhere in books have we met with her like,—but only at some long-gone picnic in the woods, where we worshipped "blushing sixteen" in dainty boots and white muslin. There, too, we met a match for sighing Orlando,—mirrored in the water; there, too, some diluted Jaques may have "moralized" the excursion for next day's "Courier," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... round Takai is quite pretty—almost like Scots moorland. Yesterday we went for a picnic to a river at the opening of a pass—a most interesting place where not very long ago a native boy had been eaten by a tiger. You see, picnics in the jungle are not quite the insipid things they are at home! There ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... together during the day, and go home together to their evening rest. A happier couple I never saw; it is a delight to see them cheerily at work together, cutting, pasting, hanging: their life seems like a prolonged industrial picnic; and if I had the ill-luck to own as many palaces as an English duke I should keep them permanently occupied in putting fresh ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... his own, and gave her an urgent, significant glance, as he said, with a determination to change the subject, "We'll just about get to Red Chimneys in time for luncheon. Shall we have our picnic before we explore the house? I'm as hungry as three ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... that his house was the rendezvous of all the literary men of the place. A few minutes afterwards, a tall Jacobin friar, blind of one eye, called Corsini, whom I had known in Venice, came in and paid me many compliments. He told me that I had arrived just in time to go to a picnic got up by the Macaronic academicians for the next day, after a sitting of the academy in which every member was to recite something of his composition. He invited me to join them, and to gratify the meeting with the delivery of one of my productions. I accepted the invitation, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the four children fished all the morning and all the afternoon. Conrad caught two roach and an eel. George caught nothing, and nothing was what the other two caught. But it was glorious sport. And the next day there was to be a picnic. Life to Kenneth seemed full of new ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... enjoying it, Phoebe. It is the first picnic I have had for a long time. I can't tell how I'm drinking in the joy ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... with much satisfaction. Wynchcote might not be Rotherwood, but it looked an uncommonly pretty little place in the September sunshine. To live there would be like a perpetual picnic. Mother and Queenie looked so complacently smiling that it seemed impossible to grouse, especially with newly-baked scones and rock-cakes ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... as if it were a picnic. She had never seen him so cheery and inconsequent. It was as if he also were engaged in some species of make-believe. Or was it the enchantment of spring that had fallen upon them both? Dinah could not have said. She only knew that she ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... with them, and join the reverend doctor on the morrow. His mother, even in her invalided state, urged that he should do so, but Almira heard the plan with fresh outburst of tears. There was to be a grand picnic of all the beaux and belles of Urbana on the 18th. She had counted on having her soldier lover in attendance on that occasion. She had told him of it, and that was enough. She had declined all other invitations, saying that Mr. Davies was to hasten thither the moment the graduating ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... slowly, cross, and stand behind Dark Cloud. At Lincoln's right stands Tom Bush, and back of Tom Bush the youthful settlers. They have gathered together things they wish to trade, such as a fine blanket that was brought with the picnic blankets, hatchets, etc. Tom Bush is the first to start the trading. He adds to the handkerchief and penknife which he showed before a small hatchet. Both Dark Cloud and Tom Bush, after they have laid their possessions on the grass, look at Lincoln. ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... had long been made, The "Picnic"[B] bills had all been paid; But if you'll listen, I will tell What made ...
— The Animals' Rebellion • Clifton Bingham
... you won't take me to the picnic, you won't play ball, you won't do anything," he complained to his absorbed sister. "I shall be just glad when this old Texas thing ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... the same light which burns like fire in these trees burns in my veins; a vast wave of life, vitalizing all creation and making it kin. I am a poor relation of these wonderful giants. Also I am a cousin of the robins and chipmunks that shared our picnic luncheon, and the dinner we finished a little while ago. I am nearer than I was yesterday ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... marched straight into the forest with their father as if they were going on a picnic. Pitong dropped his stones one by one. When they reached the woods, their father commanded them to get together what sticks they could find. He left them there, promising that he would meet them in a certain place; but really he hurried ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... makes the row like a man with an axe—by hammering his jaws on each other. Well, well! but this is a regular picnic, Dol," sang out Cyrus jubilantly, caring nothing for the shocks, and forgetting camp, water, peril, everything, in his joy at getting a chance to leisurely study the creature he had ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... sold but I don't know how it was done. There was thirteen children in our family. The white folks had a picnic and took colored long to do round. Some heard bout freedom and went home tellin' bout it. We ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... family man, moving is no such airy picnic. Sadly he goes through the last dismal rites and sees the modest fragments of his dominion hustled toward the cold sepulture of a motor van. Before the toughened bearing of the hirelings he doubts what manner to assume. Shall he stand at the front door and exhort them to particular ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... the punts, clearly containing one party, kept close enough together for the occupants to exchange sallies of wit, or any blissful foolishness in keeping with the blissfully foolish mood of a moonlight picnic up the river ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... evolved a scheme, which I had great hopes of carrying out when our watch should be let loose on the morrow. When morning came, and the liberty men received their money, I called them together and unfolded my plan. Briefly, I proposed a sort of picnic at a beautiful spot discovered during our wooding expedition. I was surprised and very pleased at the eager way in which all, with the sole exceptions of Tui and his fellow-harpooner, a Portuguese, fell in with my suggestions. Without any solicitation on my part, my Kanakas brought ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... pretty woman frankly concerned for her appearance. "I don't know how I look, I'm sure," she said apologetically, and raised both hands to her hair. "Now I will go and rest for an hour. There is to be opossuming and a moonlight picnic to-night at Warraluen." Catching Mahony's eye fixed on her with a meaning emphasis, she changed colour. "I cannot sit at home and think, doctor. I MUST distract myself; or ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... difficult not to regret that Luther had so superficial a knowledge of Ecclesiastical antiquities: for example, his belief in this fable of the Creed having been a 'picnic' contribution of the twelve Apostles, each giving a sentence. Whereas nothing is more certain than that it was the gradual product of ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of affairs. He professed to be known as the student of the family, dabbled in archaeology, and managed two or three local societies and field clubs, which met ostensibly to listen to his papers, but really to picnic. An accident had decided this bent of his —the discovery, during some repairs, of a fine Roman pavement beneath the floor of Bayfield House, At the age of eighteen, during a Cambridge vacation, Narcissus had written and privately printed a description of this pavement, proving not only ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... pedant who has written a tiresome book; and the adventures of this book form the subject of the poem. Some wag relates how he read it a month ago, having come into the garden for that purpose; and then revenged himself by dropping it through a crevice in a tree, and enjoying a picnic lunch and a chapter of "Rabelais" on the grass close by. To-day, in a fit of compunction, he has raked the "treatise" out; but meanwhile it has blistered in the sun, and run all colours in the ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... surly tone, smiling oddly on the winkers, but, recollecting his politeness, he added, 'Noa, thankee, misses, it's what they calls a picnic; we'll be takin' ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... gradually disappearing from Monte Gennaro and the Sabine Mountains. Picnic parties are spreading their tables under the Pamfili Doria pines, and drawing St. Peter's from the old wall near by the ilex avenue,—or making excursions to Frascati, Tusculum, and Albano,—or spending a day ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... subscriptions were so arranged that on this festival each poorer member might, with two companions, be provided with a hearty meal; while grandees and farmers had a luncheon-tent of their own, and regarded the day as a county picnic. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were charming to her, and we met Mrs. Van der Windt herself at the Chateau at a luncheon party with a vaudeville entertainment afterwards, and also at a dinner. Mrs. Van der Windt seemed to like my cousin, Mohunsleigh, very much, too, and gave a moonlight motor car picnic especially for him, with only a few people asked besides ourselves, and the Pitchleys and ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... A picnic was proposed, and agreed upon. We intended at first to go to Chambord; but there was danger of a crowd; and a valley on the road to Vendome was pitched upon. A caleche took us to the place, and set us down in a delightful ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... on, "a woman will have spoken to you three times in the course of a winter, and without your knowing it, you will be lodged in her heart. Then comes a picnic, an excursion, what not, and all is said—or, if you prefer it, all is done! This conduct, which seems odd to unobserving persons, is really very natural. A poet, such as you are, or a philosopher, an observer, like Doctor Bianchon, instead of vilifying the provincial woman and believing her depraved, ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... poor old man, on the whole, though it made one pity him doubly that he chose to make as if he forgot everything, and you were all gone on a picnic, taking me out for a long drive in the afternoon—where we were least likely to meet any one—that ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I can't quite settle," said the doctor. "I don't know what to say to you. A week's hunting picnic would be very nice." ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... descending toward a little glade in the woods surrounding the old picnic ground. Men, mostly of the tramp sort, could be ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... to have such a picnic!" Zara told him. "Papa and I have brought a new tablecloth, and some pretty cups and saucers, and spoons, and knives, and forks—and see! such buns! English buns for you to toast, Mirko mio! You must be the little cook, while I lay ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... nightingales (first time I ever heard one), and also of a bird called the PIASSEUR, cheerfulest of sylvan creatures, an ideal comic opera in itself. 'Come along, what fun, here's Pan in the next glade at picnic, and this-yer's Arcadia, and it's awful fun, and I've had a glass, I will not deny, but not to see it on me,' that is his meaning as near as I can gather. Well, the place (forest of beeches all new-fledged, grass like velvet, fleets of ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Hartley. "Why, it was like taking a one-gallon freezer of ice cream to a Sunday school picnic. Really, it seemed as if there were a thousand hands reaching out for my pay envelope the moment I got it. I don't understand how young married ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... fine little place. The woods come almost up to the back of the station, and the nearest house is a mile away. That's where I am to board. The other operator arranged it. It's going to be a regular little picnic." ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... matter for friendly jokes. The cold weather happened to set in early that year. Five of d'Arthez's friends appeared one day, each concealing firewood under his cloak; the same idea had occurred to the five, as it sometimes happens that all the guests at a picnic are inspired with the notion of bringing ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... To entertain by feasting; regale. II. i. To give or take part in an entertainment or excursion; feast in company; picnic; revel. ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb
... called the swimmer, who, now that he was in, seemed disposed to make a picnic of the affair, after his usual ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... and sure to be visited with his condign displeasure. So South Sea Islanders think, if they eat some particular luscious fruit tabooed for the chiefs, they'll be instantly struck dead by the mere power of the taboo in it; and English people think, if they go out in the country for a picnic on a tabooed day, or use certain harmless tabooed names and words, or inquire into the historical validity of certain incredible ancient documents, accounted sacred, or even dare to think certain things ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... heathen, and somewhat bored by that saintly lady Ludmilla. A night out with Boleslav would have been more amusing, if less edifying, than a country walk with pious Wenceslaus, who would be sure to waste a good deal of time at wayside shrines; a picnic arranged by Dragomira and in that lady's company, would have been at least a material improvement on any little outing with Ludmilla, who would surely have discovered some reason for fasting on that particular day. But then I can ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... after, as Frosty and I were riding circle quite silently and moodily together, we rode up into a little coulee on the southwestern side of White Divide, and came quite unexpectedly upon a little picnic-party camped comfortably down by the spring where we had meant to slake our own thirst. Of course, it was the Kings' house-party; they were the only luxuriously idle ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... captive's lips curled in a sarcastic smile. "But just let me free for about five minutes, and then you'll see whose picnic ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... People who picnic along the public highway leaving a clutter of greasy paper and swill (not, a pretty name, but neither is it a pretty object!) for other people to walk or drive past, and to make a breeding place for flies, and furnish nourishment for rats, choose a disgusting way to repay the land-owner ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... that, for I really cannot come back here next fall, children, or I would. But as long as I am going away, I thought we would celebrate it by having a farewell picnic. In the city where I live if any of our friends go away to live somewhere else, we always give them a little party as a sort of good-by to them, and we have a jolly time which they can remember always. Instead of having a party here, I thought ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... islet only a few rods in extent, but densely wooded with spruce and blue-gum. The general shape of the rock was that of a lady's thimble; hence the name. Rather a picturesque object in the seascape, but, of course, utterly valueless except for occasional picnic uses—a bit of No Man's Land whose purpose in the economy of nature had hitherto remained ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... come to ask her to spend Bank Holiday with them. They might go for a sort of picnic to Richmond Park, and she ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... more fun than the jolliest picnic you ever went to?" exulted Sally, as she and Josephine spread sheets and blankets upon ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... he said, "but I have an idea, First Mortgage, that they were merely a Sunday school picnic compared to what ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... Institute at the county-seat; and there distinguished guests of the superintendent taught the teachers fractions and spelling and other mysteries,—white teachers in the morning, Negroes at night. A picnic now and then, and a supper, and the rough world was softened by laughter and song. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Carolinians; and they were met with open arms by the Virginians, soldiery and citizens. They received the first gush of the new brotherhood of defiance and of danger; and their camp—constantly visited by the ladies and even children of Richmond—had more the air of a picnic than of a bivouac. Many of the men and most of the officers ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... again threatened Paris. The invasion of 1359 resembled a huge picnic or hunting expedition. The king of England and his barons brought their hunters, falcons, dogs and fishing tackle. They marched leisurely to Bourg la Reine, less than two leagues from Paris, pillaged ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... escape from the spirit of the forest had been in vain. Oberon's magic horn had called forth the raging tempest, and his power suddenly stayed its fury as Huon and his companion overtook a company of monks and nuns. These holy people had been celebrating a festival by a picnic, and were now hastening home, drenched, bedraggled, and in a sorry plight. They had scarcely reached the convent yard, however, where Sherasmin fancied all would be quite safe from further enchantment, when Oberon suddenly appeared in their ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... no more digging on the claim that day. Even lunch was eaten by them in a half-hearted way. Joy was suffering with her ankle or she might have done justice to Tang's picnic spread. ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... "I reckon it's no picnic," he admitted. "I ain't never been stuck on shootin' men. I reckon I didn't sleep a heap for three nights after I shot Pickett. I kept seein' him, an' pityin' him. But I kept tellin' myself that it had to be either him or me, an' I kind of got over it. Pickett would have it, ma'am. When ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of nymphs, water-babies and Indian legend, was only half a mile away. Again it shone in all its old-time romantic loveliness on Missy's inward eye. And for a fact it was a good Maytime picnic place. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... twenty-five cent ticket fer th' Jolly Rovers' picnic," he insinuated. "Mebbe it's not too stiff fer yer purse. They say ez how 'tis ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... of how Captain William Brooke Johns, of the United States Army, one day saw at a picnic the beautiful Miss Leonora de la Roche, and fell in love with her immediately. But, since it was not considered good form in those days to be presented to a lady at a picnic, he watched her from a distance all day. The next afternoon he went to call. It was a case of love at first sight for ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... when he shot a bird or an animal, jumping and leaping, and shouting: "Woh! woh! woh!" to express his delight. One of these was to the Lake Nyanza, after Speke had somewhat ingratiated himself with the sovereign. It was somewhat of a picnic party, and the king was accompanied as usual by a choice selection of his wives. Having crossed over to a woody island some distance from the shore, the party sat down to a repast, when large bowls of pomba ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... show a large picnic was held in the forest at the well-known Second Creek. The guests were conveyed to the spot by a paddle tug, the Buffalo. This vessel now lies, a melancholy wreck, half-submerged, at the mouth of the ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... it's the same game that a lot of politicians on the East Side do. They own big interests and the gambling privileges in the saloons, and they get their graft from the gangsters. Then about twice a year they give a picnic for the mothers and babies of the drunkards who patronize their saloons. They send a ticket for a bucket of coal or a pair of shoes to the parents of young girls who work for the gangsters and bring the profits of shame back tenfold on the investment to these same politicians. ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... Richmond, that commands a view over a wide extent of romantic country. Vantage-points of this type, within easy reach of a fair-sized town, are inclined to be overrated, and, what is far worse, to be spoiled by the litter of picnic parties; but Whitcliffe Scar is free from both objections. In magnificent September weather one may spend many hours in the midst of this great panorama without being disturbed by a single human being, besides a possible farm labourer or shepherd; and if scraps of paper and orange-peel ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... hall a parlour and drawing-room combined. But the outside must be finished, on account of the garden, creepers, etc. The S.E. side (really about S.S.E.) has the fine views. If you can arrange to come at Christmas we will have a picnic on the ground the first sunny day. I was all last week surveying—a very difficult job, to mark out exactly three acres so as to take in exactly as much of each kind of ground as I wanted, and with no uninterrupted view ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... a picnic in canoes, knowing from fiction rather than imagination or experience the conclusive nature of such excursions. But there she fumbled at the last moment, and elected at the river's brink to share a canoe with me. Bailey showed so much zeal and so little ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... been to Sneyd Hall before many times—like the majority of the inhabitants of the Five Towns—for, by the generosity of its owner, Sneyd Park was always open to the public. To picnic in Sneyd Park was one of the chief distractions of the Five Towns on Thursday and Saturday afternoons. But he had never entered the private gardens. In the midst of the private gardens stood the Hall, shut off by immense iron palisades, like a lion in a cage at the ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... shall have light enough to work by, and I have no doubt that before the end of the day Saint Leger and I will have contrived to stick up a hut or something to cover you. Why, children, this is a regular genuine picnic, in which we shall have everything to do for ourselves, and you will be able to help, too. It will be glorious fun for you, ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... Stafford of Vermont, Mrs. Ellen M. Bolles of Rhode Island, and others. On June 5 a reception was given to Mrs. Jane Cobden Unwin of London, Richard Cobden's daughter. On July 19, by invitation of the Waltham Suffrage Club, the State association and the local leagues united in a basket picnic at Forest Grove. On this occasion Lucy Stone made her ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... man's face, and I watched him this morning when he was consulting our so-called guide. In plain English, Mr. Royson, we are drifting, in the vain hope that somewhere out there we shall find five hills in a clump. I don't object, in a sense. It is a very delightful picnic from one point of view. But I hate uncertainty, and I loathe deceit, and here we are at the mercy of both, while my grandfather is so taken up with the joy of arranging everything, which von Kerber very cleverly leaves to him, that he simply won't listen to ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... English Consul at Samoa for piracy. There being no prison in this delightful island, the Consul ran Hayes's ship on shore, and waited for a man-of-war to call and take his prisoner away. Hayes spent his time, while under open arrest, attending native picnic parties, at which he was the life and soul, being, when off duty, a man of great charm of manner and a favourite with the ladies. Presently another pirate arrived, one Captain Pease, in an armed ship with a Malay crew. Hayes and Pease quarrelled violently, and the Consul had great trouble to ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse |
