"Plaything" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... commenced to glide down-stream. Frank found that his engine worked like a charm. He could apparently do anything he wanted with it, and the whole apparatus seemed more like a plaything than ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... at last, after twenty-four days of nothing but sea and sky, of white-crested waves—which made no secret of their intention of coming on board whenever they could or of tossing the good ship Edinburgh Castle hither and thither like a child's plaything—and of more deceitful sluggish rolling billows, looking tolerably calm to the unseafaring eye, but containing a vast amount of heaving power beneath their slow, undulating water-hills and valleys. Sometimes sky and sea have been steeped in dazzling haze of golden glare, sometimes brightened to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... cannot escape me—if it cost me a hundred pounds, I will loose the bloodhounds of justice after you—you shall be made, in chains, to give up your hateful secret. I am no longer a boy; nor you, nor the lawyer that administers my affairs, shall longer make a plaything of me. I will know who I am. Thank God, I can ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... that he could sit down in Damascus and indite a letter at Bagdad—or indeed at any distance whatsoever. (*30) Another commanded the lightning to come down to him out of the heavens, and it came at his call; and served him for a plaything when it came. Another took two loud sounds and out of them made a silence. Another constructed a deep darkness out of two brilliant lights. (*31) Another made ice in a red-hot furnace. (*32) Another directed ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the purpose of all! This is what you dreamed of! That you, a slave—an hour's plaything—could so mistake a word or two of transient love-making as to fancy that you could ever be anything beyond what you are now! Poor fool ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the miner had picked out of the stream one day in a half-drowned state. Donald had mistaken it for a kitten of some new brand, and it was not until some weeks later, when it sprang upon his little girl and buried his claws in her neck, that he realised what sort of plaything—the puma is the lion of the Rocky Mountains—he had introduced into his family. So Donald's wife was suspicious of pets, and when she saw the monkey she was sure it was another lion, and would not allow it to enter ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... be to tell you?" madame Hsing laughed; "it was simply to make you wait and have your repast with the young ladies and then go; but there's also a fine plaything that I'll give you to take back to amuse ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... conclusively that a new era had arrived. No longer was the labor movement a mere plaything of the alternating waves of prosperity and depression. Formerly, as we saw, it had centered on economic or trade-union action during prosperity only to change abruptly to "panaceas" and politics with the descent of depression. Now ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... astonish with the marvellous, or convulse with irresistible laughter:—all these wonders stamp indelible impressions on the memory. Those mixed feelings, also, which perplex us between a sense that the scene is but a plaything, and an interest which ever and anon surprises us into a transient belief that that which so strongly affects us cannot be fictitious; those mixed and puzzling feelings, also, are exciting in the highest degree. Then there are the bursts of applause, like distant thunder, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Rome the imperial throne became the mere plaything of the army and its leaders. A German commander, named Ricimer, set up and deposed four puppet emperors within five years. He was, in fact, the real ruler of Italy at this time. After his death Orestes, another German general, went ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... of the apple-tree crews leaned the patched elbows of their old coats on the rails and gloomily surveyed the conviviality on board the plaything crafts. Remarks which they exchanged with one another were framed to indicate a sort of lofty scorn for these frolickers of the sea. The coasting skippers, most of whom wore hard hats, as if they did not want to be confounded with those foppish yacht captains, patrolled their quarter-decks ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... worth it. I have not been so powerfully moved in years. You have thrilled me. Really I cannot tell you how deeply your theme has sunk into my heart. You have the Northern conscience—so have I; that is why I rebel at being merely the plaything of a careless public. Yes, I will do your play. It is a work of genius. I hope you wrote it in a garret. It's the kind of thing to come from a diet of black ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... baldly. But I'm not in the habit; of mincing words. Jerry is no plaything. I'll give you an instance of how much in earnest he is." And then briefly, but with some sense of the color of the thing, I gave her a description of Jerry's bout with Sagorski. She listened without looking at me, while her slender fingers caressed the rose leaf, but ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... no older than the prince, but he was sick and could not run about and play like other children. He lay in a little white bed in the old woman's room, and the little prince, after he had eaten the cooky, spoke to him, and took out his favorite plaything, which he always carried in his pocket, and ...
— The Story-teller • Maud Lindsay
... the weather and to turn westward. The wind raised up enormous waves, in the midst of which blocks of ice balanced themselves; these blocks were of all sizes and shapes, and had been struck off the surrounding ice-fields; the brig was tossed about like a child's plaything, and morsels of the packs were thrown over her hull; at one instant she was lying perpendicularly along the side of a liquid mountain; her steel prow concentrated the light, and shone like a melting metal ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... beauty, was still more blessed in the gifts of an expansive mind and a gentle heart; and mind and heart had both been faithfully cultivated by the assiduous care of her devoted father. She was a true woman,—not a mere plaything to while away a dandy's idle hours, not a piece of tinsel to adorn the parlor of a nabob, but a true woman,—one fitted by nature and education to adorn all the varied scenes of life. Although brought up in ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... of this last scullduggery. Soon as the kid woke me I hustled up my intentions." The bad man looked at Dave's weapon with the flicker of a smile on his face. "He called it a popgun. I took notice it was a right busy li'l' plaything. But you got yore nerve all right. I'd say you hadn't a chance in a thousand. You played yore hand fine, keelin' over so's he'd come clost enough for you to get a crack at him. At that, he'd maybe 'a' got you if I ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... still in one hand, and was much afraid to speak to her, being conscious of my country-brogue, lest she should cease to like me. But she clapped her hands, and made a trifling dance around my back, and came to me on the other side, as if I were a great plaything. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... in addition, of course, to money; but though he has looked for little else, some other things do frequently force themselves on his attention soon after the knot is tied; and as Caroline Waddington will appear in these pages as wife as well as maid, as a man's companion as well as his plaything, it may be well to say now something as to her ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... lagoons in murky silence. The throngs of curious people that had clustered about the western end of the fire were thinning out rapidly. A light night breeze from the empty spaces of prairie wafted the smoke wreaths northward toward the city of men whose plaything had been taken. At their feet a white column of staff plunged into the water, hissed and was silent. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... you are doing? Do you know what is waiting for you if you follow that man? Have you no pity for yourself? Do you know that you shall be at first his plaything and then a scorned slave, a drudge, and a servant of some new fancy ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... lightly,—"I give you a pair of clear, keen eyes, which shall tell you the difference between hawks and hernshaws from the very beginning. This gift is worth something, as you'll soon find out. Now, good-by, my baby. Sleep well, and grow fast. Here's a pretty plaything for you,"—taking from her pocket a big, beautiful bubble, and tossing it in the air. "Run fast," she said, "blow hard, follow the bubble, catch it if you can; but, above all things, keep it flying. ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... we talked she plied listlessly a fan—a handsome trinket of ostrich plumes. A pretty woman and a fan are the happiest possible combination. There is no severer test of grace than a woman's manner of using a fan. A clumsy woman makes an implement of this plaything, flourishing it to emphasize her talk, or, what is worse, pointing with it like an instructor before a blackboard. But in graceful hands it is unobtrusive, a mere bit of decoration that teases and fascinates ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... plaything to amuse them, for in the middle of the great ocean a Pilgrim baby was born, and they called him "Oceanus," for his birthplace. When the children grew so tired that they were cross and fretful, Oceanus' mother let them ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... nothing else and met a rapid side glance with unmoving red-brown eyes gazing out from under rugged brows, perhaps irritated Anstruthers. He had been rather enjoying himself, but he had not enjoyed himself enough. There was no denying that his plaything had not openly flinched. Plainly he was not good at flinching. Anstruthers wondered how far a man might go. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... She then grew weary of the quiet country life, and longed to return to the glitter and glare of the footlights. This I refused to let her do, and from that moment she took a dislike to me. A child was born, and for a time she was engrossed with it, but soon wearied of the new plaything, and again pressed me to allow her to return to the stage. I again refused, and we became estranged from one another. I grew gloomy and irritable, and was accustomed to take long rides by myself, frequently being away for days. There was a great friend of mine who owned the next ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... however, is a top-heavy sort of drinking vessel, and in a very short time I had succeeded in spilling half a pint or so of my drink on the parchment of the drum. Not wishing to spoil the old gentleman's plaything, which he evidently valued above all things, I mopped up the beer with my handkerchief, and in doing so removed from the parchment a portion of ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... unlawful fascinations thrown around him; but yet Leta could not avoid seeing that he regarded her not with the deep, earnest love which she had hoped to inspire, but rather with the trifling carelessness of one giving himself up to the plaything of the hour. Not having, from the very first, been chary of the sidelong glance and the winning smile, and whatever grace of style or manner could tempt him to pursuit, as an illusive appearance of success seemed to beckon her onward, her heart at times grew desperate ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... had roused his interest. Up to the time when he began to come to the house, little Dorothy was still considered a child by her brothers and sisters, her aims and ambitions were laughed at, if she voiced them, and she was treated as the family pet and plaything rather than a girl rapidly blossoming into ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... But Louis XV was only a boy, a plaything in the hands of his ministers. In an earlier chapter [Footnote: See above, pp. 255 f.] we have seen how under the duke of Orleans, who was prince regent from 1715 to 1723, France entered into war with Spain, and how finance was upset by speculation; ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... lady. "A flaw in it, you see; but the colour is good, and it does just as well for a plaything, though I don't like flawed things, as a rule. This sapphire is a good one,—deep, you see; I ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... Poynsett was wheeled into her own room some compensation befell Eleonora, for she met Julius in the hall, and he offered to drive her to the gates of Sirenwood in what he called 'our new plaything, the pony carriage,' on his way to ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... poor little Rose," she continued. "Her little hand touched that strap, she turned it, and looked at it—ah, it was her last plaything! And we were there both together then; she was still alive, I still had her on my lap, in my arms. It was still so nice, so nice! But now I no longer have her; I shall never, never have her again, my poor little Rose, my poor ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... in return he keeps their hearts from that haunting foe, l'ennui; He's their plaything, friend, and sentry too, and a lover of devilry; He helps them to hunt out rats or Boches; he burrows and sniffs for mines, And he growls when the murderous shrapnel flies screaming above the lines; His little black nose is a-quiver with glee whenever ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... unfortunately her bonnet strings were not fastened, and the fine bonnet with its blue plumes fell from her head and went tumbling down almost on Hero's brown head. In a second the dog had seized it, and forgetting his part in the procession, jumped this way and that, shaking this new plaything with ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... said Otto sombrely, 'but now I do not. I am growing old. And then, Gotthold, there is Seraphina. She is loathed in this country that I brought her to and suffered her to spoil. Yes, I gave it her as a plaything, and she has broken it: a fine Prince, an admirable Princess! Even her life - I ask you, Gotthold, ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... doll—just as the little mother dresses and undresses its counterfeit presentment of a child in wax and rags, crooning over its tiny cradle, talking to it in baby-language, pretending to watch with anxious solicitude its every mood, so Mrs. Purling found in Harold a plaything of which she never tired. She coddled and cosseted him to her heart's content. If he had cried for the moon some effort would have been made to obtain for him the loan of that pale planet, or the best substitute ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... thinks her child is not reasonable enough to do, of her own accord, something which it is nevertheless important she should do, as learning to read, for instance, or to work with her needle, &c., she comes to the rescue with rewards, and gives her a plaything when she has done well. And thus GOD, who had not confidence enough in man's reason to trust to it alone for supplying the wants of human nature, has placed a plaything in the shape of pleasure after every necessity; and in supplying ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... but I did not see the lonely days when I should long to clasp those vanished hands, and turn my head away when I saw old comrades with their tall children standing round their chairs. This love which I had thought was a joke and a plaything—it is only now that I understand that it is the moulder of one's life, the most solemn and sacred of all things—Thank you, my friend, thank you! It is a good wine, and ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mine again—because it is yours? That men and women are free, or so some read it. Well, it or they are wrong. We are not free. Was I free when first I saw your eyes in Beirut, the eyes for which I had been watching all my life, and something came from you to me, and I—the cast-off plaything of Sinan—loved you, loved you, loved you—to my own doom? Yes, and rejoiced that it was so, and still rejoice that it is so, and would choose no other fate, because in that love I learned that there is a meaning in this life, and that there ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... see only the puff of smoke as each weapon was discharged, and the men were out of sight, or nearly so. Not less than twenty men had dropped, either killed or wounded. The sharpshooters were Kentucky riflemen, whose fame had been celebrated in story and song, and their weapon had been their plaything ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... march from Liliput. But what cares Annie for soldiers? No conquering queen is she, neither a Semiramis nor a Catharine, her whole heart is set upon that doll, who gazes at us with such a fashionable stare. This is the little girl's true plaything. Though made of wood, a doll is a visionary and ethereal personage, endowed by childish fancy with a peculiar life; the mimic lady is a heroine of romance, an actor and a sufferer in a thousand shadowy scenes, the chief ...
— Little Annie's Ramble (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... by for that other. The man with the ready, specious tongue, with the buoyant, self-satisfied air, with the bright, merry eyes of one who knows his power with women, who rarely fails to win, and, having won easily, no longer cares for his plaything. But she had loved Will then, and had Jim been an angel sent straight from heaven he could not then have ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... year strengthened the tie that bound them to each other, though he could not but feel with pain, that the education she was receiving was far from being a useful or rational one. As the youngest of a large family, and the pet and plaything of the whole, Ellen was trained in the very lap of luxury and indulgence; and her lover was compelled to admit to himself, that however highly educated, amiable, and accomplished she might be, she was wholly ignorant of many things pertaining to her duties as the mistress of a family. To his mother, ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... became more than serious. "A daughter of ours has demanded for a plaything a caged bird. Psychologically it is an important occasion. Now or never must she learn to look upon a caged bird with horror. What I am thinking of is the psychological effect upon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... swung by their feet, joined hands in mid-air, and the descending form—Andy Wildwood—catching at the wrists of Thacher, was swung back in a twenty foot circle. Crash! again the orchestra. Andy was flung through space across to old Benares, a plaything in mid-air, Benares catching at the feet of Thacher, Andy tailing on in a graceful descent, ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... King's wife laughed her rippling laughter that had in it all the music of falling waters. "Shed no tears over that, ladybird! Would I be apt to let such an odious bear as Rothgar Lodbroksson rob me of my newest plaything? Whence to my dulness a pastime but for your help? Though he were the King's blood-brother, he should tell for naught. You do not guess half the entertainment your wild ways will be to me. I expect it will be more pleasant for ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... with the carriage folk in the gay manner necessary to the occasion, but his heart ached for the little mother who had thus so bravely buried her last vestige of pride in the carriage by giving it to her children as a plaything. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... almost done, the nurse came in with a child of a year old in her arms, who immediately spied me, and began a squall that you might have heard from London Bridge to Chelsea,[47] after the usual oratory of infants, to get me for a plaything. The mother out of pure indulgence took me up, and put me towards the child, who presently seized me by the middle and got my head in its mouth, where I roared so loud that the urchin was frighted, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... secure,—such was the tragic fact to the mediaeval mind. It appealed strongly to common human sympathy and pity; it startled also another feeling, that of fear. It frightened men and awed them. It made them feel that man is blind and helpless, the plaything of an inscrutable power, called by the name of Fortune or some other name,—a power which appears to smile on him for a little, and then on a sudden strikes ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... devotedly attached, and which charges Thomas Corbet could not clear up. If one of these base but dexterous villains, or if the whole gang were to outwit me, positively I could almost blow my very brains out, for allowing myself, after all, to become their dupe and plaything. I will think of it, however. And again, there is the likeness; there does seem to be a difficulty in that; for, beyond all doubt, my legitimate child, up until his disappearance, did not bear in his countenance a single feature of mine but bore a strong resemblance to his mother; whereas ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... I am with you in heart and sympathy, rejecting with contempt the antiquated idea that woman is only fit for a plaything or a household drudge. Nor can I see how it is less dignified to go to a public building to deposit a vote than to frequent the concert-room, whirl through the waltz in happy repose on some roue's bosom, or mingle in any public crowd which is, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Joan was altogether welcome. She had never had a playfellow, and Joan was so small and light and delicate that she seemed almost like a plaything, a living doll. The two were never apart. They rambled together about the breezy mountains, catching glimpses of the blue sea here and there; and they ran down the rough, rocky lane to the village on the shore, two miles away; and ...
— The Christmas Child • Hesba Stretton
... wild Best befit a thoughtless child, A solid wall, an earthen floor, Prison lights, a padlock'd door, Where's no plaything which he may Turn to harm by random play, For in such sport too oft is found A penny-toy will cost a pound. Be wise and merry;—play, but think; For danger stands ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... many and widely separated lands. It is found, always as a sacred instrument, employed in religious mysteries, in New Mexico, in Australia, in New Zealand, in ancient Greece, and in Africa; while, as we have seen, it is a peasant-boy's plaything in England. A number of questions are naturally suggested by the bull-roarer. Is it a thing invented once for all, and carried abroad over the world by wandering races, or handed on from one people ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... third revolution, bought at this amazing sum, and this poor, miserable prince first dragged from Moorshedabad to Calcutta, then dragged back from Calcutta to Moorshedabad, the sport of fortune and the plaything of avarice. This poor man is again set up, but is left with no authority: his troops limited,—his person, everything about him, in a manner subjugated,—a British Resident the master of his court: he is set up as a pageant on this ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was powerless to help. The schooner was but the plaything of the waves, while to launch a boat—ah, how the storm-fiends would have laughed at the attempt! So leaving the hapless sailor to his fate, we drove on through a blinding wall of rain into the dark ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... arrived and it really was a boy! And when he saw the "little monkey that smelled of butter" clasped to her bosom, which until then had but been his plaything, he reverently discovered the mother in his little wife; and "when he saw the big pupils looking at the baby so intently that they seemed to be looking into the future", he realised that there were depths in her eyes after all; depths more profound than he could fathom ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... twirling the cord upon which the dozens of great brass rings were strung, watching the shining ellipse they made as they revolved,—like a child set down upon the carpet with a plaything,—expecting no answer, only waiting for the next vagrant whimsicality that should come across her brain,—not altogether without method, either,—to give ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... fell ill, and mother nursed him in a way no man could have done, so that he had reason to be thankful that he had allowed mother and me to remain on board. The 'Victorious' became one of the best disciplined and happiest ships in the service, all because she had a real live plaything on board. She fought several bloody actions. During one of them, when we were tackling a French eighty-gun ship, I got away from mother, who was with the other women in the cockpit attending to the wounded, ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... seriously, and almost threateningly: "Very well; I accept it!" These words now resounded in his ears like a verdict. He promised himself to play a sure game with Madame Desvarennes. As to Cayrol, he was out of the question; he had only been created as a plaything for princes such as Serge; his destiny was written on his forehead, and he could not escape. If it had not been Panine, some one else would have done the same thing for him. Besides, how could that ex-cowherd expect to keep such ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... his plaything. That's all he cares about. I've been with him and his family almost from a baby, and have grown old a-serving him, and it don't matter to him whether I goes into the hedges and ditches, or where I goes. They say that service is no heritance, and they says true. ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... entered his room as though to salute her father, and afterwards she slipped in there at mid-day. An unaccountable, resistless curiosity impelled her to gaze on Ammalat. Never, in her childhood, had she so eagerly longed for a plaything; never, at her present age, had she so vehemently wished for a new dress or a glittering ornament, as she desired to meet the eye of the guest; and when at length, in the evening, she encountered his languid, yet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... a divine message to man; if it be anything but a cabbala, useless either to the simple-minded or to the logical, intended only for the plaything of a few devout fancies, it must declare the unchangeable laws by which the unchangeable God is governing, and has always governed, the human race; and therefore only by understanding what has happened, can we understand what will happen; only by understanding history, can we understand ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... came to a more even keel as she squared away from the gale, and the splendid speed of the craft sent a thrill through Dolores, as through the less impressionable pirate of the gang. Fast as Rufe's sloop was, this dainty plaything of wealth and leisure sped over the snarling seas at a gait that promised to overhaul the smaller ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Hill, about eight miles distant from Old Ebenezer. The land was uneven, with oak ridges, beech slopes and shell-bark hickory flats, but the road was smooth, and for the two trotting horses the buggy was merely a plaything. He drew up at a wagon-maker's shop, the end of his journey, and threw the lines to a negro who came forward ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... lands that are living with one here. The Bishop had an exaggerated notion of the population here. I imagine it to be somewhere about 8,000. The language is not very hard, but has quite enough difficulty to make it more than a plaything: the people in that state when they venerate a missionary—a very dangerous state; I do my best to turn the reverence into the right channel and towards its ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... How comes it that human nature rises above its origin, and is able—nay, obliged—to condemn the evil which God permits? Is man finite in power, a mere implement of a mocking will so far as knowledge goes, the plaything of remorseless forces, and yet author and first source of something in himself which invests him with a dignity that God Himself cannot share? Is the moral consciousness which, by its very nature, must bear witness against the Power, although it cannot arrest its pitiless course, ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... Madame Bauche had accepted the charge without much thought, perhaps, as to what might be the child's ultimate destiny. But since then she had thoroughly done the duty of a mother by the little girl, who had become the pet of the whole establishment, the favourite plaything of Adolphe Bauche, and at last of ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope
... is described as a species of guitar in Murray's "New English Dictionary," and this passage from the Diary is given as a quotation. The word appears as angelot in Phillips's "English Dictionary" (1678), and is used in Browning's "Sordello," as a "plaything of ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the mitre of London, to the great discomfort of Terrick and Warburton. You see Lord Bath(575 does not hobble up the back-stairs for nothing. Oh, he is an excellent courtier! The Prince of Wales shoots him with plaything arrows, he falls down dead; and the child kisses him to life again. Melancholy ambition I heard him, t'other night, propose himself to Lady Townshend as a rich widow. Such spirits at fourscore are pleasing; but when one has ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... be asked, had come that plaything of the tempest? From what part of the world did it rise? It surely could not have started during the storm. But the storm had raged five days already, and the first symptoms were manifested on the 18th. It cannot ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... he. "What has Marian got to do with it? Marian never cared that about me." He makes an expressive movement with his fingers—a little snap. "I know now that Marian only played with me. I amused her. I was the plaything of an hour." ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... this fish to cook it, she found within it a large piece of glass, crystal clear, which she threw to the children for a plaything. A Jewess who entered the shop saw this piece of glass, picked it up, and offered a few pieces of money for it. Hassan's wife dared not do anything now without her husband's leave, and Hassan, being summoned, refused all the offers of the Jewess, perceiving that the piece of glass was surely ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... describes a cross appearing to the hero, and the words "live the life" being whispered to him. He then abandons the young woman he loves to his friend. Such a course of conduct would certainly be suggested by hypnotists to make a capable man their plaything and tool as was the case with Oliphant. Obviously a man could live a more beneficial life with a marriage of mutual affection, whilst a poor young woman would, if she married otherwise, be sure to be a sufferer. Perhaps ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris
... unduly smaller scale, and by her ordinary position, which is behind the figure of her "lord and master." In statuary, however, she appears seated with him on the same seat or chair. There is no appearance of her having been either a drudge or a plaything. She was regarded as man's true "helpmate," shared his thoughts, ruled his family, and during their early years had the charge of his children. Polygamy was unknown in Egypt during the primitive period; even the kings had then but one wife. Sneferu's ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... language the daring thought, so constantly present in Mr. Hardy's reverie, that God Himself has forgotten the existence of earth, this "tiny sphere," this "tainted ball," "so poor a thing," and has left all human life to be the plaything of blind chance. This sad conviction is hardly ruffled by "The Darkling Thrush," which goes as far towards optimism as Mr. Hardy can let himself be drawn, or by such reflections as those in ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... rest of the morning among the wicked-looking sharks of the Navy, and he went back depressed with the thought that his "sneak-box" was merely a plaything. However, he picked up confidence when the next day brought an offer from the builders to turn out an aluminium sneak-box in three divisions, with capacity for a crew of six, to be worked on occasion by two men pulling at levers, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... A plaything in the hand of Fate, she thought at first, when looking from her balcony she saw the Golden City, with its extensive suburbs stretched out at her feet, and heard the distant, never-ceasing roar of the ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... childhood made manifest. Thus, in the third or fourth generation, where all have been blacksmiths, the child will be born with the muscles of the right arm more developed than those of the left, and the first plaything he demands is a hammer. So, where a family have been traders, will the offspring naturally discover an aptness for bargaining and commerce. This is illustrated in the instincts of the Jews, a people of extraordinary brain and wonderful tenacity of ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... such liberties. He spoke very little to them, and when he did so he did it cautiously as if afraid that his words would hurt or contaminate them. He passed many hours thus as their companion and plaything, watching their lively faces ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... enough? Wilt thou give thyself to me?" There was a silence so long and unbroken Katherine was made to realize that her reply was not to be lightly uttered, so she answered with all the strength of a plaything of caprice,— ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... me so," she murmured. "I prefer to be at your feet. I am your bondslave ... your plaything. Beat me more if ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... same moment something fell at my feet. It was the tiny locket my child had worn on its little neck from the day the mother had fastened it there. What secret had Margaret meant? The locket was the answer! I had been a plaything of some unknown, malicious fiend again. The rescued baby was not the Judge's baby. That was the secret! The child I heard crying ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... the game, her cheeks aglow, her eyes sparkling, her golden hair afloat, Sylvia had turned to leap after her plaything, but even as she turned, from under the shadow of the cuddy glided a rounded white arm; and a shapely hand caught the child by the sash and drew her back. The next moment the young man in grey had placed ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... and he read the look to suit himself. Already he anticipated a favourable answer. But he was quickly undeceived. Aim-sa merely revelled in the passion she had aroused, like a mischievous child with a forbidden plaything. She enjoyed it for a moment, then her face suddenly became grave, and her eyelids drooped over the wonderful eyes which he thought had told him so much. And her answer came with a ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... gladly have restrained herself for Hubert's sake, but the sudden grief was uncontrollable. She sobbed convulsively, as when years ago some childish grief had broken in storms upon her and Hubert had stood by in tearless but painful sympathy, suggesting boyish consolations, ready to sacrifice any plaything or possession that might mend her broken heart. Now he stood helplessly before this ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... the truth that in me lieth, will I obey their voice. But love is impossible, and its semblance in me is so faint that my husband cannot see the likeness. There lies the difficulty. He wants a fond, tender, loving wife—a pet and a plaything. These he can never find in me; for, Heaven help me! Mrs. De Lisle, his sphere grows more and more repulsive every day, and I shudder sometimes at the thought ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... submission of those who court his kindness, or the notice of those who suffer him to court theirs. A head thus prepared for the reception of false opinions, and the projection of vain designs, they easily fill with idle notions till, in time, they make their plaything an author; their first diversion commonly begins with an ode or an epistle, then rises perhaps to a political irony, and is at last brought to its height by a treatise of philosophy. Then begins the poor animal to entangle himself in sophisms and ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... even though you see me so happy, and so satisfied with life, every now and then the remembrance of that unhappy girl strikes me here, in my head, and I eat badly and sleep worse, thinking that a girl who, after all, is of our own blood, is wandering lost over the world, a plaything for men, without anyone sheltering her, as though she were all alone, as ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was at the window—it was thrown wide open. A bird-cage hung rather high up, against the shutter-panel. She was standing opposite to it, making a plaything for the poor captive canary of a piece of sugar, which she rapidly offered and drew back again, now at one bar of the cage, and now at another. The bird hopped and fluttered up and down in his prison ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... calculation or directed by will. It is almost always chance which takes a man as the wind does a leaf, and throws him into some new and unknown path, where, once entered, he is obliged to obey a superior force, and where, while believing himself free, he is but the slave of circumstances and the plaything of events. ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... fair. Destiny! Destiny! am I but a spark Track'd under heaven in flames and despair? Destiny! Destiny! why am I desired Thus like a poisonous fruit, deadly sweet? Destiny! Destiny! lo, my soul is tired, Make me thy plaything no ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... self-amusement he would lie down as if life were useless, and wait until something or somebody came along to amuse him. His greatest delight was in fishing things out of a pan of water, and he would wash every pebble or plaything that he owned and carefully lay it out to dry. One day he pounced upon a rooster who insulted him by drinking from his water vessel, and plucked a long feather from his tail so quickly that we could hardly realise what had taken place. He then had great fun in attempting to stick the feather in ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... she had not looked so tired, so unhappy, so broken-spirited. Did Rose still love the man for whom she had betrayed her friends and her own better nature? Yes. But she had learned that she was no more to him than a plaything—to caress or to break as seemed most amusing to him. At first until the novelty of her had worn off he had shown her a sufficiency of brusque tenderness. Latterly as his great plans matured he had been all brute. Sometimes he made her feel that he ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... Carter Brooks sit beside me, as now, and treat me as fully out in Society, would have thriled me to the core. But that day had gone. I realized that he was not only to old, but to flirtatous. He was one who would not look on a woman's Love as precious, but as a plaything. ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... all my lifetime I have been the plaything of dreams. Sometimes they have taken such possession of me, that nobody could persuade me afterward they were other than real events. Some are very oppressive, very painful, M. de la Rochefoucault! I have never been able, altogether, to disembarrass my head of the most wonderful ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... found some pretext that took him to the little log cabin. Now it was to convey to the woman a haunch of a caribou he had slain. Again it was to bring her child a strange plaything from the forest. More frequently it was to do the work that Cummins would have done. He seldom went within the low door, but stood outside, speaking a few words, while Cummins' wife talked to him. But one morning, when the sun was shining down with the first promising warmth of spring, ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... coming on, and his companion hurried to the camp with the tidings. His relations rushed to the rescue. He finally recovered and has ever since been called Bull Snake. It is a fitting appellation for this grizzled warrior of sixty-eight years. The bow and arrow became the plaything of his boyhood days. With it he sought the lair of wild things and shot with glee the buffalo calf; his final strength winging the arrow through the heart of the buffalo bull. Then came the days of the war trail, ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... religious enthusiasm had degenerated into the conceits of Mariolatry, that of war into the extravagances of Chivalry. Love indeed remained; it was the one theme of troubadour and trouveur; but it was a love of refinement, of romantic follies, of scholastic discussions, of sensuous enjoyment—a plaything rather than a passion. Nature had to reflect the pleasant indolence of man; the song of the minstrel moved through a perpetual May-time; the grass was ever green; the music of the lark and the nightingale rang out from field and thicket. There was a gay avoidance of all that is serious, moral, or ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... be the Ulysses-like plaything of adverse gods at the War Office; an indefatigably prolific wife; a succession of weak and ailing children; misfortune in the seasons of journeying; misfortune in the moods of the weather by sea and land—under all this combination of hostile chances and conditions was the struggle to ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... that night the story does not say. Asleep or awake, however, his mind was probably in the state of a child's to whom a beautiful new plaything has been promised in the morning. At any rate, day had hardly peeped over the hills when King Midas was broad awake, and stretching his arms out of bed, began to touch the objects that were within reach. He was anxious to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... bow-window room is a low garden-wall, belonging to a house under repair:—the white house opposite the collar-maker's shop, with four lime-trees before it, and a waggon-load of bricks at the door. That house is the plaything of a wealthy, well-meaning, whimsical person who lives about a mile off. He has a passion for brick and mortar, and, being too wise to meddle with his own residence, diverts himself with altering and re-altering, improving and re-improving, doing and undoing here. ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... was a good deal of excitement and confusion. I don't believe anybody knows just what happened but a drunken Mexican drew a dagger somewhere in the mix up and let it fly indiscriminate like. We all scattered like mischief when we saw the thing flash. Nobody cares much for that kind of plaything at close range. But Massey didn't move. It got him, clean in the heart. He couldn't have suffered a second. It was all over in a breath. He fell and the mob made itself scarce. Another fellow and I were the first to get to him but ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... just as much of a big child as most men are when another big child tries to take away a plaything. Oh, he was furious, Stewart! But let me tell you something for your comfort. He dwelt most savagely on the fact that you had grabbed in single-handed and beaten a Governor and a United States Senator at their own game! Wonderful, isn't it—admission ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... crotchety, humoursome, will be just as right as those who might affirm me to be thrifty, modest, plucky, tenacious, energetic, hardworking, constant, taciturn, cute, polite, merry. Nothing astonishes me more than myself. I am inclined to conclude I am the plaything of circumstances. Does this kaleidoscope result from the fact that, into the soul of those who claim to paint all the affections and the human heart, chance casts each and every of these same affections in order that by the strength of their imagination ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... but a wanton maiden, The plaything of thy idle hours; But laughing streams with gold are laden, And sweets are hidden 'neath ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... continued Henrietta Plunkett, rising to the foothills of her platform manner, "to become a parasite, a man's bond slave, his creature? Do you wish to be his toy, his plaything?" ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... and generally communicable, and yet at the same time not supplant thoroughness by popularity. For scholarly completeness must not be sacrificed to popularity to please the people, unless science is to become a plaything or trifling." It is perfectly plain that all that was said before of the psychological and the logical methods must be taken into account in ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... rid of the hours till noon was the question. Hugh had had everything packed up, over which he had any control, for some days. He had not left himself a plaything of those which he might carry: and it frightened him that his mother did not seem to think of packing his clothes till after breakfast this very morning. When she entered his room for the purpose, he was ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... got through that first half-mile of surf is a mystery to me. Every wave seemed as though it would pitch it like a plaything across to the next. Now we shot up till we looked down on the coxswain below us as from the top of a mast, and next instant we looked up at him till it seemed a marvel how he held to his place, and did not drop on to us. All the while ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Paris. I must have lost my head during the last few days! I must be the plaything of my enervated imagination, unless I am really a somnambulist, or that I have been brought under the power of one of those influences which have been proved to exist, but which have hitherto been inexplicable, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... at this. It's a present for you. Yes, it's another fifty sous you've cost me. With this plaything I shall no longer be obliged to run after you, and it'll be no use you getting into the corners. Will you have a try? Ah! you broke a cup! Now then, gee up! Dance away, make your curtsies to ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... day's work was begun, which signal was repeated at sunset. This old custom possessed uncommon charms for Mr. Bouncer, whose only regret was that he had left behind him his celebrated tin horn. But he took to the cow-horn with the readiness of a child to a new plaything; and, having placed himself under the instruction of the Northumbrian Koenig, was speedily enabled to sound his octaves and go the complete unicorn (as he was wont to express it, in his peculiarly figurative eastern language) with a still more astounding effect than he had ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... the fool, the posturer, the juggler, the spangled saltinbanco, the people's plaything, that runs and leaps and turns and twists, and laughs at himself and is laughed at by all, and lives by his limbs like his brother the dancing bear and his cousin the monkey in a red coat ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... later they fall into every life, yet mine will pass away I feel assured. 'Pain, suffering, failure are as needful as ballast to a ship, without which it does not draw enough water, becomes a plaything for the winds and waves, travels no certain road, and easily overturns.' If the gloomiest pessimist of this century can extract that comfort, what may I not hope for my future? I am going to rebuild ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... speech. He rose And came and knelt beside me. "Sweet, my sweet!" He murmured softly, "God in Heaven knows How well I loved you seven years ago. He only knows my anguish, and my grief, When your own acts forced on me the belief That I had been your plaything and your toy. Yet from his lips I since have learned that Roy Held no place nearer than a friend and brother. And then a faint suspicion, undefined, Of what had been—was—might be, stirred my mind, And that great love, I thought died at a blow, Rose ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... where the path broadened on a market-place, part shade, part luminous with golden dust. A squad of lank boys, kicking miraculously with flat upturned soles, kept a wicker ball shining in the air, as true and lively as a plaything on a fountain-jet. Beyond, their tiny juniors, girls and boys knee-high, and fat tumbling babies in rainbow finery, all hand-locked and singing, turned their circle inside out and back again, in the dizzy graces of the "Water Wheel." Other boys, and girls still trousered and queued like boys, ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... been made Heinrich's plaything—his tool!" thought he. "Now he ridicules me, and I am compelled to bear it! That horrible being is not my sister!—she cannot ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... far as this author had any serious philosophical belief, it would appear to have been that man was a slave of Chance, or Fate, or Destiny, or whatever it may be called. Sometimes he is the plaything of circumstances; sometimes a defenceless victim under "Fate's brazen hand," or of "that Eternal Power which rules over us." The real significance of life is summoned up in the statement that it is a struggle between contending powers of good and evil, against both ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... inspired with a very particular wish for that above all things. So with a nation. We want our independence. We want to do as we like. Otherwise, why ask for a Parliament? Gladstone says, Yes, my pretty dear, it shall have its ickety-pickety Parliament; it shall have its plaything. And it shall ridy-pidy in the coachy-poachy too; all round the parky-warky with the cock-a-doodle-doo. But it mustn't touch! Or if it touches it mustn't be rough, for its plaything will break so easily. We don't want this tomfoolery, nor to be treated like children. We want a real ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... as the bush wild flowers grow—hardy, unchecked, almost untended; for, though old nurse had always been there, her nurseling had gone her own way from the time she could toddle. She was everybody's pet and plaything; the only being who had power to make her stern, silent father smile—almost the only one who ever saw the softer side of his character. He was fond and proud of Jim—glad that the boy was growing up straight and strong and manly, ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... to shoot him," replied Mr. Whippleton, as he took a draught from his bottle, and then produced a revolver, with which he toyed as though it had been a pet plaything. "I am prepared for the worst, and I shall never be safe while he is above ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... a long, single barrel, rifle-bored duelling pistol—of the type used by gentlemen at the beginning of the century. Where he had got it she did not know, but always it had been his plaything. ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... he could be tried. Lount, another of the leaders, had succeeded in reaching Long Point, Lake Erie. With a fellow patriot, a French voyageur, and a boy, he started to cross Lake Erie in an open boat. It was wintry, stormy weather. For two days and two nights the boat tossed, a plaything of the waves, the drenching spray freezing as it fell, till the craft was almost ice-logged. For food they had brought only a small piece of meat, and this had frozen so hard that their numbed hands could not break it. Weakening at ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... drive offered to kiss her, and had been offended and surprised at her contemptuous rebuff. (What girl in Marut objected to being kissed?) This man had treated her as though she were holy, an object to be respected and protected, not to be handled as a common plaything; and her heart had gone out to him in gratitude and admiration. But tonight his very respect was painful to her. For a moment she would have given the best years of her life to know that he despised ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... favored most—the black-and-red top, the handsome soldier in the scarlet coat, the jointed snake beside its pipe-like box, and the somersault man, poised heels over head. Beyond these, ranged in a buff row, were the six small ducks acquired at Easter. She gave each plaything a keen glance. They reminded her vividly of the ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... went on he was able to buy himself 'a new plaything'—a piece of woodland, of more than forty acres, on the border of a little lake half a mile wide or more, called Walden Pond. 'In these May days,' he told Carlyle, then passionately struggling with his Cromwell, with ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... ungodly skill in it, the subtle partnership with a mindless public that seduces to mental speculation; the reassuring caress as reward for intellectual penetration; that inborn cleverness that makes the reader see, applaud, or pity him or herself in the sympathetic role of a plaything of Chance ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... announcement in the newspaper, neatly worded, and issued at the precise moment when the public interest was beginning to wane, and before the thing was forgotten. People read it, and having found a new plaything—bicycles, I suppose—did not care two pins what became of the malgamite scheme, and yet they were not left in a position to be able to say that they had never heard that the thing had been turned into a company." The banker rubbed his large soft hands together with a grim appreciation ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... if I could do much good with this plaything,' said Fion; 'it would break at first blow if I were to strike at ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... me as a ladder, on which he could climb to the height of his own ambitious desires: and when I thought on his fondness for me in my infancy I could impute it to nothing but either the liking me as a plaything or the gratification of his vanity in my beauty. But I was too much divided between a crown and my engagement to lord Percy to spend much time in thinking of anything else; and, although my father had positively forbid me, yet, when he came next, ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... blame me. I am to blame, but more to be pitied. Disdain me, if you wish, if one can disdain an unfortunate creature who is the plaything of life. In fine, judge me as you wish. But keep for me a little friendship in your anger, a little bitter-sweet reminiscence, something like those days of autumn when there is sunlight and strong wind. That is what I deserve. Do not ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... the poorness of her raiment, the meekness of her language, the small range of her ideas. The sweet soft coaxing loving smile, which had once been so dear to him, was infantine and ignoble. She was a plaything for an idle hour, not a woman to be taken out into the world with the high ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... cry," answered the Frog; "I can give thee good advice. But what wilt thou give me if I fetch thy plaything up again?" ...
— The Frog Prince and Other Stories - The Frog Prince, Princess Belle-Etoile, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp • Anonymous
... distance, which were kept moving along all the time by machinery, for the children to shoot at with the peas. If they hit any of them they drew a prize, consisting of cake or gingerbread, or of some sort of plaything or toy, of which great numbers were hanging up about the shooting place. All these, and a great many other similar contrivances for amusing people, Rollo and Jane saw, as they passed along; but they did not stop to look at them, excepting when ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... thoroughly imagine, there is also in very many a great deal which can only be truly apprehended for the first time at that age. Youth has a principle of consolidation; we begin with the whole. Small sciences are the labors of our manhood; but the round universe is the plaything of the boy. His fresh mind shoots out vaguely and crudely into the infinite and eternal. Nothing is hid from the depth of it; there are no boundaries to its vague and wandering vision. Early science, it has been said, begins ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... a few minutes unseen in the shadow while she closed the eyes and composed the limbs of the dead soldier; then, kneeling, said the Lord's Prayer in French over him. Was this the being he had left as the petted plaything of the palace? When she rose, she came to the arch and gazed wistfully across the moonlit quadrangle, beyond the dark shade cast by the buildings, saying to the soldier, 'You are ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... downward? So there is God the Father and God the Son. Thou wilt keep my little son for me. He has gone home to be nursed for me. And when I grow well, I will be more simple, and truthful, and joyful in thy sight. And now thou art taking away my child, my plaything, from me. But I think how pleased I should be, if I had a daughter, and she loved me so well that she only smiled when I took her plaything from her. Oh! I will not disappoint thee—thou shall have thy joy. Here I am, do with me what thou wilt; ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... Mrs Delvile's! She has taught you exactly her manner of talking. But do you know I am informed you have got Fidel with you here? O fie, Miss Beverley! What will papa and mamma say, when they find you have taken away poor little master's plaything?" ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... was her life, he filled her horizon. Honour itself was lost in the absorbing passion of her love. He had stripped it from her and she was content that it should lie at his feet. He had made her nothing, she was his toy, his plaything, waiting to be thrown aside. She shuddered again and looked around the tent that she had shared with him with a bitter smile and sad, hunted eyes.... After her—who? The cruel thought persisted. She was torn with a mad, primitive jealousy, a longing to kill ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... himself in a manner wonderfully precocious for so young a baby; indeed, he seemed very much pleased with having a trunk to play with, and certainly had a great advantage over most babies in possessing so permanent a plaything. Behind this interesting party stood a large elephant, with huge tusks, which had been chiefly instrumental in the capture of the victims he was now grimly surveying at a considerable distance, it not being safe to let him ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... in this country but one year, and before coming here was only a common soldier—has a third company. I do not mention many others—alferezes and sergeants who are immature boys—at whom all laugh, and who would better be in school than occupying such offices. They are the ridicule and plaything of the soldiers; for the latter see in them no other valor or sufficiency than to be relatives of the auditors or fiscal. The same is true of other honorable and advantageous posts. Mateo de Heredia is alcalde-mayor ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... tray fastened before it, on which his toys were put. His dearest plaything was a ridiculous old doll, with no eyes, half a wig, such a dilapidated pair of kid arms that the stuffing came bursting through in every direction, making her look as if she had a cotton plantation inside her, and the bolls were sprouting out; and such an extremely ...
— Funny Little Socks - Being the Fourth Book • Sarah. L. Barrow
... the nearest chair, Cicely made a snatch at Melchisedek as he shot past her. He eluded her, and, happy that at last he was to have a companion in his sport, he took refuge under Mr. Gilwyn's chair where he mounted guard over his plaything and snarled invitingly whenever Cicely tried to seize him. The situation reacted upon the nerves of the guest and caused him to spill a portion of his coffee. Ever curious, ever greedy, Melchisedek scampered out to sniff at the coffee, and ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... a desire within her that had not been gratified or that had grown delicious and intense through being thwarted; she had never suffered, never hoped, never feared. The world was there as a plaything; she had seen masks but never faces, she had never looked into a human heart or witnessed ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... much of a lawyer!" jeered the other. "Mr. Parker, you may as well take your plaything," pointing to the engine, "and trundle ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite: Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age: Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before, Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... golden leaves astray Upon the warm wind of an autumn day, When the Indian summer rules the air. Others, having found, Lying idly on the sun-hot ground, Shuttlecocks and battledores, Play with the buoyant feathers and stare Dazzled at the plaything as it soars, Vague against the shining sky, Where light yet throbs and confuses the eye, Then see it again, white and clear, As slowly, poisedly it falls by The dark green foliage and floats near. But Celia, apart, is pensive and must sigh, And Anais but faintly pursues ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... most imperfectly learned, and now was easily forgotten. He was tired, moreover, and wanted to go to sleep. So he snuggled his glossy, roguish face down into the baby's lap and shut his eyes. And the baby, filled with delight over such a novel and interesting plaything, shook her yellow hair down over his black fur and crooned to him a soft, ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to throw you both to the beasts. No, no, not that; you dare not front me! I make my own choice of who shall die and who live." She laughed mockingly. "Bah! I know your sort, Monsieur—'tis as the wind blows; you love to-day, and forget to-morrow. Yet I keep you for a plaything—I have no use for her. I care no longer how the wolves tear her dainty limbs. Before this I have tasted vengeance and ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... of inch boards, heavily ribbed, and is a sorry weight to handle. The contention is, that to withstand the swash of steamboat wakes breaking upon the shore, and the rush of drift in times of flood, a heavy skiff is necessary; there is a tendency to decry Pilgrim as a plaything, unadapted to the great river. A reasonable degree of care at all times, however, and keeping the boat drawn high on the beach when not in use,—such care as we are familiar with upon our Wisconsin inland lakes,—would render the employment ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... because we are well informed and personally acquainted with the details that brought this formerly world-wide respected and valued gem of civilization into insignificance in the eye of the scornful, and a plaything in the hands of the so-called great powers ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... child has been converted into an elaborately dressed doll. It is altogether a thing of show, an appendage of its fashionably dressed mother, with frock and parasol to match. It is no longer a child, but a living toy or plaything. ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock |
