"Circus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... good as a circus to the inhabitants of Airole; nay, better, for our antics could be seen gratis. The entire population of the village, and apparently of several adjacent villages, collected round the two cars. They made the ring, and—we did the rest. We ate, we drank, and they were merry at our expense. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... can recognize my scarab when you get into the museum. That shameless old green-goods man who sneaked it from me has had the gall, the nerve, to put it all by itself, with a notice as big as a circus poster alongside of it saying that it is a Cheops of the Fourth Dynasty, presented"—Mr. Peters choked—"presented by J. Preston Peters, Esquire! That's how you're ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... he plunged: his mind wandered, endless fancies haunted him, memories of Germany and of Parisian society: he was obsessed by rhythms and scraps of melody which went round, and round, and round, like horses in a circus: the sudden shock of the golden light of the Good Samaritan: the tense, stricken faces in the shadow: and then, dark nothingness and night. Then up he would come once more, wrenching away the grimacing mists, clenching his fists, and ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... accomplished torero, had spent his earlier years in the circus, and was, as we all knew, a ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... I been a-totin' dis kindlin' from way up yander in Twenty-third Street where the circus useter be. Dey's buildin' a big hotel dere now—de Fifth Avenue dey calls it. I'm a-carryin' mortar for de brick-layers an' somehow dese sticks is monst'ous heavy after ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... indifferent, cursing in the bitterness of its heart the government, the army, the empire? Or would they have it like the Roman mob of the first Caesars, cluster in crowds, careless of empire, battles, or the glory of Rome's name, shouting for a loaf of bread and a circus ticket? Between the cries, the laughter, the tears of a mob and the speech or the silence of a statesman there is a great space; but it were rash to assume that the dissonant clamour of the crowds is but an ignorant or a transient ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... not exhibit himself in any dime museum, circus theater, opera house, or any other place of public amusement or assembly where a ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... lift in Leicester Square Station, but Ellen never looked at him again. He had a shrewd suspicion that underneath her veil she was weeping. She refused to say good-bye and kept tight hold of Alfred's hand. When they had gone, he passed out of the station and stood upon the pavement of Piccadilly Circus. Side by side with a sense of immeasurable relief, an odd kind of pain was gripping his heart. Something that had belonged to him had been wrenched away. A wave of meretricious sentiment, false yet with a curious base of naturalness, swept in upon him for a moment and tugged ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... House. From hence I walked at the same rapid pace along Piccadilly, insinuating myself among the crowd with the skill born of long acquaintance with the London streets, crossed amidst the seething traffic at the Circus, darted up Windmill Street and began to zigzag amongst the narrow streets and courts of Soho. Crossing the Seven Dials and Drury Lane I passed through the multitudinous back-streets and alleys that then filled ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... clothes. The cage was situated at one end of the field apart from the other training-quarters. When Ken got there he found a mob of players crowding to enter the door of the big barn-like structure. Others were hurrying away. Near the door a man was taking up tickets like a doorkeeper of a circus, and he kept shouting: "Get your certificates from the doctor. Every player must pass a physical examination. ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... we was strong enough, he said—an' for that matter it turned out well when the hard time came—I used to amuse myself an' the rest by standin' on my head an' twistin' of my body into all sorts o' shapes—more'n it could well ha' been meant for to take. An' when the circus come round, I would make friends wi' the men, helpin' of 'em to look after their horses, an' they would sometimes, jest to amuse theirselves, teach me tricks I was glad enough to learn; an' they did say for a clod-hopper I got on very well. But that, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... as the lawns of a park; it is crossed over by an old bridge with a single arch, which reflects in the placid water the outlines of its graceful ogive. On the right, the hills stand close together in the form of a circus, and seemed to join their verdure-clad curves; on the left, they spread out until they become merged in the deep and somber masses of a vast forest. The valley is thus closed on all sides, and offers a picture of ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... after the irretrievable disappearance of Fifi and Mimi, she went so far as to admit a note of unconscious confession into her protest that she was getting pretty tired of being mistaken for a three-ring circus! Such was her despairing expression, and the confession lies in her ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... regular circus!" said Darry Haven that afternoon, when Bart told him about it. "Last year they advertised the sale at Marion. I was up there at my uncle's. All the farmers came in for miles around, and the way they bid, and the funny things they found in the packages, made it ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... inclined to make fun of the martyrs. They were possibly quite mistaken in their enthusiasm, but at least they were consistent. I do not feel convinced that Shaw would stand in the middle of Piccadilly Circus and keep his ideals if he knew that it would involve being eaten by lions that came up Regent Street, as the martyrs faced them centuries ago in Rome, but I have little doubt that Chesterton would remain in Piccadilly Circus if he knew that he ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... plunder of the East. The stage was never more than an artificial taste with them; their delight was the delight of barbarians, in spectacles, in athletic exercises, in horse-races and chariot-races, in the combats of wild animals in the circus, combats of men with beasts on choice occasions, and, as a rare excitement, in fights between men and men, when select slaves trained as gladiators were matched in pairs to kill each other. Moral habits ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... was supplied by the well-known firm of Messrs. C. and W. Walker, of Finsbury Circus, London, and Donnington, Salop, was in an outer courtyard. It is a three-lift telescopic one; the lowest lift being 200 feet, the middle lift 197 ft. 6 in., and the top lift 195 ft. in diameter. The height ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... receive him as before. They are seldom able to despatch him, and a matador steps forward to end his sufferings. Some of the Indians are often much hurt: they invariably make themselves half drunk before they enter the circus, alleging that they can fight the bull better when they see double. Again, another bull is let into the ring for the lanzada, or trial of the lance, the handle of which is very long and strong, fixed into a wooden socket secured to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... then, the delightful soul soothing music, so harmonious, so pathetic, and the decorations so truly tasteful and classical! I can never forget the impression this fascinating Ballet made on me. It is called La Vestale. It opens with a view of the Circus in ancient Rome, and various gymnastic exercises, combats of gladiators, of athletes, and ends with a chariot race with real horses. The Roman Consuls are present in all their pomp, surrounded by Lictors with axes and fasces. The Vestal virgins ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... I hope," said Martin, suppressing his laughter as his comrade scrambled on to the saddle. "You travel about on the back of your horse at full gallop like a circus rider." ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... indolence. Amid all this luxury and leisure, fancy was not unemployed. We find that, like the former leaders of fashion in this country, they kept a goodly train of monkeys,[6] and anticipated our circus performances by teaching their horses to dance on their hind legs, an advance above practical joking and below pictorial caricature. Moreover, intellectual entertainment was required at their sumptuous feasts, and genius was tasked ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... a good darling! Do tell! Pity we didn't marry you to some circus clown. Shame on you; there's some kind of folly in you; you whisper right under your mother's nose, just ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... proof against common depredations. Well, then, along come this Sunday paper, with two whole pages telling about how the meat of the common whale will win the war, with a picture of a whale having dotted lines showing how to butcher it, and recipes for whale patties, and so forth. And next comes the circus to Red Gap, with old Pete, the Indian, going down to it and getting crazy about elephants. And so that was how ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... of their times. Imperial Rome plundered the entire Mediterranean basin, Spain, Gaul, and two-thirds of England, for the benefit of a hundred thousand idlers. She amused them in the Coliseum with massacres of beasts and of men; in the Circus Maximus with combats of athletes and with chariot races; in the theater of Marcellus with pantomimes, plays, and the pageantry of arms and costume; she provided them with baths, to which they resorted to gossip, to contemplate statues, to listen to declaimers, to keep themselves cool in the heats ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... trains sometimes,—and you can generally count on their being a little late. No, I can't and won't come to committee meetings and be bored. But all that I have is yours," and Madeline tossed a long and beautifully curled mustache at Mary, and a roll of Persian silk at Marion. "For the circus barker," she explained, "and the Indian juggler's turban. I'll make the turban, if the juggler doesn't know how. They're apt to come apart, if you don't get the right twist. And I'll see about that little show of my own, if you really think ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... soul because he forgets to cut his hair, or to fasten his blouse at the throat. And of course there have been rhymsters who have gone over to the side of the enemy, and who have made profit from exhibiting their freakishness, after the manner of circus monstrosities. Thomas Moore sometimes takes malicious pleasure in thus showing up the oddities of his race. [See Common Sense and Genius, and Rhymes by the Road.] Later libelers have been, usually, writers of no reputation. The literary squib that made most stir in the course ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... teacher!" in an excited lisp spoke up little Tod Smith, the youngest pupil in the school. "He broke the desk, but—say, teacher! he did it—yes, sir, Andy did the double somersault, just like a real circus actor, and ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... de Toros stands just outside the monumental gate of the Alcala. It is a low, squat, prison-like circus of stone, stuccoed and whitewashed, with no pretence of ornament or architectural effect. There is no nonsense whatever about it. It is built for the killing of bulls and for no other purpose. Around it, on a day of battle, you will find encamped great armies of the lower class of Madrilenos, who, ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... be chronicled is that the original Dollar, picked up on the Circus Lot, was found ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... society women in Paris who, by the amount of vitality and vigour they expend, and by the intense application of their energy and grace, remind one of circus-riders and tight-rope dancers, whose temperament suffers from the fatigue ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... she murmured reproachfully, and hastened back to Miss Ingate, who heard the tale with a grinning awe that was, nevertheless, sardonic. They pressed onwards to Piccadilly Circus, where the only normal and cheerful living creatures were the van horses and the flower-women; and up Regent Street, through crowds of rapt and mystical women and romantical men who had apparently wandered out of a ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... afternoon the pasture seemed deserted. It was circus day and the children of the surrounding blocks had all by one method or another won admission to the big tent on the hill east ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... wonder; but there is also that ever in his pranks which causes us to think, and even sometimes to weep. In much of his that seems burlesque, the most audacious, there are hidden springs of thought and tears. Often, when most he seems as the grimed and grinning clown in a circus girded by gaping spectators, he stops to pour out satire as passionate as that of Juvenal, or morality as eloquent and as pure as that of Pascal. And this he does without lengthening his face or taking off his paint. Sometimes, when he most absurdly scampers in his thoughts, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... he groan-like?" wondered Shuey to himself. "He does that, sir," he continued aloud; "didn't Mrs. Ellis ever tell you about the time at the circus? She was there herself, with three children she borrowed and an unreasonable gyurl, with a terrible big screech in her and no sense. Yes, sir, Mr. Lossing he is mighty cliver with his hands! There come ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... vegetables in beds usually entails more labor and expense than the crop is worth; and it has had the effect of driving more than one boy from the farm. These beds always need weeding on Saturdays, holidays, circus days, and the Fourth of July. Even if the available area is only twenty feet wide, the rows should run lengthwise and be far enough apart (from one to two feet for small stuff) to allow of the use of the hand wheelhoes, many of which are very efficient. If land is ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... course of life, and fear excluded—the vicissitudes, delights, and havens of to-day will seem of epic breadth. This may seem a shallow observation; but the springs by which men are moved lie much on the surface. Bread, I believe, has always been considered first, but the circus comes close upon its heels. Bread we suppose to be given amply; the cry for circuses will be the louder, and if the life of our descendants be such as we have conceived, there are two beloved pleasures on which they will be likely ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the name "Razumov—Mr. Razumov" pierced the ear ridiculously, like the falsetto of a circus clown beginning an elaborate joke. Astonishment was Razumov's first response, followed by ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... swung to me left from whence the noise came and beheld Mrs. Fennell (Sneeze)—God bless us!—rushing out of her own house the way you'd see a wild Injun rushing in the moving pictures and shouting like a circus lion before his breakfast: "Police! police! police!" An' as though it was the will of Providence, I was in the very place where me ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... self-defence has been turned to amusing account by circus-proprietors. The "boxing kangaroo" was at one time quite a common feature at circuses and music-halls. A tame kangaroo would have its forefeet fitted with boxing-gloves. Then when lightly punched by its trainer, it would, quite naturally, imitate the movements of the boxer, ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... the Gaming Table; Taking Coffee. Baglioni: The Festival of the Padrona. Dresden. Portrait of a Lady. Hampton Court. Three genre-pictures. London. Visit to a Circus; Visit to a Fortune-Teller; Portrait. Mond Collection: Card party; Portrait. Venice. Academy: Six genre-paintings. Correr Museum: Eleven paintings of Venetian life; Portrait of Goldoni. Palazzo Grassi: Frescoes; Scenes of fashionable ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... the Loyal Circus. A handsome boy too. A tall dark fellow like you. He is a little too proud, but I like that ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... the bottle was about to descend upon the penthouse—the scuttle opened and there was thrust forth a huge yellow face with enormous sooty lips wreathed in an unmistakable smile. On the long undulating neck the head resembled one of the grotesque manikins carried in circus parades. Eset el Gazzar in a search for air had discovered that the attic scuttle ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... her head with rage. "I don't go anywhere," she screamed. "Never! I never went to a circus in my life, and all the boys and girls around here go every year. Tip always goes—always; he manages to slip in. Oh, Tip'" and she opened the gate and went out to him on the sidewalk, a new thought having come ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... gilt crown; which was so like one of the procession-figures, that perhaps at this hour she may think the whole appearance a celestial vision. Anyhow, I must certainly have forgiven her her interest in the Circus, though I had been her ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... pill is on tap, and likewise the sarsaparilla, And on the fence and the barn, quite worthy of S. Botticelli, Frisk the lithe leopard and gnu, in malachite, purple, and crimson, That we may know at a glance the circus is out ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... pray, an' haply irk it not when prayed, Show us where shadowed hidest thou in shade! Thee throughout Campus Minor sought we all, Thee in the Circus, thee in each bookstall, Thee in Almighty Jove's fane consecrate. 5 Nor less in promenade titled from The Great (Friend!) I accosted each and every quean, But mostly madams showing mien serene, For thee I pestered all with ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... cried Danny, from the superior experience of his nine years. "The circus is coming to town!" He threw himself on the grass by Jerry and pressed the uneaten apple core into ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... of the gentlemen called out, softly. He had been in Berlin and had seen the circus there, and the others ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... shoulders as he shrugged them up, and extended his hands at his sides like the flappers of a turtle. Uncle Bill looked at the man in admiration; he had never seen such a performance before, save by a certain contortionist in a traveling circus, and in his delight he asked the man, when his head appeared, if he wouldn't do that once more, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the express into the Pennsylvania Station he wondered for a moment if there was a circus or a frontier-day show in town. The shouts of the porters, the rush of men and women toward the gates, the whirl and eddy of a vast life all about him, took him back to the few hours ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... of the two baskets hitherto borne by the couple, giving himself time, however, every now and then to look out of his little black eyes at the rightful owners, with rather a spiteful expression, but protruding at the same time his red tongue, like a clown at the circus, as if enjoying the joke of their picking and he eating. Afterward I learned that they had deposited their baskets on the ground under a loaded bush, for greater facility in securing the fruit, when suddenly ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... in the writings of Cicero, Quintilian, Seneca the Rhetorician, Petronius, Aulus Gellius, Vitruvius, and the Latin grammarians. The professional teacher Quintilian is shocked at the illiterate speech of the spectators in the theatres and circus. Similarly a character in Petronius utters a warning against the words such people use. Cicero openly delights in using every-day Latin in his familiar letters, while the architect Vitruvius expresses the anxious fear that he ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... prowess elsewhere, and a circus had come to Madison Square Garden. Clavering had heard the roar of lions in the night. A far different crowd would stand under the arcade in a few hours, but the peanut venders would ply their trade, and a little booth for candies and innocuous ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... clown in the circus said," finished Tom Rover, "when he thought he was going to jump through a paper hoop and found instead that it was a solid white barrel-head;" and at this little joke there was ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... he had found a new object of interest. With Lucius Ahenobarbus he had been at the Circus Flaminius, waiting for the races to begin, when he startled his friend by ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... adorably, almost pathetically little in its corner of the great throne—knew that he had not counted upon her in vain. Over there on the raised seats Mrs. Medora Hastings and Mr. Augustus Frothingham were looking on matters as helplessly as they would look at a thunder-storm or a circus procession, and they were taking things quite as seriously. But Olivia, in spite of the tragedy that the hour held for her, was giving the moment its exact value, guiltless of the feminine immorality ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... spell," drawled Jabe Slocum, pulling his straw hat over his eyes. "I've got to renew my strength like the eagle's, 'f I'm goin' to walk to the circus this afternoon. Wake me up, boys, when you think I'd ought to sling that scythe some more, for if I hev it on my mind I can't git ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... for a walk along the docks and tried to picture the coming strike. When I came home I found Joe there, he had come to go with us to Brooklyn. He was sitting on the floor with our boy gravely intent on a toy circus. Neither one was saying a word, but as Joe carefully poised an elephant on the top of a tall red ladder, I recalled my wife's injunction. By Jove, he did fit into a home, here certainly was a different Joe. He did not see me at the door. Later I ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... acquaintance, whose good opinion you are exceedingly anxious to retain. From the depths of the embrasure where you are talking with some friends, you gather, from the mere motion of her lips, these words: "My husband would have it so!" uttered with the air of a young Roman matron going to the circus to be devoured. You are profoundly wounded in your several vanities, and wish to attend to this conversation while listening to your guests: you thus make replies which bring you back such inquiries as: "Why, what are you thinking of?" For you have lost the thread of ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... new money. I thought it felt so at night, but I was sure of it in the morning. A brand-new bill, sir, a—But that isn't the queerest thing about it. I was asleep, sir, sound asleep, and dreaming of my courting days (for I asked Sally at the circus, sirs, and the band playing on the hill made me think of it), when I was suddenly shook awake by Sally herself, who says she hadn't slept a wink for listening to the music and wishing she was a girl again. 'There's a man at the shop door,' cries she. ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... on which this routine of work and play had to be changed were Sundays and holidays. Then my white umbrella would loom up as large as a circus tent, the usual crowd surging about its doors. As you cannot see London for the people, so you cannot see the river for boats on these days—all sorts of boats—wherries, tubs, launches, racing crafts, shells, punts—everything that can be poled, pulled, or wobbled, ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... them in clouds of dust, it was not until they pulled up before their favorite feed corral that the outfit learned that Mancos was revelling in quite the reddest red-letter day of its existence, the day of its first visitation by a circus—and also its last ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... to see the gladiators under arms, we must pass over the part of the city that has not yet been uncovered, and through vineyards and orchards, until, in a corner of Pompeii, as though down in the bottom of a ravine, we find the amphitheatre. It is a circus, surrounded by tiers of seats and abutting on the city ramparts. The exterior wall is not high, because the amphitheatre had to be hollowed out in the soil. One might fancy it to be a huge vessel deeply embedded in the sand. In this external ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... non-professional will not have so much immediate, objective efficiency; but it will more greatly vitalize the striker, causing him to bring into play almost the whole of his body. The one is the blow of a boxer, the other that of a man. And it is notorious that the Hercules of the circus, the athletes of the ring, are not, as a rule, healthy. They knock out their opponents, they lift enormous weights, but they die of phthisis ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... Even in those days, the Fromonts, whose name was always on Rider's lips, irritated and humiliated him by their wealth. Moreover, it was to be a fancy ball, and M. Chebe—who did not sell wallpapers, not he!—could not afford to dress his daughter as a circus-dancer. But Risler insisted, declared that he would get everything himself, and at once set about ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... The youth thought of the village street at home before the arrival of the circus parade on a day in the spring. He remembered how he had stood, a small, thrillful boy, prepared to follow the dingy lady upon the white horse, or the band in its faded chariot. He saw the yellow road, the lines of expectant people, and the sober houses. He particularly ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... troubles, if John Jay had been marking his good times with white stones, there would have been enough to build a wall all around the little cabin by the end of the summer. There were two days especially that he remembered with deepest satisfaction: one was the Saturday when Mars' Nat took him to the circus, and the other was the Fourth of July, when all the family went ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... singing "Wait for the Wagon", "Waiting at the Church ", and every other song we knew on the subject. People looked at us curiously as we sat in a row on a low stone wall. One man asked us if we were waiting for the circus parade, because if we were we had our dates mixed; the circus was not due until the next day. The afternoon advanced; carful after carful of tourists came down the dusty road, but none of them the ones we so eagerly awaited. Margery had refused ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... name, which might have given offence to the emperors under whom he lived, who used the name as a title.] of Pompeius was himself ungrateful; he brought war from Gaul and Germany to Rome, and he, the friend of the populace, the champion of the commons, pitched his camp in the Circus Flaminus, nearer to the city than Porsena's camp had been. He did, indeed, use the cruel privileges of victory with moderation; as was said at the time, he protected his countrymen, and put to death no man who was not in arms. Yet what credit is there in this? Others used their arms more ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... one, tip-top minin' expert, all right all right," the dog-musher delivered himself oracularly, "but you missed the chance of your life when you was a boy an' didn't run off an' join a circus." ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... honour as a scholar and a man of sense, tell me whether in Bentley's edition of Milton there is anything which approaches to the audacity of that emendation. Niebuhr requires you to believe that some of the greatest men in Rome were burned alive in the Circus; that this event was commemorated by an inscription on a monument, one half of which is sill in existence; but that no Roman historian knew anything about it; and that all tradition of the event was lost, though the memory of anterior events much less important ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... a jump and turned half around, sitting in the same place but with the other side of its body facing them. Instead of being black, it was now pure white, with a face like that of a clown in a circus and hair of a brilliant purple. The creature could bend either way, and its white toes now curled the same way the black ones on the ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... contemporary art. The consul wears a richly-embroidered cloak; his right hand holds a staff surmounted by the Roman eagle, his left the mappa circensis, or napkin used for starting the races in the circus; at his feet are palms and bags of money—prizes for the victors in the games. For permission to use this cast my thanks are due to the authorities of the Ashmolean Museum, as also to Mr. T.W. Jackson, Curator of the Hope Collection, ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... bill-board paste An' the 'property' canvas duck. At last we got to Kankakee, All travel-stained and sore, When the star got mad and shook us bad For a job in a dry-goods store— And then the leading heavy man Informed me with a frown He was going away the very next day With a circus then in town; And the comedy pet and the pert soubrette Engaged as cook and waiter— They are still doing well in a small hotel Near the Kankakee the-ay-ter. Then only the 'comic' and me remained, For to leave he hadn't ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... which appeared more lofty from being wrapped in vapours which softened its outline, all contributed to augment the majesty of the scene. Immediately below us lay a deep valley, enclosed on every side. Birds of prey and goatsuckers winged their lonely flight in this inaccessible circus. We found a pleasure in following with the eye their fleeting shadows, as they glided slowly over ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... ran up extra-sized bill-boards. Every time the Zionist brethren looked out of their side windows of a Sunday, they had ample opportunity to learn considerable about the art of advertising on bill-boards. And if a circus happened to be coming to Hyndsville, they could count on every child in their Sunday school missing his lesson, unless the text, by a fortunate chance, happened to ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... the injuries that he received were slight, and had no permanent consequence. The bulk of the surviving inhabitants, finding themselves houseless, or afraid to enter their houses if they still stood, bivouacked during the height of the winter in the open air, in the Circus, and elsewhere about the city. The terror which legitimately followed from the actual perils was heightened by imaginary fears. It was thought that the Mons Casius, which towers above Antioch to the south-west, was about ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... experiences of all—a revelation of barbarism complete. I found a place that was officially described as a church. It was a circus really, but that the worshippers did not know. There were flowers all about the building, which was fitted up with plush and stained oak and much luxury, including twisted brass candlesticks of severest ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... themselves to the exhibition of short petticoats and long-legged boots, and to the holding of conventions and speech-making in concert rooms, the people were disposed to be amused by them, as they are by the wit of the clown in the circus, or the performances of Punch and Judy on fair days, or the minstrelsy of gentlemen with blackened faces, on banjos, the tambourine, and bones. But the joke is becoming stale. People are getting cloyed with these performances, ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... this Prophet! Barnum must have been a devoted admirer of Moses, for Moses was the first to create the two-ring circus; for these laws given by Jehovah are described in two places, and the circus varies in both places. Exodus XX and Exodus XXXIV are the two ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... prospects were brightening, and a situation was provided for him, that he should be only a painter! She had a very low opinion of artists, as a class, and she would almost as soon have expected Charlie to become a play-actor, or a circus-rider. When the boy found that both Uncle Josie and Uncle Dozie thought his idea a very foolish one, that Miss Patsey was very much distressed, and Mrs. Hubbard could not be made to comprehend the ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... teamsters unharnessed the horses and unpacked the "cook outfit," the foreman sought out the round-up captain, the "riders" sought out their friends. Here there was larking, there there was horse-racing, elsewhere there was "a circus with a pitchin' bronc'," and foot-races and wrestling-matches. A round-up always had more than a little of the character of a county fair. For though the work was hard, and practically continuous for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, it was full of excitement. The cowboys regarded ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... and Max had decided to start out, taking Toby along, and fetch in the balance of the venison, Toby had expressed a desire to see the arena where Steve and the five-pronged buck held their little circus. He also wished to try how fast he could hurry around that tree, so as to be prepared in case the time ever came when necessity would compel him to adopt the ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... a mite fer standin' by them beaver!" continued Jabe. "They're jest all right! It was better'n any circus; an' I don't know when ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... even from us, who certainly did not need to regard them from her personally hostile point of view. Don stood straight up, with his forepaws beating the air; he walked on his hind legs like the trained dog in the circus; he yelped continuously, as if it agonized him to see the lion safe out of his reach. Sounder had lost his identity. Joy had unhinged his mind and had made him a dog of double personality. He had always been unsocial with me, never responding to my attempts ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... forfeited by his disgraceful conduct at the breakfast- table. It was her habit, whenever one of the children fell from grace, to improvise something of a festival nature from which the offender would be rigorously debarred; if all the children sinned collectively they were suddenly informed of a circus in a neighbouring town, a circus of unrivalled merit and uncounted elephants, to which, but for their depravity, they would have been taken that ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... tombs, the one on the Ostian Way, the other on the Vatican. But St. Peter was again to be laid in this secret chamber in the earth on the Appian Way. In the episcopate of the saint and scoundrel Callixtus, the Emperor Elagabalus, with characteristic extravagance and caprice, resolved to make a circus on the Vatican, wide enough for courses of chariots drawn by four elephants abreast. All the older buildings in the way were to be destroyed, to gratify this imperial whim; and Callixtus, fearing lest the Christian cemetery, and especially the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... all you are a mind to of a anxious Samantha," says I, "but I will never give my consent to have you plunge into such dangerous enterprizes. And talkin' about pullin' wires sounds dangerous: it sounds like a circus, somehow; and how would you, with your back, look and feel performin' ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... might not run away again. But he soon perceived this to be unnecessary; for he had never found any member of the company more zealous, or seen one make more progress in the art. Now the only point was to keep her out of the way of other rope-dancers, English proprietors of circus companies, as well as the numerous knights and gentlemen who tried to take her from him. Her name had become famous. When the crier proclaimed that the "flying maiden" would ascend the rope to the steeple, Loni was sure of a great crowd of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... days ago, was interrupted to talk to a potential philanthropist (fifty tickets to the circus), and have not had time to pick up my pen since. Betsy has been in Philadelphia for three days, being a bridesmaid for a miserable cousin. I hope that no more of her family are thinking of getting married, for it's most upsetting to the J. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... a little younger than Simon. She stood in the middle of the garden, a hose in her hands, and she was absorbed in drenching two half-naked small boys and five fox terriers, who circled around her like performers in a circus ring. The noise of yelling boys and barking dogs ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... Red Arch at a jingling trot, and drew up before the Palace. The great red building of the General Staff was unusually animated, several armoured automobiles ranked before the door, and motors full of officers were coming and going.... The censor was very much excited, like a small boy at a circus. Kerensky, he said, had just gone to the Council of the Republic to offer his resignation. I hurried down to the Marinsky Palace, arriving at the end of that passionate and almost incoherent speech of Kerensky's, full of self-justification and bitter ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... object of theatres, Astley's horse-riders, the tumblers and rope-dancers of Sadlers-Wells, nay, the PUNCH of a puppet-show, would be as useful and respectable as Garrick, Barry, Cooke, or Kemble, and the circus might successfully batter its head against the walls of that building in Chesnut-street which the sculptor has enriched with the wooden proxies of Melpomene and Thalia. But criticism will not allow this. For the sake of the stage it will exert all its might to support the actors—and for the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... and so when a Mrs. Smithers asked us to spend a week with the McPhersons at her home in Middlesex, I was left behind in London with some friends, but I had great fun. I went to the Tower, and the circus, and the Abbey, and the museum, and everywhere, though I was sorry not to see Bessie, who with her father and mother, was also at ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... such dreams, in his case combined with masochism and masturbation. A distinguished American novelist, Hamlin Garland, has admirably described in Rose of Dutcher's Coolly the part played in the erotic day-dreams of a healthy normal girl at adolescence by a circus-rider, seen on the first visit to a circus, and becoming a majestic ideal to dominate the girl's thoughts for many years.[228] Raffalovich[229] describes the process by which in sexual inverts the vision of a person of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Mr. Poole, leading the applause. "I declare, that was well done. I saw a boy at Twomley & Sorber's Circus this last summer do that very thing—and ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... dignity, which, though not the dignity of liberty, is that of power. The monuments appropriated for public baths, were called provinces; in them were united all the divers productions and divers establishments which a whole country can produce. The circus (called Circus Maximus) of which the remains are still to be seen, was so near the palace of the Caesars that Nero could from his windows give the signal for the games. The circus was large enough to contain three hundred thousand ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... in its various and lesser degrees, is left in us now. For one moment it rose in the mind of Sally Bishop, as she turned into Bedford Street and directed her course towards Piccadilly Circus. It had crossed her mind in suspicion—the uprush of an idea, as a bubble struggles to the surface—that the man whom she had found waiting outside the premises of Bonsfield & Co. had had the intention in his mind to speak to her as she ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... not far distant, wherein all the heavenly bodies were stuck. The present writer once asked an exceedingly ignorant and simple man where he thought he would alight if he dropped from the comet then in the sky. "Oh," said he, naming the open space nearest his own residence, "somewhere about Finsbury Circus." That man's astronomical notions were very imperfect, but they were quite as good as those of the person who seriously wrote, and of the persons who seriously believe, this fairy tale of the star which heralded ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... forests live many of the fierce animals which you have seen in cages in the Zoological Gardens or at the circus. ...
— Where We Live - A Home Geography • Emilie Van Beil Jacobs
... carry on careful scientific study, read the best results of the latest inquiry, manage to bring together a first-rate library of reference, never spend a cent for liquor or tobacco, never waste an hour at a circus or a ball, but make their wives happy by sitting all the evening, "figuring," one side of the table, while the wife is hemming napkins on the other. All of a sudden, when such a man is wanted, he steps out, and bridges the Gulf of Bothnia; and ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... cone.—Ver. 106. In the Roman Circus for the chariot races, a low wall ran lengthways down the course, which, from its resemblance in position to the spinal bone, was called by the name of 'spina.' At each extremity of this 'spina,' there were ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... two when the announcements of the Fair appeared on the walls of the town. He could not help but see them; there was a large cue on the boarding half-way down Orange Street, just opposite the Doctor's; a poster with a coloured picture of "Wombwell's Circus," a fine affair, with spangled ladies jumping through hoops, elephants sitting on stools, tigers prowling, a clown cracking a whip, and, best of all, a gentleman, with an anxious face and a scanty but elegant costume, balanced above a gazing multitude on a tight-rope. There was also a bill of ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... were well laid-out rows of sheds, beautiful lines of construction equipment and everything in order, as it could never be in a real camp. As he began walking with the girl toward a huge tent that should have belonged to a circus, he could see other discrepancies. The tractors were designed for work in mud flats and the haulers had the narrow wheels used on rocky ground. Nothing seemed quite as it should be. He spotted a big generator working busily—and then saw a gang of about fifty men, or mandrakes, turning a big capstan ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... products of many civilisations, but most sad, despairing, gloomy, revealing the soul of a sick and tainted people, who find their greatest pleasure in human bloodshed, or urging on dying horses in the enclosure of a circus. Spanish joy! Andalusian merriment! I cannot help laughing at it. One night in Madrid I assisted at an Andalusian fete, all that was most typical, most Spanish. We went to enjoy ourselves immensely. ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... making for political truth and political beneficence, in order that bread and meat may be eaten in peace during the score of years or so that are at the moment passing over us. The politicians of this class have decided for themselves that the summum bonum is to be found in bread and the circus games. If they be free to eat, free to rest, free to sleep, free to drink little cups of coffee, while the world passes before them, on a boulevard, they have that freedom which they covet. But equality is necessary as well as freedom. ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... Regent Street savage with her, and with myself too, for not having had my fuck, even if she had gone away a minute afterwards. Randy as the devil I saw a woman at the corner of the Circus, and accosted her, she turned away, I accosted her again. "Will you come with me?" "Yes if you like." "Do you know a house about here?" "No I'm a stranger." Then I took her to J... s Street, had her two or three times and toyed with her a long time, stopping till she would stop no longer, saying ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... peculiar gait which we called "the lope," which was an easy canter in front and a trot behind (a very good gait for long distances), and we drilled them to keep this pace steadily and to fall at command into a swift walk without any jolting intervening trot.—We learned to ride like circus performers standing on our saddles, and practised other of the tricks we had seen, and through it all my mother remained unalarmed. To her a boy on a horse was as natural as a babe in the cradle. The chances we took of getting killed were so numerous that she ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... real battles. The soldier of the early Republic was hence taught gymnastics only as a means of increasing his efficiency; the lax praetorian and the corrupt populace of the Empire turned gladly from the gymnasium to the circus and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... needing a tent himself, and being good-natured and slow to act, he never enforced my orders perfectly. In addition to his regular wagon-train, he had a big wagon which could be converted into an office, and this we used to call "Thomas's circus." Several times during the campaign I found quartermasters hid away in some comfortable nook to the rear, with tents and mess-fixtures which were the envy of the passing soldiers; and I frequently broke them up, and distributed the tents to the surgeons ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... with dead gods: Finally others disturbed one's faith by the suggestiveness of their aspects, as, for instance, that Santa Maria Rotonda, which is located in the Pantheon, a circular hall recalling a circus, where the Virgin remains the evident tenant of the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... He calculated solemnly. "Not for more than twelve years. I remember, because it was after I had played truant at the circus." ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... tears are the natural expression of sad feelings," said Lady Locke. "We do not weep at a circus or at a pantomime; why should we ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... demi-gods and heroes to descend, like so many desperate gladiators, into the bloody arena of the tragic stage, in order to agitate our nerves by the spectacle of their sufferings? No: it is not the sight of suffering which constitutes the charm of a tragedy, or even of the games of the circus, or of the fight of wild beasts. In the latter we see a display of activity, strength, and courage; splendid qualities these, and related to the mental and moral powers of man. The satisfaction, therefore, which ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... circumscribed. They had never been given the opportunity to play as boys play in more favoured lands. They had never known the joys of football or cricket or the hundred other fine, health-giving games that are a part of the life of every English or Canadian boy. They had never seen a circus or a moving picture and they had never been in ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... see why. He's more than likely to be where the excitement's highest, ain't he? He's not too old for that. We'll find him in that circus tent, Tom, if he's in ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... "Better than a circus," declared Baldwin. "Wouldn't miss it. Since old man Harkness died, I ain't heard cussing to match up with Larrimer's. Didn't know that ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... came to see us often after that, and his friend always sent us something. Once he tipped us a sovereign each—the Uncle brought it; and once he sent us money to go to the Crystal Palace, and the Uncle took us; and another time to a circus; and when Christmas was near ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... left Brixton. Most of us have not left Brixton. We have not even taken a cab to Ludgate Circus and inquired from Cook's the price of a conducted tour. And our excuse to ourselves is that there are only twenty-four hours ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... what co'se othe's may take, my dea' madam, but as faw me, give me neither poverty naw riches; give me political indispensability; the pa-apers have drawn the mantle of charity ove' 'im, till it covers him like a circus-tent." ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... modest and unassuming methods. To stand with lifted hat and solicit a hearing savors of an all too humble spirit. The easily abashed may starve in a garret, or go die on the highways. There is no chance for them in the jostle of life. The gilded circus chariot, with a full brass band and a plump goddess distributing posters, is what takes the popular heart by storm. Your silent entry into town, depending upon the merits of your wares to work up a trade, is chimerical and obsolete. We ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... his heel, lookin' back and whining like a puppy what's lost his mother. Just when he gets to an honourable distance,—say twenty paces, according to fighting rule,—I draws up, takes aim, and plumps the plugs into him. The way the critter jumps reminds me of a circus rider vaultin' and turnin' sumersets. You'd think he was inginrubber 'lectrified. A'ter all, I finds these playin' doses don't do; they don't settle things on the square. So I tries a little stronger mixture, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... only relieved his immediate wants, but offered to recommend him and his wife to the manager of Astley's Circus, in London. Gratefully and eagerly did the wanderers accept this offer; and while, in company with their benefactor, who paid for their places on the coach, they journeyed toward town, the man related his history. Born at Padua, the son of a poor barber, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the first wedding which took place at "New Rush." It must have been in the summer of 1871. Close to my dwelling an enormous circus tent had been pitched, and this was hired for the occasion. A dance was held in the evening, but it ended in disaster, for a heavy thunderstorm broke, with violent wind, and the tent collapsed on the guests. Had a torrential ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... that he had come for the purpose of bringing us information, or of helping us to escape. The crowd had now begun to grow as impatient at the non-appearance of the prisoners as they would at a bull-fight, had there been a delay in turning the bull into the circus, when three bodies of troops were seen marching up from the several streets leading into the square. They formed on either side of it, making a lane from the prison gates to the river; while the crowd fell back behind them. I had observed ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... becoming fainter and fainter and losing itself in the streets that were covered by the shadows of night, sounded the thunder of the patrol and the playful lisping of the fifes, hymning the universal power of England to the tune of circus music. ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... November batch. The dep'ties had a circus 'fore they got the irons on him. Caught him in a clearin' 'bout two miles back o' the Holler. He was up in a corn-crib with a Winchester when they opened on him. Nobody was hurted, but they would a-been if they'd showed the top o' their heads, for he's strong as a bull and kin scalp a ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... boy and quite as playful. These animals are smooth, and black or gray in color, except the under side which is pure white. They are gregarious and very sociable in their habits. Porpoises race and play with each other and dart out of the sea, performing almost as many antics as the circus clown. They feed on mackerel and herring, devouring large quantities. Years ago the porpoise was a common and esteemed article of food in Great Britain and France, but now the skin and blubber only have a commercial value. ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... a circus," Old Tilly said doubtfully. "It's some kind of a big picnic. See, there's a kind of a track laid out over there where that flag is. They're going to ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... marvellous somersaults which Pegoud made, two or three thousand feet above the earth, it would be well to see what was the practical use of it all. If this amazing airman had been performing some circus trick in the air simply for the sake of attracting large crowds of people to witness it, and therefore being the means of bringing great monetary gain both to him and his patrons, then this chapter would never have been written. Indeed, such a risk to ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... which they, in the innocence of their mind, lift every minute to their eyes, not understanding the fatal meaning of the eternally moving hand, which is eternally returning to its place, and each of them feels this, even as the circus horse probably feels it, but in a state of strange blindness each one assures us that he is perfectly free and moving forward. Like the stupid bird which is beating itself to exhaustion against the transparent glass obstacle, without understanding what it is that obstructs its way, ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... the red-haired man, fixing bargee with his straight eye, while the crooked one gazed into space about half a foot above his head. "We belongs to the Satellite Circus Company; we're the proprietors, in fact, me an' ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... on to a lovely little beach of white sand, and stood there talking, surrounded by my audience, until the canoe got over its difficulties and arrived almost as scratched as I; and then we again said farewell and paddled away, to the great grief of the natives, for they don't get a circus up above Njole every week, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... chieftain; and immediately the four fugitives commenced a flight which is perhaps without a parallel in the annals of travelling. Each of them led six or seven horses besides the one he rode; and by shifting from one to the other (like the ancient Desultors of the Roman circus,) so as never to burden the same horse for more than half an hour at a time, they continued to advance at the rate of two hundred miles in the twenty-four hours for three days consecutively. After that time, considering themselves beyond pursuit, they proceeded ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... virtue and wisdom beamed from every face I passed. The omnibus-horses were racers, and the drivers—were they not my brothers of the people? The very policemen looked sprightly and philanthropic. I shook hands earnestly with the crossing-sweeper of the Regent Circus, gave him my last twopence, and rushed on, like a young David, to exterminate ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... circus, which came to Keighley, led me into the belief that with a little practice I should make a passable trapezist, or tight-rope walker. So when I got home the first thing I did was to procure some rope &c. With this apparatus I constructed ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... went, all sorts of treasures went with her. The children liked to have her come, for it was as good as a fairy story, or the circus, to see her things unpacked. Miss Petingill was very much afraid of burglars; she lay awake half the night listening for them and nothing on earth would have persuaded her to go anywhere, leaving behind what she called her "Plate." This stately ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... little children. All her brothers (except one) were sent to the penitentiary for burglary, and her mother peddles clams that are stolen for her by little George, her only son that has his freedom. Isabel's sister Bianca rides an immoral spotted horse in the circus, HER husband having long since been hanged for murdering his own uncle on his mother's side. Thus we see that it is always best to marry ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... the store, where Sam delivered his mother's orders, and having made sure that Yan had pencil, paper and rubber, they went into Downey's. Yan's feelings were much like those of a country boy going for the first time to a circus—now he is really to see the things he has dreamed of so long; now all heaven ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... then making merry with various musical instruments, the banjo, the guitar, the violin, until finally he appeared as bass drummer in a brass band. "In a few weeks," he said, "I had beat myself into the more enviable position of snare drummer. Then I wanted to travel with a circus, and dangle my legs before admiring thousands over the back seat of a Golden Chariot. In a dearth of comic songs for the banjo and guitar, I had written two or three myself, and the idea took possession of me that I might be a clown, introduced as a character-song-man ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... catch and mount a horse, which as yet had never felt bridle or saddle. I conceive, except by a Gaucho, such a feat would be utterly impracticable. The Gaucho picks out a full-grown colt; and as the beast rushes round the circus, he throws his lazo so as to catch both the front legs. Instantly the horse rolls over with a heavy shock, and whilst struggling on the ground, the Gaucho, holding the lazo tight, makes a circle, so as to catch one ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin |
