"Croquet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hand. After a moment's hesitation he consented, and in a most genial manner made me feel quite at ease as to the abruptness of my petition. On the morrow he came over to my vicarage, and made friends with my daughters, teaching them some new manner of playing croquet [probably Castle Croquet], and writing out for them puzzles and anagrams that he ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... thing." I cannot satisfy such; still, for their benefit, I will just hint at a remark made by Mrs. Joyce some months later. She and Mr. Joyce were sitting on the porch, and Eyebright, who had grown as dear as a daughter to the old lady's heart, was playing croquet with Charley. ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... moon ruled a firmament powdered with stars of multitudinous splendor. The conditions inspired Dunham with a restless fertility of invention in Lydia's behalf. He had heard of the game of shuffle-board, that blind and dumb croquet, with which the jaded passengers on the steamers appease their terrible leisure, and with the help of the ship's carpenter he organized this pastime, and played it with her hour after hour, while Staniford looked ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... am sick of everything. I have read all my books, and I hate my piano. The croquet isn't up, and there is nobody to play with ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... That now that the steed had been stolen (or at least suffered from exposure to the air) it was high time to close the door of the stable; And that never again no more should their cricket-fields, football grounds, croquet lawns, bunkers, Be profaned by the feet of Cossacks, Chasseurs, Bashi-Bazouks, or Junkers; And I don't think they talked very big about Nations in Arms, or inscribed on their banners any particularly inspiring motto, But they learnt to shoot and to drill, not more or less but quite well—in spite ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... kitchen-garden and the flower-garden, and the paddocks and the shrubberies and the lawns, and they had wandered down towards the river. There seemed to be nothing special to do. The tennis-lawn was not properly mowed for tennis, and anyhow the net was not out, and there seemed to be no croquet-ground anywhere. In consequence, there was nothing whatever to do but to pace up and down under the shadow of the trees a little way from ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... prickles. The crickets crept into the grass, quite silenced. The nightingale sang as if its throat would burst. It was guitars, guitars. The Salvation Army marched forward under the beeches. The people started up from their rest under the trees. The dancing-green and croquet-ground were deserted. The swings and merry-go-rounds had an hour's rest. Everybody followed to the Salvation Army's camp. The benches filled, and listeners sat on every hillock. The army had waxed strong and powerful. About many a fair cheek was tied the Salvation ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... allowed to play with the boys, and I'm sure I can bat well enough for the second eleven—Cartwright said I could last term—and I can bowl round-hand, and it's all no use, just because I was born a girl! Wouldn't you like a game at something? They haven't taken in the croquet hoops yet; shall ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... Lady Jane's fourth, and Lady Sophia's first, began and ended. Lady Sophia was piquant and witty, with a snub nose and a playful disposition. She was a first-rate horsewoman, an exquisite waltzer, good at croquet, archery, billiards, and all games requiring accuracy of eye and aim, and Lady Sophia brought down her bird in a single season. She went home to Heron's Nest a duchess in embryo. The Duke of Dovedale, a bulky, middle-aged nobleman, with a passion for fieldsports and high farming, ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... civil word to the house nor got one from it. Now, the understanding is that every part of the premises, every outdoor thing on the premises—path, fence, truck-patch, stable, stable-yard, hen-yard, tennis or croquet-court—everything is either a part of the garden or is so reasonably related to it that from whatever point one views the place he beholds ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... you go into the garden-hall through that arched corridor you will see the actual balls that they used, and the long poles, with a kind of iron cup at their ends, with which the players pushed them—forerunners of the modern croquet-box that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... him twenty years hence, he will be a captain on the recruiting service, with no forces to marshal but six growing children. Then there is the sentimental sub, the perfect ladies' man, who plays croquet and the flute, pleads guilty to having cultivated the Nine, and affects a simpering pooh-pooh when he is impeached with having inspired that wicked but so witty bit of scandal in the local paper. By singularity of pairing, his fast friend is the muscular sub, who walks ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... the Celestial Observer, proceeds to describe our billiard matches, our tennis tournaments, our croquet parties. Maybe it never occurs to him that a large section of our race surrounded by Eternity, would devote its entire span of life to sheer killing of time. A middle-aged friend of mine, a cultured gentleman, a M.A. of Cambridge, assured me the other ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... perpetuated the fact—so pregnant a contribution to the philosophy of Exhibitions—that a profit of L10,000 was derived from the switchbacks. The picture would then have made a nice supplement to Mr. Lavery's famous studies of "Croquet" and "Tennis." The very slabs of the Corporation staircase are infected with Impressionism, and their natural veinings body forth, here a charge of cavalry, there a march of infantry, and yonder a portrait of Sir William Vernon Harcourt ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... Turtle Lodge. Lizzie kept flying out with rugs, and then forgetting they hadn't been brushed and flying in again. The cat was playing croquet with the balls and spools of an open work-basket, and Max had discovered an old straw hat which tasted very good to him. Only Mrs. Reece kept her head and stayed indoors, moving about quietly from room to room, putting the house in that beautiful order which little children ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... had put on for a moment the charming, chattering silliness of schoolgirls. He joined them. On the lawn of the Orgreaves, Alicia was battling fiercely at tennis with an elegant young man whose name he did not know. Croquet was deposed; ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... overhead; a little more and the stream might have played, like a fire-hose, on the Toll House roof. In front the ground drops as sharply as it rises behind. There is just room for the road and a sort of promontory of croquet ground, and then you can lean over the edge and look deep below you through the wood. I said croquet ground, not green; for the surface was of brown, beaten earth. The toll-bar itself was the only other note of originality: a long beam, turning ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... four days. Of course, as she told herself seriously, she ought not, when once her eyes had been opened to the wrongfulness of the deceit she was practising, to have known a single happy moment, but somehow she found it difficult always to feel ashamed and contrite, especially when she was playing croquet with Edward. For in return for some lessons in French conversation she was giving him he had offered to teach her croquet, and though Margaret had been afraid that she was far too stupid to learn any game, she was making ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... 1880 occasioned some mild pedestrianism. But the Hotel diminishes rather than increases in its play-activities; and only games of cards retain a hold upon the guests, who prefer the piazza, the croquet ground, the tennis court, and the golf links in rapidly ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... having been for some time discontinued, and most of our local legislatures having adjourned, the nearest approach to a confusion of tongues is perhaps now to be found in an ordinary game of croquet. Out of eight youths and maidens caught for that performance at a picnic, four have usually learned the rules from four different manuals, and can agree on nothing; while the rest have never learned any rules at all, and cannot even distinctly agree to disagree. With tolerably firm ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... room, a "heavy dinner" for those who had been toiling at the "Bee," and on the other side a light repast for other visitors. The hall was soon crowded with people, and all came in for some share of the feast. Then we had croquet and other games in the garden until 6 p.m., when a bell was rung, and ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... actually lighted a spark in the being of Joe Buttle. Young ladies in villages—gentry—usually visited the cottagers a bit if they were well-meaning young women—left good books and broth or jelly, pottered about and were seen at church, and playing croquet, and finally married and removed to other places, or gradually faded year by year into respectable spinsterhood. And this one comes in, and in two or three minutes shows that she knows things about the place and understands. A man might then take it for granted that she would understand the thing ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... still find any "kick" in my kisses. I can't understand why he never revealed to me the fact that he and Lady Allie were playmates as children. In that case, she must be considerably older than she looks. But old or young, I wish she'd stayed in England with her croquet and pat-tennis and broom-stick-cricket, instead of coming out here and majestically announcing that nothing was to be expected of a country which ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... famine and desire have striven there together. Or, if you choose to read fine meanings into threadbare things, you may see in it a field of the cloth of gold, where simple love of life and childlike pleasure met and sparkled for no eye to see. It was a croquet ground, laid out in the days when croquet first inundated the land, and laid out by a woman. This was Della Smith, the mother of two grave children, and the wife of a farmer who never learned to smile. Eben was duller than the ox which ploughs all day long for his handful of hay at night ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... the group around the piano singing old and modern songs, the reading aloud by one member of the circle, the cracking of nuts and the popping of corn, the picnic supper on the lawn, the tennis court or croquet ground, the home parties, the guests ever-welcome at meals, these are but items in a possible scorecard of the sociability of the home. We are giving much thought to all sorts of group activities, but how much attention have we given to systematically encouraging the social unit which has the ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... from the Highcombe confectioners. Everything was done in a neighbourly way, without organisation. Perhaps it was better, perhaps worse. In human affairs it is always so difficult to make certain. But at all events the young ladies had not so much to do. And lawn tennis had not been yet invented, croquet even was but in the mild fervour of its first existence. Schools of cookery and ambulances were unknown. And needle-work, bead-work, muslin-work, flourished. Crochet, even, was still pursued as a fine-art occupation. That period is as far back as the ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... took on the monstrous contours of Victorian crinolines, a sunken memory stirred in her that was almost romance—a memory of a dusty volume of Punch in an aunt's house in infancy: pictures of crinoline hoops and croquet hoops and some pretty story, of which perhaps they were a part. This half-perceptible fragrance in her thoughts faded almost instantly, and Diana Duke entered the house even more promptly than her companion. Tall, slim, aquiline, and ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... of the year we always have the motor-car ready to take them down and back. That is for those who bathe early. Later on it is only a pleasant walk. Then you can learn games if you like,—golf and tennis, cricket and croquet." ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... much obliged to you," observed Charley Roy, who had joined the Empress, and was now senior mate on board. "I suspect that they would rather remain comfortably on shore. Perhaps you'd like a grand piano, a ball-room, and a croquet lawn?" ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... herself, "is a delightful exercise. I hope it will never go out of fashion; but that is what we used to say of croquet, and it has gone out and come ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... almost every real man feels a certain kind of gratification in being able to get game or fish by the exertion of his own pluck or skill. Some day perhaps this will all be changed, and we shall be contented to take our exercise in the form of massage or croquet, and our food in compressed ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... boy-companions (for my only brother was ten years older than myself), of course I played no games, except croquet. I was brought up in a sporting home, my father being an enthusiastic fox-hunter and a good all-round sportsman. I abhorred shooting, and was badly bored by coursing and fishing. Indeed, I believe I can say with literal truth that ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... awe-inspiring passage. A little farther on there was a dark lobby, with cupboards surrounding it. Any one examining these cupboards by daylight would have found that they contained innocuous cricket-bats and stumps, croquet-mallets and balls, and sets of bowls. But as soon as the shades of night fell, these harmless sporting accessories were changed by some mysterious and malign agency into grizzly bears, and grizzly bears are notoriously ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... recumbency, lying down &c. v.; reclination[obs3], decumbence[obs3]; decumbency[obs3], discumbency|; proneness &c. adj.; accubation[obs3], supination[obs3], resupination[obs3], prostration; azimuth. plain, floor, platform, bowling green; cricket ground; croquet ground, croquet lawn; billiard table; terrace, estrade[obs3], esplanade, parterre. [flat land area] table land, plateau, ledge; butte; mesa (plain) 344. [instrument to measure horizontality] level, spirit level. V. be horizontal &c. adj.; lie, recline, couch; lie ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... else thinks he has given up cricket for ludo or croquet or oranges and lemons, then he can devote himself to planning out a little course for that too—or anyhow to removing a few plantains in preparation for it. In fact, ladies and gentlemen, all I want is for you to make yourselves as happy and as ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... good to her when she does, won't we?" said Clover. "I never mean to leave my rubbers in the hat-stand any more, because she don't like to have me. And I shall pick up the croquet-balls and put them in ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. "But it's no use now," thought poor Alice, "to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... plaisance[obs3]; national park, national forest, state park, county park, city park, vest-pocket park, public park (public) 737a; arbor; garden &c. (horticulture) 371; pleasure ground, playground, cricketground, croquet ground, archery ground, hunting ground; tennis court, racket court; bowling alley, green alley; croquet lawn, rink, glaciarum[obs3], skating rink; roundabout, merry-go-round; swing; montagne Russe[Fr]. game of chance, game ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Kalaupapa (about three miles across the promontory, the cliff-wall, ivied with forest and yet inaccessible from steepness, on my left), go to the Sisters' home, which is a miracle of neatness, play a game of croquet with seven leper girls (90 degrees in the shade), got a little old-maid meal served me by the Sisters, and ride home again, tired enough, but not too tired. The girls have all dolls, and love dressing ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 1.60 each, select any one of the following: morocco travelling-bag, stereoscope with six views, silver napkin-ring, compound microscope, lady's work-box, sheet-music or books worth $5.00. For twenty, at $1.60 each, select any one of the following: a fine croquet-set, a powerful opera-glass, a toilet-case, Webster's Dictionary (unabridged), sheet-music or books ...
— The Nursery, No. 109, January, 1876, Vol. XIX. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Unknown
... he laughed, as I recorded the passage of the fifth or sixth bridge. "It's like a game of croquet. Go on. ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... barely endurable by the help of croquet! I trust so! He was very patient and tolerant—made holidays for me that first summer which it ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you will see from consulting Murray, halibut means "holy-butt" (or flat-fish), and holy fishes are possessed of magical powers. When I lived on the coast of Florida I had a tame tarpon, which could swallow anything—croquet balls, door scrapers—and once ate an entire cottage pianoforte in half-an-hour. Here I may add that in my travels in Turkestan I was attacked by a boa-constrictor, and, though I escaped with my life, it proceeded to ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... hard. A little ball that could be covered in one's fist is thrown out on the common by the winner of the last game. The players line up, each with a handful of larger wooden balls about the size and weight of those that are used in croquet. You try to roll or throw your balls near the little one that serves as goal. Simple, you exclaim. Yes, but not so simple as golf. For the hazard of the ground is changed with ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... make a Green Breeze——" She gave a little cry. She looked at the Waving Meadow where all the long silver-tipped grasses ducked and dipped in the wind. She stretched out her arms. Her arms were no bigger than the handles of our croquet mallets. "We'll dig up all the Waving Meadow," she cried. "And pot it into Window-Sill Breezes for the ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... The windows of the bedroom opened on to a view of the street below; those of the sitting-room on to a square of garden, on the lawn of which tenants might disport themselves, more or less sadly, with tennis or croquet in summer. ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... that yet? Up to the town, round the island just below the bridge,—the island with the croquet ground on it, you ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... sweet April call and mossy nest under the bridge or woodshed, or under the shelving rocks; or the brown thrasher—mocking thrush—calling half furtively, half archly from the treetop back in the bushy pastures: "Croquet, croquet, hit it, hit it, come to me, come to me, tight it, tight it, you're out, you're out," with many musical interludes; or the chewink, rustling the leaves and peering under the bushes at you; or the pretty little oven-bird, walking round and round you in ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... time with them. We became acquainted with many of the Grafton people whom we had not known before, and among others, the family of Mr. Mack Leith. We often went up to the Leiths in the evening to play croquet. Millie and Margaret Leith were very nice girls, and the boys were nice, too. Indeed, we liked every one in the family, except poor old Miss Emily Leith. We tried hard enough to like her, because she seemed to like Diana and me very much, and always wanted to sit with us and talk to ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... uniforms, was a revelation to the sombre battalions whose officers had not yet even purchased their epaulettes and had seen no occasion to wear them. But when Cram and his lieutenants came swaggering about the garrison croquet-ground in natty shell jackets, Russian shoulder-knots, riding-breeches, boots, and spurs, there were not lacking those among the sturdy foot who looked upon the whole proceeding with great disfavor. Cram had two "rankers" with him when he came, but one ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... shopping expeditions to that crime in brick and mortar called Ilfracombe, visits here and visits there, croquet, bridge, and picnics, the summer and early autumn months had not dragged unduly ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... are tied with strips of mournful, black alpaca for a year and a day. Engineers, dockmen, express-drivers and mechanics largely make up the citizens of Camden. Of course, Camden has its smug corner where prosperous merchants most do congregate: where they play croquet in the front yards, and have window-boxes, and a piano and veranda-chairs and terra-cotta statuary; but for the most part the houses of Camden are rented, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... were in sharp pain; but we can read, at breakfast, day after day, of men being killed, and of women and children dying of hunger, faster than the leaves strew the brooks in Vallombrosa;—and then go out to play croquet, as if ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... maid came out with cookies and lady-fingers and make-believe tea, and another napkin to take the place of the one Edith had put over the dolls, and they had tea. Then the two little girls and Edith's nurse had a nice game of croquet, and they had a lovely tea-party after all, and Edith forgot all about waiting so long for Helen ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... host or hostess expected you to do when she made the party. If it is a whist party, you had better play whist, if you can. If it is a dancing party, you had better dance, if you can. If it is a music party, you had better play or sing, if you can. If it is a croquet party, join in the croquet, if you can. When at Mrs. Thorndike's grand party, Mrs. Colonel Goffe, at seventy-seven, told old Rufus Putnam, who was five years her senior, that her dancing days were over, he said to her, ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... wanted, he steered clear o' all th' traps at they set for him; an when th' Kursmis parties wor all ovver, he wor still single—an they'd none on em getten noa forrader wi him when winter coom agean, an put a stop to Lawn Tennis an Croquet Parties. ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... Mr. Keith, leaning back, "on my answer depends whether Bessie enters this place with a character for chanting, croquet, or crochet. Which should you ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... acquaintances, speaking to others, gossiping over everything and everybody with a chosen few, while her daughter is left to play tennis with that Finnish girl's idea of all manly beauty, "a lieutenant," or knocks a very big ball with a very small mallet through an ancient croquet hoop, that must have come out of the ark—that is to say, if croquet hoops ever ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... their lessons. The sickening fact will hardly be believed, but during school hours they were obliged to remain in their seats with the appearance at least of discipline. It is stated by good authority that the rolling of croquet balls across the floor during recitation was objected to, under the fiendish excuse of its interfering with their studies. The breaking of windows by base balls, and the beating of small scholars with bats, were declared against. At last, bloated and arrogant with success, the under-teachers threw ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... voice was anything but hopeful. "He could learn them plenty aboot fit-ball and croquet ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... games were also attractive to him at different periods, and there was hardly one with which he was not more or less familiar. Boating and riding in his University days and fox-hunting at Sandringham from time to time in later years, were incidents of this record. Croquet he was an expert in, but never very fond of. Lawn-tennis, when first introduced and for years afterwards, was a game to which he was very partial, and on the Serapis when traversing the route to India he played deck-tennis until everyone else was exhausted. The bowling-alley at ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... croquet, if your ball was about to be sent flying, the safeguard was to draw an imaginary X with your mallet, saying, "Criss cross." It made your enemy's foot slip, and many a girl would get "mad" and not play, if you ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... they came to the second summer. Miss Gertrude Lawrence was a belle now, and the great house was constantly filled with guests. The Lawrence equipages were seen in every direction. Mrs. Minor was up frequently, in grand state. The lawn was gay with croquet-parties, the evenings were brilliant with lights and music: they had two elegant garden-parties, when the grounds were illuminated with colored lanterns, and the teas were festivals in themselves. Fred had brought home two college chums, and for the first fortnight was deeply engrossed. Then, too, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... lake was ruffled temptingly by the light breezes and drew the girls of Lakeview Hall boatward. The outdoor tennis courts, the croquet grounds, the basketball enclosure, and the cinder track were put into shape for the season. The girls buzzed outside the Hall like bees about a hive ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... destination—a castle of the Archduke's—the next day, we found ourselves once more surrounded with the comforts and decencies of civilised life, but there were many evidences of the fact that we were here far from the world. The game of croquet, for example, had been for some ten years before this time practically extinct in England. At the Archduke's castle they seemed just to have heard of it, and were eagerly learning it when we arrived. ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... men at these places, but no one else. Everyone is at the front. The houses generally have wounded soldiers in them, and these play croquet with a nurse on the lawn, or smoke in the sun. None of them want to go back to fight. They seem tired, and talk of ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... acquaintance of the curate, a boyish young fellow not long from Oxford, who was devoted to sport and a great killer. He was not satisfied with cricket and football in their seasons and golf and lawn tennis—he would even descend to croquet when there was nothing else— and boxing and fencing, and angling in the neighbouring streams, but he had to shoot something every day as well. And it was noticed by the villagers that the shooting fury was always strongest on him on Mondays. They ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... comes from Pall Mall, which was the name of an old game Charles II. used to play here. It must have been rather a funny game, and no one plays it now. The players had long mallets, which were not quite like croquet mallets, but more like golf clubs, and they had a wooden ball about the size of a croquet ball, and they tried to hit the ball through a hoop high up in the air hanging from a pole. It must have been difficult and rather dangerous to have ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... towns, who have not, poor things, the opportunities which richer girls have, of keeping themselves in strong health by riding, skating, archery—that last quite an admirable exercise for the chest and lungs, and far preferable to croquet, which involves too much unwholesome stooping.—Even playing at ball, if milliners and shop-girls had room to indulge in one after their sedentary work, might bring fresh spirits to many a heart, ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... intercourse under the best conditions with boys and with other girls, both at home and at school. Croquet, tennis, skating, offer fine opportunities for such intercourse. "Parties," dancing, present more difficulties, but have their value under right conditions. Not all "fun" should include the boys. Athletic contests between girls do much to develop a ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... placard on the tree you not only found that he was perfectly right, but obtained the additional information that the wood was of a particularly hard and durable nature, and only used for making the heads of croquet mallets and the seats on the tops of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... it, I remember my agent said there was some hitch at first; but he must have got over it in some way or other. He bought it of a farmer." Stafford drew a breath of relief. "This is the Italian garden; the tennis and croquet lawns are below this terrace—there's not time to go down. But you haven't seen half of it yet. There's the breakfast-bell. Don't trouble to change: I like you in those flannels." He laid his hand on Stafford's broad, straight shoulder. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... and burning afternoons I found myself, to my inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called croquet. I had imagined that it belonged to the epoch of Leach and Anthony Trollope, and I had neglected to provide myself with those very long and luxuriant side whiskers which are really essential to such a scene. I played it with a man whom we will call Parkinson, and with ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... hundred and sixty-five they were free to do as they liked with the vegetable kingdom over which on every other day he reigned as monarch supreme. Marquees now dotted the lawns, and one or two brass bands played rather shrill music. There were tennis-courts and croquet lawns, and fields set aside for archery. Luxurious seats, with awnings over them, were to be found at every turn, and as the grass was of the greenest here, the trees of the shadiest, and the view of the ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... moved forward and then backward again, until suddenly Canon Lasker's Emily, who was fifteen and had such long legs that she was known as "the Giraffe," came up and said: "Isn't it hot! Do you play croquet? Please-do! I'll have—the—blue ball..." And ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... then richly repays this confidence by saying that if it doesn't rain any more we will have a long dry time. The man then goes away inflated with the idea that he has a pointer from Mr. Gould which will materially affect values. A great many men are playing croquet at the poor-house this summer who owe their prosperity to tips given them ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... in his boat; and then we all went back to the house and had breakfast. After breakfast we had a merry time at croquet, and then a still merrier ...
— The Nursery, January 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... influence that we did not remain housed many moments, but struck out and followed a roaring torrent of ice-water up to its far source in a sort of little grass-carpeted parlor, walled in all around by vast precipices and overlooked by clustering summits of ice. This was the snuggest little croquet-ground imaginable; it was perfectly level, and not more than a mile long by half a mile wide. The walls around it were so gigantic, and everything about it was on so mighty a scale that it was belittled, by contrast, to what I have likened it to—a cozy ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... plenty of pleasant things to do. I meant to have tea over early, and then some of the club's brothers would be sure to come in, and we could play tennis on our ground, and perhaps have a game of croquet. Then, when it was too dark for that sort of amusement, we could gather on the veranda or in the library, and have games there—Dumb Crambo and Proverbs, until the time came for the ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... have had no answer. You see, he started out, as serious poets do, with every intention of organising a good rhyme for bid—or perhaps for shed—but he found this was more difficult than he expected. And then, no doubt, somebody drove all his cattle on to his croquet-lawn, or somebody else's croquet-lawn, and he abandoned the struggle. I shouldn't complain of that; what I do complain of is the deceitfulness of the whole thing. If a man can't find a better rhyme than shed for a simple word like ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... outdoor sports. Lawn tennis tournaments were epidemic all over the country. There were good and bad effects from all of them. Those romping sports developed a much finer physical condition in our American women. Lawn tennis and croquet were hardening and beautifying the race. From the English and German women we adopted athletics for our own women. Our girls began to travel more frequently in Europe. It looked as though many of the young ladies who prided themselves upon their bewitching languors and fashionable ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... difficult to understand what young people did with themselves in the country when lawn-tennis and croquet were not. There was archery for the few, and a good deal more amateur gardening and walking, with field-sports, of ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... receiving from literature what literature has to give. Indeed, he is chiefly wasting his time. Unless he can read differently, it were better for him if he sold all his books, gave to the poor, and played croquet. He fails because he has not assimilated into his existence the vital essences which genius put into the books that have merely passed before his eyes; because genius has offered him faith, courage, vision, noble passion, curiosity, love, a thirst ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett
... have lost the languor they once cultivated, and walk the street with stout step, and swing the croquet mallet with a force that sends the ball through two arches, cracking the opposing ball with great emphasis. Our daughters are not ashamed to culture flower beds, and while they plant the rose in the ground a corresponding rose blooms in their ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... says Smoke-'em-out. 'Yesterday was the day for the advent of the auspicious personages. I goes down to the depot to welcome 'em. Two apparently animate substances gets off the train, both carrying bags full of croquet mallets and these magic ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... most startling manner, rattling strings of beads and bits of tinsel, mounting over all some pert little hat with a red or green feather standing saucily upright in front, she may look exceedingly pretty and piquante; and, if she came there for a game of croquet or a tableau-party, would be all in very good taste; but as she comes to confess that she is a miserable sinner, that she has done the things she ought not to have done and left undone the things she ought to have done,—as she takes upon her lips most solemn and tremendous words, whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... relaxations. Dancing is unsuitable, swimming dangerous, athletics too tiring and exciting. Bowls, croquet, golf, walking, quoits, billiards, parlour games and quiet gymnastics without apparatus are good, if played in moderation and much more gently than normal people play them. Play is recreation only so long as a pastime is not turned into a business. When a player is annoyed ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... with her unopened letter. She was to meet Tommy presently on the croquet lawn of the Dovecot, when Ailie was to play Mr. James (the champion), and she decided that she must wait till then. She would know what sort of letter it was the moment she saw his face. And then! She pressed her ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... croquet and lawn-tennis, walked in the garden, had tea, and then a large supper. After the huge pillared hall, I felt out of tune in the small cosy house, where there were no oleographs on the walls and the servants were treated considerately, and everything seemed to me young ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... search of free admissions for the theatres, hunting "Ragamuffins" and members of the Cibber Club, and other privileged creatures, at all their places of resort. He watched for the advent of novels adapted to Georgy's capacity—lively records of croquet and dressing and love-making, from smart young Amazons in the literary ranks, or deeply interesting romances of the sensation school, with at least nine deaths in the three volumes, and a comic housemaid, ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... The diet may be improved by animal broths, roasted meats, fresh beef, mutton, chicken, or eggs, and the dress should be comfortable, warm, and permit freedom of motion. The patient should indulge in amusing exercises, walking, swinging, riding, games of croquet, traveling, singing, percussing the expanded chest, or engage in healthful calisthenic exercises. The hygienic treatment of this form of amenorrhea, then, consists in physical culture, regular bathing, and the regulation of the bowels, if constipated, as suggested ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... sport, for which Britons are famous, is growing more passionate than ever. It is not only cricket and football, of course; only the other day there was a shilling sweepstake on the St. Leger in our office and, from what I hear of the form of Westmorland in the County Croquet Championship during the past season—but I have no time to discuss ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... Coadjutor in greed, that is the question. Shall we have music and the jocund dance, Or tolling bells? Or shall young romance roam These hills about the river, flowering now To April's tears, or shall they sit at home, Or play croquet where Thomas Rhodes may see, I ask you? If the blood of youth runs o'er And riots 'gainst this regimen of gloom, Shall we submit to have these youths and maids Branded as libertines and wantons?" Ere His words were done a woman's voice called "No!" Then rose a sound of moving chairs, ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... books as an "outrage." He was considered a very well-read man. He disliked anything that was "not quite nice," and detested a strong light, whether it were thrown upon life or landscape; in bright sunshine he always carried a white umbrella lined with green. The game he played best was croquet, and here he was really first class; but he was also skilled in every known form of Patience, and played each evening unless he ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... months, yet it may not be a sign of debility, sexual lethargy or impotence. Get the mind and the physical constitution in proper condition, and most all these difficulties will disappear. Good athletic exercise by walking, riding, or playing croquet, or any other amusement, will greatly improve the condition. A good rest, however, will be necessary to fully restore the mind and the body, then the natural condition of the sexual organs will ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... croquet, and none badly. Next to their purity of blood and great wealth, the family were famous for this accomplishment. Yet Lothaw soon tired of the game, and after seriously damaging his aristocratically large foot in an attempt to "tight croquet" the Lady Aniseed's ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Do you ever read the papers? Don't you know that we've got the Ashes and the Golf Championship, and the Wibbley-wob Championship, and the Spiropole, Spillikins, Puff-Feather, and Animal Grab Championships? Has it come to your notice that our croquet pair beat America last Thursday by eight hoops? Did you happen to hear that we won the Hop-skip-and-jump at the last Olympic Games? You've been out in the woods, ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... Then there are travelling-dresses in black silk, in pongee, velour, in pique, which range in price from $75 to $175. Then there are evening robes in Swiss muslin, robes in linen for the garden and croquet-playing, dresses for horse-races and for yacht-races, robes de nuit and robes de chambre, dresses for breakfast and for dinner, dresses for receptions and for parties, dresses for watering-places, and dresses for all possible occasions. A lady going to ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... light as day out-doors. The moon makes the snow look like frosted cake. I can see the croquet ground as plain as can be, and it looks like a great square loaf. There's the arbor, and the seats in it have white cushions on them. How funny it would be to play croquet on the ice! Only the balls would go so fast we should have to put on skates to catch them. I can see ever ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... care nothin' about his skill at sleight-of-hand tricks," said the man in spectacles, seriously. "And we wouldn't hold his croquet habits agin him. Some men drink, some gamble, some do worse; every man has his weakness, and croquet may be his. What we want to know is this: can ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... asked in to tea-drinkings, and to croquet, now and then, especially at the Haddens', whom they knew best; but they were not on "in and out" terms, from morning to night, as these others were among themselves; for one thing, the little daily duties of ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... out on the lawn, and Henry had made a suggestion that they should all play golf-croquet when Rutley came to clear the table. Lady Douglass gave an instruction aside. "Very well, my lady," said Rutley; "it shall be seen to first thing in the morning. If we could only find the key I'd manage it myself." Henry asked whether anything was missing; his sister-in-law replied that it was ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... the stuff is thoroughly mixed it is made up into cakes by men and women, who wrap it in what is known as opium "trash," pack it in boxes and seal them hermetically for export. Each cake weighs about ten pounds, is about the size of a croquet ball, and is worth from ten to fifteen dollars, according to its purity ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... necessary to dwell a moment upon this new amusement, because it was not peculiar to Harmony Village, but appears everywhere as naturally as the game parties and croquet which have taken the place of the husking frolics and apple-bees of olden times, and it is impossible to dodge the subject if one attempts to write of boys and girls as they really ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... and Philosophical Institution. Large schools have been provided for boys, girls, and infants, with abundance of play-ground. For young men as well as old, there is a cricket-ground, bowling-green, and croquet-lawn, surrounded by pleasure-grounds. There is also a large dining-hall, baths and washhouses, a dispensary, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... human. He had intended to put the thought of his love for Barbara into her unsuspecting mind by ingenious "trick and device." It had been his plan presently to escort her to church, to the concerts that now and then held forth at the Athenaeum, to Mrs. Hallam's for a game of croquet, to Mrs. Galagher's for the little dances that that gracious gentlewoman gave now and then, even in the heat of a southern Illinois summer. He had even chartered a steamboat, and planned to give a picnic in the Kentucky woodlands below ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... worried with the wheel. At the end of ten minutes I suggested he should hold the forks, and that I should handle the wheel; and we changed places. At the end of his first minute he dropped the machine, and took a short walk round the croquet lawn, with his hands pressed together between his thighs. He explained as he walked that the thing to be careful about was to avoid getting your fingers pinched between the forks and the spokes of the wheel. I replied I was convinced, from my own experience, that there was much truth in ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... veritable furnace in midsummer; and the stock of the emigrants, worn out by the long journey from the States, would succumb by the score in crossing. Though much of the trail is totally unfit for cycling, there are occasional alkali flats that are smooth and hard enough to play croquet on; and this afternoon, while riding with careless ease across one of these places, I am struck with the novelty of the situation. I am in the midst of the dreariest, deadest-looking country imaginable. Whirlwinds of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... he said, going up to her. 'We are waiting for you to complete our eight hand croquet, and I claim you as ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... who declines upon croquet, Or halma, or spillikins (horrible sport!), Or any amusement that's female and pokey, And flatly objects to behave as he ought! I know him of old. He is lazy and fat, Instead of this Thing, fit ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... few games. There was one, however, in which he was skillful. I blush to speak of it in these days of much muscular activity. What have golfers, and tennis-players, and makers of century runs to do with croquet? Yet there was a time when croquet was spoken of as 'the coming game;' and had not Clintock's friend Jennings written an epic poem upon it in twelve books, which poem he offered to lend to a certain brilliant young lady? But Gwendolen ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... the house side of the green, and on the outside of the ditch. The most obvious place at which to begin the search was the shed where the bowls were kept. It was a tidy place as anything in Mark's establishment would be. There were two boxes of croquet things, one of them with the lid open, as if the balls and mallets and, hoops (neatly enough put away, though) had been recently used; a box of bowls, a small lawn-mower, a roller and so forth. A seat ran along the back ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... women and young girls, and was a true friend to them. She taught them to sew, and instructed them in morals and religion. When I went to Banting some years afterwards, I found a set of modest young women who were much pleased with gifts of needles, thread, and thimbles; they also enjoyed a game of croquet after the lessons were done, and it was wonderful to see what smart taps of the mallet were fearlessly given under their bare feet; for of course the Dyaks do not ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... roads, and relieving famines and minimizing earthquakes, and all that sort of thing that one does do on frontiers. He could talk sense to a peevish cobra in fifteen native languages, and probably knew what to do if you found a rogue elephant on your croquet-lawn; but he was shy and diffident with women. I told my mother privately that he was an absolute woman-hater; so, of course, she laid herself out to flirt all she ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... side. That's right. Now let it down slowly. Not so hard on the nigh side there. Ease off there, Bill. Push, Patsy. What do you think this is—a game of croquet? There you go. Right. Now let's see if you woodenheads know enough to keep ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... throughout this discussion was all of a sudden puffed as a lily, because she ceased to be observed, can attend to nothing if a man is by; she can't work, she can't play, she is so eaten up with sexuality. The frivolous soul can just manage to play croquet with females; but, enter a man upon the scene, and she does even that very ill, and can hardly be got to take her turn in the only thing she has really given her mind to. We were angels compared with this paltry creature, and she ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... histories of the Old Testament, imagining the joys of heaven and the torments of hell. The church is opposed to the theatre, is the enemy of the opera, looks upon dancing as a crime, hates billiards, despises cards, opposes roller-skating, and even entertains a certain kind of prejudice against croquet. ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... level and most congenial companions in the busy bustling town of Bricklands, a rapidly growing and prosperous mushroom place, situated thirty miles south of London, and within two miles of our ancient and respectable hamlet. Here she belonged to several clubs, bridge, tennis and croquet; enjoyed being a Triton among minnows; entertained a third-rate set at "Littlecote," and joined gay little theatre parties to London to "do a play," and return home by ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... Trench, the late Archbishop of Dublin; Sir Richard Burton, the traveller; and Owen Meredith, the poet. There was a portrait of Swinburne when quite a young man, together with his autograph. "I have known Mr. Swinburne all my life," remarked Mrs. Henniker. "I used to play croquet with him when I was quite a little girl, and laugh at him because he used to get in such a passion when I won the game." There was John Bright's signature, there was that of Philippe d'Orleans and General ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... bound in justice to say that he was not at all wanting in courtesy to the young ladies, by whom he was surrounded. Everything, indeed, was pleasant, and as it should be, and the now antiquated game of croquet was proposed, as soon as the table with its ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... difficult to pass to the humdrum life in England, the receptions at Windsor, the parties in London, and the discussions on the Indian Council. He himself (though not indifferent to honourable recognition of his work) found far more pleasure in the quiet days passed in the home circle, the games of croquet on his lawn, and the occasional travels in Scotland and Ireland. Four years of repose were none too long, for other demands were soon to be made upon him. When Lord Elgin died suddenly in 1863, John Lawrence received the offer of the highest post under the Crown, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... of English greenhouse flowers in Minton's loveliest vases added to the illusion. The Avon winds through the grounds, which are very pretty, and are laid out in the English fashion; but in spite of the lawn with its croquet-hoops and sticks, and the beds of flowers in all their late summer beauty, there is a certain absence of the stiffness and trimness of English pleasure-grounds, which shows that you have escaped from the region of conventionalities. There are thick clumps of plantations, ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... play croquet. Una played a game which had been respected in the smartest croqueting circles of Panama; she defeated him; and while she blushed and insisted that he ought to have won, Mr. Schwirtz chuckled about his defeat and boasted of it to ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... on, Mac," replied the former. "This here croquet is a new style of shootin', and with two dollars on the game I ain't goin' to ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... of a system of labour so beneficial to the patient, and so useful to the institution, relaxation and amusement are not forgotten. The patients play at chess, draughts, billiards, bagatelle, etc.; and out-of-door games comprise bowls, cricket, and croquet. There is a library well supplied with papers and journals; and one patient was pointed out who himself contributes to a magazine. There is a band which includes seventeen patients, as well as some attendants, and enlivens the inmates twice in the ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... rung around her at Chautauqua, given by the most intense of these fanatics; she even remembered that she had seen two of the most celebrated in that direction playing with a party of young men and boys on the croquet ground, and laughing most uproariously over their defeat. It was all nonsense to try to compass her brain with such an argument as that; she shook ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... had been made for a barn-like structure called a hotel, with rooms rough and not always ready. The beautiful recreation grounds mentioned in the advertising matter consisted of a plowed field worked over into a space designated as a tennis court and a grass-grown croquet ground. ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... a 'boom' in 1853-60, is now an abandoned amusement. It is deserted, like croquet, and it is even less to be regretted. But its existence enabled disputants to illustrate the ordinary processes of reasoning; each making assertions up to the limit of his personal experience; each attacking, as 'superstitious,' all who had seen, or fancied they had seen, more than himself, ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... pugilists would hardly make Americans laugh, because, though absurd, it would not be nearly so absurd, or run counter to any so sharply defined standard of official demeanor. The Lord Chief-Justice playing croquet with a pretty girl owes nearly all its point, as a joke, to the popular awe of him and the mystery which surrounds his mode of life in popular eyes; a picture of Chief-Justice Chase doing the same thing ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... Leaving Genevieve Maud happy with her mud pies and her stripped dolls, the two sought the nursery and there made a discriminating collection of her choicest treasures. Her Noah's Ark, her picture-books, her colored balls and blocks, her woolly lambs that moved on wheels, her miniature croquet set, all fell into their ruthless young hands and, as a crowning crime, were dumped into the little go-cart that was the very apple of Genevieve Maud's round eyes. It squeaked under its burden as the ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... she said. "I think suburbs are horrible; they are neither one thing nor the other. We had a lawn and shade trees, and a croquet ground, and a tennis court, but we bought our milk and eggs and most of our vegetables. There isn't any real country in all that, you know. I was never in a haymow in my life. All I know about that sort of thing ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton |
