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Dalliance   /dˈæliəns/   Listen
Dalliance

noun
1.
The deliberate act of delaying and playing instead of working.  Synonyms: dawdling, trifling.
2.
Playful behavior intended to arouse sexual interest.  Synonyms: coquetry, flirt, flirtation, flirting, toying.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Dalliance" Quotes from Famous Books



... long, Since all eyes wait vpon the rising sunne: But sure some melting pleasure did detaine Her willing senses, and did so enchaine Her captiue minde, that time vnthought of fled, Long nights in sweets being swiftly buried. Might I such dalliance craue, as great Ioue did Of faire Alcmena; or when he lay hid In the swannes shape; how happy were I then, And how farre blest aboue all other men! For this, the gods themselues haue often woed, Courted, adored, kneeld vnto and ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale

... true: do not give dalliance Too much the rein: the strongest oaths are straw To the fire i' the blood: be more abstemious, ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... of dignity; nor smothered his fresh impulses (preserved intact from worldly rust since boyhood) with the weight of his judicial and professional labors. While he believed that the law was a jealous mistress, he knew that this mistress was too stable and sensible to decree that a gentle dalliance or seasonable flirtation with her maids of honor—Poetry, or the Arts, or Literature, or Love—was an unloyal act. He could turn from Grotius to Dickens, from Vattel to Thackeray. He could digest the points of the elaborate arguments of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... leaves lay some five yards from the tree where Forteune declared that Mistress and Master Gorilla had passed the night, Paterfamilias keeping watch below. A little beyond we were shown a spot where two males had been fighting a duel, or where a couple had been indulging in dalliance sweet; the prints were 8 inches long and 6 across the huge round toes; whilst the hinder hand appeared almost bifurcate, the thumb forming nearly a half. This is explained in the "Gorilla Book" (chap, xx.): "Only the ball of the foot, and that thumb which answers ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... show with words and feign as they can, to be holden holy of all who see them, that give themselves to dalliance with the world, more than needs, as to buying, selling or quarrelling about earthly things. And all their outward bearing so accords with the world that David says: "They have mixed themselves with the peoples; they partake of their works": that is, they mingle them with the ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole

... spray. They are little birds with gray backs and snow-white breasts; their images may be seen in the wet sand almost or full as distinctly as the reality. Their legs are long. As you draw near, they take a flight of a score of yards or more, and then recommence their dalliance with the surf-wave. You may behold their multitudinous little tracks all along your way. Before you reach the end of the beach, you become quite attached to these little sea-birds, and take much interest in their occupations. After passing in one direction, it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... powre these miseries? VVhat burning torches, what alarums of warre, VVhat shames did he to my loues prophesie? O no hee comes as winged Mercurie, From his great Father Ioue, t'Anchises sonne To warne him leaue the wanton dalliance, And charming pleasures of the Tyrian Court, 1360 Then wake the Anthony from this idle dreame, Cast of these base effeminate passions: Which melt the courrage of thy manlike minde, And with thy sword ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous

... husband was forgotten. And as they spoke words of love, they neared the tree, and lo! the body that the officer was set to watch was gone. "Begone," he said, "and I will fly, or my life must pay the penalty of my dalliance." "Fear not, my lord," she said, "we can raise my husband from his grave and hang him instead of the stolen corpse." "But I fear the Prince of Death. I cannot drag a man from his grave." "I alone will do it then," said the woman; "I will ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... future—and informed of his selection by the people as Czar of all the Russias. He modestly declined, of course; and, equally of course, his modesty only made the people the more clamorous. After some weeks of petty dalliance Boris finally allowed himself to be persuaded, and was crowned czar, in due form, in ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... joy. With 'The Rover' he lived in the woods, and set foot upon foreign wharves; 'The Man with the Coat of Green' had his company upon the morning adventures in the islands of fairydom. It was then, as in after years she was the woman serious, when her own songs moved her, with her dalliance and indifference gone. A tear trembled at her eyes at the trials of ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... scant time for such dalliance, I bent my knee and rested my forehead upon her hand. As I rose, the minister's hand touched my shoulder and the voice spoke in my ear. "There is another way," he said. "There is God's death, and not man's. Look and see ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... oft repair, (His scene of pleasure, and peculiar care): For this he held it dear, and always bore The silver key that lock'd the garden door. To this sweet place, in summer's sultry heat, He used from noise and business to retreat: 470 And here in dalliance spend the livelong day, Solus cum sola, with his sprightly May: For whate'er work was undischarged abed, The duteous knight ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... stone—as cold and unimpressible? Over these hills, with spear like weaver's beam, Dids't thou pursue the chase and track thy foe, Holding all fear and danger in contempt? And, did at last, some fair Delliah Of thy race, hold thee in gentle dalliance, And with thy head upon her lap at rest, Wer't shorn of strength, and told too late, alas, "Thine enemies be upon thee?" Tell us the story of thy life, and whether Of woman born—substance and spirit In mysterious unon wed—or fashioned By hand of man from stone, we bow ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.

... spray. Their images—long-legged little figures, with gray backs and snowy bosoms—were seen as distinctly as the realities in the mirror of the glistening strand. As I advanced, they flew a score or two of yards, and, again alighting, recommenced their dalliance with the surf wave; and thus they bore me company along the beach, the types of pleasant fantasies, till, at its extremity, they took wing over the ocean, and were gone. After forming a friendship with these small surf-spirits, it is really worth a sigh, to find ...
— Footprints on The Sea-Shore (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... country. He thought for a second and made me a wise answer. He said, "I think it was their character." That is indeed the heritage they left us; they left us their character. Wealth will not preserve that which they left us; not wealth, not power, not "dalliance nor wit" will preserve it; nothing but that which is of the spirit will preserve ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... no inquiry or explanation, no dalliance with emotion. His first words were a command, her inevitable response was to obey. Now, as always, she threw the whole responsibility upon him. And Emmet felt equal to the burden. He was like a god, knowing good and evil. He meant to do good in the main, but just now it was his pleasure ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... my brother, Do not as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whilst like a puffed and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... immaculate he-virgin astray. The crime of which she stands accused is so unspeakably awful that even after the lapse of ages we cannot refer to the miserable creature without a moan. Compared with her infamous conduct old Lot's dalliance with his young daughters and David's ravishment of Uriah's wife appear but venial faults, or even ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... favourite haunt of the Oxonians, is covered for many miles with the most luxuriant foliage, affording the cool retreat, the love embowered shades, over which Prudence spreads the friendly veil. Here many an amorous couple have in softest dalliance met, and sighed, and frolicked, free from suspicion's eye beneath the broad umbrageous canopy of Nature; here too is the favourite retreat of the devotees of Cypriani, the spicy grove of assignations where ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... my rib go; I grasped his arm and tore the muscle out of it[2] (as the string comes out of an orange); then I took him by the throat, which is not allowed in wrestling, but he had snatched at mine; and now was no time of dalliance. In vain he tugged and strained and writhed, dashed his bleeding fist into my face, and flung himself on me with gnashing jaws. Beneath the iron of my strength—for God that day was with me—I had him helpless in two minutes, and his ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... says the Book; and what shall He say of you? I've watched for this, I've seen it coming. You keep long accounts, but there's One keeps longer—and in His head, as we read. To breaking mother's heart so much, to scandal of matrimony so much—and to perjury and dirty devices, wicked dalliance, so much. When she came here— this fine young lady, so fresh and sweet—I wailed. I shook my fist at you, Mr. Ingram; 'I know what this means,' I said, 'a false tongue and a young heart.' And I waited, I tell you—for I could do nothing else. She could have come to me at any hour of any ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... wherefore do I see thee, with the glass in either hand? Fickle God! with double measure wouldst thou count the shifting sand? "This one flows for parted lovers—slowly drops each tiny bead— That is for the days of dalliance, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... doubt she had been too free with this engaging scamp. The rules of her set prescribed a straight and narrow road in which she must walk. The open fields beyond the hedges might blossom with flowers, but there could be no dalliance in them for her. She was to know only such people as had the password, only those trimmed and trained till there was no individuality left in them. From birth she had been a rebel, but an impotent one. Each revolt had ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... and some of the drug stores which served refreshments took on a new importance. Instead of being no more than handy purveyors of sweets, of soft drinks and household remedies, they were seen to be also social centers, places for "dates" and telephone flirtations and dalliance. Much of their doings was the merest silly time-killing, but generally the youthful patrons welcomed all this because it was a change from the empty dullness of homes that had missed the home secret, and from the still duller and wasting monotony of ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... gave our masculine adversary what is technically called "one to kill." I saw instinctively that I was the one, and I held my racquet ready with both hands. Our opponent, who had been wanting his tea for the last two games, was in no mood of dalliance; he fairly let himself go over this shot. In a moment I was down on my knees behind the net ... and the next moment I saw through the meshes a very strange thing. The other man, with his racquet on the ground, was holding his eye with ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... Eleventh Man dared not, for some time, venture out of the fortification, for he had remarked her taste for human flesh, and her dexterity in snapping off heads, and did not know but her love for him might extend to a wish to try the flavour of his meat, and that she might, in a moment of soft dalliance, practise on him her skill in unjointing necks. Women have been known to inflict a greater evil than either on the man they have pretended to love. At least, so the Eleventh Man said, and, as I have before told my brother, he was a knowing man in these matters. It soon became plain ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... the Del Norte with gloom in their glances and dark forebodings in their breasts. Men of less loyal hearts, less prone to the promptings of humanity, would trifle and stay; spend longer time in a dalliance so surely agreeable, so truly delightful. Not so the young Kentuckian and his older companion, the Texan. Though the love of woman is enthroned in their hearts, each has kept a corner sacred to a sentiment almost as strong, and ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... steamship St. Louis, after an uneventful passage I arrived in New York, and from thence to Washington, D. C. After my leave of absence had expired, I decided not to return to Madagascar. For after nearly four years' dalliance with the Malagash fever in the spring and dodging the bubonic plague in the fall, I concluded that Madagascar was a good ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... This dalliance with the "constitutionals" might have been more than an astute ruse, and Consalvi knew it. In framing a national Church the First Consul would have appealed not only to the old Gallican feeling, still strong among the clerics and laity, but also ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... more the main, Wandering so will and vain, To count the reeds that tremble in the wind, On listless dalliance bound, Like children gazing round, Who on God's works no ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble

... sooth, when a shift's turned up, delay is meet for naught but dalliance. Boccaccio hath a story of a priest that did beguile a maid into his cell, then knelt him in a corner to pray for grace to be rightly thankful for this tender maidenhead ye Lord had sent him; but ye abbot, spying through ye key-hole, did see a tuft of brownish hair with fair white flesh about ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain

... more, within circles of influence wider or narrower, sent forth, scattering broadcast, the seed of life in the ready virgin soil. Each brought some specialty of gift to the work: Jefferson, the magic of style, and the habit and the power of delicious dalliance with those large, fair ideas of freedom and equality, so dear to man, so irresistible in that day; Henry, the indescribable and lost spell of the speech of the emotions, which fills the eye, chills the blood, turns the cheek pale,—the lyric phase of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... waves, great Thetis, rise! Mother divine, hear, and take back the gift Thou gavest me of valor and renown, And then seek Zeus, but not with loosened zone For dalliance; entreat him to restore Me, Achilles, to the earth, to the black earth, The nourisher of men, not these pale shades, Whose shapes have learned the presage of thy doom; They flit between me and the wind-swept ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard

... with scales, rising in one bold flight to end in a point, and send up a vapour of prayer among the clouds; the new one, pierced like lace, chiselled like a jewel, wreathed with foliage and crockets of vine, rises with coquettish dalliance, trying to make up for lack of the inspired flight and humble entreaty of its senior by babbling prayer and ingratiating smiles; to persuade the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... informed, and the world had to be informed, for the silken dalliance between Mary and Simon had been conducted with a discretion and a secrecy more than characteristic of their age and dispositions. It had been arranged between the lovers that Simon should call on that Friday ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... nor madly exciting, perhaps; but it is singularly warm and sweet if the conjugal relations have not been strained in the meanwhile. And as the Thames narrows itself, the closer, the more genial, the more grateful and comforting this long-anticipated and tenderly intimate uxorious dalliance ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... which he purposely leaves hovering on the border between the natural and the preternatural, the explained and the unexplained. In this play, as in The Lady from the Sea and Little Eyolf, he shows a delicacy of art in his dalliance with the occult which irresistibly recalls the exquisite genius of ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen

... The name originally belongs to one of the most sacred spots in India, situated near Mathura (Muttra) on the Jumna, and the reputed scene of the dalliance between Krishna and the milkmaids (Gopis); also ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... they no longer obeyed the voice of their captain. They fell in love, and each marrying set about to build a nest, free and unmolested in those trees that Choo Hoo had promised them. Choo Hoo himself retired with his lovely bride to the ancestral ash, and passed the summer in happy dalliance. With the autumn the campaign recommenced, and with exactly the same result. After a second autumn and winter of fighting, Choo Hoo had pushed his frontier another fifteen miles farther into Kapchack's kingdom. Another summer of love followed, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... interview her husband, to point out to him privately the scandal that was being caused, and to show him how his duty lay in keeping his belongings in better order. Was a man trying to carry fire in his bosom by dalliance at the bar of the Blandamer Arms, then a hint was given to his spouse that she should use such influence as would ensure evenings being spent at home. Did a young man waste the Sabbath afternoon in walking with his dog on Cullerne Flat, he would receive ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... language of gallantry and courtship, specimens are these,—"With your ambrosiac kisses bathe my lips;" "You are a white enchantress, lady, and can enchain me with a smile;" "Midnight would blush at this;" "You walk in artificial clouds and bathe your silken limbs in wanton dalliance." What could Milton do, so far as such a production came within his knowledge, but shake his head and mingle smiles with a frown? Clearly the elder nephew too had slipped the Miltonic restraints. He had not lapsed, however, so decidedly as his brother; and we may partly retract ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... critical period in their fortunes appealed to him as hatefully incongruous; it may be that the gracious femininity of her, her desirability as a woman, thus revealed by the lissome lassitude of her body, emphasized the fact that she was a creature created for joy and dalliance, not for the rasping stratagems of the market-place. Whatever the cause, it is certain that the lazy abandon of her posture irritated him, and it was with an attempt to veil his chagrin that at ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... Dalliance were leading mostly to Reno, Nevada, and the Article commonly known as Love was merely a disinclination ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... time for dalliance, I think. I thought you had been up the glen long syne, but we are glad to have your service in this trouble, Master—Colin" (with a little laugh and a flush at the cheek), "also Barbreck. Do you think they mean seriously ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... was imaginative, diverting himself with daydreams; and his uncle, Alan Stevenson, the builder of Skerryvore, yielded to the fascinations of the religious Muse. A volume of verse was the pledge of this dalliance. His mother, who gave him her gay indifference to discomfort and readiness for travel, also read to him, in his childhood, much good literature; for not till he was eight years of age was he an unreluctant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... So march straight, or look for mischief. It's not BON TON, I know, and far from friendly. But what is friendship? convenience. But we lose time in this amiable dalliance. Come, now an effort of deportment: the head thrown back, a jaunty carriage of the leg; crook gracefully the elbow. Thus. 'Tis better. (CALLING.) House, ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... all. If, rarely, she met one whose superficial points were superficially attractive, his contribution to her attitude to men was to make her blink (inwardly) the more, albeit on a different note. That one so exceptionally dowered should find pleasure in, for instance, dalliance of sex! Contemptible! Oh, sickening and contemptible! One Harry Occleve, of Laetitia's circle, so obviously "the good match," was outstandingly such a case. It was thought upon him, scornful and disgusted thought, that made her, walking back from one of the Saturday-evening parties—he ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... lord, be not pensive; we are your friends: Men are ordain'd to live in misery; Therefore, come; dalliance dangereth our lives. K. Edw. Friends, whither must unhappy Edward go? Will hateful Mortimer appoint no rest? Must I be vexed like the nightly bird, Whose sight is loathsome to all winged fowls? When will the fury of his mind assuage? ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe

... moral temperament and character. Nor can I better define that peculiarity of spirit which seemed to place him so essentially apart from all other human beings, than by calling it a habit of intense and continual thought, pervading even his most trivial actions—intruding upon his moments of dalliance—and interweaving itself with his very flashes of merriment—like adders which writhe from out the eyes of the grinning masks in the cornices around ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... assemble. King James, as above related, captured Lady Heron at Ford. She was beautiful and deceitful, and soon enthralled the gay king in her spells, while all the time she was in communication with the English. Thus James wasted his time in dalliance, and, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... away here and there in the favoured cellars of Provence and Languedoc, a few dust-covered bottles of their rich vintage: which has for its distinguishing taste a sublimated spiciness due to the alternate dalliance of the bees with the grape-blossoms and with the blossoms of the wild thyme. It is a wine of poets, this bee-kissed Chateauneuf, and its noblest association is not with the Popes who gave their name to it but with the seven poets—Mistral, Roumanille, Aubanel, Matthieu, Brunet, ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... bringeth home with him all his kin, and his friends, and all the others to his house, and maketh them a great feast. And then all his friends make their vaunt and their dalliance, how the fowls came thither, here five, here six, here ten, and there twenty, and so forth; and they rejoice them hugely for to speak thereof. And when they be at meat, the son let bring forth the head of his father, and thereof he giveth of the flesh to his most ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown

... campaign. That monarch and his generals left the Austrians to bear the brunt of everything on the banks of the Rhine, and also in Brabant. His manner of setting about the siege of Mainz was a masterpiece of politic delay, in which amorous dalliance played its part.[220] When complaints came from his Allies, he hotly retorted that Coburg had sent him only 5,000 troops from the northern army instead of the 15,000 that were promised. The Austrians replied with no less warmth that Coburg needed those 10,000 men because he had had no succour ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... relief he laughed, remembering now that Monmouth's affairs were too absorbing just at present to leave him room for dalliance. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... in the office, opened the front door with bridling exclamations of astonishment. She had her best frock on; her hair was in curling-pins; she smelt delicately of beer; the excitement of the Sunday League excursion and of the evening's dalliance had not quite cooled in this respectable and experienced young creature of central London. She was very feminine and provocative and unparlourmaidish, standing there in the hall, and George passed by her as ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... friendly fields desert, Where thou with grass, and rivers, and the breeze, And the bright face of day, thy dalliance hadst; Where to thine ear first sang the enraptured birds; Where love and thou that lasting bargain made. The ship rides trimmed, and from the eternal shore Thou hearest airy voices; but not yet Depart, my soul, not yet ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson

... inertia or laziness, which has to be overcome before we can think with any degree of concentration. Interest says, "Follow this line, which is easy and attractive, or which requires but little effort—follow the line of least resistance." Will says, "Quit that line of dalliance and ease, and take this harder way which I direct—cease the line of least resistance and take the one of greatest resistance." When day dreams and "castles in Spain" attempt to lure you from your lessons, refuse to follow; shut out these vagabond thoughts and stick ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... Geants gate he blew, That all the castle quaked from the ground, And every dore of freewill open flew. The Gyant selfe dismaied with that sownd, 40 Where he with his Duessa dalliance fownd, In hast came rushing forth from inner bowre, With staring countenance sterne, as one astownd, And staggering steps, to weet, what suddein stowre, Had wrought that horror strange, and ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... are house-boats with elaborate and artistic fittings and furnishings, and other craft of every sort that luxury can suggest. One could imagine that none but fairies could stage such a scene. The blending of colors, the easy dalliance, the rippling laughter, the graceful feasting, and the eddying wavelets all conspire to produce a scene that serves to emphasize the beauty of the shores. Underneath this enchanting scene of variegated ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... you should be called my {son}, just as long as you do what becomes you; but if you do not do so, I shall find out how it becomes me to act toward you. This arises from nothing, in fact, but too much idleness. At your time of life, I did not devote my time to dalliance, but, in consequence of my poverty, departed hence for Asia, and there acquired in arms both riches and military glory." At length the matter came to this,— the youth, from hearing the same things so often, and with such severity, was overcome. He supposed that I, through age ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... French Flanders, who began by painting St. Nicholases at three francs a week and his board, but who soon invented a new manner and became famous as the Peintre des Scenes Galantes. These scenes of coquetry, frivolity and amorous dalliance, with their patched, powdered and scented ladies and gallants, toying with life in a land where, like that of the Lotus Eaters, it seems always afternoon, he clothes with a refined and delicate vesture of grace and ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... a rose in a mining-camp, and Hal was deeply moved. The primrose path of dalliance stretched fair before him, here in the soft summer night, with a moon overhead which bore the same message as it bore in the Italian gardens of the leisure-class. But not many minutes passed before a cold fear began ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... woo-me-slowly ladies, her bosom, as it rose and fell in her French laces, being eloquent of that. She is a singularly fine animal to whom Providence has, by an unusual generosity, given a soul, though mostly, maybe, it hides in the silken dalliance which is the note ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne

... Morgan," he gasped, "I have been feeling ill and full of strange qualms and sinkings these many days past. 'Twas an active spirit rebelling against imprisonment in an idle body. I must to sea again—this dalliance in towns and in the company of sleek shopkeepers and peacock-garbed gallants is slow death to a fellow of mettle. I must get me down to Plymouth again, and join any bold captain that hath a mind to turn ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... said Gnulemah. She looked in her lover's face, trusting to his wisdom and strength. She rested her courage on his, but her eyes stirred him like a trumpet-call. The burden of that cry had been calamity. Love is protean, makes but a step from dalliance to grandeur. Balder, no longer a sentimental bridegroom, stood forth ready, brief, energetic,—but more ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... character given in the unpossessedness of Banquo's mind, wholly present to the present object,—an unsullied, unscarified mirror! And how strictly true to nature it is that Banquo, and not Macbeth himself, directs our notice to the effect produced on Macbeth's mind, rendered temptible by previous dalliance of the fancy ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... resort since it became connected by railway with the City of Mexico. The Franciscan church carries us back to 1539, and the palace of Cortes and the gardens of Maximilian bring into recollection episodes of the history of this romantic region of the Pacific slope. The climate invites to dalliance, and the varied landscape—canyon, forest, and stream—open out in their pleasurable variety as we make our way westward. The small, quaint, Spanish-built towns with their Indian names, such as Tetecala,[39] Tequezquitengo, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... saying this, and Madame de Maille blanched hearing him, because never in their amorous dalliance had there been so much true love as in this speech. Maille insisted on keeping his friend company as far as Meaux. When he came back he was talking over with his wife the unknown reasons and secret causes of this departure, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... meant, of course, nothing of the kind. It was only one of many moments. It was a romance which might have been borrowed from the Middle Ages. A rare tale such as one might read in a book. A pleasant dalliance—to be continued until he was tired of it. If he ever married, it must be a spectacular affair—handsome woman, big fortune, not an unsophisticated slip of a child from ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey

... shield is bright and strong, Maryland! Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong, Maryland! Come! to thins own heroic throng, That stalks with Liberty along, And give a new Key to thy song, ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... low the leaves were mute, And the echoes faltered breathless in your voice's vain pursuit; And there died the distant dalliance of the serenader's lute: And I held you in my bosom as the husk may hold the fruit. Illileo, I listened. I believed you. In my bliss, What were all the worlds above me since I found you thus in this?— Let them reeling reach to win me—- even Heaven I would ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley

... Thirsts were on his Celtic soul that longed for dalliance with the Orient; but he well knew that tone of voice, and sadly resigned himself ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... that triumphant hour, Shall yielding beauty wed with power; And blushing earth and smiling sea In dalliance deck the bridal bower. ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay

... to Mr Malbon, for stubornes, lyeing, stealing from her mistress, and yielding to dalliance with ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... fast between serious talk and delightful dalliance, and when they tore themselves away from their quiet retreat it was already dusk. They soon found themselves in the Canopic way, in the thick of the crowd which they were now occasionally obliged to meet, for those who were making homewards had long ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... betrothed ones (the blessing of Allah be on them all!), gazing on each other till their eyes swam with tears, and they were nigh swooning with the fulness of their bliss. Surely 'twas an innocent and tender dalliance, and their prattle was that of lovers till the time of parting, he showing her how she looked best—she him; and they were forgetful of all else that is, in their sweet interchange of flatteries; and the world was a wilderness to them both when the youth parted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... incapable of coquetry after that experience in Honora's room; nor did the noble solitude of the place permit the thought of an excursion into the realms of any sort of dalliance. Moreover, though Karl's words might have led her to think of him as ready to play with a sentimental situation, the essential loftiness of his gaze forbade her to entertain ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... don't know how—cheerfulness was always breaking in." Neither is it the point of view of a profound and erudite student, with a deep belief in the efficacy of useless knowledge. Neither am I a humorist, for I have loved beauty better than laughter; nor a sentimentalist, for I have abhorred a weak dalliance with personal emotions. It is hard, then, to say what I am; but it is my hope that this may emerge. My desire is but to converse with my readers, to speak as in a comfortable tete-a-tete, of experience, and hope, and patience. I have no wish to disguise the hard and ugly things of life; ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the luxuries of a rural life. In his peregrinations through that beautiful scenery, he had arrived one fine morning at the inn at Llangollen, in the romantic valley of that name. He had ordered his breakfast, and was sitting at the window in all the dalliance of expectation when a face passed, of which he took no notice at the instant—but when his breakfast was brought in presently after, he found his appetite for it gone—the day had lost its freshness in his eye—he was uneasy and spiritless; and without ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... led us at first through a natural meadow, overgrown with waist-high grass, and very spongy to the tread. Hornet-haunted also was this meadow, and therefore no place for idle dalliance or unwary digression, for the sting of the hornet is one of the saddest and most humiliating surprises ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... satisfied in his object and averse to further dalliance, he gave Cimon and his companions the stiffest of nods and deliberately turned on his heel. Speech was too precious coin for him to be wasted on mere adieus. Only over his shoulder he cast at Glaucon ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... doubt of the boy's perfect willingness to go, nor was the girl at all alarmed at the name of marriage. When they were finally in bed, and the door shut, we seated ourselves outside the door of the bridal-chamber, and Quartilla applied a curious eye to a chink, purposely made, watching their childish dalliance with lascivious attention. She then drew me gently over to her side that I might share the spectacle with her, and when we both attempted to peep our faces were pressed against each other; whenever she ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... their life at Paris was, it was after all only an idle dalliance and amiable trifling; and Rebecca saw that she must push Rawdon's fortune in their own country. She must get him a place or appointment at home or in the colonies, and she determined to make a move upon England as ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... not mourn it? I sleep no single night." The anxiety, the despondency of the sovereign were shared by the friends of Prussia throughout Germany; its enemies saw with wonder that Bismarck in his struggle with the educated Liberalism of the middle classes did not shrink from dalliance with the Socialist leaders and their organs. When Parliament reassembled at the beginning of 1863 the conflict was resumed with even greater heat. The Lower Chamber carried an address to the King, which, while dwelling on the loyalty of the Prussian people to their chief, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... not the victim of too many illusions. And yet, though everything about her witnessed to a serene temperament and the continual appeasing of mild desires, she dreamed sadly, like the girls in the archway, of an existence more distinguished than her own; an existence brilliant and tender, where dalliance and high endeavour, virtue and the flavour of sin, eternal appetite and eternal satisfaction, were incredibly united. Even now, on her fortieth birthday, she still believed in the possibility of a conscious state of positive and continued happiness, and regretted ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... best mount and away with the ladies, Sir Guy," he said. "Yon scurvy loons are in poor humor for dalliance." ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... heav'nly, for that mortal dint, Save he who reigns above, none can resist. She finish'd, and the suttle Fiend his lore Soon learnd, now milder, and thus answerd smooth. Dear Daughter, since thou claim'st me for thy Sire, And my fair Son here showst me, the dear pledge Of dalliance had with thee in Heav'n, and joys Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change 820 Befalln us unforeseen, unthought of, know I come no enemie, but to set free From out this dark and dismal house of pain, Both him and thee, and all the heav'nly Host Of Spirits that in our ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... incompatible with the existence of former familiarity, than the judge and the culprit—and yet, these very persons had passed together the most blissful moments that either ever tasted! Those hours of tender dalliance were now present to her mind. His thoughts were more nobly employed in his high office; nor could the haggard face, hollow eye, desponding countenance, and meagre person of the poor prisoner, ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald

... King is bringing, as is said, his family, and Navy, and all other his charges, to a less expence. In the mean time, himself following his pleasures more than with good advice he would do; at least, to be seen to all the world to do so. His dalliance with my Lady Castlemaine being publique, every day, to his great reproach; and his favouring of none at Court so much as those that are the confidants of his pleasure, as Sir H. Bennet and Sir Charles Barkeley; which, good God! put it into his heart to mend, before he ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... of the graces; and, to my somewhat voluptuous mind, not the least attractive feature of it, was a magnificent and luxurious bed, mysteriously hidden beneath a profuse cloud of snowy drapery, heavily laden with costly lace. I had already pictured to myself the delights of an amorous dalliance within that bower of Venus, with one whose glorious beauty could not have been surpassed by that of the ardent goddess herself—but how grievously was I doomed to be disappointed, at the very moment when I fancied my triumph certain! But I must ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... true: doe not giue dalliance Too much the raigne: the strongest oathes, are straw To th' fire ith' blood: be more abstenious, Or ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... She found her tortoise held such sluggish pace, That she must turn and meet him in the chase: This not approving, she withdrew, till one Came who appear'd with livelier hope to run; Who sought a readier way the heart to move, Than by faint dalliance of unfixing love. Accuse me not that I approving paint Impatient Hope or Love without restraint; Or think the Passions, a tumultuous throng, Strong as they are, ungovernably strong: But is the laurel to the soldier due, Who, cautious, comes not into ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... nature to encourage a chivalrous desire to protect a woman who had betrayed, however innocently, a sentiment for another man. When the Reverend Mr. Mullen inadvertently introduced an emotional triangle, he had changed the situation from one of mere sentimental dalliance into direct pursuit. By some law of reflex action, known only to the male mind at such instants, the first sign that she was not to be won threw him into the mental attitude ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... together the courage of Venus assailed, as well our desires as our members, and so she unrayed herself and came to bed, and we passed the night in pastime and dalliance, till as by drowsie and unlusty sleep I was constrained to ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... couple, however, while they generously contributed to the support of the little school, they had not added to its flock, and it was with some curiosity that the young schoolmaster greeted them and awaited the purport of their visit. This was protracted in delivery through a certain polite dalliance with the real subject characteristic ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... philosophy held sway over his mind, either envy or desire to imitate the splendid achievements of the white man. In his own thought he rose superior to them! He scorned them, even as a lofty spirit absorbed in its stern task rejects the soft beds, the luxurious food, the pleasure-worshiping dalliance of a rich neighbor. It was clear to him that virtue and happiness are independent of these things, if ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... toy for the dalliance of his idle hours, he employed several spies, and almost every day made a tour of the public places in person, with a view of procuring intelligence of Mr. Hornbeck, with whose wife he longed to have another ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... in his tract de Mercede conductis, hath excellent well deciphered such men's proceedings in his picture of Opulentia, whom he feigns to dwell on the top of a high mount, much sought after by many suitors; at their first coming they are generally entertained by pleasure and dalliance, and have all the content that possibly may be given, so long as their money lasts: but when their means fail, they are contemptibly thrust out at a back door, headlong, and there left to shame, reproach, despair. And he at first ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... Antony accepted her invitation to sup on board her galley, and was completely subjugated. Her wit and vivacity surpassed even her beauty. He followed her to Alexandria, where he forgot every thing in luxurious dalliance and ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... conscience knew would justly deserve that he should die for it. He also put her in mind that she was a married woman, and that she ought to cohabit with her husband only; and desired her to suffer these considerations to have more weight with her than the short pleasure of lustful dalliance, which would bring her to repentance afterwards, would cause trouble to her, and yet would not amend what had been done amiss. He also suggested to her the fear she would be in lest they should be caught; and that the advantage of concealment was uncertain, and that ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... for weeks held me on the tenter-hooks of doubt, now in high hope, far more often in black despair. She had become very popular with the young men who had declared in favour of the exiled family, and I never called without finding some colour-splashed Gael or broad-tongued Lowland laird in dalliance. 'Twas impossible to get a word with her alone. Her admirers were forever shutting off ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... make much of me and would ask me of the two saws my cousin Azizah told my mother and I would repeat them to her. And matters ceased not to be on this wise and I continued for a whole year eating and drinking and enjoying dalliance and wearing change of rich raiment until I waxed gross and fat, so that I lost all thought of sorrowing and mourning, and I clean forgot my cousin Azizah. And on New Year's day I went to the bath, where I refreshed myself ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... more may sit Within thine own pleasance, To weave, in sentence fit, Thy golden dalliance; When other hands than these ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... snarled with wicked display of yellow tusks from the blackened plaster, now Cleopatra, in the full bloom of her mature charms, reclined with her stalwart Roman hero in tender dalliance. Where once the proud and stately head of the majestic stag had hung over door and panel, now classic nymphs bathed in a pellucid pool, and the only horns were those which adorned the head of him who, according to the story, dared gaze through the foliage, and was rewarded for his too curious interest ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... Histriomastix, to Peace, the Arts, and Chrisoganus, come Mavortius and a group of his friends representing the nobility whom the academicians endeavour to win to their attendance and support. Mavortius and his followers refuse to cultivate Chrisoganus and the Arts, preferring a life of dalliance and pleasure, and to patronise plays and players instead. Other characters are introduced representing the Law, the Army, and Merchandise, who also neglect the Arts and live for pastime ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... the principal reason of Susannah's dalliance with time in those first weeks of her moral freedom was the mental weakness that succeeds shock. Every day she thought that she would soon write that begging letter, until the day came ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... temptation to any writer, and of dalliance with a Delilah so seductive it is futile to declare that I am innocent. My principles positively are known to myself; which is a measure of self-knowledge, in these any-thing-arian days, of that cabinet coin-climax the "8th ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... conscientiously. The idea of the height which he strove to attain, and the steps by which he mounted towards it, may be fathered from the Sufic poet Jami. Health, says Jami, is the best relish. A worshipper will never realise the pure love of the Lord unless he despises the whole world. Dalliance with women is a kind of mental derangement. Days are like pages in the book of life. You must record upon them only the ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... to recline on a couch, caress his children, or refresh his mind with some agreeable volume provided by his vigilant companion,—the best energies of his mind and the freshest hours of life were absolutely given to Art. This is the great lesson of his career: not by spasmodic effort, or dalliance with moods, or fitful resolution, did he accomplish so much; but by earnestness of purpose, consistency of aim, heroic decision of character. There is nothing less vague, less casual in human experience, than true artist-life. Rome is the shrine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... minister, all unconscious of the disclosure he was making to my father—'Your daughter knows all. She suspected, it seems, the real object of our last interview, when, you recollect, we indulged in a little amative dalliance.—On New Year's evening, during your absence, I called here and saw your daughter, when she reproached me for having debauched you, stating in what manner she had seen the whole affair. Since then, I have had no opportunity of informing you that she ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... "That Aspasia is of Miletus. That city which poets call the laughing daughter of Earth and Heaven: where even the river smiles, as it winds along in graceful wanderings, eager to kiss every new blossom, and court the dalliance of every breeze. Do ye not find it easy to forgive a woman, born under those joyful skies, where beauty rests on the earth in a robe of sunbeams, and inspires the gayety which pours itself forth in playful words? Can ye judge harshly of one, who from her very childhood has received willing homage, ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child

... forth from me now, for I wish to amuse myself in privacy." So they withdrew and she betook herself to Taj al-Muluk, and the old woman brought them food, of which they ate and returned to amorous dalliance till dawn. Then the door was locked upon him as on the day before; and they ceased not to do thus for a whole month. This is how it fared with Taj al-Muluk and the Lady Dunya; but as regards the Wazir and Aziz when they found that the Prince had gone to the Palace of the King's daughter ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... of the senses, it seeks to escape from the sensual into worlds of fancy, subtle and refined. But apart from the passions, true genius is the most practical of all human gifts. Like the Apollo, whom the Greek worshipped as its type, even Arcady is its exile, not its home. Soon weary of the dalliance of Tempe, it ascends to its mission,—the Archer of the silver bow, the guide of the car of light. Speaking more plainly, genius is the enthusiasm for self-improvement; it ceases or sleeps the moment it desists from seeking some object which it believes of value, and by that object ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... excitement that the producer felt the actual radiations; then little by little he felt her begin to cool, and a chill ran up and down his own spine as Hawtry and Height held the stage alone in the first dash of Howard-"pepped" dalliance near the last of the first act. He held his breath, frozen within him, until the curtain went down, and then he refused to turn to the author at his side. He was in a panic and undecided what to do until Mr. Rooney relieved him of the need ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... to say why we should expect the growing girl, in whom an unlimited ambition and egotism is as natural and proper a thing as beauty and high spirits, to deny herself some dalliance with the more opulent dreams that form the golden lining to these precarious prospects? How can we expect her to prepare herself solely, putting all wandering thoughts aside, for the servantless cookery, domestic ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... feel restless and ill-at-ease whenas he ceased to look upon her. In like manner Peri-Banu was fulfilled with affection for him and strove to please her bridegroom more and more every moment by new arts of dalliance and fresh appliances of pleasure, until so absorbing waxed his passion for her that the thought of home and kindred, kith and kin, faded from his thoughts and fled his mind. But after a time his memory awoke from slumber and at times he found himself longing to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... weather, When mortal men and maidens without fear, And forest-nymphs, and forest-gods together, Do worship Pan in the long twilight clear. And Artemis this one night spares the deer, And every cave and dell, and every grove Is glad with singing soft and happy cheer, With laughter, and with dalliance, ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang

... that period he had been unable to leave his bed. The rest of the time he had dragged himself around, trying to live up to his resolve, to get at the meaning of the present, to turn his sister Lorna from the path of dalliance. And ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... a King's daughter, whose heart was taken with love of a black slave: he did away her maidenhead, and she became passionately addicted to amorous dalliance, so that she could not endure from it a single hour and made moan of her case to one of her body women, who told her that no thing doth the deed of kind more abundantly than the ape. Now it chanced, one day, that an ape-leader passed under ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... "what the Duke is planning to get in on is an hour of tender dalliance. Before the Camelot arrives, necessarily. The cold-blooded little skunk!" She hesitated a moment; when she spoke again, her voice had turned harsh and nasal, wicked amusement sounding through it. "Sort of busy at the moment, sweetheart, but we might find time for a drink ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz

... of the monarch who, according to the point of view, has been called the Cruel and the Just. He was an amorist for whom platonic dalliance had no charm, and there are gruesome tales of ladies burned alive because they would not quench the flame of his desires, of others, fiercely virtuous, who poured boiling oil on face and bosom to make themselves unattractive in his sight. But the head that wears a crown apparently has fascinations ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... They were well-skilled in agreeable conversation and maddening revelry, and thorough mistresses of the arts of dance and singing. Always opening their lips with smiles, they were equal to the very Apsaras in beauty. Well-skilled in all the acts of dalliance, competent to read the thoughts of men upon whom they wait, possessed of every accomplishment, fifty damsels, of a very superior order and of easy virtue, surrounded the ascetic. Presenting him with water for washing his feet, and worshipping him respectfully ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... talk, and by my dalliance I have learned you to become insolent; but now I am done with temporizing. I throw down the gauntlet, since you have entered the lists, and will compel you to accept ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison

... prettinesses, and broke them into sand and splinters. Of all those pretty children with blue and with opalescent eyes, arrayed like flowers of the field; of all those lovers dreaming of love in summer dalliance, and of cottages among figs and olives; of all the vigorous manhood and ripe womanhood, with all the skill and courage of successful life in them,—not a tithe was saved. The ghastly maw of the waters covered them and swallowed them. A few sprang, among crashing timbers, on a floor laden with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... nights we had in Egypt! I could hit His humours while I cross'd him. O the life I led him, and the dalliance and the wit, ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... more cheerfully, "tell me your news. Let us change the subject. Let us throw aside light dalliance and return to questions of money. More important—much more satisfactory. I suppose you have left Durnovo in charge? Has Joseph ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... And with what fruit so wide a tract of days? I wept in boyhood 'neath the sounding rod: Youth's toga donned, the rhetorician's arts I plied and with deceitful pleadings sinned: Anon a wanton life and dalliance gross (Alas! the recollection stings to shame!) Fouled and polluted manhood's opening bloom: And then the forum's strife my restless wits Enthralled, and the keen lust of victory Drove me to many a bitterness and ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... "lewdness, although one thing in principle is, as far as meaning goes, subject to different constructions; as is exemplified by those in the world whose heart is set upon lewdness. Some delight solely in faces and figures; others find insatiable pleasure in singing and dancing; some in dalliance and raillery; others in the incessant indulgence of their lusts; and these regret that all the beautiful maidens under the heavens cannot minister to their short-lived pleasure. These several kinds of persons are ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... of rutting (an uncouth phrase, by which the vulgar denote that gentle dalliance, which in the well-wooded[*] forest of Hampshire, passes between lovers of the ferine kind), if, while the lofty-crested stag meditates the amorous sport, a couple of puppies, or any other beasts of hostile note, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... standard, and lived a life of manly purity in strange contrast to the grossness of the time. Of Hutchinson and Dudley and thousands of their contemporaries the same record held good: "Neither in youth nor riper years could the most fair or enticing woman draw him into unnecessary familiarity or dalliance. Wise and virtuous women he loved, and delighted in all pure and holy and unblameable conversation with them, but so as never to excite scandal or temptation. Scurrilous discourse even among men he abhorred; ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... valiance Made the Feinne fair Erin's boast! Where the red cascade descended, Lovely Grinie's evil dalliance Held him thrall as though were ended Noble ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell



Words linked to "Dalliance" :   trifling, gambol, delay, caper, frolic, holdup, dally, play, romp



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