"Quoits" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the reader to be told how we beguiled the long tedious days at sea with ship's quoits, "Bull," and other mild amusements of a similar nature, or the still longer evenings with whist; how we went ashore at dirty glary Port Said, and drank bad coffee, while a brass band of German girls discoursed anything but "sweet ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... seemed—beautiful pale spectre—to shine from within with a light of his own, like that of the glow-worm in the thicket, or the dead and rotten roots of the old trees. And as if they had a proper motion of their own in them, the disks, the quoits, ran, amid the delighted shouts and laughter of the boy, as he follows, scarcely less swift, to score the points of their contact with the grass. Again and again they recommence, forgetful of the hours; while the death-bell cries ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... cock-fighting, and such games as quoits, football, skittles, wrestling, dancing, jumping in sacks, and all the ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... doth the Prince loue him so then? Fal. Because their Legges are both of a bignesse: and hee playes at Quoits well, and eates Conger and Fennell, and drinkes off Candles ends for Flap-dragons, and rides the wilde-Mare with the Boyes, and iumpes vpon Ioyn'dstooles, and sweares with a good grace, and weares his Boot very smooth, like vnto the Signe of the Legge; and breedes no bate ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... and eat and reinforce ourselves. In it are poems, powers, and possessions ineffable. Twenty-five cents a pound, and the strength of the gods in one's veins! Broil it carefully and rare, then go and toss quoits with Hercules. In this, ye disconsolate, behold lands, lovers, and virtues in plenty. It fills and steadies the pulse, and plants the planet plump under one's feet. "My friend, is he who makes me do what I can," says the sage. Only beefsteak can come to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... spark of interest in the gaming cocks we raised together to compete at the local contests and at the fair, and knew not a gaff from a cockspur. Being one day at my wits' end to amuse my cousin, I proposed to him a game of quoits on the green beside the spring-house, and thither we repaired, followed by Hugo, and young Harvey come to look on. Master Philip, not casting as well as he might, cries out suddenly to Hugo: ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... arose from many a merry ring, in which "rounders," with a cruelly hard ball, was being played. In other directions the fiddle and clarionet were hard at work, keeping pace with heels which seemed likely never to cease dancing, evincing more activity than grace. Here a sober few were heaving quoits, there a knot of Solomons talked of the past, and argued as to the future, whilst in the distance the sentimental ones strolled about, thinking no doubt of some one's goodness and beauty, in honour of whom, like true knights, they had come thus far to win ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... you done your letters? Do come up and watch Mrs. Smithson playing at quoits—a sight to ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... is distinguished very conspicuously by his dark-blue and checked dress, his peaked turban, often surmounted with steel quoits, and by the fact of his strutting about like Ali Baba's prince with his 'thorax and abdomen festooned with curious cutlery.' He is most particular in retaining the five Kakkas, and in preserving every outward ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... than anything else. I met him in the Legislature and had a sympathy with him because of the up-hill struggle we both had in life. He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any of the boys wrestling or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits or tossing a copper, and the dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse-race or a fist-fight, excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody. I sympathized with him because he was struggling with ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... where, upon the soldiers firing, two of the spectators' horses have bolted into the crowd; the charming drawing in pencil and colour work of two girls called "The Sirens;" rustic scenes such as "Eel Pie Island at Richmond," "Playing Quoits," and a "Rustic Maid Crossing a Stile," to her sweetheart's admiration; such echoes too of war as the crowd cheering the great battleships at Portsmouth, or the print of "Invaders Repulsed," where British troops are seen driving ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... future sailors too. Then leaving the Stoechades they passed on to the island Aethalia, where after their toil they wiped away with pebbles sweat in abundance; and pebbles like skin in colour are strewn on the beach; [1404] and there are their quoits and their wondrous armour; and there is the ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... banks, with some expectation of finding a ferry, by which I might cross the river; but my course was soon interrupted by the wall, and I turned up a lane that led me straight back again to the Porta del Popolo. I stopped a moment, however, to see some young men pitching quoits, which they appeared to do with a good deal ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... called, from his being the admitted most impudent man in the country, was a great, round-faced, coarse-featured, prize-fighting sort of fellow, who lived chiefly by his wits, which he exercised in all the legitimate lines of industry—poaching, betting, boxing, horse-dealing, cards, quoits—anything that came uppermost. That he was a man of enterprise, we need hardly add, when he had formed a scheme for doing our Sponge—a man that we do not think any of our readers would trouble themselves to try ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... melancholy apathy that so often benumbs the lonely man's activities. And when Eric became convalescent, I had enough to do finding diversion for his mind. Keeping record of our doings on birch-bark sheets, playing quoits with the Mandanes and polo with a few fearless riders, helped to pass ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... smoking supper to the table. He nodded to me democratically as he cast the heavy plates around as though he were pitching quoits or hurling the discus. I looked at him with some appraisement and curiosity and much conciliation. There was no prophet to tell us when that drifting evil outside might cease to fall; and it is well, when snow-bound, to stand somewhere within the radius of the cook's favorable consideration. ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... is, if it can be obtained; especially in the Lancers or Caledonians (which, we dare say, are pleasant quadrilles to those who know them, and the Charmer does). Well, she is top, with young Hoy (heir to Sir Hobbedy), for a partner, a brave youth at quoits, cricket, boxing, or boating—his hands, horny as a tortoise and large as Polyphemus', over which he split three right-hand gloves:—a glance will suffice to show how much he is out of his, and she in her, element—Miss Charmer looking, Lark said, as if she would prefer performing ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... saw that it was carefully closed. I expected some important communication, but in vain; pacing the small room to and fro, as if in a musing mood, the Abbe remained silent, till, pausing opposite some fencing foils, which among various matters (books, papers, quoits, etc.) were thrown idly in one corner ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... potatoes and, in general, food for the men. The younger ones occupied themselves as before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, though there was no food), some with more innocent games, such as quoits and skittles. The general trend of the campaign was rarely spoken of, partly because nothing certain was known about it, partly because there was a vague feeling that in the main it was ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the men, pitched quoits, and joined in their rough play, I trusted none, suspected all. No, not all. There were two young fellows whom I was many times on the point of calling to my confidence, but, thinking it wiser, kept my own counsel. Treason could ever wear a smiling ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... to think of amusements. One cannot be always reading; and, as for study, though I try Spanish and French alternately, I cannot settle to them, and begin to think that life on shipboard is not very favourable for study. We play at quoits—using quoits of rope—on the poop, for a good part of the day. But this soon becomes monotonous; and we begin to consider whether it may not be possible to get up some entertainment on board to make the time pass pleasantly. We had a few extempore concerts in one of ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... Kentish man by birth, though), and took that situation here, I quite made up my mind that it was the dullest little out-of-the-way corner in England, and that there would be some credit in being jolly under such circumstances. But, Lord, there's no dullness at the Dragon! Skittles, cricket, quoits, nine-pins, comic songs, choruses, company round the chimney corner every winter's evening. Any man could be jolly at the Dragon. There's no credit ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... sandwiches, three hard-boiled eggs, a pickle six inches long and fat to boot, four doughnuts so big that they resembled pitching quoits, a bottle of coffee and milk, a quarter of a pie, and, to cap the climax, an immense raw onion. It was worth a long journey to see Bill eat that onion. He took out his clasp knife, and after stripping off the papery outer shell, cut the onion into thick dewy slices. ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... more gayly, And our guests be more contented!" Then the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis, He the idle Yenadizze, He the merry mischief-maker, Whom the people called the Storm-Fool, Rose among the guests assembled. Skilled was he in sports and pastimes, In the merry dance of snow-shoes, In the play of quoits and ball-play; Skilled was he in games of hazard, In all games of skill and hazard, Pugasaing, the Bowl and Counters, Kuntassoo, the Game of Plum-stones. Though the warriors called him Faint-Heart, Called him coward, Shaugodaya, Idler, gambler, Yenadizze, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the boxes of curious games, With all sorts of objects and all sorts of names,— Lotto and Ludo, the Fox and the Geese, Halma and Solitaire—all of a piece; Go-bang and Ringolette, Hook-it and Quoits, For junior endeavours and senior exploits; And Skittles and Spellicans, Tiddle-de-winks— But one mustn't mention the half that one thinks; Chessmen and draughtsmen, and hoards upon hoards Of chess and backgammon and bagatelle boards; And boxes of dominoes, boxes of dice, And boxes of tricks ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... know," he temporized, taken aback. "I don't go in for loneliness much; but when I do, why all I want is—well, let me see, a good game of quoits with the boys in front of the church, or a talk with my mother about how rich we are going to be some day when I get that partnership in the fishstand. I'm too busy to ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... tomahawk; but it doesn't answer so well for a bouquet; you will hurt somebody if you keep it up. Turn your nosegay upside down, take it by the stems, and toss it with an upward sweep. Did you ever pitch quoits? that is the idea. The practice of recklessly heaving immense solid bouquets, of the general size and weight of prize cabbages, from the dizzy altitude of the galleries, is dangerous and very reprehensible. Now, night before last, at the Academy of Music, just after Signorina ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... my childhood. I was high up in the school, on good terms with the masters, though my Latin and Greek was never considerable: on better terms with the boys, for, I must own, my inclinations were rather towards baseball and quoits than towards the nice discrimination of longs and shorts. I had developed in particular an amazing strength of arm, which stood me in good stead in wrestling bouts, and led to my being counted two in our tugs ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... are nothing but palings. But in the centre are some little sheds where a packet of round cakes, a stout woman in a red dress, a bar of soap, some pounds of bitter almonds, some lead, some cotton, and two shopmen playing at "svaika," a game resembling quoits, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... politicians, post riders, stage drivers, each bringing his contribution of information and humor, and the slaves and rabble stood round to pick up news and see the fun. The court days in each county were holidays celebrated with games of quoits, running, jumping, feasting, and discussions political and social. At the capital there was even style and extravagance. Governor Belcher, for example, who lived at Burlington, professed to believe that the Quaker ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... any one of the following: The Checkered Game of Life, Alphabet and Building Blocks, Dissected Maps, &c., &c. For three new subscribers, any one of the following: Japanese Backgammon or Kakeba, Alphabet and Building Blocks (extra). Croquet, Chivalrie, Ring Quoits, and any other of the popular games of the day may be obtained on the most favorable terms, by working for THE NURSERY. Send stamp ...
— The Nursery, No. 106, October, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... desired by Drake to go through the ship, and to choose what he most desired, fixed his eye upon a cimetar, set with diamonds, which the French captain had presented to Drake; and, being unwilling to ask for so valuable a present, offered for it four large quoits, or thick plates of gold, which he had, hitherto, concealed; but Drake, desirous to show him that fidelity is seldom without a recompense, gave it him with the highest professions of satisfaction and esteem. Pedro, receiving it with the utmost gratitude, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... and so gained an undue deference and improper titles; but notwithstanding this he took all possible care of them. He ordered the virgins to exercise themselves in running, wrestling, and throwing quoits and darts; that their bodies being strong and vigorous, the children afterwards produced from them might be the same; and that, thus fortified by exercise, they might the better support the pangs of child-birth, and be delivered with safety. ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... a boy inhabited this bothy, and the rain had driven them all indoors. In better weather they spend the leisure of the evening at the game of quoits, which is the standard pastime among Scottish ploughmen. They fish the neighbouring streams, too, and have burn-trout for supper several times a week. When I entered, two of them were sitting by the fire playing draughts, or, as they called it, "the dam-brod." The dam-brod is the Scottish labourer's ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... a good listener, and about the middle of any voyage that is a quality supplying a felt want. Mankind in general finds his own doings very interesting, and takes great pleasure in recounting the same. Even the most energetic young passenger cannot play deck-quoits all day, and mixed cricket matches are too heating to last long once Aden is left behind. A great many people found it pleasant to drop into a chair beside the quiet lady, who was always politely interested ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... ship's etiquette, to buy another from the sailors who make them, so an unaccustomed batsman may be landed in much expense. Everybody found it great fun, however, and when they had lost the day's supply of balls, would take to ring quoits and deck ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... officers' ambulances, and a stream of folks on foot; while farther along almost a regiment crosses the drive, their huddled shelter tents extending entirely across the peninsula. These are playing cards on the ground, and tossing quoits, and sleeping on their faces, while a gunboat watches the river front, and under a circular wall a line of patrols, ten yards apart, ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... might chance to find its way to the gunpowder. Everyone was in high spirits and supremely happy. As soon as the work of the day was over, the men took to playing leap-frog, diversified by bowls and quoits, which had been brought on shore. The officers had not forgotten foils and boxing-gloves, as well as books and writing-desks and drawing materials. All was not play, however; the arms had to be cleaned every morning, the men inspected, and a bright look-out kept from dawn to sunset, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... the grate as Nellie busied herself with washing the dishes; while outside the loud cries of the children, playing on the green, mingled occasionally with a clink, as the steel quoits fell upon each other, telling of some enthusiastic players, who were practicing for the local games. Loud cries of encouragement broke from the supporters, and Geordie and Nellie heard all these—even the plaintive wail of a child crying in a ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... she treated us all alike with the utmost impartiality, merely acknowledging our salutes with a careless, scarcely perceptible inclination of the head, and otherwise completely ignoring our existence. Her amusements, while on deck, consisted of reading, playing bull, shuffle-board, or deck quoits with her brother, promenading the poop with her mother, and occasionally condescending to exchange a few remarks with the parson or the doctor. But she was a musician of rare ability, and possessed a soprano singing voice ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... it is a game of skill, just as much as bowls or quoits; but there are also elements of luck about "pitch and toss" which gives ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... countryman, rather than a Chief Justice of the United States. He had a farm in Fauquier County, and another near Richmond, and he would often return from the latter to take his seat on the bench with burrs sticking to his clothes. His great passion was the game of quoits, and he was a member of the club which met, as it still meets, at Buchanan's Spring, near the city, to play at this game. Here the Governor of Virginia, the Chief Justice, and the most eminent lawyers of the Court of Appeals, were found by a French gentleman, ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... as rowing, skating, cricket, quoits, foot-ball, rackets, single-stick, bandy, bowls, skittles, and all gymnastic exercises. Such games bring the muscles into proper action, and thus cause them to be fully developed. They expand and strengthen ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... powerful company of these ever-young Maruts, who drive violently along with quick horses; aye, the sovereigns are lords of Amrita the immortal. The terrible company, the powerful, adorned with quoits on their hands, given to roaring, potent, dispensing treasures, they who are beneficent, infinite in greatness, praise, O poet, these men of great wealth! May your water-carriers come here to-day, all the Maruts who stir up the rain. That fire which has been lighted for you, O Maruts, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... those days we visited by vessel, so a schooner of Robert Morris's father set me ashore at Mount Vernon. Colonel Washington was then having his first portrait painted by Wilson Peale, and he was forty years old. Peale and Washington used to pitch the bar, play quoits, and fox-hunt, while Cousin Martha, who was only three months younger than the colonel, knitted and cut out sewing for her colored girls, and heard her daughter, Martha Custis, play the harpsichord. Poor Martha had the consumption; she was dark as an Indian; Washington often ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... established himself on friendly terms with "the boys" who met at the corner in the evenings. He entered into all their sports. Whether it was throwing quoits in the middle of the road, playing foot-ball in the river pastures below the mill, swimming in the milldam or walking the logs on the pond, he was the leader. He was a favourite with all classes. Mr. Watson, who was rumoured to have loose notions on religion, was his constant companion. ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... time at which Stokebridge was generally lively. The men, (dinner over, and the great weekly wash done,) usually crowded the public-houses, or played bowls and quoits on a piece of waste land known as "the common," or set off upon a spree to Birmingham or Wolverhampton, or sat on low walls or other handy seats, and smoked and talked. But upon this special Saturday afternoon no one settled down to his ordinary pursuits, for the men stood talking in ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... a valorous sea farer, after a party had returned with a portion of the buried treasure, which was divided equally between the French and the English. Much of that left in the sand crab holes had been discovered by the Spaniards—but not all. Thirteen bars of silver and a few quoits of gold had rewarded the ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... and put on a pair of mittens which I had in my pocket. It snowed about an hour that day. On the tenth of June, my wife brought in some clothes that had been spread on the ground the night before, which were frozen stiff as in winter. On the fourth of July, I saw several men pitching quoits in the middle of the day with thick overcoats on, and the sun shining bright at the same time. A body could not feel very patriotic in such weather. I often saw men when hoeing corn, stop at the end of a row and ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... contrary winds and heavy seas, reduced our speed to nearly half for the remainder of the journey. Our spirits have not flagged, as, thanks to various small games such as pitch-and-toss, running races when the ship was rolling, quoits, and cards, we have not found time unbearably long. The last few days we have had big sweepstakes on the run of the ship; but, unfortunately, none of our party have won them. One evening we had a concert; but you may imagine the talent on board was not great when they had to call upon one ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... instructed his mind. He cared for only such games as would strengthen his body, increase his power of endurance, or develop his muscle or his craftiness. With the other Indians he played football, tossed quoits, ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... venerable gentlewoman "but my head is as firmly set upon my shoulders as ever. I do verily believe that it must be some mad piece of waggery of that Prince of good fellows, Sir WALTER RALEIGH. The aged Knight is always up to some of his nonsense!" After playing a game of quoits with Lord BALMARINO and the Tower Headsman (whose office is a well-paid sinecure), I returned to Newgate, greatly pleased with my morning's promenade. In the afternoon, entertained the Governor at dinner, who declared ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... upon the hoary headlands of Old Europe, which harbours more kings and rulers upon its seamed and furrowed body than all the oceans of the world together. "What we have divided we have divided; and if no rest and peace in this world have fallen to my share, leave me alone. Let me play at quoits with cyclonic gales, flinging the discs of spinning cloud and whirling air from one end of my dismal kingdom to the other: over the Great Banks or along the edges of pack-ice—this one with true aim right into the bight ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... of rope useful in a myriad ways aboard ship as well as ashore. They are often used as handles for chests, for rings with which to play quoits, to lengthen rope, and in many similar ways. The grommet is formed of a single strand of rope five times as long as the circumference of the grommet when complete. Take the strand and lay one end across the other at the size of loop required and with the long end follow ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... were engaged in pitching a game with solid gold quoits, on the floor of the royal chamber, and Inga and Bilbil were watching them, when Klik came running in, his hair standing on end with excitement, and cried out that the Wizard of Oz ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Cacambo towards the first village which he saw. Some children dressed in tattered brocades played at quoits on the outskirts. Our travellers from the other world amused themselves by looking on. The quoits were large round pieces, yellow, red, and green, which cast a singular lustre! The travellers picked a few of them off the ground; this was of gold, that of emeralds, ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... and customs of the countries they were proposing to travel? During the voyage I noticed the German travellers constantly conversing with South Americans from the Pacific Coast, in an endeavour to improve their working knowledge of Spanish; meanwhile the young Englishmen played deck-quoits and talked English. That in itself is quite sufficiently characteristic. In Manchester there is a firm who do a large business in manufacturing brightly coloured horse-trappings for the South American market. I speak with some confidence about this, for I have myself watched those trappings ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... handcart laden with gingerbread and peppermint lozenges, and a woman selling hot cocoa on a table in the furrow. A strange country, where everything was mingled—the smoke from the frying-pan and the evening vapor, the noise of quoits on the head of a cask and the silence shed from the sky, the city barrier and the idyllic rural scene, the odor of manure and the fresh smell of green wheat, the great human Fair and Nature! Germinie enjoyed it, however; and, urging Jupillon to go farther, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... him when they talked with him, their little superficial minds were so filled with emptiness; while the boisterous high spirits and the excessive energy of the younger people shocked him. They were never quiet, ceaselessly playing deck-quoits, tossing rings, promenading, or rushing to the rail with loud cries to watch the leaping porpoises and the first ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... us, Charlie? Lor bless you, we might ha' bin blooming Chinese A-doing the rounds at the 'Ealthries. 'Twas regular go as you please. Lawn-tennis, quoits, cricket, and dancing for them as must be ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... napkin with which he wipes your plate, and who, when he changes a course, slants the dishes up his sleeve, keeping the top one in place with his chin, replacing the plates again with a wavy motion, as if they were so many quoits, each one circling into its place—a trick of ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... as in disposing of their produce and attending to their other concerns. The planters visited each other on the Sabbath, gave dinner parties, made excursions to the neighboring towns to supply their wants at the stores, attended militia musters and shooting matches, indulged in games of quoits and other sports. But religious services and religious instruction were almost entirely unknown. Young men often came to the island who were educated in the strictest Presbyterian faith; lineal descendants of the old Scottish Covenanters; they ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... my imagination, excited by its idea of what Dacres Tottenham's courtship ought to be, the attentions he paid to Cecily were most humdrum. He threw rings into buckets with her—she was good at that—and quoits upon the 'bull' board; he found her chair after the decks were swabbed in the morning and established her in it; he paced the deck with her at convenient times and seasons. They were humdrum, but ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... who were playing a species of quoits with crown-pieces and louis, left off their game to hear the news. Having heard it they returned to ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... procured a jews'-harp from Tibet. These are not the toys of savages, but the amusements of people more than half-civilised, and with whom we have had indirect communication from the earliest ages. The Lepchas play at quoits, using slate for the purpose, and at the Highland games of "putting the stone" and "drawing the stone." Chess, dice, draughts, Punch, hockey, and battledore and shuttlecock, are all Indo-Chinese or Tartarian; and no one familiar with the wonderful ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... sister of Laertes say to the King, in Hamlet, when wishing to prick the royal conscience, "There's Fennel for you." And Falstaff commends Poins thus, in Henry the Fourth, "He plays at quoits well, and eats conger, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... I am well aware that this vibrating house exaggerates every sound during the silence of night; but all the same, I am puzzled to know what my mousme can be doing. Dzinn! dzinn! is she amusing herself with quoits, or the jeu du crapaud, or ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... tradesmen, among the farmers themselves, and among all ranks of persons. You have also many infamous houses, and, besides those that are known, the taverns and ale-houses are no better; add to these dice, cards, tables, football, tennis, and quoits, in which money runs fast away; and those that are initiated into them must, in the conclusion, betake themselves to robbing for a supply. Banish these plagues, and give orders that those who have ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... Kitty avoided Jack and surrounded herself with the callow youth of the vessel. She appeared in high spirits, played deck quoits, and did not give him a minute's chance to get a word with her, till the idea in his mind, of attempted suicide, took root and developed after serious and profound thinking. Something would have to ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... Meantime he wrote out a cable to his New York bank for a hundred and fifty dollars. To keep from thinking in the train he talked gravely and gently to an old man about the brave days of England, when men threw quoits. He kept thinking over and over, to the tune set by the rattling of the train trucks: "Friends... I got to make friends, now I know what they are.... Funny some guys don't make friends. Mustn't forget. Got to make lots of 'em in New York. Learn ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... lewdness, or parties for gaming or drinking, and so by degrees ruin their estates, and leave the character of debauchees behind them, so those of meaner rank come thither to partake of the diversions of cudgel-playing, wrestlings, quoits, and other robust exercises which are now softened by a game of toss-up, hustle-cap, or nine-holes, which quickly brings on want; and the desire continuing, naturally inclines them to look for some means to recruit. And so, when the evening is ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... familiar, and not intricate and dark that they might neither vex the unlearned, nor fright them from the disquisition. For—as it is allowable to dissolve our entertainment into a dance, but if we force our guests to toss quoits or play at cudgels, we shall not only make our feast unpleasant, but hurtful and unnatural—thus light and easy disquisitions do pleasantly and profitably excite us, but we must forbear all contentions and (to use Democritus's word) wrangling disputes, which perplex the proposers with intricate ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... principal pleasure in superintending the Dauphin's education, giving him lessons every morning, then at one o'clock if the weather was fine, the royal family would all go into the garden, and the Dauphin would play ball or quoits or run races, as was suitable for his age and activity of body. At two o'clock dinner was served, and afterwards, the Dauphin again had a play hour while the king enjoyed a nap. As soon as he awoke, Clery, who had ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... exercises. He was a first-rate football- player, and a good all-round cricketer; he was an excellent oar, and a fairly good swimmer; and until the last few months of his life no man could enjoy with more zest a game of quoits, or tennis, or a day devoted to the royal game of golf. In the early days of his manhood, with characteristic unselfishness, he risked his own life on one occasion by leaping from a rock into the sea, on the wild north Irish coast, to bring safely ashore his cousin (and life-long ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... men wearily, sadly, often faithfully performing their daily labor who were born heirs to leagues of land where ranged mighty herds of cattle and horses—men who as boys, perhaps, played their games of quoits with golden slugs from the Indian baskets sitting about the ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... better than most honest men could feed themselves. Kim knew that walk well, and made broad jest of it as they passed. Then an Akali, a wild-eyed, wild-haired Sikh devotee in the blue-checked clothes of his faith, with polished-steel quoits glistening on the cone of his tall blue turban, stalked past, returning from a visit to one of the independent Sikh States, where he had been singing the ancient glories of the Khalsa to College-trained princelings in top-boots and white-cord breeches. Kim was careful not to irritate that man; for ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... of the sky as among the Zuni. Subsequently the zoic concept fades, and the constant association of human intellectual qualities engenders an anthropic concept, when the sun becomes an anthropomorphic deity (perhaps bearing a dazzling mask, as among the Zuni), and thunder is the rumbling of quoits pitched by the shades of old-time giants, as among different American tribes. Eventually all the leading agencies of nature are personified in anthropic form, and retain the human attributes of caprice, love, and hate which are found in the minds ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... then dismissed Jellia Jamb and the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, and when they were gone he took his new friend by the arm and led him into the courtyard to play a game of quoits. ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... settlement greatly outnumbered his own, Winslow set his followers to surrounding the camp with a stockade. Card-playing was forbidden, because it encouraged idleness, and pitching quoits in camp, because it spoiled the grass. Presently there came a letter from Lawrence expressing a fear that the fortifying of the camp might alarm the inhabitants. To which Winslow replied that the making of the stockade had not alarmed them in the least, since they took it as a proof ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... sat down on a bench with Sim. The other men busied themselves with handball and quoits. Sim bent down and traced a line with a stick in ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... their disappointment was great. However, when they found that in consequence of their being the only passengers each might have a cabin to himself, their discontent quickly passed away. And when they got well out to sea they had plenty of amusements, for the captain had the shuffle-board, deck quoits, and other games brought out, and with the second officer and chief ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... dreads the Tiber's touch, And avoids the wrestling-rings,— He who formerly was such An expert with quoits and things. ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... He threw quoits on a table, and won for her two large, pale-blue hat-pins. And then, hearing the noise of the cinemas, announcing another performance, they climbed the ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... distinguished citizens of Savannah, and witnessed the skill with which they threw the discus. No apprentices were they in the art; there was no striking far from the stake, no sending the discus rolling over the green; they heaped the quoits as snugly around the stakes as if the amusement ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... warrant officers and the engineers, who ranked with them, on one occasion, and the midshipmen invited them on another. Some of the seamen occasionally dined with the marines, and vice versa. Then they had games; though there was no ground for cricket, quoits could be played, and of course there was a fiddler on board, and hornpipes were danced. On Sunday no work was done after the first week or two, and the chaplain had service regularly twice in the day, and occasionally ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston |
