"Toy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... escaping the fury of that sudden squall; they were in the thick of it in an instant, and the ship was buffeted and tossed about as if it were a toy. Millions of the driving particles battered the Nomad and the din of their pounding was terrific as the ship was whirled deeper into the midst of ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... in that jewel of naval skill! You have seen her, at many times, Captain Ludlow—in squalls and calms; with her wings abroad, and her pinions shut; by day and night; near and far; fair and foul;—and I ask you, with a seaman's frankness, is she not a toy to fill ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... building, the subject of our tale, has neither the gorgeous extravagance of the Gothic nor the severe and stern utility of the Roman architecture. Little bits of columns, dwarf-like, and frittered down into mere extremities, give the porch very much the appearance of a child's plaything, or a Dutch toy stuck to its side. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the pageant cloy, Supposing Nurse has left the room, We'll take again that outcast toy From the deep cupboard's inmost gloom; We'll shell that buccaneering barque With the good guns of England's ark; We'll chase it flying like a rat For some fort-guarded Ararat, And leave it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... have I to think that any woman will suit me? or what chance is there that any woman will make me happy? Is it not all leather and prunella? She is pretty and clever, soft and feminine. Where shall I find a nicer toy to play with? You forget, Arthur, that I have had my day-dreams, and been roused from them somewhat roughly. With you, the ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... and mothers, what gratitude you owe to the Catholic Church for the honorable position you now hold in society! If you are no longer regarded as the slave, but the equal of your husband; if you are no longer the toy of his caprice and liable to be discarded at any moment, like the women of Turkey and the Mormon wives of Utah; but if you are recognized as the mistress and queen of your household, you owe your emancipation to the Church. ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... learned its legitimate field, a tendency to the breadth of Motley's later efforts, an instinctive and evidently unconscious passion for the descriptive, an admirably curbed yet still powerful impatience of the light fetters, the toy regulations of the realm of Fiction, and an earnestness that has since bloomed in the world of Fact and History. The very imperfections of the novelist have become the charms of the historian. His ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... towards the ground. There was an expression of perfect calm on the face, and no mark of blood to stain the side towards the light. On the other side, however, there was a great pool of black blood, and in it the pistol; it looked more like a toy than a weapon to take away the life of this vigorous young man. In his forehead, at the side, was a small black wound; Jack's life had passed through it; it was little ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... coat pockets were bulging, one with a lot of papers. From the other protruded what seemed to be a part of a toy, or some real mechanical device having ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... The social triumphs on which he most piqued himself were of a congenial order. He sits down to write elaborate letters to Sir Horace Mann, at Florence, brimming over with irrepressible triumph when he has persuaded some titled ladies to visit his pet toy, the printing-press, at Strawberry Hill, and there, of course to their unspeakable surprise, his printer draws off a copy of verses composed in their honour in the most faded style of old-fashioned gallantry. He is intoxicated by his appointment to act as poet-laureate ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... went; and at the bottom of the stairs there was such a kitchen as was never before seen or heard of out of a toy-shop window, with everything in it as bright and glowing, and as precisely ordered too, as Barbara herself. And in this kitchen, Kit sat himself down at a table as white as a tablecloth, to eat cold meat, and drink small ale, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... 6 How vain a toy is glittering wealth, If once compar'd to thee; Or what's my safety, or my health, Or all my ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... began to notice the remarkable ease with which we handled things, and the strange tendency we had to bump into one another because we seemed to be all the time employing more strength than was necessary and almost to be able to walk on air. Jack declared that he felt as if his head had become a toy balloon. ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... absurd, sometimes bordering on downright impudence. The master noticed one afternoon, after calling the boys from their play at recess, that Ned had not entered the school-room with the others. Stepping to the door, he found him seated very composedly in the yard, working busily upon a toy he was fashioning with a knife from a piece of wood. "Why do you remain outside, Edward, after the other boys are called in?" said the master. "Cos I did'nt come in, sir," replied Ned, without looking up, or even pausing in his employment This was too much ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... Frere when on rounding a corner we saw that a hill which commanded the line at a distance of 600 yards was occupied by the enemy. So after all there would be a fight, for we could not pass this point without coming under fire. The four sailors loaded their gun—an antiquated toy—the soldiers charged their magazines, and the train, which was now in the reverse of the order in which it had started moved, slowly towards ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... Is it her English eyes? Eyes that born in the dark forests of Burma so hideous and so like the eyes of the apes! Is it her white skin and her red cheeks? A brown skin—though someone, there was, that say it is satin of heaven—is so tiresome; when no more it is a new toy it ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... doctor's waste-paper basket as very full. Pocket determined to make his own bed next morning. He had meanwhile an unpleasing suspicion that the young girl was clearing away, for the doctor took him back into the drawing-room after supper; and later, when they returned for a game of billiards on the toy board, which they placed between them on the dining-table, both Phillida and the ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... street, he wondered what he should buy. Should he buy candy? He hardly knew how it tasted. Should he buy a pretty toy? If he had been the only child in the family, things might have been different. But there were fourteen boys and girls older than he, and two ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... Petrokoff. He twirled his mustache fiercely. "The Russians are like children, they run after every new plaything. The Pole is a new plaything, a toy—bah! I have been before the public twenty-five years. I am an artist; I am one of the ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... for me, I'll, I'll—well, I think I'll put my meteor fan on the pillow beside my own to-night. I'm still newfangled with my toy ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... science in the high school Malcom Porter went to, and I had a lab in my basement. Porter was a pretty bright boy, and he liked to come around to my lab and watch me putter around. I had made this gadget—it was a toy for children as far as I was concerned. I didn't have any idea of its worth. It was just a little gadget that hopped up into the air and floated down again. Cute, but worthless, except as a novelty. And it was too expensive to build it as a novelty. ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett
... endless crowds of human beings, children and old men, nobles and snobs, rich men and poor, know the bitterness of disappointment from day to day. It begins from the child shedding many tears when the toy bought with the long-hoarded pence is broken the first day it comes home; it goes on to the Duke expecting the Garter, who sees in the newspaper. at breakfast that the yards of blue ribbon have been given to another. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... of such things, through a gap in the trees I saw again after so many years, set one behind the other, the forests wave upon wave, the summer heat, the high, bare range guarding all, and in the midst of that landscape, set like a toy, the little Sabine Farm. ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... hereof, but that it was the deuil which did guide and leade them, whom al superstition, false religion, and erronious doctrine pleaseth, aboue all thinges, speciallye when such a toy and trifle is accompanied with al wantonnesse and villanie. Now that such manner of doing, that is to say, custome of Pagans and heathen men, hath bene followed and practiced, by the children of Israel, after that hauing ...
— A Treatise Of Daunses • Anonymous
... his face and began to weep passionately, not like a man, but like a child whose last toy has been broken. ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... soul is intent upon some future gratification, which never pays him by its full possession. As soon as he awakens in the morning, he recollects some promised blessing, and, till the happy moment arrives, he is wretched in impatience: at breakfast he is to be blessed with some toy, that he is to have the moment breakfast is finished; and when he finds the toy does not delight him, he is to be blessed with a sweet pudding at dinner, or with sitting up half an hour later at night than his usual bed-time. Endeavour to find some occupation ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... Duddery, the great mart for wholesale dealers in woollen manufactures, which was to occupy a considerable portion of the meadow in which the fair was held. In the vehicles from London were conveyed milliners, toy-sellers, goldsmiths, turners, haberdashers, mercers, drapers, hatters, and in fact representatives of all the trades ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... play-thing of Napoleon's boyhood, the model of a brass cannon, weighing about thirty pounds.[4] We leave it to philosophers to inquire, whether the future love of war was suggested by the accidental possession of such a toy; or whether the tendency of the mind dictated the selection of it; or, lastly, whether the nature of the pastime, corresponding with the taste which chose it, may not have had each their action and reaction, and contributed between ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... boisterous wind. All the little waves jumped from their slow-swinging cradles to play with it, and, as they played, became big waves, with all the sportiveness of children and all the power of giants. The Clan Macgregor was their toy. ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... troubled at the thought that he would have "only girls" to play with at Zaandam, especially as Greta was a year younger than himself. But when the two girls, instead of bringing forward their dolls and tea-sets with which to entertain their visitors, produced from their treasures two good-sized toy canal-boats, fully equipped with everything a canal-boat needed, he admitted to himself that girls who liked to sail boats might ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... former marched into camp at breakfast time. Rob called them "Chickens"; farther south they are called "Fool Hens," which is descriptive and helps to distinguish them from their neighbours—the "Sage Hens." Frequently now we heard the toy-trumpeting and the clack of the Pileated Woodpecker or Cock-of-the-Pines, a Canadian rather than a Hudsonian species. One day, at our three o'clock meal, a great splendid fellow of the kind gave us a thrill. "Clack-clack-clack," ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... was in arrears, and some riband of the same tint. At this clever and unusual hour for shopping, the High Street was naturally empty, and after a little hesitation and many anxious glances to right and left, she plunged into the toy-shop and bought a pleasant little Union Jack with a short stick attached to it. She told Mr. Dabnet very distinctly that it was a present for her nephew, and concealed it inside her parasol, where it lay quite flat and ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... the young Amzis bestowed a box of neckties of approximately the same value upon their uncle. Little Susan gave him a muffler; the sisters had joined in a new easy chair which Jeremiah now carried in; their husbands had combined in their usual tribute of cigars. A toy and a five-dollar gold-piece for each child; the little chamois-skin bags of gold-pieces for the sisters; a book for each brother-in-law, completed Amzi's offerings. He announced to the children that he was going to build a toboggan in the back yard for their joint use just as soon as spring ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... the Southern States, are surprised to see the heavy burdens that the porters carry on their heads. It is not unusual to see them walking at a rapid pace, with one or two trunks, weighing fifty or eighty pounds each, upon their heads. Occasionally, we meet an itinerant toy-man, with his tray of fragile merchandise upon his head, walking with as much apparent security, as though his toys, or images, were in his hands. This is the easiest method of carrying burdens, because the position of the head and spinal ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... that will sell at sight. Something that everyone needs, and the poorest can afford. Invent simple things for the benefit of the masses, and your fortune is made. Some years back a one-armed soldier amassed a fortune from a single toy—a wooden ball attached to a rubber string. They cost scarcely anything, yet millions were sold at a good price. A German became enormously rich by patenting a simple wooden plug for beer barrels. "What man ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... artificial. Every tiny little house has its own little garden, perhaps but two feet square, yet artistically laid out with bridges, temples, miniature trees two or three inches high, flowers in pots, walks, and little cascades, all too toy-like and tiny for any but children. Nearly all of the houses have their little temples, and the children have their special gods; little boys have their gods of learning and their gods of war. The prayer to the god of learning is about like this: "Oh, Mr. God of Learning, won't you please help ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... twenty-five feet tall, in relation to this environment. But I did not feel so. As I stood up—still myself in normal stature—I saw around me a shrunken little landscape. The trees, as though in a Japanese garden, were about my own height; the road was a smooth level path: the little field near us a toy fence around it. In another road across it, the man was walking. In height he would barely have reached my knees. He saw us rise beside the trees. He darted off his road ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... and began to flit about the cook-table—measuring out snow-sugar and breaking butterfly eggs into her shining cups and bowls. Then she got out the silver waffle-irons (Sara wanted them for her toy stove) and buttered them, and put them on the stove to heat while she beat ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... masonry? What if my words wind in and out the stone As yonder ivy, the God's parasite? Though they leap all the way the pillar leads, Festoon about the marble, foot to frieze, And serpentiningly enrich the roof, Toy with some few bees and a bird or two,— What then? The column ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... sixty feet removed from the hideous clatter of the traffic. And she speculated on the appearance of Mrs. Thompson with all the hairs in her eyebrows that nature meant them to have. And then she thought upon Claybrook's boyishness in wanting her to help him go pick out a new toy. He was without guile, entirely without guile. Suddenly she laughed aloud and then she switched off the light and went smiling ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... it," said a woolly Lamb on Wheels, who stood on the floor, just under the edge of the toy counter. She was rather too large to be up among the smaller toys. "Yes, I am glad of it," went on the Lamb. "I have kept still all day, and now I have something to tell you ...
— The Story of a Lamb on Wheels • Laura Lee Hope
... silently and sits down. Mariet smiles to her husband with her pale lips, but he does not look at her. Like all the others, he has fixed his eyes in amazement on the toy ship. ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... her chariot up the red-carpeted steps she moved as one who treads enchanted ground. The little creature in her arms wore an air of deep suspicion. His pointed head turned to and fro with ferret-like movements. His sharp red eyes darted hither and thither almost apprehensively. He was like a toy on wires. ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... something in the appearance of the shops struck her as familiar. "Surely," she said, "I have seen these before, but where I cannot tell. Ah! look at that large toy-shop. I know I have been there, and some one who was with me bought me a cart to play with. I think it must have been mamma, for I recollect that the purse she had in her hand was like one that I often got from her to play with. Oh, I ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... bag with me," he thought, as he heard a peculiar squeaking arise from beneath his feet. "Never mind: I'll tie their legs together with my handkerchief, or thrust them into toy breast." ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... you wish to act politely to your wife and daughter write to the Star and Garter at Richmond, or the Toy at Hampton Court, and order a choice dinner beforehand for a select party; then we should be thought something of, and be able to dine in comfort, without being 91scrowged up in a corner by a Leadenhall landlady, or elbowed out of every ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... grocery, all right, and the cow lady who kept it gave them the things their mamma wanted. Then they went to the toy store and Bully got his marbles, and Bawly his whistle, which made a very ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... discover you. How? Usually after you have camped for the night and are sitting quietly by the fire before the hour of sleep, a curious squall is heard from the dark hillside or bushes, a squall followed by a bark like that of a toy terrier. Sometimes it keeps on at intervals for five minutes, and sometimes it is answered by a similar noise. This is the bark of a Fox. It differs from the Coyote call in being very short, very squally, ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... began strumming with it upon the taut sinew string. This made a twang of a new sort, and again the boy and girl were interested temporarily. But, at last, even this variation of amusement with the new toy became monotonous, and Bark ceased strumming and began a series of boyish experiments with his plaything. He put one end of the stick against the string and pushed it back until the other end would press against the inside ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... 'Twas well you kept your maiden zone, The noose to tie. Or if your choice be that rude pike, New barb'd with death, leap down and ask The wind to bear you. Would you like The bondmaid's task, You, child of kings, a master's toy, A mistress' slave?'" Beside her, lo! Stood Venus smiling, and her boy With unstrung bow. Then, when her laughter ceased, "Have done With fume and fret," she cried, "my fair; That odious bull will give you soon His horns to tear. You know not you are Jove's own dame: Away with sobbing; ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... are of a very high order. He began as a landscapist on wood; he now chiefly devotes himself to the figure; and he seems to have the decorative art at his fingers' ends as a natural gift. Such work as "King Luckieboy's Party" was a revelation in the way of toy books, while the "Baby's Opera" and "Baby's Bouquet" are petits chefs d'oeuvre, of which the sagacious collector will do well to secure copies, not for his nursery, but his library. Nor can his "Mrs. Mundi at Home" be neglected by the ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... Ivan had been the merest matter of fact from the first. Admirable in its quiet irony is the contrast between the stormy debate over his guilt or innocence and his serene security of mind as he sits cutting out a toy for his children:— ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... shake our belief in you, old man, if the whole United States Treasury had been found hiding in your holster! Now, forget it all, as well as you can, Overton. Leave it to your friends, who will be cooler-headed, to find the way out from under this toy cloud. Why, even Foster knows it's all so absurd that he doesn't order ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... be. On his eye, his judgment of materials, his nerve, and his dexterity of hand depend precious lives. For three thousand miles those vast masses of machinery must force a huge hull through huge seas; the mighty and shapely fabrics of metal must work with the ease of a child's toy locomotive, and they must bear a strain that is never relaxed though all the most tremendous forces of Nature may threaten. What a charge for a man! His earnings could hardly be raised high enough if we consider the momentous nature of the duty he fulfils; he is an aristocrat of labour, and we do ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... charming in his pretty dress. He wore a little sky-blue tunic, with small, tight knickers of white; his little legs and feet were bare, round his waist was a crimson girdle, and at his side was attached a toy sword. ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... 'bus and hack drivers were shouting "To the Eagle House," "To the Washington House," "This way to the Lake," "Just starting for Greytop;" and through their yells came the popping of fire-crackers, the explosion of torpedoes, the banging of toy-guns, and the crash of a firemen's band trying to play the Merry Widow while they were being packed into a waggonette streaming ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... Shakespeare, Dickens, Longfellow, Tennyson, or some other, is frequently represented by a half dozen or so disconsolate-looking volumes, the remainder of the set either never having been bought, or else, if bought, thrown aside, or strewn around the attic, or abandoned as a child would discard a toy which afforded it no ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... petitions were offered to the house by the merchants of Birmingham in Warwickshire, and Sheffield in Yorkshire, specifying that the toy trade of these and many other towns consisted generally of articles in which gold and silver might be said to be manufactured, though in a small proportion, inasmuch as the sale of them depended upon slight ornaments of gold and silver: that by a clause passed in the last session of parliament, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... including the in-laws, to Suburbia, and set up, in partnership with two others of like mind, as instructor of youth, after the jungle law of ruthless efficiency. Not content with this, he proposed also to turn the infant Witherson into a prospective superman by giving him toy-tigers and brief lectures on the rewards of frightfulness. Whereat the mother, finding her protests disregarded, dried her eyes and set herself to fill the poor child's infrequent leisure with anti-toxin injections of the higher morality as conveyed in the poetry of TENNYSON. You now take my meaning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... presents. I had a nice gold watch-key from Hosanna, a knife from Steele, a letter-case from Phebe, and a pretty pencil-case from Bertha. Dick had given me his watch-chain, which he knew I fancied; Sarah Blatchford, a little toy of a Geneva watch she wore; and her husband, a handsome seal ring,—a present to him from the Czar, I believe; Phebe, that is my wife,—for we were travelling with our wives,—had a pencil-case from Steele, a pretty little letter-case ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... and who it belonged to we never discovered. Probably some toy balloon let up by Christmas Eve revellers, who little thought it would alight on the roof of Jolliffe's, and after flopping about there for some minutes would finally tumble into the court below, and there act the part of Bubbles to a ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... great deal, he worked energetically, he came and went, he read and studied, he obeyed orders and always stood ready for new ones. Her pride in his vigorous initiative and practical determination was a glowing flame in her heart. He meant to be no toy soldier. ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of vagrancy, and my license for picking and choosing, I choose out these three articles to toy with:—first, Bibliolatry; second, Development applied to the Bible and Christianity; third, Philology, as the particular resource against false philosophy, relied ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... object to another, take a small boy, learning arithmetic. He begins: two ones are two; three ones are three-and then he thinks of three coins in his pocket, which will purchase so much candy, in the store down the street, next to the toy-shop, where are base-balls, marbles and so on, -and then he comes back with a jerk, to four ones are four. So with us also. We are seeking the meaning of our task, but the mind takes advantage of a moment of slackened attention, and flits off from one frivolous detail ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... continued Mr. Brittle, "is an amazing delicate article, in the way of a jewel—a frog of Turkish agate for burning pastiles in, my Lady; just such as they use in the seraglio; and indeed this one I may call invaluable, for it was the favourite toy of one of the widowed Sultanas till she grew devout and gave up perfumes. One of her slaves disposed of it to my foreign partner. Here it opens at the tail, where you put in the pastiles, and closing it up, the vapour issues beautifully through the nostrils, eyes, ears, and mouth, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... see every day of physic and physicians does not much heighten my opinion of them. To come into the world in imbecility, in the midst of anguish and cries; to be the toy of ignorance, of error, of necessity, of sickness, of malice, of all passions; to return step by step to that imbecility whence one sprang; from the moment when we lisp our first words, down to the moment when we mumble the ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... day he dragged his toy cannon to his grotto, and made believe he was a Corsican patriot, intrenched in his fortifications, and holding the whole French army at bay; for though Corsica was a French possession, the people were still smarting under their wrongs, ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... which was fostered by the indulgence and superstition of his parents. In 1816 the shoe-maker died and the child was left entirely to his own devices. He ceased to go to school; he built himself a little toy-theatre and sat at home making clothes for his puppets, and reading all the plays that he could borrow; among them were those of Holberg and Shakespeare. At Easter 1819 he was confirmed at the church of St Kund, Odense, and began to turn his thoughts to the future. It was ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... inheritance had chiefly passed to him through the medium of curiosity shops, and there were several pieces of considerable value among them. There were a gold Louis XVI snuff box, a miniature by Karl Huth, a silver toy porringer of the time of Queen Anne, a piece of Bow china, an enamelled cigarette case by Faberge. But tonight his handling of them was not so dainty and delicate as usual, and he actually dropped the porringer on the floor as he was dusting it, for his mind still occupied ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... northern end of the axis about which the earth rotates is directed. It therefore follows that this axis must be constantly changing its position. The character of the movement of the earth, so far as its rotation is concerned, may be illustrated by a very common toy with which every boy is familiar. When a peg-top is set spinning, it has, of course, a very rapid rotation around its axis; but besides this rotation there is usually another motion, whereby the axis of the peg-top does not remain in a constant direction, but moves in a conical path ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... possessed by a new toy each day that she has no time to master its use—naive creature ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... and stood far off, looking into each other's eyes. The clock, ticking away time, seemed a curious toy. "You. In this little room. Oh, Ellen, it ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... was sensuous villain enough to have contemplated, at any moment before the marriage with Cytherea, the return of his first wife, when he should have grown weary of his new toy? Had he believed that, by a skilful manipulation of such circumstances as chance would throw in his way, he could escape all suspicion of having known that she lived? Only one fact within his own direct knowledge afforded the least ground for such ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... laughing, though he had seldom felt less merry. But that the tiny Lady MacGregor should refer to tall Josette, who was nearly twice her height, as a "little beast," struck him as somewhat funny. Besides, her toy-terrier ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in each moment years and years of rest, Be calm, as being not. Ye oceans of intolerable delight, The blazing photosphere of central Night, Be ye forgot. Terror, thou swarthy Groom of Bride-bliss coy, Let me not see thee toy. O, Death, too tardy with thy hope intense Of kisses close beyond conceit of sense; O, Life, too liberal, while to take her hand Is more of hope than heart can understand; Perturb my golden patience ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... remember it," I exclaimed, pressing passionately the delicate hand which offered the glasses for my inspection. They formed a complex and magnificent toy, richly chased and filigreed, and gleaming with jewels, which, even in the deficient light, I could not help perceiving ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was denser now than during the morning hours, the frivolous contingent of visitors, including journeymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier or two come on furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like, having latterly flocked in; persons whose activities found a congenial field among the peep-shows, toy-stands, waxworks, inspired monsters, disinterested medical men who travelled for the public good, thimble-riggers, nick-nack ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... Antoinette; it was the finest and the most beautiful one of all, adorned with vases full of fragrant blossoms and surrounded by flowering plants and by cozy bowers of verdure. This cottage was the highest delight of the queen's life, the enchanting toy of her happiness. Even the little castle of Trianon, however simple and modest, seemed too splendid for the taste of the pastoral queen. For in Trianon one was always reminded that the lady of this castle was a queen; there, ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... submit to the illusion in the garden, we become restive in our deck-chairs and remember the telephone or the daily paper or a letter that has to be written. And reality weighs on us, like a hand laid on a top, making an end of the spinning, making an end of the music. The world is no longer a toy dancing round and round. It is a problem, a run-down machine, a stuffy room full of little stabbing creatures that make an ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... enthusiasts, it may be questioned whether they would at that time have changed their opinion though one had risen from the dead to assure them that it was an error. It perished without violence, by an easy and natural process. Like the famous toy of Mongolfier, it rose by means of heated air,—the fevered breath of enthusiastic ignorance,—and when this grew cool, as it always does in a little while, it collapsed ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... afford to buy it. But suppose that the consumer, for the things which he himself makes and sells, or for the work which he performs, receives more? What then? The whole thing begins to have a jigsaw look, like a child's toy rack with wooden soldiers on it, expanding and contracting. One searches in vain for the basis on which the relationship rests. And at the end of the analysis one finds nothing but a mere anarchical play of forces, nothing but a give-and-take resting on relative bargaining strength. Every ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... quite true that we must fight the Jesuits somehow; and if we can't do it with one weapon we must with another. But mere defiance is a feeble weapon and evasion a cumbersome one. As for petitioning, that is a child's toy." ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... tell you all the things that happened that day. You see, I have made quite a long story of my first evening, so you must try and fancy all about the walk in the park with Jane, and the drive with Grandmamma to the town, and the toy-shop, and ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
... West. He is only seven years old. He has no brothers or sisters to play with him, so he has to amuse himself. He makes railroads and bridges and houses with bits of rock. He has a toy shovel and a pickaxe and a little axe that will cut. He is very happy playing with them ...
— The Nursery, November 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 5 • Various
... my senses cleared. My dive from the Cometara carried me in a slow arc some three hundred feet away. There had been a sense of falling, but no actual fall. My velocity was retarded, with the mass of the Cometara pulling at me. I went like a toy boat in water shoved by a child, quickly slowing. In a few moments, the velocity was gone, and I hung poised. I saw Grantline's bloated form not over fifty feet from me. He waved an arm ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... weapon, which at first might be mistaken for a toy, is ornamented with designs lightly incised in the cane. It is kept with great care and when not in immediate use it is slipped into a bamboo of a larger size (this too decorated with incisions) ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... the world to set out their bad-cited Rome, we skim off the cream of other men's wits, pick the choice flowers of their tilled gardens, to set out our own sterile plots. We weave the same web still, twist the same rope again and again; or, if it be a new invention, 'tis but some bauble or toy, which idle fellows write, for as idle fellows ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... delicious fare; For never did thy beauty, since the day I saw thee first and wedded thee, adorned With all perfections, so inflame my sense With ardour to enjoy thee, fairer now Than ever; bounty of this virtuous tree! So said he, and forbore not glance or toy Of amorous intent; well understood Of Eve, whose eye darted contagious fire. Her hand he seised; and to a shady bank, Thick over-head with verdant roof imbowered, He led her nothing loth; flowers were the couch, Pansies, and violets, and asphodel, And hyacinth; Earth's ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... intensely interested in the banking class, the teacher acting as president, and two or three being chosen as cashier, teller, and clerk. They were furnished with neatly stamped coins and bills, such as are sold for toy money, and the rest of the class became depositors and learned how to draw and deposit, to count readily, to make change, to make out checks, to compute interest, discount bills, ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... comes, they feel nothing, they care for nothing. They live in the present moment, are the creatures of the present impulse (whatever it may be)—and beyond that, the universe is nothing to them. The slightest toy countervails the empire of the world; they will not forego the smallest inclination they feel, for any object that can be proposed to them, or any reasons that can be urged for it. You might as well ask of the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... "Some millionaire's toy,"—said Mr. Harland—"She's floating from the mysterious yacht." It was a music full of haunting sweetness and rhythmic melody, and I was not sure whether it was evolved from stringed instruments or singing voices. By climbing up on the sofa in my sitting-room I could look ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... answered the pig lady. "Then I'll send Flop Ear down to the store to get you a toy. Come Floppy," she called, "go and get something with which to amuse your brother," for you see Flop hadn't yet been vaccinated, and his arm ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... and flung away his cheroot with force. It made a darting red trail like a toy rocket fired through the drapery ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... "A simple toy, Master Buncle, not likely to please a genius so acute as that of your valiancie. Marry, thus it is. This suspension of the human body, which the vulgar call hanging, operates death by apoplexia—that is, the blood being unable to return ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... grey like the American ships. All coast lights were extinguished. The Island of Corregidor and Funta Restinga were hastily supplied with a few 6-inch guns from the Castilla. Punta Gorda, Punta Larisi, the rock El Fraile, and Caballo Island had toy batteries ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... to face with this state of things and I confess it staggered me. I knew Miss Brown too well to hope that any pink- and-white darling from the toy-shop could replace 'luvly miss,' or that she could be persuaded to admit even a very image of the dear departed into her affections. Then, too, the doctor said Miss Brown had but a few days at the most, perhaps only hours, to live; and ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... hot and dusty and their mouths watered. Carol had ten cents of his own. By using their nickel and the remaining fifteen cents they could each have a dish. Ernest hesitated about this borrowing, but the boys said they could pay it back. Ernest was sure he had that much in his toy bank at home, and the other boys were positive they could shake it through the slit if they ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... vast difference that M. Anatole France has introduced into the Dumas theatre some preeminently un-Dumas-like stage-business: the characters, between assignations and combats, toy amorously with ideas. That is the difference which at a stroke dissevers them from any helter-skelter character in Dumas as utterly as from any of our ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... against injury to cleanliness, to safety, to modesty, sometimes to roguery. From the thin slip of notched silk (as it were, the emblem and beatified ghost of an Apron), which some highest-bred housewife, sitting at Nurnberg Work-boxes and Toy-boxes, has gracefully fastened on; to the thick-tanned hide, girt round him with thongs, wherein the Builder builds, and at evening sticks his trowel; or to those jingling sheet-iron Aprons, wherein your otherwise half-naked Vulcans ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... even the most boisterous young striplings assume a quiet, prayerful calm. The children's play-pretties—the poppet, a make-believe corn-shuck doll—the banjo, and fiddle are put aside. In the corner of the room is placed a pine tree. It stands unadorned with tinsel or toy. On the night of January 6th, just before midnight, the family gathers about the hearth. Granny leads in singing the ancient Cherry Tree Carol, sometimes called Joseph and Mary, which celebrates January 6th as the day of our Lord's birth. With great solemnity Granny takes the handmade taper from ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... the train, into the peace and spaciousness of open country. The station was behind them, a little, neat stone station like a toy dropped down on the old-fashioned New England countryside. Joy caught her skirts clear of the car steps and descended, John guarding her. She smiled down at him before she sprang to the platform, and he smiled up at her. To any one not in the secret they seemed ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... side, felt his heart revolt against this coldness. After his return, to be treated like a child of the house, praised, promoted, petted, and now to be treated like a mere hireling, who is not worth the bread thrown to him; to be a toy of an incomprehensible caprice—this, at least, he had not deserved; so he became reserved toward the whole family, and sat silent at his desk; but he felt the contrast between the now and the then so keenly, that often, when alone, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... it is in life. We load ourselves down with toys like so many greedy children; then we see another toy and drop everything to be free to seize it; and if we can not, ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... out differently from what was anticipated. It is an infinitely higher and holier and nobler thing than our childhood fancied. The world that lay before us then was but a tinsel toy to the world which our firm feet tread. We have entered into the undiscovered land. We have explored its ways of pleasantness, its depths of dole, its mountains of difficulty, its valleys of delight, and, behold! it is very good. Storms have swept fiercely, but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... don't let me interrupt your very fascinating new pastime. Of course, since you are a young man of leisure, playing with your new toy must seem far more important than the fact that I have about twenty miles to walk—through the sand and the heat, and not even a canteen of water to save me from parching with thirst. I—I must ask you to pardon me for—for thrusting my merely personal affairs upon your notice. Well, what are you ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... like what is naughty: and I think it would be much better if you were in bed too. Come, give me that ugly toy; there is Monsieur quite shocked to see ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... hall full of the buzzing and booming of thousands of clocks. Whichever way she looked, clocks stretched away from her in glittering interminable vistas: clocks of all sizes and voices, from the bell-throated giant of the hallway to the chirping dressing-table toy; tall clocks of mahogany and brass with cathedral chimes; clocks of bronze, glass, porcelain, of every possible size, voice and configuration; and between their serried ranks, along the polished floor of the aisles, moved the languid forms of other gentlemanly floor-walkers, waiting for ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... edged with real lace, in her little left hand, which glittered with rings. In her right, was a spangled fan like a black butterfly. Mrs. Edes was past her first youth, but she was undeniably charming. She was like a little, perfect, ivory toy, which time has played with but has not injured. Mrs. Slade looked at her, then at Karl von Rosen. He looked at Mrs. Wilbur Edes, then looked away. She was most graceful, but most positively uninteresting. However, ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... she tried above all things to produce a sense of her gifts and accomplishments. She shone through a combination of grandeur and condescension which appeared like grace and sweetness, and sometimes awakened a personal homage, for which in the depths of her soul she cherished a longing. She did but toy with such feelings, to Mary they were a reality. Mary possessed that natural power of womanly charm which awakens strong, even if not lasting, passion. Her personal life fluctuates between the wish to find a husband who could advance her interests and those passionate ebullitions ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... to the heavy table a small steam engine, clever in its simplicity. He had half a dozen attachments for it. Within moments he had the others around him, as enthusiastic as a group of youngsters with a new toy. ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... keep it by day and by night. Their last step on the stairs, at the door, still throbs through me, if ever so light. Their last gift which they left to my childhood, far off in the long-ago years, Is now turned from a toy to a relic, and seen through the crystals of tears. 'Dig the snow,' she said, 'For my church-yard bed; Yet I, as I sleep, shall not fear to freeze, If one only of these, my beloveds, shall love with heart-warm tears, As I have ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... English Turn? Was that truly New Orleans, back yonder, wrapped in smoke, like fallen Carthage or Jerusalem? Or here! this black-and-crimson thing drifting round the bend in mid-current and without a sign of life aboard or about it, was this not a toy or sham, but one more veritable ship in veritable flames? And beyond and following it, helpless as a drift-log, was that lifeless white-and-crimson thing a burning passenger steamer—and that behind it another? Here in the cottage, plainly these were Constance and ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... possession of which would have made her renowned had opportunity afforded its cultivation. She had "picked up" music and read it remarkably well, and he, Indian wise, was passionately fond of melody. So they laughed and loved together over this new luxurious toy, until Milly, the ancient Mohawk maid, tapped softly at the drawing-room and bade them come to tea. With that first meal in her new home, the darkened hours and days and years smothered their haunting voices. She had "left yesterday behind her," as the major's royal wife had wished ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... enabled one to travel about the house and yard almost as readily as if on foot? In addition to all this was it not Van who came often to the house, never forgetting to bring in his pocket some toy or picture-book? Small things they often were—these gifts that meant so much to the child—often things of very slight money value; but to the invalid whose long, tedious days of convalescence were stretches ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... insignifacant, as usual. It is not considered good taste to have elaberate things for the school crowd. But when I think of the silver things Sis always brought home, and remember that I took away about six Christmas Stockings, a toy Baloon, four Whistles, a wooden Canary in a cage and a box of Talcum Powder, I feel that things are not fair in ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... pity that was. If she had, she would not have come to the party; things might have been tided over. But now. ... He had no hope of the wish of his life, he was as furious as a spoilt child who is deprived of a favourite toy—or, rather, disappointed of all hopes of getting one. He became more and more angry with Percy and longed to annoy him. The fellow was too satisfied—too lucky—he had everything too much his ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... has a pathos in all its chasing after a gilded butterfly that has always a grinning skull peering through the gold of its wings. The hunger that finds but Apples of Sodom, the life-labor that wins but the gold of Midas, the ambition that crushes its toy baloon—"and man plods his way ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... dust of April and May and if it is not given to me I shall cry myself to death; and if that fails, I shall cry for a toy winnowing fan; and if they give me that, then I will cry for an elephant and if that fails then on my wedding day there will be two thorns in the rice they give me to eat and they will stick in my throat and kill me. And if ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... dining room Henriette was struck by Edmond's delicate beauty, never having seen him before. She eyed him with the pleasure she would have felt in looking at a pretty toy. Could it be possible that that boy had served in the army? and how could they have been so cruel as to break his arm? The story of his gallantry in the field made him even more interesting still, and Delaherche, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... which were covered with gold, for they intended to make Sayang, so that they could find out who the woman was who had been by the river. Soon the liblibayan returned and they said, "We did not get the betel-nuts which you desired for we found a pretty toy among the branches of the tree." Aponitolau took the branch of the tree which shone as if covered with fire and he put a blanket on it and many pillows around it. As soon as they had again commanded the liblibayan to get the ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... 'Mr. Short,' the black-and-tan terrier, playing together, is really very pretty; they are so quick and agile in their movements that it is almost impossible to catch them. 'Mrs. Sharp,' the white toy terrier, in her new jersey, a confection of Muriel's, occasionally joins in the frolic; though her condescension is not much appreciated, for she is rather too quick with her teeth. The photograph ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... than in the case of most kings, because he is more hard to please. Of such I cannot complain, as this is according to the customs of our country. I fear only one thing—namely that some woman, ceasing to be his toy, may take Seti's heart and make him altogether hers. In this matter, Scribe Ana, as in others I ask your help, since I would be queen of Egypt in all ways, ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard |
