"Gadding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Advice to All Parties, flings it down with expressions of ennui; shortly thereafter Deputy Driver, a member of a Reforming Society, appears on the scene to be twitted because while pretending to reform the whole world he can't keep his own wife from gadding; and matters proceed with Smart's project to trick a skittish independence-loving heiress into keeping a compact she had made to marry him, and his friend Bloom's attempts at the cagey virtue of Mrs. Driver. The latter project comes ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... Only the desire to "see it through" socially was not driving Jack MacRae. He had a different target, and his eye did not wander far from the mark. And perhaps because of this, chance and his social gadding about gave him the opening he sought when he least ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... He was a fine lad. I wish you had met him, but you were always gadding somewhere when he ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... catching at the word. "Career! That is all girls think of now, instead of being good wives and mothers and attending to their homes and doing what God intended. All they think of is gadding about and being fast, and ruining themselves body and soul. And the men are as bad to encourage ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... gets through. Mr. and Mrs. Redeye are dreadfully distressed about it, but they will feed him because they say it isn't his fault. It's a dreadful affair and the talk of the whole Orchard. I suppose his mother is off gadding somewhere, having a good time and not caring a flip of her tail feathers what becomes of him. I believe in being goodhearted, but there is such a thing as overdoing the matter. Thank goodness I'm not so weak-minded that I can be imposed on in ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... poor souls shall not lose by the bargain, though my foolish gadding masters have disappointed them. That ladder of ropes was doubtless left there by the young lady in ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... Dowsett said decidedly; "though I can no more account for it than you can. She never used to have any care about the household, and now she assists me in my work, and is in all respects dutiful and obedient, and is not for ever bent upon gadding about as she was before. I only hope it will continue so, for, in truth, I have often sighed over the thought that she would make but a poor ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... headstrong, Where haue you bin gadding? Iul. Where I haue learnt me to repent the sin Of disobedient opposition: To you and your behests, and am enioyn'd By holy Lawrence, to fall prostrate here, To beg your pardon: pardon I beseech you, Henceforward I ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... lead such a rotten life. Honestly, Ricky, don't you get sick of gadding about night and day with people who only condescend to know ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... half-past two. I must hurry down to East Twenty-fifth Street and the East River, at the yacht club mooring, before three. Tomorrow I will give you my version in some quiet restaurant, far from the gadding crowd ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... where she's made her nest," said little Jane, stepping aside from a tangle of blackberry-vines, herds-grass, and harebells, where lay a half-dozen pullet pearls. "A pretty mother you'd make, Miss, gadding and gossiping down in the meadow with that naughty black hen! Who do you suppose is going to bring up your family for you? Did you speak to the butterflies to hatch them under their yellow wings? I shall just tie ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... Bacchante after one of their orgies. "When the tyrants of Phocea had taken Delphos, and the Thebans undertook that war against them which was called the Holy War, certain women devoted to Bacchus (which they called Thyades) fell frantic, and went a gadding by night, and, mistaking their way, came to Amphissa, and being very much tired, and not as yet in their right wits, they flung themselves down in the market-place and fell asleep, as they lay scattered ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... confidence in the author's veracity. Froissart is an insatiable Fry, who revels in all the sights of his day, events and personages, wars and galas, adventures of heroism or gallantry, and who is incessantly gadding about through all the dominions and all the courts of Europe, everywhere seeking his own special amusement in the satisfaction of his curiosity. He has himself given an account of the manner in which he collected and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... pray where have you been all these days? A pretty thing, indeed, for you to be gadding ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... complained Mr. Lott, in a tone of bitterness, "it's nothing but play, girls, gadding about the streets. Work, business—oh, no. I may go bankrupt; my wife and children may go into the workhouse. No thought for me, the man that keeps them, feeds them, clothes them. How much salary ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... were still alive, when you went gadding and wandering about so long?' said his brothers. 'But all the same; there are twelve mares up on the hill which we haven't yet shared among us; if you choose to take them for ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... out of her bag the especial knitting which she reserved for the Sabbath, and her fingers flew with expressive spirit. "It's scandalous," she said at length. "Girls gadding about the face of the earth—picking up chaperons ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... entered the narrow door from which the dark steps led abruptly upwards. "Gadding—always gadding! And who minds the soup-kettle when you are gadding, I should like to know? The cat, I suppose! Oh, these women and their priests! These priests and ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... beauty, aiming at the heart, Bends in some tree its useless dart, And where the world no certain shot Can make, or me it toucheth not, But I on it securely play And gall its horsemen all the day. Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines Curl me about, ye gadding vines, And oh so close your circles lace, That I may never leave this place! But, lest your fetters prove too weak, Ere I your silken bondage break, Do you, O brambles, chain me too, And, courteous briars, nail ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... equal authority in regulating and disposing of the children, and in the case of infants, more than he. There is no law compelling her to do her share of the family labour: she may spend her whole time in cinema theatres or gadding about the shops an she will. She cannot be forced to perpetuate the family name if she does not want to. She cannot be attacked with masculine weapons, e.g., fists and firearms, when she makes an assault with feminine weapons, e.g., snuffling, invective ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... the posts in London to the proofe, and fouling of paper, in twelve howres thinke to effect Calabrian wonders: is not the number of twelve wonderfull? Some with Amadysing & Martinising a multitude of our libertine yonkers with triviall, frivolous, and vaine vaine droleries, set manie mindes a gadding; could a foole with a feather make men better sport? I could not chuse but apply my self in some sort to the season, and either proove a weede in my encrease without profit, or a wholesome pothearbe in ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... their northern neighbours, they forbid their squaws from studying languages—which is about the only accomplishment possible to them save dancing—principally, it is believed, in order to prevent them from gadding about and forming acquaintances in neighbouring valleys, for there is small virtue among the unmarried of either sex. But the men pay considerable attention to linguistic studies, and there is seldom one who ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... 'Gadding about' not being the fashion of the Archfield household, Anne had not seen the lady for several years, and was agreeably surprised by her appearance. Perhaps the marks of smallpox had faded, perhaps motherhood had given expression, and what ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heed, how could they ever have come to read the secrets which at this time occupied a place in the heart of Pao-y? But so unhappy was Pao-y within himself that he soon felt loth to stay in the garden, and took to gadding about outside like an evil spirit; but he behaved also the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... head, of the same russet hue 140 Almost deceived my sight, had not her eyes With life full-beaming her vain wiles betrayed. At distance draw thy pack, let all be hushed, No clamour loud, no frantic joy be heard, Lest the wild hound run gadding o'er the plain Untractable, nor hear thy chiding voice. Now gently put her off; see how direct To her known mews she flies! Here, huntsman, bring (But without hurry) ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... that is ordained for this kind of people is very sharp, and yet it cannot restrain them from their gadding: wherefore the end must needs be martial law,[2] to be exercised upon them, as upon thieves, robbers, despisers of all laws, and enemies to the commonwealth and welfare of the land. What notable robberies, pilferies, murders, rapes, and stealings of young children, burning, breaking, ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... however, when the knowing gallants slipped a crown into his hand to put in the place of his magnifiers! Bonhomme Michel placed all his propitiation money—he liked a pious word—in his old leathern sack, which contained the redemption of many a gadding promenade through the streets of Quebec. Whether he reported what he saw this time is not recorded in the Vieux Recit, the old annals of the Convent. But as Louise Roy called him her dear old Cupid, and knew so well how to bandage his eyes, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Mr Brindley greeted her, and to his wife, 'How do, missis? But, look here, bright star, this gadding about is all very well, but what about those precious kids of yours? None of ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... are spies! All the people that come to buy corn return home without delay, but ye have lingered here three days, without making any purchases, and all the time you have been gadding about in the disreputable parts of the city, and only spies are wont to ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... this: I'll believe you when I see you making the sketch. And as for earning extra money, I should have thought Sir Samuel paid good enough wages for you to be willing to smoke a pipe and rest when your day's work was done, instead of gadding about corridors gossiping with lady's-maids who've no business to be outside their own room. But if you're so greedy after money—and if you want me to ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... fast asleep in my room before dinner the other rainy day. I always curl myself up and go to sleep when I've got nothing better to do, and I count the capacity a precious gift; besides, I will let you into a secret worth your heads: it improves your looks immensely after you've been gadding about for a number of days, and horribly dissipated in dancing of nights at Christmas, or in the oratorio week, or if you are in a town when the circuit is sitting—not ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... decked and prisoned birds. But, when our step has paced the proud parterre, And reached the heath, then Nature glads our eye Sporting in all her lovely carelessness, There smiles in varied tufts the velvet rose, There flaunts the gadding woodbine, swells the ground In gentle hillocks, and around its sides Through blossomed ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... the bundle. "I have been gadding about in Wall Street. I never was there before, but it is so nice and windy I may go there again. This is just a ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... seeds of mob rule. The anonymous author of The Saints fears "Their frantic pray'r [is] a mere Decoy for Mob" (p. 4) and the author[4] of The Methodist and Mimic claims that Whitefield's preaching sends "the Brainless Mob a gadding" (p. 15). Evan Lloyd is the one anti-Methodist satirist who ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd
... pious dissipation. Cotton said, in his "Way of the Churches," in 1639, that so many lectures did damage to the people; and the largeness of the assemblies alarmed the magistrates, who saw persons who could ill afford the time from their work, gadding to mid-day lectures in three or four different towns the same week. Young people, not having acquired that safety-valve, the New England singing-school, gladly seized these religious meetings as a ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... to these young-hatched orphan things, Which chill with cold to thee for succour creep; They of my study are the budding springs; Longer I cannot them in silence keep. They will be gadding sore against my mind. But courteous shepherd, if they run astray, Conduct them that they may the pathway find, And teach them how the mean observe they may. Thou shalt them ken by their discording notes, Their weeds are plain, such as poor shepherds wear; Unshapen, torn, and ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... she cabled at once, then in dread she had wired Colonel Martindale, who was gadding about with old army chums when most she needed him at home, and that gentleman, with a sigh, again went sisterward, saying he knew the boy was sure to turn up to torment him, and wondering what on earth young Hopeful had done now. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... already sitting by my mother's chair, dressed for dinner, washed and fresh; he was reading an article from the Journal des Debats in his smooth musical voice; but my mother heard him without attention, and when she saw me, asked where I had been to all day long, and added that she didn't like this gadding about God knows where, and God knows in what company. 'But I have been walking alone,' I was on the point of replying, but I looked at my father, and for some reason or ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Aird, Delta, Galt, Allan Cunningham, and Professor Wilson. To all of these, Burns, along with Nature, united in teaching the lessons of simplicity, of brawny strength, of clear common sense, and of the propriety of staying at home instead of gadding abroad in search of inspiration. All of these have been, like Burns, more or less intensely Scottish in their subjects and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... it?" said Flossie. "Of course you will go on seeing him—visiting them, and all that. But you won't go gadding about, so that ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... discovered mines that will keep me in England for a year or two. You can continue at Briarcroft, where by all appearance you seem to be much appreciated, and we can spend all your holidays together. No more gadding about the world just at present. Will that ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... O the heavy change, now thou art gon, Now thou art gon, and never must return! Thee Shepherd, thee the Woods, and desert Caves, With wilde Thyme and the gadding Vine o'regrown, 40 And all their echoes mourn. The Willows, and the Hazle Copses green, Shall now no more be seen, Fanning their joyous Leaves to thy soft layes. As killing as the Canker to the Rose, Or Taint-worm to the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... go for, at all? Women are always gadding about, just to show off their bonnets, or to look at other people's. Here they come—two ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with clov'n heel, From the glad sound would not be absent long, And old Damaetas lov'd to hear our song. But O the heavy change, now thou art gon, Now thou art gon, and never must return! Thee Shepherd, thee the Woods, and desert Caves, With wilde Thyme and the gadding Vine o'regrown, And all their echoes mourn. The Willows, and the Hazle Copses green, Shall now no more be seen, Fanning their joyous Leaves to thy soft layes. As killing as the Canker to the Rose, Or Taint-worm to the weanling Herds that graze, Or Frost to Flowers, that their gay wardrop wear, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... at board or bed, 45 Five greasy nightcaps wrapp'd her head. Could so much beauty condescend To be a dull domestic friend? Could any curtain-lectures bring To decency so fine a thing? 50 In short, by night, 'twas fits or fretting; By day, 'twas gadding or coquetting. Fond to be seen, she kept a bevy Of powder'd coxcombs at her levy; The 'squire and captain took their stations, 55 And twenty other near relations; Jack suck'd his pipe, and often broke A sigh in suffocating smoke; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... committed suicide from my particular world at the beginning of the war. I was going back to my particular world—you remember, G.J., in that little furnished flat—I was going back to it, but you wouldn't let me. It was you who definitely cut me off from my past. I might have been gadding about safely with Sarah Churcher and her lot at this very hour, but you would have it otherwise, and so I finished up with neurasthenia. You ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... into a chair and dragging off her gloves. "Did you ever know them all away together? Of course, Mrs. Shafto goes gadding, and Douglas is at Sandhurst, but 'he' seldom stirs. It is my opinion that something has happened. The Shaftos have lived at 'Littlecote' for ten years, and I have never seen the blinds ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... ivy, with its mantling spray, And gadding vine, the cavern's entry case; Where often in the hottest noon of day The pair had rested, locked in fond embrace. Within the grotto, and without it, they Had oftener than in any other place With charcoal ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... so, Stephen? That would be a different thing altogether. Young girls are not a bit like what they used to be in my time. No steadiness, no diligence, no duty to their parents. Gadding about is all they think of, and light-headed ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... coming home; but I never read it before, and now like it pretty well, but not so as it was cried up. So to supper. No pleasure or discourse with Ashwell, with whom for her neglect and unconcernment to do any thing in this time of dirt and trouble in the house, but gadding abroad as she has been all this afternoon, I know not whither. After supper to prayers and to bed, having been, by a sudden letter coming to me from Mr. Coventry, been with Sir W. Pen, to discourse with him about sending 500 soldiers into Ireland. I doubt matters do ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... all these parents may have the great satisfaction of seeing their children grow up Christians. But, oh! the pang of that mother, who, after a life of street gadding and gossip retailing, hanging on the children the fripperies and follies of this world, sees those children tossed out on the sea of life like foam on the wave, or nonentities in a world where only bravery and stalwart character can stand the ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... young lord in company to drink it. In these cases there was not a harder drinker in the University than Mr. Tusher could be; and it was edifying to behold him, fresh shaved and with smug face, singing out "Amen!" at early chapel in the morning. In his reading, poor Harry permitted himself to go a-gadding after all the Nine Muses, and so very likely had but little favor from any one of them; whereas Tom Tusher, who had no more turn for poetry than a ploughboy, nevertheless, by a dogged perseverance and obsequiousness ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... had thought of something quite different for Silla. And, however it might be, she would not hear of any gadding about or sweet-hearting until Nikolai could show as much ready money as ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... he exclaimed fretfully, turning away. 'Zillah is constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went: it's miserable! And I'm obliged to come down here—they resolved never to hear ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... declare—namely, that The Genius of Tradition is the foremost of artists; and further, that in this instance an unwilled fiction, determined by a necessity of the human bosom, has risen up to mantle seriousness with grace, as a free woodbine enclasps with her slender-gadding twines, and bedecks with her sweet bright blossoms, a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... equally optimistic. From the sofa of the morning-room, where she sat knitting, she said: "Well, YOU'VE had a fine morning's gadding about I must say! How are you? And how's ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... don't excite yourself! But where's the nobly born Viktor? To be sure, he's always gadding about! He'll come across the inspector one of these fine days! He'll give him a talking-to! Das ist ein ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... like of the girls do be running round on the roads, swinging their legs, and they with their necks out looking on the men.... Ah, there's a power of villainy walking the world, Martin Doul, among them that do be gadding around with their gaping eyes, and their sweet words, and they with no ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... unbidden thoughts, that wild-ivy of the mind, are trained upward by the spire, till it is hung round with the tenderest associations and recollections of all that is sweet and softening in our natures. Thus, when the painter has represented on his canvas some wild phase of scenery, where the gadding vine, the tangled underwood, the troubled brook, the black, frowning rock, the untamed savage growth of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... the north-west, appeared a ghost, a thing, a derelict brig, driving downhill on the billows, like a blind man gadding aimless with a crazy down-look, the rags of her one sail drumming on the gusts; and near, nearer, within a stone's-throw of the Boodah, she swaggered wearily, drab Arab, doomed despondent Ahasuerus of the deep, nomad on the nomad sea; and on into the gloom of the south- west she roamed, to ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... mother was not to govern the world. She was not to lecture in the interest of suffrage. I have nothing to say against the woman who does so. She was not to be the center of a social set. She was not to turn her child over to some colored woman while she went gadding about to every sort of club. She had just one supreme job. She had one highest and holiest of all tasks. It was for that cause that she came into the world. She was to train her child for God. And whoever we are and whatever may be our abilities, we can have no higher ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... it possible for a young man who has no private means to go gadding about the world on equal terms with a spendthrift like Maulevrier—to pay for Moors in Scotland and ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... you!" said the Grumpy Saint. "Why are you not at home, tending your fire, instead of gadding along the ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards
... the scene around. And was that the quarter whence the dry daylight, the intellectual iron, the chalybeate influence, was to come?—those coquettish, well-kept, vine-wreathed towers, smiling over a little irregular old village, itself half-hidden in gadding vine, pointed out by the gardeners (all labourers here were gardeners) as the end of his long, pleasant journey, as the abode of Monsieur Michel de Montaigne, the singular but not unpopular gentleman living there among his books, of whom Gaston hears so much over-night ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... of solemn awe, but they enkindle one of admiring affection; and where the mountain and the bald rock would be productive of emotions only of strength and sternness, their softer featurings of brawling brook, bending and variegated shrubbery, wild flower, gadding vine, and undulating hillock, mould the contemplative spirit into gentleness and love. The scenery of the South below the mountain regions, seldom impresses at first, but it grows upon acquaintance; and in a little while, where once all things looked monotonous and unattractive, we learn to discover ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... your own mind, but I can't help thinking, when Will's ma was down here keeping house for him—SHE used to run in to SEE me, real OFTEN!—it was good enough furniture for her. But there, there, I mustn't croak, I just wanted to let you know that when you find you can't depend on a lot of these gadding young folks like the Haydocks and the Dyers—and heaven only knows how much money Juanita Haydock blows in in a year—why then you may be glad to know that slow old Aunty Bogart is always right there, and heaven knows——" A portentous sigh. "—I HOPE you and your ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... is in flesh and blood, thank God!" he says; "I was dreaming of thee but now, George, and that Ward was hearing us our lesson! Dost thou remember the ruler, Georgy? Why, bless my soul, 'tis three o'clock! Where have you been a-gadding, Mr. George? Hast thou supped? I supped at White's, but I'm hungry again. I did not play, sir,—no, no; no more of that for younger brothers! And my Lord March paid me fifty he lost to me. I bet against his horse and on the Duke of Hamilton's! They both rode ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Alfred. 'Gadding about of a Sunday, and leaving her old sick mother—more shame for her! ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... doctor ordained:—it is a fact, that, when he rallied up from his bodily ailment, his mental malady had likewise quitted him, and he was no more in love with Fanny Bolton than you or I, who are much too wise, or too moral, to allow our hearts to go gadding after porters' daughters. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hand in it. My lord, the while we were examining the servants, word was brought in, that he was hearkening at the door, and in the yards, which made me more and more mistrust him. We heard that the maid had been gadding abroad several times: I desired sir T. Aleyn to examine the maid how often she had supped at Turner's, she denied any time. The young man was examined, who said, they had been thirty or forty times ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... is Frances, I hope, to her husband's sisters. I said it was Frances' duty, now that she is going into society, to take you about and introduce you to people. A little while ago," said Minnie with dignity, "mamma was all for gadding about; and now she finds fault when I say the simplest things, all because I said that Eustace—of course Eustace takes an interest in Chatty: next to his own sisters of course he naturally ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... of her dreams. What a home-body he was! What a change there was in him! In the old Blakeville days he was the liveliest chap in town. He was never passive for more than a minute at a stretch. Going, gadding, frivolling, flirting—that was the old Harvey. And ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... edge of the woods, and shut out the gadding town, we enter within their covert as we go under the roof of a cottage, and cross its threshold, all ceiled and banked up with snow. They are glad and warm still, and as genial and cheery in winter as in summer. As we stand in the ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... cheap and delightful way of travelling, that a man may perform in his easy-chair, without expense of passports or post-boys. On the wings of a novel, from the next circulating library, he sends his imagination a-gadding, and gains acquaintance with people and manners whom he could not hope otherwise to know. Twopence a volume bears us whithersoever we will;—back to Ivanhoe and Coeur de Lion, or to Waverley and the Young Pretender, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the use of them, and instead of walking they only stumble about their houses, and then squat down again. They seldom stir abroad, and one would be apt to think their retaining this fashion were a stratagem of the men to confine them at home, to keep them from gadding and gossiping with their friends. The poorer sort trudge about the streets without shoes or stockings, and these cannot afford to have little feet, having to get their living with them. There being signs of a coming storm, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... almost bashful gesture, he cried out abruptly: "Stanton, somehow I feel as though I owed you an apology, or rather, owed your fiancee one. Somehow when you told me that day that your young lady had gone gadding off to Florida and—left you alone with your sickness, why I thought—well, most evidently ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... sunshine of my darkling life, and joy of my dungeoned existence, it is because I DO know a little about you that I conclude to say nothing of that private closet, and keep my key in my pocket. You take away that closet key then, and the house key. You lock Delia in. You keep her out of harm's way and gadding, and so she never CAN ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... shipyard every precaution was taken, and Davidge fought the unseen hosts for his men and for their families. Mamise had worn herself down gadding the workmen's row with medicines and victuals in her basket. And yet the death-roll mounted ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... deliriously scented with lavender, and there were also the spinning-wheels that had spun the flax and the hand-looms on which the threads had been woven. These were witnesses to the days when women, instead of gadding abroad, were happy to be at home— when the winter evenings seemed short and bright because as they sat spinning by the blazing log fire they were cheerful in their occupation, singing songs and telling stories and having so much to do that there was no time ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... Hob to clamber out, Queen Mab and all her Fairy rout, And come again to have a bout With Oberon yet madding: And with Pigwiggen now distraught, Who much was troubled in his thought, That he so long the Queen had sought, And through the fields was gadding. ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... same subtlety. In the first two divisions of the poem the story does, in some sort, get forward; but in the continuation, by George Chapman (who wrote the last four "sestiads"), the path is utterly lost, "with woodbine and the gadding vine o'ergrown." ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... a fine fellow to go gadding about in this way," said she to little Kay, "I should like to know whether you deserve that any one should go to the end of ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... how foolish it was for B. and myself to be wasting our time, gadding about Europe in this silly way. What earthly enjoyment was there in travelling—being jolted about in stuffy trains, and ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... your hearty welcome," said the captain, hurriedly; "but where's my daughter? Is she out of doors this cold winter day, gadding about London streets?—or how the deuce is it she doesn't come to give her old father a kiss, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... and the novelty wore off, and prudence and old habits resumed their sway. He grew tired of incessant gadding about, alarmed at his symptoms of physical overstrain, weary for his arm-chair and his club, and his men friends and his masculine occupations. She, on the other hand, insatiable for admiration and excitement still, was weary of his constant company. ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... steel engraving of Clare's dwelling, prefixed to the new volume. 'The creeping plants,' he said, 'look pretty in front of the poet's cottage, but they bear no fruit. There is, however, a little garden attached, and in it may he dig without anxiety, nor need to grudge among the esculents the gadding flowers.... Clare is contented, and his Patty has her handful for the beggar at the door, her heartful for ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... were stepping, pulling all together at the proper beat in the sleepy rhythm. It was dinner time; and tangle-haired women kept calling in shrill notes from the galley doors; for the "cats" were off gadding in the barn, looking at the oxen. In every direction the heavy mallets of calkers could be heard hammering away in deadening regularity. And all these noises evaporated, as it were, into the vast, light-filled calm, where sounds and things took ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... tried to be entertaining. "If I can make her like me, perhaps she'll go down to a meal with Churn, and leave me on guard," she reflected. Kit feared to stop long with her new friend lest Churn should arrive while she was "gadding." She dodged back and forth from room to room, and was at home to receive her ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... happens; as like as not it ain't going to do any harm, anyway. His reception of these instructions bordered on insubordination, insomuch that I felt obliged to take his number and report him. I found the astronomer of the University gadding around after comets and other such odds and ends—tramps and derelicts of the skies. I told him pretty plainly that we couldn't have that. I told him it was no economy to go on piling up and piling up raw ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... best be off, lad," put in Godwyn. "Woodson is an early riser, and he must not catch you gadding.... You will think on what you have heard to-night, and will come to me again as soon as you can ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... and the third is for bathing proper, or otherwise, as tastes and opinions somewhat differ. After the bath, those of the male sex repair to the first room for lemonade or coffee, or for a pipe. The modern Mahometan ladies of Algiers have almost abandoned this seclusion. They are seen gadding about everywhere, and are reported as being by no means particular or difficult in their conquests. French ideas and morals have percolated them considerably. Excessive obesity is regarded among Mahometans as the perfection of beauty; so that, instead of using powders and other nostrums ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... two outside boys left to us. Nothing is doing, and PER CONTRA little paying. . . My life here is dear; but I can live within my income for a time at least - so long as my prices keep up - and it seems a clear duty to waste none of it on gadding about. . . . My life of my family fills up intervals, and should be an excellent book when it is ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... right to go to Axminster. It isn't part of her duties to go gadding about to Axminster. I don't pay her enormous sums to go to Axminster. You knew ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... all been thinking, thinking, thinking—of ourselves. And I've been a playbody like the rest; I've gone with the Climbers because they could do things for me; I've wanted more and more of everything—more gadding, more pleasure, more excitement. It's been like a brass-band playing all the time, my life this past ten years. I'm sick of it. It's only some big thing that can take me out of it. I've got to make some great plunge, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... all his stock of courage to look one woman in the face, and it would be simply impossible for him to go through the ordeal with a second. He stands in far too much dread of the whole female sex to want to go gadding about with many of them. One is ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... much a "kipe." The man's name was Peckaby; he and his wife were without family, and they managed the shop between them. A tall, strong, brawny man was he; his wife was a remarkably tall woman, fond of gossip and of smart caps. She would go gadding out for hours at a stretch, leaving him to get through all the work at home, the ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... your father's house; perhaps they will not have missed you; and another time don't be so childish or eager to see the world; for a respectable damsel should have a broken leg and keep at home; and the woman and the hen by gadding about are soon lost; and she who is eager to see is also eager to be seen; I ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... something ridiculous. The last time I left him to his own folly, he decorated the dining-room with all sorts of absurd signs—'What is home without the Irish?' 'In memory of my late lamented guardian,' and 'Not gone for good, but merely gadding.'" Nora giggled as she recounted these pleasant ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... passed in the street, I made my way into the house and found Gervas verily beating his wife with a broomstick. After I had rebuked him and caused him to desist, I asked him the cause, and he declared it to be that his wife had been gadding to a stinking Papist fellow, who would be sure to do a mischief to his noble captain, Mr. Talbot. Thereupon Colet declares that she had done no harm, the gentleman wist all before. She knew him again for the captain's kinsman who was in the house the day that ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up Lady Grey," responded her older son sulkily. "I suppose he's gadding off to see Bessy Houghton again, the young fool that he is! Why don't you put a stop ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... seemed displeased with her, as if she were responsible for Dickie's breaks. She laughed again as she thought of the sow story, and the way the women took it. "What a silly world,—talk and flutter and gadding, all about nothing!" ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... counter-demonstrations. On the whole, the Democrats were less successful in manufacturing enthusiasm. When one convention of young Democrats failed, for want of support, Douglas saved the situation only by explaining that hard-working Democrats could not leave their employment to go gadding. They preferred to leave noise and sham to their opponents, knowing that in the end "the quiet but certain influence of truth and correct principles" would prevail.[112] And when the Whigs unwittingly held a great demonstration for "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," on the birthday of King George ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... your head full of granger ideas. No doubt he has a remarkable voice, but I can't bear untrained singers, and don't you get the idea that a June song is perennial. You are not hearing the music he will make when the four babies have the scarlet fever and the measles, and the gadding wife leaves him at home to care for them then. Poor soul, I pity her! How she exists where rampant cows bellow at you, frogs croak, mosquitoes consume you, the butter goes to oil in summer and bricks in winter, while the pump ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... and being a man he felt sure that I must be. He was so sure that my maiden days were over that he dared to be funny. One day he sent up these three brand new trunks to the hotel. Said I might as well get my trousseau while I was gadding about this time. Well—I was pretty mad for a minute. But I concluded that father wasn't the only one in our family who is fond of a joke. So I just blushed properly and went off shopping. And I tell you, Grandma, Green Valley will ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... President?" I answered that I did not personally aspire to the presidency, but when the nation decided a woman was most competent for that office, I would be willing she should fill it. "Well," said he, "if the Bible teaches anything, it is that women should be quiet keepers at home and not go gadding round the country;" and much more. In all my traveling, in short or long skirts, I have never been treated so contemptuously, so insultingly, as by this same wretch of a minister. He is void of the first ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... wisp of hair?— Nay, but its wildest, its most frolic whorl Stands for a slim, enamoured, sweet-fleshed girl! And so, a tangle of dream and charm and fun, Its every crook a promise and a snare, Its every dowle, or genially gadding Or crisply curled, Heartening and madding, Empales a novel and peculiar world Of right, essential fantasies, And shining acts as yet undone, But in these wonder-working days Soon, soon to ask our ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... effects are that none can remain, on that day, five minutes in one place. They run furiously from one house to another, with no appreciable reason. This disease continues with many even fourteen days; until at last, they become weary of their eternal gadding, check themselves ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... in our time too ... to be sure there were! But who were they? A pack of strumpets, shameless hussies. Draggle-tails—for ever gadding about after no good.... What do they care? It's little they take to heart. If some poor fool comes in their way, they pounce on him. But sensible folk looked down on them. Did you ever see, pray, the like ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... observe the weakness of her fellow-beings, and reinforce her thankfulness for her own exceptional strength of mind. From her front window she could look down the Tofton Road, leading out of St. Ogg's, and note the growing tendency to "gadding about" in the wives of men not retired from business, together with a practice of wearing woven cotton stockings, which opened a dreary prospect for the coming generation; and from her back windows she could look ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... I pass my time on board ship in gadding about and feasting? Directly the vessel begins to move I go to bed and stay there. As a matter of fact I think it would be wisest to go to bed now. Don't let me keep you if you want to ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... Strawd, we have a nephew, but he is always gadding about, I am sure; he has been a terrible affliction to us. A frothy, good-for-nothing boy—that is what he is. We have not set eyes on him for a month or more. Why, I almost ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... system, to go on contributing to get sons and daughters, with no other view than to bring them up piously, and to be good and useful members of the commonwealth, what a devil had she to do, to let her fancy run a gadding after a rake? one whom she ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... in regard to our reading resources, was before the modern facilities for gadding about existed; and while those who find time lying heavy on their hands can now steam it a hundred miles to make a morning-call, journeying was then both more tedious and more expensive, seldom undertaken except as an affair of business, or with the deliberate purpose of a long-concerted ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... were so perfect in Jim's eyes that she knew he would never hear of her altering a thing. She would not be able to rearrange her drawing-room without his permission. That was what it meant to marry a country gentleman of Jim's sort, who disliked "gadding about," and would expect his wife to go through the same dull round, day after day, all her life long, while he amused himself in the way that ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... noctambulation[obs3], noctambulism; somnambulism; outing, ride, drive, airing, jaunt. equitation, horsemanship, riding, manege[Fr], ride and tie; basophobia[obs3]. roving, vagrancy, pererration|; marching and countermarching; nomadism; vagabondism, vagabondage; hoboism [U.S.]; gadding; flit, flitting, migration; emigration, immigration, demigration|, intermigration[obs3]; wanderlust. plan, itinerary, guide; handbook, guidebook, road book; Baedeker[obs3], Bradshaw, Murray; map, road map, transportation guide, subway map. procession, cavalcade, caravan, file, cortege, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... York I'm going to let Society take possession of you again? Not only shall I work harder than I've ever worked before, but I'd see little more of you than I do now. And that I'll never submit to again. I'll write my next play inside this house, and you'll be here when I want you, not gadding about." ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Marion. They had wanted to thank me, they said, for the kindness to their daughter in the matter of the 'bus fare, and so accounted for anything unusual in their invitation. They posed as simple gentlefolk, a little hostile to the rush and gadding-about of London, preferring ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... in an office or in the ring. That's a part of the game. But a woman ought to have a home, live in it three-fourths of the year, and bring up good citizens. That's what we are all here for. Molly used to stay at home, but now it's the social bug, gadding from morning until night. Ah, here's Carlos with ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... has conducted herself to my satisfaction, I give her a wedding dinner, her clothes, and her house-linen. And such as remain with me to my death, will find a small competency provided for them in my will. I reserve to myself the option of paying their travelling expenses,—disliking gadding women, on the one hand; on the other, not wishing by too long absence from the family home ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... "What are you gadding about, man?" said Matt, the mate; "how do you expect anybody to keep religious with the wind N.N.W. and bound north, with the prospect of being driven back to Burlington Bay or perhaps Yarmouth Roads? And besides," ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... But Peter's social gadding did not end with these bread-and-butter calls. One afternoon in March, he went into the shop of a famous picture-dealer, to look over an exhibition then advertised, and had nearly finished his patient ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... said Mrs. Lemon. 'Your stomach is the size of two. Go and take exercise directly. Mrs. Black, come here to me. Now, here is a child, Mrs. Orange, ma'am, who is always at play. She can't be kept at home a single day together; always gadding about and spoiling her clothes. Play, play, play, play, from morning to night, and to morning again. How can she expect ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... entered the house at Samoncho[u]. She gave a start on finding Iemon glumly seated before the fireless brazier. "A fine hour for a woman to be gadding the street. And the meal! Unprepared: excellent habits in a wife!——" "To the Danna apology is due. This Iwa is much in the wrong. But for the meal money had first to be secured...."—"Then there ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... ye woodbines, in your twines; Curl me about, ye gadding vines; And oh, so close your circles lace, That I may never leave this place; But lest your fetters prove too weak, Ere I your silken bondage break, Do you, O brambles, chain me too, And, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... of all patience with these goings-on, and will not have any more of it. Half the time when Nick is needed he is not to be found; then it turns out that he has been gadding around with you two. His father gave him a flogging last night. It always grieved me before, and many's the time I have begged him off and saved him, but this time he appealed to me in vain, for I was out ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... Coughing a little in the dawn... And the church... There is always a church With its natty spire And the vestibule— That's where they whisper: Tzz-tzz... tzz-tzz... tzz-tzz... How many codes for a wireless whisper— And corn flatter than it should be And those chits of leaves Gadding with every wind? Small towns From ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... it isn't. But you're not going to begin gadding about to concerts and staying out all hours of the night. Pretty doings for children. I'm surprised at Mrs. ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... O the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone and never must return! Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves, With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, And all their echoes, mourn. The willows and the hazel copses green Shall now no more be seen Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays:— As killing as the canker to the rose, Or taint-worm ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... hard. Provisions at first were abundant, but fire-wood was scarce. Fortunately the winter on the whole was mild. The houses during the day were partially deserted. The men were on guard. The women were on the streets gadding. They found plenty of occupation, for the air was thick with rumors. A besieged city must perforce be a nest of gossip, a hive of cock-and-bull stories. The regulars looked smart in their regimental uniforms. The militia wore such toggery as they could get—grey ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... keepe themselves within their owne hearths, these spirits cannot keepe themselves within their owne circles. True zeale loves to keepe home, studieth to bee quiet in other mens Dioces: false zeale loves to be gadding, is eagle-ey'd abroad and mole-ey'd at home: Insteed of burning bright and shining cleere; like brinish lights, they sparkle & spet at others, or like ill couched fire-workes let fly on all sides: onely out of ...
— A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale - In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich • Samuel Ward
... insist upon investigating them with vigour, when they pay a speculator an extra dollar for a theatre ticket without a murmur? They must remember that telephones, whatever may be said to the contrary, are one of the modern aids to domesticity and preventives of gadding, while still keeping one not only in touch with a friend but within range of the voice. Surely there can be no woman so self-sufficient that she does not in silent moments yearn for a spoken word with one of ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... gadding mind, totally incommensurate with her person. No one delighteth more than herself in country exercises and pastimes. I have passed many an agreeable holiday with her in her favorite park at Woodstock. She performs her part in these delightful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... into the world that occurred to her was going into service at Bristol, and she talked of this whenever she specially hated her spinning, or if Patience ventured to complain of her gadding about, gossipping with Nanny Pierce or Kitty Blane, or getting all the young lads in Elmwood round her, to be amused and teased by her ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rapacious, so that there is very little doubt that had he lived some four or five centuries since he would have figured as one of those wicked giants who took a cruel pleasure in pocketing beautiful princesses and distressed damsels when gadding about the world, and locking them up in enchanted castles without a toilet, a change of linen, or any other convenience; in consequence of which enormities they fell under the high displeasure of chivalry, and all true, loyal, and gallant knights were instructed to attack and slay outright ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... for going? I thought you were now going to take over the management of your estate. You have done enough gadding about. Why ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... ran gadding by And left me with Eternity alone; I hear beyond the range of sound, I see beyond ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... have lunch so late! We go gadding about till two o'clock in the afternoon. We go into such disreputable houses that we don't even dare to tell what we've done. And then we ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... it became necessary to look out for "some clever, sensible woman to be his wife, who would lay out his money to the best advantage, and be careful and tender of his health; a friend and companion at all hours, and who would be happier in staying at home than be perpetually gadding abroad." Such are the wives not adapted to be the votaries, but who may be the faithful companions through life, even of a ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... rest; for a more amiable collection of young ladies I never set eyes on; so I gave them a little chariot I had got, drawn by a few alligators and hippopotami, and advised them to go quietly back to their father's court, instead of gadding about the world as they were then doing. Whether or not they took my advice I cannot say, for when they went north I turned my horse's head, and, with my faithful Squire, ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... have great actions, make our own so. All action is of an infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with the celestial air until it eclipses the sun and moon. Let us seek one peace by fidelity. Let me heed my duties. Why need I go gadding into the scenes and philosophy of Greek and Italian history before I have justified myself to my benefactors? How dare I read Washington's campaigns when I have not answered the letters of my own correspondents? Is not that a just objection ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... into her present place. She had much native refinement and imagination, which, half cultivated, produced a curious mixture of romance and simplicity. Her insatiable taste for reading was meritorious in the eyes of Mrs. Beckett, who, unlearned herself, thought any book better than 'gadding about,' and, after hearing her daily portion of the Bible, listened to the most adventurous romances, with a sense of pleasure and duty in keeping the girl to her book. She loved the little fragile orphan, taught her, and had patience with her, and trusted ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... see,' said Mr Meagles. 'I stood behind these two articles five-and-thirty years running, when I no more thought of gadding about than I now think of—staying at home. When I left the Bank for good, I asked for them, and brought ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... the melancholy spirit that dwelt Too sadly on life's close, the forms and hues Of vegetable beauty.—There the yew, Green even amid the snows of winter, told Of immortality, and gracefully The willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped; And there the gadding woodbine crept about, And there the ancient ivy. From the spot Where the sweet maiden, in her blossoming years Cut off, was laid with streaming eyes, and hands That trembled as they placed her there, the rose Sprung modest, on bowed stalk, and better spoke Her graces, than the proudest ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... the pockets of men better than yourselves. That is you mode of self-expression. It is not ours.' And Mediterranean people will lead the way. They have suffered more than all from the imbecilities of kinds and priests and soldiers and politicians. They now make an end of this neurasthenic gadding and getting. They focus themselves anew and regain their lost dignity. That ancient individualistic tone reasserts itself. Man ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... but dung, I shouldn't be so particular.— And please remember, I'm a young widow who lost her husband only three days ago under the most tragic circumstances—he was gobbled up by the shrewmouse—and it isn't proper for me to be gadding about. A young widow should lead a life ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... has a great hankering after that set. In the meantime all accounts concur in admitting the great and increasing distress; and, as such a state of things not unnaturally produces a good deal of ill-humour, the Duke is abused for gadding about visiting and shooting while the country is in difficulty, and it is argued that he must be very unfeeling and indifferent to it all to amuse himself in this manner. Nothing can be more unjust than such accusations as these. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... "No gadding about in couples," continued the baronet, "no kissing in public. Such occurrences no boy should witness. Whenever people of both sexes are thrown together, they will be silly; and where they are high-fed, uneducated, and barely occupied, it must be looked ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... gadding, no getting sight of you. Live a fine life! A pretty guardian, Master Harrel! and where's t'other? where's old ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... it, and chose this time. I've got to give a lecture next week in Whithorn parish-room, a lecture on 'Imperialism,' and I've my little chronicle on hand, too; but it's nothing to her. The whole thing's a mystery to me. I can't think what can have made her do it. She never was a girl that cared for gadding about, and for society and that. As for trying to make me believe that I should be no worse off if she married, the question has never risen, Durant. She hasn't married. She never even wanted to be married. She never would ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair |
