"Avocation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attain it is the greatest art of life. The prince might gain it if he devoted himself earnestly, not merely in a half-absent dilettante fashion, to some art, science, or useful avocation. Only it required a self-discipline of which, unfortunately, he was incapable. In all pursuits requiring dexterity, all sciences, the first steps are laborious, wearisome, and apparently thankless, and the Canaan which ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... rapidity and profusion, and flourishes where precept would utterly perish. Its impression is so indelible, that the greatest difficulty is experienced when attempting to eradicate it. The salutary influence which good example propagates, we find stamped on every avocation in life. In some people a heinous negligence, and in others a culpable apathy is evinced with respect to the principles their conduct is implanting. Profuse illustrations abound in every profession, calling, and trade, ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... as they were ordered; and while they were eagerly employed in this pleasing avocation, a few of Lawton's men privately knocked the flints out of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the slave is cared for and comfortable," why belie ourselves? Malcome's influence is, and always has been, with the whites, and manifestly good in the preservation of order and obedience on the part of the slaves. He pursues his avocation with spirit and enterprise, while he is subjected to menial and oppressive laws. His father visited New York, and was forbidden to return. He appealed again and again, set forth his claims and his integrity to the State and her laws, but all was ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... was a woman who practised the avocation of midwife, and was known as such in the neighbourhood, but who had, it was said, mysterious and infamous secrets for those who paid her well. Further, she drew a good income from the influence which her art ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Sheridan had taken up his headquarters at Fort Hayes, in order to be in the field to superintend the campaign in person. As scouts and guides were in great demand, I concluded once more to take up my old avocation of scouting and guiding for ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... afternoon," laughed Martin. "You need not worry about your Little Billy. Neither the police nor the Japs have captured him. He is improving his chance to pursue the avocation of ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... of the antecedents of Summerfield. He was of Northern birth, but of what State it is impossible to say definitely. Early in life he removed to the frontier of Arkansas, and pursued for some years the avocation of village schoolmaster. It was the suggestion of Judge Wheeler that induced him to read law. In six months' time he had mastered Story's Equity, and gained an important suit, based upon one of its most recondite principles. ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... flub-dub printed and spoken about drinking liquor than about any other employment, avocation, vocation, habit, practice or pleasure of mankind. Drinking liquor is a personal proposition, and nothing else. It is individual in every human relation. Still, you cannot make the reformers see that. They want other people to stop drinking because they want other people to stop. ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe
... I have been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here and the state of my health. This testimony, so long as I live, and so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall cause to be republished, as an appendix to every copy of ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... had laboured. After a moment's pause, the cavalier cautiously approached the brink, and beheld a strange-looking being, with sleeves tucked up to the shoulders, busily engaged in this interesting and useful avocation. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... judgment and conduct, even while possessed of a wit which was rare and a discernment at times profound, his days flowed on in an undeviating adherence to duty which makes little appeal to the imagination. As a churchman, as a parent, as a landowner, as a politician he fulfilled each avocation with credit. As a man of the world he could toy with but remain unmastered by the foibles of his age. While a Fox and a Pitt rose to heights and sank to depths which Stanhope never touched; while a Wilberforce was imbued with religious fervour as with a permeating flame, Stanhope, to his contemporaries, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... you do for a living, an avocation something you do for a while, a vacation something you couldn't stick at very long without being dead broke and ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... in the pulpit, in the medical profession, and especially in political life, tact is the sine qua non to the highest degree of individual success. However gifted one may be, he cannot win conspicuous laurels in any calling or avocation, if he be deficient in tactfulness. The man who best understands human nature, knows how to approach people, and possesses the art of leading them, is the one who will invariably have the largest following and will possess the greatest amount of influence over his fellows. ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... a nice little orchard. I think it is more adapted to the city man. The ordinary farmer would neglect them, and I should hate to see a farmer get them, but I would like to do anything for the man living in the city with only a small plat of land—my vocation being in the city, my avocation ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... orders by doing any thing of the kind," she said quietly, yet resolutely, as she pursued her avocation, that of dusting with a bunch of colored plumes the delicate ornaments of the etagere carefully ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... years of probation taught him his trade, they taught him also a most unfortunate avocation or by-trade, which he never ceased to practise, or to try to practise, which never did him the least good, and which not unfrequently lost him much of the not too abundant gains which he earned with such ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... such a state of nerves—if I may use the expression, in such a state of funk—that every passer-by, however innocent, is looked at with suspicion by his neighbour if his avocation happens to take him abroad between the hours of one and three in ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... hear that; Jack must respect the avocation chosen by Frank, since he sees nothing in it ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... departure of the guests. Emil, therefore, had come home to fall heir in due time to the business, and prior to the ceremonies attending that event, he was to be his father's lieutenant, practicing his avocation as an ornithologist, whose specialty was rare birds, at leisure moments. Emil enjoyed also the work of the taxidermist, and loved dearly to cut and stuff. Jerry, the wonderful cat of the glass case in the office, gave only a hint of his skill and the remarkable perfection ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... indicated, which had now seen service nearly a week, and hard service at that,—Dick's avocation causing him to be ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... at the meeting of citizens held at the Chamber of Commerce July 23d, deeming that the allaying of excitement is the first step toward restoring order, would urge upon all citizens disposed to aid therein the necessity of pursuing their usual avocation, and keeping all their employees at work, and would, therefore, request that full compliance be accorded to this demand of the committee. The committee are impressed with the belief that the police force now being organized will be able to arrest and disperse ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... calling? Among them may be found representatives of all the nations of Europe—Germans in greatest number; but there are Swedes and Russ as well, Danes and Britons, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Portuguese, Swiss and Italians. They may be found pursuing their avocation in every corner of the world—through the sequestered passes of the Rocky Mountains, upon the pathless prairies, in the deep barrancas of the Andes, amid the tangled forests of the Amazon and the Orinoco, on the steppes of Siberia, in the glacier valleys of the Himalaya—everywhere—everywhere ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... words so nearly alike. Vocation is the employment, business or profession one follows for a living; avocation is some pursuit or occupation which diverts the person from such employment, business or ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... glass of porter from the public-house, for his meal, recounting the feasts of the great as if h had been present at them; and in tattered trousers and dingy shirt-sleeves, cheerfully describing and arranging the most brilliant fetes of the world of fashion. The incongruity of Finucane's avocation, and his manners and appearance amused his new friend Pen. Since he left his own native village, where his rank probably was not very, lofty Jack had seldom seen any society but such as used the parlour of the taverns which he frequented, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had entitled him to admission at either the Ecole Polytechnique or the Ecole Normale,* and he had chosen the latter, entering its scientific section with No. 1 against his name. His father had wished him to make sure of an avocation, that of professor, even if circumstances should allow him to remain independent and follow his own bent on leaving the college. Francois, who was very precocious, was now preparing for his last examination there, and the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... neither sleep nor rest in her bed, yet, having no avocation from it, she was found there by her father at his return from Allworthy's, which was not till past ten o'clock in the morning. He went directly up to her apartment, opened the door, and seeing she was not up, cried, "Oh! you are safe then, and ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... tempestuous—and in age he discovereth no symptom of cooling. This is that which I admire in him. I hate people who meet Time half-way. I am for no compromise with that inevitable spoiler. While he lives, J.E. will take his swing.—It does me good, as I walk towards the street of my daily avocation, on some fine May morning, to meet him marching in a quite opposite direction, with a jolly handsome presence, and shining sanguine face, that indicates some purchase in his eye—a Claude—or a Hobbima—for ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... legitimate business we wish to see something of the engrossing avocation of most of the people of the city, of any business or no business, and we pass on to Montgomery, crossing over to the center of the stock exchange activities. Groups of men and women are watching the tapes in the brokers' offices, ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... fondness of the miser; he looked on them with more pleasure than on the faces of his children; and listened to their chink with a satisfaction no tone of household love or sweet Alpine melody could call forth. It chanced one day that our hunter, in the pursuit of his ordinary avocation, perceived a tiny cavern hitherto unknown to him. He determined to snatch his hasty noon-tide meal beneath its shelter; and in order to enter it, rolled away a block of stone which obstructed the mouth ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... which helped to maintain their children. While they are communing on the things of God, a traveling tinker draws near, and, over-hearing their talk, takes up a position where he might listen to their converse while he pursued his avocation. Their words distil into his soul; they speak the language of Canaan; they talk of holy enjoyments, the result of being born again, acknowledging their miserable state by nature, and how freely and undeservedly ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hanging!" I do not think they should be rewarded either by cash or the gallows. Let them make their way, and if they have genius, the public will find it out. If all they have is talent, and no means to support it, poetry had better become their avocation. ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... a few hours I should be in eternity, and my death one of the most horrible description. "Oh!" thought I, "how many were the entreaties and arguments used by my friends to deter me from pursuing an avocation so full of hazard and peril! If I had taken their advice, and acceded to their solicitations, in all probability I should, at this time, have been in the enjoyment of much happiness." I was aroused from this ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... he gives them the plaintive assurance that he is overtaxed with imaginary work. But occasionally he seems to be really stung by their reproaches, and tries to convince them that by following a strenuous avocation he has done his bit for society, and has earned his hours of idleness as ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... must act,—each with no more than the merest coquettings with sister arts. Otherwise his genius is apt to suffer from what are side-issues for temperament. To many minds a taste, and even a singular capacity, for an avocation has injured the work ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the sexes that prevails among ourselves corresponds to a universal and unchangeable order of things. In reality this is far from being the case. It may, indeed, be truly said that there is no kind of social position, no sort of avocation, public or domestic, among ourselves exclusively appertaining to one sex, which has not at some time or in some part of the world belonged to the opposite sex, and with the most excellent results. We regard it as alone right and proper for a man to take the initiative in ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... then told me that he would teach me, provided I behaved myself well. He desired I would come to his cabin every afternoon at six o'clock, a time which interfered little with my avocation of "Poor Jack," and that he would give me a lesson. Before he had finished talking, one of the lieutenants of the hospital sent for him; and Ben remained behind, to point out to me how valuable my knowing how to read and write might ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... be a source of wonder to some that Dana, who achieved a great literary success in the book which he wrote when a young man, did not pursue literature as an avocation, if not as a vocation. He published but one other book, a narrative of a trip to Cuba made in 1859, and he wrote a few magazine articles. The explanation must be found in the temperament and character of the man. His "Two Years Before the Mast'' is a vivid representation of what ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... polysyllable was correctly spelled. But as a monument of wasted ingenuity and industry, I have met with nothing so pathetic. A long term of self-communion in the back country will never leave a man as it found him. Outside his daily avocation, he becomes a fool or a philosopher; and, in Rory's case, the latter seemed to have been superimposed ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... this. Her work brings her into contact with other people, broadens her interests, increases her usefulness, and, moreover, is often a recreation. The home-maker needs outside interests. The girl at home is never dull, or unhappy because she is dull, when she has an avocation in addition to her work and life in ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... town. When I arrived there, I was much surprised to see vast numbers of people in different postures, but all immovable. The merchants were in their shops, the soldiery on guard; every one seemed engaged in his proper avocation, yet all were become as stone.... I heard the voice of a man reading Al Koran.... Being curious to know why he was the only living creature in the town,... he proceeded to tell me that the city was the metropolis of a kingdom now ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... sermonized herself. She did not behave weakly, or make herself in any shape ridiculous. It is true she had neither strong feelings to overcome, nor tender feelings by which to be miserably pained. It is true likewise that she had an important avocation, a real business to fill her time, divert her thoughts, and divide her interest. It is especially true that she possessed a genuine good sense which is not given to all women nor to all men; and by dint of these combined advantages ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... meditation on the merits and fondness of Pekuah, and for some weeks retired constantly at the time fixed, and returned with her eyes swollen and her countenance clouded. By degrees she grew less scrupulous, and suffered any important and pressing avocation to delay the tribute of daily tears. She then yielded to less occasions, and sometimes forgot what she was indeed afraid to remember, and at last wholly released herself from ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... of applause, congratulation, tears, embraces, and a general joyous explosion of unutterable relief at the fortunate termination of my attempt, we went home. And so my life was determined, and I devoted myself to an avocation which I never liked or honored, and about the very nature of which I have never been able to come to any decided opinion. It is in vain that the undoubted specific gifts of great actors and actresses suggest that all gifts are given for rightful ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... through the whole period of my existence. See to it that you place a just value upon these privileges, and that you do not abuse them. Whilst most of you, I trust, are fitting yourselves for the employment of farming as an avocation, some, perhaps, may be looking forward to other professions and pursuits. I, however, on this occasion, must confine my remarks to those of the ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo
... Having, in my avocation as lecturer on "The African Race" and "America and the Americans," visited nearly the whole of Ireland, I respectfully submit the following letters and notices, the letters being from gentlemen who ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... to our own Public Dinner, in respect of its being a main part of the proceedings that every gentleman present is required to drink something nasty. These Mataboos are a privileged order, so important is their avocation, and they make the most of their high functions. A long way out of the Tonga Islands, indeed, rather near the British Islands, was there no calling in of the Mataboos the other day to settle an earth-convulsing question of precedence; ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... is Riah,' said the old man, with courteous action, 'and my avocation is in London city. This, my ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... good offered by the inventors preceding him, he carefully re-proportioned the various parts and produced English clocks and watches that were at once the pride and despair of his brother craftsmen. Watches were something of an avocation with him, for his primary trade was in clocks, to which for many years he devoted his entire labor. Probably, however, the problems a watch presented won his interest and led him to try his skill in this new field, with the result that he was soon making watches that as far surpassed ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... country. With more wisdom than is generally exercised by Irish emigrants, instead of sinking all his means in buying a bush farm, he hired a very good farm in Cavan, with cattle, and returned to his old avocation. The services of his daughter, who was an excellent dairymaid, were required to take the management of the cows; and her brother brought a wagon and horses all the way from the front ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... that is the avocation of a man of taste. But for amusement, I positively know of nothing that can be called so, unless you dignify with that title the hopping once a fortnight to the sound of two or three squeaking fiddles, and the clattering of the old tavern windows, or sitting to see the miserable ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... employ your lofty inspiration, And carry on the poet's avocation, Just as we carry on a love affair. Two meet by chance, are pleased, they linger there, Insensibly are link'd, they scarce know how; Fortune seems now propitious, adverse now, Then come alternate rapture and despair; And 'tis a true ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... never before seemed so hopelessly displayed. And Tom, the waiter, his napkin twisted in his hand and his face turned with a sudden dark abstraction towards the window, appeared to be really "lying low," and waiting for something outside his avocation. ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... enjoying the pure breezes of the Highgate hills, and presenting to any guest we may receive the attractions of a home rather than of a lodging, you will find our retreat no less eligible than unique. You are, I presume, sir, in some profession, some city avocation—or—or trade?" ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... starving. Such a picture, if drawn by a foreigner, would arouse English indignation from shore to shore; but it is home-drawn. The only foreign delineation is in the author's Jehoiachin Settle, a stage Yankee, whose avocation is planting English children in Canada after the manner of Miss Rye. Settle is a preposterous failure, but every other limb of the writer's argument ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... 1. Young women should have some avocation. Labor regarded as drudgery. 2. Domestic employment healthy. 3. It is pleasant. 4. It affords leisure for intellectual improvement. 5. It is favorable to social improvement. 6. It is the employment assigned them by Divine Providence, and is eminently conducive to moral ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... as a rule, men of more than average intellect, and, as they have no other calling nor no other avocation in life than to make good impressions upon their members, they of course become cunning in their art, especially with the female members of their congregations, and more especially with their young ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... mile from it I plunged out of the moonlight into the pitch darkness of a hollow lane cutting through Don Jaime's hacienda. Banana palms were growing thick to right and left; the way was narrow and deep—it was a fine place for cutthroats, but that avocation had lost much of its romantic charm from the fact that, not three weeks before, an actual cutthroating had taken place, a Chinese merchant having been boloed by tusilanes. Well, I was trotting through, my ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... the heart of Ireland. But a hectic disorder, that had threatened Mrs. Edgeworth's life while yet a child, now returned upon her with increased virulence; and the kind and beautiful mistress of Edgeworthstown was compelled to forego this and every other earthly avocation. Mr. Day expanded his little tale into the delightful story of "Sandford and Merton," a book that long stood second only to "Robinson Crusoe" in the youthful judgment of the great boy-world; and in later years, Maria Edgeworth included "Harry and Lucy" in her "Early Lessons." It is thus a point to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... 13 to 18 silver groschens. (Daubree, Comptes rendus de l' Academie des Sciences, XXII, 639.) It should be borne in mind, however, that the Rhine-lander devotes to gold-washing only the leisure time which his avocation as a fisherman leaves him, while the gold-washer in the new world, as a rule, devotes his whole time to it; and that his labors are interrupted by the long rainy season, attacks of fever etc. To this must be added the great difference of the average ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... libel being enforced apparently by its strict truth. Some of M. Thiers's political antagonists, seeking to annoy him, volunteered to circulate in the form of a card the following advertisement for a lady who appears to be related to M. Thiers, and also to carry on an honest avocation:— ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... discontinuous, being an interesting avocation rather than a career. Of it little has been permanent. His General Staff soon lapsed into incompetence; if it had not, it might have been the danger to American national life that the German General ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... bare necks and breasts, and stockings down at the heel," writhe and stamp, "howling the carmagnole." In the side chapels, which are "shut off by high tapestries, prostitutes with shrill voices" pursue their avocation.[3222]—To descend to this low level so barefacedly, to fraternise with barrier sots, and wenches, to endure their embraces and hiccoughs, is bad enough, even for docile deputies. More than one half of them loathed it beforehand ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... man needed "both a vocation and an avocation"—something by which he earned his living and something by which he maintained his interest in activity. It is the avocation that must be planned for. The vocation is often thrust upon one by necessity or chance association. If ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... the music, but they clustered around the singer. Mrs. Lawton looked significantly at Isabelle and winked. One old gentleman, something of a beau as well as a successful lawyer, congratulated Vickers on his "tuneful" music. "It must be a pleasant avocation ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... statesman to involve his country in war again. To some it may possibly seem strange that Gordon, who had distinguished himself as a soldier, and had saved an empire, should again take up the humble avocation of an engineer officer, but so he did. He was in reality only a captain of engineers, though a brevet lieutenant-colonel in the army, when in February 1865 he returned home. He took a few months' leave, which ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... the author has tried to combine the trade information which he has gained in his avocation, the study of precious stones, with the scientific knowledge bearing thereon, which his vocation, the teaching of chemistry, has compelled him ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... they started off in a body and made their way to the town. It was a matter of extreme surprise to find no symptom of the least excitement anywhere as they went along. The population was perfectly calm; every one was pursuing his ordinary avocation; the cattle were browsing quietly upon the pastures that were moist with the dew of an ordinary January morning. It was about eight o'clock; the sun was rising in the east; nothing could be noticed to indicate that any abnormal incident ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... men working in the arts or interested in them. It had grown to a membership of 750. It still kept for its nucleus painters, writers, musicians and actors, amateur and professional. They were a gay group of men, and hospitality was their avocation. Yet the thing which set this club off from all others in the world was ...
— The City That Was - A Requiem of Old San Francisco • Will Irwin
... "but I think we may form a pretty shrewd guess as to his avocation. As you saw, the words 'Herrn Dr.' were printed on the envelope, leaving the rest of the address to be written by hand. The plain inference is that he is a person who habitually addresses letters to medical men, and as the style of the envelope ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... with which I clung to my avocation as an educator also influenced my action in this matter. Even if I could not say truly that I had a Fatherland, I must yet acknowledge that every boy, that every child, who might perhaps later on come to be educated by me would have ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... passions, live in a perpetual avocation of thought. To perceive God in His works a man must, at least, consider them with attention. But passions cast such a mist before the eyes, not only of wild savages, but even of nations that seem to be most civilised and polite, that they do not ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... will-o'-the-wisps that ever danced over the most miasmatic of swamps, who was never his own man, and who died, like Brian de Bois Gilbert, 'the victim of contending passions.' It should never be forgotten that Lamb's vocation was his life. Literature was but his byplay, his avocation in the true sense of that much-abused word. He was not a fisherman, but an angler in the lake of letters; an author by chance and on the sly. He had a right to disport himself on paper, to play the frolic with his own fancies, to give the decalogue ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... flight the Chilian insurrectionists, who were breathing out threatening and slaughter against the great Northern Republic. There is an undoubted fascination in the picturesque and adventurous life of the war correspondent. One must, of course, have a distinct bent for the avocation, and if he is to succeed he must possess certain salient attributes. He must expose himself to rather greater risks than fall to the lot of the average fighting man, without enjoying any of the happiness of retaliation which stirs the blood of the latter; the ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... business, no avocation whatever, which will not permit a man, who has the inclination, to give a little time, every day, to ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others
... career in this world. The height of my then ambition was to keep a fried-fish shop. The restaurateur with whom my good mother dealt used to sit for hours in his doorway in Drury Lane reading a book, and I considered this a most dignified and scholarly avocation. When I made this naive avowal to Paragot, he looked at me with a queer pity in his eyes, and muttered an exclamation in a foreign tongue. I have never met anyone so full of strange oaths as Paragot. As to my religious convictions, they were chiefly limited to a terrifying ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... study which Mr. Sandys had improved and enlarged. It was a big room, with an immense, perfectly plain deal table in the middle, stained a dark brown; and the Vicar showed Howard with high glee how each of the four sides of the table was consecrated to a different avocation. "My accounts end!" he said, "my sermon side! my correspondence end! my genealogical side!" There were a number of small dodges, desks for holding books, flaps which could be let up and down, slits in the table through which papers could be dropped ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... dull, blundering, stupid, in comparison, I shall be incontestibly wrong." Does this, if it be true, explain in any measure the strange fact that the servants of fashion must never be known as industrious, still less laborious in any useful avocation? that they must be always at leisure for the morning call and the evening levee? Nothing, in some circles, would prove so fatal to a lady's reputation for gentility, as the character of a working woman. The more idle and dependant on others, the ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... that, as Lady Diantha had declared, wherever Michael Lanyard showed himself in open pursuit of his avowed avocation as a collector of rare works of art—in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or where-not—there in due sequence the Lone Wolf would consummate one of his ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... boxes in front of the old Grange store—just as they had idled on boxes before the war. They were the same men, it was the same store, and it was not inconceivable that they were the same boxes. As the men idled they spat, somewhat to the menace of the passers-by, though in defence of this avocation it may be argued that any truly agile person, by watching carefully and seizing opportunity unhesitatingly, could get by undefiled. Sometimes a vehicle rolled into the street toward the Square, and when this happened it ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... was goats, its avocation was surely roses. We were literally smothered in them. A Cecil Brunner with its perfect little buds, so heavily perfumed, covered one corner of the house. The Lady Bankshire, with its delicate yellow blossoms, roofed our porch, and the glorious ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... price of my critical faculty. All my former habits become suddenly fluid; it seems to me that I am beginning life over again, and that all my acquired capital has disappeared at a stroke. I am forever new-born; I am a mind which has never taken to itself a body, a country, an avocation, a sex, a species. Am I even quite sure of being a man, a European, an inhabitant of this earth? It seems to me so easy to be something else, that to be what I am appears to me a mere piece of arbitrary choice. I cannot possibly take an accidental structure of which the value is ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... unmoved by the honors that clustered around his name, pursued his humble avocation with pride and pleasure—with pride, because he had been successful by his own unaided exertions; with pleasure, because he was actually relieving his mother from the entire burden of supporting the family. Since the rescue of Carrie, perch, tom-cod, flounders, and tautog had been in greater demand ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... of these ladies,and worthy ones too, are placed, par force of poverty, in this avocation, unsuited to their abilities, their hearts, their habits, or their former expectations. The government of their young flock is odious to them, and although they may go through the duties of their situation ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... call is made! I do not mean to disparage mercantile pursuits; they afford constant opportunities for the exercise and display of keenness and clearness of intellect, but do not require the peculiar gifts so essential in statesmen. Indolence is unpardonable in any avocation, and I would be commended to the industrious, energetic merchant, in preference to superficial, so- called, 'professional men.' But Eugene had rare educational advantages, and I expected him to improve them, and be something more than ordinary. He expected it, five years ago. What infatuation possesses ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... course, by the division of labor.(376) Yet the skill produced by the division of labor is unavoidably connected with a corresponding one-sidedness. The Russians, for instance, are exceedingly apt, but they rarely distinguish themselves in any thing.(377) Love of his avocation, or pride in it, is a thing unknown to the Russian workman. He shirks all continuous labor.(378) Experience has shown that the Neapolitans and Italians, in general, exhibit great skill when they work alone; but that when a great many of them work together, they become rapidly confused. The ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... dear Dolorosus,—for I remember that you were destined by your parents for the physician of your native seaside village, until you found a more congenial avocation in curing mackerel,—that the ancient medals represented the goddess Hygeia with a serpent three times as large as that carried by Aesculapius, to denote the superiority of hygiene to medicine, prevention to cure. To seek health as you are now ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... United States and in England we are born to enter upon any avocation, thank Heaven! without training for it. We have not in this country any such obstacle to universal success as the Theatre Francais, but Providence has given us, for wise purposes no doubt, Private Theatricals (not always so private as they should be), which domesticate ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... brilliant by one of those great blue papers in which oranges are now artfully wrapped, leant over the railing and listened; and opposite the nympham discentem there was a capering and acute-eared young satirist of a crossing-sweeper, who had left his neighboring professional avocation and chance of profit, in order to listen to the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cousins and nephews overflowed freely in the form of gifts of what did not belong to him, bestowed the living on a cousin, who commuted it for an annual revenue of six hundred and forty gold crowns—a splendid revenue for those days—and poor Bonivard, whose sole avocation was that of gentleman, found it difficult to carry on that line of business with neither capital nor income. He came back, some five years later, into possession of the priory. They were five years of exciting changes, of fierce terrorism ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... in this as well as in the next world. Man must follow the standard of virtue of the good and in his acts imitate the example of the righteous. There are virtuous men, versed in holy writ and learned in all departments of knowledge. Man's proper duty consists in following his own proper avocation, and this being the case these latter do not become confused and mixed up. The wise man delights in virtue and lives by righteousness. And, O good Brahmana, such a man with the wealth of righteousness which he hereby acquires, waters ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... performed a blessing; many, probably most, British Socialists declare it to be a curse and a vice. The leading English philosopher of Socialism, for instance, tells us: "To the Socialist labour is an evil to be minimised to the utmost. The man who works at his trade or avocation more than necessity compels him, or who accumulates more than he can enjoy, is not a hero but a fool from the Socialists' standpoint."[341] A leading French Socialist informs us: "Through listening to the fallacious utterances of the middle-class economists, the workers have delivered ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... brilliant successes in purely mental vocations, as the result of the development of their intellects, and may keep themselves in a fair degree of health and strength by games, exercise, mountain climbing, farming, or some such avocation, they are, nevertheless, never quite so well satisfied as when they have something to do which not only gives them opportunity for the use of their intellects, but also involves a certain degree of physical activity as a part ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... occupied, which was many stories high, and contained a great number of rooms. He housed in it a large family, several apprentices, two shopmen, and his wife's sister, Dinah Morse, at such times as the latter was not out nursing the sick, which was her avocation in life. ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... morrow, therefore, the rabble of the town again sounded the cry of "Church and King," and being joined by the rabble of the mining and foundery districts in the neighbourhood, they resumed their dreadful avocation. On that day the houses of Messrs. John Ryland, Taylor, and Hutton, were destroyed; the magistrates making no effectual preparations to stop the ravages. It does not appear that the mob had been furnished with any drink on this day by the loyalist magnates of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... panic; they are ended only when it has spent its ferine fury. Here the effect of civilization has been to reduce the noblest of the arts, once the repository of an exalted etiquette and the chosen avocation of the very best men of the race, to the level of a riot of peasants. All the wars of Christendom are now disgusting and degrading; the conduct of them has passed out of the hands of nobles and knights and into the hands of mob-orators, money-lenders, and atrocity-mongers. To recreate one's ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... an object of aversion and terror to the peaceful inhabitants of the land, his avocation being to challenge quiet country farmers to single combat. As the law of the land stood in Norway, a man who declined to accept a challenge, forfeited all his possessions, even to the wife of his bosom, as a poltroon unworthy of the protection of the law, and every item ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... avocations, we have sculptors, painters, lawyers, architects, merchants, and, in fact, our women are filling with success and ability almost every avocation and profession of to-day, and the day is in the near future when the service of thousands of others will ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... doctor's suggestion, not only with regard to Elsli, but also to the fisherman's family. She took measures directly for building a small house on her own land, in a dry situation, but not far from the river, so that he could continue his avocation as a fisherman, while she also gave him steady and profitable employment as a laborer on her estate. Elsli was very happy watching the progress of the new house and fitting it up for its inmates, and she had the pleasure of seeing them comfortably established ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... possibilities of reaching a modus vivendi. There was no man so well qualified for the mission. Edward Mandell House was a Texan by birth, but a cosmopolitan by nature. His hobby was practical politics; his avocation the study of history and government. His catholicity of taste is indicated by the nature of his library, which includes numerous volumes not merely on the social sciences but also on philosophy and poetry. His intellectual background was thus no less favorable than ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... seizing the sick man and hanging him. His friends, hearing of this intention, propped the dying Ketch up in bed, and he, being by trade a shoemaker, had the tools and materials of his trade placed before him. He made a pretence of plying his avocation, and the townsmen, thinking his lease of life was in no danger of a natural termination, allowed him to lie in peace. He then speedily passed away quietly in his bed, and the outwitted burghers found themselves without a hangman, and ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... a double charity, charity to those who would willingly embrace the life, and charity to those who might require their assistance. It is well known how difficult it is to obtain a sick nurse in London. It is an avocation seldom embraced by people, until they are advanced in years, and all feeling has been dried up by suffering or disappointment. Those who undertake the task are only actuated by gain, and you can expect but ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... member of my profession doesn't take a solemn oath to wait until the remains are resting in pieces: it might not be a difficult task to take up an avocation as well as a vocation. I wonder if I couldn't be a pretty good ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... eye from her hands, and he was begging her autograph. If she had desired to escape, she could have done so—he is her devoted slave. And the doctor who went to examine her as to her sanity has stayed to talk to her about horse-breaking. That, as you know, is his avocation; and he has found in her a woman who knows more about it than he does. He sits there like a man entranced. They are all ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... Advertising rests upon tact, an instinctive perception of the tone and accent which will be en rapport with the mood of the hearer. Mr. Gilbert was aware of this, and felt that quite possibly his host was prouder of his whimsical avocation as gourmet than of his ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... Paulinus. In this excellent treatise the author endeavours to show, that the complaint of the shortness of life is not founded in truth: that it is men who make life short, either by passing it in indolence, or otherwise improperly. He inveighs against indolence, luxury, and every unprofitable avocation; observing, that the best use of time is to apply it to the study of wisdom, by which life may ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... that Tuck was an old Yale man and that his avocation in life seemed to be tennis. The engineers had a good court in the woods and after Tuck found that Jim liked the game, he took the boy over to the court every afternoon before supper and beat him with monotonous regularity. And Jim ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... to photography in which avocation he has been most successful. His wife told me they were glad to accept his call to New York as he had almost filled every room in their house with his various collections. One can appreciate this when he sees a card ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... communicated to me the information that Jack Slack, the young gentleman to whom I had presented a ticket of admission to the other world, was a person whose real name was John Shaffer, alias Slippery Jack, alias Jack Slack. His profession was that of a pickpocket, in which avocation he had always been singularly expert. He was well known to the police, and had been frequently imprisoned. I was gratified to see that the newspapers all justified me in what I had done, and predicted ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... It has been indicated that he was quick-witted, because he had to be, in the very nature of his avocation. Just now his brain was working rather more rapidly than usual, even: which was one reason why the light had leaped ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... the patient pursued his avocation of a stone-mason; no further remedy was required; no inconvenience experienced; and the eschar separated in ...
— An Essay on the Application of the Lunar Caustic in the Cure of Certain Wounds and Ulcers • John Higginbottom
... from every profession and walk in life, embraced the principles of the order, and soon it could boast of legislators, judges of the higher courts, clergymen, doctors, lawyers, merchants and men from every avocation. Judge Bullitt, from the Supreme bench in Kentucky, Judge Morris of the Circuit Court of Illinois, Judd and Robinson, lawyers and candidates for the highest State offices, Col. Walker, agent of the State of Indiana, editors of the daily press, and men high in official ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... wrote an account of the step he had taken, with his motives for it, was far from being offended at it; tho' he told him it added to his trouble, to think his eldest son should be compelled, by his having entered into a second marriage, to have recourse to any avocation whatever for bread; but concluded with telling him, that in the severe necessity of their present circumstances, he could not have pitched on any thing more agreeable to his inclinations, or more honourable ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... to men of other vocations adopting farming as an avocation if they can afford it. It is a rational form of pleasure for wealthy people, and one in which they can often be of great service. This cannot be said of all forms of relaxation. Wealthy men have been of special service to the cause of agriculture ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... be given that breathing space which is the first step toward recuperation. For my part, I can conceive of no better, quicker method for the individual of serving this end than for him to make the speediest possible return to the pursuit of his ordinary avocation in life. It is to be hoped that, bearing in mind our urgent need, all employers of labour will do their utmost to provide immediate occupation for their work-people. It is not in the tragic catastrophe of the past week, but ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... a different man his circumstances would assuredly have been other. His wife, for instance, would in all human probability have been alive. His avocation might have been more suited to his capabilities. He was not intended for a country parish, and that practical, human comprehension of the ultimate value of little daily details, without which a pastor never yet understood his flock, ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... father, that no pleasure, no avocation should ever so entirely engross his mind, but that he should still find an hour for sympathy and friendship. He communicated the invitation of Madam Clement, and insisted upon his compliance, that he might have an opportunity ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... advantage to a man, in every pursuit or avocation, to secure an adviser in a sensible woman. In woman there is at once a subtile delicacy of tact, and a plain soundness of judgment, which ire rarely combined to an equal degree in man. A woman, if she be really your friend, will have a sensitive regard for your character, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... blooms a cluster of beautiful flowers, covered as it were by a glass shade, but which turns out to be only water. There a miniature palace is in course of erection, with crowds of workmen in its different storeys, each man at his avocation with hammer and chisel, pulley and wheel, and the grave architect himself directing their labour. All this is set in motion by water, and is not a mere doll's house, but a symmetrical model. Then we enter a subterranean grotto, with a roof of pendant stalactites, where ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... Almacks, and the author has so well succeeded in describing the cold selfish fopperies of the time, that the copy is almost as dull as the original. I think I will take up my bundle of Sheriff-Court processes instead of Almacks, as the more entertaining avocation of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... The school, and especially the upper boys, will remember what I have said. I shall now tear down the insulting notice, and put it into your hands, Avonley, as head of the school, that you may make further inquiries." He left the room, and the boys resumed their usual avocation till twelve o'clock. But poor Eric could hardly get through his ordinary pursuits; he felt sick and giddy, until everybody noticed his strange embarrassed ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... girl of the future will select her own avocation and take her own training for it. If she be a houseworker, and many will prefer to be, she will be so valuable in that line as to command much respect and good wages. If she be an architect, a jeweler, an electrical engineer, she will not ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... "gringoes" in the region had despatched their victims thoroughly, leaving them mutilated and robbed even of their clothing. The charming part of it all was one could never know which of these slinking fellows was a bandit by avocation and saving up his unvented anger for the boss who ordered him about ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... were still the two hackney-drivers, who, no doubt, had they stayed in the Crescent City in pursuit of their daily avocation, would have given notoriety to an occurrence ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... proposal of marriage; and these, it is hardly necessary to say, had been firmly, but as pleasantly as possible, sent to the right-about. This class of lovers gave Lucy no trouble whatever; bold as they might be in the pursuit of their lawless avocation, they were diffident to the verge of absurdity in the presence of beauty, if associated with dignity and refinement; they were painfully conscious of their uncouth bearing and manners; and Lucy had little difficulty in keeping them ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... gathered in this rugged region, a medley of fugitives of all ranks and stations,—soldiers, farmers, and artisans; nobles and vassals; bishops and monks; men, women, and children,—brought together by a terror that banished all distinctions of rank and avocation. For a number of years this small band of fugitive Christians, gathered between the mountains and the sea in northwestern Spain, remained quiet, desiring only to be overlooked or disregarded by the conquerors. But in ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... his fellow-traveller. We thought such an abrupt departure would be less shocking than to stay and take a formal leave of my lover, whose heart was of such a delicate frame, that, after I told him I should one day withdraw myself in his absence, he never came home from the chase, or any other avocation, without trembling with apprehension that ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... did not reside among the palatial residences of the Queen City. A rather restricted income compelled him to find a more unpretentious home than was perhaps in keeping with his avocation and position in life. Yet, carrying into practice the teaching he set forth, to "owe no man anything," and never live beyond one's income, he established his home in a portion of the city that was rather characterized by low rents than aristocratic abodes. However, they were ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... existed; on all this the Moslem had now to turn his back, and to earn a precarious living by the strong hand. War, sanguinary and incessant, was henceforward to be his lot, and it must be said that he turned to this ancient avocation with a zest which left but little to be desired from the point of view of those by whom he was led. In the new life of bloodshed and adventure he seemed to delight. Like the free-lance in all ages, he seems to have ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... Romans were a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, they accordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their living which has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares of the kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in the days of the greatest corruption. They had around them regular courts of parasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank as their chamberlains and stewards. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... the printing-office, where a hundred hands were setting the "thought-tracks." It seemed as if everyone in the building, from editor-in-chief down to the devil, was solemn with the thought of his high and noble avocation. There was a half sadness on every countenance, for the future was full of gloom. I was struck with the fact that the office did not seem to me to be a French office. There was a gravity, a solemnity, not often seen in Paris. The usual politeness of a Parisian was there, ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... Rome and break up his home and business, he would probably have never met with Paul, and been called to the knowledge and service of Christ through this providential meeting. Had he not been a working man, and pursuing his ordinary avocation he would not have been brought into contact with the apostle. It was in the line of their calling, their common duties, and the providential changes of their life that God called them. And so He meets us. Do not try hard to run away from it, but, as the apostle has so ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... that period that people had ceased to inquire into their particular grounds. In one department of industry or another, they had been nearly incessant ever since the great business crisis of 1873. In fact it had come to be the exceptional thing to see any class of laborers pursue their avocation steadily for more than a ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... any subject be the proper avocation of the philosopher," says Strabo, "geography, the science of which we propose to treat, is certainly entitled to a high place; and this is evident from many considerations. They who first undertook to handle the matter were ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Carhaix, "I am only a poor ignorant man. But the type you speak of does exist. In Switzerland, I believe, a bell-ringer has for years been collecting material for a heraldic memorial. I should think," he continued, laughing, "that his avocation would interfere with ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... salmon fisher, a carpenter, and an incessant pipe-smoker. These being his leading gifts, it will probably, and with accuracy, be surmised by persons conversant with the Irish Church, that he was a survival of its earliest days, when it was still an avocation suitable for gentlemen, and one in which they could indulge without any taint of professionalism being laid to their charge. He was immensely respected and admired by the poor people of the parish (none ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... he said, "is the exact meaning of that word 'abduction.' Why should I be suspected of forcibly removing a harmless and worthy young man from his regular avocation, and, as you term it, abducting him, which I presume means keeping him bound and gagged and imprisoned? I do not eat young men. I do not even care for the society of young men. I am not naturally a gregarious person, but I think I would go ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... learnt in the public shool of husbandry [18]—the lesson of mutual assistance. "Shoulder to shoulder" must we march to meet the invader; [19] "shoulder to shoulder" stand to compass the tillage of the soil. Therefore it is that the husbandman, who means to win in his avocation, must see that he creates enthusiasm in his workpeople and a spirit of ready obedience; which is just what a general attacking an enemy will scheme to bring about, when he deals out gifts to the brave and castigation [20] to those who ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... lands. Cool traders are buying great tracts. Temporary officials have eager eyes fixed on the Mexican grants. At all the landings and along the new roads, once trails, little settlements are springing up, for your unlucky argonaut turns to the nearest avocation; inns, stables, lodging-houses and trading-tents are waited on by men of every calling and profession. Each wanderer turns to the easiest way of amassing wealth. The settlers must devise all their own institutions. The Mexicans idly wrap ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... capabilities of the working-classes, not by the economy or profits to be obtained by extra labour; and legislation, if paternal, as it should be, ought to protect the toiler in all instances—not in the few in which it attempts to ameliorate his condition. So with every pursuit or avocation, the leisure essential to health and happiness is too often sacrificed to cupidity, and when this is the case there can ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... Sandwich Haven the Downs became still more a place of ships, and thus naturally was still more developed the race of Deal boatmen, who were, and are to the present time, daily accustomed to launch and land through the surf which runs in rough weather on their open beach; and whose avocation was to pilot the vessels anchoring in or leaving the Downs, and to help those in ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... M.D. at Leyden, he came back again to England, and commenced practice at Stockton-upon-Tees, in Durham. Although his reputation speedily became considerable, especially in cases of fever, he seems scarcely to have liked his new avocation. He found solace, however, in his favourite study of languages, which he pursued with unremitting ardour—constantly reading through the Greek and Latin classics, and not only rendering himself familiar with the best works of the modern continental authors, but also with the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... have a peculiar appeal to persons engaged in a particular occupation or devoted to a particular avocation or amusement. Special articles on these subjects of limited appeal are adapted to agricultural, trade, or other class publications, particularly to such of these periodicals as present their material in a popular ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... nodded. Carpentry was Tim's vocation, but fiddling was his avocation and dear delight. He was presently fiddling away, while the company sat about, completely relaxed in spirit, and Mrs. Kelcey and Mrs. Murdison hustled the table clear of dishes, refusing sternly Brown's eager offer to help them. And now came the best time of ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... if not a person to be educated, with or against the grain; and when he encounters him in the ways of error, he leaps upon him joyously, scalps him in print before the eyes of men, kicks him gaily back into the paths of truth and soberness, and resumes his avocation with that peculiar zest an act of virtue does undoubtedly impart. Indeed, Mr. Whistler, so far from being the critic's enemy, is on the contrary the best friend that tradesman has ever had. For his function is ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... the same in those other functions which have been just referred to. In later years (it is Mr Humphry Ward, I think, who is our sufficient authority for it) poetry was but occasional amusement and solace to him, prose his regular avocation from task-work; and there is abundant evidence that, willingly or unwillingly, he never allowed either to usurp the place of the vocation which he had accepted. Not everybody, perhaps, is so scrupulous. ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... to renew his stock of food and water. Then, unwilling to depart without having at least visited the Cyclops, he took twelve of his bravest men, a skin-bottle full of delicious wine, and set out to find Polyphemus, chief of the Cyclops. On entering the huge cave where this giant pursued his avocation of dairyman, Ulysses and his companions built a fire, around which they sat awaiting their host's return. Before long a huge one-eyed monster drove in his flocks, and, after closing the opening of his cave with a rock which no one ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... was once tempted to try the experiment of a formal apology. The apology was accepted with a smile. I repeated the offence with less ceremony: the excuse was admitted with the same indulgence; the slightest motive of laziness or indisposition, the most trifling avocation at home or abroad was allowed as a worthy impediment, nor did my tutor appear conscious of my absence or neglect." No wonder he spoke with indignation of such scandalous neglect. "To the University of Oxford," he says, "I acknowledge no obligation, and she will as readily renounce me ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... I want you to care about. I could hardly wait until winter was over to begin my new avocation. By the last of March I was assured by practical agriculturists (who regarded me with amusement tempered with pity) that it was high time to prune the lazy fruit trees and arouse, if possible, the debilitated soil—in short, begin to "keep ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... a year and more in the narrow confines of Simiti, the ready flow of this man's conversation was like a fountain of sparkling water to a thirsty traveler. He urged him to go on, plying him with questions about his strange avocation. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Saint's day brought Samuel an opportunity to inaugurate his new policy. The foreign colony was rigidly devoted to its religious duties. Nothing could induce a Galician to engage in his ordinary avocation upon any day set apart as sacred by his Church. In the morning such of the colony as adhered to the Greek Church, went en masse to the quaint little church which had come to be erected and which had been consecrated by a travelling Archbishop, ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... interpreted, the esteemed camel-driver. Our landlord, Giorgius, the head of this family, was a young man hardly out of his teens; and having some competency, and being moreover un beau garcon, did not follow either his ancestral, or any other avocation. The harem, or woman's portion of the house, was composed of his mother, a fair widow of forty, and her two daughters, both Eastern beauties of their kind, Sarah and Nasarah (meaning Victory or Victoria;) the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... if at usurpation We needs must strike a blow, Our hardy avocation Shall fit us for the foe; Then let the despot's strength compete Upon the open sea, And on the proudest of his fleet ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... easily and ought to be rested occasionally. Therefore, the student should relax at intervals, and engage in something remote from study. To forget books for an entire week-end is often wisdom; to have a hobby or an avocation is also wise. A student must not forget that he is something more than an intellectual being. He is a physical organism and a social being, and the well-rounded life demands that all phases receive expression. We grant that it is wrong to exalt the physical and stunt the mental, ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... employment than that other of writing for a bookseller, to which the art of printing has given occasion." We see the political economist, alike insensible to the dignity of the literary character, incapable of taking a just view of its glorious avocation. To obviate the personal wants attached to the occupations of an author, he would, more effectually than skilfully, get rid of authorship itself. This is not to restore the limb, but to amputate it. It is not the preservation ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... they could find, and then, clothing themselves in their priestly robes, they assembled in the chapel, and resumed their exercises of devotion. To be found in so sacred a place and engaged in so holy an avocation would have been a great protection from any Christian soldiery; but the monks entirely misconceived the nature of the impulses by which human nature is governed, in supposing that it would have any restraining influence upon the pagan Danes. ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... commendable. There is the chance; and it appeals to most rational men. Secretive Fortune lures on, promising the bubble pearl 'and proffering that which satisfieth not, until the stress and perils of the avocation tell on the enthusiast, who finds himself not exuberant as wont; that Fortune has been tricking him; that in the pursuit of pearls Chance is oft repellent; and that the prize which seemed impossible to avoid has ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... of men and events, liberal opinions, freshness of intellect, and vigorous brilliancy of declamation; and yet Mr. Bright has always manifested superiority in these qualities. Known, while occupied exclusively in the details of his proper avocation, for skill, promptness, and enterprise, he has also been distinguished, since his sphere of usefulness has been extended to the national councils, for the scope and accuracy of his general information, the comprehensiveness ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... caste is not admitted, the relative respectability of the various professions is not quite the same as it is with us. There the profession does not disqualify if the man himself be right, nor the claim to the title of gentleman depend upon the avocation followed. I know of one or two clowns in the ring who are educated physicians, and not thought to be any the less gentlemen because they propound conundrums and perpetrate jests instead ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... occupation, employment, engagement, and avocation: "Business occupies all of a person's thoughts, as well as his time and powers; occupation and employment occupy only his time and strength; the first is most regular—it is the object of his choice; the second is causal—it depends on the will of another. Engagement is a ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... activity of thought and feeling had been early directed into right channels. A woman who finds real enjoyment in the improvement of her mind will neither have time nor inclination for tormenting her servants and her family; an avocation in which many really affectionate and professedly religious women exhaust those superfluous energies which, under wise direction, might have dispensed peace and happiness instead of disturbance and annoyance. A woman who has acquired proper control over her ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... born at Drumcrool, in the parish of Durrisdeer, and county of Dumfries, on the 25th June 1812. At the age of sixteen, in February 1828, he arrived in London, and entered a house of business in the city. During the nine ensuing years, he assiduously pursued his avocation, and strove to make himself master of the elements and practice of trade. In 1837 he commenced on his own responsibility, and every succeeding year has advanced him in mercantile prosperity and position. Now, at the head of the firm of Bennoch, Twentyman, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the deep, however, despite his memorable experiences of its perils; for, he said, he had to voyage about a good deal from port to port in the prosecution of his new avocation as the agent for a large firm of wine exporters at Cadiz, where he lived when at home, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... interesting I found my new avocation on the County Down, which for short the Belfast and County Down Railway was usually called. My salary certainly was not magnificent, 500 pounds a year, but it was about 100 pounds more than the whole of the income I earned in Scotland, and now for ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... be briefly told," said Lanyere. "You are aware, Sir Francis, that in the pursuit of my avocation I am often led into the most dangerous quarters of the metropolis, and at hours when the peril to any honest man is doubled. Adventures have not unfrequently occurred to me when so circumstanced, and I have been indebted to my right hand and my good sword for deliverance ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... head in assent, that being the only reply the avocation of smoking rendered convenient, just at that moment, unless a sort of affirmatory grunt could be construed ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... they get through their business training, or apprenticeship, instead of pursuing their avocation and rising in their business, will often lie about doing nothing. They say; "I have learned my business, but I am not going to be a hireling; what is the object of learning my trade or profession, ...
— The Art of Money Getting - or, Golden Rules for Making Money • P. T. Barnum |
