"Gadding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... first day that you dined at home, and you were so touched with M. Schmucke's pleasure. And next day M. Schmucke kept saying to me, 'Montame Zipod, he haf tined hier,' with the tears in his eyes, till I cried along with him like a fool, as I am. And how sad he looked when you took to gadding abroad again and dining out! Poor man, you never saw any one so disconsolate! Ah! you are quite right to leave everything to him. Dear worthy man, why he is as good as a family to you, he is! Do not forget him; ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... King Priam's wanton son Been making quills with sweet content, He had not then his friends undone, When he to Greece a-gadding went; For ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... "I expect you'll learn to sew all right, Lena, if you'll only keep your head and not go gadding about to dances all the time and neglect your work, the ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... 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
... said his wife, restraining herself by an effort. "One unfortunate marriage in the family is enough; and here, instead o' walking out with young Ben Lippet, who'll be 'is own master when his father dies, she's gadding about with that good-for-nothing ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... at least show her how her old father's heart bled for her. He got up quietly from his big easy-chair, from which he had been used to survey his Nelly's face at the other side of the fireplace for many a happy year. To be sure, it had not been the same since the Dowager had come, and Nelly had gone gadding of evenings. Still, she had always come in to kiss him before she went off, looking radiant and sweet, with the hood of her evening cloak over her bright head and framing the dearest face in the world. She had always clung to him with her soft arms about his neck, and he had ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... of the present century, poor women found profitable employment in spinning flax or wool. This was a better occupation for them than straw plaiting, inasmuch as it was carried on at the family hearth, and did not admit of gadding and gossiping about the village. The implement used was a long narrow machine of wood, raised on legs, furnished at one end with a large wheel, and at the other with a spindle on which the flax or wool was loosely wrapped, connected together by a loop of string. ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... repent it, then, gadding off like that. More shame to you,' Mrs Forrester said wrathfully, 'to let her go, Mary, and cheat me by not telling me the truth. You want the child to go to ruin as you did yourself, ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... tell you; in the first place, a Pox of all Lovers, I say; for my Daughter Isabella is to be married, as you know, to Antonio, a young rich Merchant of this Town; in the second place, my Wife, with a Vengeance, must be gadding to visit you and her Sister, whom we heard also was to be married to the young Governor Don Carlos; 'tis shreudly against my will, Heav'n knows, for my Wits are in an uproar already about this business—your Gallants, Father, your young Gallants,—I wish ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... 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 am euer ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... 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 just grow cross-eyed looking at the ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... Canton and elsewhere. Small feet are thus in no way associated with aristocracy or gentleness of birth; neither is there any foundation for the generally received opinion that the Chinese lame their women in this way to keep them from gadding about. Small-footed women may be seen carrying quite heavy burdens, and even working in the fields; not to mention that many are employed as nurses for small children. Another explanation is that women with bound ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... 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 present as a ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... 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, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the while inspires 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 wrote his ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... home, the dame grew very angry, and began to scold him, saying, "Well, and pray where have you been this many a day? A pretty thing, indeed, to be gadding about at ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... with her heart! I knew it! I've been expecting to hear it! Any woman that drives about the country as much as she does is liable to heart disease at any moment. I never go outside of my gate but I meet her gadding off somewhere. Goodness knows who looks after her place. I shouldn't like to trust as much to a hired man as she does. Well, it is very kind of you, Mr. Patterson, to put yourself out to the extent of calling to tell me that Charlotte is sick, but I don't really see why you should take so much ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... leave we 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
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... degree beyond all bounds of decency and common sense, tends naturally to sink a woman to the lowest pitch of contempt amongst all those of either sex who have capacity enough to put two thoughts together. A creature who spends its whole time in dressing, prating, gaming, and gadding, is a being—originally indeed of the rational make, but who has sunk itself beneath its rank, and is to be considered at present as nearly on a ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... head; its 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 and regain ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... 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 while ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... 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 your share, ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... that no intriguing old women, particularly Jewesses, had been admitted into his harem; and that the walls, which surrounded the women's apartments, had always been kept in good repair, in order to prevent gadding on the housetop with the neighbours. He ordered that his black slave, Johur, was now no longer to be allowed free access into the anderun; and if ever seen to be familiar with any of the female slaves, he and they were to be whipped: finally, he desired the steward ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... replied Sancho, "the good governor and the broken leg should keep at home. It would be fine, indeed, for people to come after him about business and find him gadding in the mountains for his pleasure. At that rate what would become of his government? In good truth, sir, hunting and such like pastimes are rather for your idle companions than for governors. The way I mean to divert myself shall be with brag at Easter and at bowls on Sundays ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... his pipe, until at last with an 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 I ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... when he arrived on the Sunday evening, entered a warm protest against what he described as this eternal gadding about. On ascertaining the destination, he admitted circumstances altered cases; where business was concerned, private interests had to give way. He explained that some of his present irritation was due to the fact that, at a Bohemian concert the ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... horror, that he had seen but a small percentage of the distress his father had caused; the greater griefs, as usual, stayed at home. Behind the gadding woes lay a terrible number of silent, decent ruined homes and broken hearts, and mixed sorrows so unmerited, so complicated, so piteous, and so cruel, that he was ready to tear his hair, to know them and not be ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... 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 sovran Lord, the Sun, For countenance and praise, As of the best his storying eye hath seen, And ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... 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! ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... as 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 ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... 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 ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... 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
... fall of night, the street they faced had become still, save for an infrequent squawk of irritation on the part of one of the passing automobiles, gadding for the most part silently, like fireflies. But after a time a strolling trio of negroes came singing ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... a 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, along with Walter Scott; up the heights of fashion with the charming enchanters ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rudely disturbing his lotos- eater's sense of being. He felt almost annoyed by this well-meaning but indefatigable young man who seemed to think folks should be gadding all the time. His manner was unresponsive as he ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... it through the wedding ring to dream on, and I myself assisted a fine little boarding-school girl in putting up a quantity for her companions, which I have no doubt will set all the little heads in the school gadding, for a ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... entitled 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 to nothing, but both hunter and hunted find pleasure ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... 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 ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... 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
... he let not the grass grow under his feet, but set off forthright and stayed not till he came to her house and entering in, said, 'God send us all well! Who is within there?' Belcolore, who was gone up into the hay-loft, hearing him, said, 'Marry, sir, you are welcome; but what do you gadding it abroad in this heat?' 'So God give me good luck,' answered he, 'I came to abide with thee awhile, for that I met ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... sure it is the unaccustomed dissipation. Judith is not a strong woman, and late hours and eternal gadding about do not suit her constitution. She has lost weight and there are faint circles under her eyes. There are lines, too, on her face which only show in hours of physical strain. I was proceeding to expound this to her at some length, for I consider ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... gods commingling, and himself Be seen of them, and with his father's worth Reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy, First shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth Her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray With foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed, And laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves, Untended, will the she-goats then bring home Their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield Shall of the monstrous lion have no fear. Thy ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... 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 done, but ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Why should I go gadding about to see the strange and the extraordinary?" he wrote me, when trying to argue himself into abandoning the trip. "The whole gospel of my books (if they have any gospel) is 'Stay at home; see the wonderful and the beautiful in the simple things all about you; make the most of the ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... Rough satyrs danced, and fauns with cloven heel From the glad song would not be absent long, And old Damaetas loved to hear our song. But, oh, 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 to the weanling herds that graze, Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... spendthrift fancy, although not the 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
... 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 overcharged at ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... the 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 sense in ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... sooner had I chang'd my single Life, And had confin'd my Carcass to a Wife; But she was always Gadding up and down, To take the various Pleasures of the Town; Howe're I only reckon'd this to be, The airy Frisks of her Minority, Till shortly finding and old Hag wou'd pay Her Visits oft, and take her Day by Day [*?]oad, indeed this gave ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... 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 favour 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 in courting the divine Calliope, got ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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
... 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. He looked grave enough when he read the letter, asked ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... 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 ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... stable grooming 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 ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of things, 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, ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... 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 up and down here and there. But the wives of the Amphisseans, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... is," said the old man stoutly. "You get fun out of running about the country and looking at things and seeing how other folks live and work. And that's all right for you. You make money out of it. But what would I get out of gadding about?" ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... old bird! And, Jo, you'd better go at once. It isn't proper to be gadding about so late ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... 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, ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... 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 midst of the pines, in the nickering and checkered light which ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... 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 done, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and he can do nothing. She has 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 ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... for his grub, whether 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 ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... awoke to the fact that it was the centre and scene of a decided sensation. Rumour pulled on her bonnet and boots, and went gadding about like mad. Pinetucky was astonished, then perplexed, then distressed, and finally indignant, as became a conservative and moral community. A little after sunrise, Bradley Gaither had galloped up to Squire Inchly's door ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... mine, perhaps. Can I help being blind? You fret because you want to be gadding about—with a helpless man left all alone at home. Your own ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... 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 ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mortified the Editor's national vanity by an account of the following custom, which prevails in part of Shropshire. It is discreditable for women to appear abroad after the birth of their children till they have been churched. To avoid this reproach, and at the same time to enjoy the pleasure of gadding, whenever a woman goes abroad before she has been to church, she takes a tile from the roof of her house, and puts it upon her head: wearing this panoply all the time she pays her visits, her conscience is perfectly at ease; ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... in the woodland] But whilst Sir Kay and his court thus rested themselves, Sir Dagonet must needs be gadding, for he was of a very restless, meddlesome disposition. So, being at that time clad only in half armor, he wandered hither and thither through the forest as his fancy led him. For somewhiles he would whistle and somewhiles he would gape, and otherwhiles ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... can't but admire, that the World should run so strangely a gadding after News. I heard a Camel preach at Lovain, that we should have nothing to do with ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... here at boarding-school while you are gadding about. What is wrong with American education? When did you see your ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... 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
... ball or race; But when at home, 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 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... him before marrying Greville; (2) that she has just died of heart disease. Next, being of a placidity almost inhuman, he decides to bury the corpse as that of his wife, and not worry anyone with explanations. What he didn't know then, or I either, was that another lady was at the moment gadding about London in one of Mrs. Greville's cast-off frocks, and pretending to be that much-married female. And when in due course she is murdered, and the strangely apathetic widower, Mr. Greville, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... 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, ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... S.O.S.,—I found myself a free man, at price of putting my signature to a statement of it all. I shook the hand of the ever non-committal Captain Cecchi, and left the ship. And an hour after good old Jack was gazing at me in wrath unconcealed as I informed him that I was in the mood for neither gadding, nor social intercourse, and had made up my mind to proceed immediately to duty at ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... glad to zee 'ee come back, zur; ay, that 'a be. What vur du 'ee go gadding London ways, zays I, when there be zuch a turble lot to zee arter? and the ladyship oop Barracombe ways, her bain't vit var tu du 't, as arl on us du know. Tis butivul tu zee how her takes ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... 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 examination of each picture, which always involved quite as much mental gymnastics ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... contempt.] Maybe as you'd like my kitchen wench to come and do that for you, Clara, seeing as your fine maid is gadding about the high roads instead of minding what it concerns her ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... you 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 them away ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... the City twice since she had come home, with his other gadding about; flying trips—"on business," it is true he had said they were—yet he might have heard of it. All Lewisburg might be ringing with it. Such would undoubtedly explain quite satisfactorily his present scorn of her. He did not seem in the least ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... you want to go for, at all? Women are always gadding about, just to show off their bonnets, or to look at other people's. Here they ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... 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 I was ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... 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, in order ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... surely, Dexie?" said Gussie, coming out to see who she was talking to. "Mamma would not let you go if she knew that you refused to do what I told you. It would be better for you to go to the kitchen and finish your work, instead of gadding about ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... short of it is that you want to be gadding again. Well, run and get ready, or you will keep their tea waiting; and do put on your collar straight, Mattie." But this slight thrust was lost on Mattie as she delightedly withdrew. Archie sighed as he tried to compose himself to his ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... severe, the negroes were employed chiefly in domestic service. In Quaker Pennsylvania there were many slaves, the proprietor himself being a slave owner. Ten years after the founding of Philadelphia, the authorities ordered the constables to arrest all negroes found "gadding about" on Sunday without proper permission. They were to remain in jail until Monday, receiving in lieu of meat or drink thirty-nine lashes on ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... me to give you some hints, you say, as to the best method of pursuing philological researches. In a hasty moment I said you might come, though I don't usually allow visitors. You praise me for what I have accomplished in philology. Young man, that is because I have not given myself up to idle gadding and gossiping. Do you think, if I had been making calls, and receiving anybody who chose to force himself upon me, during the last forty years, that I should have been able to master the digamma, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... I love To see the fair one bind the straggling pink, Cheer the sweet rose, the lupin, and the stock, And lend a staff to the still gadding pea. Ye fair, it well becomes you. Better thus Cheat time away, than at the crowded rout, Rustling in silk, in a small room, close-pent, And heated e'en to fusion; made to breathe A rank contagious air, and fret at whist, Or sit aside to sneer ...
— The Botanical Magazine Vol. 8 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... He began to answer her and then a passion of rage flooded him. Suddenly he wanted to shout and use abusive expressions and it seemed to him there was nothing to prevent his shouting and using abusive expressions. So he did. "Call this your duty," he said, "gadding about with ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... but very young girls, too young to have married friends. Otherwise a young married woman, a bride perhaps scarcely out of her teens, is, on all ordinary occasions, a perfectly suitable chaperon, especially if her husband is present. A very young married woman gadding about without her husband is not a ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... out their respective colours of purple, yellow, and white; whilst within these, belted round from every disturbing gale, rose the columbine, the peony, the larkspur, and the Solomon's seal. The animate things that moved amid this scene of colour were plodding bees, gadding butterflies, and numerous sauntering young feminine candidates for the impending confirmation, who, having gaily bedecked themselves for the ceremony, were enjoying their own appearance by walking about in twos and threes till it was time ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... 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 ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... Ev'n to the slightest gesture, grace, Assured that one so fair, so true, He only served that was so too. For me, hence weak towards the weak, No more the unnested blackbird's shriek Startled the light-leaved wood; on high Wander'd the gadding butterfly, Unscared by my flung cap; the bee, Rifling the hollyhock in glee, Was no more trapp'd with his own flower, And for his honey slain. Her power, From great things even to the grass Through which the unfenced footways pass, Was law, and that which keeps ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... under his coat and walked to his cottage. Yvonne was not there. Of late she had taken to gadding much among the neighbours. But a fire was glowing in the kitchen stove. David opened the door of it and thrust his poems in upon the coals. As they blazed up they made a singing, harsh ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... that one day, when the priest at high noon was aimlessly gadding about the village, he encountered Bentivegna del Mazzo at the tail of a well laden ass; and greeted him, asking him whither he was going. "I'faith, Sir," quoth Bentivegna, "for sure 'tis to town I go, having an affair ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... destiny as it best pleases them, without the officious interference of their fellows, it may be that they will say all missionaries of whatsoever sect or congregation should have stayed at home, and not gone gadding to the desert places of the earth seeking to remedy the errors of their God by their exertions; but whilst the ideal still remains of sacrifice (which may, for all I know, be useless in itself, or even harmful), they must perforce allow ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... look for her in the fair so, if it is gadding up and down is her habit, and you being gone out ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... Miss Panney, "you are a lazy woman and an undutiful wife. It is not four miles to Cobhurst, and you walk two or three times that distance every day, gadding about town. You ought to go out there and attend to Mike's clothes, and see that he is comfortable, instead of giving up the little time you do work to that minister, and everybody knows that the reason you have taken him to board is that you want ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... smiling, "I comprehend. There is some maid in the question, and if I advance you to the command of my house-guard and give you an officer's responsibility, you will of a surety be ever desiring to go gadding to the greenwood—and around the loch of Carlinwark are ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... tell you one thing. It's going to make me a very domesticated wife one of these days. You won't find me gadding about in gilded jazz-palaces! For me, a little place in the country somewhere, with my knitting and an Elsie book, and bed at half-past nine! And now tell me the story of your life. And make it long because I'm perfectly certain ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... this linen, 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 to indulge in the ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... remarked, they did it with an eye on 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 a secluded and ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... this year as we always have," broke in the father, angrily. "I suppose", with a look at his wife from which she shrank as from a blow, "this is one of your plans to have your girls gadding ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... husband's credit, and her own good name; And such art thou. A bad wife will respect Her pride, her lust, and her good name neglect; And such art thou. A good wife will be still Industrious, apt to do her husband's will; But a bad wife, cross, spiteful and madding, Never keep home, but always be a-gadding; And such art thou. A good wife will conceal Her husband's dangers, and nothing reveal That may procure him harm; and such art thou. But a bad wife corrupts chaste wedlock's vow. On this hand virtue, and on this hand sin; This who would ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... present. Of the Kato Pomo Indians of California, Mr. Powers remarks: "Like the Kai Pomo, 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 cannot ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... than a good wife, or worse than a bad one, and he proceeds to compare women to various animals. He is also evidently very serious over the subject, and regards it as no joke at all. Perhaps there was also something to be said on the other side, for he remarks that a gadding wife cannot be cured, even if you "knock out her teeth with a stone." He likens them to pigs and polecats, horses and apes; and only praises the descendant of the bee. In a passage undoubtedly of early date, and attributed to Xenophanes, the founder of the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... symptoms of my old enemy, idleness!—so that, on my return to town, my Doctor—(he's a dear man, and prescribes just what I suggest)—insisted that I should at once run down to the Seaside to recuperate. Hence my retirement to the little fishing village of Sheepsdoor in Kent, "far from the gadding crowd;" a most delightfully rural and little-known resort, where we all go about in brown canvas-shoes—(russia-leather undreamt of!)—and wear out all our old things, utterly regardless of whether we look "en suite" or not. The only precaution I take is to carry ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, July 2, 1892 • Various
... after all, her motive lay in no better or deeper feeling than a mere girlish desire to make her way to the neighbouring station (twenty miles make but a neighbourly distance in the wilderness), to enjoy a frolic among her gadding acquaintance. This reflection ended the struggle in his mind; and turning to her with a smiling countenance, he said, "If you are so sure of getting home, my pretty maid, you may be as certain we will be glad of your company and guidance. But ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... gadding huswife, What cause hadst thou to gad abroad, When as thou knowest our wedding-day ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... dusk when O'Iwa 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 is money, or means to procure ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... she chaperoned us, and paid for everything; it was very kind of her. Then we went to the theatre, and saw a play which we did not care about much. There was a very stupid 'tart' in it. I do like 'gadding,' don't I? But, oh, my darling Frank, gadding is not really gadding without you. How I miss you, how we all miss you, but I especially. The Keatings came over to tea to-day, and they asked about you. Blanche wants you to write something in her album, and she admired immensely the drawing you gave ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... 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, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... pater-familias looking for a family air-bus? It is impossible to advise you how to select a plane without knowing whether you want one for long-distance journeys (with non-starting attachment), for stunting, or merely for gadding about and dropping in on your friends. There is a sad story afloat of a man who bought an air-bus the other day for world-touring and only discovered the insufficiency of cupboards and the want of a bathroom after starting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... an "a," gives one just a tantalizing sense of growing old, more provoking than saying the thing right out. I can't see any more sense in one spectacle than in half a pair of scissors, but maybe she can. At any rate I don't mean to go gadding down to Mr. Niblo's theatre just ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... 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
... thee the woods and desert caves, With Wild Thyme and the gadding Vine o'ergrown, And all their ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... her off at the right place, Aunt Betsy would have enjoyed that ride very much; and as it was, she looked around with interest, thinking New York a mightily cluttered-up place, and wondering if all the folks were in the streets. "They must be a gadding set," she thought; and then, as a lady in flaunting robes took a seat beside her, crowding her into a narrow space, the good old dame thought to show that she did not resent it, by an attempt at sociability, asking if she knew "Mrs. Peter Tubbs, whose ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... different when I was young; Young men were prudent, and girls were wise; You wouldn't catch them gadding about ...
— Ballads • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Miss Lorton," said the gentleman's voice. "There, before you, is something better than theory. It is an indisputable fact. There is my king, with your queen immediately in front of him, and your rook in the distance guarding that strong-minded lady. And where is my queen? Why, gadding about with knights and bishops, when she ought to have been standing by the side of her ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... place between her brother, Sir Charles, and poor Theresa—causing the latter to send up urgent signals of distress to which she, Miss Felicia, instantly responded—she still was ignorant. Theresa had, she feared, been just a wee bit flighty, leaving Damaris unattended while herself mildly gadding. But such dereliction of duty was insufficient to account for the arbitrary fashion in which she had been sent about her business, literally—the word wasn't pretty—chucked out! Miss Felicia always suspected there must be something, she would ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Chicago, even if you went by way of Paris. Cynthia Vanrenen is her name, daughter of the Vanrenen. He made, not a pile, but a pyramid, out of Milwaukees. She is it—a pukka Gibson girl, quite ducky, with the dearest bit of an accent, and Mamma Devar is gadding around with her in ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... by them yet, but his company's business suddenly called him north, and no man could have bidden a white wife more affectionate farewell or have been more sure of his own return. "It is a comfort to know that your woman won't go gadding while you are away, and that is more than a fellow can make sure of at home." These were ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... 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 the world to ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... of good Queen Bess. His description affords us a vivid glimpse of merry England in the olden time. "Against May, Whitsonday, or other time, all the yung men and maides, olde men and wives, run gadding over night to the woods, groves, hils, and mountains, where they spend all the night in plesant pastimes; and in the morning they return, bringing with them birch and branches of trees, to deck their assemblies withall. And no mervaile, for there ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... cadence of a hoisting song: Oh ... oh ... isa! and a number of boys would tug at the mast they 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 on ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... must own I hate shirt-making. I could not help showing that I felt aggrieved. Martha defended herself by saying that she knew young people would be young people, and would gad about, shirts or no shirts. Now it is not her fault that she thinks I waste my time gadding about, but I am just as angry with her as if she did. Oh, why couldn't I have had Helen, to be a pleasant companion and friend to me, instead of this old-well I won't ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... making a selection, and hurting the feelings of the 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, rode ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... her relative, sinking 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
... alone, Dick," he had finished. "You've got everything you want. And a medical man can't afford to go gadding about. When people want him they ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... way of getting 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 ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Master Neal? You're queer and late. You've had a brave time gadding with your fine friends and never thinking how you were leaving your old father to eat his dinner his lone. And who's this you have with you? What sort of behaviour is this, to be coming here bringing a stranger with you to a decent, quiet house, and ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... 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
... fastened the canvas to a wheel, "didn't you think I was an old devil at first?" "Yes, I did," I answered. "Well," he said, "I am; so you guessed right." After I put the children to bed, we sat by the fire and talked awhile. I told him how I happened to be gadding about in "such onconsequential" style, and he told me stories of when the country was new and fit to live in. "Why," he said, in a burst of enthusiasm, "time was once when you went to bed you were ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... he asked, with an ineffable intonation, "that Susan and that there young farmer have gone gadding off to Canada and left you ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... 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 knew ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson |
