"Child's play" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and have no child's play," exclaimed Blackall with vehemence, throwing himself into the attitude to engage. He made several rapid passes, which Ernest parried dexterously. As he did so, he observed that his adversary's foil had ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... cheerless lodgings, exhausted, dispirited, and alone, to walk her chamber till the morning, wrestling with real terrors and sorrows, the homely distresses of the heart, hard, absolute, unrelieved,—to which the tragic agonies she had been representing seemed but child's play. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... wall a large, keen hunting-knife, opened the door, and stole out, accompanied by Hogvardt and Watkins, who carried their revolvers. We reached the pen without interruption, tied our rope firmly round the horns of one of the dead beasts, and set to work to drag it along. It was no child's play, and our progress was very slow; but the carcass moved, and I gave a shout of encouragement as we got it down to the smoother ground of the road and hauled it along with a will. Alas! that shout was ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... three 'tall trees,'" said he, "about in the right line from Skeleton Island. 'Spy-glass Shoulder,' I take it, means that lower p'int there. It's child's play to find the stuff now. I've half a mind ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... War Department, and blue as was the mood of the public—the blow still fell like a thunder-clap and shook to the winds the few remaining shreds of hope. General Wise was ill in bed; and the defense—conducted by a militia colonel with less than one thousand raw troops—was but child's play to the immense armada with heaviest metal that ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... seemed very novel, and almost like child's play, to be dragged along by dogs, and there was almost a feeling of rebellion against what seemed such frivolous work. But we soon found out that we had travelled in worse conveyances and with poorer steeds than in a good dog sled, when whirled along by ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... side waiting for us. The daughter, a comely child about sixteen years of age, wore a calico dress and "store" shoes. She was a self-contained little creature, and clearly in command of the boat, and very efficient. It was no child's play to put the light canoe across such a stream, but the old man, with much shouting and under command of the girl, succeeded in crossing six times, carrying us and our baggage. As we were being put across for the ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... which we had passed were mere child's play compared to our situation at the present time, for a forest on fire was a danger that was calculated to test our energies to the utmost if we expected to escape with whole skins and our lives. For a few minutes, therefore, we were overwhelmed ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... too hard upon Nutter. 'Tis a fearful affair, and no child's play, this battle of life. Sturk had assailed him like a beast of prey; not Nutter, to be sure, only Lord Castlemallard's agent. Of that functionary his wolfish instinct craved the flesh, bones, and blood. Sturk had no other ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... can knock him a shell together that'll win the race under everybody's nose. 'Tis a child's play, if you don't mind castin' the boat next day an' content yourself with scantlin' like a packin' case. At least, 'twould be child's play to any one but Wyatt, who can't help buildin' solid, to save his life. If the man had consulted me, I'd have ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... reserved for you; you have been unwilling to step over the profane threshold and to enter the world, that cavern, I ought to say, in which I am now assailed, tossed about like a frail bark during a tempest. Nay, the anger of the waves of the sea compared to that of the passions is mere child's play. Happy friend, who art ignorant of what I have learned. Happy friend, whose eyes have not yet measured the abyss into which ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... he cried, with an imploring gesture. "You know, joking apart, that it's child's play for a man of my age, with no profession and no special talent, to fancy he can turn to and earn money. I might, if I made supernatural exertions, and if Fortune went out of her way to favour me, add a maximum of another sixpence to my weekly budget. No, there's never a hope for me on sea or ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... had as chiefs, the most distinguished personages of the state. Moreover, it would have been impossible in these societies, where a few false brethren had slipped in, for a dangerous secret, had there been one, to escape the vigilance of the police. The Emperor spoke of it sometimes as pure child's play, suitable to amuse idlers; and I can affirm that he laughed heartily when told that the archchancellor, in his position as chief of the Grand Orient, had presided at a Masonic banquet with no less dignity than would have comported with the presidency of the senate or of the council of state. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... opinion, George," he said, "that the French Emperor will be upon us, horse and foot, before three weeks are over, and will give the Duke such a dance as shall make the Peninsula appear mere child's play. But you need not say that to Mrs. Osborne, you know. There mayn't be any fighting on our side after all, and our business in Belgium may turn out to be a mere military occupation. Many persons think so; and Brussels is full of fine people and ladies of fashion." So it was agreed ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... word for it, gents! Young, wealthy, not undistinguished in the matter of learnin', well-bred, nurchured in the lap of luxury, tolerably good-lookin', if not actually 'andsome, my way was easy, gents. It was child's play for me to get at the inside of things, to get under the surface, to see what was agitatin' the boorses of 'alf the Continent, to understand why big financiers was orderin'-in 'ams by the 'alf-'undred, religious scruples not-withstandin'. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... which the concertmeister (first violin-player) gave them; and not to attend to Beethoven's conducting-stick. Moreover, it should be observed, that conducting a symphony, an overture, or any other composition whose movements remain continual, vary little, and contain few nice gradations, is child's play in comparison with conducting an opera, or like work, where there are recitatives, airs, and numerous orchestral designs preceded by ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... for the instant a fellow-feeling smote them. This was no light jest or piece of child's play; it might be their turn next. Oh! who would not be sorry for Dora to have to inflict real pain and bitter disappointment, to be condemned to kill a man's faith in woman, perhaps, certainly to murder his peace and happiness for the ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... was our first visit to Canada, and we knew no one. We carried credentials, however, from the Marquis of Ripon and other reputable persons. If we had had experience as commercial travellers, this would have been child's play. But our education had been in an English school and university; and when finally we sat at breakfast at the Halifax hotel we felt like fish out of water. Such success as we obtained subsequently I attribute entirely to what then seemed ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... have no more child's play of the sort, monsieur,' he cried, turning suddenly to that cold rage of his which was so appalling. 'Do you imagine that I place veteran soldiers in these positions that you may practise quarte and tierce upon them? How am I to face Europe if my soldiers turn their points upon each ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... God, nor has he ever sought after Him; for otherwise he would have understood, by looking at that truly great and awe-inspiring sight, the miracle of the Universe, that these miracles (in God's providential guidance of His people) are but child's play for the Divine Power. But the truly miraculous has become despised through familiarity. The universal, on the contrary, although in itself insignificant, yet, through our love of novelty, transports us ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... hundred down and the balance afterwards. This is an important matter. This is no child's play." The subtle and criminal part of Benjamin's mind began to see that the affair would place his landlord and mortgagee in his power, and relieve him for evermore from financial pressure. To his peculiar ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... faculties. One book a year represented say, thirty chapters, sixty or seventy thousand words. Seventy thousand words, divided by three hundred and sixty-five days, represented less than two hundred words a day. It looked like child's play—on the sheet of paper. It fairly astonished Hugh when he saw the whole question of his authorship thus reduced to its simple factors in black and white. Kate had typed the remarkable memorandum for him last year, and pasted it on a card, so that he might prop it up before him on his ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... good! The method of applying a force is child's play, a trifle, a matter of detail, as ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... me to go," returned Tom quickly. "She's afraid something dreadful may happen to me. I don't anticipate any such thing. I'm too good a woodsman to feel concerned about myself. After that strenuous expedition to South America, this will be child's play. It's leaving ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... at work is undeniable; but it is equally certain that their efforts would have had no result but for the existence of unbearable ills. It is time, surely, to give up the notion that peoples rise in revolt merely owing to outside agitators. To revolt against the warlike Turks has never been child's play.] ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... proof of your sincerity," answered Marzio, in low tones, "I would do much for you. Yes, I would give you Lucia—and the business too, when I am too old to work. But it must be a serious proof—no child's play." ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... where no doctors are to be had for love or money, doctors meet you at every turn, ready to practise on everything, with anything, and all for nothing, on the shortest possible notice. As maybe supposed, the practice is novel, and not unfrequently extremely wild. Tooth-drawing is considered child's play—mere blacksmith's work; bleeding is a general remedy for everything, when all else fails; castor-oil, Epsom salts, and emetics are the three keynotes, the foundations, and the copestones of ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... the other form. These subtle difficulties seem to lie at the root of every Tree of Knowledge, and they are far more hopeless to grapple with than any that occur in its higher branches. For example, the difficulties of the Forty-Seventh Proposition of Euclid are mere child's play compared with the mental torture endured in the effort to think out the essential nature of a straight Line. And, in the present work, the difficulties of the "5 Liars" Problem, at p. 192, are "trifles, light as ...
— Symbolic Logic • Lewis Carroll
... and the figures—the trim little stone fortress, the white banner of France transparent against the sky, the sentry like a toy figure at the gate, the cattle browsing below, the group at the river's brink—appeared as a tableau set for a child's play. ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... straw which lay handy, I rope'sended her buttocks to perfection. She screamed, but George was enjoying it and clasped his arms tightly round her waist. The straw was so knotted and scratchy, it was no child's play for our victim. "Oh, oh, oh, for God's sake leave off, Mr. Percy," she whimpered, but it only made me go on worse, making me feel so awfully randy, my member was like a bar ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... advantages over those merely pretty fellows whose rivalry he had once been modest enough to fear. He was a master of all the child's play of love; and to attempt to describe the fancies which he found to vary the game of love, would be to run the risk of exposing the limitations of the literary medium. No words can pull those whimsical ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... was the love her mother dreaded so much. This was the love poets sung of and novelists wrote about. It was pleasant; but in after days, when Beatrice herself came to love, she knew that this had been but child's play. ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... stealing them from some lonely farm. At anything of this sort I was likely to prove a sorry bungler compared with such an artist as Cairns. He was one of the most accomplished cracksmen in England, and feats which seemed impossible to me would probably be the merest child's play ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... power-pack-grid-suit combo that made a sleeping Buddha of the servo-tracer on the night of Jason's call at Lonnie's mansion; bollixed up the elaborate guards of the Peiping Temple of Mankind; and, when Jason so openly displayed suspicion of the genius, made child's play of what the newspapers headlined as ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... they do not know the danger they will have to contend with, and you two men can save thousands of lives this summer by going to Fort Kerney and meeting the emigrants there and escorting them through. Now boys, you must understand that this undertaking is no child's play. In doing this apparently many times you will seem to take your lives in your own hands, for the Indians will be worse on the plains this year than they ever have been. At the present time there is no protection for the emigrant from the time they get twenty-five miles west of Fort Kerney, until ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... birth I spoke of; then it is that man really enters upon life; henceforth no human passion is a stranger to him. Our efforts so far have been child's play, now they are of the greatest importance. This period when education is usually finished is just the time to begin; but to explain this new plan properly, let us take up our story where ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... monstrous ideas of the amount, which I never thought it worth my while to contradict. I imagine old Jack only intended a promising little flirtation, capable of being brought to bear if occasion served, but otherwise to be cast aside as child's play. Nobody could suspect such an inflammable nature with that baby face; but it seems she was ready to eat her fingers with dulness in the school-room, and had prodigious notions of the rights of woman; so she took all he said most seriously, and met him more than half-way. Then he goes to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... conversation. They speak all languages. English included, and no subject comes amiss to them, for they are familiar with the latest political situations in all countries,—they know all about the newest scientific discoveries (which, by-the-by, they smile at blandly, as though these last were mere child's play), and they discuss our modern social problems and theories with a Socratic-like incisiveness and composure such as our parliamentary howlers would do well to imitate. Their doctrine is.. but I will not bore you by a theological disquisition,—enough to say it is founded on Christianity, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... pull could be doubled what a wonderful revolution would take place in aerial navigation, and if it were possible to get only a quarter of the effective pull of an engine, the results would be so stupendous that the present method of flying would seem like child's play in comparison. ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... had been very little given to boasting hitherto. But then being strangely puffed up, and his head heated, he would not limit his fortune with Parthia and Syria; but looking on the actions of Lucullus against Tigranes and the exploits of Pompey against Mithridates as but child's play, he proposed to himself in his hopes to pass as far as Bactria and India, and the utmost ocean. Not that he was called upon by the decree which appointed him to his office to undertake any expedition against the Parthians, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... dress. This is so queer that I cannot repeat it too often. At three they put on the kimono and girdle, which are as inconvenient to them as to their parents, and childish play in this garb is grotesque. I have, however, never seen what we call child's play—that general abandonment to miscellaneous impulses, which consists in struggling, slapping, rolling, jumping, kicking, shouting, laughing, and quarrelling! Two fine boys are very clever in harnessing ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... of so peculiar a type that I could not presume to say of what he is capable or is not capable. The most significant point in his favour is this: He is a man of unusual intellect. The planning of this cunning crime to such a man would have been child's play—child's play, Knox. But is it possible to believe that his genius would have failed him upon the most essential detail of ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... Alliance principles. The income tax will probably be a growing one—one per cent. will not be its maximum. The British income tax under Mr. Gladstone in 1885 was three and a third per cent. But this is mere child's play, being about equivalent to a property tax of one seventh of one per cent. When seriously considered, the question will be between five, ten, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... with figures. I had this fellow's stride both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of checking my calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write about the level of his own eyes. Now that writing was just over six feet from the ground. It was child's play." ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... doing her scales so well that she became impatient of such "tiresome child's play." And presently Jennings gave her songs, and did not discourage her when she talked of roles, of getting seriously at what, after all, she intended to do. Then there came a week of vile weather, and Mildred caught a cold. ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... to the proper limits of language for the investigation of past and prehistoric times. As yet, no one has known how to handle these gigantic materials; what Jacob Grimm has lately attempted with them is child's play. It is no longer of any use, as a Titan in intention, but confused as to aim, and uncertain in method,—it is no longer of any use to put down dazzling examples which demonstrate nothing, or at most only that something ought to ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... in an article in the magazine went even further than Bok had ever thought of going in his criticism of women's clubs. This article deflected the criticism from Bok momentarily, and Mr. Cleveland received a grilling to which his experiences in the White House were "as child's play," as he expressed it. The two men, the editor and the former President, were now bracketed as copartners in crime in the eyes of the club-women, and nothing too harsh could be found to ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... know when else the butteri are to be seen without them or on foot. Now they are seen as succinct as may be. Every muscle is braced up for the coming struggle, and there may be observed something in the faces and bearing of the men that indicates that the work in hand is not expected to be child's play. They stand in a group in the middle of the enclosed space. The day's work will begin with the most arduous part of it—with that which needs all the fresh strength and address of the men—the marking of the buffaloes. A young buffalo bull, not yet grown ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... at the focal-point of the present battle in Foureaux Wood (near Guillemont). All my previous experiences in this war—the slaughter at Ypres and the battle in the gravel-pit at Hulluch—are the purest child's play compared with this massacre, and that is much too mild a description. I hardly think they will bring us into the fight again, for we are in a ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... a fast ball over to Wilbrooke, but returning it was child's play to him, and he drove it like lightning down the centre-line before I had time to call ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... with uplifted finger, and not a syllable; and down-stairs he led me, stocking soles close against the skirting, two feet to each particular step. It must have seemed child's play to Raffles; the old precautions were obviously assumed for my entertainment; but I confess that to me it was all refreshingly exciting—for once without a risk of durance if we came to grief! With scarcely a creak we reached the hall, ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... mere child's play of theme work. The more complex characters, instead of having a simple musical label attached to them, have their characteristic ideas and aspirations identified with special representative themes as they come into play in the drama; ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... directly or indirectly, to less than five-sixths of their former strength; and third to that of Galungung, in 1822, which devastated such an immense area in Java; but all the eruptions known besides were as mere child's play to the terrible ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... such a pursuer was child's play for the Numidian; but the fury of fight was on him, and, gnashing his white teeth, from which the thick, black lips seemed to writhe away, he bent low amid his horse's mane and, with an inarticulate ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... if I speak a word to Hamlin?" As Barker nodded and walked to the rails of the veranda, Demorest took Hamlin aside, "You and I," he said hurriedly, "are SINGLE men; Barker has a wife and child. This is likely to be no child's play." ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... and began to feel a little respect for the tiny fellow. Nevertheless he wished to try him first, and took a stone in his hand and squeezed it together so that the water dropped out of it. "Do that likewise," said the giant, "if thou hast strength." "Is that all?" said the tailor, "that is child's play with us!" and put his hand into his pocket, brought out the soft cheese, and pressed it until the liquid ran out of it. "Faith," said he, "that was a ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... you are impertinent! Do you mean to go any further? We are a fighting race, we Brodies. O, you may laugh, sir! But 'tis no child's play to jest us on our Deacon, or, for that matter, on our Deacon's chamber either. It was his father's before him: he works in it by day and sleeps in it by night; and scarce anything it contains but is the labour of his hands. Do you see this table, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... over to her, without asking any questions. Indeed, anything that the Government wished deducted from Jane's wages we could deduct with a minimum of friction—from income-tax to a dog-licence. A threepenny insurance would be child's play. ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... Terra Nova's stokehold formed in the tropics, unless there was a good wind to blow down the one canvas shaft, was a real test of staying power, and the actual shovelling of the coal into the furnaces, one after the other, was as child's play to handling the 'devil,' as the weighty instrument used for breaking up the clinker and shaping the fire was called. The boilers were cylindrical marine or return tube boilers, the furnaces being six feet long by three feet wide, slightly lower at ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... child's play carrying that heavy man through the darkening forest, for unusual care had to be taken constantly, lest a stumble occur that would cause him to cry out ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... that inland yachting is not child's play, nor are these inland yachts without their romantic records. The flag of the San Francisco yacht club has floated among the South Sea Islands; one of its boats has beaten the German and English types in their ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... shoes and vest, in another minute he was into the lake, and headed for the island. He was a good swimmer and under ordinary circumstances the swim would have been mere child's play. But he was weak after his fearful exertions, and his clothes impeded his progress. But still he struggled forward, and at length, wearied almost to the point of exhaustion, his feet touched bottom, and he staggered heavily out of the water, ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... went by, and nothing was discovered; the third man came to the ground quite easily; the fourth was, of course, child's play; and before there were ten of us collected, it seemed to me that, without the least injustice to my comrades, I might proceed to take ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... protection from the warships of the king of England, I must have sailed long and far to find it," returned Gascoyne. "It is no child's play to navigate these seas, where bloodthirsty savages swarm in their canoes like locusts. Moreover I sail, as I have told you before, in the China Seas where pirates are more common than honest traders. What would you say if I were to take ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... the greatest charms of the old Ideala. I could not help examining her curiously, looking for traces of a conflict, for those lines of suffering which are generally left by fierce mental troubles like scars after a battle, showing that the fight has been no child's play, but a struggle for life or death. Such a conflict there must have been, but all trace of it was swept away by the wonderful peace that had succeeded it. Ideala looked younger, certainly, but the change showed itself ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... in it if some policeman is not at his domicile already and if enquiry is not being made into the life of Captain Brocq. To learn that he is on terms of acquaintanceship with your patron, de Naarboveck, is child's play! To prove that he has received a visit from you to-day, to prove that you were his mistress—or, at the very least that you had come on an errand from Naarboveck's daughter, Wilhelmine, why anybody can discover that! To-morrow you will read the details in all the ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... not that he objected so much to the tartan-and-heather bedecked rows occupying the front pews of the church, on St. Andrew's Sunday. He was inclined to look upon them with some lofty amusement, saying that if they liked that sort of child's play it was no affair of his and they might have it. But it was the sermon that always put him into a fighting humour. For never a preacher stood up there on St. Andrew's Sunday but made some unfortunate reference to Bannockburn and Scots ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... the exercises which assists in attaining the end here in view, we have already alluded to, as being successfully employed by Nature for the purpose,—that is, the child's play. Any amusement which requires thought or attention, is well calculated to answer this purpose,—and if the child can be induced and trained to speak and play at the same time, his thinking powers being occupied by the external use of his toys, the end of the teacher will in so ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... about what she called his extravagance. She embittered his daily bread by blaming him for what he spent on it; she wore her oldest dresses, and would have had him go shabby in token of their adversity. Her economies were frantic child's play,—methodless, inexperienced, fitful; and they were apt to be followed by remorse in which she abetted him in ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... great forger of German unity! [He takes the tin boiler of the apparatus which WALBURGA has unpacked into his hands and lifts it high up.] Now then: the whole business of this apparatus is mere child's play. This frame which holds all the bottles—each bottle to be filled two-thirds with water and one-third with milk—is sunk into the boiler which is filled with boiling water. By keeping the water at the boiling-point for an hour and a half in this manner, the content—of ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... along as best they could. It turned out to be anything but child's play, and tested their muscular abilities from ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... "A truce to this child's play," he said, roughly. "Let the man remain here; take the keys yourself, and show me the way. Not a single person, do you understand, must hear what is ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... from his place on the elevated platform; and we took his proceeding as an omen. Later he ascended his customary seat and from that point viewed the remainder of the spectacle with us. Nothing more was done that resembled child's play, but great numbers of men were killed. At one place somebody delayed about slaying and he fastened the various opponents together and bade them all fight at once. At that the men so bound struggled one against another ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... child's play, as many seem to suppose. Once sworn in as a private, you become a tool, a mere thing, to do another's bidding. I do not say this to discourage enlistments,—far from it. I am only speaking the truth. 'Forewarned, forearmed.' If there is a hard life upon earth, it is that of a common ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... was accustomed to say that his whole early life had been one of prodigious and continual study, and that he could afford to repose in after years. Paganini's knowledge of music was profound and exact, and the most difficult music was mere child's play to him. Pasini, a well-known painter, living at Parma, did not believe the stories told of Paganini's ability to play the most difficult music at sight. Being the possessor of a valuable Stradiuarius violin, he challenged our artist to play, at first hand, a manuscript ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... great spear impelled by thee hath burst his victorious way, are stronger than the thigh-bones of a horse; but pluck out the spear now, for it is beyond my power to do so, and stand well upon thy guard, for the two combats past will be as child's play to that which now awaits thee. Fenla, the third son of Nectan, is preparing himself for battle. He is called the Swallow, because there is not a man in the world swifter to retreat, or swifter to pursue. He is more at home in the water than on the ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... with a sigh, "I don't quite know what you mean, but I seem to have said something very wrong. The odds on a handicap are child's play to understand beside ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... spectacle from our present point of view. We realise, for one thing, how futile it is for Feminism to adopt the garb of masculine militancy. The militancy of the Suffragettes, which looked so brave and imposing in times of peace, disappeared like child's play at the first touch of real militancy. That was patriotic of the Suffragettes, no doubt; but it was also a necessary measure of self-preservation, for non-combatants who carry bombs about in time of war, when armed sentries are swarming everywhere, are not likely ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... was got ready. It was to be commanded by Captain Turcott, a tough old salt, who had already sailed in every latitude in every sea. A thorough sailor, this friend of tornadoes, cyclones, and typhoons, had already spent of his fifty years of life, forty at sea. To bring to in a hurricane was quite child's play to this mariner, who was never disconcerted, except by land-sickness when he was in port. His incessantly unsteady existence on a vessel's deck had endowed him with the habit of constantly balancing himself to the right or the ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... with "makings" in it, a thing with untold potentialities in it, a thing which may come in the future to God only knows what. Talk of the caterpillar which is to develop into the butterfly or the acorn which shall one day be a mighty oak. Why, these miracles are but child's play compared with the miracles potentially wrapped up in this poor little self. No wildest fairy tale can suggest the wonder of its possibilities as it passes out into the new adventure ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... holding disputation with the tenantry. Never a word of his father or his wife, nor of the Master, save only for a day or two, when his mind dwelled entirely in the past, and he supposed himself a boy again and upon some innocent child's play with his brother. What made this the more affecting: it appeared the Master had then run some peril of his life, for there was a cry—"O! Jamie will be drowned—O, save Jamie!" which he came over and over with a great ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... them." "Soldiers!" said Napoleon, "can I rely upon you!" .......... "Long live Bonaparte," was the simultaneous response Murat took a battalion of grenadiers and marched to the entrance of the hall. When Murat headed a column it was well known that there would be no child's play. "Charge bayonets, forward!" he exclaimed, with imperturbable coolness. The drums beat the charge. Steadily the bristling line of steel advanced. The terrified representatives leaped over the benches, rushed through the passage ways, and sprang out of the windows, throwing upon the floor, in their ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... among them: "My good sirs! I do believe you Hang your heads. To work now bravely! When the Swedes the town beleagured, Then 'twas grave, but this is only Child's play. Surely you have always Liked to hear and make good music; So the booming guns will please you. Let the orchestra strike up now! And these fellows, when they hear you, Homeward soon will all go dancing, E'er the emperor's own ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... bit," added old Harmar. "It seems to me that the fighting up here in the North was child's play in comparison with that in the South. Every man on the American side that went into the battle of Eutaw Springs, was so full of courage and the desire of revenge that he was equal to two common men. Greene had difficulty in restraining their ardor within ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... their prudent dissimulation, and, above all, that quick and exact insight, which is natural to them, the results are often prodigious. To Mother Sainte-Perpetue, a woman of the coolest and strongest intellect, the management of the vast transactions of the community was mere child's play. No one knew better how to purchase a depreciated property, to restore it to its former value, and then sell it with advantage; the price of stock, the rate of exchange, the current value of the shares ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... this ebony potentate convinced the Kroo and Fishmen of New Sestros that they would find my breakfast parties no child's play. Bold bravado had the best effect on the adjacent inland as well as the immediate coast. The free blacks not only treated my person and people with more respect, but began to supply me with better grades of negroes; so that ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... trucks; but their performance, on the whole, was amateurish. For they blew up, with dynamite, the masonry of many bridges and contented themselves that the girders lay in the river below. But this was child's play to our Sappers and Miners. With hand jacks they lifted the girders and piled up sleepers, one by one beneath, until the girder was lifted to rail level again. Now any engineer can tell you that the only way to destroy a bridge is to cut the girder. This would send us humming over the cables ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... the rioters have already recommenced their work of destruction. To-day there must be no child's play. Some of the troops under your command should be sent immediately to attack and stop those who have commenced their infernal ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... you get your first taste of the adventure you have come to seek. See that you bear yourselves bravely; remember you are fighting for your queen and the honour and glory of your country. This coming engagement is going to be no child's play, you may take my word for it. They are five vessels to our three, and are more heavily armed and of bigger tonnage than are we, by the look of them. But fear not, young men; faint heart never won fair enterprise; and if we should beat them—as I am certainly ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... this grass—how bright and clear! Why all the painting that I have seen is but child's play beside this. This worthy gentleman must be one of those great painters of whom I have oft heard brother Bartholomew speak in the old days ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and I saw no more of him up to the time I was relieved. To tell you the truth, I did not report it because I thought I must have been dozing; it's a dead slow watch, and the navigation on this part of the run is child's play." ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... whom perished on the scaffold—their names were Thistlewood and Ings. Thistlewood, the best known of them, was a brave soldier, and had served with distinction as an officer in the French service: he was one of the excellent swordsmen of Europe; had fought several duels in France, where it is no child's play to fight a duel; but had never unsheathed his sword for single combat, but in defence of the feeble and insulted—he was kind and open-hearted, but of too great simplicity; he had once ten thousand pounds left him, all of which he lent to a friend, who disappeared ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... weeks, and the neophytes found that the dormitory initiations had been merely child's play. They had to account for every hour, and except for a brief time allowed every day for studying, they were kept busy making asses of themselves for the delectation of ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... simply child's play. It is mere waiting. If, for instance, at the trial Mrs. Brenton is found guilty, and sentenced, the one who is the guilty party is certain to betray himself or herself as soon as he or she is alone. If it be a man who hopes to marry Mrs. Brenton, he will be overcome ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... perfectly still; she was evidently mindful of the lesson she had received: at last, Adolphe started up from his position, walked a step or two into the middle of the room, thrust his right hand into his bosom; and said abruptly, "Agatha, this is child's play; we are deceiving each other; we are deceiving ourselves; we would appear to be calm when there is no calm ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... the trouble, Sahib. My brother who holds his land and works mine, outside Amritsar City, is a fool. He is older than I. He has done his service and got one wound out of it in what they used to call war—that child's play in the Tirah years ago. He thinks himself a soldier! But that is not his offence. He sends me postcards, Sahib—scores of postcards—whining about the drouth or the taxes, or the crops, or our servants' pilferings or some such trouble. He doesn't know what trouble means. I want ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... few questions in class. I watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... of land and sea forces, munitions and munition factories, railroad construction, food supplies and financial arrangements in the way of gold reserves and loans. The preparations for war which, in the world's history, had been made by Great Powers threatening the world's freedom, were as child's play to these preparations now made by Germany, and these which he had given were but a few illustrations of Germany's war preparations, for the more important of these were kept hidden by her from the rest of the world. ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... other, fought with such fury that by next morning not one was left alive! And then, as may be imagined, great were the rejoicings at Prince Victor's prowess. 'It was a mere trifle!' remarked that valiant little gentleman modestly; 'when a man can shoot a mosquito with a shuttle, everything else is child's play.' ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... day of her new life on the border. Her impressions had been so many, so varied, that she wanted to distinguish them. First she felt glad, with a sweet, warm thankfulness, that her father seemed so happy, so encouraged by the outlook. Breaking old ties had been, she knew, no child's play for him. She realized also that it had been done solely because there had been nothing left to offer her in the old home, and in a new one were hope and possibilities. Then she was relieved at getting away from the attentions of a man whose persistence had been most annoying to her. ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... touch of pathos. This had been a melancholy year with the Hebrews in the death of Miriam, Aaron and Moses. The manner in which this people were kept wandering up and down on the very verge of the land of Canaan because they were rebellious does seem like child's play. No wonder they were discouraged and murmured. It is difficult from the record to see that these people were any better fitted to enter the promised land at the end of forty years than when they first ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... from hearing the evidence against her. As for the charge of bewitching a pail so that it came running towards her of its own accord, she declared that she used as a child to roll a pail down-hill and to call it after her as she ran, a perfectly natural piece of child's play. Frances Dickonson, too, charged malice upon her accusers, especially upon the father of Edmund Robinson. Her husband, she said, had been unwilling to sell him a cow without surety and had so gained his ill-will. She went on to assert that the elder Robinson ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein |
