"Courting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... agitated; her glances were long and earnest, the pressure of her hand was full of affection, and yet they both acted before Fernanda as if she were already his affianced wife. And yet they had not uttered a word of love! But Luis knew he was not treating the lady he was courting fairly, and that he was acting criminally with regard to Don Pedro, his friend. He did not know how, or why, but his conscience told him that he was. Sometimes he tried to persuade himself that he had not taken ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... coming—but he did not wait for her, nor did he look back while she was following him all the way home. And next Sunday he too went to church, and after meeting he started for home alone and she followed alone. He had never made any effort to speak to her alone, nor did he venture the courting pleasantries of other men. Only in his telltale eyes was his silent story plain, and she knew it better than if he had put it into words. In spite of her certainty, however, she was a little resentful that Sunday morning, for his slender figure climbed doggedly ahead, and suddenly ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... long before I found that he was courting his present wife, and that she had been taken away to be out of his reach. I hated her then, quite as much as I hate her now; and naturally, therefore, could desire nothing better than that she should marry him. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... sitting at Coldback, the days did not go well. She was weary of the courting of Gizur, whom she played with as a cat plays with a rat, and her heart was sick with love, hate, and jealousy. For she well knew that Gudruda and Eric still clung to each other and found means of greeting, ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... sat a very weary woman, cradled between its hospitable roots, with her back turned on the workaday world and her face to the open country. This was her eyrie; and here, when another woman would have been shut into a darkened chamber courting sleep, came Kate Kildare on ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... young gentleman! Well, I see I must do all the courting. So consider that I sent for you this morning. I've got another letter for you to mail." She put her hand to her breast, and out of the pretty frillings of her frock produced, as before, with the same faint perfume of violets, a letter like the first. But it was unsealed. ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... Corner is as agreeable to a Girl, as to one of us, though we cannot so well dissemble our Desires as she can; but if we should once enter into a Confederacy against the Sex to leave off courting them, they would soon begin to act the Part of Lovers, and come a wooing ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... that Mr. Kingdon was a scamp, and was said to have a Spanish wife somewhere beyond seas. This was quite enough for James Halliday, who flew into a roaring rage at the notion of any man, most of all Lord Durnsville's brother, going to his house and courting his sister-in-law in secret. It was at Barngrave he was told this, one market-day, as he was lounging with his friends in the old yard of the Black Bull inn, where the corn exchange used to be held in those days. He called for his horse the next minute, and left the town at a ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... all this, why should it not be made to supersede all other policies that have been tried, and all those that are now courting public favor, but which, like the rest are based upon unrepublican economic laws, and must end, therefore, like the rest, in failure ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... with his tricks. He was a daft wee fellow for devilment, was your Uncle William, and yet he's sobered down remarkably. Sometimes, I think he got more romance out of his tormenting and nesting than I got out of my courting, though love's a grand thing, John, when you can get it. I was always falling in love, but sure what was the good? I never could be content with the way the girls talked about furniture and us setting up house together, when all the time I was wanting hard to be rescuing them from something. ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... dresses till they was twelve or fifteen years old. One fellar rode a mule or cow one the other to preaching. While he sit talking to his gal at the window a steer cone up and et off his dress tail. Boys got to courting before they got to take off their ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... to have a new kind of young people these days," the old gentleman returned, shaking his head. "It's a new style of courting a pretty girl, certainly, for a young fellow to go deliberately out of his way to try and make an enemy of her father by attacking his business! By Jove! That's a new way to ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... class are people who, having nothing to say, are cursed with a facility and an unhappy command of words, that makes them the prime nuisances of the society they affect. They try to cover their absence of matter by an unwholesome vitality of delivery. They look triumphantly round the room, as if courting applause, after a torrent of diluted truism. They talk in a circle, harping on the same dull round of argument, and returning again and again to the same remark with the same sprightliness, the same irritating ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... now found that Milton was not an unresisting sufferer of injuries; and, perceiving that he had begun to put his doctrine in practice, by courting a young woman of great accomplishments, the daughter of one doctor Davis, who was, however, not ready to comply, they resolved to endeavour a reunion. He went sometimes to the house of one Blackborough, his relation, in the lane of St. ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... a-courting when the woods were green. There were grapes in the air and birds in the river. A voice and a song went everywhere, and the voice said, "Where is my beloved?" and the song replied, "Thy beloved is awaiting thee, ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... machine helplessly, her thoughts, in spite of herself, recurring to Hugh Renwick, who must before long discover her absence and guess its cause. But there seemed no chance of escape. To open the door and leap forth into the road at this speed was only courting injury, and the calm appearance of Captain Leo Goritz seemed only the mask for a resoluteness of purpose with which she could not dare to cope. To cry out seemed equally futile for the road was deserted except for a few market wagons, the occupants of which were country ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... one heroic moment held our own, and then came reeling back from the shock. And, as I was carried down the hill with the retreating line, I saw the tall figure of Lord Stirling standing upright and alone amid the storm of bullets, courting death and disdaining ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... final; he gave up that road to service; and began once more to hang about the square or on the terrace, filled with remorse and love, admirable and idiotic, a fit object for the scorn and envy of older men. In these idle hours, while he was courting fortune for a sight of the beloved, it fell out naturally that he should observe the manners and appearance of such as came about the house. One person alone was the occasional visitor of the young lady: a man of considerable stature, and distinguished only by ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... song brought me to a standstill. It came from the bushes at the side of the trail. Although I turned aside and sought diligently, I could not find the shy lyrist. Another song of the same kind soon reached me from a distance. Farther down the path a white-crowned sparrow appeared, courting his mate. With crown-feathers and head and tail erect, he would glide to the top of a stone, then down into the grass where his lady-love sat; up and down, up and down he scuttled again and again. My approach put an end to the picturesque ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... has been and will again be chanted, that we, being a luxurious nation, must by force of good logical dependency be liable to many derivative taints and infirmities which ought of necessity to besiege the blood of nations in that predicament. All enterprise and spirit of adventure, all heroism and courting of danger for its own attractions, ought naturally to languish in a generation enervated by early habits of personal indulgence. Doubtless they ought; a priori, it seems strictly demonstrable that such consequences should follow. Upon the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... far from seeking the acquaintance for the sake of their situation in life, but that it was from real liking and esteem. How far this esteem was gained by the deference the whole family paid to his opinion, was another question; at any rate, the courting was from them. ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... what remaineth of Noot, and the wisdom of Noot—one little tooth! And yet that man had all life at his command, and for his conscience' sake would have none of it. Well, he lay there newly dead, and we descended whither I shall lead you, and then, gathering up all my courage, and courting death that I might perchance win so glorious a crown of life, I stepped into the flames, and behold! life such as ye can never know until ye feel it also, flowed into me, and I came forth undying, and lovely beyond imagining. ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... born in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1743. At the age of five, while his father was absent from home, courting his stepmother, he heroically extinguished a fire of blazing flax, which would otherwise have consumed the house, and while he was smarting from his burns was cruelly beaten by an elder brother, who misapprehended the case of the little boy, very much as the world did that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... no less than 30,000 bachelors in Montana, and every single one of them is in need of and anxious to get a wife, writes a correspondent of the New York Times. These entertaining young fellows and would-be benedicts have no time to go courting themselves, and so, much of that thing is done by proxy. They are entirely too busy amassing fortunes, either at sheep herding, cattle growing, or mining, in which at least fifty per cent of them are bound ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... should reign despotically in her heart! In order the better to maintain in him this humble attitude, she would at times read over with him the letters the great man had written to her when he was courting her. This return toward the past rejuvenated her some fifteen years, lent her the assurance of a handsome and beloved woman, seen through all the wild love and delightful exaggeration of written passion. That she since then had changed her ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... wrong. Perhaps I ought to have warned him earlier—said to him, "Father, Clive Timmis is courting me!" Ugh! He cannot bear to be surprised about anything. But yet he must have known.... It was all an accident, Clive—all an accident. He saw you leaving the shop yesterday. He would say he caught you leaving the ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Dingle. Really I shouldn't. You don't know what an ugly mood he's in. Something's been worrying him. It's what you might call courting disaster." ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... knowledge he possessed, any strong passion he felt, with amazing skill. At the very time when he seemed to be most frankly speaking his mind, when he made his honest strength appear as open as the day, as though scorning all concealment and courting inquiry into his motives, he was capable of completely hiding his real intentions, of professing ignorance in matters in which he was profoundly versed, of appearing to be as cold as stone when his heart was as hot as fire. He was a man of violent passions in love and hate, unforgetting and ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... hand of some daughter of Las Palomas? Ah! there was the true bond for future friendships. Well, well, if the soil of this rancho was so impoverished, then the sons of Las Palomas must take the bit in their teeth and come courting to Santa Maria. And let Dona Gregoria look well to her daughters, for the young men of Las Palomas, true to their race, were not only handsome fellows but ardent lovers, and ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... flirtation between the young people, he did not suspect it; but even as matters were, he was bitterly enraged against Harry, and would have strangled Richard out of hand if he could have got near him. It was evident to him that this fellow had been courting his daughter, though he knew she was plighted to another, and had wormed out of her the secret of his hoarded wealth. Six months ago she would not for her life have dared to tell what she knew he wished to hide; and now this young villain had wound himself so cunningly about ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... epistle from the Resident, on the 27th of June. Killigrew left Venice the same day as he was bound to do by ambassadorial etiquette; and Charles had not another recognized agent to the Republic until his restoration; for the Venetians definitely adopted the policy of courting Cromwell, in the vain hope that he would assist them ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... had a full score, Or more, And fortunes they all had galore, In store; From the minister down To the clerk of the crown, All were courting the Widow Malone, Ohone! All ...
— Old Ballads • Various
... containing the right degree—the true mean between too much, and too little. The law of the mesotes is illustrated by the following examples: Man has a fixed relation to pleasure and pain. In relation to pain, the true mean is found in neither fearing it nor courting it, and this is fortitude. In relation to pleasure, the true mean stands between greediness and indifference; this is temperance. The true mean between prodigality and narrowness is liberality; between simplicity and cunning is prudence; between suffering wrong ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... failure of his faith. On the other hand, he eulogized him in a most remarkable way. He spoke of his stability and firmness; John was not a reed shaken with the wind, he was not a self-indulgent man, courting ease and loving luxury; he was a man ready for any self-denial and hardship. Jesus added to this eulogy of John's qualities as a man, the statement that no greater soul than his had ever been born in this world. This was high praise indeed. It illustrates ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... when I want you I'll come for you. Tell your dear BELINDA that ANN BRUMMET, the poor relation, has got ahead of her on this heat. She didn't think, did she, when she was courting you, that she was only just getting you ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... not into temptation!" said his confessor to him in my hearing (for, though Prussians, the Von Harrelsteins were Roman Catholics), "lead us not into temptation!—that is our daily prayer to God. Then, my son, being led into temptation, do not you persist in courting, nay, almost tempting temptation. Try the effects of absence, though but for a month." The good father even made an overture toward imposing a penance upon him, that would have involved an absence of some duration. But he was obliged to desist; for he saw ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... with friends, and speculators need not fear any drop in stocks. Courting among the young will meet with happy consummation. The sacrifice or atonement of another for your waywardness, is portentous of the humiliation of self or friends through your open or secret disregard of duty. A woman after this dream ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... heart is frolicsome and free - (Hey, but he's doleful, willow, willow waly!) Nobody I care for comes a-courting me - Hey, willow waly O! Nobody I care for Comes a-courting - therefore, Hey, willow ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... and went out, wishing that Bayliss would do his own courting and not drag him into it. Bayliss, who didn't know one tune from another, certainly didn't want to go to this concert, and it was doubtful whether Enid Royce would care much about going. Gladys Farmer was the best musician in Frankfort, and she would ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... the acts of assassins (and also support the Holy Office) in their policy of burning English sailors as heretics. Santa Cruz reflected more deeply, and advised the King that such acts were positively courting disaster, because "the British corsairs had teeth, and ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... had on coming to Chicago, and had, apparently, thrown away four years of his life. Probably he attributed this mistake to the young doctor's ignorance of the world, due to the regrettable fact that Dr. Isaac Sommers had remained in Marion, Ohio, instead of courting cosmopolitan experiences in Chicago. When his grandchild came, he saw that Louise was entirely happy, and he was content. Neither Louise nor Sommers looked back into the past, or troubled themselves about the future. The practice which Dr. Knowles had left, if not lucrative, was ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... afforded protection, to a brood of Yellow-Hammers in its decayed heart. A week or two before the nesting seemed actually to have begun, three or four of these birds might be seen, on almost any bright morning, gambolling and courting amid its decayed branches. Sometimes you would hear only a gentle, persuasive cooing, or a quiet, confidential chattering,—then that long, loud call, taken up by first one, then another, as they sat about ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... overwhelming presence; the other was the strong instinctive shrinking, which was one of the most remarkable and certain marks of the beginners of the Oxford movement, from anything like personal display, any conscious aiming at the ornamental and brilliant, any show of gifts or courting of popular applause. Morbid and excessive or not, there can be no doubt of the stern self-containing severity which made them turn away, not only with fear, but with distaste and repugnance, from all that implied distinction or seemed to lead to honour; ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... immorality, and the very marrow in my bones seemed chilled at the thought thereof. I determined to spend my life fighting the evil. My first step was to solemnly pledge God to never marry a mulatto man. My next resolve was to part in every honorable way all courting couples of mulatto people that I could. My other and greatest task was to persuade the evil women of my race to cease their criminal conduct with white men and I went about pleading with them upon my knees to desist. I pointed out that such a course was wrong before God and was rapidly destroying ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... Taylor was a smart young sailor, Full of life and full of glee, And he went a courting Molly Nailor, A maiden fair of ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... returned Brookes, 'Mrs. Sergeant Simmons told me that it was courting cholera to go—and nothing short of it. I must say ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... reason given. While youth is mating time, it also is the time of bad judgment. Thousands of young people have made this dreadful mistake simply because they married too young. On the other hand, youth is not altogether to blame. When people, young or old, are courting, each individual endeavors to appear at his or her best before the other. Without being actually aware of it, under such circumstances both man and woman are doing all that lies in their power ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... seriously over her affairs. There were three paths open before her. She might take Mr Cheesacre, or she might take Captain Bellfield—or she might decide that she would have nothing more to say to either of them in the way of courting. They were very persistent, no doubt; but she thought that she would know how to make them understand her, if she should really make up her mind that she would have neither one nor the other. She was going to leave Norwich after ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... not fail to draw the eyes of the street passengers upon them, and elicit looks of admiration. So far from courting this, however, they seemed desirous of shunning it. The day was one of the finest, the atmosphere deliciously enjoyable, neither too warm nor too cold; other carriages were open, yet the hoods of theirs met overhead, and the glasses were up. Still, as these were not curtained ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... for the ethereal connections of the romantic imagination, although it would not be so for the historical. The whole courting scene, indeed, in the beginning of the third act, between the lovers, is a masterpiece; and the first dawn of disobedience in the mind of Miranda to the command of her father is very finely drawn, so as to seem the working ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... daughter, as, certes, she hath great need, if ever woman had. And Elliot is fain to meet her and devise with her about the Maid. And for you, you still need our nursing, and the sooner you win strength, the nearer you are to that which you would win. Still, I am sorry, lad, for I remember my courting days and the ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... Cranch, he preached to his people from Luke, tenth chapter, forty-second verse: "And Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her." When, a year later, young John Adams came courting the brilliant Abigail, the parish, which assumed a right to be heard on the question of the destiny of the minister's daughter, grimly objected. He was upright, singularly abstemious, studious; but he was ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... this instance, I cannot speak well of the dead," he said slowly. "I know too much of Spencer's past. He was not above courting the maid and the ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... shewing it to my old friend Mr Wilmot, as I made no doubt of receiving his approbation; but not till too late I discovered that he was most violently attached to the contrary opinion, and with good reason; for he was at that time actually courting a fourth wife. This, as may be expected, produced a dispute attended with some acrimony, which threatened to interrupt our intended alliance: but on the day before that appointed for the ceremony, we agreed to discuss the subject at large. It was managed ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... German policy of von Buelow, having failed in Rome, is courting failure in Bucharest. In fact, all the German promises to Rumania seem to go no further than sharpening the Rumanian appetite for Russian Bessarabia, while holding out as a last bait the cession of a small parcel of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... slavery to a fellow lawyer, he said: "It is the most glittering, ostentatious, and displaying property in the world; and now, if a young man goes courting, the only inquiry is how many negroes he or his lady love owns. The love of slave property is swallowing up every other mercenary possession. Its ownership betokened not only the possession of wealth, but indicated the gentleman of leisure who was ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... never fails to recognize a point. Indeed, in petticoats or in pantaloons, making a show of her "heart" in the publication of these letters to a gentleman whom she had treated with every species of contempt, obloquy, and insult, until she had made his home insupportable, or courting the wondering admiration of country bumpkins by unsexing herself for feats of horsemanship, or for other athletic diversions, she is always anxious to produce a sensation, anxious to stir up the gentle ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... place, I must beg leave to observe his great address in courting the Reader to his party. For, intending to assault all Poets both Ancient and Modern, he discovers not his whole Design at once; but seems only to aim at me, and attack me on my weakest ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... less particular when, in fairly favourable country, it is advisable to engage, without the intention of courting a decision, our object being only to annoy the enemy by sudden fire, disappearing again as soon as he retaliates, or when one is reasonably certain of success, as against inferior or ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... anything he asked her at a moment's notice. There was Frank himself, gay and debonnair: outwardly the lightest-hearted man in the company; inwardly, I have reason to know, tormented with misgivings and stung by self-reproach. Playing a double game—attached to one woman and courting another, despising himself thoroughly the while; hemmed in by difficulties and loaded with debt, hampered by a bad book on "The Two Thousand," and playing hide-and-seek even now with the Jews—Frank's real existence was very different from the one he showed ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... that John is courting Betty? I know he is. He went up to her the other day in the garden and put his hand on her shoulder, and when he thought no one was by he kissed her. I hid behind the hedge, and I had the greatest difficulty to keep back a shout ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... they did, and she watched them wink on, one by one, in the deepening darkness of the sky. She'd never been much of a one for the stars; most of her life she'd been much too busy on Earth to bother with things celestial. She could remember, when she was much younger and Bill was courting her, looking up at the moon sometimes; and once in a while, when a star fell, making a wish. But this was different. It was different because now she had a personal interest in the sky, a new affinity with ...
— Star Mother • Robert F. Young
... were now hospitals, others armories and arsenals; others offices for inspectors, superintendents, and civil officials. The few people that remained upon their properties, obtained partial immunity, by courting the acquaintance of Federal officers, and, in many cases, extending the hospitalities of their homes to the invaders. I do not know that any Federal functionary was accused of tyranny, or wantonness, but these things ensued, as the natural results of civil war; and one's sympathies ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... attunes my soul to song, awaking any muse from the silence in which she has long slumbered. But the voice of the coy maiden is less melodious than of yore: she shies me for my neglect: and despite the gentlest courting, refusing to breathe her divine spirit over a scene worthy of a sweeter strain. And this scene lay not upon the classic shores of the Hellespont—not in the famed valleys of Alp and Apennine—not by the romantic borders of the Rhine, but upon the banks of Mud Creek in the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... the other, and she leaped out of their range, swift and as supple as they. Instantly then she joined in the dance, with the snakes striking right and left at her. Left and right she swayed to avoid them, far more gracefully than a matador avoids the bull and courting a deadlier peril than he— poisonous, two to his one. As she danced she whirled both arms above her head and cried as the were-wolves are said to do on ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... Wemmick, "after being all of a heap for half an hour, struck out a plan. He mentioned to me as a secret, that he is courting a young lady who has, as no doubt you are aware, a bedridden Pa. Which Pa, having been in the Purser line of life, lies a-bed in a bow-window where he can see the ships sail up and down the river. You are acquainted with the young lady, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... he is tried. That is a proverb (at least if it is not it ought to be) which embraces much deep truth. The way in which David Boone set personal danger at defiance, and seemed to regard suffocation by smoke or roasting by fire as terminations of life worth courting, was astounding, and rendered his friends and neighbours ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... within twenty-four hours!" said Crevel. "But I am not altogether surprised, for he told me one evening at supper that when he was a young man he always had three mistresses on hand that he might not be left high and dry—the one he was giving over, the one in possession, and the one he was courting for a future emergency. He had some smart little work-woman in reserve, no doubt—in his fish-pond—his Parc-aux-cerfs! He is very Louis XV., is my gentleman. He is in luck to be so handsome!—However, ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... said Cameron, the smith, who was courting her while he mended the kitchen range. "They're foul as an Edinburgh fishwife—the new men. Go no place wi'out a Varian, two Varians, or one of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of endearment: thus Shakespeare, in Henry IV, represents the hostess calling her maid, Doll Tear-sheet, sweet-heart. It is now more restricted to lovers while courting.—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... helping him to the rest of his food, he ate the mackerel with his fingers. Finally, he soaked up the vinegar with bread, licked his finger-tips and turned towards me. "Yu'm in the courting chair, sir. That's where me an' Missis used to sit when we was courting, en' it, Annie? Du 'ee see how we've a-broke the arm? When yu gets a young lady, us'll lend 'ee thic chair. Didn' know as I'd got a little wife like thees yer, did ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... were courting a Maiden at the same time; the Rich man got the better of the birth and good looks of the Poor one. When the appointed day for the nuptials had arrived, the woe-begone Lover, because he could not endure his grief, betook himself to some gardens near at hand; ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... me get a wife. If you find a pretty one—one who may perhaps lend a sigh to my harmonies, do the courting for me. But she must be beautiful; I cannot love anything that is not beautiful; if I could, I should fall in love ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... sweetness, some charm that I saw would weave itself into the very fibre of my I had been! Was I not now a fool? Would it not being if the opportunity were given. Oh, fool that be better to let her go before she had become a part of my daily experience? I began to fear I was courting my own shipwreck. She read ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... devotion, to carry through so difficult a game. Mertoun falters and stammers in his suit to Tresham; Mildred stands mute at her brother's charge, incapable of evasion, only resolute not to betray. Yet these same two children in the arts of politic self-defence are found recklessly courting the peril of midnight meetings in Mildred's chamber with the aid of all the approved resources and ruses of romance—the disguise, the convenient tree, the signal set in the window, the lover's serenade. And when the lover, who dared all risks to his lady and to himself for a stolen ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... in 8vo. under the title of Castara: they are divided into three parts under different titles, suitable to their subject. The first, which was written when he was courting his wife, Lucia, the beautiful daughter of William Lord Powis, is introduced by a character, written in prose, of a mistress. The second are copies to her after marriage, by the character of a wife; after which is a character of a friend, before several funeral elegies. The third part ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... said Gudu; 'I am going courting, and you must come with me. So put some food in a bag, and sling it round your neck, for we may not be able to find anything to eat ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... studied men and affairs, Mme. du Chatelet studied books. One was mistress of the arts of diplomacy, gentle but intriguing, ambitious, always courting society and shunning solitude. The other was violent and imperious, hated finesse, and preferred burying herself among the rare treasures of her ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... hope he never comes here again. When he really got it through his head that you had fallen into a fortune the old beast looked at you as if he could eat you, mother. If he ever comes courting around here I'll be tempted to do something desperate, the old skinflint. He's the worst-hated man in all Riverview, even if he is the richest," declared Dick, as he heard the vehicle moving down the road with sundry creakings and groanings, ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... every true man's heart Is full of sadness for the grievous wrongs We suffer from our tyrants. Thou alone Art all unmoved amid the general grief. Abandoning thy friends, thou takest thy stand Beside thy country's foes, and, as in scorn Of our distress, pursuest giddy joys, Courting the smiles of princes, all the while Thy country bleeds beneath ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... slowed; he stopped; he paltered Awhile with self, and faltered, "Why courting misadventure shoreward roam? To Molly, surely! Seek the woods with her till times have altered; ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... Friend Sir ROGER, who I dare say never read this Passage in Plato, told me some time since, that upon his courting the Perverse Widow (of whom I have given an Account in former Papers) he had disposed of an hundred Acres in a Diamond-Ring, which he would have presented her with, had she thought fit to accept it; and that upon her Wedding-Day she ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... remarks were put by Selma in the slightly interrogative form, as though she were courting any argument to the contrary which could be adduced in order to knock it in the head. But Lyons saw no reason to differ from her verdict. "It means necessarily great mortification for them and a ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... flowers in sight,—for these are planted between the palms;—it has a deep piazza in front, and the first door opens into one large room, with sleeping-apartments on either side. Opposite this door is another, opening upon the court behind the house, and between the two our chairs are placed, courting the draught.—N.B. In Cuba, no one shuns a draught; you ride, drive, sit, and sleep in one, and, unless you are a Cuban, never take cold. The floor of this principal room is merely of clay, rubbed with a red ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... payment of dividends seems to have been suspended for three years only, and that after the Terror, from 1794 to 1797. In 1792, when the Girondins and the Jacobins were tearing France to pieces between them, and courting foreign invasion as a stimulus to domestic anarchy, the works were stopped for a time in Paris, at Tour-la-ville and at St.-Gobain, but only for a time. The very able director of the company, M. Deslandes, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... the time when Jonah was drawing near to the Parsonage, he was getting ready for a party at a neighbouring landowner's to meet an engineer from Warsaw who would have the latest news and be entertained exceptionally well, for he was courting the landowner's daughter. The priest was longing feverishly for the moment of departure, for lie had been left to himself for several days. He could hardly bear the look of his snow-covered courtyard any ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... accusing conscience—longing for deliverance from themselves, since in themselves they carry the executioner of broken law. Hear them crying out for waters of Lethe to drown the sting of memory. Again see them courting death in the vain hope of finding deliverance from their shame. But death will bring no deliverance to the impenitent. Behold Dives: "Son, remember!" There are no waters of Lethe. There is only one way of ...
— Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn • George Tybout Purves
... tendency to self-will. He was a 'great enemy' to all 'vain amusements;' and even after his children had grown up, he enforced their abstinence from such 'pernicious practice,' and never allowed them to be out after nine at night. Any gentleman, we are happy to add, was given proper opportunities for courting his daughters after consulting their parents, but on condition of conforming strictly to the family regulations (i. 52, 53). This Puritan discipline appears to have succeeded with Edwards' own family; but a gentleman with ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... a queer flash of spiritual insight which was foreign to her usual simple vision, that her death would bring Owen only a great sorrow; and in her darkest moments she never dreamed of courting death. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... answered the glover. "My daughter is not courting you any more than I am—a fair offer is no cause offend; only if you think that I will give in to her foolish notions of a convent, take it with you that I will never listen to them. I love and honour the church," he said, crossing himself, "I pay her rights duly and cheerfully—tithes and alms, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... so far advanced that the finishing stroke only is wanting. Applied to a man who is courting a widow or spinster already in ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... his arm around Olive). Give me but one kiss, Olive, albeit not a courting night, for good speed on my homeward walk and my ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... find the priests courting the women. They act thus, not because they despise men, or fear them, but because they (often unconsciously) feel that when they have captured the "weaker" sex, the other becomes a speedy prey. Perhaps a dim perception of this truth hovered in ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... ways. It never happened in our day that a Jewish maiden, no matter what class she belonged to, should throw herself at a young Gentile, and tell him, "Now, I am ready to leave my faith and my people, if you will marry me." In our day there never was a case of apostasy except after a good deal of courting. No Jewish girl ever left her faith, unless there was a proposal of marriage accompanied by much coaxing. It required a great deal of coaxing and enticing on the part of the man. Only extravagant promises ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... both twins met the lady together for the first time, and fell in love with her there and then. A managed to see her home and to gain her affection, though B went sometimes courting in his place, and neither the lady nor her parents ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... 'tis nine o'clock, and 'tis not a courting night. Paul, be off; thou must! [They jump up and go ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... whom he had rescued until, in mid-stream, the shawl which had been over his wife's head and shoulders slipped and disclosed her face. Joy did not cause the Polish captain to lose his wits, but made him more careful of his precious burden. He had been in a reckless mood, courting death in fact, during the last quarter of an hour of the fight, but now he was anxious to live. It would indeed be sad, he thought, if now, when safety was almost reached, a shot should lay him, or still worse, ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... Maggie must needs give in; and it was well understood, though nothing definite had been said, that the boy and girl were courting. And in the Dale the unanimous opinion was that the young couple would ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... all this preaching," resumes Bottinius, "but a way of courting fame? The inflation of it! and the spite! and the Molinism! As its first pleasant consequence, Gomez, who had intended to appeal from the absurd decision of the Court, declines to ask the lawyers for farther help.[29] There is an end of ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Sparking, Courting, and Love-making made easy with these cards. They are arranged with such apt conversation that you will be able to find out whether a girl loves you or not without her even thinking that you are ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... the young lady was at home. Oh! them were blithe times, when young Lord Hope came a courting, and we could see them driving like turtle doves through the park and down the village; or, walking along by the hedges and gathering hyacinths and violets. It was a sorry time, though, when he took her ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... Proteus was courting Silvia, and he was so much ashamed of being caught by his friend, that he was all at once seized with penitence and remorse; and he expressed such a lively sorrow for the injuries he had done to Valentine, that Valentine, whose nature was noble and generous, even to ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... airily; "a girl should have something masculine to talk to on a morning like this. Failing that she should have some pleasant memories of indiscretions past and others to come, D.V.; at least one little souvenir to repent—smilingly. Oh, la! Oh, me! All these wretched birds a-courting and I bumping along on Dobbin, lacking even my own Gilpin! Shall ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... purpose, and seldom abstains till he comes to a thirst. His discretion is to be careful for his master's credit, and his sufficiency to marshal dishes at a table, and to carve well; his neatness consists much in his hair and outward linen; his courting language, visible coarse jests; and against his matter fail, he is always ready furnished with a song. His inheritance is the chambermaid, but often purchaseth his master's daughter, by reason of opportunity, or for want of a better, he always cuckolds himself, and never marries but ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... you, and so does my Italian coat. It seems to me that you smell of gallantry. I can scent it from here; and they say here, that when you go courting, you pretend to be no more than 25 years old. Oh, yes! Multiply that and I'll believe it. My friend, there 's a devil of a lot of Italians here who are just like you. I ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer
... investigation was pending he was pained by a letter from Sir Thomas Hastings, not unkind in itself, but showing that his real motives for courting that investigation were not understood. "I made a communication to-day," wrote Sir Thomas on the 27th of November, 1846, "that the commission had entered on its duties, and received instructions to inform you that it would be desirable, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... fatigue is encroaching, everything is spoilt. Madame de Vaudremont never committed the blunder of remaining at a party to be seen with drooping flowers, hair out of curl, tumbled frills, and a face like every other that sleep is courting—not always without success. She took good care not to let her beauty be seen drowsy, as her rivals did; she was so clever as to keep up her reputation for smartness by always leaving a ballroom in brilliant order, as she had entered it. Women whispered ...
— Domestic Peace • Honore de Balzac
... as it is, stains your hands. Not even a god should treat your sister with such contempt—should insult her as he has done—and go unpunished! Another has already met the same fate, as you know—Eustorgos, Hipparchon of Bithynia, who, while he seemed to be dying of love for me, was courting Kallistrata my lady in waiting; and the wild beasts and serpents exercised their dark arts on him too. Eulaeus' intelligence has fallen on you, who are powerful, like a cold hand on your heart; in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... unrestrained laugh, for the bird-lover was keen about his courting, while evidently his mate was diffident. When he approached too boisterously, she relieved him of a goodly tuft of feathers and sent him backward in a series of squirmy little jumps that gave the boy an idea of what had happened up-sky ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... however, was nearer than any of them was now inclined to imagine. A rapid run along the main road through Yonkers brought them to Hastings and the bank of the Hudson River. The comparatively level grades of New York were replaced by hilly ground, and if they would avoid courting observation beyond any doubt of error it was essential that the gray car should be allowed greater latitude. In fact, it was almost demonstrable that an alert criminal like the man they were pursuing—if he really were the ally of Hunter's slayers—could hardly have failed ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... mortal good to I; 'e gied I his blessing and 'e write and give I all the news of the parish. He warnt much of a preacher though a did say 'Dearly beloved' in church in a very taking way as though he were a-courting." ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... seat to fetch her a glass of anisette. She drew her chair up to the table. Whilst she was sipping her anisette, a recollection suddenly flashed across her mind, she remembered the plum she had taken with Coupeau, near the door, in the old days, when he was courting her. At that time, she used to leave the juice of fruits preserved in brandy. And now, here was she going back to liqueurs. Oh! she knew herself well, she had not two thimblefuls of will. One would only have ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... it is necessary to remove another victim, he runs his own brother through the body and drives his mother to madness. Yet, in the midst of these crimes, we are unable to regard him as a simple cut-throat. His irony and reckless courting of damnation open-eyed to get his gust of life in this world, make him no common villain. He can be brave as well as fierce. When the Duke insults him he bandies taunt ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... He was swimming now, arm over arm, straight out seaward. I saw the lifted hands between the crest and the trough. For a moment I hesitated whether I ought to strip and follow him. Was he doing as so many others of his house had done—courting death from the water? ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... pocket. If I had found it in time, I would have put it in her coffin.' 'But why?' I asked. 'Do tell me the story about it, if you know it.' 'I know it quite well, for she told me all about it once. It is the shoe of a favourite mare of my father's—one he used to ride when he went courting my mother. My grandfather did not like to have a young man coming about the house, and so he came after the old folks were gone to bed. But he had a long way to come, and he rode that mare. She had to go over some stones to get to the stable, and ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... mistress, of course," replied Julien, sarcastically, "from what you said to me, there is no scarcity here of girls inclined to be good-natured, and you have only the trouble of choosing among them. I supposed you were courting some woodman's young daughter, or some pretty ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... dialect was straight and strong, and his peculiar dandyism very funny. His hair used to be combed behind his ears, he wore a broad, flat cap cocked to one side, and his ears were adorned with light drops of gold or silver; and when he went forth to do his courting he seemed to be vastly puzzled as to the form his walk should take. Alas! all this has passed away, and our eyes shall see it never more; but the fascination of it is fixed in one's memory, and it is pleasant to ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... she can't endure him, they are quarrelling half the time when together. No, it is very evident that Stryker is courting Miss Wyllys's favour. But I confess I feel encouraged by her conduct towards him; there is a quiet civility in it, which speaks anything but ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Darkmans, "ho! When Joe Wrench was hanged for shooting the lord's keeper, and he mounted the scaffold wid a nosegay in his hand, he said, in a peevish voice, says he: 'Why does not they give me a tarnation? I always loved them sort o' flowers,—I wore them when I went a courting Bess Lucas,—an' I would like to die with one in my hand!' So a man may like flowers, and be but a hempen ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which this human plant had been reared, and saw more danger ahead. She feared the young man was but amusing himself, or at best enjoying Hester's company as some wary winged thing enjoys the flame, courting a few singes, not quite avoiding even a slight plumous conflagration, but careful not to turn a delightful imagination into a consuming reality, beyond retreat and self-recovery. She could not believe him as careless of himself as of her, but judged ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... Though from a conviction of the benefit of subordination[947] to society, he has always shewn great respect to persons of high rank, when he happened to be in their company, yet his pride of character has ever made him guard against any appearance of courting the great. Besides, he was impatient to go to Glasgow, where he expected letters. At the same time he was, I believe, secretly not unwilling to have attention paid him by so great a Chieftain, and so exalted a nobleman. He insisted that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... very pleasant thing, then, to have an epidemic of typhoid break out in the town that kept me going so that I hardly had time for the courting that a fellow wants to carry on with his sweetheart while he is still young enough to call her his girl. I fumed, but duty was duty, and I kept to my work night and day. It was now that Jube proved how invaluable he was as a coadjutor. He not only took messages ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... ladies of St. James's Go swinging to the play; Their footmen run before them With a "Stand by! Clear the way!" But Phyllida, my Phyllida! She takes her buckled shoon. When we go out a-courting Beneath ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... happily paired before the Bridge is reached. But generally the movement is in couples. Appointments, dating from the previous night, have filled the streets with happy and careless boys and girls—they are not exactly courting, they are enjoying the excitement of fresh acquaintance; old conversation is here poured into new bottles, old jokes have the freshness of infancy, every one is animated, and polite to no one but his partner; the people they meet ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... Pearl that-a-way, Sadie." Mrs. Thomas's eyes filled with ready tears. "It ain't manners. I wouldn't have come with her, Miss Gallito, but I got to see pretty plain that the gentleman," here she blushed and bridled, "that was courting me was awful anxious to get hold of the money and the cabin that my last husband, in his grave 'most six months now, left me." She wiped the tears from her eyes on the back of her hand, a movement hampered somewhat by the fact that her handkerchief ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... greets you and my Italian coat also. It strikes me that there is an odour of gallantry about you; I can scent it out even at this distance; and they tell me here that when you go a-courting you pretend not to be more than twenty-five years old—oh, yes! double that and I'll believe it. My friend, there are so many Italians here who look exactly like you; I ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... that Mose Williams, Judge LeMonde's most faithful negro servant, was attending to an affair of his own that Sunday evening not strictly demanded by his obligations to his master. In other words, he was courting a sprightly and good-looking quadroon girl, by name Euphemia Jackson ("Femy" for short). This buxom lass was a house servant on a plantation situated about five miles from Judge LeMonde's. What were five miles to a lusty young negro fellow who had a good pair ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... he said, meaning Salthenius, who was only an undergraduate when he committed that indiscretion, "how did he know what company he was courting?" ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... time I ever envy a mortal is when I see a regular beauty enter a large assembly. Oh, the triumph of that moment! Every eye turned upon her; murmurs of admiration, not unmixed with envy, greeting her as she sweeps along; everyone courting her acquaintance; a word, a smile of hers more valued than a pearl or a ruby. A sort of queen of Nature's own making, reigning royally in undisputed sway, let her circumstances of life be what they may! Look how mean the richest woman who is ugly looks by the side of her! No no, dear ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... Unionist with Lincoln, was now a fatal weakness in his position. Under Stoneman's assaults he became at once an executive without a party, and every word of amnesty and pardon he proclaimed for the South in accordance with Lincoln's plan was denounced as the act of a renegade courting favour ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... by a member of the Hounslow Burial Committee of courting couples occupying seats in the cemetery. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... brilliancy to the Nile and Trafalgar, to New Orleans and Mobile Bay. A modern torpedo line would not leave the gap by which Farragut first meant to profit, nor would it be crossed with the impunity he found; nor could Nelson in his day, without courting destruction, have used against a thoroughly efficient enemy the tactics that admirably suited the conditions in Aboukir Bay and off Cape Trafalgar. But these considerations do not diminish the credit of either admiral, though they help to explain the fullness of ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... of reading is done; there are sure to be one or two on board who know how to spin a yarn with due effect; some are musical, and others can sing. Concerts, lectures, theatricals, and dances are got up; while, as there is generally a due admixture of the sexes, not a little flirting and downright courting is carried on; and, lastly, if there is any quarrelling and bickering, the differences of those who engage in it afford much amusement to ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... four years ago—the same year that I took over the farm—I was courting Brita of Bergskog.' 'Let me see'— says father, 'do any of our folks live at Bergskog?' He seems to have lost all remembrance of how things are down on earth. 'No, but they are well-to-do people, and you must surely remember that Brita's father is a member of Parliament?' 'Yes, of course; ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... disappearance and probable suicide of his mother. The dead man's sister cries out: "Everything that was his is sacred to us, but the one living being who meant more to him than all of us is driven out of our home." The one ray of light offered is that the sister sees through the man who has been courting her and sends him packing. It is noticeable in this play, as in others written by Schnitzler, that the attitude of the women is more sensible and tolerant than ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... very decent about it though, and seemed really interested in the information. Yesterday afternoon I repeated this exploit, following another trail, and I went so far that I came clear up to the German barbed wire, where I left a card with my name. It was very thrilling work, "courting destruction with taunts, with invitations" as Whitman would say. I have never been in a sector like this, where patrols could be made in daylight. Here the deep forest permits it. It also greatly facilitates ambushes, for one must keep ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... difficult to see how success could ever have been hoped for. On the other hand it could hardly be supposed that all those who followed the fortunes of the golden cross were fools, acting upon sudden impulse, courting disaster. They must have had some reason for believing that the token would receive some consideration from the brigands and those who had gathered to their standard. Possibly they had themselves been deceived, even as they had attempted to deceive. Ellerey could ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... to come, dear girl, I will not gainsay you. But what thinks your chief about his darling courting all these dangers?" ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... these tributaries, and at last reached the Murchison itself; a river with a deep-cut channel, but perfectly dry. Beyond this their efforts were in vain, they fought their way to within a hundred miles of Shark's Bay, but they had then been so long without water that it was courting certain death to proceed. Even during the retreat to the Murchison the lives of the horses were only saved by the party accidentally finding a small native well in a most unexpected situation, namely, in the middle of a bare ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... alluded to in these pages as the only man Miss Leech had ever loved, and his history was of absorbing interest to Letty, who never tired of hearing his first appearance on Miss Leech's horizon described, with his subsequent advances before the stage of open courting was reached, the courting itself, and its melancholy end; for Mr. Jessup, a clergyman of the Church of England, with a vicarage all ready to receive his wife, had suddenly become a prey to new convictions, and had gone over to the Church of Rome; whereupon ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... too magnanimous to harbor any cynical conjecture that the timber-merchant, in his intense affection for Grace, was courting him now because that young lady, when disunited, would be left in an anomalous position, to escape which a bad husband was better than none. He felt quite sure that his old friend was simply on tenterhooks of ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... there seemed always to be some merry doing or other going on there. Arty and Tom brought home their college friends, who straightway took root there and seemed to fancy themselves a part of us. We had no reception-rooms apart, where the girls were to receive young gentlemen; all the courting and flirting that were to be done had for their arena the ample variety of surface presented by our parlor, which, with sofas and screens and lounges and recesses and writing-and work-tables disposed here and there, and the genuine laisser aller of the whole menage, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... aside, and gave him to understand, confidentially, that it was quite true about the uncommonly handsome spinster, and that she was to the full as good-looking as she had been described—more so, indeed—but that she was in too much of a hurry to change her condition, and consequently, while Tim was courting her and thinking of changing his, got married to somebody else. 'After all, I dare say it was my fault,' said Tim. 'I'll show you a print I have got upstairs, one of these days. It cost me five-and-twenty shillings. I bought it soon after we were cool to ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... crushing, and exhaustion of bodily strength which they had been forced to undergo—we say, that the comforts and refreshments to be had in the tents were very seasonable. Here the dancing, shouting, singing, courting, drinking, and fighting, formed one wild uproar of noise, that was perfectly astounding. The leading boys and the prettiest girls of the parish were all present, partaking in the rustic revelry. Tipsy men ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... was almost as flushed and bright-eyed over the expected caller as Lydia, finally squelched Amos with the remark, "For the land's sake, Amos, you talk like an old man instead of a man still forty who ought to remember his own courting days!" ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... of the animal. It was Hans. His arms were still bound, but he kept leaping about, utterly fearless of the elephants before him. I hesitated for a moment, when the thought struck me,—should I kill the elephant, I might save the life of the unhappy being who seemed to be courting his fate. I pulled the trigger. I could hear the ball strike, but what was my horror to see the animal rush forward, and the next moment trample Hans Scarff beneath his feet. A single shriek escaped the miserable man, and then all was silent. Excited as I was, ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... sir, you shall never need to go to a hot-house, you shall sweat there with courting your mistress, or losing your money at primero, as well as in all the stoves in Sweden. Marry, this, sir, you must ever be sure to carry a good strong perfume about you, that your mistress's dog may smell you out amongst the rest; and, in making love to her, never ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... ado. Then, too, vanity fled unsatisfied from these houses where there was no semblance of resistance; there was no victory, no hoped for preference, nor even largess obtained from the tradeswoman who measured her caresses according to the price. On the contrary, the courting of a girl of the cafes stimulated all the susceptibilities of love, all the refinements of sentiment. One disputed with the others for such a girl, and those to whom she granted a rendezvous, in consideration of much money, were sincere ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... as those of men, though he had passed little of his time in their society—he saw Miss Milner's heart at the first view of her person; and beholding in that little circumference a weight of folly that he wished to eradicate, he began to toil in the vineyard, eagerly courting her detestation of him, in the hope he could also make her abominate herself. In the mortifications of slight he was expert; and being a man of talents, whom all companies, especially her friends, respected, he did not begin by wasting ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... idea of a wooden leg is realized in the "peg" of the Greenwich pensioner. This humble contrivance has done excellent service in its time, and may serve a good purpose still in some cases. A plain working-man, who has outlived his courting-days and need not sacrifice much to personal appearance, may find an honest, old-fashioned wooden leg, cheap, lasting, requiring no repairs, the best thing for his purpose. In higher social positions, and at an age when appearances are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... that he has anything to bless himself with except the roll of bank-notes that he has just produced from his breast-pocket. One and all, the players are levelled by the invisible presence of the goddess they are courting. Well, the visible presence of the judge in a court of law oppresses us with a yet keener sense of lowliness and obliteration. He crouches over us, visible symbol of the majesty of the law, and we wilt to nothingness beneath him. And when I say 'him' I ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... Van was courting disaster by the very defiance of his attitude. It seemed as if nothing could save him, when ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... up to the Cuif and pretending to pick a bit of heather off his courting coat. She did this with a caressing touch which soothed the widower, and made him wish that Meg would do the like. He began to think that he had never ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... necessary to sing at all—a little less boisterously. Tom Teeter was in the study with Mr. Gordon, and, to show her indifference, Sarah Emily was calling forth loud and clear the chronicles of all those "finest young gents that ever were seen," who had come a-courting ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... the woodland wild, The sound of courting birds that sing, Are sweeter music to this child ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... this kind of war, and the character of the enemy, or another place will become more celebrated than the Trasimenus by our disaster. Neither is this the season for boasting while I am addressing one man; and besides, I have exceeded the bounds of moderation in despising rather than in courting fame. But the case is really this. The only way of conducting the war against Hannibal is that which I adopted: nor does the event only, that instructor of fools, demonstrate it, but that same reasoning which has continued hitherto, and will continue unchangeable ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... a touch of the trade this very night, if you please. But where shall we begin? Let's see, now. Why, there's old mother Rose's haunt up the great road here, where, I do think, she must hatch out tories, same as a hen does chickens, they are so thick about there. Then there's Josh Rose courting that up and a coming sort of girl you saw at Howard's t'other day, when you called with Harry for a drink of water. Now wouldn't the fellow be apt to let out secrets there that we could get hold of, and put us on some good scent? Ah! that's it; so now up the river for Howard's, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... merely for opposition's sake. Their comparatively undilapidated revenue, the connexion of their system with the state, with views of ambition as ample as the station of a churchman ought to command, rendered them independent of the necessity of courting their flocks by any means save regular discharge of their duty; and the excellent provisions made for their education afforded them learning to confute ignorance ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... to their acclamations, and he thought he saw the possibility of turning to account the attachment which the people evinced for him. On his return to the Palace some prudent persons ventured to represent to him that, instead of courting this absurd sort of popularity it would be more advisable to rely on the nobility and the higher classes of society. "Gentlemen," replied he, "you may say what you please, but in the situation in which I stand my only nobility is the rabble of the faubourgs, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... bread has made many heavy hearts, given rise to dyspepsia—horrid dyspepsia—and its herd of accompanying torments. Girls who desire that their husbands should be amiable and kind, should learn how to make good bread. When a young man is courting, he can live well at home; or, if he has to go a distance to pay his addresses, he usually obtains good meals at an hotel or an eating-house; but when he is married and gets to housekeeping, his wife assumes the functions of his mother or his landlord, ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... myself, young Myrtale, slave-born and lacking graces, And wilder than the Adrian tides which form Calabrian bays, Entangled me in pleasing chains and compromising ways, When—just my luck—a better girl was courting my embraces. ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... shaking her head. "He is too busy courting Miss Perseverance to trouble his head about me. ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... Protheus was courting Silvia, and he was so much ashamed of being caught by his friend, that he was all at once seized with penitence and remorse; and he expressed such a lively sorrow for the injuries he had done to Valentine, that Valentine, whose nature was noble ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... me leave him, no I assure you I had grown accustomed to it, and I repeat it was he who sent me away. He trampled on my self-esteem; he told me that he no longer loved me; that I must get another lover. He even went so far as to indicate a young man who was courting me, and by his taunts, he served to bring me and this young man together. I went with him as much out of spite as from necessity, for I did not love him. You know very well yourself that I do not care for such very young ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... shades of red and realized that he had struck the biggest snag he'd ever struck in any courting career, past or present. He laughed violently for a second or two, tried to hang his hat on both knees at the same time, and finally sank his voice to a ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... question of time," he thought, "and at present mother can do the courting better than I can. When I return Lou will be so desperately bored by her stupid life here as to be ready ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... not fear to take a deer From forest, park, or lawn; And without courting lord or duke, Used ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... after Sandy's tempestuous courting, Tessibel Skinner and her son left Ithaca to spend the remaining part of the summer in the North Woods. In September Young joined them for a few days and then brought them back to the hillside ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White |
