"Plaything" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... yours!" She had replied seriously, and almost threateningly: "Very well; I accept it!" These words now resounded in his ears like a verdict. He promised himself to play a sure game with Madame Desvarennes. As to Cayrol, he was out of the question; he had only been created as a plaything for princes such as Serge; his destiny was written on his forehead, and he could not escape. If it had not been Panine, some one else would have done the same thing for him. Besides, how could that ex-cowherd expect to keep such a woman as Jeanne was to ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... have been long at work within us, but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently without sufficient cause. It was so with Flemming; and from that hour forth he resolved, that he would no longer veer with every shifting wind of circumstance; no longer be a child's plaything in the hands of Fate, which we ourselves do make or mar. He resolved henceforward not to lean on others; but to walk self-confident and self-possessed; no longer to waste his years in vain regrets, nor wait ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... hope was dashed to the ground, and Reginald Pole was sent back to his monastery at Dhilinghen like a child unfit to be trusted with a dangerous plaything. In times of trial his pen was his refuge, and in an appeal to Philip he poured out ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... who had occasion for the exercise of admiration in these business consultations. Somewhat to his surprise, Mr. Carlisle found that his quondam fair mistress was good for much more than a plaything. With the quick wit of a woman she joined a patience of investigation, an independent strength of judgment, a clearness of rational vision, that fairly met him and obliged him to be the best man he could in the business. He could not get her into a sophistical ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... stealthy delight which was a new sensation to him. The few young girls whom he had met with, in his father's narrow circle at Zurich, had felt a mischievous pleasure in treating him like a quaint little plaything; the strongest impression he could make on their hearts was an impression in which their lap-dogs might have rivaled him; the deepest interest he could create in them was the interest they might have felt in a new trinket or a new dress. The only women who had hitherto invited ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... inhabit them? A transient semblance, a delusion of the senses! And yet, I am conscious that I miss just those houses which happen to stand, in Berlin and that I feel an unspeakable longing for the phantom called Dr. Schrotter. Once again it has been proved to me that I am an unconscious plaything in the hands of unknown powers, for again, as more than once in my life, and always at decisive moments, some outside agency has interfered in my fate, and disposed of me contrary to my own intentions, by sending me out of Berlin and away from you. But, nevertheless, my appreciation ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... gale that it had plucked the hapless steamer out of the jaws of the sucking sand, and flung her, like a plaything, into the breakers beyond. The Miami slowed down, her first pause in that awful race, which was ending in the maze of the Diamond Shoals, with waves breaking on every side and ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... dawn, do some remnants of affection yet remain mine, and is her memorial kiss warm upon my cold picture? has she tears for bedfellows, and does she clasp to her bosom and kiss a deluding dream of me? or has she some other new love, a new plaything? Never, O lamp, look thou on that, but be guardian of her whom ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... would indulge him too, and would reply 'What? why, Charoba!' raised with sweet surprise, And proud to shine a teacher in her turn. Show her the graven sceptre; what its use? 'Twas to beat dogs with, and to gather flies. She thought the crown a plaything to amuse Herself, and not the people, for she thought Who mimic infant words might infant toys: But while she watched grave elders look with awe On such a bauble, she withheld her breath; She was afraid her parents should suspect They had caught childhood ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... her hands, and not thinking what I was about, gathered them up into a ball. Suddenly she saw what I had done, and instead of scolding me for spoiling her pretty chains, which I richly deserved, was delighted to find I had twisted them into a new plaything. She ran off with the ball, tossing it about till, excited with her own joy, she got to the brow of the hill, and ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... news that my sister would be pledged to spend her life as the companion, or, more properly speaking, the plaything, of a man who had so little delicacy of mind, so little self-respect, as to have allowed his feelings (for that he was attached to Fanny, as far as he was capable of forming a real attachment, I could not for ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... fancies which hitherto I had only smiled at. But now, somehow—perhaps because there might have been some excuse for this one—perhaps because what a man rescues he will not willingly leave to another—even such a poor young thing as this plaything of the camp—for either of these reasons, or for none at all, this ogling of ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... series of rebuffs slowly forced the truth in upon Sanders's mind that the business world refused to accept the telephone as an article of commerce. It was a toy, a plaything, a scientific wonder, but not a necessity to be bought and used for ordinary purposes by ordinary people. Capitalists treated it exactly as they treated the Atlantic Cable project when Cyrus Field visited Boston in 1862. They admired and marvelled; ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... his father's residence. He arrived at an awkward time. Mr. Blake, the elder, was up to his eyes in the business of the House of Commons, and was amusing himself at home that night with the favourite parliamentary plaything which they call "a private bill." Mr. Jeffco himself showed Mr. Franklin into his father's study. "My dear Franklin! why do you surprise me in this way? Anything wrong?" "Yes; something wrong with Rachel; I am dreadfully distressed about ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... ruled conversation and talked excellently on Greek and Latin literature; and, when poetry laid siege to a maiden's heart, the beleaguered fortress not seldom surrendered likewise in graceful verses. Rhythms became more and more the fashionable plaything of the big children of both sexes; poetical epistles, joint poetical exercises and competitions among good friends, were of common occurrence, and towards the end of this epoch institutions were already opened in the capital, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... complacently resigned his bewitching young wife to be the plaything of Don Francesco de' Medici, he also yielded up the guardianship of his little daughter, Pellegrina, and she lived with her mother in the private mansion Bianca had received from the Prince near the ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... the King's child went out into the forest and sat down by the side of the cool fountain, and when she was dull she took a golden ball and threw it up high and caught it, and this ball was her favorite plaything. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... for it hereafter. But that is no matter. They snatch a joy beyond the reach of fate, and consider the present time sacred, inviolable, unaccountable to that hard, churlish, niggard, inexorable taskmaster, the future. Now or never is their motto. They are madly devoted to the plaything, the ruling passion of the moment. What is to happen to them a week hence is as if it were to happen to them a thousand years hence. They put off the consideration for another day, and their heedless unconcern laughs at it as a fable. Their life is 'a cell of ignorance, travelling ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... wild Best befit a thoughtless child, A solid wall, an earthen floor, Prison lights, a padlock'd door, Where's no plaything which he may Turn to harm by random play, For in such sport too oft is found A penny-toy will cost a pound. Be wise and merry;—play, but think; For ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... the first locomotive was built; the men who put out the first sewing machine had their stores broken into and the machines smashed; and the telephone when first installed was considered simply as a plaything and curiosity, and not as a useful improvement. It has been the history of every age and of most of the great inventions. After the inventions were completed, and their value shown, the merchant and the manufacturer created the demand, and then the articles became ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... enwrapping her shoulders, but it was scarcely likely, considering Miss Aldclyffe's temperament, that she had all her life been used to a maid, Cytherea's youth, and the elder lady's marked treatment of her as if she were a mere child or plaything. The matter was too slight to reason about, and yet upon the whole it seemed that Miss Aldclyffe must have a practical ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... it was more "poor old Bob" or "poor old Ruth." Ruth was so arduous at first, so in earnest—like a child with a new and engrossing plaything for a day or two, and then, I suppose, she showed her new toy to Bob, and he took it away from her. Anyway, she put it by. It seemed rather a shame to me. The new would have worn off after ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... Never had there met two persons so exquisitely fitted to plague each other. Each of them had exactly the fault of which the other was most impatient; and they were, in different ways, the most impatient of mankind. Frederic was frugal, almost niggardly. When he had secured his plaything, he began to think that he had bought it too dear. Voltaire, on the other hand, was greedy, even to the extent of impudence and knavery; and conceived that the favorite of a monarch who had barrels full of gold and silver ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ungodly skill in it, the subtle partnership with a mindless public that seduces to mental speculation; the reassuring caress as reward for intellectual penetration; that inborn cleverness that makes the reader see, applaud, or pity him or herself in the sympathetic role of a plaything of Chance ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... have it." the young woman asked, "would you like a pencil of your very own, to draw with?" Would he! The child's whole face beamed. Dimes were as nothing compared to shiney new pencils. The third grandchild was overjoyed with his new plaything. Ella Sanderson was delighted with her great grandchild's pleasure. The interviewer received a ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... Pah, I have no objection; but you will allow me, instead of using a knife, to make use of this weapon!" and thereupon he drew from his pocket a small, brightly polished poniard about three or four inches long, which looked more like a lady's plaything than ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... became more than serious. "A daughter of ours has demanded for a plaything a caged bird. Psychologically it is an important occasion. Now or never must she learn to look upon a caged bird with horror. What I am thinking of is the psychological effect upon the child's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... From his childhood he had borne a secret sorrow in his heart—the sorrow of seeing his young brother Carl preferred to himself. Not only was Carl the darling of his parents, but he was the pet and plaything of the whole palace. True, the poor little archduke was not gifted with the grace and charming naivete of his brother. He was awkward, serious, and his countenance wore an expression of discontent, which was thought to betray an evil disposition, but which, in reality, was but the reflection ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... a long, single barrel, rifle-bored duelling pistol—of the type used by gentlemen at the beginning of the century. Where he had got it she did not know, but always it had been his plaything. ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... another man before! And this is what the people say! And all the time I thought myself exceptional, I was only being made a fool, and one of a large number, and a laughing-stock for the whole city, and branded, as it were, with ridicule and ignominy as a plaything of the Queen, and going about unconsciously with her label round my neck: Nectar when she turns towards thee: poison ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... minded to throw you both to the beasts. No, no, not that; you dare not front me! I make my own choice of who shall die and who live." She laughed mockingly. "Bah! I know your sort, Monsieur—'tis as the wind blows; you love to-day, and forget to-morrow. Yet I keep you for a plaything—I have no use for her. I care no longer how the wolves tear her dainty limbs. Before this I have tasted ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... cord upon which the dozens of great brass rings were strung, watching the shining ellipse they made as they revolved,—like a child set down upon the carpet with a plaything,—expecting no answer, only waiting for the next vagrant whimsicality that should come across her brain,—not altogether without method, either,—to give ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... in Wagner? Who shall say? If it was, it was a fault which he shared with every earnest reformer who is not content with preaching, but enforces his precepts with action. Reform is no plaything; it cannot be achieved by listening to the well-meant advice of friends who know no higher goal than personal success, who have no glimmering of the motives that impel a great soul, who would fain tell the thunderbolt where it shall strike. ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... rest of the morning among the wicked-looking sharks of the Navy, and he went back depressed with the thought that his "sneak-box" was merely a plaything. However, he picked up confidence when the next day brought an offer from the builders to turn out an aluminium sneak-box in three divisions, with capacity for a crew of six, to be worked on occasion by two men pulling at levers, driving the ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... thinks her child is not reasonable enough to do, of her own accord, something which it is nevertheless important she should do, as learning to read, for instance, or to work with her needle, &c., she comes to the rescue with rewards, and gives her a plaything when she has done well. And thus GOD, who had not confidence enough in man's reason to trust to it alone for supplying the wants of human nature, has placed a plaything in the shape of pleasure after every necessity; and in supplying the want, ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... this must have pleased him, as he did not protest against such liberties. He spoke very little to them, and when he did so he did it cautiously as if afraid that his words would hurt or contaminate them. He passed many hours thus as their companion and plaything, watching their lively faces with his ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... the wanton apparel, the refined commodity of rooms and furniture. In such a place and in such company, it is enough to be together to feel at ease. Their idleness does not weigh upon them; life is their plaything."[29] ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... happened but a drunken Mexican drew a dagger somewhere in the mix up and let it fly indiscriminate like. We all scattered like mischief when we saw the thing flash. Nobody cares much for that kind of plaything at close range. But Massey didn't move. It got him, clean in the heart. He couldn't have suffered a second. It was all over in a breath. He fell and the mob made itself scarce. Another fellow and I were the first to get to him but there wasn't anything to do but look in his pockets ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... son—my own son, born of my body, and in glad anguish, Rosamund—knows me for what I am. For I have heard—Coward! O beautiful sleek coward!" the Queen said; "I would have died without lamentation and I was but your plaything!" ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... triumph, unutterable rogue? Hast thou cheated him thus, and unjustly overcome the innocent child? Come, be ready to perform for me the task I will tell thee of, and I will give thee Zeus' all-beauteous plaything—the one which his dear nurse Adrasteia made for him, while he still lived a child, with childish ways, in the Idaean cave—a well-rounded ball; no better toy wilt thou get from the hands of Hephaestus. All of gold ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... prison cell before he could be tried. Lount, another of the leaders, had succeeded in reaching Long Point, Lake Erie. With a fellow patriot, a French voyageur, and a boy, he started to cross Lake Erie in an open boat. It was wintry, stormy weather. For two days and two nights the boat tossed, a plaything of the waves, the drenching spray freezing as it fell, till the craft was almost ice-logged. For food they had brought only a small piece of meat, and this had frozen so hard that their numbed hands could not break it. Weakening at each oar stroke, they at last saw the south shore of Lake Erie ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... with the result of the evening, and fancies that he is beginning to find the child something of a bore. It was a pretty plaything at first, but it can be naughty and troublesome. Ah, Madame Lepelletier, fascinating as you are, if you could see how his thoughts have been wandering, and witness the passion with which he kisses his sleeping child ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... itself—the satisfaction of an irresistible desire, the paradise of bliss which merely loving has become for him. What love means he hardly knows. He only knows that he must love. And women love him—half as a plaything to be trifled with, half as a young god to be wounded by. This rising of the star of love as it ascends into the heaven of youthful fancy, is revealed in the melodies Mozart has written for him. How shall we describe their potency? Who shall translate those curiously perfect words to which ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the pen and brought something back. She held it up and said shyly, "This is Daddy's hat. It used to be the kittens' bed. Now it is their plaything." ...
— Five Little Friends • Sherred Willcox Adams
... something fell at my feet. It was the tiny locket my child had worn on its little neck from the day the mother had fastened it there. What secret had Margaret meant? The locket was the answer! I had been a plaything of some unknown, malicious fiend again. The rescued baby was not the Judge's baby. That was the secret! The child I heard crying there ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... Martian tongue, while I stood looking backward every few steps, delighted to trace the broad river of the canal winding through the desolation for miles beyond. Then I noticed how rapid and effortless is motion in Mars. Volition is so easy and penetrating, the body becomes a mere plaything for the mind. Every function, every part is swayed into vitality by the mind. There is the apparent motion of the limbs, but really the whole frame sweeps on as by an intangible process of translation, and the body is transferred to the point the ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... level, even if it could not run uphill. Mrs. Abbott had lived for twenty years in San Francisco, and in New Orleans for thirty years before that, and she had seen a good many women in love in her time. This climate made a plaything of virtue. "Virtue—you said?—Precisely. She's not there or we'd see the signs of moral struggle, horror, in fact; for she's not one to succumb easily. But mark my ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... piled up, a hideous mound, in the corners of the court. The priests, without delay, met with the same fate. A moment sufficed for trial, and verdict, and execution. Night came. Brandy and excitement had roused the demon in the human heart. Life was a plaything, murder a pastime. Torches were lighted, refreshments introduced, songs of mirth and joviality rose upon the night air, and still the horrid carnage continued unabated. Now and then, from caprice, one was liberated; but the innocent ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... thee," said he. "Thou would'st not have an honorable Prince! Thou could'st not prize the rose and the nightingale, but thou wast ready to kiss the swineherd for the sake of a trumpery plaything. Thou ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... recollections respecting the fervent and unequivocal passion of Lady Sara. Though guilty, it sprung from a headlong ardor of disposition which formed at once the error and its palliation. He saw that love was not welcomed by her (at least he thought so) as a plaything, but struggled against as with a foe. He had witnessed her tortures; he pitied them, and to render her happy, would gladly have made any sacrifice short of his conscience. Too well assured of being all the world to Lady Sara, the belief that Miss Euphemia ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... would be so very hard to let slip an opportunity of taking just one peep! I know not whether Pandora expected any toys; for none had yet begun to be made, probably, in those days, when the world itself was one great plaything for the children that dwelt upon it. But Pandora was convinced that there was something very beautiful and valuable in the box; and therefore she felt just as anxious to take a peep as any of these little girls, here around me, would have felt. And, possibly, ...
— The Paradise of Children - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and into the eye that is even now equally beholding the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee, thou sun! Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other, its numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered: Foolish toy! babies' plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores, and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... card and a letter found in a book. But was not that sufficient to affirm that I had not been the plaything of a dream? ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... lovely in the char-racter, and so clever, and so beautiful, my dear white r-rose. It means, besides those things, that you have saved me from the sin of letting my poor powers grow weaker; that you have changed me from a plaything of chance into a man of will and action. I am bor-rn again, my heart's joy, into a world of force and possibility, and you are the queen ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... though you see me so happy, and so satisfied with life, every now and then the remembrance of that unhappy girl strikes me here, in my head, and I eat badly and sleep worse, thinking that a girl who, after all, is of our own blood, is wandering lost over the world, a plaything for men, without anyone sheltering her, as though she were all alone, as though ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... marvel at the subjection into which this proud and self-dependent woman had willfully flung herself, hanging her life upon the chance of an angry or favorable regard from a person who, a little while before, had seemed the plaything of a moment. But, in Miriam's eyes, Donatello was always, thenceforth, invested with the tragic dignity of their hour of crime; and, furthermore, the keen and deep insight, with which her love endowed her, enabled her to know him far better than he could be known by ordinary observation. ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... you, at seasonable hours and unseasonable; when I have found him riding miles and miles across the country at midnight, and risking his life, and getting covered with mud, to get a glimpse of you, I have called him a foolish man—the plaything of a finished coquette. I thought that what was getting to be a tragedy to me was a comedy to you. But now I see that tragedy lies on YOUR side of the situation no less than on MINE, and more; that if I have felt trouble at my position, you have felt anguish at yours; that if I have had disappointments, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... extraordinary strength with one of the feeblest souls. The many sublime thoughts, the ingenious and often profound combinations which for many years have characterized your pen, were apparently intended only for others; you yourself derive no benefit from them. You are, and will ever be, the plaything of every accidental and momentary impression. Always ready to acknowledge and embrace whatever came near you, you were never able to feel either enduring hatred or attachment. Your life is a mere capitulation. If the Evil One himself should appear on earth in visible ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... this plaything for a woman in the old country, many a long year ago," said Mat, pressing the fan roughly into Mr. Blyth's hands. "When I come back, and thought for to give it her, she was dead and gone. There's not another woman in England as cares about me, or knows about me. If you're too proud to let your ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... Paris. I must have lost my head during the last few days! I must be the plaything of my enervated imagination, unless I am really a somnambulist, or I have been brought under the power of one of those influences—hypnotic suggestion, for example—which are known to exist, but have hitherto been inexplicable. ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... in my peaceful grave With my poor parents, and at rest as they are? Instead of that, I'm wand'ring into cares.—— Castalio! O Castalio! hast thou caught My foolish heart; and, like a tender child, That trusts his plaything to another hand, I fear its harm, and fain would have it back. Come near, Cordelio; I must chide ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... by some of his more intimate friends; he arranged grotesque dances, to be performed at stated periods of the evening by professional buffoons, hired from Florence. He composed a toy symphony, which included solos on every noisy plaything at that time manufactured for children's use. And not content with thus avoiding the beaten track in preparing the entertainments at the ball, he determined also to show decided originality, even in selecting the attendants who were ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... him to England. Ample funds were provided for his maintenance, but the journey to England was again and again put off; and at last there were signs that Lord Stanhope was not quite satisfied with his new plaything. So much had been said about Kaspar's cleverness, that his new teachers were disappointed to find that his acquirements were about those of a boy of eight. They accused him of laziness and of deceit; and he, finding himself suspected and closely questioned as to everything he did, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... mistaken for his daughter. She looks so young—not sixteen even; but with those childish blue eyes, and that innocent, pleading kind of expression, she never can be old. She is very beautiful, and I can understand in part Guy's infatuation, though at times he hardly knows what to do with his pretty plaything. ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... renounce all claim to the throne; but being selfish, like the rest, I refuse to renounce all claim to the woman the Archbishops themselves chose as my wife, neither shall I allow the case to be made further the plaything of circumstance. Your kinswoman, no later ago than this afternoon, confessed her love for me and her complete disregard of any position I may hold in this realm. Now, Father Ambrose, I ask you several questions. Is it in consonance with the rules of the ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... were more than there is, it would, in the next place, be moral insanity to put our trust in it. "Nothing walks with aimless feet." Our life is no lottery. We may make foolish experiments with it, but we do so at our own risk. It is no plaything of chance, it is a stern responsibility which is determined by law that brooks no interference and excuses no indifference. The proverb tells us that "our lot is cast into the lap, but the whole ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... had one pretty plaything to amuse them, for in the middle of the great ocean a Pilgrim baby was born, and they called him "Oceanus," for his birthplace. When the children grew so tired that they were cross and fretful, Oceanus' mother let ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... eyes; the flexile and almost effeminate contour of the harmonious features; altogether made such an ideal of childlike beauty as Lawrence had loved to paint or Chantrey model. And the daintiest cares of a mother, who, as yet, has her darling all to herself—her toy, her plaything—were visible in the large falling collar of finest cambric, and the blue velvet dress with its filigree buttons and ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... did my very best, what he called level best, and when she was done I was as proud of her as—as—well, as your young son here might have been of a new plaything." ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... undid his trousers with her fairy fingers, all trembling with excitement, and drew out his stiff affair, which already gave promise of a very respectable future, now swollen to a size it had never before known. Delighted at the sight of so bewitching a plaything, she made him lie down as she had done, and kneeling beside him, with cheeks glowing with excitement, she closely examined every part of the rampant little member. Strange to say, no hand, hardly even its owner's, had as yet invaded its virgin ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... was being tossed about, the plaything of inconceivable forces. They lived only because the forces did not try to turn the ship more violently, not because of the strength of the ship, for nothing could resist the awful power ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... assassination the next. He imagines that his infant grandchild is to become his rival, and he deliberately orders him to be left in a gloomy forest alone, to die of cold and hunger. When the imaginary danger has passed away, he seeks amusement in making the same grandchild his plaything, and overwhelms him with favors bestowed solely for the gratification of the giver, under the influence of an affection almost as purely animal as that of a ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... George's conversation, that he was from Kentucky, seemed evidently disposed to cultivate his acquaintance; in which design she was seconded by the graces of her little girl, who was about as pretty a plaything as ever diverted the weariness of a fortnight's trip ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... very moment he is inspired with a very particular wish for that above all things. So with a nation. We want our independence. We want to do as we like. Otherwise, why ask for a Parliament? Gladstone says, Yes, my pretty dear, it shall have its ickety-pickety Parliament; it shall have its plaything. And it shall ridy-pidy in the coachy-poachy too; all round the parky-warky with the cock-a-doodle-doo. But it mustn't touch! Or if it touches it mustn't be rough, for its plaything will break so easily. We don't want this tomfoolery, nor to be treated like children. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... continued Henrietta Plunkett, rising to the foothills of her platform manner, "to become a parasite, a man's bond slave, his creature? Do you wish to be his toy, his plaything?" ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... halted, where the path broadened on a market-place, part shade, part luminous with golden dust. A squad of lank boys, kicking miraculously with flat upturned soles, kept a wicker ball shining in the air, as true and lively as a plaything on a fountain-jet. Beyond, their tiny juniors, girls and boys knee-high, and fat tumbling babies in rainbow finery, all hand-locked and singing, turned their circle inside out and back again, in the dizzy graces of the "Water Wheel." Other ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... is the fact that, in this neighborhood, an eagle should be chained for a plaything. When a child, I used often to stand at a window from which I could see an eagle chained in the balcony of a museum. The people used to poke at it with sticks, and my childish heart would swell with indignation ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... plaything. That's all he cares about. I've been with him and his family almost from a baby, and have grown old a-serving him, and it don't matter to him whether I goes into the hedges and ditches, or where I goes. They say that service is no heritance, ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... answered the frog, "I daresay I can give you some good advice; but what will you give me if I bring back your plaything to you?" ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... easily asserted his ascendency. Pompey allowed himself to be guided, and the arrangement was probably dictated by Caesar's own prudence. He did not mean to leave Gaul half conquered, to see his work undone, and himself made into a plaything by men who had incited Ariovistus to destroy him. The senators who were present at Lucca implied by their co-operation that they too were weary of anarchy, and would sustain the army in a remodelling of the State ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... degree the little maiden kept her word. She was the favourite plaything of the boys, and got on well with Babie, who was too bright and yielding ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shelf of this window, after their weary march from Liliput. But what cares Annie for soldiers? No conquering queen is she, neither a Semiramis nor a Catharine, her whole heart is set upon that doll, who gazes at us with such a fashionable stare. This is the little girl's true plaything. Though made of wood, a doll is a visionary and ethereal personage, endowed by childish fancy with a peculiar life; the mimic lady is a heroine of romance, an actor and a sufferer in a thousand shadowy scenes, the chief inhabitant of that wild world with which children ape the real one. Little ...
— Little Annie's Ramble (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and decided to set the traps where the skull was hidden, for the spot was ideal for the purpose. On two sides logs formed a barrier and beyond them was a huge bowlder, the two forming a natural little cove. He expected the bear to approach his plaything from the ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... in order to do something to help mother," added Dory. "I didn't give forty-two dollars for it for a plaything." ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... admiring looks and soft speeches; but if Gussie had a chance to secure another escort more to her mind, she thought nothing of snubbing Hugh unmercifully, yet was willing enough to smile him back to her side when no other gentleman offered his company. But few men care to be made the plaything of a young girl's caprice, and there came a time when Gussie's smile lost its power to charm. Her pretty face had been the attraction; but having ample opportunity of seeing Gussie under the different light of home-life, he could not ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... of their happy little talk together Annie Forest, in her usual careless fashion, entered the play-room. She alone, of all the girls, had taken no notice of the new plaything. She walked to her usual corner, sat down on the floor, and began to play cup and ball for the benefit of two or three of the smallest children. Hester did not regard her in the least; she sat with Nan on her knee, stroking ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... make a plaything of a treasure. Woe betide him if he does! Let him take that well to heart,' ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... having listened to the discourse of Probus to the end, was the practical aim and character of the religion he preached. It was no fanciful speculation nor airy dream. It was not a plaything of the imagination he had been holding up to our contemplation, but a series of truths and doctrines bearing with eminent directness, and with a perfect adaptation, upon human life, the effect and issue of which, widely and cordially received, ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... it is no mask," he said icily; "I swore to you . . . once, that my life was yours. For months now it has been your plaything . . . ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... And for her father, — and the black bull Tor, Hers and her pride. Yea, twice she turned away Before the awful darkness of the door, And the great horror of the Wall of Man Where Man is made the plaything of Taman, An Eyeless Face that waits ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... know the truth well enough. I have been over and over it again and again in the night. He never loved me. He never could love any one but her. He knew her long ago, and has loved her all his life. Why should he put me in her place? He admired me. I was a beautiful plaything—no, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... same selfish and worldly excuses have force with us: 'We have business to look after; men must live; we have no time to think about religion; I have built a new mill that occupies my thoughts; I have found a new plaything, and I must try it; I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.' So God and His claims, Christ and His love, are hustled into a corner to be attended to when opportunity serves, but to be neglected in the meantime. And the same result follows, not by miracle, but by natural necessity. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... A plaything for the young ones he has found— A dormouse nest; the living ball coil'd round For its long winter sleep; all his thought As he trudged stoutly homeward, was of naught But the glad wonderment in Jenny's eyes, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... the streets. She was sent for, far and near; borrowed to be looked at; her picture taken by photographers. If one reflects how many foolish and inconsiderate people there are in the world, who have no scruple in making a pet and plaything of a pretty child, one will see how this one unlucky lot of being beautiful in childhood spoiled Lillie's chances of an average share of good sense and goodness. The only hope for such a case lies in the chance of possessing judicious parents. Lillie had not these. Her father ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Hermit was right. The wolf-cub soon became the pet and plaything of the animal kingdom. With food and care he grew into a round, roly-poly ball of fur. He played merrily with Brutus and the kittens. And though at first he was a bit rough, they and John taught him better ways, so that he kicked and bit his ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... in an adaptation of the smallest midshipman's uniform, and the centre of an admiring party, who were equally diverted by his consequential airs and by his accounts of his sports among the Moors. Happy fellow, he could adapt himself to any society, and was ready to be the pet and plaything of the ship's company, believing himself, when he thought of anything beyond the present, to be full on the road to his ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... plaything, Martin. You are to raise or lower us by pressing that key. It controls the donkey engine electrically, so that we guide our own destinies though we are a mile beneath our power plant. Stanley works the pump. I direct the searchlight, write down notes, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... crowning shame. Beside her love everything dwindled into nothingness. He was her life, he filled her horizon. Honour itself was lost in the absorbing passion of her love. He had stripped it from her and she was content that it should lie at his feet. He had made her nothing, she was his toy, his plaything, waiting to be thrown aside. She shuddered again and looked around the tent that she had shared with him with a bitter smile and sad, hunted eyes.... After her—who? The cruel thought persisted. She was torn with ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... here," I said, for the benefit of the room at large, for all were now listening, though with some impatience, "that in calling me a 'sport' the deceased member called me a plaything, a diversion. If he had called me a sportsman, which is here defined as 'one who hunts, fishes or fowls,' he would have been not necessarily more accurate but certainly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... into the Place Vendome; he was stunned by this bludgeon blow. He walked home along the Boulevards trying to think over his position. He saw himself a plaything in the hands of envy, treachery, and greed. What was he in this world of contending ambitions? A child sacrificing everything to the pursuit of pleasure and the gratification of vanity; a poet whose thoughts never ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... me—if it cost me a hundred pounds, I will loose the bloodhounds of justice after you—you shall be made, in chains, to give up your hateful secret. I am no longer a boy; nor you, nor the lawyer that administers my affairs, shall longer make a plaything of me. I will know who I am. Thank God, I ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... commodious, both in length and breadth A lance's flight, for proof of vigor hurl'd. 440 There, phalanx after phalanx, they their host Pour'd dense along, while Phoebus in the van Display'd the awful aegis, and the wall Levell'd with ease divine. As, on the shore Some wanton boy with sand builds plaything walls, 445 Then, sportive spreads them with his feet abroad, So thou, shaft-arm'd Apollo! that huge work Laborious of the Greeks didst turn with ease To ruin, and themselves drovest all to flight. They, thus enforced into the fleet, again 450 Stood fast, with mutual ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... strain should find a flaw, Should a bolt or rivet draw, Then — God help them! for the vessel were a plaything in the tide! With a face of honest cheer, Quoth an English engineer, 'I will answer for the engines that were built on old ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... been a purty nice day all through, Mistress Blythe, and now, right at the last, it's brought its best. Would you like to sit down here outside a bit, while the light lasts? I've just finished this bit of a plaything for my little grand nephew, Joe, up at the Glen. After I promised to make it for him I was kinder sorry, for his mother was vexed. She's afraid he'll be wanting to go to sea later on and she doesn't want the notion encouraged ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Griggs, in a low, deep growl. "Tell 'em, doctor, that they needn't mind those plaything toys so long as they keep ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... keeps their hearts from that haunting foe, l'ennui; He's their plaything, friend, and sentry too, and a lover of devilry; He helps them to hunt out rats or Boches; he burrows and sniffs for mines, And he growls when the murderous shrapnel flies screaming above the lines; His little black nose is a-quiver with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... her plaything. And she was very glad to find out that no damage seemed to have been done. None of the four wheels was broken, the little wooden platform on which the Lamb stood was not splintered, and there was not so much as a bruise on the little black nose of ...
— The Story of a Lamb on Wheels • Laura Lee Hope
... the Duke—and not a word from her to warn me of it! Engaged—after what she had said to me no longer ago than the past night! Had I been made a plaything to amuse a great lady? Oh, what degradation! I was furious; I snatched up my hat to go to the palace—to force my way to her—to overwhelm her with reproaches. My friend stopped me. He put an ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... of the soul. D'Arthez was, indeed, the child, the boy that Madame de Cadignan had recognized. An illumination something like his own had taken place in the beautiful Diane. At last she had met that superior man whom all women desire and seek, if only to make a plaything of him,—that power which they consent to obey, if only for the pleasure of subduing it; at last she had found the grandeurs of the intellect united with the simplicity of a heart all new to love; and she saw, with ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... under sex, the very much under sex, in Germany, regarded by the man as his plaything or as his cook-wife and nurse of his children; and she will continue to be the under sex until she develops pride enough to assert herself. She accepts her inferiority without murmur; indeed, she often impresses one as ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin |
